Krystal L. Werfel

Phonological Awareness and Vocabulary Performance of Monolingual and Bilingual Preschool Children with Hearing Loss.

This pilot study compared the phonological awareness skills and vocabulary performance of English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual children with and without hearing loss. Preschool children with varying degrees of hearing loss (n = 18) and preschool children without hearing loss (n = 19) completed measures of phonological awareness and receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge. On phonological awareness tasks, the performance of bilingual children with hearing loss was significantly higher than bilingual children with normal hearing, but not higher than either monolingual group of children. On norm-referenced vocabulary knowledge measures, the performance of monolingual and bilingual children with hearing loss was significantly lower than monolingual and bilingual children with normal hearing. Correlations for phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge were found for both groups of children with normal hearing, but not children with hearing loss. This study represents preliminary evidence that children with hearing loss may develop phonological awareness differently than children with normal hearing and that language and educational experience are critical to understanding the phonological awareness performance in children with hearing loss.

The Relation Between Child Versus Parent Report of Chronic Fatigue and Language/Literacy Skills in School-Age Children with Cochlear Implants.

Objectives: Preliminary evidence suggests that children with hearing loss experience elevated levels of chronic fatigue compared with children with normal hearing. Chronic fatigue is associated with decreased academic performance in many clinical populations. Children with cochlear implants as a group exhibit deficits in language and literacy skills; however, the relation between chronic fatigue and language and literacy skills for children with cochlear implants is unclear. The purpose of this study was to explore subjective ratings of chronic fatigue by children with cochlear implants and their parents, as well as the relation between chronic fatigue and language and literacy skills in this population. Design: Nineteen children with cochlear implants in grades 3 to 6 and one of their parents separately completed a subjective chronic fatigue scale, on which they rated how much the child experienced physical, sleep/rest, and cognitive fatigue over the past month. In addition, children completed an assessment battery that included measures of speech perception, oral language, word reading, and spelling. Results: Children and parents reported different levels of chronic child physical and sleep/rest fatigue. In both cases, parents reported significantly less fatigue than did children. Children and parents did not report different levels of chronic child cognitive fatigue. Child report of physical fatigue was related to speech perception, language, reading, and spelling. Child report of sleep/rest and cognitive fatigue was related to speech perception and language but not to reading or spelling. Parent report of child fatigue was not related to children’s language and literacy skills. Conclusions: Taken as a whole, results suggested that parents under-estimate the fatigue experienced by children with cochlear implants. Child report of physical fatigue was robustly related to language and literacy skills. Children with cochlear implants are likely more accurate at reporting physical fatigue than cognitive fatigue. Clinical practice should take fatigue into account when developing treatment plans for children with cochlear implants, and research should continue to develop a comprehensive model of fatigue in children with cochlear implants.

Print Knowledge of Preschool Children With Hearing Loss

Measures of print knowledge were compared across preschoolers with hearing loss and normal hearing. Alphabet knowledge did not differ between groups, but preschoolers with hearing loss performed lower on measures of print concepts and concepts of written words than preschoolers with normal hearing. Further study is needed in this area.

Emergent Literacy Skills in Preschool Children with Hearing Loss Who Use Spoken Language: Initial Findings from the Early Language and Literacy Acquisition (ELLA) Study.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to compare change in emergent literacy skills of preschool children with and without hearing loss over a 6-month period. Method Participants included 19 children with hearing loss and 14 children with normal hearing. Children with hearing loss used amplification and spoken language. Participants completed measures of oral language, phonological processing, and print knowledge twice at a 6-month interval. A series of repeated-measures analyses of variance were used to compare change across groups. Results Main effects of time were observed for all variables except phonological recoding. Main effects of group were observed for vocabulary, morphosyntax, phonological memory, and concepts of print. Interaction effects were observed for phonological awareness and concepts of print. Conclusions Children with hearing loss performed more poorly than children with normal hearing on measures of oral language, phonological memory, and conceptual print knowledge. Two interaction effects were present. For phonological awareness and concepts of print, children with hearing loss demonstrated less positive change than children with normal hearing. Although children with hearing loss generally demonstrated a positive growth in emergent literacy skills, their initial performance was lower than that of children with normal hearing, and rates of change were not sufficient to catch up to the peers over time.

Utility of the Spelling Sensitivity Score to Analyze Spellings of Children with Specific Language Impairment.

The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of the Spelling Sensitivity Score (SSS) beyond percentage correct scoring in analyzing the spellings of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 31 children with SLI and 28 children with typical language in grades 2–4. Spellings of individual words were scored using two methods: (1) percentage correct and (2) SSS. Children with SLI scored lower than children with typical language when spelling was analyzed with percentage correct scoring and with SSS scoring. In addition, SSS scoring highlighted group differences in the nature of spelling errors. Children with SLI were more likely than children with typical language to omit elements and to represent elements with an illegal grapheme in words, whereas children with typical language were more likely than children with SLI to represent all elements with correct letters.

The Potential of Past Tense Marking in Oral Reading as a Clinical Marker of Specific Language Impairment in School-Age Children.

