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Background: The risks of developmental language disorder (DLD) for both educational progress and socio-emotional development are well documented, but little is known about how children and young people with DLD experience and describe their language and communication. The need to complement experimental and quantitative studies with qualitative perspectives of the lived experience of individuals with DLD for speech and language therapists (SLT) practice has recently been foregrounded. Aims: To understand further the experiences of young people with DLD focusing on language and communication in a school context, and thereby contribute to the improvement of the communicative situation in school for this group. The study is guided by the following research question: How do young people diagnosed with DLD describe their experiences of language and communication in school? Methods & Procedures: The study is based on data generated from qualitative semi-structured interviews with 23 participants diagnosed with DLD (age 13-19 years old) living in Sweden. All participants attended mainstream schools. To enable data to be collected during COVID-19 restrictions, all interviews were conducted using Zoom. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Outcomes & Results: Four main themes related to experiences of language and communication in school were constructed from the interviews: (1) feelings of inadequacy and comparisons with others; (2) feelings of being misjudged and misunderstood; (3) the importance of feeling safe and comfortable; and (4) the significance of the social and communicative context. The results bear witness of difficult and challenging aspects related to language and communication in school, including educational, social and emotional dimensions. An important outcome of this study is how young people diagnosed with DLD describe their language and communication functioning to be dependent on both individual characteristics and abilities, as well as situational, contextual and social factors. Conclusions & Implications: The results from this study show that young people with DLD can have persisting problems related to language and communication in school, including educational, social and emotional dimensions. SLT services may therefore be needed throughout the school years to ensure that students with DLD receive adequate support. In addition, support that goes beyond language abilities and targets social, contextual and emotional aspects should be considered.

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.

The present study reports on the development of a questionnaire that evaluates children's experiences of their physical classroom environment, activities and interactions. It also explores the psychometric properties of the questionnaire and how acoustical characteristics of the classroom, class size and student characteristics (age, sex and Swedish as a second language) influence the self-reported outcomes. After development, the questionnaire name should read Activities and Interactions in the Classroom were administered to 101 students (7.9-10.7 years old). Demographic information about the students was collected from parents. The psychometric properties including test-retest reliability are good but can be improved by reducing the number of items. Acoustical characteristics of the classrooms and student characteristics did not predict questionnaire outcomes. As the acoustical conditions in students' classrooms were close to optimal, communication fostering support should be in focus. The present questionnaire can be used to assess young students' experiences of their classroom environment and learning situations.

Purpose: This study reports on the development of an auditory passage comprehension task for Swedish primary school children of cultural and linguistic diversity. It also reports on their performance on the task in quiet and in noise. Method: Eighty-eight children aged 7-9 years and showing normal hearing participated. The children were divided into three groups based on presumed language exposure: 13 children were categorized as Swedish-speaking monolinguals, 19 children were categorized as simultaneous bilinguals, and 56 children were categorized as sequential bilinguals. No significant difference in working memory capacity was seen between the three language groups. Two passages and associated multiple-choice questions were developed. During development of the passage comprehension task, steps were taken to reduce the impact of culture-specific prior experience and knowledge on performance. This was achieved by using the story grammar principles, universal topics and plots, and simple language that avoided complex or unusual grammatical structures and words. Results: The findings indicate no significant difference between the two passages and similar response distributions. Passage comprehension performance was significantly better in quiet than in noise, regardless of language exposure group. The monolinguals outperformed both simultaneous and sequential bilinguals in both listening conditions. Conclusions: Because the task was designed to minimize the effect of cultural knowledge on auditory passage comprehension, this suggests that compared with monolinguals, both simultaneous and sequential bilinguals have a disadvantage in auditory passage comprehension. As expected, the findings demonstrate that noise has a negative effect on auditory passage comprehension. The magnitude of this effect does not relate to language exposure. The developed auditory passage comprehension task seems suitable for assessing auditory passage comprehension in primary school children of linguistic and cultural diversity.

Observational learning is a successful method for improving writing skills in various genres. We explore effects of a five lesson intervention series based on peer observation. Fifty-five Swedish 5th-grade students aged 10-12 years followed this intervention programme. The students watched short film clips with peers working with texts. Each lesson was organised according to a theme: reader's perception of the text, ordering of events, how to begin a story, how to end a story and how to edit a text. The students wrote four texts during the intervention. The quality of these texts was assessed by a panel of trained raters. Additionally, the language and reading comprehension and working memory capacity were tested. The results show that average text quality had significantly improved at the end of the intervention, and that this improvement was modulated by reading and language comprehension. Three months later, however, text quality was significantly decreased.

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.

