Linguistic Features of Japanese Twins at 3 or 4 Years of Age Evaluated by Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities

Speech processing performance of Hungarian-speaking twins and singletons

Studying speech processing in twins versus their singleton peers provides opportunities to study both genetic and environmental effects on how children acquire these aspects of their speech and - by extension - their phonological systems. Our study focused on speech processing in typically developing Hungarian-speaking twins and their singleton peers between 5 and 9 years of age. Participants included 384 monolingual Hungarian-speaking children (192 twins, and 192 singletons). Data from four tasks - repetition of synthesised monosyllables, nonsense words, well-formed noisy sentences, and well-formed phonologically complex sentences - were analysed. There was a main effect for birth status, and singletons outperformed their twin peers on the majority of the speech processing tasks. Age and task also had effects on the performance of the participants, and there was a three-way task by age by twin versus singleton status indicating that the speech processing performance of twins versus singletons is interdependent with the type of task and age. Our results also indicate that monolingual Hungarian-speaking twins may be at higher risk for developmental speech delays relative to their singleton peers.

Improving Cognitive Visual-Motor Abilities in Individuals with Down Syndrome

Down syndrome causes a reduction in cognitive abilities, with visual-motor skills being particularly affected. In this work, we have focused on this skill in order to stimulate better learning. The proposal relies on stimulating the cognitive visual-motor skills of individuals with Down Syndrome (DS) using exercises with a gestural interaction platform based on the KINECT sensor named TANGO:H, the goal being to improve them. To validate the proposal, an experimental single-case study method was designed using two groups: a control group and an experimental one, with similar cognitive ages. Didactic exercises were provided to the experimental group using visual cognitive stimulation. These exercises were created on the TANGO:H Designer, a platform that was designed for gestural interaction using the KINECT sensor. As a result, TANGO:H allows for visual-motor cognitive stimulation through the movement of hands, arms, feet and head. The "Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA)" was applied to both groups as a pre-test and post-test in its four reference sections: visual comprehension, visual-motor sequential memory, visual association, and visual integration. Two checks were made, one using the longitudinal comparison of the pre-test/post-test of the experimental group, and another that relied on comparing the difference of the means of the pre-test/post-test. We also used an observational methodology for the working sessions from the experimental group. Although the statistical results do not show significant differences between the two groups, the results of the observations exhibited an improvement in visual-motor cognitive skills.