Morphosyntax constitutes one of the most complex areas of language. It takes into account the structure of the word and that of the sentence, and its development allows one to establish adequately agreements both within the nominal phrase and in the rest of the sentence. Morphosyntax is particularly impaired in individuals with Down syndrome. To improve their morphosyntactic skills, an intervention programme was designed and carried out with a total of 20 Spanish-speaking children with Down syndrome; half of them composed the experimental group and the other half the control group. The results obtained show that the children in the experimental group improved more than the children in the control group in the areas of syntax, morphology and semantics, but not in pragmatics, where both groups improved to the same extent. Overall, the results obtained support the effectiveness of the programme implemented as a clinical and educational tool for intervention in individuals with Down syndrome.

Los trastornos del neurodesarrollo presentes en alteraciones como el síndrome de Down, el síndrome de Williams y el síndrome de Smith Magenis subyacen en las características cognitivas, conductuales y lingüísticas de quienes los padecen. Pese a tratarse de tres alteraciones genéticas que cursan con discapacidad intelectual y que comparten aspectos de su fenotipo, las investigaciones demuestran que cada síndrome presenta diferentes perfiles lingüísticos. En lo que respecta a las habilidades fonético-fonológicas de estos tres síndromes, se han identificado peculiaridades que podrían indicar relativa especificidad de ciertos patrones fonológicos para cada síndrome. La caracterización detallada de estos perfiles fónicos supone un avance en el proceso de evaluación del habla de estas alteraciones y una mejoría en la efectividad de la terapia logopédica gracias al diseño de herramientas específicas para cada alteración. Por ello se ha evaluado el habla de tres grupos de niños, adolescentes y adultos con síndrome de Down (SD), síndrome de Williams (SW) y síndrome de Smith Magenis (SSM). El primero está formado por 13 casos, el segundo grupo con SW está formado por 15 casos y el tercero, por 21 participantes con SSM. La exploración del habla se ha realizado desde el nivel productivo en tareas de denominación, repetición y habla espontánea. Los resultados suponen hallazgos significativos que permiten ahondar en los mecanismos fonológicos más activos en cada una de estas tres poblaciones. Esto evidencia la necesaria descripción exhaustiva de los perfiles lingüísticos específicos para cada alteración del neurodesarrollo.

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Cuando los lingüistas especializados en alteraciones del lenguaje recurren a bibliografía relativa a este tema, se encuentran con el sorprendente descubrimiento de que no hay apenas nada concreto acerca del tema descrito desde la propia lingüística. Efectivamente, nos encontramos con descripciones que nos adentran más bien en el campo de la terapia del lenguaje (logopedia) o nos remiten a la Psicología del Lenguaje con datos exhaustivos de la adquisición y mecanismos internos de producción y comprensión de mensajes, cuando no nos encontramos referencias detalladas del lenguaje de pacientes con lesiones cerebrales (afasias). Evidentemente, todas estas descripciones son importantes para el lingüista interesado por los aspectos clínicos del lenguaje, pero ¿dónde empieza una disciplina y dónde acaba otra? ¿Hasta qué punto la lingüística clínica puede concebirse como una disciplina autónoma? ¿Cómo puede contribuir la lingüística en la Psicolingüística y la Neurolingüística?

Complex simultaneous neuropsychophysiological mechanisms are responsible for the processing of the information to be transmitted and for the neuromotor planning of the articulatory organs involved in speech. The nature of this set of mechanisms is closely linked to the clinical state of the subject. Thus, for example, in populations with neurodevelopmental deficits, these underlying neuropsychophysiological procedures are deficient and determine their phonation. Most of these cases with neurodevelopmental deficits are due to a genetic abnormality, as is the case in the population with Smith–Magenis syndrome (SMS). SMS is associated with neurodevelopmental deficits, intellectual disability, and a cohort of characteristic phenotypic features, including voice quality, which does not seem to be in line with the gender, age, and complexion of the diagnosed subject. The phonatory profile and speech features in this syndrome are dysphonia, high f0, excess vocal muscle stiffness, fluency alterations, numerous syllabic simplifications, phoneme omissions, and unintelligibility of speech. This exploratory study investigates whether the neuromotor deficits in children with SMS adversely affect phonation as compared to typically developing children without neuromotor deficits, which has not been previously determined. The authors compare the phonatory performance of a group of children with SMS (N = 12) with a healthy control group of children (N = 12) matched in age, gender, and grouped into two age ranges. The first group ranges from 5 to 7 years old, and the second group goes from 8 to 12 years old. Group differences were determined for two forms of acoustic analysis performed on repeated recordings of the sustained vowel /a/ F1 and F2 extraction and cepstral peak prominence (CPP). It is expected that the results will enlighten the question of the underlying neuromotor aspects of phonation in SMS population. These findings could provide evidence of the susceptibility of phonation of speech to neuromotor disturbances, regardless of their origin.

Prenatal alcohol exposure can cause developmental damage in children. There are different types and ranges of alterations that fall under the name of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Disabilities in learning, cognition, and behavior are observed. Environmental conditions are an influencing factor in this population since they are generally adverse and are either not diagnosed at an early stage or given the appropriate support and approach. We present a case study of a 9-year-old child, in which all the variables affecting his development (FASD diagnosis and socioenvironmental conditions) were observed and analyzed. His early childhood under institutional care, the move to a foster home at the age of 6, and several measures of evaluation from foster care to the present are described. Difficulties in vocabulary, access to vocabulary, morphology, syntax, grammar, oral narrative, pragmatics, speech, and communication were observed, along with cognitive difficulties in memory, perception and executive functioning, social adaptation, learning, and behavior. An early diagnosis and approach enable this population to develop skills in different dimensions to address early adversity despite their neurological and behavioral commitment. Speech-language pathologist services are crucial for the diagnosis and treatment of the language and communication difficulties that characterize this syndrome.