Language Comprehension Skills Research Articles

Exploring the Interplay Between Language Comprehension and Cortical Tracking: The Bilingual Test Case

Abstract Cortical tracking, the synchronization of brain activity to linguistic rhythms is a well-established phenomenon. However, its nature has been heavily contested: Is it purely epiphenomenal or does it play a fundamental role in speech comprehension? Previous research has used intelligibility manipulations to examine this topic. Here, we instead varied listeners’ language comprehension skills while keeping the auditory stimulus constant. To do so, we tested 22 native English speakers and 22 Spanish/Catalan bilinguals learning English as a second language (SL) in an EEG cortical entrainment experiment and correlated the responses with the magnitude of the N400 component of a semantic comprehension task. As expected, native listeners effectively tracked sentential, phrasal, and syllabic linguistic structures. In contrast, SL listeners exhibited limitations in tracking sentential structures but successfully tracked phrasal and syllabic rhythms. Importantly, the amplitude of the neural entrainment correlated with the amplitude of the detection of semantic incongruities in SLs, showing a direct connection between tracking and the ability to understand speech. Together, these findings shed light on the interplay between language comprehension and cortical tracking, to identify neural entrainment as a fundamental principle for speech comprehension.

Mobile device screen time is associated with poorer language development among toddlers: results from a large-scale survey

BackgroundDespite young children’s widespread use of mobile devices, little research exists on this use and its association with children’s language development. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between mobile device screen time and language comprehension and expressive language skills. An additional aim was to examine whether three factors related to the domestic learning environment modify the associations.MethodsThe study uses data from the Danish large-scale survey TRACES among two- and three-year-old children (n = 31,125). Mobile device screen time was measured as time spent on mobile devices on a normal day. Measurement of language comprehension and expressive language skills was based on subscales from the Five to Fifteen Toddlers questionnaire. Multivariable linear regression was used to examine the association between child mobile device screen time and language development and logistic regression to examine the risk of experiencing significant language difficulties. Joint exposure analyses were used to examine the association between child mobile device screen time and language development difficulties in combination with three other factors related to the domestic learning environment: parental education, reading to the child and child TV/PC screen time.ResultsHigh mobile device screen time of one hour or more per day was significantly associated with poorer language development scores and higher odds for both language comprehension difficulties (1–2 h: AOR = 1.30; ≥ 2 h: AOR = 1.42) and expressive language skills difficulties (1–2 h: AOR = 1.19; ≥ 2 h: AOR = 1.46). The results suggest that reading frequently to the child partly buffers the negative effect of high mobile device screen time on language comprehension difficulties but not on expressive language skills difficulties. No modifying effect of parental education and time spent by the child on TV/PC was found.ConclusionsMobile device screen time of one hour or more per day is associated with poorer language development among toddlers. Reading frequently to the child may have a buffering effect on language comprehension difficulties but not on expressive language skills difficulties.

Translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of an Arabic version of the test of narrative language—second edition

BackgroundThe significance of narrative skills is evident due to their role in the development of language and their connection to significant social and academic skills. This study aimed to translate, adapt, and validate the Test of Narrative Language-Second Edition (TNL-2) for its use as a tool for the assessment of narrative language in Arabic-speaking Egyptian children. In a cross-sectional study design, the Arabic-translated version of the TNL-2 was administered to 200 typically developing Arabic-speaking Egyptian children ranging in age from 4 years to 15 years and 11 months for validation. The participants were categorized according to their age into ten groups and their scores were analyzed. Face validity was assessed by asking five expert phoniatricians to review the Arabic version of the TNL-2 and complete a questionnaire that assessed the test’s effectiveness in measuring different narrative skills.ResultsA statistically significant difference was found when comparing the TNL-2 scores among the age groups under study. In addition, there was a significant correlation between standardized Arabic language test scores and the total comprehension and total production subtests’ raw scores of the TNL-2. The test-retest reliability and inter-rater agreement demonstrated a high level of reliability and inter-rater agreement. Experts have reached a consensus that the Arabic version of the TNL-2 is capable of evaluating the primary microstructural and macrostructural components of Arabic narratives. Furthermore, it can provide insights into the overall narrative skills of Egyptian Arabic-speaking children.ConclusionThe Arabic-translated version of the TNL-2 demonstrated validity and reliability as an instrument for assessing narrative language comprehension and production skills in Arabic-speaking Egyptian children.

