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1.
Int J Speech Lang Pathol ; 21(2): 143-152, 2019 04.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29215296

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To improve screening procedures for children in a linguistically diverse context, we combined tasks known to reveal grammatical deficits in children with language impairment (LI) with training to facilitate performance on a verb elicitation task. METHOD: Sixty-four first grade children participated. The objective grammatical measures included elicitation of 12 past tense regular verbs preceded by a teaching phase (teach-test), the sentence recall (SR) subtest of the Clinical evaluation of language fundamentals (CELF-4), and a tally of all conjugated verbs from a narrative retell task. Given the widespread reliance on teacher observation for the referral of children suspected of having LI, we compared our results to the spoken language portion of the CELF-4 teacher observational rating scale (ORS). RESULT: Using teacher observation as a reference for comparison, the past tense elicitation task and the SR task yielded strong discriminating power, but the verb tally was relatively weak. However, combining the three tasks yielded the highest levels of sensitivity (75%) and specificity (92%) than any single measure on its own. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to alternative assessment practices by highlighting the potential utility of adding a teaching component prior to administering informal grammatical probes.


Subject(s)
Child Behavior , Child Language , Language Development Disorders/diagnosis , Language Tests , Poverty , Schools , Verbal Behavior , Verbal Learning , Age Factors , Child , Female , Humans , Language Development Disorders/ethnology , Language Development Disorders/psychology , Linguistics , Male , Predictive Value of Tests , Risk Assessment , Risk Factors
2.
J Speech Lang Hear Res ; 61(10): 2532-2546, 2018 10 26.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30286247

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine changes in English past tense accuracy and errors among Spanish-English bilingual children with typical development (TD) and developmental language disorder (DLD). Method: Thirty-three children were tested before and after 1 year to examine changes in clinically relevant English past tense errors using an elicited production task. A mixed-model linear regression using age as a continuous variable revealed a robust effect for age. A 4-way repeated-measures analysis of variance was conducted with age (young, old) and language ability group (TD, DLD) as between-subjects variables, time (Time 1, Time 2) and verb type (regular, irregular, and novel verbs) as within-subject variables, and percent accuracy as the dependent variable. Subsequently, a 4-way repeated-measures analysis of variance was conducted to measure the overall distribution of verb errors across 2 time points. Results: Overall, children produced regular and novel verb past tense forms with higher accuracy than irregular past tense verbs in an elicitation task. Children with TD were more accurate than children with DLD. Younger children made more improvement than older children from Time 1 to Time 2, especially in the regular and novel verb conditions. Bare stem and overregularization were the most common errors across all groups. Errors consisting of stem + ing were more common in children with DLD than those with TD in the novel verb condition. Discussion: Contrary to an earlier report (Jacobson & Schwartz, 2005), the relative greater difficulty with regular and novel verbs was replaced by greater difficulty for irregular past tense, a pattern consistent with monolingual impairment. Age was a contributing factor, particularly for younger children with DLD who produced more stem + ing errors in the novel verb condition. For all children, and particularly for those with DLD, an extended period for irregular past tense learning was evident. The results support a usage-based theory of language acquisition and impairment.


Subject(s)
Language Development Disorders/physiopathology , Language , Multilingualism , Age Factors , Analysis of Variance , Child , England , Female , Hispanic or Latino , Humans , Male , Spain
3.
Am J Speech Lang Pathol ; 22(3): 554-65, 2013 Aug.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-23813196

