Autostima e strategie di self-handicapping in bambini di quinta elementare con e senza disturbi dell’apprendimento

Costrutti motivazionali e apprendimento scolastico: elaborazione di uno strumento multimediale.

Scuse proattive/retroattive e intelligenza sociale: uno studio su adolescenti

Livello cognitivo, stile attributivo e lessico di stati interni: analisi di una relazione.

Strategie di autosabotaggio e autostima in bambini con differenti profili di apprendimento

Recenti ricerche si sono focalizzate sul ruolo dell'autostima e delle strategie di autosabotaggio nel contesto scolastico. In particolare l'autosabotaggio indica strategie disadattive impiegate da un individuo di fronte ad un compito minaccioso per proteggersi e mantenere un'autostima positiva. Abbiamo condotto due studi per confrontare il livello di autostima e le strategie di autosabotaggio in bambini di eta media 8 anni, frequentanti la terza classe della scuola primaria, con differenti profili di apprendimento. Nello specifico nel primo abbiamo confrontato due gruppi: uno con difficolta generalizzate sia di lettura che di matematica ed uno con normale livello di apprendimento. Nel secon…

Errori accentuali in relazione alla composizione sillabica e alla frequenza d’uso: dislessici evolutivi e normolettori a confronto

Concezioni personali dell’intelligenza in bambini con disturbo specifico di lettura

Velocità e correttezza nell’attribuzione del genere grammaticale: il ruolo della trasparenza morfologica della vocale finale di parola.

ANSIA, AUTOSTIMA E STRATEGIE SELF-HANDICAPPING IN BAMBINI CON DISABILITÀ DI APPRENDIMENTO

L’influenza della struttura sillabico-accentuale sul processo di decodifica.

Emotional variables and learning profiles in children with different levels of Intellectual Functioning

Syllabic composition and use frequency: how do they affect stress assignment? A comparison between slow readers and fluent readers

Italian words can be stressed either on penultimate or antepenultimate syllables. In both cases, stress assignment is not predictable by rules, but requires a lexical check. Italian words with stress on the penultimate syllable are defined as regular because the proportion of these words is much larger than words with stress on the antepenultimate syllable, defined as irregular. We propose to investigate the influence (in terms of correct stress positioning) of different syllabic and stress structures during "decoding” by both slow readers and fluent readers. Forty-eight children, twenty-four slow and twenty-four fluent readers, decoded “target words” selected on the basis of frequency (hig…

Levels of anxiety and self-esteem associated to sport activity in university students: a pilot study.

The influence of irregular group position and frequency on decoding Italian words: a comparison between dyslexic and fluent readers

L’influenza della struttura sillabico accentuale sul processo di decodifica

L’accento delle parole italiane può essere collocato sulla penultima sillaba (volare) o sulla terzultima sillaba (tenero). In entrambi i casi l’assegnazione dell’accento non è predicibile da regole specifiche, ma necessita di informazioni lessicali. Le parole italiane con l’accento sulla penultima sillaba sono definite regolari, perché la proporzione di queste ultime è maggiore rispetto a quelle con accento sulla terzultima sillaba, definite irregolari (Burani, Arduino, 2004). In questo studio, oltre alla tipologia accentuale, assume particolare importanza la composizione sillabica delle parole. In particolare, ci proponiamo di valutare l’influenza (in termini di corretto posizionamento del…

Depression, Anxiety at School and Self-Esteem in Children with Learning Disabilities

Educational research places emphasis on the fact that pupils with Learning Disabilities may develop depressive and anxiety symptoms characterized by lower levels of self-esteem. The aim of this research is to compare the levels of depression, anxiety at school and self-esteem in children with learning disabilities, mathematical disabilities and a control group who showed typical learning. The participants were 132 children (52 girls and 80 boys), with an average age of 9 years, attending the fourth grade of primary school. These pupils were selected by scores on a battery of tests commonly used in Italy for the assessment of learning disabilities. On the whole, analyses revealed that childr…

Learning and motor and mental health profiles in pupils with Borderline Intellectual Functioning and Average Intellectual Functioning

There is a lack of research addressing the study of the Borderline Intellectual Functioning (BIF) in school-aged population. In children and adolescents with BIF high rates of school complaints, movement impairments and mental health disorders have been demonstrated. This study aims at comparing learning, motor and mental health profiles showed by pupils with BIF and pupils with Average Intellectual Functioning (AIF). Participants were 19 children with BIF and 19 with AIF. Learning, motor and mental health profiles were measured by multiple tests. Results show that pupils with BIF showed lower comprehension and decoding reading abilities, lower word and non-word reading as well as lower mat…

