Language Disorders:from Infancy through Adolescence:

Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Communicating

Rhea Paul, PhD, CCC-SLPProfessor, Yale Child Study Center

New Haven, Connecticut

Courtenay F. Norbury, PhD

Senior Research Fellow Department of Psychology Royal Holloway University of London London,England

pages 246-252

assessing comprehension

understanding of both words in the second year of life is predictive of both expressive and receptive language development as much as 2.5years later.

example：a mother playing with a 10-month-old girl might point to a ball on the floor while saying to her;"get the ball!"the child would not have to comprehend a single word to comply with the instruction.all she would have to do is to follow the point gesture and then act in the most customary way on the object noticed.a strategy like"look at what mother looks at;then do something about it,"would allow her to appear to interact successfully without really knowing the meaning of the words.

nonlinguistic behaviors and cues,such as gaze,gesture,and situations,or event probabilities.

comprehension in very young children is highly context-dependent.

the words they understand may be words for the family pet,for a particular toy,for a favorite game,and so on.

准备6-8样东西放在孩子跟前，让后跟孩子说，把xx给我，发指令的人注意不要看着说的那样东西

身体部位、物品位置（在哪里table、chair、floor、door）

动词（such as kiss,hug,bite,push,pat,throw,and hit)

summary of comprehension abilities in children up to 3 years old

8-12 months(understands a few single words in routine contexts,such as look at same objects as mother;act on object noticed;imitate ongoing action)

12-18 months(understands single words outside of routine,but still requires some contextual support,such as attend to object mentioned,give evidence of notic;do what you usually do)

18--24 months (understands words for absent objects ,some two-term combinations,such as locate objects mentioned, give evidence of notice;put objects in containers,on surfaces;act on objects in the way mentioned child as agent)

action(verb)-object(noun),such as kiss the apple;hug the shoe;push the baby;bite the apple;push the car

unusual combination:一般是推推汽車，換成抱抱汽車，看看孩子能不能做出正確反應

24-36 months(comprehends three-term sentences,but context or past experience determines meaning;little understanding of word order,such as probable location,probable event;supple missing information)

agent-action-object(sentence such as "the mommy feeds the baby",)

children who have poor comprehension skills but make use of developmentally appropriate strategies may have a better outlook for acquiring receptive skills than children who not only do not comprehend, but also do not make systematic attempts to respond to language.

assessing productive language

assessing speech-motor development

it would be very useful to know whether slow speech development is related to deficits or delays in motor speech abilities.

the feeding assessment can be used to look for muscular weakness,or dysarthric-like conditions that might interfere with speech development.

collecting a speech sample

there are two ways we can gather these data:from a sample audiorecorded in the home and from a parent diary.

sample parent diary form（p.250)

once a speech or vocalization sample has been collected,we want to examine several aspect of the child's production.these include phonological skills-the sounds and syllable types the child produces-as well as the frequency and types of conventional words the child uses and how the child combines words.

assessing phonological skills

generally,the development of words and sounds seems to be very closely linked in both normal and delayed language development.furthermore,the development of consonants specifically is closely related to the development of words.

predictors of long-term speech delay in late-talkers at 30-35 months

phonological characteristic

limited phonetic inventory(order of acquisition of phonemes is delayed,not deviant,at 30-35 mo, late-talkers have only 6-9 defferent consonants)

simple syllable structures(fewer syllables with more than one consonant or consonant clusters)

more sound errors(percent consonants correct 小於0.45）

greater inconsistency in substitution errors(individual phonemes are produced in a variety of ways)

atypical errors(unusual sbstitutions(/d/,/h/);vowel errors)

slow rate to resolution(little change over the 24-36 months time period)