Word-finding behaviours in narration for typically developing French speakers of school age

Abstract

Background:Research in word-finding difficulties is sparse, especially in lan-guages other than English. As a result, the factors associated with the frequencyof word-finding behaviours are poorly understood, particularly in discourse.Aims:This exploratory study is the first to collect data relative to the expectedfrequency of word-finding behaviours in narration for French speakers aged 7–12 years old with typical development; and (2) to identify the factors associatedwith the frequency of word-finding behaviours in narration. We hypothesizedthat sociodemographic characteristics, language abilities and characteristics ofthe spoken productions could be linked to word-finding behaviours.Methods & Procedures:The participants consisted of 61 French-speakingchildren aged 7–12 years old (M=9;09 years, SD=1;06 years) with typicaldevelopment. Children were asked to complete a receptive vocabulary task,a non-word-repetition task and two narrative tasks. The children’s narrativesamples were coded using a discourse analysis of word-finding behaviours, asdescribed by Diane J. German.Outcomes&Results:Participantsproduced39%ofT-unitswithleastoneword-finding behaviour, which included relatively frequent use of repetitions andword reformulations. Regression analyses revealed that the participants’ genderwas the only significant variable associated with the frequency of word-findingbehaviours in narration. Boys produced a higher percentage of T-units with atleast one word-finding behaviour. Post-hoc analyses suggested that gender dif-ferences reflected differences in repetitions and word reformulations. Boys andgirls did not differ on any other language measures collected.Conclusions & Implications:Speech–language pathologists may want to takeinto account a child’s gender when assessing word-finding difficulties in narra-tion. Additional studies are needed to understand whether this finding extendsto other word-finding tasks and to children with word-finding difficulties.