Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The objective of this study was to analyze the prevalence of overweight, obesity, physical activity levels, and self-esteem of the school children population of San Pedro Sula. The sample was 825 children aged 9-13 years, which were divided into 416 girls and 409 boys. Measurements of BMI (kg/H^2), Physical Activity level (PAQ-C) and Self-esteem (LAWSEQ) were made. A factorial analysis (ANOVA) was performed to observe differences between groups and the Pearson correlation for the study of the relationship of variables with 95% confidence intervals. It was found that 79.8% are in a healthy weight state; 14.8% in overweight and obesity, and 5.3% in malnutrition. It was also found that a moderate level of physical activity predominates in most of the children and a low self-esteem level in 46.9% and average self-esteem of 50.5%. Another finding was that the level of physical activity has a highly positive correlation with sex, being higher in boys than in girls; also physical activity has a very high positive correlation (r = 0.81, p = 0.001) with self-esteem. Our results indicate that children in Honduras show a greater practice of physical activity by children than that of girls. In addition, it was found that a higher level of physical activity could be associated with better self-esteem in children.

The purpose of this research was to determinate the effect of a motor intervention based on the guided discovery method on the fundamental motor skills of a typical child. A 9-year-old child participated in the study, who feels physically active, practices sports regularly, attend primary school and has a normal state of health and cognition. The intervention was applied for 6 weeks, 2 evaluation sessions assess by the IPBM before and after intervention, and 4 practical sessions of 60 minutes, one day of the week for 4 weeks. For the analysis of the results, the percentage of change was used. The results after the intervention showed improvements in the percentage of change in 4 of the locomotor patterns between 33.33% and 300%; in manipulative patterns between 37.5% and 900%; as well as a 50% improvement in total locomotor skills and 85.18% in total manipulative skills. And a global improvement in PBM of 65.08%. Therefore, it is concluded that after this case study, an intervention model based on the method used can be a useful tool to improve fundamental motor skills in children.

We analyzed the results obtained from the benefits of equine-assisted therapy in gait variables (balance, coordination and postural control) on people over eighteen years old with transitory or permanent physical and/or physiological deficiencies secondary to stroke (ischemic or hemorrhagic) or multiple sclerosis (relapse remission and/or secondary progressive) after their participation in the therapy. The methodology used was a narrative review of the existing up-to-date literature with a systematic research method on the following databases: PubMed, SciELO, LILACS, and Scopus in order to make a bibliographical update about the topic. At last, eleven articles were selected for further analysis (systematic reviews, Randomized Clinical Trial, a case-control study). The results of these articles agree that the use of equine-assisted therapy can be effective in improving the variables mentioned above. However, there is not enough information available on different search engines, so there is a need to conduct studies with a representative sample size where they have to use the same evaluation scales in order to be able to objectify and standardize the results. Conclusion: nowadays around the world there are different studies, which indicate that equine-assisted therapy can be an effective tool in the rehabilitation of the different components that affect gait, such as balance or coordination, in people with motor impairments secondary to stroke (ischemic or hemorrhagic) or Multiple Sclerosis (relapse remission and/or secondary progressive). Therefore, we could consider the use of equine-assisted therapy as a therapeutic tool in the rehabilitation process of gait in people over eighteen years old with neurological damage.

The gait in people with visual impairment (PWVI) has several variations that affect functionality and health, especially because it affects the skeletal muscle system. Purpose: perform a literature review in order to analyze the pattern of the walk, as well as the implications it has on individuals with low vision and blindness. Method: a systematic review was carried out in the following databases: SportDiscus with full text, psycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Rehabilitation & Sports Medicine Source, Google Scholar, Research Gate, PubMed. Results: The way of walking is slower in the PWVI, they are cautious in the march, to protect themselves, although the surrounding is clear. The disadvantage of this variable is that people do not walk according to the optimal level of walking according to their age and height (recommended speed), so there would be no economy of movement, in addition, its functionality is also affected. Conclusions: The investigations showed that the PWVI, had atypical marches where they found in some cases greater ranges of movement in the involved joints, or on the contrary diminished movements, indicating small or forced movements, unnatural and therefore greater stress muscle and bone. It is very important the assessment in real situations on the PWVI, to be able to provide them with tools that can help them in their independent roll and accessibility.

This paper describes a genre-based exploration of the rhetorical structure and use of interpersonal metadiscourse features in the Results and Discussion sections of 32 research articles written in English from the discipline of Food Science & Technology. The rhetorical moves and steps enacted in this section are first looked into. Following this, I have quantitatively assessed the researchers’ use of some interactional metadiscoursal units, drawing on Hyland’s framework (2005a, 2005b). As the corpus of analysis is made up of 16 papers authored by English L1 researchers, while another 16 have been written by Spanish researchers with English as their L2, it is also my aim to account for any differences with regard to the presence and frequency of use of the different moves/steps identified, and of the interactional metadiscoursal features selected for analysis in each of the two sub-corpora. Possible cross-cultural variations identified in the L1 and L2 corpus will be discussed. Findings indicate that results are presented and discussed mainly through obligatory Moves 2 and 3, and, to a lesser extent, Move 1. This exploratory approach has shown statistically significant differences for the categories of hedges and authorial presence, making them the strategies most often deployed by researchers with English as their L1.

