Search results for "Comprehension"
showing 10 items of 475 documents
Selecting students for medical school: What predicts success during basic science studies? A cognitive approach
1996
This study focuses on differences between multiple-choice science tests and a learning-from-text (LFT) test, and how these tests predict success in basic medical studies. The subjects (N = 503) were applicants to the Helsinki University Medical Faculty. All of them had to take an entrance examination in order to be considered for admission to a 6-year study programme combining medical school and graduate studies. The entrance examination consisted of three traditional multiple-choice science tests and one LFT test, the latter designed to measure deep-level processing of text. A follow-up study was conducted in order to see how the different tasks were related to the grades and pace of study…
Narrowing the Genetic Causes of Language Dysfunction in the 1q21.1 Microduplication Syndrome
2018
The chromosome 1q21.1 duplication syndrome (OMIM# 612475) is characterized by head anomalies, mild facial dysmorphisms, and cognitive problems, including autistic features, mental retardation, developmental delay, and learning disabilities. Speech and language development are sometimes impaired, but no detailed characterization of language problems in this condition has been provided to date. We report in detail on the cognitive and language phenotype of a child who presents with a duplication in 1q21.1 (arr[hg19] 1q21.1q21.2(145,764,455-147,824,207) × 3), and who exhibits cognitive delay and behavioral disturbances. Language is significantly perturbed, being the expressive domain the most …
Cortical Reorganization after Rehabilitation in a Patient with Conduction Aphasia Using High-Density EEG
2020
Conduction aphasia is a language disorder occurred after a left-brain injury. It is characterized by fluent speech production, reading, writing and normal comprehension, while speech repetition is impaired. The aim of this study is to investigate the cortical responses, induced by language activities, in a sub-acute stroke patient affected by conduction aphasia before and after an intensive speech therapy training. The patient was examined by using High-Density Electroencephalogram (HD-EEG) examination, while was performing language tasks. the patient was evaluated at baseline and after two months after rehabilitative treatment. Our results showed that an intensive rehabilitative process, i…
Metaphor comprehension in children with and without autism spectrum disorder
2020
Abstract Metaphor comprehension was studied in three groups of children from 6 to 12 years old: a group with autism spectrum disorder with level 2 severity (ASD, n = 22) and two comparison groups with typical development: one matched with the ASD group on chronological age (TCD group, n = 22) and the other matched on linguistic age (TLD group, n = 22). The TCD group performed better than the TLD group, which performed better than the ASD group, on the comprehension of both conventional and novel metaphors, with better performance found on conventional metaphors than on novel ones. We suggest that both linguistic and extralinguistic competencies (usually limited in level 2 ASD) would be nece…
Validación de un instrumento de evaluación del comportamiento sexual de personas con discapacidad intelectual para padres (ECS-PA)
2019
La reciente normalización de la sexualidad y de los derechos sexuales entre las personas con Discapacidad Intelectual (DI) ha hecho que se incremente el número de iniciativas dirigidas a mejorar sus conocimientos y habilidades mediante programas de educación afectivo-sexual pero dichos programas requieren instrumentos de evaluación fiables que permitan identificar sus necesidades y puedan ser sensibles al cambio tras la intervención. En dicha valoración deben confluir sus percepciones, las de los profesionales que se ocupan de ellos y las de sus padres para asegurar la veracidad de la información obtenida, pero lamentablemente carecemos de instrumentos psicométricos válidos y fiables tanto …
Visual Methods in Researching Language Practices and Language Learning: Looking at, Seeing, and Designing Language
2016
The changing ways of using language and various understandings of what language is have consequences for the way we research language practices and language learning. When engaging in social contact, people use diverse and complex forms, modes, and varieties of language to communicate, and moreover, these resources often include icons, images, and other semiotic ways of meaning making. Visuality thus has a natural position in people’s language practices. In this chapter, we discuss how visual methods have been adopted and used as a methodological tool in researching language practices and language learning. With this focus, attention is geared to the materiality of language, on the one hand…
Material scaffolding : Supporting the comprehension of migrant cleaners at work
2016
Linguistic diversity is growing in labour markets throughout Europe, including Finland, where cleaning is the most common job for immigrants. This paper explores material scaffolding provided for second language users in tasks involved in cleaning work. The notion of ‘scaffolding’ refers to temporary and adaptive support, and here the emphasis is especially on ‘material scaffolding’, that is, material artefacts and body movements employed in mentoring. The theoretical framework of the study is van Lier’s (2004) ecological perspective on language learning, and a discourse-ethnographic perspective of nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon 2004) is adopted to analyse the ethnographic data collect…
Metaphors in the mirror: The influence of teaching metaphors in a medical education programme
2016
Medical students often face problems in using and understanding metaphors when communicating with a patient or reading a scientific paper. These figures of speech constitute an interpretative problem and students need key strategies to facilitate metaphor comprehension and disambiguation of meaning. This article examines how medical students' strategies of metaphor comprehension could be improved by specific teaching on metaphors using a Cognitive Linguistics approach. Medical students' ability to comprehend mirror neuron metaphors was assessed comparing the performance of students who did not receive any instruction about metaphoric extension strategies after a lesson on mirror neurons wit…
ABDUCTIVE INFERENCES IN PRAGMATIC PROCESSES
2018
Abstract In pragmatic theories, the notion of inference plays a central role, together with the communicative act in which it is activated. Although some scholars, such as Levinson, Sperber and Wilson, propose detailed and accurate analyses of this notion, we will maintain that these analyses can be better systematized if seen through Peirce’s notion of abduction. We will try to maintain that the variety of inferential processes in play in a linguistic act is mostly of an abductive nature. Moreover, we will maintain that the typological tripartition of abductions discussed by Eco (1981) allows to account for a signi cant part of the mechanisms involved in the comprehension of an utterance, …
Literacy programs efficacy for developing children’s early reading skills in familiar language in Zambia
2018
This study investigated the comparative efficacy of a phonics-based reading program and a language experience approach based literacy program to develop reading skills among Zambian early childhood school learners. The learners (n = 1 986; Grade 2 level; females = 50.1%) took either the phonics-based reading program (n = 1 593) or the alternative language experience approach based program (n = 393). They were all assessed for reading skills utilising the Early Grade Reading Assessment test (EGRA) in four languages (Cinyanja, Icibemba, Kiikaonde, and Silozi). Results suggest that learners in phonics-based literacy program were significantly better in letter-sound knowledge in all the four la…