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International Journal of Environmental... Jan 2023In this study, we investigated the lexical ability in L1 and L2 of 60 immigrant children who were 37 to 62 months old and exposed to minority languages (L1) and Italian...
In this study, we investigated the lexical ability in L1 and L2 of 60 immigrant children who were 37 to 62 months old and exposed to minority languages (L1) and Italian (L2). Using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, we measured children's vocabulary production in L1 and L2. From interviews, we collected data on quantitative language exposure (parental input, child output, length of exposure to L2 at preschool, and parental oral fluency) and qualitative home-language exposure (HLE) practices (active, play, and passive) in L1 and L2. We conducted stepwise regression analyses to explore which factors predicted children's vocabulary production in L1 and L2. The child's chronological age and parental education were not predictors of vocabulary production. L2 parental input, L1 child output, and L1 HLE-active practices explained 42% of the variance in children's L1 vocabulary production. L2 child output and L2 HLE-active practices explained 47% of the variance in children's L2 vocabulary production, whereas length of L2 exposure in preschool was a predictor only when we included quantitative language-exposure factors in the model. The effects of the quantity and quality of language exposure on lexical ability among preschool immigrant children are discussed.
Topics: Child; Humans; Child, Preschool; Vocabulary; Multilingualism; Language; Emigrants and Immigrants; Italy
PubMed: 36767333
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20031966 -
Ear and Hearing 2022Early hearing aid (HA) fitting and cochlear implants (CIs) aim to reduce the effects of hearing loss (HL) on spoken language development. The goals of this study were...
OBJECTIVES
Early hearing aid (HA) fitting and cochlear implants (CIs) aim to reduce the effects of hearing loss (HL) on spoken language development. The goals of this study were (1) to examine spoken language skills of children with bilateral HAs and children with bilateral CIs; (2) to compare their language skills to the age-norms of peers with normal hearing (NH); and (3) to investigate factors associated with spoken language outcomes.
DESIGN
Spoken language results of 56 Finnish children with HL were obtained from a nationwide prospective multicenter study. Children with HL comprised two groups: children with mild-to-severe HL who used bilateral HAs (BiHA group, n = 28) and children with profound HL who used bilateral CIs (BiCI group, n = 28). Children's spoken language comprehension, expressive and receptive vocabulary, and phonological skills were compared with normative values of children with NH at the age of three years. Odds ratio (OR) was calculated to compare proportions of children below age-norms in BiHA and BiCI groups. Factors associated with spoken language outcomes were modeled with analysis of covariance.
RESULTS
At the age of 3 years, 50%-96% of children with HL performed 1 SD or more below the mean of the normative sample of age-peers with NH in spoken language skills, depending on the language domain. Receptive vocabulary and phonological skills were the most vulnerable language domains. In receptive vocabulary, 82% of the children in the BiHA group and 50% of the children in the BiCI group scored 1 SD or more below the normative mean. The BiHA group was 4.4 times more likely to have poorer receptive vocabulary than the BiCI group. In phonological skills, 96% of children in the BiHA group and 60% of the children in the BiCI group scored 1 SD or more below the normative mean. The BiHA group was 18.0 times more likely to have poorer phonological skills than the BiCI group. The analysis of covariance models showed that unaided pure-tone average, PTA0.5-4 kHz, had a significant effect on spoken language comprehension in the BiHA group. For the BiCI group, age at HL diagnosis and age at CI activation had a significant effect on expressive vocabulary. High maternal level of education had a significant effect on language comprehension and expressive vocabulary and female gender on phonological skills.
CONCLUSIONS
At the age of 3 years, especially receptive vocabulary and phonological skills caused difficulties for children with HL showing also considerable individual variation. Children with bilateral HAs seemed to be more likely to have poorer receptive vocabulary and phonological skills than children with bilateral CIs. A variety of factors was associated with outcomes in both groups. Close monitoring of spoken language skills of children with HL is important for ensuring similar opportunities for all children with HL and timely intervention, when needed.
Topics: Child; Child, Preschool; Cochlear Implantation; Cochlear Implants; Deafness; Female; Hearing Aids; Hearing Loss; Humans; Language Development; Male; Prospective Studies; Vocabulary
PubMed: 34260435
DOI: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001092 -
Journal of Speech, Language, and... Feb 2021Purpose Prior studies report conflicting descriptions of the relationships between phonological awareness (PA), vocabulary, and speech perception in preschoolers with...
