Julian Lloyd

Exploring the effects of communication intervention for developmental pragmatic language impairments: a signal‐generation study

BACKGROUND The remediation of pragmatic problems forms a significant part of the caseload for professionals working with children with communication problems. There is little systematic evidence that demonstrates the benefits of speech and language therapy for children whose difficulties lie primarily within the pragmatic domain or which indicates whether changes in pragmatic behaviours, which are a result of a specific intervention, can be measured over time. AIMS To generate a signal of change in pragmatic and other language behaviours for children with pragmatic language impairments; to gauge the magnitude and nature of the signal and to make recommendations for future studies. METHODS AND PROCEDURES A case series of six children with pragmatic language impairments without diagnosis of autism received 8 weeks of individual intensive speech and language therapy supported in a mainstream educational setting in the UK. Measures of pragmatic behaviours in conversation were made at seven data points before and after therapy using Bishops ALICC procedure. Conversation coders were blind to the point of assessment. Inferential comprehension, narrative, sentence formulation and sentence recall skills were also tested before and after therapy. The opinions of teachers and parents were sought regarding any change in communication and social abilities of the children over time. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS All children showed change in communication behaviour on some conversational measures, even if the child functioned at the ceiling on standardized language testing. Some conversation measures had more utility as outcome measures than others. Most children showed substantial change on standardized language measures, but there are limitations on the use of these due to heterogeneity within the group. Overall, the intervention produced a signal for change in pragmatics and/or language behaviour in all children. Parent/teacher opinion reported demonstrable change in communication behaviour and engagement in the curriculum. CONCLUSIONS There is a strong signal that change in pragmatic language behaviour can be measured in well-controlled intervention studies but this signal is complex. Outcome measures should take into account changes in language processing skills that are significantly impaired in many children with PLI. For those children within the PLI group who function at ceiling on language tests, conversational measures may have the potential to signal change, but this finding has not been subjected to group study or to testing in generalized settings. Qualitative data regarding behaviour, classroom engagement and generalization of language gains will be an essential supplement to measuring progress in a diverse population.

Elicited and spontaneous communicative functions and stability of conversational measures with children who have pragmatic language impairments

BACKGROUND The preliminary phase of a project aimed at establishing appropriate outcome measures for intervention with children who have pragmatic language impairments (PLI) is reported. Assessment methods for children with PLI are considered in the context of developing outcome measures for intervention studies. Communicative function assessments in elicitation and conversational contexts are compared. The stability of measures derived from conversational profiling is also considered. AIMS To investigate the utility of an elicited communicative function assessment in discriminating the pragmatic characteristics of children with PLI and to compare this method to conversational profiling. An additional aim was to estimate the degree of variation on conversational indices derived from interactions with children with PLI. METHODS & PROCEDURES Fifteen children with PLI (mean age 9; 5 years) and an age-matched control group were assessed on two occasions on a new communicative function elicitation task and on a conversation task. A checklist of communicative functions was employed in analysing the elicitation and the conversation tasks. An analysis of conversation was carried out to derive conversational indices such as verbosity and meshing. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The elicitation task failed to discriminate between the PLI and control groups and showed a strong ceiling effect. Significant between-group differences were found for both communicative function in conversation measures and on conversational indices. The variation in conversation indices is relatively small compared with the baseline measures. CONCLUSIONS A more representative picture of communicative function ability arises from unstructured tasks rather than from structured elicitation tasks for the age group of children with PLI. The elicitation procedure outlined in this paper might be better suited to a younger age group. Differences between communicative function performance on elicitation and conversation situations suggest a strong effect of context on the pragmatic performance of children with PLI. The conversational indices reported show sufficient stability to be employed in an outcome measure provided the minor variations indicated are factored into estimates of change.

Pragmatic language impairment: case studies of social and pragmatic language therapy

The current position on speech and language intervention for children who have pragmatic language impairment (PLI) is limited by a lack of evidence to support practice. Two intervention outcome case studies of children with PLI, aimed at establishing efficacy, are presented in this paper Standardized language tests and conversational sampling were used to assess the children pre-and post-therapy. Each child received eight weeks of intervention, three times a week, from a specialist speech and language therapist. This experi-mental treatment, which was funded as part of a research project, targeted social adaptation skills of the child and adults in his communication environment, in addition to work on communication acts, conversation and narrative skills and facilitating understanding of social inference. One child, with isolated social andpragmatic difficulties, showed measured and reported improvements in conversational skills. The second child, who has additional language disorder, showed changes in language processing skills but no changes in pragmatic abilities. The implications for choosing interventions, for the training of practitioners and questions for further research are discussed. The therapy resources used in intervention are listed.

Oral conversations between hearing-impaired children and their normally hearing peers and teachers

Twelve hearing-impaired children (mean age 8;8 years) were videotaped as they each constructed Lego models with two partners: a normally hearing peer and a teacher. A comparison was made between their utterances and spoken turns with peers and teachers. The frequency of these did not differ between the two, although they took more total turns (verbal and nonverbal) with teachers than peers. With peers their turns contained more utterances and their contribution to the conversations was pro portionally greater in relation to length of turns and utterances. Teachers talked more than peers and used longer turns and utterances. These differences are examined through a qualitative analysis. The educational implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Do Parental Interpersonal Power and Prestige Moderate the Relationship Between Parental Acceptance and Psychological Adjustment in U.K. Students

This study investigated the effects of perceived maternal and paternal acceptance, and parental power and prestige on university students’ psychological adjustment. The sample consisted of 315 students (17% males) ages 18 through 49 years (M = 23.35) from the United Kingdom. Measures used were the adult versions of Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire for mothers and fathers, the adult version of the Parental Power–Prestige Questionnaire, and the adult version of the Personality Assessment Questionnaire. Results showed significant positive correlations between perceived parental acceptance and students’ psychological adjustment, and between perceived maternal acceptance and power and prestige. Significant negative correlations were found between perceived paternal acceptance and power and prestige, and between perceived parental prestige and psychological adjustment as well as between a composite measure of power–prestige and students’ psychological adjustment. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that both perceived maternal and paternal acceptance made significant and unique contributions to students’ (both men’s and women’s) psychological adjustment. In addition, a composite measure of power–prestige significantly moderated the relationship between perceived maternal (but not paternal) acceptance and students’ psychological adjustment.

Development and Validation of the Retrospective Childhood Fantasy Play Scale

This article describes the development and initial psychometric properties of the Retrospective Childhood Fantasy Play Scale (RCFPS), a brief 11-item retrospective self-report measure of preference for, and engagement with, fantasy play during childhood. Five studies were conducted to (a) develop the initial items for the scale (n = 77), (b) determine the underlying factor structure (n = 200), (c) test the fit of the model (n = 530), and (d) and (e) ascertain construct validity (n = 200) and convergent validity (n = 263). Overall, the results suggest that the RCFPS is a unidimensional measure with acceptable fit and preliminary validity. The RCFPS may prove useful in educational and developmental research as an alternative to longitudinal studies to further investigate how childhood fantasy play relates to individual differences in adulthood (e.g., in the areas of creativity, theory of mind, and narrative skills).