Development of verb inflections among Bangla-speaking children with language disorder.

BACKGROUND: Children with language disorder across languages have problems with verb morphology. The nature of these problems varies according to the typology of the language. The language analyzed in this paper is the Standard Bangla spoken in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by more than 200 million people. It is an underexplored language with agglutinative features in its verb inflections. Some information on the acquisition of the language by typically developing children is available, but to date we have no information on the nature of ALD. As in many places in the developing world, the circumstances for research into language disorder are challenging, as there is no well-ordered infrastructure for the identification of these children and approaches to intervention are not evidence based. This study represents the first attempt to characterize the nature of morphosyntactic limitations in standard Bangla-speaking children with language disorder. AIMS: To describe the performance of a group of children with language disorder on elicitation procedures for three Bangla verb inflections of increasing structural complexity-present simple, present progressive and past progressive-and to compare their abilities on these forms with those of a group of typically developing Bangla-speaking children. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Nine children with language disorder (mean age = 88.11 months) were recruited from a special school in Dhaka. Eight of the children also had a differentiating or co-occurring condition. They responded to three tasks: a semi-structured conversation to elicit present simple, and two picture-based tasks to elicit present progressive and past progressive. Their performance was compared with data available from a large group of younger typically developing children. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Group data indicated a comparable trajectory of performance by the children with language disorder with the typically developing children (present simple > present progressive > past progressive), but with significantly lower mean scores. Standard deviations suggested considerable individual variation and individual profiles were constructed for each child, revealing varying patterns of ability, some of which did not accord with the typical developmental trajectory and/or substitution patterns. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: This study identified verb morphology deficits in Bangla-speaking children with language disorder who had asociated conditions. Variation in performance among the children suggests that individual profiles will be most effective in guiding intervention.

The impact of phonological neighborhood density on typical and atypical emerging lexicons*.

According to the Extended Statistical Learning account (ExSL; Stokes, Kern & dos Santos, 2012) late talkers (LTs) continue to use neighborhood density (ND) as a cue for word learning when their peers no longer use a density learning mechanism. In the current article, LTs expressive (active) lexicon ND values differed from those of their age-matched, but not language-matched, TD peers, a finding that provided support for the ExSL account. Stokes (2010) claimed that LTs had difficulty abstracting sparse words, but not dense, from the ambient language. If true, then LTs' receptive (passive), as well as active lexicons should be comprised of words of high ND. However, in the current research only active lexicons were of high ND. LTs' expressive lexicons may be small not because of an abstraction deficit, but because they are unable to develop sufficiently strong phonological representations to support word production.

Community-based early intervention for language delay: a preliminary investigation.

BACKGROUND: A trial parent-focused early intervention (PFEI) programme for children with delayed language development is reported in which current research evidence was translated and applied within the constraints of available of clinical resources. The programme, based at a primary school, was run by a speech-language pathologist with speech-language pathology students. AIM: To investigate the changes in child language development and parent and child interactions following attendance at the PFEI. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Eighteen parents and their children attended six, weekly group sessions in which parents were provided with strategies to maximize language learning in everyday contexts. Pre- and post-programme assessments of vocabulary size and measures of parent-child interaction were collected. OUTCOME & RESULTS: Parents and children significantly increased their communicative interactions from pre- to post-treatment. Children's expressive vocabulary size and language skills increased significantly. Large-effect sizes were observed. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The positive outcomes of the intervention programme contribute to the evidence base of intervention strategies and forms of service delivery for children at risk of language delay.

Extended Statistical Learning as an account for slow vocabulary growth.

Stokes (2010) compared the lexicons of English-speaking late talkers (LT) with those of their typically developing (TD) peers on neighborhood density (ND) and word frequency (WF) characteristics and suggested that LTs employed learning strategies that differed from those of their TD peers. This research sought to explore the cross-linguistic validity of this conclusion. The lexicons (production, not recognition) of 208 French-speaking two-year-old children were coded for ND and WF. Regression revealed that ND and WF together predicted 62% of the variance in vocabulary size, with ND and WF uniquely accounting for 53% and 9% of that variance respectively. Epiphenomenal findings were ruled out by comparison of simulated data sets with the actual data. A generalized Mann-Whitney test showed that children with small vocabularies had significantly higher ND values and significantly lower WF values than children with large vocabularies. An EXTENDED STATISTICAL LEARNING theory is proposed to account for the findings.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Usage for Late Talkers Treatment: Effect on Expressive Vocabulary and Phonology.

