Biomedical subjects

B Brinton

Publications and source records attributed to B Brinton.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

Negotiation skills of children with specific language impairment.

This study examined the ability of 6 children with specific language impairment (SLI), ages 8; 10 to 12;5 (yr; mon) to participate in a negotiation sequence with 2 same-age peers in triadic interactions. Negotiation sequences were analyzed using a system based on Selman's interpersonal negotiation strategies (INS) model (Selman, 1981). The negotiation skills of children with SLI were compared to those of 6 children matched for chronological age (CA) and 6 children of similar language (LS) abilities, participating in the same task. Children with SLI did not produce significantly fewer utterances than the partners with whom they interacted. However, they did produce a significantly smaller percentage of the negotiation strategies produced by their triads. They also used developmentally lower level strategies than either of the partners in their triads. Children interacting within the CA and LS triads did not produce similar differences.

Child↗

PubMed1998

Participation in cooperative learning activities by children with specific language impairment.

This study examined the involvement of children with specific language impairment (SLI) in a cooperative group task. Subjects consisted of 6 target children with SLI (ages 8;10 to 12;5), 6 target children matched for chronological age (CA), and 6 target children with similar language skills (LS). Each target subject interacted with 2 peers of the same age and gender. This resulted in 54 subjects participating in 18 triadic interactions (each involving 1 target subject and 2 partners). Each triad of children worked together to build a cardboard periscope. Verbal and nonverbal collaborative activity were analyzed during the interactions. All members of the CA and LS triads were highly collaborative and worked and talked together while assembling the periscope. Four of the children with SLI played very minor roles in the cooperative work within their triads. Their verbal contributions were limited, and their nonverbal activity was minimal. When children with SLI did collaborate in building the periscope, they performed less specialized tasks than did their partners.

Child↗

PubMed1997

The ability of children with specific language impairment to access and participate in an ongoing interaction.

This study investigated the ability of 6 children with specific language impairment (SLI), ages 8;10 to 12;5 (years; months), to enter and participate in an ongoing dyadic interaction. Performance was compared to that of 6 chronological age-matched (CA) peers and 6 language-similar (LS) peers. All children in the LS and CA groups successfully accessed the interaction, and most did so quickly. Two children from the SLI group did not access, and the 4 remaining subjects required varying amounts of time to access. Following successful access, the triadic interactions of subjects were examined. The accessing children with SLI talked significantly less, were addressed significantly less, and collaborated less than either of the partners within their triads. Few significant differences were observed between LS or CA children and their partners.

Child↗

PubMed1994

Ability of institutionalized and community-based adults with retardation to respond to questions in an interview context.

This study examined the ability of adults with mild and moderate levels of retardation to respond to simple and complex questions. The sample consisted of 20 subjects living in an institutional setting and 20 subjects living in the community. A 30-minute language sample, structured as a job interview, was elicited from each subject by an investigator. During the interview, the investigator asked a number of questions interspersed within the conversation. Two levels of questions were presented: simple and complex. Ten questions were presented at each level. Responses were scored in terms of how informative and truthful the subject was (specific scoring conventions were based upon the work of Grice, 1975). The community group produced a significantly greater number of appropriate answers to both simple and complex questions than did the institutional group. Group differences were observed along both parameters of informativeness and truthfulness.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

Responses to requests for conversational repair by adults with mental retardation.

This study focused on adjustments made in conversation in response to listener feedback. Subjects consisted of 22 community-based and 22 institutionalized adults with mental retardation individually matched for full-scale IQ. For each subject, data were collected in a dyadic conversation with an investigator. During the course of the conversation, the investigator introduced stacked sequences of three requests for clarification of the same message ("Huh?" "What?" "What?"). Each subject's responses to these requests were analyzed. Results indicated that community-based subjects used certain sophisticated repair strategies more often than did their institutionalized peers. However, neither group of subjects was as responsive to the requests for clarification as would have been predicted considering their general levels of intellectual and linguistic functioning.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

Responses to requests for clarification by linguistically normal and language-impaired children in conversation.

