A new issue of the Blackwell journal Literacy is out and there is at least one article that caught my eye. The journal is typically much more teacher oriented, but certainly has a couple of gems here or there that can be of significant use to literacy assessment. In this case the article is supportive of the inclusion of writing/automaticity within literacy/reading assessments. A model I have become very familiar with over the past few years with the Process Assessment of the Learner (PAL) and the work of Virginia Berninger. I have included the abstract that interested myself down below:
Journal: Literacy (UK)
Issue: April 2007 - Vol. 41 Issue 1
Title: Handwriting: what do we know and what do we need to know?
Authors: Jane Medwell and David Wray
Abstract: Handwriting has a low status and profile in literacy education in England and in recent years has attracted little attention from teachers, policy-makers or researchers into mainstream educational processes. This article identifies a substantial programme of research into handwriting, including studies located in the domains of special needs education and psychology, suggesting that it is time to re-evaluate the importance of handwriting in the teaching of literacy. Explorations of the way handwriting affects composing have opened up new avenues for research, screening and intervention, which have the potential to make a significant contribution to children's progress in learning to write. In particular, the role of orthographic motor integration and automaticity in handwriting is now seen as of key importance in composing. Evidence from existing studies suggests that handwriting intervention programmes may have a real impact on the composing skills of young writers. In particular, they could positively affect the progress of the many boys who struggle with writing throughout the primary school years.
The journals table of contents can be found by CLICKING HERE.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
News Clippings
A batch of short posts to make up for my absenteeism this week (it was for a good cause I was relaying knowledge!).
Omega-3 Supplements and ADHD
An article came out this month suggesting that significant symptom reduction for ADHD children can occur with the use of regular doses of Omega-3 nutritional supplements. The news of this has been flying all over the internet (especially in naturopath circles) and it took me a little while to track down the source. But surprise it was actually a reputable one! You can find the abstract, published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioural Pediatrics, by CLICKING HERE. Further details are available in their press release by CLICKING HERE.
Working Memory & Teaching Modifications
Hopefully by now you've learned to just add Dr. Eide's blog right to your reading list. But if not, there is a great little post about modifying the teaching environment for those who struggle with working memory demands. It is worth a read, and may adjust some of your future recommendations/modifications as a result. CLICK HERE to read the post.
ADHD Medication Underprescribed?
I just thought this was interesting. A government funded study from the east coast of Canada actually found that the use of ADHD medications was actually less then expected. Given the massive amounts of press the overuse and abuse of ADHD medications have been getting of late this is a nice change of pace. Perhaps it's all the Atlantic salmon driving up Omega-3 levels instead.
And Now A Message From A High School Newspaper
The quality of high school press has certainly improved since I was the movie reviewer at my school back in the day. I was quite impressed by an editorial piece I read today on faking LD's. It would of been nice if they included an explanation of the difficulties in faking if an assessment is thorough and the examiner aware of malingering risks, but none the less well done! If you want to feel bad about the quality of your writing certainly CLICK HERE and give yourself time and a half to read it. Unless you finally figured out your copy of Kurzweil!
Omega-3 Supplements and ADHD
An article came out this month suggesting that significant symptom reduction for ADHD children can occur with the use of regular doses of Omega-3 nutritional supplements. The news of this has been flying all over the internet (especially in naturopath circles) and it took me a little while to track down the source. But surprise it was actually a reputable one! You can find the abstract, published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioural Pediatrics, by CLICKING HERE. Further details are available in their press release by CLICKING HERE.
Working Memory & Teaching Modifications
Hopefully by now you've learned to just add Dr. Eide's blog right to your reading list. But if not, there is a great little post about modifying the teaching environment for those who struggle with working memory demands. It is worth a read, and may adjust some of your future recommendations/modifications as a result. CLICK HERE to read the post.
ADHD Medication Underprescribed?
I just thought this was interesting. A government funded study from the east coast of Canada actually found that the use of ADHD medications was actually less then expected. Given the massive amounts of press the overuse and abuse of ADHD medications have been getting of late this is a nice change of pace. Perhaps it's all the Atlantic salmon driving up Omega-3 levels instead.
And Now A Message From A High School Newspaper
The quality of high school press has certainly improved since I was the movie reviewer at my school back in the day. I was quite impressed by an editorial piece I read today on faking LD's. It would of been nice if they included an explanation of the difficulties in faking if an assessment is thorough and the examiner aware of malingering risks, but none the less well done! If you want to feel bad about the quality of your writing certainly CLICK HERE and give yourself time and a half to read it. Unless you finally figured out your copy of Kurzweil!
