Reading Comprehension Monitoring of Expository Discourses in Third to Fifth Grade ADHD Children with/without Vocabulary Delay

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate reading comprehension monitoring including three types of error detection (lexical inconsistency, internal inconsistency, external inconsistency) and correction with expository discourse in school-aged children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).Methods: Nineteen ADHD children with vocabulary delay, 17 ADHD children without vocabulary delay, and 20 typically developing children students from third, fourth, and fifth grades participated in the study. In order to assess comprehension monitoring; expository discourses contained three different types of errors. Comprehension monitoring tasks were presented in the following order: First, children were asked to find out errors in two expository texts of comparison and causation. After finding out errors, children were asked to change the appropriate words verbally.Results: ADHD children with vocabulary delay did show difficultly in reading comprehension monitoring tasks when compared to age-matched typically developing children and ADHD children without language impairment. Internal inconsistency was the most difficult error to identify and correct, and lexical inconsistency was the easiest error for all three groups.Conclusion: The result proposed that even children with ADHD who have no difficulty in basic language and reading skills were likely to have difficulty properly using reading comprehension monitoring, which is closely related to working memory and executive functions. The poor comprehension monitoring skills would negatively influence effective reading comprehension.

What makes a text interesting? Interest-evoking strategies in expository text from Russian school textbooks

The article provides the linguistics approach to the study of text-based interest. The purpose of the article is to identify the means and strategies used in expository texts from Russian school textbooks for the creation of text emotiveness. This characteristic of an interesting text has been repeatedly pointed out in the psychological research (Schiefele 2009). The article uses the linguistics methods of communicative and functional analysis and, in particular, the method of semantic modeling of emotive situations (Filimonova 2007). The authors intention to evoke the readers interest is the basis for forming an emotional-evoking type of expository discourse. The implementation of this intention is carried out through special discourse strategies called interest-evoking rhetorical strategies. Some of these strategies are based on the transmission of emotions as a special type of information in verbal interaction. In a text, this type of information is represented by emotiveness, that is, a component of text content through which the emotional states of participants of communication or characters are manifested. The article provides a description of four primary ways to create expository text emotiveness: 1) the usage of emotive insertions - commentaries made by the participant of communication acting as the subject who feels emotions; 2) the verbalization of the emotional scenario of interest for its projection to the reader; 3) the description of the characters emotional states; 4) the representation of abnormal situations (a disruption of normal and expected relations between components of a situation in the real world described in a text). The first two ways are related to the strategies of the text dialogization aimed at creating the dialogue form of an expository text, and the thematization of interest. The third way enhances the text vividness and the fourth increases its dynamics and unexpectedness for the reader.

A Systematic Review of Academic Discourse Interventions for School-Aged Children With Language-Related Learning Disabilities

Purpose This systematic review synthesized a set of peer-reviewed studies published between 1985 and 2019 and addressed the effectiveness of existing narrative and expository discourse interventions for late elementary– and middle school–aged students with language-related learning disabilities. Method A methodical search of the literature for interventions targeting expository or narrative discourse structure for students aged 9–14 years with group experimental designs identified 33 studies, seven of which met specific criteria to be included in this review. Results An 8-point critical appraisal scale was applied to analyze the quality of the study design, and effect sizes were calculated for six of the seven studies; equivocal to small effects of far-transfer outcomes (i.e., generalizability to other settings) and equivocal to moderate near-transfer outcomes (i.e., within the treatment setting) were identified. The most effective intervention studies provided explicit instruction of expository texts with visual supports and student-generated learning materials (e.g., notes or graphic organizers) with moderate dosage (i.e., 180–300 min across 6–8 weeks) in a one-on-one or paired group setting. Greater intervention effects were also seen in children with reading and/or language disorders, compared to children with overall academic performance difficulties. Conclusions A number of expository discourse interventions showed promise for student use of learned skills within the treatment setting (i.e., near-transfer outcomes) but had limited generalization of skills (i.e., far-transfer outcomes). Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12449258

Discourse markers as a lens to variation across speech and writing

This paper explores the use of the discourse marker (DM) yaʕni (lit. ‘it means’) in spoken and written Egyptian-Cairene Arabic. The DM yaʕni originates in conversational interaction and is symbiotic with its socio-cognitive constraints and goals: it serves to facilitate the verbalization of new or hard-to-activate ideas and to optimize the verbalization of already-introduced ideas, so as to enhance participants’ mutual understanding and involvement. When carried over to written discourse, yaʕni undergoes various forms of adaptation. In casual-personal prose yaʕni is frequently used, however the distribution of the tokens is different and their function recontextualized. Tokens introducing new ideas are few and acquire symbolic meaning, while tokens introducing elaboration of prior discourse are widely used and serve to evoke conversational interaction. In expository discourse, as reflected in Egyptian Wikipedia, yaʕni is considerably less frequent and limited to elaborations of concepts and facts. The paper shows the highly context-sensitive function of the DM yaʕni and the ways in which its indexical force, as a marker of conversationality, is either heightened or weakened in writing, depending on the genre in which it is put to use.

