This study examined the relationships between and among: (a) Processing Speed (PS) Cluster and Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) Total to reading ability; (b) measures of RAN and PS to irregular word, non-word, and word reading; and (c) the relationships among irregular word, non-word, and word reading. The word reading measures were predicted by using multiple cognitive abilities including Phonological Awareness (PA), RAN, PS, and Working Memory (WM). Sixty participants, 39 students who were average readers and 21 students with reading difficulties in Grades 1, 2, 3, and 4 were recruited.Correlational designs testing predictive relationships were used to conduct this study. The results indicated that the PS Cluster had the strongest correlation with irregular word reading, whereas the RAN Total had the strongest correlation with both word reading and non-word reading ability. Reading performance was best predicted by RAN-Letters. In addition, the Woodcock-Johnson III Visual Matching test had the strongest predictive power of reading ability among all of the PS measures.High correlations were found among the reading variables within normally distributed data, whereas there was no significant correlation between irregular and nonword reading within the group of students with Reading Difficulties. These findings provide support for the dual-route theory. Among the 21 students with RD, 10 students presented problems in both non-word reading and irregular word reading; 9 students presented problems just in non-word reading; and 2 students presented problems just in irregular word reading. A model consisting of RAN, PA, and PS, as included in the study measures, provided the most powerful prediction of all reading skills. These findings also lend more support to the double-deficit model and indicate that PA and naming speed problems contribute independently to variance in reading.This study provides direction for the assessment of specific reading disability and the cognitive underpinnings of this disorder. These findings support the need to assess PA, RAN, and PS, as well as various types of word reading skills, when making a reading disability diagnosis. Further research may cross validate the results of this study, or add other aspects of reading (eg., reading fluency or comprehension) to this line of research.

Doctor of Philosophy / The main aim of this research is the exploration of relationships and correlations between thinking styles of student designers, their personal aptitudes, and design education. It involves discovering the role/s several groups of learning styles and cognitive abilities may play in problem solving during administered design tasks; and the influence they may have on academic performance and quality of produced design solutions. The main hypothesis is that differences in designers’ individual problem solving strategies and, ultimately, products of their expertise – designed artefacts – can be correlated with the differences in their learning styles and cognitive abilities. We suggest the following. (a) Designers with different styles adopt different approaches to design situations and use different strategies during problem solving. It is possible to find the supporting evidence by investigating their performance on design tasks. (b) Individual differences in design reasoning and problem solving could be correlated with the differences in individual cognitive abilities. (c) It may be possible to find correlations between cognitive styles and cognitive abilities. (d) It is likely that a number of visible or measurable qualities of students’ design drawings, would in some way reflect different characteristics of the above individual styles and abilities. The methodological approach draws on theoretical and empirical knowledge from several domains, including: design studies, psychology, cognitive science and study of creativity. This study is concerned with selecting and substantiating the input – a number of cognitive styles and abilities chosen for evaluation; and their subsequent assessment. It involves administering design sessions and exploring them as a process to see whether and how the above abilities and styles are reflected in problem solving. It also deals with the assessment of the product i.e. produced design solutions, and their relation to the academic performance reports. And, finally, it explores correlations between the input, the process and the product to help finding explanations for the students’ preferences in adopting particular problem solving strategies in designing. This study is based upon the analysis of six major datasets from (1) an electronic test assessing individual positions on four dimensions (two dichotomies) of learning styles; (2) tests of cognitive abilities chosen on the basis of their relevance to designing; (3) design sessions, administered individually under retrospective protocol guidelines; (4) questionnaires, containing summaries of design sessions, and introspective reports of imagery use and problem-solving styles and strategies; (5) judgements of academic performance from course supervisors based on marks and grades; and (6) assessments of design drawings by professional architects. The analysis revealed fundamentally different ways by which students approach design situations; they are positively correlated with their learning styles. Students’ approaches to problem situations change with the task and within the task. However, eighty percent of the first year and half of the final year subjects showed various degrees of inflexibility in dealing with design problems; this may have decreased the quality of performance. Learning styles proved important in predicting the process and the outcome of problem solving. They may account for moderate to low quality of design solutions in cases with either style (from both dichotomies explored) being of low development. Styles were also observed to may have a moderate to strong influence on the students’ academic performance. Correlations between the measured cognitive abilities and academic performance were moderate to significant for the first year and similar but marginally lower for the final year students. At the same time, final year students scored higher on the ability tests and showed better results on the learning styles assessments. One of the likely reasons for this is the enhancement of abilities and styles during the course of study. No significant linear correlations between preferred learning styles and most of the measured cognitive abilities have been observed. The probable inference is that abilities are among many other factors affecting the development of learning styles. It has been, however, possible to establish a number of important correlations between the measurements of learning styles, cognitive abilities, observed problem solving behaviour, and students’ design solutions. Overall, it has been demonstrated that the applied methodology, although requiring further refinement, does enable examining and elucidating the influence of learning styles and cognitive abilities on design problem solving and academic performance.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-90). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-90). Also available on the Internet.

