Cognitive Regulation Strategies Used by Children with Reading Difficulties.

(1) Background: Children with reading difficulties may experience negative emotions and social isolation. The cognitive emotion regulation strategies that they use in different reading tasks can make them more vulnerable in the stressful situations. Using adaptative emotion regulation strategies may help them overcome stressful reading situations. (2) Methods: Children identified with poor reading comprehension skills were compared to children without reading comprehension difficulties on measures of self-evaluation and thought in relation to task, and on cognitive coping strategies relevant to performance. The effect of some relevant demographic factors was also investigated, such as gender and urban/rural setting. (3) Results: Our results indicate that children that have poor reading comprehension skills present higher scores on negative self- evaluation and off-task thoughts that are in relation to performance anxiety. Also, in what concerns cognitive coping strategies, students with difficulties in reading comprehension display a greater use of blaming others strategy, which is in relation to the negative self-evaluations. Also, they displayed less use of putting into perspective. No effect of gender and setting emerged for off and on task thoughts and cognitive coping strategies, except for lower scores of students from rural setting in positive self-evaluation. (4) Conclusions: students presenting difficulties in reading comprehension tend to use more negative self-statements and disengagement through off-task thoughts and employ coping strategies directed to protect self-worth.

The Relation between Cognitive and Emotional Processes in Children and Adolescents with Neurodevelopmental Disorders-A Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Up to 80% of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have mental health issues-either emotional or behavioral problems. The underlying mechanisms are still unknown, even if emotional regulation (ER) is considered to play a major role in child and adolescent psychopathology. Several studies link the ability to regulate the intensity and quality of emotions with executive functioning. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the association between executive functions (EFs) and ER and affective problems in children with ASD. METHODS: This meta-analysis is based on a literature search of peer-reviewed journals from the following databases: Scopus, ProQuest, Ebsco, Science Direct, Springer Link and Clarivate. We analyzed 15 studies that investigated the link between EF, ER or affective problems (APs) in children and adolescents with ASD aged between 2 and 18 y with ASD. To assess the effect size of the relationship between EF and ER, and EF and AP, 15 studies comprising 54 effect sizes were analyzed. RESULTS: Our findings revealed a small effect size regarding the association between EF and ER, r = 0.331, p = 0.034, and a small effect size regarding the association between EF and AP, r = -0.213, p = 0.024. No significant moderators were found. The results are presented in regard to the two analyses developed, as well as a short review of the studies included in the meta-analysis. CONCLUSION: Even if there are several limitations of this study, especially considering the small number of studies included, the results suggest that it is worth considering EF as an underlying mechanism for the appearance of emotional or behavioral problems in children with ASD. These findings have important implications for the development of ASD intervention plans, as well as for increasing awareness among specialists about the importance of executive functions in school adjustment and social functioning.

Factors That Support Technology Integration Practices in the Math Education of Children with Intellectual Disabilities.

The current paper explores the relationship between technological knowledge, beliefs about technology use in education, beliefs about the limits of technology use with respect to children with disabilities, self-efficacy beliefs, and their effects on technology use or teacher practices in the special education setting regarding mathematics education. Research was conducted via an online questionnaire. A total of 83 teachers working in the field of special education answered the questionnaire. The answers were analyzed via quantitative and qualitative analyses. In addition, correlational analyses were conducted. A prediction model that included all the aforementioned variables was tested. Our regression analysis evidenced the strong predictive value of technology-related knowledge with respect to technology integration practices but not toward the other models that included beliefs. Through mediation analysis, we found that technology-related knowledge mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and technology integration practices. The qualitative findings provided information on the interplay between knowledge, practice, and beliefs that are contextualized; on the specificity of technology-related knowledge. Implications are discussed with reference to factors important for the professional development of teachers with regard to technology integration.

Measurement Invariance of Alabama Parenting Questionnaire Across Age, Gender, Clinical Status, and Informant.

This study aimed to investigate the measurement invariance of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (for both long [APQ-lg] and short [APQ-9] forms) across age, gender, clinical status, and informant (i.e., parent vs. child reports). The sample was composed of adolescents (community sample: N = 1,746; clinical sample: N = 166) and parents (N = 149). The analyses were conducted in R. Measurement invariance was assessed via multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, equivalence test, and subsampling approach. The original model of APQ-lg (five factors) showed a significantly better fit than other concurrent models (five concurrent models were specified, based on prior literature). For APQ-lg, we found measurement invariance across gender and partial measurement invariance across age, clinical status, and informant. For APQ-9, we confirmed the measurement invariance across gender and clinical status, while across age and informant partial measurement invariance was attested. Overall, our study indicated that APQ-lg and APQ-9 are two valid tools for measuring parenting practices with some caveats.

Emotional Dysregulation in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder-A Sample of Romanian Children.

Emotional dysregulation problems seem to affect more than 80% of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and may include irritability, aggressive behaviors, self-injury, and anxiety. Even though these types of problems are very common and affect the well-being of individuals with ASD, there are no objective assessment tools developed for this population and there are only a few intervention techniques meant to address these symptoms. This study investigates the feasibility of using off-the-shelf wearable devices to accurately measure heart rate, which has been associated with emotional dysregulation, and to test the effectiveness of functional communication training in reducing the emotional outburst in preschoolers with ASD. We used a single-case experiment design with three preschoolers with ASD to test if the duration of the emotional outburst and the elevated heart rate levels can be reduced by using functional communication training. Our results show that for two of the participants, the intervention was effective in reducing the duration of behaviors associated with emotional outburst, and that there were significant differences between baseline and intervention phase in terms of heart rate levels. However, our results are inconclusive regarding the association between elevated heart rates and the occurrence of the emotional outburst. Nevertheless, more research is needed to investigate the use of off-the-shelf wearable devices in predicting challenging behaviors in children with ASD.

The role of visual-spatial attention in reading development: a meta-analysis.

The association between visual attention and reading development has been investigated as a possible core causal deficit in dyslexia, in addition to phonological awareness. This study aims to provide a meta-analytic review of the research on attentional processes and their relation to reading development, to examine the possible influence on it of orthographic depth, age, and attentional tasks (interpreted as serial or parallel processing indices). We included studies with participants up to 18 years of age that have considered the visual spatial attention orienting that sustains the serial visual analysis involved in the phonological pathway of decoding, and the visual attention span that supports the multielement parallel processing that is thought to influence lexical decoding. The results confirm a strong association between visual attention and reading development; we evaluate the evidence and discuss the possibility that visual attention processes play a causal role in determining individual differences in reading acquisition.