Narrative skills in two languages of Mandarin-English bilingual children.

PubMed

Hao, Ying; Bedore, Lisa M; Sheng, Li; Peña, Elizabeth D

2018-03-08

Narrative skills between Mandarin and English in Mandarin-English (ME) bilingual children were compared, exploring cross-linguistic interactions of these skills, and influences of age and current language experience (input and output) on narrative performance. Macrostructure and microstructure in elicited narratives from 21 ME bilingual children were analysed. Language experience was collected by parent report and entered as a covariate. Repeated measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to compare the two languages. Children demonstrated better narrative performance in English than Mandarin, with a larger cross-linguistic difference in microstructure than macrostructure. Significant cross-linguistic correlations were only found in children with high Mandarin vocabulary. Age, associated with length of English exposure, only significantly correlated with narrative performance in English. Output had stronger correlations with narrative skills than input. Macrostructure may be less variable across languages than microstructure. Children may need to reach a threshold of vocabulary for cross-linguistic interactions of narrative skills to occur. The effect of age in English may be related to increased cumulative English experience. Children may experience a plateau in Mandarin due to insufficient Mandarin exposure. Stronger correlations between output and narrative skills may be attributed to the expressive nature of both.

Evidence-Based Practice for Children with Speech Sound Disorders: Part 1 Narrative Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baker, Elise; McLeod, Sharynne

2011-01-01

Purpose: This article provides a comprehensive narrative review of intervention studies for children with speech sound disorders (SSD). Its companion paper (Baker & McLeod, 2011) provides a tutorial and clinical example of how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can engage in evidence-based practice (EBP) for this clinical population. Method:…

Community-based early intervention for language delay: a preliminary investigation.

PubMed

Ciccone, Natalie; Hennessey, Neville; Stokes, Stephanie F

2012-01-01

A trial parent-focused early intervention (PFEI) programme for children with delayed language development is reported in which current research evidence was translated and applied within the constraints of available of clinical resources. The programme, based at a primary school, was run by a speech-language pathologist with speech-language pathology students. To investigate the changes in child language development and parent and child interactions following attendance at the PFEI. Eighteen parents and their children attended six, weekly group sessions in which parents were provided with strategies to maximize language learning in everyday contexts. Pre- and post-programme assessments of vocabulary size and measures of parent-child interaction were collected. Parents and children significantly increased their communicative interactions from pre- to post-treatment. Children's expressive vocabulary size and language skills increased significantly. Large-effect sizes were observed. The positive outcomes of the intervention programme contribute to the evidence base of intervention strategies and forms of service delivery for children at risk of language delay. © 2012 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Effectiveness of secondary prevention and treatment interventions for crack-cocaine abuse: a comprehensive narrative overview of English-language studies.

PubMed

Fischer, Benedikt; Blanken, Peter; Da Silveira, Dartiu; Gallassi, Andrea; Goldner, Elliot M; Rehm, Jürgen; Tyndall, Mark; Wood, Evan

2015-04-01

There are an estimated several million crack-cocaine users globally; use is highest in the Americas. Most crack users are socio-economically marginalized (e.g., homeless), and feature elevated risks for morbidity (e.g., blood-borne viruses), mortality and crime/violence involvement, resulting in extensive burdens. No comprehensive reviews of evidence-based prevention and/or treatment interventions specifically for crack use exist. We conducted a comprehensive narrative overview of English-language studies on the efficacy of secondary prevention and treatment interventions for crack (cocaine) abuse/dependence. Literature searches (1990-2014) using pertinent keywords were conducted in main scientific databases. Titles/abstracts were reviewed for relevance, and full studies were included in the review if involving a primary prevention/treatment intervention study comprising a substantive crack user sample. Intervention outcomes considered included drug use, health risks/status (e.g., HIV or sexual risks) and select social outcome indicators. Targeted (e.g., behavioral/community-based) prevention measures show mixed and short-term effects on crack use/HIV risk outcomes. Material (e.g., safer crack use kit distribution) interventions also document modest efficacy in risk reduction; empirical assessments of environmental (e.g., drug consumption facilities) for crack smokers are not available. Diverse psycho-social treatment (including contingency management) interventions for crack abuse/dependence show some positive but also limited/short-term efficacy, yet likely constitute best currently available treatment options. Ancillary treatments show little effects but are understudied. Despite ample studies, pharmaco-therapeutic/immunotherapy treatment agents have not produced convincing evidence; select agents may hold potential combined with personalized approaches and/or psycho-social strategies. No comprehensively effective 'gold-standard' prevention

A Study of the Effectiveness of a Small-Group Intervention on the Vocabulary and Narrative Development of At-Risk Kindergarten Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nielsen, Diane Corcoran; Friesen, Lisa Dinner

2012-01-01

This study investigated the effect of a small-group storybook-based intervention on kindergarten students' vocabulary and narrative development, which is important to later reading achievement. Twenty-eight kindergarten children from a high-poverty urban school, all significantly behind their peers on standardized measures of language development…

Relationships between narrative language samples and norm-referenced test scores in language assessments of school-age children.

PubMed

Danahy Ebert, Kerry; Scott, Cheryl M

2014-10-01

Both narrative language samples and norm-referenced language tests can be important components of language assessment for school-age children. The present study explored the relationship between these 2 tools within a group of children referred for language assessment. The study is a retrospective analysis of clinical records from 73 school-age children. Participants had completed an oral narrative language sample and at least one norm-referenced language test. Correlations between microstructural language sample measures and norm-referenced test scores were compared for younger (6- to 8-year-old) and older (9- to 12-year-old) children. Contingency tables were constructed to compare the 2 types of tools, at 2 different cutpoints, in terms of which children were identified as having a language disorder. Correlations between narrative language sample measures and norm-referenced tests were stronger for the younger group than the older group. Within the younger group, the level of language assessed by each measure contributed to associations among measures. Contingency analyses revealed moderate overlap in the children identified by each tool, with agreement affected by the cutpoint used. Narrative language samples may complement norm-referenced tests well, but age combined with narrative task can be expected to influence the nature of the relationship.

Telling Stories in Two Languages: Narratives of Bilingual Preschool Children with Typical and Impaired Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iluz-Cohen, Peri; Walters, Joel

2012-01-01

Two studies investigated five- and six-year-old preschool children's narrative production in an attempt to show how LI may impinge on narrative production in measurable ways. Study 1 analyzed renderings of familiar stories for group (typical language development vs. language impairment), story content (Jungle Book/Goldilocks) and language…

Manual versus Automated Narrative Analysis of Agrammatic Production Patterns: The Northwestern Narrative Language Analysis and Computerized Language Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hsu, Chien-Ju; Thompson, Cynthia K.

2018-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare the outcomes of the manually coded Northwestern Narrative Language Analysis (NNLA) system, which was developed for characterizing agrammatic production patterns, and the automated Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN) system, which has recently been adopted to analyze speech samples of individuals…

Credibility judgments of narratives: language, plausibility, and absorption.

PubMed

Nahari, Galit; Glicksohn, Joseph; Nachson, Israel

2010-01-01

Two experiments were conducted in order to find out whether textual features of narratives differentially affect credibility judgments made by judges having different levels of absorption (a disposition associated with rich visual imagination). Participants in both experiments were exposed to a textual narrative and requested to judge whether the narrator actually experienced the event he described in his story. In Experiment 1, the narrative varied in terms of language (literal, figurative) and plausibility (ordinary, anomalous). In Experiment 2, the narrative varied in terms of language only. The participants' perceptions of the plausibility of the story described and the extent to which they were absorbed in reading were measured. The data from both experiments together suggest that the groups applied entirely different criteria in credibility judgments. For high-absorption individuals, their credibility judgment depends on the degree to which the text can be assimilated into their own vivid imagination, whereas for low-absorption individuals it depends mainly on plausibility. That is, high-absorption individuals applied an experiential mental set while judging the credibility of the narrator, whereas low-absorption individuals applied an instrumental mental set. Possible cognitive mechanisms and implications for credibility judgments are discussed.

Internal State Language in the Storybook Narratives of Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder: Investigating Relations to Theory of Mind Abilities

PubMed Central

Siller, Michael; Swanson, Meghan R.; Serlin, Gayle; George, Ann

2014-01-01

The current study examines narratives elicited using a wordless picture book, focusing on language used to describe the characters’ thoughts and emotions (i.e., internal state language, ISL). The sample includes 21 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and 24 typically developing controls, matched on children's gender, IQ, as well as receptive and expressive vocabulary. This research had three major findings. First, despite equivalent performance on standardized language assessments, the volume of children's narratives (i.e., the number of utterances and words, the range of unique verbs and adjectives) was lower in children with ASD than in typically developing controls. Second, after controlling for narrative volume, the narratives of children with ASD were less likely to reference the characters’ emotions than was the case for typically developing controls. Finally, our results revealed a specific association between children's use of emotion terms and their performance on a battery of experimental tasks evaluating children's Theory of Mind abilities. Implications for our understanding of narrative deficits in ASD as well as interventions that use narrative as a context for improving social comprehension are discussed. PMID:24748899

Internal State Language in the Storybook Narratives of Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder: Investigating Relations to Theory of Mind Abilities.

PubMed

Siller, Michael; Swanson, Meghan R; Serlin, Gayle; George, Ann

2014-05-01

The current study examines narratives elicited using a wordless picture book, focusing on language used to describe the characters' thoughts and emotions (i.e., internal state language, ISL). The sample includes 21 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and 24 typically developing controls, matched on children's gender, IQ, as well as receptive and expressive vocabulary. This research had three major findings. First, despite equivalent performance on standardized language assessments, the volume of children's narratives (i.e., the number of utterances and words, the range of unique verbs and adjectives) was lower in children with ASD than in typically developing controls. Second, after controlling for narrative volume, the narratives of children with ASD were less likely to reference the characters' emotions than was the case for typically developing controls. Finally, our results revealed a specific association between children's use of emotion terms and their performance on a battery of experimental tasks evaluating children's Theory of Mind abilities. Implications for our understanding of narrative deficits in ASD as well as interventions that use narrative as a context for improving social comprehension are discussed.

The Role of Language Skill in Child Psychopathology: Implications for Intervention in the Early Years.

PubMed

Salmon, Karen; O'Kearney, Richard; Reese, Elaine; Fortune, Clare-Ann

2016-12-01

In this narrative review, we suggest that children's language skill should be targeted in clinical interventions for children with emotional and behavioral difficulties in the preschool years. We propose that language skill predicts childhood emotional and behavioral problems and this relationship may be mediated by children's self-regulation and emotion understanding skills. In the first sections, we review recent high-quality longitudinal studies which together demonstrate that that children's early language skill predicts: (1) emotional and behavioral problems, and this relationship is stronger than the reverse pattern; (2) self-regulation skill; this pattern may be stronger than the reverse pattern but moderated by child age. Findings also suggest that self-regulation skill mediates the relation between early language skill and children's emotional and behavioral problems. There is insufficient evidence regarding the mediating role of emotion understanding. In subsequent sections, we review evidence demonstrating that: (1) particular kinds of developmentally targeted parent-child conversations play a vital role in the development of language skill, and (2) some current clinical interventions, directly or indirectly, have a beneficial impact on children's vocabulary and narrative skills, but most approaches are ad hoc. Targeting language via parent-child conversation has the potential to improve the outcomes of current clinical interventions in the preschool years.

The Development of Reference Realization and Narrative in an Australian Contact Language, Wumpurrarni English

PubMed Central

Disbray, Samantha

2016-01-01

The development of narrative skill has been investigated extensively in a wide range of languages, cross-linguistically and in multilingual settings (Berman and Slobin, 1994b; Severing and Verhoeven, 2001; Hickmann, 2004; Strömqvist and Verhoeven, 2004). The present study investigates the development of reference realization in narrative among Indigenous children in a remote urban township in Central Australia. The children, aged between 5 and 14 years, are speakers of a contact language, Wumpurrarni English. Language development is rarely investigated among speakers of minority languages, whose language development is often appraised in the majority language, with little attention to language performance in the speaker's home variety. The present study addresses this gap through a fine-grained qualitative analysis of the development of reference in narrative, drawing on a complex stimulus and a model of discourse strategy. The results show (a) a developmental trajectory similar to that found in other languages, with children aged eight and under producing simpler and less globally organized narratives than older speaker groups, and (b) vulnerability to the changing demands of the stimulus among these younger speakers. In addition, a subset of narrations were produced in “school variety,” a style more like Standard Australian English. The results for this set showed that the narrative content and global organization of the productions by 10- and 12-year-olds were more similar to the productions of younger children, than like-aged speakers, who narrated in their home variety. Analysis of speaker responses to two factors of complexity, the stimulus and code choice, illuminated mechanisms for discourse production and development, and suggest that constructing discourse requires co-ordination of an underlying schema and on-line construction of a particular story, through the deployment of linguistic devices in a particular narrative context. The analysis showed

Oral narrative skills: Explaining the language-emergent literacy link by race/ethnicity and SES.

PubMed

Gardner-Neblett, Nicole; Iruka, Iheoma U

2015-07-01

Although children's early language skills have been found to predict literacy outcomes, little is known about the role of preschool oral narrative skills in the pathway between language and emergent literacy or how these associations differ by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The current study uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to explore how language at age 2 is associated with narrative skills at age 4 and emergent literacy outcomes at age 5 for a nationally representative sample of children. Findings demonstrate that early language is associated with narrative skills for most children. Oral narrative skills were found to mediate the pathway between early language and kindergarten emergent literacy for poor and nonpoor African American children. Implications for children's literacy development and future research are discussed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Explicit Oral Narrative Intervention for Students with Williams Syndrome

PubMed Central

Diez-Itza, Eliseo; Martínez, Verónica; Pérez, Vanesa; Fernández-Urquiza, Maite

2018-01-01

Narrative skills play a crucial role in organizing experience, facilitating social interaction and building academic discourse and literacy. They are at the interface of cognitive, social, and linguistic abilities related to school engagement. Despite their relative strengths in social and grammatical skills, students with Williams syndrome (WS) do not show parallel cognitive and pragmatic performance in narrative generation tasks. The aim of the present study was to assess retelling of a TV cartoon tale and the effect of an individualized explicit instruction of the narrative structure. Participants included eight students with WS who attended different special education levels. Narratives were elicited in two sessions (pre and post intervention), and were transcribed, coded and analyzed using the tools of the CHILDES Project. Narratives were coded for productivity and complexity at the microstructure and macrostructure levels. Microstructure productivity (i.e., length of narratives) included number of utterances, clauses, and tokens. Microstructure complexity included mean length of utterances, lexical diversity and use of discourse markers as cohesive devices. Narrative macrostructure was assessed for textual coherence through the Pragmatic Evaluation Protocol for Speech Corpora (PREP-CORP). Macrostructure productivity and complexity included, respectively, the recall and sequential order of scenarios, episodes, events and characters. A total of four intervention sessions, lasting approximately 20 min, were delivered individually once a week. This brief intervention addressed explicit instruction about the narrative structure and the use of specific discourse markers to improve cohesion of story retellings. Intervention strategies included verbal scaffolding and modeling, conversational context for retelling the story and visual support with pictures printed from the cartoon. Results showed significant changes in WS students’ retelling of the story, both at

Speech-Language Pathologists' and Teachers' Perceptions of Classroom-Based Interventions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beck, Ann R.; Dennis, Marcia

1997-01-01

Speech-language pathologists (N=21) and teachers (N=54) were surveyed regarding their perceptions of classroom-based interventions. The two groups agreed about the primary advantages and disadvantages of most interventions, the primary areas of difference being classroom management and ease of data collection. Other findings indicated few…

Limitations of Language: Developing Arts-Based Creative Narrative in Stories of Teachers' Identities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leitch, Ruth

2006-01-01

This paper is based on a multidimensional study employing a heuristic methodology termed "creative narrative" that combines arts-based methods with narrative inquiry. Six female teachers' narratives of identity are explored through artistic, visual images to illuminate if and how they story "unconscious". The creative narratives, illuminated…

Negotiating Indigenous Language Narratives from Canada and South Africa: A Comparative Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iseke, Judy M.; Ndimande, Bekisizwe S.

2014-01-01

Indigenous cultural and language negotiations ongoing in the contexts of South Africa and Canada are documented in two studies, one sharing narratives from Black parents in South Africa and the other sharing narratives of Métis Elders in Canada. Black parents' perspectives on Indigenous language and cultures and the role of education in…

Mothers' Autobiographical Memory and Book Narratives with Children with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tompkins, Virginia; Farrar, M. Jeffrey

2011-01-01

This study examined the role that mothers' scaffolding plays in the autobiographical memory (AM) and storybook narratives of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Seven 4-5-year-old children and their mothers co-constructed narratives in both contexts. We also compared children's narratives with mothers to their narratives with an…

The Evaluation of a Personal Narrative Language Intervention for School-Age Children with Down Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Finestack, Lizbeth; O'Brien, Katy H.; Hyppa-Martin, Jolene; Lyrek, Kristen A.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of an intervention focused on improving personal narrative skills of school-age children with Down syndrome (DS) using an approach involving visual supports. Four females with DS, ages 10 through 15 years, participated in this multiple baseline across participants single-subject…

The art and science of patient storytelling-harnessing narrative communication for behavioral interventions: the ACCE project.

PubMed

Houston, Thomas K; Cherrington, Andrea; Coley, Heather L; Robinson, Kimberly M; Trobaugh, John A; Williams, Jessica H; Foster, Pamela H; Ford, Daniel E; Gerber, Ben S; Shewchuk, Richard M; Allison, Jeroan J

2011-08-01

Narrative communication is an emerging form of persuasive communication used in health education to solicit actual patient stories. Eliciting a narrative is an open-ended process and may or may not map to desired intervention objectives or underlying behavioral constructs. In addition, incorporating actual, unscripted narratives into multimedia interventions is challenging. The authors evaluated a protocol of editing narratives for a multimedia intervention to promote smoking cessation in the African American community that maintains fidelity to the original message and was related to behavioral constructs from social cognitive theory. The authors used four steps: (a) narrative collection (videotaping), (b) narrative review (rating of content), (c) narrative editing (documentary style), and (d) pilot testing (usability and assessment of transportation). The authors videotaped 50 personal smoking cessation narratives. After coding for presence of theoretical constructs, perceived risks of smoking (present in 53% of narratives) was the most common related behavioral construct. Four narratives were chosen for inclusion in the DVD. Pilot testing showed viewers reported high level of transportation into the narrative. The authors found that some behavioral constructs were rare and difficult to solicit in this population but that the final product was engaging to the viewers. Lessons learned may be useful for other video-based behavioral interventions that incorporate personal narratives.

A Narrative Evaluation of Mandarin-Speaking Children With Language Impairment.

PubMed

Hao, Ying; Sheng, Li; Zhang, Yiwen; Jiang, Fan; de Villiers, Jill; Lee, Wendy; Liu, Xueman Lucy

2018-02-15

We aimed to study narrative skills in Mandarin-speaking children with language impairment (LI) to compare with children with LI speaking Indo-European languages. Eighteen Mandarin-speaking children with LI (mean age 6;2 [years;months]) and 18 typically developing (TD) age controls told 3 stories elicited using the Mandarin Expressive Narrative Test (de Villiers & Liu, 2014). We compared macrostructure-evaluating descriptions of characters, settings, initiating events, internal responses,plans, actions, and consequences. We also studied general microstructure, including productivity, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and grammaticality. In addition, we compared the use of 6 fine-grained microstructure elements that evaluate particular Mandarin linguistic features. Children with LI exhibited weaknesses in 5 macrostructure elements, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and 3 Mandarin-specific, fine-grained microstructure elements. Children with LI and TD controls demonstrated comparable performance on 2 macrostructure elements, productivity, grammaticality, and the remaining 3 fine-grained microstructure features. Similarities and differences are noted in narrative profiles of children with LI who speak Mandarin versus those who speak Indo-European languages. The results are consistent with the view that profiles of linguistic deficits are shaped by the ambient language. Clinical implications are discussed.

Text messaging-based smoking cessation intervention: a narrative review.

PubMed

Kong, Grace; Ells, Daniel M; Camenga, Deepa R; Krishnan-Sarin, Suchitra

2014-05-01

Smoking cessation interventions delivered via text messaging on mobile phones may enhance motivations to quit smoking. The goal of this narrative review is to describe the text messaging interventions' theoretical contents, frequency and duration, treatment outcome, and sample characteristics such as age and motivation to quit, to better inform the future development of this mode of intervention. Studies were included if text messaging was primarily used to deliver smoking cessation intervention and published in English in a peer-reviewed journal. All articles were coded by two independent raters to determine eligibility and to extract data. Twenty-two studies described 15 text messaging interventions. About half of the interventions recruited adults (ages 30-40) and the other half targeted young adults (ages 18-29). Fourteen interventions sent text messages during the quit phase, 10 had a preparation phase and eight had a maintenance phase. The number of text messages and the duration of the intervention varied. All used motivational messages grounded in social cognitive behavioral theories, 11 used behavioral change techniques, and 14 used individually tailored messages. Eleven interventions also offered other smoking cessation tools. Three interventions yielded smoking cessation outcomes greater than the control condition. The proliferation of text messaging in recent years suggests that text messaging interventions may have the potential to improve smoking cessation rates. Detailed summary of the interventions suggests areas for future research and clinical application. More rigorous studies are needed to identify components of the interventions that can enhance their acceptability, feasibility and efficacy. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Narrating Beliefs: A Language Ideologies Approach to Teacher Beliefs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Razfar, Aria

2012-01-01

This article explores how we can better understand the language ideologies of teachers working with second language learners through narrative analysis. This analysis draws on ethnographic data collected in an urban high school with a predominant Latina/o population and nearly a quarter designated as English learners. This analysis illustrates how…

Monoglossic Echoes in Multilingual Spaces: Language Narratives from a Vietnamese Community Language School in Australia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reath Warren, Anne

2018-01-01

This article reports on language narratives in the ecology of a Vietnamese community language school (VCLS) in Australia. The study takes a dialogical perspective, where the stories about language that informants in the research setting tell are understood to shape and be shaped by the contexts in which they are told. Systematic analysis of…

Narratives in Two Languages: Storytelling of Bilingual Cantonese-English Preschoolers.

PubMed

Rezzonico, Stefano; Goldberg, Ahuva; Mak, Katy Ka-Yan; Yap, Stephanie; Milburn, Trelani; Belletti, Adriana; Girolametto, Luigi

2016-06-01

The aim of this study was to compare narratives generated by 4-year-old and 5-year-old children who were bilingual in English and Cantonese. The sample included 47 children (23 who were 4 years old and 24 who were 5 years old) living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who spoke both Cantonese and English. The participants spoke and heard predominantly Cantonese in the home. Participants generated a story in English and Cantonese by using a wordless picture book; language order was counterbalanced. Data were transcribed and coded for story grammar, morphosyntactic quality, mean length of utterance in words, and the number of different words. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed higher story grammar scores in English than in Cantonese, but no other significant main effects of language were observed. Analyses also revealed that older children had higher story grammar, mean length of utterance in words, and morphosyntactic quality scores than younger children in both languages. Hierarchical regressions indicated that Cantonese story grammar predicted English story grammar and Cantonese microstructure predicted English microstructure. However, no correlation was observed between Cantonese and English morphosyntactic quality. The results of this study have implications for speech-language pathologists who collect narratives in Cantonese and English from bilingual preschoolers. The results suggest that there is a possible transfer in narrative abilities between the two languages.

Text Messaging-Based Smoking Cessation Intervention: A Narrative Review

PubMed Central

Kong, Grace; Ells, Daniel; Camenga, Deepa R.; Krishnan-Sarin, Suchitra

2014-01-01

Introduction Smoking cessation interventions delivered via text messaging on mobile phones may enhance motivations to quit smoking. The goal of this narrative review is to describe the text messaging interventions’ theoretical contents, frequency and duration, treatment outcome, and sample characteristics such as age and motivation to quit, to better inform the future development of this mode of intervention. Methods Studies were included if text messaging was primarily used to deliver smoking cessation intervention and published in English in a peer-reviewed journal. All articles were coded by two independent raters to determine eligibility and to extract data. Results Twenty-two studies described 15 text messaging interventions. About half of the interventions recruited adults (ages 30-40s) and the other half targeted young adults (ages 18-29). Fourteen interventions sent text messages during the quit phase, 10 had a preparation phase and eight had a maintenance phase. The number of text messages and the duration of the intervention varied. All used motivational messages grounded in social cognitive behavioral theories, 11 used behavioral change techniques, and 14 used individually tailored messages. Eleven interventions also offered other smoking cessation tools. Three interventions yielded smoking cessation outcomes greater than the control condition. Conclusions The proliferation of text messaging in recent years suggests that text messaging interventions may have the potential to improve smoking cessation rates. Detailed summary of the interventions suggest areas for future research and clinical application. More rigorous studies are needed to identify components of the interventions that can enhance their acceptability, feasibility and efficacy. PMID:24462528

Exploring Second-Language Teachers' Identities through Multimodal Narratives: Gender and Race Discourses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vitanova, Gergana

2016-01-01

This article has several interconnected goals. First, it foregrounds the role of narratives and narrative inquiry in the research of second language teaching practices. It illustrates how multimodal narrativity could be used in analyzing the formation of personal and professional identities of several female teachers of English. Specifically, it…

Narrative abilities, memory and attention in children with a specific language impairment.

PubMed

Duinmeijer, Iris; de Jong, Jan; Scheper, Annette

2012-01-01

While narrative tasks have proven to be valid measures for detecting language disorders, measuring communicative skills and predicting future academic performance, research into the comparability of different narrative tasks has shown that outcomes are dependent on the type of task used. Although many of the studies detecting task differences touch upon the fact that tasks place differential demands on cognitive abilities like auditory attention and memory, few studies have related specific narrative tasks to these cognitive abilities. Examining this relation is especially warranted for children with specific language impairment (SLI), who are characterized by language problems, but often have problems in other cognitive domains as well. In the current research, a comparison was made between a story retelling task (The Bus Story) and a story generation task (The Frog Story) in a group of children with SLI (n= 34) and a typically developing group (n= 38) from the same age range. In addition to the two narrative tasks, sustained auditory attention (TEA-Ch) and verbal working memory (WISC digit span and the Dutch version of the CVLT-C word list recall) were measured. Correlations were computed between the narrative, the memory and the attention scores. A group comparison showed that the children with SLI scored significantly worse than the typically developing children on several narrative measures as well as on sustained auditory attention and verbal working memory. A within-subjects comparison of the scores on the two narrative tasks showed a contrast between the tasks on several narrative measures. Furthermore, correlational analyses showed that, on the level of plot structure, the story generation task correlated with sustained auditory attention, while the story retelling task correlated with word list recall. Mean length of utterance (MLU) on the other hand correlated with digit span but not with sustained auditory attention. While children with SLI have

Narrative Language and Reading Comprehension in Students with Mild Intellectual Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barton-Hulsey, Andrea; Sevcik, Rose A.; Romski, MaryAnn

2017-01-01

Past research shows positive correlations between oral narrative skill and reading comprehension in typically developing students. This study examined the relationship between reading comprehension and narrative language ability of 102 elementary students with mild levels of intellectual disability. Results describe the students' narrative…

Deficits in Narrative Abilities in Child British Sign Language Users with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herman, Ros; Rowley, Katherine; Mason, Kathryn; Morgan, Gary

2014-01-01

This study details the first ever investigation of narrative skills in a group of 17 deaf signing children who have been diagnosed with disorders in their British Sign Language development compared with a control group of 17 deaf child signers matched for age, gender, education, quantity, and quality of language exposure and non-verbal…

Use of abstracts, orientations, and codas in narration by language-disordered and nondisordered children.

PubMed

Sleight, C C; Prinz, P M

1985-11-01

In this study language-disordered and nondisordered children viewed a nonverbal film, wrote the story, and narrated it to language-disordered and nondisordered peers who were unfamiliar with the film. The narratives were analyzed for the use of abstracts, orientations (background information), and codas. Language-disordered children made fewer references to the orientation clauses of props and activities than nondisordered children. Neither group modified their language in the areas examined to take into account the communicative status of their listeners. Therapeutic implications for the language-disordered children are presented as are suggestions for future research.

Narrative Competence in Children with Pragmatic Language Impairment: A Longitudinal Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ketelaars, Mieke P.; Jansonius, Kino; Cuperus, Juliane; Verhoeven, Ludo

2016-01-01

Background: Children with pragmatic language impairment (PLI) show impairments in the use of language in social contexts. Although the issue has been gaining attention in recent literature, not much is known about the developmental trajectories of children who experience pragmatic language problems. Since narrative competence is an important…

Queer English Language Teacher Identity: A Narrative Exploration in Colombia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lander, Roderick

2018-01-01

This article presents partial results of research exploring links between language teacher identity and queer identity in English language teachers working in Colombia. Three gay male teachers participated in a narrative research project framed within a poststructural perspective on identity. I conducted and recorded semi-structured interviews…

Evidence-based interventions for reading and language difficulties: creating a virtuous circle.

PubMed

Snowling, Margaret J; Hulme, Charles

2011-03-01

BACKGROUND. Children may experience two very different forms of reading problem: decoding difficulties (dyslexia) and reading comprehension difficulties. Decoding difficulties appear to be caused by problems with phonological (speech sound) processing. Reading comprehension difficulties in contrast appear to be caused by problems with 'higher level' language difficulties including problems with semantics (including deficient knowledge of word meanings) and grammar (knowledge of morphology and syntax). AIMS. We review evidence concerning the nature, causes of, and treatments for children's reading difficulties. We argue that any well-founded educational intervention must be based on a sound theory of the causes of a particular form of learning difficulty, which in turn must be based on an understanding of how a given skill is learned by typically developing children. Such theoretically motivated interventions should in turn be evaluated in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to establish whether they are effective, and for whom. RESULTS. There is now considerable evidence showing that phonologically based interventions are effective in ameliorating children's word level decoding difficulties, and a smaller evidence base showing that reading and oral language (OL) comprehension difficulties can be ameliorated by suitable interventions to boost vocabulary and broader OL skills. CONCLUSIONS. The process of developing theories about the origins of children's educational difficulties and evaluating theoretically motivated treatments in RCTs, produces a 'virtuous circle' whereby theory informs practice, and the evaluation of effective interventions in turn feeds back to inform and refine theories about the nature and causes of children's reading and language difficulties. ©2010 The British Psychological Society.

Narratives of Girls and Boys with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Gender Differences in Narrative Competence and Internal State Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kauschke, Christina; van der Beek, Bettina; Kamp-Becker, Inge

2016-01-01

Since gender differences in the symptomatology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are not well understood, the current study examines the communicative skills of males and females with ASD. Narrative competence and internal state language (ISL) was investigated using narrations elicited by a wordless picture book. 11 girls and 11 boys with ASD and…

Translating Interviews, Translating Lives: Ethical Considerations in Cross-Language Narrative Inquiry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Yi

2011-01-01

Through two narrative inquiries, in this article I explore the challenges for qualitative researchers in working with multiple languages in capturing, translating, analyzing, and representing narratives. I discuss the effect on research when we engage in these processes considering what was happening as we translated both texts and experience from…

Dynamic assessment of narrative ability in English accurately identifies language impairment in English language learners.

PubMed

Peña, Elizabeth D; Gillam, Ronald B; Bedore, Lisa M

2014-12-01

To assess the identification accuracy of dynamic assessment (DA) of narrative ability in English for children learning English as a 2nd language. A DA task was administered to 54 children: 18 Spanish-English-speaking children with language impairment (LI); 18 age-, sex-, IQ- and language experience-matched typical control children; and an additional 18 age- and language experience-matched comparison children. A variety of quantitative and qualitative measures were collected in the pretest phase, the mediation phase, and the posttest phase of the study. Exploratory discriminant analysis was used to determine the set of measures that best differentiated among this group of children with and without LI. A combination of examiner ratings of modifiability (compliance, metacognition, and task orientation), DA story scores (setting, dialogue, and complexity of vocabulary), and ungrammaticality (derived from the posttest narrative sample) classified children with 80.6% to 97.2% accuracy. DA conducted in English provides a systematic means for measuring learning processes and learning outcomes, resulting in a clinically useful procedure for identifying LIs in bilingual children who are in the process of learning English as a second language.

A Narrative Evaluation of Mandarin-Speaking Children with Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hao, Ying; Sheng, Li; Zhang, Yiwen; Jiang, Fan; de Villiers, Jill; Lee, Wendy; Liu, Xueman Lucy

2018-01-01

Purpose: We aimed to study narrative skills in Mandarin-speaking children with language impairment (LI) to compare with children with LI speaking Indo-European languages. Method: Eighteen Mandarin-speaking children with LI (mean age 6;2 [years;months]) and 18 typically developing (TD) age controls told 3 stories elicited using the Mandarin…

Monitoring Indicators of Scholarly Language: A Progress-Monitoring Instrument for Measuring Narrative Discourse Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gillam, Sandra Laing; Gillam, Ronald B.; Fargo, Jamison D.; Olszewski, Abbie; Segura, Hugo

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to assess the basic psychometric properties of a progress-monitoring tool designed to measure narrative discourse skills in school-age children with language impairments (LI). A sample of 109 children with LI between the ages of 5 years 7 months and 9 years 9 months completed the "Test of Narrative Language"…

Narrative Intervention: A School-Based Counseling Strategy for Students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kamali, Khosrow; Yoosefi Looyeh, Majid

2013-01-01

This article describes a group narrative intervention for improving the behavior of 8- to 11-year-old children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder at home and school. (Contains 2 tables and 1 note.)

Narrative Competence and Underlying Mechanisms in Children with Pragmatic Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ketelaars, Mieke Pauline; Jansonius, Kino; Cuperus, Juliane; Verhoeven, Ludo

2012-01-01

This study investigated narrative competence in children with pragmatic language impairment (PLI) and the extent to which it is related to impairments in theory of mind and executive functioning (EF). Narrative competence was assessed using a retelling design in a group of 77 children with PLI and a control group of 77 typically developing…

Oral language and narrative skills in children with specific language impairment with and without literacy delay: a three-year longitudinal study.

PubMed

Vandewalle, Ellen; Boets, Bart; Boons, Tinne; Ghesquière, Pol; Zink, Inge

2012-01-01

This longitudinal study compared the development of oral language and more specifically narrative skills (storytelling and story retelling) in children with specific language impairment (SLI) with and without literacy delay. Therefore, 18 children with SLI and 18 matched controls with normal literacy were followed from the last year of kindergarten (mean age=5 years 5 months) until the beginning of grade 3 (mean age=8 years 1 month). Oral language tests measuring vocabulary, morphology, sentence and text comprehension and narrative skills were administered yearly. Based on first and third grade reading and spelling achievement, both groups were divided into a group with and a group without literacy problems. Results showed that the children with SLI and literacy delay had persistent oral language problems across all assessed language domains. The children with SLI and normal literacy skills scored also persistently low on vocabulary, morphology and story retelling skills. Only on listening comprehension and storytelling, they evolved towards the level of the control group. In conclusion, oral language skills in children with SLI and normal literacy skills remained in general poor, despite their intact literacy development during the first years of literacy instruction. Only for listening comprehension and storytelling, they improved, probably as a result of more print exposure. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The complexity of narrative interferes in the use of conjunctions in children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Gonzalez, Deborah Oliveira; Cáceres, Ana Manhani; Bento-Gaz, Ana Carolina Paiva; Befi-Lopes, Debora Maria

2012-01-01

To verify the use of conjunctions in narratives, and to investigate the influence of stimuli's complexity over the type of conjunctions used by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical language development. Participants were 40 children (20 with typical language development and 20 with SLI) with ages between 7 and 10 years, paired by age range. Fifteen stories with increasing of complexity were used to obtain the narratives; stories were classified into mechanical, behavioral and intentional, and each of them was represented by four scenes. Narratives were analyzed according to occurrence and classification of conjunctions. Both groups used more coordinative than subordinate conjunctions, with significant decrease in the use of conjunctions in the discourse of SLI children. The use of conjunctions varied according to the type of narrative: for coordinative conjunctions, both groups differed only between intentional and behavioral narratives, with higher occurrence in behavioral ones; for subordinate conjunctions, typically developing children's performance did not show differences between narratives, while SLI children presented fewer occurrences in intentional narratives, which was different from other narratives. Both groups used more coordinative than subordinate conjunctions; however, typically developing children presented more conjunctions than SLI children. The production of children with SLI was influenced by stimulus, since more complex narratives has less use of subordinate conjunctions.

Long-Term Effects of a Parent-Based Language Intervention on Language Outcomes and Working Memory for Late-Talking Toddlers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buschmann, Anke; Multhauf, Bettina; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Pietz, Joachim

2015-01-01

A randomized control intervention study was conducted to evaluate the effects of the highly structured Heidelberg Parent-Based Language Intervention (HPLI). The outcomes of 43 children (n = 23 intervention, n = 20 control) who had been identified as late talkers during routine developmental check-ups carried out in pediatric practices at the age…

Narrative Abilities, Memory and Attention in Children with a Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duinmeijer, Iris; de Jong, Jan; Scheper, Annette

2012-01-01

Background: While narrative tasks have proven to be valid measures for detecting language disorders, measuring communicative skills and predicting future academic performance, research into the comparability of different narrative tasks has shown that outcomes are dependent on the type of task used. Although many of the studies detecting task…

Oral Narrative Intervention for Children with Mixed Reading Disability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westerveld, Marleen F.; Gillon, Gail T.

2008-01-01

Ten children (aged between 7;11 and 9;2) with mixed reading disability participated in an oral narrative intervention programme that focused on enhancing children's story structure knowledge. The participants had all demonstrated persistent reading and oral narrative comprehension and production difficulties in a two-year longitudinal study prior…

Effects of age and language on co-speech gesture production: an investigation of French, American, and Italian children's narratives.

PubMed

Colletta, Jean-Marc; Guidetti, Michèle; Capirci, Olga; Cristilli, Carla; Demir, Ozlem Ece; Kunene-Nicolas, Ramona N; Levine, Susan

2015-01-01

The aim of this paper is to compare speech and co-speech gestures observed during a narrative retelling task in five- and ten-year-old children from three different linguistic groups, French, American, and Italian, in order to better understand the role of age and language in the development of multimodal monologue discourse abilities. We asked 98 five- and ten-year-old children to narrate a short, wordless cartoon. Results showed a common developmental trend as well as linguistic and gesture differences between the three language groups. In all three languages, older children were found to give more detailed narratives, to insert more comments, and to gesture more and use different gestures--specifically gestures that contribute to the narrative structure--than their younger counterparts. Taken together, these findings allow a tentative model of multimodal narrative development in which major changes in later language acquisition occur despite language and culture differences.

An ontology model for nursing narratives with natural language generation technology.

PubMed

Min, Yul Ha; Park, Hyeoun-Ae; Jeon, Eunjoo; Lee, Joo Yun; Jo, Soo Jung

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to develop an ontology model to generate nursing narratives as natural as human language from the entity-attribute-value triplets of a detailed clinical model using natural language generation technology. The model was based on the types of information and documentation time of the information along the nursing process. The typesof information are data characterizing the patient status, inferences made by the nurse from the patient data, and nursing actions selected by the nurse to change the patient status. This information was linked to the nursing process based on the time of documentation. We describe a case study illustrating the application of this model in an acute-care setting. The proposed model provides a strategy for designing an electronic nursing record system.

Cultural adaptation of the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) into Brazilian Portuguese.

PubMed

Rossi, Natalia Freitas; Lindau, Tâmara de Andrade; Gillam, Ronald Bradley; Giacheti, Célia Maria

To accomplish the translation and cultural adaptation of the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) into Brazilian Portuguese. The TNL is a formal instrument which assesses narrative comprehension and oral narration of children between the ages of 5-0 and 11-11 (years-months). The TNL translation and adaptation process had the following steps: (1) translation into the target language; (2) summary of the translated versions; (3) back-translation; (4) checking of the conceptual, semantics and cultural equivalence process and (5) pilot study (56 children within the test age range and from both genders). The adapted version maintained the same structure as the original version: number of tasks (both, three comprehension and oral narration), narrative formats (no picture, sequenced pictures and single picture) and scoring system. There were no adjustments to the pictures. The "McDonald's Story" was replaced by the "Snack Bar History" to meet the semantic and experiential equivalence of the target population. The other stories had semantic and grammatical adjustments. Statistically significant difference was found when comparing the raw score (comprehension, narration and total) of age groups from the adapted version. Adjustments were required to meet the equivalence between the original and the translated versions. The adapted version showed it has the potential to identify differences in oral narratives of children in the age range provided by the test. Measurement equivalence for validation and test standardization are in progress and will be able to supplement the study outcomes.

