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dc.contributor.advisorStorkel, Holly
dc.contributor.advisorFey, Marc
dc.contributor.authorVoelmle, Krista A.
dc.date.accessioned2016-11-10T23:41:26Z
dc.date.available2016-11-10T23:41:26Z
dc.date.issued2016-05-31
dc.date.submitted2016
dc.identifier.otherhttp://dissertations.umi.com/ku:14589
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1808/21908
dc.description.abstractLate talking children have variable language trajectories. Some spontaneously “catch up” with their peers before early school age and some late talking children are later diagnosed with specific language impairments. Currently, there is no way to conclusively predict later language development. Since all of these children score low on static measures of expressive language, it is likely that a dynamic assessment can expose these children’s learning potential, modifiability and readiness to learn. The goal of this research is to construct a preliminary dynamic assessment to identify cues that aid in word learning for late talking children and younger vocabulary-matched typically developing children. Ten 12-18-month-old typically developing children and three 20-30-month-old late talking children who were receiving speech-language pathology services were included in this dynamic assessment. Children were taught four words that varied in phonotactic probability (i.e., the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence), neighborhood density (i.e., the number of similar sounding words), and receptive knowledge. Four levels of support were presented to the children (e.g., no support, auditory semantic and phonological cues, visual semantic and phonological cues, and naming/imitation). The children were tested and scored at the end of all the exposures to see if they could name the target object. It was found that both groups produced the same patterns of word learning when given the scaffold of supports. Furthermore, both groups needed more support for words they had no receptive knowledge of than words of which they had previous knowledge, especially for words with low phonotactic probability/neighborhood density. Lastly, auditory phonological and visual semantic cues were more effective than auditory semantic and visual phonological cues for both groups. Taken together, this dynamic assessment shows promise in assessing word learning abilities of toddlers but requires further investigation to determine its effectiveness in differentiating toddlers who will continue to have language learning difficulties from those that will not.
dc.format.extent52 pages
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversity of Kansas
dc.rightsCopyright held by the author.
dc.subjectSpeech therapy
dc.subjectAssessment
dc.subjectEarly intervention
dc.subjectLate talkers
dc.subjectLearning potentials
dc.subjectSpeech
dc.titleExploring learning potentials of late talking children through a structured dynamic assessment
dc.typeThesis
dc.contributor.cmtememberPedersen, Kris
dc.contributor.cmtememberColombo, John
dc.contributor.cmtememberWarren, Steve
dc.thesis.degreeDisciplineIntercampus Program in Communicative Disorders
dc.thesis.degreeLevelM.A.
dc.identifier.orcid
dc.rights.accessrightsopenAccess


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