O objetivo deste estudo foi verificar a eficácia de instrumentos para a investigação das habilidades pragmáticas de crianças com distúrbios do espectro do autismo através da aplicação e comparação de três perspectivas: relatos de interlocutores familiares (IF), da análise de segmentos de comunicação espontânea (CE) e da aplicação de um teste específico (TE). Foram sujeitos dessa pesquisa 30 crianças em atendimento no Laboratório de Investigação Fonoaudiológica nos Distúrbios do Espectro do Autismo da Faculdade de Medicina da USP, com diagnósticos incluídos no espectro do autismo, que usam predominantemente o meio verbal para a comunicação, com idades entre três e oito anos e em atendimento com a mesma terapeuta há, pelo menos, seis meses. Foram aplicados quatro protocolos dentro das três perspectivas consideradas: o Perfil Funcional da Comunicação (PFC) - CE - o Perfil Funcional da Comunicação - Checklist (PFC-C) - IF - o Functional Communication Profile - Revised-reduzido (FCP-Rr) - IF e CE - e o Test of Pragmatic Skills (ToPS) - TE. Os protocolos foram comparados entre si e também foi realizada a análise de correlação com o ToPS. Os resultados indicaram que as respostas obtidas nos protocolos foram equivalentes tanto na perspectiva das respostas - as respostas das terapeutas foram equivalentes nos dois questionários - quanto na perspectiva dos protocolos - o PFC foi equivalente ao PFC-C e o FCP-Rr em relação às duas formas de aplicação. Em relação ao ToPS, os resultados evidenciados a partir do Escore Médio Composto e do percentil, determinados de acordo com a proposta original do teste, mostraram concordância entre os instrumentos em relação à análise de correlação. Além disso, foi possível observar que a concordância entre os protocolos aumenta nos extremos de severidade; ou seja, em casos onde a severidade é mais leve ou mais severa, os protocolos concordam mais; os casos mais intermediários ficam menos evidenciados nos protocolos. A análise comparativa de instrumentos que avaliam as mesmas variáveis, porém, sugere que formas de aplicação diferentes são de grande valia para a prática clínica fonoaudiológica, principalmente no que se refere à inserção do fonoaudiólogo nos serviços de saúde brasileiros de acordo com o tempo e possibilidades para crianças com diagnóstico ou em investigação para os distúrbios do espectro do autismo. A comparação do uso do ToPS em relação à interatividade no PFC e no PFC-C e em relação a severidade no FCP-Rr (IF e CE) mostrou que o instrumento pode ser de grande utilidade para a análise e avaliação complementar, não substituindo o uso dos protocolos; porém parece ser efetivo para identificar alterações num curto período de tempo. Esses resultados mostram que outros estudos são necessários para identificar de forma qualitativa os prejuízos em linguagem / The purpose of this study was to verify the efficacy of instruments used on the investigation of pragmatic abilities of children with autism spectrum disorders through the application and comparison of the perspective of family, analysis of spontaneous communication segments and specific test. Thirty children in the LIF-DEA of FMUSP with diagnoses included in the spectrum of autism, who predominantly used the verbal medium for communication, aged between three and eight years and in attendance with the same therapist, six months. Four protocols were applied from three perspectives, the PFC, the PFC-C the PF-FCR - through the therapists\' responses and the observation of spontaneous situations and the ToPS. The protocols were compared to each other and correlation analysis was also performed with ToPS. The results indicated that the responses obtained in the protocols were equivalent both from the perspective of the responses - the therapists\' responses were equivalent in the two questionnaires - and from the perspective of the protocols - the PFC was equivalent to the PFC-C and the equivalent FCP-Rr in relation to the Two forms of application. In relation to ToPS the results evidenced from the EMC and the percentile determined according to the original proposal of the test showed agreement between the instruments in relation to the correlation analysis. In addition, agreement between protocols increases according to the extremes of severity, that is, in cases where the severity is mild or severe, the protocols agree more, the intermediate cases are less evidenced in the protocols. The comparative analysis of instruments that evaluate the same variables, however, suggests that different forms of application are of great value for the speech-language clinical practice, especially regarding the insertion of the speech-language pathologist in the Brazilian health services according to the time and possibilities for Children diagnosed or under investigation for autism spectrum disorders. The comparison of the use of ToPS in relation to the interactivity in the PFC and PFC-C and in relation to the severity in the PK-Rr (TP and OF) showed that the instrument can be of great effectiveness for the complementary analysis and evaluation, not replacing the Use of protocols; But appears to be effective in identifying changes over a short period of time. These results show that other studies are necessary to qualitatively identify the impairments in language

