Sample records for task required children

  1. Poorer divided attention in children born very preterm can be explained by difficulty with each component task, not the executive requirement to dual-task.

    PubMed

    Delane, Louise; Campbell, Catherine; Bayliss, Donna M; Reid, Corinne; Stephens, Amelia; French, Noel; Anderson, Mike

    2017-07-01

    Children born very preterm (VP, ≤ 32 weeks) exhibit poor performance on tasks of executive functioning. However, it is largely unknown whether this reflects the cumulative impact of non-executive deficits or a separable impairment in executive-level abilities. A dual-task paradigm was used in the current study to differentiate the executive processes involved in performing two simple attention tasks simultaneously. The executive-level contribution to performance was indexed by the within-subject cost incurred to single-task performance under dual-task conditions, termed dual-task cost. The participants included 77 VP children (mean age: 7.17 years) and 74 peer controls (mean age: 7.16 years) who completed Sky Search (selective attention), Score (sustained attention) and Sky Search DT (divided attention) from the Test of Everyday Attention for Children. The divided-attention task requires the simultaneous performance of the selective- and sustained-attention tasks. The VP group exhibited poorer performance on the selective- and divided-attention tasks, and showed a strong trend toward poorer performance on the sustained-attention task. However, there were no significant group differences in dual-task cost. These results suggest a cumulative impact of vulnerable lower-level cognitive processes on dual-tasking or divided attention in VP children, and fail to support the hypothesis that VP children show a separable impairment in executive-level abilities.

  2. Young children do not require perceptual-motor feedback to solve Aesop's Fable tasks.

    PubMed

    Miller, Rachael; Jelbert, Sarah A; Loissel, Elsa; Taylor, Alex H; Clayton, Nicola S

    2017-01-01

    Aesop's Fable tasks-in which subjects drop objects into a water-filled tube to raise the water level and obtain out-of-reach floating rewards -have been used to test for causal understanding of water displacement in both young children and non-human animals. However, a number of alternative explanations for success on these tasks have yet to be ruled out. One hypothesis is that subjects may respond to perceptual-motor feedback: repeating those actions that bring the reward incrementally closer. Here, we devised a novel, forced-choice version of the Aesop's Fable task to assess whether subjects can solve water displacement tasks when this type of feedback is removed. Subjects had to select only one set of objects, or one type of tube, into which all objects were dropped at once, and the effect the objects had on the water level was visually concealed. In the current experiment, fifty-five 5-9 year old children were tested in six different conditions in which we either varied object properties (floating vs. sinking, hollow vs. solid, large vs. small and too large vs. small objects), the water level (high vs. low) and/or the tube size (narrow vs. wide). We found that children aged 8-9 years old were able to solve most of the water displacement tasks on their first trial, without any opportunity for feedback, suggesting that they mentally simulated the results of their actions before making a choice. Children aged 5-7 years solved two conditions on their first trial (large vs. small objects and high- vs. low-water levels), and learnt to solve most of the remaining conditions over five trials. The developmental pattern shown here is comparable to previous studies using the standard Aesop's Fable task, where eight year olds are typically successful from their first trial and 5-7 year olds learn to pass over five trials. Thus, our results indicate that children do not depend on perceptual-motor feedback to solve these water displacement tasks. The forced-choice paradigm

  3. Young children do not require perceptual-motor feedback to solve Aesop’s Fable tasks

    PubMed Central

    Loissel, Elsa; Taylor, Alex H.; Clayton, Nicola S.

    2017-01-01

    Aesop’s Fable tasks—in which subjects drop objects into a water-filled tube to raise the water level and obtain out-of-reach floating rewards —have been used to test for causal understanding of water displacement in both young children and non-human animals. However, a number of alternative explanations for success on these tasks have yet to be ruled out. One hypothesis is that subjects may respond to perceptual-motor feedback: repeating those actions that bring the reward incrementally closer. Here, we devised a novel, forced-choice version of the Aesop’s Fable task to assess whether subjects can solve water displacement tasks when this type of feedback is removed. Subjects had to select only one set of objects, or one type of tube, into which all objects were dropped at once, and the effect the objects had on the water level was visually concealed. In the current experiment, fifty-five 5–9 year old children were tested in six different conditions in which we either varied object properties (floating vs. sinking, hollow vs. solid, large vs. small and too large vs. small objects), the water level (high vs. low) and/or the tube size (narrow vs. wide). We found that children aged 8–9 years old were able to solve most of the water displacement tasks on their first trial, without any opportunity for feedback, suggesting that they mentally simulated the results of their actions before making a choice. Children aged 5–7 years solved two conditions on their first trial (large vs. small objects and high- vs. low-water levels), and learnt to solve most of the remaining conditions over five trials. The developmental pattern shown here is comparable to previous studies using the standard Aesop’s Fable task, where eight year olds are typically successful from their first trial and 5–7 year olds learn to pass over five trials. Thus, our results indicate that children do not depend on perceptual-motor feedback to solve these water displacement tasks. The forced

  4. Cognitive abilities required in time judgment depending on the temporal tasks used: A comparison of children and adults.

    PubMed

    Droit-Volet, S; Wearden, J H; Zélanti, P S

    2015-01-01

    The aim of this study was to examine age-related differences in time judgments during childhood as a function of the temporal task used. Children aged 5 and 8 years, as well as adults, were submitted to 3 temporal tasks (bisection, generalization and reproduction) with short (0.4/0.8 s) and long durations (8/16 s). Furthermore, their cognitive capacities in terms of working memory, attentional control, and processing speed were assessed by a wide battery of neuropsychological tests. The results showed that the age-related differences in time judgment were greater in the reproduction task than in the temporal discrimination tasks. This task was indeed more demanding in terms of working memory and information processing speed. In addition, the bisection task appeared to be easier for children than the generalization task, whereas these 2 tasks were similar for the adults, although the generalization task required more attention to be paid to the processing of durations. Our study thus demonstrates that it is important to understand the different cognitive processes involved in time judgment as a function of the temporal tasks used before venturing to draw conclusions about the development of time perception capabilities.

  5. How Mood and Task Complexity Affect Children's Recognition of Others’ Emotions

    PubMed Central

    Cummings, Andrew J.; Rennels, Jennifer L.

    2013-01-01

    Previous studies examined how mood affects children's accuracy in matching emotional expressions and labels (label-based tasks). This study was the first to assess how induced mood (positive, neutral, or negative) influenced 5- to 8-year-olds’ accuracy and reaction time using both context-based tasks, which required inferring a character's emotion from a vignette, and label-based tasks. Both tasks required choosing one of four facial expressions to respond. Children responded more accurately to label-based questions relative to context-based questions at 5 to 7 years of age, but showed no differences at 8 years of age, and when the emotional expression being identified was happiness, sadness, or surprise, but not disgust. For the context-based questions, children were more accurate at inferring sad and disgusted emotions compared to happy and surprised emotions. Induced positive mood facilitated 5-year-olds’ processing (decreased reaction time) in both tasks compared to induced negative and neutral moods. Results demonstrate how task type and children's mood influence children's emotion processing at different ages. PMID:24489442

  6. Task switching costs in preschool children and adults.

    PubMed

    Peng, Anna; Kirkham, Natasha Z; Mareschal, Denis

    2018-08-01

    Past research investigating cognitive flexibility has shown that preschool children make many perseverative errors in tasks that require switching between different sets of rules. However, this inflexibility might not necessarily hold with easier tasks. The current study investigated the developmental differences in cognitive flexibility using a task-switching procedure that compared reaction times and accuracy in 4- and 6-year-olds with those in adults. The experiment involved simple target detection tasks and was intentionally designed in a way that the stimulus and response conflicts were minimal together with a long preparation window. Global mixing costs (performance costs when multiple tasks are relevant in a context), and local switch costs (performance costs due to switching to an alternative task) are typically thought to engage endogenous control processes. If this is the case, we should observe developmental differences with both of these costs. Our results show, however, that when the accuracy was good, there were no age differences in cognitive flexibility (i.e., the ability to manage multiple tasks and to switch between tasks) between children and adults. Even though preschool children had slower reaction times and were less accurate, the mixing and switch costs associated with task switching were not reliably larger for preschool children. Preschool children did, however, show more commission errors and greater response repetition effects than adults, which may reflect differences in inhibitory control. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Eye movements and postural control in dyslexic children performing different visual tasks.

    PubMed

    Razuk, Milena; Barela, José Angelo; Peyre, Hugo; Gerard, Christophe Loic; Bucci, Maria Pia

    2018-01-01

    The aim of this study was to examine eye movements and postural control performance among dyslexic children while reading a text and performing the Landolt reading task. Fifteen dyslexic and 15 non-dyslexic children were asked to stand upright while performing two experimental visual tasks: text reading and Landolt reading. In the text reading task, children were asked to silently read a text displayed on a monitor, while in the Landolt reading task, the letters in the text were replaced by closed circles and Landolt rings, and children were asked to scan each circle/ring in a reading-like fashion, from left to right, and to count the number of Landolt rings. Eye movements (Mobile T2®, SuriCog) and center of pressure excursions (Framiral®, Grasse, France) were recorded. Visual performance variables were total reading time, mean duration of fixation, number of pro- and retro-saccades, and amplitude of pro-saccades. Postural performance variable was the center of pressure area. The results showed that dyslexic children spent more time reading the text and had a longer duration of fixation than non-dyslexic children. However, no difference was observed between dyslexic and non-dyslexic children in the Landolt reading task. Dyslexic children performed a higher number of pro- and retro-saccades than non-dyslexic children in both text reading and Landolt reading tasks. Dyslexic children had smaller pro-saccade amplitude than non-dyslexic children in the text reading task. Finally, postural performance was poorer in dyslexic children than in non-dyslexic children. Reading difficulties in dyslexic children are related to eye movement strategies required to scan and obtain lexical and semantic meaning. However, postural control performance, which was poor in dyslexic children, is not related to lexical and semantic reading requirements and might not also be related to different eye movement behavior.

  8. Children's Task Engagement during Challenging Puzzle Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Feihong; Algina, James; Snyder, Patricia; Cox, Martha

    2017-01-01

    We examined children's task engagement during a challenging puzzle task in the presence of their primary caregivers by using a representative sample of rural children from six high-poverty counties across two states. Weighted longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to identify a task engagement factor…

  9. Age-related differences in reaction time task performance in young children.

    PubMed

    Kiselev, Sergey; Espy, Kimberly Andrews; Sheffield, Tiffany

    2009-02-01

    Performance of reaction time (RT) tasks was investigated in young children and adults to test the hypothesis that age-related differences in processing speed supersede a "global" mechanism and are a function of specific differences in task demands and processing requirements. The sample consisted of 54 4-year-olds, 53 5-year-olds, 59 6-year-olds, and 35 adults from Russia. Using the regression approach pioneered by Brinley and the transformation method proposed by Madden and colleagues and Ridderinkhoff and van der Molen, age-related differences in processing speed differed among RT tasks with varying demands. In particular, RTs differed between children and adults on tasks that required response suppression, discrimination of color or spatial orientation, reversal of contingencies of previously learned stimulus-response rules, and greater stimulus-response complexity. Relative costs of these RT task differences were larger than predicted by the global difference hypothesis except for response suppression. Among young children, age-related differences larger than predicted by the global difference hypothesis were evident when tasks required color or spatial orientation discrimination and stimulus-response rule complexity, but not for response suppression or reversal of stimulus-response contingencies. Process-specific, age-related differences in processing speed that support heterochronicity of brain development during childhood were revealed.

  10. Children exhibit different performance patterns in explicit and implicit theory of mind tasks.

    PubMed

    Oktay-Gür, Nese; Schulz, Alexandra; Rakoczy, Hannes

    2018-04-01

    Three studies tested scope and limits of children's implicit and explicit theory of mind. In Studies 1 and 2, three- to six-year-olds (N = 84) were presented with closely matched explicit false belief tasks that differed in whether or not they required an understanding of aspectuality. Results revealed that children performed equally well in the different tasks, and performance was strongly correlated. Study 3 tested two-year-olds (N = 81) in implicit interactive versions of these tasks and found evidence for dis-unity: children performed competently only in those tasks that did not require an understanding of aspectuality. Taken together, the present findings suggest that early implicit and later explicit theory of mind tasks may tap different forms of cognitive capacities. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. Working memory in children assessed with serial chaining and Simon tasks.

    PubMed

    Parrish, Audrey E; Perdue, Bonnie M; Kelly, Andrew J; Beran, Michael J

    2018-06-06

    In the serial chaining task, participants are required to produce a sequence of responses to stimuli in the correct order, and sometimes must determine the sequence at trial outset if stimuli are masked after the first response is made. Similarly, the Simon memory span task presents a participant with a sequence of colors, and the participant must recreate the sequence after the full series is shown. In efforts to directly link the comparative literature on sequential planning behavior and working memory span with the developmental literature, we presented preschool children with the serial chaining task using masked Arabic numerals (N = 44) and the Simon memory span task (N = 65). Older children outperformed younger children in each task, sequencing a longer string of numbers in the serial chaining task and remembering a greater number of items in the Simon task. Controlling for the role of age, there was a significant positive relationship between task scores. These results highlight the emergence of working memory skills that might underlie planning capacities in children using a task developed for nonhuman animals, and the results indicate that improvement in general executive functions could be measured using either or both of these tasks among human children and nonhuman species. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Validity of false belief tasks in blind children.

    PubMed

    Brambring, Michael; Asbrock, Doreen

    2010-12-01

    Previous studies have reported that congenitally blind children without any additional impairment reveal a developmental delay of at least 4 years in perspective taking based on testing first-order false-belief tasks. These authors interpret this delay as a sign of autism-like behavior. However, the delay may be caused by testing blind children with false-belief tasks that require visual experience. Therefore, the present study gave alternative false-belief tasks based on tactile or auditory experience to 45 congenitally blind 4-10-year-olds and 37 sighted 3-6-year-olds. Results showed criterion performance at 80 months (6; 8 years) in blind children compared with 61 months (5; 1 years) in sighted controls. It is concluded that this 19-month (1; 7 year) difference, which is comparable with delays in other developmental areas, is a developmental delay caused by the fact of congenital blindness rather than a sign of a psychopathological disorder of autism-like behavior.

  13. Language Helps Children Succeed on a Classic Analogy Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Christie, Stella; Gentner, Dedre

    2014-01-01

    Adult humans show exceptional relational ability relative to other species. In this research, we trace the development of this ability in young children. We used a task widely used in comparative research--the relational match-to-sample task, which requires participants to notice and match the identity relation: for example, AA should match BB…

  14. The Lexical Stroop Sort (LSS) picture-word task: a computerized task for assessing the relationship between language and executive functioning in school-aged children.

    PubMed

    Wilbourn, Makeba Parramore; Kurtz, Laura E; Kalia, Vrinda

    2012-03-01

    The relationship between language development and executive function (EF) in children is not well understood. The Lexical Stroop Sort (LSS) task is a computerized EF task created for the purpose of examining the relationship between school-aged children's oral language development and EF. To validate this new measure, a diverse sample of school-aged children completed standardized oral language assessments, the LSS task, and the widely used Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS; Zelazo, 2006) task. Both EF tasks require children to sort stimuli into categories based on predetermined rules. While the DCCS largely relies on visual stimuli, the LSS employs children's phonological loop to access their semantic knowledge base. Accuracy and reaction times were recorded for both tasks. Children's scores on the LSS task were correlated with their scores on the DCCS task, and a similar pattern of relationships emerged between children's vocabulary and the two EF tasks, thus providing convergent validity for the LSS. However, children's phonological awareness was associated with their scores on the LSS, but not with those on the DCCS. In addition, a mediation model was used to elucidate the predictive relationship between phonological awareness and children's performance on the LSS task, with children's vocabulary fully mediating this relationship. The use of this newly created and validated LSS task with different populations, such as preschoolers and bilinguals, is also discussed.

  15. Visual tasks and postural sway in children with and without autism spectrum disorders.

    PubMed

    Chang, Chih-Hui; Wade, Michael G; Stoffregen, Thomas A; Hsu, Chin-Yu; Pan, Chien-Yu

    2010-01-01

    We investigated the influences of two different suprapostural visual tasks, visual searching and visual inspection, on the postural sway of children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Sixteen ASD children (age=8.75±1.34 years; height=130.34±11.03 cm) were recruited from a local support group. Individuals with an intellectual disability as a co-occurring condition and those with severe behavior problems that required formal intervention were excluded. Twenty-two sex- and age-matched typically developing (TD) children (age=8.93±1.39 years; height=133.47±8.21 cm) were recruited from a local public elementary school. Postural sway was recorded using a magnetic tracking system (Flock of Birds, Ascension Technologies, Inc., Burlington, VT). Results indicated that the ASD children exhibited greater sway than the TD children. Despite this difference, both TD and ASD children showed reduced sway during the search task, relative to sway during the inspection task. These findings replicate those of Stoffregen et al. (2000), Stoffregen, Giveans, et al. (2009), Stoffregen, Villard, et al. (2009) and Prado et al. (2007) and extend them to TD children as well as ASD children. Both TD and ASD children were able to functionally modulate postural sway to facilitate the performance of a task that required higher perceptual effort. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Vietnamese children and language-based processing tasks.

    PubMed

    Hwa-Froelich, Deborah A; Matsuo, Hisako

    2005-07-01

    Vietnamese children's performance on language-based processing tasks of fast-mapping (FM) word-learning and dynamic assessment (DA) word- and rule-learning tasks were investigated. Twenty-one first- and second-generation Vietnamese preschool children participated in this study. All children were enrolled in 2 Head Start programs in a large city in the Midwest. All children had passed a developmental assessment and routine speech, language, and hearing screenings. All participants were taught 4 invented monosyllabic words in an FM word task, an invented monosyllabic suffix rule (-po) meaning "a part of" in a DA rule task, and 4 invented bisyllabic words in a DA word task. Potential relationships among task performances were investigated. Receptive task performances, expressive task performances, and task totals were added to create receptive total, expressive total, and accumulated performance total (APT) scores. Relationships among receptive total, expressive total, and APT scores were also investigated. Significant correlations were found between FM word, DA rule, and the receptive total. The expressive total correlated with all task total scores, APT, age, and modifiability scores. Modifiability scores correlated with the two DA tasks, expressive total, and the APT. Findings indicate that FM word and the expressive total were positively correlated with most of the other tasks, composite totals, and age. Performance on language-based processing tasks may provide valuable information for separating typically developing Vietnamese preschool children from their peers with language disorders. Practitioners should consider linguistic characteristics of target stimuli. Comparisons should include task, receptive, expressive, and APT.

  17. Children's self-assessment of performance and task-related help seeking.

    PubMed

    Nelson-Le Gall, S; Kratzer, L; Jones, E; DeCooke, P

    1990-04-01

    The present research examined the role of self-assessment of performance on children's use of help-seeking as an achievement strategy. In two experiments, third- and fifth-grade children were blocked into low and high verbal skill groups. Children performed a multitrial verbal task in which they were required to indicate their confidence in the correctness of their tentative solution and then were given the opportunity to seek help before providing a final solution on each trial. The second experiment differed from the first in that subjects were provided with a common motivation for seeking help. Subjects' confidence in the correctness of their solution was found to influence both the frequency and type of help sought. High task-related skill was associated with the discriminating use of help-seeking as an achievement strategy, especially among boys. Also, both the frequency and type of help sought varied with self-assessments for older children more than for younger children. Findings are discussed in terms of grade and sex differences in the use of internally based cues for performance evaluation. The importance of accounting for the interplay of children's age and task specific skill with achievement-related goals is stressed.

  18. The impact of cognitive control on children's goal monitoring in a time-based prospective memory task.

    PubMed

    Mahy, Caitlin E V; Voigt, Babett; Ballhausen, Nicola; Schnitzspahn, Katharina; Ellis, Judi; Kliegel, Matthias

    2015-01-01

    The present study investigated whether developmental changes in cognitive control may underlie improvements of time-based prospective memory. Five-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds (N = 166) completed a driving simulation task (ongoing task) in which they had to refuel their vehicle at specific points in time (PM task). The availability of cognitive control resources was experimentally manipulated by imposing a secondary task that required divided attention. Children completed the driving simulation task both in a full-attention condition and a divided-attention condition where they had to carry out a secondary task. Results revealed that older children performed better than younger children on the ongoing task and PM task. Children performed worse on the ongoing and PM tasks in the divided-attention condition compared to the full-attention condition. With respect to time monitoring in the final interval prior to the PM target, divided attention interacted with age such that older children's time monitoring was more negatively affected by the secondary task compared to younger children. Results are discussed in terms of developmental shifts from reactive to proactive monitoring strategies.

  19. Performance of children with autism spectrum disorder on advanced theory of mind tasks.

    PubMed

    Brent, Ella; Rios, Patricia; Happé, Francesca; Charman, Tony

    2004-09-01

    Although a number of advanced theory of mind tasks have been developed, there is sparse information on whether performance on different tasks is associated. The study examined the performance of 20 high-functioning 6- to 12-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder and 20 controls on three high-level theory of mind tasks: Strange Stories, Cartoons and the children's version of the Eyes task. The pattern of findings suggests that the three tasks may share differing, non-specific, information-processing requirements in addition to tapping any putative mentalizing ability. They may also indicate a degree of dissociation between social-cognitive and social-perceptual or affective components of the mentalizing system.

  20. Modular control of varied locomotor tasks in children with incomplete spinal cord injuries

    PubMed Central

    Tester, Nicole J.; Kautz, Steven A.; Howland, Dena R.; Clark, David J.; Garvan, Cyndi; Behrman, Andrea L.

    2013-01-01

    A module is a functional unit of the nervous system that specifies functionally relevant patterns of muscle activation. In adults, four to five modules account for muscle activation during walking. Neurological injury alters modular control and is associated with walking impairments. The effect of neurological injury on modular control in children is unknown and may differ from adults due to their immature and developing nervous systems. We examined modular control of locomotor tasks in children with incomplete spinal cord injuries (ISCIs) and control children. Five controls (8.6 ± 2.7 yr of age) and five children with ISCIs (8.6 ± 3.7 yr of age performed treadmill walking, overground walking, pedaling, supine lower extremity flexion/extension, stair climbing, and crawling. Electromyograms (EMGs) were recorded in bilateral leg muscles. Nonnegative matrix factorization was applied, and the minimum number of modules required to achieve 90% of the “variance accounted for” (VAF) was calculated. On average, 3.5 modules explained muscle activation in the controls, whereas 2.4 modules were required in the children with ISCIs. To determine if control is similar across tasks, the module weightings identified from treadmill walking were used to reconstruct the EMGs from each of the other tasks. This resulted in VAF values exceeding 86% for each child and each locomotor task. Our results suggest that 1) modularity is constrained in children with ISCIs and 2) for each child, similar neural control mechanisms are used across locomotor tasks. These findings suggest that interventions that activate the neuromuscular system to enhance walking also may influence the control of other locomotor tasks. PMID:23761702

  1. Age-Related Differences in Reaction Time Task Performance in Young Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kiselev, Sergey; Espy, Kimberlay Andrews; Sheffield, Tiffany

    2009-01-01

    Performance of reaction time (RT) tasks was investigated in young children and adults to test the hypothesis that age-related differences in processing speed supersede a "global" mechanism and are a function of specific differences in task demands and processing requirements. The sample consisted of 54 4-year-olds, 53 5-year-olds, 59…

  2. Young children do not succeed in choice tasks that imply evaluating chances.

    PubMed

    Girotto, Vittorio; Fontanari, Laura; Gonzalez, Michel; Vallortigara, Giorgio; Blaye, Agnès

    2016-07-01

    Preverbal infants manifest probabilistic intuitions in their reactions to the outcomes of simple physical processes and in their choices. Their ability conflicts with the evidence that, before the age of about 5years, children's verbal judgments do not reveal probability understanding. To assess these conflicting results, three studies tested 3-5-year-olds on choice tasks on which infants perform successfully. The results showed that children of all age groups made optimal choices in tasks that did not require forming probabilistic expectations. In probabilistic tasks, however, only 5-year-olds made optimal choices. Younger children performed at random and/or were guided by superficial heuristics. These results suggest caution in interpreting infants' ability to evaluate chance, and indicate that the development of this ability may not follow a linear trajectory. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Cognitive-motor interference during fine and gross motor tasks in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD).

    PubMed

    Schott, Nadja; El-Rajab, Inaam; Klotzbier, Thomas

    2016-10-01

    While typically developing children produce relatively automatized postural control processes, children with DCD seem to exhibit an automatization deficit. Dual tasks with various cognitive loads seem to be an effective way to assess the automatic deficit hypothesis. The aims of the study were: (1) to examine the effect of a concurrent cognitive task on fine and gross motor tasks in children with DCD, and (2) to determine whether the effect varied with different difficulty levels of the concurrent task. We examined dual-task performance (Trail-Making-Test, Trail-Walking-Test) in 20 children with DCD and 39 typically developing children. Based on the idea of the Trail-Making-Test, participants walked along a fixed pathway, following a prescribed path, delineated by target markers of (1) increasing sequential numbers, and (2) increasing sequential numbers and letters. The motor and cognitive dual-task effects (DTE) were calculated for each task. Regardless of the cognitive task, children with DCD performed equally well in fine and gross motor tasks, and were slower in the dual task conditions than under single task-conditions, compared with children without DCD. Increased cognitive task complexity resulted in slow trail walking as well as slower trail tracing. The motor interference for the gross motor tasks was least for the simplest conditions and greatest for the complex conditions and was more pronounced in children with DCD. Cognitive interference was low irrespective of the motor task. Children with DCD show a different approach to allocation of cognitive resources, and have difficulties making motor skills automatic. The latter notion is consistent with impaired cerebellar function and the "automatization deficit hypothesis", suggesting that any deficit in the automatization process will appear if conscious monitoring of the motor skill is made more difficult by integrating another task requiring attentional resources. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All

  4. Task-Based Variability in Children's Singing Accuracy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nichols, Bryan E.

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore task-based variability in children's singing accuracy performance. The research questions were: Does children's singing accuracy vary based on the nature of the singing assessment employed? Is there a hierarchy of difficulty and discrimination ability among singing assessment tasks? What is the…

  5. Developmental gender differences in children in a virtual spatial memory task.

    PubMed

    León, Irene; Cimadevilla, José Manuel; Tascón, Laura

    2014-07-01

    Behavioral achievements are the product of brain maturation. During postnatal development, the medial temporal lobe completes its maturation, and children acquire new memory abilities. In recent years, virtual reality-based tasks have been introduced in the neuropsychology field to assess different cognitive functions. In this work, desktop virtual reality tasks are combined with classic psychometric tests to assess spatial abilities in 4- to 10-year-old children. Fifty boys and 50 girls 4-10-years of age participated in this study. Spatial reference memory and spatial working memory were assessed using a desktop virtual reality-based task. Other classic psychometric tests were also included in this work (e.g., the Corsi Block Tapping Test, digit tests, 10/36 Spatial Recall Test). In general terms, 4- and 5-year-old groups showed poorer performance than the older groups. However, 5-year-old children showed basic spatial navigation abilities with little difficulty. In addition, boys outperformed girls from the 6-8-year-old groups. Gender differences only emerged in the reference-memory version of the spatial task, whereas both sexes displayed similar performances in the working-memory version. There was general improvement in the performance of different tasks in children older than 5 years. However, results also suggest that brain regions involved in allocentric memory are functional even at the age of 5. In addition, the brain structures underlying reference memory mature later in girls than those required for the working memory.

  6. Task-Based Variability in Children's Singing Accuracy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nichols, Bryan E.

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of task demands on children's singing accuracy. A 2 × 4 factorial design was used to examine the performance of fourth-grade children (N = 120) in solo and doubled response conditions. Each child sang four task types: single pitch, interval, pattern, and the song "Jingle Bells." The…

  7. Autistic children and the object permanence task.

    PubMed

    Adrien, J L; Tanguay, P; Barthélémy, C; Martineaú, J; Perrot, A; Hameury, L; Sauvage, D

    1993-01-01

    Many mentally retarded autistic children can understand the concept of object permanence, but, in comparison to developmental-age matched normal children, the behavioral strategies they employ in carrying out the Casati-Lezine Object Permanence Test are deficient and lead to failure. These deficiencies appear unrelated to interference of stereotypic or other bizarre behavior in task performance. Similar problem-solving deficiencies can be found in mentally retarded children who are not autistic, suggesting that the deficiencies themselves are less related to the social-communication deficits of autistic children, but more to the general problem-solving difficulties found in children with a lower developmental quotient. Nevertheless, the qualitative analysis of results shows a tendency in autistic children, despite their better developmental level, to use less coordinated and regular sequences to solve the task than normal or mentally retarded children.

  8. What Box: A task for assessing language lateralization in young children.

    PubMed

    Badcock, Nicholas A; Spooner, Rachael; Hofmann, Jessica; Flitton, Atlanta; Elliott, Scott; Kurylowicz, Lisa; Lavrencic, Louise M; Payne, Heather M; Holt, Georgina K; Holden, Anneka; Churches, Owen F; Kohler, Mark J; Keage, Hannah A D

    2018-07-01

    The assessment of active language lateralization in infants and toddlers is challenging. It requires an imaging tool that is unintimidating, quick to setup, and robust to movement, in addition to an engaging and cognitively simple language processing task. Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound (fTCD) offers a suitable technique and here we report on a suitable method to elicit active language production in young children. The 34-second "What Box" trial presents an animated face "searching" for an object. The face "finds" a box that opens to reveal a to-be-labelled object. In a sample of 95 children (1 to 5 years of age), 81% completed the task-32% with ≥10 trials. The task was validated (ρ = 0.4) against the gold standard Word Generation task in a group of older adults (n = 65, 60-85 years of age), though was less likely to categorize lateralization as left or right, indicative of greater measurement variability. Existing methods for active language production have been used with 2-year-old children while passive listening has been conducted with sleeping 6-month-olds. This is the first active method to be successfully employed with infants through to pre-schoolers, forming a useful tool for populations in which complex instructions are problematic.

  9. Children's Language Assessment--Situational Tasks.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Conrad, Eva E.; And Others

    The Children's Language Assessment-Situational Tasks (CLA-ST) was developed to collect language samples within a normally operating classroom. The language is taken on a cassette tape recorder, which is placed at the foot of a small table. At this table, in a committee setting, four children are engaged with a teacher in an activity similar to…

  10. Autonomic Correlates of Speech Versus Nonspeech Tasks in Children and Adults

    PubMed Central

    Arnold, Hayley S.; MacPherson, Megan K.; Smith, Anne

    2015-01-01

    Purpose To assess autonomic arousal associated with speech and nonspeech tasks in school-age children and young adults. Method Measures of autonomic arousal (electrodermal level, electrodermal response amplitude, blood pulse volume, and heart rate) were recorded prior to, during, and after the performance of speech and nonspeech tasks by twenty 7- to 9-year-old children and twenty 18- to 22-year-old adults. Results Across age groups, autonomic arousal was higher for speech tasks compared with nonspeech tasks, based on peak electrodermal response amplitude and blood pulse volume. Children demonstrated greater relative arousal, based on heart rate and blood pulse volume, for nonspeech oral motor tasks than adults but showed similar mean arousal levels for speech tasks as adults. Children demonstrated sex differences in autonomic arousal; specifically, autonomic arousal remained high for school-age boys but not girls in a more complex open-ended narrative task that followed a simple sentence production task. Conclusions Speech tasks elicit greater autonomic arousal than nonspeech tasks, and children demonstrate greater autonomic arousal for nonspeech oral motor tasks than adults. Sex differences in autonomic arousal associated with speech tasks in school-age children are discussed relative to speech-language differences between boys and girls. PMID:24686989

  11. Distinguishing Schemes and Tasks in Children's Development of Multiplicative Reasoning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tzur, Ron; Johnson, Heather L.; McClintock, Evan; Kenney, Rachael H.; Xin, Yan P.; Si, Luo; Woordward, Jerry; Hord, Casey; Jin, Xianyan

    2013-01-01

    We present a synthesis of findings from constructivist teaching experiments regarding six schemes children construct for reasoning multiplicatively and tasks to promote them. We provide a task-generating platform game, depictions of each scheme, and supporting tasks. Tasks must be distinguished from children's thinking, and learning situations…

  12. Children's Heart Rate Reactivity Responses to Three School Tasks.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sharpley, Christopher F.; And Others

    1989-01-01

    Investigated effects of 3 routine classroom arithmetic and reading tasks upon the heart rate reactivity of 30 fifth grade children. Results indicated that some children showed large increases in heart rates during the three tasks, and that these children should be considered at risk for coronary heart disease. (Author/TE)

  13. Impact of induced joy on literacy in children: does the nature of the task make a difference?

    PubMed

    Tornare, Elise; Cuisinier, Frédérique; Czajkowski, Nikolai O; Pons, Francisco

    2017-04-01

    This research examined whether induced joy influences fifth graders' performance in literacy tasks. Children were asked to recall a joyful experience, used as a joy induction, before completing either a grammar (Study 1) or textual comprehension task (Study 2). The grammar task involved understanding at the surface level and retrieval of appropriate declarative and procedural knowledge, but limited elaboration unlike the textual comprehension task, which tackled inference generation. By differentiating tasks based on depth of processing required for completion we aimed at testing the validity of two concurrent hypotheses: that of a facilitating effect and that of a detrimental effect of induced joy. Compared to controls, joy induced children showed better performance on the grammar task - specifically children with lower language ability. No differences across groups emerged as a function of joy induction on the text comprehension task. Results are discussed with respect to emotion effects on cognition.

  14. Children's mathematical performance: five cognitive tasks across five grades.

    PubMed

    Moore, Alex M; Ashcraft, Mark H

    2015-07-01

    Children in elementary school, along with college adults, were tested on a battery of basic mathematical tasks, including digit naming, number comparison, dot enumeration, and simple addition or subtraction. Beyond cataloguing performance to these standard tasks in Grades 1 to 5, we also examined relationships among the tasks, including previously reported results on a number line estimation task. Accuracy and latency improved across grades for all tasks, and classic interaction patterns were found, for example, a speed-up of subitizing and counting, increasingly shallow slopes in number comparison, and progressive speeding of responses especially to larger addition and subtraction problems. Surprisingly, digit naming was faster than subitizing at all ages, arguing against a pre-attentive processing explanation for subitizing. Estimation accuracy and speed were strong predictors of children's addition and subtraction performance. Children who gave exponential responses on the number line estimation task were slower at counting in the dot enumeration task and had longer latencies on addition and subtraction problems. The results provided further support for the importance of estimation as an indicator of children's current and future mathematical expertise. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Age differences between children and young adults in the dynamics of dual-task prioritization: body (balance) versus mind (memory).

    PubMed

    Schaefer, Sabine; Krampe, Ralf Th; Lindenberger, Ulman; Baltes, Paul B

    2008-05-01

    Task prioritization can lead to trade-off patterns in dual-task situations. The authors compared dual-task performances in 9- and 11-year-old children and young adults performing a cognitive task and a motor task concurrently. The motor task required balancing on an ankle-disc board. Two cognitive tasks measured working memory and episodic memory at difficulty levels individually adjusted during the course of extensive training. Adults showed performance decrements in both task domains under dual-task conditions. In contrast, children showed decrements only in the cognitive tasks but actually swayed less under dual-task than under single-task conditions and continued to reduce their body sway even when instructed to focus on the cognitive task. The authors argue that children perform closer to their stability boundaries in the balance task and therefore prioritize protection of their balance under dual-task conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).

  16. Evaluation of children with ADHD on the Ball-Search Field Task

    PubMed Central

    Rosetti, Marcos F.; Ulloa, Rosa E.; Vargas-Vargas, Ilse L.; Reyes-Zamorano, Ernesto; Palacios-Cruz, Lino; de la Peña, Francisco; Larralde, Hernán; Hudson, Robyn

    2016-01-01

    Searching, defined for the purpose of the present study as the displacement of an individual to locate resources, is a fundamental behavior of all mobile organisms. In humans this behavior underlies many aspects of everyday life, involving cognitive processes such as sustained attention, memory and inhibition. We explored the performance of 36 treatment-free children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 132 children from a control school sample on the ecologically based ball-search field task (BSFT), which required them to locate and collect golf balls in a large outdoor area. Children of both groups enjoyed the task and were motivated to participate in it. However, performance showed that ADHD-diagnosed subjects were significantly less efficient in their searching. We suggest that the BSFT provides a promising basis for developing more complex ecologically-derived tests that might help to better identify particular cognitive processes and impairments associated with ADHD. PMID:26805450

  17. Kinematic parameters of hand movement during a disparate bimanual movement task in children with unilateral Cerebral Palsy.

    PubMed

    Rudisch, Julian; Butler, Jenny; Izadi, Hooshang; Zielinski, Ingar Marie; Aarts, Pauline; Birtles, Deirdre; Green, Dido

    2016-04-01

    Children with unilateral Cerebral Palsy (uCP) experience problems performing tasks requiring the coordinated use of both hands (bimanual coordination; BC). Additionally, some children with uCP display involuntary symmetrical activation of the opposing hand (mirrored movements). Measures, used to investigate therapy-related improvements focus on the functionality of the affected hand during unimanual or bimanual tasks. None however specifically address spatiotemporal integration of both hands. We explored the kinematics of hand movements during a bimanual task to identify parameters of BC. Thirty-seven children (aged 10.9±2.6years, 20 male) diagnosed with uCP participated. 3D kinematic motion analysis was performed during the task requiring opening of a box with their affected- (AH) or less-affected hand (LAH), and pressing a button inside with the opposite hand. Temporal and spatial components of data were extracted and related to measures of hand function and level of impairment. Total task duration was correlated with the Jebsen-Taylor Test of Hand Function in both conditions (either hand leading with the lid-opening). Spatial accuracy of the LAH when the box was opened with their AH was correlated with outcomes on the Children's Hand Use Experience Questionnaire. Additionally, we found a subgroup of children displaying non-symmetrical movement interference associated with greater movement overlap when their affected hand opened the box. This subgroup also demonstrated decreased use of the affected hand during bimanual tasks. Further investigation of bimanual interference, which goes beyond small scaled symmetrical mirrored movements, is needed to consider its impact on bimanual task performance following early unilateral brain injury. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. Age Differences between Children and Young Adults in the Dynamics of Dual-Task Prioritization: Body (Balance) versus Mind (Memory)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schaefer, Sabine; Krampe, Ralf Th.; Lindenberger, Ulman; Baltes, Paul B.

    2008-01-01

    Task prioritization can lead to trade-off patterns in dual-task situations. The authors compared dual-task performances in 9- and 11-year-old children and young adults performing a cognitive task and a motor task concurrently. The motor task required balancing on an ankle-disc board. Two cognitive tasks measured working memory and episodic memory…

  19. Language and False-Belief Task Performance in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    PubMed

    Jeffrey Farrar, M; Seung, Hye Kyeung; Lee, Hyeonjin

    2017-07-12

    Language is related to false-belief (FB) understanding in both typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study examined the role of complementation and general language in FB understanding. Of interest was whether language plays similar or different roles in the groups' FB performance. Participants were 16 typically developing children (mean age = 5.0 years; mental age = 6.7) and 18 with ASD (mean age = 7.3 years; mental age = 8.3). Children were administered FB and language tasks (say- and think-complements), receptive and expressive vocabulary tests, and relative clauses. When mental age and receptive and expressive vocabulary were used as separate covariates, the typical control group outperformed the children with ASD in FB task performance. Chi-square analyses indicated that passing both complementation tasks was linked to the FB understanding of children with ASD. Children with ASD who passed FB tasks all passed say- and think-complement tasks. However, some children in the control group were able to pass the FB tasks, even if they failed the say- and think-complement tasks. The results indicate that children with ASD relied more on complement understanding to pass FB than typically developing children. Results are discussed regarding the developmental pathways for FB understanding.

  20. Predictive Factors of Household Task Participation in Brazilian Children and Adolescents.

    PubMed

    Drummond, Adriana de França; Gomes, Ana Maria Rabelo; Coster, Wendy J; Mancini, Marisa Cotta

    2015-04-01

    Home environment is an important setting for child participation. This study investigated the participation of Brazilian children and adolescents in household self-care (SC) and family-care (FC) tasks. Interviews were conducted with 109 caregivers of children and adolescents ages 6 to 14 years residing in Belo Horizonte (Brazil). Multiple regression models revealed that a greater number of FC tasks were performed by children and adolescents (R2 = .23) from families who did not have a housekeeper and those in which the mothers did not work outside of the home; children and adolescents from this subgroup also received less assistance from the caregivers (R2 = .21) and showed greater independence in task performance (R2 = .20). On average, Brazilian children and adolescents participate in about half of the SC and 25% the FC household tasks. Factors related to family structure and child's age were associated with task performance, caregiver assistance, and child and adolescent independence in household tasks.

  1. Preschool children adapt grasping movements to upcoming object manipulations: Evidence from a dial rotation task.

    PubMed

    Herbort, Oliver; Büschelberger, Juliane; Janczyk, Markus

    2018-03-01

    In adults, the motor plans for object-directed grasping movements reflects the anticipated requirements of intended future object manipulations. This prospective mode of planning has been termed second-order planning. Surprisingly, second-order planning is thought to be fully developed only by 10 years of age, when children master seemingly more complex motor skills. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that already 5- and 6-year-old children consistently use second-order planning but that this ability does not become apparent in tasks that are traditionally used to probe it. We asked 5- and 6-year-olds and adults to grasp and rotate a circular dial in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Although children's grasp selections were less consistent on an intra- and inter-individual level than adults' grasp selections, all children adjusted their grasps to the upcoming dial rotations. By contrast, in an also administered bar rotation task, only a subset of children adjusted their grasps to different bar rotations, thereby replicating previous results. The results indicate that 5- and 6-year-olds consistently use second-order planning in a dial rotation task, although this ability does not become apparent in bar rotation tasks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Language mapping in children using resting-state functional connectivity: comparison with a task-based approach

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Gallagher, Anne; Tremblay, Julie; Vannasing, Phetsamone

    2016-12-01

    Patients with brain tumor or refractory epilepsy may be candidates for neurosurgery. Presurgical evaluation often includes language investigation to prevent or reduce the risk of postsurgical language deficits. Current techniques involve significant limitations with pediatric populations. Recently, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has been shown to be a valuable neuroimaging technique for language localization in children. However, it typically requires the child to perform a task (task-based NIRS), which may constitute a significant limitation. Resting-state functional connectivity NIRS (fcNIRS) is an approach that can be used to identify language networks at rest. This study aims to assess the utility of fcNIRS in children by comparing fcNIRS to more conventional task-based NIRS for language mapping in 33 healthy participants: 25 children (ages 3 to 16) and 8 adults. Data were acquired at rest and during a language task. Results show very good concordance between both approaches for language localization (Dice similarity coefficient=0.81±0.13) and hemispheric language dominance (kappa=0.86, p<0.006). The fcNIRS technique may be a valuable tool for language mapping in clinical populations, including children and patients with cognitive and behavioral impairments.

  3. LANL surveillance requirements management and surveillance requirements from NA-12 tasking memo

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Hills, Charles R

    2011-01-25

    Surveillance briefing to NNSA to support a tasking memo from NA-12 on Surveillance requirements. This talk presents the process for developing surveillance requirements, discusses the LANL requirements that were issued as part of that tasking memo, and presents recommendations on Component Evaluation and Planning Committee activities for FY11.

  4. Accommodation in Astigmatic Children During Visual Task Performance

    PubMed Central

    Harvey, Erin M.; Miller, Joseph M.; Apple, Howard P.; Parashar, Pavan; Twelker, J. Daniel; Crescioni, Mabel; Davis, Amy L.; Leonard-Green, Tina K.; Campus, Irene; Sherrill, Duane L.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose. To determine the accuracy and stability of accommodation in uncorrected children during visual task performance. Methods. Subjects were second- to seventh-grade children from a highly astigmatic population. Measurements of noncycloplegic right eye spherical equivalent (Mnc) were obtained while uncorrected subjects performed three visual tasks at near (40 cm) and distance (2 m). Tasks included reading sentences with stimulus letter size near acuity threshold and an age-appropriate letter size (high task demands) and viewing a video (low task demand). Repeated measures ANOVA assessed the influence of astigmatism, task demand, and accommodative demand on accuracy (mean Mnc) and variability (mean SD of Mnc) of accommodation. Results. For near and distance analyses, respectively, sample size was 321 and 247, mean age was 10.37 (SD 1.77) and 10.30 (SD 1.74) years, mean cycloplegic M was 0.48 (SD 1.10) and 0.79 diopters (D) (SD 1.00), and mean astigmatism was 0.99 (SD 1.15) and 0.75 D (SD 0.96). Poor accommodative accuracy was associated with high astigmatism, low task demand (video viewing), and high accommodative demand. The negative effect of accommodative demand on accuracy increased with increasing astigmatism, with the poorest accommodative accuracy observed in high astigmats (≥3.00 D) with high accommodative demand/high hyperopia (1.53 D and 2.05 D of underaccommodation for near and distant stimuli, respectively). Accommodative variability was greatest in high astigmats and was uniformly high across task condition. No/low and moderate astigmats showed higher variability for the video task than the reading tasks. Conclusions. Accuracy of accommodation is reduced in uncorrected children with high astigmatism and high accommodative demand/high hyperopia, but improves with increased visual task demand (reading). High astigmats showed the greatest variability in accommodation. PMID:25103265

  5. Investigating task inhibition in children versus adults: A diffusion model analysis.

    PubMed

    Schuch, Stefanie; Konrad, Kerstin

    2017-04-01

    One can take n-2 task repetition costs as a measure of inhibition on the level of task sets. When switching back to a Task A after only one intermediate trial (ABA task sequence), Task A is thought to still be inhibited, leading to performance costs relative to task sequences where switching back to Task A is preceded by at least two intermediary trials (CBA). The current study investigated differences in inhibitory ability between children and adults by comparing n-2 task repetition costs in children (9-11years of age, N=32) and young adults (21-30years of age, N=32). The mean reaction times and error rate differences between ABA and CBA sequences did not differ between the two age groups. However, diffusion model analysis revealed that different cognitive processes contribute to the inhibition effect in the two age groups: The adults, but not the children, showed a smaller drift rate in ABA than in CBA, suggesting that persisting task inhibition is associated with slower response selection in adults. In children, non-decision time was longer in ABA than in CBA, possibly reflecting longer task preparation in ABA than in CBA. In addition, Ex-Gaussian functions were fitted to the distributions of correct reaction times. In adults, the ABA-CBA difference was reflected in the exponential parameter of the distribution; in children, the ABA-CBA difference was found in the Gaussian mu parameter. Hence, Ex-Gaussian analysis, although noisier, was generally in line with diffusion model analysis. Taken together, the data suggest that the task inhibition effect found in mean performance is mediated by different cognitive processes in children versus adults. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. A Nonverbal False Belief Task: The Performance of Children and Great Apes.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Call, Josep; Tomasello, Michael

    1999-01-01

    Compared performance of preschool children, chimpanzees, and orangutans on nonverbal task of false-belief understanding and tested children's performance on a verbal version of the same task. Found that children's performance on verbal and nonverbal tasks were highly correlated, and no chimp or orangutan succeeded in the nonverbal false-belief…

  7. Children's construction task performance and spatial ability: controlling task complexity and predicting mathematics performance.

    PubMed

    Richardson, Miles; Hunt, Thomas E; Richardson, Cassandra

    2014-12-01

    This paper presents a methodology to control construction task complexity and examined the relationships between construction performance and spatial and mathematical abilities in children. The study included three groups of children (N = 96); ages 7-8, 10-11, and 13-14 years. Each group constructed seven pre-specified objects. The study replicated and extended previous findings that indicated that the extent of component symmetry and variety, and the number of components for each object and available for selection, significantly predicted construction task difficulty. Results showed that this methodology is a valid and reliable technique for assessing and predicting construction play task difficulty. Furthermore, construction play performance predicted mathematical attainment independently of spatial ability.

  8. Children's difficulty with true belief tasks: Competence deficit or performance problem?

    PubMed

    Oktay-Gür, Nese; Rakoczy, Hannes

    2017-09-01

    According to the standard picture of explicit theory of mind (ToM) development, children begin to (explicitly) ascribe beliefs to others and themselves from around age 4. The empirical basis of this picture comes from numerous studies consistently showing that children master verbal false belief (FB) tasks from around age 4 while children much younger have no difficulty in mastering structurally analogous true belief (TB) tasks. The standard picture, though, has come under serious attack from recent studies using TB tasks with wider age ranges. These studies have found that, paradoxically, children begin to fail TB tasks once they master FB tasks. Such findings cast doubt on the standard picture and suggest, instead, that FB tasks may be solved by much simpler strategies than proper belief reasoning. In the present study, we tested for the development of FB and TB performance in comprehensive and systematic ways. In particular, we tested the competing predictions of competence accounts (according to which TB failure reflects lack of conceptual competence) versus performance limitation accounts (according to which the standard picture is true yet children from around age 4 fail TB tasks due to performance factors). Studies 1 and 2 showed that performance in a variety of novel TB tasks showed a clear U-shaped curve, with children until age 3 and from age 10 performing competently and children in between failing, with strong negative correlations between TB and FB. Crucially, these patterns were found for various kinds of TB tasks, including those for which existing competence limitation accounts would not even predict any difficulty. Study 3, therefore, directly tested performance limitation accounts in terms of pragmatic and related factors and found that these patterns (failure in TB and negative TB-FB correlations) disappear once the relevant performance factors have been removed from the TB tasks. Taken together, these findings suggest that previous TB findings

  9. An exploratory study on the relationship between parents' passion for sport/exercise and children's self- and task-perceptions in sport/exercise.

    PubMed

    Chen, Chen-Yueh

    2014-06-01

    This study investigated the relationship between parents' passion for sport/exercise and children's self- and task-perceptions in sport and exercise. Paired samples of 312 children, 312 fathers, and 312 mothers were collected using two-stage sampling; parents were classified based on their passion for sport and exercise as high concordance if both parents had a high passion for sport and exercise, low concordance if neither parent had a passion for sport and exercise, or discordant. Intrinsic interest value, attainment value/importance, extrinsic utility value, ability/expectancy, task difficulty, and required effort were measured, as well as harmonious and obsessive passion. Children's self- and task-perceptions in sport and exercise were examined with respect to parents' passion for sport and exercise. The results of the study indicated that children of parents with high concordance in harmonious passion for sport and exercise scored higher on intrinsic interest value, attainment value/importance, extrinsic utility value, ability/expectancy, task difficulty, and required effort in sport and exercise than counterparts with discordant and low concordance parents. Similar patterns were found for obsessive passion in parents.

  10. Working memory in children predicts performance on a gambling task.

    PubMed

    Audusseau, Jean; Juhel, Jacques

    2015-01-01

    The authors investigated whether working memory (WM) plays a significant role in the development of decision making in children, operationalized by the Children's Gambling Task (CGT). A total of 105 children aged 6-7, 8-9, and 10-11 years old carried out the CGT. Children aged 6-7 years old were found to have a lower performance than older children, which shows that the CGT is sensitive to participant's age. The hypothesis that WM plays a significant role in decision making was then tested following two approaches: (a) an experimental approach, comparing between groups the performance on the CGT in a control condition (the CGT only was administered) to that in a double task condition (participants had to carry out a recall task in addition to the CGT); (b) an interindividual approach, probing the relationship between CGT performance and performance on tasks measuring WM efficiency. The between-groups approach evidenced a better performance in the control group. Moreover, the interindividual approach showed that the higher the participants' WM efficiency was, the higher their performance in the CGT was. Taken together, these two approaches yield converging results that support the hypothesis that WM plays a significant role in decision making in children.

  11. Household Task Participation of Children with and without Attentional Problems

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dunn, Louise; Coster, Wendy J.; Orsmond, Gael I.; Cohn, Ellen S.

    2009-01-01

    Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often demonstrate problems in their participation in family occupations, such as household tasks, due to their needs for assistance and their behavior. Because participation in household tasks is part of family life and may be one way that families prepare children for adult roles, it…

  12. Dual-Task Interference When A Response is Not Required

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    VanSelst, Mark; Johnston, James C.; Shafto, Michael (Technical Monitor)

    2002-01-01

    When subjects are required to respond to two stimuli presented in rapid succession, responses to the second stimulus are delayed. Such dual-task interference has been attributed to a fundamental processing bottleneck preventing simultaneous processing on both tasks. Two experiments show dual-task interference even when the first task does not require a response. The observed interference is caused by a bottleneck in central cognitive processing, rather than in response initiation or execution.

  13. A Drawing Task to Assess Emotion Inference in Language-Impaired Children.

    PubMed

    Vendeville, Nathalie; Blanc, Nathalie; Brechet, Claire

    2015-10-01

    Studies investigating the ability of children with language impairment (LI) to infer emotions rely on verbal responses (which can be challenging for these children) and/or the selection of a card representing an emotion (which limits the response range). In contrast, a drawing task might allow a broad spectrum of responses without involving language. This study used a drawing task to compare the ability to make emotional inferences in children with and without LI. Twenty-two children with LI and 22 typically developing children ages 6 to 10 years were assessed in school during 3 sessions. They were asked to listen to audio stories. At specific moments, the experimenter stopped the recording and asked children to complete the drawing of a face to depict the emotion felt by the story's character. Three adult study-blind judges were subsequently asked to evaluate the expressiveness of the drawings. Children with LI had more difficulty than typically developing children making emotional inferences. Children with LI also made more errors of different valence than their typically developing peers. Our findings confirm that children with LI show difficulty in producing emotional inferences, even when performing a drawing task--a relatively language-free response mode.

  14. Predicting Growth in Word Level Reading Skills in Children With Developmental Dyslexia Using an Object Rhyming Functional Neuroimaging Task.

    PubMed

    Farris, Emily A; Ring, Jeremiah; Black, Jeffrey; Lyon, G Reid; Odegard, Timothy N

    2016-04-01

    An object rhyming task that does not require text reading and is suitable for younger children was used to predict gains in word level reading skills following an intensive 2-year reading intervention for children with developmental dyslexia. The task evoked activation in bilateral inferior frontal regions. Growth in untimed pseudoword reading was associated with increased pre-intervention activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus, and growth in timed word reading was associated with pre-intervention activation of the left and right inferior frontal gyri. These analyses help identify pre-intervention factors that facilitate reading skill improvements in children with developmental dyslexia.

  15. Manual asymmetries in bimanual isochronous tapping tasks in children.

    PubMed

    Faria, Inês; Diniz, Ana; Barreiros, João

    2017-01-01

    Tapping tasks have been investigated throughout the years, with variations in features such as the complexity of the task, the use of one or both hands, the employ of auditory or visual stimuli, and the characteristics of the subjects. The evaluation of lateral asymmetries in tapping tasks in children offers an insight into the structure of rhythmic movements and handedness at early stages of development. The current study aims to investigate the ability of children (aged six and seven years-old) to maintain a rhythm, in a bimanual tapping task at two different target frequencies, as well as the manual asymmetries displayed while doing so. The analyzed data in this work are the series of the time intervals between successive taps. We suggest several profiles of behavior, regarding the overall performance of children in both tempo conditions. We also propose a new method of quantifying the variability of the performance and the asymmetry of the hands, based on ellipses placed on scatter plots of the non-dominant-dominant series versus the dominant-non-dominant series. We then use running correlations to identify changes of coordination tendencies over time. The main results show that variability is larger in the task with the longer target interval. Furthermore, most children evidence lateral asymmetries, but in general they show the capacity to maintain the mean of consecutive intertap intervals of both hands close to the target interval. Finally, we try to interpret our findings in the light of existing models and timing modes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Instructional Support Predicts Children's Task Avoidance in Kindergarten

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pakarinen, Eija; Kiuru, Noona; Lerkkanen, Marja-Kristiina; Poikkeus, Anna-Maija; Ahonen, Timo; Nurmi, Jari-Erik

    2011-01-01

    This study examined the role of observed classroom quality in children's task-avoidant behavior and math skills in kindergarten. To investigate this, 1268 children were tested twice on their math skills during their kindergarten year. Kindergarten teachers (N = 137) filled in questionnaires measuring their professional experience and also rated…

  17. The Language of Children with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus: Meeting Task Demands and Mastering Syntax.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Byrne, Karen; And Others

    1990-01-01

    Linguistic performance of 7 children (mean age=68 months) with spina bifida, hydrocephalus, and average intelligence was evaluated. Subjects dealt with the semantic-pragmatic requirements of linguistically posed problems in an age-appropriate manner. Performance declined as task demands increased but no more than performance of nondisabled…

  18. Developmental changes in children's abilities to share and allocate attention in a dual task.

    PubMed

    Irwin-Chase, H; Burns, B

    2000-09-01

    Characterizing developmental changes in children's dual-task performance has been problematic because differences in divided attention abilities are easily confounded with differences in overall capacity. Two experiments showed that after individual differences in children's capacity for single-task performance were controlled for, age differences between second- (M = 8.1 years) and fifth-grade (M = 11.1 years) children did not exist in dual-task performance when tasks were of equal priority. However, when tasks had different priorities, only fifth-grade children could differentially allocate attention in the dual task. Results are discussed within the coordination hypothesis framework (see A. F. Kramer & J. L. Larish, 1996), which suggests that changes in dual-task performance with aging are due to changes in the ability to coordinate and control the allocation of attention. It is argued that linking the investigations of children's attention with research on attention and aging provides both methodological and theoretical benefits. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

  19. Neuromotor Task Training for Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder: A Controlled Trial

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Niemeijer, A. S.; Smits-Engelsman, B. C. M.; Schoemaker, M. M.

    2007-01-01

    The aim of this study was to evaluate neuromotor task training (NTT), a recently developed child-centred and task-oriented treatment programme for children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). A treatment and a non-treatment control group of children with DCD were included. Children were selected if they scored below the 15th centile on…

  20. Bilingual Children's Lexical Strategies in a Narrative Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Barbosa, Poliana; Nicoladis, Elena; Keith, Margaux

    2017-01-01

    We investigated how bilinguals choose words in a narrative task, contrasting the possibilities of a developmental delay vs. compensatory strategies. To characterize a developmental delay, we compared younger (three to five years) and older (seven to ten years) children's lexicalization of target words (Study 1). The younger children told shorter…

  1. Young Children's Metaphorical Productions in a Referential Communication Task.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Foorman, Barbara R.

    Data from referential communication studies with children four, five, and seven years old were examined with respect to metaphorical productions. Speakers in the task were 24 "primed" four-year-old children and 72 "nonprimed" four-, five-, and seven-year-old children equally divided by age. Priming consisted of asking questions that would elicit…

  2. Reversal Learning Task in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Robot-Based Approach.

    PubMed

    Costescu, Cristina A; Vanderborght, Bram; David, Daniel O

    2015-11-01

    Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) engage in highly perseverative and inflexible behaviours. Technological tools, such as robots, received increased attention as social reinforces and/or assisting tools for improving the performance of children with ASD. The aim of our study is to investigate the role of the robotic toy Keepon in a cognitive flexibility task performed by children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children. The number of participants included in this study is 81 children: 40 TD children and 41 children with ASD. Each participant had to go through two conditions: robot interaction and human interaction in which they had performed the reversal learning task. Our primary outcomes are the number of errors from acquisition phase and from reversal phase of the task; as secondary outcomes we have measured attentional engagement and positive affect. The results of this study showed that children with ASD are more engaged in the task and they seem to enjoy more the task when interacting with the robot compared with the interaction with the adult. On the other hand their cognitive flexibility performance is, in general, similar in the robot and the human conditions with the exception of the learning phase where the robot can interfere with the performance. Implication for future research and practice are discussed.

  3. Children's Strategies for Gathering Information in Three Tasks.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Miller, Patricia H.; And Others

    1986-01-01

    A developmental progression in 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children's use of strategies for gathering information was revealed in a study involving partial recall, total recall, and similarity/difference judgments. When subjects chose stimuli for exposure from an array, older children showed more ability to match strategy to task demands. Strategy…

  4. Variability and reduced performance of preschool- and early school-aged children on psychoacoustic tasks: What are the relevant factors?

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Allen, Prudence

    2003-04-01

    Young children typically perform more poorly on psychoacoustic tasks than do adults, with large individual differences. When performance is averaged across children within age groups, the data suggest a gradual change in performance with increasing age. However, an examination of individual data suggests that the performance matures more rapidly, although at different times for different children. The mechanisms of development responsible for these changes are likely very complex, involving both sensory and cognitive processes. This paper will discuss some previously suggested mechanisms including attention and cue weighting, as well as possibilities suggested from more recent studies in which learning effects were examined. In one task, a simple frequency discrimination was required, while in another the listener was required to extract regularities in complex sequences of sounds that varied from trial to trial. Results suggested that the ability to select and consistently employ an effective listening strategy was especially important in the performance of the more complex task, while simple stimulus exposure and motivation contributed to the simpler task. These factors are important for understanding the perceptual development and for the subsequent application of psychoacoustic findings to clinical populations. [Work supported by the NSERC and the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network.

  5. Co-Constructional Task Analysis: Moving beyond Adult-Based Models to Assess Young Children's Task Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lee, Scott Weng Fai

    2013-01-01

    The assessment of young children's thinking competence in task performances has typically followed the novice-to-expert regimen involving models of strategies that adults use when engaged in cognitive tasks such as problem-solving and decision-making. Socio-constructivists argue for a balanced pedagogical approach between the adult and child that…

  6. Metacognitive development of deaf children: lessons from the appearance-reality and false belief tasks.

    PubMed

    Courtin, Cyril; Melot, Anne-Marie

    2005-01-01

    'Theory of mind' development is now an important research field in deaf studies. Past research with the classic false belief task has consistently reported a delay in theory of mind development in deaf children born of hearing parents, while performance of second-generation deaf children is more problematic with some contradictory results. The present paper is aimed at testing the metacognitive abilities of deaf children on two tasks: the appearance-reality paradigm designed by Flavell, Flavell and Green (1983) and the classic false belief inference task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983; Hogrefe, Wimmer & Perner, 1986). Twenty-eight second-generation deaf children, 60 deaf children of hearing parents and 36 hearing children, aged 5 to 7, were tested and compared on three appearance-reality and three false belief items. Results show that early exposure to language, be it signed or oral, facilitates performance on the two theory of mind tasks. In addition, native signers equal hearing children in the appearance-reality task while surpassing them on the false belief one. The differences of performance patterns in the two tasks are discussed in terms of linguistic and metarepresentational development.

  7. Numerical processing efficiency improved in children using mental abacus: ERP evidence utilizing a numerical Stroop task

    PubMed Central

    Yao, Yuan; Du, Fenglei; Wang, Chunjie; Liu, Yuqiu; Weng, Jian; Chen, Feiyan

    2015-01-01

    This study examined whether long-term abacus-based mental calculation (AMC) training improved numerical processing efficiency and at what stage of information processing the effect appeard. Thirty-three children participated in the study and were randomly assigned to two groups at primary school entry, matched for age, gender and IQ. All children went through the same curriculum except that the abacus group received a 2-h/per week AMC training, while the control group did traditional numerical practice for a similar amount of time. After a 2-year training, they were tested with a numerical Stroop task. Electroencephalographic (EEG) and event related potential (ERP) recording techniques were used to monitor the temporal dynamics during the task. Children were required to determine the numerical magnitude (NC) (NC task) or the physical size (PC task) of two numbers presented simultaneously. In the NC task, the AMC group showed faster response times but similar accuracy compared to the control group. In the PC task, the two groups exhibited the same speed and accuracy. The saliency of numerical information relative to physical information was greater in AMC group. With regards to ERP results, the AMC group displayed congruity effects both in the earlier (N1) and later (N2 and LPC (late positive component) time domain, while the control group only displayed congruity effects for LPC. In the left parietal region, LPC amplitudes were larger for the AMC than the control group. Individual differences for LPC amplitudes over left parietal area showed a positive correlation with RTs in the NC task in both congruent and neutral conditions. After controlling for the N2 amplitude, this correlation also became significant in the incongruent condition. Our results suggest that AMC training can strengthen the relationship between symbolic representation and numerical magnitude so that numerical information processing becomes quicker and automatic in AMC children. PMID:26042012

  8. MnemoCity Task: Assessment of Childrens Spatial Memory Using Stereoscopy and Virtual Environments.

    PubMed

    Rodríguez-Andrés, David; Juan, M-Carmen; Méndez-López, Magdalena; Pérez-Hernández, Elena; Lluch, Javier

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents the MnemoCity task, which is a 3D application that introduces the user into a totally 3D virtual environment to evaluate spatial short-term memory. A study has been carried out to validate the MnemoCity task for the assessment of spatial short-term memory in children, by comparing the children's performance in the developed task with current approaches. A total of 160 children participated in the study. The task incorporates two types of interaction: one based on standard interaction and another one based on natural interaction involving physical movement by the user. There were no statistically significant differences in the results of the task using the two types of interaction. Furthermore, statistically significant differences were not found in relation to gender. The correlations between scores were obtained using the MnemoCity task and a traditional procedure for assessing spatial short-term memory. Those results revealed that the type of interaction used did not affect the performance of children in the MnemoCity task.

  9. Working memory deficits in children with reading difficulties: memory span and dual task coordination.

    PubMed

    Wang, Shinmin; Gathercole, Susan E

    2013-05-01

    The current study investigated the cause of the reported problems in working memory in children with reading difficulties. Verbal and visuospatial simple and complex span tasks, and digit span and reaction times tasks performed singly and in combination, were administered to 46 children with single word reading difficulties and 45 typically developing children matched for age and nonverbal ability. Children with reading difficulties had pervasive deficits in the simple and complex span tasks and had poorer abilities to coordinate two cognitive demanding tasks. These findings indicate that working memory problems in children with reading difficulties may reflect a core deficit in the central executive. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. Children's attention to task-relevant information accounts for relations between language and spatial cognition.

    PubMed

    Miller, Hilary E; Simmering, Vanessa R

    2018-08-01

    Children's spatial language reliably predicts their spatial skills, but the nature of this relation is a source of debate. This investigation examined whether the mechanisms accounting for such relations are specific to language use or reflect a domain-general mechanism of selective attention. Experiment 1 examined whether 4-year-olds' spatial skills were predicted by their selective attention or their adaptive language use. Children completed (a) an attention task assessing attention to task-relevant color, size, and location cues; (b) a description task assessing adaptive language use to describe scenes varying in color, size, and location; and (c) three spatial tasks. There was correspondence between the cue types that children attended to and produced across description and attention tasks. Adaptive language use was predicted by both children's attention and task-related language production, suggesting that selective attention underlies skills in using language adaptively. After controlling for age, gender, receptive vocabulary, and adaptive language use, spatial skills were predicted by children's selective attention. The attention score predicted variance in spatial performance previously accounted for by adaptive language use. Experiment 2 followed up on the attention task (Experiment 2a) and description task (Experiment 2b) from Experiment 1 to assess whether performance in the tasks related to selective attention or task-specific demands. Performance in Experiments 2a and 2b paralleled that in Experiment 1, suggesting that the effects in Experiment 1 reflected children's selective attention skills. These findings show that selective attention is a central factor supporting spatial skill development that could account for many effects previously attributed to children's language use. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Performance of children and adolescents with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism on advanced theory of mind tasks.

    PubMed

    Kaland, Nils; Callesen, Kirsten; Møller-Nielsen, Annette; Mortensen, Erik Lykke; Smith, Lars

    2008-07-01

    Although a number of advanced theory of mind tasks have been developed, there is a dearth of information on whether performances on different tasks are associated. The present study examined the performance of 21 children and adolescents with diagnoses of Asperger syndrome (AS) and 20 typically developing controls on three advanced theory of mind tasks: The Eyes Task, the Strange Stories, and the Stories from Everyday Life. The participants in the clinical group demonstrated lower performance than the controls on all the three tasks. The pattern of findings, however, indicates that these tasks may share different information-processing requirements in addition to tapping different mentalizing abilities.

  12. Can task-switching training enhance executive control functioning in children with attention deficit/-hyperactivity disorder?

    PubMed

    Kray, Jutta; Karbach, Julia; Haenig, Susann; Freitag, Christine

    2011-01-01

    The key cognitive impairments of children with attention deficit/-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) include executive control functions such as inhibitory control, task-switching, and working memory (WM). In this training study we examined whether task-switching training leads to improvements in these functions. Twenty children with combined type ADHD and stable methylphenidate medication performed a single-task and a task-switching training in a crossover training design. The children were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group started with the single-task training and then performed the task-switching training and the other group vice versa. The effectiveness of the task-switching training was measured as performance improvements (relative to the single-task training) on a structurally similar but new switching task and on other executive control tasks measuring inhibitory control and verbal WM as well as on fluid intelligence (reasoning). The children in both groups showed improvements in task-switching, that is, a reduction of switching costs, but not in performing the single-tasks across four training sessions. Moreover, the task-switching training lead to selective enhancements in task-switching performance, that is, the reduction of task-switching costs was found to be larger after task-switching than after single-task training. Similar selective improvements were observed for inhibitory control and verbal WM, but not for reasoning. Results of this study suggest that task-switching training is an effective cognitive intervention that helps to enhance executive control functioning in children with ADHD.

  13. Can Task-Switching Training Enhance Executive Control Functioning in Children with Attention Deficit/-Hyperactivity Disorder?

    PubMed Central

    Kray, Jutta; Karbach, Julia; Haenig, Susann; Freitag, Christine

    2012-01-01

    The key cognitive impairments of children with attention deficit/-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) include executive control functions such as inhibitory control, task-switching, and working memory (WM). In this training study we examined whether task-switching training leads to improvements in these functions. Twenty children with combined type ADHD and stable methylphenidate medication performed a single-task and a task-switching training in a crossover training design. The children were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group started with the single-task training and then performed the task-switching training and the other group vice versa. The effectiveness of the task-switching training was measured as performance improvements (relative to the single-task training) on a structurally similar but new switching task and on other executive control tasks measuring inhibitory control and verbal WM as well as on fluid intelligence (reasoning). The children in both groups showed improvements in task-switching, that is, a reduction of switching costs, but not in performing the single-tasks across four training sessions. Moreover, the task-switching training lead to selective enhancements in task-switching performance, that is, the reduction of task-switching costs was found to be larger after task-switching than after single-task training. Similar selective improvements were observed for inhibitory control and verbal WM, but not for reasoning. Results of this study suggest that task-switching training is an effective cognitive intervention that helps to enhance executive control functioning in children with ADHD. PMID:22291628

  14. The development of children's knowledge of attention and resource allocation in single and dual tasks.

    PubMed

    Dossett, D; Burns, B

    2000-06-01

    Developmental changes in kindergarten, 1st-, and 4th-grade children's knowledge about the variables that affect attention sharing and resource allocation were examined. Findings from the 2 experiments showed that kindergartners understood that person and strategy variables affect performance in attention-sharing tasks. However, knowledge of how task variables affect performance was not evident to them and was inconsistent for 1st and 4th graders. Children's knowledge about resource allocation revealed a different pattern and varied according to the dissimilarity of task demands in the attention-sharing task. In Experiment 1, in which the dual attention tasks were similar (i.e., visual detection), kindergarten and 1st-grade children did not differentiate performance in single and dual tasks. Fourth graders demonstrated knowledge that performance on a single task would be better than performance on the dual tasks for only 2 of the variables examined. In Experiment 2, in which the dual attention tasks were dissimilar (i.e., visual and auditory detection), kindergarten and 1st-grade children demonstrated knowledge that performance in the single task would be better than in the dual tasks for 1 of the task variables examined. However, 4th-grade children consistently gave higher ratings for performance on the single than on the dual attention tasks for all variables examined. These findings (a) underscore that children's meta-attention is not unitary and (b) demonstrate that children's knowledge about variables affecting attention sharing and resource allocation have different developmental pathways. Results show that knowledge about attention sharing and about the factors that influence the control of attention develops slowly and undergoes reorganization in middle childhood.

  15. Assessing language and visuospatial functions with one task: a "dual use" approach to performing fMRI in children.

    PubMed

    Ebner, Kathina; Lidzba, Karen; Hauser, Till-Karsten; Wilke, Marko

    2011-10-01

    In order to increase the rate of successful functional MR studies in children it is helpful to shorten the time spent in the scanner. To this effect, assessing two cognitive functions with one task seems to be a promising approach. The hypothesis of this study was that the control condition of an established language task (vowel identification task, VIT) requires visuospatial processing and that the control condition (VIT(CC)) therefore may also be applicable to localize visuospatial functions. As a reference task, a visual search task (VST, previously established for use in children) was employed. To test this hypothesis, 43 children (19 f, 24 m; 12.0±2.6, range 7.9 to 17.8 years) were recruited and scanned using both tasks. Second-level random effects group analyses showed activation of left inferior-frontal cortex in the active condition of the VIT, as in previous studies. Additionally, analysis of the VIT(CC) demonstrated activation in right-dominant superior parietal and high-frontal brain regions, classically associated with visuospatial functions; activation seen in the VST was similar with a substantial overlap. However, lateralization in the parietal lobe was significantly more bilateral in the VST than in the VIT(CC). This suggests that the VIT can not only be applied to assess language functions (using the active>control contrast), but also that the control>active condition is useful for assessing visuospatial functions. Future task design may benefit from such a "dual use" approach to performing fMRI not only, but also particularly in children. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Effect(s) of Language Tasks on Severity of Disfluencies in Preschool Children with Stuttering.

    PubMed

    Zamani, Peyman; Ravanbakhsh, Majid; Weisi, Farzad; Rashedi, Vahid; Naderi, Sara; Hosseinzadeh, Ayub; Rezaei, Mohammad

    2017-04-01

    Speech disfluency in children can be increased or decreased depending on the type of linguistic task presented to them. In this study, the effect of sentence imitation and sentence modeling on severity of speech disfluencies in preschool children with stuttering is investigated. In this cross-sectional descriptive analytical study, 58 children with stuttering (29 with mild stuttering and 29 with moderate stuttering) and 58 typical children aged between 4 and 6 years old participated. The severity of speech disfluencies was assessed by SSI-3 and TOCS before and after offering each task. In boys with mild stuttering, The mean stuttering severity scores in two tasks of sentence imitation and sentence modeling were [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] respectively ([Formula: see text]). But, in boys with moderate stuttering the stuttering severity in the both tasks were [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] respectively ([Formula: see text]). In girls with mild stuttering, the stuttering severity in two tasks of sentence imitation and sentence modeling were [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] respectively ([Formula: see text]). But, in girls with moderate stuttering the mean stuttering severity in the both tasks were [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] respectively ([Formula: see text]). In both gender of typical children, the score of speech disfluencies had no significant difference between two tasks ([Formula: see text]). In preschool children with mild stuttering and peer non-stutters, performing the tasks of sentence imitation and sentence modeling could not increase the severity of stuttering. But, in preschool children with moderate stuttering, doing the task of sentence modeling increased the stuttering severity score.

  17. Scaffolding Interaction in Parent-Child Dyads: Multimodal Analysis of Parental Scaffolding with Task and Non-Task Oriented Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Salonen, Pekka; Lepola, Janne; Vauras, Marja

    2007-01-01

    In this exploratory study we conceptualized and explored socio-cognitive, emotional and motivational regulatory processes displayed in scaffolding interaction between parents and their non-task and task-oriented children. Based on the dynamic systems view and findings from developmental research, we assumed that parents with non-task oriented and…

  18. Evaluation of Cognitive Function of Children with Developmental Disabilities by means of Button-Press Task

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Nakazono, Shogo; Kobori, Satoshi

    The button-press task means that the subject observes a moving target and presses a button to stop it when the target enters a specified area on a computer display. Subjects perform normal task, suppressed task and delayed task. In the suppressed task, the moving target disappears at some point during the trial. In the delayed task, there is some lag time between the time of pressing button and of stopping target. In these tasks, subjects estimate the movement of the target, and press the button considering his/her own reaction time. In our previous study, we showed that cognitive and motor function was able to be evaluated by these tasks. In this study, we examined error data of children with developmental disabilities to evaluate the cognitive function, and investigated the learning processes. Moreover, we discussed the developmental stages by comparing the children with disabilities to normal control children, and we clarified the behavior characteristics of children with developmental disabilities. Asa result, it was shown that our evaluation method and system for the button-press task were effective to evaluate cognitive ability of children with developmental disabilities.

  19. Cross-cultural differences for three visual memory tasks in Brazilian children.

    PubMed

    Santos, F H; Mello, C B; Bueno, O F A; Dellatolas, G

    2005-10-01

    Norms for three visual memory tasks, including Corsi's block tapping test and the BEM 144 complex figures and visual recognition, were developed for neuropsychological assessment in Brazilian children. The tasks were measured in 127 children ages 7 to 10 years from rural and urban areas of the States of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. Analysis indicated age-related but not sex-related differences. A cross-cultural effect was observed in relation to copying and recall of Complex pictures. Different performances between rural and urban children were noted.

  20. Cross-lagged relations between teacher and parent ratings of children's task avoidance and different literacy skills.

    PubMed

    Georgiou, George K; Hirvonen, Riikka; Manolitsis, George; Nurmi, Jari-Erik

    2017-09-01

    Task avoidance is a significant predictor of literacy skills. However, it remains unclear whether the relation between the two is reciprocal and whether it is affected by the type of literacy outcome, who is rating children's task avoidance, and the children's gender. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the cross-lagged relations between teacher and parent ratings of children's task avoidance and different literacy skills. One hundred and seventy-two Greek children (91 girls, 81 boys) were followed from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Children were assessed on reading accuracy, reading fluency, and spelling to dictation. Parents and teachers rated the children's task-avoidant behaviour. Results of structural equation modelling showed that the cross-lagged relations varied as a function of the literacy outcome, who rated the children's task avoidance, and children's gender. Earlier reading and spelling performance predicted subsequent parent-rated task avoidance, but parent-rated task avoidance did not predict subsequent reading and spelling performance (with the exception of spelling in Grade 3). Teacher-rated task avoidance and reading fluency/spelling had a reciprocal relationship over time. In addition, the effects of teacher-rated task avoidance on future spelling were significantly stronger in boys than in girls. This suggests that poor reading and spelling performance can lead to subsequent task avoidance in both classroom and home situations. The fact that task avoidance permeates across different learning environments is alarming and calls for joint action from both parents and teachers to mitigate its negative impact on learning. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

  1. Diverse task scheduling for individualized requirements in cloud manufacturing

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zhou, Longfei; Zhang, Lin; Zhao, Chun; Laili, Yuanjun; Xu, Lida

    2018-03-01

    Cloud manufacturing (CMfg) has emerged as a new manufacturing paradigm that provides ubiquitous, on-demand manufacturing services to customers through network and CMfg platforms. In CMfg system, task scheduling as an important means of finding suitable services for specific manufacturing tasks plays a key role in enhancing the system performance. Customers' requirements in CMfg are highly individualized, which leads to diverse manufacturing tasks in terms of execution flows and users' preferences. We focus on diverse manufacturing tasks and aim to address their scheduling issue in CMfg. First of all, a mathematical model of task scheduling is built based on analysis of the scheduling process in CMfg. To solve this scheduling problem, we propose a scheduling method aiming for diverse tasks, which enables each service demander to obtain desired manufacturing services. The candidate service sets are generated according to subtask directed graphs. An improved genetic algorithm is applied to searching for optimal task scheduling solutions. The effectiveness of the scheduling method proposed is verified by a case study with individualized customers' requirements. The results indicate that the proposed task scheduling method is able to achieve better performance than some usual algorithms such as simulated annealing and pattern search.

  2. Trajectories of Resilience during Dyadic Task Performance among Children Six to Seven Years of Age

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mykkänen, Arttu; Kronqvist, Eeva-Liisa; Järvelä, Sanna

    2013-01-01

    The aim of this study is to analyse resilience displayed by young children in dyadic task performance situations. Data were collected by videotaping children (aged six to seven years; N?=?40) during a geometrical task performance. Results describe ways in which children confronted the challenges during task performance, and the order in which the…

  3. Measuring Children's Age Stereotyping Using a Modified Piagetian Conservation Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kwong See, Sheree T.; Rasmussen, Carmen; Pertman, S. Quinn

    2012-01-01

    We examined five-year-old-children's age stereotyping using a modified Piagetian conservation task. Children were asked if two lines of objects were the "same" after one line had been made longer (transformed). A conversational account posits that children's answers reflect assumptions about the asker's motivation for the question (Schwarz, 1996).…

  4. Use of the North American guidelines for children's agricultural tasks with Hmong farm families.

    PubMed

    Rasmussen, R C; Schermann, M A; Shutske, J M; Olson, D K

    2003-11-01

    This literature review synthesizes available studies on Hmong agricultural practices, patterns of childhood growth and development of Hmong children in the context of injury prevention, and potential application or adaptation of the North American Guidelines for Children's Agricultural Tasks (Lee and Marlenga, 1999) for Hmong children working in the U.S. Data from qualitative interviews, focus groups, case studies, and surveys were collected, categories were determined, and themes were identified. Field tools and practices, gender roles, and reasons for farming were examined, as well as physical and cognitive development of Hmong children and Hmong parenting techniques to describe factors related to farm task assignment of children. Current agricultural practices of Hmong in the U.S. can be described as generally small-scale operations that use mainly hand tools, manual labor, and local direct-marketing techniques. Specific practices include thinning, weeding, and hoeing; carrying tools, buckets, or baskets; setting plant supports; and watering. Hmong children appear to be given greater amounts of responsibility at earlier ages than North American children. Hmong parenting practices, as would be used in task assignment, are somewhat more authoritarian-based and lead to psychosocial skills that are more group-oriented than individual-oriented. Hmong children were found to be shorter than children in the U.S. of the same ages. This review suggests that the NAGCAT cannot be literally translated and disseminated to Hmong farming families as an injury prevention intervention. Further information is needed about what farm tasks Hmong children do and how Hmong parents assign those tasks to children.

  5. Reading vocabulary in children with and without hearing loss: the roles of task and word type.

    PubMed

    Coppens, Karien M; Tellings, Agnes; Verhoeven, Ludo; Schreuder, Robert

    2013-04-01

    To address the problem of low reading comprehension scores among children with hearing impairment, it is necessary to have a better understanding of their reading vocabulary. In this study, the authors investigated whether task and word type differentiate the reading vocabulary knowledge of children with and without severe hearing loss. Seventy-two children with hearing loss and 72 children with normal hearing performed a lexical and a use decision task. Both tasks contained the same 180 words divided over 7 clusters, each cluster containing words with a similar pattern of scores on 8 word properties (word class, frequency, morphological family size, length, age of acquisition, mode of acquisition, imageability, and familiarity). Whereas the children with normal hearing scored better on the 2 tasks than the children with hearing loss, the size of the difference varied depending on the type of task and word. Performance differences between the 2 groups increased as words and tasks became more complex. Despite delays, children with hearing loss showed a similar pattern of vocabulary acquisition as their peers with normal hearing. For the most precise assessment of reading vocabulary possible, a range of tasks and word types should be used.

  6. Influence of Ongoing Task Difficulty and Motivation Level on Children's Prospective Memory in a Chinese Sample.

    PubMed

    Han, Pi-Guo; Han, Lei; Bian, Yu-Long; Tian, Yu; Xu, Min-Xia; Gao, Feng-Qiang

    2017-01-01

    Prospective memory (PM) is the process associated with the task of realizing delayed intentions in the future. Researchers distinguish two types of PM, namely time-based PM (tbPM) and event-based PM (ebPM). Experiment 1 investigated the developmental trajectory of 3- to 5-year-old preschool children's PM ability, and the occurrence of delayed retrieval (children execute the PM task in a larger window of opportunity) in both tbPM and ebPM tasks. Results revealed that the 5-year-old children outperformed the 3- and 4-year-old children in PM. Moreover, delayed retrieval was more likely to occur in tbPM task than in ebPM task. In Experiment 2, the influence of ongoing task (OT) difficulty on PM performance was investigated with a sample of 5-year-old children. Results revealed no significant effect of OT difficulty on PM performance. In Experiment 3, we improved children's motivation level to complete the OT, then explored the influence of OT difficulty on children's PM performance. Results revealed that the effect of OT difficulty on PM performance became significant after increasing the children's motivation to complete the OT. These results provide insights into the mechanism of attentional resource allocation in PM tasks and have crucial educational and social implications.

  7. Attentional Modulation of Word Recognition by Children in a Dual-Task Paradigm

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Choi, Sangsook; Lotto, Andrew; Lewis, Dawna; Hoover, Brenda; Stelmachowicz, Patricia

    2008-01-01

    Purpose: This study investigated an account of limited short-term memory capacity for children's speech perception in noise using a dual-task paradigm. Method: Sixty-four normal-hearing children (7-14 years of age) participated in this study. Dual tasks were repeating monosyllabic words presented in noise at 8 dB signal-to-noise ratio and…

  8. MnemoCity Task: Assessment of Childrens Spatial Memory Using Stereoscopy and Virtual Environments

    PubMed Central

    Rodríguez-Andrés, David; Méndez-López, Magdalena; Pérez-Hernández, Elena; Lluch, Javier

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents the MnemoCity task, which is a 3D application that introduces the user into a totally 3D virtual environment to evaluate spatial short-term memory. A study has been carried out to validate the MnemoCity task for the assessment of spatial short-term memory in children, by comparing the children’s performance in the developed task with current approaches. A total of 160 children participated in the study. The task incorporates two types of interaction: one based on standard interaction and another one based on natural interaction involving physical movement by the user. There were no statistically significant differences in the results of the task using the two types of interaction. Furthermore, statistically significant differences were not found in relation to gender. The correlations between scores were obtained using the MnemoCity task and a traditional procedure for assessing spatial short-term memory. Those results revealed that the type of interaction used did not affect the performance of children in the MnemoCity task. PMID:27579715

  9. When Stroop helps Piaget: An inter-task positive priming paradigm in 9-year-old children.

    PubMed

    Linzarini, A; Houdé, O; Borst, G

    2015-11-01

    To determine whether inhibitory control is domain general or domain specific in school children, we asked 40 9-year-old children to perform an inter-task priming paradigm in which they responded to Stroop items on the primes and to Piaget number conservation items on the probes. The children were more efficient in the inhibition of a misleading "length-equals-number" heuristic in the number conservation task if they had successfully inhibited a previous prepotent reading response in the Stroop task. This study provides evidence that the inhibitory control ability of school children generalizes to distinct cognitive domains, that is, verbal for the Stroop task and logico-mathematical for Piaget's number conservation task. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. Perceived Difficulty with Physical Tasks, Lifestyle, and Physical Performance in Obese Children

    PubMed Central

    D'Amico, Osvaldo; Sticco, Maura; Nugnes, Rosa; Mozzillo, Enza; Franzese, Adriana

    2014-01-01

    We estimated perceived difficulty with physical tasks, lifestyle, and physical performance in 382 children and adolescents (163 obese, 54 overweight, and 165 normal-weight subjects) and the relationship between perceived physical difficulties and sports participation, sedentary behaviors, or physical performance. Perceived difficulty with physical tasks and lifestyle habits was assessed by interview using a structured questionnaire, while physical performance was assessed through the six-minute walking test (6MWT). Obese children had higher perceived difficulty with several activities of daily living, were less engaged in sports, and had lower physical performance than normal-weight or overweight children; on the contrary, they did not differ with regard to time spent in sedentary behaviors. Perceived difficulty in running and hopping negatively predicted sports participation (P < 0.05 and <0.01, resp.), while perceived difficulty in almost all physical activities negatively predicted the 6MWT, independently of BMI (P < 0.01). Our results indicate that perception of task's difficulty level may reflect an actual difficulty in obese children. These findings may have practical implications for approaching physical activity in obese children. Exploring both the perception of a task's difficulty level and physical performance may be useful to design exercise programs that allow safe and successful participation. PMID:25105139

  11. Are Books Like Number Lines? Children Spontaneously Encode Spatial-Numeric Relationships in a Novel Spatial Estimation Task.

    PubMed

    Thompson, Clarissa A; Morris, Bradley J; Sidney, Pooja G

    2017-01-01

    Do children spontaneously represent spatial-numeric features of a task, even when it does not include printed numbers (Mix et al., 2016)? Sixty first grade students completed a novel spatial estimation task by seeking and finding pages in a 100-page book without printed page numbers. Children were shown pages 1 through 6 and 100, and then were asked, "Can you find page X?" Children's precision of estimates on the page finder task and a 0-100 number line estimation task was calculated with the Percent Absolute Error (PAE) formula (Siegler and Booth, 2004), in which lower PAE indicated more precise estimates. Children's numerical knowledge was further assessed with: (1) numeral identification (e.g., What number is this: 57?), (2) magnitude comparison (e.g., Which is larger: 54 or 57?), and (3) counting on (e.g., Start counting from 84 and count up 5 more). Children's accuracy on these tasks was correlated with their number line PAE. Children's number line estimation PAE predicted their page finder PAE, even after controlling for age and accuracy on the other numerical tasks. Children's estimates on the page finder and number line tasks appear to tap a general magnitude representation. However, the page finder task did not correlate with numeral identification and counting-on performance, likely because these tasks do not measure children's magnitude knowledge. Our results suggest that the novel page finder task is a useful measure of children's magnitude knowledge, and that books have similar spatial-numeric affordances as number lines and numeric board games.

  12. Minimal groups increase young children's motivation and learning on group-relevant tasks.

    PubMed

    Master, Allison; Walton, Gregory M

    2013-01-01

    Three experiments (N = 130) used a minimal group manipulation to show that just perceived membership in a social group boosts young children's motivation for and learning from group-relevant tasks. In Experiment 1, 4-year-old children assigned to a minimal "puzzles group" persisted longer on a challenging puzzle than children identified as the "puzzles child" or children in a control condition. Experiment 2 showed that this boost in motivation occurred only when the group was associated with the task. In Experiment 3, children assigned to a minimal group associated with word learning learned more words than children assigned an analogous individual identity. The studies demonstrate that fostering shared motivations may be a powerful means by which to shape young children's academic outcomes. © 2012 The Authors. Child Development © 2012 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

  13. Inflectional Morphology and Dyslexia: Italian Children's Performance in a Nonword Pluralization Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vender, Maria; Mantione, Federica; Savazzi, Silvia; Delfitto, Denis; Melloni, Chiara

    2017-01-01

    In this study, we present the results of an original experimental protocol designed to assess the performance in a pluralization task of 52 Italian children divided into two groups: 24 children with developmental dyslexia (mean age 10.0 years old) and 28 typically developing children (mean age 9.11 years old). Our task, inspired by Berko's Wug…

  14. Predictors of Processing-Based Task Performance in Bilingual and Monolingual Children

    PubMed Central

    Buac, Milijana; Gross, Megan; Kaushanskaya, Margarita

    2016-01-01

    In the present study we examined performance of bilingual Spanish-English-speaking and monolingual English-speaking school-age children on a range of processing-based measures within the framework of Baddeley’s working memory model. The processing-based measures included measures of short-term memory, measures of working memory, and a novel word-learning task. Results revealed that monolinguals outperformed bilinguals on the short-term memory tasks but not the working memory and novel word-learning tasks. Further, children’s vocabulary skills and socioeconomic status (SES) were more predictive of processing-based task performance in the bilingual group than the monolingual group. Together, these findings indicate that processing-based tasks that engage verbal working memory rather than short-term memory may be better-suited for diagnostic purposes with bilingual children. However, even verbal working memory measures are sensitive to bilingual children’s language-specific knowledge and demographic characteristics, and therefore may have limited clinical utility. PMID:27179914

  15. Neural correlates of the number–size interference task in children

    PubMed Central

    Kaufmann, Liane; Koppelstaetter, Florian; Siedentopf, Christian; Haala, Ilka; Haberlandt, Edda; Zimmerhackl, Lothar-Bernd; Felber, Stefan; Ischebeck, Anja

    2010-01-01

    In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, 17 children were asked to make numerical and physical magnitude classifications while ignoring the other stimulus dimension (number–size interference task). Digit pairs were either incongruent (3 8) or neutral (3 8). Generally, numerical magnitude interferes with font size (congruity effect). Moreover, relative to numerically adjacent digits far ones yield quicker responses (distance effect). Behaviourally, robust distance and congruity effects were observed in both tasks. imaging baselline contrasts revealed activations in frontal, parietal, occipital and cerebellar areas bilaterally. Different from results usually reported for adultssmaller distances activated frontal, but not (intra-)parietal areas in children. Congruity effects became significant only in physical comparisons. Thus, even with comparable behavioural performance, cerebral activation patterns may differ substantially between children and adults. PMID:16603917

  16. 49 CFR 236.1043 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Positive Train Control Systems § 236.1043 Task analysis and basic requirements. (a) Training structure and... installation, maintenance, repair, modification, inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be...

  17. 49 CFR 236.1043 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Positive Train Control Systems § 236.1043 Task analysis and basic requirements. (a) Training structure and... installation, maintenance, repair, modification, inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be...

  18. 49 CFR 236.1043 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Positive Train Control Systems § 236.1043 Task analysis and basic requirements. (a) Training structure and... installation, maintenance, repair, modification, inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be...

  19. 49 CFR 236.1043 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Positive Train Control Systems § 236.1043 Task analysis and basic requirements. (a) Training structure and... installation, maintenance, repair, modification, inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be...

  20. 49 CFR 236.1043 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Positive Train Control Systems § 236.1043 Task analysis and basic requirements. (a) Training structure and... installation, maintenance, repair, modification, inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be...

  1. Performance on verbal and low-verbal false belief tasks: evidence from children with Williams syndrome.

    PubMed

    Van Herwegen, Jo; Dimitriou, Dagmara; Rundblad, Gabriella

    2013-01-01

    Previous studies that have investigated the relationship between performance on theory of mind (ToM) tasks and verbal abilities in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have reported contradictory findings with some showing that language abilities aid performance on ToM tasks while others have found that participants with WS fail these tasks because of their verbal demands. The current study investigated this relationship again comparing performance on a classical change-location task to two newly developed low-verbal tasks, one change-location task and one unexpected content task. Thirty children with WS (aged 5-17;01 years) and 30 typically developing (TD) children (aged between 2;10 years and 9;09 years), who were matched for vocabulary comprehension scores were included in the study. Although performance in the WS group was significantly poorer compared to the TD group on all three tasks, performance was not predicted by their receptive vocabulary or grammatical ability scores. In addition, ToM abilities in both groups depended on the cognitive demands of the task at hand. This finding shows that performance on ToM tasks in WS is not necessarily hindered by their delayed language abilities but rather by the task administered. This could potentially affect the diagnosis of developmental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, and comparison of ToM abilities across developmental disorders. Readers of this article should be able to (1) describe the current state of theory of mind research in Williams syndrome, (2) identify which cognitive abilities might explain performance on theory of mind tasks in both typically developing children and in children with Williams syndrome, and (3) interpret the importance of task demands when assessing children's theory of mind abilities. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Improving children's affective decision making in the Children's Gambling Task.

    PubMed

    Andrews, Glenda; Moussaumai, Jennifer

    2015-11-01

    Affective decision making was examined in 108 children (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) using the Children's Gambling Task (CGT). Children completed the CGT and then responded to awareness questions. Children in the binary_experience and binary_experience+awareness (not control) conditions first completed two simpler versions. Children in the binary_experience+awareness condition also responded to questions about relational components of the simpler versions. Experience with simpler versions facilitated decision making in 4- and 5-year-olds, but 3-year-olds' advantageous choices declined across trial blocks in the binary_experience and control conditions. Responding to questions about relational components further benefited the 4- and 5-year-olds. The 3-year-olds' advantageous choices on the final block were at chance level in the binary_experience+awareness condition but were below chance level in the other conditions. Awareness following the CGT was strongly correlated with advantageous choices and with age. Awareness was demonstrated by 5-year-olds (all conditions) and 4-year-olds (binary_experience and binary_experience+awareness) but not by 3-year-olds. The findings demonstrate the importance of complexity and conscious awareness in cognitive development. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Multiple-Object Tracking in Children: The "Catch the Spies" Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Trick, L.M.; Jaspers-Fayer, F.; Sethi, N.

    2005-01-01

    Multiple-object tracking involves simultaneously tracking positions of a number of target-items as they move among distractors. The standard version of the task poses special challenges for children, demanding extended concentration and the ability to distinguish targets from identical-looking distractors, and may thus underestimate children's…

  4. A Competitive Nonverbal False Belief Task for Children and Apes

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Krachun, Carla; Carpenter, Malinda; Call, Josep; Tomasello, Michael

    2009-01-01

    A nonverbal false belief task was administered to children (mean age 5 years) and two great ape species: chimpanzees ("Pan troglodytes") and bonobos ("Pan paniscus"). Because apes typically perform poorly in cooperative contexts, our task was competitive. Two versions were run: in both, a human competitor witnessed an experimenter hide a reward in…

  5. 49 CFR 236.923 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... classroom, simulator, computer-based, hands-on, or other formally structured training and testing, except... for Processor-Based Signal and Train Control Systems § 236.923 Task analysis and basic requirements...) Based on a formal task analysis, identify the installation, maintenance, repair, modification...

  6. Linguistic Mediation of Children's Performance in a New Symbolic Understanding Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Homer, Bruce D.; Petroff, Natalya; Hayward, Elizabeth O.

    2013-01-01

    The effects of language on symbolic functioning were examined using the "boxes task," a new symbolic understanding task based on DeLoache's model task. Children ("N" = 32; ages 2;4--3;8) observed an object being hidden in a stack of four boxes and were then asked to retrieve a similar object in the same location from a set of…

  7. Use of a Non-Navigational, Non-Verbal Landmark Task in Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Overman, William; Pierce, Allison; Watterson, Lucas; Coleman, Jennifer K.

    2013-01-01

    Two hundred and twenty two children (104 females), 1-8 years of age and young adults, were tested for up to 25 days on five versions of a non-verbal, non-navigational landmark task that had previously been used for monkeys. In monkeys, performance on this task is severely impaired following damage to the parietal cortex. For the basic task, the…

  8. Alpha-power modulation reflects the balancing of task requirements in a selective attention task.

    PubMed

    Limbach, Katharina; Corballis, Paul M

    2017-02-01

    Recent research has related the orienting of selective attention to the lateralization of posterior EEG alpha power (∼8 to 12 Hz). Typically, alpha power decreases over the side of the head contralateral to the cued side of space. However, it is not clear how this lateralization affects behavior. We recorded EEG from 20 participants while they performed a cued visual discrimination task under three different response-deadline conditions to investigate the effect of alpha-power modulation on behavioral performance in more detail. Although all participants benefited from the cue behaviorally and adjusted their performance according to the response deadlines, we found the cue-related alpha-power modulation to depend on the general alpha-power level at baseline: Only participants with high baseline alpha power showed significant cue-related alpha-power lateralization that was, however, strikingly similar across response-deadline conditions. On the other hand, participants with low alpha power at baseline did not show any lateralization, but adjusted their alpha levels according to the response-deadline instructions and, more importantly, showed a stronger influence of the task instructions on behavioral performance and adapted their response accuracies to the task requirements more flexibly. These findings challenge the often-assumed role of alpha-power lateralization for attentional deployment. While alpha power seems to be related to behavioral performance and the orienting of attention, this relationship is rather complex and, at least under the current task requirements, the general alpha-power state seems to be more strongly related to behavioral performance (in our case, the flexible adjustment to task requirements) than the cue-related lateralization. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

  9. The Development of Landmark and Beacon Use in Young Children: Evidence from a Touchscreen Search Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sutton, Jennifer E.

    2006-01-01

    Children ages 2, 3 and 4 years participated in a novel hide-and-seek search task presented on a touchscreen monitor. On beacon trials, the target hiding place could be located using a beacon cue, but on landmark trials, searching required the use of a nearby landmark cue. In Experiment 1, 2-year-olds performed less accurately than older children…

  10. Young Children's Competency to Take the Oath: Effects of Task, Maltreatment, and Age.

    PubMed

    Lyon, Thomas D; Carrick, Nathalie; Quas, Jodi A

    2010-04-01

    This study examined maltreated and non-maltreated children's (N = 183) emerging understanding of "truth" and "lie," terms about which they are quizzed to qualify as competent to testify. Four- to six-year-old children were asked to accept or reject true and false (T/F) statements, label T/F statements as the "truth" or "a lie," label T/F statements as "good" or "bad," and label "truth" and "lie" as "good" or "bad." The youngest children were at ceiling in accepting/rejecting T/F statements. The labeling tasks revealed improvement with age and children performed similarly across the tasks. Most children were better able to evaluate "truth" than "lie." Maltreated children exhibited somewhat different response patterns, suggesting greater sensitivity to the immorality of lying.

  11. How Do Children Coordinate Simultaneous Upper and Lower Extremity Tasks? The Development of Dual Motor Task Coordination.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Getchell, Nancy; Whitall, Jill

    2003-01-01

    Compared coupling characteristics of clapping simultaneous with walking or galloping, consistency across trials, and phasing variability among 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds. Found that for walk/clap tasks, children adopted adult-like coupling patterns by age 8 and with the same consistency by age 10. Across age, children became less variable in…

  12. 49 CFR 236.923 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Standards for Processor-Based Signal and Train Control Systems § 236.923 Task analysis and basic requirements..., inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be performed on a railroad's products. This includes the...

  13. 49 CFR 236.923 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Standards for Processor-Based Signal and Train Control Systems § 236.923 Task analysis and basic requirements..., inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be performed on a railroad's products. This includes the...

  14. 49 CFR 236.923 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Standards for Processor-Based Signal and Train Control Systems § 236.923 Task analysis and basic requirements..., inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be performed on a railroad's products. This includes the...

  15. 49 CFR 236.923 - Task analysis and basic requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Standards for Processor-Based Signal and Train Control Systems § 236.923 Task analysis and basic requirements..., inspection, testing, and operating tasks that must be performed on a railroad's products. This includes the...

  16. Relations among Parental Causal Attributions and Children's Math Performance and Task Persistence

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tõeväli, Paula-Karoliina; Kikas, Eve

    2017-01-01

    The present longitudinal study examined the cross-lagged relations between parental causal attributions of children's math success to children's ability, parental help, children's math performance and task persistence. A total of 735 children, their mothers, fathers and teachers were assessed twice--at the end of the second and the third grades.…

  17. Do tasks make a difference? Accounting for heterogeneity of performance of children with reading difficulties on tasks of executive function: findings from a meta-analysis.

    PubMed

    Booth, Josephine N; Boyle, James M E; Kelly, Steve W

    2010-03-01

    Research studies have implicated executive functions in reading difficulties (RD). But while some studies have found children with RD to be impaired on tasks of executive function other studies report unimpaired performance. A meta-analysis was carried out to determine whether these discrepant findings can be accounted for by differences in the tasks of executive function that are utilized. A total of 48 studies comparing the performance on tasks of executive function of children with RD with their typically developing peers were included in the meta-analysis, yielding 180 effect sizes. An overall effect size of 0.57 (SE .03) was obtained, indicating that children with RD have impairments on tasks of executive function. However, effect sizes varied considerably suggesting that the impairment is not uniform. Moderator analysis revealed that task modality and IQ-achievement discrepancy definitions of RD influenced the magnitude of effect; however, the age and gender of participants and the nature of the RD did not have an influence. While the children's RD were associated with executive function impairments, variation in effect size is a product of the assessment task employed, underlying task demands, and definitional criteria.

  18. Effects of Mindfulness-Based Intervention to Improve Task Performance for Children with Intellectual Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kim, Jeongil; Kwon, Miyoung

    2018-01-01

    Background: Task performance is a critical factor for learning in individuals with intellectual disabilities. This study aimed to examine mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) to improve task performance for children with intellectual disability (ID). Methods: Three elementary school children with ID participated in the study. A multiple baseline…

  19. Cognitive flexibility in young children: General or task-specific capacity?

    PubMed

    Deák, Gedeon O; Wiseheart, Melody

    2015-10-01

    Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing tasks or problems. To test whether cognitive flexibility is a coherent cognitive capacity in young children, we tested 3- to 5-year-olds' performance on two forms of task switching, rule-based (Three Dimension Changes Card Sorting, 3DCCS) and inductive (Flexible Induction of Meaning-Animates and Objects, FIM-Ob and FIM-An), as well as tests of response speed, verbal working memory, inhibition, and reasoning. Results suggest that cognitive flexibility is not a globally coherent trait; only the two inductive word-meaning (FIM) tests showed high inter-test coherence. Task- and knowledge-specific factors also determine children's flexibility in a given test. Response speed, vocabulary size, and causal reasoning skills further predicted individual and age differences in flexibility, although they did not have the same predictive relation with all three flexibility tests. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Local and Global Processing in Blind and Sighted Children in a Naming and Drawing Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Puspitawati, Ira; Jebrane, Ahmed; Vinter, Annie

    2014-01-01

    This study investigated the spatial analysis of tactile hierarchical patterns in 110 early-blind children aged 6-8 to 16-18 years, as compared to 90 blindfolded sighted children, in a naming and haptic drawing task. The results revealed that regardless of visual status, young children predominantly produced local responses in both tasks, whereas…

  1. Children's Choice Strategies: The Effects of Age and Task Demands

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bereby-Meyer, Yoella; Assor, Avi; Katz, Idit

    2004-01-01

    Two experiments examined the effect of age and cognitive demands on children's choice strategies. Children aged 8-9 and 12-13 years were asked to choose among either two or four products that differed in several attributes of varying importance to them. Choice tasks were designed to differentiate between the lexicographic and the equal-weighting…

  2. Acquisition of a Complex Basketball-Dribbling Task in School Children as a Function of Bilateral Practice Order

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stockel, Tino; Weigelt, Matthias; Krug, Jurgen

    2011-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate order-of-practice effects for the acquisition of a complex basketball skill in a bilateral transfer paradigm. The task required participants to dribble as fast as possible in slalom-like movements across six javelins and return to the initial position. Fifty-two right-handed school children (M age =…

  3. Does a peer model's task proficiency influence children's solution choice and innovation?

    PubMed

    Wood, Lara A; Kendal, Rachel L; Flynn, Emma G

    2015-11-01

    The current study investigated whether 4- to 6-year-old children's task solution choice was influenced by the past proficiency of familiar peer models and the children's personal prior task experience. Peer past proficiency was established through behavioral assessments of interactions with novel tasks alongside peer and teacher predictions of each child's proficiency. Based on these assessments, one peer model with high past proficiency and one age-, sex-, dominance-, and popularity-matched peer model with lower past proficiency were trained to remove a capsule using alternative solutions from a three-solution artificial fruit task. Video demonstrations of the models were shown to children after they had either a personal successful interaction or no interaction with the task. In general, there was not a strong bias toward the high past-proficiency model, perhaps due to a motivation to acquire multiple methods and the salience of other transmission biases. However, there was some evidence of a model-based past-proficiency bias; when the high past-proficiency peer matched the participants' original solution, there was increased use of that solution, whereas if the high past-proficiency peer demonstrated an alternative solution, there was increased use of the alternative social solution and novel solutions. Thus, model proficiency influenced innovation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. The Typicality Ranking Task: A New Method to Derive Typicality Judgments from Children.

    PubMed

    Djalal, Farah Mutiasari; Ameel, Eef; Storms, Gert

    2016-01-01

    An alternative method for deriving typicality judgments, applicable in young children that are not familiar with numerical values yet, is introduced, allowing researchers to study gradedness at younger ages in concept development. Contrary to the long tradition of using rating-based procedures to derive typicality judgments, we propose a method that is based on typicality ranking rather than rating, in which items are gradually sorted according to their typicality, and that requires a minimum of linguistic knowledge. The validity of the method is investigated and the method is compared to the traditional typicality rating measurement in a large empirical study with eight different semantic concepts. The results show that the typicality ranking task can be used to assess children's category knowledge and to evaluate how this knowledge evolves over time. Contrary to earlier held assumptions in studies on typicality in young children, our results also show that preference is not so much a confounding variable to be avoided, but that both variables are often significantly correlated in older children and even in adults.

  5. Music and On-task Behaviors in Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    PubMed

    Dieringer, Shannon Titus; Porretta, David L; Sainato, Diane

    2017-07-01

    The purpose of our study was to determine the effect of music (music with lyrics versus music with lyrics plus instruction) relative to on-task behaviors in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a gross motor setting. Five preschool children (4 boys, 1 girl) diagnosed with ASD served as participants. A multiple baseline across participants in conjunction with an alternating-treatment design was used. For all participants, music with lyrics plus instruction increased on-task behaviors to a greater extent than did music with lyrics. The results of our study provide a better understanding of the role of music with regard to the behaviors of young children with ASD.

  6. Working Memory Deficits in Children with Reading Difficulties: Memory Span and Dual Task Coordination

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Shinmin; Gathercole, Susan E.

    2013-01-01

    The current study investigated the cause of the reported problems in working memory in children with reading difficulties. Verbal and visuospatial simple and complex span tasks, and digit span and reaction times tasks performed singly and in combination, were administered to 46 children with single word reading difficulties and 45 typically…

  7. The counting abilities of children with specific language impairment: a comparison of oral and gestural tasks.

    PubMed

    Fazio, B B

    1994-04-01

    This study examined the counting abilities of preschool children with specific language impairment compared to language-matched and mental-age-matched peers. In order to determine the nature of the difficulties SLI children exhibited in counting, the subjects participated in a series of oral counting tasks and a series of gestural tasks that used an invented counting system based on pointing to body parts. Despite demonstrating knowledge of many of the rules associated with counting, SLI preschool children displayed marked difficulty in counting objects. On oral counting tasks, they showed difficulty with rote counting, displayed a limited repertoire of number terms, and miscounted sets of objects. However, on gestural counting tasks, SLI children's performance was significantly better. These findings suggest that SLI children have a specific difficulty with the rote sequential aspect of learning number words.

  8. Performance of Brazilian children on phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks

    PubMed Central

    Charchat-Fichman, Helenice; Oliveira, Rosinda Martins; da Silva, Andreza Morais

    2011-01-01

    The most used verbal fluency paradigms are semantic and letter fluency tasks. Studies suggest that these paradigms access semantic memory and executive function and are sensitive to frontal lobe disturbances. There are few studies in Brazilian samples on these paradigms. Objective The present study investigated performance, and the effects of age, on verbal fluency tasks in Brazilian children. The results were compared with those of other studies, and the consistency of the scoring criteria data is presented. Methods A sample of 119 children (7 to 10 years old) was submitted to the three phonemic fluency (F, A, M) tasks and three semantic fluency (animals, clothes, fruits) tasks. The results of thirty subjects were scored by two independent examiners. Results A significant positive correlation was found between the scores calculated by the two independent examiners. Significant positive correlations were found between performance on the semantic fluency task and the phonemic fluency task. The effect of age was significant for both tasks, and a significant difference was found between the 7- and 9-year-old subjects and between the 7- and 10-year-old subjects. The 8-year-old group did not differ to any of the other age groups. Conclusion The pattern of results was similar to that observed in previous Brazilian and international studies. PMID:29213727

  9. Performance of children with developmental dyslexia on high and low topological entropy artificial grammar learning task.

    PubMed

    Katan, Pesia; Kahta, Shani; Sasson, Ayelet; Schiff, Rachel

    2017-07-01

    Graph complexity as measured by topological entropy has been previously shown to affect performance on artificial grammar learning tasks among typically developing children. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of graph complexity on implicit sequential learning among children with developmental dyslexia. Our goal was to determine whether children's performance depends on the complexity level of the grammar system learned. We conducted two artificial grammar learning experiments that compared performance of children with developmental dyslexia with that of age- and reading level-matched controls. Experiment 1 was a high topological entropy artificial grammar learning task that aimed to establish implicit learning phenomena in children with developmental dyslexia using previously published experimental conditions. Experiment 2 is a lower topological entropy variant of that task. Results indicated that given a high topological entropy grammar system, children with developmental dyslexia who were similar to the reading age-matched control group had substantial difficulty in performing the task as compared to typically developing children, who exhibited intact implicit learning of the grammar. On the other hand, when tested on a lower topological entropy grammar system, all groups performed above chance level, indicating that children with developmental dyslexia were able to identify rules from a given grammar system. The results reinforced the significance of graph complexity when experimenting with artificial grammar learning tasks, particularly with dyslexic participants.

  10. Teachers' Ability and Help Attributions and Children's Math Performance and Task Persistence

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tõeväli, Paula-Karoliina; Kikas, Eve

    2016-01-01

    The present longitudinal study examined the reciprocal relationships between teachers' causal attributions and children's math performance and task persistence. In total, 760 elementary school children and their teachers participated in this study. The children were tested in math twice, at the end of the second and third grades. At both time…

  11. Autonomic Correlates of Speech versus Nonspeech Tasks in Children and Adults

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Arnold, Hayley S.; MacPherson, Megan K.; Smith, Anne

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: To assess autonomic arousal associated with speech and nonspeech tasks in school-age children and young adults. Method: Measures of autonomic arousal (electrodermal level, electrodermal response amplitude, blood pulse volume, and heart rate) were recorded prior to, during, and after the performance of speech and nonspeech tasks by twenty…

  12. Quantity processing in deaf and hard of hearing children: evidence from symbolic and nonsymbolic comparison tasks.

    PubMed

    Rodríguez-Santos, José Miguel; Calleja, Marina; García-Orza, Javier; Iza, Mauricio; Damas, Jesús

    2014-01-01

    Deaf children usually achieve lower scores on numerical tasks than normally hearing peers. Explanations for mathematical disabilities in hearing children are based on quantity representation deficits (Geary, 1994) or on deficits in accessing these representations (Rousselle & Noël, 2008). The present study aimed to verify, by means of symbolic (Arabic digits) and nonsymbolic (dot constellations and hands) magnitude comparison tasks, whether deaf children show deficits in representations or in accessing numerical representations. The study participants were 10 prelocutive deaf children and 10 normally hearing children. Numerical distance and magnitude were manipulated. Response time (RT) analysis showed similar magnitude and distance effects in both groups on the 3 tasks. However, slower RTs were observed among the deaf participants on the symbolic task alone. These results suggest that although both groups' quantity representations were similar, the deaf group experienced a delay in accessing representations from symbolic codes.

  13. Rhythm and Melody Tasks for School-Aged Children With and Without Musical Training: Age-Equivalent Scores and Reliability.

    PubMed

    Ireland, Kierla; Parker, Averil; Foster, Nicholas; Penhune, Virginia

    2018-01-01

    Measuring musical abilities in childhood can be challenging. When music training and maturation occur simultaneously, it is difficult to separate the effects of specific experience from age-based changes in cognitive and motor abilities. The goal of this study was to develop age-equivalent scores for two measures of musical ability that could be reliably used with school-aged children (7-13) with and without musical training. The children's Rhythm Synchronization Task (c-RST) and the children's Melody Discrimination Task (c-MDT) were adapted from adult tasks developed and used in our laboratories. The c-RST is a motor task in which children listen and then try to synchronize their taps with the notes of a woodblock rhythm while it plays twice in a row. The c-MDT is a perceptual task in which the child listens to two melodies and decides if the second was the same or different. We administered these tasks to 213 children in music camps (musicians, n = 130) and science camps (non-musicians, n = 83). We also measured children's paced tapping, non-paced tapping, and phonemic discrimination as baseline motor and auditory abilities We estimated internal-consistency reliability for both tasks, and compared children's performance to results from studies with adults. As expected, musically trained children outperformed those without music lessons, scores decreased as difficulty increased, and older children performed the best. Using non-musicians as a reference group, we generated a set of age-based z-scores, and used them to predict task performance with additional years of training. Years of lessons significantly predicted performance on both tasks, over and above the effect of age. We also assessed the relation between musician's scores on music tasks, baseline tasks, auditory working memory, and non-verbal reasoning. Unexpectedly, musician children outperformed non-musicians in two of three baseline tasks. The c-RST and c-MDT fill an important need for researchers

  14. Rhythm and Melody Tasks for School-Aged Children With and Without Musical Training: Age-Equivalent Scores and Reliability

    PubMed Central

    Ireland, Kierla; Parker, Averil; Foster, Nicholas; Penhune, Virginia

    2018-01-01

    Measuring musical abilities in childhood can be challenging. When music training and maturation occur simultaneously, it is difficult to separate the effects of specific experience from age-based changes in cognitive and motor abilities. The goal of this study was to develop age-equivalent scores for two measures of musical ability that could be reliably used with school-aged children (7–13) with and without musical training. The children's Rhythm Synchronization Task (c-RST) and the children's Melody Discrimination Task (c-MDT) were adapted from adult tasks developed and used in our laboratories. The c-RST is a motor task in which children listen and then try to synchronize their taps with the notes of a woodblock rhythm while it plays twice in a row. The c-MDT is a perceptual task in which the child listens to two melodies and decides if the second was the same or different. We administered these tasks to 213 children in music camps (musicians, n = 130) and science camps (non-musicians, n = 83). We also measured children's paced tapping, non-paced tapping, and phonemic discrimination as baseline motor and auditory abilities We estimated internal-consistency reliability for both tasks, and compared children's performance to results from studies with adults. As expected, musically trained children outperformed those without music lessons, scores decreased as difficulty increased, and older children performed the best. Using non-musicians as a reference group, we generated a set of age-based z-scores, and used them to predict task performance with additional years of training. Years of lessons significantly predicted performance on both tasks, over and above the effect of age. We also assessed the relation between musician's scores on music tasks, baseline tasks, auditory working memory, and non-verbal reasoning. Unexpectedly, musician children outperformed non-musicians in two of three baseline tasks. The c-RST and c-MDT fill an important need for researchers

  15. Aerobic Fitness and Cognitive Development: Event-Related Brain Potential and Task Performance Indices of Executive Control in Preadolescent Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hillman, Charles H.; Buck, Sarah M.; Themanson, Jason R.; Pontifex, Matthew B.; Castelli, Darla M.

    2009-01-01

    The relationship between aerobic fitness and executive control was assessed in 38 higher- and lower-fit children (M[subscript age] = 9.4 years), grouped according to their performance on a field test of aerobic capacity. Participants performed a flanker task requiring variable amounts of executive control while event-related brain potential…

  16. The effect of methylphenidate on postural stability under single and dual task conditions in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - a double blind randomized control trial.

    PubMed

    Jacobi-Polishook, Talia; Shorer, Zamir; Melzer, Itshak

    2009-05-15

    To investigate the effects of Methylphenidate (MPH) on postural stability in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children in single and dual task conditions. A randomized controlled double-blind study analyzing postural stability in 24 ADHD children before and after MPH vs. placebo treatments, in three task conditions: (1) Single task, standing still; (2) dual task, standing still performing a memory-attention demanding task; (3) standing still listening to music. MPH resulted in a significant improvement in postural stability during the dual task condition and while listening to music, with no equivalent improvement in placebo controls. MPH improves postural stability in ADHD, especially when an additional task is performed. This is probably due to enhanced attention abilities, thus contributing to improved balance control during performance of tasks that require attention. MPH remains to be studied as a potential drug treatment to improve balance control and physical functioning in other clinical populations.

  17. Application of Cognitive Task Analysis in User Requirements and Prototype Design Presentation/Briefing

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2005-10-01

    AFRL-HE-WP-TP-2005-0030 AIR FORCE RESEARCH LABORATORY Application of Cognitive Task Analysis in User Requirements and Prototype Design Presentation...TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER FA8650-04-C-6406 Application of Cognitive Task Analysis in User Requirements 5b.GRANTNUMBER and Prototype...maintainer experience 21 21 Questions & Answers Application of Cognitive Task Analysis in User Requirements Definition and Prototype Design Christopher Curtis

  18. Motor Learning of a Bimanual Task in Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hung, Ya-Ching; Gordon, Andrew M.

    2013-01-01

    Children with unilateral cerebral palsy (CP) have been shown to improve their motor performance with sufficient practice. However, little is known about how they learn goal-oriented tasks. In the current study, 21 children with unilateral CP (age 4-10 years old) and 21 age-matched typically developed children (TDC) practiced a simple bimanual…

  19. Inhibition and the Validity of the Stroop Task for Children with Autism

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Adams, Nena C.; Jarrold, Christopher

    2009-01-01

    Findings are mixed concerning inhibition in autism. Using the classic Stroop, children with autism (CWA) often outperform typically developing children (TDC). A classic Stroop and a chimeric animal Stroop were used to explore the validity of the Stroop task as a test of inhibition for CWA. During the classic Stroop, children ignored the word and…

  20. Validity of False Belief Tasks in Blind Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brambring, Michael; Asbrock, Doreen

    2010-01-01

    Previous studies have reported that congenitally blind children without any additional impairment reveal a developmental delay of at least 4 years in perspective taking based on testing first-order false-belief tasks. These authors interpret this delay as a sign of autism-like behavior. However, the delay may be caused by testing blind children…

  1. Factors Influencing Children's Performances of a Steady-State Bimanual Coordination Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lantero, Dawn A.; Ringenbach, Shannon D.

    2009-01-01

    Children ages 4, 6, and 8 years and adults performed self-selected, continuous, unimanual and bimanual coordination tasks for 30 s. The length of time performing the task was investigated as a potential control parameter. As hypothesized, all groups spent less time in antiphase than in in-phase coordination as the trial continued. These results…

  2. Development of flight experiment task requirements. Volume 2: Technical Report. Part 2: Appendix H: Tasks-skills data series

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Hatterick, G. R.

    1972-01-01

    The data sheets presented contain the results of the task analysis portion of the study to identify skill requirements of space shuttle crew personnel. A comprehensive data base is provided of crew functions, operating environments, task dependencies, and task-skills applicable to a representative cross section of earth orbital research experiments.

  3. Minimal Groups Increase Young Children's Motivation and Learning on Group-Relevant Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Master, Allison; Walton, Gregory M.

    2013-01-01

    Three experiments ("N" = 130) used a minimal group manipulation to show that just perceived membership in a social group boosts young children's motivation for and learning from group-relevant tasks. In Experiment 1, 4-year-old children assigned to a minimal "puzzles group" persisted longer on a challenging puzzle than children identified as the…

  4. Using grasping tasks to evaluate hand force coordination in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy.

    PubMed

    Mackenzie, Samuel J; Getchell, Nancy; Modlesky, Christopher M; Miller, Freeman; Jaric, Slobodan

    2009-08-01

    Mackenzie SJ, Getchell N, Modlesky CM, Miller F, Jaric S. Using grasping tasks to evaluate hand force coordination in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy. To assess force coordination in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (CP) using a device that allows for testing both unimanual and bimanual manipulation tasks performed under static and dynamic conditions. Nonequivalent groups design. University research laboratory for motor control. Six children with hemiplegic CP (age, mean +/- SD, 11.6+/-1.8 y) and 6 typically developing controls (11.6+/-1.6 y). Not applicable. Children performed simple lifting and force-matching static ramp tasks by way of both unimanual and bimanual pulling using a device that measures grip force (force acting perpendicularly at the digits-device contact area) and load force (tangential force). Main outcome measures were grip/load force ratios (grip force scaling) and correlation coefficients (force coupling). CP subjects showed significantly higher grip/load force ratios (P<.05) and slightly lower correlation coefficients than the control group, with more pronounced differences for most tasks when using their involved hand. For subjects with CP, switching from unimanual to bimanual conditions did not bring changes in scaling or coupling for the involved hand (P>.05). Compared with healthy children, the impaired hand function in the hemiplegic CP pediatric population could be reflected in excessive grip force that is also decoupled from ongoing changes in load force. Therefore, the bimanual grip load device used in this study could provide a sensitive measure of grip force coordination in CP, although nonmotor deficits should be taken into account when asking children to perform more complex tasks.

  5. A Drawing Task to Assess Emotion Inference in Language-Impaired Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vendeville, Nathalie; Blanc, Nathalie; Brechet, Claire

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: Studies investigating the ability of children with language impairment (LI) to infer emotions rely on verbal responses (which can be challenging for these children) and/or the selection of a card representing an emotion (which limits the response range). In contrast, a drawing task might allow a broad spectrum of responses without…

  6. Beyond Capacity Limitations: Determinants of Word Recall Performance on Verbal Working Memory Span Tasks in Children With SLI

    PubMed Central

    Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L.

    2016-01-01

    Reduced verbal working memory capacity has been proposed as a possible account of language impairments in specific language impairment (SLI). Studies have shown, however, that differences in strength of linguistic representations in the form of word frequency affect list recall and performance on verbal working memory tasks. This suggests that verbal memory capacity and long-term linguistic knowledge may not be distinct constructs. It has been suggested that linguistic representations in SLI are weak in ways that result in a breakdown in language processing on tasks that require manipulation of unfamiliar material. In this study, the effects of word frequency, long-term linguistic knowledge, and serial order position on recall performance in the competing language processing task (CLPT) were investigated in 10 children with SLI and 10 age-matched peers (age 8 years 6 months to 12 years 4 months). The children with SLI recalled significantly fewer target words on the CLPT as compared with their age-matched controls. The SLI group did not differ, however, in their ability to recall target words having high word frequency but were significantly poorer in their ability to recall words on the CLPT having low word frequency. Differences in receptive and expressive language abilities also appeared closely related to performance on the CLPT, suggesting that working memory capacity is not distinct from language knowledge and that degraded linguistic representations may have an effect on performance on verbal working memory span tasks in children with SLI. PMID:16378481

  7. Measuring working memory capacity in children using adaptive tasks: Example validation of an adaptive complex span.

    PubMed

    Gonthier, Corentin; Aubry, Alexandre; Bourdin, Béatrice

    2018-06-01

    Working memory tasks designed for children usually present trials in order of ascending difficulty, with testing discontinued when the child fails a particular level. Unfortunately, this procedure comes with a number of issues, such as decreased engagement from high-ability children, vulnerability of the scores to temporary mind-wandering, and large between-subjects variations in number of trials, testing time, and proactive interference. To circumvent these problems, the goal of the present study was to demonstrate the feasibility of assessing working memory using an adaptive testing procedure. The principle of adaptive testing is to dynamically adjust the level of difficulty as the task progresses to match the participant's ability. We used this method to develop an adaptive complex span task (the ACCES) comprising verbal and visuo-spatial subtests. The task presents a fixed number of trials to all participants, allows for partial credit scoring, and can be used with children regardless of ability level. The ACCES demonstrated satisfying psychometric properties in a sample of 268 children aged 8-13 years, confirming the feasibility of using adaptive tasks to measure working memory capacity in children. A free-to-use implementation of the ACCES is provided.

  8. Developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing in task-switching situations: the impact of task practice and task-sequencing demands.

    PubMed

    Kray, Jutta; Gaspard, Hanna; Karbach, Julia; Blaye, Agnès

    2013-01-01

    In this study we examined whether developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing for task-goal maintenance are dependent on the amount of task practice and task-sequencing demands. To measure task-goal maintenance we applied a switching paradigm in which children either performed only task A or B in single-task blocks or switched between them on every second trial in mixed-task blocks. Task-goal maintenance was determined by comparing the performance between both blocks (mixing costs). The influence of verbal self-cueing was measured by instructing children to either name the next task aloud or not to verbalize during task preparation. Task-sequencing demands were varied between groups whereas one group received spatial task cues to support keeping track of the task sequence, while the other group did not. We also varied by the amount of prior practice in task switching while one group of participants practiced task switching first, before performing the task naming in addition, and the other group did it vice versa. Results of our study investigating younger (8-10 years) and older children (11-13 years) revealed no age differences in beneficial effects of verbal self-cueing. In line with previous findings, children showed reduced mixing costs under task-naming instructions and under conditions of low task-sequence demands (with the presence of spatial task cues). Our results also indicated that these benefits were only obtained for those groups of children that first received practice in task switching alone with no additional verbalization instruction. These findings suggest that internal task-cueing strategies can be efficiently used in children but only if they received prior practice in the underlying task so that demands on keeping and coordinating various instructions are reduced. Moreover, children benefitted from spatial task cues for better task-goal maintenance only if no verbal task-cueing strategy was introduced first.

  9. Explicit and implicit tasks for assessing hedonic-versus nutrition-based attitudes towards food in French children.

    PubMed

    Monnery-Patris, Sandrine; Marty, Lucile; Bayer, Frédéric; Nicklaus, Sophie; Chambaron, Stéphanie

    2016-01-01

    Attitudes are important precursors of behaviours. This study aims to compare the food attitudes (i.e., hedonic- and nutrition-based) of children using both an implicit pairing task and an explicit forced-choice categorization task suitable for the cognitive abilities of 5- to 11-year-olds. A dominance of hedonically driven attitudes was expected for all ages in the pairing task, designed to elicit affective and spontaneous answers, whereas a progressive emergence of nutrition-based attitudes was expected in the categorization task, designed to involve deliberate analyses of the costs/benefits of foods. An additional exploratory goal was to evaluate differences in the attitudes of normal and overweight children in both tasks. Children from 3 school levels (n = 194; mean age = 8.03 years) were individually tested on computers in their schools. They performed a pairing task in which the tendencies to associate foods with nutritional vs. culinary contexts were assessed. Next, they were asked to categorize each food into one of the following four categories: "yummy", "yucky" (i.e., hedonic categories), "makes you strong", or"makes you fat" (i.e., nutritional categories). The hedonic/culinary pairs were very frequently selected (81% on average), and this frequency significantly increased through school levels. In contrast, in the categorization task, a significant increase in nutrition-driven categorizations with school level was observed. Additional analyses revealed no differences in the food attitudes between the normal and overweight children in the pairing task, and a tendency towards lower hedonic categorizations among the overweight children. Culinary associations can reflect cultural learning in the French context where food pleasure is dominant. In contrast, the progressive emergence of cognitively driven attitudes with age may reflect the cognitive development of children who are more reasonable and influenced by social norms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd

  10. Relationships between the color-word matching Stroop task and the Go/NoGo task: toward multifaceted assessment of attention and inhibition abilities of children.

    PubMed

    Morooka, Teruko; Ogino, Tatsuya; Takeuchi, Akihito; Hanafusa, Kaoru; Oka, Makio; Ohtsuka, Yoko

    2012-01-01

    Both selective attention and response inhibition can be assessed through the Stroop task and the Go/NoGo task (Go/NoGo). The color-word matching Stroop task (cwmStroop) differs from the traditional Stroop task in ways that make it easy to administer, and it enables the examiners to analyze reaction time. It is expected that the cwmStroop and Go/NoGo tasks will be useful as clinical assessments for children with developmental disorders and in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. The objectives of this study were to elucidate the pattern of developmental change in cwmStroop scores and Go/NoGo scores and to determine whether and how cwmStroop scores are related to Go/NoGo scores. The subjects consisted of 108 healthy Japanese children aged 6-14 years. We found that cwmStroop and Go/NoGo scores displayed clear developmental changes between 6 and 14 years of age. The children's scores on the 2 tasks followed different developmental courses, however, and the correlation between scores on the two tasks was weak on the whole. These results indicate that the cwmStroop and Go/NoGo tasks tap different aspects of selective attention and response inhibition. Therefore it is expected that the combination of both tests will be useful in the multifaceted assessment of selective attention and response inhibition in childhood.

  11. Postural Adaptations to a Suprapostural Memory Task among Children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chen, Fu-Chen; Tsai, Chia-Liang; Stoffregen, Thomas A.; Chang, Chihu-Hui; Wade, Michael G.

    2012-01-01

    Aim: The present study investigated the effects of varying the cognitive demands of a memory task (a suprapostural task) while recording postural motion on two groups of children, one diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and an age-matched group of typically developing children. Method: Two groups, each comprising 38 child…

  12. Nonspecificity and theory of mind: new evidence from a nonverbal false-sign task and children with autism spectrum disorders.

    PubMed

    Iao, Lai-Sang; Leekam, Susan R

    2014-06-01

    Understanding of false belief has long been considered to be a crucial aspect of "theory of mind" that can be explained by a domain-specific mechanism. We argue against this claim using new evidence from a nonverbal false representation task (false-sign task) with typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Experiments 1 and 2 showed that typically developing children (mean age=62.67months) were equivalent in their performance across nonverbal and verbal forms of both the false-belief and false-sign tasks. Results for these two misrepresentation tasks differed from the results of an outdated representation task ("false"-photograph task). Experiment 3 showed that children with ASD had difficulties with the false representation tasks, and this could not be explained by executive functioning or language impairments. These findings support the view that children with ASD might not have a specific theory-of-mind deficit. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. Bilingual Children's Performance on Three Nonword Repetition Tasks: The Role of Language Experience and Ability

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Huls, Simone

    2017-01-01

    Nonword repetition (NWR) tasks represent one assessment tool for Specific Language Impairment (SLI). The use of such tasks has been established and verified for monolingual children. However, the diagnostic accuracy of NWR tasks for bilingual children has had variable results and must address several unique characteristics of this population. Gaps…

  14. Computerized Testing Software for Assessing Interference Suppression in Children and Adults: The Bivalent Shape Task (BST)

    PubMed Central

    Mueller, Shane T.; Esposito, Alena G.

    2015-01-01

    We describe the Bivalent Shape Task (BST), software using the Psychology Experiment Building Language (PEBL), for testing of cognitive interference and the ability to suppress interference. The test is available via the GNU Public License, Version 3 (GPLv3), is freely modifiable, and has been tested on both children and adults and found to provide a simple and fast non-verbal measure of cognitive interference and suppression that requires no reading. PMID:26702358

  15. Task Persistence Mediates the Effect of Children's Literacy Skills on Mothers' Academic Help

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kikas, Eve; Silinskas, Gintautas

    2016-01-01

    This longitudinal study aimed at examining the relationship between children's task persistence, mothers' academic help, and the development of children's literacy skills (reading and spelling) at the beginning of primary school. The participants were 870 children, 682 mothers, and 53 class teachers. Data were collected three times--at the…

  16. Construction of graphic symbol utterances by children, teenagers, and adults: the effect of structure and task demands.

    PubMed

    Trudeau, Natacha; Sutton, Ann; Dagenais, Emmanuelle; de Broeck, Sophie; Morford, Jill

    2007-10-01

    This study investigated the impact of syntactic complexity and task demands on construction of utterances using picture communication symbols by participants from 3 age groups with no communication disorders. Participants were 30 children (7;0 [years;months] to 8;11), 30 teenagers (12;0 to 13;11), and 30 adults (18 years and above). All participants constructed graphic symbol utterances to describe photographs presented with spoken French stimuli. Stimuli included simple and complex (object relative and subject relative) utterances describing the photographs, which were presented either 1 at a time (neutral condition) or in an array of 4 (contrast condition). Simple utterances lead to more uniform response patterns than complex utterances. Among complex utterances, subject relative sentences appeared more difficult to convey. Increasing the need for message clarity (i.e., contrast condition) elicited changes in the production of graphic symbol sequences for complex propositions. The effects of syntactic complexity and task demands were more pronounced for children. Graphic symbol utterance construction appears to involve more than simply transferring spoken language skills. One possible explanation is that this type of task requires higher levels of metalinguistic ability. Clinical implications and directions for further research are discussed.

  17. [Developmental changes in reading ability of Japanese elementary school children--analysis of 4 kana reading tasks].

    PubMed

    Kobayashi, Tomoka; Inagaki, Masumi; Gunji, Atsuko; Yatabe, Kiyomi; Kaga, Makiko; Goto, Takaaki; Koike, Toshihide; Wakamiya, Eiji; Koeda, Tatsuya

    2010-01-01

    Five hundred and twenty-eight Japanese elementary school children aged from 6 (Grade 1) to 12 (Grade 6) were tested for their abilities to read Hiragana characters, words, and short sentences. They were typically developing children whom the classroom teachers judged to have no problems with reading and writing in Japanese. Each child was asked to read four tasks which were written in Hiragana script: single mora reading task, four syllable non-word reading task, four syllable word reading task, and short sentence reading task. The total articulation time for reading and performance in terms of accuracy were measured for each task. Developmental changes in these variables were evaluated. The articulation time was significantly longer for the first graders, and it gradually shortened as they moved through to the upper grades in all tasks. The articulation time reached a plateau in the 4th grade for the four syllable word and short sentence reading tasks, while it did so for the single mora and four syllable non-word reading tasks in the 5th grade. The articulation times for the four syllable word and short sentence reading tasks correlated strongly. There were very few clear errors for all tasks, and the number of such errors significantly changed between the school grades only for the single mora and four syllable word reading tasks. It was noted that more than half of the children read the beginning portion of the word or phrase twice or more, in order to read it accurately, and developmental changes were also seen in this pattern of reading. This study revealed that the combination of these reading tasks may function as a screening test for reading disorders such as developmental dyslexia in children below the age of ten or eleven years old.

  18. Second-order motor planning in children: insights from a cup-manipulation-task.

    PubMed

    Wunsch, Kathrin; Weiss, Daniel J; Schack, Thomas; Weigelt, Matthias

    2015-07-01

    The present study examined the development of anticipatory motor planning in an object manipulation task that has been used to successfully demonstrate motor planning in non-human primates (Weiss et al. in Psychol Sci 18:1063-1068, 2007). Seventy-five participants from four different age groups participated in a cup-manipulation task. One group was preschool children (average age of 5.1 years), two groups were primary school children (7.7 and 9.8 years old respectively) and the final group was comprised of adults. The experimental task entailed reaching for a plastic cup that was vertically suspended in an apparatus in either upright or inverted orientation, removing the cup by its stem and then retrieving a small toy from the inside of the cup. When the cup was inverted in the apparatus, evidence for anticipatory motor planning could be achieved by initially gripping the stem using an inverted (thumb-down) grip posture. We found that when the cup was in upright orientation, all participants reached for the cup using an upright grip (i.e., thumb-up posture). However, when the cup was inverted in the apparatus, only adults consistently used an inverted grasping posture, though the percentage of inverted grips among participants did increase with age. These results suggest a protracted development for anticipatory motor planning abilities in children. Surprisingly, the performance of adults on this task more closely resembles the performance of several nonhuman primate species as opposed to children even at approximately 10 years of age. We discuss how morphological constraints on flexibility may help account for these findings.

  19. Electroencephalogram complexity analysis in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder during a visual cognitive task.

    PubMed

    Zarafshan, Hadi; Khaleghi, Ali; Mohammadi, Mohammad Reza; Moeini, Mahdi; Malmir, Nastaran

    2016-01-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate electroencephalogram (EEG) dynamics using complexity analysis in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with healthy control children when performing a cognitive task. Thirty 7-12-year-old children meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria for ADHD and 30 healthy control children underwent an EEG evaluation during a cognitive task, and Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZC) values were computed. There were no significant differences between ADHD and control groups on age and gender. The mean LZC of the ADHD children was significantly larger than healthy children over the right anterior and right posterior regions during the cognitive performance. In the ADHD group, complexity of the right hemisphere was higher than that of the left hemisphere, but the complexity of the left hemisphere was higher than that of the right hemisphere in the normal group. Although fronto-striatal dysfunction is considered conclusive evidence for the pathophysiology of ADHD, our arithmetic mental task has provided evidence of structural and functional changes in the posterior regions and probably cerebellum in ADHD.

  20. The Typicality Ranking Task: A New Method to Derive Typicality Judgments from Children

    PubMed Central

    Ameel, Eef; Storms, Gert

    2016-01-01

    An alternative method for deriving typicality judgments, applicable in young children that are not familiar with numerical values yet, is introduced, allowing researchers to study gradedness at younger ages in concept development. Contrary to the long tradition of using rating-based procedures to derive typicality judgments, we propose a method that is based on typicality ranking rather than rating, in which items are gradually sorted according to their typicality, and that requires a minimum of linguistic knowledge. The validity of the method is investigated and the method is compared to the traditional typicality rating measurement in a large empirical study with eight different semantic concepts. The results show that the typicality ranking task can be used to assess children’s category knowledge and to evaluate how this knowledge evolves over time. Contrary to earlier held assumptions in studies on typicality in young children, our results also show that preference is not so much a confounding variable to be avoided, but that both variables are often significantly correlated in older children and even in adults. PMID:27322371

  1. A Teacher-Report Measure of Children's Task-Avoidant Behavior: A Validation Study of the Behavioral Strategy Rating Scale

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zhang, Xiao; Nurmi, Jari-Erik; Kiuru, Noona; Lerkkanen, Marja-Kristiina; Aunola, Kaisa

    2011-01-01

    This study aims to validate a teacher-report measure of children's task-avoidant behavior, namely the Behavioral Strategy Rating Scale (BSRS), in a sample of 352 Finnish children. In each of the four waves from Kindergarten to Grade 2, teachers rated children's task-avoidant behavior using the BSRS, children completed reading and mathematics…

  2. Age difference in dual-task interference effects on procedural learning in children.

    PubMed

    Lejeune, Caroline; Desmottes, Lise; Catale, Corinne; Meulemans, Thierry

    2015-01-01

    The current study aimed to investigate the role played by explicit mechanisms during procedural learning in two age groups of children (7 and 10 years) using a dual-task paradigm. To do this, we explored the effect of an interference task during the early and late phases of a mirror tracing learning task. The results showed a differential impact of the secondary task on the two age groups, but only during the first learning phase; the performance of 10-year-olds was affected by the second task, whereas in 7-year-olds no performance difference was found between the single- and dual-task conditions. Overall, our study suggests that there are differences in the amount of effortful processing in which 7- and 10-year-olds engage at the beginning of the learning process; procedural learning in young children is mainly implicit, as attested by its lesser sensitivity to an interference task, whereas high-level explicit mechanisms seem to contribute to the procedural performance of 10-year-olds. However, these explicit mechanisms, even if they have an effect on performance, might not have an impact on the learning curve given that no difference in rate of acquisition was found between age groups. These findings are discussed in the light of classical conceptions of procedural learning. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Characterization of children's decision making: sensitivity to punishment frequency, not task complexity.

    PubMed

    Crone, Eveline A; Bunge, Silvia A; Latenstein, Heleen; van der Molen, Maurits W

    2005-06-01

    On a gambling task that models real-life decision making, children between ages 7 and 12 perform like patients with bilateral lesions of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), opting for choices that yield high immediate gains in spite of higher future losses (Crone & Van der Molen, 2004). The current study set out to characterize developmental changes in decision making by varying task complexity and punishment frequency. Three age groups (7-9 years, 10-12 years, 13-15 years) performed two versions of a computerized variant of the original Iowa gambling task. Task complexity was manipulated by varying the number of choices participants could make. Punishment frequency was manipulated by varying the frequency of delayed punishment. Results showed a developmental increase in the sensitivity to future consequences, which was present only when the punishment was presented infrequently. These results could not be explained by differential sensitivity to task complexity, hypersensitivity to reward, or failure to switch response set after receiving punishment. There was a general pattern of boys outperforming girls by making more advantageous choices over the course of the task. In conclusion, 7-12-year-old children--like VMPFC patients--appear myopic about the future except when the potential for future punishment is high.

  4. Is a Responsive Default Mode Network Required for Successful Working Memory Task Performance?

    PubMed Central

    Čeko, Marta; Gracely, John L.; Fitzcharles, Mary-Ann; Seminowicz, David A.; Schweinhardt, Petra

    2015-01-01

    In studies of cognitive processing using tasks with externally directed attention, regions showing increased (external-task-positive) and decreased or “negative” [default-mode network (DMN)] fMRI responses during task performance are dynamically responsive to increasing task difficulty. Responsiveness (modulation of fMRI signal by increasing load) has been linked directly to successful cognitive task performance in external-task-positive regions but not in DMN regions. To investigate whether a responsive DMN is required for successful cognitive performance, we compared healthy human subjects (n = 23) with individuals shown to have decreased DMN engagement (chronic pain patients, n = 28). Subjects performed a multilevel working-memory task (N-back) during fMRI. If a responsive DMN is required for successful performance, patients having reduced DMN responsiveness should show worsened performance; if performance is not reduced, their brains should show compensatory activation in external-task-positive regions or elsewhere. All subjects showed decreased accuracy and increased reaction times with increasing task level, with no significant group differences on either measure at any level. Patients had significantly reduced negative fMRI response (deactivation) of DMN regions (posterior cingulate/precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex). Controls showed expected modulation of DMN deactivation with increasing task difficulty. Patients showed significantly reduced modulation of DMN deactivation by task difficulty, despite their successful task performance. We found no evidence of compensatory neural recruitment in external-task-positive regions or elsewhere. Individual responsiveness of the external-task-positive ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, but not of DMN regions, correlated with task accuracy. These findings suggest that a responsive DMN may not be required for successful cognitive performance; a responsive external-task-positive network may be sufficient

  5. Designing Tasks to Promote and Assess Mathematical Transfer in Primary School Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Clark, Julie; Page, Shaileigh; Thornton, Steve

    2013-01-01

    This study aims to design learning situations and tasks that promote and assess the capacity of primary school children to transfer mathematical knowledge to new contexts. We discuss previous studies investigating mathematical transfer, and particularly the strengths and limitations of tasks used to assess transfer in these studies. We describe…

  6. A Comparison of Children's Ability to Read Children's and Adults' Mental States in an Adaptation of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task

    PubMed Central

    van der Meulen, Anna; Roerig, Simone; de Ruyter, Doret; van Lier, Pol; Krabbendam, Lydia

    2017-01-01

    The ability to read mental states from subtle facial cues is an important part of Theory of Mind, which can contribute to children's daily life social functioning. Mental state reading performance is influenced by the specific interactions in which it is applied; familiarity with characteristics of these interactions (such as the person) can enhance performance. The aim of this research is to gain insight in this context effect for mental state reading in children, assessed with the Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) task that originally consists of pictures of adults' eyes. Because of differences between children and adults in roles, development and frequency of interaction, children are more familiar with mental state reading of other children. It can therefore be expected that children's mental state reading depends on whether this is assessed with children's or adults' eyes. A new 14 item version of the RME for children was constructed with pictures of children instead of adults (study 1). This task was used and compared to the original child RME in 6–10 year olds (N = 718, study 2) and 8–14 year olds (N = 182, study 3). Children in both groups performed better on the new RME than on the original RME. Item level findings of the new RME were in line with previous findings on the task and test re-test reliability (in a subgroup of older children, n = 95) was adequate (0.47). This suggests that the RME with children's eyes can assess children's daily life mental state reading and supplement existing ToM tasks. PMID:28491043

  7. The effects of different tasks on the comprehension and production of idioms in children.

    PubMed

    Levorato, M C; Cacciari, C

    1995-10-01

    The present study investigated the developmental processes which lead from a literal interpretation of idiomatic expression to the ability of comprehending and producing them figuratively. A Model of the Development of Figurative Competence was presented according to which acquisition of idioms occurs as part of the general process of language and world knowledge development. Three experiments were carried out with second- and fourth-grade children, in which comprehension tasks - Recall, Multiple Choice, Paraphrase - and a production task - Completion - were employed. The results showed that younger children are more literally oriented than older children who in turn are more idiomatically oriented and that children of both age groups found it more difficult to produce idiomatic expressions than to comprehend them.

  8. Effects of Context and Facial Expression on Imitation Tasks in Preschool Children with Autism

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Markodimitraki, Maria; Kypriotaki, Maria; Ampartzaki, Maria; Manolitsis, George

    2013-01-01

    The present study explored the effect of the context in which an imitation act occurs (elicited/spontaneous) and the experimenter's facial expression (neutral or smiling) during the imitation task with young children with autism and typically developing children. The participants were 10 typically developing children and 10 children with autism…

  9. The Effects of Partner-Check Self-Recording of On-Task Behavior on Academic Productivity in Children with Behavior Problems

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ohakamnu, George N.

    2010-01-01

    Due to an increase in behavior problems among school children, especially at-risk children who have problems staying on-task, there is a need for a teaching strategy that will enable children to be focused and on task in the classroom. This quantitative study investigated whether partner-check self-recording of on-task behavior will increase the…

  10. The relationship between vocabulary, grammar, and false belief task performance in children with autistic spectrum disorders and children with moderate learning difficulties.

    PubMed

    Fisher, Naomi; Happé, Francesca; Dunn, Judy

    2005-04-01

    The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between language and theory of mind in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and children with moderate learning difficulties (MLD). Previous studies have found a strong association between language and theory of mind in a range of groups, but mostly have not included measures of both grammar and vocabulary; including these enables us to speculate about the causal direction of the relationship. Fifty-eight children with ASD and 118 children with MLD were given standardised assessments of vocabulary and grammar, along with standard theory of mind tasks. The relationship between language and theory of mind was more evident in children with ASD than in those with MLD, and grammar was a particularly strong predictor of theory of mind performance in children with ASD. Children with MLD performed better on false belief (FB) tasks than did children with ASD, and their performance was more predictable across the different theory of mind tasks. Language, in particular grammar, and theory of mind appear to be more strongly related in children with ASD than in those with MLD. We speculate that this relationship may be causal, with some grammatical understanding being a precursor of theory of mind. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to possible routes for compensatory strategies for mentalising in children with ASD.

  11. Children's Moral Emotion Attribution in the Happy Victimizer Task: The Role of Response Format.

    PubMed

    Gummerum, Michaela; López-Pérez, Belén; Ambrona, Tamara; Rodríguez-Cano, Sonia; Dellaria, Giulia; Smith, Gary; Wilson, Ellie

    2016-01-01

    Previous research in the happy victimizer tradition indicated that preschool and early elementary school children attribute positive emotions to the violator of a moral norm, whereas older children attribute negative (moral) emotions. Cognitive and motivational processes have been suggested to underlie this developmental shift. The current research investigated whether making the happy victimizer task less cognitively demanding by providing children with alternative response formats would increase their attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation. In Study 1, 93 British children aged 4-7 years old responded to the happy victimizer questions either in a normal condition (where they spontaneously pointed with a finger), a wait condition (where they had to wait before giving their answers), or an arrow condition (where they had to point with a paper arrow). In Study 2, 40 Spanish children aged 4 years old responded to the happy victimizer task either in a normal or a wait condition. In both studies, participants' attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation was significantly higher in the conditions with alternative response formats (wait, arrow) than in the normal condition. The role of cognitive abilities for emotion attribution in the happy victimizer task is discussed.

  12. Effects of mindfulness-based intervention to improve task performance for children with intellectual disabilities.

    PubMed

    Kim, Jeongil; Kwon, Miyoung

    2018-01-01

    Task performance is a critical factor for learning in individuals with intellectual disabilities. This study aimed to examine mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) to improve task performance for children with intellectual disability (ID). Three elementary school children with ID participated in the study. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used. The intervention was consisted of "understanding the necessary concept of mindfulness, practice of awareness and attention, and practice focusing on mindful behaviours." Mediating materials including expressive arts supplies were used to help each subject to understand the content and the progress of the intervention programme. The results showed that all of the three subjects showed an improvement in task performance and a decrease in task-avoidance behaviours. The mothers reported that her children's daily life behaviours were distinctively improved as he/she participated in the intervention. The finding suggests that MBI would be a valuable adjunct to a wide range of applications to support individuals with ID to learn a variety of adaptive behaviour. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  13. Children's Performance in Mental Rotation Tasks: Orientation-Free Features Flatten the Slope

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Perrucci, Vittore; Agnoli, Franca; Albiero, Paolo

    2008-01-01

    Studies of the development of mental rotation have yielded conflicting results, apparently because different mental rotation tasks draw on different cognitive abilities. Children may compare two stimuli at different orientations without mental rotation if the stimuli contain orientation-free features. Two groups of children (78 6-year-olds and 92…

  14. Executive functioning in preschool children: performance on A-not-B and other delayed response format tasks.

    PubMed

    Espy, K A; Kaufmann, P M; McDiarmid, M D; Glisky, M L

    1999-11-01

    The A-not-B (AB) task has been hypothesized to measure executive/frontal lobe function; however, the developmental and measurement characteristics of this task have not been investigated. Performances on AB and comparison tasks adapted from developmental and neuroscience literature was examined in 117 preschool children (ages 23-66 months). Age significantly predicted performance on AB, Delayed Alternation, Spatial Reversal, Color Reversal, and Self-Control tasks. A four-factor analytic model best fit task performance data. AB task indices loaded on two factors with measures from the Self-Control and Delayed Alternation tasks, respectively. AB indices did not load with those from the reversal tasks despite similarities in task administration and presumed cognitive demand (working memory). These results indicate that AB is sensitive to individual differences in age-related performance in preschool children and suggest that AB performance is related to both working memory and inhibition processes in this age range.

  15. Is a Responsive Default Mode Network Required for Successful Working Memory Task Performance?

    PubMed

    Čeko, Marta; Gracely, John L; Fitzcharles, Mary-Ann; Seminowicz, David A; Schweinhardt, Petra; Bushnell, M Catherine

    2015-08-19

    In studies of cognitive processing using tasks with externally directed attention, regions showing increased (external-task-positive) and decreased or "negative" [default-mode network (DMN)] fMRI responses during task performance are dynamically responsive to increasing task difficulty. Responsiveness (modulation of fMRI signal by increasing load) has been linked directly to successful cognitive task performance in external-task-positive regions but not in DMN regions. To investigate whether a responsive DMN is required for successful cognitive performance, we compared healthy human subjects (n = 23) with individuals shown to have decreased DMN engagement (chronic pain patients, n = 28). Subjects performed a multilevel working-memory task (N-back) during fMRI. If a responsive DMN is required for successful performance, patients having reduced DMN responsiveness should show worsened performance; if performance is not reduced, their brains should show compensatory activation in external-task-positive regions or elsewhere. All subjects showed decreased accuracy and increased reaction times with increasing task level, with no significant group differences on either measure at any level. Patients had significantly reduced negative fMRI response (deactivation) of DMN regions (posterior cingulate/precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex). Controls showed expected modulation of DMN deactivation with increasing task difficulty. Patients showed significantly reduced modulation of DMN deactivation by task difficulty, despite their successful task performance. We found no evidence of compensatory neural recruitment in external-task-positive regions or elsewhere. Individual responsiveness of the external-task-positive ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, but not of DMN regions, correlated with task accuracy. These findings suggest that a responsive DMN may not be required for successful cognitive performance; a responsive external-task-positive network may be sufficient. We studied the

  16. Speech task effects on acoustic measure of fundamental frequency in Cantonese-speaking children.

    PubMed

    Ma, Estella P-M; Lam, Nina L-N

    2015-12-01

    Speaking fundamental frequency (F0) is a voice measure frequently used to document changes in vocal performance over time. Knowing the intra-subject variability of speaking F0 has implications on its clinical usefulness. The present study examined the speaking F0 elicited from three speech tasks in Cantonese-speaking children. The study also compared the variability of speaking F0 elicited from different speech tasks. Fifty-six vocally healthy Cantonese-speaking children (31 boys and 25 girls) aged between 7.0 and 10.11 years participated. For each child, speaking F0 was elicited using speech tasks at three linguistic levels (sustained vowel /a/ prolongation, reading aloud a sentence and passage). Two types of variability, within-session (trial-to-trial) and across-session (test-retest) variability, were compared across speech tasks. Significant differences in mean speaking F0 values were found between speech tasks. Mean speaking F0 value elicited from sustained vowel phonations was significantly higher than those elicited from the connected speech tasks. The variability of speaking F0 was higher in sustained vowel prolongation than that in connected speech. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. High levels of time contraction in young children in dual tasks are related to their limited attention capacities.

    PubMed

    Hallez, Quentin; Droit-Volet, Sylvie

    2017-09-01

    Numerous studies have shown that durations are judged shorter in a dual-task condition than in a simple-task condition. The resource-based theory of time perception suggests that this is due to the processing of temporal information, which is a demanding cognitive task that consumes limited attention resources. Our study investigated whether this time contraction in a dual-task condition is greater in younger children and, if so, whether this is specifically related to their limited attention capacities. Children aged 5-7years were given a temporal reproduction task in a simple-task condition and a dual-task condition. In addition, different neuropsychological tests were used to assess not only their attention capacities but also their capacities in terms of working memory and information processing speed. The results showed a shortening of perceived time in the dual task compared with the simple task, and this increased as age decreased. The extent of this shortening effect was directly linked to younger children's limited attentional capacities; the lower their attentional capacities, the greater the time contraction. This study demonstrated that children's errors in time judgments are linked to their cognitive capacities rather than to capacities that are specific to time. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Task positive and default mode networks during a working memory in children with primary monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis and healthy controls.

    PubMed

    Zhang, Kaihua; Ma, Jun; Lei, Du; Wang, Mengxing; Zhang, Jilei; Du, Xiaoxia

    2015-10-01

    Nocturnal enuresis is a common developmental disorder in children, and primary monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (PMNE) is the dominant subtype. This study investigated brain functional abnormalities that are specifically related to working memory in children with PMNE using function magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in combination with an n-back task. Twenty children with PMNE and 20 healthy children, group-matched for age and sex, participated in this experiment. Several brain regions exhibited reduced activation during the n-back task in children with PMNE, including the right precentral gyrus and the right inferior parietal lobule extending to the postcentral gyrus. Children with PMNE exhibited decreased cerebral activation in the task-positive network, increased task-related cerebral deactivation during a working memory task, and longer response times. Patients exhibited different brain response patterns to different levels of working memory and tended to compensate by greater default mode network deactivation to sustain normal working memory function. Our results suggest that children with PMNE have potential working memory dysfunction.

  19. Brain activation and deactivation during location and color working memory tasks in 11-13-year-old children.

    PubMed

    Vuontela, Virve; Steenari, Maija-Riikka; Aronen, Eeva T; Korvenoja, Antti; Aronen, Hannu J; Carlson, Synnöve

    2009-02-01

    Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and n-back tasks we investigated whether, in 11-13-year-old children, spatial (location) and nonspatial (color) information is differentially processed during visual attention (0-back) and working memory (WM) (2-back) tasks and whether such cognitive task performance, compared to a resting state, results in regional deactivation. The location 0-back task, compared to the color 0-back task, activated segregated areas in the frontal, parietal and occipital cortices whereas no differentially activated voxels were obtained when location and color 2-back tasks were directly contrasted. Several midline cortical areas were less active during 0- and 2-back task performance than resting state. The task-induced deactivation increased with task difficulty as demonstrated by larger deactivation during 2-back than 0-back tasks. The results suggest that, in 11-13-year-old children, the visual attentional network is differently recruited by spatial and nonspatial information processing, but the functional organization of cortical activation in WM in this age group is not based on the type of information processed. Furthermore, 11-13-year-old children exhibited a similar pattern of cortical deactivation that has been reported in adults during cognitive task performance compared to a resting state.

  20. Age and Task-Related Effects on Young Children's Understanding of a Complex Picture Story

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hayward, Denyse; Schneider, Phyllis; Gillam, Ronald B.

    2009-01-01

    In this study we examined age- and task-related effects in story schema knowledge across an independent narrative task (story formulations) and a supported narrative task (answering questions). We also examined age-related changes to questions about the story as a whole. Participants were typically developing English-speaking children aged 4, 5,…

  1. Is there a bilingual advantage in the ANT task? Evidence from children

    PubMed Central

    Antón, Eneko; Duñabeitia, Jon A.; Estévez, Adelina; Hernández, Juan A.; Castillo, Alejandro; Fuentes, Luis J.; Davidson, Douglas J.; Carreiras, Manuel

    2014-01-01

    Bilinguals have been shown to outperform monolinguals in a variety of tasks that do not tap into linguistic processes. The origin of this bilingual advantage has been questioned in recent years. While some authors argue that the reason behind this apparent advantage is bilinguals' enhanced executive functioning, inhibitory skills and/or monitoring abilities, other authors suggest that the locus of these differences between bilinguals and monolinguals may lie in uncontrolled factors or incorrectly matched samples. In the current study we tested a group of 180 bilingual children and a group of 180 carefully matched monolinguals in a child-friendly version of the ANT task. Following recent evidence from similar studies with children, our results showed no bilingual advantage at all, given that the performance of the two groups in the task and the indices associated with the individual attention networks were highly similar and statistically indistinguishable. PMID:24847298

  2. Is there a bilingual advantage in the ANT task? Evidence from children.

    PubMed

    Antón, Eneko; Duñabeitia, Jon A; Estévez, Adelina; Hernández, Juan A; Castillo, Alejandro; Fuentes, Luis J; Davidson, Douglas J; Carreiras, Manuel

    2014-01-01

    Bilinguals have been shown to outperform monolinguals in a variety of tasks that do not tap into linguistic processes. The origin of this bilingual advantage has been questioned in recent years. While some authors argue that the reason behind this apparent advantage is bilinguals' enhanced executive functioning, inhibitory skills and/or monitoring abilities, other authors suggest that the locus of these differences between bilinguals and monolinguals may lie in uncontrolled factors or incorrectly matched samples. In the current study we tested a group of 180 bilingual children and a group of 180 carefully matched monolinguals in a child-friendly version of the ANT task. Following recent evidence from similar studies with children, our results showed no bilingual advantage at all, given that the performance of the two groups in the task and the indices associated with the individual attention networks were highly similar and statistically indistinguishable.

  3. Age differences in memory control: evidence from updating and retrieval-practice tasks.

    PubMed

    Lechuga, Maria Teresa; Moreno, Virginia; Pelegrina, Santiago; Gómez-Ariza, Carlos J; Bajo, Maria Teresa

    2006-11-01

    Some contemporary approaches suggest that inhibitory mechanisms play an important role in cognitive development. In addition, several authors distinguish between intentional and unintentional inhibitory processes in cognition. We report two experiments aimed at exploring possible developmental changes in these two types of inhibitory mechanisms. In Experiment 1, an updating task was used. This task requires that participants intentionally suppress irrelevant information from working memory. In Experiment 2, the retrieval-practice task was used. Retrieval practice of a subset of studied items is thought to involve unintentional inhibitory processes to overcome interference from competing memories. As a result, suppressed items become forgotten in a later memory test. Results of the experiments indicated that younger children (8) were less efficient than older children (12) and adults at intentionally suppressing information (updating task). However, when the task required unintentional inhibition of competing items (retrieval-practice task), this developmental trend was not found and children and adults showed similar levels of retrieval-induced forgetting. The results are discussed in terms of the development of efficient inhibition and the distinction between intentional and unintentional inhibitions.

  4. Impaired Oculomotor Behavior of Children with Developmental Dyslexia in Antisaccades and Predictive Saccades Tasks

    PubMed Central

    Lukasova, Katerina; Silva, Isadora P.; Macedo, Elizeu C.

    2016-01-01

    Analysis of eye movement patterns during tracking tasks represents a potential way to identify differences in the cognitive processing and motor mechanisms underlying reading in dyslexic children before the occurrence of school failure. The current study aimed to evaluate the pattern of eye movements in antisaccades, predictive saccades and visually guided saccades in typical readers and readers with developmental dyslexia. The study included 30 children (age M = 11; SD = 1.67), 15 diagnosed with developmental dyslexia (DG) and 15 regular readers (CG), matched by age, gender and school grade. Cognitive assessment was performed prior to the eye-tracking task during which both eyes were registered using the Tobii® 1750 eye-tracking device. The results demonstrated a lower correct antisaccades rate in dyslexic children compared to the controls (p < 0.001, DG = 25%, CC = 37%). Dyslexic children also made fewer saccades in predictive latency (p < 0.001, DG = 34%, CG = 46%, predictive latency within −300–120 ms with target as 0 point). No between-group difference was found for visually guided saccades. In this task, both groups showed shorter latency for right-side targets. The results indicated altered oculomotor behavior in dyslexic children, which has been reported in previous studies. We extend these findings by demonstrating impaired implicit learning of target's time/position patterns in dyslexic children. PMID:27445945

  5. Time-on-task effects in children with and without ADHD: depletion of executive resources or depletion of motivation?

    PubMed

    Dekkers, Tycho J; Agelink van Rentergem, Joost A; Koole, Alette; van den Wildenberg, Wery P M; Popma, Arne; Bexkens, Anika; Stoffelsen, Reino; Diekmann, Anouk; Huizenga, Hilde M

    2017-12-01

    Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are characterized by deficits in their executive functioning and motivation. In addition, these children are characterized by a decline in performance as time-on-task increases (i.e., time-on-task effects). However, it is unknown whether these time-on-task effects should be attributed to deficits in executive functioning or to deficits in motivation. Some studies in typically developing (TD) adults indicated that time-on-task effects should be interpreted as depletion of executive resources, but other studies suggested that they represent depletion of motivation. We, therefore, investigated, in children with and without ADHD, whether there were time-on-task effects on executive functions, such as inhibition and (in)attention, and whether these were best explained by depletion of executive resources or depletion of motivation. The stop-signal task (SST), which generates both indices of inhibition (stop-signal reaction time) and attention (reaction time variability and errors), was administered in 96 children (42 ADHD, 54 TD controls; aged 9-13). To differentiate between depletion of resources and depletion of motivation, the SST was administered twice. Half of the participants was reinforced during second task performance, potentially counteracting depletion of motivation. Multilevel analyses indicated that children with ADHD were more affected by time-on-task than controls on two measures of inattention, but not on inhibition. In the ADHD group, reinforcement only improved performance on one index of attention (i.e., reaction time variability). The current findings suggest that time-on-task effects in children with ADHD occur specifically in the attentional domain, and seem to originate in both depletion of executive resources and depletion of motivation. Clinical implications for diagnostics, psycho-education, and intervention are discussed.

  6. Abacus Training Affects Math and Task Switching Abilities and Modulates Their Relationships in Chinese Children

    PubMed Central

    Yao, Yuan; Weng, Jian; Hu, Yuzheng; Chen, Feiyan

    2015-01-01

    Our previous work demonstrated that abacus-based mental calculation (AMC), a traditional Chinese calculation method, could help children improve their math abilities (e.g. basic arithmetical ability) and executive function (e.g. working memory). This study further examined the effects of long-term AMC training on math ability in visual-spatial domain and the task switching component of executive function. More importantly, this study investigated whether AMC training modulated the relationship between math abilities and task switching. The participants were seventy 7-year-old children who were randomly assigned into AMC and control groups at primary school entry. Children in AMC group received 2-hour AMC training every week since primary school entry. On the contrary, children in the control group had never received any AMC training. Math and task switching abilities were measured one year and three years respectively after AMC training began. The results showed that AMC children performed better than their peers on math abilities in arithmetical and visual-spatial domains. In addition, AMC group responded faster than control group in the switching task, while no group difference was found in switch cost. Most interestingly, group difference was present in the relationships between math abilities and switch cost. These results implied the effect of AMC training on math abilities as well as its relationship with executive function. PMID:26444689

  7. Abacus Training Affects Math and Task Switching Abilities and Modulates Their Relationships in Chinese Children.

    PubMed

    Wang, Chunjie; Geng, Fengji; Yao, Yuan; Weng, Jian; Hu, Yuzheng; Chen, Feiyan

    2015-01-01

    Our previous work demonstrated that abacus-based mental calculation (AMC), a traditional Chinese calculation method, could help children improve their math abilities (e.g. basic arithmetical ability) and executive function (e.g. working memory). This study further examined the effects of long-term AMC training on math ability in visual-spatial domain and the task switching component of executive function. More importantly, this study investigated whether AMC training modulated the relationship between math abilities and task switching. The participants were seventy 7-year-old children who were randomly assigned into AMC and control groups at primary school entry. Children in AMC group received 2-hour AMC training every week since primary school entry. On the contrary, children in the control group had never received any AMC training. Math and task switching abilities were measured one year and three years respectively after AMC training began. The results showed that AMC children performed better than their peers on math abilities in arithmetical and visual-spatial domains. In addition, AMC group responded faster than control group in the switching task, while no group difference was found in switch cost. Most interestingly, group difference was present in the relationships between math abilities and switch cost. These results implied the effect of AMC training on math abilities as well as its relationship with executive function.

  8. Determining robot actions for tasks requiring sensor interaction

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Budenske, John; Gini, Maria

    1989-01-01

    The performance of non-trivial tasks by a mobile robot has been a long term objective of robotic research. One of the major stumbling blocks to this goal is the conversion of the high-level planning goals and commands into the actuator and sensor processing controls. In order for a mobile robot to accomplish a non-trivial task, the task must be described in terms of primitive actions of the robot's actuators. Most non-trivial tasks require the robot to interact with its environment; thus necessitating coordination of sensor processing and actuator control to accomplish the task. The main contention is that the transformation from the high level description of the task to the primitive actions should be performed primarily at execution time, when knowledge about the environment can be obtained through sensors. It is proposed to produce the detailed plan of primitive actions by using a collection of low-level planning components that contain domain specific knowledge and knowledge about the available sensors, actuators, and sensor/actuator processing. This collection will perform signal and control processing as well as serve as a control interface between an actual mobile robot and a high-level planning system. Previous research has shown the usefulness of high-level planning systems to plan the coordination of activities such to achieve a goal, but none have been fully applied to actual mobile robots due to the complexity of interacting with sensors and actuators. This control interface is currently being implemented on a LABMATE mobile robot connected to a SUN workstation and will be developed such to enable the LABMATE to perform non-trivial, sensor-intensive tasks as specified by a planning system.

