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Learning to read impacts the way the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOT) reorganizes. The postulated underlying mechanism of neuronal recycling was recently revisited. Neuroimaging data showed that voxels weakly specialized for visual processing keep their initial category selectivity (i.e., object or face processing) while acquiring an additional and stronger responsivity to written words. Here, we examined a large and diverse group of six-year-olds prior to formal literacy training (N = 72) using various data analysis techniques (univariate, multivariate, rapid adaptation) and types of stimuli (print, false fonts, houses, faces) to further explore how VOT changes and adapts to the novel skill of reading. We found that among several visual stimuli categories only print activated a wide network of language related areas outside of the bilateral visual cortex, and the level of reading skill was related to the strength of this activation, showing the development of the reading circuit. Rapid adaptation was not directly related to the level of reading skill in the young children studied here, but it clearly revealed the emergence of the reading network in readers. Most importantly, we found that the reorganization of the VOT is not in fact an "invasion" by reading acquisition-voxels previously activated for faces started to respond more for print, while at the same time keeping their previous function. We can thus conclude that the revised hypothesis of neuronal recycling is supported by our data.

Word knowledge and the speed of word processing in monolingual children and adults are influenced by word properties, such as the age of acquisition (AoA), imageability, and frequency. Understanding how different properties of words contribute to the ease of processing by bilingual children is a critical step for establishing models of childhood bilingualism. However, a joint impact of these properties has not been so far assessed in bilingual children. Here, we compared the impact of AoA, imageability, and frequency on accuracy and response times in picture naming and picture recognition tasks in monolingual and bilingual children. We used Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks to test 45 monolingual children (aged 4 to 7 years) and 45 migrant bilingual children in their L1 (Polish). Word AoA, imageability, and frequency independently affected the accuracy and response times in both picture naming and picture recognition tasks. Crucially, bilingual children were more sensitive to word characteristics than their monolingual peers: Bilingual children’s accuracy was particularly low for words of high AoA (in the picture recognition task) and for words of low frequency (in the picture naming task). Also, the increase in response times for low-imageable and low-frequent words was particularly salient in bilingual children. The results suggest a new area of interest for further studies: the question of whether bilinguals and monolinguals show different sensitivity to psycholinguistic factors, and if so, does that sensitivity change with age or language exposure?

Being a late talker constitutes a risk factor for later neurodevelopmental disorders; however, its neurobiological basis remains unexplored. We aimed to determine the unique and mutual correlates of late talking and developmental dyslexia on brain structure and behavioral outcomes in a large sample of 8- to 10-year-old children in a between-groups design (N = 120). Brain structure was examined using voxel-based morphometry (to measure gray matter volume) and surface-based morphometry (to measure gray matter volume, cortical thickness, surface area, and curvature of the cortex). Behaviorally, late talking and dyslexia are independently connected to language and literacy skills, and late talkers have difficulties in grammar, phonological awareness, and reading accuracy. Children with dyslexia show impairments in all of the above, as well as in vocabulary, spelling, reading speed, and rapid automatized naming. Neuroanatomically, dyslexia is related to lower total intracranial volume and total surface area. Late talking is related to reduced cortical thickness in the left posterior cingulate gyrus and the right superior temporal gyrus, which are structures belonging to the dorsal speech articulatory-phonetic perception system. Finally, a cumulative effect of late talking and dyslexia was found on the left fusiform gray matter volume. This might explain inconsistencies in previous neuroanatomical studies of dyslexia. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

There is an ongoing debate concerning the extent to which deficits in reading and spelling share cognitive components and whether they rely, in a similar fashion, on sublexical and lexical pathways of word processing. The present study investigates whether the neural substrates of word processing differ in children with various patterns of reading and spelling deficits. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we compared written and auditory processing in three groups of 9–13-year olds (N = 104): (1) with age-adequate reading and spelling skills; (2) with reading and spelling deficits (i.e., dyslexia); (3) with isolated spelling deficits but without reading deficits. In visual word processing, both deficit groups showed hypoactivations in the posterior superior temporal cortex compared to typical readers and spellers. Only children with dyslexia exhibited hypoactivations in the ventral occipito-temporal cortex compared to the two groups of typical readers. This is the result of an atypical pattern of higher activity in the occipito-temporal cortex for non-linguistic visual stimuli than for words, indicating lower selectivity. The print–speech convergence was reduced in the two deficit groups. Impairments in lexico-orthographic regions in a reading-based task were associated primarily with reading deficits, whereas alterations in the sublexical word processing route could be considered common for both reading and spelling deficits. These findings highlight the partly distinct alterations of the language network related to reading and spelling deficits. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00429-021-02255-2.

