SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Comprehension”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 253 records · Page 14Linked to original sources

PubMed2003

The importance of processing automaticity and temporary storage capacity to the differences in comprehension between skilled and less skilled college-age deaf readers.

The prevalence of low comprehension among deaf readers has been documented for decades, yet the problem persists. Progress has been hampered by uncertainty regarding which aspects of reading competence ought to be the primary focus of concerted instructional efforts. This article examines whether temporary storage capacity and/or processing automaticity may explain the difference in comprehension between skilled and less skilled adult deaf readers. Temporary storage capacity is the ability to maintain separate bits of information in current memory while they are being processed. Processing automaticity is the ability to complete certain basic operations of reading, such as recognizing individual words and chunking sets of words into meaningful phrases, with a minimum of intentional mental effort. In this study one group of deaf adults reading at the college level and another reading at the 5th-grade level completed a battery of experimental tasks that generated multiple indicators of storage capacity and automaticity. These included the reading span task of Daneman and Carpenter (1980), an analogous addition span task, two measures of phonological processing, and a sentence-reading task that varied the demands on temporary storage and processing automaticity. Results suggest that skilled readers do not command an exceptionally large temporary storage capacity, nor do less skilled readers suffer from deficient storage capacity. The indicators of processing automaticity suggest, however, that less skilled readers must invest significantly more conscious mental effort than skilled readers to complete basic operations of reading. These findings are applied to theory related to (a) the nature of the breakdowns in comprehension faced by readers with low automaticity, (b) the interaction of low automaticity with other obstacles to comprehension, and (c) the design of practice experiences to increase the automaticity and ultimately the comprehension of deaf readers.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1997

Clinical and cost outcomes of multifactorial, cardiovascular risk management interventions in worksites: a comprehensive review and analysis.

This paper is a critical review of the clinical and cost outcome evaluation studies of multifactorial, comprehensive, cardiovascular risk management programs in worksites. A comprehensive international literature search conducted under the auspices of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute identified 17 articles based on 12 studies that examined the clinical outcomes of multifactorial, comprehensive programs. These articles were identified through MEDLINE, manual searches of recent journals, and through direct inquiries to worksite health promotion researchers. All studies were conducted between 1978 and 1995, with 1978 being the date of the first citation of a methodologically rigorous evaluation. Of the 12 research studies, only 8 utilized the worksite as both the unit of assignment and as the unit of analysis. None of the studies analyzed adequately for cost effectiveness. Given this limitation, this review briefly considers the relevant worksite research that has demonstrated cost outcomes. Worksite-based, multifactorial cardiovascular intervention programs reviewed for this article varied widely in the comprehensiveness, intensity, and duration of both the interventions and evaluations. Results from randomized trials suggest that providing opportunities for individualized, cardiovascular risk reduction counseling for high-risk employees within the context of comprehensive programming may be the critical component of an effective worksite intervention. Despite the many limitations of the current methodologies of the 12 studies, the majority of the research to date indicates the following: (1) favorable clinical and cost outcomes; (2) that more recent and more rigorously designed research tends to support rather than refute earlier and less rigorously designed studies; and (3) that rather than interpreting the methodological flaws and diversity as inherently negative, one may consider it as indicative of a robust phenomena evident in many types of worksites, with diverse employees, differing interventions, and varying degrees of methodological sophistication. Results of these studies reviewed provide both cautious optimism about the effectiveness of these worksite programs and insights regarding the essential components and characteristics of successful programs.

Cardiovascular Diseases↗

PubMed1978

Dissociation of visual and auditory language comprehension capacity in aphasia.

Visual language comprehension capacity was compared with auditory language comprehension capacity in 26 aphasic subjects. The Token Test was used for both modalities. By the means of the difference in scores on the two tests three groups were separated, that is (1) a group with no essential difference between the two capacities, (2) a group with superior reading capacity and (3) a group with superior auditory capacity. Particular attention was directed to the second group. Seven subjects showed this type of dissociated comprehension. The group was found to be heterogeneous in their linguistic characteristics. The clinical type of aphasia included not only Wernicke's aphasia but also Broca's aphasia. A possible psychological explanation underlying this phenomenon was attempted. Anatomical correlation was also attempted. The hypothesis of sparing the left inferior parietal lobe is proposed as an explanation of why visual comprehension was better preserved than auditory comprehension.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Relations between enabling skills and reading comprehension: a follow-up study of Latvian students from first to second grade.

