Purpose: This study aimed to describe speech sound development in a group of 18-month-old children with sex chromosome trisomies (SCTs), compared with a group of typically developing (TD) peers. Concurrent and longitudinal relationships between speech sound abilities and lexical development were examined. Method: A group of 76 children aged 18 months, 38 children prenatally diagnosed with SCTs (12 with XXY, 12 with XYY, and 14 with XXX) and 38 TD children, participated in the study. From video recordings of semistructured naturalistic parent–child play sessions, quantitative and qualitative measures of speech sound development were collected (e.g., the number of consonants, type and place of articulation, and syllable structures used), and group differences were observed. The relationships between the number of consonants produced and vocabulary size at 18 and 24 months were assessed. Results: At 18 months, children with SCTs used a significantly lower number of consonants than TD children. Qualitatively, children with SCTs used significantly fewer articulatory complex consonants (fricative/affricates) and a more restricted inventory of syllable structures. The number of consonants used was significantly correlated with lexical development at 18 months. Moreover, in the SCTs group (but not in the TD group), the children with lower speech sound development at 18 months showed a significantly smaller vocabulary growth between 18 and 24 months than those with higher speech-sound development. Conclusions: Toddlers with SCTs showed a significantly delayed speech sound development pattern rather than an atypical one. Children with SCTs with low speech sound development also showed lower vocabulary growth between 18 and 24 months of age. These results can be clinically relevant for follow-up and treatment planning for children with SCTs.
The neuropsychological profile associated with sex chromosome trisomies (SCT) is frequently characterised by delays or deficits in linguistic development. Although maternal input could have an important role in influencing and shaping the linguistic development of children with SCT, there is a lack of studies in the literature that have investigated its prosodic characteristics. The study aims to analyse the prosodic features of the maternal input addressed to a group of 8-month-old children with SCT and a group of typically developing (TD) peers. Nineteen mother–child dyads with children with SCT and 19 mother–child dyads with TD children participated in the study. Maternal utterances were collected during video-recorded play sessions, and for each dyad, 50 maternal utterances were selected and analysed using the software Praat. The results showed that the maternal input produced by the mothers in the SCT group was characterised by a significantly lower pitch, less marked and modulated melodic contours, and a shorter final syllable duration than the input addressed to TD children. The prosodic features found in the maternal input addressed to children with SCT were not those expected in the maternal input addressed to children at this developmental stage and could create a non-optimal linguistic environment.
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