The design and standardization of a speech and language screening test for use with preschool children.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Child, Preschool↗
SEARCH · Search PubMed
Results for “Language Tests”
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Verbal perseveration in individuals with Alzheimer's disease.
Perseveration has been described as a reliable indicator of disturbed brain function and is a common characteristic of neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). This article will begin with a review of recent theories that account for the phenomenon of perseveration, and data from a National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)--supported study further delineate the nature of perseveration among individuals with AD. The study investigated the frequency of verbal perseveration in individuals with AD in relation to task type, mental status, and performance on attention and memory tests. Thirty Alzheimer's patients and 40 healthy elders were given a confrontation naming, generative naming, and picture description test. Perseveration was defined as a proportion of total number of responses. Data analysis revealed that individuals with AD perseverated more than normal elders did, but variability was high. Generative naming elicited more perseveration than either confrontation naming or picture description did. When overall frequency of perseveration was correlated with mental status and performance on attention and memory tests, seemingly paradoxical results were obtained, probably because the unique cognitive demands of each language test affected the probability of perseveration differently. Nonparadoxical, strong positive correlations were obtained, however, between language test scores and performance on tests of attention, memory and mental status.
Aged↗
Decline of language among women and men with Alzheimer's disease.
Previous research raises the possibility that gender differences occur in language function in Alzheimer's disease, but this hypothesis has not been evaluated systematically in longitudinal studies. The authors examined the association of gender with rate of decline in language and other cognitive functions among 410 persons with Alzheimer's disease. Participants were recruited from a dementia clinic and followed for up to 5 annual evaluations. Follow-up participation among survivors exceeded 90%. Decline in a composite score based on 8 language tests was evaluated in random effects models with age, education, and race controlled. Annual decline was 0.71 standard units (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.62-0.79) for women and 0.74 units (95% CI = 0.61-0.86) for men, not a significant difference. Decline on the individual language tests and on composite measures of memory, perception, and global cognition also indicated no significant association with gender. These results suggest that Alzheimer's disease affects language and other cognitive functions similarly in women and men.
Aged↗
Long-term speech and language disorders subsequent to closed head injury in children.
The speech and language functioning of a group of 20 children (aged 8-16) who had sustained a closed head injury at least 12 months previously were assessed with the purpose of developing a comprehensive profile of the type and severity of the long-term speech/language disorders exhibited by this group. The subjects were administered a battery of speech/language assessments including an articulation/phonological assessment; oromotor assessment; overall language test and specific language skills assessments. Performance of the head-injured group was compared to that of a group of non-neurologically impaired accident victims matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status. Overall language performance scores of the head-injured group were found to be significantly lower than achieved by the control group.
Adolescent↗
CERAD test performances in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.
OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to examine the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) test performances cross-sectionally in patients suffering from amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). Moreover, we wanted to determine the sensitivity to amnestic MCI and mild AD, as well as the specificity of different CERAD subtests in our study groups. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Fifteen healthy elderly individuals, 15 amnestic MCI patients and 15 probable AD patients suffering from mild dementia were tested with the CERAD neurocognitive dementia screening test. RESULTS: Significant differences were found in all CERAD tests except Constructional praxis (copy) and Clock drawing between the controls and the AD group. The MCI group was differentiated from the controls only in the Wordlist learning test. In the language tests the sensitivity to MCI and AD was quite low and the specificity very high. In the savings scores the sensitivity to AD was high, but the specificity rather low. The Wordlist recognition test screened no false positives using the current cut-off score and the sensitivity to AD was 0.6, but only one MCI patient was detected using the current cut-off score. Raising the cut-off score also raised the sensitivity to MCI without dramatic loss of specificity. Cut-off scores for the Wordlist learning test and Wordlist delayed recall, which have been found to differentiate normal aging from dementia, are lacking in the Finnish CERAD. The current data indicates that the Wordlist learning test might be relatively sensitive to MCI. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that the Finnish CERAD test battery with its current cut-off scores has low sensitivity to MCI, and using it as a sole cognitive screening instrument for MCI and preclinical dementia might result in false negatives.
Aged↗
The dimensionality of language ability in school-age children.
PURPOSE: This study asked if children's performance on language tests reflects different dimensions of language and if this dimensionality changes with development. METHOD: Children were given standardized language batteries at kindergarten and at second, fourth, and eighth grades. A revised modified parallel analysis was used to determine the dimensionality of these items at each grade level. A confirmatory factor analysis was also performed on the subtest scores to evaluate alternate models of dimensionality. RESULTS: The revised modified parallel analysis revealed a single dimension across items with evidence of either test specific or language area specific minor dimensions at different ages. The confirmatory factor analysis tested models involving modality (receptive or expressive) and domain (vocabulary or sentence use) against a single-dimension model. The 2-dimensional model involving domains of vocabulary and sentence use fit the data better than the single-dimensional model; however, the single-dimension model also fit the data well in the lower grades. CONCLUSIONS: Much of the variance in standardized measures of language appears to be attributable to a single common factor or trait. There is a developmental trend during middle childhood for grammatical abilities and vocabulary abilities to become differentiated. These measures do not provide differential information concerning receptive and expressive abilities.
