Speech patterns in Cypriot-Greek late talkers

Abstract

The investigation longitudinally examined the phonetic skills of Cypriot-Greek children with late onset of expressive vocabulary. The rate of phonological development within short time increments and the identification of possible speech constraints motivating slow development of expressive language were examined. Participants were seven Cypriot-Greek children identified as late talkers, and seven age-matched normally developing counterparts. Phonetic skills were examined at ages 30, 33, and 36 months for both groups based on spontaneous language samples. Phonological analyses focused on the construction of all subjects' phonetic inventories over time. Both groups exhibited an increase of specific phoneme use over time. Late talkers had significantly poorer phonetic inventories when compared to the control group. Within the experimental group the analysis revealed the persistent omission of word-initial consonants. Results are discussed in terms of language-specific phonological constraints and their relation to slow development of speech.Research on early detection of language problems revealed that approximately 15% of middle class preschool children in the United States present with late onset of expressive language (Rescorla, 1989). These children are usually referred to as late talkers (LTs). In these youngsters, early expressive language delay is diagnosed on the bases of restricted expressive vocabulary (usually less than 50 words) and lack of 2-word combinations around the age of 24 months, despite normal cognitive and emotional development.However, LT children do not necessarily develop a language delay, and significant variability exists regarding longitudinal language outcomes. Recovery rates have been estimated to be around 50%, suggesting that some children will eventually "grow out" of early language delay (Paul, Looney, & Dahm, 1991;Rescorla & Schwartz, 1990). Studies examining language skills at age 3 years revealed that some LT children achieved age-appropriate scores on standardized batteries while others continued to lag behind on a number of language milestones (Ellis-Weismer,

Early Language Delay Phenotypes and Correlation with Later Linguistic Abilities

“…It was noted that the current results corroborate a considerable body of evidence regarding persistent language delay at later developmental age points in LT populations especially from English data pools. In addition, the expressive vocabulary data agree with findings from a number of languages including Dutch, Swedish, Finnish and Greek [4,9,10,29,31,32]. It is concluded that, at least for one linguistic parameter such as expressive vocabulary, persistent delay is a robust phenomenon regardless of mother tongue.…”

“…Although many LT children achieve age-appropriate scores on standardized batteries by the age of 3-5 years, others continue to lag behind on a number of language milestones, as well as reading and academic challenges [18,19,20,21,22]. Specifically, language outcomes during the preschool years indicated significant progress for lexical development but impaired morphological, phonological and syntactic skills [23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]. The main body of research on LT toddlers comes from English language data.…”

Vocabulary development in Greek children: a cross-linguistic comparison using the Language Development Survey*

“…In addition, Thomadaki and Stephany (2007), who studied one child, showed that 25% of the total number of nouns over the period from 1;8 to 3 ;0 were diminutives. Finally, Petinou and Okalidou (2006) compared seven Cypriot-Greek children identified as late talkers with seven aged-matched typically developing counterparts at the ages of 2;6, 2; 9 and 3;0. Although the study focused on the phonetic skills of the participants, data were also reported on expressive vocabulary assessed using a 600-word vocabulary list adapted from the CDI.…”

Phonological Process Occurrence in Typically Developing Toddlers

“…For instance, research findings demonstrated the robust occurrence of initial consonant deletion (ICD) in typically developing (TD) toddlers for languages including Finnish [10,11,12], Arabic [13], Estonian, and Italian [14,15]. Furthermore, data from TD Cypriot Greek (CG)-speaking toddlers revealed that the occurrence of ICD at the age of 24 months followed by long-distance regressive assimilation (RAS) was still in operation at the age of 36 months [16]. On parallel lines, data from TD toddlers suggested segmental establishment in favor of word-medial as compared to word-initial position [17].…”

“…Given the sparsity of data regarding phonological as opposed to phonetic development in CG, we sought to shed light on the developmental pattern children follow in progressing from one phonological level to the next. The focus was on examining closely and in more detail phonological process occurrence as reported in Petinou and Okalidou [16] by expanding the database and providing more cross-linguistic evidence regarding language-specific patterns with particular focus on both ICD and regressive long-distance full assimilation (harmony) of word-initial onsets to the consonant of the following syllable (RAS); e.g. /′pano/ “up” → [′ano] (= ICD) → [′nano] (= RAS) → [′pano] (= correct onset production [COP]).…”