Language Impairment

Achieving progress in understanding the cause, nature, and treatment of autism requires an integration of concepts, approaches, and empirical findings from genetic, cognitive neuroscience, animal, and clinical studies. The need for such integration has been a fundamental tenet of the discipline of developmental psychopathology from its inception. It is likely that the discovery of autism susceptibility genes will depend on the development of dimensional measures of broader phenotype autism traits. It is argued that knowledge of the cognitive neuroscience of social and language behavior will provide a useful framework for defining such measures. In this article, the current state of knowledge of the cognitive neuroscience of social and language impairments in autism is reviewed. Following from this, six candidate broader phenotype autism traits are proposed: (a) face processing, including structural encoding of facial features and face movements, such as eye gaze; (b) social affiliat...

Conclusions CBS is a heterogeneous clinical syndrome whose differential diagnosis is extensive. CJD can occasionally present with clinical characteristics resembling CBS. MRI detection of abnormalities in some sequences (FLAIR, DWI), as previously reported, has ...

Asperger syndrome (AS) is differentiated from high-functioning autism (HFA) largely on a history of “language delay.” This study examined “specific language impairment” as a predictor of outcome. Language skills of 19 children with AS and 45 with HFA were assessed at 4–6 years of age (Time 1) and 2 years later (Time 2). Children’s symptoms and functional outcome scores were assessed every 2 years (Times 3, 4, and 5) until ages 15–17 years old. Regression analysis revealed that specific language impairment at time 2 more often accounted for the greatest variation in outcome scores in adolescence than the standard diagnosis of AS versus HFA based on history of language delay. Diagnostic implications are discussed.

Direct observation of peer relating is potentially a sensitive and ecologically valid measure of child social functioning, but there has been a lack of standardised methods. The Manchester Inventory for Playground Observation (MIPO) was developed as a practical yet rigorous assessment of this kind for 5-11 year olds. We report on the initial reliability and validity of the MIPO and its ability to distinguish social impairments within different psychopathologies. We observed 144 clinically referred children aged 5;00-11;11 (mean 8.8) years with Externalising (n = 44), Internalising (n = 19), Autism Spectrum Disorders (n = 39) or Specific Language Impairment (n = 42), and 44 class-controls, in naturalistic playground interaction. Observers, blind to clinical diagnosis, completed the MIPO and the teacher checklist from the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). MIPO items showed high internal consistency (alpha = .924; all 'alpha if item deleted' values>.91), inter-observer r...

Language delay (LD) is a common condition in early childhood and has a variety of additional risks. Therefore, diagnosing it as soon as possible is of great importance. Expressive vocabulary is one of the most widely used measurements in the diagnosis. Diagnostic clinical decisions primarily rely on the normative data of the acquired languages. The main purpose of this retrospective study is to assess the expressive vocabulary of young children who were treated at the a speech and language disorders center for language delay complaints between January 2014 and January 2018. The study sample was composed of 119 children aged 24-47 months, and divided into different research groups according to their age. Children‟s expressive vocabulary has been assessed using semantic categories taken from the Turkish Communicative Development Inventory (TİGE II) and taking into account age, age group and gender variabilities. According to the study group and age groups, prominent words have been identified in the semantic categories. The relationship among all variables; semantic categories, total number of nouns, total number of words, age and gender, are analized statistically. This study found that as the age increases, the total number of nouns and words has a tendency to decrease at some stages. However, these differences are not statistically significant. Nouns are predominant over verbs among all age groups. Girls show a higher expressive vocabulary than boys with regard to the total number of nouns, verbs and words but this is not significant. As the age group increases, the total number of nouns, verbs and words has not significantly increased in the research group (p>.05). Prominent words from different semantic categories have emerged in different research and age groups. These findings are thoroughly discussed in light of the pertinent literature.

Language impairment is a common core feature in Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) and Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Many studies have tried to define the specific language profiles of these disorders, some claiming the existence of overlaps, and others conceiving of them as separate categories. Fewer have sought to determine whether and how PDD-NOS language profile, including prosody, differs from those

