Children's Communication Checklist (CCC) scores in 11-year-old children with communication impairments

Background: The pragmatic skills of children with communication disorders and their assessment are currently an issue for speech and language therapy and educational placement. Aims: To explore whether different subgroups of children with communication disorders score differently on the Children’s Communication Checklist (CCC; Bishop, 1998) and how they compare to published normative data. Methods and procedures: A sample of 161 eleven year old children with a history of communication disorders were assessed using the CCC. The main use of this questionnaire is to establish whether pragmatic impairments are part of a child’s communication difficulty. Although the checklist was originally designed for research purposes, Bishop & Baird (2001) have recently published normative data for this scale as well as group data from a number of different clinical groups. Whilst our CCC data has been previously reported descriptively for a wider sample (Conti-Ramsden et al, 2001), it has not been examined in terms of subgroups or compared directly to normative information and similarly diagnosed individuals from other studies. Outcomes and Results: Of the children assessed 52 (33%) scored in the normal range (within 1sd) on the pragmatic scale, 40 (26%) fell between 1 and 2 sd below the normative mean and 64 (41%) scored below 2sd the mean of typically developing children (aged 6-16yrs) who were reported by Bishop and Baird (2001). Thus the majority (67%) scored out of the normal range for pragmatic skill at 11 years of age. The cohort was separated into 4 diagnostic sub-categories: Those with a definite diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD; n=13); those with typical specific language impairment (SLI; n=29); generally impaired (LILowIQ; n=30); those with a clinical history of primary Pragmatic Language Impairment (PLI; independent of CCC score, n= 27). Conclusions: Findings show that those with SLI and LilowIQ were less impaired than the other groups on the CCC pragmatic scale. There was a significant trend for those with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) to score lowest through PLI, LilowIQ to SLI. It is argued that a cut off of 140 may prove to be more useful at this age than the 132 level previously published for 8 year olds. Results suggest that the CCC can be used as a clinical tool, but in conjunction with other reliable measures

Semantic and inferencing abilities in children with communication disorders

Background: Semantic and inferencing abilities have not been fully examined in children with communication difficulties. Aims: To investigate the inferential and semantic abilities of children with communication difficulties using newly designed tasks. Methods & Procedures: Children with different types of communication disorder were compared with each other and with three groups of typically developing children: those of the same chronological age and two groups of younger children. In total, 25 children aged 11 years with specific language impairment and 22 children, also 11 years of age, with primary pragmatic difficulties were recruited. Typically developing groups aged 11 (n = 35; age‐match), and those aged 9 (n = 40) and 7 (n = 37; language similar) also participated as comparisons. Outcomes & Results: For Semantic Choices, children with specific language impairment performed significantly more poorly than 9‐ and 11‐year‐olds, whilst the pragmatic difficulties group scored significantly lower than all the typically developing groups. Borderline differences between specific language impairment and pragmatic difficulties groups were found. For inferencing, children with communication impairments performed significantly below the 11‐year‐old peers, but not poorer than 9‐ and 7‐year‐olds, suggesting that this skill is in line with language ability. Six children in the pragmatic difficulties group who met diagnosis for autism performed more poorly than the other two clinical groups on both tasks, but not statistically significantly so. Conclusions: Both tasks were more difficult for those with communication impairments compared with peers. Semantic but not inferencing abilities showed a non‐significant trend for differences between the two clinical groups and children with pragmatic difficulties performed more poorly than all typically developing groups. The tasks may relate to each other in varying ways according to type of communication difficulty

The role of language, social cognition, and social skill in the functional social outcomes of young adolescents with and without a history of SLI

Social skill and language are known to relate, not least in the example of those with specific language impairment (SLI). However, most of the research examining this trend has been conducted on young primary school age children and the nature of the relationships is unclear. Furthermore, little is known about which young people in general have social difficulties and whether language, social cognition, and social skills are directly associated at this age. In this study, a large cohort made up of young people with a history of SLI (N = 134) and a typically developing (TD) group (N = 124) of the same age were followed up in their final year of compulsory schooling (aged 16). Language, social cognition, social skills, and functional social outcomes (friendships and levels of social activity) were assessed using tasks and questionnaires. Modest associations were found between social cognition, language, and social behaviours, the strongest being between language and social cognition. Regression analyses showed that as a combined group, the adolescents' functional social outcomes were most associated with expressive language, social skill, and social cognitive ability. However, the patterns differed when the groups were analysed separately, with social cognition playing more of a role for those with SLI. These findings suggest that poor language may play a complex role in adolescents' social development

