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PubMed1984

Effects of speech and speech and sign instruction on oral language learning and generalization of action + object combinations by Down's syndrome children.

This study was designed to compare the effects of speech and speech-plus-sign stimulation during comprehension treatment on the oral language learning and generalization of action + object relational meanings. Ten home-reared Down's syndrome children in Early Stage 1 received concurrent comprehension treatment in Speech and Speech-Sign conditions using a miniature linguistic system. Upon attainment of criterion level performance in both conditions, generalization tasks were administered to measure the effects of the comprehension treatment on the comprehension and the production of treated and untreated action + object combinations. The results obtained from this study indicated that the two treatment conditions did not differ significantly for either learning or generalization. The data did, however, indicate that individual patterns of acquisition were evident among the children. Caution is advised concerning the automatic adoption or rejection of manual sign as part of oral language intervention programs.

Child↗

PubMed1985

Facilitating word combination in language-impaired children through discourse structure.

The influence of an adult-child discourse structure on the production of early word combinations was examined in language-impaired children. The subjects were 10 children (2:8-3:4) at the single-word utterance level. Eight of the children were engaged in 10 experimental sessions utilizing vertical structures (e.g., Adult: "Who's this?" Child: "Daddy." Adult: "What's Daddy throwing?" Child: "Ball." Adult: "Yeah, Daddy's throwing the ball."), while the remaining children, serving as controls, were engaged in an alternate activity. Examination of pretest and posttest data as well as session data revealed a substantial increase in the number of multiword productions for most of the children in the experimental group but not for the children serving as controls. These findings indicate that vertical structures have a facilitating effect on the multiword productions of language-impaired children comparable to that found in an identical procedure with normally developing children. The use of a naturally occurring adult-child discourse structure as an intervention procedure is discussed.

Child Language↗

PubMed1985

Lexical imitation and acquisition in language-impaired children.

This investigation examined the influence of unsolicited lexical imitation on the comprehension and on the production of novel words by language-impaired children. Subjects were 13 children (2:8-3:1) exhibiting specific language impairment who were presented with 16 unfamiliar words referring to unfamiliar objects or actions over 10 experimental sessions. Unsolicited imitations appeared to facilitate subsequent production of these words on a posttest. This effect was greatest when these words were also produced spontaneously prior to the posttest. Words that were produced imitatively and spontaneously also appeared more frequently in spontaneous usage than words that were only produced spontaneously. No relationship between such imitations and comprehension was observed. These findings suggest that unsolicited imitations benefit children's lexical acquisition primarily by providing them with additional opportunities to produce words that are in the process of being established in their expressive lexicons.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed1985

Using the miniature linguistic system in teaching syntax: two case studies.

Two language-delayed children received comprehension instruction on preposition-object phrases using a miniature linguistic system format to structure generalization. Results indicated generalization not only to untreated two-word combinations, but also to comprehension of four-word phrases. In addition, there was some generalization of production of two- and four-word structures.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed1985

On the subject of subjects: suggestions for describing subjects in language intervention studies.

Recent child language intervention literature was analyzed to determine the content and consistency of subject descriptions. The amount and type of descriptive information varied widely both within and among journals. In view of the potential importance of such descriptions and the apparent lack of standards for acceptability, suggestions were developed and forwarded as a working model for describing language-handicapped children in intervention studies.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

Comparison of nonspeaking and speaking mentally retarded adults' clarification strategies.

Interactions between speaking and nonspeaking persons using communication boards have frequently been found to be plagued by conversational breakdowns. Previous investigators, drawing upon anecdotal evidence, have painted a scenario in which the nonspeaker confuses the listener by transmitting an ambiguous message, the listener then requests clarification, the nonspeaker fails to clarify, and the discourse is abruptly terminated. The present study examined 5 speaking and 5 nonspeaking moderately-severely mentally retarded subjects' responses to their listeners' requests for clarification. An informal conversational format was used to evoke 40 possible repairs from each subject. Few differences were noted with respect to the ways in which speaking and nonspeaking subjects revised or failed to revise their messages. Both groups were highly responsive to their listeners' requests for clarification; subjects rarely ignored or changed the topic of discourse following these listener requests. However, unlike previous reports of nonretarded normally developing language-disordered children operating at comparable mental and linguistic levels, these speaking and nonspeaking subjects generally repeated their ambiguous messages rather than revising them. The results indicated the need to develop techniques for teaching speaking and nonspeaking retarded adults alternate methods of repairing conversational breakdowns.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

Patterns of language comprehension deficit in abused and neglected children.

The similarity between factors associated with child abuse/neglect and those associated with language disability suggests that maltreated children are a population at risk for language problems. This study investigated the performance of three groups of abused/neglected children and a matched group of nonmaltreated subjects on three tests of language comprehension. Results revealed significant differences among groups for all measures. Severely neglected children obtained the lowest scores on all tests; the abused children consistently obtained lower scores than the controls; and generally neglected children showed the smallest difference in performance from the control group. These findings suggest a model for understanding relationships between abuse/neglect and language disability.

Child↗

PubMed1989

A profile analysis approach to interpretation of the Carrow Auditory-Visual Abilities Test.

