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Previous research has established that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties producing inflectional morphology, in particular, finiteness marking. However, other categories of inflectional morphology, such as possessive 's nominal inflection remain relatively unexplored. Analyses of the characteristics for marking inflection, such as allomorphic categories, may increase our understanding of patterns within disordered grammar to inform the design of interventions and target selection. Data from n = 30 early school-aged children (M = 75 months, SD = 3.38, range = 69–81 months) with DLD were analysed to develop a profile of inflectional morphology skills. Morphological categories included expressive regular past tense, third person singular, and possessive 's. Skills were profiled using an elicitation task. The relationships between expressive morphosyntax, and phonological short-term memory and working memory were also explored. Children demonstrated low accuracy in performance across all inflectional categories, including possessive 's. There were no significant differences between productions of different morphemes, but syllabic allomorphs ([əd]; [əz]) were produced with significantly lower accuracy than segmental allomorphs ([d], [t]; [z], [s]) across all morphological categories. All correlations between expressive morphosyntax and measures of memory were non-significant. Children with DLD show broad deficits in the ability to mark for inflection, including possessive 's; this has implications for theories explaining DLD. Findings may contribute to the design of urgently needed interventions for this clinical population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This study compared two dose frequency conditions of an explicit intervention with 50 trials per session designed to improve past tense marking in early school‐aged children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The influence of allomorphs on intervention effects was also examined. Methods: Data from previously conducted intervention studies were combined and analysed. Participants included nine children (mean age = 6;5 years) who received 20–30‐min intervention sessions provided twice per week for 10 weeks (1000 trials; 400–600 min) and 20 children (mean age = 6;6) who received 20–30‐min intervention sessions provided once per week for 10 weeks (500 trials; 200–300 min). Repeated measures included criterion‐referenced probes for production of untrained past tense verbs collected throughout baseline, intervention, and maintenance phases. The rate of progress in each phase was analysed using logistic regression. The proportion of participants who produced past tense allomorphs correctly at pre‐intervention, post‐intervention, and maintenance testing points was analysed. Results: Logistic regression showed a stable baseline, highly significant progress during the intervention phase, and a marginally significant shallow decline during the maintenance phase. Those in the twice per week group showed a greater rate of progress during the intervention phase leading to significantly higher scores in the maintenance period when compared with the once per week group. The allomorphic category of past tense verbs did not appear to influence outcomes. Conclusions: Participants receiving intervention twice per week appeared to demonstrate a greater rate of progress with intervention than those receiving it once per week, although once per week was also effective. However, these results should be interpreted with caution. Limitations to study design indicate that a larger randomised controlled trial is required. All past tense allomorphs improve to a similar degree when treated with this intervention. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: Understanding the parameters of dosage and intensity are important for clinical practice.Research evaluating the efficacy and/or effectiveness of interventions delivered in different dose/intensity conditions is scarce.There appears to be different interpretations of what constitutes dosage and intensity in published research. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This study retrospectively compared dosage and intensity conditions of intervention provided twice per week to intervention provided once per week. Both dose frequencies could be delivered in clinical settings.Results from this study were analysed by grouping data from multiple testing points, rather than comparing pre‐post results. This approach demonstrated the variability of individual performance that would otherwise be lost with conventional methods of analysis.This study demonstrated that all past tense allomorphs improve to a similar degree when treated with this intervention. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Parameters of dosage and intensity are still not clearly defined well enough for translation to clinical practice. In consideration of current research, this intervention may be more effective if delivered twice per week.If clinicians are treating past tense, all allomorphs should be considered as priorities for intervention targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competence in spoken discourse is an important consideration during assessment and intervention planning for adolescents with communication difficulties. Currently, a lack of age-appropriate protocols and reference data against which to interpret performance, are barriers when working with this population, particularly those that assess a range of genre and language features. Using a new assessment tool, the Curtin University Discourse Protocol-Adolescent (CUDP-A), this study aimed to collect and describe spoken discourse samples from a large group of adolescents (n = 160), aged 12 to 15 years, recruited to represent a mainstream academic cohort. For each participant, samples of recount (n = 3), expository (n = 3), persuasive (n = 3), and narrative (n = 2) discourse were described using theoretically supported measurements sensitive to micro-linguistic, micro-structural, macro-structural, and super-structural discourse features. Participants also completed a standardized assessment of oral language. Variability was found in micro-linguistic and micro-structural features, with stability seen in macro-structural and super-structural features. Few age- and gender-related differences were observed, while multiple significant correlations between spoken discourse and oral language variables were revealed across the sample. The CUDP-A was successful in eliciting spoken discourse across genres relevant to social and academic contexts, enabling an in-depth description of adolescent discourse. This