Timing flickers across sensory modalities

In tasks requiring a comparison of the duration of a reference and a test visual cue, the spatial position of test cue is likely to be implicitly coded, providing a form of a congruency effect or introducing a response bias according to the environmental scale or its vectorial reference. The precise mechanism generating these perceptual shifts in subjective duration is not understood, although several studies suggest that spatial attentional factors may play a critical role. Here we use a duration comparison task within and across sensory modalities to examine if temporal performance is also modulated when people are exposed to spatial distractors involving different sensory modalities. Di…

An Analysis of a Single Case of Comorbidity between Learning Disability and Borderline Intellectual Functioning

Abstract In this study we explored a case of comorbidity between DSA and Borderline Intellectual Functioning. The girl was fourteen years old, ninth grade of school in Palermo, with significant learning difficulties. Two interviews were conducted, one with parents and one with teachers, to investigate the history of the girl's learning. In the pre-test phase the following cognitive areas were investigated: Q.I. (Level of Intelligence), decoding ability, reading comprehension and writing skills. Motivational-emotional profile was also evaluated: school motivation, self-handicapping strategies, self esteem and school anxiety. To assess these cognitive areas we used: Reading Comprehension Test…

Down Syndrome and Referential Communication: Understanding and Production

Abstract This study aimed to evaluate the ability of referential communication in subjects with Down Syndrome (DS). We evaluated the possibility that the referential communication is the result of a set of cognitive factors, verbal and nonverbal through the evaluation of relationship between cognitive abilities in individuals with DS and typically developing. In particular, we have identified some critical dimensions of communicative function, such as the referential communication, which means the subject's ability to produce o the listener or messages “referentially oriented”, ie messages that are characterized by “clarity or ambiguity referential”. The referential communication skills, in…

TRAINING MULTIMEDIALI PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DELLA DISLESSIA.

The effects of school anxiety on self-esteem and self-handicapping in pupils attending primary school

School anxiety appears to be related to self-esteem and self-handicapping strategies. This study aims at identifying children with atypical levels of anxiety and examining the relationship between their self-esteem at school and their use of self-handicapping strategies. The sample included 120 pupils (M = 8.6 years) attending third grade of primary school and was divided into three groups: pupils with low anxiety, average anxiety and high anxiety. Children were administered the Scale for Evaluation of Anxiety (SAFA A), the TMA - Multidimensional test of Self-esteem- and the Self-Handicapping Scale for Children. On the whole, results demonstrate a nearly normative distribution of school anx…

Influence of position of the context sensitive graphemes and word frequency effect on reading speed: a performance analysis of developmental dyslexics and fluent readers

Several studies have reported how the presence of contextual letter-sound conversion rules influences both reading speed and accuracy and the effect of rule complexity holds for low frequency words only. We aimed to investigate the role of orthography complexity and, in particular, of context sensitive graphemes position and frequency of use on reading speed, analyzing the performance of developmental dyslexics and fluent readers. With regard to speed (reading speed of word lists), context sensitive graphemes position had an effect only for dyslexic children, who showed the worst performance if the context sensitive graphemes were in first position, regardless of word frequency. On the othe…

La rappresentazione del tempo nella Discalculia evolutiva.

Self-esteem at school and self-handicapping in childhood: comparison of groups with learning disabilities.

Recent research has focused on the role of self-esteem and self-handicapping strategies in the school domain. Self-handicapping refers to maladaptive strategies employed by adults and children for protection and maintenance of positive school self esteem. In this study the self-esteem and the self-handicapping strategies of children with dyslexia, reading comprehension disabilities, and mathematical disabilities were compared to a control group with normal learning. There were 56 children whose mean age was 8 (23 girls, 33 boys), attending Grade 3 of primary school. These pupils were selected by scores on a battery of learning tests commonly used in Italy for assessment of learning disabil…

Potenziamento delle abilità di lettura in studenti incrementali ed entitari: un'analisi longitudinale

Time processing in children with Tourette's syndrome.

Background: Tourette syndrome (TS) is characterized by dysfunctional connectivity between prefrontal cortex and sub-cortical structures, and altered meso-cortical and/or meso-striatal dopamine release. Since time processing is also regulated by fronto-striatal circuits and modulated by dopaminergic transmission, we hypothesized that time processing is abnormal in TS. Methods: We compared time processing abilities between nine children with TS-only (i.e. without major psychiatric comorbidities) and 10 age-matched healthy children, employing a time reproduction task in which subjects actively reproduce different temporal intervals, and a time comparison task in which subjects judge whether a …

Strategie di Self-Handicapping e abilità di lettura

Strategie di Self-Handicapping e Autostima in bambini con e senza Difficoltà di Apprendimento

Il ruolo educativo del nido d'infanzia.

Lo sviluppo cognitivo e l’abilità d’elaborazione delle grandezze fisiche

Difficoltà di lettura e funzionamento intellettivo limite: Analisi di un caso.

Le difficoltà di lettura nei contesti svantaggiati: analisi di un caso

The Relatività of Space Time in sensorial cross-modality: one study on visual auditory interaction.

