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Comparing parent-child interaction during wordless book reading, print book reading and imaginative play
- Sandra J. Mathers, Alex Hodgkiss, Pinar Kolancali, Sophie A. Booton, Zhaoyu Wang, Victoria A. Murphy
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- Journal:
- Journal of Child Language , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 18 March 2024, pp. 1-26
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This study investigated differences in adult-child language interactions when parents and their three-to-four-year old children engage in wordless book reading, text-and-picture book reading and a small-world toy play activity. Twenty-two parents recorded themselves completing each activity at home with their child. Parent input was compared across contexts, focusing on interactive and conceptual domains: use of open prompts, expansions or extensions of children’s utterances, and use of decontextualised (abstract) language. Use of linguistic expansions was greater during book reading than toy play. Parents used open questions and added contingent conceptual information more often when reading wordless books than in both other conditions. Findings suggest that wordless books may combine the benefits of open-endedness and linguistic content based around a narrative. Parents’ use of abstract language also varied by condition. This study extends understanding of the role of activity context in shaping children’s language learning environments.
51 Longitudinal Performance on the NIH Toolbox Cognition Module in a Cognitive Aging Sample
- Molly A Mather, Emma J Pollner, Emily H Ho, Richard Gershon, Sandra Weintraub
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 359-360
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Objective:
As the older adult population increases in the coming decades, the number of persons that develop dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (DAT) will increase accordingly. Though curative treatment for Alzheimer’s disease remains elusive, early detection of cognitive decline allows for initiation of pharmacological treatment to slow disease progression and non-pharmacological approaches to support quality of life and well-being of affected individuals and their care partners. Streamlined approaches that bridge the gap between brief screenings and comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation are needed. The NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB) is a brief, easily administered, computerized cognitive battery that assesses various aspects of both fluid and crystallized cognitive abilities. ARMADA (Advancing Reliable Measurement in Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Aging) is a multi-site study that aims to validate the NIHTB across the spectrum from normal aging to DAT. The current study utilized longitudinal data from ARMADA to determine whether performance on the NIHTB-CB detects cognitive decline in persons with normal cognition (NC), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and mild DAT over the span of two years. We predicted that scores would decline for the MCI and DAT groups, but not for the NC group.
Participants and Methods:Participants were 191 participants drawn from the larger ARMADA cohort aged 65-84 (nNC = 118, nMCI = 47, nDAT = 26) that completed the NIHTB-CB at baseline and 12 months. The clinical groups were significantly older than the NC group at baseline (MNC = 72.72, MMCI = 76.63, MDAT = 75.42; p < .001) and the NC and MCI groups had significantly more years of education than the DAT group (MNC = 17.03, MMCI = 16.83, MDAT = 15.54; p = .008).
Results:Mixed model ANOVAs determined differences in uncorrected NIHTB-CB scores between clinical groups at baseline and 12 months, controlling for age and education. There were significant interactions between time and clinical group for Flanker (p < .001), Pattern Comparison (p < .001), and Picture Vocabulary (p = .001), such that the DAT group demonstrated a more negative slope of change than the NC and MCI groups. For Oral Reading, the MCI group demonstrated a more negative slope of change than the NC and DAT groups (p = .01).
Conclusions:Differential score trajectories were found for the Flanker task, with a more negative pattern of change in scores in the DAT group compared to the NC and MCI groups. Contrary to expectation, scores decreased for the two crystallized subtests across groups, which may reflect regression to the mean given high baseline scores, especially for Picture Vocabulary; however, these results were also moderated by group with less decline in scores in the NC group, which may indicate involvement of non-crystallized abilities in executing a single word comprehension task. Group differences were subtle, which may in part reflect the relatively short period of follow up. The Flanker task appears to be most sensitive to decline in mild DAT compared to MCI and NC. Results provide preliminary support for the utility of NIHTB-CB in detecting cognitive decline along the cognitive aging to DAT spectrum.
45 Longitudinal Performance on Three Words Three Shapes Test in Primary Progressive Aphasia
- Janelli Rodriguez, Molly A Mather, Sarah N Simon, Christina A Coventry, Emily Rogalski, M.-Marsel Mesulam, Sandra Weintraub
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 918-919
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Objective:
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a dementia syndrome characterized by initial development of progressive language deficits in the absence of impairment in other cognitive domains. It has historically been difficult to assess the presence or nature of true memory deficits in this population due to interference from language disturbance on task performance. The Three Words Three Shapes test (3W3S) is a relatively easy memory task that evaluates both verbal and nonverbal memory within the same modality and assesses different aspects of memory, including incidental encoding, effortful encoding, delayed recall, and recognition. Persons with PPA show a material-specific dissociation in performance on 3W3S; specifically, deficits in incidental encoding and recall are limited to verbal, not nonverbal material, in PPA, with preserved recognition of both types of information. However, it is unknown whether this pattern persists over time as the disease progresses.
