Learning of letter names follows similar principles across languages: Evidence from Hebrew

Letter names play an important role in early literacy. Previous studies of letter name learning have examined the Latin alphabet. The current study tested learners of Hebrew, comparing their patterns of performance and types of errors with those of English learners. We analyzed letter-naming data from 645 Israeli children who had not begun formal reading instruction: a younger group (mean age 5 years 2 months) and an older group (mean age 6 years 2 months). Children's errors often involved letters with similar shapes or letters adjacent to one another in the alphabet. Most Hebrew letter names are not very similar to one another phonologically, and there were fewer phonologically based confusions than in English. We found both general frequency effects and frequency effects that reflected the letters in individual children's names. On average, girls knew more letter names than did boys. The results suggest that letter name learning follows similar principles across languages.     

Reduction of children's locomotor activity by modeling and the promise of contingent reward

Sixty children aged 4 and 5 were observed in an open field situation under instructions to stay in one part of a playroom and to play with a single toy of their choice during an initial 15-minute period. They were then placed for 5 minutes in an adjacent observation room and exposed to 1 of 5 different experimental conditions. Subjects in the modeling conditions observed an adult male sitting in one distinctive part of the playroom and playing with Tinker Toys. Subjects in the enriched modeling condition also saw the model receive reward for his subdued behavior and heard him verbalize reasons for his actions. Subjects in nonmodeling conditions merely observed the empty playroom during the 5 minutes. Finally, all subjects were observed in the playroom for a second 15-minute session. Children in the reinforcement conditions were now promised pennies for staying in one part of the room and playing with a single toy of their choice. Both modeling and the promise of contingent reward resulted in a reduction of locomotor activity and a reduction of toy-switching behavior, though the effects of these variables did not combine in an additive way. Enriched modeling had an additional effect on toy-switching behavior only. Males spent more time in the modeled quadrant than did females. The results were interpreted as support for the importance of modeling and reinforcement in children's compliance with instructions.     

Letter discrimination as a function of culture, orthography and dimensionality of letters

46 4-yr.-old children from the United States and 80 from Bangalore, India made fewer discrimination errors when letters were three- rather than two-dimensional. More errors were made on Kannada (Indian) than on English orthographic tasks, but there were relatively fewer errors made by Indian than American children. Younger subjects and boys made relatively more errors than other groups. The findings suggest visually perceived depth may activate the young child's enactive system dominant during the preoperational period and serve to increase accuracy of letter discrimination.     

Which children benefit from letter names in learning letter sounds?

Typical U.S. children use their knowledge of letters' names to help learn the letters' sounds. They perform better on letter sound tests with letters that have their sounds at the beginnings of their names, such as v, than with letters that have their sounds at the ends of their names, such as m, and letters that do not have their sounds in their names, such as h. We found this same pattern among children with speech sound disorders, children with language impairments as well as speech sound disorders, and children who later developed serious reading problems. Even children who scored at chance on rhyming and sound matching tasks performed better on the letter sound task with letters such as v than with letters such as m and h. Our results suggest that a wide range of children use the names of letters to help learn the sounds and that phonological awareness, as conventionally measured, is not required in order to do so.     

Swedish norms for completion of word stems and unique word fragments

Swedish norms for completion of word stems and single-solution word fragments, with few or many letters specified, were obtained from Swedish students. Comparisons were made for completion rates between stems and fragments that were possible to complete with the same word. As expected, completion rates for fragments were generally superior to those of word stems since the word stems allowed alternative completions. Adding one letter to the word stems and fragments resulted in a significant increase in the probability of completion, for both stems and fragments. A stepwise regression analysis was conducted in order to partial out factors determining the completion probability for fragments. The ratio of specified letters to blank characters, and the familiarity of the solution was found to be the most important factors. Finally, the effect of number of given letters in the word stem on the number of generated words per stem was studied. The mean number of words generated per stem was found to be equal for both two- and three-letter word stems.     