Strategie di self-handicapping e profilo motivazionale: un’indagine su studenti di scuola superiore e universitari

Anxiety, self-esteem and self-handicapping: A comparison between pupils with dyscalculia and normal learning | Ansia, autostima e self-handicapping: Un confronto tra bambini con discalculia e apprendimento nella norma

Clinical and educational research places emphasis on the emotional and motivational factors which characterise learning disabilities. The aim of this research is to study the relationship between the school anxiety, the school self-esteem and the employ of self-handicapping strategies in children with dyscalculia and normal learning. Sixty pupils attending third grade junior school were given a battery of tests assessing emotional and motivational variables. On the whole, the results show that children with dyscalculia have higher levels of anxiety and lower self-esteem. Moreover, the anxiety seems to influence the self-esteem only in the group of children with normal learning.

Costruzione di un software informatizzato per la riabilitazione dei disturbi di decodifica in bambini dislessici

La dislessia nello svantaggio socio-culturale: il ruolo dell’ambiente come amplificatore del problema

Rappresentazione delle abilità in individui con ritardo mentale

Svantaggio e difficoltà di lettura in età evolutiva

Disabilità di lettura e rappresentazione dell'intelligenza:efficacia di un training

Strategie di self-handicapping: un confronto tra dominio sportivo e dominio scolastico

Profilo motivazionale nella Sindrome di Prader-Willi: analisi di un caso

Strategie di self-handicapping e profilo motivazionale: un’indagine su studenti di scuola primaria

L'impiego di strategie di self-handicapping: un confronto tra dislessici e normolettori

Emotional Profile and Intellectual Functioning

Insufficient literature has been produced addressing children with borderline intellectual functioning (BIF) and gifted intellectual functioning (GIF). The goal of this work is to compare levels of self-esteem, depression, anxiety at school, and insecurity among children with BIF and GIF, and a control group of average intellectual functioning (AIF). There were participants of 104 children (fourth grade of primary school). Analyses revealed that children with BIF showed a lower level of self-esteem and higher levels of depression and school anxiety. Moreover, our findings highlight the co-occurrence of school anxiety, depressed mood, and insecurity among the BIF and AIF groups. One of the …

Self-Esteem and Self-Handicapping in Learning Disabilities

Reading decoding disabilities: the role of socio-cultural level

Personal conceptions of intelligence affect outcome in a multimedia reading training program.

Personal conceptions of intelligence seem to make a significant contribution to overcoming a reading deficit, as indicated in our earlier research. The present aim was to assess improvements in reading-decoding following training of children with reading-decoding problems and different conceptions of intelligence (incremental or entity). It was expected that treatment of children with an incremental representation would improve more. Participants were 20 children (10 girls, 10 boys) whose average age was 8.6 yr., who attended Grade 3 of elementary school, and who were selected from 675 pupils. Children were given a multimedia test to measure motivational factors such as conceptions of inte…

Indizi semantici e ambiguità ortografica: la sensibilità al contesto linguistico nel dislessico evolutivo

Le Strategie di Self – Handicapping nello Sport.

Velocità e correttezza nell'attribuzione del genere grammaticale: il ruolo della trasparenza morfologica della vocale finale della parola.

Learning Disabilities and motivational profiles

Learning disabilities

Influence of syllabic composition and lexical stress on decoding test: a comparison between dyslexic children and fluent readers

Temporal abnormalities in children with developmental dyscalculia.

Recent imaging studies have associated Developmental dyscalculia (DD) to structural and functional alterations corresponding Parietal and the Prefrontal cortex (PFC). Since these areas were shown also to be involved in timing abilities, we hypothesized that time processing is abnormal in DD. We compared time processing abilities between 10 children with pure DD (8 years old) and 11 age-matched healthy children. Results show that the DD group underestimated duration of a sub-second scale when asked to perform a time comparison task. The timing abnormality observed in our DD participants is consistent with evidence of a shared fronto-parietal neural network for representing time and quantity.…

Personal conceptions of intelligence in children with reading decoding disabilities

T.I.R.D. (Training Informatizzato per la riabilitazione della Dislessia)

Investigating the improvement of decoding abilities and working memory in children with Incremental or Entity personal conceptions of intelligence: two case reports

One of the most significant current discussions has led to the hypothesis that domain-specific training programs alone are not enough to improve reading achievement or working memory abilities. Incremental or Entity personal conceptions of intelligence may be assumed to be an important prognostic factor to overcome domain-specific deficits. Specifically, incremental students tend to be more oriented toward change and autonomy and are able to adopt more efficacious strategies. This study aims at examining the effect of personal conceptions of intelligence to strengthen the efficacy of a multidimensional intervention program in order to improve decoding abilities and working memory. Participa…

PMS (Profilo Motivazionale Scolastico)