In this study, we present the first database of pictures and their corresponding psycholinguistic norms for Polish: the CLT database. In this norming study, we used the pictures from Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT): a set of colored drawings of 168 object and 146 actions. The CLT pictures were carefully created to provide a valid tool for multicultural comparisons. The pictures are accompanied by norms for Naming latencies, Name agreement, Goodness of depiction, Image agreement, Concept familiarity, Age of acquisition, Imageability, Lexical frequency, and Word complexity. We also report analyses of predictors of Naming latencies for pictures of objects and actions. Our results show that Name agreement, Concept familiarity, and Lexical frequency are significant predictors of Naming latencies for pictures of both objects and actions. Additionally, Age of acquisition significantly predicts Naming latencies of pictures of objects. The CLT database is freely available at osf.io/gp9qd. The full set of CLT pictures, including additional variants of pictures, is available on request at osf.io/y2cwr.

Published on 06 Feb 2022 The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting closure of daycare centers worldwide, led to unprecedented changes in children’s learning environments. This period of increased time at home with caregivers, with limited access to external sources (e.g., daycares) provides a unique opportunity to examine the associations between the caregiver-child activities and children’s language development. The vocabularies of 1742 children aged 8-36 months across 13 countries and 12 languages were evaluated at the beginning and end of the first lockdown period in their respective countries (from March to September 2020). Children who had less passive screen exposure and whose caregivers read more to them showed larger gains in vocabulary development during lockdown, after controlling for SES and other caregiver-child activities. Children also gained more words than expected (based on normative data) during lockdown; either caregivers were more aware of their child’s development, or vocabulary development benefited from intense caregiver-child interaction during lockdown, or both. We discuss these results in the context of the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight limitations of the study. Funding for Polish sample: grant from National Science Center NCN (Poland), no 2018/31/B/HS6/03916. NK was partly supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme [project number 223265].

Objective Decreased activation to print in the left ventral, dorsal, and anterior pathways has been implicated in readers with dyslexia (DRs) but also is characteristic for typical beginning readers. Because most studies have compared DRs with their age-matched peers, the observed results could represent a dyslexia phenotype or a developmental delay. This study aimed to disentangle reading and dyslexia effects using 2 control groups matched for age and skill and a longitudinal design. Method Brain response for print was compared in DRs and typical readers (TRs) who, at the beginning of schooling (time point 1 [TP]; 6–7 years old), read on average 3 words per minute, as did DRs at TP1, but improved their reading to an average level, and advanced readers (ARs) who at TP1 read as well as DRs 2 years later (TP3; 8–9 years old). The TR and DR groups were tracked longitudinally to observe neurodevelopmental changes. Results At TP1, DRs did not differ from TRs. Over time, only TRs developed a neural circuit for reading in the left inferior frontal and fusiform gyri. At TP3, DRs exhibited hypo-activation in these areas compared with age-matched (TRs at TP3) and reading-matched (ARs at TP1) controls. At TP3, TRs showed hypo-activation in the left frontal and bilateral ventral occipital regions compared with ARs, but these effects were nonoverlapping with DR hypo-activations and are partly explained by IQ. Conclusion Decreased activation of the left fusiform and inferior frontal gyri to print in DRs results from an atypical developmental trajectory of reading and cannot be explained solely by lower reading skills.

