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PubMed1986

Generalization of treatment effects by young language-delayed children: a longitudinal analysis.

This study investigated the generalized effects of a language intervention program on the structural aspects of 8 language-delayed preschool children's productive language. Subjects were observed in preschool free play for periods ranging from 12 to 24 months concurrent with receiving daily didactic language intervention. A total of 57 two-, three-, and four-word syntactic forms were taught to criterion. Generalized usage was determined from (verbatim) language samples collected during free play periods in the subjects' classroom. Forty-two (74%) of the treated forms generalized to the subjects' spontaneous language in free play. There was a relationship between the complexity and potential functions of the treated forms and their generalization to free play. This effect may have been related to the subjects' MLUs. Substantial changes also occurred in the subjects' MLUs, frequency of speaking, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test scores, and Houston Test for Language Development scores over the period of instruction. These measures suggested that 4 of the 8 subjects were functioning near the normal range at the conclusion of treatment. Implications of these and other results are discussed.

Child Language↗

PubMed1986

Performance of adults with developmental handicaps on alternate forms of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test.

A total of 154 adults with developmental handicaps involved in a comprehensive community-based habilitation program were tested on alternate forms of the PPVT and PPVT--Revised to determine interest reliabilities. A comparison of response profiles indicated that there was a significant degree of correspondence in general performance using alternate forms (p less than .0001). This correspondence was maintained regardless of whether overall raw score or mental age equivalents were used. However, a comparison of performance on individual test items that were identical on alternate forms showed less consistent results. Particular aspects of the administration and structure of the PPVT/PPVT-R and response characteristics of individuals with developmental handicaps are suggested as being important factors in test administration and interpretation with this population.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

A comprehension monitoring program for language-impaired children.

Four language-impaired children (5:10-8:2) participated in an intervention program designed to improve their comprehension monitoring skills. A set of audiotaped adequate and inadequate messages was presented through the baseline and treatment phases of a multiple-baseline across subjects design, with the dependent variable being the percentage of inadequate messages that were verbally queried. Results revealed rapid increases in verbal queries of five types of inadequate messages in conjunction with progress through the comprehension monitoring treatment program. High levels of comprehension monitoring were maintained following a nontreatment interval of 3-6 weeks. Facilitation of comprehension monitoring skills appears to be a feasible and fruitful adjunct to traditional language intervention objectives.

Child↗

PubMed1986

Incidental language teaching: a critical review.

Incidental language teaching refers to interactions between an adult and a child that arise naturally in an unstructured situation and are used systematically by the adult to transmit new information or give the child practice in developing a communication skill. The purposes of this paper are to review and critique current research on incidental language teaching, briefly discuss the theoretical reasons why incidental teaching might be expected to be effective, and to discuss directions for future research on this teaching approach with children who are language impaired and mentally retarded.

Child↗

PubMed1986

A comparison of microcomputer-aided and traditional language therapy for developing communication skills in nonoral toddlers.

This investigation looked at the vocabulary learning and use, and social and communication growth of 8 severely handicapped toddlers under two different language conditions. A computer-based approach was compared to traditional intervention techniques. Treatment conditions were administered in randomized order by two graduate student clinicians. Communication growth was assessed by using a standard set of measures administered before the intervention, at midpoint between the two treatment conditions, and at the end. The results from this study indicated that the subjects made notable progress regardless of the treatment condition received.

Child↗

PubMed1987

Story recall and inferencing skills in language/learning-disabled and nondisabled children.

Children's ability to recall information and draw inferences from orally presented narratives was examined in sixteen 9- to 10-year-old language/learning-disabled (LLD) children and two groups of normally developing children (sixteen 9- to 10-year-olds and sixteen 6- to 7-year-olds). Short fable-like stories were presented to the children, followed by a series of premise and inference questions (half true and half false). The children were also asked to retell each story in their own words either before or after the question sets. Significant overall differences in performance (p less than .05) were seen between the LLD group and the age-matched control group and between the two control groups. The LLD children did not differ significantly from the younger aged control group. Additionally the LLD group exhibited significantly more disparity between the true and false questions than the age-matched controls. For all the groups, inference questions were significantly more difficult than premise questions. Recall of the story prior to answering questions had no effect on question answering.

Child↗

PubMed1988

Otitis media and language development at 1 year of age.

The effect of otitis media on emerging language was examined in a group of 1-year-olds. Based on pneumatic otoscopy, 15 babies were considered to be free of otitis media in both ears at 80% or more of their first year medical visits (otitis free) and 12 infants had bilaterally positive otoscopy results at 30% or more of their visits (otitis positive). Outcome measures at 1 year included the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (Bayley, 1969) and the Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development (SICD; Hedrick, Prather, & Tobin, 1984) Receptive and Expressive scales. No significant differences were detected on either the Bayley or the SICD Receptive scale. However, the otitis positive group exhibited significantly lower expressive language scores than the otitis free group, suggesting that impairments in language expression may be evident as early as 1 year of age in children with otitis media.