Latest Issue: Journal of Research in Reading
The prepublication version of the latest edition of the Journal of Research in Reading is up. And for the moment the articles again seem to be free. I would take a look and grab any articles of interesting.
The issue looks very interesting and is clearly a key journal for those interested in the assessment and remediation of reading deficits.
You can see the full table of contents and obtain PDF's of the articles by CLICKING HERE.
Table of Contents: 10-Apr-2007
The issue looks very interesting and is clearly a key journal for those interested in the assessment and remediation of reading deficits.
You can see the full table of contents and obtain PDF's of the articles by CLICKING HERE.
Table of Contents: 10-Apr-2007
- Young children at risk of literacy difficulties: factors predicting recovery from risk following phonologically based intervention
- Does exposure to orthography affect children's spelling accuracy?
- Stress sensitivity and reading performance in Spanish: A study with children
- Long-term outcomes of early reading intervention
- Computerised screening for visual stress in reading
- Prosodic reading, reading comprehension and morphological skills in Hebrew-speaking fourth graders
- Correlates of orthographic learning in third-grade children's silent reading
- Deriving word meanings from context: does explanation facilitate contextual analysis?
- Orthographic analysis of words during fluency training promotes reading of new similar words
- Rhythm and reading development in school-age children: a longitudinal study
- Development and data for UK versions of an author and title recognition test for adults
- Comprehension monitoring and reading comprehension in bilingual students
- The quality of systematic reviews of effectiveness in literacy learning in English: a 'tertiary' review
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Journal Updates: April 11, 2007
The April issue of the British Journal of Learning Disabilities is up and online, and as a nice gift to us the articles are all free this month! Unfortunately it is heavily therapy based so there is not much assessment wise there or even academically remediation based. However, you may want to take a look and snag any articles you want before they decide to stop the free offer. You can CLICK HERE to see the table of contents.
The table of contents for the new Learning Disabilities Research & Practice is also up online (CLICK HERE). The articles are not free in this case, but there is some interesting looking articles on math remediation.
The table of contents for the new Learning Disabilities Research & Practice is also up online (CLICK HERE). The articles are not free in this case, but there is some interesting looking articles on math remediation.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Review: mySchoolog beta 0.95
When I first heard about mySchoolog (read as my school log) I was very excited about the potential uses of this currently free virtual backpack for elementary and secondary school students with and without disabilities.
mySchoolog describes itself as "an online web-based application with which students can organize their school life easily."
It is an all-in-one system that provides the ability to enter class notes, attach files like pictures and charts, develop to-do lists, and keep a schedule. The main bonus is that these areas can be linked. You can enter notes and link it to a scheduled class, assign a few to-do's (like homework), and then attach the related files.
The to do list and schedule can even be linked to an alert system that will send reminders to your email or phone (by SMS).
The idea behind mySchoolog is promising and the feature set is a great start. Unfortunately the linking system and even each feature themselves is not very user friendly and somewhat counterintuitive. The good news is that mySchoolog appears to be a work in progress. Hopefully they will work the kinks out and make this great idea a bit more user friendly. I would love to see the linking and input process become a mindless task. If they can sort this out, mySchoolog could be an amazing tool for students with difficulties with organization and time management (executive functioning deficits, etc.).
Take a look at mySchoolog by CLICKING HERE.
mySchoolog describes itself as "an online web-based application with which students can organize their school life easily."
It is an all-in-one system that provides the ability to enter class notes, attach files like pictures and charts, develop to-do lists, and keep a schedule. The main bonus is that these areas can be linked. You can enter notes and link it to a scheduled class, assign a few to-do's (like homework), and then attach the related files.
The to do list and schedule can even be linked to an alert system that will send reminders to your email or phone (by SMS).
The idea behind mySchoolog is promising and the feature set is a great start. Unfortunately the linking system and even each feature themselves is not very user friendly and somewhat counterintuitive. The good news is that mySchoolog appears to be a work in progress. Hopefully they will work the kinks out and make this great idea a bit more user friendly. I would love to see the linking and input process become a mindless task. If they can sort this out, mySchoolog could be an amazing tool for students with difficulties with organization and time management (executive functioning deficits, etc.).
Take a look at mySchoolog by CLICKING HERE.
