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PubMed1983

Picture naming in language-impaired children.

A picture-naming task was used to examine word-finding problems in language-impaired children. The subjects included 20 language-impaired children, 20 normal children matched to the language-impaired children for chronological age, and 20 normal children matched to the language-impaired children on a composite index of language age. Children were shown 64 pictures of objects and asked to name each as rapidly as possible. The principal findings were that (a) pictures of objects with more frequently occurring names were named more rapidly than pictures of objects with less frequently occurring names; (b) language-imparied children named pictures less rapidly than their chronological-age peers but more rapidly than their language-age peers; and (c) the effects of frequency of occurrence on naming time were comparable for all three groups of children. Factors that may have accounted for the findings are discussed.

Child↗

PubMed1984

Partner age as a variable in the conversational performance of specifically language-impaired and normal-language children.

The language used by a group of 4 1/2-6-year-old specifically language-impaired (SLI) children, a group of same-aged normal-language (NL) children, and a group of younger NL children were observed in three dyadic contexts: with an adult female, with a peer, and with a toddler. Ten measures were selected to analyze the children's performance across partner contexts. The results revealed that the SLI children were as assertive in the conversations as were the children in the same-aged NL group. Further, the SLI children modified their language in the same manner and to the same extent as the same-aged NL children on all but three measures: use of internal state questions, mean length of utterance, and mean preverb length. Their ability to adapt their speech based on the age-related characteristics of the partner appeared at times to be greater than that of the younger NL children.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Fine-grained auditory discrimination in normal children and children with language-learning problems.

Two large groups of children--one progressing normally in school and the other exhibiting language-learning problems--were tested on a set of fine-grained auditory discrimination tasks that required responding to small acoustic differences. Discriminant analysis procedures, using only results for the auditory tasks, correctly classified nearly 80% of the 6- and 7-year-olds and nearly 65% of the 8- to 11-year-olds according to their school placements. Percentages of correct classifications increased to 87% and 75% when measures of receptive vocabulary (PPVT-R), receptive language (the Token Test for Children), and the Digit Span, Coding, and Block Design subtests of the WISC-R were also included in the discriminant functions. Results suggested that fine-grained auditory discrimination makes a major contribution to language learning, particularly in the early elementary school years.

Child↗

PubMed1990

Relationships between selected auditory and phonatory latency measures in normal speakers.

Interaction between auditory and phonatory systems was explored in normal speakers by comparing laryngeal reaction time (LRT) with interpeak intervals from the auditory brainstem response (ABR) obtained using high and low stimulus presentation rates. Thirty-four subjects with no history of neurological or speech-language disorders and normal hearing sensitivity participated. Interpeak intervals were derived from ABR's recorded for each ear at rates of 21.1 and 91.1 clicks/s. LRT responses were obtained by instructing subjects to sustain an /s/ and then phonate an /a/ as fast as possible following visual cues. Two measures of reaction time performance were derived, Mean Laryngeal Reaction Time (MLRT) and Best Laryngeal Reaction Time (BLRT). Linear regression analyses were completed between each measure of reaction time performance and each ABR interpeak interval. Using either LRT measure, two significant (p less than .05) positive linear relationships were found. One involved the interpeak interval between Waves III and V and the other involved the interpeak interval between Waves I and V. Both were recorded at high stimulus presentation rates. These results support the small body of literature from normal speakers, stutterers, and spasmodic dysphonics suggesting interaction between the auditory and phonatory systems at the brainstem level.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1990

Miniature language system acquisition by children with different learning proficiencies.

Sixteen children, aged 7:8 to 9:10, learned two miniature languages while playing a communication game. Both languages expressed Action (Agent, Patient) meanings and incorporated a Patient suffix. They differed in word order: VSO (Language I) versus SOV (Language II). Children found the SOV language easier; they also made more suffix errors and fewer word order errors in this language. The results suggest that the perceptual salience of an utterance-final particle may hinder grammatical analysis, at least if capacity limits and perseverative learning strategies intervene.

Attention↗

PubMed1991

Closed-head-injured children's performance on narrative tasks.

Stories were elicited from a group of 20 closed-head-injured children. Story grammar and intersentential cohesion were examined. Performance of the head-injured children was compared to that of a group of nonneurologically impaired accident victims matched for age, sex, and socioeconomic status. No significant differences were found between the performance of the closed-head-injured children and the matched controls on any of the measures of narrative ability applied to the elicited narratives.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1991

Analysis of topic as illustrated in a head-injured and a normal adult.

