Rebecca Vance

Selection of Preschool Language TestsA Data-Based Approach

Clinicians are confronted with a wide range of norm-referenced tests designed to evaluate preschool language skills. This article approaches test selection from a data-based perspective. Twenty-one...

MRI findings in boys with specific language impairment

Magnetic resonance imaging scans of specifically language-impaired (SLI) boys were examined to determine whether atypical cerebral findings could be documented in children whose primary deficits were in language skills. Clinical examination of the scans failed to reveal any visually obvious lesions or abnormalities. In contrast, measurement of the scans revealed atypical perisylvian asymmetries in most of these subjects. The distribution of perisylvian asymmetries in SLI subjects was significantly different from the distribution in controls (p less than .01). Measurement of other brain regions revealed that extraperisylvian areas were occasionally deviant in individual SLI subjects; but no one region was consistently deviant across the SLI group. Thus, only atypical perisylvian asymmetries were linked to the language disorder. These neuroanatomical findings suggest that a prenatal alteration of brain development underlies specific language impairment.

The Diagnostic Accuracy of Four Vocabulary Tests Administered to Preschool-Age Children.

This study examined the empirical evidence for using four vocabulary tests (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III [Dunn & Dunn, 1997], Receptive One-Word Vocabulary Test [Gardner, 1985], Expressive Vocabulary Test [Williams, 1997], Expressive One-Word Vocabulary Test-Revised [Gardner, 1990]) to screen or identify specific language impairment (SLI) in preschool-age children. Tests were administered to 31 4- and 5-year-old children with SLI and 31 age-matched controls with normal language (NL). All children spoke General American English. Despite moderate to strong inter-test correlations, no test was a strong identifier of SLI. The group with SLI scored lower than the NL group on each test; however, the individual scores of children with SLI typically fell within the normal range. Vocabulary tests are frequently administered to determine whether a childs language skills require further evaluation (screening), as a method of identifying SLI in children, or simply to describe aspects of language functioning. These purposes for administering a vocabulary test require various forms of empirical evidence in support of their use. Our data support construct validity for the four vocabulary tests examined, but do not support their use for identification purposes. Clinicians must apply a degree of sophistication in evaluating the evidence presented for test validity relative to the purposes for which the test will be administered. Unfortunately, although many test manuals offer inter-test correlations or statistically significant group differences as evidence of construct validity, they often omit data that would support common clinical uses, such as screening or identification.

Diagnostic Accuracy of Two Tests of Preschool Language

The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool (CELF-P) and the Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-Preschool (SPELT-P) were administered to 20 children developing normally...

Variability in the Language Input to Children Enhances Learning in a Treatment Context

PURPOSE Artificial language learning studies have demonstrated that learners exposed to many different nonword combinations representing a grammatical form demonstrate rapid learning of that form without explicit instruction. However, learners presented with few exemplars, even when they are repeated frequently, fail to learn the underlying grammar. This study translated this experimental finding in a therapeutic context. METHOD Eighteen preschool children with language impairment received conversational recast treatment for morpheme errors. Over a 6-week period, half heard 12 unique verbs twice each during recasts (low-variability condition), and half heard 24 unique verbs (high-variability condition). Childrens use of trained and untrained morphemes on generalization probes as well as spontaneous use of trained morphemes was tracked throughout treatment. RESULTS The high-variability condition only produced significant change in childrens use of trained morphemes, but not untrained morphemes. Data from individual children confirmed that more children in the high- than the low-variability condition showed a strong treatment effect. Children in the high-variability condition also produced significantly more unique utterances containing their trained morpheme than children in the low-variability condition. CONCLUSION The results support the use of highly variable input in a therapeutic context to facilitate grammatical morpheme learning.

Beyond phonotactic frequency: Presentation frequency effects word productions in specific language impairment

UNLABELLED Phonotactic frequency effects on word production are thought to reflect accumulated experience with a language. Here we demonstrate that frequency effects can also be obtained through short-term manipulations of the input to children. We presented children with nonwords in an experiment that systematically manipulated English phonotactic frequency and the frequency of presentation within the experiment. Both of these manipulations affected the accuracy and time-to-response for nonword production both for typically developing and children with specific language impairment. Children with SLI were less accurate in their productions overall, but still exhibited an effect of the short-term frequency manipulation. Children with SLI differed significantly from their typical peers in terms of time-to-response only when both English and Experimental frequency were low. The results indicate that simple manipulations of the input can affect childrens representation of word forms, and this can facilitate word production without the need for long term exposure or articulatory practice. LEARNING OUTCOMES The reader will learn that sound frequency affects the production of new words. This includes not only the frequency with which sound sequences are represented in the speakers native language, but the frequency with which they are heard within a single session.

Children with specific language impairment show rapid, implicit learning of stress assignment rules.

UNLABELLED An implicit learning paradigm was used to assess childrens sensitivity to syllable stress information in an artificial language. Study 1 demonstrated that preschool children, with and without specific language impairment (SLI), can generalize patterns of stress heard during a brief period of familiarization, and can also abstract underlying ordered rules by which stress patterns were assigned to syllables. In Study 2, the salience of stressed elements was acoustically enhanced. Counter to expectations, there was no evidence of learning with this manipulation for either the typically developing children or children with SLI. The results suggest that children with SLI and their typically developing peers are sensitive to syllable stress cues to language structure. However, attempts to draw attention to these patterns by making them more salient may prompt children to use alternate learning strategies that do not lead to an implicit understanding of how stress contributes to the structure of language. LEARNING OUTCOMES The reader will be able to understand: (1) that children with SLI can learn and generalize the rules for assigning word-level stress patterns within minutes of hearing examples, but (2) strategies to enhance learning may actually have the opposite effect for these children.

Talker Discrimination in Preschool Children with and without Specific Language Impairment

UNLABELLED Variability inherently present between multiple talkers can prove beneficial in the context of learning. However, the performance during learning paradigms by children with specific language impairment (SLI) remains below typically developing peers, even when multiple talkers are used. Preschool children with typically developing language (n = 17) and SLI (n = 17) participated in a talker discrimination task. Five different pairings of talkers (same male, different males, same female, different females, male + female) were used to present 50 spoken words. Children with SLI were significantly poorer in discriminating same and different male speakers compared to their typical peers. The present findings demonstrate that preschool children with SLI can experience difficulty distinguishing between talkers. Poor sensitivity to variation in talkers may contribute to poor learning in SLI for contexts where multiple talker input should benefit the learner. LEARNING OUTCOMES The reader will recognize that the presence of multiple talkers (voices) can assist or detract from performance on cognitive tasks. Children with specific language impairment are less proficient than their peers in distinguishing the same from different talkers.

Effective use of auditory bombardment as a therapy adjunct for children with developmental language disorders

Purpose Modeling of grammatical forms has been used in conjunction with conversational recast treatment in various forms. This study tests the relative effect of providing bombardment prior to or after recast treatment. Method Twenty-eight children with developmental language disorder participated in daily conversational recast treatment for morpheme errors. This treatment was either preceded or followed by a brief period of intensive auditory bombardment. Generalization to untreated lexical contexts was measured throughout the treatment period to assess the degree of learning and how quickly the onset of measurable learning occurred. Results There were no significant differences in elicited use of morphemes for the groups of children who received auditory bombardment before or after enhanced conversational recast treatment. However, there was a difference in the number of children who could be considered treatment responders versus nonresponders, favoring those who received auditory bombardment after recast treatment. Conclusion A brief period of auditory bombardment is a relatively low cost addition to recast treatment methods, given how little time it takes. There is a small but measurable advantage to following recast treatment with a period of auditory bombardment. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5960005.