A new perspective on referentiality in elicited narratives: Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue investigates the use of referential expressions in elicited picture-based narratives by children with and without developmental language disorders, across a range of languages and language combinations. All contributions use the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN, Gagarina et al. 2012, 2019). The studies featured in this issue cover monolingual and bilingual children aged 4–11 years, but focus mainly on age 4–7, a period in a child’s life where great strides are made in the development of narrative skills. This collection of papers offers a new perspective on referentiality for several reasons: all studies use the same stimuli and by and large the same procedure for the elicitation of narratives. The stimuli, four picture-based stories, are controlled for comparability of protagonists, plot and story structure. They were designed as a ‘visual’ representation of a multidimensional model of story grammar. This methodological and theoretical base allows for a comparative investigation of referentiality (including reference introduction, maintenance and reintroduction) in narratives, across languages and populations. This introduction addresses theoretical aspects of referentiality in decontextualised discourse and reviews the literature regarding the impact of language-specific referential systems and the age and path of acquisition in typically developing children and children with developmental language disorders. We also discuss methodological aspects of eliciting referentiality in narratives in detail. This introduction thus seeks explanations for the diverse and sometimes contradictory empirical results regarding children’s mastery of referentiality. Finally, an overview of the contributions in the special issue is given.

Socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with prevalence of developmental language disorders, but not rate of language or literacy growth in children from 4 to 11 years: evidence from the Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study (SCALES)

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the changing prevalence of developmental language disorders at different quintiles of the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI), a measure of neighbourhood deprivation. In addition, this study investigated the long term association of IDACI rank with growth in language and literacy skills for children with and without language disorder over a six year period.Design. Prospective, population-based, longitudinal cohort study.Setting. State-maintained primary schools in Surrey, England.Participants and procedure. Teachers rated the language skills of 7267 children starting a state-maintained school in 2011 (aged 4;9-5;10, 59% of all eligible children). Comprehensive language and literacy assessment was conducted with a monolingual sub-sample in Year 1 (n = 529, age 5-6), Year 3 (n = 499, age 7-8), and Year 6 (n = 384, age 10-11).Analytic methods. Logistic regression determined the association of IDACI scores and teacher-rated language proficiency. Structural Equation Models using auxiliary variables estimated the association of IDACI and prevalence of developmental Language Disorder (LD) in Year 1, and IDACI and language and literacy growth from Years 1 – 6.Results. Predicted probability of language disorder was 2.5 times greater at the 10th centile of IDACI rank (.19 [.11, .27]) versus the 90th centile (.07 [.04, .09]). IDACI rank did not associate with growth in raw scores on measures of vocabulary, grammar, or word reading. Socioeconomic gaps in vocabulary and grammar were ameliorated when language status at school entry was accounted for, but persisted for word reading. Conclusions. The association of neighbourhood disadvantage with language and literacy primarily reflects higher rates of language disorder in areas of socio-economic deprivation. Interventions that alleviate deprivation and enhance the language and literacy experiences of disadvantaged children could reduce socioeconomic attainment gaps. However, the persistence of language disorder suggests on-going support is required to attenuate personal and societal cost.

Kognitív Kontroll Folyamatok Nyelvfejlődési Zavart Mutató Egynyelvű és Tipikusan Fejlődő Kétnyelvű Gyermekek Körében