Objetivo: Estudar a estruturação hierárquica da sintaxe em crianças com distúrbios de linguagem. Foram pesquisados os quadros de Distúrbio Específico de Linguagem (DEL), Distúrbios do Espectro Autístico (DEA) e Síndrome de Down (SD). O objetivo principal desta pesquisa foi avaliar e comparar a designação sintática estrutural, por meio da compreensão de sentenças com predicativos e pronomes reflexivos ligados a um substantivo não adjacente, de modo a testar a hipótese do Déficit de Ordenação Hierárquica (DOH). Essa hipótese postula que crianças com distúrbios de linguagem têm dificuldade em estabelecer relações não adjacentes (hierárquicas) entre os elementos de uma frase. Esta pesquisa também avaliou se uma demanda adicional de memória de trabalho, em construções contendo pronomes reflexivos, afeta a designação sintática estrutural em crianças com DEL, DEA e SD. Método: Sessenta e duas crianças falantes do Português Brasileiro (40 meninos e 22 meninas) entre 7; 0 e 14; 2 anos de idade participaram de dois estudos que investigaram a designação sintática de predicativo e de pronome reflexivo. O Estudo I comparou o desempenho de crianças com DEL e crianças com desenvolvimento típico de linguagem (DTL). O Estudo II comparou o desempenho de crianças com DEL, DEA, SD e seus pares com DTL. O experimento consistiu em uma tarefa computadorizada de compreensão de sentenças desenvolvida no software E-Prime. Cada criança respondeu a 72 ensaios apresentados aleatoriamente, de modo a evitar efeitos de ordem ou familiarização. Em cada ensaio, a criança foi apresentada a uma frase contextual (duração máxima de 5500 ms) e, após um intervalo entre estímulos de 1000 ms, a frase alvo (duração máxima de 5000 ms) e o estímulo visual (quatro figuras) foram apresentados simultaneamente. Resultados: No Estudo I, as crianças com DEL foram significativamente menos precisas em todas as condições. Diferentes distribuições de erro foram observadas nas duas condições de memória de trabalho. Ambos os grupos apresentaram mais erros acarretando em construções sintáticas incorretas na condição de longa demanda de memória de trabalho. No Estudo II, crianças com DEL, DEA e SD apresentaram pior desempenho quando comparadas às crianças com DTL. Os grupos DEA e SD apresentaram padrões de resposta semelhantes entre si em diferentes condições. As crianças com DEL apresentaram desempenho similar ao de crianças com DEA e SD apenas quando as demandas de memória de trabalho foram maiores. Conclusões: A hipótese DOH não foi confirmada. Crianças com DEL, DEA e SD se diferenciam de crianças com DTL na compreensão de sentenças com predicativos e reflexivos onde o conhecimento da designação sintática estrutural é necessário. Existem semelhanças entre as crianças com DEA e SD na compreensão destas estruturas. Diferentes efeitos de memória de trabalho na compreensão sintática são encontrados de acordo com o distúrbio de linguagem / Purpose: To study the hierarchical syntactic structuring in children with language disorders. The research involved children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), and Down Syndrome (DS). The main purpose of this dissertation was to examine and compare the syntactic structural assignment, through the comprehension of sentences with predicates and reflexives that are linked to a non-adjacent noun, as a test of the Hierarchical Ordering Deficit Hypothesis (HOD). That hypothesis posits that children with language impairment have difficulty in establishing non-adjacent (hierarchical) relations among elements of a sentence. This dissertation also tested whether additional working memory demands in constructions containing reflexives affected the syntactic assignment of children with SLI, ASD and DS. Method: Sixty-twoBrazilian Portuguese-speakingchildren (40 boys and 22 girls) between 7;0 and 14;2 years of age participated in two studies that investigated the syntactic assignment of predicates and reflexives. Study I compared performance of children SLI to children with typical language development (TLD). Study II compared the performance of children with SLI, ASD, DS and TLD peers. The experiment consisted on a computerized sentence comprehension task designed on E-Prime software. Each child responded to 72 trials which were randomly presented to avoid order or familiarization effects. For each trial, the child was presented with a context sentence (maximum duration of 5500 ms) and, after an interstimulus interval of 1000 ms, the target sentence (maximum duration of 5000 ms) and the visual stimuli (four pictures) were presented simultaneously.Results:In Study I, children with SLI were significantly less accurate on all conditions. Different error distributions were observed on the two working memory conditions. Both groups made more errors resulting in incorrect syntactic construction in the long working memory condition. In Study II, children with SLI, ASD, and DS exhibited poorer overall performance than TLD children. The groups of ASD and DS exhibited similar response patterns across conditions. Children with SLI exhibited similar performance to the DS and ASD children only when working memory demands were higher. Conclusion: The HOD hypothesis was not confirmed. Children with SLI, ASD and DS differ from children with TLD on the comprehension of predicate and reflexive structures where knowledge of syntactic structural assignment is required. There are similarities between children with ASD and DSon the comprehension of these structures. Working memory has different effects in syntactic comprehension depending on the language disorder.

