Her talk, entitled, “From Fear of Public Speaking to a TEDx Speaker, What I have in Common with You and Dyslexia,” defined what our individual comfort zones may be and discussed how she was able to overcome her fear of public speaking.

Read more on her talk here: https://dailycampus.com/stories/2010/10/7/tedxuconn-crushes-the-comfort-zone?rq=hoeft

Accepted in: Learning and Individual Differences

Direct and Indirect Contributions of Executive Function to Word Decoding and Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten

Stephanie L. Haft1,2, Jocelyn N. Caballero1, Hiroko Tanaka Ph.D3., Leo Zekelman4, Laurie E. Cutting Ph.D.5-7, Yuuko Uchikoshi Ed.D.8, Fumiko Hoeft M.D. Ph.D.1,7,9-10

Extant research is increasingly recognizing the contribution of executive function (EF) to reading comprehension alongside established predictors like word decoding and oral language. The nature of the association between EF and reading comprehension is commonly investigated in older children and in those with reading impairments. However, less is known about this relationship in emerging readers in kindergarten, where word decoding and reading comprehension are highly intertwined. Moreover, a better understanding of the mechanisms by which EF influences reading comprehension is needed. The present study investigated direct contributions of EF to reading comprehension, as well as indirect contributions via word decoding in 97 kindergarteners. Results indicated that there was a significant indirect effect of EF on reading comprehension, with word decoding mediating this association. The direct contribution of EF to reading comprehension was not significant. Implications for reading instruction and intervention for early readers are discussed.

Jocelyn Caballero receives the competitive travel award to attend and present at the 2019 Society for the Neurobiology of Language conference in Helsinki, Finland. While there, she presented her first-author poster entitled, “Arcuate Fasciculus Microstructure Correlates with Cross-Linguistic Measures of Multilingual Language Experience and L1 Skills”. She authored and presented this paper with Nikola Vukovic, Olga Kepinska, and Fumiko Hoeft.

She was a clinical psych grad student at Palo Alto University. For many years led and trained our neuropsych practica students, worked on a number of projects including the NIH R01 bilingual project. Over the past year she has been an intern in Pediatric Psychology/Neuropsychology at Kennedy Krieger Institute/ Johns Hopkins School of Medicine - impressive! She defended July 8, 2019 and her title was "Higher-Level Reading Processes in Children with Dyslexia: A Functional Imaging Study of Sentence Comprehension". She just started her postdoctoral fellowship in Pediatric Neuropsychology at Medical College of Wisconsin/ Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin (90% clinical; 10% research) - another highly competitive site! She has been with us probably longest of all currently in the lab - we will miss her terribly, but are all so excited for her many accomplishments!

Congratulations to Stephanie Haft, Olga Kepinska, Jocelyn Caballero, Manuel Carreiras, and Fumiko Hoeft on the newly accepted paper in Behavioral Sciences! 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6562579/

Attentional Fluctuations, Cognitive Flexibility, and Bilingualism in Kindergarteners.

Abstract: The idea of a bilingual advantage in aspects of cognitive control – including cognitive flexibility, inhibition, working memory, and attention – is disputed. Using a sample of kindergarten children, the present study investigated associations between bilingualism and cognitive flexibility – a relationship that has shown mixed findings in prior literature. We also extend prior work by exploring relationships between bilingualism and attentional fluctuations, which represent consistency in attentional control and contribute to cognitive performance. To our knowledge, no previous study has explored this association. Theoretically, attentional fluctuations might mediate or moderate the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive flexibility. However, given evidence of null findings from extant literature when confounding variables are adequately controlled and tasks are standardized, we did not expect to find a bilingual advantage in either cognitive flexibility or attentional fluctuations. Our results supported this hypothesis when considering bilingualism both continuously and categorically. The importance of expanding upon mechanistic accounts connecting bilingualism to cognitive improvements is discussed.

Congratulations to BrainLENS & NIDL postdoc Dr. Airey Lau on receiving the following prestigious awards from Columbia University for her dissertation research:

• Provost’s Doctoral Dissertation Grant in recognition for the most outstanding dissertations in the field of inquiry

• Education Policy Dissertation Research Fellowship in recognition for dissertation research that has the strongest potential to inform societal efforts to improve education opportunity, achievement, or equity

• Dean’s Grant for Student Research in recognition for exceptional research that has important education implications for the field