Children's Speech Difficulties Research Articles

Methods of Overcoming Speech Disorders in Children (Study of the Experience of Prophet Moses in the Quran)

<p><em>The Qur'an gives instructions to everyone, including various goats. In Islam, a, -l-Quran as a holy book that has medicinal powers (Shifa), especially in everyone who reads and listens to it with confidence. This paper aims to explore and analyze children who have difficulty speaking. Qualitative methods were used in subjects of several children aged 3 to 6 years, data were collected through interviews, observation and documentation of the author's intersubjectivity. Furthermore, interactive model techniques are carried out, namely data collection, data reduction, data presentation and conclusions. The findings explain that speech difficulties have actually been practiced since the time of Prophet Moses who asserted that when Prophet Moses asked Allah for prayers against him, this practice in the Qur'an illustrates that, in practice with methods and beliefs in the Quran has a good influence in overcoming speech difficulties in children</em></p>

The relationship between speech difficulties and brain laterality in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Specific Learning Disorder

Aim: We aimed to examine the behavioral determinants of brain laterality and their associations with speech difficulties in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Specific Learning Disorder (SLD).Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted with a clinical sample of 7-18 years old patients with ADHD and/or SLD diagnosis. Patients’ sociodemographical, developmental and medical information were taken during their clinical interviews. Behavioral determinants of brain laterality were assessed by several motor tasks. These tasks were “handwriting” for handedness, “looking through the telescope” for eyedness, and “hitting the ball or standing on one foot” for footedness.Results: A total of 130 patients participated in the study. Left side preference and crossed laterality were common in patients with SLD (with or without comorbid ADHD) but not in patients with pure ADHD. Left eyedness/footedness were associated with speech disorders (p<0,05).Conclusion: This study has shown that even after controlling for other factors affecting the development of brain laterality SLD, but not ADHD, is associated with left-sided preference and cross laterality. The relationship between speech disorders and left-eyedness/footedness in ADHD and SLD patients suggests that development of brain laterality is actually mediated by speech development.

Speech feature profiles in Swedish 5-year-olds with speech sound disorder related to suspected childhood apraxia of speech or cleft palate

Purpose: To study the occurrence of speech features commonly associated with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) in Swedish children with suspected CAS (sCAS) or Speech Sound Disorder (SSD) related to Cleft Palate and/or Lip (CP ± L). Method: Thirty-four children (4.10–5.11) with SSD related to sCAS (n = 15) or repaired CP ± L (n = 19) participated. Consensus judgement of presence/absence of CAS features in single words were based on a checklist with operationalised definitions. Speech sound production measures were based on semi-narrow phonetic transcription. Intra- and inter-transcriber agreement was determined. Result: Twelve participants (ten with sCAS (67%) and two with CP ± L (11%)) shared a CAS profile of phonemic speech inconsistency for consonants and vowels and a set of four features: vowel error, voicing error, difficulty achieving initial articulatory configurations or transitionary movement gestures and stress errors. The most frequent speech difficulties in children with non-CAS CP ± L (n = 17) were consonant distortion (88%) and hypernasal resonance (76%). Prosodic impairment was rare. Conclusion: A distinct CAS speech feature profile was found for children with CAS, differing in number and distribution compared to children with CP ± L and SSD. CAS was found more frequently in CP ± L and SSD compared to reported estimates of clinical prevalence.

Electropalatography in the assessment and treatment of speech difficulties in children with Down syndrome

Many children with Down syndrome experience significant speech difficulties which in turn affects their speech intelligibility. This paper describes how electropalatography, a computer-based technique which uses visual feedback to alter speech production, is being used at Queen Margaret University, to assess and treat speech difficulties in a group of children and young people with Down syndrome. Encouraging results from a single case are reported.

