A Framework for Developing Comparable Multilingual Assessments for Minority Populations: Why Context Matters

The assessment of linguistic minorities often involves using multiple language versions of assessments. In these assessments, comparability of scores across language groups is central to valid comparative interpretations. Various frameworks and guidelines describe factors that need to be considered when developing comparable assessments. These frameworks provide limited information in relation to the development of multiple language versions of assessments for assessing linguistic minorities within countries. To this end, we make various suggestions for the types of factors that should be considered when assessing linguistic minorities. Our recommendations are tailored to the particular constraints potentially faced by various jurisdictions tasked with developing multiple language versions of assessments for linguistic minorities. These challenges include having limited financial and staffing resources to develop comparable assessments and having insufficient sample sizes to perform psychometric analyses (e.g., item response theory) to examine comparability. Although we contextualize our study by focusing on linguistic minorities within Canada due to its bilingual status, our findings may also apply to other bilingual and multilingual countries with similar minority/majority contexts.     

数学学习困难初中生的中央执行系统特点

为揭示数学学习困难学生的认知过程加工特点,筛选上海111名初中生（男生46名,女生68名,平均年龄11.97岁）比较数学困难学生（55名）与数学优秀学生（56名）的中央执行系统的表现差异,通过反应停止任务和Flanker任务考察抑制能力以及注意控制能力。结果发现各种抑制和注意控制条件下,数困组学生的正确率低于数优组;在具有干扰的情况的成绩更能有效预测数学成绩;中央执行系统能力在初中总体具有上升发展趋势,数困生的发展具有波动性。因此,数学学习困难在中央执行系统中的缺损主要是对抗干扰的能力不足,而非简单的加工速度。     

301例中枢神经系统感染的临床分析

回顾性研究301例中枢神经系统感染病例的临床资料,分析其临床特点,将符合临床诊断标准的病例按病原种类分为病脑组、结脑组、化脑组及隐脑组4个组,应用相关的统计描述分析其临床特征。结果发现病毒性脑（膜）炎是最常见的中枢神经系统感染性疾病,而中枢神经系统感染性疾病一年四季均可发病,其中病毒性脑（膜）炎高发于5月及7月,结核性脑膜炎则高发于1月与3月,有明显的季节性。中枢神经系统感染的临床首发症状依次表现为发热、头痛、意识障碍、精神症状、抽搐及神经系统定位症状。     

An Archival Study of Eyewitness Memory of the Titanic's Final Plunge

A handful of real-life studies demonstrate that most eyewitnesses accurately recall central details (i.e., the gist of what happened) from traumatic events. The authors evaluated the accuracy of archival eyewitness testimony from survivors of the Titanic disaster who witnessed the ship's final plunge. The results indicate that most eyewitness testimony (15 eyewitnesses of 20) is consistent with forensic evidence that demonstrates that the Titanic was breaking apart while it was still on the ocean's surface. Despite the methodological limitations of archival research, the authors provide evidence from a single-occurrence traumatic event (with a large-scale loss of life) that the majority of eyewitnesses accurately recall central details.     

Neuropsicología clínica: Revisión y previsión

RESUMEN

Este trabajo presenta las contribuciones originarias, actuales y potenciales de la neuropsicología clínica, defendiendo que no sólo ayuda a la comprensión de los problemas de la relación entre mente y cerebro sino que puede revolucionar el tratamiento de los pacientes que sufren diversas disfunciones del sistema nervioso superior, debido a sus implicaciones terapéuticas. Respecto a sus contribuciones actuales se destacan, entre otras, la de proporcionar medidas objetivas de la significación funcional de una lesión y líneas base para evaluar los efectos a largo plazo o el curso de rehabilitación, revisando las técnicas y resultados de varias investigaciones que exploran las funciones de estructuras corticales y subcorticales. Como contribución potencial se señala la posibilidad de reinstaurar las funciones cerebrales y de acelerar el ritmo de compensación de lesiones, diseñando programas de rehabilitación específicos para cada paciente que estén basados en la medición neuropsicológica, en estrecha colaboración con otros profesionales. Este trabajo finaliza concluyendo que la neuropsicología clínica puede constituir el foco del tratamiento interdisciplinario de los pacientes con alteraciones del sistema nervioso central.     

