Distinct neural correlates of poor decoding and poor comprehension in children with reading disability.

Reading disability (RD) can manifest itself as a word decoding problem or a reading comprehension problem. In the current study, we identified 3 subtypes of RD: poor decoders (PD), poor comprehenders (PC), and poor-in-both (PB). We found that PD had greater deficits in meta-linguistic skills such as phonological awareness, orthographic skills, and morphological skills than PC, whereas PC had greater deficits in listening comprehension than PD. In the brain, we also found different patterns of deficits during an auditory rhyming judgment task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. PD showed less activation than PC and age controls in the left dorsal inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and pre-supplementary motor area (SMA), brain activation of which was correlated with phonological awareness and working memory. In contrast, PC showed less activation in the left fusiform gyrus than PD and age controls, which was correlated with reading comprehension fluency and morphological skill. Last, PB showed both PD's and PC's deficits, as well as additional deficits in the bilateral lingual gyri. Our findings contribute to revealing different neural signatures of poor decoding and poor comprehension, which are distinct disorders but co-occur very often. These findings implicate possibility and necessity of precise diagnosis and individualized intervention.

Does Instruction Affect the Underlying Dimensionality of a Kinesiology Test?

Does effective instruction, which changes students' knowledge and possibly alters their cognitive functions, also affect the dimensionality of an achievement test? This question was examined by the parameterization of kinesiology test items (n = 42) with a Rasch dichotomous model, followed by an investigation of dimensionality in a pre- and post-test quasi-experimental study design. College students (n = 108) provided responses to kinesiology achievement test items. Then the stability of item difficulties, gender differences, and the interaction of item content categories with dimensionality were examined. In addition, a PCA/t-test protocol was implemented to examine dimensionality threats from the item residuals. Internal construct validity was investigated by regressing item content components on calibrated item difficulties. Measurement model item residuals were also investigated with statistical decomposition methods. In general, the results showed significant student achievement between pre and post testing, and dimensionality disturbances were relatively minor. The amount of unexpected item "shift" in an un-equated measurement dimension between pre and post testing was less than ten percent of the total items and largely concentrated among several unrelated items. An unexpected finding was a residual cluster consisting of several items testing related technical content. Complicating interpretation, these items tended to appear near the end of the test, which implicates test position as a threat to measurement equivalence. In general, the results across several methods did not tend to identify common threats and instead pointed to multiple sources of threats with varying degree of prominence. These results suggest conventional approaches to measurement equivalence that emphasize expedient overall procedures such as DIF, IRT, and factor analysis are probably capturing isolated sources of variability. Their implementation probably improves measurement equivalence but with substantial residual sources undetected.

Multi-factor scale consolidation when theory is weak.

As a practical matter, Spirituality and Quality of Life in the health sciences are usually measured separately. Theoretical foundations for this distinction, however, are not strong. In this research, an empirical investigation was conducted into their joint calibration with a Rasch model. Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (28 items), a cancer health-related quality of life measure (HRQOL), and Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness - Spiritual Well-Being (12 items), a measure of religious and existential well-being (Spirituality), were co-calibrated with a Rasch model implemented with WINSTEPS software for ratings from 545 breast cancer patients. The results show a hierarchical integration of QOL and Spirituality items on a common variable, and both patient separation (2.66) and reliability (.88) improve after co-calibration. Principal Component Analysis of co-calibrated item residuals did not show major threats to dimensionality, and joint calibration explains item variance comparable to separate calibrations (51.9%). Although patient measures (logits) based on separate and co-calibration are within two standard errors, ethnic and racial group values shift after co-calibration.

An external validation study of a classification of mixed connective tissue disease and systemic lupus erythematosus patients.

Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD) and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) are autoimmune rheumatic diseases that are difficult for physicians to diagnose and to distinguish for a variety of reasons. The correct classification of these two diseases is a crucial issue for clinicians who treat autoimmune rheumatic diseases. In prior research, medical risk factors represented by instrument or laboratory measures and physician judgments (12 key features for MCTD and 12 key features for SLE) were parameterized with a one parameter logistic function in a Rasch model. Those results identified separate diagnostic dimensions for MCTD and SLE. This procedure was replicated in the present research with a sample of largely African American and Hispanic patients. Results verified separate dimensions for MCTD and SLE, which suggests MCTD is a separate disease from SLE.

Reduced pattern similarity in brain activation during orthographic processing in children with developmental dyslexia.

Intra-individual variability of neural response has been found to be negatively associated with cognitive proficiency and automaticity. However, whether developmental dyslexia (DD) is marked by greater intra-individual neural variability remains unclear. Using a multivariate approach and dual-control group design, the current study aims to examine whether the pattern similarity of brain activation during a visual spelling task is abnormal in children with DD compared to age control and reading control children. We found that there was reduced intra-subject pattern similarity at the left occipito-temporal regions in children with DD than both control groups, suggesting a neural signature of DD. Furthermore, we found that pattern similarity was positively associated with stability of reaction time and reading fluency in both children with DD and typical control children, suggesting that neural stability supports behavioral stability and automaticity during reading.

