Volume 6 - 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.709045 We examined the vocabulary growth of lexical categories in 719 children (age 13–24 months) as part of a longitudinal cohort study (the STEPS Study) and found a discrepancy in how these categories were affected depending on the child’s sex attending day care at 24 months of age predicted a positive vocabulary growth in the lexical categories sound effects Firstborn girls had a greater vocabulary growth in descriptive and function words A boy attending day care at age 24 months was likely to have greater growth in sound effects and animal sounds A family history of late onset of speech predicted less vocabulary growth in all lexical categories in boys except for sound effects and animal sounds Early vocabulary is of importance for later language and literacy development Vocabulary is not an impenetrable entirety but consists of various types of words (lexical categories) developing at different tempos as they contribute to the developing language Factors influencing early vocabulary development in boys and girls have been painstakingly studied but fewer have examined these factors across lexical categories let alone whether they have an equal effect in both sexes More knowledge of what affects the variation in early vocabulary in boys and girls is needed for clinical practice and preventive purposes Vocabulary was measured with the Finnish version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory The effect of child and family factors on vocabulary growth in various lexical categories was analyzed separately for boys and girls using structural equational modelling The results of the present study indicate that vocabulary development in the lexical categories is affected differently by child and parental factors in girls and boys as early as the second year of life which gives new insights into the factors that need consideration in clinical practice and preventive work Even in studies which have used this instrument results indicating the effect of background variables on the development of children’s vocabulary differ from each other negative correlations have been found between early language development and the number of hours spent in day care or the age the child entered day care These in-depth studies have largely focused on the total vocabulary size at various child ages but only a few of them look at separate lexical categories This implies that precursors to limitations in sentence building and grammar can be found already in the analysis of early vocabulary content Given that the sizes of various lexical categories are of importance for later language development there is a need to dig deeper into factors influencing their growth studies focusing on early growth of lexical categories in relation to parental and child factors are scarce In the search for explanations for the variation in early vocabulary some associations could possibly be hidden when composite scores are used for both sexes Conceptual model of the hypothesized relations between the study constructs The participants were part of a longitudinal birth cohort study, Steps to the Healthy Development and Well-being of Children (the STEPS study), in the Hospital District of Southwest Finland (Lagström et al., 2013) The Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Ethics Committee of the Hospital District of Southwest Finland approved the STEPS Study in 2007 Participants were enrolled from an eligible cohort of 9,811 Finnish- and Swedish-speaking mothers at maternity clinics during pregnancy or on the delivery ward at birth 1,797 mothers provided written consent to participate in the study and were informed of the possibility to withdraw at any time The recruited children were born between January 2008 and April 2010 The outcome measure was vocabulary growth between the ages of 13 and 24 months in the various lexical categories comprised in the measured expressive vocabulary The Finnish CDI-I and CDI-T inventories consist of 19 and 20 semantic or lexical categories which were analyzed in the following lexical categories: sound effects and animal sounds (13 and particles (10 items only in the CDI-T) Growth between the measure points 13 and 24 months was analyzed for all lexical categories except particles We analyzed the vocabulary in number of words at ages 13 and 24 months the growth between 13 and 24 months was analyzed in percentage words of the total vocabulary in each lexical category as numbers of words in the lexical categories differ between the CDI-I and CDI-T A function factor was constructed of five items measuring different kinds of grammatical categories All these categories express different kinds of grammatical function words that start to develop in the latter part of the second year The families completed parental and child questionnaires about demographic factors such as educational and occupational background and day care attendance at ages 13 and 24 months The questionnaires were answered at gestational weeks 10–15 by the mothers at gestational weeks 20 and 30 separately by both parents and when the child was aged 13 and 24 months by one of the parents Mothers recruited on the delivery ward completed the first questionnaire at that time Descriptive overview of participants in the study Comparison between background variables as a function of the child´s sex t-test (conducted for continuous variables) denoted by mean (SD) and Chi-square test (conducted for categorical variables) is presented by n (%) The analyses for the present study were carried out using the IBM Statistics SPSS 25–26 and Mplus 8.0 software with Maximum Likelihood estimator (Muthén and Muthén, 1998–2011) Missing data on the dependent variables (0.1–0.3% per item) were handled with the Expectation Maximization procedure In the descriptive analysis of the present study mean and standard deviation (SD) for continuous variables and number and percent for categorial variables were used to describe the study participants The differences in the mean size of lexical categories and in vocabulary growth of lexical categories between boys and girls were analyzed using an independent two tailed t-test Pearson´s correlation analysis was used in comparing the relationship between growth in the lexical categories in boys and girls p-values of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant To examine the between-group differences in the hypothesized regressions While the invariance of the regressions would indicate similar effects of background variables on language development in boys and girls the non-invariance confirms the differential associations There was a large variation in total vocabulary size at 13 and 24 months of age in and between boys and girls Mean vocabulary size at 13 and 24 months of age in boys was 7.8 (SD = 10.9 Range = 0–116) and 262.2 (SD = 168.1 Range = 0–297) and 340.3 (SD = 152.5 Total vocabulary growth between the ages of 13 and 24 months