1. Second Graders' Verbal Academic Summaries: Feasibility Study
Hope S. Lancaster  C. Melanie Schuele
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
INTRODUCTION
METHODS
PARTICIPANTS
Results
Narratives are the temporal organization of events, real or imagined, that occur through the use of specific linguistic and structural features. To create an adequate narrative, a narrator has to use social, cognitive, and linguistic skills. Narrative skills have been linked to academic achievement (Feagans & Applebaum, 1986). Children with good narrative skills do better academically than children with poor narrative skills regardless of whether their language skills are poor (Feagans & Applebaum, 1986). Two domains of academic skills have been examined in relation to narrative skills: mathematics and reading. Early narrative skills, such as perspective shifting and event content, of typical children between 3 and 7 years old predict math performance on age-appropriate tasks of knowledge of math concepts and application (Feagans & Applebaum, 1986; O’Neill et al., 2004). Reading comprehension is also predicted by early narrative skills (e.g. marking significant events and narrative quality) of typical children between 5- and 7-years old (Feagans & Applebaum, 1986; Griffin, Hemphill, Camp, & Wolf, 2004; Sulzby & Zecker, 1991).
Narrative language is a significant part of academic performance; specifically narrative ability can predict academic performance regardless of a child’s overall language ability (Feagans & Applebaum, 1986). Both children with SLI and NLI show weakness in narrative language, however the weaknesses are not identical (Fey, Catts, Proctor-Williams, Tomblin, & Zhang. 2004; Finestack, Fey, & Catts, 2006; Nippold et al., 2008).
Currently there is a gap in the literature about how children with SLI and NLI differ for narrative language tasks that are more classroom based, like book summaries. The body of research that has compared children with SLI and NLI has focused on fictional narrative skills, like story retells and story generation. This project will use a task that requires the child to summarize information, instead of the listing of events that occurs during story retells. If complete profiles are to be established so that evidence-based practices can be derived, then researchers need to examine a variety of different narrative styles.
The larger project focuses on the relation between academics and narratives in children with LI. Therefore, a narrative task that is more academic will be used. Scott and Windsor (2000) developed an academic summary task based on skills that are needed to complete classroom tasks. However, Scott and Windsor did not explore how nonverbal IQ may affect a child’s ability to complete an academic summary.
Prior to beginning the larger project, feasibility data is needed for the academic summary task design. The academic summary tasks that will be used in this project are guided by Scott and Windsor (2000), but have been modified for a younger age group. Further, there are no previous studies that examine how children with typical or atypical language in the second grade perform on academic summary tasks. The feasibility data will be collected using typical children to guide hypotheses on how children with SLI and NLI will perform in the larger study.
Participants completed 6 norm-referenced tests and 2 academic summary tasks.
The academic summary task design was guided by Scott and Windsor (2000).
The academic summaries were elicited using the following procedures in the order described. All of the books were placed on the table within sight of the child and the experimenter read the books.
Model:
Purpose is to introduce the child to what a book report is and demonstrate what the child should do.
Experimenter says:
I’m going to read this book to you and do a book report about it. I’m going to do the book report as if I was telling my teacher. I’m only going to talk about the important parts and the parts I thought were really cool. After we do this it will be your turn to do some book reports. Ok?
Experimenter then completes a summary.
2. Narrative and Expository summaries:
Introduction
Today I am going to read you two books. This book is title of book. Listen carefully, because after the book we are going to do an activity that uses the book. Ready? Wait for child response.
Elicitation:
I want you to complete a book report for your teacher. We are going to record it for your teacher. A book report is a retelling of the book we just read. You have five minutes to finish your book report and you need to try and talk for all five minutes. Are you ready? Wait for child response. Ok let’s set the timer. Set timer for five minutes and show child.
During summary:
1. If the child had trouble starting, experimenter encourages them:
Just tell me what you remember.
2. Allowable prompts were:
Oh, How interesting, Tell me more, and Mhm
3. When child indicated they were done, experimenter asked:
Is there anything you would like to add to your book report?
What was your favorite part?
What was the most important part?
TRANSCRIPTION PROCESS:
All samples were coded using SALT conventions (Howe, 1992).
RELIABILITY PROCESS:
The first author transcribed all samples. A second transcriber checked all samples.
CODING PROCESS:
Utterance were divided using T-unit conversions.
Samples were coded for number of clauses, grammaticality of clauses, mazes, and errors. Coding for clauses was based on Schuele (2009).
