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Whatgoeswronginthemindinthebrainfrombeforebirthtocausedevelopmentaldisorders?I havefocusedparticularlyonautismanddyslexia,andaimtodiscovertheunderlyingcognitivecauses ofthesedisordersandtolinkthemtobehaviourpatternsaswellastobrainsystems.Iwouldliketo makethisresearchrelevanttotheeducationofpeoplewithdevelopmentaldisordersandtoimprove theirqualityoflife. Concerningautism,myworkhasexploredmentalisingandcentralcoherencetoexplainthesocial andnonsocialfeaturesofautism.Concerningdyslexia,myworkhasexploredaccessto phonologicalandorthographicrepresentationstoexplainthedelayinreadingandspelling development. In2012wroteareviewpaperofautismresearchfromapersonalperspective:Whyweneedcognitive explanationsofautism.Itcanbedownloadedfromfilearchive.
goingtoappear.Thismodulationwasalmostabsentinautisticadultswhenfaceswerecompared withhouses(Birdetal.,2006).
Text comprehension
Anadditionalstudyontextcomprehension(SaldanaandFrith,2006)yieldedresultsthatare consistentwiththisconclusion.Wefoundthat,surprisingly,autisticreaderswithcomprehension problemswereprimedbyimplicitinferenceswhilereadingjustlikenormalreaders.Thustheir comprehensionproblemscannotbeattributedtoaninabilitytomakeimplicitinferencesoraninability todrawonrelevantworldknowledge.Insteadtheirpoorcomprehensionmustbeduetoproblemsat thediscourseleveloftextprocessing.Thishaseducationalimplicationsasitquestionsthe widelyheldbeliefthatpoorcomprehensioniscausedbylackoflowlevelinferences.Instead,it appearsthatthepoorcomprehendersfailtomakeuseoftheirperfectlyadequateinferences.This workandworkonhyperlexiaisbeingcontinuedbyDavidSaldanaattheUniversityofSeville.
Imitation
Aproject,ledbyAntoniaHamilton,investigatedpossibleimpairmentsintheperceptionactionmirror system,whichisatthecentreofoneofthecurrenttheoreticaldebatesaboutbasicmechanismsof thesocialbrain.Shefoundnoevidenceforanimpairmentintheimitationofgoaldirectedactions, whichwouldhavebeenpredictedfromthemirrorneuronhypothesisofautism(Hamiltonetal.2007).
Inthefirststudy,normalskilledItalianandEnglishreaders(usingrespectivelyashallowanddeep
orthography)werecomparedduringwordreadingorsimpleexposuretoprint(Paulesuetal1999). PETscanresultsrevealedan extensivereadingsysteminthelefthemispherethatwascommontobothgroups.However,the differentcomponentsofthissystemwereweighteddifferently.Italianreadersshowedcomparatively strongeractivationoftheplanumtemporale,whichhasbeenlinkedtographemephonemedecoding. Conversely,readersofEnglishreliedmorestronglyontheinferiorposteriortemporalgyrus(BA37),a regionlinkedtotheorthographiclexicon. Themainaimoftheprojectwastoinvestigatetheneurophysiologicalbasisofdyslexiainspeakersof differentlanguages.Wedesignedmatchedphonologicalandreadingtasksindifferentlanguagesand establishedthatonthesemeasuresastrikingdeficitisfoundwhendyslexicsinallthreelanguages werecomparedwithnormalcontrols.Theresultsrevealedacommonpatternofreducedactivation, whichmayrepresentaneuralsignaturefordyslexia(Paulesuetal2001).Thisworkisbeing continuedbyEraldoPaulesu.
Subpages (1): Experimental Stimuli
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