Search Results (76)

This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted writing on the written language production of secondary school students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SLD), particularly dyslexia. Writing is a complex cognitive process requiring the coordination of spelling, lexical retrieval, syntactic organization, transcription, and revision, areas in which students with SLD often experience persistent difficulties. The study compared handwritten and computer-based texts produced by 40 students with SLD and 20 students without learning difficulties using a counterbalanced design, with an interval of approximately two weeks between the two writing sessions. In the handwriting condition, students used printed reference materials, whereas in the computer-based condition they had access to general-purpose digital tools, including spell-checkers, electronic dictionaries, online resources, and word-processing software. Written texts were evaluated using the Spelling Accuracy Index and holistic scores assigned by independent raters. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests (Mann–Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests). The findings revealed statistically significant improvements in favor of computer-based writing for both groups, with particularly strong gains among students with SLD. Computer-written texts demonstrated higher spelling accuracy and received higher evaluation scores, indicating improved performance in the assessed writing outcomes. The findings suggest that computer-assisted writing may support written language production in secondary school students with SLD, particularly in relation to spelling accuracy and overall text evaluation, and may offer a useful avenue for more inclusive writing instruction. Full article

The processes of teaching and learning are primarily humanistic. However, contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) technology has significantly changed these processes. The current qualitative study aimed to explore this phenomenon by investigating the role that chatbots can play as language tutors in improving ESL students’ writing. Specifically, the study investigated students’ perceptions and experiences to assess the influence of ChatGPT-generated written communication on ESL writing improvement. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with undergraduates from the College of Languages and Translation at a public university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The emerging themes revealed that students held positive perceptions of the chatbot as a tutor, highlighting that collaborative learning with the chatbot facilitated the acquisition of writing skills and increased engagement in the writing process. Findings also showed noticeable improvement in language development, at lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic levels, as well as in the use of cognitive and metacognitive writing strategies. The study recommends reevaluating traditional writing instruction methodologies and highlights the benefits of integrating AI chatbots into second-language writing pedagogy. Furthermore, the study emphasises students’ need for accessible English-language tutoring, such as chatbots, which provide immediate, real-time writing instruction. The study also addresses the implications of incorporating AI-powered chatbots into writing curricula at Saudi universities. Full article

The rapid decline of linguistic diversity, driven by globalization and technological standardization, presents significant challenges for the preservation of endangered languages, many of which lack sufficient parallel corpora for effective machine translation. Conventional neural translation models perform poorly in such contexts, often failing to capture semantic precision, grammatical complexity, and culturally specific nuances. This study addresses these limitations by proposing a hybrid translation framework that combines dictionary-based pre-translation, retrieval-augmented generation, and large language model post-editing. The system is designed to improve translation quality for extremely low-resource languages, with a particular focus on the endangered Paiwan language in Taiwan. In the proposed approach, a handcrafted bilingual dictionary is the first to establish deterministic lexical alignments to generate a symbolically precise intermediate representation. When gaps occur due to missing vocabulary or sparse training data, a retrieval module enriches contextual understanding by dynamically sourcing semantically relevant examples from a vector database. These enriched words are then processed by an instruction-tuned large language model that reorders syntactic structures, inflects verbs appropriately, and resolves lexical ambiguities to produce fluent and culturally coherent translations. The evaluation is conducted on a 250-sentence Paiwan–Mandarin dataset, and the results demonstrate substantial performance gains across key metrics, with cosine similarity increasing from 0.210–0.236 to 0.810–0.846, BLEU scores rising from 1.7–4.4 to 40.8–51.9, and ROUGE-L F1 scores improving from 0.135–0.177 to 0.548–0.632. These results corroborate the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid pipeline in mitigating semantic drift, preserving core meaning, and enhancing linguistic alignment in low-resource settings. Beyond technical performance, the framework contributes to broader efforts in language revitalization and cultural preservation by supporting the transmission of Indigenous knowledge through accurate, contextually grounded, and accessible translations. This research demonstrates that integrating symbolic linguistic resources with retrieval-augmented large language models offers a scalable and efficient solution for endangered language translation and provides a foundation for sustainable digital heritage preservation in multilingual societies. Full article