Poor reading is characterized by a more connected network with wrong hubs.

Using graph theory, we examined topological organization of the language network in Chinese children with poor reading during an auditory rhyming task and a visual spelling task, compared to reading-matched controls and age-matched controls. First, poor readers (PR) showed reduced clustering coefficient in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and higher nodal efficiency in the bilateral superior temporal gyri (STG) during the visual task, indicating a less functionally specialized cluster around the left IFG and stronger functional links between bilateral STGs and other regions. Furthermore, PR adopted additional right-hemispheric hubs in both tasks, which may explain increased global efficiency across both tasks and lower normalized characteristic shortest path length in the visual task for the PR. These results underscore deficits in the left IFG during visual word processing and conform previous findings about compensation in the right hemisphere in children with poor reading.

A hierarchical deficit model of reading disability: Evidence from dynamic causal modelling analysis.

Deficits have been documented in visuo-orthographic processing as well as phonological retrieval/manipulation during visual word reading in individuals with reading disability (RD); however, the relationship between these deficits remains unclear. Previously, we found that during word reading, visuo-orthographic deficit appears to be a neural signature of RD, but deficits in phonological retrieval/manipulation appears to be a consequence of being RD (Cao et al., 2020). Therefore, in the current study, we directly tested the hypothesis that during visual word reading, deficit in phonological retrieval/manipulation may result from weakened input from visuo-orthographic regions, and that this relationship tends to be universal across languages. We conducted a dynamic causal modelling analysis of fMRI data from Chinese-English bilingual children (9-11 years, N = 78) with or without RD during a visual word rhyming judgment task. We found a weaker connection from the left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) to the left dorsal inferior frontal gyrus (dIFG) in children with RD and reading controls than the connection found in age controls for both Chinese and English. This finding suggests that the phonological deficit at the dIFG may result from weak input from the visuo-orthographic region and this connection appears to be responsive to reading level rather than RD, because the reading-control children were similar to children with RD. We also found that the left ITG was selectively connected with language-specific regions (i.e., the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) for Chinese and the left ventral inferior frontal gyrus (vIFG) for English) depending on the language being processed; however, this language selectivity was reduced in children with RD, suggesting that decreased language specialization is associated with RD. Using a double control design, our study suggests that during reading, the visuo-orthographic deficit of RD constrains the development of the connection from orthography to phonology and to other language-specific processing due to distorted quantity and quality of reading.

Convergent and divergent brain structural and functional abnormalities associated with developmental dyslexia.

Brain abnormalities in the reading network have been repeatedly reported in individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD); however, it is still not totally understood where the structural and functional abnormalities are consistent/inconsistent across languages. In the current multimodal meta-analysis, we found convergent structural and functional alterations in the left superior temporal gyrus across languages, suggesting a neural signature of DD. We found greater reduction in grey matter volume and brain activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus in morpho-syllabic languages (e.g. Chinese) than in alphabetic languages, and greater reduction in brain activation in the left middle temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus in alphabetic languages than in morpho-syllabic languages. These language differences are explained as consequences of being DD while learning a specific language. In addition, we also found brain regions that showed increased grey matter volume and brain activation, presumably suggesting compensations and brain regions that showed inconsistent alterations in brain structure and function. Our study provides important insights about the etiology of DD from a cross-linguistic perspective with considerations of consistency/inconsistency between structural and functional alterations.

A Rasch analysis for classification of systemic lupus erythematosus and mixed connective tissue disease.

The classification of rheumatic diseases is challenging because these diseases have protean and frequently overlapping clinical and laboratory manifestations. This problem is typified by the difficulty of classification and differentiation of two prototypic multi-system autoimmune diseases, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD). The researchers submitted medical risk factor data represented by instrument or laboratory measures and physician judgments (12 key features for SLE) from 43 patients diagnosed with SLE and 12 key features for MCTD from 51 patients diagnosed with MCTD to the WINSTEPS Rasch analysis program. Using Rasch model parameterization, and fit and residuals analyses, the researchers identified separate dimensions for MCTD and SLE, thereby lending support to the position that MCTD is its own separate disease, distinct from SLE.

The effects of prequestions on classroom learning.

