Research Byte: On the Relationship Between #Bilingualism and #Mathematical Performance: A Systematic #Review

 Abstract

As part of the demands of a globalized and interconnected world, studying second languages has become a major priority. Bilingual programs implemented in recent decades have motivated an educational strategy in which content area courses are taught through L2. The potential costs of this strategy in academic performance are debated, especially in challenging areas such as mathematics. The present work systematically reviewed 71 papers based on experiments measuring mathematics performance in bilinguals in order to establish if bilinguals show a (dis)advantage in mathematics compared to monolinguals. The results of a total of 305,136 participants (57,703 bilinguals and 247,503 monolinguals) show that bilingualism does not seem to affect mathematical performance, but this is dependent on whether subjects are highly proficient bilinguals. This type of bilingual may only be affected by lower reaction times depending on the testing language. On the other hand, low language proficiency negatively impacts mathematical performance. Lastly, bilingualism enhances mathematical encoding and processes in non-language-related tasks.

Keywords: 

bilingualism; monolingualism; mathematics; arithmetic; language proficiency; cognitive abilities

Journal of Intelligence Open Access article can be downloaded or read on line by clicking here.

Language and Speech in Autism: Annual Review of Linguistics

Language and Speech in Autism

Annual Review of Linguistics

Vol. 2: 413-425 (Volume publication date January 2016)

First published online as a Review in Advance on November 4, 2015

DOI: 10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030514-124824

Morton Ann Gernsbacher,¹ Emily M. Morson,² and Elizabeth J. Grace³

¹Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706; email: MAGernsb@wisc.edu

²Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405; email: emorson@umail.iu.edu

³Department of Special Education, National Louis University, Chicago, Illinois 60603; email: Elizabeth.Grace@nl.edu

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Web of Science ®: Related Records ®

 

ABSTRACT

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by atypical social interaction, interests or body movements, and communication. Our review examines the empirical status of three communication phenomena believed to be unique to autism: pronoun reversal (using the pronoun you when the pronoun I is intended, and vice versa), echolalia (repeating what someone has said), and a reduced or even reversed production-comprehension lag (a reduction or reversal of the well-established finding that speakers produce less sophisticated language than they can comprehend). Each of these three phenomena has been claimed to be unique to autism; therefore, each has been proposed to be diagnostic of autism, and each has been interpreted in autism-centric ways (psychoanalytic interpretations of pronoun reversal, behaviorist interpretations of echolalia, and clinical lore about the production-comprehension lag). However, as our review demonstrates, none of these three phenomena is in fact unique to autism; none can or should serve as diagnostic of autism, and all call into question unwarranted assumptions about autistic persons and their language development and use.

More on the importance of rhythm perception: Relation to grammar

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Thursday, December 25, 2014

2:45 PM

 

Development of sound (Ga) understand: File under the Gv Gallery Hall of Fame

Cool helpful visual-graphic.

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Six principles of language development for second language learners

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Word retrieval/access--let kids use their hands to gesture

Interesting study that suggests, as per the Lexical Retrieval Hypothesis, that the use of motoric gestures during speech facilitates word access/retrieval in kids.

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The computer is listening: Parents who talk more = infants and toddlers with better language

Well known finding. What is cool and new is the use of technology to record extensive family/home conversations which are then computer analyzed. Cool stuff.

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Research bytes 7-27-10: Working memory & language; naming deficits and reading fluency in dyslexia

Three very interesting research articles.  The first provides a nice overview of the research on working memory (and the various constructs involved), even if you are not interested specifically in specific language impairment issues.  Usual quid-pro-quo offer stands---I will supply a copy of the PDF file to anyone who wants to read one of the articles in exchange for a brief guest blog post (at which time I will then provide a link to the article for others)


Montgomery, J. W., Magimairaj, B. M., & Finney, M. C. (2010). Working Memory and Specific Language Impairment: An Update on the Relation and Perspectives on Assessment and Treatment. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 19(1), 78-94.

