Abilities and Disabilities Among Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to situate developmental language disorder (DLD) within the impairment and disability framework of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF); describe the functional strengths and weaknesses of a cohort of first-grade children with DLD and their peers; and explore the ways that language-related disabilities relate to language impairment, developmental risk, and receipt of language services. METHOD: We queried the caregivers of 35 children with DLD and 44 peers with typical language development about their children's language-related functions, developmental risks, and language services using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. RESULTS: The children with DLD presented with weaknesses in domains that are highly dependent upon language skill, including communication, community function, interpersonal relationships, and academics. They presented with strengths in domestic and personal aspects of daily living, play and coping aspects of socialization, and gross motor function. Caregivers of children with DLD expressed pride in their children's agentive and prosocial qualities. Consistent with the ICF, what distinguished children with DLD who had functional weaknesses and disabilities from those who had healthy function was not the severity of language impairment as measured by decontextualized tests of language skill, but the presence of cumulative developmental risks. Compared to those with healthy function, a larger portion of children with weaknesses and disabilities were receiving language services; however, two girls who had disabilities despite mild levels of impairment were without services. CONCLUSIONS: Children with DLD present with predictable strengths and weaknesses in everyday language-related functioning. For some children, the weaknesses are mild, but for others, they limit function to a greater extent and should be considered disabilities. The severity of language impairment is not a strong indicator of language-related function and, therefore, is not a good metric for determining service qualification.

Direct Instruction Improves Word Learning for Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

PURPOSE: The current study compared the effects of direct instruction versus indirect exposure on multiple aspects of novel word learning for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and children with typical language development (TLD). METHOD: Participants included 36 children with DLD and 45 children with TLD. All children were in the first grade and 6-8 years of age (Mdn = 7 years; 2 months). Using a between-subjects design, children were randomly assigned to be exposed to novel words and their unfamiliar referents via either direct instruction (each referent presented in isolation with an explicit goal of learning) or indirect exposure (multiple referents presented with the goal of answering yes/no questions). RESULTS: In alternative forced-choice measures of recognition, children with DLD were less accurate than their TLD peers in linking words to referents, encoding semantic categories for words, and encoding detailed representations of word forms. These differences in word learning were accounted for by a constellation of cognitive measures, including receptive vocabulary, phonological memory, visuospatial memory, and sustained attention. All children were similarly accurate in retaining word forms over a 24- to 48-hr delay. Children with TLD were more accurate in all aspects of word learning following direct instruction compared to indirect exposure. Benefits from direct instruction were observed for children with DLD in link and semantic, but not word form, learning. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that vocabulary interventions with direct instruction can help children with DLD learn some, but not all, aspects of novel words. Additional support is necessary to help children with DLD encode rich phonological representations.

Word Learning by Preschool-Age Children: Differences in Encoding, Re-Encoding, and Consolidation Across Learners During Slow Mapping.

PURPOSE: Children with typical development vary in how much experience they need to learn words. This could be due to differences in the amount of information encoded during periods of input, consolidated between periods of input, or both. Our primary purpose is to identify whether encoding, consolidation, or both, drive individual differences in the slow-mapping process. METHOD: Four- to 6-year-old children (N = 43) were trained on nine form-referent pairs across consecutive days. Children's ability to name referents was assessed at the beginning and end of each session. Word learning was assessed 1 month after training to determine long-term retention. RESULTS: Children with varying language knowledge and skills differed in their ability to encode words. Specifically, children varied in the number of words learned and the phonological precision of word forms at the end of the initial training session. Children demonstrated similarities in re-encoding in that they refined representations at a similar rate during subsequent sessions. Children did not differ in their ability to consolidate words between sessions, or in their ability to retain words over the 1-month delay. CONCLUSIONS: The amount of experience children need to learn words is primarily driven by the amount of information encoded during the initial experience. When provided with high-quality instruction, children demonstrate a similar ability to consolidate and retain words. Critically, word learning instruction in educational settings must include repeated explicit instruction with the same words to support learning in children with typical development and varying language skills. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19606150.

Word Learning by Preschool-Age Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Impaired Encoding and Robust Consolidation During Slow Mapping.

Purpose Learning novel words, including the specific phonemes that make up word forms, is a struggle for many individuals with developmental language disorder (DLD). Building robust representations of words includes encoding during periods of input and consolidation between periods of input. The primary purpose of the current study is to determine differences between children with DLD and with typical development (TD) in the encoding and consolidation of word forms during the slow mapping process. Method Preschool-age children (DLD = 9, TD = 9) were trained on nine form-referent pairs across multiple consecutive training days. Children's ability to name referents at the end of training days indicated their ability to encode forms. Children's ability to name referents at the beginning of training days after a period of overnight sleep indicated their ability to consolidate forms. Word learning was assessed 1 month after training to determine long-term retention of forms. Results Throughout training, children with DLD produced fewer forms correctly and produced forms with less phonological precision than children with TD. Thus, children with DLD demonstrated impaired encoding. However, children with and without DLD demonstrated a similar ability to consolidate forms between training days and to retain forms across a 1-month delay. Conclusions Difficulties with word form learning are primarily driven by deficits in encoding for children with DLD. Clinicians and educators can support encoding by providing children with adequate exposures to target words via robust training that occurs across multiple sessions. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16746454.

Children's language abilities predict success in remote communication contexts.

Remote communicative contexts are part of everyday social, familial, and academic interactions for the modern child. We investigated the ability of second-graders to engage in remote discourse, and we determined whether language ability, theory of mind, and shy temperament predicted their success. Fifty 7-to-9-year-old monolingual English speakers with a wide range of language abilities participated in standardized testing and an expository discourse task in which they taught two adults to solve the Tower of London, one in an audiovisual condition to simulate video chat and a second in an audio-only condition to simulate phone communication. The discourse was scored with a rubric of 15 items deemed relevant to the explanation. Children included 27% to 87% of the items, with more items communicated via gesture than spoken word in both conditions. Gesture scores and spoken scores were highly correlated. Children specified more rubric items overall in the audio condition and more rubric items in the spoken modality when in the audio condition than the audiovisual condition. Performance in both conditions was positively associated with scores on independent measures of language ability. There was no relationship between performance and theory of mind, shy temperament, ability to solve the Tower of London, age, or sex. We conclude that 7-to-9-year-olds adjust the modality and content of their message to suit their remote partner's needs, but their success in remote discourse contexts varies significantly from individual to individual. Children with below-average language skills are at risk for functional impairments in remote communication.