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Concurrent and predictive validity of an early language screening program.

The efficacy of screening 2-year-old children for language delay using a parent-report questionnaire was investigated in three studies. The Language Development Survey (Rescorla, 1989) was mailed to 650 families at the time of their child's second birthday. Fifty-three percent of the surveys received by parents were completed and returned. Screening outcomes were then compared, in double-blind fashion, with the results of comprehensive clinical evaluations at ages 2 (N = 64) and 3 (N = 36). Parents' report of the size of their children's expressive vocabularies was highly correlated with clinical language measures at age 2. Children who screened positive performed significantly poorer than children who screened negative on standardized language tests and on measures taken from spontaneous conversation. The screening program demonstrated excellent sensitivity and specificity for identifying language delay at age 2 but somewhat lower levels for predicting developmental status one year later.

Age Factors↗

The behaviour of 3-year-old children who were born preterm.

The behaviour of 3-year-old children born preterm was compared with that of full-term children of the same age. The preterm group were born between 32 and 37 weeks gestation, and weighed between 1500 g and 2500 g at birth, and thus (in comparison to even earlier, lower birthweight babies) comprised a 'low risk' group. The children and their mothers were interviewed at home and information obtained about the following: behaviour, the number of accidents requiring medical attention, language development, maternal mental health and demographic data. The preterm group did not show an excess of behaviour problems overall but they did show significantly more problems when certain individual behaviours were considered, namely sleep related problems, tempers and dependence. The preterm group had also had significantly more accidents. The nature of the behavioural differences suggested they represented styles of parental management rather than neurological impairment in the preterm group. There was no evidence of language delay in either group and no significant association between child behaviour and maternal mental health. This study showed that consideration of socioeconomic factors is important. Children from manual socioeconomic groups showed significantly more behaviour problems than children from non-manual groups, and mothers from manual groups had significantly poorer mental health.

Analysis of Variance↗

The development of Alzheimer's disease in Down's syndrome assessed by auditory event-related potentials.

Several studies have reported changes in auditory event-related potentials in patients with Alzheimer's type dementia. These include an increase in latency and a reduction in amplitude of the P300 (P3) response, a late positive component generated about 300 ms after an unexpected stimulus. Alzheimer's type dementia is an almost invariable acompaniment of ageing in Down's syndrome. This study was designed to assess the usefulness of the auditory P300 response as a measure of the onset of dementia in Down's subjects, who because of poor language development may be difficult to assess by psychological tests. Auditory event-related potentials were recorded from 89 Down's subjects, aged 16-66 years. A control group of 29 mentally retarded subjects with fragile-X syndrome and 83 normal volunteer controls were also tested. Clinical psychological testing found evidence of dementia in 16 Down's subjects and none with fragile-X. Furthermore, in the Down's population but not the fragile-X or control groups, there was a marked increase in P300 latency with age starting around 37 years. In controls, the effect of age on P300 latency became significant some 17 years later around the age of 54 years. The premature effect of age on P300 in Down's syndrome was due to the prolonged P300 latency in the 16 subjects showing signs of dementia. It was confirmed that P300 latency increase reflects the development of Alzheimer's dementia in Down's subjects.

Adolescent↗

Importance of auditory-verbal education and parents' participation after cochlear implantation of very young children.

Congenitally deaf children who receive a cochlear implant at a young age have the potential to achieve nearly normal language development. However, parents and rehabilitation therapists must realize that intensive and long-duration auditory-verbal education is required postoperatively to achieve this goal. Furthermore, the success of the therapeutic treatment is best realized if the parents themselves are trained to engage in linguistic interactions with the child within the natural context of the family. This is especially true if the parents are able to creatively guide auditory-verbal training on a daily basis. At the Cochlear Implant Center in Hannover, parents receive training and guidance on the following aspects of postimplant rehabilitation: basic components of auditory-verbal education; significance of collaborative efforts between parents and therapists; importance of exercising linguistic interactions on a daily basis; importance of the parents as communication partners; milestones and developmental stages of listening, speech, and language; interpretation of the child's first auditory and communication efforts after implantation; and future integration of the child into school and society.

