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This study aims to adapt and validate the Need for Cognition Scale – Short Version (NFCS; Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) in Italian adolescents. This instrument measures individual differences in the motivation and enjoyment in being involved in effortful cognitive activities. The Italian version of the scale, translated and adapted from the original version, is composed of 18 items and was administered to secondary school students. The confirmatory factorial analysis proved that the scale had two correlated factors measuring two different dimensions of motivations, namely approach and avoidance of effortful cognitive activities. The scale is also invariant for gender and for the administration measurement (on-line and paper-pencil). Results also indicated that the NFCS had good reliability indices and satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity. Thanks to its good psychometric properties, the Need for Cognition Scale has been proven to be a useful tool in both educational and research areas

Il contributo affronta la problematica della rilevazione di eventuali disturbi dell'apprendimento del linguaggio scritto (dislessia, disortografia) in bambini bilingui. Di fronte a questi studenti vi è infatti sempre il rischio di sottovalutare difficoltà, che vengono ascritte al bilinguismo, oppure di considerare come indicatori di disturbo specifico di apprendimento delle difficoltà dovute alla minore esposizione alla lingua italiana. L'utilizzo di strumenti di valutazione standardizzati sulla popolazione italiana rischia infatti di rilevare molti 'falsi positivi', in quanto i livelli di competenza linguistica raggiunti dai bambini bilingui sono spesso inferiori a quelli dei coetanei monolingui, pur in assenza di disturbi specifici. Il capitolo offre indicazioni agli insegnanti e agli specialisti per poter rilevare e valutare in un modo più adeguato le traiettorie evolutive dei bambini bilingui.

Le BAS3 sono il risultato di più di 40 anni di ricerca, condotta presso l’Università di Manchester e, parallelamente, negli Stati Uniti; nel Regno Unito, esse costituiscono uno strumento di riferimento fondamentale per la diagnosi dei disturbi del neurosviluppo. Ora disponibili anche nell’adattamento italiano, le BAS3 forniscono la possibilità di valutare il livello di abilità del bambino in un’ampia gamma di funzioni dominio-generali (linguaggio, ragionamento, abilità visuo-spaziale, memoria, velocità di elaborazione) e dominio-specifiche (lettura, scrittura, calcolo). L’utilizzo del modello psicometrico dell’Item Response Theory permette un’elevata flessibilità nella scelta degli item da somministrare, in funzione dell’abilità del bambino, per ottenere misure valide e attendibili anche per bambini che presentano caratteristiche atipiche, sia al di sotto che al di sopra di quanto atteso per la loro età cronologica.

Le BAS3 sono il risultato di più di 40 anni di ricerca, condotta presso l’Università di Manchester e, parallelamente, negli Stati Uniti; nel Regno Unito, esse costituiscono uno strumento di riferimento fondamentale per la diagnosi dei disturbi del neurosviluppo. Ora disponibili anche nell’adattamento italiano, le BAS3 forniscono la possibilità di valutare il livello di abilità del bambino in un’ampia gamma di funzioni dominio-generali (linguaggio, ragionamento, abilità visuo-spaziale, memoria, velocità di elaborazione) e dominio-specifiche (lettura, scrittura, calcolo). L’utilizzo del modello psicometrico dell’Item Response Theory permette un’elevata flessibilità nella scelta degli item da somministrare, in funzione dell’abilità del bambino, per ottenere misure valide e attendibili anche per bambini che presentano caratteristiche atipiche, sia al di sotto che al di sopra di quanto atteso per la loro età cronologica.

