The contribution of parent input to children’s subsequent expressive verb diversity was explored ... more The contribution of parent input to children’s subsequent expressive verb diversity was explored in twenty typically developing toddlers with small verb lexicons. Child developmental factors and parent input measures (i.e. verb quantity, verb diversity, and verb-related structural cues) at age 1;9 were examined as potential predictors of children’s verb production in spontaneous language samples at age 2;3. Parent verb input diversity, rather than input quantity, was the primary input factor contributing to children’s subsequent verb diversity. Regression analysis showed that verb diversity in parent input at age 1;9 accounted for 30% of the variance in children’s verb production six months later, with children’s total vocabulary size at age 1;9 accounting for an additional 16% of the variance. These findings demonstrate the relative contributions of developmental and input factors to individual differences in toddlers’ language development and establish the importance of input diversity to verb acquisition.
Purpose: The current study used an intervention design to test the hypothesis that parent input ... more Purpose: The current study used an intervention design to test the hypothesis that parent input sentences with diverse lexical noun phrase (NP) subjects would accelerate growth in children’s sentence diversity. Method: Child growth in third person sentence diversity was modeled from 21 to 30 months (n = 38) in conversational language samples obtained at 21, 24, 27, and 30 months. Treatment parents (n = 19) received instruction on strategies designed to increase lexical NP subjects (e.g., The baby is sleeping.). Instruction consisted of one group education session and two individual coaching sessions which took place when children were approximately 22 to 23 months of age. Results: Treatment substantially increased parents’ lexical NP subject tokens and types (ηp2 > .45) compared to controls. Children’s number of different words was a significant predictor of sentence diversity in the analyses of group treatment effects and individual input effects. Treatment condition was not a significant predictor of treatment effects on children’s sentence diversity, but parents’ lexical NP subject types was a significant predictor of children’s sentence diversity growth, even after controlling for children’s number of different words over time. Conclusions: These findings establish a link between subject diversity in parent input and children’s early grammatical growth, and the feasibility of using relatively simple strategies to alter this specific grammatical property of parent language input.
Purpose The goals of this study were to quantify longitudinal expectations for verb lexicon growt... more Purpose The goals of this study were to quantify longitudinal expectations for verb lexicon growth and to determine whether verb lexicon measures were better predictors of later grammatical outcomes than noun lexicon measures.
Method Longitudinal parent-report measures from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (Fenson et al., 2007) from ages 21 to 30 months from an archival database were used to model growth in common noun and verb lexicon size for 45 typically developing toddlers. Communicative Development Inventory growth coefficients and 24-month measures of lexical diversity from spontaneous language samples were used to predict 30-month grammatical outcomes on the Index of Productive Syntax (Scarborough, 1990).
Results Average verb growth was characterized by 50.57 verbs at 24 months, with linear growth of 8.29 verbs per month and deceleration overall. Children with small verb lexicons or slow linear growth at 24 months accelerated during this developmental period. Verb lexicon measures were better predictors of grammatical outcomes than noun lexicon measures, accounting for 47.8% of the variance in Index of Productive Syntax scores. Lexical verb diversity in spontaneous speech emerged as the single best predictor.
Conclusion Measures of verb lexicon size and diversity should be included as part of early language assessment to guide clinical decision making with young children at risk for language impairment.
Schizophrenia is characterized by abnormalities in perception and expression. The traditional vie... more Schizophrenia is characterized by abnormalities in perception and expression. The traditional view of their disordered speech as a reflection of their disorganized thinking (Bleuler, 1950; Kraepelin, 1919/1992) has been questioned for the reason that language and thought are not in total isomorphic relationship. The disordered speech observed in individuals with schizophrenia could be more than a mere thought disorder or a mere language disorder (Harvey & Neale, 1983; McKenna & Oh, 2005). The present study investigated the narrative ability of Mandarin-speaking patients with schizophrenia. A group of 22 patients with schizophrenia as well as 20 normal controls participated in a story-telling task. Participants were asked to narrate three picture-books and their performance was evaluated by a Mandarin version of Narrative Assessment Profile (Tsou, Chang, & Cheung, 2009), which examines eight dimensions of a narrative: topic maintenance, event sequencing, reasonableness, referential skill, background information, evaluation, conjunctive cohesion, and the overall narrative pattern. Lexical choices of connectives (causal connectives and contrastive connectives) as well as verbal predicates (perceptual verbs, psychological verbs, and mental verbs) were also analyzed. Results showed that participants in the schizophrenic group preserved an intact ability to produce basic elements in narratives, performing comparatively well in dimensions of event sequencing and referential skill. However, their performance in the other six dimensions was significantly weaker than the controls. It is proposed that individuals with schizophrenia display an overall lack of structure in narratives, as reported in previous literature (Chaika & Alexander, 1986; Lysaker et al., 2005). They seemed to have difficulties in coping with the communication needs of their listeners, as revealed by lower scores in reasonableness, background information, and evaluation. Further evidence came from lexical analyses which also showed that the group with schizophrenia used fewer contrastive connectives and mental verbs when telling their stories. Discussions of the implications of these findings are considered.
