Predictors of Reading Development Among School-Age Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Scoping Review.

PURPOSE: Systematic reviews of bilingual children's reading development are very limited, and none of which solely focus on predictors of reading difficulties among those with developmental language disorder (DLD). The present scoping review fills an important need by analyzing the recent research literature on the reading outcomes of bilingual children with DLD. Specifically, this study aims to identify predictors of reading difficulties among bilingual children with DLD to improve early identification. METHOD: The search parameters used in this scoping review included peer-reviewed journal articles written in English from 2000 to 2022 in order to synthesize the most recent empirical work, a focus on early childhood through early adolescent (pre-K to eighth grade) bilinguals with DLD, and research designs that included case study, descriptive, cross-sectional, quasi-experimental, longitudinal, and qualitative methods. RESULTS: The present review yielded nine articles, which all examined the predictive validity of either a measure or task with the ultimate goal of improving early identification of reading difficulties. Significant predictors of reading difficulties, such as rapid naming and blending in first language (L1), were found to aid in identifying bilingual children who have DLD. CONCLUSIONS: To conclude, this review demonstrates that this is a highly under-researched topic. To have ended up including only nine articles that fit the criteria of our search reveals a large gap in the research and a limitation of this review.

Added mass in human swimmers: age and gender differences.

In unstationary swimming (changing velocity), some of the water around the swimmer is set in motion. This can be thought of as an added mass (M(a)) of water. The purpose of this study was to find added mass on human swimmers and investigate the effect of shape and body size. Thirty subjects were connected to a 2.8m long bar with handles, attached with springs (stiffness k = 318 N/m) and a force cell. By oscillating this system vertically and registering the period of oscillations it was possible to find the added mass of the swimmer, given the known masses of the bar and swimmer. Relative added mass (M(a)%) for boys, women and men were, respectively, 26.8 +/- 2.9%, 23.6 +/- 1.6% and 26.8 +/- 2.3% of the subjects total mass. This study reported significantly lower added mass (p < 0.001) and relative added mass (p < 0.002) for women compared to men, which indicate that the possible body shape differences between genders may be an important factor for determining added mass. Boys had significantly lower (p < 0.001) added mass than men. When added mass was scaled for body size there were no significant differences (p = 0.996) between boys and men, which indicated that body size is an important factor that influences added mass. The added mass in this study seems to be lower and within a smaller range than previously reported (Klauck, 1999; Eik et al., 2008). It is concluded that the added mass in human swimmers, in extended gliding position, is approximately 1/4 of the subjects' body mass.