Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2016-04-01 The Influence of a Social Communication Intervention on the Syntactic Complexity of Three Children with Language Impairment Alyse Wheeler Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Wheeler, Alyse, "The Influence of a Social Communication Intervention on the Syntactic Complexity of Three Children with Language Impairment" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 5874. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5874 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The Influence of a Social Communication Intervention on the Syntactic Complexity of Three Children with Language Impairment Alyse Wheeler A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Martin Fujiki, Chair Bonnie Brinton David McPherson Department of Communication Disorders Brigham Young University April 2016 Copyright © 2016 Alyse Wheeler All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT The Influence of a Social Communication Intervention on the Syntactic Complexity of Three Children with Language Impairment Alyse Wheeler Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science Research has shown that children with language impairment (LI) exhibit difficulties with both social communication and syntax. This study analyzed the effect of a social communication intervention on syntactic development, focusing on grammatical complexity in three children with LI when enacting stories. The intervention included reading and enacting stories, playing games with picture emotion cards and journaling. Each child’s mean length of terminal unit (t- unit), the number and type of subordinate clauses they produced per t-unit, and the grammaticality of their complex sentences was analyzed. While none of the children increased their mean length of t-unit or the grammaticality of their sentences, one participant showed a slight increase in the number of subordinate clauses she used and another participant changed the basic format with which she enacted stories to a more mature format. The results of this study did not support the claim that a single intervention could target both social communicative and syntactic goals simultaneously. There were limitations to this study that, if addressed, could potentially support this claim. Keywords: language impairment, syntactic complexity, grammatical complexity, social communication, intervention, school-age children ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have so many people to thank for their support and encouragement in finishing both this thesis and my graduate degree. First, I must give an enormous amount of thanks to my thesis chair, Dr. Fujiki, for his guidance, direction, and constant support. Thank you for your responses to the endless emails and drop-in questions, giving prompt and detailed feedback. I also thank Dr. Brinton for serving on my thesis committee and answering so many grammar questions. Dr. McPherson, thank you for your guidance, expertise and feedback while I was working on this thesis. All of my professors have been great sources of help and support throughout the course of my master’s program. I owe a great deal of thanks to my volunteers for their help with transcription and analysis. I am truly impressed by the amount of work you did. You really made the hard part of the thesis much easier. I want to thank my wonderful cohort – my dearest friends – for their encouragement and cheer. Together, you made some of the hardest years of my life into some of the best with the help, ideas, memories, and jokes we shared over the past two years. I know that we will continue to remain friends and colleagues. We can do anything, come what may, and love it. I want to thank my incredible family for their support. My parents’ constant faith that I could do anything, including a thesis, gave me the encouragement to continue and keep working. My siblings’ love and examples from their own graduate school experiences provided much- needed perspective at the perfect time. Thank you all. Finally, I need to thank my Heavenly Father for the love, peace, and guidance He has given to me throughout my life and the extra increase I’ve received these past few years. I owe everything to Him. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................vi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ viii DESCRIPTION OF THESIS CONTENT ............................................................................... ix Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 Syntactic Development in Children with LI ....................................................................... 1 Modeling Procedures to Improve Syntax ........................................................................... 3 The Current Study ............................................................................................................... 4 Method ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Participants .......................................................................................................................... 5 Design of Intervention ........................................................................................................ 9 Transcription Reliability ................................................................................................... 10 Dividing Utterances .......................................................................................................... 10 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 11 Results ..................................................................................................................................... 11 SS ...................................................................................................................................... 12 ALK .................................................................................................................................. 13 ADK .................................................................................................................................. 14 Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 15 Individual Participant Findings ......................................................................................... 15 General Implications ......................................................................................................... 16 Limitations of the Study.................................................................................................... 18 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 18 v References ............................................................................................................................... 20 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2; Bishop 2006) and Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-5 (CELF-5; Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003) Scores .................................................................................................................................. 6 2. Type of Subordinate Clauses Produced by Each Participant .............................................27 3. Summary of T-Unit and Subordinate Clause Results for SS .............................................28 4. Summary of T-Unit and Subordinate Clause Results for ALK ..........................................29 5. Summary of T-Unit and Subordinate Clause Results for ADK .........................................30 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Mean length of t-unit, per session, produced during story enactment for SS. .................. 12 2. Mean length of t-unit, per session, produced during story enactment for ALK................ 13 3. Mean length of t-unit, per session, produced during story enactment for ADK. .............. 14 viii LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Page A. Rules for Dividing Utterances .......................................................................................... 24 B. Conventions for Measuring Length of T-Unit .................................................................. 26 C. Individual Participant Data ............................................................................................... 27 D. Annotated Bibliography .................................................................................................... 31 ix DESCRIPTION OF THESIS CONTENT This thesis is written in a hybrid form that integrates current journal publication format