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PubMed2001

When is an assessment an intervention? Parent perception of infant intentionality and language.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the process of having parents rate their infant's intentionality and language using parent-report questionnaires influences parents' tendency to view infants as intentional or linguistic. METHOD: The Infant Intentionality Questionnaire (IIQ) and the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) were administered to three groups of mothers. Forty mothers completed the interviews longitudinally when their infants were 8, 10 and 12 months old. A group of 20 mothers completed the interviews longitudinally when their infants were 10 and 12 months old. A third group of 20 mothers completed the interviews at 12 months only. RESULTS: IIQ scores increased across age but also were higher if parents had more experience with the questionnaire. CDI scores increased with age, but there was no effect of repeated testing. CONCLUSIONS: Previous experience with the IIQ seems to have enhanced the tendency to perceive intentionality. In contrast, repeated testing with the CDI did not alter parent perception of child language. These results suggest that some parent-report instruments (e.g., the IIQ) can alter the test-taker's awareness and thus could serve as an intervention. Parent-report instruments that tap something that is salient, familiar, and easily observable (e.g., the child's language) are less likely to alter the parent's perception.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

What's /depsilonr/? An anomalous error in a child with specific language impairment.

This longitudinal case study describes an anomalous error produced by a child with specific language impairment (SLI), MM, whose language development was documented from ages 3 through 7 years. Twelve spontaneous language samples were analysed. Across nine language samples MM produced the phonetic sequence /depsilonr/ in ungrammatical contexts as if it were the nominative third person plural pronoun, for example, with a past tense form (e.g. */depsilonr/ ate dinner). The phonetic sequence /depsilonr/ may have been either their, a case error, or they're, inclusion of a form of BE in an unexpected context. In this paper, we examine and describe the distribution of /depsilonr/ and the development of pronominal forms and the verb BE in order to account for the anomalous error.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1979

Process /prá/,ses/n: the action of moving forward progressively from one point to another on the way to completion.

A rationale for the application of a stage process model for the language-disordered child is presented. The major behaviors of the communicative system (pragmatic-semantic-syntactic-phonological) are summarized and organized in stages from prelinguistic to the adult level. The article provides clinicians with guidelines, based on complexity, for the content and sequencing of communicative behaviors to be used in planning remedial programs.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

[Evolution of the communicative function].

This presentation of recent developments in child language research attempts to show that communicative competence is not built solely upon purely linguistic foundations. The development of communicative competence cannot be considered to begin with the first words. There is a growing body of evidence showing that functional communication appears long before the child's first uses of meaning-bearing sound sequences based on the adult language. Adult-child interaction, both during prelinguistic and early linguistic stages, provides an essential framework upon which verbal communication is based. The acquisition of what can be considered as pragmatic competence, necessary for all communication, begins from the birth.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1983

Elicited imitation and the Oral Language Sentence Imitation Screening Test (OLSIST): content or context?

Ten language-normal children, aged 2:1-3:3 (yrs:mos), and eight language-impaired children, 3:7-4:1, in Brown's (1973) Stages II or III received two subtests of the Oral Language Sentence Imitation Screening Test (OLSIST: Zachman, Huisingh, Jorgenson, & Barrett, 1978) in a contextually supported condition and in a standardized test condition. Also, children's generation of eight grammatical morphemes in a spontaneous language sample condition was compared to their imitative control of the same structures on the OLSIST. Results indicated significantly enhanced imitative performance for the language-impaired children but not for the language-normal children in the contextually cued condition. Stage III language-normal children earned significantly better imitative scores than language-impaired subjects and Stage II language-normal children, regardless of test condition, although OLSIST subtests did not differentiate performance of any group. With only one exception, morpheme difficulty orders on the OLSIST did not predict morpheme orders in spontaneous language samples. Presence of cues, moreover, did not significantly increase the OLSIST's predictive ability. With the exception of Stage III language-normal subjects, all children displayed greater productive control of most morphemes in their spontaneous speech. Conclusions were drawn relative to the clinical significance of contextual reliance as well as alternatives to imitation testing for estimating the grammatical skills of the language-impaired child.

Child Language↗
PubMed1982

The effects of child maltreatment on language development.

The separate effects of child neglect, abuse, and their interaction upon language development as measured by the Preschool Language Scale were examined in four groups of children (n = 79) in a quasi-experimental design. There were three groups of maltreated subjects, all drawn from a treatment center: an abused only group (n = 13), a neglected only group (n = 7), and an abused and neglected group (n = 31); a non-maltreated group (n = 28) was drawn from a day care center. Abuse, neglect, and their interaction were used to predict both auditory comprehension and verbal ability as separate criteria in two stepwise multiple regression equations, where the variance attributable to gender and mother's status on Aid to Dependent Children had been removed. Child neglect was found to predict significantly both auditory comprehension and verbal ability. Neither child abuse nor the interaction between abuse and neglect significantly predicted either dependent variable. These findings suggest that child neglect may be the critical type of maltreatment associated with language delay.

