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Calder SD, Visentin D, Claessen M, Hollingsworth L, Ebbels S, Smith-Lock K, Leitão S. The grammaticality judgement of inflectional morphology in children with and without Developmental Language Disorder. CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2024; 38:676-691. [PMID: 37477201 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2023.2236768] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2023] [Revised: 07/08/2023] [Accepted: 07/10/2023] [Indexed: 07/22/2023]
Abstract
To explore the clinical potential of grammaticality judgement tasks, this study investigated whether a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) of inflectional morphology could differentiate between a clinically selected sample of children with DLD and children in mainstream (i.e. regular education) schools. We also explored the relationship between grammaticality judgement and measures of receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar, and nonword repetition. Children with DLD (n = 30; age range = 69-80 months) and mainstream children in Pre-primary, Year 1, and Year 2 (n = 89, age range = 61-96 months) were assessed on a GJT of regular past tense, third person singular, and possessive 's. The GJT was sensitive to developmental differences in mainstream children and differentiated children with DLD from Year 1 and 2 mainstream children, with DLD results consistent with a one-year delay in performance compared to controls. The GJT was the strongest discriminator of membership to a clinically selected sample of children with DLD (ROC curve analysis, area under the curve = 88%). Receptive grammar, receptive vocabulary, and nonword repetition were related to performance on the GJT. The grammaticality judgement of inflectional morphology shows promise as a reliable indicator of DLD and a measure sensitive to developmental differences in mainstream children. GJTs should continue to be explored for clinical application as a potential tool for both assessment and intervention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel D Calder
- Health Sciences, College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia
- School of Allied Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
| | - Denis Visentin
- Health Sciences, College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia
| | | | | | - Susan Ebbels
- Moor House Research and Training Institute, Moor House School & College, Oxted, UK
- Language and Cognition, Division of Psychology and Language, University College London, London, UK
| | - Karen Smith-Lock
- School of Allied Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
| | - Suze Leitão
- School of Allied Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
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Farag HM, Eldessouky H, Shahin E, Atef M. Phonological awareness training and phonological therapy approaches for specific language impairment children with speech sound disorders: a comparative outcome study. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 2024; 281:479-487. [PMID: 37943316 PMCID: PMC10764452 DOI: 10.1007/s00405-023-08274-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2023] [Accepted: 09/29/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Children with specific language impairment (SLI) might present with speech sound disorder (SSD) and phonological awareness (PA) deficits which put them at risk of potential reading problems. This work aimed to organize an intervention program in Arabic for phonological training and to assess the effect of PA training versus the phonological therapy (PT) for children with SLI and SSD. METHODS The study was carried out on 60 children with comorbid SLI and SSD, aged 5-7 years. Children were equally divided into two groups; each group received language therapy combined with (PT or PA training). Measures of language development, phonological output, and PA were taken before therapy and at 4 month post-therapy for all children. RESULTS The two therapy groups made nearly the same amount of progress in the development of language and phonological production, with no significant differences regarding language age and percent of consonants correct (PCC). The PA training group progressed more on the PA skills than children who received PT over the same time. CONCLUSIONS PA training could facilitate the development of phonological skills by targeting the child's awareness of phonemes and improving the production of sound patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heba Mahmoud Farag
- ENT Department, Faculty of Medicine, Phoniatrics, Phoniatric Unit, Cairo University, King Faisal Street, 300, Cairo, Giza, 12511, Egypt.