Oral comprehension is an important competence for a second language learner but one that requires significant practice and guidance. Considerable literature exists on the factors that appear to play a role in the development of oral comprehension, which can be classified as perceptual, cognitive or metacognitive, and in the teaching and learning strategies that support this process. A MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning) app, called the Audio News Trainer (ANT), was developed by the authors to support students in the development of oral comprehension, by presenting them with audio news recordings together with related learning activities. There are two versions of the app, one for individual use and another one that is connected to Facebook to reinforce psychopedagogical aspects relevant in the development of oral comprehension. Two research questions are explored in this article, regarding the use of this social network to motivate students and help them become more self-regulated; and they are addressed by means of questionnaires and experimental data gathered using ANT. The results obtained from such analyses show that the guided interaction between second language students in the social network Facebook made a significant impact in terms of the students’ motivation and self-regulation measurable in their development of oral comprehension.

This paper analyses the choice of sloppy and strict interpretations of reflexive anaphora in verb phrase ellipsis from the perspective of Relevance Theory (RT) (Sperber and Wilson 1986, 1995, 2002, 2008; Wilson and Sperber 2002, 2004). Forty-four Spanish learners of English and 29 native speakers of English were administered two judgement tasks designed to gauge the effect of the Communicative Principle of Relevance on their interpretation of reflexive anaphora in bare, referential and non-referential contexts. Results showed that, in accordance with this principle, the sloppy interpretation is favoured in bare and non-referential contexts, while strict readings prevail in referential contexts, these preferences being less marked for L2 learners than for native speakers. Moreover, the sloppy interpretation is chosen more frequently when native speakers are given a non-referential context, whereas it decreases when L2 learners are provided with the very same context, indicating that the syntax-pragmatics interface makes up an information processing load and acts as a distractor for L2 English learners.

This paper explores the prevalent simplification of morphosyntactic features occurring in Postcolonial Englishes (cf. e.g. Williams 1987) by addressing the hypothesis that finite complement clauses (CCs) should be more common in these varieties than a non-finite counterpart due to their higher explicitness. The hypothesis is tested in two varieties of English, British English as a reference variety and Indian English, exploring the complementation profile of REMEMBER by means of a corpus-based approach. In addition, a variable analysis aims at shedding light on the language-internal features potentially conditioning the choice between CCs in competition. The results partially confirm the hypothesis; there is a larger proportion of finite CCs in Indian English than in British English but non-finite CCs are the most common option in the two varieties. Furthermore, not only simplification, but also other factors such as substrate influence or second-language acquisition processes may be responsible for the distribution found in Indian English. As for language-internal features, while some factors condition the choice across varieties, others are variety-specific.

Irony has been approached by different disciplines concerned with language. The more socio-historical approach taken by literary theorists contrasts with the more analytical bias of linguistic accounts. A comparative study of both perspectives reveals the need to enhance mutual cross-disciplinary dialogue with a view to producing a constructive integrated perspective. Following this premise, this paper puts forward an approach that combines insights from inferential pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, and literary theory. It acknowledges the centrality of the relevance-theoretic notion of echo, taken as a cognitive mechanism rather than just as a pragmatic phenomenon. In this view, irony arises from the clash between an echoed and an observed scenario, which reveals the speaker’s attitude. The construction of the former is constrained by socio-cultural, communicative, and personal factors. This view allows for a distinction between different types of ironist (communicator) and interpreter (addressee), a study of their roles in the ironic event, and a classification of echoed scenarios from the standpoint of their grounding in an array of personal and presumed interpersonal beliefs, and in socio-cultural stereotypes. It also allows for a correlation between irony types and echoed scenario types and reveals the gradable character of the pragmatic felicity of the ironic act.

In this paper I analyse the neologisms used in four dystopian novels –Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Dave Eggers’s The Circle (2013)– from a morphological point of view. Lexical innovation is accounted for in the light of three criteria: types of neologisms according to morphological analysis, fields of use, and motivations for their creation. It is concluded that the shared reasons behind the use of neologisms built by means of word-formation devices (derivation, composition and shortening) are basically pragmatic and manipulative, and that, as part of discourse, the new lexical items thus created become efficient tools, since they provide a hint of authenticity in the fictional worlds portrayed and contribute to the critical and didactic quality of dystopian narrative.