The research explores language acquisition and neurocognitive development underpinning prosody, phonology, lexicon, grammar and pragmatics in preschool and school-aged children. The purpose of the research program is to follow and to compare developmental linguistic trajectories in different clinical populations (autism, preterm, epilepsia, SLI, dyslexia, cochlear implant) and rare genetic syndromes (Bardet-Biedl, Smith-Magenis and Williams syndrome) and develop successful intervention programs.
Abstract: Temporal processing deï¬cit could be associated with a speciï¬c difï¬culty in learning to read. In 1951, Stambak provided preliminary evidence that children with dyslexia performed less well than good readers in reproduction of 21 rhythmic patterns. Stambakâs task was administered to 1,028 French children aged 5 â 6 years. The score distribution ( from 0 to 21) was quasi-normal, with some children failing completely and other performing perfectly. In second grade, reading was assessed in 695 of these children. Kindergarten variables explained 26% of the variance of the reading score at second grade. The Stambak score was strongly and linearly related to reading performance in second grade, after partialling out performance on other tasks (oral repetition, attention, and visuo-spatial tasks) and socio-cultural level.
Findings are discussed in relation to perceptual, cerebellar, intermodal, and attention-related theories of developmental dyslexia. It is concluded that simple rhythm reproduction tasks in kindergarten are predictive of later reading performance.
Abstract: Main fundamental issues of child language assessment will be presented in this paper. New
data derived from naturalistic assessments of language production accompany symbolic
play in young normal children (2-4 years old) and from a wordless picture book (Frog, where
are you, Mayer, 1969) in children aged 4 to 6 will also be provided. The aim of such assess-
ment is to describe the development of child spoken language acquisition in its dynamic
component, i.e its rhythm, its regularities, its variations and to take into account lexical and
morphosyntactic processing. The results show that mean scores of measures of producti-
vity, lexical diversity and grammatical maturity (MLU) significantly increase in young children
between ages 24 to 33 months and stabilize beyond age 36 months, for a 20 minutes play
session. Early assessment of lexical production, grammatical morphology and semantic
representation of narratives should allow the practitioner to clearly define educational goals
and to identify late talkers and developmental asynchronies suspected in some children.
Abstract:
Consonant production following the sensory restoration of audition was investigated in 22
prelinguistically deaf French children who received cochlear implants. Spontaneous speech
productions wererecordedat 6, 12, and18months post-surgeryandconsonant inventories were
derivedfrombothglossableandnon-glossablephones usingtwoacquisitioncriteria. Theresults
showedthatchildreninitiatedappropriateproductionofconsonantsaftersixmonthsofimplantuse.
Stopsandlabialswerethemostfrequentlyproducedspeechsounds,whereasglidesandpalatalswere
still infrequent after 18months. Speechaccuracyalsoimprovedthroughout thestudy. Consonant
visibilityappearedtoinfluencetheorderofacquisitioninthefirstmonthsfollowingtheimplantation
and, asexperiencewithauditoryinformationincreased, patternsofdevelopmenttendedtoresemble
those seeninchildrenwithnormal hearing. Finally, asignedmode of communicationandoral
rehabilitation programs prior to implantation were better outcome predictors than age at
implantation.
Abstract: The 2 main objectives of this investigation are (1) to assess the evolution of the speech intelligibility of 12 prelinguistically deaf children implanted between 25 and 78 months of age and (2) to clarify the influence of the age at implantation on the intelligibility. Speech productions videorecorded at 6, 18 and 36 months following surgery during a standardized free play session. Selected syllables were then presented to 40 adults listeners who were asked to identify the vowels or the consonants they heard and to judge the quality of the segments. Perceived vowels were then located in the vocalic space whereas consonants were classified according to voicing, manner and place of articulation. 3 (Groups) Ã~3 (Times) ANOVA with repeated measures revealed a clear influence of time as well as age at implantation on the acquisition patterns. Speech intelligibility of these implanted children tended to improve as their experience with the device increased. Based on these results, it is proposed that sensory restoration following cochlear implant served as a probe to develop articulatory strategies allowing them to reach the intended acoustico-perceptual target.
