The use of the Color Trails Test in the assessment of driver competence: preliminary report of a culture-fair instrument.
(73/406)
Studies have shown that the Trail Making Test (TMT) predicts real-world driving performance in individuals who have cognitive deficits. However, because this test requires knowledge of the Latin alphabet, the TMT may not be appropriate for individuals who are illiterate or for those whom English is not their primary language. Because the Color Trails Test (CTT) is not influenced by knowledge of the alphabet, the CTT may be a culture-fair alternative to the TMT. To date, the utility of the CTT in the evaluation of driver competence has not been established. In the current study, individuals referred for a comprehensive driving assessment underwent testing with the TMT and CTT. The results suggest that the CTT and the TMT provide similar information regarding road-test outcome. Thus, the CTT may be a culture-fair alternative to the TMT in the assessment of driver competence. (+info)
Visual language discrimination in infancy.
(74/406)
This study shows that 4- and 6-month-old infants can discriminate languages (English from French) just from viewing silently presented articulations. By the age of 8 months, only bilingual (French-English) infants succeed at this task. These findings reveal a surprisingly early preparedness for visual language discrimination and highlight infants' selectivity for retaining only necessary perceptual sensitivities. (+info)
A communication course for a linguistically diverse student population.
(75/406)
OBJECTIVES: To establish an elective course designed to improve oral communication skills of students whose first or best language or dialect is not North American English. DESIGN: A course that combined English as a Second Language pedagogy with pharmacy applications and content was created. Class exercises on language skills in pharmacy-specific content areas were conducted. Course evaluations were administered at the end of each course offering. ASSESSMENT: The majority of students in the 11 sections who completed Oral Communication in Health Care improved their oral skills sufficiently to pass the exit examination and clinical courses requiring oral proficiency. Course evaluation forms show that students found this course useful, including the 15 students who took the course in fall 2005, described here. CONCLUSION: An oral communication course targeted to students enrolled in a doctor of pharmacy or pharmaceutical sciences degree program whose first or best language was not English resulted in improved mastery of course outcomes and thus improved oral communication skills. As with any language acquisition process, continued practice is required to maintain proficiency. (+info)
Scientist-friendly policies for non-native English-speaking authors: timely and welcome.
(76/406)
That English is the lingua franca of today's science is an indisputable fact. Publication in English in international journals is a pre-requisite for a research paper to gain visibility in academia. However, English proficiency appears to be taken for granted in the scientific community, though this language can be a hurdle for a number of authors, particularly from non-native English-speaking countries. The influence of English proficiency on the publication output of Brazilian authors has never been assessed. We report our preliminary data on the relationship between the English proficiency of 51,223 researchers registered in the CNPq database and their publication output in international journals. We have found that publication rates are higher for those authors with good command of English, particularly written English. Although our research is still underway and our results are preliminary, they suggest that the correlation between written English proficiency and research productivity should not be underestimated. We also present the comments of some Brazilian scientists with high publication records on the relevance of communication skills to the scientific enterprise. (+info)
Issues in designing and implementing a Spanish-language multi-site clinical trial.
(77/406)
To address at least in part health disparities in Hispanic populations, the NIDA Clinical Trials Network implemented the first multi-site randomized clinical trial of substance abuse treatment conducted entirely in Spanish. This trial was intended to evaluate the effectiveness of Motivational Enhancement Therapy in a diverse population of Hispanics. In the conduct of this trial, several barriers to the successful implementation of a Spanish-language multi-site trial had to be addressed, including the appropriate translation of assessment instruments, shortage of appropriately trained Spanish-speaking clinical staff, and barriers to recruitment and retention of this population. To encourage similar research, strategies are described that were developed by the study team to meet these challenges. (+info)
Puerto Rican mothers' beliefs and home literacy practices.
