Language ability assessment of Spanish-English bilinguals: Future directions

The objectives of this paper are to a) summarize relevant research on bilingual language development and discuss the implications for bilingual language assessment, b) discuss limitations in current language ability testing practices for bilinguals, c) propose future directions for the development of assessment tools and practices with bilinguals. Accessed 64,765 times on https://pareonline.net from May 18, 2002 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right

Establishing Diagnostic Skills in Novice Bilingual Clinicians: A Scaffolded Approach

This study sought to scaffold administration performance of a standardized bilingual screener to sufficient levels of accuracy for data collection using principles of Cognitive Load Theory by managing task complexity when training pre-service clinicians. Before training administration skills, two students were given copies of the manual for the Bilingual English Spanish Oral Screener (BESOS) and asked to administer the protocol independently. During the intervention phase, students were scaffolded through administration tasks of increasing complexity and given explicit instruction, which included tailored goals, modeling and feedback. Performance for four skills was assessed using a fidelity rubric and analyzed using visual analysis. Performance varied per skill but overall scores were higher during the intervention phases than during the baseline phase for both students. In addition, accuracy of performance maintained across client participants showing patterns of generalization. Although the data are limited, scaffolding training skills for pre-service clinicians appears supportive in training administration skills for bilingual tasks. The level of support may vary per skill and per language. Future research may seek to investigate other clinical skills and tasks

Effects on L1 During Early Acquisition of L2: Speech Changes in Spanish at First English Contact

Spanish phonological development was examined in six sequential bilingual children at the point of contact with English and eight months later. We explored effects of the English vowel and consonant inventory on Spanish. Children showed a significant increase in consonant cluster accuracy and in vowel errors. These emerging sequential bilingual children showed effects of English on their first language, Spanish. Cross-linguistic transfer did not affect all properties of the phonology equally. Negative transfer may occur in specific areas where the second language is more complex, requiring reorganization of the existing system, as in the transition from the Spanish five-vowel to the English eleven-vowel system

Dressing a black hole with non-minimally coupled scalar field hair

We investigate the possibility of dressing a four-dimensional black hole with classical scalar field hair which is non-minimally coupled to the space-time curvature. Our model includes a cosmological constant but no self-interaction potential for the scalar field. We are able to rule out black hole hair except when the cosmological constant is negative and the constant governing the coupling to the Ricci scalar curvature is positive. In this case, non-trivial hairy black hole solutions exist, at least some of which are linearly stable. However, when the coupling constant becomes too large, the black hole hair becomes unstable.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, uses iopart.cls. Minor changes, accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Prevalencia e incidencia de los trastornos por uso de alcohol, tabaco y otras drogas en estudiantes de una universidad pública venezolana

Antecedentes. Los trastornos por uso de sustancias (TUS) se pueden presentan en cualquier sociedad. En el pais y en sus instituciones educativas son escasos los estudios epidemiologicos. Esta situacion dificulta la compresion epidemiologica, su prevencion, planificacion y evaluacion.Objetivo. Determinar la prevalencia vital e incidencia del ultimo ano de TUS en estudiantes de la Universidad de Los Andes, Merida -Venezuela.Método. Estudio observacional transversal en estudiantes seleccionados aleatoriamente de tres campus universitarios. La muestra represento el 5% del universo: n=1.018 y se evaluo mediante un instrumento autoadministrado, anonimo y validado para Venezuela con denominaciones genericas/jerga y en concordancia a criterios diagnosticos de reconocida aceptacion. Todos fueron informados del caracter voluntario y de retirarse, si lo manifestasen. Se aplicaron tests bilaterales no parametricos, a>0,05.Resultados. La edad media fue de 21,76(3,5) anos con permanencia universitaria de 2,05(1,9) anos y el 61,1% eran mujeres. Las prevalencias de TUS fueron: abuso de alcohol 16,1%, por otras drogas del 1,8% y por dependencias: alcohol 4,3%, tabaco fumado 4,2% y por otras drogas 0,9%. Las incidencias en el ultimo ano por abuso: de alcohol 3,6%, otras drogas 0,3% y por dependencias: alcohol 1,4%, tabaco fumado 0,3% y otras drogas de 0,4%, El campus Merida tuvo significativamente mas estudiantes con dependencias (p>0,03, p>0,023, p>0,037) y el sexo masculino estuvo mas afectado por dependencias de alcohol (p>0,000).Conclusiones. La prevencion y vigilancia en la institucion sobre TUS deberian programarse segun los hallazgos y las diferencias detectadas en cada campus. Los resultados pueden orientar estudios toxicologicos no invasivas: cabellos. La separacion social entre sustancias licitas e ilicitas deberia obviarse para las estrategias y objetivos de prevencion integral

