Martin Fujiki

Social communication disorder (SCD) is a relatively new diagnostic designation. Given this newness and its similarities with autism spectrum disorder indicators, speech-language pathologists might find diagnosing SCD puzzling.

Purpose Four children identified with language impairment (LI) participated in a social communication intervention to increase the production of validating comments, including making positive statements, sharing information, and asking peers questions about themselves. Method A case study design was used. Baseline measures were collected from 3 cooperative learning sessions for each participant. The intervention lasted 10 weeks, with 40 (15-min) sessions for 3 of the children and 20 (30-min) sessions for the remaining child. Each week, participants took part in sessions of group instruction, novel peer play, and review with the clinician. Data monitoring the production of validating comments were taken from the novel peer play interactions. Results One child produced a notable increase in validating comments during intervention, and 2 other participants produced more modest improvement. All 3 maintained these gains in the follow-up sessions. The remaining participant produced little change from baseline during the intervention. With respect to social outcomes, changes were not noted in peer acceptance and friendship. Teachers reported notable improvement in the sociable behavior of 2 of the children. Conclusion The 4 participants showed varied increases in the production of validating comments. Possible factors influencing the successful application of the intervention are discussed.

Five girls who were identified with language impairment in elementary school were reevaluated 8 years later to investigate the trajectory of language and social development. At the time of follow-up, one participant had recently been expelled from school due to violent behavior and was not available for assessment. Aspects of the language, academic, social, and behavioral status of the remaining four participants were evaluated. One participant scored within typical limits on a standardized test of language, and three scored at least one standard deviation below the mean and were receiving special services in school. The four young women evaluated presented with a variety of language, academic, social, and behavioral difficulties. According to parent, teacher, or participant report, all demonstrated externalizing and/or internalizing behaviors and experienced some degree of social isolation. The follow-up suggested that although each young woman presented a unique developmental profile, language difficulties and associated academic, social, and emotional challenges persisted. At a time when intervention opportunities were narrowing, these young women seemed particularly at risk.

Background: Several recent studies have indicated that children with language impairment experience difficulty with various aspects of emotion understanding. Because emotion understanding skills are critical to successful social interaction, it is possible that these deficits play a role in the social problems frequently experienced by children with language difficulties.Aims: To explore further the emotion understanding skills of children with language impairment, the investigation examined the ability of these children to understand emotion conveyed by prosody in a narrative passage.Methods & Procedures: Nineteen children with language impairment and their chronological age‐matched peers served as participants. Children were sampled from the age range of 8–10;10 years. These children were presented with a seven‐sentence narrative read by actors to express happiness, anger, sadness, and fear. They were then asked to indicate what emotion the speaker expressed.Outcomes & Results: Children with language impairment performed significantly more poorly than their typical peers in identifying the emotion expressed in the passage. There were also differences between emotions, with happiness being the easiest emotion to identify and fear the most difficult. The interaction between group and emotion type was not statistically significant.Conclusions: The results provide additional evidence that children with language impairment may have impairments in emotion understanding. If these findings are replicated, interventions designed to facilitate emotion understanding as an aspect of social communication should be considered for some children with language impairment.

The Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (C. H. Hart & C. C. Robinson, 1996) was used to compare the withdrawn and sociable behaviors of 41 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 41 typically developing peers. Three subtypes of withdrawal (reticence, solitary-active, solitary-passive) and 2 subtypes of sociable behavior (prosocial, impulse control/likeability) were examined. Teachers rated children with SLI as exhibiting higher levels of reticence and solitary-passive withdrawal than typical children. Teachers also rated the children with SLI as demonstrating lower levels of both types of sociable behavior than typical children. The group with SLI was then separated into subgroups of children having more severe and less severe language impairment. These groupings did not differ on comparisons involving withdrawn behavior, except that girls with more severe receptive problems demonstrated higher levels of solitary-passive withdrawal than did girls with less severe language problems. Children with less severe receptive language impairment demonstrated higher levels of proficiency on both types of sociable behavior than their peers with more severe impairment. Children with more severe expressive problems also demonstrated poorer prosocial behavior—but not poorer impulse control/likeability—than children with less severe expressive problems. KEY WORDS : social skills, language impairment, socioemotional, withdrawal, social competence

