The purpose of this study was to determine if single-word elicitation procedures used in the assessment of phonological processes would have highly similar results to those obtained through connected speech. Connected speech sampling provides a medium for natural production with coarticulatory influence, but can be time-consuming and impractical for clinicians maintaining heavy caseloads or working with highly unintelligible children. Elicitation through single words requires less time than a connected-speech sample and may be more effective with highly unintelligible children because the context is known, but it lacks the influence of surrounding words. Given the inherent differences between these two methods of elicitation, knowledge of the relative effectiveness of single-word and connected-speech sampling may become an issue for clinicians operating under severe time constraints and requiring an efficient and effective means of assessing phonological processes.

Researchers have successfully labeled specific patterns of expressive language development as it appears in children developing language normally. Little research has identified particular patterns of expressive language in children who display expressive language disorders or delays. Longitudinal studies of expressively language impaired children indicate that linguistic, educational and social impairments exist long after the language impairment was first identified (Aram, Eckelman and Nation, 1984; Aram and Nation, 1980; Fundudis, Kolvin and Garside, 1979; Stark, Berstein, Condino, Bender, Tallal and Catts, 1984). If patterns of delayed or disordered language development are researched and possibly labeled in the early stages of language development, strategies for assessment and intervention can be made more efficient and the effects of early language impairment on later academic achievement may be prevented. The present study was part of the Portland Language Project, a longitudinal study of early language delay. Lee's Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) was used to attempt to identify syntactic patterns used by children exhibiting early language delay. The DSS is a standardized measure for analyzing children's standard English expressive language abilities in the following eight grammatical categories: 1) indefinite pronouns; 2) personal pronouns; 3) main verbs; 4) secondary verbs; 5) negatives; 6) conjunctions; 7) interrogative reversal; and 8) Wh-Questions. Using the DSS, specific syntactical areas of deficit can be identified by analysis of an audiotaped speech sample. A comparison of expressive language in the eight subcategories in the DSS was completed among three groups of preschool children; 1) children developing language normally (the NL group); 2) children who did not meet criteria for normal language development at 20 months, but later fell within the normal range of language development as measured by the DSS (Lee, 1974). This is referred to as the history of expressive language delay group (HELD); and 3) children who did not meet criteria for normal language development at 20 months and again, did not meet criteria for normal language development as measured by the DSS (Lee, 1974) at later ages. This is referred to as the expressive language delay group (ELD). The purpose of this study was to determine if significant differences exist in each of the eight subcategory group scores from the DSS between those children identified as expressively language delayed and those identified as developing language normally at ages three and four. At age three, significant differences were found among the three groups in all eight subcategory scores of the DSS. By age four, the significant differences were found between the delayed group and the normal developing group in the main verb category and the personal pronoun category only. There were no significant differences between the normal developing and the history of delay groups on any of the eight categories at age four. The delayed group exhibited marked improvement and narrowed the deficits in expressive language to a specific area of language. The present study suggested that children with early language delay appear to "catch up" with normal peers in most areas of syntactic production by age four. The DSS (Lee, 1974) provides information about specific areas of syntactic development. Due to the length and complexity of the DSS, it is not a tool that practicing clinicians often use. A study such as this may help the practicing clinician quickly screen a preschool child in a specific syntactic category, such as verb marking, in order to check for possible early language delay. In addition to providing clinical assistance, this study has opened up the door for future research in syntactic development. This study could be expanded to examine the specific verb markers that are being used by the delayed subjects. This may lead to more efficient identification and remediation of early language delays.

The present study was designed to determine the ages at which a sample of children between eighteen and forty-two months verbally and correctly express the fourteen prepositions known to be acquired by age four, using the Revised Expressive Preposition Test (REPT). The REPT was administered to sixty children chosen from day care centers and private homes within the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon. Therewas no preference as to the sex, intelligence of the child or socio- economic status of the child's family. A statistical analysis was performed to determine the correlation between HEPT scores and the child's chronological age, mental age and the socioeconomic status of the child's family. Results show that expressive prepositions tend to be acquired at different age levels. Each age group tended to use a progressively greater number of the prepositions. None of the eighteen month olds used any of the prepositions. Only one-fourth of the twenty-four month olds used any of the prepositions. Half or more of the thirty month olds expressed the prepositions "under," "on," "in" and "up." Half or more of the thirty-six month olds expressed the prepositions "out of," "at," "in" and "up," but not "under" and "on." Half or more of the forty-two month olds expressed the prepositions "to, II, "out of," "under," "around," "at," "of," "with" and "up." One hundred per cent of the forty-two month olds also used the prepositions "in" and "on." The prepositions which were never expressed by 50 per cent of any of the children were "behind," "across," "off" and "by." A statistical analysis of the data revealed a moderate correlation between the children's REPT scores and their chronological ages (.68). Correlation coefficients indicated a high correlation between the children's REFT scores and their combined chronological and mental ages (.82). The children's SES scores did not correlate with REPT scores (1 per cent) when considered together with chronological and mental ages.

The purpose of this study was to compare the visual-motor integrative abilities of preschool children with their articulatory and syntactical development. Two questions were posed: Do children having accelerated visual-motor integrative skills perform at a higher level than children having delayed visual-motor integration skills in 1) their articulation proficiency, and 2) their syntactical abilities?

