Recent publications: Young Children and Trauma: Intervention and Treatment

This paper presents an approach to voice therapy programming for young children who are hypernasal. Some general principles underlying the approach are presented and discussed.

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Lexical Comprehension in Young Children With Developmental Delays

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology ◽

10.1044/1058-0360.0301.79 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 79-88 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Theresa A. Kouri

Keyword(s):

Young Children ◽

Developmental Delays ◽

Normal Development ◽

Clinical Applications ◽

Group Status ◽

Novel Object ◽

Related Information ◽

Comprehension Skills ◽

Lexical Items ◽

Lexical Concepts

Lexical comprehension skills were examined in 20 young children (aged 28–45 months) with developmental delays (DD) and 20 children (aged 19–34 months) with normal development (ND). Each was assigned to either a story-like script condition or a simple ostensive labeling condition in which the names of three novel object and action items were presented over two experimental sessions. During the experimental sessions, receptive knowledge of the lexical items was assessed through a series of target and generalization probes. Results indicated that all children, irrespective of group status, acquired more lexical concepts in the ostensive labeling condition than in the story narrative condition. Overall, both groups acquired more object than action words, although subjects with ND comprehended more action words than subjects with DD. More target than generalization items were also comprehended by both groups. It is concluded that young children’s comprehension of new lexical concepts is facilitated more by a context in which simple ostensive labels accompany the presentation of specific objects and actions than one in which objects and actions are surrounded by thematic and event-related information. Various clinical applications focusing on the lexical training of young children with DD are discussed.

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Eliciting Verbs From Children With Specific Language Impairment

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology ◽

10.1044/1058-0360.0504.17 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 17-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Diane Frome Loeb ◽

Clifton Pye ◽

Sean Redmond ◽

Lori Zobel Richardson

Keyword(s):

Young Children ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Specific Language Impairment ◽

Syntactic Complexity ◽

Specific Language ◽

Lexical Skills

The focus of assessment and intervention is often aimed at increasing the lexical skills of young children with language impairment. Frequently, the use of nouns is the center of the lexical assessment. As a result, the production of verbs is not fully evaluated or integrated into treatment in a way that accounts for their semantic and syntactic complexity. This paper presents a probe for eliciting verbs from children, describes its effectiveness, and discusses the utility of and problems associated with developing such a probe.

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Productivity of Emerging Word Combinations in Toddlers With Specific Expressive Language Impairment

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology ◽

10.1044/1058-0360.0604.34 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 34-47 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Steven H. Long ◽

Lesley B. Olswang ◽

Julianne Brian ◽

Philip S. Dale

Keyword(s):

Data Collection ◽

Young Children ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Treatment Approach ◽

Expressive Language ◽

Semantic Consistency ◽

Session Analysis

This study investigated whether young children with specific expressive language impairment (SELI) learn to combine words according to general positional rules or specific, grammatic relation rules. The language of 20 children with SELI (4 females, 16 males, mean age of 33 months, mean MLU of 1.34) was sampled weekly for 9 weeks. Sixteen of these children also received treatment for two-word combinations (agent+action or possessor+possession). Two different metrics were used to determine the productivity of combinatorial utterances. One metric assessed productivity based on positional consistency alone; another assessed productivity based on positional and semantic consistency. Data were analyzed session-by-session as well as cumulatively. The results suggest that these children learned to combine words according to grammatic relation rules. Results of the session-by-session analysis were less informative than those of the cumulative analysis. For children with SELI ready to make the transition to multiword utterances, these findings support a cumulative method of data collection and a treatment approach that targets specific grammatic relation rules rather than general word combinations.

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