Deviant Articulation Research Articles

Research Review: Structural language in autistic spectrum disorder – characteristics and causes

Structural language anomalies or impairments in autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are theoretically and practically important, although underrecognised as such. This review aims to highlight the ubiquitousness of structural language anomalies and impairments in ASD, and to stimulate investigation of their immediate causes and implications for intervention. Studies of structural language in ASD are reviewed (based on a search of the literature and selected as meeting defined inclusion criteria), and explanatory hypotheses are discussed. Some individuals with ASD never acquire language. Amongst those who do, language abilities range from clinically normal (ALN) to various degrees of impairment (ALI). Developmental trajectories and individual profiles are diverse, and minority subgroups have been identified. Specifically: language is commonly but not always delayed and delayed early language is always characterised by impaired comprehension and odd utterances, and sometimes by deviant articulation and grammar. Nevertheless, by school age an 'ASD-typical' language profile emerges from group studies, with articulation and syntax least affected, and comprehension, semantics and certain facets of morphology most affected. Thus, even individuals with ALN have poor comprehension relative to expressive language; also semantic-processing anomalies and idiosyncratic word usage. It is argued that impaired socio-emotional-communicative relating, atypical sensory-perceptual processing, and uneven memory/learning abilities may underlie shared language anomalies across the spectrum; and that varying combinations of low nonverbal intelligence, semantic memory impairment and comorbidities including specific language impairment (SLI), hearing impairment, and certain medical syndromes underlie ALI and variation in individual profiles. Structural language is universally affected in ASD, due to a complex of shared and unshared causal factors. There is an urgent need for more research especially into the characteristics and causes of clinically significant language impairments.

Speech and Voice after Laryngectomy: Perceptual and Acoustical Analyses of Tracheoesophageal Speech Related to Voice Handicap Index

Objective: To perform perceptual and acoustical analyses of tracheoesophageal (TE) speech and relate these analyses to self-reported voice handicap. Methods: Recordings of 35 TE speakers were perceptually assessed by 5 speech-language pathologists. Acoustical analyses were made of voice aspects and temporal speech aspects. Self-assessments of voice were made with the Voice Handicap Index (VHI). Results: Perceptual assessment of TE speech showed significant correlations between overall degree of deviation and low speaking rate, deviant articulation, monotonous intonation, roughness and low pitch. The overall degree of deviation correlated significantly with acoustical measurements of speaking rate, articulation rate, and phrase length. Significant correlations were also found between assessed pitch and measured fundamental frequency, between assessed speaking rate and measured number of words per minute, and between assessed phrase length and measured number of syllables per breath. Self-assessments of VHI were significantly correlated with voice intensity and temporal speech aspects such as total reading time, phrase length, and percent pause time. No significant correlations were found between perceptual assessment and VHI degree. Conclusion: The listeners’ ratings of overall degree of deviation in TE speech showed relations to both voice quality and temporal aspects in speech. The TE speakers’ voice handicap degree were mainly related to changes in temporal aspects of speech.

Analysis of a case of the foreign accent syndrome in terms of the framework of gestural phonology

Brain damage which results in aphasia or apraxia of speech frequently causes deviant articulation; and in a limited number of cases the patients’ speech takes on characteristics normally associated with a dialect that is not their own, or it resembles the performance of a non-native speaker of the language. This condition is referred to as the foreign accent syndrome (FAS). FAS has been classified as an apraxic condition, a motor speech disorder in which the capacity to program the positioning of speech musculature and the sequencing of muscle movements for the volitional production of speech, has been disturbed. The present study is an analysis of the speech of a Norwegian FAS patient who after having suffered a stroke, developed what sounded like an English accent when speaking Norwegian. Her speech exhibited deviant features both on the segmental and on the prosodic level: deviant vowel and consonant articulations, deviant rhythmical patterns and deviant pitch patterns. This complex pattern of deviant features can be accounted for in terms of dysfunction of specific components in a gestural phonological model. The deviations can all be seen as the result of abnormal scaling or abnormal phasing of gestures.

A Cineradiographic Study of Velopharyngeal Movements for Deviant versus Nondeviant Articulation

Five patients who displayed both glottal stop compensations and normal articulatory placement and production during connected speech and also had weak pressure articulatory consonants and hypernasal resonance had cineradiographic study of their velopharyngeal movements. The results showed that velopharyngeal movements were impaired during weak pressure consonants whereas velopharyngeal valving was maximal when articulation was not impaired. Velopharyngeal movements were the worst when glottal stop substitutions were produced. Poor quality or absence of velopharyngeal movements in connection with deviant articulation could be erroneously interpreted as weakness or incapability of motor activity if nondeviant articulation is not observed in individual patients.

