An argument for peer teaching role play in home language reading ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Foundation Phase Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (2010) recommends Paired Reading for teaching reading literacy in both Home Language and Additional Language classrooms. This article describes research on the reading histories of teachers enrolled in an in-service Bachelor in Education (B.Ed.) ...

Play to Learn: Self-Directed Home Language Literacy Acquisition through Online Games

Science.gov (United States)

Eisenchlas, Susana A.; Schalley, Andrea C.; Moyes, Gordon

2016-01-01

Home language literacy education in Australia has been pursued predominantly through Community Language Schools. At present, some 1,000 of these, attended by over 100,000 school-age children, cater for 69 of the over 300 languages spoken in Australia. Despite good intentions, these schools face a number of challenges. For instance, children may…

Relations among the Home Language and Literacy Environment and Children's Language Abilities: A Study of Head Start Dual Language Learners and Their Mothers

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Lewis, Kandia; Sandilos, Lia E.; Hammer, Carol Scheffner; Sawyer, Brook E.; Méndez, Lucía I.

2016-01-01

Research Findings: This study explored the relations between Spanish-English dual language learner (DLL) children's home language and literacy experiences and their expressive vocabulary and oral comprehension abilities in Spanish and in English. Data from Spanish-English mothers of 93 preschool-age Head Start children who resided in central…

The influence of maltreatment history and out-of-home-care on children's language and social skills.

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Lum, Jarrad A G; Powell, Martine; Snow, Pamela C

2018-02-01

This study examined the extent to which maltreatment history and the characteristics of out-of-home care correlated with the language and social skills of maltreated children. Participants in this study were 82 maltreated children aged between 5 and 12 years of age. All children were residing with state-designated carers in out-of-home-care. The children were presented with standardised tests assessing language and social skills. Results showed that the sample performed significantly below the normative mean on both tests. Correlation analyses showed social skills, but not language skills were correlated with aspects of maltreatment history. The education level of the state-designated carer/s was correlated with the children's language skills; higher education level was associated with higher language skills. The study provides evidence that at the group level, language and social skills are poor in maltreated children. However, gains in language skills might be made via the out-of-home-care environment. Improvements in the social skills of maltreated children may require additional support. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Multilingual home environment and specific language impairment: a case-control study in Chinese children.

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Cheuk, Daniel Ka Leung; Wong, Virginia; Leung, Gabriel Matthew

2005-07-01

Specific language impairment (SLI) is a common developmental disorder in young children. To investigate the association between multilingual home environment and SLI, we conducted a case-control study in Hong Kong Chinese children over a 4-year period in the Duchess of Kent Children's Hospital. Consecutive medical records of all new referrals below 5 years of age were reviewed and children diagnosed with SLI (case) were compared with those referred with other developmental and behavioural problems who had been assessed as having normal language and overall development (control) using the Griffiths Mental Developmental Scale. SLI was defined as those with a language quotient more than one standard deviation below the mean and below the general developmental quotient in children with normal general developmental quotient, but without neurological or other organic diseases. We used binary and ordinal logistic regression to assess any association between SLI and multilingual exposure at home, adjusting for age and gender of subjects, parental age, education level and occupational status, number of siblings, family history of language delay and main caregiver at home. Multivariable linear regression was used to examine the effect of covariates on the language comprehension and expression standard scores assessed by the Reynell Developmental Language Scale. A total of 326 cases and 304 controls were included. The mean ages of cases and controls were 2.56 and 2.89 years respectively. Boys predominated in both groups (cases, 75.2%; controls, 60.2%). The children were exposed to between one and four languages at home, the major ones being Cantonese Chinese followed by English. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) of SLI was 2.94; [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.82, 4.74] for multilingual compared with monolingual exposure. A significant linear dose-response relationship was found (OR of SLI = 2.58 [1.72, 3.88] for each additional language to which the child was exposed). Male

Home language skills of the third-generation Turkish-Dutch bilingual children in the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bezcioglu, Irem

2016-01-01

With the aim of investigating the role of first language skills in second language acquisition and school achievement in the immigration context, this study presents the findings of the home language skills of the third-generation Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (n=24) living in the Netherlands by

Multilingual children with hearing loss: Factors contributing to language use at home and in early education

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Crowe, Kathryn; McKinnon, David H; McLeod, Sharynne; Ching, Teresa YC

2013-01-01

Understanding the relationship between children’s cultural and linguistic diversity and child, caregiver, and environmental characteristics is important to ensure appropriate educational expectations and provisions. As part of the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) study, children’s caregivers and educators completed questionnaires on demographic characteristics, including the communication mode (oral, manual, or mixed) and languages used in home and early educational environments. This article reports an exploratory analysis to examine factors associated with language use and communication mode of children at 3 years of age. A Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) analysis was performed on data from 406 children to examine factors influencing communication mode and oral language use. The factor that most influenced children’s communication mode at home was the communication mode used by their female caregiver. Children’s communication mode in their early education environment was most related to the communication mode they used at home, and then related to the presence of additional needs in the children, female caregivers’ level of education and the male caregivers’ use of languages other than English (LOTEs). A second exploratory CHAID analysis of data for children from multilingual families (n = 106) indicated that female caregivers’ use of English at home significantly influenced whether children used a LOTE at home. Finally, the use of a LOTE at home was associated with the use of a LOTE in the early education environment. These findings serve as an initial description of the factors that were associated with the communication mode and language use of children with hearing loss. PMID:23519446

Home Literacy Environment and Its Influence on Singaporean Children's Chinese Oral and Written Language Abilities

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Li, Li; Tan, Chee Lay

2016-01-01

In a bilingual environment such as Singaporean Chinese community, the challenge of maintaining Chinese language and sustaining Chinese culture lies in promoting the daily use of Chinese language in oral and written forms among children. Ample evidence showed the effect of the home language and literacy environment (HLE), on children's language and…

Home Language Will Not Take Care of Itself: Vocabulary Knowledge in Trilingual Children in the United Kingdom.

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Mieszkowska, Karolina; Łuniewska, Magdalena; Kołak, Joanna; Kacprzak, Agnieszka; Wodniecka, Zofia; Haman, Ewa

2017-01-01

Language input is crucial for language acquisition and especially for children's vocabulary size. Bilingual children receive reduced input in each of their languages, compared to monolinguals, and are reported to have smaller vocabularies, at least in one of their languages. Vocabulary acquisition in trilingual children has been largely understudied; only a few case studies have been published so far. Moreover, trilingual language acquisition in children has been rarely contrasted with language outcomes of bilingual and monolingual peers. We present a comparison of trilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children (total of 56 participants, aged 4;5-6;7, matched one-to-one for age, gender, and non-verbal IQ) in regard to their receptive and expressive vocabulary (measured by standardized tests), and relative frequency of input in each language (measured by parental report). The monolingual children were speakers of Polish or English, while the bilinguals and trilinguals were migrant children living in the United Kingdom, speaking English as a majority language and Polish as a home language. The trilinguals had another (third) language at home. For the majority language, English, no differences were found across the three groups, either in the receptive or productive vocabulary. The groups differed, however, in their performance in Polish, the home language. The trilinguals had lower receptive vocabulary than the monolinguals, and lower productive vocabulary compared to the monolinguals. The trilinguals showed similar lexical knowledge to the bilinguals. The bilinguals demonstrated lower scores than the monolinguals, but only in productive vocabulary. The data on reported language input show that input in English in bilingual and trilingual groups is similar, but the bilinguals outscore the trilinguals in relative frequency of Polish input. Overall, the results suggest that in the majority language, multilingual children may develop lexical skills similar to those of

Home Language Will Not Take Care of Itself: Vocabulary Knowledge in Trilingual Children in the United Kingdom

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karolina Mieszkowska

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Language input is crucial for language acquisition and especially for children’s vocabulary size. Bilingual children receive reduced input in each of their languages, compared to monolinguals, and are reported to have smaller vocabularies, at least in one of their languages. Vocabulary acquisition in trilingual children has been largely understudied; only a few case studies have been published so far. Moreover, trilingual language acquisition in children has been rarely contrasted with language outcomes of bilingual and monolingual peers. We present a comparison of trilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children (total of 56 participants, aged 4;5–6;7, matched one-to-one for age, gender, and non-verbal IQ in regard to their receptive and expressive vocabulary (measured by standardized tests, and relative frequency of input in each language (measured by parental report. The monolingual children were speakers of Polish or English, while the bilinguals and trilinguals were migrant children living in the United Kingdom, speaking English as a majority language and Polish as a home language. The trilinguals had another (third language at home. For the majority language, English, no differences were found across the three groups, either in the receptive or productive vocabulary. The groups differed, however, in their performance in Polish, the home language. The trilinguals had lower receptive vocabulary than the monolinguals, and lower productive vocabulary compared to the monolinguals. The trilinguals showed similar lexical knowledge to the bilinguals. The bilinguals demonstrated lower scores than the monolinguals, but only in productive vocabulary. The data on reported language input show that input in English in bilingual and trilingual groups is similar, but the bilinguals outscore the trilinguals in relative frequency of Polish input. Overall, the results suggest that in the majority language, multilingual children may develop lexical skills

Encountering Problems at Home and at School: Language and Cognition in Two Settings.

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Martini, Mary

This paper discusses cognitive communicative training in preschool and reports on a study of 11 Hawaiian preschoolers that examined how these children interacted with others, used language, manipulated objects, and solved problems at home and at school. The study observed the children at school and at home over a 5-month period, collecting…

Parenting Styles and Home Literacy Opportunities: Associations with Children's Oral Language Skills

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Bingham, Gary E.; Jeon, Hyun-Joo; Kwon, Kyong-Ah; Lim, Chaehyun

2017-01-01

This study examined associations among parenting style, home literacy practices, and children's language skills. A total of 181 ethnically diverse parents, primarily African American, and their preschool-aged child participated. Results suggest that an authoritative parenting style was positively associated with informal home literacy (book…

English Language Learners: Development and Intervention--An Introduction

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McCardle, Peggy; Leung, Christy Y.Y.

2006-01-01

Nearly one in five Americans speaks a language other than English at home; among Americans speaking languages other than English, the largest single language group is Spanish speaking (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2004). The increase in the total group of language minority individuals has been dramatic, with their proportion in the U.S. population…

Talking Science in Multilingual Contexts in South Africa: Possibilities and challenges for engagement in learners home languages in high school classrooms

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Msimanga, Audrey; Lelliott, Anthony

2014-05-01

This paper discusses the nature of learner engagement with science content during small group discussions in which learners use their home languages. We observed that learners reverted to their home languages in small group discussions, yet very little is known about the dynamics of learner engagement when they use their home languages in classroom discussions in South Africa and elsewhere. We analysed transcripts of discussions by three small groups in a Grade 10 Chemistry class. Contrary to teachers' fears that learners may not engage meaningfully with science content when talking in their home languages, all three groups spent over 90% of discussion time on task. Learners made and supported claims, challenged each others' ideas and questioned each others' thinking. Although the levels of critique varied between the groups, there was evidence of negotiation of understandings of the concepts. We argue that use of learners' home languages for engagement with difficult concepts may be a legitimate resource for science teachers to create opportunities for learner conceptual understanding. Further research is needed to understand the dynamics of teacher and learner use of their languages in science lessons, the best teaching strategies to achieve this, how teacher educators may model these strategies without undermining the need by both parents and learners' for English language proficiency to access social goods.

English Language Learners' Strategies for Reading Computer-Based Texts at Home and in School

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Park, Ho-Ryong; Kim, Deoksoon

2016-01-01

This study investigated four elementary-level English language learners' (ELLs') use of strategies for reading computer-based texts at home and in school. The ELLs in this study were in the fourth and fifth grades in a public elementary school. We identify the ELLs' strategies for reading computer-based texts in home and school environments. We…

Home and Community Language Proficiency in Spanish-English Early Bilingual University Students.

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Schmidtke, Jens

2017-10-17

This study assessed home and community language proficiency in Spanish-English bilingual university students to investigate whether the vocabulary gap reported in studies of bilingual children persists into adulthood. Sixty-five early bilinguals (mean age = 21 years) were assessed in English and Spanish vocabulary and verbal reasoning ability using subtests of the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey-Revised (Schrank & Woodcock, 2009). Their English scores were compared to 74 monolinguals matched in age and level of education. Participants also completed a background questionnaire. Bilinguals scored below the monolingual control group on both subtests, and the difference was larger for vocabulary compared to verbal reasoning. However, bilinguals were close to the population mean for verbal reasoning. Spanish scores were on average lower than English scores, but participants differed widely in their degree of balance. Participants with an earlier age of acquisition of English and more current exposure to English tended to be more dominant in English. Vocabulary tests in the home or community language may underestimate bilingual university students' true verbal ability and should be interpreted with caution in high-stakes situations. Verbal reasoning ability may be more indicative of a bilingual's verbal ability.

Relationship between speaking English as a second language and agitation in people with dementia living in care homes: Results from the MARQUE (Managing Agitation and Raising Quality of life) English national care home survey.

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Cooper, C; Rapaport, P; Robertson, S; Marston, L; Barber, J; Manela, M; Livingston, G

2018-03-01

As not speaking English as a first language may lead to increased difficulties in communication with staff and other residents, we (1) tested our primary hypotheses that care home residents with dementia speaking English as a second language experience more agitation and overall neuropsychiatric symptoms, and (2) explored qualitatively how staff consider that residents' language, ethnicity, and culture might impact on how they manage agitation. We interviewed staff, residents with dementia, and their family carers from 86 care homes (2014-2015) about resident's neuropsychiatric symptoms, agitation, life quality, and dementia severity. We qualitatively interviewed 25 staff. Seventy-one out of 1420 (5%) of care home residents with dementia interviewed spoke English as a second language. After controlling for dementia severity, age, and sex, and accounting for care home and staff proxy clustering, speaking English as a second language compared with as a first language was associated with significantly higher Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (adjusted difference in means 8.3, 95% confidence interval 4.1 to 12.5) and Neuropsychiatric inventory scores (4.1, 0.65 to 7.5). Staff narratives described how linguistic and culturally isolating being in a care home where no residents or staff share your culture or language could be for people with dementia, and how this sometimes caused or worsened agitation. Considering a person with dementia's need to be understood when selecting a care home and developing technology resources to enable dementia-friendly translation services could be important strategies for reducing distress of people with dementia from minority ethnic groups who live in care homes. © 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Preparing isiXhosa home language teachers for the 21st century ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The article is based on data that was collected from Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students taking isiXhosa (home language) as one of their teaching method subjects as part of their pre-service training. The data were collected by means of an open-ended questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and an ...

A Programming Language Approach to Safety in Home Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, Kjeld Høyer; Schougaard, Kari Rye; Schultz, Ulrik Pagh

, even in a worst-case scenario where an unauthorized user gains remote control of the facilities. We address this safety issue at the programming language level by restricting the operations that can be performed on devices according to the physical location of the user initiating the request......-based restrictions on operations. This model has been implemented in a middleware for home AV devices written in Java, using infrared communication and a FireWire network to implement location awareness....

A Programming Language Approach to Safety in Home Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, Kjeld Høyer; Schougaard, Kari Sofie Fogh; Schultz, Ulrik Pagh

2003-01-01

, even in a worst-case scenario where an unauthorized user gains remote control of the facilities. We address this safety issue at the programming language level by restricting the operations that can be performed on devices according to the physical location of the user initiating the request......-based restrictions on operations. This model has been implemented in a middleware for home AV devices written in Java, using infrared communication and a FireWire network to implement location awareness....

Can a Successful ESL Teacher Hold Deficit Beliefs of Her Students' Home Languages and Cultures?

Science.gov (United States)

Hertzog, Lisa

2011-01-01

In this article the author explores the seeming contradictions between the successful teaching practices of an English as a Second Language teacher and the deficit beliefs she expressed toward her students' home languages and cultures. This teacher believed her students were smart and capable, and she held herself accountable for her students…

Home environmental influences on children's language and reading skills in a genetically sensitive design: Are socioeconomic status and home literacy environment environmental mediators and moderators?

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Chow, Bonnie Wing-Yin; Ho, Connie Suk-Han; Wong, Simpson W L; Waye, Mary M Y; Zheng, Mo

2017-12-01

This twin study examined how family socioeconomic status (SES) and home literacy environment (HLE) contributes to Chinese language and reading skills. It included 312 Chinese twin pairs aged 3 to 11. Children were individually administered tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary and reading-related cognitive skills, and nonverbal reasoning ability. Information on home environment was collected through parent-reported questionnaires. Results showed that SES and HLE mediated shared environmental influences but did not moderate genetic influences on general language and reading abilities. Also, SES and HLE mediated shared environmental contributions to receptive vocabulary and syllable and rhyme awareness, but not orthographic skills. The findings of this study add to past twin studies that focused on alphabetic languages, suggesting that these links could be universal across languages. They also extend existing findings on SES and HLE's contributions to reading-related cognitive skills. © 2017 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

EFL Learners' Home Culture Attachment and their Attitudes towards English Language Learning: A structural equation modeling approach

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Zahra Sharifi Feriz

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the present study is to examine home culture attachment construct and its underlying variables among Iranian English as Foreign Language learners as well as their attitudes towards English language learning. Pearson correlation is used with a sample of 411 English major university students from different provinces in Iran, mainly Khorasan Razavi, Khoran Jonoubi and Sistan Baluchestan participated in this study. As for the quantitative phase of data collection, the study employed home culture attachment and attitude towards English language learning questionnaires. The reliability and validity of these questionnaires are reported. A home culture attachment model and an attitude model are also developed and tested using structural equation modeling. The results suggest that all three subscales of attitudes (emotional, behavioral, and cognitive are positive and significant predictors of students' western attachment. From three subscales of attitude, only behavioral attitude is negative and significant predictors of students' religious attachment. In addition, Iranian attachment is influenced by cognitive attitudes and emotional attitudes. Besides, cognitive attitude is a positive and significant predictor of students' cultural attachment. It is also found that, artistic attachment is influenced by behavioral attitudes and emotional attitudes. Finally, the pedagogical implications are discussed in light of foreign language achievement.

Issues of Language Choice, Ethics and Equity: Japanese Retirees Living in Malaysia as Their Second Home

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Stapa, Siti Hamin; Musaev, Talaibek; Hieda, Natsue; Amzah, Normalis

2013-01-01

This paper will discuss two issues related to Japanese retirees adopting Malaysia as their second home. The first is that of the preferred language choice of the retirees. To collect data for language choice a self-report questionnaire was administered and an interview was conducted. The findings suggest that the majority of the retirees chose…

The Impact of Language Factors on Learner Achievement in Science

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Prinsloo, C. H.; Rogers, S. C.; Harvey, J. C.

2018-01-01

South African learner achievement remains poor, despite large investment in schooling over the last two decades. Literature and research findings offer no single explanation or solution. In this article, the authors explored the relative contribution of specific language factors such as the role of home- and school-language equivalence, cultural…

The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood

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Payne, Brennan R.; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A. L.

2017-01-01

Effective language understanding is crucial to maintaining cognitive abilities and learning new information through adulthood. However, age-related declines in working memory (WM) have a robust negative influence on multiple aspects of language comprehension and use, potentially limiting communicative competence. In the current study (N = 41), we examined the effects of a novel home-based computerized cognitive training program targeting verbal WM on changes in verbal WM and language comprehension in healthy older adults relative to an active component-control group. Participants in the WM training group showed non-linear improvements in performance on trained verbal WM tasks. Relative to the active control group, WM training participants also showed improvements on untrained verbal WM tasks and selective improvements across untrained dimensions of language, including sentence memory, verbal fluency, and comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Though the current study is preliminary in nature, it does provide initial promising evidence that WM training may influence components of language comprehension in adulthood and suggests that home-based training of WM may be a viable option for probing the scope and limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults. PMID:28848421

The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood.

Science.gov (United States)

Payne, Brennan R; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A L

2017-01-01

Effective language understanding is crucial to maintaining cognitive abilities and learning new information through adulthood. However, age-related declines in working memory (WM) have a robust negative influence on multiple aspects of language comprehension and use, potentially limiting communicative competence. In the current study ( N = 41), we examined the effects of a novel home-based computerized cognitive training program targeting verbal WM on changes in verbal WM and language comprehension in healthy older adults relative to an active component-control group. Participants in the WM training group showed non-linear improvements in performance on trained verbal WM tasks. Relative to the active control group, WM training participants also showed improvements on untrained verbal WM tasks and selective improvements across untrained dimensions of language, including sentence memory, verbal fluency, and comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Though the current study is preliminary in nature, it does provide initial promising evidence that WM training may influence components of language comprehension in adulthood and suggests that home-based training of WM may be a viable option for probing the scope and limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults.

The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brennan R. Payne

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Effective language understanding is crucial to maintaining cognitive abilities and learning new information through adulthood. However, age-related declines in working memory (WM have a robust negative influence on multiple aspects of language comprehension and use, potentially limiting communicative competence. In the current study (N = 41, we examined the effects of a novel home-based computerized cognitive training program targeting verbal WM on changes in verbal WM and language comprehension in healthy older adults relative to an active component-control group. Participants in the WM training group showed non-linear improvements in performance on trained verbal WM tasks. Relative to the active control group, WM training participants also showed improvements on untrained verbal WM tasks and selective improvements across untrained dimensions of language, including sentence memory, verbal fluency, and comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Though the current study is preliminary in nature, it does provide initial promising evidence that WM training may influence components of language comprehension in adulthood and suggests that home-based training of WM may be a viable option for probing the scope and limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults.

Family Literacy and Second Language Literacy Research: Focus on Language Minority Children

OpenAIRE

Yılıdırım, Özgür

2013-01-01

Problem Statement: Countries like the U. S. A. or Canada have citizens from various ethnic backgrounds. Although English is the dominant language in many parts of these countries, immigrants generally prefer speaking their native language when they are in their homes. Whatever the reason for using native language at home is, when we consider the children in these families, we can say that being exposed to different languages at home and at school may be a problem for their language developmen...

Analysis of the Lifecycle Impacts and Potential for Avoided Impacts Associated with Single Family Homes

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Learn how recovering construction and demolition materials from single-family homes and reusing them in building and road construction and other applications helps offset the environmental impacts associated with single-family homes.

The Impact of Socioeconomic Status and Population Size on the Use of the Tatar Language at Home

Science.gov (United States)

Tovar-García, Edgar Demetrio; Podmazin, Evgeny

2018-01-01

Based on econometric methods, we found that Tatar children from families with better material conditions and those who live in bigger cities are more likely to use the Russian language at home. Although Tatar seems to be well protected, thanks to local language policies after perestroika, we found some warning signs for the reformulation of public…

Randomized trial of a population-based, home-delivered intervention for preschool language delay.

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Wake, Melissa; Tobin, Sherryn; Levickis, Penny; Gold, Lisa; Ukoumunne, Obioha C; Zens, Naomi; Goldfeld, Sharon; Le, Ha; Law, James; Reilly, Sheena

2013-10-01

Population approaches to lessen the adverse impacts of preschool language delay remain elusive. We aimed to determine whether systematic ascertainment of language delay at age 4 years, followed by a 10-month, 1-on-1 intervention, improves language and related outcomes at age 5 years. A randomized trial nested within a cross-sectional ascertainment of language delay. Children with expressive and/or receptive language scores more than 1.25 SD below the mean at age 4 years entered the trial. Children randomly allocated to the intervention received 18 1-hour home-based therapy sessions. The primary outcomes were receptive and expressive language (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Preschool, 2(nd) Edition) and secondary outcomes were child phonological skills, letter awareness, pragmatic skills, behavior, and quality of life. A total of 1464 children were assessed for language delay at age 4 years. Of 266 eligible children, 200 (13.6%) entered the trial, with 91 intervention (92% of 99) and 88 control (87% of 101) children retained at age 5 years. At age 5 years, there was weak evidence of benefit to expressive (adjusted mean difference, intervention - control, 2.0; 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.5 to 4.4; P = .12) but not receptive (0.6; 95% CI -2.5 to 3.8; P = .69) language. The intervention improved phonological awareness skills (5.0; 95% CI 2.2 to 7.8; P language intervention was successfully delivered by non-specialist staff, found to be acceptable and feasible, and has the potential to improve long-term consequences of early language delay within a public health framework.

Foreign body aspiration and language spoken at home: 10-year review.

Science.gov (United States)

Choroomi, S; Curotta, J

2011-07-01

To review foreign body aspiration cases encountered over a 10-year period in a tertiary paediatric hospital, and to assess correlation between foreign body type and language spoken at home. Retrospective chart review of all children undergoing direct laryngobronchoscopy for foreign body aspiration over a 10-year period. Age, sex, foreign body type, complications, hospital stay and home language were analysed. At direct laryngobronchoscopy, 132 children had foreign body aspiration (male:female ratio 1.31:1; mean age 32 months (2.67 years)). Mean hospital stay was 2.0 days. Foreign bodies most commonly comprised food matter (53/132; 40.1 per cent), followed by non-food matter (44/132; 33.33 per cent), a negative endoscopy (11/132; 8.33 per cent) and unknown composition (24/132; 18.2 per cent). Most parents spoke English (92/132, 69.7 per cent; vs non-English-speaking 40/132, 30.3 per cent), but non-English-speaking patients had disproportionately more food foreign bodies, and significantly more nut aspirations (p = 0.0065). Results constitute level 2b evidence. Patients from non-English speaking backgrounds had a significantly higher incidence of food (particularly nut) aspiration. Awareness-raising and public education is needed in relevant communities to prevent certain foods, particularly nuts, being given to children too young to chew and swallow them adequately.

MINORITY LANGUAGES IN ESTONIAN SEGREGATIVE LANGUAGE ENVIRONMENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elvira Küün

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The goal of this project in Estonia was to determine what languages are spoken by students from the 2nd to the 5th year of basic school at their homes in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. At the same time, this problem was also studied in other segregated regions of Estonia: Kohtla-Järve and Maardu. According to the database of the population census from the year 2000 (Estonian Statistics Executive Office's census 2000, there are representatives of 142 ethnic groups living in Estonia, speaking a total of 109 native languages. At the same time, the database doesn’t state which languages are spoken at homes. The material presented in this article belongs to the research topic “Home Language of Basic School Students in Tallinn” from years 2007–2008, specifically financed and ordered by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (grant No. ETF 7065 in the framework of an international study called “Multilingual Project”. It was determined what language is dominating in everyday use, what are the factors for choosing the language for communication, what are the preferred languages and language skills. This study reflects the actual trends of the language situation in these cities.

77 FR 23238 - Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals: Standard Work Specifications for Single Family Energy...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-18

...: Comments on the Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals: Standard Work Specifications for Single Family... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals: Standard Work Specifications for Single Family Energy Upgrades AGENCY: Office of Energy...

Inequality and the Home Learning Environment: Predictions about Seven-Year-Olds' Language and Literacy

Science.gov (United States)

Hartas, Dimitra

2012-01-01

Using a UK representative sample from the Millennium Cohort Study, the present study examined the unique and cumulative contribution of children's characteristics and attitudes to school, home learning environment and family's socio-economic background to children's language and literacy at the end of Key Stage 1 (age seven-years-old).…

Europe's Babylon: Towards a Single European Language? Esperanto Documents 41A.

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Fettes, Mark

Discussion of the establishment of a single language for Europe's many countries and cultures focuses on the debate over English versus Esperanto as the language of choice. It is argued that the notion that language has not been a major barrier to intellectual exchange is a myth. In addition, while the main European political institutions support…

Language Choice and Language Policies in Filipino-Malaysian Families in Multilingual Malaysia

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Dumanig, Francisco Perlas; David, Maya Khemlani; Shanmuganathan, Thilagavathi

2013-01-01

Personal, social, cultural, economic, and political factors influence the language/s used by family members in the home domain. This study examines how family language policies are planned and developed in Filipino-Malaysian families in Malaysia. The language used at home in such mixed or exogamous marriages is also influenced by the ethnicity of…

Heritage Language Acquisition and Maintenance: Home Literacy Practices of Japanese-Speaking Families in Canada

Science.gov (United States)

Nomura, Takako; Caidi, Nadia

2013-01-01

Introduction: In this study, we examine the case of Japanese-speaking families in Canada and their experiences with teaching a heritage language at home, along with the uses and perceived usefulness of public library resources, collections, and services in the process. Methods: We interviewed fourteen mothers who speak Japanese to their children.…

Rural Navajo Students in Kayenta Unified School District's Special Education Programs: The Effects of Home Location and Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Heimbecker, Connie; Bradley-Wilkinson, Evangeline; Nelson, Bernita; Smith, Jody; Whitehair, Marsha; Begay, Mary H.; Bradley, Brian; Gamble, Armanda; McCarty, Nellie; Medina, Catherine; Nelson, Jacob; Pettigrew, Bobbie; Sealander, Karen; Snyder, Maria; White, Sherri; Redsteer, Denise; Prater, Greg

In Kayenta Unified School District (KUSD) on the Navajo Reservation, 92 percent of students come from homes where Navajo is the primary language, but many students entering school are not fluent in either English or Navajo. A survey of 23 educators examined the effects of language and culture on the likelihood that a student would be placed in…

The Home Literacy Environment: Exploring How Media and Parent-Child Interactions Are Associated with Children's Language Production

Science.gov (United States)

Liebeskind, Kara G.; Piotrowski, Jessica T.; Lapierre, Matthew A.; Linebarger, Deborah L.

2014-01-01

Children who start school with strong language skills initiate a trajectory of academic success, while children with weaker skills are likely to struggle. Research has demonstrated that media and parent-child interactions, both characteristics of the home literacy environment, influence children's language skills. Using a national sample of…

Reading Strategies to Support Home-to-School Connections Used by Teachers of English Language Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Mendoza, Socorro

2016-01-01

This particularistic qualitative case study design examined reading strategies, approaches, and resources teachers of ELL (English Language Learner) students in kindergarten through third grade use to support reading development and promote the home to school connection regarding literacy proficiency. The purpose of this study was to examine…

HomePort

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Per Printz

2009-01-01

In the last couple of year's computer based home control systems are getting more and more common in modern homes. For instance these systems take care of light control, heat control and security systems.  The latest trend is to use wireless communication like Z-Wave and ZigBee to interconnect...... different components in these systems. One of the characteristics is that each system, like for instance heat and light, has their own specific way of using the communication system.   This paper describes a way to connect different home control systems through an intelligent gateway, called a Home......Port. The HomePort consists of a number of Subsystem communication drivers, a virtual communication layer, an interpreter and a PC- based compiler for a high level control language, called GIL (Gateway intelligence language). The focus in this paper will be on the upper two layers in the Home...

Differential Influences of Parental Home Literacy Practices and Anxiety in English as a Foreign Language on Chinese Children's English Development

Science.gov (United States)

Chow, Bonnie Wing-Yin; Chui, Barbie Hiu-Tung; Lai, Michael Wei-Chun; Kwok, Sylvia Y. C. L.

2017-01-01

This study investigated the differential influences of maternal and paternal factors on Chinese children's English as a foreign language development. It took into account both behavioral (i.e. parental home literacy practices, HLP; and children's vocabulary knowledge) and emotional (i.e. parental and children's foreign language reading anxiety,…

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AUGMENTATIVE AND ALTERNATIVE DIGITAL HOME CONTROL INTERFACE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matteo Pastorino

2013-05-01

Full Text Available An inquiry of the National Statistics Institute of Spain shows that 74% of the Spanish population with disabilities suffers some kind of limitation performing Daily Basic Activities, while 1.39 million cannot perform them at all without the assistance of specialized personnel. Digital Home Systems could mitigate disabled people’s difficulties to carry out those activities, giving the opportunity to manage home appliances through a single control. Digital Home Systems have to provide specific and adapted control interfaces based on Augmentative and Alternative Communication languages in order to be an efficient solution to the problem and to allow most vulnerable groups of people with disabilities to reach the highest level of autonomy.  This paper describes a Digital Home Interface capable of adapting layouts, styles and contents to device capability, user preferences and appliances’ features; designed with a combination of web technologies, standard languages for abstract interface definition and AAC systems.

The Importance of SES, Home and School Language and Literacy Practices, and Oral Vocabulary in Bilingual Children's English Reading Development

Science.gov (United States)

Howard, Elizabeth R.; Páez, Mariela M.; August, Diane L.; Barr, Christopher D.; Kenyon, Dorry; Malabonga, Valerie

2014-01-01

This study explores the role that socioeconomic status (SES), home and school language and literacy practices, and oral vocabulary play in the development of English reading skills in Latino English language learners (ELLs) and how these factors contribute differentially to English reading outcomes for children of different ages and in different…

Smoke-free homes among single-parent families: Differences associated with parental race/ethnicity and smoking behaviors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yujiao Mai

2018-03-01

Full Text Available We assessed differences in the rates of smoke-free homes among single-parent households with regard to parental race/ethnicity and smoking status. We identified two cohorts representative of the U.S. single-parent households with underage children (children under the age of 18 based on the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey: 2010–11 (n=6474 and 2014–15 (n=6114. The interviews were conducted by phone and in-person. Statistical analysis was performed in 2017. The overall rate of smoke-free homes was 82% in 2010–11 and 86% in 2014–15. The rate of a smoke-free home was highest for Non-Hispanic (NH Asian (94% and Hispanic (92% parents and lowest for NH Multiracial (77% in 2010–11 and 82% in 2014–15 in both survey periods. However, 2014–15 model-based comparisons relative to NH Whites indicated only one significant difference: the rate was lower for NH Blacks (OR=0.46, 99% CI=0.32:0.66. The smoke-free homes were least prevalent among daily smokers, followed by occasional smokers, followed by former smokers, and most prevalent among never smokers in each survey period. The 2010–11 and 2014–15 rates were 45% and 54% for daily, 64% and 72% for occasional, 89% and 91% for former, and 93% and 94% for never smokers. The gap in the rates of smoke-free homes for diverse parental racial/ethnic groups observed in 2010–11 decreased by 2014–15. While smoke-free homes became more prevalent in 2014–15, the rates remain drastically different among families with different parental smoking behaviors. Exposure to secondhand smoke at home remains common among single-parent households where the parent smokes. Keywords: Involuntary exposure to secondhand smoke, Single mother, Single father, Healthy home environment

Family Literacy and Second Language Literacy Research: Focus on Language Minority Children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Özgür Yıldırım

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Problem Statement: Countries like the U. S. A. or Canada have citizens from various ethnic backgrounds. Although English is the dominant language in many parts of these countries, immigrants generally prefer speaking their native language when they are in their homes. Whatever the reason for using native language at home is, when we consider the children in these families, we can say that being exposed to different languages at home and at school may be a problem for their language development.Purpose of Study: There are many studies conducted in order to better understand the problems of language minority children. A great deal of literature on language minority students focuses on the ties between these children‟s literacy development and their literacy practices at home. In other words, these studies aim to see how the literacy events these children are exposed to at home affect their literacy learning in the second language.Methods: This paper is an attempt to put together and discuss various theoretical and empirical studies conducted on the literacy development of language minority children in English speaking countries.Findings: Literacy education of language minority students is not an easy task. It is very complicated and difficult to achieve as it requires a complete collaboration among all the responsible parties (teachers, families, researchers, education policy makers, school administrators. Conclusion and Recommendations: Successful collaboration among all the involved parties would bring successful outcomes in terms of children‟s healthy literacy development. The collaboration between teachers and families is the most vital one because these two parties are the ones that have one-to-one interaction with children.

Time Spent in Home Production Activities by Married Couples and Single Adults with Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Douthitt, Robin A.

1988-01-01

A study found that, over time, married women employed full time have not decreased the time spent working in the home. Married men with young children have increased the time spent on home work. Single parents' time most closely resembled that of married women. (JOW)

Issues of validity and generalisability in the Grade 12 English Home Language examination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

du Plessis, Colleen Lynne

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Very little research has been devoted to evaluating the national English Home Language (HL curriculum and assessment system. Not only is there a lack of clarity on whether the language subject is being offered at an adequately high level to meet the declared objectives of the curriculum, but the reliability of the results obtained by Grade 12 learners in the exit-level examination has been placed under suspicion. To shed some light on the issue, this study takes a close look at the language component of the school-leaving examination covering the period 2008-2012, to see whether evidence of high language ability can be generated through the current selection of task types and whether the inferred ability can be generalised to non-examination contexts. Of primary interest here are the validity of the construct on which the examination is built and the sub-abilities that are being measured, as well as the validity of the scoring. One of the key findings of the study is that the language papers cannot be considered indicators of advanced and differential language ability, only of basic and general proficiency. The lack of specifications in the design of the examination items and construction of the marking memoranda undermine the validity and reliability of the assessment. As a consequence hereof, the inferences made on the basis of the scores obtained by examinees are highly subjective and cannot be generalised to other domains of language use. The study hopes to draw attention to the importance of the format and design of the examination papers in maintaining educational standards.

Incorporating Language Structure in a Communicative Task: An Analysis of the Language Component of a Communicative Task in the LINC Home Study Program

Science.gov (United States)

Lenchuk, Iryna

2014-01-01

The purpose of this article is to analyze a task included in the LINC Home Study (LHS) program. LHS is a federally funded distance education program offered to newcomers to Canada who are unable to attend regular LINC classes. A task, in which a language structure (a gerund) is chosen and analyzed, was selected from one instructional module of LHS…

Relations among Home Literacy Environment, Child Characteristics and Print Knowledge for Preschool Children with Language Impairment

Science.gov (United States)

Sawyer, Brook E.; Justice, Laura M.; Guo, Ying; Logan, Jessica A. R.; Petrill, Stephen A.; Glenn-Applegate, Katherine; Kaderavek, Joan N.; Pentimonti, Jill M.

2014-01-01

To contribute to the modest body of work examining the home literacy environment (HLE) and emergent literacy outcomes for children with disabilities, this study addressed two aims: (a) to determine the unique contributions of the HLE on print knowledge of preschool children with language impairment and (b) to identify whether specific child…

Depressive Mood, the Single-Parent Home, and Adolescent Cigarette Smoking.

Science.gov (United States)

Covey, Lirio S.; Tam, Debbie

1990-01-01

Examines the relationship between depressive mood and cigarette smoking among a sample of 123 adolescent males and 82 adolescent females. Finds an independent relation of depressive mood, friends' smoking behavior, and living in a single-parent home. Concludes that depressive mood and stress may contribute to the onset of smoking. (FMW)

Malaysian sign language dataset for automatic sign language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences. Journal Home · ABOUT ... SL recognition system based on the Malaysian Sign Language (MSL). Implementation results are described. Keywords: sign language; pattern classification; database.

The home literacy environment: exploring how media and parent-child interactions are associated with children’s language production

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liebeskind, K.G.; Piotrowski, J.; Lapierre, M.A.; Linebarger, D.L.

2014-01-01

Children who start school with strong language skills initiate a trajectory of academic success, while children with weaker skills are likely to struggle. Research has demonstrated that media and parent-child interactions, both characteristics of the home literacy environment, influence children's

Weatherization and Indoor Air Quality: Measured Impacts in Single Family Homes Under the Weatherization Assistance Program

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pigg, Scott [Energy Center of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Cautley, Dan [Energy Center of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Francisco, Paul [Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Hawkins, Beth A [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Brennan, Terry M [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

2014-09-01

This report summarizes findings from a national field study of indoor air quality parameters in homes treated under the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). The study involved testing and monitoring in 514 single-family homes (including mobile homes) located in 35 states and served by 88 local weatherization agencies.

