Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Humanities Education / Unrestricted

Reading disability, as the most commonly diagnosed learning disability, continues to pose a tenacious problem to teachers, practitioners and researchers. In an effort to understand the causes of reading disability, voluminous research has been undertaken over the past decades to pinpoint its causes or developmental stumbling blocks. One approach, the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive processing (PASS) model, combines neuropsychological theory with elements from cognitive psychology. Based on this model, the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS), as well as methods of intervention for reading disability were developed. Although many studies have been conducted that investigated reading disability in terms of PASS cognitive processes, the final version of the CAS and its predictive utility with respect to reading disability has not been explored to date. The present study aimed to investigate the utility of the CAS, administered at the beginning of grade 1, to predict reading proficiency at the end of grade 1. The sample was comprised of 119 “average” (i.e., belonging to the general population) grade 1 students from schools of the Calgary Board of Education (CBE). The Basic Battery of the CAS was administered to the children in the sample at the beginning of grade 1, as well as four reading subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement – Third Edition (WJ-III ACH) at the end of grade 1. The WJ-III ACH yielded a cluster score for basic reading and one for reading comprehension. Correlational and regression analyses were used to address the first aim of this study, namely to explore the relationship between students’ scores on the CAS and their later reading proficiency. To this end, the children’s CAS Full Scale scores and WJ-III ACH cluster scores were subjected to a hierarchical regression analysis, whereby age, gender, and - xviii - SES were kept constant by entering them first in the equation. Next, the relationship between students’ PASS scale scores and the CAS subtest scores respectively and scores on the WJ-III ACH Basic Reading and Reading Comprehension Cluster scores was explored by means of stepwise regression analysis. To improve on the generalizability of results, the regression analyses were conducted on a randomly drawn analysis sample consisting of 80% of the sample, and cross-validated on the remaining 20% of the sample. The second aim of the present study was to ascertain whether clusters could be identified on the basis of CAS performance as well as levels of reading proficiency. To this end, the children’s CAS FS scores, PASS scale scores, and CAS subtest scores were subjected to cluster analyses. The investigation of aim 1 yielded some encouraging results, in that it was found that, together with the covariates: • The CAS FS emerged as a moderately strong predictor of both basic reading and reading comprehension; • Successive processing, in particular the Word Series subtest, significantly predicted basic reading skills; • Successive and simultaneous processing, particularly the Nonverbal Matrices and Sentence Repetition subtests, were significant predictors of reading comprehension; The second aim, which explored the relationship between patterns of CAS cognitive processes and their relationship with reading proficiency, yielded: • Two clusters with distinctly different PASS scale scores and with significant differences between their levels of reading proficiency. Higher PASS scales scores, particularly on the Attention and Planning scales, were associated with higher reading proficiency scores. • Four clusters with distinctly different CAS subtest scores that were also associated with distinctly different levels of reading performance. Good - xix - reading proficiency was associated with good CAS performance, whereas weaker reading proficiency was linked to weaker CAS performance. Biographical variables, such as age and SES were found to be related to performance on the CAS and reading proficiency, while gender did not emerge as an important predictor variable. The present study demonstrated the usefulness of the CAS, particularly its Successive and Simultaneous scales, as potential early predictor of reading disability. An exploration of the relationship between patterns of CAS cognitive processes and later reading proficiency also yielded encouraging and interesting results.

The problem of this study was to determine some relations between changes in reading skills and changes in certain selected aspects of self-concept accompanying a remedial-reading program for elementary school boys with low reading ability and reasonably normal intelligence.

No description available.

Dyslexic children are probably not a homogeneous group in terms of important characteristics assumed to be involved in reading; disability since underlying causes may vary widely. Such characteristics as arousal and performance on a vigilance task would differ not only from a control group, but also within the RD sample. It was hypothesized that HBD symptoms would be associated with lowered arousal and poorer vigilance performance whereas children experiencing reading difficulties presumably because of specific language dysfunction would resemble controls in arousal and performance. The results supported vigilance predictions for omissions, but not commissions. Poorer performance was associated with HBD symptoms. Age, however, proved to have an even greater effect on vigilance performance. Arousal results, for the most part, were not in the predicted direction. Arousal, measured by skin conductance, increased over time for children in this sample, rather than decreased as we expected from adult data. This indicated that vigilance and arousal cannot be equated in the same sense that has been suggested for adults. / Master of Science

The purpose of this research paper is to investigate how dyslexia is currently being defined and debated by both the academic and scientific communities. Additionally, this thesis analyzes how dyslexia is presently being dealt with in the classroom and how this disability is represented in children's literature.

No description available.

M. Tech. Language Practice

<p>The thesis opens with an exposition of different uses of the term dyslexia. In that context its conceptual relevance is discussed. The empirical studies investigate a) different aspects of validity of cognitive and achievement instruments often used in diagnostic assessment of dyslexia, b) different cognitive profiles for adults with dyslexia, and c) the relationship between cognitive and achievement measures.</p><p>Study I demonstrated the factor structure of the Swedish WAIS-R to be in close agreement with results of comparable analyses on normal and clinical groups in many countries world-wide, giving strong support for the construct validity of the Swedish WAIS-R for a group of adults diagnosed with dyslexia. The results from the three-factor solution were interpreted in terms of theoretical constructs, notably those posited by Carroll (1993) and Horn (1989).</p><p>The cognitive profiles of a sample of Swedish adults diagnosed with dyslexia—when using the three factors, the ACID profile, and the four-category Bannatyne profile—all resemble closely the profiles observed for a wide array of U.S. samples of children and adults diagnosed with dyslexia or learning disabilities. Gender differences on Digit Symbol, favoring females, were substantial in magnitude for the present sample, consistent with a bulk of research on gender differences for samples of normal individuals and of those identified with learning problems.</p><p>In Study II, factor analysis of nine Swedish achievement tests often used for dyslexia assessment yielded five meaningful factors in a group of adults diagnosed with dyslexia. Factors appeared to measure decoding, visual speed, reading comprehension, reading fluency, and phonological ability. The relationship between the five achievement factors and WAIS-R variables was subsequently examined. The Visual Speed and Reading Comprehension factors each correlated significantly with four of six global WAIS-R scores (two of three IQs and two of three factor scores). Visual Speed tended to correlate significantly with nonverbal scores and Reading Comprehension with verbal scores. Although the Phonological Ability factor did not correlate significantly with any verbal or nonverbal global score, it did correlate significantly with the Freedom from Distractibility factor and with all its component subtests—Digit Span, Arithmetic, and Digit Symbol. Decoding (technical reading skill) showed no significant relationship to any WAIS-R variable studied. More surprisingly, the Reading Fluency factor failed to show significant relationships to the WAIS-R.</p><p>Study III examined the validity of The Word Chain Test, a frequently used instrument in Swedish screening and diagnostic assessments of dyslexia. Different sources of validity evidence were evaluated. In summary, the results failed to support validity both for the WRI-index and the Wordchain subtest, suggesting that the instrument seems to be of questionable value in screening or diagnostic assessment of dyslexia.</p>