Julie Dockrell

The effects of environmental noise upon the academic performance of children aged 7 and 11 years in primary schools in London (UK) have been investigated. Noise surveys were carried out to measure levels of environmental noise during the school day outside 175 schools across London. The majority of the schools were in densely populated areas within 5 miles of central

Research suggests that people with intellectual impairments who use manual signs to augment or substitute for speech rarely progress beyond the stage of single signs and that word order is particularly problematic. However, the majority of studies have focused on experimental tasks, and relatively little is known about spontaneous sign production in naturalistic settings. The present study explored the linguistic development in sign and speech of 10 children who relied on manual signs (the Makaton vocabulary) as their main means of communication. Mean utterance length in sign ranged from 1.0 to 2.5, and analysis of semantic relations, lexical development, and word order suggested that the children had not developed their language beyond MLU Stage I. Examination of their abilities within the modality of sign indicated that some children were able to manipulate features of sign at a sublexical level. The results are discussed in relation to the language input by teachers, and inferences are drawn regarding the underlying modality of linguistic representation in children who use manual signs.

ABSTRACT Word finding difficulties (WFDs) occur in more than a quarter of children who are receiving speech and language therapy. This study provides the first investigation of the continuity in WFDs and investigates whether WFDs are associated with phonological or semantically related abilities. Thirty-eight children with WFDs were seen at age 7;0 and at 9;8. Standardized assessments of word finding, language and literacy were administered. The children’s WFDs and other language abilities showed high levels of stability. Despite their WFDs, many children had standardized scores of phonological awareness, decoding and spelling in the typical range. In contrast, semantic fluency was particularly impaired, and WFDs were a significant predictor of reading comprehension. Cluster analysis indicated that there was one group of children with a profile similar to ‘poor comprehenders’ and a second with depressed language scores indicative of specific language impairment. The relevance of these findings to understanding the causes of WFDs is discussed.

1 LITERATURE REVIEW MEETING THE NEEDS OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS Julie Dockrell Nick Peacey Ingrid Lunt Institute of Education University of London 20 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AL March 2002 Page 2. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ...

... actual change. Such difficulties can be minimized by use of analyses that control for this by considering gain scores (normalized gain score, Ebbels, Van der Lely, & Dockrell, in press; Hake, 199818. Hake, RR. 1998. Interactive ...

This monograph presents recent international research on the teaching and learning of writing. The purpose of the monograph is to inform education professionals about this exciting new research which we hope will, in turn, contribute to improved practice and performance in the classroom. The studies in this monograph fall into two broad and overlapping areas of interest. The first is concerned with charting performance and development in writing skills in typical and in special populations. Topics covered include writing as discovery; linguistic development in writing; the writing of children with language impairments; unexpectedly good and poor spellers; and brain activation and idea generation. The second area is concerned directly with assessment, assistance and instruction in writing. Topics covered here range from drawing lessons from research for evidence based writing practice in the classroom; self-regulated strategy development in writing; the development of a new handwriting speed test; and the use of information technology in the classroom for struggling writers. Editorial Introduction Teaching and Learning Writing Vincent Connelly and Anna Barnett Part 1: Modelling performance and charting development in writing skills. Writing as discovery David Galbraith From talking to writing: Linguistic development in writing Debra Myhill The impact of oral language skills on the production of written text Julie E. Dockrell and Vincent Connelly Associations and dissociations in reading and spelling French. Unexpectedly poor and good spellers Michel Fayol, Michel Zorman and Bernard Lété fMRI activation related to nature of ideas generated and differences between good and poor writers during idea generation. Virginia W. Berninger, Todd L. Richards, Patricia S. Stock, Robert D. Abbott, Pamala A. Trivedi, Leah E. Altemeier and John R. Hayes Part 2: Assessment, assistance and instruction in writing Evidence-based writing practices: Drawing recommendations from multiple sources Steve Graham and Karen R. Harris Self-regulated strategy development in writing: Premises, evolution and the future Karen R. Harris and Steve Graham Development and standardization of a new handwriting speed test: The Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting Anna L. Barnett, Sheila E. Henderson, Beverly Scheib and Joerg Schulz Technology and struggling writers: A review of research Charles A. MacArthur

... Julie Dockrell, Rachel George, Geoff Lindsay and Judy Roux ... of the processes underlying successful performance, though it is less clear that broad-based identification procedures will lead directly to successful intervention programmes (Dockrell and McShane, 1993). ...

... The value merely resides in rubber-stamping the teacher's own opinion ... linguistic system has helped us to characterize the nature of SSLD, so too should a detailed ... Specific language difficulties can result in problems in three areas: accessing the curriculum on language-related ...

ABSTRACT About the book: This volume brings together work by scholars with backgrounds in linguistics, psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, education, and language pathology. As such, the book adds psycholinguistic and crosslinguistic perspectives to the clinical and classroom approaches that have dominated the study of “later language development”. Incorporating insights from prior language acquisition research, it goes beyond preschool age to consider both isolated utterances and extended discourse, conversational interactions and monologic text construction, and both written and spoken language use from early school-age across adolescence. Data from French, Hebrew, Spanish, and Swedish as well as English cover varied domains: morphology and lexicon, syntax and verb–argument structure, as well as peer interaction, spelling, processing of on-line writing, and reading poetry. The epilogue suggests explanations for the findings documented. Across the book, the authors show how cognitive and social maturation combines with increased literacy in the path taken by schoolchildren and adolescents towards the flexible deployment of a growing repertoire of lexical elements in varied morpho-syntactic constructions and different discourse contexts that constitutes the hallmark of maturely proficient language use.

© 2008 Saxton, Dockrell, Bevan and van Herwegen Child Language Seminar 2007 University of Reading 131 Grammaticality Judgements of Children with and without Language Delay Matthew Saxton, Julie Dockrell, Eleri Bevan and Jo van Herwegen Institute of Education, ...