Relationship between speaking English as a second language and agitation in people with dementia living in care homes: Results from the MARQUE (Managing Agitation and Raising Quality of life) English national care home survey

OpenAIRE

Cooper, C.; Rapaport, P.; Robertson, S.; Marston, L.; Barber, J.; Manela, M.; Livingston, G.

2017-01-01

OBJECTIVE: As not speaking English as a first language may lead to increased difficulties in communication with staff and other residents, we (1) tested our primary hypotheses that care home residents with dementia speaking English as a second language experience more agitation and overall neuropsychiatric symptoms, and (2) explored qualitatively how staff consider that residents' language, ethnicity, and culture might impact on how they manage agitation. METHODS: We interviewed st...

Bilingual Mothers' Language Choice in Child-directed Speech: Continuity and Change.

Science.gov (United States)

De Houwer, Annick; Bornstein, Marc H

2016-01-01

An important aspect of Family Language Policy in bilingual families is parental language choice. Little is known about the continuity in parental language choice and the factors affecting it. This longitudinal study explores maternal language choice over time. Thirty-one bilingual mothers provided reports of what language(s) they spoke with their children. Mother-child interactions were videotaped when children were pre-verbal (5M), producing words in two languages (20M), and fluent speakers (53M). All children had heard two languages from birth in the home. Most mothers reported addressing children in the same single language. Observational data confirmed mothers' use of mainly a single language in interactions with their children, but also showed the occasional use of the other language in over half the sample when children were 20 months. Once children were 53 months mothers again used only the same language they reported speaking to children. These findings reveal a possible effect of children's overall level of language development and demonstrate the difficulty of adhering to a strict "one person, one language" policy. The fact that there was longitudinal continuity in the language most mothers mainly spoke with children provided children with cumulative language input learning opportunities.

77 FR 19008 - Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals: Standard Work Specifications for Single Family Energy...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-03-29

.... The development of the Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals: Standard Work Specifications for... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals: Standard Work Specifications for Single Family Energy Upgrades AGENCY: Office of Energy...

Short message service (SMS) language and written language skills ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

SMS language is English language slang, used as a means of mobile phone text messaging. This practice may impact on the written language skills of learners at school. The main aim of this study was to determine the perspectives of Grade 8 and 9 English (as Home Language) educators in Gauteng regarding the ...

Effects of Home Environment and Center-Based Child Care Quality on Children's Language, Communication, and Literacy Outcomes

Science.gov (United States)

Pinto, Ana Isabel; Pessanha, Manuela; Aguiar, Cecilia

2013-01-01

This study examined the joint effects of home environment and center-based child care quality on children's language, communication, and early literacy development, while also considering prior developmental level. Participants were 95 children (46 boys), assessed as toddlers (mean age = 26.33 months; Time 1) and preschoolers (mean age = 68.71…

Infants and Toddlers with Hearing Loss from Bilingual Homes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christine Yoshinaga-Itano

2016-10-01

Full Text Available This article provides information about intervention strategies for children who are deaf or hard of hearing in non-English speaking homes with research data on children in Spanish-speaking homes living in the United States.  A description of the language learning environment of these families are compared to children with typical development in Spanish-speaking homes, children who are deaf or hard of hearing in English-speaking homes and children with typical development in English-speaking homes.  The language learning environment includes the average number of adult words, of conversational turns, and child vocalizations in an average day, as well as the percent of the day in silence, in noise, with TV/radio, with distant language and meaningful language. 

Language of Instruction and Instructed Languages in Mauritius

Science.gov (United States)

Sonck, Gerda

2005-01-01

Mauritius is a multilingual country with English, French and Creole as the main languages, and several ancestral languages which are mainly used for religious ceremonies. Most children speak Creole at home and learn English, French and one ancestral language in the first year of primary school. The educational dropout rate is 40-50% after primary…

Short Message Service (SMS) Language and Written Language Skills: Educators' Perspectives

Science.gov (United States)

Geertsema, Salomé; Hyman, Charene; van Deventer, Chantelle

2011-01-01

SMS language is English language slang, used as a means of mobile phone text messaging. This practice may impact on the written language skills of learners at school. The main aim of this study was to determine the perspectives of Grade 8 and 9 English (as Home Language) educators in Gauteng regarding the possible influence of SMS language on…

Laparoendoscopic single-site repair of bladder rupture using a home-made single-port device: initial experience of treatment for a traumatic intraperitoneal bladder rupture.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Joo Yong; Kang, Dong Hyuk; Lee, Seung Wook

2012-06-01

We report our initial experience with a laparoendoscopic single-site (LESS) repair of a bladder rupture using a home-made single-port device. A 37-year-old man presented to the emergency department with complaints of voiding difficulty and gross hematuria after blunt trauma. Cystography and computed tomography revealed an intraperitoneal bladder rupture. The patient underwent LESS repair of a bladder rupture using the Alexis wound retractor, which was inserted through the umbilical incision. A home-made single-port device was made by fixing 6½ surgical gloves to the outer rim of the retractor and securing the glove finger to the end of 3 trocars with a tie. Using the flexible laparoscopic instruments and rigid instruments, LESS surgery was performed using a procedure similar to conventional laparoscopic surgery. The patient did not have any voiding problem after removal of the urethral Foley catheter on the 10th postoperative day. To our knowledge, this is the first published report of LESS repair of a traumatic bladder rupture using a home-made single-port device in the literature.

Multilingual children with hearing loss: Factors contributing to language use at home and in early education

OpenAIRE

Crowe, Kathryn; McKinnon, David H; McLeod, Sharynne; Ching, Teresa YC

2013-01-01

Understanding the relationship between children’s cultural and linguistic diversity and child, caregiver, and environmental characteristics is important to ensure appropriate educational expectations and provisions. As part of the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) study, children’s caregivers and educators completed questionnaires on demographic characteristics, including the communication mode (oral, manual, or mixed) and languages used in home and early educa...

Employment, Work Conditions, and the Home Environment in Single-Mother Families

Science.gov (United States)

Lleras, Christy

2008-01-01

This study investigates the impact of employment status and work conditions on the quality of the home environment provided by single mothers of preschool-age children. Multivariate analyses were conducted using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The results indicate that employment status is not a significant predictor of the…

Speech and Language Delay

Science.gov (United States)

... OTC Relief for Diarrhea Home Diseases and Conditions Speech and Language Delay Condition Speech and Language Delay Share Print Table of Contents1. ... Treatment6. Everyday Life7. Questions8. Resources What is a speech and language delay? A speech and language delay ...

A Reconfigurable Design and Architecture of the Ethernet and HomePNA3.0 MAC

Science.gov (United States)

Khalilydermany, M.; Hosseinghadiry, M.

In this paper a reconfigurable architecture for Ethernet and HomePNA MAC is presented. By using this new architecture, Ethernet and HomePNA reconfigurable network card can be produced. This architecture has been implemented using VHDL language and after that synthesized on a chip. The differences between HomePNA (synchronized and unsynchronized mode) and Ethernet in collision detection mechanism and priority access to media have caused the need to separate architectures for Ethernet and HomePNA, but by using similarities of them, both the Ethernet and the HomePNA can be implemented in a single chip with a little extra hardware. The number of logical elements of the proposed architecture is increased by 19% in compare to when only an Ethernet MAC is implemented

Home Canning and Botulism

Science.gov (United States)

... this? Submit What's this? Submit Button Past Emails Home Canning and Botulism Language: English (US) Español (Spanish) ... myself and others safe when it comes to home-canned foods? Many cases of foodborne botulism have ...

Indirect Solar Water Heating in Single-Family, Zero Energy Ready Homes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Aldrich, Robb [Consortium for Advanced Residential Buildings, Norwalk, CT (United States)

2016-02-17

Solar water heating systems are not new, but they have not become prevalent in most of the U.S. Most of the country is cold enough that indirect solar thermal systems are required for freeze protection, and average installed cost of these systems is $9,000 to $10,000 for typical systems on single-family homes. These costs can vary significantly in different markets and with different contractors, and federal and regional incentives can reduce these up-front costs by 50% or more. In western Massachusetts, an affordable housing developer built a community of 20 homes with a goal of approaching zero net energy consumption. In addition to excellent thermal envelopes and PV systems, the developer installed a solar domestic water heating system (SDHW) on each home. The Consortium for Advanced Residential Buildings (CARB), a research consortium funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Building America program, commissioned some of the systems, and CARB was able to monitor detailed performance of one system for 28 months.

Smoke-free homes among single-parent families: Differences associated with parental race/ethnicity and smoking behaviors.

Science.gov (United States)

Mai, Yujiao; Leonardo, Selena; Soulakova, Julia N

2018-03-01

We assessed differences in the rates of smoke-free homes among single-parent households with regard to parental race/ethnicity and smoking status. We identified two cohorts representative of the U.S. single-parent households with underage children (children under the age of 18) based on the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey: 2010-11 ( n  = 6474) and 2014-15 ( n  = 6114). The interviews were conducted by phone and in-person. Statistical analysis was performed in 2017. The overall rate of smoke-free homes was 82% in 2010-11 and 86% in 2014-15. The rate of a smoke-free home was highest for Non-Hispanic (NH) Asian (94%) and Hispanic (92%) parents and lowest for NH Multiracial (77% in 2010-11 and 82% in 2014-15) in both survey periods. However, 2014-15 model-based comparisons relative to NH Whites indicated only one significant difference: the rate was lower for NH Blacks (OR = 0.46, 99% CI = 0.32:0.66). The smoke-free homes were least prevalent among daily smokers, followed by occasional smokers, followed by former smokers, and most prevalent among never smokers in each survey period. The 2010-11 and 2014-15 rates were 45% and 54% for daily, 64% and 72% for occasional, 89% and 91% for former, and 93% and 94% for never smokers. The gap in the rates of smoke-free homes for diverse parental racial/ethnic groups observed in 2010-11 decreased by 2014-15. While smoke-free homes became more prevalent in 2014-15, the rates remain drastically different among families with different parental smoking behaviors. Exposure to secondhand smoke at home remains common among single-parent households where the parent smokes.

Health Literacy - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Health Literacy URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... W XYZ List of All Topics All Health Literacy - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Cosmetic Dentistry - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Cosmetic Dentistry URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... W XYZ List of All Topics All Cosmetic Dentistry - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Preschool language interventions for latino dual language learners with language disorders: what, in what language, and how.

Science.gov (United States)

Simon-Cereijido, Gabriela

2015-05-01

About a quarter of young children in the United States are dual language learners. The large majority are Latino children who are exposed to Spanish in their homes. The language needs of Latino dual language preschoolers are different from the needs of monolingual English-speaking children. As a group, they are likely to live in environments that put them at risk of delays in language development. This situation is direr for dual language preschoolers with language impairment. Recent findings from studies on interventions for Spanish-English preschoolers with language impairment suggest that a bilingual approach does not delay English vocabulary and oral language learning and promotes Spanish maintenance. Targets and strategies for different language domains are described. The effects of pullout versus push-in interventions for this population are preliminarily explored. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

Atrial Fibrillation - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Atrial Fibrillation URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Atrial Fibrillation - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Domestic Violence - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Domestic Violence URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Domestic Violence - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Herbal Medicine - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Herbal Medicine URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Herbal Medicine - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Elder Abuse - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Elder Abuse URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Elder Abuse - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Zika Virus - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Zika Virus URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Zika Virus - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Diabetic Foot - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Diabetic Foot URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Diabetic Foot - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Child Abuse - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Child Abuse URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/languages/ ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Child Abuse - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on ...

Exporting the European Idea of a National Language: Some Educational Implications of the Use of English and Indigenous Languages in the Philippines

Science.gov (United States)

Smolicz, Jerzy J.; Nical, Illuminado

1997-09-01

The Philippines has a bilingual education policy, using English and a major indigenous language, Tagalog, renamed "Filipino". This article describes a study on the problem facing approximately two thirds of the population who do not have English or Filipino as their first or home language. Senior secondary school students were asked abut their attitudes towards English, Filipino and their home language (Cebuana, Ilocano or Waray). Attitudes to the three languages differed. Some respondents favoured Filipino over English, others vice versa. Most respondents showed attachment to their home languages. The study concluded that it is possible for Filipinos to be literate in their mother tongue and still be fluent in Filipino, as the national language of the country, with English continuing in its role as the international language.

Predictors of maternal language to infants during a picture book task in the home: Family SES, child characteristics and the parenting environment☆

OpenAIRE

Vernon-Feagans, Lynne; Pancsofar, Nadya; Willoughby, Mike; Odom, Erica; Quade, Alison; Cox, Martha

2008-01-01

This study investigated the contribution of child characteristics and parenting environment to the relationship between family SES/demographic characteristics and maternal language to infants.1157 children were drawn from a representative sample of 1292 infants born to mothers in rural Appalachian counties and rural counties in southern minority U.S. communities. Mothers and their 6–8 month old babies were videotaped at home while talking about a wordless picture book. Mothers' language outpu...

Long-Term Relations between Children's Language, the Home Literacy Environment, and Socioemotional Development from Ages 3 to 8

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, Elisabeth; Lehrl, Simone; Ebert, Susanne; Weinert, Sabine

2018-01-01

Research Findings: This study investigated the long-term interrelations among children's language competencies, their home literacy environment (HLE), and 3 aspects of socioemotional development from ages 3 to 8, controlling for characteristics of the child and family. For this sample of 547 typically developing German children, parents and…

Vocabulary Development at Home: A Multimedia Elaborated Picture Supporting Parent-Toddler Interaction

Science.gov (United States)

Gremmen, M. C.; Molenaar, I.; Teepe, R. C.

2016-01-01

Some children enter elementary school with large vocabulary delays, which negatively influence their later school performance. A rich home language environment can support vocabulary development through frequent high-quality parent-toddler interaction. Elaborated picture home activities can support this rich home language environment. This study…

Predictors of maternal language to infants during a picture book task in the home: Family SES, child characteristics and the parenting environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Vernon-Feagans, Lynne; Pancsofar, Nadya; Willoughby, Mike; Odom, Erica; Quade, Alison; Cox, Martha

2008-01-01

This study investigated the contribution of child characteristics and parenting environment to the relationship between family SES/demographic characteristics and maternal language to infants.1157 children were drawn from a representative sample of 1292 infants born to mothers in rural Appalachian counties and rural counties in southern minority U.S. communities. Mothers and their 6-8 month old babies were videotaped at home while talking about a wordless picture book. Mothers' language output and complexity were analyzed. Child temperament, age, and parenting environment (knowledge of child development and observed mother-child engagement) were predictors of maternal language. Furthermore, their inclusion reduced the magnitude of the association between demographic characteristics and maternal language. Tests of mediation suggested that the parenting environment partially mediates the relationship between SES/demographic characteristics and maternal language. Findings are discussed with respect to identifying proximal processes that explain how SES may exert its influence on the language of young children.

Cochlear-implanted children from homes where English is an additional language: findings from a recent audit in one London centre.

Science.gov (United States)

Mahon, M; Vickers, D; McCarthy, K; Barker, R; Merritt, R; Szagun, G; Mann, W; Rajput, K

2011-05-01

A 5-year retrospective audit of demographic, audiological, and other records of 147 children implanted at one London centre was conducted. The aim was to detail the number of children implanted, with a specific focus on children from families with English as an additional language (EAL), and to compare these children with children from monolingual English-speaking families on a variety of characteristics known to affect paediatric cochlear implant outcomes. In all, 28% of children were from families where English is an additional language, with 15 different languages recorded. There were no differences between EAL and English-speaking children with respect to age of implantation; bilateral versus unilateral implants or hearing levels in better ear. There were differences between these groups in aetiology, in the occurrence of additional needs, and in educational placements. Information about speech and language outcomes was difficult to gather. Conclusions indicate the need for more detailed record-keeping especially about children's home languages for purposes of planning intervention and for the inclusion of children with EAL in future studies.

Salmonella Infections - Multiple Languages

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Rotavirus Infections - Multiple Languages

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Home environment as a predictor of child's language: A mediating role of family literacy activities and symbolic play

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Urška Fekonja-Peklaj

2015-06-01

Full Text Available In our study, we explored the ways in which SES-related factors of family environment affect child's language across toddlerhood and early childhood. We proposed a mediational path model in which we presumed that family literacy activities and parental encouragement of symbolic play acted as mediating variables, mediating the effect of parental education, family possessions and parent-to-child speech on child's language. The sample included 99 families with children, aged from 1 to 6 years. The data were collected in the family home, mostly via direct observation and by using a semi-structured interview with parents. The findings suggest that high-SES parents and parents who used a more complex and supportive speech, more frequently involved their children in different literacy activities. The effect of the parent-to-child speech on child's language proved to be mediated by parental use of mental transformations during symbolic play with a child.

Patient-provider language concordance and colorectal cancer screening.

Science.gov (United States)

Linsky, Amy; McIntosh, Nathalie; Cabral, Howard; Kazis, Lewis E

2011-02-01

Patient-provider language barriers may play a role in health-care disparities, including obtaining colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. Professional interpreters and language-concordant providers may mitigate these disparities. DESIGN, SUBJECTS, AND MAIN MEASURES: We performed a retrospective cohort study of individuals age 50 years and older who were categorized as English-Concordant (spoke English at home, n = 21,594); Other Language-Concordant (did not speak English at home but someone at their provider's office spoke their language, n = 1,463); or Other Language-Discordant (did not speak English at home and no one at their provider's spoke their language, n = 240). Multivariate logistic regression assessed the association of language concordance with colorectal cancer screening. Compared to English speakers, non-English speakers had lower use of colorectal cancer screening (30.7% vs 50.8%; OR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.51-0.76). Compared to the English-Concordant group, the Language-Discordant group had similar screening (adjusted OR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.58-1.21), while the Language-Concordant group had lower screening (adjusted OR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.46-0.71). Rates of CRC screening are lower in individuals who do not speak English at home compared to those who do. However, the Language-Discordant cohort had similar rates to those with English concordance, while the Language-Concordant cohort had lower rates of CRC screening. This may be due to unmeasured differences among the cohorts in patient, provider, and health care system characteristics. These results suggest that providers should especially promote the importance of CRC screening to non-English speaking patients, but that language barriers do not fully account for CRC screening rate disparities in these populations.

Effects of the teach-model-coach-review instructional approach on caregiver use of language support strategies and children's expressive language skills.

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Roberts, Megan Y; Kaiser, Ann P; Wolfe, Cathy E; Bryant, Julie D; Spidalieri, Alexandria M

2014-10-01

In this study, the authors examined the effects of the Teach-Model-Coach-Review instructional approach on caregivers' use of four enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) language support strategies and on their children's use of expressive language. Four caregiver-child dyads participated in a single-subject, multiple-baseline study. Children were between 24 and 42 months of age and had language impairment. Interventionists used the Teach-Model-Coach-Review instructional approach to teach caregivers to use matched turns, expansions, time delays, and milieu teaching prompts during 24 individualized clinic sessions. Caregiver use of each EMT language support strategy and child use of communication targets were the dependent variables. The caregivers demonstrated increases in their use of each EMT language support strategy after instruction. Generalization and maintenance of strategy use to the home was limited, indicating that teaching across routines is necessary to achieve maximal outcomes. All children demonstrated gains in their use of communication targets and in their performance on norm-referenced measures of language. The results indicate that the Teach-Model-Coach-Review instructional approach resulted in increased use of EMT language support strategies by caregivers. Caregiver use of these strategies was associated with positive changes in child language skills.

Predictors of growth or attrition of the first language in Latino children with specific language impairment

Science.gov (United States)

Simon-Cereijido, Gabriela; Gutiérrez-Clellen, Vera F.; Sweet, Monica

2012-01-01

We investigated the factors that may help understand the differential rates of language development in the home language (i.e., Spanish) of Latino preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI). Children were randomly assigned to either bilingual or English-only small group interventions and followed from preschool to kindergarten. Predictors of Spanish growth included the language of intervention, the child’s level of language development or severity, the child’s socio-emotional skills, and the child’s level of English use. Spanish performance outcomes were assessed over time using a series of longitudinal models with baseline and post-treatment measures nested within child. Children demonstrated growth on Spanish outcomes over time. The language of instruction and the child’s level of vocabulary and socio-emotional development at baseline were significant predictors of differences in rates of growth in the home language. Clinicians may need to take into consideration these factors when making clinical recommendations. PMID:24489415

Language profiles of monolingual and bilingual Finnish preschool children at risk for language impairment.

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Westman, Martin; Korkman, Marit; Mickos, Annika; Byring, Roger

2008-01-01

A large proportion of children are exposed to more than one language, yet research on simultaneous bilingualism has been relatively sparse. Traditionally, there has been concern that bilingualism may aggravate language difficulties of children with language impairment. However, recent studies have not found specific language impairment (SLI) or language-related problems to be increased by bilingualism. The topic of bilingualism and its effects has high actuality in Finland, where increasing numbers of children in the country's 6% Swedish-speaking minority grow up in bilingual families, where one parent's primary language is Swedish and the other's Finnish. The present study aimed at exploring the influence of such bilingualism on the language profiles of children from this population at risk for language impairment (LI). Participants were recruited from a language screening of 339 children from kindergartens with instruction only in Swedish, from the Swedish-speaking parts of Finland. Of these children, 33 (9.7%) were defined as a Risk Group for LI, whereas 48 non-risk children were randomly selected to form a control group. When subdividing the children according to home language, 35 were found to be monolingual, Swedish-speaking, and 46 were Swedish-Finnish bilingual. The children underwent neuropsychological assessment during their preschool year. Assessment methods included subtests from the Wechsler Primary and Preschool Scale of Intelligence - Revised and the NEPSY Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment. A repeated-measures multiple analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed a significant effect of risk of LI on the NEPSY language scores. The effect of home language was not significant and there was no interaction between home language and risk for LI. Non-verbal IQ was controlled for. Across groups, bilingual children scored lower than monolingual children only on measures of vocabulary and sentence repetition. Although a slight general cost of

Minority Language Socialisation within the Family: Investigating the Early Welsh Language Socialisation of Babies and Young Children in Mixed Language Families in Wales

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Morris, Delyth; Jones, Kathryn

2007-01-01

The role of the home and family/caregivers is commonly acknowledged as being central to securing the intergenerational socialisation of minority languages. Research evidence demonstrates that the survival or demise of minority languages crucially depends upon the extent to which the language is passed on from one generation to the next within the…

Index to Research in Home Economics: 1972-1986.

Science.gov (United States)

Fetterman, Nelma I.; Lefebvre, Verna M.

This index lists 945 research articles from 4 English-language journals in the field of home economics: the "Canadian Home Economics Journal," volumes 23-30; the "Home Economics Research Journal" (United States), volumes 1-14; the "Journal of Consumer Studies and Home Economics" (United Kingdom), volumes 1-10; and the…

Parents as Stakeholders: Language Management in Urban Galician Homes

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Nandi, Anik

2018-01-01

Macro-level policy makers, perceived as stakeholders of language management, employ a range of language policy strategies to legitimise hegemonic control over meso- (i.e. family) and micro- (i.e. individual) level language ideologies (Cassels-Johnson 2013). However, language policies of an individual are often difficult to detect because they are…

Home Language: Refuge, Resistance, Resource?

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McGroarty, Mary

2012-01-01

This presentation builds on the concept of orientations to languages other than English in the US first suggested by Ruiz (1984). Using examples from recent ethnographic, sociolinguistic, and policy-related investigations undertaken principally in North America, the discussion explores possible connections between individual and group language…

Body Weight - Multiple Languages

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... Supplements Videos & Tools You Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Body Weight URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/ ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Body Weight - Multiple Languages To use the sharing features on this page, ...

The Impact of Biculturalism on Language and Literacy Development: Teaching Chinese English Language Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Palmer, Barbara C.; Chen, Chia-I; Chang, Sara; Leclere, Judith T.

2006-01-01

According to the 2000 United States Census, Americans age five and older who speak a language other than English at home grew 47 percent over the preceding decade. This group accounts for slightly less than one in five Americans (17.9%). Among the minority languages spoken in the United States, Asian-language speakers, including Chinese and other…

Developmental status and home environment among children born to immigrant women married to Taiwanese men.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Chwen-Jen; Hsu, Chiung-Wen; Chu, Yu-Roo; Han, Kuo-Chiang; Chien, Li-Yin

2012-04-01

The aims of this cross-sectional study were to examine (a) the developmental status and home environments of children (6-24 months) of immigrant women married to Taiwanese men, and (b) the association of child developmental status with parental socio-demographics, maternal language abilities, and home environment qualities. Participants were 61 children and their mothers from China and Vietnam. Data were collected with interviews, home observations, and developmental testing. The children had lower cognitive and language but higher motor and social development scores compared with native norms. Home environment and maternal perceived language ability were positively associated with child development. The association of home environment and maternal language ability with early childhood development was supported for immigrant populations in Taiwan. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Piercing and Tattoos - Multiple Languages

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... Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Piercing and Tattoos URL of this page: https://medlineplus. ... V W XYZ List of All Topics All Piercing and Tattoos - Multiple Languages To use the sharing ...

Predictors of Growth or Attrition of the First Language in Latino Children with Specific Language Impairment

Science.gov (United States)

Simon-Cereijido, Gabriela; Gutierrez-Clellen, Vera F.; Sweet, Monica

2013-01-01

We investigated the factors that may help understand the differential rates of language development in the home language (i.e., Spanish) of Latino preschoolers with specific language impairment. Children were randomly assigned to either bilingual or English-only small group interventions and followed from preschool to kindergarten. Predictors of…

Many languages, building connections supporting infants and toddlers who are dual language learners

CERN Document Server

Nemeth, Karen

2012-01-01

All infants and toddlers need experiences that nurture, support, and teach their home language and culture. Language is a vital component of early experiences well before the child can say his first word. Many Languages, Building Connections outlines adaptable strategies that caregivers of children younger than the age of three need to feel confident that they know how language develops, how cultural differences can come into play, and how to assess an individual child's situation to provide appropriate support.

Opportunities and Barriers related to Supply Chain Collaboration for Delivering Integrated Single-Family Home Renovations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mlecnik, E.; Kondratenko, I.; Haavik, T.

2013-01-01

Single-family home renovations often show deficiencies in project management. There might be a market addressing house owners who would prefer integrated renovation services and clear responsibilities. Companies that would respond to these client’s needs would have a clear market potential,

THE INFLUENCE OF LANGUAGE USE AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDE ON THE MAINTENANCE OF COMMUNITY LANGUAGES SPOKEN BY MIGRANT STUDENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leni Amalia Suek

2014-05-01

Full Text Available The maintenance of community languages of migrant students is heavily determined by language use and language attitudes. The superiority of a dominant language over a community language contributes to attitudes of migrant students toward their native languages. When they perceive their native languages as unimportant language, they will reduce the frequency of using that language even though at home domain. Solutions provided for a problem of maintaining community languages should be related to language use and attitudes of community languages, which are developed mostly in two important domains, school and family. Hence, the valorization of community language should be promoted not only in family but also school domains. Several programs such as community language school and community language program can be used for migrant students to practice and use their native languages. Since educational resources such as class session, teachers and government support are limited; family plays significant roles to stimulate positive attitudes toward community language and also to develop the use of native languages.

Asian American Health - Multiple Languages

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Rotator Cuff Injuries - Multiple Languages

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Language Preference among Nigerian Undergraduates and the Future of English

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Gabriel B. Egbe

2014-12-01

Full Text Available What will be the future of English in Nigeria? Put more apprehensively, will the English language die in Nigeria in the near future? These questions are answered by reporting on the language preference at home of some Nigerian undergraduates in order to gauge the future of English in Nigeria. The investigation sought to determine the language(s most preferred for communication at home among Nigerian undergraduates. From a sample drawn from students in a private Nigerian university, 66.7% identified English as the most frequently used language at home while 64.1% indicated fluency in English against other languages spoken in Nigeria including the indigenous major Nigerian languages (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. On order of fluency among the languages sampled, 18.5% indicated an English-only fluency, which reveals that some section of young Nigerians are moving towards a monolingual English-only proficiency. This discovery has implications for the future of English in Nigeria. Several factors may account for this emerging trend. However, the premier position occupied by English in Nigeria and the expanding use of English world-wide clearly support the continuous growth and visibility of English as the language of choice among Nigerian undergraduates at home. This is without prejudice to several declarations and policy statements in favour of Mother Tongue education and usage in Nigeria. The paper concludes that the emergence of a new generation of Nigerians who use English as a first language in a non-host second language context is sowing the seed for further nativization and entrenchment of English in Nigeria.

Psychosocial Adjustment of Low-Income African American Youth from Single Mother Homes: The Role of the Youth-Coparent Relationship

Science.gov (United States)

Sterrett, Emma M.; Jones, Deborah J.; Kincaid, Carlye

2009-01-01

African American youth from single mother homes are at greater risk for internalizing and externalizing problems relative to their peers from two-parent homes. Although the predominance of psychosocial research on these youth has focused on maternal parenting and mother-child relationship quality, far less attention has been devoted to the quality…

Student, Home, and School Socio-Demographic Factors: Links to School, Home, and Community Arts Participation

Science.gov (United States)

Mansour, Marianne; Martin, Andrew J.; Anderson, Michael; Gibson, Robyn; Liem, Gregory Arief D.; Sudmalis, David

2016-01-01

This study explored the role of student (e.g., age, language background, gender), home (e.g., parent/caregiver education), and school (e.g., school type, size) socio-demographic factors in students' school (e.g., in-school arts tuition, arts engagement), home (e.g., parent/caregiver-child arts interaction), and community (e.g., arts attendance,…

Teaching Language in Context. Second Edition

Science.gov (United States)

Derewianka, Beverly; Jones, Pauline

2016-01-01

Language is at the heart of the learning process. We learn through language. Our knowledge about the world is constructed in language-the worlds of home and the community, the worlds of school subjects, the worlds of literature, the worlds of the workplace, and so on. It is through language that we interact with others and build our identities.…

The Impact of Gender, Socioeconomic Status and Home Language on Primary School Children's Reading Comprehension in KwaZulu-Natal.

Science.gov (United States)

Völkel, Gabriela; Seabi, Joseph; Cockcroft, Kate; Goldschagg, Paul

2016-03-15

The current study constituted part of a larger, longitudinal, South African-based study, namely, The Road and Aircraft Noise Exposure on Children's Cognition and Health (RANCH-South Africa). In the context of a multicultural South Africa and varying demographic variables thereof, this study sought to investigate and describe the effects of gender, socioeconomic status and home language on primary school children's reading comprehension in KwaZulu-Natal. In total, 834 learners across 5 public schools in the KwaZulu-Natal province participated in the study. A biographical questionnaire was used to obtain biographical data relevant to this study, and the Suffolk Reading Scale 2 (SRS2) was used to obtain reading comprehension scores. The findings revealed that there was no statistical difference between males and females on reading comprehension scores. In terms of socioeconomic status (SES), learners from a low socioeconomic background performed significantly better than those from a high socioeconomic background. English as a First Language (EL1) speakers had a higher mean reading comprehension score than speakers who spoke English as an Additional Language (EAL). Reading comprehension is indeed affected by a variety of variables, most notably that of language proficiency. The tool to measure reading comprehension needs to be standardized and administered in more than one language, which will ensure increased reliability and validity of reading comprehension scores.

Critical Language Awareness (CLA) for Spanish Heritage Language Programs: Implementing a Complete Curriculum

Science.gov (United States)

Holguín Mendoza, Claudia

2018-01-01

Experts in the field have advocated for critical approaches to Spanish heritage language (HL) curricula in which learners' proficiency in the language varieties that they bring from their homes and communities is considered an asset and culturally valuable knowledge. The proposal described here focuses on the adoption of a programmatic…

Self-Administered, Home-Based SMART (Sensorimotor Active Rehabilitation Training) Arm Training: A Single-Case Report.

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Hayward, Kathryn S; Neibling, Bridee A; Barker, Ruth N

2015-01-01

This single-case, mixed-method study explored the feasibility of self-administered, home-based SMART (sensorimotor active rehabilitation training) Arm training for a 57-yr-old man with severe upper-limb disability after a right frontoparietal hemorrhagic stroke 9 mo earlier. Over 4 wk of self-administered, home-based SMART Arm training, the participant completed 2,100 repetitions unassisted. His wife provided support for equipment set-up and training progressions. Clinically meaningful improvements in arm impairment (strength), activity (arm and hand tasks), and participation (use of arm in everyday tasks) occurred after training (at 4 wk) and at follow-up (at 16 wk). Areas for refinement of SMART Arm training derived from thematic analysis of the participant's and researchers' journals focused on enabling independence, ensuring home and user friendliness, maintaining the motivation to persevere, progressing toward everyday tasks, and integrating practice into daily routine. These findings suggest that further investigation of self-administered, home-based SMART Arm training is warranted for people with stroke who have severe upper-limb disability. Copyright © 2015 by the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.

Language, learning, and memory in children with and without single-suture craniosynostosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kapp-Simon, Kathleen A; Wallace, Erin; Collett, Brent R; Cradock, Mary Michaeleen; Crerand, Canice E; Speltz, Matthew L

2016-05-01

OBJECTIVE The language and memory functions of children with and without single-suture craniosynostosis (SSC) were compared at school age (mean 7.45 years, standard deviation [SD] 0.54 years). The children in this cohort were originally recruited in infancy and prior to cranial surgery for those with SSC. METHODS Individual evaluations of 179 school-aged children with SSC and 183 controls were conducted (70% of the original cohort) using standardized measures of language, learning, and memory. Parents participated in an interview about specialized education interventions and school progress. Parents and teachers completed questionnaires about language development. RESULTS Children with SSC (cases) obtained lower scores than controls on all measures. The adjusted differences in language, learning, and memory scores were modest, with SD ranging from 0.0 to -0.4 (p values ranged from 0.001 to 0.99). Censored normal regression was used to account for intervention services received prior to the school-age evaluation; this increased case-control differences (SD range 0.1 to -0.5, p value range 0.001 to 0.50). Mean scores for cases in each SSC diagnostic group were lower than those for controls, with the greatest differences observed among children with unilateral coronal craniosynostosis. CONCLUSIONS Children with SSC continue to show poorer performance than controls on language, learning, and memory tasks at early elementary school age, even when controlling for known confounders, although mean differences are small. Multidisciplinary care, including direct psychological assessment, for children with SSC should extend through school age with a specific focus on language and conceptual learning, as these are areas of potential risk. Future research is needed to investigate language, memory, and learning for this population during the middle to high school years.

Work-home interaction of employees in the mining industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karina Mostert

2011-08-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to test the construct validity, factorial invariance and reliability of the Survey Work-Home Interaction-NijmeGen (SWING and to explore whether and how the work-home interaction of various socio-demographic groups differ. Random samples (n = 320 were taken of employees in the mining industry. The confirmatory factor analysis results supported the proposed four-factor structure measuring negative/positive work-home interference and negative/positive home-work interference. The multi-group invariance analyses’ results for two language and ethnic groups also supported the factorial invariance of the SWING. All the scales were found to be reliable. Statistically significant differences in work-home interaction were found, based on age, ethnicity, gender, education, marital status, parental status, language, flexibility at work and individuals who had a partner with a paid job.

English Language Narratives of Filipino Children

Science.gov (United States)

Lofranco, Lee Ann L.; Pena, Elizabeth D.; Bedore, Lisa M.

2006-01-01

Purpose: The current study focuses on describing the English language narrative skills of children who have been exposed to the Filipino language. Method: Eight children between the ages of 6;0 (years;months) and 7;7 who spoke primarily English but who were exposed to the Filipino language at home participated. Each child produced three narrative…

The role of the speech-language pathologist in home care.

Science.gov (United States)

Giles, Melanie; Barker, Mary; Hayes, Amanda

2014-06-01

Speech language pathologists play an important role in the care of patients with speech, language, or swallowing difficulties that can result from a variety of medical conditions. This article describes how speech language pathologists assess and treat these conditions and the red flags that suggest a referral to a speech language pathologist is indicated.

Work–home interference: Examining socio-demographic predictors in the South African context

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Marissa de Klerk

2010-04-01

Research purpose: The main research aim of the study was to investigate the socio-demographic predictors of negative and positive work–home interaction of South African employees. Motivation for the study: Little information is known about the prevalence of work–home interaction within groups. This study is aimed at enabling the researcher and organisations to identify those groups that are at risk of negative interference and which are prone to positive interaction, to allow for the development of appropriate strategies and intervention programmes. Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional survey design was used in the study. A sample (N = 2040 was taken from four South African industries (i.e. the police service, the earthmoving equipment industry, mining and nursing. A socio-demographic questionnaire and the Survey Work–Home Interaction-Nijmegen (SWING were used. Main findings: The results indicated that robust predictors included occupation, gender and language for negative work–home interference; occupation, age and language for positive work–home interference; occupation and language for negative home–work interference; and occupation, age, education and language for positive home–work interference. Practical/managerial implications: The implications of the study are that negative and positive work–home interaction is uniquely associated with socio-demographic characteristics. Work–life balance initiatives should, therefore, be carefully tailored to address the needs of each socio-demographic group. Contribution/value-add: The findings of the study suggest answers to the management of the work–home interaction among various socio-demographic groups in organisations.

Effects of a Cross-Linguistic Storybook Intervention on the Second Language Development of Two Preschool English Language Learners

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Huennekens, Mary Ellen; Xu, Yaoying

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a shared reading experience between parent and child in the child's home language on the emergent literacy and language acquisition in English of preschool-age English Language Learners. Parents of Spanish-speaking four-year-old Head Start students read storybooks in Spanish with their…

Juggling Languages: A Case Study of Preschool Teachers' Language Choices and Practices in Mauritius

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Auleear Owodally, Ambarin Mooznah

2012-01-01

Mauritius is a linguistically diverse island: most people on the island are native speakers of Mauritian Creole, a French-lexified Creole; English is the written medium of instruction in primary schools and French is taught as a compulsory subject. The discontinuity between the home language and the school languages is viewed as problematic by…

Quick Statistics about Voice, Speech, and Language

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... here Home » Health Info » Statistics and Epidemiology Quick Statistics About Voice, Speech, Language Voice, Speech, Language, and ... no 205. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2015. Hoffman HJ, Li C-M, Losonczy K, ...

Language Differences and Operation Mode

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dasi, Angels; Pedersen, Torben

2013-01-01

Language serves different purposes depending on the international activity in question. Language has many dimensions and firms’ communicative requirements vary by operational platform. We argue that different dimensions of language vary in their importance depending on the operation mode chosen...... for a foreign market, so that language distance matters in the case of a home-based sales force, while language incidence is key when operating through a local agent. The hypotheses are tested on a large data set encompassing 462 multinational corporations headquartered in Finland, South Korea, New Zealand......, and Sweden that have undertaken a business operation in a foreign country....

