Word and Nonword Repetition Abilities in Spanish Language: Longitudinal Evidence from Typically Developing and Late Talking Children

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Rujas ◽  
Sonia Mariscal ◽  
Marta Casla ◽  
Miguel Lázaro ◽  
Eva Murillo

AbstractThis longitudinal study examined the early word and nonword repetition abilities of monolingual Spanish speaking children. We explored the role that word status, word length, and time play in repetition performance of children with different vocabulary levels. We also examined the predictive value of vocabulary level in repetition abilities. Thirty-seven children participated in this study: 15 late talkers and 22 typically developing children. Families completed the Spanish version of the MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventory (MCDI) at age 2; children performed a word and nonword repetition task at three different moments, with a temporal interval of 6 months between Time 1 and Time 2, and eight months between Time 2 and Time 3, periods during which linguistic development takes place. We found significant effects for word status, word length, vocabulary level and time: words are repeated better than nonwords; one syllable items are easier to repeat than two and three syllable ones; the performance of late talking children is lower compared to typically developing children throughout the study; and repetition abilities improve longitudinally. In addition, early vocabulary level predicts subsequent repetition abilities and early nonword repetition abilities predict future nonword repetition performance.

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 884-896
Author(s):  
Maria Vender ◽  
Denis Delfitto ◽  
Chiara Melloni

AbstractNonword repetition is typically impaired in dyslexia. Conversely, native-like performance is early achieved by bilingual children whose second language has a simple phonotactic system, like Italian. Our study aimed at comparing the performance of monolingual and bilingual children with and without dyslexia in a nonword repetition task modeled after Italian. We assessed nonword repetition in 111 school-aged children: 24 Italian L2 bilingual dyslexics, 24 Italian monolingual dyslexics, 30 Italian L2 bilingual controls and 33 Italian monolingual controls. We administered an original task composed of 40 nonwords ranging from two to five syllables; the complexity of the syllables was also manipulated. Results showed that both groups of dyslexics underperformed controls at each syllable length. No differences were found between monolingual and bilingual controls. Conversely, bilingual dyslexics underperformed monolingual dyslexics only with four-syllable nonwords. The possible use of nonword repetition tasks to assist in the identification of dyslexia in bilingual children is also discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laetitia de Almeida ◽  
Sandrine Ferré ◽  
Marie-Anne Barthez ◽  
Christophe dos Santos

In this study, the authors compare the production of internal codas and branching onsets in four groups of children learning French: monolingual typically-developing children ( n = 12), bilingual typically-developing children ( n = 61), monolingual children with Specific Language Impairment ( n = 17) and bilingual children with Specific Language Impairment ( n = 20). Their elicited productions were collected using a nonword repetition task (LITMUS-NWR-French), containing 71 nonwords with different syllable types. Except for typically-developing monolingual children, all children performed significantly better on branching onsets than on internal codas. Moreover, the repair strategies used in erroneous productions also indicate that children had more difficulties with internal codas: all the cases of metathesis affecting a target internal coda resulted in the production of a branching onset whereas the contrary was not observed. The differences in the rates of target-like production and the patterns of metathesis of these two structures suggest that internal codas are more difficult than branching onsets for children learning French.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Lotte ODIJK ◽  
Steven GILLIS

Abstract Do parents fine-tune the MLU of utterances with a particular word as the word is on the verge of appearing in the child's production? We analyzed a corpus of spontaneous interactions of 30 dyads. The children were in the initial stages of their lexical development, and the parents’ utterances containing the words the children eventually acquired were selected. The main finding is that the MLU of the parental utterances containing the target words gradually decreased up to the point of the children's first production of those words. This suggests that parents fine-tune their utterances to support the children's linguistic development.


2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Rujas ◽  
Marta Casla ◽  
Sonia Mariscal ◽  
Miguel Lázaro López-Villaseñor ◽  
Eva Murillo Sanz

The purpose of this study was to examine early fast mapping abilities in late talkers (LT) and typically developing (TD) Spanish-speaking children by considering the effect of different variables on fast mapping (age, vocabulary level, grammatical category and number morphology). Thirty-eight Spanish-speaking children were assessed at three times (21 to 24 months at the beginning of the study). A group of LT was matched in age with a TD control group. They completed a fast mapping task with a disambiguation phase and an extension phase. Results show that vocabulary level and age interact with grammatical category and number morphology. TD children’s performance was significantly higher than LT children’s, but these differences decreased with age. Results suggest that the incorporation of new labels does not work automatically; some children may need repeated exposures to word–referent pairings. Longitudinal results suggest the importance of looking at the dynamics of lexical acquisition in addition to vocabulary size.


