Speech Sound Development Research Articles

Gradient measures of children’s speech production: Visual analog scale and equal appearing interval scale measures of fricative goodness.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of speech-sound development utilizing phonetic transcription often show an apparently discontinuous acquisition of speech sounds. Instrumental studies, in contrast, suggest that children acquire speech-sound contrasts gradually. An ideal perceptual-rating measure of children’s production should capture this gradient change in production, correlate well with acoustic data, and be fast and easy both to administer and to score. A previous experiment in our laboratory compared three methods of collecting continuous judgments of children’s consonant productions of /s/ and /∫/: Of the three, visual analog scaling (VAS) correlated best with acoustic parameters. However, as was administered in that experiment, VAS allowed only two-way comparisons between phonemes. To determine whether VAS could be used for multiple-way comparisons, two experiments were conducted. In the first, participants first made a forced choice between two phonemes, then used VAS to make a judgment of the goodness of the phoneme, from perfect to bad. A second experiment was conducted using a seven-point EAI scale in place of the VAS. The results will be correlated with acoustic data as in the previous experiment and will further our knowledge of optimal methods for measuring children’s speech production perceptually.

O.059 Fairbairn–Robin appearance controversial syndrome, 171 cases

Hypernasality is a common problem in cleft care. It should be treated before the age of six, because of the impact it can have on speech sound development in young children. An objective method of nasalance evaluation is nasometry. To decide whether a nasometer test result is normal or abnormal, normative data and cut off points are needed. Normative data for children are not available for every language and age. For Dutch children two sets of Dutch speech stimuli, the Van Zundert sentences or the Moolenaar-Bijl, sentences, are often used in the diagnostic process for hypernasality. Primary goal of this study is to determine normative data and cut off points for two sets of Dutch speech stimuli for Dutch children from four to six years of age. Secondary is to compare those two sets of oral sentences.Children without clefts were recruited from schools. According to their teachers their speech was normal. They were tested with the nasometer with the two sets of speech stimuli. The set from Van Zundert has oral and oronasal sentences, the Moolenaar-Bijl set only has oral sentences.118 children were recruited. Out of these children, 55 produced recording samples which were suitable for analysis. There were no significant differences between age groups or gender. The two different sets of speech stimuli used were significantly different, but the confidence intervals overlapped.Normal nasalance scores of the tested sentences are between 3 and 19% for oral sentences and between 17 and 37% for oronasal sentences. The Moolenaar-Bijl speech sentences are preferred to evaluate hypernasality in young Dutch children, because of the shortness and intelligibility. Normative nasalance scores are applicable to the whole group of children from four to six years of age.

English Speech Sound Development in Preschool-Aged Children From Bilingual English–Spanish Environments

English speech acquisition by typically developing 3- to 4-year-old children with monolingual English was compared to English speech acquisition by typically developing 3- to 4-year-old children with bilingual English-Spanish backgrounds. We predicted that exposure to Spanish would not affect the English phonetic inventory but would increase error frequency and type in bilingual children. Single-word speech samples were collected from 33 children. Phonetically transcribed samples for the 3 groups (monolingual English children, English-Spanish bilingual children who were predominantly exposed to English, and English-Spanish bilingual children with relatively equal exposure to English and Spanish) were compared at 2 time points and for change over time for phonetic inventory, phoneme accuracy, and error pattern frequencies. Children demonstrated similar phonetic inventories. Some bilingual children produced Spanish phonemes in their English and produced few consonant cluster sequences. Bilingual children with relatively equal exposure to English and Spanish averaged more errors than did bilingual children who were predominantly exposed to English. Both bilingual groups showed higher error rates than English-only children overall, particularly for syllable-level error patterns. All language groups decreased in some error patterns, although the ones that decreased were not always the same across language groups. Some group differences of error patterns and accuracy were significant. Vowel error rates did not differ by language group. Exposure to English and Spanish may result in a higher English error rate in typically developing bilinguals, including the application of Spanish phonological properties to English. Slightly higher error rates are likely typical for bilingual preschool-aged children. Change over time at these time points for all 3 groups was similar, suggesting that all will reach an adult-like system in English with exposure and practice.

