A computational simulation of children's performance across three nonword repetition tests

The nonword repetition test has been regularly used to examine children’s vocabulary acquisition, and yet there is no clear explanation of all of the effects seen in nonword repetition. This paper presents a study of 5-6 year-old children’s repetition performance on three nonword repetition tests that vary in the degree of their lexicality. EPAM-VOC, a model of children’s vocabulary acquisition, is then presented that captures the children’s performance in all three repetition tests. The model represents a clear explanation of how working memory and long-term lexical and sub-lexical knowledge interact in a way that is able to simulate repetition performance across three nonword tests within the same model and without the need for test specific parameter settings

The Right to the Sustainable Smart City

Environmental concerns have driven an interest in sustainable smart cities, through the monitoring and optimisation of networked infrastructures. At the same time, there are concerns about who these interventions and services are for, and who benefits. HCI researchers and designers interested in civic life have started to call for the democratisation of urban space through resistance and political action to challenge state and corporate claims. This paper contributes to an emerging body of work that seeks to involve citizens in the design of sustainable smart cities, particularly in the context of marginalised and culturally diverse urban communities. We present a study involving co- designing Internet of Things with urban agricultural communities and discuss three ways in which design can participate in the right to the sustainable smart city through designing for the commons, care, and biocultural diversity

Testing a word is not a test of word learning

Although vocabulary acquisition requires children learn names for multiple things, many investigations of word learning mechanisms teach children the name for only one of the objects presented. This is problematic because it is unclear whether children's performance reflects recall of the correct name-object association or simply selection of the only object that was singled out by being the only object named. Children introduced to one novel name may perform at ceiling as they are not required to discriminate on the basis of the name per se, and appear to rapidly learn words following minimal exposure to a single word. We introduced children to four novel objects. For half the children, only one of the objects was named and for the other children, all four objects were named. Only children introduced to one word reliably selected the target object at test. This demonstration highlights the over-simplicity of one-word learning paradigms and the need for a shift in word learning paradigms where more than one word is taught to ensure children disambiguate objects on the basis of their names rather than their degree of salience

‘We don't have recipes; we just have loads of ingredients’: explanations of evidence and clinical decision making by speech and language therapists

Rationale, aims and objectives: Research findings consistently suggest that speech and language therapists (SLTs) are failing to draw effectively on research-based evidence to guide clinical practice. This study aimed to examine what constitutes the reasoning provided by SLTs for treatment choices and whether science plays a part in those decisions. Method: This study, based in Ireland, reports on the qualitative phase of a mixed-methods study, which examined attitudes underpinning treatment choices and the therapy process. SLTs were recruited from community, hospital and disability work settings via SLT managers who acted as gatekeepers. A total of three focus groups were run. Data were transcribed, anonymized and analysed using thematic analysis. Results: In total, 48 participants took part in the focus groups. The majority of participants were female, represented senior grades and had basic professional qualifications. Three key themes were identified: practice imperfect; practice as grounded and growing; and critical practice. Findings show that treatment decisions are scaffolded primarily on practice evidence. The uniqueness of each patient results in dynamic and pragmatic practice, constraining the application of unmodified therapies. Conclusion: The findings emerging from the data reflect the complexities and paradoxes of clinical practice as described by SLTs. Practice is pivoted on both the patient and clinician, through their membership of groups and as individuals. Scientific thinking is a component of decision making; a tool with which to approach the various ingredients and the dynamic nature of clinical practice. However, these scientific elements do not necessarily reflect evidence-based practice as typically constructed

Why computational models are better than verbal theories: the case of nonword repetition

Tests of nonword repetition (NWR) have often been used to examine children’s phonological knowledge and word learning abilities. However, theories of NWR primarily explain performance either in terms of phonological working memory or long-term knowledge, with little consideration of how these processes interact. One theoretical account that focuses specifically on the interaction between short-term and long-term memory is the chunking hypothesis. Chunking occurs because of repeated exposure to meaningful stimulus items, resulting in the items becoming grouped (or chunked); once chunked, the items can be represented in short-term memory using one chunk rather than one chunk per item. We tested several predictions of the chunking hypothesis by presenting 5-6 year-old children with three tests of NWR that were either high, medium, or low in wordlikeness. The results did not show strong support for the chunking hypothesis, suggesting that chunking fails to fully explain children’s NWR behavior. However, simulations using a computational implementation of chunking (namely CLASSIC, or Chunking Lexical And Sublexical Sequences In Children) show that, when the linguistic input to 5-6 year old children is estimated in a reasonable way, the children’s data is matched across all three NWR tests. These results have three implications for the field: (a) a chunking account can explain key NWR phenomena in 5-6 year old children; (b) tests of chunking accounts require a detailed specification both of the chunking mechanism itself and of the input on which the chunking mechanism operates; and (c) verbal theories emphasizing the role of long-term knowledge (such as chunking) are not precise enough to make detailed predictions about experimental data, but computational implementations of the theories can bridge the gap

