Browsing by Author "Oosthuizen, Helena"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Afrikaanse taalvariasie : uitdagings vir regverdige meting van jong kinders se taal
    (Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, 2020) Southwood, Frenette; Oosthuizen, Helena
    Sowat 5% van alle kinders toon ʼn taalagterstand (Law, Boyle, Harris, Harkness en Nye 2000) en daar is aanduidings dat hierdie syfer hoër is in Suid-Afrika, veral onder baie jong kinders (Van der Linde, Swanepoel, Sommerville, Glascoe, Vinck en Louw 2016). Geen voldoende instrument bestaan waarmee vasgestel kan word watter jong Afrikaanssprekendes hulp sal benodig om toekomstige taalverwante akademiese probleme te oorkom nie. Hierdie artikel lewer verslag oor uitdagings wat weens Afrikaanse taalvariasie ervaar word tydens die ontwikkeling van ʼn ouervraelys waarmee jong kinders se taal gemeet kan word. Hierdie vraelys beslaan vrae oor vroeg-ontwikkelende kommunikatiewe gebare, eerste woorde en vroeë sinskonstruksies, en ouers word versoek om op die lys aan te dui watter gebare, woorde en konstruksies hul kind verstaan en/of voortbring. Die vraelys kan nie onbeperk verleng word nie, want die voltooiing daarvan moet ʼn realistiese taak bly, ook vir ouers met lae geletterdheidsvlakke (vgl. Alcock, Rimba, Holding, Kitsao-Wekulo, Abubakar en Newton 2015). Besluite oor die insluiting of uitsluiting op die vraelys van woorde uit spesifieke Afrikaanse variëteite is egter gereeld nie voor die hand liggend nie.Bestaande taalmetingsinstrumente diskrimineer wêreldwyd tipies teen kinders wat nie deel van die dominante kultuur en taalgemeenskap vorm nie. Gegee Suid-Afrika se bevlekte geskiedenis wat die erkenning van sprekers van niegestandaardiseerde taalvariëteite betref (vgl. bv. Hendricks 2012; Williams 2016), is die opstel van ʼn geldige ouervraelys ononderhandelbaar. Daar moet dus noukeurig oorweeg word watter woorde op die lys verskyn, want ʼn goeie ouervraelys sal bydra tot kultureel- en talig-regverdige taaltoetsing van jong Afrikaanssprekende kinders. Dit sal help om kinders te identifiseer wat sukkel om hul taal te verwerf en wat ekstra hulp benodig sodat hul taal genoegsaam kan verbeter vóór hul formele skoolloopbaan begin. Sodoende sal hulle ʼn groter kans hê om die kurrikulum te verstaan, skoolsukses te ervaar en’n lang genoeg skoolloopbaan te hê om hul potensiaal te verwesenlik.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Methodological issues in the calculation of mean length of utterance (MLU)
    (AOSIS, 2009) Oosthuizen, Helena; Southwood, Frenette
    Mean length of utterance (MLU) is widely used as a diagnostic, monitoring and group matching measure. This study investigated methodological issues regarding the calculation of MLU. The aim was to establish whether different calculation procedures render different MLUs, and whether there is a high correlation between MLU measured in words (MLU-w) and in morphemes (MLU-m). Language samples from 15 Afrikaans-speaking 6-year-olds with and 15 without specific language impairment were analyzed. MLU was calculated eight times for each participant, varying sample size (50 or 100 utterances), unit counted (words or morphemes) and calculation method (traditional or alternate). Significant differences in resultant MLUs were due to the calculation method used, rather than sample size or unit counted. A high positive correlation (>0.96) between MLU-w and MLU-m was found. The results imply that researchers and clinicians should clearly state their MLU calculation procedures, otherwise reliable comparisons between MLU scores from different sources cannot be made. The results furthermore imply that, in order to generalize research results and make diagnostic decisions based on MLU, consistent procedures should be used, not only with regard to language sampling, but also to MLU calculation.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Motion events in Afrikaans : their expression by adult speakers and by children with and without language impairment
    (Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, 2010) Oosthuizen, Helena; Hohle, Barbara; Southwood, Frenette
    Motion events occur frequently in everyday life as people and objects constantly change their relative location to one another. Although children's descriptions of motion events resemble those of adults in their own language group from very early on (Choi and Bowermann 1991), there is increasing evidence for subtle differences as well. Young children speaking different languages seem to have some difficulty in expressing two types of spatial information in the same conceptual frame (e.g. Ochsenbauer and Hickmann 2010). In English and other satellite-framed languages such as German and Afrikaans, this task involves using a complex particle verb construction in which a directional particle (e.g. out) combines with a prepositional phrase carrying further information about the source or goal of movement (e.g. some bees came out of the tree) (Berman and Slobin 1994:161). Little is known about the development of this type of structure in satellite-framed languages such as Afrikaans. This paper examined whether (i) there are developmental differences between adults and 6-year-old Afrikaans-speaking children in the production of preposition+verb particle structures, and whether (ii) children with language impairment produce these structures in a different way than typically developing children. Target elements were preposition+verb particle structures with the particles af 'down', in 'in', uit 'out' and op 'up'. The performance of ten adults was compared to that of 30 typically developing and three language-impaired 6-year-olds. Half of the participants in the adult and typically developing groups were speakers of Mainstream Afrikaans (MA), and half were speakers of Cape Afrikaans (CA), a non-mainstream dialect. Distinct developmental differences that could not be attributed to dialectal variation, were found between 6-year-olds and adults. Children with language impairment showed less variation in their responses than their typically developing peers. Possible explanations for the findings are discussed.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Navigating professional roles in early literacy intervention: exploring the experiences of speech language therapy students, teachers and clinical tutors
