Abstracts

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Day 2: Friday, September 23, 2011

Session 1: Early Learning and Development

Developing Self Regulation in Prekindergarten Classrooms
Dale C. Farran, PhD, Peabody Research Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville

A subset of direct assessments of self-regulation in young children (that are not computer based) has been demonstrated to correlate with achievement and to predict achievement gains across the prekindergarten year and into kindergarten. The strongest of these includes Peg Tapping, Head Toes, Knees, & Shoulders, Copy Design, and Backward Digit Span. Of great interest is whether the skills tapped by these measures are malleable and can be facilitated by particular early childhood curricula or activities. One early childhood curriculum, Tools of the Mind, is specifically focused on facilitating the development of self-regulation. We have recently completed a large scale experimental evaluation of the curriculum involving 800 children in 60 classrooms in 5 school systems in 2 states; 32 of the teachers were randomly assigned to be trained in the curriculum while the others served as a "business as usual" control group. Data were collected during the second year of implementation. Children were individually assessed in both achievement and self-regulation. Classrooms were observed in detail for curriculum implementation and also with detailed assessments of teacher and child behaviors and classroom organization. Aspects of the curriculum appear to have the opposite effect of that intended by the developers, but other practices observed across all 60 classrooms were predictive of gains in self-regulation. These data demonstrate that the malleability of these important skills is possible but also that further extensive empirical investigations may be required to determine exactly what activities will work.
 
Coauthors: Mark W. Lipsey and Sandra J. Wilson, Peabody Research Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville
 

Development of Executive Function
Stephanie M. Carlson, PhD, University of Minnesota

Executive function (EF) represents a highly complex, interrelated set of neurocognitive abilities that are critical for adaptive function, including working memory, inhibitory control, and flexible thinking. EF is most closely associated with prefrontal cortex and enables individuals to engage in conscious, goal-directed thought and action under novel or unfamiliar circumstances. For example, EF is needed to resist old habits of mind when faced with new problems to solve. The notion of EF in childhood has received increasing attention, as reflected by a five-fold increase in the number of developmental psychology journal publications on this topic in the last decade. One reason is that executive dysfunction has been implicated in a number of childhood disorders (e.g., ADHD, autism, and conduct disorder). Moreover, recent methodological advances have enabled us to measure normative EF development, especially in the preschool period. The evidence suggests that individual differences in EF, as well as deliberate training of EF skills, can have lasting effects on educational achievement. In this presentation, Dr. Carlson will help set the stage for the forum by introducing EF and describing of some of the key inputs to its development in early childhood.
 

Executive Function and School Readiness
Clancy Blair, PhD, New York University

This paper presents theory and data in support of a psychobiological model of self-regulation development emphasizing relations between stress physiology and psychological development. We propose that aspects of early experience essentially channel or tune stress response systems and thereby self-regulation tendencies, leading to either more emotionally reactive or more prototypically well regulated, reflective behaviors. We examine child development in the context of poverty and present a series of findings relating to ways in which the environment of poverty influences executive function and thereby school readiness development. Data from a representative sample of 1,292 children and families in predominantly low income and non-urban communities followed longitudinally from birth are presented. Executive function was assessed at ages 36, 48, and 60 months using a combination of span-type and self-ordered pointing working memory tasks, spatial conflict, go no-go, and silly sounds Stroop inhibitory control tasks, and an item selection attention flexibility task. Resting salivary cortisol and salivary alpha amylase as well as cortisol reactivity and regulation were also examined. Findings indicated mediation of effects of the early environment on later executive function and school readiness through cortisol and amylase. Unique effects of environmental factors and cortisol and amylase on these outcomes were also observed.
 
