Journal articles on the topic 'Language use in 5/6 year olds'
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1
Goebel-Mahrle, Thomas, and Naomi L. Shin. "A corpus study of child heritage speakers’ Spanish gender agreement." International Journal of Bilingualism 24, no. 5-6 (June 25, 2020): 1088–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1367006920935510.
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Objectives: This study investigates (a) whether child heritage speakers produce more gender mismatches in Spanish ( un piedra “a-masc. stone-fem.”) than monolingual children, (b) whether older child heritage speakers mismatch more than younger ones, and (c) linguistic contexts in which mismatches occur. Methodology: 3893 agreement forms were extracted from corpora of Spanish spoken by six monolingual children, ages 5–6 years, and three groups of US child heritage speakers: ten 5–6-year-olds, fifteen 7–8-year-olds, and twenty-one 9–11-year-olds. Data and analysis: Logistic regressions measured the impact of agreement form type, noun gender, noncanonical noun ending, and noun frequency on gender matching. One regression included 5–6-year-olds only (monolingual and heritage); the second included child heritage speakers only (5–11-year-olds). Findings: There were no significant differences between monolingual and heritage 5–6-year-olds; for these children, adjectives, direct object clitics, noncanonical nouns, and feminine nouns increased the likelihood of mismatches. Among the 5–11-year-old heritage speakers, direct object clitics referring to feminine nouns and noncanonical nouns increased the likelihood of mismatches. The 9–11-year-olds produced more gender mismatches referring to feminine nouns than the younger child heritage speakers, especially with direct object clitics. Originality: This corpus study provides evidence for high rates of gender matching and clarifies the contexts that increase the likelihood that children will mismatch. Implications: Gender matching remains an intact part of child heritage speakers’ Spanish grammars. The distribution of mismatches found provides evidence of a strong article–noun association and a weaker noun–direct object clitic association. The oldest child heritage speakers’ use of masculine clitic lo to refer to feminine nouns may reflect an association between English “it” and Spanish lo. More generally, the finding that mismatches tend to involve masculine forms referring to feminine nouns supports the idea that masculine is the default, unmarked form in Spanish.
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Andrade, Isadora Rodrigues, Ana Luiza H. Tinoco Machado, and Aniela Improta França. "Os efeitos da iconicidade na pré-alfabetização: um estudo psicolinguístico de pareamento figura-palavra escrita." Ilha do Desterro A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies 72, no. 3 (October 7, 2019): 175–200. http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2019v72n3p175.
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This work aims at investigating, from the perspective of experimental linguistics, the use of iconicity as a provisional reading strategy used by children during the pre-literacy phase. In the background, we contrast the recruitment of iconicity with the notion of default arbitrariness in language, as proposed by Saussure. To test the interplay of these cognitions, we propose a role-playing experiment with children from three age groups, 4, 5 and 6, in order to verify if these participants use iconic relations to guide them in a task of pairing figure to written word. Our results show that iconicity is afirst-hand resource used by some children, specially 4 year-olds, who tended to establish a clearer motivational relationship between the size of objects and the size of the word that names them. Nevertheless, iconicity persists as a strategy in a few 6 year-olds, on the brink of attending literacy class. Considering these results, we discuss the implications of choosingaliteracy method, either favoring global reading or grapheme-phoneme decoding, specially for the kids who tend to preserve the iconic strategy longer.
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Nyberg, Jill, Emilie Hagberg, and Christina Havstam. "“She Sounds Like a Small Child or Perhaps She has Problems”—Peers' Descriptions of Speech in 7-Year-Olds Born With Cleft Palate." Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal 57, no. 6 (December 9, 2019): 707–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1055665619890785.
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Objective: The aim of this study was to explore how 7-year-olds describe speech in children born with cleft palate in their own words and to investigate whether they perceive signs of velopharyngeal incompetence (VPI) and articulation errors, and if so, which terminology they use. Methods/Participants: Twenty 7-year-olds participated in 6 focus group interviews where they listened to 8 speech samples with different types of cleft speech characteristics and described what they heard. The same speech samples had been assessed by speech-language pathologists and comprised normal speech, different degrees of VPI, oral articulation disorders, and glottal articulation. The interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Results: The analysis resulted in 4 interlinked categories: descriptions of speech, thoughts on personal traits, consequences for communication, and emotional reactions and associations. Each category contains 4 to 5 subcategories with the children’s descriptions and reflections. Glottal articulation and severe signs of VPI caused the most negative emotional reactions and were described as sounding scary and incomprehensible and the children speculated on the risk of social rejection of the speakers. Retracted oral articulation was also noted and described but with a vocabulary similar to the professionals. Minor signs of VPI were not noted. Conclusions: Seven-year-olds are direct and straightforward in their reactions to cleft palate speech characteristics. More pronounced signs of VPI and articulatory difficulties, also minor ones, are noted. Clinically, articulatory impairments may be more important to treat than minor signs of VPI.
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FRIEDMANN, NAAMA, DORIT ARAM, and RAMA NOVOGRODSKY. "Definitions as a window to the acquisition of relative clauses." Applied Psycholinguistics 32, no. 4 (May 19, 2011): 687–710. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716411000026.
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ABSTRACTDefinitions that children provide can be a valuable measure of their syntax, and specifically, of their ability to produce relative clauses. This research explored the acquisition of subject, object, and indirect object relative clauses in 121 Hebrew-speaking children aged 3 years, 5 months to 8 years, 6 months (3;5–8;6). The children were asked to define 14 nouns, and their responses were collected and analyzed for various syntactic aspects. The main results were that children started using relative clauses in their definitions at age 3;8, and their use of relative clause increased consistently until they were 6 years old. Retesting 38 of the 6-year-olds at age 8;6 indicated no differences in several syntactic measures between their production of relative clauses at age 6 and 8;6, suggesting that the ability to produce relative clauses stabilizes around age 6. The participants made almost no grammatical errors at any of the ages, probably because they avoided the use of relative clauses when they had not mastered them yet. In the early stages participants produced mainly headless relatives, and with age the use of a relative head increased. The acquisition of relative clauses was not related to the ability to embed or to the ability to use pronouns: these abilities existed already in the youngest age group and remained constant throughout the age groups.
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Bukhalenkova, Daria, Aleksander Veraksa, Margarita Gavrilova, and Natalia Kartushina. "Emotion Understanding in Bilingual Preschoolers." Behavioral Sciences 12, no. 4 (April 18, 2022): 115. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs12040115.
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The effects of bilingualism on child development have been extensively examined in last decades. Research reveals that simultaneous use of two or more languages affects child’s language development, cognitive and social skills. The current study focuses on the so-far understudied theory of emotion understanding in bilingual children. A cohort of 593 bilingual and monolingual 5–6-year-olds took the Russian version of the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) that assesses three components of emotion understanding: emotion understanding of external causes of emotions, reflective causes of emotions; and mental causes of emotions. Our results revealed no group differences between overall emotion understanding and understanding of external and reflective causes of emotions. However, monolingual children had a slightly better understanding of mental causes of emotions compared to bilingual children, when controlling for age, gender, and non-verbal intelligence. These results suggest that children growing up in bilingual environments might require more time and/or language/culture exposure to master the ability to understand mental causes of emotions, taking into account cultural differences, as well as the semantic and lexical differences in emotion labelling and emotion expression in each language.
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Podnar, Hrvoje, Dario Novak, and Ivan Radman. "Effects of a 5-minute classroom-based physical activity on on-task behaviour and physical activity levels." Kinesiology 50, no. 2 (2018): 251–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.26582/k.50.2.17.
