An ultrasound study of lingual coarticulation in /sV/ syllables produced by adults and typically developing children

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Zharkova ◽  
Nigel Hewlett ◽  
William J. Hardcastle
Keyword(s):  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Speaker Variability ◽  
Ultrasound Study ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Constraint Model ◽  
Differential Control

According to the Degree of Articulatory Constraint model of lingual coarticulation, the consonant /s/ has some scope for tongue adaptation to neighbouring vowels, since the tongue dorsum is not directly involved in constriction formation for this consonant. The present study aimed to establish whether the tongue shape for /s/ in consonant–vowel syllables was influenced by the nature of the following vowel, in Scottish-English–speaking children and adults. Ultrasound tongue imaging was used to establish the presence or otherwise of a vowel effect at the consonant midpoint, by measuring differences between the consonant tongue contours in different vowel environments. In adults, the vowel pairs /a/–/i/, /a/–/u/ and /i/–/u/ exerted significant coarticulatory effects on /s/. In children, no significant effects on /s/ were observed. Greater within-speaker variability in lingual articulation was found in children than in adults. The reduced ability of children to anticipate the tongue configuration of a following vowel whilst simultaneously implementing an initial /s/ sound could be explained by lesser differential control of tip/blade and tongue body.

scholarly journals MOSAIC+: a cross-linguistic model of verb-marking in typically developing children and children with Developmental Language Disorder

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Freudenthal ◽  
Fernand Gobet ◽  
Julian Pine
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Factor Model ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Linguistic Model ◽  
Frequent Form ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Cross

This study extends an existing cross-linguistic model of verb-marking error in children’s early multi-word speech (MOSAIC) by adding a novel mechanism that defaults to the most frequent form of the verb where this accounts for a high proportion of forms in the input. Our simulations show that the resulting dual-factor model not only provides a better explanation of the data on typically developing (TD) children, but also captures the cross-linguistic pattern of verb-marking error in children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), including the tendency of English-speaking children to show higher rates of Optional Infinitive (OI) errors and the tendency of Dutch-, German- and Spanish-speaking children to show higher rates of agreement errors. The new version of MOSAIC thus provides a unified cross-linguistic model of the pattern of verb-marking error in TD children and children with DLD.

scholarly journals The Dorsal Differentiation of Velar From Alveolar Stops in Typically Developing Children and Children With Persistent Velar Fronting

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Joanne Cleland ◽  
James M. Scobbie
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Speech Disorders ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Visual Biofeedback ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Spatial Terms

Purpose This study has two key aims: first, to provide developmental articulatory norms for the alveolar–velar distinction in 30 English-speaking typically developing (TD) children; second, to illustrate the utility of the reported measures for classifying and quantifying the speech of children with a history of persistent velar fronting as they develop the contrast longitudinally. Method This study involved secondary data analysis of the UltraSuite corpus comprising ultrasound tongue imaging recordings of speech materials from 30 typical children and longitudinal data from five children with persistent velar fronting undergoing ultrasound visual biofeedback intervention. We present two new measures of coronal dorsal differentiation: KTMax and KT crescent area. These measures distinguish /k/ and /t/ by quantifying the magnitude of this distinction in absolute spatial terms (mm of linear dorsal difference). For the typical children, we report these measures in corner vowel contexts. We then compare these to dorsal productions by the children with speech disorders, before, during, and after intervention. Results Both measures reliably distinguished /k/ and /t/ in TD children. There was an effect of vowel, with larger KTmax and KT crescent area in /a/ and /o/ vowel contexts than in an /i/ context. The children with persistent velar fronting showed KTmax values near zero before intervention, showing a complete merger between /k/ and /t/. During intervention, they showed variable KTmax values. Post intervention, they showed values within the range of typical children. Conclusions This study provides articulatory norms derived from ultrasound tongue imaging for the dorsal differentiation in alveolar and velar stops in TD children. By applying these norms to children with persistent velar fronting as they acquire this contrast, we see that /k/ is acquired in an articulatorily gradient manner.

scholarly journals Evaluating maturational parallels in second language children and children with specific language impairment

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 320-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mabel L. Rice
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Chronological Age ◽  
Growth Trajectories ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
English Speaking

In her Keynote Article in this issue, Paradis explores the nature of bilingual language acquisition by examining the question of possible similarities between children learning a second language (L2) and children with specific language impairment (SLI) who are monolingual or bilingual. She evaluates the maturation model of Rice (2004), the extended optional infinitive (EOI) model, that focuses on children's acquisition of finiteness marking during the early childhood period. Paradis alludes to the issue of how to deal with the nonparallels between chronological age and acquisition in the comparison of L2 and SLI language acquisition within maturational models. I explore that issue further in this Commentary, using the available growth templates drawn from the work on English-speaking typically developing children and children with SLI for projected possible growth trajectories for bilingual and L2 children, with and without SLI.