  9. Cross-Lagged Relations between Teacher and Parent Ratings of Children's Task Avoidance and Different Literacy Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Georgiou, George K.; Hirvonen, Riikka; Manolitsis, George; Nurmi, Jari-Erik

    2017-01-01

    Background: Task avoidance is a significant predictor of literacy skills. However, it remains unclear whether the relation between the two is reciprocal and whether it is affected by the type of literacy outcome, who is rating children's task avoidance, and the children's gender. Aim: The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the…

  10. Effectiveness of a Play Therapy Intervention on Children's Externalizing and Off-Task Behaviors

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Meany-Walen, Kristin K.; Teeling, Sunny; Davis, Aubrey; Artley, George; Vignovich, Andrea

    2017-01-01

    Children's externalizing and off-task behaviors are deemed a major concern for elementary teachers and interfere with the classroom learning environment (Abidin & Robinson, 2002; Shillingford-Butler & Theodore, 2013). Children with these behaviors are at risk of falling behind academically and experiencing ongoing behavioral problems…

  11. Investigating executive functions in children with severe speech and movement disorders using structured tasks.

    PubMed

    Stadskleiv, Kristine; von Tetzchner, Stephen; Batorowicz, Beata; van Balkom, Hans; Dahlgren-Sandberg, Annika; Renner, Gregor

    2014-01-01

    Executive functions are the basis for goal-directed activity and include planning, monitoring, and inhibition, and language seems to play a role in the development of these functions. There is a tradition of studying executive function in both typical and atypical populations, and the present study investigates executive functions in children with severe speech and motor impairments who are communicating using communication aids with graphic symbols, letters, and/or words. There are few neuropsychological studies of children in this group and little is known about their cognitive functioning, including executive functions. It was hypothesized that aided communication would tax executive functions more than speech. Twenty-nine children using communication aids and 27 naturally speaking children participated. Structured tasks resembling everyday activities, where the action goals had to be reached through communication with a partner, were used to get information about executive functions. The children (a) directed the partner to perform actions like building a Lego tower from a model the partner could not see and (b) gave information about an object without naming it to a person who had to guess what object it was. The executive functions of planning, monitoring, and impulse control were coded from the children's on-task behavior. Both groups solved most of the tasks correctly, indicating that aided communicators are able to use language to direct another person to do a complex set of actions. Planning and lack of impulsivity was positively related to task success in both groups. The aided group completed significantly fewer tasks, spent longer time and showed more variation in performance than the comparison group. The aided communicators scored lower on planning and showed more impulsivity than the comparison group, while both groups showed an equal degree of monitoring of the work progress. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that aided language tax

  12. Investigating executive functions in children with severe speech and movement disorders using structured tasks

    PubMed Central

    Stadskleiv, Kristine; von Tetzchner, Stephen; Batorowicz, Beata; van Balkom, Hans; Dahlgren-Sandberg, Annika; Renner, Gregor

    2014-01-01

    Executive functions are the basis for goal-directed activity and include planning, monitoring, and inhibition, and language seems to play a role in the development of these functions. There is a tradition of studying executive function in both typical and atypical populations, and the present study investigates executive functions in children with severe speech and motor impairments who are communicating using communication aids with graphic symbols, letters, and/or words. There are few neuropsychological studies of children in this group and little is known about their cognitive functioning, including executive functions. It was hypothesized that aided communication would tax executive functions more than speech. Twenty-nine children using communication aids and 27 naturally speaking children participated. Structured tasks resembling everyday activities, where the action goals had to be reached through communication with a partner, were used to get information about executive functions. The children (a) directed the partner to perform actions like building a Lego tower from a model the partner could not see and (b) gave information about an object without naming it to a person who had to guess what object it was. The executive functions of planning, monitoring, and impulse control were coded from the children's on-task behavior. Both groups solved most of the tasks correctly, indicating that aided communicators are able to use language to direct another person to do a complex set of actions. Planning and lack of impulsivity was positively related to task success in both groups. The aided group completed significantly fewer tasks, spent longer time and showed more variation in performance than the comparison group. The aided communicators scored lower on planning and showed more impulsivity than the comparison group, while both groups showed an equal degree of monitoring of the work progress. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that aided language tax

  13. Children's Task Oriented Patterns in Early Childhood: A Latent Transition Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Feihong; Algina, James; Snyder, Patricia; Cox, Martha; Vernon-Feagans, Lynne; Cox, Martha; Blair, Clancy; Burchinal, Margaret; Burton, Linda; Crnic, Keith; Crouter, Ann; Garrett-Peters, Patricia; Greenberg, Mark; Lanza, Stephanie; Mills-Koonce, Roger; Werner, Emily; Willoughby, Michael

    2017-01-01

    We examined individual differences and predictions of children's patterns in behavioral, emotional and attentional efforts toward challenging puzzle tasks at 24 and 35 months using data from a large longitudinal rural representative sample. Using latent transition analysis, we found four distinct task-oriented patterns in problem-solving tasks…

  14. Differences in shame and pride as a function of children's gender and task difficulty.

    PubMed

    Lewis, M; Alessandri, S M; Sullivan, M W

    1992-06-01

    3-year-old children were presented with easy and difficult tasks and their emotional responses of shame and pride were observed. No shame was shown when subjects succeeded on the tasks and no pride was shown when they failed. Significantly more shame was shown when subjects failed easy tasks than when they failed difficult tasks, and significantly more pride was shown when subjects succeeded on difficult than on easy tasks. While there were no sex differences in task failures, girls showed more shame than boys. There were no sex differences in pride when subjects succeeded.

  15. Impaired performance on advanced Theory of Mind tasks in children with epilepsy is related to poor communication and increased attention problems.

    PubMed

    Lunn, Judith; Lewis, Charlie; Sherlock, Christopher

    2015-02-01

    Children with epilepsy (CWE) have social difficulties that can persist into adulthood, and this could be related to problems with understanding others' thoughts, feelings, and intentions. This study assessed children's ability to interpret and reason on mental and emotional states (Theory of Mind) and examined the relationships between task scores and reports of communication and behavior. Performance of 56 CWE (8-16years of age) with below average IQ (n=17) or an average IQ (n=39) was compared with that of 62 healthy controls with an average IQ (6-16years of age) on cognition, language, and two advanced Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks that required children to attribute mental or emotional states to eye regions and to reason on internal mental states in order to explain behavior. The CWE-below average group were significantly poorer in both ToM tasks compared with controls. The CWE - average group showed a significantly poorer ability to reason on mental states in order to explain behavior, a difference that remained after accounting for lower IQ and language deficits. Poor ToM skills were related to increased communication and attention problems in both CWE groups. There is a risk for atypical social understanding in CWE, even for children with average cognitive function. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. A One-Hour Sleep Restriction Impacts Brain Processing in Young Children Across Tasks: Evidence From Event-related Potentials

    PubMed Central

    Molfese, Dennis L.; Ivanenko, Anna; Key, Alexandra Fonaryova; Roman, Adrienne; Molfese, Victoria J.; O'Brien, Louise M.; Gozal, David; Kota, Srinivas; Hudac, Caitlin M.

    2014-01-01

    The effect of mild sleep restriction on cognitive functioning in young children is unclear, yet sleep loss may impact children's abilities to attend to tasks with high processing demands. In a preliminary investigation, six children (6.6 - 8.3 years of age) with normal sleep patterns performed three tasks: attention (“Oddball”), speech perception (conconant-vowel syllables) and executive function (Directional Stroop). Event-related potentials (ERP) responses were recorded before (Control) and following one-week of 1-hour per day of sleep restriction. Brain activity across all tasks following Sleep Restriction differed from activity during Control Sleep, indicating that minor sleep restriction impacts children's neurocognitive functioning. PMID:23862635

  17. Can motivation normalize working memory and task persistence in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? The effects of money and computer-gaming.

    PubMed

    Dovis, Sebastiaan; Van der Oord, Saskia; Wiers, Reinout W; Prins, Pier J M

    2012-07-01

    Visual-spatial Working Memory (WM) is the most impaired executive function in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Some suggest that deficits in executive functioning are caused by motivational deficits. However, there are no studies that investigate the effects of motivation on the visual-spatial WM of children with- and without ADHD. Studies examining this in executive functions other than WM, show inconsistent results. These inconsistencies may be related to differences in the reinforcement used. The effects of different reinforcers on WM performance were investigated in 30 children with ADHD and 31 non-ADHD controls. A visual-spatial WM task was administered in four reinforcement conditions: Feedback-only, 1 euro, 10 euros, and a computer-game version of the task. In the Feedback-only condition, children with ADHD performed worse on the WM measure than controls. Although incentives significantly improved the WM performance of children with ADHD, even the strongest incentives (10 euros and Gaming) were unable to normalize their performance. Feedback-only provided sufficient reinforcement for controls to reach optimal performance, while children with ADHD required extra reinforcement. Only children with ADHD showed a decrease in performance over time. Importantly, the strongest incentives (10 euros and Gaming) normalized persistence of performance in these children, whereas 1 euro had no such effect. Both executive and motivational deficits give rise to visual-spatial WM deficits in ADHD. Problems with task-persistence in ADHD result from motivational deficits. In ADHD-reinforcement studies and clinical practice (e.g., assessment), reinforcement intensity can be a confounding factor and should be taken into account. Gaming can be a cost-effective way to maximize performance in ADHD.

  18. Children's Judgements concerning "Easy" Partitioning. Tasks as Related to a Theory of Partitioning.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pothier, Yvonne; Sawada, Daiyo

    By varying task conditions and constraints on subjects, this study attempted to extend and refine a developmental theory of partitioning as a foundational process undergirding children's construction of a rational number. Subjects were 31 preponderantly higher-grade pupils enrolled at an elementary school in Nova Scotia, Canada. Two tasks were…

  19. Normative data on the n-back task for children and young adolescents

    PubMed Central

    Pelegrina, Santiago; Lechuga, M. Teresa; García-Madruga, Juan A.; Elosúa, M. Rosa; Macizo, Pedro; Carreiras, Manuel; Fuentes, Luis J.; Bajo, M. Teresa

    2015-01-01

    The n-back task is a frequently used measure of working memory (WM) in cognitive neuroscience research contexts, and it has become widely adopted in other areas over the last decade. This study aimed to obtain normative data for the n-back task from a large sample of children and adolescents. To this end, a computerized verbal n-back task with three levels of WM load (1-back, 2-back, and 3-back) was administered to 3722 Spanish school children aged 7–13 years. Results showed an overall age-related increase in performance for the different levels of difficulty. This trend was less pronounced at 1-back than at 2-back when hits were considered. Gender differences were also observed, with girls outperforming boys although taking more time to respond. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed. Normative data stratified by age and gender for the three WM load levels are provided. PMID:26500594

  20. Normative data on the n-back task for children and young adolescents.

    PubMed

    Pelegrina, Santiago; Lechuga, M Teresa; García-Madruga, Juan A; Elosúa, M Rosa; Macizo, Pedro; Carreiras, Manuel; Fuentes, Luis J; Bajo, M Teresa

    2015-01-01

    The n-back task is a frequently used measure of working memory (WM) in cognitive neuroscience research contexts, and it has become widely adopted in other areas over the last decade. This study aimed to obtain normative data for the n-back task from a large sample of children and adolescents. To this end, a computerized verbal n-back task with three levels of WM load (1-back, 2-back, and 3-back) was administered to 3722 Spanish school children aged 7-13 years. Results showed an overall age-related increase in performance for the different levels of difficulty. This trend was less pronounced at 1-back than at 2-back when hits were considered. Gender differences were also observed, with girls outperforming boys although taking more time to respond. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed. Normative data stratified by age and gender for the three WM load levels are provided.

  1. Local and global processing in block design tasks in children with dyslexia or nonverbal learning disability.

    PubMed

    Cardillo, Ramona; Mammarella, Irene C; Garcia, Ricardo Basso; Cornoldi, Cesare

    2017-05-01

    Visuo-constructive and perceptual abilities have been poorly investigated in children with learning disabilities. The present study focused on local or global visuospatial processing in children with nonverbal learning disability (NLD) and dyslexia compared with typically-developing (TD) controls. Participants were presented with a modified block design task (BDT), in both a typical visuo-constructive version that involves reconstructing figures from blocks, and a perceptual version in which respondents must rapidly match unfragmented figures with a corresponding fragmented target figure. The figures used in the tasks were devised by manipulating two variables: the perceptual cohesiveness and the task uncertainty, stimulating global or local processes. Our results confirmed that children with NLD had more problems with the visuo-constructive version of the task, whereas those with dyslexia showed only a slight difficulty with the visuo-constructive version, but were in greater difficulty with the perceptual version, especially in terms of response times. These findings are interpreted in relation to the slower visual processing speed of children with dyslexia, and to the visuo-constructive problems and difficulty in using flexibly-experienced global vs local processes of children with NLD. The clinical and educational implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Effect of Task Constraint on Reaching Performance in Children with Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ju, Yun-Huei; You, Jia-Yuan; Cherng, Rong-Ju

    2010-01-01

    The purposes of the study were to examine the effect of task constraint on the reaching performance in children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) and to examine the correlations between the reaching performance and postural control. Eight children with CP and 16 typically developing (TD) children participated in the study. They performed a…

  3. Evidence for higher reaction time variability for children with ADHD on a range of cognitive tasks including reward and event rate manipulations

    PubMed Central

    Epstein, Jeffery N.; Langberg, Joshua M.; Rosen, Paul J.; Graham, Amanda; Narad, Megan E.; Antonini, Tanya N.; Brinkman, William B.; Froehlich, Tanya; Simon, John O.; Altaye, Mekibib

    2012-01-01

    Objective The purpose of the research study was to examine the manifestation of variability in reaction times (RT) in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and to examine whether RT variability presented differently across a variety of neuropsychological tasks, was present across the two most common ADHD subtypes, and whether it was affected by reward and event rate (ER) manipulations. Method Children with ADHD-Combined Type (n=51), ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive Type (n=53) and 47 controls completed five neuropsychological tasks (Choice Discrimination Task, Child Attentional Network Task, Go/No-Go task, Stop Signal Task, and N-back task), each allowing trial-by-trial assessment of reaction times. Multiple indicators of RT variability including RT standard deviation, coefficient of variation and ex-Gaussian tau were used. Results Children with ADHD demonstrated greater RT variability than controls across all five tasks as measured by the ex-Gaussian indicator tau. There were minimal differences in RT variability across the ADHD subtypes. Children with ADHD also had poorer task accuracy than controls across all tasks except the Choice Discrimination task. Although ER and reward manipulations did affect children’s RT variability and task accuracy, these manipulations largely did not differentially affect children with ADHD compared to controls. RT variability and task accuracy were highly correlated across tasks. Removing variance attributable to RT variability from task accuracy did not appreciably affect between-group differences in task accuracy. Conclusions High RT variability is a ubiquitous and robust phenomenon in children with ADHD. PMID:21463041

  4. Atypical temporal activation pattern and central-right brain compensation during semantic judgment task in children with early left brain damage.

    PubMed

    Chang, Yi-Tzu; Lin, Shih-Che; Meng, Ling-Fu; Fan, Yang-Teng

    In this study we investigated the event-related potentials (ERPs) during the semantic judgment task (deciding if the two Chinese characters were semantically related or unrelated) to identify the timing of neural activation in children with early left brain damage (ELBD). The results demonstrated that compared with the controls, children with ELBD had (1) competitive accuracy and reaction time in the semantic judgment task, (2) weak operation of the N400, (3) stronger, earlier and later compensational positivities (referred to the enhanced P200, P250, and P600 amplitudes) in the central and right region of the brain to successfully engage in semantic judgment. Our preliminary findings indicate that temporally postlesional reorganization is in accordance with the proposed right-hemispheric organization of speech after early left-sided brain lesion. During semantic processing, the orthography has a greater effect on the children with ELBD, and a later semantic reanalysis (P600) is required due to the less efficient N400 at the former stage for semantic integration. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Understanding the health care utilization of children who require medical technology: A descriptive study of children who require tracheostomies.

    PubMed

    Spratling, Regena

    2017-04-01

    Children who require medical technology have complex chronic illnesses. This medical technology, including ventilators, oximeters, tracheostomy tubes, and feeding tubes, allows children and their families to live at home; however, the management of the children's care by informal caregivers is complex with the need for intensive, specialized care. The purpose of this study was to examine the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics that affect health care utilization in a population of children who require medical technology. A retrospective electronic health record (EHR) review was completed on the EHR records on 171 children who require medical technology, specifically tracheostomies, at an outpatient technology dependent pulmonary clinic over a three year period (January 2010-December 2012). Descriptive statistics were used to analyze sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, including medical diagnoses, and emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations. Of the 171 children requiring medical technology studied, there were numerous medical diagnoses (n=791), 99% had chronic illnesses affecting two or more body systems, and 88% required two or more technologies, including a tracheostomy and a feeding tube. In addition, 91% of the children had at least one ED visit or hospitalization and were treated in the ED approximately three times over the three year period. The findings from this study noted an increased utilization of health care by these children, and identified common symptoms and medical technologies for which caregivers may need interventions, focusing on education in managing symptoms and medical technology prior to presentation to the ED or hospital. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Reduced prefrontal cortex activation in the color-word Stroop task for Chinese dyslexic children: a near-infrared spectroscopy study

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sun, Jinyan; Zhai, Jiahuan; Song, Ranran; Zou, Li; Gong, Hui

    2011-01-01

    Behavioral studies have investigated the performance of children with developmental dyslexia in conflict resolution, a function connected with the prefrontal cortex (PFC) closely. However, little is known about the prefrontal activation in conflict resolution for dyslexic children. In the present study, the involvement of the PFC in resolving conflict was evaluated for Chinese dyslexic children by means of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The NIRS instrument is a portable, continuous-wave system and can measure concentration changes of hemodynamic parameters (including oxy-, deoxy-, and total hemoglobin). Considering better sensitivity, the oxy-hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) was chosen to indicate the prefrontal activation. Ten dyslexic children and 11 normal children were recruited to perform the Chinese-character color-word Stroop task, which included the neutral and color (incongruent) tasks. In behavioral performance, both groups showed significant Stroop effect, longer response time or higher error rate for the color task. In particular, the Stroop interference effect was marginally larger for dyslexic children than normal children in response time. What's more, the two groups showed distinct pattern of oxy-Hb activation during the Stroop tasks. The normal group recruited the bilateral PFC to perform the tasks, while the dyslexic group couldn't activate the bilateral PFC in the difficult color task. Moreover, significantly less color Stroop effect was found in the left PFC for the dyslexic group, showing their disability in coping with the Stroop interference. These findings suggest that the PFC is dysfunctional in conflict resolution for Chinese dyslexic children and that NIRS can be an effective tool in neurological research and clinical application.

  7. Adaptation and Retention of a Perceptual-Motor Task in Children: Effects of a Single Bout of Intense Endurance Exercise.

    PubMed

    Ferrer-Uris, Blai; Busquets, Albert; Angulo-Barroso, Rosa

    2018-02-01

    We assessed the effect of an acute intense exercise bout on the adaptation and consolidation of a visuomotor adaptation task in children. We also sought to assess if exercise and learning task presentation order could affect task consolidation. Thirty-three children were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (a) exercise before the learning task, (b) exercise after the learning task, and (c) only learning task. Baseline performance was assessed by practicing the learning task in a 0° rotation condition. Afterward, a 60° rotation-adaptation set was applied followed by three rotated retention sets after 1 hr, 24 hr, and 7 days. For the exercise groups, exercise was presented before or after the motor adaptation. Results showed no group differences during the motor adaptation while exercise seemed to enhance motor consolidation. Greater consolidation enhancement was found in participants who exercised before the learning task. Our data support the importance of exercise to improve motor-memory consolidation in children.

  8. Piagetian Conservation Tasks in Ghanaian Children: The Role of Geographical Location, Gender and Age Differences

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Assan, Evelyn Ama; Sarfo, Jacob Owusu

    2015-01-01

    The study investigated the influence of geographical location, gender and age on the performance of Piagetian Conservation tasks. Four conservation tasks; conservation of liquid, length, substance amount and number respectively were administered to children [4-6 years] from rural and urban Ghana and their performance on each task were recorded.…

  9. Intelligence and information processing during a visual search task in children: an event-related potential study.

    PubMed

    Zhang, Qiong; Shi, Jiannong; Luo, Yuejia; Zhao, Daheng; Yang, Jie

    2006-05-15

    To investigate the differences in event-related potential parameters related to children's intelligence, we selected 15 individuals from an experimental class of intellectually gifted children and 13 intellectually average children as control to finish three types of visual search tasks (Chinese words, English letters and Arabic numbers). We recorded the electroencephalogram and calculated the peak latencies and amplitudes. Our results suggest comparatively increased P3 amplitudes and shorter P3 latencies in brighter individuals than in less intelligent individuals, but this expected neural efficiency effect interacted with task content. The differences were explained by a more spatially and temporally coordinated neural network for more intelligent children.

  10. Lexical Categorization Modalities in Pre-School Children: Influence of Perceptual and Verbal Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tallandini, Maria Anna; Roia, Anna

    2005-01-01

    This study investigates how categorical organization functions in pre-school children, focusing on the dichotomy between living and nonliving things. The variables of familiarity, frequency of word use and perceptual complexity were controlled. Sixty children aged between 4 years and 5 years 10 months were investigated. Three tasks were used: a…

  11. Spoken and Gestural Production in a Naming Task by Young Children with Down Syndrome

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stefanini, Silvia; Caselli, Maria Cristina; Volterra, Virginia

    2007-01-01

    Lexical production in children with Down syndrome (DS) was investigated by examining spoken naming accuracy and the use of spontaneous gestures in a picture naming task. Fifteen children with DS (range 3.8-8.3 years) were compared to typically developing children (TD), matched for chronological age and developmental age (range 2.6-4.3 years).…

  12. Task- and age-dependent effects of visual stimulus properties on children's explicit numerosity judgments.

    PubMed

    Defever, Emmy; Reynvoet, Bert; Gebuis, Titia

    2013-10-01

    Researchers investigating numerosity processing manipulate the visual stimulus properties (e.g., surface). This is done to control for the confound between numerosity and its visual properties and should allow the examination of pure number processes. Nevertheless, several studies have shown that, despite different visual controls, visual cues remained to exert their influence on numerosity judgments. This study, therefore, investigated whether the impact of the visual stimulus manipulations on numerosity judgments is dependent on the task at hand (comparison task vs. same-different task) and whether this impact changes throughout development. In addition, we examined whether the influence of visual stimulus manipulations on numerosity judgments plays a role in the relation between performance on numerosity tasks and mathematics achievement. Our findings confirmed that the visual stimulus manipulations affect numerosity judgments; more important, we found that these influences changed with increasing age and differed between the comparison and the same-different tasks. Consequently, direct comparisons between numerosity studies using different tasks and age groups are difficult. No meaningful relationship between the performance on the comparison and same-different tasks and mathematics achievement was found in typically developing children, nor did we find consistent differences between children with and without mathematical learning disability (MLD). Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. Teaching Children with Autism to Request Help with Difficult Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rodriguez, Nicole M.; Levesque, Megan A.; Cohrs, Victoria L.; Niemeier, Jessica J.

    2017-01-01

    We taught three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder to request help using an interrupted chain procedure during which we manipulated task materials such that the child was either incapable or capable of independently completing a link of a behavior chain. We initially observed undesirable generalization of requests for help during…

  14. Group Adlerian Play Therapy with Children with Off-Task Behaviors

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Meany-Walen, Kristin K.; Bullis, Quinn; Kottman, Terry; Dillman Taylor, Dalena

    2015-01-01

    Children who are off-task in schools struggle with completing their work and engage in disruptive behaviors. Without intervention, these behaviors tend to worsen, putting them at risk for more serious, ongoing problems throughout life. Group counseling provides opportunities for people to practice socially useful behaviors. Using a single case…

  15. Scaffolding Preschool Children's Problem Solving: A Comparison between Chinese Mothers and Teachers across Multiple Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sun, Jin; Rao, Nirmala

    2012-01-01

    This study compared Chinese mothers' and teachers' scaffolding of preschool children in different problem solving tasks. Participants were 57 children (including 29 girls) from seven kindergartens in Beijing, their mothers and teachers. Mothers varied in educational levels while all teachers were professionally qualified. Children solved four…

  16. An analysis of the processing requirements of a complex perceptual-motor task

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Kramer, A. F.; Wickens, C. D.; Donchin, E.

    1983-01-01

    Current concerns in the assessment of mental workload are discussed, and the event-related brain potential (ERP) is introduced as a promising mental-workload index. Subjects participated in a series of studies in which they were required to perform a target acquisition task while also covertly counting either auditory or visual probes. The effects of several task-difficulty manipulations on the P300 component of the ERP elicited by the counted stimulus probes were investigated. With sufficiently practiced subjects the amplitude of the P300 was found to decrease with increases in task difficulty. The second experiment also provided evidence that the P300 is selectively sensitive to task-relevant attributes. A third experiment demonstrated a convergence in the amplitude of the P300s elicited in the simple and difficult versions of the tracking task. The amplitude of the P300 was also found to covary with the measures of tracking performance. The results of the series of three experiments illustrate the sensitivity of the P300 to the processing requirements of a complex target acquisition task. The findings are discussed in terms of the multidimensional nature of processing resources.

  17. Cortical activity in fine-motor tasks in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder: A preliminary fNIRS study.

    PubMed

    Caçola, Priscila; Getchell, Nancy; Srinivasan, Dhivya; Alexandrakis, Georgios; Liu, Hanli

    2018-04-01

    Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is as a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by poor motor proficiency, which impacts academic performance and activities of daily living. Several studies have determined that children with DCD activate different regions of the brain when performing motor skills in comparison to typically developing (TD) children. However, none have used Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to explore cortical activation in this population. With that, the goal of this preliminary study was to investigate cortical activation using fNIRS in six children with DCD and six TD children between ages of 8 and 12 years. Three fine-motor tasks were performed: Finger Tapping (FT), Curve Tracing (CT), and Paragraph Writing (PW). Tasks were presented in counterbalanced order and had a baseline of 30s. Cortical activity elicited during performance of the FT, CT, and PW tasks was measured by fNIRS, and activation areas within each group were statistically compared. Results indicated that participant groups used different focal activation areas as well as different neural networks to perform the tasks. These distinct patterns were also task-specific, with differences in the right Pre-Motor Cortex (Pre-MC) and Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) for CT, and the right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC) and the right Pre-MC for the PW task. These results add to the body of research exploring neurological alterations in children with DCD, and establish the feasibility of using fNIRS technology with this population. Copyright © 2017 ISDN. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Infrastructure Task Force National Environmental Policy Act Requirements - February 2011

    EPA Pesticide Factsheets

    This document summarizes in a matrix format the federal regulations requirements and guidance for complying with the National Environmental Policy Act for the Infrastructure Task Force federal partner agencies.

  19. Assessment of Working Memory Capacity in Preschool Children Using the Missing Scan Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Roman, Adrienne S.; Pisoni, David B.; Kronenberger, William G.

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and validity of a modified version of Buschke's missing scan methodology, the Missing Scan Task (MST), to assess working memory capacity (WMC) and cognitive control processes in preschool children 3-6?years in age. Forty typically developing monolingual English-speaking children between…

  20. Task-Appropriate Visualizations: Can the Very Same Visualization Format Either Promote or Hinder Learning Depending on the Task Requirements?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Soemer, Alexander; Schwan, Stephan

    2016-01-01

    In a series of experiments, we tested a recently proposed hypothesis stating that the degree of alignment between the form of a mental representation resulting from learning with a particular visualization format and the specific requirements of a learning task determines learning performance (task-appropriateness). Groups of participants were…

  1. Effect of Augmented Sensorimotor Input on Learning Verbal and Nonverbal Tasks among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Latham, Susan O.; Stockman, Ida J.

    2014-01-01

    Thirty-four children, with autism spectrum disorders, ages 4-14 years, were matched and randomly assigned to one of two conditions for learning a novel juice-making task and producing two novel words about the event. Seventeen sighted children were manually guided to perform the task and tactually prompted during imitated productions of novel…

  2. Writing Evaluation: Rater and Task Effects on the Reliability of Writing Scores for Children in Grades 3 and 4

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kim, Young-Suk Grace; Schatschneider, Christopher; Wanzek, Jeanne; Gatlin, Brandy; Al Otaiba, Stephanie

    2017-01-01

    We examined how raters and tasks influence measurement error in writing evaluation and how many raters and tasks are needed to reach a desirable level of 0.90 and 0.80 reliabilities for children in Grades 3 and 4. A total of 211 children (102 boys) were administered three tasks in narrative and expository genres, respectively, and their written…

  3. The Effects of Microcomputers on Children's Attention to Reading Tasks.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zuk, Dorie; Danner, Fred

    A study investigated the effects of microcomputers on children's attention to reading tasks and the relationship between previous reading achievement and grade level on such attentional behavior. Fifty-five third and fifth graders read two stories each, one presented on a microcomputer and one presented in print. Television cartoons and rock music…

  4. Exploring Young Children's Self-Efficacy Beliefs Related to Mathematical and Nonmathematical Tasks Performed in Kindergarten: Abused and Neglected Children and Their Peers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tirosh, Dina; Tsamir, Pessia; Levenson, Esther; Tabach, Michal; Barkai, Ruthi

    2013-01-01

    This article reports on young children's self-efficacy beliefs and their corresponding performance of mathematical and nonmathematical tasks typically encountered in kindergarten. Participants included 132 kindergarten children aged 5-6 years old. Among the participants, 69 children were identified by the social welfare department as being abused…

  5. The effects of monetary and social rewards on task performance in children and adolescents: liking is not enough.

    PubMed

    Demurie, Ellen; Roeyers, Herbert; Baeyens, Dieter; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund

    2012-12-01

    The current study compared the effects of reward anticipation on task performance in children and adolescents (8-16 years old) using monetary and various social rewards. Eighty-five typically developing children undertook the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task. Of these 44 also undertook the Social Incentive Delay (SID-basic) task where social reward was operationalized as a smiling face and spoken compliments. Forty-one children participated in the SID-plus where points were added to a pictogram with written compliments. In a preparatory validation study participants were asked howmuch they liked the SID-basic rewards.Results showed that there was an effect of reward size on accuracy and RT in both the MID task and SID-plus, but not SID-basic. Subjective value of the SID-basic rewards was rated higher with hypothesized increasing reward intensity. In conclusion, although the social rewards in SID-basic were liked by children andadolescents in the validation study, they had no effect on the behaviour. Only when points were added (SID-plus), anticipated social reward affected task performance. Thus our results highlight (i) the difference between likeability andreinforcing quality and (ii) the need for a quantifiable element to rewards for themto be reinforcing for children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  6. Increased engagement of the cognitive control network associated with music training in children during an fMRI Stroop task.

    PubMed

    Sachs, Matthew; Kaplan, Jonas; Der Sarkissian, Alissa; Habibi, Assal

    2017-01-01

    Playing a musical instrument engages various sensorimotor processes and draws on cognitive capacities collectively termed executive functions. However, while music training is believed to associated with enhancements in certain cognitive and language abilities, studies that have explored the specific relationship between music and executive function have yielded conflicting results. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of music training on executive function using fMRI and several behavioral tasks, including the Color-Word Stroop task. Children involved in ongoing music training (N = 14, mean age = 8.67) were compared with two groups of comparable general cognitive abilities and socioeconomic status, one involved in sports ("sports" group, N = 13, mean age = 8.85) and another not involved in music or sports ("control" group, N = 17, mean age = 9.05). During the Color-Word Stroop task, children with music training showed significantly greater bilateral activation in the pre-SMA/SMA, ACC, IFG, and insula in trials that required cognitive control compared to the control group, despite no differences in performance on behavioral measures of executive function. No significant differences in brain activation or in task performance were found between the music and sports groups. The results suggest that systematic extracurricular training, particularly music-based training, is associated with changes in the cognitive control network in the brain even in the absence of changes in behavioral performance.

  7. Task-Related Interactions between Kindergarten Children and Their Teachers: The Role of Emotional Security

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thijs, Jochem T.; Koomen, Helma M. Y.

    2008-01-01

    This study examined the emotional security of kindergarten children in dyadic task-related interactions with their teachers. In particular, it examined the interrelations between security, task behaviours (persistence and independence), social inhibition, and teachers' support. Participants were 79 kindergartners (mean age = 69.7 months) and their…

  8. Using task analysis to improve the requirements elicitation in health information system.

    PubMed

    Teixeira, Leonor; Ferreira, Carlos; Santos, Beatriz Sousa

    2007-01-01

    This paper describes the application of task analysis within the design process of a Web-based information system for managing clinical information in hemophilia care, in order to improve the requirements elicitation and, consequently, to validate the domain model obtained in a previous phase of the design process (system analysis). The use of task analysis in this case proved to be a practical and efficient way to improve the requirements engineering process by involving users in the design process.

  9. Response requirement and increases in accuracy produced by stimulant drugs in a 5-choice serial reaction-time task in rats.

    PubMed

    Koffarnus, Mikhail N; Katz, Jonathan L

    2011-02-01

    Increased signal-detection accuracy on the 5-choice serial reaction time (5-CSRT) task has been shown with drugs that are useful clinically in treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but these increases are often small and/or unreliable. By reducing the reinforcer frequency, it may be possible to increase the sensitivity of this task to pharmacologically induced improvements in accuracy. Rats were trained to respond on the 5-CSRT task on a fixed ratio (FR) 1, FR 3, or FR 10 schedule of reinforcement. Drugs that were and were not expected to enhance performance were then administered before experimental sessions. Significant increases in accuracy of signal detection were not typically obtained under the FR 1 schedule with any drug. However, d-amphetamine, methylphenidate, and nicotine typically increased accuracy under the FR 3 and FR 10 schedules. Increasing the FR requirement in the 5-CSRT task increases the likelihood of a positive result with clinically effective drugs, and may more closely resemble conditions in children with attention deficits.

  10. Preschool children fail primate prosocial game because of attentional task demands.

    PubMed

    Burkart, Judith Maria; Rueth, Katja

    2013-01-01

    Various nonhuman primate species have been tested with prosocial games (i.e. derivates from dictator games) in order to better understand the evolutionary origin of proactive prosociality in humans. Results of these efforts are mixed, and it is difficult to disentangle true species differences from methodological artifacts. We tested 2- to 5-year-old children with a costly and a cost-free version of a prosocial game that differ with regard to the payoff distribution and are widely used with nonhuman primates. Simultaneously, we assessed the subjects' level of Theory of Mind understanding. Prosocial behavior was demonstrated with the prosocial game, and did not increase with more advanced Theory of Mind understanding. However, prosocial behavior could only be detected with the costly version of the game, whereas the children failed the cost-free version that is most commonly used with nonhuman primates. A detailed comparison of the children's behavior in the two versions of the game indicates that the failure was due to higher attentional demands of the cost-free version, rather than to a lack of prosociality per se. Our results thus show (i) that subtle differences in prosociality tasks can substantially bias the outcome and thus prevent meaningful species comparisons, and (ii) that like in nonhuman primates, prosocial behavior in human children does not require advanced Theory of Mind understanding in the present context. However, both developmental and comparative psychology accumulate increasing evidence for the multidimensionality of prosocial behaviors, suggesting that different forms of prosociality are also regulated differentially. For future efforts to understand the evolutionary origin of prosociality it is thus crucial to take this heterogeneity into account.

  11. Household task demands for quiet and focused behavior facilitate performance by ADHD youth.

    PubMed

    Mendes, Camila Guimarães; Drummond, Adriana F; Miranda, Débora M; Costa, Danielle S; Mancini, Marisa C

    2016-07-01

    This study evaluated the associations among symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in children and adolescents' performance in household tasks and assistance provided by caregivers. Parents of children from 6 to 14 years old with ADHD (n = 67) were interviewed with the Children Helping Out: Responsibilities, Expectations, and Supports (CHORES) instrument. Significant correlations were found between symptoms of ODD and assistance in self-care tasks (r = -0.31; p = 0.01); symptoms of hyperactivity correlated with assistance in self-care (r = -0.30, p = 0.01); and family-care (r = -0.25, p = 0.04) tasks. Age was directly associated with the number of tasks performed by children and inversely related to the assistance provided by caregivers. A greater number of ODD symptoms resulted in more household assistance from caregivers. Characteristics of ODD symptoms, such as disobedience and hostility in the face of authority, may limit these children in accessing household tasks by their own initiative, requiring assistance from caregivers.

  12. Assessing Young Children's Number Magnitude Representation: A Comparison between Novel and Conventional Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reid, Erin E.; Baroody, Arthur J.; Purpura, David J.

    2015-01-01

    Previously, researchers have relied on asking young children to plot a given number on a 0-to-10 number line to assess their mental representation of numbers 1 to 9. However, such a ("conventional") number-to-position (N-P) task may underestimate the accuracy of young children's magnitude estimates and misrepresent the nature of their…

  13. Effect of Assessment Task and Letter Writing Ability on Preschool Children's Spelling Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Puranik, Cynthia; Apel, Kenn

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine whether spelling performance in preschool children varied as a function of the method of assessment and letter writing ability. The authors manipulated the motoric element and memory demands of the task by having children spell single words using letter tiles, orally, and by writing. The authors also…

  14. Testing the validity of a continuous false belief task in 3- to 7-year-old children.

    PubMed

    Mahy, Caitlin E V; Bernstein, Daniel M; Gerrard, Lindsey D; Atance, Cristina M

    2017-08-01

    In two studies, we examined young children's performance on the paper-and-pencil version of the Sandbox task, a continuous measure of false belief, and its relations with other false belief and inhibition tasks. In Study 1, 96 children aged 3 to 7years completed three false belief tasks (Sandbox, Unexpected Contents, and Appearance/Reality) and two inhibition tasks (Head-Shoulders-Knees-Toes and Grass/Snow). Results revealed that false belief bias-a measure of egocentrism-on the Sandbox task correlated with age but not with the Unexpected Contents or Appearance/Reality task or with measures of inhibition after controlling for age. In Study 2, 90 3- to 7-year-olds completed five false belief tasks (Sandbox, Unexpected Contents, Appearance/Reality, Change of Location, and a second-order false belief task), two inhibition tasks (Simon Says and Grass/Snow), and a receptive vocabulary task (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test). Results showed that false belief bias on the Sandbox task correlated negatively with age and with the Change of Location task but not with the other false belief or inhibition tasks after controlling for age and receptive vocabulary. The Sandbox task shows promise as an age-sensitive measure of false belief performance during early childhood and shows convergent and discriminant validity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Child–Adult Differences in Using Dual-Task Paradigms to Measure Listening Effort

    PubMed Central

    Charles, Lauren M.; Ricketts, Todd A.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose The purpose of the project was to investigate the effects modifying the secondary task in a dual-task paradigm to measure objective listening effort. To be specific, the complexity and depth of processing were increased relative to a simple secondary task. Method Three dual-task paradigms were developed for school-age children. The primary task was word recognition. The secondary task was a physical response to a visual probe (simple task), a physical response to a complex probe (increased complexity), or word categorization (increased depth of processing). Sixteen adults (22–32 years, M = 25.4) and 22 children (9–17 years, M = 13.2) were tested using the 3 paradigms in quiet and noise. Results For both groups, manipulations of the secondary task did not affect word recognition performance. For adults, increasing depth of processing increased the calculated effect of noise; however, for children, results with the deep secondary task were the least stable. Conclusions Manipulations of the secondary task differentially affected adults and children. Consistent with previous findings, increased depth of processing enhanced paradigm sensitivity for adults. However, younger participants were more likely to demonstrate the expected effects of noise on listening effort using a secondary task that did not require deep processing. PMID:28346816

  16. The Effects of Knowledge of Criterion Task on Comprehension and Recall in Normally Achieving and Learning Disabled Children.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wong, Bernice Y. L.; And Others

    1982-01-01

    A study investigated the hypothesis that poor comprehension or recall of task demands, rather than a putative lack of goal directedness, is a possible source of learning-disabled children's poor performance of experimental tasks. Clear instructions substantially facilitated performance by both normally achieving and learning disabled children of…

  17. Visual Tasks and Postural Sway in Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chang, Chih-Hui; Wade, Michael G.; Stoffregen, Thomas A.; Hsu, Chin-Yu; Pan, Chien-Yu

    2010-01-01

    We investigated the influences of two different suprapostural visual tasks, visual searching and visual inspection, on the postural sway of children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Sixteen ASD children (age=8.75 [plus or minus] 1.34 years; height=130.34 [plus or minus] 11.03 cm) were recruited from a local support group.…

  18. Children's Performance on a False-belief Task Is Impaired by Activation of an Evolutionarily-Canalized Response System.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Keenan, Thomas; Ellis, Bruce J.

    2003-01-01

    Two studies examined how task content that activates predator-avoidance affects preschool children's performance on a false-belief task. Findings indicated that the proportion of correct answers on the playmate-avoidance task was greater than that for the predator-avoidance task, suggesting that activation of the predator-avoidance system…

  19. Postural Responses to a Suprapostural Visual Task among Children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chen, F. C.; Tsai, C. L.; Stoffregen, T. A.; Wade, M. G.

    2011-01-01

    We sought to determine the effects of varying the perceptual demands of a suprapostural visual task on the postural activity of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), and typically developing children (TDC). Sixty-four (32 per group) children aged between 9 and 10 years participated. In a within-participants design, each child…

  20. Measuring Grammatical Development in Bilingual Mandarin-English Speaking Children with a Sentence Repetition Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Woon, Chai Ping; Yap, Ngee Thai; Lim, Hui Woan; Wong, Bee Eng

    2014-01-01

    Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been used to measure children's expressive language skills in normal and abnormal language development, and to examine the development of the speaking skills in second language acquisition, as well as to survey the proficiency of bilingual language development. Recently, SR tasks have been recognized as a…

  1. Observations of Children's Interactions with Teachers, Peers, and Tasks across Preschool Classroom Activity Settings.

    PubMed

    Booren, Leslie M; Downer, Jason T; Vitiello, Virginia E

    2012-07-01

    This descriptive study examined classroom activity settings in relation to children's observed behavior during classroom interactions, child gender, and basic teacher behavior within the preschool classroom. 145 children were observed for an average of 80 minutes during 8 occasions across 2 days using the inCLASS, an observational measure that conceptualizes behavior into teacher, peer, task, and conflict interactions. Findings indicated that on average children's interactions with teachers were higher in teacher-structured settings, such as large group. On average, children's interactions with peers and tasks were more positive in child-directed settings, such as free choice. Children experienced more conflict during recess and routines/transitions. Finally, gender differences were observed within small group and meals. The implications of these findings might encourage teachers to be thoughtful and intentional about what types of support and resources are provided so children can successfully navigate the demands of particular settings. These findings are not meant to discourage certain teacher behaviors or imply value of certain classroom settings; instead, by providing an evidenced-based picture of the conditions under which children display the most positive interactions, teachers can be more aware of choices within these settings and have a powerful way to assist in professional development and interventions.

  2. Effects of classroom bilingualism on task-shifting, verbal memory, and word learning in children.

    PubMed

    Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana

    2014-07-01

    We examined the effects of classroom bilingual experience in children on an array of cognitive skills. Monolingual English-speaking children were compared with children who spoke English as the native language and who had been exposed to Spanish in the context of dual-immersion schooling for an average of 2 years. The groups were compared on a measure of non-linguistic task-shifting; measures of verbal short-term and working memory; and measures of word learning. The two groups of children did not differ on measures of non-linguistic task-shifting and verbal short-term memory. However, the classroom-exposure bilingual group outperformed the monolingual group on the measure of verbal working memory and a measure of word learning. Together, these findings indicate that while exposure to a second language in a classroom setting may not be sufficient to engender changes in cognitive control, it can facilitate verbal memory and verbal learning. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  3. Effects of Classroom Bilingualism on Task Shifting, Verbal Memory, and Word Learning in Children

    PubMed Central

    Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana

    2014-01-01

    We examined the effects of classroom bilingual experience in children on an array of cognitive skills. Monolingual English-speaking children were compared with children who spoke English as the native language and who had been exposed to Spanish in the context of dual-immersion schooling for an average of two years. The groups were compared on a measure of non-linguistic task-shifting; measures of verbal short-term and working memory; and measures of word-learning. The two groups of children did not differ on measures of non-linguistic task-shifting and verbal short-term memory. However, the classroom-exposure bilingual group outperformed the monolingual group on the measure of verbal working memory and a measure of word-learning. Together, these findings indicate that while exposure to a second language in a classroom setting may not be sufficient to engender changes in cognitive control, it can facilitate verbal memory and verbal learning. PMID:24576079

  4. EEG Patterns Related to Cognitive Tasks of Varying Complexity.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dunn, Denise A.; And Others

    A study was conducted that attempted to show changes in electroencephalographic (EEG) patterns (identified using topographic EEG mapping) when children were required to perform the relatively simple task of button pressing during an eyes-open baseline session of low cognitive demand and a complex reaction time (RT) task of high cognitive demand.…

  5. Performance under dichoptic versus binocular viewing conditions - Effects of attention and task requirements

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Kimchi, Ruth; Gopher, Daniel; Rubin, Yifat; Raij, David

    1993-01-01

    Three experiments investigated subjects' ability to allocate attention and cope with task requirements under dichoptic versus binocular viewing conditions. Experiments 1 and 2 employed a target detection task in compound and noncompound stimuli, and Experiment 3 employed a relative-proximity judgment task. The tasks were performed in a focused attention condition in which subjects had to attend to the stimulus presented to one eye or field (under dichoptic and binocular viewing conditions, respectively) while ignoring the stimulus presented to the other eye or field, and in a divided attention condition in which subjects had to attend to the stimuli presented to both eyes or fields. Subjects' performance was affected by the interaction of attention conditions with task requirements, but it was generally the same under dichoptic and binocular viewing conditions. The more dependent the task was on finer discrimination, the more performance was impaired by divided attention. These results suggest that at least with discrete tasks and relatively short exposure durations, performance when each eye is presented with a separate stimulus is the same as when the entire field of stimulation is viewed by both eyes.

  6. Embodied Action Improves Cognition in Children: Evidence from a Study Based on Piagetian Conservation Tasks.

    PubMed

    Lozada, Mariana; Carro, Natalia

    2016-01-01

    Converging evidence highlights the relevance of embodied cognition in learning processes. In this study we evaluate whether embodied action (enaction) improves cognitive understanding in children. Using the Piagetian conservation tasks in 6-7 year olds, we analyzed quantity conservation conceptualization in children who were active participants in the transformation process and compared these results to those of children who were mere observers of an adult's demonstration (as traditionally conducted). The investigation was performed with 105 first-graders. Conservation tasks were demonstrated to half the children, while the other half actively carried out the transformation of matter. Our findings showed that active manipulation of the material helped children recognize quantity invariance in a higher proportion than when the demonstration was only observed. That is, their enactive experience enabled them to comprehend conservation phenomena more easily than if they were merely passive observers. The outcome of this research thus emphasizes how active participation benefits cognitive processes in learning contexts, promoting autonomy, and agency during childhood.

  7. Embodied Action Improves Cognition in Children: Evidence from a Study Based on Piagetian Conservation Tasks

    PubMed Central

    Lozada, Mariana; Carro, Natalia

    2016-01-01

    Converging evidence highlights the relevance of embodied cognition in learning processes. In this study we evaluate whether embodied action (enaction) improves cognitive understanding in children. Using the Piagetian conservation tasks in 6–7 year olds, we analyzed quantity conservation conceptualization in children who were active participants in the transformation process and compared these results to those of children who were mere observers of an adult's demonstration (as traditionally conducted). The investigation was performed with 105 first-graders. Conservation tasks were demonstrated to half the children, while the other half actively carried out the transformation of matter. Our findings showed that active manipulation of the material helped children recognize quantity invariance in a higher proportion than when the demonstration was only observed. That is, their enactive experience enabled them to comprehend conservation phenomena more easily than if they were merely passive observers. The outcome of this research thus emphasizes how active participation benefits cognitive processes in learning contexts, promoting autonomy, and agency during childhood. PMID:27047420

  8. Detecting Stress Patterns Is Related to Children's Performance on Reading Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gutierrez-Palma, Nicolas; Raya-Garcia, Manuel; Palma-Reyes, Alfonso

    2009-01-01

    This paper investigates the relationship between the ability to detect changes in prosody and reading performance in Spanish. Participants were children aged 6-8 years who completed tasks involving reading words, reading pseudowords, stressing pseudowords, and reproducing pseudoword stress patterns. Results showed that the capacity to reproduce…

  9. Rational snacking: young children's decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability.

    PubMed

    Kidd, Celeste; Palmeri, Holly; Aslin, Richard N

    2013-01-01

    Children are notoriously bad at delaying gratification to achieve later, greater rewards (e.g., Piaget, 1970)-and some are worse at waiting than others. Individual differences in the ability-to-wait have been attributed to self-control, in part because of evidence that long-delayers are more successful in later life (e.g., Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990). Here we provide evidence that, in addition to self-control, children's wait-times are modulated by an implicit, rational decision-making process that considers environmental reliability. We tested children (M=4;6, N=28) using a classic paradigm-the marshmallow task (Mischel, 1974)-in an environment demonstrated to be either unreliable or reliable. Children in the reliable condition waited significantly longer than those in the unreliable condition (p<0.0005), suggesting that children's wait-times reflected reasoned beliefs about whether waiting would ultimately pay off. Thus, wait-times on sustained delay-of-gratification tasks (e.g., the marshmallow task) may not only reflect differences in self-control abilities, but also beliefs about the stability of the world. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. The Influence of Relational Complexity and Strategy Selection on Children's Reasoning in the Latin Square Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Perret, Patrick; Bailleux, Christine; Dauvier, Bruno

    2011-01-01

    The present study focused on children's deductive reasoning when performing the Latin Square Task, an experimental task designed to explore the influence of relational complexity. Building on Birney, Halford, and Andrew's (2006) research, we created a version of the task that minimized nonrelational factors and introduced new categories of items.…

  11. Learning from others' mistakes? limits on understanding a trap-tube task by young chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens).

    PubMed

    Horner, Victoria; Whiten, Andrew

    2007-02-01

    A trap-tube task was used to determine whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) who observed a model's errors and successes could master the task in fewer trials than those who saw only successes. Two- to 7-year-old chimpanzees and 3- to 4-year-old children did not benefit from observing errors and found the task difficult. Two of the 6 chimpanzees developed a successful anticipatory strategy but showed no evidence of representing the core causal relations involved in trapping. Three- to 4-year-old children showed a similar limitation and tended to copy the actions of the demonstrator, irrespective of their causal relevance. Five- to 6-year-old children were able to master the task but did not appear to be influenced by social learning or benefit from observing errors.

  12. Iconicity Influences How Effectively Minimally Verbal Children with Autism and Ability-Matched Typically Developing Children Use Pictures as Symbols in a Search Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hartley, Calum; Allen, Melissa L.

    2015-01-01

    Previous word learning studies suggest that children with autism spectrum disorder may have difficulty understanding pictorial symbols. Here we investigate the ability of children with autism spectrum disorder and language-matched typically developing children to contextualize symbolic information communicated by pictures in a search task that did…

  13. Multitasking During Degraded Speech Recognition in School-Age Children.

    PubMed

    Grieco-Calub, Tina M; Ward, Kristina M; Brehm, Laurel

    2017-01-01

    Multitasking requires individuals to allocate their cognitive resources across different tasks. The purpose of the current study was to assess school-age children's multitasking abilities during degraded speech recognition. Children (8 to 12 years old) completed a dual-task paradigm including a sentence recognition (primary) task containing speech that was either unprocessed or noise-band vocoded with 8, 6, or 4 spectral channels and a visual monitoring (secondary) task. Children's accuracy and reaction time on the visual monitoring task was quantified during the dual-task paradigm in each condition of the primary task and compared with single-task performance. Children experienced dual-task costs in the 6- and 4-channel conditions of the primary speech recognition task with decreased accuracy on the visual monitoring task relative to baseline performance. In all conditions, children's dual-task performance on the visual monitoring task was strongly predicted by their single-task (baseline) performance on the task. Results suggest that children's proficiency with the secondary task contributes to the magnitude of dual-task costs while multitasking during degraded speech recognition.

  14. Influence of early rising on performance in tasks requiring attention and memory.

    PubMed

    Kumaran, V Shankar; Raghavendra, Bhat Ramachandra; Manjunath, Nandi Krishnamurthy

    2012-01-01

    Rising early in the morning has been a prescribed discipline of ancient Indian tradition. While there are no scientific studies comparing early rising volitionally versus circumstantially, selected studies on the latter (rising forcefully) have shown negative impact on an individual's peroformance. Hence the present study was undertaken to assess the influence of early rising (during Brahma-muhurtha) on tasks requiring attention and the ability to recall. Fifty four normal healthy male volunteers, with ages ranging from 16-22 years from a residential school were selected. They were randomly allocated to two groups (Brahma-muhurtha and control). They were assessed on day 1, day 10 and day 20 of the intervention, using a digit letter substitution task and verbal and spatial memory task. The Brahma-muhurtha group were asked to rise before 4:30 am in the morning based on the traditional Indian astrological calculations, while the control group were allowed to wake up just before 7 am which was their regular timing for waking. Brahma-muhurtha group after 20 days showed a significant improvement in the net scores for digit letter substitution task as well as scores for verbal and spatial memory tasks. The control group also showed an improvement in the memory task but not in the task requiring attentional processes. The present study suggests that rising early in the morning as described in ancient Indian tradition influences the process of attention and can improve the ability to recall.

  15. A Sentence Repetition Task for Catalan-Speaking Typically-Developing Children and Children with Specific Language Impairment

    PubMed Central

    Gavarró, Anna

    2017-01-01

    It is common to find that so-called minority languages enjoy fewer (if any) diagnostic tools than the so-called majority languages. This has repercussions for the detection and proper assessment of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) brought up in these languages. With a view to remedy this situation for Catalan, I developed a sentence repetition task to assess grammatical maturity in school-age children; in current practice, Catalan-speaking children are assessed with tests translated from Spanish, with disregard of the fact that the markers of SLI may differ substantially from one language to another, even between closely related languages. The test proposed here is inspired by SASIT [School-Age Sentence Imitation Test – English], designed for English by Marinis et al. (2011); some of the constructions targeted are challenging in a subset of languages, but not others, and are included because they are indeed affected in Catalan SLI; other constructions appear to be disrupted universally. The test involves canonical SVO sentences, sentences with third person accusative clitics (known to be problematic in Catalan SLI, but not in Spanish), passives, wh- interrogatives, subordinate clauses, subject and object relatives and conditionals. The test was administered to thirty typically developing 6- and 7-year-olds (as reported in Gavarró et al., 2012b), and five children diagnosed with SLI (mean age 10;7). The results of the task were scored under two systems: (i) identical vs. non-identical repetition and (ii) identical, grammatical and ungrammatical repetition, with detail regarding the error type. The results for typically developing and SLI children showed differences between the groups: identical repetition was found in 88.9% of cases for typically developing children but only 48% for SLI children. Ungrammatical productions were higher for the SLI group, and so were grammatical but different repetitions, a trend which was found in every child

  16. Exploring dimensionality of effortful control using hot and cool tasks in a sample of preschool children.

    PubMed

    Allan, Nicholas P; Lonigan, Christopher J

    2014-06-01

    Effortful control (EC) is an important developmental construct associated with academic performance, socioemotional growth, and psychopathology. EC, defined as the ability to inhibit or delay a prepotent response typically in favor of a subdominant response, undergoes rapid development during children's preschool years. Research involving EC in preschool children can be aided by ensuring that the measured model of EC matches the latent structure of EC. Extant research indicates that EC may be multidimensional, consisting of hot (affectively salient) and cool (affectively neutral) dimensions. However, there are several untested assumptions regarding the defining features of hot EC. Confirmatory factor analysis was used in a sample of 281 preschool children (Mage=55.92months, SD=4.16; 46.6% male and 53.4% female) to compare a multidimensional model composed of hot and cool EC factors with a unidimensional model. Hot tasks were created by adding affective salience to cool tasks so that hot and cool tasks varied only by this aspect of the tasks. Tasks measuring EC were best described by a single factor and not distinct hot and cool factors, indicating that affective salience alone does not differentiate between hot and cool EC. EC shared gender-invariant associations with academic skills and externalizing behavior problems. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  17. Brief Report: Impaired Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST) in School-Age Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yerys, Benjamin E.; Wolff, Brian C.; Moody, Eric; Pennington, Bruce F.; Hepburn, Susan L.

