Sensitivity to Semantic Relationships in U.S. Monolingual English-Speaking Typical Talkers and Late Talkers.

PURPOSE: Late talkers (LTs) are a group of children who exhibit delays in language development without a known cause. Although a hallmark of LTs is a reduced expressive vocabulary, little is known about LTs' processing of semantic relations among words in their emerging vocabularies. This study uses an eye-tracking task to compare 2-year-old LTs' and typical talkers' (TTs') sensitivity to semantic relationships among early acquired words. METHOD: U.S. monolingual English-speaking LTs (n = 21) and TTs (n = 24) completed a looking-while-listening task in which they viewed two images on a screen (e.g., a shirt and a pizza), while they heard words that referred to one of the images (e.g., Look! Shirt!; target-present condition) or a semantically related item (e.g., Look! Hat!; target-absent condition). Children's eye movements (i.e., looks to the target) were monitored to assess their sensitivity to these semantic relationships. RESULTS: Both LTs and TTs looked longer at the semantically related image than the unrelated image on target-absent trials, demonstrating sensitivity to the taxonomic relationships used in the experiment. There was no significant group difference between LTs and TTs. Both groups also looked more to the target in the target-present condition than in the target-absent condition. CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal that, despite possessing smaller expressive vocabularies, LTs have encoded semantic relationships in their receptive vocabularies and activate these during real-time language comprehension. This study furthers our understanding of LTs' emerging linguistic systems and language processing skills. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23303987.

Specificity of phonological representations in U.S. English-speaking late talkers and typical talkers.

Late talkers are a heterogeneous group of children who experience delayed language development in the absence of other known causes. Late talkers show delays in expressive phonological development, but less is known about their receptive phonological development. In the current study, U.S. monolingual English-speaking typical talkers (TTs) (n = 23, mean age = 26.27 months, 57% male; 78.3% White) and late talkers (n = 22, mean age = 24.57 months, 59% male, 72.7% White) completed a Looking-While-Listening task to assess their sensitivity to mispronunciations. Results revealed that late talkers and TTs looked to the referent of a word for a shorter duration when it was mispronounced than when it was correctly pronounced, suggesting they were sensitive to mispronunciations. However, there were no significant differences between the two groups in their sensitivity to mispronunciations.

Association of Parent Training With Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Importance: Training parents to implement strategies to support child language development is crucial to support long-term outcomes, given that as many as 2 of 5 children younger than 5 years have difficulty learning language. Objective: To examine the association between parent training and language and communication outcomes in young children. Data Sources: Searches of ERIC, Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, and PsycARTICLES were conducted on August 11, 2014; August 18, 2016; January 23, 2018; and October 30, 2018. Study Selection: Studies included in this review and meta-analysis were randomized or nonrandomized clinical trials that evaluated a language intervention that included parent training with children with a mean age of less than 6 years. Studies were excluded if the parent was not the primary implementer of the intervention, the study included fewer than 10 participants, or the study did not report outcomes related to language or communication. Data Extraction and Synthesis: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were applied to a total of 31 778 articles identified for screening, with the full text of 723 articles reviewed and 76 total studies ultimately included. Main Outcomes and Measures: Main outcomes included language and communication skills in children with primary or secondary language impairment and children at risk for language impairment. Results: This meta-analysis included 59 randomized clinical trials and 17 nonrandomized clinical trials including 5848 total participants (36.4 female [20.8%]; mean [SD] age, 3.5 [3.9] years). The intervention approach in 63 studies was a naturalistic teaching approach, and 16 studies used a primarily dialogic reading approach. There was a significant moderate association between parent training and child communication, engagement, and language outcomes (mean [SE] Hedges g, -0.33 [0.06]; P < .001). The association between parent training and parent use of language support strategies was large (mean [SE] Hedges g, 0.55 [0.11], P < .001). Children with developmental language disorder had the largest social communication outcomes (mean [SE] Hedges g, 0.37 [0.17]); large and significant associations were observed for receptive (mean [SE] Hedges g, 0.92 [0.30]) and expressive language (mean [SE] Hedges g, 0.83 [0.20]). Children at risk for language impairments had moderate effect sizes across receptive language (mean [SE] Hedges g, 0.28 [0.15]) and engagement outcomes (mean [SE] Hedges g, 0.36 [0.17]). Conclusions and Relevance: The findings suggest that training parents to implement language and communication intervention techniques is associated with improved outcomes for children and increased parent use of support strategies. These findings may have direct implications on intervention and prevention.

The Longitudinal Effects of Early Language Intervention on Children's Problem Behaviors.

Researchers examined whether a parent-implemented language intervention improved problem behaviors 1 year after intervention. Ninety-seven children with language delays (mean age at 12-month follow-up = 48.22 months) were randomized to receive Enhanced Milieu Teaching (EMT) language intervention or business as usual treatment. Twelve months after the intervention ended, children in the EMT intervention condition displayed lower rates of parent-reported externalizing, internalizing, and total problem behaviors. A mediation analysis revealed that the relation between EMT and problem behaviors was partially mediated by child rate of communication for both internalizing and total problem behaviors. A developmental framework is proposed to explain the impact of EMT on problem behaviors, and future lines of research are discussed.

Autism at a glance: A pilot study optimizing thin-slice observations.

Borrowing from a clinical psychology observational methodology, thin-slice observations were used to assess autism characteristics in toddlers. Thin-slices are short observations taken from a longer behavior stream which are assigned ratings by multiple raters using a 5-point scale. The raters' observations are averaged together to assign a "thin-slice" value for each observation. In this study, a total of 60 toddlers were selected from a video archive: 20 children with typical development, 20 children with developmental language disorder, and 20 children with autism. In the first part of this study, 20 raters observed small play segments between toddlers and an assessor. Raters assigned scores to each of the 60 toddlers on items related to autism symptomatology. Item analysis and generalizability and decision studies were conducted to determine the factor structure and optimal number of raters to achieve a stable estimate of autism characteristics. In the second part of the study, generalizability and decision studies were conducted to determine the most efficient and optimal combination of raters and naturalistic contexts. This pilot study provides recommendations for optimizing the utility of thin-slice observations for measuring autism symptomatology in young children.

Language Disorders and Problem Behaviors: A Meta-analysis.

CONTEXT: A large number of studies have shown a relationship between language disorders and problem behaviors; however, methodological differences have made it difficult to draw conclusions from this literature. OBJECTIVE: To determine the overall impact of language disorders on problem behaviors in children and adolescents between the ages of birth and 18 years and to investigate the role of informant type, age, and type of problem behavior on this relationship. DATA SOURCES: We searched PubMed, EBSCO, and ProQuest. STUDY SELECTION: Studies were included when a group of children with language disorders was compared with a group of typically developing children by using at least 1 measure of problem behavior. DATA EXTRACTION: Effect sizes were derived from all included measures of problem behaviors from each study. RESULTS: We included 47 articles (63 153 participants). Meta-analysis of these studies revealed a difference in ratings of problem behaviors between children with language disorders and typically developing children of moderate size (g = 0.43; 95% confidence interval 0.34 to 0.53; P < .001). Age was entered as a moderator variable, and results showed that the difference in problem behavior ratings increases with child age (increase in g for each additional year in age = 0.06; 95% confidence interval 0.02 to 0.11; P = .004). LIMITATIONS: There was considerable heterogeneity in the measures of problem behaviors used across studies. CONCLUSIONS: Children with language disorders display greater rates of problem behaviors compared with their typically developing peers, and this difference is more pronounced in older children.