Word structures of Granada Spanish-speaking preschoolers with typical versus protracted phonological development.

BACKGROUND: Research on children's word structure development is limited. Yet, phonological intervention aims to accelerate the acquisition of both speech-sounds and word structure, such as word length, stress or shapes in CV sequences. Until normative studies and meta-analyses provide in-depth information on this topic, smaller investigations can provide initial benchmarks for clinical purposes. AIMS: To provide preliminary reference data for word structure development in a variety of Spanish with highly restricted coda use: Granada Spanish (similar to many Hispano-American varieties). To be clinically applicable, such data would need to show differences by age, developmental typicality and word structure complexity. Thus, older typically developing (TD) children were expected to show higher accuracy than younger children and those with protracted phonological development (PPD). Complex or phonologically marked forms (e.g. multisyllabic words, clusters) were expected to be late developing. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Participants were 59 children aged 3-5 years in Granada, Spain: 30 TD children, and 29 with PPD and no additional language impairments. Single words were digitally recorded by a native Spanish speaker using a 103-word list and transcribed by native Spanish speakers, with confirmation by a second transcriber team and acoustic analysis. The program Phon 1.5 provided quantitative data. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: In accordance with expectations, the TD and older age groups had better-established word structures than the younger children and those with PPD. Complexity was also relevant: more structural mismatches occurred in multisyllabic words, initial unstressed syllables and clusters. Heterosyllabic consonant sequences were more accurate than syllable-initial sequences. The most common structural mismatch pattern overall was consonant deletion, with syllable deletion most common in 3-year-olds and children with PPD. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The current study provides preliminary reference data for word structure development in a Spanish variety with restricted coda use, both by age and types of word structures. Between ages 3 and 5 years, global measures (whole word match, word shape match) distinguished children with typical versus protracted phonological development. By age 4, children with typical development showed near-mastery of word structures, whereas 4- and 5-year-olds with PPD continued to show syllable deletion and cluster reduction, especially in multisyllabic words. The results underline the relevance of multisyllabic words and words with clusters in Spanish phonological assessment and the utility of word structure data for identification of protracted phonological development.

[Adjusting the dosage of medication in institutionalised elderly patients with renal failure]. / Ajuste de dosificación de medicamentos en pacientes ancianos institucionalizados con insuficiencia renal.

OBJECTIVE: To design a programme for pharmaceutical care for the elderly with renal failure in three nursing homes in the region of Valencia. METHOD: A nine-month long, prospective study into pharmaceutical interventions was carried out. The study assessed the development of renal function and the effectiveness of drug dosage adjustment with pharmacokinetics affected by renal failure in patients with creatinine clearance below 30 ml/min. RESULTS: Fifty-two residents of 251 centres presented creatinine clearance lower than 30 ml/min. 47 out of 74 pharmaceutical interventions were accepted. The drugs which were mainly used were: diuretics, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, antiemetics and ranitidine. Although the process of renal disease continued its course, in most cases the follow-up parameters of effectiveness and safety (in terms of renal toxicity) were maintained within the established limits. CONCLUSION: The interventions carried out showed, in most cases, to be safe (renal toxicity) and effective, with some exceptions which required more individual follow-up.

Ajuste de dosificación de medicamentos en pacientes ancianos institucionalizados con insuficiencia renal / Adjusting the dosage of medication in institutionalised elderly patients with renal failure

Objetivo: Describir un programa de atención farmacéutica en ancianos con insuficiencia renal en 3 centros sociosanitarios de la Comunidad Valenciana. Método: Estudio prospectivo de 9 meses de las intervenciones farmacéuticas realizadas, para evaluar la evolución de la función renal y la efectividad del ajuste posológico de fármacos con farmacocinética afectada por insuficiencia renal en pacientes con aclaramiento de creatinina inferior a 30 ml/min. Resultados: Cincuenta y dos residentes de los 251 valorados presentaron aclaramiento de creatinina inferior a 30 ml/min. De las 74 intervenciones farmacéuticas realizadas, se aceptaron 47. Los fármacos mayormente implicados fueron: diuréticos, antibióticos, antiinflamatorios, antieméticos y ranitidina. Aunque el progreso de la enfermedad renal sigue su curso, en la mayoría de los casos los parámetros de seguimiento de la efectividad y la seguridad (en términos de toxicidad renal) se mantienen dentro de los límites establecidos. Conclusión: Las intervenciones realizadas se muestran en la mayoría de los casos seguras (toxicidad renal) y efectivas, con alguna excepción, que requiere un seguimiento más individualizado (AU)

Objective: To design a programme for pharmaceutical care for the elderly with renal failure in three nursing homes in the region of Valencia. Method: A nine-month long, prospective study into pharmaceutical interventions was carried out. The study assessed the development of renal function and the effectiveness of drug dosage adjustment with pharmacokinetics affected by renal failure in patients with creatinine clearance below 30 ml/min. Results: Fifty-two residents of 251 centres presented creatinine clearance lower than 30 ml/min. 47 out of 74 pharmaceutical interventions were accepted. The drugs which were mainly used were: diuretics, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, antiemetics and ranitidine. Although the process of renal disease continued its course, in most cases the follow-up parameters of effectiveness and safety (in terms of renal toxicity) were maintained within the established limits. Conclusion: The interventions carried out showed, in most cases, to be safe (renal toxicity) and effective, with some exceptions which required more individual follow-up (AU)

Multiresidue determination of pesticides in fruit and vegetables by gas chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry.

Pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables were determined by gas chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (GC/MS/MS). Electron impact (EI)/MS/MS and chemical ionization (CI)/MS/MS were developed for 80 compounds, including organochlorine, organophosphorus, organonitrogen, and pyrethroids, providing unambiguous spectral confirmation for these complex matrixes. Residues were extracted from samples with acetone followed by a mixture of dichloromethane-petroleum ether. Two injections per sample were required for analysis of the entire pesticide list by EI/MS/MS and CI/MS/MS. Initial steps involving cleanup and concentration of extracts were eliminated. The excellent selectivity and good linearity allowed quantification and identification of low levels of pesticides in the most difficult matrixes. The method has been used for routine analysis of many vegetables.

Event-related brain responses to morphological violations in Catalan.

The ERP (event-related potential) violation paradigm was used to investigate brain responses to morphologically correct and incorrect verb forms of Catalan. Violations of stem formation and inflectional processes were examined in separate experimental conditions. Our most interesting finding is that misapplications of stem formation rules elicit an early left preponderant negativity. This complements our previous ERP results on morphological violations in other languages in which misapplications of inflectional rules were shown to produce such effects. We make use of the linguistic distinction between lexically stored and rule-based word forms and suggest a unified interpretation of the experimental results, arguing that these negativities vary as a function of processes involved in morpho-syntactic structure building.

Pesticide toxicokinetics in fish: accumulation and elimination.

Bioaccumulation of fenitrothion in the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) was studied using two sublethal concentrations of this pesticide in a flow-through test system. The pesticide concentrations used were one-tenth (0.002 ppm) and one-fifth (0.04 ppm) the 96-h LC50 of fenitrothion in this species. Steady state was reached early (2 h) when the animals were exposed to 0.02 ppm of toxicant, and after 48 h when the animals were exposed to 0.04 ppm. Toxicokinetic parameters for fenitrothion in eel muscle (K1, K2, and T1/2) were calculated for both experiments. The highest bioconcentration factor was calculated for animals exposed to 0.04 ppm of toxicant, indicating the relationship between the bioconcentration in muscle tissue and the disposition of fenitrothion in the medium. After transfer to clean water (depuration phase), the animals rapidly eliminated the pesticide accumulated. Excretion rate constants (K2) were 0.06 and 0.04 h-1 in both experiments and the half-lives of fenitrothion in muscle tissue were less than 24 h. After 24 h of the recovery period, fenitrothion was not detected in eel muscle of those animals exposed to 0.02 ppm, and in eels exposed to 0.04 ppm of toxicant, a reduction of 91% was reached by the end of the period.

Consonant clusters in child phonology and the directionality of syllable structure assignment.

The production of target consonant clusters at early stages of acquisition is analysed from a phonological representational perspective. The data stem from five normal monolingual German and four normal monolingual Spanish children at ages from 0;9 to 2;1, observed in naturalistic settings. At the beginning stages, target clusters are reduced to a single consonantal position, due to lack of branching of the syllabic constituents. This finding coincides with other results in the literature, which have in general been explained by means of universal principles. Nevertheless, there is an essential difference between the German and the Spanish data: German children tend to prefer the first consonant and Spanish children the second one. This difference can only be explained in terms of parameterization of syllabification, which in German takes place from left to right and in Spanish from right to left. At later stages, when clusters begin to be produced with two consonantal positions, they offer evidence for the beginning of branching of syllabic constituents, due to parameterization, and for the chronological order of the setting of the subsyllabic parameters. Our data offer evidence in favour of the following acquisitional hierarchy: CV > CVC > CVCC > CCVCC.

Homonymy and reduplication: on the extended availability of two strategies in phonological acquisition.

In the literature on phonological acquisition certain strategies such as homonymy and reduplication are viewed as phenomena appearing at a very early age, resulting from a deficient sound-inventory and sound-distribution. Data on homonymy and reduplication from a longitudinal study will be considered, which show that: (a) such strategies can appear later in the child's linguistic development than it has been proposed; (b) the lexical item has to be considered a central unit, beyond the earliest stages, in the acquisition of phonology.