Purpose This study examined the effect of Vocabulary Acquisition and Usage for Late Talkers (VAULT) treatment on toddlers' expressive vocabulary and phonology. Parent acceptability of VAULT treatment was also considered. Method We used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline single case experimental design with three late talking toddlers aged 21-25 months. The treatment was delivered twice weekly in 30-min sessions for 8 weeks by a rotating team of four speech-language pathologists. Toddlers heard three of their 10 strategically selected target words a minimum of 64 times in play activities each session. Expressive vocabulary and phonology was assessed pre-post, with parent interviews conducted posttreatment. Results All toddlers increased production of target words and expressive vocabulary. Ambient expressive vocabulary size increased by an average of 16 words per week (range of 73-169 words learned over the treatment period). On a 20-item, single-word speech assessment, the toddlers' phonetic inventories increased on average from three to seven consonants, and five to eight vowels. Two toddlers used protowords pretreatment, which were replaced by recognizable attempts at words posttreatment. Parents reported the treatment was acceptable for the child and their family with future consideration of parent-based delivery of the treatment in the home. Conclusions The results of this treatment provide further evidence of a model of intervention informed by the principles of implicit learning, and the interconnectedness of phonological and lexical learning. Investigation is required to establish the efficacy and feasibility of VAULT in clinical contexts. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14714733.

The use of facilitative vowel contexts in the treatment of post-alveolar fronting: a case study.

BACKGROUND: School-aged children with persisting speech sound disorders (SSDs) may show little improvement in speech accuracy following phonological or articulation therapy. AIMS: To determine the effects of establishing consonant production in facilitative vowel contexts for a 7-year-old boy (CD) with persisting post-alveolar fronting. CD had received phonological awareness therapy and traditional articulation therapy as part of a community caseload. However, his post-alveolar fronting showed resistance to therapy. METHODS & PROCEDURES: CD received individual therapy for nine 45-55-min sessions. A checklist of quality indicators for single-subject research was used to explore the likelihood that a community clinic could meet quality indicators. Fifteen test words in each of target, generalization and control sets were measured at five times pre-, during and post-therapy. A trend analysis was used to measure the statistical significance of the results and to demonstrate the efficacy of therapy. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Therapy was successful. Gains on treatment and generalization test items were rapid and significantly higher than gains on control test items. Only three of 21 single-subject research quality indicators were not met in this research. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Targeting facilitative vowel contexts was successful for this 7-year-old boy with persisting post-alveolar fronting which had been resistant to other therapy techniques. Speech and language therapists are encouraged to ensure that quality indicators for single-subject interventions are built into regular practice.

Narrative-based intervention for word-finding difficulties: a case study.

BACKGROUND: Children with word-finding difficulties manifest a high frequency of word-finding characteristics in narrative, yet word-finding interventions have concentrated on single-word treatments and outcome measures. AIMS: This study measured the effectiveness of a narrative-based intervention in improving single-word picture-naming and word-finding characteristics in narrative in a case study. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A case study, quasi-experimental design was employed. The participant was tested on picture naming and spoken word to picture matching on control and treatment words at pre-, mid-, and post-therapy and an 8-month maintenance point. Narrative samples at pre- and post-therapy were analysed for word-finding characteristics and language production. A narrative-based language intervention for word-finding difficulties (NBLI-WF) was carried out for eight sessions, over 3 weeks. The data were subjected to a repeated-measures trend analysis for dichotomous data. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Significant improvement occurred for naming accuracy of treatment, but not for control words. The pattern of word-finding characteristics in narrative changed, but the frequency did not reduce. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: NBLI-WF was effective in improving naming accuracy in this single case, but there were limitations to the research. Further research is required to assess the changes that may occur in language production and word-finding characteristics in narrative. Community clinicians are encouraged to refine clinical practice to ensure clinical research meets quality indicators.

Optional elements and variant structures in the productions of bei2 'to give' dative constructions in Cantonese-speaking adults and three-year-old children.

To express object transfer, Cantonese-speakers use a 'ditransitive' ([V-R-T] or [V-T-R] where V=Verb, T=Theme, R=Recipient), or a more complex prepositional/serial-verb (P/SV) construction. Clausal elements in Cantonese datives can be optional (resulting in 'full' versus 'non-full' forms) or appear in variant orders (full non-canonical and full canonical). We report on usage of dative constructions with the word bei2 'to give' in 86 parents and 53 three-year-old children during conversations. The parents used more P/SV than ditransitive bei2-datives, and vice versa for the children. Both groups showed a similar usage pattern of optional elements and variant structures in their ditransitive and P/SV bei2-datives. The roles of multiple construction types, optional elements and variant structures in children's learning of bei2-dative constructions are described.