Entertainment-Education Narrative Versus Nonnarrative Interventions to Educate and Motivate Latinas to Engage in Mammography Screening.

PubMed

Borrayo, Evelinn A; Rosales, Monica; Gonzalez, Patricia

2017-06-01

The evidence is limited comparing the effects of entertainment-education (E-E) narrative versus nonnarrative interventions to educate and motivate Latinas to engage in mammography screening. This study compared an E-E narrative intervention to two nonnarrative interventions' effects among Latinas on breast cancer knowledge and motivation, as measured by changes in self-efficacy, behavioral norms, and behavioral intentions to engage in mammography screening. A sample of 141 Spanish-speaking Latinas was randomly assigned to one of three arms: an E-E narrative video, a nonnarrative educational video, and printed educational materials. Using a repeated measures design, the influence of the E-E narrative on pretest to posttest measures was assessed and compared to the influence of the other two interventions. The E-E narrative and nonnarrative interventions significantly increased Latinas' breast cancer knowledge, mammography self-efficacy, and behavioral norms from pretest to posttest. However, the E-E narrative participants' pretest to posttest difference in mammography self-efficacy was significantly higher when compared to the difference of the other two interventions. The effect of the E-E narrative intervention on self-efficacy and behavioral norms was moderated by the participants' absorption in the story and identification with the story characters. E-E narrative and nonnarrative interventions significantly educated and motivated Latinas to engage in mammography screening. The effects on mammography self-efficacy, an important precursor to behavior change, can be more strongly influenced by E-E narratives. Although E-E narrative and nonnarrative interventions were effective, the need still exists to assess if they can ultimately influence lifesaving breast cancer screening behaviors.

Narrative Abilities of Monolingual and Bilingual Children with and without Language Impairment: Implications for Clinical Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boerma, Tessel; Leseman, Paul; Timmermeister, Mona; Wijnen, Frank; Blom, Elma

2016-01-01

Background: Understanding and expressing a narrative's macro-structure is relatively independent of experience in a specific language. A narrative task is therefore assumed to be a less biased method of language assessment for bilingual children than many other norm-referenced tests and may thus be particularly valuable to identify language…

Tableau's Influence on the Oral Language Skills of Students with Language-Based Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Alida; Berry, Katherine A.

2017-01-01

This study examined the influence of tableau on the expressive language skills of three students with language-based learning disabilities in inclusive urban fourth-grade English language arts (ELA) classroom settings. Data were collected on linguistic productivity, specificity, and narrative cohesion through analysis of students' responses to…

A Systematic Narrative Review of Effects of Community-Based Intervention on Rates of Organ Donor Registration.

PubMed

Golding, Sarah Elizabeth; Cropley, Mark

2017-09-01

The demand for organ donation is increasing worldwide. One possible way of increasing the pool of potential posthumous donors is to encourage more members of the general public to join an organ donor registry. A systematic review was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of psychological interventions designed to increase the number of individuals in the community who register as organ donors. PsycINFO and PubMed databases were searched. No date limits were set. Randomized and nonrandomized controlled trials exploring the effects of community-based interventions on organ donor registration rates were included. Methodological quality was assessed using the "Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies." Twenty-four studies met the inclusion criteria; 19 studies found a positive intervention effect on registration. Only 8 studies were assessed as having reasonable methodological robustness. A narrative synthesis was conducted. Factors influencing registration rates include providing an immediate registration opportunity and using brief interventions to challenge misconceptions and concerns about organ donation. Community-based interventions can be effective at increasing organ donor registrations among the general public. Factors that may increase effectiveness include brief interventions to address concerns and providing an immediate registration opportunity. Particular consideration should be paid to the fidelity of intervention delivery. Protocol registration number: CRD42014012975.

The Language Continuum: Narrative Discourse Skills in English-Japanese Bilingual Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minami, Masahiko

In this research, using the "Frog, Where Are You?" picture book, 40 bilingual children age 6-12 years were asked to narrate the story in two languages, English and Japanese. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed in order to study the relationship between the use of the two languages. The results generally suggest that…

Naturalistic Language Intervention in Inclusive Environments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lowenthal, Barbara

1995-01-01

This review considers use of natural language instruction by early childhood teachers for children with language disabilities in inclusive environments. The following factors are addressed: child-centered approach, family involvement, classroom strategies, activity-based intervention, environmental influences, the function of play, preliteracy…

Bilingual and Home Language Interventions With Young Dual Language Learners: A Research Synthesis.

PubMed

Durán, Lillian K; Hartzheim, Daphne; Lund, Emily M; Simonsmeier, Vicki; Kohlmeier, Theresa L

2016-10-01

The purpose of this systematic review was to determine what bilingual or home language interventions have been found to be effective for 2- to 6-year-old dual language learners who have language impairment (LI) or are at risk for LI. We conducted ancestral searches and searches of electronic databases, hand-searched article bibliographies, and searched 19 journals for experimental, quasiexperimental, or single-subject studies. The review yielded 26 studies that were coded for quality, frequency and duration of the intervention, number of participants, location of intervention, interventionist, language(s) of intervention, and reported or calculated effect sizes. Studies were grouped by those that focused specifically on at-risk populations and those that focused on children with LI. Emerging trends provide support for bilingual and/or home language interventions for both children with LI and those at risk for LI. There were relatively few studies that met inclusion criteria, and the average quality rating for a study was 6.8 out of 9.0 possible points. More high-quality research is needed, particularly with populations that speak languages other than Spanish. Clinicians need more evidence-based recommendations to improve the language and literacy outcomes of the diverse range of dual language learners served in the United States and abroad.

Changing Reasons as Reasoning Changes: A Narrative Interview on Second Language Classroom Motivation, Telecollaboration, and the Learning of Foreign Languages

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Negueruela-Azarola, Eduardo

2011-01-01

This narrative interview study of a Spanish learner documents and explains apparent contradictions in a student's story when reporting on why she continues to take Spanish even when she does not like it or perform well in foreign language courses. A dialectical approach to human activity based on sociocultural theory is used to make sense of her…

Increasing the odds: applying emergentist theory in language intervention.

PubMed

Poll, Gerard H

2011-10-01

This review introduces emergentism, which is a leading theory of language development that states that language ability is the product of interactions between the child's language environment and his or her learning capabilities. The review suggests ways in which emergentism provides a theoretical rationale for interventions that are designed to address developmental language delays in young children. A review of selected literature on emergentist theory and research is presented, with a focus on the acquisition of early morphology and syntax. A significant method for developing and testing emergentist theory, connectionist modeling, is described. Key themes from both connectionist and behavioral studies are summarized and applied with specific examples to language intervention techniques. A case study is presented to integrate elements of emergentism with language intervention. Evaluating the theoretical foundation for language interventions is an important step in evidence-based practice. This article introduces three themes in the emergentist literature that have implications for language intervention: (a) sufficiency of language input, (b) active engagement of the child with the input, and (c) factors that increase the odds for correctly mapping language form to meaning. Evidence supporting the importance of these factors in effective language intervention is presented, along with limitations in that evidence.

Comparing the Effects of Working Memory-Based Interventions for Children with Language Impairment. EBP Briefs. Volume 9, Issue 1

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farquharson, Kelly; Franzluebbers, Chelsea E.

2014-01-01

Clinical Question: Do working memory-based interventions improve language, reading, and/or working memory skills in school-aged children with language impairment? Method: Literature review of evidence-based practice (EBP) intervention comparisons. Sources: Google Scholar, ASHA journals database, Academic OneFile, Academic Search Complete, and…

Tales of Tutors: The Role of Narrative in Language Learning and Service-Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polansky, Susan G.; Andrianoff, Timothy; Bernard, Jaclyn B.; Flores, Ana; Gardocki, Isabel A.; Handerhan, Ryan J.; Park, Jihea; Young, Lisa

2010-01-01

This article examines the role of narrative in the learning process of language tutors in a university service-learning course involving collaboration between an institution of higher learning and public high schools in an urban setting. The tutors' personal narrative reflections offer multiple perspectives on interactions of tutors with high…

Reclaiming the Gift: Indigenous Youth Counter-Narratives on Native Language Loss and Revitalization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCarty, Teresa L.; Romero, Mary Eunice; Zepeda, Ofelia

2006-01-01

In this article, the authors explore the personal, familial, and academic stakes of Native language loss for youth, drawing on narrative data from the Native Language Shift and Retention Project, a five year (2001-06), federally funded study of the nature and impacts of Native language shift and retention on American Indian students' language…

J. G. Herder, the Origin of Language, and the Possibility of Transcultural Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pan, David

2004-01-01

Herder's ideas on cultural plurality in language offer an explanation for how narrative might bridge cultural boundaries. In his "Essay on the Origin of Language", Herder focuses on language as the specifically human trait that distinguishes humanity from all other species on the one hand and the creator of human differences and diversity of…

Reading Intervention to Improve Narrative Production, Narrative Comprehension, and Motivation and Interest of Children with Hearing Loss

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pakulski, Lori A.; Kaderavek, Joan N.

2012-01-01

This study examined the effects of a reading intervention on narrative production, narrative comprehension, and reading motivation interest in children with hearing loss. Seven school children between the ages of 9 and 11 were paired with younger "reading buddies" (without hearing loss). The children with hearing loss read storybooks to…

Language experience narratives and the role of autobiographical reasoning in becoming an urban science teacher

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rivera Maulucci, Maria S.

2011-06-01

One of the central challenges globalization and immigration present to education is how to construct school language policies, procedures, and curricula to support academic success of immigrant youth. This case-study compares and contrasts language experience narratives along Elena's developmental trajectory of becoming an urban science teacher. Elena reflects upon her early language experiences and her more recent experiences as a preservice science teacher in elementary dual language classrooms. The findings from Elena's early schooling experiences provide an analysis of the linkages between Elena's developing English proficiency, her Spanish proficiency, and her autobiographical reasoning. Elena's experiences as a preservice teacher in two elementary dual language classrooms indicates ways in which those experiences helped to reframe her views about the intersections between language learning and science learning. I propose the language experience narrative, as a subset of the life story, as a way to understand how preservice teachers reconstruct past language experiences, connect to the present, and anticipate future language practices.

Improving outcomes of preschool language delay in the community: protocol for the Language for Learning randomised controlled trial

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Early language delay is a high-prevalence condition of concern to parents and professionals. It may result in lifelong deficits not only in language function, but also in social, emotional/behavioural, academic and economic well-being. Such delays can lead to considerable costs to the individual, the family and to society more widely. The Language for Learning trial tests a population-based intervention in 4 year olds with measured language delay, to determine (1) if it improves language and associated outcomes at ages 5 and 6 years and (2) its cost-effectiveness for families and the health care system. Methods/Design A large-scale randomised trial of a year-long intervention targeting preschoolers with language delay, nested within a well-documented, prospective, population-based cohort of 1464 children in Melbourne, Australia. All children received a 1.25-1.5 hour formal language assessment at their 4th birthday. The 200 children with expressive and/or receptive language scores more than 1.25 standard deviations below the mean were randomised into intervention or ‘usual care’ control arms. The 20-session intervention program comprises 18 one-hour home-based therapeutic sessions in three 6-week blocks, an outcome assessment, and a final feed-back/forward planning session. The therapy utilises a ‘step up-step down’ therapeutic approach depending on the child’s language profile, severity and progress, with standardised, manualised activities covering the four language development domains of: vocabulary and grammar; narrative skills; comprehension monitoring; and phonological awareness/pre-literacy skills. Blinded follow-up assessments at ages 5 and 6 years measure the primary outcome of receptive and expressive language, and secondary outcomes of vocabulary, narrative, and phonological skills. Discussion A key strength of this robust study is the implementation of a therapeutic framework that provides a standardised yet tailored approach for

Graphic Narratives: Cognitive and Pedagogical Choices for Implementation in the English Language Arts Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dulaney, Margaret Anne

2012-01-01

There is little empirical research that investigates the implementation of graphic narratives into the English language arts classroom, subsequently leading to misperceptions and misconceptions about their educative uses. Despite sequential arts' long history, graphic narratives continue to experience a marginalized existence within the…

Teacher Narratives and Student Engagement: Testing Narrative Engagement Theory in Drug Prevention Education

PubMed Central

Miller-Day, Michelle; Hecht, Michael L.; Krieger, Janice L.; Pettigrew, Jonathan; Shin, YoungJu; Graham, John

2015-01-01

Testing narrative engagement theory, this study examines student engagement and teachers’ spontaneous narratives told in a narrative-based drug prevention curriculum. The study describes the extent to which teachers share their own narratives in a narrative-based curriculum, identifies dominant narrative elements, forms and functions, and assesses the relationships among teacher narratives, overall lesson narrative quality, and student engagement. One hundred videotaped lessons of the keepin’ it REAL drug prevention curriculum were coded and the results supported the claim that increased narrative quality of a prevention lesson would be associated with increased student engagement. The quality of narrativity, however, varied widely. Implications of these results for narrative-based prevention interventions and narrative pedagogy are discussed. PMID:26690668

Use of Abstracts, Orientations, and Codas in Narration by Language-Disordered and Nondisordered Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sleight, Christine C.; Prinz, Philip M.

1985-01-01

Forty language-disordered and nondisordered elementary children viewed a nonverbal film, wrote the story, and narrated it to language-disordered and nondisordered peers unfamiliar with the film. Language-disordered Ss made fewer references to the orientation clauses of props and activities than nondisordered Ss. Neither group modified their…

The Development of Bilingual Narrative Retelling Among Spanish-English Dual Language Learners Over Two Years.

PubMed

Lucero, Audrey

2018-05-25

This exploratory study investigates the development of oral narrative retell proficiency among Spanish-English emergent bilingual children longitudinally from kindergarten to second grade in Spanish and English as they learned literacy in the 2 languages concurrently. Oral narrative retell assessments were conducted with children who spoke Spanish at home and were enrolled in a dual language immersion program (N = 12) in the spring of kindergarten and second grade. Retells were transcribed and coded for vocabulary and grammar at the microlevel (Miller, 2012) and story structure at the macrolevel (Heilmann, Miller, Nockerts, & Dunaway, 2010). In microstructure paired-sample t tests, children showed significant improvements in vocabulary in both languages (Spanish total number of words η2 = .43, Spanish number of different words η2 = .44, English total number of words η2 = .61, English number of different words η2 = .62) but not grammar by second grade. At the macrostructure level, children showed significantly higher performance in English only (English narrative scoring scheme η2 = .47). The finding that children significantly improved in vocabulary in both languages but in overall story structure only in English suggests that discourse skills were being facilitated in English whereas Spanish discourse development may have stagnated even within a dual language immersion program. Results contribute to what is currently known about bilingual oral narrative development among young Spanish speakers enrolled in such programs and can inform assessment and instructional decisions.

Children with Specific Language Impairment: An Investigation of Their Narratives and Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dodwell, Kristy; Bavin, Edith L.

2008-01-01

Background: Narratives have been used by a number of researchers to investigate the language of children with specific language impairment (SLI). While a number of explanations for SLI have been proposed, there is now mounting evidence that children with SLI have limited memory resources. Phonological memory has been the focus of the research on…

A typology of practice narratives during the implementation of a preventive, community intervention trial.

PubMed

Riley, Therese; Hawe, Penelope

2009-12-14

Traditional methods of process evaluation encompass what components were delivered, but rarely uncover how practitioners position themselves and act relative to an intervention being tested. This could be crucial for expanding our understanding of implementation and its contribution to intervention effectiveness. We undertook a narrative analysis of in-depth, unstructured field diaries kept by nine community development practitioners for two years. The practitioners were responsible for implementing a multi-component, preventive, community-level intervention for mothers of new babies in eight communities, as part of a cluster randomised community intervention trial. We constructed a narrative typology of approaches to practice, drawing on the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz and Max Weber's Ideal Type theory. Five types of practice emerged, from a highly 'technology-based' type that was faithful to intervention specifications, through to a 'romantic' type that held relationships to be central to daily operations, with intact relationships being the final arbiter of intervention success. The five types also differed in terms of how others involved in the intervention were characterized, the narrative form (e.g., tragedy, satire) and where and how transformative change in communities was best created. This meant that different types traded-off or managed the priorities of the intervention differently, according to the deeply held values of their type. The data set constructed for this analysis is unique. It revealed that practitioners not only exercise their agency within interventions, they do so systematically, that is, according to a pattern. The typology is the first of its kind and, if verified through replication, may have value for anticipating intervention dynamics and explaining implementation variation in community interventions.

A typology of practice narratives during the implementation of a preventive, community intervention trial

PubMed Central

2009-01-01

Background Traditional methods of process evaluation encompass what components were delivered, but rarely uncover how practitioners position themselves and act relative to an intervention being tested. This could be crucial for expanding our understanding of implementation and its contribution to intervention effectiveness. Methods We undertook a narrative analysis of in-depth, unstructured field diaries kept by nine community development practitioners for two years. The practitioners were responsible for implementing a multi-component, preventive, community-level intervention for mothers of new babies in eight communities, as part of a cluster randomised community intervention trial. We constructed a narrative typology of approaches to practice, drawing on the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz and Max Weber's Ideal Type theory. Results Five types of practice emerged, from a highly 'technology-based' type that was faithful to intervention specifications, through to a 'romantic' type that held relationships to be central to daily operations, with intact relationships being the final arbiter of intervention success. The five types also differed in terms of how others involved in the intervention were characterized, the narrative form (e.g., tragedy, satire) and where and how transformative change in communities was best created. This meant that different types traded-off or managed the priorities of the intervention differently, according to the deeply held values of their type. Conclusions The data set constructed for this analysis is unique. It revealed that practitioners not only exercise their agency within interventions, they do so systematically, that is, according to a pattern. The typology is the first of its kind and, if verified through replication, may have value for anticipating intervention dynamics and explaining implementation variation in community interventions. PMID:20003399

The Narrative Turn and the Poetics of Resistance: Towards a New Language for Critical Educational Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peters, Michael A.; Besley, Tina

2012-01-01

This article argues for the adoption of a new language in critical educational studies through the "narrative turn", a turn that politicizes knowledge by drawing attention to questions concerning the meaning, construction and authorship of narratives. In the authors' interpretation going back to the poetics of early narrative forms they…

Narratives of Girls and Boys with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Gender Differences in Narrative Competence and Internal State Language.

PubMed

Kauschke, Christina; van der Beek, Bettina; Kamp-Becker, Inge

2016-03-01

Since gender differences in the symptomatology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are not well understood, the current study examines the communicative skills of males and females with ASD. Narrative competence and internal state language (ISL) was investigated using narrations elicited by a wordless picture book. 11 girls and 11 boys with ASD and 11 typically developing girls were individually matched. Although results demonstrate largely comparable narrative skills across groups, the groups differed with respect to the size and use of ISL: Girls with ASD verbalized and motivated internal states more often than boys, and both groups with ASD fell behind typically developing children in production of affective words. Implications for the clinical presentation of males and females with ASD are discussed.

Oral Language Skills Intervention in Pre-School--A Cautionary Tale

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haley, Allyson; Hulme, Charles; Bowyer-Crane, Claudine; Snowling, Margaret J.; Fricke, Silke

2017-01-01

Background: While practitioners are increasingly asked to be mindful of the evidence base of intervention programmes, evidence from rigorous trials for the effectiveness of interventions that promote oral language abilities in the early years is sparse. Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness of a language intervention programme for children…

Composing a Narrative Story in a Third Language: Multilinguals' Reliance on Multiple Languages in an L3 Linguistic Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pap, Emese Boksay

2016-01-01

This paper reports on the results of an exploratory study that employed the concurrent think-aloud method to investigate narrative text-creating strategies of multilingual Transylvanian-Hungarians in English, their third language. The study explored the participants' reliance on their different languages as they composed a story in English based…

Sentiments analysis at conceptual level making use of the Narrative Knowledge Representation Language.

PubMed

Zarri, Gian Piero

2014-10-01

This paper illustrates some of the knowledge representation structures and inference procedures proper to a high-level, fully implemented conceptual language, NKRL (Narrative Knowledge Representation Language). The aim is to show how these tools can be used to deal, in a sentiment analysis/opinion mining context, with some common types of human (and non-human) "behaviors". These behaviors correspond, in particular, to the concrete, mutual relationships among human and non-human characters that can be expressed under the form of non-fictional and real-time "narratives" (i.e., as logically and temporally structured sequences of "elementary events"). Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lexical Diversity and Omission Errors as Predictors of Language Ability in the Narratives of Sequential Spanish-English Bilinguals: A Cross-Language Comparison

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobson, Peggy F.; Walden, Patrick R.

2013-01-01

Purpose: This study explored the utility of language sample analysis for evaluating language ability in school-age Spanish-English sequential bilingual children. Specifically, the relative potential of lexical diversity and word/morpheme omission as predictors of typical or atypical language status was evaluated. Method: Narrative samples were…

Lexical diversity and omission errors as predictors of language ability in the narratives of sequential Spanish-English bilinguals: a cross-language comparison.

PubMed

Jacobson, Peggy F; Walden, Patrick R

2013-08-01

This study explored the utility of language sample analysis for evaluating language ability in school-age Spanish-English sequential bilingual children. Specifically, the relative potential of lexical diversity and word/morpheme omission as predictors of typical or atypical language status was evaluated. Narrative samples were obtained from 48 bilingual children in both of their languages using the suggested narrative retell protocol and coding conventions as per Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT; Miller & Iglesias, 2008) software. An additional lexical diversity measure, VocD, was also calculated. A series of logistical hierarchical regressions explored the utility of the number of different words, VocD statistic, and word and morpheme omissions in each language for predicting language status. Omission errors turned out to be the best predictors of bilingual language impairment at all ages, and this held true across languages. Although lexical diversity measures did not predict typical or atypical language status, the measures were significantly related to oral language proficiency in English and Spanish. The results underscore the significance of omission errors in bilingual language impairment while simultaneously revealing the limitations of lexical diversity measures as indicators of impairment. The relationship between lexical diversity and oral language proficiency highlights the importance of considering relative language proficiency in bilingual assessment.

A narrative review on cervical interventions in adults with chronic whiplash-associated disorder

PubMed Central

Yeung, Euson; Tong, Tiffany; Reed, Nick

2018-01-01

Introduction Whiplash injuries are common in society, but clinical interventions are inconclusive on the most effective treatment. Research and reviews have been completed with the goal of determining clinical interventions that are effective for whiplash injuries and disorders, but literature has not recently been summarised on best practices for cervical spine interventions for adults with chronic whiplash. Purpose The objective of this narrative review is to update and expand on previous works, to provide recommendations for clinical interventions and future research in the area of cervical spine rehabilitation for adults with chronic whiplash-associated disorder. Method The Arskey and O’Malley methodology was used for this narrative review. CINHAL, EMBASE, Medline, PsychInfo, Scopus, Web of Science, as well as grey literature, were searched from 2003 to April 2017. Two reviewers screened titles and abstracts for relevance to the review, and content analysis summarised the study findings. A total of 14 citations were included in the final review. Findings Exercise-based interventions targeted at the cervical spine appear most beneficial for adults with chronic whiplash-associated disorder (WAD). Invasive interventions still require more rigorous studies to deem their effectiveness for this population. Conclusion Further research is required to investigate and determine clinically relevant results for cervical spine intervention in patients with chronic WAD. PMID:29719724

Analysis of oral narratives of preschool children before and after language stimulation.

PubMed

Verzolla, Beatriz Lopes Porto; Isotani, Selma Mie; Perissinoto, Jacy

2012-01-01

To verify the oral narrative abilities in preschoolers, before and after language stimulation. Participants were 58 preschoolers. The study was developed in three stages: 1. Pre-stimulation stage (Moment 1) - preschoolers produced the first autonomous narrative based on a sequence of pictures, and the second under adult scaffolding; 2. Stimulation stage - it was conducted a weekly reading of children's stories in group, for ten weeks; 3. Post-stimulation stage (Moment 2): the same procedure of the first stage was repeated. The results analysis considered: the occurrence of central and secondary events; the accountable/explicable conduct, classified according to physical causes, moral/social rules and internal state; the attribution and rectification of false beliefs, analyzed by the internal state's accountable/explicable conduct. There was an increase in the occurrence of central events in Moment 2 as well as after the adult scaffolding, with decrease of secondary events comparing both moments and after the scaffolding. Regarding the accountable/explicable conduct, no differences were found between physical, social/moral rules, and internal state conducts. The internal state accountable/explicable conduct was predominantly found in all the autonomous narratives. Both the reading of children's stories and the adult scaffolding contribute to the increase in the occurrence of events in autonomous narratives. There is no variation on the type of accountable/explicable conduct in the narratives. The internal state accountable/explicable conduct is predominantly used by preschoolers.

Using a narrative- and play-based activity to promote low-income preschoolers’ oral language, emergent literacy, and social competence

PubMed Central

Nicolopoulou, Ageliki; Cortina, Kai Schnabel; Ilgaz, Hande; Cates, Carolyn Brockmeyer; de Sá, Aline B.

2015-01-01

This study examined whether a storytelling and story-acting practice (STSA), integrated as a regular component of the preschool curriculum, can help promote three key dimensions of young children’s school readiness: narrative and other oral-language skills, emergent literacy, and social competence. A total of 149 low-income preschoolers (almost all 3- and 4-year-olds) participated, attending six experimental and seven control classrooms. The STSA was introduced in the experimental classrooms for the entire school year, and all children in both conditions were pre- and post-tested on 11 measures of narrative, vocabulary, emergent literacy, pretend abilities, peer play cooperation, and self-regulation. Participation in the STSA was associated with improvements in narrative comprehension, print and word awareness, pretend abilities, self-regulation, and reduced play disruption. For almost all these measures, positive results were further strengthened by the frequency of participation in storytelling by individual children, indicated by number of stories told (NOST). The STSA is a structured preschool practice that exemplifies child-centered, play-based, and constructivist approaches in early childhood education, and that can operate as a curriculum module in conjunction with a variety of different preschool curricula. This study confirmed that it can contribute to promoting learning, development, and school readiness for low-income and otherwise disadvantaged children. PMID:25866441

Speech Disruptions in the Narratives of English-Speaking Children with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guo, Ling-yu; Tomblin, J. Bruce; Samelson, Vicki

2008-01-01

Purpose: This study examined the types, frequencies, and distribution of speech disruptions in the spoken narratives of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their age-matched (CA) and language-matched (LA) peers. Method: Twenty 4th-grade children with SLI, 20 typically developing CA children, and 20 younger typically developing LA…

Pedagogical Differences during a Science and Language Intervention for English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garza, Tiberio; Huerta, Margarita; Lara-Alecio, Rafael; Irby, Beverly J.; Tong, Fuhui

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study was to compare and describe 8 fifth-grade classrooms by their teachers pedagogy during a quasiexperimental, longitudinal, and field-based project focused on increasing English language learners' (ELLs') achievement in science and language. The larger study found statistically significant and positive intervention effects…

Emotionality and Second Language Writers: Expressing Fear through Narrative in Thai and in English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chamcharatsri, Pisarn Bee

2013-01-01

Writing to express emotions can be a challenging task for second language (L2) writers, especially because it tends to be a process that is less addressed in language classrooms. This paper aims to expand thinking on L2 literacy and writing by exploring how L2 writers can express emotion (fear) through narratives both in their first language (L1)…

Clinical and Educational Perspectives on Language Intervention for Children with Autism.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kamhi, Alan G.; And Others

The paper examines aspects of effective language intervention with autistic children. An overview is presented about the nature of language, its perception and comprehension, and the production of speech-language. Assessment strategies are considered. The second part of the paper analyzes traditional and communications-based intervention programs.…

Language![R]. What Works Clearinghouse Intervention Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

What Works Clearinghouse, 2013

2013-01-01

"LANGUAGE!"[R] is a language arts intervention designed for struggling learners in grades 3-12 who score below the 40th percentile on standardized literacy tests. The curriculum integrates English literacy acquisition skills into a six-step lesson format. During a daily lesson, students work on six key literacy strands (which the…

A Phonologically Based Intervention for School-Age Children with Language Impairment: Implications for Reading Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ritter, Michaela J.; Park, Jungjun; Saxon, Terrill F.; Colson, Karen A.

2013-01-01

This study was conducted utilizing a quasi-experimental pre- and postgroup design to examine the effects of a phonologically based intervention aimed to improve phonological awareness (PA) and reading abilities in school-age children with language impairment (LI) in Grades 1 through 3. The intervention included instruction in PA and sound-symbol…

Role of Narrative Skills on Reading Comprehension: Spanish-English and Cantonese-English Dual Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Uchikoshi, Yuuko; Yang, Lu; Liu, Siwei

2018-01-01

This longitudinal study examined the role of narrative skills in English reading comprehension, after controlling for vocabulary and decoding, with a sample of 112 dual language learners (DLLs), including both Spanish-English and Cantonese-English children. Decoding, vocabulary, and narrative samples were collected in the winter of first grade and…

Living with a Foreign Tongue: An Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry into Identity in a Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Wei

2014-01-01

Learning a second language involves the development of an identity in the target language. This study is an autobiographical narrative inquiry into the issue of identity in a foreign language. Autobiographical accounts of my relationship with, and my feelings about, English at different stages in my learning journey are developed to show how my…

Sensitivity of Narrative Organization Measures Using Narrative Retells Produced by Young School-Age Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heilmann, John; Miller, Jon F.; Nockerts, Ann

2010-01-01

Analysis of children's productions of oral narratives provides a rich description of children's oral language skills. However, measures of narrative organization can be directly affected by both developmental and task-based performance constraints which can make a measure insensitive and inappropriate for a particular population and/or sampling…

Entertainment-Education Narrative versus Nonnarrative Interventions to Educate and Motivate Latinas to Engage in Mammography Screening

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Borrayo, Evelinn A.; Rosales, Monica; Gonzalez, Patricia

2017-01-01

Background: The evidence is limited comparing the effects of entertainment-education (E-E) narrative versus nonnarrative interventions to educate and motivate Latinas to engage in mammography screening. Aims: This study compared an E-E narrative intervention to two nonnarrative interventions' effects among Latinas on breast cancer knowledge and…

Classroom-Based Phonological Sensitivity Intervention (PSI) Using a Narrative Platform: An Experimental Study of First Graders at Risk for a Reading Disability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ritter, Michaela J.; Saxon, Terrill F.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of classroom-based phonological sensitivity intervention (PSI) using a narrative platform for children in first grade who are at risk for a reading disability. Participants consisted of 59 first graders identified as at risk for later reading impairments. At-risk designation was dictated by…

Oral Language and Narrative Skills in Children with Specific Language Impairment with and without Literacy Delay: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vandewalle, Ellen; Boets, Bart; Boons, Tinne; Ghesquiere, Pol; Zink, Inge

2012-01-01

This longitudinal study compared the development of oral language and more specifically narrative skills (storytelling and story retelling) in children with specific language impairment (SLI) with and without literacy delay. Therefore, 18 children with SLI and 18 matched controls with normal literacy were followed from the last year of…

Child language interventions in public health: a systematic literature review.

PubMed

De Cesaro, Bruna Campos; Gurgel, Léia Gonçalves; Nunes, Gabriela Pisoni Canedo; Reppold, Caroline Tozzi

2013-01-01

Systematically review the literature on interventions in children's language in primary health care. One searched the electronic databases (January 1980 to March 2013) MEDLINE (accessed by PubMed), Scopus, Lilacs and Scielo. The search terms used were "child language", "primary health care", "randomized controlled trial" and "intervention studies" (in English, Portuguese and Spanish). There were included any randomized controlled trials that addressed the issues child language and primary health care. The analysis was based on the type of language intervention conducted in primary health care. Seven studies were included and used intervention strategies such as interactive video, guidance for parents and group therapy. Individuals of both genders were included in the seven studies. The age of the children participant in the samples of the articles included in this review ranged from zero to 11 years. These seven studies used approaches that included only parents, parents and children or just children. The mainly intervention in language on primary health care, used in randomized controlled trials, involved the use of interactional video. Several professionals, beyond speech and language therapist, been inserted in the language interventions on primary health care, demonstrating the importance of interdisciplinary work. None of the articles mentioned aspects related to hearing. There was scarcity of randomized controlled trials that address on language and public health, either in Brazil or internationally.

A systematic narrative review of the effectiveness of behavioural smoking cessation interventions in selected disadvantaged groups (2010-2017).

PubMed

Wilson, Amanda; Guillaumier, Ashleigh; George, Johnson; Denham, Alexandra; Bonevski, Billie

2017-08-01

Tobacco remains the key modifiable risk factor for the development of a number of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, tuberculosis and cancer. Among priority populations, smoking prevalence remains high, smokers tend to relapse more often and earlier and fewer are able to sustain quit attempts. This systematic review provides an update on the literature. Areas covered: Twenty-four randomized controlled trials published from 2010-2017, in English language, were identified after searching on Medline, Ovid, Embase and PsycINFO databases. Studies reported on the effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions among six disadvantaged groups known to have high smoking rates: (i) homeless, (ii) prisoners, (iii) indigenous populations, (iv) at-risk youth, (v) people with low income, and (vi) those with a mental illness. Narrative review and assessment of methodological quality of included papers was undertaken. Expert commentary: There is a growing evidence base of methodologically robust studies evaluating a variety of behavioural smoking cessation interventions for priority populations. Multi-component interventions and those examining behavioural interventions incorporating mindfulness training, financial incentives, motivational interviewing and extended telephone-delivered counseling may be effective in the short-term, particularly for smokers on low incomes and people with a mental illness.

Language Learning as a Site for Belonging: A Narrative Analysis of Korean Adoptee-Returnees

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Higgins, Christina; Stoker, Kim

2011-01-01

Through analyzing narratives of Korean heritage language (HL) users, this article explores whether and to what degree these language users experience social inclusion and a sense of belonging in Korean society. We expand the field of HL research by investigating the experiences of four Korean-born, US-raised adoptee-returnees who currently reside…

Theory of Mind and Language of Mind in Narratives: Developmental Trends from Kindergarten to Primary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gamannossi, Beatrice Accorti; Pinto, Giuliana

2014-01-01

Narrative competence can be considered an indicator of children's knowledge about other people's minds. The present study investigates the relations between, on the one hand, children's narrative competence and their second order language of mind (comprehension of deception) and, on the other, their developmental trends from kindergarten to…

Friends interventions in psychosis: a narrative review and call to action.

PubMed

Harrop, Chris; Ellett, Lyn; Brand, Rachel; Lobban, Fiona

2015-08-01

To highlight the importance of friendships to young people with psychosis, and the need for clinical interventions to help maintain peer relationships during illness. To structure a research agenda for developing evidence-based interventions with friends. An argument is developed through a narrative review of (i) the proven efficacy of family interventions, and (by comparison) a relative absence of friend-based interventions; (ii) the particular primacy of friendships and dating for young people, and typical effects of exclusion; and (iii) reduced friendship networks and dating experiences in psychosis, in pre-, during and post-psychosis phases, also links between exclusion and psychosis. We put forward a model of how poor friendships can potentially be a causal and/or maintenance factor for psychotic symptoms. Given this model, our thesis is that interventions aiming to maintain social networks can be hugely beneficial clinically for young people with psychosis. We give a case study to show how such an intervention can work. We call for 'friends interventions' for young people with psychosis to be developed, where professionals directly work with a young person's authentic social group to support key friendships and maintain social continuity. An agenda for future research is presented that will develop and test theoretically driven interventions. © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Comparison of narrative and expository writing in students with and without language-learning disabilities.

PubMed

Koutsoftas, Anthony D; Gray, Shelley

2012-10-01

Students with language-learning disabilities (LLD) demonstrate difficulties with written language, especially in the areas of productivity, complexity, and grammar. It is not clear how these deficits affect their performance on high-stakes tests, such as those required by the No Child Left Behind Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). This study used writing samples to compare how students with and without LLD scored on analytic writing measures that are typically used in writing research and on a more holistic measure of writing, the six-traits writing rubric (STWR; Education Northwest, 2006), which is used in high-stakes writing assessments. Fifty-six 4th and 5th graders with typical development (TD) or LLD produced 1 narrative and 1 expository writing sample. Measures of oral language ability and handwriting accuracy-speed were also obtained. The narrative and expository samples were scored using 5-6 separate analytic measures and 6 separate traits on the STWR. On narratives, the TD group scored significantly higher than the LLD group on 5 analytic measures and all 6 traits. Similarly, for expository, the TD group outscored the LLD group on 3 analytic measures and all 6 traits. Results demonstrate that the analytic scores of productivity, sentence complexity, and lexical diversity were correlated significantly with a higher overall score on the STWR for narrative writing samples only. Results of this study suggest that exclusive use of analytic scores to select treatment goals and document writing progress may not translate into increased scores on writing rubrics, particularly for expository writing samples.

The Promotion of Well-Being in Aging Individuals Living in Nursing Homes: A Controlled Pilot Intervention with Narrative Strategies.

PubMed

Cesetti, Giulia; Vescovelli, Francesca; Ruini, Chiara

2017-01-01

The study aimed: (1) to compare levels of well-being and distress in older adults living in nursing homes with those living in community; and (2) to test the feasibility of a positive narrative intervention for improving well-being versus a control art-and-craft intervention in a nursing home setting. Sixty older adults participated in the study (M = 77.37; SD = 5.00), Male = 20 (33.3%). In Study 1, 30 adults living in nursing homes were compared with 30 community-dwellers using the following measures: Satisfaction with Life Scale, Psychological Well-being Scale, Social Well-being Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale, and sleep quality. In Study 2, the same 30 adults living in nursing homes were allocated to a positive narrative intervention group (N = 20) or to a control group (N = 10) and assessed at post-intervention. In Study 1, older adults in nursing homes presented more depression and impairments in well-being, compared to community-dwellers. In Study 2, at post-treatment, individuals assigned to the narrative intervention reported significantly increased well-being and sleep quality. Although preliminary, results showed that older adults living in nursing homes are more vulnerable than community-dwellers. These patients experienced improvement when given a short group positive narrative intervention applicable in nursing homes. A brief group intervention based on fairy tales yielded improvements in well-being and sleep quality in nursing home residents, who enjoyed and appreciated its content. These promising results need to be confirmed by future randomized controlled trials.

