Nonverbal Intelligence Research Articles

Psychological Analysis of Manifestations of Nonverbal Intelligence of Senior Pre-Schoolers in the Context of Inclusive Education

Inclusive preschool education ensures the full development of pre-schoolers with disabilities and promotes their social adaptation. The use of visual material is one of the effective means of stimulating cognitive activity in the process of preschool inclusion. The success of its perception and assimilation depends on the level of non-verbal intelligence.
 Aim: The research aims to analyze the manifestations of non-verbal intelligence in healthy senior pre-schoolers and children with disabilities.
 Methods: The research involved theoretical methods of systematization and generalization of academic information, as well as empirical methods of psychological diagnostics. Statistical indicators were determined through descriptive statistics and a one-factor analysis of variance.
 Results: The study's results showed a high level of nonverbal intelligence and creative abilities in healthy senior pre-schoolers and pre-schoolers with disabilities. The analysis didn’t reveal any statistically significant differences (р≥0.05) between the indicators of non-verbal intelligence of the studied healthy senior pre-schoolers and pre-schoolers with disabilities.
 Conclusions: children with disabilities have medium-high indicators of the development of non-verbal intelligence and creative abilities, which do not statistically differ from the indicators of their healthy peers.
 Prospects: The obtained results can contribute to developing adaptation schemes for children with disabilities in the context of inclusive education. The obtained data provide the background for expanding the teaching materials for developing non-verbal intelligence in inclusive groups.

Electrophysiological Testing for an Auditory Processing Disorder and Reading Performance in 54 School Students Aged Between 8 and 12 years.

BACKGROUND Learning to read and write depends on the effective functioning of various sensory systems, including the auditory system. Auditory information processing involves behavioral and electrophysiological processes. Electrophysiological procedures are used to investigate activity in the auditory pathway in response to sound stimuli, and the associated cortical activity in discrimination, integration, and attention. The study evaluated electrophysiological testing for an auditory processing disorder and reading performance in 54 school students aged between 8 and 12 years. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study involved 54 public school students aged between 8 and 12 years, who were divided into a study group and control group. All children underwent basic audiological assessment, rating of reading and writing ability, non-verbal intelligence, auditory brainstem response, long-latency auditory-evoked potentials (LLAEP), frequency following responses (FFR), and auditory training (AT). RESULTS The basic audiological evaluation showed a statistically significant difference between groups only for the frequency of 6 kHz. The LLAEP response had a statistically significant difference between groups for N1 latency, P300 latency, and amplitude. Finally, there was a statistically significant difference between pre-AT and post-AT to LLAEP for latencies of P2, N2, and P300 and amplitudes of N2 and P300, and to FFR for latency of wave C. CONCLUSIONS This study showed that electrophysiological tests are sensitive tools for identifying deficits in the auditory pathway. Moreover, latency measures can detect improvements from an auditory training program. In this way, an auditory intervention program might help children with reading and writing difficulties.

Prenatal environmental exposures associated with sex differences in childhood obesity and neurodevelopment

BackgroundObesity and neurodevelopmental delay are complex traits that often co-occur and differ between boys and girls. Prenatal exposures are believed to influence children’s obesity, but it is unknown whether exposures of pregnant mothers can confer a different risk of obesity between sexes, and whether they can affect neurodevelopment.MethodsWe analyzed data from 1044 children from the HELIX project, comprising 93 exposures during pregnancy, and clinical, neuropsychological, and methylation data during childhood (5–11 years). Using exposome-wide interaction analyses, we identified prenatal exposures with the highest sexual dimorphism in obesity risk, which were used to create a multiexposure profile. We applied causal random forest to classify individuals into two environments: E1 and E0. E1 consists of a combination of exposure levels where girls have significantly less risk of obesity than boys, as compared to E0, which consists of the remaining combination of exposure levels. We investigated whether the association between sex and neurodevelopmental delay also differed between E0 and E1. We used methylation data to perform an epigenome-wide association study between the environments to see the effect of belonging to E1 or E0 at the molecular level.ResultsWe observed that E1 was defined by the combination of low dairy consumption, non-smokers’ cotinine levels in blood, low facility richness, and the presence of green spaces during pregnancy (ORinteraction = 0.070, P = 2.59 × 10−5). E1 was also associated with a lower risk of neurodevelopmental delay in girls, based on neuropsychological tests of non-verbal intelligence (ORinteraction = 0.42, P = 0.047) and working memory (ORinteraction = 0.31, P = 0.02). In line with this, several neurodevelopmental functions were enriched in significant differentially methylated probes between E1 and E0.ConclusionsThe risk of obesity can be different for boys and girls in certain prenatal environments. We identified an environment combining four exposure levels that protect girls from obesity and neurodevelopment delay. The combination of single exposures into multiexposure profiles using causal inference can help determine populations at risk.