The contribution of parent input to children’s subsequent expressive verb diversity was explored ... more The contribution of parent input to children’s subsequent expressive verb diversity was explored in twenty typically developing toddlers with small verb lexicons. Child developmental factors and parent input measures (i.e. verb quantity, verb diversity, and verb-related structural cues) at age 1;9 were examined as potential predictors of children’s verb production in spontaneous language samples at age 2;3. Parent verb input diversity, rather than input quantity, was the primary input factor contributing to children’s subsequent verb diversity. Regression analysis showed that verb diversity in parent input at age 1;9 accounted for 30% of the variance in children’s verb production six months later, with children’s total vocabulary size at age 1;9 accounting for an additional 16% of the variance. These findings demonstrate the relative contributions of developmental and input factors to individual differences in toddlers’ language development and establish the importance of input diversity to verb acquisition.
Purpose: The current study used an intervention design to test the hypothesis that parent input ... more Purpose: The current study used an intervention design to test the hypothesis that parent input sentences with diverse lexical noun phrase (NP) subjects would accelerate growth in children’s sentence diversity. Method: Child growth in third person sentence diversity was modeled from 21 to 30 months (n = 38) in conversational language samples obtained at 21, 24, 27, and 30 months. Treatment parents (n = 19) received instruction on strategies designed to increase lexical NP subjects (e.g., The baby is sleeping.). Instruction consisted of one group education session and two individual coaching sessions which took place when children were approximately 22 to 23 months of age. Results: Treatment substantially increased parents’ lexical NP subject tokens and types (ηp2 > .45) compared to controls. Children’s number of different words was a significant predictor of sentence diversity in the analyses of group treatment effects and individual input effects. Treatment condition was not a significant predictor of treatment effects on children’s sentence diversity, but parents’ lexical NP subject types was a significant predictor of children’s sentence diversity growth, even after controlling for children’s number of different words over time. Conclusions: These findings establish a link between subject diversity in parent input and children’s early grammatical growth, and the feasibility of using relatively simple strategies to alter this specific grammatical property of parent language input.
Purpose The goals of this study were to quantify longitudinal expectations for verb lexicon growt... more Purpose The goals of this study were to quantify longitudinal expectations for verb lexicon growth and to determine whether verb lexicon measures were better predictors of later grammatical outcomes than noun lexicon measures.
Method Longitudinal parent-report measures from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (Fenson et al., 2007) from ages 21 to 30 months from an archival database were used to model growth in common noun and verb lexicon size for 45 typically developing toddlers. Communicative Development Inventory growth coefficients and 24-month measures of lexical diversity from spontaneous language samples were used to predict 30-month grammatical outcomes on the Index of Productive Syntax (Scarborough, 1990).
Results Average verb growth was characterized by 50.57 verbs at 24 months, with linear growth of 8.29 verbs per month and deceleration overall. Children with small verb lexicons or slow linear growth at 24 months accelerated during this developmental period. Verb lexicon measures were better predictors of grammatical outcomes than noun lexicon measures, accounting for 47.8% of the variance in Index of Productive Syntax scores. Lexical verb diversity in spontaneous speech emerged as the single best predictor.
Conclusion Measures of verb lexicon size and diversity should be included as part of early language assessment to guide clinical decision making with young children at risk for language impairment.
Schizophrenia is characterized by abnormalities in perception and expression. The traditional vie... more Schizophrenia is characterized by abnormalities in perception and expression. The traditional view of their disordered speech as a reflection of their disorganized thinking (Bleuler, 1950; Kraepelin, 1919/1992) has been questioned for the reason that language and thought are not in total isomorphic relationship. The disordered speech observed in individuals with schizophrenia could be more than a mere thought disorder or a mere language disorder (Harvey & Neale, 1983; McKenna & Oh, 2005). The present study investigated the narrative ability of Mandarin-speaking patients with schizophrenia. A group of 22 patients with schizophrenia as well as 20 normal controls participated in a story-telling task. Participants were asked to narrate three picture-books and their performance was evaluated by a Mandarin version of Narrative Assessment Profile (Tsou, Chang, & Cheung, 2009), which examines eight dimensions of a narrative: topic maintenance, event sequencing, reasonableness, referential skill, background information, evaluation, conjunctive cohesion, and the overall narrative pattern. Lexical choices of connectives (causal connectives and contrastive connectives) as well as verbal predicates (perceptual verbs, psychological verbs, and mental verbs) were also analyzed. Results showed that participants in the schizophrenic group preserved an intact ability to produce basic elements in narratives, performing comparatively well in dimensions of event sequencing and referential skill. However, their performance in the other six dimensions was significantly weaker than the controls. It is proposed that individuals with schizophrenia display an overall lack of structure in narratives, as reported in previous literature (Chaika & Alexander, 1986; Lysaker et al., 2005). They seemed to have difficulties in coping with the communication needs of their listeners, as revealed by lower scores in reasonableness, background information, and evaluation. Further evidence came from lexical analyses which also showed that the group with schizophrenia used fewer contrastive connectives and mental verbs when telling their stories. Discussions of the implications of these findings are considered.