Mental States and Activities in Danish Narratives: Children with Autism and Children with Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth; Christensen, Rikke Vang

2017-01-01

This study focuses on the relationship between content elements and mental-state language in narratives from twenty-seven children with autism (ASD), twelve children with language impairment (LI), and thirty typically developing children (TD). The groups did not differ on chronological age (10;6-14;0) and non-verbal cognitive skills, and the…

Spanish-Language Consumer Health Information Technology Interventions: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Chaet, Alexis V; Morshedi, Bijan; Wells, Kristen J; Barnes, Laura E

2016-01-01

Background As consumer health information technology (IT) becomes more thoroughly integrated into patient care, it is critical that these tools are appropriate for the diverse patient populations whom they are intended to serve. Cultural differences associated with ethnicity are one aspect of diversity that may play a role in user-technology interactions. Objective Our aim was to evaluate the current scope of consumer health IT interventions targeted to the US Spanish-speaking Latino population and to characterize these interventions in terms of technological attributes, health domains, cultural tailoring, and evaluation metrics. Methods A narrative synthesis was conducted of existing Spanish-language consumer health IT interventions indexed within health and computer science databases. Database searches were limited to English-language articles published between January 1990 and September 2015. Studies were included if they detailed an assessment of a patient-centered electronic technology intervention targeting health within the US Spanish-speaking Latino population. Included studies were required to have a majority Latino population sample. The following were extracted from articles: first author’s last name, publication year, population characteristics, journal domain, health domain, technology platform and functionality, available languages of intervention, US region, cultural tailoring, intervention delivery location, study design, and evaluation metrics. Results We included 42 studies in the review. Most of the studies were published between 2009 and 2015 and had a majority percentage of female study participants. The mean age of participants ranged from 15 to 68. Interventions most commonly focused on urban population centers and within the western region of the United States. Of articles specifying a technology domain, computer was found to be most common; however, a fairly even distribution across all technologies was noted. Cancer, diabetes, and child

Spanish-Language Consumer Health Information Technology Interventions: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Chaet, Alexis V; Morshedi, Bijan; Wells, Kristen J; Barnes, Laura E; Valdez, Rupa

2016-08-10

As consumer health information technology (IT) becomes more thoroughly integrated into patient care, it is critical that these tools are appropriate for the diverse patient populations whom they are intended to serve. Cultural differences associated with ethnicity are one aspect of diversity that may play a role in user-technology interactions. Our aim was to evaluate the current scope of consumer health IT interventions targeted to the US Spanish-speaking Latino population and to characterize these interventions in terms of technological attributes, health domains, cultural tailoring, and evaluation metrics. A narrative synthesis was conducted of existing Spanish-language consumer health IT interventions indexed within health and computer science databases. Database searches were limited to English-language articles published between January 1990 and September 2015. Studies were included if they detailed an assessment of a patient-centered electronic technology intervention targeting health within the US Spanish-speaking Latino population. Included studies were required to have a majority Latino population sample. The following were extracted from articles: first author's last name, publication year, population characteristics, journal domain, health domain, technology platform and functionality, available languages of intervention, US region, cultural tailoring, intervention delivery location, study design, and evaluation metrics. We included 42 studies in the review. Most of the studies were published between 2009 and 2015 and had a majority percentage of female study participants. The mean age of participants ranged from 15 to 68. Interventions most commonly focused on urban population centers and within the western region of the United States. Of articles specifying a technology domain, computer was found to be most common; however, a fairly even distribution across all technologies was noted. Cancer, diabetes, and child, infant, or maternal health were the

Dynamic Assessment of School-Age Children’s Narrative Ability

PubMed Central

Peña, Elizabeth D.; Gillam, Ronald B.; Malek, Melynn; Ruiz-Felter, Roxanna; Resendiz, Maria; Fiestas, Christine; Sabel, Tracy

2008-01-01

Two experiments examined reliability and classification accuracy of a narration-based dynamic assessment task. Purpose The first experiment evaluated whether parallel results were obtained from stories created in response to 2 different wordless picture books. If so, the tasks and measures would be appropriate for assessing pretest and posttest change within a dynamic assessment format. The second experiment evaluated the extent to which children with language impairments performed differently than typically developing controls on dynamic assessment of narrative language. Method In the first experiment, 58 1st- and 2nd-grade children told 2 stories about wordless picture books. Stories were rated on macrostructural and microstructural aspects of language form and content, and the ratings were subjected to reliability analyses. In the second experiment, 71 children participated in dynamic assessment. There were 3 phases: a pretest phase, in which children created a story that corresponded to 1 of the wordless picture books from Experiment 1; a teaching phase, in which children attended 2 short mediation sessions that focused on storytelling ability; and a posttest phase, in which children created a story that corresponded to a second wordless picture book from Experiment 1. Analyses compared the pretest and posttest stories that were told by 2 groups of children who received mediated learning (typical and language impaired groups) and a no-treatment control group of typically developing children from Experiment 1. Results The results of the first experiment indicated that the narrative measures applied to stories about 2 different wordless picture books had good internal consistency. In Experiment 2, typically developing children who received mediated learning demonstrated a greater amount of pretest to posttest change than children in the language impaired and control groups. Classification analysis indicated better specificity and sensitivity values for measures

Referencing in a Second Language: Korean EFL Learners' Cohesive Use of References in Written Narrative Discourse

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kang, Jennifer Yusun

2009-01-01

This study examined Korean English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' ability to establish textual cohesion in English through appropriate selection of reference forms and reference management strategies in their written narrative discourse. It employed both quantitative and qualitative analysis to explore how the language-specific reference…

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Two Syntactic Treatment Procedures with Cantonese-Speaking, School-Age Children with Language Disorders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

To, Carol K. S.; Lui, Hoi Ming; Li, Xin Xin; Lam, Gary Y. H

2015-01-01

Purpose: In this study, we aimed to evaluate the efficacy of sentence-combining (SC) and narrative-based (NAR) intervention approaches to syntax intervention using a randomized-controlled-trial design. Method: Fifty-two Cantonese-speaking, school-age children with language impairment were assigned randomly to either the SC or the NAR treatment…

CDC Kerala 7: Effect of early language intervention among children 0-3 y with speech and language delay.

PubMed

Nair, M K C; Mini, A O; Leena, M L; George, Babu; Harikumaran Nair, G S; Bhaskaran, Deepa; Russell, Paul Swamidhas Sudhakar

2014-12-01

To assess the effect of systematic clinic and home based early language intervention program in children reporting to the early language intervention clinic with full partnership of specially trained developmental therapist and the parents. All babies between 0 and 3 y referred to Child Development Centre (CDC) Kerala for suspected speech/language delay were assessed and those without hearing impairment were screened first using Language Evaluation Scale Trivandrum (LEST) and assessed in detail using Receptive Expressive Emergent Language Scale (REELS). Those having language delay are enrolled into the early language intervention program for a period of 6 mo, 1 h at the CDC clinic once every month followed by home stimulation for rest of the month by the mother trained at CDC. Out of the total 455 children between 0 and 3 y, who successfully completed 6 mo intervention, the mean pre and post intervention language quotient (LQ) were 60.79 and 70.62 respectively and the observed 9.83 increase was statistically significant. The developmental diagnosis included developmental delay (62.4%), global developmental delay (18.5%), Trisomy and other chromosomal abnormalities (10.5%), microcephaly and other brain problems (9.9%), misarticulation (8.4%), autistic features (5.3%) and cleft palate and lip (3.3%) in the descending order. In the present study among 455 children between 0 and 3 y without hearing impairment, who successfully completed 6 mo early language intervention, the mean pre and post intervention LQ were 60.79 and 70.62 respectively and the observed 9.83 increase was statistically significant.

Narrative competence in Spanish-speaking adults with Williams syndrome.

PubMed

Diez-Itza, Eliseo; Martínez, Verónica; Antón, Aránzazu

2016-08-01

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder associated with intellectual disability and characterised by displaying an atypical neuropsychological profile, with peaks and valleys, where language skills seem better preserved than non-verbal intelligence. This study researches the narrative competence of nine Spanish-speaking adults with WS. Oral narratives were elicited from a silent film, and narrative coherence was analysed as a function of sequential order of the events narrated at three structure levels, while narrative cohesion was assessed through the frequency of use and type of discourse markers. WS subjects were able to remember a significant proportion of the events from the film, but coherence of narratives, i.e., sequential order of events, was more impaired. Consistently with their linguistic abilities, cohesion of narratives was better preserved, as they used discourse markers to introduce a high proportion of events. Construction of mental models of the narratives may be constrained in WS by non-verbal cognitive abilities, but narrative competence is also determined by textual pragmatic abilities to organize discourse, which should be addressed by specific intervention in narrative competence.

Language, discourse and the chronotope: applying literary theory to the narratives in health care.

PubMed

Harden, J

2000-03-01

Language, discourse and the chronotope: applying literary theory to the narratives in health care One of the most significant developments in nursing has been the recognition of the power of the narrative approach. Narrative knowing has evolved from both the patient and the nurse experience. In the case of the individual, it can be told through case history (clinical) and life story (theory-building). The life story of the individual as a patient represents him or her to the nurse and is in turn responded to through appropriate care. Alternatively, the life story of the individual as research participant represents him or her to the researcher and is in turn responded to through appropriate interpretation. The value of the narrative is that the 'otherness' of the teller/writer can be regarded by the listener/reader. There resides a major tension, however, whether in theory building or the practice setting: meaning What this paper argues, is that the emphasis placed on the subject to provide an authentic story of their life is misguided, whether in the care setting or in interpretive research. My contention is that we need to develop a less naive understanding of the complexities of the language with which the individual speaks. This can be achieved by adopting post-structural analyses of the spoken or written word, from both the originator's and recipient's experiences. By reconceptualizing such narratives as 'autobiographies' it is possible to borrow from the field of literary criticism a tool known as chronotopic analysis to perform this task.

Language Use in Kindergarten Science Lessons: Language Production and Academic Language during a Video Feedback Coaching Intervention in Kindergarten Science Lessons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Menninga, Astrid; van Dijk, Marijn; Wetzels, Annemie; Steenbeek, Henderien; van Geert, Paul

2017-01-01

This paper aims to gain insight into language production and academic language of 4- and 5-year-old students and their teachers in the course of a teacher intervention during kindergarten science education. The study is based on videotaped classroom observations, and specifically focuses on the academic language use of students (N[subscript…

Supporting Children with Communication Difficulties in Inclusive Settings: School-Based Language Intervention.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCormick, Linda; And Others

Preparing language interventionists and special education teachers to work with colleagues and families on collaborative teams in public school settings, this book provides basic procedures for intervention for all children with language and communication difficulties, with hands-on activities to give students practice in applying the procedures.…

The Differential Effect of Three Naturalistic Language Interventions on Language Use in Children with Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ingersoll, Brooke

2011-01-01

Naturalistic interventions show promise for improving language in children with autism. Specific interventions differ in direct elicitation of child language and indirect language stimulation, and thus may produce different language outcomes. This study compared the effects of responsive interaction, milieu teaching, and a combined intervention on…

The Role of Socioeconomic Status in the Narrative Story Retells of School-Aged English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alt, Mary; Arizmendi, Genesis D.; DiLallo, Jennifer N.

2016-01-01

Purpose: We examined the relationship between maternal level of education as an index of socioeconomic status (SES) on the narrative story retells of school-aged children who are English language learners (ELLs) to guide interpretation of results. Method: Using data available from the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts database (Miller…

Narratives of Second Language Identity amongst Young English Learners in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Besser, Sharon; Chik, Alice

2014-01-01

This article reports on an exploratory study responding to the problem of understanding how young learners position themselves as speakers of a foreign language. A group of 24 Hong Kong primary-school children (ages 10-12) who are in the process of simultaneously learning English and developing narratives of identities as English speakers,…

Syntactic and Story Structure Complexity in the Narratives of High- and Low-Language Ability Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

PubMed Central

Peristeri, Eleni; Andreou, Maria; Tsimpli, Ianthi M.

2017-01-01

Although language impairment is commonly associated with the autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the Diagnostic Statistical Manual no longer includes language impairment as a necessary component of an ASD diagnosis (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). However, children with ASD and no comorbid intellectual disability struggle with some aspects of language whose precise nature is still outstanding. Narratives have been extensively used as a tool to examine lexical and syntactic abilities, as well as pragmatic skills in children with ASD. This study contributes to this literature by investigating the narrative skills of 30 Greek-speaking children with ASD and normal non-verbal IQ, 16 with language skills in the upper end of the normal range (ASD-HL), and 14 in the lower end of the normal range (ASD-LL). The control group consisted of 15 age-matched typically-developing (TD) children. Narrative performance was measured in terms of both microstructural and macrostructural properties. Microstructural properties included lexical and syntactic measures of complexity such as subordinate vs. coordinate clauses and types of subordinate clauses. Macrostructure was measured in terms of the diversity in the use of internal state terms (ISTs) and story structure complexity, i.e., children's ability to produce important units of information that involve the setting, characters, events, and outcomes of the story, as well as the characters' thoughts and feelings. The findings demonstrate that high language ability and syntactic complexity pattern together in ASD children's narrative performance and that language ability compensates for autistic children's pragmatic deficit associated with the production of Theory of Mind-related ISTs. Nevertheless, both groups of children with ASD (high and low language ability) scored lower than the TD controls in the production of Theory of Mind-unrelated ISTs, modifier clauses and story structure complexity. PMID:29209258

Syntactic and Story Structure Complexity in the Narratives of High- and Low-Language Ability Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

PubMed

Peristeri, Eleni; Andreou, Maria; Tsimpli, Ianthi M

2017-01-01

Although language impairment is commonly associated with the autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the Diagnostic Statistical Manual no longer includes language impairment as a necessary component of an ASD diagnosis (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). However, children with ASD and no comorbid intellectual disability struggle with some aspects of language whose precise nature is still outstanding. Narratives have been extensively used as a tool to examine lexical and syntactic abilities, as well as pragmatic skills in children with ASD. This study contributes to this literature by investigating the narrative skills of 30 Greek-speaking children with ASD and normal non-verbal IQ, 16 with language skills in the upper end of the normal range (ASD-HL), and 14 in the lower end of the normal range (ASD-LL). The control group consisted of 15 age-matched typically-developing (TD) children. Narrative performance was measured in terms of both microstructural and macrostructural properties. Microstructural properties included lexical and syntactic measures of complexity such as subordinate vs. coordinate clauses and types of subordinate clauses. Macrostructure was measured in terms of the diversity in the use of internal state terms (ISTs) and story structure complexity, i.e., children's ability to produce important units of information that involve the setting, characters, events, and outcomes of the story, as well as the characters' thoughts and feelings. The findings demonstrate that high language ability and syntactic complexity pattern together in ASD children's narrative performance and that language ability compensates for autistic children's pragmatic deficit associated with the production of Theory of Mind-related ISTs. Nevertheless, both groups of children with ASD (high and low language ability) scored lower than the TD controls in the production of Theory of Mind-unrelated ISTs, modifier clauses and story structure complexity.

Integrating Language, Pragmatics, and Social Intervention in a Single-Subject Case Study of a Child With a Developmental Social Communication Disorder.

PubMed

Adams, Catherine; Gaile, Jacqueline; Lockton, Elaine; Freed, Jenny

2015-10-01

This clinical focus article presents an illustration of a complex communication intervention, the Social Communication Intervention Programme (SCIP), as delivered to a child who has a social communication disorder (SCD). The SCIP intervention combined language processing and pragmatic and social understanding therapies in a program of individualized therapy activities and in close liaison with families. The study used an enhanced AB single-subject design in which an 8-year-old child with an SCD participated in 20 therapy sessions with a specialist speech-language pathologist. A procedure of matching assessment findings to intervention choices was followed to construct an individualized treatment program. Examples of intervention content and the embedded structure of SCIP are illustrated. Observational and formal measurements of receptive and expressive language, conversation, and parent-teacher ratings of social communication were completed before therapy, after therapy, and at a 6-month follow-up session. Outcomes revealed change in total and receptive language scores but not in expressive language. Conversation showed marked improvement in responsiveness, appreciation of listener knowledge, turn taking, and adaptation of discourse style. Teacher-reported outcomes included improved classroom behavior and enhanced literacy skills. Parent-reported outcomes included improved verbal interactions with family members and personal narratives. This clinical focus article demonstrates the complexity of needs in a child with an SCD and how these can be addressed in individualized intervention. Findings are discussed in relation to the essential nature of language support including pragmatic therapy for children with SCDs. Discussion of the role of formal and functional outcome measurement as well as the proximity of chosen outcomes to the intervention is included.

Narrative and Expository Writing of Adolescents with Language-Learning Disabilities: A Pilot Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hall-Mills, Shannon; Apel, Kenn

2013-01-01

We evaluated the narrative and expository writing samples of 12 adolescents with language-learning disabilities (LLD) in Grades 6 to 12 for elements of microstructure (e.g., productivity, grammatical complexity) and macrostructure (genre-specific text structure elements) using an experimental measure. Writing samples were elicited with…

Theorizing Foreshadowed Death Narratives: Examining the Impact of Character Death on Narrative Processing and Skin Self-Exam Intentions

PubMed Central

JENSEN, JAKOB D.; YALE, ROBERT N.; KRAKOW, MELINDA; JOHN, KEVIN K.; KING, ANDY J.

2017-01-01

Narratives are common in health campaigns and interventions, with many depicting individuals battling a particular illness or disease. Past research has focused primarily on the form and effects of survivor stories, but considerably less attention has been devoted to stories in which 1 or more of the central characters passes away. The goal of the current study was to compare the relative persuasive impact of survivor and death narratives in influencing skin prevention behaviors and to test narrative mediators that might explicate underlying mechanisms of effect. To that end, adults (N = 635, M age = 32.43 [SD = 11.23]) were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 narrative intervention conditions in an online message experiment. Participants read 1 of 2 stories about a person with melanoma (Rusty or Diane) that was manipulated as a narrative depicting the survival, death, or foreshadowed death of the main character. Foreshadowed death narratives increased intentions to perform a skin self-exam (SSE), a relationship that was mediated by narrative transportation and perceived SSE benefits. The results support the central postulate of narrative transportation theory and the utility of using foreshadowed death narratives in communication-based interventions designed to increase SSE frequency. PMID:28060585

Writing Process Products in Intermediate-Grade Children With and Without Language-Based Learning Disabilities.

PubMed

Koutsoftas, Anthony D

2016-12-01

Difficulties with written expression are an important consideration in the assessment and treatment of school-age children. This study evaluated how intermediate-grade children with and without written language difficulties fared on a writing task housed within the Hayes and Berninger (2014) writing process framework. Sixty-four children completed a writing task whereby they planned, wrote, and revised a narrative story across 3 days. Children had extended time to produce an outline, first draft, and final copy of their story. Language transcription approaches were used to obtain measures reflecting writing productivity, complexity, accuracy, and mechanics, in addition to measures of planning and revision. Results indicated that children with writing difficulties produced poorer quality stories compared with their peers yet were not significantly different across all measures. Children with typical development produced longer stories with better spelling accuracy. Writing process measures predicted significant amounts of variance in writing quality across the sample. Writing should be considered as part of language assessment and intervention, whether as the sole language difficulty or alongside difficulties with speaking, listening, or reading in children with language-based learning difficulties. Implications for translation of research to practice and service delivery are provided.

Dynamic Assessment of Narratives: Efficient, Accurate Identification of Language Impairment in Bilingual Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Petersen, Douglas B.; Chanthongthip, Helen; Ukrainetz, Teresa A.; Spencer, Trina D.; Steeve, Roger W.

2017-01-01

Purpose: This study investigated the classification accuracy of a concentrated English narrative dynamic assessment (DA) for identifying language impairment (LI). Method: Forty-two Spanish-English bilingual kindergarten to third-grade children (10 LI and 32 with no LI) were administered two 25-min DA test-teach-test sessions. Pre- and posttest…

Reflections of Diverse Voices: A Narrative Study Exploring the Relationship between Multicultural Dual Language Experiences and Cultural Competence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tinsley, Helen M.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this qualitative, narrative inquiry was to explore and analyze the narrative stories of native English speaking adults who matriculated through a multicultural, dual language program from prekindergarten to 6th grade to understand the influence of the program on their lives, and the relationship between those experiences and their…

Interventions to Improve Suboptimal Prescribing in Nursing Homes: A Narrative Review

PubMed Central

Marcum, Zachary A.; Handler, Steven M.; Wright, Rollin; Hanlon, Joseph T.

2010-01-01

Background Appropriate medication prescribing for nursing home residents remains a challenge. Objective The purpose of this study was to conduct a narrative review of the published literature describing randomized controlled trials that used interventions to improve suboptimal prescribing in nursing homes. Methods The PubMed, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, and EMBASE databases were searched for articles published in the English language between January 1975 and December 2009, using the terms drug utilization, pharmaceutical services, aged, long-term care, nursing homes, prescribing, geriatrics, and randomized controlled trial. A manual search of the reference lists of identified articles and the authors’ files, book chapters, and recent review articles was also conducted. Abstracts and posters from meetings were not included in the search. Studies were included if they: (1) had a randomized controlled design; (2) had a process measure outcome for quality of prescribing or a distal outcome measure for medication-related adverse patient events; and (3) involved nursing home residents. Results Eighteen studies met the inclusion criteria for this review. Seven of those studies described educational approaches using various interventions (eg, outreach visits) and measured suboptimal prescribing in different manners (eg, adherence to guidelines). Two studies described computerized decision-support systems to measure the intervention’s impact on adverse drug events (ADEs) and appropriate drug orders. Five studies described clinical pharmacist activities, most commonly involving a medication review, and used various measures of suboptimal prescribing, including a measure of medication appropriateness and the total number of medications prescribed. Two studies each described multidisciplinary and multifaceted approaches that included heterogeneous interventions and measures of prescribing. Most (15/18; 83.3%) of these studies reported statistically significant

The Efficacy of a Vocabulary Intervention for Dual-Language Learners with Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Restrepo, Maria Adelaida; Morgan, Gareth P.; Thompson, Marilyn S.

2013-01-01

Purpose: In this study, the authors evaluated the efficacy of a Spanish-English versus English-only vocabulary intervention for dual-language learners (DLLs) with language impairment compared to mathematics intervention groups and typically developing controls with no intervention. Further, in this study the authors also examined whether the…

Kindergarten Impacts of a Preschool Language-Focused Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johanson, Megan; Justice, Laura M.; Logan, Jessica

2016-01-01

Many preschool language-focused interventions attempt to boost language and literacy skills in young children at risk in these areas of development, though the long-term effects of such interventions are not well-established. This study investigated kindergarten language and reading skills, specifically the subcomponents of vocabulary, decoding,…

Kindergarten Impacts of a Preschool Language Focused-Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johanson, Megan; Justice, Laura M.; Logan, Jessica

2016-01-01

Many preschool language-focused interventions attempt to boost language and literacy skills in young children at risk in these areas of development, though the long-term effects of such interventions are not well-established. This study investigated kindergarten language and reading skills, specifically the subcomponents of vocabulary, decoding,…

Linguistic and pragmatic aspects of narration in Finnish typically developing children and children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Mäkinen, Leena; Loukusa, Soile; Laukkanen, Päivi; Leinonen, Eeva; Kunnari, Sari

2014-06-01

This study investigates narratives of Finnish children with specific language impairment (SLI) from linguistic and pragmatic perspectives, in order to get a comprehensive overview of these children's narrative abilities. Nineteen children with SLI (mean age 6;1 years) and 19 typically developing age-matched children participated in the study. Their picture-elicited narrations were analysed for linguistic productivity and complexity, grammatical and referential accuracy, event content, the use of mental state expressions and narrative comprehension. Children with SLI showed difficulties in every aspect of narration in comparison to their peers. Only one measure of productivity, the number of communication units, did not reach statistical significance. Not only was linguistic structure fragile but also pragmatic aspects of storytelling (referencing, event content, mental state expressions and inferencing) were demanding for children with SLI. Results suggest that pragmatic aspects of narration should be taken into account more often when assessing narrative abilities of children with SLI.

Young Readers' Narratives Based on a Picture Book: Model Readers and Empirical Readers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoel, Trude

2015-01-01

The article present parts of a research project where the aim is to investigate six- to seven-year-old children's language use in storytelling. The children's oral texts are based on the wordless picture book "Frog, Where Are You?" Which has been, and still remains, a frequent tool for collecting narratives from children. The Frog story…

Theorizing Foreshadowed Death Narratives: Examining the Impact of Character Death on Narrative Processing and Skin Self-Exam Intentions.

PubMed

Jensen, Jakob D; Yale, Robert N; Krakow, Melinda; John, Kevin K; King, Andy J

2017-01-01

Narratives are common in health campaigns and interventions, with many depicting individuals battling a particular illness or disease. Past research has focused primarily on the form and effects of survivor stories, but considerably less attention has been devoted to stories in which 1 or more of the central characters passes away. The goal of the current study was to compare the relative persuasive impact of survivor and death narratives in influencing skin prevention behaviors and to test narrative mediators that might explicate underlying mechanisms of effect. To that end, adults (N = 635, M age = 32.43 [SD = 11.23]) were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 narrative intervention conditions in an online message experiment. Participants read 1 of 2 stories about a person with melanoma (Rusty or Diane) that was manipulated as a narrative depicting the survival, death, or foreshadowed death of the main character. Foreshadowed death narratives increased intentions to perform a skin self-exam (SSE), a relationship that was mediated by narrative transportation and perceived SSE benefits. The results support the central postulate of narrative transportation theory and the utility of using foreshadowed death narratives in communication-based interventions designed to increase SSE frequency.

Evidence of Intercultural Communication Competence in Tenth Grader's Narrative Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guerrero Moya, María Eulalia; Muñoz Ortiz, Liliana; Niño Díaz, Ana María

2016-01-01

This action research study explored the effects of an intervention linking both culture and citizenship in a tenth-grade English language class, and aimed at finding evidence of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) skills through the writing of narrative texts in English. Participants were 75 tenth-grade students, between the ages of 14…

Re-interpreting: Narratives of childhood language brokering over time.

PubMed

Orellana, Marjorie Faulstich; Phoenix, Ann

2017-05-01

This article probes how childhood experiences are actively taken into adult lives and thus challenges the unwitting and unintentional reproduction of an adult-child binary in childhood studies. We do this by analyzing interviews with one adult daughter of immigrants from Mexico to the United States at four points in time (ages 19, 26, 27, and 33). Using narrative analysis to examine the mutability of memory, we consider how Eva oriented herself to her childhood story, what was salient and invisible in each recount, the values she associated with the practice, and the meanings she took from her experiences. We show how Eva re-interpreted her experiences as an immigrant child language broker in relation to unfolding life events, showing her childhood to be very much alive in her adult life. Language brokering serves as one way in which to examine the interpenetration of childhood into adulthood, rather than being the focus per se.

Re-interpreting: Narratives of childhood language brokering over time

PubMed Central

Orellana, Marjorie Faulstich; Phoenix, Ann

2016-01-01

This article probes how childhood experiences are actively taken into adult lives and thus challenges the unwitting and unintentional reproduction of an adult–child binary in childhood studies. We do this by analyzing interviews with one adult daughter of immigrants from Mexico to the United States at four points in time (ages 19, 26, 27, and 33). Using narrative analysis to examine the mutability of memory, we consider how Eva oriented herself to her childhood story, what was salient and invisible in each recount, the values she associated with the practice, and the meanings she took from her experiences. We show how Eva re-interpreted her experiences as an immigrant child language broker in relation to unfolding life events, showing her childhood to be very much alive in her adult life. Language brokering serves as one way in which to examine the interpenetration of childhood into adulthood, rather than being the focus per se. PMID:28503031

A Quantitative Analysis of Language Interventions for Children with Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kane, Meghan; Connell, James E.; Pellecchia, Melanie

2010-01-01

Research and services continue to expand to community-based programs serving individuals diagnosed with autism. A focus of great interest in those efforts is that of language acquisition and functional usage. For the purpose of this evaluation, language acquisition interventions are grouped into two broad categories, contrived and naturalistic.…

Storytelling/narrative theory to address health communication with minority populations.

PubMed

Lee, Haeok; Fawcett, Jacqueline; DeMarco, Rosanna

2016-05-01

To explain the development and application of storytelling/narrative theory in health disparities intervention research as a way to promote health communication and behavior change among racial, ethnic, and minority populations. The proposed storytelling theory helps explain that storytelling affects changes in attitude and health behavior of the viewer through realism, identification, and transportation. The proposed storytelling/narrative theory can be a guide to develop culturally grounded narrative interventions that have the ability to connect with hard-to-reach populations. Narrative communication is context-dependent because it derives meaning from the surrounding situation and provides situation-based stories that are a pathway to processing story content. Although storytelling is grounded in nursing practice and education, it is underutilized in nursing interventional research. Future efforts are needed to extend theory-based narrative intervention studies designed to change attitude and behaviors that will reduce health disparities among minorities. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Acceptability, Language, and Structure of Text Message-Based Behavioral Interventions for High-Risk Adolescent Females: A Qualitative Study

PubMed Central

Ranney, Megan L.; Choo, Esther K.; Cunningham, Rebecca M.; Spirito, Anthony; Thorsen, Margaret; Mello, Michael J.; Morrow, Kathleen

2014-01-01

Purpose To elucidate key elements surrounding acceptability/feasibility, language, and structure of a text message-based preventive intervention for high-risk adolescent females. Methods We recruited high-risk 13- to 17-year-old females screening positive for past-year peer violence and depressive symptoms, during emergency department visits for any chief complaint. Participants completed semistructured interviews exploring preferences around text message preventive interventions. Interviews were conducted by trained interviewers, audio-recorded, and transcribed verbatim. A coding structure was iteratively developed using thematic and content analysis. Each transcript was double coded. NVivo 10 was used to facilitate analysis. Results Saturation was reached after 20 interviews (mean age 15.4; 55% white; 40% Hispanic; 85% with cell phone access). (1) Acceptability/feasibility themes: A text-message intervention was felt to support and enhance existing coping strategies. Participants had a few concerns about privacy and cost. Peer endorsement may increase uptake. (2) Language themes: Messages should be simple and positive. Tone should be conversational but not slang filled. (3) Structural themes: Messages may be automated but must be individually tailored on a daily basis. Both predetermined (automatic) and as-needed messages are requested. Dose and timing of content should be varied according to participants’ needs. Multimedia may be helpful but is not necessary. Conclusions High-risk adolescent females seeking emergency department care are enthusiastic about a text message-based preventive intervention. Incorporating thematic results on language and structure can inform development of future text messaging interventions for adolescent girls. Concerns about cost and privacy may be able to be addressed through the process of recruitment and introduction to the intervention. PMID:24559973

Colby's Growth to Language and Literacy: The Achievements of a Child Who Is Congenitally Deafblind

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bruce, Susan; Randall, Amy; Birge, Barbara

2008-01-01

This article tells the story of how Colby, a young boy who is congenitally deafblind, developed language and literacy. Narrative is coupled with video to illustrate how the following four instructional approaches and interventions supported his development: (1) daily schedule, (2) home-school journal, (3) experiential based literacy, and (4)…

Improving understanding of clinical trial procedures among low literacy populations: an intervention within a microbicide trial in Malawi

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background The intervention reported in this paper was a follow up to an empirical study conducted in Malawi with the aim of assessing trial participants’ understanding of randomisation, double-blinding and placebo use. In the empirical study, the majority of respondents (61.1%; n=124) obtained low scores (lower than 75%) on understanding of all three concepts under study. Based on these findings, an intervention based on a narrative which included all three concepts and their personal implications was designed. The narrative used daily examples from the field of Agriculture because Malawi has an agro-based economy. Methods The intervention was tested using a sample of 36 women who had been identified as low scorers during the empirical study. The 36 low scorers were randomly assigned to control (n=18) and intervention arms (n=18). The control arm went through a session in which they were provided with standard informed consent information for the microbicide trial. The intervention arm went through a session in which they were provided with a narrative in ChiChewa, the local language, with the assistance of a power point presentation which included pictures as well as discussions on justification and personal implications of the concepts under study. Results The findings on the efficacy of the intervention suggest that the 3 scientific concepts and their personal implications can be understood by low literacy populations using simple language and everyday local examples. The findings also suggest that the intervention positively impacted on understanding of trial procedures under study, as 13 of the 18 women in the intervention arm, obtained high scores (above 75%) during the post intervention assessment and none of the 18 in the control arm obtained a high score. Using Fischer’s exact test, it was confirmed that the effect of the intervention on understanding of the three procedures was statistically significant (p=0.0001). Conclusions Potential trial

Parents' and Speech and Language Therapists' Explanatory Models of Language Development, Language Delay and Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marshall, Julie; Goldbart, Juliet; Phillips, Julie

2007-01-01

Background: Parental and speech and language therapist (SLT) explanatory models may affect engagement with speech and language therapy, but there has been dearth of research in this area. This study investigated parents' and SLTs' views about language development, delay and intervention in pre-school children with language delay. Aims: The aims…

Written cohesion in children with and without language learning disabilities.

PubMed

Koutsoftas, Anthony D; Petersen, Victoria

2017-09-01

Cohesion refers to the linguistic elements of discourse that contribute to its continuity and is an important element to consider as part of written language intervention, especially in children with language learning disabilities (LLD). There is substantial evidence that children with LLD perform more poorly than typically developing (TD) peers on measures of cohesion in spoken language and on written transcription measures; however, there is far less research comparing groups on cohesion as a measure of written language across genres. The current study addresses this gap through the following two aims. First, to describe and compare cohesion in narrative and expository writing samples of children with and without language learning disabilities. Second, to relate measures of cohesion to written transcription and translation measures, oral language, and writing quality. Fifty intermediate-grade children produced one narrative and one expository writing sample from which measures of written cohesion were obtained. These included the frequency, adequacy and complexity of referential and conjunctive ties. Expository samples resulted in more complex cohesive ties and children with TD used more complex ties than peers with LLD. Different relationships among cohesion measures and writing were observed for narrative verse expository samples. Findings from this study demonstrate cohesion as a discourse-level measure of written transcription and how the use of cohesion can vary by genre and group (LLD, TD). Clinical implications for assessment, intervention, and future research are provided. © 2016 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

A Study of the Use of Narratives in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Young Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fojkar, Mateja Dagarin; Skela, Janez; Kovac, Pija

2013-01-01

The article reports the findings of a survey, conducted among primary school English language teachers in Slovenia, aimed at revealing their attitudes towards the use of narratives in teaching English as a foreign language to children aged from eight to nine years (3rd and 4th grades respectively). The research results show that most teachers use…

Written Narrative Characteristics in Adults with Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Suddarth, Rachael; Plante, Elena; Vance, Rebecca

2012-01-01

Purpose: Adults with language-based disabilities are known to have deficits in oral language; however, less is known about their written language skills. Two studies were designed to characterize the writing of adults with language-based disabilities. Method: In Study 1, 60 adults, 30 with language impairment and 30 with typical language,…

A systematic review of pragmatic language interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder

PubMed Central

Cordier, Reinie; Munro, Natalie; Joosten, Annette; Speyer, Renée

2017-01-01

There is a need for evidence based interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to limit the life-long, psychosocial impact of pragmatic language impairments. This systematic review identified 22 studies reporting on 20 pragmatic language interventions for children with ASD aged 0–18 years. The characteristics of each study, components of the interventions, and the methodological quality of each study were reviewed. Meta-analysis was conducted to assess the effectiveness of 15 interventions. Results revealed some promising approaches, indicating that active inclusion of the child and parent in the intervention was a significant mediator of intervention effect. Participant age, therapy setting or modality were not significant mediators between the interventions and measures of pragmatic language. The long-term effects of these interventions and the generalisation of learning to new contexts is largely unknown. Implications for clinical practice and directions for future research are discussed. PMID:28426832

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Two Syntactic Treatment Procedures With Cantonese-Speaking, School-Age Children With Language Disorders.

PubMed

To, Carol K S; Lui, Hoi Ming; Li, Xin Xin; Lam, Gary Y H

2015-08-01

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the efficacy of sentence-combining (SC) and narrative-based (NAR) intervention approaches to syntax intervention using a randomized-controlled-trial design. Fifty-two Cantonese-speaking, school-age children with language impairment were assigned randomly to either the SC or the NAR treatment arm. Seven children did not receive treatment as assigned. Intervention in both arms targeted the same complex syntactical structures. The SC group focused on sentence combination training, whereas the NAR group made use of narratives in which the target structures were embedded. Pretest and posttest performances measured using a standardized language assessment were subjected to analyses of covariance mixed-effect-model analyses of variance. Children in both treatment arms demonstrated significant growth after 4 months of intervention. The main effect between treatment arms and time was not significant after controlling the pretest performance, suggesting that both treatment approaches showed similar effects. The main effect of time was significant. This study provided evidence to support language intervention in the school years in Cantonese-speaking children. However, neither approach was shown to be more efficacious than the other. Future researchers could examine the effects of a longer treatment period and include functional outcome measures.

The pragmatic language, communication skills, parent-child relationships, and symptoms of children with ADHD and their playmates 18-months after a parent-delivered play-based intervention.

PubMed

Wilkes-Gillan, Sarah; Cantrill, Alycia; Parsons, Lauren; Smith, Cally; Cordier, Reinie

2017-07-01

This study examined the communication skills, pragmatic language, parent-child relationships, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms of children with ADHD and their playmates 18-months after a pilot parent-delivered intervention for improving social play skills and pragmatic language. Participants were five children with ADHD, their parents, and five typically-developing playmates. Outcomes were measured immediately post and 18-months following the intervention. Parent-rated norm-based assessments and an observational measure were used. Differences within and between the ADHD and playmate groups were examined. Children maintained all skills gained 18-months following the intervention. Compared to a normative sample, children with ADHD remained below the average range on aspects of communication skills, parent-child relationships, and ADHD symptom levels 18-months following intervention. After intervention, children with ADHD still experienced pragmatic language skills below those of their peers on norm-based assessments that measure their skills across contexts. School-based interventions are needed to facilitate ongoing skill development and generalization.

Natural Language Processing Techniques for Extracting and Categorizing Finding Measurements in Narrative Radiology Reports.

PubMed

Sevenster, M; Buurman, J; Liu, P; Peters, J F; Chang, P J

2015-01-01

Accumulating quantitative outcome parameters may contribute to constructing a healthcare organization in which outcomes of clinical procedures are reproducible and predictable. In imaging studies, measurements are the principal category of quantitative para meters. The purpose of this work is to develop and evaluate two natural language processing engines that extract finding and organ measurements from narrative radiology reports and to categorize extracted measurements by their "temporality". The measurement extraction engine is developed as a set of regular expressions. The engine was evaluated against a manually created ground truth. Automated categorization of measurement temporality is defined as a machine learning problem. A ground truth was manually developed based on a corpus of radiology reports. A maximum entropy model was created using features that characterize the measurement itself and its narrative context. The model was evaluated in a ten-fold cross validation protocol. The measurement extraction engine has precision 0.994 and recall 0.991. Accuracy of the measurement classification engine is 0.960. The work contributes to machine understanding of radiology reports and may find application in software applications that process medical data.

Employing mobile technology to improve language skills of young students with language-based disabilities.

PubMed

Rodríguez, Cathi Draper; Cumming, Therese M

2017-01-01

This exploratory study investigated the effects of a language building iPad application on the language skills (i.e., receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, and sentence formation) of young students with language-based disabilities. The study utilized a pre-test-post-test control group design. Students in the treatment group used the iPad language building application, Language Builder, for 30 minutes a day. Participants were 31 first-grade to third-grade students with identified language-based disabilities. Students were assigned to two groups for the 8-week intervention. Data indicated that students in the treatment group made significantly greater gains in the area of sentence formation than the control group. Results revealed no significant difference between the two groups in the areas of expressive and receptive vocabulary. A short intervention of using Language Builder via the iPad may increase the sentence formation skills of young students with language delays. Additionally, discussion regarding the usefulness of iPad applications in education is presented.

Direct and Mediated Effects of Language and Cognitive Skills on Comprehension or Oral Narrative Texts (Listening Comprehension) for Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Young-Suk Grace

2016-01-01

We investigated component language and cognitive skills of oral language comprehension of narrative texts (i.e., listening comprehension). Using the construction--integration model of text comprehension as an overarching theoretical framework, we examined direct and mediated relations of foundational cognitive skills (working memory and…

Game-based interventions and their impact on dementia: a narrative review.

PubMed

Zheng, Jiaying; Chen, Xueping; Yu, Ping

2017-12-01

The aim of this review was to examine the efficacy of game-based interventions for people with dementia. Seven studies that met the inclusion criteria were found in four databases. Their interventions and key findings were analysed and synthesised. Game-based interventions for people with dementia are showing promise for improving cognition, coordination and behavioural and psychological symptoms. The generalisability of the findings is limited by weak methodology and small sample size. Game-based interventions can improve cognition, coordination and behavioural and psychological symptoms for people with dementia. Future research should include methodological improvement and practice guideline development.

Replication in Second Language Research: Narrative and Systematic Reviews and Recommendations for the Field

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marsden, Emma; Morgan-Short, Kara; Thompson, Sophie; Abugaber, David

2018-01-01

Despite its critical role for the development of the field, little is known about replication in second language (L2) research. To better understand replication practice, we first provide a narrative review of challenges related to replication, drawing on recent developments in psychology. This discussion frames and motivates a systematic review,…

Content and Form in the Narratives of Children with Specific Language Impairment

PubMed Central

Colozzo, Paola; Gillam, Ronald B.; Wood, Megan; Schnell, Rebecca D.; Johnston, Judith R.

2013-01-01

Purpose: This project investigated the relationship of content and form in the narratives of school-age children. Method: Two samples of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their age-matched peers (British Columbia sample, M age 9;0, n = 26; Texas/Kansas sample, M age 7;6, n = 40) completed the Test of Narrative Language (TNL, Gillam & Pearson, 2004). The relative strength of content elaboration and grammatical accuracy was measured for each child using variables derived from the TNL scoring system (Study 1) and from analysis of the story texts (Study 2). Results: Both studies indicated that, compared to age peers, the children with SLI were more likely to produce stories of uneven strength, either stories with poor content that were grammatically quite accurate, or stories with elaborated content that were less grammatical. Conclusions: These findings suggest that school-age children with SLI may struggle with the cumulative load of creating a story that is both elaborate and grammatical. They also show that the absence of errors is not necessarily a sign of strength. Finally, they underscore the value of comparing individual differences in multiple linguistic domains, including the elaboration of content, grammatical accuracy, and syntactic complexity. PMID:21930617

Storybooks aren't just for fun: narrative and non-narrative picture books foster equal amounts of generic language during mother-toddler book sharing

PubMed Central

Nyhout, Angela; O'Neill, Daniela K.

