Learning disorders
Lenguaje y Comunicación : ¿Qué es el sistema POT?
Lenguaje y Comunicación : ¿Qué es el sistema POT?
El lenguaje es una de las habilidades más importantes que la especie humana debe desarrollar. El lenguaje es la capacidad de asociar estímulos arbitrarios con significados específicos (por ejemplo: asociar el estímulo “hola” con un saludo; asociar un “abrazo” con cariño y afecto; etc.).
¿Cuál es el proceso del lenguaje?
El lenguaje, tal y como lo entendemos, es el resultado de una actividad nerviosa compleja que ocurre dentro de nuestro cuerpo. La estructura del lenguaje está formada por un input, un proceso asociativo y un output.
- Input: un estímulo exterior que es captado por uno de nuestros cinco sentidos: vista, oído, olfato, tacto o gusto. En este paso, se produce un procesamiento sensorial donde intervienen algunos de nuestros órganos encargados de percibir estímulos (ojos, orejas, nariz, etc.). Además también intervienen áreas cerebrales (córtex temporal izquierdo, etc.). Las áreas cerebrales que intervienen en esta fase, se encargan sobre todo de los procesos de decodificación de la información.
- Proceso de asociaciones: intervienen otros procesos cognitivos. En este punto, se producen las asociaciones y procesamientos multisensoriales (por ejemplo: si una persona me dice “hola” y a la vez me saluda con la mano, recibiré doble información: auditiva y visual). Además en esta fase, también interviene la memoria.
- Output: se produce una consecuencia o acción de respuesta al input inicial. Se pone en marcha el procesamiento motor y ejecutor. En este punto, intervienen zonas corticales frontales, encargadas de las funciones ejecutivas y todo el procesamiento motor.
Referencias bibliográficas:
Horcas Villarreal, J.M.: Lenguaje y comunicación, en Contribuciones a las Ciencias Sociales, marzo 2009.
Mulas & cols (2006). El lenguaje y los trastornos del neurodesarrollo. Revisión de las características clínicas. Revista de Neurología. 42. P. S103-S109
Reading comprehension Book “Gulliver”. Advanced Level D. Book 1-Spanish
Welcome to the world of “Evotext” or evolutionary texts. It is an easy idea. We have adapted a literary classic “Gulliver’s Travels”, and we have created four levels: A, B, C, and D. Level A is very easy to read and Level D is very difficult. The idea is that if your reading skills improve, you can continue with Gulliver’s stories but the level will adapt to your better skills. The text evolves as you evolve. That means, if Level A seem too easy, you can pass to Level B and so on. There are 20 books, with 30 files in each book.
Here you have an example of Volumen 1, Level D. You can also find it at www.amazon.com
Lectura 1.D:
Mi padre tenía una pequeña hacienda en Nottinghamshire. De cinco hermanos, yo era el tercero. Teniendo yo catorce años, me mandó al colegio Emmanuel, de Cambridge, donde residí tres años seriamente aplicado a mis estudios. Debido a que mi manutención, aún siendo mi pensión muy corta, representaba una carga demasiado grande para una tan reducida fortuna, entré de aprendiz con míster James Bates, un eminente cirujano de Londres con el que estuve cuatro años. Con pequeñas cantidades que mi padre me enviaba de vez en cuando fui aprendiendo navegación y otras partes de las Matemáticas. Yo pensaba que estas materias me serían útiles si debía de viajar, pues siempre creí que, más tarde o más temprano, viajar sería mi suerte. Cuando dejé a míster Bates, volví al lado de mi padre, aunque siempre había querido vivir sólo en una ciudad cercana llamada Leida. Finalmente, con la ayuda de mi padre, la de mi tío Juan y la de algún otro pariente, conseguí cuarenta libras y la promesa de treinta al año para mi sostenimiento en Leida.
Preguntas:
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¿En qué posición se hallaba el protagonista entre sus hermanos?
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¿Cómo se llamaba el colegio al que fue?
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¿Cómo se llamaba el eminente cirujano para el que trabajó como aprendiz?
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¿Qué aprendió con lo que le mandaba su padre?
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¿Cuánto dinero consiguió con la ayuda de sus familiares?
