Differences In Phonological Development Research Articles

The phonological skills of bilingual preschool children speaking Polish and Ukrainian in Poland

ABSTRACT The extent of quantitative and qualitative differences in phonological development between bilingual children and their monolingual counterparts remains unresolved, especially with regard to typologically-related languages. The current study used a comparative research design to examine the phonological skills of preschool children speaking Polish and Ukrainian, a pair of Slavic languages hitherto unexplored in this context. It involved 57 typically-developing children aged 4;0–6;0, i.e. 18 bilingual children speaking Polish and Ukrainian in Poland, 19 monolingual Polish children in Poland and 20 monolingual Ukrainian children in Ukraine. The qualitative and quantitative analyses of data collected through single-word elicitation tests involved between-group comparisons of bilingual and monolingual children's speech and within-group comparisons of the bilingual children's phonological systems. Results paint a complex picture of bilingual phonological development with mostly typical patterns, a strong crosslinguistic influence, and rare processes which are difficult to interpret. Authors hypothesise that such general patterns of phonological process use might be typical of bilingual development involving typologically-related and geographically close languages. Findings underscore the need to assess bilingual children in all their languages and dialects. Errors which cannot be interpreted through either rules of normal development or crosslinguistic interaction could be a sign of disorder.

A neural oscillations perspective on phonological development and phonological processing in developmental dyslexia

AbstractChildren's ability to reflect upon and manipulate the sounds in words (“phonological awareness”) develops as part of natural language acquisition, supports reading acquisition, and develops further as reading and spelling are learned. Children with developmental dyslexia typically have impairments in phonological awareness. Many developmental factors contribute to individual differences in phonological development. One important source of individual differences may be the child's sensory/neural processing of the speech signal from an amplitude modulation (~energy or intensity variation) perspective, which may affect the quality of the sensory/neural representations (“phonological representations”) that support phonological awareness. During speech encoding, brain electrical rhythms (oscillations, rhythmic variations in neural excitability) recalibrate their temporal activity to be in time with rhythmic energy variations in the speech signal. The accuracy of this neural alignment or “entrainment” process is related to speech intelligibility. Recent neural studies demonstrate atypical oscillatory function at slower rates in children with developmental dyslexia. Potential relations with the development of phonological awareness by children with dyslexia are discussed.

Error Analysis of Korean-English Bilingual Children’s Speech Productions

Purpose: Type of surface-level speech errors can be diagnostically valuable information to identify children with speech sound disorder (SSD). There is a lack of such information for bilingual children, which makes identifying bilingual children with SSD a significant challenge. This article reports on error production in Korean-English bilingual (KEB) children. Methods: Single-word samples were collected from 52 KEB children aged between 3;0 and 7;11. The word productions were analysed for error and compared to the existing date from monolingual English-speaking (ME) and monolingual Korean-speaking (MK) children. Results: While some children's error production was similar to what would be expected in respective monolingual children, other children produced errors that would be considered delay, atypical or even advanced for their monolingual counterparts in both of their languages. No reliable factors could be identified to determine the characteristics associated with delay, atypical or advanced error production compared to monolingual children. Conclusions: There are qualitative differences in phonological development between monolingual and bilingual children. The clinical use of available monolingual normative data is likely to lead to an inaccurate diagnosis of SSD. Small cohort studies in bilingual phonological development should not be taken as normative data in clinical practice due to heterogeneity.

The role of production practice in lexical and phonological development – a commentary on Stoel-Gammon's ‘Relationships between lexical and phonological development in young children’*

Carol Stoel-Gammon has made a real contribution in bringing together two fields that are not generally jointly addressed. Like Stoel-Gammon, we have long focused on individual differences in phonological development (e.g. Vihman, Ferguson & Elbert, 1986; Vihman, Boysson-Bardies, Durand & Sundberg, 1994; Keren-Portnoy, Majorano & Vihman, 2008). And like her, we have been closely concerned with the relationship between lexical and phonological learning. Accordingly, we will focus our discussion on two areas covered by Stoel-Gammon (this issue) on which our current work may shed some additional light.

Effects of Word Position and Stress on Onset Cluster Production: Evidence from Typical Development, Specific Language Impairment, and Dyslexia

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) and dyslexia have phonological deficits that are claimed to cause their language and literacy impairments and to be responsible for the overlap between the two disorders. Little is known, however, about the phonological grammar of children with SLI and dyslexia, and indeed whether they show differences in phonological development. We designed a nonword repetition task to investigate the impact of word position and stress on the production accuracy of onset clusters. We compared the performance of children with SLI and dyslexia, SLI only, and dyslexia only (mean age eleven), and three groups of typically developing children (aged five, seven, and nine). Analysis of cluster production accuracy revealed that all three clinical groups made significantly more errors on word-medial clusters compared to word-initial clusters. Unstressed clusters were more difficult than stressed clusters for the two dyslexic groups but not the SLI-only group. None of the groups of typically developing children showed an effect of word position or stress on cluster accuracy. All groups, however, created new clusters significantly more frequently in initial than medial positions. These results indicate a difference in phonological grammar in children with SLI and dyslexia that could potentially shed light on the relationship between the two disorders. Furthermore, they indicate that structural position and stress are developmentally independent elements in phonological representations.

