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PubMed1988

Proportional and functional analogical reasoning in normal and language-impaired children.

Teachers often use analogies in classroom settings to clarify new concepts for their students. However, analogies may inadvertently confuse the youngster who has difficulty identifying the one-to-one comparisons underlying them. Although analogical reasoning has been studied extensively in normal children, no information was available concerning this construct in children having a specific language impairment. Thus, it was unknown to what extent they might be deficient in analogical reasoning. Therefore, in the present study, 20 children ages 6-8 years (mean age = 7:6) having normal nonverbal intelligence but deficits in language comprehension were administered tasks of verbal and perceptual proportional analogical reasoning and a problem-solving task of functional analogical reasoning. Compared to a normal-language control group matched on the basis of chronological age and sex, the language-impaired group was deficient in all three tasks of analogical reasoning. However, when the factor of nonverbal intelligence was controlled statistically, the differences between the groups on each of the tasks were removed. Additional findings were that verbal proportional analogical reasoning was significantly correlated to perceptual proportional analogical reasoning and to functional analogical reasoning. Implications for assessment and intervention with young school-age language-impaired children are discussed.

Child↗
PubMed1980

The effects of children's language comprehension level on adults child-directed talk.

The present study attempted to test quasi-experimentally the hypothesis that children's language comprehension level is the major determinant of the modifications characteristic of child-directed talk (CDT). Language comprehension level was varied by selecting four-year-old, language-impaired children with two levels of comprehension. Data on 21 measures of structural and pragmatic aspects of CDT were obtained from videotapes of 20 half-hour, freeplay sessions in which each of ten adults talked individually with one child from each level. A t test for paired samples generated four significant differences (p less than 0.05). Language addressed to the high comprehending children contained (1) more frequent use of the semantic category state, (2) greater lexical diversity, (3) more frequent reference to nonpresent objects, persons, and events, and (4) less frequent nonverbal cueing. Variation in the children's comprehension strategies appears to provide a better explanation for these differences than variation in their comprehension of language structure. An alternate explanation of the results, the conversational model, proved of limited value in explaining structural CDT modifications.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Preschoolers with language disorders: 10 years later.

Language, intelligence, academic achievement, and behavioral adjustment were assessed in a group of 20 adolescents originally studied 10 years earlier as preschoolers with language disorders. At follow-up, 20% had WISC-R IQ scores in the mentally deficient range and were being educated in EMR classrooms. Of the remaining 16, 11 (69%) had required special tutoring, grade retention, or LD class placement. The majority of non-EMR subjects continued to evidence persistent deficits in language and academic achievement and were rated by their parents as being less socially competent and having more behavioral problems than their peers. Of the initial preschool measures available, the Leiter was found to be the best single predictor of intelligence, language, class placement, and reading achievement in adolescence, although the NSST: Expressive subtest also was a strong predictor of adolescent language.

Achievement↗
PubMed1992

Morpheme learning of children with specific language impairment under controlled instructional conditions.

Three groups of children were exposed to instances of a novel morpheme under controlled experimental conditions. The performance of 32 children with specific language impairment (SLI), aged 5:0 to 7:0 years (years:months), was compared to that of 24 normally developing children matched for age and nonverbal ability and 20 younger normally developing children matched for language development and nonverbal ability. The children were taught under two instructional conditions that differed only in whether the child was asked to imitate the new language form after each instance (imitation) or just to observe its use (modeling). Consistent with past research (Connell, 1987b), the children with SLI performed significantly better under the imitation condition than under modeling, but the age-matched controls showed no difference in response to instruction. The performance of the language-matched controls was similar to that of the age-matched controls, suggesting that the instruction-specific effect for the children with SLI is not merely a function of general language immaturity. Although the superiority of the imitation condition for the children with SLI was evident for test trials requiring production of the new morpheme (as in past research), no such effect was evident for comprehension trials. This differing effect of output demands suggests that the SLI-specific response to instruction is not a matter of different mastery of the new rule but rather is specific to the need to access the newly induced rule on production trials. The accessing of phonological representations as a possible explanation for the effect is discussed.

Audiovisual Aids↗
PubMed1993

Access behaviors of children with specific language impairment.

The verbal and nonverbal behaviors used by 5 children with specific language impairment (SLI) to attempt to gain access into established interactions were described and compared with those of chronological-age-mates and language-similar control subjects. Three of the children with SLI were unsuccessful. Two of the children with SLI achieved access but did so without using linguistic forms like those most normal-language children use. All of the children with normal language accessed, and most did so quickly and easily using an orderly and sequential set of indirect behaviors. The findings contribute to social-linguistic characterizations of SLI and clarify specific aspects of access described in the normal-language literature.