The aim of this dissertation is to chart the development of interrogative syntax among Finnish-speaking children between the ages of 1 to 4 years living in Sweden. The material consists of language samples taken from eleven Sweden-Finnish children with Finnish as their first language. The data from the corpus have been compared with acquisition studies of Finnish-speaking children in Finland, with material from an adult-language corpus and with studies of children speaking other languages than Finnish. The first questions appearing in the corpus are wh-questions, on average at the age of 1.9 and one month earlier than yes/no-questions. Both wh-questions and yes/no-questions are produced by all children in the corpus, whereas disjunctive questions are used by only one child. Wh-questions comprise approximately two thirds of the interrogatives and yes/no-questions a third; only one disjunctive question is used. The older the child, the greater the proportion of yes/no-questions. The earliest wh-question words are tnikä 'what' nom. sg., missä 'where' and mita 'what' part, sg., used by one-year-olds. Kuka 'who' nom. sg., mihin 'where to' and miten 'how' all appear before the age of 2.6, and miksi 'why1, mista 'where from' and minkä 'what* acc. 1 sg. start being used before the age of three. The use of milloin 'when', kenen 'whose', minkä varinen 'of what color' and mitkä 'what' nom. pl. commences at the age of three. Other question words and question word forms are produced by a few children. Wh-interrogative clauses in this study have been divided into ellipses, on-clauses, V-clauses and Adnom-clauses. The ellipses and cm-clauses are acquired on average at the age of 1.9, V-clauses at 1.11 and Adnom-clauses at 2.3. The question words are used correctly for the most part, with the same references as in adult speech. Semantic misuse of mikä 'what' was detected in 2 % of the pronoun's occurrences; kuka 'who' is misused relatively often, 38 % of the time. The different case forms of the interrogative pronouns and adjectives are on the whole used correctly. One pronoun form susceptible to misuse is nom. sg. mikä 'what', often erroneously produced instead of some other case form. The interrogative adverbs are used according to adult norms almost without exception. The earliest yes/no-questions in the corpus are -kO-questions, starting on average at age 1.10; the use of -hAn-questions begins at age 2.5. Other yes/no-questions appear at a much later date. The first -kO-questions are neutral -kO-questions. Focused -kO-questions are acquired somewhat later on. The neutral -kO-questions have been divided into onko 'Is it?'-questions, Simple V+kO-questions, Aux+kO-questions and Neg+kO+V-questions; the various types of questions are acquired in that order. The interrogative clauses in the corpus have been categorized as information-eliciting questions, directive questions, conversational questions and expressive questions; their acquisition follows ibis order. / digitalisering@umu

The aim of this thesis is to examine the early vocabulary development of a sample of Swedish children in relation to parental input and early communicative skills. Three studies are situated in an overall description of early language development in children. The data analyzed in the thesis was collected within a larger project at Stockholm University (SPRINT- “Effects of enhanced parental input on young children’s vocabulary development and subsequent literacy development” [VR 2008-5094]). Data analysis was based on parental report via SECDI, the Swedish version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, and audio recordings. One study examined parental verbal interaction characteristics in three groups of children with varying vocabulary size at 18 months. The stability of vocabulary development at 18 and 24 months was investigated in a larger study, with focus on children’s vocabulary composition and grammatical abilities. The third study examined interrelations among early gestures, receptive and productive vocabulary, and grammar measured with M3L, i.e. three longest utterances, from 12 to 30 months. Overall results of the thesis highlight the importance of early language development. Variability in different characteristics in parental input is associated with variability in child vocabulary size. Children with large early vocabularies exhibit the most stability in vocabulary composition and the earliest grammatical development. Children’s vocabulary composition may reflect individual stylistic variation. Use of early gestures is associated differentially with receptive and productive vocabulary. Results of the thesis have implications for parents, child- and healthcare personnel, as well as researchers and educational practitioners. The results underscore the importance of high quality in adult-child interaction, with rich input fine-tuned to children’s developmental levels and age, together with high awareness of early language development. / SPRINT project