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The objective was to explore the effectiveness of a five-minute classroom-based physical activity (5min-Class-PA) to keep student behaviour on task while increasing PA and energy expenditure during school days. The multiple baselines across subjects’ design was implemented to assess on-task behaviour during academic lessons (e.g., Mathematics, Science, Language, Art). Observers were blinded to study condition. A quasi-experimental design was implemented to assess PA volume and energy expenditure using SenseWear Armband body monitor (BodyMedia Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, USA). A convenience sample of elementary school pupils (aged 6-10 years) was observed. A total of eight class departments or two class departments per grade (first to fourth) were included by random selection. All pupils from the selected class departments were asked to participate (total 149) and 126 (85%) had no health aberrations and returned parent signed informed agreement on participation. Five-minute PA daily was performed in the middle of a 45-min academic lesson by imitating video animations projected on the school board for 12 weeks. The aims were to assess on-task behaviour during academic lessons and physical activity volume and energy expenditure during a school day. When the 5min-Class-PA was implemented, initially high on-task behaviour during the first part of the lesson (91.42% and 94.8% for 6-8- and 8-10-year-olds, respectively) was not significantly changed after the 5min-Class-PA. In contrast, when the 5min-Class-PA was not implemented, on-task behaviour during the second part of the lesson decreased (by 3% and 4% for 6-8- and 8-10-year-olds, respectively). After the 5min-Class-PA was systematically introduced, on-task behaviour systematically improved. The results of the implementation of the classroom-based PA also indicated a small, non-significant increase in PA levels and energy expenditure during the school day, but also a non-significant increase in sedentary time. On-task behaviour during academic lessons and daily in-school PA levels can be improved by implementing a 5min-Class-PA programme.
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Chaney, Carolyn. "I pledge a legiance tothe flag: Three studies in word segmentation." Applied Psycholinguistics 10, no. 3 (September 1989): 261–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716400008626.
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ABSTRACTThree experimental tasks explored young children's metalinguistic awareness of word boundaries. First, preschool children recited word-by-word pieces which differed in abstractness and familiarity of vocabulary. Second, a teaching task was employed to train and then sample selected items taken from the recited pieces, representing words with cards. The data suggested that several strategies were employed: segment-by-phrase, segment-by-syllable, and segment-by-word. Children were less successful in segmenting the more abstract piece than the concrete one, and they tended to revert to a phrase strategy and/or to change abstract words into more common vocabulary. Error analysis revealed growing awareness of the functors a and the. In a third experiment, preschool and kindergarten children segmented phrases using the functors a, an, my, or and phrases using phonetically similar embedded syllables (e.g., hold my nose; gold miner). Segmentation scores increased with age; even the 4½- to 5-year-olds were highly successful, segmenting with 60% accuracy, and by age 6–6½, they were correctly segmenting 75% of the phrases. Children who had begun to read performed better overall than their same-age peers who had not. Children were more successful with my, or, and word-medial a than with an and word-initial a; embedded syllables tended to be easier than functors, especially for the younger subjects. In conclusion, the years from age 4½- to 6½ appear to be a period of vigorous development of word segmentation skills. During this period, children use increasingly complex strategies – first phrasal, then syllabic, and finally a full word strategy – and they demonstrate a growing knowledge of function words as well as content words. Functors vary in difficulty and developmental sequence due to differences in stress, amount of ambiguity with phonetically similar embedded syllables, semantic complexity, and salience of reference to the young child.
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Zalewska-Meler, Agnieszka Anita. "Biography of Things – A Ball." Przegląd Badań Edukacyjnych 35, no. 2 (December 16, 2021): 53–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/pbe.2021.031.
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The presented text is a study of interest in ball as an element of formation and perception of childhood. The research project was embedded in the paradigm of qualitative, interpretative research, where the focus was on the language of the preschooler, which becomes a reflection of the world of physical culture present in the mind of the child – the narrator. The problem of research is focused on the question: To what extent is the ball and its meanings an element of material culture located in the area of physical culture, and in what circumstances is it a determinant of child-specific pre-school folklore? The resulting space of the presented analyzes is an element of the phenomenographic method, where the use of a partially structured interview with preschool children (N = 80) provided the basis for the analysis of the perception and use of a ball in the cognitive theory of a child’s language space. The main conclusions from the research are: 1) for younger children, the ball is more often an attribute of spontaneous play than conventional actions (governed by rules and patterns), 2) for 5- and 6-year-olds, the ball is an artifact of attractive motor activity, training complex motor skills and competition. In middle childhood, the ball is a domain of spontaneous emotionality and an attribute of children’s play, which becomes a material for perceiving, interpreting and situating oneself in a specific culture of movement. The research was conducted in ten municipal kindergartens in the city of Slupsk, Poland in 2016–2019.
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Doan, Tiffany, Ori Friedman, and Stephanie Denison. "Young Children Use Probability to Infer Happiness and the Quality of Outcomes." Psychological Science 31, no. 2 (December 23, 2019): 149–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797619895282.
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Happiness with an outcome often depends on whether better or worse outcomes were initially more likely. In five experiments, we found that young children ( N = 620, Experiments 1–4) and adults ( N = 254, Experiment 5) used probability to infer emotions and assess outcome quality. In Experiments 1 and 2, 5- and 6-year-olds (but not 4-year-olds) inferred that an agent would be less happy with an outcome if a better outcome were initially more likely. In Experiment 3, 4- to 6-year-olds used probability to assess quality. These findings suggest a developmental lag between 4-year-olds’ assessments of quality and happiness. We replicated this lag in Experiment 4. In Experiment 5, adults used probability to assess both quality and happiness. We suggest that children and adults may use probability to establish a standard against which actual outcomes are compared. Doing so might allow them to make probability-based inferences of happiness without drawing on counterfactual reasoning.
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ROCH, MAJA, ELENA FLORIT, and CHIARA LEVORATO. "Narrative competence of Italian–English bilingual children between 5 and 7 years." Applied Psycholinguistics 37, no. 1 (December 9, 2015): 49–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716415000417.
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ABSTRACTThe study explored narrative production and comprehension in typically developing Italian–English sequential bilinguals. Thirty 5- to 6-year-olds and 32 6- to 7-year-olds were presented with story telling and retelling tasks, each followed by comprehension questions in Italian (their first language) and English (their second language). The macrostructure of narratives produced was analyzed, considering total amount of relevant information, story complexity, and mental state terms. Comprehension questions focused on implicit story information (i.e., characters’ mental states and goals). The results indicated that (a) older children outperformed younger ones on all measures; (b) an advantage of first language (Italian) over second language (English) emerged for younger children; and (c) comprehension and production were both more accurate in story retelling than in telling. Theoretical and methodological implications of these results are discussed.
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Zhou, Peng, Weiyi Ma, and Likan Zhan. "A deficit in using prosodic cues to understand communicative intentions by children with autism spectrum disorders: An eye-tracking study." First Language 40, no. 1 (November 4, 2019): 41–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0142723719885270.
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The present study investigated whether Mandarin-speaking preschool children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were able to use prosodic cues to understand others’ communicative intentions. Using the visual world eye-tracking paradigm, the study found that unlike typically developing (TD) 4-year-olds, both 4-year-olds with ASD and 5-year-olds with ASD exhibited an eye gaze pattern that reflected their inability to use prosodic cues to infer the intended meaning of the speaker. Their performance was relatively independent of their verbal IQ and mean length of utterance. In addition, the findings also show that there was no development in this ability from 4 years of age to 5 years of age. The findings indicate that Mandarin-speaking preschool children with ASD exhibit a deficit in using prosodic cues to understand the communicative intentions of the speaker, and this ability might be inherently impaired in ASD.
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Ghossainy, Maliki E., Laith Al-Shawaf, and Jacqueline D. Woolley. "Epistemic Vigilance in Early Ontogeny: Children’s Use of Nonverbal Behavior to Detect Deception." Evolutionary Psychology 19, no. 1 (January 1, 2021): 147470492098686. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474704920986860.