The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable multidimensional topic analysis that would be sensitive to patterns and problems in topic management. Six conversation and four monologue language samples of a closed-head-injured adult and a matched normal adult were compared. High interjudge reliability was found for all frequently occurring parameters of the analysis. Differences between the two subjects were obtained on a number of the topic introduction and maintenance parameters. The results illustrate the potential of the analysis to reliably identify, quantify, and describe differences between subjects in discourse topic management. The potential of the analysis to provide detailed profiles of topic management and describe the influence of such variables as genre and topic complexity on discourse topic was demonstrated.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

The efficacy of script contexts in language comprehension intervention with children who have mental retardation.

This study was designed to investigate the effects of script-based and nonscript-based treatment on the language comprehension of 4 preschool children with mental retardation. An alternating treatments design (ATD) in combination with a multiple baseline design was used to evaluate treatment effects. Treatments were comprised of three script routines and three nonscript activities. Two semantic constructions were selected for training and counterbalanced across subjects and treatments. Daily probes were administered to assess the effects of the treatments. The script-based treatment was more effective than the nonscript treatment in facilitating comprehension of the targeted semantic constructions in 3 of the 4 subjects.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1992

Morpheme learning of children with specific language impairment under controlled instructional conditions.

Three groups of children were exposed to instances of a novel morpheme under controlled experimental conditions. The performance of 32 children with specific language impairment (SLI), aged 5:0 to 7:0 years (years:months), was compared to that of 24 normally developing children matched for age and nonverbal ability and 20 younger normally developing children matched for language development and nonverbal ability. The children were taught under two instructional conditions that differed only in whether the child was asked to imitate the new language form after each instance (imitation) or just to observe its use (modeling). Consistent with past research (Connell, 1987b), the children with SLI performed significantly better under the imitation condition than under modeling, but the age-matched controls showed no difference in response to instruction. The performance of the language-matched controls was similar to that of the age-matched controls, suggesting that the instruction-specific effect for the children with SLI is not merely a function of general language immaturity. Although the superiority of the imitation condition for the children with SLI was evident for test trials requiring production of the new morpheme (as in past research), no such effect was evident for comprehension trials. This differing effect of output demands suggests that the SLI-specific response to instruction is not a matter of different mastery of the new rule but rather is specific to the need to access the newly induced rule on production trials. The accessing of phonological representations as a possible explanation for the effect is discussed.

Audiovisual Aids↗

PubMed1992

Specific-language-impaired children's quick incidental learning of words: the effect of a pause.

It was hypothesized that the initial word comprehension of specific-language-impaired children would be enhanced by the insertion of a short pause just before a sentence-final novel word. Three groups of children served as subjects: twenty 5-year-old, specific-language-impaired (SLI) children, and two comparison groups of normally developing children, 20 matched for mean length of utterance (MLU) and 32 matched for chronological age (CA). The children were randomly assigned to two conditions for viewing video programs. The programs were animated stories that featured five novel object words and five novel attribute words, presented in a voice-over narration. The experimental version introduced a pause before the targeted words; the control version was identical except for normal prosody instead of a pause. Counter to the predictions, there was no effect for condition. Insertion of a pause did not improve the SLI children's initial comprehension of novel words. There were group main effects, with the CA matches better than either of the other two groups and no differences between the SLI children and the MLU-matched children.

Child Development↗

PubMed1992

Symbolic play development in toddlers with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E).

Twenty toddlers with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E) and 20 toddlers with normal language development were compared in their symbolic play development. The groups did not differ in amount of engagement with the toys or in functional conventional play behaviors. However, the children with SLI-E displayed less decentered play (use of play schemes with a doll or another person), less well-developed sequential play, and fewer occurrences of symbolic play transformations (use of a neutral object or an absent object to carry out pretending). The provision of structure in the form of thematically related toy sets, instructions, and modeling did not reduce the discrepancy between demonstrated play behaviors of toddlers with SLI-E and their normally developing peers. Three possible explanations for this discrepancy are considered: a "stylistic" difference in play, a developmental lag in symbol use, or a deficit in retrieval of stored symbolic representation.

Child Behavior↗

PubMed1992

Spoken and written language relationships in language/learning-impaired and normally achieving school-age children.

Students with language/learning impairment (LLI) and three groups of normally achieving children matched for chronological age, spoken language, and reading abilities wrote and told stories that were analyzed according to a three-dimensional language analysis system. Spoken narratives were linguistically superior to written narratives in many respects. The content of written narratives, however, was organized differently than the content of spoken narratives. Spoken narratives contained more local interconnections than global interconnections; the opposite was true for written narratives. LLI and reading-matched children evidenced speaking-writing relationships that differed from those of the age- and language-matched children in the way language form was organized. Further, LLI children produced more grammatically unacceptable complex T-units in their spoken and written stories than students from any of the three matched groups. The discussion focuses on mechanisms underlying the development of speaking-writing differences and ramifications of spoken-language impairment for spoken and written-language relationships.

