O que a nomeação rápida nos diz sobre a dislexia?

Substantial evidence now show that dyslexic readers have problems with speeded naming of visual items. Early research assumed that this was a consequence of phonological processing deficits, but recent findings have suggested that non-phonological processes may lie at the root of the association between slow naming speed and poor reading. In a set of studies conducted with Portuguese children, the performance of dyslexic readers on serial rapid naming and phonological measures was investigated. The hypothesis that rapid naming reflects an independent core deficit in dyslexia is supported: (1) some dyslexics are characterized by naming difficulties but intact phonological skills; (2) the variance in rapid naming performance predicts uniquely the variance in children’s reading skills, independently from phonological skills; (3) rapid naming and phonological processing measures are not reliably correlated. The results also uncovered greater predictive power of rapid naming, and in particularly the inter-item pause time, for high-frequency word reding than for pseudoword reading in developmental dyslexia. Our work shows that a phonological component alone cannot account for the rapid naming performance in dyslexia. Rather, naming problems may emerge from the inefficiencies in visual-orthographic processing as well as in phonological processing.

La función de la frecuencia silábica en el acceso léxico.

El presente trabajo se centra en el procesamiento silábico, dentro del ámbito del acceso léxico, tratando de aportar evidencia empírica sobre la relevancia de la sílaba como unidad de procesamiento en castellano. Experimento 1: 18 estudiantes de Psicología. Experimento 2: 20 estudiantes de Psicología. Experimento 3: 20 estudiantes universitarios. Experimento 4: 22 estudiantes de Psicología. Se ha construído en primer lugar un diccionario de frecuencia silábica en castellano, con el fin de analizar la distribución estadística de la frecuencia silábica. A continuación se llevaron a cabo dos experimentos realizados con las dos metodologías más utilizadas en los estudios sobre acceso léxico (Naming y TDL), que arrojan alguna luz sobre cómo afecta la frecuencia de las sílabas al reconocimiento de palabras. Se trata, por tanto, de constatar dos hipótesis: por un lado la hipótesis que defiende la realidad psicológica de la sílaba, al menos en los idiomas 'superficiales', y su entidad como código de acceso al significado, y, por otro, la hipótesis de la 'redundancia ortográfica' (Seidenberg, 1987-1989) que reduce los efectos silábicos obtenidos a la mera redundancia estadística de las letras. Para ello se construyó otro diccionario de frecuencia de bigramas en el castellano y se llevaron a cabo dos experimentos con las mismas técnicas (Naming y TDL), manipulando la frecuencia silábica y controlando la frecuencia de bigramas. Parece que la frecuencia silábica posicional ejerce una influencia notable en el reconocimiento visual de palabras. Además es un efecto estable que hemos obtenido tanto con palabras como con pseudo-palabras y con las dos metodologías utilizadas. Cuanto más frecuentes son las sílabas en una posición dada de una palabra más tiempo invertimos en procesarla; es un efecto contrario al de la frecuencia léxica. Estos dos efectos son independientes, no se produjo interacción en ninguno de los cuatro experimentos. Todo parece indicar que sus respectivas influencias en el reconocimiento de palabras ocurren en niveles diferentes y que ambas variables no comparten los mismos mecanismos: son sistemas modulares, no es la redundancia de las letras la variable que explica los efectos de la sílaba. Parece que los hispano-parlantes utilizamos habitualmente una ruta no directa al acceso de significado, y que segmentamos las palabras en sílabas en un nivel de procesamiento diferente al nivel de comprensión léxica. Proponemos un modelo en el que el procesamiento de nivel fonológico o subléxico de la palabra es computacionalmente previo al nivel propiamente léxico. Con este trabajo no se agotan todos los interrogantes sobre la frecuencia silábica. Por ejemplo, es probable que no todas las sílabas de una palabra tengan el mismo peso en el procesamiento. Queda también por comprobar si se obtiene el mismo efecto de la frecuencia silábica en presentación auditiva. También sería interesante comprobar qué peso tiene la estructura de la sílaba (en cuanto a distribución de vocales y consonantes) en relación con la frecuencia.

Estudio sobre la adecuación de pruebas de rendimiento escolar y de aptitudes a la situación bilingüe.