Narrative in adolescent specific language impairment (SLI): a comparison with peers across two different narrative genres

Background: Narrative may provide a useful way in which to assess the language ability of adolescents with specific language impairment and may be more ecologically valid than standardized tests. However, the language of this age group is seldom studied and, furthermore, the effect of narrative genre has not been explored in detail. Methods & Procedures: A total of 99 typically developing adolescents and 19 peers with specific language impairment were given two different types of narrative task: a story-telling condition and a conversational condition. Four areas of narrative (productivity, syntactic complexity, syntactic errors and performance) were assessed. Outcomes & Results: The group with specific language impairment was poorer on most aspects of narrative confirming recent research that specific language impairment is a long-term disorder. A number of measures also showed interactions between group and genre, with story-telling proving to be a disproportionately more difficult task for the specific language impairment group. Error analysis also suggested that the specific language impairment group was making qualitatively different errors to the typically developing group, even within a genre. Conclusions: Adolescents with specific language impairment are not only poorer at both types of narrative than peers, but also show different patterns of competence and error, and require more support from the narrative-partner. Clinical Implications: Assessments of adolescents are less frequent than at younger ages. This is partly because of the sparsity of tests available in this age range. Qualitative analysis of narrative might prove a useful alternative. The findings suggest that in every-day conversation, young people with specific language impairment manage their difficulties more discreetly and this might make them harder to identify in a mainstream setting

Cognitive abilities in children with specific language impairment: consideration of visuo-spatial skills

Background: The study is concerned with the cognitive abilities of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Previous research has indicated that children with SLI demonstrate difficulties with certain cognitive tasks despite normal non‐verbal IQ scores. It has been suggested that a general processing limitation might account for the pattern of language and cognitive difficulties seen in children with SLI. The performances on a visuo‐spatial short‐term memory task and a visuo‐spatial processing task were considered in a group of young children with SLI. Verbal short‐term memory was also measured. Aims: To identify whether children with SLI demonstrate difficulties with visuo‐spatial memory as well as verbal short‐term memory. To see whether a visuo‐spatial processing task without short‐term memory requirements is problematic for children with SLI. To consider performance on these tasks over time. Methods & Procedures: Nine children with SLI (mean age 3;9 years at the study outset) and nine typically developing children (mean age 3;9 years at the study outset) were visited on three occasions over 1 year. Verbal short‐term memory, visuo‐spatial short‐term memory and visuo‐spatial processing tasks were administered to the children, and performance over time was compared between the two groups. Outcomes & Results: The children with SLI performed at a lower level than the typically developing children on the verbal short‐term memory task. Both groups showed similar development on the verbal short‐term memory task and the visuo‐spatial processing task over time. Only the visuo‐spatial short‐term memory task showed slower development over time in the children with SLI relative to the typically developing children. Conclusions: Children with SLI demonstrated slower development on a visuo‐spatial short‐term memory task relative to typically developing children of the same chronological age. This finding has implications for speech and language therapists and other professionals working with children with SLI. It may mean that only certain types of visual support are suitable, and that children with SLI will have difficulty with tasks requiring a high level of processing, or a number of mental manipulations

Short-term memory and vocabulary development in children with Down syndrome and children with specific language impairment

A longitudinal comparison was made between development of verbal and visuo-spatial short-term memory and vocabulary in children with Down syndrome (DS), children with specific language impairment (SLI), and typically developing children as a control group. Participants were 12 children with DS (6 males, 6 females; mean chronological age 9y 9mo [SD 2.8 mo], range 8y 6mo to 11y 4mo); nine children with SLI (4 males, 5 females; mean chronological age 3y 9mo [SD 4.8mo], range 3y 3mo to 4y 5mo); and 12 typically developing children (5 males, 7 females; mean chronological age 4y 4mo [SD 3.9mo], range 3y 3mo to 4y 3mo). Participants were matched on mental age (mean mental age 4y 3mo). All participants completed verbal short-term memory, visuo-spatial short-term memory, and expressive and receptive vocabulary tasks on three occasions over 1 year. Similarities were seen in the clinical groups for verbal short-term memory. There was some evidence of difficulty in visuo-spatial short-term memory in the children with SLI relative to the other groups, but all three groups showed overlap in visuo-spatial short-term memory performance. At the final time-point vocabulary performance in the clinical groups was similar; the typically developing children showed higher vocabulary abilities than both clinical groups

