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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.

In this study, we analyzed the emotional and motivational aspects characterizing the profile of university students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLD). We assessed 61 university students, 32 with SLD (age = 23.6) and 29 in the control group (age = 23.00). The results highlighted that individuals with SLD exhibit higher levels of anxiety and depression and lower resilience compared to the control group. The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale - Short Form, which explores perfectionism, did not reveal differences between the groups. Conversely, lower scores emerged in SLD students for the intrinsic motivation sub-scales of the Academic Motivation Scale. This indicates less engagement in studying out of personal cognitive curiosity. The Self-Regulated Knowledge Scale - University, which measures various cognitive strategies, showed significantly lower scores in the SLD group for knowledge linking, knowledge training, and knowledge critique. This suggests a lower frequency with which SLD students attempt to connect new knowledge with what they already possess, apply their knowledge, ask questions, and critically analyze what they have learned. Therefore, psychological and motivational consequences are evident in this population and can impact well-being and quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of literacy challenges among dyslexic adults remains a significant concern. This study investigates spelling deficits among highly educated adults with dyslexia learning a transparent orthography. Thirty-eight Italian dyslexic university students were examined and compared to a group of age- and education-matched typical readers. Firstly, we analyzed spelling performance using a Passage Dictation Test. Additionally, lists of words varying in length and word frequency were dictated under two experimental conditions: a normal condition (NC) and an articulatory suppression condition (ASC). The ASC assessed the participants' ability to spell with interference to the phonological (sublexical) spelling procedure, i.e., the most likely compensated spelling strategy of Italian dyslexic spellers. The results clearly indicated that, in spelling the meaningful passage, dyslexic participants underperformed compared to the controls, with a prevalence of lexical errors, despite the comparison with the normative reference data showing only mild spelling difficulties. In spelling isolated words in normal conditions, dyslexic participants performed within the reference norms and as accurately as control participants across all stimuli (short words, high- and low-frequency words), except for long words, where their spelling difficulties were evident. Articulatory suppression significantly impaired dyslexics' performance on short stimuli, reducing the usual sublexical advantage associated with them, and exacerbated misspellings on long words. Additionally, articulatory suppression disproportionately affected dyslexics' performance on high-frequency words, diminishing the typical lexical advantage associated with these words. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical, clinical, and educational implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was proposed that a reorganization of the relationships between cognitive functions occurs in dementia, a vision that surpasses the idea of a mere decline of specific domains. The complexity of cognitive structure, as assessed by neuropsychological tests, can be captured by exploratory graph analysis (EGA). EGA was applied to the neuropsychological assessment of people (humans) with subjective cognitive decline (SCD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease (AD; total N = 638). Both sexes were included. In AD, memory scores detach from the other cognitive functions, and memory subdomains reduce their reciprocal relation. SCD showed a pattern of segregated neuropsychological domains, and MCI showed a noisy and less stable pattern. Results suggest that AD drives a reorganization of cognitive functions toward a less-fractionated architecture compared with preclinical conditions. Cognitive functions show a reorganization that goes beyond the performance decline. Results also have clinical implications in test interpretations and usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined how whole-word lexical information and knowledge of distributional properties of orthography interact in children’s spelling. High- versus low-frequency words, which included inconsistently spelled segments occurring more or less frequently in the orthography, were used in two experiments: (a) word spelling; (b) lexical priming of pseudoword spelling. Participants were 1st-, 2nd-, and 4th-grade Italian children. Word spelling showed sensitivity to the distributional properties of orthography in all children: accuracy in spelling uncommon transcription segments emerged progressively as a function of word frequency and schooling. Lexical priming effects emerged as a function of age. When related primes contained an uncommon segment, 2nd- and 4th-graders preferred uncommon segments than common ones in spelling target pseudowords, thus inverting the response trend found in the control condition. A smaller but significant effect was present in 1st- graders, who, unlike 2nd- and 4th-graders, still preferred common segments, only slightly increasing the use of uncommon ones. A larger priming effect emerged for high-frequency primes than low-frequency ones. Results indicate that children learning to spell in a transparent orthography are sensitive to the distributional properties of the orthography. However, whole-word lexical representations are also used, with larger effects in more skilled pupils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution aims to highlight the importance of the early screening within the learning disabilities as a common good. Specific Learning disabilities (DSAs) are due to a relative impairment of the child's ability to learn in the presence of an adequate intellectual level and in absence of neurological pathologies and sensory deficits, and limit the activities of the child's everyday life. In the last few years, this issue has considerably increased in Italy. Concerning the Italian language, the prevalence of DSAs ranges between 3% and 4% of the developing population for the Italian language (Consensus Conference, DSAs, ISS 2011). The law 170, October 8th 2010 declares that the school has the task of detecting early suspected DSA cases. Schools represent a common good and therefore it is necessary to think about education as a promoter of equality, inclusion and equality. Screening activities in schools can play a significant role in raising awareness and in staff training, enabling not only an early recognition of DSAs, but also implementing appropriate teaching measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]