Lexical development in Kuwaiti Arabic in typically developing children and late talkers.

INTRODUCTION: This study explored vocabulary development and lexical composition in young typically developing (TD) Kuwaiti children and late talkers (LT) using the Kuwaiti Arabic Communicative Development Inventory-Words and Sentences (KACDI-WS) Abdalla et al., 2016). The sample included 161 children aged 20 to 37 months: 127 TD and 34 children who were late talkers (LT group). The late talkers were first identified based on a background questionnaire answered by the parents. All the caregivers completed a 698-item web-based KACDI expressive vocabulary inventory by selecting non-imitative words that their children produced. RESULTS: Lexical size and composition (nouns, predicates, and closed-class words) were analyzed. Across the TD age groups (20-26, 27-31, 32-37 months), a significant age effect for vocabulary size and composition was found in favor of the older groups. Nouns were more prevalent than predicates or closed-class words in within-group comparisons. The vocabulary size of the TD (M= 263.8) was significantly larger than that of the LT group (M= 69.2). The development of their lexical composition followed a similar pattern. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggested that the KACDI parent report instrument has the potential for measuring vocabulary development in TD children and could serve as an initial screening tool to identify late talkers.

The Effect of Age and Task Complexity on the Microstructure of Child Arabic Narratives.

PURPOSE: This study examines the development of narrative microstructure elements of productivity, lexical diversity, and syntactic complexity in the oral story production of preschool- and school-age Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children. It also explores the effects of story task complexity on the target microstructural features. METHOD: This study employed a cross-sectional research design and enrolled 96 monolingual speakers of Kuwaiti Arabic. Four groups of children aged 4;0-7;11 (years;months) were randomly recruited from public schools across Kuwait. The groups consisted of 22 four-year-olds (Kindergarten 1), 24 five-year-olds (Kindergarten 2), 25 six-year-olds (Grade 1), and 25 seven-year-olds (Grade 2). Two sets of sequential pictures from the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument were used to elicit storytelling from all participants: a one-episode story and a more complex three-episode story. RESULTS: The children's stories were analyzed to determine if there were differences in narrative microstructure as a function of age and task complexity. The data indicated that productivity, lexical diversity, and syntactic structures increased with task complexity. The length of communication units, the average mean length of the three longest utterances, and the amount and variety of words in the children's productions were all significantly larger in the more complex story. Only one syntactic structure showed age as well as task effects. CONCLUSION: Clinical recommendations include adapting the coding scheme to fit Arabic data, using the more complex narrative alone for microstructure analysis, and calculating only a few measures for productivity and syntactic complexity to save time.

Differential stuttering during conversation and oral reading in Kuwaiti-Arabic speakers: a note on diglossia.

The current study aimed to explore the frequency and types of stuttering in the oral reading and conversational samples of Arabic adults who stutter (AWS). Twelve Kuwaiti-Arabic AWS (mean age: 27.3 years) participated in the study. Each participant's stuttering was analyzed in two speaking contexts -oral reading of a standard Arabic passage and spontaneous conversational speech. The results showed that among a majority of the participants the amount of stuttering in conversation was significantly lower than that of reading. However, no significant differences were found in disfluency types within and between samples. The higher occurrence of stuttering in reading may be related to the diglossic nature of Arabic. The linguistic and rhythmic distinctions between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Kuwaiti dialectal Arabic are explored to further explain the findings.

Structural Development of Narratives in Arabic: Task Complexity, Age, and Cultural Factors.