The first author and a second coder coded all samples. Then they meet to come to consensus. After final transcripts were created, a third coder checked coding. The third coder was above 90% agreement with the first and second coders
Excerpts
Narrative
Luke
C she got her shot and scream/ed so loud it hurt doctor reed/z ears [cs] [cc] [nrc] [3c] [gc] [gc] [gc].
Vader
C and once (the) the shot (is is) is into her (ba) body she scream/3s (so) so loud that it (fr*) frighten/3s everyone [cs] [sc] [rc] [3c] [gc] [gc] [gc].
Yoda
c (um it was) it was about how if you scream really loud you don’t even feel a thing [p:mhm] :03 and (that you don’t) that it/’s loud [cs] [sc] [nrc] [other] [4c] [gc] [gc] [gc] [gc].
Expository
c and there is a vent at the top which lets it come down [cs] [src] [uic] [3c] [gc] [gc] [gc].
C there was a volcano that explode/ed in Hawaii from [err] 1998 [cs] [src] [2c] [gc] [ugc].
C it talk/ed about *a volcano *that erupteded [err] in 79 ad and destroyed a roman city called Pompeii. [cs] [nrc] [cc] [pc] [4c] [ugc] [ugc] [gc] [gc]
Descriptors
Yoda
Vader
Luke
Age (years; month)
7;9
8;5
Gender
Boy
TOLD-P:3 SLQ
125 91
111
TONI-3
110 92 95
PPVT-4
148
104
119
Word Test 2 Total
123
108
WRMT-R: Word ID
128
120
WRMT-R: Word attack
117
Notes: TOLD-P:3 (Newcomer & Hammill, 1997) = Test of Language Development-Primary 3; TONI 3 (Brown, Sherbenou, & Johnson, 1997) = Test of Nonverbal Intelligence; PPVT-4 (Dunn & Dunn, 2007) = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; Word Test 2 (Bowers, Huisingh, Logiudice, & Orman, 2004); WJ-A (Mather & Woodcock2001) = Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement; WJ-C (Mather & Woodcock, 2001) = Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Ability; WRMT (Woodcock, 1998) = Woodcock Reading Mastery Test Revised.
Conclusions
Results
Methodological:
Based on the data collected there are several issues to address in the study methods prior to data collection. The issues that need to be addressed are:
1. Directions for obtaining summaries needs to be changed.
2. Questions after summaries need to be changed to elicit more language.
We will address these issues in the following ways:
Simplify language in instructions to mirror the model task more closely.
Make reference to the model task when giving instruction for the experimental task.
Reduce required time for summaries to 3 minutes.
Use a visual aid to help children keep track of time (e.g. sand falling; timer rotating).
Write new post summary questions for each book.
Predictions:
Based on the data collected some preliminary predictions for how children with SLI and NLI will perform are:
They will have lower scores for most derived measures, with the exception for mazes
They will continue to exhibit the trend for lower scores on measures for the expository summary than narrative summary.
Narrative summaries
Book:
The Scream (Blackaby, 2009)
Yoda
Vader
Luke
Mean length T-unit
6.41
8.07
7.30
Total T-units 15 23
Clausal density
0.24
0.27
0.26
Clauses per T-unit
1.35
1.4
1.26
Percent grammatical clauses
100%
90.48%
93.75%
Errors per T-unit
0.13
0.18
Number different words 42 59 74
Total time
1:01
1:19
1:21
T-units per minute
0.28
0.19
Percent T-units with mazes
29.41%
93.33%
30.43%
Transcription
Expository summaries
Book:
Eruption! The story of volcanoes (Ganeri, 2001)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Yoda
Vader
Luke
Mean length T-unit
7.11
5.75
6.43
Total T-units 18 16 14
Clausal density
0.22
0.19
0.14
Clauses per T-unit
1.33
1.19
1.14
Percent grammatical clauses
79%
94.74%
93.75%
Errors per T-unit
0.06
0.07
Number different words 58 46 55
Total time
1:18
1:50
1:00
T-units per minute
0.23
0.15
Percent T-units with mazes
44.44%
50%
42.86%
This study was supported by a Preparation of Leadership Personnel grant (H325D080075; PI: Schuele) US Department of Education. The authors also acknowledge the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for printing and support.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of Vanderbilt University.
Poster Presented at the 2012 Convention of the American Hearing and Speech Association, Atlanta, GA.
References available upon request:
Poster available at:
PURPOSE
There are two purposes for this poster:
To assess the feasibility of study methods.
To demonstrate through data how typical children perform so as to make predictions for how children with specific and non-specific language impairment will perform.