Kristina Hansson

Working memory and novel word learning in children with hearing impairment and children with specific language impairment

BACKGROUND Working memory is considered to influence a range of linguistic skills, i.e. vocabulary acquisition, sentence comprehension and reading. Several studies have pointed to limitations of working memory in children with specific language impairment. Few studies, however, have explored the role of working memory for language deficits in children with hearing impairment. AIMS The first aim was to compare children with mild-to-moderate bilateral sensorineural hearing impairment, children with a preschool diagnosis of specific language impairment and children with normal language development, aged 9-12 years, for language and working memory. The special focus was on the role of working memory in learning new words for primary school age children. METHODS & PROCEDURES The assessment of working memory included tests of phonological short-term memory and complex working memory. Novel word learning was assessed according to the methods of. In addition, a range of language tests was used to assess language comprehension, output phonology and reading. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Children with hearing impairment performed significantly better than children with a preschool diagnosis of specific language impairment on tasks assessing novel word learning, complex working memory, sentence comprehension and reading accuracy. No significant correlation was found between phonological short-term memory and novel word learning in any group. The best predictor of novel word learning in children with specific language impairment and in children with hearing impairment was complex working memory. Furthermore, there was a close relationship between complex working memory and language in children with a preschool diagnosis of specific language impairment but not in children with hearing impairment. CONCLUSIONS Complex working memory seems to play a significant role in vocabulary acquisition in primary school age children. The interpretation is that the results support theories suggesting a weakened influence of phonological short-term memory on novel word learning in school age children.

Comprehension and production of relative clauses: a comparison between Swedish impaired and unimpaired children

The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between language comprehension and language production in Swedish children. This was done longitudinally with 10 children with specific language impairment (SLI), aged 4;0 to 6;3 at Time I, and 10 children with unimpaired language development, aged 3;1 to 3;7 at Time I. The target structure was subordination, more precisely relative clauses. The childrens comprehension was tested with picture pointing, act-out and oral response tests. Their production was tested with elicited imitation and sentence completion tests. Data were collected twice, with an interval of six months. The results from the unimpaired children at Time I showed a difference between comprehension and production. At Time II these children scored higher on production than on comprehension. The children with SLI scored significantly higher on comprehension than on production at Time I. In half of the SLI group there was a clear development between the two data collection sessions, diminishing the dissociation. On neither testing did the children with SLI differ significantly from the unimpaired children in comprehension. At both testings, however, the children with SLI had significantly more responses where they did not insert the complementizer in relative clauses. The results indicate that the relationship between comprehension and production is different at different stages in development. They also show that structures involving dependency relations are particularly difficult to produce for children with SLI.

Contextual Influence On The Language Production Of Children With Speech/Language Impairment

To investigate the possible contextual variability of language and interaction, data from 10 children with speech/language impairment and three different types of conversational partners (a parent, a peer and a clinician) were collected. The dialogues were analyzed with respect to the characteristics of the dialogues as whole, to the dominance and the productivity of the three types of conversational partners, and to the productivity, fluency and grammatical structure of the language production of the children with speech/language impairment. Productivity was measured as mean length of utterance (MLU) in words, number of utterances, number of different words and proportion of complete and intelligible utterances. Fluency was measured as the proportion of utterances containing a maze. Grammatical structure was analysed with respect to the use of grammatical morphemes, word order patterns, the occurrence of expansions and the complexity of verb forms. Significant differences, in particular between child-child and adult-child dialogues were found. The adult-child dialogues were asymmetrical, where the adults dominated through asking many questions and talking much. The peer dialogues were more dynamic and equal. In these dialogues the children with speech/language impairment took a more active role as a conversational partner. The children produced more utterances and different words with the adult partners, but variables related to fluency and grammatical structure did not vary as a function of the conversational partner. The results imply that children with speech/language impairment practise different aspects of their communicative ability with different types of conversational partners. In particular, it is important to provide them with opportunities to interact with peers, in order for them to develop their skills as independent conversational partners.

Can a ‘single hit’ cause limitations in language development? A comparative study of Swedish children with hearing impairment and children with specific language impairment

BACKGROUND Studies of language in children with mild-to-moderate hearing impairment (HI) indicate that they often have problems in phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and that they have linguistic weaknesses both in vocabulary and morphosyntax similar to children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, children with HI may be more likely than children with SLI to acquire typical language skills as they get older. It has been suggested that the more persisting problems in children with SLI are due to a combination of factors: perceptual, cognitive and/or linguistic. AIMS The main aim of this study was to explore language skills in children with HI in comparison with children with SLI, and how children with both HI and language impairment differ from those with non-impaired spoken language skills. METHODS & PROCEDURES PSTM, output phonology, lexical ability, receptive grammar and verb morphology were assessed in a group of children with mild-to-moderate HI (n = 11) and a group of children with SLI (n = 12) aged 5 years 6 months to 9 years 0 months. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The HI group tended to score higher than the SLI group on the language measures, although few of the differences were significant. The children with HI had their most obvious weaknesses in PSTM, vocabulary, receptive grammar and inflection of novel verbs. The subgroup of children with HI (five out of 10) who also showed evidence of grammatical output problems was significantly younger than the remaining children with HI. Correlation analysis showed that the language variables were not associated with age, whereas hearing level was associated with PSTM. CONCLUSIONS Children with HI are at risk for at least a delay in lexical ability, receptive grammar and grammatical production. The problems seen in the HI group might be explained by their low-level perceptual deficit and weak PSTM. For the SLI group the impairment is more severe. From a clinical perspective an important conclusion is that the language development in children with even mild-to-moderate HI deserves attention and support.

