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Although emerging evidence suggests that developmental dyslexia shows deficits in visual-spatial attention, previous studies have also confirmed that visual-spatial attention may be particularly important for reading among Chinese children with dyslexia. However, the visual-spatial attention deficit of dyslexic Chinese children has not been fully investigated. Therefore, the present study employed the cue-target paradigm and examined whether the earlier processing of visual-spatial attention deficit would be found in Chinese children with dyslexia. More importantly, we combined read level match design to determine the process of visual-spatial attention in Chinese children with dyslexia related to developmental delay or cognitive deficits. Results showed that developmental dyslexia (DD) group exhibited no cueing effect in the cue-target tasks when the stimulus onset synchronies (SOAs) were set to 100 ms, as compared with the children's chronological age (CA). With the cueing effect as the index, we also observed that the CA group had a robust facilitation effect in early processing of visual-spatial attention. Importantly, the DD group presented an impaired facilitation effect as the same reading level (RL) group controls when SOAs were 100 ms and 350 ms. These findings suggested that impaired facilitation effect in Chinese dyslexic children is due to a developmental delay., Author(s): Baojun Duan [sup.1] , Datao Wang [sup.1] , Wenxue Li [sup.2] , Xiaofeng Ma [sup.3] , Aibao Zhou [sup.3] [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412133.6, 0000 0004 1799 3571, School [...]

Background: Comorbidity between non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and depression and anxiety was common. In the framework of network theory, the examination of directionality and gender differences in longitudinal relationships at the symptom level made a significant contribution to the understanding of comorbidity. Therefore, this study employed cross-lagged panel network analysis to investigate the longitudinal interrelations between NSSI and depression and anxiety in Chinese adolescents, with a focus on gender differences. Method: The study was conducted with a sample of 884 senior high school students (F/M: 481/403; mean age: 15.19 ± 0.48 years) from Jinchang City, Gansu Province, China. All respondents completed the Adolescent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Assessment Questionnaire and the two subscales (depression and anxiety) of the Brief Symptom Inventory at two intervals. The data were estimated in R 4.2.0 to construct the cross-lagged panel network (CLPN). Results: The CLPN results uncovered the gender differences. For boys, self-hitting and feeling scared emerged as central symptoms. Cutting predicted subsequent feelings of sadness (β = − 0.57), tension (β = − 0.52) and indifference (β = − 0.49), potentially serving as a bridge connecting NSSI to depression and anxiety. For girls, biting themselves and feeling scared were central symptoms. Carving and skin rubbing predicted subsequent feelings of indifference (β = − 0.31, −0.21), bridging NSSI to depression and anxiety. In addition, feeling scared emerged as the key bridge symptom connecting depression and anxiety. Conclusion: The findings showed the gender-specific developmental characteristics of the directional relations between NSSI and depression and anxiety at the symptom level. They provided new insights into the comorbidity of NSSI and depression and anxiety, carrying important implications for the screening and intervention of adolescent NSSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the mediation role of smartphone addiction on the relationship between parent-child relationships and the intensity of use of social network sites (SNSs), as well as the moderation effect of anxiety, this research conducted self-report questionnaires of the Social networking site (SNS) Usage Questionnaire, Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, Smartphone Addiction Scale and Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment with 719 adolescents. The results showed that (1) the parent-child relationship negatively predicts SNS usage and (2) smartphone addiction plays a mediating role in the link between the parent-child relationship and SNS usage. (3) The relationship between the parent-child relationship and SNS usage is moderated by anxiety (on the first mediation path), and low levels of anxiety can mitigate the negative impact of the parent-child relationship on smartphone addiction, thus also mitigating the negative effects of the parent-child relationship on SNS usage. Our conclusion highlighted the vital role of the parent-child relationship and anxiety on the influence of smartphone addiction and the intensity of use of SNSs among adolescents. Our research also provides clinical implications: (1) teachers in high school can adopt family group counseling or emotion regulation workshop to help adolescents to prevent addiction to smartphones and social network sites; (2) we can reduce addictive behaviors by designing a series of intervention sessions to improve parent-child relationships and reduce anxiety for adolescents who have been addicted to smartphone and social network sites.

Formal education would promote symbolic number processing ability, but the relationship between non‐symbolic number sense and mathematical education remains controversial. The current investigation hypothesized that non‐symbolic number sense is independent from the limited human experience of mathematical education, while symbolic number processing could be influenced by related closely to mathematical education. Experiment 1 compared both non‐symbolic number sense and arithmetic computation of undergraduates majoring in STEM fields and humanities. Experiment 2 compared homologous undergraduates from China and Kyrgyzstan in non‐symbolic number sense and mathematical cognitive processing. Both of two experiments found that mathematical education was significantly associated with symbolic mathematics, but not with non‐symbolic number sense. The results suggest that while mathematical education might improve symbolic mathematics, it does not alter non‐symbolic number sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family environment affects children's reading comprehension ability. In poverty-stricken parts of rural China, some parents have been migrant workers for many years. It is common for left-behind children to have one or both parents permanently missing. This study explores the impact of parental absence on children's reading comprehension. We measured the reading comprehension of 903 children (467 left-behind and 436 parented), using the Chinese Primary School Students' Reading Comprehension Ability Scale. After controlling for the parents' levels of education, reading input, and interest variables, we found that children with absent parents had significantly lower reading comprehension scores than parented children; they struggled to understand chapter layout, the author's intentions, writing technique, evaluation, and appreciation. While children with absent fathers received the same scores as parented children, those with absent mothers received significantly lower scores. Clearly, absent mothers have a greater impact on children's reading comprehension than absent fathers.

This study investigates 727 parents from China, Japan, and Korea by a self-devised scale and compares the differences in their expectation of early childhood education in cross-cultural backgrounds. The result shows that parents from the three countries have a positive attitude toward their children's development. The main effect of nations on such factors as individual development, close attention to diet, willpower training, moral judgment, and emotional exchange with adults is significant, while the two-way interaction between nations and child gender, nations and child age, and the three-way interaction between nations, child gender, and child age are not significant.

Using data provided by approximately 100 second graders each from Beijing, Hong Kong, Korea, and the United States, we investigated relations among phonological awareness, morphological structure awareness, vocabulary, and word recognition. Our results indicate that across languages, phonological awareness and morphological structure awareness are similarly associated with one another and with vocabulary knowledge; however, phonological awareness and morphological structure awareness have different associations with word recognition in different scripts among second graders. Specifically, phonological awareness may be more important for reading in English and Korean than for reading in Chinese. In contrast, morphological structure awareness may be more important for reading in Chinese and Korean than for reading in English at this grade level.

A recent study showed that a brief intervention involving reflection on personal values (T1: 2 February 2020) can buffer the anxiety response one week later (T2: Feb. 9) during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The present study reported the results from a follow-up two weeks (T3: Feb. 16) and one-month later (T4: Mar. 1). Two hundred and twenty participants were recruited via convenience sampling and randomly assigned either to the value-affirmation condition or to a control condition, with 110 participants in each condition. The results revealed that similar to T2, participants who affirmed their values showed a lower anxiety response than those in the control group at T3, despite the pandemic continuing to increase rapidly during that time. Meanwhile, anxiety decreased in both groups at T4 as the pandemic eased. Findings suggest that self-affirmations can help reduce stress in the face of the COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]