Julie Grandy & April Fitzgerald and Martin Fujiki & Bonnie Burton, Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are those who have difficulty learning language despite relatively normal sensory and intellectual abilities. Research and current literature have shown that there is a relationship between language competence and social competence (Brinton & Fujiki, 1993; Windsor, 1995) Children with poor language skills often experience difficulty in social interactions. Since successful social interactions contribute to personal satisfaction in school, work, community, and family settings, many areas of these children’s lives may be negatively impacted.

The purpose of our study was to pinpoint specific social behaviors where the breakdown in social competence occurs in children with SLI. Present treatment protocols for children with SLI are helpful, but the speech-language pathology community lacks the knowledge of individual social behaviors associated with SLI that is needed to plan suitable treatment. Before the necessary treatment programs can be designed to improve the lives of these children, further investigation into social behaviors was needed.

1) to find specific social behavior differences between children with SLI and children with normal language abilities
2) to develop a profile of social differences between the two groups of children as seen by their elementary school teachers

We have conducted descriptive and inferential statistical analyses on the data obtained from the revised version of the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS) (Hart, & Robinson, 1996). The TBRS is a rating scale of the social behaviors of children. The scale contains several social behavior descriptions. Each behavior description is considered by the respective teachers and assigned a value of 0, 1, or 2 = 0 is designated if the child under consideration never exhibits the behavior, 1 is assigned if the child sometimes exhibits the behavior, or 2 is given if the child exhibits the behavior “very often.” The TBRS questionnaires that we considered were administered to school teachers of 82 elementary children by Michelle Hutchings and Melanie Morgan of Brigham Young University in 1996. The children who served as subjects for the study were drawn from Alpine, Nebo, and Jordan School Districts. Half of the subjects were children with SLI. Each child with SLI was matched with a classmate with normal language skills. The children were divided into two groups by age: 5 to 7 and 10 to 12 years old.

Based on the results of the rating scales, we analyzed differences in these four general behavior areas:

1) withdrawn/solitary behavior
2) prosocial/conformance behavior
3) anxious/distractible behavior
4) emotional/impulsive behavior.

Initially we considered two other behavior areas — hostile/aggressive reactive and hostile/aggressive proactive — for analysis, but the differences between the two groups of children within these areas were not significant. Therefore, we did not consider further analysis of these two areas necessary for 85 our study. We also examined the factors (i. e. sub-categories of the general behavior areas) and the individual behavior descriptions within these factors to find where the specific differences in social skills between the children with SLI and those with normal language skills lie. Gender and age were also considered but were not found to be significant. Our analyses included finding the mean, median, mode, and standard deviations of both the raw scores and the percentages obtained. These analyses identified the items that were most different between the two groups of children.

We developed a social profile of children with specific language impairment (SLI) considering the behavior areas and factors that were found to be significantly different. Our profile contains the social behavior items from the TBRS in which children with SLI differed from children with normal language abilities by a mean of at least 10%. (i. e. The children with SLI were rated to exhibit the individual social behaviors listed under the withdrawn/solitary, anxious/distractible, and emotional/impulsive behavior areas at least 10% more often than the children with normal language. In the area of prosocial/conformance, children with SLI exhibited the social behaviors at least 10% less often than the children with normal language skills.)

Our analyses showed that elementary school teachers perceive children with specific language impairment (SLI) as differing from those with normal language abilities across a range of social behaviors. Teachers perceived that children with SLI exhibit more withdrawn/solitary, anxious/distractible, and emotional/impulsive behavior than age-matchbed peers with normal language skills. The teachers rated the children with normal language abilities as displaying more prosocial/conformance behavior than the children with SLI. These overall analyses have shown that in conjunction with treating language, there is a great need for therapy to target areas of social difficulty.

We feel the TBRS was an effective measure to use for our study because the school setting allows teachers to observe their students in social interactions for much of the day. The teachers are aware of how the children function socially within their peer group and therefore are able to report the children’s social behavior. The TBRS yielded specific information on social tasks which children with SLI have more difficulty performing. For example, on the item “Acknowledges compliments or praise from peers,” children with normal language abilities were judged to exhibit this social skill 80% more often than those with SLI. Also, children with normal language abilities start activities with a peer group 76% more often than those with SLI.

In therapy, speech-language pathologists need to treat more than just language. They need to treat areas of social difficulty in conjunction with language to improve the quality of the lives and social interactions of children with SLI. This can be done by providing a structured, supportive environment where children will get experience with successful social interactions and also by focusing on improving specific social skills that are weak.

Our profile alerts speech-language pathologists to social skills where children with SLI may have difficulty and provides a pattern from which treatment ideas may be developed to improve the lives of these children.

References

• Brinton, B., & Fujiki, M. (1993). Language, social skills, and socioemotional behavior. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 24, 194-198.
• Hart, C.H., & Robinson, C.C. (1995). Teacher Behavior Rating Scale. Unpublished teacher questionnaire concerning the assessment of children’s social skills.
• Windsor, J., (1995). Language impairment and social competence. In M.E. Fey, J. Windsor, & S.F.
• Warren (Eds.), Language intervention: Preschool through the elementary years (pp. 213-238). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.