Speech self-monitoring in preschoolers: the effects of delayed auditory feedback on recitation.

39 3- to 6-yr.-old children counted to 10 or recited the alphabet with normal auditory feedback, and delays of 150, 350, and 550 msec. There were no age differences. In addition to affecting rate of speech, delay differentially influenced the prosody, intelligibility, and content of utterances. For both tasks and all delay intervals, delay slowed speaking and produced more prosodic disturbances than no delay. More disturbances of intelligibility occurred at the 350- and 550-msec. delays than under no or 150-msec. delay. Disturbances in the content of counting were greater than in the no-delay condition but did not differ across delays. For alphabet recitation, disturbances in content under delay were greater than under no delay and were greater at 350 and 550 msec. than at 150 msec. Thirty-four children lost track of what they were doing; 10 articulated confusion. Children as young as 3 years of age concurrently self-monitor their speech for content.

Longitudinal change of ear advantage for receptive language function in 2 1/2- to 9-year-old children.

In Study I, 24 children at the average ages of 41.1 and 46.1 mo. were presented dichotic digits while another 27 children were tested at average ages of 40.0, 49.6, and 54.6 mo. In Study II, 40 children were tested at average ages of 50.7 and again at 91.8 mo. No significant change in right-ear advantage (REA) appeared across 4- or 9-mo. intervals; however, significant increases were found over the 14-mo. (Study I) and 41-mo. (Study II) intervals. There were no significant effects of sex or phenotypic or family history of handedness.

Stability and ear advantage for dichotically presented environmental sound stimuli: development during early childhood.

55 right-handed children with no family history of left-handedness received two dichotic presentations of environmental sounds. The mean test-retest interval was 9 days. Raw accuracy scores yielded acceptable temporal stability (rs > .72). The expected consistent left-ear advantage for environmental sound stimuli was only evident in younger and less mature children. Five- and 6-yr.-old children, particularly those with strong right-hand preferences, had a right-ear advantage for the stimuli. Their computed laterality coefficients showed low and nonsignificant test-retest reliabilities, however. Three- and 4-yr.-old children, particularly those with weak hand preferences, had a left-ear advantage for the same stimuli. Of the 3- and 4-yr.-old children who did not have strong right-hand preferences, 92% demonstrated consistent ear advantages across testing sessions and their laterality coefficient test-retest correlations were significant. In contrast, only 47% of the strongly right-handed 3- and 4-yr.-old children and 71% of the strongly right-handed 5- and 6-yr.-old children had consistent ear advantages for the same stimuli. It is suggested that the 3- and 4-yr.-old children processed these stimuli according to endogenous, stimulus-specific brain mechanisms and that learned processing strategies overrode these mechanisms for the 5- and 6-yr.-old children.

Pro-inflammatory cytokines IL6, TNF-alpha, IL1beta, procalcitonin, lipopolysaccharide binding protein and C-reactive protein in infective endocarditis.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the serum levels and diagnostic value of cytokines and acute phase proteins in patients with infective endocarditis (IE). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Serum samples from 63 patients diagnosed with IE and 71 control patients were analysed for the following markers: interleukin-6 (IL6), tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin 1-beta (IL1beta), procalcitonin (PCT), lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP) and C-reactive protein (CRP). RESULTS: Serum levels of IL6, IL1beta and CRP were significantly elevated in patients with IE as compared to controls. PCT, TNF-alpha and LBP were not elevated. CONCLUSION: Serum CRP and IL6 are elevated in IE. IL 6 may aid in establishing the diagnosis. There was no correlation between IL 6 levels and CRP, causative microorganism, echocardiographic features or outcome.

Why don't they just let it go?

Discrepancies between what children expect about physical causality (indexed by looking time) and how they act on that knowledge have led to criticisms of claims about what infants "know." Baillargeon [Baillargeon, R. (1999). Young infants' expectations about hidden objects: A reply to three challenges. Developmental Science, 2, 115-163] advocates examining more tasks before revising views of early cognitive development. We report another discrepancy which suggests an additional indicator of what is salient for preverbal infants. While examining the Uzgiris-Hunt test performances of 40 children (26 females), 7.6-26.9-months-old, infants appeared captivated by the bouncing of a small rubber ball. However, most infants reproduced the motion of the bounce event itself, repeatedly hitting the ball against the table, rather than the experimenter's action (dropping). Comparing performances of those who did and did not imitate the drop, two possibly interrelated interpretations remained consistent with the data: infants perform goal-directed imitation of interesting phenomena, perhaps because they believe they must apply force to make them happen.

Lateral specialization and social-verbal development in preschool children.

Forty-two 2 1/2- to 5 1/2-year-old children's social and verbal behaviors were observed during free play in a preschool. A test measuring lateral specialization of verbal function and a standardized psychometric test of verbal ability were also administered. Analysis of variance indicated that the right ear (left hemisphere) is predominant in processing verbal stimuli in children as young as 2 1/2. Multiple regression analyses revealed significant relations between the right ear accuracy score for dichotically presented verbal stimuli and both psychometrically measured verbal ability and a social-verbal factor score derived from play behavior. After the increase related to age was statistically partialled out from both verbal ability and social-verbal scores, verbal expression, length of verbal utterances, time spent in conversation, and peer social interactions increased and parallel play decreased as a function of right ear (left hemisphere) accuracy for verbal stimuli. The relationship between left ear (right hemisphere) accuracy scores for verbal stimuli and social-verbal behavior, however, was not linear. Very high and very low levels of left ear recall predicted an increase in the frequency of parallel play and low social-verbal behavior while moderate levels of left ear accuracy scores predicted the reverse.

A novel fully automated method for the measurement of sulphoconjugated catecholamines in urine using the Gilson ASTED-XL sample preparation system and high-performance liquid chromatography.

Dopamine is produced in the kidney where it causes sodium excretion. Dopamine sulphate is deconjugated in vivo, and may be a physiological reservoir for this active renal dopamine. To investigate the role of dopamine and dopamine sulphate in sodium homeostasis we have developed a fully automated HPLC assay for free, total and sulphoconjugated dopamine. Using the Gilson ASTED-XL sample preparation unit, with temperature controlled racks, urinary free and total dopamine are measured pre-and post-incubation with arylsulphatase. Dopamine sulphate is calculated from the difference between free and total measurements. Acidified 24 h urines are processed automatically. Free dopamine assay follows buffering to pH 7.0, addition of internal standard, addition of EDTA to stabilize free catecholamines at neutral pH, and incubation at 37 degrees C for 30 min. This mixture is trace enriched on a HEMA-SB TEC prior to ion-paired HPLC with amperometric detection. To measure total dopamine the entire process is automatically repeated with addition of arylsulphatase (400 mU/mL urine) at the beginning of the 37 degrees C incubation. The working range of the assay is up to 7 micromol/L total dopamine. Within-and between-run imprecision for dopamine sulphate is less than 3 and 7% respectively. Median dopamine sulphate excretion in 12 normotensive subjects was 4.3 micromol/24 h.