Brain bases of reading fluency in typical reading and impaired fluency in dyslexia.

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Joanna A Christodoulou

Full Text Available Although the neural systems supporting single word reading are well studied, there are limited direct comparisons between typical and dyslexic readers of the neural correlates of reading fluency. Reading fluency deficits are a persistent behavioral marker of dyslexia into adulthood. The current study identified the neural correlates of fluent reading in typical and dyslexic adult readers, using sentences presented in a word-by-word format in which single words were presented sequentially at fixed rates. Sentences were presented at slow, medium, and fast rates, and participants were asked to decide whether each sentence did or did not make sense semantically. As presentation rates increased, participants became less accurate and slower at making judgments, with comprehension accuracy decreasing disproportionately for dyslexic readers. In-scanner performance on the sentence task correlated significantly with standardized clinical measures of both reading fluency and phonological awareness. Both typical readers and readers with dyslexia exhibited widespread, bilateral increases in activation that corresponded to increases in presentation rate. Typical readers exhibited significantly larger gains in activation as a function of faster presentation rates than readers with dyslexia in several areas, including left prefrontal and left superior temporal regions associated with semantic retrieval and semantic and phonological representations. Group differences were more extensive when behavioral differences between conditions were equated across groups. These findings suggest a brain basis for impaired reading fluency in dyslexia, specifically a failure of brain regions involved in semantic retrieval and semantic and phonological representations to become fully engaged for comprehension at rapid reading rates.

The Role of Word Recognition, Oral Reading Fluency and Listening Comprehension in the Simple View of Reading: A Study in an Intermediate Depth Orthography

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Cadime, Irene; Rodrigues, Bruna; Santos, Sandra; Viana, Fernanda Leopoldina; Chaves-Sousa, Séli; do Céu Cosme, Maria; Ribeiro, Iolanda

2017-01-01

Empirical research has provided evidence for the simple view of reading across a variety of orthographies, but the role of oral reading fluency in the model is unclear. Moreover, the relative weight of listening comprehension, oral reading fluency and word recognition in reading comprehension seems to vary across orthographies and schooling years.…

Typography and color: effects of salience and fluency on conscious recollective experience.

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Wehr, Thomas; Wippich, Werner

2004-12-01

Within one experiment the central assumptions of the distinctiveness/fluency account of recollective experience were tested and contrasted with predictions of processing theory. To manipulate perceptual salience, the typography of words was varied. Effects of conceptual salience were induced by a variation of word color. In the study phase participants generated different word or object images according to presented words. To manipulate perceptual and conceptual fluency one test group underwent a priming procedure in the test phase, consisting of a recognition test, whereby some primes were identical to the target words typographically or by color and others were not. Additionally, all participants were asked to make judgments of recollective experience (remember, know, guess) after the old/new decisions. The results of the data analyses confirm the distinctiveness/fluency account. Words written in an unusual typography or color were judged significantly more often as "remembered" than normal words. The priming procedure uncovered some effects of fluency on reaction times: old/new decisions took less time if prime and target words were perceptually or conceptually identical.

Is semantic verbal fluency impairment explained by executive function deficits in schizophrenia?

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Arthur A. Berberian

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: To investigate if verbal fluency impairment in schizophrenia reflects executive function deficits or results from degraded semantic store or inefficient search and retrieval strategies. Method: Two groups were compared: 141 individuals with schizophrenia and 119 healthy age and education-matched controls. Both groups performed semantic and phonetic verbal fluency tasks. Performance was evaluated using three scores, based on 1 number of words generated; 2 number of clustered/related words; and 3 switching score. A fourth performance score based on the number of clusters was also measured. Results: SZ individuals produced fewer words than controls. After controlling for the total number of words produced, a difference was observed between the groups in the number of cluster-related words generated in the semantic task. In both groups, the number of words generated in the semantic task was higher than that generated in the phonemic task, although a significant group vs. fluency type interaction showed that subjects with schizophrenia had disproportionate semantic fluency impairment. Working memory was positively associated with increased production of words within clusters and inversely correlated with switching. Conclusion: Semantic fluency impairment may be attributed to an inability (resulting from reduced cognitive control to distinguish target signal from competing noise and to maintain cues for production of memory probes.

Using temporal orientation, category fluency, and word recall for detecting cognitive impairment: the 10-point cognitive screener (10-CS).

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Apolinario, Daniel; Lichtenthaler, Daniel Gomes; Magaldi, Regina Miksian; Soares, Aline Thomaz; Busse, Alexandre Leopold; Amaral, Jose Renato das Gracas; Jacob-Filho, Wilson; Brucki, Sonia Maria Dozzi

2016-01-01

A screening strategy composed of three-item temporal orientation and three-word recall has been increasingly used for detecting cognitive impairment. However, the intervening task administered between presentation and recall has varied. We evaluated six brief tasks that could be useful as intervening distractors and possibly provide incremental accuracy: serial subtraction, clock drawing, category fluency, letter fluency, timed visual detection, and digits backwards. Older adults (n = 230) consecutively referred for suspected cognitive impairment underwent a comprehensive assessment for gold-standard diagnosis, of whom 56 (24%) presented cognitive impairment not dementia and 68 (30%) presented dementia. Among those with dementia, 87% presented very mild or mild stages (Clinical Dementia Rating 0.5 or 1). The incremental value of each candidate intervening task in a model already containing orientation and word recall was assessed. Category fluency (animal naming) presented the highest incremental value among the six candidate intervening tasks. Reclassification analyses revealed a net gain of 12% among cognitively impaired and 17% among normal participants. A four-point scaled score of the animal naming task was added to three-item temporal orientation and three-word recall to compose the 10-point Cognitive Screener. The education-adjusted 10-point Cognitive Screener outperformed the longer Mini-Mental State Examination for detecting both cognitive impairment (area under the curve 0.85 vs 0.77; p = 0.027) and dementia (area under the curve 0.90 vs 0.83; p = 0.015). Based on empirical data, we have developed a brief and easy-to-use screening strategy with higher accuracy and some practical advantages compared with commonly used tools. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Personality traits prospectively predict verbal fluency in a lifespan sample.

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Sutin, Angelina R; Terracciano, Antonio; Kitner-Triolo, Melissa H; Uda, Manuela; Schlessinger, David; Zonderman, Alan B

2011-12-01

In a community-dwelling sample (N = 4,790; age range 14-94), we examined whether personality traits prospectively predicted performance on a verbal fluency task. Open, extraverted, and emotionally stable participants had better verbal fluency. At the facet level, dispositionally happy and self-disciplined participants retrieved more words; those prone to anxiety and depression and those who were deliberative retrieved fewer words. Education moderated the association between conscientiousness and fluency such that participants with lower education performed better on the fluency task if they were also conscientious. Age was not a moderator at the domain level, indicating that the personality-fluency associations were consistent across the life span. A disposition toward emotional vulnerability and being less open, less happy, and undisciplined may be detrimental to cognitive performance.

Neural correlates of rhyming vs. lexical and semantic fluency.

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Kircher, Tilo; Nagels, Arne; Kirner-Veselinovic, André; Krach, Sören

2011-05-19

Rhyming words, as in songs or poems, is a universal feature of human language across all ages. In the present fMRI study a novel overt rhyming task was applied to determine the neural correlates of rhyme production. Fifteen right-handed healthy male volunteers participated in this verbal fluency study. Participants were instructed to overtly articulate as many words as possible either to a given initial letter (LVF) or to a semantic category (SVF). During the rhyming verbal fluency task (RVF), participants had to generate words that rhymed with pseudoword stimuli. On-line overt verbal responses were audiotaped in order to correct the imaging results for the number of generated words. Fewer words were generated in the rhyming compared to both the lexical and the semantic condition. On a neural level, all language tasks activated a language network encompassing the left inferior frontal gyrus, the middle and superior temporal gyri as well as the contralateral right cerebellum. Rhyming verbal fluency compared to both lexical and semantic verbal fluency demonstrated significantly stronger activation of left inferior parietal region. Generating novel rhyme words seems to be mainly mediated by the left inferior parietal lobe, a region previously found to be associated with meta-phonological as well as sub-lexical linguistic processes. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

On Which Abilities Are Category Fluency and Letter Fluency Grounded A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of 53 Alzheimer's Dementia Patients

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Ilaria Bizzozero

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Background/Aims: In Alzheimer's dementia (AD, letter fluency is less impaired than category fluency. To check whether category fluency and letter fluency depend differently on semantics and attention, 53 mild AD patients were given animal and letter fluency tasks, two semantic tests (the Verbal Semantic Questionnaire and the BORB Association Match test, and two attentional tests (the Stroop Colour-Word Interference test and the Digit Cancellation test. Methods: We conducted a LISREL confirmatory factor analysis to check the extent to which category fluency and letter fluency tasks were related to semantics and attention, viewed as latent variables. Results: Both types of fluency tasks were related to the latent variable Semantics but not to the latent variable Attention. Conclusions: Our findings warn against interpreting the disproportionate impairment of AD patients on category and letter fluency as a contrast between semantics and attention.

Semantic, phonologic, and verb fluency in Huntington's disease

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Mariana Jardim Azambuja

Full Text Available Abstract Verbal fluency tasks have been identified as important indicators of executive functioning impairment in patients with frontal lobe dysfunction. Although the usual evaluation of this ability considers phonologic and semantic criteria, there is some evidence that fluency of verbs would be more sensitive in disclosing frontostriatal physiopathology since frontal regions primarily mediate retrieval of verbs. Huntington's disease usually affects these circuitries. Objective: To compare three types of verbal fluency task in the assessment of frontal-striatal dysfunction in HD subjects. Methods: We studied 26 Huntington's disease subjects, divided into two subgroups: mild (11 and moderate (15 along with 26 normal volunteers matched for age, gender and schooling, for three types of verbal fluency: phonologic fluency (F-A-S, semantic fluency and fluency of verbs. Results: Huntington's disease subjects showed a significant reduction in the number of words correctly generated in the three tasks when compared to the normal group. Both controls and Huntington's disease subjects showed a similar pattern of decreasing task performance with the greatest number of words being generated by semantic elicitation followed by verbs and lastly phonologic criteria. We did not find greater production of verbs compared with F-A-S and semantic conditions. Moreover, the fluency of verbs distinguished only the moderate group from controls. Conclusion: Our results indicated that phonologic and semantic fluency can be used to evaluate executive functioning, proving more sensitive than verb fluency. However, it is important to point out that the diverse presentations of Huntington's disease means that an extended sample is necessary for more consistent analysis of this issue.

Performances on five verbal fluency tests in a healthy, elderly Danish sample

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Stokholm, Jette; Jørgensen, Kasper; Vogel, Asmus

2013-01-01

Verbal fluency tests are widely used as measures of language and executive functions. This study presents data for five tests; semantic fluency (animals, supermarket items and alternating between cities and professions), lexical fluency (s-words), and action fluency (verbs) based on a sample of 100...

Using Arabic word identification fluency to monitor first-grade reading progress.

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Abu-Hamour, Bashir

2014-05-01

This study examined the applicability, reliability and validity of the Arabic version of the curriculum-based measurement word identification fluency (CBM WIF) measure in Jordanian students. A sample of 75 first-grade students, 50 average readers and 25 with reading difficulties, were recruited from two public primary schools. Results indicated that the CBM WIF is a reliable, valid and cost-effective measure. A 15-week trial demonstrated the effectiveness of using CBM WIF with the first-grade students. In addition, CBM WIF was a good predictor of grade point average in the native language. Moreover, students who were struggling with reading scored significantly lower on CBM WIF probes than did average readers. Results suggest that the CBM WIF measures may be useful for evaluating and predicting reading performance in Arabic. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Exploring "fringe" consciousness: the subjective experience of perceptual fluency and its objective bases.

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Reber, Rolf; Wurtz, Pascal; Zimmermann, Thomas D

2004-03-01

Perceptual fluency is the subjective experience of ease with which an incoming stimulus is processed. Although perceptual fluency is assessed by speed of processing, it remains unclear how objective speed is related to subjective experiences of fluency. We present evidence that speed at different stages of the perceptual process contributes to perceptual fluency. In an experiment, figure-ground contrast influenced detection of briefly presented words, but not their identification at longer exposure durations. Conversely, font in which the word was written influenced identification, but not detection. Both contrast and font influenced subjective fluency. These findings suggest that speed of processing at different stages condensed into a unified subjective experience of perceptual fluency.

Reading Fluency in the Middle and Secondary Grades

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David D. PAIGE

2014-10-01

Full Text Available In this article we discuss the specifics of reading fluency and provide suggestions for identifying when reading is fluent and when it is not. We then discuss the important role that reading fluency plays in the attainment of literacy achievement and briefly review research results that highlight the relationship between fluency and comprehension. This is followed by a discussion of reading fluency and comprehension data gathered by one of the authors in India that highlight the possibilities for the acquisition of fluent reading in those learning English as a second language. Following a review of strategies to assist middle and secondary teachers with the development of fluent reading in their students, we conclude with a discussion of word study strategies that promote syllabic and morphemic analysis. Such strategies aid readers in the development of word automaticity and encourage the development of fluent reading.

Verbal and Non-verbal Fluency in Adults with Developmental Dyslexia: Phonological Processing or Executive Control Problems?

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Smith-Spark, James H; Henry, Lucy A; Messer, David J; Zięcik, Adam P

2017-08-01

The executive function of fluency describes the ability to generate items according to specific rules. Production of words beginning with a certain letter (phonemic fluency) is impaired in dyslexia, while generation of words belonging to a certain semantic category (semantic fluency) is typically unimpaired. However, in dyslexia, verbal fluency has generally been studied only in terms of overall words produced. Furthermore, performance of adults with dyslexia on non-verbal design fluency tasks has not been explored but would indicate whether deficits could be explained by executive control, rather than phonological processing, difficulties. Phonemic, semantic and design fluency tasks were presented to adults with dyslexia and without dyslexia, using fine-grained performance measures and controlling for IQ. Hierarchical regressions indicated that dyslexia predicted lower phonemic fluency, but not semantic or design fluency. At the fine-grained level, dyslexia predicted a smaller number of switches between subcategories on phonemic fluency, while dyslexia did not predict the size of phonemically related clusters of items. Overall, the results suggested that phonological processing problems were at the root of dyslexia-related fluency deficits; however, executive control difficulties could not be completely ruled out as an alternative explanation. Developments in research methodology, equating executive demands across fluency tasks, may resolve this issue. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comparison of Animal, Action and Phonemic Fluency in Aphasia

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Faroqi-Shah, Yasmeen; Milman, Lisa

2018-01-01

Background: The ability to generate words that follow certain constraints, or verbal fluency, is a sensitive indicator of neurocognitive impairment, and is impacted by a variety of variables. Aims: To investigate the effect of post-stroke aphasia, elicitation category and linguistic variables on verbal fluency performance. Methods &…

Phonemic verbal fluency and severity of anxiety disorders in young children

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Rudineia Toazza

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction: Previous studies have implicated impaired verbal fluency as being associated with anxiety disorders in adolescents. Objectives: To replicate and extend previously reported evidence by investigating whether performance in phonemic verbal fluency tasks is related to severity of anxiety symptoms in young children with anxiety disorders. We also aim to investigate whether putative associations are independent from co-occurring attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD symptoms. Methods: Sixty children (6-12 years old with primary diagnoses of anxiety disorders participated in this study. Severity of symptoms was measured using clinician-based, parent-rated and self-rated validated scales. Verbal fluency was assessed using a simple task that measures the number of words evoked in 1-minute with the letter F, from which we quantified the number of isolated words, number of clusters (groups of similar words and number of switches (transitions between clusters and/or between isolated words. Results: There was a significant association between the number of clusters and anxiety scores. Further analysis revealed associations were independent from co-occurring ADHD symptoms. Conclusion: We replicate and extend previous findings showing that verbal fluency is consistently associated with severity in anxiety disorders in children. Further studies should explore the potential effect of cognitive training on symptoms of anxiety disorders.

Consonant and Vowel Identification in Cochlear Implant Users Measured by Nonsense Words: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

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Rødvik, Arne Kirkhorn; von Koss Torkildsen, Janne; Wie, Ona Bø; Storaker, Marit Aarvaag; Silvola, Juha Tapio

2018-04-17

The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to establish a baseline of the vowel and consonant identification scores in prelingually and postlingually deaf users of multichannel cochlear implants (CIs) tested with consonant-vowel-consonant and vowel-consonant-vowel nonsense syllables. Six electronic databases were searched for peer-reviewed articles reporting consonant and vowel identification scores in CI users measured by nonsense words. Relevant studies were independently assessed and screened by 2 reviewers. Consonant and vowel identification scores were presented in forest plots and compared between studies in a meta-analysis. Forty-seven articles with 50 studies, including 647 participants, thereof 581 postlingually deaf and 66 prelingually deaf, met the inclusion criteria of this study. The mean performance on vowel identification tasks for the postlingually deaf CI users was 76.8% (N = 5), which was higher than the mean performance for the prelingually deaf CI users (67.7%; N = 1). The mean performance on consonant identification tasks for the postlingually deaf CI users was higher (58.4%; N = 44) than for the prelingually deaf CI users (46.7%; N = 6). The most common consonant confusions were found between those with same manner of articulation (/k/ as /t/, /m/ as /n/, and /p/ as /t/). The mean performance on consonant identification tasks for the prelingually and postlingually deaf CI users was found. There were no statistically significant differences between the scores for prelingually and postlingually deaf CI users. The consonants that were incorrectly identified were typically confused with other consonants with the same acoustic properties, namely, voicing, duration, nasality, and silent gaps. A univariate metaregression model, although not statistically significant, indicated that duration of implant use in postlingually deaf adults predict a substantial portion of their consonant identification ability. As there is no ceiling

Phonotactics, Neighborhood Activation, and Lexical Access for Spoken Words

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Vitevitch, Michael S.; Luce, Paul A.; Pisoni, David B.; Auer, Edward T.

2012-01-01

Probabilistic phonotactics refers to the relative frequencies of segments and sequences of segments in spoken words. Neighborhood density refers to the number of words that are phonologically similar to a given word. Despite a positive correlation between phonotactic probability and neighborhood density, nonsense words with high probability segments and sequences are responded to more quickly than nonsense words with low probability segments and sequences, whereas real words occurring in dense similarity neighborhoods are responded to more slowly than real words occurring in sparse similarity neighborhoods. This contradiction may be resolved by hypothesizing that effects of probabilistic phonotactics have a sublexical focus and that effects of similarity neighborhood density have a lexical focus. The implications of this hypothesis for models of spoken word recognition are discussed. PMID:10433774

Working memory influences processing speed and reading fluency in ADHD.

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Jacobson, Lisa A; Ryan, Matthew; Martin, Rebecca B; Ewen, Joshua; Mostofsky, Stewart H; Denckla, Martha B; Mahone, E Mark

2011-01-01

Processing-speed deficits affect reading efficiency, even among individuals who recognize and decode words accurately. Children with ADHD who decode words accurately can still have inefficient reading fluency, leading to a bottleneck in other cognitive processes. This "slowing" in ADHD is associated with deficits in fundamental components of executive function underlying processing speed, including response selection. The purpose of the present study was to deconstruct processing speed in order to determine which components of executive control best explain the "processing" speed deficits related to reading fluency in ADHD. Participants (41 ADHD, 21 controls), ages 9-14 years, screened for language disorders, word reading deficits, and psychiatric disorders, were administered measures of copying speed, processing speed, reading fluency, working memory, reaction time, inhibition, and auditory attention span. Compared to controls, children with ADHD showed reduced oral and silent reading fluency and reduced processing speed-driven primarily by deficits on WISC-IV Coding. In contrast, groups did not differ on copying speed. After controlling for copying speed, sex, severity of ADHD-related symptomatology, and GAI, slowed "processing" speed (i.e., Coding) was significantly associated with verbal span and measures of working memory but not with measures of response control/inhibition, lexical retrieval speed, reaction time, or intrasubject variability. Further, "processing" speed (i.e., Coding, residualized for copying speed) and working memory were significant predictors of oral reading fluency. Abnormalities in working memory and response selection (which are frontally mediated and enter into the output side of processing speed) may play an important role in deficits in reading fluency in ADHD, potentially more than posteriorally mediated problems with orienting of attention or perceiving the stimulus.

Event-Related Potential (ERP) Evidence for Fluency-Based Recognition Memory

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Leynes, P. Andrew; Zish, Kevin

2012-01-01

Two experiments investigated the influence of perceptual fluency on recognition memory. Words were studied using a shallow encoding task to decrease the contribution of recollection on recognition. Fluency was manipulated by blurring half of the test probes. Clarity varied randomly across trials in one experiment and was grouped into two blocks…

Phonological fluency strategy of switching differentiates relapsing-remitting and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis patients.

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Messinis, L; Kosmidis, M H; Vlahou, C; Malegiannaki, A C; Gatzounis, G; Dimisianos, N; Karra, A; Kiosseoglou, G; Gourzis, P; Papathanasopoulos, P

2013-01-01

The strategies used to perform a verbal fluency task appear to be reflective of cognitive abilities necessary for successful daily functioning. In the present study, we explored potential differences in verbal fluency strategies (switching and clustering) used to maximize word production by patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) versus patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS). We further assessed impairment rates and potential differences in the sensitivity and specificity of phonological versus semantic verbal fluency tasks in discriminating between those with a diagnosis of MS and healthy adults. We found that the overall rate of impaired verbal fluency in our MS sample was consistent with that in other studies. However, we found no differences between types of MS (SPMS, RRMS), on semantic or phonological fluency word production, or the strategies used to maximize semantic fluency. In contrast, we found that the number of switches differed significantly in the phonological fluency task between the SPMS and RRMS subtypes. The clinical utility of semantic versus phonological fluency in discriminating MS patients from healthy controls did not indicate any significant differences. Further, the strategies used to maximize performance did not differentiate MS subgroups or MS patients from healthy controls.

The Use of Profanity During Letter Fluency Tasks in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease

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Ringman, John M.; Kwon, Eunice; Flores, Deborah L.; Rotko, Carol; Mendez, Mario F.; Lu, Po

2012-01-01

Objective To assess whether the production of profanity during letter fluency testing distinguishes frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Background Alterations in language and social behavior typify FTD spectrum disorders. Nonetheless, in can be difficult to distinguish pathologically-defined frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) from AD clinically. Assessing verbal fluency by having patients generate as many words as they can beginning with specific letters in a given period of time can yield diverse information of diagnostic utility. Method Words produced during FAS letter fluency testing were reviewed and instances of the use of "f*ck", "*ss", and "sh*t" and other words felt to be inappropriate were sought. The frequency of these words was compared between clinically diagnosed FTD and AD patients using chi-square tests. Results We found that 6/32 (18.8%) patients with FTD generated the word "f*ck" during the "F" trial as opposed to none of 38 patients with AD (p = 0.007). Patients who said "f*ck" had diagnoses of either behavioral variant FTD (3/15), progressive non-fluent aphasia (2/8), or semantic dementia (1/3). Conclusions Though the specific neuropathology in these cases is uncertain, generation of "f*ck" during letter fluency testing appears to have utility in differentiating FTD from AD. PMID:20829665

Perceptual Fluency, Auditory Generation, and Metamemory: Analyzing the Perceptual Fluency Hypothesis in the Auditory Modality

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Besken, Miri; Mulligan, Neil W.

2014-01-01

Judgments of learning (JOLs) are sometimes influenced by factors that do not impact actual memory performance. One recent proposal is that perceptual fluency during encoding affects metamemory and is a basis of metacognitive illusions. In the present experiments, participants identified aurally presented words that contained inter-spliced silences…

Episodic Memory, Semantic Memory, and Fluency.

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Schaefer, Carl F.

1980-01-01

Suggests that creating a second-language semantic network can be conceived as developing a plan for retrieving second-language word forms. Characteristics of linguistic performance which will promote fluency are discussed in light of the distinction between episodic and semantic memory. (AMH)

Fluency Effects on Brand Name Recognition and Preference

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Erz, Antonia; Christensen, Bo

2014-01-01

Existing research has not provided a clear understanding of processing fluency effects on memory. In a laboratory experiment with novel non-words, we found a recognition advantage of fluent non-words over moderately fluent and disfluent non-words. This advantage diminished when non-words were...... presented as novel brand names in different product contexts. We further tested a preference reversal in favor of disfluency and found that disfluent brand names (non-words) were equally disliked across different products contexts. A preference reversal could be observed when fluent names were preferred...

Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels.

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El Aissati, Abder; McQueen, James M; Cutler, Anne

2012-07-01

Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the constraint would be counter-productive in certain languages that allow stand-alone vowelless open-class words. One such language is Berber (where t is indeed a word). Berber listeners here detected words affixed to nonsense contexts with or without vowels. Length effects seen in other languages replicated in Berber, but in contrast to prior findings, word detection was not hindered by vowelless contexts. When words can be vowelless, otherwise universal constraints disfavoring vowelless words do not feature in spoken-word recognition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reading fluency: implications for the assessment of children with reading disabilities.

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Meisinger, Elizabeth B; Bloom, Juliana S; Hynd, George W

2010-06-01

The current investigation explored the diagnostic utility of reading fluency measures in the identification of children with reading disabilities. Participants were 50 children referred to a university-based clinic because of suspected reading problems and/or a prior diagnosis of dyslexia, where children completed a battery of standardized intellectual, reading achievement, and processing measures. Within this clinical sample, a group of children were identified that exhibited specific deficits in their reading fluency skills with concurrent deficits in rapid naming speed and reading comprehension. This group of children would not have been identified as having a reading disability according to assessment of single word reading skills alone, suggesting that it is essential to assess reading fluency in addition to word reading because failure to do so may result in the under-identification of children with reading disabilities.

Predictive Validity of Early Literacy Measures for Korean English Language Learners in the United States

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Han, Jeanie Nam; Vanderwood, Michael L.; Lee, Catherine Y.

2015-01-01

This study examined the predictive validity of early literacy measures with first-grade Korean English language learners (ELLs) in the United States at varying levels of English proficiency. Participants were screened using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF), DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency…

Spanish normative studies in young adults (NEURONORMA young adults project): norms for verbal fluency tests.

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Casals-Coll, M; Sánchez-Benavides, G; Quintana, M; Manero, R M; Rognoni, T; Calvo, L; Palomo, R; Aranciva, F; Tamayo, F; Peña-Casanova, J

2013-01-01

Lexical fluency tests are frequently used in clinical practice to assess language and executive function. As part of the Spanish normative studies project in young adults (NEURONORMA young adults project), we provide age- and education-adjusted normative data for 3 semantic fluency tasks (animals, fruits and vegetables, and kitchen tools), three formal lexical fluency tasks (words beginning with P, M and R), three excluded-letter fluency tasks (words excluding A, E and S) and a verb fluency task. The sample consisted of 179 participants who are cognitively normal and range in age from 18 to 49 years. Tables are provided to convert raw scores to scaled scores. Age- and education-adjusted scores are provided by applying linear regression techniques. The results show that education impacted most of the verbal fluency test scores, with no effects related to age and only minimal effects related to sex. The norms obtained will be extremely useful in the clinical evaluation of young Spanish adults. Copyright © 2011 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Investigating Patterns of Errors for Specific Comprehension and Fluency Difficulties

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Koriakin, Taylor A.; Kaufman, Alan S.

2017-01-01

Although word reading has traditionally been viewed as a foundational skill for development of reading fluency and comprehension, some children demonstrate "specific" reading comprehension problems, in the context of intact word reading. The purpose of this study was to identify specific patterns of errors associated with reading…

Text-fading based training leads to transfer effects on children’s sentence reading fluency

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Telse eNagler

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Previous studies used a text-fading procedure as a training tool with the goal to increase silent reading fluency (i.e., proficient reading rate and comprehension. In recently published studies, this procedure resulted in lasting reading enhancements for adult and adolescent research samples. However, studies working with children reported mixed results. While reading rate improvements were observable for Dutch reading children in a text-fading training study, reading fluency improvements in standardized reading tests post-training attributable to the fading manipulation were not detectable. These results raise the question of whether text-fading training is not effective for children or whether research design issues have concealed possible transfer effects. Hence, the present study sought to investigate possible transfer effects resulting from a text-fading based reading training program, using a modified research design. Over a period of three weeks, two groups of German third-graders read sentences either with an adaptive text-fading procedure or at their self-paced reading rate. A standardized test measuring reading fluency at the word, sentence, and text level was conducted pre- and post-training. Text level reading fluency improved for both groups equally. Post-training gains at the word level were found for the text-fading group, however, no significant interaction between groups was revealed for word reading fluency. Sentence level reading fluency gains were found for the text-fading group, which significantly differed from the group of children reading at their self-paced reading routine. These findings provide evidence for the efficacy of text-fading as a training method for sentence reading fluency improvement also for children.

Metamemory and memory for a wide range of font sizes: What is the contribution of perceptual fluency?

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Undorf, Monika; Zimdahl, Malte F

2018-04-26

Words printed in a larger 48-point font are judged to be more memorable than words printed in a smaller 18-point font, although font size does not affect actual memory. To clarify the basis of this font size effect on metamemory and memory, 4 experiments investigated how presenting words in 48 (Experiment 1) or 4 (Experiments 2 to 4) font sizes between 6 point and 500 point affected judgments of learning (JOLs) and recall performance. Response times in lexical decision tasks were used to measure perceptual fluency. In all experiments, perceptual fluency was lower for words presented in very small and very large font sizes than for words presented in intermediate font sizes. In contrast, JOLs increased monotonically with font size, even beyond the point where a large font impaired perceptual fluency. Assessments of people's metacognitive beliefs about font size revealed that the monotonic increase in JOLs was not due to beliefs masking perceptual fluency effects (Experiment 3). Also, JOLs still increased across the whole range of font sizes when perceptual fluency was made salient at study (Experiment 4). In all experiments but Experiment 4, recall performance increased with increasing font size, although to a lesser extent than JOLs. Overall, the current study supports the idea that metacognitive beliefs underlie font size effects in metamemory. As important, it reveals that people's font size beliefs have some accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

The sound of nonsense

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Borcak, Lea Maria Lucas Wierød

2017-01-01

not explicated, probably due to disciplinary borders. This article juxtaposes different observations about nonsense for the purpose of illuminating their mutual concordance and contributing to a systematic and comprehensible framework for understanding types and functions of verbal nonsense in songs....

Reading Big Words: Instructional Practices to Promote Multisyllabic Word Reading Fluency

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Toste, Jessica R.; Williams, Kelly J.; Capin, Philip

2017-01-01

Poorly developed word recognition skills are the most pervasive and debilitating source of reading challenges for students with learning disabilities (LD). With a notable decrease in word reading instruction in the upper elementary grades, struggling readers receive fewer instructional opportunities to develop proficient word reading skills, yet…

Effects of a Mathematics Fluency Program on Mathematics Performance of Students with Challenging Behaviors

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Whitney, Todd; Hirn, Regina G.; Lingo, Amy S.

2016-01-01

In the present study, we examined the effects of a fluency-building mathematics program called Great Leaps Math on fluency of basic addition mathematics facts zero to nine and word problem solving using a multiple probe design across participants. Three elementary students with challenging behaviors and mathematics difficulty participated in the…

Effects of Ease-of-Pronunciation on Non-Word Memory and Product Judgments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Erz, Antonia; Christensen, Bo

The ease or difficulty of pronunciation can affect judgments. We experimentally show that linguistic fluency has a direct effect on liking and a U-shaped effect on memory of non-words. We further demonstrate that the fluency of novel, fictitious non-word brand names affects novelty and performance...

Competition in the perception of spoken Japanese words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Otake, T.; McQueen, J.M.; Cutler, A.

2010-01-01

Japanese listeners detected Japanese words embedded at the end of nonsense sequences (e.g., kaba 'hippopotamus' in gyachikaba). When the final portion of the preceding context together with the initial portion of the word (e.g., here, the sequence chika) was compatible with many lexical competitors,

Assessment of Working Memory in Individuals With Stuttering in Comparison With Individuals With Normal Fluency

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Aiswarya Liz Varghese

2018-05-01

Full Text Available It is common in literature to relate stuttering with some other deficit that interferes with communicative functions. Working memory comprises the system of human memory dedicated to both temporary storages of phonological detail and allocation of cognitive resources necessary for forming lasting memories. In this study we have analyzed the performance of individuals with stuttering on various working memory tasks. The aim of study is to compare the working memory abilities in individuals with stuttering and individuals with normal fluency on various working memory tasks. A total of 30 individuals with stuttering and 30 individuals with normal fluency in the age range of 18 – 40 years participated in the study. The Working Memory domain will be assessed using The Manipal Manual for Cognitive Linguistic Abilities (MMCLA which consists of auditory word retrieval, auditory letter and number recall, auditory word list recall, auditory delayed sentence recall, visual practice recall, visual letter and number recall, visual word list recall and visual delayed sentence recall. Results revealed that the individuals with normal fluency had superior performance compared to the individuals with stuttering. Hence, it’s helpful to understand the involvement of working memory in stuttering and incorporate working memory training along with the conventional fluency therapy.

Rethinking spoken fluency

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McCarthy, Michael

2009-01-01

This article re-examines the notion of spoken fluency. Fluent and fluency are terms commonly used in everyday, lay language, and fluency, or lack of it, has social consequences. The article reviews the main approaches to understanding and measuring spoken fluency and suggest that spoken fluency is best understood as an interactive achievement, and offers the metaphor of ‘confluence’ to replace the term fluency. Many measures of spoken fluency are internal and monologue-based, whereas evidence...

Neural correlates of continuous causal word generation.

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Wende, Kim C; Straube, Benjamin; Stratmann, Mirjam; Sommer, Jens; Kircher, Tilo; Nagels, Arne

2012-09-01

Causality provides a natural structure for organizing our experience and language. Causal reasoning during speech production is a distinct aspect of verbal communication, whose related brain processes are yet unknown. The aim of the current study was to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the continuous generation of cause-and-effect coherences during overt word production. During fMRI data acquisition participants performed three verbal fluency tasks on identical cue words: A novel causal verbal fluency task (CVF), requiring the production of multiple reasons to a given cue word (e.g. reasons for heat are fire, sun etc.), a semantic (free association, FA, e.g. associations with heat are sweat, shower etc.) and a phonological control task (phonological verbal fluency, PVF, e.g. rhymes with heat are meat, wheat etc.). We found that, in contrast to PVF, both CVF and FA activated a left lateralized network encompassing inferior frontal, inferior parietal and angular regions, with further bilateral activation in middle and inferior as well as superior temporal gyri and the cerebellum. For CVF contrasted against FA, we found greater bold responses only in the left middle frontal cortex. Large overlaps in the neural activations during free association and causal verbal fluency indicate that the access to causal relationships between verbal concepts is at least partly based on the semantic neural network. The selective activation in the left middle frontal cortex for causal verbal fluency suggests that distinct neural processes related to cause-and-effect-relations are associated with the recruitment of middle frontal brain areas. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The role of working memory and fluency practice on the reading comprehension of students who are dysfluent readers.

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Swanson, H Lee; O'Connor, Rollanda

2009-01-01

The authors investigated whether practice in reading fluency had a causal influence on the relationship between working memory (WM) and text comprehension for 155 students in Grades 2 and 4 who were poor or average readers. Dysfluent readers were randomly assigned to repeated reading or continuous reading practice conditions and compared with untreated dysfluent and fluent readers on posttest measures of fluency, word identification, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Three main findings emerged: (a) The influence of WM on text comprehension was not related to fluency training, (b) dysfluent readers in the continuous-reading condition had higher posttest scores than dysfluent readers in the other conditions on measures of text comprehension but not on vocabulary, and (c) individual differences in WM better predicted posttest comprehension performance than word-attack skills. In general, the results suggested that although continuous reading increased comprehension, fluency practice did not compensate for WM demands. The results were interpreted within a model that viewed reading comprehension processes as competing for a limited supply of WM resources that operate independent of fluency.

Behavioural and neural evidence for the impact of fluency context on conscious memory.

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Gomes, Carlos Alexandre; Mecklinger, Axel; Zimmer, Hubert

2017-07-01

It has been recently suggested that fluency may impact recognition memory performance when the fluency context varies from trial-to-trial. Surprisingly, such an effect has proved difficult to detect in the masked priming paradigm, one of the most popular means to increase fluency-based memory judgements. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment in which participants encoded words at study and, at test, performed a recognition memory task within a masked priming procedure. In order to optimise the chances of finding priming effects on recognition memory performance, we used low-frequency words, which have been shown to increase hits relative to false alarms and enhance masked priming effects. Fluency context was manipulated by either mixing primed and unprimed trials [Random context (RC) experiment] or blocking primed and unprimed trials [Blocked context (BC) experiment]. Behaviourally, priming affected high-confidence memory performance only in the RC experiment. This behavioural effect correlated positively with neural priming in several recognition memory regions. Moreover, we observed a functional coupling between the left middle temporal gyrus and the left parietal and posterior cingulate cortices that was greater for primed relative to unprimed words. In contrast, in the BC experiment, despite similar activity in recognition-memory-related regions, we did not find any significant correlations between neural and behavioural priming. Finally, we observed striking differences in the neural correlates of masked priming between the RC and BC experiments not only in location but also in direction of the neural response. Possible implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The tip-of-the-tongue heuristic: How tip-of-the-tongue states confer perceptibility on inaccessible words.

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Cleary, Anne M; Claxton, Alexander B

2015-09-01

This study shows that the presence of a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state--the sense that a word is in memory when its retrieval fails--is used as a heuristic for inferring that an inaccessible word has characteristics that are consistent with greater word perceptibility. When reporting a TOT state, people judged an unretrieved word as more likely to have previously appeared darker and clearer (Experiment 1a), and larger (Experiment 1b). They also judged an unretrieved word as more likely to be a high frequency word (Experiment 2). This was not because greater fluency or word perceptibility at encoding led to later TOT states: Increased fluency or perceptibility of a word at encoding did not increase the likelihood of a TOT state for it when its retrieval later failed; moreover, the TOT state was not diagnostic of an unretrieved word's fluency or perceptibility when it was last seen. Results instead suggest that TOT states themselves are used as a heuristic for inferring the likely characteristics of unretrieved words. During the uncertainty of retrieval failure, TOT states are a source of information on which people rely in reasoning about the likely characteristics of the unretrieved information, choosing characteristics that are consistent with greater fluency of processing. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Verbal fluency in bilingual Spanish/English Alzheimer's disease patients.

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Salvatierra, Judy; Rosselli, Monica; Acevedo, Amarilis; Duara, Ranjan

2007-01-01

Studies have demonstrated that in verbal fluency tests, monolinguals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show greater difficulties retrieving words based on semantic rather than phonemic rules. The present study aimed to determine whether this difficulty was reproduced in both languages of Spanish/English bilinguals with mild to moderate AD whose primary language was Spanish. Performance on semantic and phonemic verbal fluency of 11 bilingual AD patients was compared to the performance of 11 cognitively normal, elderly bilingual individuals matched for gender, age, level of education, and degree of bilingualism. Cognitively normal subjects retrieved significantly more items under the semantic condition compared to the phonemic, whereas the performance of AD patients was similar under both conditions, suggesting greater decline in semantic verbal fluency tests. This pattern was produced in both languages, implying a related semantic decline in both languages. Results from this study should be considered preliminary because of the small sample size.

Iconic Factors and Language Word Order

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Moeser, Shannon Dawn

1975-01-01

College students were presented with an artificial language in which spoken nonsense words were correlated with visual references. Inferences regarding vocabulary acquisition were drawn, and it was suggested that the processing of the language was mediated through a semantic memory system. (CK)

Lexical-Semantic Search Under Different Covert Verbal Fluency Tasks: An fMRI Study

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Yunqing Li

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Background: Verbal fluency is a measure of cognitive flexibility and word search strategies that is widely used to characterize impaired cognitive function. Despite the wealth of research on identifying and characterizing distinct aspects of verbal fluency, the anatomic and functional substrates of retrieval-related search and post-retrieval control processes still have not been fully elucidated.Methods: Twenty-one native English-speaking, healthy, right-handed, adult volunteers (mean age = 31 years; range = 21–45 years; 9 F took part in a block-design functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI study of free recall, covert word generation tasks when guided by phonemic (P, semantic-category (C, and context-based fill-in–the-blank sentence completion (S cues. General linear model (GLM, Independent Component Analysis (ICA, and psychophysiological interaction (PPI were used to further characterize the neural substrate of verbal fluency as a function of retrieval cue type.Results: Common localized activations across P, C, and S tasks occurred in the bilateral superior and left inferior frontal gyrus, left anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA, and left insula. Differential task activations were centered in the occipital, temporal and parietal regions as well as the thalamus and cerebellum. The context-based fluency task, i.e., the S task, elicited higher differential brain activity in a lateralized frontal-temporal network typically engaged in complex language processing. P and C tasks elicited activation in limited pathways mainly within the left frontal regions. ICA and PPI results of the S task suggested that brain regions distributed across both hemispheres, extending beyond classical language areas, are recruited for lexical-semantic access and retrieval during sentence completion.Conclusion: Study results support the hypothesis of overlapping, as well as distinct, neural networks for covert word generation when

An associative account of the development of word learning.

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Sloutsky, Vladimir M; Yim, Hyungwook; Yao, Xin; Dennis, Simon

2017-09-01

Word learning is a notoriously difficult induction problem because meaning is underdetermined by positive examples. How do children solve this problem? Some have argued that word learning is achieved by means of inference: young word learners rely on a number of assumptions that reduce the overall hypothesis space by favoring some meanings over others. However, these approaches have difficulty explaining how words are learned from conversations or text, without pointing or explicit instruction. In this research, we propose an associative mechanism that can account for such learning. In a series of experiments, 4-year-olds and adults were presented with sets of words that included a single nonsense word (e.g. dax). Some lists were taxonomic (i.,e., all items were members of a given category), some were associative (i.e., all items were associates of a given category, but not members), and some were mixed. Participants were asked to indicate whether the nonsense word was an animal or an artifact. Adults exhibited evidence of learning when lists consisted of either associatively or taxonomically related items. In contrast, children exhibited evidence of word learning only when lists consisted of associatively related items. These results present challenges to several extant models of word learning, and a new model based on the distinction between syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations is proposed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Activation of extrastriate and frontal cortical areas by visual words and word-like stimuli

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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

Mejorar la fluidez lectora en dislexia: diseño de un programa de intervención en español / Improving reading fluency in dyslexia: designing a Spanish

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Esther Gómez Zapata

2011-08-01

Full Text Available This article describes the process of planning an intervention program aimed at improving reading fluency in children with developmental dyslexia. Reading fluency is considered a crucial component in achieving literacy, especially regarding its role in facilitating reading comprehension. Improving reading fluency is particularly important for children with developmental dyslexia as they have difficulties automatizing word recognition. These difficulties lead to suboptimal reading skills that ultimately affect reading comprehension. This study shows the steps involved in planning an intervention program that combines accelerated and repeated reading, two methodologies commonly used to improve fluency. This is a structured and sequential training programme which includes syllable, word and text reading. The aim is to automatize the reading of sublexical units-which are easily recognizable in Spanish-to facilitate faster and more efficient word recognition. This will improve fluency when reading full texts. The program also includes metaphonological ability training.

The Longitudinal Contribution of Early Morphological Awareness Skills to Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Greek

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George Manolitsis

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the role of three morphological awareness (MA skills (inflection, derivation, and compounding in word reading fluency and reading comprehension in a relatively transparent orthography (Greek. Two hundred and fifteen (104 girls; Mage = 67.40 months, at kindergarten Greek children were followed from kindergarten (K to grade 2 (G2. In K and grade 1 (G1, they were tested on measures of MA (two inflectional, two derivational, and three compounding, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN, and general cognitive ability (vocabulary and non-verbal IQ. At the end of G1 and G2, they were also tested on word reading fluency and reading comprehension. The results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that the inflectional and derivational aspects of MA in K as well as all aspects of MA in G1 accounted for 2–5% of unique variance in reading comprehension. None of the MA skills predicted word reading fluency, after controlling for the effects of vocabulary and RAN. These findings suggest that the MA skills, even when assessed as early as in kindergarten, play a significant role in reading comprehension development.

Phonological Fluency Strategy of Switching Differentiates Relapsing-Remitting and Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis Patients

OpenAIRE

Messinis, L.; Kosmidis, M. H.; Vlahou, C.; Malegiannaki, A. C.; Gatzounis, G.; Dimisianos, N.; Karra, A.; Kiosseoglou, G.; Gourzis, P.; Papathanasopoulos, P.

2013-01-01

The strategies used to perform a verbal fluency task appear to be reflective of cognitive abilities necessary for successful daily functioning. In the present study, we explored potential differences in verbal fluency strategies (switching and clustering) used to maximize word production by patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) versus patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS). We further assessed impairment rates and potential differences in the sensi...

Connected text reading and differences in text reading fluency in adult readers.

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Sebastian Wallot

Full Text Available The process of connected text reading has received very little attention in contemporary cognitive psychology. This lack of attention is in parts due to a research tradition that emphasizes the role of basic lexical constituents, which can be studied in isolated words or sentences. However, this lack of attention is in parts also due to the lack of statistical analysis techniques, which accommodate interdependent time series. In this study, we investigate text reading performance with traditional and nonlinear analysis techniques and show how outcomes from multiple analyses can used to create a more detailed picture of the process of text reading. Specifically, we investigate reading performance of groups of literate adult readers that differ in reading fluency during a self-paced text reading task. Our results indicate that classical metrics of reading (such as word frequency do not capture text reading very well, and that classical measures of reading fluency (such as average reading time distinguish relatively poorly between participant groups. Nonlinear analyses of distribution tails and reading time fluctuations provide more fine-grained information about the reading process and reading fluency.

Google and the mind: predicting fluency with PageRank.

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Griffiths, Thomas L; Steyvers, Mark; Firl, Alana

2007-12-01

Human memory and Internet search engines face a shared computational problem, needing to retrieve stored pieces of information in response to a query. We explored whether they employ similar solutions, testing whether we could predict human performance on a fluency task using PageRank, a component of the Google search engine. In this task, people were shown a letter of the alphabet and asked to name the first word beginning with that letter that came to mind. We show that PageRank, computed on a semantic network constructed from word-association data, outperformed word frequency and the number of words for which a word is named as an associate as a predictor of the words that people produced in this task. We identify two simple process models that could support this apparent correspondence between human memory and Internet search, and relate our results to previous rational models of memory.

Fluency Effects in Recognition Memory: Are Perceptual Fluency and Conceptual Fluency Interchangeable?

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Lanska, Meredith; Olds, Justin M.; Westerman, Deanne L.

2014-01-01

On a recognition memory test, both perceptual and conceptual fluency can engender a sense of familiarity and elicit recognition memory illusions. To date, perceptual and conceptual fluency have been studied separately but are they interchangeable in terms of their influence on recognition judgments? Five experiments compared the effect of…

Alternative Text Types to Improve Reading Fluency for Competent to Struggling Readers

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Timothy V. Rasinski

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This article offers instructional suggestions and strategies based on research and theoretical literature for developing reading fluency through the use of rhyming poetry and other texts beyond the narrative and informational texts that have been traditionally used for reading instruction. Readers’ lack of fluency in reading can be a monumental impediment to proficiency in good comprehension and overall reading competency. For all readers it is well established that as they progress in reading competence their reading ability grows (Stanovich, 1993/1994. This continued reading success begets continued reading growth; however, many struggling readers have difficulty in moving to a level of automaticity and fluency in their reading that enables them to engage in a successful practice. Lack of practice inhibits their reading comprehension. Readers’ abilities to effectively comprehend texts are significantly affected by their proficiency in accurate and automatic word recognition and prosody (May, 1998; Stanovich, 1993/1994; LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Schreiber, 1991. Repeated reading practice has been shown to be a powerful way to improve these important fluency competencies. Certain texts are particularly well suited for repeated reading that improves both aspects of fluency

Reading Fluency Instruction for Students at Risk for Reading Failure

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Ring, Jeremiah J.; Barefoot, Lexie C.; Avrit, Karen J.; Brown, Sasha A.; Black, Jeffrey L.

2013-01-01

The important role of reading fluency in the comprehension and motivation of readers is well documented. Two reading rate intervention programs were compared in a cluster-randomized clinical trial of students who were considered at-risk for reading failure. One program focused instruction at the word level; the second program focused instruction…

Little Words, Big Impact: Determiners Begin to Bootstrap Reference by 12 Months

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Kedar, Yarden; Casasola, Marianella; Lust, Barbara; Parmet, Yisrael

2017-01-01

We tested 12- and 18-month-old English-learning infants on a preferential-looking task which contrasted grammatically correct sentences using the determiner "the" vs. three ungrammatical conditions in which "the" was substituted by another English function word, a nonsense word, or omitted. Our design involved strict controls…

Boosting Reading Fluency: An Intervention Case Study at Subword Level

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Kairaluoma, Leila; Ahonen, Timo; Aro, Mikko; Holopainen, Leena

2007-01-01

This study is an intervention case study of fluency in Finnish-speaking children with dyslexia. Two 7-year-old children, a girl and a boy, were selected from the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia. The intervention emphasised syllables as reading units, and proceeded from reading syllables to reading words and text. Letter knowledge, reading…

Fluency profile: comparison between Brazilian and European Portuguese speakers.

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Castro, Blenda Stephanie Alves e; Martins-Reis, Vanessa de Oliveira; Baptista, Ana Catarina; Celeste, Letícia Correa

2014-01-01

The purpose of the study was to compare the speech fluency of Brazilian Portuguese speakers with that of European Portuguese speakers. The study participants were 76 individuals of any ethnicity or skin color aged 18-29 years. Of the participants, 38 lived in Brazil and 38 in Portugal. Speech samples from all participants were obtained and analyzed according to the variables of typology and frequency of speech disruptions and speech rate. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed to assess the association between the fluency profile and linguistic variant variables. We found that the speech rate of European Portuguese speakers was higher than the speech rate of Brazilian Portuguese speakers in words per minute (p=0.004). The qualitative distribution of the typology of common dysfluencies (pPortuguese speakers is not available, speech therapists in Portugal can use the same speech fluency assessment as has been used in Brazil to establish a diagnosis of stuttering, especially in regard to typical and stuttering dysfluencies, with care taken when evaluating the speech rate.

Age differences in recall and predicting recall of action events and words.

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McDonald-Miszczak, L; Hubley, A M; Hultsch, D F

1996-03-01

Age differences in recall and prediction of recall were examined with different memory tasks. We asked 36 younger (19-28 yrs) and 36 older (60-81 yrs) women to provide both global and item-by-item predictions of their recall, and then to recall either (a) Subject Performance Tasks (SPTs), (b) verb-noun word-pairs memorized in list-like fashion (Word-Pairs), or (c) nonsense verb-noun word-pairs (Nonsense-Pairs) over three experimental trials. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that these tasks would vary in relative difficulty and flexibility of encoding. The results indicated that (a) age differences in global predictions (task specific self-efficacy) and recall performance across trials were minimized with SPT as compared with verbal materials, (b) global predictions were higher and more accurate for SPT as compared to verbal materials, and (c) item-by-item predictions were most accurate for materials encoded with the most flexibility (Nonsense Pairs). The results suggest that SPTs may provide some level of environmental support to reduce age differences in performance and task-specific self-efficacy, but that memory monitoring may depend on specific characteristics of the stimuli (i.e., flexibility of encoding) rather than their verbal or nonverbal nature.

