Syntactic Complexity Across Language Sampling Contexts in School-Age Children, Ages 8-11 Years

Effects of task variations on language productivity, syntactic complexity, and stuttering in children who stutter

PURPOSE

The aim of this preliminary study was to compare the effects of variations in task demands on: (a) language productivity in sentences categorised into stuttered vs. non-stuttered sentences; (b) syntactic complexity in stuttered vs. non-stuttered sentence categories, and (c) stuttering and typical disfluencies in school-age children who stutter (CWS). Language Sample Analysis (LSA) was conducted on samples from three tasks - Conversation, fable retell, and critical thinking based on the fables.

METHODS

Participants were 14 CWS categorised into younger (9 to 12-year-olds, n = 8) and older age groups (13 to 15-year-olds, n = 6). The Computerized Language ANalysis program was used to conduct language and disfluency analyses. Repeated measures analysis of variance and nonparametric statistical analyses were used to investigate: (a) Language productivity in total number of words and sentences by task and sentence category; (b) Syntactic complexity at the word- (use of metacognitive verbs), phrase- (use of verb phrases), and utterance (Mean Length of Utterances in words, MLUw) levels by task and sentence category; and (c) Disfluencies measured using % stuttered syllables (%SS) and % typical disfluencies (%TD).

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Task effects in language productivity did not differ by sentence category and suggested limited influences of propositionality and volubility in stuttering. In contrast, higher syntactic complexity was obtained in the stuttered compared to non-stuttered sentences at the word, phrase, and utterance levels and it was the same task - conversation, that elicited the effect. Additionally, variations in task demands did not result in significant differences in %SS. The findings inform assessment planning with the selection of tasks guided by task demands and assessment requirements.

Growth of Complex Syntax: Coordinate and Subordinate Clause Use in Elementary School-Aged Children

PURPOSE

Production of complex syntax is a hallmark of later language development; however, most of the research examining age-related changes has focused on adolescents or analyzed narrative language samples. Research documenting age-related changes in the production of complex syntax in elementary school-aged children in conversational language samples is limited. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine age-related changes in the production of coordinate and subordinate clauses in children between 5 and 10 years of age obtained from 50-utterance conversational language samples.

METHOD

The analytic sample included 196 children with typical language development, who ranged in age from 5;0 to 10;11 (years;months; girls = 103; boys = 96; three cases were excluded). Fifty-utterance conversational language samples were examined for use of coordinate and subordinate clauses.

RESULTS

Results of regression analyses indicated that the production of coordinate and subordinate clauses could be predicted from age. The proportion of utterances that included subordinate clauses increased 0.20% for every month increase in age (p < .001). Coordinate clauses also continued to grow, although at a slower rate (0.10% increase for every month increase in age, p < .001). Finally, the proportion of simple utterances (i.e., utterances without coordinate or subordinate clauses) decreased with age (0.40% decrease for every month increase in age, p < .001).

CONCLUSIONS

This study indicated that as children's age increased, they used fewer, simple, one-clause sentences and more utterances that included subordinate clauses, with or without coordinate clauses. These results were obtained from 50-utterance language samples, further supporting use of language sampling to develop intervention goals and monitor progress in therapy.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25262725.

Comparing Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing Children's Oral Narratives Using Movies and Static Books

Clinicians utilize various methods for narrative sampling, including oral assessments like story generation and retelling, often aided by visual aids. Assessing language skills in deaf/hard of hearing (DHH) children requires careful narrative technique selection. This comparative observational study investigates the narrative outcomes of story generation and retelling tasks in 21 DHH children, using both book and movie contexts. Most microstructural elements (except for the mean length of utterance) were similar across the book and movie conditions. Differences in word choice, such as the use of action verbs, were evident. Macrostructural differences between book and movie conditions were insignificant regarding story grammar elements. However, movies, being visually engaging, potentially enhance the inclusion of characters, settings, plot, and actions. This research illuminates narrative assessment considerations, emphasizing technology's role in enhancing options for assessment for DHH children.

Narrative Discourse in Youth Offenders: Examining Individual Differences

PURPOSE

This study examined narrative discourse in youth offenders, focusing on quality of story retelling, story comprehension, critical thinking, and the use of complex syntax.

METHOD

The participants were 15 incarcerated adolescents, ages 13-18 years (Mage = 16 years). Each was evaluated at their detention center via Zoom, using a standardized language test and language samples that elicited narrative speaking with fables. After retelling a fable, the participant answered questions that examined story comprehension and critical thinking.

RESULTS

Most participants performed below average on the standardized language test and had difficulty on one or more of the language sampling measures. Areas of concern included quality of story retelling, story comprehension, critical thinking, and the use of complex syntax. Had language sampling not been employed, those weaknesses might have been overlooked.

