Speech And Language Impairments Research Articles

Soft Disability in Schools: Assisting or Confining At Risk Children and Youth?

The aim in this article is to examine the institutional construction of soft or mild disability by special education as a process of pre-incarceration in schools. Soft disability includes the categories of specific learning disabilities (LD), speech and language impairments (SLI), emotional and behavioural disorders (EBD), and mild mental retardation (MMR). Based on Foucault's (1975/1977) view of the link between prison and delinquency and Skrtic's (1995) critical-pragmatic perspective of disability and special education , I argue that labels of soft disability reflect a process of suspending the educational and citizenship participation of disadvantaged students. Similarly to what Foucault described as the production of delinquency by the prison, special education, by applying inconsistent identification criteria, increases the occurrence of soft disability. Variation and inquiry are outlined as alternative concepts whose implementation may r e verse the negative school dynamic between soft dis ability and (p r e) incarceration.

A Longitudinal Comparison of Enrollment Patterns of Students Receiving Special Education in Urban Neighborhood and Charter Schools

The purpose of this study is to compare and examine special education enrollment trends across disability categories and grade spans for public neighborhood and charter schools in the City of Chicago. Using multilevel longitudinal data analysis methods, we examined annual school enrollment and demographic reports. Our findings indicated that neighborhood schools serve significantly higher proportions of students receiving special education services (SRSE) than charter schools at the aggregate grade level (i.e., elementary and high school enrollments) and at each grade level. In addition, we found that charter schools enroll equal or significantly higher proportions of students with learning disabilities (LD), speech and language impairments (SLI), other health impairments (OHI), and emotional disturbance (ED), and substantially smaller proportions of students with autism, sensory impairments (SI), and intellectual disabilities (ID), when compared with neighborhood schools. However, we found that these differences vary between grade levels. We discuss the implications of these findings for policies affecting charter school authorization and contract renewal, and for policies establishing special education enrollment targets in charter schools.

An investigation of cognitive overlap in working memory profiles in children with developmental disorders

We investigated the nature of cognitive independence or overlap between working memory and IQ in the following developmental disorder groups: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Intellectual Disability (ID), and Speech and Language Impairment (SLI). Participants were tested on standardized measures of IQ and working memory. The data indicates that there was some cognitive overlap in visuo-spatial working memory and nonverbal IQ. All three developmental disorder groups were distinguished by their severity of deficits: the SLI group performed in the normal range; the ASD group had scores in low-average range, and ID group scored below average. These findings correspond with evidence that developmental disorders do not have single, independent cognitive deficit. Clinical and educational support should be tailored accordingly.

Gender and geographic differences in the prevalence of reportable childhood speech and language disability in Taiwan

Speech and language disability (SLD) is not uncommon in children. However, data at the national level are limited, and geographic differences are seldom evaluated. Starting from 1980, the local governments in Taiwan has begun to certify disabled residents for providing various services and report cases to the central government according to the law, and the central government maintains a registry of reported cases, which provides a unique opportunity for studying SLD at the national level. Using the registry data from 2004 to 2010, we calculated the prevalence of SLD by age, gender, and geographic area and assessed the changes over time. Because the government discourages the certification under 3 years of age, we excluded cases under 3 years old from the analyses. We found that from 2004 to 2010 the registered cases between 3 and 17 years old increased from 1418 to 1637 per year, and the prevalence generally increased every year in all age groups except in 12–14 years of age. In each year there were more boy cases than girl cases, and the prevalence rate ratio increased from 1.50 to 1.83 (p<0.05 in all years), with an increasing trend over time (p<0.01). A higher prevalence was observed in the rural areas over the years, and the prevalence rate ratio increased from 1.35 to 1.71 (p<0.05 in all years), with an increasing trend over time (p<0.01). Further studies identifying the risk factors contributed to the increases might help the prevention of SLD in the future.

Ordinary Families, Special Children: A Systems Approach to Childhood Disability

Many would agree that the growing number of children with disabilities is becoming astonishingly high. Children are being diagnosed with various disabilities including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome, various learning disabilities, speech and language impairments, disabilities with hearing and sight, emotional disturbance and many other health impairments. The presence of a child with a disability in a family has an immense impact on the way the family functions. Milton Seligman and Rosalyn Benjamin Darling, in their book Ordinary Families, Special Children, explains and provides a multi-systems perspective on childhood disability and its effects on family life through research, suggestions and numerous real-life scenarios that depict ways families respond to having a child with a disability.