This study examined the relationship between emotion regulation, language ability, and reticent behavior in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their typical peers. Participants included 43 children with SLI and 43 typically developing children, for a total sample of 86 participants. Children were selected from 2 age ranges: 5–8 years and 9–12 years. The Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC; A. Shields & D. Cicchetti, 1997, 1998) and the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS; C. H. Hart & C. C. Robinson, 1996) were completed by each child’s teacher to provide measures of emotion regulation and reticence, respectively. The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL; E. Carrow-Woodfolk, 1999) was administered to provide a measure of language ability. A regression analysis including all participants indicated that the emotion regulation scores and the CASL scores were significant predictors of the reticence scores, accounting for 43% of the variance. Group-specific analyses were then conducted to determine whether the 2 predictor scales differentially predicted reticence based on language and age groups. None of the tests exceeded the.05 level, indicating that there was no significant difference in predictive power on the 2 factors in question. KEY WORDS: emotion regulation, language impairment, reticence, withdrawal, socioemotional

The purpose of this preliminary study was to probe the self-perceptions of a group of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their typically developing peers. A measure of self-esteem was administered to 46 children between the ages of 6 and 9 years old and 34 children between the ages 10 and 13. In the younger group, there were no statistically significant differences between children with SLI and typically developing children in the way they perceived themselves across domains of competence and acceptance. In the older group, children with SLI perceived themselves more negatively in scholastic competence, social acceptance, and behavioral conduct than did children with typical language development. Differences were evident in areas that were most affected by language impairment.

Purpose : The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine if emotion regulation warrants investigation as a factor influencing social outcomes in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Emotion regulation was evaluated in children with SLI and their typically developing peers. Method : Teachers were asked to rate the emotion regulation behaviors of 41 children with SLI and 41 typical peers using the "Emotion Regulation Checklist" (ERC, Shields & Cicchetti, 1997; 1998). Children were sampled from two age levels (6–9 years and 10–13 years). At each age level, equal numbers of boys and girls were sampled. Results : As a group, children with SLI received significantly lower ratings than typical children. In addition, girls produced higher scores than boys. None of the other interactions was significant. Scores on the two subscales of the ERC, labeled as lability/negativity and emotion regulation, were then examined to further delineate performance. Boys with SLI had notably lower ratings than all the other groups on the emotion regulation subscale. Clinical Implications : Emotion regulation warrants further research to determine if it is associated with specific social outcomes in children with SLI.

Purpose: This pilot study examined the social behaviors of children with language impairment (LI) and their typical peers on the playground. Method: Eight children with LI and their age-matched peers were videotape recorded for 45 minutes during morning and lunch recesses. Samples were divided into 5-second segments and coded according to the child’s behavior occurring during the segment. The behavior displayed during each interval was then coded into one of 37 subcategories. These subcategories were grouped into six general categories of (a) peer interaction, (b) adult interaction, (c) withdrawal, (d) aggression, (e) victimization, and (f) other. Results: Significant differences were observed in the categories of peer interaction and withdrawal. Typical children spent significantly more time interacting with peers than did children with LI. Conversely, children with LI demonstrated significantly more withdrawn behaviors than did their typical peers. Analyses of effect size using ω ² indicated that group membership accounted for approximately 30% of the variability in both of these types of playground behavior. No other significant differences were observed. These findings support the conclusions of researchers using teacher interview procedures, indicating that children with LI are more withdrawn than their typical peers at school. Clinical Implications: Specific intervention targeting social language skills in playground contexts may be warranted to include children with LI in social interactions at recess.