Comparison Study of the Stuttered Words Type in Stuttering Children and Adults

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Maryam Mokhlessin

2006-06-01

Full Text Available Background and Aim: Since knowing the mechanisms which evoke non-fluency is the first step in the treatment of stuttering, and there are very few researches in Persian which consider the role of the linguistic factors behind stuttering, this study is an attempt to provide answers to some of numerous questions about stuttering by comparing the stuttered words` type in stuttered children and adults. Materials and Methods: In this study stuttered people were divided into 5 age groups as follows: 3-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-16, and older than 17 years old. Each group had ten participants. Forty-two of the 50 participants were male, and the youngest person was 3 years old and the eldest one was 32 years old. The study method involved recording at least 5 minuets of spontaneous speech of every one who was diagnosed of suffering from stuttering by two speech and language pathologists. The percent of non-fluency on every word's type was determined where a content word was followed or preceded by a function word (Function-Function-Content words and Function-Content words contexts. Then these findings were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. Results: The results of this study show while function words are dominantly more stuttered than content words in children less than 13 years old in Function-Function-Content words context, we consider more disfluency on content words and second function word by getting old. We consider more stuttering on function words in children less that 13 years old in Function-Content words context too and increased non-fluency on content word by growing up. Results also show meaningful differences between the fifth group and others in the amount of stuttering on second function word in the Function-Function-Content words contexts and also between the first group and the others in amount of non-fluency both on function and content words in Function-Content words context. Conclusion: People who stutter from Farsi speakers

The role of selected lexical factors on confrontation naming accuracy, speed, and fluency in adults who do and do not stutter.

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Newman, Rochelle S; Bernstein Ratner, Nan

2007-02-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether lexical access in adults who stutter (AWS) differs from that in people who do not stutter. Specifically, the authors examined the role of 3 lexical factors on naming speed, accuracy, and fluency: word frequency, neighborhood density, and neighborhood frequency. If stuttering results from an impairment in lexical access, these factors were hypothesized to differentially affect AWS performance on a confrontation naming task. Twenty-five AWS and 25 normally fluent comparison speakers, matched for age and education, participated in a confrontation naming task designed to explore within-speaker performance on naming accuracy, speed, and fluency based on stimulus word frequency and neighborhood characteristics. Accuracy, fluency, and reaction time (from acoustic waveform analysis) were computed. In general, AWS demonstrated the same effects of lexical factors on their naming as did adults who do not stutter. However, accuracy of naming was reduced for AWS. Stuttering rate was influenced by word frequency but not other factors. Results suggest that AWS could have a fundamental deficit in lexical retrieval, but this deficit is unlikely to be at the level of the word's abstract phonological representation. Implications for further research are discussed.

Lexical Access in Persian Normal Speakers: Picture Naming, Verbal Fluency and Spontaneous Speech

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Zahra Sadat Ghoreishi

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Lexical access is the process by which the basic conceptual, syntactical and morpho-phonological information of words are activated. Most studies of lexical access have focused on picture naming. There is hardly any previous research on other parameters of lexical access such as verbal fluency and analysis of connected speech in Persian normal participants. This study investigates the lexical access performance in normal speakers in different issues such as age, sex and education. Methods: The performance of 120 adult Persian speakers in three tasks including picture naming, verbal fluency and connected speech, was examined using "Persian Lexical Access Assessment Package”. The performance of participants between two gender groups (male/female, three education groups (below 5 years, above 12 years, between 5 and 12 years and three age groups (18-35 years, 36-55 years, 56-75 years were compared. Results: According to findings, picture naming increased with increasing education and decreased with increasing age. The performance of participants in phonological and semantic verbal fluency showed improvement with age and education. No significant difference was seen between males and females in verbal fluency task. In the analysis of connected speech there were no significant differences between different age and education groups and just mean length of utterance in males was significantly higher than females. Discussion: The findings could be a primitive scale for comparison between normal subjects and patients in lexical access tasks, furthermore it could be a horizon for planning of treatment goals in patients with word finding problem according to age, gender and education.

Verbal fluency as a prefrontal activation probe: a validation study using 99mTc-ECD brain SPET

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Audenaert, K.; Brans, B.; Laere, K. van; Versijpt, J.; Dierckx, R.; Lahorte, P.; Heeringen, K. van

2000-01-01

This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of brain single-photon emission tomography (SPET) in the letter and category fluency paradigm of the Controlled Oral Word Association (COWA) test in healthy volunteers. Two groups each comprising ten right-handed healthy volunteers were injected twice with 370 MBq technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer following a split-dose paradigm (resting and activation condition). Statistical parametric mapping (SPM96) was used to determine voxelwise significant changes. The letter fluency and the category fluency activation paradigm had a differential brain activation pattern. The posterior part of the left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPC) was activated in both paradigms, with the category fluency task having an extra activation in the anterior LIPC. In the category fluency task, but not the letter fluency task, an activation in the right inferior prefrontal cortex was found. These findings confirm to a large extent the results of previous functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography studies in semantic and phonological activation paradigms. The choice and validity of various methodological characteristics of the experimental design leading to these results are critically discussed. It is concluded that brain SPET activation with the letter fluency and category fluency paradigm under standard neuropsychological conditions in healthy volunteers is both technically and practically feasible. (orig.)

The Role of Reading Fluency in Children's Text Comprehension.

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Álvarez-Cañizo, Marta; Suárez-Coalla, Paz; Cuetos, Fernando

2015-01-01

Understanding a written text requires some higher cognitive abilities that not all children have. Some children have these abilities, since they understand oral texts; however, they have difficulties with written texts, probably due to problems in reading fluency. The aim of this study was to determine which aspects of reading fluency are related to reading comprehension. Four expositive texts, two written and two read by the evaluator, were presented to a sample of 103 primary school children (third and sixth grade). Each text was followed by four comprehension questions. From this sample we selected two groups of participants in each grade, 10 with good results in comprehension of oral and written texts, and 10 with good results in oral and poor in written comprehension. These 40 subjects were asked to read aloud a new text while they were recorded. Using Praat software some prosodic parameters were measured, such as pausing and reading rate (number and duration of the pauses and utterances), pitch and intensity changes and duration in declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative sentences and also errors and duration in words by frequency and stress. We compared the results of both groups with ANOVAs. The results showed that children with less reading comprehension made more inappropriate pauses and also intersentential pauses before comma than the other group and made more mistakes in content words; significant differences were also found in the final declination of pitch in declarative sentences and in the F0 range in interrogative ones. These results confirm that reading comprehension problems in children are related to a lack in the development of a good reading fluency.

What’s in a name depends on the type of name: The relationships between semantic and phonological access, reading fluency and reading comprehension

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Mads; Elbro, Carsten

2013-01-01

examined both components in naming tasks – with isolated letters (phonological) and pictures (semantic). Seventy-five Grade 5 students were administered measures of letter and picture naming speed, word and nonword reading fluency, reading comprehension, together with control measures of vocabulary....... The results showed that letter naming was a unique predictor of word reading fluency, while picture naming was not. Conversely, picture naming speed contributed unique variance to reading comprehension, while letter naming did not. The results indicate that phonological and semantic lexical access speed...

The effect of topic selection on writing fluency among Japanese high school students

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Sarah Lin Lubold

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Written fluency and fluency building activities have been shown to promote linguistic choice and student voice development, increased ability to express ideas using complex grammatical structures and greater intrinsic motivation in English language learners. Since the 1970’s, process-oriented writing has been emphasized, yielding an amplified focus on meaning of student content over linguistic form precision. Current research of writing fluency must delve deeper into questions of student ownership of topic and the outcomes for low-risk activities that support fluency practice and encourage confidence building in students. The purpose of this replication study is to further explore previous findings on the effects of topic selection on writing fluency for high school English as foreign language learners. Building off of the work of Bonzo (2008, this study focused on a timed, non-graded writing activity administered to groups of Japanese engineering students in three departments: mechanical, electrical, and global engineering. The six subsequent samples for each participating student were analyzed using online text-analysis for total and unique word counts, providing data used to perform a t-test. Responses to bi-lingual student questionnaires, with prompts on self-perceived written English ability, self-efficacy and strategies for success while writing, provided additional insight into the facets of fluency. The results of these writing sessions offer both confirmation of and contrast to Bonzo’s original work, demonstrate increased student meaning making, and support the use of free writing activities in English language classrooms as a means by which student written fluency may be improved.

Emotional verbal fluency: a new task on emotion and executive function interaction.

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Sass, Katharina; Fetz, Karolina; Oetken, Sarah; Habel, Ute; Heim, Stefan

2013-09-01

The present study introduces "Emotional Verbal Fluency" as a novel (partially computerized) task, which is aimed to investigate the interaction between emotionally loaded words and executive functions. Verbal fluency tasks are thought to measure executive functions but the interaction with emotional aspects is hardly investigated. In the current study, a group of healthy subjects (n = 21, mean age 25 years, 76% females) were asked to generate items that are either part of a semantic category (e.g., plants, toys, vehicles; standard semantic verbal fluency) or can trigger the emotions joy, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. The results of the task revealed no differences between performance on semantic and emotional categories, suggesting a comparable task difficulty for healthy subjects. Hence, these first results on the comparison between semantic and emotional verbal fluency seem to highlight that both might be suitable for examining executive functioning. However, an interaction was found between the category type and repetition (first vs. second sequence of the same category) with larger performance decrease for semantic in comparison to emotional categories. Best performance overall was found for the emotional category "joy" suggesting a positivity bias in healthy subjects. To conclude, emotional verbal fluency is a promising approach to investigate emotional components in an executive task, which may stimulate further research, especially in psychiatric patients who suffer from emotional as well as cognitive deficits.

The Training of Morphological Decomposition in Word Processing and Its Effects on Literacy Skills

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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

Verbal fluency as a prefrontal activation probe: a validation study using {sup 99m}Tc-ECD brain SPET

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Audenaert, K. [Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital (Belgium); Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Ghent University Hospital and Ghent University (Belgium); Brans, B.; Laere, K. van; Versijpt, J.; Dierckx, R. [Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital (Belgium); Lahorte, P. [Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital (Belgium); Laboratory of Subatomic and Radiation Physics, Ghent University (Belgium); Heeringen, K. van [Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Ghent University Hospital and Ghent University (Belgium)

2000-12-01

This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of brain single-photon emission tomography (SPET) in the letter and category fluency paradigm of the Controlled Oral Word Association (COWA) test in healthy volunteers. Two groups each comprising ten right-handed healthy volunteers were injected twice with 370 MBq technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer following a split-dose paradigm (resting and activation condition). Statistical parametric mapping (SPM96) was used to determine voxelwise significant changes. The letter fluency and the category fluency activation paradigm had a differential brain activation pattern. The posterior part of the left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPC) was activated in both paradigms, with the category fluency task having an extra activation in the anterior LIPC. In the category fluency task, but not the letter fluency task, an activation in the right inferior prefrontal cortex was found. These findings confirm to a large extent the results of previous functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography studies in semantic and phonological activation paradigms. The choice and validity of various methodological characteristics of the experimental design leading to these results are critically discussed. It is concluded that brain SPET activation with the letter fluency and category fluency paradigm under standard neuropsychological conditions in healthy volunteers is both technically and practically feasible. (orig.)

Text (Oral) Reading Fluency as a Construct in Reading Development: An Investigation of Its Mediating Role for Children from Grades 1 to 4

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Kim, Young-Suk Grace; Wagner, Richard K.

2015-01-01

In the present study we investigated a developmentally changing role of text reading fluency in mediating the relations of word reading fluency and listening comprehension to reading comprehension. We addressed this question by using longitudinal data from Grades 1 to 4 and employing structural equation models. Results showed that the role of text…

Biological Dialogues: How to Teach Your Students to Learn Fluency in Biology

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May, S. Randolph; Cook, David L.; May, Marilyn K.

2013-01-01

Biology courses have thousands of words to learn in order to intelligently discuss the subject and take tests over the material. Biological fluency is an important goal for students, and practical methods based on constructivist pedagogies can be employed to promote it. We present a method in which pairs of students write dialogues from…

Speech fluency profile on different tasks for individuals with Parkinson's disease.

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Juste, Fabiola Staróbole; Andrade, Claudia Regina Furquim de

2017-07-20

To characterize the speech fluency profile of patients with Parkinson's disease. Study participants were 40 individuals of both genders aged 40 to 80 years divided into 2 groups: Research Group - RG (20 individuals with diagnosis of Parkinson's disease) and Control Group - CG (20 individuals with no communication or neurological disorders). For all of the participants, three speech samples involving different tasks were collected: monologue, individual reading, and automatic speech. The RG presented a significant larger number of speech disruptions, both stuttering-like and typical dysfluencies, and higher percentage of speech discontinuity in the monologue and individual reading tasks compared with the CG. Both groups presented reduced number of speech disruptions (stuttering-like and typical dysfluencies) in the automatic speech task; the groups presented similar performance in this task. Regarding speech rate, individuals in the RG presented lower number of words and syllables per minute compared with those in the CG in all speech tasks. Participants of the RG presented altered parameters of speech fluency compared with those of the CG; however, this change in fluency cannot be considered a stuttering disorder.

The role of reading fluency in children’s text comprehension

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Marta eÁlvarez-Cañizo

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Understanding a written text requires some higher cognitive abilities that not all children have. Some children have these abilities, since they understand oral texts; however they have difficulties with written texts, probably due to problems in reading fluency. The aim of this study was to determine which aspects of reading fluency are related to reading comprehension. Four expositive texts, two written and two read by the evaluator, were presented to a sample of 103 primary school children (third and sixth grade. Each text was followed by four comprehension questions. From this sample we selected two groups of participants in each grade, 10 with good results in comprehension of oral and written texts, and 10 with good results in oral and poor in written comprehension. These 40 subjects were asked to read aloud a new text while they were recorded. Using Praat software some prosodic parameters were measured, such as pausing and reading rate (number and duration of the pauses and utterances, pitch and intensity changes and duration in declarative, exclamatory and interrogative sentences and also errors and duration in words by frequency and stress. We compared the results of both groups with ANOVAs. The results showed that children with less reading comprehension made more inappropriate pauses and also intersentential pauses before comma than the other group and made more mistakes in content words; significant differences were also found in the final declination of pitch in declarative sentences and in the F0 range in interrogative ones. These results confirm that reading comprehension problems in children are related to a lack in the development of a good reading fluency.

The Effects of Explicit Word Recognition Training on Japanese EFL Learners

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Burrows, Lance; Holsworth, Michael

2016-01-01

This study is a quantitative, quasi-experimental investigation focusing on the effects of word recognition training on word recognition fluency, reading speed, and reading comprehension for 151 Japanese university students at a lower-intermediate reading proficiency level. Four treatment groups were given training in orthographic, phonological,…

Predicting factors of verbal fluency and the effects of stereotype threat and boost

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2015-09-01

Full Text Available Aims: Verbal Fluency (VF tasks are often utilised to assist in the neuropsychological assessment of cognitive impairment and diagnosis of cognitive disorders. VF performance can also provide information about an individual’s vocabulary and speed of cognitive processes. In order to further develop our understanding of predictors of VF, this study explored how age, education and time spent reading and writing can affect performance. Furthermore, this study investigated the effects of a stereotype threat (STT or boost (STB. Method: VF tasks (pre and post stereotype manipulation were administrated to 30 adults with 15 receiving a STT and 15 receiving a STB. The stereotype threat/boost was activated by informing participants that they read and wrote less/more than their peers. Results: Medium to strong positive correlations (with some being significant were found between education level and both the number of words generated and with word commonality scores (i.e. how common the words were for these participants. Negative medium to weak correlations were found between age and both the number of words generated and with commonality scores. There was also a significant interaction showing that the words generated by a category prompt were less common following a STB and more common following a STT. Conclusions: These results support those of previous literature in regards to the respective impacts of education and age on VF. Furthermore, the impacts found of age and education on the commonality of words generated provides information on the nature of their influences. Lastly, the present study sheds light on the potential effects of STT and STB on verbal fluency.

The effect of Phonological Encoding Complexity on Speech Fluency of Stuttering and Non-Stuttering Children

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Sara Ramezani

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: Stuttering is a fairly common speech disorder. However, the etiology is poorly understood and is likely to be heterogeneous. The aim of this research is to investigate phonological encoding complexity on speech fluency in 6-9 year old stuttering children in comparison with non-stutterers in Tehran. Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive analytic research was done on 18 stuttering children with profound and severe level and 18 non-stuttering children. The stuttering subjects were selected by convenience and normal subjects were matched to stuttering subjects by gender, age and geographics. A non-word test comprising 87 non-words was used to investigate phonological encoding and phonological complexity effects on speech fluency. Stimuli were presented in random order with approximately 5 seconds between items, using a computer via external Toshiba SOMIC SM-818 headphone and requested subject was asked to repeat them.  Results: The results indicated that speech fluency decreased significantly (P<0.05 by increasing phonological complexity comparing to controls. Conclusion: The findings of the present research seem to suggest that, stuttering children may have deficits in phonological encoding. The deficit has been increased with phonological encoding complexity. Based on covert repair hypothesis, phonological difficulty may cause covert self- repair and leads to different patterns of stuttering.

The Role of Attentional Priority of the Agent in the Acquisition of Word Reference.

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Grace, Janet; Suci, George J.

A study is undertaken to determine whether the nonlinguistic priority of the agent of an action facilitates the comprehension of word reference. The subjects were twelve male and twelve female infants at the one word stage of language production. The children were presented with three nonsense names (presented as part of a narration of a filmed…

The absoluteness of semantic processing: lessons from the analysis of temporal clusters in phonemic verbal fluency.

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Isabelle Vonberg

Full Text Available For word production, we may consciously pursue semantic or phonological search strategies, but it is uncertain whether we can retrieve the different aspects of lexical information independently from each other. We therefore studied the spread of semantic information into words produced under exclusively phonemic task demands.42 subjects participated in a letter verbal fluency task, demanding the production of as many s-words as possible in two minutes. Based on curve fittings for the time courses of word production, output spurts (temporal clusters considered to reflect rapid lexical retrieval based on automatic activation spread, were identified. Semantic and phonemic word relatedness within versus between these clusters was assessed by respective scores (0 meaning no relation, 4 maximum relation.Subjects produced 27.5 (±9.4 words belonging to 6.7 (±2.4 clusters. Both phonemically and semantically words were more related within clusters than between clusters (phon: 0.33±0.22 vs. 0.19±0.17, p<.01; sem: 0.65±0.29 vs. 0.37±0.29, p<.01. Whereas the extent of phonemic relatedness correlated with high task performance, the contrary was the case for the extent of semantic relatedness.The results indicate that semantic information spread occurs, even if the consciously pursued word search strategy is purely phonological. This, together with the negative correlation between semantic relatedness and verbal output suits the idea of a semantic default mode of lexical search, acting against rapid task performance in the given scenario of phonemic verbal fluency. The simultaneity of enhanced semantic and phonemic word relatedness within the same temporal cluster boundaries suggests an interaction between content and sound-related information whenever a new semantic field has been opened.

Effects of Negative and Positive Evidence on Adult Word Learning

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Strapp, Chehalis M.; Helmick, Augusta L.; Tonkovich, Hayley M.; Bleakney, Dana M.

2011-01-01

This study compared negative and positive evidence in adult word learning, predicting that adults would learn more forms following negative evidence. Ninety-two native English speakers (32 men and 60 women [M[subscript age] = 20.38 years, SD = 2.80]), learned nonsense nouns and verbs provided within English frames. Later, participants produced…

Memory, verbal fluency, and response inhibition in normal aging

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Gaurav Thapliyal

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Background: The concepts of aging-related cognitive changes have appeared to be a major challenge in the society. In this context, the present study was planned to find out the functioning of aging population on different neurocognitive measures. Aims: The aim of the study was to find out the neurocognitive functioning, namely memory, verbal fluency, and response inhibition of normal aging population. Materials and Methods: Following purposive sampling technique, a total of 50 healthy subjects (30 males and 20 females in the age range of 60-70 years were recruited from Jaipur city of Rajasthan. Mini-mental state Examination, PGI memory scale, animal names test, and Stroop test were administered. Results: The findings reveal dysfunction in almost all the domains of memory, namely mental balance, attention and concentration, delayed recall, verbal retention for dissimilar pairs, visual retention and recognition, immediate recall, verbal retention for similar pairs, and visual retention. In domain of verbal fluency, all subjects gave low responses on the animal names test. In domain of response inhibition, all the subjects took less time in color test as compared to color word test on the Stroop task. Conclusions: Findings suggest that there are dysfunction in the area of memory, verbal fluency, and response inhibition in persons aged 60-70 years. However, recent and remote memory were found to be intact.

Emotional Verbal Fluency: A New Task on Emotion and Executive Function Interaction

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Sarah Oetken

2013-07-01

Full Text Available The present study introduces “Emotional Verbal Fluency” as a novel (partially computerized task, which is aimed to investigate the interaction between emotionally loaded words and executive functions. Verbal fluency tasks are thought to measure executive functions but the interaction with emotional aspects is hardly investigated. In the current study, a group of healthy subjects (n = 21, mean age 25 years, 76% females were asked to generate items that are either part of a semantic category (e.g., plants, toys, vehicles; standard semantic verbal fluency or can trigger the emotions joy, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. The results of the task revealed no differences between performance on semantic and emotional categories, suggesting a comparable task difficulty for healthy subjects. Hence, these first results on the comparison between semantic and emotional verbal fluency seem to highlight that both might be suitable for examining executive functioning. However, an interaction was found between the category type and repetition (first vs. second sequence of the same category with larger performance decrease for semantic in comparison to emotional categories. Best performance overall was found for the emotional category “joy” suggesting a positivity bias in healthy subjects. To conclude, emotional verbal fluency is a promising approach to investigate emotional components in an executive task, which may stimulate further research, especially in psychiatric patients who suffer from emotional as well as cognitive deficits.

Putting the Fun Back into Fluency Instruction

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Cahill, Mary Ann; Gregory, Anne E.

2011-01-01

Based on recent research in fluency instruction, the authors present a scenario in which a teacher focuses her fluency instruction on authentic fluency tasks based in performance. Beginning with establishing a student-friendly definition of fluency and culminating with student engagement in fun fluency activities, this article explores the…

It felt fluent, and I liked it: subjective feeling of fluency rather than objective fluency determines liking.

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Forster, Michael; Leder, Helmut; Ansorge, Ulrich

2013-04-01

According to the processing-fluency explanation of aesthetics, more fluently processed stimuli are preferred (R. Reber, N. Schwarz, & P. Winkielman, 2004, Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver's processing experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 8, pp. 364-382.). In this view, the subjective feeling of ease of processing is considered important, but this has not been directly tested in perceptual processing. In two experiments, we therefore objectively manipulated fluency (ease of processing) with subliminal perceptual priming (Study 1) and variations in presentation durations (Study 2). We assessed the impact of objective fluency on feelings of fluency and liking, as well as their interdependence. In line with the processing-fluency account, we found that objectively more fluent images were indeed judged as more fluent and were also liked more. Moreover, differences in liking were even stronger when data were analyzed according to felt fluency. These findings demonstrate that perceptual fluency is not only explicitly felt, it can also be reported and is an important determinant of liking. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

An UPF3-based nonsense-mediated decay in Paramecium.

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Contreras, Julia; Begley, Victoria; Macias, Sandra; Villalobo, Eduardo

2014-12-01

Nonsense-mediated decay recognises mRNAs containing premature termination codons. One of its components, UPF3, is a molecular link bridging through its binding to the exon junction complex nonsense-mediated decay and splicing. In protists UPF3 has not been identified yet. We report that Paramecium tetraurelia bears an UPF3 gene and that it has a role in nonsense-mediated decay. Interestingly, the identified UPF3 has not conserved the essential amino acids required to bind the exon junction complex. Though, our data indicates that this ciliate bears genes coding for core proteins of the exon junction complex. Copyright © 2014 Institut Pasteur. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

The Relationship between Temporal Measures of Oral Fluency and Ratings of Fluency: A Case of Iranian Advanced EFL Learners

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Ali Akbar Farahani

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Objective fluency judgment has always been a formidable task in language testing. Nonetheless, temporal fluency is the type of fluency which can be measured and quantified. Given that, temporal fluency is also known as temporal measures of fluency (Luoma, 2004. Furthermore, it has aroused considerable interest in analyzing speech of language learners in terms of quantitative measures (Kormos & Denes, 2004; Freed, 1995; Riggenbach, 1991; Lennon, 1990. They suggested that certain measures of fluency can more objectively specify fluency level and that perceptual understanding of fluency to a high extent correlate with these measures. Following these studies, the present study was an endeavor to relate quantitative measures of fluency and assessment of fluency in oral speech of L2 learners. To do so 30 advanced EFL learners whose speaking score on TOEFL iBT scale was between 19 to 22, i.e. B2 on CEFR scale, were selected. Then, they were given a picture strip as the elicitation task and asked to make up a story based on that. Their voice was recorded, transcribed and further analyzed by voice analysis software called PRAAT to calculate seven measures of fluency. Meanwhile, two trained listeners were required to rate the recordings, scoring them from 1 to 9. Finally, the relationship between these variables was calculated. The results showed that judge listeners’ ratings of fluency were highly correlated with speech rate, phonation time ratio, and mean length of runs. Moreover, among the measures of temporal fluency speech rate proved significantly correlated with articulation rate, phonation time ratio, and mean length of runs.

Verbal fluency in children with intellectual disability: Influence of basic executive components

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Gligorović Milica

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Phonemic and semantic fluency tasks are frequently used to differentiate executive control roles and the integrity of lexical-semantic representation. The main goal of this study is to determine the influence of basic executive components on phonemic and semantic productivity in children with mild intellectual disability. The sample consisted of 95 children with unspecified mild intellectual disability (MID, ages 10-13.11. Phonemic fluency was assessed by the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT, while semantic fluency was assessed by the Category Naming Test (CNT. Cognitive flexibility was assessed by Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST and Trail Making Test (TMT. Number Manipulation Task (NMT was used for the verbal working memory assessment, while Day/Night Stroop Task was used for the assessment of inhibitory control. The results analysis showed that all of the assessed EF components significantly affect phonemic productivity. Semantic productivity significantly depends on WCST and TMT performance. Verbal working memory and inhibitory control do not significantly contribute to semantic productivity. The results of our study indicate that the discrepancy between phonemic and semantic productivity in children with MID could be directly associated with the basic executive functions components.

Effect of Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage on Word Generation

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Daniella Ladowski

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH survivors commonly exhibit impairment on phonemic and semantic fluency tests; however, it is unclear which of the contributing cognitive processes are compromised in aSAH patients. One method of disentangling these processes is to compare initial word production, which is a rapid, semiautomatic, frontal-executive process, and late phase word production, which is dependent on more effortful retrieval and lexical size and requires a more distributed neural network. Methods. Seventy-two individuals with aSAH and twenty-five control subjects were tested on a cognitive battery including the phonemic and semantic fluency task. Demographic and clinical information was also collected. Results. Compared to control subjects, patients with aSAH were treated by clipping and those with multiple aneurysms were impaired across the duration of the phonemic test. Among patients treated by coiling, those with anterior communicating artery aneurysms or a neurological complication (intraventricular hemorrhage, vasospasm, and edema showed worse output only in the last 45 seconds of the phonemic test. Patients performed comparably to control subjects on the semantic test. Conclusions. These results support a “diffuse damage” hypothesis of aSAH, indicated by late phase phonemic fluency impairment. Overall, the phonemic and semantic tests represent a viable, rapid clinical screening tool in the postoperative assessment of patients with aSAH.

Meaningful Words and Non-Words Repetitive Articulatory Rate (Oral Diadochokinesis) in Persian Speaking Children.

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Zamani, Peyman; Rezai, Hossein; Garmatani, Neda Tahmasebi

2017-08-01

Repetitive articulatory rate or Oral Diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) shows a guideline for appraisal and diagnosis of subjects with oral-motor disorder. Traditionally, meaningless words repetition has been utilized in this task and preschool children have challenges with them. Therefore, we aimed to determine some meaningful words in order to test oral-DDK in Persian speaking preschool children. Participants were 142 normally developing children, (age range 4-6 years), who were asked to produce /motæka, golabi/ as two meaningful Persian words and /pa-ta-ka/ as non-word in conventional oral-DDK task. We compared the time taken for 10-times fast repetitions of two meaningful Persian words and the tri-syllabic nonsense word /pa-ta-ka/. Praat software was used to calculate the average time that subjects took to produce the target items. In 4-5 year old children, [Formula: see text] of time taken for 10-times repetitions of /pa-ta-ka, motæka, golabi/ were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively, and in 5-6 year old children were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively. Findings showed that the main effect of type of words on oral diadochokinesis was significant ([Formula: see text]). Children repeated meaningful words /motæka, golabi/ faster than the non-word /pa-ta-ka/. Sex and age factors had no effect on time taken for repetition of oral-DDK test. It is suggested that Speech Therapists can use meaningful words to facilitate oral-DDK test for children.

Sexual-orientation-related differences in verbal fluency.

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Rahman, Qazi; Abrahams, Sharon; Wilson, Glenn D

2003-04-01

This study examined the performance of 60 heterosexual men, 60 gay men, 60 heterosexual women, and 60 lesbians on 3 tests of verbal fluency known to show gender differences: letter, category, and synonym fluency. Gay men and lesbians showed opposite-sex shifts in their profile of scores. For letter fluency, gay men outperformed all other groups; lesbians showed the lowest scores. For category fluency, gay men and heterosexual women jointly outperformed lesbians and heterosexual men. Finally, gay men outperformed all other groups on synonym fluency, whereas lesbians and heterosexual men performed similarly. A difference between heterosexual men and women was demonstrated on category and synonym fluency only. The findings implicate within-sex differences in the functioning of the prefrontal and temporal cortices.

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of semantic verbal fluency in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

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Jaimes-Bautista, A G; Rodríguez-Camacho, M; Martínez-Juárez, I E; Rodríguez-Agudelo, Y

2017-08-29

Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) perform poorly on semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tasks. Completing these tasks successfully involves multiple cognitive processes simultaneously. Therefore, quantitative analysis of SVF (number of correct words in one minute), conducted in most studies, has been found to be insufficient to identify cognitive dysfunction underlying SVF difficulties in TLE. To determine whether a sample of patients with TLE had SVF difficulties compared with a control group (CG), and to identify the cognitive components associated with SVF difficulties using quantitative and qualitative analysis. SVF was evaluated in 25 patients with TLE and 24 healthy controls; the semantic verbal fluency test included 5 semantic categories: animals, fruits, occupations, countries, and verbs. All 5 categories were analysed quantitatively (number of correct words per minute and interval of execution: 0-15, 16-30, 31-45, and 46-60seconds); the categories animals and fruits were also analysed qualitatively (clusters, cluster size, switches, perseverations, and intrusions). Patients generated fewer words for all categories and intervals and fewer clusters and switches for animals and fruits than the CG (Psize and number of intrusions and perseverations (P>.05). Our results suggest an association between SVF difficulties in TLE and difficulty activating semantic networks, impaired strategic search, and poor cognitive flexibility. Attention, inhibition, and working memory are preserved in these patients. Copyright © 2017 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Recall strategies for the verbal fluency test in patients with multiple sclerosis.

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Velázquez-Cardoso, J; Marosi-Holczberger, E; Rodríguez-Agudelo, Y; Yañez-Tellez, G; Chávez-Oliveros, M

2014-04-01

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterised by inflammation and demyelination. It generates irreversible myelin changes, which in turn give rise to physical and cognitive disorders. The verbal fluency test (VF) has been shown to be a sensitive tool for detecting cognitive impairment in these patients. To compare quantitative and qualitative aspects of performance on semantic and phonological fluency tests between MS patients and healthy controls by analysing total words produced and strategies used (clusters and switching). We evaluated 46 patients with MS and 33 healthy controls using the VF test. The semantic VF task revealed no significant differences between groups; for the phonological task, patients demonstrated reduced word production (F [77]=2.286 P<.001) and poorer use of grouping strategies, resulting in more frequent switching (F [77]=3.808 P<.005). These results support using qualitative analysis for recall strategies, since the technique provides data about which components of the task are affected by brain damage. Clusters depend on the integrity of semantic memory, while switching has to do with developing effective search strategies, cognitive flexibility, and the ability to modify responses. Frontal lobe damage has been reported in MS, and this is consistent with results from the phonological VF test. Copyright © 2012 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Imitated prosodic fluency predicts reading comprehension ability in good and poor high school readers

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Mara Breen

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Researchers have established a relationship between beginning readers’ silent comprehension ability and their prosodic fluency, such that readers who read aloud with appropriate prosody tend to have higher scores on silent reading comprehension assessments. The current study was designed to investigate this relationship in two groups of high school readers: Specifically Poor Comprehenders (SPCs, who have adequate word level and phonological skills but poor reading comprehension ability, and a group of age- and decoding skill-matched controls. We compared the prosodic fluency of the two groups by determining how effectively they produced prosodic cues to syntactic and semantic structure in imitations of a model speaker’s production of syntactically and semantically varied sentences. Analyses of pitch and duration patterns revealed that speakers in both groups produced the expected prosodic patterns; however, controls provided stronger durational cues to syntactic structure. These results demonstrate that the relationship between prosodic fluency and reading comprehension continues past the stage of early reading instruction. Moreover, they suggest that prosodically fluent speakers may also generate more fluent implicit prosodic representations during silent reading, leading to more effective comprehension.

Inhibitory control, word retrieval and bilingual aphasia: is there a relationship?

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Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah

2014-04-01

Responses to incongruent trials were slower than congruent for linguistic (F(1,126.3=44.9, p.05. While confrontation naming and category fluency were highly correlated (r=.77, p<.001, correlations between linguistic and non-linguistic inhibition and between word retrieval and linguistic/non-linguistic inhibition were non-significant. This large group study poses challenges to theories of bilingual advantage and the role of non-lexical inhibitory measures in word retrieval in PWA.

Exploring EFL fluency in Asia

CERN Document Server

Muller, T; Brown, P; Herder, S

2014-01-01

In EFL contexts, an absence of chances to develop fluency in the language classroom can lead to marked limitations in English proficiency. This volume explores fluency development from a number of different perspectives, investigating measurements and classroom strategies for promoting its development.

Computerized Analysis of Verbal Fluency: Normative Data and the Effects of Repeated Testing, Simulated Malingering, and Traumatic Brain Injury.

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David L Woods

Full Text Available In verbal fluency (VF tests, subjects articulate words in a specified category during a short test period (typically 60 s. Verbal fluency tests are widely used to study language development and to evaluate memory retrieval in neuropsychiatric disorders. Performance is usually measured as the total number of correct words retrieved. Here, we describe the properties of a computerized VF (C-VF test that tallies correct words and repetitions while providing additional lexical measures of word frequency, syllable count, and typicality. In addition, the C-VF permits (1 the analysis of the rate of responding over time, and (2 the analysis of the semantic relationships between words using a new method, Explicit Semantic Analysis (ESA, as well as the established semantic clustering and switching measures developed by Troyer et al. (1997. In Experiment 1, we gathered normative data from 180 subjects ranging in age from 18 to 82 years in semantic ("animals" and phonemic (letter "F" conditions. The number of words retrieved in 90 s correlated with education and daily hours of computer-use. The rate of word production declined sharply over time during both tests. In semantic conditions, correct-word scores correlated strongly with the number of ESA and Troyer-defined semantic switches as well as with an ESA-defined semantic organization index (SOI. In phonemic conditions, ESA revealed significant semantic influences in the sequence of words retrieved. In Experiment 2, we examined the test-retest reliability of different measures across three weekly tests in 40 young subjects. Different categories were used for each semantic ("animals", "parts of the body", and "foods" and phonemic (letters "F", "A", and "S" condition. After regressing out the influences of education and computer-use, we found that correct-word z-scores in the first session did not differ from those of the subjects in Experiment 1. Word production was uniformly greater in semantic than

Immunodeficiency associated with a nonsense mutation of IKBKB

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Christian; Jakobsen, Marianne A; Larsen, Martin Jakob

2014-01-01

We report an infant of consanguineous parents of Turkish decent with a novel immunodeficiency associated with homozygosity for a nonsense mutation of the gene encoding Inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) kinase subunit beta (IKKβ). At five months, she presented with respiratory insufficie......We report an infant of consanguineous parents of Turkish decent with a novel immunodeficiency associated with homozygosity for a nonsense mutation of the gene encoding Inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) kinase subunit beta (IKKβ). At five months, she presented with respiratory...... no explanation before whole exome sequencing revealed a novel mutation abrogating signaling through the canonical NF-κB pathway....

The role of auditory temporal cues in the fluency of stuttering adults

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Juliana Furini

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Purpose: to compare the frequency of disfluencies and speech rate in spontaneous speech and reading in adults with and without stuttering in non-altered and delayed auditory feedback (NAF, DAF. Methods: participants were 30 adults: 15 with Stuttering (Research Group - RG, and 15 without stuttering (Control Group - CG. The procedures were: audiological assessment and speech fluency evaluation in two listening conditions, normal and delayed auditory feedback (100 milliseconds delayed by Fono Tools software. Results: the DAF caused a significant improvement in the fluency of spontaneous speech in RG when compared to speech under NAF. The effect of DAF was different in CG, because it increased the common disfluencies and the total of disfluencies in spontaneous speech and reading, besides showing an increase in the frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies in reading. The intergroup analysis showed significant differences in the two speech tasks for the two listening conditions in the frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies and in the total of disfluencies, and in the flows of syllable and word-per-minute in the NAF. Conclusion: the results demonstrated that delayed auditory feedback promoted fluency in spontaneous speech of adults who stutter, without interfering in the speech rate. In non-stuttering adults an increase occurred in the number of common disfluencies and total of disfluencies as well as reduction of speech rate in spontaneous speech and reading.

Walk-related mimic word activates the extrastriate visual cortex in the human brain: an fMRI study.

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Osaka, Naoyuki

2009-03-02

I present an fMRI study demonstrating that a mimic word highly suggestive of human walking, heard by the ear with eyes closed, significantly activates the visual cortex located in extrastriate occipital region (BA19, 18) and superior temporal sulcus (STS) while hearing non-sense words that do not imply walk under the same task does not activate these areas in humans. I concluded that BA19 and 18 would be a critical region for generating visual images of walking and related intentional stance, respectively, evoked by an onomatopoeia word that implied walking.

Rapid Statistical Learning Supporting Word Extraction From Continuous Speech.

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Batterink, Laura J

2017-07-01

The identification of words in continuous speech, known as speech segmentation, is a critical early step in language acquisition. This process is partially supported by statistical learning, the ability to extract patterns from the environment. Given that speech segmentation represents a potential bottleneck for language acquisition, patterns in speech may be extracted very rapidly, without extensive exposure. This hypothesis was examined by exposing participants to continuous speech streams composed of novel repeating nonsense words. Learning was measured on-line using a reaction time task. After merely one exposure to an embedded novel word, learners demonstrated significant learning effects, as revealed by faster responses to predictable than to unpredictable syllables. These results demonstrate that learners gained sensitivity to the statistical structure of unfamiliar speech on a very rapid timescale. This ability may play an essential role in early stages of language acquisition, allowing learners to rapidly identify word candidates and "break in" to an unfamiliar language.

Action verbal fluency in Parkinson’s patients

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Inês Tello Rodrigues

2015-06-01

Full Text Available We compared the performance of 31 non-demented Parkinson´s disease (PD patients to 61 healthy controls in an action verbal fluency task. Semantic and phonemic fluencies, cognitive impairment and behavioural dysfunction were also assessed. The mean disease duration of PD was 9.8 years (standard deviation (SD = 6.13. There were no age (U = 899.5, p = 0.616, gender(chi-square = 0.00, p = 1.00 or literacy (U = 956, p = 0.96 differences between the two groups. A significant difference was observed between the two groups in the action verbal fluency task (U = 406.5, p < 0.01 that was not found in the other fluency tasks. The education level was the only biographical variable that influenced the action (verb fluency outcomes, irrespective of disease duration. Our findings suggest a correlation between the disease mechanisms in PD and a specific verb deficit, support the validity of the action (verb fluency as an executive function measure and suggest that this task provides unique information not captured with traditional executive function tasks.

What Can We Learn from the Word Writing CAFE?

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Bromley, Karen; Vandenberg, Amy; White, Jennifer

2007-01-01

Building on the work of an earlier article ["The Word Writing CAFE: Assessing Student Writing for Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency," Dorothy J. Leal, "Reading Teacher," 59 (4) Dec 2005 (EJ738016)], these authors investigated the use of a simple assessment tool with a different audience to yield similar useful results. (Contains 3 figures and 4…

Word translation at three levels of proficiency in a second language: the ubiquitous involvement of conceptual memory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Groot, A.M.B.; Poot, R.

1997-01-01

Three groups of 20 unbalanced bilinguals, different from one another in second language (L2) fluency, translated one set of words from L1, Dutch, to L2, English (forward translation), and a second set of matched words from L2 to L1 (backward translation). In both language sets we orthogonally

Shaking Takete and Flowing Maluma. Non-Sense Words Are Associated with Motion Patterns.

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Markus Koppensteiner

Full Text Available People assign the artificial words takete and kiki to spiky, angular figures and the artificial words maluma and bouba to rounded figures. We examined whether such a cross-modal correspondence could also be found for human body motion. We transferred the body movements of speakers onto two-dimensional coordinates and created animated stick-figures based on this data. Then we invited people to judge these stimuli using the words takete-maluma, bouba-kiki, and several verbal descriptors that served as measures of angularity/smoothness. In addition to this we extracted the quantity of motion, the velocity of motion and the average angle between motion vectors from the coordinate data. Judgments of takete (and kiki were related to verbal descriptors of angularity, a high quantity of motion, high velocity and sharper angles. Judgments of maluma (or bouba were related to smooth movements, a low velocity, a lower quantity of motion and blunter angles. A forced-choice experiment during which we presented subsets with low and high rankers on our motion measures revealed that people preferably assigned stimuli displaying fast movements with sharp angles in motion vectors to takete and stimuli displaying slow movements with blunter angles in motion vectors to maluma. Results indicated that body movements share features with information inherent in words such as takete and maluma and that people perceive the body movements of speakers on the level of changes in motion direction (e.g., body moves to the left and then back to the right. Follow-up studies are needed to clarify whether impressions of angularity and smoothness have similar communicative values across different modalities and how this affects social judgments and person perception.

Shaking Takete and Flowing Maluma. Non-Sense Words Are Associated with Motion Patterns.

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Koppensteiner, Markus; Stephan, Pia; Jäschke, Johannes Paul Michael

2016-01-01

People assign the artificial words takete and kiki to spiky, angular figures and the artificial words maluma and bouba to rounded figures. We examined whether such a cross-modal correspondence could also be found for human body motion. We transferred the body movements of speakers onto two-dimensional coordinates and created animated stick-figures based on this data. Then we invited people to judge these stimuli using the words takete-maluma, bouba-kiki, and several verbal descriptors that served as measures of angularity/smoothness. In addition to this we extracted the quantity of motion, the velocity of motion and the average angle between motion vectors from the coordinate data. Judgments of takete (and kiki) were related to verbal descriptors of angularity, a high quantity of motion, high velocity and sharper angles. Judgments of maluma (or bouba) were related to smooth movements, a low velocity, a lower quantity of motion and blunter angles. A forced-choice experiment during which we presented subsets with low and high rankers on our motion measures revealed that people preferably assigned stimuli displaying fast movements with sharp angles in motion vectors to takete and stimuli displaying slow movements with blunter angles in motion vectors to maluma. Results indicated that body movements share features with information inherent in words such as takete and maluma and that people perceive the body movements of speakers on the level of changes in motion direction (e.g., body moves to the left and then back to the right). Follow-up studies are needed to clarify whether impressions of angularity and smoothness have similar communicative values across different modalities and how this affects social judgments and person perception.

Messenger RNA surveillance: neutralizing natural nonsense

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Weischelfeldt, Joachim Lütken; Lykke-Andersen, Jens; Porse, Bo

2005-01-01

Messenger RNA transcripts that contain premature stop codons are degraded by a process termed nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). Although previously thought of as a pathway that rids the cell of non-functional mRNAs arising from mutations and processing errors, new research suggests a more general...

The elimination of positive priming with increasing prime duration reflects a transition from perceptual fluency to disfluency rather than bias against primed words.

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Potter, Kevin W; Donkin, Chris; Huber, David E

2018-03-01

With immediate repetition priming of forced choice perceptual identification, short prime durations produce positive priming (i.e., priming the target leads to higher accuracy, while priming the foil leads to lower accuracy). Many theories explain positive priming following short duration primes as reflecting increased perceptual fluency for the primed target (i.e., decreased identification latency). However, most studies only examine either accuracy or response times, rather than considering the joint constraints of response times and accuracy to properly address the role of decision biases and response caution. This is a critical oversight because several theories propose that the transition to negative priming following a long duration prime reflects a decision strategy to compensate for the effect of increased perceptual fluency. In contrast, the nROUSE model of Huber and O'Reilly (2003) explains this transition as reflecting perceptual habituation, and thus a change to perceptual disfluency. We confirmed this prediction by applying a sequential sampling model (the diffusion race model) to accuracy and response time distributions from a new single item same-different version of the priming task. In this way, we measured strategic biases and perceptual fluency in each condition for each subject. The nROUSE model was only applied to accuracy from the original forced-choice version of the priming task. This application of nROUSE produced separate predictions for each subject regarding the degree of fluency and disfluency in each condition, and these predictions were confirmed by the drift rate parameters (i.e., fluency) from the response time model in contrast to the threshold parameters (i.e., bias). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Word recognition in Alzheimer's disease: Effects of semantic degeneration.

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Cuetos, Fernando; Arce, Noemí; Martínez, Carmen; Ellis, Andrew W

2017-03-01

Impairments of word recognition in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been less widely investigated than impairments affecting word retrieval and production. In particular, we know little about what makes individual words easier or harder for patients with AD to recognize. We used a lexical selection task in which participants were shown sets of four items, each set consisting of one word and three non-words. The task was simply to point to the word on each trial. Forty patients with mild-to-moderate AD were significantly impaired on this task relative to matched controls who made very few errors. The number of patients with AD able to recognize each word correctly was predicted by the frequency, age of acquisition, and imageability of the words, but not by their length or number of orthographic neighbours. Patient Mini-Mental State Examination and phonological fluency scores also predicted the number of words recognized. We propose that progressive degradation of central semantic representations in AD differentially affects the ability to recognize low-imageability, low-frequency, late-acquired words, with the same factors affecting word recognition as affecting word retrieval. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

The no-nonsense guide to project management

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Allan, Barbara

2017-01-01

This book provides a 'no-nonsense' guide to project management which will enable library and information professionals to lead or take part in a wide range of projects from large-scale multi-organisation complex projects through to relatively simple local ones.

A word expressing affective pain activates the anterior cingulate cortex in the human brain: an fMRI study.

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Osaka, Naoyuki; Osaka, Mariko; Morishita, Masanao; Kondo, Hirohito; Fukuyama, Hidenao

2004-08-12

We present an fMRI study demonstrating that an onomatopoeia word highly suggestive of subjective pain, heard by the ear, significantly activates the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) while hearing non-sense words that did not imply affective pain under the same task does not activate this area in humans. We concluded that the ACC would be a pivotal locus for perceiving affective pain evoked by an onomatopoeia word that implied affective pain closely associated with the unpleasantness of pain. We suggest that the pain affect sustained by pain unpleasantness may depend on ACC-prefrontal cortical interactions that modify cognitive evaluation of emotions associated with word-induced pain.

Phonemic verbal fluency task in adults with high-level literacy.

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Opasso, Patrícia Romano; Barreto, Simone Dos Santos; Ortiz, Karin Zazo

2016-01-01

To establish normative parameters for the F-A-S form of the phonemic verbal fluency test, in a population of Brazilian Portuguese speaking adults with high-level literacy. The sample comprised 40 male and female volunteers aged 19 to 59 years, and at least 8 years of formal education. Volunteers were first submitted to the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Clock Drawing cognitive screening tests, then to the F-A-S Verbal Phonemic Fluency Test; in this test, examinees were given 60 seconds to generate as many words as possible beginning with each of the three test letters. The means for number of words beginning the letters F, A and S and for total number of words beginning with either letter generated per minute corresponded to 15.3, 14.4, 13.9 and 43.5, respectively. Reference values obtained from young adults with high levels of literacy submitted to the F-A-S Verbal Phonemic Fluency Test in this study were similar to those reported in the international literature. These reference values can be used for clinical assessment of language disorder and neuropsychological evaluation. Obter parâmetros de normalidade na tarefa de fluência verbal fonêmica, versão F-A-S, em uma população de alto letramento de adultos falantes do português brasileiro. A amostra foi constituída por 40 voluntários, de ambos os sexos, com idade entre 19 e 59 anos, e com mais de 8 anos de estudo. Todos os voluntários foram inicialmente submetidos ao Miniexame do Estado Mental e ao Teste do Desenho do Relógio, para fins de rastreio cognitivo, e, então, ao Teste de Fluência Verbal Fonêmica F-A-S. Neste último, os indivíduos foram orientados a produzirem o maior número de palavras que conseguissem, iniciadas com cada uma das três letras ditas pelo examinador, em um intervalo de 60 segundos cada. As médias das palavras produzidas com as letras F-A-S foram as seguintes: "F" = 15,3 palavras por minuto; "A" = 14,4 palavras por minuto; e "S" = 13,9 palavras por minuto. A m

A homozygous nonsense CEP250 mutation combined with a heterozygous nonsense C2orf71 mutation is associated with atypical Usher syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Khateb, Samer; Zelinger, Lina; Mizrahi-Meissonnier, Liliana; Ayuso, Carmen; Koenekoop, Robert K; Laxer, Uri; Gross, Menachem; Banin, Eyal; Sharon, Dror

2014-07-01

Usher syndrome (USH) is a heterogeneous group of inherited retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) caused by mutations in at least 12 genes. Our aim is to identify additional USH-related genes. Clinical examination included visual acuity test, funduscopy and electroretinography. Genetic analysis included homozygosity mapping and whole exome sequencing (WES). A combination of homozygosity mapping and WES in a large consanguineous family of Iranian Jewish origin revealed nonsense mutations in two ciliary genes: c.3289C>T (p.Q1097*) in C2orf71 and c.3463C>T (p.R1155*) in centrosome-associated protein CEP250 (C-Nap1). The latter has not been associated with any inherited disease and the c.3463C>T mutation was absent in control chromosomes. Patients who were double homozygotes had SNHL accompanied by early-onset and severe RP, while patients who were homozygous for the CEP250 mutation and carried a single mutant C2orf71 allele had SNHL with mild retinal degeneration. No ciliary structural abnormalities in the respiratory system were evident by electron microscopy analysis. CEP250 expression analysis of the mutant allele revealed the generation of a truncated protein lacking the NEK2-phosphorylation region. A homozygous nonsense CEP250 mutation, in combination with a heterozygous C2orf71 nonsense mutation, causes an atypical form of USH, characterised by early-onset SNHL and a relatively mild RP. The severe retinal involvement in the double homozygotes indicates an additive effect caused by nonsense mutations in genes encoding ciliary proteins. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Detecting nonsense for Chinese comments based on logistic regression

Science.gov (United States)

Zhuolin, Ren; Guang, Chen; Shu, Chen

2016-07-01

To understand cyber citizens' opinion accurately from Chinese news comments, the clear definition on nonsense is present, and a detection model based on logistic regression (LR) is proposed. The detection of nonsense can be treated as a binary-classification problem. Besides of traditional lexical features, we propose three kinds of features in terms of emotion, structure and relevance. By these features, we train an LR model and demonstrate its effect in understanding Chinese news comments. We find that each of proposed features can significantly promote the result. In our experiments, we achieve a prediction accuracy of 84.3% which improves the baseline 77.3% by 7%.

Challenging the Superiority of Phonological Fluency

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Erz, Antonia; Christensen, Bo

2014-01-01

The results of three laboratory experiments contribute to our understanding of effects of phonological fluency on correct recognition and recall of novel brand names, being relevant to the areas of information processing, memory, and branding. Employing the full range of fluency, the results offer...

