TY - JOUR
T1 - Written narrative characteristics in adults with language impairment
AU - Suddarth, Rachael
AU - Plante, Elena
AU - Vance, Rebecca
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012/4/1
Y1 - 2012/4/1
N2 - 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, completed written narratives. Forty-one written language measures were analyzed. In Study 2, the measures that had the most potential for reliably indexing deficits were analyzed in an additional 77 adults. Results: Three measures that showed significant between-group differences and had robust effect sizes in Study 1, total number of verbs, 1-part verbs, and errors, were applied to the samples in Study 2. A group difference for percentage of errors was replicated in the second sample. A discriminant analysis identified 75% of the adults with language impairment and 30% of the adults with typical language as having an impairment based on the percent of written errors. Conclusions: The writing task revealed consistent group differences in written errors and is clinically applicable in describing a client's writing. However, the number ofwritten errors was not robust enough to identify whether an adult had a language impairment or not.
AB - 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, completed written narratives. Forty-one written language measures were analyzed. In Study 2, the measures that had the most potential for reliably indexing deficits were analyzed in an additional 77 adults. Results: Three measures that showed significant between-group differences and had robust effect sizes in Study 1, total number of verbs, 1-part verbs, and errors, were applied to the samples in Study 2. A group difference for percentage of errors was replicated in the second sample. A discriminant analysis identified 75% of the adults with language impairment and 30% of the adults with typical language as having an impairment based on the percent of written errors. Conclusions: The writing task revealed consistent group differences in written errors and is clinically applicable in describing a client's writing. However, the number ofwritten errors was not robust enough to identify whether an adult had a language impairment or not.
KW - Adults
KW - Assessment
KW - Language disorders
KW - Narrative
KW - Written language
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U2 - 10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0295)
DO - 10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0295)
M3 - Article
C2 - 22215038
AN - SCOPUS:84859400494
VL - 55
SP - 409
EP - 420
JO - Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
JF - Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
SN - 1092-4388
IS - 2
ER -