Examination of skills to form word combinations in normally developing child and children with development disabilities

本研究通过分析发育正常儿童和发育障碍儿童在特定任务中的自发言语和言语，考察了他们形成词语组合的技能。主要研究结果如下：1.一名语言表达迟缓儿童(3；8-5；2)和三名20-21、24-25、27-28个月发育正常的日本儿童的纵向语音数据显示，一个词中的音节数和一个话语中的实词数平行增加。结果表明，语音形状的发展和句法的发展是相互作用的，或者它们都是在共同的语言或认知基础上运作的。对4名5岁语言发育迟缓儿童和15名正常儿童在词汇联想任务中的言语反应进行了分析，结果表明，5岁语言发育迟滞儿童的错误率较高，对语境的反应不相关，说明理解词与词之间的语义关系存在困难。对15名3-4岁正常儿童和4名5-6岁语言发育迟缓儿童的连词表达进行了分析。在语言发育迟缓的儿童中，连接词的使用频率与3-4岁的对照组相似，但所有被试都出现了语法错误，这表明在顺序图片描述任务中，受试组之间的话语存在质的差异。与非重复反应相比，正常发育儿童的母亲更有可能通过重复反应来回应孩子的单词，甚至可能是单词的产生。发育迟缓儿童的母亲在调整他们的对话风格时，似乎对孩子的理解能力很敏感。

The present research examined skills of normally developing children and children with developmental disabilities to form word combinations by analyzing their spontaneous speech and speech during specific tasks. The major findings are as follows :1. The longitudinal speech data of a boy with an expressive language delay (3 ; 8-5 ; 2) and those of three normally developing Japanese children at 20-21, 24-25, and 27-28 months of age showed a paralell increase in the number of syllables in a word and in the number of content words in an utterance. The results suggested that the development of phonetic shapes and that they of syntax interact with each other, or that they both operate on a common linguistic or cognitive basis.2. An analysis of verbal responses of four 5-year-old language-delayed children and 15 normal controls matched in verbal age in the Word-association task indicated that the delayed children exhibited higher error rates and irrelevant responses from the contexts, suggesting difficulties in understanding semantic relationships between words.3. The use of connective expressions in fifteen 3-4-year-old normally developing children and four 5-6-year-old language delayed children was examined by analyzing verbal descriptions of eight sets of two-part sequential pictures. In language delayed children, the frequencies of the use of connective expressions were similar to those of the 3-4-year-old contol subjects, but all the subjects showed grammatical errors, suggesting some qualitative differences in utterances in a sequential picture description task between the subject groups.4. Mothers of normally-developing children were more likely to respond to the child's word and possibly word productions by repetitive responses than by non-repetitive responses. The mothers of developmentally delayed children appeared to be sensitive to the child's comprehension skills in adjusting their conversational styles.