Detectar la inadecuación de las pruebas tradicionales para evaluar el rendimiento escolar e intelectual de los alumnos, cuando eran aplicadas en la forma estándar a sujetos bilingües. Evaluar la influencia de la Lengua de aplicación de los rendimientos obtenidos en algunas de las principales pruebas usadas en la evaluación psicopedagógica. 472 alumnos de quinto curso de EGB pertencientes a 12 centros escolares. Investigación experimental, en la que después de aplicar los instrumentos de obtención de información, se evalúan para cada individuo, tres medidas: la inteligencia no verbal, el índice de bilingüismo y el contacto de cada sujeto con cada idioma, con el fin de conocer la influencia de la Lengua de aplicación en el rendimiento obtenido en las pruebas usadas en la evaluación psicopedagógica. Se puede tomar como variable independiente la Lengua de presentación de la prueba y como variable dependiente: el rendimiento obtenido por los sujetos en la prueba. Test de matrices progresivas de Raven. Cuestionario socio-lingüístico subjetivo para recoger los datos personales, autoevaluación y comportamiento en el ambiente familiar, social y ante los medios de comunicación así como, la calificación subjetiva de la competencia lingüística de cada individuo. Ejercicios de enumeración léxica contextualizada -'Ward-Naming'- para medir la competencia lingüística del individuo. Test 'Otis sencillo' para medir la inteligencia general. Test de pronóstico académico -APT-. Test de aptitudes escolares -TEA-2-. Test de aptitudes mentales primarias -PMA-. Análisis factorial para conocer los factores que influían en cada prueba, sobre todo, la fluctuación producida al modificar la Lengua de redacción de las mismas. Tablas estadísticas. En las pruebas diseñadas para medir el factor verbal es clara la superioridad del rendimiento obtenido cuando éstas son aplicadas de forma bilingüe. En las pruebas verbales, se manifiesta un déficit para los sujetos bilingües en comparación con los monolingües en sus mismas condiciones. Hay un proceso evolutivo, en el que la máxima deficiencia se presenta en una edad temprana y que va disminuyendo según pasan los años, hasta desaparecer, alrededor de los 18 años. La superioridad de rendimiento en las pruebas verbales disminuye cuando interviene el componente intelectual, desapareciendo cuando la capacidad intelectual es preponderante. El efecto de la presentación bilingüe de la tarea a realizar depende en gran medida de la naturaleza de dicha tarea: si el fenómeno bilingüe tiene poco peso en esta naturaleza, la aplicación de la prueba de forma bilingüe exigirá un incremento de la importancia de dicho fenómeno; en el caso de una tarea en la que influya el bilingüismo, la realización de la misma de forma bilingüe hace bajar la importancia de dicho factor para subir el peso de la capacidad intelectual.

Variabilidad en la comprensi??n gramatical de mayores sanos : diferencias en funci??n de la reserva congnitiva

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

Argument omissions in preschool Catalan and Spanish speaking children with SLI

El presente artículo describe tres estudios sobre la producción del verbo y la estructura argumental en niños con Trastorno Específico del Lenguaje (TEL) usando diferentes metodologías. El primero es un estudio observacional que usa una muestra de habla espontánea. El segundo usa una tarea experimental de denominación de oraciones como resultado de la observación de videos de acciones. El tercero comprende la tarea de denominación de oraciones con imágenes estáticas en eventos con diferente complejidad argumental. Aunque los datos concretos varían en función de la metodología usada, hay una clara evidencia de que los niños de habla catalana y española con TEL presentan especiales dificultades en la producción de verbos con una alta complejidad en relación a la estructura argumental y cometen errores en la especificación de los argumentos obligatorios. Se concluye que tanto limitaciones en el procesamiento como déficits en la representación semántica de los verbos pueden estar implicados en estas dificultades

Los cabildos antioqueños ante la crisis monárquica, 1808-1812 (Estudios)

A partir del escrutinio de fuentes primarias, la investigación analiza la forma como reaccionaron los cuatro cabildos de la provincia de Antioquia, ubicados al noroccidente de Colombia, frente a la crisis de la monarquía española de 1808. En Antioquia, un grupo de capitulares cuestionó la autoridad del gobernador Francisco de Ayala e intentó reasumir la soberanía, mediante el nombramiento autónomo de alcaldes pedáneos y de partido. Este fue el comienzo de un proceso de cambio de actitud por parte de los antioqueños, acentuado por el impacto que produjeron los movimientos autonomistas de Quito y Cartagena, y por el llamado ""Grito de Independencia"" de Santa Fe. Los cabildos antioqueños reasumieron la soberanía, formaron su propia junta de gobierno, dictaron su propia Constitución y, en 1813, conformaron un nuevo Estado que se declaró independiente de España.

