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PubMed1981

Learning words using traditional orthography and the symbols of Rebus, Bliss and Carrier.

This study compared the learning of words represented in traditional orthography (T.O.) and in the logographic symbols of Rebus, Bliss, and Carrier. Subjects, 36 preschool children ages 4.3 to 5.4, were presented a short task requiring the learning of 15 words in one of the four graphic conditions, Rebus, Bliss, Carrier, to T.O. The results showed that the logographic symbols as a group were significantly easier to learn than T.O., the partially iconic systems of Rebus and Bliss were significantly easier to learn than the Carrier symbols, and Rebus symbols were significantly easier to learn than Bliss symbols. Implications for the instructional use of logographic systems are discussed.

Child Language↗

PubMed1981

Black English and standard American English constrasts in consonantal development of four and five-year old children.

Four- and five-hear-old black and white children of black English and standard American English backgrounds, respectively were administered a standard articulation test. A contrastive analysis revealed phonological differences in consonantal development between the two dialectal groups. However, contrasts were reflected more in number of developmental errors than in form of errors. Thus, the extent of differences noted between adult phonologies of black English and standard American English were less evident in emerging phonologies since unique error types were not exclusively characteristic of either group. There findings have implications for articulation testing of black English speaking children who have not acquired their adult phonology.

Black or African American↗

PubMed1984

Untrained acquisition of /s/ in a phonologically disordered child.

The untrained /s/ productions of a phonologically disordered child were followed over a period of several months as she produced /s/ in imitated words and in spontaneous connected speech. For this child, as has been reported in the literature for children acquiring phonology normally, /s/ occurred earliest in the word-final position, appearing in word-initial position only several weeks later. Two word-medial, or intervocalic, contexts were compared: (a) monomorphemic words in which /s/ is word- and morpheme-medial (e.g., lasso); and (b) bimorphemic words in which /s/ is word-medial but morpheme-final (e.g., missing). In this latter group, a grammatical inflection or morpheme was added to a morpheme that ends with /s/. Correct responses to the intervocalic position where /s/ occurred at a morpheme boundary (i.e., in inflected morphemes) occurred earlier and more frequently than responses to single-morpheme intervocalic position. The variability of the child's productions over time is examined and discussed.

Child Language↗

PubMed1988

Phonetic inventories of 2- and 3-year-old children.

This report provides quasi-longitudinal independent analysis data on two groups of 10 children at 2:0 (years:months), 2:5, 2:9, and 3:3. The analysis included word-initial and word-final phonetic inventories of consonant singletons and clusters and a summary of the relative frequency of seven word shapes. The results indicated that these children were gradually "filling in the gaps" with sounds previously reported to be lacking in slightly younger children.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1988

Otitis media in early childhood and its relationship to later phonological development.

The relationship between otitis media during the first 3 years of life and subsequent speech development was examined in 55 socioeconomically disadvantaged children who attended a research day-care program. The children were participants in a longitudinal study of child development in which the number of episodes of otitis media and the duration of each otitis episode were reported prospectively from infancy. Standardized tests of speech were administered between the ages of 2 1/2 and 8 years. No significant relationship was found between otitis media in early childhood and number of common phonological processes or consonants in error used during the preschool years. However, the number of days of otitis media before age 3 was associated with the total number of phonological processes used by children between the ages of 4 1/2 and 8 years. Although these findings suggest that phonological processes after age 4 1/2 tend to drop out more slowly for children with a history of otitis media than of children without histories, no consistent patterns were observed for individual phonological processes or for the total number of consonants in error in this age range.

Child↗

PubMed1981

The relation between age and mean length of utterance in morphemes.

The relationship between child age and mean length of utterance measured in morphemes (MLU) was studied in a sample of 123 middle- to upper-middle-class midwestern children, aged 17 to 59 months, conversing with mothers in free play. A significant correlation was found between age and MLU: r = .88. Age accounted for 78% of the variance when MLU was regressed on age; and MLU accounted for 77% of the variance when age was regressed on MLU. Significant nonlinear components accounted only for an additional 1% and 3% (respectively) of the variance. Ranges within one standard deviation (SD) were estimated for predicted MLUs and derived for predicted ages on the basis of linear regression. MLU increased at an average rate of 1.2 morphemes per year; predicted variability in predicted MLU increased with age. These findings can play a useful role in three activities when the children studied are from populations similar to the one sampled here, and MLUs are obtained in the same way. They can aid in (1) finding children whose development of productive syntax requires further diagnostic evaluation; (2) finding children at a particular linguistic stage quickly; and (3) predicting the age most likely to be associated with a given MLU. The substitution of local MLU norms, sampled from the population and ages of clinical interest, can further sharpen these evaluations.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1981

Prepositional marking of source-goal structure and children's comprehension of English passives.

