Cohesion strategies used by three normal and three head-injured adults were examined in both conversational and narrative conditions. Head-injured subjects used different cohesion patterns than normal adults in both conditions; and both groups used different cohesion patterns in the conversational and narrative conditions. (Author/DB)

Among results of a comparison of 20 language disordered and 20 control children (ages 7-10) were that only the nonhandicapped children changed the number of complete episodes narrated as a function of the listener's shared information, while neither group altered the accuracy of conjunctive use as a function of the listener. (Author/DB)

This study examined keyword signing (KWS), a communication approach used with nonspeaking individuals. Acoustic measures and judgments of 20 adult listeners were used to evaluate KWS and Spoken-Only narratives. KWS narratives were produced with a slower articulation rate, because of increased pause and speech segment duration and increased pause…

This study examined differences in literate language use in spoken narratives of 104 children with and 52 children without language impairment across four age levels (6-10). Group membership main effects were statistically significant for conjunctions and elaborated noun phrases with effect sizes ranging from small to moderate. No statistically…

Comparison of the narratives of 16 children with word-finding problems and 16 normal children (grades 1-6) found that children with word-finding disorders did not differ in language productivity but manifested significantly more word-finding characteristics in their narratives. Implications for assessment and intervention are discussed. (Author/DB)

Stories were elicited from 20 closed-head-injured children (ages 100 to 194 months) and matched nonneurologically impaired accident victims. No significant differences were found between the groups on any of the measures of narrative ability (story grammar and intersentential cohesion). (Author/DB)

This longitudinal study assessed the narrative language development of primary grade children with slow expressive language development (SELD) as toddlers who either had or had not moved into the normal range of expressive language by early school age. Deficits in narrative skills tended to disappear in children with a history of SELD, though…

This study used dependency analysis to document and describe the narrative discourse impairments of 10 children (mean age 12) and 10 adults (mean age 35) with traumatic brain injury (TBI), and matched controls. Individuals with TBI were significantly more disfluent than controls and their narrative performance required a significant listener…

Two linguistic microstructures (propositions and cohesive devices) were analyzed in story recalls by 11 primary and intermediate level hearing-impaired students. When stories were very simple, students generated mostly complete propositions, however as complexity increased, semantic errors resulted in fewer complete propositions. (Author/DB)

Sampling spontaneous expressive language through video narration is offered as a means of reducing variability among language samples over time or from different speakers. Advantages include content stability, high interest value, and high processing demands. Disadvantages include brevity of the samples, lack of information on dyadic communication…

A story format and discourse analysis procedure was used to evaluate the spoken language skills of 20 elementary students with learning disabilities over a 1-year period. Stories from memory were longer and characterized by more as well as different types of errors than were stories from pictures or stories based on games. (Author/DB)

Ten head-injured adults were compared to normal adults on a narrative picture description task. Subjects were similar in amount of pertinent content expressed, narrative length, and rate of speech, but were significantly slower in rate of information imparted as they required lengthier and slower verbal outputs to convey essential information.…

This study compared spoken and written narratives of school-age children (N=20) with language learning disabilities (LLD) with chronological age (CA) and language-age (LA) peers. For the spoken summary, productivity measures and grammatical complexity were significantly lower for children with LLD than for CA children. Expository writing was…

This article describes the EpiSLI diagnostic system for identifying specific language impairment in kindergarten children for the purpose of epidemiological research. The system employs five composite scores representing norm-referenced performance in three domains of language (vocabulary, grammar, and narration) and two modalities (comprehension…

This study found that three oral discourse genres (script, picture description, and replica play narration) were able to characterize development in discourse abilities in 6 children (ages 5-7) with brain injury and 43 nondisabled children. Brain-injured children produced shorter discourse performances with more off-task talk but showed…