Given the increase of Spanish- and English-speaking bilingual students in US schools, identifying the predictors of reading in this group of students is of significant importance to developing appropriate screening measures and intervention strategies. Thus, the current study evaluated the pattern of language preference in an elementary school bilingual (Spanish-English) population and its relationship with expressive and receptive vocabulary, and broad reading ability in English and Spanish. Participants were 58 Latino students ranging in age from 7 years, 5 months to 11 years, 1 month (M = 8.98, SD = .98) with 48% born in the United States. Results indicated that English expressive vocabulary partially mediated the relationship between outside language preference and English broad reading ability. In contrast, neither Spanish expressive nor receptive vocabulary mediated the relationship between outside language preference and Spanish broad reading ability.

Deficiencies in mathematics skill constrain students’ educational achievement and subsequently, their employment outcomes. This study included 265 school-identified students with mild intellectual disabilities. The research questions investigated the extent to which phonological awareness, color naming speed, and vocabulary knowledge, was related to mathematics skill after controlling for grade level via regression analyses. Further, the mediating effects of expressive vocabulary on the relationship between receptive vocabulary and mathematics skill as well as the indirect effect of receptive vocabulary knowledge on mathematics skill through expressive vocabulary were examined. The findings indicated that after controlling for grade level, phonological awareness, naming speed, and vocabulary knowledge were significantly related to mathematics skill. The mediating effects of expressive vocabulary as well as the indirect effects of receptive vocabulary knowledge on mathematics skill were also significant.

I Ching, a Chinese classic which contains more than three thousand years' history, is the most valuable Chinese cultural treasure. I Ching includes not only philosophical ideas, but military thoughts as well. Studying such military philosophy in I Ching can effectively prevent the war from happening.

Three questions were investigated in the current study. First, do children with ADHD have language deficiencies in comparison to non-referred peers? Second, are there diagnostic group differences in parent and child storytelling when interacting in a joint picture-book setting or in parent reported home literacy habits? Third, are these differences related to child language scores? Parents of 25 children with ADHD and 39 comparison children, average age 7 years 6 months, told their children a story based on a wordless picture-book, and children then retold the story to an examiner without using the book. In addition, children made up two of their own stories and completed a standardized test of receptive and expressive language abilities. Children with ADHD demonstrated an expressive language deficiency compared to the non-referred children, but there was no group difference in receptive language scores. Parents of children in both groups told stories of similar length and complexity, as well as affective and responsive quality. However, for the ADHD group but not the comparison group, more positive and responsive parents told stories on a lower grade level. The length of the childs retell of the parents story did not differ across groups but children with ADHD told shorter stories when asked to make up their own stories without the external structure or salience of visual cues. Further, there were no significant group differences in the relations between parent storytelling and child language scores. The implications of these findings for understanding parent and child storytelling and language abilities of children with ADHD are discussed.

Development of brain function is instructed by both genetically-determined processes (nature) and environmental stimuli (nurture). The relative importance of nature and nurture is a major question in developmental neurobiology. In this dissertation, I investigated the role of visual experience in the development and plasticity of the visual pathway. Each neuron that receives visual input responds to a specific area of the visual field- their receptive field (RF). Developmental refinement reduces RF size and underlies visual acuity, which is important for survival. By rearing Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) in constant darkness (dark rearing, DR) from birth, I investigated the role of visual experience in RF refinement and plasticity. Previous work in this lab has shown that developmental refinement of RFs occurs in the absence of visual experience in the superior colliculus (SC), but that RFs unrefine and thus enlarge in adulthood during chronic DR. Using an in vivo electrophysiological approach, I show that, contrary to a widely held view, visual experience is not necessary for refinement of RFs in primary visual cortex (V1). In both SC and V1, RFs refine by postnatal day (P) 60, but enlarge by P90 with chronic DR. One week of visual experience was sufficient to prevent RF enlargement in SC and V1. How normal sensory experience prevents plasticity in mature circuits is not well understood. Using an in vitro electrophysiological approach, I demonstrated that GABAergic inhibition is reduced in DR SC, which in turn affects short-term (but not long-term) synaptic plasticity. The level of GABABR-mediated short-term synaptic depression (STD) that occurs during high-frequency afferent stimulation, such as occurs during vision, is reduced by DR. Using a computational model of RF size, I propose that, in addition to the effect of reduced inhibition, reduced STD of excitation could contribute to enlarged RFs. This work provides insight into mechanisms of development and plasticity of the nervous system. How plasticity is restricted in mature circuits is of fundamental importance in neuroscience and could instruct therapies to prevent maladaptive plasticity in disease and to enhance recovery of function in adults.

