Intellectual Disability, Learning Disability, Late Talkers, Brain Injury, and Other Language Impairments Flashcards
(33 cards)
Intellectual Disability
Intellectual Disability, according to American Association on
Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD)
○ “Substantial limitations in intellectual functioning”
○ “Significantly limitations in adaptive behavior consisting of
conceptual, social, and practical skills”
○ “Originating before age 18 (AAIDD, 2008)
■ IQ: 2 SD below mean (i.e. 68); 1-3% of U.S. population
■ Adaptive areas: language, academic learning, self-help
■ Developmental: as developing into adults
◉ American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
(AAIDD)-founded in 1876
○ Focus on policies, research, evidence-based practice etc.
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Intellectual Disability: Severities
IQ: 2 SD below mean (i.e. 68 or below); 1-3% of U.S. population
◉ Severities from mild to profound intellectual disability
○ Mild IQ 52-68*- most common, with fewer other conditions
(89% if ID population–2014)
○ Moderate: IQ 38-51
○ Severe: IQ 20-35
○ Profound: IQ <20
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Intellectual Disability: Overall Characteristics
Severity: largely varied, associated with IQ
◉ 90% ID: mildly delayed (Owens, 2014)
◉ Varied assistance, support, living environment, mode of
communication, education affects the individual in different ways
◉ Individual learning styles; important accommodations may be needed
◉ Language disorders–varied, by different causes/severities
◉ Biological/genetic factors most likely cause ID
○ Prenatal: Down syndrome (DS), Fragile X Syndrome
○ Perinatal: birth asphyxia, placental dysfunction
○ Postnatal: Bacterial meningitis, severe/prolonged malnutrition,
TBI
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Intellectual Disability: Overall Causes
Causes can be unknown, or many causal factors
◉ Biological factors: biology/severity–strong correlation
◉ Social-environmental factors:
○ Poor diet, housing, medical care…
○ Psychological disadvantage
◉ Informational Processing:
○ Attentional capacity: children with ID/TD can have similar
attention skills; ID difficulty with scanning/selection of stimuli
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Intellectual Disability: Language Characteristics
Single most important characteristic of disorder”** (Owens, 2014, 24)
◉ Tremendous variety in language skill level
○ Factors: prelinguistic communication, cognitive skill level,
vocabulary comprehension and chronological age (CA)
○ Cognition-language connection is not consistent in ID!
◉ Sequence of language development similar in TD children, but ID
slower overall
○ Development rate slower: intentions, role taking, sentence forms,
morphology, phonological processes
○ Development rate slower: development of presupposition:
–”speaker’s assumption of the listener’s perspective, what she or
he knows and needs to know” (Owens, 2014, 25)
◉ Immature language forms overall 6
Intellectual Disability: Some Language Characteristics
Semantics, morphology, syntax and phonology
Semantics: more concrete word meanings, slower vocabulary growth,
limited use of variety of semantic units
○ Learn word meanings from exposure in content (DS)
◉ Syntax/morphology:
○ Similar sequence of development as TD children
○ Similar length/complexity of sentences as TD children
○ Similar morphology development as TD
○ Shorter, less complex, more immature forms
◉ Phonology:
○ Similar to development of TD, but reliance on less mature;
(capable of more advanced forms)
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Intellectual Disability: Some Language Characteristics
(Owens, 2014)
◉ Comprehension
Pragmatics:
Comprehension:
○ Poorer sentence recall than mental-age (MA) TD matched
children
○ Poorer receptive language than MA TD children (DS children
poorer receptive language)
○ Reliance on context for meaning
◉ Pragmatics:
○ Less dominant conversational role
○ Can infer communication intent from gestures
○ **Gestural patterns similar to TD children
■ Notable use of gestural patterns (Lima, Delgado, & Cavalcante,
2017) 8
Intellectual Disability: Down Syndrome (DS)
Fewer word tokens, fewer word types
◉ Shorter utterances overall
◉ Greater perseveration verbally than MA children (less than children
with Fragile X Syndrome)
○ Perseveration: repetition/excessive talking that is not necessary
on a given topic
◉ Less mature syntactic output–capable of more
◉ Less likely to request clarification during communication
breakdowns–capable of more
◉ Phonological differences than expected from delayed development
Intellectual Disability: Down Syndrome (DS)
(Owens, 2014)
Narratives:
Narratives:
◉ Oral/written shorter, but can include similar narrative structure,
linguistic complexity, spelling/punctuation skills
◉ Poorer cohesive ties than TD children
◉ Narrative abilities differ with vocabulary comprehension skills
