The Role of Spontaneous Repetitions During Treatment of Morphosyntactic Forms for Children With Developmental Language Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (10) ◽  
pp. 3995-4003
Author(s):  
Katrina Nicholas ◽  
Elena Plante ◽  
Rebecca Gómez ◽  
Rebecca Vance
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Effect ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
End Of Treatment ◽  
Correct Form ◽  
Treatment Gains

Purpose Children with developmental language disorder sometimes spontaneously repeat clinician models of morphemes targeted for treatment. We examine how spontaneous repeating of clinician models in the form of recasts associates with improved child production of those emerging morphemes. Method Forty-seven preschool children with developmental language disorder participated in Enhanced Conversational Recast therapy and were monitored for spontaneous repetitions of morphemes modeled by the clinician through conversational recasting. We calculated proportion of correct and incorrect productions elicited during treatment and for generalization probes as well as treatment effect sizes. We then used odds ratios to determine the probability that a spontaneous repetition may precede treatment gains and calculated correlations of correct repetitions with correct in-treatment productions of targets and treatment effect sizes. Results Spontaneous repetitions were highly likely to happen just prior to meaningful treatment progress. Children with higher frequencies of correct spontaneous repetitions of morpheme targets also showed higher frequencies of correct productions of these forms during the course of treatment. Furthermore, children with an earlier onset of repetitions and higher frequencies of correct repetitions showed overall larger effect sizes at the end of treatment. Conclusions Children's use of correct forms in their repetitions may serve as a self-scaffold for mastering productions of the correct form via structural priming mechanisms. Tracking spontaneously repeated targets may be a useful milestone for identifying response to treatment.

scholarly journals Predictors of Treatment Response for Preschool Children With Developmental Language Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 2082-2096
Author(s):  
Leah L. Kapa ◽  
Christina Meyers-Denman ◽  
Elena Plante ◽  
Kevin Doubleday
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Effect ◽  
Effect Size ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Vocabulary Test ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Fourth Edition ◽  
Peabody Picture Vocabulary ◽  
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test ◽  
Treatment Effect Size

Purpose Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment is an effective intervention for remediating expressive grammatical deficits in preschool-age children with developmental language disorder, but not all children respond equally well. In this study, we sought to identify which child-level variables predict response to treatment of morphological deficits. Method Predictor variables of interest, including pre-intervention test scores and target morpheme production, age, and mother's level of education (proxy for socio-economic status) were included in analyses. The sample included 105 children ( M = 5;1 [years;months]) with developmental language disorder who participated in 5 weeks of daily Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment. Classification and regression tree analysis was used to identify covariates that predicted children's generalization of their trained grammatical morpheme, as measured by treatment effect size d . Results Our analysis indicates that the Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test–Preschool 2 (SPELT-P 2) scores and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Fourth Edition scores significantly predicted the degree of benefit a child derived from Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment. Specifically, a SPELT-P 2 score above 75 (but still in the impaired range, < 87) combined with a high Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Fourth Edition score (> 100) yielded the largest treatment effect size, whereas a SPELT-P 2 score below 75 predicted the smallest treatment effect size. Other variables included in the model did not significantly predict treatment outcomes. Conclusions Understanding individual differences in response to treatment will allow service providers to make evidence-based decisions regarding how likely a child is to benefit from Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment and the expected magnitude of the response based on the child's background characteristics.

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

scholarly journals Reciprocal relationships between lexical and syntactic skills of children with Developmental Language Disorder and the role of executive functions

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 239694151986398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elma Blom ◽  
Tessel Boerma
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Interference Control ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Verbal Abilities ◽  
Syntactic Skills ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Lexical Skills

Background and aims Recent research indicates that children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) often also score lower than their peers with typical development (TD) on tasks testing nonverbal executive functioning (EF). This study investigated whether there is evidence that children with DLD use linguistic and EF resources to support their lexical and syntactic development. Three questions were addressed: (1) How do children with DLD develop in the domains of lexicon and syntax, and how does their development compare to TD controls? (2) To what extent do children with DLD show reciprocal relations between lexical and syntactic skills, and how does this compare to TD controls? (3) Is EF ability related to DLD children’s lexical and syntactic skills, and how does this compare to TD controls? Methods Data from 117 children (NDLD = 78; NTD = 39) were collected three times with yearly intervals. At time 1, the children were 5 or 6 years old. Standardized receptive vocabulary and sentence repetition tests measured lexicon and syntax, respectively. Nonverbal EF tasks tested selective attention, interference control and working memory. Cross-lagged analyses were conducted to determine the direction of relationships. Results Both groups showed stable lexical and syntactic growth. In children with DLD, but not in TD controls, syntactic skills predicted lexical skills. In the DLD group, EF predicted lexical skills. Reversely, in the TD group, lexical skills predicted EF. Conclusions The results of this study are consistent with the hypothesis that the lexical development of children with DLD is supported by both their verbal abilities in the domain of syntax and their nonverbal EF abilities. Implications Interventions that improve the syntactic and EF abilities of children with DLD may have spreading effects and positively impact on word learning by children with DLD.

scholarly journals Emotional Competence Mediates the Relationship between Communication Problems and Reactive Externalizing Problems in Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder: A Longitudinal Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (16) ◽  
pp. 6008
Author(s):  
Neeltje P. van den Bedem ◽  
Julie E. Dockrell ◽  
Petra M. van Alphen ◽  
Carolien Rieffe
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Externalizing Problems ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Emotional Competence ◽  
Reactive Aggression ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Communication Problems ◽  
The Relationship

