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P Casadio

Publications and source records attributed to P Casadio.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

A comparison of the transition from first words to grammar in English and Italian.

Cross-linguistic similarities and differences in early lexical and grammatical development are reported for 1001 English-speaking children and 386 Italian-speaking children between 1;6 and 2;6. Parents completed the English or Italian versions of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences, a parent report instrument that provides information about vocabulary size, vocabulary composition and grammatical complexity across this age range. The onset and subsequent growth of nouns, predicates, function words and social terms proved to be quite similar in both languages. No support was found for the prediction that verbs would emerge earlier in Italian, although Italians did produce a higher proportion of social terms, and there were small but intriguing differences in the shape of the growth curve for grammatical function words. A strikingly similar nonlinear relationship between grammatical complexity and vocabulary size was observed in both languages, and examination of the order in which function words are acquired also yielded more similarities than differences. However, a comparison of the longest sentences reported for a subset of children demonstrates large cross-linguistic differences in the amount of morphology that has been acquired in children matched for vocabulary size. Discussion revolves around the interplay between language-specific variations in the input to young children, and universal cognitive and social constraints on language development.

Child Language↗
PubMed1998

Associative visual agnosia resulting from a disconnection between intact visual memory and semantic systems.

We report the case of a patient (RC) who developed a severe visual agnosia, associated to alexia without agraphia, color anomia and amnesia, following an ischemic stroke in the territory supplied by the left posterior cerebral artery. Based on his proficient performance on tests evaluating analysis of elementary visual features, formation of viewer-centered and object-centered representations of visual stimuli and discrimination between drawings representing real and unreal objects, we concluded that the critical locus of deficit was a disconnection between the normally functioning visual memory store and the semantic system. RC's disturbance in visual processing of human faces paralleled his recognition disorder of other classes of objects. The possible contribution of neurobiological factors in determining RC's agnosic deficit is discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1998

Subcutaneous administration of a depot gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist induces profound reproductive axis suppression in women.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the i.m. and s.c. routes of depot GnRH agonist administration. DESIGN: Prospective, controlled pharmacokinetics study. SETTING: Volunteers in an academic research environment. PATIENT(S): Forty women with benign gynecologic disorders. INTERVENTION(S): Triptorelin administration (3.75 mg) at 28-day intervals for 6 consecutive months. Twenty patients were treated with IM triptorelin, and 20 patients were treated with SC triptorelin. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Assessment of side effects, GnRH test results, and triptorelin, LH, FSH, estradiol, and progesterone levels. RESULT(S): The occurrence of injection site redness and itching and of some hypoestrogenic side effects was increased significantly in the SC group. Plasma triptorelin levels were significantly higher in the IM group in the first month of treatment; thereafter, the pattern reversed, with a nonsignificant trend toward higher plasma triptorelin levels in the SC group. Serum LH, FSH, estradiol, and progesterone levels were low after the first month of treatment and did not differ between the two treatment groups. On day 196 (2 months after the last depot triptorelin injection), triptorelin was still measurable and gonadotropins and gonadal steroids were still suppressed. Spontaneous menses returned significantly later in the SC group than in the IM group. CONCLUSION(S): Subcutaneous triptorelin can be administered by the patient. Both IM and SC triptorelin administration are cliniclly effective, but they result in different triptorelin pharmacokinetics. Subcutaneous triptorelin is associated with more prolonged amenorrhea than is IM triptorelin, suggesting enhanced pituitary-ovarian suppression. These results suggest that SC triptorelin may allow lower drug dosage administration and/or longer administration intervals.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Interaction between menstrual cyclicity and gonadotropin pulsatility.

Pulsatile gonadotropin secretion is a critical endocrine component of the regulation of the normal menstrual cycle. Pulsatile luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion changes dynamically across the menstrual cycle. Derangements of pulsatile LH secretion are found in virtually every menstrual disorder. This article summarizes the key features of pulsatile LH secretion in the normal menstrual cycle and in ovulatory disorders.

Female↗
PubMed1996

Is multiple pregnancy an unavoidable complication of ovulation induction? The case for pulsatile GnRH.

Ovarian hyperstimulation (OHS) and multiple pregnancy are dreaded complications of ovulation induction. The use of pulsatile GnRH permits to prevent the occurrence of OHS and results in few multiple pregnancies. Low-dose GnRH administration, avoidance of preovulatory hCG, patient selection, and the use of GnRH agonist pituitary desensitization in selected patients permits to limit multiple conceptions to a level comparable with the occurrence of this complication in normal unstimulated women.

Chorionic Gonadotropin↗