SLPA5205: Prelinguistic & Emerging Language Development, Assessment, and Intervention

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering early prelinguistic milestones, emerging language stages, standardized vs criterion-referenced assessment procedures, and intervention frameworks including ILS, RE/PMT, and parent-child interaction.

What are the three primary purposes of assessment in speech-language pathology?

1. Establishing baseline function (profiling strengths and weaknesses across all language domains and modalities).
2. Establishing goals for intervention (referencing the typical developmental sequence, client/family priorities, and ICF factors).
3. Measuring change in intervention (evaluating treatment efficacy, goal attainment, and discharge readiness).

According to Bloom and Lahey's (1988) taxonomy, what three major dimensions comprise language?

1. Form: Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax.
2. Content: Semantics (vocabulary, concepts, lexical ambiguity, multiple meanings).
3. Use: Pragmatics (communicative functions, discourse, narratives).

Which four collateral areas must be evaluated during a pediatric language assessment?

1. Hearing
2. Non-verbal cognition
3. Oral-motor skills
4. Social-emotional functioning (with a referral to Psychology if emotional or behavioral adjustment concerns arise)

In a norm-referenced assessment, what are the standard score mean, standard deviation, and typical average range?

The standard score mean is $100$, the standard deviation ($\text{SD}$) is $15$ points, and the average performance range ($68\%$ of the population) falls within $\pm 1\,\text{SD}$, which is between $85$ and $115$.

What does a Percentile Rank (PR) of $45\%$ indicate about a child's performance?

It indicates that the child scored as well as or better than $45\%$ of children in the normative sample of the same age or grade level, meaning less than $45\%$ scored lower.

Why should clinicians exercise caution when interpreting age-equivalent (AE) scores?

Age-equivalent scores do not represent equal developmental intervals. A $1\text{-year}$ deficit at age $2$ represents a much more severe clinical impairment than a $1\text{-year}$ deficit at age $8$.

What is the primary difference between a norm-referenced test and a criterion-referenced test?

A norm-referenced test compares and ranks a child's performance against a normative sample of peers. A criterion-referenced test measures a child's performance against predetermined criteria or developmental standards without comparing them to other test-takers.

What developmental milestones dictate appropriate response modes for criterion-referenced tasks in infants and toddlers?

• By $12\text{ months}$: Touching, picking up, moving, and pointing to objects. • By $20\text{ months}$: Object manipulation tasks (e.g., 'Give me the…' or 'Find the…'). • By $24\text{ months}$ and older: Responding reliably to questions and picture-pointing tasks (e.g., 'Point to the…' or 'Show me the…').

What is the clinical rule of thumb for determining mastery in criterion-referenced testing?

Administer $4$ items for each target form or linguistic structure, requiring the child to get at least $3\text{ out of }4$ correct ($75\%$ accuracy).

In assessing receptive syntax via an act-out task, how are probable and improbable events used to differentiate developmental level?

Improbable events (e.g., 'the car pushes the cup') require true syntactic parsing and are appropriate for children aged $3\text{--}4\text{ years}$. Probable events (e.g., 'the bear pushes the cup') can be solved using real-world knowledge/context and are appropriate for children aged $2\text{--}3\text{ years}$.

At what vocabulary threshold should clinicians begin assessing and targeting expressive syntax (word combinations)?

When the child's productive vocabulary reaches at least $50\text{ words}$. If vocabulary is below $50\text{ words}$, intervention should focus primarily on increasing expressive vocabulary size rather than syntax.

What are the recommended parameters for collecting a representative language sample from a preschooler?

A sample of approximately $20\text{ minutes}$ containing $50\text{--}100$ utterances, combining free play, short narrative/conversational samples, or picture/scene descriptions, audio- or video-recorded for off-line transcription.

What acoustic differences distinguish Infant-Directed Speech (IDS) from Adult-Directed Speech (ADS)?

Infant-Directed Speech (IDS) features a significantly higher overall fundamental frequency ($\text{pitch}$), exaggerated pitch contours (wider frequency modulations with sharp peaks), and a slower tempo compared to the flatter, lower-frequency contours of Adult-Directed Speech (ADS).

What are the key syntactic and discourse features of Infant-Directed Speech (IDS)?

• Syntactic: Shorter Mean Length of Utterance ($\text{MLU}$), fewer subordinate clauses, and a higher ratio of content words to function words. • Discourse: High levels of repetition and a greater frequency of questions.

What are the three major phases of joint reference and attention according to Adamson and Chance (1998)?

1. Phase 1: Attendance to social partners ($\text{Birth to } 6\text{ months}$)
2. Phase 2: Emergence and coordination of joint attention ($6\text{ to } 12\text{ months}$)
3. Phase 3: Transition to language ($12\text{ months and beyond}$)

How do imperative pointing and declarative pointing differ developmentally?

Imperative pointing emerges earlier (around $10\text{ months}$) as a request to obtain a desired object or action. Declarative pointing emerges later and functions as a proto-declarative to direct an adult's attention to an object or event to comment or establish joint attention.