Acoustic Impedance Tests↗

PubMed1988

Longitudinal changes in auditory discrimination in normal children and children with language-learning problems.

Two groups of children--one progressing normally in school and the other exhibiting language-learning problems--were tested in each of 3 years on a set of fine-grained auditory discrimination tasks that required listening for small acoustic differences. Children's ages ranged from 6 to 9 years; there were 21 children per group. The children with language-learning problems, despite having normal intelligence and normal pure-tone sensitivity, showed poorer auditory discrimination than normal children for temporally based acoustic differences. This effect continued across the 3 years. Children with language-learning problems also exhibited poorer receptive vocabulary and language performance as well as more deviations from standard Midwest articulation than children making normal progress in school. All children had hearing within the normal range, but at some frequencies there was a significant association of pure-tone sensitivity with performance on the auditory discrimination, receptive language, and speech production tasks.

Auditory Perception↗

PubMed1989

Effects of imitation on language comprehension and transfer to production in children with mental retardation.

This study investigated the effects of verbal imitation on the comprehension of novel object-location responses and subsequent transfer of these responses to production. A matrix training procedure was used to teach 2 children with moderate mental retardation syntactic rules for combining known and unknown words into two-word utterances. An alternating treatments design was used with two conditions: receptive teaching with imitation of the target phrase and no imitation of the phrase. Findings suggested that the use of imitation facilitated both generalized receptive learning and transfer to production in both subjects.

Child↗

PubMed1989

The Language Development Survey: a screening tool for delayed language in toddlers.

This paper reports data from four studies using the Language Development Survey (LDS), a vocabulary checklist designed for use as a screening tool for the identification of language delay in 2-year-old children. A survey completed by the parent in about 10 min, the LDS displayed excellent reliability as assessed by Cronbach's alpha and test-retest techniques. Total vocabulary score as reported on the LDS was highly correlated with performance on Bayley, Reynell, and Preschool Language Scale expressive vocabulary items. The LDS was found to have excellent sensitivity and specificity for the identification of language delay, with a criterion of fewer than 50 words or no word combinations at 2 years yielding very low false positive and false negative rates. Data from three of these studies demonstrate the utility of the LDS as a screening tool for children attending public and private pediatric practices. Prevalence data using the LDS are reported comparing three different severity cutoffs for more than 500 children in seven survey samples.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed1990

Generalized learning of receptive and expressive action-object responses by language-delayed preschoolers.

This study examined the effectiveness of matrix-training procedures in teaching action + object utterances in both the receptive and expressive language modalities. The subjects were 4 developmentally delayed preschool boys who failed to produce spontaneous, functional two-word utterances. A multiple baseline design across responses with a multiple probe technique was employed. Subjects were taught 4-6 of 48 receptive and 48 expressive responses. Acquisition of a word combination rule was facilitated by the use of familiar lexical items, whereas subsequent acquisition of new lexical knowledge was enhanced by couching training in a previously trained word combination pattern. Although receptive knowledge was not sufficient for the demonstration of corresponding expressive performance for most of the children, only minimal expressive training was required to achieve this objective. For most matrix items, subjects responded receptively before they did so expressively. For 2 subjects, when complete receptive recombinative generalization had not been achieved, expressive training facilitated receptive responding. The results of this study elucidate benefits to training one linguistic aspect (lexical item, word combination pattern) at a time to maximize generalization in developmentally delayed preschoolers.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed1990

Fast mapping of words in event contexts by children with Down syndrome.

Fast mapping of novel words for objects was compared in 48 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (ages 5:6-20:6), who were delayed in expressive language acquisition compared to mental age, and 48 normally developing children matched for mental age (chronological ages 2:0-6:0). Normal and Down syndrome groups did not differ in their ability to infer a connection between the novel word and referent (100% vs. 100%), to comprehend the novel word after a single exposure (83% vs. 73%), and to recall the location in which they hid the novel referent (83% vs. 75%). Nor did they differ in their ability to produce the novel word correctly (at least two out of three phonemes in order: 48% vs. 40%). When retested after an hour of other activity, only the production task showed a significant, and comparable, decrement. Comparing youngest and oldest quarters of each group showed improved memory for location in both, improved comprehension in the Down syndrome group, and improved production in the control group. Adults (n = 12), in contrast, performed perfectly on all tasks except the delayed word production. Neither intelligibility differences nor use of real word labels accounts for the failure to find a difference between groups. Fast mapping skills were unrelated to expressive language deficit in these children with Down syndrome.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1979

Methods of training deaf children to comprehend the passive voice.

