Nonsymbolic Comparison in Deaf Students: No Evidence for a Deficit in Numerosity Processing.

It is commonly found that deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students experience delayed mathematical achievement. The present study used two nonsymbolic comparison tasks to explore the basic numerical skills of DHH students. Nine prelocutive DHH students with cochlear implants and nine hearing students, matched on nonverbal IQ, visual short-term memory, and verbal comprehension, were recruited. The participants performed two different collection comparison tasks with different ratios and under different perceptual conditions. Analyses by task showed similar response times, accuracy, and ratio effects for both groups on the Low Perceptual Condition task, a finding suggesting that the two groups accessed similar representations of quantity. Differences in performance on the simpler High Perceptual Condition task, on which the DHH group showed slower response times, probably were strategic in origin. The results suggest that DHH students have no deficits in basic numerical skills.

Utilidad de una herramienta informática para la adquisición de competencia en razonamiento clínico en logopedia / Usefulness of a computer tool for acquiring skills in clinical diagnostics in speech therapy

El presente trabajo muestra los resultados de una experiencia piloto con una herramienta informática diseñada específicamente para el entrenamiento en diagnóstico clínico denominada Language Assessment Training System (LATS) mediante la resolución de casos clínicos virtuales. El objetivo del estudio fue demostrar la utilidad del LATS para la adquisición de la competencia diagnóstica clínica. La muestra del estudio estuvo formada por 60 estudiantes de 4.° grado de logopedia (edad media=25,2 y Dt=4,11). El estudio siguió un diseño A-A. Los resultados muestran que las competencias en diagnóstico clínico mejoran sustancialmente tras el entrenamiento con la herramienta LATS. Se presenta el estudio y se analizan los resultados del mismo

This study presents the results of a pilot experiment using a computer tool specifically designed to teach clinical diagnostics to students in Speech and Language Therapy. This computer-based tool, called Language Assessment Training System (LATS) focuses on resolving virtual clinical cases. The aim of the present study was to demonstrate the usefulness of LATS in acquiring clinical competences in diagnosing speech and language disorders. An experimental study was carried out to test this aim. A group of 60 participants took part in this experiment. These participants were 4th year students of the Speech and Language Therapy course. They had a mean age of 25.2 (SD=4.11) years. The study was conducted on the basis of an A-A design. The results were analysed and interpreted, and show that their skills have improved with the use of this tool

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

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.

La importancia de la co-ocurrencia en el priming negativo asociativo / The importance of the negative associative priming co-ocurrence

En la creciente literatura sobre el priming negativo se ha constatado la existencia de dicho fenómeno para pares de palabras cuya relación es semántica (dos palabras que pertenecen a una misma categoría semántica, o están unidas por una relación subordinada o supraordinada). De hecho, en el trabajo pionero de Tipper (1985) en el que se define por primera vez el priming negativo, dicho autor aborda el priming negativo de naturaleza semántica. Pero tras un análisis pormenorizado de la literatura no se ha encontrado evidencias de priming negativo en pares con relación asociativa. Las explicaciones pueden ser múltiples: por una parte, que este tipo de estímulos cuente con unas características que les hace difícil mostrar la incidencia del priming negativo; por otra parte; que sea necesario la intervención de variables de tipo estratégicas para que dicho fenómeno se pueda observar; o bien, que la fuerza relacional entre los palabras de un par de esta modalidad (asociativo) sea muy inferior a la de los pares con nexo semántico y de ahí que para observar efectos de priming negativo sea necesario incrementar su fuerza relacional. Si esto fuera así, estaríamos aportando evidencias de la importancia de las variables de tipo mnésico al fenómeno del priming negativo. Los datos del presente trabajo se sitúan en esta línea. De hecho se ha constatado la existencia de priming negativo de tipo asociativo al incrementar la fuerza relacional mediante la co-ocurrencia (AU)