scholarly journals Specific Language Impairment (SLI): The Internet Ralli Campaign to Raise Awareness of SLI

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Conti-Ramsden ◽  
Dorothy V. M. Bishop ◽  
Becky Clark ◽  
Courtenay Frazier Norbury ◽  
Margaret J. Snowling

Abstract In this short article, we discuss what is specific language impairment (SLI) and why it is a hidden disability that few people have heard about. We describe the impact on research, policy and practice of SLI being a neglected condition. We end by providing the background and rationale of a new internet campaign, RALLI (www.youtube.com/rallicampaign), aimed at changing this state of affairs and raising awareness of SLI.

Author(s):  
Ahmed Esmael ◽  
Sara Elsherbeny ◽  
Mohammed Abbas

Abstract Background Epileptiform activities can cause transient or permanent deficits that affect the children during development and may be accompanied by neurodevelopmental disorders like specific language impairment. Objectives The objective of this study was to find if there is a possible association and the impact of epilepsy and epileptiform activity in children with specific language impairment. Patients and methods The study was conducted on 80 children suffering from specific language impairment and 80 age and sex match healthy control children. Computed tomography brain was performed and electroencephalography was recorded for children. Intelligence quotient level, cognitive age, social, and phoniatric assessment were done for all patients. Results Eighty children with specific language impairment (51 males and 29 females) with a mean age of 4.11 ± 1.93. Patients with specific language impairment showed significantly higher rates of abnormal electroencephalography (P = 0.006) and epilepsy (P < 0.001) compared to the control group. Spearman correlation demonstrated a highly negative significant relationship linking the language, intelligence quotient with abnormal electroencephalography and epilepsy (r = − 0.91, P < 0.01 and r = − 0.91, P < 0.01 respectively). Also, there was a moderately inverse significant relationship linking the cognitive age, social with abnormal electroencephalography, and epilepsy (r = − 0.70, P < 0.05 and r = − 0.65, P < 0.05 respectively). Conclusion Epileptiform activities even without epilepsy in preschool children may alter normal language function. Specific language impairment was associated with lower intelligence quotient levels, social, and cognitive age. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT04141332


1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1444-1458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Ellis Weismer ◽  
Linda J. Hesketh

This investigation examined the influence of emphatic stress on children's novel word learning. Forty school-age children participated in this study, including 20 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 20 children with normal language (NL) development. Results indicated that there were no significant stress effects for comprehension or recognition of novel words (for which all children demonstrated relatively high levels of performance); however, children in both groups exhibited significantly better production of words that had been presented with emphatic stress than with neutral stress. These findings are discussed within a limited capacity framework of language processing.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill Matson ◽  
Tony Cline

The impact of specific language impairment (SLI) on the acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills has been well researched. In contrast little has been written on its impact on the third core subject in the National Curriculum (NC) of science and this article describes a preliminary investigation into the scientific reasoning skills of children with SLI in comparison with those of typically developing (TD) children. In individual assessment sessions 11 pairs of target children with SLI and control TD children in the Key Stage (KS) 2 age span (ages 7–11 years) undertook a series of scientific reasoning tasks appropriate to their age involving receptive and expressive language skills. The children with SLI had for the most part significantly more difficulty with expressive language tasks (ELTs) than the TD children, in spite of the provision of scaffolding, and there was some evidence that they also had greater difficulty with the production of causal connectives, e.g. because, so. However, there was no difference between the two groups on receptive language tasks (RLTs) when scaffolding was used. Some possible implications for pedagogy are considered in light of these findings, and problems in matching children with SLI and TD controls are discussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 956-970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Nys ◽  
Alain Content ◽  
Jacqueline Leybaert

Purpose Counting and exact arithmetic rely on language-based representations, whereas number comparison and approximate arithmetic involve approximate quantity-based representations that are available early in life, before the first stages of language acquisition. The objective of this study was to examine the impact of language abilities on the later development of exact and approximate number skills. Method Twenty-eight 7- to 14-year-old children with specific language impairment (SLI) completed exact and approximate number tasks involving quantities presented symbolically and nonsymbolically. They were compared with age-matched (AM) and vocabulary-matched (VM) children. Results In the exact arithmetic task, the accuracy of children with SLI was lower than that of AM and VM controls and related to phonological measures. In the symbolic approximate tasks, children with SLI were less accurate than AM controls, but the difference vanished when their cognitive skills were considered or when they were compared with younger VM controls. In the nonsymbolic approximate tasks, children with SLI did not differ significantly from controls. Further, accuracy in the approximate number tasks was unrelated to language measures. Conclusions Language impairment is related to reduced exact arithmetic skills, whereas it does not intrinsically affect the development of approximate number skills in children with SLI.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yara Aljahlan ◽  
Tammie J. Spaulding

Purpose This study investigated attentional shifting in preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) compared to their typically developing peers. Children's attentional shifting capacity was assessed by varying attentional demands. Method Twenty-five preschool children with SLI and 25 age-matched, typically developing controls participated. A behavioral task measuring attentional shifting within and across multiple dimensions (auditory, linguistic, and visual) was employed. Demands on attentional shifting were increased based on input dimension (low load: staying within dimension; medium load: shifting between 2 dimensions; and high load: shifting among 3 dimensions). Results Compared to controls, the group with SLI made more erroneous responses and exhibited longer response times. Although both groups' error rates were similarly affected by shifting compared to nonshifting trials, their response speed was not. The group with SLI exhibited a larger comparative decrement to their response speed in the high–attentional load condition. Discussion When demands on attentional shifting increase, children with SLI struggle to shift their attention as efficiently to changing stimuli as their unimpaired peers. Potential implications for the assessment and treatment of this population are discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN OTT ◽  
BARBARA HÖHLE

ABSTRACTPrevious research has shown that high phonotactic frequencies facilitate the production of regularly inflected verbs in English-learning children with specific language impairment (SLI) but not with typical development (TD). We asked whether this finding can be replicated for German, a language with a much more complex inflectional verb paradigm than English. Using an elicitation task, the production of inflected nonce verb forms (3rd person singular with -t suffix) with either high- or low-frequency subsyllables was tested in sixteen German-learning children with SLI (ages 4;1–5;1), sixteen TD-children matched for chronological age (CA) and fourteen TD-children matched for verbal age (VA) (ages 3;0–3;11). The findings revealed that children with SLI, but not CA- or VA-children, showed differential performance between the two types of verbs, producing more inflectional errors when the verb forms resulted in low-frequency subsyllables than when they resulted in high-frequency subsyllables, replicating the results from English-learning children.


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