Natália Martins Dias

Desenvolvimento dos componentes da consciência fonológica no ensino fundamental e correlação com nota escolar

Phonological awareness refers to the ability of reflect about the language phonology at the several levels of words, syllables and phonemes. Phonological awareness skills at the most simpler levels foster the development of readingspelling skills at the most elementary levels, which, in turn, foster more advanced reading-spelling skills, and so on, in a virtuous cycle. A sample of 363 first-to fourth-grade elementary school children were individually evaluated by the Phonological Awareness Test. Results showed that total scores as well as individual scores in all the ten phonological awareness skills measured increased with school level, especially from first to third levels. School grades were positively correlated with phonological awareness scores in all school levels, but with different subtests on each level. In latter levels, school grades correlated with the most difficult phonemic subtests. Such results give support to the importance of assessing specific components of phonological awareness.

Age Differences in Executive Functions within a Sample of Brazilian Children and Adolescents

Executive abilities have been suggested to show differential age-related changes. This study aimed to extend this evidence to a Brazilian sample, which was composed of 572 children and adolescents aged 6 to 14 years, assessed in tests of visual and auditory working memory, selective attention, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, attentional abilities, verbal fluency and planning. ANOVAs revealed significant age effect on performance in all tests, with a trend toward better performance with the progression of age, even in differential ways. Overall, the performance on simpler tests, such as the basic attention, increased with age progression until around 11 or 12 years, when performance becomes more stable. However, in more complex tasks, including working memory tasks, the performance showed a more continuous improvement. There was gender effect in two measures: visual working memory, in which boys outperformed girls, and verbal fluency, in which the girls outperformed boys. In general, the results of this Brazilian sample were similar to those reported by studies conducted in other countries, what suggests that Brazilian socio-cultural specificities, at least of the participants of this sample, were not sufficient to reveal a distinct pattern of progression.

Reading component skills in dyslexia: word recognition, comprehension and processing speed

The cognitive model of reading comprehension (RC) posits that RC is a result of the interaction between decoding and linguistic comprehension. Recently, the notion of decoding skill was expanded to include word recognition. In addition, some studies suggest that other skills could be integrated into this model, like processing speed, and have consistently indicated that this skill influences and is an important predictor of the main components of the model, such as vocabulary for comprehension and phonological awareness of word recognition. The following study evaluated the components of the RC model and predictive skills in children and adolescents with dyslexia. 40 children and adolescents (8–13 years) were divided in a Dyslexic Group (DG; 18 children, MA = 10.78, SD = 1.66) and control group (CG 22 children, MA = 10.59, SD = 1.86). All were students from the 2nd to 8th grade of elementary school and groups were equivalent in school grade, age, gender, and IQ. Oral and RC, word recognition, processing speed, picture naming, receptive vocabulary, and phonological awareness were assessed. There were no group differences regarding the accuracy in oral and RC, phonological awareness, naming, and vocabulary scores. DG performed worse than the CG in word recognition (general score and orthographic confusion items) and were slower in naming. Results corroborated the literature regarding word recognition and processing speed deficits in dyslexia. However, dyslexics can achieve normal scores on RC test. Data supports the importance of delimitation of different reading strategies embedded in the word recognition component. The role of processing speed in reading problems remain unclear.

The FAS fluency test in Brazilian children and teenagers: executive demands and the effects of age and gender.

The FAS Verbal Fluency Test is widely used in neuropsychological clinical services and research. This study investigated the contributions of different executive functions, age and gender to FAS test performance in a sample of children and teenagers divided into two groups: G1 comprised 263 children aged 6-10 years, and G2 comprised 150 teenagers aged 10-14 years. All participants were assessed using the Cancellation Attention Test, the Auditory Working Memory Test, the Visual Working Memory Test, the Semantic Generation Test, and the Trail Making Test, in addition to the FAS test. For G1, age, auditory working memory and shifting were predictors of FAS performance. For G2, gender, auditory working memory, shifting and inhibition comprised the FAS explanatory model. The study contributed to our understanding of which are the best predictor variables for the FAS test in a Brazilian sample and how executive demands change with age.

