Productive Language Abilities in Learning Disabled Adolescents

Abstract

This study assessed and compared the accuracy and speed with which 32 LD and 32 academically achieving adolescents (1) named verbal opposites, pictorial presentations, and members of the classes Foods, Animals, and Toys, (2) produced sentences when given stimulus words, and (3) defined words. Ratings of speech characteristics (melodic line, phrase length, verbal agility, grammatical form, paraphasia, word finding) were also compared. LD adolescents were significantly less quick and accurate in naming verbal opposites and pictorial presentations. To a significant degree they also (1) named fewer foods, (2) produced more agrammatical sentences and grammatical sentences of shorter length, (3) had longer response lags in producing sentences, and (4) gave more incorrect word definitions than academic achievers. Ratings of speech characteristics indicated greatest reductions for phrase length and grammatical form. These findings suggest productive language deficits in learning disabilities are related to (1) delays in specific aspects of cognition and convergent and divergent production of semantic units and (2) reductions in the retrieval of verbal labels and syntactic structures.