Children with specific language impairment(SLI) demonstrate significant language impairments despite normal-range hearing and nonverbal IQ. Many of these children also show marked deficits in working memory (WM) abilities. However, the theoretical and clinical characterization of the association between WM and language limitations in SLI is still sparse. Our understanding of this association would benefit greatly from an updated and thorough review of the literature. Method: We review the newest developments in these areas from both a theoretical and clinical perspective. Our intent is to provide researchers and practicing clinicians (a) a conceptual framework within which the association between WM and language limitations of children with SLI can be understood and (b) potentially helpful suggestions for assessing and treating the memory-language difficulties of children with SLI.  Conclusions: In the past 10 years, important new theoretical insights into the range and nature of WM deficits and relation between these limitations and the language difficulties in SLI have occurred. New, robust diagnostic assessment tools and computerized treatment methods designed to enhance children’s WM functioning have also been developed. The assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of the language difficulties in SLI should consider the potential influence of WM.

Meisinger, E. B., Bloom, J. S., & Hynd, G. W. (2010). Reading fluency: implications for the assessment of children with reading disabilities. Annals of Dyslexia, 60(1), 1-17.

The current investigation explored the diagnostic utility of reading fluency measures in the identification of children with reading disabilities. Participants were 50 children referred to a university-based clinic because of suspected reading problems and/or a prior diagnosis of dyslexia, where children completed a battery of standardized intellectual, reading achievement, and processing measures. Within this clinical sample, a group of children were identified that exhibited specific deficits in their reading fluency skills with concurrent deficits in rapid naming speed and reading comprehension. This group of children would not have been identified as having a reading disability according to assessment of single word reading skills alone, suggesting that it is essential to assess reading fluency in addition to word reading because failure to do so may result in the under-identification of children with reading disabilities.

Jones, M. W., Branigan, H. P., Hatzidaki, A., & Obregon, M. (2010). Is the 'naming' deficit in dyslexia a misnomer? Cognition, 116(1), 56-70.

We report a study that investigated the widely held belief that naming-speed deficits in developmental dyslexia reflect impaired access to lexical-phonological codes. To investigate this issue, we compared adult dyslexic and adult non-dyslexic readers’ performance when naming and semantically categorizing arrays of objects. Dyslexic readers yielded slower response latencies than non-dyslexic readers when naming objects, but a subsequent comparison of object-naming and object-categorization tasks showed that the apparent ‘naming’ deficit could be attributed to a more general difficulty in retrieving information – either phonological or semantic – from the visual stimulus. Our findings suggest that although visual–phonological connections may be crucial in explaining naming-speed performance they do not fully characterise dyslexic readers’ naming-speed impairments.

Technorati Tags: Psychology, school psychology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, forensic psychology, neuropsychology, special education, intelligence, cognitive abilities, cognition, intelligence theories, CHC theory, CHC, Cattell-Horn-Carroll, intelligence, cognition, IQ, IQ tests, Gf, Gc, Gv, Ga, Gsm, Glr, Gs, Gq, Grw, working memory, reading speed, reading fluency, RAN, naming deficits, LD, dyslexia

More on nonword repetiton tasks: Recent literature

Follow-up of prior post.  I just searched the IAP Reference DataBase for any recent articles that had the term "nonword repetition" in the title or keyword field.  I found 130 references.  So..there seems to be a growing body of literature regarding this task.  I just wish I had time to read all of the articles and get a good grasp on the topic.

So much to read...so little time.Technorati Tags: psychology, language, speech, reading, dyslexia, LD, school psychology, educational psychology, education, neuropsychology, cognition, intelligence, nonword repetition, Ga, auditory processing

Whats up with nonword repetition tasks and language learning?

Whats up with nonword repetition tasks?  I previously blogged about an increasing body of literature suggesting that nonword repetition (NWR) tests are proving to be diagnostically important for language.  In that post I also did some arm-chair speculation on the complex CHC factor structure of such tests/tasks---to attempt to explain why they are strongly associated with language learning.

Today I ran across another small study that supports this finding--this time a strong link between NWR and vocabulary development (Gc-VL; lexcial knowledge under crystallized intelligence/comprehension-knowledge) in two year olds.  The article was by Stokes and Klee in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (50:4 [2009], pp 498–505.

Interesting stuff.

