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Assessment of lexical/semantic knowledge is performed with a variety of tests varying in response requirements. The present study exemplifies the application of modern statistical approaches in the adaptation and assessment of the psychometric properties of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Revised (PPVT-R) Greek. Confirmatory factor analyses applied to data from a large sample of elementary school students (N = 585) indicated the existence of a single vocabulary dimension and differential item functioning procedures pointed to minimal bias due to gender or ethnic group. Rasch model–derived indices of item difficulty and discrimination were used to develop a short form of the test, which was administered to a second sample of 900 students. Convergent and discriminant validity were assessed through comparisons with the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children–III Vocabulary and Block design subtests. Short- and long-term stability of individual scores over a 6-month period were very high, and the utility of the test as part of routine educational assessment is attested by its strong longitudinal predictive value with reading comprehension measures. It is concluded that the Greek version of the PPVT-R constitutes a reliable and valid assessment of vocabulary for Greek students and immigrants who speak Greek. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The presence of Matthew effects was tested in students of varying reading, spelling, and vocabulary skills. A cross-sequential design was implemented, following 587 Grade 2 through 4 students across five measurement points (waves) over 2 years. Students were administered standardized assessments of reading, spelling, and vocabulary. Results indicated that the hypothesized fan-spread pattern for Matthew effects was not evident. Low and high ability groups were formed based on 25th and 75th percentile cutoffs on initial measures of spelling, reading accuracy and fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Multilevel modeling suggested that low and high ability groups had significantly different starting points (intercepts) and their pattern of growth on passage comprehension did not indicate that the gap would increase over time. Instead, some analyses, especially of the youngest cohorts, showed significant convergence. However, there was no evidence of eventually closing the gap. Thus, although the poor students may not be getting poorer, they do not get sufficiently richer either. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of the present study was to compare students with and without learning difficulties on their perceptions of their classroom's goal structures and examine whether these students are accurate judges of their classroom's motivational discourse. Participants were 230 fifth and sixth graders (18 with learning difficulties), who were asked to provide information regarding their classroom's motivational climate as posited by goal theory. Independent observers assessed the actual classroom climate across five consecutive days using equivalent standards of assessment. Results indicated that students with learning difficulties perceived their classrooms as being less mastery and more performance oriented compared to typical students of the same classroom. Furthermore, the perception of mastery goal structures of students with learning difficulties predicted negatively the existence of such structures, suggesting that these students seriously misperceive what happens in their classroom. Students with learning difficulties were more accurate in predicting performance goal structures, which may also be their preferred motivational discourse. For typical students there was no relationship between their perception of classroom climate and actual climate, mastery or performance. These results suggest that elementary school students may have difficulties describing their classroom climate using self-reports. Additionally, students with learning difficulties may seriously misinterpret mastery goal structures with the possibility that they fail to benefit from the adaptive outcomes this climate has to offer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to evaluate the cognitive-motivational profiles of students with reading comprehension difficulties have been scarce. The purpose of the present study was twofold: (a) to assess the discriminatory validity of cognitive, motivational, affective, and psychopathological variables for identification of students with reading difficulties, and (b) to profile students with and without reading comprehension difficulties across those variables. Participants were 87 students who scored more than 1.3 SD below the mean on a standardized reading comprehension battery and 500 typical students in grades 2 through 4. Results using linear discriminant analyses indicated that students with reading comprehension difficulties could be accurately predicted by low cognitive skills and high competitiveness. Using cluster analysis, students