Linguistic Identity Positioning in Facebook Posts during Second Language Study Abroad: One Teen's Language Use, Experience, and Awareness

Science.gov (United States)

Dressler, Roswita; Dressler, Anja

2016-01-01

Teens who post on the popular social networking site Facebook in their home environment often continue to do so on second language study abroad sojourns. These sojourners use Facebook to document and make sense of their experiences in the host culture and position themselves with respect to language(s) and culture(s). This study examined one…

Language practices in school-based Grade R classrooms | Lenyai ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The investigation on language practices aimed at establishing how the language of learning policy formulated by the Department of Education in South Africa was interpreted at classroom level. The study focused on language activities in schoolbased Grade R classes to observe how learners' home language was used as ...

Examining the Oral Language Competency of Children from Korean Immigrant Families in English-Only and Dual Language Immersion Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Jane Younga; Lee, Jin Sook; Oh, Janet S.

2018-01-01

In this study, we examined the bilingual language development among Korean American first-graders in two southern California cities and explored the opportunities for language use available to them in various spaces: at school (one dual language immersion school and one traditional English-only public school), at home, and in the community. Data…

When learning a second language does not mean losing the first: bilingual language development in low-income, Spanish-speaking children attending bilingual preschool.

Science.gov (United States)

Winsler, A; Díaz, R M; Espinosa, L; Rodríguez, J L

1999-01-01

This article discusses two investigations which explored the bilingual language development outcomes of comparable groups of low-income, Spanish-speaking, Mexican American children who either did or did not attended a bilingual (Spanish/English) preschool. Study 1 is a replication of a study by Rodríguez, Díaz, Duran, and Espinosa, involving a new sample of 26 children who attended bilingual preschool for one year and 20 control children who remained at home. Study 2 represents a 1-year, longitudinal follow-up of Rodríguez et al.'s, sample of children during and after the children spent another year at home or in the preschool. In both investigations, standardized, objective measures of three components of children's language proficiency (productive language, receptive language, and language complexity) in English and Spanish were obtained at the beginning and end of the academic year. Contrary to fears that have been expressed by some that early exposure to English would lead to children's native language loss, the results of both studies offered no evidence of Spanish proficiency loss for children attending bilingual preschool. Children who attended bilingual preschool, compared to those who remained at home, showed significant and parallel gains in Spanish language development as well as significant and greater increases in English language proficiency over time. Results are discussed in terms of the need for more systematic research to be conducted in this area to inform policy and practice in the early education and development of language-minority children.

Non-invasive, home-based electroencephalography hypoglycaemia warning system for personal monitoring using skin surface electrodes: a single-case feasibility study.

Science.gov (United States)

Clewett, Christopher J; Langley, Phillip; Bateson, Anthony D; Asghar, Aziz; Wilkinson, Antony J

2016-03-01

Hypoglycaemia unawareness is a common condition associated with increased risk of severe hypoglycaemia. The purpose of the authors' study was to develop a simple to use, home-based and non-invasive hypoglycaemia warning system based on electroencephalography (EEG), and to demonstrate its use in a single-case feasibility study. A participant with type 1 diabetes forms a single-person case study where blood sugar levels and EEG were recorded. EEG was recorded using skin surface electrodes placed behind the ear located within the T3 region by the participant in the home. EEG was analysed retrospectively to develop an algorithm which would trigger a warning if EEG changes associated with hypoglycaemia onset were detected. All hypoglycaemia events were detected by the EEG hypoglycaemia warning algorithm. Warnings were triggered with blood glucose concentration levels at or below 4.2 mmol/l in this participant and no warnings were issued when in euglycaemia. The feasibility of a non-invasive EEG-based hypoglycaemia warning system for personal monitoring in the home has been demonstrated in a single case study. The results suggest that further studies are warranted to evaluate the system prospectively in a larger group of participants.

Socio-Cultural Dimensions of Cluster vs. Single Home Photovoltaic Solar Energy Systems in Rural Nepal

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kimber Haddix McKay

2010-02-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzes the socio-cultural dimensions of obstacles facing solar photovoltaic projects in two villages in rural Nepal. The study was conducted in Humla District, Nepal, one of the most remote and impoverished regions of the country. There are no roads in the district, homes lack running water and villagers’ health suffers from high levels of indoor air pollution from open cooking/heating fires and the smoky torches traditionally burned for light. The introduction of solar energy is important to these villagers, as it removes one major source of indoor air pollution from homes and provides brighter light than the traditional torches. Solar energy is preferable in many villages in the region due to the lack of suitable streams or rivers for micro-hydroelectric projects. In the villages under study in this paper, in-home solar electricity is a novel and recent innovation, and was installed within the last three years in two different geo-spatial styles, depending upon the configuration of homes in the village. In some villages, houses are grouped together, while in others households are widely dispersed. In the former, solar photovoltaic systems were installed in a “cluster” fashion with multiple homes utilizing power from a central battery store under the control of the householder storing the battery bank. In villages with widely spaced households, a single home system was used so that each home had a separate solar photovoltaic array, wiring system and battery bank. It became clear that the cluster system was the sensible choice due to the geographic layout of certain villages, but this put people into management groups that did not always work well due to caste or other differences. This paper describes the two systems and their management and usage costs and benefits from the perspective of the villagers themselves.

Introduction-Minority Language Policy: Theory and Practice

OpenAIRE

Stefan Oeter

2007-01-01

In practice the Charter has created legal standards that work like individual and collective rights and that empower minority language speakers to insist upon education in minority languages, on using the languages before judicial courts and the administration, on claiming a right to receive radio and television programmes in minority languages, and on insisting to be treated in the minority language in hospitals and homes for the elderly, to name only some of the most important guarantees of...

Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 2, No 2 (2010) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 7, No 1 (2016) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 1, No 1 (2007) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies: Advanced Search. Journal Home > AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies: Advanced Search. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Dual Language Learners: Effective Instruction in Early Childhood

Science.gov (United States)

Goldenberg, Claude; Hicks, Judy; Lit, Ira

2013-01-01

Preschool teachers can best educate youngsters learning their home language and English by using children's primary language where possible, adopting effective practices for building English language skills, and involving families in supporting children's learning. This article surveys the growing body of research on improving preschool…

Children Dwelling in the Absence of Home

African Journals Online (AJOL)

denise

some refugee children along with situations from the author's own life appear more nominally. ... home language and dominant language use, the establishment of ... for hours, or by car to the city, by tractor to the ... electricity, no telephone. ... remember waking up to shouting one night,. “Get up! Get up! Hurry! Go! Now!

Short message service (SMS language and written language skills: educators' perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salomé Geertsema

2011-01-01

Full Text Available SMS language is English language slang, used as a means of mobile phone text messaging. This practice may impact on the written language skills of learners at school. The main aim of this study was to determine the perspectives of Grade 8 and 9 English (as Home Language educators in Gauteng regarding the possible influence of SMS language on certain aspects of learners' written language skills. If an influence was perceived by the educators, their perceptions regarding the degree and nature of the influence were also explored. A quantitative research design, utilising a questionnaire, was employed. The sample of participants comprised 22 educators employed at independent secondaryschools within Gauteng, South Africa. The results indicated that the majority of educators viewed SMS language as having a negative influence on the written language skills of Grade 8 and 9 learners. The influence was perceived as occurring in the learners' spelling, punctuation, and sentence length. A further finding was that the majority of educators address the negative influences of SMS language when encountered in written tasks.

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies: Submissions. Journal Home > About the Journal > AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies: Submissions. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies: Contact. Journal Home > About the Journal > AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies: Contact. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Parental Ethnotheories and Family Language Policy in Transnational Adoptive Families

Science.gov (United States)

Fogle, Lyn Wright

2013-01-01

Family language policy refers to explicit and overt decisions parents make about language use and language learning as well as implicit processes that legitimize certain language and literacy practices over others in the home. Studies in family language policy have emphasized the ways in which family-internal processes are shaped by and shape…

Experimental Evaluation of a SIP-Based Home Gateway with Multiple Wireless Interfaces for Domotics Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rosario G. Garroppo

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In modern houses, the presence of sensors and actuators is increasing, while communication services and entertainment systems had long since settled into everyday life. The utilization of wireless communication technologies, such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, is attractive because of their short installation times and low costs. The research is moving towards the integration of the various home appliances and devices into a single domotics system, able to exploit the cooperation among the diverse subsystems and offer the end-user a single multiservice platform. In this scenario, the paper presents the experimental evaluation of a domotics framework centered on a SIP-based home gateway (SHG. While SIP is used to build a common control plane, the SHG is in charge of translating the user commands from and to the specific domotics languages. The analysis has been devoted to assess both the performance of the SHG software framework and the negative effects produced by the simultaneous interference among the three widespread wireless technologies.

Creating a successful culturally sensitive home care program.

Science.gov (United States)

Blanter, R; Page, P M

1995-12-01

Providing quality home care services to immigrants requires an integrated, holistic approach that genuinely addresses language and cultural differences. One home care agency in Massachusetts developed a team-oriented, culturally sensitive outreach program that ensures non-English-speaking patients the same level of service that the general population receives.

Tactics for homing in mobile life

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Marianne Graves; Lynggard, Aviaja Borup; Krogh, Peter Gall

2010-01-01

For many people home making is an activity, which extends beyond a single house. We introduce the terminology of Homing as the act of home making, when in a primary home, secondary home or more temporary spaces. By point of departure in existing literature on home making and through ethnographic...

Home automation with Intel Galileo

CERN Document Server

Dundar, Onur

2015-01-01

This book is for anyone who wants to learn Intel Galileo for home automation and cross-platform software development. No knowledge of programming with Intel Galileo is assumed, but knowledge of the C programming language is essential.

Resources, mediators, and identities: Home literacy practices of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Everyday home literacy practices of bilingual students who are learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) is an under-explored topic in South Africa. In this qualitative case study, home literacy practices of these students are viewed as a resource that can enhance their literacy development, while affirming their lived ...

Monolingual or bilingual intervention for primary language impairment? A randomized control trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Thordardottir, Elin; Cloutier, Geneviève; Ménard, Suzanne; Pelland-Blais, Elaine; Rvachew, Susan

2015-04-01

This study investigated the clinical effectiveness of monolingual versus bilingual language intervention, the latter involving speech-language pathologist-parent collaboration. The study focuses on methods that are currently being recommended and that are feasible within current clinical contexts. Bilingual children with primary language impairment who speak a minority language as their home language and French as their second (n=29, mean age=5 years) were randomly assigned to monolingual treatment, bilingual treatment, and no-treatment (delayed-treatment) conditions. Sixteen sessions of individual language intervention were offered, targeting vocabulary and syntactic skills in French only or bilingually, through parent collaboration during the clinical sessions. Language evaluations were conducted before and after treatment by blinded examiners; these evaluations targeted French as well as the home languages. An additional evaluation was conducted 2 months after completion of treatment to assess maintenance of gains. Both monolingual and bilingual treatment followed a focused stimulation approach. Results in French showed a significant treatment effect for vocabulary but no difference between treatment conditions. Gains were made in syntax, but these gains could not be attributed to treatment given that treatment groups did not improve more than the control group. Home language probes did not suggest that the therapy had resulted in gains in the home language. The intervention used in this study is in line with current recommendations of major speech-language pathology organizations. However, the findings indicate that the bilingual treatment created through collaboration with parents was not effective in creating a sufficiently intense bilingual context to make it significantly different from the monolingual treatment. Further studies are needed to assess the gains associated with clinical modifications made for bilingual children and to search for effective ways

Stopping the Spread of Germs at Home, Work and School

Science.gov (United States)

... Pandemic Other Stopping the Spread of Germs at Home, Work & School Language: English (US) Español Recommend on Facebook ... everyone from getting germs or spreading germs at home, work, or school. Clean and disinfect surfaces or objects. ...

A Home-Language Free Adult Pre-Vocational Audio-Visual Course in English-as-a-Second Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Philip D., Jr.

A pre-vocational English-as-a-second language course for adults was developed for the non-native speaker based upon the following assumptions: the teacher does not have to speak the language of the student; students in a class do not have to speak each others' language; the teacher need not be professionally trained in the field of teaching ESL;…

Denmark's net'zero energy home'

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Ellen Kathrine

2010-01-01

Judging by looks alone, you'd never guess that the simple one-and-a-half-story house on a residential street outside Århus, Denmark, is anything more than an ordinary single-family home. The stylish little house has the broad windows and long sloping roof of a typical Scandinavian home; a trampol......Judging by looks alone, you'd never guess that the simple one-and-a-half-story house on a residential street outside Århus, Denmark, is anything more than an ordinary single-family home. The stylish little house has the broad windows and long sloping roof of a typical Scandinavian home...

Language Growth in English Monolingual and Spanish-English Bilingual Children from 2.5 to 5 Years.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoff, Erika; Ribot, Krystal M

2017-11-01

To describe the trajectories of English and Spanish language growth in typically developing children from bilingual homes and compare those with the trajectories of English growth in children from monolingual homes, to assess effects of dual language exposure on language growth in typically developing children. Expressive vocabularies were assessed at 6-month intervals from age 30 to 60 months, in English for monolinguals and English and Spanish for bilinguals. Use of English and Spanish in the home was assessed via parental report. Multilevel modeling, including parent education as a covariate, revealed that children from bilingual homes lagged 6 months to 1 year behind monolingual children in English vocabulary growth. The size of the lag was related to the relative amount of English use in the home, but the relation was not linear. Increments in English use conferred the greatest benefit most among homes with already high levels of English use. These homes also were likely to have 1 parent who was a native English speaker. Bilingual children showed stronger growth in English than in Spanish. Bilingual children can lag 6 months to 1 year behind monolingual children in normal English language development. Such lags may not necessarily signify clinically relevant delay if parents report that children also have skills in the home language. Shorter lags are associated with 2 correlated factors: more English exposure and more exposure from native English speakers. Early exposure to Spanish in the home does not guarantee acquisition of Spanish. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Does Mother Tongue Interfere in Second Language Learning?

OpenAIRE

Denizer, Elif Nur

2017-01-01

Mother tongue largely refers to not only the language one learns from one’s mother but also the speaker’s dominant and home language. It’s also called native language. This study was conducted to find whether mother tongue interferences in second-language learning, and if so; whether it affects the learners’ performance in four language skills, and also in which skill(s) it has the biggest effect. Data collection tool included a questionnaire by which participants were asked to rate the quest...

Determining stocks and flows of structural wood products in single family homes in the United States between 1950 and 2010

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sianchuk, Robert A.; McFarlane, Paul N.; Ackom, Emmanuel

2012-01-01

The stocks and flows of six major structural wood products (SWPs)-lumber, plywood, oriented strand board [OSB], glue laminated timber, I-joists, and laminated veneer lumber (LVL)-in US single family homes were modeled from 1950 to 2010. The consumption of these products in US single family homes...... and their emissions as construction and demolition wastes were estimated. The net consumption of SWPs decreased from 119 kg/m2 constructed in 1986 to 82 kg/m2 in 2010. Softwood lumber was consistently the predominant SWP, but its usage intensity decreased from 95 kg/m2 in 1986 to 52 kg/ m2 in 2010. Since the 1980s......, modern SWPs, such as I-joists, LVL, and OSB, have replaced lumber and plywood products. The needs of the US single family housing industry have been met by a smaller mass of SWPs per unit area constructed. The mass of SWP present in construction wastes was influenced strongly by building cycles...

Early Sign Language Exposure and Cochlear Implantation Benefits.

Science.gov (United States)

Geers, Ann E; Mitchell, Christine M; Warner-Czyz, Andrea; Wang, Nae-Yuh; Eisenberg, Laurie S

2017-07-01

Most children with hearing loss who receive cochlear implants (CI) learn spoken language, and parents must choose early on whether to use sign language to accompany speech at home. We address whether parents' use of sign language before and after CI positively influences auditory-only speech recognition, speech intelligibility, spoken language, and reading outcomes. Three groups of children with CIs from a nationwide database who differed in the duration of early sign language exposure provided in their homes were compared in their progress through elementary grades. The groups did not differ in demographic, auditory, or linguistic characteristics before implantation. Children without early sign language exposure achieved better speech recognition skills over the first 3 years postimplant and exhibited a statistically significant advantage in spoken language and reading near the end of elementary grades over children exposed to sign language. Over 70% of children without sign language exposure achieved age-appropriate spoken language compared with only 39% of those exposed for 3 or more years. Early speech perception predicted speech intelligibility in middle elementary grades. Children without sign language exposure produced speech that was more intelligible (mean = 70%) than those exposed to sign language (mean = 51%). This study provides the most compelling support yet available in CI literature for the benefits of spoken language input for promoting verbal development in children implanted by 3 years of age. Contrary to earlier published assertions, there was no advantage to parents' use of sign language either before or after CI. Copyright © 2017 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Issues in Scientific Terminology in African / Bantu Languages

OpenAIRE

Taljard , Elsabé

2007-01-01

In 2006, the South African Department of Education initiated a pilot project in which the Matric or Senior Certificate papers for Science, Maths, Biology and History were translated into the nine official African/Bantu languages of the country. Grade 12 learners who use these languages as home languages therefore received a question paper containing questions in English, where every question was followed by its translation into the relevant language. Taking into consideration that these learn...

Location, Location, Location: Characteristics and Services of Long-Stay Home Care Recipients in Retirement Homes Compared to Others in Private Homes and Long-Term Care Homes.

Science.gov (United States)

Poss, Jeffrey W; Sinn, Chi-Ling Joanna; Grinchenko, Galina; Blums, Jane; Peirce, Tom; Hirdes, John

2017-02-01

We examine recipients of publicly funded ongoing care in a single Ontario jurisdiction who reside in three different settings: long-stay home care patients in private homes and apartments, other patients in retirement homes and residents of long-term care homes, using interRAI assessment instruments. Among home care patients, those in retirement homes have higher proportions of dementia and moderate cognitive impairment, less supportive informal care systems as well as more personal care and nursing services above those provided by the public home care system, more frequent but shorter home support visits and lower than expected public home care expenditures. These lower expenditures may be because of efficiency of care delivery or by retirement homes providing some services otherwise provided by the public home care system. Although persons in each setting are mostly older adults with high degrees of frailty and medical complexity, long-term care home residents show distinctly higher needs. We estimate that 40% of retirement home residents are long-stay home care patients, and they comprise about one in six of this Community Care Access Centre's long-stay patients. Copyright © 2017 Longwoods Publishing.

Single-Camera-Based Method for Step Length Symmetry Measurement in Unconstrained Elderly Home Monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Xi; Han, Guang; Song, Xin; Wang, Jinkuan

2017-11-01

single-camera-based gait monitoring is unobtrusive, inexpensive, and easy-to-use to monitor daily gait of seniors in their homes. However, most studies require subjects to walk perpendicularly to camera's optical axis or along some specified routes, which limits its application in elderly home monitoring. To build unconstrained monitoring environments, we propose a method to measure step length symmetry ratio (a useful gait parameter representing gait symmetry without significant relationship with age) from unconstrained straight walking using a single camera, without strict restrictions on walking directions or routes. according to projective geometry theory, we first develop a calculation formula of step length ratio for the case of unconstrained straight-line walking. Then, to adapt to general cases, we propose to modify noncollinear footprints, and accordingly provide general procedure for step length ratio extraction from unconstrained straight walking. Our method achieves a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 1.9547% for 15 subjects' normal and abnormal side-view gaits, and also obtains satisfactory MAPEs for non-side-view gaits (2.4026% for 45°-view gaits and 3.9721% for 30°-view gaits). The performance is much better than a well-established monocular gait measurement system suitable only for side-view gaits with a MAPE of 3.5538%. Independently of walking directions, our method can accurately estimate step length ratios from unconstrained straight walking. This demonstrates our method is applicable for elders' daily gait monitoring to provide valuable information for elderly health care, such as abnormal gait recognition, fall risk assessment, etc. single-camera-based gait monitoring is unobtrusive, inexpensive, and easy-to-use to monitor daily gait of seniors in their homes. However, most studies require subjects to walk perpendicularly to camera's optical axis or along some specified routes, which limits its application in elderly home monitoring

E-cigarette use and disparities by race, citizenship status and language among adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Alcalá, Héctor E; Albert, Stephanie L; Ortega, Alexander N

2016-06-01

E-cigarette use among adolescents is on the rise in the U.S. However, limited attention has been given to examining the role of race, citizenship status and language spoken at home in shaping e-cigarette use behavior. Data are from the 2014 Adolescent California Health Interview Survey, which interviewed 1052 adolescents ages 12-17. Lifetime e-cigarette use was examined by sociodemographic characteristics. Separate logistic regression models predicted odds of ever-smoking e-cigarettes from race, citizenship status and language spoken at home. Sociodemographic characteristics were then added to these models as control variables and a model with all three predictors and controls was run. Similar models were run with conventional smoking as an outcome. 10.3% of adolescents ever used e-cigarettes. E-cigarette use was higher among ever-smokers of conventional cigarettes, individuals above 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, US citizens and those who spoke English-only at home. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that citizenship status and language spoken at home were associated with lifetime e-cigarette use, after accounting for control variables. Only citizenship status was associated with e-cigarette use, when controls variables race and language spoken at home were all in the same model. Ever use of e-cigarettes in this study was higher than previously reported national estimates. Action is needed to curb the use of e-cigarettes among adolescents. Differences in lifetime e-cigarette use by citizenship status and language spoken at home suggest that less acculturated individuals use e-cigarettes at lower rates. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Exporting the European Idea of a National Language: Some Educational Implications of the Use of English and Indigenous Languages in the Philippines.

Science.gov (United States)

Smolicz, Jerzy J.; Nical, Illuminado

1999-01-01

Presents the findings of a survey of high school students on their attitudes toward English, Filipino, and their home language. Notes that two-thirds of the population do not have English or Filipino as their first language. Concludes that Filipinos can be literate in their first language and still be fluent in Filipino. Contains 27 references.…

Managing the Drivers of Air Flow and Water Vapor Transport in Existing Single-Family Homes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cummings, James [Building America Partnership for Improved Residential Construction (BA-PIRC), Cocoa, FL (United States); Withers, Charles [Building America Partnership for Improved Residential Construction (BA-PIRC), Cocoa, FL (United States); Martin, Eric [Building America Partnership for Improved Residential Construction (BA-PIRC), Cocoa, FL (United States); Moyer, Neil [Building America Partnership for Improved Residential Construction (BA-PIRC), Cocoa, FL (United States)

2012-10-01

This report is a revision of an earlier report titled: Measure Guideline: Managing the Drivers of Air Flow and Water Vapor Transport in Existing Single-Family Homes. Revisions include: Information in the text box on page 1 was revised to reflect the most accurate information regarding classifications as referenced in the 2012 International Residential Code. “Measure Guideline” was dropped from the title of the report. An addition was made to the reference list.

Evaluating Home Day Care Mothers' Work with Young Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Seattle Community Coll., Washington.

This checklist was developed to determine the skills of day care home mothers before and after training as observed by a day care home educator. Areas evaluated are: Professional Attitude; Parent Relationships; Nutrition; Health and Safety; Baby Care; Preparing the Teaching Environment; Guidance; Teaching Techniques, Language and Literature; Art;…

Co-lateralized bilingual mechanisms for reading in single and dual language contexts: evidence from visual half-field processing of action words in proficient bilinguals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marlena eKrefta

2015-08-01

Full Text Available When reading, proficient bilinguals seem to engage the same cognitive circuits regardless of the language in use. Yet, whether or not such ‘bilingual’ mechanisms would be lateralized in the same way in distinct – single or dual – language contexts is a question for debate. To fill this gap, we tested 18 highly proficient Polish (L1 – English (L2 childhood bilinguals whose task was to read aloud one of the two laterally presented action verbs, one stimulus per visual half field. While in the single-language blocks only L1 or L2 words were shown, in the subsequent mixed-language blocks words from both languages were concurrently displayed. All stimuli were presented for 217 ms followed by masks in which letters were replaced with hash marks. Since in non-simultaneous bilinguals the control of language, skilled actions (including reading, and representations of action concepts are typically left lateralized, the vast majority of our participants showed the expected, significant right visual field advantage for L1 and L2, both for accuracy and response times. The observed effects were nevertheless associated with substantial variability in the strength of the lateralization of the mechanisms involved. Moreover, although it could be predicted that participants’ performance should be better in a single-language context, accuracy was significantly higher and response times were significantly shorter in a dual-language context, irrespective of the language tested. Finally, for both accuracy and response times, there were significant positive correlations between the laterality indices (LIs of both languages independent of the context, with a significantly greater left-sided advantage for L1 vs. L2 in the mixed-language blocks, based on LIs calculated for response times. Thus, despite similar representations of the two languages in the bilingual brain, these results also point to the functional separation of L1 and L2 in the dual-language

Science as a second language: Analysis of Emergent Bilinguals performance and the impact of English language proficiency and first language characteristics on the Colorado measures of academic success for science

Science.gov (United States)

Bruno, Joanna K.

In an age when communication is highly important and states across the nation, including Colorado, have adopted Common Core State Standards, the need for academic language is even more important than ever. The language of science has been compared to a second language in that it uses specific discourse patterns, semantic rules, and a very specific vocabulary. There is a need for educators to better understand how language impacts academic achievement, specifically concerning Emergent Bilinguals (EBs). Research has identified the need to study the role language plays in content assessments and the impact they have on EBs performance (Abedi, 2008b; Abedi, Hofestter & Lord, 2004; Abedi & Lord, 2001). Since language is the means through which content knowledge is assessed, it is important to analyze this aspect of learning. A review of literature identified the need to create more reliable and valid content assessments for EBs (Abedi, 2008b) and to further study the impact of English proficiency on EBs performance on standardized assessments (Solorzano, 2008; Wolf, & Leon, 2009). This study contributes to the literature by analyzing EBs performance on a state-level science content assessment, taking into consideration English language proficiency, receptive versus productive elements of language, and students' home language. This study further contributes by discussing the relationship between language proficiency, and the different strands of science (physical, life, and earth) on the state science assessment. Finally, this study demonstrates that home language, English language proficiency, and receptive and productive elements of language are predictive of EBs' achievement on the CMAS for science, overall and by strand. It is the blending of the social (listening and speaking) with the academic (reading and writing) that is also important and possibly more important.

The effect of urban trees on the rental price of single-family homes in Portland, Oregon

Science.gov (United States)

Geoffrey H. Donovan; David T. Butry

2011-01-01

Few studies have estimated the effect of environmental amenities on the rental price of houses. We address this gap in the literature by quantifying the effect of urban trees on the rental price of single-family homes in Portland, Oregon, USA. We found that an additional tree on a house's lot increased monthly rent by $5.62, and a tree in the public right of way...

Pathways to the Oral and Written Language Competence Among Young Vietnamese English Language Learners

OpenAIRE

Duong, Thao Michelle

2011-01-01

This case study, drawing upon the ecological perspectives (Kramsch, 2002; van Lier, 2004) as a theoretical framework, described the learning experiences of two second generation and first grade Vietnamese English Language Learners navigating between home and school to develop oral and written L1 Vietnamese and L2 English competence for one school year. In the second school year, the focal students' oral and written language samples were collected without classroom observations or interviews....

Levers for Language Growth: Characteristics and Predictors of Language Trajectories between 4 and 7 Years.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cristina McKean

Full Text Available Evidence is required as to when and where to focus resources to achieve the greatest gains for children's language development. Key to these decisions is the understanding of individual differences in children's language trajectories and the predictors of those differences. To determine optimal timing we must understand if and when children's relative language abilities become fixed. To determine where to focus effort we must identify mutable factors, that is those with the potential to be changed through interventions, which are associated with significant differences in children's language scores and rate of progress.Uniquely this study examined individual differences in language growth trajectories in a population sample of children between 4 and 7 years using the multilevel model for change. The influence of predictors, grouped with respect to their mutability and their proximity to the child (least-mutable, mutable-distal, mutable-proximal, were estimated.A significant degree of variability in rate of progress between 4 and 7 years was evident, much of which was systematically associated with mutable-proximal factors, that is, those factors with evidence that they are modifiable through interventions with the child or family, such as shared book reading, TV viewing and number of books in the home. Mutable-distal factors, such as family income, family literacy and neighbourhood disadvantage, hypothesised to be modifiable through social policy, were important predictors of language abilities at 4 years.Potential levers for language interventions lie in the child's home learning environment from birth to age 4. However, the role of a family's material and cultural capital must not be ignored, nor should the potential for growth into the school years. Early Years services should acknowledge the effects of multiple, cascading and cumulative risks and seek to promote child language development through the aggregation of marginal gains in the pre

12 CFR 541.14 - Home.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Home. 541.14 Section 541.14 Banks and Banking OFFICE OF THRIFT SUPERVISION, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY DEFINITIONS FOR REGULATIONS AFFECTING FEDERAL SAVINGS ASSOCIATIONS § 541.14 Home. The term home means real estate comprising a single-family dwelling(s...

Into the Curriculum. Art: Landscape Painting; Home Economics/Social Studies: Greek Clothing; Reading/Language Arts: In Search of Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses!; Science: Magnets; Social Studies/Language Arts: Great Primary Sources on the Great Depression: Using the Library of Congress Collections Online.

Science.gov (United States)

Barbour, Jeffrey Paul; Ward, Lisa M.

2001-01-01

Provides five fully developed library media activities that are designed for use with specific curriculum units in art, home economics, social studies, reading, language arts, and science. Library Media skills, curriculum objectives, grade levels, resources, instructional roles, procedures, evaluation, and follow-up are described for each…

Impact of family language and testing language on reading performance in a bilingual educational context.

Science.gov (United States)

Elosua Oliden, Paula; Mujika Lizaso, Josu

2014-01-01

When different languages co-exist in one area, or when one person speaks more than one language, the impact of language on psychological and educational assessment processes can be considerable. The aim of this work was to study the impact of testing language in a community with two official languages: Spanish and Basque. By taking the PISA 2009 Reading Comprehension Test as a basis for analysis, four linguistic groups were defined according to the language spoken at home and the test language. Psychometric equivalence between test forms and differences in results among the four language groups were analyzed. The comparison of competence means took into account the effects of the index of socioeconomic and cultural status (ISEC) and gender. One reading unit with differential item functioning was detected. The reading competence means were considerably higher in the monolingual Spanish-Spanish group. No differences were found between the language groups based on family language when the test was conducted in Basque. The study illustrates the importance of taking into account psychometric, linguistic and sociolinguistic factors in linguistically diverse assessment contexts.

Standardizing Chinese Sign Language for Use in Post-Secondary Education

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Christina Mien-Chun; Gerner de Garcia, Barbara; Chen-Pichler, Deborah

2009-01-01

There are over 100 languages in China, including Chinese Sign Language. Given the large population and geographical dispersion of the country's deaf community, sign variation is to be expected. Language barriers due to lexical variation may exist for deaf college students in China, who often live outside their home regions. In presenting an…

Linguistic Sexism: An Overview of the English Language in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 1, No 1 (2012) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

A Behavioral Analysis of Figurative Language in Psychotherapy: One Session in a Single Case Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Pollio, Howard R.; Barlow, Jack M.

Assuming that all problem solving has both its rational and poetic aspects and that the solution to a problem is often found in the poetic well before it surfaces in the rational, this study examined in detail the ebb and flow of figurative language as it occurred in the course of a single, highly successful hour of gestalt therapy involving both…

Vocabulary development at home: A multimedia elaborated picture supporting parent-toddler interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gremmen, M.C.; Molenaar, I.; Teepe, R.C.

2016-01-01

Some children enter elementary school with large vocabulary delays, which negatively influence their later school performance.A rich home language environment can support vocabulary development through frequent high-quality parent–toddler interaction. Elaborated picture home activities can support

Vocabulary development at home: A multimedia elaborated picture supporting parent-toddler interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gremmen, M.C.; Molenaar, I.; Teepe, R.C.

2016-01-01

Some children enter elementary school with large vocabulary delays, which negatively influence their later school performance. A rich home language environment can support vocabulary development through frequent high-quality parent-toddler interaction. Elaborated picture home activities can support

Language Preservation: the Language of Science as a bridge to the Native American Community

Science.gov (United States)

Alexander, C. J.; Martin, M.; Grant, G.

2009-12-01

Many Native American communities recognize that the retention of their language, and the need to make the language relevant to the technological age we live in, represents one of their largest and most urgent challenges. Almost 70 percent of Navajos speak their tribal language in the home, and 25 per cent do not know English very well. In contrast, only 30 percent of Native Americans as a whole speak their own tribal language in the home. For the Cherokee and the Chippewa, less than 10 percent speak the native language in the home. And for the Navajo, the number of first graders who solely speak English is almost four times higher than it was in 1970. The U.S. Rosetta Project is the NASA contribution to the International Rosetta Mission. The Rosetta stone is the inspiration for the mission’s name. As outlined by the European Space Agency, Rosetta is expected to provide the keys to the primordial solar system the way the original Rosetta Stone provided a key to ancient language. The concept of ancient language as a key provides a theme for this NASA project’s outreach to Native American communities anxious for ways to enhance and improve the numbers of native speakers. In this talk we will present a concept for building on native language as it relates to STEM concepts. In 2009, a student from the Dine Nation interpreted 28 NASA terms for his senior project at Chinle High School in Chinle, AZ. These terms included such words as space telescope, weather satellite, space suit, and the planets including Neptune and Uranus. This work represents a foundation for continued work between NASA and the Navajo Nation. Following approval by the tribal elders, the U.S. Rosetta project would host the newly translated Navajo words on a web-site, and provide translation into both Navajo and English. A clickable map would allow the user to move through all the words, see Native artwork related to the word, and hear audio translation. Extension to very remote teachers in the

Repositioning Ghana Schools as English Language Learner Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, Mark

2016-01-01

Although English has traditionally been the only language of instruction in Ghana, most young children do not speak English at home. This paper argues that students' academic performance might be improved if their native languages were also used in school. Such an approach offers benefits in areas such as classroom participation, engagement in…

First Language Acquisition and Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena

2011-01-01

"First language acquisition" commonly means the acquisition of a single language in childhood, regardless of the number of languages in a child's natural environment. Language acquisition is variously viewed as predetermined, wondrous, a source of concern, and as developing through formal processes. "First language teaching" concerns schooling in…

Expressive Vocabulary Development in Children from Bilingual and Monolingual Homes: A Longitudinal Study from Two to Four Years.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoff, Erika; Rumiche, Rosario; Burridge, Andrea; Ribot, Krystal M; Welsh, Stephanie N

2014-10-01

The early course of language development among children from bilingual homes varies in ways that are not well described and as a result of influences that are not well understood. Here, we describe trajectories of relative change in expressive vocabulary from 22 to 48 months and vocabulary achievement at 48 months in two groups of children from bilingual homes (children with one and children with two native Spanish-speaking parents [ n s = 15 and 11]) and in an SES-equivalent group of children from monolingual English homes ( n = 31). The two groups from bilingual homes differed in their mean levels of English and Spanish skills, in their developmental trajectories during this period, and in the relation between language use at home and their vocabulary development. Children with two native Spanish-speaking parents showed steepest gains in total vocabulary and were more nearly balanced bilinguals at 48 months. Children with one native Spanish- and one native English-speaking parent showed trajectories of relative decline in Spanish vocabulary. At 48 months, mean levels of English skill among the bilingual children were comparable to monolingual norms, but children with two native Spanish-speaking parents had lower English scores than the SES-equivalent monolingual group. Use of English at home was a significant positive predictor of English vocabulary scores only among children with a native English-speaking parent. These findings argue that efforts to optimize school readiness among children from immigrant families should facilitate their access to native speakers of the community language, and efforts to support heritage language maintenance should include encouraging heritage language use by native speakers in the home.

Early Language and Reading Development of Bilingual Preschoolers From Low-Income Families.

Science.gov (United States)

Hammer, Carol Scheffner; Miccio, Adele W

2006-01-01

Learning to read is a complex process and a number of factors affect a child's success in beginning reading. This complexity increases when a child's home language differs from that of the school and when the child comes from a home with limited economic resources. This article discusses factors that have been shown to contribute to children's success in early reading, namely-phonological awareness, letter-word identification, oral language, and the home literacy environment. Preliminary evidence suggests that bilingual children from low-income backgrounds initially perform poorly on phonological awareness and letter identification tasks, but appear to acquire these abilities quickly in kindergarten once these abilities are emphasized in early reading instruction. In addition, the findings show that bilingual preschoolers' receptive language abilities in English and Spanish positively impact their early letter-word identification abilities at the end of kindergarten. A positive relationship between bilingual preschoolers' home literacy environment and early reading outcomes has not been found to date. Educational implications for serving young, bilingual children from programs such as Head Start are discussed.

Meals in nursing homes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kofod, Jens Erik; Birkemose, A.

2004-01-01

Undernutrition is present among 33% of nursing home residents in Denmark. Hence, it is relevant to examine the meal situation at nursing homes to single out factors that may increase or reduce the residents' food intake. in the ongoing Danish nursing home debate it is claimed that a new type...... of nursing home improves the residents' meal situation with a positive effect on nutrition. The aim of this work is to test the general hypothesis that (i) residents appreciate the meal situation in these nursing homes and (ii) nutritional status of the residents is improved in this type of nursing home....... This study was carried out in four Danish nursing homes at various locations in Denmark. The methods used are qualitative interviews and observations at four nursing homes in combination with measurement of body mass index (BMI) at two of the four nursing homes. Undernutrition is defined as a BMI below 20...

Intelligent Home Control System Based on Single Chip Microcomputer

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Libo

2017-12-01

Intelligent home as a way to achieve the realization of the family information has become an important part of the development of social information, Internet of Things because of its huge application prospects, will be smart home industry in the development process of a more realistic breakthrough in the smart home industry development has great significance. This article is based on easy to implement, easy to operate, close to the use of the design concept, the use of STC89C52 microcontroller as the control core for the control terminal, and including infrared remote control, buttons, Web interface, including multiple control sources to control household appliances. The second chapter of this paper describes the design of the hardware and software part of the specific implementation, the fifth chapter is based on the design of a good function to build a specific example of the environment.

How Children Learn to Use Language - An Overview of R ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Resonance – Journal of Science Education; Volume 13; Issue 5. How Children Learn to Use Language - An Overview of R. Narasimhan's Ideas on Child Language Acquisition. Raman Chandrasekar. General Article Volume 13 Issue 5 May 2008 pp 430-439 ...

Drums for pump organs | Setiloane | Marang: Journal of Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Marang: Journal of Language and Literature. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 2, No 1 (1978) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads. Username, Password, Remember me, or Register. DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT Open Access ...

Remote Microphone System Use at Home: Impact on Caregiver Talk

Science.gov (United States)

Benítez-Barrera, Carlos R.; Angley, Gina P.; Tharpe, Anne Marie

2018-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of home use of a remote microphone system (RMS) on the spoken language production of caregivers with young children who have hearing loss. Method: Language Environment Analysis recorders were used with 10 families during 2 consecutive weekends (RMS weekend and No-RMS weekend). The…

Indigenous Language in the Preservation

African Journals Online (AJOL)

his strange home but this was impacted through language and communication from ... maintain intact for future use and to keep things as it is in its original state. .... law and order, truth, trustworthiness and a whole number of them have been ...

