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Perceptual and Motor Skills Feb 2022In the context of language descriptions, the terms oral and verbal praxis refer to volitional movements for performing oral gestures and movements for speech. These...
In the context of language descriptions, the terms oral and verbal praxis refer to volitional movements for performing oral gestures and movements for speech. These movements involve programming articulators and rapid sequences of muscle firings that are required for speech sound productions. A growing body of research has highlighted the links between oral motor kinematics and language production skills in both typically developing (TD) children and children with developmental language disorders, including Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Yet, there have been limited attempts to assess the link between non-linguistic and linguistic development. In the present study, we investigated oral and verbal praxis behaviors in children with SLI. Fifteen children with SLI formed a clinical group and 15 children with typical development who were matched to the clinical group for chronological age, gender, and socio-economic status formed the TD group. We assessed participants in both groups for their language abilities with age-appropriate standardized language tests. To investigate oral and verbal praxis behaviors, we administered the Assessment Protocol for Oral Motor, Oral Praxis and Verbal Praxis Skills to the two groups. We used the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test to compare the two groups with respect to oral and verbal praxis measures; and we found a significant difference between isolated and sequential movements in the oral praxis section in two age subgroups of these groups ( ≤ .05). Spearman's correlations revealed a strong correlation between core language scores and sequential movements in the younger children with SLI and in TD children. These results showed co-morbidity between SLI and poor oral motor skills, suggesting that SLI is not just a language disorder, but a group of co-morbid conditions that include oral motor and verbal praxis difficulties.
Topics: Aptitude; Child; Gestures; Humans; Language Development Disorders; Language Tests; Speech; Verbal Behavior
PubMed: 34749545
DOI: 10.1177/00315125211056421 -
Turk Psikiyatri Dergisi = Turkish... 2022The aim of this study was to obtain normative data for Verbal Fluency Test and investigate the effects of age, gender, and education on verbal fluency in native...
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to obtain normative data for Verbal Fluency Test and investigate the effects of age, gender, and education on verbal fluency in native Turkish-speaking individuals.
METHOD
A pilot study was conducted to determine 3 letters with differing levels of difficulty for completing the phonemic fluency task. First names and animals were chosen for the semantic fluency task, and an alternating semantic task (first name-animal) was also used. In total, 415 participants (208 male and 207 female) were recruited and stratified based on the age and education levels.
RESULTS
Level of education had a main effect on all verbal fluency tasks; people with higher education performed better. Age and gender were found to have no effect on phonemic verbal fluency. Only the < name production task was affected by gender, women performed better. Younger age groups produced more words in name generation and semantic alternating fluency tasks.
CONCLUSION
The effects of age, gender and education on verbal fluency are in accordance with many previous reports. Analysis of various errors were also conducted. Results for Turkish are presented and discussed in the light of literature.
Topics: Animals; Educational Status; Female; Humans; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Pilot Projects; Semantics; Verbal Behavior
PubMed: 35343581
DOI: 10.5080/u25553 -
Journal of Autism and Developmental... Mar 2020Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) is a popular intervention for improving targeted and untargeted communication skills for learners with autism. We systematically...
Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) is a popular intervention for improving targeted and untargeted communication skills for learners with autism. We systematically reviewed communication outcomes reported in experimental research to determine linguistic forms and verbal behavior functions associated with PRT. We found most researchers aggregated results or did not report sufficient detail to determine linguistic forms and/or verbal behavior functions. Generalization of communication skills to untargeted people, settings, materials, and/or activities was evident. However, only one study clearly indicated untargeted linguistic forms emerged following PRT, and no researchers described results that indicated improved generalized and collateral verbal behavior functions. We suggest PRT researchers more clearly define and report primary, generalized, and collateral communication-specific outcomes in order to advance research and practice.
Topics: Autistic Disorder; Behavior Therapy; Generalization, Psychological; Humans; Linguistics; Male; Social Skills; Verbal Behavior
PubMed: 31768719
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-019-04307-3 -
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology :... Jan 2022Native speakers frequently outperform non-native speakers on classic semantic verbal fluency tasks that target concrete non-emotional word retrieval. Much less is known...
OBJECTIVE
Native speakers frequently outperform non-native speakers on classic semantic verbal fluency tasks that target concrete non-emotional word retrieval. Much less is known about performance differences in retrieval of emotional words, which are abstract and crucial to social-emotional competence. This study compared native and non-native speakers' verbal productivity on emotional and non-emotional verbal fluency tasks.
METHOD
Forty-seven native and 37 non-native speakers of English participated in the study. Participants completed seven semantic verbal fluency tasks in English including classic semantic (e.g., "animals"), action (e.g., "things people do"), and emotional variants (e.g., "things that make people happy"). Subjective and objective measures of English proficiency, information about language usage, and cognitive measures (working memory) were obtained for each participant.