2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 905-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Bedore ◽  
Laurence B. Leonard

The focus of this study was the use of grammatical morphology by Spanish-speaking preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI). Relative to both same-age peers and younger typically developing children with similar mean lengths of utterance (MLUs), the children with SLI showed more limited use of several different grammatical morphemes. These limitations were most marked for noun-related morphemes such as adjective-agreement inflections and direct object clitics. Most errors on the part of children in all groups consisted of substitutions of a form that shared most but not all of the target’s grammatical features (e.g., correct tense and number but incorrect person). Number errors usually involved singular forms used in plural contexts; person errors usually involved third person forms used in first person contexts. The pattern of limitations of the children with SLI suggests that, for languages such as Spanish, additional factors might have to be considered in the search for clinical markers for this disorder. Implications for evaluation and treatment of language disorders in Spanish-speaking children are also discussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joana C. Carmo ◽  
Raffaella I. Rumiati ◽  
Roma Siugzdaite ◽  
Paolo Brambilla

It has been suggested that children with autism are particularly deficient at imitating novel gestures or gestures without goals. In the present study, we asked high-functioning autistic children and age-matched typically developing children to imitate several types of gestures that could be either already known or novel to them. Known gestures either conveyed a communicative meaning (i.e., intransitive) or involved the use of objects (i.e., transitive). We observed a significant interaction between gesture type and group of participants, with children with autism performing known gestures better than novel gestures. However, imitation of intransitive and transitive gestures did not differ across groups. These findings are discussed in light of a dual-route model for action imitation.


Author(s):  
Piyush Sone ◽  
Ratan Jadhav ◽  
Medha Karbhari Adhyaru

<p><strong>Background:</strong> Syntax is an important aspect of language. It is very important to study syntax development in the children with hearing impairment (HI). The aim of study was to compare syntactic abilities of Marathi speaking children with hearing impairment using cochlear implant and typical developing children in the age range of 4 to 7 years.<strong></strong></p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Ninety typically developing children, 26 language age matched children using cochlear implants were included in this study. They were grouped into three age groups: 4-5, 5-6 and 6-7 years. Syntax test in Marathi which has six subtests in comprehension: wh-questions, negations/yes/no questions, post-positions, plurals, tenses, person, number, gender markers and five subtests in expression: negation/yes/no questions, post-positions, plurals, tenses, person, number, gender markers was administered through a laptop to children in each group.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Results showed typically developing children performed significantly better than children with hearing impairment using cochlear implant I the age range of 4 to 5 years. Except postposition and PNG markers of comprehensive syntactic abilities all other syntactic abilities were significantly poor in children using cochlear implants. Only expressive syntactic abilities were significantly poor among children using cochlear implants in the age range of 6 to 7 years.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Overall, the findings of this study showed that that Syntax test in Marathi can identify impairment in the syntactic ability in Marathi speaking children with hearing impairment. Children with hearing impairment using cochlear implants showed poor syntactic abilities.</p>


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub M. Szewczyk ◽  
Marta Marecka ◽  
Shula Chiat ◽  
Zofia Wodniecka

The nonword repetition task (NWR) has been widely used in basic cognitive and clinical research, as well as in clinical assessment, and has been proposed as a clinical marker for Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Yet the mechanisms underlying performance on this task are not clear. This study offers insights into these mechanisms through a comprehensive examination of item-related variables identified in previous research as possibly contributing to NWR scores and through testing the predictive power of each in relation to the others. A unique feature of the study is that all factors are considered simultaneously. Fifty-seven typically developing children were tested with a NWR task containing 150 nonwords differing in length, phonotactic probability, lexical neighbourhood, and phonological complexity. The results indicate that phonological processing of novel words draws on sublexical representations at all grain sizes and that these representations are phonological, unstructured and insensitive to morphemehood. We propose a novel index – mean ngram frequency of all phonemes – that best captures the extent to which a nonword draws on sublexical representations. The study demonstrates the primacy of sublexical representations in NWR performance with implications for the nature of the deficit in SLI.


2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 1773-1779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle MacRoy-Higgins ◽  
Kevin Patrick Dalton

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of phonotactic probability on sublexical (phonological) and lexical representations in 3-year-olds who had a history of being late talkers in comparison with their peers with typical language development. Method Ten 3-year-olds who were late talkers and 10 age-matched typically developing controls completed nonword repetition and fast mapping tasks; stimuli for both experimental procedures differed in phonotactic probability. Results Both participant groups repeated nonwords containing high phonotactic probability sequences more accurately than nonwords containing low phonotactic probability sequences. Participants with typical language showed an early advantage for fast mapping high phonotactic probability words; children who were late talkers required more exposures to the novel words to show the same advantage for fast mapping high phonotactic probability words. Conclusions Children who were late talkers showed similar sensitivities to phonotactic probability in nonword repetition and word learning when compared with their peers with no history of language delay. However, word learning in children who were late talkers appeared to be slower when compared with their peers.


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