Language and Behavior Disorders in School-Age Children: Comorbidity and Communication in the Classroom

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 111-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Hollo

Language development is the foundation for competence in social, emotional, behavioral, and academic performance. Although language impairment (LI) is known to co-occur with behavioral and mental health problems, LI is likely to be overlooked in school-age children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD; Hollo, Wehby, & Oliver, in press). Because language deficits may contribute to the problem behavior and poor social development characteristic of children with EBD, the consequences of an undiagnosed language disorder can be devastating. Implications include the need to train school professionals to recognize communication deficits. Further, it is critically important that specialists collaborate to provide linguistic and behavioral support for students with EBD and LI.

Author(s):  
Samuel D. Calder ◽  
Mary Claessen ◽  
Susan Ebbels ◽  
Suze Leitão

Purpose The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of a theoretically motivated explicit intervention approach to improve regular past tense marking for early school-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Method Twenty-one children with DLD (ages 5;9–6;9 [years;months]) were included in a crossover randomized controlled trial (intervention, n = 10; waiting control, n = 11). Intervention included once-weekly sessions over 10 weeks using the SHAPE CODING system, in combination with a systematic cueing hierarchy to teach past tense marking. Once the first group completed intervention, the waiting control group crossed over to the intervention condition. The primary outcome was criterion-referenced measures of past tense marking with standardized measures of expressive and receptive grammar as the secondary outcome. Ancillary analyses on extension and behavioral control measures of morphosyntax were also conducted. Results There was a significant Time × Group interaction ( p < .001) with a significant difference in pre–post intervention improvement in favor of the intervention group ( p < .001, d = 3.03). Further analysis once both groups had received the intervention revealed no improvement for either group on past tense production during the 5-week pre-intervention period, significant improvement pre–post intervention ( p < . 001, d = 1.22), with gains maintained for 5 weeks postintervention. No significant differences were found on pre- to postintervention standardized measures of grammar, or on extension or control measures. Conclusions The efficacy of the theoretically motivated explicit grammar intervention was demonstrated. Results contribute to the evidence base supporting this intervention to improve past tense production in early school-age children with DLD, suggesting it is a viable option for clinicians to select when treating morphosyntactic difficulties for this population. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13345202


2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (10) ◽  
pp. 2924-2934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Eva Hallin ◽  
Christina Reuterskiöld

Purpose The first aim of this study was to investigate if Swedish-speaking school-age children with language impairment (LI) show specific morphosyntactic vulnerabilities in error detection. The second aim was to investigate the effects of lexical frequency on error detection, an overlooked aspect of previous error detection studies. Method Error sensitivity for grammatical structures vulnerable in Swedish-speaking preschool children with LI (omission of the indefinite article in a noun phrase with a neuter/common noun, and use of the infinitive instead of past-tense regular and irregular verbs) was compared to a control error (singular noun instead of plural). Target structures involved a high-frequency (HF) or a low-frequency (LF) noun/verb. Grammatical and ungrammatical sentences were presented in headphones, and responses were collected through button presses. Results Children with LI had similar sensitivity to the plural control error as peers with typical language development, but lower sensitivity to past-tense errors and noun phrase errors. All children showed lexical frequency effects for errors involving verbs (HF > LF), and noun gender effects for noun phrase errors (common > neuter). Conclusions School-age children with LI may have subtle difficulties with morphosyntactic processing that mirror expressive difficulties in preschool children with LI. Lexical frequency may affect morphosyntactic processing, which has clinical implications for assessment of grammatical knowledge.


2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 148-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea C. Ash ◽  
Sean M. Redmond

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.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Turini BOLSONI-SILVA ◽  
Sonia Regina LOUREIRO

Abstract The aim was to compare the social skills of preschool and school-age children, considering groups differentiated by behavior problem indicators, according to the assessment performed by parents and teachers. Children of both genders participated in this study. Parents/primary caregivers assessed 194 children and 294 children were assessed by their teachers. The results indicated that, for the parents and teachers, the children without problems were more socially skilled. The gender of the children distinguished the repertoire of social skills, according to their parents, mainly the school-age children. For the teachers, considering both school periods, girls were more socially skilled and, for both parents and teachers, boys presented more behavior problems. These data have implications for assessment and intervention procedures.


1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 434-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janna B. Oetting ◽  
Mabel L. Rice ◽  
Linda K. Swank

This study examined Quick Incidental Learning (QUIL) of novel vocabulary by two groups of school-age children, those who were developing language normally and those who demonstrated a specific language impairment (SLI). The experimental items consisted of 20 words that referred to one of four semantic classes: object, attribute, action, and affective state. Videotaped stories were used to introduce the novel words, and word learning was measured by a picture-pointing task. For the normally developing children, the results documented a robust ability to learn words in the early school years. Comprehension gains were observed for all four word types, with the greatest gain made on the object labels. The children with SLI also demonstrated some word-learning ability, but their gain was significantly less than that of their normally developing peers. Although the general pattern of word effects was similar across the two groups, the children with SLI demonstrated a particularly low gain on words from the action class.


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