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Purpose: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are faced with the challenge of quickly and accurately identifying children who present with speech sound disorders (SSD) compared to typically developing (TD) children. The goal of this study was to compare the clinical relevance of two speech sampling methods (single-word vs. connected speech samples) in how sensitive they are in detecting atypical speech sound development in children, and to know whether the information obtained from single-word samples is representative enough of children's overall speech sound performance. Method: We compared the speech sound performance of 37 preschool children with SSD (Mage = 4;11 years) and 37 age-sex-matched typically developing children (Mage = 5;0 years) by eliciting their speech in two ways: (a) a picture-naming task to elicit single words, and (b) a storyretelling task to elicit connected speech. Four speech measures were compared across sample type (single words vs. connected speech) and across groups (SSD vs. TD): intelligibility, speech accuracy, phonemic inventory, and phonological patterns. Results: Interaction effects were found between sample type and group on several speech sound performance measures. Single-word speech samples were found to differentiate the SSD group from the TD group, and were more sensitive than connected speech samples across various measures. The effect size of single-word samples was consistently higher than connected speech samples for three measures: intelligibility, speech accuracy, and phonemic inventory. The gap in sample type informativeness may be attributed to salience and avoidance effects, given that children tend to avoid producing unfamiliar phonemes in connected speech. The number of phonological patterns produced was the only measure that revealed no gap between two sampling types for both groups. Conclusions: On measures of intelligibility, speech accuracy, and phonemic inventory, obtaining a single-word sample proved to be a more informative method of differentiating children with SSD from TD children than connected speech samples. This finding may guide SLPs in their choice of sampling type when they are under time pressure. We discuss how children's performance on the connected speech sample may be biased by salience and avoidance effects and/or task design, and may, therefore, not necessarily reveal a poorer performance than single-word samples, particularly in intelligibility, speech accuracy, and the number of phonological patterns, if these task limitations are circumvented. Our findings show that the performance gap, typically observed between the two sampling types, largely depends on which performance measures are evaluated with the speech sample. Our study is the first to address sampling type differences in SSD versus TD children and has significant clinical implications for SLPs looking for sampling types and measures that reliably identify SSD in preschool-aged children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates associations between trajectories of children's vocabulary development and subsequent behavioral and emotional difficulties via two potential mediating mechanisms; literacy and peer problems. Nationally representative data from 4,983 Australian children were used to examine trajectories of receptive vocabulary (4-5, 6-7, and 8-9 years) and hyperactivity-inattention, conduct problems and emotional symptoms (8-9, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15 years), and literacy and peer problems (8-9 years). Lower growth in vocabulary was related to trajectories of hyperactivity-inattention, conduct problems, and emotional symptoms. Literacy was a key mediator explaining these associations. Results were consistent for children below the 50th percentile for vocabulary at 4-5 years compared to the full sample. These findings suggest that early literacy-based interventions may alleviate declining academic, emotional and behavioral functioning in adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A controversial issue in the field of language acquisition is the extent to which general attentional or cognitive abilities play a role in individual differences in early language outcomes. Here we report a longitudinal study where we examined whether processing efficiency in a novelty detection task predicted later vocabulary size in a stable manner across time. We found that the novelty detection ability measured at 9 months was significantly predictive of later vocabulary size at 12, 14, 18, and 24 months. This study, therefore, emphasizes the importance of controlling for non-linguistic factors when assessing individual variability in language development. A more accurate assessment of language development may be obtained if general attentional and cognitive abilities are also taken into account in addition to linguistic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study aims to describe receptive language skills in children with intellectual disability (ID) and to contribute to the debate on deviant versus delayed language development. This is the 1st study of receptive skills in children with ID who speak a Slavic language, providing insight into how language development is affected by disability and also language typology. Method: Twenty-eight Slovak-speaking children participated in the study (14 children with ID and 14 typically developing [TD] children matched on nonverbal reasoning abilities). The children were assessed by receptive language tasks targeting words, sentences, and stories, and the groups were compared quantitatively and qualitatively. Results: The groups showed similar language profiles, with a better understanding of words, followed by sentences, with the poorest comprehension for stories. Nouns were comprehended better than verbs; sentence constructions also showed a qualitatively similar picture, although some dissimilarities emerged. Verb comprehension was strongly related to sentence comprehension in both groups and related to story comprehension in the TD group only. Conclusion: The findings appear to support the view that receptive language skills follow the same developmental route in children with ID as seen in younger TD children, suggesting that language development is a robust process and does not seem to be differentially affected by ID even when delayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To effectively implement a response to intervention approach, there is a need for timely and specific information about student learning in response