Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools最新文献

{"title":"Listening Effort in Preschool Children With Hearing Loss: A Multidimensional Investigation.","authors":"Chun-Yi Lin, Huei-Mei Liu","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00267","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Listening effort may impact listeners' performance; however, existing methods for measuring this effort have not been thoroughly applied to preschool children. This study investigated the multidimensional nature of listening effort in preschool children with hearing loss (HL) compared to those with typical hearing (TH).</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Fifty children ages 4-6 years (25 with HL and 25 with TH) participated in this study. Children with TH had a mean bilateral hearing threshold of 11.47 dB HL (<i>SD</i> = 3.98). Children with HL had mean bilateral hearing thresholds of 56.6 dB HL (<i>SD</i> = 3.9) and mean bilateral aided thresholds of 25.9 dB HL (<i>SD</i> = 4.5). Children with a history of premature birth, low birth weight, birth complications, medical disorders, or rare diseases were excluded. Auditory tasks included a speech identification test, a subjective listening effort questionnaire, and physiological measurements under three signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Children with HL showed significantly lower speech identification accuracy, <i>F</i>(1, 48) = 29.72, <i>p</i> < .001, η_p² = .38, and longer response times, with a significant post hoc difference between groups at the -5-dB SNR condition, <i>F</i>(2, 96) = 4.65, <i>p</i> = .012. Interestingly, children with TH reported higher subjective effort than HL children at 0 dB SNR, χ²(2) = 8.22, <i>p</i> = .02. Critically, the HL group exhibited significantly higher skin conductance response (SCR) across all conditions, <i>F</i>(2, 96) = 7.64, <i>p</i> < .001, η_p² = .14. Multiple regression analyses across the entire sample, controlling for language ability, demonstrated that SCR remained a significant predictor of performance across all SNR conditions (<i>b</i> = -45.95 to -58.62, all <i>p</i> < .025).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study demonstrated the value of a multidimensional assessment of listening effort. SCR emerged as a sensitive and objective indicator, revealing significantly higher effort in the HL group. Notably, no significant correlation was found between SCR and subjective listening effort, highlighting the discrepancy between perceived and physiological effort. These findings support the integration of physiological measures, particularly SCR, with behavioral assessments to provide a comprehensive and reliable evaluation of listening effort in young children with HL.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149224943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Literary Element Use in Written Narratives for Third-Grade Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing.","authors":"Brittany Grey, Emily A Lund, Krystal L Werfel","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-26-00026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-26-00026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>This study examined literary element use in third-grade written narratives to determine if children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) and their peers with typical hearing (TH) met macrostructure writing proficiency expectations addressed in the Common Core State Standards.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Participants included 134 children who completed third grade across three groups: children who used cochlear implants (CIs), children who used hearing aids (HAs), and children with TH. Given a picture prompt, participants composed a written narrative. Using the third-grade Common Core State Standards that addressed macrostructure, written narratives were scored with a rubric that outlined the criteria for meeting seven literary element categories: characters, actions, feelings, dialogue, topic, sequence, and plot.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>CI, HA, and TH children did not meet most macrostructure literary element criteria for narrative writing addressed in the third-grade Common Core State Standards. Literary element outcomes did not significantly differ between CI, HA, and TH groups, except for topic.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>DHH and TH third-grade students did not demonstrate strong macrostructure writing skills in their written narratives. To build a solid writing foundation, elementary students, regardless of hearing status, would benefit from general and genre-specific writing interventions that incorporate self-regulating strategies throughout their writing process to facilitate the transition from learning to write to writing to learn.</p><p><strong>Supplemental material: </strong>https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.34259406.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149225061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Beyond Stuttering: Speech-Language Pathologists' Perceptions of Therapy for Children Who Stutter With Concomitant Speech and Language Needs.","authors":"Katelyn L Gerwin, Megan Arney, Bridget Walsh","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-26-00115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-26-00115","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Stuttering therapy is complex, addressing speech, cognitive, affective, and social factors. Children who stutter often present with co-occurring speech and language disorders. Historically, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have reported less comfort with stuttering treatment compared with other speech and language disorders. The current study used a combined quantitative and qualitative approach to investigate SLPs' perceptions of the therapy they provide to an individual child who stutters with one or more concomitant disorders on their caseload.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Forty-five SLPs completed a survey describing their therapy for an individual child who stutters with at least one concomitant disorder. SLPs provided separate ratings of how well the child's stuttering therapy and therapy for concomitant needs were going, along with written rationales for each rating.