Abstract
Schmitt, M. B., Justice, L. M., & O’Connell, A. (2014). Vocabulary gain among children with language disorders: Contributions of children’s behavior regulation and emotionally supportive environments. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 23, 373–384.
Large numbers of children in public schools have diagnosed language disorders. Such children with language disorders may present with a variety of deficits specific to vocabulary:
Restricted word class (relying primarily on nouns with fewer occurrences of verbs or modifiers; Leonard, Camarata, Rowan, & Chapman, 1982).
Excessive reliance on non-specific terms (e.g., “thing,” “you know”; German, 1987).
Predominance of high-frequency words (i.e., common, everyday words such as ball, color, table, food) with many fewer instances of low-frequency words (i.e., less common, more specific terms such as predict, examine, questionable—words that are considered important for academic success; Dickinson & Porche, 2011).
Many external factors may influence vocabulary development for children with language disorders, such as early intervention (Girolametto, Pearce, & Weitzman, 1996) and exposure to effective language models in the home environment (Skibbe, Moody, Justice, & McGinty, 2010). However, there are also many unexplored potential determinants of vocabulary gain among these children, including behavior regulation (Morrison, Ponitz, & McClelland, 2010) and emotional support (Schmitt, Pentimonti, & Justice, 2012).
Recent literature indicates that behavior regulation may play a role in children’s vocabulary gains (McClelland et al., 2007). Behavior regulation is defined as a constellation of biological (i.e., temperament) and cognitive processes (i.e., executive functions) important for directing one’s thoughts and behaviors in specific contexts. Behavior regulation represents the collective cognitive processes of attentional focusing (i.e., ignoring distractions and shifting attention to the most salient message) and inhibitory control (i.e., suppressing automatic responses in favor of more appropriate ones) that enable children to manipulate thought processes important for social and academic tasks. Behavior regulation allows children to respond appropriately in highly structured environments, such as language therapy, and potentially benefit more from those environments. Children with high behavior regulation are able to switch easily between tasks, ignore distractions to attend to the therapeutic activity, discern meaningful information, and persist with challenging activities (Morrison et al., 2010).
Children with high behavior regulation abilities may make more gains over time than children with weak behavior regulation, beyond what might be explained by effective interventions or instruction (Liew, Chen, & Hughes, 2010). Research findings have suggested that children with language disorders may exhibit problems in two areas of behavior regulation, namely, attention (Redmond & Rice, 2002; Snowling, Bishop, Stothard, Chipcase, & Kaplan, 2006; Stanton-Chapman, Justice, Skibbe, & Grant, 2007; Tomblin, Zhang, Buckwalter, & Catts, 2000) and inhibitory control (Hart, Fujiki, Brinton, & Hart, 2004; McCabe & Meller, 2004; Spaulding, 2010; Stanton-Chapman et al., 2007). Overall, children with weak language systems performed more poorly on tasks of inhibition than children with typical language. Behavior regulation may be particularly important for vocabulary gains for children with language disorders. To benefit from explicit vocabulary instruction in language therapy sessions, children with language disorders must attend to the therapeutic activity and focus on context clues, definitions, and other explicit therapy techniques designed to support children’s vocabulary development. Children with low behavior regulation may spend more time within therapy being redirected to tasks than engaging in activities geared toward promoting vocabulary. In addition, they may be less likely to attend to linguistic cues and discern the most meaningful information important for learning new vocabulary words and be less likely to inhibit erroneous or irrelevant information in favor of more complex word associations (see Baldwin & Moses, 2001; Champagne, Desautels, & Joanette, 2004). In contrast, children with higher behavior regulation (who are able to ignore distractions and focus on elements of the therapy) may be able to not only engage with the therapist for longer periods of time but also more easily inhibit previous, less effective word-learning processes in favor of more effective process. As a result, children with high behavior regulation may experience more productive therapy sessions overall, thereby contributing positively to their vocabulary gain (McGinty & Justice, 2009).
The purpose of this study was to advance theory and practice regarding the potential contribution of behavior regulation and emotional support to the vocabulary gain of children with language disorders. Three questions were addressed:
To what extent does the behavior regulation of children with language disorders predict vocabulary gain over an academic year?
To what extent does emotional support within therapy sessions predict vocabulary gain for children with language disorders?
To what extent does emotional support within therapy sessions moderate the relation between behavior regulation and vocabulary gain for children with language disorders?
The Study
A total of 42 speech–language pathologists (SLPs) and 174 children in kindergarten and first grade with language disorders receiving treatment from the SLPs served as participants in a larger multicohort study of speech–language therapy practices in the primary schools.
Measures used in this study were of three types:
Vocabulary assessment: In the fall and spring of the year, children completed the Picture Vocabulary subtest of the Woodcock–Johnson III Test of Achievement (WJ-III; Woodcock, McGraw, & Mather, 2001)
Behavior regulation assessment: In the fall of the year, caregivers completed the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire–Very Short Form (CBQ; Putnam & Rothbart, 2006). Although the CBQ is generally considered a measure of children’s temperament, two specific subtests, including attention and inhibitory control, offer indicators of children’s behavior regulation.
Therapy session observations: To measure the emotional support of each therapy session, trained research staff scored each video using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008). CLASS was designed to capture adult–child interactions across all instructional settings in the public schools. The coding scheme and definitions for each CLASS domain were used in their original form; however, adjustments were made in the coding process. According to the CLASS, each coder rates aspects of emotional support in 10- to 15-min intervals for four intervals (for a total of 60 min observed time); ratings for each interval are then averaged to arrive at an overall score for emotional support (Pianta et al., 2008). For this project, each therapy session was coded as one interval (rather than an average of four intervals). Two therapy videos were coded using the CLASS, one in the fall and one in the spring. Each coder viewed the therapy video and rated four categories of emotional support (i.e., positive climate, negative climate, teacher sensitivity, and regard for student perspectives) on a scale of 1 (low occurrence) to 7 (high occurrence; negative climate is reverse scored), which were averaged to create an emotional support composite score, as indicated by the CLASS administration manual (Pianta et al., 2008). The average emotional support composite between the two time points was used in all analyses.
Results
Children with higher behavior regulation gained more in vocabulary than their peers with lower behavior regulation, after controlling for fall vocabulary scores.
No significant main or moderating effects on vocabulary gain with respect to the emotional support of therapy sessions. Results showed that nearly all of the variance in children’s vocabulary gain over the academic year (i.e., >99%) was attributable to variation within groups rather than to the influence of therapy.
A significant association between behavior regulation and vocabulary gain, when controlling for fall vocabulary. For every unit increase above the mean in behavior regulation, a child gained 0.50 raw score points more in vocabulary.
No significant interaction between behavior regulation and emotional support on vocabulary gain.
Discussion
Findings suggest that identifying children’s strengths and weaknesses with regard to behavior regulation may be an important area for SLPs to consider when planning therapy. The authors suggest two possible explanations for why higher behavior regulation abilities might be associated with more gains across the academic year.
Children with high behavior regulation may be in a prime position to benefit from the vocabulary intervention that occurs within therapy. Children with high behavior regulation are more capable of ignoring external distractions and focusing on meaningful information from SLPs as well as within the linguistic signal. As a result, more time can be spent on therapy necessary for improving outcomes.
It may be that behavior regulation and vocabulary exert reciprocal influence on each other. As behavior regulation improves, children are better able to attend to therapy and engage in learning-related activities. As time in these activities increases, so might their vocabulary. As their vocabulary improves, children then have more resources with which to regulate their behavior.