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01/2008: pages 155-168;
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ABSTRACT: Children who experience difficulties in face-to-face interaction, understanding language and developing literacy can benefit from the provision of communication aids such as speech synthesizers and specialist software applications that support their social participation and learning. The Communication Aids Project (CAP) was a national initiative by the Department for Education and Skills in England, aimed at supporting and developing the provision of communication aids to children. This paper presents an analysis of the number and type of applications to CAP. In so doing, the paper begins to explore how the need for communication aids might be understood in England.
The analysis was carried out on a database of 3060 anonymized records, representing applications to CAP between January 2002 and January 2004.
Applications to CAP were made on behalf of children with a broader range of disabilities than might be assumed, including a relatively high proportion of children with autistic spectrum disorder. Rates of application to CAP varied in line with Local Education Authority population size [e.g. total pupils, total pupils with special educational needs (SEN)], rather than indicators of regional variation in SEN provision (e.g. proportion of population identified as having SEN).
Within a context of changing services to children in England and increasing emphasis on the plurality and contestability of services, the relevance of these findings for service providers and service commissioners is discussed.
Child Care Health and Development 10/2007; 33(5):569-75. · 1.20 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Previous research on typically developing children has shown that their memory for events depends on how they are encoded. As children grow older, they start to mention causal and temporal relationships between events, including psychological causes. Children with specific language impairment (SLI) were studied to disentangle the effects of syntactic skill and non-verbal IQ on event encoding and recall. Children with receptive SLI (SLI-R; N = 34) had a significant discrepancy between non-verbal IQ and scores on a receptive language measure. Those with expressive SLI (SLI-E; N = 29) did not have significant receptive impairment, but had low scores on at least one expressive language test. Controls were 32 typically developing children of similar age and non-verbal IQ. Children were shown two sequences of photographs, and in each case, were asked first to describe the story, and then, without warning, to recall it after a delay of 30 – 40 minutes. Compared with controls, children with SLI recalled significantly less story material. For the SLI-E group, poor recall was totally accounted for by poor initial encoding of the story content. However, for the SLI-R group, story memory was poor even after adjusting for amount of information in the initial narrative. Description and recall of the story ideas were related to use of complex syntax, and failure to use cognitive state terms predicted poor recall. We conclude that use of complex syntax and causal concepts are more important than non-verbal IQ in determining children's event memory.
British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 01/2005; 23:25-46.
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ABSTRACT: The effect of regional accent on children's processing of speech is a theoretically and practically important aspect of phonological development that has been little researched. 48 children from London, aged four and seven years old, were tested on their ability to repeat and define single words presented in their own accent and in a Glaswegian accent. Results showed that word comprehension was significantly reduced in the Glaswegian condition and that four-year-olds performed less successfully than seven-year-olds. Both groups made similar numbers of lexical misidentifications, but the younger children were more likely to fail to access any word at all. On the repetition task, the younger children showed a different pattern of errors to the older children, their productions being apparently more influenced by the phonetics of the Glaswegian stimuli. It is suggested that such phonetic responses are related to the younger children's failure to map the unfamiliar accent onto their own phonological representations. It is proposed that the lexical misidentifications, common to both age groups, are more likely to be induced by lack of context. The paper concludes with discussion of implications of these findings for our understanding of how children develop the ability to process unfamiliar regional accents.
Journal of Child Language 07/1998; 25(2):343-65. · 1.41 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The Children's Nonword Repetition Test (CNRep) was given 39 children with persistent language impairment (LI), 13 with a history of having received speech-language therapy (resolved LI), and 79 controls, all aged from 7 to 9 years. The children with LI were twins who had participated in a previous genetic study. Children with resolved LI, as well as those with persistent LI, were significantly impaired on the CNRep. Comparisons of MZ and DZ twins indicated significant heritability of a CNRep deficit. It is concluded that CNRep provides a marker of the phenotype of heritable forms of developmental language impairment.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 06/1996; 37(4):391-403. · 4.28 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: A sample of 4,243 residents of Manchester, England and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, aged 50 to 93 years, completed the Beck Depression Scale (A.T. Beck, C.H. Ward, M. Mendelson, J. Mock, & J. Erbaugh, 1961) and a battery of 6 different cognitive tests. Beck scores were low, indicating gradations of dysphoria rather than clinical depression. Beck scores did not vary with age but were significantly higher for women than for men and for disadvantaged than for advantaged socioeconomic groups. Measures of fluid, but not of crystallized, ability declined as age increased. Socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with poorer performance on all cognitive tests. Men scored higher on a test of spatial reasoning, and women scored higher on a test of word definition and on 2 tests of verbal memory and learning. However, after variance associated with all these demographic and individual-difference variables was considered, and within a range indicative of dysphoria rather than clinical depression, higher Beck scores were associated with significantly poorer performance on both crystallized and fluid measures of cognitive ability. This association was less marked in women than in men, but age, socioeconomic advantage, and estimated lifetime intellectual ability did not act as protective or risk factors for vulnerability of cognitive processes to dysphoria.