Several studies proved that detecting morphemic constituents in long strings of letters leads to a reduction of latency and of error rates in reading aloud derived nouns and pseudo-derived non-words. Such effects are particularly evident in children with dyslexia, who struggle to process long stimuli as a whole. In this study we used eye-movement recording to get evidence of the complex interplay between base- and whole-word processing in reading aloud derived nouns. Sixty-two typically developing children, attending 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, were asked to read derived words in a sentence context. Target words were 41 nouns derived from noun bases (e.g., umorista, ‘humorist’). Data showed that base and word frequency affected early phases of word processing (first fixation duration), but in an opposite way: Base frequency had a facilitative effect on first fixation, whereas word frequency exerted an inhibitory effect. These results were interpreted as a competition between early accessed base words (e.g., camino, ‘chimney’) and target words (e.g., caminetto, ‘fireplace’). Such competition has been still observed in the later stages of processing (gaze duration) only for children with low level of reading proficiency (more than 2 SD below norms). In these children, the higher base frequency is, the longer the gaze duration. Data on first fixation duration confirms that base word works as an effective head start; however, results from gaze duration suggest that, for children with low-proficiency, difficulty in accessing base+suffix combination can slow down whole-word production.

The aim of this work is to investigate the factors promoting students’ engagement at school and supporting their well-being experience. According to the Positive Education there is a strong relationship between school environment and student’s well-being. Moreover, the quality of the school climate perceived by the students was found to influence engagement in school activities, as well. In this study, 153 students (M = 67) attending 10th grade were presented with tests and questionnaires to assess individual assets (personality traits, literacy skills), emerging appraisals (school-climate, well-being experience) and emerging actions (school engagement), according to the Student Well-Being Model. Path analysis showed that the best model does include neither individual assets nor direct effect of school climate on engagement, as the effect of school climate on engagement is mediated by well-being experience. The main result is that school climate has been confirmed as an important factor to be considered to improve engagement in school activities, but it is effective only when its influence can modify the well-being experience of the students. Moreover, the lack of significant effects of individual assets in the model suggests that improving school climate means to support well-being experience and, indirectly school engagement, irrespective to learning abilities and personality traits. This work encourages working in/with schools to implement positive education programs that support and sustain a positive school climate and culture for school-community wellbeing.

Although Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) are described as specific difficulties in one or more academic areas, often socio-emotional problems are also reported to be related to well-being and school engagement. Moreover, recent evidence shows that emotional problems and reduced social support predict problematic use of new technologies, such as a smartphone, that can, in turn, increase these problems. In this study, we aimed to investigate socio-emotional functioning and its relation to well- being, school engagement, and problematic smartphone use. Social and emotional skills of 19 adolescents with a diagnosis of SLD and 19 control adolescents were assessed through a narrative test; adolescents were requested to narrate complete stories elicited by pictures representing social situations. Information on well-being and problematic smartphone use were collected through questionnaires. The comparison between groups showed differences in cognitive-social skills, although no significant differences in emotional functioning were found. Additionally, the perception of the social environment as supportive and trustworthy was related to general well-being for both groups, whereas the perception of limits and rules set by the adult world appeared to be related to a decreased investment in learning processes only for the SLD students. Finally, correlation analysis showed that smartphone use was associated with reduced perception of social support and to a decreased ability to understand and solve social situations. These results assert the critical role played by social information processing and social support in terms of well-being in adolescence, and contribute to enhancing knowledge of the mechanisms underlying problematic smartphone use in a clinical sample.

This contribution offers an overview on the main studies carried out on the difference between verb and noun processing in adults and children. This topic will be discussed, in particular, according to the perspective we proposed in collaboration with Cristina Burani, focused on the role of language distributional properties in word processing. This issue has been developed in the last 20 years by assessing differences between words with small inflectional family size, i.e. nouns and adjectives (which in Italian can be inflected in 2-4 word forms), and words with large inflectional family size, i.e. verbs (which can be inflected in up to 50 different word forms). This comparison was made through several tasks (lexical decision, progressive de-masking, reading aloud, a grammatical-class switching task, picture naming) and in different populations, i.e. skilled adult readers, adults with aphasia, adults with Parkinson’s Disease, typically developing children and children with dyslexia. In all these studies we found that verb bases are more likely to be processed as base + suffix combination, and are usually associated with slower RTs and lower accuracy than noun bases. Neuroimaging techniques, used in some of these studies, showed that different brain areas are activated in noun and verb processing, as verb recognition seems to involve selection and inhibition mechanisms that are not detected in the case of noun processing. As for nouns, both whole-word and base-word representations seem to be available and their activation is mainly affected by word- and base-frequency, respectively. Overall, data from these studies suggests that the difference between nouns and verbs can depend not only on grammatical, syntactic, and semantic features, but also on the different morphological family size, which might determine difficulty in selection and inhibition processes.

