Child language disorders exam two

Who is at risk for communication disorders?

Prenatal factors: alcohol/drug exposure, environmental toxins, and utero infections

Prematurity and low birth weight

Genetic and congenital disorders

What early elementary language outcomes are associated with premature births and low birthweight?

Lower performance for receptive language, expressive language, PA, pragmatics, and syntax

What are protective factors for early communication development?

A responsive environment

High-quality maternal care

Familial supports

A robust home language environment

What is corrected gestational age?

Used for children with a history of premature birth to determine expectations for development

Use during first year of life

Subtract number of weeks premature from chronological age

What is an IFSP?

Captures child and family from birth to three (like an IEP)

ISFP Required Components

Present level of development

Statement of familial resources/priorities

Statement of expected outcomes

Statement of necessary EI services

Lost if other services the child needs

Dates for initiation of services

A named service coordinator

A plan for transition to preschool

What are the key areas for assessment of prelinguistic infants?

Feeding/oral-motor

Vocal development

Child behavior and development

Parent-child communication

What are two important aspects of assessing infants?

Observation and caregiver interviewing

Why are well-validated checklists important for assessing infant development?

So we can see if they are meeting developmental expectations

General frameworks for supporting prelinguistic infants and their family

Acknowledge caregiver challenges

Understand caregiver-child interactions

Provide related education, including about responsive interactions

Model interactive behaviors such as turn-taking, imitation, joint attention, and anticipatory sets

How many words can 18-24 month-old toddlers understand out of longer sentences, using nonlinguistic information to give the impression of full comprehension?

2-3 words

What are the language predictors of risk for language delay and disorder?

Language production, language comprehension, phonology, imitation

What are non-language predictors for language delay and disorder?

Delays and play skills, limited use of gesture, reduced social skills

Other risk factors for late language emergence

Males>females

Otitis media

Family history

Other family/caregiver characteristics

What is Late language emergence (LLE)and what is it’s diagnostic criteria?

A delay in language onset with no other diagnosed disabilities or developmental delays in other cognitive or motor domains

Fewer than 50 words and no two-word combinations at 24 months, measured by caregiver report

What percentage of children with LLE go onto demonstrate age-typical language?

50 to 70%

Why and how should we assess play skills as part of toddler communication assessment?

Non-linguistic comparison for language abilities in order to gather information about cognitive development of toddlers

Done using standard sets of toys, engagement with a familiar adult, is naturalistic, and follows the child’s lead

Why should we assess gesture as a part of toddler communication assessment?

It is a aspect of symbolic behavior behavior that is strongly related to early language

Predicts language development in children with language disorders and typically developing language

What are the types of gesture?

Deictic: showing, giving pointing, happens occurs around 10 months

Symbolic: use of an object to show its function, occurs around 12 months

Representational: no object, form stands for referent, happens around 12 months

What is communicative intent?

Our children communicate before they talk, pre-verbal communication

Why do we assess communicative intent as a part of communication assessment for toddlers?

In order to assess forms range and frequency of communication

What is a language sample?

Taking pieces of overall language and systematically analyzing those pieces

Morpheme

Smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression

Free morpheme

Can be standalone words

Bound morphemes

Inflectional: modify without affecting part of speech (cups)

Derivational: modify part of speech (achievement)

Successful strategies for gathering a language sample

Narratives yield longer utterances from preschool Children so avoid yes no questions

How to calculate mean length of utterance (MLU)

Divide the total number of morphemes by the total utterances (sentences)

How to calculate Templim’s type-token ratio

Divide the number of different unique words by the total number of words in the sample

Communicative functions of utterances

Early intentions: request action, request object, protest, comment

Later intentions (18-24 months): request information, response to interrogative (answer), acknowledge, interrogative

Attribute/entity

Big shoe

Possessor/possession

Mommy nose

Agent/action

Daddy run

Action/object

Hit ball

Agent/object

Daddy ball

Demonstrative/entity

This ball

Entity/lovative

Daddy chair (daddy’s in the chair)

Action/lovative

Throw chair (throw it onto the chair)

Reference

More milk

Nonexistence, denial, rejection

No cookie

Disappearance

All gone cookie

Semantic relations

How words connect within sentences

What do you do if you gather a language sample and need more information to inform intervention?

Use elicited procedures to gather more evidence