Child↗
PubMed1993

The Fluharty Preschool Speech and Language Screening Test: a population-based validation study using sample-independent decision rules.

Two cohorts of 4- and 5-year-old children (N = 700) were screened with the Fluharty Preschool Speech and Language Screening Test. Two stratified samples (n = 51 cohort 1; n = 147 cohort 2), based on speech/language screening results, were administered criterion tests for articulation (AAPS-R or Templin-Darley) and language (TOLD or TALC-R). Clinical validation indices for combined speech or language outcome in the two cohorts were as follows: sensitivity, .43 and .31 respectively; specificity, .82 and .93; predictive value, .43 and .54; overreferral, 14% and 5%; underreferral, 14% in both cohorts, and percent agreement, 72% and 80%. The measure of sensitivities for language outcomes was lower than the above, whereas sensitivities for articulation was higher. These results suggest that the Fluharty is too insensitive to be relied on for screening programs aimed at identifying preschool children with language disorders, although it appears to have promise for the identification of children with articulation impairments.

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMed1995

Auditory evoked responses to frequency-modulated tones in children with specific language impairment.

Averaged cortically evoked potentials to frequency-modulated tones (+/- 100 Hz around a center frequency of 1 kHz) were obtained from 12 children with SLI and 12 age-matched children who were normal language learners. It was hypothesized, based on Stefanatos, Green, and Ratcliff (1989), that the children with receptive and expressive specific language impairment (SLI) would show very small or no measurable averaged response amplitudes. Also, it was predicted that children who were normal language learners would show large response amplitudes that were both significantly greater than those obtained during a stimulus control condition and greater than those obtained from the children with SLI. The prediction concerning children with SLI proved incorrect. The responses of the children with SLI were no different from those obtained from the normal language learners, and responses from both groups were significantly greater than those obtained in the control condition. These results indicate that, with respect to neural systems involved with selective response to auditory frequency shifts of approximately 100 Hz and occurring over 250 msec, children with SLI are not different from children who are normal language learners.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Early effects of traumatic brain injury on young children's language performance: a preliminary linguistic analysis.

Language skills undergo rapid development during the early childhood years, so that by the time children start school they are competent communicators with well established syntactic, semantic and pragmatic abilities for their age. Little is known about the effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on the acquisition of these language skills during the early childhood years. This study used a prospective, cross-sectional design to compare the language abilities of young children following their head injury. Fifteen brain injured children, aged between 4-6 years, were divided into three injury groups depending on severity of injury, i.e. mild, moderate and severe, and compared with a matched community control group. They were assessed within 3 months of sustaining their injury on a range of expressive and receptive language tests, and free speech conversation samples, which were analysed pragmatically and syntactically. Results indicated that the severe group performed most poorly on language tasks. It is suggested that linguistic evaluation is an important component of follow up at least for the severe head injured population.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Limitations in working memory: implications for language development.

In this study, the proposal that individual differences in spoken language acquisition may be due to limitations in short-term memory abilities was investigated within a working memory framework. The relationship speech production skills and working memory abilities was examined in two groups of 4-year-old children, matched for non-verbal ability but who had either relatively good or poor non-word repetition skills. Children with better non-word repetition skills produced speech that comprised a wider repertoire of words, on average longer utterances and a greater range of syntactic constructions than did children with relatively poor non-word repetition skills. The significant association found between these indices of language development and verbal short-term memory span assessed with non-spoken recall, suggested that this relationship was not merely due to the common output requirements of the language and memory tasks. Inconsistent associations between language performance and two tasks of visuo-spatial short-term memory precluded firm conclusions being drawn regarding the specificity of the relationship to the phonological domain. Cognitive mechanisms that may underlie the association between spoken language development and working memory skills are discussed.

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Verb schema use and input dependence in 5-year-old children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI).

