Discourse Skills Research Articles

Social communication in children with autism

This longitudinal study investigated the developmental trajectory of discourse skills and theory of mind in 57 children with autism. Children were tested at two time points spaced 1 year apart. Each year they provided a natural language sample while interacting with one parent, and were given standardized vocabulary measures and a developmentally sequenced battery of theory of mind tasks. The language samples were coded for conversational skills, specifically the child's use of topic-related contingent utterances. Children with autism made significant gains over 1 year in the ability to maintain a topic of discourse. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that theory of mind skills contributed unique variance to individual differences in contingent discourse ability and vice versa, when measured concurrently; however, they did not predict longitudinal changes. The findings offer some empirical support for the hypothesis that theory of mind is linked to communicative competence in children with autism.

Introduction: The Potential of Peer Talk

Research on children interacting with each other encompasses a wide variety of specific research interest, including but not limited to a focus on language. In this introduction to an issue of Discourse Studies devoted to the contribution of peer talk to pragmatic development, we define ‘peer talk’ as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry and we critically review literature on the role of peer talk in children’s pragmatic development. We suggest that ‘peer talk’ as a field of inquiry properly encompasses studies of the development of language through peer interaction as well as the ways in which peer talk functions in children’s co-construction of their social and cultural worlds. Research reviewed here suggests that peer talk may be a crucial site for pragmatic development, offering children a wide range of opportunities for mutual learning of interactive as well as linguistic skills. The evidence we review, which comes from the fields of language socialization, second language learning, and child-discourse, highlights two major contextual features of peer talk: (1) its collaborative, multi-party, symmetrical participation structure; and (2) its role in the co-constructed worlds of childhood culture. Finally, we call for research and theorizing that would bridge the gap between developmental and ethnographically-informed approaches to the study of child discourse, in order to ensure that children’s peer talk receives the attention due it as a major site for both the development of discourse skills and the creation of childhood culture.

SLI: What We Know and Why It Matters

SLI: What We Know and Why It Matters

A case study of the speech, language and vocal skills of a set of monozygous twin girls: one twin with a cochlear implant

This case study reports on the speech, language and vocal skills of a set of monozygous twin girls; one with a pre-lingual hearing impairment and subsequent cochlear implant, the other with functionally normal hearing. The twins' skills were analysed and compared on two occasions over a seven-month period. Results from standardized assessments indicate that the speech-production and language skills of both girls were within normal limits, although analysis of their pragmatic, syntactic and discourse skills indicated that the implanted twin had some persisting difficulties. Analysis of the voice of the implanted twin indicated qualitative and quantitative abnormalities. The results suggest the need for an investigation into the voice quality of children with cochlear implants. The study also indicates the importance of early intervention and the potential benefit of early implantation and/or signing pre-implant.

A case study of the speech, language and vocal skills of a set of monozygous twin girls: one twin with a cochlear implant

This case study reports on the speech, language and vocal skills of a set of monozygous twin girls; one with a pre-lingual hearing impairment and subsequent cochlear implant, the other with functionally normal hearing. The twins' skills were analysed and compared on two occasions over a seven-month period. Results from standardized assessments indicate that the speech-production and language skills of both girls were within normal limits, although analysis of their pragmatic, syntactic and discourse skills indicated that the implanted twin had some persisting difficulties. Analysis of the voice of the implanted twin indicated qualitative and quantitative abnormalities. The results suggest the need for an investigation into the voice quality of children with cochlear implants. The study also indicates the importance of early intervention and the potential benefit of early implantation and/or signing pre-implant.

Cultural Transmission

Human beings are biologically adapted for culture in ways that other primates are not, as evidenced most clearly by the fact that only human cultural traditions accumulate modifications over historical time (the ratchet effect). The key adaptation is one that enables individuals to understand other individuals as intentional agents like the self. This species-unique form of social cognition emerges in human ontogeny at around 1 year of age as infants begin to engage with other persons in various kinds of joint attentional activities involving gaze following, social referencing, and gestural communication. Young children’s joint attentional skills then engender some uniquely powerful forms of cultural learning, enabling the acquisition of language, discourse skills, tool use practices, and many other conventional activities. These novel forms of cultural learning allow human beings to pool their cognitive resources both contemporaneously and over historical time in ways that are unique in the animal kingdom.