tool, supported by the reference data, provides a new opportunity to assess spoken discourse skills in adolescents from clinical populations, e.g., acquired brain injury or developmental disorders. Further research is needed to examine factors influencing discourse ability, such as those that may be related to genre, or contextual factors related to the presence of communication partners, with novel tools such as the CUDP-A facilitating this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of a theoretically motivated explicit intervention approach to improve regular past tense marking for early school-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Method: Twenty-one children with DLD (ages 5;9-6;9 [years; months]) were included in a crossover randomized controlled trial (intervention, n = 10; waiting control, n = 11). Intervention included once-weekly sessions over 10 weeks using the SHAPE CODING system, in combination with a systematic cueing hierarchy to teach past tense marking. Once the first group completed intervention, the waiting control group crossed over to the intervention condition. The primary outcome was criterion-referenced measures of past tense marking with standardized measures of expressive and receptive grammar as the secondary outcome. Ancillary analyses on extension and behavioral control measures of morphosyntax were also conducted. Results: There was a significant Time x Group interaction (p < .001) with a significant difference in pre-post intervention improvement in favor of the intervention group (p < .001, d = 3.03). Further analysis once both groups had received the intervention revealed no improvement for either group on past tense production during the 5-week pre-intervention period, significant improvement pre-post intervention (p < .001, d = 1.22), with gains maintained for 5 weeks postintervention. No significant differences were found on pre- to postintervention standardized measures of grammar, or on extension or control measures. Conclusions: The efficacy of the theoretically motivated explicit grammar intervention was demonstrated. Results contribute to the evidence base supporting this intervention to improve past tense production in early school-age children with DLD, suggesting it is a viable option for clinicians to select when treating morphosyntactic difficulties for this population. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13345202 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study evaluated the efficacy of an explicit, combined metalinguistic training and grammar facilitation intervention aimed at improving regular past tense marking for nine children aged 5;10-6;8 (years;months) with developmental language disorder. Method: This study used an ABA across-participant multiple-baseline single-case experimental design. Participants were seen one-on-one twice a week for 20- to 30-min sessions for 10 weeks and received explicit grammar intervention combining metalinguistic training using the SHAPE CODING system with grammar facilitation techniques (a systematic cueing hierarchy). In each session, 50 trials to produce the target form were completed, resulting in a total of 1,000 trials over 20 individual therapy sessions. Repeated measures of morphosyntax were collected using probes, including trained past tense verbs, untrained past tense verbs, third-person singular verbs as an extension probe, and possessive 's as a control probe. Probing contexts included expressive morphosyntax and grammaticality judgment. Outcome measures also included pre-poststandard measures of expressive and receptive grammar. Results: Analyses of repeated measures demonstrated significant improvement in past tense production on trained verbs (eight of nine children) and untrained verbs (seven of nine children), indicating efficacy of the treatment. These gains were maintained for 5 weeks. The majority of children made significant improvement on standardized measures of expressive grammar (eight of nine children). Only five of nine children improved on grammaticality judgment or receptive measures. Conclusion: Results continue to support the efficacy of explicit grammar interventions to improve past tense marking in early school-aged children. Future research should aim to evaluate the efficacy of similar interventions with group comparison studies and determine whether explicit grammar interventions can improve other aspects of grammatical difficulty for early school-aged children with developmental language disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: It has been well established that the function of sharing personal narratives is to inform the listener about what the event meant to the narrator, for example, by using a range of evaluative devices. The use of these evaluative devices may reflect a person's understanding of the differences between one's own mind and others, by expressing their beliefs, emotions, thoughts, and desires. This paper investigates children's use of evaluative devices when producing personal narratives in response to the six emotion-based prompts contained in the Global TALES protocol (excited, worried, annoyed, proud, problem situation, something important). It addresses three research questions: (1) What types and proportions of evaluative devices do 10-year-old English-speaking children use in response to the six prompts contained in the Global TALES protocol and are there differences in performance between boys and girls? (2) What are the correlations between the different types of evaluative devices? (3) Does children's use of evaluative devices differ depending on the type of prompt used? Methods: Eighty-two native English-speaking ten-year-old children from three English-speaking countries (Australia, New Zealand, and the USA) participated. None of the children had been identified with language and/or learning difficulties. Children's personal narratives were transcribed and analysed for the use of 12 evaluative devices: compulsion, internal emotional states, evaluative words, intensifiers, mental states, causal explanations, hypotheses, objective judgements, subjective judgements, intent, negatives, and repetition. Results: Results showed that children use a high number of evaluative devices, with "intensifiers" and "evaluative words" used most frequently. There were few effects for sex, apart from girls using a wider range of evaluative devices than boys. We found moderate to large correlations between most devices, with factor analysis revealing three factors we labelled "causality," "hypothesis," and "judgement." Although there were significant overall effects for prompt type on the use of evaluative devices, there was no clear pattern when inspecting responses to individual