CélkitűzésJelen tanulmány célja, hogy bemutassa a kognitív kontrollal kapcsolatos elméleti koncepciókat, kiemelve azokat a fő komponenseket, amelyek szoros összefüggést mutatnak a nyelvi folyamatokkal. Rámutatunk többek között arra, hogy a nyelvi kompetencia és performancia egyes faktorai milyen összefüggést mutatnak a kognitív kontroll funkciókkal.MódszerTanulmányunkban egynyelvű nyelvfejlődési zavart mutató és tipikusan fejlődő kétnyelvű gyermekek kognitív kontroll teljesítményét elemezzük a legújabb kutatási eredmények alapján. Az áttekintésbe bevont tanulmányok kiválasztása során a következő szempontokat vettük fi gyelembe: a célcsoportot iskoláskorú, egynyelvű nyelvfejlődési zavart mutató gyermekek vagy iskoláskorú, tipikus fejlődésű kétnyelvű gyermekek alkossák; a használt vizsgálóeljárások a válaszgátlás, az interferenciával szembeni ellenállás, a munkamemória-frissítés és a kognitív fl exibilitás fejlettségéről nyújtsanak információkat.EredményekÖsszességében elmondható, hogy a két vizsgált csoport heterogenitásának és az eltérő módszertani megközelítéseknek köszönhetően a szakirodalomban számos ellentmondással találkozhatunk. Mégis az általunk vizsgált kognitív kontroll funkciók tekintetében az a tendencia fi gyelhető meg, hogy míg az interferenciával szembeni ellenállás, a munkamemória-frissítés és a kognitív fl exibilitás gyengébb a nyelvfejlődési zavart mutató gyermekeknél egynyelvű, tipikusan fejlődő társaikhoz képest, addig a kétnyelvű gyermekek ezekben a funkciókban többnyire jobb teljesítményt nyújtanak az egynyelvűekhez viszonyítva, kivéve a válaszgátlást.KövetkeztetésekAz eredmények alapján elmondható, hogy az interferenciával szembeni ellenállás és a kognitív fl exibilitás szorosabb összefüggést mutat a nyelvi fejlettséggel, mint a válaszgátlás. Ez az interakció azonban eltérő irányt mutat a fenti két nyelvi csoportban. Míg a nyelvfejlődési zavart mutató gyermekek gyengébb kognitív kontroll teljesítménye hozzájárul az alacsonyabb szintű nyelvi teljesítményeikhez, addig a kétnyelvű gyermekek előnye e kognitív funkciók terén a speciális nyelvhasználati szokásoknak és a két nyelv közötti folyamatos versengésnek köszönhető.PurposeThe goal of this study is to present the theoretical conceptions related to cognitive control, highlighting those main components that show a close relationship with language processing. Further, our goal was to review these functions in two distinct language groups: children with developmental language disorders and typically developing bilingual children. Specifi cally, we were interested in the way certain factors of language competence and performance interact with the cognitive control functions.MethodWe compared the cognitive control functions between monolingual children with developmental language disorders and their typically developing peers, as well as between bilingual children and their monolingual peers. The following aspects were considered for our review: the target population - school-age monolingual children with developmental language disorders or school-age typically developing bilingual children; studies that employed tasks that measure response inhibition, resistance to interference, working memory updating and cognitive fl exibility.ResultsOverall, there are many confl icting results in the literature due to the heterogeneity of the groups and the differences across methodological approaches. Despite these inconsistencies, children’s cognitive control functions are highly associated with their language skills; while the children with developmental language disorders show defi cits in resistance to interference, working memory updating, and cognitive fl exibility compared to their typically developing peers, the bilingual children show superior performance in these functions compared to their monolingual peers. Response inhibition was the only function that did not differ across groups.ConclusionsBased on the above, language development shows a close relationship with a number of cognitive control functions. The interaction between cognitive control and language, however, indicates different directions in the two target groups. Whereas poor cognitive control in children with developmental language disorders may contribute to their lower level of language skills, the cognitive advantage of bilingual children is the result of their bilingual language use and practice across different social contexts.

Morphological Errors in Spanish-Speaking Bilingual Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorders

Purpose The purpose of this study was to find morphological markers with good diagnostic accuracy to identify developmental language disorders (DLD) in Spanish–English bilingual children. Method The participants in this study included 66 Spanish–English bilingual children between the ages of 4;0 and 6;11 (years;months) with ( n = 33) and without DLD ( n = 33). We employed a comprehensive production task in Spanish to elicit morphological structures that have been previously found to be problematic for Spanish-speaking children with DLD. These structures included elements of nominal morphology (articles, direct object pronouns, adjectives, and plurals) and verbal morphology (verbs and the subjunctive mood). Logistic regression was used in this study to find a set of grammatical structures that most accurately predicted group membership. Results Spanish–English bilingual children with and without DLD significantly differed from each other in their accurate production of articles, clitics, adjectives, verbs, and the subjunctive mood. Clitics, verbs, and the subjunctive mood in isolation had adequate diagnostic accuracy. A combination of verb and subjective mood accuracy best predicted group membership in this study (sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 91%). Conclusion In addition to clitics, verbs, and the subjunctive mood, both elements of verbal morphology should be considered grammatical markers of DLD in Spanish–English bilingual children. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13641320