Background/Objectives: Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) can enhance post-stroke aphasia recovery. The right Inferior Frontal Gyrus is the most common target in rTMS studies for inhibitory stimulation. However, lexicosemantic processes involve a large brain network including the Anterior Temporal Lobe (ATL). We hypothesize that rTMS targeting the ATL will improve lexicosemantic impairments in people with post-stroke aphasia. Methods: In a Single-Case Experimental Design, three people with post-stroke aphasia with lexicosemantic impairments performed Picture and Auditory Naming and Semantic Decision tasks five times a week for one or two weeks to establish baseline scores. Then, each participant received continuous inhibitory Theta Burst Stimulation targeting the right ATL, five times a week for two weeks. After each rTMS session, participants performed all linguistic tasks. A follow-up measurement was performed one month after the end of the study. Results: All participants showed significant improvement in the Picture Naming task, while only P1 improved in Auditory Naming accuracy. In the Semantic Decision task, only P2 showed improvement in both accuracy and RT, while P1 showed improvement in RT alone and P3 showed no improvement. Conclusions: The results suggest that ATL could be a potential target for future brain stimulation studies in aphasia involving lexicosemantic impairments. RTMS targeting the ATL may modulate the connected ventral semantic stream, leading to improvements in lexical access. This preliminary study highlights the possibility of selecting the cortical target for rTMS based on the clinical profile of the participant, an approach that will need further investigation in larger sham-controlled studies. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated structural, social, economic, and racial inequalities affecting immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking men—vulnerable populations often overlooked in men’s health research. This study investigated the health conditions of immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking men during the COVID-19 pandemic. A scoping review was conducted following Joanna Briggs Institute guidance, and a qualitative lexical analysis (text-mining of standardized study syntheses) was performed in IRaMuTeQ using similarity analysis, descending hierarchical classification, and factorial correspondence analysis. We identified 93 studies published between 2020 and 2023 across 35 countries. The evidence highlighted vaccine hesitancy, high epidemiological risks (infection, hospitalization, and mortality), barriers to accessing services and information, socioeconomic vulnerabilities, psychological distress (e.g., anxiety and depression), and structural inequalities. Findings were synthesized into four integrated thematic categories emphasizing the role of gender constructs in help-seeking and gaps in governmental responses. Most studies focused on immigrants, with limited evidence on refugees and especially asylum seekers; therefore, conclusions should be interpreted cautiously for these groups. Overall, the review underscores the urgency of multisectoral interventions, universal access to healthcare regardless of migration status, culturally and linguistically appropriate outreach, and gender-sensitive primary care strategies to support inclusive and resilient health systems. Full article

Accessible health information is essential to promote patient engagement and informed participation in clinical research. Brief summaries on ClinicalTrials.gov are indented for lay people; however they are often written at a reading level that is too advanced for the public. This study evaluated the performance of a Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI)-powered tool—Pub2Post—in producing readable and complete layperson brief summaries for urologic oncology clinical trials. Twenty actively recruiting clinical trials on prostate, bladder, kidney, and testis cancers were retrieved from ClinicalTrials.gov. For each, a GAI-generated summary was produced and compared with its publicly available counterpart. Readability indices, grade-level indicators, and text metrics were analyzed alongside content inclusion across eight structural domains. GAI-generated summaries demonstrated markedly improved readability (mean FRES 73.3 ± 3.5 vs. 17.0 ± 13.1; p < 0.0001), aligning with the recommended middle-school reading level, and achieved 100% inclusion of guideline-defined content elements. GAI summaries exhibited simpler syntax and reduced lexical complexity, supporting improved comprehension. These findings suggest that GAI tools such as Pub2Post can generate patient-facing summaries that are both accessible and comprehensive. Full article

This study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine how deaf individuals process ambiguous morphemes during Chinese compound word recognition in a masked priming lexical decision paradigm. Ambiguous morphemes were classified as balanced or biased, and two experiments employed a 3 × 2 within-subject design. Each morpheme’s two meanings served as both primes and targets. The independent variables were prime type (meaning1 vs. meaning2 vs. unrelated) and target type (meaning1 vs. meaning2), with meaning1 being the dominant meaning and meaning2 being the subordinate meaning for biased morphemes. In the N250 (sublexical processing), balanced morphemes showed a main effect of prime type: any orthographically similar prime elicited priming. In the N400 (semantic processing), an interaction of prime and target type emerged, with only contextually congruent meanings activated. For biased morphemes, interactions were observed across N250 and N400 stages. The dominant meaning was consistently activated: when the target was dominant, both meanings showed priming; when the target was subordinate, only the subordinate meaning produced priming. These results reveal a dissociation in how deaf readers process ambiguous morphemes: balanced morphemes rely on contextual information, whereas biased morphemes are influenced by meaning frequency. The findings provide novel insights into the temporal dynamics of morpheme-based lexical access in deaf Chinese readers, with implications for reading and vocabulary instruction. Full article

