Textual cohesion in oral narrative and procedural discourse: the effects of ageing and cognitive skills

Background: A narrative requires the integration and management of linguistic and cognitive skills. It has been observed that children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have difficulties in narrating stories. This research proposes an intervention in a case of a child 9 years and 2 months old with DLD, with the aim of improving his oral narrative skills through a retelling task via telepractice. Methods: In the evaluation, standardized tests have been used and a ‘remembering a story’ task, with a story titled The Lost Backpack, elaborated by one of the authors. Narratives were elicited in two sessions, and were transcribed, coded, and analysed using the Child Language Data Exchange System CHILDES Project tool. The participant received a total of 10 sessions through the Skype platform, which included intervention-addressed explicit instruction about the narrative structure and the use of discourse markers to improve cohesion in story retelling. Results: Significant changes were observed in the retelling of the story at microstructure and macrostructure levels: an increase of the Mean Length of Utterance (MLU), Types and Tokens, specific vocabulary, discourse markers and the recall of events. Conclusions: These results demonstrate the effectiveness of intervention in narrative skills through the oral retelling of a story with visual support via tele-practice.

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Effects of a Home Literacy Environment Program on Psychlinguistic Variables in Children from 6 to 8 Years of Age

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18063085 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (6) ◽

pp. 3085

Author(s):

Marta Romero-González ◽

Rocío Lavigne-Cerván ◽

Marta Sánchez-Muñoz de León ◽

Sara Gamboa-Ternero ◽

Rocío Juárez-Ruiz de Mier ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Elementary Education ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Intervention Program ◽

Home Literacy Environment ◽

Home Literacy ◽

Read Aloud ◽

Oral Narrative ◽

School Students ◽

Literacy Environment ◽

Reading Decoding

(1) Background: the objective of this study was to improve certain psycholinguistic and cognitive skills that are fundamental to the development of the reading process, such as phonological awareness, reading decoding, vocabulary and oral narrative comprehension, through the introduction of an Home Literacy Environment Active (HLE(A)) program that involved 54 participants enrolled in the first and second grades of elementary school (from 6 to 8 years old) in the city of Malaga area. (2) Methods: The central task of the intervention program was for the child to read aloud to an adult in the family for between 10 and 15 min, four days per week. In addition, the school students were evaluated on four occasions, at the beginning and end of each academic year, using the Batería de Evaluación de los Procesos Lectores Revisada, Test para la Detección de la Dislexia en niños and Escala Weschsler de Inteligencia instruments. (3) Results: the results demonstrated the efficacy of the HLE(A) program in the improvement of psycholinguistic and cognitive variables measured and, consequently, to an improvement in reading learning and cognitive development. Ultimately, the scientific literature on the subject and the data from the study led us to suggest that it would not only be beneficial for HLE(A) programs to be instituted in early childhood education stage (up to 6 years of age), but that they should be continued after age 6, in elementary education.

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Go Climb a Tree (to Improve Cognitive Skills)

ASHA Leader ◽

10.1044/leader.rib2.20102015.16 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 (10) ◽

pp. 16-16

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Skills

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After Dismissal: Examining the Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Skills of Children With Remediated Speech Sound Disorders

Perspectives on School-Based Issues ◽

10.1044/sbi16.2.50 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 50-59 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Kelly Farquharson

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Speech Production ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Speech Sound ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Speech Sound Disorders ◽

Academic Difficulties ◽

The Public ◽

Age Appropriate ◽

Language Literacy

Speech sound disorders are a complex and often persistent disorder in young children. For many children, therapy results in successful remediation of the errored productions as well as age-appropriate literacy and academic progress. However, for some children, while they may attain age-appropriate speech production skills, they later have academic difficulties. For SLPs in the public schools, these children present as challenging in terms of both continuing treatment as well as in terms of caseload management. What happens after dismissal? Have these children truly acquired adequate speech production skills? Do they have lingering language, literacy, and cognitive deficits? The purpose of this article is to describe the language, literacy, and cognitive features of a small group of children with remediated speech sound disorders compared to their typically developing peers.

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Re-conceptualizing Machiavellianism and Social-Cognitive Skills

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001/a000340 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

William Hart ◽

Christopher J. Breeden ◽

Charlotte Kinrade

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Skills ◽

Person Perception ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Cognitive Skill ◽

Prediction Skill ◽

Current Evidence ◽

College Sample ◽

Social Prediction

Abstract. Machiavellianism is presumed to encompass advanced social-cognitive skill, but research has generally suggested that Machiavellian individuals are rather deficient in social-cognitive skill. However, previous research on the matter has been limited to measures of (a) Machiavellianism that are unidimensional and saturated with both antagonism and disinhibition and measures (b) only one type of social-cognitive skill. Using a large college sample ( N = 461), we examined how various dimensions of Machiavellianism relate to two types of social-cognitive skill: person-perception skill and general social prediction skill. Consistent with some prior theorizing, the planful dimension of Machiavellianism was positively related to both person-perception and general social prediction skills; antagonistic dimensions of Machiavellianism were negatively related to both skills; either agentic or cynical dimensions of Machiavellianism were generally unrelated to both skills. Overall, the current evidence suggests a complicated relationship between Machiavellianism and social-cognitive skill because Machiavellianism encompasses features that blend deficiency, proficiency, and average levels of social-cognitive skills.

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