Error analysis of Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices in children and adolescents with cerebral palsy.

Analysis of the errors in the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM) has been previously performed for children with intellectual disabilities but has not been investigated for those with cerebral palsy (CP). This study aimed to investigate whether the types and positions of errors made by individuals with CP differed from those made by typically developing (TD) controls. Forty-five participants with CP aged 4-18years and 30 TD children aged 3-9years underwent RCPM testing. We first compared the RCPM performance and error characteristics between the groups and then examined the association between RCPM and the severity of CP and receptive vocabulary in the CP group. The results showed that while mean total scores in the two groups were comparable, the types and positions of errors made by individuals with CP differed from those of TD controls. The development of non-verbal intelligence in children with CP increased with age; when controlling for age, non-verbal intelligence was significantly correlated with all three functional levels of CP severity and receptive vocabulary. This study provides valuable insights into the problem-solving strategies employed by children with CP.

COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL FACTORS IN THE PROFESSIONAL ADAPTATION OF CADET-GRADUATES TO MILITARY SERVICE

The article provides a comprehensive assessment of the psychophysiological factors affecting the professional adaptation of cadets. It emphasizes that professional development entails the formation of professional orientation, competence, socially significant and professionally important qualities, their integration, readiness for continuous professional growth, and the search for optimal methods to perform activities of high quality and creativity in accordance with individual psychological characteristics. Various approaches to specialist development have been examined by researchers and practitioners, including professional self-determination, stages of specialization, development of professionally important qualities, motivation in work activities, and the fundamentals of labor activity. The main theories that unify these approaches are the theory of types of professional life (structural concepts), motivational theories, and theories of individuality. The study highlights that the adaptation process is influenced by personal factors such as stress resistance, personality type, and emotional perception. The research utilized data obtained through a rhythmograph system, which monitors ECG signals and heart rate variability in the first standard lead, allowing for statistical time and spectral analysis of heart rate. In the initial stage, the assessment of nonverbal and general intelligence development levels was analyzed using the "Color Progressive Matrices" test by J. C. Raven. In the subsequent stage, the correlation between intelligence level and LF norm, HF norm, and LnLF/HF under load was determined. Finally, the adaptability level of the respondents to modern functioning conditions was assessed using the multi-level personality questionnaire "Adaptability" by A. Maklakov and S. Chermianin. The obtained data indicate an inverse proportional relationship between these indicators: "high stress - low adaptability" and vice versa. The article also highlights the significance of nervous-psychic tension, in addition to stress, as an unfavorable factor affecting performance. It lists the main causes contributing to the development of nervous-psychic tension. Furthermore, the works of M. Agadzhanyan, V. Kaznacheev, and S. Kaznacheev identify three qualitatively different types of adaptive human response: "sprinter," "stayer," and "intermediate" types (based on the criterion of time to perform submaximal work). To enhance adaptive abilities, the article proposes the utilization of the bioactivation optimization technique, which effectively enhances a person's psychophysiological functions and meets the requirements for psychophysiological support in military professional activities.

The Relationship between Executive Functions, Working Memory, and Intelligence in Kindergarten Children.

