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This paper highlights a current phenomenon reported from preschools placed in multilingual areas in Sweden, namely that some preschoolers with mutually different language backgrounds sometimes use English as lingua franca instead of Swedish during play. The data stems from a study of language environments in Swedish preschools situated in both monolingual and multilingual areas. The analyses reveal that many children are influenced by the English language in both areas, but to a much greater extent in multilingual areas. An interesting situation arises when the majority language of society, which is also the language of education and lingua franca of the preschool, acquires a less prevailing role in children's accomplishment of everyday practices. Data show that the participating children are exposed to and speak English to a varying extent. They learn and teach each other English, and speak English in an array of pragmatic purposes; to position themselves in the social hierarchies of the preschool group, to create meaning within their shared peer culture and for the purpose of exclusion of intruders. English is also used as a secret language of friendship.

This article deals with the personal epistemologies developed by teachers who undergo academic continuing education on an advanced level at a time when conflicting discourses form the basis of teaching in today's school, i.e. academisation on one hand and measurability and accountability in the name of New Public Management on the other. To give the interviewed teachers in this study an opportunity to clarify and become more aware of their epistemologies and to assist in getting started, we initially presented concepts developed in an academic discourse: Hofer's account of different, interrelated dimensions of 'personal epistemologies', clustered in two areas: the "nature of knowledge," and the "nature or process of knowing." As a result, we interpret the students' epistemological beliefs through a professional perspective, i.e. as justification of the profession's academisation. In their unhesitating confident trust in practitioners' knowledge, as mainly acquired from experience in the field, they express a vocational habitus. One may thus assume that practitioners possess proven experiences, i.e. experience-based knowledge that they have acquired and that should be recognised and added to the knowledge base of the field in an academic and vertical discourse.

Background: Continued professional development (CPD) is required for updated skills and knowledge. This study evaluates the efficacy of a CPD programme for mainstream school teachers. Aims: In an 11-week intervention programme, speech-language therapists (SLTs) presented the participating teachers with whole-class teaching techniques aimed at creating a language and communication-supporting classroom environment. The effects of the intervention on the language development of the students in the teachers' classes were assessed. Methods & Procedures: A total of 211 first- and second-year students (M[subscript age] = 7;6, range = 6;5-8;9) underwent standardized language assessments of receptive and expressive language abilities before and after their teachers' participation in the CPD. The students were divided into intervention and delayed intervention groups to enable randomized intervention allocation. Linear mixed modelling was used to estimate the individual and interaction effects of group, time and demographic factors. Outcomes & Results: Significant effects of time, group and school, respectively, but no interaction between time and group indicates that while all students advanced between assessments, the progress was not attributable to the teachers' participation in the CPD. Conclusions & Implications: Results are discussed in light of those of recent studies of universal services to support optimal language development.

Continued professional development (CPD), tailored to teachers' needs and expectations, is required for updated skills and knowledge. In this study, twenty-five teachers working with first and second grade students participated in an 11-week programme focusing on enhancing classroom communication. The participating teachers were randomly assigned to either a direct intervention track (intervention) or a delayed intervention track (waiting control). Teachers' perceptions of activities and interactions in the classroom and self-efficacy were assessed on three occasions: T1, T2, and T3. The direct intervention track received intervention between T1 and T2, while the delayed intervention track received intervention between T2 and T3. A percentage change score for changes between T1 and T2 was calculated, to compare the direct and delayed intervention tracks and assess any intervention effect. Results revealed no significant difference between the groups, i.e., the intervention had no effect on teacher self-reports. The teachers gave an overall positive evaluation of the CPD. Thematic analyses revealed continued need for professional development and insights into the reciprocal influence of student and teacher behaviour. The quantitative and qualitative results paint somewhat different pictures showing the need of mixed methods when analysing these kinds of data.

This article provides an overview of the research on morpho-syntactic challenges in Swedish-speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD), compared with typically developing (TD) children learning Swedish as their first and second language (L1/L2). Children with DLD show vulnerabilities with verb finiteness, the possessive construction, and noun phrase gender agreement, as well as word-order in nonsubject initiated sentences. For L2-learners, word order and the noun phrase gender agreement present main challenges. We discuss to what extent these morpho-syntactic weaknesses can be explained by different theoretical accounts and identify future research needs. Surface similarities between groups may originate from different factors and more knowledge is needed to inform educational and clinical practice for both of these groups of children.

