Cette thèse porte sur les capacités de lecture des enfants souffrant de troubles spécifiques du langage oral (TSLO). Elle tente de préciser les processus à l’oeuvre lors de la lecture de mots isolés chez ces enfants, en analysant leurs compétences langagières écrites en lien avec leurs compétences orales. Dans un premier temps, nous présentons les principaux acquis de la littérature à ce propos. Puis nous exposons quatre études expérimentales réalisées auprès d’enfants avec un TSLO ainsi qu’auprès d’enfants au développement typique, sur les sujets suivants : (1) la reconnaissance de mots écrits isolés en lecture à voix haute, (2) la reconnaissance de mots écrits isolés en lecture silencieuse, (3) la compréhension de mots écrits, (4) et les facteurs prédictifs de la lecture. Les résultats les plus marquants indiquent qu’en reconnaissance de mots écrits, les enfants avec un TSLO présentent un retard d’un peu plus de trois ans, en lecture à voix haute comme en lecture silencieuse. En tant que groupe, leur procédure de lecture phonologique apparaît moins efficiente que leur procédure orthographique. L’hétérogénéité interindividuelle demeure toutefois importante. Les enfants qui souffrent des troubles phonologiques expressifs les plus sévères sont ceux dont la procédure phonologique est la plus altérée. Quant à la compréhension de mots écrits isolés, elle apparaît coûteuse en termes de ressources de traitement. Enfin, les facteurs prédictifs de la lecture des enfants avec un TSLO sont identiques à ceux des enfants au développement typique, à l’exception d’un facteur original : chez les enfants avec un TSLO, l’instabilité phonologique est prédictive des capacités de lecture, contrairement aux enfants contrôles. Ce facteur mériterait de plus amples recherches. / This thesis is concerned with the reading abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI). It aims to precise the process involved when these children read isolated words, by analyzing their written language abilities in relation to their spoken language abilities. Firstly, the main findings of the literature on this topic are presented. Then, four experimental studies conducted both in children with SLI and typically developing children are described. These studies deal with: (1) identification of isolated written words in reading aloud, (2) identification of isolated written words in silent reading, (3) written word comprehension, (4) and predictive factors of reading. The striking results of these studies indicate that, in written word identification in reading aloud, as well as in silent reading, children with SLI show an average delay of about three years, compared to reading control children. As a group, their phonological procedure is less efficient than their orthographic procedure. However, interindividual heterogeneity remains high. The children with the most severe impairment in language production at the phonological level are those with the greatest deficit in the phonological reading procedure. Isolated word comprehension, as for it, appears to be costly in terms of processing abilities. Finally, children with SLI display the same predictive factors of reading as typically developing children, with the exception of inconsistency in speech production, which is a reading predictor specific to children with SLI. Further research about this inconsistency would be useful.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

Purpose: This study examined how well a dynamic assessment of narrative language accurately identified kindergarten through sixth grade students with and without language disorder. Method: The participants included 110 school-age children from Utah and Colorado who were administered a narrative-based dynamic assessment of language that entailed a pretest, a teaching phase, an examiner rating of the child's ability to learn language (modifiability), and a posttest. Results: The dynamic assessment investigated in this study demonstrated good to excellent levels of sensitivity and specificity. The results of this study also determined that, in concurrence with previous dynamic assessment research, posttest and modifiability scores were most predictive of language ability. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that the Dynamic Measure of Oral Narrative Discourse (DYMOND) may be a valid and accurate tool when identifying language disorders in school-age populations.

No description available.

Purpose: In the present study, we conducted a systematic review to determine whether studies involving children with dyslexia include the assessment of oral language skills in their assessment batteries across various professional disciplines. Overlooking assessment of oral language in children with dyslexia may result in the misinterpretation of research findings and applications to children who present with both dyslexia and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or experience secondary oral language deficits. Method: According to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and MetaAnalyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we searched the Elsevier Scopus database and obtained and analyzed 764 articles, up to 40 articles each year from 2000 to 2020, involving child participants with dyslexia. A coding scheme was created to analyze the diagnostic criteria and inclusion and exclusion criteria used for the classification of children with dyslexia within each study. We also investigated whether oral language was included in the methodology of the study, and, if so, what areas of oral language were assessed. We further analyzed whether the inclusion of oral language assessment varied according to the professional discipline of the journal (e.g., medicine, education, etc.). Results: Out of 764 articles, 24.4% of articles account for oral language skills in criteria for children with dyslexia. The journal discipline of speech-language pathology considers oral language the most in their articles with 84% of articles either accounting for oral language in participant selection criteria or as a descriptive feature in children with dyslexia. Journal articles from the medical discipline are least likely (45% of all articles) to assess oral language. Phonological awareness is the most commonly reported area of oral language assessed, ranging from 10% to 18% of articles in each discipline. Conclusion: Few studies investigate oral language skills in children with dyslexia beyond the phonological domain alone. This may result in misrepresentation of the varying oral language skills in children with dyslexia in research. To better understand the role of oral language in children with dyslexia, we recommend that researchers and professionals include oral language assessment when assessing children with dyslexia.

