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Biomedical subjects

L B Leonard

Publications and source records attributed to L B Leonard.

85 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1975

Relational meaning and the facilitation of slow-learnign children's language.

Through a modeling procedure, 24 slow-learning children acquired the use of two-word subject-verb utterances. The children were assigned to conditions designed to examine the effects of two variables: (a) the number of different semantic relations theoretically underlying the subject-verb utterances on which the children were trained and (b) the extent to which these semantic relations were associated with nonlinguistic events. Stimuli in the form of situational events proved facilitative in the children's subject-verb usage. Apparently, situational evidence may provide the child with useful relational information about his environment. Implications for intervention were discussed.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Lexical comprehension and grammatical deficits in children with specific language impairment.

Several accounts of specific language impairment (SLI) in children have appeared in the recent literature. One of the most explicit is that of Locke. The purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate some of the details of Locke's proposal. In the first of two studies, it was found that children with SLI who were limited to single-word utterances showed deficits in their lexical comprehension. In the second study, a number of children with SLI who had reached the grammatical stage of development showed age-appropriate levels of lexical comprehension. Although the first of these findings was in keeping with Locke's account, the second was not. Additional provisions for this proposal are suggested.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The phonology-morphology interface in the speech of Hebrew-speaking children with specific language impairment.

UNLABELLED: Phonological deficits are common in children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, the degree to which they constitute an area of extraordinary difficulty, and their contribution to the morphological deficits of these children are largely unknown. In this investigation, we studied a group of young children with SLI who were acquiring Hebrew, a language in which phonology and morphology are closely linked. The phonology of these children lagged behind that of same-age peers as well as younger normally developing children matched according to mean number of morphemes per utterance. Furthermore, the children with SLI were more likely to commit phonological errors that neutralized important morphological distinctions in their language. These findings have implications for both assessment and therapy. LEARNING OUTCOMES: As a result of this activity, the following learning outcomes will be achieved: The participant will be able to: (1) describe the differences in phonology between children with SLI and typically developing children; (2) describe the impact ofphonological disorders on the assessment of the morphological systems of children with SLI; and (3) explain the necessary modifications to a therapy program for children with a combination of morphological and phonological disorders.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Phonology and children with specific language impairment: status of structural constraints in two languages.

Two studies are reported in which the phonological characteristics of preschool-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) are compared with those seen in younger normally developing children matched for mean length of utterance and consonant inventory size. The productions of both English-speaking and Italian-speaking children with SLI were more likely to deviate from the adult standard than the productions of the younger control children. In Italian, the children with SLI had more difficulty than the younger controls in the use of non-final weak syllables; in English, the children with SLI were poorer than the younger controls in the use of non-final weak syllables, word-final consonants, and word-final consonant clusters. These are the same phonological details that are required for several grammatical inflections and many function words in the two languages. However, the children with SLI were also less consistent than their younger compatriots in using consonants in structurally simple words. These findings provide evidence for the view that for many preschool-age children with SLI, phonological problems go beyond those that might be predicted on the basis of the children's short utterances and limited consonant inventories.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Tense and finiteness in the speech of children with specific language impairment acquiring Hebrew.

Verb morphology is often an area of extraordinary difficulty for children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, in Hebrew, this difficulty appears to be more circumscribed than in other languages. In a recent study by Dromi et al., the limitations exhibited by a group of Hebrew-speaking children with SLI were confined primarily to the use of agreement inflections within past tense. This difficulty was interpreted as being due to the fact that the agreement paradigm within past tense is rather complex (involving person, number, and gender, along with tense). This study explores another possibility--that these inflections were difficult because they required past tense in particular. Also determined was whether the children's frequent use of the morphologically simplest forms (such as past third person masculine singular) in place of the correct forms could be interpreted as their selection of a non-finite default form. A group of Hebrew-speaking children with SLI (age 4.2 to 6.1) participated, along with a group of age controls, and a group of younger normally developing children matched for mean length of utterance (MLU). The children listened to stories that were accompanied by pictures. During each story, the children completed the experimenter's incomplete sentences using appropriate verbs. To complete the sentences accurately, the children had to alter the tense or finiteness of the verb used by the experimenter in the preceding sentence. The results indicated that the children with SLI had more difficulty than both comparison groups in the production of basic present and past forms and infinitive forms of verbs that required use of one particular phonological template or 'binyan'. However, for the verbs requiring the remaining three phonological templates, the children with SLI were as capable as MLU controls in their command of past as well as present tense, and in their use of infinitive forms. It is concluded that tense and finiteness probably do not form the core of the problem faced by Hebrew-speaking children with SLI in the area of verb morphology.

Articulation Disorders↗