Children’s Expressive Morphosyntax Significantly Improved after 10 weeks of Receptive Syntax Training using Laureate’s LanguageLinks Software

Merchant, G., de Villiers, J., & Smith, S. (2008). Optimized Intervention software benefits grammar skills in young oral deaf children. Paper presented at the Council for Exceptional Children Convention and Expo, Boston, MA, April 2008.

Background
Most deaf children have significant language delays. The morphological features of language are especially troublesome for these children, and yet these grammatical cues are critical to language acquisition and comprehension. Teachers at the Clarke School for Hearing and Speech in Northampton Massachusetts sought to determine whether their oral deaf kindergarten and first grade students might benefit from using LanguageLinks®:Syntax Assessment & Intervention, software designed to train grammatical forms essential to early language development.

Methods
Ten children ages 5;0-7;0 with cochlear implants (n=8) or hearing aids (n=2) were pre-tested on expressive morphosyntax using a portion of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV; Seymour, Roeper, & de Villiers, 2003), and on vocabulary using the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT; Gardner, 1990). The children were then divided into two groups roughly matched for language ability.

Half the children then used the LanguageLinks syntax software, while the others used software that trained vocabulary. This was done to control for non-specific effects of having opportunities to use a computer. After 10 weeks all subjects were re-tested with the EOWPVT and the DELV. The groups then traded software programs and received training for another 10 weeks, after which they were again tested. As such, all of the children received training with both the syntax and the vocabulary programs, but in a different order.

Results
Children’s scores on the expressive morphosyntax test (DELV) were significantly improved at the completion of the study (t(9)=2.61, p<.03). The more important question, however, was whether these improvements were simply due to the passage of time or depended on whether a child had received LanguageLinks syntax training. Comparisons of pre- and post-training scores on the DELV showed that improvements in expressive morphosyntax were significant when children had been in LanguageLinks syntax training (t(9)=2.53, p<.032) but not when they had been in vocabulary training (t(9)=.68, n.s.). Clearly, LanguageLinks syntax training per se was associated with significant improvements in expressive morphosyntax.

chart

Pre- and post-test scores on the DELV morphosyntax production task.

Children’s vocabulary scores improved during the study as well (t(9)=6.19, p<.001), yet this improvement did not depend on which program was being used. Thus, while differential improvements in expressive morphosyntax could clearly be attributed to receptive language training using LanguageLinks, the analogous pattern was not seen with vocabulary training; vocabulary growth during the study was not dependent upon which program was being used.

To summarize, the Clarke School study found that the expressive morphosyntax scores of oral deaf children increased significantly after using LanguageLinks for 10 weeks, but not after using vocabulary software for a similar period of time.