In order to examine the relationships among various phonological skills and reading comprehension, Latvian children were followed from grade 1 to grade 2 and were tested with a battery of phonological, word reading, and reading comprehension tasks. A principal component analysis of the phonological tasks revealed three salient factors: a phonemic awareness factor, a rapid naming factor, and a short-term memory factor. In order to analyze the relationship between various phonological skills and reading comprehension, a structural modeling analysis was performed. Phonemic awareness and rapid naming explained approximately the same amount of unique variance in reading comprehension, but phonemic awareness had most predictive power indirectly via word decoding. Only rapid naming had a significant direct impact on reading comprehension.

Child↗

PubMed1983

Redundancy of syntactic information: an aid to young children's comprehension of sentential number.

Sentences conveying either non-redundant or increasingly redundant information about number, by means of different syntactic markers, were presented to 20 nursery school children. Comprehension of each sentence was tested in two tasks: pointing to one of a pair of line drawings and acting out with toys the action described by a sentence. The results strongly supported the view that redundancy of syntactic information is a powerful aid to children's comprehension of sentential number. In a second experiment, comprehension of sentences conveying redundant information by repetition of the same number marker was compared with that of non-redundant sentences. In contrast to the first experiment, redundancy had no significant effect on comprehension. Together, these results suggest that children's comprehension of sentential number if aided by redundancy of information involving different syntactic markers, but not by mere repetition of the same marker.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed1984

Syntactic comprehension in Down's syndrome children.

The ability of 24 Down's syndrome children to act out active and passive semantically biased and neutral sentences in a comprehension task was compared with that of 24 non-retarded children, matched on the basis of their verbal comprehension scores on the Reynell Developmental Language Scale (Reynell, 1969). Down's syndrome children closely resembled control children both in terms of percentage correct responses and in terms of individual children's patterns of error. The results are taken as support for the proposition that the processes underlying language comprehension in the retarded are fundamentally the same as those of non-retarded children. Even so, there was evidence of a slight (6 to 12 months) delay in the appearance of syntactic strategies of comprehension by the Down's syndrome children compared with those non-retarded children matched with them in terms of verbal comprehension age.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Actions anchored by concepts: defective action comprehension in semantic dementia.

OBJECTIVE: To study the ability of patients with semantic dementia to understand actions, in order to examine the contribution of semantic memory to action comprehension. METHODS: The ability to comprehend symbolic and instrumental actions was assessed in 6 patients with semantic dementia and 10 healthy controls. The patients were also given the imitation test of meaningful and meaningless actions. RESULTS: In all patients with semantic dementia, comprehension of both symbolic and instrumental actions was defective. The comprehension of symbolic actions was more impaired than that of instrumental actions. Their ability to imitate other's actions was well preserved. CONCLUSION: This study showed that comprehension of action was impaired in semantic dementia, suggesting that semantic memory has an important role in comprehension of human action.

Aged↗

PubMed1990

Prosodic comprehension and expression in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenics, manics, depressives and normal subjects (15 in each group) were tested for their ability to understand and express the prosodic quality of speech. Sentences in which one word was stressed (stress prosody comprehension) or in which a particular emotion was conveyed (emotional prosody comprehension) were taped and played to subjects to test their comprehension. Subjects were then asked to read out a list of sentences either stressing a nominated word (stress prosody expression) or conveying a nominated emotion (emotional prosody expression), and their efforts were rated by a panel of normal raters. The main results were 1) that schizophrenics were significantly inferior to the normal group, but equivalent to manics and depressives on emotional prosody comprehension; 2) schizophrenics were significantly inferior to all other groups on emotional prosody expression; and 3) all four groups were equivalently proficient on stress prosody comprehension and expression. The results are interpreted as lending support for the idea that there is an underlying right hemisphere dysfunction in schizophrenia.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Graphic organizers and their effects on the reading comprehension of students with LD: a synthesis of research.

Previous research studies examining the effects of graphic organizers on reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities (LD) are reviewed. An extensive search of the professional literature between 1963 and June 2001 yielded a total of 21 group design intervention studies that met the criteria for inclusion in the synthesis. Using graphic organizers (i.e., semantic organizers, framed outlines, cognitive maps with and without a mnemonic) was associated with improved reading comprehension overall for students with LD. Compared to standardized reading measures, researcher-developed comprehension measures were associated with higher effect sizes. Initial gains demonstrated when using graphic organizers were not revealed during later comprehension tasks or on new comprehension tasks.

