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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.

Strange behaviours linked to popular sleeping pill Zolpidem

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia has updated warnings on a popular sleeping drug.

29 Nov 2007

Smoking and depression often go hand-in-hand for new mothers

Smoking and depression often go hand-in-hand for new mothers, according to a study in the November 2007 issue of Preventive Medicine by Temple University researcher Dr. Robert Whitaker.

27 Nov 2007

Dyslexia expert Dr. Bruce McCandliss awarded Presidential honor

Dr. Bruce McCandliss, a psychologist at the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology and associate professor of psychology in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, has received a commendation by the President of the United States in the form of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

20 Nov 2007

Reading tests used to identify children with reading problems are being misapplied

Screening tests widely used to identify children with reading problems are being misapplied, landing students in the wrong instructional level and delaying treatment for their true difficulties, says new research from National-Louis University and the University of Maryland.

20 Nov 2007

University of Sydney leads the way in hospital technology

But a new electronic system developed by the University's School of Information Technologies and introduced at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH) is designed to lead to better patient care, fewer hospital errors and allow researchers to search thousands of medical records.

19 Nov 2007

British surgeons condemn cheap 'holiday cosmetic surgery'

Brits who travel overseas for cheap "holiday surgery" are turning to surgeons at home to fix things up when it all goes wrong.

19 Nov 2007

Heart rate patterns before birth provide clues to children's later development

Variations in heart rate patterns provide information on how the nervous system functions in adults and children. Obstetricians have long considered heart rate patterns to be important indicators of fetal well-being during the prenatal period as well as in labor and delivery.

16 Nov 2007

New computational theory of brain function

Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientist Marcel Just and Stanford postdoctoral fellow Sashank Varma have put forward a new computational theory of brain function that provides answers to one of the central questions of modern science:

16 Nov 2007

Asthma education brochures aimed at minorities miss the mark in Wisconsin

A Wisconsin study found that take-home educational materials designed for the state's minority children with asthma do not adequately address the cultural and linguistic issues unique to racial/ethnic minority groups.

16 Nov 2007

FDA adds warning for heart attacks to type 2 diabetes drug Avandia

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that the manufacturer of Avandia (rosiglitazone), a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes, has agreed to add new information to the existing boxed warning in the drug's labeling about potential increased risk for heart attacks.

14 Nov 2007

Study reveals differences in cancer stage presentation between rural and urban patients

New research published in the November issue of The Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows that urban colorectal and lung cancer patients present at later stages of disease than rural patients do.

13 Nov 2007

Dealing with ethnic diversity in healthcare

Guidelines and training for doctors have tried to address the problems they face when dealing with patients who come from cultures and ethnic groups different to their own.

13 Nov 2007

Children's early academic and attention skills best predict later school success

Children entering kindergarten with elementary math and reading skills are the most likely to do well in school later, even if they have various social and emotional problems, say researchers who examined data from six studies of close to 36,000 preschoolers.

13 Nov 2007

Link between statins and cognitive decline a complex one

Previous explorations of a link between statins, a cholesterol lowering medication, and cognitive decline have produced inconsistent results.

6 Nov 2007

What's in a name? Labels like 'normal' and 'abnormal' on test results can affect patients' medical decisions

Patients whose physicians place labels on their test results - such as normal or abnormal, positive or negative - are inclined to make different decisions about their health care than those who receive the same results solely in terms of numbers and other quantifiable measures, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Health System and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

5 Nov 2007

Social and interpersonal skills of autistic adolescents can be improved

The challenges that autistic patients face become more pronounced during adolescence, a crucial period when many kinds of social behaviours are developed and when these individuals can become more keenly aware of their relationship difficulties.

5 Nov 2007

California kids not being read to!

A new report reveals that California ranks in the bottom half of the nation - 42nd out of 50 states and the District of Columbia - in the percentage of children who are read to daily by their parents.

2 Nov 2007

PET scan distinguishes Alzheimer's from other dementia

A PET scan (positron emission tomography) that measures uptake of sugar in the brain significantly improves the accuracy of diagnosing a type of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimer's disease, a study led by a University of Utah dementia expert has found.

2 Nov 2007

Children with Asperger syndrome have a high prevalence of some sleep disorders

The first known attempt to evaluate the sleep patterns of children with Asperper Syndrome (AS), taking into account sleep architecture and the cyclic alternating pattern (CAP), finds that children with AS have a high prevalence of some sleep disorders and mainly problems related to initiating sleep and sleep restlessness together with morning problems and daytime sleepiness, according to a study published in the November 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.

2 Nov 2007

Sound training rewires dyslexic children's brains for reading

Some children with dyslexia struggle to read because their brains aren't properly wired to process fast-changing sounds, according to a brain-imaging study published this month in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience (online October 16).

31 Oct 2007