This study focused on the role of numerous cognitive skills such as phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), visual and selective attention, auditory skills, and implicit learning in developmental dyslexia. We examined the (co)existence of cognitive deficits in dyslexia and assessed cognitive skills’ predictive value for reading. First, we compared school-aged children with severe reading impairment (n = 51) to typical readers (n = 71) to explore the individual patterns of deficits in dyslexia. Children with dyslexia, as a group, presented low PA and RAN scores, as well as limited implicit learning skills. However, we found no differences in the other domains. We found a phonological deficit in 51%, and a RAN deficit in 26% of children with dyslexia. These deficits coexisted in 14% of children. Deficits in other cognitive domains were uncommon and most often coexisted with phonological or RAN deficits. Despite having a severe reading impairment, 26% of children with dyslexia did not present any of the tested deficits. Second, in a group of children presenting a wide range of reading abilities (N = 211), we analyzed the relationship between cognitive skills and reading level. PA and RAN were independently related to reading abilities. Other skills did not explain any additional variance. The impact of PA and RAN on reading skills differed. While RAN was a consistent predictor of reading, PA predicted reading abilities particularly well in average and good readers with a smaller impact in poorer readers.

Background Identifying the profiles of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients who employ similar patterns of coping may improve the understanding of how coping is associated with psychological adjustment. The purpose of this study was to identify the groups of MS patients using different coping strategies and compare the levels of psychological resources across the groups. Methods In this cross-sectional study 382 patients with MS completed a battery of self-report measures that assessed their use of different coping strategies, optimism, self-efficacy, health locus of control (HLC), and perception of disease. The groups with different coping profiles were selected by performing a cluster analysis. Results Five different coping profiles were highlighted and were defined as follows: “Emotional,” “Temperate,” “Active,” “Passive,” and “Problem copers.” Significant differences were detected between the groups in the levels of optimism, self-efficacy, HLC, and perception of disease. Conclusion Patients with MS use a varied repertoire of coping strategies, which allowed distinguishing coping profiles. Groups representing particular profiles differ in terms of psychological resources. This study contributed to increasing the interest in investigating coping profiles. Identifying subgroups of individuals based on their coping profiles and recognizing the differences is important for providing psychological support.

Social sciences researchers emphasize that new technologies can overcome the limitations of small and homogenous samples. In research on early language development, which often uses parental reports, taking the testing online might be particularly compelling. Due to logistical limitations, previous studies on bilingual children have explored the language development trajectories in general (e.g., by including few and largely set apart timepoints), or focused on small, homogeneous samples. The present study protocol presents a new, on-going study which uses new technologies to collect longitudinal data continuously from parents of multilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children. Our primary aim is to establish the developmental trajectories in Polish-British English and Polish-Norwegian bilingual children and Polish monolingual children aged 0–3 years with the use of mobile and web-based applications. These tools allow parents to report their children’s language development as it progresses, and allow us to characterize children’s performance in each language (the age of reaching particular language milestones). The project’s novelty rests on its use of mobile technologies to characterize the bilingual and monolingual developmental trajectory from the very first words to broader vocabulary and multiword combinations. This research was funded by National Science Centre, grant number 2018/31/B/HS6/03916 awarded to E.H., and supported by the Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, from the funds awarded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in the form of a subsidy for the maintenance and development of research potential in 2021 and 2022 (501-D125-01-1250000) awarded to K.M. and G.K.

Introduction. The application of flexible occlusal splints in therapy of the stomatognatic system is recommended for short-term use only because of the risk of muscle overloading or occlusal plane disorders. Mouthguards used in prevention of head and mouth injuries are a modification of occlusal splints. They are made of flexible material with properties enabling absorption of impact energy. Due to regular use during trainings and competitions they may have an impact on the incidence of stomatognatic system ailments. Aim of the study. To assess the factors determining the choice of a mouthguard type and its influence on the stomatognatic system. Material and methods. A survey was conducted among 1279 mouthguard users to collect demographic data and information concerning mouthguards on the occurrence of problems arising from their use including pain in the area of the stomatognatic system. Statistical analysis of the results was also performed. Results. 36% athletes with standard mouthguards, 37% with “boil and bite” and 44% with custom-made ones have a tendency towards strong clenching of dental arches. Participants using a custom-made mouthguard reported chewing muscle fatigue more often than the users of the standard and “boil and bite” type, but they did not report any pain located in the area of temporomandibular joint. People experiencing fatigue and with a strong clenching of dental arches tendency significantly more often choose a type considering its retention ability, whereas pain in the temporomandibular joint area does not influence their preferences. Athletes, who declare teeth clenching, more frequently indicate the retention factor as important. Conclusion. It is necessary to conduct further research on the use of mouthguards considering their impact on the stomatognatic system.

