One-word Utterances Research Articles

The Pandemic and Preschoolers: COVID Kids and How Libraries Can Support Them

Librarians around the nation must learn how to address preschoolers in a post-pandemic world.In an article called “COVID Babies,” Adam Clark explores various ways that the pandemic has affected children’s development. Clark begins with a vignette about a two-year-old named Charlie who is in speech therapy to help him learn to speak more than one-word utterances. Nancy Polow, one of the speech pathologists interviewed in the article, notes, “I have never seen such an influx of infants and toddlers unable to communicate. We call these children COVID babies.”Shuffrey et al. studied two cohorts of babies born shortly after the pandemic began: those whose mothers had COVID-19 while pregnant and those whose mothers did not have COVID-19 while pregnant. Compared to an older cohort of children born before the pandemic, both pandemic-era cohorts showed significantly lower scores on gross motor, fine motor, and social skills than the pre-pandemic cohort. While exposure to the virus in utero does not seem to be implicated, the researchers speculated that the stress that pregnant mothers experienced during the first part of the pandemic might have contributed to some of the developmental lags they saw. They urge long-term monitoring of children born during the pandemic to better understand the impact of being gestated and born during this time period.

Comparison of Communication in Early and Late Identified Children with Hearing Impairment

Background: The significance of early detection and intervention in hearing impairment is well-documented, with substantial evidence suggesting improved language outcomes in children who are identified and receive intervention at an early age. Objective: To quantitatively compare the communicative abilities of children with hearing impairments identified early versus late and to evaluate the impact of the timing of intervention on their language development. Methods: In a cohort study of 104 children with hearing impairment, two groups were defined based on the age at identification: early (before 6 months) and late (after 6 months). Using the Communication Checklist-2, as well as standardized tests for receptive and expressive language, we assessed and compared their communication skills. Results: Early identified children demonstrated superior communication skills, with 47.1% using object pointing compared to 57.4% of late identified children. A significant contrast was observed in verbal communication, with early identified children exhibiting higher usage of creative one-word utterances at 33.3% against 31.5% in the late group. Receptive language scores were higher in the early group by an average of 12 points, while expressive language scores were higher by an average of 15 points. Late identified children showed a higher reliance on preverbal communication, with a 3.7% higher incidence of object self-injury and a 5.2% higher occurrence of object aggression. Conclusion: The findings emphasize the substantial advantage of early identification of hearing impairment for communication skills development. Early identified children not only show a greater propensity for verbal communication but also achieve higher receptive and expressive language scores, underscoring the need for prompt hearing loss detection and intervention.

Metonymic relations underlying the one-word utterances of Afrikaans-speaking infants and toddlers

AbstractChildren’s processing and comprehension of metonymy have received little attention in the developmental literature, which has mainly focused on children’s acquisition of metaphor abilities. However, it has been found that metonymy production and comprehension precede metaphor production and comprehension (Falkum et al., 2017; Nerlich et al., 1999; Pérez-Hernández & Duvignau, 2016; Runblad & Annaz, 2010). Nerlich et al. (1999) suggest that metonymic relations are exploited in overextensions produced by children up to age 2;5 and call these “compelled metonymic overextensions”. At this very early age, a child’s vocabulary is still relatively small, and this compels them to extend already known words to cope with their increasing communicative needs. These overextensions are, however, in most cases not random, as some type of associative relation (e.g., cause–effect, object–act, container–content, etc.) between the concepts referred to can be identified. This study focuses on the metonymic relations exploited by 18 Afrikaans-speaking infants and toddlers (between the ages of 0;6 and 2;0) in their early overextensions. The metonymic relations as described by Norrick (1981) as well as Radden and Kövecses (1999) are employed in the analysis. A total of 207 out of 1371 one-word utterances were identified as compelled metonymic overextensions and 11 types of metonymic relations could be identified as underlying these utterances. This study illustrates that the metonymic relations identified in such young children’s early language provide insight and understanding into how they categorise and associate various concepts with each other.

