Developing Noun Phrase Complexity at School Age: A Text-Embedded Cross-Linguistic Analysis

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorit Ravid ◽  
Ruth A. Berman
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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-62
Author(s):  
Sarah Amarorwot ◽  
Bebwa Isingoma ◽  
◽  

L2 Englishes are quintessentially characterized by cross-linguistic influence at all levels of linguistic analysis as a result of contact phenomena. This study examines the contribution of the syntax of a Ugandan indigenous language (Acholi) to how its L1 speakers speak English and the extent of variability observed among them, taking into account two grammatical aspects, i.e. how multiple attributive adjectives are sequenced in a noun phrase and the placement of adverbs in a sentence. The findings of the study show notable differences from L1 English (e.g. Standard British English), as L1 Acholi speakers of English do not necessarily pay attention to the prescribed L1 English order of adjectives. At the same time, the position of adverbs in a sentence also seems to be modeled, to some extent, on what takes place in Acholi syntax insofar as some legitimate L1 English structures are rejected by L1 Acholi speakers of English (as L2). Crucially, the study also reveals interspeaker variability among L1 Acholi speakers of English in Uganda based on occupation, with students being the closest to L1 English norms (as opposed to teachers and the business community), most likely due to exonormative orientation imposed on students in Ugandan schools.


Babel ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-150
Author(s):  
Amber L. Lewis

Abstract A great deal of speculation dominates the translation industry with regard to the effectiveness of (MT) Machine Translation, or translation software. This project investigates the conclusions of Bennet (1994) about the size of the UT (unit of translation), based on the raw translations of a sample text as produced by four competitive PC programs. These programs are all transfer systems, which employ a minimum UT, such as a single noun phrase. The sample text is an authentic business correspondence text. A linguistic analysis of the four translations is performed. Results of the analysis show that numerous errors are committed which require the intervention of the professional translator. This research concludes that, for this type of text, a transfer system is not cost-effective because it will still require extensive human editing. The semantic errors particularly demonstrate the need to emphasize research towards the development of translation software which incorporates a larger UT. Résumé L'industrie de la traduction est soumise à de nombreuses spéculations en ce qui concerne l'efficacité de la traduction informatisée (TI) ou des logiciels de traduction. Dans cet article, l'auteur examine les conclusions de Bennet (1994) concernant la dimension de l'unité de traduction (UT), basée sur les traductions brutes d'un texte servant d'échantillons et produites par quatre programmes concurrentiels sur PC. Tous ces programmes sont des systèmes de tranfert qui emploient une UT minimum, par exemple une phrase nominale simple. Le texte d'échantillon est une lettre commerciale existante. Les quatre traductions obtenues sont soumises à une analyse linguistique, dont les résultats indiquent plusieurs erreurs exigeant l'intervention d'un traducteur professionnel. Cette étude permet de conclure que pour ce genre de textes, les systèmes de tranfert ne sont pas rentables du point de vue du coût puisqu'ils doivent être corrigés par une personne. Les erreurs sémantiques en particulier rélèvent le besoin de développer des logiciels capables d'incorporer une plus grande UT.


2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
BOLETTE SANDFORD PEDERSEN

In this paper we focus on a specific search-related query expansion topic, namely search on Danish compounds and expansion to some of their synonymous phrases. Compounds constitute a specific issue in search, in particular in languages where they are written in one word, as is the case for Danish and the other Scandinavian languages. For such languages, expansion of the query compound into separate lemmas is a way of finding the often frequent alternative synonymous phrases in which the content of a compound can also be expressed. However, it is crucial to note that the number of irrelevant hits is generally very high when using this expansion strategy. The aim of this paper is therefore to examine how we can obtain better search results on split compounds, partly by looking at the internal structure of the original compound, partly by analyzing the context in which the split compound occurs. In this context, we pursue two hypotheses: (1) that some categories of compounds are more likely to have synonymous ‘split’ counterparts than others; and (2) that search results where both the search words (obtained by splitting the compound) occur in the same noun phrase, are more likely to contain a synonymous phrase to the original compound query. The search results from 410 enhanced compound queries are used as a test bed for our experiments. On these search results, we perform a shallow linguistic analysis and introduce a new, linguistically based threshold for retrieved hits. The results obtained by using this strategy demonstrate that compound splitting combined with a shallow linguistic analysis focusing on the argument structure of the compound head as well as on the recognition of NPs, can improve search by substantially bringing down the number of irrelevant hits.


1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Paul Dworkin

This study was designed to determine if a remedial program using a bite-block device could inhibit hypermandibular activity (HMA) and thereby improve the lingua-alveolar valving (LAV) abilities of four school-age children who demonstrated multiple lingua-alveolar (LA) phonemic errors. The results revealed significant improvements in LAV and LA phoneme articulatory skills in all of the children who used the bite-block device to reduce HMA subsequent to comprehensive training sessions.


