Language Comprehension In Children Research Articles

FACTORS AFFECTING SECOND LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION ABILITY IN CHILDREN: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

This systematic review aims to explore the factors that influence children's second language comprehension ability. Second language acquisition in children is a complex process that is influenced by a variety of factors. Understanding these factors can provide valuable insights for educators, parents, and policymakers to optimize language learning strategies and interventions. This review follows a systematic approach by conducting a comprehensive search across multiple databases, including educational, psychological, and linguistic sources. Relevant studies published in the last decade were included in the analysis. The review focuses on children aged 5 to 12 years, as this is a crucial period for language development and acquisition. By combining previous investigations as a more thorough evaluation of the literature, this study used the systematic literature review (SLR) method to address the research issues. The findings reveal several key factors that influence second language comprehension ability in children. Firstly, individual cognitive factors, such as working memory capacity, attention, and executive functions, play an important role in language processing and comprehension. Second, socio-cultural factors, including parental involvement, socioeconomic status, and exposure to a second language in the community, influence language learning outcomes. Thirdly, instructional factors, such as the quality of teaching methods, curriculum design, and classroom environment, have a great impact on children's language comprehension abilities. Based on these findings, this review underscores the need for a comprehensive and holistic approach to improving second language comprehension skills in children. It emphasizes the importance of integrating cognitive, socio-cultural, and instructional factors in language learning programs. In addition, the review also identifies research gaps and provides recommendations for future research to further enhance our understanding of second language acquisition in children.

Auditory language comprehension among children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: An ALE meta-analysis of fMRI studies.

Difficulties in auditory language comprehension are common among children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. However, findings regarding the underlying neural mechanisms remain mixed, and few studies have systematically explored the overall patterns of these findings. Therefore, this study aims to systematically review and meta-analyze the functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence of neural activation patterns while engaging in auditory language comprehension tasks among children and adolescents with autism. Using activation likelihood estimation, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to investigate neural activation patterns during auditory language comprehension tasks compared to baseline conditions in autism and non-autism groups and compared the activation patterns of the groups, respectively. Eight studies were included in the within-group analyses, and seven were included in the between-group analysis. The within-group analyses revealed that the bilateral superior temporal gyrus was activated during auditory language comprehension tasks in both groups, whereas the left superior frontal gyrus and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex were activated only in the non-autism group. Furthermore, the between-group analysis showed that children and adolescents with autism, compared to those without autism, showed reduced activation in the right superior temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, and insula, whereas the autism group did not show increased activation in any of the regions relative to the non-autism group. Overall, these findings contribute to our understanding of the potential neural mechanisms underlying difficulties in auditory language comprehension in children and adolescents with autism and provide practical implications for early screening and language-related interventions for children and adolescents with autism.

Implementation of the C-BiLLT, an accessible instrument to assess language comprehension in children with limited motor and speech function: an international clinician survey

This study assessed implementation of the Computer-based Instrument for Low-motor Language Testing (C-BiLLT). The C-BiLLT is an accessible language comprehension assessment tool originally developed for children with cerebral palsy and complex communication needs. The purpose of the current study was to understand the clinical contexts in which the C-BiLLT is used in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway and assess barriers and facilitators to implementation. An online survey was distributed to rehabilitation clinicians working in the Netherlands, Dutch-speaking parts of Belgium, and Norway. A total of 90 clinicians reported their training in and use of the C-BiLLT; assessed its acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility; and commented on perceived barriers as well as advantages of the tool. Acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility were all rated highly. The C-BiLLT was used with various populations and age groups but most often with children who were younger than 12 years of age, and those with cerebral palsy. The main implementation facilitator was clinicians’ motivation; the main barriers were related to resources and complexity of cases. Findings suggest implementation of new assessment tools is an ongoing process that should be monitored following initial training, in order to understand clinical contexts in which the tools are being used.