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Ratings of therapy were generally positive; however, quantitative analysis indicated that therapy for concomitant needs was more likely to be rated as going \"very well\" and less likely to be rated as \"sometimes poorly and sometimes well\" compared with stuttering therapy. Qualitative analysis revealed that SLPs' ratings of concomitant therapy reflected positive child attributes (e.g., motivation), well-established therapy processes, and consistent positive progress.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study extended prior work on perceptions of stuttering and concomitant communication disorders by focusing on individual children who stutter. Although SLPs viewed both therapies positively overall, perceptions were comparatively more favorable for concomitant therapy. Child-level factors and consistent progress emerged as important influences of SLPs' perception of concomitant therapy.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149197507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Effectiveness of a School-Based Book Reading Intervention for Dai-Mandarin Young Bilingual Children in China: A Pilot Study.","authors":"Songting Yang, Tai-Ying Lee, Anthony Pak-Hin Kong","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00135","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Bilingual children from ethnic minority backgrounds in China often face challenges acquiring Mandarin Chinese as their second language (L2). This study aimed to (a) evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based book reading intervention (BRI) on the bilingual language development of Dai-Mandarin young bilingual children in China and (b) examine how demographic and language environment factors were associated with the intervention outcomes.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>A cluster-level randomized controlled trial design was employed. Fifty-one Dai-Mandarin bilingual children aged 4;1 (years;months) to 5;1 were randomized at the class level into a treatment or control group. The treatment group (<i>n</i> = 26) participated in the BRI spanned across 6 weeks with daily 25-min sessions. The sessions focused on shared book reading, explicit vocabulary instruction, and sentence structure activities. The control group (<i>n</i> = 25) followed their regular curriculum without intervention. Vocabulary, narrative skills, and general language skills were assessed using four standardized, criterion-referenced or researcher-developed measures at pre-intervention and immediate postintervention; the researcher-developed measures were also administered at midintervention. Demographic information and language learning environments were collected through a parental questionnaire.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The treatment group showed significant improvements in Mandarin (L2) curriculum-specific receptive and expressive vocabulary, and narrative structural complexity. Positive trends were observed in overall narrative skills in both languages and L2 receptive and expressive vocabulary. While intervention benefits were generally equal across participants, expressive vocabulary gains were positively associated with increased cumulative L2 use and male gender, general expressive language gains with having more siblings, and curriculum-specific expressive vocabulary with older age.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The study shows that a language-focused BRI can effectively improve young bilingual children's selected vocabulary and narrative skills, even in large-group, resource-constrained settings. By demonstrating a practical framework for integrating language resources, the study offers valuable guidance to educators and speech-language pathologists working with bilingual children in linguistically and culturally diverse, low-resource contexts.</p><p><strong>Supplemental material: </strong>https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.34001103.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149139305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Cantonese-Speaking Children: A Tutorial Based on Available Evidence.","authors":"Eddy C H Wong","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00182","DOIUrl":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00182","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Recent research has increasingly focused on childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) in non-English-speaking populations, with Cantonese emerging as a significant language of study. This tutorial seeks to consolidate current knowledge regarding CAS in Cantonese speakers and proposes an assessment battery accompanied by observational criteria to support both clinical practice and research applications.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>The proposed assessment battery includes five tasks: the Hong Kong Cantonese Articulation Test, a connected speech sample derived from a story retelling task, the Cantonese Oral and Speech Motor Assessment, the Imitation of Polysyllables task, and the Tone Sequencing Task (Version 3.2). Diagnostic criteria incorporate five key features observed across these tasks, supported by quantitative thresholds, reference values, and cutoff scores drawn from prior research. A modified version of the Profile of Childhood Apraxia of Speech and Childhood Dysarthria, tailored for Cantonese speakers, is also included to differentiate CAS from childhood dysarthria.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>This tutorial offers a comprehensive overview of CAS in Cantonese speakers and provides an evidence-based assessment battery alongside diagnostic criteria to support both clinical and research applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1178-1192"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148279755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Effect of Phonology and Semantics on Reading and Memorizing Written Sentences in Chinese Prelinguistic Deaf People.","authors":"Junyao Chen, Yang Xu, Da Zhang, Jiawei Huang, Jianqi Fan, Lu Lu","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00194","DOIUrl":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00194","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>The purpose of this study was to investigate the processing differences of phonological interference (tongue twisters) and semantic interference (subject-object interchange/double-object interchange) between prelingual deaf Chinese speakers and normal-hearing speakers during sentence reading and memory, to test the deficit phonemic awareness hypothesis and the deficit structure awareness hypothesis of deaf reading, and to provide theoretical basis for deaf education strategies.