The nature of infant vocal behaviour development between 8 and 17 months and its role in communication with mother

ABSTRACT Objective The tendency to vocalize toward objects is ubiquitous among young infants. However, little is known about the range of this tendency and its contribution to language development. Therefore, this longitudinal study objective was to explore the role of three forms of vocal behavior (vocalization, babbling, and speech) directed toward objects in communication with caregiver. Method To measure the spontaneous usage of vocal behaviors, 14 infants observed for 9 months and between the ages of 8 and 17 months, in their natural home environments once a month for a one-hour session with their mothers sitting nearby. Results A total of 1,961 vignettes were gathered and analyzed. It was found that, among the three forms of vocal behavior, object-directed vocalization was the most extensive at the age of 8 months. Repeated measures analysis showed that the frequency of each type of vocal output directed toward an object was associated with a rate of similar vocal output that was later directed toward the mother. Conclusions The discussion explains the change in vocal behavior rates and discusses the role of auditory feedback and contribution of the engagement with objects to explain the role of object-directed vocal outputs in later communication with others. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic (1) Between the ages of 8 and 17 months, infants produce three types of vocal outputs:vocalisation (consonants and consonant-vowel repetition), babbling (baba, dada) and speech (one-word utterances). (2) Infants may direct their vocal outputs towards an object or a caregiver. (3) Vocal outputs play a key role in language development through auditory feedback when infants vocalise when alone and through caregivers’ verbal responses. What this topic adds (1) Vocalisation towards objects was the predominant tendency until infants approached their first birthday. (2) There is an association between the rate of object-directed vocalisation and later mother-directed vocalisation. (3) Object-directed vocalisation is an opportunity for rehearsing and mastering lingual forms that befit language development.

Holophrastic Utterances: Types and Meaning Dimensions in Igbo

Linguistics, in its study of language, brings out the essential role communication plays in the daily lives of human beings. The roles are particularly revealed in semantics, the study of meaning. These meanings have as much different shades as they are used for interaction at the different levels of word, phrase and sentence. It is against this background that this paper focuses on “Holophrastic Utterances: Types and Semantic Dimensions in Igbo”. One of the objectives of the study is to make known the meaning of adult holophrastic expressions. The study is also purposed to categorize such utterances, reveal their contexts of usage and their dimensions of meaning in Igbo. The approach adopted for the study is descriptive. And it is the Use Theory of Meaning that guides the study. The research discovers that adult holophrastic utterances are such that go beyond the involvement of children’s type of simple one-word utterances used in their stages of development to embrace the use of such single words by adults to reveal the social or common background they share in their interactional relationships. It is the expression of a complex of ideas in a single word or in a fixed phrase. The holophrastic utterances have been discovered to be classifiable into interrogative, affirmative, consolatory, greeting, appeal, appreciative, disapproval, advisory, imperative and condemnation. It has also been found out that the names of the different classes are synonymous with their contexts and purposes.

An ultra-long new onset refractory status epilepticus: Winning the battle but losing the war?

New onset refractory status epilepticus (NORSE), is a rare and challenging condition occurring in previously healthy people. The etiology often remains undiscovered and is frequently associated with an unfavorable outcome. We report the electroclinical and neuroradiological evolution of an ultra-long case of NORSE of unknown etiology. A 38-year-old woman with a prodrome of fever, vomiting and diarrhea was admitted to our Intensive Care Unit for refractory convulsive status epilepticus (SE). Her past medical history was unremarkable. Extensive examinations were negative for potential viral, autoimmune and metabolic etiologies. Despite multiple therapeutical attempts with antiseizures medications, anesthetics and immunotherapy, seizures persisted. After nearly 6 months of enduring seizures, SE finally ceased and the patient gradually recovered to a minimum state of awareness. She was then able to communicate through one-word utterances and to understand simple tasks. At a three-years follow-up, she developed multifocal drug-resistant epilepsy, subcortical myoclonus and severe spastic quadraparesis, becoming completely dependent for activities of daily living. To our knowledge, this represents one of the longest cases of NORSE with final status resolution at this time. However, ultra-long SE in this case led to severe and disabling neurological sequelae. Future studies focused on disease modifying treatments for refractory SE are needed.

