Teaching Beginning Braille Reading Using an Alphabet or Uncontracted Braille Approach

This study examined the effects of using a research based print reading program modified to accommodate beginning braille readers using an alphabet or uncontracted braille reading approach with five beginning braille readers. Four of the 5 participants displayed a clear increase in their ability to read high frequency words when they began using the Early Steps reading program modified to an Early Steps Alphabet Braille Reading Program. Study findings indicate that access to reading activities and materials afforded to sighted peers resulted in improved reading outcomes for children with visual impairments. Teachers, participants, and family members all viewed the use of the uncontracted braille reading program and materials favorably. Specialized reading instruction was also perceived as beneficial by teachers of students with visual impairments when the training addressed the specific needs of braille readers.     

Outcomes of an Intensive Couple Relationship Education Program with Fragile Families

Couple relationship education (CRE) has been proposed as one means to help fragile families stabilize their relationships. The current research is one of the first studies to look at the outcomes of a CRE program with fragile families in the areas of couple stability and marriage formation. Data were from the Family Formation Project, a federal and state funded program working with fragile family couples (n = 96) in a metropolitan area. A historical cohort control group quasi‐experimental research design was used with a matched control group from the Fragile Family and Child Well‐being Study. The intervention consisted of in‐home education and support, group educational events, and social service referrals. Findings showed that couples had the same rate of couple stability as the control group but an increased rate of marriage. These findings suggest that CRE can help fragile families achieve marriage when that is their goal, but that some fragile families may need more than CRE to help them stabilize their relationship, or they may be better off separating.     

Valoración de un programa de habilidades interpersonales en niños superdotados

Certain research studies report that a number of gifted children show social adaptation issues, as well as problems with social and interpersonal skills, while others consider that this does not occur. In this regard, Neihart, Reis, Robinson and Moon (2002) speaks of a resilience approach versus a risk approach. From the risk viewpoint, this paper presents the benefits of applying training programs in interpersonal skills as to prevent potential problems in gifted children. For this reason, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of a training program for solving interpersonal problems in this population. Participants include 40 gifted children aged 7 to 13, divided into a treatment group and a control – waitlisted – group. Program application results show significant differences in direct assessment measurements in the treatment group. An increase in effect sizes between the treatment group and the control group is also detected, in favor of the former, and a relationship between the children's learning potential and the benefits obtained is also confirmed. In short, the training program proves effective in interpersonal problem-solving skill improvement in children with high intellectual capacity.     

Another look at the theoretical assumptions of adolescent egocentrism

We attempt in this paper to reevaluate the theoretical assumptions of D. Elkind's theory of adolescent egocentrism Child Development, 38, 1025–1034). We argue that the construct is not well placed in the ontogenetic context of Piagetian logical development, and that the theory cannot account for stage transition or the appearance of the imaginary audience (IA) and personal fable (PF) components. We argue that the IA and PF constructions are better understood as problems in interpersonal understanding. These components are reinterpreted in terms of stage sequence that describes the ontogenesis of interpersonal understanding. The advantages of this model are highlighted.     

Eye-fixation patterns during reading confirm theories of language comprehension

Eye-movement patterns during reading are consistent with proposition-by-proposition models of speech comprehension. (1) Fixation times are least affected by word length at ends of clauses: this confirms the theory based on the study of speech comprehension that, at such points, attention is directed inward to text integration. (2) Fixation time for words at the end of clauses is longer for canonical sequences which conform to the pattern, “N-V-N = actor-action-object”; this confirms the view that complete semantic integration of such sequences is routinely delayed until their completion. A two-variable model based on principles of exhaustive visual search and speech comprehension accounts for 80% of the fixation durations in a sample paragraph from Just and Carpenter (1980) and Thibodeou, Just ond Carpenter (1982). This comprehension-based model compares favorably with their models constructed within a production-system framework. This result clarifies the relationship between reading and listening.     

Simulating a skilled typist: a study of skilled cognitive-motor performance

We review the major phenomena of skilled typing and propose a model for the control of the hands and fingers during typing. The model is based upon an Activation-Trigger-Schema system in which a hierarchical structure of schemata directs the selection of the letters to be typed and, then, controls the hand and finger movements by a cooperative, relaxation algorithm. The interactions of the patterns of activation and inhibition among the schemata determine the temporal ordering for launching the keystrokes. To account for the phenomena of doubling errors, the model has only “type” schemata—no “token” schemata—with only a weak binding between the special schema that signals a doubling, and its argument. The model exists as a working computer simulation and produces an output display of the hands and fingers moving over the keyboard. It reproduces some of the major phenomena of typing, including the interkeystroke interval times, the pattern of transposition errors found in skilled typists, and doubling errors. Although the model is clearly inadequate or wrong in some of its features and assumptions, it serves as a useful first approximation for the understanding of skilled typing.     

Literal meaning and psychological theory

This paper evaluates the psychological status of literal meaning. Most linguistic and philosophical theories assume that sentences have well-specified literal meanings which represent the meaning of a sentence independent of context. Recent debate on this issue has centered on whether literal meaning can be equated with context-free meaning, or whether a sentence's literal meaning is determined only given a set of background assumptions. Neither of these positions meet the demands of a psychological theory of language understanding. Sentences do not have well-defined literal meanings, regardless of whether these are determined in light of a set of background assumptions. Moreover, the putative literal meanings of sentences do not contribute in systematic ways toward the understanding of speakers' utterance meanings. These observations suggest that the distinctions between literal and metaphoric meanings, and between semantics and pragmatics, have little psychological validity.