2014-01-01

Parents and children encounter a variety of animals and objects in the early picture books they share, but little is known about how the context in which these entities are presented influences talk about them. The present study investigated how the presence or absence of a visual narrative context influences mothers' tendency to refer to animals as individual characters or as members of a kind when sharing picture books with their toddlers (mean age 21.3 months). Mother-child dyads shared both a narrative and a non-narrative book, each featuring six animals and matched in terms of length and quantity of text. Mothers made more specific (individual-referring) statements about animals in the narrative books, whereas they provided more labels for animals in the non-narrative books. But, of most interest, the frequency and proportion of mothers' use of generic (kind-referring) utterances did not differ across the two different types of books. Further coding of the content of the utterances revealed that mothers provided more story-specific descriptions of states and actions of the animals when sharing narrative books and more physical descriptions of animals when sharing non-narrative books. However, the two books did not differ in terms of their elicitation of natural facts about the animals. Overall, although the two types of books encouraged different types of talk from mothers, they stimulated generic language and talk about natural facts to an equal degree. Implications for learning from picture storybooks and book genre selection in classrooms and home reading are discussed. PMID:24795675

Storybooks aren't just for fun: narrative and non-narrative picture books foster equal amounts of generic language during mother-toddler book sharing.

PubMed

Nyhout, Angela; O'Neill, Daniela K

2014-01-01

Parents and children encounter a variety of animals and objects in the early picture books they share, but little is known about how the context in which these entities are presented influences talk about them. The present study investigated how the presence or absence of a visual narrative context influences mothers' tendency to refer to animals as individual characters or as members of a kind when sharing picture books with their toddlers (mean age 21.3 months). Mother-child dyads shared both a narrative and a non-narrative book, each featuring six animals and matched in terms of length and quantity of text. Mothers made more specific (individual-referring) statements about animals in the narrative books, whereas they provided more labels for animals in the non-narrative books. But, of most interest, the frequency and proportion of mothers' use of generic (kind-referring) utterances did not differ across the two different types of books. Further coding of the content of the utterances revealed that mothers provided more story-specific descriptions of states and actions of the animals when sharing narrative books and more physical descriptions of animals when sharing non-narrative books. However, the two books did not differ in terms of their elicitation of natural facts about the animals. Overall, although the two types of books encouraged different types of talk from mothers, they stimulated generic language and talk about natural facts to an equal degree. Implications for learning from picture storybooks and book genre selection in classrooms and home reading are discussed.

Drama and Imagination: A Cognitive Theory of Drama's Effect on Narrative Comprehension and Narrative Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mages, Wendy K.

2006-01-01

This article proposes a cognitive theory of how drama affects two aspects of language development: narrative comprehension and narrative production. It is a theoretical model that explicitly posits the role of the imagination in drama's potential to enhance the development of both narrative comprehension and narrative production. (Contains 2…

Living Social: How to Use Social Narratives as a Behavior Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Julie P.; Love, Sarah

2013-01-01

Peer-related social competencies can have a major impact on classroom success. While some students can learn these social competencies through observation and imitation of others, other students require intensive intervention in social skills to be able to interact appropriately with others. This article presents social narratives as a behavioral…

More STELLA Narratives.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doecke, Brenton

2001-01-01

Presents six brief (about one page) narratives by primary and secondary teachers arising from STELLA (Standards for Teachers of English Language and Literacy in Australia) workshops and interpretive discussions. Notes that each narrative describes a moment of "good" English/literacy teaching. (SG)

"Frog, Where Are You?" Narratives in Children with Specific Language Impairment, Early Focal Brain Injury, and Williams Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reilly, Judy; Losh, Molly; Bellugi, Ursula; Wulfeck, Beverly

2004-01-01

In this cross-population study, we use narratives as a context to investigate language development in children from 4 to 12 years of age from three experimental groups: children with early unilateral focal brain damage (FL; N=52); children with specific language impairment (SLI; N=44); children with Williams syndrome (WMS; N=36), and typically…

Assessment and Intervention for English Language Learners with Primary Language Impairment: Research-Based Best Practices

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pieretti, Robert A.; Roseberry-McKibbin, Celeste

2016-01-01

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are experiencing the exciting challenge of serving increasing numbers of English Language Learners (ELLs) in U.S. schools. When ELLs struggle in school, they may be overreferred for speech-language services. SLPs are routinely expected to differentiate a language difference based on cultural, linguistic, and…

Effectiveness of a Parent-Implemented Language and Literacy Intervention in the Home Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ijalba, Elizabeth

2015-01-01

Few studies explore parent-implemented literacy interventions in the home language for young children with problems in language acquisition. A shift in children's use of the home language to English has been documented when English is the only language of instruction. When parents are not proficient in English, such language shift can limit…

Autobiographical Narration as a Tool for the Empowerment of Older Adults' Subjective and Psychological Wellbeing in Nursing Homes.

PubMed

Biassoni, Federica; Cassina, Giada; Balzarotti, Stefania

2017-09-20

Conceiving narration as a resource to promote older people's wellbeing, the present work aimed to implement a narrative-based intervention to empower the subjective and psychological wellbeing of older adults living in nursing homes. Twenty-one nursing-home residents took part in a narrative training experience consisting of three weekly interview sessions. During each interview, a psychologist helped the participants to construct an autobiographical narrative about their present life in the nursing home based on a Deconstruction-Reconstruction technique. Subjective and psychological wellbeing variables were assessed before and after the intervention. Subjective but not psychological wellbeing increased over the course of the intervention. The participants reported to appreciate the intervention. Although preliminary, the results suggest that brief narrative training based on narrative therapy can positively affect nursing-home residents' subjective wellbeing. Brief narrative interventions implementing deconstruction-reconstruction techniques are feasible for long-term care residents.

Early augmented language intervention for children with developmental delays: potential secondary motor outcomes.

PubMed

Whitmore, Ani S; Romski, Mary Ann; Sevcik, Rose A

2014-09-01

This exploratory study examined the potential secondary outcome of an early augmented language intervention that incorporates speech-generating devices (SGD) on motor skill use for children with developmental delays. The data presented are from a longitudinal study by Romski and colleagues. Toddlers in the augmented language interventions were either required (Augmented Communication-Output; AC-O) or not required (Augmented Communication-Input; AC-I) to use the SGD to produce an augmented word. Three standardized assessments and five event-based coding schemes measured the participants' language abilities and motor skills. Toddlers in the AC-O intervention used more developmentally appropriate motor movements and became more accurate when using the SGD to communicate than toddlers in the AC-I intervention. AAC strategies, interventionist/parent support, motor learning opportunities, and physical feedback may all contribute to this secondary benefit of AAC interventions that use devices.

The Impact of Reading Intervention on Brain Responses Underlying Language in Children With Autism.

PubMed

Murdaugh, Donna L; Deshpande, Hrishikesh D; Kana, Rajesh K

2016-01-01

Deficits in language comprehension have been widely reported in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with behavioral and neuroimaging studies finding increased reliance on visuospatial processing to aid in language comprehension. However, no study to date, has taken advantage of this strength in visuospatial processing to improve language comprehension difficulties in ASD. This study used a translational neuroimaging approach to test the role of a visual imagery-based reading intervention in improving the brain circuitry underlying language processing in children with ASD. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in a longitudinal study design, was used to investigate intervention-related change in sentence comprehension, brain activation, and functional connectivity in three groups of participants (age 8-13 years): an experimental group of ASD children (ASD-EXP), a wait-list control group of ASD children (ASD-WLC), and a group of typically developing control children. After intervention, the ASD-EXP group showed significant increase in activity in visual and language areas and right-hemisphere language area homologues, putamen, and thalamus, suggestive of compensatory routes to increase proficiency in reading comprehension. Additionally, ASD children who had the most improvement in reading comprehension after intervention showed greater functional connectivity between left-hemisphere language areas, the middle temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus while reading high imagery sentences. Thus, the findings of this study, which support the principles of dual coding theory [Paivio 2007], suggest the potential of a strength-based reading intervention in changing brain responses and facilitating better reading comprehension in ASD children. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Toddler-Parent Playgroups: Empowering Parents in Language Intervention.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haas, Julie; Popowicz, Louanne

In an attempt to provide a model of language intervention tailored to toddler needs, this poster session gives an overview of a playgroup program implemented by a speech-language pathologist and an early intervention specialist. The program's aim is to improve communicative abilities while maintaining the integrity of the child-caregiver…

Non-Native English Varieties: Thainess in English Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singhasak, Piyahathai; Methitham, Phongsakorn

2016-01-01

This study aims at examining Thainess as a writing strategy used in non-literary texts written by non-professional bilingual writers. These writers are advanced language learners who are pursuing their Master's degree in English. Seven English narratives of their language learning experiences were analyzed based on Kachruvian's framework of…

Dynamic assessment of school-age children's narrative ability: an experimental investigation of classification accuracy.

PubMed

Peña, Elizabeth D; Gillam, Ronald B; Malek, Melynn; Ruiz-Felter, Roxanna; Resendiz, Maria; Fiestas, Christine; Sabel, Tracy

2006-10-01

Two experiments examined reliability and classification accuracy of a narration-based dynamic assessment task. The first experiment evaluated whether parallel results were obtained from stories created in response to 2 different wordless picture books. If so, the tasks and measures would be appropriate for assessing pretest and posttest change within a dynamic assessment format. The second experiment evaluated the extent to which children with language impairments performed differently than typically developing controls on dynamic assessment of narrative language. In the first experiment, 58 1st- and 2nd-grade children told 2 stories about wordless picture books. Stories were rated on macrostructural and microstructural aspects of language form and content, and the ratings were subjected to reliability analyses. In the second experiment, 71 children participated in dynamic assessment. There were 3 phases: a pretest phase, in which children created a story that corresponded to 1 of the wordless picture books from Experiment 1; a teaching phase, in which children attended 2 short mediation sessions that focused on storytelling ability; and a posttest phase, in which children created a story that corresponded to a second wordless picture book from Experiment 1. Analyses compared the pretest and posttest stories that were told by 2 groups of children who received mediated learning (typical and language impaired groups) and a no-treatment control group of typically developing children from Experiment 1. The results of the first experiment indicated that the narrative measures applied to stories about 2 different wordless picture books had good internal consistency. In Experiment 2, typically developing children who received mediated learning demonstrated a greater amount of pretest to posttest change than children in the language impaired and control groups. Classification analysis indicated better specificity and sensitivity values for measures of response to

Quantifying narrative ability in autism spectrum disorder: a computational linguistic analysis of narrative coherence.

PubMed

Losh, Molly; Gordon, Peter C

2014-12-01

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by serious difficulties with the social use of language, along with impaired social functioning and ritualistic/repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association in Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5, 5th edn. American Psychiatric Association, Arlington, 2013). While substantial heterogeneity exists in symptom expression, impairments in language discourse skills, including narrative (or storytelling), are universally observed in autism (Tager-Flusberg et al. in Handbook on autism and pervasive developmental disorders, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, pp 335-364, 2005). This study applied a computational linguistic tool, Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), to objectively characterize narrative performance in high-functioning individuals with autism and typically-developing controls, across two different narrative contexts that differ in the interpersonal and cognitive demands placed on the narrator. Results indicated that high-functioning individuals with autism produced narratives comparable in semantic content to those produced by controls when narrating from a picture book, but produced narratives diminished in semantic quality in a more demanding narrative recall task. This pattern is similar to that detected from analyses of hand-coded picture book narratives in prior research, and extends findings to an additional narrative context that proves particularly challenging for individuals with autism. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of LSA as a quantitative, objective, and efficient measure of narrative ability.

The brain injury case management taxonomy (BICM-T); a classification of community-based case management interventions for a common language.

PubMed

Lukersmith, Sue; Fernandez, Ana; Millington, Michael; Salvador-Carulla, Luis

2016-04-01

Case management is a complex intervention. Complexity arises from the interaction of different components: the model (theoretical basis), implementation context (service), population and health condition, focus for the intervention (client and/or their family), case manager's actions (interventions) and the target of case management (integrated care and support, client's community participation). There is a lack of understanding and a common language. To our knowledge there is no classification (taxonomy) for community-based case management. To develop a community-based case management in brain injury taxonomy (BICM-T), as a common language and understanding of case management for use in quality analysis, policy, planning and practice. The mixed qualitative methods used multiple sources of knowledge including scoping, framing and a nominal group technique to iteratively develop the Beta version (draft) of the taxonomy. A two part developmental evaluation involving case studies and mapping to international frameworks assessed the applicability and acceptability (feasibility) before finalization of the BICM-T. The BICM-T includes a definition of community-based case management, taxonomy trees, tables and a glossary. The interventions domain tree has 9 main actions (parent category): engagement, holistic assessment, planning, education, training and skills development, emotional and motivational support, advising, coordination, monitoring; 17 linked actions (children category); 8 related actions; 63 relevant terms defined in the glossary. The BICM-T provides a knowledge map with the definitions and relationships between the core actions (interventions domain). Use of the taxonomy as a common language will benefit practice, quality analysis, evaluation, policy, planning and resource allocation. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Parenting a child with autism in India: narratives before and after a parent-child intervention program.

PubMed

Brezis, Rachel S; Weisner, Thomas S; Daley, Tamara C; Singhal, Nidhi; Barua, Merry; Chollera, Shreya P

2015-06-01

In many low and middle income countries where autism-related resources are scarce, interventions must rely on family and parents. A 3-month Parent-Child Training Program (PCTP) at Action For Autism, New Delhi, India is aimed at empowering and educating parents, encouraging acceptance of their child, and decreasing parent stress. Forty couples were asked to describe their child with autism using the Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS), an open-ended narrative method, before and after the program. Parents described a wide range of child behaviors, primarily social and cognitive skills. While all families were of a relatively affluent strata compared to the general Indian population, there were nonetheless significant differences in parents' narratives based on their income levels. Coming into the program, parents with relatively less income focused on their child's immediate and material needs, while higher income parents discussed their parental roles and vision for society. After the PCTP, parents were more likely to reflect on their child beyond comparisons to 'normality,' and beyond the here-and-now. Mothers were more likely than fathers to reflect on themselves and their relationships with their child. Understanding parents' experiences and narratives is essential for the evaluation of interventions such as the PCTP, as Indian parents are incorporated into a growing global network of 'parents of children with autism.'

Indirect language therapy for children with persistent language impairment in mainstream primary schools: outcomes from a cohort intervention.

PubMed

McCartney, Elspeth; Boyle, James; Ellis, Sue; Bannatyne, Susan; Turnbull, Mary

2011-01-01

A manualized language therapy developed via a randomized controlled trial had proved efficacious in the short-term in developing expressive language for mainstream primary school children with persistent language impairment. This therapy had been delivered to a predetermined schedule by speech and language therapists or speech and language therapy assistants to children individually or in groups. However, this model of service delivery is no longer the most common model in UK schools, where indirect consultancy approaches with intervention delivered by school staff are often used. A cohort study was undertaken to investigate whether the therapy was equally efficacious when delivered to comparable children by school staff, rather than speech and language therapists or speech and language therapy assistants. Children in the cohort study were selected using the same criteria as in the randomized controlled trial, and the same manualized therapy was used, but delivered by mainstream school staff using a consultancy model common in the UK. Outcomes were compared with those of randomized controlled trial participants. The gains in expressive language measured in the randomized controlled trial were not replicated in the cohort study. Less language-learning activity was recorded than had been planned, and less than was delivered in the randomized controlled trial. Implications for 'consultancy' speech and language therapist service delivery models in mainstream schools are outlined. At present, the more efficacious therapy is that delivered by speech and language therapists or speech and language therapy assistants to children individually or in groups. This may be related to more faithful adherence to the interventions schedule, and to a probably greater amount of language-learning activity undertaken. Intervention delivered via school-based 'consultancy' approaches in schools will require to be carefully monitored by schools and SLT services. © 2010 Royal College of

Narratives and Accounts: "Post-Crisis" Narration in Annual Company Reports

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winchester, Jules; Williams, Simon

2014-01-01

This paper aims to provide Business English and EAP practitioners with a rationale for including the analysis of narrative elements in business addresses in their language teaching in order to encourage critical thinking in learners. By studying these elements, and the rhetorical function of the narrative in particular, students can become more…

Management Approaches to Stomal and Peristomal Complications: A Narrative Descriptive Study.

PubMed

Beitz, Janice M; Colwell, Janice C

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to identify optimal interventions for selected complications based on WOC nurse experts' judgment/expertise. A cross-sectional quantitative descriptive design with qualitative, narrative-type components was used for this study. Following validation rating of appropriateness of interventions and quantitative rankings of first-, second-, and third-line approaches, participants provided substantive handwritten narrative comments about listed interventions. Comments were organized and prioritized using frequency count. Narrative comments reflected the quantitative rankings of efficacy of approaches. Clinicians offered further specific suggestions regarding product use and progression of care for selected complications. Narrative analysis using descriptive quantitative frequency count supported the rankings of most preferred treatments of selected stomal and peristomal complications. Findings add to the previous research on prioritized approaches and evidence-based practice in ostomy care.

Narrative Learning, EAL and Metacognitive Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cortazzi, Martin; Jin, Lixian

2007-01-01

This paper elaborates some aspects of narrative learning--defined here as learning to tell stories and learning from, about and through narratives--in the context of primary-age pupils who use English as an Additional Language (EAL). The paper introduces some principles to support their language development in classroom interaction. We argue that…

Educational interventions in peritoneal dialysis: a narrative review of the literature.

PubMed

Schaepe, Christiane; Bergjan, Manuela

2015-04-01

To review the current literature on educational interventions used in peritoneal dialysis (PD). Educational interventions have become increasingly relevant because they play a key role in helping individuals to actively participate in their therapy and to manage their chronic condition. The paper will focus on two areas: (a) educational interventions for individuals living with PD and (b) educational interventions for PD nurses. A narrative review of primary research. Electronic searches of the MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, ERIC and Cochrane Library (2006-2013) databases were undertaken using terms such as peritoneal dialysis, insertive training, curriculum, nursing education, train the trainer, coach the coach, tutor the tutor, and patient education were used. All studies were reviewed by two researchers. Titles and abstracts of 555 studies were screened and read. Full text articles retrieved were further screened against the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Relevant data on the educational interventions for people receiving PD and nurse training programs were extracted and synthesized narratively. Eighteen articles met the inclusion criteria. Most of them focused on educational intervention programs for people undergoing PD. Findings on the link between the PD trainer's background and peritonitis rates among individuals undergoing PD are inconsistent. PD learners should be taught self-management skills as well as technical skills. They might also benefit from receiving decision-making aids. Older people, people with co-morbidities and people with low educational status need more time to acquire self-care skills and are more likely to develop peritonitis. Home visits have the potential to improve learning outcomes. Re-training needs should be assessed and fulfilled as appropriate. Case and disease management programs have been shown to have positive outcomes for individuals receiving PD. Educational interventions for PD remain an under-researched area, despite the

Narrative Language in Traumatic Brain Injury

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marini, Andrea; Galetto, Valentina; Zampieri, Elisa; Vorano, Lorenza; Zettin, Marina; Carlomagno, Sergio

2011-01-01

Persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often show impaired linguistic and/or narrative abilities. The present study aimed to document the features of narrative discourse impairment in a group of adults with TBI. 14 severe TBI non-aphasic speakers (GCS less than 8) in the phase of neurological stability and 14 neurologically intact participants…

Mind What Teachers Say: Kindergarten Teachers' Use of Mental State Language during Picture Story Narration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Misailidi, Plousia; Papoudi, Despina; Brouzos, Andreas

2013-01-01

The study focuses on the mental state language kindergarten teachers use when narrating picture stories. The aims were to examine (a) individual differences in the frequency with which kindergarten teachers use mental state terms, (b) the types of mental state terms (e.g., emotion, desire, belief terms) teachers use most frequently, and (c) the…

Labels, identity and narratives in children with primary speech and language impairments.

PubMed

Lyons, Rena; Roulstone, Sue

2017-10-01

There has been debate about labels in relation to speech and language impairments. However, children's views are missing from this debate, which is risky considering that labels with negative associations may result in stigma. The aim of this study was to explore the range of identities which children with primary speech and language impairments presented in their narratives and to investigate their evaluations of these identities with a view to understanding the values they attach to labels. Eleven children aged 9-12 years with primary speech and language impairments were recruited to the study. Fifty nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with the aim of generating storied accounts of everyday experiences. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Two themes were identified in the data: desired identities and undesired identities. The findings suggest that the children were actively involved in identity construction and wanted to be seen in positive ways. They disliked labels assigned by others, which they considered portrayed them in negative ways. The debate about labels could be progressed by consulting with children themselves asking for their ideas in relation to labels in specialist education, and speech and language pathology.

Magical Thinking in Narratives of Adolescent Cutters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gregory, Robert J.; Mustata, Georgian T.

2012-01-01

Adolescents sometimes cut themselves to relieve distress; however, the mechanism is unknown. Previous studies have linked self-injury to deficits in processing emotions symbolically through language. To investigate expressive language of adolescent cutters, the authors analyzed 100 narratives posted on the Internet. Most narratives (n = 66)…

What makes online substance-use interventions engaging? A systematic review and narrative synthesis

PubMed Central

Milward, Joanna; Drummond, Colin; Fincham-Campbell, Stephanie; Deluca, Paolo

2018-01-01

Background Online substance-use interventions are effective in producing reductions in harmful-use. However, low user engagement rates with online interventions reduces overall effectiveness of interventions. Identifying optimal strategies with which to engage users with online substance-use interventions may improve usage rates and subsequent effectiveness. Objectives (1) To identify the most prevalent engagement promoting strategies utilised to increase use of online substance-use interventions. (2) To determine whether the identified engagement promoting strategies increased said use of online substance-use interventions. Review methods The reviewed followed Cochrane methodology. Databases were searched for online substance-use interventions and engagement promoting strategies limited by study type (randomised controlled trial). Due to heterogeneity between engagement promoting strategies and engagement outcomes, meta-analytic techniques were not possible. Narrative synthesis methods were used. Results Fifteen studies were included. Five different engagement promoting strategies were identified: (1) tailoring; (2) delivery strategies; (3) incentives; (4) reminders; (5) social support. The most frequently reported engagement promoting strategies was tailoring (47% of studies), followed by reminders and social support (40% of studies) and delivery strategies (33% of studies). The narrative synthesis demonstrated that tailoring, multimedia delivery of content and reminders are potential techniques for promoting engagement. The evidence for social support was inconclusive and negative for incentives. Conclusions This review was the first to examine engagement promoting strategies in solely online substance-use interventions. Three strategies were identified that may be integral in promoting engagement with online substance-use interventions. However, the small number of eligible extracted studies, inconsistent reporting of engagement outcomes and diversity of

The applicability of normalisation process theory to speech and language therapy: a review of qualitative research on a speech and language intervention.

PubMed

James, Deborah M

2011-08-12

The Bercow review found a high level of public dissatisfaction with speech and language services for children. Children with speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN) often have chronic complex conditions that require provision from health, education, and community services. Speech and language therapists are a small group of Allied Health Professionals with a specialist skill-set that equips them to work with children with SLCN. They work within and across the diverse range of public service providers. The aim of this review was to explore the applicability of Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) to the case of speech and language therapy. A review of qualitative research on a successfully embedded speech and language therapy intervention was undertaken to test the applicability of NPT. The review focused on two of the collective action elements of NPT (relational integration and interaction workability) using all previously published qualitative data from both parents and practitioners' perspectives on the intervention. The synthesis of the data based on the Normalisation Process Model (NPM) uncovered strengths in the interpersonal processes between the practitioners and parents, and weaknesses in how the accountability of the intervention is distributed in the health system. The analysis based on the NPM uncovered interpersonal processes between the practitioners and parents that were likely to have given rise to successful implementation of the intervention. In previous qualitative research on this intervention where the Medical Research Council's guidance on developing a design for a complex intervention had been used as a framework, the interpersonal work within the intervention had emerged as a barrier to implementation of the intervention. It is suggested that the design of services for children and families needs to extend beyond the consideration of benefits and barriers to embrace the social processes that appear to afford success in embedding

New Evidence About Language and Cognitive Development Based on a Longitudinal Study: Hypotheses for Intervention

PubMed Central

Goldin-Meadow, Susan; Levine, Susan C.; Hedges, Larry V.; Huttenlocher, Janellen; Raudenbush, Stephen W.; Small, Steven L.

2014-01-01

We review findings from a four-year longitudinal study of language learning conducted on two samples: a sample of typically developing children whose parents vary substantially in socioeconomic status, and a sample of children with pre- or perinatal brain injury. This design enables us to study language development across a wide range of language learning environments and a wide range of language learners. We videotaped samples of children's and parents' speech and gestures during spontaneous interactions at home every four months, and then we transcribed and coded the tapes. We focused on two behaviors known to vary across individuals and environments—child gesture and parent speech—behaviors that have the potential to index, and perhaps even play a role in creating, differences across children in linguistic and other cognitive skills. Our observations have led to four hypotheses that have promise for the development of diagnostic tools and interventions to enhance language and cognitive development and brain plasticity after neonatal injury. One kind of hypothesis involves tools that could identify children who may be at risk for later language deficits. The other involves interventions that have the potential to promote language development. We present our four hypotheses as a summary of the findings from our study because there is scientific evidence behind them and because this evidence has the potential to be put to practical use in improving education. PMID:24911049

Narrative Skills of Children with Communication Impairments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Norbury, Courtenay Frazier; Bishop, Dorothy V. M.

2003-01-01

Background: Narrative assessment is sensitive to the communication impairments of children with specific language impairment and those with autistic spectrum disorders. Although both groups of children tend to show deficits in narrative, it is unclear whether these deficits are qualitatively different and how language and pragmatic ability may…

The Role of Inference Making and Other Language Skills in the Development of Narrative Listening Comprehension in 4-6-Year-Old Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lepola, Janne; Lynch, Julie; Laakkonen, Eero; Silven, Maarit; Niemi, Pekka

2012-01-01

In this two-year longitudinal study, we sought to examine the developmental relationships among early narrative listening comprehension and language skills (i.e., vocabulary knowledge, sentence memory, and phonological awareness) and the roles of these factors in predicting narrative listening comprehension at the age of 6 years. We also sought to…

Bilingual Baby: Foreign Language Intervention in Madrid's Infant Education Centers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferjan Ramirez, Naja; Kuhl, Patricia

2017-01-01

The first years of life represent a unique window of opportunity for foreign language learning. However, key questions are: How much and what kind of foreign language exposure is needed to ignite learning? We conducted a foreign language (English) intervention in four public Infant Education Centers in Madrid, Spain. Intervention children (N =…

Selected weight management interventions for military populations in the United States: a narrative report.

PubMed

Murray, Jessica; Aboul-Enein, Basil H; Bernstein, Joshua; Kruk, Joanna

2017-06-01

Overweight and obesity continues to be a significant public health burden in the US and particularly among military personnel. Although the US Department of Defense mandates standardized physical activity requirements for military members, incidence and prevalence of overweight and obesity among military personnel continue to increase. Each military department controls their own interventional strategies for physical fitness and weight control. However, unique challenges such as geographic transients, lack of central standardization and empirical efficacy data across military departments, and chronic stress associated with military service adversely affect program outcomes. This brief narrative report explores overweight and obesity interventions among military populations from 2006 to 2016 and includes programmatic reviews of eight overweight and obesity interventions: The Prevention of Obesity in Military Community; Health Eating, Activity, and Lifestyle Training Headquarters (H.E.A.L.T.H); ArmyMOVE!; L.I.F.E.; Look AHEAD; Nutrition-focused Wellness Coaching; Go for Green; and LE3AN. A majority of these interventions did not report significant weight loss 6 months post intervention, and did not mention a theoretical foundation within the interventions. Further research to examine the importance of theory-based programming is warranted to improve process and outcome objectives.

Language and communication non-pharmacological interventions in patients with Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review. Communication intervention in Alzheimer

PubMed Central

Morello, Aline Nunes da Cruz; Lima, Tatiane Machado; Brandão, Lenisa

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Alzheimer's disease considerably compromises communication skills. Language changes become more prominent as the disease progresses. Deterioration of language and cognition reduces the ability of holding conversations, which has a negative impact on social interaction. OBJECTIVE: To conduct a systematic review of the literature for articles reporting interventions focused on the language and communication of people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) without use of medication. METHODS: We performed a search using the keywords Alzheimer's disease, language, communication, cognition, cognitive intervention, rehabilitation and therapy, and their corresponding Portuguese and Spanish terms, on the SciELO, LILACS, PubMed and PsychINFO databases. We analyzed intervention studies published from 1993 to 2016 that involved stimulation of language skills and/or communication with pre-and post-intervention quantitative results, and whose samples included at least 50% with a diagnosis of probable AD. Studies were analyzed and classified into four levels of evidence, according to the criteria described in the literature. RESULTS: Twenty-eight articles were included. The majority of the designs had medium-to-low scientific evidence. Most interventions showed benefits for at least one language or communicative skill. Eight types of interventions emerged from the analysis of the studies. Further research with higher levels of evidence is recommended in the investigation of interventions focused on language and communication skills of patients with dementia. CONCLUSION: Studies with high levels of evidence on the topic investigated are only being conducted on a small scale. Two intervention techniques seem potentially effective: lexical-semantic approaches and interventions that work with different cognitive skills (including language). PMID:29213519

Evaluating the effectiveness of PrepSTART for promoting oral language and emergent literacy skills in disadvantaged preparatory students.

PubMed

Lennox, Maria; Westerveld, Marleen F; Trembath, David

2018-04-01

This study examined the effectiveness of a classroom-based intervention programme aimed at improving the oral language and emergent literacy skills of students from low socio-economic, culturally diverse backgrounds within their first formal year of schooling ("prep"). Data from 137 students were available for analysis. Participants were from three primary schools located in Queensland, Australia. Eight classes were allocated to intervention and two classes acted as a business as usual control. All students received literacy instruction as per the Australian Curriculum. However, the intervention group received 24 weeks of scripted, classroom-based, book-based intervention targeting code- and meaning-related emergent literacy skills. All students were assessed individually pre- and post-intervention on code-related measures (i.e. letter identification and phonological awareness) and meaning-related measures (i.e. vocabulary, oral narrative comprehension and retell). All students made significant improvement over time for all measures. Students in the intervention group showed significantly more progress than the business as usual group on all measures, except for letter identification and oral narrative comprehension. This classroom-based book-based intervention can improve the code- and meaning-related emergent literacy skills of prep students from low socio-economic backgrounds and provide these students with the building blocks for successful literacy acquisition.

Parents' and speech and language therapists' explanatory models of language development, language delay and intervention.

PubMed

Marshall, Julie; Goldbart, Juliet; Phillips, Julie

2007-01-01

Parental and speech and language therapist (SLT) explanatory models may affect engagement with speech and language therapy, but there has been dearth of research in this area. This study investigated parents' and SLTs' views about language development, delay and intervention in pre-school children with language delay. The aims were to describe, explore and explain the thoughts, understandings, perceptions, beliefs, knowledge and feelings held by: a group of parents from East Manchester, UK, whose pre-school children had been referred with suspected language delay; and SLTs working in the same area, in relation to language development, language delay and language intervention. A total of 24 unstructured interviews were carried out: 15 with parents whose children had been referred for speech and language therapy and nine with SLTs who worked with pre-school children. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded using Atlas/ti. The data were analysed, subjected to respondent validation, and grounded theories and principled descriptions developed to explain and describe parents' and SLTs' beliefs and views. Parent and SLT data are presented separately. There are commonalities and differences between the parents and the SLTs. Both groups believe that language development and delay are influenced by both external and internal factors. Parents give more weight to the role of gender, imitation and personality and value television and videos, whereas the SLTs value the 'right environment' and listening skills and consider that health/disability and socio-economic factors are important. Parents see themselves as experts on their child and have varied ideas about the role of SLTs, which do not always accord with SLTs' views. The parents and SLTs differ in their views of the roles of imitation and play in intervention. Parents typically try strategies before seeing an SLT. These data suggest that parents' ideas vary and that, although parents and SLTs may share some

Pragmatics abilities in narrative production: a cross-disorder comparison.

PubMed

Norbury, Courtenay Frazier; Gemmell, Tracey; Paul, Rhea

2014-05-01

We aimed to disentangle contributions of socio-pragmatic and structural language deficits to narrative competence by comparing the narratives of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 25), non-autistic children with language impairments (LI; n = 23), and children with typical development (TD; n = 27). Groups were matched for age (6½ to 15 years; mean: 10;6) and non-verbal ability; ASD and TD groups were matched on standardized language scores. Despite distinct clinical presentation, children with ASD and LI produced similarly simple narratives that lacked semantic richness and omitted important story elements, when compared to TD peers. Pragmatic errors were common across groups. Within the LI group, pragmatic errors were negatively correlated with story macrostructure scores and with an index of semantic-pragmatic relevance. For the group with ASD, pragmatic errors consisted of comments that, though extraneous, did not detract from the gist of the narrative. These findings underline the importance of both language and socio-pragmatic skill for producing coherent, appropriate narratives.

Improving performance of natural language processing part-of-speech tagging on clinical narratives through domain adaptation.

PubMed

Ferraro, Jeffrey P; Daumé, Hal; Duvall, Scott L; Chapman, Wendy W; Harkema, Henk; Haug, Peter J

2013-01-01

Natural language processing (NLP) tasks are commonly decomposed into subtasks, chained together to form processing pipelines. The residual error produced in these subtasks propagates, adversely affecting the end objectives. Limited availability of annotated clinical data remains a barrier to reaching state-of-the-art operating characteristics using statistically based NLP tools in the clinical domain. Here we explore the unique linguistic constructions of clinical texts and demonstrate the loss in operating characteristics when out-of-the-box part-of-speech (POS) tagging tools are applied to the clinical domain. We test a domain adaptation approach integrating a novel lexical-generation probability rule used in a transformation-based learner to boost POS performance on clinical narratives. Two target corpora from independent healthcare institutions were constructed from high frequency clinical narratives. Four leading POS taggers with their out-of-the-box models trained from general English and biomedical abstracts were evaluated against these clinical corpora. A high performing domain adaptation method, Easy Adapt, was compared to our newly proposed method ClinAdapt. The evaluated POS taggers drop in accuracy by 8.5-15% when tested on clinical narratives. The highest performing tagger reports an accuracy of 88.6%. Domain adaptation with Easy Adapt reports accuracies of 88.3-91.0% on clinical texts. ClinAdapt reports 93.2-93.9%. ClinAdapt successfully boosts POS tagging performance through domain adaptation requiring a modest amount of annotated clinical data. Improving the performance of critical NLP subtasks is expected to reduce pipeline error propagation leading to better overall results on complex processing tasks.

Local Heroes, Narrative Worlds and the Imagination: The Making of a Moral Curriculum through Experiential Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conle, Carola; Boone, Michelle

2008-01-01

Concern about the impact of narrative worlds and their heroes offered by the media prompted research on encounters with moral models in experiential, narrative curricula. Researchers tracked the extension of a mandated Language Arts curriculum on "heroes" through the experiential narratives of four local heroes chosen collaboratively by teacher,…

Prevention of Mental Health Disorders Using Internet- and Mobile-Based Interventions: A Narrative Review and Recommendations for Future Research.

PubMed

Ebert, David Daniel; Cuijpers, Pim; Muñoz, Ricardo F; Baumeister, Harald

2017-01-01

Although psychological interventions might have a tremendous potential for the prevention of mental health disorders (MHD), their current impact on the reduction of disease burden is questionable. Possible reasons include that it is not practical to deliver those interventions to the community en masse due to limited health care resources and the limited availability of evidence-based interventions and clinicians in routine practice, especially in rural areas. Therefore, new approaches are needed to maximize the impact of psychological preventive interventions. Limitations of traditional prevention programs could potentially be overcome by providing Internet- and mobile-based interventions (IMIs). This relatively new medium for promoting mental health and preventing MHD introduces a fresh array of possibilities, including the provision of evidence-based psychological interventions that are free from the restraints of travel and time and allow reaching participants for whom traditional opportunities are not an option. This article provides an introduction to the subject and narratively reviews the available evidence for the effectiveness of IMIs with regard to the prevention of MHD onsets. The number of randomized controlled trials that have been conducted to date is very limited and so far it is not possible to draw definite conclusions about the potential of IMIs for the prevention of MHD for specific disorders. Only for the indicated prevention of depression there is consistent evidence across four different randomized trial trials. The only trial on the prevention of general anxiety did not result in positive findings in terms of eating disorders (EDs), effects were only found in post hoc subgroup analyses, indicating that it might be possible to prevent ED onset for subpopulations of people at risk of developing EDs. Future studies need to identify those subpopulations likely to profit from preventive. Disorders not examined so far include substance use

[Narrative-based medicine and clinical knowledge].

PubMed

Saito, Seiji

2006-01-01

Narrative Based Medicine (NBM) can be defined as follows; a) It views the patient's illness as an unfolding story within the wider story of the patient's life and life-world; b) It acknowledges the patient as the narrator of the story and the subject of the tale; c) It recognizes that all medical theories, hypothesis and pathophysiologies as socially constructed narratives and accepts the coexistence of multiple different narratives; d) It regards the emergence of new stories from dialogue and discourse between patients and healthcare professionals as part of the treatment. Because psychiatry is the only area of specialist medicine where talking and listening are explicitly understood to be therapeutic, NBM can be adopted an effective perspective and method in psychiatry.

Blending quantitative and qualitative methods in language research and intervention.

PubMed

Brinton, Bonnie; Fujiki, Martin

2003-05-01

Best practice in speech-language pathology should be informed by current research findings. Traditional research methods are not always geared to address some of the complex, individual questions that arise in clinical intervention, however. Qualitative research methods may provide useful tools for bridging the gap from research to practice. Combinations of qualitative and quantitative procedures may be particularly helpful in sorting out some of the important issues surrounding language intervention in both clinical and research contexts. Examples of research blending qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as the case study of Sid, an 11-year-old boy with specific language impairment, are presented to illustrate how a combination of procedures can be used to enhance language research and intervention.

Modeling biochemical transformation processes and information processing with Narrator.

PubMed

Mandel, Johannes J; Fuss, Hendrik; Palfreyman, Niall M; Dubitzky, Werner

2007-03-27

Software tools that model and simulate the dynamics of biological processes and systems are becoming increasingly important. Some of these tools offer sophisticated graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which greatly enhance their acceptance by users. Such GUIs are based on symbolic or graphical notations used to describe, interact and communicate the developed models. Typically, these graphical notations are geared towards conventional biochemical pathway diagrams. They permit the user to represent the transport and transformation of chemical species and to define inhibitory and stimulatory dependencies. A critical weakness of existing tools is their lack of supporting an integrative representation of transport, transformation as well as biological information processing. Narrator is a software tool facilitating the development and simulation of biological systems as Co-dependence models. The Co-dependence Methodology complements the representation of species transport and transformation together with an explicit mechanism to express biological information processing. Thus, Co-dependence models explicitly capture, for instance, signal processing structures and the influence of exogenous factors or events affecting certain parts of a biological system or process. This combined set of features provides the system biologist with a powerful tool to describe and explore the dynamics of life phenomena. Narrator's GUI is based on an expressive graphical notation which forms an integral part of the Co-dependence Methodology. Behind the user-friendly GUI, Narrator hides a flexible feature which makes it relatively easy to map models defined via the graphical notation to mathematical formalisms and languages such as ordinary differential equations, the Systems Biology Markup Language or Gillespie's direct method. This powerful feature facilitates reuse, interoperability and conceptual model development. Narrator is a flexible and intuitive systems biology tool. It is

Linking Serious Game Narratives with Pedagogical Theories and Pedagogical Design Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Troyer, Olga; Van Broeckhoven, Frederik; Vlieghe, Joachim

2017-01-01

Narrative-based serious games present pedagogical content and interventions through an interactive narrative. To ensure effective learning in such kind of serious games, designers are not only faced with the challenge of creating a compelling narrative, but also with the additional challenge of incorporating suitable pedagogical strategies.…

Systemic therapy and attachment narratives: Attachment Narrative Therapy.

PubMed

Dallos, Rudi; Vetere, Arlene

2014-10-01

This article outlines an integration of attachment theory with narrative theory and systemic theory and practice: Attachment Narrative Therapy (ANT). This integration offers a more powerful explanatory formulation of the development and maintenance of human distress in relationships, families and communities, and gives direction to psychotherapeutic intervention. © The Author(s) 2014.

Dynamic Assessment of Language Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Deirdre

2015-01-01

The paper reports a study of a narrative-based Dynamic Assessment (DA) procedure developed in the USA that is used in the UK with children with developmental language disabilities. Three monolingual English children with language disabilities are assessed by a speech/language pathologist/therapist who is learning to work with DA in collaboration…

Narrative-Based Interactive Learning Environments from Modelling Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yearwood, John; Stranieri, Andrew

2007-01-01

Narrative and story telling has a long history of use in structuring, organising and communicating human experience. This paper describes a narrative based interactive intelligent learning environment which aims to elucidate practical reasoning using interactive emergent narratives that can be used in training novices in decision making. Its…

Tense Marking in the English Narrative Retells of Dual Language Preschoolers.