Production of Persian Morphosyntactic Structures Based on P-LARSP: Comparing Children With/Without Hearing Loss

Objective Despite all advancements in hearing amplification, screening, and interventions, concerns still exist about the language outcomes in children with mild to severe hearing loss. The present study aimed to investigate the production of inflectional morphemes, phrase, and clause structures of children with Moderately Severe Hearing Loss (MSHL) and compare with those of the children with Normal Hearing (NH). Materials & Methods The study participants were 88 NH children, aged 2-5 years, and 10 MSHL children, aged 5-6 years. They were recruited by a convenient sampling method. Speech therapists collected language samples in a free play context of the study children, and then the language samples were transcribed and segmented according to P-LARSP (language assessment, remedy, and screening procedure). Of 100 analyzable units, the speech therapists identified, allocated, and counted 14 inflectional morphemes and all clause and phrase structures in each language sample. Results Children with MSHL used significantly fewer numbers of inflectional morphemes (P=0.004), verb/complement+personal pronoun (P=0.009), and prefix/mi/as a tense marker (P=0.025), lower mean length of morpheme/analyzable utterances (P=0.003), higher percentages of one-word utterances (P=0.001), and lower numbers of clause structures in stage V (P=0.002) compared with NH children aged 4-5 years. While the types of clause structures in children with MSHL were similar to those in NH children aged 24-36 months. However, the types of produced inflectional morphemes were restricted compared with all groups of children with NH. Conclusion The present study revealed that children with MSHL are behind younger children with NH in grammatical aspects of the Persian language. They used simpler clauses, limited numbers, and types of inflectional morphemes, as well as clause and phrase structures, and mainly relied on one-word utterances. Continued monitoring of grammatical outcomes is warranted, considering that children who are MSHL are at increased risk for language problems.

Speech intelligibility of children with an auditory brainstem implant: a triple-case study

ABSTRACT Auditory brainstem implantation (ABI) is a relative recent development in paediatric hearing restoration. Consequently, young-implanted children’s productive language has not received much attention. This study investigated speech intelligibility of children with ABI (N = 3) in comparison to children with cochlear implants (CI) and children with typical hearing (TH). Spontaneous speech samples were recorded from children representing the three groups matched on cumulative vocabulary level. Untrained listeners (N = 101) rated the intelligibility of one-word utterances on a continuous scale and transcribed each utterance. The rating task yielded a numerical score between 0 and 100, and similarities and differences between the listeners’ transcriptions were captured by a relative entropy score. The speech intelligibility of children with CI and children with TH was similar. Speech intelligibility of children with ABI was well below that of the children with CI and TH. But whereas one child with ABI’s intelligibility approached that of the control groups with increasing lexicon size, the intelligibility of the two other children with ABI did not develop in a similar direction. Overall, speech intelligibility was only moderate in the three groups of children, with quite low ratings and considerable differences in the listeners’ transcriptions, resulting in high relative entropy scores.

CHILDREN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION PROCESS

This research discusses a case study of children in acquiring their first language at age 18 months old in Bukittinggi. The process deals with some stages namely cooing, babbling, holophrastic, the two-word stage, telegraphic stage, and multiword stage. The purpose of this study is focused on how the children learn the language in the real life. To find out the answer of the problem in this research, the researcher uses the related theories, they are Lyons (1981), Varshney (2003), Chomsky (2009), Bolinger (2002), Gleason (1998), Steinberg (2003), Fromkin (1983), Bolinger (2002) and Steinberg (2003). This research is conducted with descriptive qualitative research where the subject and object is taken from the children at age 18 months old in Bukittinggi. The researcher takes the observed baby named Azka as the subject and gets the data by observation and video recording. After the data had been collected, the researcher finds out that Azka was 18 months old baby who was in holophrastic functions: the one-word utterances stage of language development. Finally, parents’ role is important to develop the children language. The parents should build interaction with their child to know their child’s language development. Besides that, the researcher suggests the parents to say the right pronunciation to the children.

Pemerolehan Bahasa Anak Usia Satu Sampai Tiga Tahun Desa Bangun Rejo Kabupaten Kutai Kartanegara

This reseach discusses the language acquisition of children aged one to three years in terms of phonological and syntactic acquisition. This study aims to describe the stage of language acquisition for children aged one to three years in phonological and syntactic aspects in Bangun Rejo village, Tenggarong Seberang District. Systematic, factual, and accurate. The collection techniques used were observation techniques, interview techniques, and note-taking techniques.Data analisys techniques used by researchers are data reduction techniques, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The result of reseach on the phonological aspect show that children aged one to three years are able to pronounce vowel sounds [a], [i], [u], [e] and [o]. The consonants that can be pronounced range from seven to fourteen consonants. However, at this age period, children have not been able topronounce the consonant [r] and the pronounciation tends to be replaced by the consonant [l],[w], and [y].In the syntactic aspect, children aged one to three years are gradually able to pronounce one-word utterances, and a series of words which are then formed into declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences.