| | - Hossam Eldessouky
- ENT Department, Faculty of Medicine, Phoniatrics, Phoniatric Unit, Cairo University, King Faisal Street, 300, Cairo, Giza, 12511, Egypt
| | - Elham Shahin
- ENT Department, Faculty of Medicine, Phoniatrics, Phoniatric Unit, Cairo University, King Faisal Street, 300, Cairo, Giza, 12511, Egypt
| | - Mai Atef
- ENT Department, Faculty of Medicine, Phoniatrics, Phoniatric Unit, Cairo University, King Faisal Street, 300, Cairo, Giza, 12511, Egypt
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Talli I, Kotsoni P, Stavrakaki S, Sprenger-Charolles L. Assessing phonological short-term memory in Greek: Reliability and validity of a non-word repetition test. Front Psychol 2023; 13:904268. [PMID: 36896028 PMCID: PMC9990871 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.904268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2022] [Accepted: 08/01/2022] [Indexed: 02/23/2023] Open
Abstract
This study explores the reliability and validity of a NWR task in a large cohort of 387 TD Greek-speaking children aged 7-13 years attending elementary (Grades 2-6) and secondary school (Grade 1), divided into six age groups. Further, the relationship between NWR and reading fluency skills as well as the predictive value of the NWR on reading fluency skills in TD children are examined. To investigate the external reliability of the NWR task, test-retest reliability was performed, and excellent test-retest reliability was found. Internal reliability was explored with Cronbach's alpha coefficient and good reliability was found. To explore convergent validity, correlation analysis between NWR and reading fluency was conducted and significant and strong correlations were found for all age groups excepted 2 (ages 9-10 and 12-13). To examine predictive validity, regression analysis was conducted between these two variables and showed that performance on NWR contributed significantly to reading fluency skills, suggesting that NWR skills are a good predictor of reading skills. Finally, it was explored whether the relevant scores increase as a function of age and found significant differences between groups that differed in 2 years or more, while this difference was no longer significant after 10 years. This finding suggests that phonological STM increases in capacity along with age, but only until the age of 10, where it seems to reach a ceiling. In addition, linear regression analysis showed that age contributed significantly to performance on NWR test. To sum up, the present study provides normative data of a NWR test for a wide age range, which does not exist in the Greek language (particularly for ages over 9 years) and it can be concluded that the present NWR test can be successfully used as a reliable and valid measure of phonological STM in the age range that was examined in this study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ioanna Talli
- Department of Italian Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Panagiota Kotsoni
- Department of Italian Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Stavroula Stavrakaki
- Department of Italian Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
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Félix J, Santos ME, Benitez-Burraco A. Specific Language Impairment, Autism Spectrum Disorders and Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorders: Is There Overlap in Language Deficits? A Review. REVIEW JOURNAL OF AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s40489-022-00327-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/16/2022]
Abstract
AbstractAnalysing language characteristics and understanding their dynamics is the key for a successful intervention by speech and language therapists (SLT). Thus, this review aims to investigate a possible overlap in language development shared by autism spectrum disorders (ASD), specific language impairment (SLI) and social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SPCD). The sources of this work were the PubMed, PsycInfo and SciELO databases, as well as the Scientific Open Access Repositories of Portugal. The final selection included 18 studies, focused on several linguistic areas. Results suggest that when individuals are matched according to some language or cognitive skills, they will also show similar characteristics in other language domains. Future work should be done based on spontaneous speech.
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Kaganovich N, Schumaker J, Christ S. Impaired Audiovisual Representation of Phonemes in Children with Developmental Language Disorder. Brain Sci 2021; 11:brainsci11040507. [PMID: 33923647 PMCID: PMC8073635 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11040507] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2021] [Revised: 04/06/2021] [Accepted: 04/10/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
We examined whether children with developmental language disorder (DLD) differed from their peers with typical development (TD) in the degree to which they encode information about a talker’s mouth shape into long-term phonemic representations. Children watched a talker’s face and listened to rare changes from [i] to [u] or the reverse. In the neutral condition, the talker’s face had a closed mouth throughout. In the audiovisual violation condition, the mouth shape always matched the frequent vowel, even when the rare vowel was played. We hypothesized that in the neutral condition no long-term audiovisual memory traces for speech sounds would be activated. Therefore, the neural response elicited by deviants would reflect only a violation of the observed audiovisual sequence. In contrast, we expected that in the audiovisual violation condition, a long-term memory trace for the speech sound/lip configuration typical for the frequent vowel would be activated. In this condition then, the neural response elicited by rare sound changes would reflect a violation of not only observed audiovisual patterns but also of a long-term memory representation for how a given vowel looks when articulated. Children pressed a response button whenever they saw a talker’s face assume a silly expression. We found that in children with TD, rare auditory changes produced a significant mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential (ERP) component over the posterior scalp in the audiovisual violation condition but not in the neutral condition. In children with DLD, no MMN was present in either condition. Rare vowel changes elicited a significant P3 in both groups and conditions, indicating that all children noticed auditory changes. Our results suggest that children with TD, but not children with DLD, incorporate visual information into long-term phonemic representations and detect violations in audiovisual phonemic congruency even when they perform a task that is unrelated to phonemic processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalya Kaganovich