Coauthors: Michael Willoughby¹ and FLP Investigators^1,2
 
1. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2. Penn State University
 

Definitions and Comorbidities of Developmental Disorders
Bruce F. Pennington, PhD, University of Denver

Prevalent developmental disorders, such as dyslexia (RD), ADHD, language impairment (LI), and speech sound disorder (SSD), are defined behaviorally as extreme portions of normally distributed traits, so any particular diagnostic cutoff is somewhat arbitrary. In this talk, I will briefly define these disorders, and then discuss how genetic and cognitive methods can be used to understand why these disorders co-occur (i.e. are comorbid). Our research using these methods supports a multiple deficit model of individual disorders and their comorbidity. In this model, each single disorder has multiple genetic and cognitive risk factors and comorbidity is caused by partial genetic and cognitive overlap. So, RD and ADHD share some genetic risk loci and share a deficit in processing speed. RD and SSD also share some genetic risk loci and a cognitive deficit in phonological awareness, yet interestingly their comorbidity is mediated by a third disorder, LI. The comorbidity between SSD and ADHD is also mediated by LI. So, more research is needed to understand the genetic and cognitive relations between LI and the other three disorders.

 

Session 2: Reading and Language

Language Learning, Plasticity, and the "Achievement Gap"
Mark S. Seidenberg, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison

There is enormous underutilized potential to bring modern research on the behavioral and brain bases of language and cognition to bear on critical issues in education. I will present research concerning the seemingly intractable "achievement gap" in reading between African American children and whites. This gap is not wholly explained by SES or environmental factors, and it increases during the first few years of schooling. One neglected factor is differences in language background. Building on research on language learning and neuroplasticity, we have begun to examine how differences between home and school dialects affect children's classroom experiences. Other factors aside, children who speak a "nonstandard" dialect such as African American English face a more complex learning environment than children who speak the "standard" dialect: they are learning to accommodate the standard dialect while acquiring reading, math and other skills. Because all children are assessed against the same achievement standards, a "gap" results. This research also suggests ways in which the impacts of dialect differences could potentially be ameliorated.
 

How Instructors Direct a Learner's Attention Impacts Neural Changes During Reading Acquisition
Bruce D. McCandliss, PhD, Vanderbilt University, Nashville

Attention to phonology in early literacy acquisition presents a key exemplar of research that can bridge the gap between cognitive neuroscience and pedagogical research. The impact of attention on brain activity within specific cortical regions has been a central topic of investigation across multiple domains of cognitive neuroscience. Within educational research on reading acquisition, meta-analyses show that approaches which explicitly focus attention on sub-syllabic speech sounds lead to significant gains in early literacy. This talk will review neuroimaging findings on the impact of directing a learner's attention to sub-syllabic speech sounds (i.e. phonological codes) in the service of early reading acquisition. First, fMRI and ERP studies of skilled adult readers demonstrate the influence of top-down selective attention to phonology on the perception of auditory words. Directing a listener's attention to phonological codes within words (as opposed to other aspects of the auditory stimuli) activates a network of left-lateralized regions in a top-down fashion, including visual regions associated with perceptual expertise for visual words. Next, studies of neural changes in adults learning to read a novel writing system (i.e. artificial orthography) allows us to examine the influence of an instructor directing a learner's attention to sub-syllabic phonological codes vs. other forms of information. The focus of a learner's attention during learning plays a crucial role in the development of early (i.e. within 170 msec) left lateralized cortical responses to newly learned visual words. Finally, educational intervention studies with school-aged children demonstrate the potential translational value of such research.
 

Neuroimaging Studies of Reading and Language Development: An Update on Recent Findings
Kenneth R. Pugh, PhD, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven

Reading disability (RD) has been characterized as a brain-based difficulty in acquiring fluent reading skill associated with problems in operating on the phonological structures of language. The claim of brain-basis is supported by a growing literature rife with reports of various sorts of anomalies in brain structure and function in RD. We will present data showing that relative to typically developing (TD) readers, RD children and adolescents fail to coherently engage left hemisphere (LH) occipitotemporal (OT) and temporoparietal (TP) regions during language and reading tasks. Additionally, structural neuroimaging studies reveal group differences in both grey matter density and white matter connectivity in key LH regions. Brain/behavior analyses have indicated that the development of reading fluency in children is strongly associated with the development of a well-integrated left hemisphere posterior reading system. With regard to plasticity and learning, intervention studies have examined the influence of intensive phonological remediation in at-risk children and adolescents, revealing substantial gains in both reading scores and development of these posterior LH reading systems for readers afforded this treatment. Recent extensions of learning studies with older RD readers continue to suggest a high degree of plasticity in this age-range. Implications for theory and practice will be discussed. Finally, new and ongoing longitudinal studies examining gene-brain-behavior relations in high risk children are discussed.
 