Maratsos and Abramovitch (1975) argued that the presence of a preposition is the major cue for the passive interpretation of sentences by children. Experiment 1 of the present study demonstrates that the semantics of the preposition are more important than the syntactic form-class: In an otherwise passive frame (the giraffe is tickled ... the camel), from elicits as many passive interpretations from preschoolers as the usual by, whereas to elicits primarily active interpretations. The results of Experiment 2 with younger children show that from actually may be a stronger elicitor of the passive interpretation than by. This linkage between the semantics of the preposition and the syntax of the sentence is interpretable in the perspective of the similarity between source-goal and agent-patient structures, as explicated by case grammar.

Child↗

PubMed1981

Disfluencies of normally speaking two-year-old children.

The spontaneous verbal output of 33 2-year-old children was analyzed to identify disfluencies. The results showed large individual variability and no significant sex differences. A substantial number of children were disfluent only infrequently. Certain disfluency types not reported in previous studies of 2-year-olds were exhibited by the children. The most prominent disfluency element was repetition of short segments, one syllable or less.

Child Language↗

PubMed1982

The pragmatic function of children's questions.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the pragmatic function of preschool children's spontaneously produced questions. Twenty-four normal children between the age of 2 and 5 years were observed in a variety of situations at their day-care centers. Questions produced during these observation periods were categorized by pragmatic function. The three functional categories were information seeking, conversational, and directive. The distribution of the questions among the three pragmatic functions differed with age. The major function of the questions produced by the 2- and 3-year-old subjects was clearly information seeking, but the 4- and 5-year-olds' questions were more evenly distributed among the functional categories. The 4-year-olds used a high percentage of conversational questions in comparison to the other age groups. The children's question use appeared to follow the principle of using new forms for old functions and old forms for new functions.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1982

Longitudinal studies of disfluencies in two-year-old children.

Spontaneous speech samples of 500 words were recorded three times at 4-month intervals from 33 normally speaking children. A fourth speech sample was recorded from the 13 youngest children in the group after an additional 4-month interval (one year after the beginning of the study). There were indications in the data that the peak number of speech disfluencies occurred at the later part of age 2 or at the beginning of age 3. Results also showed that there was a continuous reduction in disfluencies for the group as a whole. However, the 13 younger 2-year-olds and the 20 older 2-year-olds exhibited dissimilar developmental trends of disfluency. Large individual differences were observed during the period of the study. Many children showed large fluctuations in the number of disfluencies from one testing period to the next. A short episode of stuttering was observed in one subject. Overall, it appeared that the year between age 2 and 3 is an unstable period in speech development as far as disfluency is concerned.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1986

A reconsideration of the relation between age and mean utterance length.

Although a linear relationship between age and utterance length during the preschool years has been reported, that result was only partially replicated from age 2 to 5 years in two new research samples, one cross-sectional and the other longitudinal in design. Instead, a deceleration in age curves, particularly beyond about 36 months, was observed in each sample. Some explanations and implications of the findings are discussed from normative and developmental viewpoints.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1992

Young children's idiom comprehension: trying to get the picture.

Young children (3.5-6.5 years of age) were tested for their comprehension of 10 common idioms in context and no-context conditions. Results revealed a significant linear trend for children to make more literal responses with increasing age. Children of this age did not find the story contexts helpful in interpreting the idioms. A range of comprehension scores was found among the individual idioms, but semantic transparency (as judged by adults) was not related to comprehension. Child-internal and methodologic variables influencing idiom comprehension are discussed.

Child↗

PubMed1992

Locus equations as an index of coarticulation for place of articulation distinctions in children.

Locus equations were investigated as a phonetic index for children's production of stop + vowel tokens. Locus equations are straight-line regression fits to data points formed by plotting onsets of F2 transitions along the ordinate and their corresponding midvowel nuclei along the abscissa. Such functions for adult speech have been found to be extremely linear with slope and y-intercept values contrastively distinctive across place of articulation. Sixteen children, aged 3-5 years, produced /bVt/, /dVt/, and /gVt/ tokens embedded in a carrier phrase and repeated in randomized order a minimum of three times. Six medial vowel contexts were used [i, I, ae, [symbol: see text], a, u]. Both individual and group mean scatterplots were extremely linear and highly remniscent of adult prototypes. While labial and velar slopes exhibited some degree of overlap, labial versus alveolar and alveolar versus velar slopes were significantly different. All y-intercepts as a function of place of articulation were significantly different. Compared to adult norms, intersubject variability of slope and y-intercept ranges were greater for children. Locus equations can provide a phonetic descriptor for a child's attainment of stop place categories seeking to achieve the adult standard of a balance between coarticulatory adjustments and contrastive distinctiveness.

Child Development↗

PubMed1993

Developmental patterns of duration discrimination.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the auditory perceptual abilities of children are characterized by an age-related improvement in duration discrimination. Forty children, ages 4 to 10 years, and 10 adults served as subjects. Difference limens were obtained using a 350-msec broadband noise burst as the standard stimulus in a three-interval forced-choice paradigm. Data were characterized by significant differences between the performances of the 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds and those of the adults. Acquisition of adult-like discrimination performance was demonstrated between the ages of 8 and 10 years.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed1993

Phonologic error distributions in the Iowa-Nebraska Articulation Norms Project: word-initial consonant clusters.

