Communicative and linguistic development in preterm children: a longitudinal study from 12 to 24 months.

BACKGROUND: Research conducted on preterm children's linguistic skills has provided varying pictures, and the question of whether and to what extent preterm children are delayed in early language acquisition remains largely unresolved. AIMS: To examine communicative and linguistic development during the second year in a group of Italian children born prematurely using the 'Primo Vocabolario del Bambino' (PVB), the Italian version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. The primary goal was to compare action/gesture production, word comprehension, and word production, and the relationship between these three domains in preterm children and to normative data obtained from a large sample of Italian children born at term. A second aim was to address the longstanding debate regarding the use of chronological versus corrected gestational age in the assessment of preterm children's abilities. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Parents of twelve preterm children completed the PVB questionnaire at five age points during the children's second year, and scores were compared with those from a normative sample of full-term children and those of 59 full-term children selected as a control group from the normative sample for the PVB. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Preterm children exhibited a delay in all three aspects of communication and language. In particular, communicative-linguistic age tended to lag approximately 3 months behind chronological age when children were between the ages of 12 and 24 months. When chronological age was used, preterm children's percentile scores for all three components of communication and language fell within the lower limits of the normal range, while scores calculated using corrected age either fell at or above the 50th percentile. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Findings suggest that despite the significant biological risk engendered by premature birth, early communicative and linguistic development appears to proceed in a relatively robust fashion among preterm children, with tight relations across communicative domains as in full-term children. Employing both chronological and corrected gestational age criteria in the evaluation of preterm children's abilities may provide important information about their progress in language acquisition. This may be especially important during the initial stages of communicative and linguistic development, inasmuch as comparisons of the two sets of scores may provide clinicians with a way to distinguish children who may be at risk for language problems from those who may be expected to progress normally

Pointing to visible and invisible targets

We investigated how the visibility of targets influenced the type of point used to provide directions. In Study 1 we asked 605 passersby in three localities for directions to well-known local landmarks. When that landmark was in plain view behind the requester, most respondents pointed with their index fingers, and few respondents pointed more than once. In contrast, when the landmark was not in view, respondents pointed initially with their index fingers, but often elaborated with a whole-hand point. In Study 2, we covertly filmed the responses from 157 passersby we approached for directions, capturing both verbal and gestural responses. As in Study 1, few respondents produced more than one gesture when the target was in plain view and initial points were most likely to be index finger points. Thus, in a Western geographical context in which pointing with the index finger is the dominant form of pointing, a slight change in circumstances elicited a preference for pointing with the whole hand when it was the second or third manual gesture in a sequence

Thinking together: What makes Communities of Practice work?

In this article, we develop the founding elements of the concept of Communities of Practice by elaborating on the learning processes happening at the heart of such communities. In particular, we provide a consistent perspective on the notions of knowledge, knowing and knowledge sharing that is compatible with the essence of this concept – that learning entails an investment of identity and a social formation of a person. We do so by drawing richly from the work of Michael Polanyi and his conception of personal knowledge, and thereby we clarify the scope of Communities of Practice and offer a number of new insights into how to make such social structures perform well in professional settings. The conceptual discussion is substantiated by findings of a qualitative empirical study in the UK National Health Service. As a result, the process of ‘thinking together’ is conceptualized as a key part of meaningful Communities of Practice where people mutually guide each other through their understandings of the same problems in their area of mutual interest, and this way indirectly share tacit knowledge. The collaborative learning process of ‘thinking together’, we argue, is what essentially brings Communities of Practice to life and not the other way round

Commentary: Sex difference differences? A reply to Constantino Dr Meng-Chuan Lai

Messinger et al. found a 3.18 odds ratio of male to female ASD recurrence in 1241 prospectively followed high-risk (HR) siblings. Among high-risk siblings (with and without ASD), as well as among 583 low-risk controls, girls exhibited higher performance on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, as well as lower restricted and repetitive behavior severity scores on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) than boys. That is, female-favoring sex differences in developmental performance and autism traits were evident among low-risk and non-ASD high-risk children, as well as those with ASD. Constantino (Mol Autism) suggests that sex differences in categorical ASD outcomes in Messinger et al. should be understood as a female protective effect. We are receptive to Constantino's (Mol Autism) suggestion, and propose that quantitative sex differences in autism-related features are keys to understanding this female protective effect

Adaptação do inventário parental “Language Use Inventory (LUI)” para crianças entre 18 e 47 meses para o português europeu : estudo piloto

Language acquisition and development takes in account the child’s interaction with the surrounding environment. Daily social interactions with people and communication with others allow the child to acquire language being pragmatics considered a system of rules that support the communicative use of language. Identification and assessment of children at risk for language disorders are crucial in order to carry out an effective early intervention. This study was carried out taking into account first, the relevance of pragmatics as a component of language, and second the lack of assessment tools in Portugal to assess these abilities. Therefore, the aim of this study consists on the translation, adaptation and validation of the inventory “Language Use Inventory” (LUI), to European Portuguese. The LUI is a standardized parent report measure designed to assess pragmatic language development in children within 18- to 47-month-old.Objetivo: A aquisição e o desenvolvimento da linguagem resultam da interação da criança com o meio ambiente. As interações sociais cotidianas com as pessoas e a comunicação com outros permitem que a criança adquira linguagem, sendo a pragmática o sistema de regras que suporta o uso comunicativo da linguagem. A identificação e a avaliação de crianças em risco de desenvolverem transtornos de linguagem são cruciais, tendo em vista a intervenção precoce eficaz. Tendo em vista a relevância da pragmática como componente da linguagem e a escassez, em Portugal, de instrumentos de avaliação da linguagem validados para idades precoces, a finalidade deste estudo consistiu na tradução, adaptação e validação do instrumento Language Use Inventory (LUI), para o português europeu. O LUI é um inventário parental que avalia o desenvolvimento da pragmática entre os 18 e os 47 meses. Métodos: Foram adotados todos os procedimentos recomendados pelas diretrizes internacionais sobre a adaptação de testes, culminando em estudo piloto com uma amostra de 120 inventários, respondidos pelos pais/cuidadores de crianças portuguesas da referida faixa etária. Resultados: Os coeficientes de consistência interna (Alfa de Cronbach) para a versão portuguesa do LUI situaram-se em 0,97 para a escala total e entre 0,71 e 0,96 para as subescalas. Conclusão: Os resultados preliminares dos estudos de adaptação e de validação do LUI-Pt para crianças portuguesas são promissores e asseguram a validade interna desta escala em termos da sua dimensionalidade e consistência interna

