Our findings suggest that protracted development of weak-strong stress production reflects physiological constraints on producing short articulatory durations and rising intensity contours. Findings validate treatment that is centered on strong-weak stress production for children ≥ 3 years with dysprosody. Although intervention for the production of weak-strong words may be initiated before age 7 years, reference to normative acoustic data is preferable to relying on perceptual judgments of accuracy.

This intervention seemed to achieve long-lasting reductions in children's WFDs. The differential responses to phonological and semantic intervention imply the need to tailor intervention for differing children by matching it to their linguistic profile.

No abstract

This research investigated whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) and non-specific language impairment (NLI) could be differentiated by their oral narrative characteristics. Oral narrative samples were collected from 69 children and comparisons were made among four groups of participants. The two language impairment groups (SLI and NLI), aged 4;11-6;03, were matched for age and their linguistics skills. Their oral narratives were compared between these diagnostic groups and with age-matched and language-matched control groups. Measures of narrative structure, cohesion, and information did not significantly differentiate the SLI and NLI groups, suggesting that the influence of their similar linguistic skills on oral narrative measures was stronger than the influence of their differing non-verbal cognition. The SLI group produced significantly more complex and informative oral narratives than the language-matched group, while the NLI group differed from the language-matched group on fewer measures. Interactions among linguistic, cognitive, maturational, and task factors are discussed.

Poor polysyllabic word (PSW) production seems to mark paediatric speech impairment as well as impairment in language, literacy and phonological processing. As impairment in these domains may only manifest in PSWs, PSW production may provide unique information that is often excluded from clinical decision making because insufficient PSWs are included in speech tests. A 5-stage model of PSW acquisition is described. The model, grounded in optimality theory, expresses a reciprocal relationship between the relaxation of markedness constraints and the contraction of faithfulness constraints from 12 months of age to adolescence. The markedness constraints that persist to the age of 7;11 years are associated with non-final weak syllables and within-word consonant sequences. Output changes are argued to reflect increasing specification of phonological representations with age, liberating information for motor planning and execution, resulting in increasingly accurate output. The clinical implications of PSWs in assessment and therapy are discussed.

The nature of morphosyntactic and story-grammar differences were examined between children with SLI and children with language impairments that fell outside the diagnostic category for SLI solely because of their low non-verbal cognitive abilities (LNVA). Two oral narratives were elicited from 5-year-old children with language impairments and age-matched children with normally developing language. Morphosyntactic difficulties were found to be similar for children with SLI and children with LNVA. The children with SLI produced more complex stories than the children with LNVA when a complex wordless picture book was used, but not for a single scene picture stimulus. These findings challenge notions about the unique nature of SLI and, understandings of differences and similarities with other language impairments.

The discourse skills of four boys with a unilateral hearing impairment (UHI), aged 7·2-10·7 years, were appraised over a 2-year period by examining their oral narrative use. All subjects exhibited delayed narrative skills, including features typical of children with a language disorder. These findings of language difficulties within this population were at variance with previous findings showing that children with UHI do not experience language problems. The subjects' language skills were discussed in relation to their academic performance. The implications of the findings for the process of narrative assessment were also discussed.

Item analysis information is rarely given for English tests of children's articulation and phonology. Therefore, there is little information about the sensitivity and speci® city measures of these tests. Item di culty and item discrimination scores were derived for 199 words that were varied for phonotactic shape, syllable numbers and stress. Fifty-nine normally speaking children and 40 children with speech impairments in the age range of 2± 9 years named pictures depicting the above words. Most words had satisfactory item di culty scores indicating ease of naming. The words that best diOE erentiated between children with and without speech impairment were monosyllabic words containing word-initial and / or word-® nal clusters and polysyllabic words, that is, words of three or more syllables. Disyllabic and polysyllabic words beginning with a weak syllable also seemed to be highly discriminating. Monosyllabic words with a CV or CVC shape that contained the earlier developing sounds had unacceptable measures of item discrimination. It is recommended that the use of tests that contain a preponderance of monosyllabic words with a CVC shape and the normative data derived from them be critically reviewed, especially for children aged four years and older.