Reading errors in first‐ and second‐grade readers of a shallow orthography: Evidence from Spanish

Background. Studies focusing on reading errors can help to understand how children learn to read and to structure key components of reading instruction. However, no prior studies have examined which letters might be a greater source of difficulty for beginning readers in Spanish. Aims. First, to examine the pattern of reading errors in beginning readers in a shallow orthography like Spanish with a particular focus on both the context‐dependant (c, g, r) and the visual similar (b, d, g, p, q) consonants. (The dual‐route cascade model is used as a theoretical framework for predictions.) Second, to examine the effect of visual similarity on orientation reversals, using upper and lower case letters. Sample. Ninety Spanish‐speaking children (45 in Grade 1 and 45 in Grade 2) participated in the study. Method. Children were required to read aloud both words and non‐words. Seven categories of errors were examined. To clarify the influence of visual similarity of easily confused consonants (b, d), upper and lower case letters were used. Results. We found that most reading errors (as a function of opportunity) were due to context‐dependant consonants (c, g, r), and a small proportion were due to the remaining consonants, or even the visually‐similar consonants. Further, visual similarity of reversible letters had a significant effect on orientation reversals. Finally, there was a significant influence of factors such as syllable frequency on the number of word errors. Conclusions. The implications of these findings for early reading instruction and future research are discussed.     

Rapid naming deficits in children and adolescents with reading disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Seventy-one children in three groups (reading disabilities, ADHD without reading disabilities, and normal controls) were compared on their ability to rapidly name colors, letters, numbers, and objects (RAN Tasks) and alternating letters/numbers and letters/numbers/colors (RAS tasks). Children with reading disabilities were found to be slower on letter- and number-naming tasks and made more errors on all tasks than controls or children with ADHD. There was an age effect for the RAN/RAS tasks, with younger children with reading disabilities performing more poorly on all tasks, while the older children with reading disabilities showed poorer performance only on the letter- and number-naming tasks.     

Using student-managed interventions to increase homework completion and accuracy

We examined the effectiveness of self-managed individual and group contingency procedures in improving the completion and accuracy rates of daily mathematics homework assignments. A group of sixth-grade students having homework difficulties in mathematics were selected for the study. There was substantial improvement in the amount of homework completed over baseline for a majority of the students, whereas the results for accuracy were mixed. Students who participated in the self-management training made significant gains on standardized measures of academic achievement and curriculum-based measures of classroom performance. Parents also reported significantly fewer problems associated with homework completion following the intervention. Students who were allowed to select their own performance goals made superior improvements in the number of homework assignments returned compared to students who were given a specified goal by the classroom teacher. Parents, subjects, and the classroom teacher responded positively on consumer satisfaction measures following termination of the study.     

Grandmothers' responsibility in raising two-year olds facilitates their grandchildren's adaptive behavior: a preliminary intrafamilial investigation of mothers' and maternal grandmothers' effects

To investigate the extent to which the presence of their maternal grandmother might facilitate independent and adaptive responding, 2-year-old children were observed in a novel environment. Although the two-year-olds' extent of exploration and amount of time spent in a playroom were significantly grater when their mother was present than when an unfamiliar person was present, the grandmother's functional characteristics were on an intermediate level between those of the mother and those of the unfamiliar person. However, the more responsibilities that grandmothers reported customarily assuming for their grandchildren, the more similarly the children in the playroom reacted to their mothers and grandmothers. Extended involvement by a sensitive grandmother may enhance her grandchild's relationship with her.     

Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank: debates and confrontations about anxiety and birth

The publication of Otto Rank's The Trauma of Birth (1924) gave rise to an intense debate within the secret Committee and confronted Freud with one of his most beloved disciples. After analyzing the letters that the Professor exchanged with his closest collaborators and reviewing the works he published during this period, it is clear that anxiety was a crucial element among the topics in dispute. His reflections linked to the signal anxiety concept allowed Freud to refute Rank's thesis that defined birth trauma as the paradigmatic key to understanding neurosis, and, in turn, was a way of confirming the validity of the concepts of Oedipus complex, repression and castration in the conceptualization of anxiety. The reasons for the modifications of anxiety theory in the mid-1920s cannot be reduced, as Freud would affirm officially in his work of 1926, to the detection of internal contradictions in his theory or to the desire to establish a metapsychological version of the problem, for they gain their essential impulse from the debate with Rank.     

