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Assessing The Functional Adequacy Of Children's Phonological Systems, Eeva Leinonen
Assessing The Functional Adequacy Of Children's Phonological Systems, Eeva Leinonen
Eeva Leinonen
This paper develops the means of assessing the effect of children's contrastively restricted phonological systems on a lexical system, that is assessing the functional adequacy of a phonological system. The concept and measure of Functional Loss (FLOSS) is proposed as a measure of the number of lexical distinctions left unsignalled in a lexical system due to the loss of contrasts in the phonological system. FLOSS provides a means of prioritizing treatment goals for therapy which aim at the elimination of homophony from children's lexical systems, and consequently from their speech. It is shown that the phonological process framework provides a …
Referential Communication Tasks: Performance By Normal And Pragmatically Impaired Children, Eeva Leinonen, Carolyn Letts
Referential Communication Tasks: Performance By Normal And Pragmatically Impaired Children, Eeva Leinonen, Carolyn Letts
Eeva Leinonen
Two groups of children, a pragmatically impaired (PI) group and a group of language-normal (LN) age-matched peers, were compared by use of a referential communication task. Experimenter and child both played the roles of listener and instructor during the task and, in addition, the experimenter sometimes failed to give adequate information when in the role of instructor. Lexical content and structural complexity were controlled, and it was hypothesised that difficulties for the PI group would arise when in the role of instructor, as a result of failing to specify necessary information in order for the experimenter to respond appropriately. In …
Development Of Comprehension Of Ironic Utterances In 3-To 9-Year-Old Finnish-Speaking Children, Soile Loukusa, Eeva K. Leinonen
Development Of Comprehension Of Ironic Utterances In 3-To 9-Year-Old Finnish-Speaking Children, Soile Loukusa, Eeva K. Leinonen
Eeva Leinonen
This study explores the comprehension of simple ironic utterances in 210 Finnish children aged from 3 to 9 years. If the child answered the question correctly, he/she was asked to explain correct answers. The results indicated that there was large individual variation within age groups both in answers and explanations. In terms of correct answers there was a significant difference between 6- and 7-year-olds and in correct explanations between age groups of 3-4, 6-7 and 7-8. Analysis of incorrect answers showed that literal interpretation of an utterance was the most common incorrect answer type in all age groups. Totally irrelevant …
Appropriacy Judgements And Pragmatic Performance, Eeva Leinonen, Benita Smith
Appropriacy Judgements And Pragmatic Performance, Eeva Leinonen, Benita Smith
Eeva Leinonen
This paper examines judgements of inappropriacy made by groups of independent raters from different professional backgrounds when presented with data from two boys with semantic, pragmatic and syntactic difficulties, who are interacting with adults, and when presented with data in a transcript or video format. The purpose is to explore the nature of such judgements with the view to highlighting the centrality and the complex nature of inappropriacy judgements in the clinical management of pragmatic impairment. The current study suggests that consensus of view as to what is or is not appropriate in interactions involving child clients may not exist …
Answering Questions And Explaining Answers: A Study Of Finnish-Speaking Children, Siole Loukusa, Nuala Ryder, Eeva Leinonen
Answering Questions And Explaining Answers: A Study Of Finnish-Speaking Children, Siole Loukusa, Nuala Ryder, Eeva Leinonen
Eeva Leinonen
This research explores, within the framework of Relevance Theory, how children's ability to answer questions and explain their answers develops between the ages of 3 and 9 years. Two hundred and ten normally developing Finnish-speaking children participated in this study. The children were asked questions requiring processing of inferential meanings and routines, and were asked to explain their correct answers to elicit understanding about their awareness of how they had derived the answers from the context. The results indicated that the number of correct answers increased rapidly between the ages of 3 years and 4-5 years. Familiarity of context had …
Why Pragmatic Impairment? A Case Study In The Comprehension Of Inferential Meaning, Eeva K. Leinonen, Carolyn Letts
