Reading Foreign Languages

Recent research into how we learn is set to help people in their efforts to read a second or foreign language (SFL) more effectively.

This will be good news for those struggling to develop linguistic skills in preparation for a move abroad, or to help in understanding foreign language forms, reports, contracts and instructions.

The ability to read a second or foreign language can be of great benefit to academics, business people, politicians, professionals and migrants trying to master an unfamiliar language.

Surprisingly, little is known about how an ability to read in another language develops.

To address this, the research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), led by Professor Charles Alderson at Lancaster University, set out to identify the factors that determine how this skill develops in a number of different languages and what factors in people's first language influence progress in reading.

"Research into the diagnosis of the strengths and weaknesses of learners in SFL reading was virtually non-existent, making this research highly innovative. We've followed SFL reading ability development over several years and studied which cognitive and linguistic tasks are most promising for predicting literacy skills in several languages," says Alderson.

"Progress has already been made in understanding first language reading problems -- so we co-operated with psychologists who studied a group of dyslexic readers over many years. We used their instruments to see if the things that predict first-language dyslexia can help in understanding SFL reading and its problems," Alderson continues.

Contrary to much belief, the researchers found that ability to read in a first language is less important in SFL reading than proficiency in the new language being learned.

It was concluded that the size of SFL vocabulary and understanding of text influence one another: vocabulary growth promotes comprehension and comprehension helps a reader to learn new words.

Findings will help language teachers devise more effective strategies for assisting learners and influence the accuracy of tests that predict SFL reading abilities.

From data gathered from many countries and languages, the research suggests that reading well in one language has little bearing on the development of reading abilities in another.

Linguist, Professor Scott Jarvis, Ohio University, USA, says, "This study was perhaps the most impressive yet on SFL reading abilities. A remarkable job was done of identifying and measuring a range of cognitive and linguistic abilities, and also of tracking these variables over time and linking them to improvements in learners' second-language reading proficiency. The findings are valuable for language teachers, and the research design is likely to serve as a model for many future SFL studies."

Further information: Click on www.esrc.ac.uk/

Dyslexia: Biological Marker Discovered

Though learning to read proceeds smoothly for most children, as many as one in 10 is estimated to suffer from dyslexia, a constellation of impairments unrelated to intelligence, hearing or vision that make learning to read a struggle.

Now, Northwestern University researchers report they have found a biological mechanism that appears to play an important role in the reading process.

"We discovered a systematic relationship between reading ability and the consistency with which the brain encodes sounds," says Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Neurobiology, Physiology and Communication.

"Unstable Representation of Sound: A Biological Marker of Dyslexia," co-authored by Jane Hornickel, will appear in the Feb. 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Recording the automatic brain wave responses of 100 school-aged children to speech sounds, the Northwestern researchers found that the very best readers encoded the sound most consistently while the poorest readers encoded it with the greatest inconsistency.

Presumably, the brain's response to sound stabilises when children learn to successfully connect sounds with their meanings.

Happily biology is not destiny. In prior work in Northwestern's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Kraus and her colleagues found that the inconsistency with which the poorest readers encode sound could be "fixed" through training.

In that study, children with reading impairments were fitted for a year with assistive listening devices that transmitted their teacher's voice directly into their ears.

After a year, the children showed improvement not only in reading but also in the consistency with which their brains encoded speech sounds, particularly consonants.

"Use of the devices focused youngsters' brains on the "meaningful" sounds coming from their teacher, diminishing other, extraneous distractions," said Kraus.

"After a year of use, the students had honed their auditory systems and no longer required the assistive devices to keep their reading and encoding advantage."

People rarely have difficulty encoding vowel sounds, which are relatively simple and long, according to Kraus. It is consonant sounds -- sounds which are shorter and more acoustically complex -- that are most likely to be incorrectly categorized by the brain.

"Understanding the biological mechanisms of reading puts us in a better position to both understand how normal reading works and to ameliorate it where it goes awry," says Kraus.

"Our results suggest that good readers profit from a stable neural representation of sound, and that children with inconsistent neural responses are likely at a disadvantage when learning to read," Kraus adds.

"The good news is that response consistency can be improved with auditory training."

Decades of research from laboratories worldwide have shown that reading ability is associated with auditory skills, including auditory memory and attention, the ability to rhyme sounds and the ability to categorise rapidly occurring sounds.

Dyslexia in Children: Mobile Apps Make Reading Fun

A recent study claims that Mobile apps and daily visual activities can encourage children with dyslexia to participate in reading exercises, says Lenin Grajo Ed.M., instructor of occupational science and occupational therapy at Saint Louis University.