This study was designed to determine whether varying criterion for pass/fail on the Mini-Screening Language Test for Adolescents (Mini-STAL) would increase accuracy of predicting outcome of the Screening Test of Adolescent Language (STAL). The Mini-STAL was developed by Prather et al. (1981) to identify rapidly those students between grades six through twelve who are in need of language intervention. Using Prather's established criterion (one or more errors equal failure), the Phoenix school district (Prather, 1981) found too many of their school population (20 percent) were failing the Mini- STAL. Thus, they established an experimental criterion (two or more errors equal failure) to identify those students with language problems. The present study sought to determine what proportion of students with language disorders was not detected by the Mini-STAL and what proportion of students without language disorders failed the Mini-STAL using the two criteria.

The auxiliary verb obligatory-do is used in forming questions, negative and emphatic sentences. Currently there is no test or norms established for the acquisition of obligatory-do. The purpose of this study was to establish age trends, via elicited imitation for the acquisition of obligatory-do according to the sentence type in which it expressively occurs i.e., negative sentences, emphatic sentences, interrogative reversals and wh-questions. This study addressed the following question: At what ages do children expressively demonstrate, via elicited imitation, the auxiliary verb obligatory-do in negative sentences, emphatic sentences, interrogative reversals and wh-questions? A secondary question was: In what manner does age and MLU, mean length of utterance, of 25 utterances correlate with the acquisition of obligatory-do?

Screening has been suggested as the most efficient method to find students with potential language problems (Neidecker, 1980). Based on the need for a standardized adolescent language screening tool, Prather, Breecher, Stafford, and Wallace (1980) developed the Screening Test of Adolescent Language (STAL). This is a six to eight minute test with twenty-three items which examine vocabulary, auditory memory span, language processing, and proverb explanation. Following an item analysis of the STAL, Prather, Brenner, and Hughes (1981) derived the Mini-Screening Test of Adolescent Language (M-STAL). This test contains five items from the STAL and requires one minute to administer.

Intellectually normal young children learn to request absent but needed objects which they are able to name. The primary focus of my study of child language in context was to assess the motivational effect of operation or stimulus preference on Lhe rate of toy request acquisition and the formation of stimulus classes (stimulus equivalences) . Of 13 21- to 37- month-old day-care children screened for generalized request responses (novel requests) , 1 girl and 4 boys participated in the training program because they were unable to request. Two of 4 children who completed training showed some support for the effect of preference for two two-stimulus operations on request response acquisition. All 4 children emitted novel requests to generalization probes following request acquisition criterion for one most and one least preferred stimulus. Preference had no observable effect on generalization of requesting to untrained stimuli. Additionally, I assessed and compared the cognitive-linguistic and adaptive-social maturity of those 5 children who were unable and those 8 who were able to request during preliminary request screening. The trained children tended to have a greater difference between their measured receptive and expressive language skills, and also they tended to have slightly lower scores on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales: Communication, Daily Living Skills, Socialization, and Motor Skills Domains. I also tested the efficacy of a natural language paradigm using a distributed skills trial sequence with interspersed trials of known-items as an extension of Tidwell's (1986) matching-to-sample, errorless learning procedure. Four within-subject replications of successful operation, name, and request acquisition are reported across 8 operations in support of his response chain methodology. I suggest that a battery of most of the developmental measures and request screening and training procedures tested in my study might be used by behavioral interventionists to assess and remediate delayed and/or inappropriate requesting among young normally developing children in a day-care setting.

The purpose of this study was to obtain data from the PPVT-R scores of low and middle SES black kindergartners in the Portland area to determine if there is a difference between their scores and the scores reported in the PPVT-R. The primary question to be answered was do the scores of black kindergartners in Portland vary significantly dependent upon SES? The secondary questions this study sought to answer were: what are the means, standard deviations, and ranges of scores for black kindergartners in Portland and what are the means, standard deviations, and ranges for each two-month age group of black kindergartners in Portland?

Normal phonological development is characterized by phonological processes in preschool children. These processes are sound error patterns, in relation to the adult target, that are expected within the speech of normally developing children. As children grow older, they "outgrow" these developmental errors. Within the black English dialect, speakers may use a combination of these processes and not be considered phonologically impaired within their linguistic community. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare phonological process usage in the speech of lower socioeconomic black and white preschoolers. The APP-R in conjunction with the CAPP was administered to two groups of 15 children to determine if significant differences exist in the usage of phonological processes between the two groups. Group 1 was comprised of 15 black preschoolers from an inner-city preschool program. Group 2 was comprised of 15 white preschoolers from a Headstart program. All children were identified by their respective speech-language pathologist as having normally developing speech for their linguistic community. Data analysis revealed black preschoolers used phonological processes with a higher frequency than white preschoolers. The phonological process usage mean for the black preschoolers was 4.26% (SD = 1.94) and the mean for the white preschoolers was 1.71% (SD = 2.86). Three of the ten basic processes were determined to be significantly different between the two groups, including: consonant sequence omission, strident deviation, and velar deviation. The results were further examined to determine if either group of preschoolers was identified as needing phonological remediation based on their performance on the APP-R. None of the subjects in either group was identified as needing phonological remediation. In conclusion, results indicated black English speaking preschoolers did use significantly more phonological processes in their speech, however, the APP-R did not identify these children as needing phonological remediation. These results demonstrate the APP-R to be an appropriate assessment tool when evaluating the speech of this Portland black English speaking sample.