This study investigates current speech and language therapy services for multilingual children in three cities in the UK, and examines whether an equitable service is provided to multilingual children in these cities. Through a combination of questionnaires, Census data, and school population data, information was gathered about number and ratio of monolingual and multilingual children in the population, number and ratio of monolingual and multilingual children on therapy caseloads, languages spoken by the multilingual children and therapists, number and ratio of therapists working in languages other than English, availability of multilingual therapy assistants and interpreters, language(s) in which therapy is offered, training/education provided to therapists, and practising therapists' views on service provision to multilingual children. Results show that currently only one of the three cities is providing a fully equitable service for multilingual children and that there are varying levels of support which partly reflect the perceived need in each area. Conclusions drawn include the need for a change in how data on linguistic diversity in society is collected and disseminated so that informed decisions can influence the future of quality services to minority groups.
The present study investigates the duration of syllables with relation to position within phrases and the pattern of segment omissions within syllables in a text read by 12 French PD patients and 12 French control subjects. Three main tendencies emerged. The first was similar duration of syllables in PD and control speech, which may result from a combination of articulatory undershoot and slowness of speech gestures. The second was a normal incidence of segment omissions in both groups: these were mostly coda consonants and/or the second member of C1C2 sequences. The third was a normal production and a strong correlation of final lengthening with the syntactic structure of sentences in both PD speech and control speech. Having analysed the results the study evaluates their implication with respect to the role of basal ganglia in the production of speech.
The purpose of this study was to examine the role of sonority in the acquisition of initial /s/-clusters in Hebrew. Data were collected from forty typically developing Hebrew-speaking children between the ages of 1;10 and 3;0. The data were elicited by means of a picture-naming task combined with a sentence completion task. Target words consisted of complex onsets, including #sC clusters. Results revealed that no significant differences were found between the correct productions of different sub-groups among the /s/-clusters. There were no differences in the correct productions of #sC in relation to different C2's or between the productions of SSP-violating clusters and the SSP-following clusters. The only distinction that did emerge was the separate distribution of ‘/s/ + [−continuant]’ versus ‘/s/ + [+continuant]’, a result that supports previous findings for the role of continuity and sonority in the deletion patterns of clusters.
The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of disfluency in four Spanish-English bilingual children. It was hypothesized that disfluencies would show language effects (i.e., that the rate and kinds would differ dependent on the language). Language samples were recorded from each child in both languages, transcribed, and coded for disfluencies involving repetitions, insertions, prolongations, and revisions. Evidence in support of language effects was found for each child. The children showed more disfluency in one language over the other, two doing more so for Spanish and two for English. The language used with the most disfluencies was also the language with the longer mean length of utterance, suggesting increased disfluency with increased linguistic complexity. The type of disfluency also differed between the languages for three of the children.
Twelve children with mild/moderate hearing impairment (HI) and 12 children with specific language impairment (SLI), 5 – 9 years old, were assessed in order to compare novel word learning and to study cognitive and linguistic predictors for word learning. There was no significant difference on novel word learning between the groups. The strongest predictor for novel word learning was a lexical measure. When 22 of the participants were categorized as high versus low performing children, the children with HI and SLI were equally distributed. Low performers on novel word learning were significantly poorer on non-word repetition, lexicon and language comprehension than high performers. Our data are inconclusive as to the influence of hearing levels in children with HI as a group, but individual results indicate sensory as well cognitive mechanisms behind poor word learning. Generally, our data support earlier findings showing that novel word learning is easier the richer the child's vocabulary and the better the phonological short-term memory.
Language sample analysis can be used normatively to evaluate the extent and nature of children's language disorders. This strategy is particularly valuable for languages where standardized tests are not available. A number of computer programs have been created to streamline the analysis process. This paper describes the adaptation of one such program, SALT (Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts), for use with children who are learning Turkish as a first language. The reference database is described and features of the program are illustrated with data from four clinical cases. Profiles that compare relative delays in various linguistic domains indicated significant difficulties with grammatical morphology, especially nominal inflections, and widely varying lexical competence. These and other facts about language disorders in children learning Turkish may ultimately change our understanding of the nature of language learning and disorder, whether viewed from a psychological or a linguistic perspective.
This study investigates the development of English two member onset #sC clusters in Haitian Creole-English bilingual children. The subjects are 40 Haitian Creole-English bilingual children, between the ages of 3;1 – 4;11. The fundamental question is whether sonority can account for any subgrouping of #sC clusters in phonological development, and if not, to determine what the governing patterns are in subjects renditions. Results were examined in terms of correct and incorrect renditions, implicational relationships, possible groupings according to the quality of C2, as well as comparisons to productions from monolingual English speaking children. Sonority sequencing is found to be relevant in most productions and the reduction patterns were in accordance with the predictions of the ‘factorial typology’ and the ‘headedness framework’.