Child↗

PubMed1993

Following the child's lead when teaching nouns to preschoolers with mental retardation.

The current study tested the effects of following the child's attentional lead on the efficiency of object-label teaching. Three preschoolers with mental retardation participated. An alternating-treatments design was used to test relative treatment effects. An elicited-production method of teaching object labels was used to present the words under two conditions. Two sets of 32 nonsense words and unfamiliar objects were randomly assigned to the two teaching conditions to create equivalent goal sets and to control for prior exposure to the words and objects. Under the "following-the-child's-lead" condition, teaching episodes occurred only when the child had sustained attention to a target object or intentionally communicated about the target object. Under the "recruiting-the-child's-attention" condition, the child's attention was recruited intrusively away from his or her object of interest and toward the target object before each teaching episode began. The number of teaching trials per item and per session was carefully controlled. Results indicated that object-label teaching was more efficient under the following-the-child's-lead condition for all three participants.

Child Language↗

PubMed1993

Verbal analogical reasoning in children with language-learning disabilities.

This study was designed to explore the influences of both cognitive and linguistic abilities on verbal analogy completion. School-age children classified as language-learning disabled were administered five types of verbal analogies: synonyms, antonyms, linear order, category membership, and functional relationship. The performance of the children with language-learning disabilities was compared with one group of normally developing children matched for mental age and another group matched for language age. Results indicated that the group matched for mental age performed better than the other two groups on all types of analogies. Although they had significantly higher mental ages, the children with language-learning disabilities did no better than the language-matched group on any analogy type except antonyms.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1993

A system for quantifying the informativeness and efficiency of the connected speech of adults with aphasia.

A standardized rule-based scoring system, the Correct Information Unit (CIU) analysis, was used to evaluate the informativeness and efficiency of the connected speech of 20 non-brain-damaged adults and 20 adults with aphasia in response to 10 elicitation stimuli. The interjudge reliability of the scoring system proved to be high, as did the session-to-session stability of performance on measures. There was a significant difference between the non-brain-damaged and aphasic speakers on each of the five measures derived from CIU and word counts. However, the three calculated measures (words per minute, percent CIUs, and CIUs per minute) more dependably separated aphasic from non-brain-damaged speakers on an individual basis than the two counts (number of words and number of CIUs).

Aged↗

PubMed1993

Clinical and research congruence in identifying children with specific language impairment.

This paper reports on the results of a large multicenter project designed to develop an empirically based classification of preschool children with language impairments. A clinically selected population of 252 children with specific language impairments (SLI) was used to evaluate the reliability, coverage, and usefulness of both standard clinical and research definitions of such children. Varying degrees of congruence were found between the clinically identified children with SLI and those identified as SLI using discrepancy, deficit, and standardized operational criteria. Such mismatch between the original clinical identification and more standardized operational criteria may be related to different clinical perspectives, professional training, and limited assessment measures. These results suggest that there is a significant gulf between the clinical diagnosis of children with specific language impairment and more standardized operational criteria. It is suggested that the global concept of a "specific language impairment" may not be a useful concept for either clinical or research activities.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1993

The grammatical morphology of Hebrew-speaking children with specific language impairment: some competing hypotheses.

Many English-speaking children with specific language impairment have unusual difficulty with grammatical morphemes such as past tense and third-person singular verb inflections and function words such as articles. Unfortunately, the source of this difficulty is not yet clear, in part because some of the possible contributing factors are confounded in English. In the present study, alternative accounts of grammatical morpheme difficulties were evaluated using children with specific language impairment who were acquiring Hebrew. We examined the grammatical morpheme production and comprehension of 15 Hebrew-speaking children with specific language impairment, 15 normally developing compatriots matched for age and 15 normally developing children matched for mean length of utterance in words. The results provided tentative support for the notion that grammatical morphemes are less difficult for children with specific language impairment if they take the form of stressed and/or lengthened syllables and if they appear in a language in which nouns, verbs, and adjectives must be inflected. The possibility that features such as person, number, and gender are missing from the underlying grammars of these children seems less likely.

Child Language↗

PubMed1994

Relationships between language and gesture in normally developing and late-talking toddlers.

Seventeen toddlers with specific expressive language delay (14 boys and 3 girls between 18 and 33 months of age) were compared to two control groups, one matched for language production and the other matched for age and language comprehension, on measures of spontaneous and imitated gesture production. Late talkers performed like age/comprehension-matched controls on all experimental measures of gesture production and on production of later appearing, more symbolic gestures as reported by parents. Late talkers performed like language-matched controls on earlier appearing communicative gestures and gestural routines as reported by parents. All three groups produced more gestures in canonical imitation conditions than spontaneously. Results are discussed in the contexts of the Local Homology Model and characteristics of toddlers with specific expressive language delay.

Child Language↗