RAPID NAMING IN CHILDREN WITH SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT AND IN CHILDREN WITH TYPICAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Со цел детален увид во фонолошките вештини на децата од предучилишна возраст што зборуваат српски, со и без јазично нарушување, беше истражувана способноста за брзо именување. Методологија: Операционализирањето на поставената цел се изведе со тестот за евалуација на способностите за претчитање и претпишување. За опишување и анализирање на добиените податоци, ги користевме дескриптивниот метод и методот на инференцијална статистика. Примерокот опфаќа 120 субјекти од двата пола, 40 деца дијагностицирани со специфично јазично нарушување (СЈН) на возраст од 5,11 години до 7 години, а 80 деца беа со типичен јазичен развој (ТЈР) на возраст од 5,11 и 7 години, без статистички значајни разлики во однос на возраста и полот на учесниците. Резултати: По сумирањето на резултатите и постигнувањата на децата со СЈН и децата со ТЈР, заклучивме дека постојат статистички значајни разлики меѓу децата со СЈН и децата со ТЈР. Aimed at the detailed insight into the phonological ability of Serbian-speaking children of preschool age, with and without language impairment, the ability of rapid naming was examined. Method: Operationalization of the set goal was carried out by using the Test for evaluating reading and writing pre-skills. In describing and analyzing the obtained data, methods of descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The sample included 120 subjects of both gender, 40 children diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI), age from 5,11 to 7 years, and 80 children with typical language development (TLD), age between 5,11 and 7 years, with no statistically significant differences in relation to age and gender of the participants. Results: Summing up the overall results and achievements of children with SLI and children with TLD, we concluded that there are statistically significant differences in the rapid naming between children with specific language impairment and children with typical language development.

Aimed at the detailed insight into the phonological ability of Serbian-speaking children of preschool age, with and without language impairment, the ability of rapid naming was examined.Method: Operationalization of the set goal was carried out by using the Test for evaluating reading and writing pre-skills.In describing and analyzing the obtained data, methods of descriptive and inferential statistics were used.
The sample included 120 subjects of both gender, 40 children diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI), age from 5,11 to 7 years, and 80 children with typical language development (TLD), age between 5,11 and 7 years, with no statistically significant differences in relation to age and gender of the participants.
Способноста за брзо именување ја посочува брзината на фонолошкото процесирање и пристапот до лексиката.Овој процес почнува со визуелно препознавање пред да се пристапи до лексиката во јазичниот систем.Вистинскиот процес на именување вклучува серија фази, од идентификација на сликите до семантичко претставување на избраниот збор, а потоа до фонолошкото ниво во коешто се избираат фонемите, до евентуално прибли- The interest of scientists to explore the rapid naming skills comes from the research of reading disorders in people with aphasia, mid-last century (1).It has then been found that the rapidity of naming is associated with the processes of reading, and is now used as an early indicator of predicting reading performance.However, although it has been over forty years (2) since the defining of the entity of rapid (automatized) naming, the relation between rapid naming and reading skills has not yet been clarified.Rapid naming/speed of access to phonological codes is defined as efficient finding of phonological information (codes) in long-term memory (3).The efficiency of access to phonological representation is associated with a visual symbol, and makes a very important component of basic cognitive skills that will later be included in the process of efficient reading (4).Therefore, the ability of rapid naming is seen as a reflection of the quality of visualverbal associations (5); however, there is still controversy about observing this ability either as a separate entity or as part of phonological skills.The ability of rapid naming indicates the speed of phonological processing and access to the lexicon.This process begins with the visual recognition before it accesses the lexicon of the language system.The actual naming process involves a series of stages, from the identification of pictures to the semantic representation of the selected word, then to the phonological level where phonemes are selected, to eventually approaching production (6).Although there жување во продукцијата (6).(11,12,13).Брзото именување е важно за развојот на флуентното читање (холистичко препознавање на зборот) и за читање со разбирање и, секако, is no consensus over the neuro-cognitive processes involved in the ability of rapid naming, basic cognitive processes can be divided into several main stages: perceptual analysis/encoding, recognition, semantic markup and verbal response.The first stage includes simple visual encoding of information, which requires quick analysis of the perceptual characteristics of the object.Object recognition implies quickly matching the visual details of the object with the stored representations of the object, derived from previous experience.The third stage, semantic markup, involves the invocation of semantic association with higher levels of visual representation of the object.Finding semantic representations also includes the linking with phonological linguistic representations (naming).The final step includes the oral production of phonological representations (pronunciation of the name of the object) (7).
Tasks for the rapid naming skills assessment include the evaluation of rapid naming of isolated or serially ordered given stimuli, which could be letters, numbers, objects, images, or colors.Serial tasks are most commonly used, and are referred to as rapid automatized naming (RAN).The task of the child or person is to name the objects, correctly and accurately, as quickly as possible.Accuracy rate has proven to be high, even in children (8,9).The entity of rapid naming skills is viewed differently in literature.According to the Wagner-Torgensen model, rapid naming is associated with the phonological processing abilities, i.e. measuring the ability of rapid naming reveals the state of phonological decoding ability, while Wolf (10) observes the rapid naming skills outside the phonological processing abilities and concludes that the complex process of naming includes coordination of attention, perception, notion, memory, lexis and articulation.
reading comprehension, and, of course, is correlated with the speed of reading (14).Also, fine rapid naming skills proved to be a good predictor of the later knowledge of graphemes (15).Children who meet the criteria for SLI do not constitute a homogeneous group (16).In other words, there is a significant delay and interference in the development of individual elements of language structure (17).SLI is manifested in phonological, morphological, grammatical-syntactic and semantic-lexical deficits (18).Phonological deficits are displayed by addition, inversion, haplology, unsystematic substitutions, and omission of formed and distorted sounds (19).It should be noted that phonological deficit in children with SLI may be expressed to the extent that substantially impairs the ability of language production, i.e. the intelligibility of speech (20).At the same time, because of the phonological deficits, it can sometimes be perceived that a child has difficulty in mastering other aspects of linguistic structure, such as morphology, for example.We compare rapid naming abilities between children with SLI and children with TLD, at the age from 5,11 to 7 years, in order to clarify the nature of phonological deficits in children with SLI.