with significant deficits in reading comprehension were mostly assigned to a low skill/low motivation group (termed helpless) or a low skill/high motivation group (termed motivated low achievers). Based on these findings, it was concluded that motivation, emotions, and psychopathology play a pivotal role in explaining the achievement tendencies of students with reading comprehension difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the regulation of goal orientations and strong "oughts" in students with learning disabilities (LD). Participants were 132 Greek students with state identified LD using the achievement-discrepancy criterion, and 538 typical students. The first hypothesis tested was that feeling obliged to engage in an activity is grounded on fear and is associated with a network of avoidance-related behaviors. Results confirmed this hypothesis, as the ought-self explained significant amounts of variability in task avoidance, performance avoidance, and fear of failure. The second hypothesis was that the ought-self was associated with failure to regulate. Student groups were formed based on their adoption of mastery, performance approach, task avoidance, multiple-approach goals, and strong "oughts." Results indicated that students with strong "oughts" persisted significantly less than students with approach forms of motivation. Regardless of their lack of persistence, however, students with strong "oughts" were not inferior in achievement, nor did they display heightened negative affect. By modeling the relationship between goals, achievement and psychopathology, results showed that the oughtself was negatively associated with achievement and positively associated with indices of anxiety and depression. Mean group analyses pointed to salient differences between students with and without LD on motivation, achievement and psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the theoretical models of literature on motivational attributes and depressing tendencies in children with learning disabilities (LD). Depressive symptoms in individuals with LD; Factors to consider in the application of a goal orientation model in explaining the depressive tendencies of individuals with learning disabilities; Proposed hierarchical goal orientation model that can account for the depressive tendencies of students who pursue goals.

Presents a motivational analysis of elementary school students with learning disabilities (LD) in the U.S. Classification of students with LD; Factors causing the lower achievement of students with LD; Observation of ill motivational strategies among students with LD.

The objective of this study was to identify subgroups of toddlers with DSM-5 ASD based on core ASD symptoms using a person-based analytical framework. This is a retrospective study of 500 toddlers (mean age 26 months, 79% male) with DSM-5 ASD. Data were analyzed using latent class analyses in which profiles were formed based on ASD symptomatology. Social communication (SC) symptoms favored a three-class solution, while restricted/repetitive behaviors (RRBs) favored a two-class solution. Classes with higher consistency of SC deficits were younger, with lower developmental functioning. The class with more RRBs was older, with higher functioning. If confirmed in other populations, these classes may more precisely characterize subgroups within the heterogeneous group of toddlers at time of ASD diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Introduces the first issue of the journal. Intention to provide information that can improve the learning experiences of people with learning disabilities; Types of papers that will appear in the journal, including opinion papers, literature reviews, research articles, and methodology reports; Interest in research which addresses the positive attributes of people with learning disabilities.

The study assessed cognitive and academic performance of children demonstrating teacher-rated ADHD-related symptoms (Inattention [IA] and/or Hyperactivity/Impulsivity [H/I]) in a representative sample of, largely untreated, Greek elementary school students (N = 923). A battery of tests assessing short-term memory (STM), sustained attention, executive functions (EFs), reading and math skills were administered. Significant deficits in EFs and STM were restricted to the groups of students displaying inattention symptoms and were only marginally elevated among students showing hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms alone, in comparison to their non-symptomatic peers. A similar pattern of group differences was observed on tests assessing word- and text-level reading skills. Impaired performance on sustained attention tasks was less evident. Among students who manifested inattention symptoms, those who also showed impaired reading skills presented more severe EFs deficits than typically achieving students. Results demonstrated a close link between EFs, other than inhibition and set-shifting, everyday symptoms of inattention, and achievement in math and word-level reading skills. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04954-5 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study assessed the effects of a short-term intervention designed to enhance students’ web searching skills, particularly query formulation, information selection and credibility evaluation. The study also explored students’ affective experiences during web searching and examined the influence of achievement goals on positive and negative affect. Using a longitudinal treatment/control design, 96 fifth and sixth graders searched for information on curriculum-related topics at four sessions. Positive and negative affect was measured before, during and after each search. Multilevel analyses showed that the patterns of change in searching skills differed across conditions, with experimental group showing significant growth throughout intervention in all searching skills, while the control group remained constant or worsened across sessions. Students also experienced high levels of positive and low levels of negative affect. Positive affect remained constant during and across sessions, while negative affect showed a quadratic trend during sessions and decreased slightly across sessions. Main effects of achievement goals on positive and negative affect were found only for mastery-approach goals. A mastery-approach by performance-approach goal interaction was found for negative affect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning disorders can have adverse impacts on children and families extending beyond the academic skills deficits. The goal of the present study was to assess the impact of the school's response, following an independent evaluation, for child and family school-related quality of life (QOL). We hypothesized that a positive school response would be associated with improved QOL. Parents completed the LDQOL/15, a brief measure of school-related QOL, at the time that their child received an independent evaluation and again a year later (N = 155). At follow-up, parents reported the tenor of the school's response to the evaluation and whether special education services had changed. QOL problems were very high in this referred population, with 66% of respondents rating a level of problems in the clinical range at baseline. Predicted interactions between time of assessment (baseline/follow-up) and the school's response to the evaluation were confirmed for all outcome variables; a positive school response was associated with improved QOL. Nevertheless, the overall prevalence of school-related QOL problems remained high a year after the evaluation. These findings indicate that special education interventions can mitigate learning disabilities' impacts, but even with these services, many children with learning disorders and their families continue to be significantly affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The simple view of reading posits that reading comprehension can be decomposed into a print-specific component (concerning decoding and sight word reading) and a language comprehension component (concerning verbal and metalinguistic skills not related to print). One might properly consider lexical skills, indexed by vocabulary measures, part of the language component; however, vocabulary measures end up taking up substantial amounts of print-dependent reading comprehension variance, presumably because of the interrelations among semantic, orthographic, and phonological specification of lexical entries. In the present study we examined the role of vocabulary in the prediction of reading comprehension by testing alternative formulations within the context of the simple view. We used cross-sectional and (1-year) longitudinal data from 436 children in Grades 3–6 attending regular classrooms. We quantified the proportion of variance accounting for reading comprehension that could be attributed to vocabulary measures. We then tested a latent variable model positing a mediating position for vocabulary against a model with lexically based covariation among the simple view components. We discuss the results in an attempt to bring together the simple view with the lexical quality hypothesis for reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Learning problems (LP) can have wider implications than the academic deficits per se. The goal of the present series of studies was to develop a reliable and valid quality-of-life measure targeted to children and adolescents with LP. In Study 1, using a 35-item questionnaire, we surveyed 151 parents/guardians of children referred for assessment of learning disorders. Exploratory factor analysis identified a three-factor model: Academic Performance, School Understanding, and Child/Family Psychological. These factors were validated against standardized measures of academic achievement and psychosocial functioning. The questionnaire was then reduced to 15 items—the LD/QOL15 —and administered to a community sample of 325 parents/guardians of children in Grades 1 to 8 (Study 2). The three-factor model was verified with confirmatory factor analysis. Comparison of general education (n = 232) and