Jing Zhao

This study investigated whether alterations in error monitoring constitute shared risk factors for developmental dyslexia (DD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A total of 148 children were recruited and categorized into four groups, including 37 children with DD only, 37 with ADHD only, 40 with comorbid DD + ADHD, and 34 typically developing (TD) controls. Participants completed a combined Flanker–No-Go task to assess error monitoring, utilizing post-error slowing (PES) and post-error accuracy (PEA) to index error detection and error regulation, respectively. Results of linear mixed-effects models showed a significant main effect of DD_status on PES, indicating that children with DD (including the DD-only and comorbid DD + ADHD groups) exhibited significantly shorter PES than their non-DD counterparts. Conversely, a significant main effect of ADHD_status was observed on PEA, where children with ADHD showed lower PEA relative to those without ADHD. Notably, there were no significant differences in error monitoring functions between children with single disorders and those with comorbidities. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that PES independently predicted character recognition, but not ADHD symptom severity. These findings suggest that while both DD and ADHD involve atypical error monitoring, the underlying patterns are dissociable. Specifically, the DD profile tended to align with altered error detection, whereas the ADHD profile was more closely associated with reduced error regulation. Crucially, the comorbid group exhibited a combination of the error monitoring problems observed in DD and ADHD.

Visual attention span (VAS) is a critical predictor to Chinese reading, owing to the logographic and ideographic features of the script. However, the cognitive mechanisms linking VAS to reading remain under‐explored, particularly regarding developmental trajectories and distinct reading outcomes. This longitudinal study examined how Grade 1 VAS predicts Chinese character reading fluency and reading comprehension in Grades 3 and 4, covering the crucial ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’ transition. The developmentally specific mediation of language‐related cognitive skills including orthographic/phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) was examined. A cohort of 202 Chinese children (101 boys, 101 girls; M _age ± SD = 79.83 ± 3.86 months) were assessed at Grade 1 (T1), Grade 3 (T2), and Grade 4 (T3) on VAS, the language‐related cognitive skills, character list reading fluency and reading comprehension. Results showed T1VAS predicted T2character reading fluency separately through T1orthographic awareness and T2RAN. Furthermore, a chain mediation involving these skills and T2fluency explained T3fluency. Meanwhile, T1VAS directly predicted T2reading comprehension and indirectly predicted T3comprehension via earlier decoding skills and prior comprehension. These findings establish VAS as a foundational component of Chinese literacy development, mediated by stage‐specific mediating mechanisms. The results offer implications for designing early reading instruction tailored to the special demands of Chinese literacy.

Recent studies indicate that Chinese K-12 teachers possess insufficient knowledge regarding learning disability (LD), hindering their ability to provide effective instruction. Given the foundational role of the pre-service phase in cultivating a scientific approach to teaching, this study aimed to boost pre-service teachers’ LD knowledge and explore its subsequent impact on teaching efficacy and attitudes. Fifty-one pre-service teachers with low levels of baseline LD knowledge were randomly assigned to either a training group or a control group. Utilizing a pretest–intervention–posttest design, the study measured changes in LD knowledge, teaching efficacy, and attitudes toward students with LD. Crucially, attitudes were assessed via a vignette paradigm that differentiated between two components of cognitive evaluations (expectations of future student failure) and emotional experiences (anger arousal towards academic failure). The results showed that pre-service teachers in the training group exhibited substantial gains in LD knowledge. These knowledge gains significantly predicted enhanced teaching efficacy, but this relationship was indirect. Mediation analysis revealed that improved knowledge reduced anger arousal, which in turn boosted efficacy. These findings suggest that fostering teaching confidence requires more than mere knowledge accumulation; it also entails using LD-related knowledge to mitigate negative emotions toward struggling learners. This underscores that teacher education programs must incorporate explicit cultivation of emotional and attitudinal competencies alongside conventional cognitive training.

