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PubMed1998

Language, social cognitive processing, and behavioral characteristics of psychiatrically disturbed children with previously identified and unsuspected language impairments.

This study examined characteristics of social cognitive processing, psychiatric disorder, and behavioral ratings of 380 children aged 7 to 14 years who had been referred consecutively for child psychiatric services with identified and unsuspected language impairments and with normally developing language. The results indicated that children with language impairments generally exhibited greater deficits in social cognitive processing, and particularly emotion decoding and social problem solving, than children who have language that is developing normally. Differences in psychiatric diagnosis and behavior problems were observed only between children with previously identified language impairments and children with normally developing language; children with previously identified language impairments were more likely to be diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and to be rated by both parents and teachers as having more severe attentional problems. In addition, teachers rated them as more socially withdrawn. The results suggest that it is important to incorporate measures of both social cognition and language functioning routinely into clinical assessment, something that currently is rarely done.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1988

Language learning and retention in young language-disordered children.

Simultaneous sign and spoken language training was conducted with young, language-disordered children under standardized training and follow-up conditions with a stringent learning criterion to determine if language learned was stable over time. Twenty-one children between 36 and 86 months with no or nonfunctional language participated in the study. Diagnoses included autism, mental retardation, combined autism and mental retardation, and developmental aphasia. Children completed a mean of 74 signed speech training sessions. Sessions were twice daily, 5 days a week. Follow-up evaluations were made approximately 6 months after training. Of the 21 children, 17 learned at least one word and 7 children learned multiple-word phrases during the training. Most language learned in training was found to be retained at follow-up approximately 6 months later. Gestural imitation, play style, language age, developmental age, and fine motor skills had strong correlations with language learning and retention.

Aphasia↗

PubMed2004

Baby hands that move to the rhythm of language: hearing babies acquiring sign languages babble silently on the hands.

The "ba, ba, ba" sound universal to babies' babbling around 7 months captures scientific attention because it provides insights into the mechanisms underlying language acquisition and vestiges of its evolutionary origins. Yet the prevailing mystery is what is the biological basis of babbling, with one hypothesis being that it is a non-linguistic motoric activity driven largely by the baby's emerging control over the mouth and jaw, and another being that it is a linguistic activity reflecting the babies' early sensitivity to specific phonetic-syllabic patterns. Two groups of hearing babies were studied over time (ages 6, 10, and 12 months), equal in all developmental respects except for the modality of language input (mouth versus hand): three hearing babies acquiring spoken language (group 1: "speech-exposed") and a rare group of three hearing babies acquiring sign language only, not speech (group 2: "sign-exposed"). Despite this latter group's exposure to sign, the motoric hypothesis would predict similar hand activity to that seen in speech-exposed hearing babies because language acquisition in sign-exposed babies does not involve the mouth. Using innovative quantitative Optotrak 3-D motion-tracking technology, applied here for the first time to study infant language acquisition, we obtained physical measurements similar to a speech spectrogram, but for the hands. Here we discovered that the specific rhythmic frequencies of the hands of the sign-exposed hearing babies differed depending on whether they were producing linguistic activity, which they produced at a low frequency of approximately 1 Hz, versus non-linguistic activity, which they produced at a higher frequency of approximately 2.5 Hz - the identical class of hand activity that the speech-exposed hearing babies produced nearly exclusively. Surprisingly, without benefit of the mouth, hearing sign-exposed babies alone babbled systematically on their hands. We conclude that babbling is fundamentally a linguistic activity and explain why the differentiation between linguistic and non-linguistic hand activity in a single manual modality (one distinct from the human mouth) could only have resulted if all babies are born with a sensitivity to specific rhythmic patterns at the heart of human language and the capacity to use them.

Hand↗

PubMed1995

Cross-language synonyms in the lexicons of bilingual infants: one language or two?