Abstract:  Background: This research explored the relative impact of demographic, cognitive, behavioural, and psycholinguistic factors on vocabulary development in two-year-old children. Methods: Two hundred and thirty-two children (24–30 months) were tested on expressive and receptive vocabulary, cognitive development, word learning and working memory skills. Parents completed a British adaptation (Klee & Harrison, 2001) of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI; Fenson et al., 1993), a demographic questionnaire and a questionnaire regarding the child’s social-emotional behaviour. Results: Several demographic, child and processing variables were significantly correlated with CDI (vocabulary) scores, but the only significant unique predictors of CDI scores were nonword repetition (NWR; R2 change = .36), sex (R2 change = .05) and age (R2 change = .04). Scores were only included when a child completed the entire NWR test (77% of toddlers). Conclusions: The NWR task used in this experiment maximised participation in this group of toddlers, and was a strong predictor of vocabulary ability. Longitudinal research is warranted to explore the independent and reciprocal growth in working memory and language skills in children. Keywords: Language development, vocabulary development, working memory.

Technorati Tags: psychology, education, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, preschool, vocabulary, nonword repition, language, Ga, auditory processing, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix for IQ tests: New research

[double click on image to see enlarged and clearer image]

How good are current models for evaluating the cultural loading and linguistic complexity of individual tests in individually administered intelligence batteries?

To date, the most visible work has been based on the Flanagan, Ortiz et al. groups cross-battery work and their presentation of the Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix (C-LIM) in which individual tests in IQ batteries are categorized in terms of their perceived linguistic demand and cultural loading.

I've always believed that the C-LIM made logical and theoretical sense, but was in sore need of some empirical research evidence support.

Previously I presented an attempt by myself and Jeff Evans to quantify the linguistic demands of individually administered tests. That research effort was conducted in the spirit of stimulating others to attempt more sophisticated methods for validating the quantification of the two dimensions of the C-LIM. That post and unpublished research report is available here. Until my attendance at NASP 2009 in Boston this past week, I was unaware of any other empirical attempts to investigate the validity of this model (for example, I've routinely searched the ProQuest digital dissertation abstract service for any CHC, XBA, etc. related dissertations, and to date have not found one that has investigated this matrix-- check out those found at WMF Dissertation Abstracts Project). [Note - if such disserations exist and I've missed them, please contact me to rectify my lack of knowledge and I'll make the appropriate post]

At NASP, John Kranzler and students presented a poster (click here for single page PPT image of poster) (albeit based on a small n---thus caution is urged in generalizing from the results) that investigated the C-LIM classifications of certain Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ III) tests [conflict of interest disclosure - I'm a coauther of the WJ III). The purpose of Kranzler et al's study "was to empirically examine the relationship between English-language proficiency and linguistic demands on the cognitive test performance of a sample of culturally and linguistically diverse children in the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program". The authors concluded that:

Results of this study for an ESOL sample do not follow the predicted pattern based on the C-LIM for the WJ-III. It is important to note that this is a small sample and replication is needed. Nonetheless, these results do not support the use of the C-LIM. These results are consistent with the general conclusion that, on IQ tests, there is very little evidence to suggest that any of the cognitive factor, scale, or subtest profile differences can be used to improve decisions about individuals.

Of course, an alternative explanation is that the C-LIM model may be correct/valid but the Flanagan, Ortiz et al. classifications of some of the WJ III tests are not accurate.

We need more research on this matrix and related interpretations. It is nice to see that some folks are attempting to do this. Kudos to Kranzler and his students for adding a small piece of empircal data to this literature.


Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, special education, learning disabilities, LD, cross-battery, XBA, CHC, Cattell-Horn-Carroll, WJ III, WJ III NU, cultural oading, linguistic complexity

Australian Psychologist special issue on culture, language, and cognitive assessment

The March 2009 issue of the Australian Psychologist (44-1) is a special issued dealing with cultural and language issues in cognitive assessment in Australia. The opening editorial by Stolk (2009) is "Approaches to the influence of culture and language on cognitive assessment instruments: The Australian context"

Technorati Tags: psychology, school psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, Australia, Australian Psychologist, IQ, IQ test, IQ score, intelligence testing, culture, language

Time and language: Special journal issue

A special issue of Language and Learning deals with the role of mental timing/temporal processing and language. Information can be found at my sister blog--the IQ Brain Clock.

Music, language and intelligence: Book review

The link between music, language and intelligence has intrigued laypersons and scholars for decades. If you want to check out a new book in the area, check out Music, Language and the Brain by A. Patel (2008).