This study investigated the comprehension of relative clauses (RCs) in Chinese children with and without developmental dyslexia (DD). Twenty-two children with DD, 22 chronological age-matched (CA) children, and 22 younger reading-level-matched (RL) children completed an RC comprehension task (measuring both accuracy and response latency), a receptive vocabulary task, and a working memory task. Results show that all three groups comprehended subject RCs more accurately than object RCs, supporting featural Relativized Minimality’s prediction that structural intervention (i.e., syntactic configurations where an intervening element blocks dependency formation) is a crucial factor in children’s RC comprehension. The DD group performed less accurately and more slowly on both structures compared to the CA group, but performed similarly to the RL group. Dyslexic children’s receptive vocabulary knowledge was associated with higher accuracy and shorter response latencies in RC comprehension, and their phonological short-term memory was specifically linked to faster RC processing. These findings confirm the existence of syntactic difficulties in dyslexia and suggest that these difficulties may stem from limited vocabulary knowledge and phonological short-term memory deficits.

Within the framework of the theory of visual attention (TVA), the visual attention span (VAS) deficit among individuals with developmental dyslexia has been ascribed to the problems entailed by bottom–up (BotU) and top–down (TopD) attentional processes. The former involves two VAS subcomponents: the visual short-term memory storage and perceptual processing speed; the latter consists of the spatial bias of attentional weight and the inhibitory control. Then, what about the influences of the BotU and TopD components on reading? Are there differences in the roles of the two types of attentional processes in reading? This study addresses these issues by using two types of training tasks separately, corresponding to the BotU and TopD attentional components. Three groups of Chinese children with dyslexia—15 children each in the BotU training, TopD training, and non-trained active control groups were recruited here. Participants completed reading measures and a CombiTVA task which was used to estimate VAS subcomponents, before and after the training procedure. Results showed that BotU training improved both the within-category and between-category VAS subcomponents and sentence reading performance; meanwhile, TopD training enhanced character reading fluency through improving spatial attention capacity. Moreover, benefits on attentional capacities and reading skills in the two training groups were generally maintained three months after the intervention. The present findings revealed diverse patterns in the influences of VAS on reading within the TVA framework, which contributes to enriching the understanding of VAS-reading relation.

The second chapter will deal with the relationship between metaphysics and animality. Metaphysics has defined (in fact, one might say forcibly separated) the ideas of humanity and animality from its very beginnings, and holds firm to this belief throughout its history. After the Renaissance, the West plunged into exploring the natural sciences. On this issue, two opposing views developed, with the continuum of biology and the theory of metaphysical difference gradually separating from each other. However, when it comes to major issues involving the distinction between humans and animals, thinkers as diverse as Linnaeus or Haeckel are all eventually drawn irresistibly back to the framework given by Aristotle. Both Darwin’s theory of evolution and Jacob von Uexküll’s studies in animal ethology have had a fundamental impact on the philosophical contemplation of questions related to animals.

Developmental dyslexia is a specific learning disorder that affects 5–17% children, and persists into adulthood. Speech perception in noise (SPIN) ability in dyslexia has been largely examined in previous studies. However, the available literature remains controversial and it is unclear under which conditions the deficits occur. The present meta-analysis explored the reliability of the SPIN deficit in dyslexia and examined possible moderators of the variability across studies. A robust variation estimation model was used based on 19 studies comprising 69 effect sizes. Individuals with dyslexia showed a reliable SPIN deficit (Hedges’ g = 0.64, 95% CI [0.41, 0.87], p < .001) compared to chronological age-matched controls, with the presence of moderate inter-study variability. Moderation analyses showed that the SPIN deficit in dyslexia was moderated by performance measure, manifesting a larger effect size measured by accuracy than by speech reception threshold. Nevertheless, comparable medium SPIN effect sizes were found for background noises inducing energetic masking and informational masking, as well as for children and adults with dyslexia. The present meta-analysis for the first time provides a comprehensive understanding of the SPIN deficit and its underlying cognitive mechanisms in individuals with dyslexia.