Discourse Processing in Women with Fragile X Syndrome: Evidence for a Deficit Establishing Coherence

The language phenotype in individuals with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and its relation to the molecular genetics of the disorder was investigated. Previous research has focused on describing deviance in conversational speech, and has not yet examined component discourse skills. The ability of women with FXS to use coherence to select endings to humorous and straightforward passages was evaluated, and the relation of this with neuropsychological measures of working memory, executive functions, and molecular measures of the syndrome were also evaluated. Three groups of nonretarded women were examined: (a) 14 women with FXS who carry the full mutation; (b) 25 women who carry the premutation; and (c) 16 women without the fragile X mutation. The results indicated that subjects with the full mutation showed a dramatic deficit in selecting appropriate endings to jokes relative to stories, even though the jokes were identical to the stories except for their endings. The coherence deficit found in the jokes task for women with the full mutation was found to correlate strongly with the X activation ratio, and to a neuropsychological measure of working memory. The full mutation subjects' coherence deficit is discussed in terms of the additional demand to hold information in memory and shift set.

'Hiya, Mum!' An Analysis of Pretence Telephone Play in a Nursery Setting

Children's knowledge of telephone discourse has been little researched, despite the inherent challenge of this mode of communication. Previous research has studied children's performance in artificial environments with children talking to adults, and has focussed upon children's deficiencies in telephone dialogues. In this paper we argue for the importance of pretence play in the development of discourse skills and present data gathered from spontaneous toy telephone talk in a themed pretence play setting. Evidence demonstrates sociolinguistic competencies displayed appropriately and supports Vygotsky's suggestion that pretence play is an important arena for learning within aspirational role realizations.

Culturally sensitive assessment of narrative skills in children.

The clinical legacy of William Labov's narrative analysis framework is explored. In recent years, the importance of narration for children's developing literacy and discourse skills has been widely recognized. This article describes a three-step process for assessing children's narrative discourse: elicitation, coding, and scoring. The influences of cultural differences on narration are also presented, with implications and suggestions for culturally sensitive assessment.

Episodic Boundaries in Conversational Narratives

This study attempts to integrate linguistic and discourse analysis to investigate the way narrators demarcate episodic boundaries in conversational settings and hypothesize about the kind of cognitive processes that might be involved in such an activity. In contrast to previous research in this area which predominately relies on experimentally designed text, this study draws on naturalistic data and relies on the notion that narrators in conversational setting interactionally create narrative by recruiting discourse skills that are most readily available to them. The study reveals that narrators in conversational settings employ reference (i.e. use of noun phrases and anaphors) and macropropositions following a general pattern. Generally, episode boundaries are marked both by macropropositions and full noun phrases. Noun phrases are often used to indicate the beginning of an episode, whereas pronominals are often used within episode boundaries suggesting the continuation of the current episode. The co-occurrence of macropropositions and NPs in demarcating episodic boundaries reflects the bidirectional process operating simultaneously within the linguistic and conceptual domains that is involved in the production of narratives. The use of pronominals within the episode boundaries indicates that cognitive mechanisms such as sustaining attention is also involved in demarcation of episodic boundaries.

The Human Adaptation for Culture

▪ Abstract Human beings are biologically adapted for culture in ways that other primates are not, as evidenced most clearly by the fact that only human cultural traditions accumulate modifications over historical time (the ratchet effect). The key adaptation is one that enables individuals to understand other individuals as intentional agents like the self. This species-unique form of social cognition emerges in human ontogeny at approximately 1 year of age, as infants begin to engage with other persons in various kinds of joint attentional activities involving gaze following, social referencing, and gestural communication. Young children's joint attentional skills then engender some uniquely powerful forms of cultural learning, enabling the acquisition of language, discourse skills, tool-use practices, and other conventional activities. These novel forms of cultural learning allow human beings to, in effect, pool their cognitive resources both contemporaneously and over historical time in ways that are unique in the animal kingdom.