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This study examines the development of children’s ability to modulate their trust in verbal testimony as a function of nonverbal behavior. Participants included 83 children (26 four-year-olds, 29 five-year-olds, and 28 six-year-olds) that were tasked with locating a toy hidden in one of two boxes. Before deciding the location, participants watched a video of an adult providing verbal and nonverbal cues about the location of the toy. We hypothesized that older children would display epistemic vigilance, trusting nonverbal information over verbal information when the two conflict. Consistent with our expectations, when sources were consistent, all children trusted the verbal testimony. By contrast, and as predicted, when they were inconsistent, only 6-year-olds distrusted verbal testimony and favored nonverbal cues; 4- and 5-year-olds continued to trust verbal testimony. Thus, 6-year-old children demonstrate an ability to modulate their trust in verbal testimony as a function of nonverbal information. Younger children's inability to do this is not due to their being unaware of non-verbal behavior; indeed, when nonverbal information was offered exclusively, children of all ages used it to find the object.
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Weatherhead, Drew, and Shaylene Nancekivell. "Brungarians Use it Differently! Children’s Understanding of Artifact Function as a Cultural Convention." Journal of Cognition and Culture 18, no. 1-2 (March 28, 2018): 89–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340019.
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Abstract Children not only recognize the function of an artifact, but they actively protest when others use it in an atypical way. In two experiments, we asked whether children view artifact function as universal or as culturally dependent. In both experiments children watched videos of two actors who used common artifacts atypically (e.g. a woman using a fork to comb her hair). In Experiment 1A, 6-to-7-year-old children were told that the actors were either from Canada or a far away country. Children were marginally more likely to protest a Canadian using the artifact in a novel way than when the individual was from a far away country. In Experiment 1B, the familiar or unfamiliar culture was explicitly highlighted (e.g., “in Canada it snows in winter” vs. “in Brungaria it rains in winter”). Four-to-five-year-olds were also included as a comparison group. Six-to-seven-year-olds protested the atypical use when the actor was Canadian more than when the actor was Brungarian, whereas 4-to-5-year-olds protested at non-significant rates. Additionally, when asked what appropriate function of the artifact was, 6-to-7-year olds were more likely to endorse the atypical function when it was performed by a Brungarian than a Canadian, while 4-to-5-year-olds never endorsed the atypical function, regardless of condition. These findings demonstrate that while younger children view artifact function as universal, children over the age of 6 recognize that the accepted function of an artifact may vary by culture.
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Wu, Shang-Yu. "Mean length of utterance among Mandarin-speaking children with and without DLD." Child Language Teaching and Therapy 36, no. 3 (July 29, 2020): 165–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265659020945366.
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This study explored the differences in mean length of utterance (MLU) and mean length of the five longest utterances (MLU5) between 5–6-year-old Mandarin-speaking children, and between typically developing children and children with developmental language disorders (DLD). Eighty-nine typically developing children and 35 children with a DLD participated in this study. The researchers collected, transcribed, and analysed language samples from these children. MLU and MLU5 were analysed and compared between the groups. The results showed that MLU and MLU5 were significantly higher for 6-year-olds than 5-year-olds. Also, both MLU measures were significantly lower for children with DLD than for typically developing children. The findings demonstrate that MLU and MLU5 can be used to evaluate language ability and to identify children with DLD among Mandarin-speaking children aged 5 and 6 years.
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THEAKSTON, ANNA L. "“The spotty cow tickled the pig with a curly tail”: How do sentence position, preferred argument structure, and referential complexity affect children's and adults’ choice of referring expression?" Applied Psycholinguistics 33, no. 4 (August 8, 2011): 691–724. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716411000531.
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ABSTRACTIn this study, 5-year-olds and adults described scenes that differed according to whether (a) the subject or object of a transitive verb represented an accessible or inaccessible referent, consistent or inconsistent with patterns of preferred argument structure, and (b) a simple noun was sufficient to uniquely identify an inaccessible referent. Results showed that although adults did not differ in their choice of referring expression based on sentence position, 5-year-olds were less likely to provide informative referring expressions for subjects than for objects when the referent was inaccessible. In addition, under complex discourse conditions, although adults used complex noun phrases to identify inaccessible referents, 5-year-olds increased their use of pronominal/null reference for both accessible and inaccessible referents, thus reducing their levels of informativeness. The data suggest that 5-year-olds are still learning to integrate their knowledge of discourse features with preferred argument structure patterns, that this is particularly difficult in complex discourse contexts, and that in these contexts children rely on well-rehearsed patterns of argument realization.
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Sussman, Joan E. "Perception of Formant Transition Cues to Place of Articulation in Children With Language Impairments." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 36, no. 6 (December 1993): 1286–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/jshr.3606.1286.
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Discrimination and phonetic identification abilities of 5- to 6-year-old children with language impairments were compared to those of 4-year-olds with normally developing language and to previous findings from 5- to 6-year-olds and adults for synthetic stimuli ranging from [ba] to da]. Results showed similar discrimination sensitivity to the second- and third-formant transition cues of stimuli by all children, with poorest sensitivity by the youngest. Phonetic categorization by children with language impairments was most different from the groups with normal language abilities, evidenced by a difference in the percent of tokens labeled as "BA" and by greater variability in labeling and in placement of phonetic category boundaries. Results support hypotheses by Gathercole and Baddeley (1990) suggesting that the phonological component of working memory may be disordered in children with language impairments. Results are also suggestive of specific difficulties with left-hemisphere processing associated with language learning rather than with problems related to sensitivity to formant transitions of the speech tokens.
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SHENG, LI, YING LU, and PUI FONG KAN. "Lexical development in Mandarin–English bilingual children." Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14, no. 4 (April 7, 2011): 579–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1366728910000647.
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Two groups of Mandarin–English bilingual children (3–5-year-olds, 6–8-year-olds) participated in a picture identification task and a picture naming task in both languages. Results revealed age-related growth in English, but not Mandarin vocabulary. Composite vocabulary was larger than either single-language vocabulary in the younger children but was similar to English vocabulary in the older children. Furthermore, children showed a larger receptive–expressive modality difference in their weaker language (Mandarin) than in their stronger language (English). These patterns indicate rapid growth in English vocabulary along with early stabilization of Mandarin vocabulary despite considerable Mandarin input in the home setting.
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Yuen, Ivan, Nan Xu Rattanasone, Elaine Schmidt, Rebecca Holt, and Katherine Demuth. "The acoustic realization of contrastive focus by 6-year-old Australian English-speaking children." Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 152, no. 6 (December 2022): 3313–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/10.0016387.
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Children as young as five have some ability to produce contrastive focus [Wells et al. (2004) J. Child Lang. 31, 749–778]. However, adult listeners' ability to identify the location of contrastive focus depends on whether the speech came from a 4-, 7-, or 11-year-old [Patel and Brayton (2009) J. Speech. Lang. Hear. Res. 52, 790–801]. Recent acoustic studies have also reported the use of F0 vs duration in contrastive focus productions by American English–speaking 2-year-olds [Thorson and Morgan (2021) J. Child Lang. 48, 541–568] and 4-year-olds [Wonnacott and Watson (2008) Cognition 107, 1093–1101], respectively. This study, therefore, evaluated the extent to which older 6-year-olds, with more language experience, used F0 and/or duration when producing contrastive focus, and compared this to adult speech. Monosyllabic and disyllabic adjective + noun targets (e.g., green ball) in utterance medial and final position were elicited from 20 Australian English–speaking 6-year-olds and 14 adults in adjective focus and noun focus conditions. Although both adults and children used high F0, only adults consistently used word and stressed syllable duration as well. This suggests that children may master the different acoustic cues to contrastive focus at different stages of development, with late cue integration.
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Curenton, Stephanie M., and Laura M. Justice. "African American and Caucasian Preschoolers’ Use of Decontextualized Language." Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 35, no. 3 (July 2004): 240–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461(2004/023).
