scholarly journals Social-pragmatic contextual comprehension in Italian preschool and school-aged children: a study using the Pragma test

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-162
Author(s):  
Ilaria Gabbatore ◽  
Francesca M. Bosco ◽  
Leena Mäkinen ◽  
Eeva Leinonen ◽  
Soile Loukusa
Keyword(s):  
Concurrent Validity ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Pragmatic Development ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Efficient Communication ◽  
Age Dependent ◽  
Atypical Development ◽  
Italian Children ◽  
Pattern Of Performance

Abstract Efficient communication requires the interplay of linguistic, cognitive and social skills, including the ability to make contextual inferences and to understand others’ intentions and emotions. The capacity to effectively use language in specific contexts (i.e., pragmatic ability) develops with age, and an assessment of this ability is important for understanding both typical and atypical development. The Pragma test was originally developed and validated on Finnish children to assess social-pragmatic comprehension. The present study utilizes a slightly adapted version of the Pragma test, translated into Italian, and presents the results of the test given to 110 typically developing Italian children (4–8 years of age). The Italian version of the Pragma test shows content and concurrent validity, interrater reliability, and internal consistency, and it proves to be sensitive in detecting an age-dependent pattern of performance, across pre-school and school age children, in the pragmatic parameters investigated. The present study has ramifications for clinical contexts, as data for typical pragmatic development enables identification of strengths and weaknesses in the pragmatic performance in clinical populations. Finally, the results indicate that the Pragma test is relevant to both Finnish and Italian cultural contexts, thus providing the opportunity to make cross-cultural comparisons.

Nonword Repetition Skills in Gulf Arabic–Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 3700-3713
Author(s):  
Saleh Shaalan
Keyword(s):  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Gulf Arabic ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
Phonological Complexity

Purpose This study examined the performance of Gulf Arabic–speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) on a Gulf Arabic nonword repetition (GA-NWR) test and compared it to their age- and language-matched groups. We also investigated the role of syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity in light of NWR theories. Method A new GA-NWR test was conducted with three groups of Gulf Arabic–speaking children: school-age children with DLD, language-matched controls (LCs), and age-matched controls (ACs). The test consisted of two- and three-syllable words that either had no clusters, medial clusters, final clusters, or medial + final clusters. Results The GA-NWR distinguished between the performance of children with DLD and the LC and AC groups. Results showed significant syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity effects. Differences between the DLD and typically developing groups were seen in two- and three-syllable nonwords; however, when compared on nonwords with no clusters, children with DLD were not significantly different from the LC group. Conclusions The GA-NWR test differentiated between children with DLD and their ACs and LCs. Findings, therefore, support its clinical utility in this variety of Arabic. Results showed that phonological processing factors, such as phonological complexity, may have stronger effects when compared to syllable length effects. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12996812

Profiles of Autonomic Activity in Autism Spectrum Disorder with and without Anxiety

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Parma ◽  
Nicola Cellini ◽  
Lisa Guy ◽  
Alana McVey ◽  
Keiran Rump ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Physiological Activity ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Parasympathetic Activity ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Physiological Profile ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Advance Research

Objective: Anxiety disorders are common among youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Both anxiety and ASD are associated with differences in physiological activity. To date, few studies have investigated the physiological profile of youth with ASD and even fewer have systematically assessed how the co-occurrence of anxiety disorders and ASD modulates resting physiological activity.Method: The aim of the present study was to evaluate sympathetic and parasympathetic activity at rest in 75 school-aged children and adolescents with ASD, with (ASD+Anxiety = 22, 6F) and without co-occurring anxiety (ASD Alone =15, 6F) and to compare their physiological profile with that of matched typically developing controls (TDC) with (Anxiety Alone = 16, 6F) and without co-occurring anxiety disorders (TDC = 22, 8F).Results: Results indicated reduced sympathetic and parasympathetic activity at rest in ASD as compared to TDC youth without anxiety. The ASD+Anxiety and Anxiety Alone groups showed different sympathetic, but similar parasympathetic, activity. Correlational, multivariate, and regression analyses indicated that the four groups differed among several physiological and subjective measures.Conclusion: These findings suggest that ASD and anxiety are associated with distinct profiles of autonomic nervous system activity that cannot be reduced to either the sympathetic or parasympathetic branch alone. An autonomic profile-based approach is more likely to advance research, diagnosis, and treatment of ASD and anxiety than unidimensional, single-modality approaches.