If you want more information about the method or about learning disabilities, please fill out the contact form:
Reading comprehension Book “Gulliver”. High Level C. Book 1-Spanish
Welcome to the world of “Evotext” or evolutionary texts. It is an easy idea. We have adapted a literary classic “Gulliver’s Travels”, and we have created four levels: A, B, C, and D. Level A is very easy to read and Level D is very difficult. The idea is that if your reading skills improve, you can continue with Gulliver’s stories but the level will adapt to your better skills. The text evolves as you evolve. That means, if Level A seem too easy, you can pass to Level B and so on. There are 20 books, with 30 files in each book.
Here you have an example of Volumen 1, Level C. You can also find it at www.amazon.com
Lectura 1.C:
Mi padre tenía una pequeña hacienda. Yo era el tercero de cinco hermanos. A los catorce años me mandó al Colegio Emmanuel donde estudié durante tres años. Como mi mantenimiento representaba una carga demasiado grande para una reducida fortuna como la de mi padre, entré de aprendiz con míster James Bates. El Sr. Bates era un eminente cirujano de Londres, con quien estuve cuatro años. Con pequeñas cantidades de dinero que mi padre me enviaba aprendí navegación y Matemáticas. Yo pensaba que me serían útiles para viajar, pues siempre creí que viajar sería mi suerte. Cuando dejé a míster Bates volví con mi padre, aunque mi deseo era vivir sólo en Leida. una ciudad cercana. Con la ayuda de mi padre, la de mi tío y la de algún otro pariente, conseguí cuarenta libras para mi sustento en Leida y me prometieron treinta más al año.
Preguntas:
- ¿En qué posición se hallaba el protagonista entre sus hermanos?
- ¿Cómo se llamaba el colegio al que fue?
- ¿Cómo se llamaba el eminente cirujano para el que trabajó como aprendiz?
- ¿Qué aprendió con lo que le mandaba su padre?
- ¿Cuánto dinero consiguió con la ayuda de sus familiares?
If you want more information about the method or about learning disabilities, please fill out the contact form:
Reading comprehension Book “Gulliver”. Intermediate Level B. Book 1-Spanish
Welcome to the world of “Evotext” or evolutionary texts. It is an easy idea. We have adapted a literary classic “Gulliver’s Travels”, and we have created four levels: A, B, C, and D. Level A is very easy to read and Level D is very difficult. The idea is that if your reading skills improve, you can continue with Gulliver’s stories but the level will adapt to your better skills. The text evolves as you evolve. That means, if Level A seem too easy, you can pass to Level B and so on. There are 20 books, with 30 files in each book.
Here you have an example of Volumen 1, Level B. You can also find it at www.amazon.com
Lectura 1/ B:
Yo vivía con mi padre y mis cuatro hermanos en una hacienda pequeña. Con catorce años mi padre me envió a estudiar al Colegio Emmanuel. Estuve allí estudiando tres años. Mi padre no tenía mucho dinero para mantenerme, por eso me colocó de aprendiz con un cirujano de Londres, el señor Bates. Algunas veces mi padre me enviaba dinero y con él aprendí navegación porque quería viajar algún día por el mundo. Tras cuatro años trabajando de aprendiz con el señor Bates, volví a casa con mi padre. Entre mi padre y mi familia me dieron cuarenta libras y me prometieron treinta más al año para vivir en Leida.
Preguntas:
- ¿Cuánto hermanos tenía?
- ¿Cómo se llamaba el colegio?
- ¿De qué empezó a trabajar?
- ¿Qué aprendió con el dinero que le mandaba su padre?
- ¿Cuánto dinero consiguió de su familia?
If you want more information about the method or about learning disabilities, please fill out the contact form:
Reading comprehension Book “Gulliver”. Basic Level A. Book 1-Spanish
Welcome to the world of “Evotext” or evolutionary texts. It is an easy idea. We have adapted a literary classic “Gulliver’s Travels”, and we have created four levels: A, B, C, and D. Level A is very easy to read and Level D is very difficult. The idea is that if your reading skills improve, you can continue with Gulliver’s stories but the level will adapt to your better skills. The text evolves as you evolve. That means, if Level A seem too easy, you can pass to Level B and so on. There are 20 books, with 30 files in each book.
Here you have an example of Volumen 1, Level A. You can also find it at www.amazon.com
Lectura 1-A:
Mi padre tenía una casa pequeña. Yo tenía cuatro hermanos. Todos vivíamos juntos con mi padre. Con catorce años empecé a estudiar en el Colegio Emmanuel. En el colegio estuve tres años. En casa tenían poco dinero y por eso empecé a trabajar de aprendiz con un cirujano en Londres. Mi padre me enviaba dinero de vez en cuando. Con el dinero estudié navegación para poder viajar por el mundo.Después de cuatro años trabajando de aprendiz volví a casa. Mi familia me dio cuarenta libras. Me prometieron treinta más al año para poder vivir yo solo en otra ciudad.
