Marilyn A. Nippold

Metaphoric Understanding in Preadolescents Having a History of Language Acquisition Difficulties.

This study was designed to investigate metaphoric understanding and its relationship to a cognitive task of combinatorial reasoning in preadolescent children (x age =10:7) who were diagnosed as lan...

Lexical storage and retrieval in language-impaired children *

We tested 20 language-impaired children, 20 age-matched normal children, and 20 language-matched normal children. In free recall, children simply remembered as many words possible; in cued recall, the experimenter provided the category names as retrieval cues; in repeated free recall, children recalled the list three times in succession. The principal results were that (1) language-impaired children recalled fewer words than their agemates in both free and cued recall, and (2) the pattern of repeated free recall suggested that language-impaired children were less likely than their agemates to store a word when presented, and were less consistent in their retrieval of words. Our discussion concerns the roles of lexical acquisition and lexical retrieval in language-impaired childrens word-finding problems.

Language Development during the Adolescent Years: Aspects of Pragmatics, Syntax, and Semantics.

Aspects of language that develop during the adolescent years are discussed in the domains of pragmatics, syntax, and semantics. Selected topics include complex conversational behaviors that adolescent boys and girls employ with peers versus parents; syntactic attainments associated with persuasive w

Developmental Markers in Adolescent Language: Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics

Adolescents with language disorders frequently manifest delays in syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic development. Proper assessment and intervention with these students requires the speech-language...

Social Skills in School-Age Children and Youth: Issues and Best Practices in Assessment and Intervention.

Social skills allow individuals to develop positive relationships with others; cope successfully with the behavioral demands of specific settings; and communicate desires, needs, and preferences effectively. They also provide a foundation for competent performance in a range of academic, personal, vocational, and community contexts, Effective communication is an essential component of appropriate social behavior. This article provides definitions and conceptualizations of social skills and social competence within academic contexts. It also describes social skills assessment and intervention procedures for school-age children and youth with and without disabilities.

Evaluating and Enhancing Idiom Comprehension in Language-Disordered Students.

Language-disordered children and adolescents often have difficulty comprehending idioms, a common yet complex type of figurative expression. This article discusses some of the unique properties of ...

Phonological disorders and stuttering in children: what is the frequency of co-occurrence?

In the profession of speech-language pathology, there is a strong belief that phonological disorders frequently occur in children who stutter. The purpose of this article is to examine recently published studies that addressed the frequency with which the two disorders co-occur. Over 10 years ago, a similar article was published in which studies that had been conducted from the 1920s through the 1980s were examined. Unfortunately, methodological problems with the earlier studies limited the conclusions that could be drawn. Because of the uncertainty generated by those studies, researchers since 1990 have continued to investigate this topic. Based on the previous review, it is argued that more rigorous methods are needed, including the use of more objective and comprehensive measures of phonological development and matched control groups of non-stuttering children. The current review indicates that frequency rates vary widely from one study to another, making it difficult to state with confidence just how often the two disorders co-occur. Possible explanations for the discrepancies are discussed, including differences in how phonological disorders are defined and identified. Suggestions are offered for future research to obtain more precise estimates of co-occurrence.

Satisfaction With Standardized Language Testing: A Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists

There is little documentation regarding which standardized tests of language development clinicians prefer and their degree of satisfaction with tests and the testing process. This study reports th...

Narrative ability in school-age stuttering boys: A preliminary investigation

Abstract In a preliminary investigation, narrative ability was compared in stuttering and nonstuttering school-age boys using tasks known to be sensitive to narrative deficits. The groups were also compared on the broader domains of receptive and expressive language development using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Revised (CELF-R). The results did not support the popular view that stutterers, as a group, are more vulnerable to language disorders than their nonstuttering peers. A recent hypothesis that stuttering behavior might be a causal factor in delayed expressive language development was also not supported. The importance of examining individual differences in stuttering children is emphasized for both clinical and research purposes.

Phonological and language disorders in children who stutter: impact on treatment recommendations

In the profession of speech‐language pathology, it is commonly reported that children who stutter, as a group, are more likely to have phonological and language disorders than their non‐stuttering peers. Some support for this belief comes from survey studies that have questioned speech‐language pathologists about the children on their caseloads who stutter. Recently, one such study reported that 44% of children who stuttered had at least one additional communication disorder (Arndt & Healey, 2001). In the present investigation, speech‐language pathologists (n=127) who were treating children with speech and language disorders were questioned about their views on the treatment of stuttering. The results indicated that children who stutter and have at least one additional disorder are more likely to be recommended for treatment than those whose only disorder is stuttering. This suggests that caseload surveys may overestimate the rate of additional communication disorders in children who stutter. The results provide reason to question the widespread belief that children who stutter have a high rate of concomitant disorders, especially when it is based on caseload surveys. Suggestions are offered for ways to determine more precisely the frequency with which stuttering co‐occurs with other speech and language disorders in children through large‐scale epidemiological research.