How aware is the public of the existence, characteristics and causes of language impairment in childhood and where have they heard about it? A European survey

Public awareness of language impairment in childhood (Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)) has been identified as an important determiner of research and clinical service delivery, yet studies directly assessing public awareness are lacking. This study surveyed awareness across 18 countries of Europe.Method: A questionnaire developed by an international team asked whether respondents had heard of language impairment affecting children, what they thought its manifestations and causes were and where they had heard of it. Respondents were also asked whether they had heard of autism, dyslexia, ADD/ADHD and speech disorder. The questionnaire was administered to members of the public in 18 European countries. A total of 1519 responses were obtained, spanning 6 age groups, 4 educational level groups and 3 income level groups.Results: Across all but one country, significantly fewer people had heard of language impairment than any of the other disorders (or 60 % compared to over 90 % for autism). Awareness tended to be lowest in Eastern Europe and greatest in North-Western Europe, and was influenced by education level, age and income level. People in countries with overall low and overall high awareness differed in their views on manifestations and causes. People had heard of language impairment and autism the same way - most frequently through the media, including Internet, and less frequently through their child’s school or a medical professional.Discussion: The study confirms that awareness of language impairment and knowledge of the breadth of its manifestations are low. It also suggests opportunities for how to increase awareness, including greater media coverage of language impairment and more efficient use of venues such as schools and healthcare. Ways in which cultural and linguistic differences may influence public awareness efforts are discussed, including the translatability of clinical labels and scientific terms. These may impact the acceptance of a common term and definition across all countries. As awareness campaigns are gaining momentum, the findings of this study can serve as a baseline against which to compare future findings.peer-reviewe

How aware is the public of the existence, characteristics and causes of language impairment in childhood and where have they heard about it? A European survey

Public awareness of language impairment in childhood (Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)) has been identified as an important determiner of research and clinical service delivery, yet studies directly assessing public awareness are lacking. This study surveyed awareness across 18 countries of Europe.Method: A questionnaire developed by an international team asked whether respondents had heard of language impairment affecting children, what they thought its manifestations and causes were and where they had heard of it. Respondents were also asked whether they had heard of autism, dyslexia, ADD/ADHD and speech disorder. The questionnaire was administered to members of the public in 18 European countries. A total of 1519 responses were obtained, spanning 6 age groups, 4 educational level groups and 3 income level groups. Results: Across all but one country, significantly fewer people had heard of language impairment than any of the other disorders (or 60 % compared to over 90 % for autism). Awareness tended to be lowest in Eastern Europe and greatest in North-Western Europe, and was influenced by education level, age and income level. People in countries with overall low and overall high awareness differed in their views on manifestations and causes. People had heard of language impairment and autism the same way most frequently through the media, including Internet, and less frequently through their child's school or a medical professional. Discussion: The study confirms that awareness of language impairment and knowledge of the breadth of its manifestations are low. It also suggests opportunities for how to increase awareness, including greater media coverage of language impairment and more efficient use of venues such as schools and healthcare. Ways in which cultural and linguistic differences may influence public awareness efforts are discussed, including the translatability of clinical labels and scientific terms. These may impact the acceptance of a common term and definition across all countries. As awareness campaigns are gaining momentum, the findings of this study can serve as a baseline against which to compare future findings.COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology, European Union

Revista de logopedia, foniatría y audiología

Resumen basado en el de la publicaciónTítulo, resumen y palabras clave en inglés y españolSe revisa la literatura científica, así como los hallazgos recientes sobre la intervención en el lenguaje con niños bilingües. Muchas de las cuestiones focalizadas por esta investigación incluyen la elección del lenguaje de intervención, mientras que los efectos de la intervención se transfieren de una lengua a otra, así como si pueden mejorarse las técnicas del lenguaje indirectamente al acrecentar el procesamiento del lenguaje subyacente y las habilidades de memoria. Dada la falta de investigación sobre intervención en los niños bilingües, es apropiado considerar el alcance de la aplicación de los hallazgos de la más amplia base de evidencia disponible en los niños monolingües. Ello puede variar dependiendo de la cuestión clínica a plantear y de los tipos de entornos monolingües y bilingües implicados. Dado que los niños monolingües y bilingües son similares en cuanto a una serie de características clave que impactan en su capacidad para beneficiarse del tratamiento del lenguaje, se propone que los clínicos utilicen su experiencia y competencia para considerar minuciosamente la aplicabilidad a las poblaciones bilingües de la investigación realizada con los niños monolingües. Se revisan las nuevas direcciones sobre intervención bilingüe que, en un momento dado, darán lugar a opciones de intervención más sofisticadas adaptadas a las necesidades individuales de los niños, tanto monolingües como bilingües.ES

The social and cultural context of intervention for children with developmental language disorder

The activity of working group 3 of COST Action IS1406 was concerned with whether and how social and cultural factors impact children’s access to language services, whether the services offered fit their needs and are consistent with the types of services their families consider appropriate. To this end, working group 3’s portion of the practitioner survey examined the impact on service delivery of demographic factors, such as place of residence and income level, the impact of social factors such as parental views on child development, language impairment and child-rearing practices and the impact of situational factors such as migration. Finally, working group 3 examines the implications of cultural competency for workforce development

Elicitation of the passé composé in French preschoolers with and without specific language impairment

This study examines inflectional abilities in French-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) using a verb elicitation task. Eleven children with SLI and age-matched controls (37– 52 months) participated in the experiment.We elicited the pass´e compos´e using eight regular and eight irregular high frequency verbs matched for age of acquisition. Children with SLI showed dissimilar productive verb inflection abilities to control children (even when comparing participants with similar verb vocabularies and mean length of utterance in words). Control children showed evidence of overregularization and sensitivity to morphological structure, whereas no such effects were observed in the SLI group. Error patterns observed in the SLI group demonstrate that, at this age, they cannot produce pass´e compos´e forms in elicitation tasks, even though some participants used them spontaneously. Either context by itself might therefore be insufficient to fully evaluate productive linguistic abilities in children with SLI