Trastorno específico del lenguaje: subtipos de una patología compleja / Specific language impairment: subtypes of a complex disorder

Existen distintas propuestas sobre marcadores psicolingüísticos y sobre taxonomías del trastorno específico del lenguaje (TEL). Este trabajo presenta los resultados obtenidos en 8 tareas psicolingüísticas por 2 grupos de niños: 31 niños con TEL (GTEL) y 31 niños igualados en edad cronológica (GC). Las tareas han sido elaboradas ad hoc para valorar los marcadores psicolingüísticos en las 4 áreas clásicas: fonología, morfosintaxis, semántica y pragmática. En primer lugar, se comprueba que los niños del GTEL rinden significativamente peor que los niños del GC en las 8 tareas. En segundo lugar, un análisis de conglomerados K-medias clasifica a los 31 sujetos del grupo TEL en 4 conglomerados. En tercer lugar, un análisis discriminante comprueba si la clasificación clínica hecha a priori se mantiene tras los resultados del estudio. Se presenta el perfil de los conglomerados y se discuten sus características respecto a los subtipos de la taxonomía clínica de Rapin y Allen. Finalmente, se analizan las similitudes y diferencias entre ambas tipologías. Los resultados obtenidos ayudan a esclarecer los marcadores psicolingüísticos del TEL en niños de habla española y refuerzan la utilidad clínica de su clasificación en subtipos y la vigencia de la taxonomía de Rapin y Allen (AU)

There are various proposals for psycholinguistic markers and for taxonomies of specific language impairment (SLI). This study presents the results obtained in eight psycholinguistic tasks by two groups of Spanish-speaking children: 31 children with SLI (SLI) and 31 children matched for chronological age (CA). The tasks were developed ad hoc to assess psycholinguistic markers in the four traditional areas: phonology, morphosyntax, semantics and pragmatics. Firstly, we found that SLI group scored significantly worse than CA group in the eight tasks. Secondly, a K-Means cluster analysis distinguished five clusters within the 31 subject of SLI group. Thirdly, a discriminant analysis checks whether an a priori clinical classification is maintained after the study results. We present the profile of these clusters and discuss their features regarding Rapin & Allen taxonomy clinical subtypes. Finally, the similarities and differences between the two classifications are analyzed. The results obtained in this work help shed light on the psycholinguistic markers of the Spanish-SLI and reinforce the clinical utility of its classification into subtypes and the validity of the Rapin & Allen taxonomy (AU)

Toy talk: simple strategies to create richer grammatical input.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this initial feasibility study was to determine whether brief instruction in toy talk would change grammatical properties of adult language, specifically 3rd person lexical noun phrase (NP) subjects. METHOD: Eighteen college students participated in the study. The use of 3rd person subjects was examined before and after instruction on toy talk strategies (i.e., talk about the toys, give the item its name). Change in the input informativeness for tense (i.e., the proportion of verb forms marked for tense out of all verb forms) was also examined, although adults were not instructed on use of tense/agreement morphemes. RESULTS: Following instruction, statistically significant increases with large effect sizes were observed for use of 3rd person subjects, lexical NP subjects, and input informativeness for tense (Cohen's d = 1.20, 2.08, and 0.89, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate that young adults can learn these simple strategies with relatively brief instruction, and the use of toy talk also changes the richness of tense/agreement marking in adult language input. Considerations for incorporating toy talk into existing language modeling practices and future plans for evaluating the efficacy of toy talk are discussed.

