Phonological development of Finnish speaking children at 3;6 and associations to previous and simultaneous lexical ability

Previous studies of Finnish children's phonological development focus mainly on children under 2;0. Earlier findings have suggested that phonological and lexical development are strongly associated at an early age. However, less is known about the longitudinal association. This study describes the phonological skills of Finnish-speaking children at 3;6 and compares them with early lexicon size at 2;0 and lexical ability at 3;6 (N = 67). The children's phonological development was measured using The Finnish Phonology Test. Lexical development was evaluated using the Finnish, long-form version of the Communicative Development Inventory at 2;0 and the Boston naming test at 3;6 At 3;6, all children mastered the vowels and diphthongs fully, and most of the children also mastered the consonants, with the exception of the phonemes/d/and/r/. Phonotactic skills had also been acquired well at this group level, although the word-medial and, especially, word-initial consonant clusters were still challenging. The percentage of phonemes correct was 95. Both paradigmatic and phonotactic skills at 3;6 were significantly associated with lexicon size at 2;0. In addition phonotactic skills correlated with naming ability at 3;6. Lexical development at 2;0 explained 21% of the variance in the phonological development at 3;6, whereas, the explaining value of simultaneous lexical skill was limited (9%). Present findings propose that associations between lexical and phonological skills weaken as phonological skills become more honed.Peer reviewe

Intra-word consistency and accuracy in Finnish children aged 3–6 years

Abstract This study examined intra-word consistency and accuracy in typically developing Finnish children and their relation to children’s vocabulary size and phonological skills. A total of 80 typically developing Finnish children aged 3;0 to 6;11 were asked to name 20 words three separate times during a single assessment session. Responses were classified into four categories: 1) consistently correct productions, 2) consistently incorrect productions, 3) variable productions with hits (variable productions including at least one matched adult target), and 4) variable productions with no hits. The results revealed that 5- and 6-year-old children produced significantly more often consistently correct responses than younger children. However, even for the 3- and 4-year old children the most frequent response type was consistently correct production. Between these two youngest age groups (3 and 4), the only significant difference was in consistently incorrect responses, which the 3-year-olds produced more often than the older children. There was a significant negative correlation between consistently incorrectly produced words and children’s phonological skills, but no other relationships were found. The results indicate that when assessing children with speech sound disorder (SSD), Finnish clinicians need to take into account the fact that even 3-year-old typically developing children generally produce words correctly, either consistently or inconsistently

Speech inconsistency and its association with speech production, phonological awareness and nonword repetition skills

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between speech inconsistency, speech production skills, phonological awareness and nonword repetition (NWR) in 24 preschool-aged Finnish-speaking children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and in 31 children with typical speech and language development (TD). Speech inconsistency was assessed by a picture-naming task repeated three times during one assessment session. The participants’ speech production skills were assessed with the Finnish Test for Phonology and a diadochokinetic (DDK) task. Phonological awareness was investigated by the tasks of Rhyme and initial syllable awareness and Syllable segmentation, and NWR by ten 2–4-syllabic nonwords. The findings indicated that the children with SSD were less accurate in speech production and NWR than the children with TD. No difference was found in phonological awareness. Among the children with SSD, speech inconsistency was correlated with accuracy in overall speech production, DDK task, and NWR. Among the children with TD, speech inconsistency was correlated with accuracy in overall speech production, partly with phonological awareness, and with NWR. The results provide support for the idea that when assessing speech inconsistency in children with SSD, a process-oriented approach may be needed in order to obtain an adequately broad picture of their skill profiles

Intra-word accuracy and consistency in Finnish-speaking children with speech sound disorder compared to their typically developing peers

Abstract This study examined intra-word accuracy and consistency in 32 preschool-aged Finnish-speaking children with speech sound disorder (SSD) compared to their typically developing (TD) age- and gender-matched peers. Accuracy and consistency of speech production were assessed by a picture-naming task repeated three times in one assessment session. Responses were classified into four categories: 1) consistently correct, 2) consistently incorrect, 3) variable with hits (when a child’s variable responses included at least one matched with the adult target), and 4) variable with no hits (when responses included at least two different response types without the matched adult target). In addition, relationships between intra-word accuracy and consistency and children’s receptive vocabulary knowledge and articulatory ability based on spontaneous speech samples were investigated. The findings showed that the children with SSD produced significantly more often ‘consistently incorrect’ and ‘variable with no hits’ responses than the TD children. There was a significant negative correlation between ‘variable with no hits’ responses and receptive vocabulary knowledge and articulatory abilities among the children with SSD. As intra-word accuracy and consistency has not previously been studied in Finnish children with SSD, the findings highlighted the need for drafting guidelines for assessment and intervention by paying close attention to high intra-word variability without correct word forms already from age three onwards

The relationship between infants' production experience and their processing of speech

The early relationship between children\u2019s emerging articulatory abilities and their capacity to processspeech input was investigated, following recent studies with English-learning infants. Twenty-six 10monolingual Italian-learning infants were tested at 6 months (no consistent and stable use of consonants,or vocal motor schemes [VMS]) and at the age at which they displayed use of at least one VMS.Perceptual testing was based on lists of nonwords containing one of three categories of sounds each:produced by infant (own VMS), not yet produced but typical of that age (other VMS), or not typicallyproduced by infants at that age (non-VMS). In addition, size of expressive lexicon at 12 months 15and 18 months was assessed using an Italian version of the MacArthur-Bates CommunicativeDevelopment Inventory (CDI). The results confirmed a relation between infant preverbal productionand attentional response to VMS and also between age at first VMS and 12-month vocabulary.Maternal input is shown not to be a specific determinant of individual infant production preferences.A comparison between the English and Italian experimental findings shows a stronger attentional 20response to VMS in isolated words as compared to sentences. These results confirm the existence ofan interaction between perception and production that helps to shape the way that language develops