Deficiencies in mathematics skill constrain students’ educational achievement and subsequently, their employment outcomes. This study included 265 school-identified students with mild intellectual disabilities. The research questions investigated the extent to which phonological awareness, color naming speed, and vocabulary knowledge, was related to mathematics skill after controlling for grade level via regression analyses. Further, the mediating effects of expressive vocabulary on the relationship between receptive vocabulary and mathematics skill as well as the indirect effect of receptive vocabulary knowledge on mathematics skill through expressive vocabulary were examined. The findings indicated that after controlling for grade level, phonological awareness, naming speed, and vocabulary knowledge were significantly related to mathematics skill. The mediating effects of expressive vocabulary as well as the indirect effects of receptive vocabulary knowledge on mathematics skill were also significant.

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abstract: The present research study investigated the effects of 8 versions of a computer-based vocabulary learning program on receptive and productive knowledge levels of college students. The participants were 106 male and 103 female Korean EFL students from Kyungsung University and Kwandong University in Korea. Students who participated in versions of the vocabulary learning program with target-word based sentences as well as definitions tended to perform better on receptive and productive vocabulary assessments than those who participated in versions of the program with definitions of words only. Furthermore, results indicated that the difference in receptive scores from immediately after the program to one week later showed a higher drop-rate than the difference in productive scores. In addition, female learners performed receptively better than male learners in post and one-week delayed tests, but significant gender difference failed to occur for the productivity measure. Overall, these results emphasized the importance of productive vocabulary knowledge for better retention of English vocabulary words. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Technology 2013

A visãao é o sentido humano mais complexo e importante para os processos de cognição e de interação de um indivíduo com o mundo. Neurofiisiologistas buscam identificar e compreender como funcionam os mecanismos celulares envolvidos neste processo. O sistema visual recebe os sinais de imagens captadas pelos olhos e, por meio de transformações e processamento diversos, integra esses sinais em representações de objetos internos perceptuais. O projeto Olho Virtual consegue reconstruir, em três dimensões, modelos de olhos utilizando córneas reais ou simuladas em computador, reproduzindo suas propriedades ópticas captando imagens de maneira satisfatória. Este trabalho introduz, no projeto Olho Virtual, um modelo computacional de retina baseado no modelo biológico, capaz de reproduzir as propriedades das células cones e bastonetes em suas distribuições radiais e também em suas funcionalidades em particular. Além dessa, é apresentado uma modelagem para reprodução dos campos receptivos das células ganglionares presentes na retina, gerando sinais de saída nos sistemas parvo e magno. Por fim são feitas simulações de experimentos psicofísicos com propósito de verificar a validade da modelagem proposta / The vision is the human sense more complex and important in cognitive processes and the interaction of an individual with the world. Neurophysiologists seek to identify and understand how the cellular mechanisms involved in this process work. The visual system receives the image signals captured by the eyes and, through several transformations and processing, integrate those signals into internal representations of perceptual objects. The project Virtual Eye can reconstruct three-dimensional models of eye corneas using real or simulated on the computer, playing their optical properties capturing images satisfactorily. This work introduces the Virtual Eye project, a computational model of retina-based biological model, able to reproduce the properties of rod and cone cells in their radial distributions and also in its functionality in particular. Besides this, a model is presented for reproduction of the receptive fields of ganglion cells present in the retina, generating output signals in the parvo and magno systems. Finally, simulations are made with psychophysical experiments in order to verify the accuracy of the proposed model