The strategies that peanut and nut-allergic consumers employ to remain safe when travelling abroad

Copyright @ 2012 Barnett et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: An understanding of the management strategies used by food allergic individuals is needed as a prerequisite to improving avoidance and enhancing quality of life. Travel abroad is a high risk time for severe and fatal food allergic reactions, but there is paucity of research concerning foreign travel. This study is the first to investigate the experiences of, and strategies used by peanut and tree nut allergic individuals when travelling abroad. Methods: Thirty-two adults with a clinical history of reaction to peanuts or tree nuts consistent with IgE-mediated allergy participated in a qualitative interview study. Results: Travel abroad was considered difficult with inherent risks for allergic individuals. Many participants recounted difficulties with airlines or restaurants. Inconsistency in managing allergen avoidance by airlines was a particular risk and a cause of frustration to participants. Individuals used a variety of strategies to remain safe including visiting familiar environments, limiting their activities, carrying allergy information cards in the host language, preparing their own food and staying close to medical facilities. Conclusions: Participants used a variety of allergen avoidance strategies, which were mostly extensions or modifications of the strategies that they use when eating at home or eating-out in the UK. The extended strategies reflected their recognition of enhanced risk during travel abroad. Their risk assessments and actions were generally well informed and appropriate. A need for airline policy regarding allergy to be declared and adhered to is needed, as is more research to quantify the true risks of airborne allergens in the cabin. Recommendations arising from our study are presented.This study is funded by the UK Food Standards Agency under project code T07058

Working memory and developmental language impairments

Children with developmental language impairments (DLI) are often reported to show difficulties with working memory. This review describes the four components of the well-established working memory model, and considers whether there is convincing evidence for difficulties with in each component in children with DLI. The emphasis is on the most demanding form of working memory that draws on central executive (CE) resources, requiring concurrent processing and storage of information. An evaluation of recent research evidence suggests that, not only are children with DLI impaired on verbal CE measures, but they also show difficulties on non-verbal CE tasks that cannot be assumed to tap language. Therefore, it seems increasingly likely that children with DLI show domain-general CE impairments, along with their more established impairments in verbal short-term memory. Implications for potential working memory interventions and classroom learning are discussed

Literacy in the mainstream inner-city school: Its relationship to spoken language

This study describes the language and literacy skills of 11-year-olds attending a mainstream school in an area of social and economic disadvantage. The proportion of these young people experiencing difficulties in decoding and reading comprehension was identified and the relationship between spoken language skills and reading comprehension explored. The study recruited 36 individuals from a mainstream secondary school who were representative of the year group as a whole. Detailed spoken language and literacy assessments were carried out and information about educational attainment and special educational needs were obtained. Participants had significantly lower mean language and literacy scores than published test norms on all measures except story-telling. Twenty-one (58%) participants showed reading comprehension difficulties, 10 of whom also had difficulties with decoding. Participants with reading comprehension difficulties had significantly lower spoken language skills. A significant proportion of this group experience difficulties in literacy with associated spoken language deficits. The nature of the relationship between language and literacy skills, issues of identification and intervention are discussed

Organising undergraduate research projects: Student-led and academic-led models

Purpose: This paper addresses the management of undergraduate final year research dissertations. It intends to explain and clarify our experience of two models of delivery (student-led/academic-led) with reference to interest development theory (Hidi and Renninger, 2006). Approach: We focus on the advantages and drawbacks of each model within the context of the research literature, and describe a case study of the experiences of lecturers and students in one Division of a metropolitan UK University, running a leading programme in Speech & Language Therapy (Pathology). Recommendations are made which are intended to be of use to colleagues across disciplines and organisations. Findings: We argue that a delivery where students can choose their research topic from a limited set suggested by supervisors (academic-led model) is best placed to meet motivational challenges in Hidi and Renninger’s framework, and also increase feasibility for staff. We discuss how such a model might best be implemented. Originality: Describing case study experiences within a conceptual framework is important for the development of improved supervision methods. It is hoped that this case study paper will inform other institutions by providing clear theoretical underpinnings and practical recommendations; and that it will lead to further empirical research into models of organising final year dissertations