Organizing Logopedic Therapy for Babies With Unilateral and Bilateral Brain Lesion in the Prespeech Period

The goal of the research was to point out the importance of early prespeech therapy for babies suffering from at-birth-acquired unilateral or bilateral lesion in the prespeech period of development. On the basis of existing studies and experience in the field, a protocol and methodology for the observation of the phonological development of infants in the period between 6 and 24 months were established. Mothers made notes of the changes in the child's development in a diary specially prepared for the research. The data from the diary and the babies' reaction to the therapy in the logopedic office were inserted into the protocol. The research itself involved an experimental and a control group. The control group consisted of 60 babies without brain lesion, while the experimental group was composed of 30 babies suffering from brain lesion obtained at birth as a result of hemorrhaging, hypoxia, and asphyxia. The phonological development of the babies was observed through the ages of 6, 9, 12, and 24 months. This article demonstrates the significant differences in phonological development between the experimental and the control group. The results of the research show that phonological development in the first 6, 9, 12, and 24 months does indeed exist in the experimental group (despite the differences when compared with the control group) and can be enhanced with early monitoring and logopedic rehabilitation in the case of babies with brain lesion.

Comparison of psychophysical and T-NRT levels in children using N24 Contour™ vs. children using N24 M or K. Phonemic development

Objective To compare intraoperative T-NRT (neural response telemetry) using perimodiolar Nucleus 24 Contour™ Cochlear Implant (C.I.) with the ones obtained using straight Nucleus 24 M or K. To compare the levels T (threshold) and C (comfort) in the psychofisic measurements made at the first fitting and 3 months later. To determine differences in phonological development. Study design Retrospective, observational, descriptive. Statistical analysis: Student t-test. A sample of 22 children was taken: Intrasurgical T-NRT was obtained by visual technique. The stimulus electrodes were 15, 10 and 5. T and C levels were obtained using the SPEAK strategy. Analysis of phoneme accuracy was obtained at 12 and 24 months of C.I. use in children under 6 years old. Results For the perimodiolar group T-NRT was obtained between 6 and 13 levels below the obtained for the group with straight electrode. For the selected electrodes, T and C level at the first fitting was obtained between 10 and 18 levels below and 3 months later the C levels remain 10 units below the one obtained with straight electrode. These group had higher growth rate of phonemes recognition at 24 months of C.I. use. Conclusions Intrasurgical T-NRT was obtained with smaller level of stimulation using perimodiolar electrode than using straight electrode ( p<0.05) The T and C level at the first fitting and after 3 months later were smaller for the perimodiolar group in relation to the straight group ( p<0.05). The dynamic range was similar in both groups. The development of higher growth rate of phoneme recognition was found in young children using perimodiolar array at 24 months of C.I. use; being necessary to carry out this analysis in a bigger population.

Reading, vocabulary and language preference in 7- to 8-year-old bilingual Asian children

Background. Children who have a second language at home and report more usage of this language in various contexts ought reciprocally to be less proficient in English as frequency of exposure to English is reduced. Similarly there should be a two-way directional influence between oral vocabulary and reading development. Samples. A group of 40 bilingual Asian children was compared with an age-matched mixed race (but with only one Asian child) monolingual group of 24 children. Mean age was 8 years for both groups (range 7; 6 to 8; 6 years) and socioeconomic status was low. Group allocation was based on a specially devised Language Preference Questionnaire (LPQ) examining different contexts of language use (e.g., during numerical analysis). Method. Standardised tests of non-verbal intelligence, vocabulary, basic reading, reading comprehension and the LPQ were given. Results. Controlling for non-verbal intelligence, there was a marked difference in receptive oral vocabulary and a weaker difference in reading ability between the two groups. The LPQ showed that bilingual children who reported thinking in their parental language had poorer English vocabulary development than bilingual children who preferred to think in English. Conclusions. These findings are discussed in terms of either an effect of frequency of exposure to language or in terms of differences in phonological development between the two groups. The contrasting differences in the effects of bilingualism on vocabulary and reading suggest that in this particular socioeconomic setting parents of both groups do not have substantial impact on reading, but they do have an influence on the development of English oral vocabulary.

Individual differences in phonological development: ages one and three years.

This paper reports the results of a study of the persistence of individual differences in the phonological development of 10 normally developing children observed at age 1 year and again at age 3 years. Data were based on 1/2-hr audio and video recordings of weekly spontaneous mother-child interaction sessions in the home between 9 and 17 months and at 36 months. In addition, phonological and cognitive probes were administered at age 3. At age 1 the children were compared at four times selected on the basis of the number of different word types used in a session. Preferences for particular phonological categories (fricatives, liquids, final consonants) were found not to correspond to relative mastery of those categories at age 3. Based on both babble and words, high use of vocalizations containing true consonants was found to be predictive of greater phonological advance at age 3. Phonological errors of two kinds were distinguished for age 3: those resulting from difficulty with specific segments and those more typical of younger children, involving the rearrangement, assimilation, or deletion of segments or syllables (prosodic errors). The children differed in intelligibility and in specific segment substitutions and cluster reductions. They also differed in the proportion of prosodic errors made and in consistency in segmental errors. Lastly, aspects of cognitive or learning style as expressed in phonological organization were found to be recognizable at both age 1 and age 3.