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, 715 Clinic Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2038, USA;
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, 703 Third Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2038, USA
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +1-(765)-494-4233; Fax: +1-(765)-494-0771
| | - Jennifer Schumaker
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, 715 Clinic Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2038, USA;
| | - Sharon Christ
- Department of Statistics, Purdue University, 250 N. University Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2066, USA;
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Purdue University, 1202 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2055, USA
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Jokel A, Armstrong E, Gabis L, Segal O. Associations and Dissociations among Phonological Processing Skills, Language Skills and Nonverbal Cognition in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Folia Phoniatr Logop 2020; 73:222-232. [PMID: 32829327 DOI: 10.1159/000505744] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2019] [Accepted: 01/03/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
AIMS The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of phonological processing in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as it pertains to their nonverbal cognitive and linguistic abilities. METHODS Twenty-one participants between the ages of 9 and 21 years were administered a nonverbal cognitive assessment (Raven test), a language measure that requires receptive and expressive knowledge of semantics, syntax and morphology, as well as the integration across these language domains (CELF-4), and a measure of phonological processing (CTOPP). RESULTS Results show that performance on nonword repetition (NWR) that reflects an aspect of phonological memory was significantly low, whereas performance on phoneme reversal, phoneme elision, blending words and memory for digits was within the normal range. Hierarchical regressions with age, nonverbal intelligence (Raven test) and receptive language (CELF) as predictors showed that for NWR and phoneme elision the receptive part of the CELF was the main significant -predictor, after controlling for age. For phoneme reversal and memory for digits, however, the Raven score was the significant predictor, suggesting that cognitive nonverbal ability is the main factor explaining variability in these tasks. CONCLUSIONS A deficit in phonological memory characterizes individuals in the autistic population. This deficit may influence language acquisition in this population consistent with other populations of children with language impairments. Other tasks of phonological awareness, however, might be preserved especially when they do not involve memory for long phonological sequences and when the cognitive abilities are within the norm.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ariela Jokel
- Department of Communication Disorders, School of Health Professions, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Erika Armstrong
- Communication Sciences and Disorders/Dental Hygiene, Texas Woman's University, Denton, Texas, USA
| | - Lidia Gabis
- Weinberg Child Development Center, Safra Children's Hospital Tel-Hashomer, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Osnat Segal
- Department of Communication Disorders, School of Health Professions, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel,
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Cilibrasi L, Stojanovik V, Loucas T, Riddell P. The role of noninitial clusters in the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition: Evidence from children with language impairment and typically developing children. DYSLEXIA (CHICHESTER, ENGLAND) 2018; 24:322-335. [PMID: 30338595 DOI: 10.1002/dys.1599] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2017] [Revised: 09/02/2018] [Accepted: 09/12/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
The Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep) is one of the most popular tests of nonword repetition. The test is composed of nonwords of different length, and normative data suggest that children experience more difficulties in repeating long nonwords. An analysis of the distribution of phonological clusters in the test shows that noninitial clusters are unequally distributed in the test: They only appear in long nonwords (four and five syllables). For this reason, we hypothesized that the difficulties children encounter with long nonwords may be influenced by the phonological complexity of the clusters and not just by the challenge for working memory associated with length. To test the hypothesis, we compared repetition performance in long nonwords with and without a noninitial cluster in 18 children with language impairment and 18 typically developing children. The analysis shows that long nonwords with noninitial clusters are repeated less accurately by both groups. In addition, there was an interaction between cluster and age: The effect of cluster is absent in younger children and gradually increases with age. These findings suggest that phonological complexity may be having an impact on the length effect normally observed in the CNRep, and this impact may be particularly evident in older children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luca Cilibrasi
- Department of English-ELT and Department of Linguistics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
- Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Vesna Stojanovik
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Tom Loucas
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Patricia Riddell
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