In 2010, Sweden was the first country in the world to introduce a legal requirement that education should be research-based, placing huge demands on schools. The study's aim is to explore how, through sensemaking, teachers and principals enact this policy in schools. In total, 272 teachers and 23 principals from pre-schools, leisure-time centers, compulsory schools, and upper secondary schools completed a questionnaire. The findings show the need for understanding central policy concepts, alignment with previous experiences, and a social context within which the policy can be understood, negotiated, and enacted. Policy enactment was dependent on the support given -- professional development, time, and financial resources. Teachers and principals have so far experienced challenges and opportunities -- a rewarding if complex process.

In 2010, the Swedish Education Act introduced new provisions stating that education at all levels should 'rest on scientific grounds and proven experience'. These requirements led to greater policy activities at the state level and enhanced the cooperation emerging between the municipality and higher education as well as between teachers and researchers at both the middle and micro levels. This study was conducted in a Swedish municipality that adopted a local strategy to meet the Education Act's scientific requirements for teaching. As part of this strategy, together with a university the municipality designed a postgraduate programme, corresponding to a one-year master's level under the Bologna Agreement, made up of four years of part-time studies and with a focus on practical research and school development. This article examines how a sample of 15 teachers participating in this postgraduate programme, and their school leaders, perceive this policy (namely, education being based on scientific grounds) within the development of the teaching profession's practice and which dilemmas they face while trying to interpret and handle the Education Act's provisions in their schools. Our overall theoretical perspectives are those of policy enactment, academic drift and activity theory. The results indicate that the teachers' participation in the postgraduate course has caused tension among their colleagues. Moreover, the teachers expressed a feeling of being 'isolated cogs' in an organisation and lacking supporting structures. For some, their participation is a step in a more individualised project that contributes primarily to their own professional development; for others, it is more of a collective project with which one can 'lift' one's school and colleagues.

Children with a history of developmental language disorder (DLD) entering school are a challenge for classroom teachers. Teachers are often not very familiar with DLD, and language difficulties in school age children are often not obvious in context-supported everyday language. However, their language is still vulnerable. The teachers' way of talking with four children with DLD, two with predominantly production difficulties and stronger language comprehension and two with language comprehension difficulties were studied in two types of context, differing in their degree of structure. Variables for a quantitative analysis were number of words per minute and mean length of utterance (MLU) in words for both teachers and children, and the number of questions asked by the teacher. A qualitative analysis focused on identifying typical characteristics depending on context and the child's type of difficulties. In both contexts the teachers talked more than the children, but the difference was smaller in the less structured context, mainly because the children talked more. The two children with predominantly production difficulties seemed to take advantage of the opportunities to take initiatives offered in the less structured context. The children with comprehension difficulties function better in the more structured context, where their comprehension difficulties were less obvious. Studies with more rigorous design analysing more aspects of teacher's interactive behavior in different contexts and with children with different linguistic profiles are needed to provide teachers with information to raise their awareness of how to provide support adapted to the linguistic profiles of children with DLD.

Computer based analyses offer a possibility for objective methods to assess semantic-linguistic quality of narratives at the text level. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether a semantic language impairment index (SELIMI) based on latent semantic analysis (LSA) can discriminate between children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and children with typical language development. Spoken narratives from 54 children with DLD and 54 age matched controls with typical language development were summarized in a semantic representation generated using LSA. A statistical model was trained to discriminate between children with DLD and children with typical language development, given the semantic vector representing each individual child's narrative. The results show that SELIMI could distinguish between children with DLD and children with typical language development significantly better than chance and thus has a potential to complement traditional analyses focussed on form or on the word level.

