This study examined the phonological and reading performance in English of Malaysian children whose home language was Bahasa Malaysia (BM). A sample of 69 Malaysian Standard Two pupils (aged 7-8 years) was selected for the study. Since commencing school at the age of 6 years, the children had been learning to read in BM and had subsequently also been learning to read in English for some 12 months. The study was part of a larger scale research programme that fully recognized the limitations of tests that had not been developed and standardized in Malaysia. Nevertheless, as a first step to developing such tests, a comparison with existing norms for the Phonological Assessment Battery (PhAB) and the Wechsler Objective Reading Dimension (WORD) was undertaken in relation to information about the children's L1 and L2 language competencies. Results showed that the children's performance on PhAB was at least comparable to the UK norms while, not surprisingly, they fared less well on WORD. The results are discussed in terms of L1 and L2 transfer, whereby the transparency of written BM and the structured way in which reading is taught in BM facilitates performance on phonological tasks in English. This has implications for identifying children with phonologically based reading difficulties.
Swallowing involves 55 muscles, five cranial nerves and two cervical nerve roots. When the coordination of this reflex is disturbed, dysphagia occurs. Dysphagia refers either to the difficulty someone may have with the initial phases of a swallow or to the sensation that the foods or the liquids are being obstructed in their passage from the mouth to the stomach. The objective of the study was to identify the diagnosis of patients attending Speech Therapy clinic, in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, and to identify the demography of dysphagic patients. From the 406 patients that came during the study period, 139 patients (34.2%) were diagnosed with dysphagia, followed by developmental language disorders (33.3%). Of the 139 patients diagnosed with dysphagia, most of them are within the 41 to 60 (43.2%) and above 60 (42.2%) age groups. The majority were males (66.2%). A total of 81 (58.3%) patients with dysphagia had a history of cerebrovascular accident. Dysphagia is a common disorder among patients attending Speech Therapy Clinics at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kota Kinabalu. Training of Speech Therapists and early dysphagia intervention leads to a better outcome.
Matched MeSH terms: Language Development Disorders
Advanced parental age is a risk factor for chromosomal abnormalities in their offspring. Trisomy X or Triple X syn- drome has previously been reported with advanced maternal age. Here we report two (2) cases of Trisomy X with paternal age as risk factor. Generally, Trisomy X individuals show variable physical and psychological manifesta- tions. However, both cases reported here have advanced paternal age as a risk factor; 55 years old (46 years old at conception) for Case 1 with patient having right eye squint, beaked nose, Posterior Misalignment Type Ventricular Septal Defect (PMVSD) and small Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) with failure to thrive and 49 years old (45 years old at conception) for Case 2 with speech delay and protruding tongue. In view of that, advanced paternal age could possibly contribute the accumulation of de novo mutations in germ line mosaicism.
Matched MeSH terms: Language Development Disorders