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Biomedical subjects

R K Olson

Publications and source records attributed to R K Olson.

36 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1990

Subsyllabic units in computerized reading instruction: onset-rime vs. postvowel segmentation.

Previous studies suggest that adults and children divide spoken syllables into subsyllabic onset-rime units more readily than into any other kind of subsyllabic unit. We asked whether this same onset-rime segmentation might also be beneficial in teaching children to read. That is, can children learn more words segmented at the onset-rime boundary (e.g., CL-AP, D-ISH) than words segmented after the vowel (CLA-P, DI-SH)? In three experiments, first-grade students studied single words presented by a computer connected to a high-quality speech synthesizer. Experiment 1 used words of four letters but only three phonemes apiece (e.g., WHIP, DISH). In some of these words the onset-rime segmentation corresponded to the initial bigram (e.g., WH-IP); in some it did not (e.g., D-ISH). Experiments 2 and 3 used words of four letters and four phonemes (e.g., CLAP, CORN). In all three experiments, onset-rime segmentation proved more helpful than postvowel segmentation in short-term learning of the words.

Child↗
PubMed1984

Development of phonetic memory in disabled and normal readers.

The development of phonetic codes in memory of 141 pairs of normal and disabled readers from 7.8 to 16.8 years of age was tested with a task adapted from L. S. Mark, D. Shankweiler, I. Y. Liberman, and C. A. Fowler (Memory & Cognition, 1977, 5, 623-629) that measured false-positive errors in recognition memory for foil words which rhymed with words in the memory list versus foil words that did not rhyme. Our younger subjects replicated Mark et al., showing a larger difference between rhyming and nonrhyming false-positive errors for the normal readers. The older disabled readers' phonetic effect was comparable to that of the younger normal readers, suggesting a developmental lag in their use of phonetic coding in memory. Surprisingly, the normal readers' phonetic effect declined with age in the recognition task, but they maintained a significant advantage across age in the auditory WISC-R digit span recall test, and a test of phonological nonword decoding. The normals' decline with age in rhyming confusion may be due to an increase in the precision of their phonetic codes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

The effects of an undergraduate clinical internship on the self-concept and professional role mastery of baccalaureate nursing students.

PURPOSE: The Purpose of this investigation was to determine whether an eight-week undergraduate clinical courses would enhance students' self-concepts and increase their perception of competence in critical care, teaching/collaboration, planning/evaluation, professional development, leadership and interpersonal skills, and communication. RESEARCH QUESTIONS: Is there a need for an undergraduate clinical internship? Will there be a difference in self-concept and perception of role mastery between the group of students who participated in the internship and those who did not participate? METHODOLOGY: Nursing students at the University who were between their junior and senior years were offered the opportunity to enroll in the course (didactic and clinical). Eight interns enrolled in the course; five non-interns enrolled in the didactic portion only; and the remaining 36 classmates were designated as the control group. DESIGN: A pretest-post test designed was utilized. Two instruments were used: 1) The Tennessee Self-Concept Scale and 2) The Six-Dimensional Scale of Nursing Performance. RESULTS: One way ANOVA with .05 level of significance was used as the statistical test. There were no significant differences noted.

Clinical Clerkship↗
PubMed1983

Dyslexic and normal readers' eye movements.

Dyslexic and normal readers' eye movements were compared while tracking a moving fixation point and in reading. Contrary to previous reports, the dyslexic and normal readers did not differ in their number of saccades, percentage of regressions, or stability of fixations in the tracking task. Thus, defective oculomotor control was not associated with or a causal factor in dyslexia, and the dyslexics' abnormal eye movements in reading must be related to differences in higher cognitive processes. However, individual differences in oculmotor efficiency, independent of reading ability, were found within both the dyslexic and normal groups, and these differences were correlated in reading and tracking tasks.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Pictorial depth sensitivity in two-year-old children.

2-year-old children's pointing responses to the closer or farther of 2 pictured houses were consistently accurate when the depth information included either interposition or relative height in the picture plane. Picture-plane size was not an effective source of depth information. These results place the emergences of pictorial depth perception prior to 20 months of age for children with previous exposure to pictures.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1975

Methaqualone: tolerance and physical dependence in mice.

Tolerance and physical dependence was produced in C57Bl/6 male mice that had been exposed, for 36 days, to methaqualone in food pellets via an automated system. Tolerance was revealed in the reduction of sleep-times following intraperitoneal injection of methaqualone. Physical dependence was manifested as an alteration in neural sensitivity to flurothyl-induced convulsions.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Are RAN- and phonological awareness-deficits additive in children with reading disabilities?

