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.

Massachusetts Council adopts new regulations on embryonic stem cell research

The Massachusetts Public Health Council on Tuesday adopted new regulations on human embryonic stem cell research that Harvard University and several state research centers and hospitals say could expose scientists to criminal penalties for conducting certain research activities, the Boston Globe reports.

30 Aug 2006

Case definitions for human infections with influenza A (H5N1) virus

Prompt and accurate reporting of H5N1 influenza cases to WHO is the cornerstone for monitoring both the global evolution of this disease and the corresponding risk that a pandemic virus might emerge.

30 Aug 2006

Autism affects the functioning of virtually the entire brain

A recent study provides evidence that autism affects the functioning of virtually the entire brain, and is not limited to the brain areas involved with social interactions, communication behaviors, and reasoning abilities, as had been previously thought.

16 Aug 2006

New program tackles HIV prevention among Latino adolescents

An HIV prevention program emphasizing both abstinence and condom use may help decrease risky sexual behavior among Latino adolescents, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

8 Aug 2006

Watching wrestling may lead to dating violence

The frequency of adolescents viewing wrestling on TV was positively associated with date fighting and other violent behaviors, according to a study.

7 Aug 2006

Literacy at less than a ninth-grade level almost doubles the five-year risk of mortality among elderly people

The literacy and mortality study analyzed data on 2,512 participants in the Health, Aging, and Body Composition Study that was conducted by the National Institute on Aging from 1999 to 2004.

4 Aug 2006

Stress reactions and perceived difficulties of lay responders to a medical emergency

Even though they are trained in CPR, people hesitate to take action when an emergency unfolds in front of them. But the cause, a study has found, is more likely to be confusion than stress.

2 Aug 2006

Researchers identify earliest neuron in the embryonic human cerebral cortex

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine and the University of Oxford have identified the very first neurons in what develops into the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that makes humans human.

24 Jul 2006

Research shows which sex differences are developmental vs. sociological vs. hormonal

Differences in the way men and women perform verbal and visuospatial tasks have been well documented in scientific literature, but findings have been inconsistent as to whether men and women actually use different parts of their brains.

19 Jul 2006

Antibodies show promise in treating Alzheimer's

Researchers say infusing human antibodies into people with Alzheimer's disease appears to help stop the disease from getting worse and may even help the patients improve.

19 Jul 2006

Reading the words halitosis or jasmine activates the olfactory areas of the brain

There are words whose power to evoke sensations has become proverbial. Just hearing them brings to mind the image, sound or feeling of that little fragment of reality they refer to.

18 Jul 2006

Key deficiencies found in brains of people with autism

In a pair of groundbreaking studies, brain scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have discovered that the anatomical differences that characterize the brains of people with autism are related to the way those brains process information.

13 Jul 2006

Reading to young children improves language and cognitive development

English-speaking mothers who begin reading to their children at a very early age have toddlers with greater language comprehension, larger, more expressive vocabularies and higher cognitive scores by the age of 2.

13 Jul 2006

Parents not to blame for late talking toddlers

New research findings from the world's largest study predicting children's late language emergence has revealed that parents are not to blame for late talking toddlers.

12 Jul 2006

Researchers discover why brain areas fail to work together in autism

In people with autism, the brain areas that perform complex analysis appear less likely to work together during problem solving tasks than in people who do not have the disorder, report researchers working in a network funded by the National Institutes of Health.

12 Jul 2006