Child↗

Cognition and communication: referential strategies used by preschoolers with specific language impairment.

Ten children with specific language impairment and 10 children with normal language development were asked to describe objects so that a listener could select them. Each trial targeted two out of a group of three toys. The targeted objects were identical or were similar in size or color. Children in the two groups did not differ in referential success, although children in both groups found the size items more difficult. Content analysis of the messages did reveal differences in the referential strategies used most frequently. Children with specific language impairment were more likely to mention the attributes of each object separately, rather than to describe the characteristics common to a pair of objects. Children in both groups talked about separate objects more often when talking about size than about color or object type. Use of this strategy could indicate the effects of attentional capacity on children's solutions to communication tasks.

Child, Preschool↗

The diagnosis of language disorders in bilingual children: surface-oriented and pragmatic criteria.

Certain pragmatic criteria were compared with traditionally employed surface-oriented criteria for the diagnosis of language disorders in bilingual children. Subjects were 10 Spanish/English bilingual children between 6 and 8 years of age who had been referred by bilingual classroom teachers for a special education evaluation. Spontaneous language samples were obtained from each child in both languages. The samples were transcribed and then examined for normalcy according to surface-oriented criteria and pragmatic criteria. The surface elements examined in both languages included morphological and syntactic structures. The pragmatic criteria included nonfluencies, revisions, delays, specificity of referential terms, abrupt topic shifts, inappropriate responses, and the need for multiple repetition of prompts. As expected, it was possible to demonstrate that the two sets of criteria identified different subgroups as language disordered. To test the accuracy of the disparate diagnoses, academic achievement was tested both before and after an average of 7 months of mainstreaming in essentially monolingual English classroom settings. Teacher ratings of English language development and socialization were also examined before and after the 7-month period. Results revealed that the pragmatic criteria were superior predictors of both achievement and teacher ratings. Traditional diagnostic criteria appear to need supplementation by pragmatic criteria.

Achievement↗

Assessing stimulability in toddlers.

This article describes the development and use of a novel, script-based stimulability task for toddlers. A detailed description of the task and procedures for administration is provided. The task assesses stimulability for fricatives, affricates, and liquids in isolation and single words through presentation of toys and objects in a script format during play. Three different levels of cueing are provided to elicit the desired sounds/words. Selected findings from examination of the performance of 10 toddlers with normal speech-language development and 10 with delayed development at an initial assessment and a 6-month reassessment are also described. Results suggest that stimulability testing may be successful with toddlers through the use of a scripted task and that they are more responsive to direct elicitations. Both groups added stimulable sounds; however, there was considerable individual variation with respect to specific sounds added and the addition of nonstimulable sounds as well. Stimulability testing is clinically useful as a dynamic assessment tool for toddlers because it may reveal information regarding a child's speech that is not obtainable with other measures and is also beneficial for individualized intervention planning.

Child, Preschool↗

Development and evaluation of a follow up assessment of preterm infants at 5 years of age.

BACKGROUND: Long term follow up shows a high frequency of developmental disturbances in preterm survivors of neonatal intensive care formerly considered non-disabled. AIMS: To develop and validate an assessment tool that can help paediatricians to identify before 6 years of age which survivors have developmental disturbances that may interfere with normal education and normal life. METHODS: A total of 431 very premature infants, mean gestational age 30.2 weeks, mean birth weight 1276 g, were studied at age 5 years. Children with severe handicaps were excluded. The percentage of children with a correctly identified developmental disturbance in the domains cognition, speech and language development, neuromotor development, and behaviour were determined. RESULTS: The follow up instrument classified 67% as optimal and 33% as at risk or abnormal. Of the children classified as at risk or abnormal, 60% had not been identified at earlier follow up assessments. The combined set of standardised tests identified a further 30% with mild motor, cognitive, or behavioural disturbances. The paediatrician's assessment had a specificity of 88% (95% CI 83-93%), a sensitivity of 48% (95% CI 42-58%), a positive predictive value of 85% (95% CI 78-91%), and a negative predictive value of 55% (95% CI 49-61%). CONCLUSIONS: Even after standardised and thorough assessment, paediatricians may overlook impairments for cognitive, motor, and behavioural development. Long term follow up studies that do not include detailed standardised tests for multiple domains, especially fine motor domain, may underestimate developmental problems.