PubMed

Gusewski, Svenja; Rojas, Raúl

2017-07-26

This longitudinal study investigated the emergence of English tense marking in young (Spanish-English) dual language learners (DLLs) over 4 consecutive academic semesters, addressing the need for longitudinal data on typical acquisition trajectories of English in DLL preschoolers. Language sample analysis was conducted on 139 English narrative retells elicited from 39 preschool-age (Spanish-English) DLLs (range = 39-65 months). Growth curve models captured within- and between-individual change in tense-marking accuracy over time. Tense-marking accuracy was indexed by the finite verb morphology composite and by 2 specifically developed adaptations. Individual tense markers were systematically described in terms of overall accuracy and specific error patterns. Tense-marking accuracy exhibited significant growth over time for each composite. Initially, irregular past-tense accuracy was higher than regular past-tense accuracy; over time, however, regular past-tense marking outpaced accuracy on irregular verbs. These findings suggest that young DLLs can achieve high tense-marking accuracy assuming 2 years of immersive exposure to English. Monitoring the growth in tense-marking accuracy over time and considering productive tense-marking errors as partially correct more precisely captured the emergence of English tense marking in this population with highly variable expressive language skills. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5176942.

Quantifying Narrative Ability in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Computational Linguistic Analysis of Narrative Coherence

PubMed Central

Losh, Molly; Gordon, Peter C.

2014-01-01

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties with social communication and functioning, and ritualistic/repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). While substantial heterogeneity exists in symptom expression, impairments in language discourse skills, including narrative, are universally observed (Tager-Flusberg, Paul, & Lord, 2005). This study applied a computational linguistic tool, Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), to objectively characterize narrative performance in ASD across two narrative contexts differing in interpersonal and cognitive demands. Results indicated that individuals with ASD produced narratives comparable in semantic content to those from controls when narrating from a picture book, but produced narratives diminished in semantic quality in a more demanding narrative recall task. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of LSA as a quantitative, objective, and efficient measure of narrative ability. PMID:24915929

Mental states and activities in Danish narratives: children with autism and children with language impairment.

PubMed

Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth; Christensen, Rikke Vang

2017-09-01

This study focuses on the relationship between content elements and mental-state language in narratives from twenty-seven children with autism (ASD), twelve children with language impairment (LI), and thirty typically developing children (TD). The groups did not differ on chronological age (10;6-14;0) and non-verbal cognitive skills, and the groups with ASD and TD did not differ on language measures. The children with ASD and LI had fewer content elements of the storyline than the TD children. Compared with the TD children, the children with ASD used fewer subordinate clauses about the characters' thoughts, and preferred talking about mental states as reported speech, especially in the form of direct speech. The children with LI did not differ from the TD children on these measures. The results are discussed in the context of difficulties with socio-cognition in children with ASD and of language difficulties in children with LI.

Exploring the elements of narrative that emerge in the interactions between an 8-year-old child who uses an AAC device and her teacher.

PubMed

Soto, Gloria; Hartmann, Elizabeth; Wilkins, David P

2006-12-01

Narrative abilities have been identified as a link to successful school achievement and, in particular, to the acquisition of literacy. Children who use AAC may be at risk of impaired narrative facility due to the differences in their language learning experiences, limitation of their AAC systems, and limitations from constrained access to physical and social environments. In this study, the elements of narrative that emerged in the interactions between an 8-year-old child who used an AAC device and her teacher are described. This assessment was achieved through use of the Narrative Assessment Profile (Bliss, McCabe, & Miranda, 1998) in the context of five tasks designed to elicit a spectrum of narrative features. Results indicate that the interactions between the child and her teacher made it difficult to assess whether or not the child had control of certain features of narrative. From a purely structural analysis, most narrative discourse dimensions appeared to be severely compromised and therefore in need of immediate intervention. Discussion includes aspects of narrative intervention and suggested topics for further research.

The Participants' Perspective: How Biographic-Narrative Intervention Influences Identity Negotiation and Quality of Life in Aphasia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corsten, Sabine; Schimpf, Erika J.; Konradi, Jürgen; Keilmann, Annerose; Hardering, Friedericke

2015-01-01

Background: People with aphasia experience a pronounced decrease in quality of life (QoL). Beyond that identity negotiation is hindered, which is crucial for QoL. Biographic-narrative approaches use life story telling to support identity (re)development after disruptive events like stroke. Because of the language deficits inherent in aphasia such…

Why Narrating Changes Memory: A Contribution to an Integrative Model of Memory and Narrative Processes.

PubMed

Smorti, Andrea; Fioretti, Chiara

2016-06-01

This paper aims to reflect on the relation between autobiographical memory (ME) and autobiographical narrative (NA), examining studies on the effects of narrating on the narrator and showing how studying these relations can make more comprehensible both memory's and narrating's way of working. Studies that address explicitly on ME and NA are scarce and touch this issue indirectly. Authors consider different trends of studies of ME and NA: congruency vs incongruency hypotheses on retrieving, the way of organizing memories according to gist or verbatim format and their role in organizing positive and negative emotional experiences, the social roots of ME and NA, the rules of conversation based on narrating. Analysis of investigations leads the Authors to point out three basic results of their research. Firstly, NA transforms ME because it narrativizes memories according to a narrative format. This means that memories, when are narrated, are transformed in stories (verbal language) and socialised. Secondly, the narrativization process is determined by the act of telling something within a communicative situation. Thus, relational situation of narrating act, by modifying the story, modifies also memories. The Authors propose the RE.NA.ME model (RElation, NArration, MEmory) to understand and study ME and NA. Finally, this study claims that ME and NA refer to two different types of processes having a wide area of overlapping. This is due to common social, developmental and cultural roots that make NA to include part of ME (narrative of memory) and ME to include part of NA (memory of personal events that have been narrated).

The Influence of Drama on Elementary Students' Written Narratives and On-Task Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Alida; Berry, Katherine A.

2014-01-01

Dramatic language arts integration (DLA) and conventional language arts (CLA) lessons were compared for their influence on third grade students' written narrative cohesion and on-task behavior in a self-contained, nonpublic elementary classroom. Participants included students (N = 14) with comorbid language-based learning disabilities (LD) and…

Interventions targeting mental health self-stigma: A review and comparison.

PubMed

Yanos, Philip T; Lucksted, Alicia; Drapalski, Amy L; Roe, David; Lysaker, Paul

2015-06-01

With growing awareness of the impact of mental illness self-stigma, interest has arisen in the development of interventions to combat it. The present article briefly reviews and compares interventions targeting self-stigma to clarify the similarities and important differences between the interventions. We conducted a narrative review of published literature on interventions targeting self-stigma. Six intervention approaches (Healthy Self-Concept, Self-Stigma Reduction Program, Ending Self-Stigma, Narrative Enhancement and Cognitive Therapy, Coming Out Proud, and Anti-Stigma Photo-Voice Intervention) were identified and are discussed, and data is reviewed on format, group-leader backgrounds, languages, number of sessions, primary mechanisms of action, and the current state of data on their efficacy. We conclude with a discussion of common elements and important distinctions between the interventions and a consideration of which interventions might be best suited to particular populations or settings. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

CNTRO: A Semantic Web Ontology for Temporal Relation Inferencing in Clinical Narratives.

PubMed

Tao, Cui; Wei, Wei-Qi; Solbrig, Harold R; Savova, Guergana; Chute, Christopher G

2010-11-13

Using Semantic-Web specifications to represent temporal information in clinical narratives is an important step for temporal reasoning and answering time-oriented queries. Existing temporal models are either not compatible with the powerful reasoning tools developed for the Semantic Web, or designed only for structured clinical data and therefore are not ready to be applied on natural-language-based clinical narrative reports directly. We have developed a Semantic-Web ontology which is called Clinical Narrative Temporal Relation ontology. Using this ontology, temporal information in clinical narratives can be represented as RDF (Resource Description Framework) triples. More temporal information and relations can then be inferred by Semantic-Web based reasoning tools. Experimental results show that this ontology can represent temporal information in real clinical narratives successfully.

Getting off the Straight and Narrow: Exploiting Non-Linear, Interactive Narrative Structures in Digital Stories for Language Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prosser, Andrew

2014-01-01

Digital storytelling is already used extensively in language education. Web documentaries, particularly in terms of design and narrative structure, provide an extension of the digital storytelling concept, specifically in terms of increased interactivity. Using a model of interactive, non-linear storytelling, originally derived from computer game…

Using a narrative to spark safer sex communication.

PubMed

Donné, Lennie; Hoeks, John; Jansen, Carel

2017-10-01

College students are a group at risk for contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs). While they are generally well informed about STIs, they do not consistently use condoms. An important element in preventing STIs is safer sex communication, especially with a sexual partner. This may be difficult, however, because of a lack of experience in talking about safer sex or because of the absence of suitable role models. In this study, a narrative intervention was tested that was developed to provide receivers with a social script for safer sex communication. An experiment was conducted among college students ( N  = 225) who were exposed to either a narrative intervention or a non-narrative (brochure) intervention, followed by a post-test questionnaire. In the narrative condition, part of the participants completed a pre-test questionnaire before being exposed to the intervention. Compared to pre-test scores, the narrative positively influenced safer sex communication intentions. The results show no significant differences between post-test scores of the narrative and the non-narrative condition. Mediation analyses showed that narrative processes (identification and transportation) were positively related to safer sex communication. In this study, we investigated both the effects of a narrative intervention on safer sex communication intentions, and the mechanisms of narrative processing underlying these effects. The narrative turned out to be as effective as a brochure version with the same information. Our mediation analyses suggest that narratives can be made more persuasive by increasing the reader's involvement with the story as a whole, and with one of the characters in particular.

Action starring narratives and events: Structure and inference in visual narrative comprehension.

PubMed

Cohn, Neil; Wittenberg, Eva

Studies of discourse have long placed focus on the inference generated by information that is not overtly expressed, and theories of visual narrative comprehension similarly focused on the inference generated between juxtaposed panels. Within the visual language of comics, star-shaped "flashes" commonly signify impacts, but can be enlarged to the size of a whole panel that can omit all other representational information. These "action star" panels depict a narrative culmination (a "Peak"), but have content which readers must infer, thereby posing a challenge to theories of inference generation in visual narratives that focus only on the semantic changes between juxtaposed images. This paper shows that action stars demand more inference than depicted events, and that they are more coherent in narrative sequences than scrambled sequences (Experiment 1). In addition, action stars play a felicitous narrative role in the sequence (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that visual narratives use conventionalized depictions that demand the generation of inferences while retaining narrative coherence of a visual sequence.

A Systematic Meta-Analytic Review of Evidence for the Effectiveness of the "Fast ForWord" Language Intervention Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strong, Gemma K.; Torgerson, Carole J.; Torgerson, David; Hulme, Charles

2011-01-01

Background: Fast ForWord is a suite of computer-based language intervention programs designed to improve children's reading and oral language skills. The programs are based on the hypothesis that oral language difficulties often arise from a rapid auditory temporal processing deficit that compromises the development of phonological…

Intervention for Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Impairment: A Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyle, James; McCartney, Elspeth; O'Hare, Anne; Law, James

2010-01-01

Studies indicate that language impairment that cannot be accounted for by factors such as below-average non-verbal ability, hearing impairment, behaviour or emotional problems, or neurological impairments affects some 6% of school-age children. Language impairment with a receptive language component is more resistant to intervention than specific…

Increasing the Odds: Applying Emergentist Theory in Language Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poll, Gerard H.

2011-01-01

Purpose: This review introduces emergentism, which is a leading theory of language development that states that language ability is the product of interactions between the child's language environment and his or her learning capabilities. The review suggests ways in which emergentism provides a theoretical rationale for interventions that are…

Modeling biochemical transformation processes and information processing with Narrator

PubMed Central

Mandel, Johannes J; Fuß, Hendrik; Palfreyman, Niall M; Dubitzky, Werner

2007-01-01

Background Software tools that model and simulate the dynamics of biological processes and systems are becoming increasingly important. Some of these tools offer sophisticated graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which greatly enhance their acceptance by users. Such GUIs are based on symbolic or graphical notations used to describe, interact and communicate the developed models. Typically, these graphical notations are geared towards conventional biochemical pathway diagrams. They permit the user to represent the transport and transformation of chemical species and to define inhibitory and stimulatory dependencies. A critical weakness of existing tools is their lack of supporting an integrative representation of transport, transformation as well as biological information processing. Results Narrator is a software tool facilitating the development and simulation of biological systems as Co-dependence models. The Co-dependence Methodology complements the representation of species transport and transformation together with an explicit mechanism to express biological information processing. Thus, Co-dependence models explicitly capture, for instance, signal processing structures and the influence of exogenous factors or events affecting certain parts of a biological system or process. This combined set of features provides the system biologist with a powerful tool to describe and explore the dynamics of life phenomena. Narrator's GUI is based on an expressive graphical notation which forms an integral part of the Co-dependence Methodology. Behind the user-friendly GUI, Narrator hides a flexible feature which makes it relatively easy to map models defined via the graphical notation to mathematical formalisms and languages such as ordinary differential equations, the Systems Biology Markup Language or Gillespie's direct method. This powerful feature facilitates reuse, interoperability and conceptual model development. Conclusion Narrator is a flexible and intuitive systems

Narrative research in psychotherapy: a critical review.

PubMed

Avdi, Evrinomy; Georgaca, Eugenie

2007-09-01

This paper is a review of studies which utilise the notion of narrative to analyse psychotherapy. Its purpose is to systematically present this diverse field of research, to highlight common themes and divergences between different strands and to further the development and integration of narrative research in psychotherapy. The paper reviews studies which employ an applied textual analysis of narratives produced in the context of psychotherapy. Criteria for inclusion of studies are, firstly, the analysis of therapeutic and therapy-related texts and, secondly, the adoption of a narrative psychological perspective. The studies were examined on the basis of the notion of narrative they employ and the aspects of client narratives they focus on, and were grouped accordingly in the review. The majority of the studies reviewed assume a constructivist approach to narrative, adopt a representational view of language, focus primarily on client micro-narratives and relate to cognitive-constructivist and process-experiential psychotherapeutic approaches. A smaller group of studies assume a social constructionist approach to narrative and a functional view of language, focus on micro-narratives, highlight the interactional and wider social aspects of narrative and relate to postmodern trends in psychotherapy. The range of conceptualisations of narrative in the studies reviewed, from a representational psychological view to a constructionist social view, reflects tensions within narrative psychology itself. Moreover, two trends can be discerned in the field reviewed, narrative analysis of therapy, which draws from narrative theory and utilises the analytic approaches of narrative research to study psychotherapy, and analyses of narrative in therapy, which study client narratives using non-narrative qualitative methods. Finally, the paper highlights the need for integration of this diverse field of research and urges for the development of narrative studies of psychotherapy

The union of narrative and executive function: different but complementary

PubMed Central

Friend, Margaret; Bates, Raven Phoenix

2014-01-01

Oral narrative production develops dramatically from 3 to 5 years of age, and is a key factor in a child's ability to communicate about the world. Concomitant with this are developments in executive function (EF). For example, executive attention and behavioral inhibition show marked development beginning around 4 years of age. Both EF and oral narrative abilities have important implications for academic success, but the relationship between them is not well understood. The present paper utilizes a cross-lagged design to assess convergent and predictive relations between EF and narrative ability. As a collateral measure, we collected a Language Sample during 10 min of free play. Language Sample did not share significant variance with Narrative Production, thus general language growth from Wave 1 to Wave 2 cannot account for the predictive relations between EF and Narrative. Our findings suggest that although EF and Narrative ability appear independent at each Wave, they nevertheless support each other over developmental time. Specifically, the ability to maintain focus at 4 years supports subsequent narrative ability and narrative ability at 4 years supports subsequent facility and speed in learning and implementing new rules. PMID:24872811

Language Development, Delay and Intervention--The Views of Parents from Communities That Speech and Language Therapy Managers in England Consider to Be Under-Served

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marshall, Julie; Harding, Sam; Roulstone, Sue

2017-01-01

Background: Evidence-based practice includes research evidence, clinical expertise and stakeholder perspectives. Stakeholder perspectives are important and include parental ethno-theories, which embrace views about many aspects of speech, language and communication, language development, and interventions. The Developmental Niche Framework…

Sarcopenic obesity and complex interventions with nutrition and exercise in community-dwelling older persons--a narrative review.

PubMed

Goisser, Sabine; Kemmler, Wolfgang; Porzel, Simone; Volkert, Dorothee; Sieber, Cornel Christian; Bollheimer, Leo Cornelius; Freiberger, Ellen

2015-01-01

One of the many threats to independent life is the age-related loss of muscle mass and muscle function commonly referred to as sarcopenia. Another important health risk in old age leading to functional decline is obesity. Obesity prevalence in older persons is increasing, and like sarcopenia, severe obesity has been consistently associated with several negative health outcomes, disabilities, falls, and mobility limitations. Both sarcopenia and obesity pose a health risk for older persons per se, but in combination, they synergistically increase the risk for negative health outcomes and an earlier onset of disability. This combination of sarcopenia and obesity is commonly referred to as sarcopenic obesity. The present narrative review reports the current knowledge on the effects of complex interventions containing nutrition and exercise interventions in community-dwelling older persons with sarcopenic obesity. To date, several complex interventions with different outcomes have been conducted and have shown promise in counteracting either sarcopenia or obesity, but only a few studies have addressed the complex syndrome of sarcopenic obesity. Strong evidence exists on exercise interventions in sarcopenia, especially on strength training, and for obese older persons, strength exercise in combination with a dietary weight loss intervention demonstrated positive effects on muscle function and body fat. The differences in study protocols and target populations make it impossible at the moment to extract data for a meta-analysis or give state-of-the-art recommendations based on reliable evidence. A conclusion that can be drawn from this narrative review is that more exercise programs containing strength and aerobic exercise in combination with dietary interventions including a supervised weight loss program and/or protein supplements should be conducted in order to investigate possible positive effects on sarcopenic obesity.

[Music-based intervention in children].

PubMed

Kiese-Himmel, Christiane

2012-01-01

Music-based interventions with children are an effective method in health and sickness treatment and in education systems. The engagement with music enables positive transfer effects on extra-musical developmental domains. Music therapy was applied primarily as a practically-oriented scientific discipline both within the framework of a multi-modal therapy approach as one treatment component and focused specifically on children with emotional disorders within a somatic therapy concept and in rehabilitation. The following narrative overview will present music therapy's working basis, treatment goals, and select outcome research in children from 2005-2010. There currently exists a substantial lack, even within empirical research, in relation to the application of music therapy to children. This is an opportunity to initiate a broad range of study for the future. Current challenges and opportunities in scientific, music-based intervention in the paediatric population lie in the concretization of differential indications (both in intervention approach and duration), replicable comparative therapy (alternated treatment-design), the application of a music-therapeutic placebo requirement, as well as in the verification and analysis of specific music therapeutic mechanisms.

Prevention of Mental Health Disorders Using Internet- and Mobile-Based Interventions: A Narrative Review and Recommendations for Future Research

PubMed Central

Ebert, David Daniel; Cuijpers, Pim; Muñoz, Ricardo F.; Baumeister, Harald

2017-01-01

Although psychological interventions might have a tremendous potential for the prevention of mental health disorders (MHD), their current impact on the reduction of disease burden is questionable. Possible reasons include that it is not practical to deliver those interventions to the community en masse due to limited health care resources and the limited availability of evidence-based interventions and clinicians in routine practice, especially in rural areas. Therefore, new approaches are needed to maximize the impact of psychological preventive interventions. Limitations of traditional prevention programs could potentially be overcome by providing Internet- and mobile-based interventions (IMIs). This relatively new medium for promoting mental health and preventing MHD introduces a fresh array of possibilities, including the provision of evidence-based psychological interventions that are free from the restraints of travel and time and allow reaching participants for whom traditional opportunities are not an option. This article provides an introduction to the subject and narratively reviews the available evidence for the effectiveness of IMIs with regard to the prevention of MHD onsets. The number of randomized controlled trials that have been conducted to date is very limited and so far it is not possible to draw definite conclusions about the potential of IMIs for the prevention of MHD for specific disorders. Only for the indicated prevention of depression there is consistent evidence across four different randomized trial trials. The only trial on the prevention of general anxiety did not result in positive findings in terms of eating disorders (EDs), effects were only found in post hoc subgroup analyses, indicating that it might be possible to prevent ED onset for subpopulations of people at risk of developing EDs. Future studies need to identify those subpopulations likely to profit from preventive. Disorders not examined so far include substance use

The Efficacy of Fast ForWord-Language Intervention in School-Age Children with Language Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial

PubMed Central

Gillam, Ronald B.; Loeb, Diane Frome; Hoffman, LaVae M.; Bohman, Thomas; Champlin, Craig A.; Thibodeau, Linda; Widen, Judith; Brandel, Jayne; Friel-Patti, Sandy

2008-01-01

Purpose A randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted to compare the language and auditory processing outcomes of children assigned to Fast ForWord-Language (FFW-L) to the outcomes of children assigned to nonspecific or specific language intervention comparison treatments that did not contain modified speech. Method Two hundred and sixteen children between the ages of 6 and 9 years with language impairments were randomly assigned to one of four arms: Fast ForWord-Language (FFW-L), academic enrichment (AE), computer-assisted language intervention (CALI), or individualized language intervention (ILI) provided by a speech-language pathologist. All children received 1 hour and 40 minutes of treatment, 5 days per week, for 6 weeks. Language and auditory processing measures were administered to the children by blinded examiners before treatment, immediately after treatment, 3 months after treatment, and 6 months after treatment. Results The children in all four arms improved significantly on a global language test and a test of backward masking. Children with poor backward masking scores who were randomized to the FFW-L arm did not present greater improvement on the language measures than children with poor backward masking scores who were randomized to the other three arms. Effect sizes, analyses of standard error of measurement, and normalization percentages supported the clinical significance of the improvements on the CASL. There was a treatment effect for the Blending Words subtest on the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999). Participants in the FFW-L and CALI arms earned higher phonological awareness scores than children in the ILI and AE arms at the six-month follow-up testing. Conclusion Fast ForWord-Language, the language intervention that provided modified speech to address a hypothesized underlying auditory processing deficit, was not more effective at improving general language skills or temporal processing

Using a narrative to spark safer sex communication

PubMed Central

Donné, Lennie; Hoeks, John; Jansen, Carel

2017-01-01

Objective: College students are a group at risk for contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs). While they are generally well informed about STIs, they do not consistently use condoms. An important element in preventing STIs is safer sex communication, especially with a sexual partner. This may be difficult, however, because of a lack of experience in talking about safer sex or because of the absence of suitable role models. In this study, a narrative intervention was tested that was developed to provide receivers with a social script for safer sex communication. Design: An experiment was conducted among college students (N = 225) who were exposed to either a narrative intervention or a non-narrative (brochure) intervention, followed by a post-test questionnaire. In the narrative condition, part of the participants completed a pre-test questionnaire before being exposed to the intervention. Results: Compared to pre-test scores, the narrative positively influenced safer sex communication intentions. The results show no significant differences between post-test scores of the narrative and the non-narrative condition. Mediation analyses showed that narrative processes (identification and transportation) were positively related to safer sex communication. Conclusion: In this study, we investigated both the effects of a narrative intervention on safer sex communication intentions, and the mechanisms of narrative processing underlying these effects. The narrative turned out to be as effective as a brochure version with the same information. Our mediation analyses suggest that narratives can be made more persuasive by increasing the reader’s involvement with the story as a whole, and with one of the characters in particular. PMID:28919639

The Efficacy of Fast ForWord Language Intervention in School-Age Children with Language Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gillam, Ronald B.; Loeb, Diane Frome; Hoffman, LaVae M.; Bohman, Thomas; Champlin, Craig A.; Thibodeau, Linda; Widen, Judith; Brandel, Jayne; Friel-Patti, Sandy

2008-01-01

Purpose: A randomized controlled trial was conducted to compare the language and auditory processing outcomes of children assigned to receive the Fast ForWord Language intervention (FFW-L) with the outcomes of children assigned to nonspecific or specific language intervention comparison treatments that did not contain modified speech. Method: Two…

The therapeutic alliance in internet interventions: A narrative review and suggestions for future research.

PubMed

Berger, Thomas

2017-09-01

Research on Internet interventions has grown rapidly over the recent years and evidence is growing that Internet-based treatments often result in similar outcomes as conventional face-to-face psychotherapy. Yet there are still unanswered concerns such as whether a therapeutic alliance can be established over the Internet and whether the alliance is important in this new treatment format. A narrative review of studies formally assessing the therapeutic alliance in Internet interventions was conducted. It is the first review summarizing findings on the therapeutic alliance that (i) distinguishes between different forms of Internet interventions and (ii) does not restrict itself to specific Internet-based treatment formats such as guided self-help treatments, e-mail or videoconferencing therapies. Independent of communication modalities, diagnostic groups and amount of contact between clients and therapists, client-rated alliance scores were high, roughly equivalent to alliance ratings found in studies on face-to-face therapy. Mixed results were found regarding the therapist-rated alliance and alliance-outcome associations. The review points to the limitations of the available evidence and identifies unanswered questions. It is concluded that one of the major tasks for future research is to identify unique characteristics of the therapeutic alliance in the different treatment formats.

Interventions Targeting Mental Health Self-Stigma: A Review and Comparison

PubMed Central

Yanos, Philip T.; Lucksted, Alicia; Drapalski, Amy L.; Roe, David; Lysaker, Paul

2014-01-01

Objective With growing awareness of the impact of mental illness self-stigma, interest has arisen in the development of interventions to combat it. The present article briefly reviews and compares interventions targeting self-stigma to clarify the similarities and important differences between the interventions. Methods We conducted a narrative review of published literature on interventions targeting self-stigma. Results Six intervention approaches (Healthy Self-Concept, Self-Stigma Reduction Program, Ending Self-Stigma, Narrative Enhancement and Cognitive Therapy, Coming Out Proud, and Anti-Stigma Photo-Voice Intervention) were identified and are discussed, and data is reviewed on format, group-leader backgrounds, languages, number of sessions, primary mechanisms of action, and the current state of data on their efficacy. Conclusions and Implications for Practice We conclude with a discussion of common elements and important distinctions between the interventions and a consideration of which interventions might be best suited to particular populations or settings. PMID:25313530

Social Justice and English Language Learners in the Borderland: A Personal Narrative of a Committed Principal Determined to Take the Steps Necessary for English Language Learners to Achieve and Succeed in Academic Content

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lechuga, Mary Helen

2009-01-01

This study embraces the pedagogy that this school's educators believed in and utilized to enhance and expand the academic knowledge of those students who posses a language different from the English language. This research study, represented in a personal narrative, attempts to question the widespread thinking that places all validity on using…

The effects of sign language on spoken language acquisition in children with hearing loss: a systematic review protocol.

PubMed

Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth M; Stevens, Adrienne; Garritty, Chantelle; Moher, David

2013-12-06

Permanent childhood hearing loss affects 1 to 3 per 1000 children and frequently disrupts typical spoken language acquisition. Early identification of hearing loss through universal newborn hearing screening and the use of new hearing technologies including cochlear implants make spoken language an option for most children. However, there is no consensus on what constitutes optimal interventions for children when spoken language is the desired outcome. Intervention and educational approaches ranging from oral language only to oral language combined with various forms of sign language have evolved. Parents are therefore faced with important decisions in the first months of their child's life. This article presents the protocol for a systematic review of the effects of using sign language in combination with oral language intervention on spoken language acquisition. Studies addressing early intervention will be selected in which therapy involving oral language intervention and any form of sign language or sign support is used. Comparison groups will include children in early oral language intervention programs without sign support. The primary outcomes of interest to be examined include all measures of auditory, vocabulary, language, speech production, and speech intelligibility skills. We will include randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, and other quasi-experimental designs that include comparator groups as well as prospective and retrospective cohort studies. Case-control, cross-sectional, case series, and case studies will be excluded. Several electronic databases will be searched (for example, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO) as well as grey literature and key websites. We anticipate that a narrative synthesis of the evidence will be required. We will carry out meta-analysis for outcomes if clinical similarity, quantity and quality permit quantitative pooling of data. We will conduct subgroup analyses if possible according to severity

Predictors of second language acquisition in Latino children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Gutiérrez-Clellen, Vera; Simon-Cereijido, Gabriela; Sweet, Monica

2012-02-01

This study evaluated the extent to which the language of intervention, the child's development in Spanish, and the effects of English vocabulary, use, proficiency, and exposure predict differences in the rates of acquisition of English in Latino children with specific language impairment (SLI). In this randomized controlled trial, 188 Latino preschoolers with SLI participated in a small-group academic enrichment program for 12 weeks and were followed up 3 and 5 months later. Children were randomly assigned to either a bilingual or an English-only program. Predictors of English growth included measures of Spanish language skills and English vocabulary, use, proficiency, and exposure. Performance on English outcomes (i.e., picture description and narrative sample) was assessed over time. A series of longitudinal models were tested via multilevel modeling with baseline and posttreatment measures nested within child. Children demonstrated growth on the English outcomes over time. The language of intervention, Spanish skills, English vocabulary, and English use significantly predicted differences in rates of growth across children for specific measures of English development. This study underscores the role of the child's first language skills, the child's level of English vocabulary development, and level of English use for predicting differences in English acquisition in Latino preschoolers with SLI. These factors should be carefully considered in making clinical decisions.

Nuffield Early Language Intervention: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sibieta, Luke; Kotecha, Mehul; Skipp, Amy

2016-01-01

The Nuffield Early Language Intervention is designed to improve the spoken language ability of children during the transition from nursery to primary school. It is targeted at children with relatively poor spoken language skills. Three sessions per week are delivered to groups of two to four children starting in the final term of nursery and…

Distance Video-Teleconferencing in Early Intervention: Pilot Study of a Naturalistic Parent-Implemented Language Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDuffie, Andrea; Machalicek, Wendy; Oakes, Ashley; Haebig, Eileen; Weismer, Susan Ellis; Abbeduto, Leonard

2013-01-01

Maternal verbal responsiveness in naturally occurring interactions is known to facilitate language development for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. The present study used a series of A-B replications to examine proximal effects of a naturalistic language intervention on the use of specific language support strategies by mothers of eight…

Perspective taking in children's narratives about jealousy.

PubMed

Aldrich, Naomi J; Tenenbaum, Harriet R; Brooks, Patricia J; Harrison, Karine; Sines, Jennie

2011-03-01

This study explored relationships between perspective-taking, emotion understanding, and children's narrative abilities. Younger (23 5-/6-year-olds) and older (24 7-/8-year-olds) children generated fictional narratives, using a wordless picture book, about a frog experiencing jealousy. Children's emotion understanding was assessed through a standardized test of emotion comprehension and their ability to convey the jealousy theme of the story. Perspective-taking ability was assessed with respect to children's use of narrative evaluation (i.e., narrative coherence, mental state language, supplementary evaluative speech, use of subjective language, and placement of emotion expression). Older children scored higher than younger children on emotion comprehension and on understanding the story's complex emotional theme, including the ability to identify a rival. They were more advanced in perspective-taking abilities, and selectively used emotion expressions to highlight story episodes. Subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence were predictive of children's elaboration of the jealousy theme. Use of supplementary evaluative speech, in turn, was predictive of both subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence. ©2010 The British Psychological Society.

Interventions that improve maternity care for immigrant women in the UK: protocol for a narrative synthesis systematic review.

PubMed

Higginbottom, Gina Marie Awoko; Evans, Catrin; Morgan, Myfanwy; Bharj, Kuldip Kaur; Eldridge, Jeanette; Hussain, Basharat

2017-07-12

A quarter of all births in the UK are to mothers born outside the UK. There is also evidence that immigrant women have higher maternal and infant death rates and of inequalities in the provision and uptake of maternity services/birth centres. The topic is of great significance to the National Health Service because of directives that address inequalities and the changing patterns of migration to the UK. Our main question for the systematic review is 'what interventions exist that are specifically focused on improving maternity care for immigrant women in the UK?' The primary objective of this synthesis is to generate new interpretations of research evidence. Second, the synthesis will provide substantive base to guide developments and implementation of maternity services/birth centres which are acceptable and effective for immigrant women in the UK. We are using a narrative synthesis (NS) approach to identify, assess scientific quality and rigour, and synthesise empirical data focused on access and interventions that enhance quality of maternity care/birth centres for the UK immigrant women. The inclusion criteria include: publication date 1990 to present, English language, empirical research and findings are focused on women who live in the UK, participants of the study are immigrant women, is related to maternity care/birth centres access or interventions or experiences of maternity.In order to ensure the robustness of the NS, the methodological quality of key evidence will be appraised using the Center for Evidence-Based Management tools and review confidence with CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research). Two reviewers will independently screen studies and extract relevant evidence. We will synthesise evidence studying relationships between included studies using a range of tools. Dissemination plan includes: an e-workshop for policymakers, collaborative practitioner workshops, YouTube video and APP, scientific papers and

A language-based sum score for the course and therapeutic intervention in primary progressive aphasia.

PubMed

Semler, Elisa; Anderl-Straub, Sarah; Uttner, Ingo; Diehl-Schmid, Janine; Danek, Adrian; Einsiedler, Beate; Fassbender, Klaus; Fliessbach, Klaus; Huppertz, Hans-Jürgen; Jahn, Holger; Kornhuber, Johannes; Landwehrmeyer, Bernhard; Lauer, Martin; Muche, Rainer; Prudlo, Johannes; Schneider, Anja; Schroeter, Matthias L; Ludolph, Albert C; Otto, Markus

2018-04-25

With upcoming therapeutic interventions for patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), instruments for the follow-up of patients are needed to describe disease progression and to evaluate potential therapeutic effects. So far, volumetric brain changes have been proposed as clinical endpoints in the literature, but cognitive scores are still lacking. This study followed disease progression predominantly in language-based performance within 1 year and defined a PPA sum score which can be used in therapeutic interventions. We assessed 28 patients with nonfluent variant PPA, 17 with semantic variant PPA, 13 with logopenic variant PPA, and 28 healthy controls in detail for 1 year. The most informative neuropsychological assessments were combined to a sum score, and associations between brain atrophy were investigated followed by a sample size calculation for clinical trials. Significant absolute changes up to 20% in cognitive tests were found after 1 year. Semantic and phonemic word fluency, Boston Naming Test, Digit Span, Token Test, AAT Written language, and Cookie Test were identified as the best markers for disease progression. These tasks provide the basis of a new PPA sum score. Assuming a therapeutic effect of 50% reduction in cognitive decline for sample size calculations, a number of 56 cases is needed to find a significant treatment effect. Correlations between cognitive decline and atrophy showed a correlation up to r = 0.7 between the sum score and frontal structures, namely the superior and inferior frontal gyrus, as well as with left-sided subcortical structures. Our findings support the high performance of the proposed sum score in the follow-up of PPA and recommend it as an outcome measure in intervention studies.

The Importance of Natural Change in Planning School-Based Intervention for Children with Developmental Language Impairment (DLI)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Botting, Nicola; Gaynor, Marguerite; Tucker, Katie; Orchard-Lisle, Ginnie

2016-01-01

Some reports suggest that there is an increase in the number of children identified as having developmental language impairment (Bercow, 2008). yet resource issues have meant that many speech and language therapy services have compromised provision in some way. Thus, efficient ways of identifying need and prioritizing intervention are required.…

Career Paths in Educational Leadership: Examining Principals' Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parylo, Oksana; Zepeda, Sally J.; Bengtson, Ed

2012-01-01

This qualitative study analyzes the career path narratives of active principals. Structural narrative analysis was supplemented with sociolinguistic theory and thematic narrative analysis to discern the similarities and differences, as well as the patterns in the language used by participating principals. Thematic analysis found four major themes…

Pragmatics Abilities in Narrative Production: A Cross-Disorder Comparison

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Norbury, Courtenay Frazier; Gemmell, Tracey; Paul, Rhea

2014-01-01

We aimed to disentangle contributions of socio-pragmatic and structural language deficits to narrative competence by comparing the narratives of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n=25), non-autistic children with language impairments (LI; n=23), and children with typical development (TD; n=27). Groups were matched for age (6½ to 15…

Evidence-based narratives to improve recall of opioid prescribing guidelines: a randomized experiment.

PubMed

Kilaru, Austin S; Perrone, Jeanmarie; Auriemma, Catherine L; Shofer, Frances S; Barg, Frances K; Meisel, Zachary F

2014-03-01

Physicians adopt evidence-based guidelines with variable consistency. Narratives, or stories, offer a novel dissemination strategy for clinical recommendations. The study objective was to compare whether evidence-based narrative versus traditional summary improved recall of opioid prescribing guidelines from the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). This was a prospective, randomized controlled experiment to compare whether narrative versus summary promoted short-term recall of six themes contained in the ACEP opioid guideline. The experiment was modeled after the free-recall test, an established technique in studies of memory. At a regional conference, emergency physicians (EPs) were randomized to read either a summary of the guideline (control) or a narrative (intervention). The fictional narrative was constructed to match the summary in content and length. One hour after reading the text, participants listed all content that they could recall. Two reviewers independently scored the responses to assess recall of the six themes. The primary outcome was the total number of themes recalled per participant. Secondary outcomes included the proportion of responses in each study arm that recalled individual themes and the proportion of responses in each arm that contained falsely recalled or extraneous information. Ninety-five physicians were randomized. Eighty-two physicians completed the experiment, for a response rate of 86%. The mean of the total number of themes recalled per participant was 3.1 in the narrative arm versus 2.0 in the summary arm (difference = 1.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.6 to 1.7). For three themes, the proportion of responses that recalled the theme was significantly greater in the narrative arm compared to the summary arm, with the differences ranging from 20% to 51%. For one theme, recall was significantly greater in the summary arm. For two themes, there was no statistically significant difference in recall between the arms

Evidence-based Narratives to Improve Recall of Opioid Prescribing Guidelines: A Randomized Experiment

PubMed Central

Kilaru, Austin S.; Perrone, Jeanmarie; Auriemma, Catherine L.; Shofer, Frances S.; Barg, Frances K.; Meisel, Zachary F.

2014-01-01

Objectives Physicians adopt evidence-based guidelines with variable consistency. Narratives, or stories, offer a novel dissemination strategy for clinical recommendations. The study objective was to compare whether evidence-based narrative versus traditional summary improved recall of opioid prescribing guidelines from the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). Methods This was a prospective, randomized controlled experiment to compare whether narrative versus summary promoted short-term recall of six themes contained in the ACEP opioid guideline. The experiment was modeled after the free-recall test, an established technique in studies of memory. At a regional conference, emergency physicians were randomized to read either a summary of the guideline (control) or a narrative (intervention). The fictional narrative was constructed to match the summary in content and length. One hour after reading the text, participants listed all content that they could recall. Two reviewers independently scored the responses to assess recall of the six themes. The primary outcome was the total number of themes recalled per participant. Secondary outcomes included the proportion of responses in each study arm that recalled individual themes and the proportion of responses in each arm that contained falsely recalled or extraneous information. Results Ninety-five physicians were randomized. Eighty-two physicians completed the experiment, for a response rate of 86%. The mean of the total number of themes recalled per participant was 3.1 in the narrative arm versus 2.0 in the summary arm (difference = 1.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.6 to 1.7). For three themes, the proportion of responses that recalled the theme was significantly greater in the narrative arm compared to the summary arm, with the differences ranging from 20% to 51%. For one theme, recall was significantly greater in the summary arm. For two themes, there was no statistically significant difference in

A cross-linguistic study of the development of gesture and speech in Zulu and French oral narratives.

PubMed

Kunene Nicolas, Ramona; Guidetti, Michèle; Colletta, Jean-Marc

2017-01-01

The present study reports on a developmental and cross-linguistic study of oral narratives produced by speakers of Zulu (a Bantu language) and French (a Romance language). Specifically, we focus on oral narrative performance as a bimodal (i.e., linguistic and gestural) behaviour during the late language acquisition phase. We analyzed seventy-two oral narratives produced by L1 Zulu and French adults and primary school children aged between five and ten years old. The data were all collected using a narrative retelling task. The results revealed a strong effect of age on discourse performance, confirming that narrative abilities improve with age, irrespective of language. However, the results also showed cross-linguistic differences. Zulu oral narratives were longer, more detailed, and accompanied by more co-speech gestures than the French narratives. The parallel effect of age and language on gestural behaviour is discussed and highlights the importance of studying oral narratives from a multimodal perspective within a cross-linguistic framework.

Increasing Children's ASL Classifier Production: A Multicomponent Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beal-Alvarez, Jennifer S.; Easterbrooks, Susan R.