BACKGROUND: It has been argued that children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) use language in a conservative manner. For example, they are reluctant to produce word-plus-frame combinations that they have not heard in the input. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that their utterances replicate lexical and syntactic material from the immediate language environment. AIMS: This study investigated further the linguistic conservatism of children with SLI. It addressed the hypothesis that these children have difficulties using syntactic schemas in a verb-general manner. It employed a technique pioneered by Childers and Tomasello in 2001 that aims to develop verb-general representations through the presentation of appropriate exemplars. In addition, it tested the hypothesis that children with SLI present with input-dependent language use. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Twenty-four children with SLI (mean age 5;6 years) were matched to 23 typically developing children (mean age 3;5 years) on overall language abilities. The children experienced play sessions designed to simulate exemplar-based learning. Facilitative exemplars consisted of sentences that alternated between nouns and pronouns in the argument slots, e.g. 'Pooh's churning the plate. See, he's churning it'. The children were divided evenly into two groups. One group experienced facilitative exemplars, while the other group heard exemplars with no variation in the argument positions. The training effect was assessed with a procedure in which the children heard novel verbs in a non-transitive frame and were required to produce them in a transitive frame. In addition, the argument types of the children's responses (nouns versus pronouns) were analysed to investigate the issue of input dependence. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Few of the children produced novel verbs in the transitive. This result may indicate difficulties using the transitive, although a number of methodological difficulties may be responsible for this finding. As hypothesized, the children with SLI demonstrated greater input dependence in terms of the kind of arguments they used in responses during the training sessions. CONCLUSIONS: Potential reasons for the low response rate of both groups during the testing stage are explored and a number of methodological adjustments proposed. It is argued that the greater input dependence of the children with SLI may reflect a tendency to reduce processing load within a limited capacity system. It is proposed that input dependence could be a fruitful new area for SLI research and an important issue in the design and delivery of therapy programmes.

Child↗
PubMed2006

Individual differences in anatomy predict reading and oral language impairments in children.

Developmental dyslexia (DD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are disorders of language that differ in diagnostic criteria and outcome. DD is defined by isolated reading deficits. SLI is defined by poor receptive and expressive oral language skills. Reading deficits, although prevalent, are not necessary for the diagnosis of SLI. An enduring question is whether these two disorders are qualitatively different or simply differ quantitatively along a dimension of severity. Here we address this problem by examining neuroanatomical correlates of reading and language in children with learning disabilities. We asked whether a quantitative anatomical risk index derived from previous work could predict behavioural profiles in a heterogeneous sample of 14 boys and 8 girls (11-16 years of age) with reading and language impairments. The results confirmed our predictions that (i) children with relatively smaller and symmetrical brain structures (negative risk indices) would have the severe comprehension impairments typical of SLI; (ii) children with larger, asymmetrical brain structures (positive risk indices) would have poor word reading in the presence of relatively preserved comprehension, a profile typical of DD; and (iii) the best performance would be seen in children with anatomical risk indices near zero (normal anatomy). Also, in confirmation of previous work, rapid automatic naming was not predicted by the anatomical risk index, but by anatomical measures derived from the frontal lobes. These results highlight the key significance of comprehension deficits in distinguishing DD from SLI. Reading impaired children with and without comprehension deficits appear to occupy neuroanatomical domains on the opposite sides of normal.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Language enhancement in the developmentally delayed child through a cognitive/receptive mode.

An approach to enhancing the language comprehension of young developmentally delayed children utilizing receptive language tasks presented in a cognitive, 'problem-solving' context is described. Over a 2 year period 16 language impaired and developmentally delayed children were provided with 8 weeks of concentrated instruction in five language areas: nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions and syntax. Instruction consisted of systematic verbal stimulation without overt attempts to elicit expressive language. Responses by the subjects were in the form of motor behaviours of picture/object identifications. Results indicated a marked increase in the number of stimuli to which these children could provide appropriate responses at the end of the 8 week instructional period. The gains were also maintained 3 months after termination of instruction and the learned material was considered to have become part of these children's verbal repertoire.

Child Development↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Preschool language intervention--a follow-up of some within-group differences.

A more detailed study was made of the children who had been followed-up by Urwin, Cook & Kelly (1988) 4-8 years after leaving a preschool language group. Children were independently allocated into groups according to their speech and language diagnosis prior to entry to the Unit. There were two major dimensions--receptive/expressive versus expressive only, and phonology versus non-phonology. Comparisons were made between the group as indicated by children's performance at follow-up for measures of ability, achievement, language and social functioning. Conclusions are drawn about the long-term effects of the early language difficulty and preschool intervention. Attention is also drawn to differences in perceiving the effects of language difficulty between the specialist professionals on the one hand and parents and teachers on the other.

Child↗
PubMed1982

Comprehension of spoken, written and signed sentences in childhood language disorders.

Nine children suffering from Landau-Kleffner syndrome and 25 children with developmental expressive disorder were tested for comprehension of the grammatical structure of English in spoken, written and signed (Paget-Gorman) language modalities. It is shown that the comprehension problems of children with landau-Kleffner syndrome are not restricted to spoken language, but are also found when written or signed language is used. Further, in all three language modalities these children show deviant patterns of comprehension consistent with the notion that they treat language as having a sequential rather than a hierarchical structure. However, similar patterns of performance are found in profoundly deaf children, indicating that peripheral auditory deprivation is a sufficient condition for these deviant patterns of comprehension to develop.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

The prevalence, stability and significance of developmental language delay in preschool children.