Abstract:
Phonetic transcriptions (study 1) and acoustic analysis (study 2) were used to clarify the nature and rhythm of vowel acquisition following the cochlear implantation of prelingually deaf children. In the first study, seven children were divided according to their degree of hearing loss (DHL): DHL I: 90â100 dB of hearing loss, 1 children; DHL II: 100â110 dB, 3 children; and DHL III: over 110 dB, 3 children. Spontaneous speech productions were recorded and videotaped 6 and 12 months postsurgery and vowel inventories were obtained by listing all vowels that occurred at least twice in the child's repertoire at the time of recording. Results showed that degree of hearing loss and age at implantation have a significant impact on vowel acquisition. Indeed, DHL I and II children demonstrated more diversified as well as more typical pattern of acquisition. In the second study, the values of the first and second formants were extracted. The results suggest evolving use of the acoustic space, reflecting the use of auditory feedback to produce the three phonological features exploited to contrast French vowels (height, place of articulation, and rounding). The possible influence of visual feedback before cochlear implant is discussed.
Abstract: Prematurity entails risk factors of cognitive delay, particularly in language production and reading. These risk factors may be related to physiological and/or environmental variables. This study has two main objectives: (1) to track down which preterm children are most at risk of developing cognitive delays, particularly language production and reading; (2) to study whether screening of oral language in 3 1/2-year-olds predicts their future reading ability. A cohort of 50 pre-term children (23 boys and 27 girls) was followed from the ages of 2 to 7 1/2 years. The results show that: (a) 28% of the premature children present delayed language production at 3 1/2 years of age; (b) 34% of these children present delayed reading at 7 1/2 years of age; (c) language production at 3 1/2 years predicts the reading ability at 7 1/2 years, and (d) premature children who are most at risk are those who belong to low sociocultural groups.
Abstract: Several previous studies have suggested that basic decoding skills may develop less effectively in English than in some other European orthographies. The origins of this effect in the early (foundation) phase of reading acquisition are investigated through assessments of letter knowledge, familiar word reading, and simple nonword reading in English and 12 other orthographies. The results confirm that children from a majority of European countries become accurate and fluent in foundation level reading before the end of the first school year. There are some exceptions, notably in French, Portuguese, Danish, and, particularly, in English. The effects appear not to be attributable to differences in age of starting or letter knowledge. It is argued that fundamental linguistic differences in syllabic complexity and orthographic depth are responsible. Syllabic complexity selectively affects decoding, whereas orthographic depth affects both word reading and nonword reading. The rate of development in English is more than twice as slow as in the shallow orthographies. It is hypothesized that the deeper orthographies induce the implementation of a dual (logographic + alphabetic) foundation which takes more than twice as long to establish as the single foundation required for the learning of a shallow orthography.
Abstract: The productivity of lexical categories was studied longitudinally in a sample of 17 young hearing-impaired French-speaking children with cochlear implants. Age of implantation ranged from 22 months to 76 months. Spontaneous speech samples were collected at six-month intervals over a period of 36 months, starting at the one-word stage. Four general measures of their linguistic production (number of utterances, verbal fluency, vocabulary, and grammatical production) as well as 36 specific lexical categories, according to the CHILDES codes, were computed in terms of tokens, i.e., total number of words. Cochlear-implanted children (CI) were compared to a French database of normally hearing children aged 2-4 compiled by the first author. Follow-up results indicate that, at the two-year post-implantation follow-up, noun, and verb morphology was significantly impaired. At the three-year follow-up, the cochlear-implanted group had recovered on adjectives, determiners and nouns, main verbs, and auxiliaries. The two groups differed significantly in processing locative adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs (infinitive verb, modal, and modal lexical), but individual variability within the cochlear-implanted group was substantial. Results are discussed in terms of recovery and developmental trends and variability in the acquisition of lexical categories by French children two years and three years post-implantation.
Abstract: Free speech recording samples of two groups of French SLI children aged 48 and 62 months (matched for MLU, 1.70) and two groups of French normally developing children aged 26 and 36 month (matched for MLU, 3.2) were compared to determine whether they showed a difference in the use of lexical categories. A category-by-category comparison showed few significant differences. For low MLU children, SLI produced significantly fewer infinitives, past participles, copulas, and demonstrative pronouns. For high MLU children, the difference persisted only in past participles use. As for English SLI children, French SLI children were delayed in their acquisition of verbs. However, the differences in the syntactic structure of English and French ruled out a syntactic explanation of the deficit. Phonetic problems seem to decrease with age, so they cannot be the only explanation behind the difficulties of SLI children, which probably involve cognitive problems such as processing limitations.
Abstract: The capacity to incorporate significant words into the existing vocabulary and to use these words to form sentences with more mature syntactic structures emerges over a considerable time course in young deaf children who have undergone a cochlear implantation. The purpose of this follow-up study is to document the nature and time span of language production--in morphosyntactic and lexical skills--when a child's first experience with language sounds is provided artificially through electrical stimulation. To examine the development of these two aspects of linguistic processing, five deaf French children, all enrolled in similar postimplantation educational settings, were individually assessed at 6-month intervals over a period of 18 months. Computerized analyses were derived from their spontaneous speech in a 20-min standardized play session. Results for mean length of utterance and vocabulary revealed gradually improving performance for most children, in spite of the generally low starting point. Both measures of production nevertheless remained well below the norms established for normally hearing children. Although the achievement of higher production scores, which underlies more effective interpersonal exchanges, is evident after only 1 year of device use, it is clear that improvement does not always occur at the same pace, as shown by two of the children. This emphasizes the importance of longitudinal studies in documenting intersubject variability and intrasubject stability throughout the experience with an implant.
Abstract: In the study of language acquisition following early brain damage, results have been divergent. On one hand, some studies claim that language eventually resumes to normal, whereas, on the other hand, studies show lasting deficits throughout development. Discrepancies in the results could arise from different etiologies and tests used. This study attempts to determine the extent to which the development of verb production is affected in later development in children who had simple partial epilepsy (SPE). Measures of diversity and fluency of three verb types, namely main verbs, auxiliary and copula verbs, and nonfinite verbs were used on three children diagnosed as SPE and compared to control groups. Our main results show a limited production of auxiliary verbs. Further analysis of their productions suggest a telegraphic style of speech, as reflected by a superior production of nonfinite verb type compared with normal children. These findings are interpreted as reflecting long-lasting consequences of early brain damage with respect to language development.
Abstract: Early morphosyntax is very rich and uniform in young French-speaking children. The present study aims to give a thorough analysis of the morphosyntax produced at the outset of multi-word speech, with a classification of free language produced at 2;0 by 27 French-speaking children. The corpus was fully tagged by an automatic part-of-speech tagger. A classification performed with words taken in isolation shows a clear difference between the categories used in single-word utterances and those used in multi-word utterances. A classification performed with word sequences reveals surprisingly adult-like sequences of syntactic categories and words; the non-adult combinations are few in a French child's language. The very successful use of the tagger demonstrates the morphosyntactic coherence of the child's speech. When compared with adult language, the quantitative results, and more precisely the data concerning regularity and error types, contribute to the documentation of all the specificities of the emerging morphosyntax in normally developing French children.
Abstract: The use of computer tools has led to major advances in the study of spoken language corpora. One area that has shown particular progress is the study of child language development. Although it is now easy to lexically tag every word in a spoken language corpus, one still has to choose between numerous ambiguous forms, especially with languages such as French or English, where more than 70% of words are ambiguous. Computational linguistics can now provide a fully automatic disambiguation of lexical tags. The tool presented here (POST) can tag and disambiguate a large text in a few seconds. This tool complements systems dealing with language transcription and suggests further theoretical developments in the assessment of the status of morphosyntax in spoken language corpora. The program currently works for French and English, but it can be easily adapted for use with other languages. The analysis and computation of a corpus produced by normal French children 2-4 years of age, as well as of a sample corpus produced by French SLI children, are given as examples.
Abstract: A longitudinal study of a child (MV) with developmental verbal dyspraxia was conducted to determine to what extent language development and motor performance in this clinical diagnosis followed a similar course of maturation. Patient MV was observed for two years from the age of 5 years and 6 months. Initially, this young patient exhibited unintelligible and atypical speech production (multiword utterances without consonants), delay in balance and coordination, and impairments in rhythmic tasks; but she was otherwise developing normally with no intellectual impairment or behavioral disorder. MRI scans showed moderately enlarged ventricles, a thin, incompletely myelinated corpus callosum and intact basal ganglia. Two years later, MV's performance was nearly normal only in comprehension aspects of language. In contrast, production aspects of language and speech and neuromotor development showed very little improvement after two years. These observations first suggest that development of receptive and expressive domains within language may be asynchronous, and that the progression of motor control of language appears to follow a parallel course to neuromotor development.