    2012-01-01

    Cognitive flexibility has been measured with inductive reasoning or explicit rule tasks in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The "Flexible Item Selection Task" (FIST) differs from previous cognitive flexibility tasks in ASD research by giving children an abstract, ambiguous rule to switch. The ASD group (N = 22; Mean age = 8.28…

  18. Cross-Lagged Associations between Kindergarten Teachers' Causal Attributions and Children's Task Motivation and Performance in Reading

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Natale, Katja; Viljaranta, Jaana; Lerkkanen, Marja-Kristiina; Poikkeus, Anna-Maija; Nurmi, Jari-Erik

    2009-01-01

    The present study investigated whether kindergarten teachers' causal attributions would predict children's reading-related task motivation and performance, or whether it is rather children's motivation and performance that contribute to teachers' causal attributions. To investigate this, 69 children (five to six years old at baseline) and their…

  19. Children's Understanding of Large-Scale Mapping Tasks: An Analysis of Talk, Drawings, and Gesture

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kotsopoulos, Donna; Cordy, Michelle; Langemeyer, Melanie

    2015-01-01

    This research examined how children represent motion in large-scale mapping tasks that we referred to as "motion maps". The underlying mathematical content was transformational geometry. In total, 19 children, 8- to 10-year-old, created motion maps and captured their motion maps with accompanying verbal description digitally. Analysis of…

  20. The Role of Inhibitory Control in Children's Cooperative Behaviors during a Structured Puzzle Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Giannotta, Fabrizia; Burk, William J.; Ciairano, Silvia

    2011-01-01

    This study examined the role of inhibitory control (measured by Stroop interference) in children's cooperative behaviors during a structured puzzle task. The sample consisted of 250 8-, 10-, and 12-year-olds (117 girls and 133 boys) attending classrooms in three primary schools in Northern Italy. Children individually completed an elaborated…

  1. Effect(s) of Language Tasks on Severity of Disfluencies in Preschool Children with Stuttering

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zamani, Peyman; Ravanbakhsh, Majid; Weisi, Farzad; Rashedi, Vahid; Naderi, Sara; Hosseinzadeh, Ayub; Rezaei, Mohammad

    2017-01-01

    Speech disfluency in children can be increased or decreased depending on the type of linguistic task presented to them. In this study, the effect of sentence imitation and sentence modeling on severity of speech disfluencies in preschool children with stuttering is investigated. In this cross-sectional descriptive analytical study, 58 children…

  2. Emotion understanding in postinstitutionalized Eastern European children

    PubMed Central

    WISMER FRIES, ALISON B.; POLLAK, SETH D.

    2005-01-01

    To examine the effects of early emotional neglect on children’s affective development, we assessed children who had experienced institutionalized care prior to adoption into family environments. One task required children to identify photographs of facial expressions of emotion. A second task required children to match facial expressions to an emotional situation. Internationally adopted, postinstitutionalized children had difficulty identifying facial expressions of emotion. In addition, postinstitutionalized children had significant difficulty matching appropriate facial expressions to happy, sad, and fearful scenarios. However, postinstitutionalized children performed as well as comparison children when asked to identify and match angry facial expressions. These results are discussed in terms of the importance of emotional input early in life on later developmental organization. PMID:15487600

  3. Why are bilinguals better than monolinguals at false-belief tasks?

    PubMed

    Rubio-Fernández, Paula

    2017-06-01

    In standard Theory of Mind tasks, such as the Sally-Anne, children have to predict the behaviour of a mistaken character, which requires attributing the character a false belief. Hundreds of developmental studies in the last 30 years have shown that children under 4 fail standard false-belief tasks. However, recent studies have revealed that bilingual children and adults outperform their monolingual peers in this type of tasks. Bilinguals' better performance in false-belief tasks has generally been interpreted as a result of their better inhibitory control; that is, bilinguals are allegedly better than monolinguals at inhibiting the erroneous response to the false-belief question. In this review, I challenge the received view and argue instead that bilinguals' better false-belief performance results from more effective attention management. This challenge ties in with two independent lines of research: on the one hand, recent studies on the role of attentional processes in false-belief tasks with monolingual children and adults; and on the other, current research on bilinguals' performance in different Executive Function tasks. The review closes with an exploratory discussion of further benefits of bilingual cognition to Theory of Mind development and pragmatics, which may be independent from Executive Function.

  4. Shoulder Strength Requirements for Upper Limb Functional Tasks: Do Age and Rotator Cuff Tear Status Matter?

    PubMed

    Santago, Anthony C; Vidt, Meghan E; Li, Xiaotong; Tuohy, Christopher J; Poehling, Gary G; Freehill, Michael T; Saul, Katherine R

    2017-12-01

    Understanding upper limb strength requirements for daily tasks is imperative for early detection of strength loss that may progress to disability due to age or rotator cuff tear. We quantified shoulder strength requirements for 5 upper limb tasks performed by 3 groups: uninjured young adults and older adults, and older adults with a degenerative supraspinatus tear prior to repair. Musculoskeletal models were developed for each group representing age, sex, and tear-related strength losses. Percentage of available strength used was quantified for the subset of tasks requiring the largest amount of shoulder strength. Significant differences in strength requirements existed across tasks: upward reach 105° required the largest average strength; axilla wash required the largest peak strength. However, there were limited differences across participant groups. Older adults with and without a tear used a larger percentage of their shoulder elevation (p < .001, p < .001) and external rotation (p < .001, p = .017) strength than the young adults, respectively. Presence of a tear significantly increased percentage of internal rotation strength compared to young (p < .001) and uninjured older adults (p = .008). Marked differences in strength demand across tasks indicate the need for evaluating a diversity of functional tasks to effectively detect early strength loss, which may lead to disability.

  5. Increased engagement of the cognitive control network associated with music training in children during an fMRI Stroop task

    PubMed Central

    2017-01-01

    Playing a musical instrument engages various sensorimotor processes and draws on cognitive capacities collectively termed executive functions. However, while music training is believed to associated with enhancements in certain cognitive and language abilities, studies that have explored the specific relationship between music and executive function have yielded conflicting results. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of music training on executive function using fMRI and several behavioral tasks, including the Color-Word Stroop task. Children involved in ongoing music training (N = 14, mean age = 8.67) were compared with two groups of comparable general cognitive abilities and socioeconomic status, one involved in sports (“sports” group, N = 13, mean age = 8.85) and another not involved in music or sports (“control” group, N = 17, mean age = 9.05). During the Color-Word Stroop task, children with music training showed significantly greater bilateral activation in the pre-SMA/SMA, ACC, IFG, and insula in trials that required cognitive control compared to the control group, despite no differences in performance on behavioral measures of executive function. No significant differences in brain activation or in task performance were found between the music and sports groups. The results suggest that systematic extracurricular training, particularly music-based training, is associated with changes in the cognitive control network in the brain even in the absence of changes in behavioral performance. PMID:29084283

  6. Desynchronization of Theta-Phase Gamma-Amplitude Coupling during a Mental Arithmetic Task in Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

    PubMed

    Kim, Jun Won; Kim, Bung-Nyun; Lee, Jaewon; Na, Chul; Kee, Baik Seok; Min, Kyung Joon; Han, Doug Hyun; Kim, Johanna Inhyang; Lee, Young Sik

    2016-01-01

    Theta-phase gamma-amplitude coupling (TGC) measurement has recently received attention as a feasible method of assessing brain functions such as neuronal interactions. The purpose of this electroencephalographic (EEG) study is to understand the mechanisms underlying the deficits in attentional control in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by comparing the power spectra and TGC at rest and during a mental arithmetic task. Nineteen-channel EEGs were recorded from 97 volunteers (including 53 subjects with ADHD) from a camp for hyperactive children under two conditions (rest and task performance). The EEG power spectra and the TGC data were analyzed. Correlation analyses between the Intermediate Visual and Auditory (IVA) continuous performance test (CPT) scores and EEG parameters were performed. No significant difference in the power spectra was detected between the groups at rest and during task performance. However, TGC was reduced during the arithmetic task in the ADHD group compared with the normal group (F = 16.70, p < 0.001). The TGC values positively correlated with the IVA CPT scores but negatively correlated with theta power. Our findings suggest that desynchronization of TGC occurred during the arithmetic task in ADHD children. TGC in ADHD children is expected to serve as a promising neurophysiological marker of network deactivation during attention-demanding tasks.

  7. [Event-related potentials in Chinese characters semantic priming and arithmetic tasks: comparative study between healthy children and children with cognitive disorder].

    PubMed

    Dong, Xuan; Wang, Su-hong; Yang, Yi-lin; Ren, Yan-ling; Meng, Ping; Yang, Yu-xia

    2007-10-30

    To explore the cognitive psychological process of healthy children and children with cognitive disorder. Single Chinese character semantic priming and arithmetic tasks were delivered to 20 8-year-old healthy children, and 20 11-year-old healthy children, and 30 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, 23 children with epilepsy, and 22 age-matched normal children as controls. Electroencephalography was used. Event-related potential was distilled by BESA software. (1) During the Chinese character semantic priming, the amplitudes of N2 toward the non-related words and pseudo-words in the 8-year-old group were 12.1 microV and 11.7 microV respectively, both significantly larger than those of the 11-year-old group (3.7 microV and 4.8 microV, respectively, both P<0.05). The amplitudes of N2 and P2 toward the non-related words and pseudo-words among the children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were both significantly lower than those in the healthy children (both P<0.05). (2) During the arithmetic task, the latency values of P2 and P3 of addition, subtraction, and multiplication in the 8-year-old group of healthy children were all significantly longer than those of the 11-year-old group of healthy children (all P<0.05). The P3 latency of the children with epilepsy was significantly longer than that of the healthy children (P<0.05). Chinese character and arithmetic cognitive waves are steady. ERP can be used to estimate the healthy children's personality index. Quantitative indicators are helpful in diagnosis and treatment of cognitive and learning disorders.

  8. Stress Reactivity of Six-Year-Old Children Involved in Challenging Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sajaniemi, Nina; Suhonen, Eira; Kontu, Elina; Lindholm, Harri; Hirvonen, Ari

    2012-01-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate whether the preschool activities challenge the stress regulative system in children. We used a multi-system approach to evaluate the underlying processes of stress responses and measured both cortisol and [alpha]-amylase responses after emotionally and cognitively challenging tasks followed by a recovery…

  9. Parental Verbal Strategies and Children's Capacities at 3 and 5 Years during a Memory Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Labrell, Florence; Ubersfeld, Guillaume

    2004-01-01

    In order to study the influence on memorization of external inputs as well as children's own strategies, we examined both parental discourses in terms of distancing (Sigel, 1970) and spontaneous rehearsal by children during a memory task. Our aim was to assess the influence of each factor for children between 3 and 5 years of age. In our study of…

  10. Exploring inter-task transfer following a CO-OP approach with four children with DCD: A single subject multiple baseline design.

    PubMed

    Capistran, Julie; Martini, Rose

    2016-10-01

    Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance (CO-OP) approach has been shown to be effective for improving the performance of tasks worked on in therapy and the use of cognitive strategies. No study to date seems to have explored its effectiveness for improving performance of untrained tasks (inter-task transfer) in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). This study aimed to determine whether CO-OP leads to improved performance in an untrained task. A single-subject design with multiple baselines across skills was adopted, with three replications. Four children with DCD (7-12years) received 10 sessions of CO-OP intervention where each child worked on three tasks during therapy sessions and a fourth task was identified, but not worked on, to verify inter-task transfer. Task performance was rated over four phases (baseline, intervention, post-intervention, follow-up) using the Performance Quality Rating Scale (PQRS-OD). Graphed data was statistically analyzed using a two or three standard deviation band method. Significant improvement was obtained for 11 of 12 tasks worked on during therapy and for two of the four untrained tasks. These results indicate that the effectiveness of CO-OP to improve untrained tasks in children merit further exploration. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. A pilot's opinion - VTOL control design requirements for the instrument approach task.

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Patton, J. M., Jr.

    1972-01-01

    This paper presents pilot opinion supported by test data concerning flight control and display concepts and control system design requirements for VTOL aircraft in the instrument approach task. Material presented is drawn from research flights in the following aircraft: Dornier DO-31, Short SC-1, LTV XC-142A, and Boeing-Vertol CH-46. The control system concepts and mechanizations employed in the above aircraft are discussed, and the effect of control system augmentation is shown on performance. Operational procedures required in the instrument approach task are described, with comments on need for automation and combining of control functions.

  12. Bit by Bit or All at Once? Splitting up the Inquiry Task to Promote Children's Scientific Reasoning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lazonder, Ard W.; Kamp, Ellen

    2012-01-01

    This study examined whether and why assigning children to a segmented inquiry task makes their investigations more productive. Sixty-one upper elementary-school pupils engaged in a simulation-based inquiry assignment either received a multivariable inquiry task (n = 21), a segmented version of this task that addressed the variables in successive…

  13. 2.5-Year-Olds Succeed at a Verbal Anticipatory-Looking False-Belief Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    He, Zijing; Bolz, Matthias; Baillargeon, Renee

    2012-01-01

    Recent research suggests that infants and toddlers succeed at a wide range of non-elicited-response false-belief tasks (i.e., tasks that do not require children to answer a direct question about a mistaken agent's likely behaviour). However, one exception to this generalization comes from verbal anticipatory-looking tasks, which have produced…

  14. 78 FR 15110 - Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee; Engine Bird Ingestion Requirements-New Task

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2013-03-08

    ...: During the bird-ingestion rulemaking database (BRDB) working group`s reevaluation of the current engine... engine core ingestion. If the BRDB working group`s reevaluation determines that such requirements are... Task ARAC accepted the task and will establish the Engine Harmonization Working Group (EHWG), under the...

  15. Mixed pro and antisaccade performance in children and adults.

    PubMed

    Irving, Elizabeth L; Tajik-Parvinchi, Diana J; Lillakas, Linda; González, Esther G; Steinbach, Martin J

    2009-02-19

    Pro and antisaccades are usually presented in blocks of similar type but they can also be presented such that prosaccade and antisaccade eye movements are mixed and a cue, usually the shape/colour of the fixation target or the peripheral target, determines which type of eye movement is required in a particular trial. A mixed-saccade task theoretically equalizes the inhibitory requirements for pro and antisaccades. Using a mixed-saccade task paradigm the aims of the study were to: 1) compare pro and antisaccades of children, 2) compare performance of children and adults and 3) explore the effect of increased working memory load in adults. The eye movements of 22 children (5-12 years) and 22 adults (20-51 years) were examined using a video-based eye tracking system (El-Mar Series 2020 Eye Tracker, Toronto, Canada). The task was a mixed-saccade task of pro and antisaccades and the colour of the peripheral target was the cue for whether the required saccade was to be a pro or an antisaccade. The children performed the mixed-saccade task and 11 adults performed the same mixed-saccade task alone and in a dual-task paradigm (together with mental subtraction or number repetition). A second group of 11 adults performed the mixed-saccade task alone. Children made mainly antisaccade errors. The adults' error rates increased in the mental subtraction dual-task condition but both antisaccade and prosaccade errors were made. It was concluded that the increased error rates of these two groups are reflective of different processing dynamics.

  16. Student Computer Use in Selected Undergraduate Agriculture Courses: An Examination of Required Tasks.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johnson, Donald M.; Ferguson, James A.; Vokins, Nancy W.; Lester, Melissa L.

    2000-01-01

    Over 50% of faculty teaching undergraduate agriculture courses (n=58) required use of word processing, Internet, and electronic mail; less than 50% required spreadsheets, databases, graphics, or specialized software. They planned to maintain or increase required computer tasks in their courses. (SK)

  17. Brain Activation and Deactivation during Location and Color Working Memory Tasks in 11-13-Year-Old Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vuontela, Virve; Steenari, Maija-Riikka; Aronen, Eeva T.; Korvenoja, Antti; Aronen, Hannu J.; Carlson, Synnove

    2009-01-01

    Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and n-back tasks we investigated whether, in 11-13-year-old children, spatial (location) and nonspatial (color) information is differentially processed during visual attention (0-back) and working memory (WM) (2-back) tasks and whether such cognitive task performance, compared to a resting state,…

  18. Preschool Children's Performance in Task Switching on the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task: Separating the Dimensions Aids the Ability to Switch

    PubMed Central

    Diamond, Adele; Carlson, Stephanie M.; Beck, Danielle M.

    2006-01-01

    Fifty-seven children (53% female) at 3 ages (2½, 3, and 3½ years) were tested on the standard Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task with integrated stimuli (e.g., a red truck) and on a separated-dimensions version where colorless shapes were presented on a colored background (e.g., a black truck on a red background). Roughly twice as many children successfully switched sorting dimensions when color was a property of the background than when color was a property of the shape itself. Children succeeded 6 months earlier in switching sorting criteria when the dimensions were separated. When evidence of both indecision and accuracy was taken into account, a clear and rich developmental progression emerged. These results support an inhibitory control interpretation of preschoolers' problems on the DCCS task. Diamond theorized that young children can have difficulty integrating features not part of a single object and separating features of a single object so that the object can be categorized first by one attribute and then by another. Preschoolers remain stuck in thinking about objects according to the objects' initially relevant attribute (attentional inertia; Kirkham, Cruess, & Diamond, 2003). To switch perspectives, the old way of thinking about the objects must be inhibited. Separating color and shape reduced the need for such inhibition; a truck was always a truck, and the background was always red. PMID:16144433

  19. Preschool Children Fail Primate Prosocial Game Because of Attentional Task Demands

    PubMed Central

    Burkart, Judith Maria; Rueth, Katja

    2013-01-01

    Various nonhuman primate species have been tested with prosocial games (i.e. derivates from dictator games) in order to better understand the evolutionary origin of proactive prosociality in humans. Results of these efforts are mixed, and it is difficult to disentangle true species differences from methodological artifacts. We tested 2- to 5-year-old children with a costly and a cost-free version of a prosocial game that differ with regard to the payoff distribution and are widely used with nonhuman primates. Simultaneously, we assessed the subjects’ level of Theory of Mind understanding. Prosocial behavior was demonstrated with the prosocial game, and did not increase with more advanced Theory of Mind understanding. However, prosocial behavior could only be detected with the costly version of the game, whereas the children failed the cost-free version that is most commonly used with nonhuman primates. A detailed comparison of the children’s behavior in the two versions of the game indicates that the failure was due to higher attentional demands of the cost-free version, rather than to a lack of prosociality per se. Our results thus show (i) that subtle differences in prosociality tasks can substantially bias the outcome and thus prevent meaningful species comparisons, and (ii) that like in nonhuman primates, prosocial behavior in human children does not require advanced Theory of Mind understanding in the present context. However, both developmental and comparative psychology accumulate increasing evidence for the multidimensionality of prosocial behaviors, suggesting that different forms of prosociality are also regulated differentially. For future efforts to understand the evolutionary origin of prosociality it is thus crucial to take this heterogeneity into account. PMID:23844201

  20. The impact of instructional context on classroom on-task behavior: a matched comparison of children with ADHD and non-ADHD classmates.

    PubMed

    Imeraj, Lindita; Antrop, Inge; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund; Deboutte, Dirk; Deschepper, Ellen; Bal, Sarah; Roeyers, Herbert

    2013-08-01

    Classroom inattentiveness is an important reason for clinical referral of children with ADHD and a strong predictor of their educational achievement. This study investigates classroom on-task behavior of Flemish children with ADHD withdrawn from medication as a function of instructional context. Thirty-one pairs of children (one with ADHD and one age- and sex-matched control; 25 boys and 6 girls 6 to 12years of age) were observed in their classroom environment during two consecutive school days. On-task behavior (time on-task and on-task span) of ADHD and non-ADHD individuals was compared in different class contexts (i.e., different class structures and academic content types). Individualized teacher supervision was simultaneously assessed. Generalized estimation equation analyses showed that children with ADHD were significantly less on-task than controls during individual work and whole class group teaching, but not during small group work, and had significantly shorter on-task span during academic tasks (mathematics, language, and sciences) and instructional transitions between tasks, but not during music and arts. These effects persisted even after controlling for the higher levels of teacher supervision observed for ADHD pupils (7%) across all contexts (vs. 4% in controls). Findings suggest that despite receiving more overall teacher supervision, children with ADHD displayed lower levels of on-task behavior in settings that place high self-regulatory, information processing, and motivational demands on them. This finding may have initial implications for classroom interventions in this population. Copyright © 2013 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Will working memory training generalize to improve off-task behavior in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder?

    PubMed

    Green, Chloe T; Long, Debra L; Green, David; Iosif, Ana-Maria; Dixon, J Faye; Miller, Meghan R; Fassbender, Catherine; Schweitzer, Julie B

    2012-07-01

    Computerized working memory and executive function training programs designed to target specific impairments in executive functioning are becoming increasingly available, yet how well these programs generalize to improve functional deficits in disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), beyond the training context is not well-established. The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which working memory (WM) training in children with ADHD would diminish a core dysfunctional behavior associated with the disorder, "off-task" behavior during academic task performance. The effect of computerized WM training (adaptive) was compared to a placebo condition (nonadaptive) in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design in 26 children (18 males; age, 7 to 14 years old) diagnosed with ADHD. Participants completed the training in approximately 25 sessions. The Restricted Academic Situations Task (RAST) observational system was used to assess aspects of off-task behavior during the completion of an academic task. Traditional measures of ADHD symptoms (Conners' Parent Rating Scale) and WM ability (standardized WM tests) were also collected. WM training led to significant reductions in off-task ADHD-associated behavior on the RAST system and improvement on WM tests. There were no significant differences between groups in improvement on parent rating scales. Findings lend insight into the generalizability of the effects of WM training and the relation between deficits in WM and off-task behavioral components of ADHD. These preliminary data suggest WM training may provide a mechanism for indirectly altering academic performance in children with ADHD.

  2. Viewer Perspective Affects Central Bottleneck Requirements in Spatial Translation Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Franz, Elizabeth A.; Sebastian, Alexandra; Hust, Christina; Norris, Tom

    2008-01-01

    A psychological refractory period (PRP) approach and the locus of slack logic were applied to examine the novel question of whether spatial translation processes can begin before the central bottleneck when effector or noneffector stimuli are processed from an egocentric (viewer-centered) perspective. In single tasks, trials requiring spatial…

  3. Understanding of others' knowledge in French and Japanese children: a comparative study with a disambiguation task on 16-38-month-olds.

    PubMed

    Norimatsu, H; Blin, R; Hashiya, K; Sorsana, Ch; Kobayashi, H

    2014-11-01

    In order to explain the cultural differences reported in the results of false-belief tasks, we attempted to verify the 'task bias hypothesis' suggested by certain studies (e.g. Tardif et al. (2004). Journal of Child Language, 31, 779-800; Rubio-Fernandez & Geurts (2013). Psychological Science, 24(1), 27-33. doi 10.1177/0956797612447819). At the same time, we aimed to observe the theory of mind (ToM) ability of infants and young children under the age of three in verbal communication. To this end, we propose a new protocol to test young children's ToM ability, with particular attention paid to the linguistic aspect of the task. This original disambiguation task using proper nouns (first names) was tested on a total of 32 children aged between 16 and 38 months, in France and Japan. The results revealed that after the age of 30 months children begin to correctly interpret nouns while simultaneously taking into account their partner's knowledge (50% of the French and 29% of the Japanese children were successful), whereas this remains difficult for younger children (no child under 30 months was successful). The analysis of error types has shown that 'memory bias' was dominant in younger children in particular and 'association bias' was rarely observed across all ages. Given that the results of French and Japanese children did not differ significantly, we assume that this new task design could minimise the influence of cultural difference caused by the characteristics of different languages. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Speed-accuracy trade-off in a trajectory-constrained self-feeding task: a quantitative index of unsuppressed motor noise in children with dystonia

    PubMed Central

    Lunardini, Francesca; Bertucco, Matteo; Casellato, Claudia; Bhanpuri, Nasir; Pedrocchi, Alessandra; Sanger, Terence D.

    2015-01-01

    Motor speed and accuracy are both affected in childhood dystonia. Thus, deriving a speed-accuracy function is an important metric for assessing motor impairments in dystonia. Previous work in dystonia studied the speed-accuracy trade-off during point-to-point tasks. To achieve a more relevant measurement of functional abilities in dystonia, the present study investigates upper-limb kinematics and electromyographic activity of 8 children with dystonia and 8 healthy children during a trajectory-constrained child-relevant task that emulates self-feeding with a spoon and requires continuous monitoring of accuracy. The speed-accuracy trade-off is examined by changing the spoon size to create different accuracy demands. Results demonstrate that the trajectory-constrained speed-accuracy relation is present in both groups, but it is altered in dystonia in terms of increased slope and offset towards longer movement times. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis of increased signal-dependent noise in dystonia, which may partially explain the slow and variable movements observed in dystonia. PMID:25895910

  5. Anticipatory Postural Adjustments in a Bimanual Load-Lifting Task in Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jover, Marianne; Schmitz, Christina; Centelles, Laurie; Chabrol, Brigitte; Assaiante, Christine

    2010-01-01

    Aim: Postural control is a fundamental component of action in which deficits have been shown to contribute to motor difficulties in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The purpose of this study was to examine anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) in children with DCD in a bimanual load-lifting task. Method: Sixteen children…

  6. Analogical reasoning in children with specific language impairment: Evidence from a scene analogy task.

    PubMed

    Krzemien, Magali; Jemel, Boutheina; Maillart, Christelle

    2017-01-01

    Analogical reasoning is a human ability that maps systems of relations. It develops along with relational knowledge, working memory and executive functions such as inhibition. It also maintains a mutual influence on language development. Some authors have taken a greater interest in the analogical reasoning ability of children with language disorders, specifically those with specific language impairment (SLI). These children apparently have weaker analogical reasoning abilities than their aged-matched peers without language disorders. Following cognitive theories of language acquisition, this deficit could be one of the causes of language disorders in SLI, especially those concerning productivity. To confirm this deficit and its link to language disorders, we use a scene analogy task to evaluate the analogical performance of SLI children and compare them to controls of the same age and linguistic abilities. Results show that children with SLI perform worse than age-matched peers, but similar to language-matched peers. They are more influenced by increased task difficulty. The association between language disorders and analogical reasoning in SLI can be confirmed. The hypothesis of limited processing capacity in SLI is also being considered.

  7. N-back Working Memory Task: Meta-analysis of Normative fMRI Studies With Children.

    PubMed

    Yaple, Zachary; Arsalidou, Marie

    2018-05-07

    The n-back task is likely the most popular measure of working memory for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. Despite accumulating neuroimaging studies with the n-back task and children, its neural representation is still unclear. fMRI studies that used the n-back were compiled, and data from children up to 15 years (n = 260) were analyzed using activation likelihood estimation. Results show concordance in frontoparietal regions recognized for their role in working memory as well as regions not typically highlighted as part of the working memory network, such as the insula. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental methodology and potential contribution to developmental theories of cognition. © 2018 Society for Research in Child Development.

  8. Poor Auditory Task Scores in Children with Specific Reading and Language Difficulties: Some Poor Scores Are More Equal than Others

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McArthur, Genevieve M.; Hogben, John H.

    2012-01-01

    Children with specific reading disability (SRD) or specific language impairment (SLI), who scored poorly on an auditory discrimination task, did up to 140 runs on the failed task. Forty-one percent of the children produced widely fluctuating scores that did not improve across runs (untrainable errant performance), 23% produced widely fluctuating…

  9. Executive Functioning and Prospective Memory in Young Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mahy, Caitlin E. V.; Moses, Louis J.

    2011-01-01

    The current study examined the role of executive functioning (EF) in children's prospective memory (PM) by assessing the effect of delay and number of intentions to-be-remembered on PM, as well as relations between PM and EF. Ninety-six 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds completed a PM task and two executive function tasks. The PM task required children to…

  10. Children's planning performance in the Zoo Map task (BADS-C): Is it driven by general cognitive ability, executive functioning, or prospection?

    PubMed

    Ballhausen, Nicola; Mahy, Caitlin E V; Hering, Alexandra; Voigt, Babett; Schnitzspahn, Katharina M; Lagner, Prune; Ihle, Andreas; Kliegel, Matthias

    2017-01-01

    A minimal amount of research has examined the cognitive predictors of children's performance in naturalistic, errand-type planning tasks such as the Zoo Map task of the Behavioral Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome for Children (BADS-C). Thus, the current study examined prospection (i.e., the ability to remember to carry out a future intention), executive functioning, and intelligence markers as predictors of performance in this widely used naturalistic planning task in 56 children aged 7- to 12-years-old. Measures of planning, prospection, inhibition, crystallized intelligence, and fluid intelligence were collected in an individual differences study. Regression analyses showed that prospection (rather than traditional measures of intelligence or inhibition) predicted planning, suggesting that naturalistic planning tasks such as the Zoo Map task may rely on future-oriented cognitive processes rather than executive problem solving or general knowledge.

  11. Post-Institutionalized Chinese and Eastern European Children: Heterogeneity in the Development of Emotion Understanding

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Camras, Linda A.; Perlman, Susan B.; Fries, Alison B. Wismer; Pollak, Seth D.

    2006-01-01

    Post-institutionalized Chinese and Eastern European children participated in two emotion understanding tasks. In one task, children selected facial expressions corresponding to four emotion labels (happy, sad, angry, scared). The second task required children to match facial expressions to stories describing situations for these emotions. While…

  12. Using Nonword Repetition Tasks for the Identification of Language Impairment in Spanish-English Speaking Children: Does the Language of Assessment Matter?

    PubMed Central

    Gutiérrez-Clellen, Vera F.; Simon-Cereijido, Gabriela

    2012-01-01

    The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to evaluate the clinical utility of a verbal working memory measure, specifically, a nonword repetition task, with a sample of Spanish-English bilingual children and (b) to determine the extent to which individual differences in relative language skills and language use had an effect on the clinical differentiation of these children by the measures. A total of 144 Latino children (95 children with typical language development and 49 children with language impairment) were tested using nonword lists developed for each language. The results show that the clinical accuracy of nonword repetition tasks varies depending on the language(s) tested. Test performance appeared related to individual differences in language use and exposure. The findings do not support a monolingual approach to the assessment of bilingual children with nonword repetition tasks, even if children appear fluent speakers in the language of testing. Nonword repetition may assist in the screening of Latino children if used bilingually and in combination with other clinical measures. PMID:22707854

  13. Metamemory prediction accuracy for simple prospective and retrospective memory tasks in 5-year-old children.

    PubMed

    Kvavilashvili, Lia; Ford, Ruth M

    2014-11-01

    It is well documented that young children greatly overestimate their performance on tests of retrospective memory (RM), but the current investigation is the first to examine children's prediction accuracy for prospective memory (PM). Three studies were conducted, each testing a different group of 5-year-olds. In Study 1 (N=46), participants were asked to predict their success in a simple event-based PM task (remembering to convey a message to a toy mole if they encountered a particular picture during a picture-naming activity). Before naming the pictures, children listened to either a reminder story or a neutral story. Results showed that children were highly accurate in their PM predictions (78% accuracy) and that the reminder story appeared to benefit PM only in children who predicted they would remember the PM response. In Study 2 (N=80), children showed high PM prediction accuracy (69%) regardless of whether the cue was specific or general and despite typical overoptimism regarding their performance on a 10-item RM task using item-by-item prediction. Study 3 (N=35) showed that children were prone to overestimate RM even when asked about their ability to recall a single item-the mole's unusual name. In light of these findings, we consider possible reasons for children's impressive PM prediction accuracy, including the potential involvement of future thinking in performance predictions and PM. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Making Sense of Iconic Symbols: A Study of Preschool Children Conducting a Refuse-Sorting Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ljung-Djärf, Agneta; Åberg-Bengtsson, Lisbeth; Ottosson, Torgny; Beach, Dennis

    2015-01-01

    This article is part of a larger project focusing upon explanatory illustrations that children encounter in pre- and primary school education. The research questions concerned (a) how preschool children make sense of iconic symbols when placing items of refuse on illustrations of refuse bins in a sorting task and (b) what stumbling blocks they…

  15. Changes in Standing and Walking Performance Under Dual-Task Conditions Across the Lifespan.

    PubMed

    Ruffieux, Jan; Keller, Martin; Lauber, Benedikt; Taube, Wolfgang

    2015-12-01

    Simultaneous performance of a postural and a concurrent task is rather unproblematic as long as the postural task is executed in an automatic way. However, in situations where postural control requires more central processing, cognitive resources may be exceeded by the addition of an attentionally demanding task. This may lead to interference between the two tasks, manifested in a decreased performance in one or both tasks (dual-task costs). Owing to changes in attentional demands of postural tasks as well as processing capacities across the lifespan, it might be assumed that dual-task costs are particularly pronounced in children and older adults probably leading to a U-shaped pattern for dual-task costs as a function of age. However, these changes in the ability of dual-tasking posture from childhood to old age have not yet been systematically reviewed. Therefore, Web of Science and PubMed databases were searched for studies comparing dual-task performance with one task being standing or walking in healthy groups of young adults and either children or older adults. Seventy-nine studies met inclusion criteria. For older adults, the expected increase in dual-task costs could be confirmed. In contrast, in children there was only feeble evidence for a trend towards enlarged dual-task costs. More good-quality studies comparing dual-task ability in children, young, and, ideally, also older adults within the same paradigm are needed to draw unambiguous conclusions about lifespan development of dual-task performance in postural tasks. There is evidence that, in older adults, dual-task performance can be improved by training. For the other age groups, these effects have yet to be investigated.

  16. Short Term Auditory Pacing Changes Dual Motor Task Coordination in Children with and without Dyslexia

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Getchell, Nancy; Mackenzie, Samuel J.; Marmon, Adam R.

    2010-01-01

    This study examined the effect of short-term auditory pacing practice on dual motor task performance in children with and without dyslexia. Groups included dyslexic with Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC) scores greater than 15th percentile (D_HIGH, n = 18; mean age 9.89 [plus or minus] 2.0 years), dyslexic with MABC [less than or…

  17. Interference between oculomotor and postural tasks in 7-8-year-old children and adults.

    PubMed

    Legrand, Agathe; Doré Mazars, Karine; Lemoine, Christelle; Nougier, Vincent; Olivier, Isabelle

    2016-06-01

    Several studies in adults having observed the effect of eye movements on postural control provided contradictory results. In the present study, we explored the effect of various oculomotor tasks on postural control and the effect of different postural tasks on eye movements in eleven children (7.8 ± 0.5 years) and nine adults (30.4 ± 6.3 years). To vary the difficulty of the oculomotor task, three conditions were tested: fixation, prosaccades (reactive saccades made toward the target) and antisaccades (voluntary saccades made in the direction opposite to the visual target). To vary the difficulty of postural control, two postural tasks were tested: Standard Romberg (SR) and Tandem Romberg (TR). Postural difficulty did not affect oculomotor behavior, except by lengthening adults' latencies in the prosaccade task. For both groups, postural control was altered in the antisaccade task as compared to fixation and prosaccade tasks. Moreover, a ceiling effect was found in the more complex postural task. This study highlighted a cortical interference between oculomotor and postural control systems.

  18. Impact of Threat Level, Task Instruction, and Individual Characteristics on Cold Pressor Pain and Fear among Children and Their Parents.

    PubMed

    Boerner, Katelynn E; Noel, Melanie; Birnie, Kathryn A; Caes, Line; Petter, Mark; Chambers, Christine T

    2016-07-01

    The cold pressor task (CPT) is increasingly used to induce experimental pain in children, but the specific methodology of the CPT is quite variable across pediatric studies. This study examined how subtle variations in CPT methodology (eg. provision of low- or high-threat information regarding the task; provision or omission of maximum immersion time) may influence children's and parents' perceptions of the pain experience. Forty-eight children (8 to 14 years) and their parents were randomly assigned to receive information about the CPT that varied on 2 dimensions, prior to completing the task: (i) threat level: high-threat (task described as very painful, high pain expressions depicted) or low-threat (standard CPT instructions provided, low pain expressions depicted); (ii) ceiling: informed (provided maximum immersion time) or uninformed (information about maximum immersion time omitted). Parents and children in the high-threat condition expected greater child pain, and these children reported higher perceived threat of pain and state pain catastrophizing. For children in the low-threat condition, an informed ceiling was associated with less state pain catastrophizing during the CPT. Pain intensity, tolerance, and fear during the CPT did not differ by experimental group, but were predicted by child characteristics. Findings suggest that provision of threatening information may impact anticipatory outcomes, but experienced pain was better explained by individual child variables. © 2015 World Institute of Pain.

  19. Decision Making in Children with ADHD Only, ADHD-Anxious/Depressed, and Control Children Using a Child Version of the Iowa Gambling Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Garon, Nancy; Moore, Chris; Waschbusch, Daniel A.

    2006-01-01

    Objective: The goal of this study is to investigate decision making in children with ADHD using a child version of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The effect of internalizing symptoms is also of interest. Method: Twenty-one children with ADHD (high anxiety/depression and no anxiety/depression) are compared to an age- and sex-matched control group on…

  20. Grip Force Control Is Dependent on Task Constraints in Children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Law, Sui-Heung; Lo, Sing Kai; Chow, Susanna; Cheing, Gladys L.Y.

    2011-01-01

    Excessive grip force (GF) is often found in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). However, their GF control may vary when task constraints are imposed upon their motor performance. This study aimed to investigate how their GF control changes in response to task demands, and to examine their tactile sensitivity. Twenty-one…

  1. Diagnostic accuracy of repetition tasks for the identification of specific language impairment (SLI) in bilingual children: evidence from Russian and Hebrew.

    PubMed

    Armon-Lotem, Sharon; Meir, Natalia

    2016-11-01

    Previous research demonstrates that repetition tasks are valuable tools for diagnosing specific language impairment (SLI) in monolingual children in English and a variety of other languages, with non-word repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SRep) yielding high levels of sensitivity and specificity. Yet, only a few studies have addressed the diagnostic accuracy of repetition tasks in bilingual children, and most available research focuses on English-Spanish sequential bilinguals. To evaluate the efficacy of three repetition tasks (forward digit span (FWD), NWR and SRep) in order to distinguish mono- and bilingual children with and without SLI in Russian and Hebrew. A total of 230 mono- and bilingual children aged 5;5-6;8 participated in the study: 144 bilingual Russian-Hebrew-speaking children (27 with SLI); and 52 monolingual Hebrew-speaking children (14 with SLI) and 34 monolingual Russian-speaking children (14 with SLI). Parallel repetition tasks were designed in both Russian and Hebrew. Bilingual children were tested in both languages. The findings confirmed that NWR and SRep are valuable tools in distinguishing monolingual children with and without SLI in Russian and Hebrew, while the results for FWD were mixed. Yet, testing of bilingual children with the same tools using monolingual cut-off points resulted in inadequate diagnostic accuracy. We demonstrate, however, that the use of bilingual cut-off points yielded acceptable levels of diagnostic accuracy. The combination of SRep tasks in L1/Russian and L2/Hebrew yielded the highest overall accuracy (i.e., 94%), but even SRep alone in L2/Hebrew showed excellent levels of sensitivity (i.e., 100%) and specificity (i.e., 89%), reaching 91% of total diagnostic accuracy. The results are very promising for identifying SLI in bilingual children and for showing that testing in the majority language with bilingual cut-off points can provide an accurate classification. © 2016 Royal College of Speech and Language

  2. Children's Understanding of the Inverse Relation between Multiplication and Division

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robinson, Katherine M.; Dube, Adam K.

    2009-01-01

    Children's understanding of the inversion concept in multiplication and division problems (i.e., that on problems of the form "d multiplied by e/e" no calculations are required) was investigated. Children in Grades 6, 7, and 8 completed an inversion problem-solving task, an assessment of procedures task, and a factual knowledge task of simple…

  3. Assessing Inattention and Impulsivity in Children during the Go/NoGo Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bezdjian, Serena; Baker, Laura A.; Lozano, Dora Isabel; Raine, Adrian

    2009-01-01

    Behavioural performance in the Go/NoGo task was compared with caregiver and teacher reports of inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity in 1,151 children (N = 557 boys; N = 594 girls) age 9-10 years old. Errors of commission (NoGo errors) were significantly correlated with symptom counts of hyperactivity-impulsivity, while errors of omission (Go…

  4. Performance of Children with Developmental Dyslexia on High and Low Topological Entropy Artificial Grammar Learning Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Katan, Pesia; Kahta, Shani; Sasson, Ayelet; Schiff, Rachel

    2017-01-01

    Graph complexity as measured by topological entropy has been previously shown to affect performance on artificial grammar learning tasks among typically developing children. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of graph complexity on implicit sequential learning among children with developmental dyslexia. Our goal was to determine…

  5. The Plan of Action for Children: A Task Force Report. Prepared for the Colman Fund for the Well-Being of Children and Youth.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chicago Community Trust, IL.

    Addressed to policymakers and to all the citizens of Illinois, this report of the Plan of Action for Children Task Force offers 81 recommendations for addressing the serious problems faced by children residing in the state. Taken together, the recommendations lead to six conclusions: (1) focus on prevention; (2) commit resources to strengthen…

  6. Predicting social and communicative ability in school-age children with autism spectrum disorder: A pilot study of the Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice.

    PubMed

    Burger-Caplan, Rebecca; Saulnier, Celine; Jones, Warren; Klin, Ami

    2016-11-01

    The Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice is introduced as a measure of implicit social cognitive ability in children, addressing a key challenge in quantification of social cognitive function in autism spectrum disorder, whereby individuals can often be successful in explicit social scenarios, despite marked social adaptive deficits. The 19-question Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice, which presents ambiguous stimuli meant to elicit social attribution, was administered to children with autism spectrum disorder (N = 23) and to age-matched and verbal IQ-matched typically developing children (N = 57). The Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice performance differed between autism spectrum disorder and typically developing groups, with typically developing children performing significantly better than children with autism spectrum disorder. The Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice scores were positively correlated with age (r = 0.474) while being independent from verbal IQ (r = 0.236). The Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice was strongly correlated with Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales Communication (r = 0.464) and Socialization (r = 0.482) scores, but not with Daily Living Skills scores (r = 0.116), suggesting that the implicit social cognitive ability underlying performance on the Social Attribution Task, Multiple Choice is associated with real-life social adaptive function. © The Author(s) 2016.

  7. Atypical neural substrates of Embedded Figures Task performance in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    PubMed

    Lee, Philip S; Foss-Feig, Jennifer; Henderson, Joshua G; Kenworthy, Lauren E; Gilotty, Lisa; Gaillard, William D; Vaidya, Chandan J

    2007-10-15

    Superior performance on the Embedded Figures Task (EFT) has been attributed to weak central coherence in perceptual processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural basis of EFT performance in 7- to 12-year-old ASD children and age- and IQ-matched controls. ASD children activated only a subset of the distributed network of regions activated in controls. In frontal cortex, control children activated left dorsolateral, medial and dorsal premotor regions whereas ASD children only activated the dorsal premotor region. In parietal and occipital cortices, activation was bilateral in control children but unilateral (left superior parietal and right occipital) in ASD children. Further, extensive bilateral ventral temporal activation was observed in control, but not ASD children. ASD children performed the EFT at the same level as controls but with reduced cortical involvement, suggesting that disembedded visual processing is accomplished parsimoniously by ASD relative to typically developing brains.

  8. Orienting attention in visual working memory requires central capacity: decreased retro-cue effects under dual-task conditions.

    PubMed

    Janczyk, Markus; Berryhill, Marian E

    2014-04-01

    The retro-cue effect (RCE) describes superior working memory performance for validly cued stimulus locations long after encoding has ended. Importantly, this happens with delays beyond the range of iconic memory. In general, the RCE is a stable phenomenon that emerges under varied stimulus configurations and timing parameters. We investigated its susceptibility to dual-task interference to determine the attentional requirements at the time point of cue onset and encoding. In Experiment 1, we compared single- with dual-task conditions. In Experiment 2, we borrowed from the psychological refractory period paradigm and compared conditions with high and low (dual-) task overlap. The secondary task was always binary tone discrimination requiring a manual response. Across both experiments, an RCE was found, but it was diminished in magnitude in the critical dual-task conditions. A previous study did not find evidence that sustained attention is required in the interval between cue offset and test. Our results apparently contradict these findings and point to a critical time period around cue onset and briefly thereafter during which attention is required.

  9. Orienting attention in visual working memory requires central capacity: Decreased retro-cue effects under dual-task conditions

    PubMed Central

    Berryhill, Marian E.

    2014-01-01

    The retro-cue effect (RCE) describes superior working memory performance for validly cued stimulus locations long after encoding has ended. Importantly, this happens with delays beyond the range of iconic memory. In general, the RCE is a stable phenomenon that emerges under varied stimulus configurations and timing parameters. We investigated its susceptibility to dual-task interference to determine the attentional requirements at the time point of cue onset and encoding. In Experiment 1, we compared single- with dual-task conditions. In Experiment 2, we borrowed from the psychological refractory period paradigm and compared conditions with high and low (dual-) task overlap. The secondary task was always binary tone discrimination requiring amanual response. Across both experiments, an RCE was found, but it was diminished in magnitude in the critical dual-task conditions. A previous study did not find evidence that sustained attention is required in the interval between cue offset and test. Our results apparently contradict these findings and point to a critical time period around cue onset and briefly thereafter during which attention is required. PMID:24452383

  10. Reading Vocabulary in Children with and without Hearing Loss: The Roles of Task and Word Type

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coppens, Karien M.; Tellings, Agnes; Verhoeven, Ludo; Schreuder, Robert

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: To address the problem of low reading comprehension scores among children with hearing impairment, it is necessary to have a better understanding of their reading vocabulary. In this study, the authors investigated whether task and word type differentiate the reading vocabulary knowledge of children with and without severe hearing loss.…

  11. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Piaget's Conservation-of-Number Task in Preschool and School-Age Children: A Neo-Piagetian Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Houde, Olivier; Pineau, Arlette; Leroux, Gaelle; Poirel, Nicolas; Perchey, Guy; Lanoe, Celine; Lubin, Amelie; Turbelin, Marie-Renee; Rossi, Sandrine; Simon, Gregory; Delcroix, Nicolas; Lamberton, Franck; Vigneau, Mathieu; Wisniewski, Gabriel; Vicet, Jean-Rene; Mazoyer, Bernard

    2011-01-01

    Jean Piaget's theory is a central reference point in the study of logico-mathematical development in children. One of the most famous Piagetian tasks is number conservation. Failures and successes in this task reveal two fundamental stages in children's thinking and judgment, shifting at approximately 7 years of age from visuospatial intuition to…

  12. Writing Evaluation: Rater and Task Effects on the Reliability of Writing Scores for Children in Grades 3 and 4

    PubMed Central

    Kim, Grace Young-Suk; Schatschneider, Christopher; Wanzek, Jeanne; Gatlin, Brandy; Al Otaiba, Stephanie

    2017-01-01

    We examined how raters and tasks influence measurement error in writing evaluation and how many raters and tasks are needed to reach a desirable level of .90 and .80 reliabilities for children in Grades 3 and 4. A total of 211 children (102 boys) were administered three tasks in narrative and expository genres, respectively, and their written compositions were evaluated in widely used evaluation methods for developing writers: holistic scoring, productivity, and curriculum-based writing scores. Results showed that 54% and 52% of variance in narrative and expository compositions were attributable to true individual differences in writing. Students’ scores varied largely by tasks (30.44% and 28.61% of variance), but not by raters. To reach the reliability of .90, multiple tasks and raters were needed, and for the reliability of .80, a single rater and multiple tasks were needed. These findings offer important implications about reliably evaluating children’s writing skills, given that writing is typically evaluated by a single task and a single rater in classrooms and even in state accountability systems. PMID:29075050

  13. Shoulder motor performance assessment in the sagittal plane in children with hemiplegia during single joint pointing tasks.

    PubMed

    Formica, Domenico; Petrarca, Maurizio; Rossi, Stefano; Zollo, Loredana; Guglielmelli, Eugenio; Cappa, Paolo

    2014-07-29

    Pointing is a motor task extensively used during daily life activities and it requires complex visuo-motor transformation to select the appropriate movement strategy. The study of invariant characteristics of human movements has led to several theories on how the brain solves the redundancy problem, but the application of these theories on children affected by hemiplegia is limited. This study aims at giving a quantitative assessment of the shoulder motor behaviour in children with hemiplegia during pointing tasks. Eight children with hemiplegia were involved in the study and were asked to perform movements on the sagittal plane with both arms, at low and high speed. Subject movements were recorded using an optoelectronic system; a 4-DOF model of children arm has been developed to calculate kinematic and dynamic variables. A set of evaluation indexes has been extracted in order to quantitatively assess whether and how children modify their motor control strategies when perform movements with the more affected or less affected arm. In low speed movements, no differences can be seen in terms of movement duration and peak velocity between the More Affected arm (MA) and the Less Affected arm (LA), as well as in the main characteristics of movement kinematics and dynamics. As regards fast movements, remarkable differences in terms of strategies of motor control can be observed: while movements with LA did not show any significant difference in Dimensionless Jerk Index (JI) and Dimensionless Torque-change Cost index (TC) between the elevation and lowering phases, suggesting that motor control optimization is similar for movements performed with or against gravity, movements with MA showed a statistically significant increase of both JI and TC during lowering phase. Results suggest the presence of a different control strategy for fast movements in particular during lowering phase. Results suggest that motor control is not able to optimize Jerk and Torque-change cost

  14. Reliability and Validity of Nonsymbolic and Symbolic Comparison Tasks in School-Aged Children.

    PubMed

    Castro, Danilka; Estévez, Nancy; Gómez, David; Dartnell, Pablo Ricardo

    2017-12-04

    Basic numerical processing has been regularly assessed using numerical nonsymbolic and symbolic comparison tasks. It has been assumed that these tasks index similar underlying processes. However, the evidence concerning the reliability and convergent validity across different versions of these tasks is inconclusive. We explored the reliability and convergent validity between two numerical comparison tasks (nonsymbolic vs. symbolic) in school-aged children. The relations between performance in both tasks and mental arithmetic were described and a developmental trajectories' analysis was also conducted. The influence of verbal and visuospatial working memory processes and age was controlled for in the analyses. Results show significant reliability (p < .001) between Block 1 and 2 for nonsymbolic task (global adjusted RT (adjRT): r = .78, global efficiency measures (EMs): r = .74) and, for symbolic task (adjRT: r = .86, EMs: r = .86). Also, significant convergent validity between tasks (p < .001) for both adjRT (r = .71) and EMs (r = .70) were found after controlling for working memory and age. Finally, it was found the relationship between nonsymbolic and symbolic efficiencies varies across the sample's age range. Overall, these findings suggest both tasks index the same underlying cognitive architecture and are appropriate to explore the Approximate Number System (ANS) characteristics. The evidence supports the central role of ANS in arithmetic efficiency and suggests there are differences across the age range assessed, concerning the extent to which efficiency in nonsymbolic and symbolic tasks reflects ANS acuity.

  15. Functional magnetic resonance imaging study of Piaget's conservation-of-number task in preschool and school-age children: a neo-Piagetian approach.

    PubMed

    Houdé, Olivier; Pineau, Arlette; Leroux, Gaëlle; Poirel, Nicolas; Perchey, Guy; Lanoë, Céline; Lubin, Amélie; Turbelin, Marie-Renée; Rossi, Sandrine; Simon, Grégory; Delcroix, Nicolas; Lamberton, Franck; Vigneau, Mathieu; Wisniewski, Gabriel; Vicet, Jean-René; Mazoyer, Bernard

    2011-11-01

    Jean Piaget's theory is a central reference point in the study of logico-mathematical development in children. One of the most famous Piagetian tasks is number conservation. Failures and successes in this task reveal two fundamental stages in children's thinking and judgment, shifting at approximately 7 years of age from visuospatial intuition to number conservation. In the current study, preschool children (nonconservers, 5-6 years of age) and school-age children (conservers, 9-10 years of age) were presented with Piaget's conservation-of-number task and monitored by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The cognitive change allowing children to access conservation was shown to be related to the neural contribution of a bilateral parietofrontal network involved in numerical and executive functions. These fMRI results highlight how the behavioral and cognitive stages Piaget formulated during the 20th century manifest in the brain with age. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Effects of Task-oriented Approach on Affected Arm Function in Children with Spastic Hemiplegia Due to Cerebral Palsy.

    PubMed

    Song, Chiang-Soon

    2014-06-01

    [Purpose] The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of task-oriented approach on motor function of the affected arm in children with spastic hemiplegia due to cerebral palsy. [Subjects] Twelve children were recruited by convenience sampling from 2 local rehabilitation centers. The present study utilized a one-group pretest-posttest design. All of children received task-oriented training for 6 weeks (40 min/day, 5 days/week) and also underwent regular occupational therapy. Three clinical tests, Box and Block Test (BBT), Manual Ability Measure (MAM-16), and Wee Functional Independence Measure (WeeFIM) were performed 1 day before and after training to evaluate the effects of the training. [Results] Compared with the pretest scores, there was a significant increase in the BBT, MAM-16, and WeeFIM scores of the children after the 6-week practice period. [Conclusion] The results of this study suggest that a task-oriented approach to treatment of the affected arm improves functional activities, such as manual dexterity and fine motor performance, as well as basic daily activities of patients with spastic hemiplegia due to cerebral palsy.

  17. Understanding the Mind or Predicting Signal-Dependent Action? Performance of Children with and without Autism on Analogues of the False-Belief Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bowler, Dermot M.; Briskman, Jackie; Gurvidi, Nicole; Fornells-Ambrojo, Miriam

    2005-01-01

    To evaluate the claim that correct performance on unexpected transfer false-belief tasks specifically involves mental-state understanding, two experiments were carried out with children with autism, intellectual disabilities, and typical development. In both experiments, children were given a standard unexpected transfer false-belief task and a…

  18. Identifying ADHD children using hemodynamic responses during a working memory task measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

    PubMed

    Gu, Yue; Miao, Shuo; Han, Junxia; Liang, Zhenhu; Ouyang, Gaoxiang; Yang, Jian; Li, Xiaoli

    2018-06-01

    Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting children and adults. Previous studies found that functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) can reveal significant group differences in several brain regions between ADHD children and healthy controls during working memory tasks. This study aimed to use fNIRS activation patterns to identify ADHD children from healthy controls. FNIRS signals from 25 ADHD children and 25 healthy controls performing the n-back task were recorded; then, multivariate pattern analysis was used to discriminate ADHD individuals from healthy controls, and classification performance was evaluated for significance by the permutation test. The results showed that 86.0% ([Formula: see text]) of participants can be correctly classified in leave-one-out cross-validation. The most discriminative brain regions included the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior medial prefrontal cortex, right posterior prefrontal cortex, and right temporal cortex. This study demonstrated that, in a small sample, multivariate pattern analysis can effectively identify ADHD children from healthy controls based on fNIRS signals, which argues for the potential utility of fNIRS in future assessments.

  19. Comparison of fMRI data from passive listening and active-response story processing tasks in children

    PubMed Central

    Vannest, Jennifer J.; Karunanayaka, Prasanna R.; Altaye, Mekibib; Schmithorst, Vincent J.; Plante, Elena M.; Eaton, Kenneth J.; Rasmussen, Jerod M.; Holland, Scott K.

    2009-01-01

    Purpose To use functional MRI methods to visualize a network of auditory and language-processing brain regions associated with processing an aurally-presented story. We compare a passive listening (PL) story paradigm to an active-response (AR) version including on-line performance monitoring and a sparse acquisition technique. Materials/Methods Twenty children (ages 11−13) completed PL and AR story processing tasks. The PL version presented alternating 30-second blocks of stories and tones; the AR version presented story segments, comprehension questions, and 5s tone sequences, with fMRI acquisitions between stimuli. fMRI data was analyzed using a general linear model approach and paired t-test identifying significant group activation. Results Both tasks activated in primary auditory cortex, superior temporal gyrus bilaterally, left inferior frontal gyrus. The AR task demonstrated more extensive activation, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior/posterior cingulate cortex. Comparison of effect size in each paradigm showed a larger effect for the AR paradigm in a left inferior frontal ROI. Conclusion Activation patterns for story processing in children are similar in passive listening and active-response tasks. Increases in extent and magnitude of activation in the AR task are likely associated with memory and attention resources engaged across acquisition intervals. PMID:19306445

  20. Comparison of fMRI data from passive listening and active-response story processing tasks in children.

    PubMed

    Vannest, Jennifer J; Karunanayaka, Prasanna R; Altaye, Mekibib; Schmithorst, Vincent J; Plante, Elena M; Eaton, Kenneth J; Rasmussen, Jerod M; Holland, Scott K

    2009-04-01

    To use functional MRI (fMRI) methods to visualize a network of auditory and language-processing brain regions associated with processing an aurally-presented story. We compare a passive listening (PL) story paradigm to an active-response (AR) version including online performance monitoring and a sparse acquisition technique. Twenty children (ages 11-13 years) completed PL and AR story processing tasks. The PL version presented alternating 30-second blocks of stories and tones; the AR version presented story segments, comprehension questions, and 5-second tone sequences, with fMRI acquisitions between stimuli. fMRI data was analyzed using a general linear model approach and paired t-test identifying significant group activation. Both tasks showed activation in the primary auditory cortex, superior temporal gyrus bilaterally, and left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). The AR task demonstrated more extensive activation, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior/posterior cingulate cortex. Comparison of effect size in each paradigm showed a larger effect for the AR paradigm in a left inferior frontal region-of-interest (ROI). Activation patterns for story processing in children are similar in PL and AR tasks. Increases in extent and magnitude of activation in the AR task are likely associated with memory and attention resources engaged across acquisition intervals.

  1. Exploring Dimensionality of Effortful Control Using Hot and Cool Tasks in a Sample of Preschool Children

    PubMed Central

    Allan, Nicholas P.; Lonigan, Christopher J.