Evaluating the validity of the Automated Working Memory Assessment

The aim of the present study was to investigate the construct stability and diagnostic validity of a standardised computerised tool for assessing working memory: the Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA). The purpose of the AWMA is to provide educators with a quick and effective tool to screen for and support those with memory impairments. Findings indicate that working memory skills in children with memory impairments are relatively stable over the course of the school year. There was also a high degree of convergence in performance between the AWMA and the WISC-IV Working Memory Index. The educational implications are discussed

The acquisition of Sign Language: The impact of phonetic complexity on phonology

Research into the effect of phonetic complexity on phonological acquisition has a long history in spoken languages. This paper considers the effect of phonetics on phonological development in a signed language. We report on an experiment in which nonword-repetition methodology was adapted so as to examine in a systematic way how phonetic complexity in two phonological parameters of signed languages — handshape and movement — affects the perception and articulation of signs. Ninety-one Deaf children aged 3–11 acquiring British Sign Language (BSL) and 46 hearing nonsigners aged 6–11 repeated a set of 40 nonsense signs. For Deaf children, repetition accuracy improved with age, correlated with wider BSL abilities, and was lowest for signs that were phonetically complex. Repetition accuracy was correlated with fine motor skills for the youngest children. Despite their lower repetition accuracy, the hearing group were similarly affected by phonetic complexity, suggesting that common visual and motoric factors are at play when processing linguistic information in the visuo-gestural modality

Implementation fidelity of a computer-assisted intervention for children with speech sound disorders

© 2017 The Speech Pathology Association of Australia Limited Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Background: Implementation fidelity refers to the degree to which an intervention or programme adheres to its original design. This paper examines implementation fidelity in the Sound Start Study, a clustered randomised controlled trial of computer-assisted support for children with speech sound disorders (SSD). Method: Sixty-three children with SSD in 19 early childhood centres received computer-assisted support (Phoneme Factory Sound Sorter [PFSS]–Australian version). Educators facilitated the delivery of PFSS targeting phonological error patterns identified by a speech-language pathologist. Implementation data were gathered via (1) the computer software, which recorded when and how much intervention was completed over 9 weeks; (2) educators’ records of practice sessions; and (3) scoring of fidelity (intervention procedure, competence and quality of delivery) from videos of intervention sessions. Result: Less than one-third of children received the prescribed number of days of intervention, while approximately one-half participated in the prescribed number of intervention plays. Computer data differed from educators’ data for total number of days and plays in which children participated; the degree of match was lower as data became more specific. Fidelity to intervention procedures, competency and quality of delivery was high. Conclusion: Implementation fidelity may impact intervention outcomes and so needs to be measured in intervention research; however, the way in which it is measured may impact on data

Communication skills in a population of primary school-aged children raised in an area of pronounced social disadvantage

Background: Previous studies have highlighted the level of communication difficulty experienced by children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, but the pattern of difficulties remains unclear. Aims: The study asks whether the performance of a community sample of children from one of the most socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Scotland is best characterized by a general delay in all areas of development, by difficulties across the more formal structural aspects of language or in phonological skills. Methods & Procedures: The study included 138 monolingual English-speaking children: 63 (45.7%) boys and 75 (54.3%) girls aged between 5 and 12 years. All children were assessed blind to educational attainment in the school. Outcomes & Results: Nearly 40% of children had delayed language development with 10% having severe difficulties. The children presented with an uneven profile with much lower structural language scores than reading, general communication skills or non-verbal performance. Although service use was high in the group as a whole, the proportion who met criteria for specific language impairment on discrepancy criteria were not those who were being referred to speech and language therapy. Conclusions & Implications: Although many children were performing well within the normal range, a substantial proportion were not, having considerable implications for the way that services are delivered to these children. Given the high prevalence of delayed structural language difficulties in this group, there is a clear need for a more universal population-based approaches to service delivery.CIHR46pub229