Sample records for irregularly spelled words
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Spelling pronunciation and visual preview both facilitate learning to spell irregular words.
Hilte, Maartje; Reitsma, Pieter
2006-12-01
Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on learning to spell loan words in Dutch, originating from French and English, was examined in skilled and less skilled spellers with varying ages. Reading skills were taken into account. Overall, compared to normal pronunciation, spelling pronunciation facilitated the learning of the correct spelling of irregular words, but it appeared to be no more effective than previewing. Differences between training conditions appeared to fade with older spellers. Less skilled young spellers seemed to profit more from visual examination of the word as compared to practice with spelling pronunciations. The findings appear to indicate that spelling pronunciation and allowing a preview can both be effective ways to learn correct spellings of orthographically unpredictable words, irrespective of age or spelling ability.
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Spelling pronunciation and visual preview both facilitate learning to spell irregular word
Hilte, M.; Reitsma, P.
2006-01-01
Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling
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Spelling Pronunciations Help College Students Remember How to Spell Difficult Words
Ocal, Turkan; Ehri, Linnea C.
2017-01-01
Studies have shown that children benefit from a spelling pronunciation strategy in remembering the spellings of words. The current study determined whether this strategy also helps adults learn to spell commonly misspelled words. Participants were native English speaking college students (N = 42), mean age 22.5 years (SD = 7.87). An experimental…
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Delattre, Marie; Bonin, Patrick; Barry, Christopher
2006-01-01
The authors examined the effect of sound-to-spelling regularity on written spelling latencies and writing durations in a dictation task in which participants had to write each target word 3 times in succession. The authors found that irregular words (i.e., those containing low-probability phoneme-to-grapheme mappings) were slower both to…
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Typing speed, spelling accuracy, and the use of word-prediction
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marina Herold
2008-02-01
Full Text Available Children with spelling difficulties are limited in their participation in all written school activities. We aimed to investigate the influence of word-prediction as a tool on spelling accuracy and typing speed. To this end, we selected 80 Grade 4 - 6 children with spelling difficulties in a school for special needs to participate in a research project involving a cross-over within-subject design. The research task took the form of entering 30 words through an on-screen keyboard, with and without the use of word-prediction software. The Graded Word Spelling Test served to investigate whether there was a relationship between the children's current spelling knowledge and word-prediction efficacy. The results indicated an increase in spelling accuracy with the use of word-prediction, but at the cost of time and the tendency to use word approximations, and no significant relationship between spelling knowledge and word-prediction efficacy.
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Word skipping: effects of word length, predictability, spelling and reading skill.
Slattery, Timothy J; Yates, Mark
2017-08-31
Readers eyes often skip over words as they read. Skipping rates are largely determined by word length; short words are skipped more than long words. However, the predictability of a word in context also impacts skipping rates. Rayner, Slattery, Drieghe and Liversedge (2011) reported an effect of predictability on word skipping for even long words (10-13 characters) that extend beyond the word identification span. Recent research suggests that better readers and spellers have an enhanced perceptual span (Veldre & Andrews, 2014). We explored whether reading and spelling skill interact with word length and predictability to impact word skipping rates in a large sample (N=92) of average and poor adult readers. Participants read the items from Rayner et al. (2011) while their eye movements were recorded. Spelling skill (zSpell) was assessed using the dictation and recognition tasks developed by Sally Andrews and colleagues. Reading skill (zRead) was assessed from reading speed (words per minute) and accuracy of three 120 word passages each with 10 comprehension questions. We fit linear mixed models to the target gaze duration data and generalized linear mixed models to the target word skipping data. Target word gaze durations were significantly predicted by zRead while, the skipping likelihoods were significantly predicted by zSpell. Additionally, for gaze durations, zRead significantly interacted with word predictability as better readers relied less on context to support word processing. These effects are discussed in relation to the lexical quality hypothesis and eye movement models of reading.
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Roelofs, A.P.A.
2006-01-01
Does the spelling of a word mandatorily constrain spoken word production, or does it do so only when spelling is relevant for the production task at hand? Damian and Bowers (2003) reported spelling effects in spoken word production in English using a prompt–response word generation task. Preparation
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Neural substrates of sublexical processing for spelling.
DeMarco, Andrew T; Wilson, Stephen M; Rising, Kindle; Rapcsak, Steven Z; Beeson, Pélagie M
2017-01-01
We used fMRI to examine the neural substrates of sublexical phoneme-grapheme conversion during spelling in a group of healthy young adults. Participants performed a writing-to-dictation task involving irregular words (e.g., choir), plausible nonwords (e.g., kroid), and a control task of drawing familiar geometric shapes (e.g., squares). Written production of both irregular words and nonwords engaged a left-hemisphere perisylvian network associated with reading/spelling and phonological processing skills. Effects of lexicality, manifested by increased activation during nonword relative to irregular word spelling, were noted in anterior perisylvian regions (posterior inferior frontal gyrus/operculum/precentral gyrus/insula), and in left ventral occipito-temporal cortex. In addition to enhanced neural responses within domain-specific components of the language network, the increased cognitive demands associated with spelling nonwords engaged domain-general frontoparietal cortical networks involved in selective attention and executive control. These results elucidate the neural substrates of sublexical processing during written language production and complement lesion-deficit correlation studies of phonological agraphia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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The Development of Spelling-Sound Relationships in a Model of Phonological Reading.
Zorzi, Marco; Houghton, George; Butterworth, Brian
1998-01-01
Developmental aspects of spelling-to-sound mapping for English monosyllabic words are investigated with a simple two-layer network model using a simple, general learning rule. The model is trained on both regularly and irregularly spelled words but extracts regular spelling to sound relationships, which it can apply to new words. Training-related…
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Knowledge of Conditional Spelling Patterns Supports Word Spelling among Danish Fifth Graders
Nielsen, Anne-Mette Veber
2017-01-01
Graphotactic knowledge and word-specific orthographic knowledge have been shown to account for unique variance in concurrent spelling skills beyond phonological skills in the early school years.The present study examined whether knowledge of spelling patterns conditioned by phonological context would add to the concurrent prediction of spelling…
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Effectiveness of feedback in a repeated spelling training
Gruhn, C.M.S.; Segers, P.C.J.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.
2017-01-01
Effectiveness of feedback on strengthening lexical representations was investigated in a computerized spelling training by contrasting two different feedback conditions with a no feedback condition. Ninety-one Dutch fifth and sixth graders practiced spelling of 40 multisyllabic words with irregular
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The locus of word frequency effects in skilled spelling-to-dictation.
Chua, Shi Min; Liow, Susan J Rickard
2014-01-01
In spelling-to-dictation tasks, skilled spellers consistently initiate spelling of high-frequency words faster than that of low-frequency words. Tainturier and Rapp's model of spelling shows three possible loci for this frequency effect: spoken word recognition, orthographic retrieval, and response execution of the first letter. Thus far, researchers have attributed the effect solely to orthographic retrieval without considering spoken word recognition or response execution. To investigate word frequency effects at each of these three loci, Experiment 1 involved a delayed spelling-to-dictation task and Experiment 2 involved a delayed/uncertain task. In Experiment 1, no frequency effect was found in the 1200-ms delayed condition, suggesting that response execution is not affected by word frequency. In Experiment 2, no frequency effect was found in the delayed/uncertain task that reflects the orthographic retrieval, whereas a frequency effect was found in the comparison immediate/uncertain task that reflects both spoken word recognition and orthographic retrieval. The results of this two-part study suggest that frequency effects in spoken word recognition play a substantial role in skilled spelling-to-dictation. Discrepancies between these findings and previous research, and the limitations of the present study, are discussed.
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Mehta, Sheena; Ding, Yi; Ness, Molly; Chen, Eric C
2018-06-01
The study assessed the clinical utility of an invented spelling tool and determined whether invented spelling with linguistic manipulation at segmental and supra-segmental levels can be used to better identify reading difficulties. We conducted linguistic manipulation by using real and nonreal words, incorporating word stress, alternating the order of consonants and vowels, and alternating the number of syllables. We recruited 60 third-grade students, of which half were typical readers and half were poor readers. The invented spelling task consistently differentiated those with reading difficulties from typical readers. It explained unique variance in conventional spelling, but not in word reading. Word stress explained unique variance in both word reading and conventional spelling, highlighting the importance of addressing phonological awareness at the supra-segmental level. Poor readers had poorer performance when spelling both real and nonreal words and demonstrated substantial difficulty in detecting word stress. Poor readers struggled with spelling words with double consonants at the beginning and ending of words, and performed worse on spelling two- and three-syllable words than typical readers. Practical implications for early identification and instruction are discussed.
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How does the interaction between spelling and motor processes build up during writing acquisition?
Kandel, Sonia; Perret, Cyril
2015-03-01
How do we recall a word's spelling? How do we produce the movements to form the letters of a word? Writing involves several processing levels. Surprisingly, researchers have focused either on spelling or motor production. However, these processes interact and cannot be studied separately. Spelling processes cascade into movement production. For example, in French, producing letters PAR in the orthographically irregular word PARFUM (perfume) delays motor production with respect to the same letters in the regular word PARDON (pardon). Orthographic regularity refers to the possibility of spelling a word correctly by applying the most frequent sound-letter conversion rules. The present study examined how the interaction between spelling and motor processing builds up during writing acquisition. French 8-10 year old children participated in the experiment. This is the age handwriting skills start to become automatic. The children wrote regular and irregular words that could be frequent or infrequent. They wrote on a digitizer so we could collect data on latency, movement duration and fluency. The results revealed that the interaction between spelling and motor processing was present already at age 8. It became more adult-like at ages 9 and 10. Before starting to write, processing irregular words took longer than regular words. This processing load spread into movement production. It increased writing duration and rendered the movements more dysfluent. Word frequency affected latencies and cascaded into production. It modulated writing duration but not movement fluency. Writing infrequent words took longer than frequent words. The data suggests that orthographic regularity has a stronger impact on writing than word frequency. They do not cascade in the same extent. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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The Relationships among Cognitive Correlates and Irregular Word, Non-Word, and Word Reading
Abu-Hamour, Bashir; University, Mu'tah; Urso, Annmarie; Mather, Nancy
2012-01-01
This study explored four hypotheses: (a) the relationships among rapid automatized naming (RAN) and processing speed (PS) to irregular word, non-word, and word reading; (b) the predictive power of various RAN and PS measures, (c) the cognitive correlates that best predicted irregular word, non-word, and word reading, and (d) reading performance of…
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Allen, Robert L.; And Others
This handbook introduces the important correspondences existing between English sounds and English spelling patterns. The lessons present the vowel sounds, one by one, along with systematically selected consonant sounds, and show how each sound or combination of sounds is usually spelled in English words. Irregularly spelled words are introduced…
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Inflectional spelling deficits in developmental dyslexia.
Egan, Joanne; Tainturier, Marie-Josèphe
2011-01-01
The goal of this study was to examine past-tense spelling deficits in developmental dyslexia and their relationship to phonological abilities, spoken morphological awareness and word specific orthographic memory. Three groups of children (28 9-year-old dyslexic, 28 chronological age-matched and 28 reading/spelling age-matched children) completed a battery of tests including spelling regularly inflected words (e.g., kissed) and matched one-morpheme words (e.g., wrist). They were also assessed on a range of tests of reading and spelling abilities and associated linguistic measures. Dyslexic children were impaired in relation to chronological age-matched controls on all measures. Furthermore, they were significantly poorer than younger reading and spelling age-matched controls at spelling inflected verbs, supporting the existence of a specific deficit in past-tense spelling in dyslexia. In addition to under-using the -ed spelling on inflected verbs, the dyslexic children were less likely to erroneously apply this spelling to one-morpheme words than younger controls. Dyslexics were also poorer than younger controls at using a consistent spelling for stems presented in isolation versus as part of an inflected word, indicating that they make less use of the morphological relations between words to support their spelling. In line with this interpretation, regression analyses revealed another qualitative difference between the spelling and reading age-matched group and the dyslexic group: while both spoken morphological awareness and orthographic word specific memory were significant predictors of the accuracy of past-tense spelling in the former group, only orthographic memory (irregular word reading and spelling) was a significant factor in the dyslexic group. Finally, we identified a subgroup of seven dyslexic children who were severely deficient in past-tense spelling. This subgroup was also significantly worse than other dyslexics and than younger controls on scores
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Bonin, Patrick; Collay, Sandra; Fayol, Michel; Méot, Alain
2005-01-01
We conducted four experiments to investigate whether adults can exert attentional strategic control over nonlexical and lexical processing in written spelling to dictation. In Experiment 1, regular and irregular words were produced either in a nonword context (regular and irregular nonwords) or in a word context (high-frequency regular and irregular words), whereas in Experiment 2, the same set of words was produced either in a regular nonword or in an irregular low-frequency word context. Experiment 3 was a replication of Experiment 2 but with increased manipulation of the context. In Experiment 4, participants had to produce either under time pressure or in response to standard written spelling instructions. Regularity effects were found in all the experiments, but their size was not reliably affected by manipulations intended to increase or decrease reliance on nonlexical processing. More particularly, the results from Experiment 4 show that adults can speed up the initialization of their writing responses to a substantial degree without altering regularity effects on either latencies or spelling errors. Our findings suggest that, although adults are able to generate an internal deadline criterion of when to initialize the writing responses, nonlexical processing is a mandatory process that is not subject to attentional strategic control in written spelling to dictation.
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Pacton, Sébastien; Borchardt, Gaëlle; Treiman, Rebecca; Lété, Bernard; Fayol, Michel
2014-05-01
Adults often learn to spell words during the course of reading for meaning, without intending to do so. We used an incidental learning task in order to study this process. Spellings that contained double n, r and t which are common doublets in French, were learned more readily by French university students than spellings that contained less common but still legal doublets. When recalling or recognizing the latter, the students sometimes made transposition errors, doubling a consonant that often doubles in French rather than the consonant that was originally doubled (e.g., tiddunar recalled as tidunnar). The results, found in three experiments using different nonwords and different types of instructions, show that people use general knowledge about the graphotactic patterns of their writing system together with word-specific knowledge to reconstruct spellings that they learn from reading. These processes contribute to failures and successes in memory for spellings, as in other domains.
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Word Spelling Assessment Using ICT: The Effect of Presentation Modality
Sarris, Menelaos; Panagiotakopoulos, Chris
2010-01-01
Up-to-date spelling process was assessed using typical spelling-to-dictation tasks, where children's performance was evaluated mainly in terms of spelling error scores. In the present work a simple graphical computer interface is reported, aiming to investigate the effects of input modality (e.g. visual and verbal) in word spelling. The software…
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Multilayered Word Structure Model for Assessing Spelling of Finnish Children in Shallow Orthography
Kulju, Pirjo; Mäkinen, Marita
2017-01-01
This study explores Finnish children's word-level spelling by applying a linguistically based multilayered word structure model for assessing spelling performance. The model contributes to the analytical qualitative assessment approach in order to identify children's spelling performance for enhancing writing skills. The children (N = 105)…
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Typing speed, spelling accuracy, and the use of word-prediction ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Children with spelling difficulties are limited in their participation in all written school activities. We aimed to investigate the influence of word-prediction as a tool on spelling accuracy and typing speed. To this end, we selected 80 Grade 4 – 6 children with spelling difficulties in a school for special needs to participate
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Terzopoulos, Aris R; Niolaki, Georgia Z; Masterson, Jackie
2018-05-14
An intervention study was carried out with two nine-year-old Greek-speaking dyslexic children. Both children were slow in reading single words and text and had difficulty in spelling irregularly spelled words. One child was also poor in non-word reading. Intervention focused on spelling in a whole-word training using a flashcard technique that had previously been found to be effective with English-speaking children. Post-intervention assessments conducted immediately at the end of the intervention, one month later and then five months later showed a significant improvement in spelling of treated words that was sustained over time. In addition, both children showed generalisation of improvement to untrained words and an increase in scores in a standardised spelling assessment. The findings support the effectiveness of theoretically based targeted intervention for literacy difficulties.
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Locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Still at the orthographic level!
Bonin, Patrick; Laroche, Betty; Perret, Cyril
2016-11-01
The present study was aimed at testing the locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Are they located at the level of spoken word recognition (Chua & Rickard Liow, 2014) or at the level of the orthographic output lexicon (Delattre, Bonin, & Barry, 2006)? Words that varied on objective word frequency and on phonological neighborhood density were orally presented to adults who had to write them down. Following the additive factors logic (Sternberg, 1969, 2001), if word frequency in spelling to dictation influences a processing level, that is, the orthographic output level, different from that influenced by phonological neighborhood density, that is, spoken word recognition, the impact of the 2 factors should be additive. In contrast, their influence should be overadditive if they act at the same processing level in spelling to dictation, namely the spoken word recognition level. We found that both factors had a reliable influence on the spelling latencies but did not interact. This finding is in line with an orthographic output locus hypothesis of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).
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Ehri, Linnea C.
2014-01-01
Orthographic mapping (OM) involves the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory. It explains how children learn to read words by sight, to spell words from memory, and to acquire vocabulary words from print. This development is portrayed by Ehri (2005a) as a sequence of…
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Bakos, Sarolta; Landerl, Karin; Bartling, Jürgen; Schulte-Körne, Gerd; Moll, Kristina
2018-03-01
In consistent orthographies, isolated reading disorders (iRD) and isolated spelling disorders (iSD) are nearly as common as combined reading-spelling disorders (cRSD). However, the exact nature of the underlying word processing deficits in isolated versus combined literacy deficits are not well understood yet. We applied a phonological lexical decision task (including words, pseudohomophones, legal and illegal pseudowords) during ERP recording to investigate the neurophysiological correlates of lexical and sublexical word-processing in children with iRD, iSD and cRSD compared to typically developing (TD) 9-year-olds. TD children showed enhanced early sensitivity (N170) for word material and for the violation of orthographic rules compared to the other groups. Lexical orthographic effects (higher LPC amplitude for words than for pseudohomophones) were the same in the TD and iRD groups, although processing took longer in children with iRD. In the iSD and cRSD groups, lexical orthographic effects were evident and stable over time only for correctly spelled words. Orthographic representations were intact in iRD children, but word processing took longer compared to TD. Children with spelling disorders had partly missing orthographic representations. Our study is the first to specify the underlying neurophysiology of word processing deficits associated with isolated literacy deficits. Copyright © 2017 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Convergent and diagnostic validity of STAVUX, a word and pseudoword spelling test for adults.
Östberg, Per; Backlund, Charlotte; Lindström, Emma
2016-10-01
Few comprehensive spelling tests are available in Swedish, and none have been validated in adults with reading and writing disorders. The recently developed STAVUX test includes word and pseudoword spelling subtests with high internal consistency and adult norms stratified by education. This study evaluated the convergent and diagnostic validity of STAVUX in adults with dyslexia. Forty-six adults, 23 with dyslexia and 23 controls, took STAVUX together with a standard word-decoding test and a self-rated measure of spelling skills. STAVUX subtest scores showed moderate to strong correlations with word-decoding scores and predicted self-rated spelling skills. Word and pseudoword subtest scores both predicted dyslexia status. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed excellent diagnostic discriminability. Sensitivity was 91% and specificity 96%. In conclusion, the results of this study support the convergent and diagnostic validity of STAVUX.
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Explaining first graders’ achievements in spelling and word separation in shallow orthographies
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Liliana Tolchinsky
2015-02-01
Full Text Available We examine the explanatory weight of child-related and contextual factors on first graders’ achievements in spelling and separation between words. The participants were 215 kindergartners, 113 boys and 102 girls (M = 5 years 4 months, SD = 4 months from both monolingual and bilingual communities in Spain. They were native speakers of Spanish in the monolingual communities and bilingual Spanish/Catalan or Spanish/Basque speakers in the bilingual communities and had Catalan and Basque, respectively, as the language of instruction. The three languages have shallow orthographies. Children were first examined in kindergarten in a number of literacy related abilities (e.g., knowledge of letters, writing to detect predictors of spelling and separation between words that were, in turn, evaluated at the end of first grade of elementary school. All the participants were assessed in their language of instruction. The best explanatory models were those including interactions among child-level factors and between these factors and contextual variables. Only knowledge of writing in kindergarten appeared as the common explanatory factor for first graders’ attainments. Attainments in spelling were predicted by children’s level of literacy and knowledge of letters moderated by parent’s education; performance in word separation was predicted by phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge moderated by parental education. Teaching practices affected spelling performance but not learning to separate between words.
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Do young children spell words syllabically? Evidence from learners of Brazilian Portuguese.
Treiman, Rebecca; Pollo, Tatiana Cury; Cardoso-Martins, Cláudia; Kessler, Brett
2013-12-01
The theory that learners of alphabetic writing systems go through a period during which they treat writing as representing syllables is highly influential, especially as applied to learners of Romance languages. The results of Study 1, a 2-year longitudinal study of 76 Portuguese speakers in Brazil from 4 to 6 years of age, did not support this theory. Although most children produced some spellings of words in which the number of letters matched the number of syllables, few children produced significantly more such spellings than expected on the basis of chance. When such spellings did occur, they appeared to reflect partially successful attempts to represent phonemes rather than attempts to represent syllables. Study 2, with 68 Brazilian 4- and 5-year-olds, found similar results even when children spelled words that contained three or four syllables in which all vowels are letter names--conditions that have been thought to favor syllabic spelling. The influential theory that learners of Romance languages go through a period during which they use writing to represent the level of syllables appears to lack a solid empirical foundation. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Mehta, Sheena
2016-01-01
The purpose of the current research is to assess the clinical utility of an invented spelling tool and determine whether invented spelling and word stress (supra-segmental level measures) can also be used to better identify reading difficulties. The proposed invented spelling tool incorporated linguistic manipulations to alter the difficulty…
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Kim, Young-Suk Grace; Petscher, Yaacov; Park, Younghee
2016-01-01
It has been suggested that children acquire spelling by picking up conditional sound-spelling consistencies. To examine this hypothesis, we investigated how variation in word characteristics (words that vary systematically in terms of phoneme-grapheme correspondences) and child factors (individual differences in the ability to extract…
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Kim, Young-Suk; Apel, Kenn; Al Otaiba, Stephanie
2013-10-01
The relations of phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness and vocabulary to word reading and spelling were examined for 304 first-grade children who were receiving differentiated instruction in a Response to Intervention (RtI) model of instruction. First-grade children were assessed on their phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness; expressive vocabulary; word reading; and spelling. Year-end word reading and spelling were outcome variables, and phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness; expressive vocabulary; and RtI status (Tiers 1, 2, & 3) were predictor variables. The 3 linguistic awareness skills were unique predictors of word reading, and phonological and orthographic awareness were unique predictors of spelling. The contributions that these linguistic awareness skills and vocabulary made to word reading and spelling did not differ by children's RtI tier status. These results, in conjunction with previous studies, suggest that even beginning readers and spellers draw on multiple linguistic awareness skills for their word reading and spelling regardless of their level of literacy abilities. Educational implications are discussed.
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Hamada, Megumi; Koda, Keiko
2011-04-01
Although the role of the phonological loop in word-retention is well documented, research in Chinese character retention suggests the involvement of non-phonological encoding. This study investigated whether the extent to which the phonological loop contributes to learning and remembering visually introduced words varies between college-level Chinese ESL learners (N = 20) and native speakers of English (N = 20). The groups performed a paired associative learning task under two conditions (control versus articulatory suppression) with two word types (regularly spelled versus irregularly spelled words) differing in degree of phonological accessibility. The results demonstrated that both groups' recall declined when the phonological loop was made less available (with irregularly spelled words and in the articulatory suppression condition), but the decline was greater for the native group. These results suggest that word learning entails phonological encoding uniformly across learners, but the contribution of phonology varies among learners with diverse linguistic backgrounds.
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Kim, Young-Suk; Apel, Kenn; Otaiba, Stephanie Al
2013-01-01
Purpose We examined the relations of phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness and vocabulary to word reading and spelling for first grade children who were receiving differentiated instruction in a Response to Intervention (RTI) model of instruction (N = 304). Method First grade children were assessed on their phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness, expressive vocabulary, word reading, and spelling. Year-end word reading and spelling were outcome variables while phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness, expressive vocabulary, and RTI status (Tiers 1, 2, & 3) were predictor variables assessed in the middle of the school year. Results The three linguistic awareness skills were unique predictors of word reading and phonological and orthographic awareness were unique predictors of spelling. The contributions these linguistic awareness skills and vocabulary made to word reading and spelling did not differ by children's RTI tier status. Conclusion These results, in conjunction with previous studies, suggest that even beginning readers and spellers draw on multiple linguistic awareness skills for their word reading and spelling regardless of their level of literacy skills. Educational implications are discussed. PMID:23833281
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Spelling It Out: How Words Work and How to Teach Them
Adoniou, Misty
2016-01-01
Spelling can be a source of anxiety for school children and working professionals alike. Yet the spelling of words in English is not as random or chaotic as it is often perceived to be; rather, it is a system based on both meaning and a fascinating linguistic history. Misty Adoniou's public articles on the processes of teaching and learning…
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Schiff, Rachel; Nuri Ben-Shushan, Yohi; Ben-Artzi, Elisheva
2017-01-01
This study assessed the effect of metacognitive instruction on the spelling and word reading of Hebrew-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 67 kindergarteners with SLI in a supported learning context. Children were classified into three spelling instruction groups: (a) metalinguistic instruction (ML), (b) ML…
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Measures of Kindergarten Spelling and Their Relations to Later Spelling Performance
Treiman, Rebecca; Kessler, Brett; Pollo, Tatiana Cury; Byrne, Brian; Olson, Richard K.
2016-01-01
Learning the orthographic forms of words is important for both spelling and reading. To determine whether some methods of scoring children's early spellings predict later spelling performance better than do other methods, we analyzed data from 374 U.S. and Australian children who took a 10-word spelling test at the end of kindergarten (M age =…
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Hardin County Board of Education, Elizabethtown, KY.
Word lists and class activities are suggested for improving the spelling of elementary school students. The word lists contain rhyming words, antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, 100 spelling demons, look-alike words that are easily confused, and content area words (for geography, mathematics, science, sports, music, social studies). The suggested…
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Native language effects on spelling in English as a foreign language: a time-course study
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Dich, Nadya; Pedersen, Bo
2013-01-01
The study explores first language (L1) influences on the mechanisms of spelling in English as a foreign language (EFL). We hypothesized that the transparency of L1 orthography influences (a) the amount of hesitation associated with spelling irregular English words, and (b) the size of units EFL...... spellers operate. Participants were adult speakers of three languages differing by the degree of transparency, Danish, Russian, and Italian (n = 60), and a group of English native speakers (n = 20). We analyzed keystroke logs from typed spellings of 30 English words. The amount of hesitation (number...... of corrections and number of long within-word pauses), was equal across all participants groups, thus disconfirming our first hypothesis. Inter-key intervals between onsets and rhymes were longer than within-rhyme intervals, but only in Danes and native English speakers, and not in Russians and Italians. We...
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Locus of Word Frequency Effects in Spelling to Dictation: Still at the Orthographic Level!
Bonin, Patrick; Laroche, Betty; Perret, Cyril
2016-01-01
The present study was aimed at testing the locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Are they located at the level of spoken word recognition (Chua & Rickard Liow, 2014) or at the level of the orthographic output lexicon (Delattre, Bonin, & Barry, 2006)? Words that varied on objective word frequency and on phonological…
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Milburn, Trelani F.; Hipfner-Boucher, Kathleen; Weitzman, Elaine; Greenberg, Janice; Pelletier, Janette; Girolametto, Luigi
2017-01-01
Preschool children begin to represent spoken language in print long before receiving formal instruction in spelling and writing. The current study sought to identify the component skills that contribute to preschool children's ability to begin to spell words and write their name. Ninety-five preschool children (mean age = 57 months) completed a…
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Improving Spelling Performance and Spelling Consciousness
Cordewener, Kim A. H.; Verhoeven, Ludo; Bosman, Anna M. T.
2016-01-01
This study examined the immediate and sustained effects of three training conditions on both spelling performance and spelling consciousness of 72 third-grade low- and high-skilled spellers. Spellers were assigned to a strategy-instruction, self-correction, or no-correction condition. The role of spelling ability and word characteristic were also…
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Steacy, Laura M.; Kearns, Devin M.; Gilbert, Jennifer K.; Compton, Donald L.; Cho, Eunsoo; Lindstrom, Esther R.; Collins, Alyson A.
2017-01-01
Models of irregular word reading that take into account both child- and word-level predictors have not been evaluated in typically developing children and children with reading difficulty (RD). The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in irregular word reading ability among 5th grade children (N = 170), oversampled for…
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Morphological awareness and early and advanced word recognition and spelling in Dutch
Rispens, J.E.; McBride-Chang, C.; Reitsma, P.
2008-01-01
This study investigated the relations of three aspects of morphological awareness to word recognition and spelling skills of Dutch speaking children. Tasks of inflectional and derivational morphology and lexical compounding, as well as measures of phonological awareness, vocabulary and mathematics
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Dymock, Susan; Nicholson, Tom
2017-01-01
The ubiquitous weekly spelling test assumes that words are best learned by memorisation and testing but is this the best way? This study compared two well-known approaches to spelling instruction, the rule based and visual memory approaches. A group of 55 seven-year-olds in two Year 3 classrooms was taught spelling in small groups for three…
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Lexical neighborhood effects in pseudoword spelling.
Tainturier, Marie-Josèphe; Bosse, Marie-Line; Roberts, Daniel J; Valdois, Sylviane; Rapp, Brenda
2013-01-01
The general aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive processes that underpin skilled adult spelling. More specifically, it investigates the influence of lexical neighbors on pseudo-word spelling with the goal of providing a more detailed account of the interaction between lexical and sublexical sources of knowledge in spelling. In prior research examining this topic, adult participants typically heard lists composed of both words and pseudo-words and had to make a lexical decision to each stimulus before writing the pseudo-words. However, these priming paradigms are susceptible to strategic influence and may therefore not give a clear picture of the processes normally engaged in spelling unfamiliar words. In our two Experiments involving 71 French-speaking literate adults, only pseudo-words were presented which participants were simply requested to write to dictation using the first spelling that came to mind. Unbeknownst to participants, pseudo-words varied according to whether they did or did not have a phonological word neighbor. Results revealed that low-probability phoneme/grapheme mappings (e.g., /o/ -> aud in French) were used significantly more often in spelling pseudo-words with a close phonological lexical neighbor with that spelling (e.g., /krepo/ derived from "crapaud," /krapo/) than in spelling pseudo-words with no close neighbors (e.g., /frøpo/). In addition, the strength of this lexical influence increased with the lexical frequency of the word neighbors as well as with their degree of phonetic overlap with the pseudo-word targets. These results indicate that information from lexical and sublexical processes is integrated in the course of spelling, and a specific theoretical account as to how such integration may occur is introduced.
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LEXICAL NEIGHBOURHOOD EFFECTS IN PSEUDOWORD SPELLING
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marie-Josephe eTainturier
2013-11-01
Full Text Available The general aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive processes that underpin skilled adult spelling. More specifically, it investigates the influence of lexical neighbours on pseudo-word spelling with the goal of providing a more detailed account of the interaction between lexical and sublexical sources of knowledge in spelling. In prior research examining this topic, subjects typically heard lists composed of both words and pseudo-words and had to make a lexical decision to each stimulus before writing the pseudo-words. However, these priming paradigms are susceptible to strategic influence and may therefore not give a clear picture of the processes normally engaged in spelling unfamiliar words. In our two Experiments involving 71 French speaking literature adults, only pseudo-words were presented which participants were simply requested to write to dictation using the first spelling that came to mind. Unbeknown to participants, pseudo-words varied according to whether they did or did not have a phonological word neighbour. Results revealed that low-probability phoneme/grapheme mappings (e.g., /o/ -> aud in French were used significantly more often in spelling pseudo-words with a close phonological lexical neighbour with that spelling (e.g., /krepo/ derived from crapaud, /krapo/ than in spelling pseudo-words with no close neighbours (e.g., /frøpo/. In addition, the strength of this lexical influence increased with the lexical frequency of the word neighbours as well as with their degree of phonetic overlap with the pseudo-word targets. These results indicate that the activation from lexical and sublexical processes is integrated in the course of spelling, and a specific theoretical account as to how such integration may occur is introduced.
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Lúcio, Patrícia S; Salum, Giovanni; Swardfager, Walter; Mari, Jair de Jesus; Pan, Pedro M; Bressan, Rodrigo A; Gadelha, Ary; Rohde, Luis A; Cogo-Moreira, Hugo
2017-01-01
Although studies have consistently demonstrated that children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) perform significantly lower than controls on word recognition and spelling tests, such studies rely on the assumption that those groups are comparable in these measures. This study investigates comparability of word recognition and spelling tests based on diagnostic status for ADHD through measurement invariance methods. The participants ( n = 1,935; 47% female; 11% ADHD) were children aged 6-15 with normal IQ (≥70). Measurement invariance was investigated through Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes models. Measurement invariance was attested in both methods, demonstrating the direct comparability of the groups. Children with ADHD were 0.51 SD lower in word recognition and 0.33 SD lower in spelling tests than controls. Results suggest that differences in performance on word recognition and spelling tests are related to true mean differences based on ADHD diagnostic status. Implications for clinical practice and research are discussed.
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Yoncheva, Yuliya N.; Maurer, Urs; Zevin, Jason D.; McCandliss, Bruce D.
2013-01-01
ERP responses to spoken words are sensitive to both rhyming effects and effects of associated spelling patterns. Are such effects automatically elicited by spoken words or dependent on selectively attending to phonology? To address this question, ERP responses to spoken word pairs were investigated under two equally demanding listening tasks that…
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Effects of spelling pronunciations during spelling practice in Dutch
Hilte, M.; Bos, M.; Reitsma, P.
2005-01-01
Because it is often assumed that difficulties in spelling are of phonological origin, the aim of this study was to examine whether emphasis on the pronunciation of individual graphemes is beneficial for learning to spell words in poor spellers. In the first experiment Dutch children with a spelling
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Keuning, J.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.
2008-01-01
The purpose of the present study was to explore whether the Item Response Theory (IRT) provides a suitable framework to screen for word reading and spelling problems during the elementary school period. The following issues were addressed from an IRT perspective: (a) the dimensionality of word
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Longitudinal Predictors of Chinese Word Reading and Spelling among Elementary Grade Students
Yeung, Pui-Sze; Ho, Connie Suk-Han; Wong, Yau-Kai; Chung, Kevin Kien-Hoa; Lo, Lap-Yan
2013-01-01
The longitudinal predictive power of four important reading-related skills (phonological skills, rapid naming, orthographic skills, and morphological awareness) to Chinese word reading and writing to dictation (i.e., spelling) was examined in a 3-year longitudinal study among 251 Chinese elementary students. Rapid naming, orthographic skills, and…
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Spelling Strategies. Strategies for Spelling Success.
Novelli, Joan
1993-01-01
Describes how a first-grade teacher developed an effective spelling program for his classroom that teaches sounds and words in the context of children's experiences. His program encourages students to memorize and learn words because the words are important to them rather than picked for them. (SM)
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Kiernan, Darl; Bear, Donald R.
2018-01-01
Educators need ways to assess orthographic knowledge and differentiate word study instruction for secondary, emergent bilingual learners. In this study, the spelling of 199 students in grades 7-12 across eight features and four spelling stages was examined to understand students' orthographic development; all but two were learning Spanish and…
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Deacon, S. H.; LeBlanc, D.; Sabourin, C.
2011-01-01
In many learning situations, we need to determine to which cues to attend, particularly in cases when these cues conflict. These conflicts appear often in English orthography. In two experiments, we asked children to spell two-syllable words that varied on two dimensions: morphological and orthographic structure. In one set of these words, the two…
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Text Induced Spelling Correction
Reynaert, M.W.C.
2004-01-01
We present TISC, a language-independent and context-sensitive spelling checking and correction system designed to facilitate the automatic removal of non-word spelling errors in large corpora. Its lexicon is derived from a very large corpus of raw text, without supervision, and contains word
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Fejzo, Anila
2016-01-01
The goal of this study was to explore the relationship between morphological awareness and the spelling of morphemes and morphologically complex words among 75 third- and fourth-grade Francophone students of low socio-economic status. To reach this objective, we administered a dictation comprised of morphologically complex words with prefixes,…
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Multilingual text induced spelling correction
Reynaert, M.W.C.
2004-01-01
We present TISC, a multilingual, language-independent and context-sensitive spelling checking and correction system designed to facilitate the automatic removal of non-word spelling errors in large corpora. Its lexicon is derived from raw text corpora, without supervision, and contains word unigrams
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Success Teaching Spelling with Music.
Martin, Mariellen
1983-01-01
A spelling approach which incorporates music on a cassette with spelling, pronunciation, and definition of specific words was successful in improving junior high learning disabled students' spelling performance, self-esteem, and sequential memories. (CL)
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Alber-Morgan, Sheila R.; Joseph, Laurice M.; Kanotz, Brittany; Rouse, Christina A.; Sawyer, Mary R.
2016-01-01
This study examined the effects of implementing word boxes as a supplemental instruction method on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of word identification and spelling. Word box intervention consists of using manipulatives to learn phonological decoding skills. The participants were three African-American urban first graders…
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Lin, Po-Han; Liu, Tzu-Chien; Paas, Fred
2017-01-01
Computer-based spell checkers help to correct misspells instantly. Almost all the word processing devices are now equipped with a spell-check function that either automatically corrects errors or provides a list of intended words. However, it is not clear on how the reliance on this convenient technological solution affects spelling learning.…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Andrew Tesla Demarco
2015-05-01
These data suggest that conventional whole-word scoring may significantly underestimate functional spelling performance. Because by-letter scoring boosted pre-treatment scores to the same extent as post-treatment scores, the magnitude of treatment gains was no greater than estimates from conventional whole-word scoring. Nonetheless, the surprisingly large disparity between conventional whole-word scoring and by-letter scoring suggests that by-letter scoring methods may warrant further investigation. Because by-letter analyses may hold interest to others, we plan to make the software tool used in this study available on-line for use to researchers and clinicians at large.
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Spelling across Tasks and Levels of Language in a Transparent Orthography.
Bigozzi, Lucia; Tarchi, Christian; Pinto, Giuliana
The paper reports the results of two studies on the spelling performance of 1st graders in a transparent writing system. The spelling performance of Italian children was assessed to determine the cross-task relationship between spelling to dictation and spontaneous spelling at the single word level (Study 1) and at the text level (Study 2), respectively. In study 1, 132 Italian children's spelling performance was assessed in 1st grade through two standardized tasks, i.e., word dictation, and spontaneous word spelling. In study 2, spelling performance of 81 Italian children was assessed in 1st grade through two tasks, i.e., text dictation, and spontaneous text spelling. In Study 1, spelling words and pseudo-words to dictation was found to be more difficult than spontaneous spelling of words. This effect was verified for all children (including low achievers and spelling impaired). The moderate correlation found between spelling to dictation and spontaneous spelling indicated that the two tasks are supported by partially different spelling processes and confirmed suggestions for including both types of spelling assessments in the school. In Study 2, children's spelling performances were not dependent across the two tasks (i.e., spelling a text under dictation or spontaneously). The two tasks shared the level of difficulty but performance in one task was not predictive of performance in the second task. Strong individual differences between children were found at the text level as a function of task. Similar to Study 1, the moderate correlation between spelling text to dictation and spontaneous spelling confirmed the usefulness of adopting both spelling assessments at school.
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Spelling across Tasks and Levels of Language in a Transparent Orthography.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Lucia Bigozzi
Full Text Available The paper reports the results of two studies on the spelling performance of 1st graders in a transparent writing system. The spelling performance of Italian children was assessed to determine the cross-task relationship between spelling to dictation and spontaneous spelling at the single word level (Study 1 and at the text level (Study 2, respectively. In study 1, 132 Italian children's spelling performance was assessed in 1st grade through two standardized tasks, i.e., word dictation, and spontaneous word spelling. In study 2, spelling performance of 81 Italian children was assessed in 1st grade through two tasks, i.e., text dictation, and spontaneous text spelling. In Study 1, spelling words and pseudo-words to dictation was found to be more difficult than spontaneous spelling of words. This effect was verified for all children (including low achievers and spelling impaired. The moderate correlation found between spelling to dictation and spontaneous spelling indicated that the two tasks are supported by partially different spelling processes and confirmed suggestions for including both types of spelling assessments in the school. In Study 2, children's spelling performances were not dependent across the two tasks (i.e., spelling a text under dictation or spontaneously. The two tasks shared the level of difficulty but performance in one task was not predictive of performance in the second task. Strong individual differences between children were found at the text level as a function of task. Similar to Study 1, the moderate correlation between spelling text to dictation and spontaneous spelling confirmed the usefulness of adopting both spelling assessments at school.
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Lete, Bernard; Peereman, Ronald; Fayol, Michel
2008-01-01
We describe a large-scale regression study that examines the influence of lexical (word frequency, lexical neighborhood) and sublexical (feedforward and feedback consistency) variables on spelling accuracy among first, second, and third- to fifth-graders. The wordset analyzed contained 3430 French words. Predictors in the stepwise regression…
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Ledoux, Kerry; Gordon, Barry
2011-01-01
Processing and/or hemispheric differences in the neural bases of word recognition were examined in patients with long-standing, medically-intractable epilepsy localized to the left (N = 18) or right (N = 7) temporal lobe. Participants were asked to read words that varied in the frequency of their spelling-to-sound correspondences. For the right…
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Orthographic Similarity and Phonological Transparency in Spelling.
Post, Yolanda V.; Carreker, Suzanne
2002-01-01
Presents an exploratory spelling intervention in which students learned to spell Latin loan words that ended in "-ion" with either a linguistically explicit or implicit method. Indicates that the children in each instruction improved equally on spelling of the stressed vowel as well as on reading of both the stressed vowel and the word endings.…
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Learning to Spell Words: Findings, Theories, and Issues
Treiman, Rebecca
2017-01-01
There has been less research on how children learn to spell than on how they learn to read, but a good deal is now known about spelling development. This article reviews studies of normative development, beginning with children's early scribbles and proceeding to prephonological spelling involving letters, phonologically influenced invented…
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Variation and Repetition in the Spelling of Young Children
Treiman, Rebecca; Decker, Kristina; Kessler, Brett; Pollo, Tatiana
2015-01-01
A number of investigators have suggested that young children, even those do not yet represent the phonological forms of words in their spellings, tend to use different strings of letters for different words. However, empirical evidence that children possess a concept of between-word variation has been weak. In a study by Pollo, Kessler, and Treiman (2009), in fact, prephonological spellers were more likely to write different words in the same way than would be expected on the basis of chance, not less likely. In the present study, preschool-age prephonological and phonological spellers showed a tendency to repeat spellings and parts of spellings that they had recently used. However, even prephonological spellers (mean age 4 years, 8 months) showed more repetition when spelling the same word twice in succession than when spelling different words. The results suggest that children who have not yet learned to use writing to represent the sounds of speech show some knowledge that writing represents words and should thus vary to show differences between them. The results further suggest that in spelling, as in other domains, children have a tendency to repeat recent behaviors. PMID:25637713
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Characteristics of early spelling of children with Specific Language Impairment.
Cordewener, Kim A H; Bosman, Anna M T; Verhoeven, Ludo
2012-01-01
The present study investigated active grapheme knowledge and early spelling of 59 first grade children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Speed, nature, and knowledge transfer of spelling acquisition were taken into account. Four orthographic characteristics that influence early spelling, namely, 'Type of Grapheme', 'Grapheme Position', 'Number of Graphemes', and 'Word Structure' were examined at the middle and at the end of first grade. At the beginning of first grade when children were between 71 and 97 months, they performed well below national norms on assessment of active grapheme knowledge. The delay in word spelling persisted, but decreased between the middle and the end of first grade. Despite this delay, the findings suggest that characteristics of early spelling for children with SLI are rather similar to those of children with typical language development. For example, children with SLI represented more graphemes at the end of first grade than at the middle of first grade, found it easier to represent the initial grapheme in words than the final or medial grapheme (Grapheme Position), were more successful spelling shorter than longer words (Number of Graphemes), and spelled words with simple structures (CVC) more accurately than those with complex structures (CVCC and CCVC; Word Structure). Finally, participants demonstrated that they can use known graphemes to spell words, but the transfer between active grapheme knowledge and word spelling was not always stable. As a result of this activity, readers will be able to explain the speed and the nature of spelling acquisition of children with SLI. As a result of this activity, readers will be able to explain what skills are most important for teachers to practice with children with SLI to improve the spelling skills of these children. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Embree, Mary
2012-01-01
Have you been putting bullion in your soup? Is incorrect spelling starting to have a negative affect on your term papers? Do you wonder what someone is inferring when they tell you to pick up a dictionary? These are just a few of the commonly misunderstood words discussed and explained in Abused, Confused, and Misused Words, an entertaining and informative look at the ever-changing nature of the English language. An alphabetical list of words that are frequently misspelled or misused is accompanied by a style guide to usage rules that tells you how and why
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The Pathway to English Word Reading in Chinese ESL Children: The Role of Spelling
Lin, Dan; Liu, Yingyi; Sun, Huilin; Wong, Richard Kwok; Yeung, Susanna Siu-sze
2017-01-01
The present longitudinal study investigated the role of spelling as a bridge between various reading-related predictors and English word reading in Chinese children learning English as a Second Language (ESL). One hundred and forty-one 5-year-old kindergarten children from Hong Kong, whose first language (L1) was Cantonese and second language (L2)…
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Ludersdorfer, Philipp; Kronbichler, Martin; Wimmer, Heinz
2015-04-01
The present fMRI study used a spelling task to investigate the hypothesis that the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOT) hosts neuronal representations of whole written words. Such an orthographic word lexicon is posited by cognitive dual-route theories of reading and spelling. In the scanner, participants performed a spelling task in which they had to indicate if a visually presented letter is present in the written form of an auditorily presented word. The main experimental manipulation distinguished between an orthographic word spelling condition in which correct spelling decisions had to be based on orthographic whole-word representations, a word spelling condition in which reliance on orthographic whole-word representations was optional and a phonological pseudoword spelling condition in which no reliance on such representations was possible. To evaluate spelling-specific activations the spelling conditions were contrasted with control conditions that also presented auditory words and pseudowords, but participants had to indicate if a visually presented letter corresponded to the gender of the speaker. We identified a left vOT cluster activated for the critical orthographic word spelling condition relative to both the control condition and the phonological pseudoword spelling condition. Our results suggest that activation of left vOT during spelling can be attributed to the retrieval of orthographic whole-word representations and, thus, support the position that the left vOT potentially represents the neuronal equivalent of the cognitive orthographic word lexicon. © 2014 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor; Taha, Haitham
2017-11-01
The study is a cross-sectional developmental investigation of morphological and phonological awareness in word spelling and reading in Arabic in reading-accuracy disabled (RD) children and in age-matched typically developing (TR) controls in grades 1-4 (N = 160). Morphological awareness tasks targeted the root and word pattern derivational system of Arabic, in both the oral and the written modalities. Phonological awareness employed a variety of orally administered segmentation and deletion tasks. The results demonstrated early deficits in morphological awareness, besides deficits in phonological awareness, in RD children as compared with typically developing controls, as well as in word and pseudoword spelling and reading (voweled and unvoweled). While phonological awareness emerged as the strongest predictor of reading, morphological awareness was also found to predict unique variance in reading, and even more so in spelling, beyond phonological awareness and cognitive skills. The results demonstrate the early emergence of morphological awareness deficits, alongside phonological deficits in Arabic RD, as well as the role of morphological processing in early reading and spelling. These findings reflect the centrality of derivational morphology in the structure of the spoken and the written Arabic word. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Laiacona, Marcella; Capitani, Erminio; Zonca, Giusy; Scola, Ilaria; Saletta, Paola; Luzzatti, Claudio
2009-01-01
In this study we investigated 12 cases of "mixed dysgraphia", a spelling impairment where regular words are spelt better than either ambiguous words or regular non-words. Two explanations of mixed dysgraphia were formerly offered by Luzzatti et al. (1998): (i) a double functional lesion of the orthographic output lexicon (or damage to its access) and of the acoustic-to-phonological conversion; and (ii) some kind of interaction/summation between lexical and sublexical spelling routes when processing regular words. We first analysed whether a double functional lesion was sufficient to explain the mixed dysgraphia, checking acoustic-to-phonological conversion by means of the repetition of words and non-words: the answer was positive in five cases and uncertain in three. We tested the remaining four cases to see if there was an interaction between lexical and sublexical processing of regular words, quantifying for each patient, on a probabilistic basis, the separate contribution of the residual lexical and sublexical resources. We investigated whether the processing along these routes was simultaneous but independent ("independent cooperation") or if instead there was "interaction", i.e., the simultaneous activity led to an added increase of efficiency over and above the mere combination of separate success probabilities. For one case the processing along the two routes was independent, in the other three cases an interaction resulted. Following the same approach, we found that for the five cases with a double functional lesion, the observed success on regular word spelling was higher than that expected on a probabilistic basis, but the interpretation of this finding was different.
