Nonword repetition in children and adults: effects on movement coordination

Hearing and repeating novel phonetic sequences, or novel nonwords, is a task that taps many levels of processing, including auditory decoding, phonological processing, working memory, speech motor planning and execution. Investigations of nonword repetition abilities have been framed within models of psycholinguistic processing, while the motor aspects, which also are critical for task performance, have been largely ignored. We focused our investigation on both the behavioral and speech motor performance characteristics of this task as performed in a learning paradigm by 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children and young adults. Behavioral (percent correct productions) and kinematic (movement duration, lip aperture variability – an index of the consistency of inter‐articulator coordination on repeated trials) measures were obtained in order to investigate the short‐term (Day 1, first five vs. next five trials) and longer‐term (Day 1 vs. Day 2, first five vs. next five trials) changes associated with practice within and between sessions. Overall, as expected, young adults showed higher levels of behavioral accuracy and greater levels of coordinative consistency than the children. Both groups, however, showed a learning effect, such that in general, later Day 1 trials and Day 2 trials were shorter in duration and more consistent in coordination patterns than Day 1 early trials. Phonemic complexity of the nonwords had a profound effect on both the behavioral and speech motor aspects of performance. The children showed marked learning effects on all nonwords that they could produce accurately, while adults’ performance improved only when challenged by the more complex nonword stimuli in the set. The findings point to a critical role for speech motor processes within models of nonword repetition and suggest that young adults, similar to children, show short‐ and longer‐term improvements in coordinative consistency with repeated production of complex nonwords. There is also a clear developmental change in nonword production performance, such that less complex novel sequences elicit changes in speech motor performance in children, but not in adults.     

Cultural Influences on Perceptions of Health, Illness, and Disability: A Review and Focus on Autism

This conceptual paper considers the role of culture in shaping family, professional, and community understanding of developmental disabilities and their treatments. The meanings of health, illness, and disability vary greatly across cultures and across time. We use Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model to provide a theoretical framework for examining disability, with special attention to autism spectrum disorders. Cultural beliefs about the cause of a disorder influence families’ decision-making about what treatments to use and what outcomes to expect. Autism provides an example that is especially challenging, as there is no agreed-upon cause. Also, an overwhelming array of treatments is available in the West for autism, including behavioral, cognitive, pharmaceutical, sensory, relational, vitamin, and diet therapies. Other cultures contribute additional views on cause (e.g., Karma, Allah’s will) and treatments (e.g., acupuncture, herbal medicines, Ayurveda). We suggest how a broad cultural view can help us understand treatments and the treatment delivery system of a nation and a culture. For the best course of care, professionals need to understand and respect families’ views of autism and work toward mutually agreeable treatments that may involve a combination of biomedical and cultural practices. Although a family-focused, open teamwork model that aims to acknowledge the context of the child, take into consideration the strengths and limitations of the child and the family, and introduce appropriate, sustainable, and sensitive interventions is regarded as best practice in the United States, it will take sensitive work to find out whether it will suit other cultural groups across the world.     

Goals,Values, and Beliefs as Predictors of Achievement and Effort in High School Mathematics Classes

Gender and motivation in high school mathematicsclass were examined by using an expectancy-valueframework. There were 366 students (146 males, 212females)from a school with an enrollmentof approximately 1900 students (81% Caucasian, 8% NativeAmerican, 5% Hispanic, 4% African American, and 2%Asian). These students completed a questionnaireconsisting of 92 items which measured students'situation-specific goals (4 subscales), task-specific values (3subscales), task-specific beliefs (3 subscales), andgender self-schemata (2 subscales). Students' percentagegrade in math and selfreported effort in math class were the dependent variables. The three sets oftask-specific variables each accounted for between 11%and 14% of variance in achievement, while the genderself-schemata variables contributed another 2%. Task-specific goals were much strongerpredictors of effort than any other set of variables. Anunexpected finding was that, for both males and females,endorsing the stereotype that mathematics is a male domain was negatively related to reportedeffort. There were also differences in the prediction ofachievement and effort based on gender and math classtype (required or elective). Several path models supported these results.     

The India Experience

This article featuring India constitutes one of five articles in a collection of essays on local capacity-building in research ethics by graduates from the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics MHSc in Bioethics, International Stream program funded by the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences. Research ethics is a growing area of work and interest in India. Ethics review remains the weakest component in the mechanism of good clinical practice, and there is a severe dearth of professionals trained in ethics who can provide leadership. Although the Indian Good Clinical Practice Guidelines, the Indian Medical Council Act, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act require that the Indian Council of Medical Research’s ethical guidelines be followed as a mandatory requirement for physicians who conduct research, there is a pervasive lack of awareness of basic requirements guiding the ethical conduct of research. There is a great need to strengthen India’s research ethics capacity and regulatory framework for research.     

Comparison of deck- and trial-based approaches to advantageous decision making on the Iowa Gambling Task

We compared the original deck-based model of advantageous decision making assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) with a trial-based approach across behavioral and physiological outcomes in 33 younger adults (15 men, 18 women; 22.2 ± 3.7 years of age). One administration of the IGT with simultaneous measurement of skin conductance responses (SCRs) was performed and the two methods applied: (a) the original approach of subtracting disadvantageous picks of Decks A and B from advantageous picks of Decks C and D and (b) a trial-based approach focused on the financial outcome for each deck leading up to the trial in question. When directly compared, the deck-based approach resulted in a more advantageous behavioral profile than did the trial-based approach. Analysis of SCR data revealed no significant differences between methods for physiological measurements of SCR fluctuations or anticipatory responses to disadvantageous picks. Post hoc investigation of the trial-based method revealed Deck B contributed to both advantageous and disadvantageous decision making for the majority of participants. When divided by blocks of 20, the number of advantageous to disadvantageous choices reversed as the task progressed despite the total number of picks from Deck B remaining high. SCR fluctuations for Deck B, although not significantly different from the other decks, did show a sharp decline after the first block of 20 and remained below levels for Decks C and D toward the end of the task, suggesting that participants may have gained knowledge of the frequency of loss for this deck.     

Moral Emotions,Emotion Self-Regulation,Callous-Unemotional Traits,and Problem Behavior in Children of Incarcerated Mothers

Children with incarcerated mothers are at high risk for developing problem behaviors. Fifty children (6–12 years; 62% girls) participated in summer camps, along with adult mentors. Regression analyses of child and adult measures of child’s emotion self-regulation and callous-unemotional traits, and a child measure of moral emotions, showed that poor emotion regulation, along with low levels of guilt and high levels of shame, predicted children’s externalizing behaviors, while only low levels of guilt predicted a unique subset of child characteristics called callous-unemotional traits. Children who experienced healthy guilt for misdeeds were better able to control their behavior. Adults noted the ability of children with callous/unemotional traits to manage and regulate their emotions, while poor emotion regulation was more predictive of the cluster of externalizing problems. Discussion focuses on prevention efforts aimed at teaching emotion self-regulation and the implications of the high levels of callous-unemotional traits in this population of children.