yes / Around 3-6% of children in the United Kingdom have substantial difficulties learning to read, a condition often referred to as dyslexia. They are at high risk of educational underachievement. In a 1996 editorial in The BMJ, Margaret Snowling argued that dyslexia is a verbal (not a visual) disorder.1 An accumulation of evidence supports this position and shows that reading difficulties are best dealt with by interventions that target underlying weaknesses in phonological language skills and letter knowledge.2 The 2009 Rose report, which provides guidance for professionals in schools on identifying and teaching young people with dyslexia and reading difficulties, stresses the importance of early, phonological interventions.3 Despite this evidence, dyslexia is often associated with subjective experiences of visual distortions that lead to discomfort during reading (sometimes termed visual stress). It has been argued that these symptoms can be alleviated by using coloured overlays and lenses.4 Symptoms of visual stress are not unique to dyslexia, and proponents do not claim that the use of colour directly addresses the underlying cause of the reading difficulty. However, they argue that the reduction in visual distortion brought about by a change in colour can improve reading accuracy and fluency.4

yes / We thank Professors Evans and Allen for their interest in our article.1 2 The charity websites we reviewed refer to colour as though it offers a scientific, evidence based treatment; none referred to feedback from the membership. For example, one charity website makes the claim that “Research in the UK and in Australia shows that people who need coloured filters, who are said to have visual stress, need to have exactly the right colour.” This is incorrect. The research overwhelmingly shows little advantage, or at best conflicting results.3 4 5

No description available.

The colour of the green and brown forms of Silobion avenae result from qualitative and quantitative differences in their carotene pigments. The green form contained mainly a-carotene (bicyclic), and the brown form mainly y-carotene (monocyclic), lycopene, torulene and 3', 4'-didehydrolycopene (acyclic). The total carotene content of the brown form was approximately three times higher than the green form. The striking pink colour of male Metopolophium dirhodum was the result of qualitative differences in carotenes present in the green vir'ginoparae of this species. To investigate the possibility that *brown clones had a selective advantage over green clones at long " daylengths, six clones of S. avenae (three green and three dark), were reared on artificial diet, at photoperiods of either 8,16 or 24 h. The fecundity of five of the clones was highest at 16 h and lowest at 8h. One of the brown clones had its highest fecundity at 24 h and lowest at 8h. These results do not support the hypothesis that brown clones have a selective advantage at long daylengths. When a green and a brown clone were exposed to UV light (58 tmol m-2), the brown clone suffered the least mortality and had a significantly lower reduction in fecundity. This result suggests that at high light intensities brown clones have a selective advantage over green clones. Another possible source of selective advantage investigated was the number of bacteriacytes individuals of the above clones possessed. This was estimated by histological examination and no significant difference was foundThe carotenes of S. avenae are not derived from an exogenous source, as three clones were reared on a diet lacking carotenoids for up to three generations, with no loss of pigmentation. Adding chlorotetracycline to the diet did not inhibit the production of carotenes. This result suggests that the symbionts are not synthesising the carotenes. The colour of the offspring of virginoparae, reared on artificial diet at a number of different daylengths, was not affected. When sexual morphs were induced, the oviparae of the brown forms were green. Individuals of an insecticide resistant strain of Myzus persicae, whose symbionts were disrupted by feeding them on a diet containing antibiotic did not show a reduction in the base level of esterase E4 activity, the enzyme conferring resistance in this species. This demonstrates that the bacteriasome is probably not the major site of synthesis of this enzyme