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Werfel, Krystal L.; Krimm, Hannah
2015-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of the Spelling Sensitivity Score (SSS) beyond percentage correct scoring in analyzing the spellings of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 31 children with SLI and 28 children with typical language in grades 2-4. Spellings of individual words were scored using…
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Borkowska, Aneta Rita; Francuz, Piotr; Soluch, Paweł; Wolak, Tomasz
2014-10-01
The present study aimed at defining the specific traits of brain activation in teenagers with isolated spelling disorder in comparison with good spellers. fMRI examination was performed where the subject's task involved taking a decision 1/whether the visually presented words were spelled correctly or not (the orthographic decision task), and 2/whether the two presented letters strings (pseudowords) were identical or not (the visual decision task). Half of the displays showing meaningful words with an orthographic difficulty contained pairs with both words spelled correctly, and half of them contained one misspelled word. Half of the pseudowords were identical, half of them were not. The participants of the study included 15 individuals with isolated spelling disorder and 14 good spellers, aged 13-15. The results demonstrated that the essential differences in brain activation between teenagers with isolated spelling disorder and good spellers were found in the left inferior frontal gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus and right cerebellum posterior lobe, i.e. structures important for language processes, working memory and automaticity of behaviour. Spelling disorder is not only an effect of language dysfunction, it could be a symptom of difficulties in learning and automaticity of motor and visual shapes of written words, rapid information processing as well as automating use of orthographic lexicon. Copyright © 2013 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Noun or Verb? Adult Readers' Sensitivity to Spelling Cues to Grammatical Category in Word Endings
Kemp, Nenagh; Nilsson, Jodi; Arciuli, Joanne
2009-01-01
The spelling of many disyllabic English word endings holds cues to their grammatical category, beyond obvious inflectional endings such as "-ing" for verbs. For example, some letter sequences are clearly associated with nouns (e.g., "-oon") and others with verbs (e.g., "-erge"). This study extended recent research by Arciuli and Cupples (2006),…
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Vander Stappen, Caroline; Reybroeck, Marie Van
2018-01-01
Phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) have been shown to be powerful predictors of reading achievement across many languages. However, literature remains unclear: (a) whether RAN is independent of PA, (b) about the specific influences of PA and RAN on reading and spelling, and (c) about the efficacy of a RAN intervention. This study aims to address these issues by means of an intervention design. Precisely, the objectives are (a) to determine whether training one competence involves or not an effect on the other, (b) to examine whether each intervention based on oral abilities (PA vs. RAN) could improve word reading and word spelling performances, and (c) to assess the efficacy of a RAN-objects' intervention. Thirty-six French-speaking second graders, from two Belgian elementary schools, were divided into two groups, and received either a PA- or a RAN-objects' intervention. Twenty-five-minute lessons took place at school twice a week over a period of 2 months. Both groups were compared on multiple experimental measures (PA, RAN, word reading, and word spelling), before and immediately after the intervention, and 6 months later. Results showed specific efficacy of the two interventions, with participants trained in one ability outperforming those from the other group on this specific ability at post-test. Moreover, the PA intervention revealed transfer effects on the sub-lexical processes of spelling, while the RAN intervention enhanced word reading speed. Finally, the results demonstrated the efficacy of a RAN-objects' intervention for the first time. These findings provide a new piece of evidence showing the independence of PA and RAN, each process influencing the acquisition of literacy skills in a different way. The efficacy and the specific transfer effects of both interventions open up new perspectives for prevention and targeted remediation of reading disabilities.
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Comparing Bilingual to Monolingual Learners on English Spelling: A Meta-analytic Review.
Zhao, Jing; Quiroz, Blanca; Dixon, L Quentin; Joshi, R Malatesha
2016-08-01
This study reports on a meta-analysis to examine how bilingual learners compare with English monolingual learners on two English spelling outcomes: real-word spelling and pseudo-word spelling. Eighteen studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 1990 and 2014 were retrieved. The study-level variables and characteristics (e.g. sample size, study design and research instruments) were coded, and 29 independent effect sizes across the 18 retrieved studies were analysed. We found that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on real-word spelling overall and more so in early grades, but monolinguals outperformed bilinguals on pseudo-word spelling. Further, bilinguals at risk for reading difficulties did better on real-word spelling than monolinguals at risk for reading difficulties. Having investigated systematic sources of variability in effect sizes, we conclude that in comparison with their monolingual peers, bilingual learners, especially those from alphabetic L1 backgrounds, are able to master constrained skills, such as English spelling, in the current instructional context. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Spelling Lessons for Gifted Language Arts Students.
Richards, Janet C.; Gipe, Joan P.
1993-01-01
These strategies for teaching spelling to gifted students focus on student choice of words, personal dictionaries, cloze passages, categorizing or word sorting, words borrowed from other languages, word etymology, multiple meaning words, and onomatopoetic words. (JDD)
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L2 Spelling Errors in Italian Children with Dyslexia.
Palladino, Paola; Cismondo, Dhebora; Ferrari, Marcella; Ballagamba, Isabella; Cornoldi, Cesare
2016-05-01
The present study aimed to investigate L2 spelling skills in Italian children by administering an English word dictation task to 13 children with dyslexia (CD), 13 control children (comparable in age, gender, schooling and IQ) and a group of 10 children with an English learning difficulty, but no L1 learning disorder. Patterns of difficulties were examined for accuracy and type of errors, in spelling dictated short and long words (i.e. disyllables and three syllables). Notably, CD were poor in spelling English words. Furthermore, their errors were mainly related with phonological representation of words, as they made more 'phonologically' implausible errors than controls. In addition, CD errors were more frequent for short than long words. Conversely, the three groups did not differ in the number of plausible ('non-phonological') errors, that is, words that were incorrectly written, but whose reading could correspond to the dictated word via either Italian or English rules. Error analysis also showed syllable position differences in the spelling patterns of CD, children with and English learning difficulty and control children. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Do reading and spelling share orthographic representations? Evidence from developmental dysgraphia.
Hepner, Christopher; McCloskey, Michael; Rapp, Brenda
Both spelling and reading depend on knowledge of the spellings of words. Despite this commonality, observed dissociations between spelling and reading in cases of acquired and developmental deficits suggest some degree of independence between the cognitive mechanisms involved in these skills. In this paper, we examine the relationship between spelling and reading in two children with developmental dysgraphia. For both children, we identified significant deficits in spelling that affected the processing of orthographic long-term memory representations of words. We then examined their reading skills for similar difficulties. Even with extensive testing, we found no evidence of a reading deficit for one of the children. We propose that there may be an underlying difficulty that specifically affects the learning of orthographic word representations for spelling. These results lead us to conclude that at least some components of lexical orthographic representation and processing develop with considerable independence in spelling and reading.
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The effect of morphology on spelling and reading accuracy: A study on Italian children.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Paola eAngelelli
2014-11-01
Full Text Available In opaque orthographies knowledge of morphological information helps in achieving reading and spelling accuracy. In transparent orthographies with regular print-to-sound correspondences, such as Italian, the mappings of orthography onto phonology and phonology onto orthography are in principle sufficient to read and spell most words. The present study aimed to investigate the role of morphology in the reading and spelling accuracy of Italian children as a function of school experience to determine whether morphological facilitation was present in children learning a transparent orthography. The reading and spelling performances of 15 third-grade and 15 fifth-grade typically developing children were analyzed. Children read aloud and spelled both low-frequency words and pseudowords. Low-frequency words were manipulated for the presence of morphological structure (morphemic words vs non-derived words. Morphemic words could also vary for the frequency (high vs low of roots and suffixes. Pseudo-words were made up of either a real root and a real derivational suffix in a combination that does not exist in the Italian language or had no morphological constituents. Results showed that, in Italian, morphological information is a useful resource for both reading and spelling. Typically developing children benefitted from the presence of morphological structure when they read and spelled pseudowords; however, in processing low-frequency words, morphology facilitated reading but not spelling. These findings are discussed in terms of morpho-lexical access and successful cooperation between lexical and sublexical processes in reading and spelling.
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The effect of morphology on spelling and reading accuracy: a study on Italian children.
Angelelli, Paola; Marinelli, Chiara Valeria; Burani, Cristina
2014-01-01
In opaque orthographies knowledge of morphological information helps in achieving reading and spelling accuracy. In transparent orthographies with regular print-to-sound correspondences, such as Italian, the mappings of orthography onto phonology and phonology onto orthography are in principle sufficient to read and spell most words. The present study aimed to investigate the role of morphology in the reading and spelling accuracy of Italian children as a function of school experience to determine whether morphological facilitation was present in children learning a transparent orthography. The reading and spelling performances of 15 third-grade and 15 fifth-grade typically developing children were analyzed. Children read aloud and spelled both low-frequency words and pseudowords. Low-frequency words were manipulated for the presence of morphological structure (morphemic words vs. non-derived words). Morphemic words could also vary for the frequency (high vs. low) of roots and suffixes. Pseudo-words were made up of either a real root and a real derivational suffix in a combination that does not exist in the Italian language or had no morphological constituents. Results showed that, in Italian, morphological information is a useful resource for both reading and spelling. Typically developing children benefitted from the presence of morphological structure when they read and spelled pseudowords; however, in processing low-frequency words, morphology facilitated reading but not spelling. These findings are discussed in terms of morpho-lexical access and successful cooperation between lexical and sublexical processes in reading and spelling.
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Lexical orthography acquisition: Is handwriting better than spelling aloud?
Bosse, Marie-Line; Chaves, Nathalie; Valdois, Sylviane
2014-01-01
Lexical orthography acquisition is currently described as the building of links between the visual forms and the auditory forms of whole words. However, a growing body of data suggests that a motor component could further be involved in orthographic acquisition. A few studies support the idea that reading plus handwriting is a better lexical orthographic learning situation than reading alone. However, these studies did not explore which of the cognitive processes involved in handwriting enhanced lexical orthographic acquisition. Some findings suggest that the specific movements memorized when learning to write may participate in the establishment of orthographic representations in memory. The aim of the present study was to assess this hypothesis using handwriting and spelling aloud as two learning conditions. In two experiments, fifth graders were asked to read complex pseudo-words embedded in short sentences. Immediately after reading, participants had to recall the pseudo-words' spellings either by spelling them aloud or by handwriting them down. One week later, orthographic acquisition was tested using two post-tests: a pseudo-word production task (spelling by hand in Experiment 1 or spelling aloud in Experiment 2) and a pseudo-word recognition task. Results showed no significant difference in pseudo-word recognition between the two learning conditions. In the pseudo-word production task, orthography learning improved when the learning and post-test conditions were similar, thus showing a massive encoding-retrieval match effect in the two experiments. However, a mixed model analysis of the pseudo-word production results revealed a significant learning condition effect which remained after control of the encoding-retrieval match effect. This later finding suggests that orthography learning is more efficient when mediated by handwriting than by spelling aloud, whatever the post-test production task.
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Spelling impairments in Spanish dyslexic adults.
Afonso, Olivia; Suárez-Coalla, Paz; Cuetos, Fernando
2015-01-01
Spelling deficits have repeatedly been observed in children with dyslexia. However, the few studies addressing this issue in dyslexic adults have reported contradictory results. We investigated whether Spanish dyslexics show spelling deficits in adulthood and which components of the writing production process might be impaired in developmental dyslexia. In order to evaluate the involvement of the lexical and the sublexical routes of spelling as well as the graphemic buffer, lexical frequency, phonology-to-orthography consistency and word length were manipulated in two writing tasks: a direct copy transcoding task and a spelling-to-dictation task. Results revealed that adults with dyslexia produced longer written latencies, inter-letter intervals, writing durations and more errors than their peers without dyslexia. Moreover, the dyslexics were more affected by lexical frequency and word length than the controls, but both groups showed a similar effect of P-O consistency. Written latencies also revealed that while the dyslexics initiated the response later in the direct copy transcoding task than in the spelling-to-dictation task, the controls showed the opposite pattern. However, the dyslexics were slower than the controls in both tasks. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that spelling difficulties are present in adults with dyslexia, at least in a language with a transparent orthography such as Spanish. These difficulties seem to be associated with a deficit affecting both lexical processing and the ability to maintain information about the serial order of the letters in a word. However, the dyslexic group did not differ from the control group in the application of the P-O conversion procedures. The spelling impairment would be in addition to the reading deficit, leading to poorer performance in direct copy transcoding compared to spelling-to-dictation.
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Comparison of students from private and public schools on the spelling performance.
Silva, Nathane Sanches Marques; Crenitte, Patrícia Abreu Pinheiro
2015-01-01
To compare the spelling ability of schoolchildren from the fourth to sixth grades of the elementary schools in the private and public schools of Bauru, São Paulo, and to verify whether errors are overcome as studies progress and the hierarchy of errors as to how often they occur. A dictation was applied to 384 schoolchildren: 206 from the private schools: 74 were at the fourth grade, 65 at the fifth grade, and 67 at the sixth grade; and 178 from the public schools; 56 at the fourth grade, 63 at the fifth grade, and 59 at the sixth grade of elementary school. Student's t test was used. In comparison of total spelling errors score, difference was found among the fourth and sixth grades of the private and public schools. Spelling errors decreased as education progressed, and those related to language irregularities were more common. Spelling ability and performance of students from the private and public schools are not similar in the fourth and sixth grades, but it is in the fifth grade. Spelling errors are gradually overcome as education progresses; however, this overcome rate was considerable between the fourth and fifth grades in the public schools. Decrease in the types of spelling errors follows a hierarchy of categories: phoneme/grapheme conversion, simple contextual rules, complex contextual rules, and language irregularities. Finally, the most common type of spelling error found was that related to language irregularities.
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Figueredo, Lauren; Varnhagen, Connie K.
2005-01-01
We investigated expectations regarding a writer's responsibility to proofread text for spelling errors when using a word processor. Undergraduate students read an essay and completed a questionnaire regarding their perceptions of the author and the quality of the essay. They then manipulated type of spelling error (no error, homophone error,…
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Context-Sensitive Spelling Correction of Consumer-Generated Content on Health Care.
Zhou, Xiaofang; Zheng, An; Yin, Jiaheng; Chen, Rudan; Zhao, Xianyang; Xu, Wei; Cheng, Wenqing; Xia, Tian; Lin, Simon
2015-07-31
Consumer-generated content, such as postings on social media websites, can serve as an ideal source of information for studying health care from a consumer's perspective. However, consumer-generated content on health care topics often contains spelling errors, which, if not corrected, will be obstacles for downstream computer-based text analysis. In this study, we proposed a framework with a spelling correction system designed for consumer-generated content and a novel ontology-based evaluation system which was used to efficiently assess the correction quality. Additionally, we emphasized the importance of context sensitivity in the correction process, and demonstrated why correction methods designed for electronic medical records (EMRs) failed to perform well with consumer-generated content. First, we developed our spelling correction system based on Google Spell Checker. The system processed postings acquired from MedHelp, a biomedical bulletin board system (BBS), and saved misspelled words (eg, sertaline) and corresponding corrected words (eg, sertraline) into two separate sets. Second, to reduce the number of words needing manual examination in the evaluation process, we respectively matched the words in the two sets with terms in two biomedical ontologies: RxNorm and Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine -- Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT). The ratio of words which could be matched and appropriately corrected was used to evaluate the correction system's overall performance. Third, we categorized the misspelled words according to the types of spelling errors. Finally, we calculated the ratio of abbreviations in the postings, which remarkably differed between EMRs and consumer-generated content and could largely influence the overall performance of spelling checkers. An uncorrected word and the corresponding corrected word was called a spelling pair, and the two words in the spelling pair were its members. In our study, there were 271 spelling pairs detected, among
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Spelling consistency affects reading in young Dutch readers with and without dyslexia
Bosman, A.M.T.; Vonk, W.; Zwam, M. van
2006-01-01
Lexical-decision studies with experienced English and French readers have shown that visual-word identification is not only affected by pronunciation inconsistency of a word (i.e., multiple ways to pronounce a spelling body), but also by spelling inconsistency (i.e., multiple ways to spell a
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Effects of Various Early Writing Practices on Reading and Spelling
Rieben, Laurence; Ntamakiliro, Ladislas; Gonthier, Brana; Fayol, Michel
2005-01-01
The effects of different early word spelling practices on reading and spelling were studied in 145 five-year-old children. Three experimental treatments were designed to mimic different teaching activities by having children practice invented spelling (IS group), copied spelling (CS group), or invented spelling with feedback on correct orthography…
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I Love to Rite! Spelling Checkers in the Writing Classroom.
Eiser, Leslie
1986-01-01
Highlights the advantages of word processors and spelling checkers in improving student writing skills. Explains how spelling checkers work and describes the types of available checkers. Also provides lists of Apple, IBM, and Commodore word processors and checkers. (ML)
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Lexical orthographic acquisition: Is handwriting better than spelling aloud?
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marie-Line eBosse
2014-02-01
Full Text Available Lexical orthography acquisition is currently described as the building of links between the visual forms and the auditory forms of whole words. However, a growing body of data suggests that a motor component could further be involved in orthographic acquisition. A few studies support the idea that reading plus handwriting is a better lexical orthographic learning situation than reading alone. However, these studies did not explore which of the cognitive processes involved in handwriting enhanced lexical orthographic acquisition. Some findings suggest that the specific movements memorized when learning to write may participate in the establishment of orthographic representations in memory. The aim of the present study was to assess this hypothesis using handwriting and spelling aloud as two learning conditions. In two experiments, fifth graders were asked to read complex pseudo-words embedded in short sentences. Immediately after reading, participants had to recall the pseudo-words’ spellings either by spelling them aloud or by handwriting them down. One week later, orthographic acquisition was tested using two post-tests: a pseudo-word production task (spelling by hand in Experiment 1 or spelling aloud in Experiment 2 and a pseudo-word recognition task. Results showed no significant difference in pseudo-word recognition between the two learning conditions. In the pseudo-word production task, orthography learning improved when the learning and post-test conditions were similar, thus showing a massive encoding-retrieval match effect in the two experiments. However, a mixed model analysis of the pseudo-word production results revealed a significant learning condition effect which remained after control of the encoding-retrieval match effect. This later finding suggests that orthography learning is more efficient when mediated by handwriting than by spelling aloud, whatever the post-test production task.
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Spelling impairments in Italian dyslexic children: phenomenological changes in primary school.
Angelelli, Paola; Notarnicola, Alessandra; Judica, Anna; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi; Luzzatti, Claudio
2010-01-01
Although spelling difficulties are constantly associated with developmental dyslexia, they have been largely neglected by the majority of studies in this area. This study analyzes spelling impairments in developmental dyslexia across school grades in Italian, a language with high grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence. The performances of 33 Italian dyslexic children attending Grades 3 and 5 were compared with those of age-matched control participants. Writing abilities were investigated through a spelling test that included regular words with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence, regular words requiring the application of context-sensitive conversion rules, words with unpredictable transcription and nonwords with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence. Both accuracy and error analyses indicate that the spelling impairment assumes different characteristics at different grades: Grade 3 children showed an undifferentiated spelling deficit (involving regular words, regular nonwords and words with unpredictable spelling), whereas the fifth graders were prevalently impaired in writing words with unpredictable transcription. The error analysis confirms these results, with third graders producing a high rate of all types of errors (i.e., phonologically plausible, simple and context-sensitive conversion errors), whereas most errors committed by fifth graders were phonologically plausible. Results are coherent with the hypothesis that dyslexic children learning a shallow orthography suffer from delayed acquisition and some fragility of the sub-word level routine, together with a severe and long-lasting deficit of orthographic lexical acquisition. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.
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Abbott, Robert D.; Fayol, Michel; Zorman, Michel; Casalis, Séverine; Nagy, William; Berninger, Virginia W.
2016-01-01
Two longitudinal studies of word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension identified commonalities and differences in morphophonemic orthographies--French (Study 1, n = 1,313) or English (Study 2, n = 114) in early childhood (Grade 2)and middle childhood (Grade 5). For French and English, statistically significant concurrent relationships…
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Martin, Daisy H; Barry, Christopher
2012-08-01
The task of spelling nonwords to dictation necessarily requires the operation of a sublexical or assembled sound-to-spelling conversion process. We report an experiment that shows a clear lexical priming effect on nonword spelling (e.g., /vi:m/ was spelled as VEME more often following the prime word "theme" and as VEAM more often following "dream"), which was larger for lexically low-probability (or low-contingency) than for common (or high-contingency) spellings. Priming diminished when an unrelated word intervened between the prime word and target nonword and did so more for the production of low- than for high-contingency spellings. We interpret these results within an interactive model of spelling production that proposes feedback from the graphemic level to both the lexical and assembled spelling processes.
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Marinelli, Chiara Valeria; Cellini, Pamela; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi; Angelelli, Paola
This study examined the ability to master lexical processing and use knowledge of the relative frequency of sound-spelling mappings in both reading and spelling. Twenty-four dyslexic and dysgraphic children and 86 typically developing readers were followed longitudinally in 3rd and 5th grades. Effects of word regularity, word frequency, and probability of sound-spelling mappings were examined in two experimental tasks: (a) spelling to dictation; and (b) orthographic judgment. Dyslexic children showed larger regularity and frequency effects than controls in both tasks. Sensitivity to distributional information of sound-spelling mappings was already detected by third grade, indicating early acquisition even in children with dyslexia. Although with notable differences, knowledge of the relative frequencies of sound-spelling mapping influenced both reading and spelling. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and empirical implications.
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Computer-Based Reading and Spelling Practice for Children with Learning Disabilities.
van Daal, Victor H. P.; van der Leij, Aryan
1992-01-01
This study with 28 Netherlands children (mean age 9 years, 7 months) with written language disorders found that copying words from the computer screen resulted in significantly fewer spelling errors on the posttest than writing words from memory and that both these forms of practice led to fewer spelling errors than only reading the words.…
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Spelling in Written Stories by School-Age Children with Cochlear Implants
Straley, Sara G.; Werfel, Krystal L.; Hendricks, Alison Eisel
2016-01-01
This study evaluated the spelling of 3rd to 6th grade children with cochlear implants in written stories. Spelling was analysed using traditional correct/incorrect scoring as well as the Spelling Sensitivity Score, which provides linguistic information about spelling attempts. Children with cochlear implants spelled 86 per cent of words in stories…
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Teaching children with dyslexia to spell in a reading-writers' workshop.
Berninger, Virginia W; Lee, Yen-Ling; Abbott, Robert D; Breznitz, Zvia
2013-04-01
To identify effective treatment for both the spelling and word decoding problems in dyslexia, 24 students with dyslexia in grades 4 to 9 were randomly assigned to treatments A (n=12) or B (n=12) in an after-school reading-writers' workshop at the university (thirty 1-h sessions twice a week over 5 months). First, both groups received step 1 treatment of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (gpc) for oral reading. At step 2, treatment A received gpc training for both oral reading and spelling, and treatment B received gpc training for oral reading and phonological awareness. At step 3, treatment A received orthographic spelling strategy and rapid accelerated reading program (RAP) training, and treatment B continued step 2 training. At step 4, treatment A received morphological strategies and RAP training, and treatment B received orthographic spelling strategy training. Each treatment also had the same integrated reading-writing activities, which many school assignments require. Both groups improved significantly in automatic letter writing, spelling real words, compositional fluency, and oral reading (decoding) rate. Treatment A significantly outperformed treatment B in decoding rate after step 3 orthographic training, which in turn uniquely predicted spelling real words. Letter processing rate increased during step 3 RAP training and correlated significantly with two silent reading fluency measures. Adding orthographic strategies with "working memory in mind" to phonics helps students with dyslexia spell and read English words.
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Computer Language Settings and Canadian Spellings
Shuttleworth, Roger
2011-01-01
The language settings used on personal computers interact with the spell-checker in Microsoft Word, which directly affects the flagging of spellings that are deemed incorrect. This study examined the language settings of personal computers owned by a group of Canadian university students. Of 21 computers examined, only eight had their Windows…
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The representation of roots in the spelling of children with specific language impairment.
Deacon, S Hélène; Cleave, Patricia L; Baylis, Julia; Fraser, Jillian; Ingram, Elizabeth; Perlmutter, Signy
2014-01-01
Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have demonstrated general spelling and writing difficulties. We investigated the sensitivity of children with SLI to the consistent spelling of root morphemes, a feature to which young typically developing children demonstrate sensitivity. We asked children with SLI and two groups of typically developing children (n = 17 in each group) to spell the same letter-sound sequence (e.g., win) as a root, and as a component of inflected, derived, and control words (e.g., win, wins, winner, wink). Children with SLI and spelling-age-matched children (mean age of 9 and 7 years, respectively) were more accurate and more consistent in spelling the initial sections of the inflected and derived words than of the control words, a pattern that suggests sensitivity to the representation of roots in spelling. The absence of a group-level interaction suggests comparable sensitivity in the two groups. Our results suggest that elementary-school-aged children with SLI are sensitive to the consistent spelling of roots, at least to the extent predicted by their general spelling abilities.
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Constructed-Response Matching to Sample and Spelling Instruction.
Dube, William V.; And Others
1991-01-01
This paper describes a computer-based spelling program grounded in programed instructional techniques and using constructed-response matching-to-sample procedures. Following use of the program, two mentally retarded men successfully spelled previously misspelled words. (JDD)
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Spelling Instruction in the Primary Grades: Teachers' Beliefs, Practices, and Concerns
Doyle, Antoinette; Zhang, Jing; Mattatall, Chris
2015-01-01
This study examined Canadian teachers' beliefs, practices and concerns about spelling instruction in the primary grades. Data from surveys (n = 56) indicated that most teachers believe that spelling is important and plan for spelling instruction. For most teachers, the spelling words and activities used, and the instructional resources they chose,…
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Learning from Our Mistakes: Improvements in Spelling Lead to Gains in Reading Speed
Ouellette, Gene; Martin-Chang, Sandra; Rossi, Maya
2017-01-01
The present study tested the hypothesis that underlying orthographic representations vary in completeness within the individual, which is manifested in both spelling accuracy and reading speed. Undergraduate students were trained to improve their spelling of difficult words. Word reading speed was then measured for these same words, allowing for a…
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Orthographic consistency affects spoken word recognition at different grain-sizes
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Dich, Nadya
2014-01-01
A number of previous studies found that the consistency of sound-to-spelling mappings (feedback consistency) affects spoken word recognition. In auditory lexical decision experiments, words that can only be spelled one way are recognized faster than words with multiple potential spellings. Previo...
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ACER Spelling Test: Years 3-6. Handbook.
Australian Council for Educational Research, Hawthorn.
The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) Spelling Test is designed to measure levels of achievement in spelling and comprises Test Cards, Answer Sheets, Class Analysis Charts and Handbook. The test itself is divided into four parts, one part for each of years 3 through 6 with each part consisting of 50 words. Directions for…
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Orthographic learning in children with isolated and combined reading and spelling deficits.
Mehlhase, Heike; Bakos, Sarolta; Landerl, Karin; Schulte-Körne, Gerd; Moll, Kristina
2018-05-07
Dissociations between reading and spelling problems are likely to be associated with different underlying cognitive deficits, and with different deficits in orthographic learning. In order to understand these differences, the current study examined orthographic learning using a printed-word learning paradigm. Children (4th grade) with isolated reading, isolated spelling and combined reading and spelling problems were compared to children with age appropriate reading and spelling skills on their performance during learning novel words and symbols (non-verbal control condition), and during immediate and delayed reading and spelling recall tasks. No group differences occurred in the non-verbal control condition. In the verbal condition, initial learning was intact in all groups, but differences occurred during recall tasks. Children with reading fluency deficits showed slower reading times, while children with spelling deficits were less accurate, both in reading and spelling recall. Children with isolated spelling problems showed no difficulties in immediate spelling recall, but had problems in remembering the spellings 2 hours later. The results suggest that different orthographic learning deficits underlie reading fluency and spelling problems: Children with isolated reading fluency deficits have no difficulties in building-up orthographic representations, but access to these representations is slowed down while children with isolated spelling deficits have problems in storing precise orthographic representations in long-term memory.
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Clemens, Nathan H; Oslund, Eric L; Simmons, Leslie E; Simmons, Deborah
2014-02-01
Early reading and spelling development share foundational skills, yet spelling assessment is underutilized in evaluating early reading. This study extended research comparing the degree to which methods for scoring spelling skills at the end of kindergarten were associated with reading skills measured at the same time as well as at the end of first grade. Five strategies for scoring spelling responses were compared: totaling the number of words spelled correctly, totaling the number of correct letter sounds, totaling the number of correct letter sequences, using a rubric for scoring invented spellings, and calculating the Spelling Sensitivity Score (Masterson & Apel, 2010b). Students (N=287) who were identified at kindergarten entry as at risk for reading difficulty and who had received supplemental reading intervention were administered a standardized spelling assessment in the spring of kindergarten, and measures of phonological awareness, decoding, word recognition, and reading fluency were administered concurrently and at the end of first grade. The five spelling scoring metrics were similar in their strong relations with factors summarizing reading subskills (phonological awareness, decoding, and word reading) on a concurrent basis. Furthermore, when predicting first-grade reading skills based on spring-of-kindergarten performance, spelling scores from all five metrics explained unique variance over the autoregressive effects of kindergarten word identification. The practical advantages of using a brief spelling assessment for early reading evaluation and the relative tradeoffs of each scoring metric are discussed. Copyright © 2013 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Phonological Errors Predominate in Arabic Spelling across Grades 1-9
Abu-Rabia, Salim; Taha, Haitham
2006-01-01
Most of the spelling error analysis has been conducted in Latin orthographies and rarely conducted in other orthographies like Arabic. Two hundred and eighty-eight students in grades 1-9 participated in the study. They were presented nine lists of words to test their spelling skills. Their spelling errors were analyzed by error categories. The…
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McCurdy, Merilee; Clure, Lynne F.; Bleck, Amanda A.; Schmitz, Stephanie L.
2016-01-01
Spelling is an important skill that is crucial to effective written communication. In this study, brief experimental analysis procedures were used to examine spelling instruction strategies (e.g., whole word correction; word study strategy; positive practice; and cover, copy, and compare) for four students. In addition, an extended analysis was…
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Orthographic Consistency Affects Spoken Word Recognition at Different Grain-Sizes
Dich, Nadya
2014-01-01
A number of previous studies found that the consistency of sound-to-spelling mappings (feedback consistency) affects spoken word recognition. In auditory lexical decision experiments, words that can only be spelled one way are recognized faster than words with multiple potential spellings. Previous studies demonstrated this by manipulating…
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English as a Foreign Language Spelling Development: A Longitudinal Study
Kahn-Horwitz, Janina; Sparks, Richard L.; Goldstein, Zahava
2012-01-01
English as a foreign language (EFL) spelling was examined longitudinally three times (4th, 9th, 12th grades) during 9 years of EFL study among Hebrew first language (L1) students. The study examined the impact of L1 literacy variables including phonemic awareness, word attack, and spelling on EFL spelling and the relationship between EFL literacy…
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A UMLS-based spell checker for natural language processing in vaccine safety
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Liu Fang
2007-02-01
Full Text Available Abstract Background The Institute of Medicine has identified patient safety as a key goal for health care in the United States. Detecting vaccine adverse events is an important public health activity that contributes to patient safety. Reports about adverse events following immunization (AEFI from surveillance systems contain free-text components that can be analyzed using natural language processing. To extract Unified Medical Language System (UMLS concepts from free text and classify AEFI reports based on concepts they contain, we first needed to clean the text by expanding abbreviations and shortcuts and correcting spelling errors. Our objective in this paper was to create a UMLS-based spelling error correction tool as a first step in the natural language processing (NLP pipeline for AEFI reports. Methods We developed spell checking algorithms using open source tools. We used de-identified AEFI surveillance reports to create free-text data sets for analysis. After expansion of abbreviated clinical terms and shortcuts, we performed spelling correction in four steps: (1 error detection, (2 word list generation, (3 word list disambiguation and (4 error correction. We then measured the performance of the resulting spell checker by comparing it to manual correction. Results We used 12,056 words to train the spell checker and tested its performance on 8,131 words. During testing, sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value (PPV for the spell checker were 74% (95% CI: 74–75, 100% (95% CI: 100–100, and 47% (95% CI: 46%–48%, respectively. Conclusion We created a prototype spell checker that can be used to process AEFI reports. We used the UMLS Specialist Lexicon as the primary source of dictionary terms and the WordNet lexicon as a secondary source. We used the UMLS as a domain-specific source of dictionary terms to compare potentially misspelled words in the corpus. The prototype sensitivity was comparable to currently available
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Ding, Yi; Liu, Ru-De; McBride, Catherine A; Fan, Chung-Hau; Xu, Le; Wang, Jia
2018-05-07
This study examined pinyin (the official phonetic system that transcribes the lexical tones and pronunciation of Chinese characters) invented spelling and English invented spelling in 72 Mandarin-speaking 6th graders who learned English as their second language. The pinyin invented spelling task measured segmental-level awareness including syllable and phoneme awareness, and suprasegmental-level awareness including lexical tones and tone sandhi in Chinese Mandarin. The English invented spelling task manipulated segmental-level awareness including syllable awareness and phoneme awareness, and suprasegmental-level awareness including word stress. This pinyin task outperformed a traditional phonological awareness task that only measured segmental-level awareness and may have optimal utility to measure unique phonological and linguistic features in Chinese reading. The pinyin invented spelling uniquely explained variance in Chinese conventional spelling and word reading in both languages. The English invented spelling uniquely explained variance in conventional spelling and word reading in both languages. Our findings appear to support the role of phonological activation in Chinese reading. Our experimental linguistic manipulations altered the phonological awareness item difficulties.
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CSIR Research Space (South Africa)
Butgereit, L
2013-10-01
Full Text Available , and where words are often spelled phonetically. A word such as mister may be spelled numerous ways including mista and mistr (with new suffixes). When both participants to a MIM conversation understand these new spelling conventions, there is no problem...
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Williams, Kelly J; Walker, Melodee A; Vaughn, Sharon; Wanzek, Jeanne
Spelling is one of the most challenging areas for students with learning disabilities (LD), and improving spelling outcomes for these students is of high importance. In this synthesis, we examined the effects of spelling and reading interventions on spelling outcomes for students with LD in Grades K through 12. A systematic search of peer-reviewed literature published between 2004 and 2014 was conducted using electronic databases and hand searches of relevant journals. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to meet the following criteria: (a) Participants were identified with LD and were in Grades K through 12, (b) designs were either treatment/comparison or single case, (c) a reading or spelling intervention was implemented, (d) at least one spelling outcome was measured, and (e) instruction was in English. Ten studies met criteria for inclusion in the synthesis, and effectiveness ranged from ineffective to highly effective. Findings demonstrated that spelling outcomes for taught words were improved for students with LD with the use of explicit instruction or self-correction strategies.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Shokooh SHAHZADEH
2016-12-01
Full Text Available This study builds on the instructional effectiveness and efficiency of two game approaches on word spelling of EFL beginners. The approaches under study were cooperative approach and individualistic approach. The participants of this study consisted of 59 fifth and sixth grade students from two elementary schools in the same district in Firoozeh, Neyshabur- Iran. They received 90 minutes instruction per week for a total of ten sessions in two groups of cooperative and individualistic. The results of the study indicated that there is not a significant difference between the performance of learners in cooperative and individualistic groups. A questionnaire was also given to the learners at the end in order to measure learners' attitude toward the games. The results showed that there is not a big difference between students' attitude toward learning spelling in cooperative group and individualistic group, and both groups have positive attitude toward the games. The researcher concluded that the combination of these two approaches seems more favorable.
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The role of phonology, morphology, and orthography in English and Russian spelling.
Boulware-Gooden, Regina; Joshi, R Malatesha; Grigorenko, Elena
2015-05-01
The purpose of the present study was to explore the role of phonology, morphology and orthography in predicting the spelling performance in English-speaking and Russian-speaking children. Tests that tap phonology, morphology and orthography were administered to students in grades 4 and 6 in the USA and Russia. Multiple regression analyses showed that phonology and morphology contributed more for spelling of English words while orthography and morphology contributed more to the spelling of Russian words. The results are explained in terms of the orthographic nature of English and Russian languages as well as the instructional practices and the importance of morphology in spelling in both the languages. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Levin, Iris; Aram, Dorit
2013-01-01
The present study compared the effects of different mediation routines provided to kindergartners from families of low socioeconomic status on the students' invented spelling attempts and on their gains obtained on spelling and other early literacy skills (letter naming, sounds of letters, word segmentation, and word decoding). The effects of the…
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Critten, Sarah; Connelly, Vincent; Dockrell, Julie E; Walter, Kirsty
2014-01-01
Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are known to have difficulties with spelling but the factors that underpin these difficulties, are a matter of debate. The present study investigated the impact of oral language and literacy on the bound morpheme spelling abilities of children with SLI. Thirty-three children with SLI (9-10 years) and two control groups, one matched for chronological age (CA) and one for language and spelling age (LA) (aged 6-8 years) were given dictated spelling tasks of 24 words containing inflectional morphemes and 18 words containing derivational morphemes. There were no significant differences between the SLI group and their LA matches in accuracy or error patterns for inflectional morphemes. By contrast when spelling derivational morphemes the SLI group was less accurate and made proportionately more omissions and phonologically implausible errors than both control groups. Spelling accuracy was associated with phonological awareness and reading; reading performance significantly predicted the ability to spell both inflectional and derivational morphemes. The particular difficulties experienced by the children with SLI for derivational morphemes are considered in relation to reading and oral language.
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Assessment of Lexical and Non-Lexical Spelling in Students in Grades 1-7
Kohnen, Saskia; Colenbrander, Danielle; Krajenbrink, Trudy; Nickels, Lyndsey
2015-01-01
The main aim of this study was to develop standardised tests that assess some of the most important spelling skills for children in primary school: sound-letter mappings (non-lexical spelling) and word spelling accuracy (lexical spelling). We present normative comparison data for children in Grades 1-7 as well as measures of validity and…
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How does graphotactic knowledge influence children's learning of new spellings?
Pacton, Sébastien; Sobaco, Amélie; Fayol, Michel; Treiman, Rebecca
2013-01-01
TWO EXPERIMENTS INVESTIGATED WHETHER AND HOW THE LEARNING OF SPELLINGS BY FRENCH THIRD GRADERS IS INFLUENCED BY TWO GRAPHOTACTIC PATTERNS: consonants cannot double in word-initial position (Experiment 1) and consonants cannot double after single consonants (Experiment 2). Children silently read meaningful texts that contained three types of novel spellings: no doublet (e.g., mupile, guprane), doublet in a legal position (e.g., muppile, gupprane), and doublet in an illegal position (e.g., mmupile, guprrane). Orthographic learning was assessed with a task of spelling to dictation. In both experiments, children recalled items without doublets better than items with doublets. In Experiment 1, children recalled spellings with a doublet in illegal word-initial position better than spellings with a doublet in legal word-medial position, and almost all misspellings involved the omission of the doublet. The fact that the graphotactic violation in an item like mmupile was in the salient initial position may explain why children often remembered both the presence and the position of the doublet. In Experiment 2, children recalled non-words with a doublet before a single consonant (legal, e.g., gupprane) better than those with a doublet after a single consonant (illegal, e.g., guprrane). Omission of the doublet was the most frequent error for both types of items. Children also made some transposition errors on items with a doublet after a single consonant, recalling for example gupprane instead of guprrane. These results suggest that, when a doublet is in the hard-to-remember medial position, children sometimes remember that an item contains a doublet but not which letter is doubled. Their knowledge that double consonants can occur before but not after single consonants leads to transposition errors on items like guprrane. These results shed new light on the conditions under which children use general knowledge about the graphotactic patterns of their writing system to
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Validating an Online Assessment of Developmental Spelling in Grades Five through Eight
Gehsmann, Kristin; Spichtig, Alexandra; Tousley, Elias
2017-01-01
Assessments of developmental spelling, also called spelling inventories, are commonly used to understand students' orthographic knowledge (i.e., knowledge of how written words work) and to determine their stages of spelling and reading development. The information generated by these assessments is used to inform teachers' grouping practices and…
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The Impact of Visual-Spatial Attention on Reading and Spelling in Chinese Children
Liu, Duo; Chen, Xi; Wang, Ying
2016-01-01
The present study investigated the associations of visual-spatial attention with word reading fluency and spelling in 92 third grade Hong Kong Chinese children. Word reading fluency was measured with a timed reading task whereas spelling was measured with a dictation task. Results showed that visual-spatial attention was a unique predictor of…
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Arab ESL Secondary School Students' Spelling Errors
Al-Sobhi, Bandar Mohammad Saeed; Rashid, Sabariah Md; Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah; Darmi, Ramiza
2017-01-01
English spelling has always been described by many language researchers and teachers as a daunting task especially for learners whose first language is not English. Accordingly, Arab ESL learners commit serious errors when they spell out English words. The primary objective of this paper is to determine the types as well as the causes of spelling…
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Distinct patterns of brain function in children with isolated spelling impairment: new insights.
Gebauer, Daniela; Enzinger, Christian; Kronbichler, Martin; Schurz, Matthias; Reishofer, Gernot; Koschutnig, Karl; Kargl, Reinhard; Purgstaller, Christian; Fazekas, Franz; Fink, Andreas
2012-06-01
Studies investigating reading and spelling difficulties heavily focused on the neural correlates of reading impairments, whereas spelling impairments have been largely neglected so far. Hence, the aim of the present study was to investigate brain structure and function of children with isolated spelling difficulties. Therefore, 31 children, aged ten to 15 years, were investigated by means of functional MRI and DTI. This study revealed that children with isolated spelling impairment exhibit a stronger right hemispheric activation compared to children with reading and spelling difficulties and controls, when engaged in an orthographic decision task, presumably reflecting a highly efficient serial grapheme-phoneme decoding compensation strategy. In addition, children with spelling impairment activated bilateral inferior and middle frontal gyri during processing correctly spelled words and misspelled words, whereas the other two groups showed bilateral activation only in the misspelled condition, suggesting that additional right frontal engagement could be related to generally higher task demand and effort. DTI analyses revealed stronger frontal white matter integrity (fractional anisotropy) in controls (compared to spelling and reading impaired children), whereas no structural differences between controls and spelling impaired children were observed. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Word Variant Identification in Old French
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Peter Willett
1997-01-01
Full Text Available Increasing numbers of historical texts are available in machine-readable form, which retain the original spelling, which can be very different from the modern-day equivalents due to the natural evolution of a language, and because the concept of standardisation in spelling is comparatively modern. Among medieval vernacular writers, the same word could be spelled in different ways and the same author (or scribe might even use several alternative spellings in the same passage. Thus, we do not know,a priori, how many variant forms of a particular word there are in such texts, let alone what these variants might be. Searching on the modern equivalent, or even the commonest historical variant, of a particular word may thus fail to retrieve an appreciable number of occurrences unless the searcher already has an extensive knowledge of the language of the documents. Moreover, even specialist scholars may be unaware of some idiosyncratic variants. Here, we consider the use of computer methods to retrieve variant historical spellings.
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Does testing with feedback improve adult spelling skills relative to copying and reading?
Pan, Steven C; Rubin, Benjamin R; Rickard, Timothy C
2015-12-01
We examined testing's ability to enhance adult spelling acquisition, relative to copying and reading. Across 3 experiments in which testing with feedback was compared with copying, the spelling improvement after testing matched that following the same amount of time spent copying. A potent testing advantage, however, was observed for spelling words free-recalled. In the fourth experiment, a large testing advantage for both word free recall and spelling was observed, versus reading. Subjects also generally preferred testing and rated it as more effective than copying or reading. The equivalent performance of testing and copying for spelling contrasts with prior work involving children and suggests that retrieval practice may not be the only effective mechanism for spelling skill acquisition. Rather, we suggest that the critical learning event for spelling is focused study on phoneme-to-grapheme mappings for previously unlearned letter sequences. For adults with extensive spelling expertise, focused study is more automatic during both copying and testing with feedback than for individuals with beginning spelling skills. Reading, however, would not be expected to produce efficient focused study of phoneme-to-grapheme mappings, regardless of expertise level. Overall, adult spelling skill acquisition benefits both from testing and copying, and substantially less from reading. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
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Predictors of Spelling and Writing Skills in First- and Second-Language Learners
Harrison, Gina L.; Goegan, Lauren D.; Jalbert, Rachel; McManus, Kelly; Sinclair, Kristin; Spurling, Jessica
2016-01-01
Cognitive and linguistic components related to spelling and writing in English as a second language (ESL) and native-English speaking (EL1) third graders were examined. ESL and EL1 children performed similarly on rapid naming, phonological awareness (PA), verbal short-term and working memory, reading fluency, single-word spelling, text spelling,…
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Phonological errors predominate in Arabic spelling across grades 1-9.
Abu-Rabia, Salim; Taha, Haitham
2006-03-01
Most of the spelling error analysis has been conducted in Latin orthographies and rarely conducted in other orthographies like Arabic. Two hundred and eighty-eight students in grades 1-9 participated in the study. They were presented nine lists of words to test their spelling skills. Their spelling errors were analyzed by error categories. The most frequent errors were phonological. The results did not indicate any significant differences in the percentages of phonological errors across grades one to nine.Thus, phonology probably presents the greatest challenge to students developing spelling skills in Arabic.
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Error-related negativities during spelling judgments expose orthographic knowledge.
Harris, Lindsay N; Perfetti, Charles A; Rickles, Benjamin
2014-02-01
In two experiments, we demonstrate that error-related negativities (ERNs) recorded during spelling decisions can expose individual differences in lexical knowledge. The first experiment found that the ERN was elicited during spelling decisions and that its magnitude was correlated with independent measures of subjects' spelling knowledge. In the second experiment, we manipulated the phonology of misspelled stimuli and observed that ERN magnitudes were larger when misspelled words altered the phonology of their correctly spelled counterparts than when they preserved it. Thus, when an error is made in a decision about spelling, the brain processes indexed by the ERN reflect both phonological and orthographic input to the decision process. In both experiments, ERN effect sizes were correlated with assessments of lexical knowledge and reading, including offline spelling ability and spelling-mediated vocabulary knowledge. These results affirm the interdependent nature of orthographic, semantic, and phonological knowledge components while showing that spelling knowledge uniquely influences the ERN during spelling decisions. Finally, the study demonstrates the value of ERNs in exposing individual differences in lexical knowledge. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Peers, Pressure, and Performance at the National Spelling Bee
Smith, Jonathan
2013-01-01
This paper investigates how individuals' performances of a cognitive task in a high-pressure competition are affected by their peers' performances. To do so, I use novel data from the National Spelling Bee, in which students attempt to spell words correctly in a tournament setting. Across OLS and instrumental variables approaches, I…
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Shim, HyungSub; Hurley, Robert S.; Rogalski, Emily; Mesulam, M.-Marsel
2012-01-01
This study evaluates spelling errors in the three subtypes of primary progressive aphasia (PPA): agrammatic (PPA-G), logopenic (PPA-L), and semantic (PPA-S). Forty-one PPA patients and 36 age-matched healthy controls were administered a test of spelling. The total number of errors and types of errors in spelling to dictation of regular words,…
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Recognition of oral spelling is diagnostic of the central reading processes.
Schubert, Teresa; McCloskey, Michael
2015-01-01
The task of recognition of oral spelling (stimulus: "C-A-T", response: "cat") is often administered to individuals with acquired written language disorders, yet there is no consensus about the underlying cognitive processes. We adjudicate between two existing hypotheses: Recognition of oral spelling uses central reading processes, or recognition of oral spelling uses central spelling processes in reverse. We tested the recognition of oral spelling and spelling to dictation abilities of a single individual with acquired dyslexia and dysgraphia. She was impaired relative to matched controls in spelling to dictation but unimpaired in recognition of oral spelling. Recognition of oral spelling for exception words (e.g., colonel) and pronounceable nonwords (e.g., larth) was intact. Our results were predicted by the hypothesis that recognition of oral spelling involves the central reading processes. We conclude that recognition of oral spelling is a useful tool for probing the integrity of the central reading processes.
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Shared orthographic neuronal representations for spelling and reading.
Purcell, Jeremy J; Jiang, Xiong; Eden, Guinevere F
2017-02-15
A central question in the study of the neural basis of written language is whether reading and spelling utilize shared orthographic representations. While recent studies employing fMRI to test this question report that the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOTC) are active during both spelling and reading in the same subjects (Purcell et al., 2011a; Rapp and Lipka, 2011), the spatial resolution of fMRI limits the interpretation of these findings. Specifically, it is unknown if the neurons which encode orthography for reading are also involved in spelling of the same words. Here we address this question by employing an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging-adaptation (fMRI-A) paradigm designed to examine shared orthographic representations across spelling and reading. First, we identified areas that independently showed adaptation to reading, and adaptation to spelling. Then we identified spatial convergence for these two separate maps via a conjunction analysis. Consistent with previous studies (Purcell et al., 2011a; Rapp and Lipka, 2011), this analysis revealed the left dorsal IFG, vOTC and supplementary motor area. To further validate these observations, we then interrogated these regions using an across-task adaptation technique, and found adaptation across reading and spelling in the left dorsal IFG (BA 44/9). Our final analysis focused specifically on the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) in the vOTC, whose variability in location among subjects requires the use of subject-specific identification mechanisms (Glezer and Riesenhuber, 2013). Using a functional localizer for reading, we defined the VWFA in each subject, and found adaptation effects for both within the spelling and reading conditions, respectively, as well as across spelling and reading. Because none of these effects were observed during a phonological/semantic control condition, we conclude that the left dorsal IFG and VWFA are involved in accessing
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Spelling skills of Czech primary school children in relation to the method of literacy instruction
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Seidlová Málková Gabriela
2017-01-01
Full Text Available This study investigates the importance of having a set reading instruction method for the development of spelling skills among Czech children ranging in age across the four beginning grades of primary school. 238 children learning to read and spell using an analytical-synthetic method and 251 children learning to read and spell using a genetic method participated in this study. The outcomes of word spelling tests were assessed for the different grade and age levels: first, second- third and fourth. Distributional patterns of spelling skills performance for both instruction method subgroups were created in each of the grade groups. Comparisons of spelling task outputs between both methods were conducted using a non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. Results indicate that children using the genetic method are more effective in acquiring phoneme-grapheme correspondences throughout the first grade, and thus show more accurate word spelling in the first grade spelling task. However, this initial advantage for children learning to spell using the genetic method soon disperses, and it is not reflected in better spelling performance throughout the second to third and fourth grade.
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DE- MYSTIFYING THE SPELLING OF THE EXCLAMATION “WOW!”
