Measuring the complex syntax of school-aged children in language sample analysis: A known-groups validation study.

BACKGROUND: Complex syntax is affected by developmental language disorder (DLD) during the school years. Targeting areas of syntactic difficulty for children with DLD may yield useful assessment techniques. AIMS: To determine whether wh-movement can be measured in language samples from typically developing mono- and bilingual school-aged children, and, if so, to provide preliminary evidence of validity by comparison with traditional measures of syntax in a cross-sectional, known-groups design. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Participants were 48 typically developing children recruited from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia in four groups: monolingual English and bilingual French-English children in early (7-8 years of age) and late (11-12 years of age) elementary school. Language samples were collected and analysed with mean use of wh-movement, mean length of utterance and clausal density. These measures were compared for effects of age, bilingual development and elicitation task. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The results from all measures closely paralleled each other, providing preliminary evidence of validity. Wh-movement-based and traditional measures demonstrated similar age-related and discourse genre effects. Neither demonstrated an effect of mono- versus bilingual development. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The results confirm research interest in syntactic movement as an area of language assessment. Further research is required to understand its application to clinical populations. What this paper adds What is already known on the subject Complex syntax is known to be an area of difficulty for children with DLD. Certain syntactic constructions appear to be particularly difficult for these children. Assessments targeting these areas of difficulty are emerging. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The paper compares traditional measures of syntax with measures based on wh-movement. It shows similar results for both types of measures, suggesting construct and convergent validity. Results suggest that syntactic movement is an age-appropriate area of assessment for elementary school-aged children's language. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Language sample assessment measures based on wh-movement appear promising. The impact of task effects of the discourse genre on assessing syntax must be carefully considered in research and clinical practice.

A multi-site review of policies affecting opportunities for children with developmental disabilities to become bilingual.

This review of special education and language-in-education policies at six sites in four countries (Canada, United States, United Kingdom, and Netherlands) aimed to determine the opportunities for bilingualism provided at school for children with developmental disabilities (DD). While research has demonstrated that children with DD are capable of learning more than one language (see Kay Raining Bird, Genesee, & Verhoeven, this issue), it was not clear whether recent policies reflect these findings. The review, conducted using the same protocol across sites, showed that special education policies rarely addressed second language learning explicitly. However, at all sites, the policies favoured inclusion and educational planning based on individual needs, and thus implied that students with DD would have opportunities for second language learning. The language-in-education policies occasionally specified the support individuals with special needs would receive. At some sites, policies and educational options provided little support for minority languages, a factor that could contribute to subtractive bilingualism. At others, we found stronger support for minority languages and optional majority languages: conditions that could be more conducive to additive bilingualism.

Assessing the Reliability and Use of the Expository Scoring Scheme as a Measure of Developmental Change in Monolingual English and Bilingual French/English Children.

Purpose: The Expository Scoring Scheme (ESS) is designed to analyze the macrostructure of descriptions of a favorite game or sport. This pilot study examined inter- and intrarater reliability of the ESS and use of the scale to capture developmental change in elementary school children. Method: Twenty-four children in 2 language groups (monolingual English and bilingual French/English) and 2 age groups (7-8 years, 11-12 years) participated (6 in each subgroup). Participants orally explained how to play their favorite game or sport in English. Expository discourse samples were rated for 10 macrostructure components using the ESS. Ratings were summed for a total score. Results: Inter- and intrarater reliability was high for the total ESS score and for some but not all ESS components. In addition, the total score and ratings for many ESS components increased with age. Few differences were found in use of macrostructure components across language groups. Conclusions: The ESS captures developmental change in the use of expository macrostructure in spoken discourse samples. It may be beneficial to take into account the lower reliability found for ratings of some ESS components in clinical practice. Due to the small sample size, these results should be considered preliminary and interpreted with caution.

Mothers' talk to children with Down Syndrome, language impairment, or typical development about familiar and unfamiliar nouns and verbs.

