[An evaluation and comparison of the methodology of 2 otophoniatric screenings performed in the 1989-1990 biennium on a sample of 4-year-old children attending nursery schools]. / Valutazione e confronto sulla metodologia di due screening otofoniatrici effettuati nel biennio 1989-1990, su un campione di bambini di 4 anni, frequentanti le scuole materne.

The Pediatric Otophoniatric Department of U.S.L.75II, the Multicenter of Preventive Medicine in Via Cherasco, 5, Milan, carried out two otophoniatric screenings on about 70 four-year-old nursery school children. While this screening was considered experimental in four schools, the ultimate goal is to extend it to all the nursery schools in the same area. The primary aim of the screening was to individualize several pathologies of the upper respiratory tract in this age range. The second aim was to identify language pathologies in children under the age of six in order to treat them as soon as possible with adequate and preventive therapy and appropriate language re-education before their entrance into primary school. The materials and methods employed were as follows: O.R.L. examination: otoscopy, rhinoscopy, oropharyngoscopy, indirect laryngoscopy (after individualization of dysphonia); Audiometric test: peep show in free field with a 250 Hz-4000 Hz frequency range at 30 dB; Language evaluation through examination and interpretation of questionnaires formulated in order to evaluate language development filled in by the children's teachers. Two modifications in the method used in the 1989 study were made in the 1990 screening: The preventive use of an auditory duct cleaner and the distribution of the above-mentioned questionnaires at the very beginning of the study. These two changes improved screening planning as well as development. The results of the two screenings were compared and an increase in the percentage of children examined and subjected to the audiometric test was noted. In fact, in the 1989 study, only 77% of the children underwent the audiometric test (23% had ear wax), while in the 1990 study 100% underwent the test (ear cleaner had been used). With regard to the questionnaires, the data were gathered four months after screening in the 1989 study, whereas in the 1990 study this phase was carried out on the same day of the screening. The new methodology saved time in the screening.

Assessing children with language tests--which tests to use?

A group of 28 children attending a unit for children with developmental language disorders was assessed on a battery of cognitive and language tests. No relationship was found between verbal IQ and scores on other language measures. However, although correlations between the specialist language tests used were highly significant, the mean age scores obtained on the different tests were found to vary by as much as 2 years. The implications of these findings for clinical and experimental studies of children with language impairments are discussed.

Closed-head-injured children's performance on narrative tasks.

Stories were elicited from a group of 20 closed-head-injured children. Story grammar and intersentential cohesion were examined. Performance of the head-injured children was compared to that of a group of nonneurologically impaired accident victims matched for age, sex, and socioeconomic status. No significant differences were found between the performance of the closed-head-injured children and the matched controls on any of the measures of narrative ability applied to the elicited narratives.

Analysis of topic as illustrated in a head-injured and a normal adult.

The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable multidimensional topic analysis that would be sensitive to patterns and problems in topic management. Six conversation and four monologue language samples of a closed-head-injured adult and a matched normal adult were compared. High interjudge reliability was found for all frequently occurring parameters of the analysis. Differences between the two subjects were obtained on a number of the topic introduction and maintenance parameters. The results illustrate the potential of the analysis to reliably identify, quantify, and describe differences between subjects in discourse topic management. The potential of the analysis to provide detailed profiles of topic management and describe the influence of such variables as genre and topic complexity on discourse topic was demonstrated.

The use of an invented language rule in the differentiation of normal and language-impaired Spanish-speaking children.

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the results of a language-teaching procedure could be used to identify specific language-impaired children in a group of bilingual children with limited English proficiency (LEP). An invented morpheme was taught to two groups of LEP children who had been previously identified as normal and specific language-impaired. The language-impaired group learned the morpheme at a slower rate than the normal children, thus allowing the two groups to be differentiated. The approach promises to circumvent many of the obstacles that impede current practices for identifying language impairment in the LEP population.

Quantifying language development from birth to 3 years using the Early Language Milestone Scale.