A Cineradiographic Study of Velopharyngeal Movements for Deviant Versus Nondeviant Articulation

Five patients who displayed both glottal stop compensations and normal articulatory placement and production during connected speech and also had weak pressure articulatory consonants and hypernasal resonance had cineradiographic study of their velopharyngeal movements. The results showed that velopharyngeal movements were impaired during weak pressure consonants whereas velopharyngeal valving was maximal when articulation was not impaired. Velopharyngeal movements were the worst when glottal stop substitutions were produced. Poor quality or absence of velopharyngeal movements in connection with deviant articulation could be erroneously interpreted as weakness or incapability of motor activity if nondeviant articulation is not observed in individual patients.

Deviant articulation in a cleft palate child following late repair of the hard palate: A description and remediation procedure using electropalatography (EPG)

Older children with repaired cleft palates who have unresolved speech difficulties present the clinician with a particular challenge, since they do not respond readily to conventional therapy techniques (Noordhoff, Kuo, Wang, Huang and Witzel, 1987). This study describes the use of EPG in the investigation and remediation of a 13-year-old cleft palate boy, who presented with an apparently intractable posterior pattern of articulation. This subject also had received delayed hard palate surgery, which took place at the age of 11 years. EPG printouts of palato-lingual patterns provided information that both confirmed perceptual judgements and also revealed details of articulatory movements that could not be detected from the acoustic signal. A treatment procedure using EPG as a visual feedback device was successful in establishing correct tongue placements. Possible relevant aetiological factors relating to the development of posterior tongue placements are discussed.

The Moor House School remedial programme: an evaluation

Moor House School is a school for children of average nonverbal ability who have specific speech and language disorders. The educational careers of 120 children who left the school during the period 1979-1985 were investigated. The subjects were divided into four groups: Receptive Dysphasic (N = 12), Expressive Dysphasic (N = 21), Language Delay (N = 57), and Deviant Articulation (N = 30). Verbal ability at the time of entry to the school was compared with verbal ability when the remedial programme ended. The Receptive Dysphasic, Expressive Dysphasic, and Language Delay groups showed significant gains in verbal ability. The language development of the Deviant Articulation group was within normal limits at the time of entry and showed no significant gain. 35.8% of the children were able to return to mainstream education before reaching the statutory school-leaving age.

Intensive speech therapy for cleft palate children.

AbstractForty six children with deviant articulation secondary to cleft palate or other velo‐pharyngeal disorders took part in a controlled trial, to gauge the efficacy of intensive speech therapy. Subjects were randomly allocated either to attend a six‐week intensive course of speech therapy, or to continue with their conventional weekly therapy. Results indicate a significant improvement in articulation for those children receiving intensive help immediately post‐course as compared with a very slight improvement seen in the speech of the control group. This improvement achieved by children on the course was maintained throughout the two‐year follow‐up period and, although the articulation of the control group continued to improve, at the end of the two year follow‐up period the children on the course had better articulation scores.

The nature of deviant articulation.

This paper examines the credibility of deviant articulation as a less mature phonological system and as an individual phonological system with its own rules. Evidence is presented suggesting that both types of deviant phonological systems may occur in the articulatory defective population. The clinical implications of each type of deviant system are presented.

Articulatory effectiveness, stimulability, and children's performances on perceptual and memory tasks.

The performances of 70 children, 35 from kindergarten and 35 from first grade, were studied on four auditory measures and one oral sensory discrimination task. Each group of 35 children included seven subjects with superior articulation, seven with deviant articulation and poor speech sound stimulability, seven with deviant articulation and good stimulability, seven with articulation defects and poor stimulability, and seven with articulation defects and good stimulability. Performances on a speech sound stimulability task were not found to be related to performances on any of the auditory measures and only slightly to the oral sensory task. Superior articulators had significantly better scores than the deviant and defectives on the oral sensory discrimination task, but scores on the auditory tasks were not significantly different. Comparison of the performances of /s/ and /r/ defectives revealed the latter group to be inferior on some auditory tasks compared with the superior articulators. Some relationships were found between subject performances on certain auditory tasks.

Oral and Limb Apraxia in Mentally Retarded Children with Deviant Articulation

A children's version of the De Renzi, Pieczuro and Vignolo Test for Oral and Limb Apraxia was developed and administered to 33 children of normal intelligence with articulatory disorders and 30 retarded children and adults with defective articulation matched in mental age with the non-retardates. The retarded group was also divided into two etiological categories, organic and non-organic, based on diagnosis of the residential institution. Results indicated significant between group differences with the organic retardates exhibiting significant degrees of apraxia as defined by the test. Non-organic retardates exhibited significant but less apraxic involvement. Correlational techniques revealed no significant association of apraxia with defective articulation but an association of apraxia with vocabulary mental age and intelligence.

Discriminative learning in children's acquisition of phonology.

The theories of acquired equivalence and acquired distinctiveness of cues are presented as particularly effectual models in terms of their capacity to explain certain normal and deviant articulation learning. Articulation therapy is discussed as an application of the acquired distinctiveness model. Both theories generate basic, clinically pertinent, testable questions.