prompts. Conclusion: The results from this study shed light on children's use of evaluative devices to convey the meaning of their personal narratives in response to six different prompts tapping into different emotions. Moving beyond appraising children's structural language skills when narrating their personal experiences may enhance the understanding of interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects of theory of mind, which may inform clinical practices, such as individualized goal setting and intervention choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: Cognitive impairment, particularly of executive functioning, has been implicated in deficits in spoken discourse production following acquired brain injury (ABI). However, due to variation in the methodologies and heterogeneity of findings across studies, the nature and extent of this association is not well understood. Aims: This review aims to synthesize the literature investigating associations between cognitive deficits and discourse impairment after ABI. It is reported in accordance with guidelines of The Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses. Data sources: Searches were conducted of a variety of databases including Medline, PsycINFO, EMBASE, CINAHL, ProQuest, Cochrane and ERIC. Additional studies were identified via reference harvesting. Eligibility criteria: Studies were included if they reported data on participants with ABI, assessed spoken discourse production and cognitive function, and performed statistical analyses to determine the association between discourse and cognitive variables. This review excluded non‐English sources and those not published in peer‐reviewed journals. Meta‐analyses were not conducted due to variability across tools and terminology used to describe participant injury‐ and non‐injury‐related characteristics and outcomes. Results: Twenty‐five observational studies were included in the review. Findings revealed significant associations between multiple cognitive functions and discourse across micro‐linguistic to super‐structural measures. Methodological and terminological inconsistencies were identified across studies, which limited systematic comparison of the results. Conclusions: This review revealed present, yet heterogeneous, relationships between cognitive and discourse deficits in speakers with ABI. Associations were interpreted in light of a well‐established model of discourse processing. Greater comparison across studies would have been facilitated by a standard nomenclature in relation to cognitive constructs and standardized discourse assessment. Future research should explore the influence of injury‐ and participant‐related factors on discourse–cognitive relationships. The lack of information on conversational discourse and paediatric ABI limits the generalizability of this review to daily interaction following ABI. While applicable across the lifespan, in‐depth investigation of discourse following ABI in childhood and adolescence is a priority due to complex changes in language and cognition, and the potential for impairments profoundly impact social, emotional and academic progression into adulthood. Given the centrality of remediating cognitive‐communication difficulties in ABI, the interrelationships between discourse and cognition should retain a critical focus of research. This will inform clinical management and future research with this population. Findings have implications for our theoretical understanding of discourse and the nature of its breakdown in ABI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with Developmental Language Disorder are likely to experience difficulties with morphosyntax, especially regular past tense marking. Few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of intervention to improve morphosyntax in young school-aged children with DLD. This study investigated the efficacy of combined explicit and implicit intervention techniques delivered by a speech pathologist to improve receptive and expressive grammar, including the use of past tense morphosyntax, using a multiple baseline single case experimental design. Participants were aged six to seven years and received two 1:1 45 minute sessions per week for five weeks (total 7.5 hours) using Shape Coding intervention techniques combined with implicit approaches. Two of the three participants made statistically significant gains on standardized tests of general receptive and expressive grammar. Two of the three children made statistically significant improvement on measures of expressive morphosyntax, with one participant continuing to improve five weeks post treatment. Findings suggest that this approach was efficacious. These findings warrant further investigation using larger group comparison research studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the clinical potential of grammaticality judgement tasks, this study investigated whether a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) of inflectional morphology could differentiate between a clinically selected sample of children with DLD and children in mainstream (i.e. regular education) schools. We also explored the relationship between grammaticality judgement and measures of receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar, and nonword repetition. Children with DLD (n = 30; age range = 69–80 months) and mainstream children in Pre-primary, Year 1, and Year 2 (n = 89, age range = 61–96 months) were assessed on a GJT of regular past tense, third person singular, and possessive ‘s. The GJT was sensitive to developmental differences in mainstream children and differentiated children with DLD from Year 1 and 2 mainstream children, with DLD results consistent with a one-year delay in performance compared to controls. The GJT was the strongest discriminator of membership to a clinically selected sample of children with DLD (ROC curve analysis, area under the curve = 88%). Receptive grammar, receptive vocabulary, and nonword repetition were related to performance on the GJT. The grammaticality judgement of inflectional morphology shows promise as a reliable indicator of DLD and a measure sensitive to developmental differences in mainstream children. GJTs should continue to be explored for clinical application as a potential tool for both assessment and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