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Purpose: Low-income preschoolers’ use of literate language features in oral narratives across three age groups (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) and two ethnic groups (Caucasian and African American) was examined. Method: Sixty-seven preschoolers generated a story using a wordless picture book. The literate language features examined were simple and complex elaborated noun phrases, adverbs, conjunctions, and mental/linguistic verbs. Results: Literate language features occurred at measurable rates for 3- to 5-year-old children. Conjunction use was positively associated with the use of complex elaborated noun phrases and adverbs, and the use of complex and simple elaborated noun phrases was inversely related. There were no differences between African American and Caucasian children’s usage rates. Age-related differences were observed in the use of mental/linguistic verbs and conjunctions. Clinical Implications: The importance of supporting decontextualized language skills during the preschool period is discussed.
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Miller, Rachael, Anna Frohnwieser, Ning Ding, Camille A. Troisi, Martina Schiestl, Romana Gruber, Alex H. Taylor, Sarah A. Jelbert, Markus Boeckle, and Nicola S. Clayton. "A novel test of flexible planning in relation to executive function and language in young children." Royal Society Open Science 7, no. 4 (April 2020): 192015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.192015.
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In adult humans, decisions involving the choice and use of tools for future events typically require episodic foresight. Previous studies suggest some non-human species are capable of future planning; however, these experiments often cannot fully exclude alternative learning explanations. Here, we used a novel tool-use paradigm aiming to address these critiques to test flexible planning in 3- to 5-year-old children, in relation to executive function and language abilities. In the flexible planning task, children were not verbally cued during testing, single trials avoided consistent exposure to stimulus–reward relationships, and training trials provided experience of a predictable return of reward. Furthermore, unlike most standard developmental studies, we incorporated short delays before and after tool choice. The critical test choice included two tools with equal prior reward experience—each only functional in one apparatus. We tested executive function and language abilities using several standardized tasks. Our results echoed standard developmental research: 4- and 5-year-olds outperformed 3-year-olds on the flexible planning task, and 5-year-old children outperformed younger children in most executive function and language tasks. Flexible planning performance did not correlate with executive function and language performance. This paradigm could be used to investigate flexible planning in a tool-use context in non-human species.
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Parnell, Martha M., James D. Amerman, and Roger D. Harting. "Responses of Language-Disordered Children to Wh-Questions." Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 17, no. 2 (April 1986): 95–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461.1702.95.
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Nineteen language-disordered children aged 3—7 years responded to items representing nine wh-question forms. Questions referred to three types of referential sources based on immediacy and visual availability. Three and 4-year-olds produced significantly fewer functionally appropriate and functionally accurate answers than did the 5- and 6-year-olds. Generally, questions asked with reference to nonobservable persons, actions, or objects appeared the most difficult. Why, when, and what happened questions were the most difficult of the nine wh-forms. In comparison with previous data from normal children, the language-disordered subjects' responses were significantly less appropriate and accurate. The language-disordered children also appeared particularly vulnerable to the increased cognitive/linguistic demands of questioning directed toward nonimmediate referents. A hierarchy of wh-question forms by relative difficulty was very similar to that observed for normal children. Implications for wh-question assessment and intervention are discussed.
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BOHNACKER, UTE. "Tell me a story in English or Swedish: Narrative production and comprehension in bilingual preschoolers and first graders." Applied Psycholinguistics 37, no. 1 (December 9, 2015): 19–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716415000405.
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ABSTRACTThis study examines macrostructural aspects of narrative skills in 52 bilingual Swedish- and English-speaking children age 5–7. Elicited fictional story production and comprehension tasks were administered in parallel fashion in both Swedish and English (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives; Gagarina et al., 2012). Scores on the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives were compared across languages; moreover, story structure components in the narratives and answers to probe questions were qualitatively analyzed. Age effects (5-year-olds vs. 6- to 7-year-olds) for macrostructure production and narrative comprehension were evident, but no effect for language (Swedish/English). The results suggest that story structure is invariant across a bilingual child's two languages at a given age, with similar awareness of the intentions and goal-directed behavior of the story protagonists, irrespective of language.
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Bennett-Kastor, Tina L. "Cohesion and predication in child narrative." Journal of Child Language 13, no. 2 (June 1986): 353–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900008102.
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ABSTRACTThis study traces the development of predicate use for genre and cohesion in the narratives of children aged 2 to 5, examining predicate structures and types and their linkages via three types of parallelism and by means of explicit connectives. After age 2, bivalent (transitive) active verbs were dominant; semantically, verbs of the DO and then GO categories dominated until age 5, when BE verbs ranked second. The dominant type of parallelism was reiteration of grammatical structure alone; reiteration of both predicate structure and lexical content decreased with age. Concerning connectives, 2-year-olds used the smallest number – primarily ‘and’ – while 5-year-olds used the greatest variety. However, by age 5, children used parallelism as the second most common connective device after ‘and’.
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Somani, Arif, Aurora Wiseman, Mary-Grace Hickman, Sarah J. Militello, Rebecca E. Wiersma, Michelle T. Vu, Lexie Goertzen, Michael Shyne, and Maria Kroupina. "Night-time Screen Media Use in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit." Global Pediatric Health 8 (January 2021): 2333794X2110497. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2333794x211049758.
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This prospective observational study quantified screen media use within the night-time pre-sleep period in a pediatric intensive care unit and postulated possible implications. Seventy-five patients between the ages of newborn to 19 years old were observed 5 evenings per week for 3 weeks. Trained observers documented the patient’s screen use, type of screen used, screen engagement, sleep state, light level, and parental presence. Patients in the ICU had on average 65 minutes of screen media use, per evening. The total screen media use averaged 59 minutes for the 0 to18-month age group; 83 minutes for the 18 to 24-month age group; 66 minutes for 2 to 6 year olds; 72 minutes for 6 to 13 year olds; and 74 minutes for those above 13. This research demonstrates that children are engaging in more screen time during the night hours than is recommended by the AAP.
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van Hoogmoed, Anne H., Joost Wegman, Danielle van den Brink, and Gabriele Janzen. "Development of Landmark Use for Navigation in Children: Effects of Age, Sex, Working Memory and Landmark Type." Brain Sciences 12, no. 6 (June 13, 2022): 776. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12060776.
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The use of landmarks for navigation develops throughout childhood. Here, we examined the developmental trajectory of egocentric and allocentric navigation based on landmark information in an on-screen virtual environment in 39 5–6-year-olds, 43 7–8-year-olds, and 41 9–10-year-olds. We assessed both categorical performance, indicating the notion of location changes based on the landmarks, as well as metrical performance relating to the precision of the representation of the environment. We investigated whether age, sex, spatial working memory, verbal working memory, and verbal production of left and right contributed to the development of navigation skills. In egocentric navigation, Categorical performance was already above chance at 5 years of age and was positively related to visuo-spatial working memory and the production of left/right, whereas metrical performance was only related to age. Allocentric navigation started to develop between 5 and 8 years of age and was related to sex, with boys outperforming girls. Both boys and girls seemed to rely more on directional landmark information as compared to positional landmark information. To our knowledge, this study is the first to give insight into the relative contribution of different cognitive abilities to navigation skills in school-aged children.
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Zevenbergen, Andrea A., Ashley Holmes, Ewa Haman, Nichole Whiteford, and Shelly Thielges. "Variability in mothers’ support for preschoolers’ contributions to co-constructed narratives as a function of child age." First Language 36, no. 6 (October 26, 2016): 601–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0142723716673955.
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Children’s narrative abilities in the preschool years have been found to predict their later literacy skills. Mothers’ verbalizations during shared personal narratives with their preschoolers have been shown to facilitate children’s development of narrative skills. The present study sought to extend the literature by investigating mothers’ use of two types of questions (information requests, ‘yes/no’ questions) and two types of confirmation (praise, repetition of child content) when discussing past events with their preschoolers, as a function of child age and gender. Study participants were 32 American mothers and their preschoolers, who were either 3 years of age or 5 years of age. Mother–preschooler dyads were audiotaped discussing three past events which they had shared. Results indicated that mothers provided significantly more information requests and repetition of child content when co-constructing narratives with 3-year-olds than with 5-year-olds. Overall, the results are consistent with the literature regarding parental sensitivity to children’s specific needs for task assistance in the early childhood period.
