Trial lecture - time and place
Place: Auditorium 2, Helga Engs hus
Time: 10:00 - 10:45
Title: Expressive language disfluencies across developmental language disorders: A review and discussion.
Public Defence
Place: Auditorium 2, Helga Engs hus
Time: 12:00 -
Adjudication committee
- 1st opponent: Professor Christopher Jarrold, School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol
- 2nd opponent: Professor Henrik Danielsson, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University
- Chair of committee: Professor emeritus Vibeke Grøver, Department of Education, University of Oslo
Chair of defence
- Head of Department Rolf Vegar Olsen, Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Principal supervisor: Professor Kari-Anne Bottegård Næss, Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo
- Co-supervisor: Professor Christopher J. Lemons, the Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
Summary
Children with Down syndrome experience pervasive problems with communication that affect their daily life functioning. Even though their skills within language and speech are extensively described in research literature there are identified knowledge gaps in related areas, including language intervention and the occurrence and characteristics of stuttering in this population. The aim of this thesis is therefore to gain more knowledge about the efficacy of language intervention and the occurrence and characteristics of stuttering in children with Down syndrome. Knowledge within these two areas is important because language proficiency and speech fluency impact children’s communicative success and advancement in this knowledge base has the potential to contribute to improved special education services for children with Down syndrome. This thesis is an article-based thesis and consists of an extended abstract and four peer reviewed scientific articles, including a systematic review and meta-analysis of language interventions for children with Down syndrome, a Randomized Controlled Trial of the Down syndrome LanguagePlus-intervention, a report on stuttering behavior and the relationship between stuttering behavior and language ability in a national age cohort of Norwegian first-graders with Down syndrome, and a systematic review of research on the occurrence and characteristics of stuttering in individuals with Down syndrome. An overarching problem formulation and two sub-questions which are based on the research questions in these four scientific articles leads the discussion of this extended abstract. The overarching problem formulation is “how can special educators approach the speech and language needs of young children with Down syndrome?” The first sub-question is, “under which circumstances can language interventions for children with Down syndrome be effective in real world educational contexts?” And the second sub-question is, “how can capacities and demands within the linguistic domain impact the occurrence of stuttering in children with Down syndrome?”. In this extended abstract I synthesize and discuss the overall findings of this thesis, considering its empirical and theoretical background and methodological approaches. The findings from the four scientific articles are discussed in relation to the overarching problem formulation and the two sub-questions of the extended abstract.