Preguntas:
- ¿Cuántos hermanos tenía?
- ¿Cómo se llamaba el colegio?
- ¿De qué empezó a trabajar?
- ¿Qué aprendió con el dinero que le enviaba su padre?
- ¿Cuánto dinero consiguió de su familia?
If you want more information about the method or about learning disabilities, please fill out the contact form:
The Sandman: The Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie by William Joyce
Book recommendation
Tittle: The Sandman: The story of Sanderson Mansnoozie Author: William Joyce
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers Year of publication: 2012.
THE AUTHOR
William Joyce is an american writter an illustrator. Is the author of several books for children, among those, The Guardians of the Childhood, which inspired the film Rise of the Guardians (DreamWorks). He was also the author of characters for animation films such as Toy Story and A Bug’s Life. In 2012 he won an Oscar (together with Brandon Olferburg) for the best animation short film for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Do not hesitate to fly with Mr. Morris…
ABOUT THE BOOK
Sandman is the second picture book of a book series named The Guardians of Childhood. The Guardians of Childhood (The Man in the Moon, Nicholas St. North, Toothiana, Sandman and E. Aster bunnymund) protect children from Shadow, the King of Nightmares. The Man in the Moon needs to keep children safe at nights. He can do it alone, except when the moon is less than full and bright. For this purpose, will ask for the help of Sanderson Mansnoozie (Sandman), who flies with his shooting star making people’s dreams come true… With extraordinary illustrations, its reading teaches us that to dream and to face to our fears is the first step to overcome them.
Dr. Guilera – Dr.Bayarri
ADHD and Emotional Memory
Emotional memory can be defined as the memory of the emotions related to an specific event of our life. In case of negative events, this memory allows us to accommodate our conduct in order to avoid negative consequences in similar situations, which implies a capacity to analyze the situation and remember and be aware of our feelings related to it. It is well known that children with ADHD have alterations in the structure and function of the prefrontal cortex (which regulates our ability to plan and analyze our behavior), and also in brain structures linked with emotional processes such as the amygdala and the hippocampus (Plessen et al., 2006), which underlies their difficulties to cope with their emotions and behavior.
On the other hand, there is a growing literature studying the linkage between emotional memory lack in ADHD children and alterations in brain activity during sleep. For sleep disorder in children (Meltzer et al., 2010), the prevalence is 3.7%. The most-common diagnoses are enuresis and sleep-disordered breathing. ADHD is a predictor of sleep disorders.
Sleep disturbances are 
common in ADHD children (Cortese, Faraone, Konofal, & Lecendreux, 2009) and during sleep, new memory representations are reactivate during slow wave sleep SWS (sleep phase when our brain have the lowest activity rates) promoting memory consolidation. Studies show that ADHD children have abnormal SWS activity compared with healthy controls (Ringli et al., 2013), reflecting a neuromaturational delay of this brain wave rhythm in nonREM sleep. This imbalanced activity of slow waves is also associated with difficulties in consolidation of declarative memory (Prehn-Kristensen et al., 2011) which may explain difficulties to memorize facts and consequent learning problems related with ADHD.
In a recent study, the same author find that ADHD children have less activity in brain regions related to the consolidation of emotional memory (cited above), and suggest that these deficits are implicated in emotional symptoms reported by ADHD children during daytime (Prehn-Kristensen et al., 2013). ADHD children seem to have difficulties to select properly between emotional and non-emotional stimuli during sleep, which causes a diminished capacity to consolidate emotions related to events, which in turn, should have a direct impact on emotional relationships established with their peers.
Although more research is needed to strengthen the association between emotional memory and sleep, it is an important perspective because highlights the role of brain activity during sleep-time and allows us to better understand ADHD children not only in relation to their behavior, but also in relation to their emotions.