Age-appropriate adaptation of creativity tasks for infants aged 12–24 months

Creativity is an important skill that relates to innovation, problem-solving and artistic achievement. However, relatively little is known about the early development of creative potential in very young children, in part due to a paucity of tasks suitable for use during infancy. Current measures of creativity in early childhood include the Unusual Box Test, Torrance's Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM) task and the Toca Kitchen Monsters task. These tasks are designed for children aged above 12, 36 and 18 months respectively, but very few measures of creativity can be used for infants aged below 2. Accordingly, here we report age-appropriate adaptations of TCAM and Toca Kitchen Monsters tasks for infants as young as 12 to 24 months. Considerations taken into account include (1) infants’ cognitive capacities (i.e., attention span, language comprehension skills, motor skills, and approach to play), and (2) practicality of the stimuli, including suitability for use amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The modified creativity battery for infants includes three tasks: Music Play, Object Play and Exploratory Play tasks. The task protocols elaborated in this paper are intended to facilitate studies on the early development of creativity in infants aged between 12 and 24 months. Primary highlights include:•Age-appropriate adaptation of creativity tasks for use with infants aged between 12 and 24 months.•Consideration of infants’ cognitive capacities and stimulus practicality.•Innovative use of movement as expression of infants’ creative behaviour.

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.

Receptive language and receptive-expressive discrepancy in minimally verbal autistic children and adolescents.

Among the approximately one-third of autistic individuals who experience considerable challenges in acquiring spoken language and are minimally verbal (MV), relatively little is known about the range of their receptive language abilities. This study included 1579 MV autistic children and adolescents between 5 and 18 years of age drawn from the National Database for Autism Research and the SFARI Base data repository. MV autistic children and adolescents demonstrated significantly lower receptive language compared to the norms on standardized language assessment and parent report measures. Moreover, their receptive language gap widened with age. Overall, our sample demonstrated significantly better receptive than expressive language. However, at the individual level, only about 25% of MV autistic children and adolescents demonstrated significantly better receptive language relative to their minimal expressive levels. Social skills explained a significant proportion of the variance in parent-reported receptive language skills, while motor skills were the most significant predictor of greater receptive-expressive discrepancy. Findings from this study revealed the heterogeneous language profiles in MV autistic children and adolescents, underscoring the importance of individualizing interventions to match their different communication strengths and needs and integrating multiple interconnected areas to optimize their overall development of language comprehension, socialization, and general motor skills.

Upaya Meningkatkan Kemampuan Pemahaman Bahasa dengan Menggunakan Media Kartu Kata Bergambar pada Siswa di TK Al-Zaenab Jambangan Surabaya

The ability of early childhood language comprehension is an essential aspect of their cognitive development. This research aims to enhance the language comprehension skills of students at TK Al-Alzaenab Jambangan Surabaya through the implementation of picture card media. The method used is classroom action research (CAR), involving active participation of students in each stage of the learning activities. This research employs a qualitative approach by collecting data through observation, interviews, and documentation. Data analysis used data reduction, data display, and generalization. The research results show a significant improvement in students' language comprehension skills after using the picture card media. This indicates that the media is effective in enhancing language skills in early childhood. The implications of this research can be used as a reference for teachers and educational institutions in designing engaging and effective learning strategies to improve the language comprehension skills of kindergarten children.

Learning Strategies Through Babbling Techniques to Improve Language Comprehension Ability in Deaf Children at YPLAB SLB Lembang West Java

Language is a symbol of the referee sound used by members of social groups to work together, communicate, and identify themselves. The main function of language is as a means of communication between humans. With language will facilitate communication between individuals. This is not owned by deaf children. They have difficulty in language skills, especially in abstract understanding. So that deaf children must be given optimal educational services. Based on the language development of deaf children it stops in the groping or babbling phase so that their language experience is very limited. As a result, they have difficulty understanding language and communicating less than optimally. The language in question is the ability of deaf children to understand receptive and expressive language. For this reason, learning strategies are needed to improve language comprehension skills with palpation techniques. The babbling technique is an alternative in this learning because the syllable repetition technique makes deaf children able to think, combine letters into word structures. So that children can understand the word well. This research is based on the barriers of deaf children in understanding language, so a learning strategy is made with the results of field needs analysis. The method used uses research and development (R&D). The results of the field data show that learning strategies using babbling techniques can improve the ability of deaf children to understand language. This can be seen from the increase in the ability of deaf children to recognize syllables, words and being able to understand stories before and after being given learning through the babbling technique. Therefore, through appropriate learning strategies, they can develop their potential comprehensively.

