Understanding early inhibitory development : distinguishing two ways that children use inhibitory control

Inhibitory control is the capacity to suppress inappropriate responses. It is regarded as a unitary construct, central to executive function and effortful control, as well as many aspects of child development. There are, nevertheless, significant gaps in our understanding of inhibition’s early development, and several robust findings that remain hard to explain. These findings are outlined, and a new perspective on inhibitory control presented, which explains them by distinguishing between two ways that inhibitory control is used. According to the ‘strength/endurance account’, responses which are highly prepotent tax inhibitory strength; whereas, those which remain active for a long time tax inhibitory endurance. The review considers when and how these aspects of inhibition mature, before discussing their impact on development

Semantic fluency in deaf children who use spoken and signed language, in comparison to hearing peers

Background Deafness has an adverse impact on children’s ability to acquire spoken languages. Signed languages offer a more accessible input for deaf children, but because the vast majority are born to hearing parents who do not sign, their early exposure to sign language is limited. Deaf children as a whole are therefore at high risk of language delays. Aims We compared deaf and hearing children’s performance on a semantic fluency task. Optimal performance on this task requires a systematic search of the mental lexicon, the retrieval of words within a subcategory, and, when that subcategory is exhausted, switching to a new subcategory. We compared retrieval patterns between groups, and also compared the responses of deaf children who used British Sign Language (BSL) to those who used spoken English. We investigated how semantic fluency performance related to children’s expressive vocabulary and executive function skills, and also re-tested semantic fluency in the majority of the children nearly two years later, in order to investigate how much progress they had made in that time. Methods and procedures Participants were deaf children aged 6-11 years (N=106, comprising 69 users of spoken English, 29 users of BSL and 8 users of Sign Supported English) compared to hearing children (N=120) of the same age who used spoken English. Semantic fluency was tested for the category “animals”. We coded for errors, clusters (e.g., “pets”, “farm animals”) and switches. Participants also completed the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test and a battery of six non-verbal executive function tasks. In addition, we collected follow-up semantic fluency data for 70 deaf and 74 hearing children, nearly 2 years after they were first tested. Outcomes and results Deaf children, whether using spoken or signed language, produced fewer items in the semantic fluency task than hearing children, but they showed similar patterns of responses for items most commonly produced, clustering of items into subcategories and switching between subcategories. Both vocabulary and executive function scores predicted the number of correct items produced. Follow-up data from deaf participants showed continuing delays relative to hearing children two years later. Conclusions and implications We conclude that semantic fluency can be used experimentally to investigate lexical organisation in deaf children, and that it potentially has clinical utility across the heterogeneous deaf population. We present normative data to aid clinicians who wish to use this task with deaf children

The NICHD protocol:a review of an internationally-used evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers

PurposeThis article reviews an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the NICHD Protocol, with a specific focus on how the Protocol is being adapted in various countries.Design/methodology/approachWe include international contributions from experienced trainers, practitioners, and scientists, who are already using the Protocol or whose national or regional procedures have been directly influenced by the NICHD Protocol research (Canada, Finland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, and United States). Throughout the review, these experts comment on: How and when the Protocol was adopted in their country; who uses it; training procedures; challenges to implementation and translation; and other pertinent aspects. We aim to further promote good interviewing practice by sharing the experiences of these international experts.FindingsThe NICHD Protocol can be easily incorporated into existing training programs worldwide and is available for free. It was originally developed in English and Hebrew and is available in several other languages.Originality/valueThis article reviews an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the NICHD Protocol. It has been extensively studied and reviewed over the past 20 years. This article is unique in the it is the first to bring together practitioners who are actually responsible for training forensic interviewers and conducting forensic interviews from all around the world

Gesture Production in Language Impairment:It's Quality, Not Quantity, That Matters