in boys was mean% 42.0 (SD = 27.5) and in girls mean% 54.1 (SD = 24.6) Mean sizes of the various lexical categories varied widely between the children Mean number of words in the category of common nouns at age 13 months ranged from 0 to 71 in boys and 0 to 179 in girls Forty-two percent of the boys and 35% of the girls had no words in the common noun category the variation in vocabulary size of nouns was still large varying from 0 to 291 words in boys and 0 to 293 words in girls 1.7% (n = 7) of the boys and 0.6% (n = 2) of the girls had no noun in their vocabulary The girls had a significantly larger vocabulary size than boys at 13 months of age in four of the lexical categories: sound effects and animal sounds the girls outperformed the boys in all lexical categories (p < 0.001) The percentual growth of vocabulary between the ages of 13 and 24 months was mean% 0.42 (SD = 0.27) in boys and mean% 0.54 (SD = 0.25) in girls. Vocabulary growth in lexical categories varied substantially in and between the categories. Some children had fewer words in some categories at 24 months than at 13 months of age, which explains the negative numbers in the ranges (Table 2) Girls outperformed boys in vocabulary growth in all lexical categories except sound effects and animal sounds (p < 0.001) the effect sizes were small to moderate (d = −0.25 to −0.47) Descriptive statistics of mean vocabulary growth (in %) between ages 13 and 24 months for boys (n = 369) and girls (n = 350) Independent two-tailed t-test conducted when comparing mean differences between boys and girls The result of the Pearson correlation indicated a significant positive association (p < 0.001) between lexical growth in the lexical categories in boys (r = 0.237–0.932) and in girls (r = 0.196–0.921), except for associations between sound effects vs pronouns and questions (r = 0.182, p = 0.001 and r = 0.164, p = 0.002, respectively) (Table 3) The correlations between sound effects and the other lexical categories were weak in both boys and girls (r = 237–447 and r = 182–365 Correlations between growth in lexical categories in boys and girls aged 13–24 months (Pearson correlation) The first step involved testing the same factor structure with boys’ and girls’ empirical covariance matrix separately This produced very well-fitting models in each group Tests for measurement invariance for function words factor across boys and girls A configural invariance model also showed an excellent fit to the data (Table 4, model M1). Further, constraining corresponding factor loadings to be equal across the sexes produced the metric invariance model which exhibited a good overall fit (M2 in Table 4) The minor changes in GFIs indicated full metric invariance of the function words scale across the study groups Only statistically significant associations are included in the models Structural equation model including significant factors in predicting vocabulary growth in lexical categories in boys between ages 13 and 24 months Note (n = 245); χ2 (60) = 122.29 SRMR = 0.016; Standardized coefficients Structural equation model including significant factors in predicting vocabulary growth in lexical categories in girls between ages 13 and 24 months Note (n = 239); χ2 (61) = 156.38 SRMR = 0.018; Standardized coefficients the amount of explained variance was small The aim of the present study was to examine if there are differences in how child factors and family factors predict vocabulary growth in various lexical categories and whether these factors predict vocabulary growth differently in boys vs girls We found differences in how these factors predicted vocabulary growth in the lexical categories The main predictors of vocabulary growth between 13 and 24 months of age were a family burden of late onset of speech and day care experience at 24 months of age there was a difference in how these factors predicted growth in the lexical categories as a function of the child’s sex The comparison of the results with previous studies is not straightforward as earlier studies have analyzed the effect of factors on development of lexical categories in boys and girls together and not separately as in the present study Analyzing vocabulary growth as combined scores for boys and girls can possibly hide significant scores for either sexes who found significant differences between boys and girls in vocabulary size at ages 1;2 and 1;4 (N = 903) in all categories except descriptive and function words None of the children in the present study reached the maximum ceiling of available words in a category at 13 months of age whereas at 24 months the ceiling of all lexical categories was reached by some of the girls some reached the ceiling in all categories except nouns which could also explain the predictive function of being firstborn on the growth of descriptive and function words which could explain why attending day care only predicted the growth of sound effects in boys Sound effects are usually onomatopoeic words which are possibly much used in play between young children and not so much in child-directed speech at home Girls with a stronger vocabulary can presumably develop vocabulary also in day care settings without speech directed specifically at them Among the girls there were also lexical categories that predicted no growth in day care attendance at 24 months of age The categories affected by day care were sound effects and animal sounds which were already more developed at 13 months of age in the girls belonged to the four largest developing categories between 13 and 24 months of age This could suggest that the focus and language used in day care at this early age is related more to the first developing categories of sounds One explanation for the differences in how vocabulary development was predicted by background factors in boys and girls could be different susceptibilities in boys vs girls to the factors influencing early language development. It has been suggested in twin studies that early language development is influenced differently by biological and environmental factors (Galsworthy et al., 2000; Van Hulle, et al., 2004) There is a possibility that when analyzing boys and girls together in relation to language development and the factors affecting it factors that would enlighten the gender variations in early language development are overlooked This variation as a function of the child’s sex is important and needs to be studied more as it brings new perspectives to early language development and is thus of significance in supporting early vocabulary development and children at risk A strength of the present study is the prospective longitudinal birth cohort design it presents new detailed information on the early vocabulary growth of lexical categories and how vocabulary growth is predicted by background factors as a function of the child’s sex there are some limitations that need to be considered when interpreting the results meaning that the studied factors explained