The integration of lexical, syntactic, and discourse features in bilingual adolescents' writing: an exploratory approach.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to assess the bilingual writing of adolescent English language learners (ELLs) using quantitative tools. Linguistic measures were applied to the participants' writing at the lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels, with the goal of comparing outcomes at each of these levels across languages (Spanish/English) and genres (expository/narrative). METHOD: Twenty Spanish-speaking ELLs, ages 11-14 years, each produced 8 expository and narrative autobiographical texts. Texts were coded and scored for lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and overall text quality. Scores were analyzed using Friedman's 2-way analysis of variance by ranks (Siegel & Castellan, 1988); resulting ranks were compared across languages and genre topics. RESULTS: The text topic impacted rank differences at all levels. Performance at the three levels was similar across languages, indicating that participants were emerging writers in both Spanish and English. The impact of genre was generally inconsequential at all levels. CONCLUSION: Similar results across languages implied the potential transfer of writing skills. Overall, students appeared to apply a knowledge-telling strategy to writing rather than strategically planning, composing, and revising their writing. Finally, outcomes highlighted the synergistic relationships among linguistic levels in text composition, indicating a need to address the interaction of vocabulary, morphosyntax, and text-level structures in the instruction and assessment of ELL writing.

Datos normativos de concreción de 730 palabras utilizadas por sujetos de habla castellana / Normative values of concreteness for 730 words used by spanish speakers

El presente estudio se planteó con el objetivo de calcular el índice psicolingüístico de concreción de una serie de palabras que resultan de interés en la investigación psicológica. El corpus analizado constó de 730 palabras, la mayoría de las cuales son ejemplares frecuentes de categorías naturales de acuerdo con normas de producción categorial en castellano. El resto, que fueron añadidas con fines metodológicos, se tomaron de una de las bases de datos de índices psicolingüísticos más frecuentemente utilizadas en castellano. Esta inclusión nos permitió, además, actualizar los valores de concreción de estas palabras y poner a prueba la estabilidad de dicho índice. Los resultados apoyan la estabilidad del mismo ante cambios generacionales y cambios en el tamaño muestral. Los datos obtenidos permiten un empleo más sofisticado de los estímulos verbales a los profesionales que trabajan en el campo de la investigación, la neuropsicología clínica y la educación. Finalmente, el estudio expone las principales limitaciones asociadas a los estudios normativos de obtención de índices psicolingüísticos y propone estrategias para su afrontamiento(AU)

The present study was aimed at compiling the concreteness values for a pool of words of particular interest to psychological research. The analyzed set included 730 words, most of which were common exemplars of natural categories according to Spanish-language norms. The rest of the words, which were added for methodological reasons, were selected from one of the most frequently used databases of psycholinguistic indexes in Spanish. This inclusion gave us the opportunity to update the concreteness values of these words as well as testing the stability of this index. The results support the stability of this index despite generational changes and changes in the sample size. The data obtained in this study enable researchers, clinicians and other professionals to make a more sophisticated usage of the verbal stimuli. Finally, this paper identifies the main limitations associated to normative studies for obtaining psycholinguistic indexes and suggests strategies for addressing these limitations(AU)

Una revisión de la investigación sobre lenguaje en el deterioro cognitivo leve / Research on language in mild cognitive impairment: a review

Aunque existen muchas investigaciones sobre el perfil neuropsicológico del deterioro cognitivo leve (DCL), los estudios centrados en analizar específicamente sus características psicolingüísticas no son concluyentes. El objetivo de este estudio es revisar las evidencias disponibles sobre la caracterización lingüística del DCL e identificar los mejores candidatos a predecir el DCL. Los estudios poblacionales han encontrado que medidas de fluidez verbal, denominación y memoria de palabras son buenas predictoras de la evolución del DCL hacia la demencia. Los estudios experimentales que comparan DCL con otros grupos proponen las tareas de fluidez verbal y de denominación, y en menor medida otras dimensiones, como la comprensión de oraciones y de textos, o la producción narrativa en cuanto a contenido semántico y estructuración sintáctica. Se informa de los hallazgos de algunos estudios que han buscado los correlatos neurológicos de los procesos implicados en el deterioro del lenguaje en el DCL. La presente revisión subraya la necesidad de estudiar nuevas dimensiones lingüísticas, sus relaciones con otros procesos cognitivos y sus fundamentos psicofisiológicos. Se menciona también la necesidad de realizar experiencias de intervención que permitan disminuir el deterioro y evitar en la medida de lo posible su evolución a la demencia (AU)