Altxunbidëa. Estudio etnofotográfico del ciclo anual trashumante roncalés

RESUMEN Este estudio contribuye al análisis de un ciclo anual de ganadería extensiva desde una perspectiva transversal. En el trabajo se estudian los estadíos del pastoreo invernal en el semidesierto de las Bardenas, los usos y disfrutes de los puertos de la montaña y ambas cabañeras de desplazamiento entre las dos regiones geográficas y climáticas. En los resultados gráficos del análisis se observa no solo su componente de permanencia en las costumbres locales sino también las rápidas trasformaciones actuales palpables en su significación dentro del paisaje cultural de esta sociedad pirenaica. Se logra contextualizar un sistema pastoril que imperó hasta hace no mucho, no solo en Navarra sino en toda la señalada cordillera montañosa y en la depresión del Ebro. LABURPENA Azterlan honek abeltzaintza zabala urteko zikloa zeharkako ikuspegitik ikertzen laguntzen du. Lanean neguko artzaintzaren egonaldiak aztertzen ditugu Bardeako basamortuan edo mendiko larretan erabilerak eta gozamenak eta bi eskualde geografiko eta klimatikoen arteko abelbideak. Ikerlanaren emaitza grafikoetan, tokiko ohituretan iraunkortasunaren egiturak eta egungo eraldaketa azkarrak ere ikusten dira. Pirinioetako gizarte honetako kultura paisaian, aldaketa hauek haien garrantzia ikusgai daude. Ikuspuntu integraletik, artzain-errealitatearen bilakaera maila grafikoan eta antropologikoki testuinguruan ahala da. Horrela, Nafarroan eta beste toki batzuetan, gaur egungo abeltzaintza ereduaren bilakaeraren ebaluazioarekin amaitu da. ABSTRACT The work analyzes the annual cycle of extensive livestock farming from a transversal perspective. This paper concerns the studies of the stages of winter grazing in the semi-desert of the Bardenas, the uses and enjoyments of the mountain pastures and the cattle routes between the two geographical and climatic regions. Paper aims to contextualize by graphs the analysis of the customs and anthropological level the evolution of this pastoralist reality from an integral perspective and clear expository discourse. Thus, the study concludes with an assessment of the evolution, loss or conservation of character traits of this stock model in the mountain range and the Ebro Lowland.

TOPIKALISASI DAN BENTUK WACANA KESEHATAN PADA KORAN SURYA JANUARI 2019

This research focuses on topicalisation and forms of discourse contained in the health discourse in the January 2019 edition of Surya newspaper. The description underlying the researcher conducted this study is using discourse analysis as the main theoretical basis and the basis of research, beside topicalisation and discourse form as the subjects in research. The objectives of this study are to describe the topics between sentences and to know health discourse form. Descriptive approach is used in this research. The type of data examined at the focus of the first problem is sentence in each the health discourse’s paragraph in the January 2019 edition of Surya newspaper and the type of data examined at the focus of the first problem is the paragraphs in the discourse. The data collection techniques are observation, deciding the object, identifying data and coding data. Based on the problem, to have a data validity test, the researcher uses triangulation theory which compares the final result as information with relevant theory perspective to avoid researcher’s individual biases of the finding produced. The result of the study shows that not all paragraphs in the discourse have the topic. However, whole discourses have each main topic. In the research of discourse form, the result of analysis shows that expository discourse is the most frequent delivered in the health discourse in the January 2019 edition of Surya newspaper. There are hortatory discourse forms in the health discourse in the January 2019 edition of Surya newspaper, but not as much as expository discourse. Narrative discourse form is a most rarely delivered. Procedural discourse form, dramatic discourse, epistolary discourse and ceremonial discourse are not found in the health discourse in the January 2019 edition of Surya newspaper.

Describing the Cookie Theft picture

Speech-language pathologists routinely use picture description tasks to assess expository discourse in clients with disorders such as aphasia and dementia. One picture description task – the Cookie Theft picture from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination – has come to dominate clinical settings more than any other task. In this article, I examine why this particular picture description task has proven to be so successful in assessing expository discourse in clients with language and cognitive disorders. Using data from the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer and Related Dementias Study, recurrent cognitive-linguistic impairments in the Cookie Theft picture descriptions of clients with Alzheimer’s dementia are explored. These impairments are mostly pragmatic in nature. It is argued that the sensitivity of the Cookie Theft picture description task to these impairments makes it an ideal assessment tool for any investigation which aims to identify pragmatic markers of neurodegenerative diseases such as the dementias.