Purpose The purpose of this study was twofold. The first aim was to explore differences in profiles of past tense marking in oral reading of school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI). The second aim was to explore the potential of past tense marking in oral reading as a clinical marker of SLI in school-age children. Method This study examined oral readings of connected text to describe the frequency and type of reading errors on regular and irregular past tense verbs for 21 children with SLI as compared to 30 children with typical language in Grades 2 and 3. Each past tense verb token was categorized into 1 of 6 mutually exclusive response types: (a) correctly marked past tense, (b) overmarked past tense, (c) bare stem, (d) other verb inflection, (e) nonverb, or (f) no response. Performance across groups was compared. Additionally, classification statistics were calculated at several cutoffs for regular past tense accuracy and regular past tense finiteness marking. Results For regular past tense, there was a significant group difference on accuracy. Children with SLI were less accurate at marking past tense when in oral reading than typical language peers; other response types did not differ. For irregular past tense, there were no group differences. In addition, there was a significant group difference on finiteness marking; this difference was driven by regular but not irregular verbs. A cutoff of 90% for regular past tense accuracy yielded moderate sensitivity and specificity; no cutoff for regular past tense finiteness marking yielded sensitivity above 70%. Conclusions Regular past tense accuracy in oral reading provides promise as a clinical marker for diagnosing SLI in school-age children.

A Preliminary Comparison of Reading Subtypes in a Clinical Sample of Children With Specific Language Impairment

Purpose The purpose of this preliminary study was to (a) compare the pattern of reading subtypes among a clinical sample of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical language and (b) evaluate phonological and nonphonological language deficits within each reading impairment subtype. Method Participants were 32 children with SLI and 39 children with typical language in Grades 2 through 4. Each child was classified as demonstrating 1 of 4 reading subtypes on the basis of word-level and text-level skills: typical reading, dyslexia, specific reading comprehension impairment, or garden variety reading impairment. In addition, phonological and nonphonological language skills were evaluated. Results Children with SLI were more likely to exhibit reading impairments than children with typical language. Children with SLI were more likely to exhibit text-level deficits than children with typical language. Phonological language deficits were observed in children with word-level deficits, and nonphonological language deficits were observed in children with text-level deficits. Conclusions The results indicate that the patterns of reading subtypes differ among children with SLI and children with typical language. The findings highlight the importance of simultaneously but separately considering word-level and text-level skills in studies of reading impairment.

Small-Group Phonological Awareness Training for Pre-Kindergarten Children with Hearing Loss Who Wear Cochlear Implants and/or Hearing Aids

Abstract This case report details a year-long phonological awareness (PA) intervention for pre-kindergarten children with hearing loss (CHL) who use listening and spoken language. All children wore cochlear implants and/or hearing aids. Intervention occurred for 15 min/day, 4 days per week across the pre-kindergarten school year and was delivered by classroom teachers of the deaf. At the beginning of the year, childrens performance on measures of PA generally was low. After participating in the intervention, the majority of students performed within or above the developmental range. These findings indicate that PA training that is intense, modified for CHL, and transferable to mainstream setting is effective in increasing PA skills in CHL.

Morphosyntax Production of Preschool Children With Hearing Loss: An Evaluation of the Extended Optional Infinitive and Surface Accounts

Purpose The first aim of this study was to explore differences in profiles of morphosyntax production of preschool children with hearing loss (CHL) relative to age- and language-matched comparison groups. The second aim was to explore the potential of extending 2 long-standing theoretical accounts of morphosyntax weakness in children with specific language impairment to preschool CHL. Method This study examined conversational language samples to describe the accuracy and type of inaccurate productions of Browns grammatical morphemes in 18 preschool CHL as compared with an age-matched group (±3 months, n = 18) and a language-matched group (±1 raw score point on an expressive language subtest, n = 18). Age ranged from 45 to 62 months. Performance across groups was compared. In addition, production accuracy of CHL on morphemes that varied by tense and duration was compared to assess the validity of extending theoretical accounts of children with specific language impairment to CHL. Results CHL exhibited particular difficulty with morphosyntax relative to other aspects of language. In addition, differences across groups on accuracy and type of inaccurate productions were observed. Finally, a unified approach to explaining morphosyntax weakness in CHL was more appropriate than a linguistic- or perceptual-only approach. Conclusions Taken together, the findings of this study support a unified theoretical account of morphosyntax weakness in CHL in which both tense and duration of morphemes play a role in morphosyntax production accuracy, with a more robust role for tense than duration.

Phonetic Transcription Training Improves Adults’ Explicit Phonemic Awareness: Evidence From Undergraduate Students:

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of phonetic transcription training on the explicit phonemic awareness of adults. Fifty undergraduate students enrolled in a phonetic transcription course and 107 control undergraduate students completed a paper-and-pencil measure of explicit phonemic awareness on the first and last days of class. Performance was analyzed for overall accuracy, as well as accuracy on easy-to-segment and hard-to-segment words. A MANCOVA revealed a main effect of group on each dependent variable. In addition, intervention-group pretest and posttest scores were not related. Thus, phonetic transcription training appears to be an effective method of increasing explicit phonemic awareness in adults, and initial skill level is not related to gains as a result of phonetic transcription training.