An important strand of research has investigated the question of how children acquire a morphological system using offline data from spontaneous or elicited child language. Most of these studies have found dissociations in how children apply regular and irregular inflection (Marcus et al. 1992, Weyerts & Clahsen 1994, Rothweiler & Clahsen 1993). These studies have considerably deepened our understanding of how linguistic knowledge is acquired and organised in the human mind. Their methodological procedures, however, do not involve measurements of how children process morphologically complex forms in real time. To date, little is known about how children process inflected word forms. The aim of this study is to investigate children’s processing of inflected words in a series of on-line reaction time experiments. We used a cross-modal priming experiment to test for decompositional effects on the central level. We used a speeded production task and a lexical decision task to test for frequency effects on access level in production and recognition. Children’s behaviour was compared to adults’ behaviour towards three participle types (-t participles, e.g. getanzt ‘danced’ vs. -n participles with stem change, e.g. gebrochen ‘broken’ vs.-n participles without stem change, e.g. geschlafen ‘slept’). For the central level, results indicate that -t participles but not -n participles have decomposed representations. For the access level, results indicate that -t participles are represented according to their morphemes and additionally as full forms, at least from the age of nine years onwards (Pinker 1999 and Clahsen et al. 2004). Further evidence suggested that -n participles are represented as full-form entries on access level and that -n participles without stem change may encode morphological structure (cf. Clahsen et al. 2003). Out data also suggests that processing strategies for -t participles are differently applied in recognition and production. These results provide evidence that children (within the age range tested) employ the same mechanisms for processing participles as adults. The child lexicon grows as children form additional full-form representations for -t participles on access level and elaborate their full-form lexical representations of -n participles on central level. These results are consistent with processing as explained in dual-system theories. / Ein wichtiger Forschungsbereich hat anhand von offline Daten erforscht wie Kinder das morphologische System erwerben. Die meisten dieser Studien haben berichtet, dass Kinder die regelmäßige und die unregelmäßige Flexion unterschiedlich anwenden (Marcus et al. 1992, Weyerts & Clahsen 1994, Rothweiler & Clahsen 1993). Diese Studien haben dazu beigetragen den Erwerb und Organisation von linguistischem Wissen besser zu verstehen. Die offline Methoden messen morphologische Verarbeitung allerdings nicht in Echtzeit. Bis heute ist wenig darüber bekannt wie Kinder flektierte Wortformen in Echtzeit verarbeiten. Die vorliegende Arbeit hat diese Frage in 6- bis 11jährigen monolingualen Kindern (in zwei Altersgruppen) und in einer Erwachsenen-Kontrollgruppe anhand von -t Partizipien (z.B. gemacht), -n Partizipien ohne Stammveränderung (z.B. geschlafen) und -n Partizipien mit Stammveränderung (z.B. gebrochen) untersucht. Dekomposition von Partizipien und deren ganzheitliche Speicherung in assoziativen Netzwerken wurden auf zwei Repräsentationsebenen (zentrale Ebene, Zugriffebene) und, auf der Zugriffsebene, in zwei Modalitäten (Produktion, Verstehen) experimentell getestet. Ein cross-modal priming experiment untersuchte die zentrale Repräsentation von Partizipien. Volle morphologische Primingeffekte sprechen für eine dekomponierte Repräsentation, partielle Primingeffekte für ganzheitliche aber verbundene Repräsentationen. In einem speeded production experiment wurde die auditive Zugriffsrepräsentation und in einem lexical decision experiment die visuelle Zugriffsrepräsentation von Partizipien untersucht. (Ganzwort-) Frequenzeffekte wurden als Beleg für Ganzwortrepräsentationen gewertet. Bezüglich der zentralen Ebene zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass -t Partizipien aber nicht -n Partizipien dekomponiert repräsentiert sind. Bezüglich der Zugriffsebene zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass -t Partizipien entsprechend ihrer Morpheme repräsentiert sind und zusätzlich Ganzwortrepräsentationen haben können, zumindest im Altersbereich von Neun- bis Elfjährigen (Pinker 1999 and Clahsen et al. 2004). Weitere Ergebnisse zeigten, dass -n Partizipien auf der Zugriffsebene Ganzwortrepräsentationen haben, und dass -n Partizipien ohne Stammveränderung die morphologische Struktur enkodieren können (cf. Clahsen et al. 2003). Die Daten weisen auch darauf hin, dass die Verarbeitungsstrategien für -t Partizipien, zumindest in Neun- bis Elfjährigen, unterschiedlich angewandt werden. Die Ergebnisse werden als Evidenz dafür interpretiert, dass Kinder (in dem getesteten Altersbereich) dieselben Verarbeitungsmechanismen für Partizipien nutzen wie Erwachsene. Das kindliche Lexikon wächst, wenn Kinder zusätzliche Ganzwortrepräsentationen für -t Partizipien auf der Zugriffsebene bilden und ihre Ganzwortrepräsentationen für -n Partizipien auf der zentralen Ebene ausdifferenzieren. Diese Ergebnisse sind konsistent mit den Annahmen dualer Verarbeitungstheorien.

