Listening, as a communication skill, is an essential factor in the normal language development of the' child. Until recently, however, there has been very little research conducted concerning the linguistic parameters that influence the ability to listen. Thus, this investigation was designed to study the effects of two linguistic parameters, construction and semantic constraints on the verbal responses of preschool children in a dichotic listening task. Fifteen children, between the ages of 5-3 to 6-8, were presented with four dichotic listening tasks consisting of 80 stimuli, (40 sentences and 40 pseudo-sentences). The children were asked to report the message delivered to their right ear. The performance of the children was analyzed according to the F-Test and the Test of Least Significant Difference. The results showed that construction errors were the only statistically significant errors (P < .05) among the six types of error types counted in the listening tasks. There were fewer construction errors made when there was a meaningful message to report than when there was a non-meaningful one. Although the semantic parameters were not statistically significant in this study, other investigations have demonstrated their influence on the report of subjects in a dichotic listening task. Therefore, a future research project should be conducted placing a greater emphasis on the semantic parameters. Additionally, a three level listening hierarchy was found. It was based upon the number of construction errors that occurred among the four dichotic listening tasks. This writer feels that future research should pursue the question of an existing hierarchy among dichotic listening tasks. Such an investigation, however, should utilize a larger population than the population tested in this study.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the presence or absence of a phonological recoding strategy in the mentally retarded population by using a memory matching exercise with visual stimuli. Pictures of common objects were divided into eight pictures with names that sound alike (homophonous) and eight with names that do not sound alike (non-homophonous). The null hypothesis tested was: No statistically significant difference will be found between mentally retarded and normal subjects in the development and use of a phonological recoding strategy for a short-term memory task, when the subjects are matched for receptive vocabulary age.

Many bilingual Spanish-English preschool aged children are impacted by speech sound disorders; and research has shown that bilingual speech sound systems develop differently than monolinguals'. Research has also shown that, for monolingual English and Spanish speakers, parent reports can be a valid tool for identification and single-word assessments can effectively diagnose speech disorder, yet little, if any, normative data or information about the validity of parent reports as an identification tool exists for bilingual Spanish-English speakers. The purpose of the present study was to create bilingual speech normative data for English single-word assessment scores for percent consonants correct (PCC), percent vowels correct (PVC), and the index of phonetic complexity (IPC). It also sought to determine correlations of speech scores and parent reports, which was done as an extension of Stertzbach's 2005 study with monolingual Spanish speakers. Fifty-six bilingual Spanish-English 4-year-olds were administered a single-word assessment in English and normative data was generated from the PCC, PVC, and IPC scores. That normative data was correlated with Likert values from the parent surveys to establish the validity of the report as an identification tool, and finally, the disordered scores (as determined by the normative data) were explored in relation to previous suspicion or diagnosis of disorder. The normative data showed 89% of speech scores falling within the typical range for both PCC and PVC and 93% for IPC. Pearson coefficients were computed by regression analysis and parent reports were deemed a valid tool for identification based on statistically significant correlations (at the .05 level) for 6 of 10 questions. Previous suspicions of disorder, based on parent report or examiner questionnaire, were 87.5% and 91% accurate, respectively, while current diagnosis, based on the presence of an existing Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), was 93% accurate. The results were consistent with previous research showing the prevalence of speech disorder as well as the validity of the parent report.

This study sought to determine if there are any differences in an analysis of language samples between urban Indian, reservation Indian, and urban White first-grade children. The Mean Length of Response (MLR) (Templin, 1957), Developmental Sentence Score (DSS) (Lee, 1974), and individual DSS items were used to analyze language used by the three groups of children. The study involved thirty-nine children, thirteen children in each group, between the ages of six years, six months, and seven years, four months. All subjects were screened to determine grade, residency, Indian blood, speech, language, hearing, and physical status. Testing for hearing vocabulary was performed at the beginning of the testing situation to determine eligibility for the study.

The purpose of this project was to measure and compare the language concept growth of two clients who utilized different response modes; client A utilized the expressive mode and client B utilized the receptive mode. A systematic management program was administered to each client for eighteen sessions. The specific questions posed were: 1. Did both clients demonstrate the ability to verbalize concepts on the post-test of the individualized programs? 2. Did client A learn more concepts in eighteen sessions than client B as measured by the post-tests of the individualized programs and the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts? 3. Did both clients tend to learn each concept in a similar number of trials?