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Twenty-two prelingually deaf college students (hearing loss ≥ 85 dB) and 41 normal-hearing college students (including 22 ability-matched groups) were recruited. Thirty-two sets of experimental sentences (normal correct sentences, normal incorrect sentences, tongue-twister correct sentences, tongue-twister incorrect sentences) were used. We used a two-phase experimental task. In the first (reading) phase, participants read each sentence and performed a sentence logic judgment task. In the second (memory) phase, after an arithmetic interference task, participants completed a fill-in-the-blank recall task. Accuracy and response time were recorded and analyzed using generalized linear mixed models and linear mixed models.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In the reading phase, the hearing group showed sensitivity to phonological interference, with significantly longer reaction times for tongue-twister sentences (<i>p</i> < .001). The deaf group showed numerically longer reaction times for incorrect sentences, but the difference only approached a trend (<i>p</i> = .054). In the memory phase, phonological similarity increased recall accuracy for both groups (<i>p</i> = .001). Semantic interference significantly reduced memory accuracy in the hearing group (<i>p</i> = .035) and prolonged response times in both groups (<i>p</i> < .001). Overall, the hearing group outperformed the deaf group on all measures (<i>p</i> ≤ .006).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Chinese prelingually deaf people rely on semantic reorganization strategies (supporting the deficit structure awareness hypothesis), and their semantic integration occurs after vocabulary extraction, which is different from the synchronous processing mechanism of the hearing population. Also, phonological and semantic processing are independent of each other. Educational practices need to prioritize semantic logic training (e.g., visualization tools), reduce phonological dependence, and develop word order-based memory strategies to improve reading performance.</p><p><strong>Supplemental material: </strong>https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.33283011.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1356-1376"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148801652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Novel Approaches to Language Assessment Part 1: Artificial Intelligence-Automated Scoring of a Sentence Recall Task for School-Age Children.","authors":"Dancheng Liu, Jason Yang, Carol A Miller, Pamela A Hadley, Sean M Redmond, Jinjun Xiong","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00268","DOIUrl":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00268","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have the potential to enhance the delivery of speech-language pathology services. One area of practice that could benefit from AI is automated screenings for developmental language disorder (DLD) in early elementary students. This report presents the elements and processes involved in evaluating an AI-based automated scoring system using archival recordings.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>A total of 947 audio samples of children completing the Redmond Sentence Recall (RSR) task, representing cases with and without DLD, were used. We developed an automated version of the RSR (AutoRSR), employing automated speech recognition (ASR), natural language processing, and machine learning models, to automate the tasks of transcribing recordings, tracking the number of errors children produced, scoring production accuracies based on RSR criteria, and generating pass/fail decisions based on age-referenced expectations against a reference standard (i.e., Core Language scores from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition for a subset of 130 children). Different speech recognition models (Whisper and Reverb ASR) were applied to examine potential trade-offs. The accuracy of the AutoRSR was compared to human scoring.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>AutoRSR with Whisper speech recognition yielded sensitivity = .768 and specificity = .784, whereas Reverb speech recognition yielded sensitivity = .873 and specificity = .730. While AutoRSR had some mismatches with human evaluators and tended to produce lower scores, it converged more closely with the reference standard than human-scored protocols.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>AI technologies have become powerful enough to automate the scoring of recordings of children's sentence recall with similar accuracy levels as human evaluators. Next steps are discussed.</p><p><strong>Supplemental material: </strong>https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.34050876.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149139326","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessment and Intervention of Letter Knowledge With Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Systematic Review.","authors":"Ghasideh Hojjati, Trelani F Milburn","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00201","DOIUrl":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00201","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Letter knowledge, including letter-name and letter-sound recognition and identification, and writing, is foundational for decoding and reading development. Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are at risk for persistent literacy difficulties; however, assessment and intervention practices for this population remain underexplored. This systematic review synthesizes research on letter-knowledge assessment and intervention in children with DLD.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Studies examining English-language assessment or intervention of letter knowledge among children aged 3-18 years with DLD or specific language impairment were systematically identified across multiple databases. Two reviewers independently screened all studies and extracted data using a standardized protocol. A narrative synthesis summarized patterns in assessment focus, intervention, and instructional approaches.