Background/Aims: The study examined the phonological development in Cypriot Greek (CG)-speaking, typically developing (TD) toddlers for the purpose of observing occurrences of initial consonant deletion (ICD), regressive assimilation (RAS), and their interactive relationship as a function of time. Participants and Methods: Subjects were 8 CG-speaking TD toddlers assessed longitudinally at ages 24-28 and 32-36 months. Word targets from spontaneously produced utterances via language sample collection were analyzed for the percentage of occurrence of ICD and RAS. Results: Results revealed a significant change of phonological process occurrence as a function of time as well as an antagonistic relationship between ICD and correct onset production. Comparisons between measures showed that trisyllabic (three-syllable) words exhibited higher rates of ICD than disyllabic words. Conclusions: Early patterns of phonological development and phonological assessment should include a hierarchical account of phonological behavior in the form of word structure shapes and a possible interaction among phonological process occurrence.
<b><i>Objectives:</i></b> The aims of this study were: (1) to investigate the effect of colorful semantics (CS) on the morphosyntactic and semantic development of Cypriot-Greek (CG)-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to obtain a better understanding of its role in an augmentative communication (AC) intervention program; (2) to address the paucity of intervention tools geared for CG-speaking children with ASD. <b><i>Participants and Methods:</i></b> The study included 24 boys and 16 girls with ASD, all preschool-aged 4–6 years. All were verbal but with limited production and minimal mean length of utterance. The study followed a randomized control trial design with equally sized experimental and control groups. The experimental group followed a therapeutic program using the AC with a CS protocol, while the control group’s AC intervention did not include the CS protocol. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The use of CS significantly improved the children’s semantic and morphosyntactic development. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> The intervention results illustrate the effectiveness of CS in this study; however, generalizability of effectiveness to other similar CG-speaking children with ASD requires further evidence.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.