An experimental approach to the reduction of overactive behavior

An operant, differential reinforcement procedure (DRO) was employed in a playroom setting for the purpose of controlling overactivity. Six overactive, mentally retarded children, aged 8–13 yr were first observed individually for a period of 8 days in the playroom in order to obtain a baseline performance on a specially constructed check-list of hyperactive behavior. Following this, the conditioning phase began under a fixed schedule of reinforcement with tokens as the reinforcing agents (later to be exchanged for candy). A fading-out phase was instituted after the 30-day conditioning period in order to maintain resistance to extinction at a higher level. Post-conditioning observations were then made. It was conclusively shown that the disturbed, hyperactive behavior came under stimulus control with “grasshopper” play decreasing substantially during the latter part of conditioning and extinction periods.     

Learning to label letters by sounds or names: a comparison of England and the United States

Learning about letters is an important foundation for literacy development. Should children be taught to label letters by conventional names, such as /bi/ for b, or by sounds, such as /b/? We queried parents and teachers, finding that those in the United States stress letter names with young children, whereas those in England begin with sounds. Looking at 5- to 7-year-olds in the two countries, we found that U.S. children were better at providing the names of letters than were English children. English children outperformed U.S. children on letter-sound tasks, and differences between children in the two countries declined with age. We further found that children use the first-learned set of labels to inform the learning of the second set. As a result, English and U.S. children made different types of errors in letter-name and letter-sound tasks. The children's invented spellings also differed in ways reflecting the labels they used for letters.     

Speed of letter cancellation on the basis of visual and name identity in young children

Second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade children were tested on a visual search task where letter matching was based on the visual or name characteristics of letters. Visual match lists were searched faster than name match lists by all three grades. In the name match lists there was an increase in speed as a function of trials whereas in the visual match lists there was no increase. The name-physical match difference did not change as a function of age.     

Mother-child verbal interchange: A descriptive study of young children's verbal behavior

The theoretical importance of the linguistic data available to the child in his natural environment has been increasingly emphasized in recent work on child language acquisition. This study sought to describe a portion of such data as contained in maternal verbal behavior and to analyze its influence on the child's usage of speech. The subjects were five 21-month-old children and their mothers. The mother-child verbal interchange was recorded during free-play situations carried out both at the subject's home and in a playroom. The interactive patterns of mother-child utterances were analyzed with regard to the kind and frequency of verbalizations, and the temporal intervals between them. Results showed that the temporal pattern of mother-child interchanges was characterized by significantly shorter pauses (<2 s) for mothers than for children. A variation in this pattern, consisting of pauses longer than 4 s, was associated with certain kinds of ongoing mother-child verbal behaviors. Thus mothers showed selectiveness, in varying degrees, in responding to the child's utterances, and their verbal responses had differential effects on the child's subsequent verbal performance. These effects were described as “initiating”, “maintaining”, or “ending” verbal chains, or else as “non-reacted” utternances. Moreover, the amount of verbalization by the children was positively correlated with the proportion of the mother's output that consisted of immediate responses to the child, and not with the total verbal output.     

Searching for a pre-specified target letter in briefly displayed words and unpronounceable non-words

Two experiments were designed in which subjects searched briefly displayed and masked arrays of letters for a single pre-specified target. The target was randomly located at one of twelve positions, its identity remained constant throughout, and it was embedded either in the context of words or in a context of unpronounceable strings of letters. In experiment 1 the letters were arranged in two six-item rows, and word and non-waord displays were mixed and presented to a single group of subjects. Accuracy of search was superior when the letters formed words, both for responses scored for correct position and for responses scored for correct row. In experiment 2 word and non-word displays were presented to different groups of subjects, and for both groups the twelve characters were either arranged as before in two rows or were positioned at loci representing the clock positions. Accuracy of search was again superior when the letters formed words and were arranged in rows, but there was no advantage for words when the letters formed a circle. These findings, firstly, indicated that the “word-superiority effect” obtained in experiment 1 was not a result of subjects adopting a word processing strategy for all stimuli, and secondly, they suggested that the word information could not be used to advantage in the absence of spatial cues delineating the words and/or when the letters were not positioned in the usual horizontal arrangement. It was concluded that the results of both studies were consistent with a perceptual account of the word superiority effect.     

