Ingressive speech errors: a service evaluation of speech sound therapy for a child aged 4;6

Background: A pattern of ingressive substitutions for word-final sibilants can be identified in a small number of cases in child speech disorder, with growing evidence suggesting it is a phonological difficulty, despite the unusual surface form. Phonological difficulty implies a problem with the cognitive process of organising speech in to sound contrasts. Aims: To evaluate phonological therapy approaches in the remediation of non-pulmonic speech errors. Thus, adding to evidence concerning the nature of ingressive substitutions and their remediation, whilst highlighting their occurrence within child speech disorder population for practising and training Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs). Methods & Procedures: Child KO, a boy aged 4;6, was identified through a screening of speech, language and communication needs at his school. Word-final, non-pulmonic-egressive substitutes for fricatives and plosives were identified using the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP). Treatment took place in five, weekly school-based sessions with a care-giver present, and targeted two phonemes /f/ and /ʃ/ in word-final position. Word-final /s/ was monitored throughout to capture any change in other word-final fricatives. Phonemes /ɡ/ and /p/ were used as controls, as no change was expected in word-final plosives as a result of therapy targeting fricatives. Production of single-words in the DEAP, pre and post therapy were transcribed by two independent therapists, (transcription agreement was 86.6% (pre) and 83.7% (post), with all 140 consonants within the DEAP transcribed), and change in consonants correct was analysed using a Wilcoxon test. Picture description tasks and telling of familiar stories, were videoed post therapy to analyse use of word-final fricative egression in connected speech. Outcome & results: Percentage consonants correct in single words post-treatment was significantly higher than pre-treatment at single-word level. Generalisation of target fricatives into connected speech, and modest generalisation of non-target phonemes occurred. Conclusions & Implications: Although ingressive speech sounds are largely absent in the sound system of English, they do occur as speech sound errors in child speech disorder and respond to phonological therapy within the context of home and school environment. Therefore, training in the phonetic identification of speech sounds outside the system of English is essential. Additionally, non-lexical factors associated with ingression also influence the child’s intelligibility and should be explored further in future research

Speech articulation in children with Williams syndrome or 7q11.23 duplication syndrome.

Williams syndrome (WS) and 7q11.23 duplication syndrome (Dup7) are associated with communication disorders (Huffman et al., 2013). However, articulatory accuracy has not been systematically examined in these populations. The dissertation involved two studies. Using standardized citation assessment, Study 1 addressed articulatory accuracy with regard to age norms and differences between groups. Results indicated that for both groups, (a) consonant accuracy was significantly below expectations, (b) older children pronounced consonants with significantly better accuracy than younger children, (c) children with IQs at or above 70 earned significantly higher articulation standard scores, and (d) for particular groups of consonant sounds, arranged as a function of features of articulation, significant differences were found across consonant groups for (c.1) expected period of acquisition in development, (c.2) articulatory place of production, (c.3) articulatory manner of production, and (c.4) movement transition across consonants within clusters. Study 2 addressed variance relations among speech articulatory accuracy, phonological processing, and particular cognitive and linguistic measures. Articulatory accuracy was shown moderately, to strongly, related to each study variable. For the children with WS, articulatory accuracy contributed unique variance to phonological processing beyond that contributed by verbal short-term memory, spatial ability, and the combined factor of lexical understanding and use. Overall, the results showed children in both groups were significant delayed in consonantal development. Patterns of articulatory accuracy did not differ greatly from those of younger, typically developing children. Furthermore, the findings demonstrated positive relations among articulatory accuracy, phonological processing, intellectual abilities, and vocabulary abilities for children with these syndromes

The efficacy of a language intervention on the acquisition of past tense in children with Down syndrome

Background: Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) experience difficulties with receptive and expressive grammar and specifically morphosyntax. Despite these difficulties, there have been few studies to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention and limited evidence of generalisation to untaught items. / Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of a language intervention on the acquisition of the regular simple past tense (RSPT) in children with DS aged 7-11 years and to explore whether any gains in the use of this grammatical rule will generalise. / Method: A randomised controlled trial evaluated a 10-week intervention, using explicit and implicit methods, designed for children with DS. Fifty-two children with DS aged 7-11 years were randomly allocated into two groups: 1) intervention group and 2) delayed intervention group. All children were assessed at three timepoints: preintervention (t1), after the intervention group had received the intervention (t2), and 12-14 weeks later (after the delayed intervention group had received the intervention) (t3). The intervention was delivered by trained teaching assistants (TAs) in daily 20-minute sessions. / Results: The intervention group made significantly greater gains at t2 on a composite measure of the use of the RSPT (d=1.63). These gains were maintained 12-14 weeks later at t3 when the delayed intervention group also made similar gains. The use of the RSPT generalised to untaught regular verbs. In addition, the children made errors of overregularisation on irregular verbs demonstrating they had learnt the grammatical rule. Generalisation to other tense morphemes (e.g., the third person singular) did not occur. / Conclusions: An intervention, using explicit and implicit methods, was successful in teaching children with DS to use a grammatical rule. Furthermore, the children were able to generalise this rule to untaught items. This provides evidence for intervention targeting morphosyntax and the feasibility of training TAs to deliver this intervention

Evaluation of core vocabulary therapy for deaf children: Four treatment case studies

