Narrative Discourse in Youth Offenders: Examining Individual Differences.

PURPOSE: This study examined narrative discourse in youth offenders, focusing on quality of story retelling, story comprehension, critical thinking, and the use of complex syntax. METHOD: The participants were 15 incarcerated adolescents, ages 13-18 years (Mage = 16 years). Each was evaluated at their detention center via Zoom, using a standardized language test and language samples that elicited narrative speaking with fables. After retelling a fable, the participant answered questions that examined story comprehension and critical thinking. RESULTS: Most participants performed below average on the standardized language test and had difficulty on one or more of the language sampling measures. Areas of concern included quality of story retelling, story comprehension, critical thinking, and the use of complex syntax. Had language sampling not been employed, those weaknesses might have been overlooked. CONCLUSIONS: When evaluating youth offenders, it is important to elicit language samples that can provide detailed information about an adolescent's ability to communicate for genuine purposes. In this regard, the tasks employed in the current study could be helpful to speech-language pathologists in working with youth offenders, enabling them to pinpoint deficits and offer targeted intervention.

Philosophy for Adolescents: Using Fables to Support Critical Thinking and Advanced Language Skills.

PURPOSE: In this clinical focus article, we discuss the nature of critical thinking, its importance for adolescents, and its interaction with later language development. We also introduce a language arts program, Philosophy for Adolescents. The program aims to support critical thinking, narrative and expository discourse, and the use of complex syntax and literate vocabulary. METHOD: In designing Philosophy for Adolescents, we examined research from education, psychology, philosophy, and speech-language pathology in the areas of critical thinking and narrative discourse. The resulting program encourages students to think independently, listen to others, offer reasons and evidence to support their views, and express themselves with accuracy, clarity, and efficiency. Implementation is illustrated with a case study of a 12-year-old girl. RESULTS: Although critical thinking improves during adolescence, many students struggle in this area, particularly in the ability to offer reasons and evidence to support their views. This suggests that these adolescents could benefit from instruction in critical thinking. Research also indicates that competence in critical thinking is associated with narrative and expository discourse, and with the use of complex syntax and literate words such as metacognitive verbs. Instruction using Philosophy for Adolescents may be carried out in small groups or individually by a speech-language pathologist working collaboratively with a teacher, teaching assistant, or other professional. Designed for flexible application, the program may be used with adolescents who have language disorders and those who have typical language development. CONCLUSION: Research is necessary to evaluate the program with students from diverse backgrounds, having differing levels of language competence and academic achievement. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19736059.

Mastering the Grammar of Past Tense Counterfactual Sentences: A Pilot Study of Adolescents Attending Low-Income Schools.

BACKGROUND/AIM: This pilot study was designed to determine if adolescents had mastered the grammar of past tense counterfactual (PTCF) sentences (e.g., "If Julie had done all of the track workouts, she might have won the state meet"). Of interest was their ability to use the modal, auxiliary, and past participle verbs correctly in the main clause of a PTCF sentence. Prior research had indicated that PTCF sentences were challenging to older children. Hence, we wished to determine if PTCF sentences would continue to challenge adolescents. METHODS: The participants were two groups of adolescents, who were aged 13 and 16 years, and a control group of young adults having a mean age of 22 years (n = 40 per group). Each participant read a set of four fables and completed a PTCF sentence based on the story. Each incomplete sentence contained a subordinate clause that employed the past perfect verb form (e.g., "If the fox had been able to jump higher…"). The participant's task was to complete the sentence in writing, generating a grammatically correct main clause that contained the present perfect verb form (e.g., "he would have been able to reach the delicious grapes."). RESULTS: On the PTCF sentences task, the 16-year-olds earned a higher mean raw score than the 13-year-olds, but the two groups did not show a statistically significant difference. However, the 22-year-olds performed significantly better than the 13-year-olds. It was also found that using the correct form of the past participle verb was the most difficult aspect of the task for all three groups, and that mastering the grammar of PTCF sentences continued into adulthood. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: The PTCF sentence is a late linguistic attainment, perhaps due to its infrequent occurrence in spoken language. The study offers implications for the concept of grammatical mastery and for the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive grammar.