to treatment to ensure that treatment decisions are appropriate. This exploratory study examined responsivity to a supplemental, Tier 2 vocabulary intervention delivered to preschool children with limited language abilities. Method: A secondary analysis of a cluster-randomized trial of a supplemental vocabulary intervention was conducted. Responsivity (e.g., adequate learning) to the intervention was examined, and learning in the 1st few weeks of intervention was evaluated as a possible predictor of response to intervention. Results: Using a criterion of learning of 20% of target vocabulary, nearly one third of participants were identified as poor responders. A 1st unit benchmark was identified that maximized the sensitivity to identification of children who were likely to respond to the intervention. Conclusions: Even for generally effective interventions, there is likely to be a substantial proportion of children who are not responsive. Learning in the 1st few weeks of intervention may be a useful indicator of appropriate response to treatment and could inform instructional decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This investigation was conducted to determine whether young children with autism spectrum disorders exhibited a canonical neural response to word stimuli and whether putative event-related potential (ERP) measures of word processing were correlated with a concurrent measure of receptive language. Additional exploratory analyses were used to examine whether the magnitude of the association between ERP measures of word processing and receptive language varied as a function of the number of word stimuli the participants reportedly understood. Method: Auditory ERPs were recorded in response to spoken words and nonwords presented with equal probability in 34 children aged 2-5 years with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder who were in the early stages of language acquisition. Average amplitudes and amplitude differences between word and nonword stimuli within 200-500 ms were examined at left temporal (T3) and parietal (P3) electrode clusters. Receptive vocabulary size and the number of experimental stimuli understood were concurrently measured using the MacArthur- Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Results: Across the entire participant group, word-nonword amplitude differences were diminished. The average word- nonword amplitude difference at T3 was related to receptive vocabulary only if 5 or more word stimuli were understood. Conclusions: If ERPs are to ever have clinical utility, their construct validity must be established by investigations that confirm their associations with predictably related constructs. These results contribute to accruing evidence, suggesting that a valid measure of auditory word processing can be derived from the left temporal response to words and nonwords. In addition, this measure can be useful even for participants who do not reportedly understand all of the words presented as experimental stimuli, though it will be important for researchers to track familiarity with word stimuli in future investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The goal of this study was to examine language development and factors related to language impairments in children with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MMHL). Method: Ninety children, aged 8–16 years (46 children with MMHL; 44 aged-matched controls), were administered a battery of standardized language assessments, including measures of phonological processing, receptive and expressive vocabulary and grammar, word and nonword reading, and parental report of communication skills. Group differences were examined after controlling for nonverbal ability. Results: Children with MMHL performed as well as controls on receptive vocabulary and word and nonword reading. They also performed within normal limits, albeit significantly worse than controls, on expressive vocabulary, and on receptive and expressive grammar, and worse than both controls and standardized norms on phonological processing and parental report of communication skills. However, there was considerable variation in performance, with 26% showing evidence of clinically significant oral or written language impairments. Poor performance was not linked to severity of hearing loss nor age of diagnosis. Rather, outcomes were related to nonverbal ability, maternal education, and presence/absence of family history of language problems. Conclusions: Clinically significant language impairments are not an inevitable consequence of MMHL. Risk factors appear to include lower maternal education and family history of language problems, whereas nonverbal ability may constitute a protective factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study was designed to (a) identify sociodemographic, pregnancy and birth, family health, and parenting and child care risk factors for being a late talker at 24 months of age; (b) determine whether late talkers continue to have low vocabulary at 48 months; and (c) investigate whether being a late talker plays a unique role in children's school readiness at 60 months. Method: We analyzed data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a population-based sample of 9,600 children. Data were gathered when the children were 9, 24, 48, and 60 months old. Results: The risk of being a late talker at 24 months was significantly associated with being a boy, lower socioeconomic status, being a nonsingleton, older maternal age at birth, moderately low birth weight, lower quality parenting, receipt of day care for less than 10 hr/week, and attention problems. Being a late talker increased children's risk of having low vocabulary at 48 months and low school readiness at 60 months. Family socioeconomic status had the largest and most profound effect on children's school readiness. Conclusions: Limited vocabulary knowledge at 24 and 48 months is uniquely predictive of later school readiness. Young children with low vocabularies require additional supports prior to school entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Articulatory control and speech production accuracy were examined in children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and typically developing (TD) controls within a novel word-learning task to better understand the influence of planning and programming deficits in the production of unfamiliar words. Method: Participants included 16 children between the ages of 5 and 6 years (8 CAS, 8 TD). Short- and long-term changes in lip and jaw movement, consonant and vowel