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Riassunto. Lo studio esamina i processi di elaborazione lessicale e sublessicale in un gruppo di bambini normolettori mediante la rilevazione di parametri temporali nella scrittura sotto dettato. Hanno partecipato allo studio 15 bambini di terza classe e 19 bambini di quinta classe di scuola primaria. Le variabili temporali esaminate sono sensibili alle differenti caratteristiche psicolinguistiche degli stimoli. Nella scrittura di parole ambigue, che richiedono l’accesso a una rappresentazione ortografica, e di parole regolari richiedenti l’applicazione di regole sensibili al contesto, si riscontrano tempi di scrittura più lunghi e un maggior numero di pause rispetto alla scrittura di parole e pseudoparole a trascrizione regolare. I risultati evidenziano l’utilità dell’esame delle variabili temporali nel rilevare l’efficienza dei processi di scrittura lessicale e sublessicale in soggetti con sviluppo tipico di diversa scolarizzazione.

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-qjp-10.1177_1747021821998925 for Sensitivity to distributional properties of the orthography in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia by Chiara Valeria Marinelli, Marika Iaia, Cristina Burani and Paola Angelelli in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-qjp-10.1177_1747021821998925 for Sensitivity to distributional properties of the orthography in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia by Chiara Valeria Marinelli, Marika Iaia, Cristina Burani and Paola Angelelli in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Frutto del lavoro dei maggiori esperti nel settore, grazie alla sua impostazione teorico-operativa, questa guida presenta non solo le caratteristiche della disortografia, della disgrafia e delle difficoltà di scrittura e le ricadute in ambito scolastico e non, ma anche le strategie per compensare le abilità deficitarie e gli strumenti di intervento didattico e psicoeducativo. Il volume si articola in 4 sezioni che guidano il lettore nelle diverse fasi che caratterizzano il lavoro con gli alunni: - CONOSCERE, OSSERVARE E VALUTARE. - PROGRAMMARE E AGIRE. - RIFLETTERE E COMPRENDERE. - ALLEARSI E CONDIVIDERE. IN OGNI CAPITOLO È INOLTRE POSSIBILE TROVARE: - una linea temporale sequenziale che illustra in quale fase si collocano le proposte presentate nel capitolo - una mappa concettuale che anticipa e organizza i contenuti - numerosi esempi di caso - approfondimenti dalla ricerca scientifica - le interviste «Alcune domande all’esperto...» - i consigli per la didattica in classe - la sintesi dei contenuti presentati nel capitolo. L'offerta del volume si arricchisce di nuove ulteriori risorse disponibili online.

Nel corso dei primi anni di scolarizzazione il bambino è impegnato per la maggior parte del tempo in attività di scrittura. È quindi importante poter valutare il grado di apprendimento delle competenze ortografiche e intervenire, in presenza di difficoltà, con un trattamento mirato. Sulla base del modello teorico a due vie, il test DDO-2 permette di valutare le capacità di scrittura lessicale e sub lessicale in bambini della scuola primaria e secondaria di primo grado, attraverso un dettato di 160 stimoli suddivisi in quattro sezioni in base alla categoria di parole proposte. Questa nuova edizione presenta inoltre una versione breve del test (60 stimoli), uno strumento di somministrazione più agile che rispetta i principi di costruzione e attendibilità della versione integrale. Il DDO-2 consente di effettuare lo scoring automatico tramite il software scaricabile dal sito http://risorseonline.erickson.it/, che fornisce una valutazione sia della prestazione complessiva, sia delle prestazioni ai singoli subset di stimoli dettati.

