Hope Sparks Lancaster

Boys Town · Center for Childhood Deafness Language & Learning

Purpose This study examined the effect of phonological overlap on English and Spanish expressive vocabulary accuracy as measured by the bilingual Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test–Fourth Edition (EOWPVT-IV). We hypothesized that if languages interact during an expressive vocabulary task, then higher phonological overlap will predict highe...

Objective We conducted a meta-analysis and systematic review of literature comparing pre-reading and general reading in school-age children with nonsyndromic cleft palate with or without cleft lip (NSCP/L) to their peers without NSCP/L. Methods Our literature search identified 1238 possible records. After screening we identified 11 samples for inc...

Reading ability is a complex skill requiring multiple proficiencies (e.g., phonological awareness, decoding, and comprehension). Reading ability has genetic and environmental components that create the potential for significant gene-gene and gene-environment interactions, but the evidence for these interactions is limited. We used data from the Avo...

Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between selective visual attention (SVA), reading decoding, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension in children with and without a reading disorder.Methods: We used longitudinal data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). We split children i...

Background The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between selective visual attention (SVA), reading decoding, listening comprehension and reading comprehension in children with and without a reading disorder. Methods We used longitudinal data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. We split children into four g...

Introduction Past research has suggested that reading disability is a complex disorder involving genetic and environment contributions, as well as gene–gene and gene–environment interaction, but to date little is known about the underlying mechanisms. Method Using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, we assessed the contributions o...

Purpose We investigated four theoretically based latent variable models of word learning in young school-age children. Method One hundred sixty-seven English-speaking second graders with typical development from three U.S. states participated. They completed five different tasks designed to assess children's creation, storage, retrieval, and produ...

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which a naturalistic communication intervention, Enhanced Milieu Teaching with Phonological Emphasis (EMT + PE) improved the speech outcomes of toddlers with cleft palate with or without cleft lip (CP ± L) Method: This study was a stratified randomised controlled trial. Setting: Tr...

Objective The aim of the study was to conduct a meta-analysis of research examining the early speech and language functioning of young children, birth to age 8;11 (years;months), with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate (NSCL/P) compared to their peers without NSCL/P. Method We conducted a random-effects metaregression using 241 effect sizes from...

We completed a preliminary meta-analysis of the correlation between speech and language skills in young children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate. Our results suggested a strong concurrent relationship between speech and language skills, but a weak relationship when predicting future language performance from early speech data. We are in t...

We completed a meta-analysis of word decoding studies in children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate (NSCL/P). Our results indicated that children with NSCL/P had lower word decoding skills compared to non-cleft typical reading peers. The average effect size across studies was -0.41.

Recent studies of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) have resulted in conflicting conclusions regarding the comorbidity of these disorders on phenotypic grounds. In a nuclear family with two dually affected and one unaffected offspring, whole-exome sequences were evaluated for single nucleotide and indel variants a...

Background There is considerable variability in the presentation of developmental language disorder (DLD). Disagreement amongst professionals about how to characterize and interpret the variability complicates both the research on understanding the nature of DLD and the best clinical framework for diagnosing and treating children with DLD. We descr...

Reading disability and ability has a high heritability rate leading to speculation about the underlying genetic causes. Past research has examined the genetics for dyslexia and for reading ability, but past research has not often used a multi-factorial approach when considering reading ability. We compared the genetic associations for two phenotype...

Purpose: The primary purposes of this study were to examine the effects of hearing loss and respondent type (self- vs. parent-proxy report) on subjective fatigue in children. We also examined associations between child-specific factors and fatigue ratings. Method: Subjective fatigue was assessed using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Mult...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that individuals with dyslexia and individuals with childhood apraxia of speech share an underlying persisting deficit in processing sequential information. Levels of impairment (sensory encoding, memory, retrieval, and motor planning/programming) were also investigated. Participants were...

R code for analyzing longitudinal growth and changes in articulation and phonological errors during early intervention.

Interstitial and terminal 6q25 deletions are associated with developmental delays, hypotonia, eye pathologies, craniofacial dysmorphologies, and structural brain anomalies. In most cases, speech and language deficits are not described in detail. We report on a case (Patient 1, age 7 years) with a de novo 6q25.3-qter deletion, 11.1 Mb long and encom...

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of speech errors (i.e., deletions and substitutions) in children with repaired cleft palate with or without cleft lip (CP+/-L) over the course of early intervention. Using growth curve modeling, the course of deletions, developmental speech substitutions, and cleft-related substitutions was analyzed....

The purpose of this study was to determine if vocabulary measures gathered at pre-­intervention would predict speech accuracy skills of children with a repaired cleft palate with or without cleft lip after early intervention. We examined percent consonants correct (PCC) at post-­intervention and change in substitutions and deletions between pre-­ a...

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if there is empirical support for reconceptualizing language impairment (SLI) as a spectrum disorder. Past research in language impairment has considered subtypes of SLI and an individual differences model (Leonard, 2014); however neither of these conceptualizations has stuck (Reilly, Bishop, & To...

Children with dyslexia have difficulties with nonword and real word imitation1. This project evaluated these difficulties in adults with dyslexia and tested the hypothesis that a deficit in sequential processing underlies difficulties with real word and nonword imitation. Adults with and without a history of dyslexia imitated real words and nonword...

This project demonstrates a local norming procedure for ruling out global intellectual delay when identifying primary language disorder (PLD) for children from traditionally underrepresented populations. The Epidemiological Study of Specific Language Impairment Diagnostic Database [9], a population based sample of students with PLD, was utilized fo...

Preliminary data for publication

This study sought to better understand how Black children present on nonverbal measures in child language research. This study used the EpiSLI data. This study found that in the EpiSLI data Black children were significantly overrepresented in low cognitive groups, and scored lower than normative data for two nonverbal measures.

A combined storybook and play vocabulary intervention was implemented as a single-subject study of 23 children of diverse typologies, including 10 with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), three with developmental disability (DD), five with Down Syndrome, and five with specific language impairment (SLI), who were currently receiving speech-language serv...

Preliminary results from cluster analysis using language and cognitive variables in the EpiSLI database

Oral presentation

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Cognition and pre-literacy model

Demonstration poster

Feasibility data