This thesis aimed to address two main questions. First, considering that personality is frequently associated with cognitive abilities in humans, do chimpanzees’ personalities and cognitive capacities covary in ways similar to what is observed in humans, as well as older evolutionary cousins, rhesus macaques? Second, given that human and animal personality have previously been shown to relate to health and longevity, does personality in chimpanzees also relate to various measures of health? Chapter 1 provides an introduction to and brief history of comparative personality psychology, particularly in the context of intelligence research and psychosomatic medicine. Chapter 2 describes three studies with a group of 19 zoo-housed chimpanzees who interacted with touchscreen tasks over the course of 3 years of research. We found that high Conscientious chimpanzees were more likely to stick with the tasks, and performed better as a results, but once their extra experience was taken into account, their performance advantage disappeared. However, we also found associations between better interest and performance with high Openness, high Extraversion, and low Agreeableness. In Chapter 3 we examine performance in conjunction with personality, with 9 rhesus macaques. The macaques also engaged with touchscreen tasks, but were expert subjects and displayed plateau performance. We found consistent associations between many measures of performance and both high Openness and high Friendliness (which is similar to Extraversion). With Chapter 4 we transition to our studies of personality and health. Chapter 4 examines personality and longevity in a sample of 538 personality rated, captive chimpanzees. These chimpanzees were followed for between 6 and 23 years after being rated. We found that high Agreeableness chimpanzees were more likely to live longer, but no other personality traits had a significant impact on longevity. In Chapter 5, we compared biomarkers from samples of 177 chimpanzees housed at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre, and 29,314 humans from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Both samples had been tested for the most common haematological and metabolic blood biomarkers, and we used these to assess stress in the form of allostatic load, between species. We found a similar structure of biomarkers in across humans and chimpanzees. In Chapter 6, we took our allostatic load measure from chapter 5 and looked at how it was associated with personality, in the same chimpanzee sample from the Yerkes Primate Centre, and in the longitudinal Midlife in the United States and Midlife in Japan biomarker study samples, which consisted of 993 and 382 individuals, respectively. We found that Agreeableness was associated with allostatic load in both human samples, whereas Dominance was associated with allostatic load in chimpanzees. Finally, Chapter 7 summarises the results presented in these five empirical chapters, and places our findings in the context of the existing literature. We discuss the limitations of the research, and offer some suggestions for future study.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:28:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2007-07-25Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:58:15Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ribeiro_tm_me_bauru.pdf: 1152444 bytes, checksum: dac608c19dca09704c5e3c318b86a345 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O chumbo, utilizado em larga escala em processos industriais, é um dos principais poluentes ambientais do planeta. Os efeitos de sua exposição vem ser tornando problema de saúde pública, com descobertas sobre danos cognitivos em níveis de contaminação cada vez mais baixos. Em Bauru, em 2002, uma fábrica de baterias automotivas provocou um acidente ambiental em que foram contaminadas 314 crianças de zero a 12 anos de idade, o que uniu profissionais de diversos segmentos para diagnósticos e tratamentos multiprofissionais específicos. O setor de psicologia da Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) formou um grupo de pesquisa, cujo projeto inicial denominado Atendimento emergencial à crianças de zero a 12 anos de idade contaminadas por chumbo, vem gerando sub-projetos e pesquisas, dentre as quais a presente. Trata-se de um estudo longitudinal, que compara quantitativa, qualitativa e estatisticamente, resultados de avaliação intelectual de crianças contaminadas por chumbo, com plumbemia entre 15.40'mü'g/dl e 30'mü'g/dl na avaliação e entre 10.30'mü'g/dl a 21.90'mü'g/dl, na reavaliação. O instrumento utilizado foi o WISC-III, adaptado e padronizado para a população brasileira. Foram reavaliados 10 participantes de ambos os sexos, com idades entre 7a 5 m a 9a 9m na avaliação e 11a 8m a 13a 8m na reavaliação; com escolaridade entre 1ª e 3ª série na avaliação e 5ª e 7ª série na reavaliação, cujo critério de seleção era ter sido avaliado... / Lead, which is broadly used in industrial processes, is one of the main environmental pollutants of the planet. The effects of being exposed to lead, is becoming a public health problem, considering that it was found some cognitive damage even in levels of contamination relatively low. In Bauru, in 2002, an automotive battery plant caused an environmental accident in which 314 children, from 0 to 12 years of age were contaminated. This fact reunited professionals of several areas for specific treatment. The psychology department of São Paulo State University (UNESP), formed a research team denominted Emergy attendance for children from 0 to 