Philippine and North Bornean Languages: Issues in Description, Subgrouping, and Reconstruction

Science.gov (United States)

Lobel, Jason William

2013-01-01

The Philippines, northern Sulawesi, and northern Borneo are home to two or three hundred languages that can be described as Philippine-type. In spite of nearly five hundred years of language documentation in the Philippines, and at least a century of work in Borneo and Sulawesi, the majority of these languages remain grossly underdocumented, and…

Exploration and analysis of rural primary school teacher’s language violence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deng Honglian

2016-01-01

Full Text Available As the problem of rural education becomes more and more obvious while the supervision on stay-at-home children’s education becomes more and more difficult, rural primary school teacher’s language violence has become a new big problem today. This paper collected and investigated the improper language used by rural primary school teachers so as to analyze the features, harm, causes and solutions of language violence, trying to explore and analyze rural primary school teacher’s language violence from perspective of sociology and remind primary school teachers of rethinking. In subjective aspect, this paper hopes to improve rural primary school teacher’s comprehensive quality, establish specification for teacher’s language, lower rural teacher’s vocational burnout and alleviate the psychological pressure that exam-oriented education and rural stay-at-home children impose on teachers. In objective aspect, this paper hopes to enhance the supervision from society and administrative departments for education. All the above measures can be taken to effectively eliminate teacher’s language violence and resolve the crisis.

Life below a ‘Language Threshold'?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liversage, Anika

2009-01-01

in three social locations: households, workplaces and language schools. During their first years in Denmark a gendered division of work may relegate the women to the Turkish- or Kurdish-speaking home environment. When they subsequently enter work, their poor Danish skills only allow them access into jobs......In many immigrant groups, women gain less command of the host country language than the men. Using life story interviews with marriage migrants from Turkey, now living in Denmark, this article investigates this limited language learning, linking it to these women's lives as they primarily unfold...... with little host country interaction. The available language education becomes fragmented after childbirth and often remains inadequate to substantially raise the women's command of Danish. Furthermore, national legislation may unintentionally impede language learning. As a result, even women with expressed...

Working with the Bilingual Child Who Has a Language Delay. Meeting Learning Challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Greenspan, Stanley I.

2005-01-01

It is very important to determine if a bilingual child's language delay is simply in English or also in the child's native language. Understandably, many children have higher levels of language development in the language spoken at home. To discover if this is the case, observe the child talking with his parents. Sometimes, even without…

Barriers in access to home care services among ethnic minority and Dutch elderly--a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Suurmond, Jeanine; Rosenmöller, Doenja L; El Mesbahi, Hakima; Lamkaddem, Majda; Essink-Bot, Marie-Louise

2016-02-01

Ethnic minority elderly have a high prevalence of functional limitations and chronic conditions compared to Dutch elderly. However, their use of home care services is low compared to Dutch elderly. Explore the barriers to access to home care services for Turkish, Moroccan Surinamese and ethnic Dutch elderly. Qualitative semi-structured group interviews and individual interviews. The Netherlands. Seven group interviews (n=50) followed by individual interviews (n=5) were conducted, in the preferred language of the participants. Results were ordered and reported according to a framework of access to health care services. This framework describes five dimensions of accessibility to generate access to health care services, from the perspective of the users: ability to perceive health needs, ability to seek health care, ability to reach, ability to pay and ability to engage. This study shows that while barriers are common among all groups, several specific barriers in access to home care services exist for ethnic minority elderly. Language and communication barriers as well as limited networks and a preference for informal care seem to mutually enforce each other, resulting in many barriers during the navigation process to home care. In order to provide equal access to home care for all who need it, the language and communication barriers should be tackled by home care services and home care nurses. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Parents' Spatial Language Mediates a Sex Difference in Preschoolers' Spatial-Language Use.

Science.gov (United States)

Pruden, Shannon M; Levine, Susan C

2017-11-01

Do boys produce more terms than girls to describe the spatial world-that is, dimensional adjectives (e.g., big, little, tall, short), shape terms (e.g., circle, square), and words describing spatial features and properties (e.g., bent, curvy, edge)? If a sex difference in children's spatial-language use exists, is it related to the spatial language that parents use when interacting with children? We longitudinally tracked the development of spatial-language production in children between the ages of 14 and 46 months in a diverse sample of 58 parent-child dyads interacting in their homes. Boys produced and heard more of these three categories of spatial words, which we call "what" spatial types (i.e., unique "what" spatial words), but not more of all other word types, than girls. Mediation analysis revealed that sex differences in children's spatial talk at 34 to 46 months of age were fully mediated by parents' earlier spatial-language use, when children were 14 to 26 months old, time points at which there was no sex difference in children's spatial-language use.

Environmental Considerations: Home and School Comparison of Spanish-English Speakers' Vocalizations

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, Carla W.; Callender, Maya F.

2014-01-01

This study examined differences in the quantity of child vocalizations (CVs) between preschool and home environments using the Language Environmental Analysis (LENA). The sample included monolingual English-speaking children (n = 27) and Spanish-English speaking dual language learners (n = 30). A two-way mixed effects analysis of variance with one…

An Analysis of Communicative Language Functions in the Speech Patterns of Bilingual Korean and Mexican Immigrant Children

Science.gov (United States)

Sook Lee, Jin; Choi, Jane Y.; Marqués-Pascual, Laura

2016-01-01

For children from immigrant families, opportunities to develop additive bilingualism exist, yet bilingual attainment has varied widely. Given the significance of language development opportunities in home settings, this study examines the home language use of 20 second-generation children (ages 6-8) of Mexican and Korean descent in the United…

The Language Family Relation of Local Languages in Gorontalo Province (A Lexicostatistic Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asna Ntelu

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This study aims to find out the relation of language family and glottochronology of Gorontalo language and Atinggola language in Gorontalo Province. The research employed a comparative method, and the research instrument used a list of 200 basic Morris Swadesh vocabularies. The data source was from documents or gloss translation of 200 basic vocabularies and interview of two informants (speakers of Gorontalo and Atinggola languages. Data analysis was done by using the lexicostatistic technique. The following indicators were used to determine the word family: (a identical pairs, (b the word pairs have phonemic correspondences, (c phonetic similarities, and (d a different phoneme. The results of data analysis reveal that there are 109 or 55.05% word pairs of the word family out of 200 basic vocabularies of Swadesh. The results of this study also show that the glottochronology of Gorontalo language and Atinggola language are (a Gorontalo and Atinggola languages are one single language at 1.377 + 122 years ago, (b Gorontalo and Atinggola languages are one single language at 1,449 - 1,255 years ago. This study concludes that (a the relation of the kinship of these two languages is in the family group, (b glottochronology (separation time between Gorontalo language and Atinggola language is between 1.4 to 1.2 thousand years ago or in the 12th – 14th century. Keywords: relation, kinship level, local language, Gorontalo Province, lexicostatistics study

A Research Review: The Importance of Families and the Home Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, Jennifer

2011-01-01

Parents are a child's first educator. A child's family and home environment has a strong impact on his/her language and literacy development and educational achievement. This impact is stronger during the child's early years but continues throughout their school years. Many background variables affect the impact of the family and home environment…

Home Language Policy of Second-Generation Turkish Families in the Netherlands

Science.gov (United States)

Bezcioglu-Goktolga, Irem; Yagmur, Kutlay

2018-01-01

This study investigated the family language policy of second-generation Turkish immigrant families in the Netherlands by exploring their language ideologies, practices, and management strategies. Using an ethnographic approach, data were collected through a set of observations and interviews with 20 families. Transcriptions of interviews and memos…

Location-based language learning for migrants in a smart city

OpenAIRE

Gaved, Mark; Peasgood, Alice

2015-01-01

The SALSA (Sensors and Apps for Languages in Smart Areas) project, a winner of the Open University’s MK:Smart Open Challenge awards, is investigating how a smart city infrastructure can enable the provision of highly accurate, location-based learning activities for language learners, particularly recent migrants who have a real need to learn the language of their new home. \\ud \\ud Second language acquisition is perceived by adult migrants themselves, as well as host governments, “as a crucial...

AT HOME IN HOSPITAL? COMPETING CONSTRUCTIONS OF HOSPITAL ENVIRONMENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Kellett

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Large institutions housed in large buildings are frequently regarded as the antithesis of personalised, small scale, domestic, home environments. However the attribute of ‘homeliness’ appears to be used more broadly to describe places where people feel a sense of attachment, control and identification. In a large multi-disciplinary study of a hospital rebuilding project in northern England a range of users were interviewed to ascertain their responses to the original older buildings and later the new purpose built hospital. We found both staff and patients retained a strong sense of affection for the older buildings and frequently used the language of home to describe their responses. In contrast, the newer buildings were generally recognised as efficient but impersonal, lacking many of the positive qualities they were familiar with. In addition some respondents suggested that despite efforts to include art projects, the new architectural language was inappropriate for healthcare, believing that small scale, ‘home-like’ environments were more conducive to health and well-being. The authors will draw on anthropological and architectural frameworks to analyse the data which consists of extensive interview transcripts complemented by photographs. The paper aims to understand the conceptualisations which underpin the various user responses and to offer a critique of the design language of the current healthcare building programme.

English as an Additional Language and Attainment in Primary Schools in England

Science.gov (United States)

Demie, Feyisa

2018-01-01

English as an additional language (EAL) and language diversity attract much interest amongst policymakers and educationists; yet little is known about the performance in English schools of EAL pupils who are not fluent in English and speak different languages at home. The findings of the aggregated data confirm that EAL pupils achieved less well…

Boy Masaka is no more | Mchunu | Marang: Journal of Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Marang: Journal of Language and Literature. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 2, No 1 (1978) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads. Username, Password, Remember me, or Register. DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT Open Access ...

On the emergence of pervasive home automation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Torbensen, Rune Sonnich

2012-01-01

bridges and expandable via USB modules so that new data-communication technologies can be connected to cover the whole residence. An ’IHAP ready’ flexible communication software framework that supports wireless end-device development is proposed. The idea is to bootstrap this new market with open source...... end-devices via the Open Device Service Description Language, which employs abstract service types to describe transformations to the simple end-device application protocols used in home automation. A security system called Trusted Domain grants access for remote control of home automation devices...... by smartphones, M2M applications, and service providers. These Internet nodes and home gateways become the trusted members of a home network capable of spanning several network segments. To include new members, both locally and remotely, a new user-friendly method for establishing trust between remote devices...

Continuity and Change in the Home Literacy Environment as Predictors of Growth in Vocabulary and Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Sénéchal, Monique; LeFevre, Jo-Anne

2014-01-01

One hundred and ten English-speaking children schooled in French were followed from kindergarten to Grade 2 (M[subscript age]: T1 = 5;6, T2 = 6;4, T3 = 6;11, T4 = 7;11). The findings provided strong support for the Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal, M., 2002) because in this sample the home language was independent of the language of instruction. The…

The Language of the Genes

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Resonance – Journal of Science Education; Volume 2; Issue 3. The Language of the Genes Linking the Past and the Future. Amitabh Joshi. Book Review Volume 2 ... Amitabh Joshi1. Animal Behaviour Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur P.O., Bangalore 560 064, India.

Single Stance Stability and Proprioceptive Control in Older Adults Living at Home: Gender and Age Differences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dario Riva

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In developed countries, falls in older people represent a rising problem. As effective prevention should start before the risk becomes evident, an early predictor is needed. Single stance instability would appear as a major risk factor. Aims of the study were to describe single stance stability, its sensory components, and their correlation with age and gender. A random sample of 597 older adults (319 men, 278 women living at home, aged 65–84, was studied. Stability tests were performed with an electronic postural station. The single stance test showed the impairment of single stance stability in older individuals (75–84 yrs. The significant decline of stability in the older subjects may be explained by the impairment of proprioceptive control together with the decrease in compensatory visual stabilization and emergency responses. Younger subjects (65–74 yrs exhibited better, but still inadequate, proprioceptive control with compensatory visual stabilization. Gender differences appeared in older subjects: women were significantly less stable than men. The measurement of the sensory components of single stance stability could aid in the early detection of a decay in antigravity movements many years before the risk of falling becomes evident. Adequate proprioceptive control could mitigate the effects of all other risks of falling.

Single Stance Stability and Proprioceptive Control in Older Adults Living at Home: Gender and Age Differences

Science.gov (United States)

Riva, Dario; Mamo, Carlo; Fanì, Mara; Saccavino, Patrizia; Rocca, Flavio; Momenté, Manuel; Fratta, Marianna

2013-01-01

In developed countries, falls in older people represent a rising problem. As effective prevention should start before the risk becomes evident, an early predictor is needed. Single stance instability would appear as a major risk factor. Aims of the study were to describe single stance stability, its sensory components, and their correlation with age and gender. A random sample of 597 older adults (319 men, 278 women) living at home, aged 65–84, was studied. Stability tests were performed with an electronic postural station. The single stance test showed the impairment of single stance stability in older individuals (75–84 yrs). The significant decline of stability in the older subjects may be explained by the impairment of proprioceptive control together with the decrease in compensatory visual stabilization and emergency responses. Younger subjects (65–74 yrs) exhibited better, but still inadequate, proprioceptive control with compensatory visual stabilization. Gender differences appeared in older subjects: women were significantly less stable than men. The measurement of the sensory components of single stance stability could aid in the early detection of a decay in antigravity movements many years before the risk of falling becomes evident. Adequate proprioceptive control could mitigate the effects of all other risks of falling. PMID:23984068

Language Development in Preschool-Age Children Adopted from China.

Science.gov (United States)

Roberts, Jenny A.; Pollock, Karen E.; Krakow, Rena; Price, Johanna; Fulmer, Kathleen C.; Wang, Paul P.

2005-01-01

This study examined the language development of 55 preschool-age children adopted from China who had resided in their permanent homes for approximately 2 years or longer. Slightly over 5% of the children scored below average on 2 or more measures from a battery of standardized speech-language tests normed on monolingual English speakers. However,…

Language, Identity, and Exile

Science.gov (United States)

Erdinast-Vulcan, Daphna

2010-01-01

The exilic mode of being, a living on boundary-lines, produces a constant relativization of one's home, one's culture, one's language, and one's self, through the acknowledgement of otherness. It is a homesickness without nostalgia, without the desire to return to the same, to be identical to oneself. The encounter with the other which produces a…

Home and school environmental determinants of science ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Andrea L. Juan

Determinants of educational achievement extend beyond the school environment to include the home ... generation of relevant knowledge and the productive use of that knowledge to advance growth (World Bank, .... language of teaching and learning when it differs ..... students are likely to be at a disadvantage, because.

Non-native Chinese Foreign Language (CFL) Teachers: Identity and Discourse

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Chun

2014-01-01

Abstract Native Chinese foreign language (CFL) teacher identity is an emerging subject of research interest in the teacher education. Yet, limited study has been done on the construction of Non-native CFL teachers in their home culture. Guided by a concept of teacher identity-in-discourse, the pa......Abstract Native Chinese foreign language (CFL) teacher identity is an emerging subject of research interest in the teacher education. Yet, limited study has been done on the construction of Non-native CFL teachers in their home culture. Guided by a concept of teacher identity...... teachers face tensions and challenges in constructing their identities as CFL teachers, and the tensions and challenges that arose from Danish teaching culture could influence the Non-native CFL teachers' contributions to CFL teaching in their home cultures. The findings further show that in order to cope...

A home-centered instructional communication strategy for severely handicapped children.

Science.gov (United States)

Wulz, S V; Hall, M K; Klein, M D

1983-02-01

Family involvement is an essential element of language intervention with severely handicapped children for several reasons. First, the parent-child interaction is the focus of normal language development, and can be a powerful impetus in language learning for handicapped children. Second, limited generalization and maintenance of skills often occur when they are acquired in environments that do not also teach the appropriate use of skills. Third, parents can be successful intervention agents and may generalize their skills to other interactions with their child. Training conducted in the home must be compatible with that environment: it should involve only those skills that are of immediate use in the home. The Instructional Communication Strategy described herein represents such a program. It is a synthesis of training strategies used with normal and handicapped children, and is applicable regardless of child's level of functioning, age, or handicapping condition. This training model involves considerable modification in the role of speech-language pathologists dealing with the severely handicapped. The professional's skills are best utilized for assessment, program development, monitoring progress, and training specialized skills. The parents provide most of the direct training; however, professionals are also utilized for the child's maximum benefit.

Disaster Preparation and Recovery - Multiple Languages

Science.gov (United States)

... MedlinePlus Search Search MedlinePlus GO GO About MedlinePlus Site Map FAQs Customer Support Health Topics Drugs & Supplements Videos & Tools You Are Here: Home → Multiple Languages → All Health Topics → Disaster Preparation and Recovery URL of this page: https:// ...

Distance-Based Access Modifiers Applied to Safety in Home Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, Kjeld Høyer; Schougaard, Kari Rye; Schultz, Ulrik Pagh

2004-01-01

Home networks and the interconnection of home appliances is a classical theme in ubiquitous computing research. Security is a recurring concern, but there is a lack of awareness of safety: preventing the computerized house from harming the inhabitants, even in a worst-case scenario where...... be performed within a physical proximity that ensures safety. We use a declarative approach integrated with an IDL language to express location-based restrictions on operations. This model has been implemented in a middleware for home audio-video devices, using infrared communication and a local-area network...

How Home Visits Transformed My Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

El Yaafouri-Kreuzer, Louise

2017-01-01

Recalling her year as the "English-speaking unicorn" in a class of refugee and immigrant students representing a myriad of languages, the author tells how visiting students at their homes was the strategy that most helped her help students. From discovering that a betel-nut habit was causing one student's hyperactivity to seeing another…

Lessons in the Korean Language and Culture for Teachers of English as a Second Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Chang Whan

This language text is designed to introduce the Korean language and culture to Peace Corps trainees and volunteers who will be teachers of English as a second language to Korean students. The disciplines of language training, cross-cultural training, and TESL are combined in a single volume into one integrated curriculum. The text contains 100…

Independent Contributions of Mothers' and Fathers' Language and Literacy Practices: Associations with Children's Kindergarten Skills across Linguistically Diverse Households

Science.gov (United States)

Sims, Jacqueline; Coley, Rebekah Levine

2016-01-01

Research Findings: Home language and literacy inputs have been consistently linked with enhanced language and literacy skills among children. Most studies have focused on maternal inputs among monolingual populations. Though the proportion of American children growing up in primarily non-English-speaking homes is growing and the role of fathers in…

University students' context-dependent conscious attitudes towards the official South African languages

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hilton, Nanna Haug

2010-01-01

This paper considers the results of an empirical investigation of overt language attitudes held by students attending North-West University, South Africa. Attitudes elicited from 325 students with mainly Setswana, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English as home languages are analysed comparatively. The study

Kidwatching: A Vygotskyan Approach to Children's Language In the "Star Wars" Age.

Science.gov (United States)

Monroe, Suzanne S.

A Vygotskyan review of children's language examines language samples of a 7-year-old boy at home, at a birthday party, and at play in a sandbox. The language samples indicate common patterns, including his use of tools and symbol together in play. A common thread in the samples is his involvement with high tech tools of futuristic toys. Vygotsky…

Socioeconomic Status, Parenting, and Externalizing Problems in African American Single-Mother Homes: A Person-Oriented Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Anton, Margaret T.; Jones, Deborah J.; Youngstrom, Eric A.

2016-01-01

African American youth, particularly those from single-mother homes, are overrepresented in statistics on externalizing problems. The family is a central context in which to understand externalizing problems; however, reliance on variable-oriented approaches to the study of parenting, which originate from work with intact, middle-income, European American families, may obscure important information regarding variability in parenting styles among African American single mothers, and in turn, variability in youth outcomes as well. The current study demonstrated that within African American single-mother families: (a) a person-, rather than variable-, oriented approach to measuring parenting style may further elucidate variability; (b) socioeconomic status may provide 1 context within which to understanding variability in parenting style; and (c) 1 marker of socioeconomic status, income, and parenting style may each explain variability in youth externalizing problems; however, the interaction between income and parenting style was not significant. Findings have potential implications for better understanding the specific contexts in which externalizing problems may be most likely to occur within this at-risk and underserved group. PMID:26053349

Socioeconomic status, parenting, and externalizing problems in African American single-mother homes: A person-oriented approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Anton, Margaret T; Jones, Deborah J; Youngstrom, Eric A

2015-06-01

African American youth, particularly those from single-mother homes, are overrepresented in statistics on externalizing problems. The family is a central context in which to understand externalizing problems; however, reliance on variable-oriented approaches to the study of parenting, which originate from work with intact, middle-income, European American families, may obscure important information regarding variability in parenting styles among African American single mothers, and in turn, variability in youth outcomes as well. The current study demonstrated that within African American single-mother families: (a) a person-, rather than variable-, oriented approach to measuring parenting style may further elucidate variability; (b) socioeconomic status may provide 1 context within which to understanding variability in parenting style; and (c) 1 marker of socioeconomic status, income, and parenting style may each explain variability in youth externalizing problems; however, the interaction between income and parenting style was not significant. Findings have potential implications for better understanding the specific contexts in which externalizing problems may be most likely to occur within this at-risk and underserved group. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies: Journal Sponsorship. Journal Home > About the ... INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AFRICAN RESEARCHERS AND REVIEWERS. Sources of Support. Sale of hard copies and subscription. ISSN: 2227-5460. AJOL African ...

HOME VISIT QUALITY VARIATIONS IN TWO EARLY HEAD START PROGRAMS IN RELATION TO PARENTING AND CHILD VOCABULARY OUTCOMES.

Science.gov (United States)

Roggman, Lori A; Cook, Gina A; Innocenti, Mark S; Jump Norman, Vonda; Boyce, Lisa K; Christiansen, Katie; Peterson, Carla A

2016-05-01

Home-visiting programs aiming to improve early child development have demonstrated positive outcomes, but processes within home visits to individual families are rarely documented. We examined family-level variations in the home-visiting process (N = 71) from extant video recordings of home visits in two Early Head Start programs, using an observational measure of research-based quality indicators of home-visiting practices and family engagement, the Home Visit Rating Scales (HOVRS). HOVRS scores, showing good interrater agreement and internal consistency, were significantly associated with parent- and staff-reported positive characteristics of home visiting as well as with parenting and child language outcomes tested at program exit. When home-visiting processes were higher quality during the program, home visit content was more focused on child development, families were more involved in the overall program, and most important, scores on measures of the parenting environment and children's vocabulary were higher at the end of the program. Results showed that home visit quality was indirectly associated with child language outcomes through parenting outcomes. Observation ratings of home visit quality could be useful for guiding program improvement, supporting professional development, and increasing our understanding of the links between home-visiting processes and outcomes. © 2016 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.

Language Policies and Sociolinguistic Domains in the Context of Minority Groups in China

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Anwei; Adamson, Bob

2018-01-01

In mainland China, most ethnic minority students today face the challenge of learning three languages in schools, namely, their home language (L1), Mandarin Chinese (L2) and a foreign language, usually English (L3). Research into trilingual education for minority groups has been most active since the turn of the twenty-first century. This paper…

Early Steps to School Success (ESSS): Examining Pathways Linking Home Visiting and Language Outcomes

Science.gov (United States)

Iruka, Iheoma U.; Brown, Deborah; Jerald, Judith; Blitch, Kimberly

2018-01-01

Background: Improving the home environment and parenting practices to support children's early development and learning is a key focus of many. Home visiting is one potential strategy to improve the home environment and parenting; however, more data about current programmatic efforts is needed, especially for children with multiple risks living in…

Croatian Language Maintenance in Canada

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivana Petrović

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Although the topic of language maintenance has received considerable attention from linguists around the world, there are still many aspects of this language-contact phenomenon that could be examined further. This paper aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by exploring the state of Croatian as a heritage language in Canada. The aim of the paper is two-fold. The first is to describe the demographic characteristics of the Croatian community by investigating the number of people of Croatian descent and the number of Croatian speakers in Canada. The second, and more specific, aim of the paper is to provide an account of the state of Croatian as a minority language and examine the extent of language maintenance in the community. To accomplish the first objective, Canadian census data (1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 was analyzed, with special focus on linguistic census data (number and age of Croatian speakers in Canada, mother tongue of people of Croatian descent, language most used at home, etc.. To accomplish the second objective, census data was supplemented with data from a questionnaire-based survey completed by members of the Croatian community in Toronto. The survey was completed by 220 participants; 110 first-generation Croatian Canadians and 110 second-generation Croatian Canadians. Two versions of the questionnaire were designed, one for first-generation participants and the other for second-generation participants. The great majority of items in the two versions were identical; each version contained questions about demographic characteristics, language use in everyday life, and self-perceived language proficiency in English and Croatian. The majority of questions were of a closed type (multiple-choice questions and rating scales, but there were also some open-ended questions, so as to give participants the opportunity to express their viewpoint or comment on certain issues. Questions were written in both Croatian and English

Developing Home-Based Virtual Reality Therapy Interventions.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Janice; Kelleher, Caitlin L; Engsberg, Jack R

2013-02-01

Stroke is one of the leading causes of serious long-term disability. However, home exercise programs given at rehabilitation often lack in motivational aspects. The purposes of this pilot study were (1) create individualized virtual reality (VR) games and (2) determine the effectiveness of VR games for improving movement in upper extremities in a 6-week home therapy intervention for persons with stroke. Participants were two individuals with upper extremity hemiparesis following a stroke. VR games were created using the Looking Glass programming language and modified based on personal interests, goals, and abilities. Participants were asked to play 1 hour each day for 6 weeks. Assessments measured upper extremity movement (range of motion and Action Research Arm Test [ARAT]) and performance in functional skills (Canadian Occupational Performance Measure [COPM] and Motor Activity Log [MAL]). Three VR games were created by a supervised occupational therapist student. The participants played approximately four to six times a week and performed over 100 repetitions of movements each day. Participants showed improvement in upper extremity movement and participation in functional tasks based on results from the COPM, ARAT, and MAL. Further development in the programming environment is needed to be plausible in a rehabilitation setting. Suggestions include graded-level support and continuation of creating a natural programming language, which will increase the ability to use the program in a rehabilitation setting. However, the VR games were shown to be effective as a home therapy intervention for persons with stroke. VR has the potential to advance therapy services by creating a more motivating home-based therapy service.

First-born siblings show better second language skills than later born siblings

OpenAIRE

Karin eKeller; Karin eKeller; Larissa Maria Troesch; Alexander eGrob

2015-01-01

We examined the extent to which three sibling structure variables number of siblings, birth order and presence of an older sibling at school age are linked to the second language skills of bilingual children. The research questions were tested using an ethnically heterogeneous sample of 1209 bilingual children with German as a second language. Controlling for children’s age, sex, nationality, number of children’s books at home, family language and parental German language skills, hierarchical...

Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals Project (Brochure)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None, None

2014-03-01

The Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals is a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and a wide range of home energy performance industry professionals. The Guidelines project, managed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for DOE, addresses the need for a highly-skilled weatherization workforce equipped to complete consistent, high-quality home energy upgrades for single-family homes, multifamily homes, and manufactured housing. In doing so, it helps increase energy efficiency in housing, which can mitigate climate change, one of the major challenges of the 21st century.

Language policy and language learning in Macedonia Which lessons may be adopted from the Swiss model?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xhaferri, Gëzim

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The following paper will investigate the acquisition of Macedonian languages in public schools and universities, focusing on the Albanian and Macedonian languages. As the saying goes: "The more languages you speak, the more human you are". Abiding by this proverb, the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia should be encouraged to become multilingual by learning the national languages. The acquisition of the national languages in a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country like Macedonia is, in my opinion, a necessary step toward the establishment of smooth and peaceful communication between the country's two largest cultural groups (Macedonians and Albanians, and is therefore also a prerequisite for the successful integration of every citizen into their home country's society. This paper also investigates Switzerland's multilingual and multicultural society, which serves as a successful and positive example of how a nation can deal with a multilingual population and the integration of its population. With this in mind, the question is raised here whether the model of Switzerland's language policy and national language instruction can perhaps also serve as an example for the Republic of Macedonia.

Bilingual infants control their languages as they listen.

Science.gov (United States)

Byers-Heinlein, Krista; Morin-Lessard, Elizabeth; Lew-Williams, Casey

2017-08-22

Infants growing up in bilingual homes learn two languages simultaneously without apparent confusion or delay. However, the mechanisms that support this remarkable achievement remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate that infants use language-control mechanisms to preferentially activate the currently heard language during listening. In a naturalistic eye-tracking procedure, bilingual infants were more accurate at recognizing objects labeled in same-language sentences ("Find the dog!") than in switched-language sentences ("Find the chien !"). Measurements of infants' pupil size over time indicated that this resulted from increased cognitive load during language switches. However, language switches did not always engender processing difficulties: the switch cost was reduced or eliminated when the switch was from the nondominant to the dominant language, and when it crossed a sentence boundary. Adults showed the same patterns of performance as infants, even though target words were simple and highly familiar. Our results provide striking evidence from infancy to adulthood that bilinguals monitor their languages for efficient comprehension. Everyday practice controlling two languages during listening is likely to explain previously observed bilingual cognitive advantages across the lifespan.

Hmong Parents Critical Reflections on Their Childrens Heritage Language Maintenance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Terry Yang

2008-01-01

Full Text Available This study utilizes a qualitative method to explore the critical reflections of Hmong parents helping their children maintain their native language. Specifically, it examines parents thoughts, feelings and experiences related to Hmong language maintenance. Findings reveal that Hmong parents worry about their children losing their ability to speak their native language. They believe that maintaining the Hmong language provides advantages in achieving academic success, attaining careers, and continuing to serve as role models in the community. Parents stressed the need to use Hmong at home in order to help their children develop and maintain the language. They reported some successes in doing so, while acknowledging several challenges.

Neural Differences in Bilingual Children's Arithmetic Processing Depending on Language of Instruction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mondt, K.; Struys, E.; Noort, M.W.M.L. van den; Balériaux, D.; Metens, T.; Paquier, P.; Craen, P. van de; Bosch, M.P.C.; Denolin, V.

2011-01-01

Many children in bilingual regions follow lessons in a language at school (school-language) that they hardly ever speak at home or in other informal settings. What are the neural effects of this phenomenon? This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigates the effects of using

Language as skill

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chater, Nick; McCauley, Stewart M.; Christiansen, M. H.

2016-01-01

occurs on-line. These properties are difficult to reconcile with the 'abstract knowledge' viewpoint, and crucially suggest that language comprehension and production are facets of a unitary skill. This viewpoint is exemplified in the Chunk-Based Learner, a computational acquisition model that processes...... incrementally and learns on-line. The model both parses and produces language; and implements the idea that language acquisition is nothing more than learning to process. We suggest that the Now-or-Never bottleneck also provides a strong motivation for unified perception-production models in other domains......Are comprehension and production a single, integrated skill, or are they separate processes drawing on a shared abstract knowledge of language? We argue that a fundamental constraint on memory, the Now-or-Never bottleneck, implies that language processing is incremental and that language learning...

Qualitative assessment of home environment across the different educational status of parents.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharma, S

1997-01-01

This study examined the home environment of preschool children among 6 villages in Ludhiana district in Punjab state, India. The sample included 120 children aged 3-5 years. Eight composite scales were used to measure the home environment: learning stimulation, language stimulation, physical environment, warmth and affection, academic stimulation, role modeling, variety of experience, and acceptance. The sample reflected four educational groups for the father (illiterate, primary, matric, and graduate) and three educational groups for the mother (illiterate, primary, and matric). Findings clearly indicate that graduate level parents provided a more enriched home environment than less educated and illiterate parents. Education was unrelated to warmth and affection or acceptance between parents and children. Educated mothers showed slightly more warmth and affection. The stimulation in the growth of language and learning stimulation was significantly greater among graduate parents. Mothers encouraged their children to speak correctly, whereas illiterate mothers did not realize the importance. The lesser physical environment among lower educated parents supports findings of R.K. Srivastava (1974) on the association between lower scholastic achievement and overcrowding in the home. The study included homes where parents had sufficient financial resources to provide a safe and adequate physical environment but did not do so.

Language Hotspots: What (Applied) Linguistics and Education Should Do about Language Endangerment in the Twenty-First Century

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Gregory D. S.

2011-01-01

I outline the concept of "Language Hotspots", seeking to direct public and professional awareness of the global language extinction crisis. The loss of a single language leaves the science of linguistics impoverished and yet even few linguists realize that the vast majority of "language families" will likely be lost by the end…

Beyond demographics: differences in patient activation across new immigrant, diverse language subgroups.

Science.gov (United States)

Lubetkin, Erica I; Zabor, Emily C; Brennessel, Debra; Kemeny, M Margaret; Hay, Jennifer L

2014-02-01

The federal government promotes "patient-centered medical homes" to plan care with respect to patients' cultures and values and support patients' self-care efforts. To promote self-care, the medical home would be best utilized by activated, engaged patients. The objective of this study was to measure and compare patient activation scores in English-, Spanish-, and Haitian Creole-speaking patients seen at an inner-city hospital ambulatory care practice. Patient activation was measured using the patient activation measure (PAM). Mean PAM scores and activation levels differed according to survey language (p differ between Haitian Creole and Spanish speakers, PAM stages differed according to language of survey completion (p differ between Hispanics and non-Hispanics or according to race, illustrating the need to examine the role of language and culture on patient activation.

The language and culture of delay.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakai, Christina; Shetgiri, Rashmi; Flores, Glenn; Caronna, Elizabeth; Khandekar, Aasma; Augustyn, Marilyn

2010-04-01

Satish is a 3 (1/2)-year-old boy you are seeing in your primary care office for a "sick visit" due to parental concerns about his language development. He is the only child of a couple who immigrated to the United States from India shortly before his birth. He received early intervention services for speech and language delays for a few months before he attained 2 years of age. However, services were discontinued when the family moved back to India for a year. After the family returned to the United States, they lived in a different state for several months before moving again recently to his current home, so he is relatively new to your practice. Satish's mother is concerned not only about his communication skills but also about his attention and social skills. She notes that he often plays alone or in parallel with other children. She was also told by his first pediatrician that Satish had "a limited imagination." His parents feel that he has pretend play, in that he will pretend to get his haircut, talk on the phone, or ride on a train. Satish was born at term without complications. He passed his newborn hearing screen and a repeat hearing test at the age of 2 years. He has had no medical problems and takes a daily multivitamin. His parents are both of Indian descent. Satish's father is an engineer and had a history of being a late talker. His mother graduated from high school and is a homemaker. They are expecting their second child. Satish's developmental history is significant for language delays. He babbled at 6 months but did not have single words until he was 2 years. When he was 2 (1/2) years, he had 2 to 3 word sentences. He responded to his name at 15 months and could follow single step commands by the age of 2 years. Currently, Satish is noted to have difficulty with "back and forth conversation." He sometimes repeats what others are saying.The family speaks Hindi, their native language, exclusively at home. When Satish speaks, he usually speaks in

Language use at home and performance in English composition in multilingual Ghana

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ahadzie, S.; Ameka, F.K.; Essegbey, J.

2015-01-01

Ghana has witnessed a recurrent debate on the usefulness of indigenous Ghanaian languages in childhood education. It is assumed that using the mother tongue as a Medium of Instruction (MOI) during the early years improves children’s ability to acquire knowledge and other languages. Not everybody

Language competence in movement

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laursen, Helle Pia; Mogensen, Naja Dahlstrup

2016-01-01

multilingual children's language and literacy acquisition processes, we direct our focus to a single child's active exploration of what it means to know a language. Through analysis of interviews and researcher generated activities, we see how this child both describes and does language competence......This article examines how, in a multilingual perspective, language competence is experienced, talked about and practiced by language users themselves. By viewing children as active co-creators of the spaces in which language is used, this article contributes to a research tradition in which focus...... is shifted from viewing the individual's language competence as a mental linguistic or communicative property, to viewing language as a series of social and spatial practices. Looking at data from the research project Tegn på Sprog (in the following referred to as Signs of Language), which examines...

Speech and language support: How physicians can identify and treat speech and language delays in the office setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Moharir, Madhavi; Barnett, Noel; Taras, Jillian; Cole, Martha; Ford-Jones, E Lee; Levin, Leo

2014-01-01

Failure to recognize and intervene early in speech and language delays can lead to multifaceted and potentially severe consequences for early child development and later literacy skills. While routine evaluations of speech and language during well-child visits are recommended, there is no standardized (office) approach to facilitate this. Furthermore, extensive wait times for speech and language pathology consultation represent valuable lost time for the child and family. Using speech and language expertise, and paediatric collaboration, key content for an office-based tool was developed. early and accurate identification of speech and language delays as well as children at risk for literacy challenges; appropriate referral to speech and language services when required; and teaching and, thus, empowering parents to create rich and responsive language environments at home. Using this tool, in combination with the Canadian Paediatric Society's Read, Speak, Sing and Grow Literacy Initiative, physicians will be better positioned to offer practical strategies to caregivers to enhance children's speech and language capabilities. The tool represents a strategy to evaluate speech and language delays. It depicts age-specific linguistic/phonetic milestones and suggests interventions. The tool represents a practical interim treatment while the family is waiting for formal speech and language therapy consultation.

Examinations of Home Economics Textbooks for Sex Bias.

Science.gov (United States)

Weis, Susan F.

1979-01-01

Four analyses were conducted on a sample of 100 randomly selected, secondary home economics textbooks published between 1964 and 1974. Results indicated that the contents presented sex bias in language usage, in pictures portraying male and female role environments, and in role behaviors and expectations emphasized. (Author/JH)

On the Learning Behaviours of English Additional-Language Speakers Entering Engineering Education in South Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Woollacott, L.; Simelane, Z.; Inglis, J.

2011-01-01

This article reports the findings of an inductive study on the learning behaviours and language difficulties of a small group of English additional-language students entering a school of chemical and metallurgical engineering in South Africa. Students were interviewed in their home language. While they appeared to have had a reasonable grounding…

School-External Factors in Finnish Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) Programs

Science.gov (United States)

Aro, Sophie; Mikkilä-Erdmann, Mirjamaija

2015-01-01

This study investigated the relationship between the English language competence of Finnish bilingual pupils and school-external factors such as parental expectations, home involvement, and exposure to English outside the classroom. Data on the pupils' language competence was collected from n?=?122 6th graders in bilingual education, and compared…

Teaching Vocabulary to English Language Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Daniels, Sharilyn Fox

2009-01-01

This study determined if the vocabulary gap for English Language Learners (ELLs) and their peers could be bridged through providing home interventions with multiple exposures to words, definitions, model sentences and context. Ninety-one first grade students from a public school in Southern California with a 95% ELL population were researched. ELL…

Hmong Parents’ Critical Reflections on Their Children’s Heritage Language Maintenance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Terry Yang

2008-01-01

Full Text Available This study utilizes a qualitative method to explore the critical reflections of Hmong parents helping their children maintain their native language. Specifically, it examines parents’ thoughts, feelings and experiences related to Hmong language maintenance. Findings reveal that Hmong parents worry about their children losing their ability to speak their native language. They believe that maintaining the Hmong language provides advantages in achieving academic success, attaining careers, and continuing to serve as role models in the community. Parents stressed the need to use Hmong at home in order to help their children develop and maintain the language. They reported some successes in doing so, while acknowledging several challenges.

Stimulus-Dominance Effects and Lateral Asymmetries for Language in Normal Subjects and in Patients with a Single Functional Hemisphere

Science.gov (United States)

Di Stefano, Marirosa; Marano, Elena; Viti, Marzia

2004-01-01

The assessment of language laterality by the dichotic fused-words test may be impaired by interference effects revealed by the dominant report of one member of the stimuli-pair. Stimulus-dominance and ear asymmetry were evaluated in normal population (48 subjects of both sex and handedness) and in 2 patients with a single functional hemisphere.…

Where love flies free: women, home, and writing in Cook County Jail.

