Icelandic Children's Acquisition of Consonants and Consonant Clusters

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Thora Másdóttir ◽  
Sharynne McLeod ◽  
Kathryn Crowe
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Clinical Importance ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Consonant Clusters ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Consonant Cluster ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Purpose This study investigated Icelandic-speaking children's acquisition of singleton consonants and consonant clusters. Method Participants were 437 typically developing children aged 2;6–7;11 (years;months) acquiring Icelandic as their first language. Single-word speech samples of the 47 single consonants and 45 consonant clusters were collected using Málhljóðapróf ÞM (ÞM's Test of Speech Sound Disorders). Results Percentage of consonants correct for children aged 2;6–2;11 was 73.12 ( SD = 13.33) and increased to 98.55 ( SD = 3.24) for children aged 7;0–7;11. Overall, singleton consonants were more likely to be accurate than consonant clusters. The earliest consonants to be acquired were /m, n, p, t, j, h/ in word-initial position and /f, l/ within words. The last consonants to be acquired were /x, r, r̥, s, θ, n̥/, and consonant clusters in word-initial /sv-, stl-, str-, skr-, θr-/, within-word /-ðr-, -tl-/, and word-final /-kl̥, -xt/ contexts. Within-word phonemes were more often accurate than those in word-initial position, with word-final position the least accurate. Accuracy of production was significantly related to increasing age, but not sex. Conclusions This is the first comprehensive study of consonants and consonant cluster acquisition by typically developing Icelandic-speaking children. The findings align with trends for other Germanic languages; however, there are notable language-specific differences of clinical importance.

After Dismissal: Examining the Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Skills of Children With Remediated Speech Sound Disorders

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Farquharson
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Academic Difficulties ◽  
The Public ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
Language Literacy

Speech sound disorders are a complex and often persistent disorder in young children. For many children, therapy results in successful remediation of the errored productions as well as age-appropriate literacy and academic progress. However, for some children, while they may attain age-appropriate speech production skills, they later have academic difficulties. For SLPs in the public schools, these children present as challenging in terms of both continuing treatment as well as in terms of caseload management. What happens after dismissal? Have these children truly acquired adequate speech production skills? Do they have lingering language, literacy, and cognitive deficits? The purpose of this article is to describe the language, literacy, and cognitive features of a small group of children with remediated speech sound disorders compared to their typically developing peers.

scholarly journals Diagnostic Accuracy of Traditional Measures of Phonological Ability for Bilingual Preschoolers and Kindergarteners

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Fabiano-Smith ◽  
Katherine Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Accuracy ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves ◽  
Phonological Disorders ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Good Diagnostic Accuracy

Purpose Bilingual children whose phonological skills are evaluated using measures designed for monolingual English speakers are at risk for misdiagnosis of speech sound disorders (De Lamo White & Jin, 2011). Method Forty-four children participated in this study: 15 typically developing monolingual English speakers, 7 monolingual English speakers with phonological disorders, 14 typically developing bilingual Spanish–English speakers, and 8 bilingual children with phonological disorders. Children's single-word speech productions were examined on Percentage Consonants Correct–Revised (Shriberg, Austin, Lewis, McSweeny, & Wilson, 1997a) and accuracy of early-, middle-, and late-developing sounds (Shriberg, 1993) in English. Consonant accuracy in English was compared between monolinguals and bilinguals with and without speech sound disorders. Logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic curves were used to observe diagnostic accuracy of the measures examined. Results Percentage Consonants Correct–Revised was found to be a good indicator of phonological ability in both monolingual and bilingual English-speaking children at the age of 5;0. No significant differences were found between language groups on any of the measures examined. Conclusions Our results suggest that traditional measures of phonological ability for monolinguals could provide good diagnostic accuracy for bilingual children at the age of 5;0 years. These findings are preliminary, and children younger than 5;0 years should be examined for risk of misdiagnosis.