Background: The Swedish Program for health surveillance of preschool children includes screening of language and communication abilities. One important language screening is carried out at age 4 years as part of a general screening conducted by health nurses at child health centres. The instruments presently in use for this screening mainly focus on expressive phonology. This may result in both over-referral of children with phonological difficulties and under-referral of children with language disorders (LDs), involving difficulties with vocabulary, grammar and/or language comprehension. Previous research has proposed non-word repetition as a clinical marker for LD. It has also been found that higher predictive power is achieved when non-word repetition is combined with the assessment of lexical/semantic skills. Taking these findings into account, the construction of a language screening instrument may yield more adequate referrals to speech-language therapists (SLTs). Aims: To construct a new standardized language screening instrument for 4-year-olds and to test its properties. Methods & Procedures: An instrument was developed and revised after piloting. A population of 352 children was screened at the regular 4-year check-up by 11 health nurses. The final sample consisted of 328 children aged 46-53 months (23% multilingual). Children performing below a preliminary cut-off were referred to an SLT (n = 52). Five SLTs carried out an assessment on average within 5 weeks using a gold standard language test battery. Children who screened negatively were followed up with a parent questionnaire at age 5;6. Outcomes & Results: Thirty-one true-positives and 11 false-positives were identified after SLT assessment. A further six children were identified as false-negatives (two through referral to an SLT and four through parent questionnaire at age 5;6). A receiver-operating characteristics curve with a C statistic of 0.94 was calculated. Based on optimal cut-off, the sensitivity of the screening instrument was found to be 0.84, and specificity was 0.96. Multilingual children performed similar to monolingual children; boys performed significantly lower than girls; and children with a family history of language-related problems performed lower than those without. Interrater reliability was high, as was Cronbach's alpha. Conclusions & Implications: The screening instrument seems sufficiently valid for its purpose to identify children who need further assessment by an SLT. A follow-up study including SLT assessment for all children to check for false-negatives would be interesting in future, as would studies comparing results from the 4-year screening with those from earlier screens.

We propose a method to quantify "semantic linguistic maturity" (SELMA) based on a high dimensional semantic representation of words created from the co-occurrence of words in a large text corpus. The method was applied to oral narratives from 108 children aged 4;0-12;10. By comparing the SELMA measure with maturity ratings made by human raters we found that SELMA predicted the rating of semantic maturity made by human raters over and above the prediction made using a child's age and number of words produced. We conclude that the semantic content of narratives changes in a predictable pattern with children's age and argue that SELMA is a measure quantifying semantic linguistic maturity. The study opens up the possibility of using quantitative measures for studying the development of semantic representation in children's narratives, and emphasizes the importance of word co-occurrences for understanding the development of meaning.

Purpose: The authors' primary goal was to investigate the potential of past tense inflection as a clinical marker of Danish specific language impairment (SLI). They also wished to test the predictions of the extended optional infinitive (EOI) account and processing based accounts of SLI on Danish. Method: Using sentence completion and sentence repetition tasks, the authors investigated the use of past tense by 3 groups (n = 11 in each group): (a) children with SLI whose ages ranged from 5;2 (years;months) to 7;11; (b) children with typical language development matched on chronological age; and (c) children with typical language development matched on vocabulary. Results: Participants with SLI were less likely to produce past tense than were both typically developing control groups. In particular, only the children with SLI had difficulties with accurately producing past tense verbs during the sentence repetition task. Past tense accuracy was associated with children's productive vocabulary levels and proficiency with a nonword repetition task. Conclusion: Past tense use is potentially a clinical marker of Danish SLI, but more research is needed to confirm this. Results provided mixed support for competing accounts of SLI.

This study investigated the development of narrative skills in Swedish children with language impairment between age 5 and age 10. Seventeen children with LI and two control groups of age peers with typical development participated in a picture elicited story telling task. Analyses included measures of story content, cohesion and grammar. Our subjects showed development in different areas from age 5 to 10, but they did not perform at the level of the controls at age 10 on number of different verbs used and percent grammatically correct C-units. We conclude that preschool children with LI develop in their narrative skills over time, but not to the level of their age-peers at age 10. Learning outcomes: The reader will be able to describe areas of vulnerability in Swedish-speaking children with language impairment in general, and related to narration in particular. Furthermore, the reader will be able to describe similarities in narrative skills between Swedish-speaking and English-speaking children with language impairment. (Contains 1 table.)

This study examined the relationship between speech recognition, working memory and conversational skills in a group of 13 children/adolescents with cochlear implants (CIs) between 11 and 19 years of age. Conversational skills were assessed in a referential communication task where the participants interacted with a hearing peer of the same age and gender. The measures were the number of requests for clarification produced, time used to solve the task and the proportion of the different types of requests for clarification made by the participants with CIs. The results revealed that speech recognition correlated significantly with the general measures of conversational skills (time to solve the task and the total number of requests for clarification used). General working memory was associated with certain types of requests for clarification. The participants with better working memory capacity used more requests for confirmation of new information (i.e. made more suggestions of their own) and fewer requests for confirmation of already given information compared to the participants with poorer working memory. It thus seems as if both speech recognition and working memory contribute to conversational skills but in different ways. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