    2015-01-01

    Effortful control (EC) is an important developmental construct associated with academic performance, socioemotional growth, and psychopathology. EC, defined as the ability to inhibit or delay a prepotent response typically in favor of a subdominant response, undergoes rapid development during children’s preschool years. Research involving EC in preschool children can be aided by ensuring that the measured model of EC matches the latent structure of EC. Extant research indicates that EC may be multidimensional, consisting of hot (affectively salient) and cool (affectively neutral) dimensions. However, there are several untested assumptions regarding the defining features of hot EC. Confirmatory factor analysis was used in a sample of 281 preschool children (Mage = 55.92 - months, SD = 4.16; 46.6% male and 53.4% female) to compare a multidimensional model composed of hot and cool EC factors with a unidimensional model. Hot tasks were created by adding affective salience to cool tasks so that hot and cool tasks varied only by this aspect of the tasks. Tasks measuring EC were best described by a single factor and not distinct hot and cool factors, indicating that affective salience alone does not differentiate between hot and cool EC. EC shared gender-invariant associations with academic skills and externalizing behavior problems. PMID:24518050

  2. Speed-Accuracy Trade-Off in a Trajectory-Constrained Self-Feeding Task: A Quantitative Index of Unsuppressed Motor Noise in Children With Dystonia.

    PubMed

    Lunardini, Francesca; Bertucco, Matteo; Casellato, Claudia; Bhanpuri, Nasir; Pedrocchi, Alessandra; Sanger, Terence D

    2015-10-01

    Motor speed and accuracy are both affected in childhood dystonia. Thus, deriving a speed-accuracy function is an important metric for assessing motor impairments in dystonia. Previous work in dystonia studied the speed-accuracy trade-off during point-to-point tasks. To achieve a more relevant measurement of functional abilities in dystonia, the present study investigates upper-limb kinematics and electromyographic activity of 8 children with dystonia and 8 healthy children during a trajectory-constrained child-relevant task that emulates self-feeding with a spoon and requires continuous monitoring of accuracy. The speed-accuracy trade-off is examined by changing the spoon size to create different accuracy demands. Results demonstrate that the trajectory-constrained speed-accuracy relation is present in both groups, but it is altered in dystonia in terms of increased slope and offset toward longer movement times. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis of increased signal-dependent noise in dystonia, which may partially explain the slow and variable movements observed in dystonia. © The Author(s) 2015.

  3. Study of space shuttle EVA/IVA support requirements. Volume 2: EVA/IVA tasks, guidelines, and constraints definition

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Webbon, B. W.; Copeland, R. J.; Wood, P. W., Jr.; Cox, R. L.

    1973-01-01

    The guidelines for EVA and IVA tasks to be performed on the space shuttle are defined. In deriving tasks, guidelines, and constraints, payloads were first identified from the mission model. Payload requirements, together with man and manipulator capabilities, vehicle characteristics and operation, and safety considerations led to a definition of candidate tasks. Guidelines and constraints were also established from these considerations. Scenarios were established, and screening criteria, such as commonality of EVA and IVA activities, were applied to derive representative planned and unplanned tasks. The whole spectrum of credible contingency situations with a potential requirement for EVA/IVA was analyzed.

  4. Inhibitory and Working Memory Demands of the Day-Night Task in Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Simpson, Andrew; Riggs, Kevin J.

    2005-01-01

    Gerstadt, Hong, and Diamond (1994) investigated the development of inhibitory control in children aged 3 1/2 - 7 years using the day-night task. In two studies we build on Gerstadt et al.'s findings with a measure of inhibitory control that can be used throughout childhood. In Study 1 (twenty-four 3 1/2-year-olds and sixteen 5-year-olds) we…

  5. Global-Local and Trail-Making Tasks by Monolingual and Bilingual Children: Beyond Inhibition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bialystok, Ellen

    2010-01-01

    In 3 experiments, a total of 151 monolingual and bilingual 6-year-old children performed similarly on measures of language and cognitive ability; however, bilinguals solved the global-local and trail-making tasks more rapidly than monolinguals. This bilingual advantage was found not only for the traditionally demanding conditions (incongruent…

  6. Effects of Backpack Carriage on Dual-Task Performance in Children During Standing and Walking.

    PubMed

    Beurskens, Rainer; Muehlbauer, Thomas; Grabow, Lena; Kliegl, Reinhold; Granacher, Urs

    2016-01-01

    Primary school children perform parts of their everyday activities while carrying school supplies and being involved in attention-demanding situations. Twenty-eight children (8-10 years old) performed a 1-legged stance and a 10 m walking test under single- and dual-task situations in unloaded (i.e., no backpack) and loaded conditions (i.e., backpack with 20% of body mass). Results showed that load carriage did not significantly influence children's standing and walking performance (all p > .05), while divided attention affected all proxies of walking (all p < .001). Last, no significant load by attention interactions was detected. The single application of attentional but not load demand negatively affects children's walking performance. A combined application of both did not further deteriorate their gait behavior.

  7. Performance in a Visual Search Task Uniquely Predicts Reading Abilities in Third-Grade Hong Kong Chinese Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Liu, Duo; Chen, Xi; Chung, Kevin K. H.

    2015-01-01

    This study examined the relation between the performance in a visual search task and reading ability in 92 third-grade Hong Kong Chinese children. The visual search task, which is considered a measure of visual-spatial attention, accounted for unique variance in Chinese character reading after controlling for age, nonverbal intelligence,…

  8. Reward-based Decision Making and Electrodermal Responding by Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders During a Gambling Task

    PubMed Central

    Faja, Susan; Murias, Michael; Beauchaine, Theodore P.; Dawson, Geraldine

    2014-01-01

    In this study, we explore reward-based decision making and electrodermal responding (EDR) among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during a children’s gambling task. In addition, we examine whether individual behavioral and EDR responses predict social communication, repetitive symptoms, parent reports of executive function, and behavioral challenges. The ability to form advantageous strategies for long-term gain is of interest for children with ASDs, who exhibit both difficulty with executive function and atypical responses to reward. Twenty-one children ages 6–7 years with ASD and no intellectual disability and 21 age- and IQ-matched typically developing children participated. Both groups exhibited a similar pattern of gambling selections, but children with ASD showed less knowledge of the reward contingencies of the decks after playing. In addition, although EDR was similar between groups in anticipation of selections, children with ASD exhibited greater EDR during feedback about rewards as the task progressed. Children with ASD who exhibited the greatest increases in EDR were more likely to exhibit repetitive symptoms, particularly rituals and the need for sameness, as well as internalizing behaviors and reduced executive function in other settings. PMID:23893954

  9. Are Books Like Number Lines? Children Spontaneously Encode Spatial-Numeric Relationships in a Novel Spatial Estimation Task

    PubMed Central

    Thompson, Clarissa A.; Morris, Bradley J.; Sidney, Pooja G.

    2017-01-01

    Do children spontaneously represent spatial-numeric features of a task, even when it does not include printed numbers (Mix et al., 2016)? Sixty first grade students completed a novel spatial estimation task by seeking and finding pages in a 100-page book without printed page numbers. Children were shown pages 1 through 6 and 100, and then were asked, “Can you find page X?” Children’s precision of estimates on the page finder task and a 0-100 number line estimation task was calculated with the Percent Absolute Error (PAE) formula (Siegler and Booth, 2004), in which lower PAE indicated more precise estimates. Children’s numerical knowledge was further assessed with: (1) numeral identification (e.g., What number is this: 57?), (2) magnitude comparison (e.g., Which is larger: 54 or 57?), and (3) counting on (e.g., Start counting from 84 and count up 5 more). Children’s accuracy on these tasks was correlated with their number line PAE. Children’s number line estimation PAE predicted their page finder PAE, even after controlling for age and accuracy on the other numerical tasks. Children’s estimates on the page finder and number line tasks appear to tap a general magnitude representation. However, the page finder task did not correlate with numeral identification and counting-on performance, likely because these tasks do not measure children’s magnitude knowledge. Our results suggest that the novel page finder task is a useful measure of children’s magnitude knowledge, and that books have similar spatial-numeric affordances as number lines and numeric board games. PMID:29312084

  10. Effects of Feedback on the Vigilance Task Performance of Hyperactive and Hypoactive Children.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ozolins, Delmar A.; Anderson, Robert P.

    1980-01-01

    The effects of feedback on the approaches of 20 hyperactive and 20 hypoactive children (ages 6 to 10) to a vigilance task were studied. Results showed that hyperactive Ss had more errors than hypoactive Ss under the feedback for correct responses condition and fewer errors under the feedback for false alarms condition. (PHR)

  11. Comparing Auditory Noise Treatment with Stimulant Medication on Cognitive Task Performance in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Results from a Pilot Study.

    PubMed

    Söderlund, Göran B W; Björk, Christer; Gustafsson, Peik

    2016-01-01

    Recent research has shown that acoustic white noise (80 dB) can improve task performance in people with attention deficits and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This is attributed to the phenomenon of stochastic resonance in which a certain amount of noise can improve performance in a brain that is not working at its optimum. We compare here the effect of noise exposure with the effect of stimulant medication on cognitive task performance in ADHD. The aim of the present study was to compare the effects of auditory noise exposure with stimulant medication for ADHD children on a cognitive test battery. A group of typically developed children (TDC) took the same tests as a comparison. Twenty children with ADHD of combined or inattentive subtypes and twenty TDC matched for age and gender performed three different tests (word recall, spanboard and n-back task) during exposure to white noise (80 dB) and in a silent condition. The ADHD children were tested with and without central stimulant medication. In the spanboard- and the word recall tasks, but not in the 2-back task, white noise exposure led to significant improvements for both non-medicated and medicated ADHD children. No significant effects of medication were found on any of the three tasks. This pilot study shows that exposure to white noise resulted in a task improvement that was larger than the one with stimulant medication thus opening up the possibility of using auditory noise as an alternative, non-pharmacological treatment of cognitive ADHD symptoms.

  12. Physical Performance Tasks Required of U.S. Marines Operating in a High Altitude Cold Weather Environment.

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1982-07-23

    readiness has not been scientifically valiated. The test batter c ists of pll-upe, sit-ups and a three-mile run e as Scoring of the PIT is arbitrary... cognitive tasks, with little information available on physical tasks cc the environmental conditions under which these tasks are to be performed. A well...environment can drastically distort operational requirements. It is difficult to convey all the encumbrances associated with maintenance of basal tasks in

  13. The Influence of Stimulus Discriminability on Young Children's Interference Control in the Stroop-Like Happy-Sad Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bluell, Alexandra M.; Montgomery, Derek E.

    2014-01-01

    The day-night paradigm, where children respond to a pair of pictures with opposite labels for a series of trials, is a widely used measure of interference control. Recent research has shown that a happy-sad variant of the day-night task was significantly more difficult than the standard day-night task. The present research examined whether the…

  14. Our Families, Our Children: The Lesbian and Gay Child Care Task Force Report on Quality Child Care.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dispenza, Mary

    The Lesbian and Gay Child Care Task Force documented anecdotal evidence of homophobia in child care and school age communities, including: (1) refusal to accept children from lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families into child care; (2) biased attitudes expressed to children when they speak about their families; and (3) demonstrated…

  15. The Non-Word Repetition Task as a Clinical Marker of Specific Language Impairment in Spanish-Speaking Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Girbau, Dolors

    2016-01-01

    Forty native Spanish-speaking children (age 8;0-10;3), 20 with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and 20 with Typical Language Development (TLD), received a battery of psycholinguistic tests, IQ, hearing screenings, and the Spanish Non-word Repetition Task (NRT). The children's repetition of 20 non-words was scored. The percentage of correct…

  16. Identifying ADHD children using hemodynamic responses during a working memory task measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Gu, Yue; Miao, Shuo; Han, Junxia; Liang, Zhenhu; Ouyang, Gaoxiang; Yang, Jian; Li, Xiaoli

    2018-06-01

    Objective. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting children and adults. Previous studies found that functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) can reveal significant group differences in several brain regions between ADHD children and healthy controls during working memory tasks. This study aimed to use fNIRS activation patterns to identify ADHD children from healthy controls. Approach. FNIRS signals from 25 ADHD children and 25 healthy controls performing the n-back task were recorded; then, multivariate pattern analysis was used to discriminate ADHD individuals from healthy controls, and classification performance was evaluated for significance by the permutation test. Main results. The results showed that 86.0% (p<0.001 ) of participants can be correctly classified in leave-one-out cross-validation. The most discriminative brain regions included the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior medial prefrontal cortex, right posterior prefrontal cortex, and right temporal cortex. Significance. This study demonstrated that, in a small sample, multivariate pattern analysis can effectively identify ADHD children from healthy controls based on fNIRS signals, which argues for the potential utility of fNIRS in future assessments.

  17. Sources of Cognitive Inflexibility in Set-Shifting Tasks: Insights into Developmental Theories from Adult Data

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dick, Anthony Steven

    2012-01-01

    Two experiments examined processes underlying cognitive inflexibility in set-shifting tasks typically used to assess the development of executive function in children. Adult participants performed a Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST) that requires shifting from categorizing by one dimension (e.g., color) to categorizing by a second orthogonal…

  18. Resistance-training exercises with different stability requirements: time course of task specificity.

    PubMed

    Saeterbakken, Atle Hole; Andersen, Vidar; Behm, David G; Krohn-Hansen, Espen Krogseth; Smaamo, Mats; Fimland, Marius Steiro

    2016-12-01

    The aim of the study was to assess the task-specificity (greater improvements in trained compared to non-trained tasks), transferability and time-course adaptations of resistance-training programs with varying instability requirements. Thirty-six resistance-trained men were randomized to train chest press 2 days week -1 for 10 week (6 repetitions × 4 series) using a Swiss ball, Smith machine or dumbbells. A six-repetition maximum-strength test with the aforementioned exercises and traditional barbell chest press were performed by all participants at the first, 7th, 14th and final training session in addition to electromyographic activities of the prime movers measured during isometric bench press. The groups training with the unstable Swiss-ball and dumbbells, but not the stable Smith-machine, demonstrated task-specificity, which became apparent in the early phase and remained throughout the study. The improvements in the trained exercise tended to increase more with instability (dumbbells vs. Smith machine, p = 0.061). The group training with Smith machine had similar improvements in the non-trained exercises. Greater improvements were observed in the early phase of the strength-training program (first-7th session) for all groups in all three exercises, but most notably for the unstable exercises. No differences were observed between the groups or testing times for EMG activity. These findings suggest that among resistance-trained individuals, the concept of task-specificity could be most relevant in resistance training with greater stability requirements, particularly due to rapid strength improvements for unstable resistance exercises.

  19. Effects of Mental and Physical Practice on a Finger Opposition Task among Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    de Paula Asa, Sabrina Kyoko; Santos Melo, Mara Cristina; Piemonte, Maria Elisa Pimentel

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: We sought to compare the effects of physical practice (PP) and mental practice (MP) on the immediate and long-term learning of the finger-to-thumb opposition sequence task (FOS) in children; in addition, we investigated the transfer of this learning to an untrained sequence of movements and to the contralateral untrained hand. Method:…

  20. Assessment of executive functions in children and adolescents with acquired brain injury (ABI) using a novel complex multi-tasking computerised task: The Jansari assessment of Executive Functions for Children (JEF-C©).

    PubMed

    Gilboa, Yafit; Jansari, Ashok; Kerrouche, Bernadette; Uçak, Emel; Tiberghien, Anne; Benkhaled, Ouarda; Aligon, Delphine; Mariller, Aude; Verdier, Valentine; Mintegui, Amaia; Abada, Geneviève; Canizares, Céline; Goldstein, Andrew; Chevignard, Mathilde

    2017-12-28

    The Jansari assessment of Executive Functions for Children (JEF-C © ) is a new non-immersive computerised assessment of executive functions. The objectives of the study were to test the feasibility and validity of JEF-C © in children and adolescents with acquired brain injury (ABI). Twenty-nine patients with ABI aged 10-18 years and 30 age-and gender-matched controls were tested. Participants performed JEF-C © , Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) and the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome for Children (BADS-C), while parents completed the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) questionnaire. The JEF-C © task proved feasible in patients with ABI. The internal consistency was medium (Cronbach's alpha = 0.62 and significant intercorrelations between individual JEF-C © constructs). Patients performed significantly worse than controls on most of the JEF-C © subscales and total score, with 41.4% of participants with ABI classified as having severe executive dysfunction. No significant correlations were found between JEF-C © total score, the BRIEF indices, and the BADS-C. Significant correlations were found between JEF-C © and demographic characteristics of the sample and intellectual ability, but not with severity/medical variables. JEF-C © is a playful complex task that appears to be a sensitive and ecologically valid assessment tool, especially for relatively high-functioning individuals.

  1. Space Station data system analysis/architecture study. Task 1: Functional requirements definition, DR-5

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    1985-01-01

    The initial task in the Space Station Data System (SSDS) Analysis/Architecture Study is the definition of the functional and key performance requirements for the SSDS. The SSDS is the set of hardware and software, both on the ground and in space, that provides the basic data management services for Space Station customers and systems. The primary purpose of the requirements development activity was to provide a coordinated, documented requirements set as a basis for the system definition of the SSDS and for other subsequent study activities. These requirements should also prove useful to other Space Station activities in that they provide an indication of the scope of the information services and systems that will be needed in the Space Station program. The major results of the requirements development task are as follows: (1) identification of a conceptual topology and architecture for the end-to-end Space Station Information Systems (SSIS); (2) development of a complete set of functional requirements and design drivers for the SSIS; (3) development of functional requirements and key performance requirements for the Space Station Data System (SSDS); and (4) definition of an operating concept for the SSIS. The operating concept was developed both from a Space Station payload customer and operator perspective in order to allow a requirements practicality assessment.

  2. Efficacy of a task-based training approach in the rehabilitation of three children with poor handwriting quality: a pilot study.

    PubMed

    Baldi, Silvia; Nunzi, Michela; Brina, Carlo Di

    2015-02-01

    Evidence suggests that task-based training approaches can improve the performance of children with handwriting difficulties. The present case study tests the efficacy of the Handwriting Task Program (HTP). Three male children (9-10 yr. old) with poor handwriting skills and different developmental disorders participated in the HTP, twice per week, for 13 wk. Handwriting legibility was assessed through the Concise Evaluation Scale for Children's Handwriting, and fine motor performance and handwriting speed were evaluated at pre- and post-treatment with the Visual Motor Integration Test and the Battery for the assessment of writing skills of children from 7 to 13 yr. old. The results showed that motor efficiency and global handwriting quality improved in all the children, although some handwriting difficulties still persisted in one child with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Further study may confirm on a larger sample that a visual-spatially based training may improve the handwriting legibility of children with DCD.

  3. Disentangling Dimensions in the Dimensional Change Card-Sorting Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kloo, Daniela; Perner, Josef

    2005-01-01

    The dimensional change card-sorting task (DCCS task) is frequently used to assess young children's executive abilities. However, the source of children's difficulty with this task is still under debate. In the standard DCCS task, children have to sort, for example, test cards with a red cherry or a blue banana into two boxes marked with target…

  4. Effects of Caffeine on Classroom Behavior, Sustained Attention, and a Memory Task in Preschool Children.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baer, Ruth A.

    1987-01-01

    The investigation of the effect of normative amounts of caffeine on the behavior of six normal kindergarten children found that caffeine exerted only small and inconsistent effects on such classroom behaviors as time off-task and gross motor activity. (Author/DB)

  5. Children's Physical Activity and On-Task Behavior Following Active Academic Lessons: 2017 National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education Hally Beth Poindexter Young Scholar Address

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Goh, Tan Leng

    2017-01-01

    Sitting for extended periods of time is detrimental to children's physical health and may cause off-task behavior in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a classroom physical activity (PA) program, TAKE 10!®, on children's PA and on-task behavior. Participants in the program included 137 children from six classes…

  6. Performance of Cerebral Palsied Children under Conditions of Reduced Auditory Input on Selected Intellectual, Cognitive and Perceptual Tasks.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fassler, Joan

    The study investigated the task performance of cerebral palsied children under conditions of reduced auditory input and under normal auditory conditions. A non-cerebral palsied group was studied in a similar manner. Results indicated that cerebral palsied children showed some positive change in performance, under conditions of reduced auditory…

  7. Resolving Task Rule Incongruence during Task Switching by Competitor Rule Suppression

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Meiran, Nachshon; Hsieh, Shulan; Dimov, Eduard

    2010-01-01

    Task switching requires maintaining readiness to execute any task of a given set of tasks. However, when tasks switch, the readiness to execute the now-irrelevant task generates interference, as seen in the task rule incongruence effect. Overcoming such interference requires fine-tuned inhibition that impairs task readiness only minimally. In an…

  8. A preliminary analysis of self-control with aversive events: the effects of task magnitude and delay on the choices of children with autism.

    PubMed

    Lerman, Dorothea C; Addison, Laura R; Kodak, Tiffany

    2006-01-01

    When faced with a choice between two aversive events, a person exhibits self-control by choosing a smaller, more immediate aversive event over a larger, delayed aversive event. Task demands are often aversive to children with autism and other developmental disabilities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate behavioral sensitivity to differences in the amount and delay of tasks as part of a preliminary study on self-control. Participants were 2 children with autism who engaged in problem behavior maintained by escape. Results indicated a lack of self-control with respect to choosing between two aversive tasks and suggested potential strategies for increasing self-control (i.e., choosing a small immediate task over a large delayed task).

  9. Conditions under which Young Children Can Hold Two Rules in Mind and Inhibit a Prepotent Response.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Diamond, Adele; Kirkham, Natasha; Amso, Dima

    2002-01-01

    Systematically varied the day-night task requiring children to say "night" to a sun picture and "day" to a moon picture to investigate why young children typically fail the task. Found that reducing memory load did not help performance. Reducing inhibitory demand by requiring an unrelated response or inserting a delay between…

  10. Age differences in high frequency phasic heart rate variability and performance response to increased executive function load in three executive function tasks

    PubMed Central

    Byrd, Dana L.; Reuther, Erin T.; McNamara, Joseph P. H.; DeLucca, Teri L.; Berg, William K.

    2015-01-01

    The current study examines similarity or disparity of a frontally mediated physiological response of mental effort among multiple executive functioning tasks between children and adults. Task performance and phasic heart rate variability (HRV) were recorded in children (6 to 10 years old) and adults in an examination of age differences in executive functioning skills during periods of increased demand. Executive load levels were varied by increasing the difficulty levels of three executive functioning tasks: inhibition (IN), working memory (WM), and planning/problem solving (PL). Behavioral performance decreased in all tasks with increased executive demand in both children and adults. Adults’ phasic high frequency HRV was suppressed during the management of increased IN and WM load. Children’s phasic HRV was suppressed during the management of moderate WM load. HRV was not suppressed during either children’s or adults’ increasing load during the PL task. High frequency phasic HRV may be most sensitive to executive function tasks that have a time-response pressure, and simply requiring performance on a self-paced task requiring frontal lobe activation may not be enough to generate HRV responsitivity to increasing demand. PMID:25798113

  11. Developmental Shifts in Children's Sensitivity to Visual Speech: A New Multimodal Picture-Word Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F.; Spence, Melanie J.; Tye-Murray, Nancy; Abdi, Herve

    2009-01-01

    This research developed a multimodal picture-word task for assessing the influence of visual speech on phonological processing by 100 children between 4 and 14 years of age. We assessed how manipulation of seemingly to-be-ignored auditory (A) and audiovisual (AV) phonological distractors affected picture naming without participants consciously…

  12. The Recruitment of Shifting and Inhibition in On-line Science and Mathematics Tasks.

    PubMed

    Vosniadou, Stella; Pnevmatikos, Dimitrios; Makris, Nikos; Lepenioti, Despina; Eikospentaki, Kalliopi; Chountala, Anna; Kyrianakis, Giorgos

    2018-06-13

    Prior research has investigated the recruitment of inhibition in the use of science/mathematics concepts in tasks that require the rejection of a conflicting, nonscientific initial concept. The present research examines if inhibition is the only EF skill recruited in such tasks and investigates whether shifting is also involved. It also investigates whether inhibition and/or shifting are recruited in tasks in which the use of science/mathematics concepts does not require the rejection of an initial concept, or which require only the use of initial concepts. One hundred and thirty-three third- and fifth-grade children participated in two inhibition and shifting tasks and two science and mathematics conceptual understanding and conceptual change (CU&C) tasks. All the tasks were on-line, and performance was measured in accuracy and RTs. The CU&C tasks involved the use of initial concepts and of science/mathematics concepts which required conceptual changes for their initial formation. Only in one of the tasks the use of the science/mathematics concepts required the concurrent rejection of an initial concept. The results confirmed that in this task inhibition was recruited and also showed that the speed of shifting was a significant predictor of performance. Shifting was a significant predictor of performance in all the tasks, regardless of whether they involved science/mathematics or initial concepts. It is argued that shifting is likely to be recruited in complex tasks that require multiple comparisons of stimuli and the entertainment of different perspectives. Inhibition seems to be a more selective cognitive skill likely to be recruited when the use of science/mathematics concepts requires the rejection of a conflicting initial concept. © 2018 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  13. An exploratory analysis of task-interspersal procedures while teaching object labels to children with autism.

    PubMed

    Volkert, Valerie M; Lerman, Dorothea C; Trosclair, Nicole; Addison, Laura; Kodak, Tiffany

    2008-01-01

    Research has demonstrated that interspersing mastered tasks with new tasks facilitates learning under certain conditions; however, little is known about factors that influence the effectiveness of this treatment strategy. The initial purpose of the current investigation was to evaluate the effects of similar versus dissimilar interspersed tasks while teaching object labels to children diagnosed with autism or developmental delays. We then conducted a series of exploratory analyses involving the type of reinforcer delivered for correct responses on trials with unknown or known object labels. Performance was enhanced under the interspersal condition only when either brief praise was delivered for all correct responses or presumably more preferred reinforcers were provided for performance on known trials rather than on unknown trials.

  14. Effect of Perceptual Load on Semantic Access by Speech in Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F.; Mills, Candice; Bartlett, James; Tye-Murray, Nancy; Abdi, Herve

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: To examine whether semantic access by speech requires attention in children. Method: Children ("N" = 200) named pictures and ignored distractors on a cross-modal (distractors: auditory-no face) or multimodal (distractors: auditory-static face and audiovisual- dynamic face) picture word task. The cross-modal task had a low load,…

  15. A 10-Year Assessment of Information and Communication Technology Tasks Required in Undergraduate Agriculture Courses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Edgar, Leslie D.; Johnson, Donald M.; Cox, Casandra

    2012-01-01

    This study sought to assess required information and communication technology (ICT) tasks in selected undergraduate agriculture courses in a land-grant university during a 10-year period. Selected agriculture faculty members in the fall 1999 (n = 63), 2004 (n = 55), and 2009 (n = 64) semesters were surveyed to determine the ICT tasks they required…

  16. Self-Handicapping Prior to Academic-Oriented Tasks in Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Medication Effects and Comparisons with Controls

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Waschbusch, Daniel A.; Craig, Rebecca; Pelham, William E., Jr.; King, Sara

    2007-01-01

    The authors examined self-handicapping prior to academic-oriented tasks in children with and without ADHD and examined whether stimulant medication influenced self-handicapping. Participants were 61 children ages 6 to 13, including 22 children with ADHD tested after taking a placebo, 21 children with ADHD tested after taking stimulant medication,…

  17. Effects of Home Literacy, Parents' Beliefs, and Children's Task-Focused Behavior on Emergent Literacy and Word Reading Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stephenson, Kathy A.; Parrila, Rauno K.; Georgiou, George K.; Kirby, John R.

    2008-01-01

    We examined the effects of home literacy (shared book reading, teaching activities, and number of books), children's task-focused behavior, and parents' beliefs and expectations about their child's reading and academic ability on kindergarten children's (N = 61) phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge and on Grade 1 word reading. The results…

  18. Performance of Children and Adolescents with Asperger Syndrome or High-Functioning Autism on Advanced Theory of Mind Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kaland, Nils; Callesen, Kirsten; Moller-Nielsen, Annette; Mortensen, Erik Lykke; Smith, Lars

    2008-01-01

    Although a number of advanced theory of mind tasks have been developed, there is a dearth of information on whether performances on different tasks are associated. The present study examined the performance of 21 children and adolescents with diagnoses of Asperger syndrome (AS) and 20 typically developing controls on three advanced theory of mind…

  19. Children with Prader-Willi syndrome vs. Williams syndrome: indirect effects on parents during a jigsaw puzzle task.

    PubMed

    Ly, T M; Hodapp, R M

    2005-12-01

    Genetic disorders predispose individuals to exhibit characteristic behaviours, which in turn elicit particular behaviours from others. In response to the strength of Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and weakness of Williams syndrome (WS) in visual-spatial tasks such as jigsaw puzzles, parents' behaviours can be affected by their child's level of puzzle ability or syndrome diagnosis. Children were asked to complete two jigsaw puzzles (one with the experimenter and the other with the parent) for 5 min each. Frequencies of parental helping and reinforcement behaviours, along with ratings of parental directiveness, were examined as parents interacted with their children on a jigsaw puzzle task. Within each aetiological group, correlates of parental behaviours with child characteristics were also examined. Compared to parents of children with PWS, parents of children with WS engaged in a more directive style of interaction, and provided more help and reinforcement. Relative to parents of children with higher puzzle abilities (from both aetiologies), parents of children with lower abilities also showed the same pattern. Both the child's aetiology and puzzle abilities were important in predicting parents' directiveness and helping and reinforcement behaviours. Within the PWS group, parents' behaviours correlated negatively with the child's puzzle abilities and general cognitive functioning; no such relations occurred in the WS group. Parents' behaviours were affected by both the child's diagnosis and actual puzzle abilities, suggesting important implications for understanding and intervening with parents and children with different genetic syndromes.

  20. Clumsiness in fine motor tasks: evidence from the quantitative drawing evaluation of children with Down Syndrome.

    PubMed

    Vimercati, S L; Galli, M; Stella, G; Caiazzo, G; Ancillao, A; Albertini, G

    2015-03-01

    Drawing tests are commonly used for the clinical evaluation of cognitive capabilities in children with learning disabilities. We analysed quantitatively the drawings of children with Down Syndrome (DS) and of healthy, mental age-matched controls to characterise the features of fine motor skills in DS during a drawing task, with particular attention to clumsiness, a well-known feature of DS gross movements. Twenty-three children with DS and 13 controls hand-copied the figures of a circle, a cross and a square on a sheet. An optoelectronic system allowed the acquisition of the three-dimensional track of the drawing. The participants' posture and upper limb movements were analysed as well. Results showed that the participants with DS tended to draw faster but with less accuracy than controls. While clumsiness in gross movements manifests mainly as slow, less efficient movements, it manifests as high velocity and inaccurate movements in fine motor tasks such as drawing. © 2014 MENCAP and International Association of the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  1. Single-digit Arabic numbers do not automatically activate magnitude representations in adults or in children: evidence from the symbolic same-different task.

    PubMed

    Wong, Becky; Szücs, Dénes

    2013-11-01

    We investigated whether the mere presentation of single-digit Arabic numbers activates their magnitude representations using a visually-presented symbolic same-different task for 20 adults and 15 children. Participants saw two single-digit Arabic numbers on a screen and judged whether the numbers were the same or different. We examined whether reaction time in this task was primarily driven by (objective or subjective) perceptual similarity, or by the numerical difference between the two digits. We reasoned that, if Arabic numbers automatically activate magnitude representations, a numerical function would best predict reaction time; but if Arabic numbers do not automatically activate magnitude representations, a perceptual function would best predict reaction time. Linear regressions revealed that a perceptual function, specifically, subjective visual similarity, was the best and only significant predictor of reaction time in adults and in children. These data strongly suggest that, in this task, single-digit Arabic numbers do not necessarily automatically activate magnitude representations in adults or in children. As the first study to date to explicitly study the developmental importance of perceptual factors in the symbolic same-different task, we found no significant differences between adults and children in their reliance on perceptual information in this task. Based on our findings, we propose that visual properties may play a key role in symbolic number judgements. © 2013. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Changes in kinetics and kinematics of handwriting during a prolonged writing task in children with and without dysgraphia.

    PubMed

    Kushki, Azadeh; Schwellnus, Heidi; Ilyas, Faizah; Chau, Tom

    2011-01-01

    Handwriting difficulties or dysgraphia have a profound impact on children's psychosocial development, and yet, 10-30% of school-aged children are reported to experience difficulties mastering this skill. Several studies have examined the nature and biomechanical underpinnings of handwriting difficulties in children with and without dysgraphia. While the majority of these studies have considered short handwriting activities involving a sentence or a paragraph, handwriting quality and speed are reported to vary with the length of the writing task. Further, it is suggested that the biomechanics of handwriting also evolve over extended writing periods, and that these changes may be distinct between children with and without dysgraphia. The nature and specificity of these biomechanical alterations remain unknown. To address this knowledge gap, we examined changes in writing speed, grip forces on the pen barrel, and normal forces on the writing surface, over the course of a 10-min writing task, in a large cohort of 4th grade children with and without dysgraphia. Horizontal stroke speed, grip force and normal force increased over time while vertical stroke speed decreased in all children. These biomechanical changes may be attributable to physical and psychological fatigue and the corresponding compensatory processes invoked by the motor system. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Motion tracking and electromyography assist the removal of mirror hand contributions to fNIRS images acquired during a finger tapping task performed by children with cerebral palsy

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Hervey, Nathan; Khan, Bilal; Shagman, Laura; Tian, Fenghua; Delgado, Mauricio R.; Tulchin-Francis, Kirsten; Shierk, Angela; Smith, Linsley; Reid, Dahlia; Clegg, Nancy J.; Liu, Hanli; MacFarlane, Duncan; Alexandrakis, George

    2013-03-01

    Functional neurological imaging has been shown to be valuable in evaluating brain plasticity in children with cerebral palsy (CP). In recent studies it has been demonstrated that functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a viable and sensitive method for imaging motor cortex activities in children with CP. However, during unilateral finger tapping tasks children with CP often exhibit mirror motions (unintended motions in the non-tapping hand), and current fNIRS image formation techniques do not account for this. Therefore, the resulting fNIRS images contain activation from intended and unintended motions. In this study, cortical activity was mapped with fNIRS on four children with CP and five controls during a finger tapping task. Finger motion and arm muscle activation were concurrently measured using motion tracking cameras and electromyography (EMG). Subject-specific regressors were created from motion capture and EMG data and used in a general linear model (GLM) analysis in an attempt to create fNIRS images representative of different motions. The analysis provided an fNIRS image representing activation due to motion and muscle activity for each hand. This method could prove to be valuable in monitoring brain plasticity in children with CP by providing more consistent images between measurements. Additionally, muscle effort versus cortical effort was compared between control and CP subjects. More cortical effort was required to produce similar muscle effort in children with CP. It is possible this metric could be a valuable diagnostic tool in determining response to treatment.

  4. Development of flight experiment task requirements. Volume 2: Technical Report. Part 1: Program report and Appendices A-G

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Hatterick, G. R.

    1972-01-01

    Activities are documented of the study to determine skills required of on-orbit crew personnel of the space shuttle. The material is presented in four sections that include: (1) methodology for identifying flight experiment task-skill requirements, (2) task-skill analysis of selected flight experiments, (3) study results and conclusions, and (4) new technology.

  5. A Preliminary Analysis of Self-Control with Aversive Events: the Effects of Task Magnitude and Delay on the Choices of Children with Autism

    PubMed Central

    Lerman, Dorothea C; Addison, Laura R; Kodak, Tiffany

    2006-01-01

    When faced with a choice between two aversive events, a person exhibits self-control by choosing a smaller, more immediate aversive event over a larger, delayed aversive event. Task demands are often aversive to children with autism and other developmental disabilities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate behavioral sensitivity to differences in the amount and delay of tasks as part of a preliminary study on self-control. Participants were 2 children with autism who engaged in problem behavior maintained by escape. Results indicated a lack of self-control with respect to choosing between two aversive tasks and suggested potential strategies for increasing self-control (i.e., choosing a small immediate task over a large delayed task). PMID:16813043

  6. Task 4 supporting technology. Densification requirements definition and test objectives. Propellant densification requirements definition

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Lak, Tibor; Weeks, D. P.

    1995-01-01

    The primary challenge of the X-33 CAN is to build and test a prototype LO2 and LH2 densification ground support equipment (GSE) unit, and perform tank thermodynamic testing within the 15 month phase 1 period. The LO2 and LH2 propellant densification system will be scaled for the IPTD LO2 and LH2 tank configurations. The IPTD tanks were selected for the propellant technology demonstration because of the potential benefits to the phase 1 plan: tanks will be built in time to support thermodynamic testing; minimum cost; minimum schedule risk; future testing at MSFC will build on phase 1 data base; and densification system will be available to support X-33 and RLV engine test at IPTD. The objective of the task 1 effort is to define the preliminary requirements of the propellant densification GSE and tank recirculation system. The key densification system design parameters to be established in Task 1 are: recirculation flow rate; heat exchanger inlet temperature; heat exchanger outlet temperature; maximum heat rejection rate; vent flow rate (GN2 and GH2); densification time; and tank pressure level.

  7. Phonological Neighborhood Density Effects in a Rhyme Awareness Task in Five-Year-Old Children.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    De Cara, Bruno; Goswami, Usha

    2003-01-01

    Investigates one plausible source of the emergence of phonological awareness--phonological neighborhood density in a group of 5-year-old children, most of whom were pre-readers. Subjects with a high vocabulary age showed neighborhood density effects in a rhyme oddity task, but 5-year-olds with lower vocabulary ages did not. (Author/VWL)

  8. The Role of Previous Mother-Child Scaffolding in Head Start Children's Structuring of Problem-Solving Tasks with a Peer

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hustedt, Jason T.

    2015-01-01

    This study further extends scaffolding research to mother-child dyads (N = 51) in poverty, examining relationships between maternal scaffolding and 4-year-old Head Start children's own later scaffolding behaviors. At Time 1, experimental group children received maternal scaffolding during problem-solving tasks, whereas control group children…

  9. Young Children's Affective Decision-Making in a Gambling Task: Does Difficulty in Learning the Gain/Loss Schedule Matter?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gao, Shan; Wei, Yonggang; Bai, Junjie; Lin, Chongde; Li, Hong

    2009-01-01

    This research investigated the development of affective decision-making (ADM) during early childhood, in particular role of difficulty in learning a gain/loss schedule. In Experiment 1, we administrated the Children's Gambling Task (CGT) to 60 Chinese children aged 3 and 4, replicating the results obtained by Kerr and Zelazo [Kerr, A., & Zelazo,…

  10. Parents' Support during Different Writing Tasks: A Comparison between Parents of Precocious Readers, Preschoolers, and School-Age Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Aram, Dorit; Besser-Biron, Shira

    2017-01-01

    The study aimed to deepen the understanding of parental sensitivity to their children's abilities and the nature of their scaffolding during writing tasks. We compared the parent-child writing interactions of three groups: precocious readers (PRs), same age preschoolers (SA), and older children with the same reading level (SRL) as the PRs. Each of…

  11. Susceptibility to the audience effect explains performance gap between children with and without autism in a theory of mind task.

    PubMed

    Chevallier, Coralie; Parish-Morris, Julia; Tonge, Natasha; Le, Lori; Miller, Judith; Schultz, Robert T

    2014-06-01

    Diminished social motivation constitutes one of the core impairments of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is thought to have a strong impact on the way individuals with autism respond to the presence of others. In this study, we hypothesized that experimental contexts involving direct interaction with an experimenter might elicit different reactions in children with ASD and thus act as a potential confound in the interpretation of group differences during social cognitive tests. Following classic work in social psychology on the audience effect-wherein individuals act differently when they are being watched in a more or less conscious attempt to enhance their reputation in the eyes of others-we reasoned that social contexts are indeed likely to produce an increase in performance in typically developing (TD) individuals but that children with ASD would be less susceptible to such audience effects. More specifically, we were interested in testing the idea that susceptibility to the audience effect might explain part of the performance gap between children with autism (ASDs) and children without autism in theory of mind (ToM) tasks, which are typically administered by a human experimenter. We tested this hypothesis by comparing performance on a ToM task administered in a social versus a nonsocial setting. We found that ASDs and controls performed similarly when the task was administered using a nonsocial medium. However, control participants outperformed ASDs when an experimenter administered the task. Thus, TD controls demonstrated a relative improvement in performance when in the presence of an experimenter that children with ASD did not. The implications of this diminished audience effect in ASD are discussed. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

  12. An Exploratory Analysis of Task-Interspersal Procedures While Teaching Object Labels to Children with Autism

    PubMed Central

    Volkert, Valerie M; Lerman, Dorothea C; Trosclair, Nicole; Addison, Laura; Kodak, Tiffany

    2008-01-01

    Research has demonstrated that interspersing mastered tasks with new tasks facilitates learning under certain conditions; however, little is known about factors that influence the effectiveness of this treatment strategy. The initial purpose of the current investigation was to evaluate the effects of similar versus dissimilar interspersed tasks while teaching object labels to children diagnosed with autism or developmental delays. We then conducted a series of exploratory analyses involving the type of reinforcer delivered for correct responses on trials with unknown or known object labels. Performance was enhanced under the interspersal condition only when either brief praise was delivered for all correct responses or presumably more preferred reinforcers were provided for performance on known trials rather than on unknown trials. PMID:18816973

  13. The 'Reading the Mind in Films' Task [child version]: complex emotion and mental state recognition in children with and without autism spectrum conditions.

    PubMed

    Golan, Ofer; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Golan, Yael

    2008-09-01

    Children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have difficulties recognizing others' emotions. Research has mostly focused on basic emotion recognition, devoid of context. This study reports the results of a new task, assessing recognition of complex emotions and mental states in social contexts. An ASC group (n = 23) was compared to a general population control group (n = 24). Children with ASC performed lower than controls on the task. Using task scores, more than 87% of the participants were allocated to their group. This new test quantifies complex emotion and mental state recognition in life-like situations. Our findings reveal that children with ASC have residual difficulties in this aspect of empathy. The use of language-based compensatory strategies for emotion recognition is discussed.

  14. False-belief understanding in 2.5-year-olds: Evidence from two novel verbal spontaneous-response tasks

    PubMed Central

    Scott, Rose M.; He, Zijing; Baillargeon, Renée; Cummins, Denise

    2011-01-01

    Recent research indicates that toddlers and infants succeed at various non-verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks; here we asked whether toddlers would also succeed at verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks that imposed significant linguistic demands. 2.5-year-olds were tested using two novel tasks: a preferential-looking task in which children listened to a false-belief story while looking at a picture book (with matching and non-matching pictures), and a violation-of-expectation task in which children watched an adult “Subject” answer (correctly or incorrectly) a standard false-belief question. Positive results were obtained with both tasks, despite their linguistic demands. These results (1) support the distinction between spontaneous-and elicited-response tasks by showing that toddlers succeed at verbal false-belief tasks that do not require them to answer direct questions about agents’ false beliefs, (2) reinforce claims of robust continuity in early false-belief understanding as assessed by spontaneous-response tasks, and (3) provide researchers with new experimental tasks for exploring early false-belief understanding in neurotypical and autistic populations. PMID:22356174

  15. False-belief understanding in 2.5-year-olds: evidence from two novel verbal spontaneous-response tasks.

    PubMed

    Scott, Rose M; He, Zijing; Baillargeon, Renée; Cummins, Denise

    2012-03-01

    Recent research indicates that toddlers and infants succeed at various non-verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks; here we asked whether toddlers would also succeed at verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks that imposed significant linguistic demands. We tested 2.5-year-olds using two novel tasks: a preferential-looking task in which children listened to a false-belief story while looking at a picture book (with matching and non-matching pictures), and a violation-of-expectation task in which children watched an adult 'Subject' answer (correctly or incorrectly) a standard false-belief question. Positive results were obtained with both tasks, despite their linguistic demands. These results (1) support the distinction between spontaneous- and elicited-response tasks by showing that toddlers succeed at verbal false-belief tasks that do not require them to answer direct questions about agents' false beliefs, (2) reinforce claims of robust continuity in early false-belief understanding as assessed by spontaneous-response tasks, and (3) provide researchers with new experimental tasks for exploring early false-belief understanding in neurotypical and autistic populations. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

  16. Sleepiness, On-Task Behavior and Attention in Children with Epilepsy Who Visited a School for Special Education: A Comparative Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Didden, Robert; de Moor, Jan M. H.; Korzilius, Hubert

    2009-01-01

    Children with epilepsy are at risk for problems in daytime functioning. We assessed daytime sleepiness, on-task behavior and attention in 17 children (aged between 7 and 11 years) with epilepsy who visited a school for special education and compared these to 17 children from a control group who visited a regular school. Within the group of…

  17. Potential Predictors of Changes in Gross Motor Function during Various Tasks for Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Follow-Up Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chen, Chia-ling; Chen, Chung-yao; Chen, Hsieh-ching; Liu, Wen-yu; Shen, I-hsuan; Lin, Keh-chung

    2013-01-01

    Very few studies have investigated predictors of change in various gross motor outcomes in ambulatory children with cerebral palsy (CP). The aim of this study was to identify potential predictors for change in gross motor outcomes measured during various tasks in children with CP. A group of 45 children (age, 6-15 years) with CP and 7 potential…

  18. Brief Report: Assessment of the Social-Emotional Profile in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Using a Novel Comic Strip Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sivaratnam, Carmel S.; Cornish, Kim; Gray, Kylie M.; Howlin, Patricia; Rinehart, Nicole J.

    2012-01-01

    This study investigated whether the novel Comic Strip Task (CST) could be used to detect Theory-of-Mind impairments (ToM) in 4- to 8-year-old children with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Twelve children with either high-functioning autism or Asperger's Disorder and 12 typically-developing children completed the 21-item measure.…

  19. Walking in School-Aged Children in a Dual-Task Paradigm Is Related to Age But Not to Cognition, Motor Behavior, Injuries, or Psychosocial Functioning

    PubMed Central

    Hagmann-von Arx, Priska; Manicolo, Olivia; Lemola, Sakari; Grob, Alexander

    2016-01-01

    Age-dependent gait characteristics and associations with cognition, motor behavior, injuries, and psychosocial functioning were investigated in 138 typically developing children aged 6.7–13.2 years (M = 10.0 years). Gait velocity, normalized velocity, and variability were measured using the walkway system GAITRite without an additional task (single task) and while performing a motor or cognitive task (dual task). Assessment of children’s cognition included tests for intelligence and executive functions; parents reported on their child’s motor behavior, injuries, and psychosocial functioning. Gait variability (an index of gait regularity) decreased with increasing age in both single- and dual-task walking. Dual-task gait decrements were stronger when children walked in the motor compared to the cognitive dual-task condition and decreased with increasing age in both dual-task conditions. Gait alterations from single- to dual-task conditions were not related to children’s cognition, motor behavior, injuries, or psychosocial functioning. PMID:27014158

  20. Visual perspective taking impairment in children with autistic spectrum disorder.

    PubMed

    Hamilton, Antonia F de C; Brindley, Rachel; Frith, Uta

    2009-10-01

    Evidence from typical development and neuroimaging studies suggests that level 2 visual perspective taking - the knowledge that different people may see the same thing differently at the same time - is a mentalising task. Thus, we would expect children with autism, who fail typical mentalising tasks like false belief, to perform poorly on level 2 visual perspective taking as well. However, prior data on this issue are inconclusive. We re-examined this question, testing a group of 23 young autistic children, aged around 8years with a verbal mental age of around 4years and three groups of typical children (n=60) ranging in age from 4 to 8years on a level 2 visual perspective task and a closely matched mental rotation task. The results demonstrate that autistic children have difficulty with visual perspective taking compared to a task requiring mental rotation, relative to typical children. Furthermore, performance on the level 2 visual perspective taking task correlated with theory of mind performance. These findings resolve discrepancies in previous studies of visual perspective taking in autism, and demonstrate that level 2 visual perspective taking is a mentalising task.

  1. Children With and Without Dystonia Share Common Muscle Synergies While Performing Writing Tasks.

    PubMed

    Lunardini, Francesca; Casellato, Claudia; Bertucco, Matteo; Sanger, Terence D; Pedrocchi, Alessandra

    2017-08-01

    Childhood dystonia is a movement disorder characterized by muscle overflow and variability. This is the first study that investigates upper limb muscle synergies in childhood dystonia with the twofold aim of deepening the understanding of neuromotor dysfunctions and paving the way to possible synergy-based myocontrol interfaces suitable for this neurological population. Nonnegative matrix factorization was applied to the activity of upper-limb muscles recorded during the execution of writing tasks in children with dystonia and age-matched controls. Despite children with dystonia presented compromised kinematics of the writing outcome, a strikingly similarity emerged in the number and structure of the synergy vectors extracted from children in the two groups. The analysis also revealed that the timing of activation of the synergy coefficients did not significantly differ, while the amplitude of the peaks presented a slight reduction. These results suggest that the synergy analysis has the ability of capturing the uncorrupted part of the electromyographic signal in dystonia. Such an ability supports a possible future use of muscle synergies in the design of myocontrol interfaces for children with dystonia.

  2. Relationship between Tasks Performed, Personality Traits, and Sleep Bruxism in Brazilian School Children - A Population-Based Cross-Sectional Study

    PubMed Central

    Serra-Negra, Junia Maria; Paiva, Saul Martins; Abreu, Mauro Henrique; Flores-Mendoza, Carmen Elvira; Pordeus, Isabela Almeida

    2013-01-01

    Background Tasks can be instruments of stress and may affect the health of children. Sleep bruxism is a multifactorial sleep-related movement disorder that affects children and adults. The aim of the present study was to analyze the association between children’s tasks, personality traits and sleep bruxism. Methods And Findings A cross-sectional, population-based study of 652 randomly selected Brazilian schoolchildren (52% of whom were female), aged from 7 to 10 years was conducted in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. A questionnaire based on criteria proposed by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) was completed by parents. In addition, the Neuroticism and Responsibility sub-scales of the Big Five Questionnaire for Children (BFQ-C) were administered to the children. Psychological tests were administered and evaluated by psychologists. The Social Vulnerability Index from the city council database was used to determine the social classification of the families. Chi-square and Poisson regression statistical tests were used with a 95% confidence interval. The majority of families were classified as having low social vulnerability (61.3%), whereas, 38.7% were classified as having high social vulnerability. Regarding extracurricular activities, the majority of girls performed household work (56.4%) and some artistic activity (51.3%) while sporting activities were most common among boys (61%). The results of the Poisson regression model indicated that sleep bruxism was most prevalent in children who scored highly in the Neuroticism sub-scale, and who frequently performed household tasks. Conclusion Children whose personality domain has a high level of Neuroticism and who perform household chores imposed by the family are more vulnerable to sleep bruxism. PMID:24244614

  3. Space transportation nodes assumptions and requirements: Lunar base systems study task 2.1

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Kahn, Taher Ali; Simonds, Charles H.; Stump, William R.

    1988-01-01

    The Space Transportation Nodes Assumptions and Requirements task was performed as part of the Advanced Space Transportation Support Contract, a NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) study intended to provide planning for a Lunar Base near the year 2000. The original task statement has been revised to satisfy the following queries: (1) What vehicles are to be processed at the transportation node; (2) What is the flow of activities involved in a vehicle passing through the node; and (3) What node support resources are necessary to support a lunar scenario traffic model composed of a mix of vehicles in an active flight schedule. The Lunar Base Systems Study is concentrating on the initial years of the Phase 2 Lunar Base Scenario. The study will develop the first five years of that phase in order to define the transportation and surface systems (including mass, volumes, power requirements, and designs).

  4. Children's Understanding of Experimental Contrast and Experimental Control: An Inventory for Primary School

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Osterhaus, Christopher; Koerber, Susanne; Sodian, Beate

    2015-01-01

    Experimentation skills are a central component of scientific thinking, and many studies have investigated whether and when primary-school children develop adequate experimentation strategies. However, the answers to these questions vary substantially depending on the type of task that is used: while discovery tasks, which require children to…

  5. Increasing Independence in Self-Care Tasks for Children with Autism Using Self-Operated Auditory Prompts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mays, Nicole McGaha; Heflin, L. Juane

    2011-01-01

    This study was conducted to determine the effects of self-operated auditory prompting systems (SOAPs) on independent self-care task completion of elementary-school-aged children with autism and intellectual disabilities. Prerecorded verbal prompts on a student-operated tape recorder were employed to facilitate independence in washing hands and…

  6. Community-acquired pneumonia requiring hospitalization among U.S. children.

    PubMed

    Jain, Seema; Williams, Derek J; Arnold, Sandra R; Ampofo, Krow; Bramley, Anna M; Reed, Carrie; Stockmann, Chris; Anderson, Evan J; Grijalva, Carlos G; Self, Wesley H; Zhu, Yuwei; Patel, Anami; Hymas, Weston; Chappell, James D; Kaufman, Robert A; Kan, J Herman; Dansie, David; Lenny, Noel; Hillyard, David R; Haynes, Lia M; Levine, Min; Lindstrom, Stephen; Winchell, Jonas M; Katz, Jacqueline M; Erdman, Dean; Schneider, Eileen; Hicks, Lauri A; Wunderink, Richard G; Edwards, Kathryn M; Pavia, Andrew T; McCullers, Jonathan A; Finelli, Lyn

    2015-02-26

    Incidence estimates of hospitalizations for community-acquired pneumonia among children in the United States that are based on prospective data collection are limited. Updated estimates of pneumonia that has been confirmed radiographically and with the use of current laboratory diagnostic tests are needed. We conducted active population-based surveillance for community-acquired pneumonia requiring hospitalization among children younger than 18 years of age in three hospitals in Memphis, Nashville, and Salt Lake City. We excluded children with recent hospitalization or severe immunosuppression. Blood and respiratory specimens were systematically collected for pathogen detection with the use of multiple methods. Chest radiographs were reviewed independently by study radiologists. From January 2010 through June 2012, we enrolled 2638 of 3803 eligible children (69%), 2358 of whom (89%) had radiographic evidence of pneumonia. The median age of the children was 2 years (interquartile range, 1 to 6); 497 of 2358 children (21%) required intensive care, and 3 (<1%) died. Among 2222 children with radiographic evidence of pneumonia and with specimens available for bacterial and viral testing, a viral or bacterial pathogen was detected in 1802 (81%), one or more viruses in 1472 (66%), bacteria in 175 (8%), and both bacterial and viral pathogens in 155 (7%). The annual incidence of pneumonia was 15.7 cases per 10,000 children (95% confidence interval [CI], 14.9 to 16.5), with the highest rate among children younger than 2 years of age (62.2 cases per 10,000 children; 95% CI, 57.6 to 67.1). Respiratory syncytial virus was more common among children younger than 5 years of age than among older children (37% vs. 8%), as were adenovirus (15% vs. 3%) and human metapneumovirus (15% vs. 8%). Mycoplasma pneumoniae was more common among children 5 years of age or older than among younger children (19% vs. 3%). The burden of hospitalization for children with community-acquired pneumonia

  7. Differences in Cognitive Processes Underlying the Collaborative Activities of Children and Chimpanzees

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fletcher, Grace E.; Warneken, Felix; Tomasello, Michael

    2012-01-01

    We compared the performance of 3- and 5-year-old children with that of chimpanzees in two tasks requiring collaboration via complementary roles. In both tasks, children and chimpanzees were able to coordinate two complementary roles with peers and solve the problem cooperatively. This is the first experimental demonstration of the coordination of…

  8. Two-and-a-half-year-olds succeed at a traditional false-belief task with reduced processing demands.

    PubMed

    Setoh, Peipei; Scott, Rose M; Baillargeon, Renée

    2016-11-22

    When tested with traditional false-belief tasks, which require answering a standard question about the likely behavior of an agent with a false belief, children perform below chance until age 4 y or later. When tested without such questions, however, children give evidence of false-belief understanding much earlier. Are traditional tasks difficult because they tap a more advanced form of false-belief understanding (fundamental-change view) or because they impose greater processing demands (processing-demands view)? Evidence that young children succeed at traditional false-belief tasks when processing demands are reduced would support the latter view. In prior research, reductions in inhibitory-control demands led to improvements in young children's performance, but often only to chance (instead of below-chance) levels. Here we examined whether further reductions in processing demands might lead to success. We speculated that: (i) young children could respond randomly in a traditional low-inhibition task because their limited information-processing resources are overwhelmed by the total concurrent processing demands in the task; and (ii) these demands include those from the response-generation process activated by the standard question. This analysis suggested that 2.5-y-old toddlers might succeed at a traditional low-inhibition task if response-generation demands were also reduced via practice trials. As predicted, toddlers performed above chance following two response-generation practice trials; toddlers failed when these trials either were rendered less effective or were used in a high-inhibition task. These results support the processing-demands view: Even toddlers succeed at a traditional false-belief task when overall processing demands are reduced.

