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PubMed2002

Otitis media in early childhood in relation to children's school-age language and academic skills.

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether otitis media with effusion (OME) and associated hearing loss during the first 4 years of life are related to the language development and academic achievement of children between 4 years of age and second grade. METHODS: In a prospective cohort study, 83 black children, primarily from low-income families and recruited from community-based child care programs, were examined repeatedly between the ages of 6 months and 4 years for the presence of OME and hearing loss, both when well and when ill with OME. Children's child-rearing environments at home were assessed annually from infancy through second grade, whereas children's language and academic skills were assessed repeatedly between 4 years of age and second grade. RESULTS: We did not find in our longitudinal analyses a relationship between OME and hearing loss during the first 4 years of life and later academic skills in early reading and recognition of words heard. We did find that children with greater incidence of OME and hearing loss during the first 4 years of life scored lower in verbal math problems between kindergarten and second grade, even after partialing out important background factors. Children with more OME tended to score lower in math at the younger ages but caught up once they entered school. Follow-up analyses indicated also that children with more OME during the first 2 years of life scored lower in expressive language during the preschool and early elementary school years but caught up by second grade. In contrast, children from homes that were rated as more stimulating and responsive scored higher on every measure of language and academic skills than did children from less responsive homes. The home environment was related more strongly to all of the outcomes examined than was OME or hearing loss. CONCLUSIONS: There was no evidence of a significant relationship between a history of OME or hearing loss and children's later academic skills in reading or word recognition during the early elementary school years. Children with greater incidence of OME and hearing loss scored lower in math and expressive language at the younger ages but caught up in math with their peers on entering school and in expressive language by second grade. Furthermore, a child's home environment was more related to early math and expressive language skills than was OME or hearing loss, and the home environment continued to be predictive of all of the language and academic outcomes through second grade. These study results should be interpreted cautiously when generalizing to other populations.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1998

Language skills of children and adolescents with Down syndrome: II. Production deficits.

Hypotheses that children and adolescents with Down syndrome show (a) a specific expressive language impairment, (b) a "critical period" for language acquisition, (c) a "simple sentence syntactic ceiling" in production, and (d) deficit in grammatical morphology were investigated cross-sectionally. Conversational and narrative language samples from 47 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (Trisomy 21), aged 5 to 20 years, were compared to those from 47 control children aged 2 to 6 years matched statistically for nonverbal mental age. Children with Down syndrome appear to have a specific language impairment, compared to control children, in number of different words and total words (in the first 50 utterances) and in mean length of utterance (MLU). Total utterance attempts per minute were more frequent in the Down syndrome group. Narrative samples contained more word tokens, more word types, and longer MLU than conversation samples, for both groups. Intelligibility of narratives was significantly poorer for the Down syndrome group than controls. Analyses of narrative language sample by age sub-group showed no evidence of a critical period for language development ending at adolescence, nor of a "syntactic ceiling" at MLUs corresponding to simple sentences for the Down syndrome group. Omissions of word tokens and types were more frequent in the older Down syndrome than the younger control sample, matched on MLU.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Cognitive functions and epileptic activity.

Epilepsy, and its treatment, can affect the development and use of language in a number of different ways. The seizures may be a symptom of a lesion in areas of the brain essential for language function, and the complications of both the seizures and of the drugs can interfere with learning. However, the purpose of this review is to consider the role of epileptic activity as demonstrated by electrical discharges in the electroencephalogram (EEG), whether these are accompanied by overt seizures or not, on cerebral function especially that of language. The Landau-Kleffner, the continuous spike-waves during sleep, and the benign epilepsy of childhood with Rolandic spikes syndromes are considered; as well as the evidence of epileptic discharges affecting language development. If there are doubts that a patient is suffering from epilepsy the diagnosis may be difficult; and anyone involved in the treatment of language disorders should keep this possibility in mind. Particularly during childhood an EEG, awake and asleep, should be an important part of the assessment of both developmental and acquired dysphasia. The control of overt fits may be relatively easy, but drugs are not so effective in controlling the epileptic activity in the EEG. The treatment of such discharges used to be discouraged, but the evidence is now strongly in favour of employing both medical and surgical treatment. The results in restoring language function are sometimes dramatic.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Maternal substance use during pregnancy and developmental outcome at age three.