Participants and Methods:Participants were 73 participants enrolled in an observational PPA research study at the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease (Mage = 66.75 years, SD = 6.77; Meducation = 16.11 years, SD = 2.38; 51% female). Participants were subtyped as semantic (n = 15), logopenic (n = 27), or agrammatic PPA (n = 31) based on Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011, using 3W3S and other neuropsychological measures as described previously. Participants were followed at 2-year intervals and tests were administered longitudinally. All participants in the current study had 3W3S scores from at least two research visits collected between September 2012 and September 2022.
Results:There were no significant baseline group differences on 3W3S performance, except for better incidental encoding in the logopenic than the semantic group for shapes (p = .040) and words (p = .043). We then conducted a mixed measures ANOVAs to determine baseline within-person comparisons between words vs shapes. Within individuals, performance on incidental encoding, effortful encoding, and recognition was worse for words than shapes (ps < .01). There was an interaction between material and group for delayed recall (p < .001) such that there was a significantly larger discrepancy between word and shape recall in the semantic (Mdiff = -9.14) compared to logopenic (Mdiff = -3.07) and agrammatic groups (Mdiff = -2.13). Repeated measures ANOVAs determined changes in scores over time collapsed across PPA subtypes. Incidental encoding (ps = <.01), effortful encoding (ps < .05), and delayed recall (ps < .01) declined for both words and shapes over time. Copy and recognition of words (ps < .05), but not shapes declined over time.
Conclusions:The current results are consistent with prior findings of relative preservation of memory for nonverbal compared to verbal material in PPA as measured by 3W3S, especially in the semantic subtype. Learning and recall of words and shapes declined over time in all groups, whereas there was selective decline in copy and recognition of words compared to shapes. These results provide evidence of differential patterns of decline in certain aspects of memory over time in PPA and highlight the relative preservation of memory in this language-focused dementia even over time.
Measuring knowledge of multiple word meanings in children with English as a first and an additional language and the relationship to reading comprehension
- Sophie A BOOTON, Alex HODGKISS, Sandra MATHERS, Victoria A MURPHY
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- Journal:
- Journal of Child Language / Volume 49 / Issue 1 / January 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 18 March 2021, pp. 164-196
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Polysemy, or the property of words having multiple meanings, is a prevalent feature of vocabulary. In this study we validated a new measure of polysemy knowledge for children with English as an additional language (EAL) and a first language (EL1) and examined the relationship between polysemy knowledge and age, language status, and reading comprehension. Participants were 112 British children aged 5 to 6 (n = 61) or 8 to 9 years (n = 51), 37% of whom had EAL (n = 41). Participants completed the new measure of knowledge of polysemes, along with other measures of language, literacy and cognitive ability. The new measure was reliable and valid with EAL and EL1 children. Age and language status predicted children's polyseme knowledge. Polyseme knowledge uniquely contributed to reading comprehension after controlling for age, language status, non-verbal intelligence, time reading in English, and breadth of vocabulary. This research underscores the importance of polysemy for children's linguistic development.
eight - Childcare in the pre-school years
- Kirstine Hansen, University College London Institute of Education, Heather Joshi, University College London, Shirley Dex, University College London
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- Book:
- Children of the 21st century (Volume 2)
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 01 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 17 February 2010, pp 131-152
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Summary
Introduction
For the children born around the turn of the millennium pre-school care and education became a near universal experience. This reflects the spread of education to younger children and the increasing ‘normality’ of mothers taking paid work outside the home. This chapter is concerned with the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) children's experience of care from people other than the mother, with an emphasis on those children who attended group childcare settings at some point during their pre-school years. It begins by outlining the evolving experience of non-maternal care for all the children in the MCS, across the UK, from infancy to primary school. It goes on to put a microscope on 301 childcare settings attended by a sub-group of children in England in 2005, providing a detailed picture of the services that children received in an unprecedented era of public and private provision. We compare the families who did, and did not, use centre-based care, then describe the quality of centre-based care experienced by the children who did attend, and explore differential access to high-quality services. We also describe the characteristics of centres that were providing high-quality care because they may provide guidance for good practice. Finally, we discuss the results in terms of government policy, ending with recommendations that could improve the quality of childcare provision.
Four questions are addressed in this chapter:
1) What are the childcare experiences of children in the MCS?
2) Is social class related to patterns of childcare use?
3) What is the quality of the group childcare experienced by the MCS, and does it vary according to family and child characteristics?
4) Which characteristics of childcare centres are related to high-quality provision?
What is childcare?
The term ‘childcare’ has various, overlapping, definitions. It refers to services that provide custody and nurture to children whose parents are not present, for a variety of reasons, and a variety of timespans. The parents may be unable to take direct care of their children, because a mother is working outside the home, because the parents are incapable of looking after their children or because they choose to delegate at least some of the care to others, particularly specialists.