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2015) Oosthuizen, Helena; Klop, Daleen; Visser, Monique
    Speech-language therapists (SLTs) in South Africa are increasingly considering alternative models of service delivery to children at risk for language and literacy development delays. A transprofessional model of collaboration allows SLTs and teachers to share responsibility for primary prevention of literacy difficulties. Previous research has identified several challenges with regard to effective collaboration between qualified professionals, indicating that specific opportunities need to be created for professionals to ‘cross over disciplinary lines’ to gain more insight into a profession other than their own. Student training presents a valuable opportunity for role-exchange between pre-professional SLTs and teachers. The article describes the experiences of teachers, undergraduate SLT students and tutors with regard to transdisciplinary collaboration in the foundation-phase classroom, according to the ‘embedded-explicit’ model. The authors argue that a more in-depth understanding of the different role-players’ perceptions of transdisciplinary collaboration will contribute to enhanced collaboration between SLTs and teachers.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Sociocultural factors affecting vocabulary development in young South African children
    (Frontiers Media SA, 2021-05-11) Southwood, Frenette, 1971-; White, Michelle J.; Brookes, Heather; Pascoe, Michelle; Ndhambi, Mikateko; Yalala, Sefela; Mahura, Olebeng; Mossmer, Martin; Oosthuizen, Helena; Brink, Nina; Alcock, Katie
    Sociocultural influences on the development of child language skills have been widely studied, but the majority of the research findings were generated in Northern contexts. The current crosslinguistic, multisite study is the first of its kind in South Africa, considering the influence of a range of individual and sociocultural factors on expressive vocabulary size of young children. Caregivers of toddlers aged 16 to 32 months acquiring Afrikaans (n = 110), isiXhosa (n = 115), South African English (n = 105), or Xitsonga (n = 98) as home language completed a family background questionnaire and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) about their children. Based on a revised version of Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological systems theory, information was obtained from the family background questionnaire on individual factors (the child’s age and sex), microsystem-related factors (the number of other children and number of adults in the child’s household, maternal level of education, and SES), and exosystem-related factors (home language and geographic area, namely rural or urban). All sociocultural and individual factors combined explained 25% of the variance in expressive vocabulary size. Partial correlations between these sociocultural factors and the toddlers’ expressive vocabulary scores on 10 semantic domains yielded important insights into the impact of geographic area on the nature and size of children’s expressive vocabulary. Unlike in previous studies, maternal level of education and SES did not play a significant role in predicting children’s expressive vocabulary scores. These results indicate that there exists an interplay of sociocultural and individual influences on vocabulary development that requires a more complex ecological model of language development to understand the interaction between various sociocultural factors in diverse contexts.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Speech therapy students’ perceptions of authentic video cases in a theory module on child language disorders
    (AOSIS, 2019) Oosthuizen, Helena
    Background: Undergraduate speech-language therapy students often find it difficult to see the relevance of theoretical module content, which may negatively influence their motivation to learn. The real world of their future profession can be brought to life in the theory classroom by including authentic case study examples. Video case studies are well suited to illustrating communication disorders and may also be easier to remember and relate to information already in the long-term memory. Objectives: This article describes the perceptions of undergraduate students regarding the inclusion of authentic video cases in a theoretical module on developmental communication disorders. Methods: A qualitative, interpretivist research design was followed. Focus-group interviews were conducted with 22 second-year students in the programme B Speech-Language and Hearing Therapy. A modified contextualised content analysis approach was used to analyse interview data. Results: The use of authentic video cases was perceived positively by participants. Seeing a realistic example of a person with communication difficulties made it easier to understand, remember and engage with the module content. Participants also felt they could more easily imagine themselves in that clinical context, which seemed to (re-) awaken in them a sense of purpose and motivation. Being presented with real-life communication problems made them realise the relevance of their profession. However, participants experienced cognitive overload at times when the processing requirements of a task exceeded their available cognitive capacity. Conclusion: Video cases are valuable tools to enhance students’ engagement with theoretical content. To avoid cognitive overload, a scaffolded multimedia learning experience needs to be provided.