Why Pragmatic Impairment? A Case Study In The Comprehension Of Inferential Meaning, Eeva K. Leinonen, Carolyn Letts
Eeva Leinonen
This paper discusses a case study of Sarah (aged 9;8-10;3) who is reported to have pragmatic difficulties. The focus is on her comprehension of questions, which are asked on the basis of pictures and heard stories. Particular focus is on the pragmatic (or inferential) demands of the input questions and their relationship to the (in)appropriacy of the answer. Data from 16 normally functioning 6- and 8-year-old children are also presented for comparative purposes. The study shows that Sarah has difficulty with questions which require her to go beyond visually presented or verbally stated information. On one set of tasks she …
Comprehension Of Inferential Meaning In Language-Impaired And Language Normal Children, Carolyn Letts, Eeva Leinonen
Comprehension Of Inferential Meaning In Language-Impaired And Language Normal Children, Carolyn Letts, Eeva Leinonen
Eeva Leinonen
Three groups of language-normal (LN) 6, 8 and 16/17 year olds, and a group of language-impaired (LI) children were given a task answering questions about pictures that involved inferential meaning. A developmental progression in the types of responses given is seen, with the LI children performing like the youngest LN children. A similar progression is seen in the ability to justify the answers given to inferential questions with the young adult group giving the fewest justifications that were problematical in some way. Larger numbers of problematical justifications in the LI group can be related to some extent to non-pragmatic aspects …
Disturbance Of Pragmatic Functioning, Benita Smith, Eeva Leinonen
Disturbance Of Pragmatic Functioning, Benita Smith, Eeva Leinonen
Eeva Leinonen
No abstract provided.
What Constitutes Pragmatic Impairment?: A Case Study, Carolyn Letts, Eeva Leinonen, Sarah York
What Constitutes Pragmatic Impairment?: A Case Study, Carolyn Letts, Eeva Leinonen, Sarah York
Eeva Leinonen
With growing interest in pragmatic development as a component of child language acquisition, there has also been recognition that pragmatic skills may be impaired in some children. The question of criteria for diagnosis of pragmatic impairment is one which is currently being asked by researchers and other speech-language professionals. In fact, we need to ask first whether such impairment exists at all, and if it does, in what fonn. This paper reports on a detailed case study of a child (9;8-10;3 ) who has been reported to have pragmatic impairment as her primary difficulty by her speech-language therapist. The child …
Development Of Pragmatic Language Comprehension In Finnish-Speaking Children, Soile Loukusa, Eeva Leinonen, Nuala Ryder
Development Of Pragmatic Language Comprehension In Finnish-Speaking Children, Soile Loukusa, Eeva Leinonen, Nuala Ryder
Eeva Leinonen
This research explores the development of pragmatic comprehension within the framework of relevance theory. Participants were 210 typically developing Finnish children aged from 3 to 9 years. The children were asked questions targeting the pragmatic processes of reference assignment, enrichment and implicature, as proposed by relevance theory. Results indicate that increasing ability to use contextual information in comprehension is related to age. The largest increase in correct answers occurred between the ages of 3 and 4 years. Answering reference assignment questions was not problematic for any of the age groups. Answering enrichment and implicature questions reflected the children's increasing ability …
Cognitive Approach To Assessing Pragmatic Language Comprehension In Children With Specific Language Impairment, N Ryder, Eeva Leinonen, J Schulz
Cognitive Approach To Assessing Pragmatic Language Comprehension In Children With Specific Language Impairment, N Ryder, Eeva Leinonen, J Schulz
Eeva Leinonen
Background: Pragmatic language impairment in children with specific language impairment has proved difficult to assess, and the nature of their abilities to comprehend pragmatic meaning has not been fully investigated. Aims: To develop both a cognitive approach to pragmatic language assessment based on Relevance Theory and an assessment tool for identifying a group of children with pragmatic language impairment from within an specific language impairment group. Methods & Procedures: The authors focused on Relevance Theory's view of the role of context in pragmatic language comprehension using questions of increasing pragmatic complexity in different verbal contexts (scenarios with and without pictures …
