Delay Versus Deviance in the Language Acquisition of Language-Impaired Children

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Curtiss ◽  
William Katz ◽  
Paula Tallal

To investigate the issue of delay versus deviance in the language acquisition of language-impaired (LI) children, the order of acquisition of a set of linguistic structures and the relationship obtaining between one structure and another were examined in comprehension and production over a 5-year period in a group of LI and language-matched normal children. The results demonstrated a marked similarity between groups, both in the point at which mastery of individual structures was achieved and in the overall patterns of acquisition demonstrated. These data suggest that LI children are constructing grammars based on the same rules and principles as those of linguistically normal control subjects, and that their linguistic impairments may be principally processing, not representational, in nature.

1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 424-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda Y. Terrell ◽  
Richard G. Schwartz ◽  
Patricia A. Prelock ◽  
Cheryl K. Messick

The symbolic play of 15 normally developing (CA, 16–22 months) and 15 language-impaired children (CA, 32–49 months), whose productive language skills were at the single-word utterance level, was compared. Symbolic play was assessed formally through the Symbolic Play Test and informally through the observation of spontaneous play. The language-impaired children were found to be developmentally advanced when compared to the language-matched normal children in the level and direction of their symbolic play. Relative to age norms, however, the language-impaired children evidenced deficits in symbolic play. Thus, their linguistic and symbolic play abilities were not equally impaired. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the relationship between symbolic play and language and for the nature of specific language impairment.


1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan G. Kamhi ◽  
Hugh W. Catts ◽  
Daria Mauer ◽  
Kenn Apel ◽  
Betholyn F. Gentry

In the present study, we further examined (see Kamhi & Catts, 1986) the phonological processing abilities of language-impaired (LI) and reading-impaired (RI) children. We also evaluated these children's ability to process spatial information. Subjects were 10 LI, 10 RI, and 10 normal children between the ages of 6:8 and 8:10 years. Each subject was administered eight tasks: four word repetition tasks (monosyllabic, monosyllabic presented in noise, three-item, and multisyllabic), rapid naming, syllable segmentation, paper folding, and form completion. The normal children performed significantly better than both the LI and RI children on all but two tasks: syllable segmentation and repeating words presented in noise. The LI and RI children performed comparably on every task with the exception of the multisyllabic word repetition task. These findings were consistent with those from our previous study (Kamhi & Catts, 1986). The similarities and differences between LI and RI children are discussed.


Author(s):  
Michelle Mentis

This study examined the comprehension of four pairs of deictic terms in a group of language impaired children and compared their interpretation of these terms with those of non-language impaired children of the same age range. Each group was comprised of ten subjects within the age range of 9,6 to 10,6 years. Two tasks were administered, one to assess the comprehension of the terms here, there, this, and that and the other to assess the comprehension of the terms, come, go, bring and take. The results showed that while the non-language impaired subjects comprehended the full deictic contrast between the pairs of terms tested, the language impaired group did not. A qualitative analysis of the data revealed that the language impaired subjects appeared to follow the same developmental sequence as normal children in their acquisition of these terms and responded by using the same strategies that younger non-language impaired children use at equivalent stages of development. Furthermore, the language impaired subjects appeared to comprehend the deictic terms in a predictable order based on their relative semantic complexity.


Author(s):  
Hilary Berger ◽  
Aletta Sinoff

Aspects of the discourse of 5 language-impaired children and 5 children with no language impairment, aged approximately 9 years, were compared. A film and a story sequence were utilised to elicit narratives on which, measures of cohesion, tense and pronouns were appraised. Measures of cohesion refer  to the ability to indicate appropriately the relations of meaning with regard to situational context. Measures of tense include aspects of tense range and tense continuity. Measures of  pronouns refer  to the anaphoric use of  pronouns with non-ambiguous referents.  The group of language-impaired children was found  to be significantly poorer on measures of  cohesion and pronominal usage than the normal children, whereas a significant difference between the two groups was not revealed on measures of tense. Possible factors  accounting for  these findings  were discussed and implications for the diagnosis and therapy of the older language-impaired child were considered.


