On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology 9781788928953

Citation preview

On Under-reported Monolingual Child ­Phonology

COMMUNICATION DISORDERS ACROSS LANGUAGES Series Editors: Dr Nicole Müller, at University College Cork, Ireland and Dr Martin Ball, Bangor University, Wales. The discipline of communication disorders has made great strides over the last fifty years and more. We now know much more about the nature and causes of breakdowns in speech and language, both in adults and children. We know more about how to classify these breakdowns, how to describe and analyse pathological speech and language, and how to treat communication disorders. Unfortunately, a large proportion of this work is restricted to a small number of European languages; indeed, much of it is on and in English alone. Research in communication disorders in languages other than English has seen a marked increase in recent years, as has the investigation of such disorders in speakers of more than one language, and communities where bi- and multilingualism is the norm. This series serves to spotlight new and ongoing research in communication disorders across languages. We aim to do this by including studies of communication disorders (including assessment methods and guidelines for intervention) in particular multilingual communities, studies of the manifestations of specific types of disorder in a range of languages (particularly lesser researched languages), and of communication breakdown in bi- and multilingual speakers. Books in the series are used by practitioners, researchers and students, and they address a range of topics, including speech and language disorders in children, literacy, acquired speech and language disorders in adults, fluency, and voice. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

COMMUNICATION DISORDERS ACROSS LANGUAGES: 19

On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

Edited by Elena Babatsouli

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength (Psalms 8:2)

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/BABATS8946 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Babatsouli, Elena, editor. Title: On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology/Edited by Elena Babatsouli. Description: Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, 2020. | Series: Communication Disorders Across Languages: 19 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: ‘This book compiles original studies investigating crosslinguistic child phonological development, that is, protolanguage phonology. The chapters address topics and issues not widely reported in the literature, including research on under-represented languages, as well as information that has remained little-known to the field’ – Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020012165 (print) | LCCN 2020012166 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788928946 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788928953 (pdf) | ISBN 9781788928960 (epub) | ISBN 9781788928977 (kindle edition) Subjects: LCSH: Bilingualism in children. | Language acquisition. | Grammar, Comparative and general – Phonology. Classification: LCC P115.2.O63 2020 (print) | LCC P115.2 (ebook) | DDC 404/.2083 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012165 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012166 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-894-6 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2020 Elena Babatsouli and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Riverside Publishing Solutions.

Contents

Acknowledgements

ix

Contributors

xi

Preface Elena Babatsouli

xxi

1 Prolegomenon Elena Babatsouli

1

2 History of the International Child Phonology Conference Elena Babatsouli and Karen Pollock

18

In the Spotlight 3 Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  David Ingram

25

Part 1: Typical Development 4 A Commentary on Hellenic: Greek Speech and its Acquisition Elena Babatsouli

55

5 Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  Avivit Ben-David

77

6 Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language  Laura Cristina Villalobos-Pedroza

99

7 Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children  Joseph Paul Stemberger and Mario Chávez-Peón v

125

vi Contents

8 The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  Paulina Zydorowicz

145

Part 2: Atypical Development 9 French (A)typical L1 Acquisition: Compensatory Strategies in #sC Sequences  Typhanie Prince and Sandrine Ferré 10 Word Structure in Typically Developing and Primarily Language-Impaired Children: A Usage-Based Corpus Analysis of Russian Preschoolers  Aleksandr N. Kornev and Ingrida Balčiūnienė

179

201

11 Early Diagnostic Signs of Autism: Preliminary Findings for Infant Vocalizations  Shari DeVeney and Anastasia Kyvelidou

229

12 Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  Gila Tubul-Lavy

252

13 The Acquisition of Phonological Awareness in Children with Mild General Learning Difficulties: Delayed or Disordered Speech Development?  Krisztina Zajdó and Enikő Csertán 14 Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills Among Hungarian-Speaking 5- to 6-Year-Old Kindergarteners with Typical and Atypical Language Development  Ágnes Jordanidisz, Katalin Mohai, Orsolya Mihály and Cheryl Winget 15 Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children With and Without Speech Sound Disorder  Aline Mara de Oliveira, Gabriely Vitória Veschi, Luiza Polli, Cássio Eduardo Esperandino and Larissa Cristina Berti

274

324

347

Part 3: Assessment and Intervention 16 Elements in Phonological Intervention: A Comparison of Three Approaches Using the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy  Elise Baker, Rebecca J. McCauley, A. Lynn Williams and Sharynne McLeod

375

Contents vii

17 Assessment of Early Phonological Development in Brazilian Portuguese  Nancy J. Scherer, Renata Yamashita, AnaPaula Fukushiro, Marcia Keske-Soares, Debora Natalia de Oliveira, David Ingram, A. Lynn Williams and Inge Trindade

400

18 Speech Sound Development of Dutch Toddlers with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD): Does Group Intervention Make a Difference?  Rianne van Lieburg, Esther Ottow-Henning and Brigitta Keij

421



446

Index 

Acknowledgements

The editor wishes to extend her gratitude to the authors for their contributions and to the reviewers for their thorough and timely reviews. The volume would not have been possible without the contributors’ willingness to share their work which advances knowledge on underreported themes pertaining to monolingual child phonology. Special thanks are due to leading child phonologists in the field that have assisted in finding information on the history of the International Child Phonology Conference and, in particular, A. Lynn Williams, Phil Connell, Karen Pollock, Carol Stoel-Gammon, Richard G. Schwartz, Marilyn Vihman, David Ingram, and John Locke. Elena is also grateful to the book series editors, Nicole Müller and Martin J. Ball, for cordially hosting this project in the Communication Disorders Across Languages book series at Multilingual Matters. Last, Elena thanks Dimitri and Maria-Sofia for their continued support, love and patience.

ix

Contributors

Elena Babatsouli is an Assistant Professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, co-editor of the Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech, and founder of the International Symposium of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech. She has a BA in English (Royal Holloway, University of London), an MA in Languages and Business (London South Bank University), and a Ph.D. in Linguistics (University of Crete). Elena’s research interests are in child monolingual and bilingual acquisition, atypical speech (SSDs), SLA, phonetics/phonology, psycholinguistics, measures and quantitative methods. She has thirty publications, five edited books, two edited conference proceedings, and two edited journal special issues. David Ingram is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at Arizona State University. He received his BS from Georgetown University and his PhD in Linguistics from Stanford University. His research interests are in language acquisition in typically developing children and children with language disorders, with a crosslinguistic focus. The language areas of interest are phonological, morphological and syntactic acquisition. He is the author of Phonological Disability in Children (1976), Procedures for the Phonological Analysis of Children’s Language (1981) and First Language Acquisition (1989). His most recent work has focused on whole word measures of phonological acquisition. Avivit Ben-David is a Senior Lecturer at the communication disorders department, Hadassah Academic College, Israel. She has BA and MA degrees in communication disorders and a PhD in linguistics from TelAviv University, Israel. Her doctoral dissertation was a longitudinal study on phonological acquisition by Hebrew-speaking children. Her research interests include phonological acquisition and disorders in Hebrew and Palestinian-Arabic and she developed an articulation and phonological test in Hebrew. She has more than 30 years of clinical experience working with children with Speech Sound Disorders and Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

xi

xii Contributors

Laura Cristina Villalobos Pedroza is an Associate Professor at the Nacional Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in the Philological Research Institute and the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. Laura’s current research projects focus on creating a linguistic corpora repository, and on exploring the impact of interactional practices and social experience on early language acquisition processes. Her current research interests center in the early use of prosody, specifically in how the emergence of the phonetic and prosodic patterns in children’s linguistic systems relates to the human world and action. Joseph Paul Stemberger is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. His research addresses language processing (especially for morphology, phonology, phonetics, and interactions between them, for adult language production and firstlanguage acquisition), and intersects linguistics, cognitive psychology, and speech-language pathology. One goal is to compare across languages and explain what is similar and what is different. Current projects focus on typical and protracted phonological development in many languages: the Valley Zapotec project, and the Cross-Linguistic project. He also does traditional dancing (English and Slovenian), is in two choirs, and likes to go hiking and cycling. Mario E. Chávez-Peón is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS). His research focuses on the phonetics, phonology and morphology of Otomanguean languages, including Dizh sah (Zapotec), Énná (Mazatec) and Dbaku (Cuicatec). He has participated in the Valley Zapotec project of phonological development, and coordinates the Nanginá Laboratory of Language Documentation and Amerindian Dialectology. Paulina Zydorowicz is an Assistant Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Her research interests comprise phonetics and phonology with a special focus on phonotactics, casual speech processes, first and second language acquisition and corpus linguistics. She has published on phonotactics of Polish and English in written corpora, the acquisition of L1 and L2 phonotactics, as well as sociophonetic variation in Polish. She has also participated in research projects focusing on phonotactics of Polish and English, diachronic evolution of clusters in English and building a corpus of spoken Polish. Typhanie Prince is currently a co-director of the Speech Pathology department in the University of Nantes, France.  She is working on a project which focuses on the organization of syllable structures, phonological representations and complexity in comparison with phonetic empirical

Contributors xiii

reality, impacting formal models in phonology and neuropsychology. Past and current research examines both phonological deficits following on from vascular aphasia and the phonological acquisition of syllable structures in typical and atypical child speech. Sandrine Ferré’s expertise is in phonological theory and its application to typical and atypical acquisition of French. She has found that phonological complexity manifests itself in the processing of specific syllabic positions in children with Specific Language Impairment (Ferré et al., 2011, 2012, 2013). Through the development of a phonologically motivated nonword repetition task with Christophe dos Santos (dos Santos & Ferré to appear; Ferré & dos Santos 2015), she has sought to determine the phonological structures that could be a marker for diagnosing SLI in children. She investigated this in different contexts of atypical development such as bilingualism (Ferré et al., 2015, Tuller et al., 2015) or ASD (Tuller et al.,  2017). Ingrida Balčiūnienė, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Lithuanian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania and in the Department of Logopathology, Saint-Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Her research interests are in the area of child language acquisition in typically and atypically developing populations. Most of her recent works considers narrative development in preschoolers and school-age children. Ingrida Balčiūnienė is also interested in child-directed speech and conversation and pragmatic development during the first years of life. Her research has been funded by the Research Council of Lithuania and by the Russian Science Foundation. Alexandr N. Kornev, MD, PhD, is a Professor at Saint-Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. His research interests are in the area of cognitive and language development, speech/language pathology, and dyslexia. Alexandr N. Kornev has developed several tools for a language, reading, and cognitive development assessment. He is an author of handbooks for child neuropsychology, speech-language, reading disorders, and dyslexia remedial treatment. His research has been funded by the NICHD (USA) and various Russian scientific foundations. He is currently the head of the Logopathology Department and the head of the Laboratory for Neurocognitive Scientific and Applied Studies at SaintPetersburg State Pediatric Medical University. Shari DeVeney, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Prior to obtaining her doctorate degree, Dr. DeVeney spent 10 years as a practicing school-based speech-language pathologist, working mainly in early childhood and kindergarten through 12th grade educational settings in the United States.

xiv Contributors

Her research focus is in early child language and phonology with the goal of advancing evidence-based assessment and intervention for young children with communication delays. She teaches coursework in pediatric language impairments and speech sound disorders and has disseminated findings from her work to national and international audiences. Anastasia Kyvelidou, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Physical Therapy Department at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. She graduated from the University of Nebraska Medical Center with her doctorate from the Medical Sciences Interdepartmental Area (MSIA). She has completed two post-doctoral fellowships at Northeastern University in Boston and in the Biomechanics Department at the University of Nebraska Omaha, where she was also an assistant professor. Dr. Kyvelidou‘s research focuses on neuro-developmental disabilities during infancy. Her most recently funded projects aim to discover motor and perceptual signatures of autism in the first year of life. Gila Tubul-Lavy, PhD, is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication Disorders at the Faculty of Health and Medical Professions, Ono Academic College, Israel, a speech and language therapist, and a graduate of the Department of Communication Disorders of Tel Aviv University, Israel. She was formerly a national instructor of SLPs at the Israeli Ministry of Education. She has owned a private clinic for 27 years and her research interests include speech sound disorders, the linguistic input of parents to their children with typical development and ASD. She has edited the first book in Hebrew for sound speech disorders. Krisztina Zajdó, PhD is an Associate Professor in Speech-Language Pathology/Special Education at Széchenyi István University/The University of Győr in Győr, Hungary. Her areas of interest are the phonetics and phonology of speech and language development in both typically and atypically developing populations. Most recently, she started a project exploring phonological development in children with generalized learning disability, including those with mild intellectual disability. She directs a research lab where she and her students are studying communicative development in low SES students. She collaborates with Barbara May Bernhardt to explore phonological development cross-linguistically. She is also heavily involved in COST Action IS1406 funded by the European Union where the problems faced by families rearing children with a language disorder and the care provided for them in the EU and neighbouring countries are studied.  Enikő Csertán graduated with a BA degree with double majors in special education and speech-language pathology in 2017 in Győr, Hungary. She is currently a Master’s student in special education with a focus

Contributors xv

on speech-language pathology at Eötvös Loránd University, Bárczi Gusztáv  Faculty of Special Needs Education in Budapest, Hungary. She is also a practicing speech-language pathologist at the Veszprém County Pedagogical Expert Committee where she serves children with speech and language impairments. She has been involved in several research projects studying the development of phonological skills, including phonological awareness, in special need populations. Her motivation stems from her clinical observations gained during her daily practice. Agnes Jordanidisz has been the chair of NILD Central, Eastern Europe and the director of NILD Educational Therapy® training courses in Hungary. She is a member of ELTE Child Language Research Group. She obtained her PhD in Psycholinguistics at Eötvös Loránd University. Her first research focus was on phonological awareness development of Hungarian children. Her recent research focus includes the dynamic assessment of various areas of child language development and language disorders. She also works on developing learning support materials for children with learning difficulties. Katalin Mohai is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Psychology of Special Needs at Eötvös Lorand University (ELTE). She is a psychologist, speech therapist and teacher of special education. She obtained her PhD in Psychology at Eötvös Loránd University. Her research areas include learning disabilities, reading and speech disorders, educational and diagnostic info-communication technologies for people with learning disabilities. She also lectures at post graduate training courses on topics of assessment, developmental psychology, psychology of speech and language disorders and learning disabilities. Orsolya Mihály is an educational therapist working with elementary and kindergarten children who struggle with learning disorders. She has also been involved in ENGaGE Project, testing the Digital English and German task bank for 4-8th class dyslexic learners. She participated in the Teaching Difficult Learners course organized by Pilgrims Teacher Training Canterbury. She has been working with ELTE Child Language Research Group in the research of the dynamic assessment and development of children’s narrative skills. Previously she participated in the standardization of the Meixner Reading Test and in the research of phonological awareness and reading skills. Cheryl Winget, consults with schools and families regarding the educational needs of children across the globe. She received a Doctor of Education (EdD) degree in Special Education/Educational Psychology from Regent University. She has been an instructor for the National Institute for Learning Development (NILD) since 2007. She served on the

xvi Contributors

faculty of International Christian School of Budapest from 2003 to 2015 where she directed the Supplemental Services Department. Presently, she serves as an Adjunct Faculty member at Regent University and as a Guest Lecturer at Emanuel University of Oradea in Romania. Given her passion for music, specifically piano – Cheryl has taught young musicians for over 40 years. Aline Mara de Oliveira is Adjunct Professor of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology Department at Santa Catarina Federal University, Brazil. Her PhD in Linguistics is from São Paulo State University – UNESP (Brazil) and her Interuniversity exchange doctorate from Queen Margaret University (Scotland). Her research interests are in the areas of speech sound disorders, particularly in visual biofeedback techniques for the assessment and treatment. She is also interested in speech production in apraxia childhood speech, autism spectrum condition and persistent speech sound disorders. Gabriely Vitória Veschi has recently graduated in Speech Therapy from the Fernandópolis Educational Foundation – FEF (Brazil). Her research interests are in the areas of language acquisition and speech sound disorders. Luiza Polli has recently graduated in Speech Therapy from the São Paulo State University ‘Júlio de Mesquita Filho’ – UNESP (Brazil) and has joined the postgraduate program (Master) in Speech Therapy at UNESP. She is a member of the Acoustic and Articulatory Analysis Laboratory – LAAc, in the field of phonology, studying specifically speech production and perception in children with speech sound disorders, using specific tests of speech motor evaluation and ultrasound analysis. Cássio Eduardo Esperandino is a Speech Therapist from the São Paulo State University ‘Júlio de Mesquita Filho’ – UNESP (Brazil). He is a member of the Acoustic and Articulatory Analysis Laboratory – LAAc and a Master’s student in human communication disorders with research in speech production by ultrasound analysis in subjects with speech sound disorders at Paulista State University – UNESP, Brazil. Larissa Cristina Berti is an Associate Professor of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology Department at São Paulo State University – UNESP. Her PhD in Linguistics is from the University of Campinas and her post-doctoral in Speech Language Pathology from the University of Toronto. Her research interests are in the areas of speech production and speech perception related to speech sound disorders. Elise Baker, PhD, CPSP is the Associate Professor of Allied Health in the School of Health Sciences, Western Sydney University and South Western

Contributors xvii

Sydney Local Health District, Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, and a Fellow of Speech Pathology Australia. Dr Baker’s research focuses on assessment and intervention for speech sound disorders in children and the relationship between phonological and lexical learning. Dr Baker is regularly invited to provide continuing professional education to practicing speech-language pathologists on the management of speech sound disorders in children. Rebecca McCauley is Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. She is also an ASHA Fellow, recipient of ASHA Honors, and previous associate editor of the American Journal of Speech Language Pathology.  Since 2001, Dr McCauley has authored one book on assessment of language disorders in children, co-authored a test manual, and co-edited five books dealing with a variety of children’s communication disorders, including language disorders, stuttering, autism spectrum disorders and speech sound disorders in children. A. Lynn Williams, PhD, CCC-SLP is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences and Professor in the Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at East Tennessee State University. Her research focuses on models of assessment and intervention of speech sound disorders in children, and she is in interested in translational research and implementation science. Her intervention and translational research has been funded through NIH. Dr Williams is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Practice, an ASHA Fellow, and was an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2011. She is the 2020 ASHA President-Elect. Professor Sharynne McLeod, PhD, is Professor of Speech and Language Acquisition at Charles Sturt University, Australia. She is an elected Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Life Member of Speech Pathology Australia and has spoken at the United Nations about communication rights.  She has won Editors’ Awards from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing: Speech (2018) and the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (2019) and has co-authored 10 books and over 200 articles and chapters on children’s speech acquisition, speech sound disorders, and multilingualism. Free resources are available on her Multilingual Children’s Speech website: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/ multilingual-speech Nancy J. Scherer, PhD is Professor of Speech and Hearing Science at Arizona State University. Her research interests include early assessment and intervention for children with craniofacial conditions, parent training

xviii Contributors

and multicultural adaptations for early assessments and intervention for children with cleft palate. She has an interest in determining benchmarks for intervention and adaptive interventions that are customized to child and parent characteristics. She is funded by the NIDCR and the Department of Education. Renata Paciello Yamashita, PhD, is a Speech-Language Pathologist at the Laboratory of Physiology, and supervisor in the Postgraduate Program in Rehabilitation Sciences of the Hospital for Rehabilitation of Craniofacial Anomalies-USP. She is also the Coordinator of the Human Research Ethics Committee and President of the International Relations Committee of the Hospital for Rehabilitation of Craniofacial Anomalies-USP. She is an Adjunct Faculty Member of the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University (ASU-EUA) and Lead Speech-Language Pathologist in the Project “Assessing delivery of an early speech intervention for children with clefts in Brazil” supported by NIH-NIDCR. Her research interests focus on auditory-perceptual instrumental assessment of speech and the velopharyngeal function. Ana Paula Fukushiro is a Speech-Language Pathologist with a PhD in Sciences from the University of São Paulo. She is an Assistant Professor at the Speech-Language-Pathology and Audiology Department of Bauru School of Dentistry, University of São Paulo and an Adjunct Faculty member at Arizona State University. She is an advisor in the master’s and doctoral degree program of Rehabilitation Sciences in the Hospital for Rehabilitation of Craniofacial Anomalies, University of São Paulo, and her research interests focus on speech, cleft palate  and oromiofunctional disorders.   Márcia Keske-Soares is a Speech-Language Pathologist with a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (2001). She is also Titular Professor and Professor at the SpeechLanguage Hearing Department of Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM). She is an advisor in the master’s and doctoral degree program of Human Communication Disorders in UFSM and her research interests focus on assessment and therapy in speech sound disorders. Débora Natália de Oliveira is a Speech-Language Pathologist. She is a PhD student at the Hospital for Rehabilitation of Craniofacial Anomalies, University of Sao Paulo, Bauru, Sao Paulo, her adviser is Dr Inge Trindade and co-adviser Dr Nancy Scherer. She was interventionist in the InterKIDS Project for early speech intervention for children with cleft palate in Brazil, with the investigator Dr Nancy Scherer of the Arizona State University and co-investigator Inge Trindade of the University of Sao Paulo. Her research interests focus on the assessment in speech and language in young children with cleft palate.

Contributors xix

A. Lynn Williams, PhD, CCC-SLP is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences and Professor in the Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at East Tennessee State University. Her research focuses on models of assessment and intervention of speech sound disorders in children, and she is in interested in translational research and implementation science. Her intervention and translational research has been funded through NIH. Dr Williams is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Practice, an ASHA Fellow, and was an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2011. She is the 2020 ASHA President-Elect. Inge Elly Kiemle Trindade, BS, MS, PhD is Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences, Bauru School of Dentistry of the University of São Paulo (USP/BRASIL), the scientific coordinator of the Speech, Breathing and Sleep Units of the Laboratory of Physiology, USP Hospital for the Rehabilitation of Craniofacial Anomalies, an Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University, Phoenix-Arizona, USA, coordinator of the International Research & Education Agreement between USP-ASU, and Brazilian Coordinator of the Fogarty-NIH/USA funded trial - Assessing the delivery of an early speech intervention for children with clefts in Brazil, having Professor Nancy Scherer from ASU/USA as principal investigator. Rianne van Lieburg (1996) is a PhD student in Psycholinguistics at the CLiPS Centre of the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her doctoral research investigates the development of syntactic representations in early and late bilingual speakers of Dutch by means of syntactic priming. In early 2019, she graduated summa cum laude with a Research Master in Linguistics from Leiden University, the Netherlands. During her studies, she worked as a research intern at the Royal Dutch Auris Group, contributing to a research project on the phonological development of young children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Esther Ottow-Henning (1983) is a Speech Language Pathologist and a psychologist working as a researcher at the Dutch Royal Auris Group. Having worked as an SLP for many years, her focus in recent years is on studying the efficacy of interventions on young children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Her research interests are on phonology, interaction, grammar and vocabulary. She is also involved in the development of applications and the automation of diagnoses and treatment of DLD in young children. Esther has been working in the field since 2006. Brigtta Keij (PhD) works as a Senior Researcher at the research department of the Royal Dutch Auris Group, a care and education organization for children with developmental language disorders. Her main research

xx Contributors

interests are the language development of children with a developmental language disorder and, more specifically, early phonological development. She has also published a book chapter on the development of rhythmic preferences by Dutch-learning infants with René Kager in the volume Dimensions of Phonological Stress edited by Jeffrey Heinz, Rob Goedemans and Harry van der Hulst, published by Cambridge University Press in 2016. She has been working in the field since 2011.

Preface

This book is compiled in honour of distinguished Emeritus Professor David Ingram of Arizona State University and of the University of British Columbia for his contributions to the field of cross-linguistic child language acquisition in typical and atypical contexts. If as a proxy, work submitted to scientific journals is judged based on the collective impact factor a journal has, the impact of researchers’ academic work may be related to how familiar their names in association to their writings are to people involved in the same field. In 2011, at the International Child Phonology Conference (ICPC) that took place in York, England, David Ingram walked up to my first ever poster presentation, took a look, pointed to a section and singly said: That’s a paper I had never met David Ingram before but I recognized the name on his ICPC tag with enthusiasm. When first introduced to child language acquisition in a postgraduate class, I was solely advised Elena, it’s the blue book in the library, and I immediately knew that there must be no other blue book in the well-stocked library of the University of Crete. I now believe that a person immersed in this academic field working in Beijing, Hyderabad, Moscow or Salvador has also singled out David Ingram for his valuable contributions. My subsequent association with David Ingram that has gradually moved from my addressing him as Professor Ingram to Dr. Ingram to David has been on both family and professional terms. The children have swum and jogged together, I have enjoyed Kelly Ingram’s friendship and hospitality, and David Ingram has unwaveringly consented to go along with my suggestions for collaboration, starting a conference and edited books, while also considerately addressing Dimitris Sotiropoulos’ comments on phonological measures. I am privileged and glad for the opportunity that has come my way to do homage to an exceptional scholar. That’s a book in your honour. Elena Babatsouli

xxi

1 Prolegomenon Elena Babatsouli

Ingram et al. (2018: 27) cite: ‘in the beginning was the word, and the word was speech’, going back to the ancestral ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος ‘in the beginning was Speech’ (Bible, John 1:1). Speech permits communication even in the rudimentary form of exclamations; it is the foremost feature of language and the only one that is biologically bestowed. Variable types of speech sounds and their combinations in a particular language form that particular language’s phonological system with phonotactics that clearly distinguish it from other languages’ identifiable combinations cross-linguistically. The processes that evolve during the development of speech, that is the acquisition of a language’s phonology, are very revealing for our understanding of language acquisition and the development of cognitive processes. The present volume aims at compiling studies investigating such beginnings of speech, that is, protolanguage phonology (Babatsouli & Ingram, 2018). In line with its undercurrent under-reported theme, the book seeks to publicize topics and issues not widely or exhaustively reported in the literature, such as research on under-represented languages and foci of interest, as well as lesser known information that is of interest to the field. Thus, this prolegomenon ensues as follows. The first section provides a brief overview of historical foundations in the scientific study of childhood and child speech. Second comes an enumeration of studies in child phonological development, followed by a synopsis of abstract theories in phonological development. Two more sections follow: one on the origins of the International Child Phonology Conference and one discussing the specific focus and contents of the book. This introductory chapter ends with an epilogue.

Some Historical Foundations

To those freshly immersed in the study of what comes out of the mouth of babes, it may come as a surprise that the scientific field of child phonological development, when viewed in terms of the entire course 1

2  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

of human history (Babatsouli, 2019a), is as infantile as its principal informants, the children. The following remark on this is very telling: It is a well recognized fact in the history of science that the very subjects which concern our dearest interests, which lie nearest our hearts, are exactly those which are the last to submit to scientific methods, to be reduced to scientific law. Thus it has come to pass that while babies are born and grow up in every household, and while the gradual unfolding of their faculties has been watched with the keenest interest and intensest joy by even intelligent and scientific fathers and mothers from time immemorial, yet very little has been done in the scientific study of this most important of all possible subjects – the ontogenetic evolution of the faculties of the human mind. (Shinn, 1900: 1)

Despite the sluggish pace, we ought to feel fortunate that the study of child language is so vibrant today. In the Middle Ages (5th–15th century), performationistic interpretations reined and children were viewed as miniature adults (Philippe Ariès, 1962, in Cunningham, 1998), that is, fully developed only smaller in size. With the coming of the age of Enlightenment (17th–18th century), John Locke (1689) suggested that the child’s mind is a tabula rasa, much like the Aristotelian γραμμάτειον ‘unscribed slate’, upon which experience and consequent knowledge (including linguistic competence) accumulates. This passive view of the child was later complemented by Jean Jacques Rousseau’s (1762) contention that children, as ‘noble savages’, have a natural and innate plan for growth that follows stages. Among the first scholars to pioneer the scientific observation of a single child was Charles Darwin publishing A Biographical Sketch of an Infant in 1877. Darwin’s detailed naturalistic observation of his son, done in note cards and field books, has subsequently set the ground for a surge of parentlinguists’ investigations of their off-springs’ linguistic development in the form of diary notes (e.g. Preyer, 1882; Shinn, 1900; Stern & Stern, 1907; Kenyeres, 1938; Piaget, 1955; Szuman, 1955) that were sometimes anecdotal in scope (e.g. Ronjat, 1913). Such general reflections on early child (and language) development are generally known as ‘baby biography’ (e.g. Kent, 1992). For an elaboration on historical and international perspectives of childhood, see Ritter (2007). Investigations in Protolanguage

Actual studies in protolanguage phonology mostly start making their appearance early in the 20th century and keep accumulating later on in major languages like French (e.g. Bloch, 1921; Grammont, 1902), German (e.g. Preyer, 1882; Stern & Stern, 1907), Hungarian (Kenyeres, 1926) Standard American (Holmes, 1927), Italian (e.g. von Raffler-Engel,

Prolegomenon 3

1965), Russian (e.g. Gvozdev, 1948), Polish (Szuman, 1955), etc. For a comprehensive early review of studies in first language acquisition, see Ingram (1989). It is interesting to note that, even as late as the 1940s, studying child speech was controversial in the realm of science as disclosed by Werner F. Leopold’s silent endeavors behind closed doors at Northwestern University (1947). There have afterwards been several case studies of single children’s phonological development investigated longitudinally over several months and years along the developmental path (e.g. Babatsouli, 2013; Bunta et al., 2006; Burling, 1959; Deuchar & Clark, 1996; Holm & Dodd, 1999; Kappa, 2009; Leopold, 1947; Macken, 1979; Major, 1977; Smith, 1973; Schnitzer & Krasinski, 1994, 1996; Tse & Ingram, 1987). The overwhelming majority of such case studies involve bilingual rather than monolingual children, reflecting the general pattern in the world’s population (Babatsouli, 2019b; Babatsouli, forthcoming). Neil Smith’s (1973) seminal study, for instance, customarily considered to be an investigation in monolingual English, has involved a child exposed to second language (accented) input (cf. Babatsouli & Ball, 2020). It’s worth keeping in mind that differentiating between monolingual and bilingual contexts in language acquisition may not necessarily be a straightforward task. The contribution in this volume on Valley Zapotec (Stemberger & Chávez-Peón, Chapter 6) is on a threatened indigenous language of the Otomanguean family, with Mexican Spanish, a Romance language, encroaching in the main towns and on media; encroachment is fortunately very limited in the village of San Lucas in Oaxaca State; Zapotec is a very vibrant language spoken by children and adults in that community, in a primarily monolingual context. Lastly, cross-generational research has also made a first appearance with Smith’s (2010) case study comparing his son’s and grandson’s phonologies in development. Phonological development has further been investigated through the study of many individual children as the extensive work of several developmental phonologists has shown (e.g. Ben-David, this volume; Bunta et al., 2011; Dinnsen & Barlow, 1998; Ingram, 1974a, 1974b; Jordanidisz, Mohai, Mihály & Winget, this volume; Ferguson & Farewell, 1975; Fikkert, 1994; Kornev & Balčiūnienė, this volume; Levelt, 1994; Macken, 1979; Menn, 1976; Moskowitz, 1971; Smith, 1973; Stampe, 1969; Stemberger, 1989; Stoel-Gammon, 1985; Vihman & Velleman, 2000; Waterson, 1971; Zajdó & Csertán, this volume, etc). Such studies in general have looked into children’s phonologies at different ages, and a large volume of research has centered on deciphering children’s babbling and very early productions (Oller et al., 1976; Sosa, 2017; Sosa & Stoel-Gammon, 2006; Vihman et al., 2008; Vihman & Croft, 2007). Studying large groups of children, i.e. the Normative Approach, has its foundations in the work of G. Stanley Hall (1846–1924) who

4  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

together with his student, Arnold Gesell (1880–1961), were influenced by Darwin documenting and measuring in detail all areas related to child development. Slobin’s (1997) publication on L1 acquisition (without a focus on phonology) across many languages has included both case and cross-sectional studies of child language. Interestingly, the children representing Greek in this compilation (Stephany, 1997) were Greekspeaking children being raised in Germany. McLeod’s (2007) volume is an International Guide to Speech Acquisition and presents overviews of phonological acquisition in 36 different languages/varieties, including comprehensive reviews of normative studies cross-linguistically; some of the languages represented are major (English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Spanish, etc.) while others are less common (e.g. Sesotho, Thai, Filipino). Overall, most work on phonological development has involved major languages. Less frequent is the investigation of under-represented languages such as in research done on Arandic (Turpin et al., 2014), Acoma, Mazateco and Blackfoot (Goad, 2012, 2016), Bantu (Demuth, 2003), Esthonian (Vihman, 1971; Vihman & Vihman, 2011), Farsi (Shooshtaryzadeh, 2017), isiXhosa (Pascoe et al., 2017), isZulu (Pascoe & Jegger, 2019), Mandarin (Xu Rattanasone et al., 2018), Maya (Straight, 1976), Nepali (Benders et al., 2019) Quiche (Pye et al., 1987), Xhosa (Mowrer & Burger, 1991), Valley Zapotec (Stemberger & Chávez-Peón, 2014; this volume), Slovenian (Ozbič et al., 2018), Shona (Mudzingwa, 2010), Swahili and Haiwaian (Blevins, 1995; Demuth, 2008; Piggott, 1999), Tagalog (Chen et al., 2016), Zulu (Demuth & Suzman, 1997), etc. The normative approach in investigating phonological development is fundamental in that it undertakes the investigation of speech data across a large number of children, thus permitting the identification of universal patterns and the delineation of norms. Such universals and norms are significant for advancing academic insights on language acquisition cross-linguistically but, most importantly, for their potential to act as guidelines to differentiate typical from atypical patterns in language acquisition (e.g. Babatsouli et al., 2017). Accordingly, phonological acquisition theory has the potential to inform practitioners on cases of disorder, impairment or delay (Jakobson, 1941/1968; Ingram, 1987, 1991). In 1981, Pamela Grunwell wrote: Practitioners especially those whose work is with children experiencing difficulties developing language, cannot afford to follow in a purblind way the theoretical whims of academe. An overzealous adherence to a semantically or a syntactically based remediation program, my lead by default to severely delayed or deviant phonological development; such cases have occurred. In any language development programme, phonology must not be neglected. (Grunwell, 1981: 161)

Prolegomenon 5

Grunwell’s argument was not so much against ‘the theoretical whims of academe’ but rather in favor of giving credit to utilizing phonology. This stance is nowadays widely accepted by researchers exploring phonological delay/protraction, impairment, speech sound disorders, as well as impairment affecting speech (e.g. Bernhardt & Stemberger, 2017; Bowen, 2015; Ingram, 1976a, 2015; Locke, 1983; McLeod & Goldstein, 2012; Müller & Ball, 2015; Sosa & Bunta, in press), as well as by researchers working on assessment and intervention (see Baker et al., this volume; Fabiano-Smith, 2019; McLeod & Baker, 2017; Pascoe et al., 2005; Williams et al., 2010, and references therein). Ingram (this volume, In the Spotlight), nevertheless, clearly argues that despite efforts to replace the medical model with a linguistic approach, the ‘Medical Model is alive and well’. Because of the practical repercussions of phonological theory in identifying, assessing, categorizing atypical contexts of child speech productions, the next section will succinctly discuss abstract phonological theories that have impacted the field of child phonological development, and may still play a key role in informing atypical phonologies and intervention methods. Abstract Theories in Phonological Development

Abstract phonological theory was originally developed for adult speech and applied to child developmental data. The nature of developmental phonology, however, is variable, unsystematic and multiplanar and, as such, any distinct conclusions on phonological abstractness are rendered difficult to reach (Dressler, 1998). The ultimate phonological theory ought to be able to account for all kinds of evidence: first and second language data, adult and child data, universal tendencies, as well as idiosyncrasies (e.g. Babatsouli & Ingram, 2018; Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998). Child developmental data, therefore, are just as suitable for the advancement of phonological theory as adult synchronic data (Jakobson, 1941/1969). What follows is delineation of major theoretical stances in phonological development. The Prague Circle

The original theory of sound classification was proposed by the Prague circle of structuralists, namely, linguists N. Trubetskoy (1890– 1938) and R. Jakobson (1896–1982). Jakobson (1941/1968) advocated that phonological segments are assessed in terms of sets of distinctive features that catalogue all possible human speech segments in an intricate network of articulatory and acoustic correlates. The notion that individual phonemes are in contrast and opposition with each other was introduced by Trubetskoy (1939) stating that, as every segment may only have one or the other property, there is a binary opposition between two classes of