only part of the vocabulary growth in lexical categories between the ages of 13 and 24 months vocabulary size at 13 months of age was not considered in the factor analysis; it could have added the aspect of where in the vocabulary development the child was at the beginning of the growth period For some children with a larger vocabulary size the growth could have continued on the same trajectory for a child with a larger vocabulary already at 13 months the growth may not have seemed as big as for a child with less vocabulary in the beginning Another restriction was that the date of enrolment in day care was not asked for This limited the interpretation of the effects concerning day care attendance as we lacked detailed information on how long the child had attended day care The present study provides detailed information of vocabulary growth in lexical categories between the ages of 13 and 24 months It shows that in all the lexical categories our results suggest differences between vocabulary growth in boys and girls in relation to child and family factors Boys with a family risk of late onset of speech had slower growth in all lexical categories except for sound effects and animal sounds Being a girl and the firstborn enhanced vocabulary growth in the lexical classes of descriptive and function words Day care attendance at 24 months of age affected vocabulary growth positively in girls more than in boys only the lexical category of sound effects was enhanced and games and routines grew larger in girls attending day care at age 24 months compared to children staying at home The present study emphasizes the need to be aware that not all factors influence early vocabulary development in the same way in boys and girls and suggests that studies of effects on early language development should consider examining vocabulary growth separately in boys and girls The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by The Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Ethics Committee of the Hospital District of Southwest Finland approved the STEPS Study in 2007 Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin AN was responsible for writing the manuscript PU was responsible for performing the SEM analysis and describing it in the manuscript PK and PR were responsible in planning the study design and the questionnaires PK was responsible for collecting the language data This research was supported in part by Kommunalrådet C G Sundells stiftelse The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that 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The use distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Annette Nylund, YW5uZXR0ZS5ueWx1bmRAYWJvLmZp Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish Day two in Finland brought back memories of a high-speed passenger ride Words by Day two of Toyota testing here in Finland and once again the sun rose early and we were out of the door at a stupidly early time The start was in fact so early that my brain didn’t really get the chance to engage first gear As we fired up the happy bus to head out to the test stage I had a moment of panic The panic lasted all of five seconds until I realised I was looking at the temperature gauge We stopped again at the mighty fine ABC service station just out of Jyväskylä for coffee and breakfast and Heikki the talented (and very cool) cameraman decided he would join me in taking porridge for breakfast Well nothing odd until he put two great big slabs of butter into his porridge – apparently that’s what they do in Finland Today’s test really wasn’t very far from yesterday’s test stage but as we passed Korpilahti and turned off the main road This was all beginning to look a little disturbingly familiar I’d been here before and that was a very long way short of my finest moment We came around a corner and there it was in front us the site of one of the most humiliating and frankly disappointing experiences of my life I sat in the co-drivers seat of a Hyundai World Rally Car and wept like only a completely broken man can weep And who was responsible for this pitiful outpouring of emotion I’d been persuaded to sit with him in the very same stage that Séb Ogier blasted his way through today for a bit of a fun ride My eyes were closed by the first corner and I screamed in abject terror for all of the five excruciating kilometers of that tortuous stage We seemed to be in the air for the majority of it but I really can’t say if we were or not because my eyes were never open We were supposed to turn the car around and blast back in the opposite direction I only remained in that torture chamber because being a lovely sensitive guy and realising how distressed I was In all his years of giving passenger rides But thankfully the tears eventually dried up today went a very long way to cleansing those demons from my soul Ogier at full speed on a classic Finnish stage is a sight to be savoured and he gave us plenty to enjoy throughout today Stage-side filming with Heikki the very cool cameraman was an absolute joy So interviews done and action footage in the can (do they still say that in television world?) we headed back in the happy bus to Jyvaskyla radio cranked up to some local Finnish radio station and on comes Europe’s Final Countdown A slightly sunburned and exhausted Heikki came to life – quite alarmingly Belting out the words to that tune was bad enough but as the chorus kicked in the air guitar came out Air guitar is clearly a hidden talent of Heikki’s The manic waving of the arms remarkably wasn’t the worst part It was the other worldly euphoric look that took over his face that sealed it for me Heikki the cool cameraman is a title that now lives in the past That facade was blown big time today I’m afraid Sign up today and be the first to know about special offers SaveSave this storySaveWhen the sun finally rises and the snow melts away after a long the Finns are more than ready to embrace the summer A common tradition is to spend the season in a lakeside cottage—there are half a million summer houses in the country An exhibition at the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä takes a look at the designs of such villas crafted by the institution’s namesake an architect who made the city his home during the early 20th century When the demand for summer houses increased competitions were held to produce designs that could be built across the country Architects created hundreds of drawings—some of Aalto’s are presented here in the exhibition The show also presents models of his commissions such as a country club built in the town of Kallvik as well as 16-millimeter footage of Aalto’s family vacations at his own getaways the Villa Flora and the Experimental House Finns have sought inspiration for building from various sources including the summer homes of artists and architects,” says curator Mari Murtoniemi in a statement “Aalto’s summer cottage designs link the architecture of summer holidays