Dyslexia, or a reading disability, occurs when an individual has great difficulty at the level of word reading and decoding. Comprehension of text, writing, and spelling are also affected. The diagnosis of dyslexia involves the use of reading tests, but the continuum of reading performance means that any cutoff point is arbitrary. The IQ score does not play a role in the diagnosis of dyslexia. Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. The cognitive difficulties of dyslexics include problems with recognizing and manipulating the basic sounds in a language, language memory, and learning the sounds of letters. Dyslexia is a neurological condition with a genetic basis. There are abnormalities in the brains of dyslexic individuals. There are also differences in the electrophysiological and structural characteristics of the brains of dyslexics. Hope for dyslexia involves early detection and intervention and evidence-based instruction.
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Dyslexia
Linda Siegel
Article
Longitudinal Structural Equation Modeling in Lifespan Developmental Analyses
Philip Parker and Robert Brockman
Longitudinal structural equation modeling (LSEM) is used to answer lifespan relevant questions such as (a) what is the effect of one variable on change in and other, (b) what is the average trajectory or growth rate of some psychological variable, and (c) what variability is there in average trajectories and what predicts this variability. The first of these questions is often answered by a LSEM called an autoregressive cross-lagged (ACL) model. The other two questions are most typically answered by an LSEM called a latent growth curve (LGC). These models can be applied to a few time waves (measured over several years) or to many time waves (such as present in diary studies) and can be altered, expanded, or even integrated. However, decisions on what model to use must be driven by the research question. The right tool for the job is not always the most complex. And, more importantly, the right tool must be matched to the best possible research design. Sometimes in lifespan research the right tool is LSEM. However, researchers should prioritize research design as well as careful specification of the processes and mechanisms they are interested in rather than simply choosing the most complicated LSEM they can find.
Article
Vygotsky and the Cultural-Historical Approach to Human Development
Ekaterina Zavershneva and René van der Veer
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (real name Lev Simkhovich Vygodsky; Orsha 1896–Moscow 1934) was a Russian psychologist who created cultural-historical theory, which proved influential in developmental psychology and other psychological disciplines. Vygotsky characterized his approach as “height psychology” (as opposed to “depth psychology”) and posited that the higher forms of mind should be the starting point for the study of human development. In his view it was essential to study psychological processes in their historical dynamics; these dynamics could be unraveled with the causal-genetic approach he developed, which involved the guided formation of mind in the course of its study or the experimental unfolding of ontogeny. Vygotsky claimed that the mechanisms of human development are not genetically determined and that we must find its source in culture and the social environment. Human development is mediated by cultural artifacts and sign systems, which are mastered in a dialogue with other people in spontaneous or guided interaction, which stimulates development by creating a zone of proximal development. The major means of the transformation of innate mind into higher mind is language, which enables us to preserve and transmit the experience of generations. In this process of cultural development the person develops a system of higher psychological functions that are social in origin, voluntary and mediated in nature, and form part of a systemic whole. The process of ontogeny goes through a series of stable periods and crises that correspond with specific conditions of the social situation of development and the developmental tasks. Age periods are completed with the development of neoformations, which do not just form results but are also prerequisites for further development. With the development of verbal thinking and the mastery of cultural means of behavior the person masters her/his innate mind and becomes a personality, whose main characteristic is freedom of behavior.
