Biomedical subjects

J B Tomblin

Publications and source records attributed to J B Tomblin.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed1989

Auditory temporal pattern learning in children with speech and language impairments.

Four children demonstrating speech and language impairments were examined with respect to their ability to learn to identify certain auditory temporal perceptual information. These children listened to six-element temporal patterns and made judgments about the temporal proximity of two of the elements. Subjects listened to the patterns over a number of exposures ranging from 6 to 14, depending on the subject. Performance on the task improved significantly with repeated exposures. However, the disordered subjects' best performance was still significantly poorer than normal children who had only 1 exposure to the task. These results suggest that, in part, performance differences on temporal perceptual tasks between speech and language disordered children and normal children can be accounted for by differences in perceptual learning. However, because the disordered children never reached normal levels, learning differences may be associated with a fundamental deficit in temporal processing or some other mechanism such as impaired attention.

Attention↗

PubMed1989

The concurrent validity of the Minnesota Child Development Inventory as a measure of young children's language development.

The extent to which the Minnesota Child Development Inventory (MCDI), could be used to estimate levels of language development in 2-year-old children was examined. Fifty-seven children between 23 and 28 months were given the Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development (SICD), and at the same time a parent completed the MCDI. In addition the mean length of utterance (MLU) was obtained for each child from a spontaneous speech sample. The MCDI Expressive Language scale was found to be a strong predictor of both the SICD Expressive scale and MLU. The MCDI Comprehension-Conceptual scale, presumably a receptive language measure, was moderately correlated with the SICD Receptive scale; however, it was also strongly correlated with the expressive measures. These results demonstrated that the Expressive Language scale of the MCDI was a valid predictor of expressive language for 2-year-old children. The MCDI Comprehension-Conceptual scale appeared to assess both receptive and expressive language, thus complicating its interpretation.

Child Development↗

PubMed1989

Familial concentration of developmental language impairment.

A questionnaire concerning the history of treatment of developmental language disorder was used to evaluate the prevalence of these problems within the immediate family members of second-grade children with and without language impairment. The data obtained from these families revealed strong evidence that such language problems are not randomly distributed across families but rather tend to concentrate within families. Although all family members of the language-impaired second graders demonstrated substantially increased odds for language impairment over those who came from families with normal second graders, a considerable range of increased odds for language impairment existed among the family members. Specifically, brothers and to a lesser degree sisters had a higher familial association with language impairment than did the parents. These results suggest that the factors that contribute to developmental language disorders are at least in part associated with the family unit.

Adult↗

PubMed1983

The contribution of perceptual learning to performance on the repetition task.

The hypothesis that the Repetition Task partially reflects the listener's level of perceptual learning was tested in this study. Specifically, it was predicted from data on auditory temporal processing that performance on the Repetition Task would improve with experience. Ten kindergarten children with no known communication problems were given 10 sets of the Repetition Task over a span of 5 days. Analysis of the data revealed a significant difference in performance across interstimulus intervals (ISI) and also over the training period. Performance improved as a function of increments in ISI and number of days of training. The data reflected a significant training effect, thereby supporting the experimental hypothesis. These results suggest the possibility that differences between dysphasic and normal children on the Repetition Task may result from differences in perceptual learning.

Auditory Perceptual Disorders↗

PubMed1982

The communicative function of question production in autistic children.

Six children diagnosed as autistic and who also were reported to be using questions inappropriately in their conversations with adults were each placed in a conversational context in which the adult responses to their questions were systematically varied. The dependent variable was the occurrence and amount of appropriate conversational continuation associated with each type of adult response. Differential listener response did affect the occurrence of conversational continuation and to a lesser degree the amount of continuation. These data were interpreted to support the hypothesis that repetitive questioning in this population serves the communicative function of conversation initiation. Furthermore, it appears that the autistic conversants lack the conversational management skills to maintain the conversation following the listener's answer to the question.

Autistic Disorder↗

PubMed1978

A follow-up study of children with articulation and language disorders.

Thirty-six subjects, 18 language-impaired and 18 articulation-impaired children, were followed up with respect to communication skills and educational performance 13 to 20 years after their initial contact with the Speech and Hearing Clinic. According to their parents, nine language-impaired subjects continued to exhibit communication problems as adults, compared to only one of the articulation-impaired subjects. Standardized educational testing conducted while the subjects were in elementary and secondary schools indicated that the language-impaired group consistently achieved at a lower level than the articulation-impaired group, particularly in reading. Differences between the groups were also exhibited in the types of postsecondary education attempted by the subjects. Clinical, educational, and research implications of these results are discussed.

