The Use of Nonword Repetition as a Test of Phonological memory in Children with Down Syndrome

Responses are due on Monday, Feb. 9, at class time.

This article discusses findings from research done on Down syndrome. It is quite extensive and articulate. Before talking about the findings of the article it is first necessary to understand the subject. Downs syndrome, formally referred to as Trisomy 21, is a disorder affecting children from birth. It has many characteristics, but the focus of this article is the learning disabilities of the children. 

Since learning to speak is vital to a growing child, it  is understandable that children with Downs syndrome experience difficulty later in life. Mainly because these children could not gain these necessary tools because of their impairment. Children with this disorder also have poor short term memory, which is studied alongside the language impairments of these specific children. In the article the term nonword is used often; it is just that, a nonword. Simply syllables thrown together to study the memory retention of Down syndrome kids. The Nonword Repetition Test was devised by Gathercole and Baddely and incorporated 33 children, ages 5-18. The study would place one of these children where the mouth movements of the speaker could not be seen, and after hearing a nonword or word the child would be ask to repeat what he or she heard. This was set up to measure verbal short term. 

Most of the information on the development of Downs syndrome is based off of the Nonword Repetition Test. Although, most information is based of this it is, "far from a clear picture, with many contradictory results." Within the article, many correlations were made. Whether between age and memory, or nonword and age, there was a contradiction. Nothing was precise, or clear. Overall, children with Downs syndrome scored poorer on recall of auditory information, but also in memory of it. Poor memory would contribute to a reduced vocabulary, but yet the vocabulary leads to a better grammatical understanding. Although there are many contradictions, any research needs to consider a child's reading ability, for this accounts for a lot of the results.

Even though Downs syndrome children have learning impairments they can still learn new language all the way to adulthood. It is beneficial to them to have the most advanced vocabulary possible, as well as frequently exposed to reading, and speaking. It has been shown that a teacher's adapted methods can play a large role in the learning abilities of children with Downs syndrome. 

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE

Understanding the difference between passive and active voice is quite simple. You will remember the difference between these two if you remember that :

- In sentences written in active voice, the verb is acted on, and

-sentences written in passive voice, the subject receives the action.

Here are two examples of sentences written in active voice:

1. The dog bit the boy.
2.Michelle will present her research at the conference.

Here are two examples of sentences written in passive voice:

1. The boy was bitten by the the dog.
2.Research will be presented by Michelle at the conference.


Audience : 8th grade students

1. I will explain to the students the difference between active and passive voice.

2. I will engage students by showing examples and having them to participate.

3. The students will be asked to take out a sheet of paper and write two of the same sentences that show the difference between passive and active voice.

4. The students will be told to go home and write five sentences in passive and active voice.

5. I will give them a really cool website to visit .

Sit/Set, Lie/Lay, Rise/Raise

Sit and Set

Sit and set are often confused. You will not make mistakes with these two verbs if you remember two facts about them:
Sit means to rest in an upright position, while set means to put or place something.
-Let's sit under the tree.
-Let's set the bookcase here.

Lie and Lay

Like sit, lie has to do with resting. Lay is like set because it means to put something down.
-My cat loves to lie in the tall grass behind our house.
-We need to lay down some rugs in the basement.

Rise and Raise

The verb rise means “to go up” or “to get up.” Rise, like lie, never has an object. Raise, which means “to lift up” or “to cause to rise.”
-My neighbors rise very early in the morning.
-Every morning they raise their shades to the sunlight in.

Audience: 8th grade students

1. I will explain to the students the basics of Sit/Set, Lie/Lay, and Rise/Raise.

2. To engage the students, I will show them several examples of how the words are to be used.

3. The students will be asked to take a out a sheet of paper and write one or two sentences that correctly use any of the three. They will be asked to read their sentences to their neighbor seated next to them.
4. The students will the be given a short worksheet to be completed as homework.

5. The students will be encouraged to visit the following link:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/605/01/

Our Survey Topics

Below are our survey topics for test-taking of the surveys on Wednesday, Feb. 11th.

INSTRUCTIONS for in-class activity on Wed., Feb. 11th:

We are taking each other's surveys, to make sure everything works!!!

Before you start, open the SURVEY GRADING RUBRIC posted on livetext in the "evaluation" section. Fill it in, and attach it to the comment emails to your peers. You will assign the authors of the surveys you are taking a final grade for their surveys.