Parents’ perspective in the evaluation of a parental report inventory for the assessment of child communication development

Parents? reports are accepted in practice and can be a valid and reliable source of information in research on children?s communicative development and any delays in this. Nevertheless, parents? reports may have important limitations that need to be considered: parental positive bias; parents? understanding of the child language comprehension; and parents? education and limited linguistic knowledge. In this paper, we take the stance that parents are most interested in an adequate assessment, and obtaining reliable input from them is certainly important. We amplify the voice of parents by synthesizing their experiences with a parental report inventory as a method based on the usage of the adapted version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. With that aim, we conducted a qualitative inductive thematic analysis of focus group discussions and additional open-ended validation questions. Six emerging themes and sub-themes were identified and presented with illustrative quotations. Results revealed that the adaptation of original CDIs to languages with radically different morpho-syntactic structures may produce items that are hard to recognize and understand without a context. We bring to light parent-specific difficulties in performing this task and provide a critical understanding of parents? reports as a method of language development assessment. We discuss potential solutions to parents? dilemmas that inevitably arise when reporting on their child?s communication, as well as answers to researchers?/practitioners? dilemmas regarding the validity and reliability of parental reporting.

Neuromagnetic 40 Hz Auditory Steady-State Response in the left auditory cortex is related to language comprehension in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Language impairment is comorbid in most children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but its neural mechanisms are still poorly understood. Some studies hypothesize that the atypical low-level sensory perception in the auditory cortex accounts for the abnormal language development in these children. One of the potential non-invasive measures of such low-level perception can be the cortical gamma-band oscillations registered with magnetoencephalography (MEG), and 40 Hz Auditory Steady-State Response (40 Hz ASSR) is a reliable paradigm for eliciting auditory gamma response. Although there is research in children with and without ASD using 40 Hz ASSR, nothing is known about the relationship between this auditory response in children with ASD and their language abilities measured directly in formal assessment.In the present study, we used MEG and individual brain models to investigate 40 Hz ASSR in primary-school-aged children with and without ASD. It was also used to assess how the strength of the auditory response is related to language abilities of children with ASD, their non-verbal IQ, and social functioning. A total of 40 children were included in the study.The results demonstrated that 40 Hz ASSR was reduced in the right auditory cortex in children with ASD when comparing them to typically developing controls. Importantly, our study provides the first evidence of the association between 40 Hz ASSR in the language-dominant left auditory cortex and language comprehension in children with ASD. This link was domain-specific because the other brain-behavior correlations were non-significant.

Implementing the language comprehension test C-BiLLT: a qualitative description study using the COM-B model of behaviour change

BackgroundIt is challenging to reliably assess the language comprehension of children with severe motor and speech impairments using traditional assessment tools. The Computer Based instrument for Low motor Language Testing (C-BiLLT) aims to reduce barriers to evidence-based assessment for this population by allowing children to access the test using non-traditional methods such as eye gaze so they can independently respond to test items. The purpose of this study is to develop a contextualized understanding of the factors that influenced clinicians’ implementation of the C-BILLT in practice in the Netherlands and Norway.Materials and methodsA qualitative approach including semi-structured individual interviews with 15 clinicians (speech-language pathologists, neuropsychologists, and one teacher, counsellor, and vision specialist) was used. Data analysis was conducted in two rounds. First, a deductive approach including a codebook was used to code data within the COM-B components describing clinicians’ capability, opportunity, and motivation for behaviour change. Then, an abductive approach applying thematic analysis was used to identify meaningful patterns within the COM-B components.ResultsSeveral meaningful barriers and facilitators were identified across the data. Clinicians used the C-BiLLT with two distinct groups of clients: (1) the population it was originally developed for, and (2) clients that could have also been assessed using a traditional language test. Clinicians working with the first group experienced more, and more complex barriers across all COM-B components, to successful C-BiLLT use than the latter.ConclusionThis study provides timely insights into the capability, opportunity, and motivation factors important for creating and sustaining assessment behaviour change in clinicians who used or attempted to use the C-BiLLT. Potential tailored intervention strategies aimed at improving implementation of novel assessment tools are discussed and may be helpful for others working to improve service delivery for children with complex needs.

Importance of Home in the Literacy Process of Child

A type of human service known as an intergenerational program (IGP) involves regular, planned contacts between people of different ages for the benefit of all participants. Children enter school with widely variable levels of emerging literacy, and it is generally known that these levels are an important indicator of subsequent literacy and, consequently, of academic performance in general. Children's early competency development is significantly influenced by the home learning environment. Children's language comprehension and production are particularly tightly related to the early home literacy environment (HLE), which is made up of all literacy materials and family interactions that enhance children's linguistic and literacy learning. Shared reading is a crucial component of the HLE and should begin in a child's early years and become a regular part of family life. However, little research has been done on the impact of the HLE and a child's interest in literacy on later literacy skills. In this review study, we investigated the importance of Home in the literacy process of child and how different aspects in home effect the literacy capability of child.