Entropy as a measure of mixedupness of realizations in child speech

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Babatsouli ◽  
David Ingram ◽  
Dimitrios A. Sotiropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Linear Dependence ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
The Other ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Child Speech ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance ◽  
Children's Speech

AbstractTypical morpho-phonological measures of children’s speech realizations used in the literature depend linearly on their components. Examples are the proportion of consonants correct, the mean length of utterance and the phonological mean length of utterance. Because of their linear dependence on their components, these measures change in proportion to their component changes between speech realizations. However, there are instances in which variable speech realizations need to be differentiated better. Therefore, a measure which is more sensitive to its components than linear measures is needed. Here, entropy is proposed as such a measure. The sensitivity of entropy is compared analytically to that of linear measures, deriving ranges in component values inside which entropy is guaranteed to be more sensitive than the linear measures. The analysis is complemented by computing the entropy in two children’s English speech for different categories of word complexity and comparing its sensitivity to that of linear measures. One of the children is a bilingual typically developing child at age 3;0 and the other child is a monolingual child with speech sound disorders at age 5;11. The analysis and applications demonstrate the usefulness of the measure for evaluating speech realizations and its relative advantages over linear measures.

Comparing the Informativeness of Single-Word Samples and Connected Speech Samples in Assessing Speech Sound Disorders

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Li-Li Yeh ◽  
Chia-Chi Liu
Keyword(s):  
Performance Measures ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Sample Type ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Sample ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Connected Speech ◽  
Speech Accuracy

Purpose Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are faced with the challenge of quickly and accurately identifying children who present with speech sound disorders (SSD) compared to typically developing (TD) children. The goal of this study was to compare the clinical relevance of two speech sampling methods (single-word vs. connected speech samples) in how sensitive they are in detecting atypical speech sound development in children, and to know whether the information obtained from single-word samples is representative enough of children's overall speech sound performance. Method We compared the speech sound performance of 37 preschool children with SSD ( M age = 4;11 years) and 37 age-sex-matched typically developing children ( M age = 5;0 years) by eliciting their speech in two ways: (a) a picture-naming task to elicit single words, and (b) a story-retelling task to elicit connected speech. Four speech measures were compared across sample type (single words vs. connected speech) and across groups (SSD vs. TD): intelligibility, speech accuracy, phonemic inventory, and phonological patterns. Results Interaction effects were found between sample type and group on several speech sound performance measures. Single-word speech samples were found to differentiate the SSD group from the TD group, and were more sensitive than connected speech samples across various measures. The effect size of single-word samples was consistently higher than connected speech samples for three measures: intelligibility, speech accuracy, and phonemic inventory. The gap in sample type informativeness may be attributed to salience and avoidance effects, given that children tend to avoid producing unfamiliar phonemes in connected speech. The number of phonological patterns produced was the only measure that revealed no gap between two sampling types for both groups. Conclusions On measures of intelligibility, speech accuracy, and phonemic inventory, obtaining a single-word sample proved to be a more informative method of differentiating children with SSD from TD children than connected speech samples. This finding may guide SLPs in their choice of sampling type when they are under time pressure. We discuss how children's performance on the connected speech sample may be biased by salience and avoidance effects and/or task design, and may, therefore, not necessarily reveal a poorer performance than single-word samples, particularly in intelligibility, speech accuracy, and the number of phonological patterns, if these task limitations are circumvented. Our findings show that the performance gap, typically observed between the two sampling types, largely depends on which performance measures are evaluated with the speech sample. Our study is the first to address sampling type differences in SSD versus TD children and has significant clinical implications for SLPs looking for sampling types and measures that reliably identify SSD in preschool-aged children.

Phonological Measures for Bilingual Spanish-English–Speaking Preschoolers: The Language Combination Effect

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Leah Fabiano-Smith ◽  
Chelsea Privette ◽  
Lingling An
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Accuracy ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Spanish Phonology ◽  
The Individual

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the diagnostic accuracy of traditional measures of phonological ability developed for monolingual English-speaking children with their bilingual peers in both English and Spanish. We predicted that a composite measure, derived from a combination of English and Spanish phonological measures, would result in higher diagnostic accuracy than examining the individual phonological measures of bilingual children separately by language. Method Sixty-six children, ages 3;3–6;3 (years;months), participated in this study: 29 typically developing bilingual Spanish-English–speaking children ( x = 5;3), five bilingual Spanish-English–speaking children with speech sound disorders ( x = 4;6), 26 typically developing monolingual English-speaking children ( x = 4;8), and six monolingual English-speaking children with speech sound disorders ( x = 4;9). Children were recorded producing single words using the Assessments of English and Spanish Phonology, and productions were phonetically transcribed and analyzed using the Logical International Phonetics Program. Overall consonants correct–revised; accuracy of early-, middle-, and late-developing sounds; and percent occurrence of phonological error patterns in both English and Spanish were calculated. Receiver operating characteristic curves and support vector machine models were applied to observe diagnostic accuracy, separately and combined, for each speaker group and each language. Results Findings indicated the combination of measures improved diagnostic accuracy within both the English and Spanish of bilingual children and significantly increased accuracy when measures from both languages of bilingual children were combined. Combining measures for the productions of monolingual English-speaking children did not increase diagnostic accuracy. Conclusion To prevent misdiagnosis of speech sound disorders in bilingual preschoolers, the composite phonological abilities of bilingual children need to be assessed across both gross and discrete measures of phonological ability. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16632604

