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Defining abstract entities: development in pre-adolescents, adolescents, and young adults.

Students ages 12, 15, 18, and 23 (n = 60 per group) wrote definitions for 16 abstract nouns (e.g., pride, courage, realization). Responses were analyzed for the Aristotelian style, a type of definition that mentions both the superordinate category term and one or more characteristics of the word (e.g., "Pride is a sense of delight about a possession or accomplishment"). This response type was of interest because it is a sophisticated and literate defining style that is modeled in classrooms, textbooks, and dictionaries-a style that is informative, concise, and efficient. The results indicated that a number of important changes occur in the ability to provide Aristotelian definitions for abstract nouns during the developmental period from late childhood to early adulthood. Specifically, there was an increasing tendency for students to mention the appropriate category to which a word belongs, core features of the word, and subtle aspects of meaning. The study contributes to the knowledge base concerning the nature of language development in pre-adolescents, adolescents, and young adults.

Adolescent↗

Describing the acquisition of determiners in English: a growth modeling approach.

This paper, based on naturalistic data, describes the acquisitional course and use of the articles a and the in young English-speaking children (18-61 months), with special emphasis on the role of individual variation. A growth modeling approach to the data reveals that children's individual acquisition schedules are similar in trend, but vary in the rate at which they omit determiners at a given point of time. This picture suggests that an analysis that presumes homogeneous development will seriously misrepresent the fluctuations between and within individuals. Interestingly, this variation does not reflect a variation in children's abilities to use determiners correctly-irrespective of the rate in which they used determiners, children seldom used determiners incorrectly. The analysis also reveals that children's optional omission of determiners in obligatory contexts, beginning at 18 months of age, gradually decreases on average by 3-4% a month until 36 months of age, and thereafter plunges by a factor of 10 to an average of 0.3% per month. At 36 month of age the majority of children use determiners at a near-mastery level (Brown, 1973). These findings provide a useful framework for theorizing about possible mechanisms underlying the nature of early language development pre- and post-36 months of age.

Age Factors↗

Parent and sibling comprehension of children's speech.

In this research, the capacity of parents and siblings to understand the speech of children in early phases of language development was investigated. The utterances of young children were video tape recorded and presented to family members and nonparent and nonsibling controls. Family members showed a comprehension advantage over the appropriate control groups.

Adult↗

[Validated diagnostics for dysgrammatism].

BACKGROUND: Non-standardized procedures are used to evaluate, in particular, grammatical performance in most German institutions performing diagnostic procedures on children with impaired speech and language development. This makes a comparison of results difficult. METHODS: We studied 181 boys and 72 girls aged between 5 and 6 years using four subtests of IDIS additionally to the routine procedure. Results were compared to the "degree of dysgrammatism" determined from the traditional evaluation based on expert rating. RESULTS: The new procedure is able to divide the children into groups with normal speech and language ability, with deficits accessible to a traditional logopedic treatment, and with severe speech and language impairment that necessitates intensive treatment. DISCUSSION: The proposed tests allow an accurate evaluation of grammatical performance instead of subjective estimates.

Articulation Disorders↗

Cochlear implantation in children under the age of two years: candidacy considerations.

Within recent years, there has been a growing trend to lower the age at implantation below 2 years in children. The motivation for this trend is to provide children with access to auditory stimulation as early as possible, thereby taking advantage of crucial periods for speech and language development. Determining implant candidacy in very young children, however, poses numerous challenges and requires the development and evaluation of assessment procedures appropriate for this population. Issues in determining audiologic candidacy and evaluating implant benefit in young children are discussed. Measures that can be used to assess auditory development in this population and the application of some of these procedures in the pediatric study of the Clarion cochlear implant (Advanced Bionics Corp., Sylmar, Calif.) are also presented.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Developmental transformational capacity of children with Down's syndrome.

This study examined the generative-transformational capacities of two groups of children with Down's Syndrome with mean mental ages of 3,6 yr. and 4,6 yr. respectively. A sentence repetition task was used to assess their knowledge of selected transformational sentence types (simple-active-affirmative-declarative, question, negative, passive and negative-passive). There were significant effects of groups and sentence types but a nonsignificant interaction of groups X sentence types. These results were taken as support for Lenneberg's "slow motion" hypothesis of language development in mentally retarded children. Children with Down's Syndrome appear to follow the same patterns of grammatical acquisition as normal children but at a reduced rate associated with the severity of their retardation.