A point-scoring technique for the Early Language Milestone Scale is described. Normative data based on the original 1982 cross-sectional sample and validation data based on a separate longitudinal sample are presented. Mean Early Language Milestone Scale point scores, standard deviations, and percentile equivalents for raw point scores are presented for all ages from birth to 36 months. Correlations between point scores on the Early Language Milestone Scale and scores on other standardized developmental tests such as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities are presented. The clinical and research advantages of this point-scoring technique are presented and compared with the original pass/fail scoring method.

Who shall be called language disordered? Some reflections and one perspective.

This paper discusses some issues involved in identifying children who have language problems. The perspective taken is that (a) the goal of identification must be clearly distinguished from other goals of assessment; (b) identification of children with language disorders is better based on language performance than on inferences about the language knowledge that underlies this performance; (c) language performance must be sampled in more than one context, including, for purposes of identification, contexts that stress the language system; (d) the standards of expectations for comparing performance and determining differences must be explicit; (e) standards used to determine differences are better based on the performance of chronological-age peers than on the performance of children with similar mental abilities; and (f) children who do not evidence poor language performance but are considered at risk for language-related problems should be distinguished from children who demonstrate poor language skills.

Comprehension monitoring in language-disordered children: a preliminary investigation of cognitive and linguistic factors.

This study provided a preliminary investigation of the relative influence of cognitive and communicative factors in comprehension monitoring. This question was approached by studying language-disordered (LD) children for whom these abilities are presumably dissociated. Their performance on an ambiguity detection task was compared to that of two groups of control children, one matched for comprehension level and the other for cognitive level. Results revealed that LD children performed similarly to the control children who were matched for level of comprehension. The LD children's performance was examined along a continuum of the relative influence of cognitive and communicative factors, given that neither type of factor alone could sufficiently account for effective comprehension monitoring. It was concluded that communicative factors, both active primary comprehension and social communicative knowledge, had a stronger influence than the cognitive factors in our particular comprehension monitoring task.

Video narration as a language sampling context.

Video narration is a context for sampling spontaneous expressive language in which the subject produces an on-line description of the events he or she observes on videotape. Video narration offers a means of reducing the variability among language samples from different speakers, or from the same speaker over time, because the number and complexity of events to be coded linguistically is known and constant. This increased consistency facilitates comparisons among samples, as well as enabling certain analyses requiring a transparent relationship between utterances and events. Advantages and limitations of video narration as an adjunct to conversational sampling are described, and comparisons between longitudinal video narration and conversational samples obtained from brain-injured children and their matched normal controls are presented.

The identification of language impairment in the selection of specifically language-impaired subjects.

This review focused on the methods used to identify language impairment in specifically language-impaired subjects participating in 72 research studies that were described in four journals from 1983 to 1988. The single most frequent source of information used in the identification process was found to be test data. There was, however, considerable variability and, often, a lack of clarity regarding the specific number and identity of tests used. More specific findings on test use indicated that researchers routinely assessed both expressive and receptive language and that they used incomplete tests. When test scores used in identification and selection were examined, there was a wide range of score types, and age-equivalent scores were by far the most common and often the only type of score utilized. Conclusions are drawn regarding the impact of these findings on the interpretation and generalizability of this research literature.

[Test method for pre-speech language: I. Outline of test].

The purpose of this study is to determine infants' preliminary linguistic ability. For this a pre-speech language test method has been developed. The test method is as follows. First, a definition of language is given. Then the development process in infancy is explained according to the definition. Subsequently, the test items are decided according to the above process. (1) Definition of language: It is difficult to define language because of its many aspects. Here, for the language definition, the aspects are restricted to the following based on the properties of natural language. Section-1 Situation of language i) Formation of communication ii) Understanding and grasping of situation circumstance Section-2 Development of symbolizing function Section-3 Representing the function of language (generally, articulation of babbling and functional change) (2) Development of language: the above three aspects develop and change from preterm infancy to late infancy. The development process is as follows. Section-1 i) The formation of communication is confirmed by action situations between baby and mother. The actions include a steady gaze in the early stage and talking baby talk later. Requests for instruction assistance and emotional communication appear with gradual differentiation of communication. Section-1 ii) Understanding and grasping of the situation circumstance is confirmed with response to action from mother to baby in the early stage. These are then confirmed with the ability to understand the action and situation of surroundings as time and space extensity, and to give appropriate appeal to the surroundings. Subsequently, understanding with language only is acquired by daily experience, including language and understanding of the surrounding.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Test method for pre-speech language: II. Outline of test result].