"Reading has always been looked at as a skill you should be able to master," Grajo said.

"My approach basically focuses on participation. I look at how much you like doing a task rather than how well you can do it."

Dyslexia is a learning disability, in which children have a neurological disorder that causes their brain to process and interpret information differently.

But with the help of educators and therapists, kids with dyslexia can develop and enjoy reading and writing activities, and build confidence.

Children with dyslexia usually dislike highly-structured reading tasks, and therefore avoid taking part in reading activities.

But with the latest technological innovations, kids with dyslexia have started using tablet and smartphone apps that make reading and writing more fun.

"This is the multisensory approach that makes books very interactive," said Grajo, who got his training in assessment of dyslexia and reading difficulties at Harvard University.

"If you ask a child with dyslexia to read a book, they will say they can't. But through these apps, children actually like doing these reading activities."

Some of these interactive books have a built-in camera and recorder that engage kids. These apps play a big role in developing a child's reading, writing, spelling, studying and organizing skills, which eventually increases their self-confidence in the classroom, Grajo says.

Grajo says that parents and teachers should also incorporate arts and crafts into routine activities as kids with dyslexia are often instantly attracted to them. Instead of asking a child to read a book, he suggests involving them in a playful activity that includes lots of visuals as well as some reading and writing.

For example, parents can create a treasure hunt for their children and ask them to read the clues to find the hidden items.

Another way to encourage children to read is to cook with them. Parents can read the recipes with the kids and make cooking a fun process.

"Through these exercises, the child is reading without realizing it. This is the occupational performance approach to dyslexia," Grajo said.

"When you realize you enjoy doing something, you participate in it more and become better with it."

The apps and routine activities form a strong foundation for dyslexic children, which enable them to develop their own strategies to read and write as they begin to like these activities.

"Once they are confident, they feel they can do these tasks without the help of a parent or teacher," said Grajo. "As therapists, we are empowering and enabling them to be able to do what they couldn't do earlier."

Industrial Chemicals Found in US Food Samples

A sample of 72 commonly consumed foods including pizza, meats and beverages from supermarkets in Albany, N.Y., were purchased and tested for the presence of phthalates. 

Researchers detected some level of phthalate in every food product they sampled. 

Credit: © cristi lucaci / Fotolia

Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have discovered phthalates, industrial chemicals, in common foods purchased in the United States. Phthalates can be found in a variety of products and food packaging material, child-care articles and medical devices.

"Although it's not completely understood how phthalates get into our food, packaging may be a contributor to the levels of the toxin in food," said lead investigator Arnold Schecter, M.D., M.P.H., professor of environmental health at The University of Texas School of Public Health Dallas Regional campus, part of UTHealth.

The study is published in the online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives. Schecter believes this is the first study to compile an analysis of phthalates in foods found in the United States. National Institutes of Health researcher Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., is the senior author on the study publication.

"It's unfortunate that we have these toxic chemicals in our bodies," said Schecter. "However, this is not a cause for alarm because the amount of phthalates found in the food falls below what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe. But it is cause for concern because these toxins and others previous reported by this group do not belong in our food or our bodies."

Phthalates are synthetic compounds that are used as a plasticizers and in personal care products such a shampoo, soap, perfumes and other common household products. According to Schecter, exposure to phthalates has been reported to be associated with harmful effects including reproductive changes such as damage in sperm, premature breast development in girls and premature birth.

A sample of 72 commonly consumed foods including pizza, meats and beverages from supermarkets in Albany, N.Y., were purchased and tested for the presence of phthalates. Researchers detected some level of phthalate in every food product they sampled, Schecter said.

Schecter believes further research is necessary to fully characterize phthalates in U.S. foods.

The study was funded by the Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Research Foundation.

In other studies, Schecter and his colleagues have found bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical produced in large quantities for use primarily in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins, and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), a widely-used flame retardant, in foods.

Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), another kind of flame retardant, was found in butter and its paper wrapping, which led to butter contamination.

Depression: Is This Peptide a Key to Happiness?

What makes us happy? Family? Money? Love? How about a peptide? The neurochemical changes underlying human emotions and social behaviour are largely unknown. 

Now though, for the first time in humans, UCLA scientists have measured the release of a specific peptide, a neurotransmitter called hypocretin (Orexin), that greatly increased when subjects were happy but decreased when they were sad. 

Credit: © lassedesignen / Fotolia

The finding suggests that boosting hypocretin could elevate both mood and alertness in humans, thus laying the foundation for possible future treatments of psychiatric disorders like depression by targeting measureable abnormalities in brain chemistry.

