Abstract Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the performance of children in preschool age who were born premature and term, without neurological injury, regarding receptive and expressive language skills, and to reflect on the importance of these skills for performance in preschool. Materials and Methods Two groups named Preterm Group and Comparison Group, each composed by 40 children, as well as 80 legal representatives (mothers) and 80 teachers of the participants. To pair the groups, we considered chronological age (months), sex, educational level, type of school (public or private) and socioeconomic status. To assess the groups we used structured and semi-structured Observation of Communicative Behavior and applied the ABFW Child Language Test - Part B-Vocabulary and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. To assess the legal representatives we applied an anamnesis questionnaire and the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory. The assessment of the teachers consisted of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory and a Student Assessment Protocol developed by the authors. Results For the observation of communicative behavior, the categories with the highest losses were: narrative, maintaining dialogic activities and attention difficulties. In the ABFW Child Language Test and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test there were statistically significant differences. In the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory there were statistically significant differences in expressive vocabulary, but no differences in receptive vocabulary, for both the mothers and the teachers. Conclusion Children born prematurely with low risk of neurological sequelae in preschool age may have greater difficulties in linguistic performance than their peers born to term.

Abstract Apple is a fruit crop cultivated worldwide. Apple orchards are exposed to a diverse set of environmental and biological factors that affect the productivity and sustainability of the culture. Many of the efforts and costs for apple production rely on reducing the incidence of fungal diseases, and one of the main diseases is apple scab caused by the fungus Venturia inaequalis. The economic impact of scab on apple productivity has guided many breeding programs to search for cultivars resistant to apple scab. Introgression from wild relatives has been successful to some extent, and genetic engineering for resistant cultivars has even been employed. This review presents the techniques used to the present time to obtain pathogen-resistant apple cultivars and introduces new biotechnological approaches based on plant plasmids that show promising results for delivering genetic traits with a short-term perspective.