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 195-202. / by Yukio Otsu. / Ph.D.

Language is the all-encompassing term used in many places and having various denotations. For this reason language has uses, too. Oral language is used as a principal factor to determine cultural disadvantage and is the primary medium of instruction in the school setting. Language operates as the intangible aspect in measurements of intelligence. The term 'language development' is used whenever one refers to the merits of federally funded preschool projects and is accepted without definition while the counter term 'linguistics' brings confusion in the mind of many classroom teachers and administrators. Commercial materials carry the label "linguistic method" or a "language development program" for a specific population. For educators 'language' is a loose, all powerful term which needs to be limited in meaning to a specific set of principles.

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This dissertation examines associations among home noise exposure, language skills, and brain structure and function in children spanning multiple developmental stages. To measure home noise exposure, digital audio recordings of the home environment were obtained and used to calculate home noise levels. To examine brain structure in children, Study 1 leveraged magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). To examine brain function in response to speech sounds in toddlers, Study 3 leveraged electroencephalography (EEG) in order to elicit event-related potentials (ERPs) that have been related to language abilities. All studies also incorporated the use of standardized assessments of language to examine children’s developing language abilities and used either parent-report measures of language (Study 2) or direct assessments of children’s language abilities (Studies 1 & 3). Primary hypotheses included that higher home noise exposure would be associated with 1) reduced cortical thickness (Study 1), 2) lower scores on measures of language skills in infancy and childhood (Studies 1, 2, and 3), and reduced neural differentiation of speech sounds (Study 3). Together, these findings shed light on the potential impact of noise exposure on children’s brain and language development. By better understanding how factors in children’s everyday environments might influence neural and cognitive development, we can best inform efforts aimed at optimizing children’s developmental trajectories.

Much research demonstrates that alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and emergent writing are all significant predictors of later reading and writing outcomes, and that children with language impairments (LI) are particularly at risk for later literacy difficulties. Further, children with LI consistently demonstrate depressed emergent literacy skills in the areas of phonological awareness, print concepts, and alphabet knowledge; however, little is known about their emergent writing skills. Therefore, the purposes of this study were twofold: (1) to compare the emergent writing skills of preschool children with language impairment to their typically developing peers using a range of writing tasks and a detailed, consistent scoring rubric for each task; and, (2) to explore the relationships among emergent writing skills and alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and oral language. The participants included four groups of preschool children: 11 4-year-old children with LI; 11 4-year-old language typical (LT) children, age-matched to children with LI; 20 4-year-old children with typical language; and, 21 5-year-old children with typical language. Children with language impairment scored between 70 and 84 on the Language Index of Assessment of Literacy and Language (ALL) (Lombardino, Lieberman, & Brown, 2005), and children with typical language scored between 85 and 115. All children passed a bilateral hearing screen, scored within the normal range on a non-verbal intelligence screen, demonstrated an unremarkable developmental history relative to sensory, neurological, and motor performance, spoke English as their primary language, and had mothers with at least a high school education or equivalent. iii During two sessions, children were administered the ALL and five emergent writing tasks: Write Letters, Write Name, Write CVC Words, Picture Description, and Sentence Retell. The writing tasks and accompanying scoring rubrics were adopted from a previous study by Puranik and Lonigan (2009). Results indicated that children with LI demonstrated significantly less advanced letter and word writing skills than their language typical, age-matched peers. In addition, significant relationships between all emergent writing tasks and alphabet knowledge were observed for all children as well as significant relationships between oral language and phonological awareness for children with typical language. No significant relationships between any of the emergent writing tasks and phonological awareness or between oral language and alphabet knowledge were found. Further, results indicated the same developmental patterns exist in written as well as oral language for children with LI. This study has therapeutic implications for speech-language pathologists. In particular, emergent writing tasks need to be included in comprehensive assessment and intervention approaches for children with LI. Assessments need to yield accurate descriptions of emergent writing skills relevant to later literacy outcomes. Finally, integrated intervention approaches that combine initial sound awareness tasks with alphabet knowledge and emergent writing tasks may achieve the best learning outcomes.