Study Guide Flashcards
Describe SLI
- Significant limitations in language functioning not attributed to hearing, oral function, or intelligence
- Do NOT demonstrate the perceptual difficulties of LD or the intellectual difficulties of ID
- Like LLD, language performance scores are lower than intellectual performance scores on nonverbal tasks: Nonverbal IQ usually above 85 and a low verbal IQ
Approximately What percentage of kindergarteners have SLI?
- about 7.4% of kindergarteners have SLI
- 2/3 of these kindergarteners will still have difficulty with language as adolescents
Is it difficult to identify students with SLI?
Yes
it is usually characterized by the exclusion of other disorders (it’s not ID… it’s lacking the perceptual deficits associated with learning disability… it’s not severe enough to be diagnosed as a learning disability…. and so on…
What is the deficit in SLI specific to… Describe this a little bit…
SLI is specific to LANGUAGE
- some suggest that it is not a distinct disorder, but is merely a category of children with limited language difficulties resulting from genetic and/or environmental factors combined.
- While SLI often causes difficulties with reading and writing these difficulties are not considered to be severe as those having LLD
What are specific Language characteristics of SLI?
- may appear delayed in one aspect of language-SYNTAX and MORPHOLOGY STAND OUT THE MOST
- while the language problems may be primarily receptive or expressive or a combination of both, expressive abilities are usually below receptive
- Will not catch up without intervention
- varies across children
- these characteristics change as the child matures
- early language skill that affect later reading and writing are affected
- oral errors appear in writing
- in general, these kids have trouble learning the rules of language, using learned language in different contexts, and using word associations to increase vocabulary
- because of this, morphology and phonology rules are not learned and applied correctly and vocabulary does not develop
- pragmatics problems develop because of difficulties with language use
How is reading affected with a child with SLI?
Although SLI is not a reading disability, 50-75% of children with SLI also have reading difficulties
Describe the semantics of a child with SLI
*Only Learn 2**
- slow vocabulary growth and lexical errors
- less able to recognize physical features (color, size, and shape), thematic elements within a topic (throw, hit, catch, go, with, game), and/or causation (who caused something, who or what received something)
- new words are not learned and stored quickly
- naming difficulties secondary to less elaborate storage of words
- this builds on itself–vocabulary growth builds on comparison to previous learning and repeated exposure to terms
Describe the Syntax/Morphology of a child with SLI
*Only Learn 2**
- Fewer morphemes used correctly, affecting verb endings, auxiliary verbs, and articles and prepositions. Morphemes themselves receive little stress in speech
- GRAMMATICAL MORPHEME PROBLEMS=HALLMARK OF SLI
- instead of age 4, maybe age 7 they master verb tenses. late appearance of past tense-ed is a hallmark
- pronoun errors are common because they tend to overuse one form (he or she)
Describe the phonology of a child with SLI
*Only Learn 2**
- vocalize less
- have less mature syllable structures
- poor non-word repetition (ex: bile dodge, viversumouge)
Describe the comprehension of a child with SLI
*Only Learn 2**
- poor discrimination of units of short duration like bound morphemes (plural endings, etc.)-hallmark
- ineffective sentence comprehension
- reading errors are often not related to the text in terms of actual decoding or meaning
- Series of events presented visually or verbally are difficult to reconstruct (like event retell or story retell)
Describe the pragmatics of a child with SLI
*Only Learn 2**
- may act younger than age
- less flexible with language use and don’t understand communication breakdowns
- trouble getting a turn to speak
- inappropriate responses to topic
- difficulty initiating a conversation
- incomplete, confusing narratives
- failure leads to decreased social interaction
Describe processing factors in children with SLI
- reduced processing and storage of phonological information (the building blocks) leads to inefficient recognition of different words, ability to produce nonsense words, etc… inefficient word learning, slow word recognition, ineffective comprehension of sentences. Problems with incoming information with memory, and with transfer.
- phonological awareness difficulties are not as profound as those with Dyslexia… however, working memory deficits restricts information processing (difficulty comprehending longer and more complex utterances-imagine having a rapid conversation with weak working memory. You can’t keep up–keep losing information as more comes in. Can’t relate new information to processed old information. Think about your experiences with other languages…) Orient more slowly to information… HAVE MORE LIMITED CAPACITY TO FOCUS AND REFOCUS AND SHIFT FOCUS
What is a learning disability?
“significant difficulty in acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities.”
What are the six categories of characteristics associated with LLD?
- motor
- attention
- Perception** the way information is interpreted)
- Symbol **
- Memory
- emotion
**HALLMARKS
What percentage of children with LD have difficulty with learning and using symbols?
> 75%–some professionals consider this group to have a LANGUAGE LEARNING DISABILITY
What does LLD influence?
more significantly influences academic performance–child has a lot of trouble accessing the curriculum
What are the semantic characteristics of a child with LLD?
*Only Learn 2**
-Smaller vocabularies full of high-frequency, short words
-difficulty relating and comparing items, difficulty with non-literal language and multiple meanings, word finding difficulties, confusion with meanings of conjunctions (and, but, so, because, etc….)
What are the syntax/morphology characteristics of a child with LLD?
*Only Learn 2**
−Difficulty constructing negatives (I not like milk, etc.) and passives (Dad was chased by the dog), relative clauses that modify noun phrases (The man who bought my house), contractions (didn’t)
−Difficulty with tense markers (past and future), possession (“John keys,” “mines house,” “hims keys”), and correct pronoun use (he for she, she for he, etc)
−Repeats sentences in reduced forms which indicates difficulty learning sentence forms: “I went to the store to buy milk”=“I went to buy milk” or “I went to the store.” “The Coach gave the uniforms to the team that won”=“The coach gave to the team that won”)
−Confusion with articles (“a,” “an,” “the”)
−They typically produce simple or immature sentences with fewer complex sentences—sentences are often longer b/c they use fewer complex forms…tend to talk around things
What are the phonology characteristics of a child with LLD?
*Only Learn 2**
−Inconsistent sound production, especially as word complexity increases—multisyllabics may be tough: Chrysanthemum, aluminum, alligator, etc.
−**Often more deeply affected than it is in SLI…
What are the comprehension characteristics of a child with LLD?
*Only Learn 2**
−Confusion with wh-questions (Who? What? Where? When? Why?)
−Trouble following complex oral directions
−Poor strategies for interacting with printed information
−Confusion of letters that look similar (b/d) and words that sound similar (plane/pain)