Psychology and Aging 10/1995; 10(3):307-13. · 2.73 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Concordance rates were compared for 63 monozygotic (MZ) and 27 dizygotic (DZ) same-sex twin pairs, aged seven years and over, selected because at least one twin met diagnostic criteria for specific speech or language impairment. There was significant heritability for developmental speech and language disorder, defined according to DSM-II-R criteria. When the definition of the phenotype was broadened to include those with a past history of disorder and those with a less pronounced discrepancy between verbal and non-verbal ability, concordance for MZ twins was close to 100 per cent, and that for DZ twins approximately 50 per cent. There was also close similarity between concordant twins for type of disorder. There is good evidence that genetic factors play a role in the aetiology of speech and language impairment; twin data may help us arrive at a clearer conception of the phenotype as well as quantifying the extent of the genetic contribution.
Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology 02/1995; 37(1):56-71. · 2.92 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The present investigation examines decision-making in conversational contexts for children with specific language impairment (SLI) and two sets of control groups: same-age peers and children matched for mean length of utterance (MLU). In a dyadic situation, it was found that children with SLI made as many verbal winning moves as age-control peers and more than the MLU-control children. Non-verbally, the children with SLI had more winning moves than the age-control peers. These results are discussed theoretically, in light of previous research on peer interaction, and practically, in terms of implications for clinician-researchers working with children with SLI.
European journal of disorders of communication: the journal of the College of Speech and Language Therapists, London 02/1993; 28(2):141-52.
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ABSTRACT: The characteristics of children with specific language impairment (SLI) attending four language units in the north-west of England are examined. The present study involved 15 children with SLI and two sets of control groups: a same-age group and an MLU-matched group (MLU = mean length of utterance). Results are discussed in terms of the following questions: Do children with SLI attending language units fit the classic definition of SLI? Can children with SLI be categorised as having expressive versus receptive language problems? What other aspects of educational attainment such as reading, maths and science are affected by SLI? The paper ends with implications for future research.
European journal of disorders of communication: the journal of the College of Speech and Language Therapists, London 02/1992; 27(4):325-42.
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ABSTRACT: The number skills of groups of 7- to 9-year-old children with specific language impairment (SLI) attending mainstream or special schools were compared with an age and nonverbal reasoning matched group (age control [AC]) and with a younger group matched on oral language comprehension. The SLI groups performed below the AC group on every skill. They also showed lower working memory functioning and had received lower levels of instruction. Nonverbal reasoning, working memory functioning, language comprehension, and instruction accounted for individual variation in number skills to differing extents depending on the skill. These factors did not explain the differences between SLI and AC groups on most skills.
Cowan, R. and Donlan, C. and Newton, E.J. and Lloyd, D. (2005) Number skills and knowledge in children with specific language impairment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97 (4). 732 - 744. ISSN 00220663.
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ABSTRACT: Linguistic and cognitive correlates of social skill were examined in a clinically selected sample of children with communication disorders. Thirty-two children aged between 5 and 10 years were assessed using a questionnaire-based sociability scale. Specially designed measures of verbal and visuo-spatial short-term memory span were administered, as well as standardized tests of grammatical and lexical comprehension. Multiple regression analyses revealed strong prediction of social skill from STM measures but not from comprehension scores. The prediction was based on a striking negative correlation between serial word span and sociability. This word-span measure could offer a useful tool in the assessment of children with communication disorders. However, attention is drawn to the substantial number of children in the sample whose patterns of cognitive, linguistic and social skill are not clearly differentiated. It is suggested that assessment should aim to specify as clearly as possible individual patterns of strength and weakness and avoid unwarranted categorization.
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 35(2):211-26. · 1.95 Impact Factor
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C Donlan
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 33(2):212-5; discussion 215-9. · 1.95 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: A size judgement task was used to investigate number processing skills in children with specific language impairments (SLI). Previous work with unimpaired adults and children has shown that when comparing the size of written numbers and other ordinal stimuli, there is a symbolic distance effect (SDE) such that decision time decreases with the size distance between items. This study examined the ability of children to judge stimulus pairs which were varied to contrast the processing of symbolic material against direct perceptual judgement and to test processing of numeric versus non-numeric material. Children with SLI were compared with a control group matched on verbal comprehension level. The children with SLI responded faster than the control subjects. The SLI and control groups showed similar SDE and a similar pattern of response across materials. No indication was found in the SLI data of any selective deficit in processing symbolic information. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of numeracy acquisition which acknowledge the importance of non-verbal representation of number meanings.
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 33(2):149-60. · 1.95 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The United Kingdom Medical Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council have funded, since 1982, a longitudinal study of cognitive change in old age carried out on over 6000 volunteers aged between 50 and 96 years and resident in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Greater Manchester. The Medical Research Council has guaranteed further funding until 1977. This paper describes the history of the study, the test batteries employed, the demographics of populations tested and the amount, and selectivity, of attrition by death and withdrawal from the study. Further aims of the study, and parallel work carried out on a number of related projects concerned with the epidemiology, time-course and everyday impacts of cognitive changes in normal old age are also discussed.
Zeitschrift für Gerontologie 26(3):176-83.