Studies have shown that prequestions-asking students questions before they learn something-benefit memory retention. Prequestions would seem to be a useful technique for enhancing students' learning in their courses, but classroom investigations of prequestions have been sparse. In the current study, students from an introductory psychology course were randomly assigned to receive prequestions over each upcoming lesson (prequestion group) or to not receive prequestions (control group). At the end of class, students in the prequestion group remembered the material better than students in the control group, but this benefit was specific to the information that was asked about in the prequestions. When memory for other, nonprequestioned portions of the lesson were tested at the end of class, the prequestion group performed similarly to the control group. On a follow-up quiz 1 week later, both groups showed a memory advantage for material that was tested at the end of class 1 week prior, compared with information from the same lesson that was never tested. However, this benefit was comparable between the prequestion group and the control group, suggesting that students benefit from retrieval practice, but prequestions add little, if any, enhancement to this effect. (PsycINFO Database Record

Using a Rasch scale to characterize the clinical features of patients with a clinical diagnosis of uncertain, probable, or possible Alzheimer disease at intake.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the clinical features of patients with clinical diagnoses of probable Alzheimer disease (AD), possible AD, and uncertain. DESIGN: Case study comparing three groups of AD patients diagnosed at their initial visit to an Alzheimer outpatient clinic. SETTING: Southern Illinois University School of Medicine's Center for Alzheimer Disease and Related Disorders (CADRD) assessment sites (20) in rural Illinois. PARTICIPANTS: 300 patients assessed at CADRD between January 1, 1994 and July 1, 2000. MEASUREMENTS: Patients were given an extensive clinical battery consisting of physical and neurologic examination, mental status testing including the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), Short Blessed Dementia (SBD) and Blessed Dementia Scale (ADL), medical history evaluation, and laboratory tests. Other data included age at visit, gender, and medical history variables. RESULTS: Mean MMSE, SBD, and ADL scores differed significantly between groups (p's < 0.01). In all three cognitive tests, the uncertain group was the least impaired while the probable AD group was the most impaired. A Rasch model indicated that only the cognitive measures were useful in discriminating between the three diagnostic groups. CONCLUSION: In general, probable AD patients were distinguished from possible AD patients by the severity of their dementia as measured by the MMSE, ADL and SBD as well as Hachinski-Ischemic Score (HIS) scores. A Rasch model did well at predicting group membership based upon dementia measures only. The uncertain group differed from the AD groups in age and dementia severity as measured by the MMSE, ADL and SBD. Noting differences between this and previous studies, we speculate disparity may be related to differences in population ethnicity.

Risk-factor fusion for predicting multifactorial diseases.

A generalized classification methodology is developed to predict the presence or absence of a multifactorial disease from a set of risk factors thought to be correlated with the disease. The methodology includes fusion to combine risk factors into a single feature vector, normalization to overcome the problems associated with fusing features which have different formats and ranges, discrete Karhunen-Loeve transform (DKLT)-based transformation to facilitate parametric classifier development, the selection of features with high interclass separations, and the design of parametric classifiers. The validity of the method is demonstrated by applying it to predict the occurrence of gout from 14 risk factors. Cross-validation evaluations on 96 patients, 48 clinically diagnosed to have gout and 48 diagnosed to not have gout, showed that an average classification accuracy of 75.7% can be obtained. Even more promising is that higher classification accuracies can be achieved through the careful selection of the DKLT transformation matrix which in turn involves selecting design sets that are good representatives of the gout and nongout classes. It is concluded that the generalized methodology developed in this paper is quite effective in predicting multifactorial diseases and can, therefore, assist/support a physician in diagnosing a multifactorial disease.

The risks and benefits of running barefoot or in minimalist shoes: a systematic review.

CONTEXT: The popularity of running barefoot or in minimalist shoes has recently increased because of claims of injury prevention, enhanced running efficiency, and improved performance compared with running in shoes. Potential risks and benefits of running barefoot or in minimalist shoes have yet to be clearly defined. OBJECTIVE: To determine the methodological quality and level of evidence pertaining to the risks and benefits of running barefoot or in minimalist shoes. DATA SOURCES: In September 2013, a comprehensive search of the Ovid MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus, and CINAHL databases was performed by 2 independent reviewers. STUDY SELECTION: Included articles were obtained from peer-reviewed journals in the English language with no limit for year of publication. Final inclusion criteria required at least 1 of the following outcome variables: pain, injury rate, running economy, joint forces, running velocity, electromyography, muscle performance, or edema. STUDY DESIGN: Systematic review. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level 3. DATA EXTRACTION: Two reviewers appraised each article using the Downs and Black checklist and appraised each for level of evidence. RESULTS: Twenty-three articles met the criteria for this review. Of 27 possible points on the Downs and Black checklist, articles scored between 13 and 19 points, indicating a range of evidence from very limited to moderate. Moderate evidence supports the following biomechanical differences when running barefoot versus in shoes: overall less maximum vertical ground reaction forces, less extension moment and power absorption at the knee, less foot and ankle dorsiflexion at ground contact, less ground contact time, shorter stride length, increased stride frequency, and increased knee flexion at ground contact. CONCLUSION: Because of lack of high-quality evidence, no definitive conclusions can be drawn regarding specific risks or benefits to running barefoot, shod, or in minimalist shoes.