Abstract: A longitudinal study was conducted to document and compare evolution of children with linguistic acquisition impairment. To determine whether development of the analytic mechanisms underlying linguistic processing occured in similar fashion, two children with mixed developmental dysphasia were assessed from 4 to 5:6 years of age with psycholinguistic tests at 6-months interval. Spontaneous speech and language production (consonant repertory in initial word position, MLU, and lexical diversity) were investigated in a standardized symbolic play context. The phonologic and lexico-morphologic evolution analyses revealed a marked improvement in motor control of phonology and in the application of morphosyntaxic rules in child 1, whereas child 2 was still impaired in phonology and morphosyntax. The singular developmental changes in spontaneous speech results indicate dynamic relationships between various language production facets and variability in the kind of deficit and lexical automation presented by these children. These contrasts in the evolution of language production profiles between child 1 and child 2 also underline the importance of longitudinal studies in the analysis of the atypical linguistic processing paths used by children with developmental dysphasia.
Abstract: A longitudinal study of a left hemispherectomized boy (AB) was conducted to document linguistic evolution and maturation and determine the extent to which right hemisphere processes allow development of language. Resection of the left hemisphere occurred at age 5 years 6 months, following intractable epilepsy. Tests of language comprehension (pointing, understanding of prepositions, understanding of narratives) and production (naming, repetition, lexical diversity, grammatical production) were administered at ages 6:2, 6:4, 6:6, and 6 years 9 months. Observations showed little progress, if any, in most aspects of linguistic performance. In contrast to studies with left-hemispherectomized children, AB showed only a modest expansion of the semantic lexicon and the phonological repertoire more than a year after the surgical intervention. These observations indirectly suggest (1) poor functional involvement of the right hemisphere in the development of adequate linguistic abilities, (2) the necessary integrity of the LH for adequate development of language, or (3) that variations in individual brain maturation rates may account for AB's linguistic progress.
Abstract: A longitudinal linguistic analysis of a 6-year-old boy (GA) with an acquired epileptic aphasia ("Landau-Kleffner Syndrome"; LKS) was conducted to determine in what ways language breakdown and recovery occur. Language comprehension and production at the syllabic, phonemic, lexical, and morphosyntactic levels were assessed shortly before, during the acute phase of the illness, and at recovery, which was very rapid. Results show that in the acute phase, GA presented not only an auditory agnosia for speech and nonspeech sounds but also provided strong evidence that in production, prosody and speech processing were impaired. (C) 1999 Academic Press.
Abstract: A linguistic analysis in low-risk preterm (PT) children was conducted to determine whether the acquisition of complex aspects of the lexicon, such as verbs, was influenced by their premature birth status and whether sociocultural factors played a modulating role in this aspect of cognitive development. Fifty-one PT children, distributed in three birthweight groups - extremely low (780-1200 g), very low (1201-1500 g) and low (1501-2210 g)-were evaluated at 42 months and 60 months of age to assess their production of main, auxiliary and non-finite verb types and tokens relative to that of two control groups of fullterm children matched for age and socioeconomic level. The children's verb lexicon was collected during a 20-min controlled play context, Analyses of transcript data revealed first that the effect of sociocultural variables was independent of birth status or age. Further analyses revealed significant differences, indicating a marked increase in both verb type and token usage in the control children, whereas verb production in the three groups of PT children remained generally poorer. The data suggest that impaired language development is a cognitive consequence of prematurity independently of birthweight. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract: The nature of cerebral involvement in the acquisition of language was addressed in this longitudinal study of children with an early diagnosis of epilepsy with simple-partial seizures (SPE) and with epileptogenic foci localized in the left frontal (LF) lobe. Yearly evaluations of six SPE-LF children on tests of linguistic comprehension (pointing, understanding of narrative, and understanding of prepositions) and production (repetition, lexical diversity, and grammatical production) were carried out between the ages of 3 and 8 years and compared to those of large samples of control children on the same tasks and at each age level. Linguistic production of all children were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using the Child Language Data Exchange System (MacWhinney & Snow, 1991). Individual evolution trajectories revealed that SPE-LF children showed a clear dissociation in linguistic performance between comprehension and production. Linguistic comprehension gradually improved to reach normal performance levels by age 7 while linguistic production, even at later stages, remained quite poor. This dissociation in the development of linguistic performance in SPE-LF children suggests a complex interplay between brain maturation dynamics and dysfunction modulating the succession of stages in language development. The observed persistent deficits in specific aspects of linguistic performance argue for an early involvement of the anterior areas of the left cerebral hemisphere in the production of language.
