Novel word learning at 21 months predicts receptive vocabulary outcomes in later childhood

Several aspects of early language skills, including parent-report measures of vocabulary, phoneme discrimination, speech segmentation, and speed of lexical access predict later childhood language outcomes. To date, no studies have examined the long-term predictive validity of novel word learning. We examined whether individual differences in novel word learning at 21 months predict later childhood receptive vocabulary outcomes rather than generalized cognitive abilities. Twenty-eight 21-month-olds were taught novel words using a modified version of the Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm. Seventeen children (range 7-10 years) returned to participate in a longitudinal follow-up. Novel word learning in infancy uniquely accounted for 22% of the variance in childhood receptive vocabulary but did not predict later childhood visuospatial ability or non-verbal IQ. These results suggest that the ability to associate novel sound patterns to novel objects, an index of the process of word learning, may be especially important for long-term language mastery.

Developmental language disorder: Maternal stress level and behavioural difficulties of children with expressive and mixed receptive-expressive DLD

PURPOSE

The current study aimed to compare bullying and victimisation behaviour, levels of emotional and behavioural problems and maternal stress in children with expressive and mixed receptive-expressive language disorders.

METHODS

We measured the bullying and victimisation behaviour, the emotional and behavioural problems as well as the maternal stress in a sample of 4-9-year-old children with language disorders (N = 65).

RESULTS

Our main findings were that although bullying and victimisation were common in both groups; the children with expressive language disorders tended to be perpetrators (teacher-reported) while the children with mixed language disorders experienced more bullying and tended to be victims (self-reported); the latters' mothers perceived significantly more stress compared to mothers of children with expressive language disorders. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that, although the number of children within the family was identified as the strongest predictor explaining maternal stress, maternal stress is a multifactorial concept influenced by many factors.

CONCLUSION

For a successful intervention in children with developmental language disorders, it seems to be very important to identify parental stressors beyond the treatment of the child's problems.

Working Memory Profiles of Children With Dyslexia, Developmental Language Disorder, or Both

Purpose Compared to children with typical development, children with dyslexia, developmental language disorder (DLD), or both often demonstrate working memory deficits. It is unclear how pervasive the deficits are or whether the deficits align with diagnostic category. The purpose of this study was to determine whether different working memory profiles would emerge on a comprehensive battery of central executive, phonological, visuospatial, and binding working memory tasks and whether these profiles were associated with group membership. Method Three hundred two 2nd graders with typical development, dyslexia, DLD, or dyslexia/DLD completed 13 tasks from the Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children-Working Memory ( Gray, Alt, Hogan, Green, & Cowan, n.d. ) that assessed central executive, phonological, and visuospatial/attention components of working memory. Results Latent class analyses yielded 4 distinct latent classes: low overall (21%), average with high number updating (30%), average with low number updating (12%), and high overall (37%). Children from each disability group and children from the typically developing group were present in each class. Discussion Findings highlight the importance of knowing an individual child's working memory profile because working memory profiles are not synonymous with learning disabilities diagnosis. Thus, working memory assessments could contribute important information about children's cognitive function over and above typical psychoeducational measures.

Effects of Signs on Word Learning by Children With Developmental Language Disorder

Purpose This study investigated the effects of signs on word learning by children with developmental language disorder (DLD), in comparison with typically developing (TD) children, and the relation between a possible sign effect and children's linguistic and cognitive abilities. Method Nine- to 11-year-old children with DLD ( n = 40) and TD children ( n = 26) participated in a word learning experiment. Half of the spoken pseudowords were taught with a pseudosign with learning outcomes being assessed in accuracy and speed. To investigate whether sign effects would hold for children with varying linguistic and cognitive abilities, we measured children's linguistic (vocabulary, syntax) and cognitive (divided attention, working memory [WM], lexical access) skills. Results The children with DLD showed a positive sign effect in both accuracy and speed. For the TD children, there was no effect of signs on word learning. Principal component analyses of the linguistic and cognitive measures evidenced a 4-component solution (language skills, visual WM, verbal WM, and executive attention). Repeated-measures analyses of covariance with the component scores as covariates yielded no significant interactions with the linguistic and cognitive components. Conclusions Our results suggest that children with DLD benefit from signs for word learning, regardless of their linguistic and cognitive abilities. This implies that using sign-supported speech as a means to improve the vocabulary skills of children with DLD is effective, even still at the age of 9-11 years.