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Itskowitz, Rivka, Helen Strauss, and Yigal Gross. "Differential Use of Dimensions in Similarity and Preference Judgements among 4- to 6-Year-Olds." Perceptual and Motor Skills 65, no. 1 (August 1987): 147–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pms.1987.65.1.147.
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The present study assessed developmental changes in the use of size, color, and shape considerations in similarity, judgement, and preference of geometric figures. 45 4-, 5-, and 6-yr.-old children were presented all possible pairs of geometric figures differing in shape (circle, triangle, and square), color (red or black), and size (small or big). Comparisons were analyzed by multidimensional scaling techniques. Children as young as four responded to the different dimensions but weighted them differently on the two tasks. Developmental trends appeared in use of given dimensions, primarily on the preference task.
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Howell, Peter, James Au-Yeung, and Stevie Sackin. "Exchange of Stuttering From Function Words to Content Words With Age." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 42, no. 2 (April 1999): 345–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/jslhr.4202.345.
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Dysfluencies on function words in the speech of people who stutter mainly occur when function words precede, rather than follow, content words (Au-Yeung, Howell, & Pilgrim, 1998). It is hypothesized that such function word dysfluencies occur when the plan for the subsequent content word is not ready for execution. Repetition and hesitation on the function words buys time to complete the plan for the content word. Stuttering arises when speakers abandon the use of this delaying strategy and carry on, attempting production of the subsequent, partly prepared content word. To test these hypotheses, the relationship between dysfluency on function and content words was investigated in the spontaneous speech of 51 people who stutter and 68 people who do not stutter. These participants were subdivided into the following age groups: 2–6-year-olds, 7–9-year-olds, 10–12-year-olds, teenagers (13–18 years), and adults (20–40 years). Very few dysfluencies occurred for either fluency group on function words that occupied a position after a content word. For both fluency groups, dysfluency within each phonological word occurred predominantly on either the function word preceding the content word or on the content word itself, but not both. Fluent speakers had a higher percentage of dysfluency on initial function words than content words. Whether dysfluency occurred on initial function words or content words changed over age groups for speakers who stutter. For the 2–6-year-old speakers that stutter, there was a higher percentage of dysfluencies on initial function words than content words. In subsequent age groups, dysfluency decreased on function words and increased on content words. These data are interpreted as suggesting that fluent speakers use repetition of function words to delay production of the subsequent content words, whereas people who stutter carry on and attempt a content word on the basis of an incomplete plan.
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Wong, Puisan, and Carrie Tsz-Tin Leung. "Suprasegmental Features Are Not Acquired Early: Perception and Production of Monosyllabic Cantonese Lexical Tones in 4- to 6-Year-Old Preschool Children." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 61, no. 5 (May 17, 2018): 1070–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/2018_jslhr-s-17-0288.
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Purpose Previous studies reported that children acquire Cantonese tones before 3 years of age, supporting the assumption in models of phonological development that suprasegmental features are acquired rapidly and early in children. Yet, recent research found a large disparity in the age of Cantonese tone acquisition. This study investigated Cantonese tone development in 4- to 6-year-old children. Method Forty-eight 4- to 6-year-old Cantonese-speaking children and 28 mothers of the children labeled 30 pictures representing familiar words in the 6 tones in a picture-naming task and identified pictures representing words in different Cantonese tones in a picture-pointing task. To control for lexical biases in tone assessment, tone productions were low-pass filtered to eliminate lexical information. Five judges categorized the tones in filtered stimuli. Tone production accuracy, tone perception accuracy, and correlation between tone production and perception accuracy were examined. Results Children did not start to produce adultlike tones until 5 and 6 years of age. Four-year-olds produced none of the tones with adultlike accuracy. Five- and 6-year-olds attained adultlike productions in 2 (T5 and T6) to 3 (T4, T5, and T6) tones, respectively. Children made better progress in tone perception and achieved higher accuracy in perception than in production. However, children in all age groups perceived none of the tones as accurately as adults, except that T1 was perceived with adultlike accuracy by 6-year-olds. Only weak association was found between children's tone perception and production accuracy. Conclusions Contradicting to the long-held assumption that children acquire lexical tone rapidly and early before the mastery of segmentals, this study found that 4- to 6-year-old children have not mastered the perception or production of the full set of Cantonese tones in familiar monosyllabic words. Larger development was found in children's tone perception than tone production. The higher tone perception accuracy but weak correlation between tone perception and production abilities in children suggested that tone perception accuracy is not sufficient for children's tone production accuracy. The findings have clinical and theoretical implications.
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Mačiulskienė, Vita, Jaunė Razmienė, Vilija Andruškevičienė, and Eglė Bendoraitienė. "Estimation of Caries Treatment Needs in First Permanent Molars of Lithuanian 5–6-Year-Old Children, Based on Caries Lesion Activity Assessment." Medicina 56, no. 3 (March 2, 2020): 105. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina56030105.
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Background and Objectives: Early detection of dental caries lesions at active stages of development can facilitate their monitoring and reduce needs for restorative dental care. This study aimed to describe the prevalence and caries treatment needs in first permanent molars of pre-school children, based on a caries lesion activity assessment, and in relation to participants’ ages, dental plaque levels and toothbrushing habits. Materials and Methods: Large cross-sectional dental caries survey using multistage cluster sampling was conducted among Lithuanian 4–6-year-old children attending kindergartens. For the present study purpose, all individuals presenting erupted permanent molars were selected. Thus, only 5–6-year-olds (n = 453) took part in this study. They were examined for caries by one calibrated examiner using Nyvad clinical diagnostic criteria that differentiate between active and inactive caries lesions. Dental plaque was assessed by the Silness-Löe index, and parents’ reports about toothbrushing frequency were collected. Results: Overall, 41% of permanent molars were affected by caries; 6-year-olds had more caries lesions than 5-year-olds (p < 0.05). Mean number of decayed and filled surfaces (DF-S) of all participants was 1.79 (SD 2.93), half of lesions were noncavitated, more than one-third were cavitated and fillings comprised less than one surface per child. Majority of lesions were active; prevalence of inactive lesions (all noncavitated) was 1% and 6% in 5- and 6-year-olds, respectively. Prevalence of active lesions increased with age; it correlated with plaque levels and with toothbrushing frequency (<0.001). Likelihood to detect active lesions was up to nine times higher in teeth with abundant plaque (odds ratio (OR) 8.73; confidence interval (CI) 5.35–14.25), and up to seven times higher in individuals brushing teeth irregularly (OR 6.88; CI 2.21–21.41). Conclusions: The obtained data indicate high treatment needs in the erupted permanent molars of the Lithuanian pre-school population and imply that caries management should primarily focus on improved biofilm removal, accompanied with regular use of fluoridated toothpaste.
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Sheridan, Kimberly M., Abigail W. Konopasky, Sophie Kirkwood, and Margaret A. Defeyter. "The effects of environment and ownership on children's innovation of tools and tool material selection." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371, no. 1690 (March 19, 2016): 20150191. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0191.
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Research indicates that in experimental settings, young children of 3–7 years old are unlikely to devise a simple tool to solve a problem. This series of exploratory studies done in museums in the US and UK explores how environment and ownership of materials may improve children's ability and inclination for (i) tool material selection and (ii) innovation. The first study takes place in a children's museum, an environment where children can use tools and materials freely. We replicated a tool innovation task in this environment and found that while 3–4 year olds showed the predicted low levels of innovation rates, 4–7 year olds showed higher rates of innovation than the younger children and than reported in prior studies. The second study explores the effect of whether the experimental materials are owned by the experimenter or the child on tool selection and innovation. Results showed that 5–6 year olds and 6–7 year olds were more likely to select tool material they owned compared to tool material owned by the experimenter, although ownership had no effect on tool innovation. We argue that learning environments supporting tool exploration and invention and conveying ownership over materials may encourage successful tool innovation at earlier ages.