Child↗
PubMed1999

Maternal sensitivity predicts language gain in preschool children who are deaf and hard of hearing.

The link between maternal sensitivity and child language gain was assessed in a prospective study of hearing mothers and their deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) children. Maternal sensitivity in dyadic interaction was assessed when children were approximately 2 years old, and expressive language gain was assessed at 2 to 3 years using the Minnesota Child Development Inventory. Sensitivity made significant, positive, and unique predictions of expressive language gain when the effects of maternal education, degree of child hearing loss, dyadic mode of communication, and time between assessments were controlled. Findings indicate the value of affective measures of interaction in predicting language gain.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1997

Differential productivity in young children's use of nouns and verbs.

A fundamental question of child language acquisition is children's productivity with newly learned forms. The current study addressed this question experimentally with children just beginning to combine words. Ten children between 1;6 and 1;11 were taught four new words, two nouns and two verbs, over multiple sessions. All four words were modelled in minimal syntactic contexts. The experimenter gave children multiple opportunities to produce the words and made attempts to elicit morphological endings (plural for nouns, past tense for verbs). Overall, children combined the novel nouns productively with already known words much more often than they did the novel verbs-by many orders of magnitude. Several children also pluralized a newly learned noun, whereas none of them formed a past tense with a newly learned verb. A follow-up study using a slightly different methodology confirmed the finding of limited syntactic productivity with verbs. Hypotheses accounting for this asymmetry in the early use of nouns and verbs are discussed.

Child Language↗
PubMed1999

Parental language and verbal responsiveness to children in crowded homes.

This article is a secondary data analysis of the University of Kansas Language Acquisition Project, which intensively studied, on a regular basis, parent and child language from age 6 months to 30 months. The association between residential density and parent-child speech was examined. Parents in crowded homes speak in less complex, sophisticated ways with their children compared with parents in uncrowded homes, and this association is mediated by parental responsiveness. Parents in more crowded homes are less verbally responsive to their children. This in turn accounts for their simpler, less sophisticated speech to their children. This mediational pathway is evident with statistical controls for socioeconomic status. This model may help explain prior findings showing a link between residential crowding and delayed cognitive development.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1996

Language, communication, and transference in child analysis. I. Selective mutism: the medium is the message.

Selective mutism is a psychiatric condition in which children stop speaking to all except their closest family members. Analytic material from a 4 1/2-year-old selectively mute child demonstrates how his symptom of mutism was embedded in a character structure in which not only verbal dialogue but play and other nonverbal communication were disrupted. Because communication was severely limited, I modified my analytic technique. Despite obstacles to communication, conflicts from different developmental levels were revived in the transference. Even in these difficult circumstances, analytic work in the transference resulted in significant change.

Child Language↗
PubMed1996

Language, communication, and transference in child analysis. II. Is child analysis really analysis?

Is child analysis really analysis? The child patient does not free associate, communicates to the analyst in large measure nonverbally, and operates from a different psychic organization than the adult. Nevertheless, child and adult analysis share the same basic principles, despite different techniques. Using clinical examples from Jeremy's analysis, I discuss how child analysis could benefit from greater use of analysis of transference and analysis of defense. I then discuss recent questions about the place of verbalization and interpretation in child analysis. This issue parallels polarities in adult theory concerning insight and relationship. Analysts should pay more attention to the similarities between child and adult analysis, so that information can be shared between both subspecialties.

Child Language↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Four-year language outcomes of children exposed to cocaine in utero.

A large cohort of children exposed to cocaine in utero (n=189) were followed prospectively from birth to 4 years of age and compared to nonexposed children (n=185) on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool (CELF-P), a measure of receptive and expressive language abilities. Children exposed to cocaine in utero performed more poorly on the expressive and total language measures than nonexposed children after controlling for confounding variables, including prenatal exposure to alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco, as well as medical and sociodemographic variables. Children exposed to cocaine had more mild receptive language delays than nonexposed children and were less likely to have higher expressive abilities. Also, maternal factors such as language ability, performance IQ, race, and education correlated with child language abilities. Prenatal cigarette and marijuana exposure were related to deficits in specific language skills. Children placed in adoptive or foster care who were cocaine exposed demonstrated superior language skills compared to children exposed to cocaine who remained in biological relative or mother's care. These findings support a cocaine-specific effect on language skills in early childhood that may be modified with an enriched environment.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The relation of child care to cognitive and language development. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network.