accuracy, and token-to-token consistency were measured for 2 novel words that differed in articulatory complexity. Results: Children with CAS displayed short- and long-term changes in consonant accuracy and consistency. Lip and jaw movements did not change over time. Jaw movement duration was longer in children with CAS than in TD controls. Movement stability differed between low- and high-complexity words in both groups. Conclusions: Children with CAS displayed a learning effect for consonant accuracy and consistency. Lack of change in movement stability may indicate that children with CAS require additional practice to demonstrate changes in speech motor control, even within production of novel word targets with greater consonant and vowel accuracy and consistency. The longer movement duration observed in children with CAS is believed to give children additional time to plan and program movements within a novel skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background This study aimed to compare developmental courses of structural and pragmatic language skills in school-aged children with Williams syndrome (WS) and children with idiopathic intellectual disability (IID). Comparison of these language trajectories could highlight syndrome-specific developmental features. Method Twelve monolingual Dutch-speaking children with WS aged 5.10 to 13.3 years were assessed by means of standardised structural language tests measuring receptive and expressive vocabulary and sentence comprehension and production. Pragmatic language was evaluated by means of an expressive referential communication task and a retelling test. All of these language abilities were re-evaluated with the same measures after a period of 18 to 24 months. Performance was compared to 12 children with IID pairwise matched for chronological age (CA) and non-verbal fluid reasoning (G f) at Time 1. Non-verbal mental age (NVMA) was taken into account when delineating developmental trajectories. Results Children with WS outperformed children with IID on expressive vocabulary development. In contrast, sentence comprehension was significantly poorer than in children with IID at the second time point. Increased variability and rather poor performance on pragmatic language tasks were demonstrated in the WS group. Irrelevant and off-topic extraneous information transfer continued to be a syndrome-specific characteristic of children with WS. Conclusion The data provide new insights into diverging developmental trajectories across language domains. Expressive structural language skills tend to progress more rapidly than receptive language skills in children with WS causing more distinctive language profiles over time. Some children with WS seem to benefit from the growth in expressive structural language abilities to enhance their expressive pragmatic language skills, while in some others these abilities remain challenging. This study highlights the need for continued follow-up of language challenges in WS and for a dynamic and individualised interventional approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As tantalizing as the idea that background music beneficially affects foreign vocabulary learning may seem, there is—partly due to a lack of theory-driven research—no consistent evidence to support this notion. We investigated inter-individual differences in the effects of background music on foreign vocabulary learning. Based on Eysenck’s theory of personality we predicted that individuals with a high level of cortical arousal should perform worse when learning with background music compared to silence, whereas individuals with a low level of cortical arousal should be unaffected by background music or benefit from it. Participants were tested in a paired-associate learning paradigm consisting of three immediate word recall tasks, as well as a delayed recall task one week later. Baseline cortical arousal assessed with spontaneous EEG measurement in silence prior to the learning rounds was used for the analyses. Results revealed no interaction between cortical arousal and the learning condition (background music vs. silence). Instead, we found an unexpected main effect of cortical arousal in the beta band on recall, indicating that individuals with high beta power learned more vocabulary than those with low beta power. To substantiate this finding we conducted an exact replication of the experiment. Whereas the main effect of cortical arousal was only present in a subsample of participants, a beneficial main effect of background music appeared. A combined analysis of both experiments suggests that beta power predicts the performance in the word recall task, but that there is no effect of background music on foreign vocabulary learning. In light of these findings, we discuss whether searching for effects of background music on foreign vocabulary learning, independent of factors such as inter-individual differences and task complexity, might be a red herring. Importantly, our findings emphasize the need for sufficiently powered research designs and exact replications of theory-driven experiments when investigating effects of background music and inter-individual variation on task performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of phonological development that combine speech-processing experiments with observation and analysis of production remain rare, although production experience is necessarily relevant to developmental advance. Here we focus on three proposals regarding the relationship of production to word learning: (1) Articulatory filter: The hypothesis that children are influenced in noticing words in input speech by their resemblance to patterns they can produce has recently received experimental support. (2) Systematization and regression: It is proposed that the decline in accuracy that follows first-word production is the consequence of an increase in systematicity (with renewed accuracy emerging only later). (3) Word-production experience facilitates new word learning: Evidence that expressive vocabulary growth in itself facilitates new word learning supports the idea that knowledge is gradient, involving increases in stability and reliability with repeated exposure and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have highlighted early differences in bilinguals' rate of language acquisition in comparison with monolinguals. However, these differences seem to disappear with increasing age and exposure to the language, and do so quicker in dominant community languages than in minority status languages. This study aimed to replicate these findings