1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Kay Rosinski-McClendon ◽  
Marilyn Newhoff

It has been suggested that language-disordered children may be less conversationally responsive and/or assertive than their normal matched counterparts. This investigation compared these abilities in 10 language-impaired children ranging in age from 4:1 to 5:9, and 10 normal children matched for language ability (2:8 to 4:2). Comparisons were based on subjects' responses to systematic probes that occurred within examiner-child dialogues. Total scores were derived from: (a) the number of questions answered, (b) the number of attempts to continue a topic following a no-response, and (c) the number of attempts to maintain the original topic after the examiner changed the topic. Results indicated that although language-impaired children responded to questions significantly less often than did their normal peers, they were equally assertive both in continuing a topic after no comment by the examiner and in maintaining the topic following a topical change.


1993 ◽  
Vol 75 (5) ◽  
pp. 2217-2223 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Arrowood ◽  
J. Kline ◽  
P. M. Simpson ◽  
R. J. Quigg ◽  
J. J. Pippin ◽  
...  

During exercise, as heart rate (HR) increases, the QT interval of the electrocardiogram shortens. The mechanism(s) involved in this QT shortening has not been clearly defined. To distinguish the influence of increased circulating catecholamines from myocardial efferent stimulation, the relationship between HR and QT interval was investigated during exercise and cardiovascular reflex stimulation in cardiac transplant patients and normal control subjects. Because of cardiac denervation, increases in HR in these patients are solely due to circulating catecholamines and thus allow isolation of their effect on the QT interval. Twenty-one cardiac transplant patients were studied and compared with 16 normal control subjects. The QT-HR relationship was determined according to an exponential model during treadmill exercise in both groups [QT = 0.12 + 0.492e(-0.008.HR) and QT = 0.12 + 0.459e(-0.007.HR) in normal subjects and transplant patients, respectively] and was statistically similar between groups, suggesting similar QT interval shortening in both groups. During cold pressor and Valsalva maneuvers, HR increased significantly in normal subjects only, whereas QT interval changed minimally in both groups. These results suggest that during exercise the QT interval is influenced predominantly by increases in circulating catecholamines rather than by neurally mediated reflex autonomic changes.


1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan G. Kamhi ◽  
Hugh W. Catts

The primary purpose of this study was to compare the ability of language-impaired and reading-impaired children to process (i.e., encode and retrieve) phonological information. Four measures of phonological awareness and several measures of word and sentence repetition abilities were used to evaluate phonological processing skills. Two additional measures assessed children's awareness of lexical and morphological information. Subjects were 12 language-impaired (LI), 12 reading-impaired (RI), and 12 normal children between the ages of 6 and 8 years. The findings supported previous claims that children with reading impairments have difficulty processing phonological information. To our surprise, however, the LI children performed significantly worse than the RI children on only three measures, all involving word and sentence repetition. These findings raise questions about the distinctiveness of school-age children with a history of language impairment and poor readers with no history of language impairment.


1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Tallal ◽  
Rachel E. Stark ◽  
Clayton Kallman ◽  
David Mellits

ABSTRACTSix synthesized consonant-vowel syllables, three containing the phoneme /b/ in different vowel contexts and three the phoneme /d/, were presented randomly to developmental dysphasics and normal children. The ability to recognize that these six acoustically different stimuli shared two common phonemic categories (perceptual constancy) was investigated using nonverbal operantly conditioned response techniques. Results showed that although several children in both groups had difficulty with the task, the dysphasic group's performance was significantly poorer than the controls. Whereas the normal children improved significantly with age, the dysphasics did not. The results of this study suggest that speech perception, rather than being fully developed in infancy, changes throughout language development. By using procedures which have proven suitable for testing infants, with young children at various stages of language development, more might be learned about how the acoustic signal is encoded into speech and language and how this encoding changes throughout development or is disturbed in language disorders.


1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly J. Massey

The Token Test for Children was given in a synthesized-speech version and a natural-speech version to 11 language-impaired children aged 8 years, 9 months to 10 years, 1 month and to 11 control subjects matched for age and sex. The scores of the language-impaired children on the synthesized version were significantly lower than (a) the synthesized-speech scores of the control group and (b) their own scores on the natural-speech version. Task complexity was a significant factor for the experimental group. Language-impaired children may have difficulty understanding some synthesized voice commands.


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