Predictive validity of a parental questionnaire for identifying children with developmental language disorders.

Background: The underdiagnosis of developmental language disorder (DLD) in children is a serious problem in developing countries with limited resources. It has long been noted that the concerns parents have about their children's health and development are richly informative, and if this information can be used for diagnosis, it may provide a means to address the problem of underdiagnosis of DLD. This study aimed to quantify the utility of parental linguistic concern questions (PLCQ) on the identification of language disorders in monolingual Spanish-speaking children in Mexico. It also explored whether a combination of biological and environmental conditions questions (BECQ) might improve the performance of a screening test to identify DLD. Methods: A total of 680 monolingual Mexican Spanish-speaking children and their parents from urban areas in Mexico participated in the study. The distribution of responses to questions about DLD concerns was compared between 185 children diagnosed with DLD and 495 control subjects, and multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to select questions with high predictivity, based on the Akaike information criterion. The diagnostic utility of the questions was assessed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, stratum-specific likelihood ratios (SSLRs), and changes in pretest and post-test probabilities of DLD. A similar procedure was used to explore whether adding BECQ would improve the diagnostic utility of questions about DLD concerns using data of 128 children. Results: Four questions regarding parental linguistic concerns were found to be useful in identifying children with DLD. When all four concerns were present, the SSLR was 8.79, while it was only 0.27 when there were no concerns at all. The estimates of DLD probability increased from 0.12 to 0.55 at pretest and post-test. On the other hand, the BECQ did not perform as well as the PLCQ in identifying DLD, and the improvement in diagnostic performance it provided was limited to one question. Conclusion: The parental questionnaire can be used as a screening tool to help in identifying children with DLD. The data presented in this study underscore the importance of considering linguistic parental concerns as part of the screening process. This is a realistic option to provide a solution to the current problem of underdiagnosis of DLD in Mexico.

"Early detection of Spanish-speaking children with developmental language disorders: Concurrent validity of a short questionnaire and a screening test".

BACKGROUND: . Under-identification of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a significant problem in monolingual Latin American Spanish-speaking children. We evaluated the identification utility of the sequential use of two screening tools, the "Parental Questionnaire (PQ)" and the "Screening for Language Problems (TPL)", to identify children who require confirmatory diagnosis of DLD. METHODS: Parents of children (4 to 6 years) were contacted in schools and public health centers in Mexico. Monolingual Spanish-speaking children with no auditory and cognitive disorders were eligible. The reference diagnosis of DLD was established using BESA (Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment) or SCELF-4 (Spanish Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals), combined with data from the narrative samples that yielded the percentage of ungrammaticality and the clinical judgment of two Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs). Responses to the PQ were obtained as a parental report, and the TPL was applied by a trained SLPs. RESULTS: . Both PQ and TPL presented a significant difference between the groups of children with DLD and typical language development (TLD). By combining the two instruments, a notable improvement in diagnostic utility was shown. CONCLUSION: . The combination of these two procedures provides an efficient method for screening children having the risk of DLD and contributes to resolving the problem of under-identification.

Android Feedback-Based Training Modulates Sensorimotor Rhythms During Motor Imagery.

EEG-based brain computer interface (BCI) systems have demonstrated potential to assist patients with devastating motor paralysis conditions. However, there is great interest in shifting the BCI trend toward applications aimed at healthy users. Although BCI operation depends on technological factors (i.e., EEG pattern classification algorithm) and human factors (i.e., how well the person can generate good quality EEG patterns), it is the latter that is least investigated. In order to control a motor imagery-based BCI, users need to learn to modulate their sensorimotor brain rhythms by practicing motor imagery using a classical training protocol with an abstract visual feedback. In this paper, we investigate a different BCI training protocol using a human-like android robot (Geminoid HI-2) to provide realistic visual feedback. The proposed training protocol addresses deficiencies of the classical approach and takes the advantage of body-abled user capabilities. Experimental results suggest that android feedback-based BCI training improves the modulation of sensorimotor rhythms during motor imagery task. Moreover, we discuss how the influence of body ownership transfer illusion toward the android might have an effect on the modulation of event-related desynchronization/synchronization activity.

BMI control of a third arm for multitasking.

Brain-machine interface (BMI) systems have been widely studied to allow people with motor paralysis conditions to control assistive robotic devices that replace or recover lost function but not to extend the capabilities of healthy users. We report an experiment in which healthy participants were able to extend their capabilities by using a noninvasive BMI to control a human-like robotic arm and achieve multitasking. Experimental results demonstrate that participants were able to reliably control the robotic arm with the BMI to perform a goal-oriented task while simultaneously using their own arms to do a different task. This outcome opens possibilities to explore future human body augmentation applications for healthy people that not only enhance their capability to perform a particular task but also extend their physical capabilities to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.

Gramaticalidad y complejidad en narración y conversación en niños con trastorno específico del lenguaje / Grammaticality and complexity in narration and conversation in children with specific language impairment

Introducción. Los niños con TEL evidencian especial dificultad en la gramática, que puede manifestarse de manera diferente en la conversación y en la narración. Objetivos. a) Explorar la influencia del discurso narrativo y del conversacional en el desempeño gramatical de niños con TEL de 4 y 6 años, y b) determinar si el desempeño gramatical de los niños con TEL de 4 y 6 años es similar o diferente al de niños con desarrollo típico del lenguaje (DTL) en discurso conversacional y narrativo. Metodología. Participaron 21 niños con TEL y 19 niños con DTL. Se analizaron 3 narraciones, obtenidas a partir del recontado, y una conversación semiespontánea. Los análisis se efectuaron según 2 parámetros: gramaticalidad y complejidad de las oraciones. Resultados. La comparación entre conversación y narración en los niños con TEL permite concluir que el tipo de discurso incide en su desempeño gramatical. La forma en que ambos discursos afectan a dicho desempeño se manifiesta de modo distinto en los grupos etarios estudiados. Se observó que el desempeño gramatical de los grupos con TEL tiende a estar más disminuido que el de los grupos con DTL en ambos discursos, especialmente en la narración. Discusión y conclusiones. Los resultados encontrados sugieren que el discurso narrativo es más apropiado para abordar la agramaticalidad y la complejidad de las oraciones, debido a su mayor demanda lingüística. En cambio, la conversación, por ser un discurso menos exigente lingüísticamente, puede ser utilizada para apoyar a niños con TEL que evidencian una dificultad gramatical severa (AU)

Introduction. Children with specific language impairment (SLI) show a particular difficulty with grammar, which can be differently manifested in conversation and narration. Objectives. a) To explore the influence of narrative and conversational discourse in the grammatical performance of children with SLI, divided into two groups (4 and 6 years-old), and b) to determine whether the grammatical performance of 4 and 6 years-old children with SLI is different from children with typical language development (TLD) in conversational and narrative discourse. Method. The study included 21 children with SLI and 19 children with TLD. Three narratives obtained from a re-telling task and semi-spontaneous conversations were analysed according to two parameters: grammaticality and complexity. Results. Comparison between conversation and narration in children with SLI showed that the type of discourse affects grammatical performance. The way in which both types of discourse affect grammatical performance differs according to age. Grammatical performance of children with SLI tends to be lower than children with DTL in both types of discourse, especially in the narrative. Discussion and conclusions. Results suggest that narrative is more appropriate to address the ungrammaticality and complexity of sentences, due to its greater linguistic demand. Since conversation is a less demanding task, it can be used to support children with SLI that show severe grammatical difficulties (AU)