6  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

sounds. Jakobson (1941/1968) is the earliest scholar to identify an order in the acquisition of phonology in terms of successive feature contrasts that economizes the analysis of the learning process. As an application of his theoretical postulations, he identified articulatory stages in phonological development, explained by the principle of maximal contrast, that are also universally applicable in the languages of the world and in aphasic speech. In 1956, the following statement was made: ‘The development of the oral resonances in child language presents a whole chain of successive acquisitions interlinked by laws of implication’ (Jakobson & Halle, 1956: 54). This proposition was later advanced in typological terms in the work of Greenberg (1963) who derived a series of 45 basic universals, mostly dealing with syntax, from some 30 languages. Greenberg’s typology of markedness expanded on the idea of ‘implicational laws’ suggesting an ‘implicational hierarchy’ which denotes that the presence of an attribute B first implies the presence of an attribute A. Generative Theory and Markedness

The Praguian propositions have formed the basis of subsequent phonological theory, with the generative approach in The Sound Pattern of English (Chomsky & Halle, 1968), SPE, having been very influential. In this approach, segments are identifiable by unique for them feature matrices, i.e. different combinations of features with variable [±] specifications identifying and classifying precise articulatory properties, e.g. place or manner of articulation, the vocal fold action, the airstream mechanism and the position of the velum. The formulaic theory postulated in the SPE, however, is deficient in terms of the ‘naturalness condition’ (Postal, 1968, in Dressler, 1998) which hypothesizes that phonological rules are also governed by cognitive principles, not just articulatory and/or acoustic factors applying to surface structure. ‘Naturalness’ is not totally dismissed, though, in that it is the ‘content of features and not the form of the definition that decides these questions’ (Chomsky & Halle, 1968: 401). Admitting this as an ‘unresolved problem’, the SPE postulated in favor of a markedness theory derived by and mostly limited to the set of processes proposed by the Prague Circle. Aspects of markedness theory have been incorporated in subsequent postulations on both feature geometry and underspecification theory (e.g. Steriade, 1995). Markedness is central in child phonology investigations as also shown by contributions in the current volume (Ben-David, Chapter 4; Prince & Ferré, Chapter 8; Villalobos, Chapter 5; Zydorowicz, Chapter 7). Natural Phonology

Stampe (1979) criticized the formulaic processes in SPE as being principally context-free evaluations of underlying representations and,

Prolegomenon 7

as a result, limited in potential. The term ‘processes’, used to mean ‘natural responses to phonetic forces’ (Donegan & Stampe, 1979: 130) was first introduced within the 1979 theoretical framework of ‘natural phonology’: a child’s phonological representations mentally approximate those of the adult but his/her actual productions differ as a result of articulatory and perceptual limitations. Thus, children have an innate set of neutralization rules that they gradually unlearn as they are able to produce more complex realizations and the order of acquisition is definite. Ingram (1976b) graphically states that phonological processes ‘slide through the child’s system, appearing first as constraints on perception, later on organization and production until they are ultimately suppressed’. Stampe’s theory of phonological development is considered to explicate Jakobson’s implicational laws that extent synchronic phonological rules to diachronic and universal processes applicable in the adult languages. Nevertheless, Drachman (1978) questions the applicability of child phonological processes in adult languages cross-linguistically on the grounds that some early child phonological processes like, consonantal harmony, are not productive in adult speech. Zydorowicz (Chapter 7) is a contribution stemming from the natural phonology framework. Neo-Jakobsian Theory

Levels of representation (cognitive theory) in the child’s lexicon have been discussed in terms of both single (Smith, 1973; Stampe, 1979) and double lexicons (e.g. Ingram, 1974a). Ingram (1974a) introduced the idea that a child’s phonological knowledge differs from that of the adult’s, though not without exceptions. Neo-Jakobsian theory (e.g. Ingram, 1974a, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992) incorporates Jakobson’s proposition that the feature is the basic unit of analysis as opposed to the word (e.g. see the Stanford Group) and of the universality of first contrasts. One of the main postulates of neo-Jakobsian theory is that children’s perceptual abilities (themselves immature at onset of speech) precede their phonetic skills and that the child’s perception of the adult form is phonetic rather than, as argued by Smith (1973), phonemic. Children’s representation of early vocabulary in fully specified feature matrices has been proposed as the ‘acoustic representation hypothesis’ (Ingram, 1991). Unlike in Jakobson’s theory, neo-Jakobsian theory states that there is cross-linguistic variation in the acquisition of contrasts. In this approach, phonological processes play an important role. Phonological process analysis is ‘an attempt to explain a child’s substitutions by describing them in terms of general patterns of simplification’ (Ingram, 1981). Phonological (or simplification) processes, defined as ‘a simplifying tendency on the part of the child to alter natural classes of sounds in a systematic way’ (Ingram, 1981: 77) and considered

8  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

finite, are classified under generalized statements in eight major types: substitution processes, assimilatory processes, syllable structure processes, dynamic considerations of phonetic variability, simultaneous occurrence of advanced and ‘frozen forms’ (Ferguson & Farewell, 1975), non-isomorphic processes where substitution patterns are affected by the occurrence of adjacent phonological processes, individual variation or ‘phonological preferences’ among children, and prosodic considerations relating to the place of the sound in the word, also subject to individual variation (Ingram, 1979). For an elaborate outline of neo-Jakobsian theory, see Beers (1995: 41–47). For a brief discussion of the impact of Neo-Jakobsian theory on differentiating disorder and on intervention methods, see Ingram (this volume) and Baker et al. (Chapter 15). (Non)Linearity

Chomsky and Halle’s (1968) perspective of rules and representations and constraint-based theories stemming from it, such as optimality theory (e.g. Prince & Smolensky, 2004), are essentially linear in their outlook; they account for output limitations by assuming that the child moves linearly from less marked to more marked outputs, initially limited by universal constraints and, subsequently, through parameter setting. Contrary to linear propositions, however, and despite their significant impact, there is overall agreement to date that phonological development is nonlinear both in terms of general language acquisition theory and particular phonological theorizing (e.g. Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998; Fikkert, 1994; Gierut, 1996; Rice & Avery, 1995). Nonlinearity in phonological theoretical models signifies complexity that is multi-planar; this relies on the tenet that autonomous phonological units (segments-syllable-foot-prosodic word) have underlying hierar­ chical representations, not directly observable, though related on differ­ ent tiers from the prosodic phrase through foot, syllable, timing units, right down to the internal workings of the segment (feature hierarchy) (e.g. Bérubé et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2016). Each hierarchical level is independent while also linked with several other levels in a geometrical hierarchy. Bernhardt and Stemberger (1998) have proposed a nonlinear constraint-based theory of phonological development, suggesting that ‘output constraints do not depend on representational analysis, but do undergo changes as learning proceeds’. The framework assumes that a re-ranking (or change of ranking) of constraints may be necessary at various stages of a given child’s phonological development which cannot be accounted by strictly linear constraint demotion. Each child starts out with some stable ranking of constraints which cause unfaithfulness of the child’s production to the adult target; the most frequent outputs are ranked as defaults. An internal component of the language system

Prolegomenon 9

is assumed which compares child and target production and initiates re-ranking of constraints in the following stages of development. In the final stage, the constraint ranking reached allows the child’s output to be faithful to the adult pronunciation. The nonlinear constraint-based theoretical framework is utilized in child phonological assessment and intervention (see e.g. Babatsouli, 2019c; Baker et al., this volume). The Focus and Contents of the Volume

As seen, the development of phonology in children has been the subject of extensive research for over two hundred years. The research is based on children’s speech data from birth to about school age. The study of children’s evolving speech production has provided groundwork for theoretical deliberations that shed light into the elusiveness of cognitive, neurolinguistic and biological mechanisms at work during language acquisition for typically developing children and for those with phonological disorders and/or language impairment. What drives phonological acquisition is phonological/phonemic awareness (speech perception) and articulatory/phonetic skill (speech production), with the first one preceding the second in what is known as ‘passive control’ (Ervin & Miller, 1963) of phonology. The supremacy of phonological awareness for accurate speech production is further evidenced in the areas of second language speech (e.g. Babatsouli & Ingram, 2018; Best, 2009), literacy acquisition (e.g. Mann & Foy, 2007; Yopp & Yopp, 2009; Jordanidicz et al., Chapter 13; Zajdó & Csertán, Chapter 12) and speech sound disorders (e.g. Bowen, 2015). The ‘spectrum approach’ recognizes that articulatory and phonological influences in child speech sound disorders fall along a spectrum from one to the other (Ingram et al., 2018). Thus, speech difficulties may or may not be linked to genetic, medical or cognitivecommunication disorders, and they or may not be associated with different linguistic levels, like grammar, semantics, working memory, ability to produce words, and the use of language and speech sounds. Speech difficulties during atypical child language development are not always explained by an obvious cause and tend to persist, impeding language acquisition, communication, and literacy. Most common indicators of atypical development of phonology are delay, deviancy, pattern (in)consistency and anatomical or medical causes (e.g. Baker et al., Chapter 15; Bernhardt & Stemberger, 2017; Dodd et al., 2006; Ingram, 1976a; Shriberg et al., 1997; Shriberg et al., 2010). Although controversy regarding terminologies for language difficulties has overwhelmed the scene of linguistics and speech/language pathology for several years, typologies of speech/language disorder and taxonomies for intervention are continually being advanced (e.g. Ball, 2018; Bernhardt & Stemberger, 2017; Dodd et al., 2006; Ingram, 1976a;

10  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

Shriberg et al., 1997; Shriberg et al., 2010; Shriberg et al., 2019; Williams et al., 2010). Developmental language disorder (DLD), previously known as specific language impairment (SLI), is a term recently endorsed by a consensus to refer to language disorder not associated with a known biomedical aetiology. Also, ‘(a) presence of risk factors (neurobiological or environmental) does not preclude a diagnosis of DLD, (b) DLD can co-occur with other neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. ADHD) and (c) DLD does not require a mismatch between verbal and nonverbal ability’ (Bishop et al.Snowling, 2017). Childhood apraxia of speech and autism spectrum disorder are examples of neurodevelopmental dis­ orders, one affecting motor speech skill and the other affecting general communication and language abilities (ASHA, 2019). Within this general thematic framework, the goal of this volume has been to advance research in monolingual typical and atypical child phonological development by bringing together an assembly of studies on under-reported languages and themes. The volume documents recent advances in monolingual child phonological development of typically and atypically developing populations. The International Child Phonology Conference (ICPC) is a meeting that hosts such advances. An account of the lesser-known history of ICPC is provided in the next chapter.There are five sections in the volume: History of the International Child Phonology Conference; In the Spotlight comprises a chapter by David Ingram on his lifelong contributions to the study of child phonological acquisition, monolingual and bilingual, normal and disordered, in the form of an annotated biography. The section on Typical Development starts with a review on Modern Greek phonology and its acquisition (Babatsouli, Chapter 3). Remaining chapters on typically developing populations are by Ben-David (Chapter 4), Stemberger and Chávez-Peón (Chapter 6), Villalobos (Chapter 5) and Zydorowicz (Chapter 7). The following section, Atypical Development, involves research on autism (DeVeney & Kyvelidou, Chapter 10), developmental language disorder affecting speech (Kornev & Balčiūnienė, Chapter 8; Prince & Ferré, Chapter 8), childhood apraxia of speech (Tubul-Lavy, Chapter 11), phonological awareness in (a) typical contexts affecting literacy (Jordanidicz et al., Chapter 13; Zajdó & Csertán, Chapter 12) and motor speech analysis in speech sound disorders (Oliveira et al., Chapter 14). The last section comprises chapters on phonological Assessment and Intervention by Baker et al. (Chapter 15), Scherer et al. (Chapter 16) and Van Lieburg et al. (Chapter 17). The contributed works present research in the following typologically different languages: Brazilian Portuguese (Oliveira et al., Chapter 14; Scherer et al., Chapter 16), Dutch (van Lieburg et al., Chapter 17), English (Baker et al., Chapter 15; DeVeney & Kyvelidou, Chapter 10), French (Prince & Ferré, Chapter 8), Greek (Babatsouli, Chapter 3), Hebrew (Ben-David, Chapter 4; Tubul-Lavy, Chapter 11), Hungarian (Jordanidicz et al., Chapter 13; Zajdó & Csertán, Chapter 12), Polish

Prolegomenon 11

(Zydorowicz, Chapter 7), Russian (Kornev & Balčiūnienė, Chapter 9), Mexican Spanish (Villalobos, Chapter 5) and Valley Zapotec in Mexico (Stemberger & Chávez-Peón, Chapter 6). Epilogue

This volume has aimed at advancing our understanding of child phonology developing under normal circumstances or in the presence of disorder/impairment. David Ingram’s lifetime academic contributions in the field have been most influential in this respect; the editor and contributing authors are gratified to have joined forces to put this compilation together and to also pay tribute to this prominent academic. As researchers avidly working in this field, we are part of a lively procession delivering a long array of studies. Yet, there is distinct aftertaste that we have a long way to go before we are in a position to fully understand the workings of the mind that model child typical and atypical speech performance and, also more importantly, before we can aptly employ this knowledge to effect improvement where it is most needed, that is, in clinical contexts. The words by Joseph De Conte may act both as counsel and encouragement: What is wanted most of all in this, as in every science, is a body of carefully observed facts. But to be an accomplished investigator in ­ this field requires a rare combination of qualities. There must be a wide intelligence combined with patience in observing and honesty in recording. There must be also an earnest scientific spirit, a loving sympathy with the subject of investigation, yet under watchful restraint, lest it cloud the judgement; keenness of intuitive perception, yet soberness of judgement in interpretation. (De Conte in Shinn, 1900: 2) References ASHA, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2019) See https://www. asha. org/Practice-Portal/Clinical-Topics/Autism/ and https://www.asha.org/Practice-Portal/ Clinical-Topics/Autism/. Babatsouli, E. (forthcoming) Diversity consideration in speech and language disorders: a focus on training. In J.S. Damico, N. Müller and M.J. Ball (eds) Handbook of Language and Speech Disorders. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Babatsouli, E. (2019a) Linguistics. In J.S. Damico and M.J. Ball (eds) The SAGE Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders (pp. 1109–1117). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Babatsouli, E. (2019b) Multilingualism. In J.S. Damico and M.J. Ball (eds) The SAGE Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders (pp. 1200–1203). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Babatsouli, E. (2019c) A phonological assessment test for child Greek. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 33 (7), 601–607. doi: 10.1080/02699206.2019.1569164.

12  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

Babatsouli, E. (2013) Phonological Development of a Child’s L2 English in Bilingualism. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece. See https:// phdtheses.ekt.gr/eadd/handle/10442/35165. Babatsouli, E. and Ball, M.J. (2019) Editorial. Inaugural issue of the Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 1, 1–6. Babatsouli, E. and Ball, M.J. (2020) Introduction. In E. Babatsouli and M.J. Ball (eds) An Anthology of Bilingual Child Phonology (pp. 1–26). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Babatsouli, E. and Ingram, D. (2018) Prologue. In E. Babatsouli and D. Ingram (eds) Phonology in Protolanguage and Interlanguage (pp. 1–23). Sheffield: Equinox Publishing. Babatsouli, E., Ingram D. and Müller, N. (2017) Introduction. In E. Babatsouli, D. Ingram and N. Müller (eds) Crosslinguistic Encounters in Language Acquisition: Typical and Atypical Development (pp. xxiii–xxxvi). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Ball, M.J. (2018) Typologies of child speech disorder: A survey and possible synthesis. Special lecture presented at the International Child Phonology Conference 2018, Chania, Greece. Beers, M. (1995) The phonology of Normally Developing and Language Impaired Children. IFOTT dissertation series, No 20, University of Amsterdam. Benders, T., Pokharel, S. and Demuth, K. (2019) Hypo-articulation of the four-way voicing contrast in Nepali infant-directed speech. Language Learning and Development 15(3), 232–254. doi: 10.1080/15475441.2019.1577139. Bernhardt, B.H. and Stemberger, J.P. (1998) Handbook of Phonological Development: From a Nonlinear Constraints-based Perspective. San Diego: Academic Press, now with Emerald Group Publishing. Bernhardt, B.M. and Stemberger, J.P. (2017) Investigating typical and protracted phonological development across languages. In E. Babatsouli, D. Ingram and N. Müller (eds) Crosslinguistic Encounters in Language Acquisition: Typical and Atypical Development (pp. 71–108). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bérubé, D., Bernhardt, B.M. and Stemberger, J.P. (2015) A test of French phonology: Construction and use. Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology 39 (1), 62–101. Best, C. (2009) Articulating the perceptual assimilation model (PAM): Perceptual assimilation in relation to articulatory organs and their constriction gestures. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 125 (4), 2758. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4784648. Bishop, D.V.M, Snowling, M.J., Thompson, P.A., Greenhalgh, T. and the CATALISE-2 consortium (2017) Phase 2 of CATALISE: A multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study of problems with language development: Terminology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 58 (10), 1068–1080. Blevins, J. (1995) The syllable in phonological theory. In. J.A. Goldsmith (ed.) The Handbook of Phonological Theory (pp. 206–244). Cambridge: Blackwell. Bloch, O. (1921) Les premiers stades du langage de l’enfant. Journal de Psychologie 18, 18–53. Bowen, C. (2015) Children’s Speech Sound Disorders (2nd edn). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Bunta, F., Davidovich, I. and Ingram, D. (2006) The relationship between the phonological complexity of a bilingual child’s words and those of the target languages. International Journal of Bilingualism 10 (1), 71–88. Bunta, F., DiLuca, C. and Branum-Martin, L. (2011) The acquisition of voiceless postalveolar fricatives and affricates by bilingual children and their monolingual peers. The Phonetician 103/104, 36–56. Burling, R. (1959/1978) Language development of a Garo and English child. Word 15, 45– 68. Reprinted in E.M. Hatch (ed.) (1978) Second Language Acquisition (pp. 54–75). Rowley: Newbury House. Chen, R.K., Bernhardt, B.M. and Stemberger, J.P. (2016) Phonological assessment and analysis tools for Tagalog: Preliminary development. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 30 (8), 599–627. doi: 10.3109/02699206.2016.1157208.

Prolegomenon 13

Chomsky, N. and Halle, M. (1968) The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row. Cunningham, H. (1998) Histories of childhood. The American Historical Review 103 (4), 1195–1208. doi:10.2307/2651207. Darwin, C. (1877) A biographical sketch of an infant. Mind 2, 292–294. Demuth, K. (2003) The acquisition of Bantu languages. In D. Nurse and G. Philippson (eds) The Bantu Languages (pp. 209–222). London/New York: Routledge. Demuth, K. (2008) The Acquisition of Swahili. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 29 (1), 100–102. Demuth, K. and Suzman, S. (1997) Language impairment in Zulu. In E. Hughes, M. Hughes and A. Green (eds) BUCLD 21: Proceedings of the 21st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 1, pp. 124–135). Somerville: Cascadilla Press. Deuchar, M. and Clark, A. (1996) Early bilingual acquisition of the voicing contrast in English and Spanish. Journal of Phonetics 24, 351–365. Dinnsen, D.A. and Barlow J.A. (1998) On the characterization of a chain shift in normal and delayed phonological acquisition. Journal of Child Language 25 (1), 61–94. Dodd, B., Holm, A., Hua, Z., Crosbie, S. and Broomfield, J. (2006) English phonology: Acquisition and disorder. In Z. Hua and B. Dodd (eds) Phonological Development and Disorders in Children: A Multilingual Perspective (pp. 25–55). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Donegan, P. and Stampe, D. (1979) The study of Natural Phonology. In D.A. Dinnsen (ed.) Current Approaches to Phonological Theory (pp. 126–174). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Drachman, G. (1978) Child language and language change: conjecture and some refutations. In J. Fisiak (ed.) Recent Developments in Historical Phonology (pp. 123–144). The Hague: Mouton. Dressler, C. (1998) Child phonology, learnerability and phonological theory. In C.W. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia (eds) Handbook of Child Language Acquisition (pp. 299–346). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science and Technology Books. Ervin, S.M. and Miller, W.R. (1963) Language development. In H.W. Stevenson (ed.) Child Psychology, NSSEY (pp. 108–143). Chicago: Chicago University Press. Ferguson, C. and Farewell, C. (1975) Words and sounds in early language acquisition: Initial consonants in the first fifty words. Language 51, 419–439. Fabiano-Smith, L. (2019) Standardized tests and the diagnosis of speech sound disorders. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups 4, 58–66. Fikkert, P. (1994) On the Acquisition of Prosodic Structure. HIL Dissertation 6. Dordrect: ICG Printing. Gierut, J.A. (1996) Featural categories in English phonemic acquisition. In B.M. Bernhardt, D. Ingram and J. Gilbert (eds) Proceedings of the UBC International Conference on Phonological Acquisition (pp. 42–52). Somerville: Cascadilla Press. Goad, H. (2012) sC clusters are (almost always) coda-initial. The Linguistic Review 29, 335–373. Goad, H. (2016) Phonotactic evidence from typology and acquisition for a coda+onset analysis of Initial sC clusters. Proceedings of the 33rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA. Grammont, M. (1902) Observations sur le langage des enfants. In Mélanges Linguistiques Offerts à M. Antoine Meillet (pp. 115–131). Paris: Klincksieck. Greenberg, J.H. (1963) Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In J.H. Greenberg (ed.) Universals of Language (pp. 73–113). London: MIT Press. Grunwell, P. (1981) The development of phonology. First Language 3, 161–191. Gvozdev, A.N. (1948) Usvoenie Rebenkom Zvukovoj Storony Russkogo Yazyka [Phonological Development in a Russian Child]. Izd-vo APN-RSFSR. Holm, A. and Dodd, B. (1999) A longitudinal study of the phonological development of two Cantonese-English bilingual children. Applied Psycholinguistics 20, 349–376.

14  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

Holmes, U.T. (1927) The phonology of an English-speaking child. American Speech 2 (5), 219–225. Ingram, D. (1974a) Phonological rules in young children. Journal of Child Language 1, 49–64. Ingram, D. (1974b) Fronting in child phonology. Journal of Child Language 1, 233–241. Ingram, D. (1976a) Phonological Disability in Children. London: Edward Arnold. Ingram, D. (1976b) Phonological analysis of a child. Glossa 5 (1), 1–19. Ingram, D. (1979) Phonological patterns in the speech of young children. In P. Fletcher and M. Garman (eds) Language acquisition (pp. 133–148). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ingram, D. (1981) Procedures for the Phonological Analysis of Children’s Language. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press. Ingram, D. (1987) Categories of phonological disorder. Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Specific Speech and Language Disorders in Children (pp. 88–99). Surrey: Association for All Speech Impaired Children. Ingram, D. (1988) Jakobson revisited: Some evidence from the acquisition of Polish. Lingua 75, 55–82. Ingram, D. (1989) First Language Acquisition: Method, Description and Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ingram, D. (1991) Toward a theory of phonological acquisition. In J. Miller (ed.) Research on Child Language Disorders: A Decade of Progress (pp. 55–72). Austin: Pro-Ed. Ingram, D. (1992) Early phonological acquisition: A crosslinguistic perspective. In C.A. Ferguson, L. Menn and C. Stoel-Gammon (eds) Phonological Development: Models, Research, Implications (pp. 147–158). Timonium: York Press. Ingram, D. (2015) The role of theory in SSD. In C. Bowen (ed.) Children’s Speech Sound Disorders (2nd edn, pp. 42–45). Oxford: John Wiley. Ingram, D., Williams, A.L. and Scherer, N. (2018) Are speech sounds disorders phonological or articulatory? A spectrum approach. In E. Babatsouli and D. Ingram (eds) Phonology in Protolanguage and Interlanguage (pp. 27–48). Sheffield: Equinox. Jakobson, R. (1941/1968) Child Language, Phonological Universals and Aphasia. (Keiler, A. Trans.). The Hague: Mouton. Original work published in 1941 as Kindersprache, Aphasie und Allgemeine Lautgesetze. Jakobson, R. and Halle, M. (1956) Fundamentals of Language. The Hague: Mouton. Kappa, I. (2009) On the acquisition of liquids in Modern Greek: A developmental account. Studies on the Greek Language 29, 478–485. Kent, R.D. (1992) The biology of phonological development. In C.A. Ferguson, L. Menn and C. Stoel-Gammon (eds) Phonological Development: Models, Research, Implications (pp. 65–90). Timonium: York Press. Kenyeres, E. (1926) A Gyermek Elsö Szavai es a Szófajók Föllépése. Budapest: Kisdednevelés. Kenyeres, A. (1938) Comment une petite Hongroise de sept ans apprend le Francais. Archives de Psychology 26, 321–366. Leopold, W.F. (1947) Speech Development of a Bilingual Child: Sound-learning in the First Two Years. Northwestern University ‘Studies in the Humanities’ (Vol. II). Levelt, C.C. (1994) On the Acquisition of Place. PhD dissertation 8, Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics (HIL), Leiden University. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics. Locke, J. (1689) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Locke, J.L. (1983) Clinical phonology: The explanation and treatment of speech sound disorders. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 48, 339–341. Macken, M.A. (1979) Developmental reorganization of phonology: A hierarchy of basic units of acquisition. Lingua 49, 11–49. Major, R.C. (1977) Phonological differentiation of a bilingual child. Papers in Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics. Working Papers in Linguistics 22, 88–122.

Prolegomenon 15

Mann, V.A. and Foy, J. (2007) Speech development patterns and phonological awareness in preschool children. Annals of Dyslexia 57 (1), 51–74, doi: 10.1007/s11881-007-0002-1. McLeod, S. (ed.) (2007) The International Guide to Speech Acquisition. Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning. McLeod, S. and Baker, E. (2017) Children’s Speech: An Evidence-Based Approach to Assessment and Intervention. Boston: Pearson. McLeod, S. and Goldstein, B.A. (2012) Multilingual Aspects of Speech Sound Disorders in Children. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Menn, L. (1976) Pattern, Control and Contrast in Beginning Speech: A Case Study in the Development of Word Form and Word Function. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Moskowitz, A.I. (1971) Acquisition of Phonology. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Mowrer, D.E. and Burger, S. (1991) A comparative analysis of phonological acquisition of consonants in the speech of 2;5–6 year old Xhosa- and English-speaking children. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 5, 139–164.   Mudzingwa, C. (2010) Phonological Structures in Early Shona Words: L1 Acquisition of Shona Phonology. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. Müller, N. and Ball, M. (2015) Clinical linguistics (and phonetics). In C. Bowen (ed.) Children’s Speech Sound Disorders (2nd edn, pp. 28–31). Oxford: John Wiley. Oller, D. K., Wieman, L., Doyle, W. and Ross, C. (1976) Infant babbling and speech. Journal of Child Language 3, 1–11. Ozbič, M., Kogovšek, D., Stemberger, J.P., Bernhardt, B.M., Muznik, M. and Novšak Brce, J. (2018) Word-initial rhotics in Slovenian 4-year-olds with typical versus protracted phonological development. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 32 (5–6), 523–543, doi: 10.1080/02699206.2017.1359854. Pascoe, M. and Jegger, Z (2019) Speech acquisition in monolingual children acquiring isiZulu in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 1 (1), 94–117. Pascoe, M., Mahura, O., Le Roux, J., Danvers, E., de Jager, A., Esterhuizen, N., Naidoo, C., Reynders, J., Senior, S. and van der Merwe, A. (2017) Speech development in threeyear-old children acquiring isiXhosa and English in South Africa. In E Babatsouli, D. Ingram and N. Müller (eds) Crosslinguistic Encounters in Language Acquisition: Typical and Atypical Development (pp. 3–26). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Pascoe, M., Stackhouse, J. and Wells, B. (2005) Phonological therapy within a psycholinguistic framework: Promoting change in a child with persisting speech difficulties. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 40 (2), 189–220. doi:10.1080/13682820412331290979. Piaget, J. (1955) The Language and Thought of a Child (Translated by M. Gabain). Cleveland: Meridian Books. Piggott, G.L. (1999) At the right edge of words. The Linguistic Review 16, 143–185. Preyer, W. (1882) Die Seele des Kindes. Leipzig: Grieben. Prince, A. and Smolensky, P. (2004) Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Pye, C., Ingram, D. and List, H. (1987) A comparison of initial consonant acquisition in English and Quiche. In K.E. Nelson and A. van Kleeck (eds) Children’s Language (Vol. 6, pp. 175–190). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Rice, K. and Avery, P. (1995) Variability in a deterministic model of language acquisition: A theory of segmental elaboration. In J.A. Archibald (ed.) Phonological Acquisition and Phonological Theory (pp. 23–42). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ritter, L. (2007) Historical and international perspectives of childhood. In S. McLeod (ed.) The International Guide to Speech Acquisition (pp. 73–77). Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning. Ronjat, J. (1913) Le Développement du Langage Observé chez un Enfant Bilingue. Paris: Champion.

16  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

Rousseau, J.J. (1762) Émile ou de l’Éducation (Émile or On Education). Information retrieved from: https://www.iep.utm.edu/rousseau/. Schnitzer, M.L. and Krasinski, E. (1994) The development of segmental phonological production in a bilingual child. Journal of Child Language 21, 585–622. Schnitzer, M.L. and Krasinski, E. (1996) The development of segmental phonological production in a bilingual child: A contrasting second case. Journal of Child Language 23, 547–571. Shinn, M.W. (1900) The Biography of a Baby. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Shooshtaryzadeh, F (2017) Local assimilation in children acquiring Farsi: A study of typical versus atypical phonological development. In E. Babatsouli, D. Ingram and N. Müller (eds) Crosslinguistic Encounters in Language Acquisition: Typical and Atypical Development (pp. 249–276). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Shriberg, L.D., Austin, D., Lewis, B.A., McSweeny, J.L. and Wilson, D.L (1997) The speech disorders classification system (SDCS): Extensions and lifespan reference data. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research 40 (4), 723–40. Shriberg, L.D., Fourakis, M., Hall, S.D., Karlsson, H.B., Lohmeier, H.L., McSweeny, J.L., Potter, N.L., Scheer-Cohen, A.R., Strand, E.A., Tilkens, C.M. and Wilson, D.L. (2010) Extensions to the speech disorders classification system (SDCS). Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 24 (10), 795–824. Shriberg, L.D., Campbell, T.F., Mabie, H.L. and McGlothlin, J.H. (2019) Reference Data for Children with Idiopathic Speech Delay with and without Concurrent Speech Motor Delay. Technical Report No. 26, Phonology Project, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Slobin, D.I. (ed.) (1997) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition: Expanding the contexts. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Smith, N.V. (1973) The Acquisition of Phonology: A Case Study. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 25, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, N.V. (2010) Acquiring Phonology: A Cross-generational Case-study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, A.V. (2017) The impact of parent communication patterns on infant volubility during play with books. In E. Babatsouli, D. Ingram and N. Müller (eds) Crosslinguistic Encounters in Language Acquisition: Typical and Atypical Development (pp. 27–48). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Sosa, A.V. and Bunta, F. (in press) Speech production variability in monolingual and bilingual children with cochlear implants: A comparison to their peers with normal hearing. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Sosa A.V. and Stoel-Gammon C. (2006) Patterns of intra-word phonological variability during the second year of life. Journal of Child Language 33, 31–50. PMID 16566319 doi: 10.1017/S0305000905007166. Stampe, D. (1969) The acquisition of phonetic representation. In R.I. Binnick (ed.) Papers from the 5th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 433–444). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Stampe, D. (1979) A Dissertation on Natural Phonology. New York: Garland. Stemberger, J.P. (1989) Speech errors in early child language production. Journal of Memory and Language 28, 164–188. Stemberger, J.P. and M.E. Chávez-Peón (2014) Overgeneralization in the processing of complex forms in Valley Zapotec child language. Mental Lexicon 9, 107–130. Stephany, U. (1997) The acquisition of Greek. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition (Vol. 4., pp. 183–333). London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Steriade, D. (1995) Underspecification and markedness. In J.A. Goldsmith (ed.) The handbook of phonological theory (pp. 114–174). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Stern, C. and Stern, W. (1907) Die Kindersprache. Leipzig: Barth. Stoel-Gammon, C. (1985) Phonetic inventories, 15-24 months: A longitudinal study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 28, 505–512.

Prolegomenon 17

Straight, H.S. (1976) The Acquisition of Maya Phonology. Variation in Yucatec Child Language. London: Routledge. Szuman, S. (1955) Rozwój tresci slownika u dziece. Studia Pedagogicane 2. Trubetzkoy, N.S. (1939/1958) Fundamentals of Phonology. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique. Tse, S.M. and Ingram, D. (1987) The influence of dialectal variation on phonological acquisition: A case study on the acquisition of Cantonese. Journal of Child Language 14, 281–294. Turpin, M., Demuth, K. and Campbell, A.N. (2014) Phonological aspects of Arandic baby talk. In R. Pensalfini, M. Turpin and D. Guillemin (eds) Language Description Informed by Theory (pp. 49–79). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Vihman, M.M. (1971) On the acquisition of Estonian. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 3, 45. Washington: ERIC Clearinghouse.  Vihman, M.M. and Croft, W. (2007) Phonological development: Toward a ‘radical’ templatic phonology. Linguistics 45, 683–725. Vihman, M.M. and Velleman, S.L. (2000) The construction of a first phonology. Phonetica 57, 255–256. Vihman, M.M. and Vihman, V.-A. (2011) From first words to segments: A case study in phonological development. In E.V. Clark and I. Arnon, I. (eds) Experience, Variation, and Generalization. Trends in Language Acquisition Research (pp. 109–133). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Vihman, M.M., De Paolis, R.A. and Keren-Portnoy, T. (2008) Babbling and words: A dynamic systems perspective on phonological development (pp. 163–182). In E. Bavin (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Child Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. von Raffler-Engel, W. (1965) Del bilinguismo infantile. Archivio Glottologico Italiano 50, 175–180. Waterson, N. (1971) Child phonology: A prosodic view. Journal of Linguistics 7, 179–211. Williams, A.L., McLeod, S. and McCauley, R.J. (eds) (2010) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing. Xu Rattanasone, N., Tang, P., Yuen, I., Gao, L. and Demuth, K. (2018) Five-year-olds’ acoustic realization of mandarin tone sandhi and lexical tones in context are not yet fully adult-like. Frontiers in Psychology 9, 1–10. Yopp, H.K. and Yopp, R.H. (2009) Phonological awareness is child’s play! Young Children 64 (1), 12–21.