How Adolescents Interpret the Moral Messages of Fables: Examining the Development of Critical Thinking.

Purpose Critical thinking pervades formal educational benchmarks in the United States, including the Common Core State Standards. However, little information is available on how it develops. Hence, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the development of critical thinking in adolescents using a written language-sampling task. We also examined related aspects of development: verbal productivity, syntactic complexity, and metacognitive verb use. Method The participants included two groups of adolescents, aged 13 and 16 years (n = 40 per group). All testing took place in classrooms at a middle school or high school. Participants read four fables by the Greek storyteller Aesop (circa 620-560 B.C.) and explained in writing why they agreed or disagreed with the moral message of each story. To examine critical thinking, we evaluated their explanations using a unique 0- to 4-point scoring system. We also examined each participant's transcript for verbal productivity, syntactic complexity, and metacognitive verb use. Results On the critical thinking task, the 16-year-olds outperformed the 13-year-olds, providing explanations that were more elaborate and detailed. However, there were many individual differences within groups, and even the older group did not consistently perform at the highest level, indicating that critical thinking is a late-developing ability. Age-related gains also occurred on verbal productivity and metacognitive verb use but not on syntactic complexity. Conclusion Information gleaned from this study demonstrates how critical thinking develops during adolescence but remains incomplete. The study also has implications for assessing critical thinking in adolescents and knowing how to prompt complex language and thought. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12100989.

Development of Past Tense Counterfactual Sentences: Examining Production and Comprehension in Adolescents and Adults.

Purpose The primary purpose of this study was to examine the development of past tense counterfactual (PTCF) sentences ("If the dog had stayed in the house, he would not have bitten the police officer") in young adolescents and young adults, addressing both production and comprehension. The goal was to determine if growth occurs during the years between early adolescence and early adulthood and when or if mastery of these sentences occurs. We also examined the development of past tense irregular verbs to determine growth and mastery. Method The participants included one group of young adolescents (M age = 12.44 years, n = 80) and one group of young adults (M age = 21.30 years, n = 80). All were monolingual speakers of Mainstream American English. Using a written language task, each participant completed a set of 40 sentences. For each sentence, the missing element affected the main clause (present perfect verb omitted), the subordinate clause (past perfect verb omitted), or either the main or the subordinate clause (past tense irregular verb omitted). To examine differences in production versus comprehension, half the participants in each group used a fill-in response format (production task), and half used a multiple-choice response format (comprehension task). Results On the PTCF sentences, the adults outperformed the adolescents, comprehension exceeded production, both groups experienced greater difficulty with the past perfect compared to the present perfect verb form, and the adults were more likely to show mastery of PTCF sentences than were the adolescents. Similarly, on the past irregular verbs, the adults outperformed the adolescents, and the adults were more likely to show mastery of these verbs. Implications The findings of this study contribute to the knowledge base in later syntactic development and suggest that some adolescents and adults may require formal instruction in subtle aspects of English grammar used in literate contexts, such as PTCF sentences. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.11971872.

Language development in children who stutter: A review of recent research.

Purpose: This article reviews recent studies that examined the controversial claim that children who stutter (CWS), as a group, have weaker language skills than children who do not stutter (CWNS). The article was an effort to address the conflicting conclusions of two previous reviews of the research in this area. Method: Studies published in research journals during the past 7 years (2011-2018) were located through a systematic review of the literature. Each study was analysed to determine how well it supported the claim that CWS, as a group, have weaker language skills than CWNS. Result: The evidence was not convincing to support this controversial claim. Rather, the review indicated that CWS performed as well as or better than CWNS on formal language tasks. Conclusion: The claim that language weaknesses are linked to children's stuttering is not well supported by recently published studies. Alternative interpretations of the literature are offered.