By gathering together a body of work, across a range of orthographies, on the relationship between morphological processing and reading acquisition, an overview of the development of this relationship begins to emerge. The articles in this research topic offer insights into the relationship between morphological processing and semantics, that take account of the typicality of the acquisition process and the nature and depth of the orthography in question.

I pazienti con malattia di Parkinson (MP) mostrano un deficit nella produzione del verbo come possibile espressione di una disfunzione esecutiva nei processi di selezione di parole. Tuttavia, in una condizione in cui il nome deve essere selezionato tra un numero maggiore di alternative rispetto al verbo, la produzione del nome diventa più lenta e meno accurata. Il Giro Frontale Inferiore sinistro (GFIs) appare cruciale nei processi di selezione. Nel presente studio esploriamo se l’abilità nei processi di selezione di nomi e verbi è correlata allo spessore corticale del GFIs in pazienti con MP. Nove pazienti con MP destra-danno emisferico sinistro (MPD-ES), 7 pazienti con MP sinistra-danno emisferico destro (MPS-ED) e 16 controlli sani hanno eseguito compiti morfologici che differiscono per numero di alternative tra cui la risposta deve essere selezionata: derivare nomi da verbi (VN), [“osservazione” da “osservare”] e generare verbi da nomi (NV) [“fallire” da “fallimento”]. Sono stati registrati accuratezza e tempi di reazione (TR). I 32 soggetti hanno ricevuto anche un esame di RM strutturale. Lo spessore corticale del GFI è stato determinato usando FreeSurfer. Nella produzione VN i pazienti MPD-ES mostrano minore accuratezza rispetto ai pazienti MPS-ED (58% vs. 74%). Inoltre, accuratezza e TR correlano con lo spessore corticale del GFI solo nei MPD-ES e solo con il GFIs, non solo per la produzione del nome ma anche del verbo. I risultati suggeriscono che il deficit di selezione emerge in funzione della difficoltà del compito in presenza di una disfunzione del GFIs, coerentemente con l'ipotesi che la produzione di parole richiede di risolvere una competizione tra più alternative. Tuttavia, non solo la richiesta di risorse esecutive, ma anche la natura linguistica degli stimoli è rilevante nei processi di selezione. Risorse esecutive e linguaggio interagiscono nel GFIs nei processi di selezione di parole e confermano il ruolo del GFIs nella produzione linguist

Introduzione: I bambini con difficoltà di lettura e scrittura spesso hanno scarsa fiducia nelle proprie capacità, bassa motivazione e bassa autostima e temono di essere coinvolti nelle attività scolastiche, anticipando il proprio fallimento (Graham et al., 2012; Mason et al., 2012). Inoltre, le abilità di lettura e scrittura influenzano lo status sociale e l'immagine che il bambino acquisisce all'interno della classe (Andolfi et al., 2015; Cornoldi e De Beni, 2001; Mugnaini et al., 2009). Il presente studio mira a valutare se EUREKA (EntUsiasmo, RicErca e CApacità) (Traficante, 2017), adattamento italiano del programma di potenziamento linguistico RAVE-O (Reading, Automaticity, Vocabulary, Engagement-Orthography) (Wolf et al., 2000), sia in grado non solo di migliorare le abilità di lettura e scrittura dei bambini, ma anche la loro esperienza di benessere, in quanto il programma propone un contesto che permette loro di sentirsi competenti e fare esperienza di autoefficacia nelle attività scolastiche, sviluppando relazioni positive e sentimenti di appartenenza al gruppo dei pari. Metodo:Partecipanti: 60 bambini italiani (78.3% maschi) di II classe primaria con punteggi ai test di lettura e/o scrittura inferiori a -0.5 z. Strumenti: sono state utilizzate le CPM (Raven, 1965), le Prove di lettura MT (Cornoldi e Colpo, 2006), il test CEO (Bozzo et al., 2003), il CIT-Child (Andolfi et al., 2017), il QBS (Tobia e Marzocchi, 2015). Procedura. Dopo l’assessment preliminare (T0), sono stati individuati tre gruppi di 20 bambini ciascuno, pareggiati per età, genere, abilità di lettura e scrittura, punteggi di benessere. Nella fase T1 (14 settimane), il gruppo A (Controllo) non ha ricevuto alcun trattamento, il gruppo B si è esercitato con il software iWinABC, il gruppo C ha partecipato al programma EUREKA. Nella fase T2 sono stati applicati tutti gli strumenti utilizzati nella fase T0 (tranne le CPM). Risultati:I risultati ottenuti tramite ANOVA miste, con un fattore

