Effects Of Verbal Ability Research Articles

Precocious readers: a cognitive or a linguistic advantage?

We investigated the role of linguistic and cognitive processes in reading precocity from kindergarten to grade 2. A sample of 33 precocious readers was identified that did not differ on age, gender, and parental education to a control group of 259 typical readers. The effects of verbal ability were also controlled. All children were administered a battery of cognitive and linguistic measures in three assessment points at the midterm of each year. Individual growth modeling (IGM) was used to test the rate and shape of change of the two groups. Results showed that precocious readers exhibited superior performance in phonological awareness, naming speed, and reading fluency, across development, whereas their early advantage in letter knowledge disappeared by grade 1. A cognitive advantage specific to executive function (planning) was also observed for the precocious readers early on and was maintained through grade 2. Precocious readers outperformed the control group also on silent word reading, reading comprehension, and on the expressive (production) and the receptive (recognition) orthographic processing tasks. We concluded that both linguistic and cognitive abilities—independent of verbal ability—underlie individual differences in reading precocity.

Effects of Verbal Ability and Severity of Autism on Anxiety in Adolescents With ASD: One-Year Follow-Up After Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

There is evidence supporting the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy for treatment of anxiety in youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), but long-term course of anxiety after treatment and individual predictors of treatment response are unknown. To meet the demands for personalized mental health care, information on the fit between patient and treatment as well as treatment durability is needed. We evaluated change in anxiety symptoms during intervention and 1 year after completion of the treatment, and evaluated predictors of response using an advanced analytical design, with follow-up data from a randomized controlled trial of 22 adolescents (12–17 years) with ASD and 1 or more anxiety disorders. Reduction in anxiety was partially maintained during the year following treatment; greater ASD severity predicted better treatment response. Our finding that brief treatment is associated with sustained gains is promising, given the pervasive and chronic nature of ASD. Implications for the treatment of anxiety in higher functioning adolescents with ASD are considered.

Effects of verbal ability and fluid intelligence on children's emotion understanding

This study investigated the role of verbal ability and fluid intelligence on children's emotion understanding, testing the hypothesis that fluid intelligence predicts the development of emotion comprehension over and above age and verbal ability. One hundred and two children (48 girls) aged 3.6-6 years completed the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) that comprised external and mental components, the Coloured Progressive Matrices and the Test for Reception of Grammar. Regression analysis showed that fluid intelligence was not equally related to the external and mental components of the TEC (Pons & Harris, 2000). Specifically, the results indicated that the external component was related to age and verbal ability only, whereas recognition of mental emotional patterns required abstract reasoning skills more than age and verbal ability. It is concluded that the development of fluid intelligence has a significant role in the development of mental component of emotion comprehension.

Silent Films and Strange Stories: Theory of Mind, Gender, and Social Experiences in Middle Childhood

In this study of two hundred and thirty 8- to 13-year-olds, a new "Silent Films" task is introduced, designed to address the dearth of research on theory of mind in older children by providing a film-based analogue of F. G. E. Happé's (1994) Strange Stories task. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that all items from both tasks loaded onto a single theory-of-mind latent factor. With effects of verbal ability and family affluence controlled, theory-of-mind latent factor scores increased significantly with age, indicating that mentalizing skills continue to develop through middle childhood. Girls outperformed boys on the theory-of-mind latent factor, and the correlates of individual differences in theory of mind were gender specific: Low scores were related to loneliness in girls and to peer rejection in boys.

TELL ME SOME MORE: EXPLORING HOW VERBAL ABILITY AND ITEM VERIFIABILITY INFLUENCE RESPONSES TO BIODATA QUESTIONS IN A HIGH‐STAKES SELECTION CONTEXT

Although self‐rated or self‐scored selection measures are commonly used in selection contexts, they are potentially susceptible to applicant response distortion or faking. The response elaboration technique (RET), which requires job applicants to provide supporting information to justify their responses, has been identified as a potential way to minimize applicant response distortion. In a large‐scale, high‐stakes selection context (N= 16,304), we investigate the extent to which RET affects responding on a biodata test as well as the underlying reasons for any potential effect. We find that asking job applicants to elaborate their responses leads to overall lower scores on a biodata test. Item verifiability affects the extent to which RET decreases faking, which we suggest is due to increased accountability. In addition, verbal ability was more strongly related to biodata item scores when items require elaboration, although the effect of verbal ability was small. The implications of these findings for reducing faking in personnel selection are delineated.