Background: This study investigates the use of requests for clarification in conversations between teenagers with a cochlear implant (CI) and hearing peers. So far very few studies have focused on conversational abilities in children with CI. Aims: The aim was to explore co-construction of dialogue in a referential communication task and the participation of the teenagers with CI in comparison with individually matched hearing children and teenagers (HC) by studying the use of requests for clarification. Methods & Procedures: Sixteen conversational pairs participated: eight pairs consisting of a child with CI and his/her hearing conversational partner (CIP); and eight pairs consisting of an HC and a conversational partner (HCP). The conversational pairs were videotaped while carrying out a referential communication task requiring the description of two sets of pictures depicting faces. The dialogues were transcribed and analysed with respect to the number of words and turns, the time it took for each pair to complete the tasks, and the occurrence and different types of requests for clarification that were used in each type of conversational pair and in each type of dialogue. Outcomes & Results: The main finding was that the teenagers with CI produced significantly more requests for clarification than the HCs. The most frequently used type of request for clarification in all dialogues was request for confirmation of new information. Furthermore, there was a trend for the teenagers with CI to use this type of request more often than the HC. In contrast, the teenagers with CI used significantly fewer requests for confirmation of already given information and fewer requests for elaboration than the HC. Conclusions & Implications: The deaf teenagers with CI in the study seem to be equally collaborative and responsible conversational partners as the hearing teenagers. The interpretation is that certain conditions in this study facilitate their participation in conversation. Such conditions might be a calm environment, a task that is structured and without time limits and that the partner is well known to the teenager with CI. (Contains 5 tables and 4 figures.)

Background: Studies of language in children with mild-to-moderate hearing impairment (HI) indicate that they often have problems in phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and that they have linguistic weaknesses both in vocabulary and morphosyntax similar to children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, children with HI may be more likely than children with SLI to acquire typical language skills as they get older. It has been suggested that the more persisting problems in children with SLI are due to a combination of factors: perceptual, cognitive and/or linguistic. Aims: The main aim of this study was to explore language skills in children with HI in comparison with children with SLI, and how children with both HI and language impairment differ from those with non-impaired spoken language skills. Methods & Procedures: PSTM, output phonology, lexical ability, receptive grammar and verb morphology were assessed in a group of children with mild-to-moderate HI (n = 11) and a group of children with SLI (n = 12) aged 5 years 6 months to 9 years 0 months. Outcomes & Results: The HI group tended to score higher than the SLI group on the language measures, although few of the differences were significant. The children with HI had their most obvious weaknesses in PSTM, vocabulary, receptive grammar and inflection of novel verbs. The subgroup of children with HI (five out of 10) who also showed evidence of grammatical output problems was significantly younger than the remaining children with HI. Correlation analysis showed that the language variables were not associated with age, whereas hearing level was associated with PSTM. Conclusions: Children with HI are at risk for at least a delay in lexical ability, receptive grammar and grammatical production. The problems seen in the HI group might be explained by their low-level perceptual deficit and weak PSTM. For the SLI group the impairment is more severe. From a clinical perspective an important conclusion is that the language development in children with even mild-to-moderate HI deserves attention and support. (Contains 3 tables and 2 notes.)

This paper explores language intervention for children with specific language impairment in Sweden. The elicitation strategies, style of interaction and language production used by speech and language pathologists (SLPs) were analyzed in two conditions, free conversation and training of grammar. In training, the grammatical targets were used significantly more often by the SLPs, but not by the children. In the free conversations the children talked more and had significantly higher mean length of utterance in words and the SLPs linked significantly more to the child's focus. The two conditions represent different, but complementary approaches to language intervention. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

We report a cross-linguistic investigation of English-and Swedish-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) in an attempt to determine whether Wexler's (1998; 2003) (Extended) Unique Checking Constraint (EUCC) can account for the grammatical profiles of these groups of children. In Study 1, a group of Swedish-speaking preschoolers with SLI showed greater use of finite verb inflections and copula forms than a group of English-speaking preschoolers with SLI, even though the two groups were carefully matched according to both age and severity of language impairment. In Study 2, the same Swedish-speaking children with SLI showed high levels of appropriate verb-second use with finite verbs. However, they were less proficient in this regard than a group of younger typically developing Swedish children with similar mean lengths of utterance. The findings from both studies are generally compatible with predictions based on the EUCC. Issues in need of future investigation are discussed.