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Harwood V, Preston J, Grela B, Roy D, Harold O, Turcios J, Andrada K, Landi N. Electrophysiology of Perception and Processing of Phonological Information as Indices of Toddlers' Language Performance. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2017; 60:999-1011. [PMID: 28384727 PMCID: PMC6195013 DOI: 10.1044/2016_jslhr-l-15-0437] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2015] [Revised: 05/02/2016] [Accepted: 10/24/2016] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The toddler years are a critical period for language development and growth. We investigated how event-related potentials (ERPs) to repeated and novel nonwords are associated with clinical assessments of language in young children. In addition, nonword repetition (NWR) was used to measure phonological working memory to determine the unique and collective contribution of ERP measures of phonemic discrimination and NWR as predictors of language ability. METHOD Forty children between the ages of 24-48 months participated in an ERP experiment to determine phonemic discrimination to repeated and novel nonwords in an old/new design. Participants also completed a NWR task to explore the contribution of phonological working memory in predicting language. RESULTS ERP analyses revealed that faster responses to novel stimuli correlated with higher language performance on clinical assessments of language. Regression analyses revealed that an earlier component was associated with lower level phonemic sensitivity, and a later component was indexing phonological working memory skills similar to NWR. CONCLUSION Our findings suggest that passive ERP responses indexing phonological discrimination and phonological working memory are strongly related to behavioral measures of language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vanessa Harwood
- University of Connecticut, Storrs
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT
| | | | | | | | | | - Jacqueline Turcios
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT
- Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven
| | | | - Nicole Landi
- University of Connecticut, Storrs
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT
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Buil-Legaz L, Aguilar-Mediavilla E, Adrover-Roig D. Longitudinal trajectories of the representation and access to phonological information in bilingual children with specific language impairment. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2016; 18:473-482. [PMID: 27153201 DOI: 10.3109/17549507.2015.1126638] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Language development in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) is still poorly understood, especially if children with SLI are bilingual. This study describes the longitudinal trajectory of several linguistic abilities in bilingual children with SLI relative to bilingual control children matched by their age and socioeconomic status. METHOD A set of measures of non-word repetition, sentence repetition, phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming and verbal fluency were collected at three time points, from 6-12 years of age using a prospective longitudinal design. RESULT Results revealed that, at all ages, children with SLI obtained lower values in measures of sentence repetition, non-word repetition, phonological fluency and phonological awareness (without visual cues) when compared to typically-developing children. Other measures, such as rapid automatic naming, improved over time, given that differences at 6 years of age did not persist at further moments of testing. Other linguistic measures, such as phonological awareness (with visual cues) and semantic fluency were equivalent between both groups across time. CONCLUSION Children with SLI manifest persistent difficulties in tasks involved in manipulating segments of words and in maintaining verbal units active in phonological working memory, while other abilities, such as the access to underlying phonological representations are unaffected.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucia Buil-Legaz
- a Universitat de les Illes Balears - Pedagogia Aplicada i , Psicologia de l'Educació , Palma , Illes Balears , Spain
| | - Eva Aguilar-Mediavilla
- a Universitat de les Illes Balears - Pedagogia Aplicada i , Psicologia de l'Educació , Palma , Illes Balears , Spain
| | - Daniel Adrover-Roig
- a Universitat de les Illes Balears - Pedagogia Aplicada i , Psicologia de l'Educació , Palma , Illes Balears , Spain
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Lexical processing deficits in children with developmental language disorder: An event-related potentials study. Dev Psychopathol 2016; 27:459-76. [PMID: 25997765 DOI: 10.1017/s0954579415000097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Lexical processing deficits in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have been postulated to arise as sequelae of their grammatical deficits (either directly or via compensatory mechanisms) and vice versa. We examined event-related potential indices of lexical processing in children with DLD (n = 23) and their typically developing peers (n = 16) using a picture-word matching paradigm. We found that children with DLD showed markedly reduced N400 amplitudes in response both to auditorily presented words that had initial phonological overlap with the name of the pictured object and to words that were not semantically or phonologically related to the pictured object. Moreover, this reduction was related to behavioral indices of phonological and lexical but not grammatical development. We also found that children with DLD showed a depressed phonological mapping negativity component in the early time window, suggesting deficits in phonological processing or early lexical access. The results are partially consistent with the overactivation account of lexical processing deficits in DLD and point to the relative functional independence of lexical/phonological and grammatical deficits in DLD, supporting a multidimensional view of the disorder. The results also, although indirectly, support the neuroplasticity account of DLD, according to which language impairment affects brain development and shapes the specific patterns of brain responses to language stimuli.