Online Comprehension of Verbal Number Morphology in Children With Developmental Language Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Study.

Previous studies have raised the possibility of preserved language comprehension in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) in online tasks and within simple sentence structures. Consequently, we evaluated the capacity of children with DLD to comprehend verbal number agreement in simple sentence structures (i.e., verb-object-subject and verb-subject). Using an eye-tracking methodology, we conducted two psycholinguistic experiments with 96 Spanish- and Catalan-speaking participants. The sample was distributed into four groups: 24 children with DLD (age range: 4;6-12;6 [years;months]; average age = 7;8 [years;months]), 24 children with the same chronological age (4;6-12;2, 7;8), 24 children with the same linguistic level (4;6-9;4, 6;8), and 24 university students as language experts (18-30, 22;5). The experimental data indicate that children with DLD can comprehend verbal number agreement at least under the present experimental conditions. The empirical outcomes suggest that number morphology comprehension by children with DLD might be more typical than what it is generally considered to be.

Spoken language comprehension in children and adults with Angelman Syndrome

IntroductionObjective evaluation of receptive communication abilities in nonspeaking individuals using standardized behavioral measures can be complicated by co-occurring intellectual disabilities and motor difficulties. Eye tracking during listening may offer an informative complementary approach to directly evaluate receptive language skills. MethodThis study examined feasibility of eye gaze measures as an index of spoken language comprehension in nonspeaking children and adults with Angelman syndrome (AS; n = 23) using a looking-while-listening procedure. Typically developing children (n = 34) provided a reference data set. Primary caregivers of participants with AS completed standardized informant reports (MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Gestures; Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-3; Aberrant Behavior Checklist-2) to characterize communicative skills and general adaptive functioning. ResultsGaze data in participants with AS, particularly in the individuals reported by caregivers to have larger receptive vocabularies and stronger adaptive communicative functioning, demonstrated the expected pattern of comprehension reflected by the increased probability of looks to the target images after vs. before they were named in a spoken sentence. However, processing speed (gaze reaction time) was significantly slower in participants with AS than in the typically developing group. ConclusionsGaze-based paradigms could be an informative measure of receptive communication processes in participants who are unable to complete traditional standardized behavioral assessments.

Convergent validity of functional communication tools and spoken language comprehension assessment in children with cerebral palsy.

The majority of children with cerebral palsy (CP) experience challenges in functional communication from a young age. A pivotal aspect of functional communication is language comprehension. A variety of classification systems and questionnaires are available to classify and describe functional communication skills in children with CP. A better understanding of the convergent validity of (subsections of) these tools, as well as their relationship with spoken language comprehension, will be valuable in both clinical practice and research. To investigate the convergent validity of (subsections of) functional communication tools and the relationship with spoken language comprehension in children with CP. Cross-sectional data on 138 children were subdivided into three developmental stages based on (Dutch) educational phases: ages 18 months-3;11y (n = 59), 4;0-5;11 years (n = 37) and 6;0-8;11 years (n = 42). The following functional communication tools were used to classify and describe functional communication: Communication Function Classification System (CFCS), subscales of the Caregivers Priorities and Child Health Index of Life with Disabilities-Dutch Version (CPCHILD-DV) and the Focus on Communication Under Six-34 (FOCUS-34) questionnaire. Spoken language comprehension was assessed with the Computer-Based instrument for Low motor Language Testing (C-BiLLT). Correlations between the functional communication tools, and with the C-BiLLT, were calculated using Pearson's and Spearman's correlation coefficients. It was hypothesized a priori that correlations of at least 0.60 suggest good convergent validity. At all developmental stages, a significant ordered decreasing tendency of communication outcomes was found across CFCS levels; lower CFCS levels were associated with lower scores on the CPCHILD-DV and FOCUS-34, and with a lower level of spoken language comprehension (C-BiLLT). Correlation coefficients of the functional communication tools exceeded 0.60 atall developmental stages. Correlations between C-BiLLT raw scores and the functional communication tools varied between 0.351 and 0.591 at developmental stage 18 months-3;11 years, between 0.781 and 0.897 at developmental stage 4;0-5;11 years, and between 0.635 and 0.659 at developmental stage 6;0-8;11 years. The functional communication tools assessed in this study showed convergent validity at all developmental stages. The CFCS, currently most widely used in paediatric rehabilitation, is adequate in the classification of functional communication. However, for more detailed clinical goal setting and evaluation of change in functional communication, the additional use of FOCUS-34 or CPCHILD-DV is recommended. What is already known on the subject A range of functional communication tools are available that help describe and classify functional communication in children with CP. These include the CFCS, subsections of CPCHILD-DV and FOCUS-34. The CFCS classifies functional communication in daily life with familiar and unfamiliar partners. Specific subsections of the CPCHILD-DV and FOCUS-34 include items that pertain to communicative participation. The innovative C-BiLLT provides a standardized method to assess spoken language comprehension in children with CP and significant motor impairments. What this paper adds to existing knowledge In the present study, convergent validity was confirmed between CFCS and specific subsections of the CPCHILD-DV and FOCUS-34. Correlations between these functional communication tools and the C-BiLLT were moderate to strong. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? For clinical and research purposes (for instance, accurate prescription of augmentative and alternative communication-AAC), healthcare and educational professionals together with parents need to know how functional communication tools converge and how functional communication levels relate to the comprehension of spoken language. The CFCS provides a valid classification of functional communication abilities in children with CP. However, to measure change in functional communication and to evaluate treatment outcomes, use of additional functional communication tools such as the CPCHILD-DV and FOCUS-34 is recommended. When discrepancies are found between communicative abilities and spoken language comprehension, it is strongly recommended that valid tools are used in a more detailed examination of the child's spoken language comprehension skills and functional communication.

