Narrative Discourse in Youth Offenders: Examining Individual Differences.

Purpose: This study examined narrative discourse in youth offenders, focusing on quality of story retelling, story comprehension, critical thinking, and the use of complex syntax.

Method: The participants were 15 incarcerated adolescents, ages 13-18 years ( = 16 years). Each was evaluated at their detention center via Zoom, using a standardized language test and language samples that elicited narrative speaking with fables.

Using Fables to Support Critical Thinking and Advanced Language Skills.

Purpose: In this clinical focus article, we discuss the nature of critical thinking, its importance for adolescents, and its interaction with later language development. We also introduce a language arts program, . The program aims to support critical thinking, narrative and expository discourse, and the use of complex syntax and literate vocabulary.

Mastering the Grammar of Past Tense Counterfactual Sentences: A Pilot Study of Adolescents Attending Low-Income Schools.

Background/aim: This pilot study was designed to determine if adolescents had mastered the grammar of past tense counterfactual (PTCF) sentences (e.g., "If Julie had done all of the track workouts, she might have won the state meet").

How Adolescents Interpret the Moral Messages of Fables: Examining the Development of Critical Thinking.

Purpose Critical thinking pervades formal educational benchmarks in the United States, including the Common Core State Standards. However, little information is available on how it develops. Hence, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the development of critical thinking in adolescents using a written language-sampling task.

Development of Past Tense Counterfactual Sentences: Examining Production and Comprehension in Adolescents and Adults.

Purpose The primary purpose of this study was to examine the development of past tense counterfactual (PTCF) sentences ("If the dog had stayed in the house, he would not have bitten the police officer") in young adolescents and young adults, addressing both production and comprehension. The goal was to determine if growth occurs during the years between early adolescence and early adulthood and when or if mastery of these sentences occurs. We also examined the development of past tense irregular verbs to determine growth and mastery.

Language development in children who stutter: A review of recent research.

: This article reviews recent studies that examined the controversial claim that children who stutter (CWS), as a group, have weaker language skills than children who do not stutter (CWNS). The article was an effort to address the conflicting conclusions of two previous reviews of the research in this area. : Studies published in research journals during the past 7 years (2011-2018) were located through a systematic review of the literature.

Stuttering in Preschool Children: Direct Versus Indirect Treatment.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss the controversial topic of stuttering in preschool children and how to evaluate the options for treatment, emphasizing the role of external research evidence.

Method: A hypothetical but realistic case study of a 3-year-old boy who stutters is described. Two contrasting approaches to treatment are presented, the Lidcombe Program (LP) and the demands and capacities model (DCM).

Language Sampling With Adolescents: Building a Normative Database With Fables.

Purpose: The goal of the study was to create a language sampling task appropriate for adolescents and to contribute normative data from speakers with typical language development.

Method: Thirty adolescents (mean age = 14 years, 1 month) participated in an interview that involved the retelling and interpretation of 4 Greek fables. Each speaker's performance on the task was audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and entered into the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts computer program (Miller & Iglesias, 2015).

Metacognitive verb production in adolescents: The link to complex syntax.

Metacognitive verbs (MCVs) such as believe, know and think allow a speaker to describe the thoughts, feelings and perspectives of the self and others. As such, these words reflect the speaker's awareness of differing mental events and activities, or Theory of Mind (ToM). This study investigated the use of MCVs in adolescents with typical language development in relation to the production of complex sentences.

Spoken Language Production in Young Adults: Examining Syntactic Complexity.

Purpose: In this study, we examined syntactic complexity in the spoken language samples of young adults. Its purpose was to contribute to the expanding knowledge base in later language development and to begin building a normative database of language samples that potentially could be used to evaluate young adults with known or suspected language impairment.

Method: Forty adults (mean age = 22 years, 10 months) with typical language development participated in an interview that consisted of 3 speaking tasks: a general conversation about common, everyday topics; a narrative retelling task that involved fables; and a question-and-answer, critical-thinking task about the fables.

Reading Comprehension Deficits in Adolescents: Addressing Underlying Language Abilities.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss reading comprehension deficits in adolescents in relation to their word reading skills and lexical and syntactic development. Although reading comprehension strategies (e.g.

Language Disorders in Adolescents: Current Needs and Future Directions.

Adolescents with developmental language disorders often do not receive the type of intervention that would improve their ability to speak, listen, read, and write effectively. Part of the problem is that many of these young people show no obvious symptoms of a language disorder, yet they struggle on a daily basis to succeed at school-related tasks that require a sophisticated level of language development. This article discusses some of the challenges these students face and makes suggestions for what could be done to address the issues.

Call for studies in implementation science: improving reading comprehension in school-age children.

In this article, the Editor of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools makes the case for more studies in implementation science in order to improve the reading comprehension of school-age children, particularly those with specific language impairment and nonspecific language impairment.

Critical thinking about fables: examining language production and comprehension in adolescents.

Purpose: This study was designed primarily to determine if a critical-thinking task involving fables would elicit greater syntactic complexity than a conversational task in adolescents. Another purpose was to determine how well adolescents understand critical-thinking questions about fables.

Method: Forty adolescents (N=20 boys and 20 girls; mean age=14 years) with typical language development answered critical-thinking questions about the deeper meanings of fables.

Language intervention at the middle school: complex talk reflects complex thought.

Purpose: In this article, the author discusses 2 points raised by Kamhi (2014) in his lead article to this clinical forum: (a) the need for speech-language pathologists to consider typical language development as they plan intervention and (b) the importance of addressing complex syntax.

Method: A hypothetical scenario of a 7th grade English class assignment is presented, and aspects of the assignment that would be quite challenging to middle school adolescents with language impairments are highlighted. The author then describes strategies that a speech-language pathologist could use to enhance students' success with the assignment.

Using our knowledge of typical language development.

In this column, the editor introduces the articles in the April issue of LSHSS (Volume 45, Issue 2). All are part of a Clinical Forum, with a thought-provoking lead article by Alan Kamhi and several response articles by Kamhi's colleagues. In this introduction to the April issue, Marilyn A.

Idiom understanding in adulthood: examining age-related differences.

Idioms are figurative expressions such as hold your horses, kick the bucket, and lend me a hand, which commonly occur in everyday spoken and written language. Hence, the understanding of these expressions is essential for daily communication. In this study, we examined idiom understanding in healthy adults in their 20s, 40s, 60s and 80s (n=30 per group) to determine if performance would show an age-related decline.

Conversational and narrative speaking in adolescents: examining the use of complex syntax.

Purpose: Few tools are available to examine the narrative speaking ability of adolescents. Hence, the authors designed a new narrative task and sought to determine whether it would elicit a higher level of syntactic complexity than a conversational task in adolescents with typical language development.

Method: Forty adolescents (Mage = 14;0 [years;months]; 20 boys and 20 girls) were individually interviewed.

Spoken language production in adults: examining age-related differences in syntactic complexity.

The use of complex syntax in the spoken discourse of young, middle-aged, and older adults was examined. The purpose of the study was to determine if syntactic complexity would show an age-related decline. Language samples were elicited from healthy adults in their 20 s, 40 s, and 60 s (n=20 per group) using a conversational (CON) task and a peer conflict resolution (PCT) task.

When a school-age child stutters, let's focus on the primary problem.

In this reply to Yaruss, Coleman, and Quesal (2012), I explain why it is reasonable for speech-language pathologists to focus their attention on helping school-age children who stutter (CWS) achieve natural-sounding fluent speech. I also emphasize the necessity for clinical researchers to conduct high-quality treatment efficacy studies of school-age CWS.