Language News and Research

RSS

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.

Bush calls on congress to reauthorize PEPFAR ahead of G8 summit

President Bush on Wednesday called on Congress to quickly reauthorize the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ahead of the Group of Eight industrialized nations summit next week in Hokkaido, Japan, Reuters reports.

4 Jul 2008

Canadian case of foreign-accent syndrome after stroke

A woman in southern Ontario is one of the first cases in Canada of a rare neurological syndrome in which a person starts speaking with a different accent, McMaster University researchers report in the July issue of the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences.

3 Jul 2008

Pennsylvania tells Autism Speaks to stop talking

Yesterday in a historical and unprecedented move, the Pennsylvania legislature voted nearly unanimously in the affirmative for House Bill 1150 to mandate commercial insurance companies to cover some services for children with autism.

3 Jul 2008

Draft G8 communique does not cite 2010 deadlines for development aid, universal access to HIV prevention, care

A draft communique scheduled to be issued at the Group of Eight industrialized nations summit in July in Hokkaido, Japan, does not cite 2010 targets for universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment or for $25 billion in annual aid to Africa that were set at the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the Financial Times reports.

2 Jul 2008

Sen. Reid says he will try to bring PEPFAR legislation to Senate floor on Wednesday

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said that he will attempt to bring legislation that would reauthorize the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to the Senate floor on Wednesday, CQ Today reports (Graham-Silverman, CQ Today, 6/24).

26 Jun 2008

GOP lawmakers, health care officials raise concerns with proposed health disparities bill at house panel hearing

Republican legislators and representatives of several minority health advocacy groups on Tuesday at a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing raised concerns over several measures within a proposed bill (HR 3014) intended to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the U.S. health care system, CQ HealthBeat reports.

26 Jun 2008

Study examines impact of poor, uninsured patients' race in terms of reporting racism in their health care

A new study in Health Services Research tried to disentangle the impact of a patient's racial and ethnic background, being poor and having no health insurance on the likelihood they would report having experienced racial or ethnic bias in the healthcare they received.

26 Jun 2008

Racial disparities in colorectal cancer screening rates

Blacks and Hispanics appear less likely to undergo colorectal cancer screening than whites because of socioeconomic, health care access and language barriers, according to a report in the June 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. However, other factors may contribute to screening disparities experienced by Asians.

24 Jun 2008

Few community health centers receive reimbursement for providing language services, report indicates

While 84% of community health centers treat patients with limited English proficiency on a daily basis, only 5% receive direct reimbursement for language services from Medicare, Medicaid or private insurers, according to a report released Monday by the National Association of Community Health Centers, CQ HealthBeat reports.

17 Jun 2008

HIV/AIDS advocates petition Sen. Reid to override Sen. Coburn's block on PEPFAR reauthorization bills

In a petition generated by MoveOn.org recently presented to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), advocates asked him to override seven Republican senators, led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who are blocking a vote on measures (HR 5501, S 2731) aimed at reauthorizing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, CQ Today reports. More than 15,000 people have signed the petition, according to CQ Today (Graham-Silverman, CQ Today, 6/13).

17 Jun 2008

NPR program examines Brazil's antiretroviral program, efforts to collaborate with other countries to fight HIV

NPR's "Tell Me More" on Thursday included a discussion with Brazil's HIV/AIDS program director Mariangela Simao. Simao discussed progress in Brazil's no-cost antiretroviral program and the country's efforts to collaborate with Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa on HIV prevention.

17 Jun 2008

Expansion of health insurance could help reduce health care disparities, lawmakers, experts say

Proposals to expand health insurance to all U.S. residents could help reduce, but would not eliminate, health care disparities, lawmakers and health care experts said on Tuesday at a House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing, CQ HealthBeat reports.

17 Jun 2008

Warning about use of psychiatric drugs with the elderly

Health officials in the U.S. are warning doctors that prescribing certain psychiatric drugs to elderly people suffering from dementia can increase their risk of death.

17 Jun 2008

Some muscles controlling facial expressions are not common to everyone

Laugh and the world laughs with you, but wrinkle your nose and you could find yourself on your own. A new study by a scientist at the University of Portsmouth who examined the facial muscles in cadavers, has revealed that the muscles which control our facial expressions are not common to everyone.

16 Jun 2008

Antipsychotic drugs get FDA label changes

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today exercised its new authority under the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA) to require manufacturers of "conventional" antipsychotic drugs to make safety-related changes to prescribing information, or labeling, to warn about an increased risk of death associated with the off-label use of these drugs to treat behavioral problems in older people with dementia.

16 Jun 2008

Presidential candidates comment on causes of autism - Association says evidence-based approach should guide national autism

Noting that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are often the first group of professionals to recognize that a child has autism and are central to providing treatment, the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) sent letters this month to Presidential candidates Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama that advise taking an evidence-based approach to the vaccine controversy surrounding what causes autism and to policy development related to care.

16 Jun 2008

Scientist deciphers language bacterial cells use to 'talk' to each other - also discovers how to quell their conversation

Understanding the way bacterial cells "talk" to each other could lead to more effective methods for fighting the often persistent and serious infections caused by the biofilms they form, says a Texas A&M University professor of chemical engineering who not only has deciphered their language but also discovered how to quell their conversation.

11 Jun 2008

Specific immune therapy works for many people with allergies

The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care has assessed recent evidence on allergies. It found that the once controversial immune therapy against allergy symptoms can definitely help many people with allergies.

11 Jun 2008

People with tune deafness able to detect a wrong note unconsciously

People with tune deafness aren't able to tell when a musician accidentally strikes the wrong note in a song, but their brains know the difference. Researchers from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health, have found that people with tune deafness, an auditory processing disorder in which a person with normal hearing has trouble distinguishing notes in a melody, are able to detect a wrong note unconsciously.

11 Jun 2008

Children in non-English-speaking households experience multiple health disparities

Children in U.S. households where English is not the primary language experience multiple disparities in health care, a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher has found.

11 Jun 2008

Language News and Research

Further Reading

Bush calls on congress to reauthorize PEPFAR ahead of G8 summit

Canadian case of foreign-accent syndrome after stroke

Pennsylvania tells Autism Speaks to stop talking

Draft G8 communique does not cite 2010 deadlines for development aid, universal access to HIV prevention, care

Sen. Reid says he will try to bring PEPFAR legislation to Senate floor on Wednesday

GOP lawmakers, health care officials raise concerns with proposed health disparities bill at house panel hearing

Study examines impact of poor, uninsured patients' race in terms of reporting racism in their health care

Racial disparities in colorectal cancer screening rates

Few community health centers receive reimbursement for providing language services, report indicates

HIV/AIDS advocates petition Sen. Reid to override Sen. Coburn's block on PEPFAR reauthorization bills

NPR program examines Brazil's antiretroviral program, efforts to collaborate with other countries to fight HIV

Expansion of health insurance could help reduce health care disparities, lawmakers, experts say

Warning about use of psychiatric drugs with the elderly

Some muscles controlling facial expressions are not common to everyone

Antipsychotic drugs get FDA label changes

Presidential candidates comment on causes of autism - Association says evidence-based approach should guide national autism

Scientist deciphers language bacterial cells use to 'talk' to each other - also discovers how to quell their conversation

Specific immune therapy works for many people with allergies

People with tune deafness able to detect a wrong note unconsciously

Children in non-English-speaking households experience multiple health disparities

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Latest News