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Edemekong Lawson Ekpe
2014-10-01
Full Text Available “Wow!” is a lexical entry in the English Language Inventory. It is used to express surprise in the event of a hearer’s fresh reception of pleasant or exhilarating, and unpleasant information. However, it was observed that contrary to its grapheme representation in Dictionaries and other orthographical authorities, varying spelling patterns are used among staff and students of the University of Calabar. This paper has investigated the different spelling forms of this exclamation and offers some explanations for the diverse spelling patterns of this word. Data have been collected from staff and students of the faculties of Arts, Education, Social Sciences, Law, Management Sciences and Clinical Sciences, after which analysis were carried out using the calculated mean score and Standard Deviation, to authenticate the results. Interviews were also conducted on a select number of the population under study. This study shows the extent the use of indigenous languages bring about a change in the orthography of English, especially on exclamations and attempts to locate the spelling of this word within the mosaic of Nigerian English. It brings the attention of the reading public to these spelling forms as being varied, rather than wrongly spelt.
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Spelling Instruction through Etymology--A Method of Developing Spelling Lists for Older Students
Hutcheon, Greg; Campbell, Marilyn; Stewart, Judith
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether an approach to developing word lists centred on etymological roots would improve the spelling performance of older primary school students. Participants were 46 students in the last year of primary school in south-east Queensland (31 girls and 15 boys) across three classes, with two classes…
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Tsesmeli, Styliani N
2017-01-01
The study aimed to evaluate the intervention effects on spelling and meaning of compounds by Greek students via group board games in classroom settings. The sample consisted of 60 pupils, who were attending the first and second grade of two primary schools in Greece. Each grade-class was divided into an intervention ( N = 29 children) and a control group ( N = 31 children). Before intervention, groups were evaluated by standardized tests of reading words/pseudowords, spelling words, and vocabulary. Students were also assessed on compound knowledge by a word analogy task, a meaning task and a spelling task. The experimental design of the intervention included a pre-test, a training program, and a post-test. The pre- and post-assessments consisted of the spelling and the meaning tasks entailing equally morphologically transparent and opaque compounds. The training program was based on word families ( N = 10 word families, 56 trained items, 5 sessions) and aimed to offer instruction of morphological decomposition and meaning of words. The findings showed that training was effective in enhancing the spelling and most notably the meaning of compounds. A closer inspection of intervention data in terms of morphological transparency, revealed that training group of first graders improved significantly both on transparent and opaque compounds, while the degree of gains was larger on opaque items for the second graders. These findings are consistent with the experimental literature and particularly optimistic for the literacy enhancement of typically developing children in regular classrooms.
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Delay or deficit? Spelling processes in children with specific language impairment.
Larkin, Rebecca F; Williams, Gareth J; Blaggan, Samarita
2013-01-01
Few studies have explored the phonological, morphological and orthographic spellings skills of children with specific language impairment (SLI) simultaneously. Fifteen children with SLI (mean age=113.07 months, SD=8.61) completed language and spelling tasks alongside chronological-age controls and spelling-age controls. While the children with SLI showed a deficit in phonological spelling, they performed comparably to spelling-age controls on morphological spelling skills, and there were no differences between the three groups in producing orthographically legal spellings. The results also highlighted the potential importance of adequate non-word repetition skills in relation to effective spelling skills, and demonstrated that not all children with spoken language impairments show marked spelling difficulties. Findings are discussed in relation to theory, educational assessment and practice. As a result of this activity, readers will describe components of spoken language that predict children's morphological and phonological spelling performance. As a result of this activity, readers will describe how the spelling skills of children with SLI compare to age-matched and spelling age-matched control children. Readers will be able to interpret the variability in spelling performance seen in children with SLI. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Koh, Poh Wee; Shakory, Sharry; Chen, Xi; Deacon, S Hélène
2017-11-01
We present two studies that examine the role of morphology in French spelling. In Study 1, we examined the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between inflectional awareness and derivational awareness and spelling within a sample of 77 children in a French immersion programme in Canada. Children completed a non-verbal reasoning measure and French measures of phonological awareness, word reading, vocabulary, morphological awareness, and spelling. Results showed that inflectional morphological awareness in Grade 3 was a predictor of spelling in the same grade. Inflectional awareness in Grade 2 predicted Grade 3 spelling, controlling for reading-related skills and spelling at Grade 2. These analyses support the role of inflectional morphological awareness in the development of spelling of children of a range of reading and spelling abilities. In contrast, derivational awareness in Grades 2 and 3 did not predict spelling concurrently in both grades respectively. Study 2 contrasted the morphological errors in the spellings of six children at risk for reading difficulties with those of six chronological age-matched and six reading level-matched children. Analyses showed that at-risk children exhibited more difficulties with spelling roots and suffixes in words as compared with their age-matched peers, although they performed similarly to children matched on reading level. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Sénéchal, Monique
2017-01-01
The goal was to assess the role of invented spelling to subsequent reading and spelling as proposed by the Nested Skills Model of Early Literacy Acquisition. 107 English-speaking children were tested at the beginning of kindergarten and grade 1, and at the end of grade 1. The findings provided support for the proposed model. First, the role played…
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Strategy choice mediates the link between auditory processing and spelling.
Kwong, Tru E; Brachman, Kyle J
2014-01-01
Relations among linguistic auditory processing, nonlinguistic auditory processing, spelling ability, and spelling strategy choice were examined. Sixty-three undergraduate students completed measures of auditory processing (one involving distinguishing similar tones, one involving distinguishing similar phonemes, and one involving selecting appropriate spellings for individual phonemes). Participants also completed a modified version of a standardized spelling test, and a secondary spelling test with retrospective strategy reports. Once testing was completed, participants were divided into phonological versus nonphonological spellers on the basis of the number of words they spelled using phonological strategies only. Results indicated a) moderate to strong positive correlations among the different auditory processing tasks in terms of reaction time, but not accuracy levels, and b) weak to moderate positive correlations between measures of linguistic auditory processing (phoneme distinction and phoneme spelling choice in the presence of foils) and spelling ability for phonological spellers, but not for nonphonological spellers. These results suggest a possible explanation for past contradictory research on auditory processing and spelling, which has been divided in terms of whether or not disabled spellers seemed to have poorer auditory processing than did typically developing spellers, and suggest implications for teaching spelling to children with good versus poor auditory processing abilities.
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English words structure, history, usage
Katamba, Francis
2015-01-01
How do we find the right word for the job? Where does that word come from? Why do we spell it like that? And how do we know what it means? Words are all around us - we use them every day to communicate our joys, fears, hopes, opinions, wishes and demands - but we don't often think about them too deeply. In this highly accessible introduction to English words, the reader will discover what the study of words can tell them about the extraordinary richness and complexity of our daily vocabulary and about the nature of language in general. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, the book covers a wide range of topics, including the structure of words, the meaning of words, how their spelling relates to pronunciation, how new words are manufactured or imported from other languages, and how the meaning of words changes with the passage of time. It also investigates how the mind deals with words by highlighting the amazing intellectual feat performed routinely when the right word is retrieved from the mental dic...
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Right word making sense of the words that confuse
Morrison, Elizabeth
2012-01-01
'Affect' or 'effect'? 'Right', 'write' or 'rite'? English can certainly be a confusing language, whether you're a native speaker or learning it as a second language. 'The Right Word' is the essential reference to help people master its subtleties and avoid making mistakes. Divided into three sections, it first examines homophones - those tricky words that sound the same but are spelled differently - then looks at words that often confuse before providing a list of commonly misspelled words.
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Sensitivity to phonological context in L2 spelling: evidence from Russian ESL speakers
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Dich, Nadya
2010-01-01
The study attempts to investigate factors underlying the development of spellers’ sensitivity to phonological context in English. Native English speakers and Russian speakers of English as a second language (ESL) were tested on their ability to use information about the coda to predict the spelling...... on the information about the coda when spelling vowels in nonwords. In both native and non-native speakers, context sensitivity was predicted by English word spelling; in Russian ESL speakers this relationship was mediated by English proficiency. L1 spelling proficiency did not facilitate L2 context sensitivity...
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McCarthy, Jillian H.; Hogan, Tiffany P.; Catts, Hugh W.
2013-01-01
The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that word reading accuracy, not oral language, is associated with spelling performance in school-age children. We compared fourth grade spelling accuracy in children with specific language impairment (SLI), dyslexia, or both (SLI/dyslexia) to their typically developing grade-matched peers. Results of the study revealed that children with SLI performed similarly to their typically developing peers on a single word spelling task. Alternatively, those with dyslexia and SLI/dyslexia evidenced poor spelling accuracy. Errors made by both those with dyslexia and SLI/dyslexia were characterized by numerous phonologic, orthographic, and semantic errors. Cumulative results support the hypothesis that word reading accuracy, not oral language, is associated with spelling performance in typically developing school-age children and their peers with SLI and dyslexia. Findings are provided as further support for the notion that SLI and dyslexia are distinct, yet co-morbid, developmental disorders. PMID:22876769
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Do reading and spelling share a lexicon?
Jones, Angela C; Rawson, Katherine A
2016-05-01
In the reading and spelling literature, an ongoing debate concerns whether reading and spelling share a single orthographic lexicon or rely upon independent lexica. Available evidence tends to support a single lexicon account over an independent lexica account, but evidence is mixed and open to alternative explanation. In the current work, we propose another, largely ignored account--separate-but-shared lexica--according to which reading and spelling have separate orthographic lexica, but information can be shared between them. We report three experiments designed to competitively evaluate these three theoretical accounts. In each experiment, participants learned new words via reading training and/or spelling training. The key manipulation concerned the amount of reading versus spelling practice a given item received. Following training, we assessed both response time and accuracy on final outcome measures of reading and spelling. According to the independent lexica account, final performance in one modality will not be influenced by the level of practice in the other modality. According to the single lexicon account, final performance will depend on the overall amount of practice regardless of modality. According to the separate-but-shared account, final performance will be influenced by the level of practice in both modalities but will benefit more from same-modality practice. Results support the separate-but-shared account, indicating that reading and spelling rely upon separate lexica, but information can be shared between them. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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The Effect of Orthographic Complexity on Spanish Spelling in Grades 1-3
Ford, Karen; Invernizzi, Marcia; Huang, Francis
2018-01-01
This study was designed to identify a continuum of orthographic features that characterize Spanish spelling development in Grades 1-3. Two research questions guided this work: (1) Is there a hierarchy of orthographic features that affect students' spelling accuracy in Spanish over and above other school-level, student-level, and word-level…
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Computer-Based Learning of Spelling Skills in Children with and without Dyslexia
Kast, Monika; Baschera, Gian-Marco; Gross, Markus; Jancke, Lutz; Meyer, Martin
2011-01-01
Our spelling training software recodes words into multisensory representations comprising visual and auditory codes. These codes represent information about letters and syllables of a word. An enhanced version, developed for this study, contains an additional phonological code and an improved word selection controller relying on a phoneme-based…
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The influence of spelling ability on handwriting production: children with and without dyslexia.
Sumner, Emma; Connelly, Vincent; Barnett, Anna L
2014-09-01
Current models of writing do not sufficiently address the complex relationship between the 2 transcription skills: spelling and handwriting. For children with dyslexia and beginning writers, it is conceivable that spelling ability will influence rate of handwriting production. Our aim in this study was to examine execution speed and temporal characteristics of handwriting when completing sentence-copying tasks that are free from composing demands and to determine the predictive value of spelling, pausing, and motor skill on handwriting production. Thirty-one children with dyslexia (Mage = 9 years 4 months) were compared with age-matched and spelling-ability matched children (Mage = 6 years 6 months). A digital writing tablet and Eye and Pen software were used to analyze handwriting. Children with dyslexia were able to execute handwriting at the same speed as the age-matched peers. However, they wrote less overall and paused more frequently while writing, especially within words. Combined spelling ability and within-word pausing accounted for over 76% of the variance in handwriting production of children with dyslexia, demonstrating that productivity relies on spelling capabilities. Motor skill did not significantly predict any additional variance in handwriting production. Reading ability predicted performance of the age-matched group, and pausing predicted performance for the spelling-ability group. The findings from the digital writing tablet highlight the interactive relationship between the transcription skills and how, if spelling is not fully automatized, it can constrain the rate of handwriting production. Practical implications are also addressed, emphasizing the need for more consideration to be given to what common handwriting tasks are assessing as a whole.
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McCarthy, Jillian H.; Hogan, Tiffany P.; Beukelman, David R.; Schwarz, Ilsa E.
2015-01-01
Purpose Spelling is an important skill for individuals who rely on augmentative alternative communication (AAC). The purpose of this study was to investigate how computerized sounding out influenced spelling accuracy of pseudo-words. Computerized sounding out was defined as a word elongated, thus providing an opportunity for a child to hear all the sounds in the word at a slower rate. Methods Seven children with cerebral palsy, four who use AAC and three who do not, participated in a single subject AB design. Results The results of the study indicated that the use of computerized sounding out increased the phonologic accuracy of the pseudo-words produced by participants. Conclusion The study provides preliminary evidence for the use of computerized sounding out during spelling tasks for children with cerebral palsy who do and do not use AAC. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed. PMID:24512195
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McCarthy, Jillian H; Hogan, Tiffany P; Beukelman, David R; Schwarz, Ilsa E
2015-05-01
Spelling is an important skill for individuals who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The purpose of this study was to investigate how computerized sounding out influenced spelling accuracy of pseudo-words. Computerized sounding out was defined as a word elongated, thus providing an opportunity for a child to hear all the sounds in the word at a slower rate. Seven children with cerebral palsy, four who use AAC and three who do not, participated in a single subject AB design. The results of the study indicated that the use of computerized sounding out increased the phonologic accuracy of the pseudo-words produced by participants. The study provides preliminary evidence for the use of computerized sounding out during spelling tasks for children with cerebral palsy who do and do not use AAC. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed. We investigated how computerized sounding out influenced spelling accuracy of pseudowords for children with complex communication needs who did and did not use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Results indicated that the use of computerized sounding out increased the phonologic accuracy of the pseudo-words by participants, suggesting that computerized sounding out might assist in more accurate spelling for children who use AAC. Future research is needed to determine how language and reading abilities influence the use of computerized sounding out with children who have a range of speech intelligibility abilities and do and do not use AAC.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jeremy Purcell
2015-05-01
1 For all participants we identified brain areas associated with a normalized response for the TRAINING words at the post-training time point. 2 For all participants we identified an up-regulation of the TRAINING response (i.e., the TRAINING neural response was initially low and then increased post-training; whereas in only one participant did we also observe a down-regulation of the training response (i.e., the TRAINING neural response was initially high, but then decreased post-training. 3 Although the areas associated with the normalized TRAINING response were different in each individual, they all include areas typically associated with the spelling system (Purcell et al. 2011, including the right homologues of typically left hemisphere spelling regions. Across the participants, the following areas of normalization were observed: bilateral superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and the bilateral inferior temporal/fusiform gyrus. Discussion: We found that the predominant BOLD response to training involved an up-regulation of the neural response to spelling the TRAINING items. In addition, we found individual differences in the neurotopography of the normalization response patterns although all were with within brain areas that form a part of the spelling network(Purcell et al. 2011. This work provides evidence regarding one aspect of the multiplicity of neural responses associated with recovery of spelling in individuals with acquired dysgraphia.
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Abbott, Chris
1991-01-01
Pupils with special educational needs are finding that the use of word processors can give them a new confidence and pride in their own abilities. This article describes the use of such devices as the "mouse," on-screen word lists, spell checkers, and overlay keyboards. (JDD)
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Automatic activation of word phonology from print in deep dyslexia.
Katz, R B; Lanzoni, S M
1992-11-01
The performance of deep dyslexics in oral reading and other tasks suggests that they are poor at activating the phonology of words and non-words from printed stimuli. As the tasks ordinarily used to test deep dyslexics require controlled processing, it is possible that the phonology of printed words can be better activated on an automatic basis. This study investigated this possibility by testing a deep dyslexic patient on a lexical decision task with pairs of stimuli presented simultaneously. In Experiment 1, which used content words as stimuli, the deep dyslexic, like normal subjects, showed faster reaction times on trials with rhyming, similarly spelled stimuli (e.g. bribe-tribe) than on control trials (consisting of non-rhyming, dissimilarly spelled words), but slower reaction times on trials with non-rhyming, similarly spelled stimuli (e.g. couch-touch). When the experiment was repeated using function words as stimuli, the patient no longer showed a phonological effect. Therefore, the phonological activation of printed content words by deep dyslexics may be better than would be expected on the basis of their oral reading performance.
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Batnini, Soulef; Uno, Akira
2015-06-01
This study investigated first the main cognitive abilities; phonological processing, visual cognition, automatization and receptive vocabulary in predicting reading and spelling abilities in Arabic. Second, we compared good/poor readers and spellers to detect the characteristics of cognitive predictors which contribute to identifying reading and spelling difficulties in Arabic speaking children. A sample of 116 Tunisian third-grade children was tested on their abilities to read and spell, phonological processing, visual cognition, automatization and receptive vocabulary. For reading, phonological processing and automatization uniquely predicted Arabic word reading and paragraph reading abilities. Automatization uniquely predicted Arabic non-word reading ability. For spelling, phonological processing was a unique predictor for Arabic word spelling ability. Furthermore, poor readers had significantly lower scores on the phonological processing test and slower reading times on the automatization test as compared with good readers. Additionally, poor spellers showed lower scores on the phonological processing test as compared with good spellers. Visual cognitive processing and receptive vocabulary were not significant cognitive predictors of Arabic reading and spelling abilities for Tunisian third grade children in this study. Our results are consistent with previous studies in alphabetic orthographies and demonstrate that phonological processing and automatization are the best cognitive predictors in detecting early literacy problems. We suggest including phonological processing and automatization tasks in screening tests and in intervention programs may help Tunisian children with poor literacy skills overcome reading and spelling difficulties in Arabic. Copyright © 2014 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Pacton, Sebastien; Fayol, Michel
2003-01-01
This study examined how French third (36) and fifth (36) graders used the morphosyntactic context when they spell morphologically complex words with homophonous suffixes (/a/). Participants had to spell adverbs (/a/ transcribed ent) and present participles (/a/ transcribed ant), contrasted on the basis of their frequency, in isolation or embedded…
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Spelling and Morphology in Dyslexia: A Developmental Study Across the School Years.
Schiff, Rachel; Levie, Ronit
2017-11-01
The current study examined the effect of morphological knowledge on spelling development in Hebrew-speaking schoolchildren, adolescents and adults with dyslexia, compared with typically developing (TD) peers. Participants were 238 Hebrew-speaking readers of five grade levels of whom 139 were TD and 99 had developmental dyslexia (DD). Participants were tested on a function letter spelling task, a phonological awareness task and a morphological awareness task. The overall picture that emerged from the results is that performance on all measures increased with grade level, with TD participants always scoring higher than peers with DD. Moreover, the higher the morphological complexity in spelling and irregularity in noun inflection, the higher the differences between the DD and TD participants. Finally, performance on the morphological awareness task contributed to spelling morphologically more complex spelling items in the TD, but not in the DD group. From clinical and educational perspectives, these results strongly suggest that rigorous morphological instruction is necessary in teaching children and adolescents with dyslexia to identify and use morphological cues in spoken and written Hebrew. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Munger, Kristen A.; Murray, Maria S.
2017-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine the validity evidence of first-grade spelling scores from a standardized test of nonsense word spellings and their potential value within universal literacy screening. Spelling scores from the Test of Phonological Awareness: Second Edition PLUS for 47 first-grade children were scored using a standardized…
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Studies on spelling in the context of dyslexia: a literature review
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Luciana Cidrim
Full Text Available ABSTRACT This paper aimed at reviewing the literature related to national and international research on spelling difficulties by dyslexics and identifying the intervention approaches performed with regard to this topic. An integrative review of the literature was carried out in order to answer the question: considering the domain of the orthography, one of the challenges frequently faced by dyslexics, how are studies on the relationship between dyslexia and spelling characterized? The research was carried out in PubMed platform, Scopus database and Portal de Periódicos CAPES/MEC. To search the articles, the following descriptors were used: "dislexia" or "dyslexia" with the free terms "ortografia" or "spelling". One aspect should be highlighted: some works indicate that difficulties in the spelling performance by dyslexics are not exclusively due to phonological processing failures - they are also secondary to alterations in orthographic processing. A challenge faced by dyslexics is to retain phonological information to use in writing new orthographic forms. Researchers suggest that intervention strategies include phonological, orthographic and lexical activities. It is observed that few studies have analyzed the difficulties that dyslexics face when dealing with new words, as well as writing, correctly, frequently used words in their own language.
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The Role of Stroke Knowledge in Reading and Spelling in Chinese
Lo, Lap-yan; Yeung, Pui-sze; Ho, Connie Suk-Han; Chan, David Wai-ock; Chung, Kevin
2016-01-01
The present study examined the types of orthographic knowledge that are important in learning to read and spell Chinese words in a 2-year longitudinal study following 289 Hong Kong Chinese children from Grade 1 to Grade 2. Multiple regression results showed that radical knowledge significantly predicted children's word reading and spelling…
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Beyond the VWFA: The orthography-semantics interface in spelling and reading
Purcell, Jeremy J.; Shea, Jennifer; Rapp, Brenda
2014-01-01
Lexical orthographic information provides the basis for recovering the meanings of words in reading and for generating correct word spellings in writing. Research has provided evidence that an area of the left ventral temporal cortex, a sub-region of what is often referred to as the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA), plays a significant role specifically in lexical orthographic processing. The current investigation goes beyond this previous work by examining the neurotopography of the interface of lexical orthography with semantics. We apply a novel lesion mapping approach with three individuals with acquired dysgraphia and dyslexia who suffered lesions to left ventral temporal cortex. To map cognitive processes to their neural substrates, this lesion mapping approach applies similar logical constraints as used in cognitive neuropsychological research. Using this approach, this investigation: (1) Identifies a region anterior to the VWFA that is important in the interface of orthographic information with semantics for reading and spelling; (2) Determines that, within this Orthography-Semantics Interface Region (OSIR), access to orthography from semantics (spelling) is topographically distinct from access to semantics from orthography (reading); (3) Provides evidence that, within this region, there is modality-specific access to and from lexical semantics for both spoken and written modalities, in both word production and comprehension. Overall, this study contributes to our understanding of the neural architecture at the lexical orthography-semantic-phonological interface within left ventral temporal cortex. PMID:24833190
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Niolaki, Georgia Z.; Masterson, Jackie; Terzopoulos, Aris R.
2014-01-01
Case studies of two children with spelling difficulty are reported. LK was multilingual and ED bilingual. A training programme that targeted phonic decoding (or sublexical) spelling processes was conducted with both children. Immediate and delayed post-training assessments showed improvement in spelling nonwords for LK but not for ED. Training…
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Influence of Handwriting Skills during Spelling in Primary and lower Secondary Grades
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Virginie ePontart
2013-11-01
Full Text Available We sought to identify, the impact of handwriting skills on the efficiency and temporal course of word spelling across Grades 2-9. Eighty-four students, drawn from primary and lower secondary schools, were asked to perform a dictation task to assess their word spelling. They also had to write out the letters of the alphabet, as well as their firstnames and surnames, from memory to assess their handwriting skills. Handwriting kinematics were recorded using a digitizing tablet and a computer running Eye and Pen software. Results revealed that graphomotor skills (as assessed by the name writing task influenced the success and temporal course of spelling, but only in primary grades, whereas the influence of orthographic knowledge (as assessed by the alphabet task could still be observed in the lower secondary grades, even if it ceased to influence the temporal course and only affected errors. We discuss what these findings tell us about changes in transcription processes over the course of child development.
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Influence of handwriting skills during spelling in primary and lower secondary grades
Pontart, Virginie; Bidet-Ildei, Christel; Lambert, Eric; Morisset, Pauline; Flouret, Lisa; Alamargot, Denis
2013-01-01
We sought to identify, the impact of handwriting skills on the efficiency and temporal course of word spelling across Grades 2–9. Eighty-four students, drawn from primary and lower secondary schools, were asked to perform a dictation task to assess their word spelling. They also had to write out the letters of the alphabet, as well as their firstnames and surnames, from memory to assess their handwriting skills. Handwriting kinematics were recorded using a digitizing tablet and a computer running Eye and Pen software. Results revealed that graphomotor skills (as assessed by the name writing task) influenced the success and temporal course of spelling, but only in primary grades, whereas the influence of orthographic knowledge (as assessed by the alphabet task) could still be observed in the lower secondary grades, even if it ceased to influence the temporal course and only affected errors. We discuss what these findings tell us about changes in transcription processes over the course of child development. PMID:24204357
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Managing Dry Spell Risks to Improve Rainfed Maize Productivity in ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Key words: Dry spell, Plant population, Risk, Soil water, Tillage, WRSI .... gravimetric method for each factor and treatment (Singh, 1997), while Crop Water ..... Decision Support system- a promising past, disappointing present and an uncertain ...
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Two spelling programmes that promote understanding of the alphabetic principle in preschool children
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Margarida Alves Martins & Cristina Silva
2009-11-01
Full Text Available Our aim in this study was to test two programmes designed to lead preschool children to use conventional letters to spell the initial consonants of words. These programmes differed in terms of the characteristics of the vowels that followed those consonants. The participants were 45 five-year-old Portuguese children whose spelling was pre-syllabic - they used strings of random letters in their spelling, making no attempt to match the oral to the written language. They were divided into two experimental and a control group. Their age, level of intelligence, and phonological awareness were controlled. Their spelling was assessed in a pre- and a post-test. In-between, children from the experimental groups participated in two programmes where they had to think about the relationships between the initial consonant and the corresponding phoneme in different words: In Experimental Group 1, the initial consonants were followed by an open vowel, and in Experimental Group 2, these same consonants were followed by a closed vowel. The control group classified geometric shapes. Experimental Group 1 achieved better results than Experimental Group 2 following open vowels, being more able to generalize the phonological procedures to sounds that were not taught during the programmes. Both experimental groups used conventional letters to represent several phonemes in the post-test whereas the control group continued to produce pre-syllabic spellings.
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Foreign language learning, hyperlexia, and early word recognition.
Sparks, R L; Artzer, M
2000-01-01
Children with hyperlexia read words spontaneously before the age of five, have impaired comprehension on both listening and reading tasks, and have word recognition skill above expectations based on cognitive and linguistic abilities. One student with hyperlexia and another student with higher word recognition than comprehension skills who started to read words at a very early age were followed over several years from the primary grades through high school when both were completing a second-year Spanish course. The purpose of the present study was to examine the foreign language (FL) word recognition, spelling, reading comprehension, writing, speaking, and listening skills of the two students and another high school student without hyperlexia. Results showed that the student without hyperlexia achieved higher scores than the hyperlexic student and the student with above average word recognition skills on most FL proficiency measures. The student with hyperlexia and the student with above average word recognition skills achieved higher scores on the Spanish proficiency tasks that required the exclusive use of phonological (pronunciation) and phonological/orthographic (word recognition, spelling) skills than on Spanish proficiency tasks that required the use of listening comprehension and speaking and writing skills. The findings provide support for the notion that word recognition and spelling in a FL may be modular processes and exist independently of general cognitive and linguistic skills. Results also suggest that students may have stronger FL learning skills in one language component than in other components of language, and that there may be a weak relationship between FL word recognition and oral proficiency in the FL.
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An Evaluation of the Word Triad Method for Monitoring Spelling Progress
Frisby, Craig; Wang, Ze
2018-01-01
Although spelling skill progress has typically been studied within the context of students' responses to written story starters (Deno, Marsten, & Mirkin, 1982; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2011; Hosp, Hosp, & Howell, 2007; Shinn & Shinn, 2002), there has been little research conducted within a curriculum-based measurement framework that has…
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Hashimoto, Kosei; Uno, Akira
2016-06-01
The purpose of this study was to determine if differential reading and spelling mechanisms were involved in a Japanese patient with aphasia. In our case, the patient scored low on all of the administered reading tasks, suggesting that both the reading lexical and non-lexical routes were impaired. In contrast, his writing-to-dictation score for Kana nonwords was high, suggesting that the spelling non-lexical route was intact. However, the patient scored low on a writing-to-dictation task comprised of high-familiarity Kanji words. The spelling lexical route was thought to be impaired. Therefore, the mechanism(s) involved in reading and spelling may differ in this case.
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Cao, Fan; Lee, Rebecca; Shu, Hua; Yang, Yanhui; Xu, Guoqing; Li, Kuncheng; Booth, James R
2010-05-01
Developmental differences in phonological and orthographic processing in Chinese were examined in 9 year olds, 11 year olds, and adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Rhyming and spelling judgments were made to 2-character words presented sequentially in the visual modality. The spelling task showed greater activation than the rhyming task in right superior parietal lobule and right inferior temporal gyrus, and there were developmental increases across tasks bilaterally in these regions in addition to bilateral occipital cortex, suggesting increased involvement over age on visuo-orthographic analysis. The rhyming task showed greater activation than the spelling task in left superior temporal gyrus and there were developmental decreases across tasks in this region, suggesting reduced involvement over age on phonological representations. The rhyming and spelling tasks included words with conflicting orthographic and phonological information (i.e., rhyming words spelled differently or nonrhyming words spelled similarly) or nonconflicting information. There was a developmental increase in the difference between conflicting and nonconflicting words in left inferior parietal lobule, suggesting greater engagement of systems for mapping between orthographic and phonological representations. Finally, there were developmental increases across tasks in an anterior (Broadman area [BA] 45, 46) and posterior (BA 9) left inferior frontal gyrus, suggesting greater reliance on controlled retrieval and selection of posterior lexical representations.
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The Training of Morphological Decomposition in Word Processing and Its Effects on Literacy Skills
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Irit Bar-Kochva
2017-10-01
Full Text Available This study set out to examine the effects of a morpheme-based training on reading and spelling in fifth and sixth graders (N = 47, who present poor literacy skills and speak German as a second language. A computerized training, consisting of a visual lexical decision task (comprising 2,880 items, presented in 12 sessions, was designed to encourage fast morphological analysis in word processing. The children were divided between two groups: the one underwent a morpheme-based training, in which word-stems of inflections and derivations were presented for a limited duration, while their pre- and suffixes remained on screen until response. Another group received a control training consisting of the same task, except that the duration of presentation of a non-morphological unit was restricted. In a Word Disruption Task, participants read words under three conditions: morphological separation (with symbols separating between the words’ morphemes, non-morphological separation (with symbols separating between non-morphological units of words, and no-separation (with symbols presented at the beginning and end of each word. The group receiving the morpheme-based program improved more than the control group in terms of word reading fluency in the morphological condition. The former group also presented similar word reading fluency after training in the morphological condition and in the no-separation condition, thereby suggesting that the morpheme-based training contributed to the integration of morphological decomposition into the process of word recognition. At the same time, both groups similarly improved in other measures of word reading fluency. With regard to spelling, the morpheme-based training group showed a larger improvement than the control group in spelling of trained items, and a unique improvement in spelling of untrained items (untrained word-stems integrated into trained pre- and suffixes. The results further suggest some contribution of
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Reed, Deborah K.
2012-01-01
This resource is a compilation of three documents that support the teaching of spelling in today's schools: a discussion of "Why Spelling Instruction Matters", a checklist for evaluating a spelling program, and tables of Common Core State Standards that are linked to spelling instruction. "Why Spelling Instruction Matters"…
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The role of instruction for spelling performance and spelling consciousness
Cordewener, K.A.H.; Hasselman, F.W.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.; Bosman, A.M.T.
2018-01-01
This study examined the role of instruction for spelling performance and spelling consciousness in the Dutch language. Spelling consciousness is the ability to reflect on one's spelling and correct errors. A sample of 115 third-grade spellers was assigned to a strategy-instruction,
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Improving historical spelling normalization with bi-directional LSTMs and multi-task learning
Bollmann, Marcel; Søgaard, Anders
2016-01-01
Natural-language processing of historical documents is complicated by the abundance of variant spellings and lack of annotated data. A common approach is to normalize the spelling of historical words to modern forms. We explore the suitability of a deep neural network architecture for this task, particularly a deep bi-LSTM network applied on a character level. Our model compares well to previously established normalization algorithms when evaluated on a diverse set of texts from Early New Hig...
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Morphology and Spelling in Arabic: Development and Interface
Taha, Haitham; Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor
2017-01-01
In the current study, two experiments were carried out: the first tested the development of derivational root and word-pattern morphological awareness in Arabic; the second tested morphological processing in Arabic spelling. 143 Arabic native speaking children with normal reading skills in 2nd, 4th and 6th grade participated in the study. The…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Semen Köksal
1993-01-01
Full Text Available Scientific Word is the first fully integrated mathematical word processor in the Windows 3.1 environment, which uses the TEX typesetting language for output. It runs as a Microsoft Windows application program and has two-way interface to TEX. The Scientific Word is an object-oriented WYSIWYG word processor for virtually all users who need typesetting scientific books, manuals and papers. It includes automatic equation numbering, spell checking, and LATEX and DVI previewer.
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Broc, Lucie; Bernicot, Josie; Olive, Thierry; Favart, Monik; Reilly, Judy; Quémart, Pauline; Uzé, Joël
2013-10-01
The goal of this study was to compare the lexical spelling performance of children and adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI) in two contrasting writing situations: a dictation of isolated words (a classic evaluative situation) and a narrative of a personal event (a communicative situation). Twenty-four children with SLI and 48 typically developing children participated in the study, split into two age groups: 7-11 and 12-18 years of age. Although participants with SLI made more spelling errors per word than typically developing participants of the same chronological age, there was a smaller difference between the two groups in the narratives than in the dictations. Two of the findings are particularly noteworthy: (1) Between 12 and 18 years of age, in communicative narration, the number of spelling errors of the SLI group was not different from that of the typically developing group. (2) In communicative narration, the participants with SLI did not make specific spelling errors (phonologically unacceptable), contrary to what was shown in the dictation. From an educational perspective or that of a remediation program, it must be stressed that the communicative narration provides children-and especially adolescents-with SLI an opportunity to demonstrate their improved lexical spelling abilities. Furthermore, the results encourage long-term lexical spelling education, as adolescents with SLI continue to show improvement between 12 and 18 years of age. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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The Role of Instruction for Spelling Performance and Spelling Consciousness
Cordewener, Kim A. H.; Hasselman, Fred; Verhoeven, Ludo; Bosman, Anna M. T.
2018-01-01
This study examined the role of instruction for spelling performance and spelling consciousness in the Dutch language. Spelling consciousness is the ability to reflect on one's spelling and correct errors. A sample of 115 third-grade spellers was assigned to a strategy-instruction, strategic-monitoring, self-monitoring, or control condition…
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Lexical Orthographic Knowledge Develops from the Beginning of Literacy Acquisition
Martinet, Catherine; Valdois, Sylviane; Fayol, Michel
2004-01-01
This study reports two experiments assessing the spelling performance of French first graders after 3 months and after 9 months of literacy instruction. The participants were asked to spell high and low frequency irregular words (Experiment 1) and pseudowords, some of which had lexical neighbours (Experiment 2). The lexical database which children…
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Angelelli, Paola; Marinelli, Chiara V; Iaia, Marika; Putzolu, Anna; Gasperini, Filippo; Brizzolara, Daniela; Chilosi, Anna M
2016-01-01
Language delay is considered a frequent antecedent of literacy problems and both may be linked to phonological impairment. However, while several studies have examined the relationship between language delay and reading impairment, relatively few have focused on spelling. In this study, spelling performance of 28 children with developmental dyslexia (DD), 14 children with a history of language delay (LD), and 14 children without (NoLD) and 28 control participants were examined. Spelling was investigated by a writing to dictation task that included orthographically regular stimuli (word and non-words), as well as words with unpredictable transcription. Results indicated that all dyslexic participants underperformed compared to controls on both regular and unpredictable transcription stimuli, but LD performance was generally the worst. Moreover, spelling impairment assumed different characteristics in LD and NoLD children. LD children were more sensitive to acoustic-to-phonological variables, showing relevant failure especially on stimuli containing geminate consonants but also on polysyllabic stimuli and those containing non-continuant consonants. Error analysis confirmed these results, with LD children producing a higher rate of phonological errors respect to NoLD children and controls. Results were coherent with the hypothesis that among dyslexic children, those with previous language delay have more severe spelling deficit, suffering from defective orthographic lexical acquisition together with long-lasting phonological difficulties.
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Morphological awareness and early and advanced reading and spelling in Dutch
Rispens, J.E.; McBride-Chang, C.; Reitsma, P.
2008-01-01
This study investigated the relations of three aspects of morphological awareness to word recognition and spelling skills of Dutch speaking children. Tasks of inflectional and derivational morphology and lexical compounding, as well as measures of phonological awareness, vocabulary and mathematics
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Korat, Ofra; Levin, Iris; Ben-Shabt, Anat; Shneor, Dafna; Bokovza, Limor
2014-01-01
We investigated the extent to which a dictionary embedded in an e-book with static or dynamic visuals with and without printed focal words affects word learning. A pretest-posttest design was used to measure gains of expressive words' meaning and their spelling. The participants included 250 Hebrew-speaking second graders from…
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Improving spelling performance and spelling consciousness
Cordewener, K.A.H.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.; Bosman, A.M.T.
2016-01-01
This study examined the immediate and sustained effects of three training conditions on both spelling performance and spelling consciousness of 72 third-grade low- and high-skilled spellers. Spellers were assigned to a strategy-instruction, self-correction, or no-correction condition. The role of
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Vocabulary Word Instruction for Students Who Read Braille
Savaiano, Mackenzie E.; Compton, Donald L.; Hatton, Deborah D.; Lloyd, Blair P.
2016-01-01
The association made between the meaning, spelling, and pronunciation of a word has been shown to help children remember the meanings of words. The present study addressed whether the presence of a target word in Braille during instruction facilitated vocabulary learning more efficiently than an auditory-only instructional condition. The authors…
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Goodman, Ashley; McLaughlin, T. F.; Derby, K. Mark; Everson, Mary
2015-01-01
Spelling skills are vital in teaching students to read and write effectively. One method to help students learn to spell words correctly is called cover, copy, and compare (CCC). This study was designed to evaluate the effects of using CCC on the spelling and writing skills of three students with learning disabilities. These skills were measured…
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500 words, phrases, idioms for the TOEFL iBT plus typing strategies
Sterling, Bruce
2010-01-01
HOW IS THIS TOEFL BOOK DIFFERENT?. This TOEFL book is different because it uses an integrated vocabulary learning system called recycling. Recycling is simple. Each exercise is divided into four quizzes. Quiz 1, a multiple-choice vocabulary quiz, introduces ten new words. Next, you will do Quiz 2. Quiz 2 is a sentence-completion quiz based on the ten words in Quiz 1. Next, you will do Quiz 3, a spelling quiz. The speaker on the CD will say the same ten words in turn. You will then have ten seconds to spell each word by saying it and typing it. Finally, you will do Quiz 4. Quiz 4 is a 60-word t
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The Multisyllabic Word Dilemma: Helping Students Build Meaning, Spell, and Read "Big" Words.
Cunningham, Patricia M.
1998-01-01
Looks at what is known about multisyllabic words, which is a lot more than educators knew when the previous generation of multisyllabic word instruction was created. Reviews the few studies that have carried out instructional approaches to increase students' ability to decode big words. Outlines a program of instruction, based on what is currently…
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Gookin, Dan
2011-01-01
It's a whole new Word - make the most of it! Here's exactly what you need to know to get going with Word 2010. From firing up Word, using the spell checker, and working with templates to formatting documents, adding images, and saving your stuff, you'll get the first and last word on Word 2010 with this fun and easy mini guide. So get ready to channel your inner writer and start creating Word files that wow! Open the book and find:Tips for navigating Word with the keyboard and mouseAdvice on using the RibbonHow to edit text and undo mistakesThings to know
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Yeon, Sookkyung; Bae, Han Suk; Joshi, R Malatesha
2017-11-01
The present study examined unique and shared contributions of Korean (first language) phonological, orthographic and morphological awareness (PA, OA and MA, respectively) to English (second/foreign language) spelling among 287 fourth-grade, fifth-grade and sixth-grade Korean children. Korean measures of PA, OA and MA were administered, in addition to English vocabulary and spelling measures. Results from structural equation modelling showed that PA, OA and MA were caused by one common construct, metalinguistic awareness (META), and the contribution of Korean META to English spelling was statistically significant, controlling for English vocabulary. In particular, Korean MA and PA played unique roles in explaining English spelling; whereas Korean OA did not significantly contribute to English spelling. Findings from the present study provided empirical evidence of first language META transfer effect on second/foreign language spelling development. Educational implications and future research ideas are discussed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Crossed Dysgraphia: A case Report
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Maha Aldera
2014-04-01
SE’s performance on the PALPA tests revealed the profile of phonological dysgraphia: Variable effect of letter lengths, better performance on high imagery/high frequency words than the low imagery/low frequency ones, responses were much better on nouns and verbs than on adjectives and functors, better performance on regularly spelled words when compared to irregular words, profoundly impaired performance on words and homophones. These results clearly establish the impairments of the central/linguistic components of writing/spelling in SE. It is hoped that the discovery of a variety of CD patterns will reinforce the view of individual differences in structural and functional brain organization in relation to language.
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Diamanti, Vassiliki; Mouzaki, Angeliki; Ralli, Asimina; Antoniou, Faye; Papaioannou, Sofia; Protopapas, Athanassios
2017-01-01
Different language skills are considered fundamental for successful reading and spelling acquisition. Extensive evidence has highlighted the central role of phonological awareness in early literacy experiences. However, many orthographic systems also require the contribution of morphological awareness. The goal of this study was to examine the morphological and phonological awareness skills of preschool children as longitudinal predictors of reading and spelling ability by the end of first grade, controlling for the effects of receptive and expressive vocabulary skills. At Time 1 preschool children from kindergartens in the Greek regions of Attika, Crete, Macedonia, and Thessaly were assessed on tasks tapping receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness (syllable and phoneme), and morphological awareness (inflectional and derivational). Tasks were administered through an Android application for mobile devices (tablets) featuring automatic application of ceiling rules. At Time 2 one year later the same children attending first grade were assessed on measures of word and pseudoword reading, text reading fluency, text reading comprehension, and spelling. Complete data from 104 children are available. Hierarchical linear regression and commonality analyses were conducted for each outcome variable. Reading accuracy for both words and pseudowords was predicted not only by phonological awareness, as expected, but also by morphological awareness, suggesting that understanding the functional role of word parts supports the developing phonology-orthography mappings. However, only phonological awareness predicted text reading fluency at this age. Longitudinal prediction of reading comprehension by both receptive vocabulary and morphological awareness was already evident at this age, as expected. Finally, spelling was predicted by preschool phonological awareness, as expected, as well as by morphological awareness, the contribution of which is expected to
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Vassiliki Diamanti
2017-11-01
Full Text Available Different language skills are considered fundamental for successful reading and spelling acquisition. Extensive evidence has highlighted the central role of phonological awareness in early literacy experiences. However, many orthographic systems also require the contribution of morphological awareness. The goal of this study was to examine the morphological and phonological awareness skills of preschool children as longitudinal predictors of reading and spelling ability by the end of first grade, controlling for the effects of receptive and expressive vocabulary skills. At Time 1 preschool children from kindergartens in the Greek regions of Attika, Crete, Macedonia, and Thessaly were assessed on tasks tapping receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness (syllable and phoneme, and morphological awareness (inflectional and derivational. Tasks were administered through an Android application for mobile devices (tablets featuring automatic application of ceiling rules. At Time 2 one year later the same children attending first grade were assessed on measures of word and pseudoword reading, text reading fluency, text reading comprehension, and spelling. Complete data from 104 children are available. Hierarchical linear regression and commonality analyses were conducted for each outcome variable. Reading accuracy for both words and pseudowords was predicted not only by phonological awareness, as expected, but also by morphological awareness, suggesting that understanding the functional role of word parts supports the developing phonology–orthography mappings. However, only phonological awareness predicted text reading fluency at this age. Longitudinal prediction of reading comprehension by both receptive vocabulary and morphological awareness was already evident at this age, as expected. Finally, spelling was predicted by preschool phonological awareness, as expected, as well as by morphological awareness, the contribution of which is
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Danette Darrow
2012-04-01
Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of cover, copy, and compare (CCC procedures on spelling performance with two students. The participants were two elementary students enrolled in a self-contained behavior intervention classroom. A multiple baseline design across participants was employed to evaluate the effects of CCC on time to completion and words spelled correctly. Improvements in all measures were found when CCC was in effect. The participants enjoyed the procedures and each improved their spelling over baseline performance. The applicability of CCC across academic contexts and for students with behavior disorders was discussed.
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Colin, S; Leybaert, J; Ecalle, J; Magnan, A
2013-05-01
Only a small number of longitudinal studies have been conducted to assess the literacy skills of children with hearing impairment. The results of these studies are inconsistent with regard to the importance of phonology in reading acquisition as is the case in studies with hearing children. Colin, Magnan, Ecalle, and Leybaert (2007) revealed the important role of early phonological skills and the contribution of the factor of age of exposure to Cued Speech (CS: a manual system intended to resolve the ambiguities inherent to speechreading) to subsequent reading acquisition (from kindergarten to first grade) in children with deafness. The aim of the present paper is twofold: (1) to confirm the role of early exposure to CS in the development of the linguistic skills necessary in order to learn reading and writing in second grade; (2) to reveal the possible existence of common factors other than CS that may influence literacy performances and explain the inter-individual difference within groups of children with hearing impairment. Eighteen 6-year-old hearing-impaired and 18 hearing children of the same chronological age were tested from kindergarten to second grade. The children with deafness had either been exposed to CS at an early age, at home and before kindergarten (early-CS group), or had first been exposed to it when they entered kindergarten (late-CS group) or first grade (beginner-CS group). Children were given implicit and explicit phonological tasks, silent reading tasks (word recognition and sentence comprehension), word spelling, and vocabulary tasks. Children in the early-CS group outperformed those of the late-CS and beginner-CS groups in phonological tasks from first grade to second grade. They became better readers and better spellers than those from the late-CS group and the beginner-CS group. Their performances did not differ from those of hearing children in any of the tasks except for the receptive vocabulary test. Thus early exposure to CS seems
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Small wins big: analytic pinyin skills promote Chinese word reading.
Lin, Dan; McBride-Chang, Catherine; Shu, Hua; Zhang, Yuping; Li, Hong; Zhang, Juan; Aram, Dorit; Levin, Iris
2010-08-01
The present study examined invented spelling of pinyin (a phonological coding system for teaching and learning Chinese words) in relation to subsequent Chinese reading development. Among 296 Chinese kindergartners in Beijing, independent invented pinyin spelling was found to be uniquely predictive of Chinese word reading 12 months later, even with Time 1 syllable deletion, phoneme deletion, and letter knowledge, in addition to the autoregressive effects of Time 1 Chinese word reading, statistically controlled. These results underscore the importance of children's early pinyin representations for Chinese reading acquisition, both theoretically and practically. The findings further support the idea of a universal phonological principle and indicate that pinyin is potentially an ideal measure of phonological awareness in Chinese.
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What is specific and what is shared between numbers and words?
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Júlia Beatriz Lopes-Silva
2016-02-01
Full Text Available Reading and spelling performance have a significant correlation with number transcoding, which is the ability to establish a relationship between the verbal and Arabic representations of numbers, when a conversion of numerical symbols from one notation to the other is necessary. The aim of the present study is to reveal shared and specific mechanisms involved in reading and writing words and Arabic numerals in Brazilian school-aged children. One hundred and seventy two children from 2nd to 4th grades were evaluated. All of them had normal intelligence. We conducted a series of hierarchical regression models using scores on word spelling and reading single words and Arabic numerals, as dependent variables. As predictor variables we investigated intelligence, the phonological and visuospatial components of working memory and phonemic awareness. All of the writing and reading tasks (single word spelling and reading as well as number reading and number writing were significantly correlated to each other. In the regressions models, phonological working memory was specifically associated to word reading. Phonemic awareness was the only cognitive variables that systematically predicted all of the school skills investigated, both numerical and word tasks. This suggests that phonemic awareness is a modular cognitive ability shared by several school tasks and might be an important factor associated to the comorbidity between dyslexia and dyscalculia.
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Spelling in Adolescents with Dyslexia: Errors and Modes of Assessment
Tops, Wim; Callens, Maaike; Bijn, Evi; Brysbaert, Marc
2014-01-01
In this study we focused on the spelling of high-functioning students with dyslexia. We made a detailed classification of the errors in a word and sentence dictation task made by 100 students with dyslexia and 100 matched control students. All participants were in the first year of their bachelor's studies and had Dutch as mother tongue. Three…
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Taha, Haitham; Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor
2016-06-01
The current study investigated the contribution of two linguistic intervention programs, phonological and morphological to the development of word spelling among skilled and poor native Arabic readers, in three grades: second, fourth and sixth. The participants were assigned to three experimental groups: morphological intervention, phonological intervention and a non-intervention control group. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and spelling abilities were tested before and after the intervention. Participants from both linguistic intervention programs and in all grades made significant progress in linguistic awareness and spelling after the intervention. The results showed that both intervention programs were successful in promoting children's spelling skills in both groups. Also, older poor readers showed a stronger response to the morphological intervention than the older skilled readers. A transfer effect was found with the phonological training contributing to the morphological skills and vice versa. The results of the current study were discussed in the light of developmental and psycholinguistic views of spelling acquisition as well as the characteristics of Arabic language and orthography.