1) Each student has to test-take the three surveys following his or her name on the list below. The last student on the list skips to the first three names from the list! (If you don't finish in class, test-take them from home. Deadline for test-taking and comment emails to peers and me is Wednesday, Feb. 11th, at midnight, because the survey authors need at least one day to fix their surveys which are due Friday, Feb. 13th.)

2) When you test-take your peers' surveys, take a piece of paper and write comments on it (which bullets make no sense, which "default section" headline was not changed to a meaningful title, which header was not filled in completely with research topic and deadline, which words were misspelled, which question should be re-formulated, which options need additions, whether it was customer-friendly, etc.), and then email these comments to the author of the survey you took. You all know each other's email addresses ;-)

3) Email your three "comment emails" to me as cc, for credit!

4) DEADLINE for our audiences to take the survey is Monday, Feb. 23rd, by 10:00 a.m. Type this into your header.

5) As soon as you have received your 3 peer-feedback emails with the comments, go ahead and repair your survey accordingly! The repaired survey version is due on Friday, Feb. 13th, for grading by me. EMAIL me the link of your final (repaired) survey. CAREFUL: it is NOT the link you see in the "menu list" on your screen (this one leads only to the surveymonkey.com login page). Here is the path how to create the link:

go to "My Survey" --> go to "Collect" --> put the bullet in "Create a link to send in your own email message or to place on a webpage --> click on "Next Step" --> copy the URL you see under "Sending Survey Link in an Email" --> put this URL in an email you send to me on Friday, Feb. 13th, by class time!

If you want to see how I am grading the surveys, go to "Evaluations" in our livetext profile, and look at the "Survey Grading Rubric."

6) EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY:
If you've missed more than three classes (= allowed sick days) unexcused in the past, you can make up for ONE day by taking THREE extra surveys (from home, since there won't be enough time in class). Deadline for taking them is tonight, Wednesday 10th, at midnight, too. Pick ANY surveys you would like to take. You need to send your three peers the comment email with your suggestions and the grading rubric, and EMAIL ME AS cc, writing in the header "make-up for missed day," including the date for the missed day.

You can make up as many missed blog comments as you want by taking an additional survey for each! Proceed as above (email me the grading rubrics and comments, and say for which blog topic you're making up)!!!



SURVEY TOPICS:


1. Lila Adkins: Ebonics

2. Shaya Barnett: Ebonics

3. Michara Canty: Diversity & Language

4. Jordan Glodich: Grammar

5. Cristina Hernandez: Internet Lingo in College Students

6. Samantha Jolly: Technology Lingo

7. Christopher Lacy: The Impact of Music on the Way we Speak

8. Logan Malloy: Reading, Media, & Grammar

9. Danielle McCarty: Technology Lingo

10. Ashley McGillis: Grammar Knowledge

11. Laura Melfi: Private School

12.Anna Sanders: Internet Slang

13. Stephanie Schofield: Internet & Electronic Slang

14. Heather Schultz: Foreign Languages

15. Dana Stute: Beliefs about Southern Illinois Dialect

16. Liza Tressler: Everyday Grammar

17. Rosalind Whitley: Diversity Teaching Methods

18. Angela Wille: Ebonics

19. Eric Yearian: Texting & Instant Messaging Lingo

20. Twangie Holman: Elderly People and Grammar

21. Courtney Shelby: Grammar Knowledge of 12th Grade High School Students

22. JoAnna Rutledge: Ebonics

23. Stefani Pittman: Ebonics





ATTENTION:

You are NOT sending your surveys out yet!!!!!!

We are taking them in class first, then I'll grade them, then we'll compose an introductory letter, and only when you have MY WRITTEN APPROVAL you can email them out to a list of at least 20 people!!!!!!!!!

Teaching Standard English as a Foreign Language to Ebonics Speakers

Responses are due on Friday, Feb. 6th, at class time.
__________________________________

*Post from Jan 30th due to snow days*
Article

This article is adapted from an interview with Carrie Secret, a fifth-grade teacher at Prescott Elementary School in the Oakland Unified School District. Prescott had been the only school in the system where a majority of teachers voluntarily agreed to adopt the Standard English Proficiency program, a statewide initiative which acknowledges the systematic, rule-governed nature of "Black English" while helping children to learn Standard English.