12 Understanding the structure of discourse in healthy adults is fundamental to the assessment and diagnosis of discourse level impairments in clinical populations and the development of effective treatment regimes. Exploring discourse genre in healthy speakers that extend beyond the traditional narrative is equally paramount in facilitating maximum impact of clinical interventions in everyday speaking contexts. This study aimed to characterise the discourse of 30 healthy adult speakers across three age groups (20-39, 40-59 and 60+ years) and four discourse genres (recount, procedural, exposition and narrative), drawing on discourse frameworks used in classroom teaching. A clinically useful discourse protocol and analytic procedure using SALT was developed that profiled the macrostructure and key aspects of linguistic microstructure of the different genres, exploring coherence and cohesion within and across genre in a systematic manner. Analyses considered whether there were differences in coherence and cohesion among the different age groups, different genres and specific topics. Results showed that, while individual variability was present, healthy adults structured their discourse consistently, adhering to the frameworks described in the developmental literature, across all four genres. Significant age differences were only seen in the amount of information contained in the body of the discourse (i.e. events, steps or statements offered) with older participants offering less information. This dataset will enable comparisons to be drawn with clinical populations to determine the utility and the feasibility of the use of this framework for diagnosis and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been hypothesized that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty processing sound-based information, including storing and accessing phonological representations in the lexicon. Tasks are emerging in the literature that provide a measure of the quality of stored phonological representations, without requiring a verbal response. This article describes the performance of children with specific language impairment (SLI) (n = 21), typically developing children matched for age (n = 21), and typically developing children matched for language (n = 21) on two measures of phonological representations – the Quality of Phonological Representations (QPR) and the Silent Deletion of Phonemes (SDOP) – and a measure of phonological awareness, the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test: Revised (SPAT-R). As predicted the age-matched (AM) group demonstrated significantly better performance on all tasks than the SLI group. The AM group performed significantly better than the language-matched (LM) group on the SDOP and SPAT tasks, but not significantly differently on the QPR task. The SLI group performed significantly better than the LM group on both the SDOP and SPAT, but their performance on the QPR was significantly weaker than the LM group. The findings of this study provide support for the notion of lower quality phonological representations in children with SLI thus placing them at increased risk of ongoing language and literacy difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The development of children's speech, language, and literacy skills is considered to build on a robust and intact speech-processing system, with normally functioning skills at all levels of input and output processing, as well as storage. There are a range of tasks available that assess input and output processing skills, however there are few tasks described in the literature that require a child to reflect on and analyse the internal structure of their own phonological representations. Aims: This paper will describe the development of the Silent Deletion of Phonemes (SDOP) task. This task is designed to assess a child's ability to delete and manipulate sounds silently within their own stored representations while minimizing the impact of any output difficulties. Methods & Procedures: The SDOP task was presented to 69 typically developing mainstream Year 2 children (aged 7;2–8;1 years) as part of a battery of phonological processing skills and literacy measures. Outcomes & Results: Scores for the population of typically developing Year 2 children were normally distributed and above a basal level but not approaching ceiling. Performance on the SDOP was significantly correlated with other measures of phonological processing but not a measure of non-verbal ability. It was most highly correlated with the measure of phonological awareness as expected, as both tasks measure awareness of the internal structure of words. However, the SDOP provided more information about the accuracy and specificity of a child's underlying phonological representations. The SDOP explained a significant amount of concurrent variance in both reading and spelling performance beyond the variance accounted for by the predictors that have been used by researchers to date. In combination, the SDOP and rapid-naming measure accounted for 58.8% of variance in performance on the reading measure and 54.4% of variance in spelling performance. Conclusions & Implications: The SDOP task appears to be a valid and reliable tool to assess the internal structure of a child's stored phonological representations. Profiling phonological representations allows clinicians to explore children's speech-processing skills which may be particularly useful with children with complex literacy difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a great deal of evidence to support the robust relationship between phonological awareness and literacy development. Researchers are beginning to understand the relationship between the accuracy and distinctiveness of stored phonological representations and performance on phonological awareness tasks. However, many of the tasks currently used to assess the integrity of underlying representations are confounded by requiring spoken output. Aims: This paper describes the development of the Quality of Phonological Representations (QPR) task, a task that does not require speech output, and its evaluation in the context of a larger study examining predictors of literacy outcomes in Western Australia. Methods & Procedures: The QPR task was given as part of a larger task battery to a cohort of 235 mainstream children in the last term of their Preprimary year (average age = 5;5) and to 179 children at follow-up at the end of Year 2 (average age = 7;9). Outcomes & Results: Normative data for both accuracy and reaction time are presented in percentile tables (appendix B). In their Preprimary year, children were able to identify correct productions of multi-syllabic words (hits) on average 87.5% of the time, rising to an average of 93.8% in Year 2. As expected, children became quicker at making these judgements, reaction time shifting from an average of 1.1 s in Preprimary to 0.83 s in Year 2. A similar pattern was observed with the data for correct rejections. To make these judgements, the children had to identify a pseudo-word as an incorrect pronunciation