LP (n = 93) groups within the community sample documented substantial group differences (p < .0001), with the LP group having higher mean scores. These differences were larger for older students (Grades 5–8) than younger students (Grades 1–4; p < .01). The LD/QOL15 is a brief and reliable measure that is valid to assess quality of life and, potentially, outcomes in children and adolescents with LP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental dyslexia is a language-based learning disability characterized by persistent difficulty in learning to read. While an understanding of genetic contributions is emerging, the ways the environment affects brain functioning in children with developmental dyslexia are poorly understood. A relationship between the home literacy environment (HLE) and neural correlates of reading has been identified in typically developing children, yet it remains unclear whether similar effects are observable in children with a genetic predisposition for dyslexia. Understanding environmental contributions is important given that we do not understand why some genetically at-risk children do not develop dyslexia. Here, we investigate for the first time the relationship between HLE and the neural correlates of phonological processing in beginning readers with (FHD+, n = 29) and without (FHD-, n = 21) a family history of developmental dyslexia. We further controlled for socioeconomic status to isolate the neurobiological mechanism by which HLE affects reading development. Group differences revealed stronger correlation of HLE with brain activation in the left inferior/middle frontal and right fusiform gyri in FHD- compared to FHD+ children, suggesting greater impact of HLE on manipulation of phonological codes and recruitment of orthographic representations in typically developing children. In contrast, activation in the right precentral gyrus showed a significantly stronger correlation with HLE in FHD+ compared to FHD- children, suggesting emerging compensatory networks in genetically at-risk children. Overall, our results suggest that genetic predisposition for dyslexia alters contributions of HLE to early reading skills before formal reading instruction, which has important implications for educational practice and intervention models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensive services are recommended for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Limited research on service receipt in states with mandated ASD-specific service coverage suggests that it remains low, and factors associated with intensity are unclear. Participants were 206 children from the Boston Outcomes of Autism in Toddlers study living in states with autism mandates, diagnosed with ASD through a multidisciplinary consultation at 12-36 months, and recommended to receive at least 20 h of services weekly. Outcome measures were caregiver-reported receipt of total and ASD-specific services within 18 months of ASD diagnosis. Separate negative binomial regression models were run for each outcome, with covariates of child adaptive and cognitive functioning, age, gender, household income, primary insurance, and maternal educational level. The sample was 83% male with a mean age of 24.5 months at ASD diagnosis. Mean Vineland adaptive behavior composite and Bayley cognitive standard scores were 73 and 81, respectively. 90% of children received ASD-specific services. The median intensities for total and ASD-specific services were 22 and 17 h weekly respectively, with 44% of the participants receiving at least 20 h of ASD-specific services weekly. Adjusted regression models found significant associations between lower adaptive scores and increased total and ASD-specific service receipt. Children in insurance-mandated states received a high intensity of intervention after clinical ASD diagnosis. Lower child adaptive functioning was associated with increased service receipt, while socioeconomic factors were not associated. Additional research in other regions and mandate-ineligible populations is needed., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Compare developmental profiles and core ASD symptom manifestation between male and female toddlers with DSM-5 ASD. Retrospective record review of 500 toddlers (79% male) at time of ASD diagnosis. There were no differences in developmental functioning between males and females. When adjusting for multiple comparisons, sex differences were only noted for sensory seeking behavior occurring at a higher frequency in females. Overall, there were no significant differences in demographic characteristics, developmental functioning, or manifestation of core ASD symptoms between males versus female toddlers at the time of DSM-5 ASD diagnosis., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Objective: High-fidelity simulation has a growing role in plastic surgical education. This study tests the hypothesis that cleft lip repair simulation followed by structured debriefing improves performance and self-confidence and that gains are maintained., Design: Prospective, single-blinded