1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole E. Johnson

Educational audiologists often must delegate certain tasks to other educational personnel who function as support personnel and need training in order to perform assigned tasks. Support personnel are people who, after appropriate training, perform tasks that are prescribed, directed, and supervised by a professional such as a certified and licensed audiologist. The training of support personnel to perform tasks that are typically performed by those in other disciplines is calledmultiskilling. This article discusses multiskilling and the use of support personnel in educational audiology in reference to the following principles: guidelines, models of multiskilling, components of successful multiskilling, and "dos and don’ts" for multiskilling. These principles are illustrated through the use of multiskilling in the establishment of a hearing aid monitoring program. Successful multiskilling and the use of support personnel by educational audiologists can improve service delivery to school-age children with hearing loss.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 807-820
Author(s):  
Lena G. Caesar ◽  
Marie Kerins

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between oral language, literacy skills, age, and dialect density (DD) of African American children residing in two different geographical regions of the United States (East Coast and Midwest). Method Data were obtained from 64 African American school-age children between the ages of 7 and 12 years from two geographic regions. Children were assessed using a combination of standardized tests and narrative samples elicited from wordless picture books. Bivariate correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to determine relationships to and relative contributions of oral language, literacy, age, and geographic region to DD. Results Results of correlation analyses demonstrated a negative relationship between DD measures and children's literacy skills. Age-related findings between geographic regions indicated that the younger sample from the Midwest outscored the East Coast sample in reading comprehension and sentence complexity. Multiple regression analyses identified five variables (i.e., geographic region, age, mean length of utterance in morphemes, reading fluency, and phonological awareness) that accounted for 31% of the variance of children's DD—with geographic region emerging as the strongest predictor. Conclusions As in previous studies, the current study found an inverse relationship between DD and several literacy measures. Importantly, geographic region emerged as a strong predictor of DD. This finding highlights the need for a further study that goes beyond the mere description of relationships to comparing geographic regions and specifically focusing on racial composition, poverty, and school success measures through direct data collection.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 1311-1315
Author(s):  
Sergey M. Kondrashov ◽  
John A. Tetnowski

Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of stuttering of school-age children who stutter and those of adults who stutter through the use of the same tools that could be commonly used by clinicians. Method Twenty-three participants across various ages and stuttering severity were administered both the Stuttering Severity Instrument–Fourth Edition (SSI-4; Riley, 2009 ) and the Wright & Ayre Stuttering Self-Rating Profile ( Wright & Ayre, 2000 ). Comparisons were made between severity of behavioral measures of stuttering made by the SSI-4 and by age (child/adult). Results Significant differences were obtained for the age comparison but not for the severity comparison. Results are explained in terms of the correlation between severity equivalents of the SSI-4 and the Wright & Ayre Stuttering Self-Rating Profile scores, with clinical implications justifying multi-aspect assessment. Conclusions Clinical implications indicate that self-perception and impact of stuttering must not be assumed and should be evaluated for individual participants. Research implications include further study with a larger subject pool and various levels of stuttering severity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1363-1370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Brown ◽  
Katy O'Brien ◽  
Kelly Knollman-Porter ◽  
Tracey Wallace

Purpose The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released guidelines for rehabilitation professionals regarding the care of children with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Given that mTBI impacts millions of children each year and can be particularly detrimental to children in middle and high school age groups, access to universal recommendations for management of postinjury symptoms is ideal. Method This viewpoint article examines the CDC guidelines and applies these recommendations directly to speech-language pathology practices. In particular, education, assessment, treatment, team management, and ongoing monitoring are discussed. In addition, suggested timelines regarding implementation of services by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are provided. Specific focus is placed on adolescents (i.e., middle and high school–age children). Results SLPs are critical members of the rehabilitation team working with children with mTBI and should be involved in education, symptom monitoring, and assessment early in the recovery process. SLPs can also provide unique insight into the cognitive and linguistic challenges of these students and can serve to bridge the gap among rehabilitation and school-based professionals, the adolescent with brain injury, and their parents. Conclusion The guidelines provided by the CDC, along with evidence from the field of speech pathology, can guide SLPs to advocate for involvement in the care of adolescents with mTBI. More research is needed to enhance the evidence base for direct assessment and treatment with this population; however, SLPs can use their extensive knowledge and experience working with individuals with traumatic brain injury as a starting point for post-mTBI care.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 622-636
Author(s):  
John Heilmann ◽  
Alexander Tucci ◽  
Elena Plante ◽  
Jon F. Miller

Purpose The goal of this clinical focus article is to illustrate how speech-language pathologists can document the functional language of school-age children using language sample analysis (LSA). Advances in computer hardware and software are detailed making LSA more accessible for clinical use. Method This clinical focus article illustrates how documenting school-age student's communicative functioning is central to comprehensive assessment and how using LSA can meet multiple needs within this assessment. LSA can document students' meaningful participation in their daily life through assessment of their language used during everyday tasks. The many advances in computerized LSA are detailed with a primary focus on the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller & Iglesias, 2019). The LSA process is reviewed detailing the steps necessary for computers to calculate word, morpheme, utterance, and discourse features of functional language. Conclusion These advances in computer technology and software development have made LSA clinically feasible through standardized elicitation and transcription methods that improve accuracy and repeatability. In addition to improved accuracy, validity, and reliability of LSA, databases of typical speakers to document status and automated report writing more than justify the time required. Software now provides many innovations that make LSA simpler and more accessible for clinical use. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12456719


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