Nonword Repetition and Child Language Impairment

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1136-1146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Dollaghan ◽  
Thomas F. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Language Intervention ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Language Test ◽  
Likelihood Ratios ◽  
Language Tests ◽  
Traditional Language ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Repetition Task

A brief, processing-dependent, nonword repetition task, designed to minimize biases associated with traditional language tests, was investigated. In Study 1, no overlap in nonword repetition performance was found between a group of 20 school-age children enrolled in language intervention (LI) and a group of 20 age-matched peers developing language normally (LN). In Study 2, a comparison of likelihood ratios for the nonword repetition task and for a traditional language test revealed that nonword repetition distinguished between children independently identified as LI and LN with a high degree of accuracy, by contrast with the traditional language test. Nonword repetition may have considerable clinical utility as a screening measure for language impairment in children. Information on the likelihood ratios associated with all diagnostic tests of language is badly needed.

Using Finiteness as a Clinical Marker to Identify Language Impairment

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 148-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea C. Ash ◽  
Sean M. Redmond
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Operational Definition ◽  
Language Impairments ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Clinical Use ◽  
Clinical Marker ◽  
Language Tests ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Primary Measure

Intervention rates for children with language impairments vary widely across reports. Unfortunately, many language tests focus on areas of language that are not problematic for children with language impairments (LI). Over twenty years of research supports limitations in finiteness as a clinical marker of LI. However, speech language pathologists (SLPs) have been reluctant to include assessments of finiteness in clinical decisions for young school-age children. This article addresses the operational definition of finiteness which may have created a barrier to its clinical use. We recommend that SLPs include the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment as a primary measure of finiteness for identifying language impairment in children between 3 and 8 years of age because of its clinical flexibility and high levels of sensitivity and specificity.

scholarly journals Nonword repetition depends on the frequency of sublexical representations at different grain sizes: evidence from a multi-factorial analysis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub M. Szewczyk ◽  
Marta Marecka ◽  
Shula Chiat ◽  
Zofia Wodniecka
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Phonotactic Probability ◽  
Grain Sizes ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
Phonological Complexity ◽  
Repetition Task

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.

An Error Analysis of Nonword Repetition Performance in Toddlers and Young Children: Theoretical Implications and Clinical Utility

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Vanessa Harwood ◽  
Dana Arthur
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Parent Report ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Clinical Tool ◽  
Error Type ◽  
Common Error ◽  
Sampling Procedures

Purpose Nonword repetition has been cited as a measure of phonological working memory and continues to gain status as a clinical tool used to identify language impairment in school-age children. Less is known about nonword repetition skills in the toddler population. Method The current study presents a detailed analysis of errors by segmenting nonwords into word, syllable, and phoneme levels. Errors were also analyzed for type (e.g., addition, substitution, deletion). The Test of Early Nonword Repetition was used to measure performance in a sample of 36 typically developing children, aged 24–48 months. Clinical assessments including parent report, language sampling procedures, and standardized assessments were also administered. Results As a group, participants produced significantly more syllable errors compared to word-level errors; however, most errors were made at the phoneme level. Errors of addition were the least common error type, and no differences between substitutions or deletions were present for the entire sample. Toddlers (aged 2 years) produced more syllable-level errors compared to older children (aged 3 years). Substitution errors were positively correlated with performance on clinical measures of language, whereas deletion errors were negatively correlated with performance. Conclusion Nonword repetition performance patterns in young children may be associated with language delay or language impairment and have both clinical and theoretical relevance.

What do monolingual and bilingual children with and without SLI produce when phonology is too complex?

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laetitia de Almeida ◽  
Sandrine Ferré ◽  
Marie-Anne Barthez ◽  
Christophe dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Repetition Task

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.

scholarly journals A Prosodically Controlled Word and Nonword Repetition Task for 2- to 4-Year-Olds

2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Roy ◽  
Shula Chiat
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Change ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
School Age ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
Language Difficulties ◽  
Repetition Task

An association has been found between nonword repetition and language skills in school-age children with both typical and atypical language development (C. Dollaghan & T. F. Campbell, 1998; S. Ellis Weismer et al., 2000; S. E. Gathercole & A. D. Baddeley, 1990; J. W. Montgomery, 2002). This raises the possibility that younger children's repetition performance may be predictive of later language deficits. In order to investigate this possibility, it is important to establish that elicited repetition with very young children is both feasible and informative. To this end, a repetition task was designed and carried out with 66 children between 2 and 4 years of age. The task consisted of 18 words and 18 matched nonwords that were systematically manipulated for length and prosodic structure. In addition, an assessment of receptive vocabulary was administered. The repetition task elicited high levels of response. Total scores as well as word and nonword scores were sensitive to age. Lexical status and item length affected performance regardless of age: Words were repeated more accurately than nonwords, and 1-syllable items were repeated more accurately than 2-syllable items, which were in turn repeated more accurately than 3-syllable items. The effect of prosodic structure was also significant. Whole syllable errors were almost exclusive to unstressed syllables, with those preceding stress being most vulnerable. Performance on the repetition task was significantly correlated with performance on the receptive vocabulary test. This repetition task effectively elicited responses from most of the 2- to 4-year-old participants, tapped developmental change in their repetition skills, and revealed patterns in their performance; and thus it has the potential to identify deficits in very early repetition skills that may be indicative of wider language difficulties.

