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This bibliometric study examines the characteristics of the overall research trends, patterns of productivity, and publications on "assessment in second language pronunciation". Bibliometric data were retrieved from Web of Science (WoS on 1 September 2021 and the results of the study reveal that the first publication appeared in 1993 and, during the period of 28 years, there have been 118 publications between 1993 and 2021 in total. It was found that studies in this field have increased in recent years. The publications include articles and proceeding papers written by 2.31 authors per publication. The most cited document received 139 citations. It was also discovered that the most frequently used word is intelligibility and the trending topic is pronunciation. As for the affiliations, the most productive university is Concordia University in Canada. In the following headings, detailed information is discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Computer‐based assessment allows for the monitoring of reader behaviour. The identification of patterns in this behaviour can provide insights that may be useful in informing educational interventions. Objectives: Our study aims to explore what different patterns of reading activity exist, and investigates their interpretation and consistency across different task sets (units), countries, and languages. Three patterns were expected: on‐task, exploring and disengaged. Methods: Using log data from the PISA 2012 digital reading assessment (9226 students from seven countries), we conducted hierarchical cluster analyses with typical process indicators of digital reading assessments. We identified different patterns and explored whether they remained consistent across different units. To validate the interpretation of the identified patterns, we examined their relationship to performance and student characteristics (gender, socio‐economic status, print reading skills). Results and Conclusions: The results indicate a small number of transnational clusters, with unit‐specific differences. Cluster interpretation is supported by associations with student characteristics—for example, students with low print reading skills were more likely to show a disengaged pattern than proficient readers. Exploring behaviour tended to be exhibited only once across the three units: It occurred in the first unit for proficient readers and in later units for less skilled readers. Major Takeaways: Behavioural patterns can be identified in digital reading tasks that may prove useful for educational monitoring and intervention. Although task situations are designed to evoke certain behaviours, the interpretation of observed behavioural patterns requires validation based on task requirements, assessment context and relationships to other available information. Lay Description: What is already known about the subject matter?: Students differ in how they read, comprehend and use digital information.Indicators from process data provide insight about how students engage with digital reading tasks. What does this paper add to the subject matter?: Based on multiple process indicators, a small number of clusters indicating different behavioural activity can be distinguished.These clusters can be described as on‐task, passive, hasty, exploring, disengaged, persistent and lost interest.A meaningful interpretation of the clusters must consider the requirements of the underlying tasks. Implications for practice and/or policy: Knowledge of how students engage with digital resources may provide useful feedback for teachers to guide students' learning or intervene when they struggle.Educational monitoring: The high comparability of country‐specific results suggests an invariant set of solution strategies in the digital reading assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning Mandarin Chinese as a heritage or additional language at Chinese complementary schools has long been a tradition for many Asian Canadians. However, research that looks at teachers' experiences and perceptions in Canadian settings, especially the power dynamics embedded in biliteracy development at complementary schools, is scant. Moreover, the COVID‐19 pandemic brought challenges and opportunities to Chinese complementary schools. In this paper, we, as two Mandarin teachers and literacy researchers, used collaborative autobiographical narrative inquiry to tell our stories to unfold (1) how power dynamics regarding biliteracy/multiliteracy were enacted and reflected in a Chinese complementary school during the pandemic and (2) our re‐understanding of Mandarin teaching and learning from critical literacy and translanguaging perspectives. Although the pandemic is over, racial discrimination and social inequity continue to remain in our lives. By analysing our teaching moments and reflections, we hope this study could provide some insights into how critical literacy and translanguaging can be integrated into language and literacy education in multilingual and multimodal settings in the pandemic and post‐pandemic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of hashtags in the formation of affinity spaces linked to divergent linguistic cultures in the Canadian digital context. The linguistic cultures tend to accommodate certain language ideologies, which manifest through distinct forms of practical and discursive consciousness. The coexistence of divergent linguistic cultures that address shared topics in different ways is labelled "parallel digital monolingualism," a form of multilingualism that has not been accounted for in previous research. This multilingualism exists because of the transfer of offline experiences (which, in Canada, are based on language and geography) into the affordances of digital contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of research and education, sexual and gender-based violence remain distressingly prevalent on university and college campuses globally. The taboos associated with sex, gender inequity, and living in a patriarchal world where misogyny is glorified and criminalised are key socio-cultural determinants driving these forms of violence. Less is known about the ways in which sexual slang or terminology impact how students experience and talk about these events. This paper reports on findings from a participatory action study that explored sexual slang use among female and male undergraduate