Is Motor Milestone Assessment in Infancy Valid and Scaled Equally Across Sex, Birth Weight, and Gestational Age? Findings From the Millennium Cohort Study.

Is the assessment of motor milestones valid and scaled equivalently for all infants? It is not only important to understand if the way we use gross and fine motor scores are appropriate for monitoring motor milestones but also to determine if these scores are confounded by specific infant characteristics. Therefore, the aim of the study is to investigate the latent structure underlying motor milestone assessment in infancy and measurement invariance across sex, birth weight, and gestational age. For this study, the birth cohort data from the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) was used, which includes the assessment of eight motor milestone tasks from the Denver Developmental Screening Test in 9-month-old infants (N = 18,531), depicting early motor development of the first children of generation Z. Confirmatory factor analyses showed a better model fit for a two-factor structure (i.e., gross and fine motor development) compared to a one-factor structure (i.e., general motor development), and multiple indicators multiple causes modeling revealed no differential item functioning related to sex, birth weight, and gestational age. The study provides support for the use of gross and fine motor scores when assessing motor milestones in infants-both boys and girls with different birth weights and of varying gestational ages. Further investigation into widely adopted assessment tools is recommended to support the use of valid composite scores in early childhood research and practice.

Birth weight, verbal cognition in early adolescence, and lexical and reading skills in late adolescence: a formal mediation analysis using a potential outcomes approach.

BACKGROUND: Oral and written language in late adolescence are influenced by many pre- and postnatal factors, including cognitive performance at earlier ages. We investigated whether the association between birth weight and lexical knowledge and reading comprehension in late adolescence (14-16 years) is mediated by verbal cognition during early adolescence (10-11 years). METHODS: We conducted a mediation analysis via a potential outcomes approach to data from three United Kingdom (UK) prospective birth cohorts - The National Child Development Study (NCDS; year of birth (Y.B.) = 1,958; analytic sample size (A.N.) = 9,399; original sample size (O.N.) = 18,558), British Cohort Study (BCS70; Y.B. = 1,970; A.N. = 6,591; O.N. = 17,196), and Millennium Cohort Study (MCS; Y.B. = 2,000-2,001; A.N. = 3,950; O.N. = 18,552) - to evaluate the indirect effects of birth weight on lexical knowledge (BCS and MCS) and reading comprehension measures (NCDS) in adolescence. RESULTS: We found an indirect effect but no statistically significant direct effects for the BCS and MCS cohorts. The proportion of the effect of birth weight on oral and written language in late adolescence mediated by early adolescence verbal cognition was 59.19% (BCS) and 8.41% (MCS) for lexical knowledge and 61.00% when the outcome was reading comprehension (NCDS). Sensitivity analyses, used to assess whether unmeasured variables could have affected our mediation estimates, showed that for reading comprehension, in NCDS, the indirect effect is robust; only unmeasured confounders highly correlated with the mediator and outcome (ρ = .68) would explain away the indirect effect. For lexical knowledge, smaller correlations with hypothetical confounders (ρ = .33 for BCS) would suffice to render the indirect effect non-significant; the indirect effect for MCS non statistical significant. CONCLUSIONS: Birth weight affects oral and written language skills (lexical knowledge and reading comprehension) in late adolescence via verbal cognition in early adolescence in two cohorts born in 1958 and 1970, but not in a cohort born at the turn of the millennium. These indirect effects were stronger than the direct effects and are unlikely to be explained by unmeasured confounders when the outcome involves complex skills such as reading comprehension.

Assessing Music Perception in Young Children: Evidence for and Psychometric Features of the M-Factor.

