Effect of language therapy alone for developmental language disorder in children: A meta-analysis.

Despite numerous studies on the treatment of developmental language disorder (DLD), the intervention effect has long been debated. Systematic reviews of the effect of language therapy alone are rare. This evidence-based study investigated the effect of language therapy alone for different expressive and receptive language levels in children with DLD. Publications in databases including PubMed, the Cochrane Library, the Wanfang Database and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure were searched. Randomized controlled trials were selected. The methodological quality of the included trials was assessed using the modified Jadad method. RevMan 5.3 software was used for the data analysis. Fifteen trials were included in this study. Compared with the control (no or delayed intervention) group, the intervention group showed significant differences in overall expressive language development [standard mean differences (SMD), 0.46; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.12-0.80], mean length of utterances in a language sample (SMD, 2.16; 95% CI, 0.39-3.93), number of utterances in a language sample (SMD, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.21-0.84), parent reports of expressive phrase complexity (SMD, 1.24; 95% CI, 0.78-1.70), overall expressive vocabulary development (SMD, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.17-0.69) and different words used in a language sample (SMD, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.35-0.88). However, language therapy did not show satisfactory long-term effects on DLD. Although language therapy is helpful in improving the performance of children with DLD, its long-term effect is unsatisfactory.

Therapists' Expressions of Agreement in Therapeutic Conversations With Chinese Children With ASD: Strategies, Sequential Positions and Functions.

Based on conversations between 10 Chinese children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and five therapists in the context of Naturalistic Intervention, this study investigated the therapists' agreement expressions in this typical setting. The study found that (1) the therapists mainly used four agreement strategies: acknowledgment, positive evaluation, repetition and blending. These four strategies could be used individually or in combination. The first three strategies and their combinations were used frequently during the therapeutic conversation. (2) With the major occurrences in the post-expansion position, the agreement expressions in the therapeutic conversation mainly performed three functions, namely, creating a supportive therapeutic relationship, serving as positive reinforcers and implementing interventions pertinent to communication skills. (3) This study proposed that the therapists' preferred use of agreement expressions in the intervention process could be explained by the features of Naturalistic Intervention.

Association of affect with vertical position in L1 but not in L2 in unbalanced bilinguals.

After judging the valence of the positive (e.g., happy) and the negative words (e.g., sad), the participants' response to the letter (q or p) was faster and slower, respectively, when the letter appeared at the upper end than at the lower end of the screen in Meier and Robinson's (2004) second experiment. To compare this metaphorical association of affect with vertical position in Chinese-English bilinguals' first language (L1) and second language (L2) (language), we conducted four experiments in an affective priming task. The targets were one set of positive or negative words (valence), which were shown vertically above or below the center of the screen (position). The primes, presented at the center of the screen, were affective words that were semantically related to the targets, affective words that were not semantically related to the targets, affective icon-pictures, and neutral strings in Experiment 1-4, respectively. In judging the targets' valence, the participants showed different patterns of interactions between language, valence, and position in reaction times across the experiments. We concluded that metaphorical association between affect and vertical position works in L1 but not in L2 for unbalanced bilinguals.

The Processing of Visual and Phonological Configurations of Chinese One- and Two-Character Words in a Priming Task of Semantic Categorization.

To separate the contribution of phonological from that of visual-orthographic information in the recognition of a Chinese word that is composed of one or two Chinese characters, we conducted two experiments in a priming task of semantic categorization (PTSC), in which length (one- or two-character words), relation, prime (related or unrelated prime-target pairs), and SOA (47, 87, or 187 ms) were manipulated. The prime was similar to the target in meaning or in visual configuration in Experiment A and in meaning or in pronunciation in Experiment B. The results indicate that the two-character words were similar to the one-character words but were less demanding of cognitive resources than the one-character words in the processing of phonological, visual-orthographic, and semantic information. The phonological primes had a facilitating effect at the SOA of 47 ms but an inhibitory effect at the SOA of 187 ms on the participants' reaction times; the visual-orthographic primes only had an inhibitory influence on the participants' reaction times at the SOA of 187 ms. The visual configuration of a Chinese word of one or two Chinese characters has its own contribution in helping retrieve the word's meanings; similarly, the phonological configuration of a one- or two-character word plays its own role in triggering activations of the word's semantic representations.