yes / Purpose: There are many anecdotal claims that coloured lenses and overlays improve reading performance and there is a substantial literature on the topic of whether reading performance is enhanced through the use of colour. Here we present the results of a systematic review of this literature and examine the quality of the evidence concerning the assertion that reading can benefit from use of coloured overlays or lenses. Methods: We systematically reviewed the literature concerning the effect of coloured lenses or overlays on reading performance by searching the PsychInfo, Medline and Embase databases. Our searches revealed 51 published items (containing 54 data sets). Different systems are in use for issuing coloured overlays or lenses and we reviewed the evidence under four separate system headings (Intuitive, Irlen, Harris/Chromagen and Other). We classified each published item using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Results: Although the different colour systems have been subjected to different amounts of scientific scrutiny, the results do not differ according to the system type, or whether the sample under investigation have been classified as having visual stress (or a similarly defined condition), reading difficulty, or both. The majority of studies are subject to ‘high’ or ‘uncertain’ risk of bias in one or more key aspects of study design or outcome. Studies at lower risk from bias offered less support for the benefit of colour on reading ability. Whilst many studies report improvements with colour, the effect size is generally small and/or similar to the improvement found with a placebo condition. We discuss the strengths and shortcomings of the published literature and, whilst acknowledging the difficulties associated with conducting trials of this type, offer some suggestions about how future trials might be conducted. Conclusions: Consistent with previous reviews and advice from several professional bodies, we conclude that the use of coloured lenses or overlays to ameliorate reading difficulties cannot be endorsed and that any benefits reported by individuals in clinical settings are likely to be the result of placebo, practice or Hawthorne effects.

After the dissolution of apartheid, racial classification has lost its official and legal validity in South Africa. However, race is still a prominent model for social organisation and racial identities continue to influence the lives of most, if not all, South Africans. The endurance of the social and material reality of blackness and whiteness has been closely examined by anthropologists and other researchers but what about those who do not necessarily conform to either one of these social categories? This thesis focuses on the Coloured population in South Africa, which during the time of apartheid, were officially classified as a separate racial grouping. Today, large parts of the Coloured population are distant descendants of ‘interracial relations’ between the Black, White and indigenous population. They are an extremely diverse group of people with root in many different parts of the world but their collective experience of social and spatial separation from the White and Black population has nevertheless generated a sense of community that continues to operate in post-apartheid South Africa.   Based on four months of fieldwork in South Africa, this thesis explores the concept of Coloured identity in an attempt to explain how this former racial category has been and still is, made into a socially relevant category in the informants’ lives. I also try to illustrate the very multifaceted and unstable notion of colouredness by examining the relationship between the informants’ racial identities and their class identities. This intersectional approach has allowed me to examine Coloured identity as a complex lived experience that reaches far beyond its initial function.

Bibliography: pages 338-363. / This is a descriptive study of the use of English and Afrikaans in Cape Town's District Six - a large inner-city neighbourhood, first settled in the 1840s and, by the implementation of a series of laws, depopulated and almost entirely razed during the 1970s. Each language has a history of having been both a lingua franca and a home language in that area. As lingua francas, both languages were used instrumentally by large numbers of people who had little or no concern with the promotion and preservation of the standard dialects of the languages as a part of maintaining their own identity in the multilingual, multicultural context of the city. The effects of this can be seen in contemporary vernacular English and Afrikaans which differ markedly from the standard dialects, and, it can be argued, show linguistic signs of this long period of language contact. The history of language contact was reconstructed through the use of primary and secondary written resources and oral history records. The distribution of socio-economic power and privilege has not been equal among speakers of the two languages in South Africa as a whole. The cross-currents of discrimination and oppression have affected contemporary attitudes towards the two languages and their dialects in complex ways, producing some clear patterns but also ambivalence and contradictions. This thesis examines those aspects of the history of English and Afrikaans in District Six which have a bearing on current attitudes, practices and dialect features in the segment of District which escaped demolition. Interviews and observation were used to investigate the effects of that history and of geographic and socio-economic factors on the linguistic repertoire of the remaining section of the community.