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Garcia, Dru; Joseph, Laurice M.; Alber-Morgan, Sheila; Konrad, Moira
2014-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine the efficiency of an incremental rehearsal oral versus an incremental rehearsal written procedure on a sample of primary grade children's weekly spelling performance. Participants included five second and one first grader who were in need of help with their spelling according to their teachers. An…
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Angelelli, Paola; Marinelli, Chiara Valeria; De Salvatore, Marinella; Burani, Cristina
2017-11-01
Italian sixth graders, with and without dyslexia, read pseudowords and low-frequency words that include high-frequency morphemes better than stimuli not including any morpheme. The present study assessed whether morphemes affect (1) younger children, with and without dyslexia; (2) spelling as well as reading; and (3) words with low-frequency morphemes. Two groups of third graders (16 children with dyslexia and dysorthography and 16 age-matched typically developing children) read aloud and spelt to dictation pseudowords and words. Pseudowords included (1) root + suffix in not existing combinations (e.g. lampadista, formed by lampad-, 'lamp', and -ista, '-ist') and (2) orthographic sequences not corresponding to any Italian root or suffix (e.g. livonosto). Words had low frequency and included: (1) root + suffix, both of high frequency (e.g. bestiale, 'beastly'); (2) root + suffix, both of low frequency (e.g. asprigno, 'rather sour'); and (3) simple words (e.g. insulso, 'vapid'). Children with dyslexia and dysorthography were less accurate than typically developing children. Root + suffix pseudowords were read and spelt more accurately than non-morphological pseudowords by both groups. Morphologically complex (root + suffix) words were read and spelt better than simple words. However, task interacted with morphology: reading was not facilitated by low-frequency morphemes. We conclude that children acquiring a transparent orthography exploit morpheme-based reading and spelling to face difficulties in processing long unfamiliar stimuli. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Improve your English the essential guide to English grammar, punctuation and spelling
Astle, JE Metcalfe & C
2013-01-01
It's important in our daily lives for us to write clear English which is easily understood. If we get the basics wrong, our words may be misinterpreted and cause confusion. To make sure our written words convey our exact meanings, we need to understand the fundamentals of the English language, such as the parts of speech, how sentences and paragraphs are constructed, and the correct use of punctuation. We also need to spell the words correctly!This indispensable reference guide to the rules and conventions governing written English will help all those who are unsure about whether to use ""i
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The impact of cold spells on mortality and effect modification by cold spell characteristics
Wang, Lijun; Liu, Tao; Hu, Mengjue; Zeng, Weilin; Zhang, Yonghui; Rutherford, Shannon; Lin, Hualiang; Xiao, Jianpeng; Yin, Peng; Liu, Jiangmei; Chu, Cordia; Tong, Shilu; Ma, Wenjun; Zhou, Maigeng
2016-12-01
In China, the health impact of cold weather has received little attention, which limits our understanding of the health impacts of climate change. We collected daily mortality and meteorological data in 66 communities across China from 2006 to 2011. Within each community, we estimated the effect of cold spell exposure on mortality using a Distributed Lag Nonlinear Model (DLNM). We also examined the modification effect of cold spell characteristics (intensity, duration, and timing) and individual-specific factors (causes of death, age, gender and education). Meta-analysis method was finally used to estimate the overall effects. The overall cumulative excess risk (CER) of non-accidental mortality during cold spell days was 28.2% (95% CI: 21.4%, 35.3%) compared with non-cold spell days. There was a significant increase in mortality when the cold spell duration and intensity increased or occurred earlier in the season. Cold spell effects and effect modification by cold spell characteristics were more pronounced in south China. The elderly, people with low education level and those with respiratory diseases were generally more vulnerable to cold spells. Cold spells statistically significantly increase mortality risk in China, with greater effects in southern China. This effect is modified by cold spell characteristics and individual-level factors.
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Activation of extrastriate and frontal cortical areas by visual words and word-like stimuli
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Petersen, S.E.; Fox, P.T.; Snyder, A.Z.; Raichle, M.E.
1990-01-01
Visual presentation of words activates extrastriate regions of the occipital lobes of the brain. When analyzed by positron emission tomography (PET), certain areas in the left, medial extrastriate visual cortex were activated by visually presented pseudowords that obey English spelling rules, as well as by actual words. These areas were not activated by nonsense strings of letters or letter-like forms. Thus visual word form computations are based on learned distinctions between words and nonwords. In addition, during passive presentation of words, but not pseudowords, activation occurred in a left frontal area that is related to semantic processing. These findings support distinctions made in cognitive psychology and computational modeling between high-level visual and semantic computations on single words and describe the anatomy that may underlie these distinctions
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Amsberry, Gianna; McLaughlin, T. F.; Derby, K. Mark; Waco, Teresa
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of using the Davis Symbol Mastery Procedure for Words (Davis, 1994) for improving spelling skills. The participant was a fourth-grade male diagnosed with a significant learning disability. The intervention consisted of having the participant write each word, its definition, the word in a…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Paola eAngelelli
2016-04-01
Full Text Available Language delay is considered a frequent antecedent of literacy problems and both may be linked to phonological impairment. However, while several studies have examined the relationship between language delay and reading impairment, relatively few have focused on spelling.In this study, spelling performance of 28 children with developmental dyslexia (DD, 14 children with a history of language delay (LD and 14 children without (NoLD and 28 control participants were examined.Spelling was investigated by writing a dictation task that included orthographically regular stimuli (word and nonwords, as well as words with unpredictable transcription.Results indicated that all dyslexic participants underperformed compared to controls on both regular and unpredictable transcription stimuli, but LD performance was generally the worst. Moreover, spelling impairment assumed different characteristics in LD and NoLD children. LD children were more sensitive to acoustic-to-phonological variables, showing relevant failure especially on stimuli containing geminate consonants but also on polysyllabic stimuli and those containing non-continuant consonants. Error analysis confirmed these results, with LD children producing a higher rate of phonological errors respect to NoLD children and controls. Results were coherent with the hypothesis that among dyslexic children, those with previous language delay have more severe spelling deficit, suffering from defective orthographic lexical acquisition together with long-lasting phonological difficulties.
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Spelling Processes of Children With Nonsyndromic Cleft Lip and/or Palate: A Preliminary Study.
Lee, Karen Shi Mei; Young, Selena Ee-Li; Liow, Susan Jane Rickard; Purcell, Alison Anne
2015-01-01
Objective : To compare the cognitive-linguistic processes underlying spelling performance of children with cleft lip and/or palate with those of typically developing children. Design : An assessment battery including tests of hearing, articulation, verbal short-term and working memory, and phonological awareness, as well as word and nonword spelling, was administered to both groups. Participants : A total of 15 children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate were case-matched by age and sex to 15 typically developing children. The children were aged between 6 and 8 years and were bilingual, with English the dominant language. Results : Wilcoxon signed-rank tests revealed that the performance of children with cleft lip and/or palate was significantly poorer on phoneme deletion and nonword spelling (P spelling measures for the cleft lip and/or palate and typically developing groups. Conclusions : Children with cleft lip and/or palate underachieve in phonological awareness and spelling skills. To facilitate early intervention for literacy problems, speech-language pathologists should routinely assess the cognitive-linguistic processing of children with cleft lip and/or palate, especially phonological awareness, as part of their case management protocols.
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Dissociations between word and picture naming in Persian speakers with aphasia
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mehdi Bakhtiar
2014-04-01
Full Text Available Studies of patients with aphasia have found dissociations in their ability to read words and name pictures (Hillis & Caramazza, 1995; Hillis & Caramazza, 1991. Persian orthography is characterised by nearly regular orthography-phonology (OP mappings however, the omission of some vowels in the script makes the OP mapping of many words less predictable. The aim of this study was to compare the predictive lexico-semantic variables across reading and picture naming tasks in Persian aphasia while considering the variability across participants and items using mixed modeling. Methods and Results A total of 21 brain-injured Persian-speaking patients suffering from aphasia were asked to name 200 normalized Snodgrass object pictures and words taken from Bakhtiar, Nilipour and Weekes (2013 in different sessions. The results showed that word naming performance was significantly better than object naming in Persian speakers with aphasia (p<0.0001. Applying McNemar’s test to examine individual differences found that 18 patients showed significantly better performance in word reading compared to picture naming, 2 patients showed no difference between naming and reading (i.e. case 1 and 10, and one patient (i.e. case 5 showed significantly better naming compared to reading χ (1=10.23, p< 0.01 (see also Figure 1. A mixed-effect logistic regression analysis revealed that the degree of spelling transparency (i.e. the number of letters in a word divided by the number of its phonemes had an effect on word naming (along with frequency, age of acquisition (AoA, and imageability and picture naming (along with image agreement, AoA, word length, frequency and name agreement with a much stronger effect on the word naming task (b= 1.67, SE= 0.41, z= 4.05, p< 0.0001 compared to the picture naming task (b= -0.64, SE= 0.32, z= 2, p< 0.05. Conclusion The dissociation between word naming and picture naming shown by many patients suggests at least two routes are available
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The Influence of Phonological Mechanisms in Written Spelling of Profoundly Deaf Children
Colombo, Lucia; Arfe, Barbara; Bronte, Tiziana
2012-01-01
In the present study, the effect of phonological and working memory mechanisms involved in spelling Italian single words was explored in two groups of children matched for grade level: a group of normally hearing children and a group of pre-verbally deaf children, with severe-to-profound hearing loss. Three-syllable and four-syllable familiar…
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Kwon, Youan; Choi, Sungmook; Lee, Yoonhyoung
2016-04-01
This study examines whether orthographic information is used during prelexical processes in spoken word recognition by investigating ERPs during spoken word processing for Korean words. Differential effects due to orthographic syllable neighborhood size and sound-to-spelling consistency on P200 and N320 were evaluated by recording ERPs from 42 participants during a lexical decision task. The results indicate that P200 was smaller for words whose orthographic syllable neighbors are large in number rather than those that are small. In addition, a word with a large orthographic syllable neighborhood elicited a smaller N320 effect than a word with a small orthographic syllable neighborhood only when the word had inconsistent sound-to-spelling mapping. The results provide support for the assumption that orthographic information is used early during the prelexical spoken word recognition process. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.
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Lee, Julia Ai Cheng; Al Otaiba, Stephanie
2017-01-01
In this study, we examined the spelling performance of 430 kindergartners, which included a high-risk sample, to determine the relations between end-of-kindergarten reading and spelling in a high-quality language arts setting. We described, analyzed, and compared spelling outcomes, including spelling errors, between good and poor readers. The…
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Bloemsaat, Gijs; Van Galen, Gerard P; Meulenbroek, Ruud G J
2003-05-01
This study investigated the combined effects of orthographical irregularity and auditory memory load on the kinematics of finger movements in a transcription-typewriting task. Eight right-handed touch-typists were asked to type 80 strings of ten seven-letter words. In half the trials an irregularly spelt target word elicited a specific key press sequence of either the left or right index finger. In the other trials regularly spelt target words elicited the same key press sequence. An auditory memory load was added in half the trials by asking participants to remember the pitch of a tone during task performance. Orthographical irregularity was expected to slow down performance. Auditory memory load, viewed as a low level stressor, was expected to affect performance only when orthographically irregular words needed to be typed. The hypotheses were confirmed. Additional analysis showed differential effects on the left and right hand, possibly related to verbal-manual interference and hand dominance. The results are discussed in relation to relevant findings of recent neuroimaging studies.
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Pastizzo, Matthew John; Feldman, Laurie Beth
2009-01-01
Words can be similar with respect to form (viz., spelling, pronunciation), meaning, or both form and meaning. In three lexical decision experiments (48 ms forward masked, 116 ms, and 250 ms SOAs), targets (e.g., FLOAT) followed prime words related by form only (e.g., COAT), meaning only (e.g., SWIM), or form and meaning (e.g., BOAT). BOAT–FLOAT and SWIM–FLOAT type pairs showed reduced target decision latencies relative to unrelated controls when primes were unmasked, but not when they were ma...
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Daigle, Daniel; Costerg, Agnès; Plisson, Anne; Ruberto, Noémia; Varin, Joëlle
2016-05-01
For children with dyslexia, learning to write constitutes a great challenge. There has been consensus that the explanation for these learners' delay is related to a phonological deficit. Results from studies designed to describe dyslexic children's spelling errors are not always as clear concerning the role of phonological processes as those found in reading studies. In irregular languages like French, spelling abilities involve other processes than phonological processes. The main goal of this study was to describe the relative contribution of these other processes in dyslexic children's spelling ability. In total, 32 francophone dyslexic children with a mean age of 11.4 years were compared with 24 reading-age matched controls (RA) and 24 chronological-age matched controls (CA). All had to write a text that was analysed at the graphemic level. All errors were classified as either phonological, morphological, visual-orthographic or lexical. Results indicated that dyslexic children's spelling ability lagged behind not only that of the CA group but also of the RA group. Because the majority of errors, in all groups, could not be explained by inefficiency of phonological processing, the importance of visual knowledge/processes will be discussed as a complementary explanation of dyslexic children's delay in writing. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jacqueline Leybaert
2008-04-01
Full Text Available Reading is a highly complex, flexible and sophisticated cognitive activity, and word recognition constitutes only a small and limited part of the whole process. It seems however that for various reasons, word recognition is worth studying separately from other components. Considering that writing systems are secondary codes representing the language, word recognition mechanisms may appear as an interface between printed material and general language capabilities, and thus, specific difficulties in reading and spelling acquisition should be iodated at the level of isolated word identification (see e. g. Crowder, 1982 for discussion. Moreover, it appears that a prominent characteristic of poor readers is their lack of efficiency in the processing of isolated words (Mitche11,1982; Stanovich, 1982. And finally, word recognition seems to be a more automatic and less controlled component of the whole reading process. Reading is a highly complex, flexible and sophisticated cognitive activity, and word recognition constitutes only a small and limited part of the whole process. It seems however that for various reasons, word recognition is worth studying separately from other components. Considering that writing systems are secondary codes representing the language, word recognition mechanisms may appear as an interface between printed material and general language capabilities, and thus, specific difficulties in reading and spelling acquisition should be iodated at the level of isolated word identification (see e. g. Crowder, 1982 for discussion. Moreover, it appears that a prominent characteristic of poor readers is their lack of efficiency in the processing of isolated words (Mitche11,1982; Stanovich, 1982. And finally, word recognition seems to be a more automatic and less controlled component of the whole reading process.
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U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The ChemSpell Web Service API provides chemical name spell checking and chemical name synonym look-up. ChemSpell contains more than 1.3 million chemical names...
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Spelling Equivalency Awareness
Berk, Barbara; Mazurkiewicz, Albert J.
1976-01-01
Concludes that despite instructional emphasis on one correct spelling, a large segment of the sample populations in this study spell differently from that usually thought correct and that a number of students, teachers, and parents recognize the existence of equally correct alternatives. (RB)
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Morphology and Spelling in French Students with Dyslexia: The Case of Silent Final Letters
Quémart, Pauline; Casalis, Séverine
2017-01-01
Spelling is a challenge for individuals with dyslexia. Phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence rules are highly inconsistent in French, which make them very difficult to master, in particular for dyslexics. One recurrent manifestation of this inconsistency is the presence of silent letters at the end of words. Many of these silent letters perform a…
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Perception and recognition memory of words and werds: two-way mirror effects.
Becker, D Vaughn; Goldinger, Stephen D; Stone, Gregory O
2006-10-01
We examined associative priming of words (e.g., TOAD) and pseudohomophones of those words (e.g., TODE) in lexical decision. In addition to word frequency effects, reliable base-word frequency effects were observed for pseudohomophones: Those based on high-frequency words elicited faster and more accurate correct rejections. Associative priming had disparate effects on high- and low-frequency items. Whereas priming improved performance to high-frequency pseudohomophones, it impaired performance to low-frequency pseudohomophones. The results suggested a resonance process, wherein phonologic identity and semantic priming combine to undermine the veridical perception of infrequent items. We tested this hypothesis in another experiment by administering a surprise recognition memory test after lexical decision. When asked to identify words that were spelled correctly during lexical decision, the participants often misremembered pseudohomophones as correctly spelled items. Patterns of false memory, however, were jointly affected by base-word frequencies and their original responses during lexical decision. Taken together, the results are consistent with resonance accounts of word recognition, wherein bottom-up and top-down information sources coalesce into correct, and sometimes illusory, perception. The results are also consistent with a recent lexical decision model, REM-LD, that emphasizes memory retrieval and top-down matching processes in lexical decision.
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Ding, Yi; Liu, Ru-De; McBride, Catherine; Zhang, Dake
2015-01-01
This study examined analytical pinyin (a phonological coding system for teaching pronunciation and lexical tones of Chinese characters) skills in 54 Mandarin-speaking fourth graders by using an invented spelling instrument that tapped into syllable awareness, phoneme awareness, lexical tones, and tone sandhi in Chinese. Pinyin invented spelling was significantly correlated with Chinese character recognition and Chinese phonological awareness (i.e., syllable deletion and phoneme deletion). In comparison to good and average readers, poor readers performed significantly worse on the invented spelling task, and a difference was also found between average and good readers. To differentiate readers at different levels, the pinyin invented spelling task, which examined both segmental and suprasegmental elements, was superior to the typical phonological awareness task, which examined segments only. Within this new task, items involving tone sandhi (Chinese language changes in which the tones of words alter according to predetermined rules) were more difficult to manipulate than were those without tone sandhi. The findings suggest that this newly developed task may be optimal for tapping unique phonological and linguistic features in reading of Chinese and examining particular tonal difficulties in struggling Chinese readers. In addition, the results suggest that phonics manipulations within tasks of phonological and tonal awareness can alter their difficulty levels. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2014.
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Taha, Haitham; Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor
2016-01-01
The current study investigated the contribution of two linguistic intervention programs, phonological and morphological to the development of word spelling among skilled and poor native Arabic readers, in three grades: second, fourth and sixth. The participants were assigned to three experimental groups: morphological intervention, phonological…
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Intervention program efficacy for spelling difficulties.
Sampaio, Maria Nobre; Capellini, Simone Aparecida
2014-01-01
To develop an intervention procedure for spelling difficulties and to verify the effectiveness of the intervention program in students with lower spelling performance. We developed an intervention program for spelling difficulties, according to the semiology of the errors. The program consisted of three modules totaling 16 sessions. The study included 40 students of the third to fifth grade of public elementary education of the city of Marilia (SP), of both genders, in aged of eight to 12 years old, being distributed in the following groups: GI (20 students with lower spelling performance) and GII (20 students with higher spelling performance). In situation of pre and post-testing, all groups were submitted to the Pro-Orthography. The results statistically analyzed showed that, in general, all groups had average of right that has higher in post-testing, reducing the types of errors second semiologycal classification, mainly related to natural spelling errors. However, the results also showed that the groups submitted to the intervention program showed better performance on spelling tests in relation to not submitted. The intervention program developed was effective once the groups submitted showed better performance on spelling tests in relation to not submitted. Therefore, the intervention program can help professionals in the Health and Education to minimize the problems related to spelling, giving students an intervention that is effective for the development of the spelling knowledge.
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Aram, Dorit; Abiri, Shimrit; Elad, Lili
2014-01-01
The present study aimed to extend understanding of preschoolers' early spelling using the Vygotskian ("Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes," Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1978) paradigm of child development. We assessed the contribution of maternal spelling support in predicting children's word…
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Invented Spelling Activities in Small Groups and Early Spelling and Reading
Martins, Margarida Alves; Salvador, Liliana; Albuquerque, Ana; Silva, Cristina
2016-01-01
Our aim was to assess the impact of an invented spelling programme conducted in small groups on children's written language acquisition in Portuguese. We expected the experimental group to have better post-test results than the control group in spelling and reading. Participants were 160 preschool-age children who were randomly divided into an…
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[Working memory, phonological awareness and spelling hypothesis].
Gindri, Gigiane; Keske-Soares, Márcia; Mota, Helena Bolli
2007-01-01
Working memory, phonological awareness and spelling hypothesis. To verify the relationship between working memory, phonological awareness and spelling hypothesis in pre-school children and first graders. Participants of this study were 90 students, belonging to state schools, who presented typical linguistic development. Forty students were preschoolers, with the average age of six and 50 students were first graders, with the average age of seven. Participants were submitted to an evaluation of the working memory abilities based on the Working Memory Model (Baddeley, 2000), involving phonological loop. Phonological loop was evaluated using the Auditory Sequential Test, subtest 5 of Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA), Brazilian version (Bogossian & Santos, 1977), and the Meaningless Words Memory Test (Kessler, 1997). Phonological awareness abilities were investigated using the Phonological Awareness: Instrument of Sequential Assessment (CONFIAS - Moojen et al., 2003), involving syllabic and phonemic awareness tasks. Writing was characterized according to Ferreiro & Teberosky (1999). Preschoolers presented the ability of repeating sequences of 4.80 digits and 4.30 syllables. Regarding phonological awareness, the performance in the syllabic level was of 19.68 and in the phonemic level was of 8.58. Most of the preschoolers demonstrated to have a pre-syllabic writing hypothesis. First graders repeated, in average, sequences of 5.06 digits and 4.56 syllables. These children presented a phonological awareness of 31.12 in the syllabic level and of 16.18 in the phonemic level, and demonstrated to have an alphabetic writing hypothesis. The performance of working memory, phonological awareness and spelling level are inter-related, as well as being related to chronological age, development and scholarity.
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Luzzatti, C; Laiacona, M; Allamano, N; De Tanti, A; Inzaghi, M G
1998-09-01
We report results of a writing task given to 53 mildly to moderately aphasic Italian subjects. The task was designed to test the writing performance along the subword-level routine for the spelling of regular words and non-words, and along the lexical routine for the spelling of irregular words. The aim of the study was to identify the incidence of different dysgraphic subtypes in Italian, a language that is considered to have shallow orthography. Its spelling, however, is not completely free of ambiguity. A five-part writing task was used: (i) words with regular one-sound-to-one-grapheme conversion; (ii) words with regular syllabic conversion; (iii) words with ambiguous transcription; (iv) loan-words; and (v) non-words. For regular words, the effects of word length and word frequency, and of the variables determining the complexity of the acoustic-to-phonological conversion (continuant versus plosive phones; consonant-vowel sequence versus doubled consonants or consonant clusters) were also considered. Patients' performances were classified according to the presence of a dissociation between (i) regular words and non-words, (ii) regular words and words with unpredictable spellings, and (iii) one-to-one and syllabic conversions. The 53 aphasic patients span the whole spectrum of dysgraphic taxonomy. Thirty-nine patients, in particular, manifested a dissociated pattern of performance. Eighteen patients showed a prevalent surface dysgraphic pattern and seven a phonological one, while 11 patients showed a mixed pattern (i.e. a better performance for regular words than for ambiguous words or regular non-words). Three patients showed a specific deficit for regular syllabic conversion rules only. A high rate of 'mixed dysgraphia' suggests either a mutual interaction of the two impaired routines when regular words are written, or two separate functional lesions: one at the level of the auditory-to-phonological conversion procedure, the other at the level of the
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Ault, Melinda Jones; Baggerman, Melanie A.; Horn, Channon K.
2017-01-01
This study used a multiple probe (conditions) design across behaviors to investigate the effects of an app for the tablet computer to teach spelling of academic content words to four students with developmental disabilities. The app delivered instruction using a model-lead-test format and students typed on the on-screen keyboard. The study also…
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Williams, Kelly J.; Walker, Melodee A.; Vaughn, Sharon; Wanzek, Jeanne
2017-01-01
Spelling is one of the most challenging areas for students with learning disabilities (LD), and improving spelling outcomes for these students is of high importance. In this synthesis, we examined the effects of spelling and reading interventions on spelling outcomes for students with LD in Grades K through 12. A systematic search of peer-reviewed…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
David D. Paige
2018-01-01
Full Text Available This study measures letter naming, phonological awareness, and spelling knowledge in 2,100 kindergarten students attending 63 schools within a large, urban school district. Students were assessed across December, February, and May of the kindergarten year. Results found that, by May, 71.8% of students had attained full letter naming knowledge. Phonological awareness emerged more slowly with 48% of students able to reliably segment and blend phonemes in words. Spelling development, a measure of phonics knowledge, found that, by May, 71.8% of students were in the partial-alphabetic phase. A series of regression analyses revealed that by the end of kindergarten both letter naming and phonological awareness were significant predictors of spelling knowledge (b = .332 and .518 for LK and PA, resp., explaining 52.7% of the variance.
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Evaluation of the patient with spells.
Cornes, Susannah Brock; Shih, Tina
2011-10-01
: The neurologic consultant is frequently called to evaluate the patient with transient neurologic deficits, or spells. Spells can present with a broad array of clinical features, making a systematic evaluation challenging. Familiarity with a variety of key features for different spell types will help the consultant create an appropriate differential diagnosis to guide the diagnostic evaluation. : Recent practice parameters outline the appropriate evaluation for patients presenting with first unprovoked seizure, and an update in the International League Against Epilepsy classification scheme for seizures has shifted the terminology used to describe these spells. When a spell cannot be unambiguously identified as a seizure, recent studies propose features to help distinguish syncope, sleep disorders, and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures. For patients who are critically ill, extended EEG monitoring is increasingly available, and there is a growing appreciation for the high burden of seizures and status epilepticus in the intensive care unit population. : This article reviews the most common paroxysmal spell types encountered on the acute care ward and in the intensive care unit, discusses clinical features that help distinguish various spell types, and proposes a systematic evaluation for use by the neurologic consultant.
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The Spelling Strategies of Francophone Dyslexic Students
Ruberto, Noémia; Daigle, Daniel; Ammar, Ahlem
2016-01-01
The development of spelling skill is a very difficult task for students with dyslexia. Spelling in French involves the consideration of various types of knowledge, procedures and strategies. This study aims to describe the spelling strategies of 32 dyslexic students (DYS) aged from 8 to 12 years and to establish links between spelling strategies…
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Macrostructural Treatment of Multi-word Lexical Items
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Alenka Vrbinc
2011-05-01
Full Text Available The paper discusses the macrostructural treatment of multi-word lexical items in mono- and bilingual dictionaries. First, the classification of multi-word lexical items is presented, and special attention is paid to the discussion of compounds – a specific group of multi-word lexical items that is most commonly afforded headword status but whose inclusion in the headword list may also depend on spelling. Then the inclusion of multi-word lexical items in monolingual dictionaries is dealt with in greater detail, while the results of a short survey on the inclusion of five randomly chosen multi-word lexical items in seven English monolingual dictionaries are presented. The proposals as to how to treat these five multi-word lexical items in bilingual dictionaries are presented in the section about the inclusion of multi-word lexical items in bilingual dictionaries. The conclusion is that it is most important to take the users’ needs into consideration and to make any dictionary as user friendly as possible.
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Phonics Pathways Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling
Hiskes, Dolores G
2011-01-01
Teaches students of all ages the basics of phonics with a time-tested, foolproof method This tenth edition of the best-selling book teaches reading using sounds and spelling patterns. These sounds and patterns are introduced one at a time, and slowly built into words, syllables, phrases, and sentences. Simple step-by-step directions begin every lesson. Although originally designed for K-2 emergent readers, this award-winning book is also successfully being used with adolescent and adult learners, as well as second language learners and students with learning disabilities. Wise and humorous pro
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Games and puzzles for English as a second language
Fremont, Victoria
2011-01-01
Students can hone their verbal and grammatical skills with this entertaining workbook. Search-a-words, crossword puzzles, anagrams, and other challenges build vocabulary and spelling skills. They also help students understand and identify idioms, irregular past tenses and participles, and other linguistic stumbling blocks. Perfect for individual study or as a course supplement.
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Morpho-phonemic analysis boosts word reading for adult struggling readers.
Gray, Susan H; Ehri, Linnea C; Locke, John L
2018-01-01
A randomized control trial compared the effects of two kinds of vocabulary instruction on component reading skills of adult struggling readers. Participants seeking alternative high school diplomas received 8 h of scripted tutoring to learn forty academic vocabulary words embedded within a civics curriculum. They were matched for language background and reading levels, then randomly assigned to either morpho-phonemic analysis teaching word origins, morpheme and syllable structures, or traditional whole word study teaching multiple sentence contexts, meaningful connections, and spellings. Both groups made comparable gains in learning the target words, but the morpho-phonemic group showed greater gains in reading unfamiliar words on standardized tests of word reading, including word attack and word recognition. Findings support theories of word learning and literacy that promote explicit instruction in word analysis to increase poor readers' linguistic awareness by revealing connections between morphological, phonological, and orthographic structures within words.
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Orthographic effects in spoken word recognition: Evidence from Chinese.
Qu, Qingqing; Damian, Markus F
2017-06-01
Extensive evidence from alphabetic languages demonstrates a role of orthography in the processing of spoken words. Because alphabetic systems explicitly code speech sounds, such effects are perhaps not surprising. However, it is less clear whether orthographic codes are involuntarily accessed from spoken words in languages with non-alphabetic systems, in which the sound-spelling correspondence is largely arbitrary. We investigated the role of orthography via a semantic relatedness judgment task: native Mandarin speakers judged whether or not spoken word pairs were related in meaning. Word pairs were either semantically related, orthographically related, or unrelated. Results showed that relatedness judgments were made faster for word pairs that were semantically related than for unrelated word pairs. Critically, orthographic overlap on semantically unrelated word pairs induced a significant increase in response latencies. These findings indicate that orthographic information is involuntarily accessed in spoken-word recognition, even in a non-alphabetic language such as Chinese.
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Bloemsaat, J.G.; Galen, G.P. van; Meulenbroek, R.G.J.
2003-01-01
This study investigated the combined effects of orthographical irregularity and auditory memory load on the kinematics of finger movements in a transcription-typewriting task. Eight right-handed touch-typists were asked to type 80 strings of ten seven-letter words. In half the trials an irregularly
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Doughty, Teresa Taber; Bouck, Emily C; Bassette, Laura; Szwed, Kathryn; Flanagan, Sara
2013-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a pentop computer and accompanying spelling software on the spelling accuracy and academic engagement behavior in three elementary students with disabilities who were served in a resource room setting. Using a multiple baseline across students single subject research design, researchers determined student use of the pentop computer--the FLYPen--and its spelling software may serve as an equivalent intervention to traditional spelling instruction. While academic engagement performance increased considerably for students when using the FLYPen, results indicated little to no improvement over traditional instruction in spelling accuracy. Implications and suggestions for future research are presented.
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A review of spelling acquisition
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Dich, Nadya; Cohn, Abigail C.
2013-01-01
This review article discusses how empirical data on the acquisition of spelling by children inform the question of the psycholinguistic validity of the phoneme, a concept central (at least implicitly) to most phonological theories. The paper reviews data on children's early spelling attempts...... literacy factors into modeling phonological knowledge. In this article, we show that the spelling acquisition data support and are best accounted for by models allowing for a hierarchy of representations, that learning to read and write has a profound effect on the phonological knowledge of an adult...
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Diversity between Panels of the Franks Casket – Spelling and Runic Paleography
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Helena Sobol
2017-10-01
Full Text Available The Franks Casket, a small whalebone box from about 700 AD, contains 59 Old English words inscribed in runes. Systematic differences between its panels have never called into question the standard procedure of explaining one panel basing on the others. The present paper aims at a re-examination of the validity of this approach. The panels show a large enough differentiation of spelling and paleographical features to exclude the possibility of a single author for the whole Casket.
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Alves, Débora Cristina; Casella, Erasmo Barbante; Ferraro, Alexandre Arcanjo
2016-04-01
Purpose to analyze and classify the spelling performance according to the semiology of spelling error of children with developmental dyslexia (DD) and with developmental dyslexia associated to attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity(DD and ADHD) comparing them to a group of children without learning process complaints. Methods Seventy students, from the third to fifth grade, participated in this study divided as follows: 32 children without complaints of learning difficulties (GI), mean age 9.5 years; 22 students with developmental dyslexia (GII), mean age 10 years; 16 scholars with developmental dyslexia associated to attention deficit disorders and hyperactivity (GIII), mean age 9.9. Spelling skills were assessed through a standardized word dictation task. Results Data indicated that GII and GIII children presented lower performance when compared with typically developed children. There was no statistical difference between the performance of GII and GIII children regarding the score reached in spelling, although GIII children presented the lowest performance. We observed differences between GII and GIII only in the type of misspelling. Conclusion Data from this research contribute to develop better programs for intervention in the studied population.
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Visual word learning in adults with dyslexia
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Rosa Kit Wan Kwok
2014-05-01
Full Text Available We investigated word learning in university and college students with a diagnosis of dyslexia and in typically-reading controls. Participants read aloud short (4-letter and longer (7-letter nonwords as quickly as possible. The nonwords were repeated across 10 blocks, using a different random order in each block. Participants returned 7 days later and repeated the experiment. Accuracy was high in both groups. The dyslexics were substantially slower than the controls at reading the nonwords throughout the experiment. They also showed a larger length effect, indicating less effective decoding skills. Learning was demonstrated by faster reading of the nonwords across repeated presentations and by a reduction in the difference in reading speeds between shorter and longer nonwords. The dyslexics required more presentations of the nonwords before the length effect became non-significant, only showing convergence in reaction times between shorter and longer items in the second testing session where controls achieved convergence part-way through the first session. Participants also completed a psychological test battery assessing reading and spelling, vocabulary, phonological awareness, working memory, nonverbal ability and motor speed. The dyslexics performed at a similar level to the controls on nonverbal ability but significantly less well on all the other measures. Regression analyses found that decoding ability, measured as the speed of reading aloud nonwords when they were presented for the first time, was predicted by a composite of word reading and spelling scores (‘literacy’. Word learning was assessed in terms of the improvement in naming speeds over 10 blocks of training. Learning was predicted by vocabulary and working memory scores, but not by literacy, phonological awareness, nonverbal ability or motor speed. The results show that young dyslexic adults have problems both in pronouncing novel words and in learning new written words.
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American and British Business-Related Spelling Differences
Scott, James Calvert
2004-01-01
English language business-related documents around the world contain purposeful spelling differences that reflect two standards, American English and British English. Given the importance of culturally acceptable spelling, the need to be aware of and sensitive to cultural differences, and strong reactions to variation in spelling, it is important…
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Word Identification in Reading and the Promise of Subsymbolic Psycholinguistics.
Van Orden, Guy C.; And Others
1990-01-01
It is argued that dual-process theory has misconstrued the correspondence between words' spelling and their phonology. A subsymbolic alternative to dual-processing theory is presented that includes a clear role for the process of phonologic coding. The subsymbolic approach is developed around a covariant learning hypothesis. (SLD)
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Implicit and Explicit Instruction of Spelling Rules
Kemper, M. J.; Verhoeven, L.; Bosman, A. M. T.
2012-01-01
The study aimed to compare the differential effectiveness of explicit and implicit instruction of two Dutch spelling rules. Students with and without spelling disabilities were instructed a spelling rule either implicitly or explicitly in two experiments. Effects were tested in a pretest-intervention-posttest control group design. Experiment 1…
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Techniques for Improving Spelling Performance.
Saylor, Paul
Improving spelling performance of college students is a question of insuring that the correct information is in long-term memory and readily retrievable. Any system of spelling instruction should recognize the capacity limits of the sensory register and short-term memory; provide for identification of and concentration on the distinctive features…
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Spatial and temporal analysis of dry spells in Greece
Anagnostopoulou, Chr.; Maheras, P.; Karacostas, T.; Vafiadis, M.
A spatio-temporal analysis of the dry spells that occur in the Greek area is carried out for an extended period of 40 years (1958-1997). The dry spells can be defined as a number of consecutive days with no rain. The number of days defines the length of the dry spells. The longest spells are identified in central (Cyclades) and the south-east Aegean Sea whereas dry spells with the minimum length are shown over the north-west of the Greek area that reflects the significance of the latitude and the topography. Negative Binomial Distribution and Markov Chains of second order have been used to fit the duration of the dry spells of different lengths. The study of the seasonal and annual distribution of the frequency of occurrence of dry spells revealed that the dry spells in Greece depict a seasonal character, while medium and long sequences are associated with the duration and hazards of drought.
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Phonetic spelling filter for keyword selection in drug mention mining from social media.
Pimpalkhute, Pranoti; Patki, Apurv; Nikfarjam, Azadeh; Gonzalez, Graciela
2014-01-01
Social media postings are rich in information that often remain hidden and inaccessible for automatic extraction due to inherent limitations of the site's APIs, which mostly limit access via specific keyword-based searches (and limit both the number of keywords and the number of postings that are returned). When mining social media for drug mentions, one of the first problems to solve is how to derive a list of variants of the drug name (common misspellings) that can capture a sufficient number of postings. We present here an approach that filters the potential variants based on the intuition that, faced with the task of writing an unfamiliar, complex word (the drug name), users will tend to revert to phonetic spelling, and we thus give preference to variants that reflect the phonemes of the correct spelling. The algorithm allowed us to capture 50.4 - 56.0 % of the user comments using only about 18% of the variants.
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The Impact of Orthographic Consistency on German Spoken Word Identification
Beyermann, Sandra; Penke, Martina
2014-01-01
An auditory lexical decision experiment was conducted to find out whether sound-to-spelling consistency has an impact on German spoken word processing, and whether such an impact is different at different stages of reading development. Four groups of readers (school children in the second, third and fifth grades, and university students)…
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Mostly homonyms a whimsical perusal of those words that sound alike
Lein, Janet Dickey
2012-01-01
Mostly Homonyms is a new treatment of a traditional topic that is easy to read and use without sacrificing academic relevance. It is intended not only for anyone who wishes to ascertain the correct spelling and usage of a homonym, but also for people who just love words.
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Hempenstall, Kerry
2015-01-01
There has been concern about student literacy expressed in the community in recent years, following the results of national and international assessment. In spelling, there are insufficient hard data, but the perception is that our students are not receiving the exemplary spelling education they require. A number of possible reasons have been…
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Furnes, Bjarte; Samuelsson, Stefan
2010-01-01
In this study, the relationship between latent constructs of phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) were investigated and related to later measures of reading and spelling in children learning to read in different alphabetic writing systems (i.e., Norwegian/Swedish vs. English). 750 U.S./Australian children and 230 Scandinavian children were followed longitudinally between kindergarten and 2nd grade. PA and RAN were measured in kindergarten and Grade 1, while word recognition, phonological decoding, and spelling were measured in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. In general, high stability was observed for the various reading and spelling measures, such that little additional variance was left open for PA and RAN. However, results demonstrated that RAN was more related to reading than spelling across orthographies, with the opposite pattern shown for PA. In addition, tests of measurement invariance show that the factor loadings of each observed indicator on the latent PA factor was the same across U.S./Australia and Scandinavia. Similar findings were obtained for RAN. In general, tests of structural invariance show that models of early literacy development are highly transferable across languages. PMID:21359098
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Text-Speak: Its Influence on the English Spelling Skills
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Nancy A. Arellano
2015-11-01
Full Text Available This study aimed to determine the perceived influence of texting on the English spelling skills of the Teacher Education students of the West Visayas State University – Janiuay Campus (WVSU-JC. It likewise aimed to determine the significant differences on the influence of texting on the English spelling skills of the students when they were grouped as to sex, course and year level and to ascertain the significant relationship between the students’ perceived influence of texting and their performance in English spelling. This study utilized the descriptive method in describing how texting or text messaging influenced the English spelling ability of WVSU-JC Teacher Education students. Two hundred five (205 randomly selected Teacher Education students were utilized as respondents of the study. Researcher-made instruments such as English spelling test and a questionnaire checklist that described the influence of texting on the English spelling skills of the students were used to gather data. Means and standard deviation were used to describe the influence of texting on the English spelling skills of the students. The t-test and ANOVA were used to assess the significant differences on the influence of texting on the respondents’ English spelling skills and Pearson’s-r correlation was used to test the significant relationship between the students’ perceived influence of texting and their performance in English spelling. Results revealed that there was no significant relationship between the Teacher Education students’ perceived influence of texting and performance on their English spelling test and that texting moderately influence the English spelling skills of the Teacher Education students when the respondents were taken as an entire group and as to sex, course and year level. The English spelling skills of the Teacher Education students were good when the respondents were taken as an entire group and when the respondents were grouped
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Kaplan SpellRead. What Works Clearinghouse Intervention Report
What Works Clearinghouse, 2007
2007-01-01
"Kaplan SpellRead" (formerly known as "SpellRead Phonological Auditory Training"[R]) is a literacy program for struggling readers in grades 2 or above, including special education students, English language learners, and students more than two years below grade level in reading. "Kaplan SpellRead" integrates the…
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Partanen, Lea; Korkalainen, Noora; Mäkikallio, Kaarin; Olsén, Päivi; Laukkanen-Nevala, Päivi; Yliherva, Anneli
2018-01-01
Foetal growth restriction (FGR) is associated with communication problems, which might lead to poor literacy skills. The reading and spelling skills of eight- to 10-year-old FGR children born at 24-40 gestational weeks were compared with those of their gestational age-matched, appropriately grown (AGA) peers. A prospectively collected cohort of 37 FGR and 31 AGA children was recruited prenatally at a Finnish tertiary care centre during 1998-2001. The children's reading and spelling skills were assessed using standardised tests for Finnish-speaking second and third graders. Significantly more children performed below the 10th percentile normal values for reading and spelling skills in the FGR group than in the AGA group. At nine years of age, the FGR children had significantly poorer performance in word reading skills and reading fluency, reading accuracy and reading comprehension than the AGA controls. No between-group differences were detected at eight years of age. FGR is associated with poor performance in reading and spelling skills. A third of the FGR children performed below the 10th percentile normal values at nine years of age. These results indicate a need to continuously evaluate linguistic and literacy skills as FGR children age to ensure optimal support. ©2017 Foundation Acta Paediatrica. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Romonath, Roswitha; Wahn, Claudia; Gregg, Noel
2005-01-01
The present study addressed the question whether there is a relationship between phonological and orthographic processes of reading and spelling in adolescents and young adults with and without dyslexia in German and English. On the evidence of the Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis and results of the latest research in foreign language learning the hypothesis is tested if there is a relationship between phonological and orthographic knowledge on the one hand and decoding and spelling performance on the other hand in German adolescents and young adults reading and spelling German and English words. This hypothesis was tested with the statistical method of structural equation modeling and therefore the research population was divided into the following groups: group 1 with dyslexia in reading (n = 93), group 2 with dyslexia in spelling (n = 93), group 3 without dyslexia in reading (n = 95), and group 4 without dyslexia in spelling (n = 95). Results of data analysis show that the postulated prediction model fits only the data of the dyslexia group for reading and spelling, but not for the control group. Also the model for both groups does not fit. The results of the pilot study show that it is necessary to modify diagnostic instruments of measurement and to separate scales of phonological and orthographic processes.
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Invented spelling – a window on early literacy
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Elżbieta Awramiuk
2014-01-01
Full Text Available A wide spectrum of research on preschool spelling development in different languages is presented. In Poland, children at kindergarten are usually at a stage of pre-literacy. Invented spelling means the writing produced by young children (aged 3–7 before they are formally taught reading and writing or are at the beginning of the learning process. Their writing is more spontaneous than learnt. The paper describes an investigation of the development of early literacy and factors influencing it, such as knowledge about orthography (spelling, early morphological awareness or teaching methods. Children’s early writing provides a window on their conceptualisation of the written language, illustrating the process of developing language awareness and spelling skills. Invented spelling, together with phonological abilities and letter knowledge is considered to be a strong predictor for later literacy skills.
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Spelling: Do the Eyes Have It?
Westwood, Peter
2015-01-01
This paper explores the question of whether the ability to spell depends mainly on visual perception and visual imagery, or on other equally important auditory, cognitive, and motor processes. The writer examines the evidence suggesting that accurate spelling draws on a combination of visual processing, visual memory, phonological awareness,…
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Validating a Spanish Developmental Spelling Test.
Ferroli, Lou; Krajenta, Marilyn
The creation and validation of a Spanish version of an English developmental spelling test (DST) is described. An introductory section reviews related literature on the rationale for and construction of DSTs, spelling development in the early grades, and Spanish-English bilingual education. Differences between the English and Spanish test versions…
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Analysis of Dry Spells in Southern Italy (Calabria
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Tommaso Caloiero
2015-06-01
Full Text Available A deficit in precipitation may impact greatly on soil moisture, snowpack, stream flow, groundwater, and reservoir storage. Among the several approaches available to analyze this phenomenon, one of the most applied is the analysis of dry spells. In this paper, an investigation of the spatial and temporal patterns of dry spells, in a region of southern Italy, has been carried out on a daily precipitation dataset. First, the frequency distributions of the sequences of dry days have been analyzed. Then, the regional areas most affected by dry events have been evaluated at annual and seasonal scale. Finally, the long-term trend of the dry spells has been estimated at annual and seasonal scale. Results show that the lower probabilities of long dry spells occur in the main reliefs of the region, while the highest values have been detected in the Ionian side. The spatial distribution of the mean and maximum length values of the dry spells evidenced a west–east gradient. The trend analysis mainly revealed a negative behavior in the duration of the dry spells at annual scale and a positive trend in the winter period.
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Using Research to Make Informed Decisions about the Spelling Curriculum
Putman, Rebecca
2017-01-01
Learning how to spell is important. Most people would agree that the ability to spell correctly is an essential trait of literate people, and that students must be taught how to spell correctly; however, there is still debate among parents, educators, and the public as to how spelling should be taught in the schools. This paper reexamines and…
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Predicting Handwriting Difficulties through Spelling Processes
Rodríguez, Cristina; Villarroel, Rebeca
2017-01-01
This study examined whether spelling tasks contribute to the prediction of the handwriting status of children with poor and good handwriting skills in a cross-sectional study with 276 Spanish children from Grades 1 and 3. The main hypothesis was that the spelling tasks would predict the handwriting status of the children, although this influence…
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An efficient word typing P300-BCI system using a modified T9 interface and random forest classifier.
Akram, Faraz; Han, Seung Moo; Kim, Tae-Seong
2015-01-01
A typical P300-based spelling brain computer interface (BCI) system types a single character with a character presentation paradigm and a P300 classification system. Lately, a few attempts have been made to type a whole word with the help of a smart dictionary that suggests some candidate words with the input of a few initial characters. In this paper, we propose a novel paradigm utilizing initial character typing with word suggestions and a novel P300 classifier to increase word typing speed and accuracy. The novel paradigm involves modifying the Text on 9 keys (T9) interface, which is similar to the keypad of a mobile phone used for text messaging. Users can type the initial characters using a 3×3 matrix interface and an integrated custom-built dictionary that suggests candidate words as the user types the initials. Then the user can select one of the given suggestions to complete word typing. We have adopted a random forest classifier, which significantly improves P300 classification accuracy by combining multiple decision trees. We conducted experiments with 10 subjects using the proposed BCI system. Our proposed paradigms significantly reduced word typing time and made word typing more convenient by outputting complete words with only a few initial character inputs. The conventional spelling system required an average time of 3.47 min per word while typing 10 random words, whereas our proposed system took an average time of 1.67 min per word, a 51.87% improvement, for the same words under the same conditions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Development of brain networks involved in spoken word processing of Mandarin Chinese.
Cao, Fan; Khalid, Kainat; Lee, Rebecca; Brennan, Christine; Yang, Yanhui; Li, Kuncheng; Bolger, Donald J; Booth, James R
2011-08-01
Developmental differences in phonological and orthographic processing of Chinese spoken words were examined in 9-year-olds, 11-year-olds and adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Rhyming and spelling judgments were made to two-character words presented sequentially in the auditory modality. Developmental comparisons between adults and both groups of children combined showed that age-related changes in activation in visuo-orthographic regions depended on a task. There were developmental increases in the left inferior temporal gyrus and the right inferior occipital gyrus in the spelling task, suggesting more extensive visuo-orthographic processing in a task that required access to these representations. Conversely, there were developmental decreases in activation in the left fusiform gyrus and left middle occipital gyrus in the rhyming task, suggesting that the development of reading is marked by reduced involvement of orthography in a spoken language task that does not require access to these orthographic representations. Developmental decreases may arise from the existence of extensive homophony (auditory words that have multiple spellings) in Chinese. In addition, we found that 11-year-olds and adults showed similar activation in the left superior temporal gyrus across tasks, with both groups showing greater activation than 9-year-olds. This pattern suggests early development of perceptual representations of phonology. In contrast, 11-year-olds and 9-year-olds showed similar activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus across tasks, with both groups showing weaker activation than adults. This pattern suggests late development of controlled retrieval and selection of lexical representations. Altogether, this study suggests differential effects of character acquisition on development of components of the language network in Chinese as compared to previous reports on alphabetic languages. Published by Elsevier Inc.
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How to teach children reading and spelling
Bosman, A.M.T.; Schraven, J.L.M.; Segers, E.; Broek, P. van den
2017-01-01
The effectiveness of the Dutch reading and spelling didactic 'How to teach children reading and spelling' (HTCRS), developed by Schraven (1994/2013) was empirically tested in children attending special education. HTCRS is based on the principles of direct and classroom instruction, and the task
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Examining the central and peripheral processes of written word production through meta-analysis
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jeremy ePurcell
2011-10-01
Full Text Available Producing written words requires central cognitive processes (such as orthographic long-term and working memory as well as more peripheral processes responsible for generating the motor actions needed for producing written words in a variety of formats (handwriting, typing, etc.. In recent years, various functional neuroimaging studies have examined the neural substrates underlying the central and peripheral processes of written word production. This study provides the first quantitative meta-analysis of these studies by applying Activation Likelihood Estimation methods (Turkeltaub et al., 2002. For alphabet languages, we identified 11 studies (with a total of 17 experimental contrasts that had been designed to isolate central and/or peripheral processes of word spelling (total number of participants = 146. Three ALE meta-analyses were carried out. One involved the complete set of 17 contrasts; two others were applied to subsets of contrasts to distinguish the neural substrates of central from peripheral processes. These analyses identified a network of brain regions reliably associated with the central and peripheral processes of word spelling. Among the many significant results, is the finding that the regions with the greatest correspondence across studies were in the left inferior temporal/fusiform gyri and left inferior frontal gyrus. Furthermore, although the angular gyrus has traditionally been identified as a key site within the written word production network, none of the meta-analyses found it to be a consistent site of activation, identifying instead a region just superior/medial to the left angular gyrus in the left posterior intraparietal sulcus. In general these meta-analyses and the discussion of results provide a valuable foundation upon which future studies that examine the neural basis of written word production can build.