Audiovisual Aids↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Young readers' use of phonological information: phonological awareness, memory, and comprehension.

In this study, we explored the relationship between beginning readers' phonological awareness and other aspects of phonological processing, specifically as manifested in short-term memory and comprehension tasks. The theoretical questions underlying the study were (a) what roles phonological processes play in children's beginning reading, from word identification through sentence comprehension, and (b) whether those roles are sufficiently related that potential difficulties at one level directly affect processing at other levels. Phonologically induced effects were observed for word-list memory and for sentence judgments for both novice readers (at the end of kindergarten) and relatively more experienced readers (end of Grades 1 and 2). For both age groups, correlational analyses revealed relationships among phonological awareness, phonological processing in list memory, and word reading. However, phonological processing in sentence comprehension was not related to other types of phonological processing. These results indicate that although phonology plays a role during comprehension, phonological processing may not be as limiting a factor in comprehension as in word reading.

Awareness↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The effects of an interactive instructional strategy for enhancing reading comprehension and content area learning for students with learning disabilities.

This study investigated the effectiveness of an interactive vocabulary instructional strategy, semantic-feature analysis (SFA), on the content area text comprehension of adolescents with learning disabilities. Prior to reading a social studies text, students in resource classes either completed a relationship chart as part of the SFA condition or used the dictionary to write definitions and sentences as part of the contrast condition. Passage comprehension was measured on a multiple-choice test consisting of two types of items, vocabulary and conceptual. Comprehension was measured immediately following teaching and again 6 months after teaching. Prior knowledge for the content of the passage served as a covariate. Results indicated that students in the SFA instructional condition had significantly greater measured comprehension immediately following and 6 months after initial teaching. These results are discussed in relation to concept-driven, interactive strategies for teaching content and facilitating text comprehension.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1993

Comparing two modes of teaching a question-answering strategy for enhancing reading comprehension: didactic and self-instructional training.

This study investigated the comparative efficacy of two instructional approaches--didactic teaching and self-instructional training--in teaching average and poor readers a comprehension question-answering strategy. Forty-five average students and 45 poor readers from Grades 5 and 6 participated. These 38 girls and 52 boys were equally and randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions: didactic teaching of the strategy, self-instruction, or control (no training). Students in the first two treatment conditions learned a mnemonic strategy ("Here," "Hidden," and "in my Head") to indicate question-answer relationships that are text explicit, text implicit, or script implicit, respectively. Essentially, the 3H mnemonic cued students to use appropriate text and/or knowledge-base information in answering comprehension test questions. In addition, students in the self-instruction group learned three self-questions to guide their use of the 3H strategy. Specifically, the self-questions focused students' attention on the task, provided a basis for decision making concerning the categorization of comprehension test questions, and reminded students to check their answers. The results indicated that both didactic teaching and self-instructional training of the strategy effected significant improvements in students' reading comprehension performance. However, self-instructional training was more effective in enhancing and maintaining students' reading comprehension performance than didactic teaching. Moreover, results from the oral questionnaire indicated that the 3H strategy training increased students' general meta-cognitive knowledge. Lastly, of the 60 trained students, 52 wrote that they would encourage other children to learn the 3H strategy. Thus, the response to strategy learning was clearly positive.

Attention↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Comprehension of synthetic speech produced by rule: a review and theoretical interpretation.

In this paper, we review research on the perception and comprehension of synthetic speech produced by rule. We discuss the difficulties that synthetic speech causes for the listener and the evidence that the immediate result of those difficulties is a delay in the point at which words are recognized. We then argue that this delay in processing affects not only lexical access but also comprehension processes. We consider the mechanisms by which the comprehension system adjusts to this delay, the resulting costs to higher level comprehension processes, and the changes that occur in the language processing system as its familiarity with synthetic speech increases. Based on the framework we have developed, we suggest several directions for future research on the comprehension of synthetic speech.

Female↗

PubMed2005

Impaired comprehension of affective prosody in elderly subjects is not predicted by age-related hearing loss or age-related cognitive decline.

