Academic literacy for science: a starting point for recurriculation

English for Specific Purposes courses are taught at many universities around the world and also play a critical role in the South African context. There is limited transparency and therefore little agreement regarding what the curricula of such courses should include. The aim of this study was to start a conversation about which academic abilities are essential for academic success by describing and evaluating the proposed outcomes of two academic literacy (AL) courses for science students at a South African university. The courses were examined by comparing the abilities addressed in each course to an extensive checklist of general AL abilities. The four year programme course was found to cover most of these AL abilities sufficiently, but the weight of several features warranted reassessment. The three-year programme course addressed fewer of these AL abilities and the weighting of several AL abilities also needed to be reassessed. The findings suggest that the four-year extended programme course curriculum offers the better AL foundation as it appears to be more successful in sufficiently addressing a variety of AL abilities. Should the learning outcomes of the two programmes be more closely aligned, students from both programmes entering second year would be equally prepared. However, it would seem that both courses would benefit from further analysis, for example feedback from various stakeholders, and consequent recurriculation.Keywords: English for science and technology, English for specific purposes, academic literacy, curriculum developmen

Subcortical volumes across the lifespan: Data from 18,605 healthy individuals aged 3-90 years

Age has a major effect on brain volume. However, the normative studies available are constrained by small sample sizes, restricted age coverage and significant methodological variability. These limitations introduce inconsistencies and may obscure or distort the lifespan trajectories of brain morphometry. In response, we capitalized on the resources of the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium to examine age-related trajectories inferred from cross-sectional measures of the ventricles, the basal ganglia (caudate, putamen, pallidum, and nucleus accumbens), the thalamus, hippocampus and amygdala using magnetic resonance imaging data obtained from 18,605 individuals aged 3-90 years. All subcortical structure volumes were at their maximum value early in life. The volume of the basal ganglia showed a monotonic negative association with age thereafter; there was no significant association between age and the volumes of the thalamus, amygdala and the hippocampus (with some degree of decline in thalamus) until the sixth decade of life after which they also showed a steep negative association with age. The lateral ventricles showed continuous enlargement throughout the lifespan. Age was positively associated with inter-individual variability in the hippocampus and amygdala and the lateral ventricles. These results were robust to potential confounders and could be used to examine the functional significance of deviations from typical age-related morphometric patterns