Targeted Epigenetic Remodeling of the \u3cem\u3eCdk5\u3c/em\u3e Gene in Nucleus Accumbens Regulates Cocain- and Stress-Evoked Behavior

Recent studies have implicated epigenetic remodeling in brain reward regions following psychostimulant or stress exposure. It has only recently become possible to target a given type of epigenetic remodeling to a single gene of interest, and to probe the functional relevance of such regulation to neuropsychiatric disease. We sought to examine the role of histone modifications at the murine Cdk5 (cyclin-dependent kinase 5) locus, given growing evidence of Cdk5 expression in nucleus accumbens (NAc) influencing reward-related behaviors. Viral-mediated delivery of engineered zinc finger proteins (ZFP) targeted histone H3 lysine 9/14 acetylation (H3K9/14ac), a transcriptionally active mark, or histone H3 lysine 9 dimethylation (H3K9me2), which is associated with transcriptional repression, specifically to the Cdk5 locus in NAc in vivo. We gound that Cdk5-ZFP transcription factors are sufficient to bidirectionally regulate Cdk5 gene expression via enrichment of their respective histone modifications. We examined the behavioral consequences of this epigenetic remodeling and found that Cdk5-targeted H3K9/14ac increased cocaine-induced locomotor behavior, as well as resilience to social stress. Conversely, Cdk5-targeted H3K9me2 attenuated both cocaine-induced locomotor behavior and conditioned place preference, but had no effect on stress-induced social avoidance behavior. The current study provides evidence for the causal role of Cdk5 epigenetic remodeling in NAc in Cdk5 gene expression and in the control of reward and stress responses. Moreover, these data are especially compelling given that previous work demonstrated opposite behavioral phenotypes compared with those reported here upon Cdk5 overexpression or knockdown, demonstrating the importance of targeted epigenetic remodeling tools for studying more subtle molecular changes that contribute to neuropsychiatric disease

Locus-specific epigenetic remodeling controls addiction- and depression-related behaviors

Chronic exposure to drugs of abuse or stress regulates transcription factors, chromatin-modifying enzymes and histone post-translational modifications in discrete brain regions. Given the promiscuity of the enzymes involved, it has not yet been possible to obtain direct causal evidence to implicate the regulation of transcription and consequent behavioral plasticity by chromatin remodeling that occurs at a single gene. We investigated the mechanism linking chromatin dynamics to neurobiological phenomena by applying engineered transcription factors to selectively modify chromatin at a specific mouse gene in vivo. We found that histone methylation or acetylation at the Fosb locus in nucleus accumbens, a brain reward region, was sufficient to control drug- and stress-evoked transcriptional and behavioral responses via interactions with the endogenous transcriptional machinery. This approach allowed us to relate the epigenetic landscape at a given gene directly to regulation of its expression and to its subsequent effects on reward behavior

Local and Landscape Factors Determining Occurrence of Phyllostomid Bats in Tropical Secondary Forests

Neotropical forests are being increasingly replaced by a mosaic of patches of different successional stages, agricultural fields and pasture lands. Consequently, the identification of factors shaping the performance of taxa in anthropogenic landscapes is gaining importance, especially for taxa playing critical roles in ecosystem functioning. As phyllostomid bats provide important ecological services through seed dispersal, pollination and control of animal populations, in this study we assessed the relationships between phyllostomid occurrence and the variation in local and landscape level habitat attributes caused by disturbance. We mist-netted phyllostomids in 12 sites representing 4 successional stages of a tropical dry forest (initial, early, intermediate and late). We also quantitatively characterized the habitat attributes at the local (vegetation structure complexity) and the landscape level (forest cover, area and diversity of patches). Two focal scales were considered for landscape characterization: 500 and 1000 m. During 142 sampling nights, we captured 606 individuals representing 15 species and 4 broad guilds. Variation in phyllostomid assemblages, ensembles and populations was associated with variation in local and landscape habitat attributes, and this association was scale-dependent. Specifically, we found a marked guild-specific response, where the abundance of nectarivores tended to be negatively associated with the mean area of dry forest patches, while the abundance of frugivores was positively associated with the percentage of riparian forest. These results are explained by the prevalence of chiropterophilic species in the dry forest and of chiropterochorous species in the riparian forest. Our results indicate that different vegetation classes, as well as a multi-spatial scale approach must be considered for evaluating bat response to variation in landscape attributes. Moreover, for the long-term conservation of phyllostomids in anthropogenic landscapes, we must realize that the management of the habitat at the landscape level is as important as the conservation of particular forest fragments