Profiling variability and development of spoken discourse in mainstream adolescents.

Profiling variability and development of spoken discourse in mainstream adolescents. Clin Linguist Phon. 2020 Mar 03;:1-21 Authors: Hill E, Claessen M, Whitworth A, Boyes M Abstract Competence in spoken discourse is an important consideration during assessment and intervention planning for adolescents with communication difficulties. Currently, a lack of age-appropriate protocols and reference data against which to interpret performance, are barriers when working with this population, particularly those that assess a range of genre and language features. Using a new assessment tool, the Curtin University Discourse Protocol-Adolescent (CUDP-A), this study aimed to collect and describe spoken discourse samples from a large group of adolescents (n = 160), aged 12 to 15 years, recruited to represent a mainstream academic cohort. For each participant, samples of recount (n = 3), expository (n = 3), persuasive (n = 3), and narrative (n = 2) discourse were described using theoretically supported measurements sensitive to micro-linguistic, micro-structural, macro-structural, and super-structural discourse features. Participants also completed a standardized assessment of oral language. Variability was found in micro-linguistic and micro-structural features, with stability seen in macro-structural and super-structural features. Few age- and gender-related differences were observed, while multiple significant correlations between spoken...
Source: Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Tags: Clin Linguist Phon Source Type: research