While previous research has shown that language use in the home is an important factor in bilingual language development, little research has focused on how specific language strategies used by parents relate to bilingual children's language exposure and vocabulary development. Yet, for parents, this information has the potential to inform their day-to-day decisions about language use in their home. The present study aims to contribute to this understanding by applying a Bioecological Systems Model to understand how language use within the community and within the family influenced young children's amount of language exposure and vocabulary abilities. A total of 51 French-English bilingual four-year-old Canadian children participated in the present study. Children's exposure to each language was measured through parent reports, and their vocabulary was assessed in each language. Differences in community context were not a significant predictor of the amount of exposure or vocabulary abilities. Family language strategies predicted vocabulary scores in English but not French, whereas the amount of exposure predicted vocabulary scores in French but not English. These findings suggest that, in the preschool years, family language use strategies and amount of exposure impact vocabulary development and that their role differs based on context.

INTRODUCTION:Indigenous children may be at higher risk of being misdiagnosed with speech-language difficulties due to Eurocentric practices in health care and education. The use of conventional speech pathology assessment practices contributes to inappropriate disorder identification, further stigmatising a vulnerable population. Few resources are available for speech pathologists, which examine the cultural and linguistic relevance of assessments for this population. OBJECTIVE:To provide important features for speech pathologists to account for when building assessment plans for Indigenous children. DESIGN:This comprehensive scoping literature review was completed using the Arksey and O'Malley 6-step methodological framework, including the optional consultation exercise, and reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. To be included, studies needed to have been published since 2000, discuss speech-language assessments and involve a significant proportion of Indigenous participants under 7 years old. FINDINGS:Three features were extracted from 32 studies that discussed First Nations, Métis, Inuit, Native American, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities: using a battery of resources including alternative approaches, ensuring authenticity and cultural relevance, and considering a child's linguistic characteristics. CONCLUSION:While there remains a need to adapt according to a specific child's reality, this study provides a guideline for all allied health clinicians when they are building their culturally and linguistically relevant assessment plans.

Reading is a complex, multifactorial, and dynamic skill. Most of what we currently know about neural correlates underlying reading comes from studies carried out with adults. However, considering that adults are skilled readers, findings from these studies cannot be generalized to children who are still learning to read. The advancement of neuroimaging techniques allowed researchers to investigate the developmental fingerprints and neurocircuitry involved in reading in children. To highlight the contribution of neuroimaging in understanding reading development, we look at both reading components, namely, word identification and reading comprehension. This chapter covers the three literacy periods—emergent, early, and conventional literacy—to better understand how reading acquisition affects neural networks. Further, we discuss our findings in light of different cognitive reading models. Although it is important to consider both spatial and temporal measurements to provide a holistic account of reading-related brain activity, the current chapter focuses on the functional activation and connectivity of reading-related areas in typically developing children.

Plusieurs écoles primaires francophones québécoises implantant le modèle de réponse à l’intervention (RAI) en littératie désirent en évaluer la fidélité. En collaboration avec certaines de ces écoles, cette étude vise à élaborer et à valider des instruments d’évaluation de la fidélité de la RAI et de ses stratégies d’implantation. Des questionnaires d’autoévaluation ont été élaborés : 50 participants ont discuté en groupes pour adapter le contenu à leur contexte et 35 participants ont pris part à des entrevues cognitives pour prétester les questionnaires. Ces questionnaires permettront d’alimenter la rétroaction sur l’implantation de la RAI et sont essentiels pour l’évaluation de l’efficacité de la RAI. Mots-clés : réponse à l’intervention, fidélité, implantation, lecture, écriture, littératie, questionnaires, validité

Background Infants born prematurely can display impairments that negatively impact the early years of their development. Compared to their peers born at term, preterm children have higher risks of cerebral palsy, sensory deficits, learning disabilities, cognitive and language deficits, as well as difficulties related to attention and behaviour. Following discharge, parents of preterm children are often supported through neonatal follow-up programs or by community health care practitioners. Through assessment and consultation, professionals foster parental resilience by teaching them about their child's development. Research shows a large volume of literature on improving outcomes for preterm infants, but less attention has been given to the impact and potential importance of education of parents regarding the care they provide from the home. Objective A scoping review was completed to determine the best practices for early intervention in premature children regarding the development of language skills during the preschool years. Methods The review followed the guidelines for the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Results Four general themes emerged from the review and included the importance of providing (1) parental training in the care of an infant born prematurely during neonatal intensive care unit stay; (2) education on the development of language and the importance of parental responsiveness; (3) provision of activities to support child language learning; and (4) overall and ongoing monitoring and support by qualified health professionals. Conclusions The conclusions drawn will provide guidance to health care professionals regarding the education of parents on best practices for stimulating language development in their child.

