published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T18:11:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tatiana Emanuela Rangel Felix.pdf: 670811 bytes, checksum: 5769c04ae99256a6caa3576c1eb34a12 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The dyslexia entity is a well commented issue, and at the same time full of controversies, among the health professionals who deal with children with reading and learning difficulties. Speech therapists and educational psychologists have different points of view while facing the dyslexia theme and students who cannot read and learn the same way others do. For some professionals, there is no pathology, but for others, the dyslexic children are prevented, by the illness, to learn like the others do. Objective: To investigate the inconsistencies and incongruities in the specific literature about the concept/definition, evaluation/diagnosis and the treatment involving Speech Therapy and Educational Psychology private clinics while dealing with dyslexia. Method: Research and literature review about dyslexia using articles published from 2001 to 2011 in Brazilian journals indexed in the databases LILACS and SciELO. The keywords used were dyslexia, learning, reading and writing disorder. The final corpus was composed by 44 articles 30 written by speech therapists and 14 by educational psychologists. Results: 25 out of the 30 articles written by speech therapists presented the concept of the dyslexia, 30 offered the diagnosis and only 12 mentioned the treatment. 11 out of the 14 articles written by educational psychologists mentioned the concept of the dyslexia, 12 the diagnosis and 2 presented the treatment. Conclusion: It is suggested that such a scenario is due to the hegemony of a line of argument that tends to overwhelm the voices of dissent and that listens to these voices could lead to important changes in both areas, in order to clarify and tools and teachers in relation to dyslexia, undoing, effectively, the inconsistencies and discrepancies identified / A dislexia nomeia uma entidade bastante comentada e, ao mesmo tempo, cheia de controvérsias, entre os profissionais que lidam com crianças com dificuldades na aprendizagem da leitura e escrita. Fonoaudiólogos e psicopedagogos apresentam concepções diferenciadas quando se deparam com crianças que não aprendem a ler e escrever. Para alguns, não há patologia mas, para outros, a criança disléxica está impedida, pela doença, de aprender como as outras. Objetivo: Verificar as inconsistências e incongruências presentes no conceito/definição, na avaliação/diagnóstico e no tratamento/intervenção da dislexia, presentes na literatura específica de duas áreas clínicas particulares, a Fonoaudiologia e a Psicopedagogia. Método: Levantamento e resenha da literatura específica sobre a dislexia, em artigos publicados nos anos de 2001 até 2011, em periódicos brasileiros indexados nas bases de dados SciELO e LILACS. Para a busca foram utilizados os descritores: dislexia, aprendizagem, distúrbio de leitura e escrita e disgrafia. O corpus final foi composto por 44 artigos, 30 dos quais escritos por profissionais da área da Fonoaudiologia e 14 por profissionais da área da Psicopedagogia. Resultados: Foi observado que dos 30 artigos publicados na Fonoaudiologia, 25 autores abordaram o conceito da dislexia, 30 abordaram o diagnóstico e apenas 12 abordaram sobre tratamento. Na Psicopedagogia foi observado que dos 14 artigos publicados 11 autores abordaram sobre o conceito da dislexia, 12 abordaram o diagnóstico e 2 sobre o tratamento. Conclusão: Sugere-se que tal cenário seja devido à hegemonia de uma linha de argumentação que tende a apagar as vozes dissonantes e que uma escuta para essas vozes poderia levar a mudanças importantes para ambas as áreas, de forma a esclarecer e instrumentar adequadamente os professores em relação à Dislexia, desfazendo, efetivamente, as inconsistências e incongruências identificadas

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Normal aging is associated with a decline in different cognitive domains and local structural atrophy as well as decreases in dopamine concentration and receptor density. To date, it is largely unknown how these reductions in dopaminergic neurotransmission affect human brain regions responsible for reward-based decision making in older adults. Using a learning criterion in a probabilistic object reversal task, we found a learning stage by age interaction in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dIPFC) during decision making. While young adults recruited the dlPFC in an early stage of learning reward associations, older adults recruited the dlPFC when reward associations had already been learned. Furthermore, we found a reduced change in ventral striatal BOLD signal in older as compared to younger adults in response to high probability rewards. Our data are in line with behavioral evidence that older adults show altered stimulus-reward learning and support the view of an altered fronto-striatal interaction during reward-based decision making in old age, which contributes to prolonged learning of reward associations.

Understanding the process of associative learning between environmental stimuli and cocaine is essential for the prevention of drug-use relapse and long-term treatment of cocaine dependence. Based on contemporary learning theories, empirical studies using natural rewards have shown that cognitive factors, such as uncertainty and prediction errors, play an important role in the process of reward associative learning. Uncertainty is the lack of an accurate predictor for reward while prediction error is defined as the discrepancy between expected and received reward. In this dissertation, we focused on the role of uncertainty and prediction error in cocaine-associative learning. Olfactory and visual cues during self-administration/conditioning sessions were used to induce cocainereward expectation and uncertainty in operant trained catheterized Sprague Dawley rats. The influence of cue-induced uncertainty and prediction error on nucleus accumbens dopamine (NAcc DA) following self-administration of cocaine and saline in these conditioned animals was then measured using in-vivo microdialysis. Results showed that cocaine-stimulated NAcc DA was enhanced in the presence of cues signaling cocaine reward uncertainty (Uncertainty) as compared to animals expecting to get cocaine (Certainty). Also omission of expected cocaine reward (Prediction Error) resulted in a significant depression of NAcc DA levels below baseline. Recently diazepam (a positive GABAA modulator) has been shown to disrupt cocaine-induced LTP and it has been suggested that this disruption can block the acquisition of drug-associated memories. We therefore hypothesized that diazepam-pretreatment during conditioning sessions would disrupt the learned responses to cocaine and saline in the presence of cue-induced uncertainty and prediction error. Our results show that diazepam pretreatment duringconditioning sessions, blocked the differential cocaine-stimulated NAcc DA response to cue-induced certainty and uncertainty. Moreover, on omission of expected cocaine reward (Prediction Error) there was no significant depression of NAcc DA below baseline. The findings of this dissertation thus highlight the importance of cognitive factors (uncertainty and prediction errors) in the process of cocaine-associative learning. They also provide a platform to further explore the influence of these factors on other neuroadaptations during cocaine-associative learning, which will help us develop effective behavioral and pharmacological therapies to prevent drug-use relapse.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-58).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-220).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-131). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2004. / Bibliography: leaves 85-110.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, February 2010.