RESULTS
Verbal productivity for classic semantic, action, and emotional verbal fluency was lower for non-native speakers. Smaller language-specific vocabulary in non-native speakers did not moderate positivity biases in emotional verbal fluency. Subjective and objective language proficiency measures were less predictive of performance on the emotional than the non-emotional verbal fluency tasks.
CONCLUSION
Non-native speakers perform more poorly than native speakers on semantic verbal fluency in English for both emotional and non-emotional variants. Positivity biases are not moderated by language proficiency and are reliable features of emotional verbal fluency. Proficiency measures may be less effective in predicting generation of emotional than neutral words.
Topics: Emotions; Humans; Language; Neuropsychological Tests; Semantics; Verbal Behavior; Vocabulary
PubMed: 33969381
DOI: 10.1093/arclin/acab031 -
Scientific Reports Feb 2022The Down syndrome (DS) phenotype is usually characterized by relative strengths in non-verbal skills and deficits in verbal processing, but high interindividual...
The Down syndrome (DS) phenotype is usually characterized by relative strengths in non-verbal skills and deficits in verbal processing, but high interindividual variability has been registered in the syndrome. The goal of this study was to explore the cognitive profile, considering verbal and non-verbal intelligence, of children and adolescents with DS, also taking into account interindividual variability. We particularly aimed to investigate whether this variability means that we should envisage more than one cognitive profile in this population. The correlation between cognitive profile and medical conditions, parents' education levels and developmental milestones was also explored. Seventy-two children/adolescents with DS, aged 7-16 years, were assessed with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III. Age-equivalent scores were adopted, and Verbal and Non-Verbal indices were obtained for each individual. The cognitive profile of the group as a whole was characterized by similar scores in the verbal and non-verbal domain. Cluster analysis revealed three different profiles, however: one group, with the lowest scores, had the typical profile associated with DS (with higher non-verbal than verbal intelligence); one, with intermediate scores, had greater verbal than non-verbal intelligence; and one, with the highest scores, fared equally well in the verbal and non-verbal domain. Three cognitive profiles emerged, suggesting that educational support for children and adolescents with DS may need to be more specific.
Topics: Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Adolescent Development; Age Factors; Biological Variation, Population; Child; Child Behavior; Child Development; Child Language; Cognition; Down Syndrome; Education of Intellectually Disabled; Educational Status; Female; Humans; Intelligence; Male; Persons with Mental Disabilities; Verbal Behavior; Vocabulary
PubMed: 35121796
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-05825-4 -
Autism Research : Official Journal of... Mar 2023Fine motor skill is associated with expressive language outcomes in infants who have an autistic sibling and in young autistic children. Fewer studies have focused on...
Fine motor skill is associated with expressive language outcomes in infants who have an autistic sibling and in young autistic children. Fewer studies have focused on school-aged children even though around 80% have motor impairments and 30% remain minimally verbal (MV) into their school years. Moreover, expressive language is not a unitary construct, but it is made up of components such as speech production, structural language, and social-pragmatic language use. We used natural language sampling to investigate the relationship between fine motor and speech intelligibility, mean length of utterance and conversational turns in MV and verbal autistic children between the ages of 4 and 7 while controlling for age and adaptive behavior. Fine motor skill predicted speech production, measured by percent intelligible utterances. Fine motor skill and adaptive behavior predicted structural language, measured by mean length of utterance in morphemes. Adaptive behavior, but not fine motor skill, predicted social-pragmatic language use measured by number of conversational turns. Simple linear regressions by group corrected for multiple comparisons showed that fine motor skill predicted intelligibility for MV but not verbal children. Fine motor skill and adaptive behavior predicted mean length of utterance for both MV and verbal children. These findings suggest that future studies should explore whether MV children may benefit from interventions targeting fine motor along with speech and language into their school years.
Topics: Infant; Child; Humans; Child, Preschool; Autistic Disorder; Motor Skills; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Language; Speech; Verbal Behavior
PubMed: 36578205
DOI: 10.1002/aur.2883 -
International Journal of Language &... May 2020People experiencing homelessness are at increased risk of neurological disorder due to multiple factors such as substance abuse, infection, and higher rates of serious...
BACKGROUND
People experiencing homelessness are at increased risk of neurological disorder due to multiple factors such as substance abuse, infection, and higher rates of serious mental illness and traumatic brain injury. This could affect cognitive and language skills. Indeed, past research has suggested that certain language-related skills tend to be lower in people experiencing homelessness. However, that research has compared homeless samples with age-matched normative samples and not with samples of people from similar socio-economic backgrounds. Therefore, it is unclear whether homelessness is even a relevant factor, or if adults who are homeless tend to have appropriate linguistic skills relative to their social and educational background.
AIMS
To compare the language skills of a group of adults with histories of homelessness with an education-matched control group. It was hypothesized that participants with histories of homelessness would have worse language performance than their matched controls.
