Reading activities

Activity 12
Given time: 20 minutes
Level: B1
Stage of activity: pre

Children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) may have many speech symptoms or characteristics that vary depending on their age and the severity of their speech problems. CAS can be associated with:

Delayed onset of first words
A limited number of spoken words
The ability to form only a few consonant or vowel sounds
These symptoms are usually noticed between ages 18 months and 2 years, and may indicate suspected CAS. As children produce more speech, usually between ages 2 and 4, characteristics that likely indicate CAS include:
Vowel and consonant distortions
Separation of syllables in or between words
Voicing errors, such as "pie" sounding like "bye"
Many children with CAS have difficulty getting their jaws, lips and tongues to the correct positions to make a sound, and they may have difficulty moving smoothly to the next sound. Many children with CAS also have language problems, such as reduced vocabulary or difficulty with word order. Some symptoms may be unique to children with CAS and can be helpful to diagnose the problem. However, some symptoms of CAS are also symptoms of other types of speech or language disorders. It's difficult to diagnose CAS if a child has only symptoms that are found both in CAS and in other types of speech or language disorders.
Read the text carefully and answer the questions
1) What does childhood apraxia of speech have that depending on their age and speech problems?
2) What can CAS be connected with?
3) When are the symptoms noticed ?
4) Which age does children pronounce speech
5) Which characteristics do CAS include?
6) Which difficulties have CAS children to make sound

Activity 13
Given time: 15 minutes
Level: B1
Stage of activity: while
Blindness is strictly defined as the state of being sightless in both eyes. A completely blind individual is unable to see at all. The word blindness, however, is commonly used as a relative term to signify visual impairment, or low vision, meaning that even with eyeglasses, contact lenses, medicine, or surgery, a person does not see well. Vision impairment can range from mild to severe.
Worldwide, between 300 million and 400 million people are visually impaired due to various causes. Of this group, approximately 50 million people are blind, unable to see light in either eye. Eighty percent of blindness occurs in people over 50 years old.
Common causes of blindness include diabetes, macular degeneration, traumatic injuries, infections of the cornea or retina, glaucoma, and inability to obtain any glasses.
Less common causes of blindness include vitamin A deficiency, retinopathy of prematurity, vascular disease involving the retina or optic nerve including stroke, ocular inflammatory disease, retinitis pigmentosa, primary or secondary malignancies of the eye, congenital abnormalities, hereditary diseases of the eye, and chemical poisoning from toxic agents such as methanol.