Characteristics of the acquisition of sonorant consonants orthography in Brazilian children from a São Paulo municipality

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

A saúde do homem: doenças crônicas não transmissíveis e vulnerabilidade social

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Surdez: um estudo da formação continuada oferecida aos professores em uma diretoria de ensino no interior do estado de São Paulo

Pós-graduação em Educação Escolar - FCLAR

Estrutura informacional e clivagem: análise da veiculação de informação em construções clivadas do português brasileiro contemporâneo escrito

Pós-graduação em Linguística e Língua Portuguesa - FCLAR

Transposições ortográficas e estrutura da sílaba na escrita infantil

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Etnofaulismos e os dicionários monolíngues brasileiros

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

O uso variável das construções condicionais em contextos de aquisição de tradições discursivas da escrita

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

Validation of the Duke Religion Index: DUREL (Portuguese Version)

The purpose of the current study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the Duke Religion Index (PDUREL) in a community setting. PDUREL was translated and adapted for administration to 383 individuals from a population-based study of low-income community-dwelling adults. The PDUREL intrinsic subscale and total scores demonstrated high internal consistency (alphas ranging from 0.733 for the total scale score to 0.758 for the intrinsic subscale). Correlations among the DUREL subscales were also examined for evidence of discriminant validity. Correlations were ranging from 0.36 to 0.46, indicating significant overlap between the scales without marked redundancy. PDUREL is a reliable and valid scale. The availability of a comprehensive, but brief measure of religiousness can help to study the role of religiousness in health by researchers from countries that speak the Portuguese language.

Psychometric validation of the Portuguese version of the Neuropathic Pain Symptoms Inventory

Backgroud: It has been shown that different symptoms or symptom combinations of neuropathic pain (NeP) may correspond to different mechanistic backgrounds and respond differently to treatment. The Neuropathic Pain Symptom Inventory (NPSI) is able to detect distinct clusters of symptoms (i.e. dimensions) with a putative common mechanistic background. The present study described the psychometric validation of the Portuguese version (PV) of the NPSI. Methods: Patients were seen in two consecutive visits, three to four weeks apart. They were asked to: (i) rate their mean pain intensity in the last 24 hours on an 11-point (0-10) numerical scale; (ii) complete the PV-NPSI; (iii) provide the list of pain medications and doses currently in use. VAS and Global Impression of Change (GIC) were filled out in the second visit. Results: PV-NPSI underwent test-retest reliability, factor analysis, analysis of sensitivity to changes between both visits. The PV-NPSI was reliable in this setting, with a good intra-class correlation for all items. The factorial analysis showed that the PV-NPSI inventory assessed different components of neuropathic pain. Five different factors were found. The PV-NPSI was adequate to evaluate patients with neuropathic pain and to detect clusters of NeP symptoms. Conclusions: The psychometric properties of the PV-NPSI rendered it adequate to evaluate patients with both central and peripheral neuropathic pain syndromes and to detect clusters of NeP symptoms.

Construction Grammar For Kids

Most accounts of child language acquisition use as analytic tools adult-like syntactic categories and schemas (formal grammars) with little concern for whether they are psychologically real for young children. Recent research has demonstrated, however, that children do not operate initially with such abstract linguistic entities, but instead operate on the basis of concrete, item-based constructions. Children construct more abstract linguistic constructions only gradually – on the basis of linguistic experience in which frequency plays a key role – and they constrain these constructions to their appropriate ranges of use only gradually as well – again on the basis of linguistic experience in which frequency plays a key role. The best account of first language acquisition is provided by a construction-based, usage-based model in which children process the language they experience in discourse interactions with other persons, relying explicitly and exclusively on social and cognitive skills that children of this age are known to possess.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy investigations of functionally defined language areas in schizophrenia patients with and without auditory hallucinations