Child, Preschool↗

Age-related language characteristics of children and adolescents with fragile X syndrome.

In addition to moderate-to-severe mental retardation (MR), the fragile X [fra(X)] mutation produces significant impediments in speech and language. Severe delays in speech and language have been demonstrated in both adult males and young individuals with the fra(X) mutation. Having observed longitudinal declines in IQ scores in young males with fra(X) and given the relationship between cognitive ability and language skill, we wanted to determine whether speech-language deficits in young males with fra(X) were age-related in ways comparable with those observed in cognitive deficits. We examined a small sample (n = 16) of children and adolescents, ages 6-17 years, using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamental-Preschool (CELF-P). The CELF-P is used to evaluate language deficits in preschool children and assesses receptive and expressive language ability. It is standardized for children ages 3-7 years and provides age-normed standard scores. To evaluate changes in language scores, we converted raw scores into age-equivalents. Results indicate that males with fra(X) have significantly lower age equivalent scores compared with females. A cross-sectional analysis of males' age-equivalent scores reveals that a plateau is reached at approximately 48 months. Our findings suggest that, as with IQ and adaptive behavior scores, language development in young, fully mutated fra(X) individuals appears to reach a plateau as they age.

Adolescent↗

Experiences with the cochlear implant in preschool children.

Years of experience with the cochlear implant in profoundly deaf adults led to a decision to attempt to extend the benefits of this device to children. As of March 15, 1983, 43 deaf children ranging in age from 2.7 to 17.5 years have been implanted. Seventeen of these are children under 6 years of age. All had worn hearing aids but demonstrated little or no benefit from them. Auditory thresholds with the implant are significantly better than those obtained unaided and with hearing aids. Although a longer period of experience is required, the preschool-aged children can eventually make the same auditory discriminations as older children and adults. Long-term impact on speech and language development remains to be determined, but there is already evidence for significant improvement in these areas.

Adolescent↗

Deleterious, protein-altering variants in GSPT2 are putatively associated with an X-linked neurodevelopmental disorder with intellectual disability, language impairment, autism, and epilepsy.

PURPOSE: Approximately 6% of individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders are predicted to be X-linked, and the GSPT2 gene, located at Xp11.22, has not yet been associated with any Mendelian disease. METHODS: To establish genotype-phenotype associations between GSPT2 and neurodevelopmental disorders, clinical investigations were performed in unrelated individuals, genomic and functional studies were conducted on the participants' blood and heterologous cell system. RESULTS: We described 6 individuals from 6 unrelated families carrying hemizygous variants in GSPT2 with intellectual disability, delayed speech and language development, autism spectrum disorder, epilepsy, or abnormal fetal neurodevelopment. Structural molecular modeling revealed significant deleterious effects of the identified variants. GSPT2 is preferentially enriched in the brain and cerebellum compared with other tissues. GSPT2-deficient H4 neuroglioma cells slow down the proliferation and downregulate the expression of cell-cycle-related genes. Transcriptomics revealed that GABAergic and calcium-signaling-related genes were significantly downregulated in GSPT2-deficient cells. Consistent with the transcriptomic data, RT-PCR analysis verified the marked downregulation of critical genes (CACNA1B, etc) in GSPT2-knockout cells and further confirmed these findings with proteomic profiling. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest a putative GSPT2-related X-linked neurodevelopmental disorders through dysregulation of cell-cycle progression and calcium/GABAergic signaling pathways.

Humans↗

Impact of recurrent otitis media on middle ear function, hearing, and language.

Whether recurrent otitis media in infants and young children is followed by delayed language development was addressed by following 210 normal subjects longitudinally through the first 2 years of life with pneumatic otoscopy and tympanometry performed at every physician encounter. Otitis accounted for 26% of the medical visits. One hundred fifty-six of these children had speech and hearing evaluation at 2 years of age. Thirty percent of the children with recurrent otitis media had a mild or moderate hearing loss. However, after multiple speech and language tests, we could not identify a delay in language acquisition in the otitis-prone children. At 3 to 4 years old, 36 children, including nine with a hearing loss at 2 years of age, were retested; all nine had normal hearing. Recurrent otitis media induced a temporary decrease in hearing sensitivity demonstrable at 2 years of age, which appeared to resolve as the children matured and which was not associated with delay in language acquisition.

