Victor Martinelli

Sex differences on verbal abilities assessed with tests of reading, verbal comprehension, spelling and foreign language ability, and of non-verbal ability assessed with the Coloured Progressive Matrices were examined in a longitudinal study on a sample of 136 children between the time they were 5 years old to the time they were 9 years old in Malta. Girls obtained significantly higher means on the verbal abilities, and a non-significantly higher mean on the Coloured Progressive Matrices (d =.15). The results are generally consistent with studies in the United States and Britain.

Sex differences in phonological sensitivity and awareness were assessed using well-established linguistic measures in translation in a two-year longitudinal study on a sample of 136 children during their first two years at school. Girls obtained significantly higher means on a number of measures of phonological sensitivity but not on tests of ability (Coloured Progressive Matrices) (Cohen’s d with Hedges adjustment for sample size = .18). The results suggest that girls possess superior phonological skills on entry to school at age 5 years, are better able to utilise their literacy learning experiences to bring them to bear on phonological awareness tasks, and have a lower variance ratio than boys do. There is some support in this study for the notion that girls have somewhat better developed phonological loop memory skills than boys do.

This paper examines closely the educational needs of one group of sub Saharan African migrant children. The data was collected from a project which focused on these children’s education at the primary school level and examined their level of inclusion and integration into the Maltese school system. Particular attention while collecting this data was given to the cultural, religious and linguistic needs of the participants and their families. This was examined against a wider policy of inclusion and differentiation espoused by those charting the Maltese educational system. Empirical research for the EU has shown that children living in basic income households, whose parents have low qualifications, are unemployed or are at risk of "in work poverty", and/or who come from a migrant or ethnic minority background are much less likely to gain good qualifications themselves at school. In other words, child poverty and educational disadvantage tend to perpetuate a vicious cycle of marginalization. The findings confirmed this assessment, underlining the need for affirmative action, while at the same time affording some hope for social inclusion.

Empirical studies of the relationships between dyslexia and creativity are inconsistent. While some anecdotal evidence suggests that there is a positive association between the two, some research suggests that such associations emerge in adulthood rather than in childhood or adolescence, usually as the result of adverse life experiences. The aim of this study was to examine whether adolescents with dyslexia possess superior creativity, measured through a standardised test battery, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), in comparison to age peers. Participants were additionally assessed on a modified version of the Wisconsin Association Talent and Gifted Guide (WATG). The participants in this study were students diagnosed with dyslexia (N=38) and asymptomatic students (N=38) aged 13 years four months (average). The members of the group with dyslexia had been previously diagnosed and identified as students with additional educational needs. The participants in the research group were matched with asymptomatic (students without dyslexia) participants for age, socio-economic status, ability and type of school attended. Although there were apparent indications that the adolescents with dyslexia rated themselves as less creative than their asymptomatic counterparts, they performed better on most subscales of the TTCT. However, in this study, despite the slightly higher scores of students with dyslexia, the differences regarding creativity were not statistically significant. Within the limitations of the study, no support was found for the hypothesis that adolescents with dyslexia are highly creative or even perceived themselves to be so.

Mental health covers a wide range of psychological health conditions. This hides the true extent of the severity of the emotional challenges that children and adolescents encounter early in their lives. Students with dyslexia too can experience these emotional difficulties. This study involves the administration of an anxiety scale to Form 4 and Form 5 students with dyslexia and average readers. In total, 314 respondents with and without learning difficulties attending state and church schools took part. The principal aim of this study was to explore the anxiety levels of students with dyslexia in comparison to average readers in foreign language classes. The secondary aim was to consider gender differences and school type in relation to participants’ reported levels of anxiety when attending such classes. The authors employed a quantitative method and utilised the ‘Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale’ questionnaire developed by Horwitz et al. (1986) to gather data. The research analysis found significant results when the variables mentioned above were taken into consideration. This study adds to the existing body of knowledge about the vulnerability of students with learning difficulties. It also discusses the validity of the measure used, albeit in a context that it was not intended to be used in.

Anxiety is a frequently experienced mental health issue among children and youth, particularly among children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) due to their adverse experiences in social and school settings. Child anxiety often remains unnoticed or misinterpreted, and this leads to delayed diagnosis and treatment of children’s anxiety issues. Educators and professionals also face difficulties in diagnosing the anxiety of children due to the lack of valid and reliable instruments for screening and diagnostics of children’s anxiety. This study applied the SCARED scale for children and parents, which is a proven screening instrument for the identification of children’s anxiety to examine parents’ perception and awareness of the anxiety experienced by their children diagnosed with ADHD. The scale was translated and administered to 11 to 13-year-old children and their parents. Based on responses from 65 parent-child dyads, this study found that the translated and modified scoring procedure of the SCARED scale used in this study effectively identified higher anxiety levels in children with clinically diagnosed ADHD compared to children with no such condition. This was so for both the child and the parent versions of the SCARED. The study also identified high levels of correlation between the children’s self-ratings and their parents’ ratings of these same children, but children’s self-reported scores were significantly higher than the level of anxiety perceived by their parents. Overall, the study found that the translated and modified SCARED scale could be used to screen children’s anxiety. However, a large-scale analysis is necessary to precisely confirm the metric characteristics of the SCARED scale.