Aptitude↗
Language skills in 5-8-year-old children with 22q11 deletion syndrome.
BACKGROUND: Language impairment and delayed language onset have been described, although not investigated in detail, in children with 22q11 deletion syndrome. AIMS: To investigate different areas of language: the ability to retell a narrative, phonology, syntax and receptive vocabulary in a group of 5-8-year-old children with 22q11 deletion syndrome regardless of whether or not they had a history of speech and language difficulties. Gender differences were also investigated. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Nineteen consecutively referred children with 22q11 deletion syndrome, ten girls and nine boys, between the ages of 5 and 8 years, participated in the study. The mean full-scale IQ of the group was 78. Six children had an autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or a combination of these. Three different language tests were used: (1) the Bus Story - a test of narrative speech and language; (2) an articulation test including all Swedish phonemes in different positions; and (3) the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (PPVT-R). OUTCOMES & RESULTS: All but two children had an information score in the retelling task of 1 SD below the population mean. A negative correlation between age and the information score implied that the older the children, the more severe the problems. One child had an average sentence length within the normal limits and five children had subordinate clauses within normal limits. A median of 4% of the utterances included grammatical errors. About 50% of the children had a complete consonant inventory. The phonological process analysis implied delayed rather than deviant development. The group had a moderately low score for receptive vocabulary. CONCLUSIONS: Language difficulties in all investigated areas of language were found. It is suggested that speech-language impairment is a common feature of 22q11 deletion syndrome. An implication of these results is that follow-ups of language skills are important not only for pre-school children, but also for school age children and adolescents with 22q11 deletion syndrome.
Child↗
[Perceptual deafness and aviation (language intelligibility tests)].
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Aerospace Medicine↗
Vibrotactile stimulation: case study with a profoundly deaf child.
This case study reports results obtained from a young, profoundly deaf child, M, who was fitted with a single-channel vibrotactile device, the Tactaid I, at 29 months of age. Her progress in speech and language development was evaluated over a 14-month period. During this period, M learned to understand 101 words through lipreading and the Tactaid I, and to produce consistent approximations of 90 words. Her scores on language tests with hearing-impaired norms progressed from below average to above average for her age. M's scores on language tests with hearing norms also reflected significant progress, although she did not achieve normal language development. These results indicate that a single-channel vibrotactile aid may facilitate the acquisition of spoken language in a profoundly deaf child who is unable to benefit from a conventional hearing aid.
Child, Preschool↗
Reliability and validity of the dichotic monitoring test for language laterality.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Adolescent↗
Prawf Geiriau Caerdydd--a Welsh language speech test.
We have developed a set of six isophonemic word lists in Welsh, each comprising 16 vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) words. They include the 20 commonest consonants and the 16 commonest vowel/diphthongs in Welsh, and all six lists give equivalent scores. Examination of error patterns indicates a number of differences from those found in English including a lack of voiced/voiceless confusions and an adherence to the phonotactic constraints of the Welsh language.
Humans↗
Language development at the age of 3 years of infants malnourished in utero.
To evaluate if language testing might provide useful information about the developmental outcome at pre-school age of term infants malnourished in utero, a group of these infants was studied in combination with a group of normally grown term infants matched for age, sex, birth rank and social class. Both groups were free from significant neonatal morbidity and debilitating diseases. Intrauterine malnutrition was defined as underweight for gestational age and the presence of wasting to select those S.G.A. infants with easily recognizable signs of malnutrition at birth. The Reynell Developmental Language Scales were used to test language and the results were related to a separate assessment of behaviour and neurology. Both verbal comprehension and expressive language were significantly less developed in infants malnourished in utero. A firm relation was established between language delay and behaviour problems. It was concluded that language development can be used to assess the developmental progress of infants malnourished in utero if performed in combination with behaviour assessment. Many of these infants will benefit by speech therapy during behaviour therapy at pre-school age.
Brain↗
The role of speech rhythm in language discrimination: further tests with a non-human primate.
Human newborns discriminate languages from different rhythmic classes, fail to discriminate languages from the same rhythmic class, and fail to discriminate languages when the utterances are played backwards. Recent evidence showing that cotton-top tamarins discriminate Dutch from Japanese, but not when utterances are played backwards, is compatible with the hypothesis that rhythm discrimination is based on a general perceptual mechanism inherited from a primate ancestor. The present study further explores the rhythm hypothesis for language discrimination by testing languages from the same and different rhythmic class. We find that tamarins discriminate Polish from Japanese (different rhythmic classes), fail to discriminate English and Dutch (same rhythmic class), and fail to discriminate backwards utterances from different and same rhythmic classes. These results provide further evidence that language discrimination in tamarins is facilitated by rhythmic differences between languages, and suggest that, in humans, this mechanism is unlikely to have evolved specifically for language.