Family therapy in poorly controlled juvenile IDDM: effects on diabetic control, self‐evaluation and behavioural symptoms

Diabetic control, behavioural symptoms and self‐evaluation were assessed in 25 children with IDDM who were in poor metabolic control (P group), before and subsequent to one of two treatment conditions: family therapy and conventional treatment (C). In addition, data were collected from 12 patients in optimal control (O group). Prior to treatment the patients in poor control were rated higher than those in the O group for symptoms indicating somatization and internalization of conflict and showed a gloomier self‐image. The O group patients had fewer behavioural symptoms and a more positive self‐image than non‐diabetic reference groups. Diabetic control improved after family therapy only. Furthermore, the family therapy group improved on a combined measure of behavioural symptoms and one aspect of self‐evaluation (relations to parents and family). The results suggest that IDDM may either interfere with or foster the childs development towards autonomy, depending on family interaction patterns which affect the childs behaviour and self‐esteem. Family therapy is a treatment option which can mediate improved diabetic control by changing family relationships to allow for a better balance between parental and self‐care of the child with poorly controlled IDDM.

Deaf teenagers with cochlear implants in conversation with hearing peers

BACKGROUND This study investigates the use of requests for clarification in conversations between teenagers with a cochlear implant (CI) and hearing peers. So far very few studies have focused on conversational abilities in children with CI. AIMS The aim was to explore co-construction of dialogue in a referential communication task and the participation of the teenagers with CI in comparison with individually matched hearing children and teenagers (HC) by studying the use of requests for clarification. METHODS & PROCEDURES Sixteen conversational pairs participated: eight pairs consisting of a child with CI and his/her hearing conversational partner (CIP); and eight pairs consisting of an HC and a conversational partner (HCP). The conversational pairs were videotaped while carrying out a referential communication task requiring the description of two sets of pictures depicting faces. The dialogues were transcribed and analysed with respect to the number of words and turns, the time it took for each pair to complete the tasks, and the occurrence and different types of requests for clarification that were used in each type of conversational pair and in each type of dialogue. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The main finding was that the teenagers with CI produced significantly more requests for clarification than the HCs. The most frequently used type of request for clarification in all dialogues was request for confirmation of new information. Furthermore, there was a trend for the teenagers with CI to use this type of request more often than the HC. In contrast, the teenagers with CI used significantly fewer requests for confirmation of already given information and fewer requests for elaboration than the HC. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS The deaf teenagers with CI in the study seem to be equally collaborative and responsible conversational partners as the hearing teenagers. The interpretation is that certain conditions in this study facilitate their participation in conversation. Such conditions might be a calm environment, a task that is structured and without time limits and that the partner is well known to the teenager with CI.

Noun phrase morphology in Swedish-speaking children with specific language impairment

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are often described as having great difficulty with grammatical morphology, but most studies have focused only on these childrens use of verb morphology. In this study, we examined the use of noun phrase (NP) morphology by preschool-age children with SLI who are acquiring Swedish. Relative to typically developing same-age peers and younger peers matched according to mean length of utterance, the children with SLI had greater difficulty in the use of genitive inflections, indefinite articles, and article + adjective + noun constructions. Their difficulties were evidenced in omissions as well as substitutions. Furthermore, article omissions were more frequent in NPs containing an adjective and a noun than in NPs with only a noun. These findings indicate that in languages such as Swedish, NP morphology as well as verb morphology can be quite problematic for children with SLI. Factors that might have contributed to these childrens difficulties are the lack of transparency of the gender of Swedish nouns, the morphological complexity of NPs containing adjectives in Swedish, the weak syllable status of articles, and the consonantal nature of some of the inflections. (Less)

Indefinite articles and definite forms in Swedish children with specific language impairment

In many languages, children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show frequent omission of articles. Most articles in these languages are weak monosyllables. In Swedish, indefinite articles are prosodically comparable to articles in other languages, but definiteness is usually expressed through a suffix. We examined the use of articles in Swedish-speaking children with SLI in spontaneous data and a probe task. Children with SLI produced definite suffixes as accurately as control children. Indefinite articles were more problematic. In constructions in which an article must be supplied, the children with SLI omitted articles more frequently than the controls. We conclude that prosody contributes to the difficulty with articles. However, several details in the data indicated the added influence of lexical and/or grammatical factors.

Patterns of verb usage in Swedish children with SLI: an application of recent theories

Data from several languages, including Swedish, have shown that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have particular difficulties with verb morphology. In the present study, the verb morphology of six Swedish children with SLI was further explored in longitudinal and cross-sectional data. It was found that the children with SLI had significant problems with the use of auxiliary and modals, compared with younger MLU-matched controls. Although the children with SLI omit auxiliary and modals less frequently with increasing age, their levels of omission are not compatible with their MLU levels. The results are discussed with reference to recent accounts of the underlying nature of SLI.

Assessment of specific language impairment in Swedish.

The results from pre-testings of 42 children selected for a cross-linguistic study are discussed to establish the usefulness of the assessment instruments used and whether the children selected are similar to children with specific language impairment (SLI) from other countries. The results from assessments of grammatical production, language comprehension and phonology clearly distinguished children with SLI from age-matched controls, while they differed from language matched controls only on phonological measures. As a group the children with SLI were about 2 years delayed on grammatical production measures and about 1 year on language comprehension. The assessment instruments used thus seem capable of distinguishing children with SLI. The Swedish children selected exhibit the same range of problems as children with SLI selected in other countries.