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A Selection Of Recent Studies And Surveys
National Cancer Institute: Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Mortality Are Not Driven by Estrogen Receptor Status Alone -- "Black women who are diagnosed with breast cancer have a higher probability of dying from the disease than white women, regardless of their estrogen receptor status," a study published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute finds, according to a NCI description of the document. By comparing the breast cancer rates for black and white women using data from the NCI"s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Result (SEER) program, researchers found that the "differences in breast cancer mortality may reflect racial differences in access and response to innovative breast cancer treatments, as well as other biological and non-biological factors" and "differences in outcomes in the first few years post-diagnosis make up nearly all of the disparity" (7/7).

Protons In The War On Cancer
Latest research on proton therapy highlights medical physics meeting next week in Anaheim
News of the day
With Shrinking Budgets, States Cutting Health Services
As state revenues continue their downturn due to the recession, 16 states are trying to find ways to deal with increased health care costs, The New York Times reports: "The carnage in state budgets is getting worse, a report said Thursday, with places like Arizona being hurt by falling revenue on multiple fronts, like personal income and sales taxes. Other states are having mixed experiences, with some tax categories stable, or even rising, even as others fall off the map."
Medical Devices

Activities That Get Children 2 Months To 48 Months Talking Are Most Conducive To Language Acquisition

Adult-child conversations have a more significant impact on language development than exposing children to language through one-on-one reading alone, according to a new study in the July issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "Pediatricians and others have encouraged parents to provide language input through reading, storytelling and simple narration of daily events," explains study"s lead author, Dr. Frederick J. Zimmerman, associate professor in the Department of Health Services in the UCLA School of Public Health. "Although sound advice, this form of input may not place enough emphasis on children"s role in language-based exchanges and the importance of getting children to speak as much as possible." The study of 275 families of children ages 0-4 was designed to test factors that contribute to language development of infants and toddlers. Participants" exposure to adult speech, child speech and television was measured using a small digital language recorder or processor known as the LENA System. This innovative technology allowed researchers to hear what was truly going on in a child"s language environment, facilitating access to valuable new insights. The study found that back-and-forth conversation was strongly associated with future improvements in the child"s language score. Conversely, adult monologueing, such as monologic reading, was more weakly associated with language development. TV viewing had no effect on language development, positive or negative. Zimmerman adds, "What"s new here is the finding that the effect of adult-child conversations was roughly six times as potent at fostering good language development as adult speech input alone." Each day, children hear an average of some 13,000 words spoken to them by adults and participate in about 400 conversational turns with adults. More conversations mean more opportunities for mistakes and therefore more opportunities for valuable corrections. Furthermore, they also provide an opportunity for children to practice new vocabulary. Parents should be encouraged not only to provide language input to their children through reading or storytelling but also to engage their children in two-sided conversations, the study concludes. "Talk is powerful, but what"s even more powerful is engaging a child in meaningful interactions - the "give and take" that is so important to the social, emotional and cognitive development of infants and toddlers," says Dr. Jill Gilkerson, language research director at LENA Foundation and a study co-author. "It is not enough to speak to children," Zimmerman adds. "Parents should also engage them in conversation. Kids love to hear you speak, but they thrive on trying speech out for themselves. Give them a chance to say what"s on their minds, even if it"s "goo goo gah."" Sarah Anderson University of California - Los Angeles


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