This study evaluated whether core vocabulary intervention (CVT) improved single word speech accuracy, consistency and intelligibility in four 9−11-year-old children with profound sensori-neural deafness fitted with cochlear implants and/or digital hearing aids. Their speech was characterized by inconsistent production of different error forms for the same lexical item. The children received twice weekly therapy sessions for eight weeks. Fifty target words were drilled and changes in production assessed for accuracy and consistency. Generalization of consistency and accuracy was assessed on non-targeted words. There were four assessment points: six weeks pre-therapy; immediately before therapy; immediately following therapy and six weeks post-therapy. In addition, 10 unfamiliar listeners judged the intelligibility of audio recordings of the children’s speech before and after therapy. The children’s consistency and accuracy of single word production improved following CVT. Consistency generalized to untreated words. Sentence intelligibility ratings improved and more target words were identified after therapy. These case studies suggest that CVT merits further investigation as an effective intervention approach for deaf children, enhancing consistency, accuracy and intelligibility of speech

Language Characteristics of Individuals with Down Syndrome

On average, language and communication characteristics of individuals with Down syndrome (the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability) follow a consistent profile. Despite considerable individual variability, receptive language is typically stronger than expressive language, with particular challenges in phonology and syntax. We review the literature on language and literacy skills of individuals with Down syndrome, with emphasis on the areas of phonology, vocabulary, syntax, and pragmatics. We begin by describing the hearing, oral-motor, cognitive, social, and prelinguistic and early nonverbal communication characteristics of individuals with Down syndrome. We conclude with a discussion of clinical implications and research directions

The Prosodic Profile Of Individuals With Prader-Willi Syndrome

Prosody is an important component of effective communication, playing a major role in language comprehension and expression. Despite its importance, little research has examined prosody in individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), a population that struggles with communication. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to compare prosodic skills in individuals with PWS to individuals with mixed-etiology intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) as well as determine patterns of prosodic strengths and weakness among individuals with PWS. Adolescents and adults with PWS (n = 9) were matched to adults with mixed-etiology IDD (n = 9) on nonverbal ability. Participants completed standardized assessments measuring IQ (Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test – 2nd edition), receptive vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – 4 edition), and prosody (Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication; PEPS-C). Adolescents and adults with PWS performed better than adults with mixed-etiology IDD on the majority of the prosody subtasks. In addition, individuals with PWS demonstrated better prosody comprehension on word-level tasks versus phrase-level tasks. However, the opposite was true for phrase-level tasks; participants with PWS exhibited better prosody expression on phrase-level tasks versus word-level tasks. As the first study to examine prosody in PWS, these results provide foundational information for future research. Further, by identifying prosodic weaknesses comin PWS, the results will have important implications for speech and language therapy outcomes in this population

Down Syndrome and Referential Communication: Understanding and Production

This study aimed to evaluate the ability of referential communication in subjects with Down Syndrome (DS). We evaluated the possibility that the referential communication is the result of a set of cognitive factors, verbal and nonverbal through the evaluation of relationship between cognitive abilities in individuals with DS and typically developing. In particular, we have identified some critical dimensions of communicative function, such as the referential communication, which means the subject's ability to produce o the listener or messages "referentially oriented", ie messages that are characterized by "clarity or ambiguity referential ". The referential communication skills, intended both as production (speaker condition) and as understanding (listener condition). Furthermore, has been decided to deepen their understanding through a test that assesses understanding of the text. This choice stems from the need to investigate whether the understanding of a text for individuals with DS could be easier than the understanding of individual messages. It is assumed in fact, that understanding of a text works as a facilitator in coherent mental representation of the text, compared to a single message

Receptive and expressive prosodic abilities in adults with Down syndrome

Individuals with Down syndrome, a population that often struggles with communication, present a unique linguistic profile of strengths and weaknesses. Almost no research has examined prosody in adults with DS, despite the important role it plays in effective communication. The present study investigated the prosodic profile of seven adults with Down syndrome (18;07-34;11 years) using the Profiling Elements of Prosody for Speech and Communication (PEPS-C), and compared the group’s expressive and receptive prosodic abilities to a group of seven adults with mixed-etiology intellectual and developmental disability (29;02-37;07 years) matched on nonverbal ability. Data analyses showed that the group with Down syndrome had a marginally significant lower score than the group with mixed-etiology intellectual and developmental disability on expressive contrastive stress. The group with Down syndrome also had relative weaknesses in expressive and receptive contrastive stress, expressive affect, and imitation but relative strengths in receptive affect, expressive and receptive turn-end, and expressive boundary. Although these observations mirrored aspects of the linguistic profile of Down syndrome, the results suggest a unique prosodic profile for Down syndrome that is not exclusively determined by their larger linguistic profile

Monolingual and Bilingual Development and Autism Spectrum Disorder

The number of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from bilingual families continues to increase. With 1 in 88 children receiving a diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum, it is important to expand upon current research. This present research study surveyed caregivers regarding their perceptions and experiences of raising a child on the autism spectrum in a bilingual language environment. Information on how families are counseled regarding bilingualism and language development in ASD is limited. Caregivers often find themselves receiving conflicting advice from professionals about whether or not to incorporate bilingualism into the life of their child with ASD; they expressed a need for more information and support. Four common themes resonating through parent responses in this study included feelings of (1) confusion and (2) hesitation, and experiences with (3) inconsistent advice or (4) their child with ASD not having the language capabilities to speak an additional language. A survey was sent to approximately 125 Autism Society of America chapters through email, as well as a few other organizations related to autism and bilingualism. The concern of parents reinforces the pertinent need for continued research for children with ASD who are in bilingual (and multilingual) language environments