Neural Oscillations, Phonology and Dyslexia: A Temporal Sampling Framework
Usha Claire Goswami, PhD, Centre for Neuroscience in Education, University of Cambridge

I will provide a brief overview of an oscillatory "temporal sampling" framework that enables diverse data from developmental dyslexia to be drawn into an integrated theoretical framework. The core deficit in dyslexia is phonological. Impaired temporal sampling of speech by neuroelectric oscillations that encode incoming information at lower frequencies (Theta and Delta) may explain the perceptual and phonological difficulties with syllables, rhymes and rhythmic input found in dyslexia. These difficulties may be indexed by a perceptual insensitivity to rise times in the amplitude envelope, a sensory impairment found in developmental dyslexia across languages. The temporal sampling framework proposes that the phonological difficulties in dyslexia originate in syllable parsing rather than phonetic perception, although syllable-level difficulties will also affect phonetic representations. A conceptual framework based on oscillations that entrain to sensory input has implications for the education of both typically-developing and dyslexic children. For example, linguistic and/or musical activities that "entrain the oscillators" (e.g., language activities that highlight linguistic rhythm and metrical structure, such as nursery rhymes and poems) may be very important for developing the phonological system.

 

Session 3: Mathematical Reasoning

Evolutionary and Developmental Origins of the Approximate Number System: Foundations of Mathematical Thinking
Elizabeth M Brannon, PhD, Psychology and Neuroscience & Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham

Adult humans quantify, label, and categorize almost every aspect of the world with numbers. The ability to use numbers is one of the most complex cognitive abilities that humans possess and is often held up as a defining feature of the human mind. In my talk I will present a body of data that demonstrates that there are strong developmental and evolutionary precursors to adult mathematical cognition that can be seen by studying human infants and nonhuman primates. Developmental data and controversies will be discussed in light of comparative research with monkeys and other animals allowing us to see both parallels and discontinuities in the evolutionary and developmental building blocks of adult human cognition. Implications for education will be highlighted by describing a) the beginnings of a longitudinal study exploring the relationship between infant's nonverbal numerical sense and later developing mathematical cognition in childhood and b) a set of studies exploring the malleability of approximate number representations in adulthood.
 

Predicting Math Achievement
Lisa Feigenson, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

How do humans become able to reason about abstract mathematical entities? Why is thinking about number sometimes so intuitive, and other times so challenging? Research using animals, adults, and infants has provided evidence for an innate system of numerical representation that supports perceiving the world in terms of quantities. From birth onward, these quantity representations can be added, subtracted, and compared. I will discuss evidence for the widespread nature of this kind of numerical thinking, focusing on our work showing that the precision of adults' and children's numerical estimations varies widely from person to person. I will discuss recent evidence that this precision of individual non-symbolic numerical representations predicts people's later achievement in symbolic mathematics, and then will close by considering possible implications of this work for education and remediation of mathematical difficulties.
 

Education Dependent Brain Plasticity: Linking Quantities and Symbols during the Early Elementary School Years
Edward M. Hubbard, PhD, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University