Using differential reinforcement of low rates to reduce children's requests for teacher attention

We evaluated the effectiveness of full-session differential reinforcement of low rates of behavior (DRL) on 3 primary school children's rates of requesting attention from their teacher. Using baseline rates of responding and teacher recommendations, we set a DRL schedule that was substantially lower than baseline yet still allowed the children access to teacher assistance. The DRL schedule was effective in reducing children's requests for assistance and approval, and the teacher found the intervention highly useful and acceptable. The possible mechanisms that account for behavior change using full-session DRL schedules are discussed.     

Searching for many targets: An analysis of speed and accuracy

Three Ss scanned matrices of letters for 40 sessions in a test of Neisser’s claim that feature tests in high-speed searches operate independently and in parallel. In the multiple-target condition (MTC), the matrix contained any one of four target letters, while in the four single-target conditions (STC), the S knew which particular target was embedded in the list. In contrast to previous studies, the error rates for individual target letters in the MTC were analyzed separately rather than being pooled. Two Ss made more errors on the hardest target when searched for in the MTC than in the STC. This difference would be masked by pooling error rates. The third S’s scanning rate in the MTC was not as rapid as in the STC. Neither a sequential nor a strictly parallel feature processing model can account for these data.     

The rule learning behavior of reading disabled and normal children as a function of task characteristics and instruction

The purpose of this research was to investigate rule learning in reading disabled (RD) and normal children (chronological age and reading age (RA) match) when required to (a) abstract rules independently, and (b) use rules after instruction. Study 1 required the children to solve problems using shapes and letters. Although there was no difference between groups in the rate of problem solving when children were asked to abstract rules independently, the pattern of errors was different. The RD children made a greater proportion of errors on the negative instance for the more complex problems. In particular, this occurred on the letter task which involved psycholinguistic categorization. After instruction, the RA controls made more errors than the other groups. Study 2 was an analogous pseudoword reading task. Even with statistical adjustment for differences in prior grapheme-phoneme (g-p) rule knowledge, the RD children performed less accurately than the RA controls when they had to abstract rules, although this was restricted to the most difficult rule (rule of e). There was no difference after instruction in rule application, although the pattern of errors and post-test results indicated that the RD children continued to experience decoding difficulty. These results suggest a phonologically based productive deficit which interferes with the learning of g-p rules. This may be part of a more general language deficit which includes psycholinguistic categorization. Despite the severity of this handicap, RD children seem responsive to instruction.     

Handwriting process and product characteristics of children diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder

Deficits in handwriting performance limit the school participation of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The aim of this study was to compare the handwriting process and product characteristics of children with DCD to those of typically developing (TD) children in order to determine the best means of differentiation between the groups. Participants were 40 children, from 7 to 10 years old. The experimental group consisted of 20 children who met the criteria of DCD, and the control group consisted of 20 age- and gender-matched controls. The children were asked to perform three graded writing tasks on an electronic tablet, which was part of a computerized handwriting evaluation system (ComPET), in order to obtain measures of their handwriting process. The children's handwriting product was then evaluated by the Hebrew Handwriting Evaluation (HHE). Results showed significant differences between the groups for the handwriting process measures (on-paper and in-air time, mean pressure) and for the handwriting product characteristics (global legibility, number of letters erased or overwritten, spatial arrangement, and number of letters written in the first minute). The discriminant analysis yielded a high significant discrimination (80-90%), with the 'number of letters erased or overwritten' variable as the most differentiating variable (-.67). We concluded that an evaluation of both handwriting process and product characteristics among children with DCD provides a more comprehensive picture of their deficits. Using this method may enable practitioners to focus on children's main deficits and to tailor intervention methods so as to prevent academic underachievement and its consequences on their emotional well-being.