Executive functions (EF), working memory (WM), and intelligence are closely associated, but distinct constructs. What underlies the associations between these constructs, especially in childhood, is not well understood. In this pre-registered study, along with the traditional aggregate accuracy and RT-based measures of EF, we investigated post-error slowing (PES) in EF as a manifestation of metacognitive processes (i.e., monitoring and cognitive control) in relation to WM and intelligence. Thereby, we aimed to elucidate whether these metacognitive processes may be one underlying component to explain the associations between these constructs. We tested kindergarten children (Mage = 6.4 years, SDage = 0.3) in an EF, WM (verbal and visuospatial), and fluid (non-verbal) intelligence task. We found significant associations of mainly the inhibition component of EF with fluid intelligence and verbal WM, and between verbal WM and intelligence. No significant associations emerged between the PES in EF and intelligence or WM. These results suggest that in the kindergarten age, inhibition rather than monitoring and cognitive control might be the underlying component that explains the associations between EF, WM, and intelligence.

Executive Functions and Language Skills in Preschool Children: The Unique Contribution of Verbal Working Memory and Cognitive Flexibility.

The development of language skills requires a range of linguistic abilities and cognitive processes, such as executive functions (EFs, i.e., a set of skills involved in goal-directed activities which are crucial for regulating thoughts and actions). Despite progress in understanding the link between language and EFs, the need for more research on the extent and directionality of this link is undeniable. This study examined whether specific components of EFs account for a significant amount of variance in language abilities above and beyond gender, age, and nonverbal intelligence. The sample comprised 79 typically developing children attending the last year of preschool (Mage = 64.5 months, SD = 3.47). EFs were assessed through tasks that explored three predictor variables: inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. The language outcomes included receptive and expressive language. After controlling for age, gender, and nonverbal intelligence, findings showed that working memory and cognitive flexibility, respectively, explained an additional 16% and 19% of the variance. Inhibition skills did not increase the amount of explained variance in language outcomes. These results highlight the potential added importance of assessing working memory and cognitive flexibility in the prediction of language skills in preschool children.

Impacts of cognitive flexibility on central word identification: evidence from poor comprehenders' discourse comprehension of first graders with ADHD.

Cognitive flexibility (CF) is an executive function component related to the ability to flexibly shift amongst multiple incompatible perspectives or descriptions of an object task. However, whether CF enhances the narrative discourse comprehension of students with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) during surface semantic meaning identification remains unclear. This study aimed to examine the impacts of CF on central word (CW) identification amongst primary school students with ADHD and reading comprehension difficulties (i.e. scores in the ≤ 25th percentile of discourse comprehension but with adequate decoding skills and average decoding performance score within one standard deviation). In addition, the association of CF with CW identification performance, when the CW was located in either the first or second half of sentences, was tested with and without the interference of playing music. This study recruited 104 low-CF and 103 high-CF first grade students with ADHD and reading difficulties. Participants received measures of nonverbal intelligence, working memory, Chinese receptive vocabulary, Chinese word reading, CF and a music preference questionnaire. Additionally, participants completed the entire CW identification experiment (about 7min) individually in a silent classroom located within the school campus. After controlling nonverbal intelligence, working memory, music preference, Chinese receptive vocabulary and Chinese word reading, the results showed that high-CF students had similar poetry discourse comprehension performance with low-CF students when the CWs were at the second half of a sentence. Moreover, high-CF students showed significantly better performance than low-CF students when the CWs were at the first half of the poetry sentences in both conditions with and without music, especially if the poetry sentence structure was more complicated than the typical 'subject-verb-object' sequence. All students with ADHD performed significantly worse in poetry discourse comprehension with music interference than without it. The results highlight the importance of CF in poetry discourse comprehension tasks, particularly when a poetry sentence uses a non-typical structure format. The possible effects of CF on poetry discourse comprehension are also discussed.

Verbal Fluency in Prelingually Deaf, Early Implanted Children and Adolescents With Cochlear Implants.

