scholarly journals Distributional learning aids linguistic category formation in school-age children

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica HALL ◽  
Amanda OWEN VAN HORNE ◽  
Thomas FARMER
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Learning Aids ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Distributional Information ◽  
Distributional Learning ◽  
Category Formation

AbstractThe goal of this study was to determine if typically developing children could form grammatical categories from distributional information alone. Twenty-seven children aged six to nine listened to an artificial grammar which contained strategic gaps in its distribution. At test, we compared how children rated novel sentences that fit the grammar to sentences that were ungrammatical. Sentences could be distinguished only through the formation of categories of words with shared distributional properties. Children's ratings revealed that they could discriminate grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. These data lend support to the hypothesis that distributional learning is a potential mechanism for learning grammatical categories in a first language.

Sensitivity to distributional properties of the orthography in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182199892
Author(s):  
Chiara Valeria Marinelli ◽  
Marika Iaia ◽  
Cristina Burani ◽  
Paola Angelelli
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Lexical Knowledge ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Lexical Priming ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Developing Readers ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Italian Children

The study examines statistical learning in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia and typically developing readers by studying their sensitivity to probabilistic cues in phoneme-grapheme mappings. In the first experiment children spelled to dictation regular words and words with unpredictable spelling that contained either a high- or a low-frequency (i.e., typical or atypical) sound-spelling mappings. Children with dyslexia were found to rely on probabilistic cues in writing stimuli with unpredictable spelling to a greater extent than typically developing children. The difficulties of children with dyslexia on words with unpredictable spelling were limited to those containing atypical mappings. In the second experiment children spelled new stimuli, that is, pseudowords, containing phonological segments with unpredictable mappings. The interaction between lexical knowledge and reliance on probabilistic cues was examined through a lexical priming paradigm in which pseudowords were primed by words containing related typical or atypical sound-to-spelling mappings. In spelling pseudowords, children with dyslexia showed sensitivity to probabilistic cues in the phoneme-to-grapheme mapping but lexical priming effects were also found, although to a smaller extent than in typically developing readers. The results suggest that children with dyslexia have a limited orthographic lexicon but are able to extract regularities from the orthographic system and rely on probabilistic cues in spelling words and pseudowords.

scholarly journals Distributional Learning in College Students With Developmental Language Disorder

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (11) ◽  
pp. 3270-3283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Hall ◽  
Amanda Owen Van Horne ◽  
Karla K. McGregor ◽  
Thomas Farmer
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Category Membership ◽  
Artificial Grammar ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Distributional Information ◽  
Distributional Learning

Purpose This study examined whether college students with developmental language disorder (DLD) could use distributional information in an artificial language to learn about grammatical category membership in a way similar to their typically developing (TD) peers. Method Seventeen college students with DLD and 17 TD college students participated in this task. We used an artificial grammar in which certain combinations of words never occurred during training. At test, participants had to use knowledge of category membership to determine which combinations were allowable in the grammar, even though they had not been heard. Results College students with DLD performed similarly to TD peers in distinguishing grammatical from ungrammatical combinations. Conclusion Differences in ratings between grammatical and ungrammatical items in this task suggest that college students with DLD can form grammatical categories from novel input and more broadly use distributional information.

scholarly journals Electrophysiological Examination of Feedback-Based Learning in 8–11-Year-Old Children

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Arbel ◽  
Annie B. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Learning Task ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Feedback Processing ◽  
Learning Retention ◽  
Electrophysiological Examination ◽  
Declarative Learning ◽  
The Relationship

The study aimed at evaluating the extent to which the feedback related negativity (FRN), an ERP component associated with feedback processing, is related to learning in school-age children. Eighty typically developing children between the ages of 8 and 11 years completed a declarative learning task while their EEG was recorded. The study evaluated the predictive value of the FRN on learning retention as measured by accuracy on a follow-up test a day after the session. The FRN elicited by positive feedback was found to be predictive of learning retention in children. The relationship between the FRN and learning was moderated by age. The P3a was also found to be associated with learning, such that larger P3a to negative feedback was associated with better learning retention in children.

