Event perception in children with speech and language impairment
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Event perception - an exploration of the abilities of children with speech and language impairment to perceive events
IRAS ID
174121
Contact name
Abigail Levin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
City University London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 1 days
Research summary
This study will look at how children who have speech and language difficulties perceive what is happening when they see an event (for example a child rolling a ball along a track).
Children with speech and language difficulties are children who have problems acquiring and using a first language and/or pronouncing words.
Research shows that action words (verbs) are more difficult for children to learn than nouns (Golinkoff, R. M. & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2008). The ability to perceive events is a key skill in the ability of children to learn action verbs. Research recently carried out at City University, London also shows that the ability of typically developing children to perceive events is a skill which improves with time between the ages of 2 and 5 years (Links 2015).
This study will focus on 16 children diagnosed with speech and language difficulties in the South of England. The children will watch a set of short videos which depict different actions. Each video will last 2-3 seconds. The children will look at 60 sets of three videos and will be asked to point to the two videos they feel go best together in each set. Each child will be tested once and each test will take approximately 20 - 40 minutes.
Testing will take place in September and October 2015. The results of the study will be presented as part of an MSc project in February 2016.
We hope that this research will identify if there is a difference in the mistakes made by children who have speech and language difficulties and their typically developing peers. We also hope that analysis of mistakes made will give us an insight into the nature of the difficulties faced.
REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SC/0423
Date of REC Opinion
9 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion