Cultural contributions to adults' self-rated mental health problems and strengths: 7 culture clusters, 28 societies, 16 906 adults.

Background: It is unknown how much variation in adult mental health problems is associated with differences between societal/cultural groups, over and above differences between individuals.

Methods: To test these relative contributions, a consortium of indigenous researchers collected Adult Self-Report (ASR) ratings from 16 906 18- to 59-year-olds in 28 societies that represented seven culture clusters identified in the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavioral Effectiveness study (e.g.

Language and reading impairments are associated with increased prevalence of non-right-handedness.

Handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders because of its link with language hemispheric dominance. No clear pattern has emerged, possibly because of small samples, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria across studies. Non-right-handedness (NRH) frequency was assessed in N = 2503 cases with reading and/or language impairment and N = 4316 sex-matched controls identified from 10 distinct cohorts (age range 6-19 years old; European ethnicity) using a priori set criteria.

Discovery of 42 genome-wide significant loci associated with dyslexia.

Reading and writing are crucial life skills but roughly one in ten children are affected by dyslexia, which can persist into adulthood. Family studies of dyslexia suggest heritability up to 70%, yet few convincing genetic markers have been found. Here we performed a genome-wide association study of 51,800 adults self-reporting a dyslexia diagnosis and 1,087,070 controls and identified 42 independent genome-wide significant loci: 15 in genes linked to cognitive ability/educational attainment, and 27 new and potentially more specific to dyslexia.

To Name or Not to Name: Eye Movements and Semantic Processing in RAN and Reading.

This study examined the well-established relationship between rapid naming and reading. Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has long been demonstrated as a strong predictor of reading abilities. Despite extensive research spanning over 4 decades, the underlying mechanisms of these causes remain a subject of inquiry.

A rare missense variant in the ATP2C2 gene is associated with language impairment and related measures.

At least 5% of children present unexpected difficulties in expressing and understanding spoken language. This condition is highly heritable and often co-occurs with other neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia and ADHD. Through an exome sequencing analysis, we identified a rare missense variant (chr16:84405221, GRCh38.

Effects of maternal folic acid supplementation during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy on neurocognitive development in the child: an 11-year follow-up from a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Maternal folic acid (FA) supplementation before and in early pregnancy prevents neural tube defects (NTD), but it is uncertain whether continuing FA after the first trimester has benefits on offspring health. We aimed to evaluate the effect of FA supplementation throughout pregnancy on cognitive performance and brain function in the child.

Methods: Follow-up investigation of 11-year-old children, residing in Northern Ireland, whose mothers had participated in a randomised trial of Folic Acid Supplementation in the Second and Third Trimesters (FASSTT) in pregnancy and received 400 μg/day FA or placebo from the 14th gestational week.

Dynamic relationships between phonological memory and reading: A five year longitudinal study from age 4 to 9.

We reconcile competing theories of the role of phonological memory in reading development, by uncovering their dynamic relationship during the first 5 years of school. Phonological memory, reading and phoneme awareness were assessed in 780 phonics-educated children at age 4, 5, 6 and 9. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that phonological memory loaded onto two factors: verbal short-term memory (verbal STM; phonological tasks that loaded primarily on serial order memory) and nonword repetition.

Auditory frequency discrimination in developmental dyslexia: A meta-analysis.

Auditory frequency discrimination has been used as an index of sensory processing in developmental language disorders such as dyslexia, where group differences have often been interpreted as evidence for a basic deficit in auditory processing that underpins and constrains individual variability in the development of phonological skills. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the cumulative evidence for group differences in frequency discrimination and to explore the impact of some potential moderator variables that could contribute to variability in effect-size estimations across studies. Our analyses revealed mean effect sizes for group differences on frequency discrimination tasks on the order of three-quarters of a standard deviation, but in the presence of substantial inter-study variability in their magnitude.

Long-term Effects of Cholestatic Liver Disease in Childhood on Neuropsychological Outcomes and Neurochemistry.

Objectives: Children with liver disease have increased risk of long-term cognitive deficits. We differentiated between the effects of chronic liver disease from that associated with transplantation by recruiting children with cholestatic liver disease (CLD) with and without transplantation.

Methods: Psychometric measures and magnetic resonance spectroscopy were obtained for 3 groups of children: stable liver disease without transplantation; CLD from birth with transplantation; and individuals healthy to 18 months of age, before transplantation for acute liver failure.

Genome-wide association scan identifies new variants associated with a cognitive predictor of dyslexia.

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is one of the most prevalent learning disorders, with high impact on school and psychosocial development and high comorbidity with conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and anxiety. DD is characterized by deficits in different cognitive skills, including word reading, spelling, rapid naming, and phonology. To investigate the genetic basis of DD, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of these skills within one of the largest studies available, including nine cohorts of reading-impaired and typically developing children of European ancestry (N = 2562-3468).

Processing of structural neuroimaging data in young children: Bridging the gap between current practice and state-of-the-art methods.

The structure of the brain is subject to very rapid developmental changes during early childhood. Pediatric studies based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) over this age range have recently become more frequent, with the advantage of providing in vivo and non-invasive high-resolution images of the developing brain, toward understanding typical and atypical trajectories. However, it has also been demonstrated that application of currently standard MRI processing methods that have been developed with datasets from adults may not be appropriate for use with pediatric datasets.

Psychophysical measurements in children: challenges, pitfalls, and considerations.

