Presentation Examines Causes of Language Impairment Most children become proficient speakers of their native language by the time they enter school. But a small percentage—even though they can hear well, are intelligent, don’t have a brain injury or disease, and don’t have a behavior disorder like autism—do not become proficient as quickly. According to Carol Miller, associate professor of communication sciences and disorders, this condition is known as specific language impairment (SLI). “One hypothesis about the cause of SLI is that children with SLI have difficulty processing auditory information, even non-linguistic information,” she said. Miller discussed her latest research on the topic as a keynote speaker at the Global Conference on Disorders in Auditory Processing, Literacy, Language, and Related Sciences, which was held in Hong Kong in January 2012. There she described how auditory processing hypotheses fit into the larger picture of theories of language development, and suggested that, contrary to what many clinicians believe, many current treatments for those language disorders that are based on auditory processing are not more effective than other approaches. Instead, the most promising avenues for treatment—which may include musical training, for example—are still under investigation. “Treatments that are based on an understanding of how the brain processes auditory information—from musical tones to words—hold promise for helping people with language and literacy disorders,” Miller told an audience of about 280 speech-hearing-language scientists from around the world. Blood and his colleagues also have received funding from the U.S. Department of Education to create a master’s-level training program for SLPs to provide high-quality, evidenced-based services to immigrant children who are English language learners (ELL) with communication and language disabilities. Our recent data, says Blood, show that these children are also at high risk for bullying. “Children with communication disabilities or disabilities in general have an absolute right to be able to walk into a school and feel safe,” says Blood. “We as responsible adults are not doing enough if 30 percent of kids are subjected to bullying in a typical school day. The days of thinking that this was a part of normal child development are gone. Bullying is a form
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Summer 2012
Miller went on to discuss the findings of a recent research project in which she performed a crosssectional observational study of 64 children about half of whom had a clinical diagnosis of auditory processing disorder (APD) while the other half were receiving services for SLI. The children completed eighteen behavioral measures of spoken language, auditory processing, reading, memory, and motor speed. Miller used the children’s responses to classify them as affected/not affected with APD and affected/not affected with SLI. Her results revealed that the behavioral profiles of children with APD and SLI were very similar. Miller argued that her findings, and those of other conference speakers, suggest that APD is not fundamentally different from SLI and other languagelearning disorders. This can help explain why specialized treatments for APD have not out-performed more traditional approaches. As researchers continue to learn more about the workings of the auditory system and its relation to language, advances in treatment will be within reach. Back home in State College, Miller, with the help of former graduate student Gerard Poll ʼ07g, ʼ12g CSD, are finding in their research on adults with SLI that accuracy in repeating sentences (a task often used on assessments for language disorders) relies on how many chunks of information a person can hold in mind—a fundamental mental capacity that affects both linguistic and non-linguistic abilities. In addition, she and her graduate student Mona Roxana Botezatu are investigating how bilingual people approach reading in the second language when it differs from their first language in terms of its spelling-sound consistency—for example, the sound of “-air” in “hair” and “pair” is consistent with spelling in both words, whereas the sound of “-ost” in “most” and “cost” is inconsistent with its spelling between the two words. of aggression and does not disappear on its own. If differences are not valued; if civility is not rewarded; if children are afraid to ride a school bus, to enter the lunchroom, or to walk the halls because of the mere fact of having a communication disability or challenge—then we have a lot to do.”
Creating Communication Devices While the Bloods are giving tools to SLPs to help them reduce bullying in their schools, other researchers in the college are giving tools to children with autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other disorders to help them speak their minds.