Language use in social interactions of school-age children with language impairments: an evidence-based systematic review of treatment.

INTRODUCTION: Pragmatic models were first applied to the treatment of children with language impairment in the late 1970s. Since that time, the study of language use has had considerable impact on language assessment and treatment. Despite the need to address pragmatic language skills clinically, there has been no systematic examination of the efficacy of treatments developed for this purpose. METHOD: In accordance with the evidence-based practice policy agenda, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) convened an ad hoc committee on language use in social interactions in school-age children. The committee's charge was to develop an evidence-based systematic review of treatment for disorders of language use in social interactions. This charge was conducted in collaboration with ASHA's National Center for Evidence-Based Practice in Communication Disorders. RESULTS: This systematic review provided preliminary support for the feasibility of various treatment procedures addressing social communication behaviors. Gains were reported in topic management skills, narrative production, and repairs of inadequate or ambiguous comments. CONCLUSION: Because further investigation of these treatments is warranted, the committee is unable to make empirically supported recommendations for changes in standard clinical practice based solely on this review. More research is needed to examine the feasibility of interventions that focus on children's language use.

Tapping toddlers' evolving semantic representation via gesture.

PURPOSE: This study presents evidence that gesture is a means to understanding the semantic representations of toddlers. METHOD: The data were part of a study of toddlers' word learning conducted by N. C. Capone and K. K. McGregor (2005). The object function probe from that study was administered after 1 exposure and after 3 exposures to objects. Here, toddlers' gestures were described and their gesture-speech combinations were analyzed as a function of instruction and time. RESULTS: A large proportion of toddlers gestured. Gestures were iconic and deictic, but toddlers produced more iconic gestures than previously reported. Consistent with studies of older children, toddlers produced gesture-speech combinations that reflected their learning state. CONCLUSION: Gesture can be both a source of semantic knowledge and an expression of that knowledge. Gesture provides a window onto evolving semantic representations and, therefore, can be 1 method of assessing what a child knows at a time when oral language skills are limited and are, perhaps, an unreliable indicator of what the child knows. Embodied knowledge may underlie the use of gesture. Clinical implications are discussed.

The effect of semantic representation on toddlers' word retrieval.

PURPOSE: This study tested the hypothesis that depth of semantic representation influences toddlers' word retrieval. METHOD: Nineteen toddlers participated under 3 word learning conditions in this longitudinal study. Gestures cued attention to object shape (SHP) or function (FNC) in the experimental conditions. No semantic cue was provided under a control condition (CTL). Word learning conditions occurred on each of 3 days. On the 4th day, word retrieval was assessed across 3 levels of scaffolding (uncued picture naming, cued picture naming, picture recognition). Evidence of semantic representation was provided at fast and slow mapping intervals. RESULTS: Less scaffolding was necessary for word retrieval (uncued and cued naming) under experimental conditions than under the CTL condition. However, more SHP than FNC condition targets were retrieved for uncued picture naming. This latter difference may be related to the superior fast mapping of targets under the SHP condition. Toddlers stated object functions (slow mapping) comparably in the experimental conditions, but this was superior to CTL condition performance. CONCLUSIONS: Word retrieval is a continuous behavior that is positively influenced by semantic representation. Semantic knowledge of objects can be enriched by shape or function gestures, thereby improving toddlers' object word productions. Shape cues appear to be more effective for this purpose.

Genetic and environmental interactions in determining the early lexicon: evidence from a set of tri-zygotic quadruplets.

A set of tri-zygotic quadruplets, three girls and one boy, participated in weekly observations from 1.2 to 1.10 (years;months), a period of transition from prelinguistic gesture to 50 words. In the study, one girl served as a genetic mate to her identical twin and a biological risk mate to her fraternal sister. The biological risk mates achieved milestones in lexical development at similar times; however, the genetic mates demonstrated more similarities in pattern of lexical development and in the modality of their word productions. Degree of similarity changed over the observation period. Imposed upon the natural experiment was a within-subject manipulation of the social environment: The experimenters modelled a core vocabulary via the gesture + verbal modalities to the children during each visit. The modelling resulted in increased rates of word learning for three of the children; the child with the greatest biological risk, the boy, derived the greatest benefit. The findings provide unique support for a dynamic, multi-factorial model of lexical development involving the interaction of genetics, the biological environment and the social environment. Furthermore, they illustrate the robustness of early lexical development in the face of biological risks.

Gesture development: a review for clinical and research practices.

The aim of this article is to provide clinicians and researchers a comprehensive overview of the development and functions of gesture in childhood and in select populations with developmental language impairments. Of significance is the growing body of evidence that gesture enhances, not hinders, language development. In both normal and impaired populations, gesture and language development parallel each other and share underlying symbolic abilities. Gesture serves several functions, including those of communication, compensation, and transition to spoken language. In clinical practice, gesture may play a valuable role in diagnosis, prognosis, goal selection, and intervention for children with language impairments. Where available, supporting evidence is presented. Needs for additional research on gesture are also highlighted.

Semantic representation and naming in children with specific language impairment.

When 16 children with SLI (mean age = 6;2) and 16 normally developing age-mates named age-appropriate objects, the SLI cohort made more naming errors. For both cohorts, semantic misnaming and indeterminate responses were the predominant error types. The contribution of limited semantic representation to these naming errors was explored. Each participant drew and defined each item from his or her semantic and indeterminate error pools and each item from his or her correctly named pool. When compared, the drawings and definitions of items from the error pools were poorer, suggesting limited semantic knowledge. The profiles of information included in definitions of items from the correct pool and the error pools were highly similar, suggesting that representations associated with misnaming differed quanlitatively, but not qualitatively, from those associated with correct naming. Eleven members of the SLI cohort also participated in a forced-choice recognition task. Performance was significantly lower on erroneous targets than on correctly named targets. When performance was compared across all three post-naming tasks (drawing, defining, recognition), the participants evinced sparse semantic knowledge for roughly half of all semantic misnaming and roughly one third of all indeterminate responses. In additional cases, representational gaps were evident. This study demonstrates that the degree of knowledge represented in the child's semantic lexicon makes words more or less vulnerable to retrieval failure and that limited semantic knowledge contributes to the frequent naming errors of children with SLI.