本研究主要探討台灣漢語兒童在日常家庭對話中，對父母行使請求時的語言表現及禮貌現象，以了解漢語兒童的語用發展歷程與現象。研究的重點主要是在兒童表達請求的言語行為時所使用的語言形式，以及人際關係中會影響兒童禮貌表現的因素及其反應在語言形式的使用情形。透過對兩位以漢語為母語的兒童長期互動的觀察，本研究發現，兒童在表達請求時，採用多元的語言形式，包含祈使句、直述句、帶有語尾助詞的祈使句、以及表達個人慾望或需求的陳述句。考量這些語言形式使用的情境後進一步發現，兒童傾向在一般的日常對話中多以表達個人慾望的陳述句為表達請求的主要語言形式，而在合作互動的情境中，主要的請求語言形式則絕大多數為祈使句；這樣的語言功能分工，在兩歲半左右可以明顯觀察得到。 另外，透過兒童語言形式表達禮貌的觀察顯示，兒童普遍會依照人際互動的一些因素來選擇表達請求時所適用的語言形式，尤以有效性及地位高低為主要的兩個考量因素。觀察中發現，兒童大量使用祈使句及表達個人慾望需求的陳述句來表達請求，而其他的語言型式相對上則少得許多，主要的因素很有可能是這兩類的語言型式，在他們與父母互動中最能有效達到他們的溝通目的。此外，兒童也會依照他們在表達請求時與他們父母間的地位高低來考量請求所要使用的語言形式。儘管觀察結果指出，兒童傾向使用能有效達到溝通互動目的的語言形式來表達他們的請求，必要時，他們也會依照互動雙方的地位關係進行語言形式的微調，這樣的語言表現有明顯的系統性；而這樣的系統性，進而突顯了兒童約略在三歲前即對禮貌在語言形式使用的影響有了初步的系統與了解。 除了句法結構外，兒童也會透過詞彙單位來傳達他們在請求所應注意的禮貌，例如，必要時，他們會使用「幫」、「請」、及「我們」來修飾或削弱請求時可能對對方所造成的影響。這些詞彙的使用在發展上屬於略晚才習得的語言形式。 最後，研究的結果也指出，雖然兒童表達請求時，使用較為間接而有禮的語言形式，未必較能有效地達到他們的溝通目的，但是如果在表達請求的同時，也進一步說明理由者，達到溝通目的的機率則有明顯的增加。另外，從語言形式和表達請求的情境及人際地位的互動中發現，兒童表達請求的基本語言形式極有可能為表達個人的慾望與需求的陳述句，儘管祈使句在所觀察的語料中使用的頻率最高。這樣的論點，不但符合其他文獻中針對兒童語言發展的發現，也貼近兒童語言發展為連續過程的觀點，且也反應了人類語言發展的基本歷程。 / This study aims to investigate Mandarin-speaking children’s requests and their linguistic politeness so as to contribute to the understanding of children’s pragmatic development as well as linguistic development. The present study is mainly concerned with what linguistic devices children utilize to issue requests in spontaneous interactions with their parents and what interpersonal factors may have an influence on children’s uses of request forms. These two issues were discussed through examinations over children’s spontaneous interactions with their parents in family settings. On the basis of the longitudinal data produced by two children, it has been found that when requesting, children draw upon various linguistic devices, primarily including simple imperatives, WANT statements, imperatives with sentence-final particle, and declaratives. Such a variety of request forms can be observed from an early age on, at around two years old, but demonstrates no remarkable development, judged simply by these formal devices used at different ages. When situational contexts are also taken into account, nevertheless, a developmental pattern regarding the request forms is thus revealed. In terms of situational contexts, children are found to use simple imperatives primarily to convey their requests when involved in interactive activities with their parents, whereas they tend to utilize both simple imperatives and WANT statements when having common talks with their parents. Such a division of labor can be noticeably observed when children are about two and half years old. As to children’s linguistic politeness when making requests, the results reveal that children are aware of the influence of certain interactional and interpersonal factors on the appropriate use of linguistic forms. Children are inclined to draw upon comparatively more effective forms to issue their requests, and therefore children by and large request with pure imperatives and WANT statements, since these two request forms may effectively obtain the desirable compliance from their parents. In addition to effectiveness, children may also take interpersonal status and request cost into consideration when judging which request forms to use in the immediate context. Such consideration of interpersonal status when determining the appropriate request forms to use may thus reflects children’s awareness of politeness at around the age of three. In addition to syntactic structures, children are also found to draw upon lexical items to show their deference to politeness. Children may use such lexical forms as qing ‘please’, bang ‘to help with’ and women ‘let’s; we’ to mitigate the illocutionary force in their requests. These forms, despite their low frequencies in the data, may thus reveal children’s sensitivity to politeness when making such a face-threatening act as requests. The use of these polite lexical forms also discloses a comparatively late development in linguistic politeness; children may not use such polite forms until they reach the second half of their second year. A late development is also observed in the respect of children’s use of reasons to justify their requests. The results show that children’s justification may generally increase the effectiveness of their requests, but such use is infrequent and only observed at a later age, around the age of three. Finally, the results of the investigation into the data may suggest that WANT statements are highly likely an earlier developed request form and the prime linguistic forms children rely on to issue their requests, given the findings that children tend to request with WANT statements when interacting with parents at a lower status as a child and that children’s use of request forms are prone to the effect of interpersonal status. Such a suggestion may not only conform to the findings in previous studies with regard to children’s linguistic development in requests, but also accord with the general developmental pattern of human languages.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the early vocabulary development of a sample of Swedish children in relation to parental input and early communicative skills. Three studies are situated in an overall description of early language development in children. The data analyzed in the thesis was collected within a larger project at Stockholm University (SPRINT- “Effects of enhanced parental input on young children’s vocabulary development and subsequent literacy development” [VR 2008-5094]). Data analysis was based on parental report via SECDI, the Swedish version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, and audio recordings. One study examined parental verbal interaction characteristics in three groups of children with varying vocabulary size at 18 months. The stability of vocabulary development at 18 and 24 months was investigated in a larger study, with focus on children’s vocabulary composition and grammatical abilities. The third study examined interrelations among early gestures, receptive and productive vocabulary, and grammar measured with