Verbal fluency tasks assess the ability to quickly and efficiently retrieve words from the mental lexicon by requiring subjects to rapidly generate words within a phonological or semantic category. This study investigated differences between cochlear implant users and normal-hearing peers in the clustering and time course of word retrieval during phonological and semantic verbal fluency tasks. Twenty-eight children and adolescents (aged 9-17 years) with cochlear implants and 33 normal-hearing peers completed measures of verbal fluency, nonverbal intelligence, speech perception, and verbal short-term/working memory. Phonological and semantic verbal fluency tests were scored for total words generated, words generated in each 10-s interval of the 1-min task, latency to first word generated, number of word clusters, average cluster size, and number of word/cluster switches. Children and adolescents with cochlear implants generated fewer words than normal-hearing peers throughout the entire 60-s time interval of the phonological and semantic fluency tasks. Cochlear implant users also had slower start latency times and produced fewer clusters and switches than normal-hearing peers during the phonological fluency task. Speech perception and verbal working memory scores were more strongly associated with verbal fluency scores in children and adolescents with cochlear implants than in normal-hearing peers. Cochlear implant users show poorer phonological and semantic verbal fluency than normal-hearing peers, and their verbal fluency is significantly associated with speech perception and verbal working memory. These findings suggest deficits in fluent retrieval of phonological and semantic information from long-term lexical memory in cochlear implant users.

The relation between complement understanding and computational skills: A random intercept cross-lagged panel model.

Understanding of the complement principle has been proposed as closely related to computational skills, but few studies have investigated their interrelations. The present longitudinal study attempted to clarify the picture by examining their potential cross-lagged relation. Fourth graders (n = 221) in Hong Kong received 3 cognitive assessments at intervals of 6 months, consisting of multiple measures of complement understanding, a nonverbal intelligence test, and a computational skills measure. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model revealed that complement understanding significantly predicted future computational skills, but the reciprocal prediction was nonsignificant. The findings provide empirical evidence supporting the close relation between complement understanding and computational skills and call for future endeavors to examine the interrelations between computational skills and understanding of other arithmetic principles. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Implicit cross-situational word learning in children with and without developmental language disorder and its relation to lexical-semantic knowledge

IntroductionResearch indicates that statistical learning plays a role in word learning by enabling the learner to track the co-occurrences between words and their visual referents, a process that is named cross-situational word learning. Word learning is problematic for children with developmental language disorder (DLD), and a deficit in statistical learning has been suggested to contribute to the language difficulties in these children. Therefore, we investigate whether children with DLD have more difficulty than TD children with learning novel word–referent pairs based on cross-situational statistics in an implicit task, and whether this ability is related to their lexical-semantic skills. Moreover, we look at the role of variability of the learning environment.MethodsIn our implicit cross-situational word learning task, each trial in the exposure phase was in itself ambiguous: two pictures of unknown objects were shown at the same time and two novel words were played consecutively, without indicating which word referred to which object. However, as every word occurred with its correct referent consistently, the children could learn the word–referent pairs across trials. The children were not explicitly instructed to learn the names of new objects. As an on-line measure of learning, eye-movements were recorded during the exposure phase. After exposure, word–referent knowledge was also tested using multiple choice questions. Several measures of lexical-semantic knowledge were administered to the children with DLD, as well as tasks measuring non-verbal intelligence and phonological processing. Contextual variability (the number of different distractors with which a particular word–referent pair occurs across trials) was manipulated between subjects by constructing two types of exposure conditions: low contextual diversity vs. high contextual diversity.ResultsBoth groups of children performed significantly above chance level on the test phase, but the TD children significantly outperformed the children with DLD. We found no significant effect of contextual diversity. The eye-tracking data revealed some evidence of on-line learning, but no differences between groups. Finally, the regression analyses did not reveal any significant predictors of off-line or on-line cross-situational word learning ability.DiscussionOur results indicate that although children with DLD are able to learn word-referent pairs in an implicit task, they have more difficulty than TD children. Possibly they need more input to achieve the same level.

History of Small for Gestational Age at Birth With Verbal and Non-verbal Intelligence: A Case-Control Study Among Preschool Children.

