Marjolijn van Weerdenburg

Predicting word decoding and word spelling development in children with Specific Language Impairment

UNLABELLED This longitudinal investigation on Dutch children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) aimed at determining the predictive value of statistically uncorrelated language proficiencies on later reading and spelling skills in Dutch. Language abilities, tested with an extensive test battery at the onset of formal reading instruction, were represented by four statistically uncorrelated factors: lexical-semantic abilities, auditory perception, verbal-sequential processing, and speech production. All factors contributed significantly to the prediction of word reading and spelling development seven months later. Verbal-sequential processing was the strongest predictor for both word decoding and spelling. Furthermore, autoregression effects of word decoding and spelling were strong and verbal-sequential processing had predictive value on word spelling nineteen months later when pre-existing spelling abilities were accounted for. Children with SLI and normal literacy skills performed better on most of the language and language-related measures than children with SLI and poor literacy skills. LEARNING OUTCOMES As a result of this activity, readers will describe four language domains that are related to later literacy skills in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). As a result of this activity, readers will recognize the predictive value of each of these language domains and the important role of verbal-sequential processing in learning to decode and writing words for children with SLI. As a result of this activity, readers will recall the differences in language proficiencies between children with SLI who develop normal literacy skills and those who encounter literacy problems.

Assessment of second language proficiency in bilingual children with specific language impairment: a clinical perspective.

The goal of this study was to examine to what extent the conditions of restricted input of L2 and SLI have an additive impact on language acquisition. Therefore, the Dutch language achievement of 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old bilingual children with SLI was compared with that of typically developing monolingual Dutch children, typically developing bilingual children, and monolingual Dutch children with SLI. Assuming that speaking a language in varying environments involves distinct subskills that can be acquired in differential patterns, the achievement of phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic and textual abilities were assessed separately. For each of these abilities, it was determined to what extent the conditions of restricted input (first vs. second language) and language deficit (typically developing vs. SLI) cause stagnation or a delay in language acquisition. Bilingual children with SLI perform at a lower level than the other groups in almost all aspects of achievement in Dutch. For language tasks related to the mental lexicon and grammar, an additional disadvantage was evidenced as a result of the combination of learning Dutch as second language and having SLI.

Conversational behaviour of children with Developmental Language Delay and their caretakers

BACKGROUND A subset of children with Developmental Language Delay (DLD) encountered difficulties with the regulation of spoken discourse. In the conversations of caretakers with DLD children, several studies report difficulties with turn-taking, a proneness to use the non-verbal register, child and caretaker problems with topic management. Longitudinal research has yet to be conducted on the conversational behaviour of young DLD children and their caretakers. AIMS The study investigates the development of style and structure of conversations between preschool-aged DLD children and their caretakers. METHOD & PROCEDURES In a longitudinal design, language samples from twelve DLD children and six Normal Language-Acquiring (NLA) children and their caretakers were recorded in semi-structured play situations at two-month intervals across a period of 18 months. The children were between 2 and 3 years of age at the start of the study. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The data show that the DLD children predominantly use restricted linguistic forms, non-verbal register and experience difficulties with turn-taking, topic initiation and topic maintenance. The conversational style of the caretakers in dialogue with their DLD children consistently showed more attention-gathering turns, formulaic corrections, self-repetitions and re-introductions of topics when compared with the conversational style of caretakers in dialogue with their NLA children across the 18 months. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS Caretakers in DLD dyads appear to develop a less facilitative conversational style and a decrease of contingencies in initiations and responses over time. The result is little opportunity for the conversational and linguistic skills of the DLD children to develop. Parental guidance in the form of conversational training, child-adjusted register, contingent response behaviour and the provision of language materials which can help the child discover his or her role as a conversational partner and recognize the different perspectives of conversational partners is emphasized.

Effects of Parent-based Video Home Training in children with developmental language delay

An efficacy study of an indirect or Parent-based intervention programme involving Video Home Training (PVHT) was conducted with a focus on parental strategies to (re-)establish coherence in conversations between young children with Developmental Language Delay (DLD) and their parents or caregivers. In order to assess the efficacy of the PVHT programme, linguistic and conversational coherence outcomes were compared to those for a Direct Child language Intervention (DCI) programme. A randomized controlled group design with follow-up measures was used: there were 11 children with their parents in the PVHT group and 11 children with their parents in the DCI group. Compared to the DCI programme the PVHT programme showed significant short-term and long-term effects on mean length of utterance, grammar, language comprehension and conversational coherence at post-treatment and follow-up. The results are discussed in light of previous studies, VHT and the PVHT-focus on parental training of strategies to create conversational coherence.

Cognitive and Linguistic Precursors to Early Literacy Achievement in Children With Specific Language Impairment

This study investigated the role of cognitive and language skills as predictors of early literacy skills in children with Specific Language Impairment. A range of cognitive and linguistic skills were assessed in a sample of 137 eight-year-old children with SLI at the beginning of the school year, and 6 months later on word decoding and reading comprehension. The cognitive and linguistic measures revealed four factors that were called language, speech, short-term memory, and phonological awareness. Structural equation modeling showed word decoding to be predicted by speech, short-term memory, and phonological awareness, whereas reading comprehension was predicted by word decoding skills and short-term memory. It can be concluded that in children with SLI variations in early word decoding are mostly determined by speech abilities and short-term memory, and to a lesser extent by phonological awareness. Moreover, reading comprehension turns out to be highly dependent on word decoding and short-term memory.