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KÜNTAY, AYLİN C., and ASLI ÖZYÜREK. "Learning to use demonstratives in conversation: what do language specific strategies in Turkish reveal?" Journal of Child Language 33, no. 2 (May 2006): 303–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000906007380.
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Pragmatic development requires the ability to use linguistic forms, along with non-verbal cues, to focus an interlocutor's attention on a referent during conversation. We investigate the development of this ability by examining how the use of demonstratives is learned in Turkish, where a three-way demonstrative system (bu, şu, o) obligatorily encodes both distance contrasts (i.e. proximal and distal) and absence or presence of the addressee's visual attention on the referent. A comparison of the demonstrative use by Turkish children (6 four- and 6 six-year-olds) and 6 adults during conversation shows that adultlike use of attention directing demonstrative, şu, is not mastered even at the age of six, while the distance contrasts are learned earlier. This language specific development reveals that designing referential forms in consideration of recipient's attentional status during conversation is a pragmatic feat that takes more than six years to develop.
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Privette, Franklin, Ann Nwosu, Caitlin N. Pope, Jingzhen Yang, Joyce C. Pressley, and Motao Zhu. "Factors Associated With Child Restraint Use in Motor Vehicle Crashes." Clinical Pediatrics 57, no. 12 (July 9, 2018): 1423–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0009922818786002.
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Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) are a leading cause of death among children. Multivariable analyses of age-appropriate child restraint system (CRS) use in the “booster-aged” population are needed. The current study identified factors associated with age-appropriate CRS use in fatal MVCs for children 4 to 7 years old, using 2011 to 2015 data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. Of 929 MVC fatalities, 32% of fatally injured children were in an age-appropriate restraint. While age-appropriate CRS use was higher for 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds relative to 7-year-olds (adjusted relative risk [aRR] = 2.57, 2.51, and 2.18, respectively; p < .01 for each comparison), black children (aRR = 0.62; p < .01) relative to white children, and drivers who had not used a lap-shoulder belt (aRR = 0.40; p < .01) relative to belted drivers were associated with lower levels of age-appropriate CRS use. Our findings underscore the continued importance of communicating best practice guidelines on CRSs to caregivers of young children.
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Reid, H. F. M., and C. D. Thorne. "Scabies infestation: the effect of intervention by public health education." Epidemiology and Infection 105, no. 3 (December 1990): 595–602. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0950268800048238.
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SUMMARYThe objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of scabies in an infested village; to educate the residents on self-treatment and prevention by the use of 5 % monosulfiram soap; to evaluate the short term effectiveness of this intervention by determining, 2 weeks later, the compliance to self-treatment and prevention; and to determine the prevalence rate on the second visit. In 59 households (96·7% of the village) containing 313 persons, an educational session was held and a leaflet distributed on the use and availability of the soap. Thirteen persons (4·2%) from eight households (13·6%) had scabies. After 2 weeks, 7 persons (2·2%) (2 persisting and 5 new cases) from 5 households (8·5%) were infested. Thus a cure rate of 85 % was obtained though the prevalence rate showed no statistically significant difference. Among the under 15 year olds, the numbers infected decreased from 10 to 3 while among the over 15 year olds, the numbers infected increased from 3 to 4, neither reading significance at the 5 % level.
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Zevenbergen, Andrea Angell, Ewa Haman, and Jason Andrew Zevenbergen. "“Do You Remember Going to the Beach?”: References to Internal States in Polish and American Mother-Preschooler Shared Narratives." Psychology of Language and Communication 22, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 441–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/plc-2018-0020.
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Abstract The present study examined references to cognitive states and emotions in narratives produced by mothers and preschoolers (aged 3 or 5 years) in Polish and American families. Participants were 32 mother-child dyads from Poland and 32 mother-child dyads from the United States. The two samples were matched with regard to child age, child gender, maternal age, and maternal education. The mother-child dyads were asked to tell three personal narratives. The co-constructed narratives were coded for mother and child references to cognitive states and emotions. Polish mothers were found to include significantly more references to cognitive states in their narratives than American mothers. Results also revealed significant correlations between mothers’ and children’s references to cognitive states across both samples. Related to child development, 5-year-olds produced significantly more tokens in the narratives than 3-year-olds. This study shows that mothers’ use of cognitive state terms in shared narratives with their young children differs across two Western cultural contexts. The results of this study are discussed with regard to two themes in developmental psycholinguistics: relations between maternal and child language use, and cross-cultural variation.
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Olshtain, Elite. "Is Second Language Attrition the Reversal of Second Language Acquisition?" Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11, no. 2 (June 1989): 151–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263100000589.
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The study of language attrition, whether it is concerned with first or second languages, focuses on the effects resulting from an individual's reduced use of the attrited language. Such reduction in use can be due to a change in the linguistic environment or to the termination of an instructional program. In either case, some other language (or languages) is or becomes the dominant one.The present article reports on a series of studies, all focusing on individual attrition of English as a second language (ESL) in an environment where Hebrew is the dominant language. The predictor variables discussed are age, sociolinguistic features, input variables, and linguistic variables. The attrition process affecting English as a second language in a Hebrew dominant context seems to exhibit two major trends of change in language use: (a) a greater variability in the application of peripheral and highly marked structural rules, and (b) lower accessibility of specific lexical items. In each of these trends one can identify a limited reversal of the acquisition process, particularly with young children (5–8-year-olds) as well as a typological transfer process from the dominant language.
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Black, Lucinda J., Janette Walton, Albert Flynn, and Mairead Kiely. "Adequacy of vitamin D intakes in children and teenagers from the base diet, fortified foods and supplements." Public Health Nutrition 17, no. 4 (February 27, 2013): 721–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1368980013000359.
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AbstractObjectiveTo describe vitamin D intakes in children and teenagers and the contribution from supplements and fortified foods in addition to the base diet.DesignAnalysis of 7 d weighed food records collected during the Children's and Teens’ National Nutrition Surveys in Ireland. Food composition data for vitamin D were updated from international analytical sources.SettingNationally representative cross-sectional dietary surveys.SubjectsChildren (n594; 5–12 years) and teenagers (n441; 13–17 years).ResultsMedian vitamin D intakes were 1·9, 2·1 and 2·4 μg/d in 5–8-, 9–12- and 13–17-year-olds, respectively. The prevalence of vitamin D-containing supplement use was 21, 16 and 15 % in 5–8-, 9–12- and 13–17-year-olds and median intakes in users ranged from 6·0 to 6·7 μg/d. The prevalence of inadequate intakes, defined as the percentage with mean daily intakes below the Estimated Average Requirement of 10 μg/d, ranged from 88 to 96 % in supplement users. Foods fortified with vitamin D, mainly breakfast cereals, fat spreads and milk, were consumed by 71, 70 and 63 % of 5–8-, 9–12- and 13–17-year-olds. Non-supplement users who consumed vitamin D-fortified foods had median intakes of 1·9–2·5 μg/d, compared with 1·2–1·4 μg/d in those who did not consume fortified foods.ConclusionsIt is currently not possible for children consuming the habitual diet to meet the US Institute of Medicine dietary reference intake for vitamin D. In the absence of nationally representative 25-hydroxyvitamin D data in children, the implications of this observation for prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and health consequences are speculative.
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Foyn, Camilla Hellum, Mila Vulchanova, and Randi Alice Nilsen. "The interpretation of focused pronouns in Norwegian children and adults." Nordic Journal of Linguistics 41, no. 1 (March 8, 2018): 3–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0332586518000021.