Les comptines ont un potentiel éducatif appréciable notamment en ce qui concerne la conscience phonologique. Après un rappel et une mise à jour des écrits scientifiques concernant les comptines, la conscience phonologique et les liens qui les unissent, les auteurs présentent les implications pratiques qui en découlent pour guider les praticiens qui veulent les utiliser pour prévenir les difficultés de lecture et d’écriture.

La conscience phonologique (CP) est une habileté d’éveil à l’écrit au préscolaire qui peut prédire le succès ultérieur en littératie au début du primaire. Cette habileté permet de reconnaître, de discriminer et de manipuler les sons de sa langue (Anthony et Francis, 2005). Cependant, des études ont démontré que de nombreux manuels de référence pour la formation des enseignants et programmes d’intervention en CP utilisés par ces derniers contiennent de l’information incorrecte ou incomplète (Hayward et collab., 2014; Smith et collab., 2001). Ces études ont été faites avec du matériel de langue anglaise et, à la connaissance des auteurs, il n’y a aucune étude qui a été faite sur ce sujet avec du matériel de langue française. Il existe des différences structurelles importantes entre ces deux langues (Duncan et collab., 2013; Duncan, et collab., 2006) et le matériel de langue française en CP est souvent basé sur la recherche effectuée en anglais ou est directement traduit de l’anglais. Il est donc raisonnable de supposer qu’il est fort probable que le matériel en français contienne un nombre d’inexactitudes ou d’omissions encore plus élevé. Il serait important d’identifier les omissions et les erreurs contenues dans le matériel en CP de langue française afin d’améliorer celui-ci et éventuellement de contribuer à l’amélioration des connaissances en CP chez les enseignants. L’optimisation des méthodes d’enseignement de la CP est nécessaire pour soutenir un développement solide des habiletés de lecture et d’écriture des élèves fréquentant l’école en français.

This paper describes Wee Words and pre-post treatment measures for this parent-child groupbased program for children under 3 and a half years of age with suspected speech motor planning difficulties. A post-hoc review of measures obtained pre-and post-participation in the Wee Words program was undertaken to determine if positive changes in speech and expressive vocabulary skills were evident. Data are reported, covering a period of 2 years, for 32 children and their parents who participated in this 10-week program and for whom pre-and post-treatment measures were available for analysis. Wee Words included two evaluation sessions, two parent-education sessions, and six 1-hour parent-child group sessions. Parents were taught and coached to implement motor and sensory-based intervention strategies, as well as strategies to encourage imitation skills. Taken as a group, post-treatment, positive changes were apparent in measures of the children's imitation skills, speech sound repertoires, intelligibility, and expressive vocabulary development.

Afin d’identifier efficacement les enfants à risque de développer des difficultés en lecture et en écriture, les dépistages doivent tenir compte : (1) des facteurs de risque qui sont inhérents à l’enfant et son milieu de vie (p.ex. un faible niveau de scolarité maternel) et (2) des facteurs de protection constitués des habiletés d’éveil à l’écrit qui prédisent le succès ultérieur en lecture et écriture (p.ex. : la conscience phonologique) (Justice, Invernizzi et Meier, 2002). Plusieurs écoles québécoises utilisent un questionnaire parental, pour documenter les facteurs de risque, en combinaison avec le Dépist’Écrit, un outil pour mesurer le développement des habiletés d’éveil à l’écrit. Le Dépist’Écrit est une adaptation francophone du Get Ready To Read (GRTR) qui est accessible gratuitement en ligne. Cependant, la validité prédictive de ces outils demeure inconnue. La présente étude vise à déterminer la validité prédictive de ces deux outils et à vérifier si la combinaison de ces deux outils permet de mieux identifier les enfants à risque que l’un ou l’autre des outils utilisés individuellement. Pour ce faire, les résultats de plus d’une centaine élèves entrant à la maternelle dans une commission scolaire du Québec seront mis en relation avec leur performance à des épreuves subséquentes de réussite en apprentissage de l’écrit. La validité prédictive du Dépist’Écrit devrait être bonne étant donné qu’il s’agit d’une adaptation francophone d’un outil anglophone dont la validité prédictive est reconnue. Selon les recommandations de Bishop et League (2006), la combinaison des deux outils devrait améliorer la validité prédictive du dépistage précoce des enfants à risque.

This study piloted a sample protocol to assess phonological awareness, print awareness, and handwriting readiness in eight 4-to 5-year-old children suspected of having childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) by their speech-language pathologists. These children's performance on the protocol is described and compared to that of age-and gender-matched peers with typically developing speech, language, and motor skills. All participants with suspected CAS demonstrated some difficulties in phonological awareness, print awareness, or handwriting readiness. As a group, participants with suspected CAS performed significantly more poorly than their typically developing peers on rhyme awareness, print awareness, letter knowledge, hand grasp, and motor coordination. These results highlight the importance of including a broad set of emergent literacy skills, in addition to speech production, when assessing preschoolers with suspected CAS and in intervention, if warranted.