There are many studies on the neuropsychological profi le of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) but the results of investigations specifi cally addressing its psycholinguistic characteristics have been inconclusive. The present article aims to review the main population-based and experimental studies on language in MCI and to identify the features that help to predict deterioration. Population-based studies have found that the main predictors of MCI and its progression to dementia are measures of verbal fluency, naming and word memory. Experimental studies comparing patients with MCI and matched healthy controls have mainly analyzed performance in different fl uency and naming tasks and, to a lesser extent, other dimensions such as comprehension of sentences and texts and production of narrative speech, taking into account its semantic content and syntactic structures. The results of studies seeking neurological correlates of the processes involved in language deterioration in MCI are discussed. The present review highlights the need to explore new linguistic features of MCI, their relationships with other cognitive processes and their psychophysiological bases. The need for interventions to attenuate deterioration and avoid progression to dementia as far as possible is also discussed (AU)

El papel de la animacidad en la resolución de ambigüedades sintácticas en portugués europeo: evidencia en tareas de producción y comprensión / The role of animacy in European Portuguese relative clause attachment: evidence from production and comprehension tasks

En este trabajo se evaluó el papel de la animacidad en la desambiguación de cláusulas de relativo con doble antecedente en portugués europeo (PE). El estudio de cómo resuelve el procesador este tipo de ambigüedades ha sido objeto de gran interés en la investigación; sin embargo, en PE ésta ha sido escasa y poco consistente. Además, dado que la literatura más reciente ha destacado la relevancia de variables extrasintácticas en este proceso, se realizaron dos estudios con el objetivo de evaluar las estrategias de adjunción en PE manipulando la animacidad de los nombres del sintagma nominal complejo. En el estudio 1 se empleó una tarea de compleción de frases y en el estudio 2 una tarea de lectura autoadministrada. En ambos, los resultados revelaron una preferencia significativa por la estrategia de adjunción alta. No obstante, el tipo de estrategia fue modulado por la animacidad de los nombres, de manera que se prefirió la estrategia de adjunción baja cuando el primer nombre era inanimado y el segundo animado. Estos resultados arrojan luz sobre el uso de estas estrategias en PE y parecen apoyar la idea de que, en fases relativamente tempranas del procesamiento, el procesador atiende a información no exclusivamente sintáctica (AU)

This work presents an analysis of the role of animacy in attachment preferences of relative clauses to complex noun phrases in European Portuguese (EP). The study of how the human parser solves this kind of syntactic ambiguities has been focus of extensive research. However, what is known about EP is both limited and puzzling. Additionally, as recent studies have stressed the importance of extra-syntactic variables in this process, two experiments were carried out to assess EP attachment preferences considering four animacy conditions: Study 1 used a sentence-completion-task, and Study 2 a self-paced reading task. Both studies indicate a significant preference for high attachment in EP. Furthermore, they showed that this preference was modulated by the animacy of the host NP: if the first host was inanimate and the second one was animate, the parser’s preference changed to low attachment preference. These findings shed light on previous results regarding EP and strengthen the idea that, even in early stages of processing, the parser seems to be sensitive to extra-syntactic information (AU)

Acquisition of relations between the conceptual and linguistic dimensions of linearization in descriptive text composition in grades five to nine: a comparison with oral production.