AIMS: Patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) show a verb production deficit. Different hypotheses have been advanced, morphological difficulties of verbs compared to nouns, as well as degradation of action representation. However, in an experimental condition in which nouns must be selected from a larger set of alternatives, Silveri et al. (2018) found that nouns became more difficult to produce, probably for the dysexecutive disorder related to the fronto-striatal damage typical of PD. Neuroimaging studies suggest that the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) is crucial in the word selection processes. The purpose of the present study was to explored if the ability to select words is related to the cortical thickness of the left IFG. MATERIALS: Twelve right-sided PD with nigrostriatal hypofunctionality in the left hemisphere (RPD-LH), 9 left-sided PD with nigrostriatal hypofunctionality in the right hemisphere (LPD-RH) and 19 healthy controls (HC) were asked to produce nouns and verbs in derivation and generation morphology tasks. METHODS: Participants were requested to produce Nouns from Verbs (VN: ‘osservazione’ from ‘osservare’) [‘observation’ from ‘to observe’], a morphology derivation task in which nouns must be selected from a set of alternatives larger, and to generate Verbs from Nouns (NV: ‘fallire’ from ‘fallimento’) [‘to fail’ from ‘failure’], a morphology generation task with only one alternative. Both accuracy and RTs were collected. All subjects received a structural MRI examination. Cortical thickness for IFG subregions and volumetric measurements for subcortical regions (caudate, putamen, pallidus) were computed using FreeSurfer. Non-parametric analyses were carried out on accuracy and RTs, to assess differences among the three groups in the two tasks. Partial correlations were computed between NV and VN tasks and thickness of cortical regions. RESULTS: RPD-LH patients were less accurate than LPD-RH patients in the VN derivation task (accuracy: 66 % vs.

Verbs are more difficult to produce than nouns. Thus, if executive resources are reduced as in Parkinson's disease (PD), verbs are penalized compared to nouns. However, in an experimental condition in which it is the noun that must be selected from a larger number of alternatives compared to the verb, it is the noun production that becomes slower and more prone to errors. Indeed, patients are slower and less accurate than normal subjects when required to produce nouns from verbs (VN) in a morphology derivation tasks (e.g., “osservazione” from “osservare”) [“observation” from “observe”] than verbs from nouns in a morphology generation task, in which only a verb can be generated from the noun (NV) (e.g., “fallire” from “fallimento”) [“to fail” from “failure”]. In the Italian language morphology, in fact, generation and derivation tasks differ in the number of lexical entries among which the response must be selected. The left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) has been demonstrated to be involved in selection processes. In the present study, we explored if the ability to select words is related to the cortical thickness of the left IFG. Twelve right-sided PD with nigrostriatal hypofunctionality in the left hemisphere (RPD-LH), 9 left-sided PD with nigrostriatal hypofunctionality in the right hemisphere (LPD-RH) and 19 healthy controls (HC) took part in the study. NV and VN production tasks were administered; accuracy and reaction times (RTs) were collected. All 40 subjects received a structural MRI examination. Cortical thickness of the IFG and volumetric measurements for subcortical regions, thought to support selection processes, were computed using FreeSurfer. In VN derivation tasks RPD-LH patients were less accurate than LPD-RH patients (accuracy: 66% vs. 77%). No difference emerged among the three groups in RTs. Task accuracy/RTs and IFG thickness showed a significant correlation only in RPD-LH. Not only nouns (as expected) but also verbs were correlated with cortical