A review of the book was recently published in Nature Neuroscience.
Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropscyhology, neuroscience, language, brain, music, intelligence, IQ

Dissertation dish: WJ III cognitive performance and English language proficiency

Another new WJ III/CHC-related doctoral dissertation has found it's way to IQ's Corner radar screen.

Cognitive performance and the development of English language proficiency by Sotelo-Dynega, Marlene, Psy.D., St. John's University (New York), 2007, 79 pages; AAT 3282715

Abstract (Summary)

• The present investigator set out to dispel the myth that performance on cognitive assessments and tests of academic achievement are two separate entities, by evaluating the performances of students who are learning English as their second language. A review of the literature indicates that individuals that are culturally and linguistically different from the mainstream, monolingual English population are at risk for receiving a discriminatory assessment of their cognitive abilities, which in turn will lead to an erroneous classification as a student with a disability, as per criteria set forth by the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004). Sixty-one students in a suburban public school district that were designated as Limited English Proficient (LEP) were given the Woodcock-Johnson-Third Edition-Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ-III) during the spring term of the 2005-2006 academic year to coincide with the annual administration of the New York State English As a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT). The sample included students from the four NYSESLAT proficiency groups: 4 Beginner (7%), 14 Intermediate (23%), 29 Advanced (47%), and 14 Proficient (23%). The results support the investigator's hypotheses and confirm the existence of a linear relationship of moderate strength between the WJ-III and the NYSESLAT. In addition, analyses of the data collected demonstrated the impact of acculturation and English language proficiency on the overall General Intellectual Ability (GIA) scores, obtained from the WJ-IIII and on the performance of those specific subtests that have been deemed linguistically demanding and culturally loaded. Generally, performance on tests of cognitive abilities approached the average range as English language proficiency increased. By studying the impact of second language acquisition and acculturation on measures of cognitive abilities, school psychologists will be better able to differentiate between developmental issues related to second language acquisition and disabilities that affect learning. This information will in turn prevent the number of LEP students that are currently referred to and over-represented in special education programs.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, ESL, ELP, language proficiency, WJ III, intelligence, IQ, IQ test, IQ scores, language

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Dissertation dish: Prediction of CHC abilities by teachers

It is DD (dissertation dish) time!!!

I just received an e-alert regarding the availability of a new CHC-related dissertation [click here for other CHC/WJ III dissertations recently located]. Below is the reference and abstract. Without reading the dissertation, a question that needs to be asked is how good where all the questionnaire items. Possibly higher teacher-rated and actual tested CHC relations would be present with improved rating scale items.

• Upper elementary teachers' predictions of their students' oral reading levels and levels of reading-related CHC abilities by Zavertnik, Jennifer Leigh, Ph.D., Temple University, 2007, 158 pages; AAT 3268230

Abstract

• Intelligence tests are invaluable tools for school psychologists to assist in understanding a student's cognitive strengths and needs in making accurate diagnostic and treatment decisions. Research has shown that profile analysis, the time-honored method of test interpretation practiced by the majority of school psychologists, is flawed. The Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Theory of Cognitive Abilities offers the most empirically supported theory of intelligence to date. Based on this theory, researchers have proposed a cross-battery approach to cognitive assessment. School psychologists are encouraged to use this framework to provide more reliable and valid psychoeducational evaluations. However, little research has looked at the application of CHC theory in the classroom. This study investigated whether teachers were able to predict the level of CHC abilities that their 3 rd , 4 th , and 5 th grade students possess as related to reading achievement. This study utilized a 23-item questionnaire completed by the student's teacher based on classroom observations. Each item related to one of the five broad CHC abilities that have been found to correlate with reading achievement: Gc, Ga, Glr, Gsm and Gs. The teachers were also asked to rate each student's oral reading ability. Ten subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability--Third Edition (WJ-III COG) and one subtest from the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement--Third Edition (WJ-III ACH) were then individually administered to each participant. Additional analyses examined which abilities teachers were best able to predict as well as which of the five CHC abilities best predicted the oral reading score. Results from the 47 participants (26 girls and 21 boys) found that only the teachers' concurrent predictions of their students' crystallized ability and oral reading scores significantly correlated with their actual scores. The students' short-term memory and crystallized ability scores were the only CHC abilities associated with the students' oral reading scores. Together, these two abilities explained 50.5% of the variance in the students' scores. While further replication is warranted with larger, more diverse samples, this teacher survey has the potential to be an important source of information to school psychologists, particularly in the pre-referral process.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, testing, intelligence, IQ test, IQ scores, CHC theory, Cattell-Horn-Carroll, Gf-Gc, cross-battery

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Talking to yourself--private speech (self-talk)

Interesting post at Mind Hacks re: the neuropsychology of private thoughts (self-talk). Mind Hacks is one of my favorite mind/brain/cognition blogs.


