Infinitival Clauses in Children With Typical and Late Language Emergence: Supporting a Dimensional Account of Language Delay

Children who do not speak single words by 2 years of age have been labeled as having late language emergence (LLE). While the majority of children with LLE recover by school-age, it has been argued that they often still perform below the level of their typical peers for specific linguistic skills. In this case, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) should consider language skills as varying along a dimension, rather than as simply impaired vs. unimpaired. To examine the dimensionality of language skill, this study compared infinitival clause production in 22 school-age children with and without LLE. The infinitive clauses were: catenatives, such as gonna; let us + verb, typically produced as let’s; unmarked infinitives such as make it go; and simple infinitives such as We want to run. The 22 participants included 11 with typical development and 11 with a history of LLE, sampled in a conversational context at 8-years of age. Analysis indicated that the groups did not statistically differ for use of the four types of infinitival clauses. However, the LLE group did use fewer simple infinitives, offering support for a dimensional model of language development

Developing Speech-Language Pathology Students’ Grammatical Identification Skills Through Gamification

Background: Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are communication experts required to analyze and interpret a variety of language components (Schuele, 2010). Language sampling is a form of communication analysis and is used with adult and pediatric populations. SLPs collect and analyze language samples in an effort to make evidence-based diagnostic and intervention decisions. When analyzing a language sample, sentences must be deconstructed along a variety of parameters. At Old Dominion University (ODU), the undergraduate Communication Sciences and Disorders program requires students to identify broad and specific grammatical categories during language sample analysis in preparation for clinical experiences. This research involves the design and implementaiton of a gaming application using spaced retrieval practice and principles of gaming theory to facilitate grammatical identification skills in undergraduate and graduate SLP students. Purpose: The primary aim of this project is to generate pilot data determining the utility of a gaming application (designed by the course instructor) for teaching grammatical category identification. The gaming application has been developed with an ODU undergraduate student and Information Technology specialists, and it is in the prototyping phase. There are three planned phases of application design in the pursuit of creating a generalizable and individualized tool for instruction at the elementary level and for other SLP college programs. Research Questions: 1) Do students who use the gaming application more accurately identify auxiliary verbs, main verbs, secondary verbs, subjective pronouns, objective pronouns, personal pronouns, and conjunctions more accurately than students who did not use the gaming application? 2) Over time, do students who use the gaming application perform better on accurately identifying auxiliary verbs, main verbs, secondary verbs, subjective pronouns, objective pronouns, personal pronouns, and conjunctions than students who do not use the gaming application?https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/gradposters2020_education/1002/thumbnail.jp

Effect of Parallel Talk on the Language and Interactional Skills of Preschoolers with Cochlear Implants and Hearing Aids

Children with profound congenital hearing loss often do not have the same prelinguistic opportunities for social and verbal interaction as their peers with typical hearing [14]. Consequently, language and social skills may be challenging for this group, even after they are provided with amplification or a cochlear implant. This pilot study examined the effectiveness of using a parallel talk intervention to increase the language and interactional skills of three preschoolers with deafnesss. Results revealed that all participants increased verbal turn-taking and that two of the three increased initiated and responded vocal/verbal comments, and initiated and responded nonverbal responses during a 5-minute play session in which parallel talk was utilized. Additionally, all children displayed some generalization in the two types of generalization probes employed. Implications for facilitating the communication of preschoolers with communication and social delays are discussed

The Relation of Socioeconomic Status, Parental education, Vocabulary and Language Skills of Children Who Stutter

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to investigate the possible relation between standardized measures of vocabulary/language, mother and father education, and a composite measure of socioeconomic status (SES) for children who do not stutter (CWNS) and children who stutter (CWS). Methods: Participants were 138 CWNS and 159 CWS between the ages of 2;6 and 6;3 and their families. The Hollingshead Four Factor Index of Social Position (i.e., Family SES) was used to calculate SES based on a composite score consisting of weighted values for paternal and maternal education and occupation. Statistical regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relation between parental education and language and vocabulary scores for both the CWNS and CWS. Correlations were calculated between parent education, Family SES, and stuttering severity (e.g., SSI-3 score, % words stuttered). Results: Results indicated that maternal education contributed the greatest amount of variance in vocabulary and language scores for the CWNS and for participants from both groups whose Family SES was in the lowest quartile of the distribution. However, paternal education generally contributed the greatest amount of variance in vocabulary and language scores for the CWS. Higher levels of maternal education were associated with more severe stuttering in the CWS. Conclusion: Results are generally consistent with existing literature on normal language development that indicates maternal education is a robust predictor of the vocabulary and language skills of preschool children. Thus, both father and mothers\u27 education may impact the association between vocabulary/language skills and childhood stuttering, leading investigators who empirically study this association to possibly re-assess their participant selection (e.g., a priori control of parental education) and/or data analyses (e.g., post hoc covariation of parental education). Learning outcomes: The reader will be able to: (a) describe the influence of socioeconomic status on the development of vocabulary and language for children who do and do not stutter; (b) discuss the contribution of maternal education on vocabulary and language development; (c) describe possible reasons why paternal education contributes in unique ways to the vocabulary and language development of children who stutter as well as stuttering severity; and (d) explain possible reasons why socioeconomic status is an important variable for describing language related findings in young children

Creating Head Space: Using Spaced Retrieval Practice to Teach Cranial Nerves to Graduate SLP Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of spaced retrieval practice on graduate speech-language pathology (SLP) student’s long-term retention of cranial nerves. This is a quasi-experimental design study using a repeated measures and between group design where the control group was not randomly assigned. The accuracy and quality of cranial nerve knowledge was measured in graduate SLP students who did not practice spaced retrieval (control), and those who practiced spaced retrieval for three (EG1) or four (EG2) semesters. The quality and accuracy of cranial nerve knowledge improved significantly for both experimental groups compared to the control group. When controlling for accuracy from typical instruction, a significant difference in accurate recall did not occur for either experimental group until the third semester with continued significant improvement for EG2 in the fourth semester. The difference in the quality of recall between the first and last semester was significant for EG2 only. These results confirm that participating in spaced retrieval practice one time is inadequate for long-term retention. The findings reassure SLP educators that infusing spaced retrieval practice into content rich courses will have a positive impact on graduate SLP student’s retention