Children with SLI exhibit delays resolving ambiguous reference

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
JULIE M. ESTIS ◽  
BRENDA L. BEVERLY
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Distinct Word ◽  
Phonological Activation ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACTFast mapping weaknesses in children with specific language impairment (SLI) may be explained by differences in disambiguation, mapping an unknown word to an unnamed object. The impact of language ability and linguistic stimulus on disambiguation was investigated. Sixteen children with SLI (8 preschool, 8 school-age) and sixteen typically developing age-matched children selected referents given familiar and unfamiliar object pairs in three ambiguous conditions: phonologically distinct word (PD), phonologically similar word (PS), no word (NW). Preschoolers with SLI did not disambiguate, unlike typically developing age-matched participants, who consistently selected unfamiliar objects given PD. School-age children with SLI disambiguated given PD. Delays in disambiguation for young children with SLI suggest limitations in processes that facilitate word learning for typically developing children. School-age children with SLI consistently selected familiar objects for PS, unlike typically developing children, suggesting differences in phonological activation for word learning.

Miscue Analysis in School-Age Children

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra P. Laing
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Oral Reading ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Learning Disorders ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Reading Abilities ◽  
Text Word ◽  
Reading Miscues

It has been suggested that children who have trouble learning to read may use less effective decoding strategies than children who learn to read typically. The present investigation examined reading miscues (errors) made by typically developing children and children who demonstrated below-average language and reading abilities to answer the following questions: (a) Do typically developing children and children with below-average language and reading skills evidence similar types of miscues while reading aloud? (b) Do typically developing children make more grapho-phonemically similar errors (in which the error resembles the text word in two or more phonemes) and more nonsense-word errors than children with below-average language and reading ability and, (c) What is the relationship between the nature of reading miscues and comprehension performance? Results suggested that typically developing children made more miscues that preserved the meaning of the text than children with below-average language and reading abilities. Groups were equally likely to make errors that were grapho-phonemically similar and/or nonsense words. Comprehension performance for both groups was best predicted by omission of content words and phonologically similar real-word errors that maintained the meaning of the text. Analysis of oral-reading errors may be useful in prescribing specific intervention to improve automaticity and efficiency in reading for children with language-learning disorders.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Executive Functions and Language Abilities in Children: A Latent Variables Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 912-923 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Kaushanskaya ◽  
Ji Sook Park ◽  
Ishanti Gangopadhyay ◽  
Meghan M. Davidson ◽  
Susan Ellis Weismer
Keyword(s):  
Latent Variables ◽  
Receptive Language ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Language Performance ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Language Measures ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose We aimed to outline the latent variables approach for measuring nonverbal executive function (EF) skills in school-age children, and to examine the relationship between nonverbal EF skills and language performance in this age group. Method Seventy-one typically developing children, ages 8 through 11, participated in the study. Three EF components, inhibition, updating, and task-shifting, were each indexed using 2 nonverbal tasks. A latent variables approach was used to extract latent scores that represented each EF construct. Children were also administered common standardized language measures. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between EF and language skills. Results Nonverbal updating was associated with the Receptive Language Index on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–Fourth Edition (CELF-4). When composites denoting lexical–semantic and syntactic abilities were derived, nonverbal inhibition (but not shifting or updating) was found to predict children's syntactic abilities. These relationships held when the effects of age, IQ, and socioeconomic status were controlled. Conclusions The study makes a methodological contribution by explicating a method by which researchers can use the latent variables approach when measuring EF performance in school-age children. The study makes a theoretical and a clinical contribution by suggesting that language performance may be related to domain-general EFs.

The acquisition of syntactic categories in Jakarta Indonesian

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gil
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Syntactic Category ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Category Formation ◽  
Semantically Heterogeneous ◽  
Jakarta Indonesian ◽  
Almost All

This paper presents empirical evidence for a theory of syntactic categories in the tradition of categorial grammar, in which more complex categories are derived from simpler ones by means of category formation operators. In Jakarta Indonesian, almost all words and larger expressions belong to a single open syntactic category, S(entence), while a small residue of semantically heterogeneous items belong to a single closed syntactic category S/S. The theory predicts that in first-language acquisition, simpler categories are acquired before more complex ones. Thus, for Jakarta Indonesian, it predicts that the category S is be acquired before the category S/S. Examination of a naturalistic corpus of almost one million utterances provides support for this prediction, deriving from errors of overgeneralization, in which members of S/S exhibit the distributional properties of members of S.

scholarly journals A New Memory Perspective on the Sentence Comprehension Deficits of School-Age Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Implications for Theory, Assessment, and Intervention

