Object and Action Naming in Children With Specific Language Impairment

Abstract

Purpose In this study, the authors aimed to examine the accuracy, latency, and errors of noun (object) and verb (action) naming in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) and to determine whether children with SLI have a particularly large noun–verb performance gap. Method Children with SLI, age-matched peers (AM), and expressive vocabulary–matched peers (VM) named 120 matched object and action pictures in a computerized confrontation naming task. Results The SLI and VM groups demonstrated comparable naming latency and accuracy; both were slower and less accurate than the AM group. Object naming was more accurate than action naming in the SLI and VM groups; their noun–verb performance gaps were comparable. Object naming was faster than action naming in all children. In comparison with the AM group, the SLI group made proportionally fewer taxonomic errors and more omission errors when naming objects, and fewer misperception errors when naming actions. Conclusions The naming abilities of children with SLI, although deficient given their chronological age, are commensurate with their vocabulary level. Their naming errors suggest immaturities in semantic representation. Action naming is significantly more difficult than object naming, but the noun–verb gap that characterizes the performance of children with SLI is appropriate for their vocabulary level.

Conceptual Scoring and Classification Accuracy of Vocabulary Testing in Bilingual Children

“…In both fast mapping and quick incidental learning tasks, children with SLI learn fewer novel words (Alt, 2011;Alt et al, 2004;Gray, 2004Gray, , 2006Oetting, Rice, & Swank, 1995;Rice, Cleave, & Oetting, 2000;Rice et al, 1994). They also demonstrate weaknesses in word retrieval (Gray, 2004;Gray & Brinkley, 2011;Kambanaros et al, 2015;McGregor, Newman, Reilly, & Capone, 2002), naming errors, and word approximation difficulties (Dollaghan, 1998;Sheng & McGregor, 2010;Spaulding, 2010).…”

“…In both fast mapping and quick incidental learning tasks, children with SLI learn fewer novel words (Alt, 2011;Alt et al, 2004;Gray, 2004Gray, , 2006Oetting, Rice, & Swank, 1995;Rice, Cleave, & Oetting, 2000;Rice et al, 1994). They also demonstrate weaknesses in word retrieval (Gray, 2004;Gray & Brinkley, 2011;Kambanaros et al, 2015;McGregor, Newman, Reilly, & Capone, 2002), naming errors, and word approximation difficulties (Dollaghan, 1998;Sheng & McGregor, 2010;Spaulding, 2010).Due to these documented deficits in word learning and perhaps to their ease of administration and scoring, vocabulary tests are widely used by clinicians to determine whether a child's language skills require further evaluation (Campbell, Bell, & Keith, 2001), as a method of identifying SLI in children for research studies (Rice et al, 1990;Rice, Buhr, & Oetting, 1992;Rice et al, 1994), or to document vocabulary growth (Rowe, Raudenbush, & Goldin-Meadow, 2012). While numerous comprehensive language batteries are commercially available to clinicians, vocabulary tests are frequently used as a component of diagnostic evaluations of children to determine if a child meets the criteria for SLI (Betz et al, 2013), even though test manuals may not recommend them for this purpose (Brownell, 2000a).…”

Specific language or working memory impairments: A small scale observational study

“…These children have a specific language impairment (SLI). Children with SLI tend to be impaired in virtually all aspects of language development including phonological skills (Bortolini and Leonard, 2000), vocabulary acquisition (Sheng and McGregor, 2010), and syntax (Marinellie, 2004). One of the hallmark findings in this area of research is that children with SLI have particular difficulty with grammatical skills such as marking of verb agreement and tense (Rice, 2003).…”

Desarrollo del uso y la fluidez de verbos, su importancia para la neuropsicología

“…7,14,22 Se ha encontrado que los niños con trastorno específico de lenguaje presentan mayores dificultades para denominar acciones que objetos, 8,48 para determinar correctamente la inflexión verbal, para el uso de partículas, de la complementación, para el aprendizaje incidental de nuevos verbos, y para utilizar verbos con complejidad argumentativa -verbos con tres o más argumentos. 20 Asimismo, diversos estudios con pacientes adultos con afasia de Broca han mostrado que la producción de verbos se dificulta en relación con el número de argumentos que requiere cada verbo.…”

“…53 Las diferencias en la narración también se han observado en población de niños que presentan dificultades en el desarrollo del lenguaje, ya que en la conversación aparecen formas verbales más complejas que en tareas de narración. 54 Con respecto a los niños con trastorno del lenguaje, se ha encontrado que presentan retraso o modificación de uso en formas verbales, 16 un mayor uso de verbos con significado no específico (hacer, estar), 54 una menor variedad en el tipo de argumentos que acompañan al verbo y en el núme-ro de argumentos que se estructuran en la oración, 19 sustitución de tiempos verbales, persona, menor variedad en el uso del aspecto (modo) verbal, [55][56][57] latencias en tareas de denominación de verbos, 8,48 así como una menor precisión en la denominación de verbos (acciones) con respecto a los sustantivos (objetos). 48 Al realizar la comparación de dos casos con daño prefrontal-dorsolateral focalizado en dos adolescentes de 12 años, uno con daño derecho y otro con daño izquierdo, Pé-rez Morales, Bittencourt Chastinet y Flores Lázaro 58 describen que para el caso con daño prefrontal izquierdo se pierde la posibilidad de actualizar el verbo en forma infinitiva.…”