Dataset Information

Sentences Are Key: Helping School-Age Children and Adolescents Build Sentence Skills Needed for Real Language.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

In this article, we present key concepts pointing to the importance of targeting complex sentences for school-age children and adolescents with developmental language disorders (DLD). Drawing on current treatment research, we argue that the sentence is a crucial but often neglected piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding relationships between DLD and academic outcomes. We provide detailed suggestions for how clinicians can focus on complex sentence structures in natural academic contexts to bridge this gap.

Method

Background information on sentence complexity is presented, along with a rationale for targeting complex sentences with school-age children and adolescents with DLD. Intervention methods from a variety of studies targeting multiclausal sentences are discussed in relation to current accounts of language learning and language processing models. We provide a robust catalog of suggested strategies for targeting sentence complexity in a manner that is aligned with research findings to date and integrated into real academic contexts.

Conclusions

Complex sentence structures are a key challenge for students with DLD as they tackle discipline-specific language and academic tasks. Sentence complexity treatment programs employ one or more treatment methods including priming, modeling, recasting, contextualization, metalinguistic instruction, and sentence combining. While studies have consistently shown a measurable improvement in complex sentence production on proximal outcomes regardless of treatment approach, evidence of durable, functional changes for students with DLD remains sparse. We encourage new treatments that target comprehension and production of complex sentences in real-life academic contexts in clinical practice and research.

Supplemental material

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23969103.

SUBMITTER: Balthazar CH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11001191 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Sentences Are Key: Helping School-Age Children and Adolescents Build Sentence Skills Needed for Real Language.

Balthazar Catherine H CH Scott Cheryl M CM

American journal of speech-language pathology 20230829 2

<h4>Purpose</h4>In this article, we present key concepts pointing to the importance of targeting complex sentences for school-age children and adolescents with developmental language disorders (DLD). Drawing on current treatment research, we argue that the sentence is a crucial but often neglected piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding relationships between DLD and academic outcomes. We provide detailed suggestions for how clinicians can focus on complex sentence structures in natura ...[more]

PMID: 37643470

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Project description:BackgroundStrong associations between infant vocabulary and school-age language and literacy skills would have important practical and theoretical implications: Preschool assessment of vocabulary skills could be used to identify children at risk of reading and language difficulties, and vocabulary could be viewed as a cognitive foundation for reading. However, evidence to date suggests predictive ability from infant vocabulary to later language and literacy is low. This study provides an investigation into, and interpretation of, the magnitude of such infant to school-age relationships.MethodsThree hundred British infants whose vocabularies were assessed by parent report in the 2nd year of life (between 16 and 24 months) were followed up on average 5 years later (ages ranged from 4 to 9 years), when their vocabulary, phonological and reading skills were measured.ResultsStructural equation modelling of age-regressed scores was used to assess the strength of longitudinal relationships. Infant vocabulary (a latent factor of receptive and expressive vocabulary) was a statistically significant predictor of later vocabulary, phonological awareness, reading accuracy and reading comprehension (accounting for between 4% and 18% of variance). Family risk for language or literacy difficulties explained additional variance in reading (approximately 10%) but not language outcomes.ConclusionsSignificant longitudinal relationships between preliteracy vocabulary knowledge and subsequent reading support the theory that vocabulary is a cognitive foundation of both reading accuracy and reading comprehension. Importantly however, the stability of vocabulary skills from infancy to later childhood is too low to be sufficiently predictive of language outcomes at an individual level - a finding that fits well with the observation that the majority of 'late talkers' resolve their early language difficulties. For reading outcomes, prediction of future difficulties is likely to be improved when considering family history of language/literacy difficulties alongside infant vocabulary levels.

Project description:PurposeThis article reviews research on executive function (EF) skills in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the relation between EF and language abilities. The current study assessed EF using nonverbal tasks of inhibition, shifting, and updating of working memory (WM) in school-age children with ASD. It also evaluated the association between children's receptive and expressive language abilities and EF performance.MethodIn this study, we sought to address variables that have contributed to inconsistencies in this area of research-including task issues, group comparisons, and participant heterogeneity. EF abilities in children with ASD (n = 48) were compared to typically developing controls (n = 71) matched on age, as well as when statistically controlling for group differences in nonverbal cognition, socioeconomic status, and social communication abilities. Six nonverbal EF tasks were administered-2 each to evaluate inhibition, shifting, and WM. Language abilities were assessed via a standardized language measure. Language-EF associations were examined for the ASD group as a whole and subdivided by language status.ResultsChildren with ASD exhibited significant deficits in all components of EF compared to age-mates and showed particular difficulty with shifting after accounting for group differences in nonverbal cognition. Controlling for social communication-a core deficit in ASD-eliminated group differences in EF performance. A modest association was observed between language (especially comprehension) and EF skills, with some evidence of different patterns between children on the autism spectrum with and without language impairment.ConclusionsThere is a need for future research to examine the direction of influence between EF and language. It would be beneficial for EF interventions with children with ASD to consider language outcomes and, conversely, to examine whether specific language training facilitates aspects of executive control in children on the autism spectrum.Presentation videohttps://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7298144.

Dataset Information

Sentences Are Key: Helping School-Age Children and Adolescents Build Sentence Skills Needed for Real Language.

Purpose

Method

Conclusions

Supplemental material

Publications

Sentences Are Key: Helping School-Age Children and Adolescents Build Sentence Skills Needed for Real Language.

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