Which linguistic measures distinguish transient from persistent language problems in Late Talkers from 2 to 4 years? A study on Italian speaking children

BACKGROUND

In spite of the large literature on Late Talkers (LTs) it's still unclear which factors predict outcome in children younger than 3 years old.

AIMS

To identify the early language characteristics of LTs whose outcome was either a transient delay or a Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

50 LTs were assessed both by indirect and direct measures of expressive and receptive language at three time points between 2 and 4 years of age.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

At the first evaluation, all LTs had an expressive language delay; 61% also had delayed early syntactic comprehension. Three different linguistic outcomes emerged: children who caught up with their peers ("Late Bloomers") at age 3; children with slow language recovery ("Slow Learners") at age 4 and children at risk of DLD. The linguistic measures that differentiated the groups changed with age. By 28 months, impaired syntactic comprehension differentiated children at risk of DLD at 4 years of age, from the other two groups. By 36 months, the discrepancy between vocabulary size and age was larger in children with persistent language difficulties compared to both "Late Bloomers" and "Slow Learners". Expressive grammar differentiated the groups significantly by age 3 with difficulties in this domain still persisting in children with DLD at age 4.

CONCLUSIONS

An early syntactic comprehension delay was a predictive index of DLD in LTs, suggesting the importance of evaluating this language component when assessing LT toddlers.

IMPLICATIONS

LTs with receptive-expressive language delay around 24-30 months could benefit from an early language intervention.

Language function in childhood idiopathic epilepsy syndromes

PURPOSE

To examine the impact of diverse syndromes of focal and generalized epilepsy on language function in children with new and recent onset epilepsy. Of special interest was the degree of shared language abnormality across epilepsy syndromes and the unique effects associated with specific epilepsy syndromes.

METHODS

Participants were 136 youth with new or recent-onset (diagnosis within past 12 months) epilepsy and 107 healthy first-degree cousin controls. The participants with epilepsy included 20 with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE; M age = 12.99  years, SD = 3.11), 41 with Benign Epilepsy with Centrotemporal Spikes (BECTS; M age = 10.32, SD = 1.67), 42 with Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME; M age = 14.85, SD = 2.75) and 33 with absence epilepsy (M age = 10.55, SD = 2.76). All children were administered a comprehensive test battery which included multiple measures of language and language-dependent abilities (i.e., verbal intelligence, vocabulary, verbal reasoning, object naming, reception word recognition, word reading, spelling, lexical and semantic fluency, verbal list learning and delayed verbal memory). Test scores were adjusted for age and gender and analyzed via MANCOVA.

RESULTS

Language abnormalities were found in all epilepsy patient groups. The most broadly affected children were those with TLE and absence epilepsy, whose performance differed significantly from controls on 8 of 11 and 9 of 11 tests respectively. Although children with JME and BECTS were less affected, significant differences from controls were found on 4 of 11 tests each. While each group had a unique profile of language deficits, commonalities were apparent across both idiopathic generalized and localization-related diagnostic categories.

DISCUSSION

The localization related and generalized idiopathic childhood epilepsies examined here were associated with impact on diverse language abilities early in the course of the disorder.

Using Telegraphic Input With Children With Language Delays: A Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists' Practices and Perspectives

Purpose Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) often simplify their language input when talking to young children with language delays, but there is some controversy regarding whether simplified input should be telegraphic (e.g., Ball under, Doggie go, More toy) or grammatical (e.g., The ball went under; Go, Doggie! More toys). The purpose of this study was to evaluate SLPs' practices and perspectives on using telegraphic input when working with children with language delays at the prelinguistic, one-word, or two-word stages of spoken language development. Method Practicing SLPs were recruited from a university-sponsored professional development conference focused on current best practices in speech-language pathology. Respondents completed an online survey that included questions about their own practices, as well as their overall perspectives on the usefulness of simplifying language input in different ways. Results The vast majority of SLPs (82%) reported using telegraphic input. SLPs reported using telegraphic input more frequently when prompting for verbal imitations than when describing play or providing a directive/request. Surprisingly, only 30% of SLPs who reported using telegraphic input felt that it was useful. SLPs reported that receptive language is the most important child characteristic to consider when deciding what kind of language input to provide. Conclusions These findings suggest the need for more purposeful clinical decision making in the context of providing simplified language input. In addition, in-depth, qualitative studies are needed to characterize the complex interactions among beliefs, experiences, practices, and perspectives pertaining to simplified language input.