Background and Objectives: Facebook groups have become support spaces for people with rare diseases such as amelogenesis imperfecta (AI). While their potential for revealing patient needs is recognized, no systematic analysis has been conducted in France. This study aims to better understand the psychological and practical needs of French AI patients by analyzing interactions within a dedicated Facebook group. Methods: A semantic and thematic analysis was conducted on 881 texts (39,647 words) from the French Facebook group Amelogenesis Imperfecta. A custom tool, TEXTRA©, and IRaMuTeQ© software were used for analysis, including similarity analysis (lexical co-occurrences), Descending Hierarchical Classification (DHC), Correspondence analysis to reveal discourse structures. Results: Correspondence analysis revealed two main discourse trends: individual experiences (symptoms, treatment logistics, and medical engagement) and collective narratives (focused on awareness, mobilization, and institutional recognition). DHC identified four thematic classes: (a) difficulties accessing healthcare, (b) genetic framing and family implications, (c) dental symptoms and treatment experiences, and (d) community advocacy. These findings highlight how the group fosters emotional support, peer exchange, and empowerment. Conclusions: Online communities play a vital role in supporting patients with rare diseases. This study shows that the analysis of user-generated content can guide improvements in clinical practice, psychosocial support, and health policy. Full article

Background: Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) is a clinical syndrome marked by progressive visuospatial impairment, usually due to underlying Alzheimer’s disease. While reading and spelling deficits are recognized clinical features of this syndrome, the contributions of visuoperceptual versus linguistic deficits to these impairments are still unclear. Methods: To that end, we examined reading and spelling performance in 23 individuals from the Massachusetts General Hospital PCA cohort. Participants completed tests of reading from the Western Aphasia Battery and spelling to dictation from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. A mixed-methods analysis included quantitative scoring and qualitative observations of visual behaviors, error patterns, and compensatory strategies. Results: Participants commonly demonstrated visual scanning errors, difficulty following multi-line text, and spelling errors reflecting both visual–perceptual and orthographic–linguistic breakdowns. Conclusions: Because reading and spelling in PCA are variably impaired cognitive skills driven by visual deficits and lexical vulnerability, assessments and interventions must account for deficits in both cognitive processes. Our findings highlight the vulnerability of reading and spelling in PCA and underscore the need for multimodal assessment strategies that account for the interplay of visual, phonological, and lexical processes. These insights can inform diagnosis and guide the development of accessible interventions tailored to optimize compensatory strategies to support functional language abilities. Full article

Background: Stakeholders’ perception plays a crucial role in shaping pharmaceutical strategies. Stakeholders are groups interested in pharmaceutical companies’ success and outcomes. Stakeholders’ perceptions are multifaceted and impact pharmaceutical strategies, from shaping research to enhancing market access, pricing, and corporate reputation. Understanding and actively managing stakeholders’ perceptions is vital for pharmaceutical companies to succeed in an increasingly complex and competitive industry. Methods: In this case study, knowledge contributions from stakeholders offered insights and strategies for application in the pharmaceutical sector. Results: Qualitative, exploratory research was conducted, which included the participation of sixteen stakeholders from different countries in Latin America, who responded to a semi-structured interview script, whose data were understood through lexical analysis in the Interface de R pour les Analyses Multimensionnelles de Texts et de Questionnaires (IRaMuTeQ). Conclusions: The results of this study underscore the importance of regulatory knowledge for professionals’ support and implementation of international strategies. Regulatory knowledge provides professionals with tools and insights to navigate complex regulatory environments, make informed decisions, and enhance organizational performance in global markets. Full article

Background/Objectives: Pausing is a multifaceted phenomenon relevant to motor and cognitive disorders, particularly Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Thus, examining pauses as a metric for linguistic planning and motor speech difficulties in PD patients has gained significant attention. Here, we examined the production of silent and filled pauses (indexing difficulties at various linguistic processing levels) during narrative tasks to investigate the interplay between pausing behavior and informativeness/productivity measures. Methods: Individuals’ pausing patterns during narratives were analyzed relative to their syntactic context (within and between sentences expressing motor and non-motor related content), in 29 patients in the mild-to-moderate stage of PD, and 29 age-matched healthy speakers. The interaction between communicative metrics (informativeness and productivity), motor symptoms, cognitive capabilities, and pausing behavior was explored to characterize the mechanisms underlying pause production and its influence on discourse content. Results: PD patients’ pausing profile was characterized by an overall reduced number of pauses, longer silent pauses and fewer/shorter filled pauses, particularly before words that extend or specify the semantic content of sentences. Contrary to what was observed in healthy speakers, both the duration of silent pauses and the total number and duration of filled pauses could explain a significant proportion of variance in informativeness measures. Silent pause duration significantly correlated with measures of lexical access, indicating that cognitive processes influence pause production, while motor speech and cognitive challenges may also interact. Conclusions: Current results have significant implications for understanding discourse difficulties linked to PD and for formulating intervention strategies to improve communication efficacy. Full article

