late talkers

[Lynne Hewitt]

To add to Liz Bates's comments:
One of the intractable problems for speech-language pathologists is dealing
with differentiating difference from disorder in language development.  At
this age range, we have some clear predictors to help us.  Four predictors
of later language development that have been identified as important (in no
particular order):
1. Amount of babbling, especially babbling containing consonants;
2. Play (you should see combinatorial and symbolic in normal toddlers);
3. Social/pragmatic development: smiling, being comforted by human contact,
joint attention, mutual eye gaze, "spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment";
4. Receptive language ability.

When development in these areas seems OK, the lack of oral language is of
less concern.  Amy Wetherby and Barry Prizant have an assessment instrument
that focuses on eliciting social, symbolic, and play behaviors for
assessing language and communication in infants and toddlers: The
Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales.

In Rhea Paul's language disorders text (sorry, the reference is not ready
to hand), she recommends a decision tree approach to deciding when early
assessment is warranted.  In addition to establishing normal hearing, a
positive history of serious medical problems, exposure to toxins, familial
presence of developmental language disorders (obviously difficult or
impossible to ascertain for children adopted internationally), and history
of abuse and neglect are risk factors that indicate the advisability of
early assessment.

I would not discount issues of bilingualism contributing to a slight lag,
given how much language learning seems to go on even prenatally--a 16 month
old should have figured out a lot.  And isn't there research that suggests
the ability to process non-native phonemic contrasts declines after 12
months?  In previous clinical practice, I saw a couple kids around this age
from international adoptions who were fine with 1-4 above, but took time to
make the switch.  After all, she's only had 9 months exposure to English,
after just (presumably) beginning to use her native language.

Lynne Hewitt

At 09:23 AM 5/15/01 -0700, you wrote:
>A colleague of mine recently asked me for advice because her 25 month
>daughter that she adopted from China at age 16 months is not yet using
>much language. Her pediatrician has recommended a hearing test. She
>wondered if there were studies on L2 learners like this. I know of work
>with older children (preschoolers), but am at a loss for work on younger
>children.
>
>Can anyone help?
>
>Thank you,
>
>Lynn Santelmann
>**************************************************************
>Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>Department of Applied Linguistics
>Portland State University
>P.O. Box 751
>239 East Hall
>Portland, OR 97201
>
>Phone: (503) 725-4140
>Fax: (503) 725-4139
>e-mail: santelmannl at pdx.edu (last name + FIRST initial)
>http://web.pdx.edu/~dbls/
>***************************************************************
>
>

Lynne E. Hewitt, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication Disorders
Health Center Building
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403
Phone: 419-372-7181
Fax: 419-372-8089