Browsing by Author "Gagiano, Salome"

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    Die gebruik van onsinwoordherhaling, regtewoordherhaling, sinsherhaling en getalherhaling in die indentifisering van kinders met spesifieke taalgestremdheid
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013-12) Gagiano, Salome; Southwood, Frenette; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: As South Africa is a culturally and linguistically diverse country, there is a great need for an accurate evaluation instrument that can identify children with specific language impairment (SLI) early, regardless of their language group. The language tests that are available in South Africa are mostly available in only English or Afrikaans (see Penn 1998). In the literature four repetition tasks have been identified as potential markers of SLI: nonword repetition (Coady and Evans 2008:11), sentence repetition and digit repetition (Ziethe, Eysholdt and Doellinger 2013:1) as well as real word repetition (Dispaldro, Benelli, Marcolini and Stella 2009:941). The purpose of this study was to compare the sensitivity of these four potential markers with each other in an attempt to compile an accurate measuring instrument of SLI for Afrikaans and English. The study also aimed to collect baseline data with isiXhosa-speaking children. The participants consisted of five groups of five-year-olds: The first three groups consisted of 20 typical developing (TD) Afrikaans-, 20 TD English-, and 20 TD isiXhosa-speaking children. The fourth and fifth group consisted of five Afrikaans-speaking and five English-speaking children with SLI. All four repetition tasks were performed with both Afrikaans- and both English-speaking groups; only digit repetition and nonword repetition were performed with the isiXhosa-speaking group. Refined and graded items were (i) selected from longer lists of items that were used in the pilot study, and (ii) based on the results of the pilot study, were recorded on a CD in a recording studio. This recording served as method of presentation of the items to each participant individually during the main study. There were no statistically significant differences between the performance of the TD Afrikaans- and the TD English-speaking groups. The TD isiXhosa-speaking group, however, performed significantly better on the nonword repetition task but worse on the digit repetition task than the other two TD groups. Both groups with SLI performed poorly, and significantly poorer than their corresponding TD group, in all four of the repetition tasks. For the Afrikaans-speaking children, sentence repetition followed by real word repetition distinguished best between participants with and without SLI. Sentence repetition, followed by nonword repetition, was shown to be most sensitive in distinguishing TD children from children with SLI in the English group. The percentage sounds/words correctly repeated per word/sentence, for both the nonword repetition task and the real word repetition task, was more accurate than the raw scores for the Afrikaans- and English-speaking groups. Some items did prove to be more sensitive for the difference between the performance of the TD and the SLI groups in Afrikaans and English. These more sensitive items may be appropriate for inclusion in a screening tool for SLI for use with five-year-olds. In conclusion, the results of this study confirm all four repetition tasks to be markers of SLI. Sentence repetition and nonword repetition were more sensitive markers of SLI in English-speaking five-year-olds, with sentence repetition and real word repetition being the more sensitive markers of SLI in Afrikaans-speaking five-year-olds. The isiXhosa-speaking group performed similarly to the Afrikaans- and English-speaking groups in the nonword repetition- and digit repetition tasks. Based on these results, recommendations are made regarding the content and presentation mode of a screening test comprising repetition tasks for the identification of possible SLI in Afrikaans- and English-speaking children.
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    The use of digit and sentence repetition in the identification of language impairment : the case of child speakers of Afrikaans and South African English
    (Stellenbosch University: Department of Linguistics, 2015) Gagiano, Salome; Southwood, Frenette
    There is a great need for an instrument that can accurately identify children with language problems early, regardless of the language(s) they speak. Certain tasks have been identified as potential markers of language impairment, including sentence repetition and digit repetition (Ziethe, Eysholdt and Doellinger 2013: 1). The purpose of this study was to compare the sensitivity of these two potential markers in order to compile an accurate measuring instrument for language impairment in Afrikaans and South African English (SAE). The participants were 20 typically developing (TD) Afrikaans- and 20 TD SAE-speaking 5-year-olds, as well as five Afrikaans- and five SAE-speaking 5-year-olds with language impairment (LI). Sentence and digit repetition tasks were devised, recorded on CD, and performed by each participant individually. Both groups with LI performed poorly, and significantly more poorly than their corresponding TD group, on both repetition tasks. For both languages, (i) sentence repetition distinguished best between the participants with and without LI, and (ii) some items proved to be more sensitive than others for the difference between the performance of the TD and the LI groups. These items may be appropriate for inclusion in a screening tool for LI in 5-year-olds. The availability of language screening tools in several of South Africa’s languages can be of value to child language researchers and speech-language therapists. This study demonstrated that devising such tools could be a feasible endeavour. In contrast to diagnostic language assessment instruments, screening tools that employ repetition tasks can be devised relatively quickly and economically, and can contribute to the early identification of children with language problems in the interim, while diagnostic instruments are developed.