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• New Enterprise Competition 2014: Round Two results    (Tue 25 of Mar., 2014)
  Meshing social media and broadcasting, supporting dyslexic children with creative resources, and a new assistive technology for people with visual disabilities are just some of the innovative ideas awarded through Round Two of the University’s 2014 New Enterprise Competition (NEC). (Source: University of Bristol news)MedWorm Sponsor Message: Find the best Christmas Sales, Boxing Day Sales and January Sales here.
• The Effect of Parents' Literacy Skills and Children's Preliteracy Skills on the Risk of Dyslexia.    (Sat 22 of Mar., 2014)
  Authors: van Bergen E, de Jong PF, Maassen B, van der Leij A Abstract The combination of investigating child and family characteristics sheds light on the constellation of risk factors that can ultimately lead to dyslexia. This family-risk study examines plausible preschool risk factors and their specificity. Participants (N = 196, 42 % girls) included familial risk (FR) children with and without dyslexia in Grade 3 and controls. First, we found impairments in phonological awareness, rapid naming, and letter knowledge in FR kindergartners with later dyslexia, and mild phonological-awareness deficits in FR kindergartners without subsequent dyslexia. These skills were better predictors of reading than arithmetic, except for rapid naming. Second, the literacy environment at home ...
• Otitis media: Is precursor of delayed reading in Arabic speaking children?    (Thu 13 of Mar., 2014)
  Conclusions: Children with early onset otitis media (birth to three years) tend to be at greater risk for delayed reading than age-matched controls. (Source: International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology)
• Entrainment of neural oscillations as a modifiable substrate of attention.    (Mon 10 of Mar., 2014)
  Authors: Calderone DJ, Lakatos P, Butler PD, Castellanos FX Abstract Brain operation is profoundly rhythmic. Oscillations of neural excitability shape sensory, motor, and cognitive processes. Intrinsic oscillations also entrain to external rhythms, allowing the brain to optimize the processing of predictable events such as speech. Moreover, selective attention to a particular rhythm in a complex environment entails entrainment of neural oscillations to its temporal structure. Entrainment appears to form one of the core mechanisms of selective attention, which is likely to be relevant to certain psychiatric disorders. Deficient entrainment has been found in schizophrenia and dyslexia and mounting evidence also suggests that it may be abnormal in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disor...
• Characteristics of dyslexia and dysgraphia in a Chinese patient with semantic dementia.    (Sun 09 of Mar., 2014)
  We describe a 44-year-old Chinese-speaking patient with semantic dementia (SD), who demonstrates dyslexia and dysgraphia. The man was administered a series of neuropsychological inspections, including general language tests and reading and writing examinations. The patient demonstrated surface dyslexia when reading single Chinese characters aloud. While most writing errors demonstrated by the patient were orthographically similar errors and noncharacter responses, such as pictograph, logographeme, and stroke errors, rather than phonologically plausible errors that were homophonous or different only in tone from the targets. We suggest that the type of acquired dysgraphia demonstrated by Chinese-speaking SD patients is determined by the unique features of the Chinese writing system. PMI...