2013-01-01

The Authors examined classifier production during narrative retells by 10 deaf and hard of hearing students in grades 2-4 at a day school for the deaf following a 6-week intervention of repeated viewings of stories in American Sign Language (ASL) paired with scripted teacher mediation. Classifier production, documented through a…

The effectiveness of patient-family carer (couple) intervention for the management of symptoms and other health-related problems in people affected by cancer: a systematic literature search and narrative review.

PubMed

Hopkinson, Jane B; Brown, Joanne C; Okamoto, Ikumi; Addington-Hall, Julia M

2012-01-01

Cancer is widely acknowledged to impact on the whole family. Yet, we do not know if there is benefit (or harm) from patient-family carer interventions in the context of cancer care. To report a systematic search for and narrative review of patient-family carer interventions tested in the context of cancer care for effect on symptoms and other health-related problems in patients and/or their family members. A systematic literature search was carried out using Cochrane principles. Searches were of MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL databases for reported trials of patient-family carer focused interventions. Outcomes of interest were health indicators; measures of physical, psychological, social, and quality-of-life status of the patient and/or family member(s). Limits were English language; 1998 to March 2010; and adults. Relevant information was extracted, quality assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias, and presented as a narrative synthesis (meta-analysis was not appropriate). The review found no empirically tested interventions for family groups (patient and two or more family members), but 22 interventions for patient-family carer partnerships (couple interventions) tested in 23 studies and reported in 27 publications. Recruitment and attrition were problematic in these studies, limiting the reliability and generalizability of their results. In the trials of cancer couple interventions included in the review, a pattern emerged of improvement in the emotional health of cancer patients and their carers when the intervention included support for the patient-family carer relationship. Further investigation is warranted. Copyright © 2012 U.S. Cancer Pain Relief Committee. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Action starring narratives and events: Structure and inference in visual narrative comprehension

PubMed Central

Cohn, Neil; Wittenberg, Eva

2015-01-01

Studies of discourse have long placed focus on the inference generated by information that is not overtly expressed, and theories of visual narrative comprehension similarly focused on the inference generated between juxtaposed panels. Within the visual language of comics, star-shaped “flashes” commonly signify impacts, but can be enlarged to the size of a whole panel that can omit all other representational information. These “action star” panels depict a narrative culmination (a “Peak”), but have content which readers must infer, thereby posing a challenge to theories of inference generation in visual narratives that focus only on the semantic changes between juxtaposed images. This paper shows that action stars demand more inference than depicted events, and that they are more coherent in narrative sequences than scrambled sequences (Experiment 1). In addition, action stars play a felicitous narrative role in the sequence (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that visual narratives use conventionalized depictions that demand the generation of inferences while retaining narrative coherence of a visual sequence. PMID:26709362

Hearing the voices of alternatively certified teachers in Texas: Narratives of teaching English language learners in urban secondary mainstream classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zannou, Yetunde Mobola

In Texas, nearly half of all new teachers are alternatively certified (AC) whilst English language learners (ELL) are over one-third of the public school population in some districts. As this trend continues, the likelihood that AC teachers will teach ELLs increases and alters what Texas teachers must know upon entering the classroom. This research explores teacher knowledge and beliefs about teaching ELLs through constructivist and narrative lenses. Four AC science teachers in two diverse school districts participated in in-depth interviews and reflective interviews following classroom observations to answer the research questions: (1) how do AC teachers describe and interpret their acts of teaching ELLs in mainstream classrooms; and (2) how do AC teachers describe and interpret their learning to teach ELLs in mainstream classrooms. Data were transcribed and analyzed using thematic narrative methods. This study found that participants saw ELL instruction as: (1) "just good teaching" strategies, (2) consisting primarily of cultural awareness and consideration for student comfort, and (3) less necessary in science where all students must learn the language. The most experienced teacher was the only participant to reference specific linguistic knowledge in describing ELL instruction. Many of the teachers described their work with ELL students as giving them an opportunity to improve their lives, which was consistent with their overall teaching philosophy and reason for entering the profession. Participant narratives about learning to teach ELLs described personal experience and person-to-person discussions as primary resources of knowledge. District support was generally described as unhelpful or incomplete. Participants portrayed their AC program as helpful in preparing them to work with ELL students, but everyone desired more relevant information from the program and more grade-appropriate strategies from the district. Participant narratives reveal AC teachers

American Sign Language Syntactic and Narrative Comprehension in Skilled and Less Skilled Readers: Bilingual and Bimodal Evidence for the Linguistic Basis of Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chamberlain, Charlene; Mayberry, Rachel I.

2008-01-01

We tested the hypothesis that syntactic and narrative comprehension of a natural sign language can serve as the linguistic basis for skilled reading. Thirty-one adults who were deaf from birth and used American Sign Language (ASL) were classified as skilled or less skilled readers using an eighth-grade criterion. Proficiency with ASL syntax, and…

A Play and Language Intervention for Two-Year-Old Children: Implications for Improving Play Skills and Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conner, Julie; Kelly-Vance, Lisa; Ryalls, Brigette; Friehe, Mary

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to develop an intervention for 2-year-old children to enhance play and language skills. The intervention was implemented over a 4-week period and included components of reading, modeling, and positive reinforcement of language and play. Specifically, children were read a story and played with a matching toy set.…

Mining Peripheral Arterial Disease Cases from Narrative Clinical Notes Using Natural Language Processing

PubMed Central

Afzal, Naveed; Sohn, Sunghwan; Abram, Sara; Scott, Christopher G.; Chaudhry, Rajeev; Liu, Hongfang; Kullo, Iftikhar J.; Arruda-Olson, Adelaide M.

2016-01-01

Objective Lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is highly prevalent and affects millions of individuals worldwide. We developed a natural language processing (NLP) system for automated ascertainment of PAD cases from clinical narrative notes and compared the performance of the NLP algorithm to billing code algorithms, using ankle-brachial index (ABI) test results as the gold standard. Methods We compared the performance of the NLP algorithm to 1) results of gold standard ABI; 2) previously validated algorithms based on relevant ICD-9 diagnostic codes (simple model) and 3) a combination of ICD-9 codes with procedural codes (full model). A dataset of 1,569 PAD patients and controls was randomly divided into training (n= 935) and testing (n= 634) subsets. Results We iteratively refined the NLP algorithm in the training set including narrative note sections, note types and service types, to maximize its accuracy. In the testing dataset, when compared with both simple and full models, the NLP algorithm had better accuracy (NLP: 91.8%, full model: 81.8%, simple model: 83%, P<.001), PPV (NLP: 92.9%, full model: 74.3%, simple model: 79.9%, P<.001), and specificity (NLP: 92.5%, full model: 64.2%, simple model: 75.9%, P<.001). Conclusions A knowledge-driven NLP algorithm for automatic ascertainment of PAD cases from clinical notes had greater accuracy than billing code algorithms. Our findings highlight the potential of NLP tools for rapid and efficient ascertainment of PAD cases from electronic health records to facilitate clinical investigation and eventually improve care by clinical decision support. PMID:28189359

Is It Rude Language? Children Learning Pragmatics through Visual Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ishihara, Noriko

2013-01-01

There has been an upsurge of interest in teaching second/foreign language (L2) pragmatics in recent years, but much of this effort has been targeted at adult learners. This article introduces small-scale informal instruction exploring the pragmatic development of 9-year-olds in Tokyo, facilitated through dialogic intervention on pragmatics using…

Sarcopenic obesity and complex interventions with nutrition and exercise in community-dwelling older persons – a narrative review

PubMed Central

Goisser, Sabine; Kemmler, Wolfgang; Porzel, Simone; Volkert, Dorothee; Sieber, Cornel Christian; Bollheimer, Leo Cornelius; Freiberger, Ellen

2015-01-01

One of the many threats to independent life is the age-related loss of muscle mass and muscle function commonly referred to as sarcopenia. Another important health risk in old age leading to functional decline is obesity. Obesity prevalence in older persons is increasing, and like sarcopenia, severe obesity has been consistently associated with several negative health outcomes, disabilities, falls, and mobility limitations. Both sarcopenia and obesity pose a health risk for older persons per se, but in combination, they synergistically increase the risk for negative health outcomes and an earlier onset of disability. This combination of sarcopenia and obesity is commonly referred to as sarcopenic obesity. The present narrative review reports the current knowledge on the effects of complex interventions containing nutrition and exercise interventions in community-dwelling older persons with sarcopenic obesity. To date, several complex interventions with different outcomes have been conducted and have shown promise in counteracting either sarcopenia or obesity, but only a few studies have addressed the complex syndrome of sarcopenic obesity. Strong evidence exists on exercise interventions in sarcopenia, especially on strength training, and for obese older persons, strength exercise in combination with a dietary weight loss intervention demonstrated positive effects on muscle function and body fat. The differences in study protocols and target populations make it impossible at the moment to extract data for a meta-analysis or give state-of-the-art recommendations based on reliable evidence. A conclusion that can be drawn from this narrative review is that more exercise programs containing strength and aerobic exercise in combination with dietary interventions including a supervised weight loss program and/or protein supplements should be conducted in order to investigate possible positive effects on sarcopenic obesity. PMID:26346071

Comparing deep learning and concept extraction based methods for patient phenotyping from clinical narratives.

PubMed

Gehrmann, Sebastian; Dernoncourt, Franck; Li, Yeran; Carlson, Eric T; Wu, Joy T; Welt, Jonathan; Foote, John; Moseley, Edward T; Grant, David W; Tyler, Patrick D; Celi, Leo A

2018-01-01

In secondary analysis of electronic health records, a crucial task consists in correctly identifying the patient cohort under investigation. In many cases, the most valuable and relevant information for an accurate classification of medical conditions exist only in clinical narratives. Therefore, it is necessary to use natural language processing (NLP) techniques to extract and evaluate these narratives. The most commonly used approach to this problem relies on extracting a number of clinician-defined medical concepts from text and using machine learning techniques to identify whether a particular patient has a certain condition. However, recent advances in deep learning and NLP enable models to learn a rich representation of (medical) language. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) for text classification can augment the existing techniques by leveraging the representation of language to learn which phrases in a text are relevant for a given medical condition. In this work, we compare concept extraction based methods with CNNs and other commonly used models in NLP in ten phenotyping tasks using 1,610 discharge summaries from the MIMIC-III database. We show that CNNs outperform concept extraction based methods in almost all of the tasks, with an improvement in F1-score of up to 26 and up to 7 percentage points in area under the ROC curve (AUC). We additionally assess the interpretability of both approaches by presenting and evaluating methods that calculate and extract the most salient phrases for a prediction. The results indicate that CNNs are a valid alternative to existing approaches in patient phenotyping and cohort identification, and should be further investigated. Moreover, the deep learning approach presented in this paper can be used to assist clinicians during chart review or support the extraction of billing codes from text by identifying and highlighting relevant phrases for various medical conditions.

Explicit Instruction in Phonemic Awareness and Phonemically Based Decoding Skills as an Intervention Strategy for Struggling Readers in Whole Language Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ryder, Janice F.; Tunmer, William E.; Greaney, Keith T.

2008-01-01

The aim of this study was to determine whether explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonemically based decoding skills would be an effective intervention strategy for children with early reading difficulties in a whole language instructional environment. Twenty-four 6- and 7-year-old struggling readers were randomly assigned to an…

The relationship between mother narrative style and child memory.

PubMed

Kayıran, Sinan Mahir; Cure, Sena

2011-07-26

The question of whether children and infants have memory capabilities similar to adults has long been of interest. Until recently, it was thought that compared to adults, infants have very limited memory processing abilities. Knowledge about factors affecting a child's memory abilities can help families (specifically mothers) behave in a manner that best benefits their children in language and memory skills. The present study examines one factor that may underlie a child's memory capabilities; namely the mother's narrative style. Convenience sampling was used to select participants. Forty healthy children (mean age of 31.55 months, range 25-37 months) and their mothers were entered into the study. All participants were native Turkish speakers, from similar socioeconomic status backgrounds. Memory was assessed by a modified version of the Magic Shrinking Machine. Narrative style was assessed by the mother "reading" a Frog Story; a picture book with no words in it. Children were then grouped according to their mother's level of narrative style. Children's language skills were measured via the Turkish form of the CDI (Communicative Development Inventory) which was translated to Turkish as TIGE. To explore the relationships between mothers' narrative styles and children's memory and language skills and between children's language skills and memory capabilities, linear regressions were run. There were no significant correlations among any comparisons (P > 0.05). Children's language skills do not improve according to their mothers' narrative styles, and children do not show better memory abilities when mothers use more words and longer sentences. In order to have a better understanding of these relationships, future research that includes several more variables is needed. Child; Mother; Memory; Narrative style.

Politics of love: narrative structures, intertextuality and social agency in the narratives of parents with disabled children.

PubMed

Hanisch, Halvor

2013-11-01

Recent research has highlighted how parental narratives can be important in the resistance against disabling processes. This article contains analyses of enabling language in narratives published by Scandinavian disability rights organizations. First, drawing on the work of Fisher and Goodley, I point out that the material constitute a threefold: normality narratives, resistance narratives, and narratives that demonstrate an appreciation of the present and the child's individual alterity. Second, I demonstrate that the last narrative draws on Romanticism rather than linguistic resources from disability culture. Third, I show that these narratives are hyperboles - texts that strengthen and emphasise the valuation to the point where the narrative structure transcends narrative consistency. Fourth, drawing on the work of Kristeva, I argue that this form of narration constitutes an intimate politics of love. © 2013 The Author. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2013 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Dissemination strategies and adherence predictors for web-based interventions-how efficient are patient education sessions and email reminders?

PubMed

Schweier, R; Romppel, M; Richter, C; Grande, G

2016-06-01

The Internet offers the potential to efficaciously deliver health interventions at a low cost and with a low threshold across any distance. However, since many web-based interventions are confronted with low use and adherence, proactive dissemination strategies are needed. We, therefore, tested the efficacy of a 1-h patient education session as part of a rehabilitation program and an email reminder 4 weeks later on the publicity and use of a web-based intervention aimed at lifestyle changes in patients with either coronary heart disease or chronic back pain (CBP) and examined adherence predictors. The website www.lebensstil-aendern.de is a cost-free, German-language website providing more than 1000 patient narratives about successful lifestyle changes. To test the efficacy of the dissemination strategies and to examine adherence predictors, we conducted a sequential controlled trial with heart and CBP patients recruited from German inpatient rehabilitation centers. The dissemination strategies were found to be efficient. Use rates, however, remained low. The email reminder and internal health locus of control emerged as notable factors in motivating patients to participate in the web-based intervention. Other factors that have been suggested to be related to nonuse, e.g. sociodemographic characteristics and medical condition, did not predict use or adherence. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Narrative Skill in Children with Early Unilateral Brain Injury: A Possible Limit to Functional Plasticity

PubMed Central

Demir, Özlem Ece; Levine, Susan C.; Goldin-Meadow, Susan

2009-01-01

Children with pre- or perinatal brain injury (PL) exhibit marked plasticity for language learning. Previous work mostly focused on the emergence of earlier developing skills, such as vocabulary and syntax. Here we ask whether this plasticity for earlier developing aspects of language extends to more complex, later-developing language functions by examining the narrative production of children with PL. Using an elicitation technique that involves asking children to create stories de novo in response to a story stem, we collected narratives from 11 children with PL and 20 typically-developing (TD) children. Narratives were analyzed for length, diversity of the vocabulary used, use of complex syntax, complexity of the macro-level narrative structure and use of narrative evaluation. Children’s language performance on vocabulary and syntax tasks outside of the narrative context was also measured. Findings show that children with PL produced shorter stories, used less diverse vocabulary, produced structurally less complex stories at the macro-level, and made fewer inferences regarding the cognitive states of the story characters. These differences in the narrative task emerged even though children with PL did not differ from TD children on vocabulary and syntax tasks outside of the narrative context. Thus, findings suggest that there may be limitations to the plasticity for language functions displayed by children with PL, and that these limitations may be most apparent in complex, decontextualized language tasks such as narrative production. PMID:20590727

Storybridging: Four steps for constructing effective health narratives

PubMed Central

Boeijinga, Anniek; Hoeken, Hans; Sanders, José

2017-01-01

Objective: To develop a practical step-by-step approach to constructing narrative health interventions in response to the mixed results and wide diversity of narratives used in health-related narrative persuasion research. Method: Development work was guided by essential narrative characteristics as well as principles enshrined in the Health Action Process Approach. Results: The ‘storybridging’ method for constructing health narratives is described as consisting of four concrete steps: (a) identifying the stage of change, (b) identifying the key elements, (c) building the story, and (d) pre-testing the story. These steps are illustrated by means of a case study in which an effective narrative health intervention was developed for Dutch truck drivers: a high-risk, underprivileged occupational group. Conclusion: Although time and labour intensive, the Storybridging approach suggests integrating the target audience as an important stakeholder throughout the development process. Implications and recommendations are provided for health promotion targeting truck drivers specifically and for constructing narrative health interventions in general. PMID:29276232

A Program Evaluation of the Language Lab™: Response to Intervention Program for Teaching Grammar, Vocabulary, and Storytelling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiechmann, JoAnn; Richardson, Martha; Jones, Don

2014-01-01

This program evaluation study addressed the struggle of local elementary school speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in a school district to provide evidence-based intervention in language for students below grade level as required by the U.S. Department of Education. Recently, Language Lab™ was published to address the needs of oral language…

Structure, Meaning, and Constituency in Visual Narrative Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cohn, Neil Thomas

2012-01-01

Narrative has been formally studied for at least two millennia, dating back to the writings of Aristotle. While most theories began by describing the construction of plotlines in theatre, most contemporary research on the structure and comprehension of narratives has examined the discourse of spoken language. However, visual narratives in the form…

Personal Narratives: A Pedagogical Proposal to Stimulate Language Students' Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salamanca González, Fredy Orlando

2015-01-01

In a public university in Tunja (Colombia), undergraduate language students mentioned that writing was important and yet, they kept at a distance from it due to its requirements. The aim of this pedagogical intervention was to find a strategy to encourage students to write and, more importantly, to feel an identity with their texts. For this…

Effects of narrator empathy in a computer delivered brief intervention for alcohol use.

PubMed

Ellis, Jennifer D; Grekin, Emily R; Beatty, Jessica R; McGoron, Lucy; LaLiberte, Benjamin V; Pop, Damaris E; Kostecki, Anthony P; Ondersma, Steven J

2017-10-01

Computer-delivered, brief interventions (CDBIs) have been an increasingly popular way to treat alcohol use disorders; however, very few studies have examined which characteristics of CDBIs maximize intervention effectiveness. The literature has consistently demonstrated that therapist empathy is associated with reduced substance use in in-person therapy; however, it is unclear whether this principle applies to CDBIs. Therefore, the study aimed to examine whether the presence of an empathic narrator increased intentions to reduce heavy drinking in a CDBI. Results suggest that the presence of empathy increases motivation to reduce drinking, and makes participants feel more supported and less criticized. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Overweight and obesity: effectiveness of interventions in adults.

PubMed

Gómez Puente, Juana María; Martínez-Marcos, Mercedes

To identify the most effective interventions in overweight and obese adults. A narrative review through a search of the literature in databases PubMed, Cochrane, Joanna Briggs Institute, EMBASE, Cuiden y Cinahl with free and controlled language (MeSH terms) using Boolean operators AND and NOT. The research was limited to articles published between 2007 and 2015. Eighteen articles were selected based on the established inclusion and exclusion criteria. Different types of interventions were identified based on the modification of lifestyles, mainly diet, physical activity and behavior. Major differences were found in specific content, degree of intensity of interventions, time tracking and elements evaluated. Most of studies found statistically significant weight loss but this was limited in terms of weight and number of people. Web-based interventions have no uniform effect on weight loss but achieve similar levels to face-to-face interventions in maintaining weight loss. The combination of personalised diet, exercise and cognitive behavioural therapy is the most effective form of intervention in overweight and obesity. There is insufficient data to indicate whether group or individual interventions are more effective. Online intervention allows greater accessibility and lower cost. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

A theory led narrative review of one-to-one health interventions: the influence of attachment style and client-provider relationship on client adherence.

PubMed

Nanjappa, S; Chambers, S; Marcenes, W; Richards, D; Freeman, R

2014-10-01

A theory-led narrative approach was used to unpack the complexities of the factors that enable successful client adherence following one-to-one health interventions. Understanding this could prepare the provider to anticipate different adherence behaviours by clients, allowing them to tailor their interventions to increase the likelihood of adherence. The review was done in two stages. A theoretical formulation was proposed to explore factors which influence the effectiveness of one-to-one interventions to result in client adherence. The second stage tested this theory using a narrative synthesis approach. Eleven studies across the health care arena were included in the synthesis and explored the interplay between client attachment style, client-provider interaction and client adherence with health interventions. It emerged that adherence results substantially because of the relationship that the client has with the provider, which is amplified or diminished by the client's own attachment style. This occurs because the client's attachment style shapes how they perceive and behave in relationships with the health-care providers, who become the 'secure base' from which the client accepts, assimilates and adheres with the recommended health intervention. The pathway from one-to-one interventions to adherence is explained using moderated mediation and mediated moderation models. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Internet-based interventions for smoking cessation.

PubMed

Taylor, Gemma M J; Dalili, Michael N; Semwal, Monika; Civljak, Marta; Sheikh, Aziz; Car, Josip

2017-09-04

Tobacco use is estimated to kill 7 million people a year. Nicotine is highly addictive, but surveys indicate that almost 70% of US and UK smokers would like to stop smoking. Although many smokers attempt to give up on their own, advice from a health professional increases the chances of quitting. As of 2016 there were 3.5 billion Internet users worldwide, making the Internet a potential platform to help people quit smoking. To determine the effectiveness of Internet-based interventions for smoking cessation, whether intervention effectiveness is altered by tailoring or interactive features, and if there is a difference in effectiveness between adolescents, young adults, and adults. We searched the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group Specialised Register, which included searches of MEDLINE, Embase and PsycINFO (through OVID). There were no restrictions placed on language, publication status or publication date. The most recent search was conducted in August 2016. We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Participants were people who smoked, with no exclusions based on age, gender, ethnicity, language or health status. Any type of Internet intervention was eligible. The comparison condition could be a no-intervention control, a different Internet intervention, or a non-Internet intervention. To be included, studies must have measured smoking cessation at four weeks or longer. Two review authors independently assessed and extracted data. We extracted and, where appropriate, pooled smoking cessation outcomes of six-month follow-up or more, reporting short-term outcomes narratively where longer-term outcomes were not available. We reported study effects as a risk ratio (RR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI).We grouped studies according to whether they (1) compared an Internet intervention with a non-active control arm (e.g. printed self-help guides), (2) compared an Internet intervention with an active control arm (e.g. face-to-face counselling), (3) evaluated the

The Language Growth of Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rojas, Raul; Iglesias, Aquiles

2013-01-01

Although the research literature regarding language growth trajectories is burgeoning, the shape and direction of English Language Learners' (ELLs) language growth trajectories are largely not known. This study used growth curve modeling to determine the shape of ELLs' language growth trajectories across 12,248 oral narrative language samples…

Predictors of Second Language Acquisition in Latino Children With Specific Language Impairment

PubMed Central

Gutiérrez-Clellen, Vera; Simon-Cereijido, Gabriela; Sweet, Monica

2012-01-01

Purpose This study evaluated the extent to which the language of intervention, the child’s development in Spanish, and the effects of English vocabulary, use, proficiency, and exposure predict differences in the rates of acquisition of English in Latino children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method In this randomized controlled trial, 188 Latino preschoolers with SLI participated in a small-group academic enrichment program for 12 weeks and were followed up 3 and 5 months later. Children were randomly assigned to either a bilingual or an English-only program. Predictors of English growth included measures of Spanish language skills and English vocabulary, use, proficiency, and exposure. Performance on English outcomes (i.e., picture description and narrative sample) was assessed over time. A series of longitudinal models were tested via multilevel modeling with baseline and posttreatment measures nested within child. Results Children demonstrated growth on the English outcomes over time. The language of intervention, Spanish skills, English vocabulary, and English use significantly predicted differences in rates of growth across children for specific measures of English development. Conclusions This study underscores the role of the child’s first language skills, the child’s level of English vocabulary development, and level of English use for predicting differences in English acquisition in Latino preschoolers with SLI. These factors should be carefully considered in making clinical decisions. PMID:22230174

Oral Narratives in Monolingual and Bilingual Preschoolers with SLI

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rezzonico, Stefano; Chen, Xi; Cleave, Patricia L.; Greenberg, Janice; Hipfner-Boucher, Kathleen; Johnson, Carla J.; Milburn, Trelani; Pelletier, Janette; Weitzman, Elaine; Girolametto, Luigi

2015-01-01

Background: The body of literature on narratives of bilingual children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) is growing. However, little is known about the narrative abilities of bilingual preschool children with SLI and their patterns of growth. Aims: To determine the similarities and differences in narrative abilities between…

Using narrative text and coded data to develop hazard scenarios for occupational injury interventions

PubMed Central

Lincoln, A; Sorock, G; Courtney, T; Wellman, H; Smith, G; Amoroso, P

2004-01-01

Objective: To determine whether narrative text in safety reports contains sufficient information regarding contributing factors and precipitating mechanisms to prioritize occupational back injury prevention strategies. Design, setting, subjects, and main outcome measures: Nine essential data elements were identified in narratives and coded sections of safety reports for each of 94 cases of back injuries to United States Army truck drivers reported to the United States Army Safety Center between 1987 and 1997. The essential elements of each case were used to reconstruct standardized event sequences. A taxonomy of the event sequences was then developed to identify common hazard scenarios and opportunities for primary interventions. Results: Coded data typically only identified five data elements (broad activity, task, event/exposure, nature of injury, and outcomes) while narratives provided additional elements (contributing factor, precipitating mechanism, primary source) essential for developing our taxonomy. Three hazard scenarios were associated with back injuries among Army truck drivers accounting for 83% of cases: struck by/against events during motor vehicle crashes; falls resulting from slips/trips or loss of balance; and overexertion from lifting activities. Conclusions: Coded data from safety investigations lacked sufficient information to thoroughly characterize the injury event. However, the combination of existing narrative text (similar to that collected by many injury surveillance systems) and coded data enabled us to develop a more complete taxonomy of injury event characteristics and identify common hazard scenarios. This study demonstrates that narrative text can provide the additional information on contributing factors and precipitating mechanisms needed to target prevention strategies. PMID:15314055

The Relationship between Oral and Written Narratives: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study of Narrative Cohesion, Coherence, and Structure

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pinto, Giuliana; Tarchi, Christian; Bigozzi, Lucia

2015-01-01

Background: The relationship between oral language and the writing process at early acquisition stages and the ways the former can enhance or limit the latter has not been researched extensively. Aims: The predictive relationship between kindergarten oral narrative competence and the first- and second-grade written narrative competence was…

Reading and language intervention for children at risk of dyslexia: a randomised controlled trial.

PubMed

Duff, Fiona J; Hulme, Charles; Grainger, Katy; Hardwick, Samantha J; Miles, Jeremy N V; Snowling, Margaret J

2014-11-01

Intervention studies for children at risk of dyslexia have typically been delivered preschool, and show short-term effects on letter knowledge and phoneme awareness, with little transfer to literacy. This randomised controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of a reading and language intervention for 6-year-old children identified by research criteria as being at risk of dyslexia (n = 56), and their school-identified peers (n = 89). An Experimental group received two 9-week blocks of daily intervention delivered by trained teaching assistants; the Control group received 9 weeks of typical classroom instruction, followed by 9 weeks of intervention. Following mixed effects regression models and path analyses, small-to-moderate effects were shown on letter knowledge, phoneme awareness and taught vocabulary. However, these were fragile and short lived, and there was no reliable effect on the primary outcome of word-level reading. This new intervention was theoretically motivated and based on previous successful interventions, yet failed to show reliable effects on language and literacy measures following a rigorous evaluation. We suggest that the intervention may have been too short to yield improvements in oral language; and that literacy instruction in and beyond the classroom may have weakened training effects. We argue that reporting of null results makes an important contribution in terms of raising standards both of trial reporting and educational practice. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Narrative Assessment for Cantonese-Speaking Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

To, Carol Kit-Sum; Stokes, Stephanie F.; Cheung, Hin-Tat; T'sou, Benjamin

2010-01-01

Background: This study examined the narrative skills of Cantonese-speaking school-age children to fill a need for a normative language test for school-age children. Purpose: To provide a benchmark of the narrative skills of Cantonese-speaking children; to identify which of the microstructure components was the best predictor of age; and to…

The Impact of an Instructional Intervention on the Science and Language Learning of Middle Grade English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

August, Diane; Branum-Martin, Lee; Cardenas-Hagan, Elsa; Francis, David

2010-01-01

The goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an intervention--Quality English and Science Teaching (QuEST)--designed to develop the science knowledge and academic language of middle grades English language learners studying science in their second language and their English-proficient classmates. Both English language learners and…

Cajun, Creole, and African American Literacy Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greene, Nicole Pepinster

2005-01-01

This article examines students' narrative responses to reading professional literacy histories. Demonstrating the importance of narrative as a way of learning, it shows how elementary education majors of diverse backgrounds explore their relation with language in a traditional grammar class. Cajun, Creole, and African American students recover…

Myths of Monoculturalism: Narratively Claiming the Other

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dennis, Barbara

2016-01-01

This paper reports on monocultural education narratives associated with marginalizing newcomer English-as-a-New-Language learners and their families. These narratives emerged through a three-year long critical ethnography in the schools of a Midwest town (Unityville). The collective, social stories emerged as "story seeds" through…

Mining peripheral arterial disease cases from narrative clinical notes using natural language processing.

PubMed

Afzal, Naveed; Sohn, Sunghwan; Abram, Sara; Scott, Christopher G; Chaudhry, Rajeev; Liu, Hongfang; Kullo, Iftikhar J; Arruda-Olson, Adelaide M

2017-06-01

Lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is highly prevalent and affects millions of individuals worldwide. We developed a natural language processing (NLP) system for automated ascertainment of PAD cases from clinical narrative notes and compared the performance of the NLP algorithm with billing code algorithms, using ankle-brachial index test results as the gold standard. We compared the performance of the NLP algorithm to (1) results of gold standard ankle-brachial index; (2) previously validated algorithms based on relevant International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision diagnostic codes (simple model); and (3) a combination of International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes with procedural codes (full model). A dataset of 1569 patients with PAD and controls was randomly divided into training (n = 935) and testing (n = 634) subsets. We iteratively refined the NLP algorithm in the training set including narrative note sections, note types, and service types, to maximize its accuracy. In the testing dataset, when compared with both simple and full models, the NLP algorithm had better accuracy (NLP, 91.8%; full model, 81.8%; simple model, 83%; P < .001), positive predictive value (NLP, 92.9%; full model, 74.3%; simple model, 79.9%; P < .001), and specificity (NLP, 92.5%; full model, 64.2%; simple model, 75.9%; P < .001). A knowledge-driven NLP algorithm for automatic ascertainment of PAD cases from clinical notes had greater accuracy than billing code algorithms. Our findings highlight the potential of NLP tools for rapid and efficient ascertainment of PAD cases from electronic health records to facilitate clinical investigation and eventually improve care by clinical decision support. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Speech and language interventions for infants aged 0 to 2 years at high risk for cerebral palsy: a systematic review

PubMed Central

Chorna, Olena; Hamm, Ellyn; Cummings, Caitlin; Fetters, Ashley; Maitre, Nathalie L

2017-01-01

Aim We evaluated the level of evidence of speech, language, and communication interventions for infants at high-risk for, or with a diagnosis of, cerebral palsy (CP) from 0 to 2 years old. Method We performed a systematic review of relevant terms. Articles were evaluated based on the level of methodological quality and evidence according to A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) guidelines. Results The search terms provided 17 publications consisting of speech or language interventions. There were no interventions in the high level of evidence category. The overall level of evidence was very low. Promising interventions included Responsivity and Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching and other parent–infant transaction frameworks. Interpretation There are few evidence-based interventions addressing speech, language, and communication needs of infants and toddlers at high risk for CP, and none for infants diagnosed with CP. Recommendation guidelines include parent–infant transaction programs. PMID:27897320

On the Usefulness of Narratives: An Interdisciplinary Review and Theoretical Model.

PubMed

Shaffer, Victoria A; Focella, Elizabeth S; Hathaway, Andrew; Scherer, Laura D; Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J

2018-04-19

How can we use stories from other people to promote better health experiences, improve judgments about health, and increase the quality of medical decisions without introducing bias, systematically persuading the listeners to change their attitudes, or altering behaviors in nonoptimal ways? More practically, should narratives be used in health education, promotion, or behavior change interventions? In this article, we address these questions by conducting a narrative review of a diverse body of literature on narratives from several disciplines to gain a better understanding about what narratives do, including their role in communication, engagement, recall, persuasion, and health behavior change. We also review broad theories about information processing and persuasion from psychology and more specific models about narrative messaging found in the health communication and marketing literatures to provide insight into the processes by which narratives have their effect on health behavior. To address major gaps in our theoretical understanding about how narratives work and what effects they will have on health behavior, we propose the Narrative Immersion Model, whose goal is to identify the parameters that predict the specific impact of a particular narrative (e.g. persuade, inform, comfort, etc.) based on the type of narrative message (e.g. process, experience, or outcome narrative). Further, the Narrative Immersion Model describes the magnitude of the effect as increasing through successive layers of engagement with the narrative: interest, identification, and immersion. Finally, the Narrative Immersion Model identifies characteristics of the narrative intervention that encourage greater immersion within a given narrative. We believe there are important communication gaps in areas areas of behavioral medicine that could be addressed with narratives; however, more work is needed in order to employ narrative messaging systematically. The Narrative Immersion Model

Speech-language pathologists' assessment and intervention practices with multilingual children.

PubMed

Williams, Corinne J; McLeod, Sharynne

2012-06-01

Within predominantly English-speaking countries such as the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, there are a significant number of people who speak languages other than English. This study aimed to examine Australian speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) perspectives and experiences of multilingualism, including their assessment and intervention practices, and service delivery methods when working with children who speak languages other than English. A questionnaire was completed by 128 SLPs who attended an SLP seminar about cultural and linguistic diversity. Approximately one half of the SLPs (48.4%) reported that they had at least minimal competence in a language(s) other than English; but only 12 (9.4%) reported that they were proficient in another language. The SLPs spoke a total of 28 languages other than English, the most common being French, Italian, German, Spanish, Mandarin, and Auslan (Australian sign language). Participants reported that they had, in the past 12 months, worked with a mean of 59.2 (range 1-100) children from multilingual backgrounds. These children were reported to speak between two and five languages each; the most common being: Vietnamese, Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Australian Indigenous languages, Tagalog, Greek, and other Chinese languages. There was limited overlap between the languages spoken by the SLPs and the children on the SLPs' caseloads. Many of the SLPs assessed children's speech (50.5%) and/or language (34.2%) without assistance from others (including interpreters). English was the primary language used during assessments and intervention. The majority of SLPs always used informal speech (76.7%) and language (78.2%) assessments and, if standardized tests were used, typically they were in English. The SLPs sought additional information about the children's languages and cultural backgrounds, but indicated that they had limited resources to discriminate between speech and language difference vs disorder.

Images, Words, and Narrative Epistemology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fleckenstein, Kristie S.

1996-01-01

Reviews work suggesting that imagery and language function in tandem to constitute a sense of being, and that metaphors of sight hold as much formative power as metaphors of word. Describes the limitations of language and the ways in which imagery compensates for that limitation. Discusses narrative of epistemology as a fusion of image and…

A systematic review of psychoneuroimmunology-based interventions.

PubMed

Moraes, Lucam J; Miranda, Márcia B; Loures, Liliany F; Mainieri, Alessandra G; Mármora, Cláudia Helena C

2018-07-01

Psychoneuroimmunology-based interventions are used to attenuated disease progression and/or side effects of pharmacological treatment. This systematic review evaluates the different therapeutic and/or clinical psychoneuroimmunology-based interventions associated to both psychological, neuroendocrine and immunological variables. The review was conducted for all English, Portuguese and Spanish language articles published between 2005 and 2015. Independent investigators analyzed 42 studies concerning human psychoneuroimmunology-based interventions. Decreased levels of cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine (stress-related hormones) were associated to interventions like yoga, meditation, tai chi, acupuncture, mindfulness, religious/spiritual practices, cognitive behavior therapy, coping and physical exercises. Moreover, those interventions were also associated to reductions in inflammatory processes and levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in cancer, HIV, depression, anxiety, wound healing, sleep disorder, cardiovascular diseases and fibromyalgia. Despite the associations between PNI variables and clinical/therapeutic interventions, only one study evidenced significant effects on a disease progression.

Language Development: Understanding Language Diversity in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levey, Sandra; Polirstok, Susan

2010-01-01

Language Development: Understanding Language Diversity in the Classroom offers comprehensive coverage of the language development process for pre- and in-service teachers while emphasizing the factors that further academic success in the classroom, including literacy skills, phonological awareness, and narrative. With chapters written by respected…

Evidence-based practice in physiotherapy: a systematic review of barriers, enablers and interventions.

PubMed

Scurlock-Evans, Laura; Upton, Penney; Upton, Dominic

2014-09-01

Despite clear benefits of the Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) approach to ensuring quality and consistency of care, its uptake within physiotherapy has been inconsistent. Synthesise the findings of research into EBP barriers, facilitators and interventions in physiotherapy and identify methods of enhancing adoption and implementation. Literature concerning physiotherapists' practice between 2000 and 2012 was systematically searched using: Academic Search Complete, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature Plus, American Psychological Association databases, Medline, Journal Storage, and Science Direct. Reference lists were searched to identify additional studies. Thirty-two studies, focusing either on physiotherapists' EBP knowledge, attitudes or implementation, or EBP interventions in physiotherapy were included. One author undertook all data extraction and a second author reviewed to ensure consistency and rigour. Synthesis was organised around the themes of EBP barriers/enablers, attitudes, knowledge/skills, use and interventions. Many physiotherapists hold positive attitudes towards EBP. However, this does not necessarily translate into consistent, high-quality EBP. Many barriers to EBP implementation are apparent, including: lack of time and skills, and misperceptions of EBP. Only studies published in the English language, in peer-reviewed journals were included, thereby introducing possible publication bias. Furthermore, narrative synthesis may be subject to greater confirmation bias. There is no "one-size fits all" approach to enhancing EBP implementation; assessing organisational culture prior to designing interventions is crucial. Although some interventions appear promising, further research is required to explore the most effective methods of supporting physiotherapists' adoption of EBP. Copyright © 2014 Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Response to Early Intervention of Children with Specific and General Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bowyer-Crane, Claudine; Snowling, Margaret J.; Duff, Fiona; Hulme, Charles

2011-01-01

The present paper reports a secondary analysis of data from a published randomised controlled trial. This paper compares the outcomes of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and those with a general delay (GD) following participation in either an oral language intervention or a phonology with reading intervention. Sixty-eight children…

Reducing Stigma and Punitive Attitudes Toward Pedophiles Through Narrative Humanization.

PubMed

Harper, Craig A; Bartels, Ross M; Hogue, Todd E

2016-12-01

Stigmatization and societal punitiveness about pedophilia have a range of potential consequences, such as the social isolation of people with sexual interest in children, and the formation of policies that are not consistent with empirical research findings. Previous research has shown that people with pedophilic sexual interests use societal thinking to self-stigmatize, which in turn may actually serve to increase their risk of committing a sexual offense. In this study, we compared two attitudinal interventions (first-person narrative vs. expert opinion) using a student sample ( N = 100). It was hypothesized that both interventions would lead to reductions in stigmatization and punitive attitudes about pedophiles on an explicit (self-report) level but that only the narrative intervention would lead to reductions of these constructs at the implicit level. Our findings supported both hypotheses. We further discuss the role of narrative humanization in this area and offer suggestions for further research based upon the theoretical and methodological implications of the findings.

"Big Momma Had Sugar, Imma Have It Too" Medical Fatalism and the Language of Faith Among African-American Women in Memphis.

PubMed

Hotz, Kendra G

2015-12-01

This essay offers a theological exploration of the relationship between medical fatalism and religious belonging among African-American women in Memphis. Drawing on the work of black and womanist theologians and on conversations with participants in a diabetes intervention program administered by a faith-based community health provider, I argue that how we narrate the meanings of our bodies is irreducibly religious. The language we use to interpret and communicate the meaning of our bodily existence emerges from a set of assumptions, often unarticulated, about what is of ultimate value to us. The essay focuses on three interlocking features that link faith with fatalism or hope: (1) The idea that if "I don't claim that" disease cannot enter my body; (2) the role of faith-based clinics in re-establishing trust with marginalized communities; and (3) how nuanced attention to the social location of health seekers can re-frame our understanding of patient compliance. Disrupting fatalism can only be done from within a health seeker's own narrative, and therefore, healthcare providers who learn these narratives and respect their holiness will develop more effective interventions.

