Scale of reading fluency in Spanish: measuring the components of fluency / Escala de fluidez lectora en español: midiendo los componentes de la fluidez

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to design and validate a rating scale to measure reading fluency. As well as speed and accuracy, different dimensions of prosody were taken into account (volume, intonation, pauses and phrasing), aspects hardly considered in reading assessment. In addition, a measure of reading quality was included. 122 Spanish primary-school children (74 in Year 2 and 48 in Year 4) read aloud a narrative text. Using inter-rater criteria, children’s reading was assessed with this new rating scale (Scale of Reading Fluency in Spanish, SRFS) (Escala de Fluidez Lectora en Español, EFLE) and with the Multidimensional Fluency Scale (Rasinski, 2004). Standardized reading comprehension and prosodic reading tests were used as criterion measures. Results show acceptable reliability and validity coefficients. We conclude that SRFS appears to be a useful instrument for using in education and research contexts.     

Repercusión de la autoimagen en el diagnóstico de la capacidad de formar imágenes mentales

Resumen

Desde 1909 hasta la actualidad se han construido y utilizado mucho los cuestionarios para medir la capacidad de los sujetos para formar imágenes mentales; sin embargo, han sido muy discutidos, fundamentalmente porque las autopuntuaciones de imagen están contaminadas por las expectativas sociales.

Nosotros estudiamos la relación de la autoestima y la autoimagen con la viveza subjetiva de imagen visual. Presentamos a 93 estudiantes de Formación Profesional un test objetivo de imagen, un test subjetivo de imagen, una medida de autoestima y una de autoimagen. Obtuvimos correlaciones significativas entre la autoestima y la medida subjetiva de imagen, y entre la autoimagen y la medida subjetiva de imagen; sin embargo, la autoestima y la autoimagen no correlacionaron significativamente con un test objetivo de imagen.     

Autonomous Versus Controlled Religiosity: Family and Group Antecedents

Self-determination theory distinguishes between identified and introjected internalization of religious practices, positing that the former is experienced as autonomous, whereas the latter is experienced as controlling. A study of Italian Catholic youth showed that identified internalization was predicted by (a) parents' behaviors reflecting basic autonomy support (BAS; behaviors involving perspective taking, choice-provision, and control-minimization), (b) youth-group leader BAS, (c) parents' intrinsic value demonstration (IVD), and (d) peers' IVD. Introjected internalization was predicted by (a) conditional parental regard (CR) and (b) peers' IVD. Perceived parental warmth did not mitigate the effect of CR on introjection. The study underscores the importance of two socializing behaviors rarely studied in the area of religious socialization: IVD and conditional regard. The findings also highlight the harmful nature of CR in the religion domain as a practice for which robust negative effects on internalization cannot be eliminated by more salutary parental behaviors as warmth.     

The Effects of Accuracy Motivation on Children's and Adults' Event Recall,Suggestibility, and Their Answers to Unanswerable Questions

This study investigated children's and adults' event recall accuracy and suggestibility effects when participants' accuracy motivation was manipulated. A total of 240 participants (6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds, and adults) were shown a video and later asked 4 types of questions: answerable questions, both open-ended and strongly misleading, and unanswerable questions, both open-ended and strongly misleading. Participants were either (a) rewarded with a token for every correct answer (high accuracy motivation, Free Report Plus Incentive condition), (b) explicitly given the option of answering with "don't know" when unsure (medium accuracy motivation, Free Report condition), or (c) asked to provide an answer to every question, even when they were not sure or had to guess or both (low accuracy motivation, Forced Report condition). The condition with the high accuracy motivation yielded the highest recall accuracy scores for answerable open-ended and misleading questions. For unanswerable questions, even the youngest age group was able to increase the number of appropriate "don't know" answers when highly motivated to be accurate, but a misleading question format undermined these abilities. The results highlight important interactions between social (accuracy motivation) and cognitive factors (metacognitive monitoring processes) in children's formal interviewing.     