Many children with speech sound disorders (SSD), including those with childhood apraxia of speech, also experience early literacy difficulties; however most of the available literature focuses on intervention related to their speech sound production errors. This study explored the feasibility of using an intensive individual shared storybook reading (SSR) intervention with two Englishspeaking school-aged children with SSD in order to foster the development of their early literacy skills. This intensive SSR intervention took place over the course of two weeks and consisted of two 30-minute sessions per day for a total of 20 sessions. Explicit phonological awareness, letter knowledge, handwriting, and vocabulary instructions were embedded within the SSR context. The results demonstrated that this type of intervention was feasible for these two participants despite their reduced intelligibility. Furthermore, improvements in the participants' early literacy skills were observed. Findings suggest that an SSR intervention employing an embedded-explicit model is appropriate and promising for school-aged children with SSD in order to target the development of their early literacy skills.

Cette étude avait pour but d’identifier les facteurs contribuant à la rétention des audiologistes et orthophonistes pouvant offrir des services auprès des francophones de l’Ontario. Une étude rétrospective comprenant des analyses descriptives et une régression logistique fut menée auprès de 192 finissants du Programme d’audiologie et d’orthophonie de l’Université d’Ottawa. Les résultats démontrent une relation significative entre le lieu de travail et quatre facteurs : le lieu de provenance de l’étudiant, la priorité du choix de l’université, la langue d’enseignement au baccalauréat, ainsi que le niveau de confiance à travailler en anglais. Les analyses démontrent également que le lieu de provenance peut fortement prédire à lui seul si un finissant du programme choisira l’Ontario comme lieu de travail. Des recommandations sont proposées concernant l’admission et la formation des étudiants de ce type de programme afin d’assurer une forte rétention de professionnels francophones en Ontario.

Background. Intervention programs are rarely tailored for children with self-regulation and communication challenges. Therefore, clinicians develop their own programs as is the case with the preschool program Tumbling Together. This program combines occupational therapy, speech-language therapy, and gymnastics. Purpose. The aim of this study was to take an in-depth look at the program to answer the following questions: (a) What are the fundamental concepts of the program? and (b) What is the underlying theoretical model that illustrates the relationships between concepts? Method. The qualitative research method of grounded theorizing using situational analysis was employed. Findings. Fourteen main concepts of the program were identified and informed the development of a theoretical model. Implications. A theoretical model incorporating Tumbling Together's concepts is a first step in evaluating its efficacy. Although the concepts involved are not novel, their unique combination forms a promising intervention approach for this population.

Nursery rhymes provide a unique learning context for preschoolers in regard to their emergent literacy and musical development. According to Vygotsky’s social constructivist theory (1978), in order for learning to occur, children must face challenges, and adults must provide support to guide them toward mastery of new skills. The current pilot study began with the aim of documenting teachers’ reactions to nursery rhymes in relation to their level of difficulty. Eighty-eight kindergarten teachers were asked to use the new nursery rhymes in their classrooms. Then, they were asked fill out a questionnaire to document their reactions and their ratings of the linguistic and musical difficulty. Teachers’ reactions were measured by their overall impression of the nursery rhymes, their perception of pupils’ enjoyment of the nursery rhymes and the time they spent using these nursery rhymes in their classrooms. The results revealed that the teachers tended to have a better impression of the nursery rhymes, perceive their pupils’ enjoyment of the nursery rhymes as more positive, and spend more time on those nursery rhymes judged the easiest in regard to their vocabulary and their rhythm. According to Ezell and Justice (2005), by putting more emphasis on easier nursery rhymes, teachers might target only what children have already mastered, leaving less opportunity for new emergent literacy and music skills to develop. The results point to the necessity of improving educators’ training in regard to the use of nursery rhymes by focusing on the educational opportunities provided by linguistic and musical challenges in nursery rhymes, an important starting point for explicit instruction and scaffolding (Bruner, 1983).

Cet article théorique propose une conceptualisation des inférences appliquée aux enfants d’âge préscolaire afin d’offrir une compréhension plus claire des différentes dimensions à prendre en compte lors des activités éducatives en petite enfance. À partir d’une recension des modèles des inférences dans les écrits scientifiques, une analyse conceptuelle a été effectuée. Selon cette analyse, les activités éducatives devraient viser les dimensions suivantes : la source d’information des inférences, leur contribution à la compréhension et leur direction. Des exemples concrets des implications de cette analyse pour les activités éducatives sont présentés.