Ursula Bailey and colleagues examined developmental changes in children’s comprehension of complex stories shown as television shows. They wanted to assess whether the comprehension of stories by children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) changed in the same way as the comprehension of stories by children without ADHD, and whether the comprehension of stories was affected by potentially distracting materials when the children were exposed to the story. The researchers showed 48 children with a diagnosis of ADHD (medication free for previous 24 hours) and 65 comparison peers the TV stories (13-min Rugrats episodes) when they were about 8½ years old and again when they were about 10¼ and under two conditions: while the children had toys available or when no toys were available., After the children viewed the stories, experimenters asked them to recount the story and then to answer questions about the story.
Continue reading ‘Story comprehension in children with ADHD’
Monthly Archive for November, 2009
Paul Bates and colleagues have reported new findings about the gene DYX1C1, which has been a focal point for research on genetic contributions to dyslexia for at least six years. Writing for the journal Molecular Psychiatry, the research team revealed that their examination of the relationship between DYX1C1 and variations in reading ability points at certain variations in genes and reading ability. Specific differences in individual nucleotides (single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs), different from those reported previously, appear to be associated with ability and disability in reading and spelling.
The status of DYX1C1 (C15q21.3) as a susceptibility gene for dyslexia is unclear. We report the association of this gene with reading and spelling ability in a sample of adolescent twins and their siblings. Family-based association analyses were carried out on 13 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in DYX1C1, typed in 790 families with up to 5 offspring and tested on 6 validated measures of lexical processing (irregular word) and grapheme–phoneme decoding (pseudo-word) reading- and spelling-based measures of dyslexia, as well as a short-term memory measure. Significant association was observed at the misssense mutation rs17819126 for all reading measures and for spelling of lexical processing words, and at rs3743204 for both irregular and nonword reading. Verbal short-term memory was associated with rs685935. Support for association was not found at rs3743205 and rs61761345 as previously reported by Taipale et al., but these SNPs had very low (0.002 for rs3743205) minor allele frequencies in this sample. These results suggest that DYX1C1 influences reading and spelling ability with additional effects on short-term information storage or rehearsal. Missense mutation rs17819126 is a potential functional basis for the association of DYX1C1 with dyslexia.
Continue reading ‘The gene DYX1C1 and reading and spelling’
Sphere: Related Content
My colleague and friend, Karen Rooney, has a new book and I am shilling for her! It’s called Strategies for Learning: Empowering Students for Success, Grades 9–12.
Karen, who has a private practice in Richmond (VA, US), has a wealth of commonsense procedures for helping students who struggle with the requirements of secondary school content. Since she was a teacher in the 1980s, during her Ph.D. studies, and while she’s been conducting evaluations and making recommendations for instruction, Karen’s been developing and refining these practical strategies.
Although I’ve not yet had a chance to review the book, I expect it to be one that teachers will find chock-a-block with readily understood and implemented techniques. Anyone who’s seen Karen present at a conference is likely to endorse this book, as she regularly gets packed rooms and those who attend are enthusiastic about implementing what they’ve learned from her as soon as they can get back to their classrooms.
Download a copy of the flyer describing the book.
Sphere: Related ContentPaul Rendine, who chairs the Disability Advocates of Delmarva Inc (DADI), is contributing a series of articles about disabilities to a local publication for the peninsula holding parts of Maryland and Virginia and all of Delaware. The first of the series addresses Learning Disabilities. Although the content is brief and the coverage of Learning Disabilities is not in depth, it is generally accurate and merits note because of the effort.
Link to Mr. Rendine’s article. DADI has its own Website; DADI provides scholarship support to individuals with disabilities.
Sphere: Related Content
Additional weak evidence about chiropractic treatment
In “Developmental Delay Syndromes: Psychometric Testing Before and After Chiropractic Treatment of 157 Children,” Scott Cuthbert and Michel Barras present the results of an analysis of pretest-posttest scores for children who received chiropractic treatment at a clinic in Lausanne (CH). They reported that the children had higher scores after treatment, leading them to conclude that “This report suggests that a multimodal chiropractic method that assesses and treats motor dysfunction reduced symptoms and enhanced the cognitive performance in this group of children.”
Here is the abstract for this report. After it, I’ll explain why I find this study provides uncompelling evidence in support of chiropractic treatment for Learning Disabilities.
Sphere: Related ContentContinue reading ‘Additional weak evidence about chiropractic treatment’