Technorati Tags: psychology, neuropsychology, school psychology, educational psychology, brain, cognition, intelligence, speech, thought

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Spatial representation of events

A nice post over on Mixing Memory on "language, writing, and the spatial representation events." Thanks MM.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, language, writing, spatial, Gv, Gc, cognition, cognitive

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Nonword (Ga/Gsm) repetition tasks - literature to track

Sorry for my very inconsistent posting over the past few months. This summer has been crazy as I work with my lovely fiance to plan a wedding, sell two houses, and build a new house :)

The purpose of this post is to alert readers to a trend I've detected (I may be late in this detection...but...at least I've now noticed it..better late than never)---an increasing body of empirical literature that implicates the abilities measured by non-word repetition tasks in the identification of children with specific language impairments (SLI). Today I ran across a meta-analysis by Estes et al. (2007; click here to view) that continues to highlight the importance of these abilities and measurement tasks. The abstract is reproduced below.

Something important seems to be measured by non-word repetition tasks, although what these abilities are is a matter of debate. As noted by Estes et al.:

• "There has been considerable debate surrounding the nature of the skills tapped in nonword repetition, whether it recruits phonological working memory (Bishop et al., 1996; Botting & Conti-Ramsden, 2001; Montgomery, 1995b; Van der Lely & Howard, 1993), phonological encoding (Kamhi & Catts, 1986), phonological awareness or sensitivity (e.g., Metsala, 1999), or a general phonological processing ability (e.g., Bowey, 1996, 2001). Many authors have also acknowledged that the act of repeating nonwords involves multiple processes (e.g., Briscoe, Bishop, & Norbury, 2001; Edwards & Lahey, 1998; Gathercole, Willis, Baddeley, & Emslie, 1994; Snowling, Chiat, & Hulme, 1991). A child's ability to repeat a novel word may be affected by any of the component skills involved in the process of hearing, encoding, and producing a word form: the ability to perceive speech distinctions; the preciseness, robustness, or organization of phonological and morphological representations; the ability to store the word form; and motor planning and articulation skills. The impairments of children with SLI may affect performance at any point or at many points in this process."

I concur. Task analysis suggests that, from a CHC factor analysis perspective, non-word repetition tasks may garner their diagnostic sensitivity from their factorial complexity (i.e., they measure multiple important abilities/constructs). These may include such Ga (auditory processing) narrow abilities as phonetic coding (PC), speech sound discrimination (US), memory for sound patterns (UM), and temporal tracking (UK). In addition, clearly the Gsm narrow ability of working memory (MW; what is often called the phonological working memory or articulatory loop) is implicated. Other CHC candidate abilities included efficacy of accessing a person's lexicon (aka; speed of lexical access or naming facility-Glr: NA). For users of the WJ-III battery [conflict of interest disclosure - I'm a coauthor], we have a test called Sound Awareness that has been found to be very predictive of academic achievement and diagnostic classification (normal vs some kind of disorder)...primarily, I believe, because it is a CHC ability-complex measure of multiple narrow abilities (at a minimum, PC and MW). Measures that are not factorially "pure" can still be important and useful for other assessment purposes - diagnosis and prediction.

I would encourage readers to continue to track the emerging non-word repetition practical and theoretical literature. Another important article to read is by Gathercole (2006). Also, I've previously blogged about a non-word repetition article in the journal Dyslexia that, IMHO, suffered from serious methodological flaws and should not be taken seriously. Finally, as my awareness of this literature has grown I recently ran a search of the IAP Reference Database for other articles that may be related (as you will see..there is no shortage of literature to read in this area).