interventional study with repeated measures. Trainees performed cleft lip repair on a high-fidelity simulator followed by debriefing, immediately completed a second repair, and returned 3 months later for a third session. Anonymized simulation videos were rated using the modified Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS) and the Unilateral Cleft Lip Repair competency assessment tool (UCLR). Self-assessed cleft lip knowledge/confidence and procedural self-confidence were surveyed after each simulation., Setting: Boston Children's Hospital, a tertiary care academic hospital in Boston, MA, USA., Participants: All trainees rotating through the study setting were eligible. Twenty-six participated; 21 returned for follow-up., Results: Significant improvements (p < 0.05) occurred between the first and second simulations for OSATS, UCLR, and procedural self-confidence. Significant improvement occurred between the second and third simulations cleft lip knowledge/confidence. Compared to the first simulation, improvements were maintained at the third simulation for all variables. Training level moderately correlated with score for UCLR for the first simulation (r = 0.55, p < 0.01), deteriorated somewhat with the second (r = 0.35, p = 0.08), and no longer corelated by the third (r = 0.02, p = 0.92)., Conclusions: Objective performance and subjective self-assessed knowledge and confidence improve with high-fidelity simulation plus structured debriefing and improvement is maintained. Differences in procedure-specific performance seen with increasing training level are reduced with simulation, suggesting it may accelerate knowledge and skill acquisition., (Copyright © 2023 Association of Program Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Demonstrating competency before independent practice is increasingly important in surgery. This study tests the hypothesis that a high-fidelity cleft lip simulator can be used to discriminate performance between training levels, demonstrating its utility for assessing procedural competence., Methods: During this prospective cohort study, participants performed a unilateral cleft lip repair on a high-fidelity simulator. Videos were blindly rated using the Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS) and the Unilateral Cleft Lip Repair Competency Assessment Tool (UCLR). Digital measurement of symmetry was estimated. Influence of training level and cumulative prior experience on each score was estimated using Pearson r., Results: Participants (n = 26) ranged from postgraduate year 3 to craniofacial fellow. Training level correlated best with UCLR (R = 0.4842, P = 0.0122*) and more weakly with OSATS (R = 0.3645, P = 0.0671), whereas cumulative prior experience only weakly correlated with UCLR (R = 0.3450, P = 0.0843) and not with OSATS (R = 0.1609, P = 0.4323). UCLR subscores indicated marking the repair had little correlation with training level (R = 0.2802, P = 0.1656), whereas performance and result did (R = 0.5152, P = 0.0071*, R = 0.4226, P = 0.0315*, respectively). Correlation between symmetry measures and training level was weak., Conclusions: High-fidelity simulation paired with an appropriate procedure-specific assessment tool has the construct validity to evaluate performance for cleft lip repair. Simply being able to mark a cleft lip repair is not an accurate independent assessment method nor is symmetry of the final result., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of The American Society of Plastic Surgeons.)

Introduction: The traditions of surgical education have changed little over the years. However, the increasing focus on patient safety and duty hour restrictions mandates that residents start developing complex skill sets earlier to ensure they graduate with procedural competency. Surgical training is poised to exploit high-fidelity simulation technology to mitigate these pressures., Methods: By revisiting principles of adult learning theory, the authors created a "bootcamp-style" cleft lip curriculum that sought to (1) maximize educational impact and (2) pilot a high-fidelity procedural trainer permitting resident operative autonomy as part of that curriculum. Trainees participated in small group educational sessions comprised of a standard cleft didactic lecture, augmented by instructional video. Participants immediately processed knowledge from the lecture/video by "operating" on the simulator, allowing opportunities for questions and self-reflection, completing the learning cycle. A self-assessment survey was taken before and after each component of the session, including a self-confidence survey to conclude the session. Anthropometric measures of lip/nasal symmetry were assessed., Results: Sixteen trainees participated in the program. Little increase in self-assessed knowledge/skill was seen after the lecture, but significant increases in most aspects of cleft lip repair were seen after simulation. The greatest increase in self-assessment was seen for the program as a whole, with significant differences across all aspects of the self-assessment. Higher levels