Abstract: The study examines the use of singular personal pronouns in a group of 10 children with specific linguistic impairment (SLI), compared with a group of ten MLU-matched normally developing children. The testing situation consisted of a free play session interacting with a familiar adult. The major findings, based on obligatory and context-free analysis, reveal that: (a) children with SLI produce significantly fewer pronouns and in particular fewer third person singular pronouns (e.g. 'il', he; 'elle', she) in both deictic and anaphoric function than normally developing children; (b) they produce more incorrect forms of the third person (the contracted pronoun 'i' instead of 'il') in anaphoric function; and (c) they exhibit a similar pattern of performance concerning (i) subject case first and second person, and (ii) memorized-lexical forms involving pronouns. These findings provide better support for the surface hypothesis rather than the missing feature hypothesis, and emphasize the developmental complexity of the third person pronoun.
Abstract: A cohort of 37 pre-term children was assessed for both morphosyntactical and for vocabulary skills at the age of 2 and again at the age of 3 years and 6 months. They were compared with two comparison groups of full-term children (adjusted age and chronological age). The results indicated (1) a clear asynchrony between the two components of language production assessed at both ages, (2) an accurate prediction of language delay at age 2 for pre-term children (35% of pre-term children were detected for morphosyntax as measured by Mean Length of Utterance and 27% of pre-term children were detected for vocabulary as measured by the number of different words) and, (3) no evidence on the relationship of language and motor development as measured by formal tests. Such findings strongly challenge the validity of standardized developmental tests and support to a certain extent the hypothesis that language development is independent of motor skills. A neurodevelopmental assessment is suggested.
Abstract: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) often show limitations in grammatical morphology that exceed their problems in other areas of language. One factor contributing to this difficulty might be the relatively brief durations of many grammatical morphemes. In the present study, this factor was explored by examining the use of articles by a group of French-speaking children with SLI. French differs from other languages studied to date in that the differences in duration between stressed syllables and unstressed syllables, such as articles, are much smaller. The data revealed that French-speaking children with SLI used articles with relatively high percentages equivalent to those seen for a group of normally developing French-speaking children matched according to mean length of utterance. In addition, the percentages seen for the French-speaking children with SLI were substantially higher than those observed for children with SLI who were acquiring Italian and English.
Abstract: t is well known that the acquisition of consonants can be a more difficult developmental process than of vowels. In this study the authors describe a case of 'transitory developmental apraxia of speech' (TDAS) in which a French-speaking child, although he acquired the whole vowel system, showed a significant delay in consonant acquisition and usage. The results of systematic observations and assessments of general cognitive and specific language functioning cover a period of 4 years (age 3:8 to 7:11), from first clinical assessment to evidence of a good academic achievement. It is argued that this case demonstrates an unusual example of TDAS. The language deficits observed could not be attributed to oromotor, neurological, cognitive or intellectual deficits. The findings here also raise crucial questions concerning the origins of such a speech disorder and why it is transient in nature.