Reduced interhemispheric interaction in non-autistic individuals with normal but high levels of autism traits

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show superior performance for tasks requiring detail-focused processing. Atypical neural connectivity and reduced interhemispheric communication are posited to underlie this cognitive advantage. Given recent conceptualization of autism as a continuum, we sought to investigate whether people with normal but high levels of autism like traits (AQ) also exhibit reduced hemispheric interaction. Sixty right-handed participants completed the AQ questionnaire (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001) and a lateralised letter matching task that assessed unilateral and bilateral performance in response to simple (physical) and complex (identity) matches. Whereas people with low self-rated AQ scores showed a bilateral advantage for the more complex task, indicating normal interhemispheric interaction, people in the high AQ group failed to show a bilateral gain for the computationally demanding stimuli. This finding of disrupted interhemispheric interaction converges with a dimensional conceptualisation of ASD, suggesting that the structural anomalies of ASD extend to non-autistic individuals with high levels of autism traits.     

Language learning impairment: Integrating research and remediation

Timing cues present in the acoustic waveform of speech provide critical information for the recognition and segmentation of the ongoing speech signal. Research has demonstrated that deficient temporal perception rates, that have been shown to specifically disrupt acoustic processing of speech, are related to specific language-based learning impairments (LLI). Temporal processing deficits correlate highly with the phonological discrimination and processing deficits of these children. Electrophysiological single cell mapping studies of sensory cortex in brains of primates have shown that neural circuitry can be remapped after specific, temporally cohesive training regimens, demonstrating the dynamic plasticity of the brain. Recently, we combined these two lines of research in a series of studies that addressed whether the temporal processing deficits seen in LLIs can be significantly modified through adaptive training aimed at reducing temporal integration thresholds. Simultaneously, we developed a computer algorithm that expanded and enhanced the brief, rapidly changing acoustic segments within ongoing speech and used this to provide intensive speech and language training exercises to these children. Results to date from two independent laboratory experiments, as well as a large national clinical efficacy trial, demonstrate that dramatic improvements in temporal integration thresholds, together with speech and language comprehension abilities of LLI children, results from training with these new computer-based training procedures.     

工作记忆中央执行功能的特异性和可分离性

采用3种中央执行功能,对中央执行功能的特异性和可分离性进行研究。选取青年和老年被试各31名。每位被试都要参加3种中央执行功能2个难度水平的任务和瑞文标准推理测验。结果发现：记忆刷新的年龄效应不能完全由液态智力的年龄差异来解释;虽然同种执行功能内不同难度任务的年龄效应类似,但不同执行功能的年龄效应不同,从大到小依次为记忆刷新、随机生成和选择性注意;控制液态智力的影响后,同种执行功能内不同难度任务间的相关仍然显著,而不同中央执行功能之间的相关不显著;另外,本实验条件下选择性注意与液态智力相关不显著,且不存在年老化现象。研究结果表明中央执行功能相对于液态智力具有一定的特异性,并且可以进一步分离为一些相互独立的子功能。     

Effets comportementaux et cognitifs de l'engagement dans un acte préparatoire activant un élément central versus périphérique de la représentation du don d'organes

We render an account of a research programme that links two fields of study usually unconnected: the field of the freely agreed submission and the field of social representations. Two hypothesis are tested in the foot-in-the door paradigm: participants that agree to perform an initial request (to sign a petition) that selects a core element of the representation of organ donation: a) will be more inclined to agree to perform the target request (to sign a donor card); and b) will have an attitude more favourable about organ donation than participants that agree to perform an initial request that selects a peripheral element. The two experiments presented confirm these hypotheses.     

数学学习困难与工作记忆关系研究的现状与前瞻

工作记忆是一种对信息进行暂时加工和贮存的能量有限的记忆系统,在许多复杂的认知活动中起重要作用,工作记忆缺陷是造成数学学习困难的根本原因。数学学习困难儿童都存在视觉空间模板、语音回路以及中央执行器功能等方面的缺陷,工作记忆的各成分对数学困难者的影响不同。今后研究将以整体的、发展的视角,不断改进研究方法,将行为研究和神经加工机制研究相结合。