Theme 7 Flashcards
Understanding development and learning
> Early predictions of learning disorders
Early prediction of learning disorders: longitudinal studies
•Brain measures possible before behavioural manifestation
Biomarkers
From Sing & Rose (2009):
Biomarker = a characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes or pharmacological responses to a therapeutic intervention
From Leppänen (2013):
Biomarker = biological measure that can reflect underlying mechanisms related to certain disorders, and are expected to improve possible early detection, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment response
Biomarkers
From Sing & Rose (2009):
From Sing & Rose (2009):
1.Making diagnosis more precise
2.To predict the natural outcome for an individual
3.To predict whether the individual will benefit from a treatment Potential of neuroimaging biomarkers:
•Predict potential (risk) for developing a particular disorder
•Predict intervention or treatment outcome
Biomarkers
ERP’s to improve prediction of risk to develop dyslexia
- Dutch Dyslexia Programme (Van der Leij et al 2013)
- 300 children followed from 2 months – 9 years
- 180 with familial risk, 120 without
- EEG every 6 months + language/reading skills Of the familial risk group, who develops dyslexia, and who doesn’t?
Example result: ERP (mismatch response) at 2 months was predictive of reading level in grade 2
Early biomarkers for dyslexia
PRO’s
PRO’S
•Early marker more accurate
•More “pure”: less influenced by environment (e.g. home literacy)
•Enable early start of intervention
•More chance of positive outcome as brain mechanisms are less influenced yet by environmental factors
•Prevent child from struggling and becoming frustrated •Inform intervention or treatment decision
•Individualized education and prediction (Gabrieli, 2016 – week 1) p 615: “Before intervention, neuroimaging could provide evidence about individual differences as to which students benefit from intervention”
Biomarkers risks and challenges
CON’s
CON’s
•Biomarker = statement of the risk that a condition will develop
>Probabilistic nature, always degree of uncertainty
>Not the cause of a disorder
>Nature & nurture: interactive development
- False positives: if biomarker incorrectly classifies child as high-risk
- Biomarkers may lead to labeling, while the label is not always correct
- Label can influence how child is treated
> For every 100 babies, 21 would be incorrectly labeled with (high-risk of) dyslexia
Teachers attitudes towards dyslexia
Results:
•Stronger implicit negative attitude teachers
> weaker spelling achievement dyslexic child
- Both for teacher ratings as standardized tests
- Specific for spelling (not math)
- Explicit attitude not predictive
- Not all children had diagnosis!
what to do? teachers attitudes towards dyslexia
- Clear communication: probability, not fact
- Make implicit attitudes explicit
Risks and challenges: overview
- Communication
- Reduce (implicit) negative attitudes to avoid stigmatization
Communication: probabilistic nature may get “lost in translation” (see week 6)
•Media headlines “Dyslexia seen in brain scans of pre-school children”
•Commercial (mis)use: unfounded claims
Reduce (implicit) negative attitudes to avoid stigmatization
•Make teachers aware of their implicit attitudes towards learning (or behavioral) disabilities
•By implicit tests, or let them video-tape their own lessons
Hornstra: “Communicate knowledge of how to teach children with special needs,
Definition of enhancement
Prof. Henry Greely (bio-ethics):
“We want to enhance our brain for the same reason we want to enhance anything else: to make it work better”
Most controversy about: Direct biological cognitive enhancers: chemical, physical, or electromagnetic intrusions into our physical brains
> Pills, brain stimulation
All were developed for therapeutic purposes, but many have potential uses for enhancement of healthy brain
Possible ethical concerns
- Safety (only tested for clinical use, no long-term effects known, etc)
- Fairness
- Cheating
- Coercion
- Naturalness (degrading human dignity, slippery slope to cyborg)
tES: transcranial electrical stimulation
- Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS)
- Weak electrical currents applied for a short duration (∼20 minutes) to the head via electrodes on the scalp
- Currents alter spontaneous neural activity
- tDCS developed as treatment, but also shown to enhance cognitive tasks, such as mathematical cognition, language, memory, and attention (e.g. Cohen-Kadosh, 2012)
