The aim of this work is to investigate the factors promoting students’ engagement at school and supporting their well-being experience. According to the Positive Education there is a strong ...relationship between school environment and student’s well-being. Moreover, the quality of the school climate perceived by the students was found to influence engagement in school activities, as well. In this study, 153 students (
M
= 67) attending 10th grade were presented with tests and questionnaires to assess individual assets (personality traits, literacy skills), emerging appraisals (school-climate, well-being experience) and emerging actions (school engagement), according to the
Student Well-Being Model.
Path analysis showed that the best model does include neither individual assets nor direct effect of school climate on engagement, as the effect of school climate on engagement is mediated by well-being experience. The main result is that school climate has been confirmed as an important factor to be considered to improve engagement in school activities, but it is effective only when its influence can modify the well-being experience of the students. Moreover, the lack of significant effects of individual assets in the model suggests that improving school climate means to support well-being experience and, indirectly school engagement, irrespective to learning abilities and personality traits. This work encourages working in/with schools to implement positive education programs that support and sustain a positive school climate and culture for school-community wellbeing.
Technology innovation has been leading to the development of an increasing number of applications that aim to support the rehabilitation of cognitive functions ....
Children with dyslexia are extremely slow at reading long words but they are faster with stimuli composed of roots and derivational suffixes (e.g., CASSIERE, 'cashier') than stimuli not decomposable ...in morphemes (e.g., CAMMELLO, 'camel'). The present study assessed whether root length modulates children's morphological processing. For typically developing readers, root activation was expected to be higher for longer than shorter roots because longer roots are more informative access units than shorter ones. By contrast, readers with dyslexia were not expected to be facilitated by longer roots because these roots might exceed dyslexics' processing capacities. Two groups of Italian 6th graders, with and without dyslexia, read aloud low-frequency derived words, with familiar roots and suffixes. Word reaction times (RTs) and mispronunciations were recorded. Linear mixed-effects regression analyses on RTs showed the inhibitory effect of word length and the facilitating effect of root frequency for both children with and without dyslexia. Root length predicted RTs of typically developing readers only, with faster RTs for longer roots, over and above the inhibitory effect of word length. Furthermore, typically developing children had faster RTs on words with more frequent suffixes while children with dyslexia were faster when roots had a small family size. Generalized linear regression analyses on accuracy showed facilitating effects of word frequency and suffix frequency, for both groups. The large word length effect on latencies confirmed laborious whole-word processing in children when reading low-frequency derived words. The absence of a word frequency effect along with the facilitating effect of root frequency indicated morphemic processing in all readers. The reversed root length effect in typically developing readers pointed to a stronger activation for longer roots in keeping with the idea that these represent particularly informative units for word decoding. For readers with dyslexia the facilitating effect of root frequency (not modulated by root length) confirmed a pervasive benefit of root activation while the lack of root length modulation indicated that the longest roots were for them too large units to be processed within a single fixation.
The aim of this study is to assess the role of readers' proficiency and of the base-word distributional properties on eye-movement behavior. Sixty-two typically developing children, attending 3
, 4
, ...and 5
grade, were asked to read derived words in a sentence context. Target words were nouns derived from noun bases (e.g.,
, 'humorist'), which in Italian are shared by few derived words, and nouns derived from verb bases (e.g.,
, 'punishment'), which are shared by about 50 different inflected forms and several derived words. Data shows that base and word frequency affected first-fixation duration for nouns derived from noun bases, but in an opposite way: base frequency had a facilitative effect on first fixation, whereas word frequency exerted an inhibitory effect. These results were interpreted as a competition between early accessed base words (e.g.,
, chimney) and target words (e.g.,
, fireplace). For nouns derived from verb bases, an inhibitory base frequency effect but no word frequency effect was observed. These results suggest that syntactic context, calling for a noun in the target position, lead to an inhibitory effect when a verb base was detected, and made it difficult for readers to access the corresponding base+suffix combination (whole word) in the very early processing phases. Gaze duration was mainly affected by word frequency and length: for nouns derived from noun bases, this interaction was modulated by proficiency, as length effect was stronger for less proficient readers, while they were processing low-frequency words. For nouns derived from verb bases, though, all children, irrespective of their reading ability, showed sensitivity to the interaction within frequency of base+suffix combination (word frequency) and target length. Results of this study are consistent with those of other Italian studies that contrasted noun and verb processing, and confirm that distributional properties of morphemic constituents have a significant impact on the strategies used for processing morphologically complex words.