Impairments in the ability of elderly people to comprehend affective prosody have been reported, but little is known about the relationship between affective prosodic comprehension and age-related changes in hearing and cognition. The Aprosodia Battery, which included an assessment of attitudinal comprehension, was used to compare affective-prosodic comprehension in young and elderly subjects and to investigate the relationship of results to selected hearing and neuropsychological measures. As a group, the healthy elderly subjects were impaired relative to young subjects on all tasks assessing comprehension of affective prosody. Variability within the elderly group was not predicted by mild to moderate peripheral hearing loss and was only marginally predicted by traditional cognitive measures. These findings along with those of other researchers suggest that loss of affective-prosodic comprehension in elderly persons is related to a specific aging effect that impairs right hemisphere function.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Measuring social competence with the Wechsler Picture Arrangement and Comprehension subtests.

Authors tested the traditional assumption that the WAIS-R and WISC-R Picture Arrangement and Comprehension subtests are interpretable as measures of social competence. Although this assumption has existed for over 50 years, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support this contention. Performance on Picture Arrangement and Comprehension were correlated with Personality Inventory for Children (PIC) FACTOR II: Social Incompetence and Social Skills Scale scores for 136 males and 64 females ranging from 6 to 20 years of age. Correlations between Picture Arrangement and Comprehension scaled scores and PIC measures of social deficiencies were not significant for either the WISC-R or WAIS-R. However, ipsative scatter analyses revealed that participants with relatively strong Comprehension performance were rated as experiencing fewer social problems than other participants. Interpreting Picture Arrangement and Comprehension subtests as indicators of social competence is cautioned.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Comprehensive clinical care on-site in men-only saunas: confidential STI/HIV screening outreach clinic.

During 2001 and 2002 an anonymous outreach-screening programme in Melbourne, Australia, offered testing for gonorrhoea and chlamydia on-site at men-only saunas. Modifications were made to this screening programme to offer a comprehensive testing clinic for sexually transmissible infections (STIs), including HIV. The comprehensive clinic was evaluated after one year of operation, and comparisons were made with the earlier anonymous screening programme. The comprehensive outreach clinic made contact with fewer men (n = 557), however, men tested had a higher prevalence of gonorrhoea and chlamydia (17%), and all men tested positive for STIs/HIV were followed up. The findings and comparisons outlined in this paper may be used for different communities to decide what screening programme model best suits their individual situation: anonymous programme with fewer tests offered, confidential and comprehensive STI/HIV testing programme, or both. On the basis of our evaluation, we have opted to continue the comprehensive STI/HIV testing programme in local men-only saunas.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

The use of signed English pictures to facilitate reading comprehension by deaf students.

Many deaf students have severe difficulty acquiring literacy and developing reading comprehension beyond an elementary school level. This difficulty apparently results from a combination of perceptual, communication, instructional, linguistic, and experiential deficits. Although some deaf students develop a degree of signed English proficiency, this does not necessarily translate into reading proficiency. Recent studies examining the possible association between signed English pictures and comprehension of printed text present some support for facilitation of students' word recognition in a format combining those two elements. Whether this format enhances comprehension remains unclear from previous studies. The present study, involving 16 severely or profoundly deaf students across two reading-proficiency groups, examined whether the use of signed English pictures in association with printed text enhances students' reading comprehension. The study found that comprehension was significantly enhanced by the use of signed English reading books, with poorer readers deriving greater benefit than better readers. Practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Safety symbol comprehension: effects of symbol type, familiarity, and age.

A new procedure for evaluating symbol comprehension, the phrase generation procedure, was assessed with 52 younger and 52 older adults. Participants generated as many phrases as came to mind when viewing 40 different safety symbols (hazard alerting, mandatory action, prohibition, and information symbols). Symbol familiarity was also assessed. Comprehension rates for both groups were lower than the 85% level recommended by the American National Standards Institute. Moreover, older participants' comprehension was significantly worse than younger participants', and the older adults also generated significantly fewer phrases. Generally, prohibition symbols were comprehended best and hazard alerting symbols worst. In addition, symbol familiarity was positively correlated with symbol comprehension. These findings indicate that important safety information depicted on signs and household products may be misunderstood if presented in symbolic form. Furthermore, certain types of symbols may be better understood (e.g., prohibition symbols) than other types (e.g., hazard alerting symbols) by both younger and older individuals. These findings signify the utility of the phrase generation procedure as a method for evaluating symbol comprehension, particularly when it is not possible or desirable to provide contextual information. Actual or potential applications of this research include using the phrase generation approach to identify poorly comprehended symbols, including identification of critical confusions that may arise when processing symbolic information.

Adult↗