M3L, i.e. three longest utterances, from 12 to 30 months. Overall results of the thesis highlight the importance of early language development. Variability in different characteristics in parental input is associated with variability in child vocabulary size. Children with large early vocabularies exhibit the most stability in vocabulary composition and the earliest grammatical development. Children’s vocabulary composition may reflect individual stylistic variation. Use of early gestures is associated differentially with receptive and productive vocabulary. Results of the thesis have implications for parents, child- and healthcare personnel, as well as researchers and educational practitioners. The results underscore the importance of high quality in adult-child interaction, with rich input fine-tuned to children’s developmental levels and age, together with high awareness of early language development. / SPRINT project

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Some skills identified as predictive of the good performance in reading and writing are impaired in children with phonological disorders. Then, this work aims to analyze and compare the performance in reading and writing among children with phonological disorders and children with typical phonological development. Besides, it aims to characterize and differentiate the reading and the writing of both groups of children and verify how the repair strategies, presented in the speech of children with phonological disorders, are reproduced in the mentioned abilities. The data collection was carried out from assessments of reading and writing of isolated words, assessment of reading comprehension and text production. The sample consisted of fifty children, five with phonological disorders - study group - and forty five with typical phonological development - control group. It was applied a descriptive and an inferential statistics to the data. So, it observed a statistically significant difference in relation to the average of the percentage of success in reading and writing of isolated words when comparing the groups. The kind of errors made in reading and writing by the two groups were similar, however, the average of occurrence of these errors was higher in the group of children with phonological disorders, with a statistically significant difference for some errors. In reading comprehension, it was found no difference between the groups, but, in relation to the textual production differences were verified. Finally, for the repair strategies presented in the speech of children with phonological disorders, it was found that in reading the majority was reproduced with a different strategy from that one used in speech, while a minority was produced correctly. However, in terms of writing, the majority was reproduced correctly. Therefore, we conclude that children with phonological disorder showed lower performance in reading and writing of isolated words, as well as in textual production, when compared to children with typical phonological development. It was also noticed some similarities between the groups regarding the kinds of errors in reading and writing of words, however, the average of errors occurrence errors was higher in the group of children with phonological disorders. And, for the repair strategies presented in the speech of children with phonological disorders, it was found that they are not always reproduced in reading and writing. / Algumas habilidades identificadas como preditivas do bom desempenho em leitura e escrita podem encontrar-se prejudicadas nas crianças que apresentam desvio fonológico. Dessa forma, este trabalho objetiva analisar e comparar o desempenho em leitura e escrita entre crianças com desvio fonológico e crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico típico. Além disso, busca caracterizar e diferenciar a leitura e a escrita dos dois grupos de crianças e verificar como as estratégias de reparo, presentes na fala das crianças com desvio fonológico, são reproduzidas nas habilidades em questão. O levantamento de dados foi realizado a partir de avaliação da leitura e escrita de palavras isoladas, de avaliação da compreensão de texto e de produção textual. Para isso, fizeram parte da amostra 50 crianças frequentando o segundo ano do ensino fundamental, sendo cinco com desvio fonológico grupo estudo e 45 com desenvolvimento fonológico típico grupo controle. Aos dados aplicou-se estatística descritiva e inferencial. Assim, pode-se constatar diferença estatisticamente significante em relação à média do percentual de acertos na leitura e escrita de palavras isoladas quando comparados os grupos. Os tipos de erros cometidos na leitura e na escrita pelos dois grupos foram semelhantes, contudo, a média de ocorrência desses foi maior no grupo de crianças com desvio fonológico, com diferença estatisticamente significante para alguns erros. Na compreensão da leitura de texto, não houve diferença entre os grupos, já na produção textual houve diferença, sendo que as crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico típico apresentaram melhor desempenho que as crianças com desvio fonológico. Por fim, em relação às estratégias de reparo presentes na fala das crianças com desvio fonológico, verificou-se que na leitura a maioria foi reproduzida com uma estratégia diferente da realizada na fala, enquanto que a minoria foi produzida corretamente. Já na escrita, a maioria foi reproduzida corretamente. Conclui-se, então, que as crianças com desvio fonológico apresentaram desempenho inferior na leitura e escrita de palavras isoladas, assim como na produção textual, quando comparadas às crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico típico. Observaram-se, ainda, certas semelhanças entre os grupos quanto aos tipos de erros cometidos na leitura e escrita de palavras, porém, a média de ocorrência dos erros foi maior no grupo de crianças com desvio fonológico. E, quanto às estratégias de reparo presentes na fala das crianças com desvio fonológico, verificou-se que nem sempre elas são reproduzidas na leitura e na escrita.

