The applicability of D, MTLD, and MATTR in Mandarin–speaking children
•Typically developing children had higher D, MTLD, and MATTR than children with language delay.•4-year-olds produced significantly higher D and MTLD than the 3-year-olds.•D and MTLD showed strong sensitivity in assessing Mandarin-speaking children. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the applic...
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Published in | Journal of communication disorders Vol. 77; pp. 71 - 79 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Elsevier Inc
01.01.2019
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | •Typically developing children had higher D, MTLD, and MATTR than children with language delay.•4-year-olds produced significantly higher D and MTLD than the 3-year-olds.•D and MTLD showed strong sensitivity in assessing Mandarin-speaking children.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the applicability of D, the Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD), and Moving ¬Average Type ¬Token Ratio (MATTR) for measuring lexical diversity of Mandarin-speaking preschoolers. This study examined if D, MTLD, and MATTR can be used to differentiate two different age groups (children age 3 and 4 years) and two language ability groups (typically developing children and children with language delay).
Seventy-eight Mandarin-speaking typically developing children and 56 Mandarin-speaking children with language delay participated in this study. The researchers collected, transcribed, and analyzed language samples from these children.
The findings showed that D and MTLD were sensitive LD measures for assessing the Mandarin-speaking preschoolers. D and MTLD differentiated the two different age groups and language ability groups. The D and MTLD scores of typically developing children were significantly higher than those of children with language delay. Also, 4-year-olds had significantly higher D and MTLD scores than 3-year-olds. MATTR differentiated the two language ability groups but not the two age groups. Possible factors influencing the sensitivity of lexical diversity measures were discussed.
The findings indicated that D and MTLD were sensitive for assessing Mandarin-speaking preschoolers from Taiwan. MATTR can be used to identify children with language delay in this study. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0021-9924 1873-7994 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2018.10.002 |