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Nothing can replace the value of face-to-face communication. In fact, it's said that over 90% of how we communicate is through nonverbal cues like gestures and facial expressions. With that said, one cannot underestimate the power of video conferencing to enable businesses to maximize the effectiveness of their communication.

Which speech and language disorders affect literacy and writing, and how they affect the development of languages.

It's not just what you say, it's the way that you say it. The sound of our voices, including its pitch, accent and inflection, has all sorts of subtle effects on how we are perceived by other people. This article lists 10 ways that our voices influence others' conception of us and provides links to the relevant studies.

Schizophrenia is a very disabling psychiatric illness affecting about 2 to 3 million Americans. Contrary to popular perception, it has nothing to do with a "split personality." Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder involving "positive" and "negative" symptoms. Positive symptoms include hallucinations (hearing voices or seeing visions that aren't real), delusions (fixed false beliefs), and disorganized thinking or speech. A recent study in the Archives of General Psychiatry by Paul Grant, Aaron Beck, and their colleagues found that a modified version of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), a specific type of talk therapy, can produce clinically significant improvement in patients with schizophrenia. Importantly, significant improvement was seen in certain negative symptoms-apathy/avolition (lack of drive)-as well as in positive symptoms. These results are impressive, especially considering that the participants had been ill for an average of 18 years and suffered from severe symptoms. In this study, study participants were divided into two groups. One group received CBT in addition to "standard treatment," which included treatment with antipsychotic medications. The other group received standard treatment alone. CBT has been shown to be effective in a variety of psychiatric illnesses. It uses pragmatic techniques to help a person correct inaccurate or dysfunctional thoughts and emotions by promoting critical comparison of those thoughts with observable facts. For example, if a person believes that he/she is "doing absolutely nothing," one CBT technique would be to encourage the person to keep a detailed diary of daily activities. The therapist would later review this diary with the patient and facts would be compared to perceptions. Homework assignments would include strategies to increase productive activities. In the study mentioned above, the researchers focused CBT "on identifying and promoting concrete goals for improving quality of life and

"Researchers at Harvard Business School conducted three experiments. They all showed that compliments remind us of when we have done well and motivate us to succeed again, so could have a big effect at work. They found that participants who had been given positive notes from friends before a job interview out- performed those who were not. Fishing for compliments may annoy some people, but the self-serving action may boost your future chances of success, researchers claim."

One thing that can get in the way of your social success is when you have a soft or quiet speaking voice. This article will cover the effects of having a quiet voice, the factors that can cause it, and what you can do if it affects you

Schizophrenia is a disorder that affects thought, and language, and communication, among many other things. Thought disorder often appears as disorganized language use and problems with semantic processing ability.

This article describes different forms of language used by animals. It reviews many case studies that investigate the mental capabilities between humans and animals and how effective our forms of communication are.

There are around 340 million L1 English speakers, and 600 million ESL speakers, making the language accessible to an estimated billion people, English is also the primary or official language in 101 countries. However, Vyvyan Evans, British linguist, notes emoji are an even more intuitively accessible global communication mode. 3.2 billion people have regular Internet access in the world, and 92 percent-plus of those 3.2 billion people regularly send emojis. So from that perspective, Emoji leaves English in the dust, in terms of use and uptake. Most people think that when we communicate in default face-to-face mode, language is what's driving effective communication, and in fact it's not. Communication requires different channels of information - language is just one. The two other important ones are paralanguage, and that's how you're delivering the words, so tone of voice, and the really big one is kinesics, and that has to do with action-based, nonverbal communication. Emoji functions analogously to tone of voice and to body language in text-speak, and without it, we're reduced communicators.

Clean language are unbiased questions that can be used to get details and provide people with proper feedback. It is also to give players tools to support each other with improvement and give each other effective feedback.

When babies point their fingers in the air, there are meanings to their gestures. Pointing is an early sign of communication, before they even start talking. It's important to foster their learning by starting with their gestures and talking to them while they move. When you mirror your child, it will help them grow confidence and show them that communication is important and effective

English has invaded the german language over the past 6 decades. Words such as sorry provide quicker more effective alternatives to their german counterparts. This assimilation of the english language can be seen in all levels of German society from common everyday interactions to even being used in the government. Some Germans see this as a bad thing and believe the problem stems from Nazi germany and a lack of appreciation for the German language following WW2. Other Germans see it as not a big deal because compared to a language like english the percentage of words borrowed from other languages is minimal.

The alveolar trill (rolled R) is a very difficult sound to produce and is often one of the last sounds that Spanish speaking children learn. The sound is also extremely prevalent in most romance languages and as a result special focus is applied to it in the classroom. The range-mapping technique is a very effective way to learn the rolling R. It is based off of cognitive research that suggests that having variation within the full range of a motor skill allows for better learning. The steps are as follow: develop tongue and mouth awareness, learn to create vibrations, and use the trill in words.