In addition, the study measured for the first time the release of another peptide, this one called melanin concentrating hormone, or MCH.

Researchers found that its release was minimal in waking but greatly increased during sleep, suggesting a key role for this peptide in making humans sleepy.

The study is published in the March 5 online edition of the journal Nature Communications.

"The current findings explain the sleepiness of narcolepsy, as well as the depression that frequently accompanies this disorder," said senior author Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Sleep Research at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

"The findings also suggest that hypocretin deficiency may underlie depression from other causes."

In 2000, Siegel's team published findings showing that people suffering from narcolepsy, a neurological disorder characterized by uncontrollable periods of deep sleep, had 95 percent fewer hypocretin nerve cells in their brains than those without the illness.

The study was the first to show a possible biological cause of the disorder.

Since depression is strongly associated with narcolepsy, Siegel's lab began to explore hypocretin and its possible link to depression.

Depression is the leading cause of psychiatric disability in the U.S, Siegel noted. More than 6 percent of the population is affected each year, with lifetime prevalence exceeding 15 percent.

Yet the use of antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), has not been based on evidence of a deficiency, or excess, of any neurotransmitter. Several recent studies have questioned whether SSRIs, as well as other depression-fighting drugs, are any more effective than placebos.

In the current study, the researchers obtained their data on both hypocretin and MCH directly from the brains of eight patients who were being treated for intractable epilepsy.

The patients had been implanted with intra-cranial depth electrodes by Dr. Itzhak Fried, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery and psychiatry and a co-author of the study, to identify seizure foci for potential surgical treatment. The location of electrodes was based solely on clinical criteria.

The researchers, with the patients' consent, used these same electrodes to "piggyback" their research. A membrane similar to that used for kidney dialysis and a very sensitive radio-immunoassay procedure were used to measure the release of hypocretin and MCH.

The patients were recorded while they watched television; engaged in social interactions such as talking to physicians, nursing staff or family; ate; underwent various clinical manipulations; and experienced sleep-wake transitions.

Notes of activities were made throughout the study every 15 minutes in synchrony with a 15-minute microdialysis sample collection by a researcher in the patients' rooms.

The subjects rated their moods and attitudes on a questionnaire, which was administered every hour during waking.

The researchers found that hypocretin levels were not linked to arousal in general but were maximized during positive emotions, anger, social interactions and awakening.

In contrast, MCH levels were maximal during sleep onset and minimal during social interactions.

"These results suggest a previously unappreciated emotional specificity in the activation of arousal and sleep in humans," Siegel said.

"The findings suggest that abnormalities in the pattern of activation of these systems may contribute to a number of psychiatric disorders."

Siegel noted that hypocretin antagonists are now being developed by several drug companies for use as sleeping pills. The current work suggests that these drugs will alter mood as well sleep tendency.

The Siegel lab has also previously reported that hypocretin is required for the "pursuit of pleasure" in rodents but plays no role in avoidance behavior.

"These results, in conjunction with the current findings, suggest that hypocretin administration will elevate both mood and alertness in humans," Siegel said.

BEAT: Eating Disorders - Information

BEAT Information resources 
Download a range of information sheets, leaflets and booklets to help you beat your eating disorder or simply to provide support.

If you would prefer to have hard copies sent to you, download and complete the literature order form and return it to BEAT by post.

All information sheets are available to download free of charge so you can get the help you need.

BEAT's work is funded by donations, fundraising and grants - if you would like to make a gift to support Beat please call 01603 753308 or donate online using the website.

Leaflets
Beat - changing the way people think about eating disorders Information leaflet about Beat.
Beat - beating eating disorders Information on the range of eating disorders and where you can go for help.

Booklets
The Beat Guide to Understanding Eating Disorders This 24 page booklet brings together much of what BEAT have learned over the past 22 years working with families, professionals and people with eating disorders.

Sections include causes of eating disorders, different types of eating disorders, what to do if you're worried about someone, treatment and eating disorders in education and the workplace.

The booklet is available to buy in the Beat online shop.

Recovery Guide - This booklet will help you understand more about recovery and how you can take steps towards it.

The Path Through Treatment - This guide will help to assist you with taking the fear out of treatment and assist your journey through it.

Poster 
About Beat services poster - put up the poster in your local GP surgery, or display it at your workplace, school or at your own fundraising event.

Anorexia Nervosa: Deep Brain Stimulation offers Hope

Scientists have raised the prospect that deep brain stimulation could help people suffering from severe anorexia nervosa.

In the small Canadian study three people were able to gain weight and had improvements in their overall mood after undergoing the procedure.

