Arjan van Hessen

SLI Diagnostics in Narratives: Exploring the CLARIN-NL VALID Data Archive

In 2014 the Vulnerability in Acquisition: Language Impairments in Dutch (VALID)1 Data Archive for pathological language data (CLARIN-NL-12-010 grant) was launched. The aim of the VALID Data Archive is to unite various available datasets ranging from metadata, experimental results, and test outcomes to spontaneous speech data, including video recordings, and to develop unambiguous protocols to ascertain the interpretation of research outcomes. In this chapter we report a study that we carried out using the VALID Data Archive. In an earlier project the language development of children with Speci c Language Impairment (SLI) had indeed been investigated using a narrative task (retelling of a picture story); the VALID database thus contains transcripts and audio les of the speech of 50 children with SLI and 24 age-matched typically developing (TD) children in the age range between 5;6 to 12;0 years, who all participated in this earlier project. Our study focused on morphosyntactic and lexical accuracy and complexity, in order to determine which language measures are diagnostic indicators of SLI on the basis of this narrative data. Results showed that SLI children performed less well than TD children for morphosyntactic and lexical accuracy and complexity. Interestingly, the results obtained can be compared to results found in three other studies on narratives performed by SLI and TD children. The similarities and di erences in the outcomes reveal the urgency to have identical, precise protocols in handling and analysing complex data. 1 http://validdata.org/clarin-project/datasets/ How to cite this book chapter: Bergmann, L, van Hout, R and Klatter-Folmer, J. 2017. SLI Diagnostics in Narratives: Exploring the CLARINNL VALID Data Archive. In: Odijk, J and van Hessen, A. (eds.) CLARIN in the Low Countries, Pp. 167–180. London: Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bbi.14. License: CC-BY 4.0 UP 033 odijk odijk_printer 2017/12/15 15:57 Page 168 #188 168 CLARIN in the Low Countries 14.1 The VALID Data Archive The Vulnerability in Acquisition: Language Impairments in Dutch (VALID) Data Archive (CLARIN-NL-12-010 grant) that was launched in 2014 is an open multimedia data archive with data from speakers su ering from language impairments. The aim of the VALID Data Archive is to unite various available datasets ranging from metadata, experimental results, and test outcomes to spontaneous speech data, including video recordings, and to develop unambiguous protocols to ascertain the interpretation of research outcomes. In the CLARIN-NL framework ve VALID data resources were curated; an overview of the key information on each of these ve data resources is provided in the Appendix. For all datasets concerned, written informed consent has been obtained from the participants or their carers. All materials were anonymised. The audio les were converted into wav (linear PCM) les and the transcriptions into CHAT or ELAN format. Research data that consisted of test, SPSS and Excel les were documented and converted into CSV les. All datasets obtained appropriate CMDI metadata les. A new CMDI metadata pro le for this type of data resources was established and care was taken that ISOcat metadata categories were used to optimise interoperability. A full overview of VALID metadata categories can be found in Klatter-Folmer et al. (2014). A er curation all data were deposited at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, where persistent identi ers are linked to all resources. The content of the transcriptions in CHAT and plain text format can be searched with the TROVA search engine (cf. Klatter-Folmer et al., 2014; van den Heuvel et al., 2014). The most important di erence with the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES2 ) is that VALID is a specialised structured database for all types of data related to pathological language, ranging from metadata, experimental results and test outcomes to spontaneous speech data, including video recordings. CHILDES, on the other hand, covers the spectrum of rst-language acquisition research data, focusing in particular on spontaneous speech data, and with fewer datasets from child clinical groups. Moreover, the VALID Data Archive covers all age groups. The realisation of the data archive was made possible by a CLARIN-NL grant (12-010) for a pilot project. This pilot enabled us to build up experience in conserving di erent kinds of pathological language data in a searchable and persistent manner. The conserved datasets re ect current research in language pathology rather well, both in the range of designs and in the variety in pathological problems, such as Speci c Language Impairment (SLI), deafness, dyslexia and ADHD (Klatter-Folmer et al., 2014; van den Heuvel et al., 2014). The rst author of the present contribution carried out the study presented below (Bergmann, 2015), monitored by Roeland van Hout (VALID data