12 years, contaminated by lead, which has been arising sub-projects and researches, including the present one. This is a longitudinal study, which compares quantitative, qualitative and statistical outcomes of the intellectual assessment of Bpb children, ranging from 15.40'mü'g/dl and 30'mü'g/dl on the evaluation and ranging from 10.30'mü'g/dl to 21.90'mü'g/dl on the reevaluation. The instrument applied was WISC-III, which was adapted and standardized for the Brazilian people. Ten subjects from both sexes were evaluated; their ages ranged from 7 years and 5 months to 9 years and 9 months; when they were revaluated their ages ranged from 11 years and months to 13 years and 8 months. During the evaluation period these children were attending from first to third grades and on the reevaluation they were attending from 5th to 7th grades, in which the selection criteria was the assessment applying WISC - III in 2002 remaining with... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Notre travail de recherche a pour objectif d'évaluer si, parmi les enfants avec des céphalées chroniques quotidiennes primaires (CCQ), la proportion d'enfants intellectuellement précoces est significativement plus importante que dans la population générale. L'objectif secondaire est de mesurer les facteurs de risque connus pour influencer les performances intellectuelles, notamment les comorbidités anxieuse et dépressive, afin de les prendre en compte lorsque nous évaluerons l'efficience intellectuelles des enfants souffrant de CCQ. Trois études transversales sont menées de façon successive à partir de deux échantillons de sujets sélectionnés respectivement sur 11 et 8 mois. Les patients sont inclus consécutivement, soit 368 pour le premier échantillon clinique et 48 pour le second. Ils doivent être âgés de 8 à 17 ans, primo-consultants, présenter un diagnostic de céphalées primaires (étude 1) et un diagnostic de CCQ (études 2 et 3) selon les critères de l'International Headache Society (ICHD-II). Une évaluation psychologique est effectuée à l'aide d'outils validés et étalonnés sur la population française : le WISC-IV (Efficience intellectuelle), la R-CMAS (Anxiété), la MDI-C (Dépression). Les résultats montrent que la proportion d'enfants avec un daignostic de CCQ à avoir un haut potentiel intellectuel est significativement plus importante que celle de la population générale (10,4 % vs 2,3 %, OR = 5,0). Le quotient intellectuel moyen de notre échantillon est statistiquement plus élevé que celui de population normative, et ce y compris après avoir corrigé les données en fonction du texte et de la catégorie socio-professionnelle des parents. Trois indices cognitifs sur quatre sont significativement supérieurs parmi les enfants avec des CCQ : les indices de compréhension verbale (ICV), de raisonnement perceptif (IRP) et de mémoire de travail (IMT) avec une nette supériorité de l'indice mesurant les habiletés verbales (ICV). Seul l'indice de vitesse de traitement (IVT) se situe dans la norme. L'absentéisme scolaire est la seule variable à être corrélée négativement avec le niveau intellectuel, et la variable "catégorie socio-professionnelle" des parents la seule à être corrélée positivement. Il n'existe pas de lien entre le niveau intellectuel et l'intensité douloureuse, la longueur de l'histoire des céphalées, le type de diagnostic de céphalées chroniques, le sexe, l'âge, l'anxiété et la dépression. Des résultats complémentaires montrent que les enfants céphalalgiques sont en moyenne plus anxieux et plus déprimés que les enfants tout-venant, sans différence entre les patients avec des céphalées chroniques et ceux avec des céphalées épisodiques. Lorsque des comorbidités anxieuse et/ou dépressive sont présentes, il s'agit le plus souvent de niveaux de symptologie légèrement supérieurs à la norme sans que cela corresponde à des troubles psychiatriques avérés. En termes d'impact fonctionnel, les enfants avec des CCQ manquent plus souvent l'école que ceux avec des céphalées épisodiques. En lien avec nos impressions de clinicien, un nombre significatif d'enfants avec des CCQ a des aptitudes cognitives reflétant une précocité intellectuelle, et ce, malgré la complexité des interactions entre ce diagnostic et de nombreux facteurs comorbides tels que l'anxiété et la dépression. / This research evaluated whether the prevalence of gifted children was higher in a sample of children with primary chronic daily headache (CDH) compared to the general population. As a secondary aim, we sought to measure anxiety and depression -risk factors known to influence intellectual performance - accounting for these psychological factors in cognitive assessments of children with CDH. Three cross-sectional studies were conducted at a children's migraine center with two samples of children and adolescents. The first sample consisted of 368 children recruited consecutively over an 11-month period and the second same consisted of 48 children recruited over an 8-month period. Study participants had to be between the ages of 8 and 17 years, consulting for the first time, and received an International Headache Society (ICHD-II) diagnosis of primary headache (study 1) or CDH (sudies 2 e t 3). A psychological assessment was conducted using validated measures that have been standardized with the French population : the WISC-IV (intellectual performance) ,the R-CMAS (anxiety) and the MDI-C (depression). Results from study 3 indicated that the proportion of children with a diagnosis of CDH to have high intellectual potential was significantly greater than that of the general population (10,4 % vs 2,3 %, OR = 5,0). The average intelligence quotient (IQ) in this sample was statistically higher than population norms, even after controlling for the child's sex and parental socioeconomic status. Three out of four cognitive indexes were significantly higher among children with CDH : verbal Comprehension Index (VCI), perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI) and Working memory Index (WMI), with a particularly strong superiority for the index measuring verbal skills (VCI). Only the Processing Speed Index (PSI) in CDH patients was similar to the population norm. School absenteeism was the only variable to be negatively correlated with it. No association was found between IQ and headache severity, duration of headache history, headache diagnosis, sex, age, anxiety, or depression. In addition, we found that children with headache were on average more anxious and depressed than healthy children, with no distinction found between patients with chronic headache and patients with episodic headache. When this comorbidity of anxiety and/or depression was present, it was most often due to anxious or depressive symptoms that were slightly above average rather than symptoms indicating clinical psychopathology. Finally, children with CDH were found more likely to miss school than children with episodic headache. In line with our clinical experience, this research found a significant proportion of children with CDH to have gifted levels of intellectual performance. This relationship was present despite the complexity of the CDH diagnosis along with its common comorbidity with anxious and depressive symptoms.

The disproportionate number of American Indian students receiving special education services indicates an ongoing need for research leading to improved assessment and placement practices with this population. Standardized tests are most often used to screen and select students for special education services. However, not all intelligence tests have been normed for use with all populations, especially where minority groups have been concerned. While the merits of traditional intelligence tests must not be discounted, the emergence of new tests and assessment measures is encouraging, particularly for the assessment of American Indian students. A natural next step is to consider a traditional measure of intelligence, a more "culture fair" measure of intelligence, and behavioral indicators in the assessment of children to determine their utility with minority, in this case American Indian students. Thus, the present study investigated the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition and the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence-Third Edition as measures of intelligence for American Indian children receiving special education services, gifted and talented services, and those attending regular education classes. The current study also examined whether two psychosocial variables, academic achievement and behavioral incidents, were predictive of group membership. The sample for this study consisted of 90 American Indian children from the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation in northeastern South Dakota. The results indicated that there were differences in how American Indian students performed on the various measures of intelligence. Youths in the special education group tended to have more severe behavioral incidents than the other two groups. Youths in the gifted group were more likely to have exceptional achievement than individuals in the other two groups. Examining the means on the six measures of intelligence for the three groups indicated that gifted students had the highest scores, followed by regular education students, and then special education students. Academic achievement and behavioral incidents differentiated between the three groups in the expected manner. Therefore, teachers and administrators should be mindful of the fact that the three groups of students do not differ solely in terms of intelligence.

The rise of competitive e-sports and its increasing popularity with several million players worldwide across various games has sparked an interest in the cognitive abilities associated with it. This study aimed to investigate if there is a relationship between competitive play and an increase in cognitive ability, as measured by performance in cognitive tasks. The research question focuses on whether or not players who dedicate a significant amount of time playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) to compete on a higher level will perform better in cognitive tasks than non-competitive players. In this differential study with a between-group design, a total of 24 participants participated, with 12 in each group. Data for cognitive abilities were measured by performance across a battery of cognitive tests consisting of the Iowa Gambling Task, Inhibition of Return, Multitasking, and the Tower of Hanoi, with the latter acting as a control for general cognitive ability. All data were gathered online. Results show that competitive players performed significantly better in the multitasking task than their non-competitive counterparts. Furthermore, there seems to be no significant difference overall in general cognitive ability or for the other tasks. This finding suggests that the competitive environment of CSGO may be effective for increased performance in some cognitive tasks like multitasking. However, this might not be true regarding other cognitive abilities such as decision-making.

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