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Intellectual Disability: Fragile X Syndrome
FXS, Martin-Bell Syndrome: genetic condition→intellectual disability
◉ Moderate to severe delays in language communication
◉ More perseverative than children with DS
○ More jargon: meaningless and unintelligible speech than DS
○ More echolalia: repetition of partner’s speech
◉ More differences in phonology than TD
◉ Fragile X with/without ASD
◉ Production: longer/complex sentences than children with DS
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Intellectual Disability: Processing & Techniques
Informational Processing:
Attentional capacity
Attentional capacity: children with ID/TD can have similar attention skills; ID
difficulty with scanning/selection of stimuli
◉ Using visual/auditory stimulus cues to highlight information
◉ Gestures to highlight auditory information
◉ Cues gradually decreased with learning
◉ Assist child in learning to scan for relevant cues
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Intellectual Disability: Processing & Techniques (Owens, 2014)
Informational Processing:
Discrimination:
Discrimination: difficulty–ability and speed related to ID severity
■ Less accurate discrimination leads to difficulty identifying
relevant cues
■ Therapy can assist with discrimination:
similarities/differences to aid child
■ ‘Meaningful sorting’–real objects: *functional
characteristics (i.e. size/function)
○
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Intellectual Disability: Processing & Techniques (Owens, 2014)
Informational Processing:
Organization:
Easier to pre-organize information for ID individual
◉ Use visual/spatial cues to help organize information
◉ Repetition of information to help with short term memory tasks
◉ Using associative strategies–what items are associated together
and why
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Intellectual Disability: Processing & Techniques (Owens, 2014)
Informational Processing:
Memory
:
◉ Visual memory –not just auditory memory. Use visuals!
◉ Overlearning, lots of examples
◉ Physical imitation to symbolic rehearsal tasks
◉ Signal recall of events (smell, taste etc.)–easier to recall and can be
reduced over time
○ Generalize from signal recall to symbolic recall of events
◉ Explicitly highlight important information—selective attending
◉ Associations for new words–connect to old words (visual cueing)
○ Sentential/narrative associations to help with memory recall
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Intellectual Disability: Processing & Techniques (Owens, 2014)
Informational Processing:
Transfer
Transfer: Training should be same/very similar to actual situation
◉ Using real items in initial training
◉ Address similarities from one situation to another
○ Child should recognize connections across situations
◉ Training to include people from child’s everyday life
◉ Address previous tasks & connection when having new problems
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Learning Disability (NJCLD, Adopted 1990; Updated 2016)
◉ National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities Definition of Learning Disabilities
Learning disabilities is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders
manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking,
reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities. These disorders are intrinsic to the
individual, presumed to be due to central nervous system dysfunction, and may occur
across the lifespan. Problems in self-regulatory behaviors, social perception, and social
interaction may exist with learning disabilities but do not by themselves constitute a learning
disability. Although learning disabilities may occur concomitantly with other disabilities (for
example, sensory impairment, intellectual disabilities, emotional disturbance), or with
extrinsic influences (such as cultural or linguistic differences, insufficient or inappropriate
instruction), they are not the result of those conditions or influences”
◉ 17
Learning Disability
Complex; varied
◉ *Heterogeneous
◉ Easy to describe various characteristics; difficult to explain underlying processes
◉ Central nervous system dysfunction–possible cause
◉ Children with LD: normal/near-normal intelligence
◉ Difficulties can be in one/many areas: motor, attention, memory, perception,
symbol(ic), emotion
◉ Motor difficulties:
○ Hyperactivity: condition of overactivity– always in motion (ADHD)
◉ Attention difficulties:
○ Short attention span, inattentiveness
○ LD: easily distracted, easily overstimulated
◉ Memory difficulties:
○ Difficulty with short/long term memory, retrieval–remembering directions,
names, sequences. Many have word retrieval (finding) difficulties
Learning Disability–Perceptual Disability
Learning Disability–Perceptual Disability: perceiving sounds, words,
printed letters
○ Difficulty: interpretation after stimuli are seen, heard etc.