Magister Artium - MA / A key aim of this study is to shed light on the representation of coloured women with reference to racial passing, using fictive characters depicted in Sarah Gertrude Millin’s (1924) God's Stepchildren, Zoë Wicomb's (2006) Playing in the Light, and Pat Stamatélos's (2005) Kroes, as presented by these three racially distinct female South African authors. Since I propose that literature provides a link between a subjective history and the under-represented narratives from the margins, I use literature to reimagine these. I analyse the ways in which the authors present 'hybrid' identities within their characters in different ways, and provide an explanation and contextual basis for the exploration of the theme of 'passing for and as white' within South Africa's complex history. I provide a sociological explanation of the act of racial passing in South Africa with reference to the United States by incorporating Nella Larsen's (1929) Passing. Since the analyses will concentrate on coloured females within the texts, gendered identity and female sexuality and stereotypes will be the focus. I look at the act and agent of passing, the role of raced and gendered performance in giving meaning to social identities, and the way in which the female body is constructed in racial terms in order to confer identity. Tracing the historical origins of coloured identity and coloured female identity, I interrogate this colonial, post-colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid history by employing a feminist lens. A combination of postcolonial feminist discourse analysis, sociological inquiry and feminist narrative analysis are therefore the methods I use to achieve my research aims. Chapter 1: The concepts of 'coloured', 'coloured identity', and 'passing' are introduced. I provide a historical overview of the origins of 'colouredness' in the South African context to examine the historical, ideological and social implications of the subject matter under discussion. Chapter 2: Set over a period between the years 1821 to 1921 God's Stepchildren deals with a family spanning four generations, bound by 'tainted' blood. I focus on the character Elmira who represents the third generation of the initial 'miscegenation'. I look at the effect the racist social milieu has on the author’s representation of coloured women and how this translates into apparently insurmountable beliefs that stereotypes equal nature. Chapter 3: Playing in the Light confronts racial passing through an unwitting passer and her intentionally passing parents. I analyse how Wicomb presents the protagonist's struggle to relocate her identity in contemporary South African society. I compare the attitudes toward race presented by the characters, especially across the two generations of passing women in the novel in order to demonstrate a progression in attitudes toward passing. Chapter 4: Kroes, published in 2005, is partially biographical. The novel is set in urban Cape Town and Johannesburg of the late 1950s to 1970. The protagonist, and central passing figure, narrates the story in the first person using Cape vernacular Afrikaans. I look at the way in which women are influenced by internalised inferiority, and how arbitrary skin pigmentation is deemed to decide their fate. Chapter 5: I draw together the common themes found in the three works of fiction, and draw inferences from my findings about the representation of coloured women.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This ethnography explores the meanings ofpersonhood and agency in Manen¢berg, a township located on the Cape Flats, in Cape Town South Africa. The township was a site of relocation for people who were classified coloured during the apartheid era and who were forcibly removed from newly declared white areas in the city in the 1960s. I argue that despite the old apartheid state's attempts to reify the meaning of colouredness through racial legislation, the residents ofManenberg created their own meanings of personhood, agency and community within the bureaucratic, social and economic interstices of the apartheid system. Yet at the same time they also reinstated the very structural processes at the heart of their racial and gendered subjugation. I indicate how the cohesiveness of the Rio Street community in Manenberg, the survival of its residents and their validation as respectable mothers, tough men and good daughters hinged on and effioresced from a moral economy that articulated with the structural location of coloured women in the apartheid economy and racial bureaucracy.