Individual differences in false belief understanding are stable from 3 to 6 years of age and predict children’s mental state talk with school friends

Despite a wealth of studies in the field, longitudinal assessments of both the stability and predictive utility of individual differences in preschoolers’ understanding of the mind remain scarce. To address these gaps, we applied latent variable analyses to (a) experimental data gathered from a socially diverse sample ( N = 101, 60 boys and 41 girls) at 3 and 6 years of age and (b) transcript-based coding of children’s dyadic interactions with a best friend at age 6. Our results showed significant stability between latent factors of false belief understanding at ages 3 and 6 even with effects of verbal ability and inhibitory control controlled at both time points. In addition, false belief understanding at ages 3 and 6 showed both distal and proximal links with the frequency of children’s talk about mental states at age 6 even when their overall talk and their friends’ mental state talk were also controlled. We conclude that preschoolers’ false belief understanding both directly and indirectly supports children’s growing ability to discuss thoughts and feelings in their conversations with friends.

Reality monitoring and its association with social functioning in schizophrenia

Reality monitoring, or the ability to discriminate internal from external information present in short-term memory, is relevant in the study of schizophrenia. Previous research has linked monitoring impairments with psychotic symptoms and certain forms of communication disturbance. The focus of the present study was to test the hypothesis that there would be specific relationships between reality monitoring in patients with schizophrenia and current and pre-morbid social functioning, beyond the effects of general verbal ability. Fifty outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were assessed for internal/external reality monitoring deficits, general verbal intelligence, and both current and pre-morbid social functioning. Associations between these variables were assessed. Exploratory analyses also were conducted to determine whether specific types of reality monitoring errors were related to social functioning. Results showed that (a) overall accuracy in reality monitoring was related to pre-morbid social functioning beyond the effects of verbal ability, (b) sensitivity to old versus new information in reality monitoring was related to current social functioning, and (c) a say–report–think reality monitoring error was significantly associated with pre-morbid social functioning. The results support the hypothesis of an association between reality monitoring sensitivity and social functioning.

Test-Retest Reliability of a Theory of Mind Task Battery for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

This study examined for the first time the test-retest reliability of theory-of-mind tasks when administered to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A total of 16 questions within 9 tasks targeting a range of content and complexity were administered at 2 times to 17 children with ASD. In all, 13 questions demonstrated adequate test-retest reliability and high internal consistency. Items that did not achieve reliability violated a pragmatic convention, were ambiguous, or were associated with a response bias. No effect of verbal ability or diagnosis was found on consistency of performance. There was no effect of interval (i.e., short vs. long) on change in score although modest increases in performance occurred generally across administrations. Implications for research and practice are considered.

Executive Function and Theory of Mind in 2 Year Olds: A Family Affair?

Although numerous studies of preschoolers report robust associations between performance on tests of executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM), a lack of developmentally appropriate tasks so far has limited research on these cognitive skills in younger children. Here, we present new batteries of EF and ToM tasks that were administered to 140 two-year-olds from predominantly disadvantaged families, with analyses based on 129 children. Our results showed a strong association between EF and ToM, which remained significant when effects of verbal ability were controlled. Individual differences in EF and ToM were also examined in relation to both distal family factors (social disadvantage, number of siblings) and proximal family factors (quality of child's relationships with parents and siblings). Social disadvantage predicted significant variance in both EF and ToM but did not contribute to the association between these domains. Associations between positive parent-child relationships and both EF and ToM were nonsignificant when verbal ability was controlled. In contrast, positive sibling relationships predicted significant variance in ToM, even controlling for age, verbal ability, EF, social disadvantage, and parent–child relationships.

Counterfactual and mental state reasoning in children with autism.