What are the expected rates of intentional communication per minute at $12$, $18$, and $24\text{ months}$ of age?

• $12\text{ months}$: $1\text{ communicative act per minute}$ • $18\text{ months}$: $2\text{ communicative acts per minute}$ • $24\text{ months}$: $5\text{ communicative acts per minute}$ (increasing up to $5\text{--}7\text{ acts per minute}$)

What four criteria must an action meet to be classified as a communicative gesture according to Crais & Ogletree (2016)?

1. Accompanied by eye contact or vocalization/verbalization directed toward another person.
2. Repeated if unacknowledged.
3. Used with a body posture oriented toward the communicative partner.
4. Embedded within a social exchange (e.g., dyadic play or shared book reading).

How do contact deictic gestures differ from distal deictic gestures in typical development?

Contact gestures involve physical touch with the object or person (e.g., pushing a hand away, pulling a hand to an object) and emerge between $7\text{--}9\text{ months}$. Distal gestures do not require contact (e.g., pointing, waving bye-bye) and appear later, between $10\text{--}12\text{ months}$.

What long-term language outcome does the frequency of gesture + speech combinations at $18\text{ months}$ predict?

The number of gesture plus speech combinations produced at $18\text{ months}$ strongly predicts sentence complexity at $42\text{ months}$ of age.

What are the five stages of early vocal development in the Stark Assessment of Early Vocal Development-Revised (Nathani et al., 2009)?

1. Reflexive ($0\text{--}2\text{ months}$): Crying, fussing, vegetative sounds.
2. Control of phonation ($1\text{--}4\text{ months}$): Cooing, vowel-like sounds, consonant-like segments, raspberries.
3. Expansion ($3\text{--}8\text{ months}$): Isolated adult-like vowels, two or more vowels in a row.
4. Basic canonical syllables ($5\text{--}10\text{ months}$): Canonical babbling ($\text{CV}$ sequences, reduplicated [ba ba ba], and variegated [goo ga]).
5. Advanced forms ($9\text{--}18\text{ months}$): Complex syllables ($\text{VC}$, $\text{VCV}$), diphthongs, jargon with adult-like stress and intonation.

What are the three mandatory criteria that distinguish a true first word from babbling?

1. Produced spontaneously with a clear purpose/communicative intent.
2. Has a recognizable pronunciation phonetically approximating the adult word form.
3. Used consistently and generalized/extended beyond the original context.

What does this normative data comparison reveal about vocabulary size trajectories in Beijing vs. Hong Kong toddlers?

Toddlers from Beijing assessed on the CCDI-Putonghua demonstrate a steeper, earlier productive vocabulary trajectory (reaching around $700\text{ words}$ by $2;6$) compared to toddlers from Hong Kong assessed on the CCDI-Cantonese (reaching approximately $500\text{ words}$ by $2;6$).

What are the three categories of lexical overextension identified by Rescorla (1981)?

1. Categorical: Extending a word to all entities within the same semantic category (e.g., calling all four-legged animals 'dog').
2. Analogical: Extending a word to perceptually similar items (e.g., calling a round moon or orange 'ball').
3. Relational: Extending a word to thematically related objects/contexts (e.g., calling flower pots or a garden 'flower').

What are the five broad stages of language development according to Roger Brown (1973)?

1. Pre-linguistic ($0\text{--}18\text{ months}$)
2. Emerging language ($18\text{--}36\text{ months}$)
3. Developing language ($3\text{--}5\text{ years}$)
4. Language for learning ($> 5\text{ years}$, primary school years)
5. Advanced language period ($> 12\text{ years}$, adolescence)

What grammatical morphemes are acquired in Brown's Stage II ($27\text{--}30\text{ months}$, $\text{MLU } 2.0\text{--}2.5$)?

• Present progressive (\text{-ing} verbs, e.g., 'jumping off') • Preposition 'in' (e.g., 'in cup') • Preposition 'on' (e.g., 'put on') • Regular plural \text{-s} (e.g., 'my toys')

What are the three strategy clusters taught in the Hanen Parent-Child Interaction (PCI) approach?

1. Child-centered strategies: Follow the child's lead, join in, keep play fun.
2. Interaction-promoting strategies: Get face-to-face, OWL (Observe, Wait, Listen), take the focus off demanding speech (don't say 'say').
3. Language-promoting strategies: Praise communicative efforts, be responsive, create communication temptations/opportunities, provide appropriate language models.

How do self-talk and parallel talk differ in Indirect Language Stimulation (ILS)?

• Self-talk: The adult describes what they themselves are doing, seeing, hearing, or feeling (e.g., 'I am giving teddy a drink'). • Parallel talk: The adult describes what the child is currently doing, seeing, hearing, or feeling (e.g., 'You are cutting the cake').

What is the critical distinction between Expansion and Extension in ILS?

