Patricia L. Cleave

Reading and Phonological Awareness in Children With Down Syndrome: A Longitudinal Study

Many children with Down syndrome (DS) are capable of developing some reading and writing abilities. The purpose of this study was to further the knowledge of literacy learning and factors that infl...

Narrative abilities in monolingual and dual language learning children with specific language impairment

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to compare narrative abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI) who are monolingual and those who are dual language learners. METHOD The participants were 26 children with SLI, 14 monolingual English speakers and 12 dual language learners. The dual language learners were English dominant and spoke a variety of other languages in the home. The two SLI groups were compared using standardized tests and measures from two narrative samples. RESULTS Compared to the monolingual children, the dual language learners achieved lower scores on standardized tests of morphosyntax but not on measures of language form derived from the narrative samples. Both groups achieved below average scores on productivity, narrative structure, literate language, and language form measures from the narrative samples. CONCLUSION The data suggest that narrative samples can be a sensitive way to assess the language skills of dual language learners with specific language impairment. Furthermore, the findings are consistent with the position that English standardized tests may be a biased assessment measure when used with dual language learners, particularly for the assessment of expressive morphosyntactic skills. LEARNING OUTCOMES Readers will be able to (1) describe the narrative abilities of typically developing dual language learners; (2) describe similarities between the narrative abilities of children with SLI who are monolingual and dual language learners; (3) identify ways to analyses narratives at a variety of levels.

Two Approaches to the Facilitation of Grammar in Children With Language Impairments: Rationale and Description

This article describes in detail the design and rationale of two effective approaches for the facilitation of grammar in children with language impairments. One program was clinician directed and t...

The Efficacy of Recasts in Language Intervention: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

PURPOSE This systematic review and meta-analysis critically evaluated the research evidence on the effectiveness of conversational recasts in grammatical development for children with language impairments. METHOD Two different but complementary reviews were conducted and then integrated. Systematic searches of the literature resulted in 35 articles for the systematic review. Studies that employed a wide variety of study designs were involved, but all examined interventions where recasts were the key component. The meta-analysis only included studies that allowed the calculation of effect sizes, but it did include package interventions in which recasts were a major part. Fourteen studies were included, 7 of which were also in the systematic review. Studies were grouped according to research phase and were rated for quality. RESULTS Study quality and thus strength of evidence varied substantially. Nevertheless, across all phases, the vast majority of studies provided support for the use of recasts. Meta-analyses found average effect sizes of .96 for proximal measures and .76 for distal measures, reflecting a positive benefit of about 0.75 to 1.00 standard deviation. CONCLUSION The available evidence is limited, but it is supportive of the use of recasts in grammatical intervention. Critical features of recasts in grammatical interventions are discussed.

The Representation of Roots in the Spelling of Children With Specific Language Impairment

Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have demonstrated general spelling and writing difficulties. We investigated the sensitivity of children with SLI to the consistent spelling of root morphemes, a feature to which young typically developing children demonstrate sensitivity. We asked children with SLI and two groups of typically developing children (n = 17 in each group) to spell the same letter-sound sequence (e.g., win) as a root, and as a component of inflected, derived, and control words (e.g., win, wins, winner, wink). Children with SLI and spelling-age-matched children (mean age of 9 and 7 years, respectively) were more accurate and more consistent in spelling the initial sections of the inflected and derived words than of the control words, a pattern that suggests sensitivity to the representation of roots in spelling. The absence of a group-level interaction suggests comparable sensitivity in the two groups. Our results suggest that elementary-school-aged children with SLI are sensitive to the consistent spelling of roots, at least to the extent predicted by their general spelling abilities.

Using augmentative and alternative communication approaches to promote participation of preschoolers during book reading: a pilot study

Literacy development is important, especially for individuals using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Early exposure to reading and writing through joint book reading is important in this development. This article describes a project examining the impact of an interactive book reading programme on four preschool-aged children and their mothers. Two of the children were typically developing and two relied on nonverbal communication means. The program used AAC techniques and adaptations to promote the participation of all children. The childrens participation was examined in the group and during book reading in the home before and after the group programme.