The cross-linguistic performance of word segmentation models over time.

We select three word segmentation models with psycholinguistic foundations - transitional probabilities, the diphone-based segmenter, and PUDDLE - which track phoneme co-occurrence and positional frequencies in input strings, and in the case of PUDDLE build lexical and diphone inventories. The models are evaluated on caregiver utterances in 132 CHILDES corpora representing 28 languages and 11.9 m words. PUDDLE shows the best performance overall, albeit with wide cross-linguistic variation. We explore the reasons for this variation, fitting regression models to performance scores with linguistic properties which capture lexico-phonological characteristics of the input: word length, utterance length, diversity in the lexicon, the frequency of one-word utterances, the regularity of phoneme patterns at word boundaries, and the distribution of diphones in each language. These properties together explain four-tenths of the observed variation in segmentation performance, a strong outcome and a solid foundation for studying further variables which make the segmentation task difficult.

The purpose shapes the vocative: Prosodic realisation of Colombian Spanish vocatives

The question of whether intonation contours directly signal meaning is an old one. We revisit this question using vocatives in Colombian Spanish (Bogotá). We recorded speakers' productions in three pragmatic conditions – greeting, confirmation-seeking, and reprimand – and compared proper names (vocatives) to situation-specific one-word utterances, such as¡Hola!‘Hello’ (non-vocatives). Intonational analyses showed no direct one-to-one correspondence between the pragmatic conditions and intonation contours: (a) for vocatives, e.g. a rising–falling contour occurred in both greetings and reprimands; and (b) for non-vocatives, e.g. a step-down contour (a.k.a. calling contour) occurred in both greeting and confirmation-seeking conditions. Looking beyond intonation to consider other phonetic variables – spectral tilt, duration, alignment of tonal targets, f0-range, f0-slope – the results showed that the intonation contours that occurred in more than one pragmatic condition differed in phonetic realisation, e.g. rising–falling vocatives showed differences in f0-range of the rise and spectral tilt. However, the corresponding non-vocatives did not show the same differences. Furthermore, vocatives in greeting contexts were realised differently from non-vocatives in greeting contexts. In sum, the pragmatic condition affects the prosodic realisation of (non-)vocatives, but the relationship is complex. The results are discussed in the light of prosodic constructions, leading to the conclusion that the prosodic realisation of vocatives and non-vocatives in Bogotá Colombian Spanish cannot be easily modelled by prosodic constructions.

Quantitative Linguistic Predictors of Infants' Learning of Specific English Words.

To evaluate which features of spoken language aid infant word learning, a corpus of infant-directed speech (M. R. Brent & J. M. Siskind, 2001) was characterized on several linguistic dimensions and statistically related to the infants' vocabulary outcomes word by word. Comprehension (at 12 and 15months) and production (15months) were predicted by frequency, frequency of occurrence in one-word utterances, concreteness, utterance length, and typical duration. These features have been proposed to influence learning before, but here their relative contributions were measured. Mothers' data predicted learning in their own children better than in other children; thus, vocabulary is measurably aligned within families. These analyses provide a quantitative basis for claims concerning the relevance of several properties of maternal English speech in facilitating early word learning.

Teaching Problem Explanations Using Instructive Feedback.

Instructive feedback (IF) is a procedure in which extra information is presented to a participant during the consequence portion of instruction for other skills. Previous research has demonstrated that participants with intellectual disabilities may acquire a portion of non-targeted skills (secondary targets) without explicit instruction when extra information is presented. Previous research has demonstrated that IF has resulted in more efficient instruction for participants with disabilities as a whole. However, few studies have focused on participants with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Additionally, the measures of secondary target acquisition in past research have focused solely on discrete responses (e.g., one-word utterances). The current investigation extended the IF literature related to participants with ASD by including longer verbal responses as secondary targets and assessing maintenance for both primary and secondary targets. Across three participants, IF resulted in the acquisition of at least a portion of secondary targets without explicit teaching. For two participants, additional instruction was required before IF resulted in acquisition of secondary targets. Across all three participants, gains observed for both primary and secondary targets in intervention were maintained.

