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Research on receptive language development in typical children, especially as explicated in a classic paper by Robin Chapman, is reviewed. These findings raise three challenges for clinicians assessing comprehension in children with language disorders: (1) contrary to popular wisdom, comprehension does not always precede production in a simple step-by-step way; (2) comprehension is a private event; indicators of comprehension must be used to assess it, and these indicators can be misleading; and (3) children with subtle comprehension deficits may do well on standardized tests that are not sensitive to their difficulties with real-time discourse. Some strategies for addressing these challenges, as well as a framework for assessing comprehension, are offered.
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Introduction Communication deficits are one of the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). People with ASD can be slow to begin talking, or may not learn to talk at all; others may learn to produce words and sentences but have difficulty using them effectively to accomplish social interactive goals. In this chapter we will discuss the course of the development of communication in ASD and will outline how communication deficiencies in this population are identified and treated. Before we do, however, we should be clear about three important terms we will be using, which are illustrated in Figure 4.1. The term “communication” is the broadest of this trio. It refers to all forms of sending and receiving messages, not only with language, but in other ways, such as with gestures, body language, even the way we dress. Animals can also communicate by means of their vocalizations to alert others to danger, for example. That's why the largest circle in Figure 4.1 represents communication. Within the realm of communication, language represents a specific type, so it is enclosed within the larger circle of communication in the figure. Language involves the creation of a potentially infinite set of never-before-conveyed messages through the combination of words in rule-governed ways that allow the formation of sentences to express meaning to others. © Cambridge University Press, 2007 and 2009.
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Several major transitions in language use take place during the first 5 years of life. Each transition allows the child to move to a higher level of complexity of expression and to accomplish communicative goals more flexibly and precisely than was done at the previous level. At least three of these transitions appear to be modulated to some degree by speech. In the first transition, prellnguistic to early linguistic communication, babbling provides the infant with a prelinguistic form of vocal behavior that is in many ways analogous to language. A second transition takes place in the movement from single words to multiword combinations. In the process of this transition, word order becomes a means by which children convey semantic role information, and transitional forms such as successive one-word utterances help to facilitate the child's leap from single-word speech to multiword sentences. A third transition involves the development of phonological awareness, an important basis for the acquisition of literacy, which builds on the foundation laid by the phonological system for articulation. In each of these transitions, speech appears important for mediating the move to a higher language level. This paper considers the question of how these transitions can be facilitated in children who use augmentative and alternative communication rather than speech as a first expressive system, in order to provide as precise and flexible a communication modality as possible to children with severe speech impairments.
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A group of children was identified as 'late talkers' who were slow in expressive language development (SELD) on the basis of small expressive vocabulary size at 20-34 months of age. The subjects were followed yearly throughout the preschool and early school-age periods in order to track growth in language and related skills. When the subjects were in second grade, their expressive language skills, as indexed by the Developmental Sentence Score, were measured. This measure was used as the outcome variable in regression and discriminant function analyses. Predictor variables included those gathered when the subjects entered the study at age 2. They included measures of early expressive and receptive language by parent report, nonverbal cognitive performance, Bayley Mental Scale score (a combined verbal and nonverbal cognitive measure), phonological skill, motor skills, maladaptive behaviors, social skills, birth order, socioeconomic (SES) level, and gender. Only SES and early expressive language skills predicted expressive language outcome in second grade. Discriminant function analysis revealed these two factors were significant in predicting success (scores above the tenth percentile), along with a contribution of early gross motor skills. The implications of these findings for understanding early language delays are discussed.
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This article defines communication and describes its various disorders. Some of these disorders are associated with other DSM-IV conditions, such as mental retardation or pervasive developmental disorder. Others are specific to the language-learning process. The interactions between communication and psychiatric disorders are discussed. Suggestions for integrating treating approaches among communication disorders and mental health professionals are presented.
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This article discusses the assessment of communication skills in children from birth to 5 years of age. The different methods appropriate for different developmental levels and the relationship of collateral areas, such as hearing, cognition, and speech motor control to the communication process, are addressed. The need for standardized and informal measures is emphasized Case studies are presented to illustrate the principles outlined.
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The purpose of this study is to provide a microanalysis of differences in adaptive functioning seen between well-matched groups of school-aged children with autism and those diagnosed as having Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, all of whom functioned in the mild to moderate range of intellectual impairment. Findings indicate that the major area of difference between children with autism and those with Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, was expressive communication; specifically, the use of elaborations in syntax and morphology and in pragmatic use of language to convey and to seek information in discourse. Linear discriminant function analysis revealed that scores on just three of these expressive communication item sets correctly identified subjects in the two diagnostic categories with 80% overall accuracy. Implications of these findings for both diagnosis and intervention with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders will be discussed.
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