students (n = 23) with the aim of creating more responsive sexual and gender-based violence policies and practices. The terms identified (n = 59) provide a window into the daily lives of these young people, who display remarkable socio-linguistic adaptation and creativity. They also demonstrate how cultural appropriation, the exclusion of queer students, toxic masculinitycontribute to ongoing incidents of sexual and gender-based violence on campus. These findings contribute new insights into sexual terminology among post-secondary students, particularly in the Canadian context where few studies of this nature exist. They also acknowledge the critical role universities can play in making meaningful structural change to prevent traumatic events from occurring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While translanguaging occurs in the homes of deaf people and their hearing family members who do not sign or possess limited signing skills, in this article we argue that translanguaging alone does not explain the complex, domestic-sphere language experiences of three young, newcomer artists in Saskatchewan, Canada. We frame our inquiry around the "dinner table experience" phenomenon, wherein deaf family members receive partial or little access to conversational exchanges. At the dinner table, which is both a literal setting and a metaphor for exclusion experienced by deaf people in audiocentric cultures, many deaf family members report feeling loved yet disconnected. However, translanguaging serves to expand linguistic repertoires among hearing and deaf interlocutors amidst the dinner table experience. We draw from three interviews with deaf youth who describe the dinner table experience through both dialogue and art making, including descriptions of ways in which communication is facilitated or not facilitated, thereby highlighting available and unavailable translanguaging practices in the domestic sphere. The interview data suggest that the dinner table experience is a significant setting for translanguaging, and that promoting accessible and equitable translanguaging practices in the home remains a significant challenge, especially when combined with newcomer lived experience that does not always match current descriptions of translanguaging. We posit that translanguaging is a necessary practice among hearing and deaf persons at the table that can and should be expanded to consider the intersectional experiences of communicators in this literal and metaphorical setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been ongoing national discourse about barriers to mental health care services in Canada. The purpose of the study is to better understand these barriers, with a focus on Canadians of color. To that end, this study surveyed 1501 adults representative of the general population, collected by the Angus Reid Institute. Over half of the respondents had sought out mental health care and experienced barriers to access. People of color (visible minorities and Indigenous people) had more difficulty accessing care, as did younger adults and those with lower incomes. The most common difficulties were largely structural: long waitlists (62%), financial barriers (58%), lack of resources/professionals in the area (47%), difficulty finding specialists (41%), and difficulty accessing in-person care during the pandemic (34%). Many noted negative experiences with mental health professionals (35%). More English-speaking than French-speaking Canadians reported barriers to care overall. Race/ethnicity was related to difficulties when trying to access mental health care, as many could not find someone of the same group (25% of Black respondents), someone who spoke their preferred language (22% of South Asian respondents), or they had prior negative experiences (50% of Indigenous respondents). We discuss the implications of these findings, including the critical need to increase the supply and diversity of mental health providers across Canada. This study is one of the first to provide quantitative data on the perceived barriers faced by Canadians in accessing mental health care while exploring the role of language, race, and ethnicity as variables that may influence access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to find out the picture of ethnic Chinese in the film "Turning Red". Cultural elements are language systems, knowledge systems, kinship systems and social organizations, systems of living equipment and technology, economic or livelihood systems, religious and artistic systems. The film "Turning Red" was used as the subject of this study because it has a cultural background of a Chinese family living in Toronto, Canada. This qualitative research uses content analysis method. Many depictions of Chinese culture are found in this film. Religious elements are the dominating element in this film, followed by other elements except language elements that are not depicted in this film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Clinical supervisors allow trainees to fail during clinical situations when trainee learning outweighs concerns for patient safety. Trainees perceive failure as both educationally valuable and emotionally draining; however, the nuance of supervised failures has not been researched from the trainee perspective. This study explored trainees' awareness and their experience of failure and allowed failure to understand those events in‐depth. Methods: We interviewed 15 postgraduate trainees from nine teaching sites in Europe and Canada. Participants were a purposive sample, representing 1–10 years of clinical training in various specialties. Consistent with constructivist grounded theory, data collection and analysis were iterative, supporting theoretical sampling to explore themes. Results: Trainees reported that failure was a common, valuable, and emotional experience. They perceived that supervisors allowed failure, but they reported never having it explicitly confirmed or discussed. Therefore, trainees tried to make sense of these events on their own. If they interpreted a failure as allowed by the supervisor, trainees sought to ascertain supervisory intentions. They described situations where they judged supervisor's intentions to be constructive or destructive. Discussion: Our results confirm that trainees perceive their failures as valuable learning opportunities. In the absence of explicit conversations with supervisors, trainees tried