The aim in this research was to investigate a possible relation between the different subsystems of language, from children with disorders in the phonological subsystem and also to examine which mode of language enunciation seems to be more reliable in a way to better substantiate the concrete language ability of the children. The sample for this research was consisted of 71 children of both sexes, and of these total, 54 presented typical phonological development and 17 deviant. After making the phonological triage and the diagnosis of phonological disorder, the children were submitted to a language evaluation through the Average Value of the Phrase. In this evaluation, through three different modes of language enunciation the first five spoken phrases by children in each evaluated event are collected. Then, the sentences are scored according to their complexity, ie, different weights are assigned to syntactic elements and lexical elements of the sentence. After making the collection, the data are shown in tables according to age and the proposed variants. Later, these data were subjected to statistical analysis and, for comparison concerning all variables between the group with typical phonological development and the group with deviant phonological development and for making the comparison of the performance according to the age groups it was used the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test. On the other hand, for the comparison between different severity degrees of phonological disorders for each kind of language it was used the technique of non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test and for the comparison of performance between the modes of language enunciation in the group with typical phonological development and in the group with deviant phonological development, it was used the Test of Signals. In both tests, the significance level was set at 0.05 (p <0.05). As the results, it is possible to conclude that children with deviant phonological development do not show changes in semantic and syntactic subsystems of the language, despite the change in phonology, so they produce longer and well-developed sentences in order to facilitate their phonological production. It was also noted that the History mode of articulation of language shows the concrete language skills and grammar of the child, when compared to other evaluated modes, once the child produces narrative through sentences, using all her acquired knowledge during the development of the language. / Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo verificar a possível relação entre os diferentes subsistemas da linguagem, partindo de crianças com alterações do subsistema fonológico, de idades entre quatro e sete anos, e comparar com crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico típico da mesma faixa etária. Também tem como objetivo verificar se há influência da gravidade da alteração fonológica no desempenho do teste realizado e analisar qual modalidade de enunciação da linguagem mostra-se mais fidedigna no que se refere a evidenciar a real capacidade linguística dessas crianças. A amostra foi composta por 71 crianças, de ambos os sexos, sendo que 54 apresentaram desenvolvimento fonológico típico e 17 desviante. Após a realização de uma triagem fonoaudiológica e o diagnóstico da alteração fonológica, as crianças foram submetidas a avaliação da linguagem através da Média dos Valores da Frase. Nessa avaliação, através de três diferentes modalidades de enunciação da linguagem são coletadas as cinco primeiras frases faladas pelas crianças. Em seguida, as frases são pontuadas de acordo com a sua complexidade, isto é, são atribuídos pesos diferentes aos elementos sintáticos e aos elementos semânticos da frase. Após a realização da coleta, os dados foram dispostos em tabelas conforme a faixa etária e as variáveis propostas e submetidos à análise estatística, sendo que, para comparação referente a todas as variáveis, entre os dois grupos e para comparação do desempenho conforme as faixas etárias destes grupos foi utilizado o teste não paramétrico U de Mann-Whitney. Já para comparação entre as diferentes gravidades do comprometimento fonológico para cada modalidade de linguagem utilizou-se a técnica não paramétrica de Kruskal-Wallis e para comparação entre as diferentes modalidades de enunciação da linguagem entre os grupos, foi utilizado o Teste dos Sinais. Em ambos os testes o nível de significância foi fixado em 0,05 (p<0,05). Conforme os resultados encontrados, pode se concluir que as crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico desviante não apresentam alterações nos subsistemas semântico e sintático da linguagem apesar da alteração na fonologia, e acabam produzindo frases mais longas e elaboradas na tentativa de facilitar sua produção fonológica. Também se observou que a modalidade de enunciação de linguagem História mostra a real capacidade linguística e gramatical da criança, quando comparada com as outras modalidades avaliadas, uma vez que a narrativa através de frases, utiliza todo conhecimento adquirido ao longo desenvolvimento da linguagem.