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Earlier research states that if an unaccented pronoun refers to the subject of the preceding sentence, a focally accented pronoun will refer to the object. In the current study, we tested whether Norwegian adults select the intended pronoun referent in this context. Our study is also the first one to use eye-tracking to investigate children's developing sensitivity to intonational cues in pronoun resolution, and consequently the first one where Norwegian is the object language. The participants were monolingual 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old children, and a group of adults. They listened to the Norwegian version of utterances like ‘Sarai hugged Mariaj. Then shei/SHEj hugged her own teddy bear’, while watching two corresponding figures on a screen. This was followed by the question, in Norwegian, ‘Who hugged her own teddybear?’ When answering the question, the adults selected the subject referent (Sara) after unaccented pronouns, and the object referent (Maria) after focally accented pronouns. Eye-tracking data revealed that the 7-year-olds initially looked towards the object referent after hearing the pronoun, and then switched to look at the subject referent, regardless of the pronoun's intonation. The 5-year-olds answered the question by selecting the intended referent more often after a focally accented pronoun than after an unaccented one. Finally, the 3-year-olds showed no clear preferences. These results suggest that Norwegian children under the age of seven are still not adult-like when resolving accented and unaccented pronouns.
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Jerger, Susan, Markus F. Damian, Cassandra Karl, and Hervé Abdi. "Developmental Shifts in Detection and Attention for Auditory, Visual, and Audiovisual Speech." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 61, no. 12 (December 10, 2018): 3095–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/2018_jslhr-h-17-0343.
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Purpose Successful speech processing depends on our ability to detect and integrate multisensory cues, yet there is minimal research on multisensory speech detection and integration by children. To address this need, we studied the development of speech detection for auditory (A), visual (V), and audiovisual (AV) input. Method Participants were 115 typically developing children clustered into age groups between 4 and 14 years. Speech detection (quantified by response times [RTs]) was determined for 1 stimulus, /buh/, presented in A, V, and AV modes (articulating vs. static facial conditions). Performance was analyzed not only in terms of traditional mean RTs but also in terms of the faster versus slower RTs (defined by the 1st vs. 3rd quartiles of RT distributions). These time regions were conceptualized respectively as reflecting optimal detection with efficient focused attention versus less optimal detection with inefficient focused attention due to attentional lapses. Results Mean RTs indicated better detection (a) of multisensory AV speech than A speech only in 4- to 5-year-olds and (b) of A and AV inputs than V input in all age groups. The faster RTs revealed that AV input did not improve detection in any group. The slower RTs indicated that (a) the processing of silent V input was significantly faster for the articulating than static face and (b) AV speech or facial input significantly minimized attentional lapses in all groups except 6- to 7-year-olds (a peaked U-shaped curve). Apparently, the AV benefit observed for mean performance in 4- to 5-year-olds arose from effects of attention. Conclusions The faster RTs indicated that AV input did not enhance detection in any group, but the slower RTs indicated that AV speech and dynamic V speech (mouthing) significantly minimized attentional lapses and thus did influence performance. Overall, A and AV inputs were detected consistently faster than V input; this result endorsed stimulus-bound auditory processing by these children.
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Serratrice, Ludovica, and Cécile De Cat. "Individual differences in the production of referential expressions: The effect of language proficiency, language exposure and executive function in bilingual and monolingual children." Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23, no. 2 (April 22, 2019): 371–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1366728918000962.
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AbstractOne hundred and seventy-two English-speaking 5- to 7-year-olds participated in a referential communication task where we manipulated the linguistic mention and the visual presence of a competitor alongside a target referent. Eighty-seven of the children were additionally exposed to a language other than English (bilinguals). We measured children's language proficiency, verbal working memory (WM), cognitive control skills, family SES, and relative amount of cumulative exposure and use of the home language for the bilinguals. Children's use of full Noun Phrases (NPs) to identify a target referent was predicted by the visual presence of a competitor more than by its linguistic mention. Verbal WM and proficiency predicted NP use, while cognitive control skills predicted both the ability to use expressions signalling discourse integration and sensitivity to the presence of a discourse competitor, but not of a visual competitor. Bilingual children were as informative as monolingual children once proficiency was controlled for.
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Fergus, Abigail, Kaitlyn Harrigan, and Anya Hogoboom. "The development of vowel length as a subphonemic cue." Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 7, no. 1 (May 5, 2022): 5273. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v7i1.5273.
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Previous research has shown that English speakers use vowel length (VL) as a subphonemic cue to obstruent voicing. Many studies have demonstrated adults’ ability to make a voicing judgment based upon VL but studies with children have provided mixed results. In the present study, we sought to first determine whether adults would exhibit varying sensitivity to VL based upon whether it could serve as a strong subphonemic cue. Second, we sought to better understand children’s sensitivity to subphonemic VL from 4 to 6 years by removing top-down information and isolating the acoustic system. Adults (NN=73, MEAN AGE=5;5.6) treat subphonemic VL differently from adults in two ways. First, they fail to show sensitivity at the same level as adults. 5- and 6-year-olds require VL differences that are twice as large and 4-year-olds do not show sensitivity even at the larger lengths. Second, children do not reveal varying sensitivity based upon the vowel’s position as a potential subphonemic cue. This suggests that children have not fully developed their native phonology by the time they are 6-years-old.
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BEDORE, LISA M., CHRISTINE E. FIESTAS, ELIZABETH D. PEÑA, and VANESSA J. NAGY. "Cross-language comparisons of maze use in Spanish and English in functionally monolingual and bilingual children." Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 9, no. 3 (October 20, 2006): 233–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1366728906002604.
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Maze use appears to be higher in bilingual speakers than in their functionally monolingual peers. One question is whether this is due to the speaker's bilingual status or to the characteristics of the bilingual's language(s). Narratives for 22 Spanish–English bilingual 4–6-year-olds and their functionally monolingual age-matched peers were analyzed for maze use. Bilingual and functionally monolingual children used similar percentages and patterns of mazes. Children produced more grammatical revisions in Spanish than English. Bilingual and functionally monolingual children used similar grammatical revision strategies in Spanish and English. Children's maze use in each language was correlated with measures of language productivity such as mean length of utterance and number of words used in the sample. These findings suggest that the role of language is important in maze use and that bilingual children do not necessarily have greater levels of linguistic uncertainty than do their functionally monolingual peers.
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Oetting, Janna B., and Janet L. McDonald. "Nonmainstream Dialect Use and Specific Language Impairment." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44, no. 1 (February 2001): 207–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2001/018).
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Most work looking at specific language impairment (SLI) has been done in the context of mainstream dialects. This paper extends the study of SLI to two nonmainstream dialects: a rural version of Southern African American English (SAAE) and a rural version of Southern White English (SWE). Data were language samples from 93 4- to 6-year-olds who lived in southeastern Louisiana. Forty were classified as speakers of SAAE, and 53 were classified as speakers of SWE. A third were previously diagnosed as SLI; the others served as either agematched (6N) or language-matched (4N) controls. The two dialects differed in frequency of usage on 14 of the 35 coded morphosyntactic surface patterns; speakers of these dialects could be successfully discriminated (94%) from each other in a discriminant analysis using just four of these patterns. Across dialects, four patterns resulted in main effects that were related to diagnostic condition (SLI vs. 6N), and a slightly different set of four patterns showed effects that were related to developmental processes (4N vs. 6N). More interestingly, the surface characteristics of SLI were found to manifest in the two dialects in different ways. A discriminant function based solely on SAAE speakers tended to misclassify SWE children with SLI as having normal language, and a discriminant function based on SWE speakers tended to misclassify SAAE unaffected children as SLI. Patterns within the SLI profile that cut across the two dialects included difficulties with tense marking and question formation. The results provide important direction for future studies and argue for the inclusion of contrastive as well as noncontrastive features of dialects within SLI research.
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Freeman, Jennifer, Christopher A. Flessner, and Abbe Garcia. "The Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale: Reliability and Validity for Use Among 5 to 8 Year Olds with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder." Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 39, no. 6 (February 22, 2011): 877–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-011-9494-6.
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Lam, Virginia L., and Jodi-Ann Seaton. "Ingroup/Outgroup Attitudes and Group Evaluations: The Role of Competition in British Classroom Settings." Child Development Research 2016 (September 26, 2016): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/8649132.