by 'Katie the computer'. In the Preprimary year, children were able to reject correctly the pseudo-words on average 68.5% of the time, rising to an average of 81.7% in Year 2. As expected, children became quicker at making these judgements, reaction time shortening from an average of 1.4 s in Preprimary to 0.81 s in Year 2. The QPR task was shown to have moderate reliability and concurrent validity. Conclusions: The QPR task appears to be a useful and cost-effective addition to task batteries aiming to identify at-risk children in the early stages of schooling. The ability to profile children's phonological awareness skills and gain insight into their underlying phonological representation skills allows more informed goal setting and intervention planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, occurs in 4–10% of the population. Treatment of tongue-tie has increased by 420% in Australia between 2006 and 2016 and 866% in the United States between 1997 and 2012. Despite limited evidence, it has been suggested that tongue-tie can result in speech sound disorder (SSD). This study aimed to investigate tongue mobility and speech production outcomes in children with and without tongue-tie diagnoses. Fifty-nine children aged 2; 1 to 4; 11 years were recruited and formed three groups: treated tongue-tie (TTT), untreated tongue-tie (UTT) and no tongue-tie (NTT). Measures of lingual frenulum structure and function, tongue mobility, speech production, and parent and clinician intelligibility ratings were collected. No statistically significant differences were found between the TTT, UTT and NTT groups for tongue mobility, speech production or intelligibility. Significantly more UTT children had a history of speech pathology attendance than participants in the NTT group. This study provides preliminary evidence of no difference between tongue mobility and speech outcomes in young children with or without intervention for tongue-tie during infancy. This study assists with clinical decision making and makes recommendations for families not to proceed with surgical intervention for tongue-tie during infancy, for the sole outcome of improving speech production later in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with dyslexia are at elevated risk of internalizing (emotional) and externalizing (behavioural) problems. Clever Kids is a nine‐week socioemotional well‐being programme developed specifically for upper primary school children with dyslexia. In a small randomized‐controlled trial, we tested the feasibility, efficacy, and acceptability of the Clever Kids programme. 'Forty children (Mage = 10.45 years, 65% male) with clinically diagnosed dyslexia too part in the study. Children were randomized to either attend Clever Kids (n = 20) or to a wait‐list control condition (n = 20). Coping skills, self‐esteem, resilience, emotion regulation, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms were measured at pre‐programme, post‐programme, and at three‐month follow‐up. Recruitment and retention rates indicate high feasibility for further evaluation of the programme. There was a significant interaction between intervention condition and time for non‐productive coping [F(2, 76) = 4.29, p = 0.017, f2 = 0.11]. Children who attended Clever Kids significantly reduced their use of non‐productive coping strategies, and this was maintained at three‐month follow‐up assessment. For all other outcomes, the interactions between intervention condition and time were non‐significant. The programme appears acceptable to children with dyslexia and their families, but may be improved by further reducing the number of activities involving reading and writing. Clever Kids improved the coping skills of children with dyslexia; however, a larger trial is needed to replicate this finding and investigate whether programme attendance is associated with additional improvements in children's socioemotional well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Previous research into the working, declarative, and procedural memory systems in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) has yielded inconsistent results. The purpose of this research was to profile these memory systems in children with DLD and their typically developing peers. Method: One hundred four 5- to 8-year-old children participated in the study. Fifty had DLD, and 54 were typically developing. Aspects of the working memory system (verbal short-term memory, verbal working memory, and visual--spatial short-term memory) were assessed using a nonword repetition test and subtests from the Working Memory Test Battery for Children. Verbal and visual--spatial declarative memory were measured using the Children's Memory Scale, and an audiovisual serial reaction time task was used to evaluate procedural memory. Results: The children with DLD demonstrated significant impairments in verbal short-term and working memory, visual--spatial short-term memory, verbal declarative memory, and procedural memory. However, verbal declarative memory and procedural memory were no longer impaired after controlling for working memory and nonverbal IQ. Declarative memory for visual--spatial information was unimpaired. Conclusions: These findings indicate that children with DLD have deficits in the working memory system. While verbal declarative memory and procedural memory also appear to be impaired, these deficits could largely be accounted for by working memory skills. The results have implications for our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying language impairment in the DLD population; however, further investigation of the relationships between the memory systems is required using tasks that measure learning over long-term intervals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Adopting a socio‐ecological perspective, we used data extracted from clinical casefiles to investigate factors associated with externalising and internalising problems in a large, representative sample of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia. Method: This study is a secondary analysis of data collected by the Dyslexia‐SPELD Foundation in Western Australia. Casefiles for school‐aged children who had received a dyslexia diagnosis in 2014 and 2015 were identified (n = 1,235), and a subset of casefiles were randomly selected for data extraction (n = 454). Of the sample, 58% (n = 262) were male, 42% (n = 192) were female. Ages ranged between 6 and 17 years (M = 12.32, SD = 3.07). Casefiles include results from assessments of literacy‐related achievement, as well as parent‐reported information on behavioural and socio‐emotional development. Results: After controlling for child age, gender, and reading ability, it was found