Successful Implicit Vocabulary Intervention for Three Cantonese-Speaking Toddlers: A Replicated Single-Case Design.

Purpose We report on a replicated single-case design study that measured the feasibility of an expressive vocabulary intervention for three Cantonese-speaking toddlers with small expressive lexicons relative to their age. The aim was to assess the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic feasibility of an intervention method developed for English-speaking children. Method A nonconcurrent multiple-baseline design was used with four baseline data points and 16 intervention sessions per participant. The intervention design incorporated implicit learning principles, high treatment dosage, and control of the phonological neighborhood density of the stimuli. The children (24-39 months) attended 7-9 weeks of twice weekly input-based treatment in which no explicit verbal production was required from the child. Each target word was provided as input a minimum of 64 times in at least two intervention sessions. Treatment feasibility was measured by comparison of how many of the target and control words the child produced across the intervention period, and parent-reported expressive vocabulary checklists were completed for comparison of pre- and postintervention child spoken vocabulary size. An omnibus effect size for the treatment effect of the number of target and control words produced across time was calculated using Kendall's Tau. Results There was a significant treatment effect for target words learned in intervention relative to baselines, and all children produced significantly more target than control words across the intervention period. The effect of phonological neighborhood density on expressive word production could not be evaluated because two of the three children learned all target words. Conclusion The results provide cross-cultural evidence of the feasibility of a model of intervention that incorporated a high-dosage, cross-situational statistical learning paradigm to teach spoken word production to children with small expressive lexicons.

Factors that influence vocabulary development in two-year-old children.

BACKGROUND: This research explored the relative impact of demographic, cognitive, behavioural, and psycholinguistic factors on vocabulary development in two-year-old children. METHODS: Two hundred and thirty-two children (24-30 months) were tested on expressive and receptive vocabulary, cognitive development, word learning and working memory skills. Parents completed a British adaptation (Klee & Harrison, 2001) of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI; Fenson et al., 1993), a demographic questionnaire and a questionnaire regarding the child's social-emotional behaviour. RESULTS: Several demographic, child and processing variables were significantly correlated with CDI (vocabulary) scores, but the only significant unique predictors of CDI scores were nonword repetition (NWR; R(2) change = .36), sex (R(2) change = .05) and age (R(2) change = .04). Scores were only included when a child completed the entire NWR test (77% of toddlers). CONCLUSIONS: The NWR task used in this experiment maximised participation in this group of toddlers, and was a strong predictor of vocabulary ability. Longitudinal research is warranted to explore the independent and reciprocal growth in working memory and language skills in children.

The diagnostic accuracy of a new test of early nonword repetition for differentiating late talking and typically developing children.

PURPOSE: To assess the diagnostic accuracy of a new Test of Early Nonword Repetition (TENR) for 2-year-old children. METHOD: 232 British-English-speaking children aged 27 (+/-3) months were assessed on 3 standardized tests (receptive and expressive vocabulary and visual processing) and a novel nonword repetition (NWR) test. Parents completed a British adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences (CDI:WS-UK; Klee & Harrison, 2001). The diagnostic accuracy of two versions (1-3 syllables and 1-4 syllables) of a new NWR test was examined. Standard diagnostic accuracy measures of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios, and diagnostic odds ratios were generated. RESULTS: 177 children (80%) completed the 1-3 syllable task, and 96 children (73%) completed the 1-4 syllable task. The 1-3 syllable version produced a positive likelihood ratio (LR+) of 7.8 (confidence interval [CI] = 4.5-13.6) and a negative likelihood ratio (LR-) of .28 (CI = .12-.65). The 1-4 syllable version of the NWR test produced a LR+ of 14.88 (CI = 6.1-36.2) and a LR- of .13 (CI = .02-.83). CONCLUSION: The TENR could be useful for identifying 2-year-old children at risk of language impairment.

Phonology, Semantics, and the Comprehension-Expression Gap in Emerging Lexicons.

Purpose Children come to understand many words by the end of their 1st year of life, and yet, generally by 12 months, only a few words are said. In this study, we investigated which linguistic factors contribute to this comprehension-expression gap the most. Specifically, we asked the following: Are phonological neighborhood density, semantic neighborhood density, and word frequency (WF) significant predictors of the probability that words known (understood) by children would appear in their spoken lexicons? Method Monosyllabic words in the active (understood and said) and passive (understood, not said) lexicons of 201 toddlers were extracted from the Dutch Communicative Development Inventory (Zink & Lejaegere, 2002) parent-completed forms. A generalized linear mixed-effects model was applied to the data. Results Phonological neighborhood density and WF were independently and significantly associated with whether or not a known word would be in children's spoken lexicons, but semantic neighborhood density was not. There were individual differences in the impact of WF on the probability that known words would be said. Conclusion The novel findings reported here have 2 major implications. First, they indicate that the comprehension-expression gap exists partly because the phonological distributional properties of words determine how readily words can be phonologically encoded for word production. Second, there are likely subtle and complex individual differences in how and when the statistical properties of the ambient language impact on children's emerging lexicons that might best be explored via longitudinal sampling of word knowledge and use.