This study investigated how forty-six mothers modified their talk about familiar and unfamiliar nouns and verbs when interacting with their children with Down Syndrome (DS), language impairment (LI), or typical development (TD). Children (MLUs < 2·7) were group-matched on expressive vocabulary size. Mother-child dyads were recorded playing with toy animals (noun task) and action boxes (verb task). Mothers of children with DS used shorter utterances and more verb labels in salient positions than the other two groups. All mothers produced unfamiliar target nouns in short utterances, in utterance-final position, and with the referent perceptually available. Mothers also talked more about familiar nouns and verbs and labelled them more often and more consistently. These findings suggest that mothers of children in the early period of language development fine-tune their input in ways that reflect their children's vocabulary knowledge, but do so differently for nouns and verbs.

Oral narratives in monolingual and bilingual preschoolers with SLI.

BACKGROUND: The body of literature on narratives of bilingual children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) is growing. However, little is known about the narrative abilities of bilingual preschool children with SLI and their patterns of growth. AIMS: To determine the similarities and differences in narrative abilities between preschoolers with and without SLI who are either monolingual or bilingual at two time points. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Forty children completed a narrative retell task in English at two test points. The mean ages were 52 and 58 months at Times 1 and 2, respectively. We examined performance on measures of narrative macrostructure (narrative information) and microstructure (sentence length, number of different words, verb accuracy, first mentions) in monolingual and bilingual children with and without SLI. The bilingual children were from diverse first-language backgrounds and all spoke English most of the time. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: A series of repeated-measures analyses of variance was used with language ability (typical development or SLI) and bilingual status (monolingual versus bilingual) as the between-subjects factors and time (Times 1 or 2) as the within-subjects factor. Results indicated a significant main effect of time for four measures (i.e., Information Score, lexical diversity, sentence length and verb accuracy). The between-subjects analyses indicated a significant difference between the typically developing children and the children with SLI in all measures and a significant difference between monolingual and bilingual children for verb accuracy only. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: This study showed that all four groups of children showed growth over a 6-month period and that bilingual children exposed predominantly to English in the home performed similarly to their monolingual peers in measures of narrative information, sentence length, number of different words and first mentions.

The efficacy of recasts in language intervention: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: This systematic review and meta-analysis critically evaluated the research evidence on the effectiveness of conversational recasts in grammatical development for children with language impairments. METHOD: Two different but complementary reviews were conducted and then integrated. Systematic searches of the literature resulted in 35 articles for the systematic review. Studies that employed a wide variety of study designs were involved, but all examined interventions where recasts were the key component. The meta-analysis only included studies that allowed the calculation of effect sizes, but it did include package interventions in which recasts were a major part. Fourteen studies were included, 7 of which were also in the systematic review. Studies were grouped according to research phase and were rated for quality. RESULTS: Study quality and thus strength of evidence varied substantially. Nevertheless, across all phases, the vast majority of studies provided support for the use of recasts. Meta-analyses found average effect sizes of .96 for proximal measures and .76 for distal measures, reflecting a positive benefit of about 0.75 to 1.00 standard deviation. CONCLUSION: The available evidence is limited, but it is supportive of the use of recasts in grammatical intervention. Critical features of recasts in grammatical interventions are discussed.

Syntactic bootstrapping in children with Down syndrome: the impact of bilingualism.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to add to our knowledge of bilingual learning in children with Down syndrome (DS) using a syntactic bootstrapping task. METHOD: Four groups of children and youth matched on non-verbal mental age participated. There were 14 bilingual participants with DS (DS-B, mean age 12;5), 12 monolingual participants with DS (DS-M, mean age 10;10), 9 bilingual typically developing children (TD-B; mean age 4;1) and 11 monolingual typically developing children (TD-M; mean age 4;1). The participants completed a computerized syntactic bootstrapping task involving unfamiliar nouns and verbs. The syntactic cues employed were a for the nouns and ing for the verbs. RESULTS: Performance was better on nouns than verbs. There was also a main effect for group. Follow-up t-tests revealed that there were no significant differences between the TD-M and TD-B or between the DS-M and DS-B groups. However, the DS-M group performed more poorly than the TD-M group with a large effect size. Analyses at the individual level revealed a similar pattern of results. CONCLUSION: There was evidence that Down syndrome impacted performance; there was no evidence that bilingualism negatively affected the syntactic bootstrapping skills of individuals with DS. These results from a dynamic language task are consistent with those of previous studies that used static or product measures. Thus, the results are consistent with the position that parents should be supported in their decision to provide bilingual input to their children with DS. LEARNING OUTCOMES: Readers of this article will identify (1) research evidence regarding bilingual development in children with Down syndrome and (2) syntactic bootstrapping skills in monolingual and bilingual children who are typically developing or who have Down syndrome.