Linguistic Performance In Children Who Develop Schizophrenia In Adult Life. Evidence For Normal Syntactic Ability, D Done, Eeva Leinonen, T Crow, A Sacker
Linguistic Performance In Children Who Develop Schizophrenia In Adult Life. Evidence For Normal Syntactic Ability, D Done, Eeva Leinonen, T Crow, A Sacker
Eeva Leinonen
Background: Less syntactically complex speech in patients with schizophrenia has been thought to represent a premorbid dysfunction, of possible prognostic value and indicative of a neurodevelopmental origin for schizophrenia. Method: Narratives written at age II by children who then developed psychiatric disorders in adult life (using PSE CATEGO diagnoses), especially schizophrenia, were compared with matched controls on syntactic complexity, syntactic maturity, grammatical deviance and spelling ability. Results: Children who later developed either schizophrenia, affective psychosis or a neurotic type of disorder in adulthood did not differ from normal controls on any of the measures of syntactic production, grammatical errors or …
Relevance Theory And Pragmatic Impairment, Eeva Leinonen, Debra Kerbel
Relevance Theory And Pragmatic Impairment, Eeva Leinonen, Debra Kerbel
Eeva Leinonen
This paper summarizes aspects of relevance theory that are useful for exploring impairment of pragmatic comprehension in children. It explores data from three children with pragmatic language difficulties within this framework. Relevance theory is seen to provide a means of explaining why, in a given context, a particular utterance is problematic. It thus enables one to move on from mere description of problematic behaviours towards their explanation. The theory provides a clearer delineation between the explicit and the implicit, and hence between semantics and pragmatics. This enables one to place certain difficulties more firmly within semantics and others within pragmatics. …
Use Of Context In Question Answering By 3-, 4- And 5-Year-Old Children, Nuala Ryder, Eeva Leinonen
Use Of Context In Question Answering By 3-, 4- And 5-Year-Old Children, Nuala Ryder, Eeva Leinonen
Eeva Leinonen
This study investigates, within the theory of relevance of Sperber & Wilson (1995), how3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (n = 45) use context when answering questions. The children were required to answer questions that placed differing contextual and processing demands on them, as predicted by the theory. The results indicate that an increasing ability to use complex contextual information was related to age and was reflected in the children's ability to answer questions appropriately. A developmental pattern became evident in terms of how the children assigned referents, enriched semantic underdetermination, and recovered implicatures. It also became evident that even at …
Development Of Answers And Explanations To Contextually Demanding Questions: A Study Of Three- To Nine-Year-Old Finnish Children, Soile Loukusa, Eeva Leinonen, Nuala Ryder
Development Of Answers And Explanations To Contextually Demanding Questions: A Study Of Three- To Nine-Year-Old Finnish Children, Soile Loukusa, Eeva Leinonen, Nuala Ryder
Eeva Leinonen
This paper presents some findings about studies investigating how children's ability to answer pragmatically demanding questions and explain their correct answers develops between the ages of 3 and 9 years in Finnish children (Loukusa, 2007; Loukusa, Leinonen & Ryder, 2007; Loukusa, Ryder, & Leinonen, in press). In this paper we summarize the results concerning questions demanding processing of implicatures, routines and feelings. The results of these studies showed that the largest increase in answers to routine and implicature questions occurred between the ages of three and four. In feeling questions rapid development occurred between ages of three and five. After …
The Use Of Context In Pragmatic Comprehension By Specifically Language-Impaired And Control Children, Eeva Leinonen, Nuala Ryder, Margaret Ellis, Claire Hammond
The Use Of Context In Pragmatic Comprehension By Specifically Language-Impaired And Control Children, Eeva Leinonen, Nuala Ryder, Margaret Ellis, Claire Hammond
Eeva Leinonen