The development and contribution of surface charge by crop residues in two Malawian acid soils

The effects of maize and soya bean residues on the pH and charge of a loamy sand (Kawalazi) and a sandy clay loam (Naming'omba) from Malawi were measured to determine both the indirect effect of the residues on soil charge through the changes in pH, and the direct contribution of charge carried on the residue surfaces. The soils had pH values (10 mM CaCl2) of 4.3 and 5.0 and organic matter contents were 1.4% and 2.7%, respectively. The clay fractions were dominated by kaolinite and goethite, and mica was present in both samples. The soils were incubated for 28 days with maize (Zea mays) and soya bean (Glycine max) residues. The maximum addition of residue (12.0%) in the Kawalazi and Naming'omba soils increased the pH from 4.3 and 5.0 to 4.8 and 5.3 (maize) and to 9.0 and 8.8 (soya bean), respectively. Negative charge increased from 2.1 and 4.7 cmol(c) kg(-1) to 3.8 and 7.5 (maize) and to 5.3 and 9.3 cmol(c) kg(-1) (soya bean). Positive charge increased from 0.72 and 0.62 to 0.87 and 0.85 cmol(c) kg(-1) (maize) and to 0.75 and 0.68 (soya bean). The charge contribution by the residues was calculated by difference between the charge on a sample incubated with residue and the charge on a soil without residue limed to the same pH value. Up to 100 cmolc negative charge and 10 cmol(c) of positive charge per kg of residue were directly contributed to the soil-residue mixture, the amounts depending on the type of residue, the extent to which the residue was decomposed in the soil and the pH of the mixture. The Anderson and Sposito method [Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 55 (1991) 1569] was used to partition the permanent negative charge (holding Cs+) from variable negative charge (holding Li+). In the pH range 3.7-6.5 the maize residue contributed between 3 and 26 cmol(c) of variable charge per kg of residue in the Kawalazi soil and between 6 and 25 cmol(c) per kg of residue in the Naming'omba soil. For soya bean the values were between I and 28 and between 4 and 68 cmolc per kg of residue, respectively. At a given pH value, the charge tended to increase with time of incubation and for a given addition of residue, pH decreased during incubation. Addition of residues contributed no permanent negative charge and the charge on the soil measured by Cs adsorption was independent of pH change caused by the residue showing that the method is valid for soil-residue mixtures. With time there was a decrease in the amount of permanent charge probably due to masking as humic material become adsorbed on mineral surfaces. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Transfer across form and modality in implicit and explicit memory

Three experiments examined transfer across form (words/pictures) and modality (visual/ auditory) in written word, auditory word, and pictorial implicit memory tests, as well as on a free recall task. Experiment 1 showed no significant transfer across form on any of the three implicit memory tests,and an asymmetric pattern of transfer across modality. In contrast, the free recall results revealed a very different picture. Experiment 2 further investigated the asymmetric modality effects obtained for the implicit memory measures by employing articulatory suppression and picture naming to control the generation of phonological codes. Finally, Experiment 3 examined the effects of overt word naming and covert picture labelling on transfer between study and test form. The results of the experiments are discussed in relation to Tulving and Schacter's (1990) Perceptual Representation Systems framework and Roediger's (1990) Transfer Appropriate Processing theory.

Bottlenecks in name resolution of migrating processes

Three naming strategies are discussed that allow the processes of a distributed application to continue being addressed by their original logical name, along all the migrations they may be forced to undertake because of performance-improvement goals. A simple centralised solution is firstly discussed which showed a software bottleneck with the increase of the number of processes; other two solutions are considered that entail different communication schemes and different communication overheads for the naming protocol. All these strategies are based on the facility that each process is allowed to survive after migration, even in its original site, only to provide a forwarding service to those communications that used its obsolete address.

Formate-dependent growth and homoacetogenic fermentation by a bacterium from human feces: Description of Bryantella formatexigens gen. nov., sp nov.

Formate stimulates growth of a new bacterium from human feces. With high formate, it ferments glucose to acetate via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway. The original isolate fermented vegetable cellulose and carboxymethylcellulose, but it lost this ability after storage at -76degreesC. 16S rRNA gene sequencing identifies it as a distinct line within the Clostridium coccoides supra-generic rRNA grouping. We propose naming it Bryantella formatexigens gen. nov., sp. nov.

Redintegration and lexicality effects in children: do they depend upon the demands of the memory task?

The effect of long-term knowledge upon performance in short-term memory tasks was examined for children from 5 to 10 years of age. The emergence of a lexicality effect, in which familiar words were recalled more accurately than unfamiliar words, was found to depend upon the nature of the memory task. Lexicality effects were interpreted as reflecting the use of redintegration, or reconstruction processes, in short-term memory. Redintegration increased with age for tasks requiring spoken item recall and decreased with age when position information but not naming was required. In a second experiment, redintegration was found in a recognition task when some of the foils rhymed with the target. Older children were able to profit from a rhyming foil, whereas younger children were confused by it, suggesting that the older children make use of sublexical phonological information in reconstructing the target. It was proposed that redintegrative processes in their mature form support the reconstruction of detailed phonological knowledge of words.