PURPOSE: The data from the National Maternal and Infant Health Survey (NMIHS) and its 3-year follow-up offer a unique opportunity to study the effects of substance (alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco) use during gestation on development at age three in a nationally representative sample. Using this data, the relationship of development (language, gross motor, fine motor, and adaptive behavior) and specific behaviors (eating problems, length of play, activity level, difficulty of management, level of happiness, fearfulness, ability to get along with peers, tantrums, eating nonfood) and maternal drinking, marijuana use, and cigarette smoking was studied in a sample of live births who had been followed up at age three. METHODS: The data were analyzed using a cumulative logit model of ordinal responses. RESULTS: Higher activity level, greater difficulty of management, tantrums, eating problems, and eating nonfood were related to maternal drinking during pregnancy. Increased fearfulness, poorer motor skills, and shorter length of play were associated with maternal marijuana use during pregnancy. Less well developed language, higher activity level, greater difficulty of management, fearfulness, decreased ability to get along with peers, and increased tantrums were associated with maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy. The preponderance of significant effects involved the behaviors studied rather than the developmental indices. IMPLICATIONS: It may be that the effects of substance use during pregnancy, especially more subtle ones, show up in behavior before they can be measured by developmental scales.

Cannabinoids↗
PubMed2004

The interreliability of data provided by fathers and mothers of young children, with special emphasis on speech and language parameters.

Gathering information from parents on developmental history and on actual functioning is an important element of diagnosis. Usually clinicians take it for granted that the data provided this way are reliable. We used two types of questionnaires, one containing open-ended questions, the other consisting of closed questions. By comparing the answers to both types filled in by fathers (2 x 50) and mothers (2 x 50) independently we tried to verify the interreliability of the data collected. We found a general degree of unanimity of 82%, dropping to only 48% on questions regarding early milestones of speech and language development. We found differences between the two types of questionnaires: more questions were left unanswered in the open-question type questionnaire, more differing answers were observed in a closed-question type questionnaire. Some factors might have had an influence on reliability, such as socio-economic background of the parents, differences between data on first and only children versus children from larger families. Although data collecting, including history taking, is, and will stay an important source for information gathering, clinicians have to be careful in interpreting them.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Mother-child interactions in Canada and Italy: linguistic responsiveness to late-talking toddlers.

The aim was to examine cross-cultural variation in linguistic responsiveness to young children in 10 English-speaking mother-child dyads and 10 Italian-speaking mother-child dyads. All 20 children were late talkers who possessed delays in expressive vocabulary development but age-appropriate cognitive and receptive language skills. Dyads were filmed in 15-minute free play contexts, which were transcribed and coded for measures of maternal linguistic input (e.g. rate, MLU, labels, expansions) and child language productivity (e.g. utterances, different words used). The results revealed that the Italian mothers used more utterances, spoke more quickly and used a more diverse vocabulary than the Canadian mothers. The Italian children mirrored their mothers and also used more utterances and a more diverse vocabulary than the Canadian children. Mothers in both groups used similar percentages of responsive labels and expansions. However, Italian mothers responded to fewer of their children's vocalizations, using a smaller percentage of imitations and interpretations than the Canadian mothers. Correlations between maternal input and children's language productivity revealed that contingent language measures (e.g. imitations, interpretations, expansions) were related to high levels of productivity in children in both cultural groups. The results support the use of language interventions based on increasing maternal responsiveness for these children at the one-word stage of language development. They also point to differences that may be culturally based. For example, Italian mothers use faster rates of interaction and appear to have higher expectations for their children's verbal participation in interaction. This is reflected in higher rates of language production from their children, even though children in both cultural groups have similar vocabulary sizes.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Changes in the generativity and use of semantic relationships concurrent with milieu language intervention.