A Short and Engaging Adaptive Working-Memory Intervention for Children with Developmental Language Disorder: Effects on Language and Working Memory.

Recent research has suggested that working-memory training interventions may benefit children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The current study investigated a short and engaging adaptive working-memory intervention that targeted executive skills and aimed to improve both language comprehension and working-memory abilities in children with DLD. Forty-seven 6- to 10-year-old children with DLD were randomly allocated to an executive working-memory training intervention (n = 24) or an active control group (n = 23). A pre-test/intervention/post-test/9-month-follow-up design was used. Outcome measures included assessments of language (to evaluate far transfer of the training) and working memory (to evaluate near transfer of the training). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses controlling for pre-intervention performance and age found the group to be a significant predictor of sentence comprehension and of performance on six untrained working-memory measures at post-intervention and 9-month follow-up. Children in the intervention group showed significantly higher language comprehension and working-memory scores at both time points than children in the active control group. The intervention programme showed the potential to improve working memory and language comprehension in children with DLD and demonstrated several advantages: it involved short sessions over a short period, caused little disruption in the school day, and was enjoyed by children.

Determinants of spoken language comprehension in children with cerebral palsy

Purpose To identify determinants of spoken language comprehension (SLC) in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Materials and methods Cross-sectional data of 207 children with CP were included: 82 toddlers (18 months–3;11 years), 59 preschool children (4;0–5;11 years), and 66 schoolchildren (6;0–8;11 years), across all Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) levels. SLC was assessed using the Computer-Based instrument for Low motor Language Testing (C-BiLLT). Potential determinants were retrieved from medical files and through parental questionnaires. Per developmental stage, multivariable regression analyses were used to assess determinants of SLC. Results Fifty-nine percent of the children showed below average SLC. Significant determinants for SLC differed per developmental stage. In toddlers: age, motor type, functional communication and speech function (R 2 = 0.637); in preschool children: functional communication, speech function and language activities (R 2 = 0.820), and in schoolchildren: functional communication, intellectual functioning and arm-hand functioning (R 2 = 0.807). For all developmental stages, functional mobility was not a significant determinant. Conclusions A large proportion of children with CP across all GMFCS levels have SLC impairments. Findings indicate that SLC is strongly determined by functional communication classified with CFCS. We recommend standardized assessment and monitoring of SLC in all children with CP. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION Children across all GMFCS levels can experience difficulties in spoken language comprehension. At all developmental stages, functional communication (classified with CFCS) is an important determinant of spoken language comprehension. Standardized assessment and monitoring of spoken language comprehension, language production, speech, and communication of all children with CP, is strongly recommended. When children show below average performances, especially in spoken language comprehension, intervening with speech and language therapy and guidance for parents, is advised.