Given the relationship between language acquisition and music processing, musical perception (MP) skills have been proposed as a tool for early diagnosis of speech and language difficulties; therefore, a psychometric instrument is needed to assess music perception in children under 10 years of age, a crucial period in neurodevelopment. We created a set of 80 musical stimuli encompassing seven domains of music perception to inform perception of tonal, atonal, and modal stimuli, in a random sample of 1006 children, 6-13 years of age, equally distributed from first to fifth grades, from 14 schools (38% private schools) in So Paulo State. The underlying model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. A model encompassing seven orthogonal specific domains (contour, loudness, scale, timbre, duration, pitch, and meter) and one general music perception factor, the "m-factor," showed excellent fit indices. The m-factor, previously hypothesized in the literature but never formally tested, explains 93% of the reliable variance in measurement, while only 3.9% of the reliable variance could be attributed to the multidimensionality caused by the specific domains. The 80 items showed no differential item functioning based on sex, age, or enrolment in public vs. private school, demonstrating the important psychometric feature of invariance. Like Charles Spearman's g-factor of intelligence, the m-factor is robust and reliable. It provides a convenient measure of auditory stimulus apprehension that does not rely on verbal information, offering a new opportunity to probe biological and psychological relationships with music perception phenomena and the etiologies of speech and language disorders.

Pathway evidence of how musical perception predicts word-level reading ability in children with reading difficulties.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether specific domains of musical perception (temporal and melodic domains) predict the word-level reading skills of eight- to ten-year-old children (n = 235) with reading difficulties, normal quotient of intelligence, and no previous exposure to music education classes. METHOD: A general-specific solution of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), which underlies a musical perception construct and is constituted by three latent factors (the general, temporal, and the melodic domain), was regressed on word-level reading skills (rate of correct isolated words/non-words read per minute). RESULTS: General and melodic latent domains predicted word-level reading skills.

Effectiveness of music education for the improvement of reading skills and academic achievement in young poor readers: a pragmatic cluster-randomized, controlled clinical trial.

INTRODUCTION: Difficulties in word-level reading skills are prevalent in Brazilian schools and may deter children from gaining the knowledge obtained through reading and academic achievement. Music education has emerged as a potential method to improve reading skills because due to a common neurobiological substratum. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of music education for the improvement of reading skills and academic achievement among children (eight to 10 years of age) with reading difficulties. METHOD: 235 children with reading difficulties in 10 schools participated in a five-month, randomized clinical trial in cluster (RCT) in an impoverished zone within the city of São Paulo to test the effects of music education intervention while assessing reading skills and academic achievement during the school year. Five schools were chosen randomly to incorporate music classes (n = 114), and five served as controls (n = 121). Two different methods of analysis were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention: The standard method was intention-to-treat (ITT), and the other was the Complier Average Causal Effect (CACE) estimation method, which took compliance status into account. RESULTS: The ITT analyses were not very promising; only one marginal effect existed for the rate of correct real words read per minute. Indeed, considering ITT, improvements were observed in the secondary outcomes (slope of Portuguese = 0.21 [p<0.001] and slope of math = 0.25 [p<0.001]). As for CACE estimation (i.e., complier children versus non-complier children), more promising effects were observed in terms of the rate of correct words read per minute [ß = 13.98, p<0.001] and phonological awareness [ß = 19.72, p<0.001] as well as secondary outcomes (academic achievement in Portuguese [ß = 0.77, p<0.0001] and math [ß = 0.49, p<0.001] throughout the school year). CONCLUSION: The results may be seen as promising, but they are not, in themselves, enough to make music lessons as public policy.

EACOL (Scale of Evaluation of Reading Competence by the Teacher): evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity.

AIM: The study aimed to provide information about the concurrent and discriminant validation of the Scale of Evaluation of Reading Competence by the Teacher (EACOL), which is composed of 27 dichotomous items concerning reading aloud (17 items) and reading silently (10 items). SAMPLES: Three samples were used in this validation study. The first was composed of 335 students with an average age of 9.75 years (SD = 1.2) from Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais State), Brazil, where the full spectrum of reading ability was assessed. The second two samples were from São Paulo city (São Paulo State), Brazil, where only children with reading difficulties were recruited. The first São Paulo sample was labeled "SP-screening" and had n = 617, with a mean age of 9.8 years (SD = 1.0), and the other sample was labeled "SP-trial" and had n = 235, with a mean age of 9.15 years (SD = 0.05). METHODS: Results were obtained from a latent class analysis LCA, in which two latent groups were obtained as solutions, and were correlated with direct reading measures. Also, students' scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale and on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire tested the discriminant validation. RESULTS: Latent groups of readers underlying the EACOL predicted all direct reading measures, while the same latent groups showed no association with behavior and intelligence assessments, giving concurrent and discriminant validity to EACOL, respectively. CONCLUSION: EACOL is a reliable screening tool which can be used by a wide range of professionals for assessing reading skills.