Child, Preschool↗

High-frequency verbs and verb diversity in the spontaneous speech of school-age children with specific language impairment.

Low verb diversity and heavy reliance on a small set of high-frequency 'general all purpose (GAP)' verbs have been reported to characterize specific language impairment (SLI) in preschool children. However, discrepancies exist about the severity of this deficit, particularly in whether these children's verb diversity is commensurate with their MLU level and whether verb diversity is more severely affected than general lexical diversity. Conflicting findings have been reported regarding the use of GAP verbs. This relatively large (n = 100) study extended the investigation of lexical diversity and high-frequency verb use to school-age children with SLI and NL peers and examined a particular hypothesis concerning the role of high-frequency verbs in language development. No differences were found between groups in general lexical diversity or verb diversity in samples of a set number of tokens. The results did not suggest that verb diversity constitutes an area of specific deficit in spontaneous production for children with SLI. SLI and NL groups were indistinguishable in high-frequency verb use. Extensive use of high-frequency verbs by both groups indicates that their use is part of normal development. Results are reported that support the hypothesis that high-frequency verbs act as prototypes for major meaning categories, permitting semantic and syntactic simplification with minimal losses in information value.

Age Factors↗

[Analysis on the infants of speech delay with chronic secretory otitis media].

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between chronic secretory otitis media and speech delay in infants. METHOD: Twenty infants with speech delay, because of chronic secretory otitis media, were retrospectively analyzed. RESULT: Twenty infants hearing become normal and their language developed rapidly after tube insertion. CONCLUSION: Speech delay in infants were partly related to chronic secretory otitis media and associated hearing loss. The chronic secretory otitis media in infants should be treated positively.

Child, Preschool↗

[A longitudinal study of children with language delay at 3 years of age; later WPPSI and school attendance].

Ninety-four children (eighty-three boys and eleven girls), who were delayed in verbal expression (expressive language less than two-thirds of the standard for their chronological ages) at the age of three years, were evaluated for school attendance and intelligence at the age of six. The Yamada's Check List for Language Development and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) were used to assess language problems and the intelligence quotient (IQ). Thirty children (32%) were delayed in verbal expression only, and sixty-four (68%) were delayed in both: verbal expression and comprehension were less than two-thirds of the standard for their chronological ages. Of children with delay in verbal expression only, 36% of them had low full-scale IQs (less than 70), and 27% had required special tutoring. Of children with delayed development of verbal expression and comprehension, 85% had low full-scale IQs, and 89% had required special tutoring or had attended schools for mentally retarded children. In expressive and comprehensive language delay, forty-one children avoided personal relations at the age of three years. Later thirty of these children were diagnosed as suffering from infantile autism. Poor mental outcome could be predicted by the delay of expressive and comprehensive language at the age of three years. The high prevalence of developmental disorders at later stages for the children in this study suggests the need for close monitoring of children with delayed language.

Child, Preschool↗

Cognitive and neuroimaging findings in physically abused preschoolers.

AIMS: To characterise the cognitive, motor, and language skills of toddlers and preschoolers who had been physically abused and to obtain concurrent MRIs of the brain. METHODS: A between groups design was used to compare a sample of 19 children, aged 14-77 months, who had been hospitalised for physical abuse with no evidence of neurological injury to a comparison group of 19 children matched for age and socioeconomic status. Children underwent cognitive, language, and motor testing within three months of their discharge from the hospital. Caregivers of the injured children were interviewed and were asked to complete questionnaires to characterise the child's developmental level and behaviour just prior to the hospitalisation. RESULTS: Children who had been physically abused scored significantly lower than the comparison group on measures of cognitive functioning, motor skills, and language skills. The groups did not differ in child behaviour ratings completed by the caregivers. MRI of the brain was performed for 15 children in the physical abuse group; two were found to have significant cerebral atrophy. CONCLUSIONS: Children who have been physically abused are at high risk for delays in cognitive, motor, and language development. Standard of care for these children should include developmental testing as well as neuroimaging of the brain to detect occult brain injury.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Narrative production by children with and without specific language impairment: oral narratives and emergent readings.

