Pragmatic difficulties in children with specific language impairment. The role of mentalistic tasks

Several subjects with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show communicative and pragmatic problems. In this study, we suggested that mentalistic comprehension tasks would help us to find a deteriorated pragmatic profile among the population with SLI. To achieve this goal, a group of participants with conventional SLI (n=11) was compared to a group of SLI with more pragmatic problems (n=9) and their respective control group with typically developed language (n=13), of ages between 4 and 7 years. Results revealed that all the groups were able to attribute mental states in tasks where the context was structured. However, the subjects with predominant pragmatic SLI showed poorer performance than those with conventional SLI when tasks were communicative-oriented and they needed to process non-explicit information from the context. These findings suggest that it is possible to isolate a SLI subtype with more pragmatic problems and also that we can use mentalistic tasks to assess these difficulties more accurately.     

Evidence for intact memory-guided attention in school-aged children

Visual scenes contain many statistical regularities such as the likely identity and location of objects that are present; with experience, such regularities can be encoded and can ultimately facilitate the deployment of spatial attention to important locations. Memory-guided attention has been extensively examined in adults with the 'contextual cueing' paradigm and has been linked to specific neural substrates – a medial temporal lobe (MTL)-frontoparietal network. However, it currently remains unknown when this ability comes 'online' during development. Thus, we examined the performance of school-aged children on an age-appropriate version of the contextual cueing paradigm. Children searched for a target fish among distractor fish in new displays and in 'old' displays on a touchscreen computer. Old displays repeated across blocks of trials and thus provided an opportunity for prior experience with the invariant configuration of the stimuli to guide attentional deployment. We found that over time children searched old displays significantly faster than new displays, thus revealing intact memory-guided attention and presumed function of an MTL-frontoparietal network in 5- to 9-year-olds. More generally, our findings suggest that children are remarkably sensitive to the inherent structure of their visual environment and this enables attentional deployment to become more efficient with experience.     

Investigations of hemispheric specialization of self-voice recognition

Three experiments investigated functional asymmetries related to self-recognition in the domain of voices. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to identify one of three presented voices (self, familiar or unknown) by responding with either the right or the left-hand. In Experiment 2, participants were presented with auditory morphs between the self-voice and a familiar voice and were asked to perform a forced-choice decision on speaker identity with either the left or the right-hand. In Experiment 3, participants were presented with continua of auditory morphs between self- or a familiar voice and a famous voice, and were asked to stop the presentation either when the voice became "more famous" or "more familiar/self". While these experiments did not reveal an overall hand difference for self-recognition, the last study, with improved design and controls, suggested a right-hemisphere advantage for self-compared to other-voice recognition, similar to that observed in the visual domain for self-faces.     

Temporomandibular Disorder in Brazilian Patients: A Preliminary Study

The objective of the current study was to evaluate disease-related beliefs, adherence to treatment, quality of life, coping strategies and cognitive status in a group of Brazilian patients with Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD). Thirty patients were evaluated with a semi-directed interview, the Coping Strategies Inventory, and a Mini-Mental State Examination. Although half (50%) of the patients had known their diagnosis long term, 40% of the sample were not correctly following proposed treatment. All patients had a similar pattern of pain behavior related to TMD, while disease-related beliefs, quality of life and coping strategies were variable. Expectations about treatment also had significant association with treatment adherence. The findings of this study suggest that a more thorough understanding of individual differences in TMD is warranted.     

Comparison of single- and double-stage designs in the prevalence estimation of eating disorders in community samples

The aim of this research was to compare two different case-identification designs: (a) a one-stage anonymous design using the Eating Disorders Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q; Fairburn & Beglin, 1994) as diagnostic instrument and (b) a two-stage-non-anonymous design using the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT; Garner & Garfinkel, 1979) and the EDE-Q as screening instruments and the clinical interview Eating Disorders Examination (EDE; Fairbumrn & Cooper, 1993) as diagnostic instrument, in the estimation of eating disorders prevalence in community samples. Both epidemiological designs were compared in: eating disorders prevalence, population at risk, and weekly frequency of associated symptomatology (binge eating episodes, self-vomiting) within a sample of 559 scholars (14 to 18 year-old males and females) studying in the region of Madrid. Eating disorders prevalence estimation using single-stage design was 6.2%, and 3% using the two-stage design; however, these differences were not significant (p = .067). No significant differences between the two procedures were found either in population at risk or in weekly frequency of reported self-vomiting. Reported binge eating episodes were higher in the one-stage design. The use of a two-stage procedure with clinical interview (vs. questionnaire) leads to a better understanding of the items (specially the most ambiguous ones) and thus, to a more accurate prevalence estimation.     

Telepsychology and Self-help: The Treatment of Fear of Public Speaking

This work presents a self-help, Internet-based telepsychology program for the treatment of public speaking fears. The system is comprised of 3 parts: The assessment protocol gives the patient information about his or her problem (i.e., amount of interference it creates in his or her life, severity, degree of fear and avoidance). The system also includes a structured treatment protocol, organized into separate blocks, reflecting the patient’s progress. This ensures that the patient does not skip any steps in the treatment (something quite common in traditional self-help manuals), which provides more control over the process. The treatment protocol is a cognitive-behavioral program that provides exposure to the feared situation using videos of real audiences. Finally, the control protocol assesses treatment efficacy, not only at closure, but also at every intermediate step. Efficacy data from 12 social phobia patients are presented from pretreatment to posttreatment and at 1-month follow-up. These preliminary data support the efficacy of our telepsychology program for the treatment of fear of public speaking. This is a preliminary work in a promising research path that examines the possibility of using the Internet for the treatment of psychological disorders.     

Enabling Interactive Exploration of Cultural Heritage: An Experience of Designing Systems for Mobile Devices

Interaction design of mobile systems is a complex activity because it requires considering new usability and user experience aspects in order to exploit the peculiar characteristics of mobile devices, such as their pervasive and ubiquitous nature. This paper discusses issues about designing, developing and evaluating mobile systems. Italy has a rich cultural heritage, and the focus in this study is on the design of systems that enable interactive exploration of historical sites, not only for enhancing the user experience but also for learning purposes. The experience of the researchers at the Interaction, Visualisation and Usability lab, University of Bari, Italy, in designing a mobile learning system, called Explore!, which supports young students learning ancient history during a visit to archaeological parks, is reported. The evaluation of Explore! through systematic field studies shows that the adopted approach is able to transform the visit to archaeological parks into a more complete and culturally rich experience.     

"I would eagerly leave Neuchâtel ..." A 1912 letter by Jean Piaget with an introduction and notes

A 1912 letter from fifteen-year-old Jean Piaget (1896-1980) to the director of the Museum of Natural History of Geneva illustrates Piaget's precocious integration into a community of professional naturalists, and reveals his hitherto unknown plan to study medicine. It is not certain whether he actually intended to realize that plan. An essential biographical fact, however, is that he finally left natural history by turning to philosophy rather than to medicine.