  9. Tracking the displacement of objects: a series of tasks with great apes (Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, Gorilla gorilla, and Pongo pygmaeus) and young children (Homo sapiens).

    PubMed

    Barth, Jochen; Call, Josep

    2006-07-01

    The authors administered a series of object displacement tasks to 24 great apes and 24 30-month-old children (Homo sapiens). Objects were placed under 1 or 2 of 3 cups by visible or invisible displacements. The series included 6 tasks: delayed response, inhibition test, A not B, rotations, transpositions, and object permanence. Apes and children solved most tasks performing at comparable levels except in the transposition task, in which apes performed better than children. Ape species performed at comparable levels in all tasks except in single transpositions, in which chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) performed better than gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) and orangutans (Pongo pygmeaus). All species found nonadjacent trials and rotations especially difficult. The number of elements that changed locations, the type of displacement, and having to inhibit predominant reaching responses were factors that negatively affected the subjects' performance.

  10. The influence of asymmetric force requirements on a multi-frequency bimanual coordination task.

    PubMed

    Kennedy, Deanna M; Rhee, Joohyun; Jimenez, Judith; Shea, Charles H

    2017-01-01

    An experiment was designed to determine the impact of the force requirements on the production of bimanual 1:2 coordination patterns requiring the same (symmetric) or different (asymmetric) forces when Lissajous displays and goal templates are provided. The Lissajous displays have been shown to minimize the influence of attentional and perceptual constraints allowing constraints related to neural crosstalk to be more clearly observed. Participants (N=20) were randomly assigned to a force condition in which the left or right limb was required to produce more force than the contralateral limb. In each condition participants were required to rhythmically coordinate the pattern of isometric forces in a 1:2 coordination pattern. Participant performed 13 practice trials and 1 test trial per force level. The results indicated that participants were able to effectively coordinate the 1:2 multi-frequency goal patterns under both symmetric and asymmetric force requirements. However, consistent distortions in the force and force velocity time series were observed for one limb that appeared to be associated with the production of force in the contralateral limb. Distortions in the force produced by the left limb occurred regardless of the force requirements of the task (symmetric, asymmetric) or whether the left or right limb had to produce more force than the contralateral limb. However, distinct distortions in the right limb occurred only when the left limb was required to produce 5 times more force than the right limb. These results are consistent with the notion that neural crosstalk can influence both limbs, but may manifest differently for each limb depending on the force requirements of the task. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. Brief Report: New Evidence for a Social-Specific Imagination Deficit in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ten Eycke, Kayla D.; Müller, Ulrich

    2015-01-01

    Previous research suggests that children with autism have deficits in drawing imaginative content. However, these conclusions are largely based on tasks that require children to draw impossible persons, and performance on this task may be limited by social deficits. To determine the generality of the deficit in imagination in children with autism,…

  12. Sex differences in young children's use of tools in a problem-solving task : The role of object-oriented play.

    PubMed

    Gredlein, Jeffrey M; Bjorklund, David F

    2005-06-01

    Three-year-old children were observed in two free-play sessions and participated in a toy-retrieval task, in which only one of six tools could be used to retrieve an out-of-reach toy. Boys engaged in more object-oriented play than girls and were more likely to use tools to retrieve the toy during the baseline tool-use task. All children who did not retrieve the toy during the baseline trials did so after being given a hint, and performance on a transfer-of-training tool-use task approached ceiling levels. This suggests that the sex difference in tool use observed during the baseline phase does not reflect a difference in competency, but rather a sex difference in motivation to interact with objects. Amount of time boys, but not girls, spent in object-oriented play during the free-play sessions predicted performance on the tool-use task. The findings are interpreted in terms of evolutionary theory, consistent with the idea that boys' and girls' play styles evolved to prepare them for adult life in traditional environments.

  13. Screening for Autism Spectrum Disorder in Young Children: US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement.

    PubMed

    Siu, Albert L; Bibbins-Domingo, Kirsten; Grossman, David C; Baumann, Linda Ciofu; Davidson, Karina W; Ebell, Mark; García, Francisco A R; Gillman, Matthew; Herzstein, Jessica; Kemper, Alex R; Krist, Alex H; Kurth, Ann E; Owens, Douglas K; Phillips, William R; Phipps, Maureen G; Pignone, Michael P

    2016-02-16

    New US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation on screening for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in young children. The USPSTF reviewed the evidence on the accuracy, benefits, and potential harms of brief, formal screening instruments for ASD administered during routine primary care visits and the benefits and potential harms of early behavioral treatment for young children identified with ASD through screening. This recommendation applies to children aged 18 to 30 months who have not been diagnosed with ASD or developmental delay and for whom no concerns of ASD have been raised by parents, other caregivers, or health care professionals. The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for ASD in young children for whom no concerns of ASD have been raised by their parents or a clinician. (I statement).

  14. The Use of Music to Increase Task-Oriented Behaviors in Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders in a Gross Motor Setting

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dieringer, Shannon M.

    2012-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of music and music + instruction on task-oriented behaviors in preschool children with ASD within individual gross motor movement settings. Five preschool children (four boys; one girl) diagnosed with ASD attending a Midwestern private preschool for children with ASD served as participants. The…

  15. Investigating Sentence Processing and Language Segmentation in Explaining Children's Performance on a Sentence-Span Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Misra, Maya; Miller, Carol; Poll, Gerard H.; Park, Ji Sook

    2012-01-01

    Background: Children with poor language abilities tend to perform poorly on verbal working memory tasks. This result has been interpreted as evidence that limitations in working memory capacity may interfere with the development of a mature linguistic system. However, it is possible that language abilities, such as the efficiency of sentence…

  16. The development of contact force construction in the dynamic-contact task of cycling [corrected].

    PubMed

    Brown, Nicholas A T; Jensen, Jody L

    2003-01-01

    Purposeful movement requires that an individual produce appropriate joint torques to accelerate segments, and when environmental contact is involved, to develop task-appropriate contact forces. Developmental research has been confined largely to the mastery of unconstrained movement skills (pointing, kicking). The purpose of this study was to study the developmental progression that characterizes the interaction of muscular and non-muscular forces in tasks constrained by contact with the environment. Seven younger children (YC, 6-8 years), 7 older children (OC, 9-11 years) and 7 adults (AD) pedaled an ergometer (80 rpm) at an anthropometrically scaled cycling power. Resultant forces measured at the pedal's surface were decomposed into muscle, inertia and gravity components. Muscle pedal forces were further examined in terms of the underlying lower extremity joint torques and kinematic weights that constitute the muscular component of the pedal force. Data showed children applied muscle forces to the pedal in a significantly different manner compared to adults, and that this was due to the children's lower segmental mass and inertia. The children adjusted the contribution of the proximal joint muscle torques to compensate for reduced contributions to the resultant pedal force by gravitational and inertial components. These data show that smaller segmental mass and inertia limit younger children's ability to construct the dynamic-contact task of cycling in an adult-like form. On the basis of these results, however, the children's response was not "immature". Rather, the results show a task-appropriate adaptation to lower segmental mass and inertia. Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.

  17. Repeating Input-Based Tasks with Young Beginner Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shintani, Natsuko

    2012-01-01

    The study reported in this article investigated task-repetition with young Japanese children. Fifteen children with no prior knowledge of English completed a communicative listening task that was designed to introduce new vocabulary. The same task was repeated nine times over five weeks. In line with Allwright's (1984) claim that "interaction…

  18. Attention during functional tasks is associated with motor performance in children with developmental coordination disorder

    PubMed Central

    Fong, Shirley S.M.; Chung, Joanne W.Y.; Cheng, Yoyo T.Y.; Yam, Timothy T.T.; Chiu, Hsiu-Ching; Fong, Daniel Y.T.; Cheung, C.Y.; Yuen, Lily; Yu, Esther Y.T.; Hung, Yeung Sam; Macfarlane, Duncan J.; Ng, Shamay S.M.

    2016-01-01

    Abstract This cross-sectional and exploratory study aimed to compare motor performance and electroencephalographic (EEG) attention levels in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and those with typical development, and determine the relationship between motor performance and the real-time EEG attention level in children with DCD. Eighty-six children with DCD [DCD: n = 57; DCD and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): n = 29] and 99 children with typical development were recruited. Their motor performance was assessed with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC) and attention during the tasks of the MABC was evaluated by EEG. All children with DCD had higher MABC impairment scores and lower EEG attention scores than their peers (P < 0.05). After accounting for age, sex, body mass index, and physical activity level, the attention index remained significantly associated with the MABC total impairment score and explained 14.1% of the variance in children who had DCD but not ADHD (P = 0.009) and 17.5% of the variance in children with both DCD and ADHD (P = 0.007). Children with DCD had poorer motor performance and were less attentive to movements than their peers. Their poor motor performance may be explained by inattention. PMID:27631272

  19. 2.5-year-olds succeed at a verbal anticipatory-looking false-belief task.

    PubMed

    He, Zijing; Bolz, Matthias; Baillargeon, Renée

    2012-03-01

    Recent research suggests that infants and toddlers succeed at a wide range of non-elicited-response false-belief tasks (i.e., tasks that do not require children to answer a direct question about a mistaken agent's likely behaviour). However, one exception to this generalization comes from verbal anticipatory-looking tasks, which have produced inconsistent findings with toddlers. One possible explanation for these findings is that toddlers succeed when they correctly interpret the prompt as a self-addressed utterance (making the task a non-elicited-response task), but fail when they mistakenly interpret the prompt as a direct question (making the task an elicited-response task). Here, 2.5-year-old toddlers were tested in a verbal anticipatory-looking task that was designed to help them interpret the anticipatory prompt as a self-addressed utterance: the experimenter looked at the ceiling, chin in hand, during and after the prompt. Children gave evidence of false-belief understanding in this task, but failed when the experimenter looked at the child during and after the prompt. These results reinforce claims of robust continuity in early false-belief reasoning and provide additional support for the distinction between non-elicited- and elicited-response false-belief tasks. Three accounts of the discrepant results obtained with these tasks - and of early false-belief understanding more generally - are discussed. © 2011 The British Psychological Society.

  20. Differences between child and adult large-scale functional brain networks for reading tasks.

    PubMed

    Liu, Xin; Gao, Yue; Di, Qiqi; Hu, Jiali; Lu, Chunming; Nan, Yun; Booth, James R; Liu, Li

    2018-02-01

    Reading is an important high-level cognitive function of the human brain, requiring interaction among multiple brain regions. Revealing differences between children's large-scale functional brain networks for reading tasks and those of adults helps us to understand how the functional network changes over reading development. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 17 adults (19-28 years old) and 16 children (11-13 years old), and graph theoretical analyses to investigate age-related changes in large-scale functional networks during rhyming and meaning judgment tasks on pairs of visually presented Chinese characters. We found that: (1) adults had stronger inter-regional connectivity and nodal degree in occipital regions, while children had stronger inter-regional connectivity in temporal regions, suggesting that adults rely more on visual orthographic processing whereas children rely more on auditory phonological processing during reading. (2) Only adults showed between-task differences in inter-regional connectivity and nodal degree, whereas children showed no task differences, suggesting the topological organization of adults' reading network is more specialized. (3) Children showed greater inter-regional connectivity and nodal degree than adults in multiple subcortical regions; the hubs in children were more distributed in subcortical regions while the hubs in adults were more distributed in cortical regions. These findings suggest that reading development is manifested by a shift from reliance on subcortical to cortical regions. Taken together, our study suggests that Chinese reading development is supported by developmental changes in brain connectivity properties, and some of these changes may be domain-general while others may be specific to the reading domain. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  1. Do Tasks Make a Difference? Accounting for Heterogeneity of Performance of Children with Reading Difficulties on Tasks of Executive Function: Findings from a Meta-Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Booth, Josephine N.; Boyle, James M. E.; Kelly, Steve W.

    2010-01-01

    Research studies have implicated executive functions in reading difficulties (RD). But while some studies have found children with RD to be impaired on tasks of executive function other studies report unimpaired performance. A meta-analysis was carried out to determine whether these discrepant findings can be accounted for by differences in the…

  2. Negative Priming within a Stroop Task in Children and Adolescents with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Their Siblings, and Independent Controls

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Christiansen, Hanna; Oades, Robert D.

    2010-01-01

    Objective: Negative priming (NP) is the slowed response to a stimulus that was previously ignored. Response times in NP task conditions were compared with the interference provided by congruent/incongruent stimuli in a Stroop condition in the same task in children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), their unaffected…

  3. Postural Control in Children with Dyslexia: Effects of Emotional Stimuli in a Dual-Task Environment.

    PubMed

    Goulème, Nathalie; Gerard, Christophe-Loïc; Bucci, Maria Pia

    2017-08-01

    The aim of this study was to compare the visual exploration strategies used during a postural control task across participants with and without dyslexia. We simultaneously recorded eye movements and postural control while children were viewing different types of emotional faces. Twenty-two children with dyslexia and twenty-two aged-matched children without dyslexia participated in the study. We analysed the surface area, the length and the mean velocity of the centre of pressure for balance in parallel with visual saccadic latency, the number of saccades and the time spent in regions of interest. Our results showed that postural stability in children with dyslexia was weaker and the surface area of their centre of pressure increased significantly when they viewed an unpleasant face. Moreover, children with dyslexia had different strategies to those used by children without dyslexia during visual exploration, and in particular when they viewed unpleasant emotional faces. We suggest that lower performance in emotional face processing in children with dyslexia could be due to a difference in their visual strategies, linked to their identification of unpleasant emotional faces. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  4. Personality and physiological correlates of performance decrement on a monotonous task requiring sustained attention.

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1973-12-01

    The reductions in task load resulting from the increasing automation of air traffic control may actually increase the requirement for controllers to maintain high levels of sustained attention in order to detect infrequent system malfunctions. A prev...

  5. Beyond capacity limitations II: Effects of lexical processes on word recall in verbal working memory tasks in children with and without specific language impairment

    PubMed Central

    Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L.; Coady, Jeffry

    2010-01-01

    Purpose This study investigated the impact of lexical processes on target word recall in sentence span tasks in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Method Participants were 42 children (ages 8;2–12;3), 21 with SLI and 21 typically developing peers matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Children completed a sentence span task where target words to be recalled varied in word frequency and neighborhood density. Two measures of lexical processes were examined, the number of non-target competitor words activated during a gating task (lexical cohort competition) and word definitions. Results Neighborhood density had no effect on word recall for either group. However, both groups recalled significantly more high than low frequency words. Lexical cohort competition and specificity of semantic representations accounted for unique variance in the number of target word recalled in the SLI and CA groups combined. Conclusions Performance on verbal working memory span tasks for both SLI and CA children is influenced by word frequency, lexical cohorts, and semantic representations. Future studies need to examine the extent to which verbal working memory capacity is a cognitive construct independent of extant language knowledge representations. PMID:20705747

  6. Acquisition of Motor and Cognitive Skills through Repetition in Typically Developing Children

    PubMed Central

    Magallón, Sara; Narbona, Juan; Crespo-Eguílaz, Nerea

    2016-01-01

    Background Procedural memory allows acquisition, consolidation and use of motor skills and cognitive routines. Automation of procedures is achieved through repeated practice. In children, improvement in procedural skills is a consequence of natural neurobiological development and experience. Methods The aim of the present research was to make a preliminary evaluation and description of repetition-based improvement of procedures in typically developing children (TDC). Ninety TDC children aged 6–12 years were asked to perform two procedural learning tasks. In an assembly learning task, which requires predominantly motor skills, we measured the number of assembled pieces in 60 seconds. In a mirror drawing learning task, which requires more cognitive functions, we measured time spent and efficiency. Participants were tested four times for each task: three trials were consecutive and the fourth trial was performed after a 10-minute nonverbal interference task. The influence of repeated practice on performance was evaluated by means of the analysis of variance with repeated measures and the paired-sample test. Correlation coefficients and simple linear regression test were used to examine the relationship between age and performance. Results TDC achieved higher scores in both tasks through repetition. Older children fitted more pieces than younger ones in assembling learning and they were faster and more efficient at the mirror drawing learning task. Conclusions These findings indicate that three consecutive trials at a procedural task increased speed and efficiency, and that age affected basal performance in motor-cognitive procedures. PMID:27384671

  7. Acquisition of Motor and Cognitive Skills through Repetition in Typically Developing Children.

    PubMed

    Magallón, Sara; Narbona, Juan; Crespo-Eguílaz, Nerea

    2016-01-01

    Procedural memory allows acquisition, consolidation and use of motor skills and cognitive routines. Automation of procedures is achieved through repeated practice. In children, improvement in procedural skills is a consequence of natural neurobiological development and experience. The aim of the present research was to make a preliminary evaluation and description of repetition-based improvement of procedures in typically developing children (TDC). Ninety TDC children aged 6-12 years were asked to perform two procedural learning tasks. In an assembly learning task, which requires predominantly motor skills, we measured the number of assembled pieces in 60 seconds. In a mirror drawing learning task, which requires more cognitive functions, we measured time spent and efficiency. Participants were tested four times for each task: three trials were consecutive and the fourth trial was performed after a 10-minute nonverbal interference task. The influence of repeated practice on performance was evaluated by means of the analysis of variance with repeated measures and the paired-sample test. Correlation coefficients and simple linear regression test were used to examine the relationship between age and performance. TDC achieved higher scores in both tasks through repetition. Older children fitted more pieces than younger ones in assembling learning and they were faster and more efficient at the mirror drawing learning task. These findings indicate that three consecutive trials at a procedural task increased speed and efficiency, and that age affected basal performance in motor-cognitive procedures.

  8. 2.5-year-olds Succeed at a Verbal Anticipatory-Looking False-Belief Task

    PubMed Central

    He, Zijing; Bolz, Matthias; Baillargeon, Renée

    2012-01-01

    Recent research suggests that infants and toddlers succeed at a wide range of nonelicited-response false-belief tasks (i.e., tasks that do not require children to answer a direct question about a mistaken agent’s likely behavior). However, one exception to this generalization comes from verbal anticipatory-looking tasks, which have produced inconsistent findings with toddlers. One possible explanation for these findings is that toddlers succeed when they correctly interpret the prompt as a self-addressed utterance (making the task a nonelicited-response task), but fail when they mistakenly interpret the prompt as a direct question (making the task an elicited-response task). Here, 2.5-year-old toddlers were tested in a verbal anticipatory-looking task that was designed to help them interpret the anticipatory prompt as a self-addressed utterance: the experimenter looked at the ceiling, chin in hand, during and after the prompt. Children gave evidence of false-belief understanding in this task, but failed when the experimenter looked at the child during and after the prompt. These results reinforce claims of robust continuity in early false-belief reasoning and provide additional support for the distinction between nonelicited- and elicited-response false-belief tasks. Three accounts of the discrepant results obtained with these tasks—and of early false-belief understanding more generally—are discussed. PMID:22429030

  9. Prospective thinking and decision making in primary school age children.

    PubMed

    Lombardi, Elisabetta; Di Dio, Cinzia; Castelli, Ilaria; Massaro, Davide; Marchetti, Antonella

    2017-06-01

    In this study, we seek to widen our understanding of the developmental processes underlying bargaining behaviour in children addressing the concept of prospective thinking. We argue that the emergence of the capacity to think prospectively about future outcomes or behaviours in response to current actions is a required precedent to strategic decision making. To test this idea, we compared 6, 8 and 10 years old children's performance on three tasks: the ultimatum game assessing fairness/inequality aversion, the marshmallow task, an intertemporal choice task evaluating the ability to delay gratification, and the dictator game assessing altruism. The children's socio-demographic and cognitive variables were also evaluated. We hypothesized that development of strategic thinking in the ultimatum game is related to an increased ability to delay gratification - given that both tasks require looking at prospective benefits - and, crucially, not to altruism, which benefits from immediate selfless reward. Our results confirmed our hypothesis suggesting that increased strategic planning with age would also stem from the development of competencies like prospective thinking.

  10. [Transfusional requirements for escharectomy in burned children].

    PubMed

    Julia, Analía R; Basílico, Hugo; Magaldi, Gustavo; Demirdjian, Graciela

    2010-02-01

    Early excision has considerably improved outcome in extensive burns, but massive resections usually mean copious bleeding that must be conveniently corrected. The purpose of this study was to measure blood component use during escharectomies in children. All pediatric patients with acute burns excised at the Burn Unit of the Hospital Garrahan during one year were included. Volume of blood component used during and immediately after surgery was analyzed and related to percent excised, time post-burn, and the coexistence of infection and autograft at the time of excision. Ninety-four surgeries in 51 children aged 0-14 years with total burned body surface areas of 5-80% who underwent resections of 3-70% were studied. Total blood use (intra + post-operatively) was 2.07 ml/kg/%excised for red blood cells (60% during surgery) and 0.7 ml/kg/% excised for plasma. Only 12% of patients required platelet transfusion. There was no significant requirement variation with the existence of infection, grafting or time post-burn. Approximately 2 ml/kg/% excised of red blood cells (2/3 for surgery) and 1 ml/kg/% excised of plasma are needed for escharectomies in children. The need for platelets must be judged considering the individual patient.

  11. Psychophysiological and Behavioral Responses to a Novel Intruder Threat Task for Children on the Autism Spectrum

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    South, Mikle; Taylor, Katherine M.; Newton, Tiffani; Christensen, Megan; Jamison, Nathan K.; Chamberlain, Paul; Johnston, Oliver; Crowley, Michael J.; Higley, J. Dee

    2017-01-01

    We measured skin conductance response (SCR) to escalating levels of a direct social threat from a novel, ecologically-relevant experimental paradigm, the Intruder Threat Task. We simultaneously evaluated the contribution of social symptom severity and behavioral movement. Children with AS group showed less psychophysiological reactivity to social…

  12. Just Google It: Young Children's Preferences for Touchscreens versus Books in Hypothetical Learning Tasks.

    PubMed

    Eisen, Sierra; Lillard, Angeline S

    2016-01-01

    Children today regularly interact with touchscreen devices (Rideout, 2013) and thousands of "educational" mobile applications are marketed to them (Shuler, 2012). Understanding children's own ideas about optimal learning has important implications for education, which is being transformed by electronic mobile devices, yet we know little about how children think about such devices, including what children think touchscreens are useful for. Based on a prior result that children prefer a book over a touchscreen for learning about dogs, the present study explored how children view touchscreens versus books for learning an array of different types of information. Seventy children ages 3-6 were presented with six different topics (cooking, today's weather, trees, vacuums, Virginia, and yesterday's football game) and chose whether a book or a touchscreen device would be best to use to learn about each topic. Some of this information was time-sensitive, like the current weather; we predicted that children would prefer a touchscreen for time-sensitive information. In addition, each child's parent was surveyed about the child's use of books and touchscreens for educational purposes, both at home and in school. Results indicated that younger children had no preference between books and touchscreen devices across learning tasks. However, 6-year-olds were significantly more likely to choose the touchscreen for several topics. Surprisingly, 6-year-olds chose a touchscreen device to learn about time-sensitive weather conditions, but not yesterday's football. Children's choices were not associated with their use of books and touchscreens at home and school.

  13. Multitasking During Degraded Speech Recognition in School-Age Children

    PubMed Central

    Ward, Kristina M.; Brehm, Laurel

    2017-01-01

    Multitasking requires individuals to allocate their cognitive resources across different tasks. The purpose of the current study was to assess school-age children’s multitasking abilities during degraded speech recognition. Children (8 to 12 years old) completed a dual-task paradigm including a sentence recognition (primary) task containing speech that was either unprocessed or noise-band vocoded with 8, 6, or 4 spectral channels and a visual monitoring (secondary) task. Children’s accuracy and reaction time on the visual monitoring task was quantified during the dual-task paradigm in each condition of the primary task and compared with single-task performance. Children experienced dual-task costs in the 6- and 4-channel conditions of the primary speech recognition task with decreased accuracy on the visual monitoring task relative to baseline performance. In all conditions, children’s dual-task performance on the visual monitoring task was strongly predicted by their single-task (baseline) performance on the task. Results suggest that children’s proficiency with the secondary task contributes to the magnitude of dual-task costs while multitasking during degraded speech recognition. PMID:28105890

  14. Children's Early Mental Number Line: Logarithmic or Decomposed Linear?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moeller, Korbinean; Pixner, Silvia; Kaufmann, Liane; Nuerk, Hans-Christoph

    2009-01-01

    Recently, the nature of children's mental number line has received much investigation. In the number line task, children are required to mark a presented number on a physical number line with fixed endpoints. Typically, it was observed that the estimations of younger/inexperienced children were accounted for best by a logarithmic function, whereas…

  15. Susceptibility to the audience effect explains performance gap between children with and without autism in a Theory of Mind task

    PubMed Central

    Chevallier, Coralie; Parish-Morris, Julia; Tonge, Natasha; Le, Lori; Miller, Judith; Schultz, Robert T.

    2014-01-01

    Diminished social motivation constitutes one of the core impairments of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and is thought to have a strong impact on the way individuals with autism respond to the presence of others. In this study, we hypothesized that experimental contexts involving direct interaction with an experimenter might elicit different reactions in ASD and thus act as a potential confound in the interpretation of group differences during social cognitive tests. Following classic work in social psychology on the ‘audience effect’ –wherein individuals act differently when they are being watched in a more or less conscious attempt to enhance their reputation in the eyes of others, we reasoned that social contexts are indeed likely to produce an increase in performance in typically developing (TD) individuals but that children with ASD would be less susceptible to such audience effects. More specifically, we were interested in testing the idea that susceptibility to the audience effect might explain part of the performance gap between children with and without autism in Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, which are typically administered by a human experimenter. We tested this hypothesis by comparing performance on a ToM task administered in a social vs. a non-social setting. We found that ASDs and controls performed similarly when the task was administered using a non-social medium. However, control participants outperformed children with autism when an experimenter administered the task. Thus, TD controls demonstrated a relative improvement in performance when in the presence of an experimenter that children with ASD did not. The implications of this diminished ‘audience effect’ in ASD are discussed. PMID:24392710

  16. Tracing the Cascade of Children's Insecurity in the Interparental Relationship: The Role of Stage-Salient Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Davies, Patrick T.; Manning, Liviah G.; Cicchetti, Dante

    2013-01-01

    This study examined whether children’s difficulties with stage-salient tasks served as an explanatory mechanism in the pathway between their insecurity in the interparental relationship and their disruptive behavior problems. Using a multimethod, multi-informant design, 201 two-year-old children and their mothers participated in 3 annual…

  17. What Do Children Do in the Rime-Analogy Task? An Examination of the Skills and Strategies Used by Early Readers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Roberts, Lynne; McDougall, Sine

    2003-01-01

    This study contrasted and compared the extent to which phoneme and rhyme-based skills and letter-sound knowledge predicted 4- and 5-year-olds' performance in the analogy task and in a test of single work reading. Findings suggested that the balance of skills that children drew upon was determined by the demands of the task. Findings pose…

  18. The Endurance of Children's Working Memory: A Recall Time Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Towse, John N.; Hitch, Graham J.; Hamilton, Z.; Pirrie, Sarah

    2008-01-01

    We analyze the timing of recall as a source of information about children's performance in complex working memory tasks. A group of 8-year-olds performed a traditional operation span task in which sequence length increased across trials and an operation period task in which processing requirements were extended across trials of constant sequence…

  19. Performance in Object-Choice Aesop's Fable Tasks Are Influenced by Object Biases in New Caledonian Crows but not in Human Children.

    PubMed

    Miller, Rachael; Jelbert, Sarah A; Taylor, Alex H; Cheke, Lucy G; Gray, Russell D; Loissel, Elsa; Clayton, Nicola S

    2016-01-01

    The ability to reason about causality underlies key aspects of human cognition, but the extent to which non-humans understand causality is still largely unknown. The Aesop's Fable paradigm, where objects are inserted into water-filled tubes to obtain out-of-reach rewards, has been used to test casual reasoning in birds and children. However, success on these tasks may be influenced by other factors, specifically, object preferences present prior to testing or arising during pre-test stone-dropping training. Here, we assessed this 'object-bias' hypothesis by giving New Caledonian crows and 5-10 year old children two object-choice Aesop's Fable experiments: sinking vs. floating objects, and solid vs. hollow objects. Before each test, we assessed subjects' object preferences and/or trained them to prefer the alternative object. Both crows and children showed pre-test object preferences, suggesting that birds in previous Aesop's Fable studies may also have had initial preferences for objects that proved to be functional on test. After training to prefer the non-functional object, crows, but not children, performed more poorly on these two object-choice Aesop's Fable tasks than subjects in previous studies. Crows dropped the non-functional objects into the tube on their first trials, indicating that, unlike many children, they do not appear to have an a priori understanding of water displacement. Alternatively, issues with inhibition could explain their performance. The crows did, however, learn to solve the tasks over time. We tested crows further to determine whether their eventual success was based on learning about the functional properties of the objects, or associating dropping the functional object with reward. Crows inserted significantly more rewarded, non-functional objects than non-rewarded, functional objects. These findings suggest that the ability of New Caledonian crows to produce performances rivaling those of young children on object-choice Aesop

  20. Inhibitory Processes in Young Children and Individual Variation in Short-Term Memory

    PubMed Central

    Espy, Kimberly Andrews; Bull, Rebecca

    2009-01-01

    A precise definition of executive control remains elusive, related in part to the variations among executive tasks in the nature of the task demands, which complicate the identification of test-specific versus construct-specific performance. In this study, tasks were chosen that varied in the nature of the stimulus (verbal, nonverbal), response (naming, somatic motor), conflict type (proactive interference, distraction), and inhibitory process (attention control, response suppression) required. Then performance differences were examined in 184 young children (age range = 3 years 6 months to 6 years 1 month), comparing those with high (5 or more digits) and low (3 or fewer digits) spans to determine the dependence on short-term memory. Results indicated that there was communality in inhibitory task demands across instruments, although the specific pattern of task intercorrelations varied in children with high and low spans. Furthermore, only performance on attention control tasks—that is, that require cognitive engagement/disengagement among an internally represented rule or response set that was previously active versus those currently active—differed between children of high and low spans. In contrast, there were differences neither between children with high and low spans on response suppression tasks nor on tasks when considered by type of stimulus, response, or conflict. Individual differences in well-regulated thought may rest in variations in the ability to maintain information in an active, quickly retrievable state that subserve controlling attention in a goal-relevant fashion. PMID:16144432

  1. A Virtual Object-Location Task for Children: Gender and Videogame Experience Influence Navigation; Age Impacts Memory and Completion Time.

    PubMed

    Rodriguez-Andres, David; Mendez-Lopez, Magdalena; Juan, M-Carmen; Perez-Hernandez, Elena

    2018-01-01

    The use of virtual reality-based tasks for studying memory has increased considerably. Most of the studies that have looked at child population factors that influence performance on such tasks have been focused on cognitive variables. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of non-cognitive skills. In the present paper, we tested 52 typically-developing children aged 5-12 years in a virtual object-location task. The task assessed their spatial short-term memory for the location of three objects in a virtual city. The virtual task environment was presented using a 3D application consisting of a 120″ stereoscopic screen and a gamepad interface. Measures of learning and displacement indicators in the virtual environment, 3D perception, satisfaction, and usability were obtained. We assessed the children's videogame experience, their visuospatial span, their ability to build blocks, and emotional and behavioral outcomes. The results indicate that learning improved with age. Significant effects on the speed of navigation were found favoring boys and those more experienced with videogames. Visuospatial skills correlated mainly with ability to recall object positions, but the correlation was weak. Longer paths were related with higher scores of withdrawal behavior, attention problems, and a lower visuospatial span. Aggressiveness and experience with the device used for interaction were related with faster navigation. However, the correlations indicated only weak associations among these variables.

  2. Inhibition in Dot Comparison Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Clayton, Sarah; Gilmore, Camilla

    2015-01-01

    Dot comparison tasks are commonly used to index an individual's Approximate Number System (ANS) acuity, but the cognitive processes involved in completing these tasks are poorly understood. Here, we investigated how factors including numerosity ratio, set size and visual cues influence task performance. Forty-four children aged 7-9 years completed…

  3. The Monkey game: A computerized verbal working memory task for self-reliant administration in primary school children.

    PubMed

    Van de Weijer-Bergsma, Eva; Kroesbergen, Evelyn H; Jolani, Shahab; Van Luit, Johannes E H

    2016-06-01

    In two studies, the psychometric properties of an online self-reliant verbal working memory task (the Monkey game) for primary school children (6-12 years of age) were examined. In Study 1, children (n = 5,203) from 31 primary schools participated. The participants completed computerized verbal and visual-spatial working memory tasks (i.e., the Monkey game and the Lion game) and a paper-and-pencil version of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Reading comprehension and math achievement test scores were obtained from the schools. First, the internal consistency of the Monkey game was examined. Second, multilevel modeling was used to examine the effects of classroom membership. Multilevel multivariate regression analysis was used to examine the Monkey game's concurrent relationship with the Lion game and its predictive relationships with reading comprehension and math achievement. Also, age-related differences in performance were examined. In Study 2, the concurrent relationships between the Monkey game and two tester-led computerized working memory tasks were further examined (n = 140). Also, the 1- and 2-year stability of the Monkey game was investigated. The Monkey game showed excellent internal consistency, good concurrent relationships with the other working memory measures, and significant age differences in performance. Performance on the Monkey game was also predictive of subsequent reading comprehension and mathematics performance, even after controlling for individual differences in intelligence. Performance on the Monkey game was influenced by classroom membership. The Monkey game is a reliable and suitable instrument for the online computerized and self-reliant assessment of verbal working memory in primary school children.

  4. Sources of Cognitive Inflexibility in Set-Shifting Tasks: Insights Into Developmental Theories From Adult Data

    PubMed Central

    Dick, Anthony Steven

    2012-01-01

    Two experiments examined processes underlying cognitive inflexibility in set-shifting tasks typically used to assess the development of executive function in children. Adult participants performed a Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST) that requires shifting from categorizing by one dimension (e.g., color) to categorizing by a second orthogonal dimension (e.g., shape). The experiments showed performance of the FIST involves suppression of the representation of the ignored dimension; response times for selecting a target object in an immediately-following oddity task were slower when the oddity target was the previously-ignored stimulus of the FIST. However, proactive interference from the previously relevant stimulus dimension also impaired responding. The results are discussed with respect to two prominent theories of the source of difficulty for children and adults on dimensional shifting tasks: attentional inertia and negative priming. In contrast to prior work emphasizing one over the other process, the findings indicate that difficulty in the FIST, and by extension other set-shifting tasks, can be attributed to both the need to shift away from the previously attended representation (attentional inertia), and the need to shift to the previously ignored representation (negative priming). Results are discussed in relation to theoretical explanations for cognitive inflexibility in adults and children. PMID:23539267

  5. Sources of Cognitive Inflexibility in Set-Shifting Tasks: Insights Into Developmental Theories From Adult Data.

    PubMed

    Dick, Anthony Steven

    2012-01-01

    Two experiments examined processes underlying cognitive inflexibility in set-shifting tasks typically used to assess the development of executive function in children. Adult participants performed a Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST) that requires shifting from categorizing by one dimension (e.g., color) to categorizing by a second orthogonal dimension (e.g., shape). The experiments showed performance of the FIST involves suppression of the representation of the ignored dimension; response times for selecting a target object in an immediately-following oddity task were slower when the oddity target was the previously-ignored stimulus of the FIST. However, proactive interference from the previously relevant stimulus dimension also impaired responding. The results are discussed with respect to two prominent theories of the source of difficulty for children and adults on dimensional shifting tasks: attentional inertia and negative priming . In contrast to prior work emphasizing one over the other process, the findings indicate that difficulty in the FIST, and by extension other set-shifting tasks, can be attributed to both the need to shift away from the previously attended representation ( attentional inertia ), and the need to shift to the previously ignored representation ( negative priming ). Results are discussed in relation to theoretical explanations for cognitive inflexibility in adults and children.

  6. Task Switching in a Hierarchical Task Structure: Evidence for the Fragility of the Task Repetition Benefit

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lien, Mei-Ching; Ruthruff, Eric

    2004-01-01

    This study examined how task switching is affected by hierarchical task organization. Traditional task-switching studies, which use a constant temporal and spatial distance between each task element (defined as a stimulus requiring a response), promote a flat task structure. Using this approach, Experiment 1 revealed a large switch cost of 238 ms.…

  7. Involving children in the development of assistive technology devices.

    PubMed

    Allsop, M; Gallagher, J; Holt, R; Bhakta, B; Wilkie, R M

    2011-01-01

    To investigate the implementation of a web-based survey for involving children in the design of assistive technology devices within the primary school environment. Children were recruited within their normal school environment. They completed tasks within the survey that sought to gather their personal preferences about assistive technology devices. From six primary schools, 257 children (mean age = 9 years and 8 months, SD = 1.51; 123 males, 134 females) including children with cerebral palsy (N = 11), varying levels of deafness (N = 7), global developmental delay (N = 2) and Down's syndrome (N = 1) participated. Observations were taken whilst the children completed the survey tasks. All children were able to complete the tasks from the survey, although children with disabilities had higher completion times and most required a form of assistance from support assistants and/or sign language interpreters. The use of the web-based survey provided a novel means with which to involve children with and without disabilities in the design of assistive technology devices within a primary school environment. In order for the survey to be utilised more widely, issues that arose when involving children with disabilities need to be addressed.

  8. Bilingual Children's Acquisition of English Verb Morphology: Effects of Language Exposure, Structure Complexity, and Task Type

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Paradis, Johanne

    2010-01-01

    This study investigated whether bilingual-monolingual differences would be apparent in school-age children's use and knowledge of English verb morphology and whether differences would be influenced by amount of exposure to English, complexity of the morphological structure, or the type of task given. French-English bilinguals (mean age = 6;10)…

  9. The development of tool manufacture in humans: what helps young children make innovative tools?

    PubMed Central

    Chappell, Jackie; Cutting, Nicola; Apperly, Ian A.; Beck, Sarah R.

    2013-01-01

    We know that even young children are proficient tool users, but until recently, little was known about how they make tools. Here, we will explore the concepts underlying tool making, and the kinds of information and putative cognitive abilities required for children to manufacture novel tools. We will review the evidence for novel tool manufacture from the comparative literature and present a growing body of data from children suggesting that innovation of the solution to a problem by making a tool is a much more challenging task than previously thought. Children's difficulty with these kinds of tasks does not seem to be explained by perseveration with unmodified tools, difficulty with switching to alternative strategies, task pragmatics or issues with permission. Rather, making novel tools (without having seen an example of the required tool within the context of the task) appears to be hard, because it is an example of an ‘ill-structured problem’. In this type of ill-structured problem, the starting conditions and end goal are known, but the transformations and/or actions required to get from one to the other are not specified. We will discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the development of problem-solving in humans and other animals. PMID:24101620

  10. The development of tool manufacture in humans: what helps young children make innovative tools?

    PubMed

    Chappell, Jackie; Cutting, Nicola; Apperly, Ian A; Beck, Sarah R

    2013-11-19

    We know that even young children are proficient tool users, but until recently, little was known about how they make tools. Here, we will explore the concepts underlying tool making, and the kinds of information and putative cognitive abilities required for children to manufacture novel tools. We will review the evidence for novel tool manufacture from the comparative literature and present a growing body of data from children suggesting that innovation of the solution to a problem by making a tool is a much more challenging task than previously thought. Children's difficulty with these kinds of tasks does not seem to be explained by perseveration with unmodified tools, difficulty with switching to alternative strategies, task pragmatics or issues with permission. Rather, making novel tools (without having seen an example of the required tool within the context of the task) appears to be hard, because it is an example of an 'ill-structured problem'. In this type of ill-structured problem, the starting conditions and end goal are known, but the transformations and/or actions required to get from one to the other are not specified. We will discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the development of problem-solving in humans and other animals.

  11. Working Memory Development in Monolingual and Bilingual Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Morales, Julia; Calvo, Alejandra; Bialystok, Ellen

    2013-01-01

    Two studies are reported comparing the performance of monolingual and bilingual children on tasks requiring different levels of working memory. In the first study, 56 5-year-olds performed a Simon-type task that manipulated working memory demands by comparing conditions based on two rules and four rules and manipulated conflict resolution demands…

  12. Improvement in children's fine motor skills following a computerized typing intervention.

    PubMed

    McGlashan, Hannah L; Blanchard, Caroline C V; Sycamore, Nicole J; Lee, Rachel; French, Blandine; Holmes, Nicholas P

    2017-12-01

    Children spend a large proportion of their school day engaged in tasks that require manual dexterity. If children experience difficulties with their manual dexterity skills it can have a consequential effect on their academic achievement. The first aim of this paper was to explore whether an online interactive typing intervention could improve children's scores on a standardised measure of manual dexterity. The second aim was to implement a serial reaction time tapping task as an index of children's finger movement learning, and to see whether performance on this task would improve after the intervention. Seventy-eight typically developing children aged between 8 and 10 were tested at their school on the pre-intervention Movement Assessment Battery for Children (2nd edition; MABC-2) and tapping tasks. Twenty-eight of these children volunteered to be randomly allocated to the intervention or control group. Children in the intervention group had a choice of two online games to play at home over a period of four weeks, while the children in the control group were not given these games to play. The intervention and control groups were then re-tested on the MABC-2 manual dexterity and the tapping task. Children in the intervention group significantly improved their manual dexterity scores in the MABC-2 compared to the control group. On average, all children learnt the tapping sequence, however, there were no group differences and no effect of the intervention on the tapping task. These results have important implications for implementing a freely available, easy to administer, fun and interactive intervention to help children improve their manual dexterity skills. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. One Step at a Time: Using Task Analyses to Teach Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Snodgrass, Melinda R.; Meadan, Hedda; Ostrosky, Michaelene M.; Cheung, W. Catherine

    2017-01-01

    Task analyses are useful when teaching children how to complete tasks by breaking the tasks into small steps, particularly when children struggle to learn a skill during typical classroom instruction. We describe how to create a task analysis by identifying the steps a child needs to independently perform the task, how to assess what steps a child…

  14. False belief understanding and "cool" inhibitory control in 3-and 4-years-old Italian children.

    PubMed

    Bellagamba, Francesca; Addessi, Elsa; Focaroli, Valentina; Pecora, Giulia; Maggiorelli, Valentina; Pace, Beatrice; Paglieri, Fabio

    2015-01-01

    During preschool years, major developments occur in both executive function and theory of mind (ToM), and several studies have demonstrated a correlation between these processes. Research on the development of inhibitory control (IC) has distinguished between more cognitive, "cool" aspects of self-control, measured by conflict tasks, that require inhibiting an habitual response to generate an arbitrary one, and "hot," affective aspects, such as affective decision making, measured by delay tasks, that require inhibition of a prepotent response. The aim of this study was to investigate the relations between 3- and 4-year-olds' performance on a task measuring false belief understanding, the most widely used index of ToM in preschoolers, and three tasks measuring cognitive versus affective aspects of IC. To this end, we tested 101 Italian preschool children in four tasks: (a) the Unexpected Content False Belief task, (b) the Conflict task (a simplified version of the Day-Night Stroop task), (c) the Delay task, and (d) the Delay Choice task. Children's receptive vocabulary was assessed by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test. Children's performance in the False Belief task was significantly related only to performance in the Conflict task, controlling for vocabulary and age. Importantly, children's performance in the Conflict task did not significantly correlate with their performance in the Delay task or in the Delay Choice task, suggesting that these tasks measure different components of IC. The dissociation between the Conflict and the Delay tasks may indicate that monitoring and regulating a cool process (as flexible categorization) may involve different abilities than monitoring and regulating a hot process (not touching an available and highly attractive stimulus or choosing between a smaller immediate option and a larger delayed one). Moreover, our findings support the view that "cool" aspects of IC and ToM are interrelated, extending to an Italian sample of

  15. The Opposites Task: Using General Rules to Test Cognitive Flexibility in Preschoolers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baker, Sara T.; Friedman, Ori; Leslie, Alan M.

    2010-01-01

    Executive functions play an important role in cognitive development, and during the preschool years especially, children's performance is limited in tasks that demand flexibility in their behavior. We asked whether preschoolers would exhibit limitations when they are required to apply a general rule in the context of novel stimuli on every trial…

  16. Relationships between Continuous Performance Task Scores and Other Cognitive Measures: Causality or Commonality?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Aylward, Glen P.; Gordon, Michael; Verhulst, Steven J.

    1997-01-01

    Relationships among continuous performance test (CPT), IQ, achievement, and memory/learning scores were explored for 1,280 children about 9 years old. Associations among the CPT measures and various cognitive/academic tasks suggest that all require attention and inhibition. The importance of assessing attention and disinhibition in psychological…

  17. Comprehension of handwriting development: Pen-grip kinetics in handwriting tasks and its relation to fine motor skills among school-age children.

    PubMed

    Lin, Yu-Chen; Chao, Yen-Li; Wu, Shyi-Kuen; Lin, Ho-Hsio; Hsu, Chieh-Hsiang; Hsu, Hsiao-Man; Kuo, Li-Chieh

    2017-10-01

    Numerous tools have been developed to evaluate handwriting performances by analysing written products. However, few studies have directly investigated kinetic performances of digits when holding a pen. This study thus attempts to investigate pen-grip kinetics during writing tasks of school-age children and explore the relationship between the kinetic factors and fine motor skills. This study recruited 181 children aged from 5 to 12 years old and investigated the effects of age on handwriting kinetics and the relationship between these and fine motor skills. The forces applied from the digits and pen-tip were measured during writing tasks via a force acquisition pen, and the children's fine motor performances were also evaluated. The results indicate that peak force and average force might not be direct indicators of handwriting performance for normally developing children at this age. Younger children showed larger force variation and lower adjustment frequency during writing, which might indicate they had poorer force control than the older children. Force control when handling a pen is significantly correlated with fine motor performance, especially in relation to the manual dexterity. A novel system is proposed for analysing school-age children's force control while handwriting. We observed the development of force control in relation to pen grip among the children with different ages in this study. The findings suggested that manipulation skill may be crucial when children are establishing their handwriting capabilities. © 2017 Occupational Therapy Australia.

  18. Pediatric functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging: tactics for encouraging task compliance.

    PubMed

    Schlund, Michael W; Cataldo, Michael F; Siegle, Greg J; Ladouceur, Cecile D; Silk, Jennifer S; Forbes, Erika E; McFarland, Ashley; Iyengar, Satish; Dahl, Ronald E; Ryan, Neal D

    2011-05-06

    Neuroimaging technology has afforded advances in our understanding of normal and pathological brain function and development in children and adolescents. However, noncompliance involving the inability to remain in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to complete tasks is one common and significant problem. Task noncompliance is an especially significant problem in pediatric functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research because increases in noncompliance produces a greater risk that a study sample will not be representative of the study population. In this preliminary investigation, we describe the development and application of an approach for increasing the number of fMRI tasks children complete during neuroimaging. Twenty-eight healthy children ages 9-13 years participated. Generalization of the approach was examined in additional fMRI and event-related potential investigations with children at risk for depression, children with anxiety and children with depression (N=120). Essential features of the approach include a preference assessment for identifying multiple individualized rewards, increasing reinforcement rates during imaging by pairing tasks with chosen rewards and presenting a visual 'road map' listing tasks, rewards and current progress. Our results showing a higher percentage of fMRI task completion by healthy children provides proof of concept data for the recommended tactics. Additional support was provided by results showing our approach generalized to several additional fMRI and event-related potential investigations and clinical populations. We proposed that some forms of task noncompliance may emerge from less than optimal reward protocols. While our findings may not directly support the effectiveness of the multiple reward compliance protocol, increased attention to how rewards are selected and delivered may aid cooperation with completing fMRI tasks. The proposed approach contributes to the pediatric neuroimaging literature by

  19. Resolving task rule incongruence during task switching by competitor rule suppression.

    PubMed

    Meiran, Nachshon; Hsieh, Shulan; Dimov, Eduard

    2010-07-01

    Task switching requires maintaining readiness to execute any task of a given set of tasks. However, when tasks switch, the readiness to execute the now-irrelevant task generates interference, as seen in the task rule incongruence effect. Overcoming such interference requires fine-tuned inhibition that impairs task readiness only minimally. In an experiment involving 2 object classification tasks and 2 location classification tasks, the authors show that irrelevant task rules that generate response conflicts are inhibited. This competitor rule suppression (CRS) is seen in response slowing in subsequent trials, when the competing rules become relevant. CRS is shown to operate on specific rules without affecting similar rules. CRS and backward inhibition, which is another inhibitory phenomenon, produced additive effects on reaction time, suggesting their mutual independence. Implications for current formal theories of task switching as well as for conflict monitoring theories are discussed. (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved

  20. Response allocation to concurrent fixed-ratio reinforcement schedules with work requirements by adults with mental retardation and typical preschool children.

    PubMed Central

    Cuvo, A J; Lerch, L J; Leurquin, D A; Gaffaney, T J; Poppen, R L

    1998-01-01

    The present experiments examined the effect of work requirements in combination with reinforcement schedule on the choice behavior of adults with mental retardation and preschool children. The work requirements of age-appropriate tasks (i.e., sorting silverware, jumping hurdles, tossing beanbags) were manipulated. Participants were presented with their choice of two response options for each trial that varied simultaneously on both work requirement and reinforcement schedule. Results showed that when responding to both choices occurred on the same reinforcement schedule, participants allocated most of their responses to the option with the easier work requirement. When the response option requiring less work was on a leaner reinforcement schedule, most participants shifted their choice to exert more work. There were individual differences across participants regarding their pattern of responding and when they switched from the lesser to the greater work requirement. Data showed that participants' responding was largely controlled by the reinforcement received for responding to each level of work. Various conceptualizations regarding the effects of work requirements on choice behavior are discussed. PMID:9532750

  1. Complex Sentence Comprehension and Working Memory in Children With Specific Language Impairment

    PubMed Central

    Montgomery, James W.; Evans, Julia L.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose This study investigated the association of 2 mechanisms of working memory (phonological short-term memory [PSTM], attentional resource capacity/allocation) with the sentence comprehension of school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 2 groups of control children. Method Twenty-four children with SLI, 18 age-matched (CA) children, and 16 language- and memory-matched (LMM) children completed a nonword repetition task (PSTM), the competing language processing task (CLPT; resource capacity/allocation), and a sentence comprehension task comprising complex and simple sentences. Results (1) The SLI group performed worse than the CA group on each memory task; (2) all 3 groups showed comparable simple sentence comprehension, but for complex sentences, the SLI and LMM groups performed worse than the CA group; (3) for the SLI group, (a) CLPT correlated with complex sentence comprehension, and (b) nonword repetition correlated with simple sentence comprehension; (4) for CA children, neither memory variable correlated with either sentence type; and (5) for LMM children, only CLPT correlated with complex sentences. Conclusions Comprehension of both complex and simple grammar by school-age children with SLI is a mentally demanding activity, requiring significant working memory resources. PMID:18723601

  2. The Acute Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Cognitive Flexibility and Task-Related Heart Rate Variability in Children With ADHD and Healthy Controls.

    PubMed

    Ludyga, Sebastian; Gerber, Markus; Mücke, Manuel; Brand, Serge; Weber, Peter; Brotzmann, Mark; Pühse, Uwe

    2018-02-01

    To investigate cognitive flexibility and task-related heart rate variability following moderately intense aerobic exercise and after watching a video in both children with ADHD and healthy controls. Using a cross-over design, participants completed cognitive assessments following exercise and a physically inactive control condition. Behavioral performance was assessed using the Alternate Uses task. Heart rate variability was recorded via electrocardiography during the cognitive task. The statistical analysis revealed that in comparison with the control condition, both groups showed higher cognitive flexibility following aerobic exercise. Moreover, decreased low frequency and high frequency power was observed in the exercise condition. The findings suggest that exercise elicits similar benefits for cognitive flexibility in children with ADHD and healthy controls, partly due to an increase in arousal induced by parasympathetic withdrawal.

  3. Implicit semantic priming in Spanish-speaking children and adults: an auditory lexical decision task.

    PubMed

    Girbau, Dolors; Schwartz, Richard G

    2011-05-01

    Although receptive priming has long been used as a way to examine lexical access in adults, few studies have applied this method to children and rarely in an auditory modality. We compared auditory associative priming in children and adults. A testing battery and a Lexical Decision (LD) task was administered to 42 adults and 27 children (8;1-10; 11 years-old) from Spain. They listened to Spanish word pairs (semantically related/unrelated word pairs and word-pseudoword pairs), and tone pairs. Then participants pressed one key for word pairs, and another for pairs with a word and a pseudoword. They also had to press the two keys alternatively for tone pairs as a basic auditory control. Both groups of participants, children and adults, exhibited semantic priming, with significantly faster Reaction Times (RTs) to semantically related word pairs than to unrelated pairs and to the two word-pseudoword sets. The priming effect was twice as large in the adults compared to children, and the children (not the adults) were significantly slower in their response to word-pseudoword pairs than to the unrelated word pairs. Moreover, accuracy was somewhat higher in adults than children for each word pair type, but especially in the word-pseudoword pairs. As expected, children were significantly slower than adults in the RTs for all stimulus types, and their RTs decreased significantly from 8 to 10 years of age and they also decreased in relation to some of their language abilities development (e.g., relative clauses comprehension). In both age groups, the Reaction Time average for tone pairs was lower than for speech pairs, but only all adults obtained 100% accuracy (which was slightly lower in children). Auditory processing and semantic networks are still developing in 8-10 year old children.

  4. Deficits in Upper Limb Position Sense of Children with Spastic Hemiparetic Cerebral Palsy Are Distance-Dependent

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smorenburg, Ana R. P.; Ledebt, Annick; Deconinck, Frederik J. A.; Savelsbergh, Geert J. P.

    2012-01-01

    This study examined the arm position sense in children with Spastic Hemiparetic Cerebral Palsy (SHCP) and typically developing children (TD) by means of a contralateral matching task. This task required participants to match the position of one arm with the position of the other arm for different target distances and from different starting…

  5. Iconicity influences how effectively minimally verbal children with autism and ability-matched typically developing children use pictures as symbols in a search task.

    PubMed

    Hartley, Calum; Allen, Melissa L

    2015-07-01

    Previous word learning studies suggest that children with autism spectrum disorder may have difficulty understanding pictorial symbols. Here we investigate the ability of children with autism spectrum disorder and language-matched typically developing children to contextualize symbolic information communicated by pictures in a search task that did not involve word learning. Out of the participant's view, a small toy was concealed underneath one of four unique occluders that were individuated by familiar nameable objects or unfamiliar unnamable objects. Children were shown a picture of the hiding location and then searched for the toy. Over three sessions, children completed trials with color photographs, black-and-white line drawings, and abstract color pictures. The results reveal zero group differences; neither children with autism spectrum disorder nor typically developing children were influenced by occluder familiarity, and both groups' errorless retrieval rates were above-chance with all three picture types. However, both groups made significantly more errorless retrievals in the most-iconic photograph trials, and performance was universally predicted by receptive language. Therefore, our findings indicate that children with autism spectrum disorder and young typically developing children can contextualize pictures and use them to adaptively guide their behavior in real time and space. However, this ability is significantly influenced by receptive language development and pictorial iconicity. © The Author(s) 2014.

  6. Developmental dyscalculia and low numeracy in Chinese children.

    PubMed

    Chan, Winnie Wai Lan; Au, Terry K; Tang, Joey

    2013-05-01

    Children struggle with mathematics for different reasons. Developmental dyscalculia and low numeracy - two kinds of mathematical difficulties - may have their roots, respectively, in poor understanding of exact non-symbolic numerosities and of symbolic numerals. This study was the first to explore whether Chinese children, despite cultural and linguistic factors supporting their mathematical learning, also showed such mathematical difficulties and whether such difficulties have measurable impact on children's early school mathematical performance. First-graders, classified as dyscalculia, low numeracy, or normal achievement, were compared for their performance in various school mathematical tasks requiring a grasp of non-symbolic numerosities (i.e., non-symbolic tasks) or an understanding of symbolic numerals (i.e., symbolic tasks). Children with dyscalculia showed poorer performance than their peers in non-symbolic tasks but not symbolic ones, whereas those with low numeracy showed poorer performance in symbolic tasks but not non-symbolic ones. As hypothesized, these findings suggested that dyscalculia and low numeracy were distinct deficits and caused by deficits in non-symbolic and symbolic processing, respectively. These findings went beyond prior research that only documented generally low mathematical achievements for these two groups of children. Moreover, these deficits appeared to be persistent and could not be remedied simply through day-to-day school mathematical learning. The present findings highlighted the importance of tailoring early learning support for children with these distinct deficits, and pointed to future directions for the screening of such mathematical difficulties among Chinese children. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. Performance in Object-Choice Aesop’s Fable Tasks Are Influenced by Object Biases in New Caledonian Crows but not in Human Children

    PubMed Central

    Taylor, Alex H.; Cheke, Lucy G.; Gray, Russell D.; Loissel, Elsa; Clayton, Nicola S.