Fundamental frequency movements in one-word imperatives

F0 contours in Spanish declarative and imperative sentences have traditionally been described as identical and it has not been until recently that several phonetic variables have been identified as markers of imperativity. These include higher overall F0s, early peak alignments in pre-nuclear pitch-accents, upstepped nuclear pitch-accents and marginal use of high boundary tones. Since previous analyses have concentrated on utterances with multiple pitch-accents, not much is know about productions with just one word. This study focuses on one-word utterances given the tendency of imperatives to be short and taking into account that some of the aforementioned phonetic markers cannot be used with a sole pitch-accent. The analysis of 117 declarative sentences and 256 imperatives produced by eight Spanish speakers demonstrated that in cases where declaratives and imperatives share the same contour (L+>H*L%), the latter tend to have higher F0 peaks (Wilcoxon signed-rank test; p<0.000). Besides, 32.4% of the imperatives showed F0 contours ending in high boundary tones, a marker not used in declaratives and only marginally found in imperatives with multiple pitch-accents. Current findings suggest that when segmental material limits F0 movements, speakers look for alternative phonetic strategies to distinguish between declaratives and imperatives.

Affective prosody in European Portuguese: Perceptual and acoustic characterization of one-word utterances

A perceptual and acoustic characterization was provided on the expression of liking and disliking in the European Portuguese language. Thirty participants identified vocal patterns and judged the intensity of expressed affect in one-word items recorded by six untrained speakers. Listeners consistently associated vocal profiles with the two emotional patterns of liking and disliking. However, liking intonation was easier to recognize than disliking intonation. The feature most commonly associated with liking intonation was a wider and higher F0 pattern and a rising-falling contour. For disliking, the results revealed a flatter melodic pattern with a fall into the stressed syllable yielding a low plateau. In sum, both prosodic patterns showed different and consistent correlates.

Do gestures pave the way?: A systematic review of the transitional role of gesture during the acquisition of early lexical and syntactic milestones in young children with Down syndrome

Expressive language problems are common among children with Down syndrome (DS). In typically developing (TD) children, gestures play an important role in supporting the transition from one-word utterances to two-word utterances. As far as we know, an overview on the role of gestures to support expressive language development in children with DS is lacking. This systematic review aims to synthesize the current state of empirical evidence on the role of gestures during the acquisition of early lexical and syntactic milestones in young children with DS. A systematic literature search was performed using Pubmed, Scopus, PsycINFO and Web of Science databases. A total of 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. Results show that children with DS produce the same gestures and go through the same early expressive language stages of development as TD children. For children with DS, however, developmental stages are significantly delayed and, most importantly, the stage of supplementary gesture-plus-word combinations is rarely observed. Incorporating both verbal communication and gestures in daily communication between the child with DS and his/her parent might facilitate the child’s transition from one-word utterances to two-word utterances. Such activities should be incorporated into early language intervention programs.

A case study on the communication of older adolescents

This study compared the communication of two older male adolescents (aged 17 and 19 years) with each other (peer interaction) and with a teacher (non-peer interaction) in three different types of activity (casual conversation, providing/listening to a recount and collaborative problem-solving). Conversation analysis, selected analyses from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics and social psychology (communication accommodation theory) were applied in data analysis. Peer interaction showed fewer questions, fewer challenging moves and the absence of divergent accommodation strategies. In the non-peer interaction, the teacher’s higher number of turns, questions and interruptions appeared to influence the opportunity for adolescent contribution to the interactions. Some aspects of language use by each adolescent – mean turn length, use of one-word utterances and sarcasm – were consistent across communication partner and activity. The methodology is suggested to provide a suitable procedure for use in similar research with older adolescents who have traumatic brain injury.

