Phonetic variations and sound changes in Hong Kong Cantonese: Diachronic review, synchronic study and implications for speech sound assessment

postprin

Is prenatal mental health problem a risk factor of language impairment of the offspring?

Poster Presentation: no. 010

Level of complexity in processing figurative languages in children

Language and Learning in School Age Children and Adolescents - Session: 1161Theme - Beacons of Inspiration: Innovation to ActionThis study compared the developmental sequence of understanding five types of figurative languages: lie, persuasion, hyperbole, white-lie, and irony in children from ages 5 to 8. Understanding lies was the easiest, followed by persuasion and hyperbole. White lies were often taken as lies, and irony was the most difficult.The Annual 2011 Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), San Diego, CA., 17-19 November 2011. In Program Book of ASHA, 2011, p. 10

Hyperlexia in a Chinese speaking child

This journal vol. entitled: Academy of Aphasia 2011link_to_OA_fulltex

Development of lingual articulations among Cantonese-speaking children

Oral Presentations - Session 3INTRODUCTION: The vocal tract undergoes substantial physical change from early childhood into late childhood, and it is a commonly held belief that many of the speech production issues that appear during the beginning of elementary school are simply a continuation of earlier speech behaviors rather than novel, atypical behaviors. In this paper, we examine the development of lingual articulation as Cantonese-speaking children mature from a young age toward adulthood, with the question as to whether speech production issues during later childhood are indeed a continuation of speech production patterns in early childhood …postprin

Effect of prenatal maternal depression on early speech sound acquisition: a preliminary study

OBJECTIVE: Speech sound disorders (SSD) are the most prevalent childhood communication disorders. Many cases of SSD have an unknown origin. The study investigated the effect of prenatal maternal depression on the offspring's speech sound production. METHOD: Data from 26 mother–child dyads were included in the study. Prenatal maternal depression was assessed by a validated questionnaire during the third trimester of pregnancy. Speech sound production ability was assessed in terms of the number of atypical (non-developmental) speech errors produced in a standardized speech assessment when the children were 2-years-old. RESULTS: Six of the mothers’ questionnaires suggested depression, whereas 20 were within normal limits. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that prenatal depression uniquely accounted for 30.8% of the variance in speech sound acquisition after controlling for the child's sex and postnatal maternal depression level. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal prenatal depression was significantly associated with more atypical speech errors in the offspring at 2 years. The current findings contribute to understanding the etiology of SSD with unknown origin. At a clinical level, prenatal depression could be taken as a risk factor for SSD

Lexical tone and stuttering in Cantonese

© 2018 Taylor & Francis. Cantonese is a tone language, in which the variation of the fundamental frequency contour of a syllable can change meaning. There are six different lexical tones in Cantonese. While research with Western languages has shown an association between stuttering and syllabic stress, nothing is known about whether stuttering in Cantonese speakers is associated with one or more of the six lexical tones. Such an association has been reported in conversational speech in Mandarin, which is also a tone language, but which varies markedly from Cantonese. Twenty-four native Cantonese-speaking adults who stutter participated in this study, ranging in age from 18–33 years. There were 18 men and 6 women. Participants read aloud 13 Cantonese syllables, each of which was produced with six contrastive lexical tones. All 78 syllables were embedded in the same carrier sentence, to reduce the influence of suprasegmental or linguistic stress, and were presented in random order. No significant differences were found for stuttering moments across the six lexical tones. It is suggested that this is because lexical tones, at least in Cantonese, do not place the task demands on the speech motor system that typify varying syllabic stress in Western languages: variations not only in fundamental frequency, but also in duration and intensity. The findings of this study suggest that treatments for adults who stutter in Western languages, such as speech restructuring, can be used with Cantonese speakers without undue attention to lexical tone