in relation to literacy development. Three groups of Welsh–English bilinguals (L1 Welsh, simultaneous bilinguals and L1 English) were given receptive vocabulary tasks and reading tasks in Welsh and in English. An additional group of monolingual English-speaking controls was given the English tasks. Results revealed differential performance among the bilinguals in relation to the English tasks, with the L1 English bilinguals and monolinguals performing closer to age norms than L1 Welsh and simultaneous bilinguals by the end of primary school education. No differences were found between the L1 English bilinguals and the monolinguals on either task. On the Welsh measures, performance mirrored those of previous studies, on both tasks, demonstrating higher levels of performance relative to increasing amounts of exposure to Welsh. The implications of these findings for bilingual education strategies, particularly in relation to the development of bilingual language competence in minority language situations, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited proficiency in vocabulary can adversely impact college students. Developmental educators may want to enlist faculty in their efforts to help students increase their college-level vocabulary. This article contains a paper written in 2012 for faculty at Niagara University. It can serve as a template for developmental educators to share their concerns about students' limited vocabulary and suggest ways that faculty can help students expand their vocabulary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There exists a fundamental paradox in linguistic cognition. Experiments show consistent sound-symbolic biases in people's processing of artificial words, yet the biases are not manifest in the structure of real words. To address this paradox, we designed an experiment to test the magnitude and source of these biases. Participants were tasked with matching nonsense words to novel object forms. One group was implicitly taught a matching rule congruent with biases reported previously, while a second group was taught a rule incongruent with this bias. In test trials, participants in the congruent condition performed only modestly but significantly better than chance and better than participants in the incongruent condition who performed at chance. These outcomes indicate the processing bias is real but weak and reflects an inherent learning bias. We discuss implications for language learning and transmission, considering the functional value of non-arbitrariness in language structure and underlying neurocognitive mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This project was designed to identify relative strengths and weaknesses in vocabulary ability for children with Williams syndrome (WS) and to demonstrate the importance of stringent matching criteria for cross-group comparisons. Method: Children with WS and typically developing (TD) children completed standardized assessments of intellectual and language ability. Children with WS also completed a visuospatial construction ability assessment. Results: Study 1: Concrete and relational vocabulary standard scores were significantly lower for 5- to 7-year-olds with WS than for TD children. Children with WS earned significantly higher standard scores for concrete than for relational vocabulary. When groups were stringently matched for relational vocabulary size, children with WS did not evidence a specific weakness in spatial vocabulary. Study 2: Standard scores for relational vocabulary were similar to those for visuospatial construction ability for 5- to 7-year-olds with WS. Study 3: Nine- to 11-year-olds with WS demonstrated very limited relational vocabulary ability; relational vocabulary ability at 5-7 years was highly correlated with later relational language ability. Conclusions: Concrete vocabulary is a relative strength for children with WS; relational vocabulary ability is very limited and is at about the level of visuospatial construction ability. Accurate determination of group comparison results depends on stringent group matching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since the adoption of United Nations' Sustainable Goal 4.2 to ensure that all children have access to quality early child development (ECD) so that they are ready for primary education, the demand for valid ECD assessments has increased in contexts where they do not yet exist. The development of early language ability is important for school readiness. Our objective was to evaluate the validity of a method to develop vocabulary checklists in new languages to assess early language development, based on the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories.Methods: Through asking mothers of young children what words their children say and through pilot testing, we developed 100-word vocabulary checklists in multilingual contexts in Malawi and Ghana. In Malawi, we evaluated the validity of the vocabulary checklist among 29 children age 17-25 months compared to three language measures assessed concurrently: Developmental Milestones Checklist-II (DMC-II) language scale, Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool (MDAT) language scale, and the number of different words (NDW) in 30-min recordings of spontaneous speech. In Ghana, we assessed the predictive validity of the vocabulary checklist at age 18 months to forecast language, pre-academic, and other skills at age 4-6 years among 869 children. We also compared the predictive validity of the vocabulary checklist scores to that of other developmental assessments administered at age 18 months.Results: In Malawi, the Spearman's correlation of the vocabulary checklist score with DMC-II language was 0.46 (p = 0.049), with MDAT language was 0.66 (p = 0.016) and with NDW was 0.50 (p = 0.033). In Ghana, the 18-month vocabulary checklist score showed the strongest (rho = 0.12-0.26) and most consistent (8/12) associations with preschool scores, compared to the other 18-month assessments. The largest coefficients were the correlations of the 18-month vocabulary score with the preschool cognitive factor score (rho = 0.26), language score (0.25), and pre-academic score (0.24).Conclusions: We have demonstrated the validity of a method to develop vocabulary checklists in new languages, which can be used in multilingual contexts, using a feasible adaptation process requiring about 2 weeks. This is a promising method to assess early language development, which is associated with later preschool language, cognitive, and pre-academic skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]