Advances in technology and treatments have improved the survival rate of small for gestational age (SGA) infants that need more concern for their neurodevelopmental outcomes. In the present study, we hypothesized that a history of SGA may affect verbal and non-verbal intelligence indices among pre-school children. A case-control study was conducted at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences (Tehran-Iran, 2020). Totally 232 children entered the study. An expert pediatrician examined all included subjects. Based on birth weight (extracted from medical records), participants were divided into the case (born SGA) and control (born Appropriate for gestational age (AGA)) groups. Wechsler Intelligence Scale (WISC) and Conners tests were implemented to assess intelligence quotient (IQ), verbal, attention, development, and executive functions. Finally, total scores were compared between groups. Totally, 232 preschool children were included in the study. Of all, 114 (49.1%) and 118 (50.9%) subjects had the history of born SGA and AGA, respectively. The results related to WISC scores showed that the mean WISC-verbal score among children born SGA was significantly higher than children born AGA; (114.288±18.130 vs. 108.898±20.145; P=0.024). This significant difference was associated with Vocabulary (13.531±2.843 vs. 12.745±3.242; p=0.046) and Similarities (14.054±3.630 vs. 13.279±4.898; p=0.048) domains between the groups. The results related to different domains of the Conners test also showed that the mean scores of Inattention (B) and attention deficit hyperactive disorder score (D) in the case group were higher than these scores in the control group; however, these differences were not significant (4.929±3.511 vs. 4.906±4.300; p=0.495 &10.371±5.867 vs. 10.093±7.588; p=0.211). Our results indicated that the development of non-verbal intelligence in children born with SGA had been delayed. This finding shows that these children may need more consideration during the preschool period and after that.

How we measure language skills of children at scale: A call to move beyond domain-specific tests as a proxy for language

Purpose The aim of this research note is to encourage child language researchers and clinicians to give careful consideration to the use of domain-specific tests as a proxy for language; particularly in the context of large-scale studies and for the identification of language disorder in clinical practice. Method We report on data leveraged through the prospective Raine Study cohort. Participants included 1626 children aged 10 years (n = 104 with developmental language disorder [DLD] and n = 1522 without DLD). We assessed the predictive utility of common language measures including subtests of a standardised omnibus language assessment, non-verbal intelligence, and a domain-specific receptive vocabulary test. Result Children with DLD performed within the average range on a measure of non-verbal intelligence (z = −0.86) and receptive vocabulary (z = −0.38), as well as two out of the six subtests on the omnibus language assessment (zs > −1.50). The magnitude of the predictive relationship between language assessments and the likelihood of a child meeting criteria for DLD at 10 years was assessed using a logistic regression model, which was significant: χ 2(8) = 16.91, p = 0.031. Semantic Relationships (OR = 1.13, CI = 1.04 − 1.23, p = .004), Formulated Sentences (OR = 1.07, CI = 1.01 − 1.13, p = .028), Recalling Sentences (OR = 1.20, CI = 1.15 − 1.26, p < .001), and Sentence Assembly (OR = 1.17, CI = 1.07 − 1.30, p = .001) were significant predictors of DLD. Conclusion Domain-specific language assessments, particularly those testing receptive vocabulary, may overestimate the language ability of children with DLD. Caution is urged when using such tests by clinicians and researchers, especially those measuring language skills of children at scale. Future directions for measuring the functional impact of DLD are presented.

Maternal fish consumption and child neurodevelopment in Nutrition 1 Cohort: Seychelles Child Development Study.

Maternal fish consumption exposes the fetus to beneficial nutrients and potentially adverse neurotoxicants. The current study investigated associations between maternal fish consumption and child neurodevelopmental outcomes. Maternal fish consumption was assessed in the Seychelles Child Development Study Nutrition Cohort 1 (n 229) using 4-day food diaries. Neurodevelopment was evaluated at 9 and 30 months, and 5 and 9 years with test batteries assessing twenty-six endpoints and covering multiple neurodevelopmental domains. Analyses used multiple linear regression with adjustment for covariates known to influence child neurodevelopment. This cohort consumed an average of 8 fish meals/week and the total fish intake during pregnancy was 106·8 (sd 61·9) g/d. Among the twenty-six endpoints evaluated in the primary analysis there was one beneficial association. Children whose mothers consumed larger quantities of fish performed marginally better on the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (a test of nonverbal intelligence) at age 5 years (β 0·003, 95 % CI (0, 0·005)). A secondary analysis dividing fish consumption into tertiles found no significant associations when comparing the highest and lowest consumption groups. In this cohort, where fish consumption is substantially higher than current global recommendations, maternal fish consumption during pregnancy was not beneficially or adversely associated with children's neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Nonverbal Intelligence Does Matter for the Perception of Second Language Sounds

