Individual Differences & Successful Intervention: Child Language Disorders Specific Language Impairment Judith Vander Woude Calvin

College ASHA 2008 Chicago, Illinois

Focus 1. 2. 3.

on Three Child Characteristics Childrens individual language maturation trajectories Conversational styles Supportive home environments

Language Maturation Childrens language knowledge before and during treatment may play an important role in treatment effectiveness. For typically developing children, it has been demonstrated that new knowledge builds on the old knowledge they already possess (Brown, 1973; Karmiloff-Smith, 1996; K. A. Nelson, 1996; Piaget, 1954), Childrens old knowledge does not necessarily need to be within the same domains of language to foster new knowledge in different language domains, as per the linguistic theory of bootstrapping (Morgan & Demuth, 1996). For example, childrens lexical gains closely related to their syntax knowledge; and vice versa, syntax gains associated with childrens current lexical knowledge (Bates & Goodman, 1997; Bedore & Leonard, 2000; Dale, Dionne, & Plomin, 2000; Moyle, Ellis Weismer, Evans, & Lindstrom, 2007). Examples from Intervention Studies Leonard, Camarata, Brown, and Camarata (2004) Leonard, Camarata, Pawlowska, Brown, and Camarata (2006) Leonard, Camarata, Pawlowska, Brown, and Camarata (2008) Fey and Loeb (2004) Conversational Styles One important part of young childrens social world is participating in conversations since even very young children begin learning language from others in conversational contexts (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Bi-directional nature of language and socialization is complex. o e.g., purpose, topic, participants ages, familiarity, relative status, language Participants conversational styles based on their relative levels of assertiveness and responsiveness may vary from one individual to the next, or from one conversational dyad to the next. o active conversationalists

proficiency and frames of mind at a particular point

o passive conversationalists o inactive communicators o verbal non-communicators Children with SLI are not necessarily all inactive communicators (e.g., Conti-Ramsden & Gunn,1986; Fey & Leonard, 1984; Leonard, 1986). Also, it seems likely that children with SLI may display different types of conversational styles with different conversational partners depending on their language maturation, the severity of the language impairment, and different subtypes of SLI.

Examples Weismer, Murray-Branch and Miller (1993) Weiss and Nakamura (1992) Brinton and Fujiki (1994) Supportive Home Environment Caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness, maternal education and socioeconomic status are associated with childrens rate of language acquisition during the preschool years. These three factors are interrelated and thus difficult to address separately. o Maternal education predicts families socioeconomic status (e.g., Burchinal, Campbell,

Examples Hart and Risley (1995) Hammer and Weiss (1999) Yoder and Warren (1998, 2001) Horton-Ikard and Ellis-Weismer (2007) O'Neil-Pirozzi, 2003, 2006

Bryant, Wasik, & Ramey, 1997); and both less maternal education and low socioeconomic status have been associated with the less caregiver responsivity and less frequent language input for children (Hammer, Tomblin, Zhang, & Weiss, 2001; Hart & Risley, 1995; Landry, Smith, Swank, & Miller-Loncar, 2000; StantonChapman, Chapman, Bainbridge, & Scott, 2002)

Where do we go from here? We need more research, such as case studies and single-subject designs that use alternating treatments with the same child, to provide information on the relationship between childrens language-learning characteristics and particular treatment approaches. We also need to keep reminding ourselves that effectively assessing and treating preschool children with LI is not a simple, straightforward endeavor. References Bates, E., & Goodman, J. (1997). On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon: Evidence from acquisition, aphasia, and real-time processing. Language and Cognitive Processes, 12, 507-584. Bedore, L. M., & Leonard, L. B. (2000). The effects of inflectional variation on fast mapping of verbs in English and Spanish. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 43(1), 21-33. Brinton, B., & Fujiki, M. (1994). Ways to teach conversation. In J. F. Duchan, L. E. Hewitt & R. M. Sonnenmeier (Eds.), Pragmatics: From theory to practice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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