Examining the relationship between oral language skills and executive functions: Evidence from Greek-speaking 4–5-year-old children with and without Developmental Language Disorder

BackgroundChildren with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have been found to demonstrate low performance in Executive Functions (EFs). However, the evidence-based data is so far scarce, especially for 4–5-year-old children. Most of the existing research involves English-speaking populations, while very few studies have been carried out with non-English-speaking populations. Nevertheless, it is documented that possible differences in the language-cognition relations may exist due to the specific characteristics of each language, and studies across different languages could contribute to the above. AimsThe present study aimed to systematically investigate the profile of oral language and EF skills (verbal and nonverbal) and the way these skills are related with each other in 4–5-year-old Greek-speaking children with and without DLD. Methods and proceduresFifty-three 4–5-year-old children (age range: 51– 57 months) with DLD, and 62 Typically Developing (TD) peers (age range: 51– 57 months) were assessed on a standardized psychometric battery for oral language skills (phonological and morphological awareness, oral language comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, narrative speech and pragmatics) and on a series of verbal (v) and nonverbal (nv) tasks tapping EFs skills (updating-accuracy, inhibition –accuracy and reaction time-, and cognitive flexibility). Outcomes and resultsChildren with DLD demonstrated statistically significant lower performance across all oral language measures in comparison to their TD peers. Additionally, they performed significantly lower in the updating (nv) task, as well as in cognitive flexibility (v & nv) in comparison to the TD group. Further regression analyses demonstrated that updating (nv), inhibition (nv) and cognitive flexibility (v) predicted oral language comprehension in children with DLD while updating (v & nv), inhibition-reaction time (nv) and cognitive flexibility (v & nv) predicted phonological and morphological awareness, oral language comprehension, narrative speech as well as total language score in TD children. Conclusions and implicationsThese results provide important information about the profile of oral language and EF skills in children with DLD compared to their TD peers as well as on the relationship of these skills in both groups. The findings also suggest that improving EFs skills may be a possible way for improving oral language skills in young children with DLD. Our findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical as well as practical implications regarding the diagnostic and intervention procedures for children with DLD.

The Relationship Between Auditory Memory Digit And Receptive Language Ability Of Preschool Age Child In Surakarta

Background: Receptive language is the ability to understand what is seen and heard to help children develop listening skills, identify concepts through understanding the labeling of words, and improve the ability to respond to any communication. Auditory memory involves the ability to retrieve information presented orally. This study analyzed the relationship between auditory memory digit and preschool-age child receptive language ability.
 Methods: This study was quantitative research. The research design used in this study was an observational correlation with a cross-sectional approach. The research sample consisted of 58 students in three Private Kindergartens existing in the Ministry of Education and Culture of Surakarta. Auditory memory testability of sample using hearing forward test and receptive language ability of sample using Assessment of Children's Language Comprehension form. Hypothesis testing using the Chi-Square hypothesis.
 Results: The result it can be concluded that auditory memory digit does not have a relationship with receptive language ability in preschool-age children because significance value more than 0.05 (ρ>0.05) with an OR value of 0.857, this means that the auditory memory digit is above average has a meager chance of influencing receptive language ability above average, which is only 0.857.
 Conclusion: The dominant factor influencing the receptive language skills of children aged 3-6 years is communication during interactions or activities with parents, such as reading fairy tales or telling stories. Receptive language skills predicted symbolic understanding as reflected in picture comprehension and how language skills are interrelated with social skills.

Word vs. World Knowledge: A developmental shift from bottom-up lexical cues to top-down plausibility

Both 5-year-old children and adults infer the structure of a sentence as they are hearing it. Prior work, however, has found that children do not always make use of the same information that adults do to guide these inferences. Specifically, when hearing ambiguous sentences like “You can tickle the frog with the feather,” children seem to ignore the aspects of the referential context that adults rely on to resolve the ambiguity—e.g., are there two frogs in the scene, one with a feather and one without? Or is there only one frog to be tickled by using a feather? The present study explored two hypotheses about children’s failure to use high-level, top-down context cues to infer the structure of these ambiguous sentences: First, children may be less likely to use any top-down cue during comprehension. Second, children may only have difficulties with top-down cues that are unreliable predictors of which syntactic structure is being used. Thus, to disentangle these hypotheses, we conducted a visual world study of adults’ and children’s ambiguity resolution, manipulating a more reliable top-down cue (the plausibility of the interpretation) and pitting it against a robust bottom-up cue (lexical biases). We find that adults’ and children’s final interpretations are influenced by both sources of information: adults, however, give greater weight to the top-down cue, whereas children primarily rely on the bottom-up cue. Thus, children’s tendency to make minimal use of top-down information persists even when this information is highly valid and dominates adult comprehension. We propose that children have a systematic propensity to rely on bottom-up processing to a greater degree than adults, which could reflect differences in the architecture of the adult and child language comprehension systems or differences in processing speed.