Use of Recast Intervention to Teach Causal Adverbials to Young Children With Developmental Language Disorder Within a Science Curriculum: A Single Case Design Study

Purpose Language serves as an essential resource to learn about cause and effect throughout childhood. Causal adverbial sentences use causal conjunctions (e.g., because, so) to join 2 clauses to express cause-effect relationships ( Diessel & Hetterle, 2011 ). Causal adverbial sentences are frequently used to explain causal relationships in academic contexts, such as elementary school science and social studies classes ( Kinzie et al., 2014 ; J. Williams et al., 2014 ). Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are at risk for failure in these academically relevant language skills. Here, we investigated the effect of language intervention focused on causal adverbials on both causal adverbials and acquisition of science content in young children with DLD. Method A multiple-probe design was used to examine the effect of language intervention using recasts on production of causal adverbials and acquisition of science content for 7 preschool/kindergarten children with DLD. Child production of causal adverbials and an untreated control structure were analyzed. Results Six of 7 participants exhibited gains in production of causal adverbials containing because, with effect sizes ranging from small to large. Performances on daily probes of science content learning and science unit tests indicate that participants are able to learn science content, but the magnitude of gains may not relate to skill in causal adverbial production. Conclusion Language intervention for young children with DLD can effectively treat complex syntactic targets such as causal adverbials in the context of science instruction, but it is unclear whether this can affect science content learning.

Pragmatic Language Performance of Children Adopted Internationally

Purpose Pragmatic language is important for social communication across all settings. Children adopted internationally (CAI) may be at risk of poorer pragmatic language because of adverse early care, delayed adopted language development, and less ability to inhibit. The purpose of this study was to compare pragmatic language performance of CAI from Asian and Eastern European countries with a nonadopted group of children who were of the same age and from similar socioeconomic backgrounds as well as explore the relationship among emotion identification, false belief understanding, and inhibition variables with pragmatic language performance. Method Using a quasi-experimental design, 35 four-year-old CAI (20 Asian, 15 Eastern European) and 33 children who were not adopted were included in this study. The children's pragmatic language, general language, and social communication (emotion identification of facial expressions, false belief understanding, inhibition) were measured. Comparisons by region of origin and adoption experience were completed. We conducted split-half correlation analyses and entered significant correlation variables into simple and backward regression models. Results Pragmatic language performance differed by adoption experience. The adopted and nonadopted groups demonstrated different correlation patterns. Language performance explained most of the pragmatic language variance. Discussion Because CAI perform less well than their nonadopted peers on pragmatic communication measures and different variables are related to their pragmatic performance, speech-language pathologists may need to adapt assessment and intervention practices for this population.

Social-Cognitive and Speech Sound Production Abilities of Minimally Verbal Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Purpose To date, there has been a dearth of systematic research that examines both social-cognitive (SC) and speech sound production (SSP) abilities simultaneously in minimally verbal (MV) children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Such an analysis would allow a unified and comprehensive view of the children's communication abilities. The purpose of this study was to develop detailed descriptive profiles of MV children with ASD and uncover patterns in their SC and SSP abilities that may pertain to spoken language. Method This study was a descriptive, multiple clinical case study that examined 5 MV children with ASD, 4 boys and 1 girl, aged 3-6 years. The case studies consisted of demographic information, parent report, and formal and informal assessment of the children. Four SC abilities and 3 SSP abilities were assessed. Results The 5 children's SC score, SSP score, and number of spoken words were converted to z scores. This analysis revealed 2 different patterns of development: 3 of the children had lower SC than SSP abilities, and 2 of the children had the reverse pattern. Conclusions The 5 children were low in both SC and SSP abilities. Although both domains were low, the measure that coincided most with spoken vocabulary among the 5 children was their SSP abilities. Specifically, the children had difficulty in demonstrating emerging control of the onset of voicing for specific speech sounds and verbal imitation of single speech sounds and syllables. Clinical implications of simultaneously assessing and treating SC and SSP abilities in MV children are discussed.