Science.gov (United States)

Stanford, Ann Folwell

2005-01-01

Several definitions of "home," drawn from dozens provided by the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, underscore how a large urban county jail becomes many forms of home for the women detainees there. Drawing on the women's poetry and the mechanics of creative writing workshops facilitated by the author for the last seven years at Cook County Jail, this essay describes some of the realities of the criminal (in)justice system and how the women's writing becomes a way of writing against the grain of official discourse, thus altering certain definitions of this "home."

A Randomized Controlled Trial of an At-Scale Language and Literacy Intervention in Childcares in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Højen, Anders; Bleses, Dorthe; Dale, Philip S.

Research suggests that systematic and explicit curriculum-based language and literacy preschool interventions improve children’s language and literacy outcomes. However, most of this research was done in the U.S. on a relatively small number of children from primarily low-income homes and focused...... of 40 high-quality book-reading lessons with an explicit scope and sequence of language and literacy instruction targeting phonological awareness, print awareness, vocabulary and narrative development. Childcare educators delivered 40 30-minute biweekly lessons. We examined the effect...... of the intervention in three arms: SPELL-basic, SPELL with supplementary home intervention, and SPELL with professional development of educators. Pre- and posttest scores were obtained using a standardized language and literacy test. Hierarchical linear modeling of change scores was the primary analysis. 142...

How Immigrant Students' Self-Views at School Relate to Different Patterns of First and Second Language Use

Science.gov (United States)

Gabriel, Ute; Lilla, Nanine; Zander, Lysann; Hannover, Bettina

2014-01-01

This research investigates how students from immigrant families whose first language differs from the language of instruction at school view themselves while at school, depending on the way in which they use their first and second language. While some immigrant students are inclined to predominantly use their first language in the home environment…

Remixing Memory through Home Movies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shaun Wilson

2011-05-01

Full Text Available

Abstract: The moving image has traditionally provided a catalyst for screen-based culture to develop a language that evokes a means and experience of storytelling positioned in-between the image and the viewer.  However, this article will frame such a relationship by distancing the moving image from a cinematic or industrial context to instead look to the amateur cohort of private films commonly referred to as ‘home movies’, In doing so, I will consider what Bachelard refers to as a returning to childhood in search of memory, to form a reasoned understanding of the ways in which memory itself can be grafted in-between film and experience. This article will focus on celluloid film which I will define as vintage home movies, namely Standard 8mm and Super 8mm film contributed from domestic-orientated archives. The discussion will examine two main video installations evidencing selected work in the wider series.Filmic Memorials (2002-06 comprised of a substantial body of work established from my family collection of 8mm home movies.

language: FR;">Résumé:language: FR;"> language: FR;" lang="FR">Dans notre culture de l'écran, l 'image mobile a souvent servi de catalyseur à l

Using Extensible Markup Language (XML) for the Single Source Delivery of Educational Resources by Print and Online: A Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, Lucas

2007-01-01

This article seeks to provide an introduction to Extensible Markup Language (XML) by looking at its use in a single source publishing approach to the provision of teaching resources in both hardcopy and online. Using the development of the International Baccalaureate Organisation's online Economics Subject Guide as a practical example, this…

MaLT - Combined Motor and Language Therapy Tool for Brain Injury Patients Using Kinect.

Science.gov (United States)

Wairagkar, Maitreyee; McCrindle, Rachel; Robson, Holly; Meteyard, Lotte; Sperrin, Malcom; Smith, Andy; Pugh, Moyra

2017-03-23

The functional connectivity and structural proximity of elements of the language and motor systems result in frequent co-morbidity post brain injury. Although rehabilitation services are becoming increasingly multidisciplinary and "integrated", treatment for language and motor functions often occurs in isolation. Thus, behavioural therapies which promote neural reorganisation do not reflect the high intersystem connectivity of the neurologically intact brain. As such, there is a pressing need for rehabilitation tools which better reflect and target the impaired cognitive networks. The objective of this research is to develop a combined high dosage therapy tool for language and motor rehabilitation. The rehabilitation therapy tool developed, MaLT (Motor and Language Therapy), comprises a suite of computer games targeting both language and motor therapy that use the Kinect sensor as an interaction device. The games developed are intended for use in the home environment over prolonged periods of time. In order to track patients' engagement with the games and their rehabilitation progress, the game records patient performance data for the therapist to interrogate. MaLT incorporates Kinect-based games, a database of objects and language parameters, and a reporting tool for therapists. Games have been developed that target four major language therapy tasks involving single word comprehension, initial phoneme identification, rhyme identification and a naming task. These tasks have 8 levels each increasing in difficulty. A database of 750 objects is used to programmatically generate appropriate questions for the game, providing both targeted therapy and unique gameplay every time. The design of the games has been informed by therapists and by discussions with a Public Patient Involvement (PPI) group. Pilot MaLT trials have been conducted with three stroke survivors for the duration of 6 to 8 weeks. Patients' performance is monitored through MaLT's reporting facility

The Minimal and Short-Lived Effects of Minority Language Exposure on the Executive Functions of Frisian-Dutch Bilingual Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Bosma, Evelyn; Hoekstra, Eric; Versloot, Arjen; Blom, Elma

2017-01-01

Various studies have shown that bilingual children need a certain degree of proficiency in both languages before their bilingual experiences enhance their executive functioning (EF). In the current study, we investigated if degree of bilingualism in Frisian-Dutch children influenced EF and if this effect was sustained over a 3-year period. To this end, longitudinal data were analyzed from 120 Frisian-Dutch bilingual children who were 5- or 6-years-old at the first time of testing. EF was measured with two attention and two working memory tasks. Degree of bilingualism was defined as language balance based on receptive vocabulary and expressive morphology scores in both languages. In a context with a minority and a majority language, such as the Frisian-Dutch context, chances for becoming proficient in both languages are best for children who speak the minority language at home. Therefore, in a subsequent analysis, we examined whether minority language exposure predicted language balance and whether there was a relationship between minority language exposure and EF, mediated by language balance. The results showed that intensity of exposure to Frisian at home, mediated by language balance, had an impact on one of the attention tasks only. It predicted performance on this task at time 1, but not at time 2 and 3. This partially confirms previous evidence that the cognitive effects of bilingualism are moderated by degree of bilingualism and furthermore reveals that substantial minority language exposure at home indirectly affects bilingual children's cognitive development, namely through mediation with degree of bilingualism. However, the findings also demonstrate that the effect of bilingualism on EF is limited and unstable.

The Minimal and Short-Lived Effects of Minority Language Exposure on the Executive Functions of Frisian-Dutch Bilingual Children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Evelyn Bosma

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Various studies have shown that bilingual children need a certain degree of proficiency in both languages before their bilingual experiences enhance their executive functioning (EF. In the current study, we investigated if degree of bilingualism in Frisian-Dutch children influenced EF and if this effect was sustained over a 3-year period. To this end, longitudinal data were analyzed from 120 Frisian-Dutch bilingual children who were 5- or 6-years-old at the first time of testing. EF was measured with two attention and two working memory tasks. Degree of bilingualism was defined as language balance based on receptive vocabulary and expressive morphology scores in both languages. In a context with a minority and a majority language, such as the Frisian-Dutch context, chances for becoming proficient in both languages are best for children who speak the minority language at home. Therefore, in a subsequent analysis, we examined whether minority language exposure predicted language balance and whether there was a relationship between minority language exposure and EF, mediated by language balance. The results showed that intensity of exposure to Frisian at home, mediated by language balance, had an impact on one of the attention tasks only. It predicted performance on this task at time 1, but not at time 2 and 3. This partially confirms previous evidence that the cognitive effects of bilingualism are moderated by degree of bilingualism and furthermore reveals that substantial minority language exposure at home indirectly affects bilingual children’s cognitive development, namely through mediation with degree of bilingualism. However, the findings also demonstrate that the effect of bilingualism on EF is limited and unstable.

The Minimal and Short-Lived Effects of Minority Language Exposure on the Executive Functions of Frisian-Dutch Bilingual Children

Science.gov (United States)

Bosma, Evelyn; Hoekstra, Eric; Versloot, Arjen; Blom, Elma

2017-01-01

Various studies have shown that bilingual children need a certain degree of proficiency in both languages before their bilingual experiences enhance their executive functioning (EF). In the current study, we investigated if degree of bilingualism in Frisian-Dutch children influenced EF and if this effect was sustained over a 3-year period. To this end, longitudinal data were analyzed from 120 Frisian-Dutch bilingual children who were 5- or 6-years-old at the first time of testing. EF was measured with two attention and two working memory tasks. Degree of bilingualism was defined as language balance based on receptive vocabulary and expressive morphology scores in both languages. In a context with a minority and a majority language, such as the Frisian-Dutch context, chances for becoming proficient in both languages are best for children who speak the minority language at home. Therefore, in a subsequent analysis, we examined whether minority language exposure predicted language balance and whether there was a relationship between minority language exposure and EF, mediated by language balance. The results showed that intensity of exposure to Frisian at home, mediated by language balance, had an impact on one of the attention tasks only. It predicted performance on this task at time 1, but not at time 2 and 3. This partially confirms previous evidence that the cognitive effects of bilingualism are moderated by degree of bilingualism and furthermore reveals that substantial minority language exposure at home indirectly affects bilingual children’s cognitive development, namely through mediation with degree of bilingualism. However, the findings also demonstrate that the effect of bilingualism on EF is limited and unstable. PMID:28900405

Measurement-Based Evaluation of Installed Filtration System Performance in Single-Family Homes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chan, Wanyu Rengie; Singer, Brett C.

2014-04-03

This guide discusses important study design issues to consider when conducting an on-site evaluation of filtration system performance. The two most important dichotomies to consider in developing a study protocol are (1) whether systems are being evaluated in occupied or unoccupied homes and (2) whether different systems are being compared in the same homes or if the comparison is between systems installed in different homes. This document provides perspective and recommendations about a suite of implementation issues including the choice of particle measurement devices, selection of sampling locations, ways to control and/or monitor factors and processes that can impact particle concentrations, and data analysis approaches.

Talking to Toddlers: Drawing on Mothers' Perceptions of Using Wearable and Mobile Technology in the Home.

Science.gov (United States)

Choo, Dawn; Dettman, Shani; Dowell, Richard; Cowan, Robert

2017-01-01

Mother-child interactions often give rise to opportunities for early language learning in the context of everyday life. Persuasive technology has the potential to influence maternal language behaviours in the home and promote mothers' active engagement in the development of their children's communication skills. This paper explored maternal perceptions regarding the use of a language tracking wearable (Language Environment Analysis; LENA) device and a parent education smartphone application in an 8-week trial with their young children. Mother/child dyads were enrolled in a feasibility trial designed to obtain objective auditory and linguistic data from each child's naturalistic settings (Control Condition), provide feedback to mothers about their child's home language environment (LENA Feedback Condition), and to explore effectiveness of an app designed to promote meaningful parent/child interactions during daily routines (LENA Feedback and App Condition). The majority of mothers (80%) who participated in the trial reported a preference for using the mobile app and/or LENA technology again. Maternal responses during this pilot informed the design of an ongoing, prospective language intervention study for parents and their young children with significant hearing loss.

Indirect Solar Water Heating in Single-Family, Zero Energy Ready Homes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Aldrich, Robb [Steven Winters Associates, Inc., Norwalk, CT (United States)

2016-02-01

In western Massachusetts, an affordable housing developer built a community of 20 homes with the goal of approaching zero energy consumption. In addition to excellent thermal envelopes and photovoltaic systems, the developer installed a solar domestic hot water (SDHW) system on each home. The Consortium for Advanced Residential Buildings (CARB), a U.S. Department of Energy Building America research team, commissioned some of the systems, and CARB was able to monitor detailed performance of one system for 28 months.

Immigration, language proficiency, and autobiographical memories: Lifespan distribution and second-language access.

Science.gov (United States)

Esposito, Alena G; Baker-Ward, Lynne

2016-08-01

This investigation examined two controversies in the autobiographical literature: how cross-language immigration affects the distribution of autobiographical memories across the lifespan and under what circumstances language-dependent recall is observed. Both Spanish/English bilingual immigrants and English monolingual non-immigrants participated in a cue word study, with the bilingual sample taking part in a within-subject language manipulation. The expected bump in the number of memories from early life was observed for non-immigrants but not immigrants, who reported more memories for events surrounding immigration. Aspects of the methodology addressed possible reasons for past discrepant findings. Language-dependent recall was influenced by second-language proficiency. Results were interpreted as evidence that bilinguals with high second-language proficiency, in contrast to those with lower second-language proficiency, access a single conceptual store through either language. The final multi-level model predicting language-dependent recall, including second-language proficiency, age of immigration, internal language, and cue word language, explained ¾ of the between-person variance and (1)/5 of the within-person variance. We arrive at two conclusions. First, major life transitions influence the distribution of memories. Second, concept representation across multiple languages follows a developmental model. In addition, the results underscore the importance of considering language experience in research involving memory reports.

Speech and language support: How physicians can identify and treat speech and language delays in the office setting

Science.gov (United States)

Moharir, Madhavi; Barnett, Noel; Taras, Jillian; Cole, Martha; Ford-Jones, E Lee; Levin, Leo

2014-01-01

Failure to recognize and intervene early in speech and language delays can lead to multifaceted and potentially severe consequences for early child development and later literacy skills. While routine evaluations of speech and language during well-child visits are recommended, there is no standardized (office) approach to facilitate this. Furthermore, extensive wait times for speech and language pathology consultation represent valuable lost time for the child and family. Using speech and language expertise, and paediatric collaboration, key content for an office-based tool was developed. The tool aimed to help physicians achieve three main goals: early and accurate identification of speech and language delays as well as children at risk for literacy challenges; appropriate referral to speech and language services when required; and teaching and, thus, empowering parents to create rich and responsive language environments at home. Using this tool, in combination with the Canadian Paediatric Society’s Read, Speak, Sing and Grow Literacy Initiative, physicians will be better positioned to offer practical strategies to caregivers to enhance children’s speech and language capabilities. The tool represents a strategy to evaluate speech and language delays. It depicts age-specific linguistic/phonetic milestones and suggests interventions. The tool represents a practical interim treatment while the family is waiting for formal speech and language therapy consultation. PMID:24627648

Book Review : A DICTIONARY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF KEY TERMS IN FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

OpenAIRE

Kaswan Kaswan

2014-01-01

As  with language, language acquisition (LA), particularly second language acquisition (SLA)  is not simple. SLA  is complex  and paradoxical.  SLA is complex because it cannot be scrutinized using a single approach.  SLA  is complex;  nevertheless  it is  a curious fact that the study of  (SLA has historically been dominated by a single broad approach—that which goes by the name of “cognitive (Atkinson (ed), 2011). Among views on acquisition which can be characterized as cognitive are: 1...

DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Case Study: Nexus EnergyHomes, Frederick, Maryland

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

none,

2013-09-01

This urban infill community with 24 duplexes, 19 townhomes, and 7 single-family homes features SIP walls, geothermal heat pumps, solar PV, and a proprietary energy management system. The builder won a 2013 Housing Innovation Award in the production builder category.

Home-based step training using videogame technology in people with Parkinson's disease: a single-blinded randomised controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Jooeun; Paul, Serene S; Caetano, Maria Joana D; Smith, Stuart; Dibble, Leland E; Love, Rachelle; Schoene, Daniel; Menant, Jasmine C; Sherrington, Cathie; Lord, Stephen R; Canning, Colleen G; Allen, Natalie E

2018-03-01

To determine whether 12-week home-based exergame step training can improve stepping performance, gait and complementary physical and neuropsychological measures associated with falls in Parkinson's disease. A single-blinded randomised controlled trial. Community (experimental intervention), university laboratory (outcome measures). Sixty community-dwelling people with Parkinson's disease. Home-based step training using videogame technology. The primary outcomes were the choice stepping reaction time test and Functional Gait Assessment. Secondary outcomes included physical and neuropsychological measures associated with falls in Parkinson's disease, number of falls over six months and self-reported mobility and balance. Post intervention, there were no differences between the intervention ( n = 28) and control ( n = 25) groups in the primary or secondary outcomes except for the Timed Up and Go test, where there was a significant difference in favour of the control group ( P = 0.02). Intervention participants reported mobility improvement, whereas control participants reported mobility deterioration-between-group difference on an 11-point scale = 0.9 (95% confidence interval: -1.8 to -0.1, P = 0.03). Interaction effects between intervention and disease severity on physical function measures were observed ( P = 0.01 to P = 0.08) with seemingly positive effects for the low-severity group and potentially negative effects for the high-severity group. Overall, home-based exergame step training was not effective in improving the outcomes assessed. However, the improved physical function in the lower disease severity intervention participants as well as the self-reported improved mobility in the intervention group suggest home-based exergame step training may have benefits for some people with Parkinson's disease.

DEMONIC programming: a computational language for single-particle equilibrium thermodynamics, and its formal semantics.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samson Abramsky

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Maxwell's Demon, 'a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course', has been the centre of much debate about its abilities to violate the second law of thermodynamics. Landauer's hypothesis, that the Demon must erase its memory and incur a thermodynamic cost, has become the standard response to Maxwell's dilemma, and its implications for the thermodynamics of computation reach into many areas of quantum and classical computing. It remains, however, still a hypothesis. Debate has often centred around simple toy models of a single particle in a box. Despite their simplicity, the ability of these systems to accurately represent thermodynamics (specifically to satisfy the second law and whether or not they display Landauer Erasure, has been a matter of ongoing argument. The recent Norton-Ladyman controversy is one such example. In this paper we introduce a programming language to describe these simple thermodynamic processes, and give a formal operational semantics and program logic as a basis for formal reasoning about thermodynamic systems. We formalise the basic single-particle operations as statements in the language, and then show that the second law must be satisfied by any composition of these basic operations. This is done by finding a computational invariant of the system. We show, furthermore, that this invariant requires an erasure cost to exist within the system, equal to kTln2 for a bit of information: Landauer Erasure becomes a theorem of the formal system. The Norton-Ladyman controversy can therefore be resolved in a rigorous fashion, and moreover the formalism we introduce gives a set of reasoning tools for further analysis of Landauer erasure, which are provably consistent with the second law of thermodynamics.

A Switch Is Not a Switch: Syntactically-Driven Bilingual Language Control

Science.gov (United States)

Gollan, Tamar H.; Goldrick, Matthew

2018-01-01

The current study investigated the possibility that language switches could be relatively automatically triggered by context. "Single-word switches," in which bilinguals switched languages on a single word in midsentence and then immediately switched back, were contrasted with more complete "whole-language switches," in which…

Language and technology literacy barriers to accessing government services

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Barnard, E

2003-01-01

Full Text Available of field experiments are done to gain an improved understanding of the extent to which citizens’ exposure to technology and home language affect their ability to access electronic services. These experiments will influence technology development...

Developing and promoting hygiene in the home and community.

Science.gov (United States)

Bloomfield, S F; Signorelli, C; Fara, G

2010-01-01

The last two decades have seen infectious diseases (IDs) moving back up the health agenda. If the burden of ID is to be contained, the responsibility must be shared by the public. The International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH) is working to raise awareness of the role of home hygiene, and promote understanding of hygiene practice. To develop a strategy for home hygiene, IFH has used the available scientific data to formulate a risk-based approach. This "targeted hygiene" approach maximises protection against infection, whilst minimising any impact on the environment from cleaning and disinfection products, minimising any risks associated antimicrobial resistance, and sustaining interaction with the microbial flora of the environment. IFH has developed a comprehensive range of materials which are being promoted through the IFH website and other channels. Analysis of website traffic indicates significant demand for home hygiene information including scientific material and information in "plain language".

Lexical quality and executive control predict children's first and second language reading comprehension.

Science.gov (United States)

Raudszus, Henriette; Segers, Eliane; Verhoeven, Ludo

2018-01-01

This study compared how lexical quality (vocabulary and decoding) and executive control (working memory and inhibition) predict reading comprehension directly as well as indirectly, via syntactic integration, in monolingual and bilingual fourth grade children. The participants were 76 monolingual and 102 bilingual children (mean age 10 years, SD  = 5 months) learning to read Dutch in the Netherlands. Bilingual children showed lower Dutch vocabulary, syntactic integration and reading comprehension skills, but better decoding skills than their monolingual peers. There were no differences in working memory or inhibition. Multigroup path analysis showed relatively invariant connections between predictors and reading comprehension for monolingual and bilingual readers. For both groups, there was a direct effect of lexical quality on reading comprehension. In addition, lexical quality and executive control indirectly influenced reading comprehension via syntactic integration. The groups differed in that inhibition more strongly predicted syntactic integration for bilingual than for monolingual children. For a subgroup of bilingual children, for whom home language vocabulary data were available ( n  = 56), there was an additional positive effect of home language vocabulary on second language reading comprehension. Together, the results suggest that similar processes underlie reading comprehension in first and second language readers, but that syntactic integration requires more executive control in second language reading. Moreover, bilingual readers additionally benefit from first language vocabulary to arrive at second language reading comprehension.

Home-based Constraint Induced Movement Therapy Poststroke

OpenAIRE

Stephen Isbel HScD; Christine Chapparo PhD; David McConnell PhD; Judy Ranka PhD

2014-01-01

Background: This study examined the efficacy of a home-based Constraint Induced Movement Therapy (CI Therapy) protocol with eight poststroke survivors. Method: Eight ABA, single case experiments were conducted in the homes of poststroke survivors. The intervention comprised restraint of the intact upper limb in a mitt for 21 days combined with a home-based and self-directed daily activity regime. Motor changes were measured using The Wolf Motor Function Test (WMFT) and the Motor Activity L...

Parent-child interaction: Does parental language matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Menashe, Atara; Atzaba-Poria, Naama

2016-11-01

Although parental language and behaviour have been widely investigated, few studies have examined their unique and interactive contribution to the parent-child relationship. The current study explores how parental behaviour (sensitivity and non-intrusiveness) and the use of parental language (exploring and control languages) correlate with parent-child dyadic mutuality. Specifically, we investigated the following questions: (1) 'Is parental language associated with parent-child dyadic mutuality above and beyond parental behaviour?' (2) 'Does parental language moderate the links between parental behaviour and the parent-child dyadic mutuality?' (3) 'Do these differences vary between mothers and fathers?' The sample included 65 children (M age  = 1.97 years, SD = 0.86) and their parents. We observed parental behaviour, parent-child dyadic mutuality, and the type of parental language used during videotaped in-home observations. The results indicated that parental language and behaviours are distinct components of the parent-child interaction. Parents who used higher levels of exploring language showed higher levels of parent-child dyadic mutuality, even when accounting for parental behaviour. Use of controlling language, however, was not found to be related to the parent-child dyadic mutuality. Different moderation models were found for mothers and fathers. These results highlight the need to distinguish parental language and behaviour when assessing their contribution to the parent-child relationship. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Behavioral Parent Training on Infant Language Production.

Science.gov (United States)

Bagner, Daniel M; Garcia, Dainelys; Hill, Ryan

2016-03-01

Given the strong association between early behavior problems and language impairment, we examined the effect of a brief home-based adaptation of Parent-child Interaction Therapy on infant language production. Sixty infants (55% male; mean age 13.47±1.31 months) were recruited at a large urban primary care clinic and were included if their scores exceeded the 75th percentile on a brief screener of early behavior problems. Families were randomly assigned to receive the home-based parenting intervention or standard pediatric primary care. The observed number of infant total (i.e., token) and different (i.e., type) utterances spoken during an observation of an infant-led play and a parent-report measure of infant externalizing behavior problems were examined at pre- and post-intervention and at 3- and 6-month follow-ups. Infants receiving the intervention demonstrated a significantly higher number of observed different and total utterances at the 6-month follow-up compared to infants in standard care. Furthermore, there was an indirect effect of the intervention on infant language production, such that the intervention led to decreases in infant externalizing behavior problems from pre- to post-intervention, which, in turn, led to increases in infant different utterances at the 3- and 6-month follow-ups and total utterances at the 6-month follow-up. Results provide initial evidence for the effect of this brief and home-based intervention on infant language production, including the indirect effect of the intervention on infant language through improvements in infant behavior, highlighting the importance of targeting behavior problems in early intervention. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Creating a Single South African Keyboard Layout to Promote Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dwayne Bailey

2011-10-01

Full Text Available

Abstract: In this case study, a description is given of a keyboard layout designed to address the input needs of South African languages, specifically Venda, a language which would otherwise be impossible to type on a computer. In creating this keyboard, the designer, Translate.org.za, uses a practical intervention that transforms technology from a means harming a language into one ensuring the creation and preservation of good language resources for minority languages. The study first looks at the implications and consequences of this missing keyboard, and then follows the process from conception, strategy, research and design to the final user response. Not only are problems such as researching the orthographies, key placement and keyboard input options examined, but strategic objectives such as ensuring its wide adoption and creating a multilingual keyboard for all South African languages are also discussed. The result is a keyboard that furthers multilingualism and ensures the capturing of good data for future research. Finally it is a tool helping to boost and bolster the vitality of a language.

Keywords: KEYBOARD, MULTILINGUALISM, VENDA, AFRIKAANS, TSWANA, NORTH-ERN SOTHO, ZULU, SOURCE, FREE SOFTWARE, LAYOUT

Opsomming: Die skep van 'n enkelvoudige Suid-Afrikaanse toetsborduit-leg om taal te bevorder. In hierdie gevallestudie word 'n beskrywing gegee van die ontwerp van 'n sleutelborduitleg vir die hantering van die insetbehoeftes van Suid-Afrikaanse tale, veral Venda, 'n taal wat andersins onmoontlik op 'n rekenaar getik sou kon word. Deur die skep van hierdie sleutelbord gebruik die ontwerper, Translate.org.za, 'n praktiese ingryp wat tegnologie verander van 'n middel wat 'n taal benadeel tot een wat die skep en bewaring van nuttige taal-hulpbronne vir minderheidstale verseker. Die studie kyk eers na die implikasies en gevolge van hierdie ontbrekende sleutelbord, en volg dan die proses van konsepsie, strategie, navorsing en

Reading comprehension and its underlying components in second-language learners: A meta-analysis of studies comparing first- and second-language learners.

Science.gov (United States)

Melby-Lervåg, Monica; Lervåg, Arne

2014-03-01

We report a systematic meta-analytic review of studies comparing reading comprehension and its underlying components (language comprehension, decoding, and phonological awareness) in first- and second-language learners. The review included 82 studies, and 576 effect sizes were calculated for reading comprehension and underlying components. Key findings were that, compared to first-language learners, second-language learners display a medium-sized deficit in reading comprehension (pooled effect size d = -0.62), a large deficit in language comprehension (pooled effect size d = -1.12), but only small differences in phonological awareness (pooled effect size d = -0.08) and decoding (pooled effect size d = -0.12). A moderator analysis showed that characteristics related to the type of reading comprehension test reliably explained the variation in the differences in reading comprehension between first- and second-language learners. For language comprehension, studies of samples from low socioeconomic backgrounds and samples where only the first language was used at home generated the largest group differences in favor of first-language learners. Test characteristics and study origin reliably contributed to the variations between the studies of language comprehension. For decoding, Canadian studies showed group differences in favor of second-language learners, whereas the opposite was the case for U.S. studies. Regarding implications, unless specific decoding problems are detected, interventions that aim to ameliorate reading comprehension problems among second-language learners should focus on language comprehension skills.

Abnormal functional lateralization and activity of language brain areas in typical specific language impairment (developmental dysphasia)

Science.gov (United States)

De Guibert, Clément; Maumet, Camille; Jannin, Pierre; Ferré, Jean-Christophe; Tréguier, Catherine; Barillot, Christian; Le Rumeur, Elisabeth; Allaire, Catherine; Biraben, Arnaud

2011-01-01

Atypical functional lateralization and specialization for language have been proposed to account for developmental language disorders, yet results from functional neuroimaging studies are sparse and inconsistent. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study compared children with a specific subtype of specific language impairment affecting structural language (n=21), to a matched group of typically-developing children using a panel of four language tasks neither requiring reading nor metalinguistic skills, including two auditory lexico-semantic tasks (category fluency and responsive naming) and two visual phonological tasks based on picture naming. Data processing involved normalizing the data with respect to a matched pairs pediatric template, groups and between-groups analysis, and laterality indexes assessment within regions of interest using single and combined task analysis. Children with specific language impairment exhibited a significant lack of left lateralization in all core language regions (inferior frontal gyrus-opercularis, inferior frontal gyrus-triangularis, supramarginal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus), across single or combined task analysis, but no difference of lateralization for the rest of the brain. Between-group comparisons revealed a left hypoactivation of Wernicke’s area at the posterior superior temporal/supramarginal junction during the responsive naming task, and a right hyperactivation encompassing the anterior insula with adjacent inferior frontal gyrus and the head of the caudate nucleus during the first phonological task. This study thus provides evidence that this specific subtype of specific language impairment is associated with atypical lateralization and functioning of core language areas. PMID:21719430

Language effects in second-language learners: A longitudinal electrophysiological study of spanish classroom learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Soskey, Laura; Holcomb, Phillip J; Midgley, Katherine J

2016-09-01

How do the neural mechanisms involved in word recognition evolve over the course of word learning in adult learners of a new second language? The current study sought to closely track language effects, which are differences in electrophysiological indices of word processing between one's native and second languages, in beginning university learners over the course of a single semester of learning. Monolingual L1 English-speakers enrolled in introductory Spanish were first trained on a list of 228 Spanish words chosen from the vocabulary to be learned in class. Behavioral data from the training session and the following experimental sessions spaced over the course of the semester showed expected learning effects. In the three laboratory sessions participants read words in three lists (English, Spanish and mixed) while performing a go/no-go lexical decision task in which event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. As observed in previous studies there were ERP language effects with larger N400s to native than second language words. Importantly, this difference declined over the course of L2 learning with N400 amplitude increasing for new second language words. These results suggest that even over a single semester of learning that new second language words are rapidly incorporated into the word recognition system and begin to take on lexical and semantic properties similar to native language words. Moreover, the results suggest that electrophysiological measures can be used as sensitive measures for tracking the acquisition of new linguistic knowledge. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language for Profit: Spanish-English Bilingualism in Lowe's Home Improvement

Science.gov (United States)

Hepford, Elizabeth A.

2017-01-01

The USA is commonly portrayed as a country dominated by the ideology of monolingualism [Dick, Hilary Parsons. 2011. "Language and Migration to the United States." "Annual Review of Anthropology" 40: 227-240; Silverstein, Michael. 1996. "Monoglot 'Standard' in America: Standardization and Metaphors of Linguistic…

Effect of single-cat versus multi-cat home history on perceived behavioral stress in domestic cats (Felis silvestrus catus) in an animal shelter.

Science.gov (United States)

Broadley, Heidi M; McCobb, Emily C; Slater, Margaret R

2014-02-01

This study investigates the effect of living with other cats in a prior home on stress levels of cats recently surrendered to an animal shelter. A total of 63 cats was evaluated using a Cat-Stress-Score and an approach test. Cats were categorized in terms of previous home history with or without other cats. No significant difference was found in stress scores between cats from single-cat households and those from multiple-cat households, although single cats that had been in the shelter less than 4 days demonstrated higher stress levels. No significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of approach results. Results of this study suggest that, in traditional individual cage settings, cats that are not accustomed to living with other cats may experience more stress in the initial few days of attempting to adjust to shelter existence. Through the use of such assessments, shelter personnel may develop an increased awareness to the needs of these cats and attempt to provide measures to improve their well-being within the shelter environment.

Home-based versus centre-based cardiac rehabilitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, Rod S; Dalal, Hayes; Jolly, Kate; Moxham, Tiffany; Zawada, Anna

2010-01-20

The burden of cardiovascular disease world-wide is one of great concern to patients and health care agencies alike. Traditionally centre-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programmes are offered to individuals after cardiac events to aid recovery and prevent further cardiac illness. Home-based cardiac rehabilitation programmes have been introduced in an attempt to widen access and participation. To determine the effectiveness of home-based cardiac rehabilitation programmes compared with supervised centre-based cardiac rehabilitation on mortality and morbidity, health-related quality of life and modifiable cardiac risk factors in patients with coronary heart disease. We updated the search of a previous review by searching the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in The Cochrane Library (2007, Issue 4), MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL from 2001 to January 2008. We checked reference lists and sought advice from experts. No language restrictions were applied. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that compared centre-based cardiac rehabilitation (e.g. hospital, gymnasium, sports centre) with home-based programmes, in adults with myocardial infarction, angina, heart failure or who had undergone revascularisation. Studies were selected independently by two reviewers, and data extracted by a single reviewer and checked by a second one. Authors were contacted where possible to obtain missing information. Twelve studies (1,938 participants) met the inclusion criteria. The majority of studies recruited a lower risk patient following an acute myocardial infarction (MI) and revascularisation. There was no difference in outcomes of home- versus centre-based cardiac rehabilitation in mortality risk ratio (RR) was1.31 (95% confidence interval (C) 0.65 to 2.66), cardiac events, exercise capacity standardised mean difference (SMD) -0.11 (95% CI -0.35 to 0.13), as well as in modifiable risk factors (systolic blood pressure; diastolic blood pressure; total cholesterol

AP@home: The Artificial Pancreas Is Now at Home.

Science.gov (United States)

Heinemann, Lutz; Benesch, Carsten; DeVries, J Hans

2016-07-01

In the past years the development of an artificial pancreas (AP) has made great progress and many activities are ongoing in this area of research. The major step forward made in the last years was moving the evaluation of AP systems from highly controlled experimental conditions to daily life conditions at the home of patients with diabetes; this was also the aim of the European Union-funded AP@home project. Over a time period of 5 years a series of clinical studies were performed that culminated in 2 "final studies" during which an AP system was used by patients in their home environment for 2 or 3 months without supervision by a physician, living their normal lives. Two different versions of the AP system developed within this project were evaluated. A significant improvement in glycated hemoglobin was observed during closed-loop conditions despite the fact that during the control period the patients used the best currently available therapeutic option. In addition, a "single-port AP system" was developed within the project that combines continuous glucose monitoring and insulin infusion at a single tissue site. By using such a combined device the patients not only have to carry one less device around, the number of access points through the skin is also reduced from 2 to 1. In summary, close cooperation of 12 European partners, both academic centers and industry, enabled the development and evaluation of AP systems under daily life conditions. The next step is to develop these into products in cooperation with commercial partners. © 2016 Diabetes Technology Society.

Evaluating fidelity in home-visiting programs a qualitative analysis of 1058 home visit case notes from 105 families.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas Saïas

Full Text Available Implementation fidelity is a key issue in home-visiting programs as it determines a program's effectiveness in accomplishing its original goals. This paper seeks to evaluate fidelity in a 27-month program addressing maternal and child health which took place in France between 2006 and 2011.To evaluate implementation fidelity, home visit case notes were analyzed using thematic qualitative and computer-assisted linguistic analyses.During the prenatal period, home visitors focused on the social components of the program. Visitors discussed the physical changes in pregnancy, and psychological and social environment issues. Discussing immigration, unstable employment and financial related issues, family relationships and dynamics and maternity services, while not expected, were found in case notes. Conversely, health during pregnancy, early child development and postpartum mood changes were not identified as topics within the prenatal case notes. During the postnatal period, most components of the intervention were addressed: home visitors observed the mother's adaptation to the baby; routine themes such as psychological needs and medical-social networks were evaluated; information on the importance of social support and on adapting the home environment was given; home visitors counseled on parental authority, and addressed mothers' self-esteem issues; finally, they helped to find child care, when necessary. Some themes were not addressed or partially addressed: health education, child development, home environment, mother's education plans and personal routine, partner support and play with the child. Other themes were not expected, but found in the case notes: social issues, mother-family relationship, relation with services, couple issues, quality of maternal behavior and child's language development.In this program, home visitors experienced difficulties addressing some of the objectives because they gave precedence to the families' urgent needs

The efficacy of early initiated, supervised, progressive resistance training compared to unsupervised, home-based exercise after unicompartmental knee arthroplasty: a single-blinded randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Jørgensen, Peter B; Bogh, Søren B; Kierkegaard, Signe; Sørensen, Henrik; Odgaard, Anders; Søballe, Kjeld; Mechlenburg, Inger

2017-01-01

To examine if supervised progressive resistance training was superior to home-based exercise in rehabilitation after unicompartmental knee arthroplasty. Single blinded, randomized clinical trial. Surgery, progressive resistance training and testing was carried out at Aarhus University Hospital and home-based exercise was carried out in the home of the patient. Fifty five patients were randomized to either progressive resistance training or home-based exercise. Patients were randomized to either progressive resistance training (home based exercise five days/week and progressive resistance training two days/week) or control group (home based exercise seven days/week). Preoperative assessment, 10-week (primary endpoint) and one-year follow-up were performed for leg extension power, spatiotemporal gait parameters and knee injury and osteoarthritis outcome score (KOOS). Forty patients (73%) completed 1-year follow-up. Patients in the progressive resistance training group participated in average 11 of 16 training sessions. Leg extension power increased from baseline to 10-week follow-up in progressive resistance training group (progressive resistance training: 0.28 W/kg, P= 0.01, control group: 0.01 W/kg, P=0.93) with no between-group difference. Walking speed and KOOS scores increased from baseline to 10-week follow-up in both groups with no between-group difference (six minutes walk test P=0.63, KOOS P>0.29). Progressive resistance training two days/week combined with home based exercise five days/week was not superior to home based exercise seven days/week in improving leg extension power of the operated leg.

Failure to meet language milestones at two years of age is predictive of specific language impairment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Diepeveen, F.B.; Dusseldorp, E.; Bol, G.W.; Oudesluys-Murphy, A.M.; Verkerk, P.H.

2016-01-01

This study established predictive properties of single language milestones for specific language impairment (SLI) after the age of four, as these had not previously been reported in the literature. Methods In this nested case-control study, children attending special needs schools for severe speech

Cigarette Smoking among African American Youth from Single Mother Homes: Examining the Roles of Maternal Smoking and Positive Parenting within an Extended Family Framework

Science.gov (United States)

Foster, Sarah E.; Zalot, Alecia A.; Jones, Deborah J.

2007-01-01

The current study examined the main and interactive effects of three family context variables, maternal smoking, positive parenting behavior, and the quality of the mother's relationship with another adult or family member who assists with parenting (i.e., coparent), and adolescent smoking among African American youth from single mother homes. The…

One Language for the United States? (Un Idioma para Los Estados Unidos?) CSG Backgrounder.

Science.gov (United States)

Ford, Mark L.

The United States has become increasingly multilingual in recent decades, and while English is the most commonly spoken language, almost 11 percent of Americans prefer to speak another language at home. Bilingualism is promoted by governmental units at the federal, state, and local levels through a variety of programs, particularly in education…

Dialogue management in a home machine environment : linguistic components over an agent architecture

OpenAIRE

Quesada Moreno, José Francisco; García, Federico; Sena Pichardo, María Esther; Bernal Bermejo, José Ángel; Amores Carredano, José Gabriel de

2001-01-01

This paper presents the main characteristics of an Agent-based Architecture for the design and implementation of a Spoken Dialogue System. From a theoretical point of view, the system is based on the Information State Update approach, in particular, the system aims at the management of Natural Command Language Dialogue Moves in a Home Machine Environment. Specifically, the paper is focused on the Natural Language Understanding and Dialogue Management Agents...