Different Origin of Auditory and Phonological Processing Problems in Children With Language Impairment

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. V. M. Bishop ◽  
Sonia J. Bishop ◽  
Peter Bright ◽  
Cheryl James ◽  
Tom Delaney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Shared Environment ◽  
Language Test ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Age Range

This study investigated the heritability of auditory processing impairment, as assessed by Tallal's Auditory Repetition Test (ART). The sample consisted of 37 same-sex twin pairs who had previously been selected because one or both twins met criteria for language impairment (LI) and 104 same-sex twin pairs in the same age range (7 to 13 years) from the general population. These samples yielded 55 children who met criteria for LI, who were compared with 76 children whose language was normal for their age (LN group). We replicated earlier work showing that group LI is impaired relative to group LN on ART. However, there was no evidence of a heritable influence on ART scores: Correlations between twins and their co-twins were reasonably high for both MZ and DZ twins, suggesting that performance is more influenced by shared environment than genetic factors. Analyses of extreme scores gave a similar picture of nonsignificant group heritability. In contrast, a test of phonological short-term memory, the Children's Nonword Repetition Test (CNRep), gave high estimates of group heritability. In general, CNRep was a better predictor of low language test scores than ART, but ART did make a significant independent contribution in accounting for variance in a test of grammatical understanding.

scholarly journals Consistency of a Nonword Repetition Task to Discriminate Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder in Catalan–Spanish and European Portuguese Speaking Children

Children ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Nadia Ahufinger ◽  
Amy Berglund-Barraza ◽  
Anabela Cruz-Santos ◽  
Laura Ferinu ◽  
Llorenç Andreu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Random Order ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Clinical Tool ◽  
Likelihood Ratios ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Spanish Cohort ◽  
Repetition Task

Nonword repetition has been proposed as a diagnostic marker of developmental language disorder (DLD); however, the inconsistency in the ability of nonword repetition tasks (NRT) to identify children with DLD raises significant questions regarding its feasibility as a clinical tool. Research suggests that some of the inconsistency across NRT may be due to differences in the nature of the nonword stimuli. In this study, we compared children’s performance on NRT between two cohorts: the children in the Catalan–Spanish cohort (CS) were bilingual, and the children in the European Portuguese cohort (EP) were monolingual. NRT performance was assessed in both Spanish and Catalan for the bilingual children from Catalonia-Spain and in Portuguese for the monolingual children from Portugal. Results show that although the absolute performance differed across the two cohorts, with NRT performance being lower for the CS, in both Catalan and Spanish, as compared to the EP cohort in both, the cut-points for the likelihood ratios (LH) were similar across the three languages and mirror those previously reported in previous studies. However, the absolute LH ratio values for this study were higher than those reported in prior research due in part to differences in wordlikeness and frequency of the stimuli in the current study. Taken together, the findings from this study show that an NRT consisting of 3-, 4-, and 5-syllable nonwords, which varies in wordlikeness ratings, when presented in a random order accurately identifies and correctly differentiates children with DLD from TD controls the child is bilingual or monolingual.

Classification Accuracy of Nonword Repetition When Used With Preschool-Age Spanish-Speaking Children

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Guiberson ◽  
Barbara L. Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Scoring Methods ◽  
Likelihood Ratios ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Item Level ◽  
Language Measure

Purpose The purpose of the present study was to (a) describe and compare the nonword repetition (NWR) performance of preschool-age Spanish-speaking children (3- to 5-year-olds) with and without language impairment (LI) across 2 scoring approaches and (b) to contrast the classification accuracy of a Spanish NWR task when item-level and percentage of phonemes correct (PPC) scoring methods are applied. Method Forty-four Spanish-speaking children participated. Twenty-one children had LI and 23 had typically developing (TD) language. Children were administered a Spanish NWR task and a standardized Spanish language measure. Results A developmental pattern in NWR performance was observed, and the children with LI had NWR scores that were significantly lower than those of the TD children. Whereas item-level scoring of NWR items indicated acceptable levels of sensitivity and specificity and suggested positive and negative likelihood ratios, PPC scoring of NWR items resulted in less than desirable levels of sensitivity and adequate specificity. Conclusion Item-level scoring of 3- to 5-syllable Spanish NWR items may be useful as part of an assessment battery for preschool-age Spanish-speaking children.

scholarly journals A Quasi-Universal Nonword Repetition Task as a Diagnostic Tool for Bilingual Children Learning Dutch as a Second Language

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 1747-1760 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tessel Boerma ◽  
Shula Chiat ◽  
Paul Leseman ◽  
Mona Timmermeister ◽  
Frank Wijnen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Tool ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Diagnostic Value ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Clinical Accuracy ◽  
Group A ◽  
Bilingual Group ◽  
Repetition Task

Purpose This study evaluated a newly developed quasi-universal nonword repetition task (Q-U NWRT) as a diagnostic tool for bilingual children with language impairment (LI) who have Dutch as a 2nd language. The Q-U NWRT was designed to be minimally influenced by knowledge of 1 specific language in contrast to a language-specific NWRT with which it was compared. Method One hundred twenty monolingual and bilingual children with and without LI participated (30 per group). A mixed-design analysis of variance was used to investigate the effects of LI and bilingualism on the NWRTs. Receiver operating characteristic analyses were conducted to evaluate the instruments' diagnostic value. Results Large negative effects of LI were found on both NWRTs, whereas negative effects of bilingualism only occurred on the language-specific NWRT. Both instruments had high clinical accuracy in the monolingual group, but only the Q-U NWRT had high clinical accuracy in the bilingual group. Conclusions This study indicates that the Q-U NWRT is a promising diagnostic tool to help identify LI in bilingual children learning Dutch as a 2nd language. The instrument was clinically accurate in both a monolingual and bilingual group of children and seems better able to disentangle LI from language disadvantage than more language-specific measures.

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