Stuttering in Preschool Children: Direct Versus Indirect Treatment.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss the controversial topic of stuttering in preschool children and how to evaluate the options for treatment, emphasizing the role of external research evidence. Method: A hypothetical but realistic case study of a 3-year-old boy who stutters is described. Two contrasting approaches to treatment are presented, the Lidcombe Program (LP) and the demands and capacities model (DCM). Studies published in peer-reviewed research journals that have examined the effectiveness of each approach are summarized and critiqued. Results: The review indicates that the LP is the preferred treatment approach for stuttering in preschool children and that it offers the best opportunity for rapid success. Conclusion: The LP should be carried out by knowledgeable, experienced, and flexible speech-language pathologists who are able to accommodate the individual needs and differences of every child and family.

Language Sampling With Adolescents: Building a Normative Database With Fables.

PURPOSE: The goal of the study was to create a language sampling task appropriate for adolescents and to contribute normative data from speakers with typical language development. METHOD: Thirty adolescents (mean age = 14 years, 1 month) participated in an interview that involved the retelling and interpretation of 4 Greek fables. Each speaker's performance on the task was audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and entered into the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts computer program (Miller & Iglesias, 2015). Samples were analyzed statistically for language productivity and syntactic complexity. In addition, each participant's perspective on the moral messages of the fables was examined informally. RESULTS: The Fables task was effective in prompting adolescents to use complex language and in encouraging them to express their opinions about the moral messages. Although boys and girls did not differ in their performance on the task, some fables were more effective than others at eliciting spoken language and complex syntax. Moreover, the adolescents tended to agree with the moral messages of the fables and appeared to find them relevant to their lives. CONCLUSION: The Fables task has potential for clinical use with adolescents. Research is necessary to expand the normative database to include larger and more diverse groups of adolescents.

Metacognitive verb production in adolescents: The link to complex syntax.

Metacognitive verbs (MCVs) such as believe, know and think allow a speaker to describe the thoughts, feelings and perspectives of the self and others. As such, these words reflect the speaker's awareness of differing mental events and activities, or Theory of Mind (ToM). This study investigated the use of MCVs in adolescents with typical language development in relation to the production of complex sentences. It was of interest to determine the frequency with which adolescents used MCVs and to explore the links between MCVs and different types of subordinate clauses. Language samples that had been collected during previous research involving fables were examined. The results indicated that adolescents frequently used MCVs, particularly during a critical-thinking task, and that MCVs were associated with the production of complex sentences containing various types of subordinate clauses. This information may be useful to speech-language pathologists in their work with adolescents who have language impairments.

Spoken Language Production in Young Adults: Examining Syntactic Complexity.

Purpose: In this study, we examined syntactic complexity in the spoken language samples of young adults. Its purpose was to contribute to the expanding knowledge base in later language development and to begin building a normative database of language samples that potentially could be used to evaluate young adults with known or suspected language impairment. Method: Forty adults (mean age = 22 years, 10 months) with typical language development participated in an interview that consisted of 3 speaking tasks: a general conversation about common, everyday topics; a narrative retelling task that involved fables; and a question-and-answer, critical-thinking task about the fables. Each speaker's interview was audio-recorded, transcribed, broken into communication units, coded for main and subordinate clauses, entered into Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller, Iglesias, & Nockerts, 2004), and analyzed for mean length of communication unit and clausal density. Results: Both the narrative and critical-thinking tasks elicited significantly greater syntactic complexity than the conversational task. It was also found that syntactic complexity was significantly greater during the narrative task than the critical-thinking task. Conclusion: Syntactic complexity was best revealed by a narrative task that involved fables. The study offers benchmarks for language development during early adulthood.

Reading Comprehension Deficits in Adolescents: Addressing Underlying Language Abilities.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss reading comprehension deficits in adolescents in relation to their word reading skills and lexical and syntactic development. Although reading comprehension strategies (e.g., "Find the main idea") are often recommended, it is argued that before these can be effective, students' underlying language deficits should be addressed. Method: Data from a longitudinal study are analyzed to determine the relationship between reading comprehension, word reading, and lexical and syntactic development in adolescents. Results: The findings indicate that poor reading comprehension in adolescents is predicted by concurrent deficits in word reading ability, lexical development, and syntactic development. Conclusion: When poor comprehension is accompanied by deficits in word reading ability and/or lexical and syntactic development, intervention should target the underlying areas of deficiency. Studies designed to improve reading comprehension in adolescents are needed.

