Ekaterina Yu. Matveeva

Relevance. Eye-tracking study of reading is widely used methodology in modern psychology. But there is a lack of such studies in Russian language. Particularly, there are few eye-tracking studies of reading on early stages of acquisition of this skill. 

Objectives. The main aim of our study is to describe process of reading in children 9-10 years old. We compare state of cognitive functions of children and state of their reading skills and try to describe possible strategies for mastering the skill of reading based on indicators of oculomotor activity. 

Methods. 56 third graders participated in the study, mean age – 9.62 years old. The reading skills were assessed using the method “Reading regular and irregular words”. We also record eye-movements of the children during reading the corpus of sentences designed for early schoolchildren. Cognitive functions were assessed by neuropsychological assessment adapted for children of 6–9 years old. 

Results. We separated the sample into two subgroups with relatively low and high state of reading skill and found differences in the state of cognitive functions and in the oculomotor activity of children in these groups. The children with relatively low reading skill often had weaknesses of executive functions, functions of visual-spatial and auditory information processing. They made more fixations and their fixations were longer than children with high state of the reading skill. A qualitative analysis of the reading of two children with dyslexia and two children with selective development of sub-lexical / lexical routes made it possible to describe the features of reading in children with the weakness of the both strategies or one of them.

Conclusion. The results obtained in the study, on the one hand, show a general interrelation between the features of reading mastering and the state of individual cognitive functions of children, and on the other hand, they indicate that there is no rigid determination of the level of reading development by the state of cognitive functions.

The paper presents the analysis of developmental changes in executive functions in early school­children. 117 first­-graders (7.62±0.45 y.o.) 86 third­-graders (9.64±0.4 y.o.) participated in the study. Qualitative neuropsychological assessment and computer­based tests were used to evaluate the development of executive functions. The comparison of results in first and third graters reveals a significant improvement of temporal characteristics and accuracy of performance of the tests. The results may be evidence of the significant development of executive functions in the primary school age. In addition it is shown that the results of neuropsychological assessment and computer methods may be used as reliable predictors of learning disabilities

Actual problem of a modern neuropsychology is elaboration of batteries of tests combining advantages of qualitative and quantitative approaches. In this article we describe an important step of quantitative processing of neuropsychological data in “Method of neuropsychological assessment of children of 6—9 years” the formation of the generalized indices. The described procedure of the statistical analysis of neuropsychological results appreciably reproduces the logic of the expert who is carrying out the qualitative syndrome analysis of HMF-dysfunction. The formation of indices is considered on an example of neuropsychological assessment of 98 elementary school students with learning disabilities and 33 students with autistic disorders. 

Relevance. In the study, we discuss the neuropsychological measures and relationship of two important groups of cognitive functions, namely, executive functions and functions of activation regulation. The study of the structure of these functions and the possibility of assessing their state in children of preschool and primary school age by methods of neuropsychological diagnostics and computerized testing are important from two points of view. First, it is an important issue in neuropsychological practice. Second, it is one of the ways to better understand cognitive development at this age.

Objectives. Development and estimation of factor models that establish the relationship between the results of neuropsychological diagnostics and various groups of cognitive functions associated with executive functions and regulation of activation. Methods. 434 children from 6 to 9 years old (from senior preschoolers to third graders) participated in the study. All children underwent neuropsychological examination adapted for children of 6–9 years, and they also performed tests from a computerized neuropsychological examination battery for children of 6–9 years. The results were used to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis.

Results and conclusions. We proposed models that include three factors. The first factor corresponds to executive functions and two others relate to the regulation of activation. According to our model, the functions of activation can be divided into two factors: a factor of hyperactivity/impulsivity and a factor of fatigue/sluggishness. Model fit indices showed good agreement with empirical data. The combined use of indicators of both traditional and computer neuropsychological examination makes the estimations of the model better. Thus, in the study we revealed parameters of the performance on the neuropsychological tests that can be used as indicators of the state of executive functions and functions of activation regulation. The weakness in one of the components of activity regulation can lead to specific patterns of behavior which are manifested in the neuropsychological examination. A more serious and extensive deficit of one of the functions can lead to the appearance either of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or of sluggish cognitive tempo.