Achievement↗

PubMed1977

A cineradiographic investigation of children's w/r substitutions.

Articulatory positioning and movement characteristics were compared between /w/ and intended /r/ productions in three children exhibiting w/r substitutions and one normal control subject. High-speed lateral-view cineradiography was utilized. It was found that only the control subject demonstrated significant differences in lip, jaw, and tongue positioning for /w/ compared to /r/. However, systematic patterns of articulatory variability within and between subjects suggested that the experimental subjects were possibly differentiating between /w/ and intended /r/ even though the articulatory target configuration appeared to be nondiscriminatory. Perceptual judgmnets of the tape-recorded utterances mirrored the physiological data in that only those intended /r/ productions involving articulatory positioning clearly different from that of /w/ were perceived as /r/.

Child↗

PubMed1977

Effect of syntactic order on serial-recall performance of hearing-impaired and normal-hearing subjects.

Previous research on the effect of syntactic order on the memory performance of hearing-impaired subjects has indicated that in contrast to normal-hearing subjects the deaf do not make use of the syntactic order of a word string to facilitate retention and recall. The present study used an immediate serial recall paradigm rather than a paired associate paradigm requiring longer term retention. Using this paradigm, 10 normal-hearing, 10 hearing-impaired subjects trained with manual communication, and 10 hearing-impaired trained with oral communication were presented with word strings of four, six, and eight words in length. One set of word strings was syntactically well formed while another was randomly ordered. The subjects were presented the stimuli over nine trials. An analysis of the number of errors for each list length and order condition revealed facilitation due to syntactic order at the eight-word length for all subjects and at the six-word length for the hearing-impaired populations. An error analysis further supported the use of syntactic order by the hearing impaired to facilitate their retention of the word strings. Two ways of resolving the conflict between these results and prior results showing no facilitation are presented. The first recognizes the possible use of an order of mention strategy and its effect upon performance in these two studies. The second notes the differences in the involvement of semantic versus syntactic information in the tasks used in these studies.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Epidemiology of specific language impairment: prenatal and perinatal risk factors.

The prenatal and perinatal risk factors likely to be associated with specific language impairment (SLI) were examined in this study. A review of existing research showed that there have been few studies on this topic. Among children with SLI, greater rates of near relatives with language learning problems has been found. Data obtained from a case-control study of 177 children with SLI and 925 children without sensory, developmental disorders, or language impairment were studied using a parental questionnaire concerning exposures during the prenatal and perinatal period for the index children. Differences between the children with SLI and controls were found for parental characteristics regarding education, positive history of language and learning problems, tobacco smoking, and breast feeding. No support was found for elevated rates of maternal exposure to disease or occupational chemical substances.

Child↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Relationship between parenting behaviours and specific language impairment in children.

This study investigated the relationship between parenting behaviours and specific language impairment (SLI) in children. Using a case-control design, data on 177 kindergarten children with SLI and 925 kindergarten children who were typically developing were collected using a parental questionnaire. Parents were interviewed about parenting practices classified into the following categories: conversing with children, teaching behaviours, the child's daily routine and discipline. The results revealed that parents of children who were normally developing had engaged their children in particular conversational activities more frequently than had parents with children with SLI. Parents of children diagnosed with SLI tended to teach their children school readiness skills (the alphabet and colours) and discipline their children more frequently. These relationships continued to hold after controlling for maternal education and family economic need with the exception of teaching children colour names. The results suggested that additional investigations that examine the association between these parental behaviours and children's language status through direct observation are warranted.

Case-Control Studies↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The association of parental tobacco use and SLI.

Studies on specific language impairments (SLI) have demonstrated that SLI aggregate in families. This may be due to the presence of prenatal and postnatal features of a shared environment, such as parental smoking, that has been associated with lowered cognitive and language outcomes in children of smokers. This study explored the relationship between parental smoking and specific language impairments (SLI) in children. Using a case-control design, data on 177 children with SLI and 925 children who were typically developing were collected using a parental questionnaire concerning parental smoking habits. Maternal and paternal smoking during pregnancy, during children's development and continuous smoking during pregnancy and development were significantly related to SLI. However, when parental education was controlled for, these significant associations no longer existed. It is suggested that parental smoking, although not independently associated with SLI, may be an indicator of a parenting environment that places children at risk for language impairments.

Adult↗