On the relationship between phonological awareness,morphological awareness and Chinese literacy skills: evidence from an 8‐year longitudinal study

The present study reported data on phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and Chinese literacy skills of 294 children from an 8‐year longitudinal study. Results showed that mainland Chinese children's preliterate syllable awareness at ages 4 to 6 years uniquely predicted post‐literate morphological awareness at ages 7 to 10 years. Preliterate syllable awareness directly contributed to character reading and writing at age 11 years, while post‐literate phonemic awareness predicted only character reading at age 11 years. In addition, preliterate syllable and morphological awareness at ages 4 to 6 years had indirect effects on character reading and writing, reading fluency, and reading comprehension at age 11 years, through post‐literate morphological awareness at ages 7 to 10 years. Findings underscore the significant role of syllable awareness in Chinese character reading and writing, and the importance of morphological awareness in character‐level processing and high‐level literacy skills. More importantly, our results suggest the unique relation of syllable awareness and morphological awareness in Chinese as they focus on the same unit, which is also likely to map directly onto a character, the basic unit for high‐level Chinese reading skills.     

Development of emergent literacy and early reading skills in preschool children: evidence from a latent-variable longitudinal study

Although research has identified oral language, print knowledge, and phonological sensitivity as important emergent literacy skills for the development of reading, few studies have examined the relations between these aspects of emergent literacy or between these skills during preschool and during later reading. This study examined the joint and unique predictive significance of emergent literacy skills for both later emergent literacy skills and reading in two samples of preschoolers. Ninety-six children (mean age = 41 months, SD = 9.41) were followed from early to late preschool, and 97 children (mean age = 60 months, SD = 5.41) were followed from late preschool to kindergarten or first grade. Structural equation modeling revealed significant developmental continuity of these skills, particularly for letter knowledge and phonological sensitivity from late preschool to early grade school, both of which were the only unique predictors of decoding.     

Relations between parent–child affect and synchrony and cognitive outcome at 5 years of age

This investigation involved the longitudinal assessment of 30 preterm and 39 full-term infants from 2 to 5 years of age. Measures of cognitive outcome at 2 and 5 years of age and mother-child dyadic synchrony and affect during free-play interaction were obtained at 5 years of age. Correlational and regression analyses indicated that 5-year cognitive outcome was predicted by 2-year cognitive status, mother education, and 5-year dyadic interaction. In addition, 5-year maternal positive affect contributed independently to children's cognitive status at age 5, above and beyond the contributions of early cognitive status and maternal education. Also, affect and synchrony interacted in predicting lower cognitive abilities. Findings are discussed in relation to the importance of maternal affect and synchronous interactions in transactional explanations of development during early childhood.     

Reduced audiovisual integration in synesthesia – evidence from bimodal speech perception

Recent research suggests synesthesia as a result of a hypersensitive multimodal binding mechanism. To address the question whether multimodal integration is altered in synesthetes in general, grapheme‐colour and auditory‐visual synesthetes were investigated using speech‐related stimulation in two behavioural experiments. First, we used the McGurk illusion to test the strength and number of illusory perceptions in synesthesia. In a second step, we analysed the gain in speech perception coming from seen articulatory movements under acoustically noisy conditions. We used disyllabic nouns as stimulation and varied signal‐to‐noise ratio of the auditory stream presented concurrently to a matching video of the speaker. We hypothesized that if synesthesia is due to a general hyperbinding mechanism this group of subjects should be more susceptible to McGurk illusions and profit more from the visual information during audiovisual speech perception. The results indicate that there are differences between synesthetes and controls concerning multisensory integration – but in the opposite direction as hypothesized. Synesthetes showed a reduced number of illusions and had a reduced gain in comprehension by viewing matching articulatory movements in comparison to control subjects. Our results indicate that rather than having a hypersensitive binding mechanism, synesthetes show weaker integration of vision and audition.     

Multilevel mediation analysis: The effects of omitted variables in the 1–1–1 model

Multilevel mediation analysis examines the indirect effect of an independent variable on an outcome achieved by targeting and changing an intervening variable in clustered data. We study analytically and through simulation the effects of an omitted variable at level 2 on a 1–1–1 mediation model for a randomized experiment conducted within clusters in which the treatment, mediator, and outcome are all measured at level 1. When the residuals in the equations for the mediator and the outcome variables are fully orthogonal, the two methods of calculating the indirect effect (ab, c – c′) are equivalent at the between‐ and within‐cluster levels. Omitting a variable at level 2 changes the interpretation of the indirect effect and will induce correlations between the random intercepts or random slopes. The equality of within‐cluster ab and c – c′ no longer holds. Correlation between random slopes implies that the within‐cluster indirect effect is conditional, interpretable at the grand mean level of the omitted variable.     