Child, Preschool↗

Asymmetry of information processing in hallucinators and nonhallucinators.

In previous work we had developed evidence suggesting that hallucinating schizophrenics differ from nonhallucinators in the pattern of errors made in a shadowing task. Non hallucinators appeared to be less willing to guess when they were unsure. The errors of the hallucinators seemed more semantically elaborate. The experiment had not been designed to study these factors and the current experiment was conducted using a technique reported by Pisoni et al. These workers had studied normal Ss in an immediate recall task, using semantically well integrated (SWI) or poorly integrated (SPI) sentences. Pisoni et al. had shown that right ear presentation produced more accurate recall of SWI as compared to SPI sentences, whereas left ear presentation failed to discriminate these sentences. Utilizing the methods of Pisoni et al., we replicated their findings in a normal control group. The results from our hallucinating and nonhallucinating groups were different from each other, the nonhallucinators being less accurate, discriminating semantic integration level on left rather than right ear input, and making more fragmented errors. Little support could be found for attributing this pattern of performance to nonspecific aspects of the procedures. It appears that the nonhallucinators process information differently from hallucinators. These differences may reflect alterations in language development. It is speculated that such differences might be consistent with interference with the development of brain asymmetry.

Age Factors↗

Discriminant analysis of the Ullrich-Turner syndrome neurocognitive profile.

Ullrich-Turner syndrome (UTS), or monosomy X, is a genetic disorder characterized by short stature, gonadal dysgenesis, and a particular neurocognitive profile of normally developed language abilities (particularly verbal IQ) and impaired visual-spatial and/or visual-perceptual abilities. The most frequently described profile in UTS includes difficulty with tasks involving memory and attention, decreased arithmetic skills, and impaired visual spatial processing. We used discriminant function analysis (DFA) to distinguish between the neurocognitive profiles of girls with UTS vs. controls matched for age, height, IQ, and socioeconomic status. DFA is a statistical method for deriving a linear function that optimally weights parameters to permit sensitive and specific differentiation among groups. We developed a modified discriminant function, based on seven cognitive test scores, that successfully discriminated between the UTS and control subjects with a sensitivity of 0.45 and a specificity of 0.97. To validate its performance, we applied the discriminant function to a small group of 45,X UTS subjects (n = 13) and control female subjects (n = 25), ages 7-16 years, who were not part of the previous analyses. The discriminant function (DF) identified 54% of these 13 UTS subjects as having the "UTS neurocognitive profile" and 92% of the 25 control subjects as not having the profile. We also compared the DF scores of UTS girls with various mosaic karyotypes and found that the group with 46,XX mosaicism had significantly higher scores (i.e., closer to normal controls) than the other two mosaic groups (t = 2.86, P < 0.005). The results of this study should be useful for genetic counseling and planning educational programs for girls with UTS.

Adolescent↗

Personal reflections on the nature of intelligence in humans and machines.

Computers, the human mind, and social systems have common problems of inadequate memory and insufficient data manipulation speed. In each of these domains, information compression techniques have evolved to reduce storage and processing needs. Among the techniques for information compression, coding of information in procedures stands out as exceptionally powerful. Procedural information coding also gives rise to behavior that may be defined as intelligent. It is found in the human mind, in machines and in social systems. Its use in human thought is aided by language development which promotes regular review of abstract procedures. A practical consequence of better understanding of procedural information coding is the possibility of training people to exhibit greater mental capacity, a controversial possibility. This paper explores the impact of data processing resource limitations, data compression and procedural thinking in men and machines.

