scholarly journals Phonological complexity and prosodic structure in assessment of Serbian phonological development

Psihologija ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Savic ◽  
Darinka Andjelkovic ◽  
Nevena Budjevac ◽  
der Van
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Preschool Period ◽  
Two Parameters ◽  
Phonological Complexity

In this research we investigate the relevance of phonological parameters in acquisition of Serbian language. Implementation of British Test of Phonological Screeing (TOPhS, van der Lely and Harris, 1999) has revealed that phonological complexity (syllabic and metrical structure) influences accuracy in non-word repetition task and could be used in assessment of phonological development of typically developing children, as well as of children with Grammatical Specific Language Impairment (G-SLI) (van der Lely and Harris, 1999; Gallon, Harris & van der Lely, 2007). Having in mind phonological properties of Serbian language (Zec, 2000, 2007), we hypothesized that several parameters can be used in assessment of phonological development in Serbian: a. onset (consonants cluster at the beginning of syllable; b. rime (consonant at the end of syllable). c. word of three syllables, and d. placement of stressed syllable in a word. Combination of these parameters gave us a list of 96 pseudo words of different levels of complexity. Participants were 14 adults and 30 children from kindergarten divided into three age groups (3, 4 and 5 years). Task for the participants was to loudly repeat every pseudo-word, and their reproduction was recorded. Transcription of their answers and coding of errors allowed us to analyze impact of different parameters on accuracy of phonological reproduction in children of different ages. The results indicate that the ability for reproduction of Serbian phonological properties develops in early preschool period. The most difficult is cluster of consonants at the beginning of syllable, and consonant at the end of syllable. These two parameters are even more difficult for reproduction in three-syllable words or in words that have more then one parameter marked. Placement of stress in a word is acquired even before 3 years. In other words, the results have shown that investigated features could be good indicators in assessment of early phonological development of typically developing children. Delay in their acquisition could reveal possible developmental difficulties.

Grammatical Morphology Deficits in Spanish-Speaking Children With Specific Language Impairment

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 905-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Bedore ◽  
Laurence B. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Clinical Markers ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Grammatical Morphology ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
Third Person

The focus of this study was the use of grammatical morphology by Spanish-speaking preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI). Relative to both same-age peers and younger typically developing children with similar mean lengths of utterance (MLUs), the children with SLI showed more limited use of several different grammatical morphemes. These limitations were most marked for noun-related morphemes such as adjective-agreement inflections and direct object clitics. Most errors on the part of children in all groups consisted of substitutions of a form that shared most but not all of the target’s grammatical features (e.g., correct tense and number but incorrect person). Number errors usually involved singular forms used in plural contexts; person errors usually involved third person forms used in first person contexts. The pattern of limitations of the children with SLI suggests that, for languages such as Spanish, additional factors might have to be considered in the search for clinical markers for this disorder. Implications for evaluation and treatment of language disorders in Spanish-speaking children are also discussed.

scholarly journals Lipreading Ability and Its Cognitive Correlates in Typically Developing Children and Children With Specific Language Impairment

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Heikkilä ◽  
Eila Lonka ◽  
Sanna Ahola ◽  
Auli Meronen ◽  
Kaisa Tiippana
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Visual Speech ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Phonological Skills ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Cognitive Correlates

PurposeLipreading and its cognitive correlates were studied in school-age children with typical language development and delayed language development due to specific language impairment (SLI).MethodForty-two children with typical language development and 20 children with SLI were tested by using a word-level lipreading test and an extensive battery of standardized cognitive and linguistic tests.ResultsChildren with SLI were poorer lipreaders than their typically developing peers. Good phonological skills were associated with skilled lipreading in both typically developing children and in children with SLI. Lipreading was also found to correlate with several cognitive skills, for example, short-term memory capacity and verbal motor skills.ConclusionsSpeech processing deficits in SLI extend also to the perception of visual speech. Lipreading performance was associated with phonological skills. Poor lipreading in children with SLI may be, thus, related to problems in phonological processing.

scholarly journals Sentence Comprehension in Specific Language Impairment: A Task Designed to Distinguish Between Cognitive Capacity and Syntactic Complexity

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 577-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence B. Leonard ◽  
Patricia Deevy ◽  
Marc E. Fey ◽  
Shelley L. Bredin-Oja
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Target Sentence ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Item Types

Purpose This study examined sentence comprehension in children with specific language impairment (SLI) in a manner designed to separate the contribution of cognitive capacity from the effects of syntactic structure. Method Nineteen children with SLI, 19 typically developing children matched for age (TD-A), and 19 younger typically developing children (TD-Y) matched according to sentence comprehension test scores responded to sentence comprehension items that varied in either length or their demands on cognitive capacity, based on the nature of the foils competing with the target picture. Results The TD-A children were accurate across all item types. The SLI and TD-Y groups were less accurate than the TD-A group on items with greater length and, especially, on items with the greatest demands on cognitive capacity. The types of errors were consistent with failure to retain details of the sentence apart from syntactic structure. Conclusions The difficulty in the more demanding conditions seemed attributable to interference. Specifically, the children with SLI and the TD-Y children appeared to have difficulty retaining details of the target sentence when the information reflected in the foils closely resembled the information in the target sentence.

scholarly journals Alternative Tense and Agreement Morpheme Measures for Assessing Grammatical Deficits During the Preschool Period

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 542-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Gladfelter ◽  
Laurence B. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Sensitivity And Specificity ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Composite Measure ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Preschool Period ◽  
Preschool Age Children

