The acquisition of expository uses of language

Objective: This study offers a description of the kinds of linguistic aids offered by adults while giving explanations to young children about different issues. During the midst of these conversations children have several opportunities to learn, not only from objects and events, but also from the utterances used to refer to them, learning how realities are named after, and in many cases, how to participate in them. Methodology: Through the analysis of eleven minutes of interaction between young child and his maternal grandparents. Results: Adults offers young child different discursive ways for helping him to add information, organize and clarify the topic that he is talking about. Conclusions: The results allow to identify different ways that the adults use for helping young child to improve his explanations.

Brief neuropsychological assessment of adults post-stroke in the left hemisphere

The neuropsychological assessment investigates cognitive deficits to improve the diagnosis, the prognosis and the rehabilitation of patients. In Brazil, stroke is a major cause of hospitalization and the leading cause of mortality and disability. The stroke in the left hemisphere (LH) is associated with different degrees of loss of language and other cognitive impairments, for example, in the memory. We compared the performance in brief neuropsychological tasks of the left hemisphere poststroke patients, without moderate or severe aphasia, with healthy controls. A list of 135 patients was selected based on inclusion criteria. The study included 15 patients with left stroke, paired by sex, age and education to 30 neurologically healthy adults. The data resulting from application of the Neupsilin Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Instrument were analyzed with the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U. Adults with LH stroke showed a significant reduction in performance when compared to healthy controls on language, working memory and ideomotor praxis, results also found in other studies of patients with left hemisphere stroke