Home Features and Assistive Technology for the Home-Bound Elderly in a Thai Suburban Community by Applying the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Supawadee Putthinoi

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The ageing population is having an impact worldwide and has created a serious challenge in Thailand’s healthcare systems, whereby healthcare practitioners play a major role in promoting independent interaction of their client’s abilities, as well as environmental factors. The purpose of this study was to survey features of the home and assistive technology (AT for the home-bound elderly in the community of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Home evaluation included features inside and outside the home, and AT was based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF concept. Methods included observation and an interview that were used by the researcher for evaluation. The study found that every home had at least one hazardous home feature such as inappropriate width of the door, high door threshold, tall stair steps, no bedside rail, and inappropriate height of the toilet pan. AT was found in houses as general products and technology for personal use in daily living and for personal indoor and outdoor mobility as well as transportation. Therefore, home features and AT can afford the home-bound elderly independent living within the community. Perspective AT according to the ICF concept could provide a common language for ageing in place benefits.

Towards Homogeneity in Home Languages: Malay, Chinese Foochow and Indian Tamil Families in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Ting, Su-Hie; Mahadhir, Mahanita

2009-01-01

This preliminary study examines the languages used by parents with their children in Malay, Chinese Foochow and Indian Tamil families to find out how the similarity or dissimilarity in parents' ethnic language influenced the choice of language transmitted to children and how far standard languages have permeated the family domain in Kuching City…

Infant communication and subsequent language development in children from low-income families: the role of early cognitive stimulation.

Science.gov (United States)

Cates, Carolyn Brockmeyer; Dreyer, Benard P; Berkule, Samantha B; White, Lisa J; Arevalo, Jenny A; Mendelsohn, Alan L

2012-09-01

To explore the relationship between early cognitive stimulation in the home, 6-month infant communication, and 24-month toddler language in a low-socioeconomic status sample. Longitudinal analyses of mother-child dyads participating in larger study of early child development were performed. Dyads enrolled postpartum in an urban public hospital. Cognitive stimulation in the home at 6 months was assessed using StimQ-lnfant, including provision of toys, shared reading, teaching, and verbal responsivity. Early infant communication was assessed at 6 months including the following: (1) Emotion and eye gaze (Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scale DP-CSBS DP), (2) Communicative bids (CSBS DP), and (3) Expression of emotion (Short Temperament Scale for Infants). Toddler language was assessed at 24 months using the Preschool Language Scale-4, including the following: (1) expressive language and (2) auditory comprehension. Three hundred twenty families were assessed. In structural equation models, cognitive stimulation in the home was strongly associated with early infant communication (β = 0.63, p cognitive stimulation on 24-month language was mediated through early impacts on infant communication (Indirect β = 0.28, p =.001). Reading, teaching, availability of learning materials, and other reciprocal verbal interactions were all related directly to infant communication and indirectly to language outcomes. The impact of early cognitive stimulation on toddler language is manifested through early associations with infant communication. Pediatric primary care providers should promote cognitive stimulation beginning in early infancy and support the expansion and dissemination of intervention programs such as Reach Out and Read and the Video Interaction Project.

Take-home video for adult literacy

Science.gov (United States)

Yule, Valerie

1996-01-01

In the past, it has not been possible to "teach oneself to read" at home, because learners could not read the books to teach them. Videos and interactive compact discs have changed that situation and challenge current assumptions of the pedagogy of literacy. This article describes an experimental adult literacy project using video technology. The language used is English, but the basic concepts apply to any alphabetic or syllabic writing system. A half-hour cartoon video can help adults and adolescents with learning difficulties. Computer-animated cartoon graphics are attractive to look at, and simplify complex material in a clear, lively way. This video technique is also proving useful for distance learners, children, and learners of English as a second language. Methods and principles are to be extended using interactive compact discs.

Internal and External Factors That Support Children's Minority First Language and English.

Science.gov (United States)

Pham, Giang; Tipton, Timothy

2018-05-22

Sequential bilingual children in the United States often speak 2 languages that have different social statuses (minority-majority) and separate contexts for learning (home-school). Thus, distinct factors may support the development of each language. This study examined which child internal and external factors were related to vocabulary skills in a minority language versus English. Participants included 69 children, aged 5-8 years, who lived in Southern California, spoke Vietnamese as the home language, and received school instruction in English. All participants had at least 1 foreign-born parent, and most mothers reported limited English proficiency. Parents completed a telephone survey, and children completed measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary in each language. Using correlations and stepwise regression, we examined predictors of vocabulary skills in each language that were internal to the child (age, gender, analytical reasoning, phonological memory) or that pertained to the surrounding environment (cumulative exposure, quantity and quality of input/output). Vietnamese vocabulary outcomes were related to multiple external factors, of which input and enrichment activities were the best predictors. In contrast, English vocabulary outcomes were related to internal factors, of which age and phonological memory were the best predictors. Parental use of Vietnamese contributed to children's Vietnamese vocabulary outcomes but was not related to children's English vocabulary outcomes. Vietnamese exposure does not hinder English development. Children from immigrant families are learning English with or without familial support. Rich and frequent exposure and opportunities for practice are essential for the continued development of a minority first language.

The influence of second language teaching on undergraduate mathematics performance

Science.gov (United States)

Gerber, Ans; Engelbrecht, Johann; Harding, Ansie; Rogan, John

2005-10-01

Understanding abstract concepts and ideas in mathematics, if instruction takes place in the first language of the student, is difficult. Yet worldwide students often have to master mathematics via a second or third language. The majority of students in South Africa — a country with eleven official languages — has to face this difficulty. In a quantitative study of first year calculus students, we investigated two groups of students. For one group tuition took place in their home language; for the second group, tuition was in English, a second or even a third language. Performance data on their secondary mathematics and first year tertiary calculus were analysed. The study showed that there was no significant difference between the adjusted means of the entire group of first language learners and the entire group of second language learners. Neither was there any statistically significant difference between the performances of the two groups of second language learners (based on the adjusted means). Yet, there did seem to be a significant difference between the achievement of Afrikaans students attending Afrikaans lectures and Afrikaans students attending English lectures.

Pathways from Mothers' Early Social Support to Children's Language Development at Age 3

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Young Eun

2017-01-01

The relationships between early maternal social support, maternal psychological well-being, the home learning environment, and children's language skills at age 3 in Korean families were examined. We hypothesized that maternal social support would predict children's language development through its effect on maternal psychological well-being and…

Predicting Ethnic Minority Children's Vocabulary from Socioeconomic Status, Maternal Language and Home Reading Input: Different Pathways for Host and Ethnic Language

Science.gov (United States)

Prevoo, Mariëlle J. L.; Malda, Maike; Mesman, Judi; Emmen, Rosanneke A. G.; Yeniad, Nihal; Van Ijzendoorn, Marinus; Linting, Mariëlle

2014-01-01

When bilingual children enter formal reading education, host language proficiency becomes increasingly important. This study investigated the relation between socioeconomic status (SES), maternal language use, reading input, and vocabulary in a sample of 111 six-year-old children of first- and second-generation Turkish immigrant parents in the…

Teaching and learning English as a Home Language in a ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The most important difference from the standpoint of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was in the learning content selection, with the EHL settings using more literary works, and so focusing less on the direct teaching of grammatical forms. However, a disturbing pattern was the inability of the learners in both sets of ...

Languages, communication potential and generalized trust in Sub-Saharan Africa: evidence based on the Afrobarometer Survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Buzasi, Katalin

2015-01-01

The goal of this study is to investigate whether speaking other than home languages in Sub-Saharan Africa promotes generalized trust. Based on various psychological and economic theories, a simple model is provided to illustrate how languages might shape trust through various channels. Relying on data from the Afrobarometer Project, which provides information on home and additional languages, the Index of Communication Potential (ICP) is introduced to capture the linguistic situation in the 20 sample countries. The ICP, which can be computed at any desired level of aggregation, refers to the probability that an individual can communicate with a randomly selected person in the society based on common languages. The estimated two-level hierarchical models show that, however, individual level communication potential does not seem to impact trust formation, but living in an area with higher average communication potential increases the chance of exhibiting higher trust toward unknown people. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Corporate Language and Implications for Organizational Learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zølner, Mette

2013-01-01

This paper explores empirically implications of language use for MNCs’ learning from subsidiaries. Drawing on sociolinguistic literature, the article argues that while employing a single corporate language facilitates quick and direct communication of explicit knowledge, such a language design...... is insufficient to leverage contextually specific and culturally embedded knowledge. This indicates the need for disentangling language and culture. The paper further argues for the need to go beyond national language to consider how prevailing kinds of corporate talk may curb headquarters potential for learning...

Influences of early child nutritional status and home learning environment on child development in Vietnam.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Phuong H; DiGirolamo, Ann M; Gonzalez-Casanova, Ines; Young, Melissa; Kim, Nicole; Nguyen, Son; Martorell, Reynaldo; Ramakrishnan, Usha

2018-01-01

Early childhood development plays a key role in a child's future health, educational success, and economic status. However, suboptimal early development remains a global challenge. This study examines the influences of quality of the home learning environment (HOME) and child stunting in the first year of life on child development. We used data collected from a randomized controlled trial of preconceptional micronutrient supplementation in Vietnam (n = 1,458). The Bayley Scales of Infant Development-III were used to assess cognition, language, and motor development domains at 2 years. At 1 year, 14% of children were stunted, and 15%, 58%, and 28% of children lived in poor, medium, and high HOME environments, respectively. In multivariate generalized linear regression models, living in a high HOME environment was significantly associated with higher scores (0.10 to 0.13 SD) in each of the developmental domains. Stunted children scored significantly lower for cognitive, language, and motor development (-0.11 to -0.18), compared to nonstunted children. The negative associations between stunting on development were modified by HOME; the associations were strong among children living in homes with a poor learning environment whereas they were nonsignificant for those living in high-quality learning environments. In conclusion, child stunting the first year of life was negatively associated with child development at 2 years among children in Vietnam, but a high-quality HOME appeared to attenuate these associations. Early interventions aimed at improving early child growth as well as providing a stimulating home environment are critical to ensure optimal child development. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

AP@home: a novel European approach to bring the artificial pancreas home.

Science.gov (United States)

Heinemann, Lutz; Benesch, Carsten; DeVries, J Hans

2011-11-01

The development of an artificial pancreas (AP) made huge strides from 2006 to 2008 and a large number of activities are going on in this area of research. Until now, most AP systems under development were tested only under highly controlled conditions. The aim of our project, funded by the European Union, is to develop an AP system to such a level that it can be studied under daily life conditions at the home of patients with diabetes (hence AP@home). Based on a subcutaneous-subcutaneous closed-loop strategy (i.e., glucose sensing and insulin infusion in the subcutaneous tissue), two different approaches will be taken to achieve this aim: a two-port AP system and a single-port AP system. The two-port AP system will use off-the-shelf-components for the glucose sensor and insulin pump in combination with closed-loop algorithms generated in Europe. As to the single-port AP system, two different innovative single-port systems will be developed; in this case, continuous glucose monitoring and insulin infusion will take place via a single catheter. The first clinical trials with the two-port AP system under controlled clinical conditions have started and good progress has been made in the development of the single-port AP systems. We believe that our consortium of 12 European partners, which builds on existing achievements and close cooperation between academic centers and industry, can contribute substantially to the development of an AP system that can be used by patients in daily life. © 2011 Diabetes Technology Society.

Task-Setting at Home and in Speech and Language Therapy

Science.gov (United States)

Tykkylainen, Tuula

2009-01-01

The aim of this article is to analyse and describe task-setting in game-like interactions. The task-setting is studied in two contexts: in everyday interaction and in speech and language therapy. The data comprises task interaction between mothers and 5-year-old typically developing children (6 pairs) and task interaction between speech and…

[First language acquisition research and theories of language acquisition].

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, S; Jungheim, M; Ptok, M

2014-04-01

In principle, a child can seemingly easily acquire any given language. First language acquisition follows a certain pattern which to some extent is found to be language independent. Since time immemorial, it has been of interest why children are able to acquire language so easily. Different disciplinary and methodological orientations addressing this question can be identified. A selective literature search in PubMed and Scopus was carried out and relevant monographies were considered. Different, partially overlapping phases can be distinguished in language acquisition research: whereas in ancient times, deprivation experiments were carried out to discover the "original human language", the era of diary studies began in the mid-19th century. From the mid-1920s onwards, behaviouristic paradigms dominated this field of research; interests were focussed on the determination of normal, average language acquisition. The subsequent linguistic period was strongly influenced by the nativist view of Chomsky and the constructivist concepts of Piaget. Speech comprehension, the role of speech input and the relevance of genetic disposition became the centre of attention. The interactionist concept led to a revival of the convergence theory according to Stern. Each of these four major theories--behaviourism, cognitivism, interactionism and nativism--have given valuable and unique impulses, but no single theory is universally accepted to provide an explanation of all aspects of language acquisition. Moreover, it can be critically questioned whether clinicians consciously refer to one of these theories in daily routine work and whether therapies are then based on this concept. It remains to be seen whether or not new theories of grammar, such as the so-called construction grammar (CxG), will eventually change the general concept of language acquisition.

A dual-task home-based rehabilitation programme for improving balance control in patients with acquired brain injury: a single-blind, randomized controlled pilot study.

Science.gov (United States)

Peirone, Eliana; Goria, Paolo Filiberto; Anselmino, Arianna

2014-04-01

To evaluate the safety, feasibility and effectiveness of a dual-task home-based rehabilitation programme on balance impairments among adult patients with acquired brain injury. Single-blind, randomized controlled pilot study. Single rehabilitation centre. Sixteen participants between 12 and 18 months post-acquired brain injury with balance impairments and a score task home-based programme six days a week for seven weeks. The primary outcome measure was the Balance Evaluation System Test; secondary measures were the Activities-specific Balance Confidence Scale and Goal Attainment Scaling. At the end of the pilot study, the intervention group showed significantly greater improvement in Balance Evaluation System Test scores (17.87, SD 6.05) vs. the control group (5.5, SD 3.53; P = 0.008, r = 0.63). There was no significant difference in improvement in Activities-specific Balance Confidence Scale scores between the intervention group (25.25, SD 25.51) and the control group (7.00, SD 14.73; P = 0.11, r = 0.63). There was no significant improvement in Goal Attainment Scaling scores in the intervention (19.37, SD 9.03) vs. the control group (16.28, SD 6.58; P = 0.093, r = 0.63). This pilot study shows the safety, feasibility and short-term benefit of a dual-task home-based rehabilitation programme to improve balance control in patients with acquired brain injury. A sample size of 26 participants is required for a definitive study.

Ancestry and Language in the United States: November 1979. Current Population Reports, Special Studies. Series P-23. No. 116.

Science.gov (United States)

Levin, Michael J.; Sweet, Nancy S.

Information on the ancestry, languages, and literacy of the U.S. population based on data collected by the Bureau of the Census in 1979 is reported. Items surveyed include ancestry, country of birth of the individual and parents, citizenship, year of immigration, native language, language spoken in the home, ability to speak English, and ability…

Designing, Building and Controlling of Home Appliances Unit Using PC

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saleh Ben Safar

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Smart home is a residential building that is usually new or modern equipped with necessary tools and wiring that enable its occupants to control a number of electrical devices and several household appliances through a suitable software. Recently, the development of home automation systems is accelerating rapidly as a result of the rapid intersection of modern technologies. Here we are talking about systems for home communication networks as well as entertainment, security, convenience, etc. These systems are controlled by sending signals through wires distributed throughout the house or Through wireless means to programmable keys or devices so that they understand these commands and deal with them as desired. In this paper, I will discuss how to design the circuit with appropriate components, build it in Printed Circuit Board and connect it to a personal computer by using programmable language in order to control all home appliances by just one click. 

Teaching Low-Income Spanish-Speaking Caregivers to Implement EMT en Español With Their Young Children With Language Impairment: A Pilot Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Peredo, Tatiana Nogueira; Zelaya, Maria Isabel; Kaiser, Ann P

2018-02-06

This study examined the effectiveness of teaching low-income Spanish-speaking caregivers of young children with language impairment a naturalistic language intervention, EMT en Español. A single-case, multiple-baseline, across-behaviors design replicated across 3 caregiver-child dyads was used to examine the effects of teaching core EMT en Español strategies. The training program utilized the Teach-Model-Coach-Review instructional approach to teach strategies to support children's language development in Spanish. All sessions were at home and in Spanish. Caregivers increased their use of matched turns, target talk, expansions, and a communication elicitation procedure following training on each specific skill. Additionally, caregivers generalized increased use of matched turns and target talk to an untrained activity during the intervention period and maintained their behavior 1 month after completing intervention. Two of 3 caregivers generalized their use of expansions, and 1 caregiver generalized her use of a communication elicitation procedure. Modest effects on the child's number of different words were observed for 2 of the 3 target children over the course of the intervention sessions. All 3 children demonstrated increases in total spontaneous words. Spanish-speaking caregivers were able to implement naturalistic language teaching strategies with their young children with language impairment in a relatively short-term intervention.

Identifying language impairment in bilingual children in France and in Germany.

Science.gov (United States)

Tuller, Laurice; Hamann, Cornelia; Chilla, Solveig; Ferré, Sandrine; Morin, Eléonore; Prevost, Philippe; Dos Santos, Christophe; Abed Ibrahim, Lina; Zebib, Racha

2018-05-23

The detection of specific language impairment (SLI) in children growing up bilingually presents particular challenges for clinicians. Non-word repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SR) tasks have proven to be the most accurate diagnostic tools for monolingual populations, raising the question of the extent of their usefulness in different bilingual populations. To determine the diagnostic accuracy of NWR and SR tasks that incorporate phonological/syntactic complexity as discussed in recent linguistic theory. The tasks were developed as part of the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) toolkit, in two different national settings, France and Germany, and investigated children with three different home languages: Arabic, Portuguese and Turkish. NWR and SR tasks developed in parallel were administered to 151 bilingual children, aged 5;6-8;11, in France and in Germany, to 64 children in speech-language therapy (SLT) and to 87 children not in SLT, whose first language (L1) was Arabic, Portuguese or Turkish. Children were also administered standardized language tests in each of their languages to determine likely clinical status (typical development (TD) or SLI), and parents responded to a questionnaire including questions about early and current language use (bilingualism factors) and early language development (risk factors for SLI). Monolingual controls included 47 TD children and 29 children with SLI. Results were subjected to inter-group comparisons, to diagnostic accuracy calculation, and to correlation and multiple regression analyses. In accordance with previous studies, NWR and SR identified SLI in the monolingual children, yielding good to excellent diagnostic accuracy. Diagnostic accuracy in bilingual children was fair to good, generally distinguishing children likely to have SLI from children likely to have TD. Accuracy was necessarily linked to the determination of clinical status, which was based on standardized assessment in each

Semantic and Conceptual Factors in Spanish-English Bilinguals' Processing of Lexical Categories in Their Two Languages

Science.gov (United States)

Gathercole, Virginia C. Mueller; Stadthagen-González, Hans; Pérez-Tattam, Rocío; Yava?, Feryal

2016-01-01

This study examines possible semantic interaction in fully fluent adult simultaneous and early second language (L2) bilinguals. Monolingual and bilingual speakers of Spanish and English (n = 144) were tested for their understanding of lexical categories that differed in their two languages. Simultaneous bilinguals came from homes in which Spanish…

Spontaneous Language Production in Bilingual Parkinson's Disease Patients: Evidence of Greater Phonological, Morphological and Syntactic Impairments in Native Language

Science.gov (United States)

Zanini, Sergio; Tavano, Alessandro; Fabbro, Franco

2010-01-01

Nine early non-demented bilingual (L1--Friulian, L2--Italian) patients with Parkinson's disease and nine normal controls matched for age, sex and years of education were studied on a spontaneous language production task. All subjects had acquired L1 from birth in a home environment and L2 at the age of six at school formally. Patients with PD…

Home care decision support using an Arden engine--merging smart home and vital signs data.

Science.gov (United States)

Marschollek, Michael; Bott, Oliver J; Wolf, Klaus-H; Gietzelt, Matthias; Plischke, Maik; Madiesh, Moaaz; Song, Bianying; Haux, Reinhold

2009-01-01

The demographic change with a rising proportion of very old people and diminishing resources leads to an intensification of the use of telemedicine and home care concepts. To provide individualized decision support, data from different sources, e.g. vital signs sensors and home environmental sensors, need to be combined and analyzed together. Furthermore, a standardized decision support approach is necessary. The aim of our research work is to present a laboratory prototype home care architecture that integrates data from different sources and uses a decision support system based on the HL7 standard Arden Syntax for Medical Logical Modules. Data from environmental sensors connected to a home bus system are stored in a data base along with data from wireless medical sensors. All data are analyzed using an Arden engine with the medical knowledge represented in Medical Logic Modules. Multi-modal data from four different sensors in the home environment are stored in a single data base and are analyzed using an HL7 standard conformant decision support system. Individualized home care decision support must be based on all data available, including context data from smart home systems and medical data from electronic health records. Our prototype implementation shows the feasibility of using an Arden engine for decision support in a home setting. Our future work will include the utilization of medical background knowledge for individualized decision support, as there is no one-size-fits-all knowledge base in medicine.

Opening up towards Children's Languages: Enhancing Teachers' Tolerant Practices towards Multilingualism

Science.gov (United States)

Van Der Wildt, Anouk; Van Avermaet, Piet; Van Houtte, Mieke

2017-01-01

Mainstream teachers struggle with linguistic diversity, often leading to restricting multilingualism. Scientific research, however, recommends including pupils' home languages in school. Various qualitative studies have evaluated implementations in schools and indicated possibilities for improving teachers' attitudes towards multilingualism. This…

How could language have evolved?

Science.gov (United States)

Bolhuis, Johan J; Tattersall, Ian; Chomsky, Noam; Berwick, Robert C

2014-08-01

The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language "phenotype." According to the "Strong Minimalist Thesis," the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary theory must explain) is hierarchical syntactic structure. The faculty of language is likely to have emerged quite recently in evolutionary terms, some 70,000-100,000 years ago, and does not seem to have undergone modification since then, though individual languages do of course change over time, operating within this basic framework. The recent emergence of language and its stability are both consistent with the Strong Minimalist Thesis, which has at its core a single repeatable operation that takes exactly two syntactic elements a and b and assembles them to form the set {a, b}.

How Could Language Have Evolved?

Science.gov (United States)

Bolhuis, Johan J.; Tattersall, Ian; Chomsky, Noam; Berwick, Robert C.

2014-01-01

The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language “phenotype.” According to the “Strong Minimalist Thesis,” the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary theory must explain) is hierarchical syntactic structure. The faculty of language is likely to have emerged quite recently in evolutionary terms, some 70,000–100,000 years ago, and does not seem to have undergone modification since then, though individual languages do of course change over time, operating within this basic framework. The recent emergence of language and its stability are both consistent with the Strong Minimalist Thesis, which has at its core a single repeatable operation that takes exactly two syntactic elements a and b and assembles them to form the set {a, b}. PMID:25157536

How could language have evolved?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Johan J Bolhuis

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language "phenotype." According to the "Strong Minimalist Thesis," the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary theory must explain is hierarchical syntactic structure. The faculty of language is likely to have emerged quite recently in evolutionary terms, some 70,000-100,000 years ago, and does not seem to have undergone modification since then, though individual languages do of course change over time, operating within this basic framework. The recent emergence of language and its stability are both consistent with the Strong Minimalist Thesis, which has at its core a single repeatable operation that takes exactly two syntactic elements a and b and assembles them to form the set {a, b}.

Home literacy experiences and early childhood disability: a descriptive study using the National Household Education Surveys (NHES) program database.

Science.gov (United States)

Breit-Smith, Allison; Cabell, Sonia Q; Justice, Laura M

2010-01-01

The present article illustrates how the National Household Education Surveys (NHES; U.S. Department of Education, 2009) database might be used to address questions of relevance to researchers who are concerned with literacy development among young children. Following a general description of the NHES database, a study is provided that examines the extent to which parent-reported home literacy activities and child emergent literacy skills differ for children with (a) developmental disabilities versus those who are developing typically, (b) single disability versus multiple disabilities, and (c) speech-language disability only versus other types of disabilities. Four hundred and seventy-eight preschool-age children with disabilities and a typically developing matched sample (based on parent report) were identified in the 2005 administration of the Early Childhood Program Participation (ECPP) Survey in the NHES database. Parent responses to survey items were then compared between groups. After controlling for age and socioeconomic status, no significant differences were found in the frequency of home literacy activities for children with and without disabilities. Parents reported higher levels of emergent literacy skills for typically developing children relative to children with disabilities. These findings suggest the importance of considering the home literacy experiences and emergent literacy skills of young children with disabilities when making clinical recommendations.

Maternal and newborn outcomes in planned home birth vs planned hospital births: a metaanalysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Wax, Joseph R; Lucas, F Lee; Lamont, Maryanne; Pinette, Michael G; Cartin, Angelina; Blackstone, Jacquelyn

2010-09-01

We sought to systematically review the medical literature on the maternal and newborn safety of planned home vs planned hospital birth. We included English-language peer-reviewed publications from developed Western nations reporting maternal and newborn outcomes by planned delivery location. Outcomes' summary odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated. Planned home births were associated with fewer maternal interventions including epidural analgesia, electronic fetal heart rate monitoring, episiotomy, and operative delivery. These women were less likely to experience lacerations, hemorrhage, and infections. Neonatal outcomes of planned home births revealed less frequent prematurity, low birthweight, and assisted newborn ventilation. Although planned home and hospital births exhibited similar perinatal mortality rates, planned home births were associated with significantly elevated neonatal mortality rates. Less medical intervention during planned home birth is associated with a tripling of the neonatal mortality rate. Copyright 2010 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of Language of Implementation on Functional Analysis Outcomes

Science.gov (United States)

Rispoli, Mandy; O'Reilly, Mark; Lang, Russell; Sigafoos, Jeff; Mulloy, Austin; Aguilar, Jeannie; Singer, George

2011-01-01

This study evaluated the influence of language of implementation on functional analysis outcomes for a child with a severe intellectual disability from a Spanish-speaking home. Challenging behavior was assessed during 5-min sessions under 4 conditions; attention, play-verbal, play-nonverbal, and demand and across 2 phases; implementation in…

47 CFR 76.802 - Disposition of cable home wiring.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Disposition of cable home wiring. 76.802... MULTICHANNEL VIDEO AND CABLE TELEVISION SERVICE Cable Inside Wiring § 76.802 Disposition of cable home wiring. (a)(1) Upon voluntary termination of cable service by a subscriber in a single unit installation, a...

The Gradual Evolution of Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael C. Corballis

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Language is commonly held to be unique to humans, and to have emerged suddenly in a single “great leap forward” within the past 100,000 years. The view is profoundly anti-Darwinian, and I propose instead a framework for understanding how language might have evolved incrementally from our primate heritage. One major proposition is that language evolved from manual action, with vocalization emerging as the dominant mode late in hominin evolution. The second proposition has to do with the role of language as a means of communicating about events displaced in space and time from the present. Some have argued that mental time travel itself is unique to human, which might explain why language itself is uniquely human. I argue instead that mental time travel has ancient evolutionary origins, and gradually assumed narrative-like properties during the Pleistocene, when language itself began to take shape.

Integrating Language, Pragmatics, and Social Intervention in a Single-Subject Case Study of a Child With a Developmental Social Communication Disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Catherine; Gaile, Jacqueline; Lockton, Elaine; Freed, Jenny

2015-10-01

This clinical focus article presents an illustration of a complex communication intervention, the Social Communication Intervention Programme (SCIP), as delivered to a child who has a social communication disorder (SCD). The SCIP intervention combined language processing and pragmatic and social understanding therapies in a program of individualized therapy activities and in close liaison with families. The study used an enhanced AB single-subject design in which an 8-year-old child with an SCD participated in 20 therapy sessions with a specialist speech-language pathologist. A procedure of matching assessment findings to intervention choices was followed to construct an individualized treatment program. Examples of intervention content and the embedded structure of SCIP are illustrated. Observational and formal measurements of receptive and expressive language, conversation, and parent-teacher ratings of social communication were completed before therapy, after therapy, and at a 6-month follow-up session. Outcomes revealed change in total and receptive language scores but not in expressive language. Conversation showed marked improvement in responsiveness, appreciation of listener knowledge, turn taking, and adaptation of discourse style. Teacher-reported outcomes included improved classroom behavior and enhanced literacy skills. Parent-reported outcomes included improved verbal interactions with family members and personal narratives. This clinical focus article demonstrates the complexity of needs in a child with an SCD and how these can be addressed in individualized intervention. Findings are discussed in relation to the essential nature of language support including pragmatic therapy for children with SCDs. Discussion of the role of formal and functional outcome measurement as well as the proximity of chosen outcomes to the intervention is included.

The challenge of linguistic and cultural diversity: Does length of experience affect South African speech-language therapists’ management of children with language impairment?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frenette Southwood

2015-02-01

Aims: To investigate whether length of clinical experience influenced: number of bilingual children treated, languages spoken by these children, languages in which assessment and remediation can be offered, assessment instrument(s favoured, and languages in which therapy material is required. Method: From questionnaires completed by 243 Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA-registered SLTs who treat children with language problems, two groups were drawn:71 more experienced (ME respondents (20+ years of experience and 79 less experienced (LE respondents (maximum 5 years of experience. Results: The groups did not differ significantly with regard to (1 number of children(monolingual or bilingual with language difficulties seen, (2 number of respondents seeing child clients who have Afrikaans or an African language as home language, (3 number of respondents who can offer intervention in Afrikaans or English and (4 number of respondents who reported needing therapy material in Afrikaans or English. However, significantly more ME than LE respondents reported seeing first language child speakers of English, whereas significantly more LE than ME respondents could provide services, and required therapymaterial, in African languages. Conclusion: More LE than ME SLTs could offer remediation in an African language, but there were few other significant differences between the two groups. There is still an absence of appropriate assessment and remediation material for Afrikaans and African languages, but the increased number of African language speakers entering the profession may contribute to better service delivery to the diverse South African population.

Participatory arts programs in residential dementia care: Playing with language differences.

Science.gov (United States)

Swinnen, Aagje; de Medeiros, Kate

2017-01-01

This article examines connections between language, identity, and cultural difference in the context of participatory arts in residential dementia care. Specifically, it looks at how language differences become instruments for the language play that characterizes the participatory arts programs, TimeSlips and the Alzheimer's Poetry Project. These are two approaches that are predominantly spoken-word driven. Although people living with dementia experience cognitive decline that affects language, they are linguistic agents capable of participating in ongoing negotiation processes of connection, belonging, and in- and exclusion through language use. The analysis of two ethnographic vignettes, based on extensive fieldwork in the closed wards of two Dutch nursing homes, illustrates how TimeSlips and the Alzheimer's Poetry Project support them in this agency. The theoretical framework of the analysis consists of literature on the linguistic agency of people living with dementia, the notions of the homo ludens (or man the player) and ludic language, as well as linguistic strategies of belonging in relation to place.

Multi-user Activity Recognition in a Smart Home

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wang, Liang; Gu, Tao; Tao, Xianping

2010-01-01

The advances of wearable sensors and wireless networks offer many opportunities to recognize human activities from sensor readings in pervasive computing. Existing work so far focus mainly on recognizing activities of a single user in a home environment. However, there are typically multiple...... inhabitants in a real home and they often perform activities together. In this paper, we investigate the problem of recognizing multi-user activities using wearable sensors in a home setting. We develop a multi-modal, wearable sensor platform to collect sensor data for multiple users, and study two temporal...

From language classroom to clinical context: the role of language and culture in communication for nurses using English as a second language: a thematic analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Neill, Fiona

2011-09-01

This study explores the experiences of internationally educated nurses using English as a second language, recruited by advanced economies to supplement diminishing local workforces, as they progress from language learning programs to clinical settings. Understanding the journey these nurses experience as language learners and professionals highlights ways in which they could be better supported in their adaptation and integration into the Australian workforce. By means of semi-structured interviews, the nurses' narratives were explored and documented. Thematic analysis was used to interpret their experiences as they move from the English language classroom to the clinical setting. The participants had all completed studies in English as a second language in Australia and had experienced working in Australian as part of a competency based assessment program. At the time of the study, conducted in South Australia, six of the nurses had met the English language requirements of the Nurses Board of South Australia and had started working as Registered Nurses in Australia. Four participants were still to reach the mandatory English requirements, among whom three were to return to their home countries due to visa restrictions, and continue their efforts to attain the English language proficiency requirement. There were six female participants and four male. Five participants were Indian, four Chinese, and one, Nepalese. In exploring their experiences, themes of identity and belonging, safety and competence and adapting to new roles and ways of communicating are revealed. In their own words, these nurses reveal the challenges they face as they concurrently manage the roles of language learners and professionals. The journey from language classroom to clinical setting is a process that goes beyond the notions of language proficiency; these nurses are constructing new cultural and professional identities. Bridging the gap between preparation and practice involves making

The Contributions of a Hispanic Immigrant Home Reading Practices to A Child’s Bilingual Reading Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ángela María López-Velásquez

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The characteristics of the Spanish home reading practices of a US immigrant Hispanic household are studied highlighting the many connections existing between the reading practices at home and at school. This longitudinal study explores how the home and school L1 reading instruction contributed to a first-grader’s initial steps towards reading in English or biliteracy. Details of Natalia ́s reading in Spanish at home and at school are presented and the relationships between the reading practices in both contexts are documented.The findings in this study remind us of the importance of strong native language literacy foundations and of the role that both home and school play in fostering high literacy levels among children.

Cross-lingual parser selection for low-resource languages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Agic, Zeljko

2017-01-01

In multilingual dependency parsing, transferring delexicalized models provides unmatched language coverage and competitive scores, with minimal requirements. Still, selecting the single best parser for any target language poses a challenge. Here, we propose a lean method for parser selection. It ....... It offers top performance, and it does so without disadvantaging the truly low-resource languages. We consistently select appropriate source parsers for our target languages in a realistic cross-lingual parsing experiment....

Emerging Literacy in Spanish among Hispanic Heritage Language University Students in the USA: A Pilot Study

Science.gov (United States)

Fairclough, Marta; Belpoliti, Flavia

2016-01-01

This pilot study identifies some lexical aspects of the emerging writing skills in Spanish among receptive English/Spanish bilingual students with little or no exposure to formal study of the home language upon entering a Spanish Heritage Language Program at a large public university in the Southwestern United States. The 200+ essays analyzed in…

The UK education of overseas students in speech and language therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Marshall, J; Goldbart, J; Phillips, J; Evans, R

2001-01-01

Informal evidence suggests that many overseas speech and language therapists (SLTs) either do not return to their home country on qualification or do not work as SLTs in the public sector. Many factors may contribute to this situation. However, concern that it may result in part from a poor match between UK SLT education and the demands of the role in other countries, led the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) to fund a study of overseas SLT students' experiences of UK qualifying courses. The study involved questionnaires and interviews with current students and those qualifying since May 1994. The focus of this paper is the respondents' experiences of studying and working in the UK, their views of the advantages and disadvantages of working in their home countries and the UK and supportive strategies that UK universities and other agencies might adopt. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Generating natural language under pragmatic constraints

CERN Document Server

Hovy, Eduard H

2013-01-01

Recognizing that the generation of natural language is a goal- driven process, where many of the goals are pragmatic (i.e., interpersonal and situational) in nature, this book provides an overview of the role of pragmatics in language generation. Each chapter states a problem that arises in generation, develops a pragmatics-based solution, and then describes how the solution is implemented in PAULINE, a language generator that can produce numerous versions of a single underlying message, depending on its setting.

The Semiotics of Learning Korean at Home: An Ecological Autoethnographic Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Jenks, Christopher J.

2017-01-01

This autoethnographic study examines how I re-learn Korean in, and through, interactions with family members at home. The analysis, which is informed by language ecology and sociocultural concepts of development, shows how semiotic and human resources, including material objects and more proficient speakers, play a mediating role in how I deal…

English language proficiency and the accommodations for language non-concordance amongst patients utilizing chiropractic college teaching clinics.

Science.gov (United States)

Saporito, Richard P

2013-02-01

The number of households in the United States that are not proficient in the English language is growing and presenting a challenge to the health care system. Over nineteen percent of the US population speak a language other than English in the home. This increase in language discordance generates a greater need to find and implement accommodations in the clinical setting to insure accurate and efficient diagnosis and treatment as well as provide for patient safety. The purpose of this study is to determine the percentage of patients accessing the chiropractic college teaching clinics who are not proficient in the English language and to what extent the colleges provide accommodations for that language disparity. The clinic directors and deans of the Association of Chiropractic Colleges were surveyed via an on-line survey engine. The survey queried the percentage of the patient population that is not English language proficient, the accommodations the college currently has in place, if the college has a language specific consent to treat document and if the college has a written policy concerning patients without English proficiency. Fifty percent of the contacted chiropractic colleges responded to the survey. In the respondent college clinics 16.5% of the patient population is not proficient in English, with over 75% speaking Spanish. All but one of the respondents provide some level of accommodation for the language non-concordance. Forty five percent of the responding colleges employ a language specific consent to treat form. The implementation of accommodations and the use of a language specific consent to treat form is more prevalent at colleges with a higher percentage of non-English speaking patients. The percentage of patients with limited English proficiency accessing services at the teaching clinics of the chiropractic colleges mirrors the numbers in the general population. There is a wide disparity in the accommodations that the individual colleges make

Lightweight UDP Pervasive Protocol in Smart Home Environment Based on Labview

Science.gov (United States)

Kurniawan, Wijaya; Hannats Hanafi Ichsan, Mochammad; Rizqika Akbar, Sabriansyah; Arwani, Issa

2017-04-01

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) technology in a reliable environment was not a problem, but not in an environment where the entire Smart Home network connected locally. Currently employing pervasive protocols using TCP technology, when data transmission is sent, it would be slower because they have to perform handshaking process in advance and could not broadcast the data. On smart home environment, it does not need large size and complex data transmission between monitoring site and monitoring center required in Smart home strain monitoring system. UDP (User Datagram Protocol) technology is quick and simple on data transmission process. UDP can broadcast messages because the UDP did not require handshaking and with more efficient memory usage. LabVIEW is a programming language software for processing and visualization of data in the field of data acquisition. This paper proposes to examine Pervasive UDP protocol implementations in smart home environment based on LabVIEW. UDP coded in LabVIEW and experiments were performed on a PC and can work properly.

Mobilizing Older Adults: Harnessing the Potential of Smart Home Technologies. Contribution of the IMIA Working Group on Smart Homes and Ambient Assisted Living.