Changes associated with a milieu language intervention implemented to teach productive semantic relationships (e.g., action-object combinations) were investigated. Subjects were 11 young children with borderline to moderate levels of mental retardation, all in the early stages of language development. Following a baseline period, each subject received three to four training sessions per week in a small group interactive play situation. Measures of generativity were analyzed via pre/post group comparisons. Concurrent with the intervention subjects showed substantial gains in their ability to generatively produce semantic relationships in the intervention context and across settings, adults, and interaction styles. Subjects also correctly responded to an increasing proportion of target probe questions in both the intervention and generalization settings. The results suggest that, for most of the subjects, milieu teaching was associated with enhanced generativity and use of semantic relationships.

Child↗
PubMed2003

Working memory capacity and language processes in children with specific language impairment.

This study examined the interaction between working memory and language comprehension in children with specific language impairment (SLI), focusing on the function of the central executive component and its interaction with the phonological loop (A. D. Baddeley, 1986) in complex working memory tasks. Thirteen children with SLI and 13 age-matched (age range = 7;0 [years;months] to 10;0) children with typical language development participated. The tasks combined traditional nonword repetition tests and sentence comprehension by using sentences that differed in length and syntactic complexity. The children with SLI exhibited larger processing and attentional capacity limitations than their age-matched peers. Increased word length and syntactic complexity resulted in a large performance decrease in nonword repetition in both groups. There were some variations in the error pattern, which may indicate qualitative differences between the 2 groups. The performance of the children with SLI in nonword repetition, across the different tasks, indicated a limitation in simultaneous processing rather than difficulty in encoding and analyzing the phonological structure of the nonwords. Furthermore, syntactic complexity had a greater effect on performance accuracy than did sentence length.

Case-Control Studies↗
PubMed2006

Auditory perception and attention as reflected by the brain event-related potentials in children with Asperger syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: Language development is delayed and deviant in individuals with autism, but proceeds quite normally in those with Asperger syndrome (AS). We investigated auditory-discrimination and orienting in children with AS using an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm that was previously applied to children with autism. METHODS: ERPs were measured to pitch, duration, and phonetic changes in vowels and to corresponding changes in non-speech sounds. Active sound discrimination was evaluated with a sound-identification task. RESULTS: The mismatch negativity (MMN), indexing sound-discrimination accuracy, showed right-hemisphere dominance in the AS group, but not in the controls. Furthermore, the children with AS had diminished MMN-amplitudes and decreased hit rates for duration changes. In contrast, their MMN to speech pitch changes was parietally enhanced. The P3a, reflecting involuntary orienting to changes, was diminished in the children with AS for speech pitch and phoneme changes, but not for the corresponding non-speech changes. CONCLUSIONS: The children with AS differ from controls with respect to their sound-discrimination and orienting abilities. SIGNIFICANCE: The results of the children with AS are relatively similar to those earlier obtained from children with autism using the same paradigm, although these clinical groups differ markedly in their language development.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2005

[The changes of fundamental frequency and formants of vowel in cochlear implant pre-lingual children of different age].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the changes of fundamental frequency and formants of vowel in cochlear implant pre-lingual children of different age and to provide the basis and direction for post-operative rehabilitation. To find the key period of language development from the aspect of phonetics and to illustrate the necessity of early implantation. METHOD: Nineteen pre-lingual cochlear implant children age from 3-13 who use 24 M or 24 Contour implant and Esprint speech processor participate the experiment. Voice analysis software was Vs99 which was explored by Beijing yangchen electronic technology corporation. Fundamental frequency and formants were abstracted from the sustained segment of vowel[a:]. RESULT: No significant difference of fundamental frequency was found between the age 4 group and normative group. Significant difference of fundamental frequency was found between the age 10 group and normative group (P < 0.05). No significant difference of formant 1 was found between the age 4 group and normative group. Significant difference of formant 1 was found between the age 10 group and normative group (P < 0.01). Formant 2 of the age 4 group was higher than the normative group, significantly. No significant difference of formant 2 was found between the age 10 group and normative group. No significant difference of the ratio of formant 1 to 2 was found between the age 4 group and normative group. Significant difference of the ratio of formant 1 to 2 was found between the age 10 group and normative group (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The phonation of the children from the age 4 to age 10 was obviously affected by age. This stage was the key stage for language development.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Assessing phonology in young children.