Narrative discourse following severe traumatic brain injury: a longitudinal follow-up

This paper describes the narrative discourse abilities of a group of severely traumatically brain injured (TBI) speakers at two intervals post-injury. At initial assessment (between 3 and 6 months post-injury) a group of 26 TBI speakers were assessed using a picture description task. The performance of two control groups was also examined. The first control group was comprised of 26 non-TBI orthopaedically injured speakers and the second control group comprised 26 university students. These control groups were selected in order to examine the possibility that premorbid demographic factors can influence the discourse skills of TBI speakers. Measures of interest included content (number and type of story grammar elements present), communicative efficiency (syllables per story grammar element) and pragmatic performance (errors on a modified version of Damico's Clinical Discourse Analysis - the CDA-M). The measure which most clearly separated the performance of the TBI speakers from that of the controls on an initial assessment was the CDAM. At follow-up, a mean of 2 years 10 months post-injury, 24 of the TBI speakers were seen for review. Results at follow-up revealed significant improvement over time and the performance of the TBI speakers could no longer be differentiated from that of the orthopaedic patients included in the initial study. The findings are discussed with respect to the implications for narrative discourse sampling and measurement, in relation to severity and chronicity of brain injury.

Promoting pragmatic awareness and spoken discourse skills with EAP classes

The development of speaking skills in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses is a relatively neglected and under-researched area of ESL teaching which relates to a problem facing overseas students preparing for courses in Australian universities. It has become increasingly clear that many of them have difficulty interacting professionally and socially with their native-speaking (NS) peers and teachers in academic contexts. This article draws on recorded data from a recently completed classroom research project, carried out by an EAP class in South Australia, to describe a process which allows non-native speaking (NNS) learners to experience authentic oral interaction with NSs, as well as providing opportunities for them to reflect on the linguistic and socio-pragmatic features of spoken discourse as they arise. This heightened awareness of language in context can build confidence in the learners' oral skills, and may enhance academic performance.

The Influence of Language/Cognitive Profile on Discourse Intervention Outcome.

Children with communication needs are often allocated intervention services as a result of the relationship between their cognitive ability and language performance. Children with higher cognitive skills relative to language skills are considered promising candidates for language services. In contrast, children who are delayed in both cognitive and language abilities are considered poor candidates for intervention and are often excluded from services, or given a lower priority for services. This study examines the effects of intervention on one aspect of pragmatic development (discourse skills) following intervention for two groups of young children with delayed language development: one group with measured cognitive performance above language performance, and the other group with similar delays in both language and cognitive performance. Repeated measures analyses of variance indicated significant differences between groups for two of 15 measures derived from language samples. Both favored the children with equivalent delays in language and cognition. These findings do not support the notion that children with equivalent delays in cognition and language development are poor candidates for language intervention. Service delivery and policy implications are discussed.

Teasing in the Linguistic Socialization of Gypsy Children in Hungary

Teasing has been demonstrated to be a potentially important, culture-specific means of of linguistic socialization in different linguistic communities and social groups. Structural and pragmatic characteristics of early teasing have been examined in a traditional Romani linguistic community in Hungary. Teasing proved to be widespread from the earliest age on in the speech addressed to Gypsy babies and children. Culturally specific features of early teasing and age-related changes in its patterns are analyzed. As to the acquisition of this discourse skill, Gypsy children seem to recognize and use very early some of the specific "contextualization cues" necessary for the identification of the underlying intention of teasing behind the surface form.

Roots of miscommunication

This paper proposes an account for the problem of miscommunication observed between native and non-native speakers of the English language. The analysis of interviews has shown that monologues produced by Russian speakers of English are structurally different from American monologues. A system based on the markedness theory was developed in order to account for the differences and provide a guide for teaching discourse skills in an ESL classroom It is suggested that universally sentences can be broken down into organizational features. This means that just like sounds, utterances can be found in polar opposition. The order in which utterances marked by these features are put together, represents the unmarked organizational structure of a monologue in a given language. The data received form the interviews indicates that Russian speakers of English do not acquire the unmarked American structure because they are not aware of the existing differences.