The double-deficit hypothesis (Wolf, M. and Bowers, P.G. (1999) The double-deficit hypothesis for the developmental dyslexias. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 415-438) proposes that deficits in phonological processing and rapid automatized naming (RAN) are separable sources of reading dysfunction. Further, the double-deficit hypothesis predicts that the presence of deficits in both phonological processing and RAN have an additive negative influence on reading performance above and beyond that of a single deficit. The purpose of this study was to examine the additive nature of phonological awareness (PA)- and RAN-deficits on written language skill in children with reading disabilities (RD). Concurrent relationships between PA, RAN, and written language skills were examined in 476 children with RD, ranging in age from 8 to 18 years of age. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that PA and RAN skill have an additive effect on a majority of the reading and spelling measures. When participants were classified into three deficit subtypes based on the double-deficit model (i.e. phonological-, rate-, and double-deficit), comparisons across the subtypes confirmed that individuals with double-deficits performed below the single-deficit groups on both subtyping variables (RAN and PA) and all measures of written language. When the double- and single-deficit groups were matched on the subtyping variable (i.e. double- and rate-deficit groups matched on RAN and double- and phonological-deficit groups matched on PA) differences between the double- and rate-deficit groups remained in non-word reading, whereas differences between the double- and phonological-deficit groups remained in timed word recognition and reading comprehension. These results support an additive model in which RAN-deficits primarily affect tasks that require speeded/fluent response, and PA-deficits primarily affect tasks that emphasize phonological processing skill. Results are also presented that illustrate several statistical problems associated with the formation of deficit groups by dichotomizing the RAN and PA variables.

Awareness↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Mentoring through predoctoral fellowships to enhance research productivity.

This article reports a study of the mentoring relationships that developed during predoctoral fellowships awarded to five nursing students who worked with faculty mentors at the University of Kansas, School of Nursing. Data were gathered through interviews and a written questionnaire from each of eight study participants (four of the five pairs). The analysis of interview and questionnaire data supported the existence of a mentoring relationship according to Yoder's (1990) model of mentoring, with the addition of two variables, socialization as a researcher and mutual sharing, that are unique to doctoral education. Themes that represented the experience of the mentor-protégé pairs were identified: (1) productivity, (2) work organization, (3) mutual learning, (4) problems encountered, (5) beneficial research application skills, and (6) innovative communication. All participants were enthusiastic about the experience, and students indicated increased confidence in application of the research process.

Communication↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Differential genetic etiology of reading disability as a function of IQ.

To test the hypothesis that the genetic etiology of reading disability differs as a function of IQ, composite reading performance data from 223 pairs of identical twins and 169 pairs of same-gender fraternal twins in which at least one member of each pair was classified with reading disability were subjected to multiple regression analysis (DeFries & Fulker, 1985, 1988). In the total sample, heritability of the group deficit in reading performance (h(g)2) was .58 (+/- .08). However, when the basic regression model was fitted separately to data from twin pairs with average Wechsler (1974, 1981) full scale IQ scores below 100 or 100 and above, resulting estimates of h(g)2 were .43 and .72, respectively, a significant difference (p < or = .03, one-tailed). The results of fitting extended regression models to reading performance and continuous IQ data provide evidence that the genetic etiology of reading disability differs as a linear function of IQ (p < or = .007, one-tailed). These results suggest that IQ is relevant for the diagnosis of reading disability and that environmental influences may be more salient as a cause of reading difficulties in children with lower IQ scores.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Reading disability and chromosome 6p21.3: evaluation of MOG as a candidate gene.

Linkage analysis has localized a gene influencing specific reading disability (dyslexia) to 6p21.3. The myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) gene, which maps to this region, was selected as a candidate. Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein is a membrane protein, a member of the immunoglobin superfamily, that is found on the outermost lamellae of mature myelin. Although the exact function of this protein is unknown, its presence in the central nervous system and the hypothesized relationship between dyslexia and temporal processing rate as well as a suggested relationship with intelligence made this gene a candidate for dyslexia. Analysis of the coding exons and adjacent splice sites in a subset of 22 children with dyslexia from 10 sibships found a missense mutation in exon 4 in 2 of the sibships. This change from the published sequence also occurred in 86 of 96 random controls, making it considerably less frequent in this small sample of individuals with dyslexia. Subsequent typing of this single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in 74 nuclear families in which at least one child had reading disability showed no significant difference in frequency from the controls, however. Sib-pair linkage analysis with these families did not show significant linkage with the SNP nor with a separate polymorphic dinucleotide repeat marker in the MOG gene (MOG31/32), but association analysis identified two alleles of MOG31/32 that were associated with reading disability phenotypes with a low level of significance. Thus, although alleles in the MOG gene may be in linkage disequilibrium with a locus that contributes to reading disability, it is unlikely that the MOG gene itself is involved.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Nursing interventions and patient outcomes: a meta-analysis of studies.

The 84 subject-studies and 4,146 individual subjects in this meta-analysis were obtained from nurse-conducted experimental research over an 8-year period. The entire universe of accessible subject-studies that met criteria was included. Although both published and unpublished research were included to protect the study from publication bias, there was no statistically significant difference in findings. The mean effect size for the sample of comparisons from the 84 studies was .59. The associated U3 value of 72.2 and r of .28 indicate that patients who receive research-based nursing interventions can expect 28% better outcomes than 72% of the patients who receive standard nursing care.

Humans↗