Visiting digital fluency for pre-service teachers in Turkey

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Kadir Demir

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Digital literacy is to know how to use digital tools, however digital fluency is a new concept. Beyond the digital literacy, digital fluency requires skills to know when to use the technology and even why to use the technology. The technology advances rapidly; as a result, education and instruction are getting digitalized. So it could be estimated that; pre-service teachers who are future teachers, should have digital skills. This is the main point of this study which aims to visit pre-service teachers in Turkey from the perspective of digital fluency, give insights about digital fluency, scrutinize its difference from digital literacy and provide literature review on the previous studies about digital fluency. Accordingly; a through literature review was performed. At first, the connection between digital fluency and the 21st century analyzed, then the differences between digital literacy and digital fluency are described. Worldwide and specifically Turkish literature review revealed that, certain studies foresaw the increasing importance of digital fluency based on development of digital devices, and Turkish literature was limited to some scale development and descriptive studies solely determining the digital literacy level of the participants. Thus, it could be stated that further and up-to-date studies are required, which would be conducted with pre-service teachers and current assessment instruments should be developed to determine digital fluency level, considering the rapid advances in technology.

Modeling individual differences in text reading fluency: a different pattern of predictors for typically developing and dyslexic readers

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Pierluigi eZoccolotti

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This study was aimed at predicting individual differences in text reading fluency. The basic proposal included two factors, i.e., the ability to decode letter strings (measured by discrete pseudo-word reading and integration of the various sub-components involved in reading (measured by Rapid Automatized Naming, RAN. Subsequently, a third factor was added to the model, i.e., naming of discrete digits. In order to use homogeneous measures, all contributing variables considered the entire processing of the item, including pronunciation time. The model, which was based on commonality analysis, was applied to data from a group of 43 typically developing readers (11- to 13-year-olds and a group of 25 chronologically matched dyslexic children. In typically developing readers, both orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components contributed significantly to the overall prediction of text reading fluency. The model prediction was higher (from ca. 37% to 52% of the explained variance when we included the naming of discrete digits variable, which had a suppressive effect on pseudo-word reading. In the dyslexic readers, the variance explained by the two-factor model was high (69% and did not change when the third factor was added. The lack of a suppression effect was likely due to the prominent individual differences in poor orthographic decoding of the dyslexic children. Analyses on data from both groups of children were replicated by using patches of colours as stimuli (both in the RAN task and in the discrete naming task obtaining similar results. We conclude that it is possible to predict much of the variance in text-reading fluency using basic processes, such as orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components, even without taking into consideration higher-order linguistic factors such as lexical, semantic and contextual abilities. The approach validity of using proximal vs distal causes to predict reading fluency is

Development and Relationships Between Phonological Awareness, Morphological Awareness and Word Reading in Spoken and Standard Arabic

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Rachel Schiff

2018-04-01

Full Text Available This study addressed the development of and the relationship between foundational metalinguistic skills and word reading skills in Arabic. It compared Arabic-speaking children’s phonological awareness (PA, morphological awareness, and voweled and unvoweled word reading skills in spoken and standard language varieties separately in children across five grade levels from childhood to adolescence. Second, it investigated whether skills developed in the spoken variety of Arabic predict reading in the standard variety. Results indicate that although individual differences between students in PA are eliminated toward the end of elementary school in both spoken and standard language varieties, gaps in morphological awareness and in reading skills persisted through junior and high school years. The results also show that the gap in reading accuracy and fluency between Spoken Arabic (SpA and Standard Arabic (StA was evident in both voweled and unvoweled words. Finally, regression analyses showed that morphological awareness in SpA contributed to reading fluency in StA, i.e., children’s early morphological awareness in SpA explained variance in children’s gains in reading fluency in StA. These findings have important theoretical and practical contributions for Arabic reading theory in general and they extend the previous work regarding the cross-linguistic relevance of foundational metalinguistic skills in the first acquired language to reading in a second language, as in societal bilingualism contexts, or a second language variety, as in diglossic contexts.

Development and Relationships Between Phonological Awareness, Morphological Awareness and Word Reading in Spoken and Standard Arabic

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Schiff, Rachel; Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor

2018-01-01

This study addressed the development of and the relationship between foundational metalinguistic skills and word reading skills in Arabic. It compared Arabic-speaking children’s phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness, and voweled and unvoweled word reading skills in spoken and standard language varieties separately in children across five grade levels from childhood to adolescence. Second, it investigated whether skills developed in the spoken variety of Arabic predict reading in the standard variety. Results indicate that although individual differences between students in PA are eliminated toward the end of elementary school in both spoken and standard language varieties, gaps in morphological awareness and in reading skills persisted through junior and high school years. The results also show that the gap in reading accuracy and fluency between Spoken Arabic (SpA) and Standard Arabic (StA) was evident in both voweled and unvoweled words. Finally, regression analyses showed that morphological awareness in SpA contributed to reading fluency in StA, i.e., children’s early morphological awareness in SpA explained variance in children’s gains in reading fluency in StA. These findings have important theoretical and practical contributions for Arabic reading theory in general and they extend the previous work regarding the cross-linguistic relevance of foundational metalinguistic skills in the first acquired language to reading in a second language, as in societal bilingualism contexts, or a second language variety, as in diglossic contexts. PMID:29686633

Analysis of neural mechanisms underlying verbal fluency in cytoarchitectonically defined stereotaxic space--the roles of Brodmann areas 44 and 45.

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Amunts, Katrin; Weiss, Peter H; Mohlberg, Hartmut; Pieperhoff, Peter; Eickhoff, Simon; Gurd, Jennifer M; Marshall, John C; Shah, Nadim J; Fink, Gereon R; Zilles, Karl

2004-05-01

We investigated neural activations underlying a verbal fluency task and cytoarchitectonic probabilistic maps of Broca's speech region (Brodmann's areas 44 and 45). To do so, we reanalyzed data from a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) [Brain 125 (2002) 1024] and from a cytoarchitectonic study [J. Comp. Neurol. 412 (1999) 319] and developed a method to combine both data sets. In the fMRI experiment, verbal fluency was investigated in 11 healthy volunteers, who covertly produced words from predefined categories. A factorial design was used with factors verbal class (semantic vs. overlearned fluency) and switching between categories (no vs. yes). fMRI data analysis employed SPM99 (Statistical Parametric Mapping). Cytoarchitectonic maps of areas 44 and 45 were derived from histologic sections of 10 postmortem brains. Both the in vivo fMRI and postmortem MR data were warped to a common reference brain using a new elastic warping tool. Cytoarchitectonic probability maps with stereotaxic information about intersubject variability were calculated for both areas and superimposed on the functional data, which showed the involvement of left hemisphere areas with verbal fluency relative to the baseline. Semantic relative to overlearned fluency showed greater involvement of left area 45 than of 44. Thus, although both areas participate in verbal fluency, they do so differentially. Left area 45 is more involved in semantic aspects of language processing, while area 44 is probably involved in high-level aspects of programming speech production per se. The combination of functional data analysis with a new elastic warping tool and cytoarchitectonic maps opens new perspectives for analyzing the cortical networks involved in language.

Primary School Text Comprehension Predicts Mathematical Word Problem-Solving Skills in Secondary School

Science.gov (United States)

Björn, Piia Maria; Aunola, Kaisa; Nurmi, Jari-Erik

2016-01-01

This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the extent to which primary school text comprehension predicts mathematical word problem-solving skills in secondary school among Finnish students. The participants were 224 fourth graders (9-10 years old at the baseline). The children's text-reading fluency, text comprehension and basic calculation…

Subjective Word-Finding Difficulty Reduces Engagement in Social Leisure Activities in Alzheimer’s Disease

Science.gov (United States)

Farrell, Meagan T.; Zahodne, Laura B.; Stern, Yaakov; Dorrejo, Jhedy; Yeung, Philip; Cosentino, Stephanie

2014-01-01

Objectives To assess the influence of subjective word-finding difficulty on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients’ likelihood of engaging in social leisure activities. Design Analysis of data collected from the second cohort of the Multicenter Study of Predictors of Disease Course in Alzheimer’s disease. Setting Four study sites in the U.S. and France. Participants Individuals diagnosed with mild to moderate AD (N = 236) Measurements On separate questionnaires, patients were asked to 1) report whether had trouble finding the right word when speaking (subjective word-finding difficulty), and 2) rate their frequency and enjoyment of both social and nonsocial leisure activities. Objective language measures included object naming and verbal fluency. Measures of dependence, depression, cognitive status, age, sex, and education were also included as covariates in regression analyses. Results Over half (52%) of the sample reported word-finding difficulty, and subjective complaints were correlated with poorer verbal fluency scores. Subjective word-finding difficulty was uniquely related to social activity measures. Endorsers of word-finding difficulty reported reduced frequency and enjoyment of social leisure activities, controlling for covariates. In contrast, engagement in nonsocial activities was associated with higher age and depression scores, but was not related to word-finding complaints. These results were corroborated by the caregivers’ reports, and occurred above and beyond the effect of objective word-finding ability. Conclusion AD patients who are aware of increasing word-finding failures are less likely to participate in and enjoy socially-oriented leisure activities. This finding may have significant implications for clinical and health outcomes in AD. A failure to evaluate subjective language complaints could result in social withdrawal symptoms, thereby threatening the patient’s quality of life as well as increasing caregiver burden. Importantly

Processing fluency and impressions of joy and pride

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Kravchenko Yu.E.

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The mere exposure effect consists in the increasing of affective preference (sympathy/ liking for a previously encountered stimulus. Many researches connect it with processing fluency and effort savings (hedonic marking hypothesis [17]. The present study investigates, whether processing fluency connects with other positive emotions. We supposed higher processing fluency correlates with grater intensity of pride and joy. In 1 Experiment participants (n = 98 recognize 10 well-known proverbs in guessing game. Then they marked proverbs about that they would brag to their friends and ranked all proverbs from the most to the lest pleasant. In 2 Experiment 4 groups each of that concluded 24 different complicated joy statements were pairwise compared. Participants (n = 55 chosen most funny and marked unfunny statements. Results shows most sympathy is connect with higher processing fluency, but pride and joy appear more often in connection with more complicated stimuli required lower processing fluency.

Acquisition of linguistic procedures for printed words: neuropsychological implications for learning.

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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.

Utterance-final position and pitch marking aid word learning in school-age children.

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Filippi, Piera; Laaha, Sabine; Fitch, W Tecumseh

2017-08-01

We investigated the effects of word order and prosody on word learning in school-age children. Third graders viewed photographs belonging to one of three semantic categories while hearing four-word nonsense utterances containing a target word. In the control condition, all words had the same pitch and, across trials, the position of the target word was varied systematically within each utterance. The only cue to word-meaning mapping was the co-occurrence of target words and referents. This cue was present in all conditions. In the Utterance-final condition, the target word always occurred in utterance-final position, and at the same fundamental frequency as all the other words of the utterance. In the Pitch peak condition, the position of the target word was varied systematically within each utterance across trials, and produced with pitch contrasts typical of infant-directed speech (IDS). In the Pitch peak + Utterance-final condition, the target word always occurred in utterance-final position, and was marked with a pitch contrast typical of IDS. Word learning occurred in all conditions except the control condition. Moreover, learning performance was significantly higher than that observed with simple co-occurrence ( control condition) only for the Pitch peak + Utterance-final condition. We conclude that, for school-age children, the combination of words' utterance-final alignment and pitch enhancement boosts word learning.

An Evaluation of Project iRead: A Program Created to Improve Sight Word Recognition

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Marshall, Theresa Meade

2014-01-01

This program evaluation was undertaken to examine the relationship between participation in Project iRead and student gains in word recognition, fluency, and comprehension as measured by the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) Test. Linear regressions compared the 2012-13 PALS results from 5,140 first and second grade students at…

Fluency aspects of oral narrative task in del22q11.2 syndrome.

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Santos, Amanda Oliveira; Rossi, Natalia Freitas; Tandel, Maria da Conceição Faria Freitas; Richieri-Costa, Antonio; Giacheti, Célia Maria

2016-01-01

To investigate the fluency aspects of the oral narrative task in individuals with del22q11.2 syndrome and compare them with those of individuals with typical language development. Fifteen individuals diagnosed with del22q11.2 syndrome, both genders, aged 7-17 years participated in this study. They were compared with 15 individuals with typical language development, with similar gender and chronological age profiles. The oral narrative was elicited using the book "Frog, Where Are You?", and the fluency aspects were analyzed according to speech rate and type and frequency of disfluency (typical and stuttering). The number and duration of pauses were also investigated. The data were statistically analyzed. The group with del22q11.2 syndrome showed a higher average when compared with the group without the syndrome for the percentage of typical disfluencies, mainly hesitation and revision. The group presenting the syndrome also showed a higher average for stuttering disfluencies, with pause as the most frequent disfluency. With respect to speech rate, the group with the syndrome presented a lower average for the number of words and syllables per minute. Individuals with del22q11.2 syndrome showed greater difficulties of narration than their peers. The fluency aspects of the oral narrative task in subjects with del22q11.2 syndrome were similar to those of individuals with typical language development regarding the presence of hesitation, revision, and pause, but they were different with respect to frequency of disfluency, which was higher in individuals with the syndrome.

Is Morphological Awareness a Relevant Predictor of Reading Fluency and Comprehension? New Evidence From Italian Monolingual and Arabic-Italian Bilingual Children

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Mirta Vernice

2018-03-01

Full Text Available In this study, we examined the contribution of morphological awareness to reading competence in a group of Italian L1 and Arabic-Italian early L2 children, i.e., exposed to Italian before 3 years of age. Children from first to fifth grade (age range: 6–11 years old were tested on a range of morphological awareness and lexical tasks. Reading ability was tested through standardized tests of reading fluency and comprehension. Results showed that L1 children outperformed L2 on every measure of morphological awareness, as well as on reading tests. Regression analyses revealed that morphological awareness contributed to a different extent to reading ability across groups. Accuracy in the morphological awareness tasks was a significant predictor of word (and non-word reading fluency in L1 and L2 first and second graders, while only in L1 third to fifth graders, response times and accuracy to a morphological awareness task explained a unique amount of variance in reading comprehension. Our results highlight the critical role of morphological processing in reading efficiency and suggest that a training inspired by morphological awareness may improve reading skills also in bilingual students.

Reading Fluency Techniques from the Bottom-up: A Grounded Theory

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Seyyed Ali Ostovar-Namaghi

2015-09-01

Full Text Available In many EFL contexts, including language education milieu in Iran, reading fluency is usually taken for granted since language education in public high schools mainly focuses on reading comprehension. Taking the detrimental effect of fluency deficiency into account, some practitioners foreground reading fluency and try to develop it early on. To give voice to their theories of practice, this qualitative study interviewed teachers who were willing to share their experience with the researchers. In line with grounded theory, the iterative process of data collection and analysis continued until the conceptualization of fluency development techniques was saturated. The techniques emerged are conducive to fluency development and as such the findings have clear implications for practitioners and policy makers nation-wide.

Sense Meets Nonsense

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Thomas Ulrich; Henrichsen, Peter Juel

2012-01-01

for investigating the relationship between early stages of the speech perceptual process and later stages. We present our considerations involved in preparing the experimental set-up, producing the anechoic recordings, compiling the data, and exploring the materials in linguistic research. We report on a small......In this paper, we present the newly established Danish speech corpus PiTu. The corpus consists of recordings of 28 native Danish talkers (14 female and 14 male) each reproducing (i) a series of nonsense syllables, and (ii) a set of authentic natural language sentences. The speech corpus is tailored...... pilot experiment demonstrating how PiTu and similar speech corpora can be used in studies of prosody as a function of semantic content. The experiment addresses the issue of whether the governing principles of Danish prosody assignment is mainly talker-specific or mainly content-typical (under...

Perceptual fluency and judgments of vocal aesthetics and stereotypicality.

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Babel, Molly; McGuire, Grant

2015-05-01

Research has shown that processing dynamics on the perceiver's end determine aesthetic pleasure. Specifically, typical objects, which are processed more fluently, are perceived as more attractive. We extend this notion of perceptual fluency to judgments of vocal aesthetics. Vocal attractiveness has traditionally been examined with respect to sexual dimorphism and the apparent size of a talker, as reconstructed from the acoustic signal, despite evidence that gender-specific speech patterns are learned social behaviors. In this study, we report on a series of three experiments using 60 voices (30 females) to compare the relationship between judgments of vocal attractiveness, stereotypicality, and gender categorization fluency. Our results indicate that attractiveness and stereotypicality are highly correlated for female and male voices. Stereotypicality and categorization fluency were also correlated for male voices, but not female voices. Crucially, stereotypicality and categorization fluency interacted to predict attractiveness, suggesting the role of perceptual fluency is present, but nuanced, in judgments of human voices. © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Affect intensity and processing fluency of deterrents.

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Holman, Andrei

2013-01-01

The theory of emotional intensity (Brehm, 1999) suggests that the intensity of affective states depends on the magnitude of their current deterrents. Our study investigated the role that fluency--the subjective experience of ease of information processing--plays in the emotional intensity modulations as reactions to deterrents. Following an induction phase of good mood, we manipulated both the magnitude of deterrents (using sets of photographs with pre-tested potential to instigate an emotion incompatible with the pre-existent affective state--pity) and their processing fluency (normal vs. enhanced through subliminal priming). Current affective state and perception of deterrents were then measured. In the normal processing conditions, the results revealed the cubic effect predicted by the emotional intensity theory, with the initial affective state being replaced by the one appropriate to the deterrent only in participants exposed to the high magnitude deterrence. In the enhanced fluency conditions the emotional intensity pattern was drastically altered; also, the replacement of the initial affective state occurred at a lower level of deterrence magnitude (moderate instead of high), suggesting the strengthening of deterrence emotional impact by enhanced fluency.

Mere exposure effect: A consequence of direct and indirect fluency-preference links.

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Willems, Sylvie; Van der Linden, Martial

2006-06-01

In three experiments, picture quality between test items was manipulated to examine whether subjects' expectations about the fluency normally associated with these different stimuli might influence the effects of fluency on preference or familiarity-based recognition responses. The results showed that fluency due to pre-exposure influenced responses less when objects were presented with high picture quality, suggesting that attributions of fluency to preference and familiarity are adjusted according to expectations about the different test pictures. However, this expectations influence depended on subjects' awareness of these different quality levels. Indeed, imperceptible differences seemed not to induce expectations about the test item fluency. In this context, fluency due to both picture quality and pre-exposure influenced direct responses. Conversely, obvious, and noticed, differences in test picture quality did no affect responses, suggesting that expectations moderated attributions of fluency only when fluency normally associated with these different stimuli was perceptible but difficult to assess.

Assessing reading fluency in Kenya: Oral or silent assessment?

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Piper, Benjamin; Zuilkowski, Stephanie Simmons

2015-04-01

In recent years, the Education for All movement has focused more intensely on the quality of education, rather than simply provision. Many recent and current education quality interventions focus on literacy, which is the core skill required for further academic success. Despite this focus on the quality of literacy instruction in developing countries, little rigorous research has been conducted on critical issues of assessment. This analysis, which uses data from the Primary Math and Reading Initiative (PRIMR) in Kenya, aims to begin filling this gap by addressing a key assessment issue - should literacy assessments in Kenya be administered orally or silently? The authors compared second-grade students' scores on oral and silent reading tasks of the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) in Kiswahili and English, and found no statistically significant differences in either language. They did, however, find oral reading rates to be more strongly related to reading comprehension scores. Oral assessment has another benefit for programme evaluators - it allows for the collection of data on student errors, and therefore the calculation of words read correctly per minute, as opposed to simply words read per minute. The authors therefore recommend that, in Kenya and in similar contexts, student reading fluency be assessed via oral rather than silent assessment.

Validity study of Animal-City Alternating Form Fluency Test in the identification of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

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Yun-bo SHI

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Objective To identify the sensitivity and specificity of Animal-City Alternating Form Fluency Test (ACFT differentiating mild cognitive impairment (MCI and Alzheimer's disease (AD from normal controls.  Methods A total of 121 MCI patients, 104 AD patients and 104 healthy controls, who were matched in sex, age and education level, were enrolled in this study. They performed Animal Category Verbal Fluency Test (AFT, City Category Verbal Fluency Test (CFT and ACFT. A series of standard neuropsychological tests were also administered to reflect episodic memory, verbal ability, working memory, executive function and processing speed. The validity and related influencing factors of ACFT was evaluated.  Results Compared with control group, the ACFT correct number in MCI and AD groups reduced significantly (P = 0.000, 0.000. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC curve revealed the sensitivity and specificity of ACFT in discriminating MCI (P = 0.012, 0.030 and AD (P = 0.004, 0.003 from normal controls were higher than those of AFT and CFT. There was no correlation of correct number in ACFT with age and education (P > 0.05, for all. The correlations of ACFT with Stroop Color-Word Test (SCWT, Digital Symbol Substitution Test (DSST, Shape Trail Test (STT and Digit Span Test (DS, all of which reflected attention and executive function, were significantly closer than those of AFT and CFT (P < 0.05, for all. Conclusions ACFT is more efficient in early cognitive impairment identification than the other traditional category verbal fluency tests. It is a new variant form of category verbal fluency test that could assess cognitive function and could be broadly applied in clinical practice. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2015.07.010

Facilitating English-Language Learners' Oral Reading Fluency with Digital Pen Technology

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Chen, Chih-Ming; Tan, Chia-Chen; Lo, Bey-Jane

2016-01-01

Oral reading fluency is an indicator of overall reading competence. Many studies have claimed that repeated reading can promote oral reading fluency. Currently, novel Web- or computer-based reading technologies offer interactive digital materials that promote English oral reading fluency using the repeated reading strategy; however, paper-based…

Developing Mathematical Fluency: Comparing Exercises and Rich Tasks

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Foster, Colin

2018-01-01

Achieving fluency in important mathematical procedures is fundamental to students' mathematical development. The usual way to develop procedural fluency is to practise repetitive exercises, but is this the only effective way? This paper reports three quasi-experimental studies carried out in a total of 11 secondary schools involving altogether 528…

Auditory hindsight bias: Fluency misattribution versus memory reconstruction.

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Higham, Philip A; Neil, Greg J; Bernstein, Daniel M

2017-06-01

We report 4 experiments investigating auditory hindsight bias-the tendency to overestimate the intelligibility of distorted auditory stimuli after learning their identity. An associative priming manipulation was used to vary the amount of processing fluency independently of prior target knowledge. For hypothetical designs, in which hindsight judgments are made for peers in foresight, we predicted that judgments would be based on processing fluency and that hindsight bias would be greater in the unrelated- compared to related-prime context (differential-fluency hypothesis). Conversely, for memory designs, in which foresight judgments are remembered in hindsight, we predicted that judgments would be based on memory reconstruction and that there would be independent effects of prime relatedness and prior target knowledge (recollection hypothesis). These predictions were confirmed. Specifically, we found support for the differential-fluency hypothesis when a hypothetical design was used in Experiments 1 and 2 (hypothetical group). Conversely, when a memory design was used in Experiments 2 (memory group), 3A, and 3B, we found support for the recollection hypothesis. Together, the results suggest that qualitatively different mechanisms create hindsight bias in the 2 designs. The results are discussed in terms of fluency misattributions, memory reconstruction, anchoring-and-adjustment, sense making, and a multicomponent model of hindsight bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Update on Didactic and Clinical Education in Fluency Disorders: 2013-2014.

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Scott Yaruss, J; Lee, Jieun; Kikani, Kaya B; Leslie, Paula; Herring, Caryn; Ramachandar, Sujini; Tichenor, Seth; Quesal, Robert W; McNeil, Malcolm R

2017-02-01

This study surveyed didactic and clinical education in fluency disorders at undergraduate and graduate institutions in the United States that provide education in speech-language pathology to determine whether a previously observed reduction in requirements has continued since prior surveys (Yaruss, 1999; Yaruss & Quesal, 2002). The study involved a detailed questionnaire that was sent to 282 communication science and disorders departments. Questions examined didactic and clinical education, as well as faculty knowledge about fluency disorders. Comparisons with prior surveys revealed several findings, including (a) on average, programs have increased academic coursework and incorporated more practical sessions and competency-based testing in the classroom; (b) the number of faculty who possess extensive clinical experience with fluency disorders has decreased; and (c) although an increase in clinical requirements in fluency disorders was detected, the number of programs providing minimal education about fluency disorders remains high. Given an expanding scope of practice, many programs have continued to try to provide adequate education about fluency disorders. Still, direct clinical experiences are limited, and faculty expertise in this area has continued to decrease. To raise students' confidence and competence in fluency disorders, efforts beyond graduate work-or systemic changes in the profession-may be necessary.

Splice, insertion-deletion and nonsense mutations that perturb the phenylalanine hydroxylase transcript cause phenylketonuria in India.

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Bashyam, Murali D; Chaudhary, Ajay K; Kiran, Manjari; Nagarajaram, Hampapathalu A; Devi, Radha Rama; Ranganath, Prajnya; Dalal, Ashwin; Bashyam, Leena; Gupta, Neerja; Kabra, Madhulika; Muranjan, Mamta; Puri, Ratna D; Verma, Ishwar C; Nampoothiri, Sheela; Kadandale, Jayarama S

2014-03-01

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an autosomal recessive metabolic disorder caused by mutational inactivation of the phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) gene. Missense mutations are the most common PAH mutation type detected in PKU patients worldwide. We performed PAH mutation analysis in 27 suspected Indian PKU families (including 7 from our previous study) followed by structure and function analysis of specific missense and splice/insertion-deletion/nonsense mutations, respectively. Of the 27 families, disease-causing mutations were detected in 25. A total of 20 different mutations were identified of which 7 "unique" mutations accounted for 13 of 25 mutation positive families. The unique mutations detected exclusively in Indian PKU patients included three recurrent mutations detected in three families each. The 20 mutations included only 5 missense mutations in addition to 5 splice, 4 each nonsense and insertion-deletion mutations, a silent variant in coding region and a 3'UTR mutation. One deletion and two nonsense mutations were characterized to confirm significant reduction in mutant transcript levels possibly through activation of nonsense mediated decay. All missense mutations affected conserved amino acid residues and sequence and structure analysis suggested significant perturbations in the enzyme activity of respective mutant proteins. This is probably the first report of identification of a significantly low proportion of missense PAH mutations from PKU families and together with the presence of a high proportion of splice, insertion-deletion, and nonsense mutations, points to a unique PAH mutation profile in Indian PKU patients. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Preliminary validation of FastaReada as a measure of reading fluency

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Zena eElhassan

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Fluent reading is characterized by speed and accuracy in the decoding and comprehension of connected text. Although a variety of measures are available for the assessment of reading skills most tests do not evaluate rate of text recognition as reflected in fluent reading. Here we evaluate FastaReada, a customized computer-generated task that was developed to address some of the limitations of currently available measures of reading skills. FastaReada provides a rapid assessment of reading fluency quantified as words read per minute for connected, meaningful text. To test the criterion validity of FastaReada, 124 mainstream school children with typical sensory, mental and motor development were assessed. Performance on FastaReada was correlated with the established Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (NARA measures of text reading accuracy, rate and comprehension, and common single word measures of pseudoword (non-word reading, phonetic decoding, phonological awareness and mode of word decoding (i.e., visual or eidetic versus auditory or phonetic. The results demonstrated strong positive correlations between FastaReada performance and NARA reading rate (r = .75, accuracy (r = .83 and comprehension (r = .63 scores providing evidence for criterion-related validity. Additional evidence for criterion validity was demonstrated through strong positive correlations between FastaReada and both single word eidetic (r = .81 and phonetic decoding skills (r = .68. The results also demonstrated FastaReada to be a stronger predictor of eidetic decoding than the NARA rate measure, with FastaReada predicting 14.4% of the variance compared to 2.6% predicted by NARA rate. FastaReada was therefore deemed to be a valid tool for educators, clinicians, and research related assessment of reading accuracy and rate. As expected, analysis with hierarchical regressions also highlighted the closer relationship of fluent reading to rapid visual word recognition than to

A Preliminary fMRI Study of a Novel Self-Paced Written Fluency Task: Observation of Left-Hemispheric Activation, and Increased Frontal Activation in Late vs. Early Task Phases

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Laleh eGolestanirad

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Neuropsychological tests of verbal fluency are very widely used to characterize impaired cognitive function. For clinical neuroscience studies and potential medical applications, measuring the brain activity that underlies such tests with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI is of significant interest - but a challenging proposition because overt speech can cause signal artifacts, which tend to worsen as the duration of speech tasks becomes longer. In a novel approach, we present the group brain activity of 12 subjects who performed a self-paced written version of phonemic fluency using fMRI-compatible tablet technology that recorded responses and provided task-related feedback on a projection screen display, over long-duration task blocks (60 s. As predicted, we observed robust activation in the left anterior inferior and medial frontal gyri, consisting with previously reported results of verbal fluency tasks which established the role of these areas in strategic word retrieval. In addition, the number of words produced in the late phase (last 30 s of written phonemic fluency was significantly less (p < 0.05 than the number produced in the early phase (first 30 s. Activation during the late phase vs. the early phase was also assessed from the first 20 s and last 20 s of task performance, which eliminated the possibility that the sluggish hemodynamic response from the early phase would affect the activation estimates of the late phase. The last 20 s produced greater activation maps covering extended areas in bilateral precuneus, cuneus, middle temporal gyrus, insula, middle frontal gyrus and cingulate gyrus. Among them, greater activation was observed in the bilateral middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann area BA 9 and cingulate gyrus (BA 24, 32 likely as part of the initiation, maintenance, and shifting of attentional resources.

Examining Oral Reading Fluency Trajectories Among English Language Learners and English Speaking Students

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Shane R. Jimerson

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Students’ oral reading fluency growth from first through fourth grade was used to predict their achievement on the Stanford Achievement Test (9th ed.; SAT-9 Reading using a latent growth model. Two conditional variables related to student status were used to determine the effects on reading performance - English language learners (ELLs with low socioeconomic status and low socioeconomic (SES status alone. Results revealed that both types of student status variables reliably predicted low performance on initial first grade oral reading fluency, which later predicted fourth grade performance on the SAT-9. However, the reading fluency trajectories of the ELLs and monolingual English students were not significantly different. In addition, when both student status variables and letter naming fluency were used to predict initial oral reading fluency, letter naming fluency dominated the prediction equation, suggesting that an initial pre-reading skill, letter naming fluency, better explained fourth grade performance on the SAT-9 than either ELL with low SES or low SES alone. The discussion focuses on how to better enable these readers and how oral reading fluency progress monitoring can be used to assist school personnel in determining which students need additional instructional assistance.

Examining the relationship between rapid automatized naming and arithmetic fluency in Chinese kindergarten children.

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Cui, Jiaxin; Georgiou, George K; Zhang, Yiyun; Li, Yixun; Shu, Hua; Zhou, Xinlin

2017-02-01

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been found to predict mathematics. However, the nature of their relationship remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine how RAN (numeric and non-numeric) predicts a subdomain of mathematics (arithmetic fluency) and (b) to examine what processing skills may account for the RAN-arithmetic fluency relationship. A total of 160 third-year kindergarten Chinese children (83 boys and 77 girls, mean age=5.11years) were assessed on RAN (colors, objects, digits, and dice), nonverbal IQ, visual-verbal paired associate learning, phonological awareness, short-term memory, speed of processing, approximate number system acuity, and arithmetic fluency (addition and subtraction). The results indicated first that RAN was a significant correlate of arithmetic fluency and the correlations did not vary as a function of type of RAN or arithmetic fluency tasks. In addition, RAN continued to predict addition and subtraction fluency even after controlling for all other processing skills. Taken together, these findings challenge the existing theoretical accounts of the RAN-arithmetic fluency relationship and suggest that, similar to reading fluency, multiple processes underlie the RAN-arithmetic fluency relationship. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Specialty Board on Fluency Disorders

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... or large groups of speech-language pathologists. Speech-language pathologists who are Board Certified Specialists in Fluency may be found on this website by searching name, city(location) or zip code. ...

Linguistic Skills and Speaking Fluency in a Second Language

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De Jong, Nivja H.; Steinel, Margarita P.; Florijn, Arjen; Schoonen, Rob; Hulstijn, Jan H.

2013-01-01

This study investigated how individual differences in linguistic knowledge and processing skills relate to individual differences in speaking fluency. Speakers of Dutch as a second language ("N" = 179) performed eight speaking tasks, from which several measures of fluency were derived such as measures for pausing, repairing, and speed…

Gaze-related mimic word activates the frontal eye field and related network in the human brain: an fMRI study.

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Osaka, Naoyuki; Osaka, Mariko

2009-09-18

This is an fMRI study demonstrating new evidence that a mimic word highly suggestive of an eye gaze, heard by the ear, significantly activates the frontal eye field (FEF), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), dorsolateral premotor area (PMdr) and superior parietal lobule (SPL) connected with the frontal-parietal network. However, hearing a non-sense words that did not imply gaze under the same task does not activate this area in humans. We concluded that the FEF would be a critical area for generating/processing an active gaze, evoked by an onomatopoeia word that implied gaze closely associated with social skill. We suggest that the implied active gaze may depend on prefrontal-parietal interactions that modify cognitive gaze led by spatial visual attention associated with the SPL.

How a hobby can shape cognition: visual word recognition in competitive Scrabble players.

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Hargreaves, Ian S; Pexman, Penny M; Zdrazilova, Lenka; Sargious, Peter

2012-01-01

Competitive Scrabble is an activity that involves extraordinary word recognition experience. We investigated whether that experience is associated with exceptional behavior in the laboratory in a classic visual word recognition paradigm: the lexical decision task (LDT). We used a version of the LDT that involved horizontal and vertical presentation and a concreteness manipulation. In Experiment 1, we presented this task to a group of undergraduates, as these participants are the typical sample in word recognition studies. In Experiment 2, we compared the performance of a group of competitive Scrabble players with a group of age-matched nonexpert control participants. The results of a series of cognitive assessments showed that the Scrabble players and control participants differed only in Scrabble-specific skills (e.g., anagramming). Scrabble expertise was associated with two specific effects (as compared to controls): vertical fluency (relatively less difficulty judging lexicality for words presented in the vertical orientation) and semantic deemphasis (smaller concreteness effects for word responses). These results suggest that visual word recognition is shaped by experience, and that with experience there are efficiencies to be had even in the adult word recognition system.

Reframing less conventional speech to disrupt conventions of "compulsory fluency": A conversation analysis approach

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Camille Duque

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Our purpose is to illuminate compliances with, and resistances to, what we are calling "compulsory fluency" which we define as conventions for what constitutes competent speech. We achieve our purpose through a study of day-to-day communication between a woman with less conventional speech and her support providing family members and friends. Drawing from McRuer's (2006 compulsory ablebodiedness and Kafer's (2013 compulsory able-mindedness, we use "compulsory fluency" to refer to a form of articulation that is standardized and idealized and imposed on all speakers including those whose speech is less conventional. We see compulsory fluency as central to North American conceptions of personhood which are tied to individual ability to speak for one's self (Brueggemann, 2005. In this paper, we trace some North American principles for linguistic competence to outline widely held ideals of receptive and expressive language use, namely, conventions for how language should be understood and expressed. Using Critical Disability Studies (Goodley, 2013; McRuer, 2006 together with a feminist framework of relational autonomy (Nedelsky, 1989, our goal is to focus on experiences of people with less conventional speech and draw attention to power in communication as it flows in idiosyncratic and intersubjective fashion (Mackenzie & Stoljar, 2000; Westlund, 2009. In other words, we use a critical disability and feminist framing to call attention to less conventional forms of communication competence and, in this process, we challenge assumptions about what constitutes competent speech. As part of a larger qualitative study, we conduct a conversation analysis informed by Rapley and Antaki (1996 to examine day-to-day verbal, vocal and non-verbal communications of a young woman who self identifies as "having autism" - pseudonym Addison - in interaction with her support-providing family members and friends. We illustrate a multitude of Addison's compliances with

Starting off on the right foot: strong right-footers respond faster with the right foot to positive words and with the left foot to negative words.

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de la Vega, Irmgard; Graebe, Julia; Härtner, Leonie; Dudschig, Carolin; Kaup, Barbara

2015-01-01

Recent studies have provided evidence for an association between valence and left/right modulated by handedness, which is predicted by the body-specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009) and also reflected in response times. We investigated whether such a response facilitation can also be observed with foot responses. Right-footed participants classified positive and negative words according to their valence by pressing a key with their left or right foot. A significant interaction between valence and foot only emerged in the by-items analysis. However, when dividing participants into two groups depending on the strength of their footedness, an interaction between valence and left/right was observed for strong right-footers, who responded faster with the right foot to positive words, and with the left foot to negative words. No interaction emerged for weak right-footers. The results strongly support the assumption that fluency lies at the core of the association between valence and left/right.

De novo nonsense mutations in ASXL1 cause Bohring-Opitz syndrome

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoischen, Alexander; van Bon, Bregje W. M.; Rodríguez-Santiago, Benjamín; Gilissen, Christian; Vissers, Lisenka E. L. M.; de Vries, Petra; Janssen, Irene; van Lier, Bart; Hastings, Rob; Smithson, Sarah F.; Newbury-Ecob, Ruth; Kjaergaard, Susanne; Goodship, Judith; McGowan, Ruth; Bartholdi, Deborah; Rauch, Anita; Peippo, Maarit; Cobben, Jan M.; Wieczorek, Dagmar; Gillessen-Kaesbach, Gabriele; Veltman, Joris A.; Brunner, Han G.; de Vries, Bert B. B. A.

2011-01-01

Bohring-Opitz syndrome is characterized by severe intellectual disability, distinctive facial features and multiple congenital malformations. We sequenced the exomes of three individuals with Bohring-Opitz syndrome and in each identified heterozygous de novo nonsense mutations in ASXL1, which is

Nonsense mutations in the human β-globin gene affect mRNA metabolism

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baserga, S.J.; Benz, E.J. Jr.

1988-01-01

A number of premature translation termination mutations (nonsense mutations) have been described in the human α- and β-globin genes. Studies on mRNA isolated from patients with β 0 -thalassemia have shown that for both the β-17 and the β-39 mutations less than normal levels of β-globin mRNA accumulate in peripheral blood cells. (The codon at which the mutation occurs designates the name of the mutation; there are 146 codons in human β-globin mRNA). In vitro studies using the cloned β-39 gene have reproduced this effect in a heterologous transfection system and have suggested that the defect resides in intranuclear metabolism. The authors have asked if this phenomenon of decreased mRNA accumulation is a general property of nonsense mutations and if the effect depends on the location or the type of mutation. Toward this end, they have studied the effect of five nonsense mutations and two missense mutations on the expression of human β-globin mRNA in a heterologous transfection system. In all cases studied, the presence of a translation termination codon correlates with a decrease in the steady-state level of mRNA. The data suggest that the metabolism of a mammalian mRNA is affected by the presence of a mutation that affects translation

Neurophysiological evidence that perceptions of fluency produce mere exposure effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Leynes, P Andrew; Addante, Richard J

2016-08-01

Recent exposure to people or objects increases liking ratings, the "mere exposure effect" (Zajonc in American Psychologist, 35, 117-123, 1968), and an increase in processing fluency has been identified as a potential mechanism for producing this effect. This fluency hypothesis was directly tested by altering the trial-by-trial image clarity (i.e., fluency) while Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded. In Experiment 1, clarity was altered across two trial blocks that each had homogenous trial-by-trial clarity, whereas clarity varied randomly across trials in Experiment 2. Blocking or randomizing image clarity across trials was expected to produce different levels of relative fluency and alter mere exposure effects. The mere exposure effect (i.e., old products liked more than new products) was observed when stimulus clarity remained constant across trials, and clear image ERPs were more positive than blurry image ERPs. Importantly, these patterns were reversed when clarity varied randomly across test trials, such that participants liked clear images more than blurry (i.e., no mere exposure effect) and clear image ERPs were more negative than blurry image ERPs. The findings provide direct experimental support from both behavioral and electrophysiological measures that, in some contexts, mere exposure is the product of top-down interpretations of fluency.

Differential functional readthrough over homozygous nonsense mutations contributes to the bleeding phenotype in coagulation factor VII deficiency.

Science.gov (United States)

Branchini, A; Ferrarese, M; Lombardi, S; Mari, R; Bernardi, F; Pinotti, M

2016-10-01

Essentials Potentially null homozygous Factor(F)7 nonsense mutations are associated to variable bleeding symptoms. Readthrough of p.Ser112X (life-threatening) and p.Cys132X (moderate) stop codons was investigated. Readthrough-mediated insertion of wild-type or tolerated residues produce functional proteins. Functional readthrough over homozygous F7 nonsense mutations contributes to the bleeding phenotype. Background Whereas the rare homozygous nonsense mutations causing factor (F)VII deficiency may predict null conditions that are almost completely incompatible with life, they are associated with appreciable differences in hemorrhagic symptoms. The misrecognition of premature stop codons (readthrough) may account for variable levels of functional full-length proteins. Objectives To experimentally evaluate the basal and drug-induced levels of FVII resulting from the homozygous p.Cys132X and p.Ser112X nonsense mutations that are associated with moderate (132X) or life-threatening (112X) symptoms, and that are predicted to undergo readthrough with (132X) or without (112X) production of wild-type FVII. Methods We transiently expressed recombinant FVII (rFVII) nonsense and missense variants in human embryonic kidney 293 cells, and evaluated secreted FVII protein and functional levels by ELISA, activated FX generation, and coagulation assays. Results The levels of functional FVII produced by p.Cys132X and p.Ser112X mutants (rFVII-132X, 1.1% ± 0.2% of wild-type rFVII; rFVII-112X, 0.5% ± 0.1% of wild-type rFVII) were compatible with the occurrence of spontaneous readthrough, which was magnified by the addition of G418 - up to 12% of the wild-type value for the rFVII-132X nonsense variant. The predicted missense variants arising from readthrough abolished (rFVII-132Trp/Arg) or reduced (rFVII-112Trp/Cys/Arg, 22-45% of wild-type levels) secretion and function. These data suggest that the appreciable rescue of p.Cys132X function was driven by reinsertion of the wild

Apathy and Reduced Speed of Processing Underlie Decline in Verbal Fluency following DBS

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Jennifer A. Foley

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. Reduced verbal fluency is a strikingly uniform finding following deep brain stimulation (DBS for Parkinson’s disease (PD. The precise cognitive mechanism underlying this reduction remains unclear, but theories have suggested reduced motivation, linguistic skill, and/or executive function. It is of note, however, that previous reports have failed to consider the potential role of any changes in speed of processing. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine verbal fluency changes with a particular focus on the role of cognitive speed. Method. In this study, 28 patients with PD completed measures of verbal fluency, motivation, language, executive functioning, and speed of processing, before and after DBS. Results. As expected, there was a marked decline in verbal fluency but also in a timed test of executive functions and two measures of speed of processing. Verbal fluency decline was associated with markers of linguistic and executive functioning, but not after speed of processing was statistically controlled for. In contrast, greater decline in verbal fluency was associated with higher levels of apathy at baseline, which was not associated with changes in cognitive speed. Discussion. Reduced generativity and processing speed may account for the marked reduction in verbal fluency commonly observed following DBS.

Apathy and Reduced Speed of Processing Underlie Decline in Verbal Fluency following DBS

Science.gov (United States)

Foltynie, Tom; Zrinzo, Ludvic; Hyam, Jonathan A.; Limousin, Patricia

2017-01-01

Objective. Reduced verbal fluency is a strikingly uniform finding following deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease (PD). The precise cognitive mechanism underlying this reduction remains unclear, but theories have suggested reduced motivation, linguistic skill, and/or executive function. It is of note, however, that previous reports have failed to consider the potential role of any changes in speed of processing. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine verbal fluency changes with a particular focus on the role of cognitive speed. Method. In this study, 28 patients with PD completed measures of verbal fluency, motivation, language, executive functioning, and speed of processing, before and after DBS. Results. As expected, there was a marked decline in verbal fluency but also in a timed test of executive functions and two measures of speed of processing. Verbal fluency decline was associated with markers of linguistic and executive functioning, but not after speed of processing was statistically controlled for. In contrast, greater decline in verbal fluency was associated with higher levels of apathy at baseline, which was not associated with changes in cognitive speed. Discussion. Reduced generativity and processing speed may account for the marked reduction in verbal fluency commonly observed following DBS. PMID:28408788

Apathy and Reduced Speed of Processing Underlie Decline in Verbal Fluency following DBS.

Science.gov (United States)

Foley, Jennifer A; Foltynie, Tom; Zrinzo, Ludvic; Hyam, Jonathan A; Limousin, Patricia; Cipolotti, Lisa

2017-01-01

Objective . Reduced verbal fluency is a strikingly uniform finding following deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease (PD). The precise cognitive mechanism underlying this reduction remains unclear, but theories have suggested reduced motivation, linguistic skill, and/or executive function. It is of note, however, that previous reports have failed to consider the potential role of any changes in speed of processing. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine verbal fluency changes with a particular focus on the role of cognitive speed. Method . In this study, 28 patients with PD completed measures of verbal fluency, motivation, language, executive functioning, and speed of processing, before and after DBS. Results . As expected, there was a marked decline in verbal fluency but also in a timed test of executive functions and two measures of speed of processing. Verbal fluency decline was associated with markers of linguistic and executive functioning, but not after speed of processing was statistically controlled for. In contrast, greater decline in verbal fluency was associated with higher levels of apathy at baseline, which was not associated with changes in cognitive speed. Discussion . Reduced generativity and processing speed may account for the marked reduction in verbal fluency commonly observed following DBS.

Large-corpus phoneme and word recognition and the generality of lexical context in CVC word perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Gelfand, Jessica T; Christie, Robert E; Gelfand, Stanley A

2014-02-01

Speech recognition may be analyzed in terms of recognition probabilities for perceptual wholes (e.g., words) and parts (e.g., phonemes), where j or the j-factor reveals the number of independent perceptual units required for recognition of the whole (Boothroyd, 1968b; Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988; Nittrouer & Boothroyd, 1990). For consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonsense syllables, j ∼ 3 because all 3 phonemes are needed to identify the syllable, but j ∼ 2.5 for real-word CVCs (revealing ∼2.5 independent perceptual units) because higher level contributions such as lexical knowledge enable word recognition even if less than 3 phonemes are accurately received. These findings were almost exclusively determined with the 120-word corpus of the isophonemic word lists (Boothroyd, 1968a; Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988), presented one word at a time. It is therefore possible that its generality or applicability may be limited. This study thus determined j by using a much larger and less restricted corpus of real-word CVCs presented in 3-word groups as well as whether j is influenced by test size. The j-factor for real-word CVCs was derived from the recognition performance of 223 individuals with a broad range of hearing sensitivity by using the Tri-Word Test (Gelfand, 1998), which involves 50 three-word presentations and a corpus of 450 words. The influence of test size was determined from a subsample of 96 participants with separate scores for the first 10, 20, and 25 (and all 50) presentation sets of the full test. The mean value of j was 2.48 with a 95% confidence interval of 2.44-2.53, which is in good agreement with values obtained with isophonemic word lists, although its value varies among individuals. A significant correlation was found between percent-correct scores and j, but it was small and accounted for only 12.4% of the variance in j for phoneme scores ≥60%. Mean j-factors for the 10-, 20-, 25-, and 50-set test sizes were between 2.49 and 2.53 and were not

Fluency Training in the ESL Classroom: An Experimental Study of Fluency Development and Proceduralization

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jong, N. de; Perfetti, C.A.

2011-01-01

The present study investigates the role of speech repetition in oral fluency development. Twenty-four students enrolled in English-as-a-second-language classes performed three training sessions in which they recorded three speeches, of 4, 3, and 2 min, respectively. Some students spoke about the

Notes on a Bit of Psychological Nonsense: "Race Differences in Intelligence"

Science.gov (United States)

Schoenfeld, William N.

1974-01-01

The issue of race differences in intelligence, especially with respect to American black and white populations, is adjudged to be "nonsensical" in terms of the framing of the question, the populations sampled, the testing instruments utilized, and the concept of "intelligence" postulated. (Author/EH)

A Strategic Necessity: Building Senior Leadership's Fluency in Digital Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Kolomitz, Kara; Cabellon, Edmund T.

2016-01-01

This chapter describes the opportunity for senior student affairs officers (SSAOs) to develop an increased digital fluency to meet the needs of various constituencies in the digital age. The authors explore what a digital fluency is, how it might impact SSAOs' leadership potential, and the benefits for their respective divisions.

What oral text reading fluency can reveal about reading comprehension

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Veenendaal, N.J.; Groen, M.A.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.

2015-01-01

Text reading fluency – the ability to read quickly, accurately and with a natural intonation – has been proposed as a predictor of reading comprehension. In the current study, we examined the role of oral text reading fluency, defined as text reading rate and text reading prosody, as a contributor

How not to talk like an arse 101 words you shouldn't use any time soon

CERN Document Server

Wilson, Richard

2011-01-01

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the bookshop, comes bestselling author Richard Wilson's triumphant follow up to Can't Be Arsed and Don't Even Think About It!, How Not to Talk Like an Arse is Mr Wilson's hilarious, and topical, self righteous stab at the modern day vernacular, taking aim at the invention of ridiculous, nonsensical words that not only are just plain crap but also make those who dare speak them sound like complete twits. Richard waxes lyrical on awful words such as 'Ciao', 'Hurting', 'Fashionista' and 'Staycation'. He also lets loose on how those words were created and how they escaped and survived in the wild instead of being killed at a young age. Written in Richard's utterly fantastic ranting style, this sharp-shooting of the ridiculousness of the modern english language and the morons who use it is a must-have for everyone this Christmas.

Fluency: an aim in teaching and a criterion in assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aud Marit Simensen

2010-05-01

Full Text Available This article investigates the concept ‘fluency’ from different perspectives. When fluency is an aim in teaching, a thorough comprehension of the concept among teachers is a prerequisite for appropriate planning of instruction, including the choice of appropriate classroom activities. When fluency is an assessment criterion, it is even more important that examiners have a shared perception of the concept. The present article starts by presenting common perceptions of the concept and goes on to explore some of the current research. Next, it provides a historical overview of the place of fluency in teaching theory and explains some of the preconditions for the inclusion of this concept among teaching objectives and assessment criteria. It will also, as an illustration, give an outline of the position of the concept over time in the Norwegian school system on the basis of an analysis of the relevant syllabuses. Finally, the article explicates the notion of language use as a complex cognitive skill and explores current method¬ological ideas about teaching towards fluency.

Emotion Decoding and Incidental Processing Fluency as Antecedents of Attitude Certainty.

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Petrocelli, John V; Whitmire, Melanie B

2017-07-01

Previous research demonstrates that attitude certainty influences the degree to which an attitude changes in response to persuasive appeals. In the current research, decoding emotions from facial expressions and incidental processing fluency, during attitude formation, are examined as antecedents of both attitude certainty and attitude change. In Experiment 1, participants who decoded anger or happiness during attitude formation expressed their greater attitude certainty, and showed more resistance to persuasion than participants who decoded sadness. By manipulating the emotion decoded, the diagnosticity of processing fluency experienced during emotion decoding, and the gaze direction of the social targets, Experiment 2 suggests that the link between emotion decoding and attitude certainty results from incidental processing fluency. Experiment 3 demonstrated that fluency in processing irrelevant stimuli influences attitude certainty, which in turn influences resistance to persuasion. Implications for appraisal-based accounts of attitude formation and attitude change are discussed.

Limited phenotypic variation of hypocalcified amelogenesis imperfecta in a danish five-generation family with a novel FAM83H nonsense mutation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Haubek, Dorte; Gjørup, Hans; Jensen, Lillian Gryesten

2011-01-01

Limited phenotypic variation of hypocalcified amelogenesis imperfecta in a danish five-generation family with a novel FAM83H nonsense mutation......Limited phenotypic variation of hypocalcified amelogenesis imperfecta in a danish five-generation family with a novel FAM83H nonsense mutation...

The Identification of High-pitched Sung Vowels in Sense and Nonsense Words by Professional Singers and Untrained Listeners.