The errors on word-initial consonant clusters made by children in the Iowa-Nebraska Articulation Norms Project (Smit, Hand, Freilinger, Bernthal, & Bird, 1990) were tabulated by age range and frequency. The error data show considerable support for Greenlee's (1974) stages in the acquisition of clusters: the youngest children show cluster reduction, somewhat older children show cluster preservation but with errors on one or more of the cluster elements, and the oldest children generally show correct production. These stages extended to three-element clusters as well. Typical cluster reduction errors were (a) reduction to the obstruent in obstruent-plus-approximant clusters and (b) reduction to the second element in /s/-clusters. When clusters were preserved, but one member was in error, the error was typically the same as for the singleton consonant. Cluster errors are discussed in terms of theories of phonologic development, including open genetic programs and feature geometry. These data are expected to be useful in evaluation and treatment of disorders of phonology.

Articulation Disorders↗

PubMed1994

Phrase-final syllable lengthening and intonation in early child speech.

This research describes the development of phrase-final prosodic patterns in nine English-speaking children. The intonation feature of interest is the fall in the fundamental frequency of the voice that occurs in the final syllables of statements. The corresponding feature of speech timing is phrase-final lengthening. The test opposing theories about the relationship between intonation and syllable timing, these boundary features were compared in a longitudinal study of the children's speech development between the mean ages of 16 and 25 months. The results suggest that young children acquire the skills that control intonation earlier than final syllable timing skills. The findings support the hypothesis tht final lengthening in the speech of 2-year-olds is a learned prosodic feature that cannot be accounted for as a secondary effect of inherent speech production constraints. In addition, a consistent pattern of final lengthening began to emerge when the children were making the transition to combinatorial speech, suggesting a developmental relationship between the child's learning of speech timing and syntax.

Child Language↗

PubMed1996

Effects of priming on the naming accuracy of preschoolers with word-finding deficits.

Eight preschoolers with word-finding (WF) deficits and 16 controls with normal word-finding abilities (8 preschoolers and 8 adults) named 40 pictured objects under primed and unprimed conditions. Each picture could be correctly labeled with a simple noun or a compound (e.g., cane or walking stick). The primed condition involved semantic primes for both the simple and compound targets as well as a partial lexical prime for the compound targets. All participant groups decreased naming errors when given the primes. Two results indicated that the participants made use of the lexical primes. The first was a shift in form of correct responses from simple nouns in the unprimed condition to compound nouns in the primed condition. The second was an increase in errors that incorporated the lexical prime in the primed condition. There were limits to the benefit that the WF group derived from the primes. First, the primes did not enable the WF group to compensate fully for their naming problems. The gap between the error rates of the WF group and the control groups was not reduced in the primed condition. Second, the quality of errors made by the WF group did not improve in response to primes. Compared to the controls, the WF group made proportionately more errors that indicated no access to the target neighborhood (particularly "I don't know" responses) in the unprimed condition. With primes, the controls further reduced their use of these errors, but the WF group did not. When members of the control groups did make errors, they were more likely than the WF children to produce a word substitution that bore a close semantic, visual, or phonological relation to the target in both unprimed and primed conditions. These limitations on the benefit of priming for participants in the WF group suggest deficiencies in size, elaboration, or organization of their lexicons.

Child Language↗

PubMed1997

The nature of word-finding errors of preschoolers with and without word-finding deficits.

Twelve preschoolers with word-finding deficits (WF) and their age-matched normally developing (ND) peers participated in three tasks requiring word finding: the noun-naming and verb-naming subtests of the Test of Word Finding (TWF-N, TWF-V) and story retelling. The general error profiles of the two subject groups were similar. Semantic errors were always more common than phonological errors and were typically more common than unrelated errors (e.g., "I don't know" responses). The difference in proportions of semantic and phonological substitutions constitutes developmental evidence for lemma and lexeme distinctions as proposed in adult-based models of lexical storage. Furthermore, the predominance of errors that bore semantic relations to their targets produced by both ND and WF groups suggests an early and robust organization of lexical storage into a network of related information. Despite similarities between the two subject groups, the word-finding deficits of the WF group were manifested in two ways. First, compared to the ND group, the WF group demonstrated significantly higher rates of naming errors on all three tasks; second, they demonstrated significantly different proportions of error types on two of the three tasks. Specifically, the WF group produced a lower proportion of related errors on the TWF-V and a lower proportion of semantic errors on the story-retell task. One clinical implication of these findings concerns measurement of treatment outcomes. A reduction in the number of errors as well as a shift in the error profile towards higher proportions of related errors, especially semantic errors, may indicate progress in word-finding development.

Child Language↗