Notes: 1. Thordardottir ET, Namazi M
Specific language impairment in French-speaking children: Beyond grammatical morphologyÂ
JOURNAL OF SPEECH LANGUAGE AND HEARING RESEARCH 50 (3): 698-715 JUN 2007
Times Cited: 0
2. Hamann C, Ohayon S, Dube S, et al.
Aspects of grammatical development in young French children with SLIÂ
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 6 (2): 151-158 APR 2003
Times Cited: 4
3. Parisse C, Le Normand MT
Production of lexical categories in french children with SLI and in normally developing children matched for MLUÂ
BRAIN AND COGNITION 48 (2-3): 490-494 MAR-APR 2002
Times Cited: 0
4. Restrepo MA, Gutierrez-Clellen VF
Article use in Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairmentÂ
JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 28 (2): 433-452 JUN 2001
Times Cited: 9
5. Rose Y, Royle P
Uninflected structure in familial language impairment: Evidence from FrenchÂ
FOLIA PHONIATRICA ET LOGOPAEDICA 51 (1-2): 70-90 JAN-APR 1999
Times Cited: 7
6. McNamara M, Carter A, McIntosh B, et al.
Sensitivity to grammatical morphemes in children with specific language impairmentÂ
JOURNAL OF SPEECH LANGUAGE AND HEARING RESEARCH 41 (5): 1147-1157 OCT 1998
Times Cited: 7
7. Gerken L, McGregor K
An overview of prosody and its role in normal and disordered child languageÂ
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 7 (2): 38-48 MAY 1998
Times Cited: 11
8. Le Normand MT
Language development and pathologies: a neurolinguistic approachÂ
A N A E-APPROCHE NEUROPSYCHOLOGIQUE DES APPRENTISSAGES CHEZ L ENFANT 9 (3): 116-118 SEP 1997
Times Cited: 0
Abstract: The production of word classes in eight 53-62-month-old specific language-impaired (SLI) children was described and compared with that of 30 normal 24-33-month-old children in the same play situation. SLI subjects and nonimpaired children were selected within specified mean length of utterance ranges (low MLU versus high MLU). Production of word classes by subjects was evaluated in order to determine (1) whether SLI children showed a similar or a different word-class profile among themselves and when compared with non-impaired children and (2) whether MLU related to word classes would be useful as a single clinical index in assessment of language acquisition. Results showed that scores of SLI children in production of word classes reflect important individual differences among subjects. In the high-MLU sample, all SLI children produced each word class relatively within the same range as the nonimpaired group. In the low-MLU sample two SLI children were very different in their word-class profile and individual differences were further confirmed by a discriminant function analysis. Correlations between MLU and word classes were significant in nonimpaired children for all variables except Questions and Onomatopoeia and were only significant in SLI children for Verbs, Prepositions, and Personal Pronouns. Such findings contribute support to the view that there is "deviant" pattern of language in SLI children and once again questions whether MLU is one of the best discriminating indicators to use in the clinical assessment of language organization.
Abstract: Many allegations have been made in sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic literature about tests used with bilingual children. When testing such children, it is important to gain an appreciation of cultural factors which may affect the assessment. In the present study information about Home Language Behaviour was obtained for 2487 preschool children. From this sample, 497 were examined: Home Language Behaviour was (1) unilingual French, (2) equally French and Alsacian or (3) mostly or uniquely Alsacian. The data obtained demonstrated that bilingual Alsacian children did not perform as well as French unilinguals in routine verbal tests. Significant differences persisted even when other relevant factors, such as educational level of the parents, had been taken into account. Such a disadvantage was not prevented by giving the children the opportunity to use their dialect and to switch from one
Abstract: Observation of play can provide crucial information about a child's developmental level of language. To make this information available categorization and measurement are necessary. By defining, from a cognitive and pragmatic point of view, separate but parallel measures of play and language it was possible to define four different levels of symbolic functioning: representational play; conceptual play; programmatic play; and script play. Careful longitudinal descriptions of language used to accompany symbolic play of ten 2-4-year-old children are presented. Interesting developmental trends in play and cognitive and pragmatic organization of language were found. Gradually language production was considered as the primary mode for symbolic expression between the ages of 2;6 (2 years; 6 months) and 3 years. Language production increased dramatically between the ages of 3 and 3;6, and became better differentiated from the play context. The scientific study of child language using an analytic tool, such as a play procedure, to describe and analyse spontaneous production of spoken language, with a cognitive and pragmatic framework contributes not only a more accurate understanding of normal play and language development, but may also have an efficient clinical value. Suggestions for and implications of exploring components of language used in a standardized play situation are discussed in reference to developmentally disabled children.