Science.gov (United States)

Deme, Andrea

2017-03-01

High-pitched sung vowels may be considered phonetically "underspecified" because of (i) the tuning of the F 1 to the f 0 accompanying pitch raising and (ii) the wide harmonic spacing of the voice source resulting in the undersampling of the vocal tract transfer function. Therefore, sung vowel intelligibility is expected to decrease as the f 0 increases. Based on the literature of speech perception, it is often suggested that sung vowels are better perceived if uttered in consonantal (CVC) context than in isolation even at high f 0 . The results for singing, however, are contradictory. In the present study, we further investigate this question. We compare vowel identification in sense and nonsense CVC sequences and show that the positive effect of the context disappears if the number of legal choices in a perception test is similar in both conditions, meaning that any positive effect of the CVC context may only stem from the smaller number of possible responses, i.e., from higher probabilities. Additionally, it is also tested whether the training in production (i.e., singing training) may also lead to a perceptual advantage of the singers over nonsingers in the identification of high-pitched sung vowels. The results show no advantage of this kind. Copyright © 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Shall we use non-verbal fluency in schizophrenia? A pilot study.

Science.gov (United States)

Rinaldi, Romina; Trappeniers, Julie; Lefebvre, Laurent

2014-05-30

Over the last few years, numerous studies have attempted to explain fluency impairments in people with schizophrenia, leading to heterogeneous results. This could notably be due to the fact that fluency is often used in its verbal form where semantic dimensions are implied. In order to gain an in-depth understanding of fluency deficits, a non-verbal fluency task - the Five-Point Test (5PT) - was proposed to 24 patients with schizophrenia and to 24 healthy subjects categorized in terms of age, gender and schooling. The 5PT involves producing as many abstract figures as possible within 1min by connecting points with straight lines. All subjects also completed the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) while those with schizophrenia were further assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Results show that the 5PT evaluation differentiates patients from healthy subjects with regard to the number of figures produced. Patients׳ results also suggest that the number of figures produced is linked to the "overall executive functioning" and to some inhibition components. Although this study is a first step in the non-verbal efficiency research field, we believe that experimental psychopathology could benefit from the investigations on non-verbal fluency. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

VBOT: Motivating computational and complex systems fluencies with constructionist virtual/physical robotics

Science.gov (United States)

Berland, Matthew W.

As scientists use the tools of computational and complex systems theory to broaden science perspectives (e.g., Bar-Yam, 1997; Holland, 1995; Wolfram, 2002), so can middle-school students broaden their perspectives using appropriate tools. The goals of this dissertation project are to build, study, evaluate, and compare activities designed to foster both computational and complex systems fluencies through collaborative constructionist virtual and physical robotics. In these activities, each student builds an agent (e.g., a robot-bird) that must interact with fellow students' agents to generate a complex aggregate (e.g., a flock of robot-birds) in a participatory simulation environment (Wilensky & Stroup, 1999a). In a participatory simulation, students collaborate by acting in a common space, teaching each other, and discussing content with one another. As a result, the students improve both their computational fluency and their complex systems fluency, where fluency is defined as the ability to both consume and produce relevant content (DiSessa, 2000). To date, several systems have been designed to foster computational and complex systems fluencies through computer programming and collaborative play (e.g., Hancock, 2003; Wilensky & Stroup, 1999b); this study suggests that, by supporting the relevant fluencies through collaborative play, they become mutually reinforcing. In this work, I will present both the design of the VBOT virtual/physical constructionist robotics learning environment and a comparative study of student interaction with the virtual and physical environments across four middle-school classrooms, focusing on the contrast in systems perspectives differently afforded by the two environments. In particular, I found that while performance gains were similar overall, the physical environment supported agent perspectives on aggregate behavior, and the virtual environment supported aggregate perspectives on agent behavior. The primary research questions

Mirror Asymmetry of Category and Letter Fluency in Traumatic Brain Injury and Alzheimer's Patients

Science.gov (United States)

Capitani, Erminio; Rosci, Chiara; Saetti, Maria Cristina; Laiacona, Marcella

2009-01-01

In this study we contrasted the Category fluency and Letter fluency performance of 198 normal subjects, 57 Alzheimer's patients and 57 patients affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI). The aim was to check whether, besides the prevalence of Category fluency deficit often reported among Alzheimer's patients, the TBI group presented the opposite…

Investigating language lateralization during phonological and semantic fluency tasks using functional transcranial Doppler sonography

Science.gov (United States)

Gutierrez-Sigut, Eva; Payne, Heather; MacSweeney, Mairéad

2015-01-01

Although there is consensus that the left hemisphere plays a critical role in language processing, some questions remain. Here we examine the influence of overt versus covert speech production on lateralization, the relationship between lateralization and behavioural measures of language performance and the strength of lateralization across the subcomponents of language. The present study used functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) to investigate lateralization of phonological and semantic fluency during both overt and covert word generation in right-handed adults. The laterality index (LI) was left lateralized in all conditions, and there was no difference in the strength of LI between overt and covert speech. This supports the validity of using overt speech in fTCD studies, another benefit of which is a reliable measure of speech production. PMID:24875468

A Randomized Controlled Trial on The Beneficial Effects of Training Letter-Speech Sound Integration on Reading Fluency in Children with Dyslexia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gorka Fraga González

Full Text Available A recent account of dyslexia assumes that a failure to develop automated letter-speech sound integration might be responsible for the observed lack of reading fluency. This study uses a pre-test-training-post-test design to evaluate the effects of a training program based on letter-speech sound associations with a special focus on gains in reading fluency. A sample of 44 children with dyslexia and 23 typical readers, aged 8 to 9, was recruited. Children with dyslexia were randomly allocated to either the training program group (n = 23 or a waiting-list control group (n = 21. The training intensively focused on letter-speech sound mapping and consisted of 34 individual sessions of 45 minutes over a five month period. The children with dyslexia showed substantial reading gains for the main word reading and spelling measures after training, improving at a faster rate than typical readers and waiting-list controls. The results are interpreted within the conceptual framework assuming a multisensory integration deficit as the most proximal cause of dysfluent reading in dyslexia.ISRCTN register ISRCTN12783279.

So Long, Robot Reader! A Superhero Intervention Plan for Improving Fluency

Science.gov (United States)

Marcell, Barclay; Ferraro, Christine

2013-01-01

This article presents an engaging means for turning disfluent readers into prosody superstars. Each week students align with Poetry Power Man and his superhero friends to battle the evil Robot Reader and his sidekicks. The Fluency Foursome helps students adhere to the multidimensional aspects of fluency where expression and comprehension are…

Effect of aging, education, reading and writing, semantic processing and depression symptoms on verbal fluency

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Luiz Moraes

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Verbal fluency tasks are widely used in (clinical neuropsychology to evaluate components of executive functioning and lexical-semantic processing (linguistic and semantic memory. Performance in those tasks may be affected by several variables, such as age, education and diseases. This study investigated whether aging, education, reading and writing frequency, performance in semantic judgment tasks and depression symptoms predict the performance in unconstrained, phonemic and semantic fluency tasks. This study sample comprised 260 healthy adults aged 19 to 75 years old. The Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression models were used for data analysis. The variables under analysis were associated in different ways and had different levels of contribution according to the type of verbal fluency task. Education had the greatest effect on verbal fluency tasks. There was a greater effect of age on semantic fluency than on phonemic tasks. The semantic judgment tasks predicted the verbal fluency performance alone or in combination with other variables. These findings corroborate the importance of education in cognition supporting the hypothesis of a cognitive reserve and confirming the contribution of lexical-semantic processing to verbal fluency.

Improving English Speaking Fluency: The Role of Six Factors

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Gholamhossein Shahini

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This qualitative study, using an open interview, set out to investigate the roles six factors, including age, university education, teachers of English Language institutes, teaching English, dictionary, and note-taking, played in improving English speaking fluency of seventeen fluent Iranian EFL speakers. The participants were chosen purposefully based on the speaking scale of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL. The findings indicated that early age had a great impact on the participants’ speaking fluency. They mentioned that they could not pick up fluency if they had started learning English at older ages. Moreover, university education had no effect on enhancing their fluency. They stated that not having enough opportunities to speak English in classrooms, being exposed to wrong amounts of input from their classmates or even from some university instructors, having no access to English native speakers in English Language Departments, professors’ talking in native language out of classes, in their offices or even sometimes in classes all led to their losing motivation after entering the university. In contrast, teachers in English language institutes had a supportive role in increasing the participants’ English learning. Although two participants quit teaching English since it had a negative influence on their speaking, it had a positive impact on improving speaking ability of the rest. And finally, fruitful strategies were suggested on how to use dictionaries and note-takings.

Transcranial direct current stimulation over left inferior frontal cortex improves speech fluency in adults who stutter.

Science.gov (United States)

Chesters, Jennifer; Möttönen, Riikka; Watkins, Kate E

2018-04-01

See Crinion (doi:10.1093/brain/awy075) for a scientific commentary on this article.Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting 5% of children, and persisting in 1% of adults. Promoting lasting fluency improvement in adults who stutter is a particular challenge. Novel interventions to improve outcomes are of value, therefore. Previous work in patients with acquired motor and language disorders reported enhanced benefits of behavioural therapies when paired with transcranial direct current stimulation. Here, we report the results of the first trial investigating whether transcranial direct current stimulation can improve speech fluency in adults who stutter. We predicted that applying anodal stimulation to the left inferior frontal cortex during speech production with temporary fluency inducers would result in longer-lasting fluency improvements. Thirty male adults who stutter completed a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over left inferior frontal cortex. Fifteen participants received 20 min of 1-mA stimulation on five consecutive days while speech fluency was temporarily induced using choral and metronome-timed speech. The other 15 participants received the same speech fluency intervention with sham stimulation. Speech fluency during reading and conversation was assessed at baseline, before and after the stimulation on each day of the 5-day intervention, and at 1 and 6 weeks after the end of the intervention. Anodal stimulation combined with speech fluency training significantly reduced the percentage of disfluent speech measured 1 week after the intervention compared with fluency intervention alone. At 6 weeks after the intervention, this improvement was maintained during reading but not during conversation. Outcome scores at both post-intervention time points on a clinical assessment tool (the Stuttering Severity Instrument, version 4) also showed significant improvement in the group receiving

Visiting digital fluency for pre-service teachers in Turkey

OpenAIRE

Kadir Demir; Betül Aydın; Nazife Şen Ersoy; Aydın Kelek; İsmail Tatar; Abdullah Kuzu; Hatice Ferhan Odabaşı

2015-01-01

Digital literacy is to know how to use digital tools, however digital fluency is a new concept. Beyond the digital literacy, digital fluency requires skills to know when to use the technology and even why to use the technology. The technology advances rapidly; as a result, education and instruction are getting digitalized. So it could be estimated that; pre-service teachers who are future teachers, should have digital skills. This is the main point of this study which aims to visit pre-ser...

Effect of an unrelated fluent action on word recognition: A case of motor discrepancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Brouillet, Denis; Milhau, Audrey; Brouillet, Thibaut; Servajean, Philippe

2017-06-01

It is now well established that motor fluency affects cognitive processes, including memory. In two experiments participants learned a list of words and then performed a recognition task. The original feature of our procedure is that before judging the words they had to perform a fluent gesture (i.e., typing a letter dyad). The dyads comprised letters located on either the right or left side of the keyboard. Participants typed dyads with their right or left index finger; the required movement was either very small (dyad composed of adjacent letters, Experiment 1) or slightly larger (dyad composed of letters separated by one key, experiment 2). The results show that when the gesture was performed in the ipsilateral space the probability of recognizing a word increased (to a lesser extent it is the same with the dominant hand, experiment 2). Moreover, a binary regression logistic highlighted that the probability of recognizing a word was proportional to the speed by which the gesture was performed. These results are discussed in terms of a feeling of familiarity emerging from motor discrepancy.

Nonsense and missense mutation of mitochondrial ND6 gene promotes cell migration and invasion in human lung adenocarcinoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan, Yang; Wang, Weixing; Li, Huizhong; Yu, Yongwei; Tao, Jin; Huang, Shengdong; Zeng, Zhiyong

2015-01-01

Previous study showed that mitochondrial ND6 (mitND6) gene missense mutation resulted in NADH dehydrogenase deficiency and was associated with tumor metastasis in several mouse tumor cell lines. In the present study, we investigated the possible role of mitND6 gene nonsense and missense mutations in the metastasis of human lung adenocarcinoma. The presence of mitND6 gene mutations was screened by DNA sequencing of tumor tissues from 87 primary lung adenocarcinoma patients and the correlation of the mutations with the clinical features was analyzed. In addition, we constructed cytoplasmic hybrid cells with denucleared primary lung adenocarcinoma cell as the mitochondria donor and mitochondria depleted lung adenocarcinoma A549 cell as the nuclear donor. Using these cells, we studied the effects of mitND6 gene nonsense and missense mutations on cell migration and invasion through wounding healing and matrigel-coated transwell assay. The effects of mitND6 gene mutations on NADH dehydrogenase activity and ROS production were analyzed by spectrophotometry and flow cytometry. mitND6 gene nonsense and missense mutations were detected in 11 of 87 lung adenocarcinoma specimens and was correlated with the clinical features including age, pathological grade, tumor stage, lymph node metastasis and survival rate. Moreover, A549 cell containing mitND6 gene nonsense and missense mutation exhibited significantly lower activity of NADH dehydrogenase, higher level of ROS, higher capacity of cell migration and invasion, and higher pAKT and pERK1/ERK2 expression level than cells with the wild type mitND6 gene. In addition, NADH dehydrogenase inhibitor rotenone was found to significantly promote the migration and invasion of A549 cells. Our data suggest that mitND6 gene nonsense and missense mutation might promote cell migration and invasion in lung adenocarcinoma, probably by NADH dehydrogenase deficiency induced over-production of ROS

Impairments of speech fluency in Lewy body spectrum disorder.

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Ash, Sharon; McMillan, Corey; Gross, Rachel G; Cook, Philip; Gunawardena, Delani; Morgan, Brianna; Boller, Ashley; Siderowf, Andrew; Grossman, Murray

2012-03-01

Few studies have examined connected speech in demented and non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). We assessed the speech production of 35 patients with Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including non-demented PD patients, patients with PD dementia (PDD), and patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), in a semi-structured narrative speech sample in order to characterize impairments of speech fluency and to determine the factors contributing to reduced speech fluency in these patients. Both demented and non-demented PD patients exhibited reduced speech fluency, characterized by reduced overall speech rate and long pauses between sentences. Reduced speech rate in LBSD correlated with measures of between-utterance pauses, executive functioning, and grammatical comprehension. Regression analyses related non-fluent speech, grammatical difficulty, and executive difficulty to atrophy in frontal brain regions. These findings indicate that multiple factors contribute to slowed speech in LBSD, and this is mediated in part by disease in frontal brain regions. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Understanding Oral Reading Fluency among Adults with Low Literacy: Dominance Analysis of Contributing Component Skills

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Mellard, Daryl F.; Anthony, Jason L.; Woods, Kari L.

2012-01-01

This study extends the literature on the component skills involved in oral reading fluency. Dominance analysis was applied to assess the relative importance of seven reading-related component skills in the prediction of the oral reading fluency of 272 adult literacy learners. The best predictors of oral reading fluency when text difficulty was…

Incorporating Vocabulary Instruction in Individual Reading Fluency Interventions with English Language Learners

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Johnston, Lauren E.; Mercer, Sterett H.; Geres-Smith, Rhonda

2018-01-01

The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine whether incorporating vocabulary instruction in individual reading fluency interventions for English Language Learners (ELLs) would improve reading comprehension. Two vocabulary instructional procedures were contrasted with a fluency-building only condition in an alternating-treatments design…

Speech rate and fluency in children with phonological disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Novaes, Priscila Maronezi; Nicolielo-Carrilho, Ana Paola; Lopes-Herrera, Simone Aparecida

2015-01-01

To identify and describe the speech rate and fluency of children with phonological disorder (PD) with and without speech-language therapy. Thirty children, aged 5-8 years old, both genders, were divided into three groups: experimental group 1 (G1) — 10 children with PD in intervention; experimental group 2 (G2) — 10 children with PD without intervention; and control group (CG) — 10 children with typical development. Speech samples were collected and analyzed according to parameters of specific protocol. The children in CG had higher number of words per minute compared to those in G1, which, in turn, performed better in this aspect compared to children in G2. Regarding the number of syllables per minute, the CG showed the best result. In this aspect, the children in G1 showed better results than those in G2. Comparing children's performance in the assessed groups regarding the tests, those with PD in intervention had higher time of speech sample and adequate speech rate, which may be indicative of greater auditory monitoring of their own speech as a result of the intervention.

Heidegger: Sense-Nonsense Dualism of Man in Technology Dimensions

OpenAIRE

Nathalia Andrea Álvarez

2008-01-01

This article tries to analyze the ontological-existential compromise that man acquires when using new technologies, in the light of theHeideggerian’ proposal. This compromise means, on the one hand, theresponsibility of forgetting the self in technology, which immerses man in a non-sense; and on the other, the will to open himself to the recognition of the ways in which his “being-in-the-world” manifests. To this end, the perils of technological “instrumentalization” will be presented, based ...

Death, dignity, and moral nonsense.

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Pullman, Daryl

2004-01-01

Although the concept of human dignity is widely invoked in discussions regarding end-of-life decision making, the content of the notion is ambiguous. Such ambiguity has led some to conclude that human dignity is a redundant or even useless concept that we would be better off without. This paper argues, to the contrary, that the concept of human dignity is indispensable to moral discourse. Far from dispensing with human dignity, we must work to clarify the concept. The paper outlines two distinct but related conceptions of dignity that are often conflated in contemporary moral discourse. These conceptions are labelled "basic dignity" and "personal dignity", respectively. It is argued that basic dignity functions as a universal meaning constraint on moral discourse in general. Hence, to dispense with the notion could reduce us to speaking moral nonsense. Throughout the discussion, some implications for our understanding of end-of-life decision making are explored.

Considering the Context and Texts for Fluency: Performance, Readers Theater, and Poetry

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Young, Chase; Nageldinger, James

2014-01-01

This article describes the importance of teaching reading fluency and all of its components, including automaticity and prosody. The authors explain how teachers can create a context for reading fluency instruction by engaging students in reading performance activities. To support the instructional contexts, the authors suggest particular…

Linguistic and Cultural Factors Associated with Phonemic Fluency Performance in Bilingual Hispanics

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Bennett, Jennifer

2012-01-01

Verbal fluency tasks are used extensively in clinical settings because of their sensitivity to a wide variety of disorders, including cognitive decline and dementia, and their usefulness in differential diagnoses. However, the effects of bilingualism on neuropsychological assessment, and verbal fluency in particular, are currently not completely…

Translational read-through of a nonsense mutation causing Bartter syndrome.

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Cho, Hee Yeon; Lee, Beom Hee; Cheong, Hae Il

2013-06-01

Bartter syndrome (BS) is classified into 5 genotypes according to underlying mutant genes and BS III is caused by loss-of-function mutations in the CLCNKB gene encoding for basolateral ClC-Kb. BS III is the most common genotype in Korean patients with BS and W610X is the most common CLCNKB mutation in Korean BS III. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the CLCNKB W610X mutation can be rescued in vitro using aminoglycoside antibiotics, which are known to induce translational read-through of a nonsense mutation. The CLCNKB cDNA was cloned into a eukaryotic expression vector and the W610X nonsense mutation was generated by site-directed mutagenesis. Cultured polarized MDCK cells were transfected with the vectors, and the read-through was induced using an aminoglycoside derivative, G418. Cellular expression of the target protein was monitored via immunohistochemistry. While cells transfected with the mutant CLCNKB failed to express ClC-Kb, G418 treatment of the cells induced the full-length protein expression, which was localized to the basolateral plasma membranes. It is demonstrated that the W610X mutation in CLCNKB can be a good candidate for trial of translational read-through induction as a therapeutic modality.

Novel LMF1 Nonsense Mutation in a Patient with Severe Hypertriglyceridemia

OpenAIRE

Cefalù, Angelo B.; Noto, Davide; Arpi, Maria Luisa; Yin, Fen; Spina, Rossella; Hilden, Hannele; Barbagallo, Carlo M.; Carroccio, Antonio; Tarugi, Patrizia; Squatrito, Sebastiano; Vigneri, Riccardo; Taskinen, Marja-Riitta; Péterfy, Miklós; Averna, Maurizio R.

2009-01-01

Context: Lipase maturation factor 1 (LMF1) gene is a novel candidate gene in severe hypertriglyceridemia. Lmf1 is involved in the maturation of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and hepatic lipase in endoplasmic reticulum. To date only one patient with severe hypertriglyceridemia and related disorders was found to be homozygous for a nonsense mutation in LMF1 gene (Y439X).

The appropriacy of fluency tests in assessing epileptic seizure lateralization in children with partial epilepsy

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Vuksanović Jasmina

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Fluency tests are frequently used in clinical practice to asses executive functions. The literature data are not unequivocal although in a great number of papers is pointed out the importance of the left hemisphere, specially of the left frontal lobes in the mediation of phonological fluency and the right hemisphere in the mediation of nonverbal fluency. This paper considers the suitability of fluency tests for the detection of left versus right seizure laterality. The sample consisted of thirty-two epilepsy patients divided into two groups: LHF-participants with the seizure focus in the left hemisphere (n=16, and DHF-participants with the seizure focus in the right hemisphere (n=16, and K-the control group of t age-matched healthy children (n=50 aged 7-11 years. The qualitative and quantitative comparison of the phonological and nonverbal fluency performance was carried out in consideration of the seizure laterality as well as compared to the healthy controls. The results of phonological fluency performance revealed that the performance of the LHF group was significantly reduced as compared to both DHF and K group. The analysis of nonverbal fluency performance revealed that the performance of the DHF group was significantly reduced as compared to both LHF and K group The qualitative analysis obtained valuable data, which could additionally contribute to the neuropsychological evaluation of the left versus right seizure laterality.

Is processing of symbols and words influenced by writing system? Evidence from Chinese, Korean, English, and Greek.

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Altani, Angeliki; Georgiou, George K; Deng, Ciping; Cho, Jeung-Ryeul; Katopodi, Katerina; Wei, Wei; Protopapas, Athanassios

2017-12-01

We examined cross-linguistic effects in the relationship between serial and discrete versions of digit naming and word reading. In total, 113 Mandarin-speaking Chinese children, 100 Korean children, 112 English-speaking Canadian children, and 108 Greek children in Grade 3 were administered tasks of serial and discrete naming of words and digits. Interrelations among tasks indicated that the link between rapid naming and reading is largely determined by the format of the tasks across orthographies. Multigroup path analyses with discrete and serial word reading as dependent variables revealed commonalities as well as significant differences between writing systems. The path coefficient from discrete digits to discrete words was greater for the more transparent orthographies, consistent with more efficient sight-word processing. The effect of discrete word reading on serial word reading was stronger in alphabetic languages, where there was also a suppressive effect of discrete digit naming. However, the effect of serial digit naming on serial word reading did not differ among the four language groups. This pattern of relationships challenges a universal account of reading fluency acquisition while upholding a universal role of rapid serial naming, further distinguishing between multi-element interword and intraword processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning Activities in Enhancing EFL Learners' Fluency

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Alrayah, Hassan

2018-01-01

This research-paper aims at examining the effectiveness of cooperative learning activities in enhancing EFL learners' fluency. The researcher has used the descriptive approach, recorded interviews for testing fluency as tools of data collection and the software program SPSS as a tool for the statistical treatment of data. Research sample consists…

Using an Intelligent Tutor and Math Fluency Training to Improve Math Performance

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Arroyo, Ivon; Royer, James M.; Woolf, Beverly P.

2011-01-01

This article integrates research in intelligent tutors with psychology studies of memory and math fluency (the speed to retrieve or calculate answers to basic math operations). It describes the impact of computer software designed to improve either strategic behavior or math fluency. Both competencies are key to improved performance and both…

Stroke of the inferiomedial temporal lobe causing word agnosia.

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Hassan, Hardi; Ehsanula, Huq; Pattanshetti, Mahendra

2017-07-26

A 69-year-old man presented with sudden loss of ability to recognise written words and remember the meaning of words and names. He could not name the town he lived in nor name his children. It was difficult for him to remember the meaning of concrete and abstract nouns. His speech fluency and understanding of casual talks were normal. He remembered that he had a conversation with his family that morning, but not the exact content. He was referred to the transient ischaemic attack clinic by his general practitioner as he scored low on the abbreviated mental test score. He underwent a brain MRI scan (T2 weighted, diffusion weighted and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery) which showed an acute infarction in the left medial temporal region affecting the fusiform and parahippocampal gyri. He also noticed that it was easier to retrieve numbers, for example, his mobile number. He recovered on waking up the next day. © BMJ Publishing Group Ltd (unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Effects of literacy on semantic verbal fluency in an immigrant population

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, T. Rune; Waldemar, Gunhild

2016-01-01

OBJECTIVE: A significant impact of limited schooling and illiteracy has been found on numerous neuropsychological tests, which may partly be due to the ecological relevance of the tests in the context of illiteracy. The aims of this study were to compare the performance of illiterate and literate...... and acculturation score did not affect this interaction effect. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our results are in line with previous studies comparing semantic fluency in illiterate and literate individuals. The results lend further support to the strong associations between literacy, semantic verbal fluency performance...... immigrants on two semantic criteria for the verbal fluency test, and examine the influence of acculturation on test performances. METHOD: Performances of 20 cognitively unimpaired illiterate and 21 literate Turkish immigrants aged ≥50 years were compared on an animal and supermarket criterion...

On the (elusive) role of oral motor-movements in fluency-based memory illusions.

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Westerman, Deanne L; Klin, Celia M; Lanska, Meredith

2015-07-01

It is well established that the ease with which a stimulus is processed affects many different types of evaluative judgments. Recently, it has been proposed that for verbal stimuli the effect of fluency on such judgments is mediated by the muscles that are involved in speech (Topolinski & Strack, 2009, 2010). Evidence for this claim can be found in studies that have shown that fluency effects are eliminated if such judgments are made while these muscles are otherwise engaged (such as while chewing gum or eating). Additional research has found that oral-motor tasks block familiarity-based responding on recognition memory tasks (Topolinski, 2012). The current study investigated the effect of an oral-motor task on recognition memory. Of particular interest was whether the fluency-blocking effects of an oral-motor task would extend to fluency-based illusions of recognition memory. Although we found robust fluency-based illusions of familiarity, we did not find that the effects were modulated by the nature of the concurrent task (gum-chewing vs. a manual-motor task). Moreover, we found no evidence that oral-motor tasks affected recognition more generally, nor did we find that an oral-motor task modulated affective ratings to repeated stimuli. We were also unable to replicate the finding that an oral-motor task blocks the false fame effect (Topolinski & Strack, 2010). These results call into question the assertion that oral-motor movements mediate fluency effects in recognition memory and other evaluative judgments. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

The limited use of the fluency heuristic: Converging evidence across different procedures.

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Pohl, Rüdiger F; Erdfelder, Edgar; Michalkiewicz, Martha; Castela, Marta; Hilbig, Benjamin E

2016-10-01

In paired comparisons based on which of two objects has the larger criterion value, decision makers could use the subjectively experienced difference in retrieval fluency of the objects as a cue. According to the fluency heuristic (FH) theory, decision makers use fluency-as indexed by recognition speed-as the only cue for pairs of recognized objects, and infer that the object retrieved more speedily has the larger criterion value (ignoring all other cues and information). Model-based analyses, however, have previously revealed that only a small portion of such inferences are indeed based on fluency alone. In the majority of cases, other information enters the decision process. However, due to the specific experimental procedures, the estimates of FH use are potentially biased: Some procedures may have led to an overestimated and others to an underestimated, or even to actually reduced, FH use. In the present article, we discuss and test the impacts of such procedural variations by reanalyzing 21 data sets. The results show noteworthy consistency across the procedural variations revealing low FH use. We discuss potential explanations and implications of this finding.

Oral Reading Fluency with iPods

Science.gov (United States)

Arens, Karla; Gove, Mary K.; Abate, Ron

2018-01-01

Research suggests that oral reading fluency frees up working memory so readers can focus on the meaning of a text, but traditional instruction in oral reading can be problematic in classrooms with students at different reading levels. Differentiating instruction, providing motivation to practice, as well as timely corrective feedback are practical…

Heterozygous KIDINS220/ARMS nonsense variants cause spastic paraplegia, intellectual disability, nystagmus, and obesity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Josifova, Dragana J.; Monroe, Glen R.; Tessadori, Federico; de Graaff, Esther; van der Zwaag, Bert; Mehta, Sarju G.; Harakalova, Magdalena; Duran, Karen J.; Savelberg, Sanne M. C.; Nijman, Isaäc J.; Jungbluth, Heinz; Hoogenraad, Casper C.; Bakkers, Jeroen; Knoers, Nine V.; Firth, Helen V.; Beales, Philip L.; van Haaften, Gijs; van Haelst, Mieke M.

2016-01-01

We identified de novo nonsense variants in KIDINS220/ARMS in three unrelated patients with spastic paraplegia, intellectual disability, nystagmus, and obesity (SINO). KIDINS220 is an essential scaffold protein coordinating neurotrophin signal pathways in neurites and is spatially and temporally

Mice with missense and nonsense NF1 mutations display divergent phenotypes compared with human neurofibromatosis type I

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Kairong Li

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1 is a common genetic disorder characterized by the occurrence of nerve sheath tumors and considerable clinical heterogeneity. Some translational studies have been limited by the lack of animal models available for assessing patient-specific mutations. In order to test therapeutic approaches that might restore function to the mutated gene or gene product, we developed mice harboring NF1 patient-specific mutations including a nonsense mutation (c.2041C>T; p.Arg681* and a missense mutation (c.2542G>C; p.Gly848Arg. The latter is associated with the development of multiple plexiform neurofibromas along spinal nerve roots. We demonstrate that the human nonsense NF1Arg681* and missense NF1Gly848Arg mutations have different effects on neurofibromin expression in the mouse and each recapitulates unique aspects of the NF1 phenotype, depending upon the genetic context when assessed in the homozygous state or when paired with a conditional knockout allele. Whereas the missense Nf1Gly848Arg mutation fails to produce an overt phenotype in the mouse, animals homozygous for the nonsense Nf1Arg681* mutation are not viable. Mice with one Nf1Arg681* allele in combination with a conditional floxed Nf1 allele and the DhhCre transgene (Nf14F/Arg681*; DhhCre display disorganized nonmyelinating axons and neurofibromas along the spinal column, which leads to compression of the spinal cord and paralysis. This model will be valuable for preclinical testing of novel nonsense suppression therapies using drugs to target in-frame point mutations that create premature termination codons in individuals with NF1.

Phase 2a study of ataluren-mediated dystrophin production in patients with nonsense mutation Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

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Richard S Finkel

Full Text Available Approximately 13% of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD have a nonsense mutation in the dystrophin gene, resulting in a premature stop codon in the corresponding mRNA and failure to generate a functional protein. Ataluren (PTC124 enables ribosomal readthrough of premature stop codons, leading to production of full-length, functional proteins.This Phase 2a open-label, sequential dose-ranging trial recruited 38 boys with nonsense mutation DMD. The first cohort (n = 6 received ataluren three times per day at morning, midday, and evening doses of 4, 4, and 8 mg/kg; the second cohort (n = 20 was dosed at 10, 10, 20 mg/kg; and the third cohort (n = 12 was dosed at 20, 20, 40 mg/kg. Treatment duration was 28 days. Change in full-length dystrophin expression, as assessed by immunostaining in pre- and post-treatment muscle biopsy specimens, was the primary endpoint.Twenty three of 38 (61% subjects demonstrated increases in post-treatment dystrophin expression in a quantitative analysis assessing the ratio of dystrophin/spectrin. A qualitative analysis also showed positive changes in dystrophin expression. Expression was not associated with nonsense mutation type or exon location. Ataluren trough plasma concentrations active in the mdx mouse model were consistently achieved at the mid- and high- dose levels in participants. Ataluren was generally well tolerated.Ataluren showed activity and safety in this short-term study, supporting evaluation of ataluren 10, 10, 20 mg/kg and 20, 20, 40 mg/kg in a Phase 2b, double-blind, long-term study in nonsense mutation DMD.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00264888.

Linguistic Phenomena in Men and Women - TOT, FOK, Verbal Fluency

OpenAIRE

Ewa Szepietowska; Barbara Gawda; Agnieszka Gawda

2013-01-01

The aim of this study is to describe the differences between women and men in the phenomena of feeling of knowing/know (FOK), tip of the tongue (TOT), and verbal fluency. Two studies are presented. The first included a group of 60 participants and focused on the analysis of FOK and TOT in men and women. The second study described the performance of 302 participants in verbal fluency tasks. Both studies showed that sex is not a significant predictor of linguistic abilities. Rather, the main fa...

Verbal fluency in idiopathic Parkinson's disease

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thut, G.; Antonini, A.; Roelcke, U.; Missimer, J.; Maguire, R.P.; Leenders, K.L.; Regard, M.

1997-01-01

In the present study, the relationship between resting metabolism and verbal fluency, a correlate of frontal lobe cognition, was examined in 33 PD patients. We aimed to determine brain structures involved in frontal lobe cognitive impairment with special emphasis on differences between demented and non-demented PD patients. (author) 3 figs., 2 refs

SEMANTIC VERBAL FLUENCY OF THE BILINGUAL CHILDREN WITH MILD INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

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Nenad GLUMBIKJ

2005-06-01

Full Text Available Semantic verbal fluency test is reliable instrument for detection of various kinds of neuropsychological deficits. Participants’ attainments in this test are influenced by array of socio-cultural factors. The occurrence of “twofold semilingualism” belongs to these cultural factors.The objective of this research is to determine differences between monolingual and bilingual children with mild mental retardation in semantic verbal fluency test.The sample consisted of 90 participants with mild mental retardation, of both sexes, aged from 12 to 15. The whole sample was divided into three subsets: 30 monolingual children (M1, who speak only Serbian, 30 monolingual Roma children who do not speak Romany (M2 and 30 bilingual Roma children who speak both, Romany and Serbian language (B.It was found that both groups of monolingual children have better performances in semantic fluency tasks than bilingual children.

Image Ambiguity and Fluency

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Jakesch, Martina; Leder, Helmut; Forster, Michael

2013-01-01

Ambiguity is often associated with negative affective responses, and enjoying ambiguity seems restricted to only a few situations, such as experiencing art. Nevertheless, theories of judgment formation, especially the “processing fluency account”, suggest that easy-to-process (non-ambiguous) stimuli are processed faster and are therefore preferred to (ambiguous) stimuli, which are hard to process. In a series of six experiments, we investigated these contrasting approaches by manipulating fluency (presentation duration: 10ms, 50ms, 100ms, 500ms, 1000ms) and testing effects of ambiguity (ambiguous versus non-ambiguous pictures of paintings) on classification performance (Part A; speed and accuracy) and aesthetic appreciation (Part B; liking and interest). As indicated by signal detection analyses, classification accuracy increased with presentation duration (Exp. 1a), but we found no effects of ambiguity on classification speed (Exp. 1b). Fifty percent of the participants were able to successfully classify ambiguous content at a presentation duration of 100 ms, and at 500ms even 75% performed above chance level. Ambiguous artworks were found more interesting (in conditions 50ms to 1000ms) and were preferred over non-ambiguous stimuli at 500ms and 1000ms (Exp. 2a - 2c, 3). Importantly, ambiguous images were nonetheless rated significantly harder to process as non-ambiguous images. These results suggest that ambiguity is an essential ingredient in art appreciation even though or maybe because it is harder to process. PMID:24040172

When Does Modality Matter? Perceptual versus Conceptual Fluency-Based Illusions in Recognition Memory

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Jeremy K.; Lloyd, Marianne E.; Westerman, Deanne L.

2008-01-01

Previous research has shown that illusions of recognition memory based on enhanced perceptual fluency are sensitive to the perceptual match between the study and test phases of an experiment. The results of the current study strengthen that conclusion, as they show that participants will not interpret enhanced perceptual fluency as a sign of…

Fluency-dependent cortical activation associated with speech production and comprehension in second language learners.

Science.gov (United States)

Shimada, K; Hirotani, M; Yokokawa, H; Yoshida, H; Makita, K; Yamazaki-Murase, M; Tanabe, H C; Sadato, N

2015-08-06

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated the brain regions underlying language task performance in adult second language (L2) learners. Specifically, we identified brain regions where the level of activation was associated with L2 fluency levels. Thirty Japanese-speaking adults participated in the study. All participants were L2 learners of English and had achieved varying levels of fluency, as determined by a standardized L2 English proficiency test, the Versant English Test (Pearson Education Inc., 2011). When participants performed the oral sentence building task from the production tasks administered, the dorsal part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (dIFG) showed activation patterns that differed depending on the L2 fluency levels: The more fluent the participants were, the more dIFG activation decreased. This decreased activation of the dIFG might reflect the increased automaticity of a syntactic building process. In contrast, when participants performed an oral story comprehension task, the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) showed increased activation with higher fluency levels. This suggests that the learners with higher L2 fluency were actively engaged in post-syntactic integration processing supported by the left pSTG. These data imply that L2 fluency predicts neural resource allocation during language comprehension tasks as well as in production tasks. This study sheds light on the neural underpinnings of L2 learning by identifying the brain regions recruited during different language tasks across different modalities (production vs. comprehension). Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Novel nonsense mutation in the katA gene of a catalase-negative Staphylococcus aureus strain.

Science.gov (United States)

Lagos, Jaime; Alarcón, Pedro; Benadof, Dona; Ulloa, Soledad; Fasce, Rodrigo; Tognarelli, Javier; Aguayo, Carolina; Araya, Pamela; Parra, Bárbara; Olivares, Berta; Hormazábal, Juan Carlos; Fernández, Jorge

2016-01-01

We report the first description of a rare catalase-negative strain of Staphylococcus aureus in Chile. This new variant was isolated from blood and synovial tissue samples of a pediatric patient. Sequencing analysis revealed that this catalase-negative strain is related to ST10 strain, which has earlier been described in relation to S. aureus carriers. Interestingly, sequence analysis of the catalase gene katA revealed presence of a novel nonsense mutation that causes premature translational truncation of the C-terminus of the enzyme leading to a loss of 222 amino acids. Our study suggests that loss of catalase activity in this rare catalase-negative Chilean strain is due to this novel nonsense mutation in the katA gene, which truncates the enzyme to just 283 amino acids. Copyright © 2015 Sociedade Brasileira de Microbiologia. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.

Event-related potentials indicate that fluency can be interpreted as familiarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Bruett, Heather; Leynes, P Andrew

2015-11-01

Recent evidence suggests that fluency may be capable of supporting recognition independently of familiarity. This hypothesis was further tested in the present study. 29 participants encoded name-brand and off-brand products in an incidental task. Participants then judged whether the product was old or new during two tests with products from one category (i.e., only name-brand or only off-brand products) and a mixed test (where both name-brand and off-brand products were shown). The ERP data elicited by off-brand products varied as a function of test format. During the mixed test, off-brand products were correlated with a FN400 effect, whereas a fluency ERP (old ERPs were more negative than new at parietal electrodes 225-400ms) was observed during the other test. Importantly, no FN400 was detected during this test. The ERP results suggest that viewing the off-brand products during the mixed test produced a familiarity experience; however, fluency supported recognition when viewing off-brand products on the other test. The results are strong evidence that top-down processing of visual features during recognition interprets the information relative to the context. This process results in either fluency or, in other contexts, it is interpreted as familiarity as the Discrepancy-Attribution Hypothesis (Whittlesea and Williams, 2001a, 2001b) contends. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A normative study of lexical verbal fluency in an educationally-diverse elderly population.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Bong Jo; Lee, Cheol Soon; Oh, Byoung Hoon; Hong, Chang Hyung; Lee, Kang Soo; Son, Sang Joon; Han, Changsu; Park, Moon Ho; Jeong, Hyun-Ghang; Kim, Tae Hui; Park, Joon Hyuk; Kim, Ki Woong

2013-12-01

Lexical fluency tests are frequently used to assess language and executive function in clinical practice. We investigated the influences of age, gender, and education on lexical verbal fluency in an educationally-diverse, elderly Korean population and provided its' normative information. We administered the lexical verbal fluency test (LVFT) to 1676 community-dwelling, cognitively normal subjects aged 60 years or over. In a stepwise linear regression analysis, education (B=0.40, SE=0.02, standardized B=0.506) and age (B=-0.10, SE=0.01, standardized B=-0.15) had significant effects on LVFT scores (p0.05). Education explained 28.5% of the total variance in LVFT scores, which was much larger than the variance explained by age (5.42%). Accordingly, we presented normative data of the LVFT stratified by age (60-69, 70-74, 75-79, and ≥80 years) and education (0-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, and ≥13 years). The LVFT norms should provide clinically useful data for evaluating elderly people and help improve the interpretation of verbal fluency tasks and allow for greater diagnostic accuracy.

FATP4 missense and nonsense mutations cause similar features in Ichthyosis Prematurity Syndrome

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Dahl Niklas

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Ichthyosis Prematurity Syndrome (IPS is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by premature birth, non-scaly ichthyosis and atopic manifestations. The disease was recently shown to be caused by mutations in the gene encoding the fatty acid transport protein 4 (FATP4 and a specific reduction in the incorporation of very long chain fatty acids (VLCFA into cellular lipids. Findings We screened probands from five families segregating IPS for mutations in the FATP4 gene. Four probands were compound heterozygous for four different mutations of which three are novel. Four patients were heterozygous and one patient homozygous for the previously reported non-sense mutation p.C168X (c.504c > a. All patients had clinical characteristics of IPS and a similar clinical course. Conclusions Missense mutations and non-sense mutations in FATP4 are associated with similar clinical features suggesting that missense mutations have a severe impact on FATP4 function. The results broaden the mutational spectrum in FATP4 associated with IPS for molecular diagnosis of and further functional analysis of FATP4.

The influence of negative stimulus features on conflict adaption:Evidence from fluency of processing

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Julia eFritz

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Cognitive control enables adaptive behavior in a dynamically changing environment. In this context, one prominent adaptation effect is the sequential conflict adjustment, i.e. the observation of reduced response interference on trials following conflict trials. Increasing evidence suggests that such response conflicts are registered as aversive signals. So far, however, the functional role of this aversive signal for conflict adaptation to occur has not been put to test directly. In two experiments, the affective valence of conflict stimuli was manipulated by fluency of processing (stimulus contrast. Experiment 1 used a flanker interference task, Experiment 2 a color-word Stroop task. In both experiments, conflict adaptation effects were only present in fluent, but absent in disfluent trials. Results thus speak against the simple idea that any aversive stimulus feature is suited to promote specific conflict adjustments. Two alternative but not mutually exclusive accounts, namely resource competition and adaptation-by-motivation, will be discussed.

Reduced verbal fluency for proper names in nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease: a quantitative and qualitative analysis.

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Fine, Eric M; Delis, Dean C; Paul, Brianna M; Filoteo, J Vincent

2011-02-01

There has been an increasing interest within neuropsychology in comparing verbal fluency for different grammatical classes (e.g., verb generation vs. noun generation) in neurological populations, including Parkinson's disease (PD). However, to our knowledge, few studies have compared verbal fluency for common nouns and proper names in PD. Common nouns and proper names differ in terms of their semantic characteristics, as categories of common nouns are organized hierarchically based on semantics, while categories of proper nouns lack a well-defined semantic organization. In addition, there is accumulating evidence that the retrieval of these distinct grammatical classes are subserved by somewhat distinct neural systems. Given that verbal fluency deficits are among the first impairments to emerge in PD, and that such deficits are predictors of future cognitive decline, it is important to examine all aspects of verbal fluency in this population. For the current study, we compared the performance of a group of 32 nondemented PD patients with 32 healthy participants (HP) on verbal fluency tasks for common nouns (animals) and proper names (boys' first names). A significant interaction between verbal fluency task and diagnostic status emerged, as the PD group performed significantly worse on only the proper name fluency task. This finding may reflect the absence of well-defined semantic organization that structures the verbal search for first names, thus placing a greater onus on strategic or "executive" verbal retrieval processes.

Breve fenomenologia del lettore ai confini del nonsense (o Il lettore provocato

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Laura Lucia Rossi

2012-12-01

Full Text Available In questo articolo esaminiamo alcuni generi letterari che sono stati spesso accostati al nonsense letterario. In particolare prendiamo in considerazione il ruolo del lettore all’interno di questi testi e ne proponiamo una sorta di fenomenologia. Invitiamo, infine, a riflettere su come considerare la dimensione del lettore all’interno di un genere letterario possa condurre a risultati rilevanti circa la definizione del genere stesso.

Parallel effects of processing fluency and positive affect on familiarity-based recognition decisions for faces

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Devin eDuke

2014-04-01

Full Text Available According to attribution models of familiarity assessment, people can use a heuristic in recognition-memory decisions, in which they attribute the subjective ease of processing of a memory probe to a prior encounter with the stimulus in question. Research in social cognition suggests that experienced positive affect may be the proximal cue that signals fluency in various experimental contexts. In the present study, we compared the effects of positive affect and fluency on recognition-memory judgments for faces with neutral emotional expression. We predicted that if positive affect is indeed the critical cue that signals processing fluency at retrieval, then its manipulation should produce effects that closely mirror those produced by manipulations of processing fluency. In two experiments, we employed a masked-priming procedure in combination with a Remember-Know paradigm that aimed to separate familiarity- from recollection-based memory decisions. In addition, participants performed a prime-discrimination task that allowed us to take inter-individual differences in prime awareness into account. We found highly similar effects of our priming manipulations of processing fluency and of positive affect. In both cases, the critical effect was specific to familiarity-based recognition responses. Moreover, in both experiments it was reflected in a shift towards a more liberal response bias, rather than in changed discrimination. Finally, in both experiments, the effect was found to be related to prime awareness; it was present only in participants who reported a lack of such awareness on the prime-discrimination task. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that points not only to a role of fluency, but also of positive affect in familiarity assessment. As such they are consistent with the idea that fluency itself may be hedonically marked.

Parallel effects of processing fluency and positive affect on familiarity-based recognition decisions for faces.

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Duke, Devin; Fiacconi, Chris M; Köhler, Stefan

2014-01-01

According to attribution models of familiarity assessment, people can use a heuristic in recognition-memory decisions, in which they attribute the subjective ease of processing of a memory probe to a prior encounter with the stimulus in question. Research in social cognition suggests that experienced positive affect may be the proximal cue that signals fluency in various experimental contexts. In the present study, we compared the effects of positive affect and fluency on recognition-memory judgments for faces with neutral emotional expression. We predicted that if positive affect is indeed the critical cue that signals processing fluency at retrieval, then its manipulation should produce effects that closely mirror those produced by manipulations of processing fluency. In two experiments, we employed a masked-priming procedure in combination with a Remember-Know (RK) paradigm that aimed to separate familiarity- from recollection-based memory decisions. In addition, participants performed a prime-discrimination task that allowed us to take inter-individual differences in prime awareness into account. We found highly similar effects of our priming manipulations of processing fluency and of positive affect. In both cases, the critical effect was specific to familiarity-based recognition responses. Moreover, in both experiments it was reflected in a shift toward a more liberal response bias, rather than in changed discrimination. Finally, in both experiments, the effect was found to be related to prime awareness; it was present only in participants who reported a lack of such awareness on the prime-discrimination task. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that points not only to a role of fluency, but also of positive affect in familiarity assessment. As such they are consistent with the idea that fluency itself may be hedonically marked.

Analysis of Speech Fluency in Williams Syndrome

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Rossi, Natalia Freitas; Sampaio, Adriana; Goncalves, Oscar F.; Giacheti, Celia Maria

2011-01-01

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder, often referred as being characterized by dissociation between verbal and non-verbal abilities, although the number of studies disputing this proposal is emerging. Indeed, although they have been traditionally reported as displaying increased speech fluency, this topic has not been…

De novo nonsense mutations in ASXL1 cause Bohring-Opitz syndrome

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Hoischen, Alexander; van Bon, Bregje W M; Rodríguez-Santiago, Benjamín

2011-01-01

Bohring-Opitz syndrome is characterized by severe intellectual disability, distinctive facial features and multiple congenital malformations. We sequenced the exomes of three individuals with Bohring-Opitz syndrome and in each identified heterozygous de novo nonsense mutations in ASXL1, which...... is required for maintenance of both activation and silencing of Hox genes. In total, 7 out of 13 subjects with a Bohring-Opitz phenotype had de novo ASXL1 mutations, suggesting that the syndrome is genetically heterogeneous....

Short-term verbal memory and psychophysiological response to emotion-related words in children who stutter

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Stokić Miodrag

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Emotions play a significant role in fluency disorders. In this research we wanted to examine immediate and delayed verbal recall for auditory presented words that carry information about different emotional state (emotion-related words and emotionally neutral words in children who stutter (N=35 and their peers (N=35. Using only word semantics, we wanted to eliminate emotional verbal expression of words as a factor that can influence memory abilities. In addition, we also wanted to examine skin conductance measure as an indicator of autonomic nervous system arousal during short-term memory task for emotion-related and emotionally neutral words. Parental questionnaire (Stuttering Intensity in Children Who Stutter in Positive and Negative Emotion-Related Everyday Situations was given to parents of children who stutter in order to collect data regarding stuttering severity in emotionally arousing situations in everyday life. Differences between the experimental and the control group in global memory capacity are highest in immediate recall (p=0,01 with the tendency for lowering statistical significance with prolongation of retention interval. According to the questionnaire results, children who stutter show a higher degree of stuttering in situations with positive emotional valence (p< 0.00. Skin conductance measurements showed higher autonomic nervous system arousal during perception and free recall of positive emotion-related words in children who stutter when compared to negative and emotionally neutral words. The results indicate higher emotional arousal to positive emotions in children who stutter (p=0.02, leading to either less fluent speech or suppression of verbal short-term memory capacity.

Measuring autobiographical fluency in the self-memory system.

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Rathbone, Clare J; Moulin, Chris J A

2014-01-01

Autobiographical memory is widely considered to be fundamentally related to concepts of self and identity. However, few studies have sought to test models of self and memory directly using experimental designs. Using a novel autobiographical fluency paradigm, the present study investigated memory accessibility for different levels of self-related knowledge. Forty participants generated 20 "I am" statements about themselves, from which the 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th were used as cues in a two-minute autobiographical fluency task. The most salient aspects of the self, measured by both serial position and ratings of personal significance, were associated with more accessible sets of autobiographical memories. This finding supports theories that view the self as a powerful organizational structure in memory. Results are discussed with reference to models of self and memory.

Voice and Fluency Changes as a Function of Speech Task and Deep Brain Stimulation

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Van Lancker Sidtis, Diana; Rogers, Tiffany; Godier, Violette; Tagliati, Michele; Sidtis, John J.

2010-01-01

Purpose: Speaking, which naturally occurs in different modes or "tasks" such as conversation and repetition, relies on intact basal ganglia nuclei. Recent studies suggest that voice and fluency parameters are differentially affected by speech task. In this study, the authors examine the effects of subcortical functionality on voice and fluency,…

A Cross-Sectional Study of Fluency and Reading Comprehension in Spanish Primary School Children

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Calet, Nuria; Gutiérrez-Palma, Nicolás; Defior, Sylvia

2015-01-01

The importance of prosodic elements is recognised in most definitions of fluency. Although speed and accuracy have been typically considered the constituents of reading fluency, prosody is emerging as an additional component. The relevance of prosody in comprehension is increasingly recognised in the latest studies. The purpose of this research is…

Culture-specific delusions. Sense and nonsense in cultural context.

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Gaines, A D

1995-06-01

It can be said that a definition of delusions requires the invocation of cultural understandings, standards of acceptability, as well as conceptions of reality and the forces that animate it. For these reasons, the determination of delusional or normative ideation can only be effected properly within particular cultural contexts. The cross-cultural record suggests that it is difficult to separate the delusional from the cultural; a belief that is patterened and culturally specific is, by definition a cultural, not a delusional belief. One must rely upon particular, relevant local cultural understandings to ascertain when the bounds of culture have been transgressed and meaning has given way to unshareable nonsense.