The representation of roots in the spelling of children with specific language impairment.

Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have demonstrated general spelling and writing difficulties. We investigated the sensitivity of children with SLI to the consistent spelling of root morphemes, a feature to which young typically developing children demonstrate sensitivity. We asked children with SLI and two groups of typically developing children (n = 17 in each group) to spell the same letter-sound sequence (e.g., win) as a root, and as a component of inflected, derived, and control words (e.g., win, wins, winner, wink). Children with SLI and spelling-age-matched children (mean age of 9 and 7 years, respectively) were more accurate and more consistent in spelling the initial sections of the inflected and derived words than of the control words, a pattern that suggests sensitivity to the representation of roots in spelling. The absence of a group-level interaction suggests comparable sensitivity in the two groups. Our results suggest that elementary-school-aged children with SLI are sensitive to the consistent spelling of roots, at least to the extent predicted by their general spelling abilities.

A longitudinal study of narrative development in children and adolescents with Down syndrome.

The present study examined narrative development in children and adolescents with Down syndrome longitudinally. Narratives were collected from 32 children and adolescents with Down syndrome three times over a 1-year period. Both micro- and macrolevel analyses were conducted. Significant growth over the 1-year period was seen in semantic complexity and narrative structure. However, there was no evidence of growth in syntactic complexity or narrative length. Mental age and comprehension skills at Time 1 predicted scores in all 4 areas at Time 3. Expressive language skills added further to the prediction of syntactic complexity and story length.

Narrative abilities in monolingual and dual language learning children with specific language impairment.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to compare narrative abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI) who are monolingual and those who are dual language learners. METHOD: The participants were 26 children with SLI, 14 monolingual English speakers and 12 dual language learners. The dual language learners were English dominant and spoke a variety of other languages in the home. The two SLI groups were compared using standardized tests and measures from two narrative samples. RESULTS: Compared to the monolingual children, the dual language learners achieved lower scores on standardized tests of morphosyntax but not on measures of language form derived from the narrative samples. Both groups achieved below average scores on productivity, narrative structure, literate language, and language form measures from the narrative samples. CONCLUSION: The data suggest that narrative samples can be a sensitive way to assess the language skills of dual language learners with specific language impairment. Furthermore, the findings are consistent with the position that English standardized tests may be a biased assessment measure when used with dual language learners, particularly for the assessment of expressive morphosyntactic skills. LEARNING OUTCOMES: Readers will be able to (1) describe the narrative abilities of typically developing dual language learners; (2) describe similarities between the narrative abilities of children with SLI who are monolingual and dual language learners; (3) identify ways to analyses narratives at a variety of levels.

Written and oral narratives of children and adolescents with Down syndrome.

PURPOSE: This study describes written and spoken narrative skills of school-age individuals with Down syndrome (DS). METHOD: Twenty-one students with DS (age 6;6 [years;months]-19;10) and 17 reading-matched, typically developing (TD) controls (age 4;9-10;9) were matched using Word Identification subtest raw scores (Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests-Revised; R. W. Woodcock, 1987; age equivalents: 5;0-9;7 for both groups). Matching on reading resulted in significantly higher mental ages and vocabulary comprehension age-equivalent scores for the controls. Narratives were elicited in 3 modes (oral, handwritten, and word-processed) using single-episode picture sequences. Narratives were analyzed for length, linguistic complexity, narrative structure, spelling, punctuation, and handwriting legibility. RESULTS: Analyses revealed significant group differences only for measures of narrative length (DS > TD) and handwriting legibility (TD > DS). Oral narratives were longer and more complex than written narratives for both groups. Regression analyses revealed that vocabulary comprehension was the best predictor of narrative skills for the group with DS; age was the best predictor of narrative skills for the TD group. CONCLUSIONS: These school-age students with DS exhibited many oral and written narrative abilities that were comparable with those of real-word-reading-matched controls. Several findings suggest a possible increased constraint of fine-motor skill in the DS group.