This study tests the widely-cited claim from Volterra & Taeschner (1978), which is reinforced by Clark's PRINCIPLE OF CONTRAST (1987), that young simultaneous bilingual children reject cross-language synonyms in their earliest lexicons. The rejection of translation equivalents is taken by Volterra & Taeschner as support for the idea that the bilingual child possesses a single-language system which includes elements from both languages. We examine first the accuracy of the empirical claim and then its adequacy as support for the argument that bilingual children do not have independent lexical systems in each language. The vocabularies of 27 developing bilinguals were recorded at varying intervals between ages 0;8 and 2;6 using the MacArthur CDI, a standardized parent report form in English and Spanish. The two single-language vocabularies of each bilingual child were compared to determine how many pairs of translation equivalents (TEs) were reported for each child at different stages of development. TEs were observed for all children but one, with an average of 30% of all words coded in the two languages, both at early stages (in vocabularies of 2-12 words) and later (up to 500 words). Thus, Volterra & Taeschner's empirical claim was not upheld. Further, the number of TEs in the bilinguals' two lexicons was shown to be similar to the number of lexical items which co-occurred in the monolingual lexicons of two different children, as observed in 34 random pairings for between-child comparisons. It remains to be shown, therefore, that the bilinguals' lexicons are not composed of two independent systems at a very early age. Furthermore, the results appear to rule out the operation of a strong principle of contrast across languages in early bilingualism.

Child Language↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Emotional satisfaction of parents and speech-language therapists with outcome of training intervention in children with speech and language disorders.

The compliance of children and their parents is very important for the outcome of speech-language therapy in children. We analyzed 169 questionnaires of parents whose children had received speech-language therapy and 140 questionnaires of speech-language therapists (logopedists) concerning their satisfaction with the outcome of the intervention. Treatment was usually once weekly. We found that the majority of the parents was very satisfied with the outcome of the speech-language therapy, the professional knowledge of the speech-language therapists and the type of therapy. The speech-language therapists were in most cases pleased with the compliance of the parents. Speech-language therapists who have been working for many years tend to spend less time with parents, to consider insufficient progress as a challenge and to treat less frequently.

Female↗

PubMed1989

Language growth in children with expressive language delay.

Developmental expressive language disorder is a frequently occurring condition in children, characterized by severe delay in the development of expressive language compared with receptive language and cognitive skills. Opinions differ regarding whether expressive language delay is a disorder worthy of active intervention or an indication of normal variation in the onset of expressive language. The purpose of this research was to follow for 5 months 26 2-year-old children in whom expressive language disorder had been carefully diagnosed to discover the rate of improvement and its predictors. Improvement was variable, with approximately one third of the children showing no improvement, one third showing mild improvement, and one third in the normal range at posttest. Nearly two thirds of the variance in improvement could be accounted for by three child variables measured by the pretest: parentally reported vocabulary size, parentally reported problems with having regular meals, and observed frequency of quiet activity not requiring the parent's management. A screening procedure involving only one of those variables, reported vocabulary size, was 81% accurate in identifying children's improvement status. The implications of these results for the management of children with expressive language disorder are discussed.

Child Behavior Disorders↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Writing and reading: connections between language by hand and language by eye.

Four approaches to the investigation of connections between language by hand and language by eye are described and illustrated with studies from a decade-long research program. In the first approach, multigroup structural equation modeling is applied to reading and writing measures given to typically developing writers to examine unidirectional and bidirectional relationships between specific components of the reading and writing systems. In the second approach, structural equation modeling is applied to a multivariate set of language measures given to children and adults with reading and writing disabilities to examine how the same set of language processes is orchestrated differently to accomplish specific reading or writing goals, and correlations between factors are evaluated to examine the level at which the language-by-hand system and the language-by-eye system communicate most easily. In the third approach, mode of instruction and mode of response are systematically varied in evaluating effectiveness of treating reading disability with and without a writing component. In the fourth approach, functional brain imaging is used to investigate residual spelling problems in students whose problems with word decoding have been remediated. The four approaches support a model in which language by hand and language by eye are separate systems that interact in predictable ways.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Limited english proficiency, primary language at home, and disparities in children's health care: how language barriers are measured matters.