Phoneme awareness is a key component of alphabetic literacy skills in consistent and inconsistent orthographies: evidence from Czech and English children

Two studies investigated the importance of phoneme awareness relative to other predictors in the development of reading and spelling among children learning a consistent orthography (Czech) and an inconsistent orthography (English). In Study 1, structural equation models revealed that Czech (n=107) and English (n=71) data were fitted well by the same predictors of reading and spelling. Phoneme awareness was a unique predictor in all models. In Study 2, Czech (n=40) and English (n=27) children with dyslexia showed similar deficits on phoneme awareness relative to their age- and spelling-matched control peers. Phoneme awareness appears to be a core component skill of alphabetic literacy, which is equally important for learners of consistent and inconsistent orthographies.     

Heat and Violence: New Findings from Dallas Field Data, 1980–19811

Research in both laboratory and field settings has suggested a link between thermal stress and violent behavior, and both linear and curvilinear models have been investigated. A dearth of field studies prompted the analysis reported here, which is based on data for some 10,000 aggravated assaults occurring the City of Dallas in 1980 (a summer of severe heat stress) and 1981. This analysis replicates and extends certain aspects of recent work by Anderson and Anderson (1984) relating to the so-called linear and curvilinear hypotheses. Thermal stress is measured in two ways: a Discomfort Index (DI), which takes into account the influence of humidity acting in concert with temperature, and ambient temperature. Regression analyses were performed in two stages. In the first, data for all neighborhoods and all days of the study period were combined into ambient temperature and DI models. At the second stage, models differentiated between the three levels of neighborhood socioeconomic status. With weekend controlled, DI and ambient temperature were significant independent variables in the ‘overall’ model and in medium and low status neighborhoods. However, when linear effects were controlled, the curvilinear measures were never significant. The analysis generally tended to confirm Anderson and Anderson's suggestion that a reduction of aggression with increasing temperature does not appear to occur within the normal range of temperatures. This analysis further suggested that the hypothesized curvilinear effect is weak, if not entirely absent, even during conditions of extreme heat.     

Developmental relations between reading fluency and reading comprehension: a longitudinal study from Grade 1 to Grade 2

From a developmental framework, relations among list reading fluency, oral and silent reading fluency, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension might be expected to change as children's reading skills develop. We examined developmental relations among these constructs in a latent-variable longitudinal study of first and second graders. Results showed that list reading fluency was uniquely related to reading comprehension in Grade 1, but not in Grade 2, after accounting for text reading fluency (oral or silent) and listening comprehension. In contrast, text reading fluency was uniquely related to reading comprehension in Grade 2, but not in Grade 1, after accounting for list reading fluency and listening comprehension. When oral reading fluency and silent reading fluency were compared, oral reading fluency was uniquely related to reading comprehension after accounting for silent reading fluency in Grade 1, whereas silent reading fluency was uniquely related to reading comprehension after accounting for oral reading fluency in Grade 2.     

New Proposals on Theological Apologetics – Faith and Its Critics: A Conversation – By David Ferguson; The Command of Grace: A New Theological Apologetics – By Paul D. Janz; Theology in Search of Foundations – By Randal Rauser

Recent titles announce a new interest on apologetics, not in the habitual format of a popular theology providing arguments to believe, but rather as a dialogical engagement with the current developments in philosophy and science. The books under exam offer an outstanding review of the meaning for theology and faith of such tendencies, the risks and challenges they pose. Nevertheless, opportunities are perceived through the ongoing dialogue as well, for a better theological endeavor.     

Relations between enabling skills and reading comprehension: a follow-up study of Latvian students from first to second grade

In order to examine the relationships among various phonological skills and reading comprehension, Latvian children were followed from grade 1 to grade 2 and were tested with a battery of phonological, word reading, and reading comprehension tasks. A principal component analysis of the phonological tasks revealed three salient factors: a phonemic awareness factor, a rapid naming factor, and a short-term memory factor. In order to analyze the relationship between various phonological skills and reading comprehension, a structural modeling analysis was performed. Phonemic awareness and rapid naming explained approximately the same amount of unique variance in reading comprehension, but phonemic awareness had most predictive power indirectly via word decoding. Only rapid naming had a significant direct impact on reading comprehension.     

Exploring the Relations between Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) Cognitive Abilities and Mathematics Achievement

As standardized measures of cognitive abilities and academic achievement continue to evolve, so do the relations between the constructs represented in these measures. A large, nationally representative sample of school‐aged children and youth between 6 and 19 years of age (N = 4,194) was used to systematically evaluate the relations between cognitive abilities and components of academic achievement in mathematics. The cognitive abilities of interest were those identified from the Cattell–Horn–Carroll model of intelligence. Specific areas of mathematics achievement included math calculation skills and math problem solving. Results suggest that fluid reasoning (Gf), comprehension‐knowledge (Gc), and processing speed (Gs) have the strongest and most consistent relations with mathematics achievement throughout the school years.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.