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Writing Difficulties (writing + difficulty)
Selected AbstractsHow persistent are phonological difficulties?DYSLEXIA, Issue 1 2006A longitudinal study of reading retarded children Abstract The present study examined the persistency of phonological deficiencies over time. The participants were 40 pupils in grade 2 with documented reading and writing difficulties and a comparison group of 30 pupils. The participants were followed over a 10-year period by word- and non-word-reading tests and tests of cognitive ability. The persistence of phonological deficits was indicated by a high correlation between non-word-reading tests in grades 3 and 12 in the reading-disabled group. A dyslexia cut-off definition based on phonological ability was the most consistent definition over time compared to a word-decoding definition or multiple cut-off definition based on IQ. Phonological decoding abilities were remarkably stable over time, and non-word-reading was found to be a valid instrument in diagnosing and discerning dyslexia both in children and adults. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The prevalence of reading and spelling difficulties among inmates of institutions for compulsory care of juvenile delinquentsDYSLEXIA, Issue 2 2001Idor Svensson Abstract Recent studies have focused on reading and writing disabilities among inmates in prisons and at juvenile institutions. Some studies in Sweden have demonstrated that more than half of the delinquents have serious reading difficulties, and for immigrants the situation is even worse. However, these studies have focused on small groups. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to different types of reading and writing difficulties. The main purpose of this investigation was to estimate the prevalence of reading and writing disabilities in juvenile institutions. The study analyses gender differences and differences between immigrants and Swedish pupils. The study included 163 pupils from 22 institutions and used three tests of literacy skills: word identification, spelling and reading comprehension. More than 70% showed some problems in reading and spelling. However, only 11% had serious difficulties. Moreover, the results showed that comprehension ability among immigrant boys was lower than among Swedish boys, despite the same level of word reading skill. The high prevalence of reading and writing disabilities seems primarily to be related to social and cultural factors, home backgrounds, limited school attendance and poor self-esteem rather than to constitutional problems of a dyslexic nature. The implication of this conclusion may be important for the intervention process. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Computer-based teaching of Kanji construction and writing in a student with developmental disabilitiesBEHAVIORAL INTERVENTIONS, Issue 1 2009Hiroshi Sugasawara Students with developmental disabilities often have difficulty with writing skills such as tracing, copying, and dictation writing. A student with writing difficulties participated in the present study, which used computer-based teaching applied in the home. We examined whether a student could copy Japanese Kanji characters after training with a constructed response matching-to-sample (CRMTS) procedure. The procedure was designed to teach identity Kanji construction. The results showed that the student not only acquired the constructed responses through this procedure but also to spelling generalized to copy trained and untrained Kanji characters. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of the CRMTS procedure on the acquisition and transfer of writing characters and the applicability of computer-based home teaching. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The first Japanese patient with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD)NEUROPATHOLOGY, Issue 6 2009Akiyo Shinde Eleven years after a brief visit to some European countries, a 48-year-old Japanese man developed writing difficulty, irritability and general fatigue. Then he complained of dysesthetic pains in his legs, for which benzodiazepines were prescribed. However, at the time pulvinar sign was retrospectively confirmed on brain MRI. Eighteen months after the onset, his gait became ataxic with rapid deterioration of mental status over the following several months. Thirty-one months after the onset, he became akinetic and mute with periodic synchronous discharges on EEG, and died at the age of 51. The total clinical course was approximately 43 months. Pathological examination revealed the characteristic alterations of spongiform encephalopathy, severe in the thalamus, moderate but widely spread in the cerebral cortices, and moderate in the cerebellum. Abundant amyloid plaques were easily identified in the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum on HE staining. Immunohistochemistry for abnormal prion protein (PrPsc) confirmed amyloid plaques in several forms, such as florid, uni- and multi-centric plaques as well as perineuronal and periaxonal deposits in the basal ganglia and synaptic patterns in the thalami. A Western blotting study identified type 2B protease-resistant PrP. This is the first Japanese patient who was definitely diagnosed as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). The pathological findings were similar to those of previous reports of vCJD in the UK. However, the changes were much more severe both in degree and distribution, probably due to a longer duration of the illness than those in the UK. [source] | ||||||||||