The present study looked at how children establish a relationship between the conceptual and linguistic dimensions of linearization in descriptive text composition. Written productions were compared with oral ones. French-speaking participants, drawn from the fifth, seventh, and ninth grades, produced both a written and an oral description of a picture divided up into five clusters of specific units. This material made it possible to distinguish between the macro-structural and micro-structural levels of the resulting productions. The conceptual dimension of linearization was levelled out: participants were only selected if their texts reflected the hierarchical structure of the referent, successively describing the five clusters. The linguistic dimension of linearization was tested by comparing the use made of connectives in both modalities and analysing punctuation marks and speech pauses according to the modality. We established a specific classification for the analysis of spatial connectives, distinguishing between absolute and relative connectives. As expected, the proportion of texts reflecting the hierarchy of the referent increased through grade levels. From fifth grade onwards, and in both modalities, this hierarchy was marked by appropriate linguistic devices: at the macro-structural level, absolute spatial connectives were mainly used, as well as strong punctuation marks in writing and longer pauses in speech. At the micro-structural level, relations were mainly marked by relative spatial connectives. A grade level effect was observed, mainly in the written texts. However, results showed that, in writing as well as in speech, the management of the linguistic component of discourse linearization was, to a considerable degree, determined by the conceptual one.

Negative semantic priming from consciously vs. unconsciously perceived single words

El presente estudio investiga si la obtención depriming semántico negativo ante una única palabra ignorada depende delnivel de conciencia de dicha palabra. En cada ensayo aparecía brevementeuna palabra previa seguida inmediatamente o tras un intervalo de demora,por una máscara de patrón. A continuación aparecía una palabra objetivoante la que los participantes debían realizar una tarea de categorizaciónsemántica o una tarea de identificación de elección forzada. Se instruyó alos sujetos a que atendieran la palabra objetivo e ignoraran la palabra previa,considerándola como un distractor. Las palabras previa y objetivopertenecían a la misma categoría semántica en la mitad de los ensayos, y adistintas categorías en los ensayos restantes. Los resultados mostraron unpatrón diferencial de efectos de priming semántico en función del tipo deenmascaramiento: Priming negativo con la máscara demorada, y facilitacióncon la máscara inmediata. Estos resultados demuestran que el tipo deenmascaramiento, que supuestamente afecta a la percepción consciente vs.no consciente de la palabra previa, constituiría una variable crítica paraobtener priming semántico negativo ante una única palabra. También sonconsistentes con la idea de que la percepción con y sin conciencia produceconsecuencias comportamentales cualitativamente diferentes, que reflejan lacontribución de procesos controlados y automáticos, respectivamente(AU)

The present research explores whether obtaining semantic negative primingfrom a single ignored word depends on whether that word is eitherconsciously or unconsciously perceived. On each trial a prime word wasbriefly displayed and followed either immediately or after a delay by apattern mask. The mask offset was followed by a probe display containing asingle target word that participants were required to either categorize oridentify. Participants were instructed to attend to the target while ignoringthe prime word. On half of trials the prime-target pairs were highlyassociated words belonging to the same semantic category, whereas on theremaining half they belonged to different semantic categories. A differentialpriming pattern as a function of the masking condition was found: Semanticnegative priming when the mask presentation was delayed, and positivepriming when the prime word was immediately masked, thus preventing itsconscious identification. These results suggest that masking type, whichsupposedly affects prime awareness, would be a critical factor to obtainnegative semantic priming from single words. They also provide evidencethat perceiving a stimulus with or without awareness can lead toqualitatively different behavioral consequences, which reflect thecontribution of controlled and automatic components, respectively(AU)

O papel das capacidades metalinguísticas no aprendizado da leitura e escrita e seus distúrbios / Metalinguistic abilities in the acquisition and development of reading and writing

O objetivo sete trabalho é ilustrar e enfatizar a importância das capacidades metalinguísticas na aquisiçäo e desenvolvimento da leitura e escrita. Nos últimos vintes anos o campo da psicolinguística vem contribuindo aos estudos de aquisiçäo e desenvolvimento de linguagem oral e escrita. evidenciando as correlaçöes entre crianças com distúrbios no aprendizado da linguagem escrita e dificuldades básicas em manipular e processar as informaçöes linguísticas. Dentro deste modelo teórico säo discutidos, neste artigo, dados de pesquisa experimental que säo importantes ferramentas para o estudo da aquisiçäo e dos distúrbios de leitura e escrita