Processing of wh-questions in a case of posterior cortical atrophy

Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a type of dementia that is characterized by visuo-spatial and memory deficits, dyslexia and dysgraphia, relatively early onset and preserved insight. Language deficits have been reported in some cases of PCA. Using an off-line grammaticality judgement task, processing of wh-questions is investigated in a case of PCA. Other aspects of auditory language are also reported. It is shown that processing of wh-questions is influenced by syntactic structure, a novel finding in this condition. The results are discussed with reference to accounts of wh-questions in aphasia. An uneven profile of other language abilities is reported with deficits in digit span (forward, backward), story retelling ability, comparative questions but intact abilities in following commands, repetition, concept definition, generative naming and discourse comprehension.

Component processes of early reading, spelling, and narrative writing skills in Turkish: a longitudinal study

The study examined: (a) the role of phonological, grammatical, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) skills in reading and spelling development; and (b) the component processes of early narrative writing skills. Fifty-seven Turkish-speaking children were followed from Grade 1 to Grade 2. RAN was the most powerful longitudinal predictor of reading speed and its effect was evident even when previous reading skills were taken into account. Broadly, the phonological and grammatical skills made reliable contributions to spelling performance but their effects were completely mediated by previous spelling skills. Different aspects of the narrative writing skills were related to different processing skills. While handwriting speed predicted writing fluency, spelling accuracy predicted spelling error rate. Vocabulary and working memory were the only reliable longitudinal predictors of the quality of composition content. The overall model, however, failed to explain any reliable variance in the structural quality of the compositions

A cognitive and psycholinguistic investigation of neologisms

Background: Jargon aphasia with neologisms (i.e., novel nonword utterances) is a challenging language disorder that lacks a definitive theoretical description as well as clear treatment recommendations (Marshall, 2006). Aim: The aims of this two part investigation were to determine the source of neologisms in an individual with jargon aphasia (FF), to identify potential facilitatory semantic and/or phonological cuing effects in picture naming, and to determine whether the timing of the cues relative to the target picture mediated the cuing advantage. Methods and Procedures: FF’s underlying linguistic deficits were determined using several cognitive and linguistic tests. A series of computerized naming experiments using a modified version of the 175 item-Philadelphia Naming Test (Roach, Schwartz, Martin, Grewal, & Brecher, 1996) manipulated the cue type (semantic versus phonological) and relatedness (related versus unrelated). In a follow-up experiment, the relative timing of phonological cues was manipulated to test the effect of timing on the cuing advantage. The accuracy of naming responses and error patterns were analyzed. Outcome and Results: FF’s performance on the linguistic and cognitive test battery revealed a severe naming impairment with relatively spared word and nonword repetition, auditory comprehension of words and monitoring, and fairly well preserved semantic abilities. This performance profile was used to evaluate various explanations for neologisms including a loss of phonological codes, monitoring failure, and impairments in semantic system. The primary locus of his deficit appears to involve the connection between semantics to phonology, specifically, when word production involves accessing the phonological forms following semantic access. FF showed a significant cuing advantage only for phonological cues in picture naming, particularly when the cue preceded or coincided with the onset of the target picture. Conclusions: When integrated with previous findings, the results from this study suggest that the core deficit of this and at least some other jargon aphasics is in the connection from semantics to phonology. The facilitative advantage of phonological cues could potentially be exploited in future clinical and research studies to test the effectiveness of these cues for enhancing naming performance in individuals like FF.

Pharmacovigilance of herbal medicines

Pharmacovigilance is essential for developing reliable information on the safety of herbal medicines as used in Europe and the US. The existing systems were developed for synthetic medicines and require some modification to address the specific differences of medicinal herbs. Traditional medicine from many different cultures is used in Europe and the US which adds to the complexities and difficulties of even basic questions such as herb naming systems and chemical variability. Allied to this also is the perception that a ‘natural’ or herbal product must be safe simply because it is not synthetic which means that the safety element of monitoring for such medicines can be overlooked because of the tag associated with such products. Cooperation between orthodox physicians and traditional practitioners is needed to bring together the full case details. Independent scientific assistance on toxicological investigation, botanical verification can be invaluable for full evaluation of any case report. Systematic pharmacovigilance is essential to build up reliable information on the safety of herbal medicines for the development of appropriate guidelines for safe effective use.