Objetivo: Estudar a estruturação hierárquica da sintaxe em crianças com distúrbios de linguagem. Foram pesquisados os quadros de Distúrbio Específico de Linguagem (DEL), Distúrbios do Espectro Autístico (DEA) e Síndrome de Down (SD). O objetivo principal desta pesquisa foi avaliar e comparar a designação sintática estrutural, por meio da compreensão de sentenças com predicativos e pronomes reflexivos ligados a um substantivo não adjacente, de modo a testar a hipótese do Déficit de Ordenação Hierárquica (DOH). Essa hipótese postula que crianças com distúrbios de linguagem têm dificuldade em estabelecer relações não adjacentes (hierárquicas) entre os elementos de uma frase. Esta pesquisa também avaliou se uma demanda adicional de memória de trabalho, em construções contendo pronomes reflexivos, afeta a designação sintática estrutural em crianças com DEL, DEA e SD. Método: Sessenta e duas crianças falantes do Português Brasileiro (40 meninos e 22 meninas) entre 7; 0 e 14; 2 anos de idade participaram de dois estudos que investigaram a designação sintática de predicativo e de pronome reflexivo. O Estudo I comparou o desempenho de crianças com DEL e crianças com desenvolvimento típico de linguagem (DTL). O Estudo II comparou o desempenho de crianças com DEL, DEA, SD e seus pares com DTL. O experimento consistiu em uma tarefa computadorizada de compreensão de sentenças desenvolvida no software E-Prime. Cada criança respondeu a 72 ensaios apresentados aleatoriamente, de modo a evitar efeitos de ordem ou familiarização. Em cada ensaio, a criança foi apresentada a uma frase contextual (duração máxima de 5500 ms) e, após um intervalo entre estímulos de 1000 ms, a frase alvo (duração máxima de 5000 ms) e o estímulo visual (quatro figuras) foram apresentados simultaneamente. Resultados: No Estudo I, as crianças com DEL foram significativamente menos precisas em todas as condições. Diferentes distribuições de erro foram observadas nas duas condições de memória de trabalho. Ambos os grupos apresentaram mais erros acarretando em construções sintáticas incorretas na condição de longa demanda de memória de trabalho. No Estudo II, crianças com DEL, DEA e SD apresentaram pior desempenho quando comparadas às crianças com DTL. Os grupos DEA e SD apresentaram padrões de resposta semelhantes entre si em diferentes condições. As crianças com DEL apresentaram desempenho similar ao de crianças com DEA e SD apenas quando as demandas de memória de trabalho foram maiores. Conclusões: A hipótese DOH não foi confirmada. Crianças com DEL, DEA e SD se diferenciam de crianças com DTL na compreensão de sentenças com predicativos e reflexivos onde o conhecimento da designação sintática estrutural é necessário. Existem semelhanças entre as crianças com DEA e SD na compreensão destas estruturas. Diferentes efeitos de memória de trabalho na compreensão sintática são encontrados de acordo com o distúrbio de linguagem / Purpose: To study the hierarchical syntactic structuring in children with language disorders. The research involved children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), and Down Syndrome (DS). The main purpose of this dissertation was to examine and compare the syntactic structural assignment, through the comprehension of sentences with predicates and reflexives that are linked to a non-adjacent noun, as a test of the Hierarchical Ordering Deficit Hypothesis (HOD). That hypothesis posits that children with language impairment have difficulty in establishing non-adjacent (hierarchical) relations among elements of a sentence. This dissertation also tested whether additional working memory demands in constructions containing reflexives affected the syntactic assignment of children with SLI, ASD and DS. Method: Sixty-twoBrazilian Portuguese-speakingchildren (40 boys and 22 girls) between 7;0 and 14;2 years of age participated in two studies that investigated the syntactic assignment of predicates and reflexives. Study I compared performance of children SLI to children with typical language development (TLD). Study II compared the performance of children with SLI, ASD, DS and TLD peers. The experiment consisted on a computerized sentence comprehension task designed on E-Prime software. Each child responded to 72 trials which were randomly presented to avoid order or familiarization effects. For each trial, the child was presented with a context sentence (maximum duration of 5500 ms) and, after an interstimulus interval of 1000 ms, the target sentence (maximum duration of 5000 ms) and the visual stimuli (four pictures) were presented simultaneously.Results:In Study I, children with SLI were significantly less accurate on all conditions. Different error distributions were observed on the two working memory conditions. Both groups made more errors resulting in incorrect syntactic construction in the long working memory condition. In Study II, children with SLI, ASD, and DS exhibited poorer overall performance than TLD children. The groups of ASD and DS exhibited similar response patterns across conditions. Children with SLI exhibited similar performance to the DS and ASD children only when working memory demands were higher. Conclusion: The HOD hypothesis was not confirmed. Children with SLI, ASD and DS differ from children with TLD on the comprehension of predicate and reflexive structures where knowledge of syntactic structural assignment is required. There are similarities between children with ASD and DSon the comprehension of these structures. Working memory has different effects in syntactic comprehension depending on the language disorder.