We provide a commentary on current debates about the definition of dyslexia. We agree with others that dyslexia is best thought of as a dimensional disorder with the best established causal risk ...factor being a deficit in phonological processing. Dyslexia is particularly common in children from families with a history of dyslexia and in children with preschool language difficulties. We argue that definitions may differ depending upon their purpose. Traditional discrepancy definitions may be useful for research purposes, but when considering the provision of educational services discrepancy definitions are not useful since all children with reading difficulties require reading intervention regardless of their level of IQ.
This study is about student writers’ development of their own approaches to using formulaic phrases from a compendium (Academic Phrasebank). While the essential role of formulaic phrases in academic ...texts has been well-established in research, teaching about the effective use of these phrases is not widely available, and little attention has been paid to how students learn to employ formulaic phrases in their own writing. Therefore, this research aims to explore this gap in understanding how student writers develop individual approaches to using formulaic phrases through the lens of self-efficacy.
Twelve self-selected student writer participants at undergraduate, Master’s and PhD levels were interviewed and asked about how they used formulaic phrases from the resource. Three key findings emerged from the data: firstly, that the resource may support inclusion as an empowering tool to enable student writers to participate confidently in academia; secondly, that students could employ the resource flexibly at different stages of the writing process depending on their individual approach to text construction; thirdly, that it could offer particular support with writing to students who have a specific learning difficulty (SpLD).
This paper contributes to understanding these individual student learning processes in the use of formulaic phrases for writing through self-efficacy. The implication for learning development is that making more guidance about formulaic phrases widely available and accessible would be beneficial to students’ writing processes.
The problems of the study in this research were 1) the students’ difficulty in learning about the course of Kemuhammadiyahan I and 2) the internal and external factors that caused the students’ ...difficulty in learning for non-Muslim students for Therefore, the purpose of this study was 1) to describe the difficulty in learning that was faced by non-Muslim students in attending Kemuhammadiyahan I at PGSD Study Program, UMP, and 2) to describe the internal and external factors that caused the non-Muslim students’ difficulty in attending Kemuhammadiyahan I at PGSD Study Program, UMP. The result of the study showed that (a) there was no difficulty in learning found from non-Muslim students in Kemuhammadiyahan I, this result was based on the score of Kemuhammadiyahan I from the total of 5 students who became the subject of the study. (b) Having reviewed from the internal and external factors, from 16 non-Muslim students who took Kemuhammadiyahan I, there were 5 students who were chosen as the subjects. Concerning the internal factor, it was due to the students’ lack of motivation, interest, and also attention to the course. The results showed it does not occur non-Muslim students' learning difficulties in the course Kemuhammadiyahan I
The purpose of this study was to explore the paths by which word-problem intervention, with versus without embedded prealgebraic reasoning instruction, improved word-problem performance. Students ...with mathematics difficulty (MD; n = 304) were randomly assigned to a business-as-usual condition or 1 of 2 variants of word-problem intervention. The prealgebraic reasoning component targeted relational understanding of the equal sign as well as standard and nonstandard equation solving. Intervention occurred for 16 weeks, 3 times per week, 30 min per session. Sequential mediation models revealed main effects, in which each intervention condition significantly and substantially outperformed the business-as-usual condition, corroborating prior research on the efficacy of schema word-problem intervention. Yet despite comparable effects on word-problem outcomes between the two word-problem conditions, the process by which effects accrued differed: An indirect path via equal-sign understanding and then equation solving was significant only for the word-problem intervention condition with embedded prealgebraic reasoning instruction. Additionally, the effect of this condition on equal-sign reasoning was strong. Given the link between equal-sign reasoning for success with algebra and the importance of algebra for success with advanced mathematics, results suggest an advantage for embedding prealgebraic reasoning instruction within word-problem intervention.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
This study suggests prealgebraic reasoning is important within math word-problem instruction for third-grade students who experience difficulty with math. Prealgebraic reasoning involves interpreting the equal sign as "the same as" and solving equations (e.g., 3 + __ = 9 or 7 = 13 − __). As students develop strong prealgebraic reasoning, they are better equipped to solve word problems.
Experimental study in this article is aimed to investigate the effect of reading comprehension improvement for English language students toward their learning difficulty by using the reading speed ...strategy and identify the effect of gender and teaching method on the improvement of students’ reading comprehension. To achieve the objectives, a test was prepared to measure students’ reading comprehension after ensuring validity and reliability. The study involved 200 English students of the schools registered in Direktorat Pendidikan Wilayah Irbid II in the academic year of 2020/2021. They were 80 males and females, who are selected by using a simple method. The sample was categorized into two experimental groups with training and two control groups with the same material learning in a traditional method. The test was distributed to the groups before applying the strategy to ensure the whole group. The result showed that there are differences between the mean score of experimental group and the mean score of control group, and in favor of the experimental group. The result also showed that there are no differences among the mean score of students, which is attributed to gender.