BACKGROUND: Approximately 3.5 million U.S. schoolchildren are limited in English proficiency (LEP). Disparities in children's health and health care are associated with both LEP and speaking a language other than English at home, but prior research has not examined which of these two measures of language barriers is most useful in examining health care disparities. OBJECTIVES: Our objectives were to compare primary language spoken at home vs. parental LEP and their associations with health status, access to care, and use of health services in children. METHODS: We surveyed parents at urban community sites in Boston, asking 74 questions on children's health status, access to health care, and use of health services. RESULTS: Some 98% of the 1,100 participating children and families were of non-white race/ethnicity, 72% of parents were LEP, and 13 different primary languages were spoken at home. "Dose-response" relationships were observed between parental English proficiency and several child and parental sociodemographic features, including children's insurance coverage, parental educational attainment, citizenship and employment, and family income. Similar "dose-response" relationships were noted between the primary language spoken at home and many but not all of the same sociodemographic features. In multivariate analyses, LEP parents were associated with triple the odds of a child having fair/poor health status, double the odds of the child spending at least one day in bed for illness in the past year, and significantly greater odds of children not being brought in for needed medical care for six of nine access barriers to care. None of these findings were observed in analyses of the primary language spoken at home. Individual parental LEP categories were associated with different risks of adverse health status and outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Parental LEP is superior to the primary language spoken at home as a measure of the impact of language barriers on children's health and health care. Individual parental LEP categories are associated with different risks of adverse outcomes in children's health and health care. Consistent data collection on parental English proficiency and referral of LEP parents to English classes by pediatric providers have the potential to contribute toward reduction and elimination of health care disparities for children of LEP parents.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

An experimental approach to language training in second language acquisition: Focus on negation.

The effect of negation training in a second language on the expression of negation in the native language was investigated. Four-year-old children from bilingual (Spanish/English) homes who showed no expressive or receptive ability in Spanish negation and were either proficient or nonproficient in English negation received Spanish negation training. Children who were proficient in English negation maintained correct responses in English and showed increased correct responses in Spanish following simultaneous training in both languages or in Spanish alone. Children who were nonproficient in English negation demonstrated a decrease in correct English responses following training in Spanish alone; however, children who received training in English and Spanish simultaneously showed increases in correct responses in both languages. These findings suggest that language training programs with children learning a second language should consider the relationship of the two language training conditions (simultaneous vs. independent) with the child's level of native language proficiency.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2005

Processing semantic anomalies in two languages: an electrophysiological exploration in both languages of Spanish-English bilinguals.

The latency of the brain response to semantic anomalies (N400 effect) has been found to be longer in a bilingual's second language (L2) than in their first language (L1) and/or to that seen in monolinguals. This has been explained in terms of late exposure to L2, although age of exposure and language proficiency are often highly correlated. We thus examined the relative contributions of these factors not only in L2 but also in L1 in a group of Spanish-English bilinguals for whom age of exposure and language proficiency were not highly correlated by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to semantically congruous/incongruous words completing written sentences. We also divided our bilinguals into a Spanish-dominant subset who had late exposure and reduced vocabulary proficiency [as measured by Boston Naming Test (BNT) and Verbal Fluency Scores] in L2 (English) relative to L1 (Spanish) and an English-dominant group who had early exposure to both their languages although greater proficiency in English than in Spanish. In both groups, the N400 effect was significantly later in the nondominant than the dominant language. Although this slowing could be due to late exposure to English in the Spanish-dominant group, late exposure cannot explain the slowing in Spanish in the English-dominant group. Overall, we found that vocabulary proficiency and age of exposure are both important in determining the timing of semantic integration effects during written sentence processing--with vocabulary proficiency predicting the timing of semantic analysis in L1 and both age of exposure and language proficiency, although highly correlated, making additional small but uncorrelated contributions to the speed of semantic analysis/integration in L2.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Language development in hearing-impaired children. Establishment of a reference material for a 'Language test for hearing-impaired children', LATHIC.