Visuospatial and Verbal Short-Term Memory Correlates of Vocabulary Ability in Preschool Children.

Background: Recent studies indicate that school-age children's patterns of performance on measures of verbal and visuospatial short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) differ across types of neurodevelopmental disorders. Because these disorders are often characterized by early language delay, administering STM and WM tests to toddlers could improve prediction of neurodevelopmental outcomes. Toddler-appropriate verbal, but not visuospatial, STM and WM tasks are available. A toddler-appropriate visuospatial STM test is introduced. Method: Tests of verbal STM, visuospatial STM, expressive vocabulary, and receptive vocabulary were administered to 92 English-speaking children aged 2-5 years. Results: Mean test scores did not differ for boys and girls. Visuospatial and verbal STM scores were not significantly correlated when age was partialed out. Age, visuospatial STM scores, and verbal STM scores accounted for unique variance in expressive (51%, 3%, and 4%, respectively) and receptive vocabulary scores (53%, 5%, and 2%, respectively) in multiple regression analyses. Conclusion: Replication studies, a fuller test battery comprising visuospatial and verbal STM and WM tests, and a general intelligence test are required before exploring the usefulness of these STM tests for predicting longitudinal outcomes. The lack of an association between the STM tests suggests that the instruments have face validity and test independent STM skills.

Nonword repetition and sentence repetition as clinical markers of specific language impairment: the case of Cantonese.

PURPOSE: Recent research suggests that nonword repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SR) tasks can be used to discriminate between children with SLI and their typically developing age-matched (TDAM) and younger (TDY) peers. METHOD: Fourteen Cantonese-speaking children with SLI and 30 of their TDAM and TDY peers were compared on NWR and SR tasks. NWR of IN nonwords (CV combinations attested in the language) and OUT nonwords (CV combinations unattested in the language) were compared. SR performance was compared using 4 different scoring methods. RESULTS: The SLI group did not score significantly lower than the TDAM group on the test of NWR (overall results were TDAM = SLI > TDY). There were nonsignificant group differences on IN syllables but not on OUT syllables. The results do not suggest a limitation in phonological working memory in Cantonese-speaking children with SLI. The SR task discriminated between children and their TDAM peers but not between children with SLI and their TDY peers matched for mean length of utterance. CONCLUSIONS: SR but not NWR discriminates between children with SLI and their TDAM peers. Poorer NWR for English-speaking children with SLI might be attributable to weaker use of the redintegration strategy in word repetition. Further cross-linguistic investigations of processing strategies are required.

Influence of consonant frequency on Icelandic-speaking children's speech acquisition.

PURPOSE: A developmental hierarchy of phonetic feature complexity has been proposed, suggesting that later emerging sounds have greater articulatory complexity than those learned earlier. The aim of this research was to explore this hierarchy in a relatively unexplored language, Icelandic. METHOD: Twenty-eight typically-developing Icelandic-speaking children were tested at 2;4 and 3;4 years. Word-initial and word-medial phonemic inventories and a phonemic implicational hierarchy are described. RESULT: The frequency of occurrence of Icelandic consonants in the speech of 2;4 and 3;4 year old children was, from most to least frequent, n, s, t, p, r, m, l, k, f, ʋ, j, ɵ, h, kÊ°, c, [Formula: see text], É°, pÊ°, tÊ°, cÊ°, ç, [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text]. CONCLUSION: Consonant frequency was a strong predictor of consonant accuracy at 2;4 months (r(23) = -0.75), but the effect was weaker at 3;4 months (r(23) = -0.51). Acquisition of /c/, /[Formula: see text]/ and /l/ occurred earlier, relative to English, Swedish, Dutch and German. A frequency-bound practice effect on emerging consonants is proposed to account for the early emergence of /c/, /[Formula: see text]/ and /l/ in Icelandic.

Interrelationships Between Working Memory, Processing Speed, and Language Development in the Age Range 2-4 years.