Methods
Looking at rapid naming as one of the components (in part) of the phonological ability, the subject selected for this paper was indeed the evaluation of rapid naming in children with SLI.The aim of this study was to examine rapid naming skills in children with SLI.We wanted to contribute to the overview of phonological skills and phonological deficits in SLI children in comparison to children with TLD.

Research instrument
Testing was conducted by using subtests of rapid naming from the Test for evaluating reading and writing pre-skills -PredČiP (Pre-R&W) (21).for acquiring the initial academic skills.The test consists of tasks for assessment of phonology, phonologic memory, pragmatics and visual perception.For the purposes of this study, we used the particular segment of the test that covers evaluation of naming rapidity.The task of evaluating rapid naming skills includes 20 images of simple objects and creatures, often present in spoken vocabulary of preschool children.The task was to name the visually presented material as quickly as possible.The exact time that a child needed to name all the images equates to the final result.Moreover, each unnamed (skipped) image, and image incorrectly named (lexical replacement), were given 5 additional seconds, summing up to the total time that the child needed to complete the assignment.

Sample
There were 40 children with SLI (8 female and 32 male), aged between 71 and 84 months (5,11-7 years of age) with a mean age of 77.9 months (SD 4.47 months).They were recruited through the Institute for Psychophysiological Disorders and Speech Pathology "Prof.Dr. Cvetko Brajovic" in Belgrade, Serbia.The diagnosis of SLI was given to the children by a qualified speech and language therapist.The exclusionary criteria were: no psychological or neurological problems, no autism, no attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and no hearing loss.SLI children included in the study had IQ between 85 and 110 on the Revised Weschler's Intelligence Scale for Children (RWISC), which has been normed on the Serbian population (22).There was a control group of 80 TLD.There were 40 girls and 40 boys with an age range of 71 and 84 months and a mean age of 75.9 months (SD = 4.47 months).The control children were recruited through a preschools "Pametnica" and "Baby Palace" in Belgrade.The TD children were also matched to the SLI group on gender and full-scale IQ; their IQ was between 90 and 110.The children in the control group had no speech or language problems and there has never been any concern about their language, motor or cognitive development.Furthermore, the research confirmed the statistical relevance of minor impact in relation to the age of participants (t =2.34, df = 118, p = 0.021, η2 = 0.04).The difference in the average age of the two groups equals two months (95% CI: 0.31-3.74).Intendedly, in our research we tried to include children with TLD that are younger than the examined children with SLI, wanting to show the significance of language delay in children with SLI.In relation to gender we determined the statistical relevance with minor impact of difference (χ2 = 8.79, df = 1, p = 0.003, ϕ = -0.29).A larger number of boys in the group of subjects with SLI is a result of random sampling, but also proves higher occurrence of language disorders in boys.The differences in the occurrence of language disorders in relation to gender have been confirmed in numerous studies.Higher occurrence of specific language impairment in males compared to females has been found in a ratio of 1.3:1 to 3:1 (23,24,25).All the participants (SLI and TD) were monolingual native speakers of Serbian.Consent was obtained from the parents as well as from the children themselves prior to their participation in the study.The research was conducted in Belgrade from March 10, 2014 to June 28, 2015.