This article is geared for couples, but the advice could be extrapolated to any social relationship. Self-soothing is crucial for effective listening, and these are some strategies to help you do this: 1. Write down what your partner says and any defensiveness you're feeling 2. Be mindful of love and respect (remember the big picture and why you like this person) 3. Slow down and breathe. 4. Hold on to yourself: look inward and see what you are telling yourself about what this conflict means and how it may impact you. Also, consider that your partner's complaint may have truth to it. Sometimes we hold onto a distorted self-portrait. 5. Don't take your partner's complaint personally. 6. Ask for a reframe: if the other person is saying something that is triggering, ask them to say it in a different way. 7. Push the pause button: agree to take a 20 minute break, so the fight-flight response is deactivated, then resume.

What does recent research say about the potential benefits of bilingual education? Here are the main 6 findings: 1. Attention: "[Bilinguals] can pay focused attention without being distracted and also improve in the ability to switch from one task to another," says Sorace. Do these same advantages accrue to a child who begins learning a second language in kindergarten instead of as a baby? We don't yet know. Patterns of language learning and language use are complex. But Gigi Luk at Harvard cites at least one brain-imaging study on adolescents that shows similar changes in brain structure when compared with those who are bilingual from birth, even when they didn't begin practicing a second language in earnest before late childhood. 2. Empathy: bilingual children as young as age 3, because they must follow social cues to figure out which language to use with which person and in what setting, have demonstrated a head start on tests of perspective-taking and theory of mind - both of which are fundamental social and emotional skills. 3. Reading (English): students enrolled in dual-language programs outperformed their peers in English-reading skills by a full school year's worth of learning by the end of middle school. 4. School performance and engagement: compared with students in English-only classrooms or in one-way immersion, dual-language students have somewhat higher test scores and also seem to be happier in school. Attendance is better, behavioral problems fewer, parent involvement higher. 5. Diversity and integration: Because dual-language schools are composed of native English speakers deliberately placed together with recent immigrants, they tend to be more ethnically and socioeconomically balanced. And there is some evidence that this helps kids of all backgrounds gain comfort with diversity and different cultures. 6. Protection against cognitive decline and dementia: actively using two languages seems to have a protective effect against age-related demen

Being bilingual makes you smarter and can have a profound effect on your brain.

Being bilingual does create certain conflicts between the two language systems that are constantly churning inside a person's head, however, it may be this conflict that allows bilingual children to solve puzzles faster than monolingual children. There seems to be substantial evidence for this using controlled test puzzles, but one must wonder how a puzzle could equate to the real world, and if bilingualism may become a commodity that every parent will strive for their children to attain.

Dr. Nick Perham, a lecturer in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, conducted a 2010 study, "Can preference for background music mediate the irrelevant sound effect?", that shows how music can interfere with short-term memory performance. Perham had subjects conduct a certain task, in this case recalling a series of numbers, while listening to different kinds of background music. If sound exhibits acoustical variations, or what Perham calls an "acute changing-state," performance is impaired. Steady-state sounds with little acoustical variation don't impair performance nearly as much. Perham asked his subjects how they thought they performed when exposed to different tastes in music. Each reported performing much worse when listening to disliked music, although the study's results showed no difference. However, Perham found no distinction in performance, regardless of whether the music was liked or disliked: both were "worse than the quiet control condition. Both impaired performance on serial-recall tasks." The interviewer queried how curious how prevalent serial-recall is in everyday life, and if one could get by without developing this skill. Unlikely, Perham says, as one would have tremendous difficulty recalling phone numbers, doing mental arithmetic, and even learning languages. "Requiring the learning of ordered information has also been found to underpin language learning. If you consider language, learning syntax of language, learning the rules that govern how we put a sentence together, all of these require order information . . . " Perham says.

Climate change has an effect on the survival of languages. There are over 7,000 languages spoken around the world today, but only half of those languages are predicted to survive the century. Communities in Sulawesi were studied in order to witness the diminishing of languages.

In recent studies, Professor Gabrielle S. Adams, of the London Business School, found that misunderstandings often exist between the victims of harm and the people who committed the harm. In many cases, the transgressors did not intend a negative effect, whereas the victims tended to think that the damage was intentional. In addition, transgressors frequently felt guilty and wanted to be forgiven much more than their victims realized. When someone feels wronged, it can help to actively empathize with the person who is perceived as the wrongdoer, according to a study that Professor Adams conducted along with M. Ena Inesi, also of the London Business School. That can enable the victim to realize that the transgressor may well wish to be forgiven, their study found. By making it a point to resolve conflicts by encouraging empathy and forgiveness, workers and managers can improve workplace conditions.

Researchers found that people tend to rate discoveries that came about "like a light bulb" as more exceptional than those that are "nurtured like seeds." These two metaphors are often used to describe scientific discovery and what we perceive as genius. Along with them come ingrained, subconscious associations that may have unintended consequences, according to a study published Friday in Social Psychological and Personality Science. Also, those metaphors had different effects depending on the gender of the idea's creator.