to the development of society as a whole.” *Through September 13 at the Alvar Aalto Museum, Alvar Aallon katu 7, Jyväskylä, Finland; alvaraalto.fi The association said that the child had been seen at 7pm in their own home's yard but there had been no sightings since then Snowfall had covered the child's footprints and a canine patrol unit arrived from Jyväskylä to help eventually found the child in a large snow pile created when a snow plough had arrived to clear routes around the child's home but on the second try the dog noticed something and refused to leave Would you like a roundup of the week's top stories in your inbox every Thursday? Then sign up to receive our weekly email By the time the child was extracted from the snow pile In the ambulance the patient had already perked up enough to chat with first responders The Police Dog Association said that the child had been building a snow cave when new snow delivered by the plough destroyed the cave and buried them There was around 1-1.5 metres of snow on top of the child Users with an Yle ID can leave comments on our news stories. You can create your Yle ID via this link. Our guidelines on commenting and moderation are explained here Sign In Register Her firm faith in Jesus supported her in her illness and gave her peace She moved to Canada with her husband and family in 1968 She was keen to start her life here and she diligently studied English while working various jobs to help care for her family Later she graduated as a registered nurse's assistant in 1984 after which she enjoyed working at various nursing homes in the city Raija was blessed with the gift and heart of a caregiver which included her children and her grandchildren She was always eager to be a part of their lives She always lit up when her grandchildren came to a visit Raija made everyone feel as if they were the most important person at that moment Everything she did was fueled by her love for her husband and family Raija was an active member in the Finnish Free Church where she served her community wholeheartedly She also enjoyed travelling with her husband Raija will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by her husband Pauli; her son John (Eva); her son Peter (Joanne) her son Marcus (Rebecca); her son Michael (Sarah); her daughter Catherine (Kimmo); her grandchildren Joshua Abigail and Leila; her mother Aune Kilpilahti and her sister Erja Peacey Raija was predeceased by her brother Erkki Kilpilahti Funeral Services for Raija will be held on Saturday in the Chapel of the Harbourview Funeral Centre Visitation for family and friends will take place one hour prior to the service time Interment will follow in Riverside Cemetery donations in Raija’s memory may be made to the Northern Cancer Fund or a charity of choice Dialogue and debate are integral to a free society and we welcome and encourage you to share your views on the issues of the day. 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Box 193, 40101 JyväskyläContact search Organisation  City Strategy Volume 2 - 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2017.00035 Teachers and speech and language therapists (SLTs) share concern about children’s speech and communication needs (SLCNs) but they have different foci because of their professional roles Contemporary research has identified the challenges to schools when meeting the needs of children with SLCN and has increased opportunities for professional development The views of 170 Educationalists and SLT professionals in England about SLCN and the children’s associated needs were compared for similarities and differences in an online survey that employed both categorical responses and Likert scales Comparisons were made between teacher and SLT groups and between SLTs working in schools and clinics There were few significant differences between the views of SLTs in clinics and education there were often large and significant differences between teachers and SLTs Education professionals were less familiar with terminology related to speech difficulties did not discriminate between behaviors that might differentiate speech from language difficulties and varied in the ratings given about other associated difficulties education professionals showed awareness of academic and behavior difficulties associated with language difficulties and highlighted associated problems with reading and writing SLTs felt confident in their understanding of the relevant terminology but there was less clarity in the features that discriminated speech from language difficulties Both the Educationalists and SLTs valued additional training needs with over 50% of the Education staff reporting that they had no training in SLCN The lack of clarity about the language markers of SLCN by teachers and the requests for tools to help in the identification of speech and language problems in school-age children are important areas to address Both SLTs and Education staff emphasized the co-occurrence of difficulties with reading comprehension and written text production highlighting the importance of profiling children’s language learning needs rather than a reliance on diagnostic categories none of these studies differentiated speech from language difficulties Effective collaboration is supported by a consensus by the professionals (Education staff and SLTS) concerning whom the target population is and what their co-occurring needs might be An initial step toward developing effective practices is to identify how the two groups of practitioners currently conceptualize language learning difficulties their ensuing impacts on children with SLCN it is likely that these behaviors may be an indication of a wide range of developmental problems it is not certain which language markers can be used to accurately identify children with language difficulties and by corollary there is a dearth of information about how teachers might detect language difficulties features of language performance alert teachers to language difficulties and the extent to which SLTs view these as features of SLCN Whilst further comparative research is required the current research evidence suggests that children with language difficulties have more pervasive problems associated with a range of educational and social processes than do children with speech problems alone there is currently little evidence concerning whether teachers and SLTs distinguish between the impacts of speech versus language difficulties in educational contexts Whether these inequalities in service provision arise because of limited resources or failing to be sensitive to the children’s likely needs is not known In sum certain population characteristics are associated with SLCN but there are disparities in their use as flags to provide additional services or monitor progress and in the extent to which different professional groups are alert to these disproportionalities To our knowledge, no attempt has been made to systematically examine the