Early Intervention for Children With Cleft Palate

Clefts of the lip and palate are one of the most frequently occurring birth defects, affecting approximately 1 in 700 births in the United States. Early childhood special educators are often among the first professionals to provide intervention for children with cleft lip and palate. Early intervention for children with clefts often focuses on speech production skills; however, results of recent research suggest that early intervention in language skills including parent training is warranted. A model of early intervention that uses language intervention to facilitate vocabulary and speech sound development is described. This model has been successful in improving productive vocabulary use and speech sound repertoires and shows promising reduction in compensatory articulation errors. Developmentally appropriate application of the model includes provision of direct intervention to children and parent training to promote naturalistic intervention in everyday settings. Strategies for working collaboratively with speech-language pathologists and members of cleft palate and craniofacial multidisciplinary teams are also described. Finally, answers are provided to frequently occurring questions from parents about cleft palate.

Teaching in the Foundation Stage—how current systems support teachers’ knowledge and understanding of children’s speech and language

This paper discusses the knowledge, skills and understandings of Foundation Stage teachers in relation to children’s speech and language development. Results from a questionnaire to 294 teachers reveal limited initial and post qualification training. Teachers’ knowledge of specific aspects of children’s language revealed that key areas for training were centred on the identification of children who may have speech and language difficulties and speech sound development. The discussion centres on how changes to the curriculum in initial teacher training, in the consolidation of the revised Special Educational Needs Code of Practice and in the assessment requirements within the Foundation Stage may impact on teachers’ knowledge of speech and language development and on their ability to identify children who have speech and language difficulties.

Consonant production patterns of young severely language-delayed children with autism

While much attention has been given to documenting the language skills of verbal children with autism, the basic speech sound development patterns of severely language-impaired children with autism are unknown. Previous research has shown that certain consonants are generally produced earlier in development than other consonants, both in typically developing children and in children with language-learning impairments. While several large studies indicate that children with autism who have strong verbal skills have intact phonological development, there is some evidence that children with autism who are more severely language impaired may have abnormal phonological production. This study documents the speech sound development of non-verbal and minimally verbal children with autism. Prompts were administered for each individual speech sound while spontaneous and imitated sounds were recorded and scored. Results indicate that children with autism show the same general speech sound production patterns as typically developing and language-learning impaired children. Learning outcomes: Individuals who read this manuscript will obtain information regarding: (1) normal phonological development, (2) a comparison of speech sound production of a group of 14 children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder with the production of a group of 10 typically developing children, and (3) comparisons of imitated and spontaneous sound production of the children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

Phonological Knowledge in Typical and Atypical Speech–Sound Development

This article discusses 4 types of phonological knowledge: knowledge of the acoustic and perceptual characteristics of speech sounds (perceptual knowledge), knowledge of the articulatory characteristics of speech sounds (articulatory knowledge), higher level knowledge of the ways that words can be divided into sounds and related phonotactic constraints on how sounds can be combined into words (higher level phonological knowledge), and knowledge of the ways that variation in pronunciation can be used to convey social identity (social-indexical knowledge). The first section of the article discusses the nature of these types of knowledge in adults. The second describes how they develop in children with typical language development. The third section outlines how different types of knowledge may be compromised in children with functional speech-sound impairments. Together, these 3 sections serve as a review for practicing clinicians of the types of phonological knowledge that underlie accurate and fluent speech production.

Development of speech sounds and syllable structure of words in Zulu-speaking children

This study investigated development of speech sounds and syllable structure of words in 18 Zulu-speaking children between the ages of 3.0 and 6.2. A 100-word spontaneous conversational sample was elicited from each subject. All samples were transcribed phonetically by a stringent transcription procedure. The UNIBET was used to code the transcription into computer recognisable-symbols. The Phonetic Calculator Program (PCP) analysed the samples in terms of speech sound inventory, syllable structure of words and the frequency of occurrence of speech sounds and syllable structures. The data were processed to allow for the comparison of the findings at three age levels, namely 3.0–4.0 (Group 1), 4.1–5.1 (Group 2) and 5.2–6.2 (Group 3). There was developmental progression, but much speech and syllable structure development seems to occur before the age of 3.0. However, the speech sound inventory and syllable structure inventory were incomplete by the age of 6.2. The nasals, plosives, approximants and fricatives were found to develop earlier than the affricates, clicks and prenasalised consonant sounds. The shorter syllable strings were found to develop earlier than the longer syllable strings. The phonetically more complex sounds and syllable structures were produced more frequently by the older subjects, demonstrating developmental progression. The findings have important clinical implications for the speech-language therapist.

