Verbal-linguistic ability of children with speech and language disorders in Primorsko- karst region

In the last years, the studies regarding people with speech and language disorders are focused on child development. Consequently, a growing need has emerged for more accurate diagnosis and precise objective speech therapy. Because of this, the demand for more accurate assessment tests is increasing. As nowadays the Slovenian area is characterized by the lack of standardized and non-standardized tests for speech and language development in children, we would need a comprehensive test covering all the areas of speech and language development. For the above reasons, I decided to focus my master's thesis on that topic. In my thesis, I conducted a pilot study using the speech and language assessment Battery in children with speech disorders from 4 to 12 years of age (ital. Batteria per la Valutazione del Linguaggio in bambini dai 4 ai 12 anni, BVL_4-12). The test battery to assess speech and language skills was designed by Andrea Marini, Luigi Marotta, Sara Bulgheroni and Franco Fabbro (2014) and it is a diagnostic instrument for assessing speech and language skills from 4 to 12 years of age. It was built with the aim to evaluate the speech and language skills in children in the Italian language but Marini who is the author of the original version encourages the test adaptation in the languages of the neighboring countries and of the linguistic minorities in Italy. In the theoretical part, I gave a general definition of communication, and I defined more specific areas of speech and language development, and I described the tests used in the field of speech therapy. The test battery, translated and adapted from Italian to Slovenian language with the collaboration of Ozbič, Kogovšek and Novšak Brce, was applied on 30 subjects (15 women and 15 men). The aim of the pilot study was to determine the appropriateness of the translation and adaptation on a group of children with speech and language disorders and its usefulness in children with speech and language disorders. I chose this kind of research because, in Slovenia, in the area of speech therapy, we do not have the appropriate instruments to make an accurate diagnosis. The test translation and adaptation is a part of the project which takes place at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana, entitled: Design and test of phonological Slovenian translation and adaptation of the instrument "Batteria per la Valutazione del Linguaggio in bambini dai 4 ai 12 anni (BVL_4-12)" (authors Andrea Marini, Luigi Marotta, Sara Bulgheroni and Franco Fabbro), whose leader is Dr. Martina Ozbič

The Complex Relation between Executive Functions and Language in Preschoolers with Developmental Language Disorders

Backgrounds: The relationship between linguistic difficulties and cognitive impairments in children with developmental language disorders (DLDs) is receiving growing interest in international research. Executive functions (EF) appear to be weak in these children. The current investigation aims at exploring the relationship between difficulties in two components of EF (i.e., updating and inhibition) and the linguistic and narrative skills of 16 DLD preschoolers matched with 24 typically developing peers. Methods: Updating skills were tested by administering the forward and backward digit recall subtests of the Wechsler Scales, while children’s inhibition abilities were assessed by completion of Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment (NEPSY-II) inhibition tasks. Information on the linguistic skills of the participants was collected through a set of subtests included in the Batteria per la Valutazione del Linguaggio in bambini dai 4 ai 12 anni (Batteria per la Valutazione del Linguaggio; BVL_4-12), assessing articulatory and phonological discrimination skills, lexical production/comprehension, grammatical production/comprehension, and narrative production skills. Results: Findings revealed that DLD children performed significantly lower than their peers on both updating and inhibitory tasks. Linguistic difficulties were found in the DLD group on articulatory/phonological skills, grammatical production/comprehension, and lexical informativeness on narrative production. Measures of EF correlated with linguistic and narrative measures. Conclusion: The current study confirms a significant association between DLD’s performances on EF and displayed linguistic skills, suggesting the need to include the assessment of executive functions to target early intervention rehabilitation programs for children with DLDs