High-Resolution US of Rheumatologic Diseases.

For the past 15 years, high-resolution ultrasonography (US) is being routinely and increasingly used for initial evaluation and treatment follow-up of rheumatologic diseases. This imaging technique is performed by using high-frequency linear transducers and has proved to be a powerful diagnostic tool in evaluation of articular erosions, simple and complex joint and bursal effusions, tendon sheath effusions, and synovitis, with results comparable to those of magnetic resonance imaging, excluding detection of bone marrow edema. Crystal deposition diseases including gouty arthropathy and calcium pyrophosphate deposition disease (CPPD) have characteristic appearances at US, enabling differentiation between these two diseases and from inflammatory arthropathies. Enthesopathy, which frequently accompanies psoriatic and reactive arthritis, also has a characteristic appearance at high-resolution US, distinguishing these two entities from other inflammatory and metabolic arthropathies. The presence of Doppler signal in examined joints, bursae, and tendon sheaths indicates active synovitis. Microbubble echo contrast agents augment detection of tissue vascularity and may act in the future as a drug delivery vehicle. Frequently, joint, tendon sheath, and bursal fluid aspirations and therapeutic injections are performed under US guidance. The authors describe the high-resolution US technique including gray-scale, color or power Doppler, and contrast agent-enhanced US that is used in evaluation of rheumatologic diseases of the wrist and hand and the ankle and foot in their routine clinical practice. This article demonstrates imaging findings of normal joints, rheumatoid arthritis, gouty arthritis, CPPD, psoriatic and reactive arthritis, and osteoarthritis.

Orthographic word knowledge growth in school-age children.

PURPOSE: Natural reading experiences provide an opportunity for the development of orthographic word knowledge as well as other forms of partial word knowledge. The purpose of this study was to compare the orthographic word knowledge growth of school-age children with relatively low language skills (LL group) to that of age- and gender-matched peers with high language skills (HL group). METHOD: Thirty-two children, 16 per group, read stories containing rare words 3 times, 2-3 days apart. Posttesting, completed at the end of each session, required participants to indicate recognition of the rare words encountered in the stories while not indicating recognition of orthographically similar nonwords. RESULTS: Over time, both groups showed significant growth in recognition of the orthographic forms of the rare words. However, the groups differed in the extent to which they indicated that the orthographically similar nonwords were words, with the LL group indicating that significantly more of the nonwords were words. CONCLUSION: Results provide some preliminary evidence that children with relatively weaker language skills are able to develop orthographic knowledge of unfamiliar words through reading experiences, but their orthographic representations may not be as well defined as those of children with stronger language skills.