Evaluating the Simple View of Reading for Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

The 'simple view of reading' is an influential model of reading comprehension which asserts that children's reading comprehension performance can be explained entirely by their decoding and language comprehension skills. Children with ADHD often exhibit difficulty across all three of these reading domains on standardized achievement tests, yet it is unclear whether the simple view of reading is sufficient to explain reading comprehension performance for these children. The current study was the first to use multiple indicators and latent estimates to examine the veracity of key predictions from the simple view of reading in a clinically-evaluated sample of 250 children with and without ADHD (ages 8-13, Mage=10.29, SD=1.47; 93 girls; 70% White/Non-Hispanic). Results of the full-sample structural equation model revealed that decoding and language comprehension explained all (R2=.99) of the variance in reading comprehension for children with and without ADHD. Further, multigroup modeling (ADHD, Non-ADHD) indicated that there was no difference in the quantity of variance explained for children with ADHD versus clinically-evaluated children without ADHD, and that the quantity of explained variance did not differ from 100% for either group. Sensitivity analyses indicated that these effects were generally robust to control for monomethod bias, time sampling error, and IQ. These findings are consistent with 'simple view' predictions that decoding and language comprehension are both necessary and together sufficient for explaining children's reading comprehension skills. The findings extend prior work by indicating that the 'simple view' holds for both children with ADHD and clinically-evaluated children without ADHD.

Research Note: Testing the Simple View of Reading in Adolescents and Adults With Down Syndrome.

The Simple View of Reading is a well-supported framework in typical development that proposes that reading comprehension is predicted by word identification and language comprehension abilities. Although there has been some research examining relations between reading comprehension, word identification, and language comprehension, there has been little research directly testing the Simple View in individuals with Down syndrome, a population that often has difficulties with reading comprehension. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test the Simple View model in English-speaking readers with Down syndrome and examine the contributions of word identification and language comprehension abilities to their reading comprehension success. Twenty-one adolescent and adult readers with Down syndrome (16-36 years of age) completed standardized reading, language, and IQ assessments. Multiple regression assessed the contribution of word identification/phonological decoding and language comprehension skills to reading comprehension outcomes. The full model explained 59% of the variance in reading comprehension. However, language comprehension emerged as the only significant unique predictor, explaining 29% of that variance. Together then, word identification and language comprehension explained approximately 30% of the variance in reading comprehension. The pattern of results suggests that language comprehension is particularly important to reading comprehension success for individuals with Down syndrome, at least those who can already identify printed words. To support reading comprehension development for individuals with Down syndrome, practitioners, educators, and parents should support language comprehension processes.

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Reading Metacognition Awareness in Chilean Learners with Autism Spectrum Condition: An Exploratory Study

Developing second/foreign language (L2) comprehension skills can represent a challenging endeavor for learners with autism spectrum condition (ASC) because their social and verbal cognition may be impaired in terms of abstract reasoning, organizing, and retelling events, inferring intentions, and identifying emotions contained in a text. Thus, it becomes relevant to explore how these learners experience metacognitive strategies when reading in a foreign language. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how Chilean elementary Learners with ASC perceive their metacognitive awareness and how they strategize their L2 reading. To this end, 27 elementary Learners with ASC were asked to report on their perceptions of metacognition in L2 reading by means of a metacognitive awareness reading strategy inventory and semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that participants displayed a medium level of awareness toward metacognition, with problem-solving strategies being the most frequently reported. The difficulties faced by these learners were related to an excessive focus on details rather than general ideas, concentration issues, avoidance of multitasking processes in reading, and not seeking help to ensure comprehension. Implications are discussed in terms of cognitive approaches to reading comprehension and the pedagogical need for nurturing a strategic approach to metacognition in L2 reading to increase autonomy and automaticity.

Towards Transfer Learning Techniques-BERT, DistilBERT, BERTimbau, and DistilBERTimbau for Automatic Text Classification from Different Languages: A Case Study.

The Internet of Things is a paradigm that interconnects several smart devices through the internet to provide ubiquitous services to users. This paradigm and Web 2.0 platforms generate countless amounts of textual data. Thus, a significant challenge in this context is automatically performing text classification. State-of-the-art outcomes have recently been obtained by employing language models trained from scratch on corpora made up from news online to handle text classification better. A language model that we can highlight is BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) and also DistilBERT is a pre-trained smaller general-purpose language representation model. In this context, through a case study, we propose performing the text classification task with two previously mentioned models for two languages (English and Brazilian Portuguese) in different datasets. The results show that DistilBERT's training time for English and Brazilian Portuguese was about 45% faster than its larger counterpart, it was also 40% smaller, and preserves about 96% of language comprehension skills for balanced datasets.