UNLABELLED: The tests as reported in the previous paper were conducted on 281 healthy babies. The test included 47 items. An accomplished item was accorded one point, and the total points were counted. RESULTS: descriptive statistics: i) Table 4 shows the proportion of right answers of each item by age (day). The day when the item was accomplished was definite and showed the properties of development. ii) Fig. 1 and table 1 showed the relationship between the total points and the age (day). The total points increased linearly with age (day). Discussion of test properties: i) Reliability: special attention was devoted to maintain consistent conditions on item formation to increase reliability. Consequently, the confidence coefficient was 0.989 in all cases. ii) VALIDITY: predictive validity was tested. The changes in language ability were investigated in 90 cases for observation over the passage of time (including cases other than those for standardization). The cases were divided into three groups by age (0-200, 201-400, 401-day) (Table 7). For an estimated value, the PPV was 0.60-0.67 and the NPV was 0.94-1.00 (Table 8). The NPV was higher than the PPV. iii) Test construction and figure of test construction: it was found that the test construction was composed of five factors and had stages of development as follows. (1) Initial call, communication (2) Positive appeal to the surrounding (3) Stage just before speech (4) Initial language acquirement and differentiation of language function (5) Speech-increasing stage The items included in each factor (each stage) are shown in the Fig. 1. profile in the previous paper.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

A letter-by-letter reader who could not read nonwords.

Letter-by-letter reading is a neuropsychological syndrome characterized by oral reading which seems to be mediated by explicit naming of constituent letters of the printed string. Thus reading time rises abnormally as a function of the length of the items to-be-read. This syndrome is generally interpreted as indicating a disconnection within the normal reading system prior to the activation of the visual and phonological lexical access routes. The patient retains a subsidiary strategy of spelling words by naming their constituent letters and uses this strategy for planning their pronunciation. If this interpretation is correct then reading aloud in letter-by-letter reading should not be affected by the features of the letter string which are stored lexically as the functional disconnection is postulated to occur prior to this stage. In this paper we report the case of a letter-by-letter reader who shows some signs which are puzzling in terms of current interpretations of the syndrome. They can be summarized as follows: (1) The patient reads words better than he reads nonwords; (2) Concrete words are processed more holistically while abstract words are processed more letter-by-letter; (3) Lexical decisions can be made far more rapidly than words can be read aloud. These three signs are very difficult to account for if reading is accomplished solely through a non-lexical reversed spelling strategy. Our experimental investigations of this patient are reported and alternative models assuming strategic control over the reading mechanism are discussed.

Eye movements and anaphor resolution: effects of antecedent typicality and distance.

The coordination of the eye movement control system with comprehension processes was studied. Eye movements were monitored while subjects read paragraphs containing an anaphoric noun phrase. In Experiment 1, fixations on the anaphoric noun were shorter when its antecedent was close and typical of the noun category than when it was distant and/or atypical. Subjects took longer reading the words following the anaphoric noun when the antecedent was atypical than when it was typical. In Experiment 2, distance of antecedent affected anaphor fixation times for category name anaphors but not for general noun anaphors (e.g., "object"). The results suggest that the eyes do not wait for the completion of anaphor resolution processes. Rather, these processes are completed after the eyes have left the anaphoric noun. The different patterns of effects on the anaphors themselves and the post-anaphor region were interpreted to reflect two different stages in anaphor resolution.

Central auditory processing in normal-hearing elderly adults.

Central auditory and linguistic functions were assessed in a group of 25 essentially normal-hearing, cognitively intact elderly adults. Inclusion in the study required normal performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination Procedures used to evaluate central auditory performance included monosyllabic word lists, the Synthetic Sentence Identification-Ipsilateral Competing Message (SSI-ICM) test, the Dichotic Digits test and the Staggered Spondaic Word test. Linguistic competence was assessed utilizing subtests of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia test and the Revised Token test. Results indicate that central auditory involvement can occur without a concomitant decline in peripheral hearing sensitivity, cognitive function, or linguistic competence. Our findings also suggest, that for the type of individuals included in this study, the SSI-ICM appears to be the most sensitive measure to changes in central auditory processing abilities with advancing age.