The contributions of counterfactual conditional reasoning (CCR), belief understanding, and inferential reasoning to the performance of children with autism (CWA) on standard false belief tasks were investigated. To assess the roles of these three factors, we compared the performance of CWA on physical-state CCR tasks (which do not require either an understanding of belief or inferential reasoning); on Wellman and Bartsch's (1988) nonstandard tests of false belief (which require an understanding of belief, but not CCR or inferential reasoning), and on standard tests of false belief tasks. The CWA were impaired relative to controls on the physical-state CCR and standard false-belief tasks, but not on the nonstandard false-belief tasks, and the CWA's performance on the physical-state CCR and standard false-belief tasks correlated highly, even when the effects of verbal ability were partialled out. Finally, the CWA's performance on standard false-belief tasks was more impaired than their performance on the physical-state CCR tasks. We concluded that impaired performance on standard false-belief tasks in autism is associated with defective competence in CCR (or some of its component skills), plus defective competence in inferential reasoning and possibly generativity, but that impaired performance is not caused by an inadequate understanding of belief. The results are discussed in relation to other hypotheses concerning the cause or causes of impaired performance on standard false-belief tasks in children with autism.

Effects of Object Curiosity on Exploratory Learning in Young Children

To examine relationships between curiosity as an individual trait and the processes and products of exploratory learning, 51 kindergarten children of age six were given an object curiosity task and an exploratory learning task. The latter was designed to arouse much uncertainty or dissonance and to permit children to engage in further exploration without interference. Highly curious children, as defined by their object curiosity scores, acquired significantly more information through exploration than their low-curiosity counterparts, though they explored in only insignificantly more varied ways. This superiority of highly curious children in exploratory learning test performance remained even when the effect of verbal ability was held constant.

INTELLIGENCE AND OPINION CHANGE THROUGH ACTIVE PARTICIPATION AS A FUNCTION OF REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPROVISATION AND TIME OF OPINION MEASUREMENT

Improvisation demands and time of opinion measurement were varied to test the prediction that verbal intelligence would facilitate opinion change through active participation (essay writing), compared with passively reading messages, only when a high degree of improvisation is required. Each of 79 subjects participated in one of the following conditions: total improvisation, partial improvisation (where the subjects were given three basic points to develop in their arguments), and reading persuasive communications. Opinion was measured both immediately and two weeks after the experimental treatments. The prediction was confirmed by the fact that a significant interaction effect was obtained at each time of measurement between verbal ability and those methods of opinion change involving total improvisation and reading standard messages, with intelligence facilitating opinion change in the former and inhibiting it in the latter condition. Under conditions of partial improvisation, the effect of verbal ability not only washed out, but actually reversed in direction, although this trend was not significant.

Class Differences in Family Problem Solving: The Effects of Verbal Ability, Hierarchical Structure, and Role Expectations

Propositions drawn from small group problem-solving research are combined and modified to explain social class differences in family problem solving with externally generated, rule-bound, conjunctive, puzzle-like problems. Four hypotheses are derived which predict: (1) middle-class families will be better problem solvers than working-class families; (2) verbal ability will influence problem-solving performance; (3) role expectations will account for class differences in problem-solving performance, with blue-collar families performing better when they are father-led and white-collar families performing better when they are egalitarian; and (4) the combination of open communication structures and normative role expectations will account for the better performance of white-collar families. The results of an experiment conducted in families' homes support hypotheses 1 and 3 and provide partial support for hypothesis 4. Implications for applying small groups findings to family groups and the contribution of family research to group problem-solving theory are discussed.

Video feedback in learning beginning trampoline.

This study explored (i) the effect of visual feedback (supplied by video-tape) compared with verbal feedback in learning beginning trampoline; (ii) the effect of verbal ability on Ss' interpretation of feedback. 18 11 to 12-yr.-old boys were assigned to 2 groups: Group V (visual), N = 8; Group NV (non-visual), N = 10, matched for performance on beginning trampoline, general physical ability, and verbal ability as measured by the Mill-Hill Vocabulary Test, Form 1, Junior (1948). Results showed some superiority of Group V over Group NV (p > .05). However, Ss at all levels of verbal ability benefitted from visual feedback, while only Ss in Group NV with high verbal ability achieved a high performance score (r = 0.6, p < 0.05).