that low self‐esteem, difficulties in emotion regulation, and social skills difficulties were all associated with externalising problems. Additionally, low self‐esteem, difficulties in emotion regulation, and bullying victimisation were all associated with internalising problems. Peer relationship difficulties were indirectly associated with both externalising and internalising problems through associations with low self‐esteem and difficulties in emotion regulation. Conclusion: Self‐esteem, bullying victimisation, emotion regulation, social skills, and peer problems are salient correlates of externalising and internalising problems in children with a diagnosis of dyslexia. Implications for intervention are discussed, both universal school‐based mental health promotion programs, as well as more targeted programs for children with dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The ability to learn new words is critical in the development of oral and written language, and significantly impacts engagement in social, academic and vocational situations. Many studies have evaluated the word‐learning process in people with developmental language disorder (DLD). However, methodologies for assessment are heterogeneous, creating difficulties in synthesizing findings and identifying gaps in the knowledge base. Aims: To scope systematically the literature and identify key methodological parameters considered in evaluations of word learning in people with DLD; and to identify gaps in the literature to guide further research in this area. Methods & Procedures: Twelve databases were searched and a total of 70 studies that met eligibility criteria were identified. The studies were evaluated according to key parameters that researchers varied in their word‐learning methodologies. Main contribution: Most research has focused on word learning in the oral modality, and specifically in children with DLD. Fewer studies have explored word learning in adults and adolescents with DLD, and in the written modality. Depending on the research question and theoretical perspective driving the investigation, methodologies for assessing word learning considered a range of parameters, including words being learned, learning context and cues to support learning in the tasks. Conclusions & Implications: This review aggregates a variety of methods used previously to assess word learning. Findings highlight the need for further research to explore areas such as: the learning of varied word types (e.g., adjectives and adverbs); learning in the written modality; and word learning (both oral and written) in adolescents and adults with DLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Children with DLD experience significant difficulties only when learning longer novel words. • Phonological short-term memory deficits impact word learning in children with DLD. • Nonword repetition has predictive value in understanding word learning potential. To investigate factors that influence word learning in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The participants were 23 children with DLD and 26 typically developing (TD) children, aged five. Participants completed a fast mapping task (assessed using a production measure), as well as tests of nonword repetition and receptive vocabulary. We explored the effect of word length on nonword repetition and fast mapping abilities while controlling for receptive vocabulary skills. The results indicate that children with DLD demonstrate significant difficulties accurately repeating nonwords of all lengths relative to their TD peers. Children with DLD also exhibited significant difficulties with fast mapping, especially when learning longer novel words. Our findings indicate that children with DLD demonstrate an impaired capacity to encode phonological information; however, this differentially impacts their nonword repetition and fast mapping abilities. TD children may more effectively take advantage of receptive vocabulary to support performance on these tasks. Readers will understand how phonological short-term memory and receptive vocabulary contribute to fast mapping in children with DLD and in TD children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although children with developmental language disorder demonstrate poor inferential comprehension, few studies have evaluated the effect of interventions to improve inferencing. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of a small-group intervention designed to improve oral inferential comprehension of narrative discourse. Thirty-seven 5- to 6-year-old children with developmental language disorder participated. The participants were randomly allocated to the oral inferential comprehension (IC) intervention or a control phonological awareness (PA) intervention. Small-group sessions took place twice a week over 8 weeks. Participants were assessed on narrative comprehension and phonological awareness skills pre- and post-intervention, and after a maintenance period of 8 weeks. Compared to the control PA group, the participants in the IC group demonstrated a significant increase in inferential comprehension scores from pre- to post-intervention, which was maintained over time. In addition, the IC group scored significantly higher than the PA group for inferential comprehension on a post-intervention generalization measure. There was no significant difference between the two groups for literal comprehension scores at any assessment point. The results demonstrate that the small-group intervention was effective at improving inferential comprehension of narratives in 5- to 6-year-old children with developmental language disorder. Additionally, generalized improvement was shown across the narrative context, and improvements were maintained two months following the intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) demonstrate poor oral inferential comprehension. Research investigating the skills that underpin oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD is necessary in order to better understand and improve inferential comprehension in this population. Aims: To profile the language and cognitive skills that contribute to oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD. Methods & Procedures: Seventy‐six children aged 5–6 years with a diagnosis of DLD were assessed on a wide range of language and cognitive measures. Oral inferential comprehension of narrative was the primary outcome measure. Outcomes & Results: Narrative macrostructure and microstructure, literal comprehension, vocabulary, phonological loop, and theory of mind were significant predictors of inferential comprehension in bivariate analyses. However, multivariate regression analysis indicated that only narrative