(78/406)
PURPOSE: The aims of this investigation were to examine the parenting beliefs and literacy practices of mothers of Puerto Rican descent and to determine if relationships existed between the mothers' beliefs and practices. METHOD: Eighty-one mothers of bilingual children who attended Head Start programs participated in the project. As part of a larger project, the children were divided into 2 groups depending on the timing of when they were exposed to English. Children who were exposed to Spanish and English from birth were classified as having home English communication (HEC); children who were not expected to communicate in English until age 3 when they entered Head Start were classified as having school English communication (SEC). Trained home visitors used questionnaires to collect information from the mothers on their background, beliefs about parenting and education, and home literacy practices. RESULTS: The results revealed that Puerto Rican mothers held both traditional and progressive beliefs. Additionally, differences between the mothers of children in the HEC and SEC groups were observed on some of the measures of beliefs and practices. Relationships between beliefs and practices were not observed. IMPLICATIONS: The findings demonstrated that Puerto Rican mothers integrated aspects of both the Puerto Rican culture and the mainstream culture of the U.S. mainland into their views concering child rearing and education. Implications for practice are discussed. (+info)
Narrative and vocabulary development of bilingual children from kindergarten to first grade: developmental changes and associations among English and Spanish skills.
(79/406)
PURPOSE: Research has identified English oral language proficiency as being critical for bilingual students' literacy development. This study examines developmental patterns and associations among oral vocabulary and narrative skills in a longitudinal sample of 24 Spanish/English bilingual children from low socioeconomic backgrounds so as to further our understanding of the development of oral proficiency. METHOD: English and Spanish data were gathered using standardized vocabulary tests and narrative elicitation tasks provided to kindergartners and first graders. Narratives were coded for length using two measures of productivity and for quality at two levels: story score and language score. Descriptive, correlation, multivariate, and regression analyses were conducted. RESULTS: Significant gains from kindergarten to first grade were found for all English oral language measures. Despite showing improvements in English vocabulary, the majority of children continued to score below the monolingual mean in first grade. For English narrative productivity, total number of different words (TDW) proved to be a sensitive developmental measure in contrast to total number of words (TNW). In Spanish, significant gains were noted only for narrative story score. Kindergarten Spanish story scores predicted first-grade English narrative quality even when controlling for the effects of English vocabulary and English narrative productivity. First-grade Spanish narrative quality was best predicted by Spanish vocabulary. IMPLICATIONS: The need for early assessment and monitoring of expressive vocabulary and oral narrative skills, and the potential contributions of Spanish story organization skills to English narrative performance in bilingual children from low socioeconomic families, are highlighted. (+info)
Testing of a verbal assessment tool of English proficiency for use in the healthcare setting.
(80/406)
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study is to test a verbal test of English comprehension for use in the healthcare setting. The BEST (Basic English Skills Test) oral interview test is a verbal test to determine language competency. There is currently no verbal test for determination of English language competency used in healthcare. Currently, the STOFHLA (Short Test of Functional Health Literacy Assessment) is used; however, it measures health literacy using a written exam, which does not measure language competency. METHODS: A convenience sample was used to conduct the study in an urban level-1 pediatric and adult trauma center with 45,000 annual visits. The two tests, STOFHLA and BEST, were administered by trained research fellows in patient rooms to 100 patients, 52% who were English speakers and 48% whom self-declare they spoke English as a second language. Participants include adult patients aged > 18, who were medically stable and able to give consent and who presented to the emergency department from May of 2004 to November of 2004. The study was approved by the institutional review board. RESULTS: Using an ANOVA test with a significance of < or = 0.05, the BEST exam showed a difference between native speakers and ESL with F = 16.718 significant at 0.01. The STOFHLA also showed a difference between the two groups with F = 5.890 significant at 0.017. There was a significant relationship, p value of 0.000, between those passing the BEST exam and those individuals with passing the STOFHLA exam, thus showing that those who passed STOFHLA also passed the BEST exam. CONCLUSIONS: The oral interview BEST test can be used in the ED to determine English competency. The results of the BEST test could be used to independently determine the need for a translator within the emergency department. A modified version based on results of this study may be administered to quickly determine English competency. The BEST test and STOFHLA test results, despite measuring different types of skills, were significantly related at the 0.05 level. This may indicate that an underlying factor such as educational levels plays a significant role in determining both types of competency. (+info)