Speech Perception in Noise Predicts Oral Narrative Comprehension in Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

We examined the relative contribution of auditory processing abilities (tone perception and speech perception in noise) after controlling for short-term memory capacity and vocabulary, to narrative language comprehension in children with developmental language disorder. Two hundred and sixteen children with developmental language disorder, ages 6 to 9 years (Mean = 7; 6), were administered multiple measures. The dependent variable was children's score on the narrative comprehension scale of the Test of Narrative Language. Predictors were auditory processing abilities, phonological short-term memory capacity, and language (vocabulary) factors, with age, speech perception in quiet, and non-verbal IQ as covariates. Results showed that narrative comprehension was positively correlated with the majority of the predictors. Regression analysis suggested that speech perception in noise contributed uniquely to narrative comprehension in children with developmental language disorder, over and above all other predictors; however, tone perception tasks failed to explain unique variance. The relative importance of speech perception in noise over tone-perception measures for language comprehension reinforces the need for the assessment and management of listening in noise deficits and makes a compelling case for the functional implications of complex listening situations for children with developmental language disorder.

Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Can Attribute False Beliefs in a Spontaneous-Response Preferential-Looking Task

An established body of literature indicates that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty understanding figurative language due to a deficit in theory of mind, or the ability to consider the beliefs of other people. Children with ASD tend to similarly fail traditional theory of mind tasks, which assess their ability to represent false beliefs. Our claim is, however, that these tasks involve cognitive processing demands that might mask false belief understanding because they require elicited responses. We examined whether children with ASD demonstrate false-belief understanding when tested with a spontaneous-response false belief task that measures children’s eye gaze durations. The two child participant groups were composed of 20 males with ASD (aged 3–9 years) and 20 typically developing males (aged 2–5 years) who were individually matched according to verbal mental age. Children with ASD and typically developing children listened to a change-of-location story accompanied by a book with matching and non-matching pictures. The final page showed the character searching for her object in a location that was either consistent or inconsistent with her belief. Both groups of children looked reliably longer at the belief-consistent picture, regardless of whether the character’s belief was true or false, though children with ASD were slower to do so. We suggest that a spontaneous-response assessment technique can potentially reveal figurative language comprehension in children with ASD in future research.

Infants recognize words spoken through opaque masks but not through clear masks.

COVID‐19 has modified numerous aspects of children's social environments. Many children are now spoken to through a mask. There is little empirical evidence attesting to the effects of masked language input on language processing. In addition, not much is known about the effects of clear masks (i.e., transparent face shields) versus opaque masks on language comprehension in children. In the current study, 2‐year‐old infants were tested on their ability to recognize familiar spoken words in three conditions: words presented with no mask, words presented through a clear mask, and words presented through an opaque mask. Infants were able to recognize familiar words presented without a mask and when hearing words through opaque masks, but not when hearing words through clear masks. Findings suggest that the ability of infants to recover spoken language input through masks varies depending on the surface properties of the mask.

Cognitive linguistic Treatment in Landau Kleffner Syndrome: Improvement in Daily Life Communication.

We report a case study of cognitive linguistic treatment in a teenager with chronic severe Landau Kleffner Syndrome. The effect of speech and language therapy in LKS is rarely examined and our case is unique in that we use an effective approach in adult aphasia to treat language deficits in aphasia in LKS. The results show successful acquisition of a considerable amount of new words as well as improved communication in daily life. However, auditory verbal agnosia, the most prominent feature in LKS, persisted. Cognitive linguistic treatment seems a promising treatment to improve spoken language production in LKS, but more research is needed to optimize speech and language therapy of auditory verbal agnosia and auditory language comprehension in children with LKS

Language Comprehension in Children with Attention Defficit - Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Is there an overlap?

Language Comprehension in Children with Attention Defficit - Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Is there an overlap?