Acquisition of Consonant Clusters and Acceptable Variants in Chinese-Influenced Malaysian English-Speaking Children

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 517-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hooi San Phoon ◽  
Margaret Maclagan ◽  
Anna Christina Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Consonant Clusters ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Consonant Cluster ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Cluster Accuracy ◽  
English Speaking

Purpose This study investigated consonant cluster acquisition in Chinese-influenced Malaysian English (ChME)-speaking children. Method This cross-sectional study involved 262 typically developing ChME-speaking children (138 girls, 124 boys) ages 3 to 7 years old. A single-word picture-naming task, which contained 66 words and targeted 32 syllable-initial (SI) and 14 syllable-final (SF) consonant clusters, was administered. Results Older children produced more correct productions than younger children, and there was no sex effect for consonant cluster production. SF consonant clusters were more accurate than SI consonant clusters among the younger children. The overall sequence of SI consonant cluster accuracy based on cluster categories from most to least accurate was /s/ + C, C + /w/, C + /j/, C + /l/, and C + /r/, whereas for SF consonant clusters, the order was C + stop, C + /s/, nasal + C, and /l/ + C. Two-element clusters consistently had higher accuracy in comparison to three-element clusters across the age groups. The overall consonant cluster accuracy of the present study showed similar patterns to those found in previous studies of Standard English. Conclusion The findings of the study will be useful in the assessment of consonant cluster production of ChME-speaking children.

Discrimination and Identification of a Third Formant Frequency Cue to Place of Articulation by Young Children and Adults

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Richardson ◽  
Joan E Sussman
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Formant Frequency ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Phonetic Categorization ◽  
Insight Into

Typically-developing children, 4 to 6 years of age, and adults participated in discrimination and identification speech perception tasks using a synthetic consonant–vowel continuum ranging from /da/ to /ga/. The seven-step synthetic /da/–/ga/ continuum was created by adjusting the first 40 ms of the third formant frequency transition. For the discrimination task, listeners participated in a Change/No–Change paradigm with four different stimuli compared to the endpoint-1 /da/ token. For the identification task, listeners labeled each token along the /da/–/ga/ continuum as either “DA” or “GA.” Results of the discrimination experiment showed that sensitivity to the third-formant transition cue improved for the adult listeners as the stimulus contrast increased, whereas the performance of the children remained poor across all stimulus comparisons. Results of the identification experiment support previous hypotheses of age-related differences in phonetic categorization. Results have implications for normative data on identification and discrimination tasks. These norms provide a metric against which children with auditory-based speech sound disorders can be compared. Furthermore, the results provide some insight into the developmental nature of categorical and non-categorical speech perception.

Evaluation of Diadochokinesis in Greek Preschoolers With Speech Sound Disorders Using a Diadochokinetic Rates Protocol

2021 ◽  
pp. 152574012110170
Author(s):  
Dionysios Tafiadis ◽  
Vasiliki Zarokanellou ◽  
Louiza Voniati ◽  
Alexandra Prentza ◽  
Konstantinos Drosos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Sound ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Impairment ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Motor Tasks ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Evaluation Protocol ◽  
Complex Stimuli ◽  
Positive Discrimination ◽  
And Gender

The study aimed at evaluating the diadochokinetic (DDK) skills of Greek-speaking preschool children with Phonological Disorder (PD) by means of a structured evaluation protocol and at proposing cut-off points for children at risk of speech impairment. The participants were 36 children with PD and 60 typically developing (TD) peers. The groups were matched on age and gender. The PD group performed significantly slower than the TD group in all speech DDK tasks, but not in the oral-motor tasks. The ROC analysis showed a statistically significant positive discrimination for all speech tasks. The internal consistency of the protocol was excellent (Cronbach’s α = .844), while complex stimuli showed a better discriminatory ability. The obtained results agree with Dodd’s classification for Speech Sound Disorders (SSDs). Different types of speech stimuli must be included in the evaluation of DDK performance which can be used as a clinical predictor for preschoolers with SSDs who face difficulties in speech maturation.

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