differences between the views of experienced Education and SLT professionals in a large sample working in mainstream settings about children with SLCN. This is of central importance to policy and practice in England, as in other countries, since the guidelines emphasize the importance of multiprofessional working (Department for Education, 2015 24) yet there remain uncertainties about the specific target population this study sought to elicit professional understandings of SLCN to inform research and practice using an online questionnaire The main focus of the research was a comparison of the views of SLTs and Education professionals’ understandings the study focused on four major areas of which have been examined in the research literature: (1) understanding of terminology; (2) spoken language indicators of SLCN; (3) associated academic needs and behavioral challenges; and (4) barriers to meeting the children’s needs We also expected SLTs to distinguish clearly between speech and language problems given their training have a more nuanced understanding of the types of problems which occur with speech and language and clearly differentiate speech from language problems We also predicted that SLTs working in schools (as opposed to clinics) would be more aware of the wider educational implications of experiencing an SLCN The online survey was accessed by 350 respondents in England Two-hundred and four self-declared as Education professionals and 146 as SLTs A significant proportion of respondents omitted sections which were intended for both groups and therefore precluded comparative analyses all respondents with missing data for these items were removed from the sample leaving 170 participants in the final survey sample (SLTs n = 67; Education staff n = 103) there were still within discipline questions where respondents did not give an answer thus respondents were dropped from those analyses when answers were missing The two groups estimated the percentage of pupils that they worked with who had: special education needs (SEN); learned EAL; were eligible for the pupil premium; or who required support for SLCN “Don’t know” responses (<5%) were removed and the remaining responses collapsed into “<25%,” “between 26 and 75%,” and “more than 75%” (Table S5 in Supplementary Material) There were significant associations between respondent group and: pupils with: SEN Φc = 0.67 working across a range of key stages (Table S4 in Supplementary Material) The SLTs reported working with more pupils with SEN and SLCN than the Education group whereas the Education respondents reported working with more pupils with EAL There was no association for pupil premium [χ2 (2 The SLTs were initially divided into three subgroups based on where they worked: education; clinic; student When aspects of the study focused on SLTs in practice There were 48 SLTs in education and 17 SLTs in clinics and work with pupil groups (see Tables S1–S3 in Supplementary Material) There were no significant associations between the SLT subgroups and number of pupils with SEN and SLCN that they worked with (Tables S6 and S7 in Supplementary Material) Subsequent analyses compared responses from SLTs working in education and clinics as there were no statistically significant differences on any measure the results are not presented here but are available from the authors Only respondents in Education settings were asked about their patterns of working with SLTs Almost all (88.35%) of the respondents in the Education group indicated that they had access to SLTs in their school where the modal frequency of visits by SLTs to schools was weekly (36.9% see Table S8 in Supplementary Material for details) Those with access to SLTs also reported that about a quarter (25.2%) of the SLTs worked in classrooms and training providers working for children with SLCN were contacted and asked to distribute the link to the survey Participation was voluntary and responses were anonymized The deadline for completion was indicated on the survey Two reminders were sent before the survey was closed Email lists for both groups of professionals were used to identify and contact potential participants and the people contacted were also asked to pass the link on to other appropriate parties As participation was voluntary and the details of the distribution lists were confidential there was no control over who completed the survey all participants provided background information about their professional status contact time with children (only for SLTs) This provided indicative data of the representativeness of the sample Ethical agreement was provided for the study by the UCL Institute of Education Research Ethics Committee which adheres to the British Psychological Society guidelines The survey was based on a review of the research literature that related to SLCN, group interviews with Special Educational Needs coordinators (SENCos)2 and a pilot study with SENCos who were not respondents in the present study (see Dockrell and Howell, 2015) Items which were ambiguous or failed to discriminate across respondents in the pilot work were eliminated Given that the aim was to compare teachers and SLTs a preliminary version of the survey was given separately to a group of SLTs and experienced teachers Amendments were made to clarify/edit questions and to modify response options as indications of consistency of use of all scales The majority of items required respondents to indicate their views on Likert scales and communication needs (SLCN) terminology (M and SD) for the education and speech and language therapist groups.a Percentage of respondents in the education and speech and language therapist (SLT) groups who reported difficulties which were either a feature of a speech difficulty Reported associated difficulties [M (SD)] for children with speech difficulties for education and speech and language therapist (SLT) groups.a Reported associated problems [M (SD)] for children with language difficulties for education and speech and language therapist (SLT) groups The dependent variables were binary when categorical decisions about demographic information and the relationship between specific language behaviors and speech/language difficulties were collected The remaining items required respondents to indicate their views on three- Our aim was to compare SLTs and Education staff with respect to understandings and working practice for children with SLCN the primary data analyses compared responses between the two groups (χ2 for categorical data MANOVA for scaled responses) with group as the independent variable in all cases patterns within groups were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVAs all ANOVAs are reported after Greenhouse Geisser corrections post hoc tests are computed using Bonferroni corrections Effect sizes quantify the size of the difference between the two groups and by convention effect sizes above 0.80 are large To examine whether the two groups could be differentiated