Publications by authors named "Claessen M"

Developmental Topographical Disorientation (DTD) refers to impaired ability to create and consult mental maps in the absence of neurological abnormalities. We present the case study of I.S.

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Purpose: Although discourse assessment is recommended, few tools exist for adolescent acquired brain injury (ABI) and few theories describe the contribution of cognition to discourse impairment. This study explored whether a novel discourse protocol can identify difficulties following ABI and whether a discourse processing model provides a useful account of impairment.

Method: Using a case-control design, two adolescent males with moderate ABI (12 and 14 years) were compared to a neurotypical sample on a range of language and cognitive assessments.

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The production of cultured red blood cells (cRBC) for transfusion purposes requires large scale cultures and downstream processes to purify enucleated cRBC. The membrane composition, and cholesterol content in particular, are important during proliferation of (pro)erythroblasts and for cRBC quality. Therefore, we tested the requirement for cholesterol in the culture medium during expansion and differentiation of erythroid cultures with respect to proliferation, enucleation and purification by filtration.

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Purpose: Within Australia, some families face challenges in accessing paediatric speech-language pathology services. This research sought to investigate the factors that impact access to paediatric speech-language pathology services within Western Australia.

Method: Researchers used constructivist grounded theory to investigate the construct of access, as experienced and perceived by service decision-makers, namely caregivers of children with communication needs and speech-language pathologists who provide communication services.

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Introduction: It has been well established that the function of sharing personal narratives is to inform the listener about what the event meant to the narrator, for example, by using a range of evaluative devices. The use of these evaluative devices may reflect a person's understanding of the differences between one's own mind and others, by expressing their beliefs, emotions, thoughts, and desires. This paper investigates children's use of evaluative devices when producing personal narratives in response to the six emotion-based prompts contained in the Global TALES protocol (excited, worried, annoyed, proud, problem situation, something important).

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To explore the clinical potential of grammaticality judgement tasks, this study investigated whether a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) of inflectional morphology could differentiate between a clinically selected sample of children with DLD and children in mainstream (i.e. regular education) schools.

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Cholesteric liquid crystal oligomers are widely researched for their interesting thermochromic properties. However, structure-property relationships to program the thermochromic properties of these oligomers have been rarely reported. In this work, we use the versatile thiol-ene click reaction to synthesize a series of hetero-oligomers and study the impact of different compositions on the thermochromic behavior of the resulting material.

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Purpose: Past research highlights the importance of evaluating word learning abilities to build understanding of an individual's language-learning capacity and make evidence-informed decisions in speech-language pathology practice. However, little research has explored vocabulary and word learning assessment practices among speech-language pathologists (SLPs). This pilot, exploratory study aimed to explore current assessment practices and guide translation of research to practice among SLPs who work with children of all ages.

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Objective: Problems with finding one's way around are frequently reported by neurological patients. However, no dedicated standardized tools exist to assess whether such reports indicate navigation impairment or not. We provide a standardized three-step method to assess navigation ability in neurological patients, based on two recently developed diagnostic tools and normative data.

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The UV intensity during photopolymerization allows control over the structural color of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) polymer photonic coating in a single step. Simultaneously, the glass transition temperature () of the polymer can be tuned by the applied UV intensity. Most likely the low intensity photopolymerization increases the inhibition time, leading to formation of polymer fragments through oxygen inhibition.

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Personal narratives make up more than half of children's conversations. The ability to share personal narratives helps build and maintain friendships, promotes physical and emotional wellbeing, supports classroom participation, and underpins academic success and vocational outcomes. Although personal narratives are a universal discourse genre, cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research into children's ability to share personal narratives is in its infancy.

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Papua New Guinea (PNG) has extreme linguistic diversity reflected in its three national languages and sociolinguistic diversity comprising over 380 vernaculars or , English and the lingua francas, which include Tok Pisin (TP). This first clinical cross-sectional study of consonant acquisition in TP-speaking children sought to identify universal features and the impact of age on phonological development. A local picture naming task was developed and used to elicit a speech sample from 80 children (aged 3;0-6;11).

