Language News and Research

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Language skills are essential to a child’s ability to communicate and develop. These skills enable children to engage with other people and learn from their surroundings and in the classroom.

50 million Europeans suffer from neurological diseases

About 50 million people in the EU suffer from neurological diseases such as epilepsy, migraines, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, strokes and dementia.

18 Jun 2007

Stroke study sheds light on left-right brain divide

Research into the effects of strokes has furthered our understanding of the different roles of the left and right sides of our brains.

16 Jun 2007

Mild sleep loss affects children's speech

Research examining the impact of sleep in school-age children suggests that even mild sleep loss produces marked deficits in their cognitive development and functioning.

16 Jun 2007

Impact of prenatal cocaine exposure on children

Adding to the evidence that maternal drug use can have lasting effects, a new study finds that young schoolchildren of cocaine-using moms scored more poorly on attention tests.

15 Jun 2007

Can you forget a language you once knew?

Learning a foreign language late in life can be rewarding but hard work. One of the challenges is a lack of familiarity with unfamiliar sounds.

14 Jun 2007

Predictors of cognitive decline in memory clinic patients

Memory problems have many causes, such as stress or depression, but they can also be an early sign of dementia.

14 Jun 2007

Doctors do not address patients by name in half of first-time visits

...even though nearly all patients want this personal greeting, according to new research from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

14 Jun 2007

Combining brain scans and behavioral tests aids early identification of at-risk readers

Taken together, functional brain scans and tests of reading skills strongly predict which children will have ongoing reading problems.

14 Jun 2007

Ecstasy damages parts of the brain

Ecstasy, the illicit drug loved by party people and dance club patrons, may harm parts of the brain involved with verbal memory, according to new research.

5 Jun 2007

Low doses of Ecstasy associated with decreased verbal memory function

Even low doses of Ecstasy may be associated with a decline in language-related memory, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

5 Jun 2007

Simple tool to improve compliance with diabetes medications

Though diabetes contributes to nearly a quarter million deaths in the United States annually, patients with chronic ailments don't always take their medication as prescribed.

30 May 2007

Why music sound right to our ears!

The use of 12 tone intervals in the music of many human cultures is rooted in the physics of how our vocal anatomy produces speech, according to researchers at the Duke University Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.

28 May 2007

Watch your language! babies know the difference between French and English

Canadian researchers say that babies as young as 4 months of age know the difference between English and French by looking for visual cues.

28 May 2007

Disadvantaged TB patients urgently need social support to make medical treatment more effective

Greater social support is urgently needed to meet the complex needs of the growing number of socially disadvantaged UK residents suffering from Tuberculosis (TB), according to a study in the latest Journal of Advanced Nursing.

24 May 2007

Veterans with extreme mixed handedness and high combat exposure five times more likely to have PTSD

A recent study conducted by investigators with the Geisinger Center for Health Research shows a clear link between combat veterans' use of both hands for common tasks and the likelihood that they will experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

24 May 2007

Peering into the body and visualizing its molecular secrets one step closer to reality

Peering into the body and visualizing its molecular secrets, once the stuff of science fiction, is one step closer to reality with a study from researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

22 May 2007