Effects of familiarity on mothers' talk about nouns and verbs.

Modifications mothers make when talking to young English-speaking children between the ages of 1;8 and 3;0 (average age = 2;4) about words perceived to be familiar versus unfamiliar were investigated. Nineteen mothers and their children participated in two toy play tasks; one designed to elicit talk about familiar and unfamiliar animals and the other designed to elicit talk about familiar and unfamiliar actions. It was found that mothers' talk involving unfamiliar words differed from talk involving familiar words in a number of ways. Some modifications served to highlight the unfamiliar word which could assist in segmenting the unfamiliar word and mapping it to its referent. Compared to familiar nouns and verbs, unfamiliar nouns and verbs were produced more frequently in highly salient utterance positions and were paired more consistently with a clear nonverbal referent. Familiar nouns but, not verbs, were produced in longer utterances than unfamiliar nouns which could support the child's elaboration of the lexical representation of the familiar word.

Roles of initiation and responsiveness in access and participation for children with specific language impairment.

This study compared the abilities of children with specific language impairment (SLI; n = 10) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 13) to access and participate in an ongoing interaction between two unfamiliar peer partners. Results revealed that all children in the study accessed by either making an unprompted initiation toward their peers (access initiation) or by responding to a question or play invitation directed toward them (access response). However, 4 children with SLI were unsuccessful in achieving successful access initiation during the 10-min play period. Children with SLI required a longer period of time to achieve access initiation. Following access, children with SLI were addressed significantly less by their play partners, participated in less group play, and engaged in more individual play and onlooking behavior. Among the SLI group, language levels were negatively related to the time children required to achieve their first successful access and first access initiation. Expressive language levels were positively related to the percentage of utterances children produced postaccess and the percentage of utterances they were addressed postaccess by their play partners. Differences in receptive skills among SLI children were less strongly related to the time they required in achieving their first access and were unrelated to their ability to participate in the interaction.

The language abilities of bilingual children with Down syndrome.

Children with Down syndrome (DS) have cognitive disabilities resulting from trisomy 21. Language-learning difficulties, especially expressive language problems, are an important component of the phenotype of this population. Many individuals with DS are born into bilingual environments. To date, however, there is almost no information available regarding the capacity of these individuals to acquire more than 1 language. The present study compared the language abilities of 8 children with DS being raised bilingually with those of 3 control groups matched on developmental level: monolingual children with DS (n = 14), monolingual typically developing (TD) children (n = 18), and bilingual TD children (n = 11). All children had at least 100 words in their productive vocabularies but a mean length of utterance of less than 3.5. The bilingual children spoke English and 1 other language and were either balanced bilinguals or English-dominant. English testing was completed for all children using the following: the Preschool Language Scale, Third Edition; language sampling; and the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). Bilingual children were also tested in the second language using a vocabulary comprehension test, the CDI, and language sampling. Results provided evidence of a similar profile of language abilities in bilingual children as has been documented for monolingual children with DS. There was no evidence of a detrimental effect of bilingualism. That is, the bilingual children with DS scored at least as well on all English tests as their monolingual DS counterparts. Nonetheless, there was considerable diversity in the second-language abilities demonstrated by these individuals with DS. Clinical implications are addressed.

A comparison of phonological awareness skills in early French immersion and English children.

This 2-year study examined the effects of early second language exposure on phonological awareness skills. Syllable, onset-rime and phoneme awareness skills of 72 anglophone children attending English or French immersion programs in primary and grade 1 were investigated. Three-way mixed ANOVAS revealed the following effects and interactions. In terms of grade effect, grade 1 students performed significantly better than primary students on phoneme and onset-rime tasks. A stimulus language effect was observed for the three levels of phonological awareness. All children performed better on English tasks than on French ones. Interaction effects of stimulus language by program were revealed for phoneme as well as syllable tasks. Posthoc analyses revealed that French students performed better on English phoneme and syllable tasks than on French, while English students performed better than French immersion students on French syllable tasks. Correlational analyses revealed significant relationships between reading and phoneme and onset-rime phonological awareness tasks regardless of program of instruction (English, French immersion) or language of reading test (English, French). Syllable awareness was only significantly correlated with the French non-word reading task for the French immersion students.