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Purpose: Guidelines recommend routine discourse assessment and treatment in paediatric acquired brain injury (ABI) but provide little guidance for clinical practice. The degree to which this has influenced the nature of discourse assessment and treatment in clinical practice has not been examined in detail.

Method: Speech-language pathologists working in paediatric ABI (clients aged <18 years) in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Canada, and the Asia Pacific region were invited to complete a survey of discourse assessment and intervention practices ( = 77).

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Aims: This study compared two dose frequency conditions of an explicit intervention with 50 trials per session designed to improve past tense marking in early school-aged children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The influence of allomorphs on intervention effects was also examined.

Methods: Data from previously conducted intervention studies were combined and analysed.

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Previous research has established that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties producing inflectional morphology, in particular, finiteness marking. However, other categories of inflectional morphology, such as possessive nominal inflection remain relatively unexplored. Analyses of the characteristics for marking inflection, such as allomorphic categories, may increase our understanding of patterns within disordered grammar to inform the design of interventions and target selection.

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Background And Aims: Previous research into word learning in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) indicates that the learning of word forms and meanings, rather than form-referent links, is problematic. This difficulty appears to arise with impaired encoding, while retention of word knowledge remains intact. Evidence also suggests that word learning skills may be related to verbal working memory.

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: Narrative is the dominant focus of traditional standardised discourse assessment, yet the complex discourse needs of adolescence has led to increased interest in profiling skills in other monologic genres for this age group. This interest is not commensurate with a robust understanding of the influence of genre on adolescent discourse across word to whole-text language features. This knowledge is important to inform context(s) for assessment to profile strengths and weaknesses in discourse-level language.

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Children with dyslexia are at elevated risk of internalizing (emotional) and externalizing (behavioural) problems. Clever Kids is a nine-week socioemotional well-being programme developed specifically for upper primary school children with dyslexia. In a small randomized-controlled trial, we tested the feasibility, efficacy, and acceptability of the Clever Kids programme.

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Purpose The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of a theoretically motivated explicit intervention approach to improve regular past tense marking for early school-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Method Twenty-one children with DLD (ages 5;9-6;9 [years;months]) were included in a crossover randomized controlled trial (intervention, = 10; waiting control, = 11). Intervention included once-weekly sessions over 10 weeks using the SHAPE CODING system, in combination with a systematic cueing hierarchy to teach past tense marking.

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Purpose Previous research into the working, declarative, and procedural memory systems in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) has yielded inconsistent results. The purpose of this research was to profile these memory systems in children with DLD and their typically developing peers. Method One hundred four 5- to 8-year-old children participated in the study.

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: Oral discourse comprehension is a fundamental skill that is predictive of future reading comprehension. The ability to identify important semantic propositions, in a narrative text, and their attachment to a mental model is an essential component of discourse comprehension. This study aimed to pilot a measure of free-recall in a narrative retell across three age groups to explore development.

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Introduction: Tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, occurs in 4-10% of the population. Treatment of tongue-tie has increased by 420% in Australia between 2006 and 2016 and 866% in the United States between 1997 and 2012. Despite limited evidence, it has been suggested that tongue-tie can result in speech sound disorder (SSD).

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Purpose This study evaluated the efficacy of an explicit, combined metalinguistic training and grammar facilitation intervention aimed at improving regular past tense marking for nine children aged 5;10-6;8 (years;months) with developmental language disorder. Method This study used an ABA across-participant multiple-baseline single-case experimental design. Participants were seen one-on-one twice a week for 20- to 30-min sessions for 10 weeks and received explicit grammar intervention combining metalinguistic training using the SHAPE CODING system with grammar facilitation techniques (a systematic cueing hierarchy).

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Subjective measures of cognitive abilities are often used in various environments, such as clinical, experimental, and professional settings. Here, we assess the quality of such measures, specifically looking into the impact of age and gender. Spatial navigation ability will be used as an exemplary case, given its large individual variation and relevance to the healthy aging process.

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