OBJECTIVE: In Sweden, there has previously been no normalised test material for the evaluation of language development in individual hearing-impaired children, and for the assessment of various methods of auditory habilitation. The purpose of the present study was to compose, apply and evaluate a test for language development in hearing-impaired children, and to establish the first set of reference values related to age, sex, type and degree of hearing impairment. METHODS: A test consisting of nine subtests was assembled and developed for, and subsequently applied to, hearing-impaired children in the age range 4-6 years. The inclusion criteria were a pure tone average of 80 dBHL or less and oral language (Swedish) as the first language. Two hundred and eleven hearing-impaired children and 87 normal hearing control children were tested. RESULTS: The results show that: (1) children with hearing impairment-also unilateral-have a delayed language development; (2) the delay is greater in children with larger losses and tends to decrease with increasing age; (3) 6-year-olds with hearing loss greater than 60 dB have not reached the level of the control group; (4) no difference between right- or left sided deafness with respect to language development was observed; (5) a reference material, applicable during clinical assessment, was established for the most common types of hearing impairment. CONCLUSIONS: The test designed gave graded measures of important aspects of language development in hearing-impaired children. The results merit further application of the test material.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2000

How does the brain learn language? Insights from the study of children with and without language impairment.

Neurobiological studies have generated new ways of thinking about development of brain structure and function. Development involves more than just growth from simple to complex structures. The initial over-abundance of neurons and synaptic connections is subsequently pruned of those that are non-functional. In addition, as behavioural and cognitive functions emerge and become automatized, the underlying brain representations are reorganized. In this paper, I shall argue that these different modes of neurodevelopmental change provide a useful metaphor for examining language acquisition. It will be argued that language acquisition can involve learning to ignore and inhibit irrelevant information, as well as forming new ways of representing complex information economically. Modular organization is not present from the outset, but develops gradually. This analysis suggests a new way of assessing specific language impairment (SLI). There has been much debate as to whether children with SLI lack specific modular components of a language processing system. I propose instead that these children persist in using inefficient ways of representing language. Finally, I consider what we know about the neurobiological basis of such a deficit. There is mounting evidence that children with SLI have subtle structural anomalies affecting the language areas of the brain, which are largely genetically determined. We should not, however, conclude that the language difficulties are immutable.

Brain↗

PubMed1996

The neurobiology of sign language and its implications for the neural basis of language.

The left cerebral hemisphere is dominant for language, and many aspects of language use are more impaired by damage to the left than the right hemisphere. The basis for this asymmetry, however, is a matter of debate; the left hemisphere may be specialized for processing linguistic information or for some more general function on which language depends, such as the processing of rapidly changing temporal information or execution of complex motor patterns. To investigate these possibilities, we examined the linguistic abilities of 23 sign-language users with unilateral brain lesions. Despite the fact that sign language relies on visuospatial rather than rapid temporal information, the same left-hemispheric dominance emerged. Correlation analyses of the production of sign language versus non-linguistic hand gestures suggest that these processes are largely independent. Our findings support the view that the left-hemisphere dominance for language is not reducible solely to more general sensory or motor processes.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Children creating language: how Nicaraguan sign language acquired a spatial grammar.

It has long been postulated that language is not purely learned, but arises from an interaction between environmental exposure and innate abilities. The innate component becomes more evident in rare situations in which the environment is markedly impoverished. The present study investigated the language production of a generation of deaf Nicaraguans who had not been exposed to a developed language. We examined the changing use of early linguistic structures (specifically, spatial modulations) in a sign language that has emerged since the Nicaraguan group first came together: In tinder two decades, sequential cohorts of learners systematized the grammar of this new sign language. We examined whether the systematicity being added to the language stems from children or adults: our results indicate that such changes originate in children aged 10 and younger Thus, sequential cohorts of interacting young children collectively: possess the capacity not only to learn, but also to create, language.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

The Cambridge Language and Speech Project (CLASP). I . Detection of language difficulties at 36 to 39 months.