to make sense of failures themselves. When trainees judge that they have been allowed to fail, their interpretation of the event is coloured by their attribution of supervisor intentions. Perceived intentions might impact the educational benefit of the experience. In order to support trainees' sense‐making, we suggest that supervisory conversations during and after failure events should use more explicit language to discuss failures and explain supervisory intentions. Residents' interpretation of being allowed to fail is shown to be colored by attributions of supervisor intention, thereby influencing what is learned from failure and emphasizing the importance of explicit conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diverse bilingual experiences have implications for language comprehension, including pragmatic elements such as verbal irony. Irony comprehension is shaped by an interplay of linguistic, cognitive, and social factors, including individual differences in bilingual experience. We examined the relationship between individual differences related to bilingualism, specifically, the capacity to understand others' mental states and ambient exposure to language diversity, on irony comprehension. We tested 54 healthy bilingual adults, living in a linguistically diverse region—Montréal, Canada—on an irony comprehension task. This task involved reading positive and negative short stories that concluded with an ironic or literal statement, which were rated on appropriateness and perceived irony. While both irony forms were rated as less appropriate and more ironic than literal statements, ironic criticisms (following a negative context) were rated as more appropriate and higher in perceived irony than ironic compliments (following a positive context). As expected, these ratings varied as a function of individual differences in mentalizing and neighborhood language diversity. Greater mentalizing patterned with more appropriate ratings to ironic statements in high language diversity neighborhoods and with less appropriate ratings to ironic statements in low language diversity neighborhoods. Perceived irony ratings to ironic compliments increased with mentalizing as neighborhood language diversity increased. These results indicate that pragmatic language comprehension and its social cognitive underpinnings may be environmentally contextualized processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Accessing healthcare for immigrants in Canada is complicated by many difficulties. With the continued and upward trend of immigration to Canada, it is crucial to identify the solutions to the barriers from the perspectives of different immigrant communities as they encounter them including the relatively smaller and less studied population groups of immigrants. As such, Nepalese immigrants in Canada are a South Asian ethnic group who have their own distinct language, culture, and socio-economic backgrounds, however, their experience with accessing healthcare in Canada is scarce in the literature. Methods: We conducted 12 focus group discussions with first-generation Nepalese immigrants who had experiences with primary care use in Canada. Informed consent and demographic information were obtained before each focus group discussion. The verbatim transcription of the focus groups was analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: The participants expressed a range of potential solutions to overcome the barriers, which we presented using the socio-ecological framework into 4 different levels. This includes individual-, community-, service provider-, and government/policy-levels. Individual-level actions included improving self-awareness and knowledge of health in general and navigating the healthcare system and proactively improving the language skills and assimilating into the Canadian culture. Examples of community-level actions included community events to share health information with immigrants, health literacy programs, and driving/carpooling to clinics or hospitals. Actions at the service provider level were mainly focused on enhancing communications, cultural competency training for providers, and ensuring to hire primary care workforce representing various ethnocultural backgrounds. Overall, focus group participants believed that the provincial and federal government, as appropriate, should increase support for dental and vision care support and take actions to increase the healthcare capacity, particularly by employing internationally graduated health professionals. Conclusions: Access to primary care is essential for the health of immigrant populations in Canada. Individuals, community organizations, health service providers, and governments need to work both individually and collaboratively to improve immigrants' primary care access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined whether physical restraint, antipsychotic or sedative-hypnotic use differed by language preference in hospitalized medical patients with delirium. Topics discussed include most common non-English preferred languages, relative risk of study outcomes by preferred language, and limitations of the study.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic, Indigenous communities have persisted in Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation efforts. This research utilized a scan of social media, a survey, and interviews, conducted in the summer and fall of 2020 and primarily focused on Canada, to explore: What shifts to support Indigenous language work occurred during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic? and What were the impacts of these shifts on Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation? This article discusses six cross-cutting themes: (a) shifting and adapting language work to ensure community health and safety, (b) building capacity to make necessary shifts and adaptations, (c) facing challenges in shifting online, (d) promoting Indigenous languages online and in community, (e) creating and sharing language resources as alternative or increased activity, and (f) (re-)envisioning language education and pedagogy in a pandemic time. These themes exemplify Indigenous persistence in Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation work during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: Early intervention (EI) for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) must be resource-efficient while remaining