Children from 10 sites in the United States were followed from birth to age 3 to determine how experiences in child care relate to cognitive and language development (Ns varied between 595 and 856, depending on the assessment). Multiple assessments of family and child care environments and of cognitive and language competence were collected. Analyses that adjusted for maternal vocabulary score, family income, child gender, observed quality of the home environment, and observed maternal cognitive stimulation indicated that the overall quality of child care, and language stimulation in particular, was consistently but modestly related to cognitive and language outcomes at ages 15, 24, and 36 months. The effect sizes for high (top quartile) versus low (bottom quartile) quality ranged from .18 to .48. After adjusting for child care quality, cumulative experience in center-based care was associated with better outcomes than was participation in other types of care. The amount of time children spent in care was not related to outcomes. Children in exclusive maternal care did not differ systematically from children in child care. Tests for lagged relations of earlier child care experiences to later performance (adjusting for current child care) showed that language stimulation predicted subsequent cognitive and language performance 9 to 12 months later. Although children in center care at age 3 performed better than children in other types of care, earlier experience in child care homes was associated with better performance at age 3 than was experience in other types of care. The relations of child care variables to outcomes did not vary consistently as a function of family income, quality of home environment, child gender, or ethnic group.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1975

Language behaviour and child psychotherapy.

The dichotomy between non-verbal or play therapy for the younger and verbal psychotherapy for the older child is questionable in view of the fact that lexical representation begins in the second year of life. It is equally doubtful whether, in the absence of certain communications expressed in verbal symbols, any type of interaction between therapist and child may be called psychotherapy. Language, in varying forms of syntactical and semantic complexity, constitutes the matrix which connects and makes coherent all interactive processes in psychotherapy. This paper attempts to relate some notions of language development to current concepts of child psychotherapy. Linguistic growth is characterized by a fixed gross developmental schedule as well as a specific and universal sequence of acquisition. For the preschooler, still lacking a flexible grammer and syntax to express intricate relationships of perceived events, the value of "interpretations" is doubted; simple statements concerning expression of affect are seen as a rudimentary psychotherapeutic intervention. For the latency child the play situation, with its familiar concrete activity, fuels the child's linguistic competence. Not the play itself but the resulting language becomes the major element of psychotherapy. In late childhood distancing devices and role playing may correct the sociolinguistic asymmetry (adult-child) which inhibits verbal behaviour.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Maternal interaction and language development in children with and without speech-related anomalies.

This study explores relationships among maternal behavior, child language, and location of congenital structural anomaly in three groups of 24-month-old children: 21 with speech-related anomalies (SRA), 13 with non-speech-related anomalies (NSRA), and 45 normal controls. In addition to standardized assessment of intelligence and language, children and mothers were observed in a half-hour videotaped play session, later coded for maternal and child interactive behavior. SRA children showed significantly poorer performance than controls on standardized tests. Mothers of SRA children showed significantly more Physical Teaching and Initiating relative to controls. Mothers of both SRA and NSRA children used significantly more Attention Management than did controls. The pattern of poorer child performance and maternal interactive compensations is largely confined to children whose structural disabilities are speech-related. Maternal interactive behavior is not global in its response to child disability; rather, it varies with the particular pattern of child disabilities found.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Similarities in weak syllable omissions between children with specific language impairment and normally developing language: a preliminary report.

UNLABELLED: Two-year-olds with normally developing language (NL) and older children with specific language impairment (SLI) omit initial weak syllables from words (e.g., "banana" approximately "nana"). Previous research revealed a phonetic "trace" of syllables omitted by children with NL (Carter, 1999; Carter & Gerken, submitted for publication). The present study asked whether similar evidence could be found for omissions by children with SLI. Fourteen children with SLI produced sentences containing reduced or unreduced disyllabic proper names (e.g., "Feed_cinda," from "Feed Lucinda" vs. "Feed Cindy"). Acoustic analyses revealed a significantly longer duration for verb-onset to name-onset of sentences containing the reduced name, indicating that although segmental material is omitted, an acoustic trace remains. In addition, a phonological examination showed similarities between groups regarding sentential and syllabic factors that affect omission rates, as well as an interesting difference that suggests different strategies the groups use in acquiring adult targets. LEARNING OUTCOMES: As a result of reading this article, participants should (1) have a better understanding of similarities and differences in the language production of children with specific language impairment and normally developing language, with regard to prosodic development, (2) be familiar with several models of the phenomenon of weak syllable omissions in children's developing language, and (3) recognize the importance of using a combination of linguistic analysis types when studying issues in child language production.

Child↗