Introduction. Regular use of mouthguards requires proper arrangements for their disinfection and sanitization. Incorrect or infrequent hygiene procedures may lead to inflammatory infection in the oral cavity. Prevention measures also involve periodical replacement of mouthguards due to the growth of microorganisms on their surface, along with increasing porosity on use. Buying a new protective occlusal splint is also recommended in the event of an inflammatory lesion in the mouth, and after infection of the respiratory system. Aim of the study. To assess usage and hygiene maintenance of elastic mouthguards by athletes practicing various sports disciplines. Methods. A group of 1279 mouthguard users were surveyed, including questions about demographic background of participants, hygiene habits and storage of protective splints. Statistical analysis of the results was performed; the level of statistical significance was established at p < 0.05. Results. It was revealed that 5% of the interviewed athletes (60 individuals) do not cleanse their mouthguards. Most of the surveyed participants (85.5%) rinse the splint with water after wearing it. Only every fifth athlete replaces the mouthguard at regular intervals, regardless of its condition; half of the respondents do it when it is completely deformed, and one-third do it after loss of smoothness of its surface. About 20% of athletes have never replaced their protective occlusal splint. All results showed statistical significance. Conclusions. Athletes’ awareness of proper usage, storage and sanitization of mouthguards is not sufficient.

This article investigates whether the bilingual status of 56 typically developing children aged 60-69 months influenced their lexical abilities. The participants were identified as Maltese-dominant (Me) (n = 21), English-dominant (Em) (n = 15) and balanced bilingual (ME) (n = 20) on the basis of language exposure and proficiency, as reported by their parents. Comprehension and production of nouns and verbs were measured using Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT) in Maltese (CLT-MT) and British English (CLT-EN). Significant effects of bilingual group were identified for performance on lexical comprehension. For production, consistent bilingual group effects resulted when accurate concepts lexicalised in the test language were scored. Lexical mixing was more pronounced when children were tested in their non-dominant language. Maltese noun production elicited the highest levels of mixing across all groups. Findings point towards the need to consider specific exposure dynamics to each language within a single language pair when assessing children's bilingual lexical skills.

Despite dissimilarities among scripts, a universal hallmark of literacy in adults is the convergent brain activity for print and speech. Little is known, however, how early it emerges. Here we compare speech and orthographic processing systems in two contrasting languages, Polish and English, in 100 7-year-old children performing identical fMRI tasks. Results show limited language variation, with speech-print convergence evident mostly in left fronto-temporal perisylvian regions. Correlational and intersect analyses revealed subtle differences in the strength of this coupling in several regions of interest. Specifically, speech-print convergence was higher for transparent Polish than opaque English in right temporal area, associated with phonological processing. Conversely, speech-print convergence was higher for English than Polish in left fusiform, associated with visual reading. We conclude that speech-print convergence is a universal marker of reading even at the beginning of reading acquisition while minor variations can be explained by the differences in the orthographic transparency.

The manuscript reports a study on a large sample (N = 170) of Polish speaking 8–13 year old children, whose brain activation was measured in relation to tasks that require auditory phonological processing. We aimed to relate brain activation to individual differences in reading and spelling. We found that individual proficiency in both reading and spelling significantly correlated with activation of the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex encompassing the Visual Word Form Area which has been implicated in automatic orthographic activations. Reading but not spelling was found to correlate with activation in the left anterior dorsal stream (anterior supramarginal and postcentral gyri). Our results indicate that the level of both reading and spelling is related to activity in areas involved in the storage of fine-grained orthographic representations. However, only the reading level is uniquely related to activity of regions responsible for the articulation, motor planning and grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence, which form the basis for effective decoding skill. Keywords: fMRI, Reading, Spelling, Orthography, Phonology

The expressive lexical skills of 53 Polish bilinguals aged 24–36 months living in the UK and Ireland were assessed using Polish and British English adaptations of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Polish vocabulary scores were compared to those of 53 Polish monolinguals matched for age, gender and parental education. The bilinguals were born to two Polish parents and mostly lived outside Poland since birth. Results showed substantial differences in Total Conceptual Vocabulary and single-language vocabulary scores between the groups. However, the groups did not differ on Total Vocabulary measures. In the bilingual sample, there were significant correlations between children’s frequency of language use and their vocabulary scores in the same language. A negative correlation between children’s frequency of English use and their Polish vocabulary scores was found. A complex pattern of factors relating to children’s low performance in Polish emerged. Hierarchical multiple regre...