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
James W. Montgomery ◽  
Ronald B. Gillam ◽  
Julia L. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Fluid Intelligence ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
New Model ◽  
Syntactic Knowledge ◽  
Controlled Attention

Purpose The nature of the relationship between memory and sentence comprehension in school-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) has been unclear. We present a novel perspective that highlights the relational influences of fluid intelligence, controlled attention, working memory (WM), and long-term memory (LTM) on sentence comprehension in children with and without DLD. This perspective has new and important implications for theory, assessment, and intervention. Method We review a large-scale study of children with and without DLD that focused on the connections between cognition, memory, and sentence comprehension. We also summarize a new model of these relationships. Results Our new model suggests that WM serves as a conduit through which syntactic knowledge in LTM, controlled attention, and general pattern recognition indirectly influence sentence comprehension in both children with DLD and typically developing children. For typically developing children, language-based LTM and fluid intelligence indirectly influence sentence comprehension. However, for children with DLD, controlled attention plays a larger indirect role. Conclusions WM plays a key role in children's ability to apply their syntactic knowledge when comprehending canonical and noncanonical sentences. Our new model has important implications for the assessment of sentence comprehension and for the treatment of larger sentence comprehension deficits.

Nonword Repetition Skills in Gulf Arabic–Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 3700-3713
Author(s):  
Saleh Shaalan
Keyword(s):  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Gulf Arabic ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
Phonological Complexity

Purpose This study examined the performance of Gulf Arabic–speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) on a Gulf Arabic nonword repetition (GA-NWR) test and compared it to their age- and language-matched groups. We also investigated the role of syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity in light of NWR theories. Method A new GA-NWR test was conducted with three groups of Gulf Arabic–speaking children: school-age children with DLD, language-matched controls (LCs), and age-matched controls (ACs). The test consisted of two- and three-syllable words that either had no clusters, medial clusters, final clusters, or medial + final clusters. Results The GA-NWR distinguished between the performance of children with DLD and the LC and AC groups. Results showed significant syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity effects. Differences between the DLD and typically developing groups were seen in two- and three-syllable nonwords; however, when compared on nonwords with no clusters, children with DLD were not significantly different from the LC group. Conclusions The GA-NWR test differentiated between children with DLD and their ACs and LCs. Findings, therefore, support its clinical utility in this variety of Arabic. Results showed that phonological processing factors, such as phonological complexity, may have stronger effects when compared to syllable length effects. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12996812

Age Norms for Auditory-Perceptual Neurophonetic Parameters: A Prerequisite for the Assessment of Childhood Dysarthria

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1071-1082
Author(s):  
Theresa Schölderle ◽  
Elisabet Haas ◽  
Wolfram Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Age Norms ◽  
Elementary School Age ◽  
Speech Characteristics ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Computer Based

Purpose The aim of this study was to collect auditory-perceptual data on established symptom categories of dysarthria from typically developing children between 3 and 9 years of age, for the purpose of creating age norms for dysarthria assessment. Method One hundred forty-four typically developing children (3;0–9;11 [years;months], 72 girls and 72 boys) participated. We used a computer-based game specifically designed for this study to elicit sentence repetitions and spontaneous speech samples. Speech recordings were analyzed using the auditory-perceptual criteria of the Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales, a standardized German assessment tool for dysarthria in adults. The Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales (scales and features) cover clinically relevant dimensions of speech and allow for an evaluation of well-established symptom categories of dysarthria. Results The typically developing children exhibited a number of speech characteristics overlapping with established symptom categories of dysarthria (e.g., breathy voice, frequent inspirations, reduced articulatory precision, decreased articulation rate). Substantial progress was observed between 3 and 9 years of age, but with different developmental trajectories across different dimensions. In several areas (e.g., respiration, voice quality), 9-year-olds still presented with salient developmental speech characteristics, while in other dimensions (e.g., prosodic modulation), features typically associated with dysarthria occurred only exceptionally, even in the 3-year-olds. Conclusions The acquisition of speech motor functions is a prolonged process not yet completed with 9 years. Various developmental influences (e.g., anatomic–physiological changes) shape children's speech specifically. Our findings are a first step toward establishing auditory-perceptual norms for dysarthria in children of kindergarten and elementary school age. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12133380

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