Narrative skills in children with selective mutism: an exploratory study.

PubMed

McInnes, Alison; Fung, Daniel; Manassis, Katharina; Fiksenbaum, Lisa; Tannock, Rosemary

2004-11-01

Selective mutism (SM) is a rare and complex disorder associated with anxiety symptoms and speech-language deficits; however, the nature of these language deficits has not been studied systematically. A novel cross-disciplinary assessment protocol was used to assess anxiety and nonverbal cognitive, receptive language, and expressive narrative abilities in 7 children with SM and a comparison group of 7 children with social phobia (SP). The children with SM produced significantly shorter narratives than children with SP, despite showing normal nonverbal cognitive and receptive language abilities. The findings suggest that SM may involve subtle expressive language deficits that may influence academic performance and raise additional questions for further research. The assessment procedure developed for this study may be potentially useful for language clinicians.

Impacts of parent-implemented early-literacy intervention for Spanish-speaking children with language impairment.

PubMed

Pratt, Amy S; Justice, Laura M; Perez, Ashanty; Duran, Lillian K

2015-01-01

Children with language impairment (LI) often have lags in development of print knowledge, an important early-literacy skill. This study explores impacts of a print-focused intervention for Spanish-speaking children with LI in Southeastern Mexico. Aims were twofold. First, we sought to describe the print knowledge (print-concept knowledge, alphabet knowledge) of Spanish-speaking children with LI. Second, we determined the extent to which print-referencing intervention delivered by children's parents could improve print knowledge. Using a pre-test-post-test delayed treatment research design, 13 parent-child dyads were assigned to an intervention (n = 8) versus control (n = 5) condition. Children were drawn from a speech-language clinic and all were receiving services for LI. Caregivers in the intervention group implemented an 8-week home-reading programme following a systematic scope and sequence for improving children's print knowledge. Children showed individual differences in their print knowledge based on three baseline measures examining print-concept knowledge, alphabet knowledge and letter-sound knowledge. Those whose caregivers implemented the 8-week programme showed statistically and practically significant gains on two of the three measures over the intervention period. The results presented here may stimulate future research on the print knowledge of Spanish-speaking children with LI. Sources of individual differences are important to determine. Caregivers may use the intervention presented here as a potential avenue for improving children's print knowledge. © 2015 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Mobile phone-based interventions for smoking cessation.

PubMed

Whittaker, Robyn; McRobbie, Hayden; Bullen, Chris; Rodgers, Anthony; Gu, Yulong

2016-04-10

Access to mobile phones continues to increase exponentially globally, outstripping access to fixed telephone lines, fixed computers and the Internet. Mobile phones are an appropriate and effective option for the delivery of smoking cessation support in some contexts. This review updates the evidence on the effectiveness of mobile phone-based smoking cessation interventions. To determine whether mobile phone-based smoking cessation interventions increase smoking cessation in people who smoke and want to quit. For the most recent update, we searched the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group Specialised Register in April 2015. We also searched the UK Clinical Research Network Portfolio for current projects in the UK, and the ClinicalTrials.gov register for ongoing or recently completed studies. We searched through the reference lists of identified studies and attempted to contact the authors of ongoing studies. We applied no restrictions on language or publication date. We included randomised or quasi-randomised trials. Participants were smokers of any age who wanted to quit. Studies were those examining any type of mobile phone-based intervention for smoking cessation. This included any intervention aimed at mobile phone users, based around delivery via mobile phone, and using any functions or applications that can be used or sent via a mobile phone. Review authors extracted information on risk of bias and methodological details using a standardised form. We considered participants who dropped out of the trials or were lost to follow-up to be smoking. We calculated risk ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for each included study. Meta-analysis of the included studies used the Mantel-Haenszel fixed-effect method. Where meta-analysis was not possible, we presented a narrative summary and descriptive statistics. This updated search identified 12 studies with six-month smoking cessation outcomes, including seven studies completed since the previous review. The

Long-Term Outcome of Oral Language and Phonological Awareness Intervention with Socially Disadvantaged Preschoolers: The Impact on Language and Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henning, Caroline; McIntosh, Beth; Arnott, Wendy; Dodd, Barbara

2010-01-01

Early intervention aims to prevent poor literacy outcomes associated with social disadvantage. This study examined whether the short-term positive effect of a preschool classroom-based oral language and phonological awareness (PA) programme was maintained and transferred to literacy 2 years later. The vocabulary knowledge, grammatical skill,…

Engaging Mexican Origin Families in a School-Based Preventive Intervention

PubMed Central

Mauricio, Anne M.; Gonzales, Nancy A.; Millsap, Roger E.; Meza, Connie M.; Dumka, Larry E.; Germán, Miguelina; Genalo, M. Toni

2009-01-01

This study describes a culturally sensitive approach to engage Mexican origin families in a school-based, family-focused preventive intervention trial. The approach was evaluated via assessing study enrollment and intervention program participation, as well as examining predictors of engagement at each stage. Incorporating traditional cultural values into all aspects of engagement resulted in participation rates higher than reported rates of minority-focused trials not emphasizing cultural sensitivity. Family preferred language (English or Spanish) or acculturation status predicted engagement at all levels, with less acculturated families participating at higher rates. Spanish-language families with less acculturated adolescents participated at higher rates than Spanish-language families with more acculturated adolescents. Other findings included two-way interactions between family language and the target child’s familism values, family single- vs. dual-parent status, and number of hours the primary parent worked in predicting intervention participation. Editors’ Strategic Implications: The authors present a promising approach—which requires replication—to engaging and retaining Mexican American families in a school-based prevention program. The research also highlights the importance of considering acculturation status when implementing and studying culturally tailored aspects of prevention models. PMID:18004659

In vivo language intervention: unanticipated general effects.

PubMed

Hart, B; Risley, T R

1980-01-01

After observing the lack of generalization of language trained in highly structured training sessions using established behavior modification techniques, "incidental teaching" procedures were developed to change the use of specified language behaviors in the natural environment. This paper reports an analysis of the general changes in the language, other than that specifically targeted by the incidental teaching procedures, used by disadvantaged preschool children. The daily language samples of disadvantaged children involved in a previously reported experiment to increase compound sentence usage were reexamined and compared to comparable records of other disadvantaged children and of middle-class children of college parents in order to assess possible general effects of the intervention program. Whereas the language that both groups of comparison children used changed little across the preschool year, the amount of talking by the children in the experimental program increased markedly. Their use of more elaborate vocabulary and more elaborate sentences also increased in direct proportion to the increases in overall language use, such that both language use and language elaboration in the experimental group of children changed from a pattern simlar to the comparison group of disadvantaged children to a pattern similar to the comparison group of middleclass children. It is argued that some general features of the incidental teaching procedure--differentially attending to child overtures and responding relative to the child's selected topic (reinforcer)--contributed to the increase in overall language use beyond the specific language behavior targeted, and that this increase in the probability of children's talking itself resulted in the substantial increases in elaboration seen in the children's spontaneous language. Because, at least in children with fairly well-developed language repertoires, language use is contextually controlled, talking more involves talking

In vivo language intervention: unanticipated general effects.

PubMed Central

Hart, B; Risley, T R

1980-01-01

After observing the lack of generalization of language trained in highly structured training sessions using established behavior modification techniques, "incidental teaching" procedures were developed to change the use of specified language behaviors in the natural environment. This paper reports an analysis of the general changes in the language, other than that specifically targeted by the incidental teaching procedures, used by disadvantaged preschool children. The daily language samples of disadvantaged children involved in a previously reported experiment to increase compound sentence usage were reexamined and compared to comparable records of other disadvantaged children and of middle-class children of college parents in order to assess possible general effects of the intervention program. Whereas the language that both groups of comparison children used changed little across the preschool year, the amount of talking by the children in the experimental program increased markedly. Their use of more elaborate vocabulary and more elaborate sentences also increased in direct proportion to the increases in overall language use, such that both language use and language elaboration in the experimental group of children changed from a pattern simlar to the comparison group of disadvantaged children to a pattern similar to the comparison group of middleclass children. It is argued that some general features of the incidental teaching procedure--differentially attending to child overtures and responding relative to the child's selected topic (reinforcer)--contributed to the increase in overall language use beyond the specific language behavior targeted, and that this increase in the probability of children's talking itself resulted in the substantial increases in elaboration seen in the children's spontaneous language. Because, at least in children with fairly well-developed language repertoires, language use is contextually controlled, talking more involves talking

Promising School-Based Strategies and Intervention Guidelines to Increase Physical Activity of Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pardo, Berta Murillo; Bengoechea, Enrique Garcia; Lanaspa, Eduardo Generelo; Bush, Paula L.; Casterad, Javier Zaragoza; Clemente, Jose A. Julian; Gonzalez, Luis Garcia

2013-01-01

This narrative review describes the available scientific evidence regarding promising school-based strategies to increase physical activity of adolescents. We conducted a literature search for studies published up to 2011, regarding adolescent physical activity intervention studies that resulted in increased physical activity (regardless of…

Developing the personal narratives of children with complex communication needs associated with intellectual disabilities: What is the potential of Storysharing® ?

PubMed

Bunning, Karen; Gooch, Lynsey; Johnson, Miranda

2017-07-01

Sharing personal experience in narrative is challenging for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The aim was to investigate the potential of Storysharing ® (Storysharing is an innovative communication method based on personal narrative, which has been developed to support conversations with people who have severe difficulties in communication) intervention. The study involved eleven pupil-educational supporter dyads at a special school. Storysharing ® was implemented over a 15-week period. Personal narratives were captured on video pre- and post-intervention. The data were analysed for discourse and narrative. Significant differences revealed a decline in 'query-answer' sequences and an increase in supporter use of 'prompts'. After intervention, there were fewer story episodes. Narrative structure showed gains in action sequences leading to climax, and in closing elements, indicating a more complete narrative. The Storysharing ® intervention appears to be associated with changes to the dyadic, personal narratives illustrating its potential. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Language-Based Curriculum Analysis: A Collaborative Assessment and Intervention Process.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prelock, Patricia A.

1997-01-01

Presents a systematic process for completing a language-based curriculum analysis to address curriculum expectations that may challenge students with communication impairments. Analysis of vocabulary and the demands for comprehension, oral, and written expression within specific content areas provides a framework for collaboration between teachers…

Promoting language and social communication development in babies through an early storybook reading intervention.

PubMed

Brown, Michelle I; Westerveld, Marleen F; Trembath, David; Gillon, Gail T

2017-12-15

This study examined the effectiveness of low- and high-intensity early storybook reading (ESR) intervention workshops delivered to parents for promoting their babies language and social communication development. These workshops educated parents on how to provide a stimulating home reading environment and engage in parent-child interactions during ESR. Parent-child dyads (n = 32); child age: 3-12 months, were assigned into two intervention conditions: low and high intensity (LI versus HI) groups. Both groups received the same ESR strategies; however, the HI group received additional intervention time, demonstrations and support. Outcome measures were assessed pre-intervention, one and three months post-intervention and when the child turned 2 years of age. A significant time-group interaction with increased performance in the HI group was observed for language scores immediately post-intervention (p = 0.007) and at 2-years-of-age (p = 0.022). Significantly higher broader social communication scores were associated with the HI group at each of the time points (p = 0.018, p = 0.001 and p = 0.021, respectively). Simple main effect revealed that both groups demonstrated a significant improvement in language, broader social communication and home reading practices scores. ESR intervention workshops may promote language and broader social communication skills. The HI ESR intervention workshop was associated with significantly higher language and broader social communication scores.

Effects of Language Learning Interventions in Pre-School Children: A Longitudinal Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gasteiger-Klicpera, B.; Knapp, W.; Kucharz, D.; Schabmann, A.; Schmidt, B.

2009-01-01

The aim of the present contribution is to evaluate and discuss the impacts of language learning interventions in pre-school children with German as a first or a second language. The sample consisted of 864 children in intervention groups and 294 children as a comparison group within two successive cohorts. The instruments used were the SSV (Grimm…

Storybridging: Four Steps for Constructing Effective Health Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boeijinga, Anniek; Hoeken, Hans; Sanders, José

2017-01-01

Objective: To develop a practical step-by-step approach to constructing narrative health interventions in response to the mixed results and wide diversity of narratives used in health-related narrative persuasion research. Method: Development work was guided by essential narrative characteristics as well as principles enshrined in the Health…

Literate Language Intervention with High-Need Prekindergarten Children: A Randomized Trial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Phillips, Beth M.; Tabulda, Galiya; Ingrole, Smriti A.; Webb Burris, Pam; Sedgwick, T. Kayla; Chen, Shiyi

2016-01-01

Purpose: The present article reports on the implementation and results of a randomized intervention trial targeting the literate language skills of prekindergarten children without identified language disorders but with low oral language skills. Method: Children (N = 82; 45 boys and 37 girls) were screened-in and randomized to a business-as-usual…

Culture and Early Language Development: Implications for Assessment and Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parada, Patricia M.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this qualitative study--"Culture and Early Language Development: Implications for Assessment and Intervention"--was to explore and describe the perceptions and beliefs of Salvadoran mothers of low socioeconomic status regarding the language development of their young children in order to identify cultural variations in…

Executive functions and language in children with different subtypes of specific language impairment.

PubMed

Acosta Rodríguez, V; Ramírez Santana, G M; Hernández Expósito, S

The marked heterogeneity among children diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI) highlights the importance of studying and describing cases based on the distinction between the expressive and receptive-expressive SLI subtypes. The main objective of this study was to examine neuropsychological, linguistic, and narrative behaviours in children with different SLI subtypes. A comprehensive battery of language and neuropsychological tests was administered to a total of 58 children (29 with SLI and 29 normal controls) between 5.60 and 11.20 years old. Both SLI subtypes performed more poorly than the control group in language skills, narrative, and executive function. Furthermore, the expressive SLI group demonstrated substantial ungrammaticality, as well as problems with verbal fluency and both verbal and spatial working memory, while the receptive-expressive SLI subtype displayed poorer neuropsychological performance in general. Our findings showed that children with either SLI subtype displayed executive dysfunctions that were not limited to verbal tasks but rather extended to nonverbal measures. This could reflect a global cognitive difficulty which, along with declining linguistic and narrative skills, illustrates the complex profile of this impairment. Copyright © 2016 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Interventions for Children's Language and Literacy Difficulties

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snowling, Margaret J.; Hulme, Charles

2012-01-01

Against a backdrop of research on individual differences in reading disorders, this review considers a range of effective interventions to promote reading and language skills evaluated by our group. The review begins by contrasting the reading profiles seen in dyslexia and reading comprehension impairment and then argues that different…

Classroom-Based Narrative and Vocabulary Instruction: Results of an Early-Stage, Nonrandomized Comparison Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gillam, Sandra Laing; Olszewski, Abbie; Fargo, Jamison; Gillam, Ronald B.

2014-01-01

Purpose: This nonrandomized feasibility study was designed to provide a preliminary assessment of the impact of a narrative and vocabulary instruction program provided by a speech-language pathologist (SLP) in a regular classroom setting. Method: Forty-three children attending 2 first-grade classrooms participated in the study. Children in each…

Theoretical and practical outline of the Copenhagen PACT narrative-based exercise counselling manual to promote physical activity in post-therapy cancer survivors.

PubMed

Midtgaard, Julie

2013-02-01

Sedentary behaviour and reduced exercise capacity are potential persisting effects of anti-cancer therapy that may predispose to serious health conditions. It is well-established that physical exercise may prevent some of these problems. However, the extent to which cancer survivors are able to adopt long-term physical activity habits depends largely on their motivation. This theoretical paper aims to outline how researchers and practitioners can draw from Antonovsky's salutogenetic theory and White & Epston's Narrative Therapy to develop and implement intervention efforts centered on promotion of long-term physical activity behaviour, while at the same time increasing the individual cancer survivor's sense of meaning and personal health resources. The Copenhagen PACT (Physical Activity after Cancer Treatment) Study targeting adoption and maintenance of regular physical activity in post-therapy cancer survivors is briefly presented including a brief review of the theoretical rationale behind the psychological component of the intervention, i.e. a narrative-based exercise counselling programme. Subsequently, particular attention is given to the core principles, different components and structure of the counselling manual including sample questions and examples of written documents that have emanated from the individual counselling sessions. The discussion includes consideration of some methodological challenges that arise when attempting to evaluate narrative-based interventions in the context of physical activity promotion in cancer rehabilitation and survivorship care.

Predictors of Performance on an iPad-Based Reading Comprehension Intervention among Spanish-Speaking Dual Language Learners at Risk for Reading Comprehension Delays

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adams, Ashley

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the EMBRACE Spanish support intervention for at-risk dual language learners and to determine which verbal and nonverbal characteristics of students were related to benefit from the intervention. The first study examined oral language and reading characteristics and the second study…

An Intervention Using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® on Fostering Narrative Identity among Economically Disadvantaged College Students in Taiwan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tseng, Wen-Chih

2017-01-01

The effectiveness of an intervention using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP), a reflective tool using LEGO® building bricks, to speed the development of narrative identity in economically disadvantaged college students was studied. A longitudinal experimental study with non equivalent experimental/control groups (N = 45) was conducted to examine whether…

The Impact of an Instructional Intervention on the Science and Language Learning of Middle Grade English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

August, Diane; Branum-Martin, Lee; Cardenas-Hagan, Elsa; Francis, David J.

2009-01-01

The goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an intervention--Quality English and Science Teaching (QuEST)--designed to develop the science knowledge and academic language of middle grades English language learners studying science in their second language and their English-proficient classmates. Ten sixth-grade science teachers in 5…

Role of Oral Proficiency on Reading Comprehension: Within-Language and Cross-Language Relationships

PubMed Central

Uchikoshi, Yuuko; Yang, Lu; Lohr, Brandi; Leung, Genevieve

2016-01-01

This longitudinal study examined the role of oral proficiency, as measured with elicited narratives using a wordless picture book, Frog Where are You? (Meyer, 1969/1994), on English reading comprehension with a total of 102 English Language Learners (ELLs), including both Spanish and Cantonese speakers. Narrative samples were collected in the winter of first grade and reading skills were assessed on the same children one year later in second grade. Children were enrolled in either bilingual programs or mainstream programs. Multiple regression results show it was not the quantity and variety of words used in the narratives that predicted English reading comprehension one year later. Instead, the ability to produce a coherent oral narrative, in either the home language or English, explained a small variance in English reading comprehension for both English learner groups. These findings highlight the importance of examining narrative skills, especially as measured by narrative structure. Implications for parents and educators are discussed. PMID:28717774

The Re-Education of Desire: The Role of Narrative in Religious-Based Sexual Identity Transformation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heintzelman, Lori Susan

2009-01-01

This dissertation, as a qualitative sociolinguistic analysis, focuses on the use of narrative in identity transformation and sustainment. In particular, it examines the language of those involved in the fashioning of "ex-gay" sexual identity. Such identity work is conducted largely within religious ministries. Particular to evangelical…

Pragmatic Language Outcomes of Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder After Therapist- and Parent-Delivered Play-Based Interventions: Two One-Group Pretest-Posttest Studies With a Longitudinal Component.

PubMed

Wilkes-Gillan, Sarah; Munro, Natalie; Cordier, Reinie; Cantrill, Alycia; Pearce, Wendy

The pragmatic language outcomes of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were explored across two feasibility studies. Five children with ADHD (ages 6-11 yr), their parents, and 5 typically developing peers completed an assessment 18 mo after a therapist-delivered intervention (Study 1). Participants then completed a parent-delivered intervention (Study 2). Blinded ratings of peer-to-peer play interactions documented changes in children's pragmatic language 18 mo after the Study 1 intervention and before, immediately after, and 1 mo after the Study 2 intervention. Nonparametric statistics and Cohen's d were used to measure change. Children's pragmatic language outcomes were maintained 18 mo after the therapist-delivered intervention and significantly improved from before to 1 mo after the parent-delivered intervention. Interventions involving occupational therapist and speech-language pathologist collaboration, play, and parent and peer involvement may facilitate children's pragmatic language skills. Copyright © 2017 by the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.

Language Intervention for Hispanic Children with Language-Learning Disabilities: Evidence-Based Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kummerer, Sharon Elizabeth

2010-01-01

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (1996) estimated that 10% of the United States population has a disorder of speech, language, or hearing, with proportional distribution among members of racially and ethnically diverse groups. Individuals of Hispanic origin are the fastest-growing minority group in the country. Current national…

Vocabulary Intervention for Adolescents with Language Disorder: A Systematic Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lowe, Hilary; Henry, Lucy; Müller, Lisa-Maria; Joffe, Victoria L.

2018-01-01

Background: Language disorder and associated vocabulary difficulties can persist into adolescence, and can impact on long-term life outcomes. Previous reviews have shown that a variety of intervention techniques can successfully enhance students' vocabulary skills; however, none has investigated vocabulary intervention specifically for adolescents…

Improving access to psychosocial interventions for common mental health problems in the United Kingdom: narrative review and development of a conceptual model for complex interventions

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background In the United Kingdom and worldwide, there is significant policy interest in improving the quality of care for patients with mental health disorders and distress. Improving quality of care means addressing not only the effectiveness of interventions but also the issue of limited access to care. Research to date into improving access to mental health care has not been strongly rooted within a conceptual model, nor has it systematically identified the different elements of the patient journey from identification of illness to receipt of care. This paper set out to review core concepts underlying patient access to mental health care, synthesise these to develop a conceptual model of access, and consider the implications of the model for the development and evaluation of interventions for groups with poor access to mental health care such as older people and ethnic minorities. Methods Narrative review of the literature to identify concepts underlying patient access to mental health care, and synthesis into a conceptual model to support the delivery and evaluation of complex interventions to improve access to mental health care. Results The narrative review adopted a process model of access to care, incorporating interventions at three levels. The levels comprise (a) community engagement (b) addressing the quality of interactions in primary care and (c) the development and delivery of tailored psychosocial interventions. Conclusions The model we propose can form the basis for the development and evaluation of complex interventions in access to mental health care. We highlight the key methodological challenges in evaluating the overall impact of access interventions, and assessing the relative contribution of the different elements of the model. PMID:22889290

Disrupted narrative and narrative symbol.

PubMed

Vuletić, Georgije

2018-02-01

In this article a specific type of narrative, which often appears in analytic sessions, is discussed. It is characterized by a seemingly ordinary, everyday topic and by a peculiar disruption of the narrative flow. The threefold structure of this type of narrative is described, along with its main characteristics. One element of this type of narrative is very similar to symbolic content or complex symbolic structures, e.g. dreams, the sort of material that can be used for the purpose of interpretation. The similarities as well as the differences are elaborated in the article. Thanks to the observed general structure and 'symbolic' nature of some parts of the narrative, it is easy to notice some of the unconscious elements, which are not familiar to the patient's ego, and to make an interpretation. Because these elements are close to the threshold of consciousness, the patient willingly accepts an interpretation based on them. This is especially true for patients whose dominant function is thinking. A temporary, working name for this type of narrative is proposed in the article: 'disrupted narrative' - and for its disruptive part 'narrative symbol'. © 2018, The Society of Analytical Psychology.

Automated Assessment of Patients' Self-Narratives for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Screening Using Natural Language Processing and Text Mining.

PubMed

He, Qiwei; Veldkamp, Bernard P; Glas, Cees A W; de Vries, Theo

2017-03-01

Patients' narratives about traumatic experiences and symptoms are useful in clinical screening and diagnostic procedures. In this study, we presented an automated assessment system to screen patients for posttraumatic stress disorder via a natural language processing and text-mining approach. Four machine-learning algorithms-including decision tree, naive Bayes, support vector machine, and an alternative classification approach called the product score model-were used in combination with n-gram representation models to identify patterns between verbal features in self-narratives and psychiatric diagnoses. With our sample, the product score model with unigrams attained the highest prediction accuracy when compared with practitioners' diagnoses. The addition of multigrams contributed most to balancing the metrics of sensitivity and specificity. This article also demonstrates that text mining is a promising approach for analyzing patients' self-expression behavior, thus helping clinicians identify potential patients from an early stage.

Core vocabulary in the narratives of bilingual children with and without language impairment.

PubMed

Shivabasappa, Prarthana; Peña, Elizabeth D; Bedore, Lisa M

2017-09-22

Children with primary language impairment (PLI) demonstrate deficits in morphosyntax and vocabulary. We studied how these deficits may manifest in the core vocabulary use of bilingual children with PLI. Thirty bilingual children with and without PLI who were matched pairwise (experimental group) narrated two Spanish and two English stories in kindergarten and first grade. Core vocabulary was derived from the 30 most frequently used words in the stories of 65 and 37 typically developing (TD) first graders (normative group) for Spanish and English, respectively. The number of words each child in the experimental group produced out of the 30 identified core vocabulary words and frequency of each of the core words produced each year were analysed. Children with PLI produced fewer core vocabulary words compared to their TD peers after controlling for total words produced. This difference was more pronounced in first grade. They produced core vocabulary words less frequently in kindergarten than their TD peers. Both groups produced core vocabulary words more frequently in English than Spanish. Bilingual children with PLI demonstrate a less productive core vocabulary use compared to their TD peers in both their languages illustrating the nature of their grammatical and lexical-semantic deficits.

Understanding the Relationship between Social Cognition and Word Difficulty. A Language Based Analysis of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

PubMed

Aramaki, E; Shikata, S; Miyabe, M; Usuda, Y; Asada, K; Ayaya, S; Kumagaya, S

2015-01-01

Few quantitative studies have been conducted on the relationship between society and its languages. Individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are known to experience social hardships, and a wide range of clinical information about their quality of life has been provided through numerous narrative analyses. However, the narratives of ASD patients have thus far been examined mainly through qualitative approaches. In this study, we analyzed adults with ASD to quantitatively examine the relationship between language abilities and ASD severity scores. We generated phonetic transcriptions of speeches by 16 ASD adults at an ASD workshop, and divided the participants into 2 groups according to their Social Responsiveness Scale(TM), 2nd Edition (SRS(TM)-2) scores (where higher scores represent more severe ASD): Group A comprised high-scoring ASD adults (SRS(TM)-2 score: ≥ 76) and Group B comprised low- and intermediate-scoring ASD adults (SRS(TM)-2 score: < 76). Using natural language processing (NLP)-based analytical methods, the narratives were converted into numerical data according to four language ability indicators, and the relationships between the language ability scores and ASD severity scores were compared. Group A showed a marginally negative correlation with the level of Japanese word difficulty (p < .10), while the "social cognition" subscale of the SRS(TM)-2 score showed a significantly negative correlation (p < .05) with word difficulty. When comparing only male participants, Group A demonstrated a significantly lower correlation with word difficulty level than Group B (p < .10). Social communication was found to be strongly associated with the level of word difficulty in speech. The clinical applications of these findings may be available in the near future, and there is a need for further detailed study on language metrics designed for ASD adults.

Experimentally Testing a Narrative Sense-Making Metaphor Intervention: Facilitating Communicative Coping about Social Aggression with Adolescent Girls

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Willer, Erin K.

2009-01-01

Social aggression, including behaviors such as gossip and friendship manipulation, can be damaging to girls' individual and relational well-being. As a result, the purpose of the present dissertation study was to test a narrative sense-making metaphor intervention with middle schools girls experiencing social aggression in order to facilitate…

Teachers' Knowledge of Second Language and Curriculum: A Narrative Experience (Conocimiento de los profesores acerca de la segunda lengua y el currículo: una experiencia narrativa)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mendieta Aguilar, Jenny Alexandra

2011-01-01

This study was carried out with a group of three teachers who work for the foreign languages department of a private university in Colombia. It was aimed at unveiling and characterizing the narrative knowledge these teachers hold about language teaching and learning processes as well as the role this knowledge plays in the constant construction…

Directionality effects in simultaneous language interpreting: the case of sign language interpreters in The Netherlands.

PubMed

Van Dijk, Rick; Boers, Eveline; Christoffels, Ingrid; Hermans, Daan

2011-01-01

The quality of interpretations produced by sign language interpreters was investigated. Twenty-five experienced interpreters were instructed to interpret narratives from (a) spoken Dutch to Sign Language of The Netherlands (SLN), (b) spoken Dutch to Sign Supported Dutch (SSD), and (c) SLN to spoken Dutch. The quality of the interpreted narratives was assessed by 5 certified sign language interpreters who did not participate in the study. Two measures were used to assess interpreting quality: the propositional accuracy of the interpreters' interpretations and a subjective quality measure. The results showed that the interpreted narratives in the SLN-to-Dutch interpreting direction were of lower quality (on both measures) than the interpreted narratives in the Dutch-to-SLN and Dutch-to-SSD directions. Furthermore, interpreters who had begun acquiring SLN when they entered the interpreter training program performed as well in all 3 interpreting directions as interpreters who had acquired SLN from birth.

A Medical Language Processor for Two Indo-European Languages

PubMed Central

Nhan, Ngo Thanh; Sager, Naomi; Lyman, Margaret; Tick, Leo J.; Borst, François; Su, Yun

1989-01-01

The syntax and semantics of clinical narrative across Indo-European languages are quite similar, making it possible to envison a single medical language processor that can be adapted for different European languages. The Linguistic String Project of New York University is continuing the development of its Medical Language Processor in this direction. The paper describes how the processor operates on English and French.

The architecture of visual narrative comprehension: the interaction of narrative structure and page layout in understanding comics.

PubMed

Cohn, Neil

2014-01-01

How do people make sense of the sequential images in visual narratives like comics? A growing literature of recent research has suggested that this comprehension involves the interaction of multiple systems: The creation of meaning across sequential images relies on a "narrative grammar" that packages conceptual information into categorical roles organized in hierarchic constituents. These images are encapsulated into panels arranged in the layout of a physical page. Finally, how panels frame information can impact both the narrative structure and page layout. Altogether, these systems operate in parallel to construct the Gestalt whole of comprehension of this visual language found in comics.

Visualizing Syllables: Real-Time Computerized Feedback within a Speech-Language Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeThorne, Laura; Aparicio Betancourt, Mariana; Karahalios, Karrie; Halle, Jim; Bogue, Ellen

2015-01-01

Computerized technologies now offer unprecedented opportunities to provide real-time visual feedback to facilitate children's speech-language development. We employed a mixed-method design to examine the effectiveness of two speech-language interventions aimed at facilitating children's multisyllabic productions: one incorporated a novel…

Narratives of Classroom Life: Changing Conceptions of Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Cynthia D.

2011-01-01

Narratives of classroom life--the type that blend analysis with artistry, in the form of plays, poems, stories, and the like--remain relatively uncommon within language education research. Yet such narratives have the potential to make a significant and timely contribution to the field, given the ways in which knowledge is being reconceptualised…

Evidence-Based Practice for Children with Speech Sound Disorders: Part 2 Application to Clinical Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baker, Elise; McLeod, Sharynne

2011-01-01

Purpose: This article provides both a tutorial and a clinical example of how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can conduct evidence-based practice (EBP) when working with children with speech sound disorders (SSDs). It is a companion paper to the narrative review of 134 intervention studies for children who have an SSD (Baker & McLeod, 2011).…

Effects of Age and Language on Co-Speech Gesture Production: An Investigation of French, American, and Italian Children's Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Colletta, Jean-Marc; Guidetti, Michele; Capirci, Olga; Cristilli, Carla; Demir, Ozlem Ece; Kunene-Nicolas, Ramona N.; Levine, Susan

2015-01-01

The aim of this paper is to compare speech and co-speech gestures observed during a narrative retelling task in five- and ten-year-old children from three different linguistic groups, French, American, and Italian, in order to better understand the role of age and language in the development of multimodal monologue discourse abilities. We asked 98…

A narrative review of undergraduate peer-based healthcare ethics teaching.

PubMed

Hindmarch, Thomas; Allikmets, Silvia; Knights, Felicity

2015-12-12

This study explores the literature in establishing the value of undergraduate peer-based healthcare ethics teaching as an educational methodology. A narrative review of the literature concerning peer-based ethics teaching was conducted. MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, SCOPUS databases, and the Cochrane Library, were systematically searched for studies of peer-based ethics or professionalism teaching. Selected studies related peer-based teaching to ethics education outcomes. Ten publications were identified. Selected studies were varied in their chosen intervention methodology and analysis. Collectively, the identified studies suggest peer-based ethics education is an effective and valued educational methodology in training healthcare professionals. One paper suggests peer-based ethics teaching has advantages over traditional didactic methods. Peer-based ethics teaching also receives positive feedback from student participants. However, the limited literature base demonstrates a clear need for more evaluation of this pedagogy. The current literature base suggests that undergraduate peer based healthcare ethics teaching is valuable in terms of efficacy and student satisfaction. We conclude that the medical community should invest in further study in order to capitalise upon the potential of peer-based ethics teaching in undergraduate healthcare education.

A narrative review of undergraduate peer-based healthcare ethics teaching

PubMed Central

Allikmets, Silvia; Knights, Felicity

2015-01-01

Objectives This study explores the literature in establishing the value of undergraduate peer-based healthcare ethics teaching as an educational methodology. Methods A narrative review of the literature concerning peer-based ethics teaching was conducted. MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, SCOPUS databases, and the Cochrane Library, were systematically searched for studies of peer-based ethics or professionalism teaching. Selected studies related peer-based teaching to ethics education outcomes. Results Ten publications were identified. Selected studies were varied in their chosen intervention methodology and analysis. Collectively, the identified studies suggest peer-based ethics education is an effective and valued educational methodology in training healthcare professionals. One paper suggests peer-based ethics teaching has advantages over traditional didactic methods. Peer-based ethics teaching also receives positive feedback from student participants. However, the limited literature base demonstrates a clear need for more evaluation of this pedagogy. Conclusions The current literature base suggests that undergraduate peer based healthcare ethics teaching is valuable in terms of efficacy and student satisfaction. We conclude that the medical community should invest in further study in order to capitalise upon the potential of peer-based ethics teaching in undergraduate healthcare education. PMID:26668050

Conceptually Based Vocabulary Intervention: Second Graders' Development of Vocabulary Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dimling, Lisa M.

2010-01-01

An instructional strategy was investigated that addressed the needs of deaf and hard of hearing students through a conceptually based sign language vocabulary intervention. A single-subject multiple-baseline design was used to determine the effects of the vocabulary intervention on word recognition, production, and comprehension. Six students took…

Narrative change, narrative stability, and structural constraint: The case of prisoner reentry narratives

PubMed Central

Harding, David J.; Dobson, Cheyney C.; Wyse, Jessica J. B.; Morenoff, Jeffrey D.

2016-01-01

Cultural sociologists and other social scientists have increasingly used the concept of narrative as a theoretical tool to understand how individuals make sense of the links between their past, present, and future, how individuals construct social identities from cultural building blocks, and how culture shapes social action and individual behavior. Despite its richness, we contend that the narratives literature has yet to grapple with narrative change and stability when structural constraints or barriers challenge personal narratives and narrative identities. Particularly for marginalized groups, the potential incompatibility of personal narratives with daily experiences raises questions about the capacity of narratives to influence behavior and decision-making. In this study we draw on prospective longitudinal data on the reentry narratives and narrative identities of former prisoners to understand how narratives do and not change when confronted with contradictory experiences and structural constraints. We identify and describe the processes generating narrative change and stability among our subjects. These findings inform a framework for studying narrative change and stability based on four factors: the content of the narrative itself, the structural circumstances experienced by the individual, the institutional contexts in which the individual is embedded, and the social networks in which the individual is embedded. PMID:28316785

Research studies on patients' illness experience using the Narrative Medicine approach: a systematic review

PubMed Central

Fioretti, Chiara; Mazzocco, Ketti; Oliveri, Serena; Masiero, Marianna; Pravettoni, Gabriella

2016-01-01

Objective Since its birth about 30 years ago, Narrative Medicine approach has increased in popularity in the medical context as well as in other disciplines. This paper aims to review Narrative Medicine research studies on patients' and their caregivers' illness experience. Setting and participants MEDLINE, Psycinfo, EBSCO Psychological and Behavioural Science, The Cochrane Library and CINAHL databases were searched to identify all the research studies which focused on the Narrative Medicine approach reported in the title, in the abstract and in the keywords the words ‘Narrative Medicine’ or ‘Narrative-based Medicine’. Primary and secondary outcome measures: number of participants, type of disease, race and age of participants, type of study, dependent variables, intervention methods, assessment. Results Of the 325 titles screened, we identified 10 research articles fitting the inclusion criteria. Our systematic review showed that research on Narrative Medicine has no common specific methodology: narrative in Medicine is used as an intervention protocol as well as an assessment tool. Patients' characteristics, types of disease and data analysis procedures differ among the screened studies. Conclusions Narrative Medicine research in medical practice needs to find clear and specific protocols to deepen the impact of narrative on medical practice and on patients' lives. PMID:27417197

Chinese mental illness narratives: controlling the spirit.

PubMed

Ramsay, Guy

2009-01-01

Through analysis of local level narrative themes and linguistic features and their attendant narrative 'domains' and emotive content, this study explicates the discursive forms of Chinese personal narratives about mental illness published in a psychoeducational volume in mainland China. The cultural phenomena underpinning the explicated discursive forms are considered. The study finds that the Chinese mental illness narratives emphasize the problematic nature of the illness experience for the individual concerned, as well as the importance of gaining control over the personal and social disembodiment that mental illness brings about. The language of medicine presents as a dominant linguistic feature of the texts. Narrative authors appear to respond to their illness experience by negotiating and utilizing social relationships and support structures and through active medical intercession. As such, their narratives appear deeply culturally marked despite their psychoeducational intent and institutional context of publication. The study findings bear out the call for more attention to be given to the cultural dimension when analysing illness narratives.

Protocol for a systematic review of the use of narrative storytelling and visual-arts-based approaches as knowledge translation tools in healthcare

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background The arts are powerful, accessible forms of communication that have the potential to impart knowledge by attracting interest and developing meaningful connections. Knowledge translation aims to reduce the ‘evidence-practice’ gap by developing, implementing and evaluating strategies designed to enhance awareness and promote behavior change congruent with research evidence. Increasingly, innovative approaches such as narrative storytelling and other arts-based interventions are being investigated to bridge the growing gap between practice and research. This study is the first to systematically identify and synthesize current research on narrative storytelling and visual art to translate and disseminate health research. Methods A health research librarian will develop and implement search strategies designed to identify relevant evidence. Studies will be included if they are primary research employing narrative storytelling and/or visual art as a knowledge translation strategy in healthcare. Two reviewers will independently perform study selection, quality assessment, and data extraction using standard forms. Disagreements will be resolved through discussion or third party adjudication. Data will be grouped and analyzed by research design, type of knowledge translation strategy (that is, a narrative or visual-arts-based approach), and target audience. An overall synthesis across all studies will be conducted. Discussion The findings from this research project will describe the ‘state of the science’ regarding the use of narrative storytelling and visual art as knowledge translation strategies. This systematic review will provide critical information for: (1) researchers conducting knowledge translation intervention studies; (2) nursing, medicine, and allied healthcare professionals; (3) healthcare consumers, including patients and families; and (4) decision makers and knowledge users who are charged to increase use of the latest research in

Protocol for a systematic review of the use of narrative storytelling and visual-arts-based approaches as knowledge translation tools in healthcare.

PubMed

Scott, Shannon D; Brett-MacLean, Pamela; Archibald, Mandy; Hartling, Lisa

2013-03-20

The arts are powerful, accessible forms of communication that have the potential to impart knowledge by attracting interest and developing meaningful connections. Knowledge translation aims to reduce the 'evidence-practice' gap by developing, implementing and evaluating strategies designed to enhance awareness and promote behavior change congruent with research evidence. Increasingly, innovative approaches such as narrative storytelling and other arts-based interventions are being investigated to bridge the growing gap between practice and research. This study is the first to systematically identify and synthesize current research on narrative storytelling and visual art to translate and disseminate health research. A health research librarian will develop and implement search strategies designed to identify relevant evidence. Studies will be included if they are primary research employing narrative storytelling and/or visual art as a knowledge translation strategy in healthcare. Two reviewers will independently perform study selection, quality assessment, and data extraction using standard forms. Disagreements will be resolved through discussion or third party adjudication. Data will be grouped and analyzed by research design, type of knowledge translation strategy (that is, a narrative or visual-arts-based approach), and target audience. An overall synthesis across all studies will be conducted. The findings from this research project will describe the 'state of the science' regarding the use of narrative storytelling and visual art as knowledge translation strategies. This systematic review will provide critical information for: (1) researchers conducting knowledge translation intervention studies; (2) nursing, medicine, and allied healthcare professionals; (3) healthcare consumers, including patients and families; and (4) decision makers and knowledge users who are charged to increase use of the latest research in healthcare settings.