Evaluation of fluency stent-grafts in transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts

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Zhao Jianbo; Li Yanhao; Chen Yong; He Xiaofeng; Zeng Qingle; Mei Quelin; Lu Wei

2009-01-01

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of Fluency stent-graft (Bard Corp) in transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS). Methods: The clinical data of 21 consecutive patients treated by TIPS using Fluency stent-grafts were retrospectively reviewed. All of them were recurrent variceal bleeding secondary to portal vein hypertension, 1 was bleeding secondary to primary hepatic carcinoma with port vein thrombus, and 1 was Budd-Chiari syndrome. They were followed-up after (10.1±4.6) months (2.0 to 24.0 months). Stent-grafts patancy, portal vein pressure and liver function were recorded and compared. Results: Twenty-five stent-grafts were successfully implanted in 21 patients, 23 stent grafts were 8 mm 2 were 10 mm in diameter. The covered length of the stents varied from 6 to 8 cm. The bleeding was stopped and the portal vein pressure decreased significantly from (25.4±3.5) mm Hg to (15.4±2.8) mm Hg (t= 12.495, P 0.05). Conclusion: The Fluency stent-grafts could increase the patency of the TIPS, but its efficacy on the long-term effect and hepatic encephalopathy need further investigation. (authors)

Verbal fluency in male and female schizophrenia patients: Different patterns of association with processing speed, working memory span, and clinical symptoms.

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Brébion, Gildas; Stephan-Otto, Christian; Ochoa, Susana; Nieto, Lourdes; Contel, Montserrat; Usall, Judith

2018-01-01

Decreased processing speed in schizophrenia patients has been identified as a major impairment factor in various neuropsychological domains. Working memory span has been found to be involved in several deep or effortful cognitive processes. We investigated the impact that these 2 cognitive functions may have on phonological and semantic fluency in schizophrenia patients and healthy participants. Fifty-five patients with schizophrenia and 60 healthy participants were administered a neuropsychological battery including phonological and semantic fluency, working memory, and cognitive and motor speed. Regression analyses revealed that motor speed was related to phonological fluency in female patients, whereas cognitive speed was related to semantic fluency in male patients. In addition, working memory span was related to verbal fluency in women from both the patient and the healthy control groups. Decreased processing speed, but not decreased working memory span, accounted for the verbal fluency deficit in patients. Verbal fluency was inversely related to attention deficit in female patients and to negative symptoms in male patients. Decreased processing speed may be the main factor in verbal fluency impairment of patients. Further, the cognitive and clinical predictors of verbal fluency efficiency are different in men and women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Development of Speech Fluency over a Short Period of Time: Effects of Pedagogic Intervention

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Tavakoli, Parvaneh; Campbell, Colin; McCormack, Joan

2016-01-01

This study investigates the effects of a short-term pedagogic intervention on development of second language (L2) fluency among learners studying English for academic purposes at a UK university. It also examines the interaction between development of fluency and complexity and accuracy. Through a pretest and posttest design, data were collected…

Implicit Recognition Based on Lateralized Perceptual Fluency

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Iliana M. Vargas

2012-02-01

Full Text Available In some circumstances, accurate recognition of repeated images in an explicit memory test is driven by implicit memory. We propose that this “implicit recognition” results from perceptual fluency that influences responding without awareness of memory retrieval. Here we examined whether recognition would vary if images appeared in the same or different visual hemifield during learning and testing. Kaleidoscope images were briefly presented left or right of fixation during divided-attention encoding. Presentation in the same visual hemifield at test produced higher recognition accuracy than presentation in the opposite visual hemifield, but only for guess responses. These correct guesses likely reflect a contribution from implicit recognition, given that when the stimulated visual hemifield was the same at study and test, recognition accuracy was higher for guess responses than for responses with any level of confidence. The dramatic difference in guessing accuracy as a function of lateralized perceptual overlap between study and test suggests that implicit recognition arises from memory storage in visual cortical networks that mediate repetition-induced fluency increments.

Implicit recognition based on lateralized perceptual fluency.

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Vargas, Iliana M; Voss, Joel L; Paller, Ken A

2012-02-06

In some circumstances, accurate recognition of repeated images in an explicit memory test is driven by implicit memory. We propose that this "implicit recognition" results from perceptual fluency that influences responding without awareness of memory retrieval. Here we examined whether recognition would vary if images appeared in the same or different visual hemifield during learning and testing. Kaleidoscope images were briefly presented left or right of fixation during divided-attention encoding. Presentation in the same visual hemifield at test produced higher recognition accuracy than presentation in the opposite visual hemifield, but only for guess responses. These correct guesses likely reflect a contribution from implicit recognition, given that when the stimulated visual hemifield was the same at study and test, recognition accuracy was higher for guess responses than for responses with any level of confidence. The dramatic difference in guessing accuracy as a function of lateralized perceptual overlap between study and test suggests that implicit recognition arises from memory storage in visual cortical networks that mediate repetition-induced fluency increments.

Exploring depression, self-esteem and verbal fluency with different degrees of internet addiction among Chinese college students.

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Nie, Jia; Zhang, Wei; Liu, Ying

2017-01-01

The aims of this study were to explore depression, self-esteem and verbal fluency functions among normal internet users, mild internet addictions and severe internet addictions. The survey sample consisted of 316 college students, and their internet addiction symptoms, depression and self-esteem symptoms were assessed using the Revised Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS-R), Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (ZSDS), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), respectively. From this sample, 16 students with non-addictions, 19 students with mild internet addiction (sub-MIA) and 15 students with severe internet addiction (sub-SIA) were recruited and subjected to the classical verbal fluency tests, including the semantic and phonemic fluency task. The results indicated that severe internet addiction in the survey sample showed the highest tendency towards depressive symptoms and lowest self-esteem scores, and sub-SIA showed poor performance on the semantic fluency task. In conclusion, severe internet addiction was significantly associated with depression, low self-esteem and semantic verbal fluency problems. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Parent-administered computer-assisted tutoring targeting letter-sound knowledge: Evaluation via multiple-baseline across three preschool students.

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DuBois, Matthew R; Volpe, Robert J; Burns, Matthew K; Hoffman, Jessica A

2016-12-01

Knowledge of letters sounds has been identified as a primary objective of preschool instruction and intervention. Despite this designation, large disparities exist in the number of letter sounds children know at school entry. Enhancing caregivers' ability to teach their preschool-aged children letter sounds may represent an effective practice for reducing this variability and ensuring that more children are prepared to experience early school success. This study used a non-concurrent multiple-baseline-across-participants design to evaluate the effectiveness of caregivers (N=3) delivering a computer-assisted tutoring program (Tutoring Buddy) targeting letter sound knowledge to their preschool-aged children. Visual analyses and effect size estimates derived from Percentage of All Non-Overlapping Data (PAND) statistics indicated consistent results for letter sound acquisition, as 6weeks of intervention yielded large effects for letter sound knowledge (LSK) across all three children. Large effect sizes were also found for letter sound fluency (LSF) and nonsense word fluency (NWF) for two children. All three caregivers rated the intervention as highly usable and were able to administer it with high levels of fidelity. Taken together, the results of the present study found Tutoring Buddy to be an effective, simple, and usable way for the caregivers to support their children's literacy development. Copyright © 2016 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Action word Related to Walk Heard by the Ears Activates Visual Cortex and Superior Temporal Gyrus: An fMRI Study

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Naoyuki Osaka

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Cognitive neuroscience of language of action processing is one of the interesting issues on the cortical “seat” of word meaning and related action (Pulvermueller, 1999 Behavioral Brain Sciences 22 253–336. For example, generation of action verbs referring to various arm or leg actions (e.g., pick or kick differentially activate areas along the motor strip that overlap with those areas activated by actual movement of the fingers or feet (Hauk et al., 2004 Neuron 41 301–307. Meanwhile, mimic words like onomatopoeia have the other potential to selectively and strongly stimulate specific brain regions having a specified “seat” of action meaning. In fact, mimic words highly suggestive of laughter and gaze significantly activated the extrastriate visual /premotor cortices and the frontal eye field, respectively (Osaka et al., 2003 Neuroscience Letters 340 127–130; 2009 Neuroscience Letters 461 65–68. However, the role of a mimic word related to walk on specific brain regions has not yet been investigated. The present study showed that a mimic word highly suggestive of human walking, heard by the ears with eyes closed, significantly activated the visual cortex located in extrastriate cortex and superior temporal gyrus while hearing non-sense words that did not imply walk under the same task did not activate these areas. These areas would be a critical region for generating visual images of walking and related action.

Readers Theatre plus Comprehension and Word Study

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Young, Chase; Stokes, Faida; Rasinski, Timothy

2017-01-01

Readers Theatre has been used to introduce critical issues, promote fluency among English learners and non-English learners, teach vocabulary, and integrate content in the classroom. Previous studies of Readers Theatre application have demonstrated an increase in student reading fluency, motivation, and confidence. The focus of this systemic…

THE CONTRIBUTION OF COMPLEXITY, ACCURACY AND FLUENCY TO LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

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Anthony Rausch

2016-03-01

Full Text Available This paper will outline an instructional approach that proposes a Complexity, Accuracy, Fluency (CAF paradigm as a means of providing learners with the CAF-based communication consciousness and CAF-oriented manipulative skills that are increasingly important in language use in Language for Specific Purposes. Given the complex combinations of communicative tasks, communicative formats and communicative circumstances that accompany the wide-ranging and various contexts of contemporary professional communication, communicative competence demands a combinative consciousness and informed application of Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency as a communication paradigm. Viewed as a combination of its three components, a CAF paradigm constitutes a fundamental ‘information, language and communication’ triad that can guide professional language use in any communicative circumstance. Viewed as a communicative skill set, the CAF triad implies the capability to adjust specific elements and aspects of information, language and communication as needed for a communicative task, whether in oral or print communication and regardless of task category. Adjusting complexity in this context refers to both content and language complexity. Adjusting accuracy refers to the conventions that dictate appropriate or acceptable language in a given context. Finally, adjusting fluency refers to a sense of communicative fluency, that which yields either smooth and persuasive language as in a native-speaker normative view or explicit and clearly explanatory language as necessary in some communicative encounters. The need to manipulate these three components depends on circumstance variables such as objective, available time, audience characteristics and the degree of detail desired. This paper will outline this combinative CAF notion as background to a materials development project being undertaken in a Japanese university, introducing the specifics of an Extended Reading Aloud

Picture-Perfect Is Not Perfect for Metamemory: Testing the Perceptual Fluency Hypothesis with Degraded Images

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Besken, Miri

2016-01-01

The perceptual fluency hypothesis claims that items that are easy to perceive at encoding induce an illusion that they will be easier to remember, despite the finding that perception does not generally affect recall. The current set of studies tested the predictions of the perceptual fluency hypothesis with a picture generation manipulation.…

Medio-lateral knee fluency in anterior cruciate ligament-injured athletes during dynamic movement trials.

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Panos, Joseph A; Hoffman, Joshua T; Wordeman, Samuel C; Hewett, Timothy E

2016-03-01

Correction of neuromuscular impairments after anterior cruciate ligament injury is vital to successful return to sport. Frontal plane knee control during landing is a common measure of lower-extremity neuromuscular control and asymmetries in neuromuscular control of the knee can predispose injured athletes to additional injury and associated morbidities. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of anterior cruciate ligament injury on knee biomechanics during landing. Two-dimensional frontal plane video of single leg drop, cross over drop, and drop vertical jump dynamic movement trials was analyzed for twenty injured and reconstructed athletes. The position of the knee joint center was tracked in ImageJ software for 500 milliseconds after landing to calculate medio-lateral knee motion velocities and determine normal fluency, the number of times per second knee velocity changed direction. The inverse of this calculation, analytical fluency, was used to associate larger numerical values with fluent movement. Analytical fluency was decreased in involved limbs for single leg drop trials (P=0.0018). Importantly, analytical fluency for single leg drop differed compared to cross over drop trials for involved (Pinjury. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Do language fluency and other socioeconomic factors influence the use of PubMed and MedlinePlus?

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Sheets, L; Gavino, A; Callaghan, F; Fontelo, P

2013-01-01

Increased usage of MedlinePlus by Spanish-speakers was observed after introduction of MedlinePlus in Spanish. This probably reflects increased usage of MEDLINE and PubMed by those with greater fluency in the language in which it is presented; but this has never been demonstrated in English speakers. Evidence that lack of English fluency deters international healthcare personnel from using PubMed could support the use of multi-language search tools like Babel-MeSH. This study aims to measure the effects of language fluency and other socioeconomic factors on PubMed MEDLINE and MedlinePlus access by international users. We retrospectively reviewed server pageviews of PubMed and MedlinePlus from various periods of time, and analyzed them against country statistics on language fluency, GDP, literacy rate, Internet usage, medical schools, and physicians per capita, to determine whether they were associated. We found fluency in English to be positively associated with pageviews of PubMed and MedlinePlus in countries with high literacy rates. Spanish was generally found to be positively associated with pageviews of MedlinePlus en Español. The other parameters also showed varying degrees of association with pageviews. After adjusting for the other factors investigated in this study, language fluency was a consistently significant predictor of the use of PubMed, MedlinePlus English and MedlinePlus en Español. This study may support the need for multi-language search tools and may increase access of health information resources from non-English speaking countries.

Bias in dyslexia screening in a Dutch multicultural population.

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Verpalen, Anick; Van de Vijver, Fons; Backus, Ad

2018-04-01

We set out to address the adequacy of dyslexia screening in Dutch and non-western immigrant children, using the Dutch Dyslexia Screening Test (DST-NL) and outcomes of the Dutch dyslexia protocol, both of which are susceptible to cultural bias. Using the protocol as standard, we conducted an ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristics) analysis in Dutch and immigrant third, fifth, and seventh graders, combining a cross-sectional and longitudinal design. Sensitivity and specificity increased with grade, but were non-significant for various subtests in the lowest grade, suggesting considerable non-convergence between the two measures. Effective subtests in all grades, presumably not strongly influenced by Cultural Background or Word Lexicon, were One-Minute Reading, Non-Word Reading, and Nonsense Passage Reading. In a multilevel analysis, cultural background, dyslexia diagnosis, parental education, and grade of first assessment were predictors of subtest performance. In a second analysis, Word Lexicon was added as a proxy of knowledge of the Dutch language and culture. After controlling for Word Lexicon, cultural background became significant for most subtests, suggesting the presence of cultural bias. Subtests assessing technical literacy, such as One-Minute-Reading, Non-Word-Reading, One-Minute-Writing, or Two-Minutes-Spelling, showed more convergence between the two assessments. Less-effective subtests were Naming Pictures, Backward Digit Span, and Verbal and Semantic Fluency. It is concluded that the DST-NL and the standard protocol do not show complete convergence, notably in the lower grades in the multilingual pupil group of our cohort, mainly because dyslexia and literacy difficulties are hard to disentangle.

Using video self- and peer modeling to facilitate reading fluency in children with learning disabilities.

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Decker, Martha M; Buggey, Tom

2014-01-01

The authors compared the effects of video self-modeling and video peer modeling on oral reading fluency of elementary students with learning disabilities. A control group was also included to gauge general improvement due to reading instruction and familiarity with researchers. The results indicated that both interventions resulted in improved fluency. Students in both experimental groups improved their reading fluency. Two students in the self-modeling group made substantial and immediate gains beyond any of the other students. Discussion is included that focuses on the importance that positive imagery can have on student performance and the possible applications of both forms of video modeling with students who have had negative experiences in reading.

The Relationship between Reading Fluency and Lexile Measures

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Purvis, Joshua Steve

2017-01-01

With increasing emphasis being placed on teachers to show an improvement in student achievement, schools are relying on indicators such as reading fluency and reading comprehension to gauge student progress throughout the year. Since the growth on these assessments are used in calculating teachers and administrators' yearly job evaluations, the…

Designing and standardization of Persian version of verbal fluency test among Iranian bilingual (Turkish-Persian adolescents

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Ayyoub Malek

2013-08-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The present study aims to design and standardize the verbal fluency test (VFT among bilingual (Turkish-Persian adolescents in Tabriz, Iran. METHODS: In the designing stage, 190 adolescents who were already selected randomly from among the guidance and high school students in Tabriz were classified into three age groups (11-12, 13-15, 16-18. The screening test including 33 Persian letters and three ‘animal’, ‘fruit’, and ‘supermarket stuff’ categories, and SDQ was administered to them. The results were the three letters ‘M’, ‘D’, and ‘B’ for phonological fluency, and two ‘animal’ and ‘supermarket stuff’ categories for semantic fluency in the Persian language. In the standardization stage, the letters and categories specified in the designing stage were administered in the same order to 302 adolescents. Moreover, 28 adolescents diagnosed with ADHD were selected to estimate the discriminant validity of VFT. RESULTS: Pearson correlation coefficient between test-retest of the three letters ‘M’, ‘D’, and ‘B’ for phonological fluency were estimated at 0.67, 0.66, and 0.75, respectively. Furthermore, for the two categories of ‘animal’ and ‘supermarket stuff’ it was estimated to be 0.80 and 0.65, respectively. All these amounts were significant (P < 0.01. The discriminant validity, which was estimated through comparison between the scores of normal and ADHD adolescents, showed that the obtained t value for all indices except for the letter ‘B’ was meaningful. The results of MANOVA between two gender groups were significant at P < 0.05 for three ‘M’, ‘D’, and ‘B’ variables of verbal fluency and ‘animal’ semantic fluency. In both verbal and semantic fluency the mean of subjects’ performance scores showed that females outperformed males. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the current study indicated that VFT is reliable in the studied sample group, and has a valid psychometric

Words, Words, Words: English, Vocabulary.

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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…

Effect of low fluencies of near-ultraviolet radiation on Bacteroides fragilis survival

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Slade, H.J.K.; Jones, D.T.; Woods, D.R.

1982-01-01

Bacteroides fragilis is a convenient obligate anaerobe for an investigation on the effect of near-UV irradiation since the authors have shown that it can be maintained in aerobic solutions for at least 6 h without loss in viability. Furthermore, they recently demonstrated that B. fragilis differs from other bacteria in that it is more sensitive to far-UV (254 nm) radiation in the presence of oxygen. The role of oxygen on near-UV survival in B. fragilis, was investigated. The effect of chloramphenicol was also studied. Survival curves are presented. B. fragilis Bf-2 cells irradiated with increasing fluencies of near-UV light under anaerobic conditions showed no loss in viability. A 'V'-shaped survival curve was obtained when cells were irradiated aerobically. After the initial reduction in viability with fluencies up to 1.5 kJ/m 2 further irradiation resulted in the recovery of colony-forming ability which was maximal at 2.6 kJ/m 2 and remained at this level up to fluencies of 4 kJ/m 2 . (Auth.)

Heidegger: Sense-Nonsense Dualism of Man in Technology Dimensions

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Nathalia Andrea Álvarez

2008-12-01

Full Text Available This article tries to analyze the ontological-existential compromise that man acquires when using new technologies, in the light of theHeideggerian’ proposal. This compromise means, on the one hand, theresponsibility of forgetting the self in technology, which immerses man in a non-sense; and on the other, the will to open himself to the recognition of the ways in which his “being-in-the-world” manifests. To this end, the perils of technological “instrumentalization” will be presented, based upon the Heideggerian explanation about the essence of technology. We will present the Heideggerian concepts of anxiety1 and nothingness concepts, with which we will try to conduct the postmodern man towards the encounter with his original sense.

Recurrent hyperparathyroidism and a novel nonsense mutation in a patient with hyperparathyriodism-jaw tumor syndrome.

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Abdulla, Amer G; O'Leary, Erin M; Isorena, Jennifer P; Diaz, Miguel Fernando Palma; Yeh, Michael W

2013-01-01

To present the case of a hyperparathyroidism-jaw tumor (HPT-JT) patient with a novel nonsense mutation of the CDC73 gene. We present the case of a patient with a history of three prior maxillectomies and two prior parathyroidectomies who presented with recurrent primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT). We also briefly review the literature pertaining to HPT-JT. Genetic analysis revealed a novel nonsense mutation (c.85G>T; pGlu29) in exon 1 of CDC73. The patient's son underwent genetic testing for a CDC73 mutation and was found to be negative. HPT-JT is a rare condition characterized by PHPT and benign tumors of the mandible and maxilla. Up to 15% of HPT-JT patients with PHPT have parathyroid carcinoma. HPT-JT is associated with an inactivating mutation of CDC73, a gene that codes for the tumor suppressor protein parafibromin. This report expands our understanding of the genetics underlying this rare disorder and emphasizes the importance of early detection in order to prevent hypercalcemic complications such as parathyroid carcinoma.

Working Memory Training and Semantic Structuring Improves Remembering Future Events, Not Past Events

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Richter, K.M.; Mödden, C.; Eling, P.A.T.M.; Hildebrandt, H.

2015-01-01

Objectives. Memory training in combination with practice in semantic structuring and word fluency has been shown to improve memory performance. This study investigated the efficacy of a working memory training combined with exercises in semantic structuring and word fluency and examined whether

Behavioral fluency: Evolution of a new paradigm

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Binder, Carl

1996-01-01

Behavioral fluency is that combination of accuracy plus speed of responding that enables competent individuals to function efficiently and effectively in their natural environments. Evolving from the methodology of free-operant conditioning, the practice of precision teaching set the stage for discoveries about relations between behavior frequency and specific outcomes, notably retention and maintenance of performance, endurance or resistance to distraction, and application or transfer of tra...

Semantic Verbal Fluency test in dementia: Preliminary retrospective analysis

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Marcos Lopes

Full Text Available Abstract The Semantic Verbal Fluency (SVF test entails the generation of words from a given category within a pre-set time of 60 seconds. Objectives: To verify whether socio-demographic and clinical data of individuals with dementia correlate with the performance on the SVF test and to ascertain whether differences among the criteria of number of answers, clusters and data spread over the intervals, predict clinical results. Methods: This was a retrospective study of 49 charts of demented patients classified according to the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR scale. We correlated education, age and gender, as well as CDR and Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE scores with the number of answers, clustering and switching distributed over four 15-second intervals on the SVF test. Results: The correlation between number of answers and quartiles was weak (r=0.407, p=0.004; r=0.484, p<0.001 but correlation between the number of clusters and responses was strong (r=0.883, p<0.001. The number of items on the SVF was statistically significant with MMSE score (p=0.01 and there was a tendency for significance on the CDR (p=0.06. The results indicated little activity regarding what we propose to call cluster recalling in the two groups. Discussion: The SVF test, using number of items generated, was found to be more effective than classic screening tests in terms of speed and ease of application in patients with CDR 2 and 3.

Semantic verbal fluency in elderly Mexican adults: Reference values.

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Chávez-Oliveros, M; Rodríguez-Agudelo, Y; Acosta-Castillo, I; García-Ramírez, N; Rojas de la Torre, G; Sosa-Ortiz, A L

2015-05-01

The semantic verbal fluency test (SVF) is sensitive to detecting cognitive decline. It is fast and easy to use in any cultural context; therefore, it is included in most of the neuropsychological assessment protocols. To estimate normative values for the SVF test (animals), in an elderly population aged 65 years and over. 1233 subjects who were healthy, cognitively preserved, residents of two areas (rural and urban) of Mexico were assessed. A neurological and neuropsychological exploration battery was applied, including SVF. The age average was 73+6 and schooling was 4.0+3.9 years, with 59% women. The average of the words generated in the SVF test was 14+5, and a correlation of 0.16 of these scores with age, education, and gender was found (pimportant contribution provided by this study was that the data analysis enabled normative values to be obtained for an elderly Mexican population aged 65 years and over. It was also confirmed, as other neuropsychological assessment studies have done, that the SVF test is influenced by socio-demographic variables, such as age and education, aspects to be considered at the time of obtaining normative values. Finally, it was noted that the average scores obtained were lower than other published reference values, due to the low educational level of our sample. Copyright © 2013 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

The application of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay inhibition to the identification of breast cancer susceptibility genes

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Johnson, Julie K; Waddell, Nic; Chenevix-Trench, Georgia

2012-01-01

Identification of novel, highly penetrant, breast cancer susceptibility genes will require the application of additional strategies beyond that of traditional linkage and candidate gene approaches. Approximately one-third of inherited genetic diseases, including breast cancer susceptibility, are caused by frameshift or nonsense mutations that truncate the protein product [1]. Transcripts harbouring premature termination codons are selectively and rapidly degraded by the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway. Blocking the NMD pathway in any given cell will stabilise these mutant transcripts, which can then be detected using gene expression microarrays. This technique, known as gene identification by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay inhibition (GINI), has proved successful in identifying sporadic nonsense mutations involved in many different cancer types. However, the approach has not yet been applied to identify germline mutations involved in breast cancer. We therefore attempted to use GINI on lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from multiple-case, non- BRCA1/2 breast cancer families in order to identify additional high-risk breast cancer susceptibility genes. We applied GINI to a total of 24 LCLs, established from breast-cancer affected and unaffected women from three multiple-case non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer families. We then used Illumina gene expression microarrays to identify transcripts stabilised by the NMD inhibition. The expression profiling identified a total of eight candidate genes from these three families. One gene, PPARGC1A, was a candidate in two separate families. We performed semi-quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase PCR of all candidate genes but only PPARGC1A showed successful validation by being stabilised in individuals with breast cancer but not in many unaffected members of the same family. Sanger sequencing of all coding and splice site regions of PPARGC1A did not reveal any protein truncating mutations. Haplotype analysis using short

Story Mapping and Its Effects on the Writing Fluency and Word Diversity of Students with Learning Disabilities

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Li, Daqi

2007-01-01

Students with learning disabilities (LD) often experience difficulties in writing fluently and using a diversity of words. To help these students, specific and effective writing strategies must be incorporated into instruction and demonstrated to them through modeling. This study examined the effectiveness of using a story map and story map…

Translational read-through as an alternative approach for ocular gene therapy of retinal dystrophies caused by in-frame nonsense mutations.

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Nagel-Wolfrum, Kerstin; Möller, Fabian; Penner, Inessa; Wolfrum, Uwe

2014-09-01

The eye has become an excellent target for gene therapy, and gene augmentation therapy of inherited retinal disorders has made major progress in recent years. Nevertheless, a recent study indicated that gene augmentation intervention might not stop the progression of retinal degeneration in patients. In addition, for many genes, viral-mediated gene augmentation is currently not feasible due to gene size and limited packaging capacity of viral vectors as well as expression of various heterogeneous isoforms of the target gene. Thus, alternative gene-based strategies to stop or delay the retinal degeneration are necessary. This review focuses on an alternative pharmacologic treatment strategy based on the usage of translational read-through inducing drugs (TRIDs) such as PTC124, aminoglycoside antibiotics, and designer aminoglycosides for overreading in-frame nonsense mutations. This strategy has emerged as an option for up to 30-50% of all cases of recessive hereditary retinal dystrophies. In-frame nonsense mutations are single-nucleotide alterations within the gene coding sequence resulting in a premature stop codon. Consequently, translation of such mutated genes leads to the synthesis of truncated proteins, which are unable to fulfill their physiologic functions. In this context, application of TRIDs facilitates the recoding of the premature termination codon into a sense codon, thus restoring syntheses of full-length proteins. So far, clinical trials for non-ocular diseases have been initiated for diverse TRIDs. Although the clinical outcome is not analyzed in detail, an excellent safety profile, namely for PTC124, was clearly demonstrated. Moreover, recent data demonstrated sustained read-through efficacies of nonsense mutations causing retinal degeneration, as manifested in the human Usher syndrome. In addition, a strong retinal biocompatibility for PTC124 and designer aminoglycosides has been demonstrated. In conclusion, recent progress emphasizes the

Impact of Cover, Copy, and Compare on Fluency Outcomes for Students with Disabilities and Math Deficits: A Review of the Literature

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Stocker, James D., Jr.; Kubina, Richard M., Jr.

2017-01-01

Fluency, a combination of response accuracy and speed, enables students to work efficiently through academic tasks. Students with disabilities and math deficits often struggle to learn math facts fluently. Although issues with fluency frequently coexist with a disability, problems gaining fluency also stem from a lack of practice and appropriate…

Verbal Fluency and Verbal Short-Term Memory in Adults with Down Syndrome and Unspecified Intellectual Disability

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Stavroussi, Panayiota; Andreou, Georgia; Karagiannopoulou, Dimitra

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine verbal fluency and verbal short-term memory in 12 adults with Down syndrome (DS) and 12 adults with Intellectual Disability (ID) of unspecified origin, matched for receptive vocabulary and chronological age. Participants' performance was assessed on two conditions of a verbal fluency test, namely, semantic…

Working memory training and semantic structuring improves remembering future events, not past events.

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Richter, Kim Merle; Mödden, Claudia; Eling, Paul; Hildebrandt, Helmut

2015-01-01

Objectives. Memory training in combination with practice in semantic structuring and word fluency has been shown to improve memory performance. This study investigated the efficacy of a working memory training combined with exercises in semantic structuring and word fluency and examined whether training effects generalize to other cognitive tasks. Methods. In this double-blind randomized control study, 36 patients with memory impairments following brain damage were allocated to either the experimental or the active control condition, with both groups receiving 9 hours of therapy. The experimental group received a computer-based working memory training and exercises in word fluency and semantic structuring. The control group received the standard memory therapy provided in the rehabilitation center. Patients were tested on a neuropsychological test battery before and after therapy, resulting in composite scores for working memory; immediate, delayed, and prospective memory; word fluency; and attention. Results. The experimental group improved significantly in working memory and word fluency. The training effects also generalized to prospective memory tasks. No specific effect on episodic memory could be demonstrated. Conclusion. Combined treatment of working memory training with exercises in semantic structuring is an effective method for cognitive rehabilitation of organic memory impairment. © The Author(s) 2014.

The course of language functions after temporal lobe epilepsy surgery: a prospective study.

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Giovagnoli, A R; Parente, A; Didato, G; Manfredi, V; Deleo, F; Tringali, G; Villani, F

2016-12-01

Anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) within the language-dominant hemisphere can impair naming. This prospective study examined the pre-operative to post-operative course of different language components, clarifying which changes are relevant within the short-term and long-term outcome of language. Patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) were evaluated using the Token, Boston Naming and Word Fluency tests assessing sentence comprehension and word-finding on visual, semantic or phonemic cues. A total of 106 patients were evaluated before and 6 months, 1 and 2 years after ATL; 60 patients were also evaluated after 5 years and 38 controls were assessed at baseline. Seizure outcome was comparable between the left and right TLE patients. Before surgery, naming and word fluency were impaired in the left and right TLE patients, whereas sentence comprehension was normal. After left or right ATL, word fluency progressively improved, naming showed early worsening and late improvement after left ATL and progressive improvement after right ATL, and sentence comprehension did not change. At the 5-year follow-up, naming improvement was clinically significant in 31% and 71% of the left and right TLE patients, respectively. Pre-operative naming, ATL laterality, schooling, and post-operative seizure frequency and number of antiepileptic drugs predicted post-operative naming. Pre-operative word fluency and schooling predicted post-operative word fluency. Left or right TLE can impair word-finding but not sentence comprehension. After ATL, word-finding may improve for a long time, depending on TLE laterality, seizure control and mental reserve. These findings may clarify prognosis prior to treatment. © 2016 EAN.

Differential Memory of Picture and Word Stimuli in a Paired-Associate Learning Task.

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Bartels, Laura Grand; Feinbloom, Jessica

Ten concrete nouns represented in either a pictorial or a linguistic mode and accompanied by ten nonsense syllables were shown to 77 college students in a study of how pictorial stimuli varied in recall and recognition tasks. The group receiving pictorial stimuli recalled and recognized significantly more nonsense syllables than did the group…

Using a Technology-Supported Approach to Preservice Teachers' Multirepresentational Fluency: Unifying Mathematical Concepts and Their Representations

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McGee, Daniel; Moore-Russo, Deborah

2015-01-01

A test project at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez used GeoGebra applets to promote the concept of multirepresentational fluency among high school mathematics preservice teachers. For this study, this fluency was defined as simultaneous awareness of all representations associated with a mathematical concept, as measured by the ability to…

Nonsense,Nonscience,and Science from Creationism to Aliens

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Krauss, L

1997-01-01

In 1996, U.S. presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan announced on national television that he was not descended from monkeys, and moreover, he thought children should not be taught this. Yet, not a single reporter questioned him on this remarkable statement, in spite of detailed questions on his economic policies. For some reason, the media is hesitant, when referring to scientific issues, to indicate that in certain issues there is no debate, namely there is simply a right answer and a wrong answer. This is so in spite of the fact that science provides, perhaps more than anything else, a set of techniques for distinguishing nonsense. I will talk about the historical context of this issue, the dangers it imposes, and provide examples from the press, as well as clips from television and movies, of mixing up science and fiction, as well as describe ways to avoid this.

Influences of early English language teaching on oral fluency

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de Wolf, Stephana; Smit, Nienke; Lowie, Wander

2017-01-01

Elementary-level foreign language education is currently receiving a lot of attention in the literature on second language learning, and has emerged as an important educational policy issue. The present study aims to contribute to this discussion by focusing on the fluency benefits gained from early

Coping with stress in adults with speech fluency disorders

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Magdalena Pietraszek

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Background Stuttering is a developmental speech disorder that affects the fluency of speech. Persons who stutter perceive speaking situations and social interactions as threatening. Participants and procedure Nineteen (47.50% adults with speech fluency disorders (SFD and 21 (52.50% without participated in the study. All participants completed the following measures individually: the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS, and an informational survey. Results Our study confirmed that persons with SFD experience more stressful situations in life and feel greater anxiety, both as a trait and as a state, which influences their daily life. The negative affect experienced contributed to their preferred use of Emotion-Oriented Coping strategies, at the expense of more proactive Task-Oriented Coping. Experienced stress and anxiety influenced and consolidated their habitual stress coping styles, devoted mainly to dealing with negative emotions. Conclusions Stuttering affects daily activities, interpersonal relationships, and the quality of life. Therefore, professional support should include adaptive, task-oriented coping.

An Exploration of the Relationships among Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Theory-Aligned Cognitive Abilities and Math Fluency

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Piselli, Katherine D.

2017-01-01

Math fluency, which refers to the ability to solve single digit arithmetic problems quickly and accurately, is a foundational mathematical skill. Recent research has examined the role of phonological processing, executive control, and number sense in explaining differences in math fluency performance in school-aged children. Identifying the links…

ADHD and adolescent EFL learners’ speaking complexity, accuracy, and fluency in English

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Hamid Marashi

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This study was an attempt to investigate the relationships among Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD and speaking complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF among Iranian EFL learners. To fulfill the purpose of this study, the teachers and parents of 593 male students were given the Farsi version of the CSI-4 ADHD diagnostic questionnaire, out of which 61 students scored above the cut-off score of nine in both the teacher and parent questionnaires. These students then sat for a sample speaking section of the Key English Test (KET; the interviews were scored by two raters according to the measures of CAF. The data were thus analyzed and the results revealed a significant positive correlation between ADHD and speaking fluency; in contrast, a significant negative correlation was observed between ADHD and speaking complexity and ADHD and speaking accuracy. The regressions disclosed that ADHD is a significant predictor of complexity, accuracy, and fluency in speaking. The findings of this study have pedagogical implications for both parents and teachers in contact with students with ADHD with respect to the importance of identifying such students and thus planning and monitoring their progress.

Prosody as a Tool for Assessing Reading Fluency of Adult ESL Students

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Seftirina Evina Sinambela

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The prosodic features in reading aloud assignment has been associated with the students’ decoding skill. The goal of the present study is to determine the reliability of prosody for assessing reading fluency of adult ESL students in Indonesia context. The participants were all Indonesian natives, undergraduate students, adult females and males who have learned English in school (at the very least twice a week for more than 12 years. Text reading prosody was assessed by reading aloud task and the students’ speaking manner was taped and measured by using the Multidimensional Fluency Scale, as for text comprehension was assessed with a standardized test. It was discovered by the current study that prosody is a reliable sign to determine reading fluency and also reading comprehension. The student who did not read the text prosodically (with appropriate expression actually showed that he/she failed to comprehend the text. This study also revealed that a struggling reader was also having low comprehension capacity in listening spoken texts. The ESL students’ common problems to acquire prosodic reading skill are low exposure to the target language and do not have a good model to imitate prosodic reading.

How online learning modules can improve the representational fluency and conceptual understanding of university physics students

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Hill, M.; Sharma, M. D.; Johnston, H.

2015-07-01

The use of online learning resources as core components of university science courses is increasing. Learning resources range from summaries, videos, and simulations, to question banks. Our study set out to develop, implement, and evaluate research-based online learning resources in the form of pre-lecture online learning modules (OLMs). The aim of this paper is to share our experiences with those using, or considering implementing, online learning resources. Our first task was to identify student learning issues in physics to base the learning resources on. One issue with substantial research is conceptual understanding, the other with comparatively less research is scientific representations (graphs, words, equations, and diagrams). We developed learning resources on both these issues and measured their impact. We created weekly OLMs which were delivered to first year physics students at The University of Sydney prior to their first lecture of the week. Students were randomly allocated to either a concepts stream or a representations stream of online modules. The programme was first implemented in 2013 to trial module content, gain experience and process logistical matters and repeated in 2014 with approximately 400 students. Two validated surveys, the Force and Motion Concept Evaluation (FMCE) and the Representational Fluency Survey (RFS) were used as pre-tests and post-tests to measure learning gains while surveys and interviews provided further insights. While both streams of OLMs produced similar positive learning gains on the FMCE, the representations-focussed OLMs produced higher gains on the RFS. Conclusions were triangulated with student responses which indicated that they have recognized the benefit of the OLMs for their learning of physics. Our study shows that carefully designed online resources used as pre-instruction can make a difference in students’ conceptual understanding and representational fluency in physics, as well as make them more aware

Word form Encoding in Chinese Word Naming and Word Typing

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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,…

How Reading Volume Affects both Reading Fluency and Reading Achievement

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Richard L. ALLINGTON

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Long overlooked, reading volume is actually central to the development of reading proficiencies, especially in the development of fluent reading proficiency. Generally no one in schools monitors the actual volume of reading that children engage in. We know that the commonly used commercial core reading programs provide only material that requires about 15 minutes of reading activity daily. The remaining 75 minute of reading lessons is filled with many other activities such as completing workbook pages or responding to low-level literal questions about what has been read. Studies designed to enhance the volume of reading that children do during their reading lessons demonstrate one way to enhance reading development. Repeated readings have been widely used in fostering reading fluency but wide reading options seem to work faster and more broadly in developing reading proficiencies, including oral reading fluency.

Implicit Recognition Based on Lateralized Perceptual Fluency

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Vargas, Iliana M.; Voss, Joel L.; Paller, Ken A.

2012-01-01

In some circumstances, accurate recognition of repeated images in an explicit memory test is driven by implicit memory. We propose that this “implicit recognition” results from perceptual fluency that influences responding without awareness of memory retrieval. Here we examined whether recognition would vary if images appeared in the same or different visual hemifield during learning and testing. Kaleidoscope images were briefly presented left or right of fixation during divided-attention enc...

Subjective memory complaints and their relation with verbal fluency in active older people.

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Bernardes, Flavia Rodrigues; Machado, Camila Kretzer; Souza, Monique Coan; Machado, Marcos José; Belaunde, Aline Megumi Arakawa

2017-05-22

To verify subjective memory complaints and their relation to verbal fluency in older people participating in community groups. An epidemiological quantitative study performed in community groups for older people in Florianópolis, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Data were collected by structured interview using the Memory Complaint Questionnaire (MAC-Q) and the Verbal Fluency Test (VFT) by semantic categories "animals/minute". For an inferential descriptive analysis, data with p people in question and added to the questionnaire). We found no relation between subjective memory complaints and verbal fluency of active older people. Mnemonic complaints were correlated to the negative perception of memory and to the duration of the complaint. However, subjective memory complaints were an indicator for those individuals with negative perception of memory, being one aspect that must be considered in older people's speech when investigating a possible cognitive deterioration. Such data can assist in formulating public health care policies aimed at older people in the city, which emphasizes the importance of verifying subjective memory complaints in this population.

A de novo nonsense PDGFB mutation causing idiopathic basal ganglia calcification with laryngeal dystonia.

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Nicolas, Gaël; Jacquin, Agnès; Thauvin-Robinet, Christel; Rovelet-Lecrux, Anne; Rouaud, Olivier; Pottier, Cyril; Aubriot-Lorton, Marie-Hélène; Rousseau, Stéphane; Wallon, David; Duvillard, Christian; Béjot, Yannick; Frébourg, Thierry; Giroud, Maurice; Campion, Dominique; Hannequin, Didier

2014-10-01

Idiopathic basal ganglia calcification (IBGC) is characterized by brain calcification and a wide variety of neurologic and psychiatric symptoms. In families with autosomal dominant inheritance, three causative genes have been identified: SLC20A2, PDGFRB, and, very recently, PDGFB. Whereas in clinical practice sporadic presentation of IBGC is frequent, well-documented reports of true sporadic occurrence are rare. We report the case of a 20-year-old woman who presented laryngeal dystonia revealing IBGC. Her healthy parents' CT scans were both normal. We identified in the proband a new nonsense mutation in exon 4 of PDGFB, c.439C>T (p.Gln147*), which was absent from the parents' DNA. This mutation may result in a loss-of-function of PDGF-B, which has been shown to cause IBGC in humans and to disrupt the blood-brain barrier in mice, resulting in brain calcification. The c.439C>T mutation is located between two previously reported nonsense mutations, c.433C>T (p.Gln145*) and c.445C>T (p.Arg149*), on a region that could be a hot spot for de novo mutations. We present the first full demonstration of the de novo occurrence of an IBGC-causative mutation in a sporadic case.

Clinical fMRI of language function in aphasic patients: Reading paradigm successful, while word generation paradigm fails

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Engstroem, Maria; Landtblom, Anne-Marie; Ragnehed, Mattias; Lundberg, Peter; Karlsson, Marie; Crone, Marie; Antepohl, Wolfram

2010-01-01

Background: In fMRI examinations, it is very important to select appropriate paradigms assessing the brain function of interest. In addition, the patients' ability to perform the required cognitive tasks during fMRI must be taken into account. Purpose: To evaluate two language paradigms, word generation and sentence reading for their usefulness in examinations of aphasic patients and to make suggestions for improvements of clinical fMRI. Material and Methods: Five patients with aphasia after stroke or trauma sequelae were examined by fMRI. The patients' language ability was screened by neurolinguistic tests and elementary pre-fMRI language tests. Results: The sentence-reading paradigm succeeded to elicit adequate language-related activation in perilesional areas whereas the word generation paradigm failed. These findings were consistent with results on the behavioral tests in that all patients showed very poor performance in phonemic fluency, but scored well above mean at a reading comprehension task. Conclusion: The sentence-reading paradigm is appropriate to assess language function in this patient group, while the word-generation paradigm seems to be inadequate. In addition, it is crucial to use elementary pre-fMRI language tests to guide the fMRI paradigm decision.

Clinical fMRI of language function in aphasic patients: Reading paradigm successful, while word generation paradigm fails

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Engstroem, Maria; Landtblom, Anne-Marie; Ragnehed, Mattias; Lundberg, Peter (Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), Linkoeping Univ., Linkoeping (Sweden)), e-mail: maria.engstrom@liu.se; Karlsson, Marie; Crone, Marie (Dept. of Clinical and Experimental Medicine/Logopedics, Linkoeping Univ., Linkoeping (Sweden)); Antepohl, Wolfram (Dept. of Clinical and Experimental Medicine/Rehabilitation, Linkoeping Univ., Linkoeping (Sweden))

2010-07-15

Background: In fMRI examinations, it is very important to select appropriate paradigms assessing the brain function of interest. In addition, the patients' ability to perform the required cognitive tasks during fMRI must be taken into account. Purpose: To evaluate two language paradigms, word generation and sentence reading for their usefulness in examinations of aphasic patients and to make suggestions for improvements of clinical fMRI. Material and Methods: Five patients with aphasia after stroke or trauma sequelae were examined by fMRI. The patients' language ability was screened by neurolinguistic tests and elementary pre-fMRI language tests. Results: The sentence-reading paradigm succeeded to elicit adequate language-related activation in perilesional areas whereas the word generation paradigm failed. These findings were consistent with results on the behavioral tests in that all patients showed very poor performance in phonemic fluency, but scored well above mean at a reading comprehension task. Conclusion: The sentence-reading paradigm is appropriate to assess language function in this patient group, while the word-generation paradigm seems to be inadequate. In addition, it is crucial to use elementary pre-fMRI language tests to guide the fMRI paradigm decision.

Fluent, Fast, and Frugal? A Formal Model Evaluation of the Interplay between Memory, Fluency, and Comparative Judgments

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Hilbig, Benjamin E.; Erdfelder, Edgar; Pohl, Rudiger F.

2011-01-01

A new process model of the interplay between memory and judgment processes was recently suggested, assuming that retrieval fluency--that is, the speed with which objects are recognized--will determine inferences concerning such objects in a single-cue fashion. This aspect of the fluency heuristic, an extension of the recognition heuristic, has…

A novel KCNQ1 nonsense variant in the isoform-specific first exon causes both jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome 1 and long QT syndrome 1: a case report.

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Nishimura, Motoi; Ueda, Marehiko; Ebata, Ryota; Utsuno, Emi; Ishii, Takuma; Matsushita, Kazuyuki; Ohara, Osamu; Shimojo, Naoki; Kobayashi, Yoshio; Nomura, Fumio

2017-06-08

According to previous KCNQ1 (potassium channel, voltage gated, KQT-like subfamily, member 1) gene screening studies, missense variants, but not nonsense or frame-shift variants, cause the majority of long QT syndrome (LQTS; Romano-Ward syndrome [RWS]) 1 cases. Several missense variants are reported to cause RWS by a dominant-negative mechanism, and some KCNQ1 variants can cause both Jervell and Lange-Nielsen Syndrome (JLNS; in an autosomal recessive manner) and LQTS1 (in an autosomal dominant manner), while other KCNQ1 variants cause only JLNS. The human KCNQ1 gene is known to have two transcript isoforms (kidney isoform and pancreas isoform), and both isoforms can form a functional cardiac potassium channel. Here, we report a novel nonsense KCNQ1 variant causing not only JLNS, but also significant QTc prolongation identical to RWS in an autosomal dominant manner. Our case study supports that haploinsufficiency in the KCNQ1 gene is causative of significant QTc prolongation identical to RWS. Interestingly, the nonsense variant (NM_000218.2:c.115G > T [p.Glu39X]) locates in exon 1a of KCNQ1, which is a kidney-isoform specific exon. The variant is located closer to the N-terminus than previously identified nonsense or frame-shift variants. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report showing that a nonsense variant in exon 1a of KCNQ1, which is the kidney-isoform specific exon, causes JLNS. Our findings may be informative to the genetic pathogenesis of RWS and JLNS caused by KCNQ1 variants.

Atypical performance patterns on Delis-Kaplan Executive Functioning System Color-Word Interference Test: Cognitive switching and learning ability in older adults.

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Berg, Jody-Lynn; Swan, Natasha M; Banks, Sarah J; Miller, Justin B

2016-09-01

Cognitive set shifting requires flexible application of lower level processes. The Delis-Kaplan Executive Functioning System (DKEFS) Color-Word Interference Test (CWIT) is commonly used to clinically assess cognitive set shifting. An atypical pattern of performance has been observed on the CWIT; a subset of individuals perform faster, with equal or fewer errors, on the more difficult inhibition/switching than the inhibition trial. This study seeks to explore the cognitive underpinnings of this atypical pattern. It is hypothesized that atypical patterns on CWIT will be associated with better performance on underlying cognitive measures of attention, working memory, and learning when compared to typical CWIT patterns. Records from 239 clinical referrals (age: M = 68.09 years, SD = 10.62; education: M = 14.87 years, SD = 2.73) seen for a neuropsychological evaluation as part of diagnostic work up in an outpatient dementia and movement disorders clinic were sampled. The standard battery of tests included measures of attention, learning, fluency, executive functioning, and working memory. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to compare the cognitive performance of those with typical versus atypical CWIT patterns. An atypical pattern of performance was confirmed in 23% of our sample. Analyses revealed a significant group difference in acquisition of information on both nonverbal (Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised, BVMT-R total recall), F(1, 213) = 16.61, p < .001, and verbal (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised, HVLT-R total recall) learning tasks, F(1, 181) = 6.43, p < .01, and semantic fluency (Animal Naming), F(1, 232) = 7.57, p = .006, with the atypical group performing better on each task. Effect sizes were larger for nonverbal (Cohen's d = 0.66) than verbal learning (Cohen's d = 0.47) and semantic fluency (Cohen's d = 0.43). Individuals demonstrating an atypical pattern of performance on the CWIT inhibition/switching trial also demonstrated relative

Waardenburg syndrome type II in a Chinese patient caused by a novel nonsense mutation in the SOX10 gene.

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Ma, Jing; Zhang, Tie-Song; Lin, Ken; Sun, Hao; Jiang, Hong-Chao; Yang, Yan-Li; Low, Fan; Gao, Ying-Qin; Ruan, Biao

2016-06-01

Waardenburg syndrome is a congenital genetic disorder. It is the most common type of syndromic hearing impairment with highly genetic heterogeneity and proved to be related by 6 genes as follows: PAX3, MITF, SNAI2, EDN3, EDNRB and SOX10. This article aims to identify the genetic causes of a Chinese WS child patient. A Chinese WS child was collected for clinical data collection by questionnaire survey. DNA samples of proband and his parents were extracted from peripheral blood samples. Six candidate genes were sequenced by the Trusight One sequencing panel on the illumina NextSeq 500 platform. A novel nonsense heterozygous mutation was found in the coding region of exon 2 in the SOX10 gene of proband. The novel nonsense heterozygous mutation could cause the replacement of the 55th lysine codon by stop codon (484T > C, C142R) and further more possibly cause terminating the protein translation in advance. However, both proband's parents had no mutation of genes above mentioned. The gene mutation of SOX10 [NM_006941.3 c.163A > T] is a novel nonsense mutation. No record of this mutation has been found in dbSNP, HGMD, 1000 Genomes Project, ClinVar and ESP6500 databases. It meets the condition of PS2 of strong evidence in 2015 ACMG Standards and Guidelines. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cortical thinning in the anterior cingulate cortex predicts multiple sclerosis patients' fluency performance in a lateralised manner

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Olivia Geisseler

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Cognitive impairment is as an important feature of Multiple Sclerosis (MS, and might be even more relevant to patients than mobility restrictions. Compared to the multitude of studies investigating memory deficits or basic cognitive slowing, executive dysfunction is a rarely studied cognitive domain in MS, and its neural correlates remain largely unexplored. Even rarer are topological studies on specific cognitive functions in MS. Here we used several structural MRI parameters – including cortical thinning and T2 lesion load – to investigate neural correlates of executive dysfunction, both on a global and a regional level by means of voxel- and vertex-wise analyses. Forty-eight patients with relapsing-remitting MS and 48 healthy controls participated in the study. Five executive functions were assessed, i.e. verbal and figural fluency, working memory, interference control and set shifting. Patients scored lower than controls in verbal and figural fluency only, and displayed widespread cortical thinning. On a global level, cortical thickness independently predicted verbal fluency performance, when controlling for lesion volume and central brain atrophy estimates. On a regional level, cortical thinning in the anterior cingulate region correlated with deficits in verbal and figural fluency and did so in a lateralised manner: Left-sided thinning was related to reduced verbal – but not figural – fluency, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for right-sided thinning. We conclude that executive dysfunction in MS patients can specifically affect verbal and figural fluency. The observed lateralised clinico-anatomical correlation has previously been described in brain-damaged patients with large focal lesions only, for example after stroke. Based on focal grey matter atrophy, we here show for the first time comparable lateralised findings in a white matter disease with widespread pathology.

Auditory Masking Effects on Speech Fluency in Apraxia of Speech and Aphasia: Comparison to Altered Auditory Feedback

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Jacks, Adam; Haley, Katarina L.