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a representação sintática do aspecto perfect. Assumiu-se a existência de tipos distintos de perfect: perfect universal / situação persistente, perfect existencial / resultativo, perfect existencial / experiencial e perfect existencial / passado recente. Para tanto, foi investigada uma possível perda linguística desse aspecto associado ao tempo presente em sujeitos portadores da Doença de Alzheimer, tanto na variante clássica (DA), quanto na variante frontal, conhecida como Afasia Progressiva Primária Logopênica (APPL). A metodologia elaborada para este trabalho consistiu na realização de um estudo duplo de caso, tendo participado uma paciente portadora da DA e outra da APPL, ambas falantes nativas do português do Brasil. Foram aplicados dois testes de funcionalidade, dois testes neuropsicológicos e dois testes linguísticos e foi realizada também uma análise de fala espontânea. Os resultados indicaram que ambas as pacientes apresentaram declínio funcional e comprometimento cognitivo, ainda que o déficit na paciente com DA fosse maior do que o da paciente com APPL. A análise referente à expressão linguística, resultante da comparação dos resultados dos dois testes linguísticos e da análise de fala espontânea, revelou que a paciente com DA apresentava um déficit que incide sobre os quatro tipos de perfect, tempo presente e aspecto imperfectivo, enquanto que a paciente com APPL apresentava um déficit que incide sobre perfect existencial / passado recente e tempo presente. Observou-se, então, que o perfect existencial / passado recente está dissociado na gramática mental, havendo um sintagma referente a esse conhecimento na representação sintática, o RecPerfP, que domina os demais sintagmas de perfect. Além disso, discutiu-se que TP encontra-se acima dos sintagmas de perfect na hierarquia sintática, ao passo que AspP encontra-se abaixo. Foi proposto, dessa forma, que a hierarquia entre sintagmas de perfect, tempo e aspecto perfectivo/imperfectivo na representação sintática seja a seguinte: TP > RecPerf > ExPerfP > UPerfP > ResPerfP > AspP. ////// Abstract: This research aims to investigate the syntactic representation of the perfect aspect. Different types of perfect were assumed to exist: universal perfect / persistent situation, existential perfect / resultative, existential perfect / experiential and existential perfect / recent past. Therefore, a possible linguistic impairment of this aspect associated with the present tense was investigated in subjects with Alzheimer's disease, both in the classic variant (AD) and in the frontal variant, known as Logopenic Primary Progressive Aphasia (LPPA). The methodology developed for this study consisted of a double case study, involving one patient with AD and one with LPPA, both Brazilian Portuguese native speakers. Two functionality tests, two neuropsychological tests and two language tests were applied and a spontaneous speech analysis was also performed. The results indicated that both patients presented functional decline and cognitive impairment, although the deficit in the AD patient was greater than that of the LPPA patient. The analysis of the linguistic expression, resulting from the comparison of the results of the two linguistic tests and the spontaneous speech analysis, revealed that the patient with AD presented a deficit that affects the four types of perfect, present tense and imperfective aspect, while the patient with LPPA had a deficit that affects existential perfect / recent past and present tense. It was observed, then, that the existential perfect / recent past is dissociated in mental grammar, and there is a phrase referring to this knowledge in syntactic representation, RecPerfP, which dominates the other perfect phrases. In addition, it has been argued that TP is above the perfect phrases in the syntactic hierarchy, whereas AspP is below. Thus, it was proposed that the hierarchy between perfect, tense and perfective / imperfective aspect phrases in syntactic representation is as follows: TP> RecPerf > ExPerfP > UPerfP > ResPerfP > AspP.

Although gender disparity in ASD has been long documented, research addressing gender related to core ASD symptomatology (e.g., domains, severity, breadth, etc.) is scant. The present research examined gender differences in ASD symptomatology in three populations: infants and toddlers at risk for developmental disability, children and adolescents, and adults with intellectual disability (ID). No significant gender differences in ASD symptoms were found in the infant/toddler or child/adolescent populations. In the adult population, in participants with ID alone, females had higher endorsements of social (i.e., participation in social games, sports, and activities; interest in other’s side of the conversation; and imitation) and communication (i.e., interest in other’s side of the conversation and reading body language) impairments compared to males. This study has considerable implications in both the clinical and research realms as for diagnostic and assessment validity and prioritized treatment needs for females with ASD, as well as stimulating a future research agenda (i.e., considerations such as cognitive ability, comorbidity, course and age, qualitative symptom differences, social/environmental gender biases) in this area.

This study reports on the development of the language subtest in the Preschool Developmental Assessment Scale (PDAS) for Cantonese-Chinese speaking children. A pilot pool of 158 items covering the two language modalities and the three language domains was developed. This initial item set was subsequently revised based on Rasch analyses of data from 324 multi-stage randomly selected children between 3 and 6 years of age. The revised 106-item set demonstrated adequate measurement properties, including targeting and uni-dimensionality. The revised 106-item set successfully discriminated preschool children in the three age groups, and between preschool children and their age peers with special education needs (SEN). Results from this study support the collection of normative data from a larger population sample of children to examine its accuracy in identifying language impairment in children with SEN. Test development procedures reported in this study provide insight for the development of language subtests in multi-domain developmental assessment tools for children speaking other varieties of Chinese.▶ A 106-item language subtest was developed for Chinese speaking children. ▶ It was developmentally sensitive. ▶ It discriminated normal children and children with special needs.

Background: Natural metalinguistic abilities, which are put into play without explicit instructions, constitute the cognitive basis for a “reflexive” use of language, a particular manifestation of the executive function when applied to language and verbal behaviour. This reflexive use entails a specific attentional activity by speakers and hearers with regard to linguistic outputs, and an intentional experience-based control over the

Research has demonstrated a high prevalence of language impairments (LI) and reading disabilities (RD) in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Since RD is also associated with LI, it is unclear whether the language impairments are specific to ADHD or associated with comorbid RD. The language abilities of ADHD children with and without RD were investigated in a task requiring recall of a lengthy narrative, and in tests assessing knowledge of the semantic aspects of language. The study was conducted with 50 boys—14 ADHD, 14 ADHD + RD, 8 RD, and 14 normal controls, aged 7 to 11. Children with ADHD (ADHD-only, ADHD + RD) exhibited difficulties in organizing and monitoring their story retelling. Children with RD (RD-only, ADHD + RD) demonstrated deficits in receptive and expressive semantic language abilities on the language processing tests. The comorbid group (ADHD + RD) exhibited the deficits of both ADHD and RD children. The deficiencies of ADHD children are consistent with higher-order executive function deficits while the deficits of RD children are consistent with deficits in the basic semantics of language processing.

Patients with schizophrenia often display unusual language impairments. This is a wide ranging critical review of the literature on language in schizophrenia since the 19th century. We survey schizophrenic language level by level, from phonetics through phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. There are at least two kinds of impairment (perhaps not fully distinct): thought disorder, or failure to maintain

This paper elaborates some aspects of narrative learning—defined here as learning to tell stories and learning from, about and through narratives—in the context of primary‐age pupils who use English as an Additional Language (EAL). The paper introduces some principles to support their language development in classroom interaction. We argue that linguistically orientated research on metacognitive strategy development is not necessarily