Purpose This study examines the effect of age and task complexity on the macrostructure of story production in preschool- and school-age Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children. It also compares the children's production of core and complementary macrostructure story elements. Method A descriptive, cross-sectional research design was used to explore the participants' narrative skills. A total of 122 monolingual speakers of Kuwaiti Arabic (97 children and 25 adults) participated in this study. The children aged 4;0 to 7;11 (years;months) were randomly recruited from public schools across Kuwait. There were 24 four-year-olds (Kindergarten 1), 23 five-year-olds (Kindergarten 2), 23 six-year-olds (Grade 1), and 27 seven-year-olds (Grade 2). A group of adults was also included to establish a benchmark. Storytelling was elicited from all the participants using two sets of sequential pictures from the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument: a one-episode story and a more complex three-episode story (Schneider et al., 2005). Across-group comparisons were conducted to explore the effect of age, story complexity, and type of macrostructure elements on story production. Results The findings revealed a progression by age in the development of story macrostructure, but there was no effect of task complexity. Within all age groups, the core macrostructure components were mastered before the complementary elements. Conclusions The results of this study confirmed that cross-linguistic narrative measures could be used in contexts that are culturally and linguistically different with minor adaptations. The piloting of two picture-based stories showed that the shorter one-episode version may be sufficient to evaluate the language development of this age group.

Success in changing stuttering attitudes: A retrospective analysis of 29 intervention studies.

BACKGROUND: Against the backdrop of hundreds of studies documenting negative stereotypes and stigma held by the public regarding people who stutter, a substantial number of investigations have attempted to improve public attitudes and measure their results with a standard instrument, the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes-Stuttering (POSHA-S). Although the majority of interventions have been moderately to quite successful, a substantial minority have been unsuccessful. PURPOSE: This study sought to determine what properties of interventions and demographic variables were predictive of least to most successful interventions. Preliminary to that, however, it required the division of samples into clearly differentiated categories of success. METHOD: Twenty-nine different study samples containing 934 participants were categorized into four levels of success of interventions according to pre versus post POSHA-S summary mean ratings. Intervention properties and demographic characteristics and for each success category were analyzed for their predictive potential of successful attitude improvement. RESULTS: Interventions characterized by high interest or involvement, meaningful material, and content that respondents found to be relevant, but not excessive, tended to be associated with more successful interventions. In contrast, demographic variables were weak predictors of intervention success. CONCLUSION: The authors hypothesize that maximally effective interventions reflect optimal matches between participant characteristics and intervention features, although the critical variables in each are not yet apparent.

Modifying attitudes of Arab school teachers toward stuttering.

PURPOSE: The authors of this quasi-experimental design study explored the effect of an educational documentary video that presented factual and emotional aspects of stuttering on changing attitudes toward stuttering of preservice trainees and in-service public school teachers in Kuwait. METHOD: Participants were 99 preservice trainees (48 control, 51 experimental) and 103 in-service teachers (49 control, 54 experimental). All participants completed 22 items from the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes-Stuttering (POSHA-S; St. Louis, 2005; translated into Arabic) and 17 additional items pre and post treatment. Participants in the experimental group viewed the awareness video. RESULTS: Pretreatment comparisons confirmed that the control and experimental groups did not differ on their attitudes toward stuttering. As predicted, the posttreatment ratings for the control group were not different from the pretreatment ratings. A significant shift in attitudes (mostly in a positive direction) from pre to post treatment was observed for the experimental group of preservice trainees but not for the experimental group of in-service teachers. Interpretation of the difference in outcomes for the experimental preservice group as compared to the experimental in-service group is confounded by gender differences across groups. CONCLUSION: The authors of this study demonstrated that it is possible to positively modify preservice trainees' attitudes of people who stutter by using an educational documentary video.

Perceptions of voice disorders: a survey of Arab adults.

A disordered voice may lead to social stigma as well as reduced occupational opportunities. Much of the research on this topic has investigated the effects of voice disorders from a Western perspective. The societal attitudes of international populations toward people with voice disorders (PWVD) are less well known. The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of adults living in Kuwait toward PWVD. Participants completed a questionnaire that addressed social, educational, and occupational aspects of life for PWVD. The results indicated that while Kuwaiti adults hold generally positive attitudes toward PWVD, they may also perceive PWVD as more likely to be emotionally disturbed, have difficulty making friends or getting married, and experience trouble in finding a good job.

The relationship between awareness of intellectual disability, causal and intervention beliefs and social distance in Kuwait and the UK.