Five overarching factors central to grammatical learning and treatment in children with developmental language disorder

BACKGROUND

During grammatical treatment of children with developmental language disorder (DLD), it is natural for therapists to focus on the grammatical details of the target language that give the children special difficulty. However, along with the language-specific features of the target (e.g., for English, add -s to verbs in present tense, third-person singular contexts), there are overarching factors that operate to render the children's learning task more, or less, challenging, depending on the particular target.

AIMS

To identify five such factors that can play a role in the grammatical learning of children with DLD. We use English as our example language and provide supporting evidence from a variety of other languages.

MAIN CONTRIBUTION

We show that the relative degree of English-speaking children's difficulty with particular grammatical details can be affected by the extent to which these details involve: (1) bare stems; (2) opportunities for grammatical case confusion; (3) prosodic challenges; (4) grammatical and lexical aspect; and (5) deviations from canonical word order.

CONCLUSIONS

During treatment, therapists will want to consider not only the English-specific features of grammatical targets but also how these more general factors can be taken into account to increase the children's success.

The joint effects of bilingualism, DLD and item frequency on children's lexical-retrieval performance

BACKGROUND

Bilingual children and children diagnosed with developmental language disorder (DLD) are characterized by reduced lexical-retrieval abilities. Few studies examined their joint contribution and the mechanisms underlying these effects in the lexical domain.

AIMS

To explore the joint effects of bilingualism and DLD by adopting a four-group comparison in which the difference between bi- and monolingual children with DLD is directly compared with that of bi- and monolingual children with typical language development (TLD). In addition, to examine the mechanisms underlying the effects of bilingualism and DLD on children's lexical-retrieval abilities, we tested how item's characteristics (frequency of use) modulate the effects of bilingualism and DLD.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Fifty-eight children (aged 9-14 years) participated in the current study. They were either Hebrew monolingual or Hebrew-English bilinguals and were either diagnosed with DLD or had TLD. Children completed a Hebrew picture-naming task and verbal short-term memory tests. The influence of participants' characteristics, including bilingualism, DLD and verbal short-term memory, as well as item's characteristics (frequency of use) were tested.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Accuracy analysis revealed that bilingual children scored lower than monolingual children and that children with DLD scored lower than children with TLD. Critically, the two factors interacted such that their joint presence resulted in less-than-additive effects. Specifically, although bilingual children with DLD performed worse than all other groups, they performed better than expected under an additive model. Interestingly, monolingual children with DLD performed similarly to bilingual children with TLD. Increased verbal short-term memory was associated with better performance across the four groups. Finally, bilingualism and DLD interacted with item frequency, such that being bilingual, having DLD, or both, resulted in increased sensitivity to item frequency manifested in exceptionally lower performance on low-frequency items.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

The findings suggest that the strength of linguistic representations contribute to the effects of bilingualism and DLD. Further, the presence of bilingualism in the context of DLD does not exaggerate the impact of DLD. Clinically, this suggests that differences between bi- and monolingual children with DLD must be considered in reference to the gap in lexical-retrieval performance observed between bi- and monolingual children with TLD. Finally, because monolingual children with DLD and bilingual children with TLD performed similarly, sensitive diagnostic tools and intervention programmes should be adopted to allow correct identification and treatment of bilingual children with DLD.

Impact of processing load on analogical mapping with visual sequences in children with developmental language disorders (DLD)

BACKGROUND

Analogical mapping is a domain-general cognitive process used notably in language development, and particularly in the abstraction of construction schemas. Children with developmental language disorders (DLD) display an impairment in linguistic productivity and creativity, which can be linked to a lack of generalization of construction schemas.