by their responses about the language behaviors, a recursive partitioning and regression tree analysis were conducted using the rpart package (Therneau et al., 2015) in R (R Core Team, 2017) This works by first finding the variable which best splits the data into the two groups as achieved by minimizing generalized Gini impurity The ideal value for this measure is 0 when all cases in a given group belong to one category The process is then repeated recursively on the resulting groups using remaining variables until no further splits can be made The results are presented in five sections reflecting the research questions Respondents rated their familiarity with 14 terms used to refer to SLCNs (see Table 1 and Table S9 in Supplementary Material) Cronbach’s α for the 14 terms was 0.96 the responses given by the SLT group were virtually at ceiling consequently analysis to compare respondent groups statistically to determine differences in familiarity with terms could not be performed for them familiarity differed significantly across the terms for the Education respondents [F(8.26 η2 = 0.22]; respondents were most familiar with SLCN and least familiar with oro-motor dyspraxia (p < 0.05) all between group (Education and SLT) comparisons were significant The classification tree in Figure 1 depicts the pattern of answers about language behaviors that best differentiated between respondents from the two groups. The response options are designated S for speech difficulty, L for language difficulty, B for both speech and language difficulties, N for neither type of difficulty, and D for unsure (do not know). Each branch in Figure 1 lists the behavior and and D) given to that behavior which bifurcates the groups The response options that are omitted for each behavior do not discriminate between the two groups Figure 1. Classification tree indicating how response options about the first seven language behaviors in Table 2 differentiated between the education and speech and language therapist groups The first behavior identified was circumlocution. This is consistent with the χ2 analysis shown in Table 2 in which circumlocution showed the biggest difference between groups (as indicated by the largest χ2 value and smallest p) Respondents who tended to use “not sure,” “neither speech nor language difficulties,” or “speech difficulties” for this behavior were likely to be from the Education group (oval box at left) the Education group was unsure what type of difficulty circumlocution was as reflected in the response options that they employed Looking across behaviors used in the classification tree the “not sure” (D) response option was frequently given by the Education This provides further evidence that Education staff are not confident in their knowledge of speech and language difficulties SLTs did not make a clear differentiation between problems reflecting language and those reflecting speech perhaps reflecting the co-occurrence of speech and language difficulties but further raising questions about criteria used for differential diagnosis Cronbach’s α across the 13 features was 0.79 Mean ratings in the following ranges were designated as “likely” (1–2.2) “moderately likely” (2.3–3.5) or “unlikely” (above 3.6) occurrences The majority of behaviors were seen by both groups as moderately likely co-occurrences with speech difficulties We first examined the effect of group membership on respondents’ views of educational and behavioral and social difficulties in children with speech problems using a MANOVA. Means (SDs) and statistical results are presented in Table 3 There was a significant difference with a small effect size for educational difficulties There was a similar significant group effect with a small effect size for behavioral difficulties the Education group reported that difficulties with anxiety and self-esteem were more likely co-occurrences for children with speech problems than did the SLTs within-group differences on their ratings were examined with a repeated-measures ANOVA There was a within-group difference for educational difficulties in the Education respondents with a medium effect size [F(2.519 η2 = 0.42]; “reading decoding” and “reading comprehension” differed significantly from “spelling” (p = 0.006 and p < 0.001 where spelling was the most commonly reported co-occurrence with speech difficulties for the Education respondents “Reading comprehension” was a less likely reported co-occurrence than “writing texts” (p < 0.001) For the behavioral difficulties in children with speech difficulties there was also a significant within-group difference for the Education respondents with a medium effect size [F(5.179 η2 = 0.52]; responses indicating “bullying other children” was a more unlikely co-occurrence of speech difficulties than all of the other behavioral difficulties (p < 0.01) Similar repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted with the SLT group for academic and behavioral difficulties large and significant differences were found [academic difficulties F(2.030 η2 = 0.86; behavioral difficulties F(4.414 “reading comprehension” and “writing texts” were viewed as less likely co-occurrences than “reading decoding” and “spelling.” For behavioral difficulties similar to the findings with Education staff responses indicating “bullying other children” was a more unlikely co-occurrence of speech difficulties than all of the other behavioral difficulties (p < 0.001) apart from “depression” (p = 0.975) Although both SLTs and Education staff were aware of the impact of speech problems on learning and behavior Teachers were more alert to the wider ramifications of speech problems both in terms of the curriculum and in terms of confidence and self-esteem Overall both groups of respondents felt that difficulties were moderately likely to co-occur with speech problems but within-groups analyses demonstrated that the patterns of problems varied There was a significant effect of group for educational difficulties for children with language difficulties Responses differed for both “reading decoding” and “spelling” Education staff considered that these were more likely co-occurrences for children with language difficulties than did SLTs There was no significant group effect for behavior problems There was also a within-group difference for the Education respondents for educational problems for children with language difficulties with a moderate effect size [F(2.587 Both “reading comprehension” and “writing texts” were viewed as more likely co-occurrences with language difficulties than “reading decoding” and “spelling” (p < 0.001) There was also a large and significant within-group effect for behavioral difficulties [F(4.704 η2 = 0.80] where Education staff reported that “bullying other children” was the least likely co-occurrence with language difficulties (for all other behavior difficulties p < 0.001) Within-group analyses for the SLTs showed a large and significant difference for