A community-based investigation of the nature, characteristics and evolution of speech and language delay in a sample of 3-year-olds is being carried out in Cambridgeshire. 1936 parents completed a preschool language checklist (PLC) to identify children at risk of language difficulties. Two hundred and seventy-seven children at risk together with 148 controls completed a series of preliminary face-to-face standard language tests to determine expressive, receptive and phonological skills. Concordance between the Cambridge Language and Speech Project (CLASP) identification and speech therapy involvement suggests that the overall (CLASP) screening procedure identified a number of children that current surveillance had missed and support the conclusion that the PLC may be a useful adjunct for child health care services as an aid in prioritising children for referral to speech therapy services. Children with scores of 1 to 3 at 36 months should be reviewed at 39 months, and those with 4 or more should be a high priority for referral. Preliminary examination of the impairment profile suggests that children with language impairments rather than pure speech impairments at 36 and 39 months are more likely to have a broader range of overall language-related deficit.

Age Factors↗

PubMed2005

Language skills at age 6 years in Swedish children screened for language delay at 2(1/2) years of age.

UNLABELLED: This study concerns language outcome in 6-y-old children who participated in a longitudinal community-based study of 105 children screened for language delay (LD) at 2(1/2) y of age. The purpose was to investigate (1) whether results from the 2(1/2)-y screening were persistent at 6 y of age, and (2) what language domains at age 6 were difficult for (a) children with LD at age 2(1/2) y and (b) children with normal language (LN) at the same age. Significant differences between LD and LN at age 2(1/2) y were persistent at age 6. The vulnerability that was identified at 2(1/2) y of age, such as problems with going from single-word utterances to multi-word utterances, seems to persist as delayed development at different language levels and across language domains. CONCLUSION: This study has shown that children who failed the 2(1/2)-y screening are at high risk of having persistent language problems at age 6 y.

Child↗

PubMed2004

fMRI language task panel improves determination of language dominance.

BACKGROUND: fMRI language tasks reliably identify language areas in presurgical epilepsy patients, but activation using single paradigms may disagree with the intracarotid amobarbital test (IAT). OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a panel of fMRI tasks targeting different aspects of language processing increases accuracy in determining hemisphere language dominance. METHODS: Twenty-six patients age 12 to 56 years, predominantly with temporal lobe epilepsy, were studied using whole-brain 1.5 T fMRI (echo planar imaging, blood oxygenation level-dependent) with three task categories using a block design: verbal fluency, reading comprehension, and auditory comprehension. fMRI t maps were visually rated at three thresholds. All patients had assessment of language lateralization by IAT. RESULTS: fMRI showed left dominance in 21 patients, right dominance in 2, and bilateral activation in 2; raters disagreed over a left vs right bilateral rating in 1 patient. There was full agreement between IAT and fMRI in 21 of 25 patients (IAT failed in 1). In three instances of partial disparity with IAT, the fMRI panel showed consistent findings across raters. Agreement between raters was excellent (partial disagreement in only one patient); the panel of tasks was superior to any single task for interrater agreement (Cramer V 0.93 [range 0.91 to 1.0] vs 0.72 [range 0.60 to 0.86]). CONCLUSIONS: A panel of fMRI language paradigms may be more accurate for evaluating partial epilepsy patients than a single task. A panel of tasks reduces the likelihood of nondiagnostic findings, improves interrater reliability, and helps confirm language laterality.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

The interface between ADHD and language impairment: an examination of language, achievement, and cognitive processing.

Language impairments are commonly observed among children referred for psychiatric services. The most frequent psychiatric diagnosis of children with language impairment (LI) is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It is not clear whether there are differences between children with ADHD and comorbid LI and children with other psychiatric disorders who are also comorbid for LI. In the present study the language, achievement, and cognitive processing characteristics of 166 psychiatrically referred 7-14-year-old children were examined using a 2 x 2 (ADHD, LI) design to examine four groups: children with ADHD + LI, children with ADHD who have normally developing language, children with psychiatric diagnoses other than ADHD with a language impairment (OPD + LI) or without a LI (OPD). Results indicated that children with LI were at the most disadvantage regardless of the nature of the psychiatric diagnosis. Contrary to prediction, working memory measures, used to tap the core cognitive deficit of ADHD in executive functions, were more closely associated with LI than with ADHD. It was concluded that caution must be exercised in attributing to children with ADHD what might be a reflection of problems for children with language impairment generally. As most therapies are verbally based it is notable that language competence is rarely evaluated systematically before such therapies are undertaken.

Achievement↗