The slower the better? Does the speaker's speech rate influence children's performance on a language comprehension test?

Abstract

The slower the better: Does the speaker' speech rate influence children' performance on a language comprehension test?, International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2013. 16(2), pp.181-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2013 The aim of this study was to examine the effects of speech rate on children's performance on a widely used language comprehension test, the Test for Reception of Grammar, version 2 (TROG-2), and to explore how test performance interacts with task difficulty and with the child's working memory capacity. Participants were 102 typically developing Swedishspeaking children randomly assigned to one of the three conditions; the TROG-2 sentences spoken by a speech-language pathologist with slow, normal or fast speech rate. Resultsshowed that the fast speech rate had a negative effect on the TROG-2 scores and that slow rate was more beneficial in general. However, for more difficult tasks the beneficial effect of slow speech was only pronounced for children with better scores on a working memory task.Our interpretation is that slow speech is particularly helpful when children do not yet fully master a task but are just about to grasp it. Our results emphasise the necessity of careful considerations of the role dynamic aspects of examiner's speech might play in test administration and favour digitalised procedures in standardised language comprehension assessment.

Working memory performance in children with and without specific language impairment in two nonmainstream dialects of English

“…Specifically, we should find similar correlations between working memory scores and standardized language and intelligence measures in both AAE and SWE. In both dialects we should replicate the previously mentioned findings that children's working memory scores correlate with standardized measures of syntax (Engel de Abreu et al, 2011; Haake et al, 2014; Magimairaj & Montgomery, 2012; but see Lum et al, 2012) and vocabulary (Adams et al, 1999; Engel de Abreu et al, 2011); they should also correlate with standardized measures of nonverbal intelligence (Adams et al, 1999; Alloway, Gathercole, Willis, & Adams, 2004; Ellis Weismer et al, 1999; Engel de Abreu, Conway, & Gathercole, 2010; Engel de Abreu et al, 2011).…”

A new experimental paradigm to study children’s processing of their parent’s unscripted language input

“…Parents might be expected to speak more slowly to younger than older children, or on Same condition trials as compared to Different conditions, given that the former present a more difficult task. After all, slower speech rate can support children’s language comprehension (e.g., Haake et al, 2014) and parents who are accommodating their children might well speak more slowly in more difficult contexts. However, speech rate per referential expression (calculated as the number of syllables per second) differed minimally across conditions (Same: 0.27, Different: 0.26, t (31) = 0.10, p = 0.92), and did not correlate with age (Pearson’s r = 0.084).…”

Phonological processing, grammar and sentence comprehension in older and younger generations of Swedish children with cochlear implants

“…In the original British version, the degree of complexity of the test items is increasing. This does not strictly correspond to increasing degree of difficulty for Swedish, but is very close (Haake, Hansson, Scho¨tz, Gulz, & Sahle´n, 2014). The child has to respond correctly to all four items in a block in order to score correctly.…”