CONCLUSIONS

When evaluating youth offenders, it is important to elicit language samples that can provide detailed information about an adolescent's ability to communicate for genuine purposes. In this regard, the tasks employed in the current study could be helpful to speech-language pathologists in working with youth offenders, enabling them to pinpoint deficits and offer targeted intervention.

Measuring Linguistic Growth in Sentence-Level Writing Curriculum-Based Measures: Exploring Complementary Scoring Methods

PURPOSE

Picture-word writing curriculum-based measures (PW CBM-Ws) are technically sound, formative measures of descriptive, sentence-level writing but cannot estimate underlying linguistic skills. The purpose of this exploratory alternative scoring investigation was to apply metrics from language sample analysis (LSA) to PW CBM-Ws as a complementary measure of underlying language skills in beginning writers' sentence-level writing.

METHOD

LSA metrics were applied to 104 typically developing first through third graders' PW CBM-W samples across fall and spring semesters. Factorial analyses of variance with post hoc Bonferroni pairwise comparisons were applied after obtaining alternate-form reliability and criterion-related validity estimates.

RESULTS

Analyses revealed reliable discrimination between grades and significant growth between fall and spring semesters for three LSA metrics: mean length of T-unit in words, mean length of T-unit in morphemes, and number of different words. While mean length of T-unit in words and morphemes demonstrated evidence of discrimination and growth in first grade only, number of different words showed evidence of reliable discrimination and growth in first and third grades.

CONCLUSIONS

Mean length of T-unit in words, mean length of T-unit in morphemes, and number of different words showed evidence of adequate criterion-related validity, discrimination among grades, and sensitivity to growth when calculated using PW CBM-W samples to gauge underlying linguistic skills in first- and third-grade students. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25050290.

Sentences Are Key: Helping School-Age Children and Adolescents Build Sentence Skills Needed for Real Language

PURPOSE

In this article, we present key concepts pointing to the importance of targeting complex sentences for school-age children and adolescents with developmental language disorders (DLD). Drawing on current treatment research, we argue that the sentence is a crucial but often neglected piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding relationships between DLD and academic outcomes. We provide detailed suggestions for how clinicians can focus on complex sentence structures in natural academic contexts to bridge this gap.

METHOD

Background information on sentence complexity is presented, along with a rationale for targeting complex sentences with school-age children and adolescents with DLD. Intervention methods from a variety of studies targeting multiclausal sentences are discussed in relation to current accounts of language learning and language processing models. We provide a robust catalog of suggested strategies for targeting sentence complexity in a manner that is aligned with research findings to date and integrated into real academic contexts.

CONCLUSIONS

Complex sentence structures are a key challenge for students with DLD as they tackle discipline-specific language and academic tasks. Sentence complexity treatment programs employ one or more treatment methods including priming, modeling, recasting, contextualization, metalinguistic instruction, and sentence combining. While studies have consistently shown a measurable improvement in complex sentence production on proximal outcomes regardless of treatment approach, evidence of durable, functional changes for students with DLD remains sparse. We encourage new treatments that target comprehension and production of complex sentences in real-life academic contexts in clinical practice and research.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23969103.

Impact of Discourse Type and Elicitation Task on Language Sampling Outcomes

PURPOSE

Language sampling is a critical component of language assessments. However, there are many ways to elicit language samples that likely impact the results. The purpose of this study was to examine how different discourse types and elicitation tasks affect various language sampling outcomes.

METHOD

A diverse group of K-3 students (N = 1,037) contributed eight spoken language samples in four elicitation conditions: (a) expository generation, (b) expository retell, (c) narrative generation, and (d) narrative retell. Samples were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded for number of total words, number of different words, mean length of utterance in words (MLUW), and number of clauses per communication unit (i.e., Subordination Index [SI]).

RESULTS

Narrative retell and expository generation conditions yielded the largest samples with the greatest lexical diversity when compared to narrative generation and expository retell. MLUW was higher in expository conditions, but mean SI was higher in narrative conditions. For both measures of syntax, narrative retell and expository generation yielded the highest mean scores. For each outcome, there were expected increases corresponding to grades; however, the differences faded between second and third grade.

CONCLUSION

As a component of language assessments, clinicians' selection of language sampling procedures will impact the sample length, lexical diversity, utterance length, and syntactical complexity of the samples.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24185649.

Language sample analysis of conversation samples from school-age children who stutter: The role of syntactic factors in stuttering

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of the study was to compare school-age children who stutter (CWS) and age-matched children who do not stutter (CWNS) in syntactic abilities and syntactic performance.