Background Mouthguards provide an effective preventive method against the effects of injuries sustained during sports activities, in particular cycling, football, basketball, skiing or hockey. However, when placed in the oral cavity, they can induce disorders in basic physiological functions. Aim The objective of this clinical study was to compare the effects of various custom mouthguards with generally available standard boil and bite mouthguards on the functions of the oral cavity. Material and methods A total of a 168 mouthguards (five custom and three standard boil and bite mouthguards) were assessed in a questionnaire-based survey. Their negative effects on the integrity of mucosa, speech, breathing, salivary flow and taste as well as in terms of inducing gag reflex, tooth clenching and temporomandibular joint complaints were compared. Results Porida mouthguard was reported to have the most adverse effects on oral functions. In the majority of the respondents, the remaining mouthguards did not have any adverse effects on the stomatognathic system functions. Conclusions Mouthguards do not significantly disturb basic functions of the stomatognathic system. Standard Porida mouthguards were shown to have the most unfavourable effect on oral functions.

Purpose:As a contribution to the endeavour of developing appropriate tools for bilingual language assessment, this paper investigates the concurrence between two new tools from the recent COST Action IS0804 (Bi-SLI), and the differences between children across two different migrant communities.Approach:Two new tools from the battery Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) were used: the direct assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT) and the reporting instrument Parents of Bilingual Children Questionnaire (PaBiQ), which offers an indirect measure of overall language skills.Data:The participants were 36 children (4;2–6;6) of Polish immigrants to Norway or the UK. Correlations were investigated with Kendall’s rank correlation, and comparisons carried out with Wilcoxon rank sum tests.Findings:The results from the two tools correlated. The CLT results were higher in the minority language (Polish) than in the majority language, with no difference between the groups. Still, the parents in the UK judged their children as less proficient in Polish than those in Norway did. Two different accounts for this incongruity are discussed. Firstly, parents in the UK may set higher benchmarks for their children’s minority language skills than the parents in Norway. Alternative accounts of this interpretation related to differences in the parents’ socio-economic background, minority language proficiency or language attitudes are discussed. Secondly, parental report may indicate early stages of attrition of the minority language among the children in the UK that the direct lexical assessment tool may not be sensitive enough to uncover.Originality:The study used two new tools designed for multilingual children to compare two groups of children of a recent and growing immigration group, whose language development is currently underinvestigated.Implications:The findings underscore the complexity of assessing bilingual children’s full language competence. The cross-cultural differences documented call for further longitudinal research comparing immigrant children from different language backgrounds.

We asked whether parental questionnaires on the heritage language proficiency of bilingual children might elucidate how proficient bilingual children are in their heritage language. We tested 20 UK-based Polish–English bilingual children between 4;5 and 5;9 years on Polish and English versions of the Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLTs). These comprise receptive and expressive picture tasks. Our bilingual group performed significantly worse on the Polish CLTs than on the English CLTs overall. They also performed significantly worse on the English CLTs than did an age- and gender-matched group of monolingual English-speaking children. Therefore our bilingual sample represent the type of bilinguals for whom education professionals have difficulty determining whether weak English is due to diminished English input vs. an underlying speech, language or communication need. Parents of the bilinguals completed a Polish adaptation of the Children’s Communication Checklist 2. They also completed the Parents of Bilingual Children Questionnaire (PaBiQ), which includes risk factor measures (‘No Risk Index’ and children’s ‘Current Language Skills’). The PaBiQ also includes measures of the Amount and Length of Exposure to the majority language (English) prior to age four as well as the Proportion of English in the current input. For the bilingual sample the CCC2 General Communication Composite (GCC), which measures structural language, significantly predicted Polish CLT production, uniquely accounting for 25% of the variance. The parent-rated PaBiQ ‘Current Polish Skills’ section predicted the Polish CLT comprehension. While the PaBiQ measure of Amount and Length of English Exposure was related to both Polish comprehension and production, it did not retain significance in a regression analysis. Therefore, parental questionnaires of the heritage language could provide a useful first step for education professionals when deciding whether to refer bilingual children for speech and language assessment. Large scale studies are needed to further develop these parental questionnaires.