Tidbits: April 3rd, 2007
Neurolinguistic Programming and other Nonsense
I have very little knowledge of Neurolinguistic Programing (NLP) other than the fact that over the past 4 years I've attended about 10 conferences a year (Psych, SLP, OT, Spec-Ed) and each of them have about 3-4 exhibitors touting NLP books and products. It certainly as its fans and they are a VERY vocal group. It also has its detractors. The Neurologica Blog has a post related to the latter. It is worth a read and can be found by CLICKING HERE.
School Achievement, Perceptions Of Ability And Interest Change As Children Age
An interesting little study that likely verifies what most of us would of expected in that "[c]hildren in early grades may like a subject in which they don't feel very competent, or they may feel competent in a subject in spite of poor grades. But by the end of high school, children generally feel most interested in subjects in which they feel they are the strongest."
I think most of us would of expected that and we certainly see avoidance of certain courses and topic areas once a child has experienced repeated failure. The cases I find interesting though are those where the child (or adult even) do not appear to have a good awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses despite repeatedly poor performance. I recall one case I had with a college/university level student who was in an engineering style program that was particularly mathematics heavy (4 of his 6 classes were essentially one form or another of math). His responses to the Academic Competency Evaluation Scales (ACES) suggested that he felt he was at or above grade level for mathematics, but that it was not an essential skill area for his program. His WIAT-II results displayed a math composite of below the 10th percentile and in the mid-range of elementary grade equivalence. Clearly some perception, self-monitoring, and achievement discrepancies there.
CLICK HERE for a more complete article summary. The original article can be found in: Child Development, Vol. 78, Issue 2, I like to do it, I'm able and I know I am: Longitudinal Couplings between Domain-Specific Achievement, Self-Concept, and Interest
Executive Functioning and Early Achievement
I will certainly have to pick up the aforementioned Child Development journal as another press release has popped out from it that I am particularly interested in. The article looks at self-regulation and it's role, beyond intelligence, to predict performance on early achievement measures. What is of key interest is that the sample group was three to five year olds. More and more research these days is pointing out the early childhood and pre-school aspects of executive functioning ability development. Less than a decade ago, many EF theorists felt we could not even consider executive skills prior to age 8 or even as early as high school. New and stronger tools are becoming available to evaluate this domain and will certainly bring with it new research and methodologies for working within these populations.
You can read an in-depth summary of the article by CLICKING HERE.
I will certainly be snagging a copy of this article in the next week and will post a more in-depth review.
Kickboxing Causes Brain-Damage
From the "No Duh" file (aging myself with that term aren't I). This one is a little more neuro oriented than psychoed but I thought it was amusing that this was actually the first time that being kicked in the head has been proven to lead to some problems. CLICK HERE for more.
I have very little knowledge of Neurolinguistic Programing (NLP) other than the fact that over the past 4 years I've attended about 10 conferences a year (Psych, SLP, OT, Spec-Ed) and each of them have about 3-4 exhibitors touting NLP books and products. It certainly as its fans and they are a VERY vocal group. It also has its detractors. The Neurologica Blog has a post related to the latter. It is worth a read and can be found by CLICKING HERE.
School Achievement, Perceptions Of Ability And Interest Change As Children Age
An interesting little study that likely verifies what most of us would of expected in that "[c]hildren in early grades may like a subject in which they don't feel very competent, or they may feel competent in a subject in spite of poor grades. But by the end of high school, children generally feel most interested in subjects in which they feel they are the strongest."
I think most of us would of expected that and we certainly see avoidance of certain courses and topic areas once a child has experienced repeated failure. The cases I find interesting though are those where the child (or adult even) do not appear to have a good awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses despite repeatedly poor performance. I recall one case I had with a college/university level student who was in an engineering style program that was particularly mathematics heavy (4 of his 6 classes were essentially one form or another of math). His responses to the Academic Competency Evaluation Scales (ACES) suggested that he felt he was at or above grade level for mathematics, but that it was not an essential skill area for his program. His WIAT-II results displayed a math composite of below the 10th percentile and in the mid-range of elementary grade equivalence. Clearly some perception, self-monitoring, and achievement discrepancies there.