Prevalence of speech and communication disorders in children with CP

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common cause of physical impairment in children. The physical disabilities have been the hallmark of CP for a long period of time. Fortunately, over the last few years more attention has been deservedly focused on the associated impairments of CP. This is not only reflected by the revised definition of CP in 2007, or by using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework to provide a functional approach for daily activity and participation of the child with CP, but also by more studies reporting on associated impairments of CP. The severity of the motor impairment, as well as the associated impairments, such as disturbances of sensation, perception, cognition, communication, and behavior, are different for each child with CP resulting in a large variability in functioning in all domains. The widely used and adapted classification systems (Gross Motor Function Classification System and Manual Ability Classification System) provide a more detailed and straightforward description of the level of the gross and fine motor skills of children with CP. In contrast, a classification system for communication is currently being developed and implemented. In addition, clinical studies reporting on level of communication skills or speech and language abilities of children with CP are still limited or dated. The study of Sigurdardottir and Vik is to be commended for the effort to report on speech, expressive language, and verbal cognition of preschool children with CP in Iceland. This study is a valuable contribution to the trend of increasing interest in communication abilities in children with CP. As the study highlights too, it is important to distinguish between communication, speech, (expressive) language, and verbal cognition. Because of the multiple aspects that accompany communication and language, it is necessary to use a detailed description of both elements in order to establish more detailed comparison of results between different (future) studies. The study by Sigurdardottir and Vik reports that 84% of the children communicated verbally. However, in this study, children using sentences (or phrases of at least three words) or producing one-word utterances were considered verbal communicators. This is effective in making a clear distinction between a verbal and non-verbal group, but doesn’t yield the impaired language skills that still exist when 5-year-old children only communicate with one-word utterances, phrases, or three-word sentences. Sixteen percent of the children were non-verbal while in a similar study of Andersen et al. (not referred to by the authors), 28% of the children had severely impaired or no speech. A distinction between normal, impaired but understandable, and severely impaired or no speech (as used in Andersen et al.) would enhance clarity and insights of prevalence of speech and communication disorders in children with CP. Another matter of concern is that of the 21 children using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) methods, none used technology with speech output and no children used AAC methods to express phrases. Similar findings are reported in the study of Andersen et al. where only 28 (34%) of 82 children with severely or no speech communicated with the help of pictures or pictograms. There is a compelling need in the interests of the child with severe CP to investigate why this is the case. Furthermore, it is a challenge to achieve early introduction and continued use of AAC devices for children with difficulties in communication abilities. More reports and detailed studies of the communication, speech, and language skills of children with CP can contribute to the importance of these topics and underline the need of early interventions and adequate assessment tools (intellectual and language assessment of severely affected children with unintelligible or no speech is difficult) to investigate, improve, and optimize the communication, speech and language skills of children with CP. The authors of the present study are encouraged to continue with their research and conduct follow-up studies with more in-depth analyses in this matter.

Speech, expressive language, and verbal cognition of preschool children with cerebral palsy in Iceland

The aim of this study was to describe speech, expressive language, and verbal cognition of children with cerebral palsy (CP). A population study included 152 Icelandic children with congenital CP (74 males, 78 females; mean age 5y 5mo, range 4y-6y 6mo). Children who spoke in sentences, phrases, or one-word utterances were categorized as verbal. Speech was classified as normal, mild dysarthria, or severe dysarthria. Cognition was reported as IQ (Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence - Revised) or developmental quotient (DQ). Most children (81%) had spastic CP and bilateral symptoms (76%); 74 (49%) were at Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) level I, 27% at levels II and III, and 24% at levels IV and V (p<0.001). One hundred and twenty-eight children (84%) communicated verbally whereas 24 were nonverbal. Nonverbal status and severe dysarthria were associated with greater motor impairment (GMFCS; p<0.001). Twenty-five children (16%) had severe dysarthria. Most (88%) of the nonverbal children had multiple disabilities compared with 18% of the verbal group (p<0.001). Median (interquartile range) verbal IQ was 93 (73-104) and performance IQ 77 (61-94; p<0.001). Sixty-eight children (45%) had normal verbal cognition and almost a quarter of the children with severe dysarthria had a full-scale IQ/DQ of 70. Most children with CP express sentences and almost half of them have normal verbal IQ. Nonverbal status frequently indicates multiple impairments whereas severe dysarthria may be associated with normal cognition.