Biomedical subjects

A Xeromeritou

Publications and source records attributed to A Xeromeritou.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

Do the hands talk on mind's behalf? Differences in language ability between left- and right-handed children.

Two hundred seventy children of school age, 135 of whom were left-handed and an equivalent number of whom were right-handed, have been examined in the present study using a test battery of nine language ability measures: Vocabulary, Similarities, Comprehension (WISC-R), Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Sentence Completion, Comprehension of Sentential Semantics, Comprehension of Syntax, and Text Processing. The data analysis has indicated that: (1) One-factor solution applies both to the right- and left-handed population according to Standard Error Scree Method (Zoski & Jurs, 1996) with regard to language ability measures. (2) Handedness discriminates between right-handers (superior) and left-handers (inferior) in language ability. (3) There have been subgroups of left-handed children who differ in language ability distribution compared with right-handed children according to Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. (4) Extreme versus mild bias to hand preference and hand skill do not differentiate performance subgroups neither within the left-handed nor within the right-handed main group. (5) Sex and familial sinistrality do not affect performance. The results are discussed in relation to (a) "human balanced polymorphism" theory advocated by Annett (mainly Annett, 1985, 1993a; Annett & Manning, 1989), (b) potential pathology (mainly Bishop, 1984, 1990a; Coren & Halpern, 1991; Satz, Orsini, Saslow & Henry, 1985) and "developmental instability" (Yeo, Gangestad & Daniel, 1993), and delay of left-hemisphere maturation in left-handed individuals (Geschwind & Galaburda, 1985a,b, 1987), by pointing out the strength and weaknesses of these theoretical approaches in accounting for the present data.

Brain↗

PubMed1992

The ability to encode facial and emotional expressions by educable mentally retarded and nonretarded children.

The object of the present study was to investigate whether 20 educable mentally retarded (EMR) children matched for verbal mental age on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT; Dunn, 1965) with 20 nonretarded (NR) controls were adept in identifying emotional facial expressions and producing the equivalent word adjectives. I also reassessed the relationship between the phase of identifying facial expressions (i.e., happy, sad, angry, and scared) and the phase of producing emotional word adjectives, consisting of 16 emotional linguistic constructions (4 short stories for each of the adjectives) between higher in verbal ability educable mentally retarded (HEMR) children and higher in verbal ability nonretarded controls (HNRC) and between low in verbal ability educable mentally retarded (LEMR) children and low in verbal ability nonretarded controls (LNRC). There were no significant differences between EMR and NR children in general, despite the fact that EMR children had deficits in receptive linguistic competence.

Child↗

PubMed1992

Handedness and spatial ability in children: further support for Geschwind's hypothesis of "pathology of superiority" and for Annett's theory of intelligence.

Spatial ability of 60 left-handed and 60 right-handed school children was investigated using a battery of nine tasks. The results do not agree with Levy's (1969, 1976) theory predicting spatial inferiority of left-handed individuals. Instead, higher performance by left-handed children provided further support for Annett's (Annett & Manning, 1989) theory on intelligence and for Geschwind's (Geschwind & Galaburda, 1985) hypothesis of "pathology of superiority." The distinction of left-handed and right-handed individuals into familial and nonfamilial groups appeared to be psychologically equivocal according to our results.

Aptitude↗

PubMed1991

Preschoolers' construction order of event sequences related to mental ability and degree of familiarity.

Preschoolers' understanding of sequential relations was investigated in two experiments. Experiment 1 showed that appreciation of sequential relations depends on the level of mental ability and the degree of familiarity displayed with the social or behavioral phenomena under investigation. Experiment 2 reproduced the findings of Experiment 1 and, further, demonstrated that an increase in experience and familiarity through an interaction phase between children with higher and those with lower mental abilities led to a significant exchange of information and performance that was retained over the posttest phase. The data of both experiments are discussed within the framework of the "invariance hypothesis" (Bullock, 1985) in contrast to Piagetian theory (Piaget, 1946/1969).

Aptitude↗

PubMed1990

Language behavior by mildly handicapped and nonretarded children on complement clauses.

Comprehension of complement clauses embedded into four matrix verbs in Greek, equivalent to English in syntactic and semantic constraints, was investigated with mildly handicapped (MH) and nonretarded children (NR). The results suggest that: (a) the MH children use the same syntactic information in comprehension of complement clauses as the NR children, (b) verbal MA cannot best predict linguistic performance by MH and NR children. (c) Digit Span does not correlate with comprehension nor does verbal IQ in MH., (d) Digit Span and verbal IQ are significantly correlated with NR children's comprehension, (e) the psychological status of the minimal distance principle (MDP) is debatable, while the semantic role principle (SRP) is partially supported by the data, (f) MH children lack metalinguistic ability compared to young NR children.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1989

Children's and adults' perception of missing subjects in complement clauses: evidence from another language.

Findings on perception of missing subjects in complement clauses are reported in two experiments with school-aged children and adults. The complement clauses were embedded into four matrix verbs in Greek, such as Ask (ask information), Promise, Tell (order/command), and Tell (give information) equivalent to English in syntactic and semantic constraints. The data from Experiment 1 show the following: (1) Perception of missing subjects in Ask, Promise, and Tell complement clauses is significantly higher than in Tell, but Guttman coefficient of scalability (.58) was slightly lower than the required one (over .60) to document a developmental sequence between the four constructions. (2) In general, these results, as other findings, contradict with Minimal Distance Principle (MDP) advocated by Chomsky (1969, 1972). (3) Differences in perceiving the source (i.e., NP) in Ask and Promise and the goal/recipient (i.e., NP) as subject in the complement clauses on Tell and Tell cannot consistently be explained by the Semantic Role Principle (SRP) postulated by Maratsos (Lederberg & Maratsos, 1981; Maratsos, 1974) either. (4) Results from Experiment 2 with three age groups, despite minor differences, confirm the results in Experiment 1, suggesting that comprehension of complement clauses with Ask, Promise, and Tell is a prerequisite to comprehension of complement clauses with Tell, according to Guttman coefficients of scalability (over .60 for all groups). (5) The findings are discussed within the framework of the SRP, but the emphasis is placed on the interaction of semantic and pragmatic presuppositions over processing the four construction types.

Adolescent↗