of training were associated with both higher self-assessment scores and better lip symmetry. Regardless of level of training, all participants strongly agreed that simulation helped them actively engage in learning and should be a required aspect of training, whereas 94% (n = 15) thought simulation was much more effective than standard preparation alone., Conclusions: This pilot curriculum illustrates a mechanism to incorporate lessons from adult learning theory into plastic surgery training using a high-fidelity simulator for deliberate practice of cleft lip repair. Further evaluation is warranted to determine whether this didactic model can accelerate the acquisition of the complex skill set required for cleft lip repair and other surgical procedures., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest and sources of funding: none declare., (Copyright © 2020 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can result in cognitive and behavioral disabilities and growth deficits. Because alcohol-related neurobehavioral deficits may occur in the absence of overt dysmorphic features or growth deficits, there is a need to identify biomarkers of PAE that can predict neurobehavioral impairment. In this study, we assessed infant plasma extracellular, circulating miRNAs ( ex miRNAs) obtained from a heavily exposed Cape Town cohort to determine whether these can be used to predict PAE-related growth restriction and cognitive impairment. PAE, controlling for smoking as a covariate, altered 27% of expressed ex miRNAs with clinically-relevant effect sizes (Cohen's d ≥ 0.4). Moreover, at 2 weeks, PAE increased correlated expression of ex miRNAs across chromosomes, suggesting potential co-regulation. In confirmatory factor analysis, the variance in expression for PAE-altered ex miRNAs at 2 weeks and 6.5 months was best described by three-factor models. Pathway analysis found that factors at 2 weeks were associated with (F1) cell maturation, cell cycle inhibition, and somatic growth, (F2) cell survival, apoptosis, cardiac development, and metabolism, and (F3) cell proliferation, skeletal development, hematopoiesis, and inflammation, and at 6.5 months with (F1) neurodevelopment, neural crest/mesoderm-derivative development and growth, (F2) immune system and inflammation, and (F3) somatic growth and cardiovascular development. Factors F3 at 2 weeks and F2 at 6.5 months partially mediated PAE-induced growth deficits, and factor F3 at 2 weeks partially mediated effects of PAE on infant recognition memory at 6.5 months. These findings indicate that infant ex miRNAs can help identify infants who will exhibit PAE-related deficits in growth and cognition.

The main thesis of the present study is to use the Bayesian structural equation modeling (BSEM) methodology of establishing approximate measurement invariance (A-MI) using data from a national examination in Saudi Arabia as an alternative to not meeting strong invariance criteria. Instead, we illustrate how to account for the absence of measurement invariance using relative compared to exact criteria. A secondary goal was to compare latent means across groups using invariant parameters only and through utilizing exact and relative evaluative-MI protocol suggested equivalence of the thresholds using prior variances equal to 0.10. Subsequent differences between groups were evaluated using effect size criteria and the prior-posterior predictive p -value (PPPP), which proved to be invaluable in attesting for differences that are beyond zero, some meaningless nonzero estimate, and the three commonly used indices of effect sizes described by Cohen in 1988 (i.e., .20, .50, and .80). Results substantiated the use of the PPPP for evaluating mean differences across groups when utilizing nonexact evaluative criteria., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2019.)

The purpose of the present study was to apply the methodology developed by Raykov on modeling item-specific variance for the measurement of internal consistency reliability with longitudinal data. Participants were a randomly selected sample of 500 individuals who took on a professional qualifications test in Saudi Arabia over four different occasions. Data were analyzed by use of confirmatory factor analysis, and item error variance was corrected for item specificity. The estimation of reliability involved composite index omega. Results indicated that the initially low and unacceptable levels of internal consistency reliability approached acceptable levels after accounting for item-specific variance. Findings were verified by testing whether the difference estimates of internal consistency reliability deviated from a zero-mean distribution using 10,000 replicated samples assuming a known (symmetric) or unknown (asymmetric) population distribution of the difference reliability coefficients. Percentage improvement reliability estimates indices were also estimated along with their 95% confidence intervals. Two appendices provide annotated Mplus syntax files for future use., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2019.)

