Children's naming and word-finding difficulties: descriptions and explanations

Purpose: There are a substantial minority of children for whom lexical retrieval problems impede the normal pattern of language development and use. These problems include accurately producing the correct word even when the word?s meaning is understood; such children are often referred to as having word-finding difficulties (WFDs). This review examines the nature of naming and lexical retrieval difficulties in these and other groups of children. Method: A review of the relevant literature on lexical access difficulties in children with word finding difficulties was conducted. Studies were examined in the terms of population parameters and comparison groups included in the study. Results and Conclusions: Most discussions of the cognitive processes causing lexical retrieval difficulties have referred to semantics, phonology and processing speed. It is argued that our understanding of these topics will be further advanced by the use of appropriate methodology to test developmental models that both identify the processes in successfully performing different lexical retrieval tasks and more precisely locating the difficulties experienced by children with such tasks

Examination of the Colorful Semantic Approach via Telepractice for Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Introduction: Hearing loss, deafness or hard of hearing are considered to be the inabilityof perceiving sounds beyond 20 dB. Due to a direct impact of a hearing loss, a developing brain undergoes difficulties in acquiring age-appropriate syntax and speech sounds. As a result, children with hearing loss present language, speech, and literacy disabilities. The current study discusses the efficacy of the colorful semantics approach in order to see its impact on sentence structure development. Methodology: A single subject withdrawal experimental study conducted following ABAB model. Two participants (6 years and 10 years) were recruited to the study following an inclusion and exclusion criteria. The participants were administered colorful semantic therapy sessions for 12 weeks via zoom. The virtual sessions were 45 to 60 minutes long and were administered two times per week. The pre and post language skills and conversational skills were compared using cottage acquisition scales for language, listening and speech (CASLLS) and systematic analysis of language transcripts (SALT). Results: Both participants showed statistically significant improvements at the end of the intervention period. Drastic improvements were observed in four main sentence structures along with improvements in prepositions and pronouns,tenses and negations, verbs and modals and nouns and noun modifiers. The overall clarity of speech in conversations was identified according to the decline in number of mazes ( participant 1- pre intervention 11 and post intervention 7, Participant 2- pre intervention 4 and post intervention 3), number of maze words ( participant 1- pre intervention 32 and post intervention 7, Participant 2- pre intervention 5 and post intervention 3). Both participants were able to generalize conversational skills such as clarify information by repeating, using descriptions to clarifying information, using long detailed conversations and using primitive narratives in to many different contexts. The improvements in the mentioned language areas imply the effectiveness of the approach even within the virtual mode of delivery. More investigations should be done with a larger participant group to generalize the findings

Number skills and knowledge in children with specific language impairment

The number skills of groups of 7 to 9 year old children with specific language impairment (SLI) attending mainstream or special schools are compared with an age and nonverbal reasoning matched group (AC), and a younger group matched on oral language comprehension. The SLI groups performed below the AC group on every skill. They also showed lower working memory functioning and had received lower levels of instruction. Nonverbal reasoning, working memory functioning, language comprehension, and instruction accounted for individual variation in number skills to differing extents depending on the skill. These factors did not explain the differences between SLI and AC groups on most skills

Word searches: on the use of verbal and non-verbal resources during classroom talk

Word finding difficulties in children are typically characterised by search behaviours such as silence, circumlocution, repetition and empty words. Yet, how children’s word searches are constructed (including gesture, gaze and prosody) and the actions accomplished during interaction have not yet been researched. In this study, eightyear- old Ciara is interacting with her teacher in the classroom. 37 segments containing word searches were analysed according to the procedures used by conversation analysts. Ciara’s interactional resources include co-ordinated deployment of syntax, pitch height and downward gaze during solitary searching that assist the enterprise of self-repair. Gaze shift towards the teacher signals a transition relevance place, thus constituting a direct invitation for her to participate in the search. Ciara’s interactional resources include semantic category labelling, phonological self-cuing and pronominal substitution that supply valuable linguistic information to the teacher and trigger production of the searched-for item. Recommendations for language teaching and therapy are presented