Word‐finding behaviours in narration for typically developing French speakers of school age

Abstract

Background: Research in word-finding difficulties is sparse, especially in languages other than English. As a result, the factors associated with the frequency of word-finding behaviours are poorly understood, particularly in discourse.Aims: This exploratory study is the first to collect data relative to the expected frequency of word-finding behaviours in narration for French speakers aged 7-12 years old with typical development; and (2) to identify the factors associated with the frequency of word-finding behaviours in narration. We hypothesized that sociodemographic characteristics, language abilities and characteristics of the spoken productions could be linked to word-finding behaviours. Methods & Procedures:The participants consisted of 61 French-speaking children aged 7-12 years old (M = 9;09 years, SD = 1;06 years) with typical development. Children were asked to complete a receptive vocabulary task, a non-word-repetition task and two narrative tasks. The children's narrative samples were coded using a discourse analysis of word-finding behaviours, as described by Diane J. German.Outcomes & Results: Participants produced 39% of T-units with least one wordfinding behaviour, which included relatively frequent use of repetitions and word reformulations. Regression analyses revealed that the participants' gender was the only significant variable associated with the frequency of word-finding behaviours in narration. Boys produced a higher percentage of T-units with at least one word-finding behaviour. Post-hoc analyses suggested that gender differences reflected differences in repetitions and word reformulations. Boys and girls did not differ on any other language measures collected.Conclusions & Implications: Speech-language pathologists may want to take into account a child's gender when assessing word-finding difficulties in narration. Additional studies are needed to understand whether this finding extends to other word-finding tasks and to children with word-finding difficulties.

Profiles of word-finding difficulties in school-aged children

“…difficulties in French-speaking children since previous research suggests that there may exist some differences in WF in French and in English (Bourassa Bédard & Trudeau, 2021;Bourassa Bédard et al, 2022). Our analysis suggested that modality of testing and sociodemographic variables, gender and SES did not have an impact on WF measures.…”

“…Regarding gender, this result is unexpected for measures of WF in narration. Our previous study of typically developing children (Bourassa Bédard et al, 2022) found that boys of the same age-range produced more word-finding behaviours than girls.…”

“…In addition, the study aimed to contribute to improved identification of WF difficulties in French-speaking children. This second goal is particularly relevant as most of the previous studies have focused on children who speak English, with the exception of Bourassa Bédard and Trudeau (2021) and Bourassa Bédard et al (2022). Hence, the following two research questions were investigated:…”

“…Children with typical language development had no language, learning or hearing difficulties as confirmed by their caregiver. To further ensure the absence of language difficulties in the group of children with typical language development, children who scored below one standard deviation of the previously reported mean (Bourassa Bédard et al, 2022) on the Échelle de vocabulaire en images Peabody (EVIP; Dunn et al, 1993) were excluded. The presence of WF difficulties in children of the other group was documented by previous assessment by speech-language pathologists.…”

“…Children were however excluded if they stuttered or had a biomedical condition such as autism or an intellectual disability. Stutterers were excluded given the similarities in manifestations between stuttering and WF difficulties (Bourassa Bédard et al, 2022;German, 1991). Children with a biomedical condition were excluded following Bishop et al's (2016) consensus that the link between language difficulties and autism or intellectual disability is still unclear, and that intervention may differ based on these diagnoses.…”