2 History of the International Child Phonology Conference Elena Babatsouli and Karen Pollock

Research advances in child phonological development may be presented in several language-related conferences. What child phonologists consider to be a conference specifically catering to their interests is the International Child Phonology Conference (ICPC). This is an annual conference, initially intended to rotate among US universities undertaking research in child phonological disorders. Early informal gatherings date back to 1976 in the Midwest of the United States. Though the Child Phonology conference has now an international standing, it remains the only conference of its kind. Also, while ICPC is well known among researchers in the field, its origins are less known. The first time that the editor of this volume (first author) attended ICPC was during the 2011 meeting hosted by Marilyn Vihman at the University of York. The editor herself subsequently organized ICPC 2018 in Chania, Crete, under the auspices of the Institute of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech. This led to the present collaboration with Karen Pollock on the history of the conference. Elena Babatsouli is grateful to a number of child phonologists, all regular ICPC participants and organizers, for making it possible to get hold of historical information regarding the history of the International Child Phonology Conference. Special thanks are due to A. Lynn Williams for assisting the initial exploration of this question and to Barbara May Bernhardt for suggesting to find the complete list of the Child Phonology meetings from first to current. As a result of that, responses to an inquiry posted on the info-childes Google discussion group helped provide the missing information. In particular, Karen Pollock (second author) has been instrumental in filling in the gaps regarding the exact dates and locations of convening and names of organizers for early meetings based on both her own thorough records and her subsequent involvement in contacting people and searching for

18

History of the International Child Phonology Conference  19

remaining missing information. She also pointed out that the original conference was referred to as ‘Child Phonology Meeting’ rather than ‘Child Phonology Conference’. All other word-of-mouth information is presented next; among the informants are: A. Lynn Williams, Phil Connell, Karen Pollock, Carol Stoel-Gammon, Richard G. Schwartz, Marilyn Vihman, David Ingram and John Locke. Based on recounts by A Lynn Williams’ PhD supervisor, the late Mary Elbert, as well as those by Phil Connell, the International Child Phonology Conference started out as the Midwestern/Midwest Child Phonology Meeting in the United States, a conference initially intended to rotate among the Midwestern universities that were involved in research in child phonological disorders. The idea occurred during a conversation between Mary Elbert (Indiana University), Phil Connell (Northwestern University) and Leija McReynolds (University of Kansas), which subsequently became a specific plan during their meeting at the 1976 ASHA convention in Houston. Phil Connell and Mary Elbert were doing research on their separate campuses with linguists (him-Fred Eckman, and her-Dan Dinnsen), and they thought that a conference that exploited the connection between SLP practice and linguistic theory would be successful. Leija was far less enthusiastic about a conference on theory and practice than them, because she was a rather strict behaviorist who had little respect for linguistic theories. In spite of that she never imposed her opinion but instead listened to and encouraged people, while quietly remaining convinced that linguistic theories had nothing at all to offer articulation therapy. Also, Phil Connell was more in favor of making the meeting’s focus broader than child phonology and, thus, to include syntax and morphology, but Mary Elbert and Leija McReynolds wanted to focus on child phonology exclusively, at least at first. So, the compromise plan was to begin with child phonology and build from there if necessary, even though that never became necessary. Phonological and syntactic theories, much like linguists and SLPs, were then and have remained relatively separated (e.g. Ingram, this volume, Babatsouli & Ball, 2019). The inaugural meeting was held in 1980 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. It was organized by John Locke, who, through his contacts with Dan Dinnsen and Mary Elbert at various conferences, was intrigued by the idea of a conference on theory and practice, and who had the enthusiasm, space and financial support to host it. The conference had about 15–20 participants, among whom were: John Locke, Mary Elbert, Phil Connell, Leija McReynolds, Larry Shriberg, John Bernthal, Roy Eberling, Barbara Rockman, Elaine Paden and others. John Locke is known to be a master at encouraging discussion and participation, so most people had an opportunity to present their point of view. There was a lot of listening and talking but most who participated in discussions did not formally present. The

20  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

papers actually presented at this first meeting were not published nor shared, though copies may have been sent at a later date. This having been a good conference, in which interesting ideas were freely discussed, led to everyone present being willing to make it a regular event in the end. The following year an informal meeting was held again at UrbanaChampaign. The 1982 meeting was hosted by Mary Elbert at Indiana University to return there again in 1986, after having moved to Purdue University, hosted by Richard Schwartz, for three consecutive years. At Purdue, the meeting expanded beyond its Midwest base to include some of the ‘Stanford Child Phonology group’ and others from across the United States. Charles Ferguson was there, as were Marilyn Vihman, Carol Stoel-Gammon and Mary Louise Edwards. Karen Pollock recalls: ‘Imagine being a new PhD student at Purdue, focusing in child phonology, and having this conference and all of these amazing leaders in the field come to you for three years in a row’.  Based on her recollections, during those earlier years and at least through 2000, the conference remained relatively small and informal with no concurrent sessions, no invited speakers and no poster presentations.  Discussions were initiated by informal presentations of new data, investigations in progress, theoretical issues, clinical issues or methodological issues. Registration fees were minimal or non-existent. Information about upcoming meetings was sent to individuals on the mailing list, and the growing list was passed from the current meeting’s chair to the next year’s chair. Information was also shared by word of mouth, as there was no email or conference website in those days. Presentations typically ranged from 15 to 30 minutes, and there was always a focus on having time for discussion. According to Carol-Stoel Gammon, in the first 10 years or so, there was no selection process for presentations. Those who wanted to present simply submitted the title of the paper and it was added to the list. In a number of cases, the presenter talked about a topic quite different from the one that had been proposed. The 10th anniversary meeting was held at Northwestern University in 1989. Interestingly, the title of John Locke’s talk at that meeting was ‘Urbana “80: Reflections on our ‘initial state”’. The 1990 conference, hosted by Larry Shriberg at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, was scheduled back to back with the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, as many participants regularly attended both meetings. The Child Phonology conference assumed international status, also reflected in the change of its name, in 1999 when Marilyn Vihman organized it at Bangor University, Wales. Seven more international meetings have taken place, of which three were held in Europe (in 2011 at York by Marilyn Vihman; in 2013 at Nijmegen by J.P.M. Fikkert; in 2018 at Chania by Elena Babatsouli) and four in Canada (in 2003 at Vancouver

History of the International Child Phonology Conference  21

by Barbara May Bernhardt and Joseph Paul Stemberger; in 2006 at Edmonton by Karen Pollock; in 2015 at St. John’s by Yvan Rose; and in 2019 at Montreal by Andrea A.N. MacLeod). At the Vancouver meeting in 2003, poster sessions were introduced for the first time. Ultimately, ICPC has kept up with gradual developments in the field, like increasing research in child bilingual phonology (Babatsouli & Ball, 2020). A point worth mentioning is that the conference has never been formally associated with any organization, association or institution, but has been kept alive (for 40 years) by members of the group passing information from one conference chair to the next. There have been numerous attempts to organize communication – from the early ‘mailing list’ that was modified and passed on year to year, to the yahoo group coordinated by Brian Goldstein starting in May 2002, and more recently a google group coordinated by Yvan Rose, Andrea A.N. MacLeod, Fangfang Li and Karen Pollock. But there is still no institution or organization affiliated with the conference.  Since its start to the present day, ICPC has been near and dear to the heart of its participants and organizers who keep returning to it (some undertaking its organization more than once), because of the amazing opportunity it has provided over the years to publicize research endeavors and findings, to get knowledgeable feedback and to network with others in the field. As David Ingram remembers ‘I first went [to ICPC] in 1991 in Iowa and it was still very informal, more a discussion than the presentation of papers. I liked it because you could get up and get feedback on something you might be researching without collecting any data yet. It did start morphing into more formal papers, and I missed the informal aspect’ (Babatsouli, personal communication). For many, including the authors of this, ICPC has been a place where in Karen Pollock’s words, one ‘felt supported’ and where ‘some of the best and most lasting friendships and collaborations were either born or nurtured’. Due to the unanimous support of such colleagues, a complete list of the meetings of the International Child Phonology Conference was made possible and appears next. Meetings of the international child phonology conference

2019, June 14–15, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada Andrea A.N. MacLeod 2018, June 18–20, Institute of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech, Chania, Greece Elena Babatsouli 2017, May 31–June 2, The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA Cynthia Core

22  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

2016, June 22–24, Northern Arizona University, Arizona, USA Anna Sosa 2015, June 24–26, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada Yvan Rose 2014, June 16–18, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA Amy M. Glaspey 2013, June 10–12, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands J.P.M. Fikkert 2012, June 4–6, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA Benjamin Munson 2011, June 16–17, University of York, York, UK Marilyn Vihman 2010, April 9–10, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA Kim Oller and Eugene Buder 2009, June 8–9, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA Barbara Davis 2008, June 1–3, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA David Ertmer and David Snow 2007, June 22–23, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA Carol Stoel-Gammon 2006, June 17–18, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Karen Pollock 2005, June 16–17, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, USA Lynn Flahive 2004, May 14–15, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. USA David Ingram 2003, July 1–3, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Barbara May Bernhardt and Joseph Paul Stemberger 2002, June, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, USA Barbara Hodson 2001, MGH Institute of Health Professions, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Gregory L. Lof 2000, June 9–10, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA Ken Bleile 1999, July 8–10, Bangor University, Wales Marilyn Vihman [NB: the name changed in 1999 to International Child Phonology Conference]

History of the International Child Phonology Conference  23

Child Phonology Conference (only in the USA)

1998, April 24–25, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia Linda Swank 1997, April 18–19, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado Lise Menn 1996, April 19–20, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa Amy Weiss 1995, May 12–13, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee Karen Pollock 1994, May 20–21, Idaho University, Sun Valley, Idaho Paul Deputy and Audrey Weston 1993, May 14–15, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, Nebraska Arlene Carney 1992 (May 8–9, University of Illinois, Champaign County, Illinois Cynthia Johnson 1991, May 10–11, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa Amy Weiss 1990, May 30–31, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Wisconsin Larry Shriberg 1989, May 5–6, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois Bruce Smith 1988, May 6–7, University of Illinois, Champaign County, Illinois Cynthia Johnson 1987, May 8–9, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Nebraska John Bernthal [N.B. the name changed in 1987 to Child Phonology Conference] Midwestern/Midwest Child Phonology Meeting (in the USA)

1986, May 2–3, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana Mary Elbert 1985, March 29–30, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana Richard Schwartz 1984, March 23–24, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana Richard Schwartz 1983, April 8–9, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana Richard Schwartz 1982, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana Mary Elbert

24  On Under-reported Monolingual Child Phonology

1981, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign County, Illinois. Attendees included Elaine Paden, Lawrence Raphael, John Locke, Carla Dunn, Carol Stoel-Gammon and others 1980, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign County, Illinois. John Locke, Mary Elbert, Phil Connell, Leija McReynolds, Elaine Paden, John Bernthal, Larry Shriberg, Roy Eberling, Barbara Rockman and others References Ingram, D. (this volume) Ingram’s contributions to the study of first language acquisition, according to Ingram. In E. Babatsouli (ed.) On Under-Reported Monolingual Child Phonology (pp. 25–51). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Babatsouli, E. and Ball, M.J. (eds) (2019) Editorial. Inaugural issue of the Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 1, 1–6. Babatsouli, E. and Ball, M.J. (eds) (2020) An Anthology of Bilingual Child Phonology. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

3 Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram David Ingram

Overview

The present article is an adaptation of an invited presentation to the International Child Phonology Conference in June 2018 in Chania, Crete. It took me several weeks to decide the content of the presentation. My conclusion was to discuss what I considered some of the highlights of my contribution to the field, with a focus on phonological acquisition. Particularly, to identify ones that in my view may have gone unnoticed by others, hence the final phrase on the title. This decision resulted in a presentation that was like an annotated bibliography, a format that I attempt to preserve in this written version. It is not intended to be read from beginning to end, but rather browsed, as one might do with a book of poetry or, let’s say an annotated biography. Educational Background

My interest in the structure of languages emerged early in my teens, a time when I purchased and or checked out from the library grammars of languages. Languages explored included French, Spanish, Turkish and Japanese. My first effort to put together a French translation of ‘I love you’ came out ‘je amour vous’. In my high school yearbook, I listed my ambition as ‘to be a linguist’. Toward that end, I attended The School of Languages and Linguistics at Georgetown University (1962 to 1966) where I majored in French with minors in Linguistics and Italian. Father Walter Cook was my major influence there. From 1966 to 1970 I studied in a newly established linguistics program at Stanford University, Chaired 25

26  In the Spotlight

by Charles Ferguson. It was Professor Ferguson’s course on language acquisition which triggered my interest in child language. I also acquired there an interested in language universals, influenced by Professor Joe Greenberg. Though I intended a career in language acquisition, my dissertation topic was in language universals, specifically on pronoun systems. It was unofficially directed by Elizabeth Traugott, an emerging leader in historical linguistics. From 1970 to 1972 I spent two years at the Institute of Childhood Aphasia, Stanford University, under the direction of Jon Eisenson and Joel Stark. This experience influenced by interest in language disorders in children, enhanced by the opportunity to work with two clinicians who went on to accomplished research records, Dee Tyack and Judith Johnston. My academic career as a professor has covered two periods, 1972 to 1998 in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia, and 1998 to 2018 in the Department of Speech & Hearing Science at Arizona State University. I am currently an emeritus professor at both institutions. Research Interests/Format

At student orientations in my latter years, I frequently referred to myself as an eclectic researcher, in that I studied a wide range of topics and in a way, was a student of many, and master of none. These research areas include language universals and pronoun systems as already mentioned, heritage languages (e.g. in Bella Coola), a range of linguistic areas, such as morphology, syntax, semantics. In the field of first language acquisition, I have studied both normal and impaired acquisition across these areas, across a wide range of ages from birth to adulthood. This presentation focuses on phonological acquisition. The format of the article is to identify a topic, give a brief personal statement on the topic shown in italics, give the publications on that topic, with selected ones listing highlights. Early Publications in the Journal of Child Language

In 1974 and 1975, I published three articles in the Journal of Child Language. Below summarizes the main proposal in those articles. I returned to many of these points in later publications, particularly underlying representations, phonological processes, markedness, surface contrasts and homonymy. Ingram, D. (1974a). Phonological analyses with derivations from underlying to surface representations Underlying representation are distinct from adult surface representa­ tions; (area of study that has not reached a consensus)

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  27

Adult pronounced form > child’s perceived form > child’s underlying form ‘the child perceived and produced in his own system, which need not bear a simple relationship to that of the adult system’. Phonological Analysis of my daughter Jennika’s first words Ingram, D. (1974b). Proposed that the markedness of consonants varies by syllable position; in a CVCVC word shape, the preferences are: C labial V C alveolar V C velar Examples of these preferences were given from Roussey (1899–1900) Discussed a possible individual difference between children based on reduplication vs final consonant acquisition, that is, that children who acquire final consonants early tend to prefer monosyllables, while children who delete final consonants tend to be duplicators (cf. Fee & Ingram, 1980) Suggested that some phonological representations can be very different from surface forms, e.g. a child Phillip’s production of ‘snoopy’ as [binta] Ingram, D. (1975). A response to David Stampe’s proposal that children’s productions can all be traced back to the adult underlying form; article proposes that not all child forms can be accounted for that way Homonymy: not as common as expected, as children avoid it by (a) using alternate pronunciations, (b) unique processes or contrasts; examples are given from case studies of 5 children (English, French, Czech) Analysis 1: Calculation of possible vs actual homonyms, actual less than 1% (this was readdressed in Ingram, 1985) Analysis 2: Examples of homonym avoidance

Phonological Disability in Children, 1976

I taught a summer seminar at Stanford in 1974 on phonological disorders in children. In the Summer of 1975, I was in London and talked to David Crystal. He indicated that he wanted to start a book series entitled Studies in Language Disability and Remediation. I suggested that I could use the course materials from the Stanford as a book, and in time a contract was drawn up with the Edward Arnold publishing company. I dedicated the book to Charles Ferguson, who arranged the summer course at Stanford. Barbara Hodson in later years told me she felt the book changed the course of research on phonological

28  In the Spotlight

disorders. The term in the title was commonly found in articles on the topic at that time. Quote from Piaget in Forward Moreover, for teachers and all those whose work calls for an exact knowledge of the child’s mind, facts take precedence over theory. I am convinced that the mark of theoretical fertility in a science is its capacity for practical application. Jean Piaget, The Language and Thought of the Child Chapters A linguistic approach (strengths & limitations) Aspects of phonological acquisition (stages) The analysis of a child’s speech (syllables, inventories, phonological processes, the system of contrasts The methodology of data collection The nature of deviant phonology (normal vs deviant, types of disorders) Issues in remediation (elimination of processes, the establishment of processes)

Table 2.1 lines up Piaget’s stages by age with linguistic stages and phonological stages. The Acquisition of Fricatives and Affricates

At this point, my language acquisition research was focused on case studies. An exception was a study done while I was at the Institute for Childhood Aphasia at Stanford. I wanted to conduct an experimental cross-sectional study on fricative and affricate acquisition. The stages we found and quantitative results I believe are still valuable today. Ingram et al. (1980). Templin (1957) style large sample study children from 1;10 to 5;11, in 9 age groups Elicitation task, on word initial fricatives & affricates, except for /ð/ Four words of differing complexity for each fricative & affricate Five stages of fricative acquisition proposed earlier (Ingram, 1978) Provides review of all previous studies on topic Numerous Tables showing quantitative results Developed a procedure that we used years later in a study of children with cochlear implants (Ingram et al., 2002). Confirmed and provided more details on stages of fricative/affricate acquisition

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  29

Procedures for the Phonological Analysis of Children’s Language, 1981

In the late 1970s, there was an active effort to adapt the methods being used in research for clinical application. I spoke with University Park Press about writing a book explaining how to do phonological analyses. This led me to think about what would be most important to know about a child’s phonology, and to determine explicit procedures to do so. This book was the result of this effort. I spent the rest of my career fine tuning and adjusting these original decisions. The adaptations are addressed later in this article. One area, for example, was homonymy. At the time, I felt it was important enough to be part of what I came to call ‘A Basic Analysis’. Later I lowered its status to an analysis only needed for children with high rates on homonymy. Another attempt to do what I tried was Grunwell (1985) Phonological Assessment of Child Speech (PACS). Neither of our efforts were of great success in impacting clinical practice (at least in the US, as I understand Grunwell’s work still may be practiced by some in Great Britain). My procedures were considered too time consuming and beyond the time allotted to such analyses in most if not all clinical practices. I used and adapted most of the analytic procedures in this work in the research I conducted the rest of my career. Those that were particularly valuable were (a) the distinction between phonetic forms, phonetic tokens, phonetic types and lexical types, (b) the calculation of an Articulation score, (c) the distinction between a phonetic analysis and a substitution analysis (matches and substitutions), the analysis of homonymy. It should also be noted that phonological process analysis is only done after the phonetic and substitution analyses. (In later work, I downsized the value of the phonetic analysis). Chapters (1) Four Kinds of Phonological Analysis (2) Organization of Data (phonetic tokens, phonetic forms, phonetic types, lexical types) (3) Procedures for Phonetic Analysis (AS = Articulation Score) a. consonants in phonetic inventory receive points, typically 2 points (4) The Analysis of Homonymy (5) Substitution Analysis (Matches & Substitutions) (6) Phonological Process Analysis (7) Some Preliminary Norms of Phonological Development a. Appendix 9 Forms Early Bilingual Phonological Acquisition

This section reports two very distinct studies on early bilingual pho­ nological acquisition. Because of their distinct differences, com­mentaries

30  In the Spotlight

are presented separately for each. Other studies on bilingual phonological acquisition are discussed later in the section discussing Spanish. Crosslinguistic research has been at the center of my interests, but an interest in bilingualism only developed after my move to Arizona State University in 1998. One exception was Ingram (1981/82) which was a case study of an Italian-English bilingual two-year-old. At the time, the prevalent view was that bilingual children begin with a single phonological system. My article presented analyses indicating that the child had different phonological systems for the two languages. I believe it was the first article to show this, though it is rarely cited as being such. ‘The specific goal of this study is to examine the issue of when the young bilingual child shows two phonological systems’ Research at the time indicated one system for both languages at the onset (Vogel, 1975; Volterra & Taeschner, 1978). Case Study, child L age 2;0 Sample consisted of 256 sentences, 36 English words, 122 Italian words (Italian dominance); Analysis 5 measures (Articulation Score, Phonetic Inventories, Proportion of Monosyllables, Proportion of Closed Syllables, Reduplication). Results: English and Italian differed on all measures, with English being mostly monosyllabic with closed syllables and Italian being mostly multisyllabic with open syllables, Italian with one final consonant [l], English with 4 final consonants [p, k, n, s]. Articulation Score Prop. Of Monosyllables Prop. Close Syllables Prop. Reduplication

English Italian 36 69 0.60 0.10 0.81 0.36 0.05 0.18

‘The paper concludes that bilingual children may have separate phonological systems very early in language acquisition’.

In the late 1990s, I met Mohammad Keshavarz who was at the University of British Columbia on a research leave from his position in Tehran. His research area was second language acquisition, but it turned out that he was also keeping a diary of his son Arsham’s bilingual acquisition of Farsi and English. We decided to work on the study together. We didn’t complete it before Mohammad returned to Iran and I moved to Arizona. After much correspondence we completed the study. We tested 5 hypotheses and concluded that Arsham’s development supported the Transfer Hypothesis.

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  31

Keshavarz and Ingram (2003). ‘Analyses of data from a longitudinal study of a Farsi-English bilingual infant, Arsham, supported the hypothesis that the child had acquired two separate phonologies with mutual influence’ Farsi: more consonants, fewer vowels, predominantly final stress, simpler syllable structure. H1 U  nitary Model: child selected either English or Farsi, or shared features of both and applied them in the same fashion to both English and Farsi words; recent research suggests that this will not be the case. H2 A  utonomy: stress, syllable structure, and segmental inventories differ for both languages, with no interference; frequency of occurrence of syllable shapes that are otherwise the same in both languages, for example, CV, CVC, differ and correlate with input vocabulary of each language. H3 T  ransfer: the child’s phonologies show properties similar to the previous hypothesis, but with some interference from one language on the other, for example, consonants and/or vowels unique to one language being used in the other. H4 A  cceleration: the child’s phonologies show properties similar to H2, but the order of acquisition of one or more phonological properties in one or both languages will not be typical to that of the respective monolingual children. This hypothesis may be hard to test due to the individual variation found in language acquisition due to the individual variation found in language acquisition. Sounds acquired earlier than anticipated, however, will need to be ones also found in the other language. H5 D  elay: To best test this hypothesis, the child would need to show autonomous development (H2) so that his or her inventories can be compared to those of monolingual children. Results Rapid word acquisition, e.g. at 18 months, 105 English words, 85 Farsi words Indication of language separation based on consonantal inventories 7 instances on mutual language interference Support for Transfer Hypothesis Reduplication

My interest in reduplication was mentioned above in the discussion of (1974b). The following two studies investigated the topic further. In Fee and Ingram (1980), we compared children’s rate of reduplication with their acquisition of final consonants and found that children who were reduplicators were also deleting final consonants, while children who were not reduplicators were acquiring final consonants early. The second study resulted from my spending two weeks at Texas Tech

32  In the Spotlight

University. There I met Joy Munson, a speech language pathologist. She told me about her son who was in the early stages of word acquisition and primarily reduplicating them. I visited the home, and collected several instances of his patterns. It was one of the most interesting case studies I was ever involved in. Fee and Ingram (1980). Article identified characteristics of children who have high rates of reduplication versus those that do not Reduplicators: have higher rates of multisyllabic words, higher retention of syllables in multisyllabic words, higher rates of final consonant deletion in monosyllabic words Nonreduplicators: these patterns are reversed Result preceded more recent efforts to link final consonants and syllables e.g. Spanish CVCVC, CVCVCV accuracy rates are similar Munson and Ingram (1985). Case study of second author’s first son Daniel from diary data collected from 1,0 to 2,3 16 of his first words were reduplications. Around age 2,0 he began to use reduplication morphologically, using reduplication to express the extended meaning of ‘more [something]’ e.g. ‘more milk’ [mʌmʌk]. Article discusses the similarity of the pattern to reduplications in languages like Bella Coola and Papago. Deviant Phonology

In 1983, I was invited to be a guest editor of Topics in Language Disorders. By then I had seen several interesting case studies like the one just discussed on reduplication, and suggested the theme be case studies on children with phonological issues. Around the same time, I met a speech pathologist at a conference who told me about a client she was seeing who had a very unusual characteristic of producing alveolar fricatives with ingressive airflow. This subsequently resulted in a case study that I included in the issue. It is probably the most interesting and unique pattern I have ever studied. Ingram (1983). Ingram and Terselic (1983). Child: 5 years old boy, E, with age appropriate grammar; he was highly unintelligible with speech more at a two-year-old level

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  33

Unique problem with alveolar fricatives: none used in word initial position; used a coda fricative which was described as an ingressive [s]. If he tried a word with an onset fricative, he would move it to the coda position and produce it ingressively. Examples (S = ingressive [s, z]) snake [ neS ] sunglasses [waiS wæS ɪS ] Homonyms

In 1981 Marilyn Vihman, a researcher I had known for years and highly regarded, wrote a response to my earlier work on homonyms. I wrote a response that included revising the original measure in had proposed in Ingram (1981) to a much simpler one. My article also presented data indicating that the famous case study Hildegard Leopold had an unusually high rate of homonymy, a possible sign of speech delay. Ingram, D. (1985). Response to Vihman (1981) which proposed children use a homonymy strategy in language learning and critiqued the Ingram (1975) article on surface contrasts. Article examined longitudinal usage of 3 children, Hildegard, Jennika and Phillip. It provided a revised measure for homonymy, and examined the relationship between homonymy, stage of phonological acquisition, and size of the lexicon. It concluded that proportion of homonym is influenced by level of phonological acquisition; it increases when speech is not advancing while the vocabulary size is increasing Evidence Based Practice

In my courses on language acquisition, I discuss early on the importance of distinguishing description from explanation. Collecting data is important, yet at some point one needs to offer explanations for what the data show. Jakobson says at the beginning of his famous book Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals (1941/68) that the challenge of early phonological analysis is to find the pattern in all the chaos. This is equally true in the assessment of proposals for phonological intervention. One prominent assessment proposal is the cycles approach of Barbara Hodson. Below I discuss an article from 1986 in which I offered observations from language acquisition that could be used in its’ support. Ingram (1986). The question ‘What is language intervention?’ can only be answered from within a theoretical model that addresses the nature of language,

34  In the Spotlight

the nature of change, the nature of language disorders, and, by extension, the role of the interventionist. This article addressed an approach to intervention known as ‘cycles’ which was developed from the bottom up, that is, a trial and error process to determine how to intervene with children with speech errors. It successfully completed intervention with 125 children within 18 months; this article attempted to provide the theoretical foundation to explain its success. Hodson and Paden ‘cycles’ approach has the following characteristics: use with children with multiple speech errors intervene in cycles, typically being phases of 12 weeks work on different errors patterns each week high use of auditory bombardment don’t expect much change in the first cycle

This article presents a theory of phonological acquisition that accounts for why this approach works, e.g. children acquire consonants in groups, not one at a time, it often takes children 4 months or, so because the transition from comprehension to production takes place, auditory bombardment of related words enforces the notion of phonological contrast. Four later articles include Ingram (1994, 1998, 2009, 2012).

Influence of Input on Phonological Acquisition

I’ve never thought of myself as someone who studies language input, likely due to the early influence of studying Chomsky’s writings. Here I discuss two studies in which language input was the primary focus. The first is an article taken from the doctoral dissertation of my first doctoral student Soumee Tse. Tse did a longitudinal study on a young Cantonese girl who was exposed to two dialects of Cantonese in that the father spoke one and the mother spoke the other. I thought the child would acquire the mother’s dialect since she was the primary caretaker. To my surprise the child merged all the input, resulting in speech that differed from both dialects. In the second study, I got involved in a debate between Ann Fernald and Cliff Pye on the nature of what at the time was referred to as motherese. Fernald argued that motherese is similar across cultures while Pye offered the opposite based on his study of motherese in Quiche, a Mayan language. I reanalyzed Fernald’s data to support Pye’s position. Tse and Ingram (1987). This article studied a 2-year-old girl Wai whose parents spoke different dialects of Chinese. The father’s dialect had a phonemic contrast

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  35

between /l/ and /n/; the mother’s dialect used /l/ for words with /l/ and /n/. The child, therefore would hear one set of words with /l/, and another set with /n/ when the father spoke, but with /l/ when the mother spoke. Research Question: how will Wai acquire words with [l] and [n]? Hypothesis 1: the child will acquire the mother’s dialect since she is the child’s primary caretaker Hypothesis 2: the child will acquire the father’s dialect because she heard 3 people using it, the father and his parents who lived with them Method: Wai was recorded twice a month from the age of 1;7 to 2;8 for 2,272 total utterances All words with /n/ and /l/ in the sample were extracted and examined for Wai’s use of [l] and [n]. Results: Neither hypothesis was found. Wai randomly used both [l] and [n] for all words, using mostly [n] in the early samples and [l] in the later ones. She treated the words as if [n] and [l] were in free variation. She therefore treated all the input as if it were from a single speaker. Ingram (1995a). Issue: Is the way that parents address children innate or culturally determined? Fernald (1987) supports the former, Pye supports the latter (1986) based on Quiche. This article defended the cultural account by re-analyzing data in Fernald (1987). (1) Examined published data on fundamental frequency measures on Quiche versus other cultures. (2) Re-analyzed Fernald’s own data on speech to children vs to adults.

Functional Load

I met Cliff Pye in the 1970s when he came to The University of British Columbia on a two year post doc to work with me. It was the beginning of a collaboration that has lasted to this day. One of the first topics we studied was a comparison of the early consonants acquired in K’iche’ (formerly Quiche), versus English. We found the inventories to be remarkably different. The difference we proposed was the result of the difference in the functional load of the consonants in the two languages. For example, if children learning Quiche acquire a lot of words with ‘l’ and ‘ch’, then the sounds will be acquired earlier. I have replicated this effort in a range of languages and consider it as a major insight in understanding the order of acquisition of speech sounds in a language.

36  In the Spotlight

Pye et al. (1987). Research question: what determines the order of acquisition of children’ speech sounds? Throughout the history of the field, the answer has been ‘ease of articulation’. Problem: how to measure ease of articulation? This study proposed another important factor, ‘functional load’ defined as the frequency of phonemes in the child’s early vocabulary. Results: early consonant acquisition of 5 Quiche speaking children. Two of the earliest acquired consonants were /l/ and /tʃ/. These also were very frequent in the children’s vocabularies.

As part of my new line of research into functional load I published the following article on the acquisition of [v] in Swedish, Bulgarian and Estonian. I found that [v] was an early acquisition in each language based on case studies. Ingram (1988a). NeoJakobson Theory

Many linguists years ago unfamiliar with child language accepted Jakobson’s theory. Those studying child language such as Charles Ferguson began to construct accounts less dependent on language universals. Ferguson, in fact, at a conference at Stanford said that there may be hundreds of stages children go through. That could be described as a discontinuity theory to the max. I found myself falling in line with arguments like ones posed by Steven Pinker with the continuity side of the debate. I came to realize that I was thinking somewhat like Jakobson with adaptations allowing some individual variations. On that journey, I took time to examine more closely what Jakobson meant by the terms’ minimal versus maximal opposition’. This resulted in the article described below in which I concluded Option 4 as the best one. This changes Jakobson’s theory by setting a frequency criterion and a relation to the adult targets. That led me to label this approach as NeoJakobson. As an aside, I got to meet Roman Jakobson in 1972 at an international conference in Mexico. He both opened and closed the conference, so I got to see his renowned style. He only addressed one short sentence to me during the conference, which was ‘you are right!’ in the hallway after my talk. I never determined what I was actually right about. Ingram (1988b). The article explored what Jakobson meant by a phonological opposition and explored four different phonological analyses of a Polish child Hania’s first words (data from Zarebina, 1965). Each option resulted in a different claim about what phonological oppositions had been acquired.

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  37

They place restrictions on what can be considered a phoneme, one based on frequency of occurrence, another based on proposed phonemes being marked onto target language phonemes (the abstractness issue). Option 1: a segment is a member of an opposition once it appears in at least one word in the child’s language. oral dental stop vs nasal dental stop /d/ : /n/ . Option 2: a segment is a member of an opposition once it appears in at least one word in the child’s language and enters into minimal and near minimal environments with another segment. labial nasal stop vs dental stops: /m/ : /d/, /n/. Option 3: do not accept lexical oppositions. An opposition exists only between segments that are frequent, and occur in minimal or near minimal pairs: labial stop vs dental fricative: /p/ : /s’/. Option 4: do not accept lexical oppositions. An opposition exists only between segments that are used in words of the language being acquired and are consistent matches or substitutions for adult target sounds and occur in minimal or near minimal pairs. Stop vs fricative, /b/ : /x/ [0] ([0] indicates deletion; this represents a maximal opposition). First Language Acquisition: Method, Description and Explanation, 1989

Around 1985, I decided that I had enough knowledge on child language to tackle writing a book on the topic. I wanted it to be an advanced textbook that could be used in a graduate course. One approach I wanted to follow is to give it a balance between three aspects of the field, 1. how studies are conducted, i.e. Method, 2. what findings have we made to date, i.e. Description, and 3. how do we explain the results that we have found, i.e. Explanation. One thing I didn’t want to do is write a book that addresses a topic and cites dozens of studies with conflicting results. I wanted to be selective, covering only the most important studies, often presenting one based on small participant case studies and another based on a larger experimental study. Similar results from two different methods make a strong case that the findings are valid. I also wanted to give the book a strong historical basis, because I believe few read the older literature and we are in a constant cycle of re-inventing the wheel. Below I present an overview of the sections of the book that deal more directly with child phonology. (Note: I also wrote an accompanying Workbook that was never published) Ingram (1989). History child language studies: diary studies (1976–1926), large sample studies (1926–1957), longitudinal studies (1957–1989).

38  In the Spotlight

Two approaches: child language vs language acquisition. Stages: description vs explanation. Phonological acquisition was spread across developmental periods: Chapter 5: Prelinguistic development: infant speech perception & production. Chapter 6: Onset of Phonemic Perception & Production: Review of Shvachkin (1948/1973) technique for phonemic perception; overview of Jabobson; contrasted use of phone trees with ‘phonemic inventories & phonological contrasts; distinguished lexical types, phonetic types, phonetic tokens’. Chapter 8: phonological acquisition of single morphemes: reviewed recent studies on phonemic perception (work by Barton, Edwards, Oller and others); detailed review of Templin (1957); Velten (1943); Leopold (1947), Smith (1973), Stampe (1969), Macken & Ferguson (1987); discussion of levels of representation. Empty Pivot Hypothesis (Bloom, 1973 [(ə)widə]. Categories of Phonological Disorders

In the 1980s, I became very involved with an effort to develop a theory of phonological disorders. I believed that doing so required 3 steps: 1. start with a linguistic theory, 2. use the linguistic theory to construct a theory of normal development, and 3. use the theory of normal acquisition to construct a theory of disorders. I still believe this is the way to proceed. This approach is laid out in two articles below. The first one is Ingram (1987), a paper I gave in England. I lay out the three steps just mentioned and critique the deeply embedded attempts in speech language pathology to follow a medical model in speech language assessment. In the second article Ingram (1991), I give a detailed account of my theory of normal phonological acquisition, consisting of 12 components, and a proposal on what underlies a phonological disorder. The argument is made that it is fundamental to understand the difference between a delay and a disorder. Ingram (1987). Basic prerequisites for a theory to account for phonological disorders: (1) Development of a Phonological Theory: problem is that linguists don’t agree on what is the best theory. (2) Development of a Theory of Phonological Acquisition: efforts include Jakobsonian models, Natural phonology models based on Stampe (1969). (3) Development of a Theory of Phonological Disorders: based on assumptions taken based on 1 and 2 above.

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  39

Critique of the Medical Model (1) Assess speech through a standardized procedure (articulation test). (2) Score based on standard measures. (3) Use results to place child into a category. (4) Use category to place child into a remediation based on the category. Recommendation (Step 1): Replace the Medical Model with a linguistic approach linguistic/phonological assessments of natural speech such as proposed by Grunwell, myself and others 2018 Update: Medical Model is alive and well Ingram (1991). Step 2: Determine a Theory of Acquisition Universal Principles, which can also account continuity, limited individual and crosslinguistic differences 1. Phonetic perceptual development Acoustic Representation Hypothesis: children first represent their early vocabulary in the form of fully specified phonetic feature matrices. 2. Development of the receptive vocabulary The Onset Hypothesis: The size of the child’s receptive vocabulary in this period, combined with his or her perceptual ability, is sufficient for the child to begin phonological organization of the first words in production. 3. The Development of the expressive vocabulary Caution: given the discrepancy between spoken and receptive vocabularies, spoken vocabulary should be considered a conservative estimate of the child’s phonology. 4. The Word Spurt (between 1;6 and 2;0) Hypothesis: the word spurt may be the result of a phonological milestone that generalizes principles begun during the first 50 words, e.g. Joan Velten’s word spurt coincided with the loss of a phonotactic constraints on onset and coda consonants. 5. The First Units of Phonological Structure The Universal Hypothesis: The child’s phonological formalism is essentially adultlike at the onset; 5 arguments are discussed for this, and against a development model, e.g. word > syllable > segment. Assumption about feature acquisition: the child first establishes one or two basic or canonical syllable shapes to start with, and uses these for the initiation of distinctive feature acquisition. 6. The development of contrasts Phonological diary studies have shown systematic, slow buildup of consonantal inventories, and the emergence of distinctive features (e.g. sonorant, labial, continuant, voice, etc.). For example T from Ferguson & Farwell.