Measuring sensory sensitivity is important in studying development and developmental disorders. However, with children, there is a need to balance reliable but lengthy sensory tasks with the child's ability to maintain motivation and vigilance. We used simulations to explore the problems associated with shortening adaptive psychophysical procedures, and suggest how these problems might be addressed.

Further evidence for a parent-of-origin effect at the NOP9 locus on language-related phenotypes.

Background: Specific language impairment (SLI) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder, observed in 5-10 % of children. Family and twin studies suggest a strong genetic component, but relatively few candidate genes have been reported to date. A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) described the first statistically significant association specifically for a SLI cohort between a missense variant (rs4280164) in the NOP9 gene and language-related phenotypes under a parent-of-origin model.

The handedness-associated PCSK6 locus spans an intronic promoter regulating novel transcripts.

We recently reported the association of the PCSK6 gene with handedness through a quantitative genome-wide association study (GWAS; P < 0.5 × 10(-8)) for a relative hand skill measure in individuals with dyslexia. PCSK6 activates Nodal, a morphogen involved in regulating left-right body axis determination.

Deconstructing phonological tasks: The contribution of stimulus and response type to the prediction of early decoding skills.

Phonological tasks are highly predictive of reading development but their complexity obscures the underlying mechanisms driving this association. There are three key components hypothesised to drive the relationship between phonological tasks and reading; (a) the linguistic nature of the stimuli, (b) the phonological complexity of the stimuli, and (c) the production of a verbal response. We isolated the contribution of the stimulus and response components separately through the creation of latent variables to represent specially designed tasks that were matched for procedure.

Syndromes of Self-Reported Psychopathology for Ages 18-59 in 29 Societies.

This study tested the multi-society generalizability of an eight-syndrome assessment model derived from factor analyses of American adults' self-ratings of 120 behavioral, emotional, and social problems. The Adult Self-Report (ASR; Achenbach and Rescorla 2003) was completed by 17,152 18-59-year-olds in 29 societies. Confirmatory factor analyses tested the fit of self-ratings in each sample to the eight-syndrome model.

Syndromes of collateral-reported psychopathology for ages 18-59 in 18 Societies.

The purpose was to advance research and clinical methodology for assessing psychopathology by testing the international generalizability of an 8-syndrome model derived from collateral ratings of adult behavioral, emotional, social, and thought problems. Collateral informants rated 8,582 18-59-year-old residents of 18 societies on the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL). Confirmatory factor analyses tested the fit of the 8-syndrome model to ratings from each society.

Adults with dyslexia demonstrate large effects of crowding and detrimental effects of distractors in a visual tilt discrimination task.

Previous research has shown that adults with dyslexia (AwD) are disproportionately impacted by close spacing of stimuli and increased numbers of distractors in a visual search task compared to controls [1]. Using an orientation discrimination task, the present study extended these findings to show that even in conditions where target search was not required: (i) AwD had detrimental effects of both crowding and increased numbers of distractors; (ii) AwD had more pronounced difficulty with distractor exclusion in the left visual field and (iii) measures of crowding and distractor exclusion correlated significantly with literacy measures. Furthermore, such difficulties were not accounted for by the presence of covarying symptoms of ADHD in the participant groups.

Postural control is not systematically related to reading skills: implications for the assessment of balance as a risk factor for developmental dyslexia.

Impaired postural control has been associated with poor reading skills, as well as with lower performance on measures of attention and motor control variables that frequently co-occur with reading difficulties. Measures of balance and motor control have been incorporated into several screening batteries for developmental dyslexia, but it is unclear whether the relationship between such skills and reading manifests as a behavioural continuum across the range of abilities or is restricted to groups of individuals with specific disorder phenotypes. Here were obtained measures of postural control alongside measures of reading, attention and general cognitive skills in a large sample of young adults (n = 100).

Moderate relationships between NAA and cognitive ability in healthy adults: implications for cognitive spectroscopy.

Background: Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) is a non-invasive imaging technique that enables quantification of neurochemistry in vivo and thereby facilitates investigation of the biochemical underpinnings of human cognitive variability. Studies in the field of cognitive spectroscopy have commonly focused on relationships between measures of N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), a surrogate marker of neuronal health and function, and broad measures of cognitive performance, such as IQ.

Methodology/principal Findings: In this study, we used (1)H-MRS to interrogate single-voxels in occipitoparietal and frontal cortex, in parallel with assessments of psychometric intelligence, in a sample of 40 healthy adult participants.

Increased prevalence of sex chromosome aneuploidies in specific language impairment and dyslexia.

Aim: Sex chromosome aneuploidies increase the risk of spoken or written language disorders but individuals with specific language impairment (SLI) or dyslexia do not routinely undergo cytogenetic analysis. We assess the frequency of sex chromosome aneuploidies in individuals with language impairment or dyslexia.

Method: Genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping was performed in three sample sets: a clinical cohort of individuals with speech and language deficits (87 probands: 61 males, 26 females; age range 4 to 23 years), a replication cohort of individuals with SLI, from both clinical and epidemiological samples (209 probands: 139 males, 70 females; age range 4 to 17 years), and a set of individuals with dyslexia (314 probands: 224 males, 90 females; age range 7 to 18 years).

Common variants in left/right asymmetry genes and pathways are associated with relative hand skill.

Humans display structural and functional asymmetries in brain organization, strikingly with respect to language and handedness. The molecular basis of these asymmetries is unknown. We report a genome-wide association study meta-analysis for a quantitative measure of relative hand skill in individuals with dyslexia [reading disability (RD)] (n = 728).