Dynamics of the Theory of Mind construct: A developmental perspective

Theory of Mind (ToM) encompasses a wide variety of abilities, which develop during childhood. However, to date most ToM research has focused on the single concept of false-belief understanding, and examined ToM only in young children. Furthermore, there is a lack of implementation of a longitudinal design, which examines the dynamics of the ToM construct over several years. Our longitudinal study measured the abilities of a group of 5-year-old children (n = 77) in mainstream education during three consecutive years, on aspects of ToM related to emotion understanding and false-belief understanding. The results provide support for significant improvements in emotion understanding and false-belief understanding between the ages of 5 and 7. Whereas emotion attribution was already largely developed at age 5, more intricate aspects of emotion understanding, such as understanding display rules and understanding mixed emotions showed significant developments. Over the course of the years, children also showed an increasing awareness of false-belief understanding. In addition to the developmental growth, the different ToM aspects were found to be relatively stable over time. Correlations as well as predictive relations between emotion understanding and false-belief understanding could be identified. Finally, there was evidence for the role of language ability in the development of the ToM aspects under consideration. The results support the notion that ToM abilities measured at age 5 are not just a snapshot but provide a longer-term outlook as well.

Lexical access in children with hearing loss or specific language impairment, using the cross-modal picture–word interference paradigm

In this study we compared lexical access to spoken words in 25 deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs), 13 hard-of-hearing (HoH) children and 20 children with specific language impairment (SLI). Twenty-one age-matched typically developing children served as controls. The children with CIs and the HoH children in the present study had good speech perception abilities. We used a cross-modal picture-word interference paradigm to examine lexical access. Results showed that children with SLI revealed overall slower reaction times and produced more errors than the children with CIs, the HoH children, and the control children. Reaction times of children with CIs and the HoH children did not differ from those of the control children. Thus, problems with spoken language processing, as is the case in children with SLI, seem to affect lexical access more than limitations in auditory perception, as is the fundamental problem in children with hearing loss. We recommend that improvement of lexical access in children with SLI deserves specific attention in therapy and education.

Linguistic Profiles of Children with CI as Compared with Children with Hearing or Specific Language Impairment.

BACKGROUND The spoken language difficulties of children with moderate or severe to profound hearing loss are mainly related to limited auditory speech perception. However, degraded or filtered auditory input as evidenced in children with cochlear implants (CIs) may result in less efficient or slower language processing as well. To provide insight into the underlying nature of the spoken language difficulties in children with CIs, linguistic profiles of children with CIs are compared with those of hard-of-hearing (HoH) children with conventional hearing aids and children with specific language impairment (SLI). AIMS To examine differences in linguistic abilities and profiles of children with CIs as compared with HoH children and children with SLI, and whether the spoken language difficulties of children with CIs mainly lie in limited auditory perception or in language processing problems. METHODS & PROCEDURE Differences in linguistic abilities and differential linguistic profiles of 47 children with CI, 66 HoH children with moderate to severe hearing loss, and 127 children with SLI are compared, divided into two age cohorts. Standardized Dutch tests were administered. Factor analyses and cluster analyses were conducted to find homogeneous linguistic profiles of the children. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The children with CIs were outperformed by their HoH peers and peers with SLI on most linguistic abilities. Concerning the linguistic profiles, the largest group of children with CIs and HoH children shared similar profiles. The profiles observed for most of the children with SLI were different from those of their peers with hearing loss in both age cohorts. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS Results suggest that the underlying nature of spoken language problems in most children with CIs manifests in limited auditory perception instead of language processing difficulties. However, there appears to be a subgroup of children with CIs whose linguistic profiles resemble those of children with SLI.

Development of Morphosyntactic Accuracy and Grammatical Complexity in Dutch School-Age Children With SLI

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to identify the development of morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in Dutch school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI). METHOD Morphosyntactic accuracy, the use of dummy auxiliaries, and complex syntax were assessed using a narrative task that was administered at three points in time (T1, T2, T3) with 12-month intervals during a 2-year period. Participants were 30 monolingual Dutch children with SLI, age 6;5 (years;months) at T1; 30 typically developing peers, age 6;6 at T1; and 30 typically developing language-matched children, age 4;7 at T1. RESULTS On the morphosyntactic accuracy measures, the group with SLI performed more poorly than both control groups. Error rates in the group with SLI were much higher than expected on the basis of mean length of T-units and scores on standardized language tests. Percentages of dummy auxiliaries remained high over time. No group differences were found for grammatical complexity, except at T3, when the group with SLI used fewer relative clauses than the typically developing peer group. CONCLUSIONS The narrative analysis demonstrates different developmental trajectories for morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in children with SLI and typically developing peer and language-matched children. In the group with SLI, grammatical skills continue to develop.

Dyslexie font does not benefit reading in children with or without dyslexia

In two experiments, the claim was tested that the font “Dyslexie”, specifically designed for people with dyslexia, eases reading performance of children with (and without) dyslexia. Three questions were investigated. (1) Does the Dyslexie font lead to faster and/or more accurate reading? (2) Do children have a preference for the Dyslexie font? And, (3) is font preference related to reading performance? In Experiment 1, children with dyslexia (n = 170) did not read text written in Dyslexie font faster or more accurately than in Arial font. The majority preferred reading in Arial and preference was not related to reading performance. In Experiment 2, children with (n = 102) and without dyslexia (n = 45) read word lists in three different font types (Dyslexie, Arial, Times New Roman). Words written in Dyslexie font were not read faster or more accurately. Moreover, participants showed a preference for the fonts Arial and Times New Roman rather than Dyslexie, and again, preference was not related to reading performance. These experiments clearly justify the conclusion that the Dyslexie font neither benefits nor impedes the reading process of children with and without dyslexia.