40  In the Spotlight

7. The occurrence of Selection and Avoidance (Schwartz & Leonard, 1982) Children acquire ‘in’ words more easily than ‘out’ words, and avoidance may lead to systematic gaps in samples, e.g. lack of fricatives in the inventory and lack of fricative words in the spoken vocabulary. 8. The appearance of and spread of substitutions These provide insights into feature acquisition, and a possible disorder (Grunwell’s gross inclusion). 9. Patterns of Emergence: lexical, gradual and abrupt emergence Lexical contrasts should not be considered phonological in the same way as ones which meet a frequency criterion; abrupt changes are good indicator of either a new phonological feature or the spread of an acquired one. 10. Crosslinguistic regularities These are instances of differences across languages, e.g. early [v] in Italian but late in English. I also gave examples comparing early inventories in English & Quiche. [NOTE these are still not well documented, but cf. work by Bernhardt & Stemberger]. 11. The nature of phonotactic constraints and syllable structure This would involve exploring approaches such as mora theory, e.g. the child who says grape as either [ge:] or [gɛp] has a moraic constraint that the vocalic nucleus must contain only 2 mora. 12. The representation of distinctive features This is the issue of how features are represented, e.g. /m/ /p/ /b/ can be specified as either +/- [nasal], or +/- [voice] or [+/- sonorant]. The Distinctive Feature Hypothesis: Children phonologically analyze and represent their first words in distinctive features selected from the set of available phonetic features in the fully specified phonetic representation. Note: in later work I further determined that an additional way to eliminate indeterminacy about feature selection would be to rank features from most to least general. In the above example, the features would be ranked sonorant > voice > nasal. The Difference between delay and deviance (Step 3) This difference is difficult to the individual variations found in typically developing children. Hypothesis about Phonological Deviance: The extent of a child’s phonological deviance is the consequence of a reverse relation between his or her stage of phonological acquisition and the size of the vocabulary. We saw that earlier in this presentation with Hildegard and her expansion of homonyms due to an onset consonantal inventory of [m, n, b, d, w, h] and the vowels [a, u]. Voice Before Place: preliminary comparisons of 35 typical and 35 children showing a delay found that typical children acquire place for consonants before voice, e.g. [b, d, g] then the addition of [p, t, k],

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  41

while the delayed children acquired at least one voiced contrast before acquiring a consonant at all 3 places. Example: [b, p, d, t]. Phonological Theory and Phonological Acquisition

The previous section discussed that the first step in constructing a theory of disorders is to select a linguistic theory. In the 1990s I made a few attempts to do that in Ingram (1995b, 1996, 1999). This work might appeal to the small number of linguists working in the field, and maybe none. Whole Word Measures

In 1994, I attended the European Symposium on Child Language Disorders in Garderen, the Netherlands. One day there I joined a small informal meeting organized by Mieke Beers to discuss if we could come up a measure for phonology like MLU in grammatical studies. I suggested that counting consonants and vowels might be a starting point. I forgot about the issue until around five years later when I put more time into it and came up with a simple way to do that by counting consonants and vowels and adding points for correctness. I’ve fine-tuned it over the years but overall feel it does exactly what Mieke suggested. I’ve used the measure in numerous ways since then. The first article below summarizes my original approach. The second article improved the original idea. Ingram (2002). Child is credited for three aspects of word production: consonant correctness, consonant substitutions, number of vowels Phonological Mean Length of Utterance (pMLU): measures complexity of target words. Each consonant in a word receives 2 points, Each vowel receives 1 point, C = consonants, V = vowels. pMLU = C(2) + V / Words Examples: ‘banana’ = 9; ‘cat’ = 5. Child pMLU: Measures complexity of words produced. Each correct consonant in a word receives 2 points, Each consonant substitution (CS) receives 1 point, Each vowel receives 1 point. Child pMLU = CC(2) + CS + V / Words Examples: ‘banana’ [nana] = 6; ‘cat’ [tat] = 4 Whole Word Proximity (PWP): Measures closeness of productions to their targets

child’s

PWP = Child pMLU / pMLU Examples: ‘banana’ [nana] = 0.67 (6/9), ‘cat’ [tat] = 0.80 (4/5).

42  In the Spotlight

Babatsouli et al. (2014). My approach was to treat the measures as separate measures. This article demonstrates mathematically how PCC and PWP are in a linear relationship. PCC scores will predict the range of possible PWP scores. PWP is always higher than PCC because it credits vowels and consonant substitutions while PCC does not. Factors that increase the distance between PCC and PWP are high vowel usage (longer words) and consonant substitutions. Factors that decrease the distance between PCC and PWP: low vowel usage (monosyllables) and high rates of consonant deletion (few substitutions).

The use of the Whole Word Measures just discussed have been used in the study of children with phonological impairment. In the first article listed, it is suggested that increasing a child’s whole word complexity could be used as an intervention approach without necessarily targeting new sounds. The second article proposes that in some cases a child’s speech sound disorders should not be considered as either articulatory or phonological, but instead being on a continuum or less or more phonological. The third article describes the measure I call ‘the pCC-PWP intersect, which was just described and which can be used to place the child on a phonological spectrum. The measure divides children with phonological impairment into two groups: 1 Delayed with a pattern like that of younger typically developing children, or 2 Disorder with a pattern that does not show an effect of word complexity. These differences are discussed in article 2 as well. Ingram and Ingram (2001), Ingram et al. (2018), Ingram (2015). Whole Word Measures, Functional Load and Bilingualism

Whole word measured were used in the following study to look at the influence of functional load on bilingual development. Recall that functional load was used to account for differences in the acquisition of Quiche versus English. The conclusion was that articulatory complexity is not the only factor in children’s acquisition of speech sounds. The study examined this further by looking at the speech acquisition of a child bilingual in English and Hungarian. It was found that her Hungarian pmlu measures were higher for Hungarian than for English, but her proximity measures were the same. I interpret this finding as turning our view of sequences of acquisition upside down. The finding suggests that proximity to the input may be more important to the

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  43

child than articulatory accuracy. The accuracy results for English and Hungarian were 68% and 67% respectively. Bunta, F., Davidovich, I. and Ingram, D. (2006) The relationship between the phonological complexity of a bilingual child’s words and those of the target languages. International Journal of Bilingualism 10, 71–88. Phonological Assessment of Spanish Children

Thanks in large part to two of my former students, Ferenc Bunta and Maria Hase, I have been involved in studies on Spanish phonological acquisition. Three of these are listed below. The first was based on Ferenc Bunta’s dissertation on rhythm differences in Spanish versus English speaking children. The second and third studies looked at whole word complexity in bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking children. The third article compares two assessments of young Spanish-speaking children and makes recommendations about which one is better adapted for two-year-old children. Bunta and Ingram (2007). Bunta et al. (2008). Hase et al. (2010). Multidimensional Assessment

My books in 1976 and 1981 showed an evolution of my beliefs of the most important aspects to be included in the phonological assessment of children. A later evolution of this process resulted in the development of a new version which Virginia Dubasik and I named MAPS (multidimensional assessment of phonological similarity). It consists of 9 measures across four areas, as described below. It has been used in the studies described next under Phonological Similarity as well as others. Ingram and Dubasik (2011). Table I. Nine measures of phonological assessment across four areas of phonological development. (1) Whole-word analysis (three measures): phonological mean length of utterance (pMLU) of target words; pMLU of child words; whole-word proximity of child’s words to their targets. pMLU is a complexity measure (2) Word shape analysis (two measures): number of preferred word shapes (e.g. CV, CVC, CVCV); proportion of monosyllabic words (3) Analysis of phonetic inventories (two measures): phonetic inventory articulation score (PIAS) separately for onset and coda consonant inventories; PIAS measures the size of each inventory (4) Relational analysis (two measures): relational articulation score (RAS) separately for onset and coda consonant inventories; RAS measures the number of matches (correct consonants) for each inventory.

44  In the Spotlight

Phonological Similarity

In 2007, I shared a cab to the airport with Juana Liceras at a conference in Hamburg, Germany. She told me about a longitudinal study she was involved in on the bilingual development of SpanishEnglish speaking twins. We agreed to do a joint study on their phonological acquisition. In doing the study, I wanted to compare the similarities between the twins in each language and across the languages. This required the development of some way to measure similarity. The procedure developed averaged scores across the 9 measures described immediately above. It was used in two studies described below. Ingram, D., Dubasik, V., Liceras, J. and Fernández Fuertes, R. (2011) Early phonological acquisition in a set of English-Spanish bilingual twins. In C. Sanz and R. Loew (eds) Implicit and Explicit Conditions, Processes and Knowledge in SLI and Bilingualism (pp. 195–205). Washington: Georgetown University Press. Approximately 60 words per language per child Used MAPS to compare the similarity of the twin within and across languages Developed a measure of ‘phonological similarity’ Results: twins highly alike within languages (92%); languages were similar (72%) but different enough to suggest language separation Ingram and Dubasik (2014). Purpose: use the measure of phonological similarity to compare 4 pairs of kids: identical twin boys (Leo & Simon); nonidentical twin girls (Lucy & Jane) data from Childes; siblings born 2 years apart (Rachel & Samuel); siblings born 5 years apart (Jennika & Daniel). Results: the similarities of the pairs were: identical twins > nonidentical twins > siblings 2 year apart > siblings 5 years apart, indicating genetic similarity and age differences both play a role in the similarities between siblings. Frame Content Theory

Frame Content Theory proposes that the early words of children are restricted by an articulatory constraint to produce the syllables ‘ba’ ‘di’ ‘gu’ at a higher rate than other syllables. I’ve done two studies arguing that data I examined don’t support the theory. Ingram and Ingram (2011). We conducted phonological analyses on the first 75 words of two children. We found that the FCT predictions did not hold for first words,

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  45

when types, not tokens were the basis of the analyses. The results of FCT studies have been by and large on chi square statistics on phonetic tokens, and with children with larger vocabularies than 75 words.

Besthoff and Ingram (2017) Syllable preferences in the babbling and first words of Italian children: An analysis of Frame-Content theory. We raised concerns about the appropriateness of Chi Square as the primary test of the predictions of FCT ‘The chi-square test does not give us much information about the strength of the relationship or its substantive significance in the population…It is very important to realize that statistical significance and substantive significance are different. The sensitivity of chi-square to sample size may make a weak relationship statistically significant if the sample is large enough’ https://learn.bu.edu/. Majorano and D’Odorico (2011): babbling and first words of 10 Italian children (1) we examined the syllables used in babbling to see if the preferred syllables were also the FCT predicted syllables, i.e. ba, di, gu; (2) we examined the first words to see if they were built from the preferred FCT syllables. Results: neither analysis supported FCT predictions Some Other Studies

A few other publications that I believe are worthwhile include Ingram (1971), Morehead and Ingram (1973, 2003, 2012), Ingram and Le Normand (1996), Ingram and Thompson (1996), Wong and Ingram (2003), Ingram et al. (2002), Carias and Ingram (2006). Unpublished Studies

I have numerous incomplete or unpublished studies, partially a product of my inability to stay on topic. Once I complete a study, I am easily swayed into starting a new one before writing up and submitting a final report. The following is a list of the ones I think are most worthy, in no particular order, with working titles. The acquisition of English dental fricatives: a study using child language data showing that the English dental fricatives are allophones of a single phoneme, not separate phonemes. Dorothy’s vestigial phonology: a research note that speculates on whether or not humans retain a vestigial memory of their language

46  In the Spotlight

acquisition, based on a made up language done by a bilingual girl when she was around 12 years old. M: A case study of atypical prosody in a child with Lennox Gastaut Syndrome (study with K. Ingram): a study that examined the prosody of a young girl whose word prosody was normal, but whose sentence prosody was not, consisting of sequences of two word phrases with stress on the first word. The conclusion is drawn that word prosody and sentence prosody are the result of different linguistic mechanisms. A case study of transitory disfluency (with Don Mowrer): a case study of a girl who became dysfluent for a few months and then overcame it. The study concluded that the disfluency was the result of a temporary syntactic bottleneck of sentence production due to increases in the rate of acquiring several grammatical structures at the same time. Phonological acquisition in Italian of normal children and speech sound disorders (with Umberto Bortolini): a study that conducted phonological analyses of consonantal inventories of Italian children who were typically developing and Italian children who showed phonological impairment. The results were that the Italian children with phonological impairment were more like typically developing Italian children than like English speaking children with phonological impairment. The interpretation is that ‘functional load’ is the source of the similarity, leading to the conclusion that the children had a phonological rather than an articulatory problem. Evidence for the word spurt in lexical acquisition: a crosslinguistic study on the rate of word learning providing evidence for the existence of the word spurt. Interactive edition of Leopold’s Bibliography, 1959: a study to produce a digital copy of Leopold’s 1959 bibliography with links to pdfs of all the entries that can be found. Acquisition of Yoruba vowel assimilation (with Ola Orie): a longitudinal study of two Yoruba children at age three on their acquisition of the Yoruba vowel /i/ to determine the nature of the vowel’s underspecification. The Story of two Ruths: a report on two diary studies done in the early 1990s, each with a child named Ruth; the purpose is to demonstrate the value of the older by and large forgotten studies from that era. The acquisition of flattening in Chilcotin: a study that collected data on children acquiring Chilcotin, a First Nation language of British Columbia, to see their acquisition of flattening, a complex phonological property of the language. The acquisition of Dative Movement: an experimental study on when English children acquired Data Movement, a pattern that raises learnability issues about how it is acquired.

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  47

The acquisition of English past participles: a cross sectional experimental study of 38 children between 3;0 and 10 concerning the acquisition of the English past tense (active voice, past tense passive voice and present perfect (e.g. eats, was eaten, has eaten). It was found that the English past tense forms replaced the part participle in the present perfect, for example, ‘I have ate the apple’ in place of ‘I have eaten the apple’). Pronoun acquisition in typical and atypical language (with Brendan Webster). Data Bases

As other child language investigators, I have accumulated several databases that I have relieved on in some of my studies. The more significant are as follows: Recordings and transcripts of my son Daniel every two weeks from 0;9 to 3;0. Recordings and transcripts of a German child Dorothy every month from age 2;0 to 2;10. A phonological database of typically developing children with phonological impairment from published and unpublished sources and my own studies, of over 200 children. Transcriptions done by a former student Alicia Nokony of a child acquiring Dakota Sioux. Transcription of longitudinal standardized language samples from 73 children with a range of language impairments. Closing Remarks

I would like to thank Elena Babatsouli and Dimitrios Sotiropoulos, the organizers of the 2018 International Child Phonology Conference, for both the invitation to speak at the conference, the opportunity to write this summary, and for being such excellent colleagues during the last years of my career. I conclude with a poem I wrote one night several years ago before returning home from a conference: Time to Go Home It’s time to go home. The ferris wheel of digestive stomach acids labors in its spinnings. The melancholy of yesterday’s hours swells with the passing of every thought.

48  In the Spotlight

The sting of the beer here the words of new people have lost their horizons. It’s time to ticket further meanderings to package sidewise glances to scotch-tape time for now And return to the place where chosen habits comfort References Babatsouli, E., Ingram, and Sotiropoulos, D. (2014) Phonological word proximity in child speech development. Chaotic Modeling and Simulation (CMSIM) 3, 295–313. Bestoff, E. and Ingram, D. (2017) Syllable preferences in the babbling and first words of Italian children: An analysis of Frame-Content Theory. Paper presented at the International Child Phonology Conference, Washington, DC. Bloom, L. (1973) One Word at a Time. The Hague: Mouton. Fee, J. and Ingram, D. (1980) Reduplication as a strategy of phonological development. Journal of Child Language 9, 41–54. Bunta, F., Davidovich, I. and Ingram, D. (2006) The relationship between the phonological complexity of a bilingual child’s words and those of the target languages. International Journal of Bilingualism 10, 71–88. Bunta, F., Fabiano, L., Goldstein, B. and Ingram, D. (2008) Phonological whole-word measures in three-year-old bilingual children and their age-matched monolingual peers. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 23 (2), 156–75. Carias, S. and Ingram, D. (2006) Language and disfluency: Four case studies on SpanishEnglish bilingual children. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders 4, 149–157. Fernald, A. (1987) Intonation and communicative intent in mothers’ speech to infants: Is the melody the message? Child Development 60, 1497–1510. Grunwell, P. (1985) Phonological Assessment of Child Speech (PACS). San Diego, Calif.: College-Hill Press. Hase, M., Ingram, D. and Bunta, F. (2010) A comparison of two phonological assessment tools for monolingual Spanish-speaking children. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 24, 346–56. Ingram, D. (1971) Transitivity in child language. Language 47, 889–910. Ingram, D. (1974a) Phonological rules in young children. Journal of Child Language 1, 49–64. Ingram, D. (1974b) Fronting in child phonology. Journal of Child Language 1, 233–242. Ingram, D. (1975) Surface contrast in children’s speech. Journal of Child Language 2, 287–92. Ingram, D. (1978) The acquisition of fricatives and affricates in normal and linguistically deviant children, In A. Caramazza and E. Zurif (eds) The Acquisition and Breakdown of Language (pp. 63–85). Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Ingram, D. (1981/2) The emerging phonological system of an Italian-English bilingual child. Journal of Italian Linguistics 2, 95–113. Ingram, D. (ed.) (1983) Case studies of phonological disorders. Special issue of Topics in Language Disorders 2, 3. Ingram, D. (1985) On children’s homonyms. Journal of Child Language 12, 671–80. Ingram, D. (1986) Explanation and phonological remediation. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 2, 1–29.

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  49

Ingram, D. (1987) Categories of phonological disorder. Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Specific Speech and Language Disorders in Children. Surrey: Association for All Speech Impaired Children, 88–99. Ingram, D. (1988a) The acquisition of word initial [v]. Language and Speech 31, 77–85. Ingram, D. (1988b) Jakobson revisited: Some evidence from the acquisition of Polish phonology. Lingua 75, 55–82. Ingram, D. (1989) First Language Acquisition: Method, Description and Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ingram, D. (1991) Toward a theory of phonological acquisition. In J. Miller (ed.) Research Perspectives on Language Disorders (pp. 55–72). Boston: College Hill Press. Ingram, D. (1994) Articulation testing versus conversational speech sampling: A response to Morrison and Shriberg (1992). Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 37, 935–6. Ingram, D. (1995a) The cultural basis of prosodic modifications to infants and children: A response to Fernald’s universalist theory. Journal of Child Language 22 (1), 223–233 Ingram, D. (1995b) The acquisition of negative constraints, the OCP, and underspecified representations. In J. Archibald (ed.) Phonological Acquisition and Phonological Theory. (pp. 63–79). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ingram, D. (1996) Some observations on feature assignment. In B. Bernhardt, J. Gilbert and D. Ingram (eds) Proceedings of the UBC International Conference on Phonological Acquisition. (pp. 53–61). Somerville: Cascadilla Press. Ingram, D. (1998) Research-practice relationships in speech-language pathology. Topics in Language Disorders 18 (2) 1–9. Ingram, D. (1999) The nature of prosodic primitives: Evidence from child language and language impairment. Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society 1998 34 (2). Ingram, D. (2002) The measurement of whole word productions. Journal of Child Language 29, 1–21. Ingram, D. (2003) Speech disorders in children: Cross-linguistic data. In R. Kent (ed.) MIT Encyclopedia of Communication Disorders (MITECD) (196–97) Cambridge: MIT Press. Ingram, D. (2009) The role of theory in speech sound disorders. In C. Bowen (ed.) Speech Sound Disorders (pp. 23–26). Chichester: John Wiley. Ingram, D. (2012) Prologue: Cross-Linguistic and multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. In S. McLeod and B. Goldstein (eds) Multilingual Aspects of Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 3–17). Bristol: Multimedia Matters. Ingram, D. (2015) Whole-word measures: Using the pCC-PWP intersect to distinguish speech delay from speech disorder. In C. Bowen (ed.) Children’s Speech Sound Disorders (pp. 42–5). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Ingram D. and Dubasik, V. (2011) Multidimensional assessment of phonological similarity between children (MAPS). Similarity Within and Between Children (MAPS). Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 25, 62–67. Ingram, D. and Dubasik, V. (2014) Sibling rivalry: Comparing Phonological Similarity between Twin and Non-Twin Siblings. In A. Farris-Trimbe and J. Barlow (eds) Perspectives on Phonological Theory and Acquisition: Papers in Honor of Daniel A. Dinnsen (pp. 53–70). Sheffield: Equinox Publishing. Ingram, D. and Ingram, K. (2001) A whole word approach to phonological intervention. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools 32, 271–283. Ingram D. and Ingram, K. (2011) Frame/Content Theory as an account of early phonological acquisition. The Phonetician 103/104, 7–19. Ingram, D. and Le Normand, M-T. (1996) A diary study on the acquisition of Middle French: A preliminary report of the early language acquisition of Louis XIII. Proceedings of the 20th annual Boston University conference on language development (pp. 352–63). Ingram, D. and Terselic, B. (1983) A case of deviant phonology. Topics in Language Disorders 3 (2), 45–50.

50  In the Spotlight

Ingram, D. and Thompson, W. (1996) Early syntactic acquisition in German: Evidence for the modal hypothesis. Language 72, 97–120. Ingram, D., McCartney, P. and Bunta, F. (2002) Phonological representations in children with cochlear implants. In J. Costa and M.J. Freitas (eds) Proceedings of the GALA 2001 Conference on Language Acquisition (pp. 130–133). Lisbon: Portuguese Linguistics Association. Ingram, D., Williams, L. and Scherer, N. (2018) Are speech sound disorders phonological or articulatory? A spectrum approach. In E. Babatsouli and D. Ingram (eds) Phonology in protolanguage and interlanguage (pp. 27–48). Sheffield: Equinox Publishing. Ingram, D., Christensen, L., Veach, S. and Webster, B. (1980) The acquisition of wordinitial fricatives and affricates in English by children between 2 and 6 years. In G.H. Yeni-Komshian, J.F. Kavanagh and C.A. Ferguson (eds) Child Phonology (Vol. 1, pp. 169–92). New York: Academic Press. Jakobson, R. (1941/68) Child Language, Aphasia, and Phonological Universals. The Hague: Mouton. Keshavarz, M. and Ingram, D. (2003) The early phonological development of a FarsiEnglish bilingual child. International Journal of Bilingualism 6, 255–269. Leopold, W.F. (1947) Speech Development of a Bilingual Child: Sound-learning in the First Two Years. Northwestern University ‘Studies in the Humanities’ (Vol. II). Macken, M.A. and Ferguson, C.A. (1987) Phonological universals in language acquisition. In G. Ioup and S.H. Weinberger (eds) Interlanguage Phonology: The Acquisition of Second Language Sound System (pp. 3–22). Cambridge: Newbury House. Majorano, M. and D’Odorico, L. (2010) The transition into ambient language: A longitudinal study of babbling and first word production of Italian children. First Language 31 (1), 47–66. Morehead, D. and Ingram, D. (1973) The development of base syntax in normal and linguistically deviant children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 16, 330–52. Munson, J. and Ingram, D. (1985) Morphology before syntax: A case study from language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 12, 681–684. Pye, C., Ingram, D. and List, H. (1987) A comparison of initial consonant acquisition in English and Quiche. In K.E. Nelson and A. van Kleeck (eds) Children’s language (Vol. 6, pp. 175–90). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Smith, N.V. (1973) The Acquisition of Phonology: A Case Study. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 25, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stampe, D. (1969) The acquisition of phonetic representation. In R.I. Binnick (ed.) Papers from the 5th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 433–444). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Schwartz, R. and Leonard, L. (1982) Do children pick and choose? An examination of lexical selection and avoidance in early acquisition. Journal of Child Language 9, 319–336. Templin, M. (1957) Spontaneous versus imitated verbalization in testing articulation in preschool children. Journal of Speech, Hearing and Disorders 12, 293–300. Tse, S. and Ingram, D. (1987) The influence of dialectal variation on phonological acquisition: A case study on the acquisition of Cantonese. Journal of Child Language 14, 281–94. Velten, H. (1943) The growth of phonemic and lexical patterns in infant language. Language 19, 281–292. Morrison, J.A. and Shriberg, L.D. (1992) Articulation testing versus conversational speech sampling. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 35 (2), 259–73. Shvachkin, N. (1948/1973) The development of phonemic speech perception in children. In C.A. Ferguson and D. Slobin (eds) Studies on Child Language Development (pp. 91–127). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Vihman, M.M. (1981) Phonology and the development of the lexicon: Evidence from children’s errors. Journal of Child Language 8 (2), 239–64.

Ingram’s Contributions to the Study of First Language Acquisition, According to Ingram  51

Vogel, I. (1975) One system or two: An analysis of a two-year-old Romanian-English bilingual’s phonology. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 9, 43–62. Volterra, V. and Taeschner, T. (1978) The acquisition and development of language by bilingual children. Journal of Child Language 5, 311–326. Wong, W. and Ingram, D. (2003) Question acquisition by Cantonese-speaking children. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders 1, 148–157. Zarebina, M. (1965) Ksztaltowanie Sie System Jezykowego Dziecko. Krakow.

4 A Commentary on Hellenic: Greek Speech and its Acquisition Elena Babatsouli

Synopsis

This chapter aims at encapsulating some information regarding the speech sound system and children’s acquisition of the Hellenic language – widely referred to as Greek. In a book on under-reported themes in monolingual acquisition of phonology (φωνή+λόγος ‘voice+speech’), a commentary such as the one intended here is relevant for a number of reasons. Research on children’s acquisition of ελληνικά [εliniˈkɐ] ‘hellenic’, i.e. Greek ‘protolanguage’ (Babatsouli, 2013; Babatsouli & Ball, 2020; Babatsouli & Ingram, 2018) is still under-represented and in need of further investigation both in terms of its occurrence in typical contexts of acquisition by children but also in contexts relating to clinical conditions evidenced in children. The chapter will remark on older and newer publications in the field, and it will also include some centrally or peripherally relevant information that is lesser known, or word of mouth, or less accessible material published in Greek only. The reader will encounter the following structure in this chapter. The remaining part of the chapter will comprise etymological considerations, historical foundations, a delineation of the main characteristics of the phonological system of Greek, a brief account of studies of phonological development of child Greek, phonological assessment tests that are currently available and a concluding statement. Hellenic vs. Greek: Etymological considerations

The term ‘hellenic’ stems from Hellas ‘Greece’ and is the term officially used by the country to refer to its nation and its language. Greek is an exonym, i.e. the name by which the people and their language are known internationally (e.g. Aurousseau, 1957). Ever since 55

56  Part 1: Typical Development

the 7th century BC the mythological name Γραικός, alongside the Chalcidian alphabet, was adapted by the Romans, the Latin Graecus and its derivative ‘Greek’ are widely used abroad to refer to the people and the language (e.g. Horrocks, 2010). 4000 years of continued oral history

Hellenic or Greek (el: ISO 639.1; ell: ISO 639-2), has an uninterrupted oral history of 40 centuries (Babiniotis, 2019). It has developed from ancient Greek (800 BC–600 AD), koine ‘common’ (300 BC–300 AD) and katharevousa ‘purified’ (1800–1976) to result to modern day demotiki (meaning ‘of the people’) or neo-Hellenic koine (1818–). Since the term koine means ‘common’ or ‘shared’ (e.g. Merriam Webster, 2019), it is not surprising that the Hellenic language is actually derived from combinations of the Attic and Ionic varieties, including vernaculars and literary forms (Horrocks, 2010). In its present day form in the 3rd person plural of the neutral, the term ελληνικά also attests to the language’s multiplicity. For information on where Greek is spoken around the world, see Mennen and Okalidou (2007). For encyclopedic information on linguistics in general, see Babatsouli (2019c). For a monograph on the pronunciation of ancient Greek, see Sturtervant (1966). During the Hellenistic period when koine was mostly used, there was a drastic pronunciation shift from the phonological system of ancient Greek to one almost identical to that of present day Greek, e.g. κοινή [koinɛ́ː] > [kyˈni] > [ci.ˈni]. The main changes involved the loss of vowel length distinction (no long-short contrast), simplification of diphthongs to monophthongs (except αυ > av, af, and ευ > ev, ef) and of zd, dz > z, a vowel shift towards /i/ (iotacism), the drop of glottal h (psilosis), the frication of voiced stops (b > β > v; d > ð; g > γ) and of aspirated consonants (ph > θ, th > ɸ > f, kh > x) and the substitution of pitch accent by stress accent (e.g. Horrocks, 2010; Setatos, 1987). Also, the ancient Greek nasal+voiceless stop clusters / mp, nt, ŋk/ have evolved to either singleton voiced stops, [b d g] or to prenasalized voiced stops [mb nd ŋg] in present-day Greek dialects (Arvaniti & Joseph, 2000; Newton, 1972). This has led to a controversy regarding the phonological status of voiced stops in Modern Greek (e.g. Arvaniti, 2007) as to whether prenasalized stops are derived consonants from a [nasal] + [voiceless stop] cluster whereby the second member takes the [+voice] of the first member which assimilates to the [place] of the second member (Newton, 1972; Malikouti-Drachman & Drachman, 1992) or they are independent phonemes (Householder et al., 1964; Setatos, 1974). A thorough discussion on both positions is given by Malikouti-Drachman (2001). Prenasalization is a characteristic of Northern Greek dialects but it is intermittently productive in standard Modern Greek as well, although increasingly less

A Commentary on Hellenic: Greek Speech and its Acquisition  57

common among younger generations (Arvaniti & Joseph, 2000). Kong et al. (2012) have found that where Greek voiced stops are prenasalized by young children, the amplitude trajectory for the voice bar during closure suggests the use of a greater degree of nasal venting to create the aerodynamic conditions necessary for voicing lead. For prenasalization in other languages, see Ohala and Ohala (1993), among others. Online portals for the Greek language may be found at http:// www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html, and at the Institute of Modern Greek Studies at http://ins.web.auth.gr/index.php?option= com_content&view=featured&Itemid=218&lang=en. Greek phonology among the world’s phonologies

The sound system of standard Modern Greek has primarily been furnished by the Ionian and Peloponesian dialects (Trudgil, 2003) and its phonology comprises the dynamic mixing of separate phonological systems in terms of segmental inventory, phonotactics and usage distributions (Setatos, 1969, 1974). A comprehensive review of the Greek speech sound system in terms of its segmental inventory (vowel and consonant phonemes, and allophonic variations), most active phonological processes (assimilation/dissimilation, coalescence, paragoge, syncope, diphthongization, vocalization, etc.) along with the distribution of phonemes/phones, clusters, syllable types per word position and of word shapes in the language may be found in Babatsouli (2019a). In a nutshell, Table 4.1 shows the Greek phonetic inventory, also showing in parenthesis allophonic use (in complementary distribution and free), while a consonant feature matrix is shown in Table 4.2. Table 4.1  Greek phonetic inventory CONSONANTS

bi labial

plosive (±voice)

pb

nasal

m

labio dental

dental

velar kg

(ɲ]

(ŋ)

sz

(ç ʝ)

(x γ)

l

(ʎ)

(r) ɾ

fricat (±voice)

θð

fv

lateral approx

ʦʣ

sibilant affric (±voice) approximant

(ɹ) close

close-mid

(j)

open-mid

(w) open

ɛ

i

ɐ

central back

labial velar

(c ɟ) n

tap

front

palatal

td (ɱ)

trill

VOWELS

alveolar

u

o

–

+

–

–

–

–

–

–

+

–

syllabic

consonantal

sonorant

voice

continuant

slow release

lateral

back

front

coronal

p

–

+

–

–

–

–

+

–

+

–

b

+

+

–

–

–

–

–

–

+

–

t

+

+

–

–

–

–

+

–

+

–

d

–

–

+

–

–

–

–

–

+

–

k

–

–

+

–

–

–

+

–

+

–

g

–

+

–

–

–

–

–

–

+

–

c

–

+

–

–

–

–

+

–

+

–

ɟ

+

+

–

–

+

–

–

–

+

–

ʦ

+

+

–

–

+

–

+

–

+

–

ʣ

–

+

–

–

–

+

–

–

+

–

f

–

+

–

–

–

+

+

–

+

–

v

+

+

–

–

–

+

–

–

+

–

s

Table 4.2  Consonant feature matrix for Greek (adapted from Nespor, 1999) z

+

+

–

–

–

+

+

–

+

–

θ

+

+

–

–

–

+

–

–

+

–

+

+

–

–

–

+

+

–

+

–

ð

x

–

–

+

–

–

+

–

–

+

–

ɣ

–

–

+

–

–

+

+

–

+

–

–

+

–

–

–

–

+

+

+

–

m

+

+

–

–

–

–

+

+

+

–

n

l

+

+

–

+

–

+

+

+

+

–

ɾ

+

+

–

–

–

+

+

+

+

–

ç

–

–

–

–

–

+

–

–

+

–

ʝ

–

+

–

–

–

+

+

–

+

–

–

+

–

–

–

–

+

+

+

–

ɲ

–

+

–

+

–

–

+

+

+

–

ʎ

58  Part 1: Typical Development

A Commentary on Hellenic: Greek Speech and its Acquisition  59

For a total of 4,151 phonemes (99.92%) and 4,078 phones (99.87%) in a specific text, Setatos (1974) computed the frequency of consonants to be: 2,128 phonemes (51.16%) and 2,103 phones (51.47%), and the frequency of vowels to be: 2,023 phonemes (48.76%) and 1,975 phones (48.40%). Nespor, Peña and Mehler (2003) have found that the proportion of consonants to vowels in syllable-timed languages like Greek (50%), is smaller than in stress-timed languages, like English (55%). Maddieson (2013) provides consonant-vowel ratios (C/VQ) of 563 languages, among which Greek features as one of the languages with average ratios (between 2.75 and 4.5). A repository of quantitative wordlevel information and software processing tools for Greek orthography and phonology, that is based on texts, is available online at http://speech. ilsp.gr/iplr/ (Protopapas et al., 2012). The durational variability of Greek segments is affected by phonetic identity, context and speaker (Nikolaidis, 2000). Affricates in Greek are claimed to have a unary nature (e.g. Householder et al., 1964), which is further supported by evidence in their acquisition (Babatsouli, 2013; Kappa, 1998; Tzakosta & Vis, 2009) despite some controversial evidence that they also show patterns of cluster behavior (Pavlakou, 2008; Syrika et al., 2011). Greek vowels are reduced/voiceless in the following phonological context: utterance finally, after voiceless consonants when the vowel is unstressed and the intonation contour associated with the word falls (falling pitch) (Dauer, 1980; Kaimaki, 2012). Electropalatographic studies of Greek speech sounds may be found in the work of Katerina Nicolaidis and colleagues (e.g. Baltazani & Nicolaidis, 2013; Nicolaidis, 2001, 2003). The Greek language has a maximum of three consonants in onset position but no clusters word finally, with the exception of archaic terms e.g. άπαξ [ˈɐpɐks] ‘once’ and of loans e.g. τοστ [ˈtοst] ‘toast’, φιoρδ /fioɾð/→[fçoɾð]. Homorganic clusters are not permitted in Greek (e.g. Malikouti-Drachman, 1984) and /stop+stop/ or /fricative+fricative/ sequences tend to be pronounced as [fricative+stop] e.g. σχοινί /sxini/ [sçiˈni~sciˈni] ‘rope’ (Newton, 1972). Protopapas et al. (2012) show the 40 most frequent consonant cluster sequences along with their percentages: st (18.5%), pɾ (8.6%) and ks (5.9%) are the most frequent ones, while xn, γn, stɾ, ɾt (0.7%) and fs, pç (0.6%) are the least frequent. A comprehensive list of Greek clusters in word-initial, medial-onset, and medial-across-syllables position is provided in Babatsouli (2019a). Greek has a basic 5-vowel system (for discussions of their phonetic and acoustic characteristics see e.g. Arvaniti (2007) and Jongman et al. (1989). Heterosyllabic vowel sequences can become short diphthongs in running speech (Arvaniti, 1999). There are also two falling diphthongs: [ɐi] and [oi] and five rising diphthongs [ii iε io iu iɐ]. In Greek, there are no phonemic glides /j w/. However, postvocalic /i/ may surface as a

60  Part 1: Typical Development

palatal approximant (e.g. γάιδαρος /γɐiðɐɾos/ [ˈγɐjðɐɾos] ‘donkey’ (e.g. Baltazani & Topintzi, 2013; Setatos, 1974; Rytting, 2005). Furthermore, Baltazani and Topintzi (2010) provide evidence of [w] in Northwestern Greek dialects and in vowel sequences like /au/ e.g. φράουλα /fɾɐulɐ/ [ˈfɾɐwlɐ] ‘strawberry’. The rising diphthongs along with monophthongs [i, ε] are the context of palatalization of singleton consonantal phonemes with a velar place of articulation (e.g. Syrika et al., 2011), and of the nasal and lateral, e.g. κιάλια /kiɐliɐ/ [ˈcɐʎɐ] ‘binoculars’, γκιώνης /gionis/ [ˈɟonis] ‘a bird’, χέλι /xεli/ [ˈçεli] ‘eel’, γένι /γεni/ [ˈʝεni] ‘beard’, /γεnia/ [ˈʝεˈɲɐ] ‘beards’, ελιά /elia/ [εˈʎɐ] ‘olive’. Further, the unstressed /i/ in rising diphthongs palatalizes to [ʝ] when a voiced consonant precedes in the same syllable: v, b, d, z, ʣ, ɾ, ð (e.g. κουμπιά /kuˈbiɐ/ [kuˈbʝɐ] ‘buttons’), and to [ç] when the voiceless consonants (or consonant sequences) precede instead: p, f, t, s, ʦ, θ, ps, ks (e.g. πιάνο /piɐno/ [ˈpçɐno] ‘piano’, καρότσια /kɐɾoʦiɐ/ [kɐˈɾoʦçɐ] ‘strollers’, ανηψιά /ɐnipsiɐ/ [ɐɲiˈpsçɐ] ‘niece’. In the case that /m/ precedes [iɐ], the unstressed /i/ assimilates to the [nasal]: [ɲ] e.g. μια /miɐ/ [ˈmɲɐ] ‘one’ (e.g. Charalambopoulos et al., 2003; Setatos, 1974). Exceptions to the rule are stylized productions c.f. διαγώνισμα /ðiɐγonismɐ/ [ði.ɐˈγonizmɐ~ðʝɐˈγonizmɐ] ‘test’, διαγώνιος /ðiɐγonios/ [ði. ɐˈγonios~ðʝɐˈγonios] ‘diagonal’. Greek is syllable-timed i.e. its syllables have equal duration. These syllables are predominantly open e.g. V, CV, CCV, but there are also some closed ones e.g. VC, CVC, CCVC (Holton et al., 2012 ) with the word-final coda being primarily s#, n#. Τhe frequency of this pattern in the language positively affects earlier acquisition of patterns compared to other languages (e.g. Babatsouli & Nicoladis, 2018, 2019) and morphological considerations play a role (Kappa, 2000, 2002b). Other word-final coda singletons exist in archaic terms, e.g. αστήρ [ɐˈstiɾ] ‘star’ and in loans e.g. γκολ [gol] ‘goal’. Setatos (1974) provides a full list of word-medial codas as follows: codas in word-medial syllables: f, v, m, n, ð, l, ɾ, k, x, γ; codas in word-initial syllables: f, v, t, s, θ, ð, m, n, l, ɾ, k, ks, x, g, γ. The distribution of syllable types per word position in Greek may be found in Babatsouli (2019a and references therein). The most common syllable structure is: C(0–3)VC(0–1) (Mennen & Okalidou, 2007: 400). The foot in Greek is trochaic (Holton et al., 2002) and word shapes are mostly disyllabic or multisyllabic (3–5 syllables). Longer words are compounds e.g. σκουληκο-μυρμηγκό-τρυπα [worm-ant-hole] ‘insect nest’. There are few monosyllabic types that are very common because of their use as function words e.g. σε [sε] ‘to’, αν [ɐn] κaι [cε] ‘and’; other types include loans, e.g. σκι [sci] ‘ski’. The most frequent word structures in Greek and their distribution computed by Mihalis Setatos in his 1974 monograph, written in the Greek language, may be found in Babatsouli (2019a).