Although there has been considerable research on the interplay between intelligence and second language (L2) learning, research focusing on the intelligence and L2 speech perception link is limited. The present study aims to fill this gap. The native language of the participants was Cypriot Greek and they spoke English as an L2. The participants completed a forced-choice psychoacoustic test in which they discriminated L2 sound contrasts and a nonverbal intelligence test which measured their nonverbal intelligence capacities. They were divided into two groups according to their performance in the intelligence test, namely, a low IQ and a high IQ group. The results showed that the high IQ group discriminated the majority of the L2 contrasts better than the low IQ group. In addition, the degree of perceived difficulty for most L2 contrasts differed between the two groups. It is concluded that nonverbal intelligence is associated with the discrimination of L2 sounds. This can be explained by the possibility that either intelligence triggers the more efficient functioning of other domains, such as information processing and attention, leading to increased speech perception skills, or that it directly affects the categorization of speech sounds resulting in the development of more robust L2 categories.

Sleep duration in preschool age and later behavioral and cognitive outcomes: an individual participant data meta-analysis in five European cohorts

Short sleep duration has been linked to adverse behavioral and cognitive outcomes in schoolchildren, but few studies examined this relation in preschoolers. We aimed to investigate the association between parent-reported sleep duration at 3.5 years and behavioral and cognitive outcomes at 5 years in European children. We used harmonized data from five cohorts of the European Union Child Cohort Network: ALSPAC, SWS (UK); EDEN, ELFE (France); INMA (Spain). Associations were estimated through DataSHIELD using adjusted generalized linear regression models fitted separately for each cohort and pooled with random-effects meta-analysis. Behavior was measured with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Language and non-verbal intelligence were assessed by the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence or the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities. Behavioral and cognitive analyses included 11,920 and 2981 children, respectively (34.0%/13.4% of the original sample). In meta-analysis, longer mean sleep duration per day at 3.5 years was associated with lower mean internalizing and externalizing behavior percentile scores at 5 years (adjusted mean difference: − 1.27, 95% CI [− 2.22, − 0.32] / − 2.39, 95% CI [− 3.04, − 1.75]). Sleep duration and language or non-verbal intelligence showed trends of inverse associations, however, with imprecise estimates (adjusted mean difference: − 0.28, 95% CI [− 0.83, 0.27] / − 0.42, 95% CI [− 0.99, 0.15]). This individual participant data meta-analysis suggests that longer sleep duration in preschool age may be important for children’s later behavior and highlight the need for larger samples for robust analyses of cognitive outcomes. Findings could be influenced by confounding or reverse causality and require replication.

The Contribution of Visual and Auditory Working Memory and Non-Verbal IQ to Motor Multisensory Processing in Elementary School Children.

Although cognitive abilities have been shown to facilitate multisensory processing in adults, the development of cognitive abilities such as working memory and intelligence, and their relationship to multisensory motor reaction times (MRTs), has not been well investigated in children. Thus, the aim of the current study was to explore the contribution of age-related cognitive abilities in elementary school-age children (n = 75) aged 5-10 years, to multisensory MRTs in response to auditory, visual, and audiovisual stimuli, and a visuomotor eye-hand co-ordination processing task. Cognitive performance was measured on classical working memory tasks such as forward and backward visual and auditory digit spans, and the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM test of nonverbal intelligence). Bayesian Analysis revealed decisive evidence for age-group differences across grades on visual digit span tasks and RCPM scores but not on auditory digit span tasks. The results also showed decisive evidence for the relationship between performance on more complex visually based tasks, such as difficult items of the RCPM and visual digit span, and multisensory MRT tasks. Bayesian regression analysis demonstrated that visual WM digit span tasks together with nonverbal IQ were the strongest unique predictors of multisensory processing. This suggests that the capacity of visual memory rather than auditory processing abilities becomes the most important cognitive predictor of multisensory MRTs, and potentially contributes to the expected age-related increase in cognitive abilities and multisensory motor processing.

