Vicente Sanjosé

The informal caregiver's burden of dependent people: Theory and empirical review

This paper reviews the main theories and results of the existing research to date about the concept of the informal caregivers burden. The explanation of the burden concept, the theoretical approaches which attempt to explain it, the variables which have emerged in the investigation, the predictors of its appearance, as well as the intervention programs developed to relieve burden, allow us to approach the appropriate solutions to deal with the current social and political reality of this problem. In this sense, the psycho-educational intervention programs framed within the respite services jointly with the knowledge of the determining variables of the burden can comprise the first optimal approach in order to effectively deal with the burden problem of the informal caregivers of dependent senior citizens.

Towards a new welfare state: the social sustainability principle and health care strategies.

In this paper we propose a social and health care model that offers alternatives to three problems arising in converging European welfare states, particularly in the southern nations: the rise in demand for services and features linked to the ageing process, the increase in dependency and the crisis of informal support. Development of the principles of social sustainability implies re-formulation of the regulatory, care, economic, administrative, cultural, and axiological framework enabling a response to the needs of long term care without compromising the welfare of future generations. Together with this principle, quality of life elevated to a subjective right directs attention towards the sphere closest to citizens, eliminating all barriers, which hamper exercise of this right. All of the above produces economic and social costs which must be accepted from a viewpoint of social co-responsibility, which brings with it the supply of welfare individually, without detriment to the exercise of state responsibility in guaranteeing a social protection system of a universal nature.

Levels of comprehension of scientific prose: the role of text variables

Abstract This research investigates the role played on shallow and deep levels of comprehension by textual changes that are aimed at: (a) improving the relationships within text ideas, and (b) producing better links between text ideas and the readers knowledge. Four versions of a long physics passage were elaborated combining both kinds of textual changes. Four groups of tenth graders were each given one of the four versions. Different measures representative of these levels of comprehension were taken: getting main ideas, recall, and problem solving. The results indicated that: (a) main idea performance was affected by improving the relationships within text ideas, (b) both textual changes contributed separately to recall, and (c) problem solving increased only when the two changes were presented together.

A Connectionist Extension to Kintsch's Construction--Integration Model.

This article proposes an extension to Kintschs Construction–Integration (CI) model of text comprehension, which changes its mathematical implementation and emphasizes the connectionist features of the model. Specifically, the extension proposed here (a) simulates the learning process in a connectionist manner by making explicit changes in the connecting values among processing units; (b) takes into account individual differences in prior background knowledge activation and individual ability to make logical inferences, using these parameters to adjust the results of the simulation; and (c) implements an algorithm that constructs the connectivity matrix W from text processing. The proposed extension is tested on existing recall and contradiction-detection data from readers of science texts, and its predictions fit the empirical data better than the CI models prediction.

Importancia de las destrezas de procesamiento de la información en la comprensión de textos científicos

Resumen Se pretendió probar que algunos obstáculos en la comprensión de las ciencias no están causados por esquemas conceptuales alternativos, sino por deficiencias en los niveles de comprensión lectora y de control de la propia comprensión de los estudiantes Se midieron esos niveles y se controlaron las ideas alternativas en dos muestras de estudiantes de 4° de ESO. Los alumnos leyeron un texto experimental sobre Evolución de las Especies y respondieron cuestiones consultando el texto a voluntad. Se predijeron diferencias claras en las respuestas según los niveles de comprensión lectora y control de la comprensión, pero no debidas a esquemas conceptuales lamarckianos. Los resultados confirmaron las predicciones.

Control de la Comprensión micro y macro-estructural durante la lectura de textos científicos en lengua extranjera: ¿Algo más que dominio del idioma?