A Commentary on Hellenic: Greek Speech and its Acquisition  61

Greek has both primary and secondary stresses that fall on the syllable nucleus (vowel, diphthong or a syllabic consonant in exclamatory words, e.g. πστ! [ps̩ t]) ‘getting someone’s attention’. Primary stress abides to the following two rules: consecutive syllables are not to be both stressed, while only one or two unstressed syllables may follow the primary stress (Drachman & Malikouti-Drachman, 1999; Holton et al., 2002; Malikouti-Drachman & Drachman, 1981). Secondary stress is enclitic stress, that is, in words stressed on the antepenult or penult that are followed by an enclitic word (one that phonologically can only stand joined following another word); secondary stress falls on the penult of the phonological phrase resulting from word+enclitic (e.g. Arvaniti, 1999; Holton et al., 2002). So, for example, μίλησέ [ˈmi.li.sˌε] ‘talk!’ becomes μίλησέ της [ˈmi.li.sˌε tis] ‘talk to her!’. Greek stress is lexical in that it functions to differentiate the semantics of identical words as for example: χαμογελά [xamoʝԑˈla] ‘s/he smiles, 3rd person singular’, χαμογέλα [xamoˈʝԑla] ‘smile!, imperative’, χαμόγελα [xaˈmoʝԑla] ‘smiles, noun in plural’ and μιλιά/μίλια [miˈʎɐ/ˈmiʎɐ] ‘speech/miles’ (Babatsouli, 2019a). For a discussion of the five pitch accents in Greek and the transcription system for Greek intonation, see Arvaniti and Baltazani (2005), Mennen and Okalidou (2007) and references therein. Also, Botinis (2009) provides information on discourse intonation. Further, the reader is referred to Arvaniti (1999) for a discussion of Greek running speech phenomena, such as context assimilations, voicing /s/ and deletion of /n/, and to work on coarticulatory effects in the production of Greek (e.g. Sfakianaki et al., 2018). The phonology/ phonetics of the language is comprehensively depicted in IPA in a 1000-word narrative provided by Babatsouli (2019a, see the Appendix, targeted and produced Greek running speech, also showing predominant dialectal variation). The narrative is advanced as a tool for the phonological assessment of child Greek, but it is also pertinent for evaluating adult L2 Greek speech. Lastly, according to the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS, 2019), the phonological system of Greek rates as average among 2679 different language (and language varieties) entries, in the following respects: consonant and vowel inventory, consonant-vowel ratio, the presence of voicing in plosives and fricatives in labial, coronal and velar places of articulation, the presence of common consonants and trochaic rhythm type. With regard to uncommon consonants in the languages mentioned in WALS, Greek only has the marked interdentals /θ, ð/. The reader is referred to Ingram (2012) for a discussion of the importance of such rare segments in our understanding of cross-linguistic and multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders (SSDs.) For an account of bilingual Greek-English acquisition of theta across seventeen months of development, see Babatsouli (2017). Among expected characteristics, Greek lacks the following: uvular and glottalized consonants, vowel

62  Part 1: Typical Development

nasalization, a velar nasal phoneme and front rounded vowels. A succinct review of phonological development in child Greek follows in the next section. Phonological development in child Greek

In the 45th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America that took place in Washington, DC in 1970, both David Ingram (honored in this volume for his contributions to the field of child phonological development, see Chapter 3) and Gaberell Drachman happened to present a paper. When the author (editor of the volume) first visited David Ingram at Arizona State University, he handed her a publication by Drachman, which is not surprising since Drachman has been pivotal in initiating the study of child Greek phonological acquisition. The earliest studies in child Greek phonological development are traced in his own work (Drachman, 1970, 1973a, 1973b) as well as in collaborative work with Angeliki Malikouti-Drachman, a fellow linguist and his spouse (e.g. Drachman & Malikouti-Drachman, 1972, 1973; Malikouti-Drachman & Drachman, 1976). For information on the life and work of these two founding child-Greek phonologists see Kappa (2015), and Lavidas et al. (2008). For a survey of ancient (pre- and post-Hellenistic sources) awareness of child language acquisition in terms of babbling, first words, phonology/articulation and pronunciation, see Thomas (2010). A wellknown publication on the acquisition of Greek as a first language is that by Stephany (1997) in Slobin’s compilation of language acquisition studies cross-linguistically, though there is only a brief section on phonology. The Stephany corpus involves data from four Greek-speaking children raised in Germany: Spiros (a boy at 1;9), Mairi, Maria and Janna (girls between 1;11 and 2;9) that are available at the CHILDES talkbank but lack audio files (http://childes.talkbank. org/access/Other/Greek/ Stephany.html). These data and the data by a boy Christos (between 1;7-3;0) from the private Christofidou Corpus were studied by Marinis (2003) to provide information on the children’s average length of sentence (ALS) (Nice, 1925) resulting in the range (2.6, 3.0). The ALS of a bilingual Greek-English girl, Maria Sofia, raised in Greece, at 2;7 was found to be 3.36 (Babatsouli & Nicolaidis, 2019; Babatsouli, 2020). It is worth noting that, because Greek is a highly inflectional language, ALS, or as more commonly known these days as the mean length of utterance in words (MLUw; Bernardini & Schlyter, 2004), is preferred over the mean length of utterance (MLU; Brown, 1973) that focuses on morphemes. The same holds for Cypriot Greek (e.g. Voniati, 2016). Bernardini and Schlyter (2004) have found that MLU and MLUw correlate. It is known that lexical and phonological acquisition go hand in hand (e.g. Ferguson & Farewell, 1975). There is also a synergy in the

A Commentary on Hellenic: Greek Speech and its Acquisition  63

acquisition of linguistic subsystems (e.g. Petinou & Taxitari, 2020). Edwards et al. (2015) have examined the role of frequency effects on the phonological acquisition of lingual obstruents in Greek and found that both phoneme frequency and phoneme-sequence frequency influence their order of acquisition, as in other languages (e.g. Sosa & StoelGammon, 2012). Babatsouli and Nicoladis (2018, 2019) also found a positive effect of Greek /s/ frequency effects in a bilingual child’s earlier acquisition of English possessives when compared to English monolinguals. Greek children’s vocabulary acquisition has been studied by Papaeliou and Rescorla (2011) in 273 monolingual Greek toddlers aged between 1;6 and 2;11, finding that common nouns were the largest category among the 50 most frequent words and that the acquisition of word categories in Greek children paralleled, by and large, that of English monolinguals. For a study on early words in Greek, see Kappa (2002a). A bilingual Greek-English girl raised in Greece was found at age 2;7 to have a word types-to-tokens ratio (TTR) in Greek of 0.23. Specifically, the child’s Greek vocabulary consisted of 540 types and 2374 word tokens, of which 109 were function words (20% of all word types) (Babatsouli, 2013). Across 17 months of development (2;7-4;0) in the same study, the child’s utterances in Greek were 13,940 containing 69,289 word tokens. Babatsouli (2013) found that there was a considerable increase in the word-to-utterance-ratio over the length of the study: at age 2;8, the child had 2.65 word types per utterance in Greek, while at age 4;0 she had 5.80. Early lexical development has also been studied in clinical cases in Cypriot Greek (e.g. Oktapoti et al., 2016; Parizi et al., 2013) Acquisition of child Greek and, in particular, the development of phonology has been enriched by both cross-sectional studies of children (e.g. Edwards et al., 2015; Magoula, 2000; PAL 1995; Okalidou et al., 2010; Papadopoulou, 2000; PAL, 1995; Petinou & Theodorou, 2016; Petinou & Spanoudis, 2014; Revithiadou & Tzakosta, 2004; Tzakosta, 2001a, 2001b; Tzakosta & Vis, 2009) as well as by studies focusing on individual child cases (Babatsouli, 2017, 2018, 2019a, 2019d, 2020; Kappa, 1998, 2000, 2009). Investigations have targeted consonants (e.g. Babatsouli, 2017, 2019d, 2020; Edwards et al., 2015; Kappa, 1998, 2000; Kong et al., 2012; Magoula, 2000; Papadopoulou, 2000), syllables (e.g. Kappa, 2002b; Tzakosta, 2005), phonological processes (e.g. Kainada, 2013; Magoula, 2000; PAL, 1995; Papadopoulou, 2000; Petinou & Armostis, 2016), and intonation (e.g. Tzakosta, 2004). The next section will present the ages of acquisition of Greek segments. Ages of Greek segmental acquisition

An assessment of phonetic and phonological development carried out by the Panhellenic Association of Logopaedics (PAL, 1995) is the

64  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 4.3  Acquisition age of consonants by Greek children (boys and girls)* 90% criterion 2;6-3;0

b, n, ɲ, g

3;0-3;6

p, v, m, c, ɟ, x, γ

3;6-4;0

t, d, l, ç, ʝ, k

4;0-4;6

f, s, z

>6;0

θ, ð, ʦ, ʣ, ɾ, ʎ

*adapted from PAL (1995).

largest cross-sectional study on the phonological development of nondialectal Modern Greek. It sampled 300 children of ages between 2;6 and 6;0 during the three-year period from 1989 to 1992. There is no comprehensive study of Greek vowel acquisition, but vowels are reported acquired early on, the latest by age 2;6 (e.g. PAL, 1995; Babatsouli, 2003). Table 4.3 shows the acquisition age of consonants at the 90% criterion (meaning 90% of the children in the study had acquired a sound) by the monolingual Greek-speaking children reported in PAL (1995). PAL (1995) also gives a 75% criterion (meaning 75% of the children had acquired a sound) according to which p, b, t, d, m, n, ɲ, c, ɟ, ç, ʝ, k, g, x, γ were acquired by the age of 2;6 when the study started; f, v, θ, ð, l were acquired between 3;0-3;6; s, z, were acquired between 3;64;0; ʎ between 4;0-4;6; ʦ, ʣ between 4;6-5;0; and ɾ between 5;6-6;0. A 50% criterion showed that f, v, s, z, ʦ, l, ʎ were acquired by 2;6 while θ, ð, ʣ were acquired between 3;0-3;6, and ɾ between 4;6-5;0. There are three more cross-sectional studies focusing on Greek consonantal development. Magoula (2000) studied 4 children between the ages of 1;5-2;6, three of which were studied for 9 months and one for 7 months. Consonantal inventories rather than age of acquisition based on quantitative results were reported by Magoula, meaning that consonants produced as targeted at least once were reported. The results in Magoula (2000) are reproduced in Table 4.4. Papadopoulou (2000) also studied consonant (singleton and cluster) acquisition in Greek between the ages of 3;7-4;6 and the phonetic inventories given, largely, agree with the PAL (1995) assessment. Acquisition of palatal allophones [ʎ] and [ɲ] is reported between ages 2;0 and 3;0 (e.g. Athanasopoulou, 2018; Thomadaki & Magoula, 1998) Table 4.4  Consonantal inventories of Greek children (Magoula, 2000) Consonant inventories 1;5-1;8

p, t, d, m, n, l,

1;9-2;0

b, v, l, k, c

2;1-2;2

f

2;3-2;6

ð, ɾ

A Commentary on Hellenic: Greek Speech and its Acquisition  65

although [ʎ] is acquired at the 90% criterion by a bilingual GreekEnglish child after age 3;0 (Babatsouli, 2013). For a longitudinal study (2;7-4;0) of the development of /θ/ in bilingualism, see Babatsouli (2017). Papathanasiou et al. (2012) carried out a study on 141 children aged 4;0-6;0 (four groups aged: 4;0-4;6, 4;6-5;0, 5;0-5;6 and 5;6-6;0), using 75 pictures, and found that the following sounds were not yet acquired at the 75% criterion (meaning acquisition of a sound in all positions from 90% of the children): s, z, ʦ, ʣ, θ, ð, ʎ, ɾ (4;0-4;6); z, ʦ, ʣ, θ, ð, ʎ, ɾ (4;65;0); ʣ, θ, ð, ʎ, ɾ (5;0-5;6). These results are controversial, especially with regard to s, z, θ, ð, ʎ, ɾ when compared to the results in PAL (1995) at the 75% criterion. The age of acquisition of Greek consonant clusters and their presence in phonetic inventories have been studied in PAL (1995) and Papadopoulou (2000). For ages of appearance and acquisition in these studies, see Table 4.5 in Mennen and Okalidou (2007). Papathasiou et al. (2012) have also reported the following results with regard to the acquisition of consonant sequences at the 75% criterion (Table 4.5). Other studies on consonant cluster acquisition in child Greek include: Athanasopoulou (2008) involving palatals, Babatsouli (2018) on /fl/, /vl/, Sanoudaki (2008) on word-initial clusters, Tzakosta (2001b), Tzakosta and Vis (2009) on true clusters and affricates, Yavaş and Babatsouli (2016) on sCs. Syrika et al. (2011) studied s+stop and stop+s sequences, including the affricate [ʦ] considered to be a singleton in Greek, in 60 children (2;0-5;0) and found that sC was more accurate than Cs, and also that the affricate showed a distinct temporal pattern like that of the stop+s clusters in adult speech. Babatsouli (2016) investigated added syllable complexity in the production of onset two-member clusters created by the epenthesis of a non-targeted consonant next to a targeted onset consonant; the pattern was named consonant cluster by excrescence (CCE). The study looked at a child’s utterance-initial CCEs longitudinally (2;7-3;8) suggesting that CCEs are a developmental behavior, that is, an articulatory and phonological mechanism that enables practicing non-acquired singletons and clusters. Despite the low frequency and salience of the pattern in child speech, it is argued that there are implications for intervention techniques that can facilitate systemic changes in children with speech sound disorders. Phonological processes

A ‘chronology of phonological processes’ (Grunwell, 1981) in developmental child Greek from age 2;0 to 5;0 is depicted in Table 4.6 below, based on collective information found in PAL (1995), Magoula (2000) and Papadopoulou (2000). Papathanasiou et al. (2012) report no phonological processes present in the group of children aged 4;0-6;0.

66  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 4.5  Greek cluster acquisition (Papathanasiou et al., 2012) Cluster/age group

4;0-4;6

4;6-5;0

5;0-5;6

5;6-6;0

bl









kl









ft









xt

()







st

()







sp

()







sk

()







dʝ

()







ps

()

()





pci

()

()





sx

()

()





pl

()

()





vr

()

()





tsci

()

()





dr

()

()





pr

()

()

()



fr

()

()

()



tci

()

()

()



pn

()

()

()



br

()

()

()



ðʝ

()

()

()

()

()

()



()

()



()

()

ks ðɾ

γɾ tr

Note: Parenthesis denotes presence in the phonetic inventory.

Consonant harmony (CH) in Greek has been investigated by Kappa (2001) and Tzakosta (2007). Kappa (2001) found the following place markedness ranking to hold for Greek: Labial >> Dorsal >> Coronal for L1 Greek (Kappa, 2001) (where ‘>>’ means higher ranked than). Overall, velars and labials are triggers of CH while coronals are the targets. This is explained in terms of underspecification theory in that the default coronals draw the spreading of features from more marked segments (Stoel-Gammon & Stemberger, 1994). In a study of nine children acquiring L1 Greek, Tzakosta (2007) has found different patterns in that coronals are not targets but triggers of the process. She argues that assimilation is affected not only by place and manner, but also by

A Commentary on Hellenic: Greek Speech and its Acquisition  67

Table 4.6  Co-occurrence/disappearance patterns of simplification processes /f, v, x, s, z/ > /k, g/ > /l/ > /ʦ, ʃ/ > /ʁ/. Ben-David and Bat-El (2016) investigated the emergent consonants of one child according to word position. The boy’s speech development was documented between the ages of 0;8-1;6. The criterion for consonant acquisition in this study was 50% accuracy of the target sound. • Initial onset: /p, b, g/ > / t, k/ > /d/ > /m, x/ > /l/ > / ʁ/ > /n, v/ • Final coda: /n, x, k/ > /t, m, f, l/ > /d, g, ʁ/ > /v/ To date, there is only one normative study on consonant acquisition in Hebrew (Lavie, 1978). This cross-sectional study described the mastery of consonants (90% criterion) in 200 Hebrew-speaking children between ages 3;0-5;0, divided in four age groups in six-month intervals. Each group consisted of 50 children. The procedure was a picturenaming task, and each consonant was tested in word-initial and wordfinal positions. Table 5.2 shows the results of this study. The data drawn from this study provide important information on the acquisition of Hebrew consonants. However, these data are not sufficient for the following reasons: (a) the lack of normative data on prosodic units; (b) the lack of data before age 3;0, since it is known that extensive phonological development happens before that age (this sort of data is needed for early identification, assessment and intervention for children with speech-sound disorders); and (c) the lack of normative data beyond age 5;0 (according to Lavie’s (1978) data, the sibilant consonants /s, z, ʃ, ʦ / had not yet been mastered). The Hebrew rhotic /ʁ/ is not only mastered late, as shown in Table 5.2, but also acquired in a rather unique way (Ben-David, 2001; Cohen, 2015, Cohen & Ben-David, 2016). First, its development involves a preliminary stage of deletion (e.g. /ʁoʃ/→[os] ‘head’, /paˈʁa/→[paˈa] ‘cow’) which does not typically characterize other segmental errors in Hebrew development (which are almost never deleted). Second, in the subsequent stage of substitution, there is a relatively large amount

Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  83

Table 5.2  Age of acquisition for Hebrew consonants (Lavie, 1978) Consonants

Word Initial

Nasals

/m, n/

3;0

Word Final 3;0

Stops

/p, b/

3;0

—

/t/

3;0

4;0

/d/

3;6

3;0

/k/

3;0

3;6

/g/

3;6

3;0

/f /

—

3;0

/v/

3;6

3;6

/x/

3;0

3;0

/s/

>5;0

>5;0

/z/

>5;0

>5;0

/ʃ/

>5;0

>5;0

Affricates

/ʦ/

>5;0

>5;0

Approximants

/j/

3;0

—

/l/

3;6

3;6

/ʁ/

3;6

3;0

Fricatives

of inter-child variation with regard to the substituting consonant; the consonant may be any from among /j, x, l, ŋ/ (e.g. /ˈpeʁax/→[ˈpejax] ‘flower’, /oʁ/→[ox] ‘light’, /kaˈduʁ/→[aˈdul] ‘ball’, /ˈeseʁ/→[ˈeseŋ] ‘ten’). Development of syllable structure

Ben-David (2001) reported that in their first words (average age 1;2), Hebrew-speaking children produced mostly CV syllables, but also V syllables – the latter only at the beginning of disyllabic words (e.g. /ˈaba/ ‘daddy’, /ˈima/ ‘mommy’). Some weeks later, all 10 subjects in the study produced VC syllables when target words were monosyllabic VC words (e.g. /af/ ‘nose’, /od/ ‘more’). Syllables of the CVC or CCV(C) type were acquired later as will be discussed hereafter. Coda consonants were deleted from almost all of the children’s first words (except for VC words as noted earlier, e.g. /jad/→[ja] ‘hand’, /ˈozen/→[ˈoze] ‘ear’, /bakˈbuk/→[baˈbu] ‘bottle’). When the children started to produce consonants in coda position, they did it first in monosyllabic productions, then in final stressed syllables (e.g. /taˈnin/→[taˈnin] ‘crocodile’, /bakˈbuk/→[baˈbuk] ‘bottle’, but: /ˈozen/→[ˈoze] ‘ear’, /ˈtiktak/→[ˈtita] ‘tick tock’) and some weeks later in final non-stressed syllables (e.g. /ˈozen/→[ˈozen] ‘ear’, /ˈtiktak/→[ˈtitak] ‘tick tock’). Only some months later (around age 2;0), did children start to produce coda consonants in non-final syllables i.e. medial coda.

84  Part 1: Typical Development

Kaltum-Roizman (2008) found that the 20 children in her study between ages 1;8-2;5 produced only 20% of coda consonants in non-final word position and Kochva’s (1996) study of 15 children showed that, at age 3;0, all children still manifested around 20% deletions of the non-final coda consonant in disyllabic and trisyllabic words. In their first words, Hebrew-speaking children often deleted initial onset consonants from multisyllabic productions (e.g. /ˈkova/→[ˈova] ‘hat’, /miˈta/→[iˈta] ‘bed’, /taˈpuax→[aˈpuax] ‘apple’). This deletion of consonants appears a little more in unstressed syllables (Ben-David, 2001) and among obstruents (Karni, 2012). After this early stage of onset deletion, there is a period during which initial onset consonants are identical to onsets of the following syllable (e.g. /ˈkova/→[ˈvova] ‘hat’’, /miˈta/→[tiˈta] ‘bed’, /taˈpuax→[paˈpuax] ‘apple’); this is the well-known phenomenon of consonant harmony (Grunwell, 1981; Stoel-Gammon & Dunn, 1985). In regards to complex onsets, Ben-David (2001) reported that before the age of 2;4, Hebrew-speaking children produced at least 3 or 4 wordinitial consonant clusters. A cluster analysis did not reveal common characteristics of these first clusters. Rosenberg (1983) and Forkush (1997) report that half of the clusters in initial onsets were produced correctly by approximately age 2;6, when the most common error is reduction of the cluster to a single member (e.g. /tmuˈna/→[muˈna] ‘picture’, /gviˈna/→[viˈna] ‘cheese’). Around age 4;0, about 90% of the clusters were produced correctly. However, none of these studies described the type of consonants that were produced correctly at every age. Development of the prosodic word

Many cross-sectional studies on phonological development in Hebrew report that deletion of the unstressed syllable is a very common production error up until approximately age 3;0 (e.g. Halpern (1984) examined 10 children between ages 1;8-2;10 and Shaked (1990) investigated 20 children between ages 1;7-2;7). The findings of Amir’s (1995) study with16 children aged 1;9-2;9 showed that most deletions of unstressed syllables occur word initially, with almost no deletions of final unstressed syllables (e.g. /toˈda/→[da] ‘thank you’, /maˈgevet/→[ˈgevet] ‘towel’). The development of the prosodic word structure in Hebrew is based on data from two longitudinal studies: Adam’s (2002) longitudinal study with eight children between the ages of 1;3-3;0 and Ben-David’s (2001) study with 10 children between ages 1;2-2;10. These studies revealed several stages in the acquisition of the prosodic word in Hebrew. However, they did not provide data on ages for every stage, because there were many individual differences between the children and no clear correlation between the stage of acquisition and age (i.e. one child could

Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  85

be at Stage I at the age of 1;4, while another child was at Stage II at the age of 1;3). • Monosyllabic Productions: during Stage I, polysyllabic target words (mainly disyllabic) were produced as monosyllabic (e.g. /jalˈda/→[da] ‘girl’, /ˈsafta/→[ta] ‘grandmother’, /baˈnana/→[na] or [ba] ‘banana’). This stage was quite short and lasted between few days to few weeks. • Trochaic Foot: during this stage, the children begin to produce binary trochaic feet from target words with non-final stress (e.g. /ˈsafta/→[ˈtata] ‘grandmother’, /baˈnana/→[ˈnana] ‘banana’, /taʁneˈgolet/→[ˈgolet] ‘hen’). However, they continue to produce monosyllabic productions for target words with final stress (e.g. /jalˈda/→[da] ‘girl’, /melafeˈfon/→ [fon] ‘cucumber’). • Iambic Foot: during this stage, children begin to produce two syllables for target words with final stress (e.g. /jalˈda/→[jaˈda] ‘girl’, /melafeˈfon/→[feˈfon] ‘cucumber’) as well as for target words with penultimate stress (e.g. /ˈsafta/→[ˈtata] ‘grandmother’, /baˈnana/→[ˈnana] ‘banana’, /taʁneˈgolet/→[ˈgolet] ‘hen’). • Trisyllabic Productions: during this stage, the children begin producing trisyllabic words (e.g. /baˈnana/→[baˈnana] ‘banana’, /melafeˈfon/→[mafeˈfon] ‘cucumber’, /taʁneˈgolet/ →[gaˈgolet] ‘hen’). • The Final Stage: during this stage, the children produce all four syllables from quadrisyllabic target words (e.g. /melafeˈfon/→[melafeˈfon] ‘cucumber’, /taʁneˈgolet/→ [taneˈgolet] ‘hen’). As described above, there are many studies on Hebrew phonological acquisition. However, many of these studies were solely descriptive and didn’t provide quantitative data on age and percentages of acquisition (Adam, 2002; Ben-David, 2001). Other studies examined only the beginning of the acquisition period or had a small number of participants (e.g. Kaltum-Roizman (2008) investigated only the beginning period of medial coda acquisition) or had a small number of participants (e.g. only two participants in Cohen, 2012, 2015). Even Lavie’s (1978) normative study lacks some of these data, as mentioned above. Therefore, there is a need for a normative study on Hebrew phonological development that examines all the phonological units that children use. These data are important for enriching our knowledge of Hebrew phonological acquisition, as well as for developing recommendations for the assessment of Hebrew-speaking children with suspected speech-sound disorders. Furthermore, the Hebrew phonological system has some unique characteristics compared to other phonological systems whose acquisition has been studied (e.g. English: Dodd et al., 2003; Cantonese: So & Dodd, 1995; Danish: Clausen & Fox-Boyer, 2017; Arabic: Amayreh & Dyson, 1998; French: Mcleod et al., 2011). These uncommon

86  Part 1: Typical Development

characteristics appear both on the segmental level (e.g. the existence of a dorsal approximant /ʁ/) and on the prosodic level (e.g. predominant final stress). Thus, investigating phonological development in Hebrew can contribute to the research on factors influencing language acquisition, both in the analyses of universal phonological principles as well as those of language-specific frequencies. Thus, the aim of the current cross-sectional study is to investigate typical phonological development in Hebrew-speaking children between the ages 2;6-6;6 and to establish the ages and the order of acquisition of Hebrew phonological units: consonants, vowels, sub-syllabic units (onset and coda) and prosodic word structure. Method Participants

The participants were 1113 typically developing monolingual Hebrew-speaking children. The children, aged between 2;6 and 6;6 years, were divided into eight age groups, each with an age range of six months. Nearly equal numbers of boys and girls were tested in each age group. All children were reported by their parents and teachers to have typical development without language, speech, hearing, motor or behavioral disorders. The participant’s data are shown in Table 5.3. Materials

A picture naming task that contained a list of 61 words was developed especially for this study. The task included photos of everyday items, i.e. nouns familiar to young children. The list of target words was designed to include the Hebrew consonants and vowels in various prosodic positions. Each consonant appeared in final coda position after a vowel and in onset position before a vowel. The consonants

Table 5.3  Ages and number of participants in each group Age range

Mean age

Participants

Percentage

Girls

Boys

Group 1

2;6-2;11

2;9

160

14.4%

75

85

Group 2

3;0-3;5

3;2

153

13.8%

79

74

Group 3

3;6-3;11

3;9

147

13.2%

77

70

Group 4

4;0-4;5

4;2

162

14.6%

84

78

Group 5

4;6-4;11

4;8

130

11.7%

65

65

Group 6

5;0-5;5

5;3

127

11.4%

63

64

Group 7

5;6-5;11

5;8

137

12.3%

63

74

Group 8

6;0-6;5

6;2

97

8.7%

50

47

Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  87

Table 5.4  Phonological characteristics of the target words Prosody Word structure

disyllabic

trisyllabic

quadrisyllabic

Sub-syllabic units

Stress

monosyllabic

No. words

Examples

8

/kos/ ‘cup’

final

26

/kiˈse/ ‘chair’

penultimate

10

/ˈsefeʁ/ ‘book’

final

5

/mataˈna/ ‘present’

penultimate

6

/ʁaˈkevet/ ‘train’

antepenultimate

2

/ˈʃokolad/‘chocolate’

final

2

/melafeˈfon/ ‘cucumber’

penultimate

2

/mispaˈʁaim/ ‘scissors ’

simple initial onset

54

complex initial onset (CC)

7

/kaˈduʁ/ ‘ball’ /tmuˈna/ ‘picture’ Remaining clusters: /pk/, /dl/, /tʁ/, kf/, /gl/, /pʁ/

simple medial onset

61

/ˈoto/ ‘car’

simple final coda

41

/pil/ ‘elephant’ /kaˈxol/ ‘blu’

simple medial coda

17

/simˈla/ ‘dress’

were not tested in initial onset position of multisyllabic words because young Hebrew-speaking children tend to omit this prosodic unit (i.e. they were tested either in monosyllabic words or in the onset of final syllables in polysyllabic words, i.e. medial onset). Consonants were not tested in medial coda position since this prosodic unit is acquired quite late, and Hebrew-speaking children tend to delete it until ages 3;6-4;0 (Kochva, 1996). The consonants were tested in stressed as well as unstressed syllables. Each vowel was tested in all word position and stress patterns. The test included words of 1–4 syllables with various stress patterns: final stress, penultimate stress and antepenultimate stress. The characteristics of target words are detailed in Table 5.4. Task administration

The data were collected over the course of three years. It was collected primarily in nurseries and primary schools by undergraduate students trained in Hebrew phonetics and speech and language pathology. The students were near the completion of their degree and were given additional guidance for this task prior to the assessment meetings. On the assessment day, each child was tested for oral-motor and hearing abilities when the threshold for the hearing test was 20dB (ASHA, 1997). After these screening tests, each child was assessed by two

88  Part 1: Typical Development

students in a quiet room. One student administered the phonological test while the second student transcribed the child’s productions in phonetic transcription using IPA. A narrow phonetic transcription was used only when phoneme production was judged to differ from normal, accepted speech. Each session was recorded with a digital audio recorder in order to facilitate transcription and for inter-transcribe reliability verification. The sessions lasted 60–70 minutes with short breaks. The child was asked to name the pictures. If the child did not produce the target word, prompts were given (e.g. who barks? For the target word ‘dog’) and if further assistance was required, delayed imitation was used. During testing, the student provided positive feedback to encourage the child to cooperate. For the purpose of reliability evaluation, a test-retest procedure was administered and 50 children from the three younger groups (i.e. ages 2;6-3;11) were examined again after a week. Test-retest results demonstrated satisfactory reliability. Item-to-item agreement was 89.6% (r = 0.796, p < 0.01). Transcription reliability

In order to establish inter-transcriber reliability, 10% of the recordings (10 children from each age group) were independently phonetically transcribed by a second trained speech language pathologist with phonetic experience. The inter-transcriber point-to-point agreement derived between the on-line transcription and audio recorded transcription for all phonemes was 95.27% when sibilant differences were excluded and 92.31% when they were included. Results

By the age of 2;6-3;0, Hebrew-speaking children had mastered all five Hebrew vowels. Since all children in this study had fully acquired the vowels, another study with much younger participant should be undertaken. Table 5.5 shows the ages of customary (50% accuracy), acquisition (75% accuracy) and mastery (90% accuracy) for each of the consonants that were investigated. It also reveals that stop consonants (except for /g/ in coda position), nasals, the approximant /j/, the lateral /l/ and the voiceless fricatives /f, x/ were mastered by the youngest group at ages 2;63;0. The voiced fricative /v/ was mastered by ages 3;0-3;6. The rhotic /ʁ/ was mastered at ages 3;6-4;0, and the sibilants were not been mastered even at age 6;6. Out of the sibilant consonants, the post-alveolar /ʃ/ is the only one that reached the acquisition age at 4;6-5;0; all the other sibilant consonants did not reach acquisition age until age 6;6.

Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  89

Table 5.5  Consonant acquisition according to 50%, 75% and 90% criterion Singletons

Mastery age (>90%)

Acquisition age (>75%)

Customary age (>50%)

onset

onset

coda

/s/

5;0-5;6

5;0-5;6

/z/

4;6-5;0

4;6-5;0

3;6-4;0

3;6-4;0

4;6-5;0

4;6-5;0

onset

coda 2;6-3;0

Nasals

/m, n /

2;6-3;0

stops

/p, b /

2;6-3;0

—

/t/

2;6-3;0

2;6-3;0

/d/

2;6-3;0

2;6-3;0

/k/

2;6-3;0

2;6-3;0

/g/

2;6-3;0

3;0-3;6

/f /

2;6-3;0

2;6-3;0

/v/

3;0-3;6

3;0-3;6

/x/

2;6-3;0

2;6-3;0

Fricatives

/ʃ/

2;6-3;0

2;6-3;0

4;6-5;0

Affricate

/ʦ/

Approximants

/j/

2;6-3;0

—

/l/

2;6-3;0

2;6-3;0

/ʁ/

3;6-4;0

3;6-4;0

coda

3;0-3;6

2;6-3;0

4;6-5;0

2;6-3;0

2;6-3;0*

*very close to acquisition age (72.5%).