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: This study explored the utility of language sample analysis for evaluating language ability in school-age Spanish-English sequential bilingual children. Specifically, the relative potential of lexical diversity and word/morpheme omission as predictors of typical or atypical language status was evaluated. METHOD: Narrative samples were obtained from 48 bilingual children in both of their languages using the suggested narrative retell protocol and coding conventions as per Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT; Miller & Iglesias, 2008) software. An additional lexical diversity measure, VocD, was also calculated. A series of logistical hierarchical regressions explored the utility of the number of different words, VocD statistic, and word and morpheme omissions in each language for predicting language status. RESULTS: Omission errors turned out to be the best predictors of bilingual language impairment at all ages, and this held true across languages. Although lexical diversity measures did not predict typical or atypical language status, the measures were significantly related to oral language proficiency in English and Spanish. CONCLUSION: The results underscore the significance of omission errors in bilingual language impairment while simultaneously revealing the limitations of lexical diversity measures as indicators of impairment. The relationship between lexical diversity and oral language proficiency highlights the importance of considering relative language proficiency in bilingual assessment.


Subject(s)
Child Language , Language Development , Linguistics , Multilingualism , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Language , Logistic Models , Male , Predictive Value of Tests , Semantics , Speech-Language Pathology , Vocabulary
4.
Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch ; 39(3): 352-64, 2008 Jul.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-18596292

ABSTRACT

UNLABELLED: One aspect of linguistic input that may vary in bilingual speech communities is the use of overregularization (e.g., catched). In an earlier study, typically developing bilingual Spanish/English-speaking children were noted to use overregularizations in an elicited production task, accept these forms in a grammaticality judgment task, and reject standard irregular forms (e.g., caught) at surprising rates in favor of the overregularization (P. F. Jacobson, 2002). PURPOSE: This study examined the extent to which bilingual adult speakers reported hearing and using overregularized forms. METHOD: Thirty Spanish/English-speaking adults who worked in settings with bilingual children served as informants. The stimuli included 15 regular and 15 irregular verbs-each as a correct irregular form and as an overregularization (e.g., caught and catched) or as a correct regular form and as an irregularization (e.g., helped and holp). Employing a modified grammaticality judgment task, the informants were instructed to state whether they heard these forms produced by bilingual adults and whether or not they themselves ever used the forms. RESULTS: Although monolingual English speakers overwhelmingly rejected hearing or using overregularizations, the bilingual adults responded differently. They acknowledged hearing the correct regular and irregular forms in 96% of the instances presented. However, they also reported hearing 62%, and using 20%, of the overregularizations. Discussion These results prompt speculation regarding possible variation in the nature of linguistic input in the bilingual community and address learnability issues in the acquisition of the English past tense by bilingual children. The challenges facing speech-language pathologists who work with children from bilingual communities are discussed.


Subject(s)
Hispanic or Latino/psychology , Language Development , Phonetics , Psycholinguistics , Semantics , Speech Perception , Verbal Learning , Adolescent , Adult , Child , Comprehension , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged
5.
Am J Speech Lang Pathol ; 14(4): 313-23, 2005 Nov.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-16396614

ABSTRACT

Grammatical measures that distinguish language differences from language disorders in bilingual children are scarce. This study examined English past tense morphology in sequential bilingual Spanish/English-speaking children, age 7;0-9;0 (years;months). Twelve bilingual children with language impairment (LI) or history of LI and 15 typically developing (TD) bilingual children participated. Thirty-six instances of the past tense including regular, irregular, and novel verbs were examined using an elicited production task. By examining English past tense morphology in sequential bilinguals, we uncovered similarities and differences in the error patterns of TD children and children with LI. The groups differed in the overall accuracy of past tense use according to verb type, as well as the characteristic error patterns. Children with LI performed lower than their TD peers on all verb categories, with an interaction between verb type and group. TD children were better at producing regular verbs and exhibited more productive errors (e.g., overregularization). Conversely, children with LI performed relatively better on irregular verbs and poorest on novel verbs, and they exhibited more nonproductive errors (e.g., bare stem verbs). The results have important clinical implications for the assessment of morphological productivity in Spanish-speaking children who are learning English sequentially.


Subject(s)
Language Disorders/physiopathology , Linguistics , Multilingualism , Case-Control Studies , Child , Female , Humans , Language Tests , Male , Sensitivity and Specificity
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