What does a receptive bilingual understand? Evidence from Polish as a heritage language in Germany

Summary Our study explores the field of receptive bilingualism, a highly common phenomenon with respect to heritage languages—one that, despite its commonness, has been analyzed by few studies. We collected data from 10 receptive bilinguals of Polish as a heritage language in Germany, including data from interviews regarding language biographies, a battery of tests on language comprehension skills, and a single-word production task. The main focus of our study was the analysis of the receptive abilities of our 10 participants, with a specific emphasis on their level of listening comprehension of spoken text. We conducted an explorative correlation analysis with respect to the interrelation of listening comprehension with other parameters, such as single-word comprehension, sentence comprehension, single-word production, and the language choice of the participants’ parents. The results indicate that all participants coped well with spoken texts up to level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). There was great variance in performance at levels B2 and C1, with some of the participants still performing very well. Their performance at levels B2 and C1 strongly correlated with the number of direct address instances in Polish by the parents during childhood and with single-word comprehension. Furthermore, the word production task generated the lowest outcomes of all tests, thus revealing a wide gap between receptive and productive abilities. Interestingly, the results of the word production task did not correlate with those pertaining to the listening comprehension of texts at levels B2 and C1. This finding underscores the fact that productive skills do not constitute a valid indicator of receptive abilities. In summary, our results demonstrate the special quality of receptive bilingualism and the need to avoid underestimating this specific status (e. g., in language classes).

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.

Socioemotional Development in the Preschool Period: Investigating the Predictive Role of Temperament, Language Development, and Emotion Comprehension

The present study aimed to investigate the predictive role played by temperament, language and emotion comprehension skills in social competence and behavior problems in the preschool period. The sample consisted of 223 children aged between 39-83 months, their mothers, and 48 preschool teachers who were recruited from 16 municipal preschools located in two central districts of Istanbul through convenient sampling. Children’s social competence was measured through teacher report of Social Competence Behavior Evaluation-Preschool Edition, Short Form (SCBE-30), and children’s behavior problems were evaluated with the related subscales of mother report of Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and teacher report of the SCBE-30. Temperament, receptive language development and emotion comprehension skills were measured through Children's Behavior Questionnaire Very Short Form (CBQ-VSF), Turkish version of Test of Early Language Development-Third Edition (TELD-3:T), and Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC), respectively. The predictive role of each child characteristics in social competence and behavior problems was tested with a series of hierarchical linear regression analyses. Findings indicated that emotion comprehension skills significantly and language development and temperamental effortful control marginally predicted children’s social competence. Further, while temperamental negative affect and effortful control were significant predictors of both externalizing and internalizing problems, externalizing problems were also predicted by language development. The ways findings of this study can contribute to intervention programs that aim to prevent behavior problems and enhance social competence in the preschool period were discussed.

Factors contributing to reading comprehension in children with varying degrees of word-level proficiency

The present study was conducted to explore how the relationships between reading comprehension constructs change according to word reading accuracy, as measured in a large convenience sample ( n = 857) of school-aged students (Years 3–6) with reading difficulties. Multiple regression analyses containing interaction variables were conducted, to determine whether word reading accuracy moderated the relationships between the dependent variable (i.e. reading comprehension) and independent variables (i.e. each of vocabulary and nonword reading accuracy). The interaction variable between word reading accuracy and receptive vocabulary was significant, with steeper slopes evident among more skilled readers compared to less skilled readers. Conversely, the interaction variable between word reading accuracy and nonword reading accuracy was also significant, but with steeper slopes evident among the less skilled reader groups. These patterns align with what has been found in typically developing children: as word reading ability improves, reading comprehension depends more so on language comprehension skills than lower-level decoding skills.

The role of language comprehension skills and instructional practices in cross-language influence of Spanish-speaking dual language learners’ calculation skills

The purpose of this empirical study was 2-fold: (a) to investigate the relationships between Spanish-speaking dual language learners’ (DLLs, N = 223) Spanish language comprehension skills, Spanish calculation performance, English language comprehension skills, and English calculation performance; and (b) to explore the relationship between teachers’ (N = 20) instructional activities and DLLs’ calculation performance. Three important findings emerged. First, significant relationships occurred: (a) between DLLs’ Spanish vocabulary knowledge and Spanish reading comprehension (β = 0.59, p < 0.05, R2 = 0.37); and (b) between DLLs’ Spanish reading comprehension and Spanish calculation performance (β = 0.17, p < 0.05, R2 = 0.12). Second, a significant cross-linguistic relationship in Spanish and English calculation performance emerged (β = 0.41, p < 0.05, R2 = 0.29). Finally, teachers’ explicit teaching and guided practice significantly predicted DLLs’ Spanish calculation performance, but only teachers’ explicit teaching significantly moderated the impact of DLLs’ Spanish calculation performance on their English calculation performance. These findings support the notion that: (a) DLLs’ Spanish language comprehension skills predict their Spanish calculation performance, which subsequently impacts their English calculation performance; and (b) teachers’ explicit teaching and guided practice directly enhance DLLs’ Spanish calculation performance, which in turn later influences their English calculation performance.