Purpose Prior studies report conflicting descriptions of the relationships between phonological awareness (PA), vocabulary, and speech perception in preschoolers with speech disorders. This study sought to determine the nature of these relationships in a sample of school-aged children with residual speech sound errors affecting /ɹ/. Method Participants included 110 children aged 7;0-17;4 (years;months) with residual errors impacting /ɹ/. Data on perceptual acuity and perceptual bias in an /ɹ/ identification task, receptive vocabulary, and PA were obtained. A theoretically and empirically motivated path model was constructed with vocabulary mediating the relationship between two measures of speech perception and PA. Model parameters were determined through maximum likelihood estimation with standard errors that were robust to nonnormality. Monte Carlo simulation was used to examine achieved power at the current sample size. Results The saturated path model explained 19% of the variance in PA. The direct path between age-adjusted perceptual acuity and PA was significant, as was the direct path between vocabulary and PA. Contrary to our hypothesis, there was no evidence in the current sample that vocabulary skill mediated the relationship between speech perception and PA. Each individual path was adequately powered at the current sample size. Conclusions The overall model provided evidence for a continued relationship between speech perception, measured by perceptual acuity of the sound in error, and PA in school-aged children with residual speech errors. Thus, measures of speech perception remain relevant to the assessment of school-aged children and adolescents in this population. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13641275.
Topics: Adolescent; Child; Humans; Phonetics; Schools; Speech Perception; Speech Sound Disorder; Vocabulary
PubMed: 33514264
DOI: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00356 -
American Journal of Speech-language... Aug 2020Purpose This research project examined the vocabulary growth patterns of typically developing (TD) Cantonese-English dual language learners (DLLs) and their peers who...
Purpose This research project examined the vocabulary growth patterns of typically developing (TD) Cantonese-English dual language learners (DLLs) and their peers who are at risk for language impairment. Method Two studies were done. Study 1 examined the concurrent validity of a pilot vocabulary screening measure, the Kai Ming Vocabulary Test, that was designed for Cantonese-English preschool DLLs. Participants were 53 preschool children who learned Cantonese as their first language (L1) and English as a second language (L2). Their scores on the Kai Ming Vocabulary Test were examined in relation to their language sample measures, including number of different words and mean length of utterance, in L1 and in L2. Study 2 examined the vocabulary growth patterns of 24 TD Cantonese-English DLL preschoolers and 24 DLLs who are at risk for language impairment (At-Risk group). Each child was tested 3 times during an academic year. Results Results of Study 1 showed that children's vocabulary scores ( = 53) were significantly correlated with their language sample measures in each language. In Study 2, hierarchical linear models were used to compare the TD and At-Risk groups. Results showed that children in the At-Risk group had lower L1 receptive vocabulary scores and children in the TD group had relatively higher L2 expressive vocabulary gains. Conclusions Children who are at risk are likely to continue to have lower vocabulary knowledge compared to their TD peers. The growth trajectories of DLLs provide valuable information for early identification and intervention.
Topics: Child; Child Language; Child, Preschool; Humans; Language; Language Development Disorders; Language Tests; Multilingualism; Vocabulary
PubMed: 32750277
DOI: 10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00160 -
Journal of Speech, Language, and... Apr 2021Purpose This study examined the efficacy of the Vocabulary Acquisition and Usage for Late Talkers (VAULT) treatment in a version that manipulated the length of clinician...
Purpose This study examined the efficacy of the Vocabulary Acquisition and Usage for Late Talkers (VAULT) treatment in a version that manipulated the length of clinician utterance in which a target word was presented (dose length). The study also explored ways to characterize treatment responders versus nonresponders. Method Nineteen primarily English-speaking late-talking toddlers (aged 24-34 months at treatment onset) received VAULT and were quasirandomly assigned to have target words presented in grammatical utterances matching one of two lengths: brief (four words or fewer) or extended (five words or more). Children were measured on their pre- and posttreatment production of (a) target and control words specific to treatment and (b) words not specific to treatment. Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis was used to classify responders versus nonresponders. Results VAULT was successful as a whole (i.e., treatment effect sizes of greater than 0), with no difference between the brief and extended conditions. Despite the overall significant treatment effect, the treatment was not successful for all participants. CART results (using participants from the current study and a previous iteration of VAULT) provided a dual-node decision tree for classifying treatment responders versus nonresponders. Conclusions The input-based VAULT treatment protocol is efficacious and offers some flexibility in terms of utterance length. When VAULT works, it works well. The CART decision tree uses pretreatment vocabulary levels and performance in the first two treatment sessions to provide clinicians with promising guidelines for who is likely to be a nonresponder and thus might need a modified treatment plan. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14226641.
