Marleen F. Westerveld

Spoken language samples of New Zealand children in conversation and narration

A New Zealand (NZ) database has been created comprising conversational and narrative spoken language samples from 268 children aged between 4;5 and 7;6 years. This paper addresses several questions related to the development and validation of the database and provides a comparison of this NZ database with an American database of language samples. Analyses of the spoken language samples contained in the database revealed a clear developmental trend of increasing syntactic complexity, semantic diversity and verbal productivity with increasing age of the participants. In addition, elicitation context for the language samples had a significant impact on language production measures obtained. The narrative language sampling contexts elicited more syntactically complex language samples. To ascertain if the New Zealand database is useful in identifying children with language impairment, oral narrative transcripts from 21 children with identified reading comprehension difficulties and mild spoken language impairment were compared to the database. The results indicated that the database was sensitive to language impairment. These children showed a much higher incidence of errors at word-level and generally produced shorter sentences compared to the language samples in the database. Comparisons between the NZ and American databases of language samples revealed that six-year-old NZ children showed stronger expressive language skills than the American children.

Oral narrative intervention for children with mixed reading disability

Ten children (aged between 7;11 and 9;2) with mixed reading disability participated in an oral narrative intervention programme that focused on enhancing childrens story structure knowledge. The participants had all demonstrated persistent reading and oral narrative comprehension and production difficulties in a two-year longitudinal study prior to the intervention. A non-equivalent pretest—posttest control group design was used in which one group of five children was randomly selected to receive the intervention immediately and the other group of five children received the intervention delayed. A speech language therapist implemented the intervention in small group sessions twice weekly until 12 hours of intervention were completed. The results indicated significant treatment effects for oral narrative comprehension performance. Despite this improvement in childrens ability to answer comprehension questions relating to story structure elements, there was little change in oral narrative production performance as a result of the intervention, and transfer to reading comprehension was not evident.

Profiling oral narrative ability in young school-aged children

This study aimed to determine if oral narrative comprehension and production measures derived in a fictional story retelling task could be used to create a profile of strengths and weaknesses in oral narrative ability (Profile of Oral Narrative Ability: PONA) in young school-aged children. The story retelling task was field-tested with 169 typically developing children, aged between 5;0 and 7;6 years. Children listened twice to an unfamiliar story while looking at the pictures in a book. Comprehension questions were asked after the first exposure. Following the second exposure, children were asked to retell the story without the use of the pictures. Story retellings were analysed on measures of semantics, morphosyntax, verbal productivity, and narrative quality. Results indicated sensitivity for age on measures of comprehension, narrative quality, semantics, and verbal productivity, but not for morphosyntactic measures. Factor analysis indicated that oral narrative performance comprised three factors, explaining more than 80% of the variance. Two clinical case examples are presented, which show the potential of the PONA to reveal different patterns of strengths and weaknesses across the oral narrative measures. Although early evidence suggests the potential usefulness of the PONA, further research is now needed to test the validity, reliability and clinical application of this tool.

A longitudinal investigation of oral narrative skills in children with mixed reading disability

This 2-year longitudinal study investigated oral narrative ability in 14 children with mixed reading disability and their age-matched peers with typical development. The children were aged between 6;4 and 7;8 at the commencement of the study and assessments were administered individually to the children on three occasions over a 2-year period. Oral narratives were elicited in a personal narrative context (i.e., the child was encouraged to relate personal experiences in response to photo prompts) and a story retelling context. Oral narrative comprehension was assessed in a fictional story context through questions relating to story structure elements. Results indicated that the children with mixed reading disability demonstrated inferior oral narrative production and oral narrative comprehension performance compared to children with typical reading development at each assessment occasion. To further explore these childrens difficulties in oral narrative ability, their performance was compared to a reading comprehension-age match control group at the third assessment trial. The results suggested the children with mixed reading disability had a specific deficit in oral narrative comprehension.

Oral narrative context effects on poor readers' spoken language performance: Story retelling, story generation, and personal narratives

This investigation explored the effects of oral narrative elicitation context on childrens spoken language performance. Oral narratives were produced by a group of 11 children with reading disability (aged between 7;11 and 9;3) and an age-matched control group of 11 children with typical reading skills in three different contexts: story retelling, story generation, and personal narratives. In the story retelling condition, the children listened to a story on tape while looking at the pictures in a book, before being asked to retell the story without the pictures. In the story generation context, the children were shown a picture containing a scene and were asked to make up their own story. Personal narratives were elicited with the help of photos and short narrative prompts. The transcripts were analysed at microstructure level on measures of verbal productivity, semantic diversity, and morphosyntax. Consistent with previous research, the results revealed no significant interactions between group and context, indicating that the two groups of children responded to the type of elicitation context in a similar way. There was a significant group effect, however, with the typical readers showing better performance overall on measures of morphosyntax and semantic diversity. There was also a significant effect of elicitation context with both groups of children producing the longest, linguistically most dense language samples in the story retelling context. Finally, the most significant differences in group performance were observed in the story retelling condition, with the typical readers outperforming the poor readers on measures of verbal productivity, number of different words, and percent complex sentences. The results from this study confirm that oral narrative samples can distinguish between good and poor readers and that the story retelling condition may be a particularly useful context for identifying strengths and weaknesses in oral narrative performance.

