Delfin C. Sotto Jr.

PSYCH 19 Educational Psychology October 10, 2017

Trends in Educational Psychology

Screen children with reading difficulties for hearing problems
Children with reading difficulties should be more thoroughly screened for hearing
problems, a new report by Coventry University academics has said.
The study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, found 25 per cent of its young
participants who had reading difficulties showed mild or moderate hearing impairment, of
which their parents and teachers were unaware.
The researchers believe that if there was more awareness of youngsters' hearing
problems -- as well as an understanding of what particular aspects of literacy they struggled
with -- then the children might be able to receive more structured support that could help them
improve their reading and writing skills.
The study by academics at the university's Centre for Advances in Behavioural
Science compared children with dyslexia to youngsters who had a history of repeated ear
infections to see if they had a similar pattern of literacy difficulties.
A total of 195 children aged between eight and 10 -- including 36 with dyslexia and 29
with a history of repeated ear infections -- completed a series of tests to establish their reading
and writing skills and how they used the structures of words based on their sounds and
meanings, in speech and literacy.
They were retested 18 months later, when a hearing screening was also carried out.
None of the parents of the children with dyslexia reported any knowledge of hearing
loss before the tests, but the screening showed that nine out of 36 of these children had some
form of hearing loss.
Around one third of the children who had repeated ear infections had problems with
reading and writing, although the researchers suggest repeat ear infections will only result in
reading difficulties when accompanied by weaknesses in other areas.
The results showed that children with dyslexia have different patterns of literacy
difficulties to children with a history of repeat ear infections, although there is some overlap
between the groups.
Children with dyslexia had difficulties with literacy activities involving the ability to
manipulate speech sounds (known as phonology) and the knowledge of grammatical word
structure (called morphology).
The academics said these youngsters need to be taught how to use morphology in a
highly-structured step-by-step way to help them improve their literacy skills.
Children with a history of repeated ear infections mainly had problems with the
phonology tasks; showing that they still had subtle difficulties with the perception of spoken
language.
Delfin C. Sotto Jr. PSYCH 19 Educational Psychology October 10, 2017

The academics suggested that teachers should be made aware if youngsters have
had a history of repeated ear infections, so they can consider the possibility of any hearing
loss and understand how the consequences of these infections may impact on children as
they learn about the sound structure of words and begin to read.
Children currently have their hearing tested as babies and, in some areas of the UK,
when they start school. Even so, later onset deafness can occur at any age and GPs can
arrange for a child to have a hearing test at any age if a parent or teacher has concerns.
But the academics believe that more regular, detailed tests might help youngsters with
literacy problems.
Report author Dr Helen Breadmore said: "Many children in school may have an
undetected mild hearing loss, which makes it harder for them to access the curriculum.
Current hearing screening procedures are not picking up these children, and we would advise
that children have their hearing tested in more detail and more often. A mild-moderate hearing
loss will make the perception of speech sounds difficult, particularly in a classroom
environment with background noise and other distractions. Therefore, children who have
suffered repeated ear infections and associated hearing problems have fluctuating access to
different speech sounds precisely at the age when this information is crucial in the early
stages of learning to read."

Doing homework is associated with change in students’ personality

Homework may have a positive influence on students' conscientiousness. As results
of a study conducted by University of Tübingen researchers suggest, students who do more
homework than their peers show positive changes in conscientiousness. Thus, schools may
be doing more than contributing to students' learning, but they may also be effecting changes
of their students' personality. The study results were published in the Journal of Research in
Personality.
Previous research finds that homework effort is consistently related to student
achievement. Also, conscientiousness appears to be the most important personality trait for
predicting homework effort. With this connection in mind, proponents of homework have
argued that the effort which students invest in their homework may have positive effects on
students by influencing their conscientiousness. In their study, the Tübingen scientists
investigated whether this claim holds true.
They analyzed data from a longitudinal study with 2,760 students from two different
school tracks in the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Saxony. Students were
initially assessed right after their transition from primary to secondary school in Grade 5. For
the next three years, students were assessed annually between six and eight weeks after the
start of each school year. They answered questions such as how many of their last 10
homework assignments in mathematics and German they did as well as possible. Also, they
were asked how conscientious they thought they were including whether they would describe
Delfin C. Sotto Jr. PSYCH 19 Educational Psychology October 10, 2017