Understanding Chinese children’s word reading by considering the factors from cognitive, psychological and ecological factors

Reading is a complex activity that is related to factors from the cognitive, ecological, and psychological domains. However, few studies have investigated the mechanisms underlying word learning by including the factors from the three domains in Chinese children. One hundred and ninety-four Chinese first graders completed tasks on cognitive abilities and word reading ability and a questionnaire relating to the psychological domain, their parents answered questionnaires relating to the psychological and ecological domains. The cognitive factors in the present study involved general (i.e., working memory) and reading-specific (i.e., vocabulary and morphological awareness) abilities. As ecological factors, the parent-reported family socioeconomic status (SES) and home literacy environment (HLE) were used to indicate parents’ resource characteristics of the literacy interactions at home. As psychological factors, an overall mental status was measured by the Conners’ Parent Rating Scale-Revised and reading self-efficacy were used to indicate children’s demand and force characteristics in the literacy interactions. The results of path analysis showed that, after controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence, the reading-specific cognitive abilities had a direct effect on word reading. Working memory, HLE, and reading self-efficacy contributed to word reading through the reading-specific cognitive abilities. Family SES facilitated HLE, which subsequently benefited the reading-specific cognitive abilities, and then assisted word reading.

Cognitive functions and special working capacity in elite boxers

Background and Study Aim. In the basis of the boxer's power qualities is the ability to perceive and process external information. Therefore, in order to ensure the proper training of qualified boxers, there is a need to monitor the functional state of the boxer’s organism. The relationship between cognitive functions and special working capacity of elite boxers were studied.&#x0D; Material and Methods. The level of special working capacity was studied by the test of punching a boxer for 8 s at maximum speed. Cognitive functions (verbal and nonverbal intelligence, and word memory) were studied using the "Multipsychometer-05" hardware-software. 26 elite boxers, aged 18-24, were tested.&#x0D; Results. The research results showed that groups of boxers with different levels of special working capacity differ in terms of accuracy and efficiency when performing a cognitive task with verbal stimuli. The resulted that the high level of special working capacity of elite boxers is provided by the manifestation of verbal intelligence. Besides, the special working capacity is related with activation of mental functions of attention, speed of visual perception, operational and logical thinking. At the same time, significantly higher values of decision latency in this group of boxers indicate a slowdown in the processing of nonverbal information in boxers with a high level of special working capacity to work. It can be noted that the special working capacity of boxers has a direct relationship with quality and inverse relationship with the speed of information processing. The speed of memorizing verbal information is better in boxers with a high level of special working capacity. This fact indicates the importance of the verbal factor for the assimilation of special information in the training of boxers. The best values of accuracy and efficiency indicate the relationship of special working capacity in skilled boxers with the quality and volume of memorized verbal information.&#x0D; Conclusions. The special working capacity of elite boxers has a direct relationship with quality and inverse relationship with the speed of information processing. The elite boxers with a high level of special working capacity have a better speed of verbal information memorizing.

Cognitive Abilities Related to Reading and Writing Skills in Chinese Third-grade Children

In this study, we analysed the cognitive abilities that predict reading and writing attainment in the Chinese language for Mandarin-speaking children. A total of 140 Chinese third-graders studying in Ningbo, Zhejiang were evaluated for their visual cognition including visual perception and memory, naming speed, vocabulary knowledge, phonological skills, nonverbal intelligence, and abilities to read and write. The results of multiple regression analyses revealed that word and nonword reading accuracy were predicted to a significant degree by visual memory and phonological awareness, respectively. Naming speed significantly contributed to the reading speeds regarding words, nonwords, and paragraphs. Our results also showed that the scores in word and nonword reading predicted the scores of writing as well. Visual memory and phonological awareness are essential for reading Chinese accurately, while naming speed is an important factor for Chinese reading fluency. The present results have implications regarding the design of useful tasks that screen poor readers of Chinese.