Table 5.6  Acquisition ages of sub-syllabic consonantal units Prosodic unit

Syllables (#)

Mastery age (>90%)

Final coda

monosyllabic

2;6-3;0

Final coda

multisyllabic

2;6-3;0

Non-final coda

multisyllabic

3;6-4;0

Initial simple onset

monosyllabic

2;6-3;0

Initial simple onset

multisyllabic

2;6-3;0

Medial simple onset

multisyllabic

2;6-3;0

Initial complex onset

mono- and multisyllabic

4;0-4;6

Acquisition age (>75%)

Customary age (>50%)

3;0-3;6

3;0-3;6

2;6-3;0

With regard to the prosodic units, Table 5.6 displays the ages of acquisition for each of the sub-syllabic consonantal units that were investigated. Table 5.6 shows that the vast majority of the sub-syllabic consonantal units are mastered by children of ages 2;6-3;0. Only nonfinal codas and initial complex onsets are mastered later at ages 3;6-4;0 and 4;0-4;6 respectively. Detailed analysis of the clusters in complex onset has not been done since there were only five target words with

90  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 5.7  Acquisition ages of prosodic word structure Word structure

Stress pattern

Mastery age (>90%)

Acquisition age (>75%)

Customary age (>50%)

Disyllabic

penultimate

2;6-3;0

Disyllabic

final

2;6-3;0

Trisyllabic

ante penultimate

2;6-3;0

Trisyllabic

penultimate

2;6-3;0

Trisyllabic

final

2;6-3;0

Quadrisyllabic

penultimate

Quadrisyllabic

final

3;0-3;6

3;0-3;6

2;6-3;0

3;6-4;0

2;6-3;0

Table 5.8  Ages of acquisition of all the phonological units 2;6-3;0 Vowels

/a, i, e, o, u/

Consonants

/m, n, p, b, j, t, d, k, f, x, l, g (onset)/

Sub-syllabic units

final coda/ onset

Word structure

1-3 syllables

3;0-3;6

3;6-4;0

/v, g (coda)/

/ʁ/ non-final coda

4 syllablespenultimate stress

4;0-4;6

>6;6

/s, z, ʃ, ʦ/ complex onset

4 syllablesfinal stress

complex onset, and every one of them consists of a different consonant combination (see Table 5.3). Further comprehensive study on this is needed. Table 5.7 displays the ages of acquisition for each of the prosodic word structures that were investigated. Table 5.7 reveals that prosodic words containing 1–3 syllables are mastered before the age of 3;0, whereas quadrisyllabic words are mastered a little bit later. Penultimate stress is mastered between ages 3;0-3;6 and final stress is mastered between ages 3;6-4;0. Table 5.8 summarizes the order of acquisition of all phonological units according to their ages of acquisition. Table 5.8 shows that most phonological units were mastered before age 3;0. The consonants /v/ and /g/ in coda position were mastered between ages 3;0-3;6 and the rhotic /ʁ/ was mastered between ages 3;64;0. Quadrisyllabic words were mastered between ages 3;0-4;0. Non-final codas were mastered between ages 3;6-4;0 and complex onsets were the last to be acquired between ages 4;0-4;6. The sibilants /s, z, ʃ, ʦ/ did not reach mastery criterion even at age 6;6. Discussion

The aim of this normative study was to investigate the phonological development of Hebrew segmental and prosodic units. The results

Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  91

show that most phonological units (i.e. all vowels, the majority of the consonants, simple onsets, final codas and prosodic words up to three syllables) are already mastered in the early age group of 2;6-3;0. The more marked units (i.e. complex onsets, non-final codas) are mastered later, and the results of the study describe the progression of their development by presenting the ages at which they reach customary and acquisition ages. The sibilant consonants are the only group that has not reached the mastery age even at the age group of 6;0-6;6. This data is compatible with those from previous studies on Hebrew development that reported that the sibilants are not mastered before primary school (Ben Zvi, 1981; Jedwab, 1975). The late acquisition of sibilants is well documented in many languages (McLeod & Crowe, 2018). This is attributed to the fact that children’s motor control of the different parts of the tongue that participate in sibilant production is complicated and matures quite late (Ghosh et al., 2010). The results of this study support the results of previous studies of Hebrew phonological acquisition. A comparison between the current study and Lavie’s (1978) normative study reveals that for most consonants, the recorded ages of mastery overlap greatly, with a difference of no more than 6 months. The differences that were found between the two studies for the ages of mastery of the stop consonants /t, d/ are likely due to the acceptance of light dental production in the current study (i.e. while Lavie (1978) accepted only alveolar articulation for /d/ and /t/). The results on the development of the prosodic units are also supported by previous studies, although they were not normative studies. With regard to final coda development, the early acquisition of final coda found in this study, was also reported by Kaltum-Roizman (2008) and Shaked (1990) who found that between the ages 2;4-2;5 children produced correct final codas between 82 and 95% of the time. The result from Kochva’s (1996) study that children still had 20% deletions of the non-final coda at age 3;0, supports the finding of the current study that the mastery age for non-final coda is 3;6-4;0. Initial complex onset is the last phonological unit that was mastered in this study (age 4;0-4;6). These results are compatible with those of Forkush (1997) who found that around age 4;0, about 90% of the clusters were produced correctly. Complex onsets were analyzed as a whole. Detailed analysis of order of acquisition within the cluster types has not been done as was mentioned in the results section. Further comprehensive study on this is needed. To date, there is a shortage of quantitative data on the development of the prosodic word in Hebrew. Therefore, further study may be required in order to establish the results found in this study as an accurate pattern of development.

92  Part 1: Typical Development

The data on ages of phonological acquisition provide much needed information for assessing phonological development of Hebrewspeaking children and identifying speech disorders in young children. They should be used together with other phonological assessment tools when assessing the phonological skills of children in the clinic (e.g. error type analysis and stimulability for each non-acquired unit, intelligibility and consistency levels). Lastly, the results of this study support the influence of universal markedness on phonological development. This support can be showed through comparison between the development in Hebrew with that in other languages. Comparing age of acquisition across languages is not appropriate due to the following reasons: frequency in a given language, phonological functional load of the unit and variation of allophones. As such, the comparison will be made in terms of order of acquisition. A review of normative studies in languages from various families reveals that unmarked consonants (i.e. stops, nasals and glides) are mastered in early ages and that more marked consonants (i.e. rhotics and sibilants (especially affricates)) are mastered later. As for place of articulation, most studies report that dorsal consonants are mastered a little later than labial and coronal consonants, which are less marked (Arabic: Amayreh & Dyson (1998); Cantonese: So (2007); English: Dodd et al. (2003); Smit et al. (1990); German: Fox (2007); Greek: Mennen & Okalidou (2007); Portuguese: Salviano Santini (1995); Québécois French: MacLeod et al. (2011)). Table 5.9 summarizes the ages and order of acquisition of consonants in various languages. The criterion for acquisition in each of these studies was 90% accuracy. The ages shown in the table are sometimes wide-ranged, because different consonants in the group had different ages of mastery. As mentioned earlier, the Hebrew phonological inventory has a consonant (the dorsal approximant /ʁ/) that is quite rare in the languages of the world (3.5% of the world languages have an /ʁ/, Maddieson, 1984). This consonant is considered to be marked, which is reflected in the data that show its late acquisition. The data in Table 5.9 also show that the rhotic and the sibilant consonants in Hebrew are developed in a similar order as rhotics and sibilants in other languages: following the earlier development of the common plosives, nasals, etc. As such, the cross-linguistic data clearly support the connection between markedness and acquisition order. Most normative studies have not examined the prosodic unit structures except for the complex onset. Similar to Hebrew, complex onsets in other languages are noted to be mastered quite late, i.e. about 1-2 cluster types after age 3;0 and all the others after age 3;6-4;0 (Danish: Clausen & Fox-Boyer (2017); Greek: Mennen & Okalidou (2007); Québécois French: MacLeod et al. (2011); Turkish: Topbaş

Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  93

Table 5.9  Consonant development in different languages (ages of mastery) Hebrew

Arabic

Cantonese

English

German

Portuguese

French

Nasals

2;6-3;0

2;0-;10

1;6-2;6

4;5

Velar/Uvular fricatives

2;6-3;0

2;6-2;10

—

2;6-2;11

—

—

Alveo-Palatal affricates (sibilants)

>6;5

5;6

4;6

5;6-6;0

3;6-3;11

4;0-5;0

—

Lateral approx

2;6-3;0

3:6–3:10

4;1–4;6

6;0-6;6

2;6-2;11

4;0

3;0-3;5

Rhotics

3;6-4;0

5:6–5:10

4;1–4;6

8;0

3;0-3;5

3;6

4;0-4;5

(2007)). The developmental order of other prosodic units in other languages, although reported in non-normative studies, is compatible with that found in Hebrew The late acquisition of non-final coda was reported also in Catalan (Prieto & Bosch-Baliarda, 2006) and Brazilian Portuguese (Bonilha et al., 2006). There is almost no data on the acquisition of the quadrisyllabic word structure in various languages. The results from the current study show that quadrisyllabic words with penultimate stress are acquired before quadrisyllabic words with final stress, which supports the universal trochaic bias hypothesis (i.e. preference of the less marked trochaic foot over the more marked iambic foot in phonological development, Allen & Hawkins, 1978). This trochaic bias was shown for disyllabic words in Hebrew (Adam & Bat-El, 2009) and in other languages (e.g. Dutch: Fikkert, 1994; Catalan: Prieto, 2006) but not in longer words. Quadrisyllabic words with penultimate stress in Hebrew are considered to consist of trochaic feet and quadrisyllabic words with final stress are considered to consist of iambic feet. Given the predominant final stress in Hebrew, the mastery of words with penultimate stress prior to words with final stress supports the trochaic bias hypothesis. Since trisyllabic words were already mastered by the younger group in this study, another study with younger participants should be undertaken for the purpose of investigating trisyllabic word acquisition. The results of this study emphasize the importance of normative studies on phonological development for the investigation of SSDs.

94  Part 1: Typical Development

Normative studies provide a prescription of what is expected in accordance with the norms and, therefore, are valuable tools in phonological development research. The norms obtained from this study will be useful in the clinical assessment of young Hebrew-speaking children. Furthermore, such studies in more languages will further inform our field on the universal aspects of phonological development and the important language-specific factors that influence this development. Despite the contribution of normative studies in phonological development to both theoretical and clinical fields, it is important to point at several limitations of the design of this study. First, normative studies do not enable one to find and investigate individual differences between children at the same age group. These differences are greatly described in English (e.g. Ferguson & Farwell, 1975; Vihman & Greenlee, 1987; Macken, 1979) but less in Hebrew and are very important to phonological development research. Second, a six-month range within groups causes a loss of important information on the development that occurs in these months. Thirdly, it is very important to conduct a cross-sectional study with identical target words with children younger than 2;6. The time period between ages 1;0-2;6 is an important time period in children’s phonological development and it is important to investigate it in detail. Therefore, it is important to integrate longitudinal studies with younger children tested once a week by eliciting words which correspond to their individual lexicon. In addition, future longitudinal work should investigate acquisition level (75% or 90% criterion) of individual units (segments, codas, onsets (simple and complex, word structures) per individual child rather than a percentage in terms of acquisition age in a group of children. Conclusions

This cross-sectional normative study has investigated the phonological development of Hebrew-speaking children between ages 2;6-6;6. Mastery ages were found for Hebrew’s most frequent phonological units. Results revealed that the most common phonological units (i.e. all vowels, the majority of the consonants, simple onsets, final codas and prosodic words up to three syllables) are already mastered in the early age group between 2;6-3;0. The more marked units (i.e. complex onsets, non-final codas, quadrisyllabic words) are mastered later, and the results of the study describe the progression of their development by presenting the ages at which they reach the customary and acquisition ages. Sibilant consonants have not reached the mastery age even at the age group of 6;0-6;6. This order of acquisition is compatible with those from normative studies on the phonological acquisition of other languages and supports the connection between

Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  95

markedness of phonological units and order of acquisition. The normative data reported in this study can assist SLPs in the assessment of phonological abilities of Hebrew-speaking children as well as in effective intervention planning. Acknowledgements

This research was partially supported by the Bornblum fund, Hadassah Academic College. The author generously thanks Atalia HaiWeiss for assistance with phonological analysis of the data. Special thanks to the  speech and language pathology students for their assistance with data collection. Grateful thanks are also expressed to the kindergartens, schools and speech-language pathologists who contributed to the study. References Adam, G. (2002) From variable to optimal grammar: Evidence from language acquisition and language change. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Adam, G. and Bat-El, O. (2009) When do universal preferences emerge in language development? The acquisition of Hebrew stress. Brill’s Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 2, 1–28. Allen, G.D. and Hawkins, S. (1978) The development of phonological rhythm. In A. Bell and J. Hooper (eds) Syllables and Segments (pp. 172–185). Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing. Amayreh, M.M. and Dyson, A.T. (1998) The acquisition of Arabic consonants. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 41, 642–653. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (1997) Guidelines for Audiologic Screening. Rockville: ASHA. Amir, S. (1995) First language acquisition. Dash – Dibur U-Shmi’a 18, 37–50. [in Hebrew] Arlt, P.B. and Goodban, M.J. (1976) A comparative study of articulation acquisition as based on a study of 240 normals, aged three to six. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 7, 173–180. Beckman, J. (1997) Positional faithfulness, positional neutralization, and Shona vowel harmony. Phonology 14 (1), 1–46. Ben-David, A. (2001) Language acquisition and phonological theory: Universal and variable processes across children and across languages. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Ben-David, A. and Bat-El, O. (2016) Paths and stages in the acquisition of Hebrew phonological word. In R. Berman (ed.) Acquisition and Development of Hebrew: From Infancy to Adolescence (pp. 39–68). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ben Zvi, T. (1981) Production of sibilants among urban compared with kibbutz children. Unpublished manuscript, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Bolotzky, S. (1973) Some aspects of modern Hebrew phonology. In R. Berman (ed.) Modern Hebrew Structure (pp. 11–67). Tel-Aviv: University Publishing Projects. Bonilha, G., Lisbôa Mezzomo, C. and Ritter Lamprecht, R. (2006) The role of syllable structure in the acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese. In S. Baauw, J. van Kampen and M. Pinto (eds) The Acquisition of Romance Languages: Selected papers from The Romance Turn II 2006 (pp. 27–43). Utrecht: LOT. Clausen, M.C. and Fox-Boyer, A. (2017) The phonological development of Danish-speaking children: A normative cross-sectional study. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 31 (6), 440–458.

96  Part 1: Typical Development

Clements, N.G. (1990) The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabification. In J. Kingston and M. Beckman (eds) Papers in Laboratory Phonology I: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech (pp. 283–333). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, E. (2012) Vowel harmony and universality in Hebrew acquisition. Brill’s Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 4, 7–29. Cohen, E. (2015) Phoneme complexity and frequency in the acquisition of Hebrew rhotics. Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development 3 (1), 1–11. Cohen, E. and Ben-David, A. (2016) The role of allophony and frequency in the acquisition of the Hebrew rhotic. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 30, 101–118. Cohen, E., Savu, C. and Laks, L. (2015) Onset Fortition in Hebrew Rhotics: The Effects of Prosody and Gender. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Cohen-Gross, D. (1997) The morphological-syllabic structure of Modern Hebrew. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel. [in Hebrew] Dodd, B.J., Holm, A., Hua, Z. and Crosbie, S. (2003) Phonological development: A normative study of British English-speaking children. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 17, 617–644. Ferguson, C.A. and Farwell, C. (1975) Words and sounds in early language acquisition. Language 51, 419–439. Fikkert, P. (1994) On the Acquisition of Prosodic Structure. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics. Forkush, E. (1997) The effect of word-stress on acquisition of initial consonant clusters in Hebrew. Unpublished manuscript, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Fox, A.V. (2007) German speech acquisition. In S. McLeod (ed.) The International Guide to Speech Acquisition (pp. 386–397). Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning. Ghosh, S.S., Matthies, M.L., Maas, E., Hanson, A., Tiede, M., Ménard, L., Guenther, F.H., Lane, H. and Perkell, J.S. (2010) Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 128 (5), 3079–3087. Grunwell, P. (1981) The development of phonology: A descriptive profile. First Language 2 (6), 161–191. Halpern, R. (1984) Phonological processes in the speech of children between ages 1;6-3;0. Unpublished manuscript, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Jakobson, R. (1941/1968) Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals. The Hague: Mouton. (revised version of Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze, Uppsala, 1941). Jedwab, D. (1975) An articulation test as a prognostic tool for functional articulation disorders in children ages 6-8. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Jiménez, B.C. (1987) Acquisition of Spanish consonants in children aged 3–5 years, 7 months. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 18, 357–363. https://doi. org/10.1044/0161-1461.1804.357. Kaltum-Roizman, K. (2008) The effect of word position and length on coda production by Hebrew-speaking children. Unpublished manuscript, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Karni, N. (2012) Minimizing faithfulness violation in the acquisition of Hebrew onset. Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistic 4 (1), 80–103. Kochva, R. (1996) Medial cluster articulation of 3-year-olds. Unpublished manuscript, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Lavie, S. (1978) Norms for the development of Hebrew consonants between the ages of 3 to 5 years. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Laufer, A. (1990) Hebrew. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20, 40–43. Macken, M.A. (1979) Developmental reorganization of phonology: A hierarchy of basic units of acquisition. Lingua 49, 11–49. MacLeod, A.A. N., Sutton, A., Trudeau, N. and Thordardottir, E. (2011) The acquisition of consonants in Québécois French: A cross-sectional study of pre-school aged children. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 13 (2), 93–109.

Phonological Development in Hebrew: A Normative Cross-Sectional Study  97

McLeod, S. and Crowe, K. (2018) Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A crosslinguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language. Pathology 27, 1546–1571. Maddieson, I. (1984) Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mennen, I. and Okalidou, A. (2007) Greek speech acquisition. In S. McLeod (ed.) The International Guide to Speech Acquisition (pp. 398–411). Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning. Mowrer, D.E. and Burger, S. (1991) A comparative analysis of phonological acquisition of consonants in the speech of 2;5-6year old Xhosa- and English-speaking children. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 5, 139–164.   Paradis, C. and Prunet, J. (1991) The Special Status of Coronals: Internal and External Evidence. San Diego: Academic Press. Poole, I. (1934) Genetic development of articulation of consonants sounds in speech. Elementary English Review 11, 159–161. Porter, J. and Hodson, B. (2001) Collaborating to obtain phonological acquisition data for local schools. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 32, 165–171. Prather, E.M., Hedrick, D.L. and Kern, C.A. (1975) Articulation development in children aged two to four years. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 40, 179–191. Prieto, P. (2006) The relevance of metrical information in early prosodic word acquisition: A comparison of Catalan and Spanish. Language and Speech 49 (2), 233–61. Prieto, P. and Bosch-Baliarda, M. (2006) The development of codas in Catalan. In A. Gavarró and C. Lleó (eds) Special issue on ‘L1 Acquisition of Romance’, Catalan Journal of Linguistics 5, 237–272. Prince, A. and Smolensky, P. (1993/2004) Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell. (Revision of 1993 technical report, Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science). Rice, K. (2007) Markedness in phonology. In P. de Lacy (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology (pp. 79–97). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rice, K. and Avery, P. (1995) Variability in a deterministic model of language acquisition: A theory of segmental elaboration. In J. Archibald (ed.) Phonological Acquisition and Phonological Theory (pp. 23–42). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Romani, C., Galuzzi, C., Guariglia, C. and Goslin, J. (2017) Comparing phoneme frequency, age of acquisition, and loss in aphasia: Implications for phonological universals. Cognitive Neuropsychology 34 (7–8), 449–471. Rosenberg, L. (1983) Developmental stages in acquisition of initial consonant clusters by Hebrew-speaking children. Unpublished manuscript, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Salviano Santini, C.R. (1995) Normative study of the acquisition of consonant sounds in Portuguese. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.   Sander, E.K. (1972) When are speech sounds learned? Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 37, 55–62. Schwarzwald, O. (2004) Modern Hebrew consonant clusters. In D. Ravid and H.B-Z. Shyldkrot (eds) Perspectives on Language and Language Development (pp. 45–60). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Segal, O., Nir-Sagiv, B., Kishon-Rabin, L. and Ravid, D. (2009) Prosodic patterns in Hebrew child-directed speech. Journal of Child Language 36, 629–656. Shaked, G. (1990) Early phonological acquisition: Phonological processes between ages 1;72;7. Unpublished manuscript, Tel Aviv University, Israel. [in Hebrew] Smit, A.B., Hand, L., Freilinger, J.J., Bernthal, J.E. and Bird, A. (1990) The Iowa articulation norms project and its Nebraska replication. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 55, 779–798. Smith, N.V. (1973) The Acquisition of Phonology: A Case Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. So, L.K.H. (2007) Cantonese speech acquisition. In S. McLeod (ed.) The International Guide to Speech Acquisition (pp. 313–326). Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning.

98  Part 1: Typical Development

So, L.K.H. and Dodd, B.J. (1995) The acquisition of phonology by Cantonese-speaking children. Journal of Child Language 22, 473–493. Stoel-Gammon, C. (1985) Phonetic inventories, 15-24 months: A longitudinal study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 28, 505–512. Stoel-Gammon, C. and Dunn, C. (1985) Normal and Disordered Phonology in Children. Baltimore: University Park Press. Storkel, H. (2018) The complexity approach to phonological treatment: How to select treatment targets. Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools 49 (3), 463–481. Templin, M.C. (1957) Certain Language Skills in Children: Their Development and Interrelationships. Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press. Topbaş, S. (2007) Turkish speech acquisition. In S. McLeod (ed.) The International Guide to Speech Acquisition (pp. 566–579). Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning. Vihman, M.M. and Greenlee, M. (1987) Individual differences in phonological development: Ages one and three years. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 30 (4), 503–521. Wellman, B., Case, I., Mengert, I. and Bradbury, D. (1931) Speech sounds of young children. University of Iowa Study, Child Welfare 5 (2), 1–82.

6 Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language Laura Cristina Villalobos-Pedroza

Introduction

In this study, we aim to explore how, in early Spanish spontaneous speech, information management and communication goals, specifically the contrastive focus expression, may scaffold and guide the prosodic development in three Mexican children. Spanish is an Indo-European language that, together with Portuguese, French and Italian, belongs to the Western group of Romance languages. It is the native language of more than 400 million people (Hualde & Prieto, 2015) and the official language of 18 American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela, as well as of Spain and Equatorial Guinea. It is an inflectional language with SVO as the unmarked word order. At the prosodic level, the two main properties of Spanish are: lexical stress and fixed nuclear accent. Like most Romance languages, Spanish has lexical stress; the stress falls in one of the last three syllables of a word and, at word level, the most frequent pattern is penultimate stress (Morales-Front, 2014: 242). Nuclear accent in Spanish, unlike in languages like English, has a fixed position: it is borne by the rightmost stressed word of an utterance. There is a close relationship between the prosody and information; the focus, i.e. the most informative part of an utterance, has a strong tendency to co-occur with the nuclear accent. In cases of potential focus-accent mismatch, e.g. focused subjects, word order change and other syntactic operations are attested. As for dialectal variation, European Spanish and Mexican Spanish present similar linguistic properties. Differences in pronunciation, 99

100  Part 1: Typical Development

lexical, morphological and syntactic are relatively small (Hualde & Prieto, 2015: 352). Intonation is the area where there is more variation among Spanish dialects, even though the prosodic patterns of information-structure-related phenomena show basic general contours in both varieties. Regarding our specific interest in this study, focused words show a rising pattern on the accented syllable (L+H*) followed by a low boundary tone (L%). Much research has been done regarding the acquisition of Spanish as a first language. As for Spanish prosodic acquisition, there has been an increasing interest recently, though there are still few studies on this (e.g. Astruc et al., 2012; Lleó, 2012; Prieto et al., 2011; Thorson et al., 2015; Vanrell et al., 2011). When it comes to the interaction of prosody and information management, some work has been done in language acquisition in general, but mostly on non-Romance languages (e.g. Dimroth & Narasimhan, 2012; Grünloh et al., 2015; Müller et al., 2006). To our knowledge, no studies have explored the role of information management in the early prosodic development in spontaneous data in Spanish. This chapter is structured as follows. In the remainder of this section, we relate language development to information management and prosody, we describe the Effort Code and how it relates to the focus expression in Spanish and we finally outline the aims of the study. In the section on methodology, we discuss the methodology of the study, including corpus description and analysis procedures. The results section presents the analysis results of four dependent variables: focus position, duration, tonal alignment and pitch excursion. Finally, in the last section the findings of the study are discussed and conclusions are made. Language Development, Information Management and Prosody

The socio-pragmatic theory of language acquisition holds that in learning a language children are guided by pragmatic forces, which, supported by cognitive and information management abilities, allow them to read the interlocutor’s intentions and express their own (Bowerman, 1985; Bruner, 1983; Tomasello, 1992). From this perspective, language is considered to be deeply interrelated with interactional activities, and conversation is recognized as the first habitat for language development and use (cf. Ford et al., 2003: 120). Supported by cognitive and information management abilities, children keep a record about what they have shared with others across different communicative exchanges. Everything children do jointly with others is rooted in their world-knowledge, particularly in that part of knowledge they think they share with the other (cf. Clark, 1996: 92). The registering of such shared knowledge is often referred to as common ground. Children show the ability to keep track of the common ground shared with others from a very early age (e.g. Liebal et al., 2013).

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   101

During interaction, common ground updates with every communicative exchange. Every move adds, confirms, modifies or replaces previous pieces of information. Against the various uses of the term focus, here focus refers to that part of an utterance which introduces relevant alternatives for online interpretation of linguistic expressions (Krifka, 2008), as they develop in the enchrony of interaction. Specifically, contrastive focus tends to substitute previous pieces of information already set in the common ground (Krifka & Musan, 2012: 12). The sequence in (1) depicts a scene where the child manages the information in common ground by introducing and replacing pieces of information. At first, the child introduces a piece of information to the common ground, i.e. a non-contrastive focus (line 2). Then, we can see the various reactions of the parental interlocutor (lines 3 and 5). Afterwards, the child offers a contrastive focus (line 6) that substitutes the piece of information introduced in the immediate previous turn. (1) @ID: spa | ETAL | @Situation: 1 *CHI: 2 % act: 3 *FAT: 4 *CHI: 5 *FAT: → 6 *CHI: 7 *FAT: 8 *CHI:

*CHI  | 2;2.8 || Target_Child || at home with Father, the lights on. mía, mía (look, look) e...etos están quemados (those are burned) pointing to the lit bulbs no stán quemados (they’re burned) están prendidos (they are lit up) no, están [quemados]cf (no, they’re burned) ¿los focos? (the bulbs?) sí, están quemados (yes, they’re burned)

As illustrated in the example above, children show very early the ability to convey contrast (e.g. Hornby & Hass, 1970; MacWhinney & Bates, 1978; Müller et al., 2006; Wells et al., 2004). This ability entails shared intentionality, i.e. cognitive skills to share attention, intentions and goals in the interactional activities that involve language use (Tomasello & Carpenter, 2007). The expression of contrastive focus constitutes a complex task. From a cognitive point of view, it involves the trace of shared intentionality, from an informational point of view, it includes information management

102  Part 1: Typical Development

abilities, and from a language point of view, it requires the management of language resources. In the flow of information, when one intends to convey contrast, the contrast is not about reality but about what one believes the other believes about reality. So, even in situations concerning contrast about the self (e.g. Are you hungry? – No, I am thirsty), in order to express contrast, one has to be aware of the other’s current mental state (e.g. in the other’s mental state I might be hungry, but actually I am thirsty). In these terms, to be able to express contrast, children must be aware of the other’s current state of knowledge. As we know, children are very good at calibrating the others’ mental states even from prelinguistic stages1(Baker & Greenfield, 1988; Liszkowski et al., 2008). By 24 months, children show the ability to manage the discourse information: they monitor the common ground and the other’s knowledge (e.g. Salomo et al., 2010). Children not only are aware of the listener’s knowledge, but they use such information productively to convey communicative intentions in their early linguistic production, in this case to express contrast. Recent research has made the point that, in different languages, children use the prosody as a means to convey informational meanings, like information and contrast on focus and topics (Chen, 2011a, 2011b; Grassmann & Tomasello, 2007, 2010; Grünloh et al., 2015). So far, acquisition data from only a handful of languages are available (Höhle et al., 2016: 564). For example, English children use accentuation to mark focus as early as 3 (Hornby & Hass, 1970; MacWhinney & Bates, 1978; Wieman, 1976), 4 year olds in English use phonetic means to capture given vs. new distinction in sentences (Wonnacott & Watson, 2008). Around 7 years, Dutch children use pitch cues to distinguish focus from topic (Chen, 2011b). Dutch 5-year-old children use neither pitch-related nor durationrelated cues to distinguish focus from topic at ages 4 to 5 (Chen, 2009). Effort Code and Focus in Spanish

Sometimes children’s early prosodic displays do not necessarily match exactly the adult-like prosodic means, but they still may prominently use some prosodic cues in informationally-loaded parts of speech (e.g. Grünloh et al., 2015; Sauermann et al., 2011). Information packaging has been related to the prosodic component under the idea of a universal and iconic encoding of meaning, a sort of Effort Code, which may result in the crystallization of patterns of use. According to the Effort Code (de Jong, 1995; Gussenhoven, 2002), the speakers (in this case the children) would put more effort in the most important parts of their message – one such part being the contrastive focus. In adult Spanish, in agreement with the Effort Code, some prosodic cues to contrastive focus require a great production effort. Prosodic cues to contrastive focus include F0 prominence, lengthened duration,

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   103

retracted tonal alignment and pitch excursion increase (Face, 2001, 2002; Vanrell et al., 2013). Below we briefly describe such cues and how some of them have been related to the Effort Code. From a bird’s eye view, the prosodic structure of utterances results from the combination of smaller units. In the prosodic hierarchy (Nespor & Vogel, 1986), syllables combine to produce prosodic words, prosodic words combine into phonological phrases, phonological phrases combine into intonational phrases and intonational phrases combine into utterances. Each prosodic word bears a tonal accent, one of them being the most prominent of the intonational phrase. Such accent is typically the last one of an intonational phrase and is called nuclear accent. Nuclear accent constitutes the prosodic center of utterance, and it is perceived as the most prominent accent (Hualde, 2014: 263). In cases of contrast, Spanish focus might appear marked through F0 prominence in non-final position, which involves the speakers’ substantial effort. In Spanish, neutrally focused elements are always located in sentence-final position, where they receive the main prominence of an utterance. Spanish is said not to be able to resort to prominence shift as a strategy for varying the location of prominence in the sentence (Feldhausen & Vanrell, 2014: 122), i.e. the canonical position of nuclear accent is fixed: it falls in the last stressed syllable and it coincides with the focal constituent. As shown in (2), the focal word café bears nuclear accent (F0 line prominent rise). When a non-final word is focused, the unmarked solution is to change the word order, like in (3), where the word Ana was displaced to the end, matching the focus to nuclear accent. In cases of contrast, though, another strategy to mark focus is to maintain it in-situ and signal it through F0 prominence (Hualde, 2014: 266), as in (4), where the focused word Ana remained in the first position and was marked by an F0 rise2, resulting in a focusprosodic prominence match.

(2)

Ana Ana

(3)

El café lo preparó [Ana]F The coffee it prepared Ana Context: Did Mary brew the coffee?

preparó [el café]F. brewed the coffee

104  Part 1: Typical Development

(4)

[Ana]F preparó el café. Ana brewed the coffee Context: Did Mary brew the coffee?

With regard to duration lengthening, Spanish speakers expend some effort when conveying contrastive focus. Compared to other informational correlates, contrastive accented syllables come out lengthened. A similar tendency has also been attested in different languages (Baumann et al., 2007; Jun & Lee, 1998; Kügler, 2008; Vanrell et al., 2013). As for tonal alignment, Spanish speakers also make some effort aligning the contrastive foci’s tonal peaks before the end of the accented syllable. In neutral cases, the nuclear accent peak usually aligns at the stressed syllable end, but when tonal peaks align before the end of the syllable, hearers perceive certain prosodic prominence (Baumann et al., 2007; de la Mota, 2005; Gili Fivela, 2008; Manolescu et al., 2009: 85; Prieto et al., 2015: 47; Smiljanić, 2006; Vanrell et al., 2013). The prominence in perception might be due to an increase in tonal rising speed, which causes the target tonal height to be attained sooner. Regarding pitch excursion, Spanish speakers put considerable effort to produce wide pitch movements when conveying contrastive focus. Generally, focal constituents tend to bear wide pitch excursions. Nevertheless, when compared, contrastive nuclear accents present higher pitch excursions than their non-contrastive counterparts (Gussenhoven, 2004). This Study

Although there is evidence that children develop from the very first months the sensitivity to prosodic cues, like rhythm patterns and pitch movements, the ability to produce them develops very gradually during the second year of life (cf. Prieto & Esteve-Gibert, 2018). In different languages, around the age of two, children have already mastered prosodic cues, like duration (Redford, 2015), pitch patterns (e.g. Astruc et al., 2012; Chen & Kent, 2009; Frota & Vigário, 2008; Vanrell et al., 2011). This developmental window coincides with the evidence of cognitive and social skills, i.e. shared intentionality, which includes actions like gaze following, social referencing and imitative learning (Tomasello, 1995) which are, in turn, a prerequisite to manage the information shared with interlocutors in the interactional flow. Thus, it is not surprising that children show traces of being aware of the

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   105

interlocutors’ knowledge as early as age two, based on linguistic cues (Matthews et al., 2006), and signal it through prosodic cues from very early on (e.g. Wieman, 1976). Hence, early contrastive focus expression on this developmental window constitutes a scenario where we can explore the role of information management abilities together and through prosodic development. Notwithstanding, further mechanisms are available in Spanish to convey contrastive focus, like cleft constructions (Feldhausen & Vanrell, 2014: 123). Here, we are concerned with the use of prosody, because cleft constructions are initially scarce in language development (e.g. Diessel & Tomasello, 2005; Kidd, 2011; Rojas Nieto, 2009). We hypothesize that children may use prosodic cues to mark contrastive focus, like F0 prominences in non-canonical position, duration, tonal alignment and/or pitch excursion, before they fully control the intonational contours and the suitable syntactic mechanisms to convey it, i.e. cleft constructions. We already know that Spanish-speaking young children control some prosodic cues related to information structure. However, most of the work on information management has been done on children’s utterances obtained from image-elicitation tasks or sentence-imitation tasks. Spontaneous speech analysis is quite rare in this field (Höhle et al., 2016: 564). To our knowledge, no studies have explored the early display of these prosodic cues in relation to contrastive focus in Spanish spontaneous speech. This study will contribute to explore in early (23–28 months) spontaneous speech: (i) whether the Effort Code manifests in early contrastive focus expression; and if so (ii) whether the expression of contrastive focus scaffolds the early mastery and development of any of the four acoustic-related cues: focus position, syllable duration, tonal alignment and pitch excursion. We emphasize the spontaneous speech study because, from our perspective, early linguistic systems emerge from children’s detection of patterns of use. Such patterns are especially important when it comes to examining linguistic cues conditioned by use in context, like the contrastive focus expression. Methodology

We analyzed four prosodic cues in children’s contrastive (C) and noncontrastive (NC) focus, to test whether there is a prosodic manifestation of Effort Code in children’s speech, and whether C focus expression has a role in the early mastery of such acoustic cues. Analyses were performed on three Mexican children’s spontaneous speech longitudinal samples from 23 to 28 months. In this section we describe the corpus, data selection and distribution, the acoustic measurement procedure and the statistical analyses.

106  Part 1: Typical Development

Corpus

Our data come from longitudinal speech samples of three children, obtained from the Etapas Tempranas en la Adquisición del Lenguaje database (ETAL, Rojas Nieto, 2007), gathered and stored in the Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). This database comprises naturalistic scenes of children’s everyday life which are very important to the study of discourse-conditioned variables. Discourse conditions are very complex to reproduce in experimental tasks, especially when working with children. Thus, naturalistic data are the optimal source to explore C focus expression, where calibration of the listener’s knowledge and information management is presupposed. The data were obtained in spontaneous conditions while each child participated in common joint activities with her close relatives. The joint activities involved typical child-adult interaction like playing, feeding, preparing to bed, having a bath, drawing, painting, reading and other similar activities. The children’s names have been changed to protect their anonymity. The pseudonyms used are Flor, Natalia and Tita (FLO, NAT and TIT). Video-recording sessions were carried out every 7 to 10 days in the case of FLO, 10 to 25 days in the case of TIT and every 2 to 3 days in the case of NAT. All three subjects are girls3, only children in urban middle-class Mexican families and are raised in a Spanish monolingual environment with no exposure to other languages. The parents are the primary caregivers, but the children also spend time with the grandparents, the aunts and the babysitter. Based on the different measures shown in Table 6.1, we can state that participants have equivalent linguistic development; the data shown were drawn out of the first 100 utterances of each child’s sample. As it can be noted, MLU counts are alike (word count, as suggested for Spanish in Jackson-Maldonado, 2007: 143) and prosodic development is homogeneous: children show similar utterance length, same word length and same rate of unstressed words4.

Table 6.1  Linguistic performance of three children, drawn out from the first 100 ­utterances of the first speech sample of each child Child 1: FLO

Child 2: NAT

Child 3: TIT

Age

02;00;00

01;11;26

02;00;00

MLUword

2.45

2.51

2.41

Longest Utterance

4 prosodic words

5 prosodic words

4 prosodic words

Longest (actual) Prosodic Word

3 syllables

3 syllables

3 syllables

Unstressed words rate

17% (42/245)

15% (38/251)

15% (37/242)

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   107

Data selection and distribution

We selected utterances where focus showed to be used for contrastive purposes. C focus presupposes that the common ground contains information that the current utterance can be contrasted with. The typical use of C focus is corrective, but it can also be additive or restrictive (Krifka & Musan, 2012: 21). Data selection was based on the pragmatic and semantic conditions of the context which allowed verification of the presence of focus. All C focus utterances fulfilled the criterion of establishing contrast with something previously mentioned in an adjacent pair by the interlocutor, like a question or an assertion. Likewise, in most cases additional cues, like the presence of negation operators and the reaction of the interlocutors, confirm the presence of contrastive focus. To explore the prosodic cues of C foci, we compared C focus utterances with NC focus utterances (i.e. information focus). The usual criteria for data selection were applied: only spontaneous child produced utterances were considered, and no consecutive repetitions were counted. Speech segmentation into utterances was made following MacWhinney (2000). The segmentation procedure was not especially complex because interrupted speech, overlapping turns, background noise and creaky voice utterances were excluded. We selected 600 spontaneous speech utterances in a period of 5 months for each child: 100 C focus utterances per child (we selected the first 20 per month). 100 NC focus utterances per child (we selected the first 20 per month).