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Children’s intergroup bias is one of the consequences of their readiness to categorise people into ingroups and outgroups, even when groups are assigned arbitrarily. The present study examined the influence of intergroup competition on children’s ingroup and outgroup attitudes developed within the minimal-group setting in British classrooms. One hundred and twelve children in two age groups (6-7- and 9-10-year-olds) were assessed on classification skills and self-esteem before being allocated to one of two colour “teams.” In the experimental condition, children were told that the teams would have a competition after two weeks and teachers made regular use of these teams to organise activities. In the control condition, where no competition ensued, teachers did not refer to “teams.” Then children completed trait attributions to their own-team (ingroup) and other-team (outgroup) members and group evaluations. It was found that children developed positive ingroup bias across conditions, but outgroup negative bias was shown only by 6-7-year-olds in the experimental condition, particularly if they lost the competition, where they evaluated their team more critically. Better classification skills were associated with less negativity towards the outgroup in the experimental condition. Findings are discussed in relation to relevant theoretical premises and particulars of the intergroup context.
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Nicholas, Johanna G., and Ann E. Geers. "Communication of Oral Deaf and Normally Hearing Children at 36 Months of Age." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 40, no. 6 (December 1997): 1314–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/jslhr.4006.1314.
Full textAbstract:
Eighteen orally educated deaf and 18 normally hearing 36-month-old children were observed in a play session with their mother. Communicative behavior of the child was coded for modality and communicative function. Although the oral deaf children used a normal range of functions, both the quantity and proportions differed from normally hearing children. Whereas the normally hearing 3-year-olds used speech almost exclusively, the deaf children exhibited about equal use of speech, vocalizations, and gestures. Spoken language scores of the deaf children at 5 years of age were best predicted by (a) more frequent use of speech at age 36 months, (b) more frequent use of the Statement function, and (c) relatively infrequent use of the Directive function. It is suggested that some communicative functions are more informative or heuristic than others, and that the early use of these functions is most likely to predict later language competence.
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Thompson, Robert S., Diane C. Thompson, Frederick P. Rivara, and Angela A. Salazar. "Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Bicycle Helmet Subsidies in a Defined Population." Pediatrics 91, no. 5 (May 1, 1993): 902–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.91.5.902.
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Objective. To examine the potential effects of bicycle safety helmet cost subsidy on bicycle head injury rates and costs. Design. Using empiric data on the incidence and costs of bicycle injuries to children, we examined the hypothetical effects of various bicycle helmet subsidies in a cost-effectiveness analysis. A hypothetical cohort of 100 000 5- through 9-year-olds was followed for 5 years after helmet cost subsidization. Sensitivity analyses were done of three different levels of safety helmet subsidy ($5, $10, $15), three discount rates (2%, 4%, 6%), 10 levels of safety helmet use ranging from 10% to 100%, and the occurrence or nonoccurrence of catastrophic head injuries. Patients. Forty-three children 5 through 9 years of age and 27 children 10 through 14 years of age with head injuries due to bicycling were identified through emergency department surveillance of a population of 29 533. Setting. Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, a large health maintenance organization. Outcome measures. Bicycle head injuries prevented and the savings or costs associated with various subsidy, safety helmet use, and discount rates. Results. Hypothetically, an increase in bicycle helmet use rates to 40% to 50% due to subsidies of $5 or $10 prevents 564 to 840 head injuries in a cohort of 100 000 5- through 9-year-olds over 5 years. Under these conditions and a 2% discount rate, cost savings ranging from $189 207 to $427 808 will result when catastrophic head injuries are included in the analysis. Conclusion. Subsidization of bicycle safety helmets to achieve a cost of $14 to $20 per helmet and use rates of 40% to 50% will likely prove cost-effective. Empirical evidence from a Seattle campaign suggests that such helmet use rates are achievable.
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Kamath, PS. "A Novel Distraction Technique for Pain Management during Local Anesthesia Administration in Pediatric Patients." Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry 38, no. 1 (September 1, 2013): 45–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.17796/jcpd.38.1.265807t236570hx7.
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Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of an active and novel distraction technique WITAUL (Writing In The Air Using Leg) on the pain behavior observed and reported by children receiving local anesthesia injections prior to dental treatment. Study design: The study was conducted on 160 children (80 in control and 80 in intervention group) between the ages of 4 - 10 years. During the administration of anesthesia the children in the control group were made to relax by means of deep breathing and those in the intervention group were taught to use the WITAUL distraction technique. the behavior of the children aged 4 - 5 years was noted using the Modified Toddler-Preschooler Post operative Pain Scale (TPPPS) and that of children aged above 6 years was measured using the FACES Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R). Results: The use of WITAUL was found to be statistically significant (p value < 0.0001) compared to the control method in serving as a distraction and hence in managing pain during local anesthesia administration. The mean Modified TPPPS scores (4 - 5 year olds) for the WITAL group was 2.46 ±1.752 and that of the control was 5.64±2.328. The mean FPS-R scores (6 - 10 year olds) for the WITAUL group was 3±1.748 and that of the control group was 6.26±1.858. Conclusion: The WITAUL technique therefore appears to be a simple and effective method of distraction during local anesthesia administration in pediatric patients.
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Bonus, James Alex, and Marie-Louise Mares. "Learned and Remembered But Rejected: Preschoolers’ Reality Judgments and Transfer From Sesame Street." Communication Research 46, no. 3 (October 14, 2015): 375–400. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0093650215609980.
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Although preschoolers learn from educational TV, they may not use information appropriately due to their developing understanding of video and fantasy-reality distinctions. Seventy 3- to 5-year-olds watched a Sesame Street clip, introduced as either “fun” or “for learning,” that depicted aspects of Hispanic culture (e.g., fiestas). They answered comprehension questions and rated the reality of the educational and fantasy content. Approximately a week later, a seemingly unrelated interviewer asked for help planning a fiesta (transfer task), then reassessed memory and reality judgments. Regardless of condition, children retained most of what they learned, but all ages became increasingly skeptical about the reality of both the educational and fantasy content. Consistent with theorizing about transfer, children’s use of the educational content depended on both memory and reality judgments. Older children remembered the information better than younger children, but memory only predicted transfer if the information was remembered as real.
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Kyuchukov, Hristo. "A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF THE “THEORY OF MIND” OFTURKISH BILINGUAL CHILDREN." Social Communications: Theory and Practice 12, no. 1 (July 20, 2021): 74–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.51423/2524-0471-2021-12-1-9.
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This article presentsthe results of a study with Turkish preschool bilingual children living in Berlin, Germany. This article aims to examine the influence between the level of proficiency in the mother tongue (first language L1) and the official language (second language L2) on the one hand and the “theory of mind” on the other, or more precisely, how the lexical knowledge of L1 and L2 and the understanding of interrogative sentences used with a verb indicating mental states helps to understand the ToM.Research methods and techniques. The study included 18 Turkish-German bilingual children attending a kindergarten in Berlin, Germany. The children were divided into two age groups: 1 g of 4–5 year-olds (8 children) and 2 gr. of 5-6 year-olds (10 children) and were tested in their native Turkish and then in German. The testing was performed in the kindergarten in a separate room, where only the experimenter and the examined child were present. The children are offered the classical tests for “theory of mind”, as well as language tests related to the comprehension of interrogative sentences, containing a verb showing a mental state and comprehension and production of vocabulary in native Turkish and German as a second language for them.The resultsshow that vocabulary is not an important factor, and mastery of interrogative sentences is the factor that helps to understand the “theory of mind”. The results obtained were analyzed statistically by means ofthe t-test.Children with German-Turkish bilingualism understand the vocabulary of their mother tongue well and it is obviously in their passive vocabulary, but this knowledge has not yet passed into their active vocabulary. German vocabulary predominates in the children's active vocabulary. With regard to the level of mastery of interrogative sentences, children are equally good at interrogative sentences in both languages.