CLICK HERE for a more complete article summary. The original article can be found in: Child Development, Vol. 78, Issue 2, I like to do it, I'm able and I know I am: Longitudinal Couplings between Domain-Specific Achievement, Self-Concept, and Interest
Executive Functioning and Early Achievement
I will certainly have to pick up the aforementioned Child Development journal as another press release has popped out from it that I am particularly interested in. The article looks at self-regulation and it's role, beyond intelligence, to predict performance on early achievement measures. What is of key interest is that the sample group was three to five year olds. More and more research these days is pointing out the early childhood and pre-school aspects of executive functioning ability development. Less than a decade ago, many EF theorists felt we could not even consider executive skills prior to age 8 or even as early as high school. New and stronger tools are becoming available to evaluate this domain and will certainly bring with it new research and methodologies for working within these populations.
You can read an in-depth summary of the article by CLICKING HERE.
I will certainly be snagging a copy of this article in the next week and will post a more in-depth review.
Kickboxing Causes Brain-Damage
From the "No Duh" file (aging myself with that term aren't I). This one is a little more neuro oriented than psychoed but I thought it was amusing that this was actually the first time that being kicked in the head has been proven to lead to some problems. CLICK HERE for more.
Emotional Intelligence: Conference & Bar-On Training
MHS appears to be busy putting together some upcoming Emotional Intelligence and Bar-On related conferences and workshops.
I recently received a mailing for the International Conference on Emotional Intelligence which is in London, England this year on June 11th and 12th. They've described the workshop as targeted users of the EI in all domains, but the currently announced speakers clearly have an HR push. Either way, who needs an excuse to write off a trip to England as a business trip!
You can read more on the conference at MHS's site by CLICKING HERE.
Also of note is the upcoming Emotional Intelligence and Higher Education: The EQ-i Certification Workshop Series 2007 which has a Canadian stop this year in Kingston from June 6th to 8th. There is some details up on MHS's website (CLICK HERE)
If you have not taken a look at the Bar-On EQ-i before it is certainly worth a look. It can offer a lot to a psychoeducational assessment, especially those that do not fit a clear learning disabled profile but continue to have academic difficulties. It is kind of like adding a personality profiler to the assessment, but utilizes traits that are more related to the learning process than you would get from a tool that is more oriented towards hiring or Axis-1/2 diagnostics.
There is some really interesting work going on in the domain of EI for college and academics. At the forefront of this research is Dr. James D.A. Parker at Trent University who I had the pleasure of sitting beside at a luncheon last November. He is doing some interesting work and showed me some EI scales he has been developing that really peaked my interest on their relationship between EI and personality developments parallels with potential executive deficits. You can view his labs website by CLICKING HERE.
I recently received a mailing for the International Conference on Emotional Intelligence which is in London, England this year on June 11th and 12th. They've described the workshop as targeted users of the EI in all domains, but the currently announced speakers clearly have an HR push. Either way, who needs an excuse to write off a trip to England as a business trip!
You can read more on the conference at MHS's site by CLICKING HERE.
Also of note is the upcoming Emotional Intelligence and Higher Education: The EQ-i Certification Workshop Series 2007 which has a Canadian stop this year in Kingston from June 6th to 8th. There is some details up on MHS's website (CLICK HERE)
If you have not taken a look at the Bar-On EQ-i before it is certainly worth a look. It can offer a lot to a psychoeducational assessment, especially those that do not fit a clear learning disabled profile but continue to have academic difficulties. It is kind of like adding a personality profiler to the assessment, but utilizes traits that are more related to the learning process than you would get from a tool that is more oriented towards hiring or Axis-1/2 diagnostics.
There is some really interesting work going on in the domain of EI for college and academics. At the forefront of this research is Dr. James D.A. Parker at Trent University who I had the pleasure of sitting beside at a luncheon last November. He is doing some interesting work and showed me some EI scales he has been developing that really peaked my interest on their relationship between EI and personality developments parallels with potential executive deficits. You can view his labs website by CLICKING HERE.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Free Journal Issue: British Journal of Learning Disabilities
While adding some journals to my automated alert system (in order to provide article reviews for future postings of this blog) I noticed that the newest issue (March) of the British Journal of Learning Disabilities is available online in its entirety for free.
You can find the issue by CLICKING HERE. I would suggest reviewing it now as there is no way to tell how long this will be free.
I scanned around some back issues of other journals from this publisher and also found a free back issue from last years edition of Learning Disability Research & Practice (which I believe has been since discontinued). You can retrieve that issue by CLICKING HERE.
You can find the issue by CLICKING HERE. I would suggest reviewing it now as there is no way to tell how long this will be free.
I scanned around some back issues of other journals from this publisher and also found a free back issue from last years edition of Learning Disability Research & Practice (which I believe has been since discontinued). You can retrieve that issue by CLICKING HERE.
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