METHODS & PROCEDURES
A quasi-experimental design was employed involving 17 adults with histories of homelessness, mainly rough sleeping, in the city of Quito in Ecuador, and a sample of 16 adults who had never been homeless. All were assessed with measures of head injury, substance dependence, affective disorder and language skills. A paired-sample analysis was performed on homeless and control participants matched for educational background, used as an index of socio-economic background.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS
The mean years of formal education was low in both the homeless sample (mean = 5.82 years) and the control sample (mean = 6.75 years). There were no differences between the groups for any demographic or clinical factors, nor for a measure of expected or 'premorbid' ability based on single-word reading, nor for current non-verbal cognitive functioning. In contrast, the homeless group scored significantly worse than the control group on measures of auditory comprehension and oral expression.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS
Adults with histories of homelessness may have worse language skills than would be expected based on their educational backgrounds and non-verbal cognitive abilities. It is possible that some of this lower language ability is pathological, in the form of either a developmental language disorder or an acquired impairment. As such, some adults who are homeless may benefit from therapy directed at clinical language disorders.
Topics: Adult; Comprehension; Female; Ill-Housed Persons; Humans; Language; Language Disorders; Language Tests; Male; Middle Aged; Verbal Behavior
PubMed: 31925870
DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12521 -
CoDAS 2023Evaluate the performance in the Semantic and Phonemic Verbal Fluency tests in relation to the cognitive components of clustering and switching and explore the changes in...
PURPOSE
Evaluate the performance in the Semantic and Phonemic Verbal Fluency tests in relation to the cognitive components of clustering and switching and explore the changes in development in elementary school.
METHODS
Participants were 68 children from the 2nd to 5th grade of elementary school of a public school in the municipality of Santo André, divided into two groups, Learning Difficulty (LD) and Typical Development (TD).
RESULTS
The Verbal Fluency tests were compared for the number of clusters, mean size of the clusters, and number of switches. All variables compared showed a statistically significant higher score for Semantic Verbal Fluency. Means and standard deviations of the same variables for year and group effect were realized in both Verbal Fluency tests. A statistically significant difference was observed only for the total number of clusters in the Semantic Verbal Fluency test for group effect, with the best performance of the TD group. A high correlation was observed between the total number of correct answers with the total number of clusters and number of switches in both Verbal Fluency tests. In addition, a correlation was observed between the total number of correct answers and the mean size of the clusters only in the Phonemic Verbal Fluency. Linear regression analysis showed greater variance for the total number of clusters, making it more predictable for performance in both verbal fluency tests.
CONCLUSION
Verbal Fluency tests may be sensitive and predictive for the identification of possible differences in school performance associated with reading.
Topics: Humans; Child; Semantics; Cognition; Schools; Educational Status; Cluster Analysis; Verbal Behavior; Neuropsychological Tests
PubMed: 37820096
DOI: 10.1590/2317-1782/20232022003pt -
Journal of Autism and Developmental... Nov 2021The purpose of this study is to provide content validity evidence for the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP). A national panel of 13...
The purpose of this study is to provide content validity evidence for the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP). A national panel of 13 experts provided an evaluation of the domain relevance, age appropriateness, method of measurement appropriateness, and domain representation across the three levels of the Milestones Assessment, Early Echoic Skills Assessment (EESA), and Barriers Assessment. Overall, the content validity evidence for the VB-MAPP Milestones, EESA, and Barriers Assessment was moderate to strong across the evaluated areas although there were areas with limited or conflicting support. The evidence suggests that the scores of the VB-MAPP provide information relevant to the target behaviors of interest but a few domains may not be fully represented by their specific items.
Topics: Autism Spectrum Disorder; Humans; Program Evaluation; Verbal Behavior
PubMed: 33447987
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-020-04864-y -
Journal of Communication Disorders 2020Previous studies have provided inconsistent evidence concerning the association between delayed retrieval of story information from long-term memory and retrieval of...
Previous studies have provided inconsistent evidence concerning the association between delayed retrieval of story information from long-term memory and retrieval of words on verbal fluency tasks. The current study looks for shared retrieval mechanisms in these tasks from childhood to old age. Three-hundred and eighty participants (ages 5-91) performed tasks of story recall, digit span, phonemic fluency, and semantic fluency. Significant correlations between delayed story recall and both fluency tasks emerged in all age groups, and the contribution of delayed story recall to fluency performance remained significant when analyzing the combined effects of story recall and digit span. These findings suggest that retrieval of information through story recall and retrieval of words on fluency tasks may share similar cognitive components.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Child; Child, Preschool; Cognitive Aging; Female; Humans; Male; Memory; Mental Recall; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Phonetics; Semantics; Verbal Behavior; Young Adult
PubMed: 31835071
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2019.105968