Language-Based Difficulties in School-Age Children with Reading Disabilities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaitlyn Price ◽  
Karen Wigg ◽  
Virginia Misener ◽  
Antoine Clarke ◽  
Natalie Yeung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reading Disabilities ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Reading Difficulties ◽  
Receptive Language ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Speech And Language ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Language Difficulties

Background: Reading disabilities (RD) are the most common learning disabilities, affecting 3-7% of school-aged children in North America. RD is associated with increased risk for comorbid language-based disorders including early language delay (ELD), speech sound disorders, and language impairments. Despite decades of research on the relationship between RD and these disorders, questions remain as to the strength of their associations. This study is the first of this size to assess all four disorders in a sample of children with RD. Method: We examined the association these disorders in a large, well-characterized family-based sample, recruited for reading difficulties in school-aged children. Parents of 492 families (674 children) completed a questionnaire that queried ELD, and current speech and language difficulties in their children. Children were also directly assessed for multiple quantitative measures of language and reading. Children were divided into three groups: Reading Disabled (RD), Intermediate Readers (IR), and Typical Readers (TR). Results: We found that the parents of the RD and IR groups reported significantly more ELD and current speech and expressive/receptive language difficulties in their children, compared with the TR group. When examined further, we found ELD was associated with poorer performance on word reading and decoding tasks, as well as with speech and language difficulties. Conclusion: The results demonstrate multiple significant associations between reading difficulties, ELD, speech and language, especially in children with severe RD. The results add to research supporting comorbidity between these disorders and will help inform teachers and psychologists when assessing and treating children’s language-based disabilities.

Similar use of intonation structure in early implanted children and hearing children: The case of Italian

2021 ◽  
pp. 014272372098605
Author(s):  
Paola Zanchi ◽  
Laura Zampini ◽  
Luca Pancani ◽  
Roberta Berici ◽  
Mariapaola D’Imperio
Keyword(s):  
Chronological Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Generation Task ◽  
Story Generation ◽  
Italian Children ◽  
Children's Stories ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
First Time

This work presents an analysis of the intonation competence in a group of Italian children with cochlear implant (CI). Early cochlear implantation plays a crucial role in language development for children who were born deaf in that it favours the acquisition of complex aspects of language, such as the intonation structure. A story-generation task, the Narrative Competence Task, was used to elicit children’s stories. Narrations produced by 8 early implanted children and by 16 children with typically hearing (TH) (8 one-to-one matched considering the chronological age, TH-CA, and 8 considering the hearing age, TH-HA) were analysed considering intonation features (pitch accent distribution, edge tones and inner breaks). Results show that children with CI produce intonation patterns that are similar to those of both TH-CA and TH-HA control groups. Few significant differences were found only between children with CI and children matched for TH-HA in the use of rising edge tones. These results are discussed in light of the role of cognitive development in using prosody and intonation and the importance of early CI implantation. This study shows for the first time that intonation use of early implanted children is not different from that of typically developing children with the same chronological age.

Sensitivity to distributional properties of the orthography in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182199892
Author(s):  
Chiara Valeria Marinelli ◽  
Marika Iaia ◽  
Cristina Burani ◽  
Paola Angelelli
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Lexical Knowledge ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Lexical Priming ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Developing Readers ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Italian Children