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Mari G, Scorpecci A, Reali L, D'Alatri L. Music identification skills of children with specific language impairment. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2016; 51:203-211. [PMID: 26541806 DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12200] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2014] [Accepted: 07/03/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND To date very few studies have investigated the musical skills of children with specific language impairment (SLI). There is growing evidence that SLI affects areas other than language, and it is therefore reasonable to hypothesize that children with this disorder may have difficulties in perceiving musical stimuli appropriately. AIMS To compare melody and song identification skills in a group of children with SLI and in a control group of children with typical language development (TD); and to study possible correlations between music identification skills and language abilities in the SLI group. METHODS & PROCEDURES This is a prospective case control study. Two groups of children were enrolled: one meeting DSM-IV-TR(®) diagnostic criteria for SLI and the other comprising an age-matched group of children with TD. All children received a melody and a song identification test, together with a test battery assessing receptive and productive language abilities. OUTCOMES & RESULTS 30 children with SLI (mean age = 56 ± 9 months) and 23 with TD (mean age = 60 ± 10 months) were included. Melody and song identification scores among SLI children were significantly lower than those of TD children, and in both groups song identification scores were significantly higher than melody identification scores. Song identification skills bore a significant correlation to chronological age in both groups (TD: r = 0.529, p = 0.009; SLI: r = 0.506, p = 0.004). Whereas no other variables were found explaining the variability of melody or song identification scores in either group, the correlation between language comprehension and song identification in the SLI group approached significance (r = 0.166, p = 0.076). CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS The poorer music perception skills of SLI children as compared with TD ones suggests that SLI may also affect music perception. Therefore, training programmes that simultaneously stimulate via language and music may prove useful in the rehabilitation of children affected by SLI.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giorgia Mari
- Speech and Language Disorders Unit, ENT Department, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy
| | - Alessandro Scorpecci
- Speech and Language Disorders Unit, ENT Department, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy
| | | | - Lucia D'Alatri
- Speech and Language Disorders Unit, ENT Department, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy
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Kalnak N, Peyrard-Janvid M, Forssberg H, Sahlén B. Nonword repetition--a clinical marker for specific language impairment in Swedish associated with parents' language-related problems. PLoS One 2014; 9:e89544. [PMID: 24586859 PMCID: PMC3933563 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089544] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2013] [Accepted: 01/23/2014] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
First, we explore the performance of nonword repetition (NWR) in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing children (TD) in order to investigate the accuracy of NWR as a clinical marker for SLI in Swedish-speaking school-age children. Second, we examine the relationship between NWR, family aggregation, and parental level of education in children with SLI. A sample of 61 children with SLI, and 86 children with TD, aged 8-12 years, were administered an NWR test. Family aggregation, measured as the prevalence of language and/or literacy problems (LLP) in parents of the children with SLI, was based on family history interviews. The sensitivity and specificity of nonword repetition was analyzed in a binary logistic regression, cut-off values were established with ROC curves, and positive and negative likelihood ratios reported. Results from the present study show that NWR distinguishes well between Swedish-speaking school-children with and without SLI. We found 90.2% sensitivity and 97.7% specificity at a cut-off level of -2 standard deviations for binary scoring of nonwords. Differences between the SLI and TD groups showed large effect sizes for the two scoring measures binary (d = 2.11) and percent correct consonants (PCC) (d = 1.79). The children with SLI were split into two subgroups: those with no parents affected with LLP (n = 12), and those with one or both parents affected (n = 49). The subgroup consisting of affected parents had a significantly lower score on NWR binary (p = .037), and there was a great difference between the subgroups (d = 0.7). When compared to the TD group, the difference from the subgroup with affected parents was almost one standard deviation larger (d = 2.47) than the difference from the TD to the subgroup consisting of non-affected parents (d = 1.57). Our study calls for further exploration of the complex interaction between family aggregation, language input, and phenotypes of SLI.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nelli Kalnak
- Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
| | | | - Hans Forssberg
- Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Birgitta Sahlén
- Department of Logopedics, Phoniatrics, and Audiology, Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
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Ramus F, Marshall CR, Rosen S, van der Lely HKJ. Phonological deficits in specific language impairment and developmental dyslexia: towards a multidimensional model. Brain 2013; 136:630-45. [PMID: 23413264 PMCID: PMC3572935 DOI: 10.1093/brain/aws356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 186] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2012] [Revised: 10/08/2012] [Accepted: 11/12/2012] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
An on-going debate surrounds the relationship between specific language impairment and developmental dyslexia, in particular with respect to their phonological abilities. Are these distinct disorders? To what extent do they overlap? Which cognitive and linguistic profiles correspond to specific language impairment, dyslexia and comorbid cases? At least three different models have been proposed: the severity model, the additional deficit model and the component model. We address this issue by comparing children with specific language impairment only, those with dyslexia-only, those with specific language impairment and dyslexia and those with no impairment, using a broad test battery of language skills. We find that specific language impairment and dyslexia do not always co-occur, and that some children with specific language impairment do not have a phonological deficit. Using factor analysis, we find that language abilities across the four groups of children have at least three independent sources of variance: one for non-phonological language skills and two for distinct sets of phonological abilities (which we term phonological skills versus phonological representations). Furthermore, children with specific language impairment and dyslexia show partly distinct profiles of phonological deficit along these two dimensions. We conclude that a multiple-component model of language abilities best explains the relationship between specific language impairment and dyslexia and the different profiles of impairment that are observed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Franck Ramus
- Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, ENS, CNRS, EHESS, 75005 Paris, France
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