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According to Victor Hugo (1802-1885), "He who opens a school door, closes a prison". This powerful statement demonstrates the importance of school in the development of a nation and the lives of individuals. It has been proven that the language used in early childhood education has an impact on the cognitive development and learning achievement of children in their educational arena. Most countries in Africa are still discussing the language to be used as a medium of instruction in their educational system. Ghana, which is known as a multilingual society with over 80 languages is not excluded from this controversy. The language policy of education in Ghana has had a complex history since the colonial era. The question of international schools in Ghana is critically examined; most of these schools do not teach any of the Ghanaian languages, but a foreign language. Ghana, however, has been a strong advocate of the so-called African personality and the use of English as the medium of instruction is in overt opposition to this ideology. The argument about which language to be used as a medium of instruction in Ghanaian Schools has been going on for a long time without coming to a specific conclusion.

Background: Every language has certain specific idiosyncrasies in its writing system. Cross-linguistic analyses of alexias and agraphias are fundamental to understand commonalities and differences in the brain organization of written language. Few reports of alexias and agraphias in the Spanish language are currently available. Aims: To analyse the clinical manifestations of alexias and agraphias in Spanish, and the effect of demographic variables. Methods & Procedures: Spanish versions of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) and Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE) were used for language assessment. Lesion localization was obtained by using computed axial tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. The final sample included 200 patients: 195 (97.5%) right-handed and five (2.5%) left-handed; 119 men and 81 women with a mean age of 57.37 years (SD = 15.56), education of 13.52 years (SD = 4.08), and mean time post-onset of 6.58 months (SD = 12.94). Using the WAB, four quotients were calculated: aphasia quotient (AQ), reading-writing quotient (RWQ), language quotient (LQ) and cortical quotient (CQ). Outcomes & Results: The types of aphasia were: global = 11 patients (5.5%), Broca = 31 (15.5%), Wernicke = 30 (15.0%), conduction = 22 (11.0%), transcortical sensory = 17 (8.5%), transcortical motor = 3 (1.5%), amnesic or anomic = 54 (27.0%) and mixed non-fluent = 32 (16.0%). The degree of oral and written language impairment differed across the various aphasia types. Most severe reading and writing difficulties were found in global, mixed non-fluent and transcortical motor aphasia; fewer difficulties were observed in amnesic, Broca and conduction aphasia. The severity of the written language impairments paralleled the severity of the oral language disturbances. Age negatively, while schooling positively, correlated with the scores in reading and writing tests. No effect of sex and time since onset was found. Conclusions & Implications: In Spanish-speaking aphasia patients, difficulties in reading and writing are similar to oral language difficulties. This similarity of performance is mostly based on severity rather than the participants' patterns of errors.

Written bilingualism represents a particular type of bilingualism that is not frequently approached. The aim of this study was to investigate the writing and reading abilities of second-generation immigrants, Spanish-English bilinguals in South Florida. 58 participants (36 females, 22 males; 18-39 years of age) were selected. Both parents were native Spanish speakers and the home language was Spanish; 37 were born in the United States and 21 were born in a Latin American country, but arrived to the US before the age of 10. Equivalent reading and writing tests were administered both in Spanish and English. Performance was significantly higher in English than in Spanish in the following tests: reading aloud (speed and errors), writing sentences, spontaneous writing number of words, and spontaneous writing errors (spelling and grammatical). When comparing those participants born in the US and abroad, no significant differences were found in Spanish, but in English; participants born in the US did better in reading aloud (errors), and spontaneous writing errors (spelling and grammatical). It was concluded that reading and writing abilities are in general higher in English than in Spanish in this group of bilinguals, which is correlated with the language used in the school they attended. This study emphasize the importance to analyze not only oral but also written bilingualism. Toward the future, it would be particularly important to study written bilingualism in other types of bilingualism.