Language Development and Disorders Flashcards
When should a child have 50 words
Roughly 18-24 months
When will a child start combining words
Around 2 years
What is MLU
Mean length of utterance (average number of morphemes per utterance)
What is form (3 components)
Phonology - smallest unit of sound that makes a difference
Morpheme/Morphology - smallest unit of language (suffixes and prefixes)
Syntax - sentence structure/word order
What is content
Semantics - study of word meanings
What is use
Pragmatics - rules of social communication
Receptive vs. Expressive Language
Receptive language - understanding/listening
Expressive language - production/speaking
Relationship between language development and literacy
Both grow throughout early childhood through teenage years
Benefits of early exposure to books
Books teach children that letters have names and sounds (form words)
Words correspond to pictures they see helping to understand
Causes of language disorders in children
Organic - Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, fetal alcohol, ASD, head injury, etc
Functional - cannot be attributed to the above, developmental language disorder
Symptoms of language disorders across form, content, and use
Form - phonological impairment, morphosyntactic errors
Content - smaller vocabulary, encode fewer semantic features, more trials to learn new words
Use - immature social communication, difficulty understanding and applying pragmatic rules
What is Response to Intervention (RTI)
Process for providing services and interventions to struggling learners at increasing levels of intensity
Options for Informal Assessment
Case history - info about client and their history
Observational tools - observe communication strengths and needs in a real setting
Options for Formal Assessment
Norm-referenced assessment - compare client’s performance to sample of peers
Criterion-referenced assessment - compare client’s skills to a certain expectation
What age do children become intentional communicators
Around 8-9 months
What is meant by “prelinguistic”
Consisting mostly of gestures and vocalizations
How do children communicate before they are able to say words
Nonverbal communication (gestures)
What is a protoword
Phonetically consistent forms
“Invented words”
Tied to specific context
When does the first word appear
9-18 months
At how many months is no 2-word combos a concern
18-30 months
Language strengths and weaknesses associated with ASD
Difficulties in social communication/interaction, restricted interests, repetitive behaviors
Receptive/expressive language impairments
Language strengths and weaknesses associated with down syndrome
Slower to develop speech and language, phonology and speech sound mastery is delayed, morphology and syntax is impaired
Semantic - relative strength
Pragmatics - relative weakness
Language strengths and weaknesses associated with pediatric TBI
Full language recovery is rare
Semantics - relative strength
Pragmatic language - relative weakness
Decoding and comprehending written language can be impacted
Risk factors and red flags for DLD
Premature birth, low birth weight, hospitalization, family history of language/literacy problems, late talkers