For many minority children, the classroom is a space in which language and culture often awkwardly and harmfully collides. Schools often maintain a culture that is misaligned with the culture of their students, which is seen as an incompatibility between home and school, and is often used by educators to justify this mismatch within the classroom. This incompatibility is clearly displayed by the misinterpreted interactions that often occur within the classroom between teachers and students, often surrounding the differing assumptions about appropriate ways of using language within the classroom (Villegas, 1988, p.4). The purpose of this paper is to explore the intersections of language and culture for African-American children within education. I begin by outlining what we currently know about language development and how it manifests itself in the classroom setting. Secondly I provide a short overview of the history of language in education and its relationship to cultural perceptions of standard versus non-standard English and identity formation. Lastly, I offer African-Centered and Culturally Relevant education as responses to the current challenges that surround language and culture within many traditional classrooms and as a means of reform. / Urban Education

Purpose: This study is Phase One of a multi-phase research initiative. The purpose of this study was to examine how well a low-dose, dual oral narrative and expository language intervention delivered in a small group setting improved expressive and receptive oral narrative and expository language in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students who have been identified as having language disorder or emerging English academic language. Method: We administered a dynamic assessment of language to 325 kindergarten, first, and second grade students from two elementary schools in two school districts. The results of the dynamic assessment identified 61 students who had a language disorder or emerging English academic language. We randomly assigned those 61 students to a treatment or control group; however, 7 students were removed from the study due to incomplete data sets following the posttest phase. Students in the treatment group received small group oral narrative and expository language intervention two times per week over four weeks (eight 20-minute sessions). We administered narrative and expository assessments immediately prior to intervention to all students in the treatment group (n = 27) and the control group (n = 27). Those same measures were administered immediately following intervention to both groups. Results: We conducted a series of one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs), using the pretest narrative retell as a covariate for each of the dependent variables. There were no significant differences between the treatment and control groups for any of the dependent variables. However, trends from means indicate that the treatment group was beginning to perform higher than their control-group peers at the conclusion of this Phase One study, suggesting that significant differences between groups may emerge in later phases. To maximize the efficiency of contextualized language intervention by alternating narrative and expository intervention procedures each week under realistic conditions, it is necessary to ascertain when two 20-minute sessions per week, which is the time that most speech-language pathologists dedicate to language intervention for their students, will yield significant results across both narrative and expository outcomes.

No description available.

According to the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP, 2013), children from race and language minority groups continue to perform significantly lower than their peers on reading achievement tests. Current perspectives suggest that multiple factors (e.g., household income, parent education) likely contribute to the achievement gap between African American children and their White peers and children from low income and middle income households (Barton & Coley, 2010; Chatterji, 2006; Jencks & Phillips, 1998), leading to multiple approaches (e.g., Head Start Early Reading First) to prevent or alleviate the trend (Barnett, Coralon, Fitzgerald, & Squires, 2011). However, African American children continue to perform lower than their White peers, and continue to be over-represented in special services. It has become increasingly important to understand the contributors to early reading development among African American children. The purpose of this study was to provide a descriptive view of early language and literacy among typically developing children in prekindergarten who speak nonmainstream American English at child and classroom levels. Approximately 673 typically developing children in 95 prekindergarten classrooms were included in this study from a larger cross-sectional study. Results support a model with language, literacy, and dialect as separate constructs at the child level while language and literacy as one construct and dialect as the second construct at the classroom level. Language and literacy were highly related but distinct at the child level but perfectly correlated at the classroom level. The dialect construct was moderately and negatively related to language and literacy at both levels.

The problem of this study was to compare the relative gains made in the development of oral language skills in two groups of first grade pupils when two different approaches to beginning reading instruction were used. The two approaches were: (a) the language experience approach, Approach A, and (b) the traditional basal reader approach, Approach B. The six aspects of oral language development considered were: extent of verbalization, spoken vocabulary, expressions of tentativeness, use of structural patterns, colorful and vivid expressions, and use of mazes.