Writing composition ability and spelling competence in deaf subjects: a psycholinguistic analysis of source of difficulties

We studied the compositional written skills and spelling competence of individuals with a severe hearing impairment, examining qualitative and quantitative characteristics of their texts, the psycholinguistic variables modulating their productions, and writing errors following a fine-grained analysis. Sixteen deaf young adults, educated in bilingual settings, were examined and compared to a group of control hearing subjects matched for gender, age, and education. Writing skills were examined through both written composition and written picture-naming tasks. Concerning compositional skills, deaf participants produced shorter and less informative texts, with fewer adjectives and subordinates, and were qualitatively worse with respect to texts produced by hearing controls. Words produced by deaf participants were those acquired earlier and facilitated by a higher lexical neighbourhood. Errors were mainly semantic, morphological, and syntactic errors, reflecting general linguistic weakness. Spelling errors were few, with phonologically nonplausible misspellings relative to controls, and with phonologically plausible ones being quite rare. In the picture-naming task, deaf people had a greater number of all types of errors with respect to their text, including semantic and morphological errors. Their spelling performance featured mainly phonologically nonplausible misspellings, while phonologically plausible ones were relatively few and comparable to controls. Overall, the writing of deaf adults reveal limitations in grammar and lexical-sematic linguistic competence. This was associated with spelling deficits characterized mainly by the poorer use of phonological sublexical spelling procedures. However, in an ecologic context, their spelling deficits appear not so important as has been claimed in the literature

Cardiorenal Syndrome: A Complex Series of Combined Heart/Kidney Disorders

Over the last decade, it has become increasingly clear that the cardiovascular and renal systems are interdependent. Primary disorders of either system have been shown to disturb the other system. As a result, a class of cardiorenal syndrome (CRS) has been identified wherein a vicious cycle is established in which acute/chronic dysfunction of either the kidney or the heart exacerbates the loss of function in the other organ. The ADQI organization has proposed a classification derived from a consensus conference held in 2008. CRS is classified as a disorder of the heart and kidneys whereby acute or chronic dysfunction in one organ may induce acute or chronic dysfunction in the other. The general definition has been expanded into five subtypes: CRS type 1 = acute worsening of heart function (acute heart failure-acute coronary syndrome) leading to kidney injury and/or dysfunction; CRS type 2 = chronic abnormalities in heart function (chronic heart failure-chronic heart disease) leading to kidney injury or dysfunction; CRS type 3 = acute worsening of kidney function (acute kidney injury) leading to heart injury and/or dysfunction; CRS type 4 = chronic kidney disease (chronic kidney disease) leading to heart injury, disease and/or dysfunction; and CRS type 5 = systemic conditions leading to simultaneous injury and/or dysfunction of heart and kidney. A major problem with previous terminology was that it did not allow for identification of pathophysiological interactions occurring in the different types of combined heart/kidney disorders. The subdivision into different subtypes seems to provide a better approach to this syndrome. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base