Purpose: This study explored associations between working memory and language in children aged 2-4 years. Method: Seventy-seven children aged 24-30 months were assessed on tests measuring language, visual cognition, verbal working memory (VWM), phonological short-term memory (PSTM), and processing speed. A standardized test of receptive and expressive language was used as the outcomes measure 18 months later. Results: There were moderate-to-strong longitudinal bivariate relationships between the 3 processing measures and language outcomes. Early VWM showed the strongest bivariate relationship with both later expressive (r = .71) and receptive language (r = .72). In a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, adding early VWM, PSTM, and processing speed improved prediction of receptive and expressive language outcomes (12%-13% additional variance) compared with models consisting only of early receptive or expressive language, parent education, and age. Conclusions: Unique associations in hierarchical regression analyses were demonstrated between VWM at age two years and receptive and expressive language skills at age four, and between early processing speed and later receptive language. However, early PSTM did not predict unique variance in language outcomes, as it shared variance with other measures.

Articulatory complexity, ambient frequency, and functional load as predictors of consonant development in children.

The notion of a universal pattern of phonological development, rooted in basic physiological constraints, is controversial, with some researchers arguing for a strong environmental (ambient language) influence on phonological development or an interaction of both physiological constraints and ambient language effects. This research examines the relative value of articulatory complexity, ambient frequency, and functional load as predictors of consonant development in children. Three languages are investigated: Cantonese, American English, and Dutch. Regression analyses revealed that functional load accounted for 55% of the variance in age of emergence of consonants in 7 English-speaking children (8-25 months), while frequency of consonants in the ambient language accounted for 63% of the variance in age of emergence of consonants in 51 Cantonese-speaking children (15-30 months). Articulatory complexity accounted for 40% of the accuracy of production of consonants in 40 English-speaking children (25 months), and frequency accounted for 43% of the variance in accuracy of production of consonants in 5 Dutch-speaking children (24 months). Given cross-linguistic differences, further research is required.

A phonemic implicational feature hierarchy of phonological contrasts for English-speaking children.

Contrastive feature hierarchies have been developed and used for some time in depicting typical phonological development and in guiding therapy decisions. Previous descriptions of feature use have been based on independent analyses and usually phonetic inventories. However, recent trends in phonology include a relational analysis of phonemic inventories (D. Ingram & K. D. Ingram, 2001). The current investigation was a relational analysis of the phonemic inventories of 40 typically developing 2-year-old American-English-speaking children. Consonant inventories were derived from spontaneous speech samples using the Logical International Phonetics Programs computer software (D. K. Oller & R. E. Delgado, 1999). Cluster analysis was used to determine the grouping of contrastive features. Four levels emerged. Level I included [consonant], [sonorant], and [coronal], Level II included [voice], Level III included [anterior], [continuant], and [nasal], and Level IV included [lateral] and [strident]. Results suggested that the resulting 4-level phonemic feature hierarchy might be used to classify the phonological systems of children with phonological disorders.

The expression of aspect in Cantonese-speaking children with specific language impairment.

Previous studies of verb morphology in children with specific language impairment (SLI) have been limited in the main to tense and agreement morphemes. Cantonese, which, like other Chinese languages, has no grammatical tense, presents an opportunity to investigate potential difficulties for children with SLI in other areas of verb morphology, via scrutiny of elements of its aspectual system. The performance of 3 groups of children (n = 15 in each group)--preschoolers with SLI, typically developing same-age peers, and younger, typically developing peers--was compared in procedures designed to elicit aspect forms. The children with SLI were less likely to produce both perfective and imperfective aspect markers. It is suggested that reasons for these findings are to be found in the sparse morphology of Cantonese and in the nonobligatory nature of these forms.

Exploring Expressive Vocabulary Variability in Two-Year-Olds: The Role of Working Memory.

PURPOSE: This study explored whether measures of working memory ability contribute to the wide variation in 2-year-olds' expressive vocabulary skills. METHOD: Seventy-nine children (aged 24-30 months) were assessed by using standardized tests of vocabulary and visual cognition, a processing speed measure, and behavioral measures of verbal working memory and phonological short-term memory. RESULTS: Strong correlations were observed between phonological short-term memory, verbal working memory, and expressive vocabulary. Speed of spoken word recognition showed a moderate significant correlation with expressive vocabulary. In a multivariate regression model for expressive vocabulary, the most powerful predictor was a measure of phonological short-term memory (accounting for 66% unique variance), followed by verbal working memory (6%), sex (2%), and age (1%). Processing speed did not add significant unique variance. CONCLUSIONS: These findings confirm previous research positing a strong role for phonological short-term memory in early expressive vocabulary acquisition. They also extend previous research in two ways. First, a unique association between verbal working memory and expressive vocabulary in 2-year-olds was observed. Second, processing speed was not a unique predictor of variance in expressive vocabulary when included alongside measures of working memory.