Analysis procedure

To compare the prosodic display of C vs. NC focus, we analyzed four dependent variables in each utterance: focus position, duration, tonal alignment and pitch excursion. Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2018) was used to perform acoustic analyses. Labeling, measuring and calculating procedures are described below and illustrated in Figure 6.1. Focus position5. Each utterance was labeled as bearing the focus on the canonical (i.e. rightmost) position vs. non-canonical position. Given that the position of Spanish nuclear accent is fixed, when focus occurs in a non-final position, it has a prosodic outcome: An F0 prominence on non-nuclear position. It is in this sense that we consider this categorical variable, at least to some extent, as a prosodic cue. Duration of the accented syllable was measured in milliseconds (a in Figure 6.1). Considering the intrinsic variability of spontaneous data, we calculated duration in relative terms. To do so, we first calculated the mean syllable duration of each utterance, dividing the total utterance duration6 (b) by the number of syllables (6 in the example).

108  Part 1: Typical Development

Figure 6.1  F0 curve and syllables of an utterance model, and the acoustic cues considered for the measurements

The following formula illustrates the duration relative calculation:    a relative . duration = mean . duration Thus, relative duration of accented syllables is interpreted as being longer or shorter than the mean syllable duration of the utterance they are part of. Tonal alignment is the distance between the tonal peak (c) and the end of the accented syllable (d). As in previous work (Michnowicz & Barnes, 2013; e.g. O’Rourke, 2004), we measured tonal alignment (e) in milliseconds. In these measures, positive values indicate a post-tonic peak, negative values indicate that peak was realized during the accented syllable, and the zero value indicates that peak was realized at the end of the syllable. Again considering the intrinsic variability of data, we calculated the tonal alignment relatively, as indicated in the following formula: e . tonal . alignment = rel a Pitch excursion was taken as the F0 movement from the lowest point to the accented syllable peak (f ). It was measured in semitones, a relative measure for pitch (Chen, 2009).

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   109

Statistical analysis

Using R (R Core Team, 2018) and lme4 (Bates et al., 2015), we performed linear mixed effects analyses to reveal whether the C focus had a significant main effect on focus position, duration, tonal alignment and pitch excursion. We selected this test because it met the needs demanded by the corpus design, by not assuming independence of each observation. Other standard tests (e.g. ANOVA, T-Test, chi-square and fixed effects models) assume independence of observations, which may be a problem when, as in our case, multiple responses are obtained from the same participant. The linear mixed effects model assumes a different baseline (random intercept) of dependent variables for each participant. The model adds a random effect for participant, which allows accounting for the non-independence. By assuming different random intercepts for each participant, we account for potential individual differences. It must be pointed out that since we are concerned with individual variation, the figures in the results section are split by participant, even though, analyses were performed over all the data. Various measures were used as dependent variables for the statistical investigation, namely (a) C/NC focus position (i.e. canonical vs. non-canonical position); (b) syllable duration of C/NC focus (i.e. the duration of the accented syllable in relation to the mean syllable duration); (c) tonal alignment of C/NC focus (i.e. the relative distance between the nuclear accent tonal peak and the end of the syllable); and (d) pitch excursion of the C/NC focus (i.e. distance in semitones). Independent variables considered were the focus condition (C/NC), and in order to explore the developmental effect, we also considered the children’s age. For each one of the dependent variables, we performed a linear mixed effects analysis. As fixed effects, we entered focus condition (C/ NC) and age (without interaction term) into the model. As random effects, we had intercepts for participants, as well as by-participant random slopes for the effect of age, and for the effect of focus condition. Visual inspection of residual plots did not reveal any obvious deviations from homoscedasticity or normality. P-values were obtained by likelihood ratio tests of the full model with the effect in question against the model without the effect in question. Results Focus position

We found some focal constituents in non-canonical position, which, as the reader will recall, it is the rightmost word of an utterance in Spanish. We show an example of C focus marked by an arrow in (5), and its prosodic shape in (6).

110  Part 1: Typical Development

(5) @ID: spa ETAL | *CHI| 2;2.1 || Target_Child || @Situation: in the garden with Mother and Aunt, the child plays with a Buzz Light Year toy. *AUN: ¿y tú Tita tienes frío? (and you Tita, are you cold?) → *CHI: No. [Boz]cf tene fío (No. Buzz is cold) %act: talking to the toy *CHI: vedá? (right?)

(6)

[Boz]CF tene fío (Buzz is cold)

Observing the aunt’s previous turn, we can see that Boz is the C focus. This word bears the most prominent accent (+3.5 st) of the utterance, but it does not occupy the rightmost position which results in a focus-nuclear accent mismatch. We found that cases like the one shown in the example are quite scarce, and that C focus is more likely to appear in non-canonical position than NC focus. Figure 6.2 shows the proportion of non-canonical (3%) vs. canonical position (97%), both in C and NC utterances. As the figure shows, focused constituents in non-canonical position were more frequently C focus than NC focus. This pattern was supported by a binomial mixedeffects model of focus position, fit in R using the glmer() function of the lme4 package. Predictor variables were the focus condition (C, NC) and the age of participants (1;11 to 2;4). Random intercepts were included for participants. No random slopes met the inclusion criterion (α > 0.2). Model results are shown in Table 6.2.

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   111

Figure 6.2  Conditional inference tree of the significant conditioning factor (C vs. NC) for focus position Table 6.2  Estimates for binomial mixed effects model of focus position Model summary

Model comparison

β

SE

z

χ2

df

p

Fixed effects Intercept

–3.955

0.402

–9.848

Focus: contrastive

1.137

0.376

3.024

15.33

1

9.026 e-05***

Age 2;0

0.503

0.660

0.762

7.2634

5

0.202

2;1

0.068

0.499

0.137

2;2

0.068

0.499

0.137

2;3

–1.360

0.865

–1.572

2;4

–0.234

0.552

–0.423

Random effects Participant (intercept)

variance(s2 ) 1 e-14

This analysis revealed a significant main effect of focus condition (χ2(1) = 15.33, p = 9.026e-05***), no significant effects of age (χ2(5) = 7.2634, p = 0.2018), no significant interactions involving age and participant (χ2 < 1) and no significant interactions involving focus

112  Part 1: Typical Development

condition and participant (χ2 < 1). Albeit foci in non-canonical poisition are very scarce in early speech, this pattern suggests that these children already use F0 prominences in non-canonical position to primarily in cases of C focus. It is worth mentioning that non-canonical position cases are exposed by preverbal subjects, a fact that might contribute to the scarcity of this phenomenon. Syllable Duration

Figure 6.3 shows the duration of accented syllables in relation to mean syllable duration for NC (light gray points) and C (dark gray triangles) focus, for each participant: FLO (left panel), NAT (center panel) and TIT (right panel). The graphs reveal a systematic effect for duration which strengthens with age: C focus bear longer accented syllables than NC focus. To test this pattern, we fit a mixed-effects model of accented syllable duration in R using the lmer() function of the lme4 package. Predictor variables were the focus condition (C, NC) and the age of participants (1;11 to 2;4). We also tested the influence of interaction between predictor variables on the duration outcome. Random intercepts were included for participants. No random slopes met the inclusion criterion (α > 0.2). Model results are shown in Table 6.3. C focus affected accented syllable duration (χ2(6) = 200.65, p = 1.382 e-40), increasing it by about 15% of the mean syllable duration ±1.1 standard errors. The interaction of focus condition and age also showed an effect on accented syllable duration (χ2(5) = 36.298, p = 8.281e-07), increasing in C focus along with age increase.

Figure 6.3 Mean (se) relative duration of accented syllables, by participants (FLO, NAT, TIT), focus condition (C vs. NC), and age (1;11-2;4). The dotted line indicates the mean values for each period

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   113

Table 6.3  Estimates for mixed effects model of accented syllable duration Model summary

Model comparison

β

SE

t

124.888

2.014

61.999

15.177

1.102

13.779

200.65

6

1.382 e-40***

Age: 2;0

–10.073

3.602

–2.796

87.594

10

1.605 e-14***

2;1

–9.206

2.157

–4.268

2;2

–4.486

2.157

–2.080

2;3

9.062

2.157

4.202

2;4

6.081

2.157

2.820 36.298

5

8.281 e-07***

χ2

df

p

Fixed effects Intercept Focus: contrastive

Focus x Age contrastive x 2;0

0.821

3.390

0.242

contrastive x 2;1

–10.180

2.154

–4.726

contrastive x 2;2

–3.934

2.154

–1.826

contrastive x 2;3

1.377

2.154

0.639

contrastive x 2;4

1.527

2.154

0.709

Random effects

variance (s2 )

Participant (intercept)

8.496

Tonal alignment

Figure 6.4 shows the distance from tonal peak to the end of the accented syllable in NC (light gray points) and C focus (dark gray triangles), for the three participants. Observe that in both conditions there is a notorious tendency of aligning the peak before the end of the

Figure 6.4  Mean (se) tonal alignment, by participants (FLO, NAT, TIT), focus condition (C vs. NC), and age (1;11-2;4). The dotted line indicates the mean values for each period

114  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 6.4  Estimates for mixed effects model of tonal alignment Model summary β

Model comparison

SE

t

χ2

df

p

Fixed effects Intercept

–15.318

8.611

–1.779

Focus: contrastive

–2.036

14.200

–0.143

0.021

1

0.886

Age: 2;0

–0.934

5.218

–0.179

3.534

5

0.618

2;1

–5.753

5.218

–1.102

2;2

–6.369

5.218

–1.221

2;3

–3.256

5.218

–0.624

2;4

–4.758

5.535

88.646

2

5.633 e-20***

Participant (intercept) Participant x focus

–0.86 variance (s2 )

Random effects

157.1 (intercept)

contrastive

FLO

2.104

–35.757

NAT

–22.746

12.34

TIT

–25.31

17.31

588.5

accented syllable. This tendency might indicate that at such early stages, children have not yet mastered the tonal alignment cue. Even though, differences can be noted among the three children. In the case of FLO, C focus tonal peak is realized much before the end of accented syllable, while NC focus peak is realized much closer to the end of accented syllable. For NAT and TIT, we found the opposite situation, i.e. NC focus peak is realized earlier than C focus. To test this pattern, we fit a mixed-effects model of tonal alignment as in the other dependent variables. Predictor variables were the focus condition (C, NC) and the age of participants (1;11 to 2;4). Random intercepts were included for participants. Only the random slope for focus condition by participant met the inclusion criterion (α = 0.2). Model results are in Table 6.4. This analysis revealed that C focus condition did not affect the tonal alignment (χ2(1) = 0.021, p = 0.886). Though, significant random effects (participant x focus) show individual variation among the participants with respect to the focus condition (χ2(2) = 88.646, p = 5.633e-20). In C focus, FLO’s tonal peak is anticipated by about 35% in relation to her mean tonal alignment; while NAT’s and TIT’s tonal peaks are delayed by about 12% and 17% respectively, in relation to their mean tonal alignment. Pitch excursion

Figure 6.5 shows the pitch excursion of accented syllables of the NC (light gray points) and C (dark gray triangles) focus in semitones for the

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   115

Figure 6.5  Mean (se) pitch excursion on accented syllables, by participants (FLO, NAT, TIT), focus condition (C vs. NC), and age (1;11-2;4). The dotted line indicates the mean values for each period

three children. As we observe, the pitch excursion is not a steady cue for marking C focus for any of the children, at any developmental stage. Even if the tendencies are weak, we can see individual patterns in pitch excursion with respect to focus condition. FLO and NAT show a slightly higher excursion for C, than for the mean values, while TIT shows the opposite tendency. No significant patterns emerged from the mixed-effects model that was fit for pitch excursion. Predictor variables were the focus condition (C, NC) and the age of participants (1;11 to 2;4). Random intercepts were included for participants. No random slopes met the inclusion criterion (α > 0.2). Model results are in Table 6.5, with χ2 statistics and p-values obtained by model comparison. Table 6.5  Estimates for mixed effects model of pitch excursion. Model summary β

SE

Model comparison t

χ2

df

p

Fixed effects Intercept

2.638

0.313

8.425

Focus: contrastive

0.265

0.150

1.765

3.108

1

0.078

Age: 2;0

0.165

0.335

0.494

10.524

5

0.062

2;1

0.348

0.333

1.047

2;2

0.476

0.332

1.435

2;3

0.022

0.339

0.065

2;4

–0.200

0.359

–0.556

Random effects Participant (intercept)

variance(s2) 0.026

116  Part 1: Typical Development

In sum, C focus did not show effects on pitch excursion (χ2(1) = 3.108, p = 0.078), nor were there age effects (χ2(5) = 10.524, p = 0.062). Results Summary

Our data show that children are able to mark C focus through some prosodic cues. We analyzed the foci appearance in noncanonical positions, the syllable duration, the tonal alignment and the pitch excursion. We found that as early as 1;11 children can use F0 prominences in non-canonical position and use systematically syllable lengthening to mark C focus in Spanish. In contrast, tonal alignment and pitch excursion are not used to mark C focus at the early stages observed here. Discussion and Conclusions

In this study, we sought to test (i) the early manifestation of Effort Code in C focus, and (ii) the role of C focus in four prosodic cues development, namely focus position, syllable duration, tonal alignment and pitch excursion. The Effort Code predicts that a speaker will put more effort in the most important part of the message (de Jong, 1995; Gussenhoven, 2002): Three out of the four prosodic cues explored here have been associated to the Effort Code: duration, tonal alignment and pitch excursion. From the informational point of view, the expectation was to find the most prominent prosodic cues on C focus. We found that Effort Code effects manifest to some extent in the analyzed C foci. As for the syllable duration, it has been claimed that adult Spanish speakers sometimes lengthen contrastive syllables, though lengthening is not consistent through speakers (de la Mota, 1995; Face 2002). Our analysis exhibits that children produce consistently longer syllables when conveying C focus than NC focus. As lengthening is not a steady cue for C focus in Spanish, we might interpret these findings as driven by the Effort Code, rather than by target language properties. The Effort Code seems to influence children to produce longer syllables when expressing C focus. However, this question would require further evidence on duration in each child’s input. As for the tonal alignment, there is evidence that adult Spanish speakers align contrastive peaks consistently earlier than NC ones, which is taken as an index of prominence. Nevertheless, this pattern, attested only for one participant, was not consistent in our data. As for pitch excursion, it is not generally considered to be a cue indexing focus prominence in Spanish; our results tally with previous reports (Vanrell et al., 2013: 215), as no distinction appeared between C and NC focus. Altogether, the only prosodic manifestation of Effort Code that appeared consistently across our data is syllable duration, partially

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   117

supporting previous literature reports. Anyway, our analysis suggests that the informational interpretation of Effort Code may bootstrap the early control of some prosodic cues, like the duration. To our knowledge, no studies had previously explored Effort Code manifestation in early linguistic development in Spanish. Regarding the second question, i.e. the role of C focus in prosodic development, our findings indicate that C focus marking intentions may bootstrap the unfolding of some prosodic cues. We observed that children increase their control of some cues with age while other cues are still not mastered at these early stages. As for focus position, we found that, as early as 1;11, children already display special F0 prominences when C foci occur in non-canonical position. Nonetheless, as it is expected for a non-canonical feature in Spanish, this kind of F0 prominence is scarce in children’s production. Consequently, F0 prominences in non-final position cannot be considered the preferred cue to mark C focus. Typically, the final word of an intonation phrase carries the greatest information load of the utterance, and it bears nuclear accent. Despite this general fact, in C cases when the final word does not carry the greatest informational load, an F0 prominence might appear on the focused constituent (cf. Hualde, 2014: 271). We know that tonal accent is a very prominent cue for children even in early stages (Esteve-Gibert et al., 2015); however, the ability to control pitch presents a late development (De Paolis et al., 2008). Though we did not observe pitch contours, it is still interesting that at this age children already produce the non-canonical F0 prominences as expected: almost exclusively in cases of C focus. This finding suggests that at this stage, children have already detected that non-canonical F0 prominences restrict to C focus. As for duration, the three participants increase significantly the duration of contrastive syllables. This is not surprising, as it has been attested that duration is one of the earliest cues that children are able to control cross-linguistically (Kehoe et al., 1995). These data provide evidence that duration control might be bootstrapped by one pragmatic goal: to convey contrast. As for the tonal alignment, our results show that children are able to control it from the very beginning, but alignment does not seem to mark C focus across children. Instead, they show an individual use of tonal alignment. As predicted by the Effort Code, the FLO’s production has a consistently earlier alignment in C focus than in NC cases. On the contrary, NAT and TIT show the opposite pattern: the tonal peaks align earlier in NC cases. We interpret these findings as suggesting that very early peak alignment may not be used to mark C focus but to express emphasis, which is certainly related to C focus but not restricted to it. An increase in tonal rising rate may result in earlier attainment of the tonal target which may lead to the perception of an increase of emphasis. Under this view, FLO puts more emphasis in the display of contrast,

118  Part 1: Typical Development

while NAT and TIT might put more emphasis in offering information or showing something new to the interlocutor. Apropos of pitch excursion, we observed that at early stages these children seem to not yet master pitch control, as we found no significant effects on focus condition, nor developmental trends, nor individual uses. Given that pitch excursion accuracy requires high motor control, our results provide evidence that, at this point of development, children have not yet mastered pitch excursion in nuclear accents. This interpretation is in concurrence with what has been crosslinguistically attested for prosodic development: pitch excursion is one of the last prosodic cues to be mastered by children (DePaolis et al., 2008; Kehoe et al., 1995; Lleó & Rakow, 2008; Lleó et al., 2004; Snow & Balog, 2002). An additional point derived from pitch excursion results leads us to consider that to mark C focus, children may select some prosodic cues among the diverse array of cues available. Even if pitch excursion is prominently related to C focus in Spanish, previous studies suggest that it does not stand alone as an acoustic correlate of C focus (de la Mota, 1995; Face, 2001, 2002). In this way, it is the sum of prosodic cues, and not a single cue, that seems to contribute to the marking of C focus in early Spanish (Vanrell et al., 2013). As children find controlling pitch excursion difficult, our results point out that, at these ages, children select the prosodic cues they find easier to control. Finally, our results provide evidence that from early on, children do select prosodic cues to mark C focus. Results also support the general developmental trends previously shown in Spanish prosodic acquisition (Astruc et al., 2012; e.g. Prieto, 2009; Prieto et al., 2011; Vanrell et al., 2011): children develop early the mastery of duration to mark C focus and tonal alignment to express emphasis, but they still show unsteady mastery of pitch excursion. Previous research suggests that children at this age are still not able to fully control specific intonational patterns in relation to informational settings (Grünloh et al., 2015). This is despite the fact that our results show that prosodic systems develop gradually. Children seem to first attend to the prosodic cues that they control better, i.e. duration and tonal alignment, and later they may attend to prosodic cues that require more motor control, like pitch contours. In short, children exhibit cognitive and motor competence to highlight contrastive information from early on. However, the fine-tuning of prosodic and intonational cues may be a developmental process that demands more time. The early prosodic differences we report in this study point out that informational settings shape prosodic systems from very early on, even if full development might not be evident in intonational contours from the very beginning. Thus, the calibration of listener’s knowledge in the interactional scenarios seems to scaffold a gradual prosodic development.

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   119

These findings are in concurrence with the more general evidence that children signal communicative intents in a pragmatically adequate way before the age of two (Prieto et al., 2011). In this sense, we provided a picture in which to observe the pragmatic forces and communicative goals, as the device driving children’s early language development (Bowerman, 1985). As such, our results support the view that the process of acquiring language is deeply affected by participation in interactional processes (Slobin, 1992). The calibration of other people’s knowledge as drawn out from our data supports a view of language acquisition where interactional and pragmatic forces are the driving device, ‘components of the interactional engine’ in Levinson’s words (2006: 61). In the process of language development, children extract pieces out of specific items and raise a construction inventory where they gradually discover regular relations across patterns (cf. Tomasello, 2003: 6). Our study provides evidence that children are not only are able to find constructional patterns but also to find very fine-grained prosodic patterns gradually and in consonance with the Effort Code. Everyday interaction constitutes the arena where children detect patterns and set their linguistic systems up. Thus, it is not surprising that the most frequent patterns in target language develop earlier. As it has been attested in lexical and syntactic levels (Ambridge et al., 2015) the frequency of use also seems to have effects in children’s emergent prosodic systems. We have found that around two, children have already detected the Spanish specific distributional property of focus position, and they utilize this property in their own production, as they restrict the non-canonical F0 prominences to C focus. Such detection seems to be nuanced by the frequency of use in the target language: the noncanonical F0 prominences appear at very low frequency in children’s data, as it was expected, because it is a marked prosodic setting in Spanish. However, to confirm this tendency, future work should compare the girls’ speech to the parental speech they hear every day. In a nutshell, we have found that around age two these children have already detected informational differences between C and NC focus, that they treat them prosodically differently and that they show increasing motor control of speech organs. In conclusion, our data provide insights relating to how information management and the Effort Code guide and scaffold early prosodic development in Spanish. As such, our data suggest that the early prosodic system might be an emergent product of everyday informational exchanges. Notes (1) Here we refer to the calibration of mental states in its most basic sense, i.e. to the calibration of the other’s knowledge based on perception, perspective and shared experiences, and not to a more elaborated knowledge about the other’s internal states, like emotions or abstract representations.

120  Part 1: Typical Development

(2) It is beyond the scope of this study to discuss the status of such F0 prominent rise in terms of the nuclear accent assignment in the intonational phrases in Spanish. We will refer to the prominence as such, without arguing about the possibility of displacing the nuclear accent position. Hence, we will circumscribe to observe the focus in terms of its position (canonical vs. non-canonical) and its prosodic properties. (3) Due to the difficulty of obtaining clean data in spontaneous speech, we selected these girls to obtain a critical mass of data for the analysis. In comparison to boys in the database, girls’ speech is more prolific; however, their linguistic development falls in the normal range. (4) These measurements are relevant to account for the prosodic development, because the 3 syllable template can be taken as a milestone for prosodic development (Demuth, 2011: 584). As well, the rate of unaccented words is a cue to prosodic development, because one stage on word prosodic development in Romance languages refers to the non-truncation of unstressed unfooted syllables (Lleó, 2012: 702). (5) Intonational contours are not accounted for in this study. Even though, in order to show the F0 contours and focus position in the figure in 3.1 we follow the Sp_ToBI (Hualde & Prieto, 2015) labeling system conventions. (6) When occurring, pauses were not considered for this measurement. Even though, as utterances are generally short, pauses between words rarely appear in the data.

References Ambridge, B., Kidd, E., Rowland, C.F. and Theakston, A. (2015) The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 42 (2), 239–273. Astruc, L., Payne, E., Post, B., Vanrell, M. and Prieto, P. (2012) Tonal targets in early child English, Spanish, and Catalan. Language and Speech 56 (2), 229–253. Baker, N. and Greenfield, P. (1988) The development of new and old information in young children’s early language. Language Sciences 10 (1), 3–34. Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B. and Walker, S. (2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67 (1), 1–48. Baumann, S., Becker, J., Grice, M. and Mücke, D. (2007) Tonal and articulatory marking of focus in German. In J. Trouvain and W. Barry (eds) Proceedings of the 16th ICPhS (pp. 1029–1032). Saarbrücken, Germany. Boersma, P. and Weenink, D. (2018) Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer (Version 6.0.39) [Software]. See http://www.praat.org/. Bowerman, M. (1985) Beyond communicative adequacy: From piecemeal knowledge to an integrated system in the child’s acquisition of language. In K. Nelson (ed.) Children’s Language. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bruner, J. (1983) Child’s Talk. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chen, A. (2009) The phonetics of sentence-initial topic and focus in adult and child Dutch. In M. Vigário, S. Frota and M. Freitas (eds) Phonetics and Phonology: Interactions and Interrelations (pp. 91–106). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Chen, A. (2011a) The developmental path to phonological focus-marking in Dutch. In S. Frota, G. Elordieta and P. Prieto (eds) Prosodic Categories: Production, Perception and Comprehension (pp. 93–110). New York: Springer. Chen, A. (2011b) Tuning information packaging: Intonational realization of topic and focus in child Dutch. Journal of Child Language 38 (5), 1055–1083. Chen, L. and Kent, R. (2009) Development of prosodic patterns in Mandarin-learning infants. Journal of Child Language 36 (1), 73–84. Clark, H.H. (1996) Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. de Jong, K. (1995) The supraglottal articulation of prominence in English: Linguistic stress as localized hyperarticulation. Journal of Acoustical Society of America 97 (1), 491–504.

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   121

de la Mota, C. (1995) La Representación Gramatical de la Información Nueva en el Discurso. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. de la Mota, C. (2005) Alignment, word boundaries and speech rate in Castilian Spanish. Paper presented at the Second Phonetics and Phonology in Iberia, PaPI 2005, Bellaterra, Spain. Demuth, K. (2011) The acquisition of phonology. In J. Goldsmith, J. Riggle and A.C.L. Yu (eds) The Handbook of Phonological Theory (2nd edn, pp. 571–595). Oxford: Willey/ Blackwell. De Paolis, R., Vihman, M. and Kunnari, S. (2008) Prosody in production at the onset of word use: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Phonetics 36 (2), 406–422. Diessel, H. and Tomasello, M. (2005) A new look at the acquisition of relative clauses. Language 81 (4), 882–906. Dimroth, C. and Narasimhan, B. (2012) The acquisition of information structure. In M. Krifka and R. Musan (eds) The Expression of Information Structure (pp. 319–362). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Esteve-Gibert, N., Prieto, P. and Pons, F. (2015) Nine-month-old infants are sensitive to the temporal alignment of prosodic and gesture prominences. Infant Behavior and Development 38, 126–129. Face, T. (2001) Focus and early peak alignment in Spanish intonation. Probus 13, 223–246. Face, T. (2002) Local intonational marking of Spanish contrastive focus. Probus 14 (1), 71–92. Feldhausen, I. and Vanrell, M. (2014) Prosody, focus and word order in Catalan and Spanish: An optimality theoretic approach. In S. Fuchs, M. Grice, A. Hermes, L. Lancia and D. Mücke (eds) Proceedings of the 10th International Seminar on Speech Production (pp. 122–125). Cologne, Germany. Ford, C., Fox, B. and Thompson, S. (2003) Social interaction and grammar. In M. Tomasello (ed.) The New Psychology of Language (Vol. 2: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure, pp. 119–143). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Frota, S., and Vigário, M. (2008) The intonation of one-word and first two-word utterances in European Portuguese. Paper presented at the XI International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Edinburgh. Gili Fivela, B. (2008) Broad focus vs. contrastive focus: Is there a categorical perception in Pisa Italian? In P. Barbosa, S. Madureira and C. Reis (eds) Proceedings of the 4th conference on speech prosody (pp. 293–396). Campinas, Brazil: Editora RG/CNPq. Grassmann, S. and Tomasello, M. (2007) Two-year-olds use primary sentence accent to learn new words. Journal of Child Language 34, 677–687. Grassmann, S. and Tomasello, M. (2010) Prosodic stress on a word directs 24-month-olds’ attention to a contextually new referent. Journal of Pragmatics 42 (11), 3098–3105. Grünloh, T., Lieven, E. and Tomasello, M. (2015) Young children’s intonational marking of new, given and contrastive referents. Language Learning and Development 11 (2), 95–127. Gussenhoven, C. (2002) Intonation and interpretation: phonetics and phonology. In B. Bel and I. Marlien (eds) Speech Prosody 2002: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Speech Prosody (pp. 47–57). Aix-en-Provence: Laboratoire Parole et Language, Université de Provence. Gussenhoven, C. (2004) The Phonology of Tone and Intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Höhle, B., Berger, F. and Sauermann, A. (2016) Information structure in first language acquisition. In C. Féry and S. Ishihara (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure (pp. 562–580). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hornby, P. and Hass, W. (1970) Use of contrastive stress by preschool children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 13, 359–399. Hualde, I. (2014) Los Sonidos del Español. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

122  Part 1: Typical Development

Hualde, I. and Prieto, P. (2015) Intonational variation in Spanish: European and American varieties. In S. Frota and P. Prieto (eds) Intonation in Romance (pp. 350–391). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jackson-Maldonado, D. (2007) Utterance length measures for Spanish-speaking toddlers: The morpheme vs word issue revisited. In J. Centeno, R. Anderson and L. Obler (eds) Communication Disorders in Spanish Speakers: Theoretical, Research and Clinical Aspects (pp. 142–155). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Jun, S., and Lee, H. (1998) Phonetic and phonological markers of contrastive focus in Korean. In R. Mannell and J. Robert-Ribes (eds) The 5th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (pp. 1295–1298). Sydney: Causal Productions. Kehoe, M., Stoel-Gammon, C. and Buder, E. (1995) Acoustic correlates of stress in young children’s speech. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research 38 (2), 338–350. Kidd, E. (2011) The Acquisition of Relative Clauses: Processing, Typology and Function. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Krifka, M. (2008) Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55, 243–276. Krifka, M. and Musan, R. (2012) The Expression of Information Structure. Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton. Kügler, F. (2008) The role of duration as a phonetic correlate of focus. In P. Barbosa, S. Madureira and C. Reis (eds) Proceedings of the Speech Prosody 2008 Conference (pp. 591–594). Campinas, Brazil. Levinson, S.C. (2006) On the human ‘interaction engine’. In N.J. Enfield and S.C. Levinson (eds) Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and Interaction (pp. 39–69). Oxford: Berg. Liebal, K., Carpenter, M. and Tomasello, M. (2013) Young children’s understanding of cultural common ground. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 31, 88–96. Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M. and Tomasello, M. (2008) Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cognition 108 (3), 732–739. Lleó, C. (2012) First language acquisition of Spanish sounds and prosody. In I. Hualde, A. Olarrea and E. O’Rourke (eds) The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics (pp. 693–710). Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. Lleó, C. and Rakow, M. (2008) Yes-no questions by Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual 2;6- and 3;0-year-olds: Alignment, Scaling and the grammatical units of intonation. In T. Kupisch and E. Rin (eds) The Development of Grammar: Language Acquisition and Diachronic Change (pp. 263–286). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Lleó, C., Rakow, M. and Kehoe, M. (2004) Acquisition of language-specific pitch accent by Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual children. In T. Face (ed.) Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology (pp. 3–27). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. MacWhinney, B. (2000) The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. MacWhinney, B. and Bates, E. (1978) Sentential devices for conveying givenness and newness: A cross-cultural developmental study. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour 17, 539–558. Manolescu, A., Olson, D. and Ortega-Llebaria, M. (2009) Cues to contrastive focus in Romanian. In M. Vigário, S. Frota and M. Freitas (eds) Phonetics and Phonology: Interactions and Interrelations (pp. 71–90). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Matthews, D., Lieven, E., Theakston, A. and Tomasello, M. (2006) The effect of perceptual availability and prior discourse on young children’s use of referring expressions. Applied Psycholinguistics 27 (3), 403–422. Michnowicz, J. and Barnes, H. (2013) A sociolinguistic analysis of pre-nuclear peak alignment in Yucatan Spanish. In C. Howe, S. Blackwell and M. Lubbers Quesada (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 15th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 221–235). Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

Prosodic Cues to Contrastive Focus in the Acquisition of Spanish as a First Language   123

Morales-Front, A. (2014) El acento. In R.A. Núñez Cedeño, S. Colina and T. Bradley (eds) Fonología Generativa Contemporánea de la Lengua Española (2nd edn, pp. 235–266). Washington: Georgetown University Press. Müller, A., Höhle, B., Schmitz, M. and Weissenborn, J. (2006) Focus-to-stress alignment in 4- to 5-year-old German-learning children. In A. Belletti, E. Bennati, C. Chesi, E. Domenico and I. Ferrari (eds) Language Acquisition and Development. Proceedings of the GALA 2005 Conference (pp. 393–407). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press. Nespor, M. and Vogel, I. (1986) Prosodic Phonology. Dordrecht: Foris. O’Rourke, E. (2004) Peak placement in Peruvian Spanish. In J. Auger, J. Clements and B. Vance (eds) Contemporary Approaches to Romance Linguistics. Selected Papers from the 33rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Bloomington, Indiana, April 2003 (pp. 321–341). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Prieto, P. (2009) La adquisición de la entonación en catalán y español. Paper presented at the Spanish Linguistics Symposium, Universidad de Puerto Rico. Prieto, P., Borràs-Comes, J., Cabré, T., Crespo-Sendra, V., Mascaró, I., Roseano, P., SichelBazin, R. and Vanrell, M. (2015) Intonational phonology of Catalan and its dialectal varieties. In S. Frota and P. Prieto (eds) Intonation in Romance (pp. 9–62). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Prieto, P. and Esteve-Gibert, N. (2018) Introduction. An overview of research on prosodic development. In P. Prieto and N. Esteve-Gibert (eds) The Development of Prosody in First Language Acquisition (pp. 1–14). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Prieto, P., Estrella, A., Thorson, J. and Vanrell, M. (2011) Is prosodic development correlated with grammatical and lexical development? Evidence from emerging intonation in Catalan and Spanish. Journal of Child Language 39 (2), 221–257. R Core Team (2018) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (Version GUI 1.70). Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. See https:// www.r-project.org Redford, M. (2015) The acquisition of temporal patterns. In M. Redford (ed.) The Handbook of Speech Production (pp. 379–403). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Rojas Nieto, C. (2007) La Base de Datos ETAL (Etapas tempranas en la adquisición del lenguaje), Jornadas Filológicas 2005. México: UNAM-IIFL. Rojas Nieto, C. (2009) ‘Starting small’ effects in the acquisition of early relative constructions in Spanish. In T. Givón and M. Shibatani (eds) Syntactic Complexity: Diachrony, Acquisition, Neuro-cognition, Evolution (pp. 277–310). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Salomo, D., Lieven, E. and Tomasello, M. (2010) Young children’s sensitivity to new and given information when answering predicate-focus questions. Applied Psycholinguistics 31 (1), 101–115. Sauermann, A., Höhle, B., Chen, A. and Järvikivi, J. (2011) Intonational marking of focus in different word orders in German children. In M.B. Washburn, K. McKinney-Bock, E. Varis, A. Sawyer and B. Tomaszewicz (eds) Proceedings of the 28th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (pp. 313–322). Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Slobin, D. (1992) Introduction. In D. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition (Vol. 3, p. 113). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Smiljanić, R. (2006) Early vs. late focus: pitch-peak alignment in two dialects of Serbian and Croatian. In L. Goldstein, D. Whalen and C. Best (eds) Laboratory Phonology 8 (pp. 495–518). Berlin: Mouton DeGruyter. Snow, D. and Balog, H.L. (2002) Do children produce the melody before the words? A review of developmental intonation research. Lingua 112 (12), 1025–1058. Thorson, J., Borras-Comes, J., Crespo-Sendra, V., Vanrell, M. and Prieto, P. (2015) The acquisition of melodic form and meaning in yes-no interrogatives by Catalan and Spanish speaking children. Probus 27 (1), 73–99.

124  Part 1: Typical Development

Tomasello, M. (1992) The social bases of language acquisition. Social Development 1, 67–87. Tomasello, M. (1995) Joint attention as social cognition. In C. Moore and P.J. Dunham (eds) Joint Attention: Its Origins and Role in Development (pp. 103–130). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Tomasello, M. (2003) Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Tomasello, M. and Carpenter, M. (2007) Shared intentionality. Developmental Science 10 (1), 121–125. Vanrell, M., Prieto, P., Astruc, L., Payne, E. and Post, B. (2011) Adquisició dels patrons d’alineació i de camp tonal en catalá i espanyol. In A. Hidalgo, Y. Congosto and M. Quilis (eds) El Estudio de la Prosodia en España en el siglo XXI: Perspectivas y Ámbitos (pp. 61–70). Valencia, Spain: Universitat de Valencia. Vanrell, M., Stella, A., Fivela, B. and Prieto, P. (2013) Prosodic manifestations of the Effort Code in Catalan, Italian and Spanish contrastive focus. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43 (2), 195–220. Wells, B., Peppé, S. and Goulandris, N. (2004) Intonation development from five to thirteen. Journal of Child Language 31 (4), 749–778. Wieman, L., (1976) Stress patterns in early child language. Journal of Child Language 3 (2), 283–286. Wonnacott, E. and Watson, D. (2008) Acoustic emphasis in four year olds. Cognition 107 (3), 1093–1101.