English writing proficiency is pivotal to sustainable academic success and employability. In Chinese higher education, however, conventional instruction often constrains students’ self-regulation and access to individualized feedback. Drawing on self-regulated learning (SRL) and co-regulated learning (CoRL), this study investigates whether a CoRL-guided generative AI virtual teacher (CoRL-VT), designed as a “more capable other,” is associated with enhanced undergraduate writing outcomes relative to standard AI support. Using a 12-week quasi-experimental design with two intact classes (N = 61) in Anhui, China, we compared a control condition (standard AI) with an intervention (CoRL-VT). Writing proficiency was assessed via IELTS Writing Task 2 at pre- and post-test; three certified examiners scored all scripts with strong agreement (ICC = 0.87). Analyses adjusting for baseline yielded an estimated group difference favoring CoRL-VT. Teacher interview testimony aligned with the quantitative pattern, noting clearer macro-organization, richer lexical choices, and more teacherly formative feedback among CoRL-VT students. Taken together, these findings offer exploratory, descriptive evidence consistent with the potential of structured, CoRL-informed AI scaffolding in sustainable writing pedagogy and outline design principles for replicable CoRL-VT implementations in resource-conscious contexts. Full article

Background: Language learning has been proposed as a non-pharmacological intervention to promote healthy aging. This intervention has not been studied in older adults with a history of depression, who experience high prevalence of cognitive dysfunction. This small-scale study was the first to investigate the potential efficacy of language learning in older adults with (past) depression. Methods: Data on psychosocial well-being, cognitive functioning, and language outcomes were collected in nineteen participants with (past) depression (M = 69.7 years old, SD = 2.9; 79% women, 21% men) and a control group of fifteen older adults without depression in the past 25 years (M = 70.1 years old, SD = 3.8; 60% women, 40% men). Data were collected before, immediately after, and four months after completing a three-month language course. Results: Participants with (past) depression showed significant decreases in apathy, social loneliness, and cognitive failures, and increases in associative memory and global cognition. The control group improved on associative memory and letter-number sequencing. Both groups improved in linguistic self-confidence and lexical access to English, while the group with (past) depression also improved on listening and speaking proficiency. Conclusions: The intervention had limited benefits for cognition and psychosocial well-being, but (longer) group-based learning interventions may build up social and motivational reserves protecting against morbidity. Research with larger samples and a no-training control sample is needed to further support these findings. Full article

Postpartum lactating people are particularly vulnerable to inequities in social determinants of health (SDH), yet no validated tool currently exists to assess these factors comprehensively. This study aimed to co-develop and establish the content validity of an instrument to integratively evaluate SDH in this population. Guided by the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool, an interdisciplinary e-Delphi panel assessed item sufficiency, clarity, coherence, and relevance. Statistical analyses included the item-level (I-CVI) and scale-level (S-CVI/Ave) content validity indices, average agreement between experts (AABE), Fleiss’ kappa (κ), and Aiken’s V coefficient (V) (p < 0.05). Cognitive interviews were conducted with postpartum lactating participants representing diverse characteristics to assess interpretability. The initial version of the instrument included 135 items across nine sections addressing general demographics, education, employment, home environment, lifestyle, social support, healthcare access, stress, intimate partner violence, insomnia, and nutrition. Based on expert input, it was refined to 131 items through structural and lexical revisions. Content validity indices indicated strong agreement: I-CVI ranged from 0.66–1.00, S-CVI/Ave > 0.95, AABE > 14.26, and κ and V > 0.90. Final adjustments following cognitive interviews led to a 128-item version optimized for clarity and relevance. This instrument offers strong content validity for SDH assessment in postpartum lactating people and supports sustainable use in health research. Full article

This study investigated whether self-adaptor behaviours, defined as non-communicative bodily actions such as touching one’s face or clasping one’s hands, facilitate lexical retrieval. Sixty Japanese-speaking adults were assigned to one of three conditions: a self-adaptor condition (instructed to hold their cheeks), a suppression condition (hand movements inhibited), and a control condition in which participants were allowed to move their hands freely. Participants completed a lexical retrieval task designed to elicit tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states, followed by a recall task. Responses were categorised as successful retrieval, retrieval failure, TOT success, or TOT failure. Results showed that the self-adaptor condition achieved significantly more correct responses than the suppression condition, indicating that self-adaptor behaviour supports lexical access during retrieval difficulty. However, self-adaptor behaviour did not enhance the resolution of TOT states or improve recall performance. Video-based analysis further revealed that gestures increased markedly during TOT states, while self-adaptor behaviours were more frequent overall. These findings suggest that self-adaptor behaviour contributes to general lexical retrieval processes but does not directly facilitate the resolution of TOT states. The distinction between the functions of spontaneous bodily movements is therefore essential. This study extends the understanding of how embodied behaviours interact with verbal processes and underscores the cognitive significance of non-communicative bodily actions in speech production. Full article