The researchers say larger trials are now needed to show whether this therapy could provide a last resort for people with difficult-to-treat anorexia.

The study is published in the Lancet.

Researchers from the Krembil Neuroscience Centre and University Health Network in Canada conducted the study primarily to find out whether this procedure is safe in people with severe cases of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa.

Deep brain stimulation - which involves implanting electrodes into the brain - has previously been used for people with Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and obsessive compulsive disorder.

'Flipping a switch' 
But this is the first time researchers have implanted the device into brains of people with such severe forms of anorexia.

They treated six women, aged between 24-57, for whom most conventional therapy had failed.

The researchers chose to implant the electrodes in an area of the brain which influences how people regulate their mood and anxiety.

They then switched on the device to deliver continuous electrical stimulation over the nine months of the study.

Lead author of the research, Dr Nir Lipsman, said this was not a study about simply flipping a switch to make people eat more.

"Anorexia nervosa has many layers and we need to address the root causes. In many people with the condition this is related to difficulties in regulating mood and anxiety.

"So we wanted to see if influencing this area of the brain could help people with the condition," he said.

And after nine months three of the women felt their quality of life had improved and they had gained weight.

Crucially they were able to stick to this weight - something they hadn't been able to do since developing the condition, the researchers said.

Kim Rollins, who took part in the study and has suffered from anorexia nervosa for 20 years said: "It has really turned my life around. It has lifted my mood and lowered my anxiety... and lessened the compulsion I had to almost destroy my body.

"But it is not a miracle - I have to put a lot of work into changing my thinking and I go to therapy and see a dietitian. But it has enabled everything to be much easier for me."

Dr Lipsman said: "We think deep brain stimulation may have helped people view their illness in a different way and meant they felt more encouraged to engage in other therapy."

But the procedure was not without serious and unwanted effects.

'Unwanted effects' 
One person involved had a seizure two weeks after the device was implanted and another suffered a panic attack during the operation to insert the device.

And for one person there were no improvements in mood, anxiety levels or weight by the end of the study.

The authors caution this procedure is not suitable for everyone.

"We worked very hard to identify a group of patients who had reached the limits of conventional treatment - for whom there is currently no effective therapy and therefore are at the greatest risk of death from the condition," Dr Lipsman said.

Prof Janet Treasure, of the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, who was not involved in the study but wrote a linked comment, said: "What we know is that if you can get effective treatment within three years of diagnosis, the chances of short and long-term recovery are much increased, but it is more difficult as time goes on. This is what makes this study so interesting."

She said the findings of the small study must be interpreted with caution, however.

Susan Ringwood, the chief executive of the national organisation, Beat, said: "When treatments fail to work, people with eating disorders can feel it is their fault, and that can make them very more reluctant to accept the help desperately they need.

"We are learning so much more about the brain and its role in eating disorders, and this study indicates an important new aspect that may lead to improved treatment."

• Krembil Neuroscience Centre
• beat
• National Centre for Eating Disorders

Anxiety Control: A Portion of hippocampus found to play a major role

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have found the first evidence that selective activation of the dentate gyrus, a portion of the hippocampus, can reduce anxiety without affecting learning. 

The findings suggest that therapies that target this brain region could be used to treat certain anxiety disorders, such as panic disorder and post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), with minimal cognitive side effects.

The study, conducted in mice, was published today in the online edition of the journal Neuron. The dentate gyrus is known to play a key role in learning.

Rene Hen

Some evidence suggests that the structure also contributes to anxiety. "But until now no one has been able to figure out how the hippocampus could be involved in both processes," said senior author Rene Hen, PhD, professor of neuroscience and pharmacology (in psychiatry) at CUMC.

"It turns out that different parts of the dentate gyrus have somewhat different functions, with the dorsal portion largely dedicated to learning and the ventral portion dedicated to anxiety," said lead author Mazen A. Kheirbek, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at CUMC.

To examine the role of the dentate gyrus in learning and anxiety, the investigators used a state-of-the-art technique called optogenetics, in which light-sensitive proteins, or opsins, are genetically inserted into neurons in the brains of mice.

Neurons with these genes can then be selectively activated or silenced through the application of light (via a fiber-optic strand), allowing researchers to study the function of the cells in real time.

Previously, the only way to study the dentate gyrus was to silence portions of it using such long-term manipulations as drugs or lesions, techniques that yielded conflicting results.

In the current study, opsins were inserted into dentate gyrus granule cells (the principal cells of the dentate gyrus).

The researchers then activated or silenced the ventral or dorsal portions of the dentate gyrus for three minutes at a time, while the mice were subjected to two well-validated anxiety tests (the elevated plus maze and the open field test).

