Word class and silent pauses in spoken narratives of children with specific language impairment.

Purpose: To determine whether word class has any influence on the mean duration of silent pauses in the spoken narratives of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and in those with typical language development (TLD).

Methods: The study sample consisted of 60 children in the age range from 7 to 10 years: 20 with SLI; and 40 with TLD. Each child produced 15 narratives, each based on a set of four pictures (scenes) and each set of pictures being more complex than the last.

The complexity of narrative interferes in the use of conjunctions in children with specific language impairment.

Purpose: To verify the use of conjunctions in narratives, and to investigate the influence of stimuli's complexity over the type of conjunctions used by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical language development.

Methods: Participants were 40 children (20 with typical language development and 20 with SLI) with ages between 7 and 10 years, paired by age range. Fifteen stories with increasing of complexity were used to obtain the narratives; stories were classified into mechanical, behavioral and intentional, and each of them was represented by four scenes.

Scientific writing and the quality of papers: towards a higher impact.

Given the latent concern of scientists and editors on the quality of scientific writing, the aim of this paper was to present topics on the recommended structure of peer-reviewed papers. We described the key points of common sections of original papers and proposed two additional materials that may be useful for scientific writing: one particular guide to help the organization of the main ideas of the paper; and a table with examples of non desirable and desirable structures in scientific writing.

[Time of pragmatic analysis in children with specific language impairment].

Purpose: To verify whether the use of a shorter filmed sample influences the results of pragmatic assessment in children with language impairment.

Methods: Data was obtained from videotaped samples and protocols for pragmatic analysis of 30 children between 3 and 6 years old. Each 15-minute sample (total moment) was analyzed and divided into three moments with five minutes each (initial, medial and final moments).

Verb diversity analysis in the spontaneous speech of Brazilian preschoolers.

Background: verb acquisition.

Aim: to verify quantitative and qualitative verb diversity in the spontaneous speech of Brazilian Portuguese-speaking preschoolers and verb acquisition from 2 to 4 years of age.

Method: participants were sixty preschoolers equally matched on gender and age, divided into three groups: GI (2-year-old children), GII (3-year-old children) and GIII (4-year-old children).

[Pneumocystosis in Venezuelan patients: epidemiology and diagnosis (2001-2006)].

The objective of this work was to investigate the epidemiology of pneumocystosis in Venezuelan patients utilizing a retrospective study during a six year period. One hundred and twenty nine clinical samples collected from patients with AIDS, cancer and non-AIDS-non-cancer low respiratory tract infection patients were processed by direct immunofluorescence technique. Pneumocystosis was diagnosed in 30 patients with a general frequency of 23.

Evidence of vascular damage in dengue disease: demonstration of high levels of soluble cell adhesion molecules and circulating endothelial cells.

Clinical evidence suggests that vascular damage plays a key role in the pathophysiology of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). In this study, the authors tested this hypothesis by examining the levels of soluble intercellular adhesion molecule and vascular cell adhesion molecule (sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1), and the presence of circulating endothelial cells (CECs), as evidence of vascular damage, in peripheral blood from DHF patients (n=13). A significant increase in plasma levels of sICAM-1 (n=12) and sVCAM-1 (n=13) was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in DHF patients, compared with healthy individuals.