Racial discrimination and health in Brazil: evidence from a population-based survey.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between racial discrimination and three health outcomes: self-rated health (SRH), physical morbidity and depression, in the Brazilian population. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study based on data obtained from a representative national survey carried out in 2008: The Research for Social Dimension of Inequalities. PARTICIPANTS: 3,863 household heads who classified themselves as Blacks or Mullatoes regarding their race and answered the entire research questionnaire. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Racial discrimination was measured through a scale of 9 domains based on a previously validated instrument and classified into two categories: no discrimination and any experience of racial discrimination. SRH was based on the question from the SF-36 quality of life instrument. Physical morbidity and depression were obtained from a list of chronic diseases from the questionnaire. Regression analysis was carried out for the three health outcomes controlling for socioeconomic, demographic, health behavior variables, and body mass index. RESULTS: Racial discrimination was negatively associated with health for all evaluated outcomes. Any experience of racial discrimination was associated with 1.37 more chance of having worse SRH, 1.55 more chance of having more physical morbidities and 1.77 more chance of having depression, even after controlling for confounders. CONCLUSION: An impact of racial discrimination on the health of the Brazilian population was found, regardless of the health indicator used, which revealed that depression was the health outcome with the most pronounced association.

Music education for improving reading skills in children and adolescents with dyslexia.

BACKGROUND: Dyslexia (or developmental dyslexia or specific reading disability) is a specific learning disorder that has a neurobiological origin. It is marked by difficulties with accurate or fluent recognition of words and poor spelling in people who have average or above average intelligence and these difficulties cannot be attributed to another cause, for example, poor vision, hearing difficulty, or lack of socio-environmental opportunities, motivation, or adequate instruction. Studies have correlated reading skills with musical abilities. It has been hypothesized that musical training may be able to remediate timing difficulties, improve pitch perception, or increase spatial awareness, thereby having a positive effect on skills needed in the development of language and literacy. OBJECTIVES: To study the effectiveness of music education on reading skills (that is, oral reading skills, reading comprehension, reading fluency, phonological awareness, and spelling) in children and adolescents with dyslexia. SEARCH METHODS: We searched the following electronic databases in June 2012: CENTRAL (2012, Issue 5), MEDLINE (1948 to May Week 4 2012 ), EMBASE (1980 to 2012 Week 22), CINAHL (searched 7 June 2012), LILACS (searched 7 June 2012), PsycINFO (1887 to May Week 5 2012), ERIC (searched 7 June 2012), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (1970 to 6 June 2012), Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Sciences and Humanities (1990 to 6 June 2012), and WorldCat (searched 7 June 2012). We also searched the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and reference lists of studies. We did not apply any date or language limits. SELECTION CRITERIA: We planned to include randomized controlled trials. We looked for studies that included at least one of our primary outcomes. The primary outcomes were related to the main domain of the reading: oral reading skills, reading comprehension, reading fluency, phonological awareness, and spelling, measured through validated instruments. The secondary outcomes were self esteem and academic achievement. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two authors (HCM and RBA) independently screened all titles and abstracts identified through the search strategy to determine their eligibility. For our analysis we had planned to use mean difference for continuous data, with 95% confidence intervals, and to use the random-effects statistical model when the effect estimates of two or more studies could be combined in a meta-analysis. MAIN RESULTS: We retrieved 851 references via the search strategy. No randomized controlled trials testing music education for the improvement of reading skills in children with dyslexia could be included in this review. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: There is no evidence available from randomized controlled trials on which to base a judgment about the effectiveness of music education for the improvement of reading skills in children and adolescents with dyslexia. This uncertainty warrants further research via randomized controlled trials, involving a interdisciplinary team: musicians, hearing and speech therapists, psychologists, and physicians.