Bilateral Transfer of Motor Skill as a Indicator of Anomalous Dominance Pattern of Lateralization among Mentally Challenged

This research paper is concerned with atypical laterality in the field of perceptual- motor skill among mentally challenged, reveals about the anomalous pattern of lateralisation and severity of cerebral dysfunction in this population. The number of children diagnosed with mental retardation and developmental disorder such as dyslexia, autism, speech and language impairment and attention deficit disorder are increasing as these disorders become better defined in terms of their behavioural and motor characteristics. The studies of brain morphometry were stimulated by the landmark study of Geschwind and Levitsky (1968), which provided evidence of asymmetry in brain structure that correlated with the well established functional asymmetry and found dominance of the left hemisphere for language and motor related activity. Implicit in the notion that mentally challenged persons are associated with anomalous lateralisation pattern or atypical lateralisation pattern. Atypical laterality (i.e. the lack of a clear pattern of lateralisation) has been found to be characteristics of individual with intellectual disability (ID). The evidence has been based on handedness studies which have contain little information about the ability of people with ID to carry out interhemispheric task reflecting bilateral transfer. The present study examined the atypical laterality among mentally challenged person by utilising bilateral transfer of motor skill by transfer paradigm. Right handed mentally challenged (No= 60) and controls matched (N=60) for age and sex were tested for bilateral transfer of motor skills in contralateral hands with a mirror drawing task. The finding indicated that mentally challenged people are significantly deficient relative to match controls in bilateral transfer of motor skills from their non-preferred (left) hand to their preferred (right) hand. Mentally challenged persons were found to perform better with their non- preferred hand than with their preferred hand. A within group comparison revealed that right handed performance was more affected and committed more errors than left hand in these subjects.

The Autistic Behavioural Indicators Instrument (ABII): Development and instrument utility in discriminating Autistic Disorder from speech and language impairment and typical development

The Autistic Behavioural Indicators Instrument (ABII) is an 18-item instrument developed to identify children with Autistic Disorder (AD) based on the presence of unique autistic behavioural indicators. The ABII was administered to 20 children with AD, 20 children with speech and language impairment (SLI) and 20 typically developing (TD) children aged 2–6 years. The ABII discriminated children diagnosed with AD from those diagnosed with SLI and those who were TD, based on the presence of specific social attention, sensory, and behavioural symptoms. A combination of symptomology across these domains correctly classified 100% of children with and without AD. The paper concludes that the ABII shows considerable promise as an instrument for the early identification of AD.

Rhythmic motor entrainment in children with speech and language impairments: Tapping to the beat

In prior work ( Corriveau et al., 2007), we showed that children with speech and language impairments (SLI) were significantly less sensitive than controls to two auditory cues to rhythmic timing, amplitude envelope rise time and duration. Here we explore whether rhythmic problems extend to rhythmic motor entrainment. Tapping in synchrony with a beat has been described as the simplest rhythmic act that humans perform. We explored whether tapping to a beat would be impaired in children for whom auditory rhythmic timing is impaired. Children with SLI were indeed found to be impaired in a range of measures of paced rhythmic tapping, but were not equally impaired in tapping in an unpaced control condition requiring an internally-generated rhythm. The severity of impairment in paced tapping was linked to language and literacy outcomes.

Enhancing Emerging Literacy in a Language Preschool

Preschool children with speech and language impairments (SLI) are at significant risk for later literacy learning difficulties. Current emerging literacy theory dictates the inclusion of reading and writing in preschool programs for children with SLI. Early literacy interactions are directed at developing all modes of communication and providing normalizing experiences for children with SLI. In addition, these experiences may lessen future academic learning problems. The purpose of this article is to describe a preschool program that fosters emerging speaking, listening, reading, and writing in children with SLI. Strategies used to incorporate literacy-related events and artifacts into the daily classroom schedule are discussed, and sample activities are given.