Although Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) are described as specific difficulties in one or more academic areas, often socio-emotional problems are also reported to be related to well-being and ...school engagement. Moreover, recent evidence shows that emotional problems and reduced social support predict problematic use of new technologies, such as a smartphone, that can, in turn, increase these problems. In this study, we aimed to investigate socio-emotional functioning and its relation to well-being, school engagement, and problematic smartphone use. Social and emotional skills of 19 adolescents with a diagnosis of SLD and 19 control adolescents were assessed through a narrative test; adolescents were requested to narrate complete stories elicited by pictures representing social situations. Information on well-being and problematic smartphone use were collected through questionnaires. The comparison between groups showed differences in cognitive-social skills, although no significant differences in emotional functioning were found. Additionally, the perception of the social environment as supportive and trustworthy was related to general well-being for both groups, whereas the perception of limits and rules set by the adult world appeared to be related to a decreased investment in learning processes only for the SLD students. Finally, correlation analysis showed that smartphone use was associated with reduced perception of social support and to a decreased ability to understand and solve social situations. These results assert the critical role played by social information processing and social support in terms of well-being in adolescence, and contribute to enhancing knowledge of the mechanisms underlying problematic smartphone use in a clinical sample.
Attachment networks in young adults Carli, Lucia L; Alì, Paolo Alessandro; Anzelmo, Elena ...
Frontiers in psychology,
02/2024, Volume:
14
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This study investigated attachment networks in a sample of Italian young adults. Attachment networks were defined in terms of attachment functions, attachment strength, the presence of a primary ...figure, and full-blown attachments.
Participants were 405 young adults, and we studied the effects of the demographic variables of gender, romantic status (whether single, involved in a romantic relationship for less or more than 24 months) and employment (whether university students or workers) on the structure of attachment networks. Participants were asked to answer the WHO-TO questionnaire, and derived indexes were analyzed using mixed ANOVAs, linear and logistic regression techniques.
Results indicated that while friends still had great importance in the network, partners were acquiring increasing relevance; at the same time, parents, and particularly mothers, remained central figures, particularly for the secure base function. Regarding the demographic variables, we observed that women reported stronger bonds with their mothers than men did, while the importance of friends was higher for men than for women. Additionally, our study supports previous findings underlining the importance of romantic partners in this phase of life, with participants involved in romantic relationships for longer than 24 months showing a fully developed attachment bond with their partners. Finally, for workers, the transfer of functions from the family-of-origin to external figures seemed to be fostered.
In conclusion, young Italian young adults go through a phase of intensive restructuring of attachment bond networks, particularly in relation to the consolidation of romantic relationships and work commitments.
Music therapy (MT) has been proposed as valid approach for behavioral and psychologic symptoms (BPSD) of dementia. However, studies demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach are lacking.
To ...assess MT effectiveness in reducing BPSD in subjects with dementia.
Fifty-nine persons with dementia were enrolled in this study. All of them underwent a multidimensional assessment including Mini Mental State Examination, Barthel Index and Neuropsychiatry Inventory at enrollment and after 8, 16, and 20 weeks. Subjects were randomly assigned to experimental (n=30) or control (n=29) group. The MT sessions were evaluated with standardized criteria. The experimental group received 30 MT sessions (16 wk of treatment), whereas the control group received educational support or entertainment activities.
NPI total score significantly decreased in the experimental group at 8th, 16th, and 20th weeks (interaction time x group: F3,165=5.06, P=0.002). Specific BPSD (ie, delusions, agitation, anxiety, apathy, irritability, aberrant motor activity, and night-time disturbances) significantly improved. The empathetic relationship and the patients' active participation in the MT approach, also improved in the experimental group.
The study shows that MT is effective to reduce BPSD in patients with moderate-severe dementia.
Reading and writing skills influence the social status of students, exerting effects not only on learning, but also on wellbeing. This study aimed to assess the impact of diagnosis of specific ...learning disorder on well-being in secondary-school students, comparing students with a diagnosis of specific learning disorder (SLD-group), students showing learning difficulties without diagnosis (LD-group) and students without learning difficulties (control-group). Students were tested with neuropsychological screening tests in order to identify learning difficulties and were further assessed by means of psychological and school well-being questionnaires. The results show that LD group perceive themselves as having a low sense of mastery and autonomy, less interest and engagement in daily activities and low peer social support than their schoolmates. This result highlights, for the LD group, a low well-being experience, which is not observed in the SLD and control groups. On the contrary, SLD group students do not differ from control group students in any dimensions except for the perceived parents’ support and involvement in school life, in which the SLD group show the highest scores. This work underlines the importance of having a diagnosis as it seems to work as a protective factor for both the psychological and school well-being of the student.
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