Artificial Intelligence↗

Chronic otitis media with effusion in infancy. How frequent is it? How does it develop?

OBJECTIVE: To study the occurrence and development of chronic otitis media with effusion in infancy. DESIGN: A retrospective birth cohort with a 2-year follow-up. Infection data were gathered from medical records; background information came from questionnaires. SETTING: Primary health care centers, hospitals, and private practices in 10 randomly selected local government districts in the two northernmost provinces of Finland. SUBJECTS: A random sample of 2512 children from the cohort. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Chronic otitis media with effusion determined as a minimum of 2 months of asymptomatic middle ear effusion revealed by tympanocentesis and specific operative findings. RESULTS: The periodic prevalence rate of chronic otitis media with effusion up to the age of 24 months was 4.4% (95% confidence interval, 3.5 to 5.3). The maximum risk was at age 16 months. The number of acute otitis media episodes among children who developed chronic otitis media with effusion was more than double that of normal healthy children before the onset of chronic inflammation and about five times as high during prolonged mucous middle ear effusion. Inadequate treatment of prior acute otitis media was not the reason for the chronic inflammation, which was a direct continuation of an acute episode in only half of the cases and was otherwise preceded by a latent period of varying duration. CONCLUSIONS: Chronic otitis media with effusion, which may cause adverse developmental effects such as delayed language development, is a fairly common disease in infancy and is closely related to acute otitis media episodes.

Acute Disease↗

Mimicry versus imitative modeling: facilitating sentence production in the speech of the retarded.

Two methods of language instruction administered to mentally retarded subjects at the two-word stage of language development were investigated. Subjects of the mimicry training group imitated Agent-Action-Object (AAO) constructions immediately after presentation, while subjects of the imitative modeling group first heard the AAO presentation and later produced the AAO construction in response to a verb question. Imitative modeling subjects achieved as many correct AAO responses during training and more correct responses on a generalization task and in a free play setting. They also displayed more novel response behavior (selective imitations) and spontaneously corrected productions. The results support the use of modeling procedures for inducing language production in the retarded.

Child↗

[Somatic and psychomotor development of children of diabetic mothers in the 4th year in relation to neonatal findings].

340 infants of mothers with type I diabetes (IDM) were examined during the neonatal period for gestational age, somatic data and clinical symptoms of diabetogenic foetopathy and assigned to one of three groups: group I--those whose weight development was delayed or appropriate for gestational age and without symptoms of foetopathy; group II--neonates who were overweight or of appropriate weight for their gestational age and who showed clear symptoms of foetopathy; group III--macrosomic infants (weight and length in advance of gestational age) without any major symptoms of foetopathy. In a pilot study preparing for more comprehensive follow up, 20 children from each group were examined in their fourth year to check their psychomotor and somatic development. To evaluate their growth additional data obtained on IDMs by correspondence were included. Although the group as whole showed a normal weight development for the fourth year with a low obesity rate (8.4%), the distribution among the three groups proved non-homogenous. 11.4% of the macrosomic children were overweight; this comprises 57% of all the obese children registered. There was a still clearer trend towards macrosomia among the children in groups II and III where the average age: length percentiles amounted to 57 and 67%. The psychological test showed an IQ of less than 95 in 16.7% of the cases distributed homogeneously among the different groups. With reference to their psychomotoric and language development the children examined were normal, some slight deviations in group II in walking and concentration ability need to be checked further. Our studies show that in children of diabetic mothers there are links between neonatal findings and later psychomotor and somatic development. A classification of newborns which goes beyond the usual establishment of percentiles for weight and gestational age seems appropriate in order to identify risk cases (macrosomia, obesity). A follow up study is required on a larger representative group and should be conducted at a more advanced age and not before the sixth year.