A sample of 937 children in Dunedin, New Zealand, was assessed at ages three and five years in order to estimate the nature, prevalence, stability and significance of developmental language delays in three-year-olds. Assessments included language development, intelligence, and fine and gross motor-co-ordination. Detailed results are given which described three types of language delay at age three: delayed verbal comprehension only, delayed verbal expression only, and delayed development in both aspects of language. Follow-up testing at age five indicated that the specific language delays were not highly stable, whereas delays in both aspects were highly stable. A large proportion of the latter children gained very low scores on the measures at age five, and they accounted for 84 per cent of all children with very low intelligence. The implications of the results for a screening programme to identify three-year-old children at high risk of later developmental delays are considered.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed2006

Sex differences in language dysfunction in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: Normal sex differences in language functions are disrupted in schizophrenia. However, identification of specific language components most vulnerable in schizophrenia and how they may differ by sex remain unexamined. The current study investigated this issue in the domains of phonology, semantics, and grammar, which have been closely linked with neuroanatomic regions for which sex differences have been identified. METHOD: Thirty-one outpatients with DSM-III-R schizophrenia and 27 healthy subjects comparable within sex on age, handedness, parental socioeconomic status, and ethnicity were systematically ascertained from a Boston catchment area. The subjects were administered an extensive language battery in the context of a comprehensive neuropsychological battery that included measures of phonology, semantics, and grammar. RESULTS: Male patients performed significantly worse than their healthy counterparts on all three domains, with phonology least affected. In contrast, language function was relatively preserved in the female patients, compared to their healthy counterparts, with phonology most affected. Across domains, the effect sizes in comparisons of male patients and healthy male subjects had a twofold difference, whereas the difference in effect sizes in comparisons of female patients and healthy female subjects was less in all areas. CONCLUSIONS: Findings were consistent with prior evidence of overall language dysfunction in schizophrenia and may have implications for understanding sex differences in neuroanatomic abnormalities in regions associated with phonological processing.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Intrasubject reproducibility of presurgical language lateralization and mapping using fMRI.

BACKGROUND: fMRI is becoming a standard tool for the presurgical lateralization and mapping of brain areas involved in language processing. However, its within-subject reproducibility has yet to be fully explored. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate within-test and test-retest reliability of language fMRI in consecutive patients undergoing evaluation for epilepsy surgery. METHODS: Thirty-four unselected patients were investigated once (within-test reliability) and 12 patients twice (test-retest reliability). The imaging series consisted of an alternating 25-second synonym judgment condition with a 25-second letter-matching condition repeated 15 times. Reproducibility of activation maps of the first and second half of session 1 or activation maps of sessions 1 and 2 was evaluated by comparing one global and three regional lateralization indexes (Broca's area, remaining prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal area) and on a voxel-by-voxel basis (intraclass correlation coefficient, percentage overlap, correlation of t-values). RESULTS: Global and regional language lateralization was achieved with high reliability within and across sessions. Reproducibility was evenly distributed across both hemispheres but not within each hemisphere. Frontal activations were more reliable than temporoparietal ones. Depending on the statistical threshold chosen, the voxel-by-voxel analysis revealed a mean overlap of activations derived from the first and second investigation of up to 48.9%. CONCLUSION: Language fMRI proved sufficiently reliable for the determination of global and regional lateralization of language representation in individual unselected patients with epilepsy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Language cortex activation in normal children.

OBJECTIVE: To describe a protocol for use in young children and adolescents for determining language representation. METHODS: We performed 130 fMRI studies in 48 children and 17 adults. Verb generation (VG) and orthographic lexical retrieval (OLR) were used. The localization and lateralization of activation was rated visually. Regional voxel counts measured asymmetry and extent of activation. RESULTS: Activation was predominantly left-lateralized (children 85%, adults 94%), and there was no difference in the localization of activation for either paradigm. Children's typical sites of activation included mesial (96%), inferior (94%) and middle frontal (92%) gyri, the inferior (85%) and superior (65%) temporal cortex, and the cerebellum (67%). Less frequently activated sites were insular (50%) and posterior parietal (48%) cortices. Quantitative asymmetry index scores and visual inspection of laterality were concordant. Greater quantitative asymmetry for VG than OLR occurred in children. Laterality was not related to age, sex, task proficiency, or handedness. Frontal region voxel counts lower in children than adults and left sided counts correlated with task proficiency. CONCLUSIONS: Language fMRI can be performed in young children using resources available to clinical centers. The similarity in frequency of left language lateralization between children and adults suggests that language representation establishes early in development. The reduced amount of frontal region of interest activation in task-specific regions in children may reflect different levels of ability. However, the left-right distribution of activation does not appear to depend on task performance or age. These normative data provide a basis for decisions about language laterality in pediatric patients.

Adolescent↗