Science.gov (United States)

Demiris, G; Thompson, H J

2012-01-01

This paper highlights the potential of smart home applications to not only assess mobility determinants for older adults in the home environment but also provide the opportunity for tailored interventions. We present a theoretical framework for assessing mobility parameters and utilizing this information to enable behavior change based on the Health Belief Model. We discuss examples that showcase the potential of smart home systems to not only measure but also improve mobility for community dwelling older adults. Mobility is a complex construct that cannot be addressed with a single monitoring approach or a single intervention. Instead, tailored interventions that address specific needs and behaviors of individuals and take into consideration preferences of older adults and potentially their social network are needed to effectively enforce positive behavior change. Smart home systems have the ability to capture details of one's daily living that could otherwise not be easily obtained; however, such data repositories alone are not sufficient to improve clinical outcomes if appropriate mechanisms for data mining and analysis, as well as tailored response systems are not in place. Unleashing the potential of smart home applications to measure and improve mobility has the potential of transforming elder care and providing potentially cost-effective tools to support independence for older adults. A technologically driven smart home application can maximize its clinical relevance by pursuing interactive features that can lead to behavior change.

Not single brain areas but a network is involved in language: Applications in presurgical planning.

Science.gov (United States)

Alemi, Razieh; Batouli, Seyed Amir Hossein; Behzad, Ebrahim; Ebrahimpoor, Mitra; Oghabian, Mohammad Ali

2018-02-01

Language is an important human function, and is a determinant of the quality of life. In conditions such as brain lesions, disruption of the language function may occur, and lesion resection is a solution for that. Presurgical planning to determine the language-related brain areas would enhance the chances of language preservation after the operation; however, availability of a normative language template is essential. In this study, using data from 60 young individuals who were meticulously checked for mental and physical health, and using fMRI and robust imaging and data analysis methods, functional brain maps for the language production, perception and semantic were produced. The obtained templates showed that the language function should be considered as the product of the collaboration of a network of brain regions, instead of considering only few brain areas to be involved in that. This study has important clinical applications, and extends our knowledge on the neuroanatomy of the language function. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Input and language development in bilingually developing children.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoff, Erika; Core, Cynthia

2013-11-01

Language skills in young bilingual children are highly varied as a result of the variability in their language experiences, making it difficult for speech-language pathologists to differentiate language disorder from language difference in bilingual children. Understanding the sources of variability in bilingual contexts and the resulting variability in children's skills will help improve language assessment practices by speech-language pathologists. In this article, we review literature on bilingual first language development for children under 5 years of age. We describe the rate of development in single and total language growth, we describe effects of quantity of input and quality of input on growth, and we describe effects of family composition on language input and language growth in bilingual children. We provide recommendations for language assessment of young bilingual children and consider implications for optimizing children's dual language development. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

World`s first fuel cell in a single-family home - The VNG natural gas house: Low-emission energy meets all household needs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Anon.

1999-03-01

VNG - Verbundnetz Gas Aktiengesellschaft of Leipzig, Germany, has pioneered the development of a decentral home energy system combining very high efficiencies with extremely low emissions. The company has installed the world`s first fuel cell total energy system using natural gas as an energy source to generate both heat and power in a single-family home. It replaces the gas-fired mini power station operated as part of the VNG natural gas house project which was instrumental in the rapid advancement of small-scale co-generation technology. The objective of VNG and its project partners is to collect reliable data for advancing fuel cell technology development, allowing appliance manufacturers to design a competitive system for introduction on the market within a few years. Discerning consumers will then be able to opt for an innovative, highly efficient system to meet all their household energy needs. (orig.)

Language teaching is no panacea: A theoretical perspective and critical evaluation of language in education within the South African context

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Heila Jordaan

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Language competence is both the means and the end to educational achievement, and multilingualism in particular has important cognitive, academic and societal advantages. The linguistic diversity in South Africa creates an ideal context to provide learners with the educational opportunities that promote high levels of linguistic proficiency in their home and additional languages. Unfortunately, the education system has not delivered on the constitutional imperatives of promoting multilingualism. English continues to dominate as the preferred language of teaching and learning, at the expense and marginalisation of the African languages. This is regarded by many researchers as the primary reason for the disturbingly low numeracy and literacy achievement levels of the majority of South African schoolchildren. However, the effects of language-in-education practices on academic achievement are not straightforward. This paper analyses recent research pertaining to the effects of language-in-education practices and argues that the critical role of educational linguistics is neglected in the South African education system. This affects the quality of teaching irrespective of the language of instruction and has a significant impact on the achievement of our children. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical theoretical perspective on language in education in order to influence policy and practice. An additional aim is to promote the role of speech-language therapists (SLTs in education, since these professionals are well positioned to work in collaboration with educators to enhance language learning in mainstream/ordinary classrooms. However, SLTs also need to be well informed about the challenges in education and the theory underlying language-in-education practices.

DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Case Study: Weiss Building & Development, Downers Grove, Illinois

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

none,

2013-09-01

This single-family home built in a peat bog has underground storage tanks and drainage tanks, blown fiberglass insulation, coated rigid polyisocyanurate, and flashing. The 3,600-square-foot custom home built by Weiss Building & Development LLC is the first home in Illinois certified to the DOE Challenge Home criteria, which requires that homes meet the EPA Indoor airPlus guidelines.The builder won a 2013 Housing Innovation Award in the custom builder category.

Low-Cost Implementation of a Named Entity Recognition System for Voice-Activated Human-Appliance Interfaces in a Smart Home

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Geonwoo Park

2018-02-01

Full Text Available When we develop voice-activated human-appliance interface systems in smart homes, named entity recognition (NER is an essential tool for extracting execution targets from natural language commands. Previous studies on NER systems generally include supervised machine-learning methods that require a substantial amount of human-annotated training corpus. In the smart home environment, categories of named entities should be defined according to voice-activated devices (e.g., food names for refrigerators and song titles for music players. The previous machine-learning methods make it difficult to change categories of named entities because a large amount of the training corpus should be newly constructed by hand. To address this problem, we present a semi-supervised NER system to minimize the time-consuming and labor-intensive task of constructing the training corpus. Our system uses distant supervision methods with two kinds of auto-labeling processes: auto-labeling based on heuristic rules for single-class named entity corpus generation and auto-labeling based on a pre-trained single-class NER model for multi-class named entity corpus generation. Then, our system improves NER accuracy by using a bagging-based active learning method. In our experiments that included a generic domain that featured 11 named entity classes and a context-specific domain about baseball that featured 21 named entity classes, our system demonstrated good performances in both domains, with F1-measures of 0.777 and 0.958, respectively. Since our system was built from a relatively small human-annotated training corpus, we believe it is a viable alternative to current NER systems in smart home environments.

Cross-language information retrieval using PARAFAC2.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bader, Brett William; Chew, Peter; Abdelali, Ahmed (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM); Kolda, Tamara Gibson

2007-05-01

A standard approach to cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) uses Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) in conjunction with a multilingual parallel aligned corpus. This approach has been shown to be successful in identifying similar documents across languages - or more precisely, retrieving the most similar document in one language to a query in another language. However, the approach has severe drawbacks when applied to a related task, that of clustering documents 'language-independently', so that documents about similar topics end up closest to one another in the semantic space regardless of their language. The problem is that documents are generally more similar to other documents in the same language than they are to documents in a different language, but on the same topic. As a result, when using multilingual LSA, documents will in practice cluster by language, not by topic. We propose a novel application of PARAFAC2 (which is a variant of PARAFAC, a multi-way generalization of the singular value decomposition [SVD]) to overcome this problem. Instead of forming a single multilingual term-by-document matrix which, under LSA, is subjected to SVD, we form an irregular three-way array, each slice of which is a separate term-by-document matrix for a single language in the parallel corpus. The goal is to compute an SVD for each language such that V (the matrix of right singular vectors) is the same across all languages. Effectively, PARAFAC2 imposes the constraint, not present in standard LSA, that the 'concepts' in all documents in the parallel corpus are the same regardless of language. Intuitively, this constraint makes sense, since the whole purpose of using a parallel corpus is that exactly the same concepts are expressed in the translations. We tested this approach by comparing the performance of PARAFAC2 with standard LSA in solving a particular CLIR problem. From our results, we conclude that PARAFAC2 offers a very promising alternative to

The TECS model leads to active use of technology in home care

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Ulla Gars; Skov, Hanne

2017-01-01

Digitization in healthcare is accelerating worldwide. This article focuses on the X-Changery development project involving home-care nurses and their use of the iPad as a new tool in patients’ homes. The goal of the project was to bring knowledge from recent research on technological literacy...... in working life back to a work setting, thus giving nurses new technology competencies with the aim of enhancing their professionalism through the use of the iPad as a work tool. Through field observations, learning labs and focus-group interviews we can see that X-Changery gave home-care nurses a common...... language to exchange experiences and share knowledge about the iPad as a work tool. Use of the iPad in patients’ homes led to new habits and routines. Nurses acquired relational expertise, implying active use of technology. The results show the importance of focusing on and funding reflection...

Monitoring results for the Factor 9 home

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fugler, D.; Dumont, R.

2009-01-01

The Factor 9 home is a new demonstration project that consists of a single family residence located in Regina, Saskatchewan. The home features extremely high levels of energy and water use efficiency. The home was completed in April 2007. Energy and water savings targets were established for the Factor 9 home. In order to assess the extent to which the performance objectives were met, a project was undertaken to monitor energy and water use for a one-year period ending May 31, 2008. Several indoor air quality indicators were also measured. This paper discussed the findings of the project, with particular reference to energy conservation features; water conservation features; performance results; incremental cost of energy and water efficiency features; indoor air quality; and suggested improvements to the Factor 9 home. It was concluded that the demonstration project house showcased high levels of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and water efficiency with proven technologies. 3 refs., 4 figs.

Promoting language and social communication development in babies through an early storybook reading intervention.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Michelle I; Westerveld, Marleen F; Trembath, David; Gillon, Gail T

2017-12-15

This study examined the effectiveness of low- and high-intensity early storybook reading (ESR) intervention workshops delivered to parents for promoting their babies language and social communication development. These workshops educated parents on how to provide a stimulating home reading environment and engage in parent-child interactions during ESR. Parent-child dyads (n = 32); child age: 3-12 months, were assigned into two intervention conditions: low and high intensity (LI versus HI) groups. Both groups received the same ESR strategies; however, the HI group received additional intervention time, demonstrations and support. Outcome measures were assessed pre-intervention, one and three months post-intervention and when the child turned 2 years of age. A significant time-group interaction with increased performance in the HI group was observed for language scores immediately post-intervention (p = 0.007) and at 2-years-of-age (p = 0.022). Significantly higher broader social communication scores were associated with the HI group at each of the time points (p = 0.018, p = 0.001 and p = 0.021, respectively). Simple main effect revealed that both groups demonstrated a significant improvement in language, broader social communication and home reading practices scores. ESR intervention workshops may promote language and broader social communication skills. The HI ESR intervention workshop was associated with significantly higher language and broader social communication scores.

First-born siblings show better second language skills than later born siblings

Science.gov (United States)

Keller, Karin; Troesch, Larissa M.; Grob, Alexander

2015-01-01

We examined the extent to which three sibling structure variables number of siblings, birth order, and presence of an older sibling at school age are linked to the second language skills of bilingual children. The research questions were tested using an ethnically heterogeneous sample of 1209 bilingual children with German as a second language. Controlling for children’s age, sex, nationality, number of children’s books at home, family language and parental German language skills, hierarchical regression analyses showed an inverse relationship between the number of siblings and second language skills: the more siblings a child had, the lower was his/her second language proficiency. This relationship was mediated by attendance in early education institutions. Moreover, first-born siblings showed better second language skills than later born siblings. The current study revealed that the resource dilution model, i.e., the decrease in resources for every additional sibling, holds for second language acquisition. Moreover, the results indicate that bilingual children from families with several children benefit from access to early education institutions. PMID:26089806

First-born siblings show better second language skills than later born siblings

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karin eKeller

2015-06-01

Full Text Available We examined the extent to which three sibling structure variables number of siblings, birth order and presence of an older sibling at school age are linked to the second language skills of bilingual children. The research questions were tested using an ethnically heterogeneous sample of 1209 bilingual children with German as a second language. Controlling for children’s age, sex, nationality, number of children’s books at home, family language and parental German language skills, hierarchical regression analyses showed an inverse relationship between the number of siblings and second language skills: The more siblings a child had, the lower was his/her second language proficiency. This relationship was mediated by attendance in early education institutions. Moreover, first-born siblings showed better second language skills than later born siblings.The current study revealed that the resource dilution model, i.e., the decrease in resources for every additional sibling, holds for second language acquisition. Moreover, the results indicate that bilingual children from families with several children benefit from access to early education institutions.

Census Bureau Reports at Least 350 Languages Spoken in U.S. Homes

Science.gov (United States)

Employment and Payroll Survey of Business Owners Work from Home Our statistics highlight trends in household statistics from multiple surveys. Data Tools & Apps Main American FactFinder Census Business Builder My Classification Codes (i.e., NAICS) Economic Census Economic Indicators Economic Studies Industry Statistics

Lexical access in sign language: a computational model.

Science.gov (United States)

Caselli, Naomi K; Cohen-Goldberg, Ariel M

2014-01-01

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC THEORIES HAVE PREDOMINANTLY BEEN BUILT UPON DATA FROM SPOKEN LANGUAGE, WHICH LEAVES OPEN THE QUESTION: How many of the conclusions truly reflect language-general principles as opposed to modality-specific ones? We take a step toward answering this question in the domain of lexical access in recognition by asking whether a single cognitive architecture might explain diverse behavioral patterns in signed and spoken language. Chen and Mirman (2012) presented a computational model of word processing that unified opposite effects of neighborhood density in speech production, perception, and written word recognition. Neighborhood density effects in sign language also vary depending on whether the neighbors share the same handshape or location. We present a spreading activation architecture that borrows the principles proposed by Chen and Mirman (2012), and show that if this architecture is elaborated to incorporate relatively minor facts about either (1) the time course of sign perception or (2) the frequency of sub-lexical units in sign languages, it produces data that match the experimental findings from sign languages. This work serves as a proof of concept that a single cognitive architecture could underlie both sign and word recognition.

Lexical access in sign language: A computational model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naomi Kenney Caselli

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Psycholinguistic theories have predominantly been built upon data from spoken language, which leaves open the question: How many of the conclusions truly reflect language-general principles as opposed to modality-specific ones? We take a step toward answering this question in the domain of lexical access in recognition by asking whether a single cognitive architecture might explain diverse behavioral patterns in signed and spoken language. Chen and Mirman (2012 presented a computational model of word processing that unified opposite effects of neighborhood density in speech production, perception, and written word recognition. Neighborhood density effects in sign language also vary depending on whether the neighbors share the same handshape or location. We present a spreading activation architecture that borrows the principles proposed by Chen and Mirman (2012, and show that if this architecture is elaborated to incorporate relatively minor facts about either 1 the time course of sign perception or 2 the frequency of sub-lexical units in sign languages, it produces data that match the experimental findings from sign languages. This work serves as a proof of concept that a single cognitive architecture could underlie both sign and word recognition.

Effects of a Tablet-Based Home Practice Program With Telepractice on Treatment Outcomes in Chronic Aphasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Kurland, Jacquie; Liu, Anna; Stokes, Polly

2018-05-17

The aim of this study was to determine if a tablet-based home practice program with weekly telepractice support could enable long-term maintenance of recent treatment gains and foster new language gains in poststroke aphasia. In a pre-post group study of home practice outcomes, 21 individuals with chronic aphasia were examined before and after a 6-month home practice phase and again at follow-up 4 months later. The main outcome measure studied was change in naming previously treated or untreated, practiced or unpracticed pictures of objects and actions. Individualized home practice programs were created in iBooks Author with semantic, phonemic, and orthographic cueing in pictures, words, and videos in order to facilitate naming of previously treated or untreated pictures. Home practice was effective for all participants with severity moderating treatment effects, such that individuals with the most severe aphasia made and maintained fewer gains. There was a negative relationship between the amount of training required for iPad proficiency and improvements on practiced and unpracticed pictures and a positive relationship between practice compliance and same improvements. Unsupervised home practice with weekly video teleconferencing support is effective. This study demonstrates that even individuals with chronic severe aphasia, including those with no prior smart device or even computer experience, can attain independent proficiency to continue practicing and improving their language skills beyond therapy discharge. This could represent a low-cost therapy option for individuals without insurance coverage and/or those for whom mobility is an obstacle to obtaining traditional aphasia therapy.

Cross-language psycholinguistics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cutler, A.

1985-01-01

Cross-linguistic research can be of valaue to psycholinguistics by allowing tests of hypotheses the testing of which would be severely confounded in a single language, and by providing simple and readily available control conditions. For a long time the resources of this kind of research were

Multi-language naming game

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Jianfeng; Lou, Yang; Chen, Guanrong; Tang, Wallace K. S.

2018-04-01

Naming game is a simulation-based experiment used to study the evolution of languages. The conventional naming game focuses on a single language. In this paper, a novel naming game model named multi-language naming game (MLNG) is proposed, where the agents are different-language speakers who cannot communicate with each other without a translator (interpreter) in between. The MLNG model is general, capable of managing k different languages with k ≥ 2. For illustration, the paper only discusses the MLNG with two different languages, and studies five representative network topologies, namely random-graph, WS small-world, NW small-world, scale-free, and random-triangle topologies. Simulation and analysis results both show that: 1) using the network features and based on the proportion of translators the probability of establishing a conversation between two or three agents can be theoretically estimated; 2) the relationship between the convergence speed and the proportion of translators has a power-law-like relation; 3) different agents require different memory sizes, thus a local memory allocation rule is recommended for saving memory resources. The new model and new findings should be useful for further studies of naming games and for better understanding of languages evolution from a dynamical network perspective.

Does Mother Tongue Interfere in Second Language Learning?

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Elif Nur Denizer

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Mother tongue largely refers to not only the language one learns from one’s mother but also the speaker’s dominant and home language. It’s also called native language. This study was conducted to find whether mother tongue interferences in second-language learning, and if so; whether it affects the learners’ performance in four language skills, and also in which skill(s it has the biggest effect. Data collection tool included a questionnaire by which participants were asked to rate the questions and tick-circle or write in the correct blank. The questionnaire was based on both quantitative and qualitative approaches with the help of 4-point Likert-scale questions and one open-ended question at the last part. The participants of the study were 20 volunteer students (15 females and 5 males in Uludag University on whom the questionnaire was randomly applied.  They ranged in age from 18 to 40 and the mean age was 23. Their mother tongue was Turkish, and they knew English as a foreign language. The questionnaire shows that mother tongue interferes with second language learning in some way. In English language, the most challenging part was Grammar, while the most difficult and influenced skills was Speaking. In addition, participants had difficulty with speaking without any preparation. When it comes to having difficulty, participants had difficulty with determiners, English tenses and articles. The results indicated the interference of mother tongue in almost all aspects.

Effect of tribal language use on colorectal cancer screening among American Indians.

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Gonzales, Angela A; Garroutte, Eva; Ton, Thanh G N; Goldberg, Jack; Buchwald, Dedra

2012-12-01

American Indians have one of the lowest colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates for any racial/ethnic group in the U.S., yet reasons for their low screening participation are poorly understood. We examine whether tribal language use is associated with knowledge and use of CRC screening in a community-based sample of American Indians. Using logistic regression to estimate the association between tribal language use and CRC test knowledge and receipt we found participants speaking primarily English were no more aware of CRC screening tests than those speaking primarily a tribal language (OR = 1.16 [0.29, 4.63]). Participants who spoke only a tribal language at home (OR = 1.09 [0.30, 4.00]) and those who spoke both a tribal language and English (OR = 1.74 [0.62, 4.88]) also showed comparable odds of receipt of CRC screening. Study findings failed to support the concept that use of a tribal language is a barrier to CRC screening among American Indians.

Parental Involvement in Language and Literacy Acquisition: A Bilingual Journaling Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Caesar, Lena G.; Nelson, Nickola Wolf

2014-01-01

This pilot study examined the feasibility of a home-school partnership for improving emergent literacy skills in Spanish-speaking pre-school children of migrant farmworkers. Parents were requested to send labeled drawings of family activities to their children's classroom for supplementing bilingual language and literacy instruction. Participants…

Genetic biasing through cultural transmission: do simple Bayesian models of language evolution generalize?

Science.gov (United States)

Dediu, Dan

2009-08-07

The recent Bayesian approaches to language evolution and change seem to suggest that genetic biases can impact on the characteristics of language, but, at the same time, that its cultural transmission can partially free it from these same genetic constraints. One of the current debates centres on the striking differences between sampling and a posteriori maximising Bayesian learners, with the first converging on the prior bias while the latter allows a certain freedom to language evolution. The present paper shows that this difference disappears if populations more complex than a single teacher and a single learner are considered, with the resulting behaviours more similar to the sampler. This suggests that generalisations based on the language produced by Bayesian agents in such homogeneous single agent chains are not warranted. It is not clear which of the assumptions in such models are responsible, but these findings seem to support the rising concerns on the validity of the "acquisitionist" assumption, whereby the locus of language change and evolution is taken to be the first language acquirers (children) as opposed to the competent language users (the adults).

The home literacy and numeracy environment in preschool: Cross-domain relations of parent-child practices and child outcomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Napoli, Amy R; Purpura, David J

2018-02-01

There is a growing body of evidence indicating that home literacy and numeracy environments are predictive of children's literacy and numeracy skills within their respective domains. However, there is limited research on the relations between the home literacy environment and numeracy outcomes and between the home numeracy environment and literacy outcomes. Specifically, there is limited information on relations between the home numeracy environment and specific literacy outcomes (e.g., vocabulary). The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relations of the home literacy and numeracy environments to children's literacy and numeracy outcomes both within and across domains. Participants were 114 preschool children and their parents. Children ranged in age from 3.01 to 5.17 years (M = 4.09 years) and were 54% female and 72% Caucasian. Parents reported the frequency of parent-child literacy (code-related practices and storybook reading) and numeracy practices. Children were assessed in the fall and spring of their preschool year on their literacy (definitional vocabulary, phonological awareness, and print knowledge) and numeracy skills. Four mixed-effects regression analyses were conducted to predict each of the child outcomes. Results indicate that although code-related literacy practices and storybook reading were not broadly predictive of children's literacy and numeracy outcomes, the home numeracy environment was predictive of numeracy and definitional vocabulary outcomes. These findings demonstrate a relation between the home numeracy environment and children's language development and contribute to the growing body of research indicating the important relations between early numeracy and language development. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Predicting language outcomes for children learning AAC: Child and environmental factors

Science.gov (United States)

Brady, Nancy C.; Thiemann-Bourque, Kathy; Fleming, Kandace; Matthews, Kris

2014-01-01

Purpose To investigate a model of language development for nonverbal preschool age children learning to communicate with AAC. Method Ninety-three preschool children with intellectual disabilities were assessed at Time 1, and 82 of these children were assessed one year later at Time 2. The outcome variable was the number of different words the children produced (with speech, sign or SGD). Children’s intrinsic predictor for language was modeled as a latent variable consisting of cognitive development, comprehension, play, and nonverbal communication complexity. Adult input at school and home, and amount of AAC instruction were proposed mediators of vocabulary acquisition. Results A confirmatory factor analysis revealed that measures converged as a coherent construct and an SEM model indicated that the intrinsic child predictor construct predicted different words children produced. The amount of input received at home but not at school was a significant mediator. Conclusions Our hypothesized model accurately reflected a latent construct of Intrinsic Symbolic Factor (ISF). Children who evidenced higher initial levels of ISF and more adult input at home produced more words one year later. Findings support the need to assess multiple child variables, and suggest interventions directed to the indicators of ISF and input. PMID:23785187

Native Language as a Core Value which creates the Cross-Cultural Identity

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JERZY NIKITOROWICZ

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Th e thesis which is undertaken in this article applies to a native language (the language of the family and home as the leading (primary value of creating a crosscultural identity. To justify this argument, the author refers to his own research and literature in this area. Th ere are many references to the theory of cultural relativism by Sapir-Whorf and the theory of core values by Jerzy Smolicz. Th e author demonstrates, notices, and highlights that the personal and group identity, analysed in terms of evolutionary (processual, based on the values which are recognised and respected in the family, are shaping and developing cross-cultural identity. Th e more we recognize, respect and accept your native (family and home identity, the more we are likely to make an eff ort to get to know the Other and his culture.

How Do Siblings Shape the Language Environment in Bilingual Families?

Science.gov (United States)

Obied, Vicky Macleroy

2009-01-01

This article investigates the home literacy practices of Portuguese-English bilingual children raised in Portugal. The ethnographic research was inspired by experience with bilingual families, whose children were all of school age, so acquisition of literacy in English as the non-school language had surfaced as an issue. The research opens up new…

The Development of Reference Realisation and Narrative in an Australian Contact Language, Wumpurrarni English

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Samantha eDisbray

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The development of narrative skill has been investigated extensively in a wide range of languages, cross-linguistically and in multilingual settings (Berman & Slobin, 1994b; Hickmann, 2004; Severing & Verhoeven 2001, Strömqvist & Verhoeven, 2004. The present study investigates the development of reference realisation in narrative among Indigenous children in a remote urban township in Central Australia. The children, aged between 5 and 14 years, are speakers of a contact language, Wumpurrarni English. Language development is rarely investigated among speakers of minority languages, whose language development is often appraised in the majority language, with little attention to language performance in the speaker’s home variety. The present study addresses this gap through a fine-grained qualitative analysis of the development of reference in narrative, drawing on a complex stimulus and a model of discourse strategy. The results show a a developmental trajectory similar to that found in other languages, with children aged eight and under producing simpler and less globally organised narratives than older speaker groups, and b vulnerability to the changing demands of the stimulus among these younger speakers. In addition, a subset of narrations were produced in ‘school variety’, a style more like Standard Australian English, and the results for this set showed that the narrative content and global organisation of the productions by ten- and twelve–year-olds was more similar to the productions of younger children, than like-aged speakers narrating in their home variety. Analysis of speaker responses to two factors of complexity, the stimulus and code choice, illuminated mechanisms for discourse production and development, and suggest that constructing discourse requires co-ordination of an underlying schema and on-line construction of a particular story through the deployment of linguistic devices in a particular narrative context, and

Medical home capabilities of primary care practices that serve sociodemographically vulnerable neighborhoods.

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Friedberg, Mark W; Coltin, Kathryn L; Safran, Dana Gelb; Dresser, Marguerite; Schneider, Eric C

2010-06-14

Under current medical home proposals, primary care practices using specific structural capabilities will receive enhanced payments. Some practices disproportionately serve sociodemographically vulnerable neighborhoods. If these practices lack medical home capabilities, their ineligibility for enhanced payments could worsen disparities in care. Via survey, 308 Massachusetts primary care practices reported their use of 13 structural capabilities commonly included in medical home proposals. Using geocoded US Census data, we constructed racial/ethnic minority and economic disadvantage indices to describe the neighborhood served by each practice. We compared the structural capabilities of "disproportionate-share" practices (those in the most sociodemographically vulnerable quintile on each index) and others. Racial/ethnic disproportionate-share practices were more likely than others to have staff assisting patient self-management (69% vs 55%; P = .003), on-site language interpreters (54% vs 26%; P primary care practices serving sociodemographically vulnerable neighborhoods were more likely than other practices to have structural capabilities commonly included in medical home proposals. Payments tied to these capabilities may aid practices serving vulnerable populations.

An Education Initiative Modifies Opinions of Hemodialysis Nurses towards Home Dialysis

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Matthew Phillips

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Background: It has been shown that in-center hemodialysis (HD nurses prefer in-center HD for patients with certain characteristics; however it is not known if their opinions can be changed. Objective: To determine if an education initiative modified the perceptions of in-center HD nurses towards home dialysis. Design: Cross-sectional survey of in-center HD nurses before and after a three hour continuing nursing education (CNE initiative. Content of the CNE initiative included a didactic review of benefits of home dialysis, common misconceptions about patient eligibility, cost comparisons of different modalities and a home dialysis patient testimonial video. Setting: All in-center HD nurses (including those working in satellite dialysis units affiliated with a single academic institution Measurements: Survey themes included perceived barriers to home dialysis, preferred modality (home versus in-center HD, ideal modality distribution in the local program, awareness of home dialysis and patient education about home modalities. Methods: Paired comparisons of responses before and after the CNE initiative. Results: Of the 115 in-center HD nurses, 100 registered for the CNE initiative and 89 completed pre and post surveys (89% response rate. At baseline, in-center HD nurses perceived that impaired cognition, poor motor strength and poor visual acuity were barriers to peritoneal dialysis and home HD. In-center HD was preferred for availability of multidisciplinary care and medical personnel in case of catastrophic events. After the initiative, perceptions were more in favor of home dialysis for all patient characteristics, and most patient/system factors. Home dialysis was perceived to be underutilized both at baseline and after the initiative. Finally, in-center HD nurses were more aware of home dialysis, felt better informed about its benefits and were more comfortable teaching in-center HD patients about home modalities after the CNE session

The languages and peoples of the Müller Mountains; A contribution to the study of the origins of Borneo’s nomads and their languages

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Bernard Sellato

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The Müller and northern Schwaner mountain ranges are home to a handful of tiny, isolated groups (Aoheng, Hovongan, Kereho, Semukung, Seputan, altogether totaling about 5,000 persons, which are believed to have been forest hunter-gatherers in a distant or recent past. Linguistic data were collected among these groups and other neighbouring groups between 1975 and 2010, leading to the delineation of two distinct clusters of languages of nomadic or formerly nomadic groups, which are called MSP (Müller-Schwaner Punan and BBL (Bukat-Beketan-Lisum clusters. These languages also display lexical affinity to the languages of various major Bornean settled farming groups (Kayan, Ot Danum. Following brief regional and particular historical sketches, their phonological systems and some key features are described and compared within the wider local linguistic setting, which is expected to contribute to an elucidation of the ultimate origins of these people and their languages.

LANGUAGE CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT: HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

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Trisna Dinillah Dinillah Harya

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Language can change and develop by itself slowly. Language can change and development because of adaptation of development and pattern change and system of society life, such as level of education, social, culture and technology mastery. Language change and development can occur internally and externally. In this article the changes internally and language development will be reviewed by looking through the study of historical change and development language based on the history of its development. While changes in external and development will be explored through the study of Sociolinguistics by examining and looking at changes and developments that language is influenced by socio-cultural factors that occur in society. Changes internally initially occurred in the behavior of speakers in their everyday lives to adjust to each other, and followed by a tendency to innovate in groups of people who are already familiar, then followed by other changes in sequence, which ultimately makes a language different each other, although originally derived from a single language family. Changes in the external language change and language development is caused by the contact of a language with other languages, where humans as social beings who have been cultured either interconnected or inter-ethnic nations in the world in a country. Key words: Language Changes, Internal Change, External Change, Historical linguistics

Teaching Modern Foreign Languages in Single-Sex Classes in a Co-Educational Context--Review of a Project in a North Yorkshire Comprehensive School

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Chambers, Gary

2005-01-01

A co-educational comprehensive school in North Yorkshire, concerned at the gap between boys' and girls' performance in French and German at GCSE, opted to teach Year 8 languages classes as single-sex groups. 2003-04 was to be a pilot year, at the end of which pupils' performance, motivation and attitude, as well as the experiences and views of…

A Qualitative Study Among Mexican Americans to Understand Factors Influencing the Adoption and Enforcement of Home Smoking Bans.

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Savas, Lara S; Mullen, Patricia Dolan; Hovell, Melbourne F; Escoffrey, Cam; Fernandez, Maria E; Jones, Jennifer A; Cavazos, Jazmine; Gutierrez Monroy, Jo Ann A; Kegler, Michelle C

2017-11-07

One-third of Mexican-American children, in addition to nonsmoker adults, are exposed to secondhand smoke at home, yet few interventions target Mexican-American households. An effective, brief English language program, tested with United Way 2-1-1 callers in Atlanta, increased home smoking bans (confirmed by air monitors). Two randomized controlled trials in North Carolina and Texas replicated those results. We explored factors determining adoption and enforcement of smoking bans in Mexican-American households to inform program linguistic and cultural adaptation to broaden program reach and relevance. Bilingual interviewers recruited convenience samples of Mexican-American smokers and nonsmokers living with at least one smoker in Houston and San Diego households and asked open-ended questions regarding conditions for implementing home and vehicle smoking bans and conditions for varying acceptance of bans. Investigators independently reviewed English transcripts and completed a descriptive analysis using ATLAS.ti. Participants (n = 43) were predominantly female (n = 31), current smokers (n = 26), interviewed in Spanish (n = 26), had annual household incomes less than $30000 (n = 24), and allowed smoking inside the home (n = 24). Themes related to difficulty creating and enforcing bans included courtesy, respect for guests and heads of household who smoke, and gender imbalances in decision making. Participants viewed protecting children's health as a reason for the ban but not protecting adult nonsmokers' health. A dual-language, culturally adapted intervention targeting multigenerational Mexican-American households should address household differences regarding language and consider influences of cultural values on family dynamics and interactions with guests that may weaken bans. Qualitative interviews suggested cultural and family considerations to address in adapting a brief evidence-based smoke-free homes intervention for Mexican Americans, including traditional

Improving outcomes of preschool language delay in the community: protocol for the Language for Learning randomised controlled trial

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Wake Melissa

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Early language delay is a high-prevalence condition of concern to parents and professionals. It may result in lifelong deficits not only in language function, but also in social, emotional/behavioural, academic and economic well-being. Such delays can lead to considerable costs to the individual, the family and to society more widely. The Language for Learning trial tests a population-based intervention in 4 year olds with measured language delay, to determine (1 if it improves language and associated outcomes at ages 5 and 6 years and (2 its cost-effectiveness for families and the health care system. Methods/Design A large-scale randomised trial of a year-long intervention targeting preschoolers with language delay, nested within a well-documented, prospective, population-based cohort of 1464 children in Melbourne, Australia. All children received a 1.25-1.5 hour formal language assessment at their 4th birthday. The 200 children with expressive and/or receptive language scores more than 1.25 standard deviations below the mean were randomised into intervention or ‘usual care’ control arms. The 20-session intervention program comprises 18 one-hour home-based therapeutic sessions in three 6-week blocks, an outcome assessment, and a final feed-back/forward planning session. The therapy utilises a ‘step up-step down’ therapeutic approach depending on the child’s language profile, severity and progress, with standardised, manualised activities covering the four language development domains of: vocabulary and grammar; narrative skills; comprehension monitoring; and phonological awareness/pre-literacy skills. Blinded follow-up assessments at ages 5 and 6 years measure the primary outcome of receptive and expressive language, and secondary outcomes of vocabulary, narrative, and phonological skills. Discussion A key strength of this robust study is the implementation of a therapeutic framework that provides a standardised

South African sign language assistive translation

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Olivrin, GJ

2008-04-01

Full Text Available , the fact that the target structure is SASL, the home language of the Deaf user, already facilitates the communication. Ul- timately the message will be delivered more naturally by a signing avatar [14]. We shall present further scenarios for future... Work 6.1 Disambiguation Disambiguation can be improved on two levels: firstly, by eliciting more or better information from the user through the AAC interface and secondly, by improving certain as- pects of the MT system. We discuss both...

Two energy storage alternatives for a solar-powered sustainable single floor desert home

KAUST Repository

Serag-Eldin, M. A.

2010-09-30

This paper is concerned with the thermodynamic analysis of a totally solarpowered desert home. The home is air-conditioned and provides all modern comforts and facilities. It features closely spaced, roof mounted photovoltaic modules, which collect the solar energy driving the whole energy system. During the day time, the modules form an elevated horizontal surface above the roof, shielding it from direct solar radiation. After sunset, the photovoltaic modules are flipped vertically upwards to expose the roof to the sky, thus enhancing night-time cooling. Two methods of energy storage are proposed and compared, one using solely battery storage of electrical output, and the other employing a combination of cold water storage and battery storage. The analysis is based on detailed dynamic heat transfer calculations for the entire building envelope, coupled with a solar radiation model, and followed by energy balances. The results reveal that indeed it is feasible to employ solar energy as the only source of energy to power the home, and that each storage system has its own merits and shortcomings. © 2010 WIT Press.

Atypical cortical language organization in epilepsy patients: evidence for divergent hemispheric dominance for receptive and expressive language function.

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Eliashiv, Dawn S; Kurelowech, Lacey; Quint, Patti; Chung, Jeffrey M; Otis, Shirley M; Gage, Nicole M

2014-06-01

The central goal of presurgical language mapping is to identify brain regions that subserve cortical language function to minimize postsurgical language deficits. Presurgical language mapping in patients with epilepsy presents a key challenge because of the atypical pattern of hemispheric language dominance found in this population, with higher incidences of bilateral and right-biased language dominance than typical. In this prospective study, we combine magnetoencephalography with a panel of tasks designed to separately assess receptive and expressive function to provide a sensitive measure of language function in 15 candidates for resective surgery. We report the following: 4 of 15 patients (27%) showed left hemisphere dominance across all tasks, 4 of 15 patients (27%) showed right hemisphere dominance across all tasks, and 7 of 15 (46%) showed discordant language dominance, with right-dominant receptive and left-dominant expressive language. All patients with discordant language dominance showed this right-receptive and left-expressive pattern. Results provide further evidence supporting the importance of using a panel of tasks to assess separable aspects of language function. The clinical relevance of the findings is discussed, especially about current clinical operative measures for assessing language dominance, which use single hemisphere procedure (intracarotid amobarbital procedure and awake intraoperative stimulation) for determining language laterality.

Single-Molecule Spectroscopy

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Resonance – Journal of Science Education; Volume 20; Issue 2. Single-Molecule Spectroscopy: Every Molecule is Different! Kankan Bhattacharyya. General Article Volume 20 Issue 2 February 2015 pp 151-164. Fulltext. Click here to view fulltext PDF. Permanent link:

Power in methods: language to infants in structured and naturalistic contexts.

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Tamis-LeMonda, Catherine S; Kuchirko, Yana; Luo, Rufan; Escobar, Kelly; Bornstein, Marc H

2017-11-01

Methods can powerfully affect conclusions about infant experiences and learning. Data from naturalistic observations may paint a very different picture of learning and development from those based on structured tasks, as illustrated in studies of infant walking, object permanence, intention understanding, and so forth. Using language as a model system, we compared the speech of 40 mothers to their 13-month-old infants during structured play and naturalistic home routines. The contrasting methods yielded unique portrayals of infant language experiences, while simultaneously underscoring cross-situational correspondence at an individual level. Infants experienced substantially more total words and different words per minute during structured play than they did during naturalistic routines. Language input during structured play was consistently dense from minute to minute, whereas language during naturalistic routines showed striking fluctuations interspersed with silence. Despite these differences, infants' language experiences during structured play mirrored the peak language interactions infants experienced during naturalistic routines, and correlations between language inputs in the two conditions were strong. The implications of developmental methods for documenting the nature of experiences and individual differences are discussed. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

"So Many Books They Don't Even All Fit on the Bookshelf": An Examination of Low-Income Mothers' Home Literacy Practices, Beliefs and Influencing Factors

Science.gov (United States)

Sawyer, Brook E.; Cycyk, Lauren M.; Sandilos, Lia E.; Hammer, Carol S.