AIMS

To investigate analogical mapping in children with DLD, and especially the influence of processing load, as it could explain the lack of creativity observed in children with DLD. It was hypothesized that analogical mapping is altered in children with DLD and that greater cognitive load (sequential presentation and no perceptual support) would be linked to poorer performance in these children.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Fifteen children with DLD and their age-matched peers were administrated a visual analogical reasoning task where they had to complete a sequence sharing the same relational structure as previously presented sequences. Two factors influencing processing load were studied: the modality of presentation (sequential versus simultaneous) and the perceptual support (with versus without).

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Results showed an expected group effect with poorer performance in children with DLD compared with children with typical language development (TLD). Results corroborated hypotheses according to which children with DLD have difficulties with analogical mapping, which could hinder their abstraction of construction schemas. Results about the influence of processing load were mixed. While the difference between the two groups was more marked for the items without perceptual support than for those with perceptual support, children with DLD were not more affected by the sequential presentation than children with TLD.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

Children with DLD have impaired analogical mapping competences, especially when the relational similarities are not supported by perceptual cues. This impairment may be the cause of their difficulties in abstracting construction schemas, thus provoking their poor linguistic productivity and creativity. However, more studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis, as the influence of analogical reasoning on language development could also be reversed or could be linked to another external factor.

The Relation Between Walking and Language in Infant Siblings of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

In typical development, walk onset is accompanied by increased language growth (e.g., Walle & Campos, 2014). The present study explored whether this relation may be disrupted in the infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; heightened risk of receiving an ASD diagnosis; HR), a population exhibiting substantial variability in motor and language development (e.g., Gamliel, Yirmiya, & Sigman, 2007; Landa & Garrett-Mayer, 2006). Receptive and expressive language were examined across the transition to walking in three groups of HR infants (no diagnosis, language delay, and ASD; N = 91, 8-18 months) and in infants with no family history of ASD (N = 25; 9-15 months). Only infants with an eventual ASD diagnosis did not show increased language growth following walk onset.

Attention in Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder

Purpose Attention and language are hypothesized to interact in bilingual children and in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). In children who are bilingual, attentional control may be enhanced by repeated experience regulating 2 languages. In children with DLD, subtle weaknesses in sustained attention may relate to impaired language processing. This study measured attentional control and sustained attention in monolingual and bilingual children with and without DLD in order to examine the potential influences of bilingualism and DLD, as well as their intersection, on attention. Method Monolingual English-only and bilingual Spanish-English children aged 6-8 years were categorized into participant groups based on eligibility testing and parent interviews. Parent interviews included standardized assessment of language environment and parent concern regarding language. Participants completed 2 nonlinguistic computerized assessments: a flanker task to measure attentional control and a continuous performance task to measure sustained attention. Results One hundred nine children met all eligibility criteria for inclusion in a participant group. Regression models predicting performance on the attention tasks were similar for both sustained attention and attentional control. For both tasks, DLD was a significant predictor, and bilingualism was not. Measuring bilingualism continuously using parent-reported exposure did not alter results. Conclusions This study found no evidence of a "bilingual cognitive advantage" on 2 types of attention among sequential Spanish-English bilingual children but also found a negative effect of DLD that was consistent across both types of attention and both bilingual and monolingual children. Results are consistent with the broader literature on subtle nonlinguistic deficits in children with DLD and suggest these deficits are minimally affected by diverse linguistic experience.

Identifying risk for language impairment in children from linguistically diverse low-income schools

PURPOSE

To improve screening procedures for children in a linguistically diverse context, we combined tasks known to reveal grammatical deficits in children with language impairment (LI) with training to facilitate performance on a verb elicitation task.

METHOD

Sixty-four first grade children participated. The objective grammatical measures included elicitation of 12 past tense regular verbs preceded by a teaching phase (teach-test), the sentence recall (SR) subtest of the Clinical evaluation of language fundamentals (CELF-4), and a tally of all conjugated verbs from a narrative retell task. Given the widespread reliance on teacher observation for the referral of children suspected of having LI, we compared our results to the spoken language portion of the CELF-4 teacher observational rating scale (ORS).