Se presenta un estudio con estudiantes universitarios espanoles con dominios basico, intermedio y avanzado de ingles como lengua extranjera. El objetivo fue estudiar la efectividad en el Control de la Comprension (CC) en ingles, comparado con el que se tiene en espanol, y explicar los resultados a partir del modelo de comprension de textos desarrollado por Kintsch y otros colegas. Nuestro foco de atencion fue la representacion semantica, diferenciando el CC a nivel micro y macroestructural. Se midio el CC al leer textos asumiendo el Error Detection Paradigm: se insertaron inconsistencias micro y macroestructurales en los textos y se pidio a los estudiantes juzgar su comprensibilidad usando un codigo para distinguir entre ‘palabras desconocidas’, ‘ideas de significado absurdo’ e ‘ideas incoherentes o incompatibles con otras del texto’. Se utilizaron textos de ciencias, tres en ingles y otros tres en espanol para aumentar la fiabilidad. Las predicciones fueron: a) en ingles, los sujetos mostraran un control menos eficaz que en espanol; b) los sujetos con dominio basico en este idioma mostraran un control microestructural mas eficaz que el macroestructural y; c) cuando el dominio del ingles aumente, las diferencias en el CC entre ingles y espanol tenderan a desaparecer. Los resultados apoyaron parcialmente las predicciones: el control macroestructural en sujetos con dominio avanzado del ingles no fue tan eficaz como se esperaba. Ademas, en espanol la eficacia en el control macroestructural fue mayor que en el control microestructural. Los resultados fueron explicados en terminos del modelo cognitivo asumido.

Efectos de las adaptaciones textuales, el conocimiento previo y las estrategias de estudio en el recuerdo, la comprensión y el aprendizaje de textos científicos

ResumenEste estudio analiza la influencia de diversos cambios textuales, del conocimiento previo de las estrategias de estudio en el recuerdo, comprension y aprendizaje de textos cientificos. Empleamos un diseno factorial 2×2 con dos variables entre sujetos, texto y estrategias de estudio, y la variable conocimiento previo anidada bajo la variable estrategias. Universitarios de Fisica y Psicologia, y bachilleres de ciencias y letras leyeron una de las dos versiones de un texto tomado de un libro de Fisica-Quimica de Bachillerato. En una version se hicieron cambios para facilitar la formacion del texto-base y facilitar la construccion de un modelo situational. Se tomaron tres medidas dependientes: recuerdo, escritura de las 7–8 ideas mas importantes y aprendizaje. Encontramos que las manipulaciones textuales y las estrategias de estudio produjeron diferencias significativas en todas las tareas, mientras que el conocimiento previo lo hizo en las pruebas de recuerdo y aprendizaje. Se encontraron diversas int...

Predicting Word Maturity from Frequency and Semantic Diversity: A Computational Study

Semantic word representation changes over different ages of childhood until it reaches its adult form. One method to formally model this change is the word maturity paradigm. This method uses a text sample for each age, including adult age, and transforms the samples into a semantic space by means of Latent Semantic Analysis. The representation of a word at every age is then compared with its adult representation via computational maturity indices. The present study used this paradigm to explore to the impact of word frequency and semantic diversity on maturation indices. To do this, word maturity indices were extracted from a Spanish incremental corpus and validated, using correlation scores with Age of Acquisition and Word Difficulty indices from previous studies. The results show that both frequency and semantic diversity predict word maturity but that the predictive capacity of frequency decreases as exposure to language increases. The latter result is discussed in terms of inductive processes suggested in previous studies.

Detection of explanation obstacles in scientific texts: the effect of an understanding task vs. an experiment task

The aim of this study is to analyse the effect of tasks on the detection of explanation obstacles when secondary school students read scientific texts. Students were instructed to read short passages under different task conditions, and to ask questions if necessary. Obstacle detection was operationalised in terms of the type of questions asked by the students. The experiment examined the influence of goals associated with the task of reading to understand a text vs. reading to perform a procedure described by the text (a science experiment). Significantly, more explanation obstacles were found in the understanding condition than in the experiment condition. Scientific text also had an effect on the explanation obstacles detected.