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Wolf, Beverly; Abbott, Robert D; Berninger, Virginia W
2017-02-01
In Study 1, the treatment group ( N = 33 first graders, M = 6 years 10 months, 16 girls) received Slingerland multi-modal (auditory, visual, tactile, motor through hand, and motor through mouth) manuscript (unjoined) handwriting instruction embedded in systematic spelling, reading, and composing lessons; and the control group ( N =16 first graders, M = 7 years 1 month, 7 girls) received manuscript handwriting instruction not systematically related to the other literacy activities. ANOVA showed both groups improved on automatic alphabet writing from memory; but ANCOVA with the automatic alphabet writing task as covariate showed that the treatment group improved significantly more than control group from the second to ninth month of first grade on dictated spelling and recognition of word-specific spellings among phonological foils. In Study 2 new groups received either a second year of manuscript ( N = 29, M = 7 years 8 months, 16 girls) or introduction to cursive (joined) instruction in second grade ( N = 24, M = 8 years 0 months, 11 girls) embedded in the Slingerland literacy program. ANCOVA with automatic alphabet writing as covariate showed that those who received a second year of manuscript handwriting instruction improved more on sustained handwriting over 30, 60, and 90 seconds than those who had had only one year of manuscript instruction; both groups improved in spelling and composing from the second to ninth month of second grade. Results are discussed in reference to mastering one handwriting format before introducing another format at a higher grade level and always embedding handwriting instruction in writing and reading instruction aimed at all levels of language.
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Wolf, Beverly; Abbott, Robert D.; Berninger, Virginia W.
2016-01-01
In Study 1, the treatment group (N = 33 first graders, M = 6 years 10 months, 16 girls) received Slingerland multi-modal (auditory, visual, tactile, motor through hand, and motor through mouth) manuscript (unjoined) handwriting instruction embedded in systematic spelling, reading, and composing lessons; and the control group (N =16 first graders, M = 7 years 1 month, 7 girls) received manuscript handwriting instruction not systematically related to the other literacy activities. ANOVA showed both groups improved on automatic alphabet writing from memory; but ANCOVA with the automatic alphabet writing task as covariate showed that the treatment group improved significantly more than control group from the second to ninth month of first grade on dictated spelling and recognition of word-specific spellings among phonological foils. In Study 2 new groups received either a second year of manuscript (N = 29, M = 7 years 8 months, 16 girls) or introduction to cursive (joined) instruction in second grade (N = 24, M = 8 years 0 months, 11 girls) embedded in the Slingerland literacy program. ANCOVA with automatic alphabet writing as covariate showed that those who received a second year of manuscript handwriting instruction improved more on sustained handwriting over 30, 60, and 90 seconds than those who had had only one year of manuscript instruction; both groups improved in spelling and composing from the second to ninth month of second grade. Results are discussed in reference to mastering one handwriting format before introducing another format at a higher grade level and always embedding handwriting instruction in writing and reading instruction aimed at all levels of language. PMID:28190930
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The Relationship between Reading, Writing, and Spelling.
Keegan, Jill
This paper asks whether there is a relationship between reading, writing, and spelling, whether these subjects should be taught together or separately. A review of the literature found that many theorists saw a strong relationship between just reading and writing, while others believed spelling belonged with these. The consensus of researchers was…
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Tong, Xiuhong; McBride, Catherine; Lo, Jason Chor Ming; Shu, Hua
2017-11-01
In the present study, we used a three-time point longitudinal design to investigate the associations of morphological awareness to word reading and spelling in a small group of those with and without dyslexia taken from a larger sample of 164 Hong Kong Chinese children who remained in a longitudinal study across ages 6, 7 and 8. Among those 164 children, 15 had been diagnosed as having dyslexia by professional psychologists, and 15 other children manifested average reading ability and had been randomly selected from the sample for comparison. All children were administered a battery of tasks including Chinese character recognition, word dictation, morphological awareness, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming. Multivariate analysis of variance and predictive discriminate analysis were performed to examine whether the dyslexic children showed differences in the cognitive-linguistic tasks in comparison with controls. Results suggested that the dyslexic groups had poorer performance in morphological awareness and RAN across all 3 years. However, phonological awareness was not stable in distinguishing the groups. Findings suggest that morphological awareness is a relatively strong correlate of spelling difficulties in Chinese, but phonological awareness is not. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
赵丽
2009-01-01
From the relationship between culture and language, we know language is a carrier of culture; each nation has its own distinctive culture. Through comparing cultural connotation between Chinese characters and English words, we know it is more important for us to master the cultural connotation of words than just knowing their spelling and pronouncing. Only under this condition, we can use English properly and freely.
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The impact of the 2008 cold spell on mortality in Shanghai, China
Ma, Wenjuan; Yang, Chunxue; Chu, Chen; Li, Tiantian; Tan, Jianguo; Kan, Haidong
2013-01-01
No prior studies in China have investigated the health impact of cold spell. In Shanghai, we defined the cold spell as a period of at least seven consecutive days with daily temperature below the third percentile during the study period (2001-2009). Between January 2001 and December 2009, we identified a cold spell between January 27 and February 3, 2008 in Shanghai. We investigated the impact of cold spell on mortality of the residents living in the nine urban districts of Shanghai. We calculated the excess deaths and rate ratios (RRs) during the cold spell and compared these data with a winter reference period (January 6-9, and February 28 to March 2). The number of excess deaths during the cold spell period was 153 in our study population. The cold spell caused a short-term increase in total mortality of 13 % (95 % CI: 7-19 %). The impact was statistically significant for cardiovascular mortality (RR = 1.21, 95 % CI: 1.12-1.31), but not for respiratory mortality (RR = 1.14, 95 % CI: 0.98-1.32). For total mortality, gender did not make a statistically significant difference for the cold spell impact. Cold spell had a significant impact on mortality in elderly people (over 65 years), but not in other age groups. Conclusively, our analysis showed that the 2008 cold spell had a substantial effect on mortality in Shanghai. Public health programs should be tailored to prevent cold-spell-related health problems in the city.
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Yeung, Susanna S S; Siegel, Linda S; Chan, Carol K K
2013-05-01
This study investigated the effects of a 12-week language-enriched phonological awareness instruction on 76 Hong Kong young children who were learning English as a second language. The children were assigned randomly to receive the instruction on phonological awareness skills embedded in vocabulary learning activities or comparison instruction which consisted of vocabulary learning and writing tasks but no direct instruction in phonological awareness skills. They were tested on receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness at the syllable, rhyme and phoneme levels, reading, and spelling in English before and after the program implementation. The results indicated that children who received the phonological awareness instruction performed significantly better than the comparison group on English word reading, spelling, phonological awareness at all levels and expressive vocabulary on the posttest when age, general intelligence and the pretest scores were controlled statistically. The findings suggest that phonological awareness instruction embedded in vocabulary learning activities might be beneficial to kindergarteners learning English as a second language.
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The QWERTY effect: how typing shapes the meanings of words.
Jasmin, Kyle; Casasanto, Daniel
2012-06-01
The QWERTY keyboard mediates communication for millions of language users. Here, we investigated whether differences in the way words are typed correspond to differences in their meanings. Some words are spelled with more letters on the right side of the keyboard and others with more letters on the left. In three experiments, we tested whether asymmetries in the way people interact with keys on the right and left of the keyboard influence their evaluations of the emotional valence of the words. We found the predicted relationship between emotional valence and QWERTY key position across three languages (English, Spanish, and Dutch). Words with more right-side letters were rated as more positive in valence, on average, than words with more left-side letters: the QWERTY effect. This effect was strongest in new words coined after QWERTY was invented and was also found in pseudowords. Although these data are correlational, the discovery of a similar pattern across languages, which was strongest in neologisms, suggests that the QWERTY keyboard is shaping the meanings of words as people filter language through their fingers. Widespread typing introduces a new mechanism by which semantic changes in language can arise.
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Empirical analysis of dry spells for agricultural applications in west Africa
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Sivakumar, M.V.K.
1992-01-01
Recurring droughts and decreased agricultural productivity during the last two decades in West Africa point to the need for a clearer understanding of the length of dry spells, their frequencies, and their probabilities. The simplest calculations of dry spells for general applications involve computation of the probabilities of maximum and conditional dry spells exceeding a user-specified threshold value from a given calendar date. For more precise applications in agriculture, it is important to consider the different periods after sowing a crop, since sowing dates in the semiarid West African regions vary from year to year. Using the specific definition of onset of rains in each year as the sowing date, the length of dry spells was calculated from the historical rainfall data. Probability distribution of time to the next wet day and the percentage frequencies of dry spells were computed for successive days after sowing (DAS) a crop. Dry-spell analysis showed a pronounced drop in the drought risk for cereal crops from the panicle initiation phase (20 DAS) to the flowering phase (60 DAS). The relationships between mean annual rainfall and average frequency of dry spells for the selected locations in West Africa showed distinct patterns and permit the prediction of the frequency of dry spells from annual rainfall totals. Applications of the dry-spell analysis for the choice of a crop/variety, supplemental irrigation, and crop water requirements have been described with examples
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Berninger, Virginia W.; Nagy, William; Tanimoto, Steve; Thompson, Rob; Abbott, Robert D.
2014-01-01
Effectiveness of iPad computerized writing instruction was evaluated for 4th to 9th graders (n=35) with diagnosed specific learning disabilities (SLDs) affecting writing: dysgraphia (impaired handwriting), dyslexia (impaired spelling), and oral and written language learning disability (OWL LD) (impaired syntax composing). Each of the 18 two-hour lessons had multiple learning activities aimed at improving subword- (handwriting), word- (spelling), and syntax- (sentence composing) level language skills by engaging all four language systems (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) to create a functional writing system. To evaluate treatment effectiveness, normed measures of handwriting, spelling, and composing were used with the exception of one non-normed alphabet writing task. Results showed that the sample as a whole improved significantly from pretest to posttest in three handwriting measures, four spelling measures, and both written and oral syntax construction measures. All but oral syntax was evaluated with pen and paper tasks, showing that the computer writing instruction transferred to better writing with pen and paper. Performance on learning activities during instruction correlated with writing outcomes; and individual students tended to improve in the impaired skill associated with their diagnosis. Thus, although computers are often used in upper elementary school and middle school in the United States (US) for accommodations (alternatives to pen and paper) for students with persisting SLDs affecting writing, this study shows computers can also be used for Tier 3 instruction to improve the writing skills of students in grades 4 to 9 with history of persisting writing disabilities. PMID:25378768
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Berninger, Virginia W; Nagy, William; Tanimoto, Steve; Thompson, Rob; Abbott, Robert D
2015-02-01
Effectiveness of iPad computerized writing instruction was evaluated for 4 th to 9 th graders ( n =35) with diagnosed specific learning disabilities (SLDs) affecting writing: dysgraphia (impaired handwriting), dyslexia (impaired spelling), and oral and written language learning disability (OWL LD) (impaired syntax composing). Each of the 18 two-hour lessons had multiple learning activities aimed at improving subword - (handwriting), word - (spelling), and syntax - (sentence composing) level language skills by engaging all four language systems (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) to create a functional writing system. To evaluate treatment effectiveness, normed measures of handwriting, spelling, and composing were used with the exception of one non-normed alphabet writing task. Results showed that the sample as a whole improved significantly from pretest to posttest in three handwriting measures, four spelling measures, and both written and oral syntax construction measures. All but oral syntax was evaluated with pen and paper tasks, showing that the computer writing instruction transferred to better writing with pen and paper. Performance on learning activities during instruction correlated with writing outcomes; and individual students tended to improve in the impaired skill associated with their diagnosis. Thus, although computers are often used in upper elementary school and middle school in the United States (US) for accommodations (alternatives to pen and paper) for students with persisting SLDs affecting writing, this study shows computers can also be used for Tier 3 instruction to improve the writing skills of students in grades 4 to 9 with history of persisting writing disabilities.
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Radar Observations of 8.3-m scale equatorial spread F irregularities over Trivandrum
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
D. Tiwari
2004-03-01
Full Text Available In this paper, we present observations of equatorial spread F (ESF irregularities made using a newly installed 18MHz radar located at Trivandrum. We characterize the morphology and the spectral parameters of the 8.3-m ESF irregularities which are found to be remarkably different from that observed so extensively at the 3-m scale size. We also present statistical results of the irregularities in the form of percentage occurrence of the echoes and spectral parameters (SNR, Doppler velocity, Spectral width. The Doppler spectra are narrower, less structured and less variable in time as compared to those observed for 3-m scale size. We have never observed the ESF irregularity velocities to be supersonic here unlike those at Jicamarca, and the velocities are found to be within ±200ms–1. The spectral widths are found to be less than 150ms–1. Hence, the velocities and spectral width both are smaller than those reported for 3-m scale size. The velocities and spectral widths are further found to be much smaller than those of the American sector. These observations are compared with those reported elsewhere and discussed in the light of present understanding on the ESF irregularities at different wavelengths. Key words. Ionoshphere (equatorial ionosphere, plasma waves and instabilities; ionospheric irregularities
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New insights on developmental dyslexia subtypes: heterogeneity of mixed reading profiles.
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Rachel Zoubrinetzky
Full Text Available We examined whether classifications based on reading performance are relevant to identify cognitively homogeneous subgroups of dyslexic children. Each of the 71 dyslexic participants was selected to have a mixed reading profile, i.e. poor irregular word and pseudo-word reading performance (accuracy and speed. Despite their homogeneous reading profile, the participants were found to split into four distinct cognitive subgroups, characterized by a single phonological disorder, a single visual attention span disorder, a double deficit or none of these disorders. The two subgroups characterized by single and contrasted cognitive disorders were found to exhibit a very similar reading pattern but more contrasted spelling performance (quantitative analysis. A qualitative analysis of the error types produced in reading and spelling provided some cues about the participants' underlying cognitive deficit. The overall findings disqualify subtyping based on reading profiles as a classification method to identify cognitively homogeneous subgroups of dyslexic children. They rather show an opaque relationship between the cognitive underpinnings of developmental dyslexia and their behavioral manifestations in reading and spelling. Future neuroimaging and genetic studies should take this issue into account since synthesizing over cognitively heterogeneous children would entail potential pitfalls.
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New Insights on Developmental Dyslexia Subtypes: Heterogeneity of Mixed Reading Profiles
Zoubrinetzky, Rachel; Bielle, Frédérique; Valdois, Sylviane
2014-01-01
We examined whether classifications based on reading performance are relevant to identify cognitively homogeneous subgroups of dyslexic children. Each of the 71 dyslexic participants was selected to have a mixed reading profile, i.e. poor irregular word and pseudo-word reading performance (accuracy and speed). Despite their homogeneous reading profile, the participants were found to split into four distinct cognitive subgroups, characterized by a single phonological disorder, a single visual attention span disorder, a double deficit or none of these disorders. The two subgroups characterized by single and contrasted cognitive disorders were found to exhibit a very similar reading pattern but more contrasted spelling performance (quantitative analysis). A qualitative analysis of the error types produced in reading and spelling provided some cues about the participants' underlying cognitive deficit. The overall findings disqualify subtyping based on reading profiles as a classification method to identify cognitively homogeneous subgroups of dyslexic children. They rather show an opaque relationship between the cognitive underpinnings of developmental dyslexia and their behavioral manifestations in reading and spelling. Future neuroimaging and genetic studies should take this issue into account since synthesizing over cognitively heterogeneous children would entail potential pitfalls. PMID:24918441
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The plants, rituals and spells that 'cured' helminthiasis in Sicily
Napoli, Mariangela
2008-01-01
Background The author reports on the plants, rituals and spells used against worms and the so-called scantu (fright) in some areas of Sicily. The work is based on ethnobotanical research carried out, prevalently, between 2002-2006, in some areas of Eastern, South-Eastern, North-Central and South-Central Sicily. Methods This research is based on dialogue. Senior 'healers' were contacted; furthermore, doctors, teachers, farmers and in general 'experts' with herbs and 'magic' rituals. Information was collected about the way the plants of folk medicine are prepared. The interviewees were also invited to recite prayers and spells against helminthiasis. Results The author has highlighted the importance of how, in some parts of Sicily, some ailments like helminthiasis and other correlated pathologies like scantu are 'treated' and, especially within the rural social classes, by folk medicine remedies, herbal practises, particular prayers, rituals and spells. Conclusion As regards health/illness, it should be noted that in the last ten years conventional medicine has provided very satisfactory results even resolving potentially mortal pathologies. However, in certain social classes, there is no real collaboration between conventional and folk medicine; so for some senior citizens, the 'healer' with his rituals and empirical and magical herbs is still the person to turn to for the 'cure' of particular ailments. Interest in these practises from ancestral heritage in an advanced country like Italy, is only relevant if the aim is to recoup a cultural identity which is already in decline. It is significant to report a piece: on 14 October 2007 the news on a well-known national Italian TV channel reported an interview with a 94 year-old man from Arbatax (Sardinia) referred to as a 'healer' because both his townspeople and others from all over the world go to him for his cures. He is not paid except in kind and has been known to cure St. Anthony's fire, burns, scalding and marine
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Kahn-Horwitz, Janina
2016-04-01
This quasi-experimental study adds to the small existing literature on orthographic-related teacher knowledge in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context. The study examined the impact of a course on English orthography on predominantly non-native-speaking EFL preservice and inservice teachers' orthographic content knowledge, and the extent to which these teachers retained orthographic-related content knowledge four months after participating in a semester course on the topic. In addition, the study examined the relationship between participants' acquired orthographic-related content knowledge and EFL spelling. Both groups of teachers that studied in the course improved on overall orthographic-related content knowledge, both immediately following the course and longitudinally. Preservice and inservice participants showed similar levels of orthographic knowledge prior to course participation and both showed significant improvements compared to controls following course participation. Participants also retained knowledge four months after course completion. Overall, the inservice teachers scored higher on orthographic-related knowledge, possibly as a result of the immediate application of their newly acquired knowledge. An unexpected finding was a lack of interaction between acquired orthographic-related content knowledge and pseudo word spelling scores. Possible methodological limitations, such as number of participants as well as the length and scope of the course, may explain this outcome. This paper also discusses practical implications of this study for EFL decoding and spelling instruction.
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Key identifiers and spelling conventions in MXit-lingo as found in conversations with Dr Math
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Laurie Butgereit
2012-07-01
Full Text Available Different human languages look different from other human languages. To use a term from the computer industry, each human language has its own “look and feel”. European English speakers can easily recognise a phrase such as “Comment allez-vous?” as being written in French while the phrase “¿Habla usted español?” is written in Spanish. Each language has its own letter frequencies, word frequencies and other identifiers. This paper describes key identifiers in MXit lingo as found in Dr Math conversations. MXit is a mobile instant messaging system which originated in South Africa and is expanding to other countries. Dr Math is a mobile tutoring system which uses MXit as a communication protocol. Primary and secondary school pupils can receive help with the mathematics homework using the Dr Math tutoring system. The pupils use MXit on their cell phones and the tutors use traditional Internet workstations. After exploring how MXit lingo is written, this paper will briefly explore why MXit lingo is written the way it is. By identifying and describing the orthographic conventions visible in the spelling of MXit lingo, although with some theoretical support, insight into the purposeful and functional nature of written, mobile communication will be revealed. In highlighting spelling that is influenced by Black South African English, an attempt will be made to contribute to the empirical development of a field of study that explores the construction of words used in South African mobile communication. Keywords: MXit, Math, letters, writing, orthography Disciplines: Linguistics, mathematics, information technology
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Spelling acquisition in English and Italian: A cross-linguistic study
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Chiara Valeria eMarinelli
2015-12-01
Full Text Available We examined the spelling acquisition in children up to late primary school of a consistent orthography (Italian and an inconsistent orthography (English. The effects of frequency, lexicality, length and regularity in modulating spelling performance of the two groups were examined. English and Italian children were matched for both chronological age and number of years of schooling. Two-hundred and seven Italian children and 79 English children took part in the study. We found greater accuracy in spelling in Italian than English children: Italian children were very accurate after only two years of schooling, while in English children the spelling performance was still poor after five years of schooling. Cross-linguistic differences in spelling accuracy proved to be more persistent than the corresponding ones in reading accuracy. Orthographic consistency produced not only quantitative, but also qualitative differences, with larger frequency and regularity effects in English than in Italian children.
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Spelling Acquisition in English and Italian: A Cross-Linguistic Study.
Marinelli, Chiara V; Romani, Cristina; Burani, Cristina; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi
2015-01-01
We examined the spelling acquisition in children up to late primary school of a consistent orthography (Italian) and an inconsistent orthography (English). The effects of frequency, lexicality, length, and regularity in modulating spelling performance of the two groups were examined. English and Italian children were matched for both chronological age and number of years of schooling. Two-hundred and seven Italian children and 79 English children took part in the study. We found greater accuracy in spelling in Italian than English children: Italian children were very accurate after only 2 years of schooling, while in English children the spelling performance was still poor after 5 years of schooling. Cross-linguistic differences in spelling accuracy proved to be more persistent than the corresponding ones in reading accuracy. Orthographic consistency produced not only quantitative, but also qualitative differences, with larger frequency and regularity effects in English than in Italian children.
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Spelling and Assistive Technology: Helping Students with Disabilities Be Successful Writers
Simmons, Kate D.; Carpenter, Laura B.
2010-01-01
Successful writers have proficient skills in three areas: handwriting, spelling and composition. Many students with disabilities experience difficulties in the area of spelling, which in turn may lead to difficulty in composing written work. Spelling deficits should be addressed by the student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) team to…
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Modeling, Predicting, and Monitoring Reading and Spelling Achievement.
Mommers, Martin; Oud, Johan
A longitudinal study examined the development of decoding skills, reading comprehension skills, and spelling skills across the first three years of primary education in order to examine the relations among the variables in a dynamic causal model of the development of reading and spelling skills. Subjects, 310 first grade children in 12 schools…
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Radar Observations of 8.3-m scale equatorial spread F irregularities over Trivandrum
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
D. Tiwari
2004-03-01
Full Text Available In this paper, we present observations of equatorial spread F (ESF irregularities made using a newly installed 18MHz radar located at Trivandrum. We characterize the morphology and the spectral parameters of the 8.3-m ESF irregularities which are found to be remarkably different from that observed so extensively at the 3-m scale size. We also present statistical results of the irregularities in the form of percentage occurrence of the echoes and spectral parameters (SNR, Doppler velocity, Spectral width. The Doppler spectra are narrower, less structured and less variable in time as compared to those observed for 3-m scale size. We have never observed the ESF irregularity velocities to be supersonic here unlike those at Jicamarca, and the velocities are found to be within ±200ms–1. The spectral widths are found to be less than 150ms–1. Hence, the velocities and spectral width both are smaller than those reported for 3-m scale size. The velocities and spectral widths are further found to be much smaller than those of the American sector. These observations are compared with those reported elsewhere and discussed in the light of present understanding on the ESF irregularities at different wavelengths.
Key words. Ionoshphere (equatorial ionosphere, plasma waves and instabilities; ionospheric irregularities -
Predicting Reading and Spelling Disorders: A 4-Year Prospective Cohort Study.
Bigozzi, Lucia; Tarchi, Christian; Caudek, Corrado; Pinto, Giuliana
2016-01-01
In this 4-year prospective cohort study, children with a reading and spelling disorder, children with a spelling impairment, and children without a reading and/or spelling disorder (control group) in a transparent orthography were identified in third grade, and their emergent literacy performances in kindergarten compared retrospectively. Six hundred and forty-two Italian children participated. This cohort was followed from the last year of kindergarten to third grade. In kindergarten, the children were assessed in phonological awareness, conceptual knowledge of writing systems and textual competence. In third grade, 18 children with a reading and spelling impairment and 13 children with a spelling impairment were identified. Overall, conceptual knowledge of the writing system was the only statistically significant predictor of the clinical samples. No differences were found between the two clinical samples.
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Beyond the Rainbow: Retrieval Practice Leads to Better Spelling than Does Rainbow Writing
Jones, Angela C.; Wardlow, Liane; Pan, Steven C.; Zepeda, Cristina; Heyman, Gail D.; Dunlosky, John; Rickard, Timothy C.
2016-01-01
In three experiments, we compared the effectiveness of rainbow writing and retrieval practice, two common methods of spelling instruction. In experiment 1 (n = 14), second graders completed 2 days of spelling practice, followed by spelling tests 1 day and 5 weeks later. A repeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated that spelling accuracy…
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Towards automatic recognition of irregular, short-open answers in Fill-in-the-blank tests
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Sergio A. Rojas
2014-01-01
Full Text Available Assessment of student knowledge in Learning Management Systems such as Moodle is mostly conducted using close-ended questions (e.g. multiple-choice whose answers are straightforward to grade without human intervention. FILL-IN-THE-BLANK tests are usually more challenging since they require test-takers to recall concepts and associations not available in the statement of the question itself (no choices or hints are given. Automatic assessment of the latter currently requires the test-taker to give a verbatim answer, that is, free of spelling or typographical mistakes. In this paper, we consider an adapted version of a classical text-matching algorithm that may prevent wrong grading in automatic assessment of FILL-IN-THE-BLANK questions whenever irregular (similar but not exact answers occur due to such types of error. The technique was tested in two scenarios. In the first scenario, misspelled single-word answers to an Internet security questionnaire were correctly recognized within a two letter editing tolerance (achieving 99 % accuracy. The second scenario involved short-open answers to computer programming quizzes (i.e. small blocks of code requiring a structure that conforms to the syntactic rules of the programming language. Twenty-one real-world answers written up by students, taking a computer programming course, were assessed by the method. This assessment addressed the lack of precision in terms of programmer-style artifacts (such as unfamiliar variable or function nomenclature and uses an admissible tolerance of up to 20 % letter-level typos. These scores were satisfactory corroborated by a human expert. Additional findings and potential enhancements to the technique are also discussed.
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Corvacho Del Toro, Irene M
2016-09-01
This paper explains how a qualitative analysis of spelling mistakes (Oldenburger Fehleranalyse, Thomé & Thomé, 2014) may be used to select learning materials according to individual needs. The pre-post design with control group serves to evaluate the effects of an intervention that is systematic and learning supportive for pupils with a diagnosed spelling disorder (ages 12 to 14; 6th-8th grade). Therapists of the experimental group were instructed to apply a series of linguistic and psycholinguistic criteria when creating the material for instruction and when carrying out the therapy. Therapists of the control group carried out the intervention without attending to these criteria, although they did have knowledge about the pupil’s profile in spelling mistakes. The intervention included 20 sessions. The ANOVA shows improvement for both groups (HSP, May 2012): (F(1, 14) = 15,05, p = .002, η2 = .518). For the experimental group it is stronger, and the difference in achievement gain is significant (F(1, 14) = 4,70, p = .048; η2 = .25). These results support a combination of qualitative analysis and a high qualification for therapists that relates specifically to orthography and its instruction. For some pupils the changes in the qualitative profiles reveal persistent support requirements in phonology or grammar instruction.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hossein Shokri
2014-11-01
Full Text Available Applying new methods and techniques for language teaching throughout the history could not address the needs and wants of the learners. Allegedly the reason of this problem laid in contextual factors and learner’s considerations including the instrument, medium and also appropriate techniques for instruction. To address this problem, video games were applied for one of the basic steps of language learning and literacy skill for specific age group of 14-16 students i.e. spelling. In this study 40 students from two classes were randomly divided into two groups, control and experimental (each 20. The pre-test was done in one session. After that, the experimental group received the treatment subjecting to original computer games, but the control group received a placebo. The classroom was equipped with the computer, television, overhead projector, etc. Each week was spent on one game. At the end of each session, the students were required to play the game and elicit words and spelling of them. After eight sessions of treatment, through different kinds of video computer games, the results of the study showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in posttest and delayed posttest. This finding subscribes to the role and efficacy of video computer games on recall and retention of spelling among students. The information provided in this study can be useful for teachers, and material developers.
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Irregular Applications: Architectures & Algorithms
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Feo, John T.; Villa, Oreste; Tumeo, Antonino; Secchi, Simone
2012-02-06
Irregular applications are characterized by irregular data structures, control and communication patterns. Novel irregular high performance applications which deal with large data sets and require have recently appeared. Unfortunately, current high performance systems and software infrastructures executes irregular algorithms poorly. Only coordinated efforts by end user, area specialists and computer scientists that consider both the architecture and the software stack may be able to provide solutions to the challenges of modern irregular applications.
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Uninformative contexts support word learning for high-skill spellers.
Eskenazi, Michael A; Swischuk, Natascha K; Folk, Jocelyn R; Abraham, Ashley N
2018-04-30
The current study investigated how high-skill spellers and low-skill spellers incidentally learn words during reading. The purpose of the study was to determine whether readers can use uninformative contexts to support word learning after forming a lexical representation for a novel word, consistent with instance-based resonance processes. Previous research has found that uninformative contexts damage word learning; however, there may have been insufficient exposure to informative contexts (only one) prior to exposure to uninformative contexts (Webb, 2007; Webb, 2008). In Experiment 1, participants read sentences with one novel word (i.e., blaph, clurge) embedded in them in three different conditions: Informative (six informative contexts to support word learning), Mixed (three informative contexts followed by three uninformative contexts), and Uninformative (six uninformative contexts). Experiment 2 added a new condition with only three informative contexts to further clarify the conclusions of Experiment 1. Results indicated that uninformative contexts can support word learning, but only for high-skill spellers. Further, when participants learned the spelling of the novel word, they were more likely to learn the meaning of that word. This effect was much larger for high-skill spellers than for low-skill spellers. Results are consistent with the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (LQH) in that high-skill spellers form stronger orthographic representations which support word learning (Perfetti, 2007). Results also support an instance-based resonance process of word learning in that prior informative contexts can be reactivated to support word learning in future contexts (Bolger, Balass, Landen, & Perfetti, 2008; Balass, Nelson, & Perfetti, 2010; Reichle & Perfetti, 2003). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
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Lundetræ, Kjersti; Thomson, Jenny M
2018-01-01
Rhythm plays an organisational role in the prosody and phonology of language, and children with literacy difficulties have been found to demonstrate poor rhythmic perception. This study explored whether students' performance on a simple rhythm task at school entry could serve as a predictor of whether they would face difficulties in word reading and spelling at the end of grade 1. The participants were 479 Norwegian 6-year-old first graders randomized as controls in the longitudinal RCT on track (n = 1171). Rhythmic timing and pre-reading skills were tested individually at school entry on a digital tablet. On the rhythm task, the students were told to tap a drum appearing on the screen to two different rhythms (2 Hz paced and 1.5 Hz paced). Children's responses were recorded as they tapped on the screen with their index finger. Significant group differences were found in rhythm tapping ability measured at school entry, when groups were defined upon whether children went on to score above or below the 20th percentile reading and spelling thresholds in national assessment tests at the end of grade one. Inclusion of the school-entry rhythmic tapping measure into a model of classification accuracy for above or below threshold reading and spelling improved accuracy of classification by 6.2 and 9.2% respectively.
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The Development of Reading and Spelling in Arabic Orthography: Two Parallel Processes?
Taha, Haitham
2016-01-01
The parallels between reading and spelling skills in Arabic were tested. One-hundred forty-three native Arab students, with typical reading development, from second, fourth, and sixth grades were tested with reading, spelling and orthographic decision tasks. The results indicated a full parallel between the reading and spelling performances within…
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The Spelling Achievement of Third Culture Children Compared to United States Norms
Cuidon, Lauren Jayne Berry
2009-01-01
Spelling is a critical component to literacy development. Teachers of American children living overseas as well as adult "Third Culture Kids" (TCKs) have reported that spelling is especially challenging for the TCK population. This study investigated whether a difference existed in TCK spelling achievement compared to U.S. norms, as well…
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The Effect of Feature Complexity in Spanish Spelling in Grades 1-3
Ford, Karen L.; Invernizzi, Marcia; Huang, Francis L.
2014-01-01
The current study explored a possible continuum of spelling features that children receiving literacy instruction in Spanish might be expected to master in Grades 1-3. We administered a developmental spelling inventory representing nine distinct Spanish spelling features to 864 students in bilingual and dual language schools across the U.S.…
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Relationship between phonological awareness and spelling proficiency in first-grade students
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Nasibe Soltaninejad
2014-12-01
Full Text Available Background and Aim: Phonological awareness (consisting of phoneme, syllable and intra-syllable awareness is an important part of receptive and expressive language; it facilitates reading and writing skills through phonological re-coding. Multiple studies in several languages have studied the relationship between phonological awareness and dictation. This research is based on a study of the relationship between phonological skill and spelling score in first-grade Persian students.Methods: Four hundred first-grade students participated in the study, including 209 girls and 191 boys. A phonological awareness test was individually administered for each student and then a spelling exam was administered in groups. The correlation between the two tests was studied using a simple regression model. The comparison of mean scores of girls and boys was evaluated employing an independent t-test.Results: A correlation coefficient of 0.82 was obtained between phonological awareness and spelling proficiency (p<0.001. Phonological skill sub-tests also showed a significant correlation with spelling proficiency (highest for phoneme awareness r=0.34 and lowest for rhyme awareness r=0.12. The mean scores of girls and boys differed significantly (p<0.05.Conclusion: There is a strong positive association between phonological awareness and spelling proficiency. Therefore, if phonological skill is improved, spelling score can be enhanced.
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[Effect of divided attention on explicit and implicit aspects of recall].
Wippich, W; Schmitt, R; Mecklenbräuker, S
1989-01-01
If subjects have to form word images before spelling a word from the image, results of a repetition of the spelling test reveal a reliable priming effect: Old words can be spelled faster than comparable control words, reflecting a form of implicit memory. We investigated whether this kind of repetition priming remains stable under conditions of divided attention in the study phase. The subjects had to spell meaningful words, meaningless non-words, and non-words that were meaningful with a backward spelling direction (troper, for example). In the testing stage, recognition judgments as a form of explicit memory were required, too. Divided attention in the study phase had a negative effect on explicit memory, as revealed by performance on the recognition task, but had little effect on implicit memory, as revealed by performance on the repetition of the spelling test. A further dissociation between implicit and explicit memory showed up as meaningful words were recognized much better than non-words, whereas implicit memory was uninfluenced by the meaningfulness variable. The disadvantage of backward spellings was not reduced with non-words (like troper) spelled backwards. Finally, we analyzed the relations between spelling times and recognition judgments and found a pattern of dependency for non-words only. Generally, the results are discussed within processing-oriented approaches to implicit memory with a special emphasis on controversial findings concerning the role of attention in different expressions of memory.
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Cognitive factors contributing to spelling performance in children with prenatal alcohol exposure.
Glass, Leila; Graham, Diana M; Akshoomoff, Natacha; Mattson, Sarah N
2015-11-01
Heavy prenatal alcohol exposure is associated with impaired school functioning. Spelling performance has not been comprehensively evaluated. We examined whether children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure demonstrate deficits in spelling and related abilities, including reading, and tested whether there are unique underlying mechanisms for observed deficits in this population. Ninety-six school-age children made up 2 groups: children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure (AE, n = 49) and control children (CON, n = 47). Children completed select subtests from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition and the NEPSY-II. Group differences and relations between spelling and theoretically related cognitive variables were evaluated using multivariate analysis of variance and Pearson correlations. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to assess contributions of group membership and cognitive variables to spelling performance. The specificity of these deficits and underlying mechanisms was tested by examining the relations between reading ability, group membership, and cognitive variables. Groups differed significantly on all variables. Group membership and phonological processing significantly contributed to spelling performance, whereas for reading, group membership and all cognitive variables contributed significantly. For both reading and spelling, group × working memory interactions revealed that working memory contributed independently only for alcohol-exposed children. Alcohol-exposed children demonstrated a unique pattern of spelling deficits. The relation of working memory to spelling and reading was specific to the AE group, suggesting that if prenatal alcohol exposure is known or suspected, working memory ability should be considered in the development and implementation of explicit instruction. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
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The Concurrent Development of Spelling Skills in Two Languages
Joy, Rhonda
2011-01-01
The study reported on in this paper investigated the concurrent development of spelling in children learning two languages. The study compared over time and between languages the types of spelling errors made in English as a first language and French as a second. Fortyseven grade one English-speaking children completed an English and French…
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Predictors of Early versus Later Spelling Development in Danish
Nielsen, Anne-Mette Veber; Juul, Holger
2016-01-01
The present study examined phoneme awareness, phonological short term memory, letter knowledge, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and visual-verbal paired associate learning (PAL) as longitudinal predictors of spelling skills in an early phase (Grade 2) and a later phase (Grade 5) of development in a sample of 140 children learning to spell in the…
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Aspects Concerning the Rainy Spells in the Western Plain of Romania
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EUGENIA ŞERBAN
2008-01-01
Full Text Available The present work analyses the rainy spells on the territory of the Western Plain at the North of the Mureş River. Daily precipitation data were used from a number of 5 weather stations and for a period of 42 years (1961-2002. Only the stations with a common observation period were chosen. Periods with two or more consecutive rainy days were studied and the analyses show a total of about 7,000 rainy spells. The number of the rainy spells grows from the South to the North once with the latitude but also from the West to the East, once with the altitude. Within a year may occur, on the average, about 30-35 rainy spells with an average duration of 4 days. The duration of the rainy spells varies between 2-19 days. On the analysed territory, 119-141 rainy days may occur annually, on the average. Namely, on this territory it rains on the average about 4-4.5 months a year. Most of the rainy days were recorded in the intervals November-January and April-June.
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Diverse Presentation of Breath Holding Spells: Two Case Reports with Literature Review
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Geetanjali Rathore
2013-01-01
Full Text Available Breath holding spells are a common and dramatic form of syncope and anoxic seizure in infancy. They are usually triggered by an emotional stimuli or minor trauma. Based on the color change, they are classified into 3 types, cyanotic, pallid, and mixed. Pallid breath holding spells result from exaggerated, vagally-mediated cardiac inhibition, whereas the more common, cyanotic breathholding spells are of more complex pathogenesis which is not completely understood. A detailed and accurate history is the mainstay of diagnosis. An EKG should be strongly considered to rule out long QT syndrome. Spontaneous resolution of breath-holding spells is usually seen, without any adverse developmental and intellectual sequelae. Rare cases of status epilepticus, prolonged asystole, and sudden death have been reported. Reassurance and education is the mainstay of therapy. Occasionally, pharmacologic intervention with iron, piracetam; atropine may be of benefit. Here we present 2 cases, one of each, pallid and cyanotic breath holding spells.
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Visuo-spatial cueing in children with differential reading and spelling profiles.
Banfi, Chiara; Kemény, Ferenc; Gangl, Melanie; Schulte-Körne, Gerd; Moll, Kristina; Landerl, Karin
2017-01-01
Dyslexia has been claimed to be causally related to deficits in visuo-spatial attention. In particular, inefficient shifting of visual attention during spatial cueing paradigms is assumed to be associated with problems in graphemic parsing during sublexical reading. The current study investigated visuo-spatial attention performance in an exogenous cueing paradigm in a large sample (N = 191) of third and fourth graders with different reading and spelling profiles (controls, isolated reading deficit, isolated spelling deficit, combined deficit in reading and spelling). Once individual variability in reaction times was taken into account by means of z-transformation, a cueing deficit (i.e. no significant difference between valid and invalid trials) was found for children with combined deficits in reading and spelling. However, poor readers without spelling problems showed a cueing effect comparable to controls, but exhibited a particularly strong right-over-left advantage (position effect). Isolated poor spellers showed a significant cueing effect, but no position effect. While we replicated earlier findings of a reduced cueing effect among poor nonword readers (indicating deficits in sublexical processing), we also found a reduced cueing effect among children with particularly poor orthographic spelling (indicating deficits in lexical processing). Thus, earlier claims of a specific association with nonword reading could not be confirmed. Controlling for ADHD-symptoms reported in a parental questionnaire did not impact on the statistical analysis, indicating that cueing deficits are not caused by more general attentional limitations. Between 31 and 48% of participants in the three reading and/or spelling deficit groups as well as 32% of the control group showed reduced spatial cueing. These findings indicate a significant, but moderate association between certain aspects of visuo-spatial attention and subcomponents of written language processing, the causal status of
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Visuo-spatial cueing in children with differential reading and spelling profiles.
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Chiara Banfi
Full Text Available Dyslexia has been claimed to be causally related to deficits in visuo-spatial attention. In particular, inefficient shifting of visual attention during spatial cueing paradigms is assumed to be associated with problems in graphemic parsing during sublexical reading. The current study investigated visuo-spatial attention performance in an exogenous cueing paradigm in a large sample (N = 191 of third and fourth graders with different reading and spelling profiles (controls, isolated reading deficit, isolated spelling deficit, combined deficit in reading and spelling. Once individual variability in reaction times was taken into account by means of z-transformation, a cueing deficit (i.e. no significant difference between valid and invalid trials was found for children with combined deficits in reading and spelling. However, poor readers without spelling problems showed a cueing effect comparable to controls, but exhibited a particularly strong right-over-left advantage (position effect. Isolated poor spellers showed a significant cueing effect, but no position effect. While we replicated earlier findings of a reduced cueing effect among poor nonword readers (indicating deficits in sublexical processing, we also found a reduced cueing effect among children with particularly poor orthographic spelling (indicating deficits in lexical processing. Thus, earlier claims of a specific association with nonword reading could not be confirmed. Controlling for ADHD-symptoms reported in a parental questionnaire did not impact on the statistical analysis, indicating that cueing deficits are not caused by more general attentional limitations. Between 31 and 48% of participants in the three reading and/or spelling deficit groups as well as 32% of the control group showed reduced spatial cueing. These findings indicate a significant, but moderate association between certain aspects of visuo-spatial attention and subcomponents of written language processing, the
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Sotiropoulos, Andreas; Hanley, J Richard
The relationship between spelling, written word recognition, and picture naming is investigated in a study of seven bilingual adults who have developmental surface dysgraphia in both Greek (their first language) and English (their second language). Four of the cases also performed poorly at orthographic lexical decision in both languages. This finding is consistent with similar results in Italian that have been taken as evidence of a developmental impairment to a single orthographic system that is used for both reading and spelling. The remaining three participants performed well at orthographic lexical decision. At first sight, preserved lexical decision in surface dysgraphia is less easy to explain in terms of a shared orthographic system. However, the results of subsequent experiments showed clear parallels between the nature of the reading and spelling difficulties that these three individuals experienced, consistent with the existence of a single orthographic system. The different patterns that were observed were consistent with the claims of Friedmann and Lukov (2008. Developmental surface dyslexias. Cortex, 44, 1146-1160) that several distinct sub-types of developmental surface dyslexia exist. We show that individual differences in spelling in surface dysgraphia are also consistent with these sub-types; there are different developmental deficits that can give rise, in an individual, to a combination of surface dyslexia and dysgraphia. Finally, we compare the theoretical framework used by Friedmann and her colleagues that is based upon the architecture of the DRC model with an account that relies instead upon the Triangle model of reading].
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Schorr, Martin; Kosterin, Oleg E; Borisov, Sergey N; Marinov, Milen
2018-01-12
The spelling of the specific name of an Anormogomphus species in its original description by Bartenev (1913) was variable, kiritshenkoi (5 times) vs kiritschenkoi (1 time). Bartenev himself did not mention this species in his further publications. Later authors proceeded to use different spelling versions of this name, including those not in the original paper. According to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the valid spelling should be chosen by the First Reviser. Acting as such, we choose as valid the name spelling Anormogomphus kiritshenkoi Bartenev, 1913, since it predominates in the original description, appears in the species subtitle, and is a proper transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin. It also corresponds to the spelling of his name used by A.N. Kiritshenko himself. Information of the type locality of the species is provided.
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Reading and Spelling Error Analysis of Native Arabic Dyslexic Readers
Abu-rabia, Salim; Taha, Haitham
2004-01-01
This study was an investigation of reading and spelling errors of dyslexic Arabic readers ("n"=20) compared with two groups of normal readers: a young readers group, matched with the dyslexics by reading level ("n"=20) and an age-matched group ("n"=20). They were tested on reading and spelling of texts, isolated…
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Differences in CAPE between wet and dry spells of the monsoon over the southeastern peninsular India
Mohan, T. S.; Rao, T. N.; Rajeevan, M.
2018-03-01
In the present research we explored the variability of convective available potential energy (CAPE) during wet and dry spells over southeast India. Comparison between India Meteorological Department (IMD) observations and reanalysis products (NCEP, ERA-interim, and MERRA) reconfirms that gridded data sets can be utilized to fill the void of observations. Later, GPS radiosonde measurements made at Gadanki (13.5 N, 79.2 E) Andre analysis output are utilized to address key scientific issues related to CAPE over the southeastern peninsular region. They are: (1) How does CAPE vary between different spells of the Indian summer monsoon (i.e., from wet to dry spell)? (2) Does differences in CAPE and in the vertical structure of buoyancy between spells are localized features over Gadanki or observed all over southeastern peninsular region? (3) What physical/dynamical processes are responsible for the differences in CAPE between spells and how do they affect the convection growth in dry spell? Interestingly, CAPE is higher in wet spell than in dry spell, in contrast to the observations made elsewhere over land and warm oceans. Similar feature (high CAPE in wet spell) is observed at all grid points in the southeastern peninsular India. Furthermore, vertical buoyancy profiles show only one peak in the middle-upper troposphere in wet spell, while two peaks are observed in most of the profiles (66%) in dry spell over the entire study region in all the reanalysis products. Plausible mechanisms are discussed for the observed CAPE differences. They are, among others, timing of sounding with reference to rain occurrence, rapid buildup of surface instabilities, moistening of lower troposphere by evaporation of the surface moisture in wet spell, enhanced low-level moisture convergence, evaporation of rain in relatively warm and dry atmosphere, and reduction of positive buoyancy in dry spell. The omnipresence of stable layers and strong and deep shear in the presence of weak updrafts
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What Happens When a Teacher Uses Metalanguage to Teach Spelling?
Daffern, Tessa
2017-01-01
While learning to spell in English is integral to becoming a literate writer, it is a complex and gradual skill to master. If English spelling is understood from a phonological, orthographic, and morphological perspective, its transparency becomes evident. The case study described in this article shines a light on an Australian Year 4 classroom…
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Progress in reading and spelling of dyslexic children is not affected by executive functioning.
Walda, Sietske A E; van Weerdenburg, Marjolijn; Wijnants, Maarten L; Bosman, Anna M T
2014-12-01
Although poor reading and spelling skills have been associated with weak skills of executive functioning (EF), its role in literacy is not undisputed. Because EF has different theoretical underpinnings, methods of analysis and of assessing, it has led to varying and often contrasting results in its effects in children with dyslexia. The present study has two goals. The first goal is to establish the relationship between a large number of EF tasks and reading and spelling skills in a large number of Dutch dyslexic children (n = 229). More interesting, however, is the second aim. To what extent do EF skills predict progress in reading and spelling in dyslexic children who attended a remediation programme? The results revealed small, but significant relationships between EF and reading and spelling skills, but no relationships between EF and progress in reading and spelling. It is concluded that training EF skills is unlikely to enhance reading and spelling skills. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Raymond, Florian; Ullmann, Albin; Camberlin, Pierre; Oueslati, Boutheina; Drobinski, Philippe
2018-06-01
Very long dry spell events occurring during winter are natural hazards to which the Mediterranean region is extremely vulnerable, because they can lead numerous impacts for environment and society. Four dry spell patterns have been identified in a previous work. Identifying the main associated atmospheric conditions controlling the dry spell patterns is key to better understand their dynamics and their evolution in a changing climate. Except for the Levant region, the dry spells are generally associated with anticyclonic blocking conditions located about 1000 km to the Northwest of the affected area. These anticyclonic conditions are favourable to dry spell occurrence as they are associated with subsidence of cold and dry air coming from boreal latitudes which bring low amount of water vapour and non saturated air masses, leading to clear sky and absence of precipitation. These extreme dry spells are also partly related to the classical four Euro-Atlantic weather regimes are: the two phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Scandinavian "blocking" or "East-Atlantic", and the "Atlantic ridge". Only the The "East-Atlantic", "Atlantic ridge" and the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation are frequently associated with extremes dry spells over the Mediterranean basin but they do not impact the four dry spell patterns equally. Finally long sequences of those weather regimes are more favourable to extreme dry spells than short sequences. These long sequences are associated with the favourable prolonged and reinforced anticyclonic conditions
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Richards, Todd; Pettet, Mark; Askren, Katie; Grabowski, Tom; Yagle, Kevin; Wallis, Peter; Northey, Mary; Abbott, Robert; Berninger, Virginia
2016-01-01
Thirteen students with and twelve students without spelling disabilities judged whether sentences (1/3 all correct spellings, 1/3 with homonym foil, 1/3 with morpheme foil) were meaningful while event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured with EGI Geodesic EEG System 300 (128-channel hydro-cell nets). For N400, Rapid Automatic Switching (RAS) correlated with comprehending sentences with homonym foils in control group but with morpheme foils in SLD group. For P600, dictated spelling correlated with comprehending sentences with morpheme foils in the control group but solving anagrams with homonym foils in the SLD group. Educational significance and neuropsychological significance of these contrasting results are discussed. PMID:28657362
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Gettinger, Maribeth
1985-01-01
The purpose of this study was twofold: to examine the effects of imitating children's spelling errors alone and in combination with visual and verbal cues on spelling accuracy and retention among poor spellers and to compare the effectiveness of student-directed versus teacher-directed spelling instruction on children's spelling accuracy and retention. Nine children received four alternating experimental treatments during a 16-week spelling program. Results indicated that student-directed ins...
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A sublexical training study for spelling in a biliterate Greek- and English-speaking child.