This paper describes a profile analysis procedure for use with the Carrow Auditory-Visual Abilities Test (CAVAT). The visual-auditory dichotomy, supported by factor analysis, is examined at one level of analysis. Critical values derived from the standard error of measurement of the difference (Sem/D) for each battery are provided allowing the identification of reliable and abnormal visual-auditory discrepancies. At another level of analysis, a procedure for profile analysis is outlined and critical values are included to facilitate the identification of relative strengths and weaknesses at the subtest level. Test results from 2 preschool children are examined and contrasted to illustrate the utility of the CAVAT in the identification of systematic modality preferences.

Auditory Perception↗

PubMed1990

The identification of language impairment in the selection of specifically language-impaired subjects.

This review focused on the methods used to identify language impairment in specifically language-impaired subjects participating in 72 research studies that were described in four journals from 1983 to 1988. The single most frequent source of information used in the identification process was found to be test data. There was, however, considerable variability and, often, a lack of clarity regarding the specific number and identity of tests used. More specific findings on test use indicated that researchers routinely assessed both expressive and receptive language and that they used incomplete tests. When test scores used in identification and selection were examined, there was a wide range of score types, and age-equivalent scores were by far the most common and often the only type of score utilized. Conclusions are drawn regarding the impact of these findings on the interpretation and generalizability of this research literature.

Child↗

PubMed1990

Video narration as a language sampling context.

Video narration is a context for sampling spontaneous expressive language in which the subject produces an on-line description of the events he or she observes on videotape. Video narration offers a means of reducing the variability among language samples from different speakers, or from the same speaker over time, because the number and complexity of events to be coded linguistically is known and constant. This increased consistency facilitates comparisons among samples, as well as enabling certain analyses requiring a transparent relationship between utterances and events. Advantages and limitations of video narration as an adjunct to conversational sampling are described, and comparisons between longitudinal video narration and conversational samples obtained from brain-injured children and their matched normal controls are presented.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1977

Overt and covert aspects of adult speech perception.

The relationship between verbal report and cardiac orienting response measures of speech discrimination in adult listeners was examined in two experiments using stimuli and paradigms previously employed in studies of infant speech perception. The results of Experiment I revealed that all listeners, those who reported discrimination of a synthetic [ba-ga] change (Group D) as well as those who did not (Group ND), demonstrated cardiac discrimination of the stimulus shift. However, this pattern of cardiac activity, both at stimulus onset and the shift, was found to be different in these two groups of listeners. Experiment II replicated the Group D results using a slightly different cardiac paradigm and quasinatural speech syllables. The implications of these findings for developmental research on speech perception with older infants, children, and populations with language disorders are discussed.

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

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

Nonlinguistic symbolic and conceptual abilities of language-impaired and normally developing children.

This study was motivated in part by the claim that language-impaired children with normal nonverbal intelligence suffer from representational and symbolization deficits (Morehead & Ingram, 1973). The study also examined the developing concepts of class, number, and order in these children to evaluate the claim that their thinking and reasoning in the nonlinguistic domain were within normal limits. Subjects were language-impaired children and two groups of normally developing children, one matched for MA and the other for MLU to the language-imparied group. Each group consisted of ten children. Each child was administered six nonstandardized cognitive tasks from the Piagetian literature. These tasks were designed to assess developing nonlinguistic symbolic abilities and conceptual knowledge of class, number, and order relations. The language-impaired children consistently performed better than MLU-matched controls but more poorly than MA-matched peers. However, only one task--Haptic Recognition--uncovered a significant difference between the language-impaired and MA-matched groups. The difficulty that language-impaired children experienced on this task was taken as evidence that they had deficient nonlinguistic symbolic abilities. Some tentative conclusions are offered concerning the role representational abilities play in language development.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1982

Towards an understanding of retarded children's linguistic deficiencies.

The purpose of this study was to provide a more accurate description of the language performance of retarded children and, by doing so, to understand better how the general mental handicap affects language learning. Subjects were a group of 10 retarded children matched for MA to a group of 10 normal children and 10 language-impaired children. Various syntactic and semantic analyses were performed. The results indicated that the retarded group's language abilities were essentially comparable to those of the normal group, though differences between these groups were found. Notably, the retarded children did not demonstrate the same linguistic deficiencies as the language-impaired children. It was suggested that the MA-inconsistent language behaviors exhibited by the retarded children were quantitative in nature rather than qualitative and as such seemed to reflect deficits in adaptive (i.e., social) and motivational behaviors rather than deficits in linguistic or cognitive abilities.

Child↗

PubMed1982

Early lexical acquisition in children with specific language impairment.

This study examined the characteristics of early lexical acquisition in children with specific language impairment. Sixteen unfamiliar words and referents were exposed across 10 sessions to language-impaired and normal children matched for level of linguistic development. Posttesting revealed similar comprehension-production gaps in the two groups of children. In addition, both groups showed greater comprehension and production of words referring to objects than words referring to objects than words referring to actions. However, the language-impaired children's object word bias was not as marked as that of the normal children. For both groups, words containing initial consonants within the children's production repertoires were more likely to be acquired in production than words containing consonants absent from the children's phonologies. A similar tendency was not seen for comprehension.

Child, Preschool↗