Syntactic Development in Adolescents With a History of Language Impairments: A Follow-Up Investigation

• Published in: American journal of speech-language pathology 2009-08, Vol.18 (3), p.241-251
• Main Authors: Nippold, Marilyn A, Mansfield, Tracy C, Billow, Jesse L, Tomblin, J. Bruce
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Adolescent; Adolescent Development; Adolescents; Analysis of Variance; Care and treatment; Child development; Children & youth; Conflict Resolution; Correlation; Diachronic Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Disease prevention; Evaluation Methods; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Form Classes (Languages); High Schools; Humans; Illinois; Iowa; Language acquisition; Language Disorders; Language history; Language Impairments; Language Tests; Linguistics; Male; Peer Relationship; Peer relationships; Physiological aspects; Psychological aspects; Relative clauses; Sentences; Specific language impairment; Speech Language Pathology; Speech therapy; Speech-language pathologists; Standardized Tests; Syntactic movement; Syntax; Task Analysis; Teenagers; Testing; Youth
• ISSN: 1058-0360; 1558-9110
• DOI: 10.1044/1058-0360(2008/08-0022)

J. Bruce Tomblin University of Iowa, Iowa City Contact author: Marilyn A. Nippold, Communication Disorders and Sciences, College of Education, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403. E-mail: nippold{at}uoregon.edu . Purpose: Syntactic development in adolescents was examined using a spoken discourse task and standardized testing. The primary goal was to determine whether adolescents with a history of language impairments would differ from those with a history of typical language development (TLD). This is a companion study to one that examined these same adolescents 2 years earlier (M. A. Nippold, T. C. Mansfield, J. L. Billow, & J. B. Tomblin, 2008). Method: The participants were 15-year-old adolescents with a history of specific language impairment (SLI; n = 102), nonspecific language impairment (NLI; n = 77), or TLD ( n = 247). A sample of spoken discourse was elicited using a Peer Conflict Resolution (PCR) task and analyzed for mean length of T-unit, clausal density, and subordinate clause use. In addition, 2 subtests from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Third Edition (E. Semel, E. H. Wiig, & W. A. Secord, 1995), Concepts and Directions and Recalling Sentences, were administered. Results: On the PCR task, the TLD group outperformed the SLI and NLI groups on mean length of T-unit, clausal density, and nominal clause use, and the TLD group outperformed the NLI group on relative clause use. On the standardized testing, the TLD group outperformed the SLI and NLI groups, and the SLI group outperformed the NLI group. Correlation coefficients calculated between the nonstandardized and standardized measures of syntax were statistically significant and positive. Conclusions: Speech-language pathologists may wish to employ the PCR task to examine syntactic development in adolescents as a supplement to standardized testing. Key Words: adolescents, language impairment, complex syntax, language sampling CiteULike     Connotea     Del.icio.us     Digg     Facebook     Reddit     Technorati     Twitter     What's this?