Niolaki, Georgia Z; Terzopoulos, Aris R; Masterson, Jackie
2017-06-01
RI is an emergent trilingual boy, literate in Greek and English, with difficulties in reading and spelling in both languages. Assessment with non-literacy tests revealed a deficit in phonological ability and in visual memory for sequentially presented characters. RI took part in a training programme that targeted sublexical spelling processes. Post-intervention assessment revealed improvement in reading and spelling in Greek but not in English. Assessments of lexical and sublexical skills showed improvement in nonword spelling and nonword reading for Greek. For English, there was some indication of improvement in nonword reading at delayed post-intervention testing, but no evidence of improvement in nonword spelling. Possible reasons for the difference in outcome for the two languages are considered, including the level of transparency of written Greek and English.
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Scaffolding Students’ Independent Decoding of Unfamiliar Text with a Prototype of an eBook-feature
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Stig T Gissel
2015-10-01
Full Text Available This study was undertaken to design, evaluate and refine an eBook-feature that supports students’ decoding of unfamiliar text. The feature supports students’ independent reading of eBooks with text-to-speech, graded support in the form of syllabification and rhyme analogy, and by dividing the word material into different categories based on the frequency and regularity of the word or its constituent parts. The eBook-feature is based on connectionist models of reading and reading acquisition and the theory of scaffolding. Students are supported in mapping between spelling and sound, in identifying the relevant spelling patterns and in generalizing, in order to strengthen their decoding skills. The prototype was evaluated with Danish students in the second grade to see how and under what circumstances students can use the feature in ways that strengthen their decoding skills and support them in reading unfamiliar text. It was found that most students could interact with the eBook-material in ways that the envisioned learning trajectory in the study predicts are beneficial in strengthening their decoding skills. The study contributes with both principles for designing digital learning material with supportive features for decoding unfamiliar text and with a concrete proposal for a design. The perspectives for making reading acquisition more differentiated and meaningful for second graders in languages with irregular spelling are discussed.
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Graham, Steve; Santangelo, Tanya
2014-01-01
Despite the importance of spelling for both writing and reading, there is considerable disagreement regarding how spelling skills are best acquired. During this and virtually all of the last century, some scholars have argued that spelling should not be directly or formally taught as such instruction is not effective or efficient. We conducted a…
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Age-Related Decline in Spelling Ability: A Link with Fluid Intelligence?
Stuart-Hamilton, Ian; Rabbitt, Patrick
1997-01-01
On spelling tests taken by 159 adults over 50, younger subjects had significantly higher scores. Statistically removing effects of crystallized intelligence and education had no effect, but removing effects of fluid intelligence made the difference insignificant. Although spelling is considered a crystallized skill, in older people it may rely…
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Text-Speak: Its Influence on the English Spelling Skills
Nancy A. Arellano; Raymund B. Gemora
2015-01-01
This study aimed to determine the perceived influence of texting on the English spelling skills of the Teacher Education students of the West Visayas State University – Janiuay Campus (WVSU-JC). It likewise aimed to determine the significant differences on the influence of texting on the English spelling skills of the students when they were grouped as to sex, course and year level and to ascertain the significant relationship between the students’ perceived influence of texting and their per...
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An Analysis of Deaf Students' Spelling Skills during a Year-Long Instructional Writing Approach
Bowers, Lisa M.; Dostal, Hannah; McCarthy, Jillian H.; Schwarz, Ilsa; Wolbers, Kimberly
2016-01-01
Numerous studies have shown that spelling presents unique challenges for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (d/hh), and most do not develop age appropriate spelling skills. Spelling errors from 29 middle school d/hh students were analyzed from writing samples that were gathered at the beginning, middle, and end of a year-long writing…
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Jiang, Xuan; Perkins, Kyle
2013-01-01
Bruner's constructs of learning, specifically the structure of learning, spiral curriculum, and discovery learning, in conjunction with the Cognitive Load Theory, are used to evaluate the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM), an inquiry-oriented inductive language arts strategy designed to teach K-6 children phonics and spelling. The PWIM reflects…
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Ouellette, Gene; Sénéchal, Monique
2017-01-01
In this study we evaluated whether the sophistication of children's invented spellings in kindergarten was predictive of subsequent reading and spelling in Grade 1, while also considering the influence of well-known precursors. Children in their first year of schooling (mean age = 66 months; N = 171) were assessed on measures of oral vocabulary,…
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Action and perception in literacy: A common-code for spelling and reading.
Houghton, George
2018-01-01
There is strong evidence that reading and spelling in alphabetical scripts depend on a shared representation (common-coding). However, computational models usually treat the two skills separately, producing a wide variety of proposals as to how the identity and position of letters is represented. This article treats reading and spelling in terms of the common-coding hypothesis for perception-action coupling. Empirical evidence for common representations in spelling-reading is reviewed. A novel version of the Start-End Competitive Queuing (SE-CQ) spelling model is introduced, and tested against the distribution of positional errors in Letter Position Dysgraphia, data from intralist intrusion errors in spelling to dictation, and dysgraphia because of nonperipheral neglect. It is argued that no other current model is equally capable of explaining this range of data. To pursue the common-coding hypothesis, the representation used in SE-CQ is applied, without modification, to the coding of letter identity and position for reading and lexical access, and a lexical matching rule for the representation is proposed (Start End Position Code model, SE-PC). Simulations show the model's compatibility with benchmark findings from form priming, its ability to account for positional effects in letter identification priming and the positional distribution of perseverative intrusion errors. The model supports the view that spelling and reading use a common orthographic description, providing a well-defined account of the major features of this representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
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Star Formation in Irregular Galaxies.
Hunter, Deidre; Wolff, Sidney
1985-01-01
Examines mechanisms of how stars are formed in irregular galaxies. Formation in giant irregular galaxies, formation in dwarf irregular galaxies, and comparisons with larger star-forming regions found in spiral galaxies are considered separately. (JN)
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Some new features of electron density irregularities over SHAR during strong spread F
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S. Raizada
Full Text Available An RH-560 rocket flight was conducted from Sriharikota rocket range (SHAR (14°N, 80°E, dip latitude 5.5°N to study electron density and electric field irregularities during spread F. The rocket was launched at 2130 local time (LT and it attained an apogee of 348 km. Results of electron density fluctuations are presented here. Two extremely sharp layers of very high electron density were observed at 105 and 130 km. The electron density increase in these layers was by a factor of 50 in a vertical extent of 10 km. Large depletions in electron density were observed around 175 and 238 km. Both sharp layers as well as depletions were observed also during the descent. The presence of sharp layers and depletions during the ascent and the descent of the rocket as well as an order of magnitude less electron density, in 150-300 km region during the descent, indicate the presence of strong large-scale horizontal gradients in the electron density. Some of the valley region irregularities (165-178 km, in the intermediate scale size range, observed during this flight, show spectral peaks at 2 km and can be interpreted in terms of the image striation theory suggested by Vickrey et al. The irregularities at 176 km do not exhibit any peak at kilometer scales and appear to be of new type. The growth rate of intermediate scale size irregularities, produced through generalized Rayleigh Taylor instability, was calculated for the 200-330 km altitude, using observed values of electron density gradients and an assumed vertically downward wind of 20 ms-1. These growth rate calculations suggest that the observed irregularities could be produced by the gradient drift instability.
Key words: Ionosphere (equatorial ionosphere; ionospheric irregularities - Radio science (ionospheric physics -
Some new features of electron density irregularities over SHAR during strong spread F
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S. Raizada
2000-02-01
Full Text Available An RH-560 rocket flight was conducted from Sriharikota rocket range (SHAR (14°N, 80°E, dip latitude 5.5°N to study electron density and electric field irregularities during spread F. The rocket was launched at 2130 local time (LT and it attained an apogee of 348 km. Results of electron density fluctuations are presented here. Two extremely sharp layers of very high electron density were observed at 105 and 130 km. The electron density increase in these layers was by a factor of 50 in a vertical extent of 10 km. Large depletions in electron density were observed around 175 and 238 km. Both sharp layers as well as depletions were observed also during the descent. The presence of sharp layers and depletions during the ascent and the descent of the rocket as well as an order of magnitude less electron density, in 150-300 km region during the descent, indicate the presence of strong large-scale horizontal gradients in the electron density. Some of the valley region irregularities (165-178 km, in the intermediate scale size range, observed during this flight, show spectral peaks at 2 km and can be interpreted in terms of the image striation theory suggested by Vickrey et al. The irregularities at 176 km do not exhibit any peak at kilometer scales and appear to be of new type. The growth rate of intermediate scale size irregularities, produced through generalized Rayleigh Taylor instability, was calculated for the 200-330 km altitude, using observed values of electron density gradients and an assumed vertically downward wind of 20 ms-1. These growth rate calculations suggest that the observed irregularities could be produced by the gradient drift instability.Key words: Ionosphere (equatorial ionosphere; ionospheric irregularities - Radio science (ionospheric physics
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Nurturing a lexical legacy: reading experience is critical for the development of word reading skill
Nation, Kate
2017-12-01
The scientific study of reading has taught us much about the beginnings of reading in childhood, with clear evidence that the gateway to reading opens when children are able to decode, or `sound out' written words. Similarly, there is a large evidence base charting the cognitive processes that characterise skilled word recognition in adults. Less understood is how children develop word reading expertise. Once basic reading skills are in place, what factors are critical for children to move from novice to expert? This paper outlines the role of reading experience in this transition. Encountering individual words in text provides opportunities for children to refine their knowledge about how spelling represents spoken language. Alongside this, however, reading experience provides much more than repeated exposure to individual words in isolation. According to the lexical legacy perspective, outlined in this paper, experiencing words in diverse and meaningful language environments is critical for the development of word reading skill. At its heart is the idea that reading provides exposure to words in many different contexts, episodes and experiences which, over time, sum to a rich and nuanced database about their lexical history within an individual's experience. These rich and diverse encounters bring about local variation at the word level: a lexical legacy that is measurable during word reading behaviour, even in skilled adults.
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The Use of Direct Spelling Instruction for Children with Language Impairment
Good, Joy E.; Lance, Dee M.; Rainey, Jacquie
2018-01-01
Children with language impairment frequently struggle with written language skills such as spelling. With their expertise in language, speech-language pathologists are in the position to promote the development of such skills. One way to do this is through the use of direct spelling instruction which has been shown to facilitate growth in a number…
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Abbott, Robert D.; Berninger, Virginia W.; Fayol, Michel
2010-01-01
Longitudinal structural equation modeling was used to evaluate longitudinal relationships across adjacent grade levels 1 to 7 for levels of language in writing (Model 1, subword letter writing, word spelling, and text composing) or writing and reading (Model 2, subword letter writing and word spelling and reading; Model 3, word spelling and…
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Berninger, Virginia W; Abbott, Robert D; Swanson, H Lee; Lovitt, Dan; Trivedi, Pam; Lin, Shin-Ju Cindy; Gould, Laura; Youngstrom, Marci; Shimada, Shirley; Amtmann, Dagmar
2010-04-01
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the contribution of working memory at the word and sentence levels of language to reading and writing outcomes. Measures of working memory at the word and sentence levels, reading and writing, were administered to 2nd (N = 122), 4th (N = 222), and 6th (N = 105) graders. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate whether the 2 predictor working memory factors contributed unique variance beyond their shared covariance to each of 5 outcome factors: handwriting, spelling, composing, word reading, and reading comprehension. At each grade level, except for handwriting and composing in 6th grade, the word-level working memory factor contributed unique variance to each reading and writing outcome. The text-level working memory factor contributed unique variance to reading comprehension in 4th and 6th grade. The clinical significance of these findings for assessment and intervention is discussed.
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Effective Spelling Strategies for Students with Dyslexia in Hong Kong Secondary Schools
Wai, Nicole; Chan, Ying; Zhang, Kaili Chen
2014-01-01
This study examines the effectiveness of five spelling strategies used to teach junior secondary school students with dyslexia. Participants were 30 secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. The teachers commented on five spelling strategies: the phonological strategy, an integration of phonological and orthographical strategies, the rule-based…
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Hiscox, Lucy; Leonavičiūtė, Erika; Humby, Trevor
2014-08-01
Dyslexia is associated with difficulties in language-specific skills such as spelling, writing and reading; the difficulty in acquiring literacy skills is not a result of low intelligence or the absence of learning opportunity, but these issues will persist throughout life and could affect long-term education. Writing is a complex process involving many different functions, integrated by the working memory system; people with dyslexia have a working memory deficit, which means that concentration on writing quality may be detrimental to understanding. We confirm impaired working memory in a sample of university students with (compensated) dyslexia, and using a within-subject design with three test conditions, we show that these participants demonstrated better understanding of a piece of text if they had used automatic spelling correction software during a dictation/transcription task. We hypothesize that the use of the autocorrecting software reduced demand on working memory, by allowing word writing to be more automatic, thus enabling better processing and understanding of the content of the transcriptions and improved recall. Long-term and regular use of autocorrecting assistive software should be beneficial for people with and without dyslexia and may improve confidence, written work, academic achievement and self-esteem, which are all affected in dyslexia. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Theoretical Beliefs and Instructional Practices Used for Teaching Spelling in Elementary Classrooms
McNeill, Brigid; Kirk, Cecilia
2014-01-01
The current study aimed to examine teachers' reported spelling assessment and instruction practices. Analysis of the match between teachers' theoretical beliefs about spelling and their reported pedagogy was conducted to elucidate factors that may support or impede the use of evidence-based teaching strategies in the classroom. An electronic…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jin Xue
2017-05-01
Full Text Available The present study aimed at distinguishing processing of early learned L2 words from late ones for Chinese natives who learn English as a foreign language. Specifically, we examined whether the age of acquisition (AoA effect arose during the arbitrary mapping from conceptual knowledge onto linguistic units. The behavior and ERP data were collected when 28 Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to perform semantic relatedness judgment on word pairs, which represented three stages of word learning (i.e., primary school, junior and senior high schools. A 3 (AoA: early vs. intermediate vs. late × 2 (regularity: regular vs. irregular × 2 (semantic relatedness: related vs. unrelated × 2 (hemisphere: left vs. right × 3 (brain area: anterior vs. central vs. posterior within-subjects design was adopted. Results from the analysis of N100 and N400 amplitudes showed that early learned words had an advantage in processing accuracy and speed; there is a tendency that the AoA effect was more pronounced for irregular word pairs and in the semantic related condition. More important, ERP results showed early acquired words induced larger N100 amplitudes for early AoA words in the parietal area and more negative-going N400 than late acquire words in the frontal and central regions. The results indicate the locus of the AoA effect might derive from the arbitrary mapping between word forms and semantic concepts, and early acquired words have more semantic interconnections than late acquired words.
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English as a Foreign Language Spelling: Comparisons between Good and Poor Spellers
Russak, Susie; Kahn-Horwitz, Janina
2015-01-01
This study examined English as a foreign language (EFL) spelling development amongst 233 fifth-grade, eighth-grade and 10th-grade Hebrew first-language speakers to examine effects of English orthographic exposure on spelling. Good and poor speller differences were examined regarding the acquisition of novel phonemes (/ae/, /?/ and /?/) and…
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Do Employers Forgive Applicants' Bad Spelling in Résumés?
Martin-Lacroux, Christelle; Lacroux, Alain
2017-01-01
Spelling deficiencies are becoming a growing concern among employers, but few studies have quantified this phenomenon and its impact on recruiters' choice. This article aims to highlight the relative weight of the form (the spelling skills) in application forms, compared with the content (the level of work experience), in recruiters' judgment…
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Upper Elementary Teachers' Self-Efficacy and Spelling Instruction: A Qualitative Study
Fernandes, Brian E.
2017-01-01
A great deal of research has been conducted regarding spelling instruction at the early childhood and lower elementary levels, but not at the upper elementary level. This qualitative study explored the perceptions and experiences of upper elementary teachers to gain a better understanding of how they instruct spelling and their related…
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The Pocket Dictionary: A Textbook for Spelling.
Doggett, Maran
1982-01-01
Reports on a productive approach to secondary-school spelling instruction--one that emphasizes how and when to use the dictionary. Describes two of the many class activities that cultivate student use of the dictionary. (RL)
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Spelling Errors Made By Persian Children With Developmental Dyslexia
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Ahmadpanah
2015-08-01
Full Text Available Background According to recent estimates, approximately 4% - 12% of Iranians experience difficulty in learning to read and spell, possibly as a result of developmental dyslexia. Objectives The study was intended to investigate spelling error patterns among Persian children with developmental dyslexia and compare those patterns with the errors exhibited by control groups. Patients and Methods Some 90 students participated in this study. There were 30 fifth grade students who had been diagnosed as dyslexic by professionals, 30 normal fifth grade readers, and 30 younger normal readers. There were 15 boys and 15 girls in each of the groups. Qualitative and quantitative methods for the analysis of errors were used. Results This study found similar spelling error profiles among the dyslexic students and the reading-level-matched group, and these profiles were different from those of the age-matched group. However, the performances of the dyslexic group and the reading-level-matched group were different and inconsistent in some cases. Conclusions However, performances of dyslexic group and reading level matched group were different and inconsistent in some cases.
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Excess cardiovascular mortality associated with cold spells in the Czech Republic
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Kyncl Jan
2009-01-01
Full Text Available Abstract Background The association between cardiovascular mortality and winter cold spells was evaluated in the population of the Czech Republic over 21-yr period 1986–2006. No comprehensive study on cold-related mortality in central Europe has been carried out despite the fact that cold air invasions are more frequent and severe in this region than in western and southern Europe. Methods Cold spells were defined as periods of days on which air temperature does not exceed -3.5°C. Days on which mortality was affected by epidemics of influenza/acute respiratory infections were identified and omitted from the analysis. Excess cardiovascular mortality was determined after the long-term changes and the seasonal cycle in mortality had been removed. Excess mortality during and after cold spells was examined in individual age groups and genders. Results Cold spells were associated with positive mean excess cardiovascular mortality in all age groups (25–59, 60–69, 70–79 and 80+ years and in both men and women. The relative mortality effects were most pronounced and most direct in middle-aged men (25–59 years, which contrasts with majority of studies on cold-related mortality in other regions. The estimated excess mortality during the severe cold spells in January 1987 (+274 cardiovascular deaths is comparable to that attributed to the most severe heat wave in this region in 1994. Conclusion The results show that cold stress has a considerable impact on mortality in central Europe, representing a public health threat of an importance similar to heat waves. The elevated mortality risks in men aged 25–59 years may be related to occupational exposure of large numbers of men working outdoors in winter. Early warnings and preventive measures based on weather forecast and targeted on the susceptible parts of the population may help mitigate the effects of cold spells and save lives.
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Rietz, Chantal Sabrina; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Labuhn, Andju Sara
2012-08-01
Children with literacy difficulties often suffer from a variety of co-occurring externalizing and internalizing difficulties, as well as comorbid ADHD. Therefore, these externalizing and internalizing problems might be more related to comorbid ADHD, rather than being a correlate of literacy difficulties per se. In the present study, we investigated the occurrence of externalizing and internalizing difficulties in elementary school children (third grade) with and without spelling impairment. Taking the high rate of comorbidity between literacy difficulties and ADHD into account, we investigated whether co-occurring difficulties are associated with spelling impairment per se or with comorbid ADHD symptoms. Results indicated that these young children with spelling impairment showed more co-occurring difficulties compared with children without spelling impairment. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that occurrence of externalizing symptoms is more strongly related to comorbid ADHD symptoms than to spelling impairment per se. The pattern of results concerning internalizing problems was not as distinct but showed a similar trend. Preferably, carers and educators should be aware of co-occurring socio-emotional and behavioural problems in children with spelling impairment. Particularly children with spelling impairment and comorbid ADHD symptoms seem to have an increased risk of encountering further co-occurring difficulties. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Gebauer, Daniela; Fink, Andreas; Kargl, Reinhard; Reishofer, Gernot; Koschutnig, Karl; Purgstaller, Christian; Fazekas, Franz; Enzinger, Christian
2012-01-01
Previous fMRI studies in English-speaking samples suggested that specific interventions may alter brain function in language-relevant networks in children with reading and spelling difficulties, but this research strongly focused on reading impaired individuals. Only few studies so far investigated characteristics of brain activation associated with poor spelling ability and whether a specific spelling intervention may also be associated with distinct changes in brain activity patterns. We here investigated such effects of a morpheme-based spelling intervention on brain function in 20 children with comparatively poor spelling and reading abilities using repeated fMRI. Relative to 10 matched controls, children with comparatively poor spelling and reading abilities showed increased activation in frontal medial and right hemispheric regions and decreased activation in left occipito-temporal regions prior to the intervention, during processing of a lexical decision task. After five weeks of intervention, spelling and reading comprehension significantly improved in the training group, along with increased activation in the left temporal, parahippocampal and hippocampal regions. Conversely, the waiting group showed increases in right posterior regions. Our findings could indicate an increased left temporal activation associated with the recollection of the new learnt morpheme-based strategy related to successful training. PMID:22693600
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Daniela Gebauer
Full Text Available Previous fMRI studies in English-speaking samples suggested that specific interventions may alter brain function in language-relevant networks in children with reading and spelling difficulties, but this research strongly focused on reading impaired individuals. Only few studies so far investigated characteristics of brain activation associated with poor spelling ability and whether a specific spelling intervention may also be associated with distinct changes in brain activity patterns. We here investigated such effects of a morpheme-based spelling intervention on brain function in 20 children with comparatively poor spelling and reading abilities using repeated fMRI. Relative to 10 matched controls, children with comparatively poor spelling and reading abilities showed increased activation in frontal medial and right hemispheric regions and decreased activation in left occipito-temporal regions prior to the intervention, during processing of a lexical decision task. After five weeks of intervention, spelling and reading comprehension significantly improved in the training group, along with increased activation in the left temporal, parahippocampal and hippocampal regions. Conversely, the waiting group showed increases in right posterior regions. Our findings could indicate an increased left temporal activation associated with the recollection of the new learnt morpheme-based strategy related to successful training.
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Stites, Mallory C.; Federmeier, Kara D.; Christianson, Kiel
2017-01-01
The current study investigates the online processing consequences of encountering compound words with transposed letters (TLs), to determine if TLs that cross morpheme boundaries are more disruptive to reading than those within a single morpheme, as would be predicted by accounts of obligatory morpho-orthopgrahic decomposition. Two measures of online processing, eye movements and event-related potentials (ERPs), were collected in separate experiments. Participants read sentences containing correctly spelled compound words (cupcake), or compounds with TLs occurring either across morpheme boundaries (cucpake) or within one morpheme (cupacke). Results showed that between- and within-morpheme transpositions produced equal processing costs in both measures, in the form of longer reading times (Experiment 1) and a late posterior positivity (Experiment 2) that did not differ between conditions. Findings converge to suggest that within- and between-morpheme TLs are equally disruptive to recognition, providing evidence against obligatory morpho-orthographic processing and in favor of whole-word access of English compound words during sentence reading. PMID:28791313
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Spelling Ability in College Students Predicted by Decoding, Print Exposure, and Vocabulary
Ocal, Turkan; Ehri, Linnea
2017-01-01
This study examines students' exposure to print, vocabulary and decoding as predictors of spelling skills. Participants were 42 college students (Mean age 22.5, SD = 7.87; 31 females and 11 males). Hierarchical regression analyses showed that most of the variance in spelling was explained by vocabulary knowledge. When vocabulary was entered first…
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The Diagnosis and Treatment of Reading and/or Spelling Disorders in Children and Adolescents.
Galuschka, Katharina; Schulte-Körne, Gerd
2016-04-22
3-11% of children and adolescents suffer from a reading andor spelling disorder. Their poor written-language skills markedly impair their scholastic performance and are often associated with other mental disorders. A great deal of uncertainty still surrounds the question of the appropriate methods of diagnosis and treatment. We systematically searched for pertinent publications in databases and literature reference lists, summarized the evidence in six tables, and examined some of it in a meta-analysis. Recommendations were developed in a consensus conference. A reading and/or spelling disorder should only be diagnosed if performance in these areas is below average. It should be determined whether an attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, anxiety disorder, or disorder of arithmetical skills is also present. Reading and spelling performance should be reinforced with systematic instruction about letter-sound and sound-letter correspondences, letter-syllable-morpheme synthesis, and sound-syllablemorpheme analysis (g' = 0.32) (recommendation grade A). Spelling ability responds best to spelling-rule training (recommendation grade A). Irlen lenses, visual and/or auditory perceptual training, hemispheric stimulation, piracetam, and prism spectacles should not be used (recommendation grade A). Evidence- and consensus-based guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of reading and/or spelling disorders in children and adolescents are now available for the first time. Reading and spelling abilities should be systematically and comprehensively reinforced, and potential comorbid disorders should be sought and treated appropriately. The efficacy of many treatments now in use has not been documented; if they are to be used in the future, they must be tested in randomized, controlled trials. For adult sufferers, adequate diagnostic instruments and therapeutic methods are not yet available.
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Web-based diagnosis and therapy of auditory prerequisites for reading and spelling
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Krammer, Sandra
2006-11-01
Full Text Available Cognitive deficits in auditory or visual processing or in verbal short-term-memory are amongst others risk factors for the development of dyslexia (reading and spelling disability. By early identification and intervention (optimally before school entry, detrimental effects of these cognitive deficits on reading and spelling might be prevented. The goal of the CASPAR-project is to develop and evaluate web-based tools for diagnosis and therapy of cognitive prerequisites for reading and spelling, which are appropriate for kindergarten children. In the first approach CASPAR addresses auditory processing disorders. This article describes a computerized and web-based approach for screening and testing phoneme discrimination and for promoting phoneme discrimination abilities through interactive games in kindergarteners.
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Developmental surface and phonological dyslexia in both Greek and English.
Sotiropoulos, Andreas; Hanley, J Richard
2017-11-01
The hallmark of developmental surface dyslexia in English and French is inaccurate reading of words with atypical spelling-sound correspondences. According to Douklias, Masterson and Hanley (2009), surface dyslexia can also be observed in Greek (a transparent orthography for reading that does not contain words of this kind). Their findings suggested that surface dyslexia in Greek can be characterized by slow reading of familiar words, and by inaccurate spelling of words with atypical sound-spelling correspondences (Greek is less transparent for spelling than for reading). In this study, we report seven adult cases whose slow reading and impaired spelling accuracy satisfied these criteria for Greek surface dyslexia. When asked to read words with atypical grapheme-phoneme correspondences in English (their second language), their accuracy was severely impaired. A co-occurrence was also observed between impaired spelling of words with atypical phoneme-grapheme correspondences in English and Greek. These co-occurrences provide strong evidence that surface dyslexia genuinely exists in Greek and that slow reading of real words in Greek reflects the same underlying impairment as that which produces inaccurate reading of atypical words in English. Two further individuals were observed with impaired reading and spelling of nonwords in both languages, consistent with developmental phonological dyslexia. Neither of the phonological dyslexics read words slowly. In terms of computational models of reading aloud, these findings suggest that slow reading by dyslexics in transparent orthographies is the consequence of a developmental impairment of the lexical (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Zeigler, 2001; Perry, Ziegler, & Zorzi, 2010) or semantic reading route (Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, & Patterson, 1996). This outcome provides evidence that the neurophysiological substrate(s) that support the lexical/semantic and the phonological pathways that are involved in reading
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Niolaki, Georgia Z; Masterson, Jackie
2013-01-01
A case study with a 12-year-old boy, R.F., who was a monolingual speaker of Greek is reported. R.F. showed slow word reading and a difficulty in spelling irregular words but not nonwords. Assessments revealed that R.F. did not appear to have a phonological deficit, but indicated impaired multicharacter processing ability for visually presented letter arrays. On the basis of previous research linking multicharacter processing and reading we developed an intervention aimed at improving R.F.'s ability to report letter arrays of increasing length. Following a 9-week programme, improvement was observed, and investigation of R.F.'s reading revealed gains in single word reading speed and accuracy. The findings support the significance of intervention studies for testing hypotheses regarding causal relationships among cognitive processes and the notion of specific profiles of developmental dyslexia/dysgraphia in both opaque and transparent orthographies.
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Primativo, Silvia; Yong, Keir X X; Shakespeare, Timothy J; Crutch, Sebastian J
2017-01-08
Spelling is a complex cognitive task where central and peripheral components are involved in engaging resources from many different cognitive processes. The present paper aims to both characterize the oral spelling deficit in a population of patients affected by a neurodegenerative condition and to clarify the nature of the graphemic representation within the currently available spelling models. Indeed, the nature of graphemic representation as a linear or multi-componential structure is still debated. Different hypotheses have been raised about its nature in the orthographic lexicon, with one positing that graphemes are complex objects whereby quantity and identity are separately represented in orthographic representations and can thus be selectively impaired. Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a neurodegenerative condition that mainly affects visuoperceptual and visuospatial functions. Spelling impairments are considered part of the disease. Nonetheless the spelling deficit has received little attention so far and often it has been interpreted in relation to peripheral impairments such as writing difficulties associated with visuoperceptual and visuospatial deficits. In the present study we provide a detailed characterization of the oral spelling profile in PCA. The data suggest that multiple deficits underpin oral spelling problems in PCA, with elements of surface and phonological dysgraphia but also suggesting the involvement of the graphemic buffer. A large phenotypic individual variability is reported. Moreover, the larger proportion and the specific nature of errors involving geminate (i.e., double) as compared to non-geminate (i.e., non-double) letters suggest that a further central impairment might be associated with the abstract graphemic representation of letter numerosity. The present study contributes to the clinical characterization of PCA and to the current debate in the cognitive literature on spelling models; findings, despite not definitive
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Consistency and Stability of Italian Children's Spelling in Dictation versus Composition Assessments
Bigozzi, Lucia; Tarchi, Christian; Pinto, Giuliana
2017-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate consistency in spelling skills across 2 different tasks of written production (dictation vs. composition) and stability of performance across 4 different grades. We assessed 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders' spelling performance through 4 tasks: 2 dictation tasks (passage and sentences) and 2 composition…
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Dispaldro, Marco; Deevy, Patricia; Altoe, Gianmarco; Benelli, Beatrice; Leonard Purdue, Laurence B.
2013-01-01
Background Although relationships among non-word repetition, real-word repetition and grammatical ability have been documented, it is important to study whether the specific nature of these relationships is tied to the characteristics of a given language. Aims The aim of this study is to explore the potential cross-linguistic differences (Italian and English) in the relationship among non-word repetition, real-word repetition, and grammatical ability in three- and four-year-old children with typical language development. Methods & Procedures To reach this goal, two repetition tasks (one real-word list and one non-word list for each language) were used. In Italian the grammatical categories were the third person plural inflection and the direct-object clitic pronouns, while in English they were the third person singular present tense inflection and the past tense in regular and irregular forms. Outcomes & Results A cross-linguistic comparison showed that in both Italian and English, non-word repetition was a significant predictor of grammatical ability. However, performance on real-word repetition explained children’s grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Conclusions & Implications Abilities underlying non-word repetition performance (e.g., the processing and/or storage of phonological material) play an important role in the development of children’s grammatical abilities in both languages. Lexical ability (indexed by real-word repetition) showed a close relationship to grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences, genetic research, clinical intervention and methodological issues. PMID:21899673
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Dispaldro, Marco; Deevy, Patricia; Altoé, Gianmarco; Benelli, Beatrice; Leonard, Laurence B
2011-01-01
Although relationships among non-word repetition, real-word repetition and grammatical ability have been documented, it is important to study whether the specific nature of these relationships is tied to the characteristics of a given language. The aim of this study is to explore the potential cross-linguistic differences (Italian and English) in the relationship among non-word repetition, real-word repetition, and grammatical ability in three-and four-year-old children with typical language development. To reach this goal, two repetition tasks (one real-word list and one non-word list for each language) were used. In Italian the grammatical categories were the third person plural inflection and the direct-object clitic pronouns, while in English they were the third person singular present tense inflection and the past tense in regular and irregular forms. A cross-linguistic comparison showed that in both Italian and English, non-word repetition was a significant predictor of grammatical ability. However, performance on real-word repetition explained children's grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Abilities underlying non-word repetition performance (e.g., the processing and/or storage of phonological material) play an important role in the development of children's grammatical abilities in both languages. Lexical ability (indexed by real-word repetition) showed a close relationship to grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences, genetic research, clinical intervention and methodological issues. © 2011 Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.
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Bonin, Patrick; Méot, Alain; Lagarrigue, Aurélie; Roux, Sébastien
2015-01-01
We report an investigation of cross-task comparisons of handwritten latencies in written object naming, spelling to dictation, and immediate copying. In three separate sessions, adults had to write down a list of concrete nouns from their corresponding pictures (written naming), from their spoken (spelling to dictation) and from their visual presentation (immediate copying). Linear mixed models without random slopes were performed on the latencies in order to study and compare within-task fixed effects. By-participants random slopes were then included to investigate individual differences within and across tasks. Overall, the findings suggest that written naming, spelling to dictation, and copying all involve a lexical pathway, but that written naming relies on this pathway more than the other two tasks do. Only spelling to dictation strongly involves a nonlexical pathway. Finally, the analyses performed at the level of participants indicate that, depending on the type of task, the slower participants are more or less influenced by certain psycholinguistic variables.
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Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.; Kim, Young-Suk
2011-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine which emergent literacy skills contribute to preschool children’s emergent writing (name-writing, letter-writing, and spelling) skills. Emergent reading and writing tasks were administered to 296 preschool children aged 4–5 years. Print knowledge and letter-writing skills made positive contributions to name writing; whereas alphabet knowledge, print knowledge, and name writing made positive contributions to letter writing. Both name-writing and letter-writing skills made significant contributions to the prediction of spelling after controlling for age, parental education, print knowledge, phonological awareness, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge; however, only letter-writing abilities made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of spelling when both letter-writing and name-writing skills were considered together. Name writing reflects knowledge of some letters rather than a broader knowledge of letters that may be needed to support early spelling. Children’s letter-writing skills may be a better indicator of children’s emergent literacy and developing spelling skills than are their name-writing skills at the end of the preschool year. Spelling is a developmentally complex skill beginning in preschool and includes letter writing and blending skills, print knowledge, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge. PMID:21927537
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Eleni Griva & Dimitris Anastasiou
2009-11-01
Full Text Available The aim of this study was primarily to investigate the effects of morphological strategies training on students with and without spelling difficulties in English as a foreign language (EFL, but also to assess the feasibility of morphological strategies training in a classroom context. The intervention was piloted in the sixth grade of a Greek primary school: 23 Greek-speaking students, aged 11-12, were assigned to the treatment group receiving explicit teaching on inflectional and derivational morphemic patterns of English words. The control group, composed of 25 Greek-speaking students of the same age, attending a different classroom of the same school, was taught English spelling in a conventional (visual-memory based way. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to gain insights: a pre- and post-test, an observation schedule, a student questionnaire and a teacher interview. The pre- and post-test results indicated that the metamorphological training yielded specific effects on targeted morpheme patterns. The same results were obtained from a sub-group of nine poor spellers in the treatment group, compared to a sub-group of six poor spellers in the control one. The observation data revealed that the metamorphological training promoted students' active participation and the questionnaire data indicated that students got satisfaction from their training. Finally, interview data highlighted that teachers considered the intervention as a feasible way of improving students' morphological processing skills in spelling.
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Gebauer, D; Fink, A; Filippini, N; Johansen-Berg, H; Reishofer, G; Koschutnig, K; Kargl, R; Purgstaller, C; Fazekas, F; Enzinger, C
2012-07-01
While the functional correlates of spelling impairment have been rarely investigated, to our knowledge no study exists regarding the structural characteristics of spelling impairment and potential changes with interventions. Using diffusion tensor imaging at 3.0 T, we here therefore sought to investigate (a) differences between children with poor spelling abilities (training group and waiting group) and controls, and (b) the effects of a morpheme-based spelling intervention in children with poor spelling abilities on DTI parameters. A baseline comparison of white matter indices revealed significant differences between controls and spelling-impaired children, mainly located in the right hemisphere (superior corona radiata (SCR), posterior limb of internal capsule, superior longitudinal fasciculus). After 5 weeks of training, spelling ability improved in the training group, along with increases in fractional anisotropy and decreases of radial diffusivity in the right hemisphere compared to controls. In addition, significantly higher decreases of mean diffusivity in the right SCR for the spelling-impaired training group compared to the waiting group were observed. Our results suggest that spelling impairment is associated with differences in white-matter integrity in the right hemisphere. We also provide first indications that white matter changes occur during successful training, but this needs to be more specifically addressed in future research.
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The Precursors of Double Dissociation between Reading and Spelling in a Transparent Orthography
Torppa, Minna; Georgiou, George K.; Niemi, Pekka; Lerkkanen, Marja-Kristiina; Poikkeus, Anna-Maija
2017-01-01
Research and clinical practitioners have mixed views whether reading and spelling difficulties should be combined or seen as separate. This study examined the following: (a) if double dissociation between reading and spelling can be identified in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and (b) the cognitive and noncognitive precursors of this…
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Unexpected Impacts of Global warming on Extreme Warm Spells
Sardeshmukh, P. D.; Compo, G. P.; McColl, C.; Penland, C.
2017-12-01
It is generally presumed that the likelihood of extreme warm spells around the globe has increased, and will continue to increase, due to global warming. However, we find that this is generally not true in three very different types of global observational datasets and uncoupled atmospheric model simulations of the 1959 to 2012 period with prescribed observed global SSTs, sea ice, and radiative forcing changes. While extreme warm spells indeed became more common in many regions, in many other regions their likelihood remained almost the same or even decreased from the first half to the second half of this period. Such regions of unexpected changes covered nearly 40 percent of the globe in both winter and summer. The basic reason for this was a decrease of temperature variability in such regions that offset or even negated the effect of the mean temperature shift on extreme warm spell probabilities. The possibility of such an impact on extreme value probabilities was highlighted in a recent paper by Sardeshmukh, Compo, and Penland (Journal of Climate 2015). The consistency of the changes in extreme warm spell probabilities among the different observational datasets and model simulations examined suggests that they are robust regional aspects of global warming associated with atmospheric circulation changes. This highlights the need for climate models to represent not just the mean regional temperature signals but also the changes in subseasonal temperature variability associated with global warming. However, current climate models (both CMIP3 and CMIP5) generally underestimate the magnitude of the changes in the atmospheric circulation and associated temperature variability. A likely major cause of this is their continuing underestimation of the magnitude of the spatial variation of tropical SST trends. By generating an overly spatially bland tropical SST warming in response to changes in radiative forcing, the models spuriously mute tropically
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Sun, Q H; Wang, W T; Wang, Y W; Li, T T
2018-04-06
Objective: To estimate future excess mortality attributable to cold spells in Guangzhou, China. Methods: We collected the mortality data and metrological data from 2009-2013 of Guangzhou to calculated the association between cold spell days and non-accidental mortality with GLM model. Then we projected future daily average temperatures (2020-2039 (2020s) , 2050-2069 (2050s) , 2080-2099 (2080s) ) with 5 GCMs models and 2 RCPs (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) to identify cold spell days. The baseline period was the 1980s (1980-1999). Finally, calculated the yearly cold spells related excess death of 1980s, 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s with average daily death count of non-cold spell days, exposure-response relationship, and yearly number of cold spell days. Results: The average of daily non-accidental mortality in Guangzhou from 2009 to 2013 was 96, and the average of daily average was 22.0 ℃. Cold spell days were associated with 3.3% (95% CI: 0.4%-6.2%) increase in non-accidental mortality. In 1980s, yearly cold spells related deaths were 34 (95% CI: 4-64). In 2020s, the number will increase by 0-10; in 2050s, the number will increase by 1-9; and in 2080s, will increase by 1-9 under the RCP4.5 scenario. In 2020s, the number will increase by 0-9; in 2050s, the number will increase by 1-6; and in 2080s, will increase by 0-11 under the RCP8.5 scenario. Conclusion: The cold spells related non-accidental deaths in Guangzhou will increase in future under climate change.
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Brandenburg, Janin; Klesczewski, Julia; Fischbach, Anne; Schuchardt, Kirsten; Büttner, Gerhard; Hasselhorn, Marcus
2015-01-01
In transparent orthographies like German, isolated learning disabilities in either reading or spelling are common and occur as often as a combined reading and spelling disability. However, most issues surrounding the cognitive causes of these isolated or combined literacy difficulties are yet unresolved. Recently, working memory dysfunctions have been demonstrated to be promising in explaining the emergence of literacy difficulties. Thus, we applied a 2 (reading disability: yes vs. no) × 2 (spelling disability: yes vs. no) factorial design to examine distinct and overlapping working memory profiles associated with learning disabilities in reading versus spelling. Working memory was assessed in 204 third graders, and multivariate analyses of variance were conducted for each working memory component. Children with spelling disability suffered from more pronounced phonological loop impairments than those with reading disability. In contrast, domain-general central-executive dysfunctions were solely associated with reading disability, but not with spelling disability. Concerning the visuospatial sketchpad, no impairments were found. In sum, children with reading disability and those with spelling disability seem to be characterized by different working memory profiles. Thus, it is important to take both reading and spelling into account when investigating cognitive factors of literacy difficulties in transparent orthographies. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2014.
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Capture of irregular satellites at Jupiter
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Nesvorný, David; Vokrouhlický, David; Deienno, Rogerio
2014-01-01
The irregular satellites of outer planets are thought to have been captured from heliocentric orbits. The exact nature of the capture process, however, remains uncertain. We examine the possibility that irregular satellites were captured from the planetesimal disk during the early solar system instability when encounters between the outer planets occurred. Nesvorný et al. already showed that the irregular satellites of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were plausibly captured during planetary encounters. Here we find that the current instability models present favorable conditions for capture of irregular satellites at Jupiter as well, mainly because Jupiter undergoes a phase of close encounters with an ice giant. We show that the orbital distribution of bodies captured during planetary encounters provides a good match to the observed distribution of irregular satellites at Jupiter. The capture efficiency for each particle in the original transplanetary disk is found to be (1.3-3.6) × 10 –8 . This is roughly enough to explain the observed population of jovian irregular moons. We also confirm Nesvorný et al.'s results for the irregular satellites of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
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Context-aware adaptive spelling in motor imagery BCI
Perdikis, S.; Leeb, R.; Millán, J. d. R.
2016-06-01
Objective. This work presents a first motor imagery-based, adaptive brain-computer interface (BCI) speller, which is able to exploit application-derived context for improved, simultaneous classifier adaptation and spelling. Online spelling experiments with ten able-bodied users evaluate the ability of our scheme, first, to alleviate non-stationarity of brain signals for restoring the subject’s performances, second, to guide naive users into BCI control avoiding initial offline BCI calibration and, third, to outperform regular unsupervised adaptation. Approach. Our co-adaptive framework combines the BrainTree speller with smooth-batch linear discriminant analysis adaptation. The latter enjoys contextual assistance through BrainTree’s language model to improve online expectation-maximization maximum-likelihood estimation. Main results. Our results verify the possibility to restore single-sample classification and BCI command accuracy, as well as spelling speed for expert users. Most importantly, context-aware adaptation performs significantly better than its unsupervised equivalent and similar to the supervised one. Although no significant differences are found with respect to the state-of-the-art PMean approach, the proposed algorithm is shown to be advantageous for 30% of the users. Significance. We demonstrate the possibility to circumvent supervised BCI recalibration, saving time without compromising the adaptation quality. On the other hand, we show that this type of classifier adaptation is not as efficient for BCI training purposes.
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Kiuru, Noona; Aunola, Kaisa; Torppa, Minna; Lerkkanen, Marja-Kristiina; Poikkeus, Anna-Maija; Niemi, Pekka; Viljaranta, Jaana; Lyyra, Anna-Liisa; Leskinen, Esko; Tolvanen, Asko; Nurmi, Jari-Erik
2012-12-01
This study examined the associations between parenting styles, teacher interactional styles, and children's reading and spelling skills. The sample consisted of 864 Finnish-speaking children and their parents (864 mothers, 864 fathers) and teachers (N=123). Children's risk for reading disabilities and reader status were assessed in kindergarten. Children were also tested on reading and spelling skills in Grades 1 and 2. Parenting styles and teacher interactional styles were measured using parents' and teachers' self-reports in Grade 1. First, the results indicated that both an authoritative parenting style and authoritative teacher interactional style positively predicted children's spelling skill development. Second, authoritative parenting was particularly beneficial for the spelling skill development of children who were at risk for reading disabilities. Third, authoritative teaching promoted spelling skill development particularly among children who were nonreaders in kindergarten but had no risk for reading disabilities. Finally, some evidence was found that authoritative teaching could compensate for the negative impact of nonauthoritative parenting on reading development among kindergarten nonreaders. Copyright © 2012 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Irregular Migrants and the Law
Kassim, Azizah; Mat Zin, Ragayah Hj.
2013-01-01
This paper examines Malaysia`s policy on irregular migrants and its implementation, and discusses its impact. A survey and interview covering 404 respondents was conducted between July 2010 and June 2011 to ascertain the real situations surrounding irregular migrants in Malaysia, which is one of the major host countries of international migrants from developing nations. The policy on foreign workers was formulated in the mid-1980s to deal with the large number of irregular migrants and their ...
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The Effects of the Interactive Strategies Approach on At-Risk Kindergartners' Spelling
Lee, Sun Hwa; Scanlon, Donna M.
2015-01-01
This study focused on examining the effects of early literacy intervention on the emergence and development of at-risk kindergartners' spelling. Spelling data were selected from Scanlon et al.'s (2005) study which demonstrated the efficacy of reading intervention in reducing the incidence of at-risk children who show reading difficulties…
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Rapcsak, Steven Z; Henry, Maya L; Teague, Sommer L; Carnahan, Susan D; Beeson, Pélagie M
2007-06-18
Coltheart and co-workers [Castles, A., Bates, T. C., & Coltheart, M. (2006). John Marshall and the developmental dyslexias. Aphasiology, 20, 871-892; Coltheart, M., Rastle, K., Perry, C., Langdon, R., & Ziegler, J. (2001). DRC: A dual route cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud. Psychological Review, 108, 204-256] have demonstrated that an equation derived from dual-route theory accurately predicts reading performance in young normal readers and in children with reading impairment due to developmental dyslexia or stroke. In this paper, we present evidence that the dual-route equation and a related multiple regression model also accurately predict both reading and spelling performance in adult neurological patients with acquired alexia and agraphia. These findings provide empirical support for dual-route theories of written language processing.
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Malstädt, Nadine; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Lehmann, Martin
2012-11-01
This study examined supraspan free recall in children with and without spelling impairment. A repeated free recall task involving overt rehearsal and three computer-based adaptive working memory tasks were administered to 54 eight-year-old children. Children without spelling impairments tended to recall more items than did those children with spelling deficits. Video analyses revealed that recall behaviour was similar in impaired and unimpaired children, indicating that both groups applied similar learning activities. Group differences in number of recalled items were attributed to differences in working memory subcapacities between children with and without spelling impairment, especially with regard to central executive and phonological loop functioning. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Berninger, V W
1988-10-01
A microcomputerized experiment, administered to 45 children in the 2nd, 5th, and 8th month of first grade, manipulated three variables: (a) stimulus unit (whole word or letter-by-letter presentation), (b) nature of stimulus information (phonically regular words, phonically irregular words, nonsense words, and letter strings, which differ in whether phonemic, orthographic, semantic, and/or name codes are available), and (c) linguistic task (lexical decision, naming, and written reproduction). Letter-by-letter presentation resulted in more accurate lexical decision and naming but not more accurate written reproduction. Interactions between nature of stimulus information and linguistic task occurred. Throughout the year, accuracy was greater for lexical decision than for naming or written reproduction. The superiority of lexical decision cannot be attributed to the higher probability of correct responses on a binary choice task because only consistently correct responses on repeated trials were analyzed. The earlier development of lexical decision, a receptive task, than of naming or written reproduction, production tasks, suggests that hidden units (Hinton & Sejnowski, 1986) in tertiary cortical areas may abstract visual-linguistic associations in printed words before production units in primary cortical areas can produce printed words orally or graphically.
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Spelling errors among children with ADHD symptoms: the role of working memory.
Re, Anna Maria; Mirandola, Chiara; Esposito, Stefania Sara; Capodieci, Agnese
2014-09-01
Research has shown that children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may present a series of academic difficulties, including spelling errors. Given that correct spelling is supported by the phonological component of working memory (PWM), the present study examined whether or not the spelling difficulties of children with ADHD are emphasized when children's PWM is overloaded. A group of 19 children with ADHD symptoms (between 8 and 11 years of age), and a group of typically developing children matched for age, schooling, gender, rated intellectual abilities, and socioeconomic status, were administered two dictation texts: one under typical conditions and one under a pre-load condition that required the participants to remember a series of digits while writing. The results confirmed that children with ADHD symptoms have spelling difficulties, produce a higher percentages of errors compared to the control group children, and that these difficulties are enhanced under a higher load of PWM. An analysis of errors showed that this holds true, especially for phonological errors. The increased errors in the PWM condition was not due to a tradeoff between working memory and writing, as children with ADHD also performed more poorly in the PWM task. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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The Effects of Chewing Cinnamon Flavored Gum on Mood, Feeling and Spelling Acquisition
Wilson, Andrew; Kim, Wonsun; Raudenbush, Bryan
2016-01-01
The purpose of the study is to investigate if the effects of chewing cinnamon flavored gum can increase mood, feeling and spelling acquisition. 5th grade students (n = 22) at Ilshin elementary school in South Korea served as participants. The same students were required to take 4 spelling tests with 1 given every day over the course of 4 days. For…
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Tsapkini, Kyrana; Frangakis, Constantine; Gomez, Yessenia; Davis, Cameron; Hillis, Argye E
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative disease that primarily affects language functions and often begins in the fifth or sixth decade of life. The devastating effects on work and family life call for the investigation of treatment alternatives. In this article, we present new data indicating that neuromodulatory treatment, using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) combined with a spelling intervention, shows some promise for maintaining or even improving language, at least temporarily, in PPA. The main aim of the present article is to determine whether tDCS plus spelling intervention is more effective than spelling intervention alone in treating written language in PPA. We also asked whether the effects of tDCS are sustained longer than the effects of spelling intervention alone. We present data from six PPA participants who underwent anodal tDCS or sham plus spelling intervention in a within-subject crossover design. Each stimulation condition lasted 3 weeks or a total of 15 sessions with a 2-month interval in between. Participants were evaluated on treatment tasks as well as on other language and cognitive tasks at 2-week and 2-month follow-up intervals after each stimulation condition. All participants showed improvement in spelling (with sham or tDCS). There was no difference in the treated items between the two conditions. There was, however, consistent and significant improvement for untrained items only in the tDCS plus spelling intervention condition. Furthermore, the improvement lasted longer in the tDCS plus spelling intervention condition compared to sham plus spelling intervention condition. Neuromodulation with tDCS offers promise as a means of augmenting language therapy to improve written language function at least temporarily in PPA. The consistent finding of generalisation of treatment benefits to untreated items and the superior sustainability of treatment effects with tDCS justifies further investigations. However
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The Influence of Spelling Ability on Vocabulary Choices When Writing for Children with Dyslexia
Sumner, Emma; Connelly, Vincent; Barnett, Anna L.