Estes et al. (2007) Abstract

• Purpose: This study presents a meta-analysis of the difference in nonword repetition performance between children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). The authors investigated variability in the effect sizes (i.e., the magnitude of the difference between children with and without SLI) across studies and its relation to several factors: type of nonword repetition task, age of SLI sample, and nonword length. Method: The authors searched computerized databases and reference sections and requested unpublished data to find reports of nonword repetition tasks comparing children with and without SLI. Results: Children with SLI exhibited very large impairments in nonword repetition, performing an average (across 23 studies) of 1.27 standard deviations below children without SLI. A moderator analysis revealed that different versions of the nonword repetition task yielded significantly different effect sizes, indicating that the measures are not interchangeable. The second moderator analysis found no association between effect size and the age of children with SLI. Finally, an exploratory meta-analysis found that children with SLI displayed difficulty repeating even short nonwords, with greater difficulty for long nonwords. Conclusions: These findings have potential to affect how nonword repetition tasks are used and interpreted, and suggest several directions for future research.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, speech, language, nonword repetition, pseudowords, Ga, auditory processing, Gsm, working memory, phonological loop, Glr, naming facility, lexical access, specific language impairement, SLI.school psychology, special education, education, assessment, CHC theory, intelligence

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Auditory (Ga) processing fluency - CHC theory extension?

Time to unleash some of my recent musings/ruminations that have been incubating in my cortex.

Regular readers of either of my blogs (IQ's Corner; the IQ Brain Clock) should have noted my continued and increasing interest in contemporary research, often from diverse diverse professional sandboxes (e.g., music perception; neuroscience; cognitive psychology; biological psychology; etc.), regarding cognitive temporal processing and/or mental/interval time-keeping (my interest in these topics was recently reflected in posting of the the IQ Brain Clock EWOK).

Without getting into detail (space does not allow), some recent reading I've completed re: the work of Dr. Tallal (author of the Fast ForWord intervention program; note - as I've mentioned before, I've not yet reviewed the FF intervention research...I've been focusing exclusively on the substantive theoretical and empirical research re: the cognitive abilities that underlie the foundation for the FF intervention) has suggested, in my little cortex, possible links between her research on "temporalspectral acoustic speed" (also referred to, by Dr. Tallal, as rapid auditory processing; temporalspectral auditory processing speed; and/or acoustic speed) and the more general mental/interval time-keeping literature. [Click here, here, and here to view the primary Tallal articles I've been digesting]

Although I've not yet incorporated Dr. Tallal's research (as well as similar work done by others; e.g., Stefanatos et al. 2007 Neuropsychologia article on "rapid auditory gap detection") into the IQ Brain Clock EWOK (I will do so when I post the next revision), I have started the incorporation process in my personal knowledge base.

Sometime during this or next week I hope to post (over at the IQ Brain Clock blog) more of my thoughts regarding the cross-fertilization of Dr. Tallal's domain-specific (language and reading) "timing" research with the more domain-general mental/interval time-keeping/temporal processing research. I think they are related and complimentary lines of important research.

However, at this time I would like to toss out one of my thoughts to those interested in the CHC theory of cognitive abilities. In my 2005 Chapter in the Flanagan and Harrison Clinical Intellectual Assessment book (aka, the CIA book) (click here for on-line version of chapter), I attempted to update the factor structure of the human cognitive speed domains (Gs and Gt). I presented a preliminary structural model for consideration.

My recent musings have led me to speculate the the rapid auditory processing speed Dr. Tallal and others have been investigating might represent a speed/fluency factor in the CHC domain of Ga. As articulated in Carroll's seminal treatise, abilities within CHC ability domains can often be classified as either level or speed/rate/fluency abilities. For example, as noted in the proposed speed hierarchy in my 2005 chapter, speed of reasoning (RE) is a possible speed/fluency ability in the broad domain of fluid reasoning (Gf). Similarly, perceptual speed (P) is a rate/fluency aspect of visual-spatial processing (Gv). Another example would be number facility (N) as the rate/fluency aspect of quantitative knowledge (Gq).

My current thoughts, which are very preliminary, is that the acoustic/rapid auditory processing speed abilities investigated by Tallal et al. might be conceptualized as a rate/fluency ability in the CHC domain of auditory processing (Ga).

What do people think?

More thoughts will follow at the IQ Brain Clock.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, cognition, intelligence, Ga, auditory processing, acoustic speed, auditory processing speed, Fast ForWord, temporal processing, mental time keeping, interval timing, IQ Brain Clock, CHC theory, Cattell-Horn-Carroll, neuroscience

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