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PubMed1992

Computer methods in child language research: four principles for the use of archived data.

With the increasing use of computers in language research, there is a need for caution concerning several new issues of data accountability. This paper presents four principles for archive-based language research: Maximum Readability and Minimum Bias; Consistent Encoding for exhaustive computer search; Systematic Contrastiveness; and Data Comparability in elicitation, transcription and coding. These and related principles are illustrated by examples from existing computer archives, and strategies are suggested for minimizing detrimental effects of violations. Finally, the paper describes some implications of the principles for properties of a field-wide and international standard of transcription of language data.

Archives↗
PubMed1991

Significant progress in child language intervention: an 11-year retrospective.

This literature review summarizes knowledge gained from 151 articles on child language intervention published between 1978 and 1988. A general theoretical framework for viewing language development is offered as a basis for evaluating progress in the development of language intervention efforts. New developments and issues requiring further investigations are highlighted for five themes that characterize much of the language intervention research in recent years: (1) the development of augmentative and alternative communication systems, (2) the provision of language stimulation to take advantage of observational learning, (3) the teaching of various language functions, (4) the teaching of language as a means of environmental- and self-control, and (5) the study of different types of generalization processes.

Child↗
PubMed1992

Research in child language disorders: what do we know and where are we going?

Advances in understanding the nature of language impairment in children over the past decade have been abundant. In this paper, several recurring hypotheses about the nature of the clinical disorder of language impairment in children and underlying etiologies are explored and the ways in which we are moving forward in our understanding of them are considered. Specifically, in the first part, the recent thinking on the nature of specific language impairment as a clinical concept is examined. Characteristics of the population are reviewed and the search for causation is considered. Literature on the relations between language and cognition and between language and social cognition is probed for contributions to our understanding of developmental disorders of language. Two areas in which we have seen marked progress and which hold promise for development in the coming decade are the focus of the second part of the paper. The focal areas are: computer-assisted language sample analyses and neurophysiological contribution to understanding language impairment in children. Thoughts about future directions for work in the area of developmental disorders of language are offered in conclusion.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Methods for characterizing participants' nonmainstream dialect use in child language research.

Three different approaches to the characterization of research participants' nonmainstream dialect use can be found in the literature. They include listener judgment ratings, type-based counts of nonmainstream pattern use, and token-based counts. In this paper, we examined these three approaches, as well as shortcuts to these methods, using language samples from 93 children previously described in J. Oetting and J. McDonald (2001). Nonmainstream dialects represented in the samples included rural Louisiana versions of Southern White English (SWE) and Southern African American English (SAAE). Depending on the method and shortcut used, correct dialect classifications (SWE or SAAE) were made for 88% to 97% of the participants; however, regression algorithms had to be applied to the type- and token-based results to achieve these outcomes. For characterizing the rate at which the participants produced the nonmainstream patterns, the token-based methods were found to be superior to the others, but estimates from all approaches were moderately to highly correlated with each other. When type- and/or token-based methods were used to characterize participants' dialect type and rate, the number of patterns included in the analyses could be substantially reduced without significantly affecting the validity of the outcomes. These findings have important implications for future child language studies that are done within the context of dialect diversity.

Child↗
PubMed2000

Child language with mother and with stranger at home and in the laboratory: a methodological study.

This methodological study in 33 two-year-olds shows that child speech (total utterances, word roots, MLU) occurs at about the same level in different settings (the familiar home vs. the unfamiliar laboratory), but that children speak more and in more differentiated ways with different people (mother vs. stranger). Child speech also shows significant short-term stability. Girls use more different word roots and speak in longer utterances than do boys. In spontaneous child speech, cross-context generalizations appear warranted, but they also depend on conversational partner and gender of child.

Child Language↗
PubMed1989

The validity of a parent report instrument of child language at twenty months.

When carefully assessed and analysed, parent report can provide a valuable overall evaluation of children's language at 20 months. Norming information and validity coefficients are presented here for a vocabulary checklist assessment included in the Early Language Inventory. Normative data are provided for fullterm, preterm, and precocious samples, including selected vocabulatory subsets that are indicative of early language learning style. The vocabulary checklist has substantial validity as indexed by correlations with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and particularly with a language subscale derived from that test.

Child Language↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Measuring variability in early child language: don't shoot the messenger.

Feldman et al. criticize the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) as having too much variability, too little stability, and insufficient ability to predict early language delay. We present data showing that these characteristics of the CDI are authentic reflections of individual differences in early language development rather than measurement deficiencies. We also respond to their critical assertions concerning sociodemographic influences on the CDI scores.

Child Development↗
PubMed2002

Form is easy, meaning is hard: resolving a paradox in early child language.

A developmental paradox is discussed: studies of infant processing of language and language-like stimuli indicate considerable ability to abstract patterns over specific items and to distinguish natural from unnatural English sentences. In contrast, studies of toddler language production find little ability to generalize patterns over specific English words or constructions. Thus, infants appear to be abstract auditory or language processors whereas toddlers appear to be non-abstract, item-specific language users. Three resolutions are offered to this paradox. The first, that no resolution is necessary because only the toddler findings come from language use in a communicative context and so only the toddler findings are relevant to linguistic knowledge, is rejected. The second, that the contradictions are rooted in the differing methodologies of the two sets of studies (comprehension vs. production), is found to explain important aspects of the contradictory findings. The third, that the contractions come from the differing content of the stimuli in the studies, is also found to be explanatory and is argued to carry greater weight. Resolution 3 suggests that the patterns that infants extract from their linguistic input are not yet tied to meaning; thus, toddlers do not lose these earlier-abstracted forms but their use of them is limited until they have been integrated with meaning. It is argued that in language acquisition, learning form is easy but learning meaning, and especially linking meanings and forms, is hard.

Child Language↗