Intervention for oral language comprehension skills in preschoolers with developmental language disorder.

There is a clear predominance of programmes aimed at improving aspects related to language production in pupils with developmental language disorder (DLD). However, programmes aimed at improving their receptive skills are limited. The main aim was to assess the effectiveness of an intervention programme for oral language comprehension skills in preschoolers with typical development (TD) and pupils with DLD. Participants were 99 five-year-old pupils, with and without DLD, divided into four groups: two control groups (TD-C = 25; DLD-C = 25) and two experimental groups (TD-T = 24; DLD-T = 25), from schools on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The study used, as pre- and post-measures, the receptive language subtests of the CELF-4-Spanish: Concepts and Following Directions, Word Classes-Receptive and Sentence Structure, as well as two tasks assessing comprehension of paragraphs and narratives. Due to the strong link between oral comprehension skills and executive functions, working memory and semantic fluency are included in this research. The Backward Digit Span subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV) and Semantic Fluency subtest of the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) were used to assess working memory and semantic fluency, respectively. The intervention programme followed a multitiered system of support (MTSS) model, with 95 sessions lasting 60 min each delivered jointly by teachers and speech and language therapists, and focused on lexical-semantic, morphological, syntactic and narrative skills; inferences; verbal working memory; and semantic fluency. The results showed, as expected, that pupils diagnosed with DLD initially performed worse on oral language comprehension and executive functions than pupils with TD. Further, the DLD-T and TD-T groups showed greater gains following the programme, especially in word classes-receptive, sentence structure, verbal working memory and semantic fluency. Finally, a significant positive correlation was found between the gains obtained by the participants in verbal working memory and semantic fluency, with the gains obtained in the three CELF-4-Spanish subtests. An intervention programme applied at an early age fosters oral language comprehension skills and executive functions in pupils with DLD and TD. The intervention organized at different levels of support, following an MTSS model, showed clear progress of the DLD and TD groups in oral language comprehension and executive functions. Pupils with DLD present deficits in linguistic comprehension and executive functions. There are many intervention programs focused on improving language production skills. It is also necessary to consider the skills underlying language problems in pupils with DLD. Oral language, inference, working memory and semantic fluency activities improve comprehension. A collaborative and inclusive intervention of teachers and speech language therapists. Psycholinguistic and neuropsychological skills training should become part of the academic curriculum as early as preschool age. What is already known on the subject Pupils with DLD show problems related to both comprehension and production language. However, there is a clear predominance of programs just aimed at improving aspects related to language production. Clinical implications of this study An intervention program applied at an early age fosters oral language comprehension skills and executive function in pupils with DLD. The intervention organized at different levels of support, following an adaptation of the Response Tier Intervention models, showed clear progress of the DLD in comprehension oral language and executive functions.

English Language Teaching Strategy for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) Students

This study aimed at investigating the realization of English language teaching strategies for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) students, especially in terms of the implementation of teaching strategies. This study took place at SMPLB of Curup, Bengkulu, Indonesia. There was only one English teacher who taught ASD students, and the teacher was involved as the subject of this study. The data were garnered form interviews and document analysis. The data were further analyzed using an interactive model extending to data collection, data condensation, data display, and drawing conclusions. The results showed that the teacher used three strategies in teaching children with autism, namely developing oral language comprehension, echolalia, and communication skills enhancement through the PECS method. In addition, the teacher also modified the form of the strategy according to the needs of students with autism.

Question Timing, Language Comprehension, and Executive Function in Inferencing

ABSTRACT We examined the extent to which the timing of inferential questioning influenced kindergartners’ inferencing performance in a non-reading context, while also taking into account individual differences in language comprehension and executive function. Students completed the eight-week Early Language Comprehension Individualized Instruction (ELCII) application by responding to audiovisual inferential questions administered in one of two timing conditions: either (1) during video watching at various points (online) or (2) after the video was finished (offline). Results suggest that online questioning fostered greater overall gains in inferencing skill from pretest to posttest. Moreover, students with higher executive function demonstrated greater gain in inferencing than students with lower executive function. Likewise, students with higher language comprehension skills demonstrated greater gains in inferencing than students with lower language comprehension skills. Theoretical and instructional implications of the findings and areas for future research are discussed.