Neuropsychological stimulation of executive functions in children with typical development: A systematic review

ABSTRACT This systematic review aimed to characterize empirical studies on neuropsychological interventions to stimulate executive functions in children with typical development. Searches were conducted according to the PRISMA method. Nineteen (19) studies on the analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programs in pre-school and school children were obtained. There was a predominance of studies that used computerized cognitive training, most of them involving the stimulation of working memory. Others used pen and paper forms, or hybrid tasks, and some programs used a school curriculum approach aiming to improve self-regulation. Results provide preliminary evidence on the effectiveness of such on the executive performance in children with typical development. Each executive component, as well as each type of intervention has its peculiarities. Computerized trainings and pen and paper tasks tend to improve the targeted executive functions, but transfer effects are still inconsistent. Regarding the effects of programs using school curriculum approach, they seem to be more generalizable, with functionality gains accomplishing mainly socio-emotional regulation. Multimodal approaches may be even more effective. Follow-up studies should be targeted in order to track the maintenance of direct and transfer effects regarding mainly cognitive and social development associated to school achievement.

The Promotion of Executive Functioning in a Brazilian Public School: A Pilot Study

Studies have highlighted the role of early Executive Functioning (EF) interventions with regard to preventing behavioral and mental health problems. In this sense, interventions to promote EF have been developed and tested; however, in Latin America, evidence of early EF-related interventions is still limited. We developed a program for EF promotion in children and applied it to first-grade students. Sixty-eight six-year-old children and their five teachers were divided into an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). EG teachers administered the Intervention Program for Self-regulation and Executive Functions in a classroom context. The results of the ANCOVAs showed that children in the EG had significantly better performance in measures of cognitive flexibility (Trail Making Test for Preschoolers; p = .05), attention (Cancellation Attention Test - errors in the Part 3; p = .027), inhibition (Simon Task - interference score in the part 1; p = .008 and interference reaction time in the part 2; p = .010), and planning (CHEXI - planning scale; p = .041) than those in the CG. The results show that EF can be promoted using classroom intervention in public schools. These results expand previous findings for Latin America.

Development and interactions among academic performance, word recognition, listening, and reading comprehension

Este estudo investigou como o desenvolvimento das habilidades de reconhecimento de palavras, compreensao auditiva e de leitura relaciona-se ao desempenho escolar ao longo do Ensino Fundamental I. O Teste Contrastivo de Compreensao Auditiva e de Leitura e o Teste de Reconhecimento de Palavras e Pseudopalavras foram utilizados na avaliacao de 301 estudantes brasileiros da 1a a 4a serie do Ensino Fundamental. As notas escolares foram fornecidas pela escola ao termino do ano letivo. As analises revelaram efeito significativo da serie sobre todas as variaveis e um padrao com escores mais elevados em itens que podem ser lidos pela estrategia logografica e escores mais baixos para itens que demandam processamento ortografico. Diversas correlacoes significativas entre as habilidades mensuradas e o desempenho escolar foram encontradas, porem o padrao destas correlacoes mudou nas diferentes series escolares. Houve correlacoes mais fortes entre desempenho escolar e habilidades mais elementares, como a estrategia logografica de leitura e a compreensao auditiva, na 1a serie, e com habilidades mais complexas desenvolvendo-se ao longo das tres series sucessivas, como evidente pelo aumento de correlacoes com as estrategias alfabetica e ortografica e com a compreensao de leitura. Os dados podem auxiliar a orientar praticas para estimular habilidades relevantes em cada nivel escolar.