Body Height↗

Prevalence of speech delay in 6-year-old children and comorbidity with language impairment.

We estimate the prevalence of speech delay (L.D. Shriberg, D. Austin, B. A. Lewis, J. L. McSweeny, & D. L. Wilson, 1997b) in the United States on the basis of findings from a demographically representative population subsample of 1,328 monolingual English-speaking 6-year-old children. All children's speech and language had been previously assessed in the "Epidemiology of Specific Language Impairment" project (see J. B. Tomblin et al., 1997), which screened 7,218 children in stratified cluster samples within 3 population centers in the upper Midwest. To assess articulation, the Word Articulation subtest of the Test of Language Development-2: Primary (Newcomer & Hammill, 1988) was administered to each of the 1,328 children, and conversational speech samples were obtained for a subsample of 303 (23%) children. The 6 primary findings are as follows: (a) The prevalence of speech delay in 6-year-old children was 3.8%; (b) speech delay was approximately 1.5 times more prevalent in boys (4.5%) than girls (3.1%); (c) cross-tabulations by sex, residential strata, and racial/cultural backgrounds yielded prevalence rates for speech delay ranging from 0% to approximately 9%; (d) comorbidity of speech delay and language impairment was 1.3%, 0.51% with Specific Language Impairment (SLI); (e) approximately 11-15% of children with persisting speech delay had SLI; and (f) approximately 5-8% of children with persisting SLI had speech delay. Discussion includes implications of findings for speech-language phenotyping in genetics studies.

Child↗

A method for transcribing signed and spoken language.

Transcribing sign communication used simultaneously with spoken English presents investigators with a unique problem: the singular quality of the bimodal communicative interactions cannot be accurately depicted using accepted conventions for recording either spoken or signed language samples. This article proposes guidelines for transcribing such data. The need for guidelines arose during an earlier study of the language development of a hearing child of deaf parents. To meet the immediate needs of that study, rules and conventions from previous studies were combined with newly generated ones, resulting in the guidelines proposed in this article. The guidelines can be applied to data in which intermodal linguistic influence is suspected.

Communication Methods, Total↗

Another look at nonverbal rule induction in children with SLI: testing a flexible reconceptualization hypothesis.

This study focuses on the ability of preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) to extract target regularities from recurring nonverbal stimuli. As a step beyond previous methodologies, we also assessed their ability to shift and extract other regularities after feedback indicated that their choices were no longer correct. This step was motivated by Connell and Stone's (1994) hypothesis that difficulties manifested by children with SLI in extracting nonverbal "rules" from multiple problem sets may reflect difficulties in "flexible reconceptualization," that is, in the ability to flexibility shift across regularities. Thirty 4- and 5-year-olds with SLI and 30 age-matched children developing language normally participated in a discrimination learning-shift paradigm. Findings indicated that both language groups were successful in extracting regularities and making shifts. In fact, language groups did not differ in number of regularities extracted, number of shifts completed, or trials to criterion. As a consequence, findings failed to provide evidence that children with SLI are limited in either the ability to extract nonverbal regularities or to flexibly reconceptualize them. From a larger theoretical perspective, the findings fail to support theories positing that generalized "rule-induction" deficits underlie the verbal and nonverbal impairments of SLI.

Child, Preschool↗

Social support, motivation, language, and interaction. A longitudinal study of mothers and deaf infants.

This project examined the effect of early cognitive, social, and communicative experiences on later social and language development in deaf infants with hearing mothers. Interactions between mothers and deaf infants were found to be positively influenced by social support provided to mothers in the early months of the infants' lives, mothers' visual and tactile responsiveness when their infants were 9 months of age, infants' ability to cope with interactive stress at 9 months of age, and fewer attempts by infants to engage with the social environment during the mastery motivation assessment at 9 months of age. Neither mother-infant affective matching nor maternal visual-tactile responsiveness correlated with the deaf infants' language level.

Adolescent↗