effective; thus, clinicians are challenged to create and implement useful methods. Clinical evidence from community-based interventions that include reliable diagnoses, individual EI programs, along with comprehensive descriptions of participants, procedures, and participant outcomes can inform practice, translational research, and local policy. Parent-mediated EI for toddlers with ASD can promote positive developmental outcomes and lifelong well-being, but evidence of successful community uptake of research-based EIs is somewhat limited. The community-based, parent-mediated, evidence-informed QuickStart EI program aims to encourage toddlers' early social communication, social interactions, and relationship-building, in a community clinic setting. We aim to (1) describe our adaptations to the evidence-based Parent-Delivered Early Start Denver Model and (2) present promising findings for toddlers with or at risk for ASD and their families who received QuickStart. We also intend to motivate a similar study of EI in real-world situations to advance evidence-based practice and create relevant dialogue and questions for research. Methods: Complete data were identified and analyzed for up to 89 toddlers diagnosed with, or at risk of, ASD. Pre- and post-intervention parent- or self-report data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired-sample t- tests, as appropriate. Pre-intervention measures included demographic information (n = 89) and the Early Screening of Autism and Communication (ESAC; n = 89). Measures taken pre- and post-intervention included the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-II (n = 60), MacArthur-Bates Communication Development Inventories (n = 58), and the parental sense of competence scale (n = 62). The Measure of Processes of Care (n = 60) was taken post-intervention. On enrollment, parents signed standard clinical agreements that included statements allowing their anonymous data to be analyzed for research. Results: Using standardized parent/self-report measures, toddler gains were noted for social interaction, language, communication skills, and ASD symptoms, but not for parents' feelings of competence. Parents identified QuickStart procedures as family centered (Measure of Processes of Care). Conclusions: The QuickStart EI program, provided to toddlers and their families over 20 weeks in a community clinic, resulted in promising positive behavior and communication changes, as indicated on the parent-response measures, for a moderately large sample of toddlers. Implications: This study adds to the literature by describing a new EI program with clear procedures by which clinicians can create, provide, and evaluate a readily accessible, community-based EI for toddlers with or at risk of ASD. Methodological limitations inherent to our study design that precluded a control group and necessitated a reliance on available parent-report data are carefully critiqued and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Successful deprescribing requires understanding the attitudes of older adults and caregivers towards this process. This study aimed to capture these attitudes in four French-speaking countries and to investigate associated factors. Methods: A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted by administrating the French version of the revised Patients' Attitudes Towards Deprescribing (rPATD) questionnaire in Belgium, Canada, France, and Switzerland. Community-dwelling or nursing home older adults ≥ 65 years taking ≥ 1 prescribed medications and caregivers of older adults with similar characteristics were included. Multivariate logistic regressions were carried out to examine factors associated with willingness to deprescribe. Results: A total of 367 older adults (79.3 ± 8.7 years, 63% community-dwelling, 54% ≥ 5 medications) and 255 unrelated caregivers (64.4 ± 12.6 years) of care recipients (83.4 ± 7.9 years, 52% community-dwelling, 69% ≥ 5 medications) answered the questionnaire. Among them, 87.5% older adults and 75.6% caregivers would be willing to stop medications if the physician said it was possible. Reluctance to stop a medication taken for a long time was expressed by 46% of both older adults and caregivers. A low score for the factor "concerns about stopping" (older adults: aOR: 0.21; 95% CI: 0.07–0.59), and a high score for the factor "involvement" (older adults: aOR: 2.66; 95% CI: 1.01–7.07; caregivers: aOR: 11.28; 95% CI: 1.48–85.91) were associated with willingness to deprescribe. Conclusions: A significant proportion of older adults and caregivers of French-speaking countries are open to deprescribing. Despite this apparent willingness, deprescribing conversations in clinical practice remains marginal, emphasizing the importance of optimizing the integration of existing tools such as rPATD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the extent to which syntactic awareness contributes to reading comprehension in English–French bilinguals, considering both the potential for a direct relation, as well as an indirect one, through word reading. Participants were 146 first-grade students enrolled in early French immersion programs in Canada. While the children received all school instruction in French, English was their stronger language and the language of the broader community. Given this dual language context, we examined relations from syntactic awareness in each of English and French to children's French reading comprehension. Path analyses showed that within French, the language of school instruction, syntactic awareness contributed to reading comprehension indirectly through word reading. The findings suggest that novice readers rely more heavily on basic reading skills, such as word reading, to comprehend texts and syntactic awareness facilitates reading comprehension through word reading. Across the two languages, English syntactic awareness contributed both directly to French reading comprehension and indirectly through French word reading. The cross-language findings suggest that English syntactic awareness is related to French to support French reading comprehension. These findings help fill in a developmental picture in early bilinguals, particularly given studies of older, more skilled monolingual readers showing evidence for solely a direct relation between syntactic awareness and reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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