2016-01-01

Given the need to enhance the academic language and early literacy skills of young children from low-income homes and the importance of the home literacy environment in supporting children's development, the purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the home literacy environment of low-income African-American and Latino mothers of…

Bilingual Language Switching: Production vs. Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Mosca, Michela; de Bot, Kees

2017-01-01

This study aims at assessing how bilinguals select words in the appropriate language in production and recognition while minimizing interference from the non-appropriate language. Two prominent models are considered which assume that when one language is in use, the other is suppressed. The Inhibitory Control (IC) model suggests that, in both production and recognition, the amount of inhibition on the non-target language is greater for the stronger compared to the weaker language. In contrast, the Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA) model proposes that, in language recognition, the amount of inhibition on the weaker language is stronger than otherwise. To investigate whether bilingual language production and recognition can be accounted for by a single model of bilingual processing, we tested a group of native speakers of Dutch (L1), advanced speakers of English (L2) in a bilingual recognition and production task. Specifically, language switching costs were measured while participants performed a lexical decision (recognition) and a picture naming (production) task involving language switching. Results suggest that while in language recognition the amount of inhibition applied to the non-appropriate language increases along with its dominance as predicted by the IC model, in production the amount of inhibition applied to the non-relevant language is not related to language dominance, but rather it may be modulated by speakers' unconscious strategies to foster the weaker language. This difference indicates that bilingual language recognition and production might rely on different processing mechanisms and cannot be accounted within one of the existing models of bilingual language processing. PMID:28638361

Is higher nursing home quality more costly?

Science.gov (United States)

Giorgio, L Di; Filippini, M; Masiero, G

2016-11-01

Widespread issues regarding quality in nursing homes call for an improved understanding of the relationship with costs. This relationship may differ in European countries, where care is mainly delivered by nonprofit providers. In accordance with the economic theory of production, we estimate a total cost function for nursing home services using data from 45 nursing homes in Switzerland between 2006 and 2010. Quality is measured by means of clinical indicators regarding process and outcome derived from the minimum data set. We consider both composite and single quality indicators. Contrary to most previous studies, we use panel data and control for omitted variables bias. This allows us to capture features specific to nursing homes that may explain differences in structural quality or cost levels. Additional analysis is provided to address simultaneity bias using an instrumental variable approach. We find evidence that poor levels of quality regarding outcome, as measured by the prevalence of severe pain and weight loss, lead to higher costs. This may have important implications for the design of payment schemes for nursing homes.

European Languages: Instruments and Symbols

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Martina Ožbot

2008-07-01

Further, the role of Latin as the single most important European language over the centuries and as a unifying feature of European culture is discussed. Parallels are drawn between Latin as the historical European lingua franca on the one hand and English as the modern language of international communication on the other: the importance of both languages started growing after substantial territorial expansion of their speakers and it was especially the political and economic power associated to these languages that played a significant role in their diffusion and long-term influence. Taking into consideration the instrumental as well as the symbolic function of languages, the question about the relationship between English and other European languages in today’s Europe is dealt with; it is suggested that the European languages are in principle not endangered as a result of the spread of English, with the exception of those instances in which English has been taking over the functions they have traditionally performed as national or community languages. It is emphasized that the future of Europe lies in the promotion of biand multilingualism, which have, in actual fact, been present on this continent throughout its history, and which in the cases of some European languages (e.g. Catalan, Basque, Irish, etc. have been successfully enhanced over the past decades.

Natural Language Search Interfaces: Health Data Needs Single-Field Variable Search.

Science.gov (United States)

Jay, Caroline; Harper, Simon; Dunlop, Ian; Smith, Sam; Sufi, Shoaib; Goble, Carole; Buchan, Iain

2016-01-14

Data discovery, particularly the discovery of key variables and their inter-relationships, is key to secondary data analysis, and in-turn, the evolving field of data science. Interface designers have presumed that their users are domain experts, and so they have provided complex interfaces to support these "experts." Such interfaces hark back to a time when searches needed to be accurate first time as there was a high computational cost associated with each search. Our work is part of a governmental research initiative between the medical and social research funding bodies to improve the use of social data in medical research. The cross-disciplinary nature of data science can make no assumptions regarding the domain expertise of a particular scientist, whose interests may intersect multiple domains. Here we consider the common requirement for scientists to seek archived data for secondary analysis. This has more in common with search needs of the "Google generation" than with their single-domain, single-tool forebears. Our study compares a Google-like interface with traditional ways of searching for noncomplex health data in a data archive. Two user interfaces are evaluated for the same set of tasks in extracting data from surveys stored in the UK Data Archive (UKDA). One interface, Web search, is "Google-like," enabling users to browse, search for, and view metadata about study variables, whereas the other, traditional search, has standard multioption user interface. Using a comprehensive set of tasks with 20 volunteers, we found that the Web search interface met data discovery needs and expectations better than the traditional search. A task × interface repeated measures analysis showed a main effect indicating that answers found through the Web search interface were more likely to be correct (F1,19=37.3, Pnatural language search interfaces for variable search supporting in particular: query reformulation; data browsing; faceted search; surrogates; relevance

Initial Spanish Proficiency and English Language Development among Spanish-Speaking English Learner Students in New Mexico. REL 2018-286

Science.gov (United States)

Arellano, Brenda; Liu, Feng; Stoker, Ginger; Slama, Rachel

2018-01-01

To what extent do Spanish-speaking English learner students develop English proficiency and grade-level readiness in English language arts and math from early elementary school to upper elementary school? Is there a relationship between proficiency in a student's primary home language, Spanish, and the amount of time needed to attain fluency in…

Differential Effects of Home and Preschool Learning Environments on Early Language Development

Science.gov (United States)

Schmerse, Daniel; Anders, Yvonne; Flöter, Manja; Wieduwilt, Nadine; Roßbach, Hans-Günther; Tietze, Wolfgang

2018-01-01

The present study is based on longitudinal data from a German early childhood education and care (ECEC) governmental initiative assessing children's grammatical and vocabulary development between 2;6 and 4;0 years (N = 1,331), quality of the home learning environment and quality of the preschool setting. Results showed that the quality of the home…

Language Choice of Urban Sino-Indians in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maya Khemlani David

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Language choice in mixed marriages plays a crucial role in language maintenance. It helps in maintaining at least one or two languages from generation to generation. In this study an examination on the language choice of some Sino-Indian Malaysians in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is explored to find out the language choice in a range of domains and with different speech partners. Sino-Indians are the offspring of marriages between Indians and Chinese. There were 30 participants consisting of 14 males and 16 females who took part in the study. A questionnaire consisting of 89 items was administered to the participants who were working or studying in Kuala Lumpur at that time. The findings reveal that language choice in some Sino-Indian families is influenced by factors such as age, domains of communication, attitudes towards the language, and identity. Age plays an important role in lan¬guage choice, particularly in the home domain. Some older Sino-Indian speakers are bilingual in English and Malay, the middle-aged speakers are trilingual and speak more in English and some Tamil and Chinese, and the younger speakers are multilingual but favour the use of English. This study has also examined how the Sino-Indian respondents viewed their dual heritage.

Home safe home: Evaluation of a childhood home safety program.

Science.gov (United States)

Stewart, Tanya Charyk; Clark, Andrew; Gilliland, Jason; Miller, Michael R; Edwards, Jane; Haidar, Tania; Batey, Brandon; Vogt, Kelly N; Parry, Neil G; Fraser, Douglas D; Merritt, Neil

2016-09-01

The London Health Sciences Centre Home Safety Program (HSP) provides safety devices, education, a safety video, and home safety checklist to all first-time parents for the reduction of childhood home injuries. The objective of this study was to evaluate the HSP for the prevention of home injuries in children up to 2 years of age. A program evaluation was performed with follow-up survey, along with an interrupted time series analysis of emergency department (ED) visits for home injuries 5 years before (2007-2013) and 2 years after (2013-2015) implementation. Spatial analysis of ED visits was undertaken to assess differences in home injury rates by dissemination areas controlling differences in socioeconomic status (i.e., income, education, and lone-parent status) at the neighborhood level. A total of 3,458 first-time parents participated in the HSP (a 74% compliance rate). Of these, 20% (n = 696) of parents responded to our questionnaire, with 94% reporting the program to be useful (median, 6; interquartile range, 2 on a 7-point Likert scale) and 81% learning new strategies for preventing home injuries. The median age of the respondent's babies were 12 months (interquartile range, 1). The home safety check list was used by 87% of respondents to identify hazards in their home, with 95% taking action to minimize the risk. The time series analysis demonstrated a significant decline in ED visits for home injuries in toddlers younger than2 years of age after HSP implementation. The declines in ED visits for home injuries remained significant over and above each socioeconomic status covariate. Removing hazards, supervision, and installing safety devices are key facilitators in the reduction of home injuries. Parents found the HSP useful to identify hazards, learn new strategies, build confidence, and provide safety products. Initial finding suggests that the program is effective in reducing home injuries in children up to 2 years of age. Therapeutic/care management study

Quantum information to the home

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Iris; Young, Robert J; Townsend, Paul D

2011-01-01

Information encoded on individual quanta will play an important role in our future lives, much as classically encoded digital information does today. Combining quantum information carried by single photons with classical signals encoded on strong laser pulses in modern fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks is a significant challenge, the solution to which will facilitate the global distribution of quantum information to the home and with it a quantum internet. In real-world networks, spontaneous Raman scattering in the optical fibre would induce crosstalk between the high-power classical channels and a single-photon quantum channel, such that the latter is unable to operate. Here, we show that the integration of quantum and classical information on an FTTH network is possible by performing quantum key distribution (QKD) on a network while simultaneously transferring realistic levels of classical data. Our novel scheme involves synchronously interleaving a channel of quantum data with the Raman scattered photons from a classical channel, exploiting the periodic minima in the instantaneous crosstalk and thereby enabling secure QKD to be performed.

Quantum information to the home

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Iris; Young, Robert J.; Townsend, Paul D.

2011-06-01

Information encoded on individual quanta will play an important role in our future lives, much as classically encoded digital information does today. Combining quantum information carried by single photons with classical signals encoded on strong laser pulses in modern fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks is a significant challenge, the solution to which will facilitate the global distribution of quantum information to the home and with it a quantum internet [1]. In real-world networks, spontaneous Raman scattering in the optical fibre would induce crosstalk between the high-power classical channels and a single-photon quantum channel, such that the latter is unable to operate. Here, we show that the integration of quantum and classical information on an FTTH network is possible by performing quantum key distribution (QKD) on a network while simultaneously transferring realistic levels of classical data. Our novel scheme involves synchronously interleaving a channel of quantum data with the Raman scattered photons from a classical channel, exploiting the periodic minima in the instantaneous crosstalk and thereby enabling secure QKD to be performed.

Quantum information to the home

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Choi, Iris; Young, Robert J; Townsend, Paul D, E-mail: paul.townsend@tyndall.ie [Photonic Systems Group, Tyndall National Institute and Department of Physics, University College Cork, Cork (Ireland)

2011-06-15

Information encoded on individual quanta will play an important role in our future lives, much as classically encoded digital information does today. Combining quantum information carried by single photons with classical signals encoded on strong laser pulses in modern fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks is a significant challenge, the solution to which will facilitate the global distribution of quantum information to the home and with it a quantum internet. In real-world networks, spontaneous Raman scattering in the optical fibre would induce crosstalk between the high-power classical channels and a single-photon quantum channel, such that the latter is unable to operate. Here, we show that the integration of quantum and classical information on an FTTH network is possible by performing quantum key distribution (QKD) on a network while simultaneously transferring realistic levels of classical data. Our novel scheme involves synchronously interleaving a channel of quantum data with the Raman scattered photons from a classical channel, exploiting the periodic minima in the instantaneous crosstalk and thereby enabling secure QKD to be performed.

Maximizing the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) by Choosing Words Wisely.

Science.gov (United States)

Howard, Jenna; Etz, Rebecca S; Crocker, J Benjamin; Skinner, Daniel; Kelleher, Kelly J; Hahn, Karissa A; Miller, William L; Crabtree, Benjamin F

2016-01-01

Culture is transmitted through language and reflects a group's values, yet much of the current language used to describe the new patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is a carryover from the traditional, physician-centric model of care. This language creates a subtle yet powerful force that can perpetuate the status quo, despite transformation efforts. This article describes new terminology that some innovative primary care practices are using to support the transformational culture of the PCMH. Data come from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality-funded Working Conference for PCMH Innovation 2013, which convened 10 innovative practices and interdisciplinary content experts to discuss innovative practice redesign. Session and interview transcripts were analyzed using a grounded theory approach to identify patterns and explore their significance. Language innovations are used by 5 practices. Carefully selected terms facilitate creative reimagining of traditional roles and spaces through connotations that highlight practice goals. Participants felt that the language used was important for reinforcing substantive changes. Reworking well-established vernacular requires openness to change. True transformation does not, however, occur through a simple relabeling of old concepts. New terminology must represent values to which practices genuinely aspire, although caution is advised when using language to support cultural and clinical change. © Copyright 2016 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

im4Things: An Ontology-Based Natural Language Interface for Controlling Devices in the Internet of Things

KAUST Repository

Noguera-Arnaldos, José Ángel

2017-03-14

The Internet of Things (IoT) offers opportunities for new applications and services that enable users to access and control their working and home environment from local and remote locations, aiming to perform daily life activities in an easy way. However, the IoT also introduces new challenges, some of which arise from the large range of devices currently available and the heterogeneous interfaces provided for their control. The control and management of this variety of devices and interfaces represent a new challenge for non-expert users, instead of making their life easier. Based on this understanding, in this work we present a natural language interface for the IoT, which takes advantage of Semantic Web technologies to allow non-expert users to control their home environment through an instant messaging application in an easy and intuitive way. We conducted several experiments with a group of end users aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach to control home appliances by means of natural language instructions. The evaluation results proved that without the need for technicalities, the user was able to control the home appliances in an efficient way.

Starting Early with English Language Learners: First Lessons from Illinois

Science.gov (United States)

Severns, Maggie

2012-01-01

In recent years, a boom in immigration and high birth rates among the foreign-born population has led to significant growth in the number of children in the United States who speak a language other than English at home. This demographic change presents a challenge to the public school system, where English proficiency is central to a child's…

Relationship between selected indoor volatile organic compounds, so-called microbial VOC, and the prevalence of mucous membrane symptoms in single family homes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Araki, Atsuko; Kawai, Toshio; Eitaki, Yoko; Kanazawa, Ayako; Morimoto, Kanehisa; Nakayama, Kunio; Shibata, Eiji; Tanaka, Masatoshi; Takigawa, Tomoko; Yoshimura, Takesumi; Chikara, Hisao; Saijo, Yasuaki; Kishi, Reiko

2010-01-01

Microorganisms are known to produce a range of volatile organic compounds, so-called microbial VOC (MVOC). Chamber studies where humans were exposed to MVOC addressed the acute effects of objective and/or subjective signs of mucosal irritation. However, the effect of MVOC on inhabitants due to household exposure is still unclear. The purpose of this epidemiological study was to measure indoor MVOC levels in single family homes and to evaluate the relationship between exposure to them and sick building syndrome (SBS). All inhabitants of the dwellings were given a self-administered questionnaire with standardized questions to assess their symptoms. Air samples were collected and the concentrations of eight selected compounds in indoor air were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry - selective ion monitoring mode (GC/MS-SIM). The most frequently detected MVOC was 1-pentanol at a detection rate of 78.6% and geometric mean of 0.60 μg/m 3 . Among 620 participants, 120 (19.4%) reported one or more mucous symptoms; irritation of the eyes, nose, airway, or coughing every week (weekly symptoms), and 30 (4.8%) reported that the symptoms were home-related (home-related symptoms). Weekly symptoms were not associated with any of MVOC, whereas significant associations between home-related mucous symptoms and 1-octen-3-ol (per log 10 -unit: odds ratio (OR) 5.6, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.1 to 14.8) and 2-pentanol (per log 10 -unit: OR 2.3, 95% CI: 1.0 to 4.9) were obtained after adjustment for gender, age, and smoking. Associations between home-related symptoms and 1-octen-3-ol remained after mutual adjustment. However, concentrations of the selected compounds in indoors were lower than the estimated safety level in animal studies. Thus, the statistically significant association between 1-octen-3-ol may be due to a direct effect of the compounds or the associations may be being associated with other offending compounds. Additional studies are needed to evaluate

A Core Language for Separate Variability Modeling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Iosif-Lazăr, Alexandru Florin; Wasowski, Andrzej; Schaefer, Ina

2014-01-01

Separate variability modeling adds variability to a modeling language without requiring modifications of the language or the supporting tools. We define a core language for separate variability modeling using a single kind of variation point to define transformations of software artifacts in object...... hierarchical dependencies between variation points via copying and flattening. Thus, we reduce a model with intricate dependencies to a flat executable model transformation consisting of simple unconditional local variation points. The core semantics is extremely concise: it boils down to two operational rules...

The challenge of linguistic and cultural diversity: Does length of experience affect South African speech-language therapists’ management of children with language impairment?

Science.gov (United States)

Southwood, Frenette; van Dulm, Ondene

2015-01-01

Background South African speech-language therapists (SLTs) currently do not reflect the country's linguistic and cultural diversity. The question arises as to who might be better equipped currently to provide services to multilingual populations: SLTs with more clinical experience in such contexts, or recently trained SLTs who are themselves linguistically and culturally diverse and whose training programmes deliberately focused on multilingualism and multiculturalism? Aims To investigate whether length of clinical experience influenced: number of bilingual children treated, languages spoken by these children, languages in which assessment and remediation can be offered, assessment instrument(s) favoured, and languages in which therapy material is required. Method From questionnaires completed by 243 Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)-registered SLTs who treat children with language problems, two groups were drawn: 71 more experienced (ME) respondents (20+ years of experience) and 79 less experienced (LE) respondents (maximum 5 years of experience). Results The groups did not differ significantly with regard to (1) number of children (monolingual or bilingual) with language difficulties seen, (2) number of respondents seeing child clients who have Afrikaans or an African language as home language, (3) number of respondents who can offer intervention in Afrikaans or English and (4) number of respondents who reported needing therapy material in Afrikaans or English. However, significantly more ME than LE respondents reported seeing first language child speakers of English, whereas significantly more LE than ME respondents could provide services, and required therapy material, in African languages. Conclusion More LE than ME SLTs could offer remediation in an African language, but there were few other significant differences between the two groups. There is still an absence of appropriate assessment and remediation material for Afrikaans and African

The challenge of linguistic and cultural diversity: Does length of experience affect South African speech-language therapists' management of children with language impairment?

Science.gov (United States)

Southwood, Frenette; Van Dulm, Ondene

2015-02-10

South African speech-language therapists (SLTs) currently do not reflect the country's linguistic and cultural diversity. The question arises as to who might be better equipped currently to provide services to multilingual populations: SLTs with more clinical experience in such contexts, or recently trained SLTs who are themselves linguistically and culturally diverse and whose training programmes deliberately focused on multilingualism and multiculturalism? To investigate whether length of clinical experience influenced: number of bilingual children treated, languages spoken by these children, languages in which assessment and remediation can be offered, assessment instrument(s) favoured, and languages in which therapy material is required. From questionnaires completed by 243 Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)-registered SLTs who treat children with language problems, two groups were drawn:71 more experienced (ME) respondents (20+ years of experience) and 79 less experienced (LE) respondents (maximum 5 years of experience). The groups did not differ significantly with regard to (1) number of children(monolingual or bilingual) with language difficulties seen, (2) number of respondents seeing child clients who have Afrikaans or an African language as home language, (3) number of respondents who can offer intervention in Afrikaans or English and (4) number of respondents who reported needing therapy material in Afrikaans or English. However, significantly more ME than LE respondents reported seeing first language child speakers of English, whereas significantly more LE than ME respondents could provide services, and required therapy material, in African languages. More LE than ME SLTs could offer remediation in an African language, but there were few other significant differences between the two groups. There is still an absence of appropriate assessment and remediation material for Afrikaans and African languages, but the increased number of African

English in China's Language Policies for Higher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Hongmei

2012-01-01

Taking ecological language planning and policy as its conceptual orientation and interpretive policy analysis as its methodological framework, and following an embedded single-case study design, this study explores the role of English, as compared with the role of Chinese, in China's educational language planning and policy for higher education.…

Factors influencing home care nurse intention to remain employed.

Science.gov (United States)

Tourangeau, Ann; Patterson, Erin; Rowe, Alissa; Saari, Margaret; Thomson, Heather; MacDonald, Geraldine; Cranley, Lisa; Squires, Mae

2014-11-01

To identify factors affecting Canadian home care nurse intention to remain employed (ITR). In developed nations, healthcare continues to shift into community settings. Although considerable research exists on examining nurse ITR in hospitals, similar research related to nurses employed in home care is limited. In the face of a global nursing shortage, it is important to understand the factors influencing nurse ITR across healthcare sectors. A qualitative exploratory descriptive design was used. Focus groups were conducted with home care nurses. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Six categories of influencing factors were identified by home care nurses as affecting ITR: job characteristics; work structures; relationships/communication; work environment; nurse responses to work; and employment conditions. Findings suggest the following factors influence home care nurse ITR: having autonomy; flexible scheduling; reasonable and varied workloads; supportive work relationships; and receiving adequate pay and benefits. Home care nurses did not identify job satisfaction as a single concept influencing ITR. Home care nursing management should support nurse autonomy, allow flexible scheduling, promote reasonable workloads and create opportunities for team building that strengthen supportive relationships among home care nurses and other health team members. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Proof of Concept of Home IoT Connected Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Younsun; Oh, Hyunggoy; Kang, Sungho

2017-01-01

The way in which we interact with our cars is changing, driven by the increased use of mobile devices, cloud-based services, and advanced automotive technology. In particular, the requirements and market demand for the Internet of Things (IoT) device-connected vehicles will continuously increase. In addition, the advances in cloud computing and IoT have provided a promising opportunity for developing vehicular software and services in the automotive domain. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a home IoT connected vehicle with a voice-based virtual personal assistant comprised of a vehicle agent and a home agent. The proposed concept is evaluated by implementing a smartphone linked with home IoT devices that are connected to an infotainment system for the vehicle, a smartphone-based natural language interface input device, and cloud-based home IoT devices for the home. The home-to-vehicle connected service scenarios that aim to reduce the inconvenience due to simple and repetitive tasks by improving the urban mobility efficiency in IoT environments are substantiated by analyzing real vehicle testing and lifestyle research. Remarkable benefits are derived by making repetitive routine tasks one task that is executed by a command and by executing essential tasks automatically, without any request. However, it should be used with authorized permission, applied without any error at the right time, and applied under limited conditions to sense the habitants’ intention correctly and to gain the required trust regarding the remote execution of tasks. PMID:28587246

Proof of Concept of Home IoT Connected Vehicles.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Younsun; Oh, Hyunggoy; Kang, Sungho

2017-06-05

The way in which we interact with our cars is changing, driven by the increased use of mobile devices, cloud-based services, and advanced automotive technology. In particular, the requirements and market demand for the Internet of Things (IoT) device-connected vehicles will continuously increase. In addition, the advances in cloud computing and IoT have provided a promising opportunity for developing vehicular software and services in the automotive domain. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a home IoT connected vehicle with a voice-based virtual personal assistant comprised of a vehicle agent and a home agent. The proposed concept is evaluated by implementing a smartphone linked with home IoT devices that are connected to an infotainment system for the vehicle, a smartphone-based natural language interface input device, and cloud-based home IoT devices for the home. The home-to-vehicle connected service scenarios that aim to reduce the inconvenience due to simple and repetitive tasks by improving the urban mobility efficiency in IoT environments are substantiated by analyzing real vehicle testing and lifestyle research. Remarkable benefits are derived by making repetitive routine tasks one task that is executed by a command and by executing essential tasks automatically, without any request. However, it should be used with authorized permission, applied without any error at the right time, and applied under limited conditions to sense the habitants' intention correctly and to gain the required trust regarding the remote execution of tasks.

An analysis of language policy versus practice in two South African ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Educational practices in South Africa which privilege English throughout the educational journey of the learner disadvantage the majority who do not speak English as a home language. ... In many areas, it can be seen that these policies have not been implemented, perhaps indicating a lack of will to ... HOW TO USE AJOL.

Simultaneous bilingual language acquisition: The role of parental input on receptive vocabulary development.

Science.gov (United States)

Macleod, Andrea An; Fabiano-Smith, Leah; Boegner-Pagé, Sarah; Fontolliet, Salomé

2013-02-01

Parents often turn to educators and healthcare professionals for advice on how to best support their child's language development. These professionals frequently suggest implementing the 'one-parent-one-language' approach to ensure consistent exposure to both languages. The goal of this study was to understand how language exposure influences the receptive vocabulary development of simultaneous bilingual children. To this end, we targeted nine German-French children growing up in bilingual families. Their exposure to each language within and outside the home was measured, as were their receptive vocabulary abilities in German and French. The results indicate that children are receiving imbalanced exposure to each language. This imbalance is leading to a slowed development of the receptive vocabulary in the minority language, while the majority language is keeping pace with monolingual peers. The one-parent-one-language approach does not appear to support the development of both of the child's languages in the context described in the present study. Bilingual families may need to consider other options for supporting the bilingual language development of their children. As professionals, we need to provide parents with advice that is based on available data and that is flexible with regards to the current and future needs of the child and his family.

Effects of Adapted Dialogic Reading on Oral Language and Vocabulary Knowledge of Latino Preschoolers at Risk for English Language Delays

Science.gov (United States)

Correa, Vivian I.; Lo, Ya-Yu; Godfrey-Hurrell, Kristi; Swart, Katie; Baker, Doris Luft

2015-01-01

In this single-case design study, we examined the effects of an adapted dialogic reading intervention on the oral language and vocabulary skills of four Latino preschool children who were at risk for English language delays. We used adapted dialogic reading strategies in English and two literacy games that included a rapid naming activity and…

"Nobody Told Me They Didn't Speak English!": Teacher Language Views and Student Linguistic Repertoires in Hutterite Colony Schools in Canada

Science.gov (United States)

Sterzuk, Andrea; Nelson, Cynthia A.

2016-01-01

This article presents a qualitative study of five monolingual teachers' understandings of the linguistic repertoires of their multilingual students. These teachers deliver the Saskatchewan provincial curricula in English to Hutterite colony students who are users of three languages: (a) spoken Hutterisch as a home and community language, (b)…

Examining Factor Structure of the Chinese Version of the PIRLS 2011 Home Questionnaire

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wai Ming Cheung

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The home questionnaire of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS-HQ 2011 was designed to gather information from parents or primary caregivers of fourth-grade pupils on their reading literacy development related to aspects of pupils’ home lives across countries/districts. The questionnaire was translated into different languages for international comparison and research purposes. This study aims to assess the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the PIRLS 2011 home questionnaire (PIRLS-HQCV 2011 and identify the underlying factor structure using exploratory factor analysis (EFA and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA among Chinese fourth-grade pupils in Hong Kong. A 7-factor structure model has been identified by EFA and confirmed to resemble much to the original PIRLS structure by CFA. Additional conceptually important domains have been identified which add further insights into the inconclusive results in the literature regarding the relationship between home factors and reading achievement. Implications for further studies are discussed.

Development and Evaluation of a Home Enteral Nutrition Team

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah Dinenage

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The organisation of services to support the increasing number of people receiving enteral tube feeding (ETF at home varies across regions. There is evidence that multi-disciplinary primary care teams focussed on home enteral nutrition (HEN can provide cost-effective care. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a HEN Team in one UK city. A HEN Team comprising dietetians, nurses and a speech and language therapist was developed with the aim of delivering a quality service for people with gastrostomy tubes living at home. Team objectives were set and an underpinning framework of organisation developed including a care pathway and a schedule of training. Impact on patient outcomes was assessed in a pre-post test evaluation design. Patients and carers reported improved support in managing their ETF. Cost savings were realised through: (1 prevention of hospital admission and related transport for ETF related issues; (2 effective management and reduction of waste of feed and thickener; (3 balloon gastrostomy tube replacement by the HEN Team in the patient’s home, and optimisation of nutritional status. This service evaluation demonstrated that the establishment of a dedicated multi-professional HEN Team focussed on achievement of key objectives improved patient experience and, although calculation of cost savings were estimates, provided evidence of cost-effectiveness.

Parental attitudes regarding analgesic use for children: differences in ethnicity and language.

Science.gov (United States)

Fortier, Michelle A; Martin, Sarah R; Kain, Danielle I; Tan, Edwin T

2011-11-01

The aim of this study was to identify the impact of ethnicity and language on parental attitudes regarding analgesic use to treat children's pain. A total of 206 parents of children undergoing outpatient surgery were recruited to complete the Medication Attitudes Questionnaire, a measure of parental beliefs about using analgesic medications to treat children's pain. Parents were grouped into one of 3 categories according to ethnicity and primary language spoken: English-speaking white, English-speaking Hispanic, and Spanish-speaking Hispanic. Group differences in pain medication attitudes were examined. After controlling for socioeconomic status, English-speaking Hispanic parents endorsed higher levels of misconceptions about pain medication use, including a tendency to avoid analgesic use for children, compared with English-speaking white and Spanish-speaking Hispanic parents. This study highlights parental characteristics, including ethnicity and language, which may place children at higher risk for undertreatment of acute pain based on misconceptions about analgesic use for children. Specifically, English-speaking Hispanic parents may be most likely to undertreat children's pain at home. Future studies are needed to identify the most appropriate means of providing education to counter parental misconceptions and support optimal pain management of children's pain in the home setting. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Home-based Constraint Induced Movement Therapy Poststroke

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephen Isbel HScD

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Background: This study examined the efficacy of a home-based Constraint Induced Movement Therapy (CI Therapy protocol with eight poststroke survivors. Method: Eight ABA, single case experiments were conducted in the homes of poststroke survivors. The intervention comprised restraint of the intact upper limb in a mitt for 21 days combined with a home-based and self-directed daily activity regime. Motor changes were measured using The Wolf Motor Function Test (WMFT and the Motor Activity Log (MAL. Results: Grouped results showed statistically and clinically significant differences on the WMFT (WMFT [timed items]: Mean 7.28 seconds, SEM 1.41, 95% CI 4.40 – 10.18, p = 0.000; WMFT (Functional Ability: z = -4.63, p = 0.000. Seven out of the eight participants exceeded the minimal detectable change on both subscales of the MAL. Conclusion: This study offers positive preliminary data regarding the feasibility of a home-based CI Therapy protocol. This requires further study through an appropriately powered control trial.

The Novel Language-Systematic Aphasia Screening SAPS: Screening-Based Therapy in Combination with Computerised Home Training

Science.gov (United States)

Krzok, Franziska; Rieger, Verena; Niemann, Katharina; Nobis-Bosch, Ruth; Radermacher, Irmgard; Huber, Walter; Willmes, Klaus; Abel, Stefanie

2018-01-01

Background: SAPS--'Sprachsystematisches Aphasiescreening'--is a novel language-systematic aphasia screening developed for the German language, which already had been positively evaluated. It offers a fast assessment of modality-specific psycholinguistic components at different levels of complexity and the derivation of impairment-based treatment…

Establishing a culturally specific nursing home for Finnish-speaking older persons in Sweden: A case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Hadziabdic, Emina; Hjelm, Katarina

2018-04-01

The study aims to describe the establishment of a culturally specific nursing home for Finnish-speaking older persons in Sweden. A descriptive qualitative study. A descriptive case study based on a review of 14 public documents and individual interviews with two experts in the area, analysed with qualitative content analysis. This study found that shared language, preservation of customs and habits and collaboration between the representatives of the municipality, Finnish-speaking migrant associations and staff at the nursing home influenced the development of the culturally specific nursing home for older Finnish-speaking people intended to avoid loneliness, isolation and misunderstandings among older Finnish-speaking. Collaboration between healthcare service for older persons and minority people resulted in an optimal culturally specific nursing home, simultaneously encountering the majority culture. Nursing and healthcare services need to be aware of positive effects of collaboration with stakeholders to achieve optimal culturally specific nursing homes.

Nursing as a career choice: perceptions of school students speaking Arabic, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Turkish or Vietnamese at home.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, K C; Duffield, C; Chen, X C; Choucair, S; Creegan, R; Mak, C; Lesley, G

1999-01-01

Australia is a multicultural society and nowhere is this more evident than in Sydney where 25% of the population speaks a language other than English. In one of the largest area health services in New South Wales, the five most frequently spoken languages at home are Arabic, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Turkish or Vietnamese, with these language groups comprising 12% of Sydney's population. Yet nurses speaking one of these five languages comprise less than 1% of the nursing workforce. A cost-effective method of addressing the shortage of nurses speaking languages other than English is to recruit students who already speak another language into the profession. This study examined high school students' perceptions of nursing in order to determine appropriate methods of recruiting students speaking one of these languages. Implications for the design of recruitment campaigns are also discussed.

New roof for an old building. PV system on a historical single-family home; Altes Haus kraftvoll eingedeckt. PV-Anlage auf historischem Einfamilienhaus

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Anon.

2009-03-15

For hundreds of years, slated roofs and walls were the characteristic feature of the Thuringian-Franconian boundary region, where the ''Schieferstrasse'' - the road of historical houses with slated roofs and walls - is a major tourist attraction. Today, owners of buildings are interested in technologies orientated towards the future. After restoration of a single-family home at Lehestenbuilt in 1650, modern solar modules installed on the roof and combined with traditionally-looking aluminium roof tiles by Prefa make an aesthetically pleasing picture. (orig.)

In-Home Care for Optimizing Chronic Disease Management in the Community

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

emergency department (ED) visit (MD: –1.32; 95% CI: –1.87 to –0.77). A beneficial effect of in-home care was also shown on activities of daily living (MD: –0.14; 95% CI: –0.27 to –0.01), including less difficulty dressing above the waist or below the waist, grooming, bathing/showering, toileting, and feeding. These results were based on moderate quality of evidence. Additional beneficial effects of in-home care were shown for HRQOL although this was based on low quality of evidence. Limitations Different characterization of outcome measures across studies prevented the inclusion of all eligible studies for analysis. Conclusions In summary, education-based in-home care is effective at improving outcomes of patients with a range of heart disease severity when delivered by nurses during a single home visit or on an ongoing basis. In-home visits by occupational therapists and physical therapists targeting modification of tasks and the home environment improved functional activities for community-living adults with chronic disease. Plain Language Summary It is assumed that patients with chronic disease will benefit if they are living at home and being looked after at home or in the community. In addition, there may be cost savings to the health care system when care is provided in the community or in the home instead of in hospitals and other health care settings. This evidence-based analysis examined whether in-home care given by different health care professionals improved patient and health system outcomes. Patients included those with heart failure, atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, chronic wounds, and with more than one chronic disease. The results show that in-home care delivered by nurses has a beneficial effect on patients’ health outcomes. Patient mortality and/or patient hospitalization were reduced. In-home care also improved patients’ activities of daily living when delivered by

Understanding the design and economics of distributed tri-generation systems for home and neighborhood refueling - Part I: Single family residence case studies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Li, Xuping; Ogden, Joan M. [University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616 (United States)

2011-02-15

The potential benefits of hydrogen as a transportation fuel will not be achieved until hydrogen vehicles capture a substantial market share. However, although hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV) technology has been making rapid progress, the lack of a hydrogen infrastructure remains a major barrier for FCV adoption and commercialization. The high cost of building an extensive hydrogen station network and the foreseeable low utilization in the near term discourages private investment. Based on the past experience of fuel infrastructure development for motor vehicles, innovative, distributed, small-volume hydrogen refueling methods may be required to refuel FCVs in the near term. Among small-volume refueling methods, home and neighborhood tri-generation systems (systems that produce electricity and heat for buildings, as well as hydrogen for vehicles) stand out because the technology is available and has potential to alleviate consumer's fuel availability concerns. In addition, it has features attractive to consumers such as convenience and security to refuel at home or in their neighborhood. The objective of this paper is to provide analytical tools for various stakeholders such as policy makers, manufacturers and consumers, to evaluate the design and the technical, economic, and environmental performances of tri-generation systems for home and neighborhood refueling. An interdisciplinary framework and an engineering/economic model is developed and applied to assess home tri-generation systems for single family residences (case studies on neighborhood systems will be provided in a later paper). Major tasks include modeling yearly system operation, exploring the optimal size of a system, estimating the cost of electricity, heat and hydrogen, and system CO{sub 2} emissions, and comparing the results to alternatives. Sensitivity analysis is conducted, and the potential impacts of uncertainties in energy prices, capital cost reduction (or increase), government

Understanding the design and economics of distributed tri-generation systems for home and neighborhood refueling - Part I: Single family residence case studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Xuping; Ogden, Joan M.

2011-01-01

The potential benefits of hydrogen as a transportation fuel will not be achieved until hydrogen vehicles capture a substantial market share. However, although hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV) technology has been making rapid progress, the lack of a hydrogen infrastructure remains a major barrier for FCV adoption and commercialization. The high cost of building an extensive hydrogen station network and the foreseeable low utilization in the near term discourages private investment. Based on the past experience of fuel infrastructure development for motor vehicles, innovative, distributed, small-volume hydrogen refueling methods may be required to refuel FCVs in the near term. Among small-volume refueling methods, home and neighborhood tri-generation systems (systems that produce electricity and heat for buildings, as well as hydrogen for vehicles) stand out because the technology is available and has potential to alleviate consumer's fuel availability concerns. In addition, it has features attractive to consumers such as convenience and security to refuel at home or in their neighborhood. The objective of this paper is to provide analytical tools for various stakeholders such as policy makers, manufacturers and consumers, to evaluate the design and the technical, economic, and environmental performances of tri-generation systems for home and neighborhood refueling. An interdisciplinary framework and an engineering/economic model is developed and applied to assess home tri-generation systems for single family residences (case studies on neighborhood systems will be provided in a later paper). Major tasks include modeling yearly system operation, exploring the optimal size of a system, estimating the cost of electricity, heat and hydrogen, and system CO 2 emissions, and comparing the results to alternatives. Sensitivity analysis is conducted, and the potential impacts of uncertainties in energy prices, capital cost reduction (or increase), government incentives and

Comparison of adolescents' perceptions and behaviors in single- and two-parent families.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenthal, D; Hansen, J

1980-10-01

This study investigated the self-concepts, school achievement, occupational aspirations, vocational maturity, and perceptions of parents of children from two-parent and single-parent homes. The sample contained 559 children, 19% from single-parent homes. A multivariateF indicated children from two-parent homes had significantly higher school grades and occupational aspirations. There were also significant differences in children's perceptions of relationships with fathers, but not with mothers. It was argued that family structure has an impact on adolescents' perceptions and behaviors.

Unsupervised visit detection in smart homes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nait Aicha, A.; Englebienne, G.; Kröse, B.

Assistive technologies for elderly often use ambient sensor systems to infer activities of daily living (ADL). In general such systems assume that only a single person (the resident) is present in the home. However, in real world environments, it is common to have visits and it is crucial to know

Unsupervised visit detection in smart homes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nait Aicha, Ahmed; Englebienne, Gwenn; Kröse, B.J.A.

2017-01-01

Assistive technologies for elderly often use ambient sensor systems to infer activities of daily living (ADL). In general such systems assume that only a single person (the resident) is present in the home. However, in real world environments, it is common to have visits and it is crucial to know

Hospitals will send an integrated nurse home with each discharge.

Science.gov (United States)