Article 5: Linguistic Trade-Offs in School-Aged Children
Masterson, J.J. & Kamhi, A.G. (1992). Linguistic trade-offs in school-aged children with and without language disorders. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 35: 1064-1075.
This article is one that I think of often when I'm analyzing the profile of an individual child. It reminds me that the linguistic behavior of a child is not isolated, but rather part of a constellation of factors. Further, the reason for a linguistic behavior (such as stuttering on words, word retrieval, or incorrect grammar) may vary depending on the task, setting, conversation partner, cognitive abilities, or language abilities of the child. Just because one behavior of a child looks similar to the behavior of another child does not mean the underlying reason for that behavior is the same. As well, it reminds me that although typically developing children present with grammatical, phonemic, morphosyntactic, and fluency errors, children with language-learning disabilities are much more likely to have a constellation of errors at once and be low in several areas rather than just one.
This article is a primary source. It details a research study of, as the title suggests, three cohorts of school-aged children (6;0 to 9;0 years old): 10 with deficits in oral and written language, 10 only in written language, and 10 developing normally. The researchers wanted to know if one part of language system is taxed, if another part of the language system would change. Does increasing utterance length decrease correct morpheme use? Does more complex syntax increase stuttering events even in a child with typical fluency?
This is a condensed version of their findings:
1) When phonological complexity of words increased in a child's sentence, the sentence was often simpler. When complexity of the sentence increased/syntactic complexity increased, the phonological complexity decreased. (Phonological complexity UP, Syntactic complexity DOWN; Phonological complexity DOWN, Syntactic complexity UP).
2) Neither clause structure nor phonological complexity affected intelligibility/phonemes correct. HOWEVER, unintelligible words appeared more often in a multi-verb/compound utterances for children with reading disabilities and typically developing children.
3) For imitated utterances, disfluencies increased markedly when utterances were both embedded and phonologically complex. Simple sentences had more disfluencies than compound/multi-verb sentences. Example: "The girl with the brown hair and red shoes went to the store" and "The girl went to the store" would have more disfluencies than "The girl played, and the boy studied." Children with reading and oral disabilities and children with language-learning disabilities were significantly more disfluent than children with normal development.
4) In both spontaneous and imitated utterances, utterances with fewer phonemic errors also had fewer grammatical errors.
5) "The relationships between percentage of unintelligible words and both percentage of phonemes correct and percentage of grammatical markers correct were significant ONLY for children with language-learning disabilities." I understand this to mean that for children with language-learning disabilities, the percentage of unintelligible words was often accompanied by fewer phonemes correct and grammatical morphemes correct. (Correct? 😊)
6) "Morphophonemic accuracy was significantly related to both percentage of phonemes correct and percentage of unintelligible words in the children with language-learning disabilities, but only to percentage of phonemes correct in the group of children with reading disabilities and only to percentage of unintelligible words in the normally developing group."
Taken with #5, I believe what the authors are saying is that children with language-learning disabilities show difficulties in all areas (decreased intelligibility, decreased phonemic accuracy, decreased grammatical accuracy) whereas the other two groups seem to be strong in at least one area if they are weaker in two. This being said, clinically speaking, we always want to speak to and play on the child's strengths. So perhaps, we should look at these three areas and see which is the strongest. Then use that strength as a vehicle for elevating the other areas.
Conclusion:
Every child has linguistic trade-offs--and this study, though it looked at many measures, did not look at what trade-offs might occur when different emotional reactions are present, the setting or speakers change, etc. This is important to keep in mind when looking at children and testing them. It allows us as clinicians to be mindful of the types of sentences we're asking children to use or repeat, and to always have connected speech, such as a language sample or story retell, as part of our testing since imitated sentences often produce more errors than non-imitated sentences across the board.
This article is one that I think of often when I'm analyzing the profile of an individual child. It reminds me that the linguistic behavior of a child is not isolated, but rather part of a constellation of factors. Further, the reason for a linguistic behavior (such as stuttering on words, word retrieval, or incorrect grammar) may vary depending on the task, setting, conversation partner, cognitive abilities, or language abilities of the child. Just because one behavior of a child looks similar to the behavior of another child does not mean the underlying reason for that behavior is the same. As well, it reminds me that although typically developing children present with grammatical, phonemic, morphosyntactic, and fluency errors, children with language-learning disabilities are much more likely to have a constellation of errors at once and be low in several areas rather than just one.
This article is a primary source. It details a research study of, as the title suggests, three cohorts of school-aged children (6;0 to 9;0 years old): 10 with deficits in oral and written language, 10 only in written language, and 10 developing normally. The researchers wanted to know if one part of language system is taxed, if another part of the language system would change. Does increasing utterance length decrease correct morpheme use? Does more complex syntax increase stuttering events even in a child with typical fluency?
This is a condensed version of their findings:
1) When phonological complexity of words increased in a child's sentence, the sentence was often simpler. When complexity of the sentence increased/syntactic complexity increased, the phonological complexity decreased. (Phonological complexity UP, Syntactic complexity DOWN; Phonological complexity DOWN, Syntactic complexity UP).
2) Neither clause structure nor phonological complexity affected intelligibility/phonemes correct. HOWEVER, unintelligible words appeared more often in a multi-verb/compound utterances for children with reading disabilities and typically developing children.
3) For imitated utterances, disfluencies increased markedly when utterances were both embedded and phonologically complex. Simple sentences had more disfluencies than compound/multi-verb sentences. Example: "The girl with the brown hair and red shoes went to the store" and "The girl went to the store" would have more disfluencies than "The girl played, and the boy studied." Children with reading and oral disabilities and children with language-learning disabilities were significantly more disfluent than children with normal development.
4) In both spontaneous and imitated utterances, utterances with fewer phonemic errors also had fewer grammatical errors.
5) "The relationships between percentage of unintelligible words and both percentage of phonemes correct and percentage of grammatical markers correct were significant ONLY for children with language-learning disabilities." I understand this to mean that for children with language-learning disabilities, the percentage of unintelligible words was often accompanied by fewer phonemes correct and grammatical morphemes correct. (Correct? 😊)
6) "Morphophonemic accuracy was significantly related to both percentage of phonemes correct and percentage of unintelligible words in the children with language-learning disabilities, but only to percentage of phonemes correct in the group of children with reading disabilities and only to percentage of unintelligible words in the normally developing group."
Taken with #5, I believe what the authors are saying is that children with language-learning disabilities show difficulties in all areas (decreased intelligibility, decreased phonemic accuracy, decreased grammatical accuracy) whereas the other two groups seem to be strong in at least one area if they are weaker in two. This being said, clinically speaking, we always want to speak to and play on the child's strengths. So perhaps, we should look at these three areas and see which is the strongest. Then use that strength as a vehicle for elevating the other areas.
Conclusion:
Every child has linguistic trade-offs--and this study, though it looked at many measures, did not look at what trade-offs might occur when different emotional reactions are present, the setting or speakers change, etc. This is important to keep in mind when looking at children and testing them. It allows us as clinicians to be mindful of the types of sentences we're asking children to use or repeat, and to always have connected speech, such as a language sample or story retell, as part of our testing since imitated sentences often produce more errors than non-imitated sentences across the board.
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