Cognitive reserve (CR) allows individuals to maintain cognitive functionality even in the presence of pathologies. The compensation hypothesis suggests that CR plays an indirect role between age and cognitive decline, contrasting the negative effect of ageing on cognition. We test this hypothesis in an unselected and consecutively enrolled sample of memory clinic attendees (n = 134) who completed the CR Index questionnaire and three neuropsychological tests assessing global cognition (MMSE, FAB, CDT). Participants were divided into two groups based on standard diagnostic criteria (DSM-5): those who were cognitively impaired (n = 92) and those who were preserved (n = 42). A principal component analysis was used to extract a composite measure of global cognitive functioning from the three neuropsychological tests, and mediation analysis was used to examine the relationship between CR, age and global cognitive functioning in the two groups. Results revealed that: (i) age had a significant direct negative effect on the global cognitive score in both groups; (ii) the three socio-behavioural proxies of CR together suppress the direct negative relationship between age and global cognitive score in cognitively impaired patients but not in cognitively preserved participants. This study confirms the association between CR, age and cognition and allows us to validate its role in a population with cognitive impairment and extend findings to a low-to-middle educated population. These results hold important implications for public health and wellness promotion, emphasising the beneficial role of maintaining healthy and active physical, cognitive and social lifestyles.

We studied the compositional written skills and spelling competence of individuals with a severe hearing impairment, examining qualitative and quantitative characteristics of their texts, the psycholinguistic variables modulating their productions, and writing errors following a fine-grained analysis. Sixteen deaf young adults, educated in bilingual settings, were examined and compared to a group of control hearing subjects matched for gender, age, and education. Writing skills were examined through both written composition and written picture-naming tasks. Concerning compositional skills, deaf participants produced shorter and less informative texts, with fewer adjectives and subordinates, and were qualitatively worse with respect to texts produced by hearing controls. Words produced by deaf participants were those acquired earlier and facilitated by a higher lexical neighbourhood. Errors were mainly semantic, morphological, and syntactic errors, reflecting general linguistic weakness. Spelling errors were few, with phonologically nonplausible misspellings relative to controls, and with phonologically plausible ones being quite rare. In the picture-naming task, deaf people had a greater number of all types of errors with respect to their text, including semantic and morphological errors. Their spelling performance featured mainly phonologically nonplausible misspellings, while phonologically plausible ones were relatively few and comparable to controls. Overall, the writing of deaf adults reveal limitations in grammar and lexical-sematic linguistic competence. This was associated with spelling deficits characterized mainly by the poorer use of phonological sublexical spelling procedures. However, in an ecologic context, their spelling deficits appear not so important as has been claimed in the literature.

Visuo-spatial working memory is one of the main domain-general cognitive mechanisms underlying mathematical abilities and their development in children. However, if visuo-spatial working memory involves different processes and components, then the term ‘mathematics’ refers to a broad concept that includes multiple domains and skills. The aim of this present study was to investigate the relationship between different visuo-spatial working memory components and several mathematical abilities in a sample of third- to fifth-grade Italian children. To assess the relationships between different visuo-spatial working memory components and different mathematical abilities, we relied on Network Analysis (NA). Results indicate that some but not all visuo-spatial working memory components are associated with some mathematical abilities.

Ricerca sui processi di lettura e scrittura, sviluppo di nuovi materiali diagnostici e presa in carico degli studenti universitari con DSA presso l’Università del Salento

Language delay is considered a frequent antecedent of literacy problems and both may be linked to phonological impairment. However, while several studies have examined the relationship between language delay and reading impairment, relatively few have focused on spelling. In this study, spelling performance of 28 children with developmental dyslexia (DD), 14 children with a history of language delay (LD), and 14 children without (NoLD) and 28 control participants were examined. Spelling was investigated by a writing to dictation task that included orthographically regular stimuli (word and non-words), as well as words with unpredictable transcription. Results indicated that all dyslexic participants underperformed compared to controls on both regular and unpredictable transcription stimuli, but LD performance was generally the worst. Moreover, spelling impairment assumed different characteristics in LD and NoLD children. LD children were more sensitive to acoustic-to-phonological variables, showing relevant failure especially on stimuli containing geminate consonants but also on polysyllabic stimuli and those containing non-continuant consonants. Error analysis confirmed these results, with LD children producing a higher rate of phonological errors respect to NoLD children and controls. Results were coherent with the hypothesis that among dyslexic children, those with previous language delay have more severe spelling deficit, suffering from defective orthographic lexical acquisition together with long-lasting phonological difficulties.