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Papers by Ning Hsu
Method: Child growth in third person sentence diversity was modeled from 21 to 30 months (n = 38) in conversational language samples obtained at 21, 24, 27, and 30 months. Treatment parents (n = 19) received instruction on strategies designed to increase lexical NP subjects (e.g., The baby is sleeping.). Instruction consisted of one group education session and two individual coaching sessions which took place when children were approximately 22 to 23 months of age.
Results: Treatment substantially increased parents’ lexical NP subject tokens and types (ηp2 > .45) compared to controls. Children’s number of different words was a significant predictor of sentence diversity in the analyses of group treatment effects and individual input effects. Treatment condition was not a significant predictor of treatment effects on children’s sentence diversity, but parents’ lexical NP subject types was a significant predictor of children’s sentence diversity growth, even after controlling for children’s number of different words over time.
Conclusions: These findings establish a link between subject diversity in parent input and children’s early grammatical growth, and the feasibility of using relatively simple strategies to alter this specific grammatical property of parent language input.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2016.1193020
Method Longitudinal parent-report measures from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (Fenson et al., 2007) from ages 21 to 30 months from an archival database were used to model growth in common noun and verb lexicon size for 45 typically developing toddlers. Communicative Development Inventory growth coefficients and 24-month measures of lexical diversity from spontaneous language samples were used to predict 30-month grammatical outcomes on the Index of Productive Syntax (Scarborough, 1990).
Results Average verb growth was characterized by 50.57 verbs at 24 months, with linear growth of 8.29 verbs per month and deceleration overall. Children with small verb lexicons or slow linear growth at 24 months accelerated during this developmental period. Verb lexicon measures were better predictors of grammatical outcomes than noun lexicon measures, accounting for 47.8% of the variance in Index of Productive Syntax scores. Lexical verb diversity in spontaneous speech emerged as the single best predictor.
Conclusion Measures of verb lexicon size and diversity should be included as part of early language assessment to guide clinical decision making with young children at risk for language impairment.
Books by Ning Hsu
Method: Child growth in third person sentence diversity was modeled from 21 to 30 months (n = 38) in conversational language samples obtained at 21, 24, 27, and 30 months. Treatment parents (n = 19) received instruction on strategies designed to increase lexical NP subjects (e.g., The baby is sleeping.). Instruction consisted of one group education session and two individual coaching sessions which took place when children were approximately 22 to 23 months of age.
Results: Treatment substantially increased parents’ lexical NP subject tokens and types (ηp2 > .45) compared to controls. Children’s number of different words was a significant predictor of sentence diversity in the analyses of group treatment effects and individual input effects. Treatment condition was not a significant predictor of treatment effects on children’s sentence diversity, but parents’ lexical NP subject types was a significant predictor of children’s sentence diversity growth, even after controlling for children’s number of different words over time.
Conclusions: These findings establish a link between subject diversity in parent input and children’s early grammatical growth, and the feasibility of using relatively simple strategies to alter this specific grammatical property of parent language input.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2016.1193020
Method Longitudinal parent-report measures from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (Fenson et al., 2007) from ages 21 to 30 months from an archival database were used to model growth in common noun and verb lexicon size for 45 typically developing toddlers. Communicative Development Inventory growth coefficients and 24-month measures of lexical diversity from spontaneous language samples were used to predict 30-month grammatical outcomes on the Index of Productive Syntax (Scarborough, 1990).
Results Average verb growth was characterized by 50.57 verbs at 24 months, with linear growth of 8.29 verbs per month and deceleration overall. Children with small verb lexicons or slow linear growth at 24 months accelerated during this developmental period. Verb lexicon measures were better predictors of grammatical outcomes than noun lexicon measures, accounting for 47.8% of the variance in Index of Productive Syntax scores. Lexical verb diversity in spontaneous speech emerged as the single best predictor.
Conclusion Measures of verb lexicon size and diversity should be included as part of early language assessment to guide clinical decision making with young children at risk for language impairment.