WOS: 000382653900026, PubMed ID: 26276517, We present a new set of subjective age-of-acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in 25 languages from five language families (Afro-Asiatic: Semitic languages; Altaic: one Turkic language: Indo-European: Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Slavic, and Romance languages; Niger-Congo: one Bantu language; Uralic: Finnic and Ugric languages). Adult native speakers reported the age at which they had learned each word. We present a comparison of the AoA ratings across all languages by contrasting them in pairs. This comparison shows a consistency in the orders of ratings across the 25 languages. The data were then analyzed (1) to ascertain how the demographic characteristics of the participants influenced AoA estimations and (2) to assess differences caused by the exact form of the target question (when did you learn vs. when do children learn this word); (3) to compare the ratings obtained in our study to those of previous studies; and (4) to assess the validity of our study by comparison with quasi-objective AoA norms derived from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI). All 299 words were judged as being acquired early (mostly before the age of 6 years). AoA ratings were associated with the raters' social or language status, but not with the raters' age or education. Parents reported words as being learned earlier, and bilinguals reported learning them later. Estimations of the age at which children learn the words revealed significantly lower ratings of AoA. Finally, comparisons with previous AoA and MB-CDI norms support the validity of the present estimations. Our AoA ratings are available for research or other purposes., Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education [809/N-COST/2010/0]; Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, This study was designed as part of a multilingual parallel construction procedure of the LITMUS Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks within the networking program COSTAction IS0804 "Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment" (www.bi-sli.org; 2010-2013). The research (website design and maintenance) was supported by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Grant No. 809/N-COST/2010/0, awarded to the Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, in cooperation with Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University; Principal Investigators: Ewa Haman & Zofia Wodniecka). We are grateful to all assistants who contributed to participant recruitment and to all informants in the 25 languages who participated in the study.

The prevalence and long-term consequences of dyslexia make it crucial to look for effective and efficient ways of its therapy. Action video games (AVG) were implied as a possible remedy for difficulties in reading in Italian and English-speaking children. However, the studies examining the effectiveness of AVG application in dyslexia suffered from significant methodological weaknesses such as small sample sizes and lack of a control group with no intervention. In our study, we tested how two forms of training: based on AVG and on phonological non-action video games (PNAVG), affect reading in a group of fifty-four Polish children with dyslexia. Both speed and accuracy of reading increased in AVG as much as in PNAVG group. Moreover, both groups improved in phonological awareness, selective attention and rapid naming. Critically, the reading progress in the two groups did not differ from a dyslexic control group which did not participate in any training. Thus, the observed improvement in reading in AVG and PNAVG can be attributed either to the normal reading development related to schooling or to test practice effect. Overall, we failed to replicate previous studies: Neither AVG nor PNAVG remedy difficulties in reading in school children.

Background Literacy acquisition is a demanding process that induces significant changes in the brain, especially in the spoken and written language networks. Nevertheless, large-scale paediatric fMRI studies are still limited. Methods We analyzed fMRI data to show how individual differences in reading performance correlate with brain activation for speech and print in 111 children attending kindergarten or first grade and examined group differences between a matched subset of emergent-readers and prereaders. Results Across the entire cohort, individual differences analysis revealed that reading skill was positively correlated with the magnitude of activation difference between words and symbol strings in left superior temporal, inferior frontal and fusiform gyri. Group comparisons of the matched subset of pre- and emergent-readers showed higher activity for emergent-readers in left inferior frontal, precentral, and postcentral gyri. Individual differences in activation for natural versus vocoded speech were also positively correlated with reading skill, primarily in the left temporal cortex. However, in contrast to studies on adult illiterates, group comparisons revealed higher activity in prereaders compared to readers in the frontal lobes. Print-speech coactivation was observed only in readers and individual differences analyses revealed a positive correlation between convergence and reading skill in the left superior temporal sulcus. Conclusions These results emphasise that a child's brain undergoes several modifications to both visual and oral language systems in the process of learning to read. They also suggest that print-speech convergence is a hallmark of acquiring literacy.