○ Figure-ground perception: ability to isolate a specific stimulus
from a background of competing stimuli
○ Listening to the teacher in background noise
○ Sensory integration: making sense of auditory/visual stimuli
occurring at the same time–integrating the whole message
○ Taking auditory message + facial expressions, gestures, intonation
to convey language→all together
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Learning Disability (Owens, 2014)
◉ Emotional problems
Emotional problems may be present
○ Impulsive, withdrawn, exercise poor judgement etc.
◉ 4 Modalities of Language may be affected to various degrees
◉ Language development delays overall
○ Exhibiting: language of younger children
■ May have mature structures, used less often
○ Difficulties with content/form of language
○ Delays in syntactic complexity
○ Difficulties with morphological learning–i.e. bound morphemes
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Learning Disability (Owens, 2014)
◉ Pragmatics
◉ Phonology
◉ Semantics
Pragmatics
○ Difficulty initiating, responding, asking, answering
○ No real difficulties turn-taking etc.
◉ Semantics
○ Word retrieval difficulties
○ Difficulties with relational terms (comparatives/superlatives,
spatial, temporal etc.)
○ Difficulties with coordinating conjunctions
○ Difficulties with figurative language, multiple meaning words
◉ Phonology
○ Production-inconsistent; more complexities→difficulties
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Learning Disability (Owens, 2014)
◉ Syntax/Morphology
◉ Comprehension
Syntax/Morphology
○ Difficulties with possessives
○ Difficulties with pronouns, verb tense
○ Difficulties with negatives/contractions
○ Difficulties learning new sentence forms; can repeat reduced
form
○ Difficulties with articles (a, an, the)
◉ Comprehension
○ Reading comprehension; difficulties with retrieving meaning from
printed word–poor strategies
○ Difficulties with varied wh-questions
○ *Some students with LD don’t demonstrate comprehension
difficulties 22
Learning Disability: Dyslexia
Dyslexic children and adults struggle to read fluently, spell words correctly and
learn a second language, among other challenges. But these difficulties have no
connection to their overall intelligence. In fact, dyslexia is an unexpected
difficulty in reading in an individual who has the intelligence to be a
much better reader. While people with dyslexia are slow readers, they often,
paradoxically, are very fast and creative thinkers with strong reasoning abilities.
Sally Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd edition, pp.143- 24.
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○Learning Disability: Dyslexia Extremely
Learning Disability: Dyslexia Extremely common 20% population
◉ 80– 90 percent of LD→dyslexia
◉ Neurological basis: Differences in brain connectivity
◉ Life–no cure
○ Supports can greatly increase child/adult’s success
◉ The Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity:
○ Signs of dyslexia at different ages
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder
Alcohol exposure in utero–affecting central nervous system (CNS) in
fetus
○ Low birth weight, short length, CNS dysfunction
○ Small head, hyperactive, cognitive disabilities
○ Deficits in attention, poor memory, EF, behavior, mental health
○ Delayed development, echolalia
○ Language production exceeds comprehension–deficits in
concept formulation, response inhibition
○ Infants: irritable, difficulty sucking
◉ Owens: similarities in FASD and LD–behavior/language
○ Many children FASD—also diagnosed LD, ADHD
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