academic difficulties η2 = 0.80 and behavioral difficulties A similar pattern to the Education respondents was evident where both “reading comprehension” and “writing texts” were rated as more common occurrences than “reading decoding” and “spelling” for children with language difficulties (p < 0.001) “bullying other children” was significantly different from responses to all other behaviors (p < 0.01) except for “depression” (p = 0.07) Both SLTs and Education staff were aware of the impact of language problems on learning and behavior respondents felt that difficulties were highly likely to co-occur with language problems the two groups did not differ in their views of the likelihood of different patterns of behavior problems but there were significant differences in their views of academic difficulties where Education staff were more alert to reading decoding and spelling problems Respondents assessed whether language and speech difficulties were more frequent for children from areas of social disadvantage “Don’t know” responses were excluded before analyses were conducted The majority of respondents from the Education and SLT groups reported that language difficulties were more common in children from areas of social disadvantage (90.4 and 98.5% respectively) and for children with SEN (93.8%; 98.5%) neither group considered that language difficulties were encountered more frequently when children spoke EAL (36.3%; 21.3%) (see Table S10 in Supplementary Material) There were associations between respondent group and responses for children with social disadvantage [χ2(1 Φc = 0.16] and EAL [χ2(1 SLTs were more likely to associate language difficulties with social disadvantage and Education respondents with EAL There was no difference between groups for SEN [χ2(1 There were significant differences in the reported likelihood of speech difficulties for children with EAL [Education p < 0.001,Φc = 0.30]; but not for social disadvantage [Education Φc = 0.08]; or SEN [Education Details can be found in Tables S10 and S11 in Supplementary Material To identify barriers to meeting the children’s needs, we considered previous training and professional development, respondents’ confidence, and resource needs. Mean responses and percentage responses to barriers are reported in Table 5 Responses that indicated that the topic was “not applicable” were removed before analysis (<5%) the biggest barrier was lack of training in relevant areas Barriers to practice [%(n)] for Education (n = 94) and speech and language therapists (SLTs) (n = 62) there was a significant difference in ratings across response in a repeated-measures ANOVA [F(4.856 Responses to “lack of training in relevant areas” had the highest mean and all the comparisons between this option and the rest were significant (p < 0.01) apart from the comparison with “difficulties in knowing how to support children with SLCN.” SLT responses also differed significantly across options [F(4.864 Responses to the “lack of training in relevant areas” option had the highest mean and were significant in all comparisons (p < 0.01) except for “difficulties in identifying children with SLCN.” Six questions related to initial training and specific guidance for children with SLCN were addressed to the Education group only (Table 6) More than half of the respondents reported that they had not received any of the forms of guidance for SLCN during their professional training Percentage of respondents in the Education group reporting information and guidance received during their professional training The Education group was asked how confident they were about dealing with children with speech and language difficulties using a five-point scale (1 was entirely confident and 5 was not at all confident) The six items were: children with language difficulties; children with speech difficulties; professional support for children with language difficulties; professional support for children with speech difficulties; resources to support children with language difficulties; and resources to support children with speech difficulties Mean responses to all six events were below 3 showing some confidence about access to resources in relation to children with SLCN but confidence varied significantly across options [F(3.571 Confidence about identifying resources to support children with speech difficulties was significantly lower than confidence about professional support for children with language difficulties (p = 0.001) professional support for children with speech difficulties (p = 0.006) and resources to support children with language difficulties (p = 0.004) Respondents were asked how helpful specific resources were for supporting children with SLCN They were most positive about receiving specific guidance (82%) and least positive about receiving information about a diagnosis (52%) All respondents were asked whether a tool for identifying children with language difficulties would be useful There were significant differences between response and respondent group Details are given in Table S12 in Supplementary Material A similar analysis to establish the usefulness of a tool for identifying children with speech difficulties also showed a significant association between the factors of group and useful/not useful the Education group considered that such tools would be more useful than did the SLT group Experienced practitioners responded to the survey moreover the majority of the respondents from the Education group had experience of SLTs working in their schools We established that the groups differed in the language behaviors that they reported indicated a speech or language difficulty with Education practitioners expressing less certainty of what language behaviors are indicative of an SLCN language difficulties were reported to have more serious repercussions for academic problems and social/emotional problems than speech problems the patterns of severity of impact varied for both the Education and SLT groups Education practitioners reported a greater awareness of the emotional difficulties experienced by children with speech problems Both groups highlighted lack of training as a significant barrier to meeting the children’s needs a finding consistent with the Education respondents’ reports of their lack of training about SLCN The results indicated that identifying resources to help children with speech difficulties was a particular area of concern for the Education group but not the SLTS emphasized the need for tools to support them in the identification of children with speech and language difficulties To address the limited information available about the differences and similarities in the understanding of SLTs and Educational practitioners about SLCN we administered a bespoke questionnaire which captured understandings of terminology and professional barriers to meeting the children’s needs We had predicted that SLTs working in education would be more aware of the educational