Complexity in Language Learning and Treatment

Abstract

Purpose-To introduce a Clinical Forum focused on the Complexity Account of Treatment Efficacy (C. K. Thompson, L. P. Shapiro, S. Kiran, & J. Sobecks, 2003), a counterintuitive but effective approach for treating language disorders. This approach espouses training complex structures to promote generalized improvement of simpler, linguistically related structures. Three articles are included, addressing complexity in treatment of phonology, lexical-semantics, and syntax.Method-Complexity hierarchies based on models of normal language representation and processing are discussed in each language domain. In addition, each article presents single-subject controlled experimental studies examining the complexity effect. By counterbalancing treatment of complex and simple structures across participants, acquisition and generalization patterns are examined as they emerge.Results-In all language domains, cascading generalization occurs from more to less complex structures; however, the opposite pattern is rarely seen. The results are robust, with replication within and across participants.Conclusions-The construct of complexity appears to be a general principle that is relevant to treating a range of language disorders in both children and adults. While challenging the longstanding clinical notion that treatment should begin with simple structures, mounting evidence points toward the facilitative effects of using more complex structures as a starting point for treatment.

Age of word acquisition effects in treatment of children with phonological delays

“…Our finding of greater generalization associated with late-8 sounds, and also late acquired words, is consistent with the literature on complexity approaches to treatment (Thompson, 2007). Following from learnability theory (Wexler & Culicover, 1980), the basic premise of this approach is that learning is facilitated when a learner is exposed to more complex structures of language, with cascading effects across the linguistic system as a whole.…”

Grammatical Planning Units During Real-Time Sentence Production in Speakers With Agrammatic Aphasia and Healthy Speakers

“…For targeting lexicalization and linear ordering of words, a treatment regimen utilizing a smaller planning unit of information, such as a single word or phrase, may lead to improved production. For deficits in functional structure generation, utilizing a structural linking on the basis of VAS may be helpful, as shown in previous treatment studies (Rochon, Laird, Bose, & Scofield, 2005;Thompson, 2007;Thompson, Riley, den Ouden, Meltzer-Asscher, & Lukic, 2013).…”

Howjusticecan affectjury: Training abstract words promotes generalisation to concrete words in patients with aphasia

“…The CATE has been applied to typicality, bilingualism, and concreteness/imageability (Edmonds & Kiran, 2006; Kiran, 2007, 2008; Kiran & Abbott, 2007; Kiran & Roberts, 2010; Kiran et al, 2009; Kiran, Sandberg, & Sebastian, 2011; Kiran & Thompson, 2003; Thompson, 2007). In the case of concreteness/imageability, complexity is based upon psycholinguistic theories of the concreteness effect, which is the tendency to perform better during linguistic tasks involving concrete words (e.g., sofa ) than during those involving abstract words (e.g., guilt ).…”