Orthographic effects in the word substitutions of aphasic patients: an epidemic of right neglect dyslexia?

Aphasic patients with reading impairments frequently substitute incorrect real words for target words when reading aloud. Many of these word substitutions have substantial orthographic overlap with their targets and are classified as "visual errors" (i.e., sharing 50% of targets' letters in the same relative position). Fifteen chronic aphasic patients read a battery of words and non-words; non-word reading was poor for all patients, and more than 50% of errors on words involved the substitution of a non-target word. An investigation of the factors conditioning these word substitutions, as well as the production of visual errors, identified a number of similarities to patterns previously reported for patients with right neglect dyslexia, which has been said to occur relatively rarely. These included a strong tendency for errors to overlap targets in initial letter positions, maintenance of target length in errors, and the substitution of words higher in imageability than targets. It is proposed that left hemisphere damage frequently leads to disruption of a level of representation for written words in which letter position is ordinally coded, resulting in exacerbation of a normal processing advantage for early letter positions. A computational model is discussed that incorporates this level of representation and successfully simulates relevant normal and patient data.     

Using a small sample Q sort to identify item groups

A small sample of 40 second-year university students in Hong Kong were asked to perform a Q sort on the 36 items of a questionnaire used to assess six dimensions of student approaches to learning, the Learning Process Questionnaire. Participants were instructed to sort the items into as many groups as they liked with the only conditions being that all items within a group be as similar as possible in perceived meaning and that no item be placed into more than one group. By treating participants' responses as a form of multiple-choice data and by applying optimal scaling, three solutions were obtained. A two-dimensional plot of the optimal item scores for the first two solutions yielded 10 clearly defined item clusters suggesting a possible ten-factor model as opposed to the six-factor model found in studies of this questionnaire. The implications of using this approach to identify potential competing factor models, especially within a cross-cultural context, are discussed.     

Review and Discussion of Strategies to Address Low Trainer‐to‐Staff Ratios

Researchers have developed an array of highly adaptable intervention packages with well‐documented efficacy for staff and teacher training. As indicated by Parsons, Rollyson, and Reid (2012) in their article on best practices in staff training, behavior analysts must use methods that are both effective and efficient given the limited resources of many human service settings (e.g., low trainer‐to‐staff ratios). The purpose of this paper is to summarize research on practical innovations for staff and teacher training, including the use of video‐based technology and self‐instruction materials that may help trainers to operate effectively despite limited time and personnel. Results are discussed in terms of the current state of the evidence for each practical innovation and considerations for integrating these strategies with best practices in staff training. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Swedish Muslims and Secular Society: Faith-Based Engagement and Place

This article sets out to explore how Muslims in Sweden identify with and create social life in the place where they live, that is, in their neighbourhood, in their town/city and in Swedish society at large. In a paradoxical religious landscape that includes a strong Lutheran state church heritage and a Christian free-church tradition, in what is, nevertheless, a very secular society, Muslims may choose different strategies to express their faith, here roughly described as “retreatist,” “engaged” or “essentialist/antagonistic.” Focusing on a non-antagonistic, engaged stance, and drawing upon a combination of authors' interviews, and materials published in newspapers and on the Internet, we first bring to the fore arguments by Muslim leaders in favour of creating a Muslim identity with a Swedish brand, and second give some examples of local Muslim individuals, acting as everyday makers in their neighbourhood, town or city. Third, we also give attention to an aggressively negative Islamophobic stance expressed both in words and in physical violence in parts of Swedish society. In conclusion, we reflect upon the challenges and potentialities of an emotionally engaged, dialogue-orientated Muslim position facing antagonistic interpretations of Islam, and an ignorant, sometimes Islamophobic, environment.     

‘An Association for All’—Notions of the Meaning of Autistic Self‐Advocacy Politics within a Parent‐Dominated Autistic Movement

In this paper, we seek to explore the tensions between advocacy and self advocacy autistic movements in a Swedish context with a special focus on the meanings that enable the production of particular understandings of autism and the autistic subject. Drawing on articles written for the Swedish advocacy magazine Empowerment written for and by people with autism, the discourse analysis explores two competing discourses: a reformist and a radical. The reformist discourse underlines a goal of (political) representation expressed in Empowerment. It may be understood as an important part of producing a legitimate autistic political subject–positioned as a full member, with a full membership–within a parent‐dominated autistic advocacy movement. The reformist discourse can be viewed as a result of a negotiation, where full membership is conditioned on the parents' terms and granted on specific terms. These include working together (neuro‐inclusively), advocacy based on interest rather than identity/position as a specific target/member group, agreement upon a definition of autism as a disability (a deficit) a person has rather than an identity. In relation to this, an alternative legitimate autistic subject is produced through invoking the counter‐hegemonic radical discourse. Such a narrative produces the ‘Asperger’ or ‘Aspie’. Here, the ‘full membership’ refers to a sense of identification with sense of belonging to and being at home with other people with autism. It contains a certain amount of autistic solidarity within the group of adults with autism. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.