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Biomedical subjects

L Rescorla

Publications and source records attributed to L Rescorla.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Phonological skills of children with specific expressive language impairment (SLI-E): outcome at age 3.

Naturalistic speech samples of 29 3-year-olds diagnosed with specific expressive language delay (SU-E) were compared to those produced by 19 age-matched normally developing peers in order to determine their improvement in phonological skills since age 2, when Rescorla and Ratner (1996) studied them. Specifically, the groups were compared with regard to vocalization rate, verbalizations, fully intelligible utterances, phonetic inventories, percentages of consonants correct (PCC), phonological processes, and mean length of utterance (MLU). Results revealed that there was no significant difference between the groups in their numbers of vocalizations (as there had been at age 2), although there continued to be differences in their phonetic inventories, PCC scores, and overall intelligibility. These findings suggest that at age 2 the children with SU-E were not only less phonologically skilled but less talkative, whereas by age 3 they were equally vocal. Analysis of the phonetic inventories of the children demonstrated that for most consonants, the SLI-E group followed the some pattern of development as the comparison children, but more of the normally developing group had productive control of each consonant, consistent with findings of Rescorla and Ratner. There continued to be differences in intelligibility as measured by rates of verbalization (those utterances with at least one intelligible word) and fully intelligible utterances. Using these measures, we found that approximately half the SU-E children had caught up with their normally developing peers in terms of articulation, whereas half of them continued to be significantly delayed. Finally, although some of the late-bloomer group had caught up to the comparison children in language skills, as measured by MLU, many had not, suggesting that there was a tendency for the children to catch up in some articulation skills before catching up in language abilities.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1997

Normal language acquisition.

Long before they start talking, children are skilled at using eye contact, facial expression, and nonverbal gestures to communicate with other people. They also are able to discriminate speech sounds from an early age. Vocabulary learning builds on the child's knowledge about objects, actions, locations, properties, and stages gained as a result of sensorimotor development. Early word combinations allow children to express semantic relationships between these various referents. During the period from 2 to 4 years of age, children move from expressing their ideas in simple telegraphic speech to being able to ask questions, use negation, talk about past and future events, and describe complicated situations using sentences constructed according to complex grammatical rules.

Child↗
PubMed1997

Late talkers at 2: outcome at age 3.

Age 3 follow-up data are presented for a sample of 34 toddlers diagnosed between the ages of 24 and 31 months with expressive type specific language impairment (SU-E). At age 3, the late talkers scored significantly lower on all language measures than 21 comparison peers matched at intake on age, SES, and nonverbal ability. When seen at follow-up, the former late talkers scored in the average range on the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT) and on the Reynell Expressive Language Scale, but more than 1.5 SDs below age expectations in MLU and on Scarborough's (1990a) IPSyn. The proportion of late talkers performing in the average range at follow-up varied markedly as a function of measure used (EOWPVT: 79%, Reynell: 58%, MLU: 35%, and IPSyn: 24%), indicating that the late talkers made more rapid progress in lexical development and in the use of language to define, explain, and describe than they did in the areas of syntactic and morphological development. The only significant predictor of age 3 outcome was intake expressive language level, with toddlers who had been more severely delayed in expressive language at intake relative to age level having the worst outcomes at age 3.

Child Language↗
PubMed1996

Phonetic profiles of toddlers with specific expressive language impairment (SLI-E).

Spontaneous language samples of 30 24-month-old toddlers diagnosed with Specific Expressive Language Impairment (SLI-E) were compared with samples produced by an age-matched group of 30 typically developing toddlers. Vocalization patterns, phonetic inventories, and syllable formation patterns were compared. Toddlers with SLI-E vocalized significantly less often than their typically developing peers, had proportionately smaller consonantal and vowel inventories, and used a more restricted and less mature array of syllable shapes. Although the mean incidence of phoneme usage varied significantly in all comparisons, profiles of consonant usage were similar between the two groups for initial phoneme usage, but considerably different for final consonant closure. Such patterns of vocal and phonetic behavior confirm earlier reports of phonetic delay in SLI-E, and suggest that nongrammatical factors contribute to the development of expressive language deficits in toddlers. We further propose a bidirectional model for the expressive deficits in SLI-E, in which the child's limited phonetic capacity interacts with propensities in caretaker interaction to further reduce opportunities for expressive language learning and practice.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1996

Mother-child synchrony and communicative reciprocity in late-talking toddlers.

Eighteen mother-child dyads that included 24- to 31-month-old boys who were late talkers were compared in terms of social cues and dyadic synchrony with dyads including normally developing boys matched with the other boys in terms of SES and nonverbal ability. Mothers of late talkers did not differ from comparison group mothers in degree of synchrony with their children nor in their use of social cues. Similarly, late talkers did not differ from comparison children in play synchrony, compliance, or overall communicativeness, although they made significantly fewer clear verbalizations, produced significantly more unintelligible utterances, and relied more heavily on gestural and nonverbal communicative cues. Dyads with late talkers manifested stronger patterns of relationship between the variables studied than comparison dyads, with highly controlling mothers tending to be low in synchrony and to have children who were low in both compliance and synchrony.

Child Language↗
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↗
PubMed1991

Ability, achievement, and adjustment in homeless children.

Homeless 3-12-year-old children residing in city shelters were compared with a matched control group of 45 inner city children in terms of cognitive functioning and emotional-behavioral adjustment. School-age children in both groups did not differ significantly on most measures. Preschool homeless children exhibited slower development and more emotional-behavioral problems than did their domiciled peers, and significantly fewer were enrolled in early childhood programs. The feasibility of evaluating this population on standardized instruments is demonstrated, and implications of the study for social policy are discussed.

Achievement↗
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↗
PubMed1988

Cluster analytic identification of autistic preschoolers.

Cluster analysis was performed on factor analytic symptom profiles obtained from the Achenbach CBCL for a clinical sample of 204 3- to 5-year-old boys containing 79 autistic and autistic-like children. Patterns of results across 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-cluster solutions are presented. Clustering identified an autistic group as soon as three clusters were formed. As more clusters were obtained, this autistic cluster was subdivided according to presence/absence of anxiety and level of functioning. Other clusters included an emotional/behavioral disorder group, with some differentiation into Externalizing and Internalizing clusters, and a group of relatively normal children with few symptoms.

Affective Symptoms↗