International journal of language & communication disorders
-
Int J Lang Commun Disord · Jul 2000
Tense and finiteness in the speech of children with specific language impairment acquiring Hebrew.
Verb morphology is often an area of extraordinary difficulty for children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, in Hebrew, this difficulty appears to be more circumscribed than in other languages. In a recent study by Dromi et al., the limitations exhibited by a group of Hebrew-speaking children with SLI were confined primarily to the use of agreement inflections within past tense. ⋯ The results indicated that the children with SLI had more difficulty than both comparison groups in the production of basic present and past forms and infinitive forms of verbs that required use of one particular phonological template or 'binyan'. However, for the verbs requiring the remaining three phonological templates, the children with SLI were as capable as MLU controls in their command of past as well as present tense, and in their use of infinitive forms. It is concluded that tense and finiteness probably do not form the core of the problem faced by Hebrew-speaking children with SLI in the area of verb morphology.
-
Int J Lang Commun Disord · Jan 2000
Conversation versus narration in pre-school children with language impairment.
The study focuses on two elicitation methods for language sampling in children with language impairment: conversation and narration. It has been noted in other studies on different clinical groups that language elicited in different speaking contexts varies in aspects such as MLU, fluency and syntactic complexity. The purpose of this study was to compare genre effects on different aspects of language production in a group of pre-school children with language impairment. ⋯ The narrative task elicited more phrasal expansions and grammatical morphemes per utterance than the conversation. However, the children used more complex verb forms in conversation than in narration. The results are discussed in relation to recent research.
-
Int J Lang Commun Disord · Oct 1999
Mother-child interaction revisited: communication with non-speaking physically disabled children.
This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the interaction between mothers and their severely physically disabled children who have motor speech disorders. The study was designed to partially replicate previous investigations, most notably those undertaken by Light et al., to examine if the patterns of conversation previously described were observed in interaction involving children of a wide age range. Twenty children who had four-limb cerebral palsy, with no diagnosed learning difficulties or sensory impairments, and who were between 2 and 10 years of age inclusive participated in the research with their mothers. ⋯ Findings support the two-pronged approach to intervention for children using augmentative communication systems that is now developing. Intervention should focus not only on the children, teaching them how to use their augmentative systems and to produce a full range of conversation skills, but also should focus on their carers. Training for carers aims to increase their interaction skills, teaching them how to facilitate and expand children's communication skills.
-
Int J Lang Commun Disord · Jan 1998
Case ReportsA case of verbal auditory agnosia: missing the word ... missing the sound....
The neuropsychological nature of verbal auditory agnosia is not fully understood. This study aims to describe the language deficits and the remediation strategies used in a person with verbal auditory agnosia. In addition, it will address the theoretical issues concerning the nature of the phenomenon and the clinical implications in the management of people with this disorder.