The purpose of this paper is to explore how a theory of pragmatic comprehension, relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995), can be used to examine contextual processing in pragmatic comprehension. It will present data from a task that explores pragmatic comprehension skills, within this theoretical framework, of 17 SLI children (5; 11-10; 10), 11 older controls (7;11-9;11) and 30 younger controls (4;0-5;11). The children were asked questions based on a storybook, that required different degrees of contextual processing, as defined by the theory. Reference assignment questions required the children to provide a referent that is verbally/pictorially given, hence the least …
Children With Specific Language Impairment In Finnish: The Use Of Tense And Agreement Inflections, Sari Kunnari, Tuula Savinainen-Makkonen, Laurence Leonard, Leena Makinen, Anna-Kaisa Tolonen, Mirja Luotonen, Eeva Leinonen
Children With Specific Language Impairment In Finnish: The Use Of Tense And Agreement Inflections, Sari Kunnari, Tuula Savinainen-Makkonen, Laurence Leonard, Leena Makinen, Anna-Kaisa Tolonen, Mirja Luotonen, Eeva Leinonen
Eeva Leinonen
Children with specific language impairment (SLI) vary widely in their ability to use tense/agreement inflections depending on the type of language being acquired, a fact that current accounts of SLI have tried to explain. Finnish provides an important test case for these accounts because: (1) verbs in the first and second person permit null subjects whereas verbs in the third person do not; and (2) tense and agreement inflections are agglutinating and thus one type of inflection can appear without the other. Probes were used to compare the verb inflection use of Finnish-speaking children with SLI, and both age-matched and …
Normal And Language-Impaired Children's Use Of Reference: Syntactic Versus Pragmatic Processing, Christina Schelletter, Eeva Leinonen
Normal And Language-Impaired Children's Use Of Reference: Syntactic Versus Pragmatic Processing, Christina Schelletter, Eeva Leinonen
Eeva Leinonen
The present study investigates children's syntactic and pragmatic processing when specifying referents presented in short video clips. Within Relevance theory, the assumption of 'optimal relevance' implies that utterances are intended to involve the least processing effort on the part of the listener. In the present context, lexically specified NPs are assumed to be more in line with optimal relevance than pronouns. Subjects were 48 normally developing children aged 3;4-8;10 and 30 SLI children aged 5;1-8;9, divided into a low and a normal MLU group. Children's responses were coded according to levels of pragmatic processing and syntactic positions. Normally developing children's …
Use Of Context In Pragmatic Language Comprehension By Children With Asperger Syndrome Or High-Functioning Autism, Soile Loukusa, Eeva Leinonen, Sanna Kuusikko, Katja Jussila, Marja-Leena Mattila, Nuala Ryder, Hanna Ebeling, Irma Moilanen
Use Of Context In Pragmatic Language Comprehension By Children With Asperger Syndrome Or High-Functioning Autism, Soile Loukusa, Eeva Leinonen, Sanna Kuusikko, Katja Jussila, Marja-Leena Mattila, Nuala Ryder, Hanna Ebeling, Irma Moilanen
Eeva Leinonen
Utilizing relevance theory, this study investigated the ability of children with Asperger syndrome (AS) and high-functioning autism (HFA) to use context when answering questions and when giving explanations for their correct answers. Three groups participated in this study: younger AS/HFA group (age 7-9, n = 16), older AS/HFA group (age 10-12, n = 23) and a normally functioning control group (age 7-9, n = 23). The results indicated that the younger AS/HFA group did less well when answering contextually demanding questions compared to the control group, and the performance of the older AS/HFA group fell in between the younger AS/HFA …
Pragmatic Impairment: A Case Study, Eeva Leinonen, Carolyn Letts
Pragmatic Impairment: A Case Study, Eeva Leinonen, Carolyn Letts
Eeva Leinonen
The question of why a child may be diagnosed as having pragmatic difficulties or pragmatic impairment is one which is currently being asked by researchers and other speech and language professionals. The identifiying criteria for such a diagnosis remain unclear. This paper reports on a detailed case study of a child, Sarah (aged 9;8-10;3), who was reported to have pragmatic impairment as her primary difficulty by her speech and language therapist. The child attends a language unit within a mainstream school in the UK. A number of language (including narrative) and non-verbal tasks have been carried out with the child …