Carrie Secret instills a very hands-on approach to teaching English as a Second Language to her students. Although she promotes a strong push to use standard English in her classroom, she accepts that Ebonics and other languages are the students "home" or native languages. She allows them to interact in the language that they are most comfortable speaking in. Critics of this approach attest that allowing Ebonics to be used in the classroom will prolong the switch to English. Carrie argues that "If you are concerned about children using Ebonics in the classroom, you will spend the whole day saying, "Translate, translate, translate." So you have to pick times when you are particularly attuned to and calling for English translation." I believe that this method of teaching proper English will be most effective. It reminds the students to embrace their cultural roots, but become mindful of the goal of learning English.

Carrie teaches the students through active listening; making the students read and write in proper English and listening to proper English being spoken. She emphasizes hearing proper English at a young age before habits become too much to overcome. She still reads to her 5th grade students to reinforce proper speaking techniques. She also incorporates black literature into her teaching methods to show students that their own people did wonderful things with standard English.

Tourette’s syndrome

Responses are due on Friday, Feb. 6th, at class time.
___________________________________


In Speeded processing of grammar and tool knowledge in Tourette’s syndrome, a study published by Matthew Walenski, Stewart H. Mostofsky, and Michael T. Ullman; the writers attempted to enrich the understanding of speaking aspect of Tourette’s syndrome by studying idiosyncratic and rule-governed knowledge. The study did not focus on the facial and verbal tics, rather only on the use of tenses and word usage. In the study, it was found that although both Tourette's and non-tourette patients scored similarly in declarative memory, people with Tourette's had abnormal levels of procedural memory retention. It went on to show documents from case-studies and concluded that "the study reported here suggests that the processing of previously-acquired procedural but not declarative knowledge is particularly speeded in Tourette’s syndrome."
People suffering from Tourettes have a hard time switching to past tense verbs and sometimes had excessive endings such as doubling "ed" in words like "groundeded" . This was linked to other disorders that affect the basal ganglia, such as Huntington's disease. The data gained from this experiment concluded the disorder will not only have tics but can also be attributed to the unsuppressed and rapid behaviors but will also affect the cognitive processing of rule-governed language and procedural knowledge.
I felt this reading was too scientific and hard to read. I worked as a teachers assistant at a school for troubled teens and many suffered from Tourette's syndrome. I found that once the child was aware of their surroundings and was in a relaxed environment, they had less trouble with facial tics and/or speech. While the scientific findings are helpful in analyzing a disorder, they offer little or no help with how to cope with it.

Autism

 Before watching video “In My Language” I decided to do some background information on Autism. I didn’t really know much about Autism except that its becoming more common. Autism is a "brain developmental disorder characterized by impaired social communication, and by restricted and receptive behavior" (wikapedia).  After watching Amanda Baggs in her video “In My Language”, I can honestly say I was shocked by the definition this website gave me. The definition of “impaired communication” does not fit what Amanda Baggs did in her video. 

The beginning of the video starts out with Amanda interacting with different objects around her. To the “average” person, it looks like Amanda is doing nothing but banging and hitting random objects. But as Amanda points out, this is her form of communication. She states that she is in “constant conversation with her surroundings.”  Who are we to judge this just because it’s not the “typical” way to communicate?

The second part of her video, “A Translation”, is where Amanda uses a computerized voice to actually speak out what she is trying to say. Amanda states that the beginning of the movie was in her “native” language. She goes on to describe the differences of her “native” language. She states that not every image from the first part of the movie has a meaning. She is saying that her language is to interact with the world in a different way than most people think. She is being judged on the fact that she can not physically speak. However, when you take a closer look, she is full or words, just with not sound. 

The video goes on with Amanda explaining how others judge Amanda on being “different” when she is really just reacting in her own language. She states, “They judge my existence, awareness, and personhood or even visualization.” However, she goes on to explain how she can sing, smell, and taste. All which are forms of communication. But people don’t think of them as such.

In the end I feel that just because Amanda’s “Native Language” is not the norm, it still shouldn’t be considered a language. This video sends a powerful message of how hard Autistic people have it. How helpless they can feel having of conform to a language that is not their own. I feel that this topic ties right in with AAE and teaching Asian Students English. All of these are examples of “languages” most are not used to.