2015-01-01

Purpose: To study the effects of masked auditory feedback (MAF) on speech fluency in adults with aphasia and/or apraxia of speech (APH/AOS). We hypothesized that adults with AOS would increase speech fluency when speaking with noise. Altered auditory feedback (AAF; i.e., delayed/frequency-shifted feedback) was included as a control condition not…

Effects of Metalinguistic Awareness on Reading Comprehension and the Mediator Role of Reading Fluency from Grades 2 to 4

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Li, Liping; Wu, Xinchun

2015-01-01

Purpose This study examined the contribution of metalinguistic awareness including morphological awareness, phonological awareness and orthographical awareness to reading comprehension, and the role of reading fluency as a mediator of the effects of metalinguistic awareness on reading comprehension from grades 2 to 4. Methods Four hundred and fifteen elementary students in China mainland were administered a test battery that included measures of morphological awareness, phonological awareness, orthographical awareness, reading fluency, reading comprehension and IQ. Hierarchical regression and structural equation models (SEM) were used to analyze the data. Results Morphological awareness uniquely explained 9%, 10% and 13% variance of reading comprehension respectively from grade 2 to grade 4, however, phonological awareness and orthographical awareness did not contribute to reading comprehension; Reading fluency partially mediated the effect of morphological awareness on reading comprehension in grades 2-4. Conclusions These findings indicated that reading fluency and morphological awareness should be facilitated in the Chinese instruction. Morphological awareness played an important role in Chinese reading and affected reading comprehension in grades 2 to 4; Reading fluency was a significant link between morphological awareness and reading comprehension in grades 2-4. PMID:25799530

Electrophysiological signals associated with fluency of different levels of processing reveal multiple contributions to recognition memory.

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Li, Bingbing; Taylor, Jason R; Wang, Wei; Gao, Chuanji; Guo, Chunyan

2017-08-01

Processing fluency appears to influence recognition memory judgements, and the manipulation of fluency, if misattributed to an effect of prior exposure, can result in illusory memory. Although it is well established that fluency induced by masked repetition priming leads to increased familiarity, manipulations of conceptual fluency have produced conflicting results, variously affecting familiarity or recollection. Some recent studies have found that masked conceptual priming increases correct recollection (Taylor & Henson, 2012), and the magnitude of this behavioural effect correlates with analogous fMRI BOLD priming effects in brain regions associated with recollection (Taylor, Buratto, & Henson, 2013). However, the neural correlates and time-courses of masked repetition and conceptual priming were not compared directly in previous studies. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify and compare the electrophysiological correlates of masked repetition and conceptual priming and investigate how they contribute to recognition memory. Behavioural results were consistent with previous studies: Repetition primes increased familiarity, whereas conceptual primes increased correct recollection. Masked repetition and conceptual priming also decreased the latency of late parietal component (LPC). Masked repetition priming was associated with an early P200 effect and a later parietal maximum N400 effect, whereas masked conceptual priming was only associated with a central-parietal maximum N400 effect. In addition, the topographic distributions of the N400 repetition priming and conceptual priming effects were different. These results suggest that fluency at different levels of processing is associated with different ERP components, and contributes differentially to subjective recognition memory experiences. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Influences of Early English Language Teaching on Oral Fluency

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de Wolf, Stephana; Smit, Nienke; Lowie, Wander

2017-01-01

Elementary-level foreign language education is currently receiving a lot of attention in the literature on second language learning, and has emerged as an important educational policy issue. The present study aims to contribute to this discussion by focusing on the fluency benefits gained from early foreign language teaching. The participants were…

The Impact of Visual-Spatial Attention on Reading and Spelling in Chinese Children

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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…

Do dyslexics have auditory input processing difficulties?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Mads

2011-01-01

Word production difficulties are well documented in dyslexia, whereas the results are mixed for receptive phonological processing. This asymmetry raises the possibility that the core phonological deficit of dyslexia is restricted to output processing stages. The present study investigated whether....... The finding suggests that input processing difficulties are associated with the phonological deficit, but that these difficulties may be stronger above the level of phoneme perception.......Word production difficulties are well documented in dyslexia, whereas the results are mixed for receptive phonological processing. This asymmetry raises the possibility that the core phonological deficit of dyslexia is restricted to output processing stages. The present study investigated whether...... a group of dyslexics had word level receptive difficulties using an auditory lexical decision task with long words and nonsense words. The dyslexics were slower and less accurate than chronological age controls in an auditory lexical decision task, with disproportionate low performance on nonsense words...

Two Mechanisms of Constructive Recollection: Perceptual Recombination and Conceptual Fluency

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Doss, Manoj K.; Bluestone, Maximilian R.; Gallo, David A.

2016-01-01

Recollection is constructive and prone to distortion, but the mechanisms through which recollections can become embellished with rich yet illusory details are still debated. According to the conceptual fluency hypothesis, abstract semantic or conceptual activation increases the familiarity of a nonstudied event, causing one to falsely attribute…

Maintaining students’ Speaking Fluency through Exhibition Examination in Sociolinguistic Studies

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Khusnul Qhotimah Yuliatuty

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Using exhibition for the final project in Sociolinguistic study is really interesting for Universitas Siswa Bangsa Internasional students, especially for 2011 English Department students. Exhibition becomes interesting because this is the new thing to conduct the final project for English Department students’ cohort 2011 at Universitas Siswa Bangsa Internasional. The lecturer divides the students into pairs and each pairs should master one content or topic in Sociolinguistic study.  The students will do the exhibition about the topic that they get in a pairs. The lecturer also gives the students rubric sheet to fill by the visitors. The exhibition will make the students prepare themselves well because they will face many questions about the content which will be delivered by them. Beside, this exhibition also maintains students’ fluency in speaking English because they will explain and answer the questions from visitors with English. This paper tries to focus on how exhibition examination can maintain students’ fluency in speaking English.

Murine knockin model for progranulin-deficient frontotemporal dementia with nonsense-mediated mRNA decay.

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Nguyen, Andrew D; Nguyen, Thi A; Zhang, Jiasheng; Devireddy, Swathi; Zhou, Ping; Karydas, Anna M; Xu, Xialian; Miller, Bruce L; Rigo, Frank; Ferguson, Shawn M; Huang, Eric J; Walther, Tobias C; Farese, Robert V

2018-03-20

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder in individuals under age 60 and has no treatment or cure. Because many cases of FTD result from GRN nonsense mutations, an animal model for this type of mutation is highly desirable for understanding pathogenesis and testing therapies. Here, we generated and characterized Grn R493X knockin mice, which model the most common human GRN mutation, a premature stop codon at arginine 493 (R493X). Homozygous Grn R493X mice have markedly reduced Grn mRNA levels, lack detectable progranulin protein, and phenocopy Grn knockout mice, with CNS microgliosis, cytoplasmic TDP-43 accumulation, reduced synaptic density, lipofuscinosis, hyperinflammatory macrophages, excessive grooming behavior, and reduced survival. Inhibition of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) by genetic, pharmacological, or antisense oligonucleotide-based approaches showed that NMD contributes to the reduced mRNA levels in Grn R493X mice and cell lines and in fibroblasts from patients containing the GRN R493X mutation. Moreover, the expressed truncated R493X mutant protein was functional in several assays in progranulin-deficient cells. Together, these findings establish a murine model for in vivo testing of NMD inhibition or other therapies as potential approaches for treating progranulin deficiency caused by the R493X mutation. Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

A nonsense mutation in CRYGC associated with autosomal dominant congenital nuclear cataract in a Chinese family.

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Yao, Ke; Jin, Chongfei; Zhu, Ning; Wang, Wei; Wu, Renyi; Jiang, Jin; Shentu, Xingchao

2008-07-09

To identify the genetic defect associated with autosomal dominant congenital nuclear cataract in a Chinese family. Family history and phenotypic data were recorded, and the phenotypes were documented by slit lamp photography. The genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes. All the exons and flanking intronic sequences of CRYGC and CRYGD were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and screened for mutation by direct DNA sequencing. Structural models of the wild type and mutant gammaC-crystallin were generated and analyzed by SWISS-MODEL. Sequencing of the coding regions of CRYGC and CRYGD showed the presence of a heterozygous C>A transversion at c.327 of the coding sequence in exon 3 of CRYGC (c.327C>A), which results in the substitution of a wild type cysteine to a nonsense codon (C109X). One and a half Greek key motifs at the COOH-terminus were found to be absent in the structural model of the mutant truncated gammaC-crystallin. A novel nonsense mutation in CRYGC was detected in a Chinese family with consistent autosomal dominant congenital nuclear cataract, providing clear evidence of a relationship between the genotype and the corresponding cataract phenotype.

New insights into the interplay between the translation machinery and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay factors.

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Raimondeau, Etienne; Bufton, Joshua C; Schaffitzel, Christiane

2018-06-19

Faulty mRNAs with a premature stop codon (PTC) are recognized and degraded by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). Recognition of a nonsense mRNA depends on translation and on the presence of NMD-enhancing or the absence of NMD-inhibiting factors in the 3'-untranslated region. Our review summarizes our current understanding of the molecular function of the conserved NMD factors UPF3B and UPF1, and of the anti-NMD factor Poly(A)-binding protein, and their interactions with ribosomes translating PTC-containing mRNAs. Our recent discovery that UPF3B interferes with human translation termination and enhances ribosome dissociation in vitro , whereas UPF1 is inactive in these assays, suggests a re-interpretation of previous experiments and modification of prevalent NMD models. Moreover, we discuss recent work suggesting new functions of the key NMD factor UPF1 in ribosome recycling, inhibition of translation re-initiation and nascent chain ubiquitylation. These new findings suggest that the interplay of UPF proteins with the translation machinery is more intricate than previously appreciated, and that this interplay quality-controls the efficiency of termination, ribosome recycling and translation re-initiation. © 2018 The Author(s).

Nonsense mutants in the bacteriophage T4D v gene

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Minderhout, L van; Grimbergen, J; Groot, B de [Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Netherlands). Lab. voor Stralengenetica en Chemische Mutagenese; Cohen (J.A.) Instituut voor Radiopathologie en Stralenbescherming, Leiden (Netherlands))

1975-09-01

Ten UV-sensitive mutants of T4D with the v phenotype were isolated. Of these ten mutants, two are amber and two opal. In UV curves and in photoreactivation and multiplicity reactivation experiments the nonsense mutants show the v phenotype in su/sup -/ hosts and almost the T4/sup +/ phenotype in su/sup +/ hosts. The mutations are located between rl and e and are alleles of v/sub 1/. In crosses with irradiated and non-irradiated phages the recombinant frequency is not reduced by uvs5. Amber uvs5 propagated in CR63 su/sup +/ is with B su/sup -/ just as sensitive to UV as uvs5 propagated in B su/sup -/, which permits the conclusion that the capsid of T4 phage particles does not contain the v gene product.

Teachers Engaging Parents as Tutors to Improve Oral Reading Fluency

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Kupzyk, Sara S.

2012-01-01

This dissertation examined the application of evidence-based tutoring for oral reading fluency (ORF) to a natural setting, using teachers as parent trainers. Measures used to determine the impact of parent tutoring included treatment integrity, student reading outcomes, attitudes towards involvement and reading, and social validity. Six teachers…

Scrutinizing the Factors Affecting Fluency of English among Arab Learners

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Al Ghazali, Fawzi

2017-01-01

This research study investigates the cognitive, psychological and personal factors affecting the accuracy and fluency of English language usage among Arab learners. Early research led by Chomsky (1965) and Krashen (1981) suggested that an individual's Language Acquisition Device once triggered at the appropriate time and supported with adequate…

Modulating phonemic fluency performance in healthy subjects with transcranial magnetic stimulation over the left or right lateral frontal cortex.

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Smirni, Daniela; Turriziani, Patrizia; Mangano, Giuseppa Renata; Bracco, Martina; Oliveri, Massimiliano; Cipolotti, Lisa

2017-07-28

A growing body of evidence have suggested that non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), can improve the performance of aphasic patients in language tasks. For example, application of inhibitory rTMS or tDCs over the right frontal lobe of dysphasic patients resulted in improved naming abilities. Several studies have also reported that in healthy controls (HC) tDCS application over the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) improve performance in naming and semantic fluency tasks. The aim of this study was to investigate in HC, for the first time, the effects of inhibitory repetitive TMS (rTMS) over left and right lateral frontal cortex (BA 47) on two phonemic fluency tasks (FAS or FPL). 44 right-handed HCs were administered rTMS or sham over the left or right lateral frontal cortex in two separate testing sessions, with a 24h interval, followed by the two phonemic fluency tasks. To account for possible practice effects, an additional 22 HCs were tested on only the phonemic fluency task across two sessions with no stimulation. We found that rTMS-inhibition over the left lateral frontal cortex significantly worsened phonemic fluency performance when compared to sham. In contrast, rTMS-inhibition over the right lateral frontal cortex significantly improved phonemic fluency performance when compared to sham. These results were not accounted for practice effects. We speculated that rTMS over the right lateral frontal cortex may induce plastic neural changes to the left lateral frontal cortex by suppressing interhemispheric inhibitory interactions. This resulted in an increased excitability (disinhibition) of the contralateral unstimulated left lateral frontal cortex, consequently enhancing phonemic fluency performance. Conversely, application of rTMS over the left lateral frontal cortex may induce a temporary, virtual lesion, with effects similar to those reported in left frontal

Effect of Music-Integrated Instruction on First Graders' Reading Fluency

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Bryant, Kerry G.

2012-01-01

The study examined music-integrated (MI) instruction, framed by automatic information processing theory and elements of prosody. A quasi-experimental, pre- and posttest design was utilized to ascertain the effect of MI instruction on reading fluency among first grade students. Subjects were students in two public elementary schools in Georgia. To…

Specificity and overlap in skills underpinning reading and arithmetical fluency

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van Daal, V.; van der Leij, A.; Adèr, H.

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine unique and common causes of problems in reading and arithmetic fluency. 13- to 14-year-old students were placed into one of five groups: reading disabled (RD, n = 16), arithmetic disabled (AD, n = 34), reading and arithmetic disabled (RAD, n = 17), reading,

Efficacy of a Word- and Text-Based Intervention for Students With Significant Reading Difficulties.

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Vaughn, Sharon; Roberts, Garrett J; Miciak, Jeremy; Taylor, Pat; Fletcher, Jack M

2018-05-01

We examine the efficacy of an intervention to improve word reading and reading comprehension in fourth- and fifth-grade students with significant reading problems. Using a randomized control trial design, we compare the fourth- and fifth-grade reading outcomes of students with severe reading difficulties who were provided a researcher-developed treatment with reading outcomes of students in a business-as-usual (BAU) comparison condition. A total of 280 fourth- and fifth-grade students were randomly assigned within school in a 1:1 ratio to either the BAU comparison condition ( n = 139) or the treatment condition ( n = 141). Treatment students were provided small-group tutoring for 30 to 45 minutes for an average of 68 lessons (mean hours of instruction = 44.4, SD = 11.2). Treatment students performed statistically significantly higher than BAU students on a word reading measure (effect size [ES] = 0. 58) and a measure of reading fluency (ES = 0.46). Though not statistically significant, effect sizes for students in the treatment condition were consistently higher than BAU students for decoding measures (ES = 0.06, 0.08), and mixed for comprehension (ES = -0.02, 0.14).

Multiple context mere exposure: Examining the limits of liking.

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de Zilva, Daniel; Newell, Ben R; Mitchell, Chris J

2016-01-01

Recent evidence suggests that increased liking of exposed stimuli-a phenomenon known as the mere exposure effect-is dependent on experiencing the stimuli in the same context at exposure and test. Three experiments extended this work by examining the effect of presenting target stimuli in single and multiple exposure contexts. Target face stimuli were repeatedly paired with nonsense words, which took the role of contexts, across exposure. On test, the mere exposure effect was found only when the target face stimuli were presented with nonsense word cues (contexts) with which they had been repeatedly paired. The mere exposure effect was eliminated when exposure to target face stimuli with the nonsense word cues (contexts) was minimal, despite the overall number of exposures to the target face being equated across single- and multiple-context exposure conditions. The results suggest that familiarity of the relationship between stimuli and their context, not simply familiarity of the stimuli themselves, leads to liking. The finding supports a broader framework, which suggests that liking is partly a function of the consistency between past and present experiences with a target stimulus.

Oral Reading Fluency Testing: Pitfalls for Children with Speech Disorders

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Howland, Karole; Scaler Scott, Kathleen

2016-01-01

As school districts nationwide have moved toward data driven intervention, oral reading fluency measures have become a prevalent means to monitor progress by assessing the degree to which a child is becoming a fast (and therefore fluent) reader. This article reviews results of a survey of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working with children…

Beneficial read-through of a USH1C nonsense mutation by designed aminoglycoside NB30 in the retina.

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Goldmann, Tobias; Rebibo-Sabbah, Annie; Overlack, Nora; Nudelman, Igor; Belakhov, Valery; Baasov, Timor; Ben-Yosef, Tamar; Wolfrum, Uwe; Nagel-Wolfrum, Kerstin

2010-12-01

The human Usher syndrome (USH) is the most frequent cause of inherited combined deaf-blindness. USH is clinically and genetically heterogeneous, assigned to three clinical types. The most severe type is USH1, characterized by profound inner ear defects and retinitis pigmentosa. Thus far, no effective treatment for the ophthalmic component of USH exists. The p.R31X nonsense mutation in USH1C leads to a disease causing premature termination of gene translation. Here, we investigated the capability of the novel synthetic aminoglycoside NB30 for the translational read-through of the USH1C-p.R31X nonsense mutation as a retinal therapy option. Read-through of p.R31X by three commercial, clinically applied aminoglycosides and the synthetic derivative NB30 was validated in vitro, in cell culture, and in retinal explants. Restoration of harmonin functions was monitored in GST pull-downs (scaffold function) and by F-actin bundling analysis in HEK293T cells. Biocompatibility of aminoglycosides was determined in retinal explants by TUNEL assays. In vitro translation and analyses of transfected HEK293T cells revealed a dose-dependent read-through by all aminoglycosides. In addition, gentamicin, paromomycin, and NB30 induced read-through of p.R31X in mouse retinal explants. The read-through of p.R31X restored harmonin protein function. In contrast to all commercial aminoglycosides NB30 showed good biocompatibility. Commercial aminoglycosides and NB30 induced significant read-through of the USH1C-p.R31X nonsense mutation. However, the observed read-through efficiency, along with its significantly reduced toxicity and good biocompatibility, indicate that the novel derivate NB30 represents a better choice than commercial aminoglycosides in a read-through therapy of USH1C and other ocular diseases.

Behavioral and Neural Representations of Spatial Directions across Words, Schemas, and Images.

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Weisberg, Steven M; Marchette, Steven A; Chatterjee, Anjan

2018-05-23

Modern spatial navigation requires fluency with multiple representational formats, including visual scenes, signs, and words. These formats convey different information. Visual scenes are rich and specific but contain extraneous details. Arrows, as an example of signs, are schematic representations in which the extraneous details are eliminated, but analog spatial properties are preserved. Words eliminate all spatial information and convey spatial directions in a purely abstract form. How does the human brain compute spatial directions within and across these formats? To investigate this question, we conducted two experiments on men and women: a behavioral study that was preregistered and a neuroimaging study using multivoxel pattern analysis of fMRI data to uncover similarities and differences among representational formats. Participants in the behavioral study viewed spatial directions presented as images, schemas, or words (e.g., "left"), and responded to each trial, indicating whether the spatial direction was the same or different as the one viewed previously. They responded more quickly to schemas and words than images, despite the visual complexity of stimuli being matched. Participants in the fMRI study performed the same task but responded only to occasional catch trials. Spatial directions in images were decodable in the intraparietal sulcus bilaterally but were not in schemas and words. Spatial directions were also decodable between all three formats. These results suggest that intraparietal sulcus plays a role in calculating spatial directions in visual scenes, but this neural circuitry may be bypassed when the spatial directions are presented as schemas or words. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Human navigators encounter spatial directions in various formats: words ("turn left"), schematic signs (an arrow showing a left turn), and visual scenes (a road turning left). The brain must transform these spatial directions into a plan for action. Here, we investigate

Effect of herbal medicine on Poststroke cognitive deficit

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Jae-kyu Kim

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Objectives : The aim of study was to evaluate the effect of Herbal medicine on post stroke cognitive deficit. Methods : All groups were treated with acupunture treatment, moxa treatment, herbal medicines, physical and occupational therapy for 4 weeks, additionally cardiotonic pills(CP were taken in the cardiotonic pills group. The effect of treatment was assessed using Verval fluency, MMSE-KC, Word List Immediate Recall test. Statistical significance was achived if the probability was less than 5%(p,0.05. Results : Verval fluency, MMSE-KC, Word List Immediate Recall test scores increased in both group. MMSEKC, Word List Immediate Recall test scores were significantly increased in the CP group. Verval fluency, MMSE-KC, Word List Immediate Recall test scores were significantly increased in the control group. In the Verval fluency, MMSE-KC, Word List Immediate Recall test of the CP group more increased compared to the control group. There were no significant differences between two groups. In the CP group, the scores of the infarction group more increased compared to the hemorrhage group. Conclusions : According to the these results, herbal medicines are effective to improve post stroke cognitive-deficit. Futher studies are needed to know cardiotonic pills in the ischemic stroke.

The impact of pushed output on accuracy and fluency of Iranian EFL learners’ speaking

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Aram Reza Sadeghi Beniss

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The current study attempted to establish baseline quantitative data on the impacts of pushed output on two components of speaking (i.e., accuracy and fluency. To achieve this purpose, 30 female EFL learners were selected from a whole population pool of 50 based on the standard test of IELTS interview and were randomly assigned into an experimental group and a control group. The participants in the experimental group received pushed output treatment while the students in the control group received non-pushed output instruction. The data were collected through IELTS interview and then the interview of each participant was separately tape-recorded and later transcribed and coded to measure accuracy and fluency. Then, the independent samples t-test was employed to analyze the collected data. The results revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in accuracy. In contrast, findings substantiated that pushed output had no impact on fluency. The positive impact of pushed output demonstrated in this study is consistent with the hypothesized function of Swain’s (1985 pushed output. The results can provide some useful insights into syllabus design and English language teaching.

Memorial familiarity remains intact for pictures but not for words in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

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Embree, Lindsay M; Budson, Andrew E; Ally, Brandon A

2012-07-01

Understanding how memory breaks down in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) process has significant implications, both clinically and with respect to intervention development. Previous work has highlighted a robust picture superiority effect in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). However, it remains unclear as to how pictures improve memory compared to words in this patient population. In the current study, we utilized receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to obtain estimates of familiarity and recollection for pictures and words in patients with aMCI and healthy older controls. Analysis of accuracy shows that even when performance is matched between pictures and words in the healthy control group, patients with aMCI continue to show a significant picture superiority effect. The results of the ROC analysis showed that patients demonstrated significantly impaired recollection and familiarity for words compared controls. In contrast, patients with aMCI demonstrated impaired recollection, but intact familiarity for pictures, compared to controls. Based on previous work from our lab, we speculate that patients can utilize the rich conceptual information provided by pictures to enhance familiarity, and perceptual information may allow for post-retrieval monitoring or verification of the enhanced sense of familiarity. Alternatively, the combination of enhanced conceptual and perceptual fluency of the test item might drive a stronger or more robust sense of familiarity that can be accurately attributed to a studied item. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contribution of Word Reading Speed to Reading Comprehension in Brazilian Children: Does Speed Matter to the Comprehension Model?

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Alessandra G. Seabra

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Studies have suggested that reading speed (RS or fluency should be a component of reading comprehension (RC models. There is also evidence of a relationship between RS and RC. However, some questions remain to be explored, as the changes in such a relationship may be a function of development. In addition, while there are studies published with English speakers and learners, less evidence exists in more transparent orthographies, such as Portuguese. This study investigated the relationship between RC and RS in typical readers. Objectives included elucidating the following: (1 the contribution of RS to RC controlling for intelligence, word recognition, and listening and (2 the differential relationships and contributions of RS to comprehension in different school grades. The sample of participants comprised 212 students (M = 8.76; SD = 1.06 from 2nd to 4th grade. We assessed intelligence, word recognition, word RS, listening, and RC. Performance in all tests increased as a function of grade. There were significant connections between RC and all other measures. Nonetheless, the regression analysis revealed that word RS has a unique contribution to RC after controlling for intelligence, word recognition, and listening, with a very modest but significant improvement in the explanatory power of the model. We found a significant relationship between RS and RC only for 4th grade and such relationship becomes marginal after controlling for word recognition. The findings suggest that RS could contribute to RC in Portuguese beyond the variance shared with listening and, mainly, word recognition, but such a contribution was very small. The data also reveal a differential relationship between RS and RC in different school grades; specifically, only for the 4th grade does RS begins to relate to RC. The findings add a developmental perspective to the study of reading models.

A dual-process perspective on fluency-based aesthetics: the pleasure-interest model of aesthetic liking.

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Graf, Laura K M; Landwehr, Jan R

2015-11-01

In this article, we develop an account of how aesthetic preferences can be formed as a result of two hierarchical, fluency-based processes. Our model suggests that processing performed immediately upon encountering an aesthetic object is stimulus driven, and aesthetic preferences that accrue from this processing reflect aesthetic evaluations of pleasure or displeasure. When sufficient processing motivation is provided by a perceiver's need for cognitive enrichment and/or the stimulus' processing affordance, elaborate perceiver-driven processing can emerge, which gives rise to fluency-based aesthetic evaluations of interest, boredom, or confusion. Because the positive outcomes in our model are pleasure and interest, we call it the Pleasure-Interest Model of Aesthetic Liking (PIA Model). Theoretically, this model integrates a dual-process perspective and ideas from lay epistemology into processing fluency theory, and it provides a parsimonious framework to embed and unite a wealth of aesthetic phenomena, including contradictory preference patterns for easy versus difficult-to-process aesthetic stimuli. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Specificity and Overlap in Skills Underpinning Reading and Arithmetical Fluency

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van Daal, Victor; van der Leij, Aryan; Ader, Herman

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine unique and common causes of problems in reading and arithmetic fluency. 13- to 14-year-old students were placed into one of five groups: reading disabled (RD, n = 16), arithmetic disabled (AD, n = 34), reading and arithmetic disabled (RAD, n = 17), reading, arithmetic, and listening comprehension disabled…

Chromosome VIII disomy influences the nonsense suppression efficiency and transition metal tolerance of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

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Zadorsky, S P; Sopova, Y V; Andreichuk, D Y; Startsev, V A; Medvedeva, V P; Inge-Vechtomov, S G

2015-06-01

The SUP35 gene of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes the translation termination factor eRF3. Mutations in this gene lead to the suppression of nonsense mutations and a number of other pleiotropic phenotypes, one of which is impaired chromosome segregation during cell division. Similar effects result from replacing the S. cerevisiae SUP35 gene with its orthologues. A number of genetic and epigenetic changes that occur in the sup35 background result in partial compensation for this suppressor effect. In this study we showed that in S. cerevisiae strains in which the SUP35 orthologue from the yeast Pichia methanolica replaces the S. cerevisiae SUP35 gene, chromosome VIII disomy results in decreased efficiency of nonsense suppression. This antisuppressor effect is not associated with decreased stop codon read-through. We identified SBP1, a gene that localizes to chromosome VIII, as a dosage-dependent antisuppressor that strongly contributes to the overall antisuppressor effect of chromosome VIII disomy. Disomy of chromosome VIII also leads to a change in the yeast strains' tolerance of a number of transition metal salts. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Combinatorics on words Christoffel words and repetitions in words

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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...

The visual attention span deficit in Chinese children with reading fluency difficulty.

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Zhao, Jing; Liu, Menglian; Liu, Hanlong; Huang, Chen

2018-02-01

With reading development, some children fail to learn to read fluently. However, reading fluency difficulty (RFD) has not been fully investigated. The present study explored the underlying mechanism of RFD from the aspect of visual attention span. Fourteen Chinese children with RFD and fourteen age-matched normal readers participated. The visual 1-back task was adopted to examine visual attention span. Reaction time and accuracy were recorded, and relevant d-prime (d') scores were computed. Results showed that children with RFD exhibited lower accuracy and lower d' values than the controls did in the visual 1-back task, revealing a visual attention span deficit. Further analyses on d' values revealed that the attention distribution seemed to exhibit an inverted U-shaped pattern without lateralization for normal readers, but a W-shaped pattern with a rightward bias for children with RFD, which was discussed based on between-group variation in reading strategies. Results of the correlation analyses showed that visual attention span was associated with reading fluency at the sentence level for normal readers, but was related to reading fluency at the single-character level for children with RFD. The different patterns in correlations between groups revealed that visual attention span might be affected by the variation in reading strategies. The current findings extend previous data from alphabetic languages to Chinese, a logographic language with a particularly deep orthography, and have implications for reading-dysfluency remediation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Is Earlier Better? Mastery of Reading Fluency in Early Schooling

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Park, Yonghan; Chaparro, Erin A.; Preciado, Jorge; Cummings, Kelli D.

2015-01-01

Research Findings: The goal of the present study was to provide empirical evidence for the importance of mastering reading fluency in early schooling. Study participants were 1,322 students in 3rd grade in 42 schools in a northwestern state. These students were assessed using a battery of reading skill tests as well as comprehensive tests of more…

The Relationships among Cognitive Correlates and Irregular Word, Non-Word, and Word Reading

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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…

Orthographic Learning in Dyslexic Spanish Children

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Suárez-Coalla, Paz; Ramos, Sara; Álvarez-Cañizo, Marta; Cuetos, Fernando

2014-01-01

Reading fluency is one of the basic processes of learning to read. Children begin to develop fluency when they are able to form orthographic representations of words, which provide direct, smooth, and fast reading. Dyslexic children of transparent orthographic systems are mainly characterized by poor reading fluency (Cuetos & Suárez-Coalla…

Conceptual fluency at test shifts recognition response bias in Alzheimer's disease: implications for increased false recognition.

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Gold, Carl A; Marchant, Natalie L; Koutstaal, Wilma; Schacter, Daniel L; Budson, Andrew E

2007-09-20

The presence or absence of conceptual information in pictorial stimuli may explain the mixed findings of previous studies of false recognition in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). To test this hypothesis, 48 patients with AD were compared to 48 healthy older adults on a recognition task first described by Koutstaal et al. [Koutstaal, W., Reddy, C., Jackson, E. M., Prince, S., Cendan, D. L., & Schacter D. L. (2003). False recognition of abstract versus common objects in older and younger adults: Testing the semantic categorization account. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29, 499-510]. Participants studied and were tested on their memory for categorized ambiguous pictures of common objects. The presence of conceptual information at study and/or test was manipulated by providing or withholding disambiguating semantic labels. Analyses focused on testing two competing theories. The semantic encoding hypothesis, which posits that the inter-item perceptual details are not encoded by AD patients when conceptual information is present in the stimuli, was not supported by the findings. In contrast, the conceptual fluency hypothesis was supported. Enhanced conceptual fluency at test dramatically shifted AD patients to a more liberal response bias, raising their false recognition. These results suggest that patients with AD rely on the fluency of test items in making recognition memory decisions. We speculate that AD patients' over reliance upon fluency may be attributable to (1) dysfunction of the hippocampus, disrupting recollection, and/or (2) dysfunction of prefrontal cortex, disrupting post-retrieval processes.

Role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and exploratory movements

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Seifert, Ludovic; Cordier, Romain; Orth, Dominic; Courtine, Yoan; Croft, James L.

2017-01-01

This study examined the role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and on exploratory movements of the limbs, in order to understand whether previewing helps people to perceive and to realize affordances. Eight inexperienced and ten experienced climbers previewed a 10 m high route of 5b

Phonatory vocal tract stability in stuttering children before and after fluency--enhancing therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Dehqan, A; Ali Dashti, G; Mirzadeh, M

2010-01-01

Stuttering is a complex disorder. Essentially, it is a neuromuscular disorder whose core consists of tiny lags and disruptions in the timing of the complicated movements required for speech. The purpose of the current study was to collec and comparg jitters and shimmer values in children who stutter before and after fluency--enhancing therapy. Subjects consisted of 15 Iranian preschool girls with stutterg, and 15 Iranial preschool girls without afflictions, matched according to age. Vocal jittering and shimmer measurements of thesphonation of the children were compared before and after therapy. Each subject phonated vowels nine times in a random order. Each phonation was sustained for at least five seconds and was recorded. The middle three-second portion of each recorded vowel phonation was subjected to jitter and shimmer analysis. On shimmer measures between pre-treatment and post treatment, significant differences were found in all sustained vowels of persons who stutter group and means of shimmer in post therapy were significantly lower than pre-treatment. Differences in jitter measurements were not significant between pre-treatment and post-treatment statuses and this parameter did not change after therapy. The findings showed that therapy resulted in decreaseg irregularity in the amplitude of vibrations (shimmer). In other words, the therapy increases the steady-state of the laryngeal system. Moreover, this parameter may be used as an index for the effectiveness of therapy.

Word Domain Disambiguation via Word Sense Disambiguation

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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.

Rapid naming, phonological memory and reading fluency in Brazilian bilingual students.

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Fleury, Fernanda Oppenheimer; Avila, Clara Regina Brandão de

2015-01-01

To characterize the performance of Brazilian students exposed to two languages in reading fluency, phonological memory, and rapid naming, according to grade level, and to investigate correlations between these variables. Sixty students took part in this study (50% female), enrolled in the third to the fifth grades of two elementary schools of the city of São Paulo. They constituted two groups - bilingual group: 30 Brazilian children whose mother tongue and language spoken at home was Brazilian Portuguese and who were daily exposed to English at school for a period not shorter than three years; monolingual group: 30 students, from a monolingual Brazilian elementary school, who were paired by gender, age, and grade level with the bilingual students. Foreign children, children with complaint or indication of speech and language disorder, or who had been retained were excluded. A rapid automatized naming, pseudoword repetition, and oral reading tests were administered. The bilingual children were assessed in both languages and their performances were compared among themselves and with the monolingual group, which was only assessed in Brazilian Portuguese. The bilingual group showed better performance in English, rapid naming, and pseudoword repetition tasks, whereas Brazilian Portuguese, in reading fluency. A higher number of correlations were found in Brazilian Portuguese. The results suggest that the acquisition of a second language may positively influence the abilities of rapid naming, reading rate, and accuracy. Brazilian bilingual students performed better in tasks of phonological memory in English and Brazilian Portuguese performed better in reading fluency. Different correlation patterns were found between the rapid naming, accuracy, and reading rate, in the bilingual group analysis, in both languages.

Rapid word-learning in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired children: effects of age, receptive vocabulary, and high-frequency amplification.

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Pittman, A L; Lewis, D E; Hoover, B M; Stelmachowicz, P G

2005-12-01

This study examined rapid word-learning in 5- to 14-year-old children with normal and impaired hearing. The effects of age and receptive vocabulary were examined as well as those of high-frequency amplification. Novel words were low-pass filtered at 4 kHz (typical of current amplification devices) and at 9 kHz. It was hypothesized that (1) the children with normal hearing would learn more words than the children with hearing loss, (2) word-learning would increase with age and receptive vocabulary for both groups, and (3) both groups would benefit from a broader frequency bandwidth. Sixty children with normal hearing and 37 children with moderate sensorineural hearing losses participated in this study. Each child viewed a 4-minute animated slideshow containing 8 nonsense words created using the 24 English consonant phonemes (3 consonants per word). Each word was repeated 3 times. Half of the 8 words were low-pass filtered at 4 kHz and half were filtered at 9 kHz. After viewing the story twice, each child was asked to identify the words from among pictures in the slide show. Before testing, a measure of current receptive vocabulary was obtained using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III). The PPVT-III scores of the hearing-impaired children were consistently poorer than those of the normal-hearing children across the age range tested. A similar pattern of results was observed for word-learning in that the performance of the hearing-impaired children was significantly poorer than that of the normal-hearing children. Further analysis of the PPVT and word-learning scores suggested that although word-learning was reduced in the hearing-impaired children, their performance was consistent with their receptive vocabularies. Additionally, no correlation was found between overall performance and the age of identification, age of amplification, or years of amplification in the children with hearing loss. Results also revealed a small increase in performance for both

A nonsense mutation in FMR1 causing fragile X syndrome

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grønskov, Karen; Brøndum-Nielsen, Karen; Dedic, Alma

2011-01-01

Fragile X syndrome is a common cause of inherited intellectual disability. It is caused by lack of the FMR1 gene product FMRP. The most frequent cause is the expansion of a CGG repeat located in the 5'UTR of FMR1. Alleles with 200 or more repeats become hypermethylated and transcriptionally silent....... Only few patients with intragenic point mutations in FMR1 have been reported and, currently, routine analysis of patients referred for fragile X syndrome includes solely analysis for repeat expansion and methylation status. We identified a substitution in exon 2 of FMR1, c.80C>A, causing a nonsense...... mutation p.Ser27X, in a patient with classical clinical symptoms of fragile X syndrome. The mother who carried the mutation in heterozygous form presented with mild intellectual impairment. We conclude that further studies including western blot and DNA sequence analysis of the FMR1 gene should...

Corrective Feedback, Spoken Accuracy and Fluency, and the Trade-Off Hypothesis

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Chehr Azad, Mohammad Hassan; Farrokhi, Farahman; Zohrabi, Mohammad

2018-01-01

The current study was an attempt to investigate the effects of different corrective feedback (CF) conditions on Iranian EFL learners' spoken accuracy and fluency (AF) and the trade-off between them. Consequently, four pre-intermediate intact classes were randomly selected as the control, delayed explicit metalinguistic CF, extensive recast, and…

Writing fluency and quality in kindergarten and first grade: The role of attention, reading, transcription, and oral language

Science.gov (United States)

Kent, Shawn; Wanzek, Jeanne; Petscher, Yaacov; Al Otaiba, Stephanie; Kim, Young-Suk

2013-01-01

In the present study, we examined the influence of kindergarten component skills on writing outcomes, both concurrently and longitudinally to first grade. Using data from 265 students, we investigated a model of writing development including attention regulation along with students’ reading, spelling, handwriting fluency, and oral language component skills. Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that a model including attention was better fitting than a model with only language and literacy factors. Attention, a higher-order literacy factor related to reading and spelling proficiency, and automaticity in letter-writing were uniquely and positively related to compositional fluency in kindergarten. Attention and higher-order literacy factor were predictive of both composition quality and fluency in first grade, while oral language showed unique relations with first grade writing quality. Implications for writing development and instruction are discussed. PMID:25132722

Forehearing words: Pre-activation of word endings at word onset.

Science.gov (United States)

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.

Investigating the Prospective Sense of Agency: Effects of Processing Fluency, Stimulus Ambiguity, and Response Conflict

Science.gov (United States)

Sidarus, Nura; Vuorre, Matti; Metcalfe, Janet; Haggard, Patrick

2017-01-01

How do we know how much control we have over our environment? The sense of agency refers to the feeling that we are in control of our actions, and that, through them, we can control our external environment. Thus, agency clearly involves matching intentions, actions, and outcomes. The present studies investigated the possibility that processes of action selection, i.e., choosing what action to make, contribute to the sense of agency. Since selection of action necessarily precedes execution of action, such effects must be prospective. In contrast, most literature on sense of agency has focussed on the retrospective computation whether an outcome fits the action performed or intended. This hypothesis was tested in an ecologically rich, dynamic task based on a computer game. Across three experiments, we manipulated three different aspects of action selection processing: visual processing fluency, categorization ambiguity, and response conflict. Additionally, we measured the relative contributions of prospective, action selection-based cues, and retrospective, outcome-based cues to the sense of agency. Manipulations of action selection were orthogonally combined with discrepancy of visual feedback of action. Fluency of action selection had a small but reliable effect on the sense of agency. Additionally, as expected, sense of agency was strongly reduced when visual feedback was discrepant with the action performed. The effects of discrepant feedback were larger than the effects of action selection fluency, and sometimes suppressed them. The sense of agency is highly sensitive to disruptions of action-outcome relations. However, when motor control is successful, and action-outcome relations are as predicted, fluency or dysfluency of action selection provides an important prospective cue to the sense of agency. PMID:28450839

[Profile, competencies and digital fluency of nurses in the Professional Improvement Program].

Science.gov (United States)

Tanabe, Lyvia Pini; Kobayashi, Rika Miyahara

2013-08-01

A descriptive exploratory study conducted in the city of São Paulo, which aimed to identify the profile, competencies and digital fluency of nurses in the Professional Improvement Program in handling technology at work. The population, composed by 60 nurses in the program, answered a questionnaire with data about profile, digital fluency and professional competencies. The participants were found to be: 95.0% female, 61.7% between 23 and 25 years old, 75.0% from public schools, 58.3% enrolled in cardiovascular nursing, 98.3% had contact with computing resources during graduation, 100.0% had a computer at home, 86.7% accessed the internet daily, 96.7% used Messenger and 58.3% had an intermediate level of knowledge and skill in computing. Professional competencies required for technology management referred to knowing how to be innovative, creative, and updated to identify and manage software and to use technological resources.

Predictive Validity and Accuracy of Oral Reading Fluency for English Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Vanderwood, Michael L.; Tung, Catherine Y.; Checca, C. Jason

2014-01-01

The predictive validity and accuracy of an oral reading fluency (ORF) measure for a statewide assessment in English language arts was examined for second-grade native English speakers (NESs) and English learners (ELs) with varying levels of English proficiency. In addition to comparing ELs with native English speakers, the impact of English…

Bilingual children weigh speaker’s referential cues and word-learning heuristics differently in different language contexts when interpreting a speaker’s intent

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Wan-Yu eHung

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Past research has investigated how children use different sources of information such as social cues and word-learning heuristics to infer referential intents. The present research explored how children weigh and use some of these cues to make referential inferences. Specifically, we examined how switching between languages known (familiar or unknown (unfamiliar to a child would influence his or her choice of cue to interpret a novel label in a challenging disambiguation task, where a pointing cue was pitted against the mutual exclusivity (ME principle. Forty-eight 3-and 4-year-old English-Mandarin bilingual children listened to a story told either in English only (No-Switch, English and Mandarin (Familiar-Switch, English and Japanese (Unfamiliar-Switch, or English and English-sounding nonsense sentences (Nonsense-Switch. They were then asked to select an object (from a pair of familiar and novel objects after hearing a novel label paired with the speaker’s point at the familiar object, e.g., Can you give me the blicket? Results showed that children in the Familiar-Switch condition were more willing to relax ME to follow the speaker’s point to pick the familiar object than those in the Unfamiliar-Switch condition, who were more likely to pick the novel object. No significant differences were found between the other conditions. Further analyses revealed that children in the Unfamiliar-Switch condition looked at the speaker longer than children in the other conditions when the switch happened. Our findings suggest that children weigh speakers’ referential cues and word-learning heuristics differently in different language contexts while taking into account their communicative history with the speaker. There are important implications for general education and other learning efforts, such as designing learning games so that the history of credibility with the user is maintained and how learning may be best scaffolded in a helpful and trusting

Periodic words connected with the Fibonacci words

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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.

A 'curse of knowledge' in the absence of knowledge? People misattribute fluency when judging how common knowledge is among their peers.

Science.gov (United States)

Birch, Susan A J; Brosseau-Liard, Patricia E; Haddock, Taeh; Ghrear, Siba E

2017-09-01

Knowledge can be a curse: Once we have acquired a particular item of knowledge it tends to bias, or contaminate, our ability to reason about a less informed perspective (referred to as the 'curse of knowledge' or 'hindsight bias'). The mechanisms underlying the curse of knowledge bias are a matter of great import and debate. We highlight two mechanisms that have been proposed to underlie this bias-inhibition and fluency misattribution. Explanations that involve inhibition argue that people have difficulty fully inhibiting or suppressing the content of their knowledge when trying to reason about a less informed perspective. Explanations that involve fluency misattribution focus on the feelings of fluency with which the information comes to mind and the tendency to misattribute the subjective feelings of fluency associated with familiar items to the objective ease or foreseeability of that information. Three experiments with a total of 359 undergraduate students provide the first evidence that fluency misattribution processes are sufficient to induce the curse of knowledge bias. These results add to the literature on the many manifestations of the curse of knowledge bias and the many types of source misattributions, by revealing their role in people's judgements of how common, or widespread, one's knowledge is. The implications of these results for cognitive science and social cognition are discussed. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Becker muscular dystrophy with widespread muscle hypertrophy and a non-sense mutation of exon 2

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Witting, Nanna; Duno, M; Vissing, J

2013-01-01

Becker muscular dystrophy features progressive proximal weakness, wasting and often focal hypertrophy. We present a patient with pain and cramps from adolescence. Widespread muscle hypertrophy, preserved muscle strength and a 10-20-fold raised CPK were noted. Muscle biopsy was dystrophic......, and Western blot showed a 95% reduction of dystrophin levels. Genetic analyses revealed a non-sense mutation in exon 2 of the dystrophin gene. This mutation is predicted to result in a Duchenne phenotype, but resulted in a mild Becker muscular dystrophy with widespread muscle hypertrophy. We suggest...

Nonsense-Mediated RNA Decay Influences Human Embryonic Stem Cell Fate

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Chih-Hong Lou

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Nonsense-mediated RNA decay (NMD is a highly conserved pathway that selectively degrades specific subsets of RNA transcripts. Here, we provide evidence that NMD regulates early human developmental cell fate. We found that NMD factors tend to be expressed at higher levels in human pluripotent cells than in differentiated cells, raising the possibility that NMD must be downregulated to permit differentiation. Loss- and gain-of-function experiments in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs demonstrated that, indeed, NMD downregulation is essential for efficient generation of definitive endoderm. RNA-seq analysis identified NMD target transcripts induced when NMD is suppressed in hESCs, including many encoding signaling components. This led us to test the role of TGF-β and BMP signaling, which we found NMD acts through to influence definitive endoderm versus mesoderm fate. Our results suggest that selective RNA decay is critical for specifying the developmental fate of specific human embryonic cell lineages.

Effects of Listening While Reading (LWR on Swahili Reading Fluency and Comprehension

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Filipo Lubua

2016-10-01

Full Text Available A number of studies have examined the contribution of technology in teaching such languages as English, French, and Spanish, among many others. Contrarily, most LCTL’s, have received very little attention. This study investigates if listening while reading (LWR may expedite Swahili reading fluency and comprehension. The study employed the iBook Author tool to create weekly mediated and interactive reading texts, with comprehension exercises, which were eventually used to collect descriptive and qualitative data from four Elementary Swahili students. Participants participated in a seven week reading program, which provided them with some kind of directed self-learning, and met with the instructor for at least 30 minutes every week for observation and more reading activities. The teacher recorded their reading scores, and a number of themes on how LWR influenced reading fluency and comprehension are discussed here. It shows that participants have a positive attitude towards LWR and they suggest it for all the reading classes.

Language Disorders Comparative Study in Patients with Paranoid and Non-Paranoid Schizophrenia

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Farzam Parva

2004-10-01

Full Text Available Objective: The main purpose of this study was the assay of language disorders in paranoid and non – paranoid long-stay Schizophrenic patients in Razi Psychiatric Center. Materials & Methods: Language disorders in 40 Schizophrenic Patients who were divided in 2 groups (paranoid and non – paranoid No: 20 male and female and studied by using Farsi Aphasia Test. All of the subjects were matched on the basis of gender, age, education, duration of illness and length of stay in hospital. The evaluated language skills were composed of Spontaneus Verbal Fluency, Descriptive Verbal Fluency, Quality of Spontaneus Speech, Quality of Descriptive Speech, Listening Comprehension, Oral Reading (Expression, Written Comprehension, Writing, (words, Repetition and Number of Words. Data were analysed by using of SPSS windows analysis. Results: show a global reduction in scores of skills compared with normal subjects and the most reduction is seen in Quality of Descriptive Speech, Fluency of Descriptive speech and Number of Words Skills. Conclusion: Paranoid patients versus non paranoids show significant differences in Fluency of Descriptive Speech, Listening Comprehension, Oral Reading and Number of Words, and global score of the test. among demographic variants, only educational situation has significant relevance with some items of the test.

CASE REPORT OF STUTTERING IN AN INITIAL PHASE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvana FILIPOVA

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Stuttering is a type of supra-segmental structure speech disorder. Supra-segmental structure of speech is consisted of quantitative features as: flu­ency, rhythm, duration, intensity, voice power, word accentuation and melodic expression. Stut­tering is manifested as disordered fluency. Physio­lo­gical fluency is characterized by five time-di­men­­sions.First dimension is sequence. Sounds have specific sequence in words. Sounds order determines word meaning. Some sounds in reverse word- order have different meaning.Second dimension is duration. Every speech mani­festation or even a word has its own duration. Du­ration deficiency may cause problems in under­standing speech, and only because of the differen­tial sign accentuation and duration own.Third dimension is speed. Speed measures the pro­nunciation of phonetic elements and words. Too slow or too fast pronunciation influences under­standing speech (such is the case of tachyphemia.Fourth dimension is rhythm. It presents the way of speaking process. If the speech is too fast, tensed, interrupted, not equable then it is difficult for lis­tening to and even tiresome.Fifth dimension is fluency, which is realized by flowing sounds and words into sentences.

Pattern of neural responses to verbal fluency shows diagnostic specificity for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

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Walshe Muriel

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Impairments in executive function and language processing are characteristic of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Their functional neuroanatomy demonstrate features that are shared as well as specific to each disorder. Determining the distinct pattern of neural responses in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may provide biomarkers for their diagnoses. Methods 104 participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI scans while performing a phonological verbal fluency task. Subjects were 32 patients with schizophrenia in remission, 32 patients with bipolar disorder in an euthymic state, and 40 healthy volunteers. Neural responses to verbal fluency were examined in each group, and the diagnostic potential of the pattern of the neural responses was assessed with machine learning analysis. Results During the verbal fluency task, both patient groups showed increased activation in the anterior cingulate, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right putamen as compared to healthy controls, as well as reduced deactivation of precuneus and posterior cingulate. The magnitude of activation was greatest in patients with schizophrenia, followed by patients with bipolar disorder and then healthy individuals. Additional recruitment in the right inferior frontal and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices was observed in schizophrenia relative to both bipolar disorder and healthy subjects. The pattern of neural responses correctly identified individual patients with schizophrenia with an accuracy of 92%, and those with bipolar disorder with an accuracy of 79% in which mis-classification was typically of bipolar subjects as healthy controls. Conclusions In summary, both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are associated with altered function in prefrontal, striatal and default mode networks, but the magnitude of this dysfunction is particularly marked in schizophrenia. The pattern of response to verbal fluency is highly

Second language as a compensatory resource for maintaining verbal fluency in bilingual immigrants with schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Smirnova, D; Walters, J; Fine, J; Muchnik-Rozanov, Y; Paz, M; Lerner, V; Belmaker, R H; Bersudsky, Y

2015-08-01

Due to the large migrations over the past three decades, large numbers of individuals with schizophrenia are learning a second language and being seen in clinics in that second language. We conducted within-subject comparisons to clarify the contribution of clinical, linguistic and bilingual features in the first and second languages of bilinguals with schizophrenia. Ten bilingual Russian(L1) and Hebrew(L2) proficient patients, who developed clinical schizophrenia after achieving proficiency in both languages, were selected from 60 candidates referred for the study; they were resident in Israel 7-32 years with 3-10 years from immigration to diagnosis. Clinical, linguistic and fluency markers were coded in transcripts of clinical interviews. There was a trend toward more verbal productivity in the first language (L1) than the second language (L2). Clinical speech markers associated with thought disorder and cognitive impairment (blocking and topic shift) were similar in both languages. Among linguistic markers of schizophrenia, Incomplete syntax and Speech role reference were significantly more frequent in L2 than L1; Lexical repetition and Unclear reference demonstrated a trend in the same direction. For fluency phenomena, Discourse markers were more prevalent in L1 than L2, and Codeswitching was similar across languages, showing that the patients were attuned to the socio-pragmatics of language use. More frequent linguistic markers of schizophrenia in L2 show more impairment in the syntactic/semantic components of language, reflecting greater thought and cognitive dysfunction. Patients are well able to acquire a second language. Nevertheless, schizophrenia finds expression in that language. Finally, more frequent fluency markers in L1 suggests motivation to maintain fluency, evidenced in particular by codeswitched L2 lexical items, a compensatory resource. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Print Exposure on Silent Reading Fluency

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Mano, Quintino R.; Guerin, Julia M.