Language Disorders in Adolescents: Current Needs and Future Directions.

Adolescents with developmental language disorders often do not receive the type of intervention that would improve their ability to speak, listen, read, and write effectively. Part of the problem is that many of these young people show no obvious symptoms of a language disorder, yet they struggle on a daily basis to succeed at school-related tasks that require a sophisticated level of language development. This article discusses some of the challenges these students face and makes suggestions for what could be done to address the issues. These suggestions include continuing the effort to advocate strongly for the rights of adolescents, increasing collaboration between speech-language pathologists and other professionals in the schools, and making changes to training programs in communication sciences and disorders to better prepare future speech-language pathologists to work with adolescents.

Call for studies in implementation science: improving reading comprehension in school-age children.

PURPOSE: In this article, the Editor of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools makes the case for more studies in implementation science in order to improve the reading comprehension of school-age children, particularly those with specific language impairment and nonspecific language impairment.

Critical thinking about fables: examining language production and comprehension in adolescents.

PURPOSE: This study was designed primarily to determine if a critical-thinking task involving fables would elicit greater syntactic complexity than a conversational task in adolescents. Another purpose was to determine how well adolescents understand critical-thinking questions about fables. METHOD: Forty adolescents (N=20 boys and 20 girls; mean age=14 years) with typical language development answered critical-thinking questions about the deeper meanings of fables. They also participated in a standard conversational task. The syntactic complexity of their responses during the speaking tasks was analyzed for mean length of communication unit (MLCU) and clausal density (CD). RESULTS: Both measures of syntactic complexity, MLCU and CD, were substantially greater during the critical-thinking task compared with the conversational task. It was also found that the adolescents understood the questions quite well, earning a mean accuracy score of 80%. CONCLUSIONS: The critical-thinking task has potential for use as a new type of language-sampling tool to examine language production and comprehension in adolescents.

Using our knowledge of typical language development.

PURPOSE: In this column, the editor introduces the articles in the April issue of LSHSS (Volume 45, Issue 2). All are part of a Clinical Forum, with a thought-provoking lead article by Alan Kamhi and several response articles by Kamhi's colleagues. In this introduction to the April issue, Marilyn A. Nippold summarizes Kamhi's main points, directs readers to the various perspectives presented by authors of the other articles in this Clinical Forum, and speaks to the importance of the ideas presented-and their potential relevance to clinicians. Nippold reminds readers that this Clinical Forum provides a stimulating platform for discussion and debate among clinicians and researchers.

Language intervention at the middle school: complex talk reflects complex thought.

PURPOSE: In this article, the author discusses 2 points raised by Kamhi (2014) in his lead article to this clinical forum: (a) the need for speech-language pathologists to consider typical language development as they plan intervention and (b) the importance of addressing complex syntax. METHOD: A hypothetical scenario of a 7th grade English class assignment is presented, and aspects of the assignment that would be quite challenging to middle school adolescents with language impairments are highlighted. The author then describes strategies that a speech-language pathologist could use to enhance students' success with the assignment. This approach emphasizes the importance of collaborating with the classroom teacher and reading specialist, having knowledge of the Common Core State Standards and the language demands of the classroom, and understanding later language development and the reasons why speakers and writers use complex syntax. CONCLUSION: When language intervention incorporates these points, adolescents with language impairments can acquire skills that will help them make meaningful progress in the classroom.

Idiom understanding in adulthood: examining age-related differences.

Idioms are figurative expressions such as hold your horses, kick the bucket, and lend me a hand, which commonly occur in everyday spoken and written language. Hence, the understanding of these expressions is essential for daily communication. In this study, we examined idiom understanding in healthy adults in their 20s, 40s, 60s and 80s (n=30 per group) to determine if performance would show an age-related decline. Participants judged their own familiarity with a set of 20 idioms, explained the meaning of each, described a situation in which the idiom could be used, and selected the appropriate interpretation from a set of choices. There was no evidence of an age-related decline on any tasks. Rather, the 60s group reported greater familiarity and offered better explanations than did the 20s group. Moreover, greater familiarity with idioms was associated with better understanding in adults.