Examined the use of noun phrase morphology by preschool-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) who were also acquiring Swedish. Relative to typically developing same-age peers and younger peers matched according to mean length of utterance, the children with SLI had greater difficulty in the use of genitive inflections, indefinite articles, and article +adjective+noun constructions. (Author/VWL)

Investigates the relationship between language comprehension and language production in Swedish children in a study carried out longitudinally with 10 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 10 children with unimpaired language development. Results indicate that the relationship between comprehension and production is different at different stages in development. (Author/VWL)

Purpose: To investigate gaze behavior during communication between children with hearing impairment (HI) and normal-hearing (NH) peers. Method: Ten HI-NH and 10 NH-NH dyads performed a referential communication task requiring description of faces. During task performance, eye movements and speech were tracked. Using verbal event (questions, statements, back channeling, and silence) as the predictor variable, group characteristics in gaze behavior were expressed with Kaplan-Meier survival functions (estimating time to gaze-to-partner) and odds ratios (comparing number of verbal events with and without gaze-to-partner). Analyses compared the listeners in each dyad (HI: n = 10, mean age = 12;6 years, mean better ear pure-tone average = 33.0 dB HL; NH: n = 10, mean age = 13;7 years). Results: Log-rank tests revealed significant group differences in survival distributions for all verbal events, reflecting a higher probability of gaze to the partner's face for participants with HI. Expressed as odds ratios (OR), participants with HI displayed greater odds for gaze-to-partner (ORs ranging between 1.2 and 2.1) during all verbal events. Conclusions: The results show an increased probability for listeners with HI to gaze at the speaker's face in association with verbal events. Several explanations for the finding are possible, and implications for further research are discussed. Key Words: referential communication, eye tracking, child hearing impairment, gaze behavior, survival analysis, Face-to-face interaction consists of more than the verbal exchanges that make up the sound stream. The interaction is replete with gazes to the conversational partner. In a previous study, Sandgren, [...]

The risk for language disorder is high in children with all levels of hearing loss (HL). Early identification and intervention should be as important for children with mild HL as for those with more severe HL. Despite new-born hearing screening, a recent survey of speech language therapist services in southern Sweden indicates that children with mild and moderate HL are severely neglected when it comes to language assessment and language intervention. In this study we explore associations between Best Ear Hearing Level (BEHL), time factors and language skills in Swedish children with HL with hearing aids (HA). Participants were 19 children with mild HL (BEHL 23–39) and 22 children with moderate HL (BEHL 40–70) aged 5–15 years. Information on age at diagnosis and at HA fitting were collected. The children performed a nonword repetition and a sentence comprehension task. The time elapsed between diagnosis and fitting with HA was longer for the children with mild HL.Participants with mild HL received their HA significantly later than children with moderate HL. No association between BEHL and the two language measures was found, and language skills were not better in children with mild than moderate HL. 17% of participants performed below cut-off for language disorder on both language measures. Given the risk for long-term academic and social consequences of even mild HL delayed HA intervention for children with HLleads to serious concerns by families, clinicians, and pedagogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with speech sound disorders (SSDs) have difficulties affecting different levels of speech production. For treatment to be beneficial, it is important to differentiate between Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) – a motor speech disorder with deficits in speech praxis – and other SSDs (nonCAS-SSD). We have previously developed a motor speech examination Dynamisk motorisk talbedömning (DYMTA). We aimed to evaluate DYMTAs reliability and validity in a small-scale sample to estimate DYMTAs usability in diagnostic settings. Speech, language, and oral motor abilities were assessed in 45 children between 40 and 106 months. Intra- and inter-rater reliability of DYMTA were analyzed. Further, DYMTAs ability to validly discriminate between children with CAS and nonCAS-SSD was assessed. The intra-rater reliability for the scores of DYMTA was strong, with ICCs ranging from 0.97 to 1.0. DYMTA total score had strong inter-rater reliability as evidenced both by the agreement estimates (DYMTA-A: 0.91 and DYMTA-B: 0.87) and the ICCs (0.97 and 0.96). Inter-rater reliability was also strong for the separate subscores on agreement estimates and for all subscores on ICCs, except for the Prosody subscores. DYMTA accurately discriminated between children with CAS and nonCAS-SSD in this small sample with an AUC of 0.92 for DYMTA-A and 0.94 for DYMTA-B. With its focus on speech movements, DYMTA could serve as a valuable addition to other tests when assessing children's speech motor performance. This first examination suggests that DYMTA may be both a reliable and valid tool in the diagnostic process of SSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spontaneous speech samples from 10 Swedish children were analyzed grammatically. The five subjects (age five) with specific language impairment (SLI) differed from controls in their more restricted usage of word order patterns and number of grammatical errors. Their speech also showed frequent omissions of grammatical morphemes. Results suggest that both morphological and syntactic deficits characterize SLI children. (Author/DB)