METHODS

Computerized Language Sample Analysis (LSA) was conducted on the conversation samples obtained from 46 school-age CWS and CWNS between 7 and 16 years (CWS, n = 23). Syntactic abilities were assessed using the Index of Productive Syntax (the IPsyn) and Developmental Sentence Scores (DSS) and mixed effects logistic regression analyses with participants as random effects were conducted to determine if the scores were predictive of group membership. Additionally, the groups were compared in the IPsyn subcategories to assess the use of syntactic structures. Syntactic performance was assessed by: (a) Categorizing the sentences from each conversation sample into high vs. low syntactic complexity categories based on DSS scores and comparing the sentence categories in % stuttered sentences (% SS); and (b) Comparing the groups in the proportion of phrase-level disfluencies (phrase repetitions vs. revisions) that are associated with syntactic planning.

RESULTS

In terms of syntactic abilities, the IPsyn scores interacted with the number of utterances (sample size) used to compute the scores in predicting group membership. In comparison to the CWNS, the CWS obtained higher scores in the IPsyn and the sentence structure subcategory of the IPsyn that were independent of sample size. In terms of syntactic performance: (a) Significantly more sentences were stuttered in the high compared to the low syntactic sentence category; (b) Compared to the CWNS who demonstrated significantly more phrase revisions, the CWS showed comparable and fewer phrase revisions and repetitions. Additionally, post-hoc analysis showed that the CWS used significantly elaborated noun phrases and a similar trend was evident for verb phrase elaborations. A significant association between verb phrase elaborations and%SS was also obtained.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings from the IPsyn and the use of elaborate noun phrases, and to some extent verb phrases, suggested that the CWS used more complex syntax even in shorter conversational samples. More stuttered sentences in the high DSS sentence category, the use of fewer phrase revisions, and the association between stuttering and elaborated verb phrases in the CWS are interpreted to suggest the effects of syntactic planning and reformulation demands on fluency during ongoing articulation.

Sentence Length Effects on Intelligibility in Two Groups of Older Children With Neurodevelopmental Disorders

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of sentence length on intelligibility in two groups of older children with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

METHOD

Nine children diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP) and eight children diagnosed with Down syndrome (DS), between the ages of 8 and 17 years, repeated sentences varying in length from two to seven words. Three hundred forty adult listeners (20 listeners per child) provided orthographic transcriptions of children's speech, which were used to calculate intelligibility scores.

RESULTS

There was a significant main effect of sentence length on intelligibility for children with CP. Intelligibility significantly increased from two- and three-word sentences to four-, five-, and six-word sentences, then significantly decreased from four-, five-, and six-word sentences to seven-word sentences. There was a main effect of sentence length on intelligibility for children with DS. Intelligibility significantly increased from two-word sentences to four-, five-, and six-word sentences.

CONCLUSIONS

The primary findings of this study include the following: (a) Unlike in typically developing children, sentence length continues to influence intelligibility well into adolescence for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and (b) sentence length may influence intelligibility differently in children with CP than in children with DS; however, other factors besides the type of neurodevelopmental disorder (e.g., severity of speech motor involvement and/or cognitive-linguistic impairment) could play a role in the relationship between sentence length and intelligibility and must be investigated in future studies.

Feasibility of Using the Global Tales Protocol to Elicit Personal Narratives in 10-year-Old Children in Ireland

INTRODUCTION

This small-scale study explored the feasibility of the Global TALES protocol in eliciting personal narratives in typically developing monolingual Irish children, using the online Zoom platform. We investigated children's performance on measures of productivity (total number of utterances; total number of words) and syntactic complexity (MLU in words). We also documented the topics children talked about in response to the six emotion-based prompts contained in the Global TALES protocol.

METHODS

Nineteen typically developing children (6 male, 13 female), aged between 10.0 and 10.11 years produced personal narratives in response to the Global TALES protocol. Given COVID-19 pandemic-related public health restrictions, the language samples were elicited using Zoom. All stories were transcribed and analysed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts software. Qualitative content analysis was used to code the topics of the children's stories.

RESULTS

Sixteen participants responded to all prompts. One participant only responded to three of the six prompts. The prompt that was least successful in eliciting a response was the "problem" prompt; 15.7% (n = 3) of the children did not provide a response to this prompt. On average, children produced 40 utterances, although individual variability was high. On average, MLU was 8.7, ranging from 6 to 11. Children's topics closely resembled those reported in the Global TALES feasibility study despite the fact, the current study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most frequent topics were related to family (events, illnesses, relationships, siblings) and finding or fixing something.

CONCLUSION

The Global TALES protocol was successful in eliciting personal narratives from 10-year-old Irish English-speaking children. Future larger scale studies are now needed to investigate if the results generalise to the wider Irish population with a view to create local benchmarks of personal narrative performance.