Speech Production of Preschoolers with Cleft Palate

The present investigation was conducted to examine the prevalence of preschoolers with cleft palate who require speech therapy, demonstrate significant nasalization of speech, and produce compensatory articulations. The relationship among these three dependent variables and the independent variables of cleft type and age of primary palatal surgery was also examined. The participants included 212 preschoolers with repaired cleft palate aged 2 years 10 months to 5 years 6 months. Chi-square analyses were performed to examine the relationship between two independent variables (cleft type and age of surgery) and three dependent variables (percentage of children requiring speech therapy, percentage demonstrating moderate to severe hypernasality and receiving secondary management for velopharyngeal insufficiency, and percentage producing glottal/pharyngeal substitutions). Sixty-eight percent of the children were enrolled in (or had previously received) speech therapy. Thirty-seven percent of the children demonstrated moderate-severe hypernasality or had received secondary surgical management for velopharyngeal insufficiency. Chi-square analyses revealed a significant relationship between cleft type and the number of children referred for speech therapy as well as the number of children with significant hypernasality. The analyses also revealed a significant relationship between age of palatal surgery and number of children with significant hypernasality. Despite advances in surgical management and the advantages offered by team care, the majority of preschoolers with cleft palate continue to demonstrate delays in speech sound development that require direct speech therapy. An optimal treatment regimen for these children is one that includes primary palatal surgery no later than 13 months of age.

Phonological development: a normative study of British English‐speaking children

This paper reports a normative study on the phonological development of British English‐speaking children. Speech samples of 684 children, aged between 3;0 and 6;11 years, randomly selected from nurseries and schools in eight different areas throughout the UK, were collected and analysed to obtain normative data. This paper reports on two aspects of speech development: the age of acquisition of sounds (phonetic acquisition) and the age that error patterns were suppressed (phonemic acquisition). It discusses the effects of age, gender and socio‐economic status on speech sound development. The study found that older children had more accurate production and fewer error patterns in their speech. It found no gender differences in the younger age groups. However, in the oldest age group, it found the phonological accuracy measures of girls' better than boys. It found no significant effects of socio‐economic status on any of the phonological accuracy measures.

Spectrographic Measures of the Speech of Young Children with Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate

Twenty-two consecutive children with repaired cleft lip and/or palate [isolated cleft lip (CL) 6, isolated cleft palate (CP) 7, unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) 7, and bilateral cleft lip and palate 2] with a mean age of 27 months underwent spectrographic measures of tape-recorded speech (DSP Sona-Graph digital unit). Controls were 22 age- and sex-matched noncleft children. Data analyzed included (1) the Spanish vocalic variables [a, i, u, e, o]: first formant, second formant, duration, and context; (2) obstruent variables [p, t, k]: burst, voice onset time, and duration, and (3) nasal variables [m]: first formant, second formant, and duration. Statistically significant differences were observed between the CL group and the control group in the first formant of [e] and in the increase of the frequency of the [t] burst. Comparison between UCLP and controls showed differences in the second formant of [a], in the first formant of [o], and in the second formant of [o]. These results suggest a small but significant influence of either the cleft lip or its repair on lip rounding for [o] and [u]. In addition, tongue position differences were most likely responsible for the differences seen with [a] and [e]. Spectrographic differences in the current patients did not contribute to meaningful differences in speech sound development. Individualized care (orthodontics, surgery, speech therapy) in children with cleft lip and/or palate attended at specialized craniofacial units contributes to normalization of speech development.

Phonological Assessment as an Integral Part of Language Assessment

Research indicates that preschool children presenting delayed phonological development are also likely to show delayed development of morphology, syntax, and discourse structure. Moreover, a child's phonological performance is typically better when labeling pictures and speaking individual words than when organizing syntactically more complex utterances as parts of narratives or when speaking in conversations. Such findings motivate us to assess children's speech sound development as an integral part of their abilities to organize language within realistic communication situations. To this end, we engage the preschool child in play and storybook topics that represent every day events. We use oral language scaffolding techniques to prompt the child to talk about sequences of acts within these events. We then describe the child's ability to (a) organize their discourse structure with respect to temporal, causal, and intentional links; (b) express semantic complexity; and (c) utilize conventions of syntax, morphology, and phonology. Our analysis ends with intervention goals that integrate all of these aspects of language.

Are we ready to predict speech development from babble in cleft lip and palate children?

The speech development of nine children with cleft lip/palate was followed longitudinally from nine months to three years of age. The results indicate speech sound development closer to the non-cleft population than previous studies. Nasal fricatives previously not extensively described in the literature may be an experimental stage of developmental babble, which spontaneously reduce. The study has added to the evidence-base for practice in one cleft unit. It may be useful to channel resources at our centre to children who at nine months may be more at risk, i.e. children with bilateral clefts and known developmental delay.