Topics: Humans; Language Development Disorders; Treatment Outcome; Vocabulary
PubMed: 33784467
DOI: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00525 -
Annals of Dyslexia Apr 2023Understanding factors that influence reading achievement among bilingual children is considerably more complex than it is for monolingual children. Research on dual...
Understanding factors that influence reading achievement among bilingual children is considerably more complex than it is for monolingual children. Research on dual language development indicates that bilingual children's oral language abilities are often distributed across languages in varied ways, due to heterogeneity of dual language exposure and input. Consequently, there may be greater variability in the associations between oral language proficiency and reading achievement among bilingual children than there is for monolingual children. This study evaluated how vocabulary knowledge and morphosyntactic ability in Spanish and English were associated with English reading achievement among 117 bilingual kindergarten and first grade children in the USA using both OLS and quantile regression. Results indicated that although English vocabulary and morphosyntax were both significantly associated with reading achievement, English vocabulary knowledge was most strongly associated with reading at higher quantiles of reading achievement. Cross-language analyses indicated that both Spanish vocabulary and morphosyntax made significant contributions to predicting English reading achievement beyond the effects of English oral language. Spanish vocabulary was uniquely predictive of reading at high and low quantiles of English reading, whereas relations between Spanish morphosyntax and English reading did not differ across quantiles. These results were consistent with predictions derived from theoretical models such as the simple view of reading and suggest that Spanish vocabulary knowledge may provide more unique information about children's underlying capacity for acquiring language and literacy skill than does morphosyntax.
Topics: Humans; Child; Reading; Multilingualism; Child Language; Dyslexia; Vocabulary; Regression Analysis
PubMed: 35633436
DOI: 10.1007/s11881-022-00257-1 -
Developmental Science Mar 2023There is a well-documented link between bilingual language development and the relative amounts of exposure to each language. Less is known about the role of quality...
There is a well-documented link between bilingual language development and the relative amounts of exposure to each language. Less is known about the role of quality indicators of caregiver-child interactions in bilingual homes, including caregiver input diversity, warmth and sensitivity. This longitudinal study examines the relation between caregiver input (lexical diversity, amount), warmth and sensitivity and bilingual toddlers' subsequent vocabulary outcomes. We video-recorded caregiver-child interactions in Spanish-English Latino homes when toddlers (n = 47) were 18 months of age (M = 18.32 months; SD = 1.02 months). At the 24-month follow-up, we measured children's vocabulary as total vocabulary (English, Spanish combined) as well as within language (Spanish, English). Results revealed that Spanish lexical diversity exposure at 18 months from caregivers was positively associated with children's Spanish and total vocabulary scores at 24 months, while English lexical diversity was positively associated with children's English scores; lexical diversity and amount were highly correlated. Additionally, caregivers' warmth was positively associated with children's Spanish, English and total vocabulary scores. Together, these factors accounted for substantial variance (30-40%) in vocabulary outcomes. Notably, caregiver input accounted for more variance in single language outcomes than did caregiver warmth, whereas caregiver warmth uniquely accounted for more variance in total vocabulary scores. Our findings extend prior research findings by suggesting that children's dual language development may depend on their exposure to a diverse set of words, not only amount of language exposure, as well as warm interactions with caregivers. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/q1V_7fz5wog HIGHLIGHTS: Video-recorded observations of caregiver-child interactions revealed warmth and high sensitivity from Latino caregivers. Linguistically-detailed analyses of caregiver input revealed wide variation in the diversity of Spanish and English directed at 18-month-old bilingual toddlers. Bilingual toddlers' vocabulary (single language, total) was positively associated with caregivers' diverse input and warmth, thus extending prior findings on bilinguals' amount of language exposure. Findings suggest that caregivers' lexical diversity explains more variance in bilingual toddlers' single language outcomes, whereas warmth explains more variance in total vocabulary scores.