We have presented a discussion of three important concepts regarding early phonological assessment. The first is that the child's language level must be considered in collecting and analyzing a sample and in interpreting the results. For a child with age-level language abilities, the sample should consist of both a single-word test and a running speech sample; both independent and relational analyses are appropriate. For a child with delayed expressive language and a small productive vocabulary, a sample comprised of spontaneous productions is more appropriate. In this case, the sample should be analyzed in terms of sound classes and syllable and word shapes that occur; a phonological process analysis is inappropriate. Lexical selection patterns should be noted. The results of the analyses should be interpreted in view of the expectations for the child's language level. A child with a normally developing language system is expected to have more advanced phonology than a child of the same age with delayed language. Thus, a child with a large vocabulary and word combinations is expected to have an expanding phonological system, with a full range of sound classes and syllable and word shapes. If a child is delayed in language and is still within the first 50-word stage, the expectation is that the phonological system will be more limited. Critical features for the phonology of early productive vocabulary have been identified. Lack of one or more of these features is indicative of atypical phonological development at any age and language level. The second concept is that the phonological system as a whole must be considered. In particular, the analyses and expectations should be based on the presence or absence of sound classes and syllable shapes rather than on sounds per se. Lack of an entire class or syllable structure would be cause for concern; lack of a particular sound, even though it has been shown to be acquired early, would not be. Thus, lack of the entire fricative class at 36 months would be of concern, whereas errors on /f/, which according to Prather et al., 1975, is mastered by this age, would not be. The third important concept emerges from the case studies; both studies demonstrate that longitudinal assessment is necessary to document changing profiles over the course of development. A child such as David, who has a normal-but-delayed profile in language and phonology at one age, may subsequently exhibit atypical patterns as phonology and language dissociate.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Elaborating on elaborations: role of maternal reminiscing style in cognitive and socioemotional development.

Initial research on maternal reminiscing style established clear and consistent individual differences that vary along a dimension of maternal elaboration and that are related to children's developing autobiographical skills. More recent research has linked maternal elaborative reminiscing to strategic memory development, language and literacy skills, developing attachment relationships, and understanding of self, other, and mind. In this review, this research is placed in theoretical context by arguing for the critical role of reminiscing in developmental process and outcome.

Affect↗
PubMed2002

Brainstem auditory-evoked potentials of 8-year-old preterm children in relation to their psycholinguistic abilities and MRI findings.

BACKGROUND: Brainstem auditory potential (BAEP) has been used to demonstrate brainstem damage and to provide prognosis for the outcome for newborn children. There are contradictory results of its power to predict problems in language development or problems at school. It is well known that preterm children experience an excess of these problems. AIM: To study if BAEP findings of 8-year-old preterm children differ from those of the full-term born control children and whether there is correlation to their linguistic problems or to the findings in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). STUDY DESIGN: Population-based cohort study. SUBJECTS: Forty-two preterm children aged 8 years born with birth weight <1750 g and their matched full-term control children with birth weight >2500 g, 24 of whom had BAEP recordings and MRI. OUTCOME MEASURES: Differences in BAEPs between the preterm and the control children. Correlation of BAEPs with linguistic problems and with MRI findings. RESULTS: No differences were found in the absolute latencies nor in the interpeak intervals and in the I/V amplitude ratio. Nor did the results differ even when cerebral palsy disabled preterm children, preterm children with mild neurodevelopmental dysfunction or healthy preterm children were compared to each other or to the control children. No correlation to the linguistic problems or to the findings of periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) in MRI or to the different measurements of the brainstem were found. CONCLUSION: If hearing impairment does not exist, BAEP does not give further information on neurodevelopmental nor linguistic problems of the preterm children.