The empirical basis for modelling glacial erosion rates

Glaciers are highly effective agents of erosion that have profoundly shaped Earth’s surface, but there is uncertainty about how glacial erosion should be parameterised in landscape evolution models. Glacial erosion rate is usually modelled as a function of glacier sliding velocity, but the empirical basis for this relationship is weak. In turn, climate is assumed to control sliding velocity and hence erosion, but this too lacks empirical scrutiny. Here, we present statistically robust relationships between erosion rates, sliding velocities, and climate from a global compilation of 38 glaciers. We show that sliding is positively and significantly correlated with erosion, and derive a relationship for use in erosion models. Our dataset further demonstrates that the most rapid erosion is achieved at temperate glaciers with high mean annual precipitation, which serve to promote rapid sliding. Precipitation has received little attention in glacial erosion studies, but our data illustrate its importance

Geomorphological evolution of a debris‐covered glacier surface

There exists a need to advance our understanding of debris‐covered glacier surfaces over relatively short timescales due to rapid, climatically induced areal expansion of debris cover at the global scale, and the impact debris has on mass balance. We applied unpiloted aerial vehicle structure‐from‐motion (UAV‐SfM) and digital elevation model (DEM) differencing with debris thickness and debris stability modelling to unravel the evolution of a 0.15 km2 region of the debris‐covered Miage Glacier, Italy, between June 2015 and July 2018. DEM differencing revealed widespread surface lowering (mean 4.1 ± 1.0 m a‐1; maximum 13.3 m a‐1). We combined elevation change data with local meteorological data and a sub‐debris melt model, and used these relationships to produce high resolution, spatially distributed maps of debris thickness. These maps were differenced to explore patterns and mechanisms of debris redistribution. Median debris thicknesses ranged from 0.12 to 0.17 m and were spatially variable. We observed localized debris thinning across ice cliff faces, except those which were decaying, where debris thickened. We observed pervasive debris thinning across larger, backwasting slopes, including those bordered by supraglacial streams, as well as ingestion of debris by a newly exposed englacial conduit. Debris stability mapping showed that 18.2–26.4% of the survey area was theoretically subject to debris remobilization. By linking changes in stability to changes in debris thickness, we observed that slopes that remain stable, stabilize, or remain unstable between periods almost exclusively show net debris thickening (mean 0.07 m a‐1) whilst those which become newly unstable exhibit both debris thinning and thickening. We observe a systematic downslope increase in the rate at which debris cover thickens which can be described as a function of the topographic position index and slope gradient. Our data provide quantifiable insights into mechanisms of debris remobilization on glacier surfaces over sub‐decadal timescales, and open avenues for future research to explore glacier‐scale spatiotemporal patterns of debris remobilization

Intra aortic balloon pump: literature review of risk factors related to complications of the intraaortic balloon pump

The increasing use of the intra aortic balloon pump is attributed to the relatively easy percutaneous insertion and the low threshold of use over the past few years, especially in elderly patients with multi-vessel diseases and an affected ejection fraction

Talk to the Virtual Hands: Self-Animated Avatars Improve Communication in Head-Mounted Display Virtual Environments

Background When we talk to one another face-to-face, body gestures accompany our speech. Motion tracking technology enables us to include body gestures in avatar-mediated communication, by mapping one's movements onto one's own 3D avatar in real time, so the avatar is self-animated. We conducted two experiments to investigate (a) whether head-mounted display virtual reality is useful for researching the influence of body gestures in communication; and (b) whether body gestures are used to help in communicating the meaning of a word. Participants worked in pairs and played a communication game, where one person had to describe the meanings of words to the other. Principal Findings In experiment 1, participants used significantly more hand gestures and successfully described significantly more words when nonverbal communication was available to both participants (i.e. both describing and guessing avatars were self-animated, compared with both avatars in a static neutral pose). Participants ‘passed’ (gave up describing) significantly more words when they were talking to a static avatar (no nonverbal feedback available). In experiment 2, participants' performance was significantly worse when they were talking to an avatar with a prerecorded listening animation, compared with an avatar animated by their partners' real movements. In both experiments participants used significantly more hand gestures when they played the game in the real world. Conclusions Taken together, the studies show how (a) virtual reality can be used to systematically study the influence of body gestures; (b) it is important that nonverbal communication is bidirectional (real nonverbal feedback in addition to nonverbal communication from the describing participant); and (c) there are differences in the amount of body gestures that participants use with and without the head-mounted display, and we discuss possible explanations for this and ideas for future investigation