The Iowa Articulation Norms Project and its Nebraska Replication

The purpose of the Iowa Articulation Norms Project and its Nebraska replication was to provide normative information about speech sound acquisition in these two states. An assessment instrument consisting of photographs and a checklist form for narrow phonetic transcription was administered by school-based speech-language pathologists to stratified samples of children in the age range 3–9 years. The resulting data were not influenced by the demographic variables of population density (rural/urban), SES (based on parental education), or state of residence (Iowa/Nebraska); however, sex of the child exerted a significant influence in some of the preschool age groups. The criteria used to determine acceptability of a production appeared to influence outcomes for some speech sounds. Acquisition curves were plotted for individual phoneme targets or groups of targets. These curves were used to develop recommended ages of acquisition for the tested speech sounds, with recommendations based generally on a 90% level of acquisition. Special considerations were required for the phonemes /n s z/.

Generalized Learning of Receptive and Expressive Action-Object Responses by Language-Delayed Preschoolers

This study examined the effectiveness of matrix-training procedures in teaching action + object utterances in both the receptive and expressive language modalities. The subjects were 4 developmentally delayed preschool boys who failed to produce spontaneous, functional two-word utterances. A multiple baseline design across responses with a multiple probe technique was employed. Subjects were taught 4–6 of 48 receptive and 48 expressive responses. Acquisition of a word combination rule was facilitated by the use of familiar lexical items, whereas subsequent acquisition of new lexical knowledge was enhanced by couching training in a previously trained word combination pattern. Although receptive knowledge was not sufficient for the demonstration of corresponding expressive performance for most of the children, only minimal expressive training was required to achieve this objective. For most matrix items, subjects responded receptively before they did so expressively. For 2 subjects, when complete receptive recombinative generalization had not been achieved, expressive training facilitated receptive responding. The results of this study elucidate benefits to training one linguistic aspect (lexical item, word combination pattern) at a time to maximize generalization in developmentally delayed preschoolers.

Aphasic and Non-Brain-Damaged Adults' Descriptions of Aphasia Test Pictures and Gender-Biased Pictures

Twelve aphasic and 12 non-brain-damaged adult males described the speech elicitation pictures from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE), the Minnesota Test for Differential Diagnosis of Aphasia (MTDDA), the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), and six pictures representing male-biased or female-biased daily-life situations. For each speech sample we calculated number of words, words per minute, number of correct information units, percentage of words that were correct information units, and percentage of correct information units that were nouns or adjectives (amount of enumeration or naming). The WAB picture elicited more enumeration than the BDAE or MTDDA pictures, and information was produced at a slower rate in response to the WAB picture than the other two pictures. These differences were statistically significant and appear to be clinically important. Gender bias had statistically significant effects on two measures. Male-biased pictures elicited significantly more words and significantly more correct information units than female-biased pictures. However, these differences were small and do not appear to be clinically important. Two of the five measures (words per minute and percentage of words that were correct information units) differentiated non-brain-damaged speakers from aphasic speakers. The magnitude of these differences suggests that these measures provide clinically important information about the problems aphasic adults may have when they produce narrative discourse.

Who shall be Called Language Disordered? Some Reflections and One Perspective

This paper discusses some issues involved in identifying children who have language problems. The perspective taken is that (a) the goal of identification must be clearly distinguished from other goals of assessment; (b) identification of children with language disorders is better based on language performance than on inferences about the language knowledge that underlies this performance; (c) language performance must be sampled in more than one context, including, for purposes of identification, contexts that stress the language system; (d) the standards of expectations for comparing performance and determining differences must be explicit; (e) standards used to determine differences are better based on the performance of chronological-age peers than on the performance of children with similar mental abilities; and (f) children who do not evidence poor language performance but are considered at risk for language-related problems should be distinguished from children who demonstrate poor language skills.

Verbal Behaviors of Preschool Stutterers and Conversational Partners

Standard counseling practices with the families of young stutterers include recommendations that listeners' negative verbal behaviors be modified in order to reduce the likelihood of stuttering. This study tested the hypothesis that stuttering and normal disfluencies in preschool stutterers are related to selected verbal behaviors in conversational partners. Twelve 2- to 6-year-old stutterers were video recorded while playing with their mother, father, and a familiar peer. The resulting videotapes were transcribed and two types of social communicative analyses (total number of words and utterances, verbal intent of the speaker) were undertaken. Results suggested that fathers used more words and utterances than mothers and peers. Parents provided more positive interactions with their stutterer offspring than did peers. Parents also asked significantly more negative and routine questions when talking to their stuttering child. Peer playmates were significantly more negative and generally commented more frequently when interacting with stutterers than did the parents. Stutterers were involved in significantly more positive interactions with their fathers. The frequency of fluency failures did not differ significantly when stutterers communicated with their mother, father, or peer partners. Implications regarding verbal styles of partners in relationship to the stuttering of preschool children are discussed.

Facilitating Changes in Supervisees' Clinical Behaviors

This research was conducted to determine whether supervisees altered their clinical behaviors as a consequence of a joint data-analysis method of clinical supervision. Four beginning graduate student clinicians assigned to articulation clients were supervised in accordance with tenets of Cogan's Clinical Supervision Model and Anderson's Continuum of Supervision. Supervision focused on the targeted dependent variables of clinician "explanations," "informative feedback," and "directive responses to off-task utterances." Visual inspection of multiple baseline data indicated that target behaviors improved after they became the focus of supervision. The supervisory procedures implemented in this study effected positive changes in the supervisees' clinical behaviors. Qualitative discoveries that relate to the practicalities of daily supervision are discussed.

Partner Sensitivity to Communication Behavior of Young Children with Developmental Disabilities

Aspects of partner sensitivity to communication behaviors of 24 presymbolic children with developmental disabilities were examined. The children were grouped according to their movement abilities (normal vs. abnormal patterns) and communication status (intentional vs. preintentional). Participating communication partners were those with whom the children interacted on a regular basis and included their mothers, early childhood special educators, and speech-language pathologists. Procedures were developed whereby the partners served as informants in order to provide information regarding (a) recognition of the children's communicative cues and (b) consistency of cue recognition and descriptions across partners. Results indicated wide individual variability in the partners' basic recognition abilities as well as their consistency with each other. Further, the observed variations could not be attributed to the children's movement and communication abilities. It was concluded that sensitivity, as measured in the present investigation, was highly partner-child specific, with some children likely to be exposed to more optimal interactions than others.