Psychology of typical and atypical development

FRANCESCA FEDERICO

Learning disabilities and special educational needs

General aims. The course aims at building theoretical and practical knowledge concerning the neurodevelopmental disorders, with a specific focus on specific learning disabilities (namely, dyslexia) and Attention and Hyperactivity deficits.
The expected learning outcomes would be as follows: (a) comprehension of a multifactorial model of human development in which several factors (i.e., neurobiological bases, cognitive mechanisms, emotions, family and school environment) interact to produce individual differences in cognitive development and learning profiles; (b) comprehension of the diagnostic criteria and the requirements of an assessment aimed at providing guidelines for intervention; (c) knowledge of the main tests and questionnaires for the assessment of the neurodevelopmental disorders that are the targets of this course; (d) ability of synthesizing the main results of an assessment; (e) ability of writing guidelines for the intervention at school; (f) knowledge of the Italian laws concerning special educational needs.
The teacher-led lessons –enriched with discussion forums- will allow students to master the main principles behind a correct evaluation program, to be reflective in understanding the heterogeneous individual profiles within a same diagnostic category, to understand the complex set of psychometric and qualitative observations allowing to build a dynamic functional profile in which the weakness and strength points of an individual child are emphasized.
Laboratory sessions will allow students to practice assessment procedures, simulate interviews with parents, observe and simulate interactions with children in the course of an assessment, synthesize and interpret the main results of an evaluation. These skills will be built through analyses of video and simulations. Attendance to the laboratory sessions is mandatory.

Specific aims. Knowledge and understanding: passing the exam would imply having acquired concepts in relation to dyslexia and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. For each of these atypical developmental profiles the students will also know the cognitive functions (e.g., working memory) and academic learning (e.g., text comprehension) that are likely to be weak or impaired, the main intervention techniques and guidelines for the schoolwork.
Applying knowledge and understanding: passing the exam would imply writing a short reports in which the results of a short assessment involving a primary school child (after the acquired parents’ informed consent) will allow to practice some of the main concepts shared in the lessons and mastering testing procedures to evaluate reading, text comprehension, attention, some executive functions, working memory, self-efficacy. Making judgment: passing the exam would imply the ability to make informed judgments and evaluations on test and questionnaires, to detect pitfalls, limitations, and potential improvements, guidelines for intervention. These abilities would be attained through discussions on single cases and evaluation reports. Communication skills: passing the exam would attest that the student masters the communication abilities to lead an interview with parents, to synthesize the main point of an assessment report and the guidelines for an intervention. Learning skills: passing the exam will imply writing short essays in which the student is asked to generate concept maps depicting the main concepts of theoretical lessons, answering to requests of explanation, planning the main assessment steps taking into account the points of an interview with a child’s parents.

at the end of the course students will be able to understand special educational needs and plan an evaluation that is not only oriented towards diagnosis but towards the development of a specific and individualized intervention

Understanding the contents of this course will be easier if some basic concepts have been already acquired by the students.
As far as language is concerned: the concepts of the mental lexicon, a distinction between the words' semantic content and phonological form, processing of grammatical structures and its role in language comprehension. Also, some basic concepts on the characteristics of preschool children with specific language impairment would be very useful.
As far as neurodevelopmental disorders are concerned: genetic predisposition, the mutual relationship between development and learning, basic concepts on the main cognitive functions (e.g., declarative and procedural memory, short-term and long-term memory, executive functions).
As far as the psychometric assessment of neurodevelopmental disorders is concerned: normal and abnormal distribution, mean, standard deviation, percentiles, T points.

INTRODUCTION
The course’s introduction is focused on the concept of neurodiversity, and a multifactorial model of human development in which several factors (i.e., neurobiological bases, cognitive mechanisms, emotions, family, and school environment) interact to produce individual differences in cognitive development and learning profiles. The course has then two modules characterized by an alternation of teacher-led lessons –enriched with discussion forums- and laboratory sessions. It has also two seminars focused on the interview with parents and the child as part of the assessment procedures.
A first intensive seminar will be devoted to interviewing parents, understand their main requests, collect information on their child’s developmental history, understand the thoughts and convictions they have on the nature of their child’s difficulties at home and/or school.
A second seminar will be devoted to interviewing the child to familiarize him/her with the test setting, how to construct a psychologist-child interaction characterized by trustness and empathy.

MODULE 1 – This part of the course is centered on Attention and Hyperactivity deficits. Lessons will be focused on the relationship between attention and emotional regulation, the characteristics of the different components of the attention, the Baddeley’s model of working memory, the ADHD diagnosis on the DSM-5, cognitive-behavioral techniques to intervention with children with ADHD and their parents, training methods to stimulate attention, executive function and working memory will be also considered.
LABORATORY SESSIONS ON INTERVIEWING PARENTS AND THE CHILD-
MODULE 2 – This part of the course is centered on Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) with a special focus on dyslexia. Lessons will be focused on the dual-route model of reading, the typical development of phonological and lexical reading in Italian children, the cognitive mechanisms that tend to be weak or impaired in children with dyslexia, the co-occurrence of learning difficulties in different domains (e.g., reading, orthography, arithmetics), the diagnostic guidelines of DSM-5. Procedures to assess reading along with the language and cognitive mechanisms that tend to be weak in children with SLD will be practiced in laboratory sessions. Two concluding lessons of this module are devoted to Special Educational needs in inclusive classes and tecniques to stimulate reading in children with dyslexia.
CONCLUSION
The final week of the course consists of the student’s group presentations centered on describing the results of tests administered to a child or a small group of children, and analyzing them using relevant concepts.

Teacher-led lessons consist of an initial presentation followed by a phase in which students are asked to answer a question discussing within small groups and writing thoughts in a short answer. The students' thoughts are then shared and discussed. The final part of the lesson involves viewing video clips that allow us to come back and elaborate on some of the concepts initially introduced by the teacher. Alternatively, the teacher reads short paragraphs from psychology books and share comments with the students
Laboratory sessions allow students to practice assessment procedures, simulate interviews with parents, observe and simulate interactions with children in the course of an assessment, synthesize and interpret the main results of an evaluation. These skills are built through analyses of video and simulations.

Students are asked to attend the laboratory sessions.

STUDENT’S ENGAGEMENT AND INVOLVEMENT
Attending lessons and participating in the discussions at the end of the lessons will contribute to the evaluation. Students are asked to produce three short elaborations in which they explain concepts that have been introduced in previous lessons.

ORAL GROUP PRESENTATIONS
Participating in a final group presentation in which the performance of one or more children at the test administered by the students (after the informed consent of the child’s parents) will allow them to evaluate some of the assessment procedures learned in the laboratory sessions. The capacity to present in a synthetic and clear way the main results of a child’s assessment will be evaluated.

INDIVIDUAL ESSAYS
Students are asked to write an essay that has three main sections. In the first section context in which a child has been involved with the testing is described; The initial interview with the child is also partly transcribed and analyzed. This initial part will allow evaluating the student’s ability to synthesize observations in a written report and to analyze the interview with the child.
A second section asks the student to write in tables the test scores and add qualitative observations on the child’s performance. The third section starts phrasing one question by the child’s performance in the tests, or by the structure of the test that has been administered. The student will construct an answer to such a question through concepts drawn from the books or paper from an international journal suggested for the course.
The essay will evaluate the student’s learning capacity and comprehension of the course’s main concepts.

Development of executive functions and their role in learning and neurodevelopmental disorders
Diagnosis of learning disability with impairment of reading and writing skills