2018-01-01

Print exposure is an important causal factor in reading development. Little is known, however, of the mechanisms through which print exposure exerts an effect onto reading. To address this gap, we examined the direct and indirect effects of print exposure on silent reading fluency among college students (n = 52). More specifically, we focused on…

O Maravilhoso País do Orkut: sobre jogos, racionalidade , nonsense e frivolidades

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Angela Prysthon

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Departing from the concept of Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga, from the connections between Aesthetics and everyday experience, from some Habermasian notions of rationality and from the nonsense as deployed by Deleuze, this essay intends to relate the fascination for banality and the consolidation of an aesthetics of frivolity (both very present in the Orkut with the ideas of rationality and the ludic in contemporary culture. If the Orkut appeared as a platform of social networking, it is indubitable the proliferation of games and “inutilities” in the system (especially in its Brazilian branch. In this sense, playfulness, laughter, the ephemeral, frivolities, all of this form the kernel of our analysis of Orkut.

Do Dispositional Characteristics Influence Reading? Examining the Impact of Personality on Reading Fluency

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Krach, S. Kathleen; McCreery, Michael P.; Loe, Scott A.; Jones, W. Paul

2016-01-01

Previous research demonstrates specific relationships between personality traits and general academic performance. In addition, research studies have demonstrated relationships among personality and variables related to reading fluency (i.e. speed, accuracy, automaticity, and prosody). However, little investigation has examined specific links…

VHL Frameshift Mutation as Target of Nonsense-Mediated mRNA Decay in Drosophila melanogaster and Human HEK293 Cell Line

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Lucia Micale

2009-01-01

Full Text Available There are many well-studied examples of human phenotypes resulting from nonsense or frameshift mutations that are modulated by Nonsense-Mediated mRNA Decay (NMD, a process that typically degrades transcripts containing premature termination codons (PTCs in order to prevent translation of unnecessary or aberrant transcripts. Different types of germline mutations in the VHL gene cause the von Hippel-Lindau disease, a dominantly inherited familial cancer syndrome with a marked phenotypic variability and age-dependent penetrance. By generating the Drosophila UAS:Upf1D45B line we showed the possible involvement of NMD mechanism in the modulation of the c.172delG frameshift mutation located in the exon 1 of Vhl gene. Further, by Quantitative Real-time PCR (QPCR we demonstrated that the corresponding c.163delG human mutation is targeted by NMD in human HEK 293 cells. The UAS:Upf1D45B line represents a useful system to identify novel substrates of NMD pathway in Drosophila melanogaster. Finally, we suggest the possible role of NMD on the regulation of VHL mutations.

Nonsense mutation in the glycoprotein Ibα coding sequence associated with Bernard-Soulier syndrome

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ware, J.; Russell, S.R.; Vicente, V.; Scharf, R.E.; Tomer, A.; McMillian, R.; Ruggeri, Z.M.

1990-01-01

Three distinct gene products, the α and β chains of glycoprotein (GP) Ib and GP IX, constitute the platelet membrane GP Ib-IX complex, a receptor for von Willebrand factor and thrombin involved in platelet adhesion and aggregation. Defective function of the GP Ib-IX complex is the hallmark of a rare congenital bleeding disorder of still undefined pathogenesis, the Bernard-Soulier syndrome. The authors have analyzed the molecular basis of the disease in one patient in whom immunoblotting of solubilized platelets demonstrated absence of normal GP Ibα but presence of a smaller immunoreactive species. The truncated polypeptide was also present, along with normal protein, in platelets from the patient's mother and two of his four children. Genetic characterization identified a nucleotide transition changing the Trp-343 codon (TGG) to a nonsense codon (TGA). Such a mutation explains the origin of the smaller GP Ibα, which by lacking half of the sequence on the carboxyl-terminal side, including the transmembrane domain, cannot be properly inserted in the platelet membrane. Both normal and mutant codons were found in the patient, suggesting that he is a compound heterozygote with a still unidentified defect in the other GP Ibα allele. Nonsense mutation and truncated GP Ibα polypeptide were found to cosegregate in four individuals through three generations and were associated with either Bernard-Soulier syndrome or carrier state phenotype. The molecular abnormality demonstrated in this family provides evidence that defective synthesis of GP Ibα alters the membrane expression of the GP Ib-IX complex and may be responsible for Bernard-Soulier syndrome

White matter and reading deficits after pediatric traumatic brain injury: A diffusion tensor imaging study

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Chad Parker Johnson

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Pediatric traumatic brain injury often results in significant long-term deficits in mastery of reading ability. This study aimed to identify white matter pathways that, when damaged, predicted reading deficits in children. Based on the dual-route model of word reading, we predicted that integrity of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus would be related to performance in sight word identification while integrity of the superior longitudinal fasciculus would be related to performance in phonemic decoding. Reading fluency and comprehension were hypothesized to relate to the superior longitudinal fasciculus, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, and cingulum bundle. The connectivity of white matter pathways was used to predict reading deficits in children aged 6 to 16 years with traumatic brain injury (n = 29 and those with orthopedic injury (n = 27 using tract-based spatial statistics. Results showed that children with traumatic brain injury and reduced microstructural integrity of the superior longitudinal fasciculus demonstrated reduced word-reading ability on sight word and phonemic decoding tasks. Additionally, children with traumatic brain injury and microstructural changes involving the cingulum bundle demonstrated reduced reading fluency. Results support the association of a dorsal pathway via the superior longitudinal fasciculus with both sight word reading and phonemic decoding. No association was identified between the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus and sight word reading or phonemic decoding. Reading fluency was associated with the integrity of the cingulum bundle. These findings support dissociable pathways predicting word reading and fluency using Diffusion Tensor Imaging and provide additional information for developing models of acquired reading deficits by specifying areas of brain damage which may predict reading deficits following recovery from the acute phase of TBI.

The word-length effect and disyllabic words.

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Lovatt, P; Avons, S E; Masterson, J

2000-02-01

Three experiments compared immediate serial recall of disyllabic words that differed on spoken duration. Two sets of long- and short-duration words were selected, in each case maximizing duration differences but matching for frequency, familiarity, phonological similarity, and number of phonemes, and controlling for semantic associations. Serial recall measures were obtained using auditory and visual presentation and spoken and picture-pointing recall. In Experiments 1a and 1b, using the first set of items, long words were better recalled than short words. In Experiments 2a and 2b, using the second set of items, no difference was found between long and short disyllabic words. Experiment 3 confirmed the large advantage for short-duration words in the word set originally selected by Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975). These findings suggest that there is no reliable advantage for short-duration disyllables in span tasks, and that previous accounts of a word-length effect in disyllables are based on accidental differences between list items. The failure to find an effect of word duration casts doubt on theories that propose that the capacity of memory span is determined by the duration of list items or the decay rate of phonological information in short-term memory.

Do handwritten words magnify lexical effects in visual word recognition?

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Perea, Manuel; Gil-López, Cristina; Beléndez, Victoria; Carreiras, Manuel

2016-01-01

An examination of how the word recognition system is able to process handwritten words is fundamental to formulate a comprehensive model of visual word recognition. Previous research has revealed that the magnitude of lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) is greater with handwritten words than with printed words. In the present lexical decision experiments, we examined whether the quality of handwritten words moderates the recruitment of top-down feedback, as reflected in word-frequency effects. Results showed a reading cost for difficult-to-read and easy-to-read handwritten words relative to printed words. But the critical finding was that difficult-to-read handwritten words, but not easy-to-read handwritten words, showed a greater word-frequency effect than printed words. Therefore, the inherent physical variability of handwritten words does not necessarily boost the magnitude of lexical effects.

Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death

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Petersen, Alexander M.; Tenenbaum, Joel; Havlin, Shlomo; Stanley, H. Eugene

2012-03-01

We analyze the dynamic properties of 107 words recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew over the period 1800-2008 in order to gain insight into the coevolution of language and culture. We report language independent patterns useful as benchmarks for theoretical models of language evolution. A significantly decreasing (increasing) trend in the birth (death) rate of words indicates a recent shift in the selection laws governing word use. For new words, we observe a peak in the growth-rate fluctuations around 40 years after introduction, consistent with the typical entry time into standard dictionaries and the human generational timescale. Pronounced changes in the dynamics of language during periods of war shows that word correlations, occurring across time and between words, are largely influenced by coevolutionary social, technological, and political factors. We quantify cultural memory by analyzing the long-term correlations in the use of individual words using detrended fluctuation analysis.

Fluency or Accuracy - Two Different ‘Colours’ in Writing Assessment

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Listyani Listyani

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Fluency and accuracy. These two things have victoriously won many teachers’ attention at tertiary level. In the case of writing, these two remain debatable, and have always attracted many people, both lecturers’ and students’ attention. These language production measures have distracted many lecturers’ concentration: should they be faithful to fluency of ideas, or grammatical and language accuracy in correcting students’ essays? This paper tries to present the classical yet never-ending dilemmatic conflicts within the area of writing assessment. This debate still remains interesting to follow. Data were gained from close observation on documents, that is, 21 students’ essays and interviews with 2 students of Academic Writing in Semester II, 2015-2016. Four writing lecturers were also interviewed for their intellectual and critical opinions on these dilemmatic problems in assessing writing. Discussion results of FGD (Forum Group Discussion involving all writing lecturers at the English Education Study Program at the Faculty of Language and Literature of Satya Wacana Christian University which were held in June, 2016, were also included as source of data. Hopefully, this paper gives a little more “colour” in the area of writing assessment, and gives a little enlightenment for other writing lecturers.   DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2016.190201

Functional regional cerebral blood flow SPECT using 99mTc-HM-PAO by speech memory tasks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tohyama, Junko

1993-01-01

Using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with Tc-99m HA-PAO, changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) by giving word memory and Miyake's tasks were determined for localizatin of speech memory function. Twice injection method of Tc-99m HM-PAO was used to obtain subtraction SPECT images; and positioning of the 1st and 2nd SPECT was determined by phantom study. To prevent artifacts and changes in rCBF as far as possible, the subjects were informed word fluency and Miyake's tasks sufficiently. When giving word fluency approach, an increase in rCBF was observed in both the operculum and the supratemporal convolution of dominant hemisphere. When giving Miyake's approach, it was observed predominantly in the supratemporal convolution of dominant hemisphere. Although it was also observed in the base of frontal lobe and operculum, there was no bilateral difference. An increased rCBF in the basal nucleus was more clearly observed by Miyake's than word fluency tasks without bilateral differences. There was no definitive increase in rCBF in the Papez's circuit responsible for memory and emotion by either word fluency or Miyake's tasks. In mentally mild disorder patients, an increased rCBF was observed in the same areas as those in normal subjects. In such patients having a decreased rCBF at rest, an increased rCBF was seen in the contralateral hemisphere and the surrounding areas of the lesions, suggesting compensatory mechanism. (N.K.) 65 refs

Test Review: Reynolds, C. R., Voress, J. V., Kamphaus, R. W. (2015), "Mathematics Fluency and Calculation Tests (MFaCTs) review." PRO-ED

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Marbach, Joshua

2017-01-01

The Mathematics Fluency and Calculation Tests (MFaCTs) are a series of measures designed to assess for arithmetic calculation skills and calculation fluency in children ages 6 through 18. There are five main purposes of the MFaCTs: (1) identifying students who are behind in basic math fact automaticity; (2) evaluating possible delays in arithmetic…

Semantic organization in children with Cochlear Implants: Computational analysis of verbal fluency

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Yoed Nissan Kenett

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Cochlear implants (CIs enable children with severe and profound hearing impairments to perceive the sensation of sound sufficiently to permit oral language acquisition. So far, studies have focused mainly on technological improvements and general outcomes of implantation for speech perception and spoken language development. This study quantitatively explored the semantic networks of children with CIs in comparison to those of age-matched normal hearing (NH peers.Method: Twenty seven children with CIs and twenty seven age- and IQ-matched NH children ages 7-10 were tested on a timed animal verbal fluency task (Name as many animals as you can. The responses were analyzed using correlation and network methodologies. The structure of the animal category semantic networks for both groups were extracted and compared.Results: Children with CIs appeared to have a less-developed semantic lexicon structure compared to age-matched NH peers. The average shortest path length and the network diameter measures were larger for the NH group compared to the CIs group. This difference was consistent for the analysis of networks derived from animal names generated by each group (sample-matched correlation networks and for the networks derived from the common animal names generated by both groups (word-matched correlation networks.Conclusions: The main difference between the semantic networks of children with CIs and NH children lies in the network structure. The semantic network of children with CIs is under-developed compared to the semantic network of the age-matched NH children. We discuss the practical and clinical implications of our findings.

ADHD and Adolescent EFL Learners' Speaking Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in English

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Marashi, Hamid; Dolatdoost, Mohammad

2016-01-01

This study was an attempt to investigate the relationships among Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and speaking complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) among Iranian EFL learners. To fulfill the purpose of this study, the teachers and parents of 593 male students were given the Farsi version of the CSI-4 ADHD diagnostic…

The Activation of Embedded Words in Spoken Word Recognition.

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Zhang, Xujin; Samuel, Arthur G

2015-01-01

The current study investigated how listeners understand English words that have shorter words embedded in them. A series of auditory-auditory priming experiments assessed the activation of six types of embedded words (2 embedded positions × 3 embedded proportions) under different listening conditions. Facilitation of lexical decision responses to targets (e.g., pig) associated with words embedded in primes (e.g., hamster ) indexed activation of the embedded words (e.g., ham ). When the listening conditions were optimal, isolated embedded words (e.g., ham ) primed their targets in all six conditions (Experiment 1a). Within carrier words (e.g., hamster ), the same set of embedded words produced priming only when they were at the beginning or comprised a large proportion of the carrier word (Experiment 1b). When the listening conditions were made suboptimal by expanding or compressing the primes, significant priming was found for isolated embedded words (Experiment 2a), but no priming was produced when the carrier words were compressed/expanded (Experiment 2b). Similarly, priming was eliminated when the carrier words were presented with one segment replaced by noise (Experiment 3). When cognitive load was imposed, priming for embedded words was again found when they were presented in isolation (Experiment 4a), but not when they were embedded in the carrier words (Experiment 4b). The results suggest that both embedded position and proportion play important roles in the activation of embedded words, but that such activation only occurs under unusually good listening conditions.

WORD LEVEL DISCRIMINATIVE TRAINING FOR HANDWRITTEN WORD RECOGNITION

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Chen, W.; Gader, P.

2004-01-01

Word level training refers to the process of learning the parameters of a word recognition system based on word level criteria functions. Previously, researchers trained lexicon­driven handwritten word recognition systems at the character level individually. These systems generally use statistical

Measuring Ability in Foreign Language Word Recognition: A Novel Test and An Alternative to Segalowitz's "CV-rt" Fluency Index

OpenAIRE

Coulson, David

2011-01-01

Tests of word-recognition speed (lexical accessibility) for second language learners have become more common in recent years as its importance in lexical processing has become apparent. However, the very short reaction-time latencies mean they are often complicated to handle or set up in school-based testing situations. They may also produce data that is hard to interpret or which lacks construct validity. Our solution to this problem is a quick-and-easy test called Q_Lex which can be used by...

The impact of language co-activation on L1 and L2 speech fluency.

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Bergmann, Christopher; Sprenger, Simone A; Schmid, Monika S

2015-10-01

Fluent speech depends on the availability of well-established linguistic knowledge and routines for speech planning and articulation. A lack of speech fluency in late second-language (L2) learners may point to a deficiency of these representations, due to incomplete acquisition. Experiments on bilingual language processing have shown, however, that there are strong reasons to believe that multilingual speakers experience co-activation of the languages they speak. We have studied to what degree language co-activation affects fluency in the speech of bilinguals, comparing a monolingual German control group with two bilingual groups: 1) first-language (L1) attriters, who have fully acquired German before emigrating to an L2 English environment, and 2) immersed L2 learners of German (L1: English). We have analysed the temporal fluency and the incidence of disfluency markers (pauses, repetitions and self-corrections) in spontaneous film retellings. Our findings show that learners to speak more slowly than controls and attriters. Also, on each count, the speech of at least one of the bilingual groups contains more disfluency markers than the retellings of the control group. Generally speaking, both bilingual groups-learners and attriters-are equally (dis)fluent and significantly more disfluent than the monolingual speakers. Given that the L1 attriters are unaffected by incomplete acquisition, we interpret these findings as evidence for language competition during speech production. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.

The x-word and its usage : Taboo words and swearwords in general, and x-words in newspapers

OpenAIRE

Lindahl, Katarina

2008-01-01

All languages have words that are considered taboo – words that are not supposed to be said or used. Taboo words, or swearwords, can be used in many different ways and they can have different meanings depending on what context they appear in. Another aspect of taboo words is the euphemisms that are used in order to avoid obscene speech. This paper will focus on x-words, words like the f-word or the c-word, which replace the words fuck or cunt, but as the study will show they also have other m...

The Activation of Embedded Words in Spoken Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xujin; Samuel, Arthur G.

2015-01-01

The current study investigated how listeners understand English words that have shorter words embedded in them. A series of auditory-auditory priming experiments assessed the activation of six types of embedded words (2 embedded positions × 3 embedded proportions) under different listening conditions. Facilitation of lexical decision responses to targets (e.g., pig) associated with words embedded in primes (e.g., hamster) indexed activation of the embedded words (e.g., ham). When the listening conditions were optimal, isolated embedded words (e.g., ham) primed their targets in all six conditions (Experiment 1a). Within carrier words (e.g., hamster), the same set of embedded words produced priming only when they were at the beginning or comprised a large proportion of the carrier word (Experiment 1b). When the listening conditions were made suboptimal by expanding or compressing the primes, significant priming was found for isolated embedded words (Experiment 2a), but no priming was produced when the carrier words were compressed/expanded (Experiment 2b). Similarly, priming was eliminated when the carrier words were presented with one segment replaced by noise (Experiment 3). When cognitive load was imposed, priming for embedded words was again found when they were presented in isolation (Experiment 4a), but not when they were embedded in the carrier words (Experiment 4b). The results suggest that both embedded position and proportion play important roles in the activation of embedded words, but that such activation only occurs under unusually good listening conditions. PMID:25593407

Some words on Word

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Janssen, Maarten; Visser, A.

In many disciplines, the notion of a word is of central importance. For instance, morphology studies le mot comme tel, pris isol´ement (Mel’ˇcuk, 1993 [74]). In the philosophy of language the word was often considered to be the primary bearer of meaning. Lexicography has as its fundamental role

Characteristics of Fluency and Speech in Two Families with High Incidences of Stuttering

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Stager, Sheila V.; Freeman, Frances J.; Braun, Allen

2015-01-01

Purpose: This study presents data from 2 families with high incidence of stuttering, comparing methods of phenotype assignment and exploring the presence of other fluency disorders and corresponding speech characteristics. Method: Three methods for assigning phenotype of stuttering were used: self-identification, family identification, and expert…

Sex differences and autism: brain function during verbal fluency and mental rotation.

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Felix D C C Beacher

Full Text Available Autism spectrum conditions (ASC affect more males than females. This suggests that the neurobiology of autism: 1 may overlap with mechanisms underlying typical sex-differentiation or 2 alternately reflect sex-specificity in how autism is expressed in males and females. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI to test these alternate hypotheses. Fifteen men and fourteen women with Asperger syndrome (AS, and sixteen typically developing men and sixteen typically developing women underwent fMRI during performance of mental rotation and verbal fluency tasks. All groups performed the tasks equally well. On the verbal fluency task, despite equivalent task-performance, both males and females with AS showed enhanced activation of left occipitoparietal and inferior prefrontal activity compared to controls. During mental rotation, there was a significant diagnosis-by-sex interaction across occipital, temporal, parietal, middle frontal regions, with greater activation in AS males and typical females compared to AS females and typical males. These findings suggest a complex relationship between autism and sex that is differentially expressed in verbal and visuospatial domains.

Sex differences and autism: brain function during verbal fluency and mental rotation.

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Beacher, Felix D C C; Radulescu, Eugenia; Minati, Ludovico; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Lombardo, Michael V; Lai, Meng-Chuan; Walker, Anne; Howard, Dawn; Gray, Marcus A; Harrison, Neil A; Critchley, Hugo D

2012-01-01

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) affect more males than females. This suggests that the neurobiology of autism: 1) may overlap with mechanisms underlying typical sex-differentiation or 2) alternately reflect sex-specificity in how autism is expressed in males and females. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test these alternate hypotheses. Fifteen men and fourteen women with Asperger syndrome (AS), and sixteen typically developing men and sixteen typically developing women underwent fMRI during performance of mental rotation and verbal fluency tasks. All groups performed the tasks equally well. On the verbal fluency task, despite equivalent task-performance, both males and females with AS showed enhanced activation of left occipitoparietal and inferior prefrontal activity compared to controls. During mental rotation, there was a significant diagnosis-by-sex interaction across occipital, temporal, parietal, middle frontal regions, with greater activation in AS males and typical females compared to AS females and typical males. These findings suggest a complex relationship between autism and sex that is differentially expressed in verbal and visuospatial domains.

More than words: On the importance of picture-text congruence in the online environment

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van Rompay, Thomas Johannes Lucas; de Vries, Pieter Walter; van Venrooij, Xaviera G.

2010-01-01

This paper addresses effects of picture–text congruence in the online environment on consumer response. Based on recent theorizing on processing fluency, it is argued that congruence among symbolic meanings connoted by pictorial and textual elements of web design increases processing fluency, in

The concept of nonsense syllables (Pseudo words) are reading ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Teaching reading at the elementary stages of learning could be a very daunting challenge to teachers at these stages of learning. This is because teachers saddled with this responsibility are sometimes ill- prepared to take up this challenge. Thus in this discourse, an attempt was made to distinguish between phonemic ...

Information fluency for undergraduate biology majors: applications of inquiry-based learning in a developmental biology course.

Science.gov (United States)

Gehring, Kathleen M; Eastman, Deborah A

2008-01-01

Many initiatives for the improvement of undergraduate science education call for inquiry-based learning that emphasizes investigative projects and reading of the primary literature. These approaches give students an understanding of science as a process and help them integrate content presented in courses. At the same time, general initiatives to promote information fluency are being promoted on many college and university campuses. Information fluency refers to discipline-specific processing of information, and it involves integration of gathered information with specific ideas to form logical conclusions. We have implemented the use of inquiry-based learning to enhance and study discipline-specific information fluency skills in an upper-level undergraduate Developmental Biology course. In this study, an information literacy tutorial and a set of linked assignments using primary literature analysis were integrated with two inquiry-based laboratory research projects. Quantitative analysis of student responses suggests that the abilities of students to identify and apply valid sources of information were enhanced. Qualitative assessment revealed a set of patterns by which students gather and apply information. Self-assessment responses indicated that students recognized the impact of the assignments on their abilities to gather and apply information and that they were more confident about these abilities for future biology courses and beyond.

From fluency to comprehension powerful instruction through authentic reading

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Rasinski, Timothy

2013-01-01

Helping teachers move beyond fluency as measured by speed alone, this book focuses on building the skills that students need to read accurately, meaningfully, and expressively--the essential components of reading comprehension. Each concise chapter presents a tried-and-true instructional or assessment strategy and shows how K-12 teachers can apply it in their own classrooms, using a wide variety of engaging texts. Special features include classroom examples, ""Your Turn"" activities, and 24 reproducible forms, in a large-size format for easy photocopying. Purchasers also get access to a

Motor skills and verbal fluency in HIV positive older adults in Rural ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Finger Tapping Test of the Developmental Neuropsychological Test Battery was also used. Results: Tests of motor skill were less sensitive to HIV infection (F (1, 48) = 1.134, p= .292) than verbal fluency tests-Hopkins Verbal Learning (F (1, 48) = 42.994, p=.000, Hopkins Verbal Learning Test- delay (F (1, 48) = 45.886, ...

Improving Dorsal Stream Function in Dyslexics by Training Figure/Ground Motion Discrimination Improves Attention, Reading Fluency, and Working Memory.

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Lawton, Teri

2016-01-01

There is an ongoing debate about whether the cause of dyslexia is based on linguistic, auditory, or visual timing deficits. To investigate this issue three interventions were compared in 58 dyslexics in second grade (7 years on average), two targeting the temporal dynamics (timing) of either the auditory or visual pathways with a third reading intervention (control group) targeting linguistic word building. Visual pathway training in dyslexics to improve direction-discrimination of moving test patterns relative to a stationary background (figure/ground discrimination) significantly improved attention, reading fluency, both speed and comprehension, phonological processing, and both auditory and visual working memory relative to controls, whereas auditory training to improve phonological processing did not improve these academic skills significantly more than found for controls. This study supports the hypothesis that faulty timing in synchronizing the activity of magnocellular with parvocellular visual pathways is a fundamental cause of dyslexia, and argues against the assumption that reading deficiencies in dyslexia are caused by phonological deficits. This study demonstrates that visual movement direction-discrimination can be used to not only detect dyslexia early, but also for its successful treatment, so that reading problems do not prevent children from readily learning.

Improving Dorsal Stream Function in Dyslexics By Training Figure/Ground Motion Discrimination Improves Reading Fluency, Attention, and Working Memory

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Teri Lawton

2016-08-01

Full Text Available There is an ongoing debate about whether the cause of dyslexia is based on linguistic, auditory, or visual timing deficits. To investigate this issue three interventions were compared in 58 dyslexics in second grade (7 years on average, two targeting the temporal dynamics (timing of either the auditory or visual pathways with a third reading intervention (control group using linguistic word building. Visual pathway training in dyslexics to improve direction-discrimination of moving test patterns relative to a stationary background (figure/ground discrimination significantly improved attention, reading fluency, both speed and comprehension, phonological processing, and both auditory and visual working memory relative to controls, whereas auditory training to improve phonological processing did not improve these academic skills significantly more than found for controls. This study supports the hypothesis that faulty timing in synchronizing the activity of magnocellular with parvocellular visual pathways is a fundamental cause of dyslexia, and argues against the assumption that reading deficiencies in dyslexia are caused by phonological deficits. This study demonstrates that visual movement direction-discrimination can be used to not only detect dyslexia early, but also for its successful treatment, so that reading problems do not prevent children from readily learning.

Cognitive Processes that Account for Mental Addition Fluency Differences between Children Typically Achieving in Arithmetic and Children At-Risk for Failure in Arithmetic

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Berg, Derek H.; Hutchinson, Nancy L.

2010-01-01

This study investigated whether processing speed, short-term memory, and working memory accounted for the differential mental addition fluency between children typically achieving in arithmetic (TA) and children at-risk for failure in arithmetic (AR). Further, we drew attention to fluency differences in simple (e.g., 5 + 3) and complex (e.g., 16 +…

A novel GATA3 nonsense mutation in a newly diagnosed adult patient of hypoparathyroidism, deafness, and renal dysplasia (HDR) syndrome.

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Nanba, Kazutaka; Usui, Takeshi; Nakamura, Michikazu; Toyota, Yuko; Hirota, Keisho; Tamanaha, Tamiko; Kawashima, Sachiko-Tsukamoto; Nakao, Kanako; Yuno, Akiko; Tagami, Tetsuya; Naruse, Mitsuhide; Shimatsu, Akira

2013-01-01

Hypoparathyroidism, deafness, and renal dysplasia (HDR) syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder caused by a GATA3 gene mutation. Here we report a novel mutation of GATA3 in a patient diagnosed with HDR syndrome at the age of 58 with extensive intracranial calcification. A 58-year-old Japanese man showed severe hypocalcemia and marked calcification in the basal ganglia, cerebellum, deep white matter, and gray-white junction on computed tomography (CT). The serum intact parathyroid hormone level was relatively low against low serum calcium concentration. The patient had been diagnosed with bilateral sensorineural deafness in childhood and had a family history of hearing disorders. Imaging studies revealed no renal anomalies. The patient was diagnosed with HDR syndrome, and genetic testing was performed. Genetic analysis of GATA3 showed a novel nonsense mutation at codon 198 (S198X) in exon 3. The S198X mutation leads to a loss of two zinc finger deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) binding domains and is considered to be responsible for HDR syndrome. We identified a novel nonsense mutation of GATA3 in an adult patient with HDR syndrome who showed extensive intracranial calcification.

Social interaction facilitates word learning in preverbal infants: Word-object mapping and word segmentation.

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Hakuno, Yoko; Omori, Takahide; Yamamoto, Jun-Ichi; Minagawa, Yasuyo

2017-08-01

In natural settings, infants learn spoken language with the aid of a caregiver who explicitly provides social signals. Although previous studies have demonstrated that young infants are sensitive to these signals that facilitate language development, the impact of real-life interactions on early word segmentation and word-object mapping remains elusive. We tested whether infants aged 5-6 months and 9-10 months could segment a word from continuous speech and acquire a word-object relation in an ecologically valid setting. In Experiment 1, infants were exposed to a live tutor, while in Experiment 2, another group of infants were exposed to a televised tutor. Results indicate that both younger and older infants were capable of segmenting a word and learning a word-object association only when the stimuli were derived from a live tutor in a natural manner, suggesting that real-life interaction enhances the learning of spoken words in preverbal infants. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bringing the frame into focus: the influence of regulatory fit on processing fluency and persuasion.

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Lee, Angela Y; Aaker, Jennifer L

2004-02-01

This research demonstrates that people's goals associated with regulatory focus moderate the effect of message framing on persuasion. The results of 6 experiments show that appeals presented in gain frames are more persuasive when the message is promotion focused, whereas loss-framed appeals are more persuasive when the message is prevention focused. These regulatory focus effects suggesting heightened vigilance against negative outcomes and heightened eagerness toward positive outcomes are replicated when perceived risk is manipulated. Enhanced processing fluency leading to more favorable evaluations in conditions of compatibility appears to underlie these effects. The findings underscore the regulatory fit principle that accounts for the persuasiveness of message framing effects and highlight how processing fluency may contribute to the "feeling right" experience when the strategy of goal pursuit matches one's goal.

Second Language Acquisition and Schizophrenia

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Dugan, James E.

2014-01-01

Schizophrenia is a complex mental disorder that results in language-related symptoms at various discourse levels, ranging from semantics (e.g. inventing words and producing nonsensical strands of similar-sounding words) to pragmatics and higher-level functioning (e.g. too little or too much information given to interlocutors, and tangential…

The impact of language co-activation on L1 and L2 speech fluency

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bergmann, Christopher; Sprenger, Simone A.; Schmid, Monika S.

2015-01-01

Fluent speech depends on the availability of well-established linguistic knowledge and routines for speech planning and articulation. A lack of speech fluency in late second-language (12) learners may point to a deficiency of these representations, due to incomplete acquisition. Experiments on

The Relations among Oral and Silent Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Middle School: Implications for Identification and Instruction of Students with Reading Difficulties

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Denton, Carolyn A.; Barth, Amy E.; Fletcher, Jack M.; Wexler, Jade; Vaughn, Sharon; Cirino, Paul T.; Romain, Melissa; Francis, David J.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations among oral and silent reading fluency and reading comprehension for students in Grades 6 to 8 (n = 1,421) and the use of fluency scores to identify middle school students who are at risk for failure on a high-stakes reading test. Results indicated moderate positive relations between…

Musical practice and cognitive aging: two cross-sectional studies point phonemic fluency as a potential candidate for a use-dependent adaptation

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Baptiste eFAUVEL

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Because of permanent use-dependent cerebral plasticity, all lifelong individuals’ experiences are believed to influence the cognitive aging quality. In old individuals, both former and current musical practices have been associated with better verbal skills, visual memory, processing speed, and planning function. This work sought for an interaction between musical practice and cognitive aging by comparing musician and nonmusician individuals for two periods of life (late adulthood and old age. Long-term memory, auditory verbal short-term memory, processing speed, nonverbal reasoning, and verbal fluencies were assessed. In study 1, measures of processing speed and auditory verbal short-term memory showed significant better performances for musicians compared with controls, but both groups displayed the same age-related difference. For verbal fluencies, musician individuals scored higher and displayed different age effects compared with controls. In study 2, we revealed that the life period at training onset (childhood versus adulthood was associated with phonemic, but not semantic fluency performances (musicians who had started practice in adulthood did not perform better on phonemic fluency compared with nonmusicians. For these two measures, current frequency of training did not account for musicians’ scores. These patterns of results are discussed by confronting the hypothesis of a transformative effect of musical practice with non-causal explanation.

Reduced prefrontal activation during verbal fluency task in chronic insomnia disorder: a multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy study

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Sun JJ

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Jing-Jing Sun,1,2 Xiao-Min Liu,2 Chen-Yu Shen,2 Xiao-Qian Zhang,1,2 Gao-Xiang Sun,2 Kun Feng,2 Bo Xu,2 Xia-Jin Ren,1,2 Xiang-Yun Ma,1,2 Po-Zi Liu2 1Medical Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 2Department of Psychiatry, YuQuan Hospital, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Purpose: Daytime complaints such as memory and attention deficits and failure to accomplish daily tasks are common in insomnia patients. However, objective psychological tests to detect cognitive impairment are equivocal. Neural function associated with cognitive performance may explain the discrepancy. The aim of this study was to investigate the hemodynamic response patterns of patients with chronic insomnia disorder (CID using the noninvasive and low-cost functional neuroimaging technique of multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS in order to identify changes of neural function associated with cognitive performance.Patients and methods: Twenty-four CID patients and twenty-five healthy controls matched for age, right-hand dominance, educational level, and gender were examined during verbal fluency tasks (VFT using NIRS. A covariance analysis was conducted to analyze differences of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb changes in prefrontal cortex (PFC between the two groups and reduce the influence of the severity of depression. Pearson correlation coeffcients were calculated to examine the relationship between the oxy-Hb changes, with the severity of insomnia and depressive symptoms assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD.Results: The number of words generated during the VFT in CID groups showed no statistical differences with healthy controls. CID patients showed hypoactivation in the PFC during the cognitive task. In addition, we found that the function of left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC during the VFT was significantly negatively correlated with the PSQI scores and the function of right dorsolateral PFC

Investigating the Representational Fluency of Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers in a Modelling Process

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Delice, Ali; Kertil, Mahmut

2015-01-01

This article reports the results of a study that investigated pre-service mathematics teachers' modelling processes in terms of representational fluency in a modelling activity related to a cassette player. A qualitative approach was used in the data collection process. Students' individual and group written responses to the mathematical modelling…

A Few Words about Words | Poster

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By Ken Michaels, Guest Writer In Shakepeare’s play “Hamlet,” Polonius inquires of the prince, “What do you read, my lord?” Not at all pleased with what he’s reading, Hamlet replies, “Words, words, words.”1 I have previously described the communication model in which a sender encodes a message and then sends it via some channel (or medium) to a receiver, who decodes the message

Nonsense mutations in the PAX3 gene cause Waardenburg syndrome type I in two Chinese patients.

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Yang, Shu-Zhi; Cao, Ju-Yang; Zhang, Rui-Ning; Liu, Li-Xian; Liu, Xin; Zhang, Xin; Kang, Dong-Yang; Li, Mei; Han, Dong-Yi; Yuan, Hui-Jun; Yang, Wei-Yan

2007-01-05

Waardenburg syndrome type I (WS1) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by sensorineural hearing loss, pigmental abnormalities of the eye, hair and skin, and dystopia canthorum. The gene mainly responsible for WS1 is PAX3 which is involved in melanocytic development and survival. Mutations of PAX3 have been reported in familiar or sporadic patients with WS1 in several populations of the world except Chinese. In order to explore the genetic background of Chinese WS1 patients, a mutation screening of PAX3 gene was carried out in four WS1 pedigrees. A questionnaire survey and comprehensive clinical examination were conducted in four Chinese pedigrees of WS1. Genomic DNA from each patient and their family members was extracted and exons of PAX3 were amplified by PCR. PCR fragments were ethanol-purified and sequenced in both directions on an ABI_Prism 3100 DNA sequencer with the BigDye Terminator Cycle Sequencing Ready Reaction Kit. The sequences were obtained and aligned to the wild type sequence of PAX3 with the GeneTool program. Two nonsense PAX3 mutations have been found in the study population. One is heterozygous for a novel nonsense mutation S209X. The other is heterozygous for a previously reported mutation in European population R223X. Both mutations create stop codons leading to truncation of the PAX3 protein. This is the first demonstration of PAX3 mutations in Chinese WS1 patients and one of the few examples of an identical mutation of PAX3 occurred in different populations.

Visual perception can account for the close relation between numerosity processing and computational fluency.

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Zhou, Xinlin; Wei, Wei; Zhang, Yiyun; Cui, Jiaxin; Chen, Chuansheng

2015-01-01

Studies have shown that numerosity processing (e.g., comparison of numbers of dots in two dot arrays) is significantly correlated with arithmetic performance. Researchers have attributed this association to the fact that both tasks share magnitude processing. The current investigation tested an alternative hypothesis, which states that visual perceptual ability (as measured by a figure-matching task) can account for the close relation between numerosity processing and arithmetic performance (computational fluency). Four hundred and twenty four third- to fifth-grade children (220 boys and 204 girls, 8.0-11.0 years old; 120 third graders, 146 fourth graders, and 158 fifth graders) were recruited from two schools (one urban and one suburban) in Beijing, China. Six classes were randomly selected from each school, and all students in each selected class participated in the study. All children were given a series of cognitive and mathematical tests, including numerosity comparison, figure matching, forward verbal working memory, visual tracing, non-verbal matrices reasoning, mental rotation, choice reaction time, arithmetic tests and curriculum-based mathematical achievement test. Results showed that figure-matching ability had higher correlations with numerosity processing and computational fluency than did other cognitive factors (e.g., forward verbal working memory, visual tracing, non-verbal matrix reasoning, mental rotation, and choice reaction time). More important, hierarchical multiple regression showed that figure matching ability accounted for the well-established association between numerosity processing and computational fluency. In support of the visual perception hypothesis, the results suggest that visual perceptual ability, rather than magnitude processing, may be the shared component of numerosity processing and arithmetic performance.

Words and possible words in early language acquisition.

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Marchetto, Erika; Bonatti, Luca L

2013-11-01

In order to acquire language, infants must extract its building blocks-words-and master the rules governing their legal combinations from speech. These two problems are not independent, however: words also have internal structure. Thus, infants must extract two kinds of information from the same speech input. They must find the actual words of their language. Furthermore, they must identify its possible words, that is, the sequences of sounds that, being morphologically well formed, could be words. Here, we show that infants' sensitivity to possible words appears to be more primitive and fundamental than their ability to find actual words. We expose 12- and 18-month-old infants to an artificial language containing a conflict between statistically coherent and structurally coherent items. We show that 18-month-olds can extract possible words when the familiarization stream contains marks of segmentation, but cannot do so when the stream is continuous. Yet, they can find actual words from a continuous stream by computing statistical relationships among syllables. By contrast, 12-month-olds can find possible words when familiarized with a segmented stream, but seem unable to extract statistically coherent items from a continuous stream that contains minimal conflicts between statistical and structural information. These results suggest that sensitivity to word structure is in place earlier than the ability to analyze distributional information. The ability to compute nontrivial statistical relationships becomes fully effective relatively late in development, when infants have already acquired a considerable amount of linguistic knowledge. Thus, mechanisms for structure extraction that do not rely on extensive sampling of the input are likely to have a much larger role in language acquisition than general-purpose statistical abilities. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Predictors of Reading Skills for Kindergartners and First Grade Students in Spanish: A Longitudinal Study

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Kim, Young-Suk; Pallante, Daniel

2012-01-01

This study investigated predictors of word reading and reading comprehension skills using longitudinal data from Spanish-speaking kindergartners (N = 163) and first grade students (N = 305) from high SES families in Chile. Individual differences in letter-naming fluency and phonemic segmentation fluency, but not vocabulary, were positive…

Using a Multimedia-Based Program for Developing Student Teachers' EFL Speaking Fluency Skills

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Diyyab, Eman Aly; Abdel-Haq, Eman Muhamad; Aly, Mahsoub Abdel-Sadeq

2013-01-01

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of using a multimedia-based program for developing EFL speaking fluency skills among second year, English section student teachers. The sample of the present study consisted of thirty students at Sadat Faculty of Education, Minufiya University, Egypt. The study sample was…

The Development of L2 Fluency during Study Abroad: A Cross-Language Study

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Di Silvio, Francesca; Diao, Wenhao; Donovan, Anne

2016-01-01

Examining speech samples from 75 American university students learning 1 of 3 languages (Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish), this article reports on a study of second language (L2) learners' oral fluency development and its relationship with their gains in holistic proficiency ratings during a semester abroad. In study abroad research, there is a…

Role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and exploratory movements

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Cordier, Romain; Orth, Dominic; Courtine, Yoan; Croft, James L.

2017-01-01

This study examined the role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and on exploratory movements of the limbs, in order to understand whether previewing helps people to perceive and to realize affordances. Eight inexperienced and ten experienced climbers previewed a 10 m high route of 5b difficulty on French scale, then climbed it with a top-rope as fluently as possible. Gaze behavior was collected from an eye tracking system during the preview and allowed us to determine the number of times they scanned the route, and which of four route previewing strategies (fragmentary, ascending, zigzagging, and sequence-of-blocks) they used. Five inertial measurement units (IMU) (3D accelerometer, 3D gyroscope, 3D magnetometer) were attached to the hip, both feet, and forearms to analyze the vertical acceleration and direction of each limb and hip during the ascent. We were able to detect movement and immobility phases of each IMU using segmentation and classification processes. Depending on whether the limbs and/or hip were moving, five states of behavior were detected: immobility, postural regulation, hold exploration, hold change, and hold traction. Using cluster analysis we identified four clusters of gaze behavior during route previewing depending on route preview duration, number of scan paths, fixations duration, ascending, zigzagging, and sequence-of-blocks strategies. The number of scan paths was positively correlated with relative duration of exploration and negatively correlated with relative duration of hold changes during the ascent. Additionally, a high relative duration of sequence-of-blocks strategy and zigzagging strategy were associated with a high relative duration of immobility during the ascent. Route previewing might help to pick up functional information about reachable, graspable, and usable holds, in order to chain movements together and to find the route. In other words, route previewing might contribute to perceiving and realizing nested

Role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and exploratory movements.

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Ludovic Seifert

Full Text Available This study examined the role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and on exploratory movements of the limbs, in order to understand whether previewing helps people to perceive and to realize affordances. Eight inexperienced and ten experienced climbers previewed a 10 m high route of 5b difficulty on French scale, then climbed it with a top-rope as fluently as possible. Gaze behavior was collected from an eye tracking system during the preview and allowed us to determine the number of times they scanned the route, and which of four route previewing strategies (fragmentary, ascending, zigzagging, and sequence-of-blocks they used. Five inertial measurement units (IMU (3D accelerometer, 3D gyroscope, 3D magnetometer were attached to the hip, both feet, and forearms to analyze the vertical acceleration and direction of each limb and hip during the ascent. We were able to detect movement and immobility phases of each IMU using segmentation and classification processes. Depending on whether the limbs and/or hip were moving, five states of behavior were detected: immobility, postural regulation, hold exploration, hold change, and hold traction. Using cluster analysis we identified four clusters of gaze behavior during route previewing depending on route preview duration, number of scan paths, fixations duration, ascending, zigzagging, and sequence-of-blocks strategies. The number of scan paths was positively correlated with relative duration of exploration and negatively correlated with relative duration of hold changes during the ascent. Additionally, a high relative duration of sequence-of-blocks strategy and zigzagging strategy were associated with a high relative duration of immobility during the ascent. Route previewing might help to pick up functional information about reachable, graspable, and usable holds, in order to chain movements together and to find the route. In other words, route previewing might contribute to perceiving and

Stuttering, induced fluency, and natural fluency: a hierarchical series of activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses.

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Budde, Kristin S; Barron, Daniel S; Fox, Peter T

2014-12-01

Developmental stuttering is a speech disorder most likely due to a heritable form of developmental dysmyelination impairing the function of the speech-motor system. Speech-induced brain-activation patterns in persons who stutter (PWS) are anomalous in various ways; the consistency of these aberrant patterns is a matter of ongoing debate. Here, we present a hierarchical series of coordinate-based meta-analyses addressing this issue. Two tiers of meta-analyses were performed on a 17-paper dataset (202 PWS; 167 fluent controls). Four large-scale (top-tier) meta-analyses were performed, two for each subject group (PWS and controls). These analyses robustly confirmed the regional effects previously postulated as "neural signatures of stuttering" (Brown, Ingham, Ingham, Laird, & Fox, 2005) and extended this designation to additional regions. Two smaller-scale (lower-tier) meta-analyses refined the interpretation of the large-scale analyses: (1) a between-group contrast targeting differences between PWS and controls (stuttering trait); and (2) a within-group contrast (PWS only) of stuttering with induced fluency (stuttering state). Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Relationship of Error Rate and Comprehension in Second and Third Grade Oral Reading Fluency.

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Abbott, Mary; Wills, Howard; Miller, Angela; Kaufman, Journ

2012-01-01

This study explored the relationships of oral reading speed and error rate on comprehension with second and third grade students with identified reading risk. The study included 920 2nd graders and 974 3rd graders. Participants were assessed using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test (WRMT) Passage Comprehension subtest. Results from this study further illuminate the significant relationships between error rate, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension performance, and grade-specific guidelines for appropriate error rate levels. Low oral reading fluency and high error rates predict the level of passage comprehension performance. For second grade students below benchmark, a fall assessment error rate of 28% predicts that student comprehension performance will be below average. For third grade students below benchmark, the fall assessment cut point is 14%. Instructional implications of the findings are discussed.

The Relationship between Reading Comprehension, Decoding, and Fluency in Greek: A Cross-Sectional Study

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Padeliadu, Susana; Antoniou, Faye

2014-01-01

Experts widely consider decoding and fluency as the basis of reading comprehension, while at the same time consistently documenting problems in these areas as major characteristics of students with learning disabilities. However, scholars have developed most of the relevant research within phonologically deep languages, wherein decoding problems…

The Effects of a Single Night of Sleep Deprivation on Fluency and Prefrontal Cortex Function during Divergent Thinking

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Oshin eVartanian

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The dorsal and ventral aspects of the prefrontal cortex (PFC are the two regions most consistently recruited in divergent thinking tasks. Given that frontal tasks have been shown to be vulnerable to sleep loss, we explored the impact of a single night of sleep deprivation on fluency (i.e., number of generated responses and PFC function during divergent thinking. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI scanning twice while engaged in the Alternate Uses Task (AUT—once following a single night of sleep deprivation and once following a night of normal sleep. They also wore wrist activity monitors, which enabled us to quantify daily sleep and model cognitive effectiveness. The intervention was effective, producing greater levels of fatigue and sleepiness. Modelled cognitive effectiveness and fluency were impaired following sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation was associated with greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus during AUT. The results suggest that an intervention known to temporarily compromise frontal function can impair fluency, and that this effect is instantiated in the form of an increased haemodynamic response in the left inferior frontal gyrus.

Can You Say My Name?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Erz, Antonia; Christensen, Bo T.

affect their judgments of people and objects. We extend this research by investigating the effect of phonological fluency on recognition and recall of novel non-word brand names in three laboratory experiments. The results provide us with a more fine-grained idea of fluency effects on memory of non...

Recurrent Partial Words

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Francine Blanchet-Sadri

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Partial words are sequences over a finite alphabet that may contain wildcard symbols, called holes, which match or are compatible with all letters; partial words without holes are said to be full words (or simply words. Given an infinite partial word w, the number of distinct full words over the alphabet that are compatible with factors of w of length n, called subwords of w, refers to a measure of complexity of infinite partial words so-called subword complexity. This measure is of particular interest because we can construct partial words with subword complexities not achievable by full words. In this paper, we consider the notion of recurrence over infinite partial words, that is, we study whether all of the finite subwords of a given infinite partial word appear infinitely often, and we establish connections between subword complexity and recurrence in this more general framework.

Effects of Word Width and Word Length on Optimal Character Size for Reading of Horizontally Scrolling Japanese Words.

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Teramoto, Wataru; Nakazaki, Takuyuki; Sekiyama, Kaoru; Mori, Shuji

2016-01-01

The present study investigated, whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of four Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. To quantitatively measure their reading performance, we used rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, where the scrolling rate was increased until the participants began to make mistakes. Thus, the highest scrolling rate at which the participants' performance exceeded 88.9% correct rate was calculated for each character size (0.3°, 0.6°, 1.0°, and 3.0°) and scroll window size (5 or 10 character spaces). Results showed that the reading performance was highest in the range of 0.6° to 1.0°, irrespective of the scroll window size. Experiment 2 investigated whether the optimal character size observed in Experiment 1 was applicable for any word width and word length (i.e., the number of characters in a word). Results showed that reading speeds were slower for longer than shorter words and the word width of 3.6° was optimal among the word lengths tested (three, four, and six character words). Considering that character size varied depending on word width and word length in the present study, this means that the optimal character size can be changed by word width and word length in scrolling Japanese words.

Abelian primitive words

OpenAIRE

Domaratzki, Michael; Rampersad, Narad

2011-01-01

We investigate Abelian primitive words, which are words that are not Abelian powers. We show that unlike classical primitive words, the set of Abelian primitive words is not context-free. We can determine whether a word is Abelian primitive in linear time. Also different from classical primitive words, we find that a word may have more than one Abelian root. We also consider enumeration problems and the relation to the theory of codes. Peer reviewed

Effects of word width and word length on optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wataru eTeramoto

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The present study investigated whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of 4 Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. To quantitatively measure their reading performance, we used rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, where the scrolling rate was increased until the participants began to make mistakes. Thus, the highest scrolling rate at which the participants’ performance exceeded 88.9% correct rate was calculated for each character size (0.3, 0.6, 1.0, and 3.0° and scroll window size (5 or 10 character spaces. Results showed that the reading performance was highest in the range of 0.6° to 1.0°, irrespective of the scroll window size. Experiment 2 investigated whether the optimal character size observed in Experiment 1 was applicable for any word width and word length (i.e., the number of characters in a word. Results showed that reading speeds were slower for longer than shorter words and the word width of 3.6° was optimal among the word lengths tested (3, 4, and 6 character words. Considering that character size varied depending on word width and word length in the present study, this means that the optimal character size can be changed by word width and word length.

Musical practice and cognitive aging: two cross-sectional studies point to phonemic fluency as a potential candidate for a use-dependent adaptation.

Science.gov (United States)

Fauvel, Baptiste; Groussard, Mathilde; Mutlu, Justine; Arenaza-Urquijo, Eider M; Eustache, Francis; Desgranges, Béatrice; Platel, Hervé

2014-01-01

Because of permanent use-dependent brain plasticity, all lifelong individuals' experiences are believed to influence the cognitive aging quality. In older individuals, both former and current musical practices have been associated with better verbal skills, visual memory, processing speed, and planning function. This work sought for an interaction between musical practice and cognitive aging by comparing musician and non-musician individuals for two lifetime periods (middle and late adulthood). Long-term memory, auditory-verbal short-term memory, processing speed, non-verbal reasoning, and verbal fluencies were assessed. In Study 1, measures of processing speed and auditory-verbal short-term memory were significantly better performed by musicians compared with controls, but both groups displayed the same age-related differences. For verbal fluencies, musicians scored higher than controls and displayed different age effects. In Study 2, we found that lifetime period at training onset (childhood vs. adulthood) was associated with phonemic, but not semantic, fluency performances (musicians who had started to practice in adulthood did not perform better on phonemic fluency than non-musicians). Current frequency of training did not account for musicians' scores on either of these two measures. These patterns of results are discussed by setting the hypothesis of a transformative effect of musical practice against a non-causal explanation.

Working memory and sentence comprehension of Hong Kong Chinese children with specific language impairment.