This study investigates the acquisition of two-element word-initial consonant clusters in 27 Norwegian children aged 21–36 months. We have focussed on clusters starting with a sibilant (S-clusters), comparing them with clusters without a sibilant (non-S-clusters). Overall, non-S-clusters were mastered more successfully than S-clusters – mainly related to the fact that the younger children (>30 months) performed much better on the non-S-clusters than on the S-clusters – this difference had disappeared in the older age group. Concerning S-clusters, sonority does not seem to play an important role for acquisition neither in terms of the sonority sequencing principle nor sonority distance. Homorganicity may be a factor for a subset of the S-clusters: /sn/ clusters are mastered clearly better than /sm/ clusters. However, frequency may also play a role here. Finally, deletion patterns differ between S-clusters and non-S-clusters: in S-clusters, deletion of the sibilant (C1) is the predominant pattern, while in non-S-clusters, C2 is the one deleted.
We evaluate productions of word-initial /s/ clusters (#sC clusters) in English by 40 Spanish-English bilingual children (aged 2;11 – 4;5). These clusters have been studied considerably in research on the phonology of English and related languages because of their unusual patterning. Specifically, #sC clusters violate several phonotactic and/or universal constraints on syllable structure. Monolingual English-speaking children also show production patterns for these clusters that are quite different from those of other clusters. Yet to be fully explored, however, is how these clusters pattern in the speech of English-speaking children who also speak another language that prohibits #sC clusters, such as Spanish. We evaluate Spanish-English bilingual children's productions of #sC clusters to compare their production patterns with the findings of previous research. Results generally indicate that these children's production patterns are consistent with cross-linguistic predictions related to sonority and sonority sequencing. Additionally, some children's productions appeared to be influenced by Spanish phonotactics.
It is generally recommended that bilingual children be assessed in both of their languages. However, specific procedures for such bilingual assessment and for interpretation of the results are lacking. Normally developing French – English bilingual preschool-age children were compared to monolingual children (n = 28) on expressive and receptive measures of vocabulary and syntax. Results indicated that when measured in one language only, as well as when measured by combination measures such as conceptual vocabulary, which attempt to include both languages, bilingual children may score significantly lower than monolingual peers in various aspects of language. However, the extent of the difference may depend on a number of factors, including amount of bilingual exposure, relative proficiency in the two languages, as well as language specific factors, or the specific language combination being learned by the children.
This paper examines the developmental patterns of #sC clusters in 40 English speaking children, ages 2;5 to 4;2, (mean age 3;1). The central focus is the production of different groups of #sC clusters and how these productions relate to sonority sequencing of sounds. We evaluated the patterns found in correct realizations of target clusters, as well as the ones in cluster reductions. Despite considerable individual variations in subjects' productions, a few general trends were identifiable. Results lend limited support to sonority sequencing but only for /s/ + approximant clusters. This pair of clusters, /sl-, sw-/, also reveal some implicational relationships. Continuancy of C2 in the cluster was significant only between /sn-/ and /sw-/. Homorganicity of the cluster members was not influential in the production patterns.
The aim of this paper is to analyse early lexical and morphosyntactic development in children with perinatal brain injury acquiring Croatian. Subjects were seven monolingual children who suffered early brain injury and were selected when they started producing first word combinations and had an expressive vocabulary in a range from 50 to 200 words. A combination of parent-reports, samples of spontaneous speech and a standardized language test was used. The results were interpreted within the framework of data on language development in children with early brain injury, but also within the framework of acquiring a morphologically highly inflected language. Four of the seven subjects show delayed language expression and dissociation between language comprehension and expression. However, all subjects very early on began to use grammatical morphemes. Furthermore, an interrelation between the morphosyntactic compexity of a child's utterances and mother-child interaction patterns was found.
Because of their rather exceptional behavior in languages, #sC clusters have been assigned a special ‘adjunct’ status and discussed separately from other (true) clusters. Support for the distinction between the two cluster types can also be found in developing phonologies. While the different (adjunct) status of #sC clusters has been agreed on, there is disagreement whether all or only some of these clusters should be considered as such. Cross-linguistic acquisition studies into the patterning of the different types of #sC clusters based on sonority can elucidate their status.
Speech samples were obtained from three Arabic-speaking children with cleft palate, and two questions were asked. First, are the characteristics of their speech like those reported for cleft palate speakers of other languages? This is interesting because cleft speech data for Arabic are so far unreported. Many characteristics seem similar, but implosive airstream, oral stop devoicing, and labiodental stopping also occurred. Second, do pharyngeal and glottal compensatory articulations, frequently reported for cleft speech, occur in Arabic? Since Arabic has phonemic , we might expect they do not, to avoid phonetic neutralisation of phonemic contrast. In the samples, compensatory pharyngeal and glottal articulations were produced. The resultant neutralisations, and the neutralisation from the children's uvular compensatory articulations, indicate that the children's productions were insensitive to the phonemics of the language. This is consistent with the conclusion elsewhere that the characteristics of cleft speech are universal.
