Volume 14 (2010): Issue 2 (January 2010)

Two experiments were run to investigate how preschoolers use the pattern of an object's change as a cue to noticing correlations among the object's subsequent features. Four-year-old children were familiarized with either an internally or externally-driven transformation of an object, and tested for identification of an animation that did not match the familiar sequence of the object's features. In both experiments children in the internal-change group identified the incorrect sequence significantly more quickly than in the external-change condition. These results strongly suggest that perception of internally-driven transformation facilitates the formation of and/or access to a representation of correspondences between subsequent features of an object. The possible role of this mechanism in essentialist thinking is discussed at the end of the paper.

The paper discusses the role of the superordination relation in the semantic organization of the mental lexicon. The method of three consecutive free association tests (reactions from the previous test are stimuli in the next one, so lists of stimuli are prepared for each respondent separately) was used to determine the role of different kinds of semantic relations in building some fragments of the lexicon. A detailed semantic analysis made in 1200 recurrent (symmetrical) and non-recurrent "chains" built with associations given by 50 secondary school students (Polish language users) revealed the relative importance of the superordination relation as a factor connecting elements of the mental lexicon: the hyponymy/hyperonymy relation occurs more regularly in various lexicon parts than other paradigmatic relations.

Background: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for children and adolescents (ICF CY) has been proposed as a possible framework for evaluating assessment and rehabilitation practice in children with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs).

Aim: The aim of this case report is to describe an evaluative and diagnostic process based on the ICF CY framework for a SpLD patient to show its applicability to this kind of developmental problem.

Method: A 10-year-old boy with difficulties in reading and writing was assessed both traditionally administering a set of cognitive and language test batteries and, innovatively, with the ICF CY checklist aimed to estimate the functioning profile of the child.

Results: The reasons for implementing the recent ICF CY as a framework to assess SpLD in children and to set the goals of interventions were supported. Whereas traditional assessment gives a validated parameter to evaluate the cognitive level and specific difficulties in reading and writing, ICF CY enhances the traditional diagnosis embracing both impairment and social factors to consider when selecting appropriate goals to bring about change in the lives and in the school experiences of children with SpLD, and it gives important cues to teachers, rehabilitators and therapists.

Conclusion: ICF CY gives caregivers the opportunities to work together not only to provide direct intervention with the child, but also to work in partnership with the child's family, friends, school and society.

The study examines the parameter of Mean Length of Utterance (MLU), measured both in morphemes (MLUm) and words (MLUw), in early language development in the case of two English children matched for age. The MLU scores of a normally developing child were compared to the MLU results of a language-impaired child in a longitudinal study. Moreover, the reliability of the MLU index measured in words was also tested in both children. The MLU analysis was based on the CHILDES database and CLAN programme, where the transcripts of spontaneous speech samples are used to calculate basic language parameters at different age-points. The findings of this study indicate that despite the expected delay, the language-impaired child followed a similar route of language development as the control child. However, significant differences between MLUw and MLUm confirmed that the parameters performed two different linguistic analyses.

Limited studies have been carried out in Poland to investigate the motivation which is activated and maintained among Polish students learning Hebrew as their optional second language. The aim of this research was to examine the relationships among integrative and instrumental attitudes and motivation level (Gardner, 1985a) in two age groups of students learning Hebrew, using an 18-item questionnaire adapted from the AMTB (Gardner, 1985b). Contrary to expectations, gender and family ties did not significantly bias the motivation and attitudes in the sample investigated. Close relationships were found between age and integrative attitude and motivation intensity: older students had a more integrative attitude than younger students and experienced more intensive motivation.

Samples of U. S. President Clinton's public communications were scored with a computer program for the emotional undertones of their words, for the proportional occurrence of negations and very common words, and for the use of first and second person pronouns. The first two measures address emotion, the remaining ones style. Measures successfully discriminated (97% correct classification) formal communications from informal ones and informal communications where the President was physically present with his audience from those where he was not (90%). Classification for two sets of validation samples was very strong (90%). Measures discriminated President Clinton's Executive Orders from President G. W. Bush's. Discriminant functions based on emotional measures alone were almost as successful as those including measures of style (no more than 8% fewer correct classifications). Results are interpreted in terms of theories of persuasive presidential rhetoric.