Science.gov (United States)

Siu, Elaine; Man, David W K

2006-09-01

Children with Specific Language Impairment present with delayed language development, but do not have a history of hearing impairment, mental deficiency, or associated social or behavioral problems. Non-word repetition was suggested as an index to reflect the capacity of phonological working memory. There is a paucity of such studies among Hong Kong Chinese children. This preliminary study aimed to examine the relationship between phonological working memory and Specific Language Impairment, through the processes of non-word repetition and sentence comprehension, of children with Specific Language Impairment and pre-school children with normal language development. Both groups of children were screened by a standardized language test. A list of Cantonese (the commonest dialect used in Hong Kong) multisyllabic nonsense utterances and a set of 18 sentences were developed for this study. t-tests and Pearson correlation were used to study the relationship between non-word repetition, working memory and specific language impairment. Twenty-three pre-school children with Specific Language Impairment (mean age = 68.30 months; SD = 6.90) and another 23 pre-school children (mean age = 67.30 months; SD = 6.16) participated in the study. Significant difference performance was found between the Specific Language Impairment group and normal language group in the multisyllabic nonsense utterances repetition task and the sentence comprehension task. Length effect was noted in Specific Language Impairment group children, which is consistent with the findings of other literature. In addition, correlations were also observed between the number of nonsense utterances repeated and the number of elements comprehended. Cantonese multisyllabic nonsense utterances might be worth further developing as a screening tool for the early detection of children with Specific Language Impairment.

Language networks associated with computerized semantic indices.

Science.gov (United States)

Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Jones, David T; Knopman, David S

2015-01-01

Tests of generative semantic verbal fluency are widely used to study organization and representation of concepts in the human brain. Previous studies demonstrated that clustering and switching behavior during verbal fluency tasks is supported by multiple brain mechanisms associated with semantic memory and executive control. Previous work relied on manual assessments of semantic relatedness between words and grouping of words into semantic clusters. We investigated a computational linguistic approach to measuring the strength of semantic relatedness between words based on latent semantic analysis of word co-occurrences in a subset of a large online encyclopedia. We computed semantic clustering indices and compared them to brain network connectivity measures obtained with task-free fMRI in a sample consisting of healthy participants and those differentially affected by cognitive impairment. We found that semantic clustering indices were associated with brain network connectivity in distinct areas including fronto-temporal, fronto-parietal and fusiform gyrus regions. This study shows that computerized semantic indices complement traditional assessments of verbal fluency to provide a more complete account of the relationship between brain and verbal behavior involved organization and retrieval of lexical information from memory. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

General Chemistry Students' Conceptual Understanding and Language Fluency: Acid-Base Neutralization and Conductometry

Science.gov (United States)

Nyachwaya, James M.

2016-01-01

The objective of this study was to examine college general chemistry students' conceptual understanding and language fluency in the context of the topic of acids and bases. 115 students worked in groups of 2-4 to complete an activity on conductometry, where they were given a scenario in which a titration of sodium hydroxide solution and dilute…

Readthrough of long-QT syndrome type 1 nonsense mutations rescues function but alters the biophysical properties of the channel.

Science.gov (United States)

Harmer, Stephen C; Mohal, Jagdeep S; Kemp, Duncan; Tinker, Andrew

2012-05-01

The nonsense mutations R518X-KCNQ1 and Q530X-KCNQ1 cause LQT1 (long-QT syndrome type 1) and result in a complete loss of I(Ks) channel function. In the present study we attempted to rescue the function of these mutants, in HEK (human embryonic kidney)-293 cells, by promoting readthrough of their PTCs (premature termination codons) using the pharmacological agents G-418, gentamicin and PTC124. Gentamicin and G-418 acted to promote full-length channel protein expression from R518X at 100 μM and from Q530X at 1 mM. In contrast, PTC124 did not, at any dose tested, induce readthrough of either mutant. G-418 (1 mM) treatment also acted to significantly (Pbiophysical properties of the currents produced from R518X, while similar, were not identical with wild-type as the voltage-dependence of activation was significantly (P<0.05) shifted by +25 mV. Overall, these findings indicate that although functional rescue of LQT1 nonsense mutations is possible, it is dependent on the degree of readthrough achieved and the effect on channel function of the amino acid substituted for the PTC. Such considerations will determine the success of future therapies.

Perception of emotional nonsense sentences in China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the USA.

Science.gov (United States)

Waaramaa, Teija

2015-10-01

The present study focused on the identification of emotions in cross-cultural conditions on different continents and among subjects with divergent language backgrounds. The aim was to investigate whether the perception of the basic emotions from nonsense vocal samples was universal, dependent on voice quality, musicality, and/or gender. Listening tests for 350 participants were conducted on location in a variety of cultures: China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the USA. The results suggested that the voice quality parameters played a role in the identification of emotions without the linguistic content. Cultural background may affect the interpretation of the emotions more than the presumed universality. Musical interest tended to facilitate emotion identification. No gender differences were found.

Becker muscular dystrophy with widespread muscle hypertrophy and a non-sense mutation of exon 2.

Science.gov (United States)

Witting, N; Duno, M; Vissing, J

2013-01-01

Becker muscular dystrophy features progressive proximal weakness, wasting and often focal hypertrophy. We present a patient with pain and cramps from adolescence. Widespread muscle hypertrophy, preserved muscle strength and a 10-20-fold raised CPK were noted. Muscle biopsy was dystrophic, and Western blot showed a 95% reduction of dystrophin levels. Genetic analyses revealed a non-sense mutation in exon 2 of the dystrophin gene. This mutation is predicted to result in a Duchenne phenotype, but resulted in a mild Becker muscular dystrophy with widespread muscle hypertrophy. We suggest that this unusual phenotype is caused by translation re-initiation downstream from the mutation site. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Universal Lyndon Words

OpenAIRE

Carpi, Arturo; Fici, Gabriele; Holub, Stepan; Oprsal, Jakub; Sciortino, Marinella

2014-01-01

A word $w$ over an alphabet $\\Sigma$ is a Lyndon word if there exists an order defined on $\\Sigma$ for which $w$ is lexicographically smaller than all of its conjugates (other than itself). We introduce and study \\emph{universal Lyndon words}, which are words over an $n$-letter alphabet that have length $n!$ and such that all the conjugates are Lyndon words. We show that universal Lyndon words exist for every $n$ and exhibit combinatorial and structural properties of these words. We then defi...

Word skipping: effects of word length, predictability, spelling and reading skill.

Science.gov (United States)

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.

Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming.

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Rieth, Cory A; Huber, David E

2017-06-01

Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word 'BACK' after the prime phrase 'back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Signal Words

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SIGNAL WORDS TOPIC FACT SHEET NPIC fact sheets are designed to answer questions that are commonly asked by the ... making decisions about pesticide use. What are Signal Words? Signal words are found on pesticide product labels, ...

Common pathological mutations in PQBP1 induce nonsense-mediated mRNA decay and enhance exclusion of the mutant exon.

Science.gov (United States)

Musante, Luciana; Kunde, Stella-Amrei; Sulistio, Tina O; Fischer, Ute; Grimme, Astrid; Frints, Suzanna G M; Schwartz, Charles E; Martínez, Francisco; Romano, Corrado; Ropers, Hans-Hilger; Kalscheuer, Vera M

2010-01-01

The polyglutamine binding protein 1 (PQBP1) gene plays an important role in X-linked mental retardation (XLMR). Nine of the thirteen PQBP1 mutations known to date affect the AG hexamer in exon 4 and cause frameshifts introducing premature termination codons (PTCs). However, the phenotype in this group of patients is variable. To investigate the pathology of these PQBP1 mutations, we evaluated their consequences on mRNA and protein expression. RT-PCRs revealed mutation-specific reduction of PQBP1 mRNAs carrying the PTCs that can be partially restored by blocking translation, thus indicating a role for the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway. In addition, these mutations resulted in altered levels of PQBP1 transcripts that skipped exon 4, probably as a result of altering important splicing motifs via nonsense-associated altered splicing (NAS). This hypothesis is supported by transfection experiments using wild-type and mutant PQBP1 minigenes. Moreover, we show that a truncated PQBP1 protein is indeed present in the patients. Remarkably, patients with insertion/deletion mutations in the AG hexamer express significantly increased levels of a PQBP1 isoform, which is very likely encoded by the transcripts without exon 4, confirming the findings at the mRNA level. Our study provides significant insight into the early events contributing to the pathogenesis of the PQBP1 related XLMR disease.

Reduced dorsolateral prefrontal cortical hemodynamic response in adult obsessive-compulsive disorder as measured by near-infrared spectroscopy during the verbal fluency task

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hirosawa R

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Rikuei Hirosawa,1 Jin Narumoto,1 Yuki Sakai,1 Seiji Nishida,2 Takuya Ishida,1 Takashi Nakamae,1 Yuichi Takei,3 Kenji Fukui1 1Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, 2Maizuru Medical Center, Kyoto, 3Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, Gunma, Japan Background: Near-infrared spectroscopy has helped our understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms of psychiatric disorders and has advantages including noninvasiveness, lower cost, and ease of use compared with other imaging techniques, like functional magnetic resonance imaging. The verbal fluency task is the most common and well established task used to assess cognitive activation during near-infrared spectroscopy. Recent functional neuroimaging studies have shown that the orbitofrontal cortex and other brain regions, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, may play important roles in the pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD. This study aimed to evaluate hemodynamic responses in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in patients with OCD using near-infrared spectroscopy during the verbal fluency task and to compare these with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex responses in healthy controls. Methods: Twenty patients with OCD and 20 controls matched for age, gender, handedness, and estimated intelligence quotient participated in this study. The verbal fluency task was used to elicit near-infrared spectroscopic activation and consisted of a 30-second pre-task, followed by three repetitions of a 20-second verbal fluency task (total 60 seconds, followed by a 70-second post-task period. The near-infrared spectroscopy experiment was conducted on the same day as surveys of obsessive-compulsive symptoms, depression, and anxiety. Z-scores for changes in the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin were compared between the OCD patients and controls in 14 channels set over the

Can a "Shouting" Digital Game Help Learners Develop Oral Fluency in a Second Language?

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Grimshaw, Jennica; Cardoso, Walcir; Waddington, David

2016-01-01

This study examines the development of oral fluency in a Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) environment that uses a "shouting" digital game as a pedagogical tool: Spaceteam ESL4. Spaceteam ESL is a game for mobile devices that involves time-sensitive aural exchanges among players (English learners), with great potential to promote…

Processing negative valence of word pairs that include a positive word.

Science.gov (United States)

Itkes, Oksana; Mashal, Nira

2016-09-01

Previous research has suggested that cognitive performance is interrupted by negative relative to neutral or positive stimuli. We examined whether negative valence affects performance at the word or phrase level. Participants performed a semantic decision task on word pairs that included either a negative or a positive target word. In Experiment 1, the valence of the target word was congruent with the overall valence conveyed by the word pair (e.g., fat kid). As expected, response times were slower in the negative condition relative to the positive condition. Experiment 2 included target words that were incongruent with the overall valence of the word pair (e.g., fat salary). Response times were longer for word pairs whose overall valence was negative relative to positive, even though these word pairs included a positive word. Our findings support the Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis, according to which emotional valence is extracted after conceptual processing is complete.

Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels

NARCIS (Netherlands)

El Aissati, A.; McQueen, J.M.; Cutler, A.

2012-01-01

Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the

The role of auditory temporal cues in the fluency of stuttering adults

OpenAIRE

Furini, Juliana; Picoloto, Luana Altran; Marconato, Eduarda; Bohnen, Anelise Junqueira; Cardoso, Ana Claudia Vieira; Oliveira, Cristiane Moço Canhetti de

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Purpose: to compare the frequency of disfluencies and speech rate in spontaneous speech and reading in adults with and without stuttering in non-altered and delayed auditory feedback (NAF, DAF). Methods: participants were 30 adults: 15 with Stuttering (Research Group - RG), and 15 without stuttering (Control Group - CG). The procedures were: audiological assessment and speech fluency evaluation in two listening conditions, normal and delayed auditory feedback (100 milliseconds dela...

Don’t words come easy?A psychophysical exploration of word superiority

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Randi eStarrfelt

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. We compare performance with letters and words in three experiments, to explore the extents and limits of the WSE. Using a carefully controlled list of three letter words, we show that a word superiority effect can be revealed in vocal reaction times even to undegraded stimuli. With a novel combination of psychophysics and mathematical modelling, we further show that the typical WSE is specifically reflected in perceptual processing speed: single words are simply processed faster than single letters. Intriguingly, when multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously, letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and visual short term memory capacity. So, even if single words come easy, there is a limit to the word superiority effect.

Don't words come easy? A psychophysical exploration of word superiority

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Starrfelt, Randi; Petersen, Anders; Vangkilde, Signe Allerup

2013-01-01

Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE) has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. We compare performance with letters and words in three experiments, ...... and visual short term memory capacity. So, even if single words come easy, there is a limit to the word superiority effect....

Predicting short-term stock fluctuations by using processing fluency

Science.gov (United States)

Alter, Adam L.; Oppenheimer, Daniel M.

2006-01-01

Three studies investigated the impact of the psychological principle of fluency (that people tend to prefer easily processed information) on short-term share price movements. In both a laboratory study and two analyses of naturalistic real-world stock market data, fluently named stocks robustly outperformed stocks with disfluent names in the short term. For example, in one study, an initial investment of $1,000 yielded a profit of $112 more after 1 day of trading for a basket of fluently named shares than for a basket of disfluently named shares. These results imply that simple, cognitive approaches to modeling human behavior sometimes outperform more typical, complex alternatives. PMID:16754871

Hearing "Quack" and Remembering a Duck: Evidence for Fluency Attribution in Young Children

Science.gov (United States)

Geurten, Marie; Lloyd, Marianne; Willems, Sylvie

2017-01-01

Previous research has suggested that fluency does not influence memory decisions until ages 7-8. In two experiments (n = 96 and n = 64, respectively), children, aged 4, 6, and 8 years (Experiments 1 and 2), and adults (Experiment 2) studied a list of pictures. Participants completed a recognition test during which each study item was preceded by a…

Changing word usage predicts changing word durations in New Zealand English.

Science.gov (United States)

Sóskuthy, Márton; Hay, Jennifer

2017-09-01

This paper investigates the emergence of lexicalized effects of word usage on word duration by looking at parallel changes in usage and duration over 130years in New Zealand English. Previous research has found that frequent words are shorter, informative words are longer, and words in utterance-final position are also longer. It has also been argued that some of these patterns are not simply online adjustments, but are incorporated into lexical representations. While these studies tend to focus on the synchronic aspects of such patterns, our corpus shows that word-usage patterns and word durations are not static over time. Many words change in duration and also change with respect to frequency, informativity and likelihood of occurring utterance-finally. Analysis of changing word durations over this time period shows substantial patterns of co-adaptation between word usage and word durations. Words that are increasing in frequency are becoming shorter. Words that are increasing/decreasing in informativity show a change in the same direction in duration (e.g. increasing informativity is associated with increasing duration). And words that are increasingly appearing utterance-finally are lengthening. These effects exist independently of the local effects of the predictors. For example, words that are increasing utterance-finally lengthen in all positions, including utterance-medially. We show that these results are compatible with a number of different views about lexical representations, but they cannot be explained without reference to a production-perception loop that allows speakers to update their representations dynamically on the basis of their experience. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Effects of Divided Attention on Speech Motor, Verbal Fluency, and Manual Task Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Dromey, Christopher; Shim, Erin

2008-01-01

Purpose: The goal of this study was to evaluate aspects of the "functional distance hypothesis," which predicts that tasks regulated by brain networks in closer anatomic proximity will interfere more with each other than tasks controlled by spatially distant regions. Speech, verbal fluency, and manual motor tasks were examined to ascertain whether…

The frontal-anatomic specificity of design fluency repetitions and their diagnostic relevance for behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia.

Science.gov (United States)

Possin, Katherine L; Chester, Serana K; Laluz, Victor; Bostrom, Alan; Rosen, Howard J; Miller, Bruce L; Kramer, Joel H

2012-09-01

On tests of design fluency, an examinee draws as many different designs as possible in a specified time limit while avoiding repetition. The neuroanatomical substrates and diagnostic group differences of design fluency repetition errors and total correct scores were examined in 110 individuals diagnosed with dementia, 53 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 37 neurologically healthy controls. The errors correlated significantly with volumes in the right and left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the right and left superior frontal gyrus, the right inferior frontal gyrus, and the right striatum, but did not correlate with volumes in any parietal or temporal lobe regions. Regression analyses indicated that the lateral OFC may be particularly crucial for preventing these errors, even after excluding patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) from the analysis. Total correct correlated more diffusely with volumes in the right and left frontal and parietal cortex, the right temporal cortex, and the right striatum and thalamus. Patients diagnosed with bvFTD made significantly more repetition errors than patients diagnosed with MCI, Alzheimer's disease, semantic dementia, progressive supranuclear palsy, or corticobasal syndrome. In contrast, total correct design scores did not differentiate the dementia patients. These results highlight the frontal-anatomic specificity of design fluency repetitions. In addition, the results indicate that the propensity to make these errors supports the diagnosis of bvFTD. (JINS, 2012, 18, 1-11).

A WORD-OF-MOUSE APPROACH FOR WORD-OF-MOUTH MEASUREMENT

OpenAIRE

Andreia Gabriela ANDREI

2012-01-01

Despite of the fact that word-of-mouth phenomenon gained unseen dimensions, only few studies have focused on its measurement and only three of them developed a word-of-mouth construct. Our study develops a bi-dimensional scale which assigns usual word-of-mouth mechanisms available in online networking sites (eg: Recommend, Share, Like, Comment) into the WOM (+) - positive word-of-mouth valence dimension - respectively into the WOM (-) - negative word-of-mouth valence dimension. We adapted e-W...

Mammalian tissues defective in nonsense-mediated mRNA decay display highly aberrant splicing patterns

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Weischenfeldt, Joachim Lütken; Waage, Johannes Eichler; Tian, Geng

2012-01-01

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) affects the outcome of alternative splicing by degrading mRNA isoforms with premature termination codons. Splicing regulators constitute important NMD targets; however, the extent to which loss of NMD causes extensive deregulation...... of alternative splicing has not previously been assayed in a global, unbiased manner. Here, we combine mouse genetics and RNA-seq to provide the first in vivo analysis of the global impact of NMD on splicing patterns in two primary mouse tissues ablated for the NMD factor UPF2. RESULTS: We developed...... importance, the latter events are associated with high intronic conservation. CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrate that NMD regulates alternative splicing outcomes through an intricate web of splicing regulators and that its loss leads to the deregulation of a panoply of splicing events, providing novel...

Quantum sense and nonsense

CERN Document Server

Bricmont, Jean

2017-01-01

Permeated by the author's delightful humor, this little book explains, with nearly no mathematics, the main conceptual issues associated with quantum mechanics:  The issue of determinism. Does quantum mechanics signify the end of a deterministic word-view?  The role of the human subject or of the "observer" in science. Since Copernicus, science has increasingly tended to dethrone Man from his formerly held special position in the Universe. But quantum mechanics, with its emphasis on the notion of observation, may once more have given a central role to the human subject.  The issue of locality. Does quantum mechanics imply that instantaneous actions at a distance exist in Nature? In these pages the author offers a variety of views and answers - bad as well as good - to these questions. The reader will be both entertained and enlightened by Jean Bricmont's clear and incisive arguments.

Untimed Design Fluency in Aging and Alzheimer's Disease: Psychometrics and Normative Data.

Science.gov (United States)

Sunderaraman, Preeti; Sokolov, Elisaveta; Cines, Sarah; Sullo, Elizabeth; Orly, Aidan; Lerer, Bianca; Karlawish, Jason; Huey, Edward; Cosentino, Stephanie

2015-01-01

Design fluency tests, commonly used in both clinical and research contexts to evaluate nonverbal concept generation, have the potential to offer useful information in the differentiation of healthy versus pathological aging. Although normative data for older adults (OAs) are available for multiple timed versions of this test, similar data have been unavailable for a previously published untimed test, the Graphic Pattern Generation Test (GPG). Time constraints common to almost all of the available design fluency tests may cloud interpretation of higher-level executive abilities-for example, in individuals with slow processing speed. The current study examined the psychometric properties of the GPG and presents normative data in a sample of 167 healthy OAs and 110 individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Results suggest that a brief version of the GPG can be administered reliably and that this short form has high test-retest and interrater reliability. Number of perseverations was higher in individuals with AD as compared with OAs. A cutoff score of 4 or more perseverations showed a moderate degree of sensitivity (76%) and specificity (37%) in distinguishing individuals with AD and OAs. Finally, perseverations were associated with nonmemory indexes, thereby underscoring the nonverbal nature of this error in OAs and individuals with AD.

Video self-modeling as a post-treatment fluency recovery strategy for adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Harasym, Jessica; Langevin, Marilyn; Kully, Deborah

2015-06-01

This multiple-baseline across subjects study investigated the effectiveness of video self-modeling (VSM) in reducing stuttering and bringing about improvements in associated self-report measures. Participants' viewing practices and perceptions of the utility of VSM also were explored. Three adult males who had previously completed speech restructuring treatment viewed VSM recordings twice per week for 6 weeks. Weekly speech data, treatment viewing logs, and pre- and post-treatment self-report measures were obtained. An exit interview also was conducted. Two participants showed a decreasing trend in stuttering frequency. All participants appeared to engage in fewer avoidance behaviors and had less expectations to stutter. All participants perceived that, in different ways, the VSM treatment had benefited them and all participants had unique viewing practices. Given the increasing availability and ease in using portable audio-visual technology, VSM appears to offer an economical and clinically useful tool for clients who are motivated to use the technology to recover fluency. Readers will be able to describe: (a) the tenets of video-self modeling; (b) the main components of video-self modeling as a fluency recovery treatment as used in this study; and (c) speech and self-report outcomes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Word/sub-word lattices decomposition and combination for speech recognition

OpenAIRE

Le , Viet-Bac; Seng , Sopheap; Besacier , Laurent; Bigi , Brigitte

2008-01-01

International audience; This paper presents the benefit of using multiple lexical units in the post-processing stage of an ASR system. Since the use of sub-word units can reduce the high out-of-vocabulary rate and improve the lack of text resources in statistical language modeling, we propose several methods to decompose, normalize and combine word and sub-word lattices generated from different ASR systems. By using a sub-word information table, every word in a lattice can be decomposed into ...

Reading with Ease: The Impact of an Oral Reading Fluency Intervention with Adolescent Struggling Readers

Science.gov (United States)

Van Wig, Ann

2016-01-01

The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental study was to investigate the impact of a repeated reading fluency intervention focused on prosody, counterbalanced with an intervention focused on reading strategies. Both of these interventions were designed to promote feelings of achievement through participation in activities intended to…

Right word making sense of the words that confuse

CERN Document Server

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.

Examining Predictive Validity of Oral Reading Fluency Slope in Upper Elementary Grades Using Quantile Regression.

Science.gov (United States)

Cho, Eunsoo; Capin, Philip; Roberts, Greg; Vaughn, Sharon

2017-07-01

Within multitiered instructional delivery models, progress monitoring is a key mechanism for determining whether a child demonstrates an adequate response to instruction. One measure commonly used to monitor the reading progress of students is oral reading fluency (ORF). This study examined the extent to which ORF slope predicts reading comprehension outcomes for fifth-grade struggling readers ( n = 102) participating in an intensive reading intervention. Quantile regression models showed that ORF slope significantly predicted performance on a sentence-level fluency and comprehension assessment, regardless of the students' reading skills, controlling for initial ORF performance. However, ORF slope was differentially predictive of a passage-level comprehension assessment based on students' reading skills when controlling for initial ORF status. Results showed that ORF explained unique variance for struggling readers whose posttest performance was at the upper quantiles at the end of the reading intervention, but slope was not a significant predictor of passage-level comprehension for students whose reading problems were the most difficult to remediate.

"Let Me Hear Your Handwriting!" Evaluating the Movement Fluency from Its Sonification.

Science.gov (United States)

Danna, Jérémy; Paz-Villagrán, Vietminh; Gondre, Charles; Aramaki, Mitsuko; Kronland-Martinet, Richard; Ystad, Sølvi; Velay, Jean-Luc

2015-01-01

The quality of handwriting is evaluated from the visual inspection of its legibility and not from the movement that generates the trace. Although handwriting is achieved in silence, adding sounds to handwriting movement might help towards its perception, provided that these sounds are meaningful. This study evaluated the ability to judge handwriting quality from the auditory perception of the underlying sonified movement, without seeing the written trace. In a first experiment, samples of a word written by children with dysgraphia, proficient children writers, and proficient adult writers were collected with a graphic tablet. Then, the pen velocity, the fluency, and the axial pen pressure were sonified in order to create forty-five audio files. In a second experiment, these files were presented to 48 adult listeners who had to mark the underlying unseen handwriting. In order to evaluate the relevance of the sonification strategy, two experimental conditions were compared. In a first 'implicit' condition, the listeners made their judgment without any knowledge of the mapping between the sounds and the handwriting variables. In a second 'explicit' condition, they knew what the sonified variables corresponded to and the evaluation criteria. Results showed that, under the implicit condition, two thirds of the listeners marked the three groups of writers differently. In the explicit condition, all listeners marked the dysgraphic handwriting lower than that of the two other groups. In a third experiment, the scores given from the auditory evaluation were compared to the scores given by 16 other adults from the visual evaluation of the trace. Results revealed that auditory evaluation was more relevant than the visual evaluation for evaluating a dysgraphic handwriting. Handwriting sonification might therefore be a relevant tool allowing a therapist to complete the visual assessment of the written trace by an auditory control of the handwriting movement quality.

Processing the Order of Symbolic Numbers: A Reliable and Unique Predictor of Arithmetic Fluency

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephan E. Vogel

2017-12-01

Full Text Available A small but growing body of evidence suggests a link between individual differences in processing the order of numerical symbols (e.g., deciding whether a set of digits is arranged in ascending/descending order or not and arithmetic achievement. However, the reliability of behavioral correlates measuring symbolic and non-symbolic numerical order processing and their relationship to arithmetic abilities remain poorly understood. The present study aims to fill this knowledge gap by examining the behavioral correlates of numerical and non-numerical order processing and their unique associations with arithmetic fluency at two different time points within the same sample of individuals. Thirty-two right-handed adults performed three order judgment tasks consisting of symbolic numbers (i.e., digits, non-symbolic numbers (i.e., dots, and letters of the alphabet. Specifically, participants had to judge as accurately and as quickly as possible whether stimuli were ordered correctly (in ascending/descending order, e.g., 2-3-4; ●●●●-●●●-●●; B-C-D or not (e.g., 4-5-3; ●●●●-●●●●●-●●●; D-E-C. Results of this study demonstrate that numerical order judgments are reliable measurements (i.e., high test-retest reliability, and that the observed relationship between symbolic number processing and arithmetic fluency accounts for a unique and reliable portion of variance over and above the non-symbolic number and the letter conditions. The differential association of symbolic and non-symbolic numbers with arithmetic support the view that processing the order of symbolic and non-symbolic numbers engages different cognitive mechanisms, and that the ability to process ordinal relationships of symbolic numbers is a reliable and unique predictor of arithmetic fluency.

Reading Fluency as a Predictor of Reading Proficiency in Low-Performing, High-Poverty Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Scott K.; Smolkowski, Keith; Katz, Rachell; Fien, Hank; Seeley, John R.; Kame'enui, Edward J.; Beck, Carrie Thomas

2008-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine oral reading fluency (ORF) in the context of a large-scale federal reading initiative conducted in low performing, high poverty schools. The objectives were to (a) investigate the relation between ORF and comprehensive reading tests, (b) examine whether slope of performance over time on ORF predicted…

Measurement Properties of DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency in Grade 2: Implications for Equating Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Stoolmiller, Michael; Biancarosa, Gina; Fien, Hank

2013-01-01

Lack of psychometric equivalence of oral reading fluency (ORF) passages used within a grade for screening and progress monitoring has recently become an issue with calls for the use of equating methods to ensure equivalence. To investigate the nature of the nonequivalence and to guide the choice of equating method to correct for nonequivalence,…

Smashing WordPress Themes Making WordPress Beautiful

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Hedengren, Thord Daniel

2011-01-01

The ultimate guide to WordPress Themes - one of the hottest topics on the web today WordPress is so much more than a blogging platform, and Smashing WordPress Themes teaches readers how to make it look any way they like - from a corporate site, to a photography gallery and moreWordPress is one of the hottest tools on the web today and is used by sites including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, flickr, CNN, NASA and of course Smashing MagazineBeautiful full colour throughout - web designers expect nothing lessSmashing Magazine will fully support this book by by promoting it through their webs

Association of a Novel Nonsense Mutation in KIAA1279 with Goldberg-Shprintzen Syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Salehpour, Shadab; Hashemi-Gorji, Feyzollah; Soltani, Ziba; Ghafouri-Fard, Soudeh; Miryounesi, Mohammad

2017-01-01

Goldberg-Shprintzen syndrome (OMIM 609460) (GOSHS) is an autosomal recessive multiple congenital anomaly syndrome distinguished by intellectual disability, microcephaly, and dysmorphic facial characteristics. Most affected individuals also have Hirschsprung disease and/or gyral abnormalities of the brain. This syndrome has been associated with KIAA1279 gene mutations at 10q22.1. Here we report a 16 yr old male patient referred to Center for Comprehensive Genetic Services, Tehran, Iran in 2015 with cardinal features of GOSHS in addition to refractory seizures. Whole exome sequencing in the patient revealed a novel nonsense (stop gain) homozygous mutation in KIAA1279 gene (KIAA1279: NM_015634:exon6:c.C976T:p.Q326X). Considering the wide range of phenotypic variations in GOSHS, relying on phenotypic characteristics for discrimination of GOSH from similar syndromes may lead to misdiagnosis. Consequently, molecular diagnostic tools would help in accurate diagnosis of such overlapping phenotypes.

STUTTERING THERAPY FOR A CHILD AT INTERMEDIATE STUTTERING LEVEL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nevzeta SALIHOVIKJ

2009-11-01

Full Text Available Stuttering therapy very often demands combination of various approaches or its modification. The main purpose of this study was to present an integrated approach to stuttering modification therapy and fluency shaping therapy for an intermediate school-age male stutterer (11 years old.The therapy for the child lasted for 12 months, sessions have been carried out twice a week, each session lasted for 45 minutes. The child still attends the therapy. The therapy uses integration of stuttering modification therapy and fluency shaping therapy. For the purpose of the fluency shaping therapy, delayed auditory feedback program is applied. During the stuttering modification therapy the child has been taught how to stutter more easily which implies prolongation of all sounds in words on which child stutters, with easy and soft transition from one sound to another. It is continuously being worked with the child on reducing negative feelings and attitudes as well as elimination of avoidance of words and speaking situations. We explained to the parents the treatment program and their role in the program realization. We also explained the possible causes of stuttering, and tried to identify and reduce fluency distractors, and engage the child in as many situations as possible which improved speech fluency.After the application of this program the child has improved fluency during the conversation in clinical and nonclinical conditions (environment. This fluency consists of spontaneous and controlled fluency. Furthermore, fear of speaking and avoidance of speech situations are significantly reduced. On the basis of the applied therapy on the child at intermediate stuttering level it can be concluded that it is possible to integrate successfully both approaches: stuttering modification therapy and fluency shaping therapy.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS PSYCHOMETRIC TOOL FOR ENHANCING FUNCTIONAL FLUENCY

OpenAIRE

TEMPLE, SUSANNAH FLEUR

2002-01-01

Functional Fluency denotes efficacy of interpersonal functioning in terms of flexibility and balance of the behavioural modes a person uses. The aim of this project is to design and create a psychometric tool for mapping the patterns of such functioning. The intention is that feedback on the test results will stimulate the insights and understanding to support and encourage positive behavioural change. This process, involving the development of self-awareness, which is a key as...

Speech Entrainment Compensates for Broca's Area Damage

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Fridriksson, Julius; Basilakos, Alexandra; Hickok, Gregory; Bonilha, Leonardo; Rorden, Chris

2015-01-01

Speech entrainment (SE), the online mimicking of an audiovisual speech model, has been shown to increase speech fluency in patients with Broca's aphasia. However, not all individuals with aphasia benefit from SE. The purpose of this study was to identify patterns of cortical damage that predict a positive response SE's fluency-inducing effects. Forty-four chronic patients with left hemisphere stroke (15 female) were included in this study. Participants completed two tasks: 1) spontaneous speech production, and 2) audiovisual SE. Number of different words per minute was calculated as a speech output measure for each task, with the difference between SE and spontaneous speech conditions yielding a measure of fluency improvement. Voxel-wise lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) was used to relate the number of different words per minute for spontaneous speech, SE, and SE-related improvement to patterns of brain damage in order to predict lesion locations associated with the fluency-inducing response to speech entrainment. Individuals with Broca's aphasia demonstrated a significant increase in different words per minute during speech entrainment versus spontaneous speech. A similar pattern of improvement was not seen in patients with other types of aphasia. VLSM analysis revealed damage to the inferior frontal gyrus predicted this response. Results suggest that SE exerts its fluency-inducing effects by providing a surrogate target for speech production via internal monitoring processes. Clinically, these results add further support for the use of speech entrainment to improve speech production and may help select patients for speech entrainment treatment. PMID:25989443

Auditory word recognition is not more sensitive to word-initial than to word-final stimulus information

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vlugt, van der M.J.; Nooteboom, S.G.

1986-01-01

Several accounts of human recognition of spoken words a.!!llign special importance to stimulus-word onsets. The experiment described here was d~igned to find out whether such a word-beginning superiority effect, which ill supported by experimental evidence of various kinds, is due to a special

Effects of providing word sounds during printed word learning

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Reitsma, P.; Dongen, van A.J.N.; Custers, E.

1984-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of the availability of the spoken sound of words along with the printed forms during reading practice. Firstgrade children from two normal elementary schools practised reading several unfamiliar words in print. For half of the printed words the

The Impact of Pushed Output on Accuracy and Fluency of Iranian EFL Learners' Speaking

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Sadeghi Beniss, Aram Reza; Edalati Bazzaz, Vahid

2014-01-01

The current study attempted to establish baseline quantitative data on the impacts of pushed output on two components of speaking (i.e., accuracy and fluency). To achieve this purpose, 30 female EFL learners were selected from a whole population pool of 50 based on the standard test of IELTS interview and were randomly assigned into an…

Progress Monitoring Instrument Development: Silent Reading Fluency, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension. Technical Report #1110

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Nese, Joseph F. T.; Anderson, Daniel; Hoelscher, Kyle; Tindal, Gerald; Alonzo, Julie

2011-01-01

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is designed to measure students' academic status and growth so the effectiveness of instruction may be evaluated. In the most popular forms of reading CBM, the student's oral reading fluency is assessed. This behavior is difficult to sample in a computer-based format, a limitation that may be a function of the…

Infants Track Word Forms in Early Word-Object Associations

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Zamuner, Tania S.; Fais, Laurel; Werker, Janet F.

2014-01-01

A central component of language development is word learning. One characterization of this process is that language learners discover objects and then look for word forms to associate with these objects (Mcnamara, 1984; Smith, 2000). Another possibility is that word forms themselves are also important, such that once learned, hearing a familiar…

Examining the Latent Structure of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System.

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Karr, Justin E; Hofer, Scott M; Iverson, Grant L; Garcia-Barrera, Mauricio A

2018-05-04

The current study aimed to determine whether the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) taps into three executive function factors (inhibition, shifting, fluency) and to assess the relationship between these factors and tests of executive-related constructs less often measured in latent variable research: reasoning, abstraction, and problem solving. Participants included 425 adults from the D-KEFS standardization sample (20-49 years old; 50.1% female; 70.1% White). Eight alternative measurement models were compared based on model fit, with test scores assigned a priori to three factors: inhibition (Color-Word Interference, Tower), shifting (Trail Making, Sorting, Design Fluency), and fluency (Verbal/Design Fluency). The Twenty Questions, Word Context, and Proverb Tests were predicted in separate structural models. The three-factor model fit the data well (CFI = 0.938; RMSEA = 0.047), although a two-factor model, with shifting and fluency merged, fit similarly well (CFI = 0.929; RMSEA = 0.048). A bifactor model fit best (CFI = 0.977; RMSEA = 0.032) and explained the most variance in shifting indicators, but rarely converged among 5,000 bootstrapped samples. When the three first-order factors simultaneously predicted the criterion variables, only shifting was uniquely predictive (p measuring executive-related constructs and provide a framework through which clinicians can interpret D-KEFS results.

Improving Science Student Teachers' Self-Perceptions of Fluency with Innovative Technologies and Scientific Inquiry Abilities

Science.gov (United States)

Çalik, Muammer; Ebenezer, Jazlin; Özsevgeç, Tuncay; Küçük, Zeynel; Artun, Hüseyin

2015-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of "Environmental Chemistry" elective course via Technology-Embedded Scientific Inquiry (TESI) model on senior science student teachers' (SSSTs) self-perceptions of fluency with innovative technologies (InT) and scientific inquiry abilities. The study was conducted with 117 SSSTs (68…

Cognitive correlates of verbal memory and verbal fluency in schizophrenia, and differential effects of various clinical symptoms between male and female patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Brébion, Gildas; Villalta-Gil, Victoria; Autonell, Jaume; Cervilla, Jorge; Dolz, Montserrat; Foix, Alexandrina; Haro, Josep Maria; Usall, Judith; Vilaplana, Miriam; Ochoa, Susana

2013-06-01

Impairment of higher cognitive functions in patients with schizophrenia might stem from perturbation of more basic functions, such as processing speed. Various clinical symptoms might affect cognitive efficiency as well. Notably, previous research has revealed the role of affective symptoms on memory performance in this population, and suggested sex-specific effects. We conducted a post-hoc analysis of an extensive neuropsychological study of 88 patients with schizophrenia. Regression analyses were conducted on verbal memory and verbal fluency data to investigate the contribution of semantic organisation and processing speed to performance. The role of negative and affective symptoms and of attention disorders in verbal memory and verbal fluency was investigated separately in male and female patients. Semantic clustering contributed to verbal recall, and a measure of reading speed contributed to verbal recall as well as to phonological and semantic fluency. Negative symptoms affected verbal recall and verbal fluency in the male patients, whereas attention disorders affected these abilities in the female patients. Furthermore, depression affected verbal recall in women, whereas anxiety affected it in men. These results confirm the association of processing speed with cognitive efficiency in patients with schizophrenia. They also confirm the previously observed sex-specific associations of depression and anxiety with memory performance in these patients, and suggest that negative symptoms and attention disorders likewise are related to cognitive efficiency differently in men and women. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Acral peeling skin syndrome resulting from a homozygous nonsense mutation in the CSTA gene encoding cystatin A.

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Krunic, Aleksandar L; Stone, Kristina L; Simpson, Michael A; McGrath, John A

2013-01-01

Acral peeling skin syndrome (APSS) is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous disorder. We used whole-exome sequencing to identify the molecular basis of APSS in a consanguineous Jordanian-American pedigree. We identified a homozygous nonsense mutation (p.Lys22X) in the CSTA gene, encoding cystatin A, that was confirmed using Sanger sequencing. Cystatin A is a protease inhibitor found in the cornified cell envelope, and loss-of-function mutations have previously been reported in two cases of exfoliative ichthyosis. Our study expands the molecular pathology of APSS and demonstrates the value of next-generation sequencing in the genetic characterization of inherited skin diseases. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Positive words or negative words: whose valence strength are we more sensitive to?

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Jiemin; Zeng, Jing; Meng, Xianxin; Zhu, Liping; Yuan, Jiajin; Li, Hong; Yusoff, Nasir

2013-10-02

The present study investigates the human brains' sensitivity to the valence strength of emotionally positive and negative chinese words. Event-Related Potentials were recorded, in two different experimental sessions, for Highly Positive (HP), Mildly Positive (MP) and neutral (NP) words and for Highly Negative (HN), Mildly Negative (MN) and neutral (NN) words, while subjects were required to count the number of words, irrespective of word meanings. The results showed a significant emotion effect in brain potentials for both HP and MP words, and the emotion effect occurred faster for HP words than MP words: HP words elicited more negative deflections than NP words in N2 (250-350 ms) and P3 (350-500 ms) amplitudes, while MP words elicited a significant emotion effect in P3, but not in N2, amplitudes. By contrast, HN words elicited larger amplitudes than NN words in N2 but not in P3 amplitudes, whereas MN words produced no significant emotion effect across N2 and P3 components. Moreover, the size of emotion-neutral differences in P3 amplitudes was significantly larger for MP compared to MN words. Thus, the human brain is reactive to both highly and mildly positive words, and this reactivity increased with the positive valence strength of the words. Conversely, the brain is less reactive to the valence of negative relative to positive words. These results suggest that human brains are equipped with increased sensitivity to the valence strength of positive compared to negative words, a type of emotional stimuli that are well known for reduced arousal. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Competition between multiple words for a referent in cross-situational word learning

Science.gov (United States)

Benitez, Viridiana L.; Yurovsky, Daniel; Smith, Linda B.

2016-01-01

Three experiments investigated competition between word-object pairings in a cross-situational word-learning paradigm. Adults were presented with One-Word pairings, where a single word labeled a single object, and Two-Word pairings, where two words labeled a single object. In addition to measuring learning of these two pairing types, we measured competition between words that refer to the same object. When the word-object co-occurrences were presented intermixed in training (Experiment 1), we found evidence for direct competition between words that label the same referent. Separating the two words for an object in time eliminated any evidence for this competition (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that adding a linguistic cue to the second label for a referent led to different competition effects between adults who self-reported different language learning histories, suggesting both distinctiveness and language learning history affect competition. Finally, in all experiments, competition effects were unrelated to participants’ explicit judgments of learning, suggesting that competition reflects the operating characteristics of implicit learning processes. Together, these results demonstrate that the role of competition between overlapping associations in statistical word-referent learning depends on time, the distinctiveness of word-object pairings, and language learning history. PMID:27087742

The fluency of social hierarchy: the ease with which hierarchical relationships are seen, remembered, learned, and liked.

Science.gov (United States)

Zitek, Emily M; Tiedens, Larissa Z

2012-01-01

We tested the hypothesis that social hierarchies are fluent social stimuli; that is, they are processed more easily and therefore liked better than less hierarchical stimuli. In Study 1, pairs of people in a hierarchy based on facial dominance were identified faster than pairs of people equal in their facial dominance. In Study 2, a diagram representing hierarchy was memorized more quickly than a diagram representing equality or a comparison diagram. This faster processing led the hierarchy diagram to be liked more than the equality diagram. In Study 3, participants were best able to learn a set of relationships that represented hierarchy (asymmetry of power)--compared to relationships in which there was asymmetry of friendliness, or compared to relationships in which there was symmetry--and this processing ease led them to like the hierarchy the most. In Study 4, participants found it easier to make decisions about a company that was more hierarchical and thus thought the hierarchical organization had more positive qualities. In Study 5, familiarity as a basis for the fluency of hierarchy was demonstrated by showing greater fluency for male than female hierarchies. This study also showed that when social relationships are difficult to learn, people's preference for hierarchy increases. Taken together, these results suggest one reason people might like hierarchies--hierarchies are easy to process. This fluency for social hierarchies might contribute to the construction and maintenance of hierarchies.

A cross-cultural investigation of inhibitory control, generative fluency, and anxiety symptoms in Romanian and Russian preschoolers.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheie, Lavinia; Veraksa, Aleksander; Zinchenko, Yuri; Gorovaya, Alexandra; Visu-Petra, Laura

2015-01-01

The current study focused on the early development of inhibitory control in 5- to 7-year-old children attending kindergarten in two Eastern-European countries, Romania and Russia. These two countries share many aspects of child-rearing and educational practices, previously documented to influence the development of inhibitory control. Using the Lurian-based developmental approach offered by the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment battery, the study aimed to contribute to cross-cultural developmental neuropsychology by exploring (a) early interrelationships between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) and generative fluency (verbal and figural) in these two cultures, as well as (b) the predictive value of external factors (culture and maternal education) and individual differences (age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, trait anxiety) on inhibitory control and fluency outcomes in children from both countries. First, findings in both culture samples suggest that even at this young age, the construct of inhibitory control cannot be considered a unitary entity. Second, differences in maternal education were not predictive of either inhibitory control or fluency scores. However, children's attention control performance varied as a function of culture, and the direction of these cultural effects differed by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency as an output. Findings also confirmed the previously documented intensive developmental improvement in preschoolers' inhibitory control during this period, influencing measures of response suppression and particularly attention control. Finally, the results further stress the importance of individual differences effects in trait anxiety on attention control efficiency across cultures.

BioWord: A sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anzaldi Laura J

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. Results BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. Conclusions BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms.

BioWord: A sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

Background The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. Results BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. Conclusions BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms. PMID:22676326

BioWord: a sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word.

Science.gov (United States)

Anzaldi, Laura J; Muñoz-Fernández, Daniel; Erill, Ivan

2012-06-07

The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms.

Eye movements and word skipping during reading: Effects of word length and predictability

Science.gov (United States)

Rayner, Keith; Slattery, Timothy J.; Drieghe, Denis; Liversedge, Simon P.

2012-01-01

The extent to which target words were predictable from prior context was varied: half of the target words were predictable and the other half were unpredictable. In addition, the length of the target word varied: the target words were short (4–6 letters), medium (7–9 letters), or long (10–12 letters). Length and predictability both yielded strong effects on the probability of skipping the target words and on the amount of time readers fixated the target words (when they were not skipped). However, there was no interaction in any of the measures examined for either skipping or fixation time. The results demonstrate that word predictability (due to contextual constraint) and word length have strong and independent influences on word skipping and fixation durations. Furthermore, since the long words extended beyond the word identification span, the data indicate that skipping can occur on the basis of partial information in relation to word identity. PMID:21463086

Word Pocket Guide

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Glenn, Walter

2004-01-01

Millions of people use Microsoft Word every day and, chances are, you're one of them. Like most Word users, you've attained a certain level of proficiency--enough to get by, with a few extra tricks and tips--but don't get the opportunity to probe much further into the real power of Word. And Word is so rich in features that regardless of your level of expertise, there's always more to master. If you've ever wanted a quick answer to a nagging question or had the thought that there must be a better way, then this second edition of Word Pocket Guide is just what you need. Updated for Word 2003

Does "a picture is worth 1000 words" apply to iconic Chinese words? Relationship of Chinese words and pictures.

Science.gov (United States)

Lo, Shih-Yu; Yeh, Su-Ling

2018-05-29

The meaning of a picture can be extracted rapidly, but the form-to-meaning relationship is less obvious for printed words. In contrast to English words that follow grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence rule, the iconic nature of Chinese words might predispose them to activate their semantic representations more directly from their orthographies. By using the paradigm of repetition blindness (RB) that taps into the early level of word processing, we examined whether Chinese words activate their semantic representations as directly as pictures do. RB refers to the failure to detect the second occurrence of an item when it is presented twice in temporal proximity. Previous studies showed RB for semantically related pictures, suggesting that pictures activate their semantic representations directly from their shapes and thus two semantically related pictures are represented as repeated. However, this does not apply to English words since no RB was found for English synonyms. In this study, we replicated the semantic RB effect for pictures, and further showed the absence of semantic RB for Chinese synonyms. Based on our findings, it is suggested that Chinese words are processed like English words, which do not activate their semantic representations as directly as pictures do.

Influence of Verbal Working Memory Depends on Vocabulary: Oral Reading Fluency in Adolescents with Dyslexia

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, L. Todd; Rouhani, Parisa

2012-01-01

Most research on dyslexia to date has focused on early childhood, while comparatively little is known about the nature of dyslexia in adolescence. The current study had two objectives. The first was to investigate the relative contributions of several cognitive and linguistic factors to connected-text oral reading fluency in a sample of…

NMD Classifier: A reliable and systematic classification tool for nonsense-mediated decay events.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Min-Kung Hsu

Full Text Available Nonsense-mediated decay (NMD degrades mRNAs that include premature termination codons to avoid the translation and accumulation of truncated proteins. This mechanism has been found to participate in gene regulation and a wide spectrum of biological processes. However, the evolutionary and regulatory origins of NMD-targeted transcripts (NMDTs have been less studied, partly because of the complexity in analyzing NMD events. Here we report NMD Classifier, a tool for systematic classification of NMD events for either annotated or de novo assembled transcripts. This tool is based on the assumption of minimal evolution/regulation-an event that leads to the least change is the most likely to occur. Our simulation results indicate that NMD Classifier can correctly identify an average of 99.3% of the NMD-causing transcript structural changes, particularly exon inclusions/exclusions and exon boundary alterations. Researchers can apply NMD Classifier to evolutionary and regulatory studies by comparing NMD events of different biological conditions or in different organisms.

Studies on nonsense mediated decay reveal novel therapeutic options for genetic diseases.

Science.gov (United States)

Bashyam, Murali D

2009-01-01

Scientific breakthroughs have often led to commercially viable patents mainly in the field of engineering. Commercialization in the field of medicine has been restricted mostly to machinery and engineering on the one hand and therapeutic drugs for common chronic ailments such as cough, cold, headache, etc, on the other. Sequencing of the human genome has attracted the attention of pharmaceutical companies and now biotechnology has become a goldmine for commercialization of products and processes. Recent advances in our understanding of basic biological processes have resulted in the opening of new avenues for treatment of human genetic diseases, especially single gene disorders. A significant proportion of human genetic disorders have been shown to be caused due to degradation of transcripts for specific genes through a process called nonsense mediated decay (NMD). The modulation of NMD provides a viable therapeutic option for treatment of several genetic disorders and therefore has been a good prospect for patenting and commercialization. In this review the molecular basis for NMD and attempts to treat genetic diseases which result from NMD are discussed.

WordPress Bible

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Brazell, Aaron

2010-01-01

The WordPress Bible provides a complete and thorough guide to the largest self hosted blogging tool. This guide starts by covering the basics of WordPress such as installing and the principles of blogging, marketing and social media interaction, but then quickly ramps the reader up to more intermediate to advanced level topics such as plugins, WordPress Loop, themes and templates, custom fields, caching, security and more. The WordPress Bible is the only complete resource one needs to learning WordPress from beginning to end.

From Word Alignment to Word Senses, via Multilingual Wordnets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan Tufis

2006-05-01

Full Text Available Most of the successful commercial applications in language processing (text and/or speech dispense with any explicit concern on semantics, with the usual motivations stemming from the computational high costs required for dealing with semantics, in case of large volumes of data. With recent advances in corpus linguistics and statistical-based methods in NLP, revealing useful semantic features of linguistic data is becoming cheaper and cheaper and the accuracy of this process is steadily improving. Lately, there seems to be a growing acceptance of the idea that multilingual lexical ontologisms might be the key towards aligning different views on the semantic atomic units to be used in characterizing the general meaning of various and multilingual documents. Depending on the granularity at which semantic distinctions are necessary, the accuracy of the basic semantic processing (such as word sense disambiguation can be very high with relatively low complexity computing. The paper substantiates this statement by presenting a statistical/based system for word alignment and word sense disambiguation in parallel corpora. We describe a word alignment platform which ensures text pre-processing (tokenization, POS-tagging, lemmatization, chunking, sentence and word alignment as required by an accurate word sense disambiguation.

Learning to read Dutch as a transparent orthography

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Verhoeven, L.T.W.

2017-01-01

The present longitudinal study investigated the growth of word reading fluency in Dutch as a transparent orthography as a function of meaning (words vs pseudowords) and orthographic complexity throughout the elementary school years. For a representative sample of 511 Dutch children, decoding

Developing L2 Listening Fluency through Extended Listening-Focused Activities in an Extensive Listening Programme

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Anna C-S.; Millett, Sonia

2016-01-01

This study investigates the effects on developing L2 listening fluency through doing extended listening-focused activities after reading and listening to audio graded readers. Seventy-six EFL university students read and listened to a total of 15 graded readers in a 15-week extensive listening programme. They were divided into three groups (Group…

Less is more? Think again! A cognitive fluency-based more-less asymmetry in comparative communication.