Reading comprehension and three aspects of working memory--general, visuospatial and phonological--was assessed in 41 children with hearing loss: 23 with cochlear implants and 18 with hearing aids. Performance on these tests was compared between the two groups of children with hearing loss and also related to that of 55 children with typical hearing. All children were between 6 and 14 years of age. The children with hearing aids performed significantly more poorly on the reading comprehension test than the children with typical hearing but this difference was not significant between the children with cochlear implants and the children with typical hearing. In the group of children with cochlear implants, the results from the reading test and the results from all three working memory tests correlated significantly, whereas in the group of children with hearing aids there was no correlation between the reading test and the visual working memory test. The reading test results from the children with typical hearing correlated significantly with the results from the phonological working memory test but not with the other working memory tests. The authors concluded that the children with cochlear implants might have developed orthographic decoding earlier than the children with hearing aids due to their more profound hearing loss.

The aim of this study is to explore teachers' experience and understanding of classroom communication after participating in a speech-language pathologist (SLP) led in-service training on classroom communication. This qualitative study used a focus group approach to explore how teachers describe their classroom communication. Twenty primary-school teachers participated. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the teachers' responses about their classroom communication practices 6 months after in-service training. Three core themes on teachers' understanding of their communication in the classroom were identified in the analysis: (1) awareness of voice use; (2) the use of body communication; (3) setting the stage for learning. The teachers gave many examples of voice use reflecting an increased awareness of audibility and vocal health. They reported on moving around more and using more body communication to enhance their message. Further, they expressed an increased awareness about how body posture affects voice and communication. The third theme reflects how the teachers "sets the stage for learning" i.e. how they use the prerequisites in the physical environment for successful classroom communication, including the classroom's sound environment as well as seating and furniture. The findings in this study indicate that teachers increased their awareness, implemented new practices in their classroom communication and reflected on prerequisites for classroom communication as a result of the in-service training. Teachers' classroom communication developed when provided practical training and strategies to increase their awareness on communication. We conclude that this type of SLP-led training can be recommended as in-service training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Students with hearing loss (HL) often fall behind hearing peers in complex language tasks such as narrative writing. This study explored the effects of school grade, gender, cognitive and linguistic predisposition and audiological factors on narrative text quality in this target group. Eleven students with HL in Grades 5–6 and 7–8 (age 12–15) who took part in a writing intervention wrote four narrative texts over six months. A trained panel rated text quality. The effects of the students' working memory capacity, language comprehension, reading comprehension, school grade and gender and the intervention were analyzed as a mixed-effects regression model. Audiological factors were considered separately. The analysis showed that throughout the period, texts written by female students in Grade 7–8 received the highest text quality ratings, while those written by male students in Grade 7–8 received the lowest ratings. There was no effect of the intervention, or of the linguistic and cognitive measures. The students with the lowest text quality ratings received amplification later than those with high ratings, but HL severity was not associated with text quality. Hearing loss severity was not a decisive factor in narrative text quality. The intervention which the students took part in is potentially effective, with some adaptation to the special needs of students with HL. The strong gender effects are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research is lacking in terms of reading decoding skills among clinical samples of Swedish-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). The present cross-sectional study included a sample of 61 children (8-12 years) with DLD attending school language units, years 1 to 5. Our purpose was to study reading decoding skills and predictors for decoding, such as a phonological processing skill (nonword repetition), working memory, and a family history of literacy problems. The results on a combined measure of the word and nonword decoding indicated that only 18% of the children had age-adequate decoding skills. The proportion of age-adequate decoders did not change noticeably with the school year. The participants' decoding skills showed larger deviations to test norm means with higher school years. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that the best predictors of decoding skills were measures of working memory and nonword repetition, followed by school year. These factors significantly contributed to the variance in decoding among our sample of children with DLD. A family history of literacy problems made no contribution to the variance. Conclusions: The findings emphasize the necessity of assessing and following up on literacy development in children with DLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the effect of signal degradation on perceived listening effort in children with hearing loss listening in a simulated class-room context. It also examines the associations between perceived listening effort, passage comprehension performance and executive functioning. Twenty-four children (aged 06:03–13:00 years) with hearing impairment using cochlear implant (CI) and/or hearing aids (HA) participated. The children made ratings of perceived listening effort after completing an auditory passage comprehension task. All children performed the task in four different listening conditions: listening to a typical (i.e. normal) voice in quiet, to a dysphonic voice in quiet, to a typical voice in background noise and to a dysphonic voice in background noise. In addition, the children completed a task assessing executive function. Both voice quality and background noise increased perceived listening effort in children with CI/HA, but no interaction with executive function was seen. Since increased listening effort seems to be a consequence of increased cognitive resource spending, it is likely that less resources will be available for these children not only to comprehend but also to learn in challenging listening environments such as classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]