RESUMEN

PURPOSE: To learn how parents perceived their experiences during a visit to an academic center's NICU follow-up clinic and what they would change about the clinic if given the opportunity. DESIGN: A qualitative study utilizing artifact collection, participant observation, and semistructured interviews. SAMPLE: Seven families that went to the clinic. MAIN OUTCOME VARIABLE: What parents did and did not like about the clinic and what they would change about the clinic. RESULTS: Parent concerns included lack of information about the clinic prior to the first appointment, length of wait prior to seeing the physician, preference for more appropriate toys for use during the wait, desire for additional explanations during the exam process, uncertainty about the effects of prematurity on their child's development, and need for more developmental and parenting information.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

The chimpanzees Washoe, Moja, Tatu, and Dar were reared under human cross-fostering conditions that included the use of American Sign Language (ASL) as the medium of two-way communication. In the course of everyday conversation they were asked, in signs, the Wh-questions that are typically asked of young children. In earlier studies, extensive samples showed a pattern of replies, most significantly a developmental sequence, that closely matched the pattern found in the replies of young children. Part 1 of this report is based on a special sample taken when Tatu was 63 months old and Dar was 56 months old, in which experimenters used a large pool of nameable objects, and asked a naming question and at least one descriptive question about the same object in the same context. Tatu and Dar replied to naming questions (WHAT THAT? or WHAT NAME THAT?) with signs that were nouns and to descriptive questions with signs that were modifiers: possessive pronouns for WHOSE THAT?, colors for WHAT COLOR THAT?, and materials for WHAT THAT MAKE FROM? Part 2 is a reanalysis of the Part 1 sample and several other samples of replies, demonstrating that even when their reply was incorrect, these chimpanzees usually replied with a sign from the category specified by the question. The continuities that biologists seek are continuities of laws, patterns of resemblance rather than overlapping data points. Results reported here add depth to the patterns demonstrated in earlier studies.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

A spectrophotometric assay is presented for monitoring the regulation of cell division by the polypeptide alpha-factor in cultures of living cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast. This assay is simple, automated, and may have wider application in the study of other eucaryotic cells that do not require anchorage for cell growth. The kinetics of absorbance change were monitored continuously over time in yeast cell cultures that were mixed and aerated in cuvettes fitted with top-loading propeller stirrers. The absorbance doubling time. TD(Abs), was identical to the cell number doubling time in the absence of cell division arrest by alpha-factor. alpha-Factor lengthened the TD(Abs) during division arrest. At pH 5.8, 10(5) 381G cells/ml, the Khalf-maximal was 250 +/- 50 nM alpha-factor for the TD(Abs) increase during arrest, with a maximum increase of five-fold. After a period of time the TD(Abs) abruptly shortened. This is defined as the spectrophotometric recovery time (RTspec) and was compared to the time of recovery that is due to the reinitiation of cell division monitored by bud emergence (RTBE). RTBE occurred 40 +/- 5 min prior to RTspec when recovery was spontaneous or was artificially induced by the removal of alpha-factor (pH 5.8, 381G). The difference between RTBE and RTspec was independent of alpha-factor concentration between 0.05 and 1 microM and cell concentration between 1 and greater than or equal to 25 x 10(5) cells/ml (pH 5.8, 381G) but was both pH and cell strain dependent. At pH 5.8 and 2.7 the recovery from arrest occurred by inactivation of alpha-factor. The TD(Abs) increase during arrest appears to be due to an alpha-factor-induced inhibition of net cell mass increase, an effect that has not been reported previously. Evidence is presented that this process is also correlated with the formation of cell projections.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Ten positive, five neutral, and five negative events were presented to two chimpanzees, Tatu (female, 64 months old) and Dar (male, 56 months old), who had been cross-fostered from birth by human beings. Each event was announced in American Sign Language 10 s before. The announcements and events were common items in the cross-fostering routines and were administered according to a balanced design over a period of 2 months. Vocal and signed responses to the announcements and to the events were recorded. The likelihood of either mode of response depended on affective charge, and the likelihood of vocal and signed responses was positively correlated. Signed responses were more likely than vocal responses; signed responses were more likely to be evoked by announcements than by events, whereas vocal responses were more likely to be evoked by events than by announcements. The type of vocal response depended on the affective charge and on whether the response was immediate (to the event) or anticipatory (to the announcement). Incorporation of signs and phrases from the announcements, and reiteration of signs and phrases within an utterance depended on affective charge, just as they do for human children.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

In cross-fostering, the young of one species are reared by adults of another, as in the classical ethological studies of imprinting and song-learning. In our laboratory, infant chimpanzees were reared under human conditions that included two-way communication in American Sign Language (A.S.L.), the gestural language of the deaf in North America. A large body of evidence from five chimpanzees demonstrated stage by stage replication of basic aspects of the acquisition of speech and signs by hearing and deaf children. Here we review evidence that, under double-blind conditions: (i) the chimpanzees communicated information in A.S.L. to human observers; (ii) independent human observers agreed in their identification of the chimpanzee signs, (iii) the chimpanzees could use the signs to refer to natural language categories: DOG for any dog, FLOWER for any flower, SHOE for any shoe.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Chimpanzees can communicate in American Sign Language (ASL) to independent human observers whose only source of information is the ASL signs of the chimpanzees. A vocabulary test was presented to 4 cross-fostered chimpanzees (4-6 years old). Thirty-five-millimeter color slides were projected on a screen that could be seen by the chimpanzee subject but not by the human observers. There were two observers: O1 was the questioner in the testing room with the subject; O2 was in a different room. Neither observer could see the other, or the responses of the other observer. O1 and O2 agreed in their readings of both correct and incorrect signs, and most of the signs were the correct ASL names of the slides. In order to show that the chimpanzees were naming natural language categories--that the sign DOG could refer to any dog, FLOWER to any flower, SHOE to any shoe--each test trial was a first trial in that test slides were presented only once. Analysis of errors showed that two aspects of the signs, gestural form and conceptual category, governed the distribution of errors.

Asunto(s)

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

In a sequel to Project Washoe, chimpanzees are being taught American Sign Language from birth by humans who are fluent in the language, including persons who are themselves deaf or whose parents were deaf. The first two subjects began to use signs when they were 3 months old, and these early results indicate that the new conditions are significantly superior to the conditions of Project Washoe. More valid comparisons can now be made between the acquisition of language by children and by chimpanzees.

Asunto(s)