This study compared the conversational repair strategies employed by 8 language-impaired children (mean chronological age 9:2 years) and their linguistically normal age- and language-matched peers in response to a stacked series of requests for clarification. A 30-min language sample was elicited by an adult examiner from each of the subjects. During the course of the conversation, the examiner initiated 10 stacked request for clarification sequences. Each sequence consisted of three different neutral requests for clarification (Huh?, What?, and I didn't understand that.) and the subject's response to each request. All of the subjects appeared to recognize the obligatory nature of the neutral clarification requests employed. However, there were differences noted in the performance of the three groups. These included differences related to language maturity as well as differences specific to language condition.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1987

The ability of normal and language-impaired children to produce grammatical corrections.

The ability of normal and language-impaired children to correct grammatical violations of word order was examined. Ten language-impaired and 10 linguistically normal subjects were sampled from the following age levels: 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 years, resulting in a total of 100 subjects. Using a procedure designed to focus attention on language form, each of the children performed a task requiring the correction of 10 sentences containing word order errors. Normal 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds performed significantly better than their language-impaired age-matched peers. In addition, the performance of language-impaired 9-, and 10-year-olds was superior to that of the younger impaired groups. In the normal groups, the only age level differences were produced by the 6-year-olds, who performed significantly more poorly than two of the older (8- and 10-year-old) groups.

Attention↗

PubMed1986

Responses to requests for clarification in linguistically normal and language-impaired children.

This study compared the conversational repair strategies employed by language-impaired and normal children in response to a stacked series of requests for clarification. Ten linguistically normal and 10 language-impaired children were sampled from each of the following age levels, 4:10-5:10, 6:10-7:10, and 8:10-9:10, resulting in a total of 60 subjects. Each subject was asked to describe a series of action pictures for an examiner who was seated behind a screen. At regular intervals, the examiner responded to the child's description by initiating a repair sequence. Each sequence consisted of three different neutral requests for clarification ("Huh?", "What?", and "I didn't understand that.") and the subject's response to each request. Although all subjects appeared to recognize the obligatory nature of the neutral clarification requests employed, differences were observed in the repair strategies used by normal and language-impaired children. In addition, impaired and younger normal subjects had greater difficulty responding appropriately as the stacked sequence progressed.

Child↗

PubMed1986

Development of conversational repair strategies in response to requests for clarification.

Conversational repair sequences are an important aspect of communicative interaction. These sequences may occur in the event of communication failure if a listener requests clarification of a previous aspect of the speaker's message. The purpose of this study was to investigate the repair strategies employed in conversation by children at four age levels. Ten linguistically normal children were sampled from each of the following age levels: 2:7 to 3:10, 4:10 to 5:10, 6:10 to 7:10, and 8:10 to 9:10 (years:months), resulting in a total of 40 subjects. Each subject was asked to describe a series of action pictures for an examiner who was seated behind a screen. At regular intervals, the examiner responded to the child's description by initiating a stacked repair sequence. Results indicated that subjects at all age levels complied with the initial request for clarification the majority of the time. However, with increasing age, subjects became more adept at handling the stacked sequence of requests for clarification. Older children were more responsive to the requests, and 9-year-old subjects demonstrated a wider range of strategies in providing repairs.

Child↗

PubMed1985

Elementary school age children's comprehension of specific idiomatic expressions.

This study explored the ability of elementary school age children to comprehend six idiomatic expressions. Eighty linguistically normal children, 20 from each of four different grade levels (kindergarten, second grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade) participated as subjects. All of the children completed a task designed to probe comprehension of specific idioms. A short story was presented, after which the subjects were required to identify events in the story, which were described using idiomatic phrases. When examined as a group, comprehension of the idioms studied improved with increasing age. However, when examined individually, performance was found to be highly variable from idiom to idiom. These results are discussed with regard to clinical implications in the assessment and management of language-disordered children.