Language problems are a risk factor for externalizing problems, but the developmental path remains unclear. Emotional competence may mediate the relationship, especially when externalizing problems are reactive in nature, such as in Oppositional Deviant Disorder (ODD) and reactive aggression. We examined the development of reactive and proactive externalizing problems in children with (n = 98) and without (n = 156) Developmental Language Disorder (DLD; age: 8–16 years) over 18 months. Relationships with communicative risk factors (structural, pragmatic and emotion communication) and the mediating role of emotional competence (emotion recognition and anger dysregulation) were examined. Multi-level analyses showed that increasing emotion recognition and decreasing anger dysregulation were longitudinally related to decreasing ODD symptoms in both groups, whereas anger dysregulation was related to more reactive aggression in children with DLD alone. Pragmatic and emotion communication problems were related to more reactive externalizing problems, but these relationships were mediated by emotional competence, suggesting that problems in emotional competence explain the communication problems of children with DLD. Therefore, in addition to interventions for communication skills, there is a need to address the emotional competence of children with DLD, as this decreases the risk for reactive externalizing problems.

scholarly journals Variability of input in preposition learning by preschoolers with developmental language disorder and typically-developing language

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-74
Author(s):  
Katrina Nicholas ◽  
Mary Alt ◽  
Ella Hauwiller
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Case Series ◽  
High Variability ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Vocabulary Skills ◽  
Series Design

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of variability in teaching prepositions to preschoolers with typical development (TD) and developmental language disorder (DLD). Input variability during teaching can enhance learning, but is target dependent. We hypothesized that high variability of objects would improve preposition learning. We also examined other characteristics (e.g. vocabulary skills) of children who responded to treatment. We used a case series design, repeated across children ( n = 18) to contrast how preschoolers learned prepositions in conditions that manipulated variability of objects and labels across three treatment sessions. We contrasted a high versus low variability condition for objects and labels for one group of typically-developing (TD) children ( n = 6). In other groups (TD, n = 6; DLD, n = 6), we contrasted high versus low object variability only. Visual inspection and descriptive statistics were used to characterize gains. Half ( n = 3) of TD participants showed a low variability advantage for the condition that combined object and label variability. In the condition that only contrasted object variability, the majority ( n = 4) of TD participants showed a high variability advantage, compared to only two participants with DLD. In the high object variability condition, high receptive vocabulary scores were significantly correlated with high performance of learning prepositions ( rs = 0.71, p < 0.05). Combining high variability for objects and labels when teaching prepositions was not effective. However, high variability for objects can create a learning advantage for learning prepositions for children with typically developing language, but not all learners. Characteristics of different learners (e.g. receptive vocabulary scores) and language status (impaired or unimpaired) should be taken into consideration for future studies.

scholarly journals Automatic Prediction and Assessment of Treatment Response in Patients with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Using a Whole-Body DW-MRI Based Approach

Diagnostics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 702
Author(s):  
Valentina Brancato ◽  
Marco Aiello ◽  
Roberta Della Pepa ◽  
Luca Basso ◽  
Nunzia Garbino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Response ◽  
Hodgkin’S Lymphoma ◽  
Hodgkin's Lymphoma ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
End Of Treatment ◽  
Tumor Load ◽  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri

The lack of validation and standardization represents the main drawback for a clear role of whole-body diffusion weighted imaging (WB-DWI) for prediction and assessment of treatment response in Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL). We explored the reliability of an automatic approach based on the WB-DWI technique for prediction and assessment of response to treatment in patients with HL. The study included 20 HL patients, who had whole-body positron emission tomography (PET)/ magnetic resonance Imaging (MRI) performed before, during and after chemotherapy. Using the syngo.via MR Total Tumor Load tool, we automatically extracted values of diffusion volume (DV) and its associated histogram features by WB-DWI images, and evaluated their utility in predicting and assessing interim and end-of-treatment (EOT) response. The Mann–Whitney test followed by receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed between features and their inter-time point percentage differences for patients having a complete or partial treatment response, revealing that several WB-DWI associated features allowed for prediction of interim response and both prediction and assessment of EOT response. Our proposed method offers huge advantages in terms of saving time and work, enabling clinicians to draw conclusions relating to HL treatment response in a fully automatic way, and encloses, also, all DWI advantages compared to PET/ computed tomography (CT).

scholarly journals Morphosyntactic weaknesses in Developmental Language Disorder: the role of structure and agreement configurations

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 909-944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincenzo MOSCATI ◽  
Luigi RIZZI ◽  
Ilenia VOTTARI ◽  
Anna Maria CHILOSI ◽  
Renata SALVADORINI ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
The Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Forced Choice Task ◽  
Structural Distance ◽  
New Evidence

AbstractAgreement is a morphosyntactic dependency which is sensitive to the hierarchical structure of the clause and is constrained by the structural distance that separates the elements involved in this relation. In this paper we present two experiments, providing new evidence that Italian-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), as well as Typically Developing (TD) children, are sensitive to the same hierarchical and locality factors that characterise agreement in adult grammars. This sensitivity holds even though DLD children show accrued difficulties in more complex agreement configurations. In the first experiment, a forced-choice task was used to establish whether children are more affected in the computation of S-V agreement when an element intervenes hierarchically or linearly in the agreement relation: DLD children are more subject to attraction errors when the attractor intervenes hierarchically, indicating that DLD children discriminate between hierarchical and linear configurations. The second experiment, also conducted through a forced-choice task, shows that the computation of agreement in DLD children is more ‘fragile’ than in TD children (and also in children with a primary impairment in the phonological domain), in that it is more sensitive to the factors of complexity identified in Moscati and Rizzi's (2014) typology of agreement configurations. To capture the agreement pattern found in DLD children, we put forth a novel hypothesis: the Fragile Computation of Agreement Hypothesis. Its main tenet is that DLD children make use of the same grammatical operations employed by their peers, as demonstrated in Experiment 1, but difficulties increase as a function of the complexity of the agreement configuration.

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