If you want to contact a psychologist or receive more information, please fill out the contact form:
References
Cortese, S., Faraone, S. V., Konofal, E., & Lecendreux, M. (2009). Sleep in Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Meta-Analysis of Subjective and Objective Studies. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 48(9), 894-908. doi:10.1097/CHI.0b013e3181ac09c9
Plessen, K. J., Bansal, R., Zhu, H., Whiteman, R., Amat, J., Quackenbush, G. A., … Peterson, B. S. (2006). Hippocampus and Amygdala Morphology in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Archives of general psychiatry, 63(7), 795-807. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.63.7.795
Prehn-Kristensen, A., Göder, R., Fischer, J., Wilhelm, I., Seeck-Hirschner, M., Aldenhoff, J., & Baving, L. (2011). Reduced sleep-associated consolidation of declarative memory in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Sleep Medicine, 12(7), 672-679. doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2010.10.010
Prehn-Kristensen, A., Munz, M., Molzow, I., Wilhelm, I., Wiesner, C. D., & Baving, L. (2013). Sleep Promotes Consolidation of Emotional Memory in Healthy Children but Not in Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. PLoS ONE, 8(5). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0065098
Ringli, M., Souissi, S., Kurth, S., Brandeis, D., Jenni, O. G., & Huber, R. (2013). Topography of sleep slow wave activity in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Cortex, 49(1), 340-347. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2012.07.007
Meltzer, L. J., Johnson, C., Crosette, J., Ramos, M., & Mindell, J. A. (2010). Prevalence of diagnosed sleep disorders in pediatric primary care practices.Pediatrics, 125(6), e1410-e1418.
Efficacy of reading intervention
Intervention for poor readers with reading delay are based on two ideas: the first one is to improve phonological awareness and the second one is to improve reading comprehension. Today we report a study from Hatcher et al., 2006, which talks about the efficacy of a small reading intervention with beginning readers with reading-delay. The intervention was delivered in daily 
twenty minutes sessions. The program combine phonemic awareness training, word and test reading, and phonological linkage exercices. They found a difference between the control group and the group who received the intervention. Children made significantly more progress on letter knowledge, single word reading and phoneme awareness. Poor initial literacy skills seem to predict the failure of the intervention. Also around one quarter of the children didn’t respond to the intervention and seem to need more intensive help.
Intervention for reading comprehension improvement tend to focus on the next activities:
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Identification of main ideas or thematic
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Construction of inference
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Construction of abstracting
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Self-monitoring of reading comprehension
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Graphic organizers
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Generation of self-questioning
In the study of Ripoll and Aguado (2013) they conclude that interventions based on teaching strategies, increasing vocabulary and increasing motivation for reading or decoding, have shown signifcant effects on reading comprehension of spanish speaking students. Another interesting conclusion is that reciprocal teaching seems to be a good method for teaching reading comprehension strategies.
In another study from Hacther et al., (2006), they evaluate the effectiveness of the UK Early Literacy (ELS) programme relative to a programme of reading intervention based on “sound linkage”. In this study they compare the effectivity between training phonemic awareness or training letter-sound knowledge. They conclude that both interventions have equivalent gains in reading and spelling.
If you want to contact a psychologist or receive more information, please fill out the contact form:
References
Hatcher, P. J., Goetz, K., Snowling, M. J., Hulme, C., Gibbs, S., & Smith, G. (2006). Evidence for the effectiveness of the Early Literacy Support programme. The British journal of educational psychology, 76(Pt 2), 351-367. doi:10.1348/000709905X39170
Hatcher, P. J., Hulme, C., Miles, J. N. V., Carroll, J. M., Hatcher, J., Gibbs, S., … Snowling, M. J. (2006). Efficacy of small group reading intervention for beginning readers with reading-delay: a randomised controlled trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47(8), 820–827. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01559.x
Ripoll, J. C., & Aguado, G. (2013). Reading Comprehension Improvement for Spanish Students: A Meta-Analysis // La mejora de la comprensión lectora en español: Un meta-análisis. Revista de Psicodidáctica / Journal of Psychodidactics, 0(0). Recuperado a partir de http://www.ehu.es/ojs/index.php/psicodidactica/article/view/9001
Phonological Awareness
Dyslexia is a learning disorder that affects the ability to learn to read, regardless of intelligence or level of education. This difficulty with learning to read is the result of a difficulty to process the 
sounds of our language (phonological processing). Anthony & Francis (2005) highlight three skills needed to process the sounds of language: 1. to be able to store these sounds in our memory (phonological memory); 2. to be able to retrieve phonological codes from memory (phonological access) and 3. to be able to detect and be aware of those sounds within words that form our language (phonological awareness).