"Our main findings were that elevating cell activity in the dorsal dentate gyrus increased the animals' desire to explore their environment. But this also disrupted their ability to learn. Elevating activity in the ventral dentate gyrus lowered their anxiety, but had no effect on learning," said Dr. Kheirbek.

The effects were completely reversible—that is, when the stimulation was turned off, the animals returned to their previous anxiety levels.

"The therapeutic implication is that it may be possible to relieve anxiety in people with anxiety disorders by targeting the ventral dentate gyrus, perhaps with medications or deep-brain stimulation, without affecting learning," said Dr. Hen.

Dr Hen is also a director of the Division of Integrative Neuroscience, The New York State Psychiatric Institute, and a member of The Kavli Institute for Brain Science.

"Given the immediate behavioral impact of such manipulations, these strategies are likely to work faster than current treatments, such as serotonin reuptake inhibitors."

According to Dr. Hen, such an intervention would probably work best in people with panic disorder or PTSD.

"There is evidence that people with these anxiety disorders tend to have a problem with pattern separation—the ability to distinguish between similar experiences," he said.

"In other words, they overgeneralize, perceiving minor threats to be the same as major ones, leading to a heightened state of anxiety. Such patients could conceivably benefit from therapies that fine-tune hippocampal activity."

Dr. Hen and his team are currently exploring strategies aimed at modulating the activity of the ventral dentate gyrus by stimulating neurogenesis in the ventral dentate gyrus.

"Indeed the dentate gyrus is one of the few areas in the adult brain where neurons are continuously produced, a phenomenon termed adult hippocampal neurogenesis," added Dr. Hen.

More information: The title of the paper is "Differential control of learning and anxiety along the dorso-ventral axis of the dentate gyrus."  

ADHD /ADD /Dyslexia - Carl Jung

Listen to the voices of the past if they have meaning for you. Here is a quote from Carl Jung;

"The evolutionary stratification of the psyche is more clearly discernible in the dream than in the conscious mind. 

In the dream the psyche speaks in images, and gives expression to instincts that derive from the primitive levels of nature. 

Therefore, through the assimilation of unconscious contents, the momentary life of consciousness can once more be brought into harmony with the law of nature…and the person can be led back to the natural law of his own being." JUNG – CW 16 para 351

According to Jung, the person with ADD /ADHD  /dyslexia speaks the same language as, or a more direct version of, the human psyche.

He is speaking of pure thoughts and dreams that are uninterpreted and diluted by the limited use of language to describe them.

In this way they are more powerfully conceived and nurtured in the artist's brain and can be better expressed in the visual, musical and performing arts, where image, colour, sound and movement are the direct result.

We have come a long way since the closed, mystery-filled world of Carl Jung. We have changed and developed our world, making the acquisition of knowledge and the expression of ideas simpler, more acceptable and accessible for many more people.

The written language is a way to express ourselves, to relate the past, tell stories and to communicate. In the past it was our only way but now, in our multi-media, surround-around, upload-download, smartphone world, it has become much less important.

More Carl Jung Quotes here

US Infant born with HIV 'is cured' - Dr

Dr Hannah Gay

A baby born with the virus that causes Aids appears to have been cured, scientists have announced.

Specialists at a major Aids meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, described the case of a child from Mississippi who is now two-and-a-half and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of infection.

There is no guarantee the child will remain healthy, although sophisticated testing uncovered just traces of the virus' genetic material still lingering. If so, it would be only the world's second reported cure.

"I just felt like this baby was at higher-than-normal risk, and deserved our best shot," Dr Hannah Gay, a paediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi, said.

Experts say the announcement offers promising clues for efforts to eliminate HIV infection in children, especially in Aids-plagued African countries where too many babies are born with the virus.

Dr Fauci of NIH

"You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we've seen," Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health said.

A doctor gave the baby faster and stronger treatment than usual, starting a three-drug infusion within 30 hours of birth. That was before tests confirmed the infant was infected and not just at risk from a mother whose HIV was not diagnosed until she was in labour.

That fast action apparently knocked out HIV in the baby's blood before it could form hideouts in the body.

Those so-called reservoirs of dormant cells usually rapidly reinfect anyone who stops medication, said Dr Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins Children's Centre.

Dr Deborah Persaud

She led the investigation that deemed the child "functionally cured", meaning in long-term remission even if all traces of the virus have not been completely eradicated.

Dr Persaud's team is now planning a study to try to prove that, with more aggressive treatment of other high-risk babies. "Maybe we'll be able to block this reservoir seeding," she said.