Department to hold language
experiment
By Heather Poston
Staff
Writer
The department of audiology and speech sciences
is searching for children to participate in a study it will be conducting
for the next three years.
This study will require children between the ages
of 3 and 4 and a half who have normal hearing and intelligence and appear
to have no neurological impairment.
Dr. Laurence B. Leonard is working as the principal
investigator and program director for this study, along with many other
researchers and graduate students. Assisting Leonard is Dr. Stephen
Camarata of Vanderbilt University, who holds the title as co-investigator
for the study.
Leonard said that many children with learning disabilities
seem to have problems using words such as "the" and "is" as filler words.
They also tend to have problems using endings such as "s" in the word
"plays" and "ed" in "played."
"We hope to find a useful means of helping children
acquire these grammatical forms," said Leonard.
The researchers will do this by studying children
as they participate in therapy sessions twice a week for about six months.
Each session lasts 90 minutes and is broken down into two sections.
The first section is 50 minutes long and consists of individual play-based
activities that provide children with examples of language usage and
teaches them how to use the skills properly in words and sentences.
The second section lasts 40 minutes and can be compared to a preschool
class with small group activities and language building exercises.
"The sessions involve a combination of established
therapy procedures that are not typically combined. We hope that this
refinement will lead to clear gains in language ability," said Leonard.
By not intervening early, children with speech
impairments are at risk for acquiring reading problems early in school.
This can cause them to fall behind the rest of their class because of
their slower reading ability.
Parents who want their kids to participate in this
study can contact the research associate, Barbara Brown. She said there
are a few other requirements the children must meet before participating
in the study.
"There should be no suspected deficit in non-verbal
intelligence as well as no patterns of autism or any obvious physical
problems, such as a cleft palate," said Brown.
Because this is a research study and the National
Institute of Health is funding the project, there will be no cost for
the children to participate in it. Any parent wishing to have their
kids in this study should call Brown at 496-6403.
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