    2016-01-01

    The ability to reason about causality underlies key aspects of human cognition, but the extent to which non-humans understand causality is still largely unknown. The Aesop’s Fable paradigm, where objects are inserted into water-filled tubes to obtain out-of-reach rewards, has been used to test casual reasoning in birds and children. However, success on these tasks may be influenced by other factors, specifically, object preferences present prior to testing or arising during pre-test stone-dropping training. Here, we assessed this ‘object-bias’ hypothesis by giving New Caledonian crows and 5–10 year old children two object-choice Aesop’s Fable experiments: sinking vs. floating objects, and solid vs. hollow objects. Before each test, we assessed subjects’ object preferences and/or trained them to prefer the alternative object. Both crows and children showed pre-test object preferences, suggesting that birds in previous Aesop’s Fable studies may also have had initial preferences for objects that proved to be functional on test. After training to prefer the non-functional object, crows, but not children, performed more poorly on these two object-choice Aesop’s Fable tasks than subjects in previous studies. Crows dropped the non-functional objects into the tube on their first trials, indicating that, unlike many children, they do not appear to have an a priori understanding of water displacement. Alternatively, issues with inhibition could explain their performance. The crows did, however, learn to solve the tasks over time. We tested crows further to determine whether their eventual success was based on learning about the functional properties of the objects, or associating dropping the functional object with reward. Crows inserted significantly more rewarded, non-functional objects than non-rewarded, functional objects. These findings suggest that the ability of New Caledonian crows to produce performances rivaling those of young children on object

  8. Sequence for the Training of Eye-Hand Coordination Needed for the Organization of Handwriting Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Trester, Mary Fran

    1971-01-01

    Suggested is a sequence of 11 class activities, progressing from gross to fine motor skills, to assist the development of skills required to perform handwriting tasks successfully, for use particularly with children who lack fine motor control and eye-hand coordination. (KW)

  9. The Effect of Bilingualism on Letter and Category Fluency Tasks in Primary School Children: Advantage or Disadvantage?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kormi-Nouri, Reza; Moradi, Ali-Reza; Moradi, Shahram; Akbari-Zardkhaneh, Saeed; Zahedian, Haedeh

    2012-01-01

    The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of bilingualism on letter and category fluency tasks. Participants were 1,600 monolingual and bilingual children from three cities in Iran: Tehran (Persian monolinguals), Tabriz (Turkish-Persian bilinguals), and Sanandaj (Kurdish-Persian bilinguals). We separately presented nine Persian…

  10. Time Estimation and Performance on Reproduction Tasks in Subtypes of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Salas, Carmen C.; Bauermeister, Jose J.; Barkley, Russell A.; Martinez, Jose V.; Cumba, Eduardo; Ramirez, Rafael R.; Reina, Graciela; Matos, Maribel

    2005-01-01

    This study compared Hispanic children (ages 7 to 11) with combined type (CT, n = 33) and inattentive type (IT, n = 21) attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a control group (n = 25) on time-estimation and time-reproduction tasks. The ADHD groups showed larger errors in time reproduction but not in time estimation than the control…

  11. Two-and-a-half-year-olds succeed at a traditional false-belief task with reduced processing demands

    PubMed Central

    Scott, Rose M.; Baillargeon, Renée

    2016-01-01

    When tested with traditional false-belief tasks, which require answering a standard question about the likely behavior of an agent with a false belief, children perform below chance until age 4 y or later. When tested without such questions, however, children give evidence of false-belief understanding much earlier. Are traditional tasks difficult because they tap a more advanced form of false-belief understanding (fundamental-change view) or because they impose greater processing demands (processing-demands view)? Evidence that young children succeed at traditional false-belief tasks when processing demands are reduced would support the latter view. In prior research, reductions in inhibitory-control demands led to improvements in young children’s performance, but often only to chance (instead of below-chance) levels. Here we examined whether further reductions in processing demands might lead to success. We speculated that: (i) young children could respond randomly in a traditional low-inhibition task because their limited information-processing resources are overwhelmed by the total concurrent processing demands in the task; and (ii) these demands include those from the response-generation process activated by the standard question. This analysis suggested that 2.5-y-old toddlers might succeed at a traditional low-inhibition task if response-generation demands were also reduced via practice trials. As predicted, toddlers performed above chance following two response-generation practice trials; toddlers failed when these trials either were rendered less effective or were used in a high-inhibition task. These results support the processing-demands view: Even toddlers succeed at a traditional false-belief task when overall processing demands are reduced. PMID:27821728

  12. Self-handicapping prior to academic-oriented tasks in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): medication effects and comparisons with controls.

    PubMed

    Waschbusch, Daniel A; Craig, Rebecca; Pelham, William E; King, Sara

    2007-04-01

    Examined self-handicapping prior to academic-oriented tasks in children with and without ADHD and examined whether stimulant medication influenced self-handicapping. Participants were 61 children ages 6 to 13, including 22 children with ADHD tested after taking a placebo, 21 children with ADHD tested after taking stimulant medication, and 18 non-ADHD controls. Participants completed three measures of self handicapping and also completed self-evaluations of their performance. Results showed greater self handicapping and more positive self-evaluations in children with ADHD than in controls regardless of medication condition. Findings suggest children with ADHD may use self handicapping to ameliorate the effects of experiencing high rates of academic failure.

  13. Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching

    PubMed Central

    Davidson, Matthew C.; Amso, Dima; Anderson, Loren Cruess; Diamond, Adele

    2006-01-01

    Predictions concerning development, interrelations, and possible independence of working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility were tested in 325 participants (roughly 30 per age from 4 to 13 years and young adults; 50% female). All were tested on the same computerized battery, designed to manipulate memory and inhibition independently and together, in steady state (single-task blocks) and during task-switching, and to be appropriate over the lifespan and for neuroimaging (fMRI). This is one of the first studies, in children or adults, to explore: (a) how memory requirements interact with spatial compatibility and (b) spatial incompatibility effects both with stimulus-specific rules (Simon task) and with higher-level, conceptual rules. Even the youngest children could hold information in mind, inhibit a dominant response, and combine those as long as the inhibition required was steady-state and the rules remained constant. Cognitive flexibility (switching between rules), even with memory demands minimized, showed a longer developmental progression, with 13-year-olds still not at adult levels. Effects elicited only in Mixed blocks with adults were found in young children even in single-task blocks; while young children could exercise inhibition in steady state it exacted a cost not seen in adults, who (unlike young children) seemed to re-set their default response when inhibition of the same tendency was required throughout a block. The costs associated with manipulations of inhibition were greater in young children while the costs associated with increasing memory demands were greater in adults. Effects seen only in RT in adults were seen primarily in accuracy in young children. Adults slowed down on difficult trials to preserve accuracy; but the youngest children were impulsive; their RT remained more constant but at an accuracy cost on difficult trials. Contrary to our predictions of independence between memory and inhibition, when matched for difficulty

  14. Drawing Links between the Autism Cognitive Profile and Imagination: Executive Function and Processing Bias in Imaginative Drawings by Children with and without Autism

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ten Eycke, Kayla D.; Müller, Ulrich

    2018-01-01

    Little is known about the relation between cognitive processes and imagination and whether this relation differs between neurotypically developing children and children with autism. To address this issue, we administered a cognitive task battery and Karmiloff-Smith's drawing task, which requires children to draw imaginative people and houses. For…

  15. Assessing the role of memory in preschoolers' performance on episodic foresight tasks.

    PubMed

    Atance, Cristina M; Sommerville, Jessica A

    2014-01-01

    A total of 48 preschoolers (ages 3, 4, and 5) received four tasks modelled after prior work designed to assess the development of "episodic foresight". For each task, children encountered a problem in one room and, after a brief delay, were given the opportunity in a second room to select an item to solve the problem. Importantly, after selecting an item, children were queried about their memory for the problem. Age-related changes were found both in children's ability to select the correct item and their ability to remember the problem. However, when we controlled for children's memory for the problem, there were no longer significant age-related changes on the item choice measure. These findings suggest that age-related changes in children's performance on these tasks are driven by improvements in children's memory versus improvements in children's future-oriented thinking or "foresight" per se. Our results have important implications for how best to structure tasks to measure children's episodic foresight, and also for the relative role of memory in this task and in episodic foresight more broadly.

  16. Robotics/Automated Systems Task Analysis and Description of Required Job Competencies Report. Task Analysis and Description of Required Job Competencies of Robotics/Automated Systems Technicians.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hull, Daniel M.; Lovett, James E.

    This task analysis report for the Robotics/Automated Systems Technician (RAST) curriculum project first provides a RAST job description. It then discusses the task analysis, including the identification of tasks, the grouping of tasks according to major areas of specialty, and the comparison of the competencies to existing or new courses to…

  17. Similar prefrontal cortical activities between general fluid intelligence and visuospatial working memory tasks in preschool children as revealed by optical topography.

    PubMed

    Kuwajima, Mariko; Sawaguchi, Toshiyuki

    2010-10-01

    General fluid intelligence (gF) is a major component of intellect in both adults and children. Whereas its neural substrates have been studied relatively thoroughly in adults, those are poorly understood in children, particularly preschoolers. Here, we hypothesized that gF and visuospatial working memory share a common neural system within the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) during the preschool years (4-6 years). At the behavioral level, we found that gF positively and significantly correlated with abilities (especially accuracy) in visuospatial working memory. Optical topography revealed that the LPFC of preschoolers was activated and deactivated during the visuospatial working memory task and the gF task. We found that the spatio-temporal features of neural activity in the LPFC were similar for both the visuospatial working memory task and the gF task. Further, 2 months of training for the visuospatial working memory task significantly increased gF in the preschoolers. These findings suggest that a common neural system in the LPFC is recruited to improve the visuospatial working memory and gF in preschoolers. Efficient recruitment of this neural system may be important for good performance in these functions in preschoolers, and behavioral training using this system would help to increase gF at these ages.

  18. Parents' self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and self-reported task performance when managing atopic dermatitis in children: instrument reliability and validity.

    PubMed

    Mitchell, Amy E; Fraser, Jennifer A

    2011-02-01

    Support and education for parents faced with managing a child with atopic dermatitis is crucial to the success of current treatments. Interventions aiming to improve parent management of this condition are promising. Unfortunately, evaluation is hampered by lack of precise research tools to measure change. To develop a suite of valid and reliable research instruments to appraise parents' self-efficacy for performing atopic dermatitis management tasks; outcome expectations of performing management tasks; and self-reported task performance in a community sample of parents of children with atopic dermatitis. The Parents' Eczema Management Scale (PEMS) and the Parents' Outcome Expectations of Eczema Management Scale (POEEMS) were developed from an existing self-efficacy scale, the Parental Self-Efficacy with Eczema Care Index (PASECI). Each scale was presented in a single self-administered questionnaire, to measure self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and self-reported task performance related to managing child atopic dermatitis. Each was tested with a community sample of parents of children with atopic dermatitis, and psychometric evaluation of the scales' reliability and validity was conducted. A community-based convenience sample of 120 parents of children with atopic dermatitis completed the self-administered questionnaire. Participants were recruited through schools across Australia. Satisfactory internal consistency and test-retest reliability was demonstrated for all three scales. Construct validity was satisfactory, with positive relationships between self-efficacy for managing atopic dermatitis and general perceived self-efficacy; self-efficacy for managing atopic dermatitis and self-reported task performance; and self-efficacy for managing atopic dermatitis and outcome expectations. Factor analyses revealed two-factor structures for PEMS and PASECI alike, with both scales containing factors related to performing routine management tasks, and managing the

  19. Looking ahead? Computerized maze task performance by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella), and human children (Homo sapiens).

    PubMed

    Beran, Michael J; Parrish, Audrey E; Futch, Sara E; Evans, Theodore A; Perdue, Bonnie M

    2015-05-01

    Human and nonhuman primates are not mentally constrained to the present. They can remember the past and-at least to an extent-anticipate the future. Anticipation of the future ranges from long-term prospection such as planning for retirement to more short-term future-oriented cognition such as planning a route through a maze. Here we tested a great ape species (chimpanzees), an Old World monkey species (rhesus macaques), a New World monkey species (capuchin monkeys), and human children on a computerized maze task. All subjects had to move a cursor through a maze to reach a goal at the bottom of the screen. For best performance on the task, subjects had to "plan ahead" to the end of the maze to move the cursor in the correct direction, avoid traps, and reverse directions if necessary. Mazes varied in difficulty. Chimpanzees were better than both monkey species, and monkeys showed a particular deficit when moving away from the goal or changing directions was required. Children showed a similar pattern to monkeys regarding the effects of reversals and moves away from the goal, but their overall performance in terms of correct maze completion was similar to the chimpanzees. The results highlight similarities as well as differences in planning across species and the role that inhibitory control may play in future-oriented cognition in primates. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  20. Task Analysis and the Ability Requirements of Tasks: Collected Papers.

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1981-09-01

    Skill. In F. A . Bilodeau (ed.) Acquisition of Skill, New York: Academic Pr.sS, 1066, 147-167. Kennedy, R. S., Bittner, A. C., Jr. & Harbeson, M. M...o.-iL cili * ii It~ ti(-t Iat :iiiss, iil- aind whose tasks ite menitt into- Cilirnori1 risk eLect- ielt ’. T: i s iLu,’ ie r t, r-io-.’I i-i viii d

  1. Processes Underlying Young Children's Spatial Orientation during Movement.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bremner, J. Gavin; And Others

    1994-01-01

    Tested children 18 months to 4 years for their ability to relocate a hidden object after self-produced movement around an array of 4 locations. Children encountered no specific difficulty in coordinating dimensions, or they solved the task without recourse to such a system. They also appeared to change strategy when the problem requires more…

  2. Preschool physics: Using the invisible property of weight in causal reasoning tasks.

    PubMed

    Wang, Zhidan; Williamson, Rebecca A; Meltzoff, Andrew N

    2018-01-01

    Causal reasoning is an important aspect of scientific thinking. Even young human children can use causal reasoning to explain observations, make predictions, and design actions to bring about specific outcomes in the physical world. Weight is an interesting type of cause because it is an invisible property. Here, we tested preschool children with causal problem-solving tasks that assessed their understanding of weight. In an experimental setting, 2- to 5-year-old children completed three different tasks in which they had to use weight to produce physical effects-an object displacement task, a balance-scale task, and a tower-building task. The results showed that the children's understanding of how to use object weight to produce specific object-to-object causal outcomes improved as a function of age, with 4- and 5-year-olds showing above-chance performance on all three tasks. The younger children's performance was more variable. The pattern of results provides theoretical insights into which aspects of weight processing are particularly difficult for preschool children and why they find it difficult.

  3. Cognitive-evaluative features of childhood social anxiety in a performance task.

    PubMed

    Tuschen-Caffier, Brunna; Kühl, Sigrid; Bender, Caroline

    2011-06-01

    Using an experimental design, we analysed differences in the occurrence of cognitive-evaluative distortions and performance deficits across children with social anxiety disorder, with subclinical anxiety and without any anxiety symptoms. Twenty-one children with full syndrome social phobia, 18 children with partial syndrome social phobia and 20 children without any symptoms of social phobia were compared with respect to their degree of anxiety, negative thinking and task performance during two social-evaluative tasks. In addition, self-ratings of task performance, performance estimations for other children and objective behavioural ratings by two independent observers were obtained. Children with social anxiety disorder and subclinical social anxiety showed higher degrees of experienced anxiety and negative thinking than healthy control children. There was no group difference in respect to actual task performance. Findings are discussed with regard to the continuum assumption of childhood social anxiety disorder and the need of well-adapted early interventions. Copyright © 2010. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  4. Factors Responsible for Performance on the Day-Night Task: Response Set or Semantics?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Simpson, Andrew; Riggs, Kevin J.

    2005-01-01

    In a recent study Diamond, Kirkham and Amso (2002) obtained evidence consistent with the claim that the day-night task requires inhibition because the picture and its corresponding conflicting response are semantically related. In their study children responded more accurately in a dog-pig condition (see /day picture/ say "dog"; see /night…

  5. Effect of task-oriented training and high-variability practice on gross motor performance and activities of daily living in children with spastic diplegia.

    PubMed

    Kwon, Hae-Yeon; Ahn, So-Yoon

    2016-10-01

    [Purpose] This study investigates how a task-oriented training and high-variability practice program can affect the gross motor performance and activities of daily living for children with spastic diplegia and provides an effective and reliable clinical database for future improvement of motor performances skills. [Subjects and Methods] This study randomly assigned seven children with spastic diplegia to each intervention group including that of a control group, task-oriented training group, and a high-variability practice group. The control group only received neurodevelopmental treatment for 40 minutes, while the other two intervention groups additionally implemented a task-oriented training and high-variability practice program for 8 weeks (twice a week, 60 min per session). To compare intra and inter-relationships of the three intervention groups, this study measured gross motor performance measure (GMPM) and functional independence measure for children (WeeFIM) before and after 8 weeks of training. [Results] There were statistically significant differences in the amount of change before and after the training among the three intervention groups for the gross motor performance measure and functional independence measure. [Conclusion] Applying high-variability practice in a task-oriented training course may be considered an efficient intervention method to improve motor performance skills that can tune to movement necessary for daily livelihood through motor experience and learning of new skills as well as change of tasks learned in a complex environment or similar situations to high-variability practice.

  6. Feasibility of using touch screen technology for early cognitive assessment in children.

    PubMed

    Twomey, Deirdre M; Wrigley, Conal; Ahearne, Caroline; Murphy, Raegan; De Haan, Michelle; Marlow, Neil; Murray, Deirdre M

    2018-03-13

    To explore the feasibility of using a touch screen assessment tool to measure cognitive capacity in toddlers. 112 typically developing children with a median age of 31 months (IQR: 26-34) interacted with a touch screen cognitive assessment tool. We examined the sensitivity of the tool to age-related changes in cognition by comparing the number of items completed, speed of task completion and accuracy in two age groups; 24-29 months versus 30-36 months. Children aged 30-36 months completed more tasks (median: 18, IQR: 18-18) than those aged 24-29 months (median: 17, IQR: 15-18). Older children also completed two of the three working memory tasks and an object permanence task faster than their younger peers. Children became faster at completing the working memory items with each exposure and registered similar completion times on the hidden object retrieval items, despite task demands being twofold on the second exposure. A novel item required children to integrate what they had learnt on preceding items. The older group was more likely to complete this item and to do so faster than the younger group. Children as young as 24 months can complete items requiring cognitive engagement on a touch screen device, with no verbal instruction and minimal child-administrator interaction. This paves the way for using touch screen technology for language and administrator independent developmental assessment in toddlers. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

  7. A Continuous False Belief Task Reveals Egocentric Biases in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Begeer, Sander; Bernstein, Daniel M.; van Wijhe, Jonas; Scheeren, Anke M.; Koot, Hans M.

    2012-01-01

    This study reports on a new false belief measure in a sample of 124 children and adolescents with or without high functioning autism (HFASD). In the classic paradigm, a participant predicts in which of two discrete locations a deceived protagonist will look for an object. In the current Sandbox task, the object is buried and reburied in a sandbox,…

  8. Preliminary evidence that different mechanisms underlie the anger superiority effect in children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders

    PubMed Central

    Isomura, Tomoko; Ogawa, Shino; Yamada, Satoko; Shibasaki, Masahiro; Masataka, Nobuo

    2014-01-01

    Previous studies have demonstrated that angry faces capture humans' attention more rapidly than emotionally positive faces. This phenomenon is referred to as the anger superiority effect (ASE). Despite atypical emotional processing, adults and children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have been reported to show ASE as well as typically developed (TD) individuals. So far, however, few studies have clarified whether or not the mechanisms underlying ASE are the same for both TD and ASD individuals. Here, we tested how TD and ASD children process schematic emotional faces during detection by employing a recognition task in combination with a face-in-the-crowd task. Results of the face-in-the-crowd task revealed the prevalence of ASE both in TD and ASD children. However, the results of the recognition task revealed group differences: In TD children, detection of angry faces required more configural face processing and disrupted the processing of local features. In ASD children, on the other hand, it required more feature-based processing rather than configural processing. Despite the small sample sizes, these findings provide preliminary evidence that children with ASD, in contrast to TD children, show quick detection of angry faces by extracting local features in faces. PMID:24904477

  9. Effect of pencil grasp on the speed and legibility of handwriting after a 10-minute copy task in Grade 4 children.

    PubMed

    Schwellnus, Heidi; Carnahan, Heather; Kushki, Azadeh; Polatajko, Helene; Missiuna, Cheryl; Chau, Tom

    2012-06-01

    To investigate the impact of common pencil grasp patterns on the speed and legibility of handwriting after a 10-minute copy task, intended to induce muscle fatigue, in typically developing children and in those non-proficient in handwriting. A total of 120 Grade 4 students completed a standardised handwriting assessment before and after a 10-minute copy task. The students indicated the perceived difficulty of the handwriting task at baseline and after 10 minutes. The students also completed a self-report questionnaire regarding their handwriting proficiency upon completion. The majority of the students rated higher effort after the 10-minute copy task than at baseline (rank sum: P = 0.00001). The effort ratings were similar for the different grasp patterns (multiple linear regression: F = 0.37, P = 0.895). For both typically developing children and those with handwriting issues, the legibility of the writing samples decreased after the 10-minute copy task but the speed of writing increased. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY: The quality of the handwriting decreased after the 10-minute copy task; however, there was no difference in the quality or speed scores among the different pencil grasps before and after the copy task. The dynamic tripod pencil grasp did not offer any advantage over the lateral tripod or the dynamic or lateral quadrupod pencil grasps in terms of quality of handwriting after a 10-minute copy task. These four pencil grasp patterns performed equivalently. Our findings question the practice of having students adopt the dynamic tripod pencil grasp. © 2012 The Authors Australian Occupational Therapy Journal © 2012 Occupational Therapy Australia.

  10. Reduced dual-task gait speed is associated with visual Go/No-Go brain network activation in children and adolescents with concussion.

    PubMed

    Howell, David R; Meehan, William P; Barber Foss, Kim D; Reches, Amit; Weiss, Michal; Myer, Gregory D

    2018-05-31

    To investigate the association between dual-task gait performance and brain network activation (BNA) using an electroencephalography (EEG)-based Go/No-Go paradigm among children and adolescents with concussion. Participants with a concussion completed a visual Go/No-Go task with collection of electroencephalogram brain activity. Data were treated with BNA analysis, which involves an algorithmic approach to EEG-ERP activation quantification. Participants also completed a dual-task gait assessment. The relationship between dual-task gait speed and BNA was assessed using multiple linear regression models. Participants (n = 20, 13.9 ± 2.3 years of age, 50% female) were tested at a mean of 7.0 ± 2.5 days post-concussion and were symptomatic at the time of testing (post-concussion symptom scale = 40.4 ± 21.9). Slower dual-task average gait speed (mean = 82.2 ± 21.0 cm/s) was significantly associated with lower relative time BNA scores (mean = 39.6 ± 25.8) during the No-Go task (β = 0.599, 95% CI = 0.214, 0.985, p = 0.005, R 2  = 0.405), while controlling for the effect of age and gender. Among children and adolescents with a concussion, slower dual-task gait speed was independently associated with lower BNA relative time scores during a visual Go/No-Go task. The relationship between abnormal gait behaviour and brain activation deficits may be reflective of disruption to multiple functional abilities after concussion.

  11. Aerobic Fitness and Intra-Individual Variability of Neurocognition in Preadolescent Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moore, Robert Davis; Wu, Chien-Ting; Pontifex, Matthew B.; O'Leary, Kevin C.; Scudder, Mark R.; Raine, Lauren B.; Johnson, Christopher R.; Hillman, Charles H.

    2013-01-01

    This study examined behavioral and neuroelectric intra-individual variability (IIV) in preadolescent children during a task requiring variable amounts of cognitive control. The current study further examined whether IIV was moderated by aerobic fitness level. Participants performed a modified flanker task, comprised of congruent and incongruent…

  12. Differences between Dyslexic and Non-Dyslexic Children in the Performance of Phonological Visual-Auditory Recognition Tasks: An Eye-Tracking Study

    PubMed Central

    Tiadi, Aimé; Seassau, Magali; Gerard, Christophe-Loïc; Bucci, Maria Pia

    2016-01-01

    The object of this study was to explore further phonological visual-auditory recognition tasks in a group of fifty-six healthy children (mean age: 9.9 ± 0.3) and to compare these data to those recorded in twenty-six age-matched dyslexic children (mean age: 9.8 ± 0.2). Eye movements from both eyes were recorded using an infrared video-oculography system (MobileEBT® e(y)e BRAIN). The recognition task was performed under four conditions in which the target object was displayed either with phonologically unrelated objects (baseline condition), or with cohort or rhyme objects (cohort and rhyme conditions, respectively), or both together (rhyme + cohort condition). The percentage of the total time spent on the targets and the latency of the first saccade on the target were measured. Results in healthy children showed that the percentage of the total time spent in the baseline condition was significantly longer than in the other conditions, and that the latency of the first saccade in the cohort condition was significantly longer than in the other conditions; interestingly, the latency decreased significantly with the increasing age of the children. The developmental trend of phonological awareness was also observed in healthy children only. In contrast, we observed that for dyslexic children the total time spent on the target was similar in all four conditions tested, and also that they had similar latency values in both cohort and rhyme conditions. These findings suggest a different sensitivity to the phonological competitors between dyslexic and non-dyslexic children. Also, the eye-tracking technique provides online information about phonological awareness capabilities in children. PMID:27438352

  13. Pediatric functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging: tactics for encouraging task compliance

    PubMed Central

    2011-01-01

    Background Neuroimaging technology has afforded advances in our understanding of normal and pathological brain function and development in children and adolescents. However, noncompliance involving the inability to remain in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to complete tasks is one common and significant problem. Task noncompliance is an especially significant problem in pediatric functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research because increases in noncompliance produces a greater risk that a study sample will not be representative of the study population. Method In this preliminary investigation, we describe the development and application of an approach for increasing the number of fMRI tasks children complete during neuroimaging. Twenty-eight healthy children ages 9-13 years participated. Generalization of the approach was examined in additional fMRI and event-related potential investigations with children at risk for depression, children with anxiety and children with depression (N = 120). Essential features of the approach include a preference assessment for identifying multiple individualized rewards, increasing reinforcement rates during imaging by pairing tasks with chosen rewards and presenting a visual 'road map' listing tasks, rewards and current progress. Results Our results showing a higher percentage of fMRI task completion by healthy children provides proof of concept data for the recommended tactics. Additional support was provided by results showing our approach generalized to several additional fMRI and event-related potential investigations and clinical populations. Discussion We proposed that some forms of task noncompliance may emerge from less than optimal reward protocols. While our findings may not directly support the effectiveness of the multiple reward compliance protocol, increased attention to how rewards are selected and delivered may aid cooperation with completing fMRI tasks Conclusion The proposed approach

  14. Beyond Capacity Limitations II: Effects of Lexical Processes on Word Recall in Verbal Working Memory Tasks in Children with and without Specific Language Impairment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L.; Coady, Jeffry

    2010-01-01

    Purpose: This study investigated the impact of lexical processes on target word recall in sentence span tasks in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Participants were 42 children (ages 8;2-12;3 [years;months]): 21 with SLI and 21 typically developing peers matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Children completed a…

  15. Children with Autism Understand Indirect Speech Acts: Evidence from a Semi-Structured Act-Out Task

    PubMed Central

    Kissine, Mikhail; Cano-Chervel, Julie; Carlier, Sophie; De Brabanter, Philippe; Ducenne, Lesley; Pairon, Marie-Charlotte; Deconinck, Nicolas; Delvenne, Véronique; Leybaert, Jacqueline

    2015-01-01

    Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder are often said to present a global pragmatic impairment. However, there is some observational evidence that context-based comprehension of indirect requests may be preserved in autism. In order to provide experimental confirmation to this hypothesis, indirect speech act comprehension was tested in a group of 15 children with autism between 7 and 12 years and a group of 20 typically developing children between 2:7 and 3:6 years. The aim of the study was to determine whether children with autism can display genuinely contextual understanding of indirect requests. The experiment consisted of a three-pronged semi-structured task involving Mr Potato Head. In the first phase a declarative sentence was uttered by one adult as an instruction to put a garment on a Mr Potato Head toy; in the second the same sentence was uttered as a comment on a picture by another speaker; in the third phase the same sentence was uttered as a comment on a picture by the first speaker. Children with autism complied with the indirect request in the first phase and demonstrated the capacity to inhibit the directive interpretation in phases 2 and 3. TD children had some difficulty in understanding the indirect instruction in phase 1. These results call for a more nuanced view of pragmatic dysfunction in autism. PMID:26551648

  16. Requirements for psychological models to support design: Towards ecological task analysis

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Kirlik, Alex

    1991-01-01

    Cognitive engineering is largely concerned with creating environmental designs to support skillful and effective human activity. A set of necessary conditions are proposed for psychological models capable of supporting this enterprise. An analysis of the psychological nature of the design product is used to identify a set of constraints that models must meet if they can usefully guide design. It is concluded that cognitive engineering requires models with resources for describing the integrated human-environment system, and that these models must be capable of describing the activities underlying fluent and effective interaction. These features are required in order to be able to predict the cognitive activity that will be required given various design concepts, and to design systems that promote the acquisition of fluent, skilled behavior. These necessary conditions suggest that an ecological approach can provide valuable resources for psychological modeling to support design. Relying heavily on concepts from Brunswik's and Gibson's ecological theories, ecological task analysis is proposed as a framework in which to predict the types of cognitive activity required to achieve productive behavior, and to suggest how interfaces can be manipulated to alleviate certain types of cognitive demands. The framework is described in terms, and illustrated with an example from the previous research on modeling skilled human-environment interaction.

  17. Learning to research in first grade: Bridging the transition from narrative to expository texts and tasks

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Weise, Richard

    Decades of research indicate that students at all academic grade and performance levels perform poorly with informational texts and tasks and particularly with locating assignment-relevant information in expository texts. Students have little understanding of the individual tasks required, the arc of the activity, the hierarchical structure of the information they seek, or how to reconstitute and interpret the information they extract. Poor performance begins with the introduction of textbooks and research assignments in fourth grade and continues into adulthood. However, to date, neither educators nor researchers have substantially addressed this problem. In this quasi-experimental study, we ask if first-grade children can perform essential tasks in identifying, extracting, and integrating assignment-relevant information and if instruction improves their performance. To answer this question, we conducted a 15-week, teacher-led, intervention in two first-grade classrooms in an inner-city Nashville elementary school. We created a computer learning environment (NoteTaker) to facilitate children's creation of a mental model of the research process and a narrative/expository bridge curriculum to support the children's transition from all narrative to all expository texts and tasks. We also created a new scaffolding taxonomy and a reading-to-research model to focus our research. Teachers participated in weekly professional development workshops. The results of this quasi-experimental study indicate that at-risk, first-grade children are able to (a) identify relevant information in an expository text, (b) categorize the information they identify, and (c) justify their choice of category. Children's performance in the first and last tasks significantly improved with instruction, and low-performing readers showed the greatest benefits from instruction. We find that the children's performance in categorizing information depended upon content-specific knowledge that was not

  18. Household Task Delegation among High-Fertility Forager-Horticulturalists of Lowland Bolivia.

    PubMed

    Stieglitz, Jonathan; Gurven, Michael; Kaplan, Hillard; Hooper, Paul L

    2013-04-01

    Human kin cooperation is universal, leading researchers to label humans as "cooperative breeders." Despite widespread interest in human cooperation, there has been no systematic study of how household economic decision making occurs. We document age and sex profiles of task delegation by parents to children ages 4-18 among Bolivian forager-horticulturalists. We test for sex differences in the probability of delegation and examine whether tasks are more likely delegated as household labor demand increases. We also test whether food acquisition tasks are more likely delegated to higher producers. We find mixed support for the prediction that girls are more likely delegated domestic and alloparenting tasks than boys ( n = 173 children). Both sexes are more likely delegated tasks during rice harvest months; number of coresident young children is also associated with greater probability of delegated allocare, although the effect retains significance for girls only. For both sexes, father absence is associated with greater probability of delegation, particularly for food acquisition tasks. Children delegated rice harvesting achieve 45% higher mean daily caloric returns from harvesting than children not delegated harvesting. Our results therefore suggest that delegation increases household economic efficiency. We find mixed support for the hypothesis that delegation prepares children for sex-specific adult roles.

  19. Household Task Delegation among High-Fertility Forager-Horticulturalists of Lowland Bolivia

    PubMed Central

    Stieglitz, Jonathan; Gurven, Michael; Kaplan, Hillard; Hooper, Paul L.

    2013-01-01

    Human kin cooperation is universal, leading researchers to label humans as “cooperative breeders.” Despite widespread interest in human cooperation, there has been no systematic study of how household economic decision making occurs. We document age and sex profiles of task delegation by parents to children ages 4–18 among Bolivian forager-horticulturalists. We test for sex differences in the probability of delegation and examine whether tasks are more likely delegated as household labor demand increases. We also test whether food acquisition tasks are more likely delegated to higher producers. We find mixed support for the prediction that girls are more likely delegated domestic and alloparenting tasks than boys (n = 173 children). Both sexes are more likely delegated tasks during rice harvest months; number of coresident young children is also associated with greater probability of delegated allocare, although the effect retains significance for girls only. For both sexes, father absence is associated with greater probability of delegation, particularly for food acquisition tasks. Children delegated rice harvesting achieve 45% higher mean daily caloric returns from harvesting than children not delegated harvesting. Our results therefore suggest that delegation increases household economic efficiency. We find mixed support for the hypothesis that delegation prepares children for sex-specific adult roles. PMID:25284827

  20. Oral-Motor and Motor-Speech Characteristics of Children with Autism.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Adams, Lynn

    1998-01-01

    This study compared the oral-motor and motor-speech characteristics of four young children with autism and four nonautistic children. Three tasks requiring oral motor movements, simple syllable productions, and complex syllable productions were utilized. Significant differences were found in scores on the oral-motor movements and the…

  1. The Effect of Picture Task Cards on Performance of the Test of Gross Motor Development by Preschool-Aged Children: A Preliminary Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Breslin, Casey M.; Robinson, Leah E.; Rudisill, Mary E.

    2013-01-01

    Performance on the Test of Gross Motor Development (Second Edition; TGMD-2) by children with autism spectrum disorders improves when picture task cards were implemented into the assessment protocol [Breslin, C.M., & Rudisill, M.E. (2011). "The effect of visual supports on performance of the TGMD-2 for children with autism spectrum…

  2. Scaled vibratory feedback can bias muscle use in children with dystonia during a redundant, one-dimensional myocontrol task

    PubMed Central

    Liyanagamage, Shanie A.; Bertucco, Matteo; Bhanpuri, Nasir H.; Sanger, Terence D.

    2016-01-01

    Vibratory feedback can be a useful tool for rehabilitation. We examined its use in children with dystonia to understand how it affects muscle activity in a population that does not respond well to standard rehabilitation. We predicted scaled vibration (i.e. vibration that was directly or inversely proportional to muscle activity) would increase use of the vibrated muscle because of task-relevant sensory information, while non-scaled vibration would not change muscle use. The study was conducted on 11 subjects with dystonia and 14 controls. Each subject underwent 4 different types of vibration on the more dystonic biceps muscle (or non-dominant arm in controls) in a one-dimensional, bimanual myocontrol task. Our results showed that only scaled vibratory feedback could bias muscle use without changing overall performance in children with dystonia. We believe there may be a role in rehabilitation for scaled vibratory feedback to retrain abnormal muscle patterns. PMID:27798370

  3. Level of motivation in mastering challenging tasks in children with cerebral palsy.

    PubMed

    Majnemer, Annette; Shevell, Michael; Law, Mary; Poulin, Chantal; Rosenbaum, Peter

    2010-12-01

    the aim of this study was to describe and identify factors associated with motivation in children with cerebral palsy (CP). children with CP were recruited for this cross-sectional study. Children were assessed using the Leiter Intelligence Test, the Gross Motor Function Measure, and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale. Parents completed the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ) and questionnaires on demographics, child behaviour, and family functioning. the parents of 74 children (46 males, 28 females; mean age 9y 2mo, SD 2y 1mo, range 5y 10mo-12y 11mo) completed the DMQ. Just over half of the children (39/74) were classified at Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) level I, with 13 classified at GMFCS level II, one at level III, six at level IV, and 14 at level V; one child was not classified. The most common diagnoses were spastic hemiplegia and quadriplegia (23 each), followed by diplegia (14). The highest motivation scores were obtained for the dimensions of mastery pleasure and social persistence and the lowest for persistence with motor or cognitive tasks. Age and sex were not predictive of scores on the DMQ. Higher IQ (r=0.41), better motor ability (r=0.43), and fewer limitations in self-care, communication, and socialization (r=0.44-0.53) were positively associated with motivation total score. A negative impact of the child's disability on the family was associated with lower motivation (r=-0.44). Positive social behaviours were positively correlated with motivation (r=0.38-0.66), whereas hyperactivity and peer problems were negatively associated. high motivation was associated with fewer activity limitations and behavioural problems and reduced family burden. Low motivation may adversely influence a child's functional potential and the effectiveness of interventions. Strategies focusing on the child, peers, adults, or activities are proposed to enhance the children's motivation to engage in more challenging activities.

  4. The Development of Memory Maintenance: Children's Use of Phonological Rehearsal and Attentional Refreshment in Working Memory Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tam, Helen; Jarrold, Christopher; Baddeley, Alan D.; Sabatos-DeVito, Maura

    2010-01-01

    Past research suggests that children begin to phonologically rehearse at around 7 years of age. Less is known regarding the development of refreshment, an attention-based maintenance mechanism. Therefore, the use of these two maintenance methods by 6- and 8-year-olds was assessed using memory span tasks that varied in their opportunities for…

  5. Visuo-spatial processing and executive functions in children with specific language impairment

    PubMed Central

    Marton, Klara

    2007-01-01

    Background Individual differences in complex working memory tasks reflect simultaneous processing, executive functions, and attention control. Children with specific language impairment (SLI) show a deficit in verbal working memory tasks that involve simultaneous processing of information. Aims The purpose of the study was to examine executive functions and visuo-spatial processing and working memory in children with SLI and in their typically developing peers (TLD). Experiment 1 included 40 children with SLI (age=5;3–6;10) and 40 children with TLD (age=5;3–6;7); Experiment 2 included 25 children with SLI (age=8;2–11;2) and 25 children with TLD (age=8;3–11;0). It was examined whether the difficulties that children with SLI show in verbal working memory tasks are also present in visuo-spatial working memory. Methods & Procedures In Experiment 1, children's performance was measured with three visuo-spatial processing tasks: space visualization, position in space, and design copying. The stimuli in Experiment 2 were two widely used neuropsychological tests: the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test — 64 (WCST-64) and the Tower of London test (TOL). Outcomes & Results In Experiment 1, children with SLI performed more poorly than their age-matched peers in all visuo-spatial working memory tasks. There was a subgroup within the SLI group that included children whose parents and teachers reported a weakness in the child's attention control. These children showed particular difficulties in the tasks of Experiment 1. The results support Engle's attention control theory: individuals need good attention control to perform well in visuo-spatial working memory tasks. In Experiment 2, the children with SLI produced more perseverative errors and more rule violations than their peers. Conclusions Executive functions have a great impact on SLI children's working memory performance, regardless of domain. Tasks that require an increased amount of attention control and executive

  6. A simulation investigation of scout/attack helicopter directional control requirements for hover and low-speed tasks

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Bivens, Courtland C.; Guercio, Joseph G.

    1987-01-01

    A piloted simulator experiment was conducted to investigate directional axis handling qualities requirements for low speed and hover tasks performed by a Scout/Attack helicopter. Included were the directional characteristics of various candidate light helicopter family configurations. Also, the experiment focused on conventional single main/tail rotor configurations of the OH-58 series aircraft, where the first-order yaw-axis dynamic effects that contributed to the loss of tail rotor control were modeled. Five pilots flew 22 configurations under various wind conditions. Cooper-Harper handling quality ratings were used as the primary measure of merit of each configuration. The results of the experiment indicate that rotorcraft configurations with high directional gust sensitivity require greater minimum yaw damping to maintain satisfactory handling qualities during nap-of-the-Earth flying tasks. It was also determined that both yaw damping and control response are critical handling qualities parameters in performing the air-to-air target acquisition and tracking task. Finally, the lack of substantial yaw damping and larger values of gust sensitivity increased the possibility of loss of directional control at low airspeeds for the single main/tail rotor configurations.

  7. The effect of voice quality and competing speakers in a passage comprehension task: perceived effort in relation to cognitive functioning and performance in children with normal hearing.

    PubMed

    von Lochow, Heike; Lyberg-Åhlander, Viveka; Sahlén, Birgitta; Kastberg, Tobias; Brännström, K Jonas

    2018-04-01

    The study investigates the effect of voice quality and competing speakers on perceived effort in a passage comprehension task in relation to cognitive functioning. In addition, it explores if perceived effort was related to performance. A total of 49 children (aged 7:03 to 12:02 years) with normal hearing participated. The children performed an auditory passage comprehension task presented with six different listening conditions consisting of a typical voice or a dysphonic voice presented in quiet, with one competing speaker, and with four competing speakers. After completing the task, they rated their perceived effort on a five-grade scale. The children also performed tasks measuring working memory capacity (WMC) and executive functioning. The results show that voice quality had no direct effect on perceived effort but the children's ratings of perceived effort were related to their executive functioning. A significant effect was seen for background listening condition indicating higher perceived effort for background listening conditions with competing speakers. The effects of background listening condition were mainly related to the children's WMC but also their executive functioning. It can be concluded that the individual susceptibility to the effect of the dysphonic voice is related to the child's executive functioning. The individual susceptibility to the presence of competing speakers is related to the child's WMC and executive functioning.

  8. Manual control age and sex differences in 4 to 11 year old children.

    PubMed

    Flatters, Ian; Hill, Liam J B; Williams, Justin H G; Barber, Sally E; Mon-Williams, Mark

    2014-01-01

    To what degree does being male or female influence the development of manual skills in pre-pubescent children? This question is important because of the emphasis placed on developing important new manual skills during this period of a child's education (e.g. writing, drawing, using computers). We investigated age and sex-differences in the ability of 422 children to control a handheld stylus. A task battery deployed using tablet PC technology presented interactive visual targets on a computer screen whilst simultaneously recording participant's objective kinematic responses, via their interactions with the on-screen stimuli using the handheld stylus. The battery required children use the stylus to: (i) make a series of aiming movements, (ii) trace a series of abstract shapes and (iii) track a moving object. The tasks were not familiar to the children, allowing measurement of a general ability that might be meaningfully labelled 'manual control', whilst minimising culturally determined differences in experience (as much as possible). A reliable interaction between sex and age was found on the aiming task, with girls' movement times being faster than boys in younger age groups (e.g. 4-5 years) but with this pattern reversing in older children (10-11 years). The improved performance in older boys on the aiming task is consistent with prior evidence of a male advantage for gross-motor aiming tasks, which begins to emerge during adolescence. A small but reliable sex difference was found in tracing skill, with girls showing a slightly higher level of performance than boys irrespective of age. There were no reliable sex differences between boys and girls on the tracking task. Overall, the findings suggest that prepubescent girls are more likely to have superior manual control abilities for performing novel tasks. However, these small population differences do not suggest that the sexes require different educational support whilst developing their manual skills.

  9. A Nonword Repetition Task for Speakers with Misarticulations: The Syllable Repetition Task (SRT)

    PubMed Central

    Shriberg, Lawrence D.; Lohmeier, Heather L.; Campbell, Thomas F.; Dollaghan, Christine A.; Green, Jordan R.; Moore, Christopher A.

    2010-01-01

    Purpose Conceptual and methodological confounds occur when non(sense) repetition tasks are administered to speakers who do not have the target speech sounds in their phonetic inventories or who habitually misarticulate targeted speech sounds. We describe a nonword repetition task, the Syllable Repetiton Task (SRT) that eliminates this confound and report findings from three validity studies. Method Ninety-five preschool children with Speech Delay and 63 with Typical Speech, completed an assessment battery that included the Nonword Repetition Task (NRT: Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998) and the SRT. SRT stimuli include only four of the earliest occurring consonants and one early occurring vowel. Results Study 1 findings indicated that the SRT eliminated the speech confound in nonword testing with speakers who misarticulate. Study 2 findings indicated that the accuracy of the SRT to identify expressive language impairment was comparable to findings for the NRT. Study 3 findings illustrated the SRT’s potential to interrogate speech processing constraints underlying poor nonword repetition accuracy. Results supported both memorial and auditory-perceptual encoding constraints underlying nonword repetition errors in children with speech-language impairment. Conclusion The SRT appears to be a psychometrically stable and substantively informative nonword repetition task for emerging genetic and other research with speakers who misarticulate. PMID:19635944

  10. Children With ADHD Show Impairments in Multiple Stages of Information Processing in a Stroop Task: An ERP Study.

    PubMed

    Kóbor, Andrea; Takács, Ádám; Bryce, Donna; Szűcs, Dénes; Honbolygó, Ferenc; Nagy, Péter; Csépe, Valéria

    2015-01-01

    This study investigated the role of impaired inhibitory control as a factor underlying attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Children with ADHD and typically developing children completed an animal Stroop task while electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. The lateralized readiness potential and event-related brain potentials associated with perceptual and conflict processing were analyzed. Children with ADHD were slower to give correct responses irrespective of congruency, and slower to prepare correct responses in the incongruent condition. This delay could result from enhanced effort allocation at earlier processing stages, indicated by differences in P1, N1, and conflict sustained potential. Results suggest multiple deficits in information processing rather than a specific response inhibition impairment.

  11. Word Learning in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

    PubMed Central

    Luyster, Rhiannon; Lord, Catherine

    2010-01-01

    Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have been gaining attention, partly as an example of unusual developmental trajectories related to early neurobiological differences. The present investigation addressed the process of learning new words in order to explore mechanisms of language delay and impairment. The sample included 21 typically developing toddlers matched on expressive vocabulary with 21 young children with ASD. Two tasks were administered to teach children a new word and were supplemented by cognitive and diagnostic measures. In most analyses, there were no group differences in performance. Children with ASD did not consistently make mapping errors, even in word learning situations which required the use of social information. These findings indicate that some children with ASD, in developmentally appropriate tasks, are able to use information from social interactions to guide word-object mappings. This result has important implications for our understanding of how children with ASD learn language. PMID:19899931

  12. Spelling across Tasks and Levels of Language in a Transparent Orthography.

    PubMed

    Bigozzi, Lucia; Tarchi, Christian; Pinto, Giuliana

    The paper reports the results of two studies on the spelling performance of 1st graders in a transparent writing system. The spelling performance of Italian children was assessed to determine the cross-task relationship between spelling to dictation and spontaneous spelling at the single word level (Study 1) and at the text level (Study 2), respectively. In study 1, 132 Italian children's spelling performance was assessed in 1st grade through two standardized tasks, i.e., word dictation, and spontaneous word spelling. In study 2, spelling performance of 81 Italian children was assessed in 1st grade through two tasks, i.e., text dictation, and spontaneous text spelling. In Study 1, spelling words and pseudo-words to dictation was found to be more difficult than spontaneous spelling of words. This effect was verified for all children (including low achievers and spelling impaired). The moderate correlation found between spelling to dictation and spontaneous spelling indicated that the two tasks are supported by partially different spelling processes and confirmed suggestions for including both types of spelling assessments in the school. In Study 2, children's spelling performances were not dependent across the two tasks (i.e., spelling a text under dictation or spontaneously). The two tasks shared the level of difficulty but performance in one task was not predictive of performance in the second task. Strong individual differences between children were found at the text level as a function of task. Similar to Study 1, the moderate correlation between spelling text to dictation and spontaneous spelling confirmed the usefulness of adopting both spelling assessments at school.

  13. Prospective memory in preschool children: influences of agency, incentive, and underlying cognitive mechanisms.

    PubMed

    Causey, Kayla B; Bjorklund, David F

    2014-11-01

    Prospective memory (PM) is remembering to perform an action in the future and is crucial to achieving goal-directed activities in everyday life. Doing so requires that an intention is encoded, retained during a delay interval, and retrieved at the appropriate time of execution. We examined PM ability in preschool children by manipulating factors related to agency and incentive. We further explored how metacognition, executive functioning, and theory of mind-factors known to account for individual differences in PM-influenced performance on these PM tasks. A sample of 31 preschool children were asked to carry out a delayed intention or to remind an adult to carry out an intention that was of high or low incentive to the children. Findings indicated that individual differences in theory of mind were related to individual differences in preschoolers' performance on low-incentive PM tasks, independent of executive functioning contributions, whereas individual differences in executive functioning were related to performance on the high-incentive tasks. These findings suggest that changes in theory of mind and executive functioning are important to consider in models of PM and that different PM tasks (e.g., high vs. low incentive) may involve different cognitive requirements for young children. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Parent-Child Positive Touch: Gender, Age, and Task Differences.

    PubMed

    Aznar, Ana; Tenenbaum, Harriet R

    2016-01-01

    This study examined gender, age, and task differences in positive touch and physical proximity during mother-child and father-child conversations. Sixty-five Spanish mothers and fathers and their 4- ( M  = 53.50 months, SD  = 3.54) and 6-year-old ( M  = 77.07 months, SD  = 3.94) children participated in this study. Positive touch was examined during a play-related storytelling task and a reminiscence task (conversation about past emotions). Fathers touched their children positively more frequently during the play-related storytelling task than did mothers. Both mothers and fathers were in closer proximity to their 6-year-olds than their 4-year-olds. Mothers and fathers touched their children positively more frequently when reminiscing than when playing. Finally, 6-year-olds remained closer to their parents than did 4-year-olds. Implications of these findings for future research on children's socioemotional development are discussed.

  15. Assessing Measurement Invariance for Spanish Sentence Repetition and Morphology Elicitation Tasks.

    PubMed

    Kapantzoglou, Maria; Thompson, Marilyn S; Gray, Shelley; Restrepo, M Adelaida

    2016-04-01

    The purpose of this study was to evaluate evidence supporting the construct validity of two grammatical tasks (sentence repetition, morphology elicitation) included in the Spanish Screener for Language Impairment in Children (Restrepo, Gorin, & Gray, 2013). We evaluated if the tasks measured the targeted grammatical skills in the same way across predominantly Spanish-speaking children with typical language development and those with primary language impairment. A multiple-group, confirmatory factor analytic approach was applied to examine factorial invariance in a sample of 307 predominantly Spanish-speaking children (177 with typical language development; 130 with primary language impairment). The 2 newly developed grammatical tasks were modeled as measures in a unidimensional confirmatory factor analytic model along with 3 well-established grammatical measures from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition, Spanish (Wiig, Semel, & Secord, 2006). Results suggest that both new tasks measured the construct of grammatical skills for both language-ability groups in an equivalent manner. There was no evidence of bias related to children's language status for the Spanish Screener for Language Impairment in Children Sentence Repetition or Morphology Elicitation tasks. Results provide support for the validity of the new tasks as measures of grammatical skills.

  16. Ways of thinking: from crows to children and back again.

    PubMed

    Clayton, Nicola S

    2015-01-01

    This article reviews some of the recent work on the remarkable cognitive capacities of food-caching corvids. The focus will be on their ability to think about other minds and other times, and tool-using tests of physical problem solving. Research on developmental cognition suggests that young children do not pass similar tests until they are at least four years of age in the case of the social cognition experiments, and eight years of age in the case of the tasks that tap into physical cognition. This developmental trajectory seems surprising. Intuitively, one might have thought that the social and planning tasks required more complex forms of cognitive process, namely Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind. Perhaps the fact that children pass these tasks earlier than the physical problem-solving tasks is a reflection of cultural influences. Future research will hope to identify these cognitive milestones by starting to develop tasks that might go some way towards understanding the mechanisms underlying these abilities in both children and corvids, to explore similarities and differences in their ways of thinking.

  17. The Communication of Culturally Dominant Modes of Attention from Parents to Children: A Comparison of Canadian and Japanese Parent-Child Conversations during a Joint Scene Description Task.

    PubMed

    Senzaki, Sawa; Masuda, Takahiko; Takada, Akira; Okada, Hiroyuki

    2016-01-01

    Previous findings have indicated that, when presented with visual information, North American undergraduate students selectively attend to focal objects, whereas East Asian undergraduate students are more sensitive to background information. However, little is known about how these differences are driven by culture and socialization processes. In this study, two experiments investigated how young children and their parents used culturally unique modes of attention (selective vs. context sensitive attention). We expected that children would slowly learn culturally unique modes of attention, and the experience of communicating with their parents would aid the development of such modes of attention. Study 1 tested children's solitary performance by examining Canadian and Japanese children's (4-6 vs. 7-9 years old) modes of attention during a scene description task, whereby children watched short animations by themselves and then described their observations. The results confirmed that children did not demonstrate significant cross-cultural differences in attention during the scene description task while working independently, although results did show rudimentary signs of culturally unique modes of attention in this task scenario by age 9. Study 2 examined parent-child (4-6 and 7-9 years old) dyads using the same task. The results indicated that parents communicated to their children differently across cultures, replicating attentional differences among undergraduate students in previous cross-cultural studies. Study 2 also demonstrated that children's culturally unique description styles increased significantly with age. The descriptions made by the older group (7-9 years old) showed significant cross-cultural variances in attention, while descriptions among the younger group (4-6 years old) did not. The significance of parental roles in the development of culturally unique modes of attention is discussed in addition to other possible facilitators of this

  18. The use of definite and indefinite articles by children with specific language impairment.

    PubMed

    Polite, Elgustus J; Leonard, Laurence B; Roberts, Felicia D

    2011-08-01

    Among the grammatical limitations seen in English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) is a prolonged period of using articles (e.g., a, the) inconsistently. Most studies documenting this difficulty have focused on article omission and have not made the distinction between definite and indefinite article contexts. In this study, there were 36 participants: 12 5-year-olds with SLI, 12 typically-developing children matched for age, and 12 younger, typically-developing children matched with participants in the SLI group according to mean length of utterance. All 36 children participated in a task requiring indefinite article use, and a task requiring use of the definite article, in which the referent of the noun had already been established in the discourse. The children with SLI showed less use of definite articles in particular, relative to both groups of typically-developing children. Substitutions as well as omissions were seen. The findings suggest that the article limitations of the children with SLI were attributable in part to an incomplete understanding of how definite articles are to be used.

  19. Almeria spatial memory recognition test (ASMRT): Gender differences emerged in a new passive spatial task.

    PubMed

    Tascón, Laura; García-Moreno, Luis Miguel; Cimadevilla, Jose Manuel

    2017-06-09

    Many different human spatial memory tasks were developed in the last two decades. Virtual reality based tasks make possible developing different scenarios and situations to assess spatial orientation but sometimes these tasks are complex for specific populations like children and older-adults. A new spatial task with a very limited technological requirement was developed in this study. It demanded the use of spatial memory for an accurate solution. It also proved to be sensitive to gender differences, with men outperforming women under high specific difficulty levels. Thanks to its simplicity it could be applied as a screening test and is easy to combine with EEG and fMRI studies. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Evaluation of relational reasoning by a transitive inference task in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

    PubMed

    Brunamonti, Emiliano; Costanzo, Floriana; Mammì, Anna; Rufini, Cristina; Veneziani, Diletta; Pani, Pierpaolo; Vicari, Stefano; Ferraina, Stefano; Menghini, Deny

    2017-02-01

    Here we explored whether children with ADHD have a deficit in relational reasoning, a skill subtending the acquisition of many cognitive abilities and social rules. We analyzed the performance of a group of children with ADHD during a transitive inference task, a task requiring first to learn the reciprocal relationship between adjacent items of a rank ordered series (e.g., A>B; B>C; C>D; D>E; E>F), and second, to deduct the relationship between novel pairs of items never matched during the learning (e.g., B>D; C>E). As a main result, we observed that children with ADHD were impaired in performing inferential reasoning problems. The deficit in relational reasoning was found to be related to the difficulty in managing a unified representation of ordered items. The present finding documented a novel deficit in ADHD, contributing to improving the understanding of the disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).