Towards Evidence-Based Practice in Language Intervention for Bilingual Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thordardottir, Elin

2010-01-01

Evidence-based practice requires that clinical decisions be based on evidence from rigorously controlled research studies. At this time, very few studies have directly examined the efficacy of clinical intervention methods for bilingual children. Clinical decisions for this population cannot, therefore, be based on the strongest forms of research…

Morphological Awareness Intervention in School-Age Children with Language and Literacy Deficits: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolter, Julie A.; Green, Laura

2013-01-01

This article highlights the clinical application of morphological awareness intervention to facilitate phonological, vocabulary, reading, and spelling success in children with language and literacy deficits. First, the research-based benefits of morphological awareness instruction are reviewed and current theoretical and research-based…

Characterizing the Pain Narratives of Parents of Youth With Chronic Pain.

PubMed

Noel, Melanie; Beals-Erickson, Sarah E; Law, Emily F; Alberts, Nicole M; Palermo, Tonya M

2016-10-01

Questionnaire-based research has shown that parents exert a powerful influence on and are profoundly influenced by living with a child with chronic pain. Examination of parents' pain narratives through an observational lens offers an alternative approach to understanding the complexity of pediatric chronic pain; however, the narratives of parents of youth with chronic pain have been largely overlooked. The present study aimed to characterize the vulnerability-based and resilience-based aspects of the pain narratives of parents of youth with chronic pain. Pain narratives of 46 parents were recorded during the baseline session as part of 2 clinical trials evaluating a behavioral intervention for parents of youth with chronic pain. The narratives were coded for aspects of pain-related vulnerability and resilience. Using exploratory cluster analysis, 2 styles of parents' pain narratives were identified. Distress narratives were characterized by more negative affect and an exclusively unresolved orientation toward the child's diagnosis of chronic pain, whereas resilience narratives were characterized by positive affect and a predominantly resolved orientation toward the child's diagnosis. Preliminary support for the validity of these clusters was provided through our finding of differences between clusters in parental pain catastrophizing about child pain (helplessness). Findings highlight the multidimensional nature of parents' experience of their child's pain problem. Clinical implications in terms of assessment and treatment are discussed.

The relationship between oral and written narratives: A three-year longitudinal study of narrative cohesion, coherence, and structure.

PubMed

Pinto, Giuliana; Tarchi, Christian; Bigozzi, Lucia

2015-12-01

The relationship between oral language and the writing process at early acquisition stages and the ways the former can enhance or limit the latter has not been researched extensively. The predictive relationship between kindergarten oral narrative competence and the first- and second-grade written narrative competence was explored in a 3-year longitudinal study. Among the first and second graders, the relationship between orthographic competence and narrative competence in written productions was also analysed. One hundred and nine Italian children participated in this study. Kindergarteners produced an oral narrative, whereas the first and second graders produced a written narrative. The oral and written narratives were analysed in terms of cohesion, coherence, and structure. The first-grade orthographic competence was assessed via a dictation task. Multiple linear regression and mediational analyses were performed. Kindergarten oral narrative competence affected the first- and second-grade written narrative competence via a mediational effect of orthographic competence. The results suggest the importance of practicing oral narrative competence in kindergarten and first grade and the value of composition quality independent of orthographic text accuracy. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

Fluency Patterns in Narratives from Children with Localization Related Epilepsy

PubMed Central

Steinberg, Mara E.; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Gaillard, William; Berl, Madison

2013-01-01

This study assessed the relationship between fluency and language demand in children with epilepsy, a group known to demonstrate depressed language skills. Disfluency type and frequencies were analyzed in elicited narratives from 52 children. Half of these children had localization-related epilepsy (CWE), while the others were age- and gender-matched typically developing (TD) peers. CWE were found to be significantly more disfluent overall than their matched TD peers during narrative productions, and demonstrated a higher proportion of stutter-like disfluencies, particularly prolongations. The current study adds to an emerging literature that has found depressed language skills and listener perceptions of verbal ability in children with chronic seizure activity, and contributes to the small but growing literature that suggests that disfluency during spoken language tasks may be a subtle marker of expressive language impairment. PMID:23773671

Design of an extensive information representation scheme for clinical narratives.

PubMed

Deléger, Louise; Campillos, Leonardo; Ligozat, Anne-Laure; Névéol, Aurélie

2017-09-11

Knowledge representation frameworks are essential to the understanding of complex biomedical processes, and to the analysis of biomedical texts that describe them. Combined with natural language processing (NLP), they have the potential to contribute to retrospective studies by unlocking important phenotyping information contained in the narrative content of electronic health records (EHRs). This work aims to develop an extensive information representation scheme for clinical information contained in EHR narratives, and to support secondary use of EHR narrative data to answer clinical questions. We review recent work that proposed information representation schemes and applied them to the analysis of clinical narratives. We then propose a unifying scheme that supports the extraction of information to address a large variety of clinical questions. We devised a new information representation scheme for clinical narratives that comprises 13 entities, 11 attributes and 37 relations. The associated annotation guidelines can be used to consistently apply the scheme to clinical narratives and are https://cabernet.limsi.fr/annotation_guide_for_the_merlot_french_clinical_corpus-Sept2016.pdf . The information scheme includes many elements of the major schemes described in the clinical natural language processing literature, as well as a uniquely detailed set of relations.

Public acceptability of government intervention to change health-related behaviours: a systematic review and narrative synthesis

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Governments can intervene to change health-related behaviours using various measures but are sensitive to public attitudes towards such interventions. This review describes public attitudes towards a range of policy interventions aimed at changing tobacco and alcohol use, diet, and physical activity, and the extent to which these attitudes vary with characteristics of (a) the targeted behaviour (b) the intervention and (c) the respondents. Methods We searched electronic databases and conducted a narrative synthesis of empirical studies that reported public attitudes in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand towards interventions relating to tobacco, alcohol, diet and physical activity. Two hundred studies met the inclusion criteria. Results Over half the studies (105/200, 53%) were conducted in North America, with the most common interventions relating to tobacco control (110/200, 55%), followed by alcohol (42/200, 21%), diet-related interventions (18/200, 9%), interventions targeting both diet and physical activity (18/200, 9%), and physical activity alone (3/200, 2%). Most studies used survey-based methods (160/200, 80%), and only ten used experimental designs. Acceptability varied as a function of: (a) the targeted behaviour, with more support observed for smoking-related interventions; (b) the type of intervention, with less intrusive interventions, those already implemented, and those targeting children and young people attracting most support; and (c) the characteristics of respondents, with support being highest in those not engaging in the targeted behaviour, and with women and older respondents being more likely to endorse more restrictive measures. Conclusions Public acceptability of government interventions to change behaviour is greatest for the least intrusive interventions, which are often the least effective, and for interventions targeting the behaviour of others, rather than the respondent him or herself. Experimental studies

Death narratives and cervical cancer: Impact of character death on narrative processing and HPV vaccination.

PubMed

Krakow, Melinda; Yale, Robert N; Perez Torres, Debora; Christy, Katheryn; Jensen, Jakob D

2017-12-01

Narratives hold promise as an effective public health message strategy for health behavior change, yet research on what types of narratives are most persuasive is still in the formative stage. Narrative persuasion research has identified 2 promising features of such messages that could influence behavior: whether characters live or die, and whether characters encounter key barriers. This study investigated the effects of these 2 narrative message features on young women's HPV vaccination intentions and examined mediating psychological processes of narrative persuasion in the context of cervical cancer messages. We manipulated these 2 features in a narrative HPV vaccine intervention targeted to a national sample of U.S. women 18-26 who had not initiated the vaccine (N = 247). Participants were randomized in a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment. Compared to death narratives, survival narratives increased narrative believability and self-efficacy while lowering perceived barriers to vaccination. As features interacted, survival narratives featuring social barriers led to greater narrative transportation (absorption into the story) than other combinations. Moderated mediation analysis tested 10 theoretically derived mediators; transportation and risk severity mediated the narrative-intention relationship. Findings provide evidence for key psychological postulates of narrative persuasion theory. Results inform practical application for the construction of effective narrative message content in cervical cancer prevention campaigns for young women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of Feedback Intervention on Team-Teaching in English Language Classrooms in Nigeria

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anani, Oluwabunmi Ahoefa; Badaki, Jude Valentine; Kamai, Richard

2016-01-01

The typical Nigerian English language classroom has a large class size and lacks qualified language teachers. These factors reflect in the quality and quantity of teaching in the English as a Second Language classroom. Team teaching or co-teaching is an intervention strategy which language teachers can use to address these issues. Not only does…

Language Sample Measures and Language Ability in Spanish English Bilingual Kindergarteners

PubMed Central

Bedore, Lisa M.; Peña, Elizabeth D.; Gillam, Ronald B.; Ho, Tsung-Han

2010-01-01

Measures of productivity and sentence organization are useful metrics for quantifying language development and language impairments in monolingual and bilingual children. It is not yet known what measures within and across languages are most informative when evaluating the language skills of bilingual children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how measures of language productivity and organization in two languages converge with children’s measured language abilities on the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment (BESA), a standardized measure of language ability. 170 kindergarten age children who produced narrative language samples in Spanish and in English based on a wordless picture book were included in the analysis. Samples were analyzed for number of utterances, number of different words, mean length of utterance, and percentage of grammatical utterances. The best predictors of language ability as measured by the BESA scores were English MLU, English grammaticality, and Spanish grammaticality. Results are discussed in relationship to the nature of the measures in each of the languages and in regard to their potential utility for identifying low language ability in bilingual children. PMID:20955835

A Cross-Linguistic Study of the Development of Gesture and Speech in Zulu and French Oral Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nicolas, Ramona Kunene; Guidetti, Michele; Colletta, Jean-Marc

2017-01-01

The present study reports on a developmental and cross-linguistic study of oral narratives produced by speakers of Zulu (a Bantu language) and French (a Romance language). Specifically, we focus on oral narrative performance as a bimodal (i.e., linguistic and gestural) behaviour during the late language acquisition phase. We analyzed seventy-two…

Narrative Constructions for the Organization of Self Experience: Proof of Concept via Embodied Robotics

PubMed Central

Mealier, Anne-Laure; Pointeau, Gregoire; Mirliaz, Solène; Ogawa, Kenji; Finlayson, Mark; Dominey, Peter F.

2017-01-01

It has been proposed that starting from meaning that the child derives directly from shared experience with others, adult narrative enriches this meaning and its structure, providing causal links between unseen intentional states and actions. This would require a means for representing meaning from experience—a situation model—and a mechanism that allows information to be extracted from sentences and mapped onto the situation model that has been derived from experience, thus enriching that representation. We present a hypothesis and theory concerning how the language processing infrastructure for grammatical constructions can naturally be extended to narrative constructions to provide a mechanism for using language to enrich meaning derived from physical experience. Toward this aim, the grammatical construction models are augmented with additional structures for representing relations between events across sentences. Simulation results demonstrate proof of concept for how the narrative construction model supports multiple successive levels of meaning creation which allows the system to learn about the intentionality of mental states, and argument substitution which allows extensions to metaphorical language and analogical problem solving. Cross-linguistic validity of the system is demonstrated in Japanese. The narrative construction model is then integrated into the cognitive system of a humanoid robot that provides the memory systems and world-interaction required for representing meaning in a situation model. In this context proof of concept is demonstrated for how the system enriches meaning in the situation model that has been directly derived from experience. In terms of links to empirical data, the model predicts strong usage based effects: that is, that the narrative constructions used by children will be highly correlated with those that they experience. It also relies on the notion of narrative or discourse function words. Both of these are validated

Narrative Constructions for the Organization of Self Experience: Proof of Concept via Embodied Robotics.

PubMed

Mealier, Anne-Laure; Pointeau, Gregoire; Mirliaz, Solène; Ogawa, Kenji; Finlayson, Mark; Dominey, Peter F

2017-01-01

It has been proposed that starting from meaning that the child derives directly from shared experience with others, adult narrative enriches this meaning and its structure, providing causal links between unseen intentional states and actions. This would require a means for representing meaning from experience-a situation model-and a mechanism that allows information to be extracted from sentences and mapped onto the situation model that has been derived from experience, thus enriching that representation. We present a hypothesis and theory concerning how the language processing infrastructure for grammatical constructions can naturally be extended to narrative constructions to provide a mechanism for using language to enrich meaning derived from physical experience. Toward this aim, the grammatical construction models are augmented with additional structures for representing relations between events across sentences. Simulation results demonstrate proof of concept for how the narrative construction model supports multiple successive levels of meaning creation which allows the system to learn about the intentionality of mental states, and argument substitution which allows extensions to metaphorical language and analogical problem solving. Cross-linguistic validity of the system is demonstrated in Japanese. The narrative construction model is then integrated into the cognitive system of a humanoid robot that provides the memory systems and world-interaction required for representing meaning in a situation model. In this context proof of concept is demonstrated for how the system enriches meaning in the situation model that has been directly derived from experience. In terms of links to empirical data, the model predicts strong usage based effects: that is, that the narrative constructions used by children will be highly correlated with those that they experience. It also relies on the notion of narrative or discourse function words. Both of these are validated in

Trajectory and outcomes of speech language therapy in the Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS): case report.

PubMed

Misquiatti, Andréa Regina Nunes; Cristovão, Melina Pavini; Brito, Maria Claudia

2011-03-01

The aim of this study was to describe the trajectory and the outcomes of speech-language therapy in Prader-Willi syndrome through a longitudinal study of the case of an 8 year-old boy, along four years of speech-language therapy follow-up. The therapy sessions were filmed and documental analysis of information from the child's records regarding anamnesis, evaluation and speech-language therapy reports and multidisciplinary evaluations were carried out. The child presented typical characteristics of Prader-Willi syndrome, such as obesity, hyperfagia, anxiety, behavioral problems and self aggression episodes. Speech-language pathology evaluation showed orofacial hypotony, sialorrhea, hypernasal voice, cognitive deficits, oral comprehension difficulties, communication using gestures and unintelligible isolated words. Initially, speech-language therapy had the aim to promote the language development emphasizing social interaction through recreational activities. With the evolution of the case, the main focus became the development of conversation and narrative abilities. It were observed improvements in attention, symbolic play, social contact and behavior. Moreover, there was an increase in vocabulary, and evolution in oral comprehension and the development of narrative abilities. Hence, speech-language pathology intervention in the case described was effective in different linguistic levels, regarding phonological, syntactic, lexical and pragmatic abilities.

The architecture of visual narrative comprehension: the interaction of narrative structure and page layout in understanding comics

PubMed Central

Cohn, Neil

2014-01-01

How do people make sense of the sequential images in visual narratives like comics? A growing literature of recent research has suggested that this comprehension involves the interaction of multiple systems: The creation of meaning across sequential images relies on a “narrative grammar” that packages conceptual information into categorical roles organized in hierarchic constituents. These images are encapsulated into panels arranged in the layout of a physical page. Finally, how panels frame information can impact both the narrative structure and page layout. Altogether, these systems operate in parallel to construct the Gestalt whole of comprehension of this visual language found in comics. PMID:25071651

Direct and mediated effects of language and cognitive skills on comprehension of oral narrative texts (listening comprehension) for children.

PubMed

Kim, Young-Suk Grace

2016-01-01

We investigated component language and cognitive skills of oral language comprehension of narrative texts (i.e., listening comprehension). Using the construction-integration model of text comprehension as an overarching theoretical framework, we examined direct and mediated relations of foundational cognitive skills (working memory and attention), foundational language skills (vocabulary and grammatical knowledge), and higher-order cognitive skills (inference, theory of mind, and comprehension monitoring) to listening comprehension. A total of 201 first grade children in South Korea participated in the study. Structural equation modeling results showed that listening comprehension is directly predicted by working memory, grammatical knowledge, inference, and theory of mind and is indirectly predicted by attention, vocabulary, and comprehension monitoring. The total effects were .46 for working memory, .07 for attention, .30 for vocabulary, .49 for grammatical knowledge, .31 for inference, .52 for theory of mind, and .18 for comprehension monitoring. These results suggest that multiple language and cognitive skills make contributions to listening comprehension, and their contributions are both direct and indirect. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Elementary Teachers' Science Knowledge and Instructional Practices: Impact of an Intervention Focused on English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Okhee; Llosa, Lorena; Jiang, Feng; Haas, Alison; O'Connor, Corey; Van Booven, Christopher D.

2016-01-01

As part of a three-year curricular and professional development intervention focused on English language learners (ELLs), this study examined the intervention's effect on teachers' science knowledge and instructional practices after one year of implementation. The P-SELL (Promoting Science Among English Language Learners) intervention comprised…

The use of music intervention in healthcare research: a narrative review of the literature.

PubMed

Tang, Hsin-Yi Jean; Vezeau, Toni

2010-09-01

Although music has been widely used in healthcare, there has been scant review of literature analyzing the use of music as an intervention in healthcare research. The purpose of this article was to provide a narrative review of the literature to explore how "music therapy" has been used in healthcare research to promote healing in adult populations. The following five questions were addressed: (a) In what populations and under what conditions has music intervention been studied? (b) What specific kinds of music have been used for study intervention? (c) How has the music intervention been operationalized? (d) What metrics have been used as outcome measures? (e) Have music interventions been effective? Articles were retrieved from several scientific databases (PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO) using the following search parameters: MeSH search terms "music therapy" in the title field with the search limit to "adults 19 years and older," "humans," "clinical randomized controlled studies," and "English." A total of 33 clinical randomized controlled studies that met the search criteria were reviewed. (a) In the reviewed studies (studied articles), subjects with dementia were the most commonly studied population group, and the predominant aim of the study was to alleviate anxiety. (b) Employed music interventions may be categorized as one of two types: passive (receptive) and active. The passive (receptive) music intervention commonly involved subjects in a resting position listening to music, whereas the active music intervention is usually carried out in a group format in which subjects are actively involved in the music intervention. (c) Intervention frequency, dosing, and duration were highly variable across the reviewed studies. Very few studies described the intervention setting, which made evaluation of these studies difficult. Direct supervision seemed to be an influential factor for adherence. (d) Outcome measures in retrieved articles involved two types

Language Teachers: Research and Studies in Language(s) Education, Teaching, and Learning in "Teaching and Teacher Education," 1985-2012

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kleinsasser, Robert C.

2013-01-01

The article reviews twelve of 79 articles focusing on language teachers, language(s) teacher education, teaching, and learning published in "Teaching and Teacher Education" since 1985. The twelve articles, divided into three sections, include narrative inquiry and identity, teacher education topics, and contexts. The articles provide local and…

Exploring the utility of narrative analysis in diagnostic decision making: picture-bound reference, elaboration, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Thorne, John C; Coggins, Truman E; Carmichael Olson, Heather; Astley, Susan J

2007-04-01

To evaluate classification accuracy and clinical feasibility of a narrative analysis tool for identifying children with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Picture-elicited narratives generated by 16 age-matched pairs of school-aged children (FASD vs. typical development [TD]) were coded for semantic elaboration and reference strategy by judges who were unaware of age, gender, and group membership of the participants. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to examine the classification accuracy of the resulting set of narrative measures for making 2 classifications: (a) for the 16 children diagnosed with FASD, low performance (n = 7) versus average performance (n = 9) on a standardized expressive language task and (b) FASD (n = 16) versus TD (n = 16). Combining the rates of semantic elaboration and pragmatically inappropriate reference perfectly matched a classification based on performance on the standardized language task. More importantly, the rate of ambiguous nominal reference was highly accurate in classifying children with an FASD regardless of their performance on the standardized language task (area under the ROC curve = .863, confidence interval = .736-.991). Results support further study of the diagnostic utility of narrative analysis using discourse level measures of elaboration and children's strategic use of reference.

Evidence-Based Literacy Interventions for East/Southeast Asian English Language Learners: A Review of the Research and Recommendations for Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beneville, Margaret A.; Li, Chieh

2018-01-01

Purpose: There is a notable dearth of interventions that have been specifically designed for Asian English Language Learner (ELL) students, and the existing research on ELL students often lacks population validity and sample diversity. In response to this need, this paper aims to review current research on literacy interventions for East/Southeast…

Cross-linguistic transfer effects after phonologically based cognate therapy in a case of multilingual specific language impairment (SLI).

PubMed

Kambanaros, Maria; Michaelides, Michalis; Grohmann, Kleanthes K

2017-05-01

Clinicians globally recognize as exceptionally challenging the development of effective intervention practices for bi- or multilingual children with specific language impairment (SLI). Therapy in both or all of an impaired child's languages is rarely possible. An alternative is to develop treatment protocols that facilitate the transfer of therapy effects from a treated language to an untreated language. To explore whether cognates, words that share meaning and phonological features across languages, could be used to boost lexical retrieval in the context of multilingual SLI. This is dependent on exploiting the phonological information in the one, trained language as a mechanism for (phonological) language transfer to the other, untrained languages. The participant is an 8.5-year-old girl diagnosed with SLI who showed a severe naming deficit in her three spoken languages (Bulgarian, English and Greek). She received training on cognates (n = 20) using a picture-based naming task in English only, three times a week, over a 4-week period for 20 min each time. Phonological-based naming therapy was carried out using form-based strategies. There was a significant improvement during therapy and immediately after intervention on cognate performance in English which was maintained 1 month after intervention. Cognate production in Bulgarian and Greek also improved during all stages of the intervention. Improvement in the non-treated languages was slightly more than half of the improvement recorded in English. The findings reflected some degree of cross-linguistic transfer effects. Cross-linguistic transfer effects were evident during therapy and after therapy had finished and the effects were maintained 1 month post-treatment. Both the native language (Bulgarian) and the dominant language (Greek) benefitted equally from the treatment of cognates in English. Generalization to non-treatment words was evident, predominantly for English. The results suggest that cognates can

Acceptability Ratings of Language Interventions and Reasoning as Described by Early Childhood Special Education Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turan, Yasemin

2012-01-01

This study utilised a structured analogue method to evaluate factors which impact preschool teachers' preference for language interventions. These factors included type of treatment approach (naturalistic versus therapeutic), person delivering the intervention (classroom teacher versus speech and language pathologist), and severity of language…

Considering the needs of English language learner populations: an examination of the population validity of reading intervention research.

PubMed

Moore, Brooke A; Klingner, Janette K

2014-01-01

This article synthesizes reading intervention research studies intended for use with struggling or at-risk students to determine which studies adequately address population validity, particularly in regard to the diverse reading needs of English language learners. An extensive search of the professional literature between 2001 and 2010 yielded a total of 67 reading intervention studies targeting at-risk elementary students. Findings revealed that many current research studies fail to adequately describe the sample, including the accessible and target populations, and to disaggregate their findings based on demographic characteristics. When population validity issues are not addressed, researchers cannot generalize findings to other populations of students, and it becomes unclear what intervention strategies work, especially with English language learner student populations. However, 25 studies did specifically recognize and address the needs of English language learners, indicating more researchers are taking into consideration the diverse needs of other struggling student populations. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2012.

Social learning theory parenting intervention promotes attachment-based caregiving in young children: randomized clinical trial.

PubMed

O'Connor, Thomas G; Matias, Carla; Futh, Annabel; Tantam, Grace; Scott, Stephen

2013-01-01

Parenting programs for school-aged children are typically based on behavioral principles as applied in social learning theory. It is not yet clear if the benefits of these interventions extend beyond aspects of the parent-child relationship quality conceptualized by social learning theory. The current study examined the extent to which a social learning theory-based treatment promoted change in qualities of parent-child relationship derived from attachment theory. A randomized clinical trial of 174 four- to six-year-olds selected from a high-need urban area and stratified by conduct problems were assigned to a parenting program plus a reading intervention (n = 88) or nonintervention condition (n = 86). In-home observations of parent-child interactions were assessed in three tasks: (a) free play, (b) challenge task, and (c) tidy up. Parenting behavior was coded according to behavior theory using standard count measures of positive and negative parenting, and for attachment theory using measures of sensitive responding and mutuality; children's attachment narratives were also assessed. Compared to the parents in the nonintervention group, parents allocated to the intervention showed increases in the positive behavioral counts and sensitive responding; change in behavioral count measures overlapped modestly with change in attachment-based changes. There was no reliable change in children's attachment narratives associated with the intervention. The findings demonstrate that standard social learning theory-based parenting interventions can change broader aspects of parent-child relationship quality and raise clinical and conceptual questions about the distinctiveness of existing treatment models in parenting research.

Narrating consciousness: language, media and embodiment.

PubMed

Hayles, N Katherine; Pulizzi, James J

2010-01-01

Although there has long been a division in studies of consciousness between a focus on neuronal processes or conversely an emphasis on the ruminations of a conscious self, the long-standing split between mechanism and meaning within the brain was mirrored by a split without, between information as a technical term and the meanings that messages are commonly thought to convey. How to heal this breach has posed formidable problems to researchers. Working through the history of cybernetics, one of the historical sites where Claude Shannon's information theory quickly became received doctrine, we argue that the cybernetic program as it developed through second-order cybernetics and autopoietic theory remains incomplete. In this article, we return to fundamental questions about pattern and noise, context and meaning, to forge connections between consciousness, narrative and media. The thrust of our project is to reintroduce context and narrative as crucial factors in the processes of meaning-making. The project proceeds along two fronts: advancing a theoretical framework within which context plays its property central role; and demonstrating the importance of context by analyzing two fictions, Stanislaw Lem's "His Master's Voice" and Joseph McElroy's "Plus," in which context has been deformed by being wrenched away from normal human environments, with radical consequences for processes of meaning-making.

Using Evidence-Based Internet Interventions to Reduce Health Disparities Worldwide

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Health disparities are a persistent problem worldwide. A major obstacle to reducing health disparities is reliance on “consumable interventions,” that is, interventions that, once used, cannot be used again. To reduce health disparities, interventions are required that can be used again and again without losing their therapeutic power, that can reach people even if local health care systems do not provide them with needed health care, and that can be shared globally without taking resources away from the populations where the interventions were developed. This paper presents the argument that automated self-help evidence-based Internet interventions meet the above criteria and can contribute to the reduction of health disparities worldwide. Proof-of-concept studies show that evidence-based Internet interventions can reach hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and could be used in public sector settings to augment existing offerings and provide services not currently available (such as prevention interventions). This paper presents a framework for systematically filling in a matrix composed of columns representing common health problems and rows representing languages. To bring the benefits of evidence-based Internet interventions to the underserved, public sector clinics should establish eHealth resource centers, through which patients could be screened online for common disorders and provided with evidence-based Internet intervention services not currently available at the clinics. These resources should be available in the patients’ languages, in formats that do not require literacy, and that can be accessed with mobile devices. Such evidence-based Internet interventions should then be shared with public sector clinics as well as individuals anywhere in the world. Finally, this paper addresses sustainability and describes a continuum of evidence-based Internet interventions to share nationally and across the world. This approach to expanding health

Using evidence-based internet interventions to reduce health disparities worldwide.

PubMed

Muñoz, Ricardo F

2010-12-17

Health disparities are a persistent problem worldwide. A major obstacle to reducing health disparities is reliance on "consumable interventions," that is, interventions that, once used, cannot be used again. To reduce health disparities, interventions are required that can be used again and again without losing their therapeutic power, that can reach people even if local health care systems do not provide them with needed health care, and that can be shared globally without taking resources away from the populations where the interventions were developed. This paper presents the argument that automated self-help evidence-based Internet interventions meet the above criteria and can contribute to the reduction of health disparities worldwide. Proof-of-concept studies show that evidence-based Internet interventions can reach hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and could be used in public sector settings to augment existing offerings and provide services not currently available (such as prevention interventions). This paper presents a framework for systematically filling in a matrix composed of columns representing common health problems and rows representing languages. To bring the benefits of evidence-based Internet interventions to the underserved, public sector clinics should establish eHealth resource centers, through which patients could be screened online for common disorders and provided with evidence-based Internet intervention services not currently available at the clinics. These resources should be available in the patients' languages, in formats that do not require literacy, and that can be accessed with mobile devices. Such evidence-based Internet interventions should then be shared with public sector clinics as well as individuals anywhere in the world. Finally, this paper addresses sustainability and describes a continuum of evidence-based Internet interventions to share nationally and across the world. This approach to expanding health service

Computerized Sign Language-Based Literacy Training for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

PubMed Central

Holmer, Emil; Heimann, Mikael; Rudner, Mary

2017-01-01

Abstract Strengthening the connections between sign language and written language may improve reading skills in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) signing children. The main aim of the present study was to investigate whether computerized sign language-based literacy training improves reading skills in DHH signing children who are learning to read. Further, longitudinal associations between sign language skills and developing reading skills were investigated. Participants were recruited from Swedish state special schools for DHH children, where pupils are taught in both sign language and spoken language. Reading skills were assessed at five occasions and the intervention was implemented in a cross-over design. Results indicated that reading skills improved over time and that development of word reading was predicted by the ability to imitate unfamiliar lexical signs, but there was only weak evidence that it was supported by the intervention. These results demonstrate for the first time a longitudinal link between sign-based abilities and word reading in DHH signing children who are learning to read. We suggest that the active construction of novel lexical forms may be a supramodal mechanism underlying word reading development. PMID:28961874

Computerized Sign Language-Based Literacy Training for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children.

PubMed

Holmer, Emil; Heimann, Mikael; Rudner, Mary

2017-10-01

Strengthening the connections between sign language and written language may improve reading skills in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) signing children. The main aim of the present study was to investigate whether computerized sign language-based literacy training improves reading skills in DHH signing children who are learning to read. Further, longitudinal associations between sign language skills and developing reading skills were investigated. Participants were recruited from Swedish state special schools for DHH children, where pupils are taught in both sign language and spoken language. Reading skills were assessed at five occasions and the intervention was implemented in a cross-over design. Results indicated that reading skills improved over time and that development of word reading was predicted by the ability to imitate unfamiliar lexical signs, but there was only weak evidence that it was supported by the intervention. These results demonstrate for the first time a longitudinal link between sign-based abilities and word reading in DHH signing children who are learning to read. We suggest that the active construction of novel lexical forms may be a supramodal mechanism underlying word reading development. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Narrative Survival. The Power of Personal Narration, Discussed through the Personal Story-Telling of Fictional Characters, Particularly Those Created by Margaret Atwood.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shepherd, Valerie

1995-01-01

Examines the component parts of personal narrative, the sort of language resources they consist of, and the respective roles they can play in turning sense into experience. People share in the making of their stories, evaluating them creatively with the help of their hearers. To survive in a complex world of meanings, a narrator must constantly…

Psychosocial interventions for internalised stigma in people with a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis: A systematic narrative synthesis and meta-analysis.

PubMed

Wood, Lisa; Byrne, Rory; Varese, Filippo; Morrison, Anthony P

2016-10-01

It is acknowledged that people with a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis experience higher levels of stigma compared to any other mental health diagnosis. As a consequence, their experience of internalised stigma is likely to be the most detrimental and pervasive. Internalised stigma interventions have shown some benefits in those who experience serious mental illness including those with a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis. A systematic narrative review and meta-analysis were conducted examining the efficacy of internalised stigma interventions for people with a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis. Randomised Controlled Trials, controlled trials, and cohort studies were included and assessed against quality criteria. The search identified 12 studies; 7 randomised controlled trials, 3 cohort studies and 2 controlled trials. A variety of psychosocial interventions were utilised with the majority employing Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), psychoeducation and social skills training. The core outcomes used to examine the efficacy of the intervention were internalised stigma, self-esteem, empowerment, and functioning. The meta-analysis revealed an improvement in internalised stigma favouring the internalised stigma intervention but was not significant (5 RCTs, n=200). Self-efficacy and insight were significantly improved favouring the internalised stigma intervention. Internalised stigma interventions show promise in those with schizophrenia-spectrum diagnoses. Existing interventions have demonstrated small effects and employed small samples. Large scale RCTs are required to further develop the evidence base of more targeted interventions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A pilot test of the acceptability and efficacy of narrative and non-narrative health education materials in a low health literacy population

PubMed Central

Moran, Meghan Bridgid; Frank, Lauren B.; Chatterjee, Joyee S.; Murphy, Sheila T.; Baezconde-Garbanati, Lourdes

2016-01-01

Although entertainment-education narratives are increasingly being used to communicate health information to a diversity of populations, there is limited evidence examining the use of narrative health education videos in low compared with adequate health literacy populations. There are also very few studies directly comparing narrative materials to more traditional, non-narrative materials. Because individuals with low health literacy are less likely than those with adequate health literacy to benefit from health communication interventions, it is especially important to develop an evidence base supporting the use of narrative health education materials in low literacy populations. This study extends knowledge on the use of narrative health education materials in populations with low health literacy by conducting a randomized trial comparing the acceptability and efficacy (knowledge gain) of two fact-equivalent films, one in a narrative and one in a non-narrative format, on individuals with adequate and low health literacy. This study finds that while both films were well-accepted and produced knowledge gains, the narrative film was more effective in this regard. This effect occurred regardless of health literacy level, indicating that narrative health communication materials are appropriate for individuals with low health literacy and do not exacerbate existing health disparities. These findings add to a small but growing body of evidence testing narrative health education materials in individuals with low health literacy, and provide new evidence supporting narrative, entertainment-education style video as a health communication tool to help reduce health literacy-related health disparities. PMID:27872657

A Theory Led Narrative Review of One-to-One Health Interventions: The Influence of Attachment Style and Client-Provider Relationship on Client Adherence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nanjappa, S.; Chambers, S.; Marcenes, W.; Richards, D.; Freeman, R.

2014-01-01

A theory-led narrative approach was used to unpack the complexities of the factors that enable successful client adherence following one-to-one health interventions. Understanding this could prepare the provider to anticipate different adherence behaviours by clients, allowing them to tailor their interventions to increase the likelihood of…

Guiding principles and clinical applications for speech-language pathology practice in early intervention.

PubMed

Paul, Diane; Roth, Froma P

2011-07-01

This article describes guiding principles in early intervention (EI) and demonstrates how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can apply these principles to best serve infants and toddlers with communication and related problems and their families. Four principles guide the implementation of speech-language pathology services. EI services are services that are (a) family centered and culturally and linguistically responsive; (b) developmentally supportive, promoting children's participation in their natural environments; (c) comprehensive, coordinated, and team based; and (d) based on the highest quality evidence available. Actual clinical scenarios are presented to illustrate each principle. The four principles provide a framework for the wide range of roles and responsibilities assumed by SLPs in EI: (a) screening/evaluation/assessment, (b) goal setting and intervention, (c) consultation with and education for team members, (d) service coordination, (e) transition planning, and (f) advocacy. It is critical that families of infants and toddlers who are at risk for, or who have been diagnosed with, communication disorders receive all necessary services and supports. EI services should be tailored to the individual and the changing needs, preferences, and priorities of each family. The earlier services are provided, the more likely is the child's chance to develop effective communication.

Efficacy of a reading and language intervention for children with Down syndrome: a randomized controlled trial

PubMed Central

Burgoyne, Kelly; Duff, Fiona J; Clarke, Paula J; Buckley, Sue; Snowling, Margaret J; Hulme, Charles

2012-01-01

Background This study evaluates the effects of a language and literacy intervention for children with Down syndrome. Methods Teaching assistants (TAs) were trained to deliver a reading and language intervention to children in individual daily 40-min sessions. We used a waiting list control design, in which half the sample received the intervention immediately, whereas the remaining children received the treatment after a 20-week delay. Fifty-seven children with Down syndrome in mainstream primary schools in two UK locations (Yorkshire and Hampshire) were randomly allocated to intervention (40 weeks of intervention) and waiting control (20 weeks of intervention) groups. Assessments were conducted at three time points: pre-intervention, after 20 weeks of intervention, and after 40 weeks of intervention. Results After 20 weeks of intervention, the intervention group showed significantly greater progress than the waiting control group on measures of single word reading, letter-sound knowledge, phoneme blending and taught expressive vocabulary. Effects did not transfer to other skills (nonword reading, spelling, standardised expressive and receptive vocabulary, expressive information and grammar). After 40 weeks of intervention, the intervention group remained numerically ahead of the control group on most key outcome measures; but these differences were not significant. Children who were younger, attended more intervention sessions, and had better initial receptive language skills made greater progress during the course of the intervention. Conclusions A TA-delivered intervention produced improvements in the reading and language skills of children with Down syndrome. Gains were largest in skills directly taught with little evidence of generalization to skills not directly taught in the intervention. PMID:22533801

The efficacy of early language intervention in mainstream school settings: a randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Fricke, Silke; Burgoyne, Kelly; Bowyer-Crane, Claudine; Kyriacou, Maria; Zosimidou, Alexandra; Maxwell, Liam; Lervåg, Arne; Snowling, Margaret J; Hulme, Charles

2017-10-01

Oral language skills are a critical foundation for literacy and more generally for educational success. The current study shows that oral language skills can be improved by providing suitable additional help to children with language difficulties in the early stages of formal education. We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 394 children in England, comparing a 30-week oral language intervention programme starting in nursery (N = 132) with a 20-week version of the same programme starting in Reception (N = 133). The intervention groups were compared to an untreated waiting control group (N = 129). The programmes were delivered by trained teaching assistants (TAs) working in the children's schools/nurseries. All testers were blind to group allocation. Both the 20- and 30-week programmes produced improvements on primary outcome measures of oral language skill compared to the untreated control group. Effect sizes were small to moderate (20-week programme: d = .21; 30-week programme: d = .30) immediately following the intervention and were maintained at follow-up 6 months later. The difference in improvement between the 20-week and 30-week programmes was not statistically significant. Neither programme produced statistically significant improvements in children's early word reading or reading comprehension skills (secondary outcome measures). This study provides further evidence that oral language interventions can be delivered successfully by trained TAs to children with oral language difficulties in nursery and Reception classes. The methods evaluated have potentially important policy implications for early education. © 2017 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Speech and language therapists' approaches to communication intervention with children and adults with profound and multiple learning disability.

PubMed

Goldbart, Juliet; Chadwick, Darren; Buell, Susan

2014-11-01

People with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PMLD) have communication impairments as one defining characteristic. To explore speech and language therapists' (SLTs) decision making in communication interventions for people with PMLD, in terms of the intervention approaches used, the factors informing the decisions to use specific interventions and the extent to which the rationales underpinning these decisions related to the components of evidence based practice (EBP), namely empirical evidence, clinical experience and client/carer views and values. A questionnaire on communication assessment and intervention for people with PMLD was sent to SLTs in the UK to elicit information on: the communication intervention approaches they used; their rationales for their intervention choices; their use of published evidence to inform decision making. Intensive interaction and objects of reference were the communication interventions most often used with people with PMLD, with some differences between children and adults evident. Rationales provided conformed somewhat to the EBP framework though extension of the existing framework and addition of practical and organizational considerations led to a revised typology of rationale for decision making. Rationales most frequently related to the empowerment, development and behavioural preferences of the person with PMLD. Empirical research evidence was seldom mentioned by SLTs as informing intervention decision making leading to very diverse practice. There is a need for further research on the effectiveness of commonly used but under-evaluated interventions. There is also a need to alert SLTs to the evidence base supporting other approaches, particularly switch-based, cause and effect approaches. © 2014 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Cost analysis of direct versus indirect and individual versus group modes of manual-based speech-and-language therapy for primary school-age children with primary language impairment.

PubMed

Dickson, Kirstin; Marshall, Marjorie; Boyle, James; McCartney, Elspeth; O'Hare, Anne; Forbes, John

2009-01-01

The study is the first within trial cost analysis of direct versus indirect and individual versus group modes of speech-and-language therapy for children with primary language impairment. To compare the short-run resource consequences of the four interventions alongside the effects achieved measured by standardized scores on a test of expressive and receptive language. The study design was a cost analysis integrated within a randomized controlled trial using a 2x2 factorial design (direct/indirect versus individual/group therapy) together with a control group that received usual levels of community-based speech-and-language therapy. Research interventions were delivered in school settings in Scotland, UK. Children aged between 6 and 11 years, attending a mainstream school, with standard scores on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-III(UK)) of less than -1.25 standard deviation (SD) (receptive and/or expressive) and non-verbal IQ on the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) above 75, and no reported hearing loss, no moderate/severe articulation/phonology/dysfluency problems or otherwise requiring individual work with a speech-and-language therapist. The intervention involved speech-and-language therapists and speech-and-language therapy assistants working with individual children or small groups of children. A therapy manual was constructed to assist the choice of procedures and activities for intervention. The cost analysis focused on the salary and travel costs associated with each mode of intervention. The cumulative distribution of total costs arising from the time of randomization to post-intervention assessment was estimated. Arithmetic mean costs were compared and reported with their 95% confidence intervals. The results of the intention-to-treat analysis revealed that there were no significant post-intervention differences between direct and indirect modes of therapy, or between individual and group modes on any of the primary