The research reported in this paper was based on the premise that oral and written language development are intertwined. Further, the research was motivated by research demonstrating that narrative ability is an important predictor of school success for older children with language impairment. The authors extended the inquiry to preschool children by analyzing oral narratives and "emergent storybook reading" (retelling of a familiar storybook) by two groups of 20 children (half with, half without language impairment) age 2;4 (years;months) to 4;2. Comparative analyses of the two narrative genres using a variety of language and storybook structure parameters revealed that both groups of children used more characteristics of written language in the emergent storybook readings than in the oral narratives, demonstrating that they were sensitive to genre difference. The children with language impairment were less able than children developing typically to produce language features associated with written language. For both groups, middles and ends of stories were marked significantly more often within the oral narratives than the emergent readings. The children with language impairment also had difficulty with other linguistic features: less frequent use of past-tense verbs in both contexts and the use of personal pronouns in the oral narratives. Emergent storybook reading may be a useful addition to language sampling protocols because it can reveal higher order language skills and contribute to understanding the relationship between language impairment and later reading disability.

Child, Preschool↗

Age and experience-related improvements in gap detection in the rat.

The ability to accurately process brief, successive acoustic signals rapidly presented to the central nervous system is believed to underlie successful language development. The limits of temporal resolution of the auditory system, often assessed using gap detection tasks, has been widely studied in relation to developing and decoding speech. In the present study, a reflex modification paradigm was used to investigate potential shifts in gap detection thresholds in rats across development, with test sessions beginning on postnatal day (P) 15, P35 and P64. We found that thresholds decreased over the course of development. These thresholds were determined to lie between 10 and 20 ms for the P15 and P35 groups, and between 5 and 10 ms for the P64 group. Moreover, we observed improvements in gap detection thresholds in all age groups over 5 days of testing, including the youngest age group (P15). These later results suggest that experience-dependent plasticity mechanisms at the level of sensory processing are operational and observable both very early in development, and also in adult animals. The present findings also demonstrate maturational improvements in silent gap detection using a pre-pulse inhibition paradigm.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Language disorders in children with autism.

Language development is delayed in most children on the autistic spectrum. The children are dysphasic as well as autistic. Comprehension and pragmatics are invariably affected. Lower level mixed receptive/expressive disorders involve phonological and syntactical processing, whereas higher level processing disorders involve semantics and formulation of discourse. In some children, lower level disorders may be so severe as to preclude speech, whereas in others phonology may be deficient in spontaneous production but not in repetition. Abnormal features of autistic language include aberrant prosody, immediate and delayed echolalia (scripts), and perseveration. Electrophysiological studies indicate that brainstem-evoked potentials are normal. Even in fully verbal individuals with autism, early and late cortical components of auditory, but not visual, event-related potentials are abnormal. Appropriate intervention must address language and behavioral issues. In children with severely defective auditory language, provision of visual language to supplement speech is essential.

Autistic Disorder↗

Children with implants can speak, but can they communicate?

English-language skills were evaluated in two groups of profoundly hearing-impaired children with the Reynell Developmental Language Scales, Revised. The first group consisted of 89 deaf children who had not received cochlear implants. The second group consisted of 23 children wearing Nucleus multichannel cochlear implants. The subjects without implants provided cross-sectional language data used to estimate the amount of language gains expected on the basis of maturation. The Reynell data from the group without implants were subjected to a regression by age. On the basis of this analysis, deaf children were predicted to make half or less of the language gains of their peers with normal hearing. Predicted language scores were then generated for the subjects with implants by using the children's preimplant Reynell Developmental Language Scale scores. The predicted scores were then compared with actual scores achieved by the subjects with implants 6 and 12 months after implantation. Twelve months after implantation, the subjects demonstrated gains in receptive and expressive language skills that exceeded by 7 months the predictions made on the basis of maturation alone. Moreover, the average language-development rate of the subjects with implants in the first year of device use was equivalent to that of children with normal hearing. These effects were observed for children with implants using both the oral and total-communication methods.

Age Factors↗