Animals↗
Variability in subcortical aphasia is due to variable sites of cortical hypoperfusion.
A variety of fluent and nonfluent aphasias have been reported after left basal ganglia stroke. It has been speculated that this heterogeneity may reflect variations in cortical hypoperfusion resulting from large vessel stenosis. To test this hypothesis, a consecutive series of 24 patients with left caudate infarct identified with diffusion-weighted imaging underwent language testing and perfusion-weighted imaging < 24h from onset of symptoms. Specific regions in perisylvian cortex were rated for the percentage of the region that was hypoperfused. Aphasia type was determined on the basis of speech fluency, comprehension, and repetition performance on the language tests. Association between aphasia type/language impairment and regions of hypoperfusion were identified with Fisher's exact tests. Results demonstrated that in patients with acute left caudate infarct, the presence and type of aphasia reflected regions of hypoperfusion, and generally followed predictions based on chronic lesion studies, regarding anatomical lesions associated with classic aphasia types.
Adult↗
Written language as a window into residual language deficits: a study of children with persistent and residual speech and language impairments.
Previous work has suggested that, because writing is a late-acquired and complex skill, it may be a particularly sensitive index of language difficulties in children. Evidence in support of this view was obtained in a study contrasting 161 normally-developing control children aged from 7.5 to 13 years with 75 twin children of the same age who either had specific speech-language impairments, or were co-twins of affected children. Written narratives were elicited from children using a sequence of five photographs depicting a simple story, and were analysed for grammatical complexity and accuracy, intelligibility, and semantic content. Only 42 of the twins could spell well enough to attempt the narrative task. Some co-twins of affected children had deficits in written language, despite normal performance on oral language tests. Most children with language impairments were poor at writing, with particularly marked deficits on a measure of spelling and punctuation. Children with language impairments made a relatively high proportion of phonologically inaccurate spelling errors when compared with younger children at a similar vocabulary level. Those who did poorly on a nonword repetition test were especially likely to have poor written language. However, four children with pure speech difficulties produced age-appropriate written narratives.
Aging↗
Neurodevelopmental outcome of infants with viral meningitis in the first three months of life.
We prospectively evaluated the neurodevelopmental outcome of infants with documented viral meningitis to determine (1) whether deficits in physical growth, development, speech and language, hearing, or intelligence occur; and (2) if so, at what age these deficits can be detected. Sixteen infants with documented enteroviral meningitis under the age of 90 days and a control group of 13 patients matched for age, race, sex, and socioeconomic status were followed up prospectively for 3 years with annual evaluations, which included a developmental evaluation by a pediatric developmentalist, articulation and language tests by a speech-language pathologist (Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development, Receptive-Expressive Emergent Language Scale (REEL), Preschool Language Scale (PLS), Revised Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R), Photo Articulation Test, audiometric screening), and intelligence tests by a psychometrist (Bayley Scales of Infant Development [BSID] and Stanford-Binet). No deficits were demonstrated in growth, development, hearing, BSID, articulation, and expressive language. Subtle but significant (P < 0.05) deficits were documented in the study group compared with the control group in the receptive component of the REEL, all subsections of the PLS, the PPVT-R, and the verbal comprehension/language-processing section (Factor II) of the Stanford-Binet. These differences could be reliably detected by 3 years of age. We conclude that viral meningitis in young infants may cause subtle deficits in language skills, particularly receptive language. We recommend that children who have had enteroviral meningitis during early infancy be monitored carefully for language development and, perhaps, receive increased language stimulation in the home prior to school entry in order to optimize their learning potential.
Analysis of Variance↗
[Validation of a screening test of language and learning disorders for 6-year old children (ERTLA6)--a prospective study].
Medical practitioners are, like the other health, education and childhood professionals, important actors of the language and learning disorders' screening. Six years old--the age at which children start the elementary school--is a key age for this screening. At the request of practitioners, a multidisciplinary staff had developed a screening tool: ERTLA6 (Epreuves de repérage des troubles du langage et des apprentissages de l'enfant de 6 ans). The objective was to validate the capacity of ERTLA6 to predict the school performance. A sample of 187 children was randomly constituted among the whole population of last year nursery school children in an area of France (the Académie de Nancy-Metz). Those children, aged from 5 to 6, were screened with ERTLA6 by the school practitioner during a medical visit (score from 0 [the best] to 18 [the worse]). The School outcomes (considered as judgment criteria) were assessed 2 or 3 years later, after two years of elementary school. 148 children had completed their follow-up (the others: 27 moving house, 6 absents the day of evaluation, 2 missing data). Mean age was 5; 10 years. With a threshold > or = 7, ERTLA6 sensibility and specificity were respectively 79% [63-94] and 87% [81-93]; the positive predictive value was 58% [42-74], the negative predictive value was 95% [90-99]. The percentage of well classified children was 84% [69-99]. To our knowledge, ERTLA6 is the first validated tool in France for screening language and learning disorders which can be used by practitioners for the prediction of school outcomes.
Child↗
Hemispheric language dominance testing by means of fMRI.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Adult↗