A Systematic Review of the Literature on Emergent Literacy Skills of Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

A wealth of research has been conducted into emergent literacy (i.e., precursors to formal reading) skills and development in typically developing (TD) children. However, despite research suggesting children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at risk of reading challenges, limited research exists on their emergent literacy. Thus, we aimed to systematically review emergent literacy research with this population. Database searches from 1995 to 2015 yielded three articles that met inclusion criteria. Results suggested both strengths and challenges in emergent literacy skills in children with ASD. Significant links between emergent literacy skills and both oral language and nonverbal cognition were also found. The findings highlight the need for further research; future directions and implications are discussed.

The Emergent Literacy Skills of Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

A high percentage of school-age students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have reading comprehension difficulties leading to academic disadvantage. These difficulties may be related to differences in children’s emergent literacy development in the preschool years. In this study, we examined the relationship between emergent literacy skills, broader cognitive and language ability, autism severity, and home literacy environment factors in 57 preschoolers with ASD. The children showed strengths in code-related emergent literacy skills such as alphabet knowledge, but significant difficulties with meaning-related emergent literacy skills. There was a significant relationship between meaning-related skills, autism severity, general oral language skills, and nonverbal cognition. Identification of these meaning-related precursors will guide the targets for early intervention to help ensure reading success for students with ASD.

Clinician survey of language sampling practices in Australia

Abstract A national online survey was used to investigate spontaneous language sampling and analysis practices by speech-language pathologists working with children and adolescents. A total of 257 responses were received from clinicians around Australia. Results indicated that spontaneous language samples are collected on a routine basis in elicitation contexts deemed appropriate to the clients’ age or developmental stage. However, language samples were generally short, often not recorded, and analysed informally. Consistent with previous research into language sampling practices, the main barrier to more detailed language sample analysis appears to be the time needed for transcription. Despite rapid technological advances in the last two decades, only 12.5% of the respondents reported using computer-assisted transcription and analysis procedures. Suggestions are made on how to promote change in clinical practice to ensure spontaneous language samples are transcribed and analysed in more detail. By transcribing the samples, detailed analysis of childrens language performance can be undertaken, allowing for effective goal-setting and assisting in objective progress measuring during and following intervention.

Emergent literacy performance across two languages: assessing four-year-old bilingual children

There are few emergent literacy assessments available for bilingual children. This study investigated the usefulness of a screening battery of oral language and print-related measures as an assessment tool for bilingual Samoan–English speaking children. A total of 18 children were recruited from three Samoan language immersion kindergartens (Aoga Amatas) in Auckland, New Zealand. A control group of 15 monolingual children were recruited from neighbouring kindergartens. Both Aoga Amatas and the kindergartens run programmes that are based on Te Whāriki – the New Zealand National Early Childhood Curriculum – regardless of the language spoken. The bilingual children were assessed on two occasions, once in English and once in Samoan by undergraduate speech pathology students, who were fluent in Samoan or English, on measures of story retelling and comprehension, phonological awareness, letter name knowledge and vocabulary. Results were analysed for each language, and across languages using composite scoring, and showed that the bilingual childrens performance in one language (either Samoan or English) significantly underestimated their composite language performance. Furthermore, the bilingual children significantly outperformed their monolingual peers on receptive vocabulary when composite scoring was used. Practical implications of these findings are outlined.

Exploring the development of cultural awareness amongst post-graduate speech-language pathology students

Abstract Purpose: Speech-language pathology programs globally need to prepare graduates to work with culturally and linguistically diverse populations. This study explored the knowledge, perceptions and experiences related to development of cultural awareness of graduate-entry Master of Speech Pathology students at an Australian university. Method: Sixty students across both year-levels completed a cultural awareness survey at the beginning of the semester. To explore how clinical placement influenced students’ knowledge and perceptions, year-2 students completed written reflections pre- and post-placement (n = 7) and participated in focus groups post-placement (n = 6). Result: Survey results showed student interest in working with culturally and linguistically diverse populations was high (over 80%) and confidence was moderate (over 50%). More than 80% of students reported awareness of their own cultural identities, stereotypes and prejudices. Content analysis of focus group and written reflection data identified key concepts comprising of: (1) context—university, and clinical placement site; (2) competencies—professional and individual; and (3) cultural implications—clients’ and students’ cultural backgrounds. Conclusion: Findings suggest clinical placement may positively influence cultural awareness development and students’ own cultural backgrounds may influence this more. Further exploration of how students move along a continuum of cultural development is warranted.