Children's Communicative Performance Research Articles

Communication performance of children with Down Syndrome: An ICF-CY based multiple case study

Enhancing communication performance skills may help children with Down Syndrome (DS) to expand their opportunities for participation in daily life. It is a clinical challenge for speech-language pathologists (SLP) to disentangle various mechanisms that contribute to the language and communication problems that children with DS encounter. Without clarity of different levels of functioning, appropriate interventions may be poorly conceived or improperly implemented. In the present study, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY) framework was used to classify contributing factors to communication performance in a multiple case study of six young children with DS. Within a comprehensive assessment, we identified individual and environmental facilitators and barriers, leading to an integrative profile of communication performance (IPCP) for each child. Whereas these six children shared a developmental, and/or expressive vocabulary age and/or level of communicative intent, the children faced similar but also unique personal and environmental factors that play an important role in their communication performance. Our data reveal that a combination of different factors may lead to the same language outcomes and vice versa, based on a unique pattern of interdependency of ICF-CY domains. Planning SLP interventions for enhancing communication performance in children with DS should therefore be based on a comprehensive view on the competences and limitations of every individual child and its significant communication partners. This evaluation should address facilitators and barriers in body functions, structures, activities, participation and environment, with a specific focus on individual strengths. The ICF-CY provides a useful framework for constructing an IPCP that serves this purpose.

Virtual-Reality-Based Social Interaction Training for Children with High-Functioning Autism

ABSTRACT Employing the multiple-baseline across-subjects design, the authors examined the implementation and potential effect of a virtual-reality-based social interaction program on the interaction and communication performance of children with high functioning autism. The data were collected via behavior observation and analysis, questionnaires, and interviewing. The children participants demonstrated increased performance of responding, initiation, greeting, and positive conversation-ending during the intervention, and improved social competence measures after the intervention. The study also contributed salient themes on the adaptive design of a virtual-reality-based learning environment for learners with special needs. The study findings should extend the discussion on the design and usage of technology-supported informal learning environment for children with diverse characteristics and learning needs.

Incentives improve the clarity of school-age children's referential statements

Preschoolers (n=40) and school-aged children (n=39) participated in a referential communication task in which they described images for a listener. Of interest was whether children would provide clearer descriptions in a highly motivating context, in which they could take home target ‘stickers’ that they described correctly, relative to a less-motivating context in which they simply described target ‘pictures’. School-aged children, but not preschoolers, provided more informative descriptors in the incentive condition. An order effect emerged such that school-aged children who were first offered incentives maintained a high level of performance in the subsequent condition without incentives, whereas school-aged children who first participated in the condition without incentives demonstrated improved performance when subsequently promised incentives. Children's use of inefficient strategies, such as providing redundant descriptors and pointing to the images, was not affected by incentives. Findings demonstrate the impact of subtle methodological differences when examining children's referential communication and highlight the effect of motivational factors on children's communicative performance.

Desempenho comunicativo de crianças com síndrome de Down em duas situações diferentes

analysis of the pragmatic aspects of language in children with Down syndrome. to verify the influence of environmental and contextual variables in the pragmatic aspects of language of Down syndrome (DS) children when interacting with their caregivers and therapist, and to compare their performance in both situations. participants were 15 children with DS with ages ranging from 4 to 6.11 years. Data were obtained through anamnesis, the protocol of functional communicative profile, and a socioeconomic questionnaire. Data obtained from both interaction situations (with the caregiver and with the therapist) were compared, and submitted to statistical analysis. Caregiver's socioeconomic and educational levels were the variables that most had an influence on the pragmatic aspects of the child in both interaction situations. Children presented proportional rates of functional communication when compared to the data obtained for their caregivers and the communicative functions more frequently used by them were recognition of others, comment and performative. Comparisons between the interaction situations indicated no statistically significant differences concerning the children's communicative performance. caregivers' socioeconomic and educational levels might be considered risk factors for the development of the pragmatic aspects of language in children with DS and special attention should be given to these families during the speech-language therapeutic process. Independently of the interlocutor, these children were able to initiate and maintain communication, using communicative means and functions in a similar fashion.

Parental perceptions of children's communicative development at stuttering onset.

There has been clinical speculation that parents of young stuttering children have expectations of their children's communication abilities that are not well-matched to the children's actual skills. We appraised the language abilities of 15 children close to the onset of stuttering symptoms and 15 age-, sex-, and SES-matched fluent children using an array of standardized tests and spontaneous language sample measures. Parents concurrently completed two parent-report measures of the children's communicative development. Results indicated generally depressed performance on all child speech and language measures by the children who stutter. Parent report was closely attuned to child performance for the stuttering children; parents of nonstuttering children were less accurate in their predictions of children's communicative performance. Implications for clinical advisement to parents of stuttering children are discussed.

Facilitating Storybook Interactions Between Mothers and Their Preschoolers With Language Impairment

Three mother-child dyads participated in a study evaluating the efficacy of storybook reading for facilitating mother-child interactions. The children with language impairment (LI), ages 38 to 41 months, and their mothers completed 15 study sessions. Mothers were taught to use a complete reading cycle (CRC) consisting of (a) attentional vocative, (b) query, (c) response, and (d) feedback. Measurable changes occurred in the mothers' number of CRCs, percentage of turns taken, and match in mother-child mean length of utterance (MLU). Measurable child increases occurred for frequency of verbal turns, MLU, and semantic level of storybook response. Results showed that CRC training produced changes in mothers' storybook interactions with reciprocal increases in their children's communicative performance.

Associations between Phonology and Other Language Components in Children's Communicative Performance: Clinical Implications

Knowledge of the associations between phonology and other language components in children's communicative performance can provide clinicians with strategies for assessment and intervention. This article reviews several studies that examine various associations between phonology and each of the components of morphosyntax, pragmatics, and semantics. Possible clinical implications that emerge from results of the investigations are presented. The clinical significance of these associations and clinical implications are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.

Communication and metacommunication: Quality of children's instructions in relation to judgments about the adequacy of instructions and the locus of responsibility for communication failure

Relationships between 5- and 7-year-old children's communicative performance, and their level of understanding about message ambiguity and communication failure, were examined in three investigations. Communicative performance was assessed in terms of quality of instructions given for constructing a Lego model or a picture from felt pieces. The child speaker instructed the experimenter (Investigations 1 and 2) or another child (Investigation 3). Level of understanding about communication was assessed by asking the child to ascribe blame for communication failure following an ambiguous message, and to judge whether the speaker had told enough. In all three investigations, children with more advanced understanding about communication gave more detailed descriptions of pieces needed and supplied more information about positioning of pieces. In addition, in the first investigation those more advanced in understanding gave their instructions in a sequence more suitable for building. In the third investigation, child pairs more advanced in understanding communicated more effectively. It was suggested that the close association between communicative performance and understanding about communication occurred because the social experience which advances understanding, namely, the giving of explicit information when and/or why a listener fails to understand what the speaker means, at the same time encourages the child speaker to take responsibility for conveying a particular meaning unambiguously: the same experiences modify both communicative behavior and understanding about communication.