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BARBARA ARFE'

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Position

Professoressa Associata

Address

VIA VENEZIA, 8 - PADOVA

Telephone

0498276575

Barbara Arfé is associate professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Disabilities at the University of Padova, where she is Deputy Rector for Inclusion and Disabilities and Head of the Learning Lab for Deaf Children (LABs: Laboratorio per gli Apprendimenti del Bambino con Sordità, https://www.dpss.unipd.it/labs/persone). She is also member of the Steering Committee of the Research Centre I-APPROVE: International Auditory Processing Project in Venice. Her research activity focuses primarily on children's learning processes, with attention to three areas: hearing loss, writing, and computational thinking.

Past international appointments:

From 2008 to 2018: She has been member of the Management Committee of two COST actions and principal investigator for the University of Padova of the European Project TERENCE, FP7. During that period, she has been also consultant for the UNESCO project EGWA (Early Grade Writing Assessment).

From 2019 to 2021 she is Chair of the Psychology Evaluation Panel of FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia- Portuguese public funding agency for R&D) for the Stimulus of Scientific Employment, Individual Support (CEECIND) - 3rd and 4th Edition.

Currently:

She serves in the Editorial Board of Learning and Metacognition (Q1), Learning and Instruction (Q1) and Topics in Language Disorders (ASHA Journal, Q2).

Funded research projects 2019-2022:

-"What is in ba, be, bi, bo, bu, etc.? A cross-linguistic study of verbal learning and blending". PI (BIRD199955
 Project, University of Padova), in collaboration with University of Copenhagen. € 15.000,00

-"New parameters for indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in primary school: Promoting learning through environmental quality interventions" PI (FSE grant, ID: 10258508, PROJECT CODE: 2105-0010-1463-2019) € 109.980,00

- Innovative didactic (2020). Physics Laboratories in the Age COVID and Social Distancing (Project Partner) € 50.000,00

Ongoing funded research projects:

- Chi-CoEN: Children’s cognitive effort in noise. Programma Operativo Nazionale “Ricerca e Innovazione” 2014-2020. Principal Investigator. € 150.000,00

-“Why is letter blending difficult?” BENEFICENTIA Stiftung. Principal Investigator . € 27.000,00

- “Addressing the gender gap in informatics”, PhD grant, PNRR, DM 352/2022. Principal investigator *. € 70000,00

- "Learn: Learning in Noise", PRIN 2022. Coordinator. € 240000,00

Notices

Office hours

  • Thursday from 16:30 to 18:30
    at Il ricevimento studenti per la Scuola di Psicologia ha luogo nello studio della docente, al secondo piano del DPSS. Gli studenti sono pregati di contattarmi via e-mail per concordare un orario.

Teachings

Publications

Selected recent publications

Montuori, C., Gambarota, F., Altoè, G., & Arfé, B. (2024) The Cognitive Effects of Computational Thinking: A systematic Review and Meta-analytic Study. Computers & Education, 210, 104961,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2023.104961 (Q1, Computer Science; Education & Educational Research).

Montuori, C.; Pozzan, G.; Padova, C.; Ronconi, L.; Vardanega, T.; Arfé, B. Combined Unplugged and Educational Robotics Training to Promote Computational Thinking and Cognitive Abilities in Preschoolers. Educ. Sci. 2023, 13, 858. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13090858

Arfé, B., Zancato, T. (2021). Language-specific effects in response to spelling intervention in Italian and in English as an additional language. Journal of Learning Disabilities, https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194211001757

Arfé, B., Festa, F., Ronconi, L., Spicciarelli, G. (2020). Oral sentence generation training to improve fifth and 10th graders’ writing. Reading and Writing, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10114-5

Arfé, B., Vardanega, T., & Ronconi, L. (2020). The effects of coding on children's planning and inhibition skills. Computers & Education, 148. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103807

Arfé, B., Fastelli, A. (2020). The influence of explicit and implicit memory processes on the spoken-written language learning ofchildren with CIs. In M. Marschark and H. Knoors (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies in Learningand Cognition, Oxford University Press.

Gomez, N., Fajardo, I., Ferrer, A., & Arfé, B. (2020). Time-course of grammatical processing in deaf readers: An eye-movement study. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enaa005

Arfé, B., & Danzak, R. (2020). The influence of first language spelling and response inhibition skills on English-as-an-additional-language spelling. Cognitive Development, 56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100952

Arfé, B., Vardanega. T., Montuori, C., & Lavanga, M. (2019). Coding in Primary Grades Boosts Children’s Executive Functions. Frontiers in Psychology, 10: 2713. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02713

Arfe, B., Corato, F., Pizzocaro, E., & Merella, A. (2019). The Effects of Script and Orthographic Complexity on the Handwriting and Spelling Performance of Children With Dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities. doi:10.1177/0022219419892845

Dockrell, J., Connelly, V., Arfé, B (2019). Struggling writers In elementary school: capturing drivers of performance. Learning and Instruction, 60, 75-84. doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2018.11.009

Arfé, B., Cona, E., Merella, A. (2018) Implicit training of spelling skills in Italian children with dyslexia. Topics in Language disorders, 38, 299

Arfé, B., Montanaro, M., Mottura, E. , Scaltritti, M., Manara,R., Basso, G., Sainati, L., & Colombatti, R. (2018). Selective difficulties in lexical retrieval and nonverbal executive functioning in children with HbSS sickle cell disease. Journal of Pediatric Psychology. doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsy005

Arfé, B., Mason, L., Fajardo, I. (2018). Simplifying informational text structure for struggling readers. Reading and Writing, 31, 2191–2210. doi10.1007/s11145-017-9785-6.

Research Area

Auditory processes, memory and learning in deaf or hard of hearing children
Writing disorders
The cognitive effects of computational thinking and educational robotics

Thesis proposals

Auditory processes, memory and learning in children with hearing loss
The effects of environmental noise on learning
Writing disorders
The impact of Computational thinking (and educational robotics) on children's cognitive development