How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

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From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development

Phonological recoding and self-teaching: sine qua non of reading acquisition.

A relatively simple model of the phonological loop (A. D. Baddeley, 1986), a component of working memory, has proved capable of accommodating a great deal of experimental evidence from normal adult participants, children, and neuropsychological patients. Until recently, however, the role of this subsystem in everyday cognitive activities was unclear. In this article the authors review studies of word learning by normal adults and children, neuropsychological patients, and special developmental populations, which provide evidence that the phonological loop plays a crucial role in learning the novel phonological forms of new words. The authors propose that the primary purpose for which the phonological loop evolved is to store unfamiliar sound patterns while more permanent memory records are being constructed. Its use in retaining sequences of familiar words is, it is argued,

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The phonological loop as a language learning device.

22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) is the most common chromosomal microdeletion disorder, estimated to result mainly from de novo non-homologous meiotic recombination events occurring in approximately 1 in every 1,000 fetuses. The first description in the English language of the constellation of findings now known to be due to this chromosomal difference was made in the 1960s in children with DiGeorge syndrome, who presented with the clinical triad of immunodeficiency, hypoparathyroidism and congenital heart disease. The syndrome is now known to have a heterogeneous presentation that includes multiple additional congenital anomalies and later-onset conditions, such as palatal, gastrointestinal and renal abnormalities, autoimmune disease, variable cognitive delays, behavioural phenotypes and psychiatric illness - all far extending the original description of DiGeorge syndrome. Management requires a multidisciplinary approach involving paediatrics, general medicine, surgery, psychiatry, psychology, interventional therapies (physical, occupational, speech, language and behavioural) and genetic counselling. Although common, lack of recognition of the condition and/or lack of familiarity with genetic testing methods, together with the wide variability of clinical presentation, delays diagnosis. Early diagnosis, preferably prenatally or neonatally, could improve outcomes, thus stressing the importance of universal screening. Equally important, 22q11.2DS has become a model for understanding rare and frequent congenital anomalies, medical conditions, psychiatric and developmental disorders, and may provide a platform to better understand these disorders while affording opportunities for translational strategies across the lifespan for both patients with 22q11.2DS and those with these associated features in the general population.

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22q11.2 deletion syndrome

How social contexts support and shape language development

Most chapters conclude with "Summary" and/or "References." 1.Language and Reading: Convergence and Divergence. Defining Language. Defining Reading. Models of Spoken and Written Language Comprehension. Comprehending Spoken and Written Language. Differences between Oral and Written Language. Basic Factors in Reading and Language Development. 2.Reading Development. Emergent Literacy Period (Birth-Kindergarten). The Development of Word Recognition Skills. The Development of Reading Comprehension. 3.Defining Reading Disabilities. Historical Basis of Reading Disabilities. Terminology. Prevalence. Defining Reading Disability. 4.Classification of Reading Disabilities. Subtypes Based on Comprehension versus Word Recognition Problems. Subtypes Based on Nature of Word Recognition Deficits. Combining Subtypes in Research and Practice. 5.Causes of Reading Disabilities. Extrinsic Causes of Reading Disabilities. Intrinsic Causes of Reading Disabilities. 6.Assessment and Instruction for Phonemic Awareness and Word Recognition Skills. Assessment and Instruction in Phonemic Awareness. Assessment and Instruction of Word Recognition. Issues for Future Research and Development. 7.Assessing and Facilitating Text Comprehension Problems. Comprehending Narrative and Expository Texts. Assessing Language and Cognitive Skills for Text Comprehension. Facilitating Text Comprehension. 8.Learning to Write. A Framework for Writing. Learning to Write. Writing Problems of Children and Adolescents with Reading Disabilities. 9.The Right Stuff for Writing: Assessing and Facilitating Written Language. Assessing Student Writers. Facilitating Writing.

Language and Reading Disabilities

Contents: G.R. Lyon, Foreword. H.W. Catts, A.G. Kamhi, Preface. Part I: Behavioral Connections Between Language and Reading. H.S. Scarborough, Developmental Relationship Between Language and Reading: Reconciling a Beautiful Hypothesis With Some Ugly Facts. H.W. Catts, T.P. Hogan, S.M. Adolf, Developmental Changes in Reading and Reading Disabilities. K. Nation, Connections Between Language and Reading in Children With Poor Reading Comprehension. M.J. Snowling, Literacy Outcomes for Children With Oral Language Impariments: Developmental Interactions Between Language Skills and Learning to Read. F.R. Manis, P. Keating, Speech Perception in Dyslexic Children With and Without Language Impairments. Part II: Genetic and Neurological Basis of Language and Reading. P.E. Turkeltaub, J. Weisberg, D.L. Flowers, D. Basu, G.F. Eden, The Neurobiological Basis of Reading: A Special Case of Skill Acquisition. J.R. Booth, D.D. Burman, Using Neuro-Imaging to Test Developmental Models of Reading Acquisition. C.M. Leonard, L.J. Lombardino, W.M. King, S.A. Giess, Behavioral and Anatomical Distinctions Between Dyslexia and SLI. R. Olson, B. Byrne, Genetic and Environmental Influences on Reading and Language Ability and Disability. A.G. Kamhi, Finding Beauty in the Ugly Facts About Reading Comprehension.

The Connections between Language and Reading Disabilities

The primary purpose of this study was to compare the ability of language-impaired and reading-impaired children to process (i.e., encode and retrieve) phonological information. Four measures of phonological awareness and several measures of word and sentence repetition abilities were used to evaluate phonological processing skills. Two additional measures assessed children's awareness of lexical and morphological information. Subjects were 12 language-impaired (LI), 12 reading-impaired (RI), and 12 normal children between the ages of 6 and 8 years. The findings supported previous claims that children with reading impairments have difficulty processing phonological information. To our surprise, however, the LI children performed significantly worse than the RI children on only three measures, all involving word and sentence repetition. These findings raise questions about the distinctiveness of school-age children with a history of language impairment and poor readers with no history of language impairment.

Toward an understanding of developmental language and reading disorders.

Over- and underdiagnosis of language and literacy problems are common with low-socioeconomic status ethnically and racially diverse children. In recent years, a number of alternative assessment procedures have been developed that reduce some of the biases inherent in norm-referenced standardized tests. Problems and recent solutions to the use of norm-referenced testing will be discussed, with a focus on processing-dependent and dynamic assessment procedures.

https://faculty.washington.edu/jct6/LaingKamhi2003AlternativeAssessmentCulturallyDiversePopulations.pdf

Alternative Assessment of Language and Literacy in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations.

In the present study, we further examined (see Kamhi & Catts, 1986) the phonological processing abilities of language-impaired (LI) and reading-impaired (RI) children. We also evaluated these children's ability to process spatial information. Subjects were 10 LI, 10 RI, and 10 normal children between the ages of 6:8 and 8:10 years. Each subject was administered eight tasks: four word repetition tasks (monosyllabic, monosyllabic presented in noise, three-item, and multisyllabic), rapid naming, syllable segmentation, paper folding, and form completion. The normal children performed significantly better than both the LI and RI children on all but two tasks: syllable segmentation and repeating words presented in noise. The LI and RI children performed comparably on every task with the exception of the multisyllabic word repetition task. These findings were consistent with those from our previous study (Kamhi & Catts, 1986). The similarities and differences between LI and RI children are discussed.

Alan G. Kamhi

Papers

Language and Reading Disabilities

The Connections between Language and Reading Disabilities

Toward an understanding of developmental language and reading disorders.

Alternative Assessment of Language and Literacy in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations.

Phonological and Spatial Processing Abilities in Language- and Reading-Impaired Children