Brain↗
PubMed2001

Neurodevelopmental risks in twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome: preliminary findings.

The purpose of this study was to determine the neurodevelopmental risks in patients with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a rare but serious complication of monochorionic twin gestations. From a total sample of 94 twins with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, admitted during 1989 and 1993, 49 patients survived and 40 patients were followed to a mean age of 24 months. Neurological status and psychomotor development (Denver and Griffiths Developmental Tests) were determined. Parameters of the neonatal period were evaluated for their potential prediction. Of the 40 tested patients 18 showed a normal psychomotor development. Thirteen patients exibited a specific delay in language development and/or showed minor neurological dysfunctions. Nine twins had severe psychomotor retardation in combination with cerebral palsy. Major neurological sequelae were found, more common in recipients than in donors (6/19 vs 3/21). Correspondingly, neonatal ultrasound showed more pathological results (especially periventricular leucomalacia) in recipients. Neither anaemia nor polycythaemia at birth can predict developmental outcome. Apart from a high prenatal mortality rate, both twins, donators as well as recipients, are highly at risk for brain damage of different aetiology, associated with abnormal neonatal cerebral ultrasound.

Birth Weight↗
PubMed1979

Family with three apparently balanced t(3;15) (p27;q22) translocation carriers. Association with deficits in language acquisition and mental retardation: a possible example of position effect in man.

A father, son, and daughter had a (3;15) (p27;q22) simple reciprocal translocation. No abnormality in the G-banding pattern was noted. The girl was most severely affected; she had an abnormal phenotype, noticeable delay in receptive and expressive language development, bilateral hearing impairment, and definite mental retardation. The boy had a moderate delay in receptive language skills, had moderate hearing impairment in one ear, and showed mild mental retardation. The father has low-set ears, some deficits in receptive language skills, is illiterate, and was found to be borderline mentally retarded. The mother and younger child do not have the translocation and are normal in terms of phenotype, intellect, and verbal skills. The accumulating evidence suggests that balanced translocations are associated with an increased frequency of intellectual deficit and congenital anomalies, and the cytogenetic mechanism may be that of position effect.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Pro-nominal reference skills of second and fourth grade children with language impairment.

UNLABELLED: Pro-nominal referencing was evaluated in a sample of 569 children comprising four diagnostic subgroups: typical language (TL), specific language impairment (SLI), nonspecific language impairment (NLI), and typical language with low nonverbal IQ (LNIQ). Participants generated oral narratives in second grade and again in fourth grade. The narratives of the females in the TL group included a significantly higher rate of pro-nominal references than the narratives of both the males in the TL group and the females in the NLI group. A higher percentage of complete pro-nominal references was found in the TL group compared to the SLI group. These findings suggest that pro-nominal referencing measures are not sensitive enough to differentiate school-aged children with typical language development from those with language impairment. LEARNING OUTCOMES: The reader will: (1) become familiar with narrative language measures and (2) learn how groups of children with varying language and cognitive profiles perform on measures of referential cohesion.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2007

Abnormal frequency discrimination in children with SLI as indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN).

For several decades, the aetiology of specific language impairment (SLI) has been associated with a central auditory processing deficit disrupting the normal language development of affected children. One important aspect for language acquisition is the discrimination of different acoustic features, such as frequency information. Concerning SLI, studies to date that examined frequency discrimination abilities have been contradictory. We hypothesized that an auditory processing deficit in children with SLI depends on the frequency range and the difference between the tones used. Using a passive mismatch negativity (MMN)-design, 13 boys with SLI and 13 age- and IQ-matched controls (7-11 years) were tested with two sine tones of different frequency (700Hz versus 750Hz). Reversed hemispheric activity between groups indicated abnormal processing in SLI. In a second time window, MMN2 was absent for the children with SLI. It can therefore be assumed that a frequency discrimination deficit in children with SLI becomes particularly apparent for tones below 750Hz and for a frequency difference of 50Hz. This finding may have important implications for future research and integration of various research approaches.

Acoustic Stimulation↗