What shapes the basic features of a language?
Brock University developmental psychologist Jan Frijters is part of an international, multi-disciplinary research team that found people whose mother tongue contains many consonants also carry a specific gene variation that helps them to distinguish a wide range of sounds.
Read the full article in The Brock News.
Applied developmental psychologist Jan Frijters has a powerful message for teens living with dyslexia, their parents and teachers: don’t give up the struggle to read.
Read full article on The Brock News.
Women who are smokers who become pregnant now have another compelling reason to butt out.
A new study by Brock University researcher Jan Frijters, along with the Yale School of Medicine, found that children of mothers who smoked more than a pack of cigarettes a day score lower on reading tests than their peers born to women who didn’t smoke during their pregnancies.
Frijters said the study, published in an online version of the Journal of Pediatrics ahead of print, found children of smokers will on average be seven places lower in a class of 31 children in reading accuracy and comprehension. That might not sound like such a big deal, but Frijters said it could have life-long implications because of reading’s status as a foundation for learning.
Read the full article in Niagara This Week – St. Catharines.
Children whose mothers smoked more than a pack of cigarettes a day score lower on reading tests than those of mothers who did not smoke during their pregnancies.
This is the major finding of research done by Brock University and the Yale School of Medicine published online in the latest issue of The Journal of Pediatrics.
Brock researcher Jan Frijters explains that, other factors being equal, a child of a mother who smoked will be on average seven places lower in a class of 31 children in reading accuracy and comprehension.
Read the full article in The Brock News.
Jan Frijters’ research participants are usually about four feet tall and like to hang out in the playground.
But now, the applied developmental psychologist in the Department of Child and Youth Studies, who specializes in children’s learning, is taking his research to the next level: adults who struggle to read basic words.
Frijters is one of a four-institution group of researchers that has just received a five-year, $10-million grant from the U.S. government’s Institute of Education Science to study underlying cognitive and motivational issues in adults who find reading a challenge.
Read full article on The Brock News.