Oral narratives in monolingual and bilingual preschoolers with SLI.

BACKGROUND The body of literature on narratives of bilingual children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) is growing. However, little is known about the narrative abilities of bilingual preschool children with SLI and their patterns of growth. AIMS To determine the similarities and differences in narrative abilities between preschoolers with and without SLI who are either monolingual or bilingual at two time points. METHODS & PROCEDURES Forty children completed a narrative retell task in English at two test points. The mean ages were 52 and 58 months at Times 1 and 2, respectively. We examined performance on measures of narrative macrostructure (narrative information) and microstructure (sentence length, number of different words, verb accuracy, first mentions) in monolingual and bilingual children with and without SLI. The bilingual children were from diverse first-language backgrounds and all spoke English most of the time. OUTCOMES & RESULTS A series of repeated-measures analyses of variance was used with language ability (typical development or SLI) and bilingual status (monolingual versus bilingual) as the between-subjects factors and time (Times 1 or 2) as the within-subjects factor. Results indicated a significant main effect of time for four measures (i.e., Information Score, lexical diversity, sentence length and verb accuracy). The between-subjects analyses indicated a significant difference between the typically developing children and the children with SLI in all measures and a significant difference between monolingual and bilingual children for verb accuracy only. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS This study showed that all four groups of children showed growth over a 6-month period and that bilingual children exposed predominantly to English in the home performed similarly to their monolingual peers in measures of narrative information, sentence length, number of different words and first mentions.

A Longitudinal Study of Narrative Development in Children and Adolescents with Down Syndrome

The present study examined narrative development in children and adolescents with Down syndrome longitudinally. Narratives were collected from 32 children and adolescents with Down syndrome three times over a 1-year period. Both micro- and macrolevel analyses were conducted. Significant growth over the 1-year period was seen in semantic complexity and narrative structure. However, there was no evidence of growth in syntactic complexity or narrative length. Mental age and comprehension skills at Time 1 predicted scores in all 4 areas at Time 3. Expressive language skills added further to the prediction of syntactic complexity and story length.

Parental Talk About Internal States to Their Child With Autism

In this case study, all parental talk directed to a young child with autism at home over a 3-day period was analyzed for internal state (IS) language, which explicitly focuses upon the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of animate beings. The mother and father used IS terms in 33% and 24% of their utterances, respectively, with sensory and desire categories occurring most frequently. Rarely did either parent elaborate on the causes or consequences of the IS terms they used. Comparison of these data to the literature on typically developing children with the same language age suggests similarities in the pattern of IS language input. However, the overall frequency appeared to be lower. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Syntactic bootstrapping in children with Down syndrome: The impact of bilingualism

PURPOSE The purpose of the study was to add to our knowledge of bilingual learning in children with Down syndrome (DS) using a syntactic bootstrapping task. METHOD Four groups of children and youth matched on non-verbal mental age participated. There were 14 bilingual participants with DS (DS-B, mean age 12;5), 12 monolingual participants with DS (DS-M, mean age 10;10), 9 bilingual typically developing children (TD-B; mean age 4;1) and 11 monolingual typically developing children (TD-M; mean age 4;1). The participants completed a computerized syntactic bootstrapping task involving unfamiliar nouns and verbs. The syntactic cues employed were a for the nouns and ing for the verbs. RESULTS Performance was better on nouns than verbs. There was also a main effect for group. Follow-up t-tests revealed that there were no significant differences between the TD-M and TD-B or between the DS-M and DS-B groups. However, the DS-M group performed more poorly than the TD-M group with a large effect size. Analyses at the individual level revealed a similar pattern of results. CONCLUSION There was evidence that Down syndrome impacted performance; there was no evidence that bilingualism negatively affected the syntactic bootstrapping skills of individuals with DS. These results from a dynamic language task are consistent with those of previous studies that used static or product measures. Thus, the results are consistent with the position that parents should be supported in their decision to provide bilingual input to their children with DS. LEARNING OUTCOMES Readers of this article will identify (1) research evidence regarding bilingual development in children with Down syndrome and (2) syntactic bootstrapping skills in monolingual and bilingual children who are typically developing or who have Down syndrome.