Background: Cerebral dysfunction occurring in mental disorders can show metabolic disturbances which are limited to circumscribed brain areas. Auditory hallucinations have been shown to be related to defined cortical areas linked to specific language functions. Here, we investigated if the study of metabolic changes in auditory hallucinations requires a functional rather than an anatomical definition of their location and size to allow a reliable investigation by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Methods: Schizophrenia patients with (AH; n = 12) and without hallucinations (NH; n = 8) and healthy controls (HC; n = 11) underwent a verbal fluency task in functional MRI (fMRI) to functionally define Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Left and right Heschl's gyri were defined anatomically. Results: The mean distances in native space between the fMRI-defined regions and a corresponding anatomically defined area were 12.4 ± 6.1 mm (range: 2.7–36.1 mm) for Broca's area and 16.8 ± 6.2 mm (range: 4.5–26.4 mm) for Wernicke's area, respectively. Hence, the spatial variance was of similar extent as the size of the investigated regions. Splitting the investigations into a single voxel examination in the frontal brain and a spectroscopic imaging part for the more homogeneous field areas led to good spectral quality for almost all spectra. In Broca's area, there was a significant group effect (p = 0.03) with lower levels of N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) in NH compared to HC (p = 0.02). There were positive associations of NAA levels in the left Heschl's gyrus with total (p = 0.03) and negative (p = 0.006) PANSS scores. In Broca's area, there was a negative association of myo-inositol levels with total PANSS scores (p = 0.008). Conclusion: This study supports the neurodegenerative hypothesis of schizophrenia only in a frontal region whereas the results obtained from temporal regions are in contrast to the majority of previous studies. Future research should test the hypothesis raised by this study that a functional definition of language regions is needed if neurochemical imbalances are expected to be restricted to functional foci.

Hacia un principio de complementariedad en lingüística : Análisis del status epistemológico de la teoría generativa y de la teoría sistémico-funcional a partir de la dualidad 'facultad de la mente'-'producto de la cultura'

La teoría generativa y la teoría sistémico-funcional pueden concebirse como teorías científicas: Han confirmado hipótesis, proveen explicaciones y, a partir de estas últimas, efectúan predicciones. Sin embargo, ambas teorías manejan supuestos incompatibles sobre el mismo objeto: el lenguaje. Después de analizar el problema de las confirmaciones y las explicaciones en lingüística, se intentará demostrar que esa incompatibilidad puede resolverse mediante un "principio de complementariedad": El lenguaje es, al mismo tiempo, una "facultad de la mente" y un "producto de la cultura", aunque los dos aspectos (el "mental" y el "cultural") no puedan captarse en el ámbito de una sola teoría.

Hacia un principio de complementariedad en lingüística : Análisis del status epistemológico de la teoría generativa y de la teoría sistémico-funcional a partir de la dualidad 'facultad de la mente'-'producto de la cultura'

La teoría generativa y la teoría sistémico-funcional pueden concebirse como teorías científicas: Han confirmado hipótesis, proveen explicaciones y, a partir de estas últimas, efectúan predicciones. Sin embargo, ambas teorías manejan supuestos incompatibles sobre el mismo objeto: el lenguaje. Después de analizar el problema de las confirmaciones y las explicaciones en lingüística, se intentará demostrar que esa incompatibilidad puede resolverse mediante un "principio de complementariedad": El lenguaje es, al mismo tiempo, una "facultad de la mente" y un "producto de la cultura", aunque los dos aspectos (el "mental" y el "cultural") no puedan captarse en el ámbito de una sola teoría.

Hacia un principio de complementariedad en lingüística : Análisis del status epistemológico de la teoría generativa y de la teoría sistémico-funcional a partir de la dualidad 'facultad de la mente'-'producto de la cultura'

La teoría generativa y la teoría sistémico-funcional pueden concebirse como teorías científicas: Han confirmado hipótesis, proveen explicaciones y, a partir de estas últimas, efectúan predicciones. Sin embargo, ambas teorías manejan supuestos incompatibles sobre el mismo objeto: el lenguaje. Después de analizar el problema de las confirmaciones y las explicaciones en lingüística, se intentará demostrar que esa incompatibilidad puede resolverse mediante un "principio de complementariedad": El lenguaje es, al mismo tiempo, una "facultad de la mente" y un "producto de la cultura", aunque los dos aspectos (el "mental" y el "cultural") no puedan captarse en el ámbito de una sola teoría.