Children adopted from China currently represent the largest group of newly internationally adopted children in the US. An exploratory investigation of the communicative development of six young females adopted at ages 9 to 17 months from China by US families was conducted. Children were followed longitudinally from approximately three months post-adoption to age three years. English language skills were assessed at approximately three-month intervals, detailed communicative analyses were conducted at six months post-adoption, and outcomes were measured at three years of age. Results indicated wide variability in rates of English language development. Phonological, social-communicative, and lexical bases of communication were intact for each child at six months post-adoption. At age three years, four of the children demonstrated speech and language skills within one standard deviation of standardized test norms, one child demonstrated skills above the normal range, and one child's skills were below the normal range. This study provides evidence of the resiliency of children's language learning abilities.
This study investigated the acquisition of #sC and non-sC clusters by 45 Dutch children between two and three of age. The main focus of the study was to test whether the Sonority Sequencing Principle can explain correct realisations and reduction strategies in seven different #sC clusters. Target clusters were elicited in meaningful words using a picture-naming game. Results show that non-sC clusters are more accurate than #sC clusters. Within the #sC clusters, /sl/ is produced correctly most often whereas /sk/ is the most difficult cluster. In /s/ + obstruent clusters, rendition patterns obey the Sonority Sequencing Principle. This is not the case for /s/ + sononant clusters, in which the more sonorous element is retained. The rendition patterns are best explained by an interaction between sonority and the prosodic head of the cluster. An exception is /sx/, in which /s/ is retained, a pattern that follows neither Sonority nor Headedness principles.
Differences in attention regulation style and their affect on word learning were explored in two different cultures, first-generation Mexican and American. Ten toddlers, five American and five Mexican-immigrant, ages 15 – 21 months, were taught nonsense words in attention-directing and attention-following styles over a two-week period. Results showed that the Mexican-immigrant children learned more words in an attention-directing style than in an attention-following style in Week One. No differences were found in vocabulary in the American children in Week One or Week Two. However, there was an overall trend that the American children learned more words than the Mexican-immigrant children in an attention-following style. These results have implications for clinical intervention.
Adequate assessment, diagnosis and treatment of phonological disorders require information on normal phonological development. While such data exist for many languages, they often do not exist for minority languages such as Welsh. An added factor is that speakers of such languages are often bilingual so, in the case of Welsh, it is necessary to examine norms in bilingual acquisition of Welsh and English. This article reports such a study and provides benchmarks for use by speech-language therapists in the assessment of phonological disorders in Welsh – English bilingual children. Eighty-three children from south-east Wales took part in the study. They were divided into five 6-month age groups (from 2;6 to 5;0), and into two language dominance groups (Welsh and English). There were 42 male subjects and 41 females. Data were collected via two word-lists and from spontaneous speech. The results present the ages at which the consonant systems of the two languages are acquired, and statistical analysis examines the relationships between the linguistic factors and the non-linguistic variables of age, sex and language dominance. Also important to assessment are the normal patterns of substitution used by children in phonological development for sounds not yet acquired. These are described for the present data, especially important being the substitution patterns used for consonants present in Welsh but not in English.
The aim of this study was to find out the acoustic characteristics of bilabial stops that are needed for the coordination of larynx and supra-larynx in Parkinson's disease (PD) speakers. Nine Korean Cbilabial-stopsVC (where C is a consonant and V a vowel) syllables were used by including V-CstopsVC sequence in the frame /” “i “”ilakomalhanta/ ( “”says “”). Target syllables, CstopsVC, were /pal/, /p*al/, /phal/, /pul/, /p*ul/, /phul/, /pin/, /p*in/ and /phin/. Closure and aspiration durations were measured in nine PD speakers and eight normal speakers. The ratio of closure duration of all stops was then computed. The results revealed that PD speakers lack coordination of the larynx and supra-laryngeal movements as compared to normal speakers. However, the PD speakers were able to maintain the relative production ability needed to differentiate three types of stops; /p/, /p*/ and /ph/. These results support the view that temporal coordination deficits of the larynx and supra-laryngeal movements are part of the speech production disorders of PD speakers.
Phonological/phonemic awareness (PA1) concerns “the translation of print into some equivalent of speech” or “the acquisition of letter-sound relations”. It is considered by many to be causally linked to reading ability and believed by some to form a critical foundation for reading instruction. We provide cross-linguistic evidence to argue against such a strong position. Specifically, we argue that (a) PA is not causally linked to reading ability in Chinese, (b) PA is not related to reading Chinese characters, (c) PA is not universal, and (d) PA training is not an effective way to teaching reading.