When a child has good phonological awareness, is able to distinguish the sounds of a word separating these sounds from the proper meaning of the word. Otherwise said, is able to conceive a word as the union of some specific sounds, whether these sounds are combined to form a word with a specific meaning. This capability allows children to read words whose meaning is not known and, therefore, read better.
Phonological awareness involves the ability to discern syllables, recognizing the smaller units within syllables (onset-rime units), and be aware of the individual sounds of the language, wich are the phonemes. Phonological awareness is also involved when we manipulate the sounds in of the words, such as substituting one sound for another to form a new word (tookies-cookies), adding and removing sounds from words and blending sounds together to make a new word (Yopp & Yopp 2009).
A good development of phonological awareness in pre-readers predicts later success in learning to read (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).
If you want to contact a psychologist or receive more information, please fill out the contact form.
References
Anthony, J. L., & Francis, D. J. (2005). Development of Phonological Awareness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(5), 255-259. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00376.x
Yopp, H. K., & Yopp, H. (2009). Phonological Awareness Is Child’s Play! Young Children, 64(1), 12.
Ziegler, J. C., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading Acquisition, Developmental Dyslexia, and Skilled Reading Across Languages: A Psycholinguistic Grain Size Theory. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1), 3-29. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.3
Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and Dyslexia
Nowadays reading comprehension is the key to be successful in school. Children have difficulties in the early stages of learning to read and the main problem are the phonological skills. Interventions that target phonological skills need to be integrated with the teaching of reading (Hatcher, Hulme, & Ellis, 1994), and it is necessary to understand that a difference exist between dyslexia and maturational delay on reading comprehension. Some studies point out that in countries where children undergo the digital revolution, reading comprehension is worst than other countries. Preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI) perform worst on tests of reading, spelling and reading comprehension (Snowling, Bishop, & Stothard, 2000), and children with IQ less than 100, have literacy outcomes particularly poor. We can conceptualize a subgroup in the SLI: children with specific 
reading impairment.This group shows a substantial drop in reading accuracy between the ages of 8 and 15 years. Another subgroup, over 35%, have reading skills normalized. In the opinion of Bishop, phonological difficulties place children under a literacy failure. Specific reading retardation may account for a poor vocabulary and difficulties in organizing words and syntactic difficulties. Children with problems in phonological route understand words by semantic process. They prefer to use the general meaning of the phrase to understand the word. Another problem that we find in many children with SLI are deficits in verbal working memory. A deficient working memory functioning may account for difficulties in lexical-morphological learning and sentence comprehension (Montgomery, 2003).
Children with dyslexia have a central problem in phonological loop: they have problems in the phonological representation of words and their decodification and also in cognitive processing speed. However, sometimes they have a normal reading comprehension such as dyslexics with high IQ. Dyslexics have difficulties reading pseudowords and this test is the standard for screening dyslexics.
Prevention is one of the keys to help children with SLI. A reading program with highly structured phonic component for 5 years old children is enough to master alphabetic principles and learning to read. In contrast, children at risk of reading delay need an additional training in phoneme awareness (Hatcher, Hulme, & Snowling, 2004).
In 2004 Bishop & Snowling wrote and article about differences between developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment. They explained that dyslexia was reconceptualized as a language disorder with a defficient phonological processing. The authors argued that we need to be aware of semantic and sintactic deficits in SLI. These deficits affect reading comprehension and fluency in adolescents (Bishop & Snowling, 2004).
If you want to receive more information or to contact with a psychologist, please fill out the contact form;
References
Bishop, D. V. M., & Snowling, M. J. (2004). Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment: same or different? Psychological bulletin, 130(6), 858-886. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.130.6.858
Hatcher, P. J., Hulme, C., & Ellis, A. W. (1994). Ameliorating Early Reading Failure by Integrating the Teaching of Reading and Phonological Skills: The Phonological Linkage Hypothesis. Child Development, 65(1), 41–57. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00733.x
Hatcher, P. J., Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. J. (2004). Explicit phoneme training combined with phonic reading instruction helps young children at risk of reading failure. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(2), 338–358. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00225.x
Montgomery, J. W. (2003). Working memory and comprehension in children with specific language impairment: what we know so far. Journal of Communication Disorders, 36(3), 221-231. doi:10.1016/S0021-9924(03)00021-2
Snowling, M., Bishop, D. V., & Stothard, S. E. (2000). Is preschool language impairment a risk factor for dyslexia in adolescence? Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 41(5), 587-600.
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