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Assessment studies most often examined letter-name and letter-sound identification, while recognition and writing tasks were rarely included. Only one study assessed all five subskills. Standardized measures predominated, with few experimental tools. Eight intervention studies provided letter-knowledge instruction. Some focused solely on letter knowledge, whereas most integrated it with phonological awareness or broader literacy instruction. Across interventions, letter-sound identification was emphasized, with variation in setting and dosage.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Research on letter knowledge in children with DLD mainly targets letter naming and sound identification, with limited attention to recognition and writing. Because recognition emerges earlier and identification later, assessing all five skills may not always be desirable. Task selection, including writing, should be intentional, and this review article outlines tools to guide decisions.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1426-1440"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148474148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Comparison of Internal State Verb Production in Fictional and Personal Narratives Elicited via Multilingual Assessment Instrument of Narratives and Global Talking About Lived Experiences in Stories.","authors":"Elna Bauer, Angela Schmidt, Marleen Westerveld, Natalia Gagarina","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00154","DOIUrl":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00154","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Internal state verbs and verb constructions (ISVs) play a central role in representing internal states, such as feelings or intentions, and are therefore frequently used when narrating fictional or personal narratives. This study aimed to compare the use of ISVs in German-speaking preschoolers across five ISV categories in two narrative genres: fictional and personal narratives.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Twenty-one typically developing German-speaking preschoolers, ages 4;3 (years;months) to 7;0, produced two fictional narratives, consisting of three episodes each, elicited via the Multilingual Assessment Instrument of Narratives (MAIN), and six personal narratives using the Global TALES (Talking About Lived Experiences in Stories) protocol. The presentation of the tasks was counterbalanced. ISVs were classified into five categories of internal states (experiential, emotional, motivational, cognitive, and socio-relational). The relative use of ISV types and tokens per story was analyzed. Regression models were fitted as Bayesian multilevel binomial models.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Preschoolers' use of ISVs was sparse but meaningfully patterned by ISV category and narrative genre. There was no effect of narrative genre on overall ISV use. However, ISV category revealed meaningful effects for experiential, socio-relational, and cognitive verbs. As predicted, experiential and motivational verbs were used more frequently in fictional narratives than personal narratives, while emotion and cognitive verbs showed the opposite pattern, with greater usage in personal narratives. For socio-relational verbs, no significant interaction was observed.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This exploratory study is the first to investigate the impact of narrative genre and a classification into five ISV categories on the production of ISVs in the narratives of German-speaking preschoolers using globally accessible fictional and personal narrative elicitation tools. The results from this study may be of use to clinicians worldwide when selecting a narrative assessment tool to investigate children's production of ISVs.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1151-1161"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148622636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Novel Approaches to Language Assessment Part 2: Evaluating Measures of Effort in a Sentence Recall Task for School-Age Children.","authors":"Tracy Preza, Dancheng Liu, Carol A Miller, Abdlrahman Alabdallah, Jinjun Xiong, Sean M Redmond, Pamela A Hadley","doi":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00256","DOIUrl":"10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00256","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) produce more speech disruptions and have a slower speech rate than their peers. This study validated measures of effortful sentence production by examining their association with general language ability and differences between groups of children with DLD and typical language development (TLD). Measures of effort were expected to be related to general language ability, and children with DLD were expected to produce more stall-type disruptions (i.e., repetitions, filled pauses, and unfilled pauses) and use fewer words per minute (WPM) than their peers with TLD.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Audio-recorded responses to the Redmond Sentence Recall task for 139 children with TLD (<i>M</i>_age = 86.85 months) and 58 children with DLD (<i>M</i>_age = 90.64 months) were transcribed, aligned to the audio, and coded for sentence disruptions using the Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts form from TalkBank. A custom-made Python script computed measures of stall rate, nondisrupted rate (e.g., the percentage of utterances with no disruptions), and WPM and were examined relative to child performance on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>When controlling for age, stall rate and nondisrupted rate were moderately correlated with general language ability, and WPM was strongly correlated with general language ability. The DLD group used significantly more stalls and fewer WPM and nondisrupted utterances than did the TLD group.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The findings demonstrate that measures of effortful sentence production are systematically associated with language ability. Future directions for leveraging artificial intelligence to automate these measures and exploring their utility as value-added indicators of DLD are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":54326,"journal":{"name":"Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149139316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}