Executive Functions, Oral Language and Writing in Preschool Children: Development and Correlations

Funcoes executivas (FE) e linguagem oral (LO) sao importantes para a aprendizagem da leitura e escrita (LE) e para o desenvolvimento de demais competencias na fase pre-escolar. O estudo investigou a progressao e as relacoes entre os desempenhos nestas competencias em pre-escolares. Participaram 90 criancas, idade media de 4,91 anos, estudantes do Jardim I e II de uma escola particular de SP, avaliadas, individualmente, em uma bateria de nove instrumentos de FE, LO e LE. Houve aumento dos desempenhos em funcao do nivel escolar para todas as medidas de LO e LE, porem apenas para a medida de atencao no dominio das FE. Correlacoes significativas foram evidenciadas entre medidas que avaliam um mesmo dominio cognitivo, assim como interdominios, ainda que retratando um padrao diferencial. Os resultados sugerem que LO e LE parecem desenvolver-se rapidamente no curso da pre-escola, enquanto as FE apresentam desenvolvimento mais lento. Os dominios de LO e LE, bem como FE e LE sao mais interdependentes; enquanto FE e LO sao relativamente mais independentes.Funcoes executivas (FE) e linguagem oral (LO) sao importantes para a aprendizagem da leitura e escrita (LE) e para o desenvolvimento de demais competencias na fase pre-escolar. O estudo investigou a progressao e as relacoes entre os desempenhos nestas competencias em pre-escolares. Participaram 90 criancas, idade media de 4,91 anos, estudantes do Jardim I e II de uma escola particular de SP, avaliadas, individualmente, em uma bateria de nove instrumentos de FE, LO e LE. Houve aumento dos desempenhos em funcao do nivel escolar para todas as medidas de LO e LE, porem apenas para a medida de atencao no dominio das FE. Correlacoes significativas foram evidenciadas entre medidas que avaliam um mesmo dominio cognitivo, assim como interdominios, ainda que retratando um padrao diferencial. Os resultados sugerem que LO e LE parecem desenvolver-se rapidamente no curso da pre-escola, enquanto as FE apresentam desenvolvimento mais lento. Os dominios de LO e LE, bem como FE e LE sao mais interdependentes; enquanto FE e LO sao relativamente mais independentes.

Investigation of cognition in schizophrenia: psychometric properties of instruments for assessing working memory updating

Objective This study describes the development of two updating measures of working memory (WM): Letter Updating Test (LUT) and Word Updating Test (WUT). Methods In stage 1, items were created and the instruments were assessed by experts and laymen. In stage 2, tests were given to 15 patients with schizophrenia and 15 paired controls. All were able to understand and respond to the instruments. In stage 3, 141 patients with schizophrenia and 119 healthy controls aged 18 to 60 took part; they were assessed on WM, processing speed (PS) and functional outcome. Results The results showed adequate rates of internal consistency for both measures developed, for both the total sample and each group separately, as well as evidence of convergent validity, discriminant validity and sensitivity to differentiate performance among the groups. Principal component analysis yielded two components, one for updating tests and other for PS measures, indicating factorial validity. Positive and significant, yet low, correlations were found with functionality measures. Conclusion These results provide adequate psychometric parameters for the measures developed, applicable to cognitive research settings in schizophrenia.

Estudo fatorial dos componentes da leitura: velocidade, compreensão e reconhecimento de palavras

Information Processing Models has identified different process involved in the reading, including word recognition, comprehension and speed, being that the word recognition can occur for three different strategies, the logographic, the alphabetic and ortographic one. In the way to identify such components in the reading, 443 students of the 1st to the 4th grades of the elementary school were evaluated in words recognition, oral/auditory comprehension, reading comprehension, orthographic processing and speed of reading tests. A Factorial Analyses of principal components and oblimin rotation was conducted, deriving four factors. The factor 1 included recognition of familiar words and oral and written linguistic comprehension; the factor 2 understood the logographic and alphabetic strategies of word recognition; the factor 3, the orthographic strategy; and the factor 4 referred to the speed of reading. The finds, near to the expected theoretically, are able to help in the comprehension of the cognitive process involved in the reading of children in the beginning of the elementary education.