ARSETTLE.MAY



                       Kids Conquer Language


                           Settle Madden
          Editor, Arizona Report in Support of Excellence
                 University of Arizona Foundation
            1111 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 

     Daniel Kranking is a normal, curious, tow-headed three-year-
old who can usually make himself understood.  With smiles,
gestures, nouns and prepositions, he tells "storekeeper" Susie
Sigman and "shopping helper" Becky Vance that he "wan cookies...in
basket."
     While making his meaning clear, Daniel does have trouble using
verbs and some other words.  He has a language learning disability. 
No one knows yet just what causes it, but specialists like Becky
Vance, Assistant Director of the Scottish Rite/University of
Arizona Children's Language Lab in Tucson, and student clinician
Susie Sigman are helping him overcome that drawback.  Daniel's
mother and sister watch from the next room through a two-way mirror
and listen as a microphone transmits the "game" of shopping that
gives the little boy appropriate language models and prompts his
responses.
     Daniel's treatment is available and affordable because of the
Tucson Scottish Rite Charitable Foundation, which until recently
had the space and the commitment to help children with language
disorders, but not enough funds for its own clinic.
     Also until recently, the University's Children's Language Lab
had staff and funding for some research, but inadequate space to
study and treat language-impaired pre-schoolers.
     To meet both groups' goals, the Scottish Rite renovated 5,600 
square feet of its building at 33 East Ochoa to suit the lab's
needs and rented it to the University of Arizona for one dollar a
year.  The two-year lease is renewable indefinitely.  "As far as
we're concerned, they can have it forever," said Lyle Coolidge,
Almoner of the Tucson Scottish Rite Bodies when the lab opened in
September 1989.
     Although renovated downtown office space rents for from $15
to $16 per square foot and use of such a large area is a major gift
to the University, the Scottish Rite won't cite a dollar value. 
"We think of it in community terms.  We want to do something for
the community and so does the University," said Coolidge.  "This
is the 54th Scottish Rite-supported center dealing with childhood
language disorders."  Since then eight more facilities have been
added to this burgeoning philanthropy.  Now there are 62 Scottish
Rite Childhood Language Disorders Centers either already in full
operation, under construction or moving quickly from the drawing
board to completion.
     The Tucson lab is already testing and studying children. 
Within the year, it will be providing therapy for a dozen three-
to-six-year-olds who are normal in every other way except their
learning disability.
     Also, the lab part of the University's Speech and Hearing
Laboratory is unique among treatment-oriented Scottish Rite
language disorder centers because it also conducts research as well
as trains therapist/researchers and oversees studies by graduate
and post-graduate researchers.
     In December the research company of Swisher and Associates,
including Ph.D. candidate Elena Plante, will become the first
researchers to publish data from a double-blind examination of the
brain structures of language-impaired persons, their relatives and
typical, unrelated individuals.  They are one of only three teams
in the country studying magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of
the brain in connection with language impairment.
     Their ongoing work demonstrates that language-impaired
children have atypical structures in the language centers of the
brain.  Plante emphasizes that the word is "atypical" and not
"abnormal" because the same variant structures are also seen in
the brains of first-degree relatives of language-impaired children
even though those parents and siblings have no language disorders.
     These facts indicate that the causes of language impairment
may be genetic or hormonal.  Much work remains to pinpoint the
cause or causes, and much funding will be needed to carry out work
that involves expensive medical tests such as MRI scans.  (The
families of children accepted in this study receive scans free, but
the researchers must pay for the services.)
     Meanwhile, other researchers and lab staff are learning more
about language impairment using a series of tests that both
diagnose language disorders and provide research data.
     Members of the Children's Language Lab staff give these tests
to children in local pre-schools, with parents' consent.  About
three percent of tested children will be language impaired but
otherwise normal and thus eligible for the lab's treatment/research
efforts.  The lab team will also study normal children for
comparison.
     For example, the lab's staff will contrast how normal children
and children with language disorders learn new words by putting on
puppet shows that include imaginary nouns and verbs--along with
made-up grammar--for the shows' characters and actions.
     "If we have some insight into how these children deal with
language learning," assistant director Becky Vance says, "we may
be able to modify the techniques we use in treatment, and we may
be better able to help them overcome their difficulty."
     She also notes that by helping the children accepted at the
Scottish Rite lab, staff will also help all language-impaired
children by increasing knowledge of language disorders.
     "Initially we're going to be serving a relatively small number
of children, but that gives us the opportunity to serve them very
well.  We want to take very good care of the kids who come here."
__________________________________
[Reprinted with permission from the University of Arizona
Foundation's fall 1989 Arizona Report in Support of Excellence.]


Graduate researcher Elena Plante examines a computerized cross-
section of a human brain obtained by magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) as part of a research team working from the Scottish
Rite/University of Arizona lab.
                                   Bill Keller photo


Becky Vance, Assistant Director of the Scottish Rite/University of
Arizona Children's Language Lab, and student clinician Susie Sigman
help Daniel Kranking overcome his language learning disability with
a therapeutic "shopping" game.
                                   Bill Keller photo



The Scottish Rite renovated 5,600 square feet of its building and
rented it to the University of Arizona for one dollar a year.



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