Thesis (MMus)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Nowadays Music Community Projects are a common phenomenon in South Africa. These projects start with great ambition to uplift underprivileged communities through music education, but due to various reasons many of these projects unfortunately do not last very long. The Frank Pietersen Music Centre (FPMC) in Paarl, which recently celebrated its fortieth year, suffered many drawbacks during its existence, but also showed unbelievable progress during the same time. At the moment the FPMC is a noticeable institution and the only one of its nature in the Drakenstein district. The centre was established in the Paarl Coloured community during the early years of Apartheid as a result of a shortage of music facilities for this population group. As music was one of the few activities in which this population group could express themselves during this time, various music activities resulted and the need for formal music education for the Paarl Coloured community became more prominent. Mr Frank Pietersen took notice of this need and in 1970 he established the Paarl Schools Music Centre (PSMC). This music centre showed immense progress, but as a result of various reasons it started declining during the late eighties and finally in 1988 it experienced a period of recess. After Mr Pietersen's death in 1989, his son, Mr Vaughan Pietersen, decided to let the PSMC relive. In October 1991 the PSMC celebrated its 21st year and at this occasion it was renamed after its founder and was known thereafter as the Frank Pietersen Music Centre. Since, the centre has reached many milestones and its existence was ensured when it was taken over by the Western Cape Education Department in 1994. At the moment the FPMC provides music education to children and adults, in and outside the borders of the Drakenstein area. Education is provided in nearly all the instruments of the Classical Symphony Orchestra, as well as African instruments and Jazz instruments. It has various instrumental ensembles and choirs and the FPMC is especially well known for its Youth Orchestra. The centre also provides for the needs of the surrounding underprivileged communities by means of outreach programmes that are presented at reasonable fees. The latest addition to the centre's education is the presentation of the full Subject Music programme for scholars and it forms part of the Western Cape Education Department's programme for Further Education and Training. This thesis attempts to research and document the unique history of the FPMC, as well as studying the current functioning of the centre in order to serve as a guide and motivation for other music centres or -projects of a similar nature. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Musiekgemeenskapsprojekte is deesdae ʼn algemene verskynsel in Suid-Afrika. Hierdie projekte begin gewoonlik met groot ambisie met die doel om minderbevoorregte gemeenskappe deur middel van musiekonderrig op te hef, maar as gevolg van verskeie redes gaan baie daarvan net so vinnig weer tot niet. Die Paarlse Frank Pietersen Musieksentrum (FPMS) wat onlangs sy veertigste bestaansjaar gevier het, het tydens sy bestaan deur diep waters gegaan, maar terselfdertyd ook vooruitgegaan. Tans is die FPMS ʼn gerekende instelling en die enigste van sy aard in die Drakensteindistrik. Die sentrum het tydens die vroeë Apartheidsjare in die Paarlse Bruin gemeenskap ontstaan, as gevolg van ʼn tekort aan musiekfasiliteite vir hierdie bevolkingsgroep. Aangesien musiek in daardie tyd een van die min aktiwiteite was waarin hierdie bevolkingsgroep hulself kon uitdruk, het daar verskeie musikale aktiwiteite ontstaan en het die behoefte aan formele musiekonderrig vir die Paarlse Bruin gemeenskap al hoe groter geraak. Mnr. Frank Pietersen het hierdie behoefte raakgesien en het in 1970 die Paarl Skole-Musieksentrum (PSMS) gestig. Hierdie musieksentrum het sterk ontwikkeling getoon, maar as gevolg van verskeie redes het dit in die laat tagtiger jare agteruitgegaan en het uiteindelik in 1988 ʼn periode van reses beleef. Na mnr. Pietersen se dood in 1989, het sy seun, mnr. Vaughan Pietersen besluit om die PSMS te laat herleef. Die PSMS het in Oktober 1991 sy 21ste bestaansjaar gevier en is by hierdie geleentheid vernoem na sy stigter en staan sedertdien bekend as die Frank Pietersen Musieksentrum. Sedertdien het die sentrum vele mylpale bereik en sy voortbestaan is verseker deur die oorname daarvan deur die Wes-Kaapse Onderwysdepartement in 1994. Tans bied die FPMS musiekonderrig aan skoliere èn volwassenes, binne en buite die grense van die Drakensteingebied. Onderrig word aangebied in byna al die instrumente van die Klassieke simfonie-orkes, asook Afrika-instrumente en Jazz-instrumente. Daar bestaan verskeie instrumentale ensembles en kore en die FPMS is veral bekend vir sy Jeugorkes. Die sentrum sien ook om na die behoeftes van die omliggende minderbevoorregte gemeenskappe deur middel van uitreikprogramme wat teen billike tariewe aangebied word. Die nuutste toevoeging tot die sentrum se onderrig is die aanbieding van die volwaardige Vakmusiekprogram vir skoliere, wat ook deel vorm van die Wes-Kaapse Onderwysdepartement se program vir Verdere Onderrig en Opleiding. Met hierdie tesis is gepoog om die unieke geskiedenis van die FPMS so deeglik as moontlik na te vors en op skrif te stel, asook om die huidige funksionering van die sentrum te belig sodat dit as riglyn en aanmoediging kan dien vir ander musieksentra of -projekte van ʼn soortgelyke aard.