The study examines statistical learning in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia and typically developing readers by studying their sensitivity to probabilistic cues in phoneme-grapheme mappings. In the first experiment children spelled to dictation regular words and words with unpredictable spelling that contained either a high- or a low-frequency (i.e., typical or atypical) sound-spelling mappings. Children with dyslexia were found to rely on probabilistic cues in writing stimuli with unpredictable spelling to a greater extent than typically developing children. The difficulties of children with dyslexia on words with unpredictable spelling were limited to those containing atypical mappings. In the second experiment children spelled new stimuli, that is, pseudowords, containing phonological segments with unpredictable mappings. The interaction between lexical knowledge and reliance on probabilistic cues was examined through a lexical priming paradigm in which pseudowords were primed by words containing related typical or atypical sound-to-spelling mappings. In spelling pseudowords, children with dyslexia showed sensitivity to probabilistic cues in the phoneme-to-grapheme mapping but lexical priming effects were also found, although to a smaller extent than in typically developing readers. The results suggest that children with dyslexia have a limited orthographic lexicon but are able to extract regularities from the orthographic system and rely on probabilistic cues in spelling words and pseudowords.

Familiarity of Speaker Accent on Irish Children’s Performance on a Sentence Comprehension Task

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Claire O’Connor ◽  
Fiona E. Gibbon
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Older Children ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Comprehension Task ◽  
Computer Based

Objective: This study sought to determine whether children’s performance on a sentence comprehension task is affected when sentences are spoken in an unfamiliar native accent. Method: Fifty typically developing school-aged children living in Southern Ireland (Cork) participated; 25 in a younger group (mean 7;08 years) and 25 in an older group (mean 9;09 years). The children completed a computer-based comprehension task during which 20 sentences were spoken in a Cork accent (familiar) and 20 in a Tyrone accent (unfamiliar). The sentences were matched for syllable length and syntactic complexity. Main results: The younger children made significantly more errors when sentences were spoken in an unfamiliar accent. The older children made a similar number of incorrect responses to both familiar and unfamiliar accents. Conclusion: Younger children’s performance on comprehension tasks may be reduced when sentences are spoken in an unfamiliar accent. Possible explanations and the clinical implications are discussed.

scholarly journals Kelekatan Antara Ibu dan Anak Usia Sekolah (Studi pada Ibu Sebagai Orang Tua Siswa Kelas 1 SDN Hanjuang Samijaya)

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Meilanny Budiarti Santoso ◽  
Megawati B
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Role Models ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Teaching Process ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Explorative Study ◽  
Mother And Child ◽  
And Function ◽  
Role And Function

Mother possesses a central role in the process of educating children. Mother spends more time with children at home than in the school. Thus, the attachment between the child and the mother becomes a benchmark as having required the ability to perform interaction within constructed social relations of school-aged children. This study was conducted using an explorative study that focused on the ‘eyecatching’ of information and issues that obtained in the process of this study. Interview, observation and documentation techniques are applied. The results show that the attachment between mother and child is built on the basis of the various skills that must be owned by school-aged children. This also means the role and function of the mother in educating school-aged children, expecially teaching process, that is caring, willingness to share, respect, politeness and responsibility. Providing good role models is the best way to instill values   in children, thus becoming the foundation for good attachment building between mother and child. Keywords: attachment, mother, children, school-age children.

The Impact of Sleep Restriction on Daytime Functioning in School-Age Children With and Without ADHD: A Narrative Review of the Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 188-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Davidson ◽  
Benjamin Rusak ◽  
Christine Chambers ◽  
Penny Corkum
Keyword(s):  
Sleep Problems ◽  
Narrative Review ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Sleep Restriction ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Daytime Functioning ◽  
Insufficient Sleep ◽  
Cognition And Emotion ◽  
Hyperactivity Disorder ◽  
The Impact

The purpose of this narrative review was to synthesize the existing literature on the impact of sleep on daytime functioning in both typically developing (TD) children and children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Correlational studies in children suggest that insufficient sleep and impaired daytime functioning are significantly associated; however, this does not address the causal relationships between sleep and daytime functioning. The review results indicated that there is limited experimental sleep manipulation research in children. In the eight studies that employed experimental methods to examine sleep restriction, the consequences of insufficient sleep were greatest for attention and inconsistent for other domains, such as cognition and emotion regulation. Despite the significant co-occurrence of ADHD and sleep problems, the experimental sleep research focused on the daytime impact of shorter sleep in children with ADHD is extremely limited and as such more research is needed.

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