The management of cohesion in written narratives in students with specific language impairment: Differences between childhood and adolescence.

The goal of this study was to investigate the management of cohesion by children and adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI) when writing a narrative in a communicative situation. Twelve children with SLI (from 7 to 11 years old) and 12 adolescents with SLI (from 12 to 18 years old) were chronological age-matched with 24 typically developing (TD) children and 24 TD adolescents. All participants attended mainstream classes: children in elementary schools and adolescents in middle and high schools. Analyses of cohesion focused on both density and diversity of connectives, punctuation marks and anaphors. Results attested that children with SLI were greatly impaired in their management of written cohesion and used specific forms previously observed in narrative speech such as left dislocations. By contrast, and not expected, the management of written cohesion by adolescents with SLI was close to that of their TD peers. The communicative writing situation we set up, which engaged participants to take into account the addressee, also made possible for adolescents with SLI to manage cohesion in writing.

Lexical spelling in children and adolescents with specific language impairment: variations with the writing situation.

The goal of this study was to compare the lexical spelling performance of children and adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI) in two contrasting writing situations: a dictation of isolated words (a classic evaluative situation) and a narrative of a personal event (a communicative situation). Twenty-four children with SLI and 48 typically developing children participated in the study, split into two age groups: 7-11 and 12-18 years of age. Although participants with SLI made more spelling errors per word than typically developing participants of the same chronological age, there was a smaller difference between the two groups in the narratives than in the dictations. Two of the findings are particularly noteworthy: (1) Between 12 and 18 years of age, in communicative narration, the number of spelling errors of the SLI group was not different from that of the typically developing group. (2) In communicative narration, the participants with SLI did not make specific spelling errors (phonologically unacceptable), contrary to what was shown in the dictation. From an educational perspective or that of a remediation program, it must be stressed that the communicative narration provides children-and especially adolescents-with SLI an opportunity to demonstrate their improved lexical spelling abilities. Furthermore, the results encourage long-term lexical spelling education, as adolescents with SLI continue to show improvement between 12 and 18 years of age.

Acquisition of relations between the conceptual and linguistic dimensions of linearization in descriptive text composition in grades five to nine: a comparison with oral production.

The present study looked at how children establish a relationship between the conceptual and linguistic dimensions of linearization in descriptive text composition. Written productions were compared with oral ones. French-speaking participants, drawn from the fifth, seventh, and ninth grades, produced both a written and an oral description of a picture divided up into five clusters of specific units. This material made it possible to distinguish between the macro-structural and micro-structural levels of the resulting productions. The conceptual dimension of linearization was levelled out: participants were only selected if their texts reflected the hierarchical structure of the referent, successively describing the five clusters. The linguistic dimension of linearization was tested by comparing the use made of connectives in both modalities and analysing punctuation marks and speech pauses according to the modality. We established a specific classification for the analysis of spatial connectives, distinguishing between absolute and relative connectives. As expected, the proportion of texts reflecting the hierarchy of the referent increased through grade levels. From fifth grade onwards, and in both modalities, this hierarchy was marked by appropriate linguistic devices: at the macro-structural level, absolute spatial connectives were mainly used, as well as strong punctuation marks in writing and longer pauses in speech. At the micro-structural level, relations were mainly marked by relative spatial connectives. A grade level effect was observed, mainly in the written texts. However, results showed that, in writing as well as in speech, the management of the linguistic component of discourse linearization was, to a considerable degree, determined by the conceptual one.

Acquisition of the linearization process in text composition in third to ninth graders: effects of textual superstructure and macrostructural organization.

Two complementary experiments analyzed the acquisition of text content linearization in writing, in French-speaking participants from third to ninth grades. In both experiments, a scrambled text paradigm was used: eleven ideas presented in random order had to be rearranged coherently so as to compose a text. Linearization was analyzed on the basis of the conceptual ordering of ideas and writing fluency. The first experiment focused on the effect of superstructural facilitation (in decreasing order: 1--instructional, 2--narrative, 3--argumentative), while the second experiment studied the effect of prewriting conditions: 1-scrambled presentation, 2--macrostructural facilitation, 3--ideas given in optimal order (control condition). As expected, scores in conceptual ordering and writing fluency improved through the grade levels. Students were most successful with respect to conceptual ordering in the instructional superstructure, followed by the narrative and finally the argumentative superstructures. The prewriting assignment also had the expected effect (control better than macrostructural presentation which, in turn, was better than the random order) but only with the argumentative superstructure. Contrary to conceptual ordering, writing fluency was not affected by the type of superstructure, although we did record an effect of the prewriting condition. The results are discussed in light of Bereiter and Scardamalia's knowledge transforming strategy (1987) taking into account cognitive development and French language curriculum.