Evidence on lay beliefs and stigma associated with intellectual disability in an Arab context is almost non-existent. This study examined awareness of intellectual disability, causal and intervention beliefs and social distance in Kuwait. These were compared to a UK sample to examine differences in lay conceptions across cultures. 537 university students in Kuwait and 571 students in the UK completed a web-based survey asking them to respond to a diagnostically unlabelled vignette of a man presenting with symptoms of mild intellectual disability. They rated their agreement with 22 causal items as possible causes for the difficulties depicted in the vignette, the perceived helpfulness of 22 interventions, and four social distance items using a 7-point Likert scale. Only 8% of Kuwait students, yet 33% of UK students identified possible intellectual disability in the vignette. Medium to large differences between the two samples were observed on seven of the causal items, and 10 of the intervention items. Against predictions, social distance did not differ. Causal beliefs mediated the relationship between recognition of intellectual disability and social distance, but their mediating role differed by sample. The findings are discussed in relation to cultural practices and values, and in relation to attribution theory. In view of the apparent positive effect of awareness of the symptoms of intellectual disability on social distance, both directly and through the mediating effects of causal beliefs, promoting increased awareness of intellectual disability and inclusive practices should be a priority, particularly in countries such as Kuwait where it appears to be low.

Plural noun inflection in Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children with and without specific language impairment.

This study examined the production of three types of noun plural inflections, feminine sound plural (FSP), masculine sound plural (MSP), and broken plural (BP) in Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children with and without language impairment. A total of thirty-six Kuwaiti participants - twelve adults, twelve children with specific language impairment (SLI), and twelve typically developing age-matched controls (TD) were presented with twenty-seven pictured stimuli of real and nonsense words. The results showed that the TD children were significantly more accurate in using the required noun plural inflections than the SLI group. The TD children's preferred overgeneralization strategy was to substitute FSP for the regular MSP and irregular BP contexts much more than their peers with SLI. The performance of the SLI group also differed from that of their age-matched counterparts in the number of errors and their distribution across categories. The results are discussed in the light of relevant theories of atypical language development.

Arab school teachers' knowledge, beliefs and reactions regarding stuttering.

PURPOSE: Stereotypes toward stuttering and people who stutter (PWS) are widespread in the general public irrespective of age, level of education, culture, geographic location and profession. Negative attitudes held by persons of authority like teachers can lead to social, economic and educational obstacles in the lives of PWS. METHOD: The current study used an Arabic translation of an adapted version of the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes-Stuttering (POSHA-S) to explore Arab teachers' knowledge and attitudes toward stuttering as well as strategies they adopt to cope with the problem in class. The participants were 262 in-service and 209 pre-service public school teachers in Kuwait. The results are contrasted to those of Arab parents in Kuwait reported earlier. RESULTS: Although many of the teachers knew a person who stutters well and were sensitive in their interactions with PWS, major findings of this study suggest that many were misinformed about the causes of stuttering and held stereotypical views about PWS, comparable to those reported in the literature. Very few differences were noted between opinions of teachers who were still in training and those who were practicing for an average of 11 years. CONCLUSION: The study underscores the need for awareness campaigns that target not only teachers who are currently working but also those still in training to dispel misconceptions about stuttering and ensure a better educational environment for PWS. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: At the end of this activity the reader will be able to: (1) describe knowledge of stuttering and attitudes toward students who stutter and classroom strategies perceived to be helpful by pre-service and in-service teachers in Kuwait; (2) identify stereotypes toward stuttering across cultures, professions and geographic locations; and (3) list similarities and differences in attitude and knowledge of stuttering between parents and teachers.

Stuttering and lexical category in adult Arabic speakers.

The purpose of this study was to test whether the content and function word dichotomy of speech disfluency found in English-speaking adults who stutter (AWS) was evident in a language other than English. A group of adult Arabic-speaking AWS were sampled across spontaneous speaking, oral reading, and single-word naming tasks. Moments of disfluency were identified and examined in regard to lexical category. Results indicated no significant differences in the amount of disfluency occurring on content and function words. The production of combined content-function words, a unique feature of the Arabic language, was associated with a high level of disfluency. The linguistic bases of stuttering are discussed in regard to language-specific influences.