provider) and Jetske Klatter (VALID project leader). A main goal of this study was to test the accessibility of the VALID data archive and to signal problems met in extracting the data. 14.2 SLI Diagnostics in Narratives SLI is a set of speech and language disorders with high co-morbidity with other disorders and impairments. Its de nition is based on exclusion criteria and is related to a mix of linguistic, sensory, cognitive, neural-motor, and emotional restrictions. This rather unsatisfactory de nition is largely due to the heterogeneous speech and language behaviour of SLI children (Manders, De Bal and Van den Heuvel, 2013), while at the same time no speci c causes of SLI have been detected yet (Archibald and Gathercole, 2006). The co-morbidity patterns found do support the idea that SLI is a multi-factorial disorder (Bishop, 2006). SLI children display a problematic and delayed development in language form, function, and use, where impairments may occur in all language domains, such as phonology, semantics, 2 http://childes.talkbank.org/ UP 033 odijk odijk_printer 2017/12/15 15:57 Page 169 #189 SLI Diagnostics in Narratives: Exploring the CLARIN-NL VALID Data Archive 169 morphosyntax, and pragmatics (Casalini et al., 2007). Bishop (2006) concluded that SLI children obviously have di culties in adequately processing information that is being o ered in a short time span, as is the case in spoken conversations. For the majority of SLI children, grammar is a di cult area, and weak morphosyntactic skills are correlated with poor lexical-semantic skills (Simon-Cereijido and Gutiérrez-Clellen, 2009; Toppelberg and Shapiro, 2000; Bishop, 2013). Studies focusing on the complexity and accuracy of morphosyntax address a range of features. Smith-Lock (1993) already pointed to di erences between SLI and typically developing (TD) children in passive sentence constructions, and Rice performed several investigations into mean length of utterance (MLU), showing that SLI children lag behind in MLU, partly because of the absence of complex morphosyntactic constructions, e.g. subordinate clauses and question clauses (Rice, Redmond and Ho man, 2006). As for accuracy, research by Vandewalle et al. (2012) showed errors in verb in ection, articles, and word order, when compared to TD children, and Simon-Cereijido and Gutiérrez-Clellen (2009) mentioned deletion of function words. In SLI, the production of complex utterances triggers an increase in morphosyntactic errors, as complex utterances are obviously more demanding (Colozzo et al., 2011). Considering lexical complexity and accuracy, Bishop (1992) argued that SLI children have di culties processing linguistic input as a whole, resulting in weak and ine cient connections between words, which in turn leads to longer retrieval time and more errors in word choice (Kambanaros et al., 2014). In a longitudinal study of 500 SLI and TD children, Rice and Ho man (2015) found that SLI children consistently performed less well than age-matched TD children on lexical tasks. Gaining more insight into the causes and characteristics of SLI requires a detailed diagnostic procedure. The usual battery of SLI test materials focuses on communication in structured settings, such as inviting participants to select the image that best represents a stimulus word. These experimental settings are unnatural and provide scarce information about linguistic skills in a spontaneous or semi-structured conversation (Peña et al., 2006). This argues for using narrative tests that combine spontaneous quality with a structured content. Retelling a picture story requires quite di erent competencies to those used in structured settings, such as introducing the characters, explaining the topic and structuring the text. Also, (re)telling a story challenges people to be more explicit and to produce longer linguistic units (Treurniet, 2011; Treurniet and Orgassa, 2011). As in these tasks children tend to show more linguistic variation and produce more utterances, they are an appropriate means for collecting data on morphosyntactic and lexical skills. Several studies con rm that narratives demonstrate the morphosyntactic and lexical problems of SLI children (e.g. Kambanaros et al., 2014; Vandewalle et al., 2012). The morphosyntactic and/or lexical accuracy and complexity of narratives by SLI children were analysed in three earlier studies in the Netherlands: that of Treurniet (2011); Verhoeven, Steenge and Van Balkom (2011); and Zwitserlood et al. (2015). All three studies mention problems in the morphosyntactic and/or lexical domain for SLI children. Each used a di erent set of narrative data. The VALID Data Archive contains yet another, new narrative dataset. Departing from the Dutch studies, the following research questions and hypotheses were formulated for our study: A. How do SLI children perform with regard to morphosyntactic accuracy and complexity in a narrative in comparison to their typically developing peers? H1: SLI children use morphosyntactically less compl