Purpose P. A. Hadley and H. Short (2005) developed a set of measures designed to assess the emerging diversity and productivity of tense and agreement (T/A) morpheme use by 2-year-olds. The authors extended 2 of these measures to the preschool years to evaluate their utility in distinguishing children with specific language impairment (SLI) from their typically developing (TD) peers. Method Spontaneous speech samples from 55 children (25 with SLI, 30 TD) at 2 different age levels (4;0–4;6 [years;months] and 5;0–5;6) were analyzed, using a traditional T/A morphology composite that assessed accuracy, and the Hadley and Short measures of Tense Marker Total (assessing diversity of T/A morpheme use) and Productivity Score (assessing productivity of major T/A categories). Results All 3 measures showed acceptable levels of sensitivity and specificity. In addition, similar differences in levels of productivity across T/A categories were seen in the TD and SLI groups. Conclusion The Tense Marker Total and Productivity Score measures seem to have considerable utility for preschool-age children, in that they provide information about specific T/A morphemes and major T/A categories that are not distinguished using the traditional composite measure. The findings are discussed within the framework of the gradual morphosyntactic learning account.

Investigating the Relationship Between Nonword Repetition Performance and Syllabic Structure in Typical and Atypical Language Development

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 708-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Tamburelli ◽  
Gary Jones
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Syllabic Structure ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Phonological Complexity ◽  
Different Levels

Purpose In this study, the authors examined the role of syllabic structure in nonword repetition performance in typically developing (TD) children and children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method Eighteen children with SLI (5;7–6;7 [years;months]) and 18 TD children matched for chronological age were tested on their ability to repeat phonemes in different positions within syllable structure (onset, nucleus, coda). The test involved 2 separate nonword repetition tasks differing in lexicality (high vs. low). High-lexicality nonwords contained subparts that are morphemes of the language (i.e., subparts were “lexical”), whereas nonlexical nonwords did not. Results Repetition performance across the 3 syllabic positions showed a significant effect for both populations and on both tasks. However, although on the high-lexicality task the direction of the effect revealed the onset as the most error-prone constituent (onset > coda > nucleus), on the low-lexicality task, it was the coda that attracted most errors (coda > onset > nucleus). Conclusions Results suggest that the procedures involved in computing syllabic structure are qualitatively similar in the 2 populations. We take these results to support the view that different syllabic positions involve different levels of phonological complexity and that tests that control for lexicality are crucial in illuminating these differences.

scholarly journals Nonword repetition depends on the frequency of sublexical representations at different grain sizes: evidence from a multi-factorial analysis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub M. Szewczyk ◽  
Marta Marecka ◽  
Shula Chiat ◽  
Zofia Wodniecka
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Phonotactic Probability ◽  
Grain Sizes ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
Phonological Complexity ◽  
Repetition Task

The nonword repetition task (NWR) has been widely used in basic cognitive and clinical research, as well as in clinical assessment, and has been proposed as a clinical marker for Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Yet the mechanisms underlying performance on this task are not clear. This study offers insights into these mechanisms through a comprehensive examination of item-related variables identified in previous research as possibly contributing to NWR scores and through testing the predictive power of each in relation to the others. A unique feature of the study is that all factors are considered simultaneously. Fifty-seven typically developing children were tested with a NWR task containing 150 nonwords differing in length, phonotactic probability, lexical neighbourhood, and phonological complexity. The results indicate that phonological processing of novel words draws on sublexical representations at all grain sizes and that these representations are phonological, unstructured and insensitive to morphemehood. We propose a novel index – mean ngram frequency of all phonemes – that best captures the extent to which a nonword draws on sublexical representations. The study demonstrates the primacy of sublexical representations in NWR performance with implications for the nature of the deficit in SLI.

What do monolingual and bilingual children with and without SLI produce when phonology is too complex?

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laetitia de Almeida ◽  
Sandrine Ferré ◽  
Marie-Anne Barthez ◽  
Christophe dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Repetition Task

In this study, the authors compare the production of internal codas and branching onsets in four groups of children learning French: monolingual typically-developing children ( n = 12), bilingual typically-developing children ( n = 61), monolingual children with Specific Language Impairment ( n = 17) and bilingual children with Specific Language Impairment ( n = 20). Their elicited productions were collected using a nonword repetition task (LITMUS-NWR-French), containing 71 nonwords with different syllable types. Except for typically-developing monolingual children, all children performed significantly better on branching onsets than on internal codas. Moreover, the repair strategies used in erroneous productions also indicate that children had more difficulties with internal codas: all the cases of metathesis affecting a target internal coda resulted in the production of a branching onset whereas the contrary was not observed. The differences in the rates of target-like production and the patterns of metathesis of these two structures suggest that internal codas are more difficult than branching onsets for children learning French.

scholarly journals Neuronal Activation for Semantically Reversible Sentences

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 1283-1298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona M. Richardson ◽  
Michael S. C. Thomas ◽  
Cathy J. Price
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Neuronal Activation ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Phonological Working Memory ◽  
Language Difficulties ◽  
Healthy Participants

Semantically reversible sentences are prone to misinterpretation and take longer for typically developing children and adults to comprehend; they are also particularly problematic for those with language difficulties such as aphasia or Specific Language Impairment. In our study, we used fMRI to compare the processing of semantically reversible and nonreversible sentences in 41 healthy participants to identify how semantic reversibility influences neuronal activation. By including several linguistic and nonlinguistic conditions within our paradigm, we were also able to test whether the processing of semantically reversible sentences places additional load on sentence-specific processing, such as syntactic processing and syntactic-semantic integration, or on phonological working memory. Our results identified increased activation for reversible sentences in a region on the left temporal–parietal boundary, which was also activated when the same group of participants carried out an articulation task which involved saying “one, three” repeatedly. We conclude that the processing of semantically reversible sentences places additional demands on the subarticulation component of phonological working memory.

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