Penny L. Griffith

Narrative Abilities of Children with Learning Disabilities and Nondisabled Children Story Structure, Cohesion, and Propositions

The purpose of the present study was to compare narrative abilities of learning disabled and nondisabled students across four story difficulty levels and across three vocabulary age groups. Independent variables to be studied included story events correct, story structures, propositions, and cohesive devices. Results indicated that the students with learning disabilities were generally able to reconstruct stories as well as nondisabled students. However, significant differences were shown between groups within each level of analysis. Developmental differences in performance were evident on all measures and the use of line drawings appeared to have a negative influence on recall for all subjects. The self-generated story students were told to produce to accompany line drawings appeared less well constructed than the retold stories, except for the Internal Response category. Specific patterns were demonstrated in the retold and self-generated narratives assessment of children with learning disabilities and nondisabled children. Narrative abilities appear to offer useful information regarding language skills beyond the sentence level.

Event and story structure recall by children with specific learning disabilities, language impairments, and normally achieving children

This study investigated the ability of children with specific learning disabilities (SLD), children with language impairments (LI), and children who are normally achieving (NA) to recall the events and story structures of a narrative and an expository text. Effects of group, verbal age, text structure, and order of presentation on recall as measured through listening comprehension were studied. Sixty students who were matched on verbal age served as subjects. Results suggested differences between the LI and SLD groups on text recall. Differences were also evident for text type, with recall of narrative text typically being superior to recall of expository text. In general, the performance of the group with SLD was similar to that of the NA group.

On the Scientific Status of Iconicity.

This paper explores the operational and conceptual meanings of the iconicity of manual signs and sign languages, by contrasting aspects of iconicity with parallel facets of stimulus meaningfulness in the Paired-Associates (PA) rote verbal learning literature. Historical, conceptual, and theoretical aspects of iconicity related to language systems in general and American Sign Language (ASL) in particular are treated in Section 1. Section 2 describes empirical studies related to operational definition of iconicity in ASL signs, and addresses the issues and implications of this literature. Section 3 describes parallels between iconicity and stimulus meaningfulness and the implications of these parallels for the scientific status of iconicity and of research related to the role of iconicity in sign language systems.

Story structure recall in hearing-impaired, learning-disabled and nondisabled children

This study examined the ability of hearing-impaired students to make use of story grammars in organizing self-generated and retold stories. Eleven primary (n = 5) and intermediate (n = 6) level students enrolled in total communication public day classes participated. Children were presented with four stories, with and without pictures, and were asked to make up a story or to listen to and retell a story to friends. Story transcripts were analyzed for correct descriptions of events and for correct story structures. Results indicated that hearing-impaired students do make use of story grammars in organizing retellings and in constructing stories. Pictures enhanced recall. Students with deaf parents performed as well as did nondisabled children in previous studies. Retelling abilities were linked to both chronological age and linguistic abilities.

Narrative Abilities in Hearing-Impaired Children: Propositions and Cohesion

Two linguistic microstructures, propositions and cohesive devices, were analyzed in story recalls by 11 primary and intermediate level hearing-impaired students. The students were enrolled in total communication, public day classes, and had severe-to-profound hearing losses. Four story conditions were presented: (1) easy structure-T.C.; (2) complex structure-T.C.; (3) complex structure with pictures-T.C.; and (4) create-a-story-pictures. Students watched and then retold or made up a story to a friend. Recalls were videotaped and transcribed by a deaf adult and the first investigator. Recalls of hearing-impaired students were significantly shorter than those found earlier for hearing students. When stories are very simple, hearing-impaired students generate mostly complete propositions, however as complexity increases, semantic errors result in fewer complete propositions.

Mode-Switching & Mode-Finding in a Hearing Child of Deaf Parents

Since Piaget distinguished between egocentric and social speech in children from two to six (4), there have been many reports not only that preschool children are able to use the point of view of the listener (10, 17, 18, 21, 25, 30, 36), but also that listener-adapted variations in communication may occur at the very earliest stages of language acquisition (2, 36). In monolingual English speaking children, early forms of language alternation have been reported mainly as shifts from talking to not talking, whining to not whining (2), and in pitch and speech register (36). By three years of age, however, children have been found able to alternate the content (18) as well as the form (30) of their messages, according to their perceptions of the knowledge of their listener. In bilingual learning environments, alternation across languages has been called code switching, the occurrence of which is determined by the function, the situation, and the participants present (14). Although code-switching (alternating across constituents) as well as code-mixing (alternating within constituents) are commonly described phenomena in fluent bilingual speakers (14), only a few investigators have described code-switching in very young children (16, 17). Leopold called the ability to adapt language according to the

Comparing Language Disorders in Two Groups of Students with Severe Behavioral Disorders

This study compared two groups of students (i.e., day versus residential) with severe behavioral disorders on several language measures to determine whether more severe language deficits were present based on restrictiveness of behavioral placement. Second, types of language deficits were compared to categories of behavioral problems to see if language problems were more prevalent in different behavioral categories. No significant differences were found between groups on standardized language measures, with both groups showing receptive and expressive language deficits below normal. Students in the day program were rated higher on conversational skills by their teachers than students in the residential program. Receptive language deficits correlated with Interpersonal Difficulties and Inappropriate Behavior categories on the Behavior Evaluation Scale-2 (BBS). Differentiation of language problems according to severity or category of behavioral difficulty was inconclusive.

The Instructional Patterns of Two Fourth-Grade Spelling Classes: A Mainstreaming Issue

Two fourth-grade spelling classes, one for hearing-impaired students and one general education class being considered as a mainstream placement, were investigated to determine similarities and differences in the interactional behaviors of the students and teachers. Video recordings and written transcriptions were analyzed to obtain measures of both verbal and nonverbal interactions. Interactional behaviors in the two settings were found to be very different. Differences were found across physical, instructional, and social contexts. Interactions in the general education class were characterized by rapid conversational shifts and complex academic task structures, as well as complex language usage. Interactions in the hearing-impaired class were characterized by routinized academic tasks and simple language structures.

A Comparative and Normative Study of the Iconicity of Signs Rated by Three Groups

One hundred American Sign Language signs selected from sign vocabularies used with mentally retarded persons were rated for iconicity by 20 college students, 12 deaf adults, and 20 first-graders. A Pearson Product-Moment correlation showed that ratings tended to be highly similar for the three groups. Classification of signs based on ratings by each group, however, showed that perceptions of iconicity were not identical across the groups. Deaf subjects rated more items as iconic than did hearing groups. Hearing subjects rated about one-half of the signs as noniconic. Results suggest that sign ratings for iconicity will be helpful for teachers in determining which signs will be most easily acquired by retarded learners. Findings also suggest that factors other than iconicity contribute to the ease of sign acquisition in nonverbal retarded learners.

MMPI-2 ITEMS WHICH CORRECTLY IDENTIFIED WOMEN WITH HISTORIES OF CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE

This study examined whether MMPI-2 items could be used to discriminate between 58 women who experienced childhood sexual abuse and 57 women who did not. A set of 48 items were identified which correctly classified 95% of the subjects.