ABSTRACT
Bilingualism and socio-economic status (SES) differentially affect linguistic and cognitive development. However, less evidence has been collected regarding their impact on literacy trajectories. The present longitudinal study evaluated the literacy development of language minority bilingual children (LMBC) and monolingual peers with different SES. A group of LMBC with low-SES (n = 18) and monolingual peers with low (n = 18) or high (n = 14) SES were followed from 2nd to 5th grade through a set of tasks assessing decoding (words, nonwords, passage), reading, and listening comprehension, and spelling skills. The results showed that all groups achieved better performances over time in all measures, except listening comprehension. However, low-SES LMBC underperformed in spelling tasks compared to the monolingual groups. In reading comprehension, there was a time*group interaction that showed how low-SES LMBC reached similar performances of low-SES monolinguals in fifth grade, but both groups underperformed compared to the high SES monolingual group. The discussion is focused on the need for research and educational settings to consider the differential impact of bilingualism and SES. Bilingualism seems to be associated with a longer time in developing adequate spelling skills, whereas SES was the primary underpinning of the reading comprehension gap over time.
ABSTRACT
Among the many scientists who studied the cutaneous blood supply, Gino Pieri, an Italian Army surgeon operating during World War I, deserves attention. During those times, amputations were frequent, and flaps used to cover stumps were often inadequately designed and became necrotic, because of poor knowledge of the skin's blood supply. Pieri solved the problem after drawing a perforator map of human body skin, injecting the main arteries with methylene blue dye. His flaps were mainly designed along the course of what Ian Taylor would call "source" arteries, to capture the greatest perforators.