Martinez-Nieto Lourdes, Moen Theresa, Pierce Melissa, Restrepo Maria Adelaida
Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, A.T. Still University, Mesa, AZ, United States.
Speech and Hearing Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States.
Front Psychol. 2023 May 31;14:1125131. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1125131. eCollection 2023.
Mazes are linguistic disfluencies such as filled pauses, repetitions, or revisions of grammatical, phonological, or lexical aspects of words that do not contribute to the meaning of a sentence. Bilingual children are believed to increase the numbers of mazes in their native or heritage language, the minority language, as they become more proficient in the second language, the societal language. Mazes may increase over time in bilingual Spanish-speaking children as they become more proficient in English, the societal language in the United States. However, current studies have not been conducted longitudinally. Higher rates of mazes in the heritage language over time may be due to changes in language proficiency and differences in processing demands in the children as they use more complex language. Moreover, children with developmental language disorder (DLD) can also present higher rates of mazes than children with typical language. Heritage speakers, therefore, are at risk of being misdiagnosed with DLD due to high rates of mazes. Currently, we do not understand what the typical rates of mazes are as heritage speakers get older and become more proficient in the societal language. The current study examined the type and frequency of Spanish mazes longitudinally in a group of 22 Spanish heritage speakers with and without DLD and determined the changes over time.
A total of 11 children with typical language development (TLD) and 11 with DLD participated in this 5-year longitudinal study. Using a wordless picture book, children completed a retelling task in Spanish during the spring of each academic year (PK to 3rd grade) as part of a 5-h testing battery. Narratives were transcribed and coded for types of mazes (filled pauses, repetitions, grammatical revisions, phonological revisions, and lexical revisions).
The results of the study indicate that TLD children increased their overall percentage of mazed words and utterances. The opposite pattern was observed in the DLD group, which decreased their percentage of mazed words and utterances. In contrast, both groups demonstrated a decrease in repetitions in first grade and an increase in third grade. Additionally, the TLD and DLD children decreased in the percentage of fillers in first grade and then increased in the third grade. Results suggest that maze use is quite variable in heritage speakers and does not necessarily differentiate groups. Clinicians should not rely solely on mazes to determine ability status. In fact, high use of mazes can reflect typical language development.
言语不流畅现象，如停顿填充、重复，或对单词的语法、语音或词汇方面进行修改，这些并不影响句子的意思。人们认为，随着双语儿童在第二语言（社会通用语言）方面越来越熟练，他们在母语或传承语言（少数语言）中出现的言语不流畅现象会增多。随着说西班牙语的双语儿童在英语（美国的社会通用语言）方面越来越熟练，他们的言语不流畅现象可能会随着时间的推移而增加。然而，目前尚未进行纵向研究。随着时间的推移，传承语言中言语不流畅现象的发生率较高，可能是由于儿童语言能力的变化以及他们使用更复杂语言时处理需求的差异。此外，患有发育性语言障碍（DLD）的儿童也可能比语言正常的儿童出现更高比例的言语不流畅现象。因此，由于言语不流畅现象发生率较高，传承语言使用者有被误诊为患有发育性语言障碍的风险。目前，我们并不清楚随着传承语言使用者年龄增长且在社会通用语言方面越来越熟练，言语不流畅现象的典型发生率是多少。本研究纵向考察了22名有或没有发育性语言障碍的西班牙语传承语言使用者的西班牙语言语不流畅现象的类型和频率，并确定了随时间的变化情况。
共有11名语言发育正常（TLD）的儿童和11名患有发育性语言障碍的儿童参与了这项为期5年的纵向研究。在每个学年的春季（学前班至三年级），孩子们使用一本无字图画书，用西班牙语完成一项复述任务，这是一个为期5小时的测试组合的一部分。对叙述进行转录，并对言语不流畅现象的类型（停顿填充、重复、语法修改、语音修改和词汇修改）进行编码。
研究结果表明，语言发育正常的儿童增加了言语不流畅单词和话语的总体百分比。在患有发育性语言障碍的组中观察到相反的模式，他们的言语不流畅单词和话语的百分比下降。相比之下，两组在一年级时重复现象都有所减少，在三年级时有所增加。此外，语言发育正常和患有发育性语言障碍的儿童在一年级时填充词的百分比下降，然后在三年级时增加。结果表明，传承语言使用者中言语不流畅现象的使用情况差异很大，不一定能区分不同群体。临床医生不应仅依靠言语不流畅现象来确定能力状态。事实上，言语不流畅现象的高发生率可能反映了典型的语言发展情况。