Dyslexia is a term that refers to a variety of reading impairments, each resulting from damage to a different component of the reading model. This view is common in the study of acquired dyslexias, but is less accepted in the realm of developmental dyslexia. In this study we examine whether we can identify various types of developmental dyslexia (Friedmann & Coltheart, in press) in Italian readers, by using a reading test that includes stimuli that are sensitive to the various types of dyslexia. The new test is aimed to detect not only surface, deep, and phonological developmental dyslexias, but also dyslexias that result from a deficit of the orthographic-visual analyzer, which involves three main processing units: letter identification, letter position detection, and letter-to-word binding (Ellis & Young, 1988). METHOD Participants. 262 primary school children (from 2nd to 5th grade) were assessed (50% Male). Materials. We developed and administered a new reading test that includes lists of 165 words, 40 nonwords, and 25 word pairs, created to detect the various types of dyslexia. A specific coding scheme for the classification of reading errors was developed (adapted from the TILTAN battery: (Friedmann & Gvion, 2003). In addition, we ran standard measures of reading skills (Cornoldi & Colpo, 2006; Zoccolotti et al. , 2005). Analysis. Poor readers (N = 52; 20%) and skilled readers (N= 210) were identified on the basis of the standard measures. An analysis of error types was carried out on the skilled readers’ performance, to obtain normative profiles for each grade. RESULTS Accuracy for skilled readers was 90%, and 75% for poor readers. The agreement between standard tests and the new assessment procedure in identifying poor readers was 94%: The new diagnostic assessment detected 11 poor readers who were not identified with the usual diagnostic procedure. In Italian skilled readers, all expected types of errors were found. Percentage distributions of errors for wo

L’individuazione precoce di traiettorie di sviluppo atipiche (dislessia, disortografia e disgrafia) e l’implementazione di interventi mirati a ridurre le difficoltà di apprendimento (non riconducibili a veri e propri disturbi specifici) non solo possono promuovere le abilità scolastiche, ma consentono anche di prevenire il disagio, sostenendo autoefficacia, motivazione allo studio e autostima (Arsa & Sibelia, 2013). Il testo presenta un intervento educativo, EUREKA (EntUsiasmo, RicErca, CApacità), fondato su modelli cognitivi e psicolinguistici, per il potenziamento delle abilità di lettura e scrittura da implementare nel gruppo classe o nel piccolo gruppo secondo i principi del cooperative learning. Il training consiste in attività di potenziamento della sensibilità alle proprietà distribuzionali della lingua (segmenti ortografici, rime, morfemi, parole) e mira a sviluppare strategie metacognitive per la comprensione del testo. Le modalità di conduzione del gruppo sono finalizzate anche al sostegno della motivazione e del senso di autoefficacia nell’apprendimento della lettura e della scrittura. In particolare, il programma educativo EUREKA e l’originale da cui deriva, in lingua inglese, RAVE-O (Reading, Automaticity, Vocabulary, Engagement-Orthography) (Wolf, Miller e Donnelly, 2000), danno risalto non solo alla fonologia, ma anche a componenti linguistiche quali il lessico e la semantica, fornendo strumenti e strategie appropriate per migliorare le capacità di lettura e scrittura (Wolf et al., 2009). L’idea centrale intorno a cui è stato costruito il programma è che più informazioni il bambino possiede su una parola (cioè, fonemi, sequenze ortografiche, significati, usi sintattici e struttura morfologica), più velocemente la parola viene decodificata, recuperata e compresa. La struttura delle lezioni varia, ma include sempre strategie volte a migliorare il recupero rapido delle parole, tra cui l'esplorazione di pattern ortografici comuni e dei relat