Search results for "Competence"
showing 10 items of 1367 documents
Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia: A five-hundred year-long lesson.
2010
Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia was born five centuries ago in Regalbuto, a small town in the center of Sicily. After his medical course in Padua, under the guidance of Vesalius and Fallopius, he gained international fame as a physician and was recruited as a Professor of human anatomy in Naples and later in Palermo. He is remembered as "the new Galen" or "the Sicilian Hippocrates." He contributed to the knowledge of human anatomy through the description of single bones rather than the whole skeleton. In particular, he was the first to describe the "stapes," the "lesser wings of the sphenoid" and various other structures in the head (probably the pharyngotympanic tube) as well as in the reproduc…
Working memory resources in young children with mathematical difficulties.
2009
Working memory (WM) (Baddeley, 1986, 1997) is argued to be one of the most important cognitive resources underlying mathematical competence (Geary, 2004). Research has established close links between WM deficits and mathematical difficulties. This study investigated the possible deficits in WM, language and fluid intelligence that seem to characterize 4- to 6-year-old children with poor early mathematical skills before formal mathematics education. Children with early mathematical difficulties showed poor performance in both verbal and visuospatial WM tasks as well as on language tests and a fluid intelligence test indicating a thoroughly lower cognitive base. Poor WM performance was not mo…
Autonomy support, basic psychological needs and well-being in Mexican athletes.
2012
Based on Basic Needs Theory, one of the mini-theories of Self-determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2002), the present study had two objectives: (a) to test a model in the Mexican sport context based on the following sequence: perceived coach autonomy support, basic psychological needs satisfaction, and psychological well-being, and b) to analyze the mediational effect of the satisfaction of perceived coach autonomy support on indicators of psychological well-being (satisfaction with life and subjective vitality). Six hundred and sixty-nine young Mexican athletes (Boys = 339; Girls = 330; Mage = 13.95) filled out a questionnaire assessing the study variables. Structural equations analyses …
Self-Perceptions, Self-Worth and Sport Participation in Adolescents
2012
The purpose of this study was to study the associations between specific self-perceptions and global self-worth with different frequency levels of sport participation among Spanish boys and girls adolescents. Students (457 boys and 460 girls) completed the Self Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985) and items assessing sport engagement from The Health Behavior in School Children Questionnaire (Wold, 1995). Results showed that some specific dimensions of self-perception were related to different frequency of sport participation whereas overall judgments of self-worth did not. Specifically, for boys and girls, higher levels of sport participation were positively associated to Athletic…
Difference in physical fitness in children with initially high and low gross motor competence: A ten-year follow-up study
2018
Abstract The aim of the study was to investigate the difference in relative physical fitness between children with initially high and low gross motor competence in a ten-year prospective study. A sample of 49 children from a local primary school was tested on gross motor competence and physical fitness in 1st grade (5/6 years old). The children were tested again in 2nd (motor competence only), 7th, and 10th grade (15/16 years old). The sample was divided into two groups; initially high and low gross motor competence, according to score (median-split) on the Korperkoordinationstest fur Kinder-test battery in 1st grade. Results suggested that the initially high gross motor competence-group pe…
Do pheromones reveal male immunocompetence?
2002
Pheromones function not only as mate attractors, but they may also relay important information to prospective mates. It has been shown that vertebrates can distinguish, via olfactory mechanisms, major histocompatibility complex types in their prospective mates. However, whether pheromones can transmit information about immunocompetence is unknown. Here, we show that female mealworm beetles (Tenebrio molitor) prefer pheromones from males with better immunocompetence, indicated by a faster encapsulation rate against a novel antigen, and higher levels of phenoloxidase in haemolymph. Thus, the present study indicates that pheromones could transmit information about males' parasite resistance ab…
The role of juvenile hormone in immune function and pheromone production trade-offs: a test of the immunocompetence handicap principle
2003
The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis postulates that secondary sexual traits are honest signals of mate quality because the hormones (e.g. testosterone) needed to develop secondary sexual traits have immunosuppressive effects. The best support for predictions arising from the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis so far comes from studies of insects, although they lack male-specific hormones such as testosterone. In our previous studies, we found that female mealworm beetles prefer pheromones of immunocompetent males. Here, we tested how juvenile hormone (JH) affects male investment in secondary sexual characteristics and immune functions in the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor. We inje…
Narrative writing competence and internal state terms of young adults clinically diagnosed with childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
2013
Abstract Objective The first objective of this study was to compare the written expression competence of young adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with that of young adults without ADHD on three types of measures: indicators of the story's microstructure with regard to productivity and morphosyntax; indicators of the macrostructure (story grammar); and expressions of the mental states of the story's characters (internal state language). The second objective consisted of determining the relationships among the different narrative writing measures and the ADHD behavior ratings of inattention and hyperactivity obtained using the family observer report. Method The sample…
Association between Actual and Perceived Motor Competence in School Children
2020
(1) Background: The association between actual and perceived motor competence (MC) is one of the underlying mechanisms that influence the practice of physical activity. This study mainly aimed to analyze the structure and correlations between actual and perceived MC in schoolchildren and to compare actual and perceived MC between girls and boys. (2) Methods: A total of 467 fifth and sixth graders (43.9% girls, M = 11.26, SD = 0.70) participated. Actual and perceived MC were assessed. To examine the proposed four factor models, structural equation models (factor analyses, latent correlations, invariance testing for gender) were conducted. Student t-test for independent samples was used to co…
Motor competence, perceived physical competence, physical fitness, and physical activity within Finnish children
2019
The purpose of this study was to investigate reciprocal relationships among students’ motor competence (MC) (leaping, throwing, catching, jumping skills), perceived physical competence, health‐related fitness (HRF) (20 m shuttle run, push‐up, abdominal muscles endurance tests) and objectively measured moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Participants included 422 Grade 5 Finnish children (246 girls). Two separate structural equation models investigated paths (a) from MC through both perceived physical competence and HRF to MVPA, and (b) from MVPA through both perceived physical competence and HRF to MC. Model 1 demonstrated an indirect path from MC through HRF to MVPA and a direct…