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Both clinicians and researchers agree on the importance of supporting a socially relevant language use in children at risk for communication disorders. Although we have some information on best practices for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the evidence for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) is scarce. Even if there is a growing body of literature discussing the efficacy of speech and language interventions in preschool and school settings, these interventions have focused primarily on early literacy skills (including vo cabulary and discourse abilities) to prepare all children to enter school. Despite this lack of evidence in the literatur e, clinicians have developed skillful strategies to support and facilitate the development of other pragmatic skills such as conversation abilities. The purpose of this manuscript is to discuss the theo retical foundations of pragmatic interventions with children having DLD and to present an example of an intervention based on theoretical foundations and clinical experience.

Cet article etudie l’usage des gestes par 18 dyades mere-enfant dysphasique en comparaison avec 18 dyades mere-enfant typique dans une situation de jeu de devinette par indices. Tous les enfants sont âges entre 5 et 7 ans.Les analyses concernent la proportion, les roles ainsi que la nature semiotique des gestes utilises comme indices dans le jeu de devinettes. Les resultats aboutissent a des differences quantitatives et qualitatives dans l’emploi des gestes entre les deux types de dyades. Meme si globalement la devinette se profile comme une activite essentiellement verbale, il apparait que les enfants mobilisent plus souvent les gestes pour la production d’indices que leurs meres et que les dyades mere-enfant dysphasique presentent des taux plus eleves de gestes que les dyades mere-enfant typique.Par ailleurs, les resultats mettent en evidence des specificites chez les enfants dysphasiques. Ils semblent utiliser davantage de gestes deictiques et certains d’entre eux ont recours plus souvent aux gestes illustratifs, se substituant au verbal. L’etude montre egalement une certaine heterogeneite des dyades dans les deux groupes de la population.

It is well-known that the total metal content in soils is not a good indicator of their harmful effects, leading to an overestimation of risks. Toxicological and environmental hazards depend on the chemical species and on its bioavailability to target organisms. Because a good estimation of bioavailability is difficult, a good compromise is to assess bioaccessibility, defined as the maximum amount of a pollutant which is potentially absorbable by a target organism. This study presents a comparison of different strategies to measure metal bioaccessibility in soils. Three procedures were applied to real soil samples with different levels of metal contamination: pseudo-total metal attack, selective sequential extractions and in vitro tests (deliberately developed to simulate human or mammals digestion). Considering the first step of the selective extraction procedure, which can provide the bioaccessible fraction for deposit-feeder organisms, data obtained for each metal were lower than those obtained from in...

Cet article étudie l’usage des gestes par 18 dyades mère-enfant dysphasique en comparaison avec 18 dyades mère-enfant typique dans une situation de jeu de devinette par indices. Tous les enfants sont âgés entre 5 et 7 ans.Les analyses concernent la proportion, les rôles ainsi que la nature sémiotique des gestes utilisés comme indices dans le jeu de devinettes. Les résultats aboutissent à des différences quantitatives et qualitatives dans l’emploi des gestes entre les deux types de dyades. Même si globalement la devinette se profile comme une activité essentiellement verbale, il apparait que les enfants mobilisent plus souvent les gestes pour la production d’indices que leurs mères et que les dyades mère-enfant dysphasique présentent des taux plus élevés de gestes que les dyades mère-enfant typique.Par ailleurs, les résultats mettent en évidence des spécificités chez les enfants dysphasiques. Ils semblent utiliser davantage de gestes déictiques et certains d’entre eux ont recours plus souvent aux gestes illustratifs, se substituant au verbal. L’étude montre également une certaine hétérogénéité des dyades dans les deux groupes de la population. This paper investigates the use of gestures by 18 mother-SLI children dyads compared to 18 mother-typically developing children dyads in a guessing game situation. All children are between 5 and 7 years old.Analyses concern the proportion, the roles and the semiotic nature of gestures used as clues in the guessing game. Results show both quantitative and qualitative differences between the two types of dyads. Even though the guessing game stands out as an essentially verbal activity, it appears that children make use of gestures as clues more frequently than their mothers and that mother-SLI children dyads produce a higher rate of gestures than mother-TD children dyads.In addition, results highlight several specific characteristics of SLI children. They seem to produce more deictic gestures and some of them make use of more illustrative gestures as substitutes for verbal productions. The study also shows that, to some extent, dyads in both types of population are quite heterogeneous (in their behavior).

In this work we tested two proteolytic enzymes (trypsin and pepsin) to evaluate metal bioaccessibility in marine sediments. Some working conditions were studied, in particular incubation time, enzyme concentration and solution/solid ratio, and metals release mechanisms were investigated using both untreated and denatured enzymes. The results obtained with trypsin and pepsin were compared with each other and with results from proteinase K extraction, carried out on the same sediment samples, following a procedure reported in the literature. Moreover, a comparison with the first step of BCR sequential procedure was made. Metal orders of mobility determined with the different enzymes and with acetic acid were compared with the one defined by the enrichment factors in the gut fluids of deposit-feeder organisms. The overall picture suggests that proteinase K has a better capability of reproducing natural phenomena and is therefore more suitable to determine metal bioaccessibility in marine sediments, when the target of the investigation is deposit-feeder organisms.

In this work we compared metal bioavailable fractions in marine sediments operationally measured by sequential selective extractions (in particular the labile fraction released by acetic acid) and by a biomimetic approach using a commercially available proteolytic enzyme, proteinase K, chosen because of its non-specific behaviour and because it is representative of the enzymes encountered in many deposit-feeding organisms. Different experimental conditions for enzymatic extraction were investigated and the enzyme was employed both untreated and thermally denatured to study metal release mechanisms (i.e. enzymatic hydrolysis and/or complexation). Extractable protein content was also measured to verify possible correlations with some metals. Considering the two sediments used in this work, the available fraction evaluated with a biomimetic approach was often significantly lower than the fraction released by the first step of selective extractions, as expected. Moreover a good correlation was found between the fraction of metal available to the enzyme and enrichment factors in the gut fluids of deposit-feeding organisms, suggesting that enzymatic approach is qualitatively more reliable than chemical extraction in replicating the mechanism of metal mobilization that occurs in the guts of deposit-feeders.