ComD Faculty Publications Copyright (c) 2013 Utah State University All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub Recent documents in ComD Faculty Publications en-us Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:41:30 PDT 3600 When is "Watch and See" Warranted? A Response to Paul's 1996 Article, "Clinical Implications of the Natural History of Slow Expressive Language Development". http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/263 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/263 Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:46:49 PDT We commend Paul for undertaking an investigation that concerns critical clinical and theoretical issues. This type of longitudinal developmental research is exactly what is needed to advance the scientific basis of our profession. We also respect Paul's attempt to construct a firm bridge between her findings and their clinical implications. The necessary and sufficient data that completely solve a clinical problem are rarely available. Because clinicians do not have the luxury of waiting until the best data imaginable are collected and analyzed before acting, it is helpful for researchers to generalize their results to the extent possible. However, because of its potential clinical, economic, and educational implications, we believe that a broad social policy like Paul's "watch and see" recommendation should be based on unambiguous evidence.

We have suggested that a number of the children in Paul's cohort may have been within the normal range in language development at the beginning of the study. Without individual data, it is impossible for us to know whether or not this was the case. To the extent that our suspicions hold true, Paul's study tells us that a number of children who function at the low end of the normal range of language development between 20 and 34 months stay within the normal range throughout the preschool and early school-age years.

Paul's suggestion of "watch and see" seems reasonable enough for the 74% of the children who tested within the normal range by kindergarten and first grade, but it may not have been sufficient for the 26% who did not. We believe children like those in this latter group would probably benefit from preschool language intervention and that very valuable language learning time could be lost if Paul's general "watch and see" policy were implemented.

It is possible that children with good outcomes and children with language delays that were significant and persistent had different profiles with respect to expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, speech, and communicative intentions at the onset of the study. If so, one broad social policy may not be sufficient. We have asked Paul to provide additional data about the nature of the language difficulties exhibited by the children at the outset of her study, the predictors of continued language delay, and the results of language intervention efforts. It is our hope that Paul can provide the kinds of additional data and analyses we have requested in this discussion, and that this data can serve as the basis for refinements in definitions of early language delay, decisions about providing clinical services to very young children, and methods for analyzing intervention efficacy.

]]> Anne Van Kleeck et al. Development of Print Awareness in Language-Disordered Preschoolers. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/262 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/262 Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:46:48 PDT This study examined print awareness and related oral language abilities in language-disordered and normally developing preschoolers. Twenty subjects, ages 3:1 to 6:5 (years:months), were shown high frequency environmental print in four conditions varying in the amount of non-print information present in the print setting. They were asked to match the print to the object that it signified and to provide verbal labels for the same objects. Results indicated that normal-language children were responding meaningfully to print settings that contained reduced non-print cues while the language-disordered subjects were not. General language ability was correlated with print awareness, but knowledge of specific oral lexemes was not necessary for accurate print responses. Parent questionnaire data suggested that group differences did not result from differential prior experience with the print items. Results are discussed with reference to hypothesized relationships between oral and written language.

]]> R B. Gillam et al. Sequential Memory in Children With and Without Language Impairment. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/261 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/261 Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:46:46 PDT Serial recall was studied in children with language impairment and two groups of normally achieving controls: a group matched for age and a younger group matched for reading and memory capacity. Participants were presented lists of digits that were one item longer than their memory span, in conditions requiring either written or oral recall. Digit lists were presented either with or without a final nonword item, or "suffix," that was capable of interfering with memory for items at the end of the list. The main finding was that the list-final suffix effect was substantially larger than normal in children with language impairment, even though other aspects of their recall were normal. This deficiency in children with language impairment was evident only under a scoring system that credited recall of items in their correct serial positions, not under scoring systems that credited memory for the presence of items or their sequence. Results are interpreted according to the hypothesis that children with language impairment are more dependent upon relatively unanalyzed acoustic and phonetic representations of speech than are other children.

]]> R B. Gillam et al. Spoken and Written Language Relationships in Language/Learning Impaired and Normally Achieving School-Age Children. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/260 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/260 Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:46:44 PDT Students with language/learning impairment (LLI) and three groups of normally achieving children matched for chronological age, spoken language, and reading abilities wrote and told stories that were analyzed according to a three-dimensional language analysis system. Spoken narratives were linguistically superior to written narratives in many respects. The content of written narratives, however, was organized differently than the content of spoken narratives. Spoken narratives contained more local interconnections than global interconnections; the opposite was true for written narratives. LLI and reading-matched children evidenced speaking-writing relationships that differed from those of the age- and language-matched children in the way language form was organized. Further, LLI children produced more grammatically unacceptable complex T-units in their spoken and written stories than students from any of the three matched groups. The discussion focuses on mechanisms underlying the development of speaking-writing differences and ramifications of spoken-language impairment for spoken and written-language relationships.

]]> R B. Gillam et al. Narrative assessment and intervention: The whole story http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/258 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/258 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:52 PDT K. Apel et al. Counseling in communicative disorders: A road less traveled http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/259 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/259 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:52 PDT K. Apel et al. Fast-mapping of novel spellings: Orthographic frequency and ambiguity effects http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/257 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/257 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:51 PDT Julie A. Wolter et al. Orthographic frequency and ambiguity effects on fast-mapping and novel spellings http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/255 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/255 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:50 PDT K. Apel et al. A theory-guided multiple linguistic approach to spelling instruction http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/256 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/256 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:50 PDT M. Kelman et al. Probability effects on preschoolers' fast-mapping of orthographic information http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/254 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/254 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:49 PDT K. Apel et al. Constructing a literate identity: Ideas for speechlanguage pathologists http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/253 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/253 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:48 PDT Julie A. Wolter et al. Narrative counseling with an adult with language-literacy deficits http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/252 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/252 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:47 PDT Julie A. Wolter et al. Am I the supervisee you thought I would be? http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/250 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/250 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:46 PDT T. Self et al. A morphologically-based literacy intervention with second grade students http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/251 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/251 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:46 PDT Julie A. Wolter et al. A pilot project for improving college students’ word study skills http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/249 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/249 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:45 PDT K. Apel et al. Orthographic fast-mapping in children with and without typical language abilities http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/247 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/247 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:44 PDT Julie A. Wolter et al. A model for fostering fun in the academic work setting http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/248 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/248 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:44 PDT Julie A. Wolter et al. Probability effects on the orthographic fast-mapping of kindergarten children with and without language impairments http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/246 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/246 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:43 PDT Julie A. Wolter et al. The influence of morphology on second grade children’s spellings http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/244 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/244 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:42 PDT Julie A. Wolter et al. Language and literacy: The reading and spelling connection http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/245 http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/comd_facpub/245 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:52:42 PDT Julie A. Wolter