difficulties experienced by children with SLCN We found no significant differences between the two groups of SLTS on any measure as predicted Education staff were less familiar than SLTs with current terminology surrounding different speech and language problems and were less aware of different proposed language markers of SLCN The lack of familiarity with terminology related to speech difficulties by Education respondents is an unexpected and It was also anticipated that Education staff would have a better awareness of the range of educational and behavioral problems that are often experienced by the children with SLCN The results did not conform this prediction and demonstrated a more nuanced situation that varied between speech and language and academic and behavioral challenges Despite raised concerns about language difficulties no more than one-third of the Education respondents had received guidance or training in relation to SLCN and the both groups differed in the ways to address this gap Education respondents rated the availability of tools to identify speech and language difficulties highly each of the areas investigated is examined drawing implications for research and service development They do highlight the importance of developing models of service provision that address disproportionalities these problems included problems with both confidence and self-esteem Given the importance of social emotional and mental health factors for supporting the adjustment of children the teachers’ insights point to an important gap in current support services for children with speech difficulties Again these data support the importance of developing service delivery models that are premised on collaboration so as to deliver effective practice to meet all the needs of the child with an SLCN van den Bedem and colleagues (under review) have argued that this reflects difficulties with understanding emotions rather than understanding language or other) due to deficits in comprehension or production” and language abilities that are “substantially and quantifiably” below age expectations Allowing for a broader reflection of language disorders would allow both teachers and therapists a wider frame of reference and allow for more accurate identification of interventions the views of the staff from education point to a wider profiling of children’s language learning needs Why SLTs were reticent about the approach is not clear, though it may reflect the current lack of evidence about screening for speech or language delay (Wallace et al., 2015) The development of a tool which goes beyond the early years to support school staff could be beneficial in providing them with key markers of effective speaking and listening in school-age children and for highlighting pupils who may need further support either in the classroom or by referral to external professionals The development of effective services for children with SLCN depends on both mapping provision and examining professionals’ understanding so as to develop effective collaborative practice we compared the views of experienced SLTs and Education practitioners The survey demonstrated differences in the 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Open image viewerThe crash prompted a shutdown of national road 9 to all traffic on Tuesday Image: Isto Janhunen / YleYle News23.2.2022 10:27The three victims of a deadly collision between a private car and truck in Jyväskylä on Tuesday morning were students at Humak University of Applied Sciences The three young adults were driving on national road 9 from Korpilahti towards Jyväskylä when their car collided with a lorry at just after 8am Three of the people in the car died in the crash Määttä said that the school was offering crisis assistance to students and staff members The institution also planned to hold an assembly for students surrounding the tragedy on Wednesday morning this is a very tragic blow," Määttä said expressing his deep condolences to the victims' relatives All six of Humak's campuses observed a day of mourning on Wednesday Police have not yet confirmed the identities of the victims An accident investigation is still in its infancy there were warnings in place for potentially dangerous driving conditions across southern and central Finland on Tuesday morning Herman and Elisabeth Hallonblad – Art Patrons from Ladoga Karelia The state councilman Herman Hallonblad (1825–1894) and his wife Elisabeth Hallonblad (1831–1907) from Sortavala were the most significant supporters of the Finnish and Karelian culture Ladoga Karelia was formerly an area of Finland which was ceded to the Soviet Union after the Second World War Herman Hallonblad was the mayor of Käkisalmi in Karelia and worked as a bank manager in Helsinki He was the owner of three estates in Karelia and one in Häme In 1851 he married Lisinka (Elisabeth) Siitoin The Hallonblad family financed the lumber and metal plants They also valued education and were establishing the Sortavala teacher seminar in Karelia Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the Hallonblad donation to Finnish Art Association The donation consists of 13 pieces of art from Hallonblad’s home sculptures and prints were bought by the Finnish Art Association with Hallonblad’s funds The entire collection consists of 185 works of art which are now part of the Ateneum Art Museum’s collection In Jyväskylä exhibition there are shown 42 paintings and sculptures of the most significant Finnish artists from 1860s –1930s The collection includes treasures such as Helene Schjerfbeck’sT he Primary School Girl II (1908) and Self-Portrait Ferdinand von Wright’s Capercaillies courting (1862) and The Surprise (1880) Otto Mäkilä’s Summer Night (1938) as well as Tyko Sallinen’s The "Ducat" Girl (1914) and The Nude (1911) An interesting section of this exhibition is dedicated to portraits and the artists’ self-portraits Central Finland is also a common denominator for several of the pieces in this collection Akseli Gallen-Kallela painted the first version of First Lesson in the spirit of Runeberg in Keuruu in 1887 even though the painting was later finished in Paris in 1889 Yrjö Ollila’s Shepherdess (1915) was painted in Korpilahti the exhibition includes Korpilahti born Alvar Cawén’s painting Mimosa (1914) The acquisition of the exhibition was initiated by the Sortavala Foundation This touring exhibition was brought together by the Ateneum Art Museum the Joensuu Art Museum and the Jyväskylä Art Museum The research related to this exhibition was done by M.Phil The Collection was exhibited in Joensuu on 19 November 2009 – 16 May 2010 The Ateneum Art Museum will show this collection on 10 October 2010 – 14 March 2011 Gallery RatamoVeturintallinkatu 640100 JyväskyläOpening hours: Tue-Sun 11-18+358 (0)50 311 8901[email protected] Art Museum OfficeVapaudenkatu 28PL 165 40101 Jyväskylä[email protected] FacebookInstagramYouTubeVimeo Jyväskylä museumsVisit Jyväskylä RegionJyväskylän kaupunki