Speech processing and morphological development in Greek-speaking children

There is currently little knowledge about the development of morphology in relation to phonology and the speech processing system (speech input, speech output, and lexical representations). In this thesis a psycholinguistic approach was used to investigate the development of phonological and morphological skills in Greek speaking preschool age children. The central hypothesis is that the successful acquisition of phonological and morphological characteristics of a spoken language depends on the accuracy and efficiency of speech processing skills. This has been explored through a longitudinal normative study of speech and language development and two intervention single case studies of children with speech difficulties. Two groups of typically developing children aged 3;0-3;5 and 4;6-5;0 years respectively were assessed longitudinally at three assessment points six months apart. At each point published language assessments and experimental tasks were used. A number of morphological phenomena e.g. tense, possessive pronouns, irregular plural, were taken as the basis for experimental stimuli that reflected the morphological and phonological properties of interest. These stimuli were used in tasks of speech perception and word and nonword repetition, items being matched across tasks. The two intervention studies focused on the impact of training the production of phonological targets on the accuracy of morphological productions, and vice versa, as well as the effect of this training on broader speech and language processing skills. Significant processing similarities were found between phonological and morphological items, as were relationships between the two domains. Both intervention case studies indicated that as a result of targeting the accurate production of morphemes, generalization to the accurate production of phonological characteristics may occur; one case also supported the reverse effect. Overall, these results suggest that the morphological characteristics of spoken language are an integral part of lexical representations, a finding which has interesting implications for speech and language therapy practice

Phonology, morphology and speech processing development in Greek-speaking children

Α psycholinguistic framework for speech processing was adopted to investigate the development of phonological and morphological skills in children learning Greek. It was investigated whether morphological items pose specific challenges in terms of speech processing. Two groups of typically developing children aged 3.0-3.5 years (N = 16) and 4.6-5.0 years (N = 22), respectively, were assessed longitudinally at three assessment points 6 months apart. A range of phonologically based and morphologically based experimental speech processing tasks was administered to address the research question, along with language comprehension and production assessments to ensure that the children were developmentally typical. Stimuli of minimal phonological difference and minimal morphological difference, respectively, were used. Phonologically based experimental stimuli were used to assess performance differences across properties such as voicing, manner and place of articulation, in addition to variation in phonotactic structure. Morphologically based experimental stimuli were used to assess the impact of characteristics such as verb tense and possessive pronouns. Stimuli were incorporated into tasks of real word and nonword auditory discrimination and repetition, to assess input and output processing. Items were matched across tasks so that comparisons could be made. On most of the matched tasks, there was no significant difference in performance accuracy between morphological and phonological conditions. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between domains. It is suggested that morphological items, compared to phonological items, do not pose specific challenges in terms of speech processing. The clinical implications of these findings for assessment and intervention are discussed

The case for morphophonological intervention: Evidence from a Greek-speaking child with speech difficulties

Intervention with children with speech and language difficulties has been proven beneficial compared with no treatment yet, knowing what type of intervention to provide remains a challenge. Studies of English-speaking children indicate that intervention targeting the production of morphological targets may have a positive effect on phonological aspects and vice versa. However, studies have not reported on generalization effects to untreated morphemes and little is yet known about morphological intervention in the context of a highly inflected language. The purpose of the current intervention case study was to investigate the effect of intervention in relation to phonological and morphological targets in Greek, a language characterized by complex inflectional morphology. A single subject research design was used with pre- and post-intervention assessment carried out. The participant was a four-year-old Greek-speaking boy with speech difficulties. The production of /s/, a phoneme used in multiple phonological and morphological contexts was targeted with alternating focus of intervention between phonological and morphological targets. Assessment took place at two levels: macro-assessment to monitor broad changes in speech; micro-assessment to measure therapy-specific changes in the production of treated targets and generalization to untreated targets and control items. There were four phases of intervention with a total of 24 hours of therapy. Significant improvement in performance accuracy was found between assessment scores immediately pre- and post-intervention. Intervention targeting the production of a phoneme in the word stem was not sufficient to accomplish the accurate production of morphemes requiring the same phoneme; intervention directly targeting morphemes was successful. Within-domain generalization was observed in both domains. Improved naming accuracy was observed post-intervention that was maintained at follow-up. The present study supports the case for morphophonological intervention. Morphological elements should be addressed in a comprehensive intervention for speech sound disorders