How a therapist survives the suicide of a patient—with a special focus on patients with psychosis

The article draws from a personal clinical experience of two suicides, not far removed from each other in time. The first patient was a 33-year-old intellectual suffering from depression with narcissistic traits but no psychotic elements, while the second patient was a 21-year-old student with a manifest psychotic episode behind him and with characteristics of post-psychotic depression at the time of suicide. The two suicides had very different impacts on the therapist: the first left open some “space” for reflection, communication, and working-through, while the second closed such a “space,” leaving only a tiny door to the existential roots of human beings and suffering. The therapist was able to find some “shelter” by talking to supervisors, colleagues, and friends in the first case; in the second, the only possible “shelter” was glimpsed in the philosophy of groundlessness (Ungrund) of the Russian existentialist Nicolai Berdyaev. The personal experiences of the therapist, along with some theoretical interpretations of the after-effects of both suicides, are presented using a psychodynamic and existential–phenomenological understanding of the therapeutic relationship with a psychotic and a non-psychotic patient. The main dilemmas exposed by a patient’s suicide, especially if the patient suffers from psychosis, are difficult to deal with in the usual clinical settings and call for resources beyond it. The authors propose that these can be found in philosophical and theological insights.     

Belief in Absolute Necessity

We outline a theory of the cognitive role of belief in absolute necessity that is normative and intended to be metaphysically neutral. We take this theory to be unique in scope since it addresses simultaneously the questions of how such belief is (properly) acquired and of how it is (properly) manifest. The acquisition and manifestation conditions for belief in absolute necessity are given univocally, in terms of complex higher‐order attitudes involving two distinct kinds of supposition (A‐supposing and C‐supposing). It is subsequently argued that the proposed acquisition and manifestation conditions are rationally interdependent, and that such harmony affords explanations of connections between different facets of belief in necessity that otherwise remain mysterious.     

Concentric circles of containment: a psychodynamic contribution to working in pupil referral units

This article aims to reflect on the lessons learnt from using a psychodynamic approach to offering onsite therapeutic child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in four pupil referral units (henceforth referred to as PRUs). The PRUs cater for six- to 16-year-old children and adolescents permanently excluded from mainstream schools. The work takes place in an inner London borough. The approach described evolved over five years through practice-based evidence of what worked well in each particular setting. This was viewed both in terms of sustaining families' engagement in the therapeutic process, and also effectively supporting child and adolescent mental health services and education staff in their respective tasks. The model which gradually evolved owes much to Bion's concept of containment as the necessary foundation for emotional growth and genuine learning. It also draws on ideas from psychoanalytic consultation and open systems theory. The importance of work discussion groups in this setting will also be evident. Some links are made to relevant Buddhist concepts and metaphors.     

Action and perception: Evidence against converging selection processes

In a series of experiments we investigated whether identification of a lateralized visual target would benefit from concurrent execution of a reaching movement on the same side of space. Participants were tested in a dual-task paradigm. In one task, they performed a speeded reach movement towards a lateralized target button. The reach was cued by an auditory stimulus, and performed out of the participant's sight. In the other task, participants identified one of two simultaneous visual stimuli presented to the left and right visual fields, close to movement target locations. If motor activity were effective in modulating perceptual processes via a visuo-attentional shift, identification performance should have improved when the visual stimulus appeared at the movement target location. In fact, identification was not affected by the side of reach. Such results suggest substantially independent selection processes in motor and visual domains.     

An Account of the Democratic Status of Constitutional Rights

The paper makes a twofold contribution. Firstly, it advances a preliminary account of the conditions that need to obtain for constitutional rights to be democratic. Secondly, in so doing, it defends precommitment-based theories from a criticism raised by Jeremy Waldron—namely, that constitutional rights do not become any more democratic when they are democratically adopted, for the people could adopt undemocratic policies without such policies becoming democratic as a result. The paper shows that the reductio applies to political rights, yet not to non-political rights, such as reproductive, environmental, or privacy rights. The democratic status of the former is process-independent. The latter, by contrast, are democratic precisely when they are adopted by democratic means.     

The impact of state affect on job satisfaction

Affective events theory proposes affective experiences at work to cause job satisfaction. Using multiple measurements obtained in a diary study, affective experiences in terms of state positive and state negative affect (PA, NA) were related to state job satisfaction (N = 91). Trait measures were also collected. Results confirmed our hypothesis. First, aggregated state job satisfaction is strongly correlated with trait job satisfaction. Second, the relationship between state affect and state job satisfaction is not spurious: State affect impacts on state job satisfaction even if trait affect and trait job satisfaction are controlled. Third, the effect of state affect on job satisfaction measured by the faces scale is stronger than the effect of state affect on job satisfaction measured by facet scales. It is concluded that not all scales to measure job satisfaction are equally appropriate to investigate affect at work.