Four variations of programmed filmstrips were shown to deaf children to improve comprehension of the passive voice. The design included two training strategies that treated the passive voice either as a unitary structure or as a contrast to the active voice. Within strategies two orders of training were compared for the various types of passive sentences: (nonreversible, reversible, agent-deleted) and (agent-deleted, nonreversible, reversible). Six filmstrips were constructed for the two strategies and three types of passive. Evaluation tests were administered before, immediately after, and three months following training. Forty deaf children were selected from two age ranges, 9 to 12 and 13 to 16 years. Within age groups 10 subjects served under each of the four strategy-order conditions. Evaluation tests consisted of a multiple choice picture-sentence matching test and a performance test in which subjects acted out six passive sentences using toys. Performance test scores increased significantly after training and surpassed pretraining after three months. Highest scores were achieved on nonreversible passives followed by reversible and agent-deleted passives. Reversal of agent and object was the most frequent error. Strategy and order differences were not significant.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1980

Acquisition of the voicing contrast language-delayed and normal-speaking children.

Voicing is a phonological contrast which emerges early in the speech of children. However, the acoustic correlates of the voicing contrast for stop consonants are fairly complex. In the initial position, voicing is cued primarily by the relative timing of articulatory versus laryngeal gestures. In the final position, the duration of the preceding vowel is associated with the voicing contrast of stop consonants. The purpose of this study was to examine the pattern of acquisition of the voicing contrast in the speech of ten children diagnosed as language-delayed in comparison with the acquisition of the voicing contrast by normal speaking children. The language-delayed and normal-speaking children were matched according to mean length of utterance (MLU) and placed in one of Brown's five developmental stages. Each participant was first given a short test, using natural speech, to determine his or her ability to identify minimal pairs differing in the voicing of stop consonants. Those who passed the test were recorded under standard recording conditions repeating 12 test words. The test words contrasted voiced and voiceless stop consonants in initial and final positions. Spectrograms of the three best productions of each word were used to examine voice-onset time for stops in initial position and preceding vowel duration for stops in final position. Although the language-delayed and normal-speaking children showed equivalent linguistic sophistication (as measured by MLU), the language-delayed children's control of the acoustic-phonetic details of the voicing contrast was less mature than that of the normal-speaking children.

Child↗

PubMed1980

An experimental-clinical analysis of grammatical and behavioral distinctions between verbal auxiliary and copula.

The study was designed to investigate whether auxiliary is and copular is belong to a single response class. Two children acted as subjects. The auxiliary verb was trained, then reversed, and later reinstated in one of the subjects, while the copula was similarly trained, reversed, and reinstated in the other child. Both the auxiliary and the copular sentences were tested on probes. The first subject, who was trained only on the auxiliary, was able to produce the untrained copula. When the auxiliary production was reversed, the copular production also was reversed. Finally, when the auxiliary production was reinstated, the copular production also was reinstated. For the second subject, the auxiliary production was generated, reversed, and reinstated by training, reversing, and reinstating only the copula. These results suggest that the copular and auxiliary is belong to a single response class and training either of them is sufficient to generate the production of both.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed1981

A comparison of sign and verbal language training with nonverbal retarded children.

Twelve nonverbal, hearing, retarded children were matched and then randomly assigned to sign language training, speech training, and placebo groups. Four of the subjects received speech training using the Bricker. Dennison, and Bricker (1976) program, and four subjects received sign language training using an adaptation of the Bricker et al. program. The results indicated no statistically significant difference between the verbal and sign language groups through the sign group and verbal group did learn significantly more than the placebo group. A closer examination of the findings indicated that although all four of the sign language subjects learned some signs, only two of the four speech training subjects learned to say words. The findings were interpreted as indicating that some nonverbal retarded children will benefit from sign language than speech training. Suggestions for the direction of future research are given.

Child↗

PubMed1981

Disfluencies in the speech of language-delayed children.

This study attempted to determine whether language-delayed children receiving language therapy and language-delayed children not receiving language therapy differed from each other and from normal controls in the amount and type of disfluencies in their speech. Comparison of disfluencies in tape-recorded speech samples of three groups indicated that the one group of language-delayed children who received language therapy had significantly more word and part-word repetitions than the other two groups.

Child↗

PubMed1981

A reexamination of some nonverbal perceptual abilities of language-impaired and normal children as a function of age and sensory modality.

A battery of nonverbal perceptual and memory tests were given to 35 language-impaired (LI) and 38 control subjects. Three modalities of tests were given: auditory, visual, and cross-modal (auditory and visual). The purpose was to reexamine some nonverbal perceptual and memory abilities of LI children as a function of age and modality of stimulation. Results failed to replicate previous findings of a temporal processing deficit that is specific to the auditory modality in LI children. The LI group made significantly more errors than did controls regardless of modality of stimulation when 2-item sequences were presented rapidly, or when more than two stimuli were presented in series. However, further analyses resolved this apparent conflict between the present and earlier studies by demonstrating that age is an important variable underlying modality specificity of perceptual performance in LI children. Whereas younger LI children were equally impaired when responding to stimuli presented rapidly to the auditory and visual modality, older LI subjects made nearly twice as many errors responding to rapidly presented auditory rather than visual stimuli. This developmental difference did not occur for the control group.

Aging↗