retell macrostructure and theory of mind contributed a significant amount of unique variance to inferential comprehension. Conclusions & Implications: This study profiled the skills contributing to oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD, to support the clinical and theoretical understanding of the ability in this population. The findings have implications for future intervention studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Given the integral role that verbs play in sentence production, understanding verb deficits is critical to clinical practice. Difficulties in sentence production are often directly related to an inability to retrieve argument structure information which, according to most theoretical accounts, is specified at a lexical level as part of the semantic representation of the verb. The presence of an argument complexity effect when retrieving verbs in isolation, i.e. increased difficulty with increasing number of arguments required by the verb, is considered evidence of the integral link between verbs and the ensuing structure. Recent reports, however, of relatively intact verb retrieval and impaired argument structure suggest that difficulties with verbs and argument structure may not always co-occur. One explanation for this is that lexical-syntactic information may be stored separately to lexical-semantic information at the lemma level and then differentially impaired. Aims To determine whether the presence of difficulties creating argument structure in a group of people with aphasia with verb-retrieval deficits consistently aligned with the underlying nature of their impairment, where semantic involvement resulted in argument structure difficulties and post-semantic impairment resulted in intact argument structure. This would provide evidence either to support or to challenge the view that argument structure is lexically specified. The presence of an argument complexity effect within the participants' single verb naming was also investigated to examine the relationship between verb argument information and any subsequent difficulties creating argument structure for sentence production. Methods & Procedures Verb retrieval and argument structure production were investigated in 12 people with aphasia with verb-retrieval deficits on single-word and sentence-production measures. Outcomes & Results Eight of the 12 participants presented with a semantic verb deficit (five semantic and three mixed semantic and phonological) and had difficulties in creating argument structure. Four participants presented with a phonological verb deficit. Of these, two had intact argument structure while two had impaired argument structure. An argument complexity effect in verb naming was seen in both groups. Conclusions & Implications Semantic verb-retrieval deficits consistently resulted in argument structure production difficulties, supporting the view that syntactic information is stored within the lemma. The presence of argument structure difficulties in two participants with phonological deficits; however, lends support for the separate coding of lexical-syntactic from lexical-semantic information at the lemma level, a factor that has both theoretical and clinical implications with respect to diagnosis and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature indicates that children with reading difficulties are at elevated risk for mental health problems; however, little attention has been given to why this might be the case. Associations between reading difficulties and mental health differ substantially across studies, raising the possibility that these relationships may be ameliorated or exacerbated by risk or resilience-promoting factors. Using socio-ecological theory as a conceptual framework, we outline four potential lines of research that could shed light on why children with reading difficulties are at risk of mental health problems and identify potential targets for intervention. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personal narratives make up more than half of children's conversations. The ability to share personal narratives helps build and maintain friendships, promotes physical and emotional wellbeing, supports classroom participation, and underpins academic success and vocational outcomes. Although personal narratives are a universal discourse genre, cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research into children's ability to share personal narratives is in its infancy. The current study addresses this gap in the research by developing the Global TALES protocol, a protocol comprising six scripted prompts for eliciting personal narratives in school-age children (excited, worried, annoyed, proud, problem situation, something important). We evaluated its feasibility with 249 ten-year-old children from 10 different countries, speaking 8 different languages, and analyzed researchers' views on the process of adapting the protocol for use in their own country/language. At group-level, the protocol elicited discourse samples from all children, although individual variability was evident, with most children providing responses to all six prompts. When investigating the topics of children's personal narratives in response to the prompts, we found that children from around the world share many commonalities regarding topics of conversation. Once again individual variability was high, indicating the protocol is effective in prompting children to share their past personal experiences without forcing them to focus on one particular topic. Feedback from the participating researchers on the use of the protocol in their own countries was generally positive, although several translation issues were noted. Based on our results, we now invite clinical researchers from around the world to join us in conducting further research into this important area of practice to obtain a better understanding of the development of personal narratives from children across different languages and cultures and to begin to establish local benchmarks of performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Children with specific language impairment (SLI) often experience word-learning difficulties, which are suggested to originate in the early stage of word learning: fast mapping. Some previous research indicates significantly poorer fast mapping capabilities in children with SLI compared with typically developing (TD) counterparts, with a range of methodological factors impacting on the consistency of this finding. Research has explored key issues that might underlie fast mapping difficulties in children with SLI, with strong theoretical support but little empirical evidence for the role of phonological short-term memory (STM). Additionally, further research is required to explore the influence of receptive vocabulary on fast mapping capabilities. Understanding the factors associated with fast mapping difficulties that are experienced by children with SLI may lead to greater theoretically driven word-learning intervention. Aims To investigate whether children with SLI demonstrate significant difficulties with fast mapping, and to explore the related factors. It was hypothesized that children with SLI would score significantly lower on a fast mapping production task compared with TD children, and that phonological STM and receptive vocabulary would significantly predict fast mapping production scores in both groups of children. Methods & Procedures Twenty-three children with SLI (mean = 64.39 months, SD = 4.10 months) and 26 TD children (mean = 65.92 months, SD = 2.98) were recruited from specialist language and mainstream schools. All participants took part in a unique, interactive fast-mapping task whereby nine novel objects with non-word labels were presented and production accuracy was assessed. A non-word repetition test and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition (PPVT-IV) were also administered as measures of phonological STM capacity and receptive vocabulary, respectively. Outcomes & Results Results of the fast-mapping task indicated that children with SLI had significantly poorer fast mapping production scores than TD children. Scores from the non-word repetition task were also significantly lower for the SLI group, revealing reduced phonological STM capacity. Phonological STM capacity and receptive vocabulary emerged as significant predictors of fast mapping performance when the group data were combined in a multiple regression analysis. Conclusions & Implications These results suggest that the word-learning difficulties experienced by children with SLI may originate at the fast mapping stage, and that phonological STM and receptive vocabulary significantly predict fast mapping ability. These findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of word-learning difficulties in children with SLI and may inform lexical learning intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective This study aimed to provide a comprehensive working memory profile of a group of children with established poor reading ability. Methods Participants included a group of established 'poor readers' and a group of age- and gender-matched controls with typically developing reading ability. The participants completed a comprehensive battery of assessments examining four components of working memory-the central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer. Results As predicted, the poor reading group scored significantly lower than the typically developing reading group on measures of the phonological loop and central executive. There were no significant differences between the two groups on measures of the visuospatial sketchpad or episodic buffer. Contrary to predictions, a subgroup of poor readers with poor visuospatial working memory was not found, further highlighting the inconsistent findings in this area of working memory. Conclusions The results provide support for past research findings of deficits in the phonological loop and central executive of poor readers. The finding of typical episodic buffer functioning demonstrates the potential to draw on this relative strength in implementing interventions with poor readers. This implicates the importance of increasing awareness of specific working memory deficits in poor readers, and may guide future research into more effective teaching strategies and interventions for this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reference 1 Westerveld MF, Lyons R, Nelson NW, Chen KM, Claessen M, Ferman S, et al. (2022) Personal narratives in 10-year-old children around the world. The 14th author's name is spelled incorrectly. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose of the article: To review the use of outcome measures, across the domains of activity, participation, and environment, within multidisciplinary early childhood intervention services. Materials and methods: A systematic literature search was undertaken that included four electronic databases: Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library and Cochrane Database of Systematic Review. Inclusion criteria were age 0-24 months, having or at risk of a developmental disability, in receipt of multidisciplinary early childhood intervention services, and included outcome measures across all domains of the International Classification of Functioning-Child & Youth (ICF-CY). Only peer-reviewed journal articles were considered. Eligible studies were coded using the Oxford Levels of Evidence. Methodological quality was assessed using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) Scale for randomised controlled trials and the QualSyst for non-randomised control trials. Results: Of the total of 5764 records identified, 10 were considered to meet inclusion criteria. Conclusion: Fourteen outcome measures were identified, addressing the domains of activity, participation, and environment. Of these, eight have been recommended in the early intervention literature. While the methodological quality of the 10 studies varied, these papers make a contribution to the body of research that acknowledges the role of routine and enriched environments. Implications for Rehabilitation: Core practice elements of multidisciplinary early childhood intervention services indicate it is necessary to select outcome measures framed within the International Classification of Functioning-Child & Youth to inform clinical decision-making for measuring intervention effectiveness across the domains of activity, participation and environment. Of the identified measures, three (Canadian Occupational Performance Measure, Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory, and Goal Attainment Scaling) are well-established and identified in the literature as multidisciplinary outcome measures for children with developmental disability. The selection of an appropriate outcome measure depends on the age of the child, individual goals of the family, and the type of intervention. This requires the combination of measures as no one measure alone will capture all components of the International Classification of Functioning-Child & Youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on challenges for how we measure language change among people with acquired neurological disorders. Topics discussed include rehabilitation of people with aphasia; improving patients quality of life; and examining inter-individual reliability among people with acquired neurological disorders.