Employability skills: From corporate 'wish list' to government policy

This paper considers a particular case of corporate involvement in education by tracing an employability skills profile from its development in Canada by a corporate sponsored group to its local implementation, and finally its adoption as part of the educational policy discourse of the Alberta government. The purpose is to consider how hegemonic work has been accomplished by revealing the processes and strategies adopted by business leaders, but also to critique the discourse of employability skills by indicating what is left out or obscured.

Mediators of the risk for problem behavior in children with language learning disabilities.

A developmental-organizational perspective was employed to explore underlying risk for problem behavior in children with language learning disabilities. The independent and relative influences of social discourse and social skills on problem behavior were examined in 50 children with language learning disabilities (LLD) and 50 control children (children without LLD) aged 8 to 12 years. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that when examined independently, both impaired social discourse skill and poor social skills accounted for the negative effect of LLD status on children's problem behavior. When social discourse and social skills were examined simultaneously in relation to problem behavior, social discourse no longer retained its predictive value. This result suggests that children's impaired social interactional functioning is central to the development of behavioral symptomatology. However, the importance of social discourse cannot be overlooked, given the significant correlation between social discourse and social skills ratings. Though these results are correlational in nature, it is argued that the impaired communicative competence of some children with LLD may contribute to poor social skills that ultimately manifest themselves as more clinical problem behaviors characterized by internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. Finally, differences were confirmed in social discourse performance, social skills, and problem behaviors between the children with LLD and the control group children. Findings emphasize the importance of the routine assessment and monitoring of broader social discourse skills, in addition to social competence, in children with LLD.

Conversational discourse abilities following severe traumatic brain injury: a follow up study

The major aim of this study was to describe the conversational abilities of a group of severely injured TBI speakers, at a minimum of 2 years post injury. The association between conversational impair ment and (a) selected measures of executive function and (b) psychosocial handicap was also examined. Twenty four members of the group of 26 severely injured TBI speakers who had initially been assessed between 3 and 6 months post injury were reviewed at a minimum of 2 years post injury (mean = 2 years, 10 months). At initial assessment, TBI speakers were compared with non TBI orthopaedic patients and with a group of university students. At follow up, however, they were compared only with the orthopaedic patients. Conversational assessment was carried out using a modified form of Damico's Clinical Discourse Analysis. As a group, the TBI speakers conversational abilities did not improve over time. There was, however, a subgroup (n = 8) of speakers who did improve, and these could be distinguished by greater initial severity of injury and a significantly longer period of speech-language pathology intervention than the speakers who either remained the same or worsened over time. Modest associations between conversational discourse skills and measures of executive function and a measure of psychosocial handicap were identified. These findings indicate that disruptions in conversation persist into the longer term. More assiduous efforts may need to be made to (a) identify subtle discourse changes in the early months after injury and (b) engage TBI speakers in speech-language pathology services. Such services are also required over a longer time frame, in community-based models of service provision.

Negotiating Academic Genres in a Multi‐disciplinary Context

This article explores the problematic of negotiating academic genre in the context of higher education (HE) and the implications for students’ writing. The growth of multi‐disciplinary, modular programmes and a more heterogeneous student population requires that we consider the challenges faced by undergraduates, both within and between disciplines, and suggest ways in which navigational difficulties can be reduced. Our research is informed by our own multi‐disciplinarity which draws on the substantive areas of education, applied linguistics and sociology. Using case studies of students’ writing we have analysed the ways in which undergraduates negotiate two disciplines concurrently. Our findings suggest that students’ knowledge of one discipline influences another, rather in the same way that a first language affects second language acquisition. The resulting work may fail to hit the target discourse or may recontextualize material in creative but discipline‐challenging ways. Our explorations begin to address the tensions between multi‐disciplinary curricular change and the lack of interdisciplinary response from the academy. Universities are responding to perceived shortcomings in students’ writing by focusing on generic, transferable skills. Our research suggests that whilst power and control of the HE curriculum are located within academic disciplines, for students to be successful within the academy they must acquire ways of knowing that are discipline specific. Student empowerment would be enhanced by a clear articulation of discourse and genre skills and conventions, reducing the ‘discoursal dissonance’ between tutors’ and students’ expectations. Multi‐disciplinarity also challenges the conventional compartmentalization of knowledge providing opportunities for a creative and interdisciplinary dialectic.