Children with learning difficulties (LD) face multiple challenges in classrooms settings while having to meet various auditory demands, such as understanding verbal instructions in the presence of ...background noise. These challenges pose a risk for academic failure, underachievement, and underemployment. Well-developed skills regarding speech perception in noise promote learning, communication, and academic success. These skills need further investigation to promote evidence-based practice and intervention within the audiological and educational fields.
To identify and review published literature on the speech perception in noise abilities of children with LDs.
A systematic search strategy was used to identify literature on five electronic databases using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Literature from 2011 to 2021 reporting on speech perception in noise in children with LDs was included.
Of 1295 articles identified, five articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in this scoping review. All studies used comparative study designs to determine the speech perception in noise skills of children with LDs. Results indicated that children with LDs have poorer speech perception in noise skills when compared to typically developing children. Trisyllabic words were better perceived in noise than monosyllabic and disyllabic words.
Children with LDs require greater signal-to-noise ratios if they are to be given the same academic opportunities as typically developing (TD) children. Future studies can investigate the functional outcomes of children with LDs to promote evidence-based practice and intervention.
To undertake other activities, even in other disciplines, is often advocated in the fight to overcome academic difficulty. We question this belief by testing the practice which aims to facilitate a ...student’s interpretative reading of literature by the manner in which they appreciate and view a painting. Although it’s thought that it’s possible to enrol students in an activity they would prefer, the return to the central activities of the discipline, of their own accord, is not guaranteed. In questioning this practice, we mobilise sociological and didactic frameworks which are likely, in our opinion, to restore the dimensions of the social context and the relation with the areas of knowledge that guide the digression and return to the discipline. Our analysis is based on a comparison of the students’ activity in the arts of painting and literature from a collection of texts written by 350 senior secondary students, of highly mixed social backgrounds, from académie de Créteil. Our analysis shows that students more often accept and understand, through paintings rather than text, the very specific expectations of the French class room: an appreciation of a creative work’s greater sense of meaning, rich and plural and concerned with form. Analysis suggests the mobilisation of three registers of academic learning to help teachers be aware of the transformations necessary to the appreciation of a painting and to re-contextualise it for the appreciation of literature.
In rule-based (RB) category-learning tasks, the optimal strategy is a simple explicit rule, whereas in information-integration (II) tasks, the optimal strategy is impossible to describe verbally. ...This study investigates the effects of two different category properties on learning difficulty in category learning tasks-namely, linear separability and variability on stimulus dimensions that are irrelevant to the categorization decision. Previous research had reported that linearly separable II categories are easier to learn than nonlinearly separable categories, but Experiment 1, which compared performance on linearly and nonlinearly separable categories that were equated as closely as possible on all other factors that might affect difficulty, found that linear separability had no effect on learning. Experiments 1 and 2 together also established a novel dissociation between RB and II category learning: increasing variability on irrelevant stimulus dimensions impaired II learning but not RB learning. These results are all predicted by the best available measures of difficulty in RB and II tasks.
Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is accompanied by epileptic seizures in 4–7% of patients. We examined clinical, electrophysiological, and radiological features associated with epilepsy in our NF1 ...series in order to identify risk factors.
We reviewed data of 641 pediatric patients with NF1 diagnosis according to National Institutes of Health (NIH) criteria in Hacettepe University records from January 2008–August 2018. Demographic features, NF1-related clinical and imaging characteristics, age at onset of epilepsy, seizure semiology, and frequency, electroencephalogram (EEG) findings, and response to treatment were noted.
Twenty-six patients with NF1, 15 male, 11 female, had epilepsy. Age at seizure onset was 6 months to 13 years. Seizure semiology was focal with impaired awareness (n = 9, 34%), focal aware motor (n = 2, 8%), focal to bilateral tonic–clonic (n = 3, 12%), generalized tonic–clonic (n = 7, 28%), absence (n = 3, 12%), infantile spasms (n = 1), and unclassified type (n = 1). None had a history of status epilepticus. The EEG findings were normal for age in ten patients (38%). Others had focal (n = 8, 30%), generalized (n = 7, 27%), or multifocal (n = 1, 4%) discharges. On brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signal intensity changes typical for NF1 (neurofibromatosis bright objects, NBOs) were the most common finding (80%), followed by normal MRI (20%). There was no relation between the localization of NBOs and discharges on EEG. Seventeen patients (65%) were seizure-free at the time of the study; 11 of them still under medication including four on multiple antiepileptic drugs. The rate of learning problems and NBO were significantly higher in patients with NF1 with epilepsy compared to those without.
Epilepsy in NF1 is associated with relatively infrequent seizures and good response to treatment. Learning disorders are markedly frequent in this group, irrespective of the severity of epilepsy. The absence of correlation between the localizations of epileptiform discharges and lesions on MRI support the role of cellular or synaptic mechanisms rather than structural causes in the pathogenesis of epilepsy.
•Learning difficulties and MRI findings are common in NF1 when associated with epilepsy.•Loss of neurofibromin may cause hyperexcitability in a subgroup of patients with NF1.•Various NF1 related pathways and structural anomalies may predispose to epileptogenesis in NF1.•Epilepsy in NF1 generally responds well to treatment.
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