Performance on nonlinguistic visual tasks by children with language impairment

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNIFER WINDSOR ◽  
KATHRYN KOHNERT ◽  
AMANDA L. LOXTERCAMP ◽  
PUI-FONG KAN
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Motor Speed ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Visual Tasks ◽  
English Speaking

ABSTRACTThe performance of 8- to 13-year-old monolingual English-speaking children with language impairment (LI) on seven nonlinguistic tasks was compared with two groups of typically developing children, monolingual English-speaking children, and proficient Spanish–English sequential bilingual children. Group differences were apparent, with a key finding that the LI group was observably slower than both typical groups in mental rotation and arithmetic, and also slower than the typical monolingual group in odd man out, pattern matching, and form completion. Overall, the response time (RT) increased equivalently across groups as task difficulty increased. Chronological age and perceptual–motor speed contributed to task performance, especially for the shorter tasks. RT trajectories across the 6-year age span showed that task RT decreased with age, but with greater variability for longer tasks that may also be more vulnerable to the effect of experience.

The use of grammatical morphemes reflecting aspect and modality by children with specific language impairment

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-795 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURENCE B. LEONARD ◽  
PATRICIA DEEVY ◽  
CAROL A. MILLER ◽  
MONIQUE CHAREST ◽  
ROBERT KURTZ ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
Action Context ◽  
Third Person ◽  
English Speaking

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have well-documented problems in the use of tense-related grammatical morphemes. However, in English, tense often overlaps with aspect and modality. In this study, 15 children with SLI (mean age 5;2) and two groups of 15 typically developing children (mean ages 3;6 and 5;3) were compared in terms of their use of previously studied morphemes in contexts that more clearly assessed the role of aspect. The children's use of less frequently studied morphemes tied to modality or tense was also examined. The children with SLI were found to use -ing to mark progressive aspect in past as well as present contexts, even though they were relatively poor in using the tense morphemes (auxiliary was, were) that should accompany the progressive inflection. These children were inconsistent in their use of third person singular -s to describe habitual actions that were not occurring during the time of their utterance. However, the pattern of the children's use suggested that the source of the problem was the formal tense feature of the inflection, not the habitual action context. The children's use of modal can was comparable to that of the typically developing children, raising the possibility that the modality function of possibility had been learned without necessarily acquiring the tense feature of this morpheme. These children's proficiency with can suggests that their bare verb stem productions should probably not be re-interpreted as cases of missing modals. Together these findings suggest that the more serious tense-related problems seen in English-speaking children with SLI co-occur with a less impaired ability to express temporal relations through aspect and modality.

Age Norms for Auditory-Perceptual Neurophonetic Parameters: A Prerequisite for the Assessment of Childhood Dysarthria

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1071-1082
Author(s):  
Theresa Schölderle ◽  
Elisabet Haas ◽  
Wolfram Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Age Norms ◽  
Elementary School Age ◽  
Speech Characteristics ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Computer Based

Purpose The aim of this study was to collect auditory-perceptual data on established symptom categories of dysarthria from typically developing children between 3 and 9 years of age, for the purpose of creating age norms for dysarthria assessment. Method One hundred forty-four typically developing children (3;0–9;11 [years;months], 72 girls and 72 boys) participated. We used a computer-based game specifically designed for this study to elicit sentence repetitions and spontaneous speech samples. Speech recordings were analyzed using the auditory-perceptual criteria of the Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales, a standardized German assessment tool for dysarthria in adults. The Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales (scales and features) cover clinically relevant dimensions of speech and allow for an evaluation of well-established symptom categories of dysarthria. Results The typically developing children exhibited a number of speech characteristics overlapping with established symptom categories of dysarthria (e.g., breathy voice, frequent inspirations, reduced articulatory precision, decreased articulation rate). Substantial progress was observed between 3 and 9 years of age, but with different developmental trajectories across different dimensions. In several areas (e.g., respiration, voice quality), 9-year-olds still presented with salient developmental speech characteristics, while in other dimensions (e.g., prosodic modulation), features typically associated with dysarthria occurred only exceptionally, even in the 3-year-olds. Conclusions The acquisition of speech motor functions is a prolonged process not yet completed with 9 years. Various developmental influences (e.g., anatomic–physiological changes) shape children's speech specifically. Our findings are a first step toward establishing auditory-perceptual norms for dysarthria in children of kindergarten and elementary school age. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12133380

Children's Nonword Repetition Tasks and English Language Learners

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-79
Author(s):  
Sara C. Steele ◽  
Deborah A. Hwa-Froelich
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
English Language ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Internationally Adopted Children ◽  
English Speaking

Nonword repetition performance has been shown to differentiate monolingual English-speaking children with language impairment (LI) from typically developing children. These tasks have been administered to monolingual speakers of different languages and to simultaneous and sequential bilingual English Language Learners (ELLs) with mixed results. This article includes a review of the nonword repetition performance of monolingual and bilingual speakers and of internationally adopted children. Clinical implications for administration and interpretation of nonword repetition task outcomes are included.

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