Topics: Child, Preschool; Humans; Infant; Hispanic or Latino; Language; Language Development; Language Tests; Longitudinal Studies; Multilingualism; Vocabulary; Caregivers
PubMed: 35913423
DOI: 10.1111/desc.13308 -
Scientific Reports Feb 2023Rhythmic skills have been repeatedly found to relate to children's early literacy skills. Using rhythmic tasks to predict language and reading performance seems a...
Rhythmic skills have been repeatedly found to relate to children's early literacy skills. Using rhythmic tasks to predict language and reading performance seems a promising direction as they can be easily administered early as a screening test to identify at-risk children. In the present study, we measured Hungarian children's (N = 37) general cognitive abilities (working memory, non-verbal reasoning and rapid automatized naming), language and literacy skills (vocabulary, word reading, phonological awareness and spelling) and finger tapping performance in a longitudinal design in the first and third grades. We applied metronome stimuli in three tempi (80, 120, 150 bpm) using a synchronization-continuation paradigm and also measured participants' spontaneous motor tempo. While children's synchronization asynchrony was lower in third than in the first grade, with the exception of the slow-tempo trials, tapping consistency and continuation tapping success showed no development in this period. First-year tapping consistency in the slow-tempo tasks was associated with third-year reading and spelling outcomes. Our results show that the relation between tapping performance and literacy skills persists throughout the third school year, making the sensorimotor synchronization task a potentially effective instrument for predicting literacy outcomes, and a useful tool for early screening of reading difficulties.
Topics: Humans; Child; Literacy; Reading; Language; Vocabulary; Schools
PubMed: 36759633
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-29367-5 -
Computational and Mathematical Methods... 2022Text interpretation of public English vocabulary is a critical task in the subject of natural language processing, which uses technology to allow humans and computers to...
Text interpretation of public English vocabulary is a critical task in the subject of natural language processing, which uses technology to allow humans and computers to communicate effectively using natural language. Text feature extraction is one of the most fundamental and crucial elements in allowing computers to effectively grasp and read text. This paper proposes a text feature extraction method based on wavelet analysis that performs fast discrete wavelet transform and inverse discrete wavelet transform on the feature vectors under the traditional TF-IDF vector space model to address the problem of low feature differentiation of high-dimensional data in text feature extraction. In particular, due to the design of the Mallat algorithm, there is frequency aliasing in the signal decomposition process. This phenomenon is a problem that cannot be ignored when using wavelet analysis for feature extraction. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved inverse discrete wavelet transform method, in which the signal is decomposed by Mallat algorithm to obtain wavelet coefficients at each scale and then reconstructed to the required wavelet space coefficients according to the reconstruction method, and the reconstructed coefficients are used to analyze the signal at that scale instead of the wavelet coefficients obtained at the corresponding scale. Experiments on the public English vocabulary dataset reveal that the wavelet transform-based strategy suggested in this research outperforms existing feature extraction methods while maintaining greater classification accuracy while reducing the dimensionality of the TF-IDF vector space model.
Topics: Algorithms; Computers; Humans; Language; Vocabulary; Wavelet Analysis
PubMed: 35726227
DOI: 10.1155/2022/7125242 -
Child Development Nov 2019This article examined longitudinal relations among socioeconomic risk, maternal language input, child vocabulary, and child executive function (EF) in a large sample...
This article examined longitudinal relations among socioeconomic risk, maternal language input, child vocabulary, and child executive function (EF) in a large sample (N = 1,009) recruited for a prospective longitudinal study. Two measures of maternal language input derived from a parent-child picture book task, vocabulary diversity (VOCD), and language complexity, showed variation by socioeconomic risk at child ages 15, 24, and 36 months. Maternal VOCD at child age 24 months and maternal language complexity at child age 36 months mediated the relation between socioeconomic risk and 48-month child EF, independent of parenting sensitivity. Moreover, 36-month child vocabulary mediated the relation between maternal language input and child EF. These findings provide novel evidence about mechanisms linking socioeconomic risk and child executive function.
Topics: Adult; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Executive Function; Female; Humans; Infant; Language Development; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Maternal Behavior; Social Class; Vocabulary
PubMed: 29707764
DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13065