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine whether children with language impairment (LI) use gesture to compensate for their language difficulties. Method: The present study investigate d gesture accuracy and frequency i n children with LI (n = 21 ) across gesture imitation, gesture elicitation , spontaneous narrative and interactive problem solving tasks, relative to typically developing (TD) peers (n = 18 ) and peers with low language (LL) and educational concerns (n=21). RESULTS: C hildren with LI showed weaknesses in gesture accuracy (imitation and gesture elicitation ) in comparison to TD peers , but no differences in gesture rate . Children with LL only showed weaknesses in gesture imitation and used significantly more gest ures than TD peers during parent - child interaction. Across the whole sample, motor abilities were significantly related to gesture accuracy but not gesture rate. In addition, children with LI produce d proportionately more extending gestures, suggesting that they may use gesture to replace words that they are unable to articulate verbally. CONCLUSION: The results support the notion that gesture and language form a tightly linked communication system in which gestured eficits are seen alongside difficulties with spoken communication. Furthermore, it is the quality, not quantity of gestures that distinguish children with LI from typical peers

A stab in the dark: The distance threshold of target identification in low light

Prior research shows that increased distance and decreased light result in less correct eyewitness identifications, yet their combined effect is not well understood. The aim of the present study was to establish the maximum distance in low lux (lx) where an eyewitness's later identification in target present (TP) line-ups is no longer reliable. We randomized participants (N = 178) into one of three lx conditions (high:300 lx, medium:10 lx, low:0.7 lx) and presented them with eight targets (one at a time) at eight separate distances (6-20 m). Each target-presentation was followed by an 8-person simultaneous TP line-up (i.e., there was a .125 probability of choosing the target correctly by chance). We found that the rate of correct TP identifications decreased with increased distance in all lx conditions. At 20 m the rate of correct TP identifications was .53 in the high lx condition, .41 in the medium lx condition and .11 in the low lx condition. The generalizability of our findings to overall eyewitness accuracy is limited by the exclusion of target absent line-ups, yet our findings show that reliable and correct target present identifications are very unlikely following observations made in low lighting (0.7 lx) at 20 m

An early years toolbox for assessing early executive function, language, self-Regulation, and social development validity, reliability, and preliminary norms

Several methods of assessing executive function (EF), self-regulation, language development, and social development in young children have been developed over previous decades. Yet new technologies make available methods of assessment not previously considered. In resolving conceptual and pragmatic limitations of existing tools, the Early Years Toolbox (EYT) offers substantial advantages for early assessment of language, EF, self-regulation, and social development. In the current study, results of our large-scale administration of this toolbox to 1,764 preschool and early primary school students indicated very good reliability, convergent validity with existing measures, and developmental sensitivity. Results were also suggestive of better capture of children’s emerging abilities relative to comparison measures. Preliminary norms are presented, showing a clear developmental trajectory across half-year age groups. The accessibility of the EYT, as well as its advantages over existing measures, offers considerably enhanced opportunities for objective measurement of young children’s abilities to enable research and educational applications

Heritable risk factors associated with language impairments

There is a strong genetic contribution to children’s language and literacy impairments. The aim of this study was to determine which aspects of the phenotype are familial by comparing 34 parents of probands with language/literacy impairments and 33 parents of typically developing probands. The parents responded to questionnaires regarding previous history for language/reading impairment and participated in psychometric testing. The psychometric test battery consisted of tests assessing non-verbal IQ, short-term memory, articulation, receptive grammar, reading abilities and spelling. Self-report measures demonstrated a higher prevalence of language and literacy impairments in parents of affected probands (32%) compared with parents of unaffected probands (6%). The two groups of parents differed significantly in their performance on the non-word repetition, oromotor and digit span tasks. Non-word repetition gave the best discrimination between the parent groups even when the data from the parents who actually were impaired as ascertained by direct testing or self-report were removed from the analyses. This suggests that non-word repetition serves as a marker of a family risk for language impairment. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues associated with ascertainment of specific language impairment (SLI)