RESULT

Using teacher observation as a reference for comparison, the past tense elicitation task and the SR task yielded strong discriminating power, but the verb tally was relatively weak. However, combining the three tasks yielded the highest levels of sensitivity (75%) and specificity (92%) than any single measure on its own.

CONCLUSION

This study contributes to alternative assessment practices by highlighting the potential utility of adding a teaching component prior to administering informal grammatical probes.

The Heterogeneity of Word Learning Biases in Late-Talking Children

Purpose The particular statistical approach researchers choose is intimately connected to the way they conceptualize their questions, which, in turn, can influence the conclusions they draw. One particularly salient area in which statistics influence our conclusions is in the context of atypical development. Traditional statistical approaches such as t tests or analysis of variance lend themselves to a focus on group differences, downplaying the heterogeneity that exists within so many atypically developing populations. Understanding such variability is important-classification of what a disorder is, an individual's diagnosis, and whether or not a child receives intervention all directly relate to an accurate classification of the disorder and individual's abilities compared to their typically developing peers. Method Here, we use word learning biases (i.e., shape and material biases) in late-talking children as a sample case and employ a variety of statistical approaches to compare the conclusions those approaches might warrant. Results We argue that advanced statistical approaches, such as mixed-effects regression, can help us make sense of heterogeneity and are more consistent with a modern dimensional view of language disorders. Conclusions Accurate characterization of late-talking children (and others at risk for delays) and their prognoses is necessary for accurate diagnosis and implementation of appropriate target interventions. It therefore requires rigorous statistical analyses that can capture and allow for interpretation of the heterogeneity inherent in populations with language delays and disorders.

The Taxonomy and Course of Childhood Autism

The hypothesis that prognosis in autism would vary across subgroups was explored through cluster analysis of 52 cases. Four clusters related mainly to presence or absence of mutism, speech pathology, and lack of social responsiveness. Children who were mute and socially unresponsive on admission had particularly poor outcomes at follow-up 4.5 yr. later. For a third of the 35 subjects followed, the Vine-land Social Quotients (mean 46.0 for all subjects) had declined.

What Our Hands Tell Us: A Two-Year Follow-Up Investigating Outcomes in Subgroups of Children With Language Delay

Purpose This study followed up children identified with expressive language delay (ELD) or receptive/expressive language delay (R/ELD) at 2 years of age, Time 1 (T1), in order to identify their language profiles at 4-5 years, Time 2 (T2), and explore relationships to T1 language, gesture use, and symbolic comprehension. Method Nineteen of 22 children were seen at follow-up (9 of 10 from R/ELD group, 10 of 12 from ELD group). T1 measures assessed receptive and expressive language, gesture use, and symbolic comprehension. At T2, we assessed receptive and expressive language, sentence repetition, and expressive phonology. Results Outcomes for the R/ELD group were significantly poorer, with all children continuing to have delay in receptive and/or expressive language compared to just 20% of the ELD group. Expressive phonology delay was common in both groups. T1 receptive language showed the most pervasive correlations with T2 language measures, but categorical performance on all three T1 measures correctly predicted language outcomes in 16-17 of the 19 children. Conclusion Findings add to evidence that receptive language is a strong predictor of outcomes. Gesture use and symbolic comprehension are also strong predictors and clinically valuable as part of play-based assessments with implications for theoretical understanding and intervention planning.

Psychometric Evaluation of Lexical Diversity Indices in Spanish Narrative Samples From Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

Purpose The purpose of the current study was to examine construct validity evidence for the following 4 lexical diversity measures for use in Spanish narrative samples of children with developmental language disorder and typical language development (TLD): (a) type-token ratio (TTR; Chotlos, 1944 ; Templin, 1957 ), (b) hypergeometric distribution D ( McCarthy & Jarvis, 2010 ), (c) measure of textual lexical diversity (MTLD; McCarthy, 2005 ), and (d) moving-average TTR (MATTR; Covington & McFall, 2010 ). Method A multiple-group, confirmatory factor analytic stepwise procedure was applied to examine factorial invariance in a sample of 435 monolingual Spanish-speaking children (335 with TLD and 100 with specific language impairment). Results MATTR was the strongest indicator of the lexical diversity of a sample and demonstrated measurement invariance across children with TLD and specific language impairment. MTLD scores included some noise at different levels as a function of the length of a sample, especially for short language samples, but differences in relation to MATTR were relatively small. The validity of hypergeometric distribution D and TTR score interpretations was low, as the scores covaried systematically with length, with TTR being the poorest measure of lexical diversity. Conclusion Results support the use of MATTR and MTLD as measures of lexical diversity and should assist clinicians and researchers in the selection of lexical diversity measures to minimize bias in score interpretations when conducting language sample analyses.