themselves as tidy or rather as messy and negligent. In addition to students' self-reports,

parents were asked to assess their children's conscientiousness as well.
Results show that those students who invested a lot of effort in their homework
between Grades 5 and 8 also profited in terms of their conscientiousness. Previous research
has shown that conscientiousness tends to undergo a temporary dip in late childhood and
early adolescence. As the results found by the Tübingen scientists suggest, doing your
homework thoroughly and meticulously appeared to counterbalance this dip. Indeed,
researchers found a substantial decrease in conscientiousness for students who reported
that they had not made an effort with their homework. Those results were also backed by
parents, whose reports matched those of their children.
"Our results show that homework is not only relevant for school performance, but also
for personality development -- provided that students put a lot of effort into their assignments,"
says Richard Göllner, first author of the study. "The question whether doing your homework
can also influence the development of conscientiousness has been mostly neglected in
previous discussions of the role of homework," criticizes Ulrich Trautwein, director of the
Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology. "We need to define more
precisely what expectations we have of the potential of homework and how those
expectations can be fulfilled."

Genre may impact cognitive training using video games

Games that utilize distinctive mechanics may offer different benefits, reports
restorative neurology and neuroscience.
Video games are quickly becoming a hot topic in cognitive training. Many see them
as a potential tool to help patients improve their performance and memory, yet little is
known about how different types of video games may affect white matter in the brain and
cognition. In a new study in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience investigators
analyzed learning on two different types of video games -- action and strategy -- to
determine if they were functionally different. They found that cognitive performance and
white matter connectivity in the brain predicted how best we can learn to play the two types
of games.
Researchers discovered unique results from each type of game. Specifically, they
found that processing speed and white matter connectivity in a brain region related to
memory were linked to learning to play the strategy game, while learning to play the action
game was related to a brain region governing mood. Both genres of game lead to better
performance on tasks having to do with working memory. They also found that improved
performance on a speed task was unique to subjects playing the strategy game.
"When researchers use video games as a tool for cognitive enhancement, they
assume that game performance relies on specific cognitive/brain function, yet there is a little
evidence that establishes such a connection," explained lead investigator Chandramallika
Basak, PhD, Assistant Professor at The Center for Vital Longevity, University of Texas at
Delfin C. Sotto Jr. PSYCH 19 Educational Psychology October 10, 2017

Dallas. "Moreover, different researchers use different genres of video games, which makes
this game-cognition-brain relationship even more complicated. Therefore, the aim of our
study was not only to evaluate the three-way game-cognition-brain relationship, but also to
assess this relationship for two different types of games."
Adults of varying ages were recruited for the study, but all had little to no previous
game playing experience. Subjects underwent an MRI scan and then were asked to play
two different games, one action game (Tank Attack 3D) and one strategy game (Sushi-Go-
Round). To measure white matter integrity, researchers used fractional anisotropy (FA),
obtained by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
Working memory and inhibition predicted learning of both games, but better
performance on the perceptual speed task was related only to the strategy game. The DTI
results revealed key differences between the two genres of game: white matter FA in the
right fornix/stria terminalis correlated with the action game learning and white matter FA in
the left cingulum/hippocampus was related to the strategy game learning, even after
controlling for age in both cases.
"Although cognition, to a large extent, was a common predictor of both types of
game learning, regional white matter FA could separately predict action and strategy game
learning," said Dr. Basak. "Given the neural and cognitive correlates of strategy game
learning, strategy games may provide a more beneficial training tool for adults suffering
from memory-related disorders or declines in processing speed."
While researchers found that playing strategy games better engaged memory and
cognitive control brain regions, making them better suited for improving memory tasks, they
hypothesize that action games that stimulate the limbic area and elicit more emotional
arousal might be beneficial for other clinical populations like patients with mood disorders.
Video games will continue to be the subject of scrutiny, both scientifically and
societally, but investigators hope that this study opens the door to thinking about the
nuances of different types of games. "Not all games are created equal, yet people
generalize results from one video game to other video games," concluded Dr. Basak. "Such
oversimplification has serious consequences on research on video game training. I believe
that we need to investigate the specific brain-cognition associations for different genres of
video games before theorizing about the potential impact of a training on a particular genre
of video game."