Blog Archives
Bilingual Language Assessment: A Meta-Analysis of Diagnostic Accuracy
Conclusions: The available evidence does not support strong claims concerning the diagnostic accuracy of these measures, but a number appear promising. Several steps are suggested for strengthening future investigations of diagnostic accuracy.
Auditory Processing Theories of Language Disorders: Past, Present, and Future
Conclusion: Research on the role of auditory processing in communication disorders springs from a variety of theoretical perspectives and assumptions, and this variety, combined with controversies over the interpretation of research results, makes it difficult to draw clinical implications from the literature. Neurophysiological research methods are a promising route to better understanding of auditory processing. Progress in theory development and its clinical application is most likely to be made when researchers from different disciplines and theoretical perspectives communicate clearly and combine the strengths of their approaches.
Short-term and working memory impairments in aphasia
The aim of the present study is to investigate short-term memory and working memory deficits in aphasics in relation to the severity of their language impairment. Fifty-eight aphasic patients participated in this study. Based on language assessment, an aphasia score was calculated for each patient. Memory was assessed in two modalities, verbal and spatial. Mean scores for all memory tasks were lower than normal. Aphasia score was significantly correlated with performance on all memory tasks. Correlation coefficients for short-term memory and working memory were approximately of the same magnitude. According to our findings, severity of aphasia is related with both verbal and spatial memory deficits. Moreover, while aphasia score corrrelated with lower scores in both short-term memory and working memory tasks, the lack of substantial difference between corresponding correlation coefficients suggests a possible primary deficit in information retention rather than impairment in working memory.
from Neuropsychologia
Intervening factors in language therapy with autistic children
Recent studies state that the incidence of autism spectrum disorders is 1% of the infantile population. It implies the need of urgent identification of efficient intervention proposals as well as of the factors that may intervene in these processes. The aim of this study is to describe three years of language therapy processes of three children diagnosed within the autism spectrum with different developmental characteristics and different responses to the therapeutic process. All the children were attending a specialized ambulatory program once a week. The language therapists were post-graduate students in the field and the therapeutic intervention started approximately six months prior to the beginning of the study. The children presented evidence of the diversity of the autism phenotype. Although it was not the purpose of this study, the reference to the three different features of the autism spectrum is clear. This way, the intervention processes received subtle adjustments to each child’s specific needs and possibilities. All children had significant progress in their manifestations. The longitudinal individual analysis of therapeutic intervention processes allows the identification of associate process that might be determinant to the results and that demand consistent approaches.
The attribution of mental states in the speech of children with autistic spectrum disorders
The attribution of mental states increased after a period of speech-language intervention, however, with no significant difference; there was an increase in the verbal behavior of children with autism.
Linguistic difficulties in children and adolescents after acquired brain injury: A retrospective study
This study confirms that word retrieval is an area of deficit in many children with acquired brain injuries one year or more after the injury occurred. The study also indicates that children with TBI may have persistent deficits in comprehension of both vocabulary and grammar.<p><p>from the <a href=”Journal” _mce_href=”http://iospress.metapress.com/content/p01087313126v551/”><em>Journal”>http://iospress.metapress.com/content/p01087313126v551/”><em>Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine</em></a></p>
Oral language disorders and enuresis in children*
results indicated a relationship between enuresis and oral language disorders. Considering the interactions among language, body and psyche, it is suggested that speech therapists, when dealing with oral language disorders in children, also investigate the acquisition of their bladder sphincter control, in a bio-psychical approach.
Reliability of phonological transcriptions of speech samples produced by language-impared children
CONCLUSION: The reliability of phonological transcriptions of children with LI was low, and the picture-naming tasks of children who were able to produce discourse presented higher reliability.
Augmented Language Intervention and the Emergence of Symbol-Infused Joint Engagement
Conclusions: The effects of parent-coached augmented language interventions generalize to children’s engagement in child–parent interactions outside the intervention context in ways that may facilitate additional language acquisition.
Cross-Language Nonword Repetition by Bilingual and Monolingual Children
Identifying children with primary or specific language impairment (LI) in languages other than English continues to present a diagnostic challenge. This study examined the utility of English and Spanish nonword repetition (NWR) to identify children known to have LI.
Assessing communication in the autistic spectrum: interference of familiarity in language performance
CONCLUSION: The interference of the familiarity of the communicative situation in the communicative performance of autistic subjects is very small, and the evaluation procedure along the lines of the Familiar Situation was slightly better for the assessment of this population.
Within-Treatment Factors as Predictors of Outcomes Following Conversational Recasting
Conclusions: The nature of learning that takes place varies according to the relationship between child and clinician utterances during the recasting process. These variations have implications for clinical practice and for how learning through recasting is characterized.
Speech-language pathology profile of the Dendê community: perspectives for future actions
CONCLUSION: It was verified that most prevalent Speech-Language Pathology alterations were related to the presence of oral habits, followed by oral and written language aspects. Nevertheless, a low level of hearing and voice complaints were reported. A situational diagnosis helps redirecting the activities practiced in the community, aiming its population. This is achieved through educational initiatives of health prevention and promotion, which should lead to better, quicker and more efficient results.
Study of the role of the linguistic context in the treatment of articulatory disorders
The favorable linguistic context, based on normality data, is not applicable to children with phonological disorders. It is suggested the realization of research in the treatment of phonological disorders using the contexts proposed in this study to test their applicability.
Assessment of receptive and expressive auditory and visual functions in pre-term children
CONCLUSION: children of G1 presented deficits in the expressive and receptive auditory and visual functions. Premature children with very low weight presented higher deficits in the tested abilities.
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