Reconceptualizing developmental language disorder as a spectrum disorder: issues and evidence

BACKGROUND

There is considerable variability in the presentation of developmental language disorder (DLD). Disagreement amongst professionals about how to characterize and interpret the variability complicates both the research on understanding the nature of DLD and the best clinical framework for diagnosing and treating children with DLD. We describe and statistically examine three primary possible models for characterizing the variability in presentation in DLD: predictable subtypes; individual differences; and continuum/spectrum.

AIMS

To test these three models of DLD in a population-based sample using two distinct types of cluster analyses.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

This study included children with DLD (n = 505) from the US Epidemiological Study of Language Impairment database. All available language and cognitive measures were included. Two cluster methods were used: Ward's method and K-means. Optimal cluster sizes were selected using Bayesian information criteria (BIC). Bootstrapping and permutation methods were used to evaluate randomness of clustering.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Both clustering analyses yielded more than 10 clusters, and the clusters did not have spatial distinction: many of these clusters were not clinically interpretable. However, tests of random clustering revealed that the cluster solutions obtained did not arise from random aggregation.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

Non-random clustering coupled with a large number of non-interpretable subtypes provides empirical support for the continuum/spectrum and individual differences models. Although there was substantial support for the continuum/spectrum model and weaker support for the individual differences model, additional research testing these models should be completed. Based on these results, clinicians working with children with DLD should focus on creating treatment plans that address the severity of functioning rather than seeking to identify and treat distinct subtypes. Additional consideration should be given to reconceptualizing DLD as a spectrum condition.

Development of verb inflections among Bangla-speaking children with language disorder

BACKGROUND

Children with language disorder across languages have problems with verb morphology. The nature of these problems varies according to the typology of the language. The language analyzed in this paper is the Standard Bangla spoken in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by more than 200 million people. It is an underexplored language with agglutinative features in its verb inflections. Some information on the acquisition of the language by typically developing children is available, but to date we have no information on the nature of ALD. As in many places in the developing world, the circumstances for research into language disorder are challenging, as there is no well-ordered infrastructure for the identification of these children and approaches to intervention are not evidence based. This study represents the first attempt to characterize the nature of morphosyntactic limitations in standard Bangla-speaking children with language disorder.

AIMS

To describe the performance of a group of children with language disorder on elicitation procedures for three Bangla verb inflections of increasing structural complexity-present simple, present progressive and past progressive-and to compare their abilities on these forms with those of a group of typically developing Bangla-speaking children.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Nine children with language disorder (mean age = 88.11 months) were recruited from a special school in Dhaka. Eight of the children also had a differentiating or co-occurring condition. They responded to three tasks: a semi-structured conversation to elicit present simple, and two picture-based tasks to elicit present progressive and past progressive. Their performance was compared with data available from a large group of younger typically developing children.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Group data indicated a comparable trajectory of performance by the children with language disorder with the typically developing children (present simple > present progressive > past progressive), but with significantly lower mean scores. Standard deviations suggested considerable individual variation and individual profiles were constructed for each child, revealing varying patterns of ability, some of which did not accord with the typical developmental trajectory and/or substitution patterns.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

This study identified verb morphology deficits in Bangla-speaking children with language disorder who had asociated conditions. Variation in performance among the children suggests that individual profiles will be most effective in guiding intervention.

Structural Relationship Between Cognitive Processing and Syntactic Sentence Comprehension in Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

PURPOSE

We assessed the potential direct and indirect (mediated) influences of 4 cognitive mechanisms we believe are theoretically relevant to canonical and noncanonical sentence comprehension of school-age children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD).