2016-01-01
Spelling is a prerequisite to expressing vocabulary in writing. Research has shown that children with dyslexia are hesitant spellers when composing. This study aimed to determine whether the hesitant spelling of children with dyslexia, evidenced by frequent pausing, affects vocabulary choices when writing. A total of 31 children with dyslexia,…
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Roles of Position, Stress, and Proficiency in L2 Children's Spelling: A Developmental Perspective
Hong, Su Chin; Chen, Shu Hui
2011-01-01
This study investigated the roles of phoneme position, stress, and proficiency in L2 spelling development by Taiwanese students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), an alphabetic writing system typologically different from the learners' L1 logographic system. Structured nonword spelling tests were administered to EFL sixth-graders with…
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Beyond Phonics: The Case for Teaching Children the Logic of the English Spelling System
Bowers, Jeffrey S.; Bowers, Peter N.
2017-01-01
A large body of research supports the conclusion that early reading instruction in English should emphasize phonics, that is, the teaching of grapheme-phoneme correspondences. By contrast, we argue that instruction should be designed to make sense of spellings by teaching children that spellings are organized around the interrelation of…
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Gisoo Alizadeh
2015-08-01
Full Text Available Background and objectives: Evidence suggests that medication errors are among the most common types of medical errors, and over fifty percent of them are preventable. Since a significant proportion of these errors are related to the similarity between drug names, this study was designed to evaluate drugs with similar spelling, spelling and packaging. Material and Methods: This is a qualitative study with phenomenological approach. Participants were selected by purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and with the help of previously designed guide. Data were analyzed using content analysis. Results: The central themes of the findings of this study include: the accuracy of drug use, the way of recording and monitoring used medication, the storage, reporting, and notification of similar medications, verbal or telephone orders, medication lists with similar spelling, pronunciation and packaging and recommendations of the participants. The most errors in the Heparin-Atropine pair was the packaging of the drugs, spelling was the highest error in Dopamine- Dobutamine pair drug and spelling was the highest error in Atropine and Atorvastatin pair drug. Conclusion: The study findings indicate that there is no certain system for recording, monitoring and storage of similar drugs. Therefore, identifying the medication list with similar pronunciation, spelling and packaging is an opportunity to reduce these types of errors with appropriate interventions.
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Diagnostic profiles of children with developmental dyslexia in a transparent orthography.
Tilanus, Elisabeth A T; Segers, Eliane; Verhoeven, Ludo
2013-11-01
In the present study for 108 typical and 122 atypical Dutch readers in second grade, the accuracy and speed of decoding words and pseudowords, as well as the accuracy of spelling words were assessed along with four types of phonological precursor measures: rapid naming, verbal working memory, phoneme awareness and letter knowledge. The data show that the group being diagnosed as poor readers were significantly behind in all reading and spelling measures. It was also found that the criterion measures of reading and spelling explained already two third of the variance associated with the group distinction. Finally, we found word and pseudoword efficiency in the typical group to be explained by phonological awareness (spoonerism) and rapid naming of letters, word and pseudoword accuracy by phonological awareness, and spelling by phonological awareness and letter dictation. In the group of poor readers, a much greater variety of precursor measures was involved in explaining the variance in reading and spelling abilities. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Strategic Analysis of Irregular Warfare
2010-03-01
the same mathematical equations used by Lanchester .10 Irregular Warfare Theory and Doctrine It is time to develop new analytical methods and models...basis on which to build, similar to what Lanchester provided almost 100 years ago. Figure 9 portrays both Lanchester’s approach and an irregular 17
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Irregular Migration in Jordan, 1995-2007
AROURI, Fathi A.
2008-01-01
Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM) This paper tackles the question of irregular migration in Jordan through its four main aspects. The first concerns irregular labour migrants and has been approached by using figures showing the socio-economic profile of non Jordanians working in Jordan and, additionally, unemployment in Jordan. This is done by assuming close similarities between legal and irregular labour migrants. The second is an attemp...
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Visual and Auditory Memory in Spelling: An Exploratory Study
Day, J. B.; Wedell, K.
1972-01-01
Using visual and auditory memory sequencing tests with 140 children aged 8-10, this study aimed to investigate the assumption that visual and auditory memory are important component functions in children's spelling. (Author)
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von Suchodoletz, Antje; Larsen, Ross A A; Gunzenhauser, Catherine; Fäsche, Anika
2015-12-01
Educational processes and outcomes are influenced by a multitude of factors, including individual and contextual characteristics. Recently, studies have demonstrated that student and context characteristics may produce unique and cumulative effects on educational outcomes. The study aimed to investigate (1) the relative contribution of student, classroom, and school characteristics to reading fluency and orthographic spelling, (2) the relative contribution of specific predictors to reading fluency and orthographic spelling within the sets of student, classroom, and school characteristics, and (3) whether the contribution of student, classroom, and school characteristics differs for reading fluency and orthographic spelling. Participants were 789 German third-grade students from 56 classrooms in 34 schools. Students completed an intelligence test and a questionnaire assessing self-control. Reading fluency and orthographic spelling performance were assessed using standardized achievement tests. Multilevel structural equation modelling was used to control for the hierarchical structure of educational data. Variances in students' reading and spelling skills were in large part explained by student characteristics (>90%). Classroom and school characteristics yielded little variance. Student-level intelligence and self-control were significantly related to reading fluency. For orthographic spelling, student-level intelligence and self-control, class-average intelligence, and, at the school level, the socio-economic status of the school's neighbourhood were significant predictors. Future research needs to investigate relevant classroom and school factors that may directly and indirectly relate to academic outcomes. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.
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Human mortality impacts of the 2015 summer heat spells in Slovakia
Výberči, Dalibor; Labudová, Lívia; Eštóková, Milada; Faško, Pavol; Trizna, Milan
2017-07-01
In 2015, Central Europe experienced an unusually warm summer season. For a great majority of climatic stations around Slovakia, it had been the warmest summer ever recorded over their entire instrumental observation period. In this study, we investigate the mortality effects of hot days' sequences during that particular summer on the Slovak population. In consideration of the range of available mortality data, the position of 2015 is analysed within the years 1996-2015. Over the given 20-year period, the summer heat spells of 2015 were by far the most severe from a meteorological point of view, and clearly the deadliest with the total of almost 540 excess deaths. In terms of impacts, an extraordinary 10-day August heat spell was especially remarkable. The massive lethal effects of heat would have likely been even more serious under normal circumstances, since the number of premature deaths appeared to be partially reduced due to a non-standard mortality pattern in the first quarter of the year. The heat spells of the extremely warm summer of 2015 in Slovakia are notable not just for their short-term response in mortality. It appears that in a combination with the preceding strong influenza season, they subsequently affected mortality conditions in the country in the following months up until the end of the year. The impacts described above were rather different for selected population subgroups (men and women, the elderly). Both separately and as a part of the annual mortality cycle, the 2015 summer heat spells may represent a particularly valuable source of information for public health.
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Seok, Soonhwa; DaCosta, Boaventura; Yu, Byeong Min
2015-01-01
The present study compared a spelling practice intervention using a tablet personal computer (PC) and picture cards with three students diagnosed with developmental disabilities. An alternating-treatments design with a non-concurrent multiple-baseline across participants was used. The aims of the present study were: (a) to determine if…
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Arteagoitia, Igone; Howard, Elizabeth R.; Loguit, Mohammed; Malabonga, Valerie; Kenyon, Dorry M.
2005-01-01
This article describes the development of a Spanish-spelling measure designed to assess the progress made by Spanish-English bilingual children from Grade 2 to Grade 5. Different stages of measure development are described, such as the selection of the focus features, the pilot phase of the assessment, and the finalizing of the operational…
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The impact of heat waves and cold spells on mortality rates in the Dutch population
Huynen, M. M.; Martens, P.; Schram, D.; Weijenberg, M. P.; Kunst, A. E.
2001-01-01
We conducted the study described in this paper to investigate the impact of ambient temperature on mortality in the Netherlands during 1979-1997, the impact of heat waves and cold spells on mortality in particular, and the possibility of any heat wave- or cold spell-induced forward displacement of
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Guevara-Palma Luis
2015-01-01
Full Text Available The nesting problem of irregular shapes within irregular areas has been studied from several approaches due to their application in different industries. The particular case of cutting leather involves several restrictions that add complexity to this problem, it is necessary to generate products that comply with the quality required by customers This paper presents a methodology for the accommodation of irregular shapes in an irregular area (leather considering the constraints set by the footwear industry, and the results of this methodology when applied by a computer system. The scope of the system is to develop a working prototype that operates under the guidelines of a commercial production line of a sponsor company. Preliminary results got a reduction of 70% of processing time and improvement of 5% to 7% of the area usage when compared with manual accommodation.
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Peter, Beate
2018-01-01
In a companion study, adults with dyslexia and adults with a probable history of childhood apraxia of speech showed evidence of difficulty with processing sequential information during nonword repetition, multisyllabic real word repetition and nonword decoding. Results suggested that some errors arose in visual encoding during nonword reading, all levels of processing but especially short-term memory storage/retrieval during nonword repetition, and motor planning and programming during complex real word repetition. To further investigate the role of short-term memory, a participant with short-term memory impairment (MI) was recruited. MI was confirmed with poor performance during a sentence repetition and three nonword repetition tasks, all of which have a high short-term memory load, whereas typical performance was observed during tests of reading, spelling, and static verbal knowledge, all with low short-term memory loads. Experimental results show error-free performance during multisyllabic real word repetition but high counts of sequence errors, especially migrations and assimilations, during nonword repetition, supporting short-term memory as a locus of sequential processing deficit during nonword repetition. Results are also consistent with the hypothesis that during complex real word repetition, short-term memory is bypassed as the word is recognized and retrieved from long-term memory prior to producing the word.
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Investigation of orography impact on extreme dry spells over Greece
Oikonomou, C.; Flocas, H.; Manola, I.; Hatzaki, M.; Asimakopoulos, D. N.
2009-04-01
Precipitation regime over Greece is controlled by the atmospheric circulation, orography sea surface temperature distribution and land/sea interaction. Previous studies have shown that the precipitation amounts are increased in Western Greece, which is located in the upstream side of the largest mountain range of the central mainland. Furthermore, the longest dry spells were identified in south eastern part of Greece during summer and in northern Greek area during winter. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of topography on prolonged dry periods over Greece, using the third generation hydrostatic Regional Climate Model RegCM3, which shows a noticeable improvement in the representation of the surface hydrological cycle in mountainous regions. More specifically, an attempt is made to study the distribution of prolonged dry spells during two seasons, summer of 1993 and winter of 1989, over the Greek area, under two different simulation scenarios: the first employs the real orography of the Greek area while in the second one the orography is eliminated, by transforming the models terrain code. Both simulation experiments were conducted with the high spatial resolution of 10 Km, while the MIT-Emanuel Convective Precipitation Scheme was selected for the computation of convective precipitation, as it offers more physical representation of convection compared to the other oldest schemes of RegCM. The model was firstly validated through comparisons of the model outputs with observed precipitation amount data, employing 20 stations over Greece for the two selected seasons. The validation demonstrated that the model can simulate precipitation amount quite well over the Greek area, except for the south Dodecanese Islands, where precipitation is underestimated, and the eastern continental Greece, where the daily precipitation is overestimated. For the identification of the extreme dry spells, the climatic index CDD (Maximum number of consecutive dry days
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Warm spells in Northern Europe in relation to atmospheric circulation
Tomczyk, Arkadiusz M.; Piotrowski, Piotr; Bednorz, Ewa
2017-05-01
This study describes warm spells in Northern Europe and determines the synoptic situations that cause their occurrence. In this article, a relatively warm day was defined as a day when the maximum temperature exceeded the 95th annual percentile, and a warm spell (WS) was considered to be a sequence of at least five relatively warm days. In the analysed multiannual period and within the investigated area, 24 (Kallax) to 53 (Oslo) WSs were observed. The occurrence of WSs was mainly connected with positive anomalies of sea level pressure and a 500-hPa isobaric surface, displaying the presence of high-pressure systems. This occurrence was also accompanied by positive T850 anomalies.
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Zhu, Lianhua; Li, Yun; Jiang, Zhihong
2017-08-01
The observed intensity, frequency, and duration (IFD) of summer wet spells, defined here as extreme events with one or more consecutive days in which daily precipitation exceeds a given threshold (the 95th percentile), and their future changes in RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 in the late 21st century over China, are investigated by using the wet spell model (WSM) and by extending the point process approach to extreme value analysis. Wet spell intensity is modeled by a conditional generalized Pareto distribution, frequency by a Poisson distribution, and duration by a geometric distribution, respectively. The WSM is able to realistically model summer extreme rainfall spells during 1961-2005, as verified with observations at 553 stations throughout China. To minimize the impact of systematic biases over China in the global climate models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), five best GCMs are selected based on their performance to reproduce observed wet spell IFD and average precipitation during the historical period. Furthermore, a quantile-quantile scaling correction procedure is proposed and applied to produce ensemble projections of wet spell IFD and corresponding probability distributions. The results show that in the late 21st century, most of China will experience more extreme rainfall and less low-intensity rainfall. The intensity and frequency of wet spells are projected to increase considerably, while the duration of wet spells will increase but to a much less extent. The IFD changes in RCP8.5 are in general much larger than those in RCP4.5.
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Clinical Efficacy of Piracetam on Breath Holding Spells in Children
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
F. Ashrafzadeh
2004-07-01
Full Text Available Breath holding spells (BHS is a type of syncope in children , most commonly encontered in the early years of life. Although these athacks don't damage the brain , if these are frequent or prolonged cause , parents frighten , so physician should intervent. In this study we evaluated clinical efficacy of piracetam on B.H.S of children in Mashhad Ghaem Hospital during 2001-2002.In this double blind placebo control study , piracetam or placebo on a randomized basis was administered to children with 40 mg/kg/day in 2 divided doses for 2 months. From the 41 children that were enrolled , 21 cases received piracetam and 20 cases received placebo. Parents denoted the numbers of spells two months before and two months after taking drug. Control of breath holding spells were observed in 90.5% of patients in the group taking piracetam as compared with 40% in the group taking placebo (P = 0.002. Of the all patients 10 cases had iron deficiency anemia so they had taken elemental Fe too. The side effects were the same in these two groups. The results of this study indicated that piracetam was efficient for the treatment of children with B.H.S without greater incidence adverse effects than placebo.
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CAUSES AND WAYS OF OCCURRENCE OF OCCASIONAL WORDS IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE PRESS
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Radchenko Marina Vasilevna
2013-04-01
Full Text Available This article contains an analytical overview of opinions of modern linguists on the causes of neologisms appearance and the principles of their differentiation. The author identifies the criteria for attributing the word to occasional words by comparing them with neologisms. Following other researchers, the author believes that the distinctive feature of occasional words and neologisms is that they belong to speech and language, respectively. The distinctive features of occasional words according to M.V. Radchenko are novelty, one-time use, and the fact that their appearance is usually dictated by the creative challenges faced by the author. However, these do not allow reckoning the occasional words among speech. The author is convinced that the occasional use, first of all, is in violation of grammar, word forming, lexical and semantic rules of the language. This is a motivated irregularity that is rationally organized. The author describes the causes of neologisms appearance in the language of the media. The article details the derivation aspect of occasional words. On the examples of journalistic texts, M.V. Radchenko describes the regulatory and non-normative methods of occasional words forming. Finally, she concludes that for the occasional word forming the regulatory models already existing in the language are often used.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Minerva Alavez San Pedro
2017-07-01
Violence in two irregular Settlements in the City of Cancun, which is located in the State of Quintana Roo, Mexico, as a consequence of the labor Migration experienced by this Locality since its creation in 1970 as an Integral Tourism Center. In order to complete this Document, in addition to the bibliographical Review, an hemerographic Follow was carried out to monitor local and national Media and an ethnographic Research in the Districts El Milagro and Tres Reyes from April 2016 to June 2017. In general, it can be anticipated that the present manifestations of Violence in Cancun and the continuous emergence of irregular Settlements show the institutional incapacity of the State to plan and attend to the needs of security and housing of the local Population. Key words: Cancun, Economy, Migration, Violence, Settlements.
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Responsiveness to Intervention in Children with Dyslexia.
Tilanus, Elisabeth A T; Segers, Eliane; Verhoeven, Ludo
2016-08-01
We examined the responsiveness to a 12-week phonics intervention in 54 s-grade Dutch children with dyslexia, and compared their reading and spelling gains to a control group of 61 typical readers. The intervention aimed to train grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs), and word reading and spelling by using phonics instruction. We examined the accuracy and efficiency of grapheme-phoneme correspondences, decoding words and pseudowords, as well as the accuracy of spelling words before and after the intervention. Moreover, responsiveness to intervention was examined by studying to what extent scores at posttest could directly or indirectly be predicted from precursor measures. Results showed that the children with dyslexia were significantly behind in all reading and spelling measures at pretest. During the intervention, the children with dyslexia made more progress on GPC, (pseudo)word decoding accuracy and efficiency, and spelling accuracy than the typical reading group. Furthermore, we found a direct effect of the precursor measures rapid automatized naming, verbal working memory and phoneme deletion on the dyslexic children's progress in GPC speed, and indirect effects of rapid automatized naming and phoneme deletion on word and pseudoword efficiency and word decoding accuracy via the scores at pretest. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Ruch, P; Baud, R; Geissbühler, A
2002-12-04
Unlike journal corpora, which are supposed to be carefully reviewed before being published, the quality of documents in a patient record are often corrupted by mispelled words and conventional graphies or abbreviations. After a survey of the domain, the paper focuses on evaluating the effect of such corruption on an information retrieval (IR) engine. The IR system uses a classical bag of words approach, with stems as representation items and term frequency-inverse document frequency (tf-idf) as weighting schema; we pay special attention to the normalization factor. First results shows that even low corruption levels (3%) do affect retrieval effectiveness (4-7%), whereas higher corruption levels can affect retrieval effectiveness by 25%. Then, we show that the use of an improved automatic spelling correction system, applied on the corrupted collection, can almost restore the retrieval effectiveness of the engine.
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Spelling rehabilitation using transcranial direct current (tDCS in primary progressive aphasia (PPA.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Constantine Frangakis
2014-04-01
Full Text Available Introduction: Spelling impairments are one of the first deficits that occur early in PPA and can usually predict the variant of PPA in which the patient may progress (Sepelyak et al., 2011. PPA is a neurodegenerative disease that affects people relatively early in life (between 55-65 years and therefore it is important to find ways to alleviate the symptoms or impede the degree of degeneration. We present and discuss new data indicating that a neuromodulatory treatment, using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS combined with a spelling intervention, shows promise for maintaining or even improving language abilities in PPA. The aim of this research is to determine whether tDCS plus language therapy is more effective than language therapy alone in treating written language deficits in PPA. Methods: Eight PPA participants underwent anodal tDCS or sham plus spelling intervention in a randomized order using a within-subject cross-over design. They were evaluated before, after, and at 2 weeks and 2 months post-intervention. Spelling intervention varied for each participant according to the main spelling deficit: 3 patients had phoneme-to-grapheme conversion (PGC intervention, 2 had lexical intervention and 3 had advanced PGC intervention (combined with written fluency and PGC practice. Four more patients have already finished the first period of stimulations (ether sham or tDCS and all their other sessions and evaluations will be completed in the next couple months. Analyses-Results: We analyzed the existing set of full data using both within-subject analyses (McNemar tests and across-subjects analyses while taking into account carry-over effects. We evaluated therapy effects by the Generalized Estimating Equation approach (Liang & Zeger, 1986. All participants showed improvement in spelling after spelling intervention in trained items (with either sham or tDCS. There was, however, a significant improvement for untrained items only in the t
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Aleman, Cheryl; And Others
1990-01-01
Compares auditory/visual practice to visual/motor practice in spelling with seven elementary school learning-disabled students enrolled in a resource room setting. Finds that the auditory/visual practice was superior to the visual/motor practice on the weekly spelling performance for all seven students. (MG)
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Diamanti, Vassiliki; Goulandris, Nata; Stuart, Morag; Campbell, Ruth; Protopapas, Athanassios
2018-05-01
In this study, we followed Greek children with and without dyslexia for 18 months, assessing them twice on a battery of phonological, reading, and spelling tasks, aiming to document the relative progress achieved and to uncover any specific effects of dyslexia in the development of reading and spelling beyond the longitudinal associations among variables that are observed in typical readers. A wide-ranging match was achieved between the dyslexic group and the younger reading-matched comparison group, enabling longitudinal comparisons on essentially identical initial performance profiles. Group differences were found in the development of tasks relying on phonological processing skill, such as phoneme deletion in pseudowords, pseudoword reading accuracy and time, as well as in graphemic spelling accuracy. The results confirm findings from cross-sectional studies of reading difficulty in the relatively transparent Greek orthography and are consistent with a phonological processing deficit underlying and reciprocally interacting with underdevelopment of reading and spelling skills in the impaired population. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Dry spell, onset and cessation of the wet season rainfall in the Upper Baro-Akobo Basin, Ethiopia
Kebede, Asfaw; Diekkrüger, Bernd; Edossa, Desalegn C.
2017-08-01
In this study, maximum dry spell length and number of dry spell periods of rainy seasons in the upper Baro-Akobo River basin which is a part of the Nile basin, Western Ethiopia, were investigated to analyse the drought trend. Daily rainfall records of the period 1972-2000 from eight rain gauge stations were used in the analysis, and Mann-Kendall test was used to test trends for significance. Furthermore, the beginning and end of the trend development in the dry spell were also tested using the sequential version of Mann-Kendall test. Results have shown that there is neither clear monotonic trend found in dry spell for the basin nor significant fluctuation in the onset, cession and duration of rainfall in the Baro-Akobo river basin. This sufficiently explains why rain-fed agriculture has suffered little in the western part of Ethiopia. The predictable nature of dry spell pattern may have allowed farmers to adjust to rainfall variability in the basin. Unlike many parts of Ethiopia, the Baro-Akobo basin climate variability is not a limiting factor for rain-fed agriculture productivity which may contribute significantly to national food security.
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Effects of recent warm and cold spells on European plant phenology
Menzel, A.; Estrella, N.; Seifert, H.
2009-04-01
Numerous studies have concurrently documented a progressively earlier start for vegetation activity in spring and a lengthening of the growing season during the last 2 to 5 decades in the temperate northern hemisphere. In contrast to climatic factors influencing autumn phenology, the climate signal controlling spring and summer phenology is fairly well understood: nearly all phenophases correlate with temperatures in the preceding 1 to 3 months. The changes currently experienced by emergence of vegetation may reach 6 to 8 d per °C. But how will this well-known, often linearly described relationship change in case of more frequent and more stronger temperature extremes? We thus studied the temperature response of European phenological records to cold and warm spells using the COST725 data base (www.cost725.org). We restricted our analysis to the time period 1951-2006 due to the relatively better coverage of Europe by phenological records. Up to now, 20 European countries contributed more than 7 Mio. phenological observations to this data base including 64 species and 22 different phases. The phenological observations compiled originated from different sources and phenological networks. Unfortunately there is no entire coverage and the data are very lumped. Cold and warm spells were identified using daily mean temperature data (1951-2006) on a 0.5° grid for Europe provided by the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES (http://www.ensembles-eu.org, http://eca.knmi.nl). The study area covered Europe and was limited to 40°E. For the whole study period, mean monthly and seasonal mean temperatures well as the corresponding standard deviations were calculated for each grid point. The annual monthly or seasonal temperature at a grid point was defined as cold (very cold, warm, very warm) by its deviation from the long-term average (more than 1.5 or 3sd, respectively). Warm and cold spells were selected when either the percentages of crossing 1.5sd were greater than 50% for the total
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When memorized instances compete with rules: the case of number-noun agreement in written French.
Largy, Pierre; Cousin, Marie-Paule; Bryant, Peter; Fayol, Michel
2007-05-01
It is claimed by Totereau, Thévenin & Fayol (1997) that French children understand the rule for spelling the plural inflection very early on. However, no evidence contradicts the alternative that they learn the spelling of a word's singular and plural forms by treating the two forms as entirely different words. We tested this by asking French first and second graders (85 six-year-old and 89 seven-year-old children, respectively) to read and write rare words, either in just the singular or in just the plural, and then testing their spelling. The children tended to attach plural inflections to words which they had encountered only as plural and to omit them from words encountered before only as singular.
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Legal aspects of the EU policy on irregular immigration
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Voinikov Vadim
2015-12-01
Full Text Available This article addresses the issues pertaining to the adoption and development of legislation on irregular migration in the context of uncontrolled growth in the number of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East to the EU. The article attempts at studying the EU legislation on irregular migration, classifying it, and analysing the prospects of EU migration legislation in the light of an increase in irregular immigration into the EU. The author systematises, classifies the current EU legislation on irregular immigration, and analyses the conditions, in which this legislation was developed. Using the legislation analysis method, the author proposes the following system of EU legislation on irregular immigration: rules preventing assistance to irregular immigration, rules preventing employment of irregular immigrants, rules on the return of irregular migrants and readmission, rules on border control, and rules on collaboration with third countries. The author pays special attention to analysing the current state of irregular immigration to the EU, which was dubbed the ‘greatest migration crisis in Europe’. The conclusion is that the European Union succeeded in the development of pioneering legislation on irregular immigration, which can serve as the basis for reception by other states. However, changes in the political and economic situation in the EU’s southern borderlands made the current legal mechanisms incapable of withstanding new threats. It necessitates a radical reform of the legislation on irregular immigration.
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On streamlining the Ukrainian names of plants. Information 7. Spelling the names of plant varieties.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
В. М. Меженський
2016-07-01
Full Text Available Purpose. To analyse the practice of transliteration of the Ukrainian cultivar names and rendering foreign names by means of the Ukrainian language, as well as special aspects of cultivar names spelling in special literature. Results. Cultivar names as a special category require preservation of primary graphics or sound type in the other language. This can be achieved by direct inclusion of the original name to the Ukrainian text or by practical transcribing, but not by transliteration or translation. Otherwise, Ukrainian names should be transliterated for inclusion to the texts in Latin characters. Transcription/transliteration in both directions is performed from the source language, though, as practice shows, in some Ukrainian publications the Russian is wrongly used as an intermediary language. Some national scientific publications ignore the recommendations of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants that is not conducive to the success of scientific communication in the globalized world. Conclusions. The foreign names of plant varieties should be entered into the Ukrainian text keeping the original spelling or by means of practical transcription. The loan of foreign names is performed by transcribing directly from the source language; if the language doesn’t have the Latin alphabet, Latinized name transcription is acceptable. Recommendations of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants that concern graphic highlighting of the cultivar names in the text enclosing them in single quotation marks and writing each word of a cultivar name with a capital letter should necessarily be applied in the foreign-language publications and extended to the Ukrainian special literature, at least, in terms of the use of single quotation marks. Ukrainian names should be transliterated only in accordance with the regulations.
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Greenham, Stephanie L; Stelmack, Robert M; van der Vlugt, Harry
2003-01-01
The role of attention in the processing of pictures and words was investigated for a group of normally achieving children and for groups of learning disability sub-types that were defined by deficient performance on tests of reading and spelling (Group RS) and of arithmetic (Group A). An event-related potential (ERP) recording paradigm was employed in which the children were required to attend to and name either pictures or words that were presented individually or in superimposed picture-word arrays that varied in degree of semantic relation. For Group RS, the ERP waves to words, both presented individually or attended in the superimposed array, exhibited reduced N450 amplitude relative to controls, whereas their ERP waves to pictures were normal. This suggests that the word-naming deficiency for Group RS is not a selective attention deficit but rather a specific linguistic deficit that develops at a later stage of processing. In contrast to Group RS and controls, Group A did not exhibit reliable early frontal negative waves (N280) to the super-imposed pictures and words, an effect that may reflect a selective attention deficit for these children that develops at an early stage of visuo-spatial processing. These early processing differences were also evident in smaller amplitude N450 waves for Group A when naming either pictures or words in the superimposed arrays.
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Irregular menstruation according to occupational status.
Kwak, Yeunhee; Kim, Yoonjung
2017-07-06
This cross-sectional study explored associations of irregular menstruation with occupational characteristics, using secondary analyses of data from 4,731 women aged 19-54 years, collected from a nationally representative sample, the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey-V during 2010-2012. The associations between irregular menstruation and occupation were explored using multiple logistic regression. Compared to non-manual workers, service/sales workers had a greater odds of irregular menstruation (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 1.44; 95percent confidence interval [CI]: 1.04-1.99) as did manual workers and unemployed women (aOR: 1.56; 95percent CI: 1.10-2.22, aOR: 1.46; 95percent CI: 1.14-1.89, respectively). Compared to regular workers, temporary workers and unemployed women had aORs of 1.52 (95percent CI: 1.08-2.13) and 1.33 (95percent CI: 1.05-1.69), respectively. Also, when compared to full-time workers, part-time workers and unemployed women had greater odds of irregular menstruation (aOR: 1.41; 95percent CI: 1.00-2.00 and aOR: 1.29; 95percent CI: 1.03-1.63, respectively). Furthermore, compared to daytime workers, shift workers and unemployed women had greater odds irregular menstruation (aOR: 1.39; 95percent CI: 1.03-1.88 and aOR: 1.28; 95percent CI: 1.04-1.59, respectively). Women with these occupational characteristics should be screened for early diagnosis and intervention for irregular menstruation.
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Irregular conformal block, spectral curve and flow equations
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Choi, Sang Kwan; Rim, Chaiho; Zhang, Hong
2016-01-01
Irregular conformal block is motivated by the Argyres-Douglas type of N=2 super conformal gauge theory. We investigate the classical/NS limit of irregular conformal block using the spectral curve on a Riemann surface with irregular punctures, which is equivalent to the loop equation of irregular matrix model. The spectral curve is reduced to the second order (Virasoro symmetry, SU(2) for the gauge theory) and third order (W_3 symmetry, SU(3)) differential equations of a polynomial with finite degree. The conformal and W symmetry generate the flow equations in the spectral curve and determine the irregular conformal block, hence the partition function of the Argyres-Douglas theory ala AGT conjecture.
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The relations between reading and spelling: an examination of subtypes of reading disability.
Bar-Kochva, Irit; Amiel, Meirav
2016-07-01
Three groups of reading-disabled children were found in studies of English, German, and French: a group with a double deficit in reading and spelling, a group with a single spelling deficit, and a more rarely reported group presenting a single reading deficit. This study set out to examine whether these groups can be found in adults, readers and spellers of Hebrew, which differs from the previously studied orthographies in many aspects. To this end, Hebrew-speaking adults with or without reading disability were administered various literacy and literacy-related tests. Results confirm the existence of the same three groups. While all shared a phonological deficit, subtle differences in phonological decoding ability and in speed of processing distinguished between the groups. The study therefore suggests that the previously reported associations and dissociations between reading and spelling are not restricted to English, German, or French and may not be only developmental in nature.
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Apel, Kenn; Masterson, Julie J.
2015-01-01
The purpose of this study was to determine whether students with and without hearing loss (HL) differed in their spelling abilities and, specifically, in the underlying linguistic awareness skills that support spelling ability. Furthermore, we examined whether there were differences between the two groups in the relationship between reading and…
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Malstadt, Nadine; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Lehmann, Martin
2012-01-01
This study examined supraspan free recall in children with and without spelling impairment. A repeated free recall task involving overt rehearsal and three computer-based adaptive working memory tasks were administered to 54 eight-year-old children. Children without spelling impairments tended to recall more items than did those children with…
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Kalindi, Sylvia Chanda; Chung, Kevin Kien Hoa
2018-01-01
This study investigated the role of morphological awareness in understanding Chinese word reading and dictation among Chinese-speaking adolescent readers in Hong Kong as well as the cognitive-linguistic profile of early adolescent readers with dyslexia. Fifty-four readers with dyslexia in Grades 5 and 6 were compared with 54 chronological age-matched (CA) typical readers on the following measures of cognitive-linguistic and literacy skills: morphological awareness, phonological awareness, visual-orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, vocabulary knowledge, verbal short-term memory (STM), Chinese word reading, and dictation (or spelling). The results indicated that early adolescent readers with dyslexia performed less well than the typical readers on all cognitive-linguistic and literacy measures except the phonological measures. Both groups' scores showed substantial correlations between morphological awareness and Chinese word reading and dictation. Visual-orthographic knowledge and rapid naming were also associated with dictation in early adolescent readers with and without dyslexia, respectively. Moderated multiple regression analyses further revealed that morphological awareness and rapid naming explained unique variance in word reading and dictation for the readers with dyslexia and typical readers separately after controlling readers' age and group effect. These results highlight the potential importance of morphological awareness and rapid naming in Chinese word reading and writing in Chinese early adolescents' literacy development and impairment.
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Words, Words, Words: English, Vocabulary.
Lamb, Barbara
The Quinmester course on words gives the student the opportunity to increase his proficiency by investigating word origins, word histories, morphology, and phonology. The course includes the following: dictionary skills and familiarity with the "Oxford,""Webster's Third," and "American Heritage" dictionaries; word…
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Brooks, Maneka Deanna
2017-01-01
This article examines the alternative English spelling practices of a student who is considered to be a "long-term English learner." It draws on a theoretical framework that integrates a social perspective on spelling with a rejection of idealized conceptions of bilingualism. The analyzed English spellings presented in this article were…
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CAUSES AND WAYS OF OCCURRENCE OF OCCASIONAL WORDS IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE PRESS
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Марина Васильевна Радченко
2013-05-01
Full Text Available This article contains an analytical overview of opinions of modern linguists on the causes of neologisms appearance and the principles of their differentiation. The author identifies the criteria for attributing the word to occasional words by comparing them with neologisms. Following other researchers, the author believes that the distinctive feature of occasional words and neologisms is that they belong to speech and language, respectively.The distinctive features of occasional words according to M.V. Radchenko are novelty, one-time use, and the fact that their appearance is usually dictated by the creative challenges faced by the author. However, these do not allow reckoning the occasional words among speech. The author is convinced that the occasional use, first of all, is in violation of grammar, word forming, lexical and semantic rules of the language. This is a motivated irregularity that is rationally organized.The author describes the causes of neologisms appearance in the language of the media.The article details the derivation aspect of occasional words. On the examples of journalistic texts, M.V. Radchenko describes the regulatory and non-normative methods of occasional words forming. Finally, she concludes that for the occasional word forming the regulatory models already existing in the language are often used.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-4-29
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McNeill, Brigid C; Wolter, Julie; Gillon, Gail T
2017-05-17
This study explored the specific nature of a spelling impairment in children with speech sound disorder (SSD) in relation to metalinguistic predictors of spelling development. The metalinguistic (phoneme, morphological, and orthographic awareness) and spelling development of 28 children ages 6-8 years with a history of inconsistent SSD were compared to those of their age-matched (n = 28) and reading-matched (n = 28) peers. Analysis of the literacy outcomes of children within the cohort with persistent (n = 18) versus resolved (n = 10) SSD was also conducted. The age-matched peers outperformed the SSD group on all measures. Children with SSD performed comparably to their reading-matched peers on metalinguistic measures but exhibited lower spelling scores. Children with persistent SSD generally had less favorable outcomes than children with resolved SSD; however, even children with resolved SSD performed poorly on normative spelling measures. Children with SSD have a specific difficulty with spelling that is not commensurate with their metalinguistic and reading ability. Although low metalinguistic awareness appears to inhibit these children's spelling development, other factors should be considered, such as nonverbal rehearsal during spelling attempts and motoric ability. Integration of speech-production and spelling-intervention goals is important to enhance literacy outcomes for this group.
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16 CFR 501.6 - Cellulose sponges, irregular dimensions.
2010-01-01
... 16 Commercial Practices 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Cellulose sponges, irregular dimensions. 501... REQUIREMENTS AND PROHIBITIONS UNDER PART 500 § 501.6 Cellulose sponges, irregular dimensions. Variety packages of cellulose sponges of irregular dimensions, are exempted from the requirements of § 500.25 of this...
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Active and break spells of the Indian summer monsoon
Indian Academy of Sciences (India)
(2001) used the term 'break' to denote weak spells of the daily all-India ... (2001) used the daily all-India rainfall based on ..... erned by a common spatial mode of variability. According ..... Waliser D E, Lau K M and Stern W 2003 Potential pre-.
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Ethical issues in irregular migration research
Duvell, F.; Triandafyllidou, A.; Vollmer, B.
2008-01-01
This paper is concerned with the ethical issues arising for researchers engaged in the study of irregular migration. Irregular migration is by definition an elusive phenomenon as it takes place in violation of the law and at the margins of society. This very nature of the phenomenon raises important
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Wilde, Sandra
Assuming that learning to spell and punctuate involves making and testing hypotheses about how the orthographic style of English works, a study explored six children's classroom spelling during their third and fourth grade years. The subjects were American children of the Tonono O'odham (Papago) tribe of southwestern Arizona who were part of a…
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Learning to Read and Spell in Persian: A Cross-Sectional Study from Grades 1 to 4
Rahbari, Noriyeh; Senechal, Monique
2010-01-01
We investigated the reading and spelling development of 140 Persian children attending Grades 1-4 in Iran. Persian has very consistent letter-sound correspondences, but it varies in transparency because 3 of its 6 vowel phonemes are not marked with letters. Persian also varies in spelling consistency because 6 phonemes have more than one…
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Scott, Fiona E; Mechelli, Andrea; Allin, Matthew P; Walshe, Muriel; Rifkin, Larry; Murray, Robin M; Nosarti, Chiara
2011-07-01
Individuals born very preterm (VPT) are at risk of neurodevelopmental damage and of adverse educational outcomes in childhood and adolescence. The present study used voxel-based morphometry to investigate the association between grey matter and white matter volume and measures of language and executive functioning in VPT born adolescents and term-born controls by gender. VPT individuals (N=218) and controls (N=127) underwent neuropsychological assessment and MRI at age 14-15 as part of a longitudinal study. Differential associations were found between spelling scores and frontal regional grey matter volume when group (VPT and control) and gender (males and females) were investigated. A main effect of group demonstrated a weaker association in VPT adolescents relative to controls between grey matter volume in the left medial and right superior frontal gyri and spelling scores. A main effect of gender revealed spelling scores to be correlated with grey matter volume in the right superior frontal gyrus in females to a greater extent than in males. Furthermore, a significant interaction between group and gender was detected in two regions. Spelling scores showed a stronger association with grey matter volume in a cluster with local maxima in the left medial frontal cortex extending to the caudate nucleus in VPT females than in control females and a weaker association in VPT males compared to control males. In addition, spelling scores showed a stronger association with grey matter volume in left middle frontal gyrus in VPT males compared to control males and a weaker association in VPT females than in control females. When group and gender were investigated, there were no statistically different correlations between structural brain volumes and performance on reading and executive function tests. These data demonstrate that the typical structure-function relationship in respect to spelling abilities appears to be altered in individuals born preterm and the processes
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Polyphony and Pragmatism in Scandinavian Spells c. 1300-1600
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Søndergaard, Leif
2017-01-01
the 1480s which is the first extensive collection of spells in Scandinavia, preserved from the Middle Ages. This unique collection is introduced for the first time in an international context. The borders between religion and magic, religion and natural science, Christian and non-Christian elements, were...
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Statistical distributions of extreme dry spell in Peninsular Malaysia
Zin, Wan Zawiah Wan; Jemain, Abdul Aziz
2010-11-01
Statistical distributions of annual extreme (AE) series and partial duration (PD) series for dry-spell event are analyzed for a database of daily rainfall records of 50 rain-gauge stations in Peninsular Malaysia, with recording period extending from 1975 to 2004. The three-parameter generalized extreme value (GEV) and generalized Pareto (GP) distributions are considered to model both series. In both cases, the parameters of these two distributions are fitted by means of the L-moments method, which provides a robust estimation of them. The goodness-of-fit (GOF) between empirical data and theoretical distributions are then evaluated by means of the L-moment ratio diagram and several goodness-of-fit tests for each of the 50 stations. It is found that for the majority of stations, the AE and PD series are well fitted by the GEV and GP models, respectively. Based on the models that have been identified, we can reasonably predict the risks associated with extreme dry spells for various return periods.
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An orthographic effect in phoneme processing, and its limitations
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Anne eCutler
2012-02-01
Full Text Available To examine whether lexically stored knowledge about spelling influences phoneme evaluation, we conducted three experiments with a low-level phonetic judgement task: phoneme goodness rating. In each experiment, listeners heard phonetic tokens varying along a continuum centred on /s/, occurring finally in isolated word or nonword tokens. An effect of spelling appeared in Experiment 1: Native English speakers’ goodness ratings for the best /s/ tokens were significantly higher in words spelled with S (e.g., bless than in words spelled with C (e.g., voice. No such difference appeared when nonnative speakers rated the same materials in Experiment 2, indicating that the difference could not be due to acoustic characteristics of the S- versus C-words. In Experiment 3, nonwords with lexical neighbours consistently spelled with S (e.g., pless versus with C (e.g., floice failed to elicit orthographic neighbourhood effects; no significant difference appeared in native English speakers’ ratings for the S-consistent versus the C-consistent sets. Obligatory influence of lexical knowledge on phonemic processing would have predicted such neighbourhood effects; the findings are thus better accommodated by models in which phonemic decisions draw strategically upon lexical information.
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Ekundayo, Omowumi Steve Bode
2015-01-01
This paper examines orthographic intraference and its implications for teaching and describing English as a second language (ESL). Orthographic intraference is used here to denote instances of single word spelling, acronyms, mix up of homophones, homonyms and compound word spelling arising not from interference but from orthographic rules and…
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Locating irregularly shaped clusters of infection intensity
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Niko Yiannakoulias
2010-05-01
Full Text Available Patterns of disease may take on irregular geographic shapes, especially when features of the physical environment influence risk. Identifying these patterns can be important for planning, and also identifying new environmental or social factors associated with high or low risk of illness. Until recently, cluster detection methods were limited in their ability to detect irregular spatial patterns, and limited to finding clusters that were roughly circular in shape. This approach has less power to detect irregularly-shaped, yet important spatial anomalies, particularly at high spatial resolutions. We employ a new method of finding irregularly-shaped spatial clusters at micro-geographical scales using both simulated and real data on Schistosoma mansoni and hookworm infection intensities. This method, which we refer to as the “greedy growth scan”, is a modification of the spatial scan method for cluster detection. Real data are based on samples of hookworm and S. mansoni from Kitengei, Makueni district, Kenya. Our analysis of simulated data shows how methods able to find irregular shapes are more likely to identify clusters along rivers than methods constrained to fixed geometries. Our analysis of infection intensity identifies two small areas within the study region in which infection intensity is elevated, possibly due to local features of the physical or social environment. Collectively, our results show that the “greedy growth scan” is a suitable method for exploratory geographical analysis of infection intensity data when irregular shapes are suspected, especially at micro-geographical scales.
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Detecting chaos in irregularly sampled time series.
Kulp, C W
2013-09-01
Recently, Wiebe and Virgin [Chaos 22, 013136 (2012)] developed an algorithm which detects chaos by analyzing a time series' power spectrum which is computed using the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). Their algorithm, like other time series characterization algorithms, requires that the time series be regularly sampled. Real-world data, however, are often irregularly sampled, thus, making the detection of chaotic behavior difficult or impossible with those methods. In this paper, a characterization algorithm is presented, which effectively detects chaos in irregularly sampled time series. The work presented here is a modification of Wiebe and Virgin's algorithm and uses the Lomb-Scargle Periodogram (LSP) to compute a series' power spectrum instead of the DFT. The DFT is not appropriate for irregularly sampled time series. However, the LSP is capable of computing the frequency content of irregularly sampled data. Furthermore, a new method of analyzing the power spectrum is developed, which can be useful for differentiating between chaotic and non-chaotic behavior. The new characterization algorithm is successfully applied to irregularly sampled data generated by a model as well as data consisting of observations of variable stars.
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Susuki, I.
1981-11-01
The results of an analysis of the irregularity factors of stationary and Gaussian random processes which are generated by filtering the output of a pure or a band-limited white noise are presented. An ideal band pass filter, a trapezoidal filter, and a Butterworth type band pass filter were examined. It was found that the values of the irregularity factors were approximately equal among these filters if only the end-slopes were the same rates. As the band width of filters increases, irregularity factors increase monotonically and approach the respective constant values depending on the end-slopes. This implies that the noise characteristics relevant to the fatigue damage such as statistical aspects of the height of the rise and fall or the distribution of the peak values are not changed for a broad band random time history. It was also found that the effect of band limitation of input white noise on irregularity factors is negligibly small.
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Word form Encoding in Chinese Word Naming and Word Typing
Chen, Jenn-Yeu; Li, Cheng-Yi
2011-01-01
The process of word form encoding was investigated in primed word naming and word typing with Chinese monosyllabic words. The target words shared or did not share the onset consonants with the prime words. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 100 ms or 300 ms. Typing required the participants to enter the phonetic letters of the target word,…
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Purcell, Jeremy J.; Rapp, Brenda
2013-01-01
Previous research has shown that damage to the neural substrates of orthographic processing can lead to functional reorganization during reading (Tsapkini et al., 2011); in this research we ask if the same is true for spelling. To examine the functional reorganization of spelling networks we present a novel three-stage Individual Peak Probability Comparison (IPPC) analysis approach for comparing the activation patterns obtained during fMRI of spelling in a single brain-damaged individual with dysgraphia to those obtained in a set of non-impaired control participants. The first analysis stage characterizes the convergence in activations across non-impaired control participants by applying a technique typically used for characterizing activations across studies: Activation Likelihood Estimate (ALE) (Turkeltaub et al., 2002). This method was used to identify locations that have a high likelihood of yielding activation peaks in the non-impaired participants. The second stage provides a characterization of the degree to which the brain-damaged individual's activations correspond to the group pattern identified in Stage 1. This involves performing a Mahalanobis distance statistics analysis (Tsapkini et al., 2011) that compares each of a control group's peak activation locations to the nearest peak generated by the brain-damaged individual. The third stage evaluates the extent to which the brain-damaged individual's peaks are atypical relative to the range of individual variation among the control participants. This IPPC analysis allows for a quantifiable, statistically sound method for comparing an individual's activation pattern to the patterns observed in a control group and, thus, provides a valuable tool for identifying functional reorganization in a brain-damaged individual with impaired spelling. Furthermore, this approach can be applied more generally to compare any individual's activation pattern with that of a set of other individuals. PMID:24399981
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Gardner, A.L.
1999-01-01
The purpose of this application is to conserve the spelling of the specific name of Cervus gouazoubira Fischer, 1814 for the brown brocket deer of South America (family Cervidae). This spelling, rather than the original gouazoubira, has been in virtually universal usage for almost 50 years.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Scott F. Beers
2017-06-01
Full Text Available This study explored the effects of transcription on translation products and processes of adolescent students in grades 4 to 9 with and without persisting specific language disabilities in written language (SLDs—WL. To operationalize transcription ability (handwriting and spelling and transcription mode (by pen on digital tablet or by standard US keyboard, diagnostic groups contrasting in patterns of transcription ability were compared while composing autobiographical (personal narratives by handwriting or by keyboarding: Typically developing students (n=15, students with dyslexia (impaired word reading and spelling, n=20, and students with dysgraphia (impaired handwriting, n=19. They were compared on seven outcomes: total words composed, total composing time, words per minute, percent of spelling errors, average length of pauses, average number of pauses per minute, and average length of language bursts. They were also compared on automaticity of transcription modes—writing the alphabet from memory by handwriting or keyboarding (they could look at keys. Mixed ANOVAs yielded main effects for diagnostic group on percent of spelling errors, words per minute, and length of language burst. Main effects for transcription modes were found for automaticity of writing modes, total words composed, words per minute, and length of language bursts; there were no significant interactions. Regardless of mode, the dyslexia group had more spelling errors, showed a slower rate of composing, and produced shorter language bursts than the typical group. The total number of words, total time composing, words composed per minute, and pauses per minute were greater for keyboarding than handwriting, but length of language bursts was greater for handwriting. Implications of these results for conceptual models of composing and educational assessment practices are discussed.
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On irregularity strength of disjoint union of friendship graphs
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ali Ahmad
2013-11-01
Full Text Available We investigate the vertex total and edge total modication of the well-known irregularity strength of graphs. We have determined the exact values of the total vertex irregularity strength and the total edge irregularity strength of a disjoint union of friendship graphs.
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Fodorne Csanyi, P.
1982-01-01
The part of the updated edition of 'Nomenclature and spelling rules of chemistry in Hungary' (Budapest, 1972), referring to the isotopically modified inorganic compounds is presented. The rules are based on the proposals of IUPAC (1981). Spelling rules concerning the isotopically substituted, isotopically labelled, specifically labelled, selectively and non-selectively labelled compounds, and the positional and numbering rules of nuclides are treated. (Sz.J.)