Speech production factors in children using cochlear implants

This presentation will summarize speech intelligibility, sound development, and durational characteristics of 92 children who use multichannel cochlear implants. All children had at least 5 years experience with the device and whose chronological age was 8 or 9 years. Half of the children used auditory-oral modes of communication and the other half used total communication. Speech intelligibility was assessed using 36 sentences of 3, 5, and 7 syllables in length [McGarr (1981)]. Samples were recorded, digitized, edited, randomized, and played to listeners (72 listeners per child). Samples also were phonetically transcribed by three independent raters. In addition, recordings were made of CV syllables in isolation or as the final syllable of a two-syllable word. Data indicated speech intelligibility was significantly higher in the children with auditory-oral modes of communication (p<0.01). Sound development also was significantly higher in children with auditory-oral modes of communication (p<0.01); however, the pattern of sound development was similar in the two groups. Children with less intelligible speech also experienced difficulty in producing CV syllabes in final syllables as indiced by their acoustic measures. Syllables displayed inappropriate durations and formant values approximating schwas. [Work suppported by NIH.]

Developmental Phonological Disorders III

Prior articles in this series provide a descriptive profile of 178 children with developmental phonological disorders (Shriberg & Kwiatkowski, 1994) and predictive correlates of short-term speech-sound normalization in 54 children (Shriberg, Kwiatkowski, & Gruber, 1994). The present article reports findings from a study of 10 children with developmental phonological disorders whose progress was followed at least once yearly for 7 years. Analyses characterize the sequence, rates, and error patterns of long-term speech-sound normalization in relation to developmental perspectives on the nature of children’s phonological disorders. Findings are interpreted to support the hypothesis of a critical period for speech-sound development, with long-term normalization of significant speech delay reaching a chronological age boundary at approximately 8.5 years.

Articulation and Phonology

For many speech-language pathologists, the application of the concepts of phonology to the assessment and treatment of phonologically disordered children has produced more confusion than clinical assistance. At least part of this confusion seems to be due to the expectation that, since new terms are being used, new clinical techniques should differ radically from the old ones. The basic intent of this paper is to show that adopting a phonological approach to dealing with speech sound disorders does not necessitate a rejection of the well-established principles underlying traditional approaches to articulation disorders. To the contrary, articulation must be recognized as a critical aspect of speech sound development under any theory. Consequently, phonological principles should be viewed as adding new dimensions and a new perspective to an old problem, not simply as refuting established principles. These new principles have resulted in the development of several procedures that differ in many respects from old procedures, yet are highly similar in others. Whether phonological approaches are better than existing procedures remains an important, but unanswered question.

Phonological investigation of verbal autistic and mentally retarded subjects

A review of the pertinent literature indicates that autistic children are likely to show normal but delayed development of speech sounds. In contrast, atypical phonological development is suggested by experiments demonstrating that autistic subjects are deficient in their ability to extract the components of structured auditory input. A systematic investigation of the speech sound systems of verbal autistic and mentally retarded children reveals a delay in phoneme acquisition, as well as a relative uniformity of error types in both groups. The autistic subjects, however, differ significantly from the mentally retarded in the phonemic substitutions which they make. Autistic subjects are also characterized by a high correlation between frequency of phonological errors and level of overall language development. The findings are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the autistic group shows a more global delay in language development.

Influence of Age on Black Preschoolers' Nonstandard Performance of Certain Phonological and Grammatical Forms

Phonological and grammatical performance of 60 black preschoolers of lower and middle social status was assessed with spontaneous, paragraph completion, and sentence repetition procedures. Developmental information regarding younger ( Mdn age = 4 yr. 5 mo.) and older ( Mdn age = 5 yr. 5 mo.) black preschoolers' phonological and grammatical performance is provided. Data from comparable white preschoolers set the study within the context of traditional studies of speech sound and grammatical development.

Features of sounds produced by two- to eight-week infants

Sounds recorded on a longitudinal basis from infants of two to eight weeks were classified as cry, discomfort, or vegetative sounds. Five examples of each of these three classes of sounds were selected randomly from the output of three different infants. The selection was made for each of the three infants at two, four, and eight weeks of age. The cry, discomfort, and vegetative sounds were submitted to analysis of auditory and spectrographic features. Duration of segments, that is, portions of an utterance bounded by noise, and the temporal patterning of these segments, i.e., the number occurring in a series and the relative duration of segments within a series, were determined. Significant differences were found across the three sound classes, but not across age levels, with respect to (1) clustering of auditory and spectrographic features, (2) segment duration, and (3) temporal patterning. The possible importance of these findings for speech sound development after eight weeks of age is discussed. [Research Support by NINDS.]

The relationship between IQ and indices of infant speech sound development.

The relationship between IQ and indices of infant speech sound development.