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Why is language comprehension so difficult?
This year we have started visiting schools to examine language comprehension in children with and without language difficulties. We see children over several sessions and train their comprehension using computerised games. Children who take part also receive language assessments, learn to understand sentences and new words, and do other tasks to test their general learning ability when language is not involved. So far, 112 children have taken part. Some of these children are recruited from mainstream schools and some are referred to us by their speech and language therapists or their teachers. We are very pleased by how much children have enjoyed the comprehension training games and other tasks.
Twins Study
We are interested in finding out more about why some children have difficulties with learning to talk, understand or read. People often assume this is caused by poor parenting or bad teaching. However, our research, and that of others, shows that genetic differences between children can be important. Twins can give us vital information because they allow us to compare development in two children growing up together. In our study we plan to look at identical and non-identical twins to tease apart genetic and non-genetic influences on children’s development. We also have some clues about genes that affect learning to speak and read: individually, these have very small effects, but sometimes a particular combination of genes may have a bigger influence.
Children with an extra sex chromosome
This year OSCCI is planning a study of language and communication in school-aged children who have a sex chromosome trisomy, i.e. instead of the usual two sex chromosomes (XX for girls and XY for boys) they have XXX (girls) or XXY or XYY (boys). Our last study, funded by the NewLife Foundation, involved interviewing parents of a child with a sex chromosome trisomy. We confirmed that, compared with their brothers and sisters, a high proportion of children with a trisomy had been referred for speech and language therapy. We also found that several children had received a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Nevertheless, many children in the study had no developmental or educational difficulties. In the current study we aim to do more detailed genetic and behavioural studies of children with sex chromosome trisomies to try and explain why just a subset seem vulnerable to developing language and communication problems.
Language and the left side of the brain
We’ve known for many years that the two sides of the brain play different roles in language; for most people, the left side is more important than the right when it comes to generating words and sentences. There is a great deal of interest in how this cerebral lateralisation develops, and whether it is disrupted in children with language difficulties.We have made progress towards answering this question by using a method called functional transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (fTCD), which measures blood flow to the left and right sides of the brain while people do different tasks.
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