The essential function of mouthguards is protection against the effects of injuries sustained during sports activities. This purpose will be successfully achieved if appropriate materials ensuring sufficient reduction of the injury force are used for mouthguard fabrication.The objective of the study was to investigate the force reduction capability of selected materials as well as to identify which material reduces the impact force to the highest degree.The material for the study were samples of polymers (6 samples in total), obtained during the process of deep pressing (2 samples), flasking (3 samples) and thermal injection (1 sample), which were tested for impact force damping using an impact device - Charpy impact hammer. The control group comprised of the ceramic material samples subjected to the hammer impact. The statistical analysis applied in this study were one-way Welch ANOVA with post-hoc Games-Howell pairwise comparisons.The test materials reduced the impact force of the impact hammer to varying degrees. The greatest damping capability was demonstrated for the following materials: Impak with 1:1 powder-to-liquid weight ratio polymerized with the conventional flasking technique, and Corflex Orthodontic used in the thermal injection technique of mouthguard fabrication.Impak with 1:1 weight ratio and Corflex Orthodontic should be recommended for the fabrication of mouthguards since they demonstrated the most advantageous damping properties.

13th International Congress for the Study of Child Language -- JUL, 2014 -- Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS, WOS: 000415973600002, PubMed ID: 28441085, This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0-6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production. Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations., Berliner Senate and Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Germany [01UG1411]; Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme [223265]; National Science Centre, Poland [809/N-COST/2010/0]; Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education [0046/DIA/2013/42]; Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw [BST2015-1744/4]; Ministry for Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia [175012]; Slovak Research and Development Agency [APVV-0410-11]; Harry Crossley Foundation; National Research Foundation of South Africa [88631]; Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spain [FFI2014-56968-C4-1-P]; Ake Wiberg Foundation [H14-0104]; Birgit and Gad Rausing Foundation (Sweden) [S14-14]; International Visegrad Fund [21420015], The research presented here was partially supported by Berliner Senate and Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Germany [grant number 01UG1411]; the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme [grant number 223265]; the National Science Centre, Poland [grant number 809/N-COST/2010/0]; Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education [grant number 0046/DIA/2013/42]; Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw [grant number BST2015-1744/4]; Ministry for Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia [grant number 175012]; the Slovak Research and Development Agency [grant number APVV-0410-11]; Harry Crossley Foundation and National Research Foundation of South Africa [grant number 88631]; Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spain [grant number FFI2014-56968-C4-1-P]; and Ake Wiberg Foundation [grant number H14-0104], Birgit and Gad Rausing Foundation (Sweden) [grant number S14-14]. We also acknowledge support from International Visegrad Fund partially enhancing collaboration reported in this article [grant number 21420015]. All pictures used for CLTs are subject of copyright of University of Warsaw (Poland).

Phonological processing ability is a key factor in reading acquisition, predicting its later success or causing reading problems when it is weakened. Our aim here was to establish the neural correlates of auditory word rhyming (a standard phonological measure) in 102 young children with (FHD +) and without familial history of dyslexia (FHD −) in a shallow orthography (i.e. Polish). Secondly, in order to gain a deeper understanding on how schooling shapes brain activity to phonological awareness, a comparison was made of children who had had formal literacy instruction for several months (in first grade) and those who had not yet had any formal instruction in literacy (in kindergarten). FHD + children compared to FHD − children in the first grade scored lower in an early print task and showed longer reaction times in the in-scanner rhyme task. No behavioral differences between FHD + and FHD − were found in the kindergarten group. On the neuronal level, overall familial risk was associated with reduced activation in the bilateral temporal, tempo-parietal and inferior temporal–occipital regions, as well as the bilateral inferior and middle frontal gyri. Subcortically, hypoactivation was found in the bilateral thalami, caudate, and right putamen in FHD +. A main effect of the children's grade was present only in the left inferior frontal gyrus, where reduced activation for rhyming was shown in first-graders. Several regions in the ventral occipital cortex, including the fusiform gyrus, and in the right middle frontal and postcentral gyri, displayed an interaction between familial risk and grade. The present results show strong influence of familial risk that may actually increase with formal literacy instruction.