skills (SLI, Mdn = 30.00;TLD, Mdn = 20.00;p = 0.000).It was found that the actual size of the present variations can be described as difference of major impact (r = 0.620).The actual form of the distribution of results at rapid naming tasks in the group of participants with SLI and TLD is shown in Figure 1 and in Figure 2.  As can be seen in Figure 1, the results of participants with SLI are arranged asymmetrically to positive values, and provide a clear picture of the measured parameters with an index of asymmetry Sk = 1.37.distribution of the results in the group of participants with SLI inclines toward poor, with the dominant value of Mo = 25 (the most common achievement; Table 1).In the group of participants with TLD (Figure 2) results are arranged close to symmetry (Sk = 94), with preferred naming rapidity for the shortest possible time, which in this case is given in seconds, with the dominant value of Mo = 20 (Table 1).
Review of the distribution of the results (Table 3) indicates that a large percentage of participants with SLI has borderline or poor achievement in the task of rapid naming (27.50%, i.e. 30.00%), while in the group of participants with TLD the majority of participants show fine accomplishment (92.50%).Statistical significance in the distribution of participants by category of achievement is confirmed by the Chi-square test (p = 0.000), with major impact of the given difference (V = 0.580; Table 3).

Дискусија Discussion
Резултатите indicators -rhyme, phonemic awareness, grapheme recognition and sentence repetition, and naming rapidity has been confirmed in defining rapid naming or lexical evocation as the ability to access phonological codes stored in long-term memory (7).Proficiency of lexical access and evocation depends on the efficient and accurate encoding and decoding of phonological information in working memory (30), and therefore the phonological deficit is considered to be the basic element of lexical disorders in children with SLI (31)(32)(33).Children with SLI have difficulties in repeating nonwords and evocating a list of real words, which indicates inaccurate phonological representations, limited phonological capacity, or rapid loss of phonological clues in phonological memory (31,32).It is believed that phonological awareness deficit and phonological memory capacity are not sufficient prerequisites for the occurrence of dyslexia in children with SLI, but the rate of rapid naming at preschool age is strongly correlated with reading and writing.Slow naming reflects the type of problem that is partly different from phonological awareness, but is also linked, considering the similar basisnon-specific or immature phonological representations (34).Having in mind that rapid naming is considered an important indicator of reading skills development (29,34), its evaluation in the age before starting school is considered extremely important.diverse performance of rapid naming tasks (16).Given that in literature, rapid naming deficit is associated with reading deficit, we believe that assessment of these skills in preschool children may have a preventive character.The treatment program for children with SLI should include a high number of assignments that are designed toward developing rapid naming skills.At the same time, a program of pedagogical work with children with TLD, which would involve rapid naming tasks, could facilitate the initial steps in the acquisition of reading skills.

Табела 1 .
Брзина на именување: дескриптивни мерења на резултатите постигнати од учесниците на задачите за брзо именување groups.The effect size was expressed by r coefficient.For all statistical analysis, α level was set at 0.05.Analysis and data processing were performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for Windows (SPSS version 21.0).

Figure 1 .Слика 2 .
Figure 1.Distribution of rapid naming measures in participants with specific language impairment

Table 2 .
Naming rapidity: Comparison of the results achieved by the participants at rapid naming tasks