Child↗

PubMed1984

Development of topic manipulation skills in discourse.

This study investigated the manipulation of discourse topic in spontaneous conversation in three age groups. Subjects consisted of six dyads of peers at each of the following age levels (years:months): 5:0-5:11, 9:0-9:11, and adults. Fifteen min of discourse were taped, transcribed, and analyzed for each age level. Patterns of topic introduction, reintroduction, maintenance, and shading were considered at each age level. Although considerable variation within groups was evident, the results suggested several developmental trends. The number of topics introduced and reintroduced in the sampling period decreased with age, whereas the proportion of topics maintained increased with age. Additionally, subjects maintained topics for longer sequences of utterances with increasing age. Topic shading also increased with age. These results are discussed with regard to patterns of development, and clinical implications are considered.

Adult↗

PubMed1983

Sampling reliability in elicited imitation.

This study examined the number of trials necessary to obtain sampling reliability in elicited imitation. An examiner-constructed elicited imitation test was administered to 15 language-disordered subjects, sampled from the age range of 5:6 to 6:6 years. All test sentences were controlled for length, syntactic construction, and semantic content. The test instrument contained multiple occurrences of 16 syntactic structures. For each of these forms, subject performance on 1, 3, 5, and 7 trials was compared with performance on 10 trials. It was observed that sampling reliability increased as the number of trials increased, but as few as three repetitions provided reliable data.

Child↗

PubMed1982

A comparison of request-response sequences in the discourse of normal and language-disordered children.

This study compared several discourse characteristics of linguistically normal and language-disordered children. In order to examine interactive skills, several types of request-response sequences were considered. These included choice questions, product questions, request for clarification, and the responses elicited by these speech acts. While neither the linguistically normal nor the language-disordered groups had achieved an adult level of competence, normal children were much more aware of the interactive nature of discourse than language-disordered children. Normals most often responded within the boundaries of an acceptable adult response. Language-disordered children frequently ignored and responded inappropriately to requests. Their responses were occasionally contrary to fact or totally unrelated to the expected information. Some language-disordered subjects also demonstrated linguistic strategies that facilitated the flow of conversation, but showed no understanding of the content of the communicative interchange. The clinical implications of these findings and the need for further research are discussed.

Child↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Comprehension monitoring skills of adults with mental retardation.

The ability of 30 adults with mild and moderate levels of mental retardation to monitor their comprehension while performing a direction-following task was examined. Subjects were "employed" to aid the investigator in compiling objects for gift bags. The task consisted of 60 directions (e.g., "Give me a blue pencil"), of which 6 contained trouble sources (ambiguous directions, unintelligible words, and compliance problems). Each subject's response to the directions involving trouble sources was scored to determine if the subject (a) demonstrated effective comprehension monitoring (as indicated by an immediate awareness of the problem and effective attempt to rectify the problem), (b) requested clarification after attempting to comply with the direction and being unable to do so, (c) demonstrated ineffective comprehension monitoring (as indicated by an awareness of the problem but an ineffective means of dealing with it), or (d) showed no awareness of the trouble source. The ability of subjects to monitor comprehension varied with type of trouble source. Ambiguous trouble sources were the most difficult for the subjects to detect, and compliance-problem trouble sources were the most frequently identified.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Responses to requests for clarification by older and young adults with mental retardation.

This study compared the ability of young (mean chronological age = 29 yrs., SD = 3.67 yrs.) and older adults (chronological age = 63 yrs., SD = 5.54 yrs.) with mild to moderate mental retardation to respond to stacked requests for clarification in conversation. Data were collected in dyadic conversations between subject and investigator. During the course of the conversation, the investigator introduced stacked sequences of three requests for clarification of the same message ("Huh?", "What?", "What?"). Neither group of subjects was as responsive to the requests for clarification as would have been predicted based on their general cognitive and linguistic levels of functioning. Few significant differences were observed between the young and older groups.

Adult↗