The purpose of the present study was to explain the moderating role of rapid automatized naming (RAN) in word reading with a cusp catastrophe model. We hypothesized that increases in RAN performance speed beyond a critical point would be associated with the disruption in word reading, consistent with a "generic shutdown" hypothesis. Participants were 587 elementary schoolchildren (Grades 2-4), among whom 87 had reading comprehension difficulties per the IQ-achievement discrepancy criterion. Data were analyzed via a cusp catastrophe model derived from the nonlinear dynamics systems theory. Results indicated that for children with reading comprehension difficulties, as naming speed falls below a critical level, the association between core reading processes (word recognition and decoding) becomes chaotic and unpredictable. However, after the significant common variance attributed to motivation, emotional, and internalizing symptoms measures from RAN scores was partialed out, its role as a bifurcation variable was no longer evident. Taken together, these findings suggest that RAN represents a salient cognitive measure that may be associated with psychoemotional processes that are, at least in part, responsible for unpredictable and chaotic word reading behavior among children with reading comprehension deficits.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the hypothesis that a nonlinear relationship exists between a performance-classroom climate and the reading achievement of adolescent students with learning disabilities (LD). Participants were 62 students with LD (Grades 5-9) from public elementary schools in northern Greece. Classroom climate was assessed using the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Styles. Achievement in reading was assessed using a normative reading assessment. Data were analyzed by means of catastrophe theory in which the behavior is predicted as a function of two control variables, the asymmetry factor and the bifurcation factor. Reading achievement (word identification) was predicted by students' ability to decode pseudowords (asymmetry variable) and by a mastery or performance motivational discourse (bifurcation factor). Results indicated that in classrooms with a performance goal structure, the cusp model fit the data and accounted for 54% of the variance in real word identification. In this condition, the association between pseudoword reading and real word reading was nonlinear. When a mastery climate was tested as a bifurcation variable, results indicated that its effect was nonsignificant and that instead the linear model fitted the data more adequately. Thus, increases in a classroom's performance motivational discourse are associated with sudden, unpredictable, and discontinued changes in students' reading performance., (© Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2015.)

The purpose of the present studies was to test the hypothesis that the psychometric characteristics of ability scales may be significantly distorted if one accounts for emotional factors during test taking. Specifically, the present studies evaluate the effects of anxiety and motivation on the item difficulties of the Rasch model. In Study 1, the validity of a reading comprehension scale was evaluated using the Rasch model with 60 students with learning disabilities (LD). Item parameters were retested for the presence of anxiety and results indicated that the scale was substantially more difficult in its presence. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 using maladaptive motivation and extended with inclusion of adaptive motivational variables in order to reverse the effect. Results using students with and without LD indicated that the difficulty levels of the scale was lower for students with LD, in the presence of positive motivation, compared with a typical student group. Study 3 extended the dichotomous hierarchical generalized linear model with polytomous data. The measures of an ability test were adjusted for the presence of anxiety and results indicated that differential item functioning was observed at both the global level and the most difficult ability item. It is concluded that the difficulty levels of a scale are heavily influenced by situational factors during testing, such as students' entry levels of motivation and affect., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Little is known about early language development in infants who later develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We analyzed prospective data from 346 infants, some of whom were at high risk for developing ASD, to determine if language differences could be detected at 12 months of age in the infants who later were diagnosed with ASD. Analyses revealed lower receptive and expressive language scores in infants who later were diagnosed with ASD. Controlling for overall ability to understand and produce single words, a Rasch analysis indicated that infants who later developed ASD had a higher degree of statistically unexpected word understanding and production. At 12 months of age, quantitative and qualitative language patterns distinguished infants who later developed ASD from those who did not.

The research aims of the present study were: (a) to assess the hand preference of blind persons in everyday activities on the basis of gender, type of blindness, and age; and (b) to conduct the above analysis at both the item level and the latent trait level, after concluding the optimum factor structure of the instrument. Participants were 82 individuals with visual impairments and blindness. Their mean age was 29.99 years. Handedness was evaluated using a modified version of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, 1971). When comparing handedness preferences across age of sight loss, gender, and age groups results indicated that there were significant differences in preference for several everyday tasks across age of sight loss and age groups but not gender. These results were also confirmed at the latent-trait mean level. The present findings add to the extant literature that highlighted hand preferences for individuals with visual impairments and blindness., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This study aimed to measure the effects of contact with integrated students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) on the knowledge, attitudes and empathy of children (n = 224) from grades 4-6. A comparison group of children (n = 251) who had no contact with classmates with ASD was also included. All participants completed self-report instruments. The implementation of multilevel modeling and moderation analysis indicated significant effects on all dependent variables as well as differences across gender and grades. Implications are discussed regarding the role of contact on peers' conceptions of autism and their attitudes towards children with ASD within inclusionary settings.