Cognitive flexibility in children with and without speech disorder

Most children's speech difficulties are `functional' (i.e. no known sensory, motor or intellectual deficits). Speech disorder may, however, be associated with cognitive deficits considered core abilities in executive function: rule abstraction and cognitive flexibility. The study compares the rule abstraction and cognitive flexibility of children with speech disorder and typically developing controls. Three groups of five-year-old children (typically developing, consistent atypical speech disorder and inconsistent speech disorder) were assessed on the Flexible Item Selection Test (Jacques and Zelazo, 2001). Children were shown a set of three cards and asked to select two that matched on one dimension (selection 1: abstraction). Children were then asked to select a different pair of cards that matched on another dimension (selection 2: flexibility). The children with consistent atypical speech disorder performed worse than the other two groups on selections 1 and 2. The children with an inconsistent speech disorder performed similarly to their typically developing peers. Children who use consistent atypical error patterns have difficulties with rule abstraction and flexibility that are not confined to the linguistic system. The results are discussed in terms of the deficits underlying different types of speech disorders.

Book review: Persisting speech difficulties in children: children's speech and literacy difficulties, 3

Book review: Persisting speech difficulties in children: children's speech and literacy difficulties, 3

The contribution of clinical phonetics to the investigation of oracy problems in the classroom

This paper explains how insights from clinical linguistics can be applied to the investigation of oracy problems in the classroom. While the importance of oracy skills at school and beyond is undisputed, there is often a lack of conveniently manageable frameworks for assessing these skills. It is suggested here that methods from phonetics and phonology can be easily and profitably adopted into routine language profiling in schools and that they offer one means of uncovering potential speech difficulties in children. Two main areas are addressed: speech acquisition and speech production skills. The main focus is on the assessment of oracy in the UK, although the role of assessment in US Curriculum Framework is also considered.

Rate, accuracy and consistency: diadochokinetic performance of young, normally developing children

This paper describes the performance of 30 normally developing children in the age range of 3-5 years on silent and spoken diadochokinetic (DDK) tasks. Issues of task design and scoring are explored and the findings are interpreted from a developmental and psycholinguistic perspective. Rate, accuracy and consistency measures of the children's performance are used to make comparisons both with the adult model presented and with each child's own speech sound system. The results show that, in general, accuracy and consistency of response are more sensitive DDK assessment measures for pre-school children than the more traditionally used rate of production. However, in each age group, different profiles of performance emerged which can be used for comparison with children with speech difficulties. It is argued that this normative data is essential for understanding the nature of children's speech difficulties, interpreting DDK assessment results, and for planning appropriate intervention.

Speech disorder in preschool children exposed to Cantonese and English

Speech disorder in monolingual Cantonese- or English-speaking children has been well described in the literature. There appear to be no reports, however, that describe speech-disordered children who have been exposed to both languages. Here we report on the error patterns of two preschool speech-disordered children who were learning two languages. Both children's first language was Cantonese, but they were also exposed to English through the media and child care. Their disorders were of unknown aetiology. The following questions were asked of the data: (a) Do bilingual children, suspected of having speech problems, make errors in Cantonese and English that reflect delay or disorder when compared with normative data on monolingual speech development in each language? (b) How does the children's speech differ from other bilingual children from the same language learning background? (c) Are the children's speech difficulties apparent in both languages? (d) Is the pattern of errors the same in both languages or do language-specific processes operate? The results bear on theories of acquisition, disorder and bilingualism; they also have clinical implications for speech-language pathologists whose caseloads include bilingual preschool children.

Developmental verbal dyspraxia. I: A review and critique.

Developmental verbal dyspraxia is examined from four perspectives: clinical, phonetic, linguistic and cognitive. The paper critically discusses the problems encountered when criteria for identifying acquired speech disorders in the adult population are applied to children's speech difficulties without modifications. It is argued that studies of verbal dyspraxia in children have ignored the unfolding nature of this condition and that a developmental perspective has been lacking in the literature. A need for the inclusion of appropriate control groups and longitudinal case studies is identified. The issue and process of differential diagnosis are addressed and a checklist of criteria for identifying developmental verbal dyspraxia is included. It is noted that this process will inevitably be lengthy with data needed from different aspects of a child's development. Phonetic characteristics alone may not be sufficient to recognise this medical condition with its complex psycholinguistic and educational consequences.