METHOD

One hundred seventeen children with DLD and 117 propensity-matched typically developing (TD) children participated. Comprehension was indexed by children identifying the agent in implausible sentences. Children completed cognitive tasks indexing the latent predictors of fluid reasoning (FLD-R), controlled attention (CATT), complex working memory (cWM), and long-term memory language knowledge (LTM-LK).

RESULTS

Structural equation modeling revealed that the best model fit was an indirect model in which cWM mediated the relationship among FLD-R, CATT, LTM-LK, and sentence comprehension. For TD children, comprehension of both sentence types was indirectly influenced by FLD-R (pattern recognition) and LTM-LK (linguistic chunking). For children with DLD, canonical sentence comprehension was indirectly influenced by LTM-LK and CATT, and noncanonical comprehension was indirectly influenced just by CATT.

CONCLUSIONS

cWM mediates sentence comprehension in children with DLD and TD children. For TD children, comprehension occurs automatically through pattern recognition and linguistic chunking. For children with DLD, comprehension is cognitively effortful. Whereas canonical comprehension occurs through chunking, noncanonical comprehension develops on a word-by-word basis.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7178939.

Sensitivity to Morphosyntactic Information in Preschool Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder: A Follow-Up Study

PURPOSE

This study tested children's sensitivity to tense/agreement information in fronted auxiliaries during online comprehension of questions (e.g., Are the nice little dogs running?). Data from children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were compared to previously published data from typically developing (TD) children matched according to sentence comprehension test scores.

METHOD

Fifteen 5-year-old children with DLD and fifteen 3-year-old TD children participated in a looking-while-listening task. Children viewed pairs of pictures, 1 with a single agent and 1 with multiple agents, accompanied by a sentence with a fronted auxiliary (is + single agent or are + two agents) or a control sentence. Proportion looking to the target was measured.

RESULTS

Children with DLD did not show anticipatory looking based on the number information contained in the auxiliary (is or are) as the younger TD children had. Both groups showed significant increases in looking to the target upon hearing the subject noun (e.g., dogs).

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the groups' similar sentence comprehension abilities and ability to accurately respond to the information provided by the subject noun, children with DLD did not show sensitivity to number information on the fronted auxiliary. This insensitivity is considered in light of these children's weaker command of tense/agreement forms in their speech. Specifically, we consider the possibility that failure to grasp the relation between the subject-verb sequence (e.g., dogs running) and preceding information (e.g., are) in questions in the input contributes to the protracted inconsistency in producing auxiliary forms in obligatory contexts by children with DLD.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7283459.

A Multimethod Analysis of Pragmatic Skills in Children and Adolescents With Fragile X Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Down Syndrome

PURPOSE

Pragmatic language skills are often impaired above and beyond general language delays in individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities. This study used a multimethod approach to language sample analysis to characterize syndrome- and sex-specific profiles across different neurodevelopmental disabilities and to examine the congruency of 2 analysis techniques.

METHOD

Pragmatic skills of young males and females with fragile X syndrome with autism spectrum disorder (FXS-ASD, n = 61) and without autism spectrum disorder (FXS-O, n = 40), Down syndrome (DS, n = 42), and typical development (TD, n = 37) and males with idiopathic autism spectrum disorder only (ASD-O, n = 29) were compared using variables obtained from a detailed hand-coding system contrasted with similar variables obtained automatically from the language analysis program Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT).

RESULTS

Noncontingent language and perseveration were characteristic of the pragmatic profiles of boys and girls with FXS-ASD and boys with ASD-O. Boys with ASD-O also initiated turns less often and were more nonresponsive than other groups, and girls with FXS-ASD were more nonresponsive than their male counterparts. Hand-coding and SALT methods were largely convergent with some exceptions.

CONCLUSION

Results suggest both similarities and differences in the pragmatic profiles observed across different neurodevelopmental disabilities, including idiopathic and FXS-associated cases of ASD, as well as an important sex difference in FXS-ASD. These findings and congruency between the 2 language sample analysis techniques together have important implications for assessment and intervention efforts.