[Psycholinguistic study of a special vocabulary used by alcoholics]. / Psikholingvisticheskoe issledovanie spetsial'noi leksiki bol'nykh alkogolizmom.

Twenty-five patients suffering from stage II alcoholism and 20 normal persons were subjected to a psycholinguistic study. The examined were asked to put down words associated with a booze situation. Out of 608 associated words thus derived, only 63 words (10%) turned out to be used by patients and normal persons whereas only 23% of the patients' words were entries of the dictionary of the Russian language. It is concluded that the alcoholic vocabulary of patients may be regarded as a specialized language with a specific contents. It is dominated by the so-called operational words associated with the process of purchasing alcoholic drinks, with the site and amount of booze as well as by the words synonymous to the word to 'knock back'. The alcoholic vocabulary of normal persons was dominated by the words relating to the drinking and companionable themes. The psycholinguistic experiment makes it possible to differentiate between patients and normal persons not only at the group but also at the individual level.

Adquisición del vocabulario castellano entre escolares rurales y urbanos de la Novena Región / Acquirement of the Spanish vocabulary among rural and urban students of the 9th region

La prueba PVIP (versión castellana del Picture Peabody Vocabulary Test) es aplicada a una muestra de escolares urbanos y rurales de la IX Región, obteniéndose resultados significativamente más bajos entre los alumnos de procedencia rural de terceros y séptimos años que entre sus pares de procedencia urbana y de nivel socioeconómico bajo. La correlación entre los puntajes de la PVIP y los obtenidos en el examen TEPSI, por una muestra de preescolares, resulta adecuada. Los alumnos rurales de séptimo año que declaran hablar la lengua mapuche en sus hogares obtienen puntajes significantivamente más bajos que aquellos del mismo origen pero que se declaran procedentes de hogares hispanoparlantes. Se comentan las repercusiones del presente estudio, sus limitaciones y las proyecciones que la PVIP pdría tener como instrumento de deteción precoz de aquellos niños en riesgo de mayores handicaps en la adquisición del vocabulario castellano

[Acquirement of the Spanish vocabulary among rural and urban students of the 9th region]. / Adquisición del vocabulario castellano entre escolares rurales y urbanos de la novena región.

In order to test the assumption that rural children from the Araucanía region at southern Chile start school with significant handicaps in the acquirement of the spanish vocabulary when compared with their urban peers, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT, spanish version) was used to compare a first group including all those children attending third grade at a public school from a low socio economic level neighborhood of the city of Temuco, Chile (n = 44, age average 9.01 years, s = 0.51) against a second group including all those children attending the same grade at three public schools from the rural areas surrounding the same city (n = 37, age average 9.07 years, s = 0.52). Previously, 19 children aged 3 to 5 years were tested both with the PPVT and with the chilean instrument for the measurement of development at the age group (TEPSI). Both scores show a positive correlation (r = 0.64, p = 0.05). Average scores for the PPVT among rural children were lower than among urban children (64.07, s = 11.36 against 103.05, s = 10.99, p = less than 0.01). In a second stage, 39 children attending 7th grade at the urban school (age average 13.61 years, s = 0.64) and 27 children of the same grade from the rural schools (age average 13.69 years, s = 0.69) were tested with the same instrument.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Narrative analysis: clinical applications of story generation and story retelling.

Narratives were produced by groups of language-disordered and nonimpaired children ages 9:0-11:4 (years:months) in story generation and story retelling tasks. The stories were analyzed in terms of the number of story grammar components, number of complete episodes, relative frequency of story components, and story length. For both groups of children, the results indicated strong overall homogeneity between story generation and story retelling. The retold narratives were longer and contained more story grammar components and complete episode structures for both groups of children. Clause length within complete episodes differentiated story generation from story retelling for the language-disordered children but not for the control group. The clinical advantages of using story retelling in language assessment are discussed.