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The place of morphology in learning to read in English.
Rastle, Kathleen
2018-02-24
Morphology is a major organising principle of English and other alphabetic languages, but has been largely neglected in theories of reading acquisition. In this article, I develop the view that learning to appreciate morphological relationships may be a vital part of acquiring a direct mapping between printed words and their meanings, represented in the ventral brain pathway of the reading network. I show that morphology provides an important degree of regularity across this mapping in English, and suggest that this regularity is directly associated with irregularity in the mapping between spelling and sound. I further show that while children in primary school display explicit knowledge of morphological relationships, there is scant evidence they show the rapid morphological analysis of printed words that skilled readers exhibit. These findings suggest that the acquisition of long-term morphological knowledge may be associated with the ongoing development of reading expertise. Implications for reading instruction are discussed. Copyright © 2018 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.
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Brandenburg, Janin; Klesczewski, Julia; Fischbach, Anne; Schuchardt, Kirsten; Büttner, Gerhard; Hasselhorn, Marcus
2015-01-01
In transparent orthographies like German, isolated learning disabilities in either reading or spelling are common and occur as often as a combined reading and spelling disability. However, most issues surrounding the cognitive causes of these isolated or combined literacy difficulties are yet unresolved. Recently, working memory dysfunctions have…
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Effective connectivity of visual word recognition and homophone orthographic errors
Guàrdia-Olmos, Joan; Peró-Cebollero, Maribel; Zarabozo-Hurtado, Daniel; González-Garrido, Andrés A.; Gudayol-Ferré, Esteve
2015-01-01
The study of orthographic errors in a transparent language like Spanish is an important topic in relation to writing acquisition. The development of neuroimaging techniques, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), has enabled the study of such relationships between brain areas. The main objective of the present study was to explore the patterns of effective connectivity by processing pseudohomophone orthographic errors among subjects with high and low spelling skills. Two groups of 12 Mexican subjects each, matched by age, were formed based on their results in a series of ad hoc spelling-related out-scanner tests: a high spelling skills (HSSs) group and a low spelling skills (LSSs) group. During the f MRI session, two experimental tasks were applied (spelling recognition task and visuoperceptual recognition task). Regions of Interest and their signal values were obtained for both tasks. Based on these values, structural equation models (SEMs) were obtained for each group of spelling competence (HSS and LSS) and task through maximum likelihood estimation, and the model with the best fit was chosen in each case. Likewise, dynamic causal models (DCMs) were estimated for all the conditions across tasks and groups. The HSS group’s SEM results suggest that, in the spelling recognition task, the right middle temporal gyrus, and, to a lesser extent, the left parahippocampal gyrus receive most of the significant effects, whereas the DCM results in the visuoperceptual recognition task show less complex effects, but still congruent with the previous results, with an important role in several areas. In general, these results are consistent with the major findings in partial studies about linguistic activities but they are the first analyses of statistical effective brain connectivity in transparent languages. PMID:26042070
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Characteristics of ionospheric irregularities causing scintillations at VHF/UHF
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Vats, H.O.; Deshpande, M.R.; Rastogi, R.G.
1978-01-01
Some properties of ionization irregularities using amplitude scintillation records of radio beacons from ATS-6 (phase II) at Ootacamund, India have been investigated. For the estimation of scale-size and strength of the irregularities a simple diffraction model has been used which explains only weak and moderate equatorial scintillation observations. It was found that the scale sizes of day time E-region irregularities are smaller than those in the F-region during night time in addition, irregularities are generated initially at large scale sizes which later break up into smaller scale sizes
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Transliteration normalization for Information Extraction and Machine Translation
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Yuval Marton
2014-12-01
Full Text Available Foreign name transliterations typically include multiple spelling variants. These variants cause data sparseness and inconsistency problems, increase the Out-of-Vocabulary (OOV rate, and present challenges for Machine Translation, Information Extraction and other natural language processing (NLP tasks. This work aims to identify and cluster name spelling variants using a Statistical Machine Translation method: word alignment. The variants are identified by being aligned to the same “pivot” name in another language (the source-language in Machine Translation settings. Based on word-to-word translation and transliteration probabilities, as well as the string edit distance metric, names with similar spellings in the target language are clustered and then normalized to a canonical form. With this approach, tens of thousands of high-precision name transliteration spelling variants are extracted from sentence-aligned bilingual corpora in Arabic and English (in both languages. When these normalized name spelling variants are applied to Information Extraction tasks, improvements over strong baseline systems are observed. When applied to Machine Translation tasks, a large improvement potential is shown.
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Spelling and Phonetic Inconsistencies in English: A Problem for ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
But it is not the case in English. English spelling is defective. It is a poor reflection of English pronunciation as we have not enough symbols to represent all the sounds of English. The problems of these inconsistencies to foreign and second language learners can not be overemphasized. This study will look at the historical ...
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Automated Finger Spelling by Highly Realistic 3D Animation
Adamo-Villani, Nicoletta; Beni, Gerardo
2004-01-01
We present the design of a new 3D animation tool for self-teaching (signing and reading) finger spelling the first basic component in learning any sign language. We have designed a highly realistic hand with natural animation of the finger motions. Smoothness of motion (in real time) is achieved via programmable blending of animation segments. The…
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Peek, Peak, Pique: Using Homophones to Teach Vocabulary (and Spelling!).
Pryle, Marilyn Bogusch
2000-01-01
Argues that regular homophone practice enhances vocabulary knowledge, spelling skills, pronunciation ability, and overall reading proficiency. Describes how card games played with decks of homophones helped to accomplish these things. Notes particular benefits of homophone games to English-as-a-second-language students, and outlines key advantages…
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Nielsen, Martin L; Rugulies, Reiner; Christensen, Karl B
2006-01-01
for 1919 employees from the private and public sector. RESULTS: Short spells (1-10 working days) were predicted by low supervisor support, low predictability, and low meaning at work among men and high skill discretion among women. Long spells (>10 days) were predicted by low decision authority, low...... supervisor support, and low predictability among men and high psychologic demands and low decision authority among women. The variables predictability and meaning at work were developed for this study. CONCLUSION: Specific psychosocial work environment factors have both common and different effects on short...... and long absence spells. Effects also differ by gender....
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14 CFR 135.65 - Reporting mechanical irregularities.
2010-01-01
... irregularities and their correction. (b) The pilot in command shall enter or have entered in the aircraft maintenance log each mechanical irregularity that comes to the pilot's attention during flight time. Before each flight, the pilot in command shall, if the pilot does not already know, determine the status of...
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Green, Stacey
2017-01-01
This paper discusses how information communication technology (ICT) can facilitate high quality teaching and learning for dyslexic children and their spelling. Previous research has suggested that ICT can have a positive effect on dyslexic children’s spelling ability and confidence (Lange et al, 2006, Tuner and Pughe, 2003). The use of an IPad therefore was utilised in small group spelling sessions to assess the effect ICT, specifically IPads, can have on pupils who have a diagnosis of dyslex...
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New name, fiaxtion of correct spelling of three leafhopper taxa (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae)
The leafhopper genus Aspidia Yang & Zhang is a junior homonym and replaced here by Sochinsogonoidea, nomen novum. Nilgiriscopus Viraktamath and Roxasellana stellata Zhang & Zhang are fixed as the correct original spellings....
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Orbital and Collisional Evolution of the Irregular Satellites
Nesvorný, David; Alvarellos, Jose L. A.; Dones, Luke; Levison, Harold F.
2003-07-01
The irregular moons of the Jovian planets are a puzzling part of the solar system inventory. Unlike regular satellites, the irregular moons revolve around planets at large distances in tilted and eccentric orbits. Their origin, which is intimately linked with the origin of the planets themselves, is yet to be explained. Here we report a study of the orbital and collisional evolution of the irregular satellites from times after their formation to the present epoch. The purpose of this study is to find out the features of the observed irregular moons that can be attributed to this evolution and separate them from signatures of the formation process. We numerically integrated ~60,000 test satellite orbits to map orbital locations that are stable on long time intervals. We found that the orbits highly inclined to the ecliptic are unstable due to the effect of the Kozai resonance, which radially stretches them so that satellites either escape from the Hill sphere, collide with massive inner moons, or impact the parent planet. We also found that prograde satellite orbits with large semimajor axes are unstable due to the effect of the evection resonance, which locks the orbit's apocenter to the apparent motion of the Sun around the parent planet. In such a resonance, the effect of solar tides on a resonant moon accumulates at each apocenter passage of the moon, which causes a radially outward drift of its orbital apocenter; once close to the Hill sphere, the moon escapes. By contrast, retrograde moons with large orbital semimajor axes are long-lived. We have developed an analytic model of the distant satellite orbits and used it to explain the results of our numerical experiments. In particular, we analytically studied the effect of the Kozai resonance. We numerically integrated the orbits of the 50 irregular moons (known by 2002 August 16) for 108 yr. All orbits were stable on this time interval and did not show any macroscopic variations that would indicate
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Breach, Celena; McLaughlin, T. F.; Derby, K. Mark
2016-01-01
The purpose of this study was to increase the spelling performance for a 4th grade student with learning disabilities. The second objective was to replicate the document with the efficacy of Copy, Cover, and Compare (CCC) in spelling. The study was conducted in a resource room in a low socio-economic school in the Pacific Northwest. The skill…
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Howard, Elizabeth R.; Green, Jennifer D.; Arteagoitia, Igone
2012-01-01
This study contributes to the literature on cross-linguistic literacy relationships for English language learners, and in particular, the Spanish-influenced spelling patterns of Spanish-English bilinguals. English spelling, reading, and vocabulary assessments were administered to 220 students in four TWI programs over a three-year period, from…
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Decomposing Oriented Graphs into Six Locally Irregular Oriented Graphs
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Bensmail, Julien; Renault, Gabriel
2016-01-01
An undirected graph G is locally irregular if every two of its adjacent vertices have distinct degrees. We say that G is decomposable into k locally irregular graphs if there exists a partition E1∪E2∪⋯∪Ek of the edge set E(G) such that each Ei induces a locally irregular graph. It was recently co...
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Short dry spells in the wet season increase mortality of tropical pioneer seedlings.
Engelbrecht, Bettina M J; Dalling, James W; Pearson, Timothy R H; Wolf, Robert L; Gálvez, David A; Koehler, Tobias; Tyree, Melvin T; Kursar, Thomas A
2006-06-01
Variation in plant species performance in response to water availability offers a potential axis for temporal and spatial habitat partitioning and may therefore affect community composition in tropical forests. We hypothesized that short dry spells during the wet season are a significant source of mortality for the newly emerging seedlings of pioneer species that recruit in treefall gaps in tropical forests. An analysis of a 49-year rainfall record for three forests across a rainfall gradient in central Panama confirmed that dry spells of > or = 10 days during the wet season occur on average once a year in a deciduous forest, and once every other year in a semi-deciduous moist and an evergreen wet forest. The effect of wet season dry spells on the recruitment of pioneers was investigated by comparing seedling survival in rain-protected dry plots and irrigated control plots in four large artificially created treefall gaps in a semi-deciduous tropical forest. In rain-protected plots surface soil layers dried rapidly, leading to a strong gradient in water potential within the upper 10 cm of soil. Seedling survival for six pioneer species was significantly lower in rain-protected than in irrigated control plots after only 4 days. The strength of the irrigation effect differed among species, and first became apparent 3-10 days after treatments started. Root allocation patterns were significantly, or marginally significantly, different between species and between two groups of larger and smaller seeded species. However, they were not correlated with seedling drought sensitivity, suggesting allocation is not a key trait for drought sensitivity in pioneer seedlings. Our data provide strong evidence that short dry spells in the wet season differentially affect seedling survivorship of pioneer species, and may therefore have important implications to seedling demography and community dynamics.
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Design Optimization of Irregular Cellular Structure for Additive Manufacturing
Song, Guo-Hua; Jing, Shi-Kai; Zhao, Fang-Lei; Wang, Ye-Dong; Xing, Hao; Zhou, Jing-Tao
2017-09-01
Irregularcellular structurehas great potential to be considered in light-weight design field. However, the research on optimizing irregular cellular structures has not yet been reporteddue to the difficulties in their modeling technology. Based on the variable density topology optimization theory, an efficient method for optimizing the topology of irregular cellular structures fabricated through additive manufacturing processes is proposed. The proposed method utilizes tangent circles to automatically generate the main outline of irregular cellular structure. The topological layoutof each cellstructure is optimized using the relative density informationobtained from the proposed modified SIMP method. A mapping relationship between cell structure and relative densityelement is builtto determine the diameter of each cell structure. The results show that the irregular cellular structure can be optimized with the proposed method. The results of simulation and experimental test are similar for irregular cellular structure, which indicate that the maximum deformation value obtained using the modified Solid Isotropic Microstructures with Penalization (SIMP) approach is lower 5.4×10-5 mm than that using the SIMP approach under the same under the same external load. The proposed research provides the instruction to design the other irregular cellular structure.
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[The phonological variant of primary progressive aphasia, a single case study].
Diesfeldt, H F A
2011-04-01
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by an insidious onset and gradual progression of deficits that can involve any aspect of language, including word finding, object naming, fluency, syntax, phonology and word comprehension. The initial symptoms occur in the absence of major deficits in other cognitive domains, including episodic memory, visuospatial abilities and visuoconstruction. According to recent diagnostic guidelines, PPA is typically divided into three variants: nonfluent variant PPA (also termed progressive nonfluent aphasia), semantic variant PPA (also termed semantic dementia) and logopenic/phonological variant PPA (also termed logopenic progressive aphasia). The paper describes a 79-yr old man, who presented with normal motor speech and production rate, impaired single word retrieval and phonemic errors in spontaneous speech and confrontational naming. Confrontation naming was strongly affected by lexical frequency. He was impaired on repetition of sentences and phrases. Reading was intact for regularly spelled words but not for irregular words (surface dyslexia). Comprehension was spared at the single word level, but impaired for complex sentences. He performed within the normal range on the Dutch equivalent of the Pyramids and Palm Trees (PPT) Pictures Test, indicating that semantic processing was preserved. There was, however, a slight deficiency on the PPT Words Test, which appeals to semantic knowledge of verbal associations. His core deficit was interpreted as an inability to retrieve stored lexical-phonological information for spoken word production in spontaneous speech, confrontation naming, repetition and reading aloud.
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Plasma Irregularity Production in the Polar Cap F-Region Ionosphere
Lamarche, Leslie
Plasma in the Earth's ionosphere is highly irregular on scales ranging between a few centimeters and hundreds of kilometers. Small-scale irregularities or plasma waves can scatter radio waves resulting in a loss of signal for navigation and communication networks. The polar region is particularly susceptible to strong disturbances due to its direct connection with the Sun's magnetic field and energetic particles. In this thesis, factors that contribute to the production of decameter-scale plasma irregularities in the polar F region ionosphere are investigated. Both global and local control of irregularity production are studied, i.e. we consider global solar control through solar illumination and solar wind as well as much more local control by plasma density gradients and convection electric field. In the first experimental study, solar control of irregularity production is investigated using the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) radar at McMurdo, Antarctica. The occurrence trends for irregularities are analyzed statistically and a model is developed that describes the location of radar echoes within the radar's field-of-view. The trends are explained through variations in background plasma density with solar illumination affecting radar beam propagation. However, it is found that the irregularity occurrence during the night is higher than expected from ray tracing simulations based on a standard ionospheric density model. The high occurrence at night implies an additional source of plasma density and it is proposed that large-scale density enhancements called polar patches may be the source of this density. Additionally, occurrence maximizes around the terminator due to different competing irregularity production processes that favor a more or less sunlit ionosphere. The second study is concerned with modeling irregularity characteristics near a large-scale density gradient reversal, such as those expected near polar patches, with a particular focus on
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Irregular activity arises as a natural consequence of synaptic inhibition
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Terman, D.; Rubin, J. E.; Diekman, C. O.
2013-01-01
Irregular neuronal activity is observed in a variety of brain regions and states. This work illustrates a novel mechanism by which irregular activity naturally emerges in two-cell neuronal networks featuring coupling by synaptic inhibition. We introduce a one-dimensional map that captures the irregular activity occurring in our simulations of conductance-based differential equations and mathematically analyze the instability of fixed points corresponding to synchronous and antiphase spiking for this map. We find that the irregular solutions that arise exhibit expansion, contraction, and folding in phase space, as expected in chaotic dynamics. Our analysis shows that these features are produced from the interplay of synaptic inhibition with sodium, potassium, and leak currents in a conductance-based framework and provides precise conditions on parameters that ensure that irregular activity will occur. In particular, the temporal details of spiking dynamics must be present for a model to exhibit this irregularity mechanism and must be considered analytically to capture these effects
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Irregular activity arises as a natural consequence of synaptic inhibition
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Terman, D., E-mail: terman@math.ohio-state.edu [Department of Mathematics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210 (United States); Rubin, J. E., E-mail: jonrubin@pitt.edu [Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 (United States); Diekman, C. O., E-mail: diekman@njit.edu [Department of Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102 (United States)
2013-12-15
Irregular neuronal activity is observed in a variety of brain regions and states. This work illustrates a novel mechanism by which irregular activity naturally emerges in two-cell neuronal networks featuring coupling by synaptic inhibition. We introduce a one-dimensional map that captures the irregular activity occurring in our simulations of conductance-based differential equations and mathematically analyze the instability of fixed points corresponding to synchronous and antiphase spiking for this map. We find that the irregular solutions that arise exhibit expansion, contraction, and folding in phase space, as expected in chaotic dynamics. Our analysis shows that these features are produced from the interplay of synaptic inhibition with sodium, potassium, and leak currents in a conductance-based framework and provides precise conditions on parameters that ensure that irregular activity will occur. In particular, the temporal details of spiking dynamics must be present for a model to exhibit this irregularity mechanism and must be considered analytically to capture these effects.
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Parallel Computing Strategies for Irregular Algorithms
Biswas, Rupak; Oliker, Leonid; Shan, Hongzhang; Biegel, Bryan (Technical Monitor)
2002-01-01
Parallel computing promises several orders of magnitude increase in our ability to solve realistic computationally-intensive problems, but relies on their efficient mapping and execution on large-scale multiprocessor architectures. Unfortunately, many important applications are irregular and dynamic in nature, making their effective parallel implementation a daunting task. Moreover, with the proliferation of parallel architectures and programming paradigms, the typical scientist is faced with a plethora of questions that must be answered in order to obtain an acceptable parallel implementation of the solution algorithm. In this paper, we consider three representative irregular applications: unstructured remeshing, sparse matrix computations, and N-body problems, and parallelize them using various popular programming paradigms on a wide spectrum of computer platforms ranging from state-of-the-art supercomputers to PC clusters. We present the underlying problems, the solution algorithms, and the parallel implementation strategies. Smart load-balancing, partitioning, and ordering techniques are used to enhance parallel performance. Overall results demonstrate the complexity of efficiently parallelizing irregular algorithms.
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Mendez V, J. [Departamento de Radioterapia, Instituto de Enfermedades Neoplasicas, Avenida Angamos Este 2520, Lima 34 (Peru)
1998-12-31
In this work it is presented an advance in Electron dosimetry of irregular fields for beams emitted by linear accelerators. At present diverse methods exist which are coming to apply in the Radiotherapy centers. In this work it is proposed a method for irregular fields dosimetry. It will be allow to calculate the dose rate absorbed required for evaluating the time for the treatment of cancer patients. Utilizing the results obtained by the dosimetric system, it has been possible to prove the validity of the method describe for 12 MeV energy and for square field 7.5 x 7.5 cm{sup 2} with percentile error less than 1 % . (Author)
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Double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on the effect of piracetam on breath-holding spells.
Sawires, Happy; Botrous, Osama
2012-07-01
Breath-holding spells (BHS) are apparently frightening events occurring in otherwise healthy children.The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of piracetam in the treatment of breath-holding spells. Forty patients with BHS (who were classified into two groups)were involved in a double-blinded placebo-controlled prospective study. Piracetam was given to group A while group B received placebo. Patients were followed monthly for a total period of 4 months. The numbers of attacks/month before and monthly after treatment were documented, and the overall number of attacks/month after treatment was calculated in both groups. The median number of attacks/month before treatment in the two groups was 5.5 and 5,respectively, while after the first month of treatment, it was 2 and 5, respectively. The median overall number of attacks/month after treatment in both groups was 1 and 5, respectively.There was a significant decline of number of attacks after piracetam treatment compared to placebo (p valuepiracetam throughout the study period. In conclusion, piracetam is a safe and effective drug for the treatment of breath-holding spells in children.
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Current problems of teaching spelling in the first cycle of Primary Education
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Martha Valcárcel González
2005-12-01
Full Text Available This article presents from the theoretical point of view the spelling problem as one of the main difficulties that there is in Primary Education and in which teachers intensively work searching for solutions.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Paikar Fatima Mazhar Hameed
2016-02-01
Full Text Available The craziness of English spelling has undeniably perplexed learners, especially in an EFL context as in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In these situations, among other obstacles, learners also have to tackle the perpetual and unavoidable problem of MT interference. Sadly, this perplexity takes the shape of a real problem in the language classroom where the English teacher has a tough time rationalizing with the learners why ‘cough’ is not spelt as /kuf/ or ‘knee’ has to do with a silent /k/. It is observed that students of English as second/foreign language in Saudi Arabia commit spelling errors that cause not only a lot of confusion to the teachers but also lower the self-esteem of the students concerned. The current study aims to identify the key problem areas as far as English spelling ability of Saudi EFL learners is concerned. It aims to also suggest remedial and pedagogical measures to improve the learners’ competence in this crucial, though hitherto, nascent skill area in the Saudi education system. Keywords: EFL; error-pattern, spelling instructions, orthography, phonology, vocabulary, language skills, language users
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Jeong, Allan; Li, Haiying; Pan, Andy Jiaren
2017-01-01
Given that grammatical and spelling errors have been found to influence perceived competence and credibility in written communication, this study examined how a student's grammar and spelling errors affect how other students respond to the student's postings in four online debates hosted in asynchronous threaded discussions. Message-response…
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Investigating Predictors of Spelling Ability for Adults with Low Literacy Skills
Talwar, Amani; Cote, Nicole Gilbert; Binder, Katherine
2014-01-01
This study examined whether the spelling abilities of adults with low literacy skills could be predicted by their phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness. Sixty Adult Basic Education (ABE) students completed several literacy tasks. It was predicted that scores on phonological and orthographic tasks would explain variance in…
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Role of parametric decay instabilities in generating ionospheric irregularities
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Kuo, S.P.; Cheo, B.R.; Lee, M.C.
1983-01-01
We show that purely growing instabilities driven by the saturation spectrum of parametric decay instabilities can produce a broad spectrum of ionospheric irregularities. The threshold field Vertical BarE/sub th/Vertical Bar of the instabilities decreases with the scale lengths lambda of the ionospheric irregularities as Vertical BarE/sub th/Vertical Barproportionallambda -2 in the small-scale range ( -2 with scale lengths larger than a few kilometers. The excitation of kilometer-scale irregularities is strictly restricted by the instabilities themselves and by the spatial inhomogeneity of the medium. These results are drawn from the analyses of four-wave interaction. Ion-neutral collisions impose no net effect on the instabilities when the excited ionospheric irregularities have a field-aligned nature
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Simone Aparecida Capellini
2012-04-01
tests of Spelling Evaluation Protocol - Pro-Orthography were divided into: collective version (writing letters of the alphabet, randomized dictation of letters, word dictation, non-word dictation, dictation with pictures, thematic writing induced by picture and individual version (dictation of sentences, purposeful error, spelled dictation, spelling lexical memory. RESULTS: there was a statistically significant difference in inter-group comparison indicating that there was an increase in average accuracy for all tests as for the individual and collective version. With the increase in grade level, the groups decreased the average of writing errors based on the semiology of errors. We found a higher frequency of natural spelling errors. CONCLUSION: data from this study showed that the increase in average accuracy according to grade level may be an indicative for normal development of student's writing in this population. The higher frequency of natural spelling errors found indicates that formal instruction on phoneme-grapheme correspondence may not be occurring, since that they are directly dependent on the learning of the rule of direct phoneme-grapheme correspondence.
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Codificação fonológica e ortográfica na dislexia de desenvolvimento: evidência de um estudo de caso
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Cláudia Cardoso Martins
2014-09-01
Full Text Available The present study investigates the phonological and orthographic skills of a Brazilian Portuguese-speaking child with a history of persistent reading difficulties (Age = 12 years and 8 months old. Fifteen typical readers with similar reading ability participated as controls (Mean Age = 8 years and 7 months old. Phonological and orthographic coding skills were evaluated through the ability to spell words that varied with regard to the more or less regular nature of their letter-sound correspondences. Results question the hypothesis that orthographic coding skills are superior to phonological coding skills in developmental dyslexia. Although the reading disabled child performed similarly to controls on words containing contextual rules, her performance was substantially inferior on words containing sounds whose spelling is ambiguous. Results also suggest that, relative to typical readers, dyslexic readers may have difficulty in making use of morphosyntactic regularities to spell words.
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Using VocabularySpellingCity with Adult ESOL Students in Community College
Krause, Tim
2018-01-01
Vocabulary acquisition is central to language learning, and many instructors believe that technology can facilitate this core activity. While numerous websites and apps offer language-learning activities and games, not all provide evidence that their content and techniques are effective. VocabularySpellingCity (VSC), however, commissioned a study…
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Managing dry spell risks to improve rainfed maize productivity in the ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This empirical research was conducted on-station during June to September main growing season over two years (2000 and 2001) to substantiate that, managing dry spell risks through development of compatible technologies can improve rainfed maize productivity in the semi-arid zones of Ethiopia. Firstly, two soil water ...
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FUNCTIONAL AND EFFECTIVE CONNECTIVITY OF VISUAL WORD RECOGNITION AND HOMOPHONE ORTHOGRAPHIC ERRORS.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
JOAN eGUÀRDIA-OLMOS
2015-05-01
Full Text Available The study of orthographic errors in a transparent language like Spanish is an important topic in relation to writing acquisition. The development of neuroimaging techniques, particularly functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI, has enabled the study of such relationships between brain areas. The main objective of the present study was to explore the patterns of effective connectivity by processing pseudohomophone orthographic errors among subjects with high and low spelling skills. Two groups of 12 Mexican subjects each, matched by age, were formed based on their results in a series of ad-hoc spelling-related out-scanner tests: a High Spelling Skills group (HSS and a Low Spelling Skills group (LSS. During the fMRI session, two experimental tasks were applied (spelling recognition task and visuoperceptual recognition task. Regions of Interest (ROIs and their signal values were obtained for both tasks. Based on these values, SEMs (Structural Equation Models were obtained for each group of spelling competence (HSS and LSS and task through ML (Maximum Likelihood estimation, and the model with the best fit was chosen in each case. Likewise, DCM (Dynamic Causal Models were estimated for all the conditions across tasks and groups. The HSS group’s SEM results suggest that, in the spelling recognition task, the right middle temporal gyrus, and, to a lesser extent, the left parahippocampal gyrus receive most of the significant effects, whereas the DCM results in the visuoperceptual recognition task show less complex effects, but still congruent with the previous results, with an important role in several areas. In general, these results are consistent with the major findings in partial studies about linguistic activities but they are the first analyses of statistical effective brain connectivity in transparent languages.
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Combinatorics on words Christoffel words and repetitions in words
Berstel, Jean; Reutenauer, Christophe; Saliola, Franco V
2008-01-01
The two parts of this text are based on two series of lectures delivered by Jean Berstel and Christophe Reutenauer in March 2007 at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, Montréal, Canada. Part I represents the first modern and comprehensive exposition of the theory of Christoffel words. Part II presents numerous combinatorial and algorithmic aspects of repetition-free words stemming from the work of Axel Thue-a pioneer in the theory of combinatorics on words. A beginner to the theory of combinatorics on words will be motivated by the numerous examples, and the large variety of exercises, which make the book unique at this level of exposition. The clean and streamlined exposition and the extensive bibliography will also be appreciated. After reading this book, beginners should be ready to read modern research papers in this rapidly growing field and contribute their own research to its development. Experienced readers will be interested in the finitary approach to Sturmian words that Christoffel words offe...
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De Sousa, Diana Soares; Greenop, Kirston; Fry, Jessica
2010-01-01
Background: Emergent bilingual Zulu-English speaking children in South Africa have spoken but no written proficiency in Zulu (L1), yet are required to learn to spell English (L2) via English-only literacy instruction. Little research exists on emergent bilingual's phonological awareness (PA) and spelling development, with no L1 formal literacy…
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Is conversion a syntactic or a lexical process of word formation?
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alexandra Soares Rodrigues
2013-01-01
Full Text Available Conversion is sometimes described as a syntactic phenomenon by which a lexical item changes its lexical category according to the syntactic environment where it is inserted. This syntactic-ordered approach comes from theoretical fields that conceive the lexicon as the domain of irregularity, whilst regular patterns are treated in syntax (Chomsky 1995. However, Portuguese converted deverbal nouns (remendo ‘event of mending’, curte ‘event of having fun’, trinca ‘event of biting’ manifest a structural behaviour that permits us to situate their formation in the lexicon instead of in the syntax. According to the theoretical allusion we made above, this would characterise converted deverbal nouns as lacking a regular pattern. However, what we mean is that the lexicon is not the field of irregularity. Apart from the irregular material that must be stored in long term memory as to be used by speakers, such as inherited lexemes (e.g. rato ‘mouse’, cão ‘dog’, rir ‘to laugh’, verde ‘green’, etc., the lexicon is the domain of word formation, which is constraint-based (Rodrigues 2008, 2009. This means the word formation part of the lexicon is constrained by regular patterns that are neither directional in principle, nor syntactic in nature. We follow Jackendoff (2002 conception on the lexicon, conceiving it an interface of syntax, phonology and semantics. Converted deverbal nouns formation seems to agree with this conception, since it depends on phonological, semantic and syntactical constraints (Rodrigues 2004, 2009. Portuguese verb-into-noun conversion is not a simple case of syntactic environment. This is specially visible when we confront this lexical conversion with a purely syntactic type of nominalisation (Kerleroux 1996, such as the one that occurs in O estudar matemática traz-me vantagens. ‘Studying maths brings me advantages’ or O remendar roupa é um recurso nesta época. ‘Mending cloths is a good resource
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Semantic dementia without surface dyslexia in Spanish: unimpaired reading with impaired semantics.
Wilson, Maximiliano A; Martínez-Cuitiño, Macarena
2012-01-01
Surface dyslexia has been attributed to an overreliance on the sub-lexical route for reading. Typically, surface dyslexic patients commit regularisation errors when reading irregular words. Also, semantic dementia has often been associated with surface dyslexia, leading to some explanations of the reading impairment that stress the role of semantics in irregular word reading. Nevertheless, some patients have been reported with unimpaired ability to read irregular words, even though they show severe comprehension impairment. We present the case of M.B., the first Spanish-speaking semantic dementia patient to be reported who shows unimpaired reading of non-words, regular words, and - most strikingly - irregular loan words. M.B. has severely impaired comprehension of the same words he reads correctly (whether regular or irregular). We argue that M.B.'s pattern of performance shows that irregular words can be correctly read even with impaired semantic knowledge corresponding to those words.
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Modelling extreme dry spells in the Mediterranean region in connection with atmospheric circulation
Tramblay, Yves; Hertig, Elke
2018-04-01
Long droughts periods can affect the Mediterranean region during the winter season, when most of annual precipitation occurs, and consequently have strong impacts on agriculture, groundwater levels and water resources. The goal of this study is to model annual maximum dry spells lengths (AMDSL) that occur during the extended winter season (October to April). The spatial patterns of extreme dry spells and their relationships with large-scale atmospheric circulation were first investigated. Then, AMDSL were modelled using Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distributions incorporating climatic covariates, to evaluate the dependences of extreme dry spells to synoptic patterns using an analogue approach. The data from a network of 160 rain gauges having daily precipitation measurements between 1960 and 2009 are considered together with the ERA-20C reanalysis of the 20th century to provide atmospheric variables (geopotential heights, humidity, winds). A regional classification of both the occurrence and the duration of AMDSL helped to distinguish three spatially contiguous regions in which the regional distributions were found homogeneous. From composite analysis, significant positive anomalies in geopotential height (Z500) and negative anomalies in zonal wind (U850) and relative and specific humidity (S850, R850) were found to be associated with AMDSL in the three regions and provided the reference to build analogue days. Finally, non-stationary GEV models have been compared, in which the location and scale parameters are related to different atmospheric indices. Results indicates, at the whole Mediterranean scale, that positives anomalies of the North Atlantic Oscillation index and to a lesser extent the Mediterranean Oscillation index are linked to longer extreme dry spells in the majority of stations. For the three regions identified, the frequency of U850 negative anomalies over North Africa is significantly associated with the magnitude of AMDSL. AMDL are also
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New Opportunities for Remote Sensing Ionospheric Irregularities by Fitting Scintillation Spectra
Carrano, C. S.; Rino, C. L.; Groves, K. M.
2017-12-01
In a recent paper, we presented a phase screen theory for the spectrum of intensity scintillations when the refractive index irregularities follow a two-component power law [Carrano and Rino, DOI: 10.1002/2015RS005903]. More recently we have investigated the inverse problem, whereby phase screen parameters are inferred from scintillation time series. This is accomplished by fitting the spectrum of intensity fluctuations with a parametrized theoretical model using Maximum Likelihood (ML) methods. The Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo technique provides a-posteriori errors and confidence intervals. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) provides justification for the use of one- or two-component irregularity models. We refer to this fitting as Irregularity Parameter Estimation (IPE) since it provides a statistical description of the irregularities from the scintillations they produce. In this talk, we explore some new opportunities for remote sensing ionospheric irregularities afforded by IPE. Statistical characterization of irregularities and the plasma bubbles in which they are embedded provides insight into the development of the underlying instability. In a companion paper by Rino et al., IPE is used to interpret scintillation due to simulated EPB structure. IPE can be used to reconcile multi-frequency scintillation observations and to construct high fidelity scintillation simulation tools. In space-to-ground propagation scenarios, for which an estimate of the distance to the scattering region is available a-priori, IPE enables retrieval of zonal irregularity drift. In radio occultation scenarios, the distance to the irregularities is generally unknown but IPE enables retrieval of Fresnel frequency. A geometric model for the effective scan velocity maps Fresnel frequency to Fresnel scale, yielding the distance to the irregularities. We demonstrate this approach by geolocating irregularities observed by the CORISS instrument onboard the C/NOFS satellite.
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State reconstruction and irregular wavefunctions for the hydrogen atom
Krähmer, D. S.; Leonhardt, U.
1997-07-01
Inspired by a recently proposed procedure by Leonhardt and Raymer for wavepacket reconstruction, we calculate the irregular wavefunctions for the bound states of the Coulomb potential. We select the irregular solutions which have the simplest semiclassical limit.
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On a new process for cusp irregularity production
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
H. C. Carlson
2008-09-01
Full Text Available Two plasma instability mechanisms were thought until 2007 to dominate the formation of plasma irregularities in the F region high latitude and polar ionosphere; the gradient-drift driven instability, and the velocity-shear driven instability. The former mechanism was accepted as accounting for plasma structuring in polar cap patches, the latter for plasma structuring in polar cap sun aligned arcs. Recent work has established the need to replace this view of the past two decades with a new patch plasma structuring process (not a new mechanism, whereby shear-driven instabilities first rapidly structure the entering plasma, after which gradient drift instabilities build on these large "seed" irregularities. Correct modeling of cusp and early polar cap patch structuring will not be accomplished without allowing for this compound process. This compound process explains several previously unexplained characteristics of cusp and early polar cap patch irregularities. Here we introduce additional data, coincident in time and space, to extend that work to smaller irregularity scale sizes and relate it to the structured cusp current system.
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Word Domain Disambiguation via Word Sense Disambiguation
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Tratz, Stephen C.; Gregory, Michelle L.
2006-06-04
Word subject domains have been widely used to improve the perform-ance of word sense disambiguation al-gorithms. However, comparatively little effort has been devoted so far to the disambiguation of word subject do-mains. The few existing approaches have focused on the development of al-gorithms specific to word domain dis-ambiguation. In this paper we explore an alternative approach where word domain disambiguation is achieved via word sense disambiguation. Our study shows that this approach yields very strong results, suggesting that word domain disambiguation can be ad-dressed in terms of word sense disam-biguation with no need for special purpose algorithms.
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Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database
Kyselý, Jan; Plavcová, Eva; Davídkovová, Hana; Kynčl, J.
2011-01-01
Roč. 49, č. 2 (2011), s. 113-129 ISSN 0936-577X R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GAP209/11/1985 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z30420517; CEZ:AV0Z30120515 Keywords : Human mortality * Cardiovascular diseases * Temperature extremes * Hot spells * Cold spells * Central Europe Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology Impact factor: 1.994, year: 2011 http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr_oa/c049p113.pdf
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Ionospheric Irregularities at Mars Probed by MARSIS Topside Sounding
Harada, Y.; Gurnett, D. A.; Kopf, A. J.; Halekas, J. S.; Ruhunusiri, S.
2018-01-01
The upper ionosphere of Mars contains a variety of perturbations driven by solar wind forcing from above and upward propagating atmospheric waves from below. Here we explore the global distribution and variability of ionospheric irregularities around the exobase at Mars by analyzing topside sounding data from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument on board Mars Express. As irregular structure gives rise to off-vertical echoes with excess propagation time, the diffuseness of ionospheric echo traces can be used as a diagnostic tool for perturbed reflection surfaces. The observed properties of diffuse echoes above unmagnetized regions suggest that ionospheric irregularities with horizontal wavelengths of tens to hundreds of kilometers are particularly enhanced in the winter hemisphere and at high solar zenith angles. Given the known inverse dependence of neutral gravity wave amplitudes on the background atmospheric temperature, the ionospheric irregularities probed by MARSIS are most likely associated with plasma perturbations driven by atmospheric gravity waves. Though extreme events with unusually diffuse echoes are more frequently observed for high solar wind dynamic pressures during some time intervals, the vast majority of the diffuse echo events are unaffected by varying solar wind conditions, implying limited influence of solar wind forcing on the generation of ionospheric irregularities. Combination of remote and in situ measurements of ionospheric irregularities would offer the opportunity for a better understanding of the ionospheric dynamics at Mars.
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Bottomside sinusoidal irregularities in the equatorial F region
Valladares, C. E.; Hanson, W. B.; Mcclure, J. P.; Cragin, B. L.
1983-01-01
By using the Ogo 6 satellite, McClure and Hanson (1973) have discovered sinusoidal irregularities in the equatorial F region ion number density. In the present investigation, a description is provided of the properties of a distinct category of sinusoidal irregularities found in equatorial data from the AE-C and AE-E satellites. The observed scale sizes vary from about 300 m to 3 km in the direction perpendicular to B, overlapping with and extending the range observed by using Ogo 6. Attention is given to low and high resolution data, a comparison with Huancayo ionograms, the confinement of 'bottomside sinusoidal' (BSS) irregularities essentially to the bottomside of the F layer, spectral characteristics, and BSS, scintillation, and ionosonde observations.
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The Impact of Irregular Warfare on the US Army
National Research Council Canada - National Science Library
McDonald, III, Roger L
2006-01-01
Although the U.S. Army has yet to clearly define irregular warfare, it is imperative that the Army take near-term action to enhance the ability of Soldiers and units to operate effectively in an irregular warfare environment...
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Puliatte, Alison; Ehri, Linnea C.
2018-01-01
The relationship between 2nd and 3rd grade teachers' linguistic knowledge and spelling instructional practices and their students' spelling gains from fall to spring was examined. Second grade (N = 16) and 3rd grade (N = 16) teachers were administered an instructional practices survey and a linguistic knowledge test. Total scores on the two…
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Singh, Abhishek Kumar; Das, Amrita; Parween, Zeenat; Chattopadhyay, Amares
2015-10-01
The present paper deals with the propagation of Love-type wave in an initially stressed irregular vertically heterogeneous layer lying over an initially stressed isotropic layer and an initially stressed isotropic half-space. Two different types of irregularities, viz., rectangular and parabolic, are considered at the interface of uppermost initially stressed heterogeneous layer and intermediate initially stressed isotropic layer. Dispersion equations are obtained in closed form for both cases of irregularities, distinctly. The effect of size and shape of irregularity, horizontal compressive initial stress, horizontal tensile initial stress, heterogeneity of the uppermost layer and width ratio of the layers on phase velocity of Love-type wave are the major highlights of the study. Comparative study has been made to identify the effects of different shapes of irregularity, presence of heterogeneity and initial stresses. Numerical computations have been carried out and depicted by means of graphs for the present study.
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Spelling Errors of Dyslexic Children in Bosnian Language with Transparent Orthography
Duranovic, Mirela
2017-01-01
The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of spelling errors made by children with dyslexia in Bosnian language with transparent orthography. Three main error categories were distinguished: phonological, orthographic, and grammatical errors. An analysis of error type showed 86% of phonological errors, 10% of orthographic errors, and 4%…
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Frequency-Specific, Binaural Stimulation of Students with Reading and Spelling Difficulties.
Johansen, Kjeld
A study examined the hearing of learning disabled students (such as dyslexics) in an attempt to classify, identify, and design auditory stimulation procedures. Subjects, 40 students from seventh-grade classes and 40 volunteers (ages 9 to 23) with reading and spelling difficulties, were given listening tests. Results indicated that many of the…
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Sambai, Ami; Coltheart, Max; Uno, Akira
2018-04-01
In English, the size of the regularity effect on word reading-aloud latency decreases across position of irregularity. This has been explained by a sublexical serially operating reading mechanism. It is unclear whether sublexical serial processing occurs in reading two-character kanji words aloud. To investigate this issue, we studied how the position of atypical character-to-sound correspondences influenced reading performance. When participants read inconsistent-atypical words aloud mixed randomly with nonwords, reading latencies of words with an inconsistent-atypical correspondence in the initial position were significantly longer than words with an inconsistent-atypical correspondence in the second position. The significant difference of reading latencies for inconsistent-atypical words disappeared when inconsistent-atypical words were presented without nonwords. Moreover, reading latencies for words with an inconsistent-atypical correspondence in the first position were shorter than for words with a typical correspondence in the first position. This typicality effect was absent when the atypicality was in the second position. These position-of-atypicality effects suggest that sublexical processing of kanji occurs serially and that the phonology of two-character kanji words is generated from both a lexical parallel process and a sublexical serial process.
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Forehearing words: Pre-activation of word endings at word onset.
Roll, Mikael; Söderström, Pelle; Frid, Johan; Mannfolk, Peter; Horne, Merle
2017-09-29
Occurring at rates up to 6-7 syllables per second, speech perception and understanding involves rapid identification of speech sounds and pre-activation of morphemes and words. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the time-course and neural sources of pre-activation of word endings as participants heard the beginning of unfolding words. ERPs showed a pre-activation negativity (PrAN) for word beginnings (first two segmental phonemes) with few possible completions. PrAN increased gradually as the number of possible completions of word onsets decreased and the lexical frequency of the completions increased. The early brain potential effect for few possible word completions was associated with a blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) contrast increase in Broca's area (pars opercularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus) and angular gyrus of the left parietal lobe. We suggest early involvement of the left prefrontal cortex in inhibiting irrelevant left parietal activation during lexical selection. The results further our understanding of the importance of Broca's area in rapid online pre-activation of words. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Galuschka, Katharina; Rothe, Josefine; Schulte-Körne, Gerd
2015-09-01
This article looks at a means of objectively evaluating the quality of psychometric tests. This approach enables users to evaluate psychometric tests based on their methodological characteristics, in order to decide which instrument should be used. Reading and spelling assessment tools serve as examples. The paper also provides a review of German psychometric tests for the assessment of reading and spelling skills. This method facilitates the identification of psychometric tests.of high methodological quality which can be used for the assessment of reading and spelling skills. Reading performance should ideally be assessed with the following instruments: ELFE 1-6, LGVT 6-12, LESEN 6-7, LESEN 8-9, or WLLP-R. The tests to be used for the evaluation of spelling skills are DERET 1-2+, DERET 3-4+, WRT 1+, WRT 2+, WRT 3+, WRT 4+ or HSP 1-10.
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Toste, Jessica R; Capin, Philip; Williams, Kelly J; Cho, Eunsoo; Vaughn, Sharon
2018-05-01
This randomized control trial examined the efficacy of an intervention aimed at improving multisyllabic word reading (MWR) skills among fourth- and fifth-grade struggling readers ( n = 109, 48.6% male), as well as the relative effects of an embedded motivational beliefs training component. This study was a closely aligned replication of our earlier work. The intervention was replicated with a three-condition design: MWR only, MWR with a motivational beliefs component, and business-as-usual control. Students were tutored in small groups for 40 lessons (four 40-min lessons each week). When we combined performance of students in both MWR conditions, intervention students significantly outperformed controls on proximal measures of affix reading and MWR, as well as standardized measures of decoding, spelling, and text comprehension. Furthermore, there was a noted interaction between English learner status and treatment on spelling performance. There were no statistically significant main effects between the MWR groups on proximal or standardized measures of interest. Findings are discussed in terms of their relevance to MWR instruction for students with persistent reading difficulties and considerations for future research related to the malleability of motivation.
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Software support for irregular and loosely synchronous problems
Choudhary, A.; Fox, G.; Hiranandani, S.; Kennedy, K.; Koelbel, C.; Ranka, S.; Saltz, J.
1992-01-01
A large class of scientific and engineering applications may be classified as irregular and loosely synchronous from the perspective of parallel processing. We present a partial classification of such problems. This classification has motivated us to enhance FORTRAN D to provide language support for irregular, loosely synchronous problems. We present techniques for parallelization of such problems in the context of FORTRAN D.
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Irregular Shaped Building Design Optimization with Building Information Modelling
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Lee Xia Sheng
2016-01-01
Full Text Available This research is to recognise the function of Building Information Modelling (BIM in design optimization for irregular shaped buildings. The study focuses on a conceptual irregular shaped “twisted” building design similar to some existing sculpture-like architectures. Form and function are the two most important aspects of new buildings, which are becoming more sophisticated as parts of equally sophisticated “systems” that we are living in. Nowadays, it is common to have irregular shaped or sculpture-like buildings which are very different when compared to regular buildings. Construction industry stakeholders are facing stiff challenges in many aspects such as buildability, cost effectiveness, delivery time and facility management when dealing with irregular shaped building projects. Building Information Modelling (BIM is being utilized to enable architects, engineers and constructors to gain improved visualization for irregular shaped buildings; this has a purpose of identifying critical issues before initiating physical construction work. In this study, three variations of design options differing in rotating angle: 30 degrees, 60 degrees and 90 degrees are created to conduct quantifiable comparisons. Discussions are focused on three major aspects including structural planning, usable building space, and structural constructability. This research concludes that Building Information Modelling is instrumental in facilitating design optimization for irregular shaped building. In the process of comparing different design variations, instead of just giving “yes or no” type of response, stakeholders can now easily visualize, evaluate and decide to achieve the right balance based on their own criteria. Therefore, construction project stakeholders are empowered with superior evaluation and decision making capability.
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Park, Hyun-Rin; Uno, Akira
2015-08-01
The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the cognitive abilities that predict reading and spelling performance in Korean children in Grades 1 to 4, depending on expertise and reading experience. As a result, visual cognition, phonological awareness, naming speed and receptive vocabulary significantly predicted reading accuracy in children in Grades 1 and 2, whereas visual cognition, phonological awareness and rapid naming speed did not predict reading accuracy in children in higher grades. For reading, fluency, phonological awareness, rapid naming speed and receptive vocabulary were crucial abilities in children in Grades 1 to 3, whereas phonological awareness was not a significant predictor in children in Grade 4. In spelling, reading ability and receptive vocabulary were the most important abilities for accurate Hangul spelling. The results suggested that the degree of cognitive abilities required for reading and spelling changed depending on expertise and reading experience. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Periodic words connected with the Fibonacci words
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
G. M. Barabash
2016-06-01
Full Text Available In this paper we introduce two families of periodic words (FLP-words of type 1 and FLP-words of type 2 that are connected with the Fibonacci words and investigated their properties.
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Thompson, Robert; Tanimoto, Steve; Lyman, Ruby Dawn; Geselowitz, Kira; Begay, Kristin Kawena; Nielsen, Kathleen; Nagy, William; Abbott, Robert; Raskind, Marshall; Berninger, Virginia
2018-05-01
Children in grades 4 to 6 ( N =14) who despite early intervention had persisting dyslexia (impaired word reading and spelling) were assessed before and after computerized reading and writing instruction aimed at subword, word, and syntax skills shown in four prior studies to be effective for treating dyslexia. During the 12 two-hour sessions once a week after school they first completed HAWK Letters in Motion© for manuscript and cursive handwriting, HAWK Words in Motion© for phonological, orthographic, and morphological coding for word reading and spelling, and HAWK Minds in Motion© for sentence reading comprehension and written sentence composing. A reading comprehension activity in which sentences were presented one word at a time or one added word at a time was introduced. Next, to instill hope they could overcome their struggles with reading and spelling, they read and discussed stories about struggles of Buckminister Fuller who overcame early disabilities to make important contributions to society. Finally, they engaged in the new Kokopelli's World (KW)©, blocks-based online lessons, to learn computer coding in introductory programming by creating stories in sentence blocks (Tanimoto and Thompson 2016). Participants improved significantly in hallmark word decoding and spelling deficits of dyslexia, three syntax skills (oral construction, listening comprehension, and written composing), reading comprehension (with decoding as covariate), handwriting, orthographic and morphological coding, orthographic loop, and inhibition (focused attention). They answered more reading comprehension questions correctly when they had read sentences presented one word at a time (eliminating both regressions out and regressions in during saccades) than when presented one added word at a time (eliminating only regressions out during saccades). Indicators of improved self-efficacy that they could learn to read and write were observed. Reminders to pay attention and stay on task