No abstract

Although most severely reading-impaired children are characterized by two core deficits in phonological and naming speed processes, most current interventions emphasize only phonological skills. The present study assessed the efficacy of an eight-week pilot intervention programme designed to increase the speed and accuracy of naming or lexical retrieval skills. Because of the close relationship between word knowledge and the speed with which a word is retrieved, a second goal was to increase the depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Subjects for the intervention included 17 severely impaired readers (mean age 13 years). Included for pre-intervention reader group comparisons were 31 average readers matched for reading age (mean age 10 years). Significant pre-intervention differences favouring controls were found on all naming speed measures and two measures of vocabulary depth. There were no differences in receptive vocabulary. Pre-and post-intervention comparisons for impaired readers indicated significant gains on word retrieval accuracy and vocabulary depth. There was significant generalization to an untrained naming speed task. Implications for diagnosis and treatment of reading-impaired children are discussed. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTRODUCTION A reading-impaired child pointed up to the night sky and said, 'Look, ''the cowboy-cup-full-of-stars''!' Problems of word retrieval among readingimpaired children take various forms, ranging from blatant circumlocutory responses, such as this attempt at the 'Little Dipper', to more common and less detected deficits in the child's rate of retrieval when naming digits, letters, common objects or colours. Continuous naming speed tasks, e.g. the Rapid Automatized Naming tests (Denckla and Rudel, 1976a,b), are the most typical measure of this ability and are shown in Figure 1.An extensive body of research in English and other languages now indicates that reading-impaired children differ significantly in naming speed for basic symbols from average readers and other learning-disabled children (Denckla and Rudel, 1976a,b;Wolf, 1982Wolf, , 1991a Wolf, ,b, 1997Spring and Davis, 1988;Ackerman, Dykman and Gardner, 1990;Wolff, Michel and Ovrut, 1990;Bowers and Swanson, 1991;Cornwall, 1992;Lovett, 1992;Ackerman and Dykman, 1993;Wimmer, 1993;Nicolson and Fawcett, 1994;Berninger et al., 1995;Korhonen, 1995; Badian, 1996a,b;Biddle, 1996;Krug, 1996;McBride-Chang and Manis, 1996;Berninger, 1990; Manis and Doi, 1990; Wolf, Bowers and Biddle, in press). Recently, an alternative conceptualization of reading disabilities, the 'double-deficit hypothesis', has emerged whereby the processes underlying naming speed deficits play a central role in severe developmental reading impairments (Bowers and Wolf, 1993a,b;Wolf, 1997; Wolf, Bowers and Biddle, Dyslexia 5: 1-27 (1999) in press). In this hypothesis, Wolf and Bowers (in press) argue that the processes underlying naming speed deficits should be considered as the source of a second, specific deficit in reading-impaire...

The linguistic ability and play of  a language-impaired child were analysed to determine whether a breakdown in symbolic play occurs together with a language deficit. Observation of  play was conducted at the child's nursery school (unstructured situation) and in a situation designed to elicit specific  play behaviours (structured situation). Imaginative play and its concomitants — affect,  mood variability, concentration, aggression and interaction — were rated along descriptive scales, while each individual play unit was scored for  organization of  behaviour. Syntactic, semantic and phonological aspects of  language were recorded during free  play and analyzed within a syntactic framework.  The normal developmental sequence provided the baseline of comparison for  both language and play. Results indicated a developmental lag in play and a linguistic deviation from the normal pattern, which supported the possibility of a general representational deficit.  A method for  incorporating symbolic play into a language programme was suggested and the necessity for  normative studies in this area was stressed.

The controversy concerning the relationship between language and cognition still persists. In the present paper, an attempt is made to demonstrate that a synthesis between the differing approaches of Piaget and Vygotsky is preferable when applied to the preschool child. Findings with hearingimpaired children are drawn upon to highlight this. The limitations of studies to date which have investigated language and cognition at the stage of symbolic play are briefly discussed.S. Afr. J. Psychol. 1982, 12: 111 -116 Die polemiek rakende die verwantskap tussen taal en kognisie duur nog steeds voort, In hierdie referaat word daar gepoog om aan te toon dat 'n sintese tussen die verskillende benaderings van Piaget en Vygotsky verkieslik is ten opsigte van die voorskoolse kind. Daar word verwys na bevindinge met gehoorgestremde kinders om bogenoemde standpunt uit te lig. Die tekortkominge van ondersoeke na taal en kognisie tydens die stadium van simboliese spel word kortliks bespreek.