The relationship between spontaneous revision behaviors and quantitatively measured syntax skills for language-impaired and normally developing school-aged children was investigated. Differences in revision behaviors and syntactic behaviors between the two groups of children and across three age levels were also examined. Narratives were obtained from 39 language-impaired and 39 normal-language children, aged 8 through 10 years. Correlations between spontaneous revision behavior scores and syntax scores were low to moderate. The revision behavior mean scores were not significantly different between the two groups of children. Mean syntax scores were higher for the NL children and did discriminate between LI and NL children. Among the differing age levels, spontaneous revision behavior mean scores were not found to differ significantly except for 10-year-olds, who produced statistically significantly fewer substitutions and significantly more expansions that 9-year-olds. Finally, with respect to syntax scores, 10-year-olds produced statistically significantly more words per T unit than 8- and 9- year olds and mean DSS was significantly higher for 10-year-olds as compared to 9-year-olds.

Aphasia is an acquired language impairment caused by damage in the regions of the brain that support language. The Main Concept Analysis (MCA) is a published formal assessment battery that allows the quantification of the presence, accuracy, completeness, and efficiency of content in spoken discourse produced by persons with aphasia (PWA). It utilizes a sequential picture description task (with four sets of pictures) for language sample elicitation. The MCA results can also be used clinically for targeting appropriate interventions of aphasic output. The purpose of this research is to develop a Spanish adaptation of the MCA by establishing normative data based on native unimpaired speakers of Spanish. In the pilot study, thirty-eight unimpaired Spanish participants were recruited by previous student researchers. Each participant was asked to complete a demographic questionnaire and a short form of the Cognitive Linguistic Quick Test was administered to rule out any unidentified language problems. The MCA was then be administered to participants and their oral description was audio recorded for later orthographic transcription. A total of 81 unimpaired participants that consisted of different genders, ages (young, middle-aged, and older groups), levels of education (high versus low), and dialect origins (e.g., Spain, Puerto Rico, Columbia) were recruited in the main study to establish a more balanced set of data. One person with aphasia (PWA) was recruited for this study. Based on the collected normative samples, the essential information was identified for each participant. A dialect-specific scoring criteria including target main concepts and lexicons of the Spanish-MCA were developed. The Spanish-MCA was conducted to test the validity of the assessment battery. In the current study, a preliminary set of data using the MCA scoring criteria has been established. Similar to findings in Kong and Yeh 2015, the results of the Spanish-MCA showed age and education did impact discourse performance. Results from one-way ANOVA revealed statistical differences between age groups and education levels of the unimpaired participants recruited. The groups of participants with a higher education conveyed more AC concepts compared to the other dialect groups. To compare data for PWA, it is suggested that a larger sample size of PWA be recruited to validate the Spanish-MCA.