Describes a study which compares expressive language samples from normal children and language impaired children across a range of grammatical and lexical dimensions to determine if it is possible to characterize language impairment using such dimensions. Identifies two variables which were reasonably successful in discriminating the two groups.…

Describes the investigation of a number of lexical diversity measures in connection with speech samples taken from 20 aphasic and 20 normal subjects. (TO)

Presents results of a study involving 54 8- to 12-year-old children with specific language impairment who are compared with a control group on a referential communication task. The children were asked to describe a picture from an array of eight similar items so that the listener could identify it. (18 references) (GLR)

Investigated the hypotheses that language-impaired children produce fewer logical propositions per utterance and evidence less control of formal syntactic markers. Matched for mean length of utterance, language samples from 10 language-impaired children approximately five years of age and 10 normal children about three years of age were analyzed.…

Presents the background, rationale, and examples for a comprehensive psycholinguistic study of free speech samples obtained from 50 adult aphasics in comparison with those obtained from 50 adult normal speakers. (TO)

This investigation examined the possibility that features necessary for morphology, such as person and number, are absent from the underlying grammars of specifically language-impaired children. (46 references) (JL)

Examines the communicative functions served by the lexical usage of normal and language impaired children whose speech was limited to single word utterances. (EKN)

Analyzed 104 language samples obtained from 42 different normal language learning children at 15, 19, and 35 months of age for the proportional use of 11 grammatical morphemes. Wide variability was found among the samples in the proportional use of each morpheme. (49 references) (JL)

This report describes a study conducted to discover whether children with language delay would respond differently from normal children on two identically itemed tests of knowledge of adjectives and prepositions, one of which using objects as stimuli and the other using pictorial stimuli. It was hypothesized that the test using objects would be…

Examines mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes as a predictor of the grammatical complexity of the natural language corpora of normal preschoolers and of children and adolescents with delayed language, Fragile X Syndrome, Down Syndrome, and autism. (43 references) (GLR)

Examined oset and acquisition of language comprehension and production in a language delayed child through analysis of a daily diary. In addition to confirming that the gap between comprehension and production was greater than that found in normal children, data from these observations can also be used to add to a general understanding of the…

A study investigated language patterning, as an indication of synthetic mental activity, in comparison groups of normal pre-middle-aged adults (30-42 years), normal elderly adults (75-93), and elderly adults (71-91) with Alzheimer's dementia. Semiotic theory was used as the conceptual context. Linguistic measures included the Token Test, the…

A study of the relative difficulty of four grammatical components of object complements (complement markers, personal pronouns, tense inflection, and word order) indicated that tense marking was found to be the most difficult for hearing-impaired students. It is suggested that data on first and second language acquisition be considered when…

A total of 43 studies, involving 1,703 subjects with a mean age of 6:11, were analyzed to assess the effectiveness of language intervention with language/learning disabled children. Results suggested that the average language-disordered child moved from the 50th percentile to the 85th as a result of language intervention. (Author/JDD)