Mounting evidence supports the notion that children's mastery of arithmetic is founded upon more elementary forms of number cognition, and in particular to the development of number fluency. One key aspect of this emerging fluency is the ability to automatically translate between number symbols and the quantities that they represent (e.g., 5 = :•:). Although brain circuits that are sensitive to quantity have been identified in very young children, the acquisition of symbolic numbers may refine these circuits as they learn to recognize and automatically link Arabic digits to quantities. To examine the neural development of these links, we measured fMRI responses in 63 children in grades K–3. Arrays of dots of a standard quantity (6 or 8) were presented repeatedly, alternating with rare deviants that were either numerically close to or far from the standard (5 or 9) in either the same format (dots) or a different format (digits). In kindergarteners, viewing Arabic numbers recruited brain regions involved in reading numerals, but not parietal and frontal regions. In first and second graders, parietal regions associated with magnitude processing responded to 5, but not 9. Finally, in third graders, both left and right parietal regions respond to 5 and 9, similar to the pattern observed in adults. Recruitment of parietal regions was correlated with age and standardized math scores, suggesting that the degree to which children have mastered the ability to automatically translate between digits and quantities may be critical for explaining individual differences in learning formal arithmetic.
 
Coauthor: Bruce D. McCandliss, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University
 

Does Number Sense Matter? Evidence from Brain and Behavior
Daniel Ansari, PhD, Numerical Cognition Laboratory, Department of Psychology & Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Western Ontario

Mounting evidence has demonstrated the existence of a system for the representation of numerical magnitude that is shared between species, can be detected very early in development and is associated neuronal activation of the parietal cortex. In view of this evidence, greater attention has been paid to roles played by basic number processing (also frequently referred to as 'number sense') in the typical and atypical development of mathematical skills. In this talk, I will discuss evidence from a series of behavioral and brain imaging studies that have examined the developmental trajectories of basic number processing and their relationship to the ontogeny of mathematical skills. Specifically, I will discuss developmental changes in the behavioral and neuronal markers of basic number processing, such as the numerical distance and ratio effects. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that individual differences in numerical magnitude comparison abilities are related to variability in children's mathematical skills in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Moreover, I will present data from a recent investigation of brain-behavior relationships, which illustrates that variability in the neural correlates of numerical magnitude comparison processing are related to individual differences in children's mathematical fluency. Finally, I will discuss data that suggests that not all measures of 'number sense' relate to mathematical achievement equally and that it is important to move beyond a unified construct of basic number processing and towards a differentiated, multi-level model of the typical and atypical development of numerical magnitude processing and its relationship to the learning of arithmetic.
 

Conceptual Development in Mathematics
Daniel L. Schwartz, PhD, Stanford University

Beyond the natural numbers, mathematics becomes increasingly abstract and removed from everyday experience. For example, integers, which introduce negative numbers and zero, are more abstract than natural numbers. One does not perceive negative objects, and zero may be the prototypical example of an abstraction—structure without perceptual substance. Integers also introduce new structure not found in the natural numbers including the additive inverse property (X + −X = 0). How does the brain accommodate these new concepts? A combination of behavioral and fMRI studies tested the hypothesis that children's integer reasoning is characterized by rule use, but with experience, adults recruit perceptual sub-systems to handle the integers. Specifically, people bundle perceptual symmetry into their understanding of integers. For instance, in one fMRI study, adults saw pairs of integer digits. A subsequent display showed a new digit, and people decided if it was the numerical mid-point of the other two. As the digit pairs came closer to satisfying the additive inverse property (e.g., −4 and 6 is closer than −3 and 7), people exhibited a parametric decrease in response time and a parametric increase in the activation of brain regions that have been associated with the visual detection of symmetry in existing literature. These results provide direct guidance for the redesign of integer curriculum. Current approaches to teaching integers do not emphasize the notion of zero as a reflection point. Hands-on and computer-based activities have subsequently been developed to highlight the symmetry of the positive and negative numbers about zero.
 
Coauthors: Jessica Tsang, Stanford University and Sashank Varma, University of Minnesota
 

The Myth of Ability: Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child
John Mighton, PhD, JUMP Math; Fellow, the Fields Institute, Toronto

JUMP Math is a charity (recently featured in the NY Times in "A Better Way to Teach Math") that trains teachers and produces resources that cover the full curriculum from grades one to eight. JUMP has gathered a significant body of evidence, ranging from multi-year pilots in inner-city London to a large-scale randomized controlled study in Canada, that suggests that children have far more potential to succeed at and enjoy learning mathematics than we typically expect, and that differences in achievement can be reduced by applying principles from cognitive science in the classroom.