• Expansion: Focuses on grammatical structure by taking what the child says and slightly lengthening it ($1\text{--}2\text{ words}$) to make it grammatically complete without changing the child's intended meaning (e.g., Child: 'Duckie!' -> Adult: 'The duckie is swimming!'). • Extension: Focuses on semantic content by adding/elaborating new information such as time, place, attributes, or causal relationships (e.g., Child: 'Duckie!' -> Adult: 'Yellow duckie! Bye bye duckie!').

What is a recast sentence, and what dosage is necessary for it to be clinically effective?

A recast sentence is a responsive technique similar to an expansion where the adult rephrases the child's utterance into a new grammatical structure (such as an elaborated sentence, negative statement, or question) while preserving the core meaning. It must be delivered at a high dose/frequency to facilitate grammatical acquisition in children with language disorders.

What are the age ranges, item lengths, and administration times of the two forms of the Chinese Communicative Development Inventory (CCDI; Tardif et al., 2008)?

• Words & Gestures (Infant Form, $8\text{--}16\text{ months}$): Long version has $388\text{ items}$ ($20\text{--}60\text{ min}$); Short version has $95\text{ items}$ ($10\text{--}15\text{ min}$). • Words & Sentences (Toddler Form, $16\text{--}30\text{ months}$): Long version has $800\text{ items}$ ($20\text{--}60\text{ min}$); Short version has $133\text{ items}$ ($10\text{--}15\text{ min}$).

What language-specific feature must clinicians consider when interpreting vocabulary data from the CCDI for Cantonese-speaking children?

Cantonese-speaking toddlers typically produce a significantly higher proportion of verbs early on compared to English-speaking toddlers. Clinicians familiar with English norms must avoid over-interpreting lower noun-to-verb proportions as atypical.

What are the six developmental domains measured by the Rossetti Infant-Toddler Language Scale (Louis Rossetti, 2006)?

1. Interaction-Attachment
2. Pragmatics
3. Gesture
4. Play
5. Language Comprehension
6. Language Expression

How are the basal and ceiling established when administering the Rossetti Infant-Toddler Language Scale?

• Starting level: Begin $6\text{ months}$ below the child's chronological age or suspected developmental level. • Basal: If any items are failed, move backward developmentally until an age interval is reached where all items are passed. • Ceiling: Once the basal is set, proceed forward until the child fails all items within a specific developmental age interval.

What are the three response elicitation codes utilized in scoring the Rossetti Scale?

• O (Direct Observation): Behavior observed spontaneously during play. • E (Elicitation): Behavior elicited directly by the clinician using a specific prompt/task. • R (Caregiver Report): Behavior reported by the caregiver as occurring consistently at home.

What are the six stages of social play across early childhood?

1. Unoccupied play ($0\text{--}3\text{ months}$): Random body movements without clear purpose.
2. Solitary play ($0\text{--}2.5\text{ years}$): Plays alone with no interaction or sharing.
3. Onlooker play ($2\text{ years}$): Watches peers play within speaking distance without joining.
4. Parallel play ($2+\text{ years}$): Plays alongside peers with similar toys, without active collaboration.
5. Associative play ($3\text{--}4\text{ years}$): Shares toys and space without shared organizational goals.
6. Social cooperative play ($4+\text{ years}$): Co-constructs structured, goal-directed play themes together.

What behaviors characterize Presymbolic Levels I and II of the Westby Developmental Play Scale?

• Presymbolic Level I ($8\text{--}12\text{ months}$): Finds toy hidden under a cloth; attains toy via pulling cloth/string; explores movable parts; uses varied sensorimotor schemas (patting, banging, throwing); joint attention on toy and person; no true language (request/command intents). • Presymbolic Level II ($13\text{--}17\text{ months}$): Finds objects hidden in successive locations; understands 'in-ness' (dumps objects out); points with index finger; operates toys via trial and error; constructs toy relationships (nesting boxes, putting figure in car); uses context-dependent single words.

What candidate profile qualifies a child for Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching (PMT)?

Based on a $20\text{-minute}$ play sample, a child who produces:

1. Less than $5$ referential words on the CDI
2. Less than $15$ canonical syllable communication acts
3. Less than $15$ prelinguistic comments
4. Less than $15$ prelinguistic requests
5. Chronological age between $12\text{--}54\text{ months}$ with a developmental age between $9\text{--}16\text{ months}$.

What theoretical model underlies Responsivity Education/Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching (RE/PMT)?

The Transactional Model of Social Communication Development (McLean & Snyder-McLean, 1978; Sameroff & Chandler, 1975). It posits that bidirectional, reciprocal interactions between the infant and caregiver drive development: infant communication prompts responsive caregiver input (linguistic mapping), which in turn alters the child's communication environment and advances language learning.

What clinical pathway is dictated by the Paul, Norbury, & Gosse (PNG, 2017) decision tree when a child lacks nonverbal intentional communication despite having functional play?

If the child possesses functional/symbolic play but lacks nonverbal intentional communication skills, the clinician should increase communication frequency and range using modeling, communication temptations, and Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching (PMT).