7 Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children Joseph Paul Stemberger and Mario Chávez-Peón

Introduction

Children take more than five years to master the basic phonology of words in their first language. Before mastery, they fail to match many aspects of the pronunciation of words. In general, mastery comes later for characteristics that are less frequent, more complex or more difficult to articulate. While research gradually targets more and more phonological characteristics, there is still a need to compare a wider variety of languages with the same or similar characteristics, especially languages from different language families. There has also been insufficient research on phonological characteristics that are highly variable in adult speech. This paper focuses on one topic that addresses all of these research needs: the acquisition of voicing in ‘voiced’ ‘stops’ in Valley Zapotec, where there is extensive variability in adult speech both as to whether the output is voiced and whether it is a stop. Despite the very different nature of this language’s phonology, there are strong parallels with stop voicing in English. We address parallels in acquisition between Valley Zapotec and other languages, but also differences that may derive from language-specific characteristics of Valley Zapotec, including phonology-morphology interactions and the relative frequency of the different variants in different environments. Stops, as well as other obstruents, may be involved in a voicing ‘contrast’: two words may differ minimally in that one word has a stop that is voiced and the other word has a stop that is voiceless. This sort of contrast was present in Latin and is still present in many European languages, and speakers of such languages find such contrasts to be very salient (e.g. Laver, 1994: 194). The International Phonetic Association arose in Europe and, from the inception of the International Phonetic 125

126  Part 1: Typical Development

Alphabet (IPA) in 1899, built in voicing contrasts by providing basic symbols for both voiced and voiceless stops at all places of articulation, such as [p, t, k] vs [b, d, g]. The general focus of IPA terminology is on voicing (the rhythmic opening and closing of the vocal folds); voiced stops are also referred to as being prevoiced, having voicing during closure or having a negative VOT (Voice Onset Time, as measured from the burst at the end of full closure), while voiceless stops can be unaspirated with a short-lag VOT ([p, t, k]) or aspirated with a long-lag VOT ([ph, th, kh]). Voiceless stops are usually described as having no voicing during closure, though phonetically this is a bit of a simplification; when a voiceless stop follows a voiced sound, there is a brief inertial period at the beginning of closure, referred to as voicing into closure, before the speaker is able to ‘turn off’ voicing. Hayes (1999), using a 3-D articulatory synthesizer, maintains that it is aerodynamically easier to maintain voicing after a voiced sonorant than it is to turn off voicing, leading to a diachronic tendency for voicing in such environments. While the voiced-voiceless distinction is fairly salient to speakers of most European languages, the secondary contrast between the two types of voiceless stops (unaspirated vs aspirated) varies in salience depending on the language. In languages that are usually described as lacking aspirated stops (e.g. French, Spanish, Slovene), the difference between short-lag and long-lag stops is considered subtle and is generally not transcribed, for either adult speech or child speech. In languages where the difference between short-lag and long-lag stops in the same environment is considered salient (e.g. Cambodian, English), shortlag and log-lag stops tend to be transcribed differently. Speakers of different languages thus differ in terms of which voicing characteristics are considered salient and so should be transcribed, and which characteristics are considered subtle and so are often not transcribed, especially in broad transcription. Some differences relating to voicing are even more subtle. It has been known for many decades that there are two types of short-lag stops (e.g. Ohde, 1984): true voiceless ([p, t, k], e.g. French, Dutch, Slovene) vs what I will refer to as ‘unvoiced’ ([b̥ d̥ g̊ ] (e.g. English, German). Lisker (1986) lists many distinguishing characteristics, but there are three that are often focused on. (1) The duration of full closure is longer in true voiceless stops than in unvoiced stops (which are more comparable in duration to true voiced stops). (2) The release burst is higher in amplitude in true voiceless stops than in unvoiced stops (which are more comparable in burst amplitude to true voiced stops). (3) At the point where there is voicing after the release of full closure, F0 is relatively high in voiceless stops and falls into the following vowel, while F0 is relatively low in unvoiced stops and rises into the following vowel (resembling F0 effects after true voiced stops). While there is some

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   127

tradition for differentiating true voiceless vs unvoiced vs voiced stops in narrow transcriptions as [p] vs [b̥ ] vs [b], there is a tendency to transcribe broadly enough to avoid diacritics, so the difference is either transmuted to [p] vs [b] (e.g. Keating, 1984) or collapsed into one category, with [p, b̥ ] both transcibed as voiceless [p]. Expanding the investigation of stops to include at least these four characteristics has a number of consequences. First and foremost, in positions that are hostile to voicing (after a pause or where a preceding segment is not truly voiced), the contrast in English is between shortlag unvoiced [b̥ ] vs long-lag voiceless aspirated [pʰ], as in big vs pig (e.g. Keating, 1984). Research on perception suggests that the contrast is based on the short-lag vs long-lag VOT differences (e.g. Abramson & Whalen, 2017, for a recent view), and many assume that best broad transcription is /p/ vs /pʰ/. If the transcription of [b̥ ] as /p/ is taken seriously, however, it suggests that VOT is the only difference that is relevant for any purpose whatsoever, and that other differences between [b̥ ] and [pʰ] in principle are not perceived and play no role of any sort in the language. Among other things, it suggests that /p/ cannot differ phonetically in different languages, that e.g. /p/ cannot systematically be realized as [b̥ ] in English but [p] in French. The very fact that English and French short-lag stops are systematically different means that the other phonetic characteristics are perceived at some level, and that children learning English and French at some point learn to match the particular variants that they are exposed to. We can ask whether a broad transcription such as /p/ obscures what is going on, rather than clarifying it. Focusing on the full range of differences, rather on just one characteristic that is more important for one task, has ramifications for theories. Acquisition of Voicing

Young children master voicing characteristics at different times in different parts of the word, partly as a function of whether the environment is friendly to voicing, or hostile to voicing. Voicing is only possible if the right physical conditions are established: the level of vocal fold tenseness (neither too tense nor too lax), the distance between the vocal folds (not too far apart, but also not held rigidly closed) and a sufficient decrease in air pressure above the larynx compared to air pressure below the larynx (so that air can flow at a sufficient speed through the glottis). True voiceless obstruents, in contrast, require relatively greater air pressure above the larynx, and aspirated stops require a greater distance between the vocal folds. If the preconditions for true voicing and true voicelessness are not controlled well enough, the intermediate conditions lead fairly naturally to unvoiced obstruents such as [b̥ d̥ g̊ ]. There is an element of inertia in establishing the right

128  Part 1: Typical Development

conditions for voicing; once the vocal folds are vibrating in true voicing, they tend to continue to do so until conditions prevent it, and when they are not vibrating, it takes extra effort to make them begin vibrating. After a pause or voiceless segment, inertia makes it more difficult to establish voicing; before a pause or voiceless segment, it is more difficult to keep voicing going. In these hostile environments, voicing is relatively difficult, and unvoiced obstruents may arise. Unvoiced obstruents in hostile conditions are observed in babbling (e.g. Whalen et al., 2007), and are present from the beginning of word production in children speaking many languages (e.g. Macken & Barton, 1980); unvoiced stops [b̥ d̥ g̊ ] often substitute for true voiced stops /b, d, g/ and for true voiceless stops /p, t, k/, but are also used for adults’ unvoiced stops [b̥ d̥ g̊ ], if the adult language has unvoiced stops. A child’s unvoiced stops are often transcribed as /b/ for languages such as English and German (where they are a good phonetic match to the adult pronunciation), but as /p/ for languages such as French and Dutch (where they are only a broad match, differing on secondary characteristics); to achieve an adult-like voiceless stop, a French-learning child ultimately has to learn to actively control supraglottal pressure, actively lowering it for true voiced stops and actively raising it for true voiceless stops. When a voiced sound precedes the target voiced obstruent, the environment is friendly to voicing, because supraglottal pressure begins low enough to support voicing, and inertia tends to keep the vocal folds vibrating; this is true for intervocalic stops within a word and for word-initial stops in phrases, where almost all tokens of /b, d, g/ in adult English are truly voiced (e.g. Lisker, 1986; Davidson, 2016). Intervocalic stops tend to be voiced even in babbling, and this continues into early words (e.g. Whalen et al., 2007), where true voiced stops may substitute for voiceless stops (though this is often in a minority of word types or word tokens; e.g. Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998). There is also cue-trading (Lisker, 1986): in intervocalic position, if the VOT is short lag, the other three differences are used by listeners as secondary cues to distinguish /b/ from /p/, with e.g. high burst amplitude leading to perception of /p/ and low burst amplitude leading to perception of /b/. In word-final position, true voicing is again difficult, and speakers often allow pressure to rise in an uncontrolled way because there is no following sound that requires voicing. True voiceless stops are acquired early in word-final position, and children in many languages have been observed substituting true voiceless stops as mismatches for adult target true voiced stops, a phenomenon known as final devoicing (e.g. Ingram, 1989), a phenomenon also observed in adult languages such as German and Slovene. Both unvoiced and truly voiced stops develop later in final position.

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   129

Mastering ‘the’ Pronunciation

Most studies tacitly assume that there is a single adult pronunciation for the child to master. Although there is always some degree of variability around a mean in adult speech, of a subtle nature, this is not a bad approximation for some sounds such as [m]. However, there are also types of variation that are much more salient. An example of ‘overt’ variation would be [b ~ p], for languages where this is a contrast, because adults are used to noting that phonetic difference for the purposes of lexical access. An example of more subtle ‘covert’ variation would be [b ~ b̥ ], because most speakers of most languages have no functional reason to pay attention to this phonetic difference (and may never have learned to reliably discriminate it). The ‘voiced’ stops of adult English show a high degree of variability, with conditioned variability in some environments, but some nonconditioned variability in all environments: there are some unvoiced and some true voiced variants in all positions in the word and utterance (e.g. Davidson, 2016). In post-pausal position in English (in a phrase such as big ones), unvoiced stops such as [b̥ ] predominate, but true voiced stops such as [b] also occur at a low percentage of tokens. After voiced sounds (in phrases and words such as the big ones and sobbing), the most common variant is true voiced [b], but an unvoiced [b̥ ] occurs in a small percent of tokens. Note that children get direct evidence that true voiced and unvoiced variants are functionally equivalent, because they occur on different tokens of the same words with no easily apparent difference in meaning. One can very well ask how this variability might affect learning, and when a child’s productions reflect this variable input. Overt Variation in Adult Valley Zapotec (San Lucas Quiaviní)

The ‘voiced’ ‘stops’ of the variant of Valley Zapotec that is spoken in San Lucas Quiaviní are highly variable, both in manner and voicing; because of this variation, they are referred to as ‘lenis’ consonants. These ‘stops’ vary in manner in almost all environments, appearing either as stops ([b, d, g]) or as low-amplitude fricatives ([β, ð, ɣ]), but never as affricates or partially affricated stops (e.g. Munro & Lopez, 1999). Ignoring voicing for the moment, a common child word such as ba’ade’eh ‘duck (diminutive)’ has the following four variants: [ˈbaːdɛˀɛ̤] ~ [ˈbaːðɛˀɛ̤] ~ [ˈβaːdɛˀɛ̤] ~ [ˈβaːðɛˀɛ̤]. Although there are statistical differences in the relative proportion of stop and fricative variants, both manner variants are possible in almost every environment. In this paper, we focus on stop realizations. Note that we as researchers have no way of strictly controlling the number of stop vs fricative tokens that we can elicit; variability is always present, and which variant is used on a given trial is determined by the speakers.

130  Part 1: Typical Development

Lenis stops are highly variable in the realization of voicing. For stop variants, the variation is between true voiced stops and unvoiced stops, never true voiceless stops: [b, d, g] ~ [b̥ , d̥ , g̊ ]. For fricative variants, in addition to true voiced [β, ð, ɣ] and unvoiced [β̥, ð̥ , ɣ̊], short true voiceless fricatives also occur: [ɸ, θ, x̆ ]. True voiceless ‘fortis’ fricatives such as [s, x] are always longer in duration than the fricative variant of lenis stops (just as unvoiced fricatives in English are shorter than true voiceless fricatives; e.g. Umeda (1977). The labial and coronal lenis stop variants [ɸ, θ] contrast with the fortis fricatives [f, s] in lip or tongue shape, but the velar lenis stop variant [x̆ ] differs from the fortis fricative [x] only by its shorter duration. One could argue that the main cue differentiating lenis obstruents from fortis obstruents in Valley Zapotec is duration, because the only thing that all variants have in common is that lenis consonants are much shorter than fortis consonants. The term ‘lenis’ is a traditional term that is not in favor in modern phonetics. It is mainly used to designate obstruents with unvoicing or inconsistent voicing. The Latin word lenis means ‘soft’, and implies that the segments are weakly articulated or underarticulated, made with gestures of a reduced amplitude. Relative to manner, a reducedamplitude gesture for a stop could lead to a low-amplitude fricative being produced. Relative to voicing, a reduced-amplitude gesture could lead to a failure to reduce supraglottal pressure enough to support full voicing, leading to unvoiced outputs. Arguably, this is a very appropriate term to use with the sort of manner and voicing variability that we observe in Valley Zapotec. In contrast, ‘fortis’ obstruents (from the Latin word for ‘strong’) are consistently truly voiceless in Valley Zapotec and show no overt variation in terms of manner; they are strongly articulated. One possible objection to this term is that the characteristics of lenitude may be expressed differently in different languages, perhaps affecting voicing without affecting manner in some languages, or manner without affecting voicing. Chomsky and Halle (1968) presuppose that the definitions of all phonological features are both universal and innate, and this is a tacit assumption of the IPA and of almost all work in modern phonetics (e.g. Nitrouer (2001) who does not agree that this is a good thing). If instead it is assumed that phonetic categories, like lexical categories, are learned through experience, then variation across languages in the definition of phonetic and phonological categories is to be expected. We will use the terms lenis and fortis in this paper. What is the nature of the fortis-lenis contrast for stops in Valley Zapotec (at least in San Lucas Quiaviní)? Descriptions of Valley Zapotec suggest that the fortis stops /p, t, k/ are generally unaspirated (short lag), though they may be aspirated in utterance-final position. This means that short lag [p, t, k] (and sometimes long lag [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]) are in opposition to short lag [b̥ , d̥ , g̊ ] (and sometimes truly voiced [b, d, g], as well as the fricative variants). Although particular subsets of lenis and

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   131

fortis variants differ on VOT (the aspirated fortis stop variants vs all lenis stop variants, which are unaspirated; the voiced lenis stop variants vs all fortis stop variants, which are short lag or long lag), other variants do not: short lag [b̥ , d̥ , g̊ ] contrasts with short lag [p, t, k], and this can be the sole difference between two words. Unlike English, it is not possible to re-imagine Valley Zapotec [b̥ , d̥ , g̊ ] as /p, t, k/, suggesting that such a re-analysis is not compelling even for English. We will return to this below. The amount of detailed research on Valley Zapotec is still small, despite increases over the past 20 years. While the literature notes the variation that occurs with the lenis ‘stops’, as well as statistical differences between different environments, there has yet to be a study that reports quantitative results. We will provide information from one adult speaker going through the same materials and tasks used with the Valley Zapotec children, to be as comparable as possible. The Valley Zapotec Acquisition Project

Valley Zapotec is an Otomanguean language spoken in Oaxaca in Southern Mexico. There is a huge amount of dialect variation across different towns; our project specifically focuses on the variant spoken in the town of San Lucas Quiaviní. We chose this language for study because it has many characteristics (phonetically, phonologically, morphologically and syntactically) that are of low frequency crosslinguistically and that are unlike European languages. Here we focus on variability within stops, where the voicing variability is reminiscent of (but not identical to) English and the manner variability is reminiscent of (but not identical to) Spanish (conditioned variation between voiced stops and approximants), with unique interactions. The project is focused on typically developing children (TD) aged 1;3 – 6;0. Data have been collected from 51 children, but most of the data have yet to be analyzed. Data were collected during a two-week period in each of five consecutive summers. Some children were recorded in only one year, and so are part of a cross-sectional sample. Most children were recorded in at least two years, and so are part of a (coarse) longitudinal sample, with 12 months between each sample; a few children were recorded in all five years. All children in San Lucas Quiaviní begin learning Valley Zapotec monolingually, and learn Spanish later (beginning in pre-school, which is taught bilingually). Children are exposed to Spanish early (through TV and radio, and occasional visits from health professionals and teachers), but will generally not be involved in interactions in Spanish until they approach school age. This study must be regarded as preliminary, as it provides quantitative information from only one adult and only five children. While it is clear that the adult data are consistent with non-quantitative

132  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 7.1  Child participants for this paper Age

Gender

Name

1;7

male

Carlos-2

1;11

male

Carlos-1

2;8

female

Vivian

2;10

female

Guadalupe

2;11

female

Floriselda

reports, the degree of variation across adults is not yet known, nor do we know the effects of different tasks or whether the variation carries any sociolinguistic significance. Where children show effects that mirror the effects within this adults’ speech, we can draw the conclusion that the children are matching adult variation to some degree. Where children show differences, we cannot yet be certain that the statistical properties lie outside the adult range of variation. Participants

This talk focuses on data from five monolingual Zapotec-learning children under age 3;0 (Table 7.1), because research on other languages suggests that voicing is mastered relatively early. Comparable data are presented from one reference adult (our assistant, Francisco Lopez) going through the same tasks and materials. Tasks

Data are presented from tasks that involve single-word and shortsentence responses. Pictures and objects were presented (in picture books or folders of pictures, or small plastic figures) for naming, with the child asked (in Valley Zapotec), What’s this? Simple videos were presented involving simple actions such as running or singing or throwing a ball, and the child was asked a question designed to elicit different aspectual forms of verbs: What is he doing? or What did he do? or What will he do tomorrow?; intransitive verbs usually elicit a response of Verb+SubjectPronoun, while transitive verbs elicit Verb+Subject-Pronoun+ObjectNoun, though the children occasionally produce full subject nouns. In Verb+Subject-Pronoun sequences, the pronoun is an unstressed clitic, so there is a single phonological word, and any base-final consonant in the verb becomes medial in the phonological word. In nouns, whether in single-word naming or in video description, the child can choose to produce a simple noun (with word-final stress, and many words have word-final consonants) or with an unstressed diminutive suffix (which shifts any base-final consonant in the noun into medial position). For both nouns and verbs, the word is sometimes used (by both children and

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   133

adults) without additional morphemes, so that the final consonant of the noun or verb is in a word-final coda, but is sometimes used with an unstressed pronoun or diminutive suffix, so that the final consonant is word medial. For example, the base-final /d/ in ba’ad ‘duck’ corresponds to the word medial /d/ in ba’ade’eh ‘duck (diminutive)’. Stemberger and Chávez-Peón (2014) have shown that phonological characteristics of the word-final consonants can be incorrectly over-generalized to the wordmedial targets by children below 3;0. Variability in the output of adults and children have the consequence that the number of stop vs fricative tokens of lenis stop targets, and of truly voiced vs unvoiced tokens, cannot be finely controlled in elicitation. Diminutives are common in both adult and child speech, ranging from 15%–60% of all noun tokens. Variability in the use of diminutive forms by both adults and children have the consequence that the number of word-final vs word-medial tokens cannot be controlled. Transcription

The video and audio tracks were loaded into PHON for transcription (Rose & MacWhinney, 2014). Words of interest are exported to Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2011) for detailed visual examination, though precise phonetic measurements (such as exact VOT values) will not be presented here. Transcription is done as narrowly as possible based on perception by the coauthors, who are highly trained in transcription using the IPA. A portion of the data were transcribed by two people. All transcriptions were verified using the acoustic information in Praat; all differences between transcribers were resolved using Praat, and occasional points of disagreement between transcribers were modified after acoustic analysis. This analysis is restricted to tokens of target stops that were output as stops; fricative variants of lenis ‘stops’ were excluded, as were mismatches for manner in the child’s pronunciation. Output stops were categorized as voiced (with voicing during closure, such as [b, d, g]), unvoiced (short lag with low-amplitude bursts and rising F0, [b̥ , d̥ , g̊ ]), voiceless unaspirated (short lag with high-amplitude bursts and falling F0, [p, t, k]) and voiceless aspirated (long lag or utterance-final aspiration, [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]). Results

The results for fortis stops are shown in Table 7.2 (word initial), Table 7.3 (word medial) and Table 7.4 (word final). The results for lenis stops are shown in Table 7.5 (word initial), Table 7.6 (word medial) and Table 7.7 (word final). Numbers are bolded and underlined to draw attention to voicing mismatches, where fortis stops were produced as lenis stops, or vice versa.

134  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 7.2  Target word-initial fortis stops, proportion produced as fortis p

t

k

Total

Aspirated

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

0.06

Carlos-2 1;7

—

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

Carlos-1 1;11

1.00

0.67

0.67

0.71

0.00

Vivian 2;8

1.00

1.00

0.85

0.92

0.00

Guadalupe 2;10

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

0.22

Floriselda 2;11

0.87

1.00

0.82

0.93

0.03

Total below

0.94

0.97

0.84

0.89

0.08

Adult

3;0

Table 7.3  Target word-medial fortis stops, proportion produced as fortis p

t

k

Total

Aspirated

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

0.00

Carlos-2 1;7

—

1.00

1.00

1.00

0.00

Carlos-1 1;11

—

0.57

1.00

0.67

0.00

Vivian 2;8

1.00

—

1.00

1.00

0.00

Guadalupe 2;10

—

1.00

—

1.00

0.00

Floriselda 2;11

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

0.00

Total below

1.00

0.88

1.00

0.93

0.00

Adult

3;0

Table 7.4  Target word-final fortis stops, proportion produced as fortis p

t

k

Total

Aspirated

Adult

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

Carlos-2 1;7

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

Carlos-1 1;11

0.50

1.00

—

0.83

0.50

Vivian 2;8

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

0.82

Guadalupe 2;10

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

—

1.00

1.00

1.00

0.71

0.90

1.00

1.00

0.98

0.70

Floriselda 2;11 Total below

3;0

Table 7.5  Target word-initial lenis stops, proportion produced as lenis Lenis: true voiced

Lenis: unvoiced

b

d

g

Total

b

d

g

Total

Grand Total

Adult

0.69

1.00

0.36

0.59

0.31

0.00

0.64

0.41

1.00

Carlos-2 1;7

0.27

0.00

—

0.25

0.73

1.00

—

0.75

1.00

Carlos-1 1;11

0.05

0.67

0.25

0.14

0.82

0.33

0.75

0.76

0.90

Vivian 2;8

0.09

—

0.00

0.07

0.86

—

0.91

0.87

0.94

Guadalupe 2;10

0.21

0.00

0.18

0.18

0.79

1.00

0.82

0.82

1.00

Floriselda 2;11

0.26

0.67

0.15

0.26

0.60

0.33

0.85

0.68

0.94

Total below 3;0

0.16

0.44

0.18

0.18

0.77

0.56

0.80

0.77

0.95

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   135

Table 7.6  Target word-medial lenis stops, proportion produced as lenis Lenis: true voiced

Adult

Lenis: unvoiced

b

d

g

Total

b

d

g

Total

Grand total

—

1.00

0.75

0.83

—

0.00

0.25

0.16

1.00

Carlos-2 1;7

1.00

—

—

1.00

0.00

—

—

0.00

1.00

Carlos-1 1;11

1.00

1.00

0.50

0.80

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.80

Vivian 2;8

0.67

—

—

0.67

0.33

—

—

0.33

1.00

Guadalupe 2;10

—

0.63

—

0.63

—

0.37

—

0.37

1.00

Floriselda 2;11

0.75

0.75

0.33

0.68

0.25

0.17

0.00

0.16

0.84

Total below 3;0

0.83

0.71

0.40

0.71

0.17

0.24

0.00

0.18

0.89

Table 7.7  Target word-final lenis stops, proportion produced as lenis Lenis: true voiced

Lenis: unvoiced

b

d

g

Total

b

d

g

Total

Grand total

Adult

—

0.00

—

0.00

—

1.00

—

1.00

1.00

Carlos-2 1;7

—

0.00

—

0.00

—

0.00

—

0.00

0.00

Carlos-1 1;11

—

0.00

0.00

0.00

—

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

Vivian 2;8

0.29

0.00

0.00

0.11

0.57

0.50

1.00

0.67

0.78

Guadalupe 2;10

—

0.25

0.00

0.16

—

0.75

0.50

0.67

0.83

Floriselda 2;11

—

1.00

0.00

0.60

—

0.00

0.50

0.20

0.80

Total below 3;0

0.25

0.27

0.00

0.22

0.75

0.36

0.50

0.44

0.66

Fortis stops are uniformly voiceless in adult speech (in agreement with Munro & Lopez, 1999): 100% of tokens. Every word-final fortis stop was aspirated, no word-medial token was aspirated and a low percentage of word-initial tokens were aspirated; we can conclude that fortis stops are almost always unaspirated (short lag) in adult speech when they are in onsets, but aspirated in codas, at least pre-pausally. It should be noted that adult fortis stops are always longer than lenis stops, even in word-initial onsets (Chávez-Peón, 2010). All five children produced fortis consonants primarily as fortis, but only two children (Carlos-2 and Guadalupe) produced every token voiceless in all three positions in the word. Vivian and Floriselda produced all tokens voiceless in medial and final position but had a few lenis tokens in WI position. Carlos-1 had a larger number of non-matching tokens, in all three positions, with the best performance in word-final position. Nonmatching tokens (which involved use of voiced or unvoiced stops) were thus found in all word positions, but primarily in word-initial position (where they accounted for 11% of tokens); ‘voicing’ of fortis stops was less common in medial and final position. Regarding aspiration, none of the children showed any aspirated (long-lag) tokens in medial position, thereby matching adult speech. Three of the children showed minimal use of aspiration in word-initial

136  Part 1: Typical Development

position (matching the adult), but Guadalupe had an elevated rate of aspiration, and Carlos-2, the youngest child, used aspiration exclusively. All of the children used aspiration in word-final position at least half the time, and two matched the adult in having aspiration in 100% of tokens; the other three children used aspiration less consistently, and Carlos-1 aspirated word-final stops only half the time. Lenis stops in adult speech are never truly voiceless (Munro & Lopez, 1999), as shown in the ‘Grand total’ column at the right of Tables 7.5– 7.7: the proportions of voiced and unvoiced tokens add up to 1.00 in all three positions in the word. It should be noted that lenis stops show up primarily as stops after a pause or non-continuant consonant, so wordinitial position is based on a large number of tokens; but that in medial and final positions, lenis ‘stops’ primarily are realized as low-amplitude fricatives, so Tables 7.6 and 7.7, focusing just on stop realizations, each represents about 25% as many tokens as Table 7.5 does. When the adult speaker produced stops, they were primarily true voiced stops in medial position, more than half true voiced stops in word-initial position, and no true voiced stops in word-final position. It should be noted that, for those tokens where the word-initial consonants followed a voiced sound, the adult voiced 96% of tokens. As can be seen, all children produce primarily lenis stops in wordinitial position (90% or above), but three of the children have a small number of tokens with true voiceless stops. For those tokens where the word-initial consonants followed a voiced sound, all children used true voiced stops in at least 89% of tokens, close to the adult level. While the adult used true voiced stops more often than unvoiced stops in wordinitial position, all five children used primarily unvoiced stops; unvoiced stops are within the adult range of variation and are perfectly acceptable, but are over-used relative to adult speech. In medial position, all children produce primarily lenis stops, but two of the children have a somewhat larger number of tokens with true voiceless stops. When a lenis stop was used, one child was somewhat more likely than the adult to make it truly voiced (Carlos-1), two children used truly voiced stops at about the same rate as the adult (Carlos-2 and Floriselda) and two used truly voiced stops somewhat less often than the adult and over-used unvoiced stops (Vivian, Guadalupe). In final position, three children used true voiceless stops in about 20% of tokens, and two used true voiceless stops in all tokens (bearing in mind that most tokens of /b, d, g/ for all speakers were realized as low-amplitude fricatives in final position). For the three children who used lenis stops about 80% of the time, all used true voiced stops more than the adult and one (Floriselda) used truly voiced stops more often than unvoiced stops; it should be noted that no truly voiced velars were produced, only truly voiced labials and coronals. For the one third of lenis-stop targets that were produced with final devoicing, they were not fully neutralized with target fortis-stop tokens.

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   137

In Valley Zapotec in word-final position, fortis stops have a duration that is twice as long as the previous vowel (short-vowel long-consonant), while lenis stops show the reverse (long-vowel short-consonant), e.g. Chávez-Peón (2010), Stemberger and Chávez-Peón (2014). All of the stop tokens that showed truly voiceless stops were outside the adult range of variation for voicing, but nonetheless matched the adult duration pattern for the same word: long-vowel short-consonant. The phonemic contrast between the lenis and fortis stops was maintained through large duration differences (which are predictable in adult speech), not through voicing differences. In addition, no devoiced token had aspiration, while the majority of the target fortis tokens were aspirated. Since the duration and aspiration differences are quite noticeable, we hesitate to call this maintenance of contrast a ‘covert’ contrast. It should be noted that there were a few mismatches for fortis consonants in medial position that were missed because of our focus on stop variants. There were six tokens total produced by three of the children where a target fortis stop such as /p/ was produced as a lenis fricative such as [β] (fully voiced because it was between vowels). Given that medial lenis ‘stops’ are more likely to be produced as low-amplitude fricatives by speakers of all ages, if the medial consonant becomes voiced (for example, by assimilation from the surrounding voiced vowels), it could possibly then link in to the variation between stops and fricatives shown by lenis stops. This might also be influenced by duration. In adult Vally Zapotec, word-final lenis stops are short whereas fortis stops are long, but in medial position both are short (though fortis stops are still phonetically a bit longer than lenis). Stemberger and Chávez-Peón (2014) report that these same children have difficulty with the short fortis consonants in medial position, and tend to lengthen them, so that they are about twice as long as the preceding vowel; they argue that this arises from generalization from occurrences of the same morphemes where the stops are word-final. Keeping the fortis stops short, as in the adult target, but producing them as lenis would be a different solution to the problem of the short fortis stops, though one that is far less common in these children’s output than lengthening the fortis stops. Discussion

Adult Valley Zapotec in San Lucas Quiaviní has a contrast between fortis and lenis consonants. Lenis stops (when they are realized as stops) are either truly voiced (especially after a voiced segment) or unvoiced (especially before or after a pause or after a voiceless segment) but never voiceless, while fortis stops are always voiceless, are almost always short lag in initial and medial position and are almost always aspirated before a pause. Further, fortis consonants are always a bit longer than lenis in initial and medial positions, and are double the length of lenis in final

138  Part 1: Typical Development

position. We have examined data from five children under the age of 3;0. How well have they acquired the adult system? Our reference adult matched reports from previous literature (e.g. Munro & Lopez, 1999), as expected. Lenis stops showed variation between true voicing and unvoicing, but no truly voiceless stops were observed. True voicing was predominant between voiced sounds, including medially, was less common word initially, and was uncommon word- finally (which was most often pre-pausally). Fortis consonants were aspirated word finally, unaspirated word medially and occasionally aspirated word initially. This matches previous descriptions and unsystematic observations, but of course the exact quantitative values may possibly vary in the speech of different adults, may possibly reflect sociolinguistic variables and may possibly be different in different tasks. All five children have done well with the fortis consonants, relative to the laryngeal characteristics. Only 11% of targets were produced as lenis stops in initial position, only 7% in medial (though a few additional percent appeared as lenis low-amplitude fricatives) and only 2% in final position. The child with the greatest use of lenis stops was aged 1;11, but still matched the adult laryngeal characteristics about three quarters of the time. The position with the greatest amount of mismatch is initial position, consistent with the prevocalic voicing that has been observed in English (e.g. Ingram, 1989). Although in English this can be viewed as loss of aspiration (since /p, t, k/ are long lag in initial position in English), in Valley Zapotec this is not a possible alternative analysis, because initial fortis stops are not aspirated. There also appears to be some medial voicing (especially if we add in those tokens where a target fortis stop such as /p/ is realized as the low-amplitude-fricative lenis-stop variant [β]), but again only in a small percentage of tokens. Voicelessness is mastered early in all positions in the word. In adult speech, aspiration is possible but of low frequency in initial position, and it is unclear if it is possible at all in medial position; the children show no aspiration in medial position, but two children do overuse aspiration in initial position, for unclear reasons. We know of no studies of the statistical overuse of aspiration in languages such as French or Slovene (where it is present in a small percentage of tokens in adult speech), but it would be interesting to see if this sort of ‘covert’ mismatch also occurs in young children learning other languages where aspiration is of low frequency but does occur. In adult speech, aspiration is used all the time before a pause, and all five children did use aspiration in at least 50% of tokens, but three children produced many unaspirated final fortis stops. It is possible that aspiration has simply not been mastered yet, and we note that it is a predictable allophonic characteristic that is unlikely to affect intelligibility. Predictable allophonic aspiration seems to be common cross-linguistically in this context (in French and Slovene, for example), and young English-learning children often aspirate all

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   139

word-final tokens of voiceless stops. Further cross-linguistic studies are needed to clarify how the Valley Zapotec children fit in to this wider picture. It should be noted that base-final fortis stops can appear as word medial if there is a diminutive suffix or a subject pronoun, and that the fortis stops are unaspirated in medial position. The lack of final aspiration could possibly be due to over-generalization of the unaspirated variant from medial-position tokens of the fortis stops in the same morphemes. Stemberger and Chávez-Peón (2014) show that two word-final characteristics of fortis stops (extra length and optionally being preceded by a glottal stop) were over-generalized at high frequency to medial position by these same children. Lack of aspiration could be interpreted as over-generalization in the other direction, from medial to final position; but if so, it raises issues about the nature of such overgeneralization. (1) Why doesn’t aspiration also over-generalize from final to medial position? (2) Why doesn’t the shortness of the medial fortis stop over-generalize to final position? Lenis stops in word-initial position are well mastered by the children. In adult speech, word-initial stops that follow a voiced segment in the previous word are almost always truly voiced, and all five children matched this. After a pause or voiceless consonant, our one reference adult used truly voiced stops just a bit more than half the time, using unvoiced stops for the remainder, but all of the children used voiced stops less than a third of the time. It has been suggested that children learning languages such as French and Dutch also produce post-pausal unvoiced stops for adult voiced stop from the beginning, so this could be a universal tendency. In English, unvoiced stops match the most frequent post-pausal variant of the English ‘voiced’ stops, so this counts as a match. In Valley Zapotec, this is also within the adult range of variation and counts as a match, but is a deviation from adult statistics, with over-use (statistical over-generalization) of one adult variant. The most straight-forward analysis is that the child over-uses an easier form during phonological planning, and intends each token to match an observed adult pronunciation, but then fails to match the input statistics. It should be noted that this explanation would not be available for Usage-Based Grammar (e.g. Bybee, 2006) or exemplar models (e.g. Pierrehumbert, 2001). In such models, phonological planning is sensitive to frequency in the input above all else and is not sensitive to phonetic difficulty. Such models can over-generalize the statistically predominant pattern easily, but cannot easily overgeneralize less frequent patterns. Such models could not treat this as the phonological over-generalization of a phonetically easier variant, but instead must consider it an effect that arises in motor planning: some outputs that the child has phonologically planned as voiced become unvoiced at the motor planning level. While workable, this explanation has the drawback of failing to explain why these tokens nonetheless

140  Part 1: Typical Development

fall within the adult range of variation, and suggests that matching the adult statistics is not a matter of statistical learning from inputs but rather a motor learning issue (contra discussions in the papers in this area; e.g. those cited above). It also means that the child must treat a token that successfully falls within the adult range of variation as an error arising at the motor level, of exactly the same type as producing a fully voiceless stop for a target lenis stop, or of producing a target fricative such as /s/ as a stop such as [t]. Treating tokens that match an adult pronunciation variant as instead deriving from motor deviations in the child’s systems from a different phonological target output seems counter-intuitive, though such an explanation technically works. Alternatively, one could question whether the high proportion of voiced initial stops is really typical of adult speech: perhaps our reference adult was over-articulating in a way that children do not. Stemberger and Chávez-Peón (2018) note that, in post-pausal position, this adult uses truly voiced stops more frequently in single-word naming tasks than in connected speech such as when telling the story of the Frog books (e.g. Mayer, 1969), where the proportion of voiced stops is closer to (but still greater than) in the children’s statistics; they suggest that singleword naming might lead to a more formal or carefully articulated pronunciation than in connected speech. Children also mastered lenis stops in medial position, but with some level of mismatch. Two children produced some truly voiceless stops: Carlos-1 for 50% of tokens of /g/ (but never for /b/ or /d/), and Floriselda for 67% of tokens of /g/ (but never for /b/, and only 8% of tokens for /d/). It is, of course, more difficult to produce voiced or unvoiced velars, because of pressure build-up in the small supralaryngeal airspace (e.g. Gamkrelidze, 1978); the rate of truly voiced stops for our adult speaker is also lower for velars in Tables 7.5 and 7.6. There is a possible Zapotec-internal source, however. Stemberger and Chávez-Peón (2018) show that the fricative variant of /g/ is far more likely to devoice (to [x̆ ]) in post-pausal and prepausal postions in adult speech than are /b/ and /d/, and that this is also true for the fricative variants of these five children. Is it possible that the full devoicing that is so common with the fricative variant of /g/ could over-generalize to the stop variant? It is not clear that Usage-Based Grammar or exemplar models would be able to over-generalize in this way, because they are so sensitive to statistical co-occurrence that a minority pattern for the fricative variant is unlikely to be over-generalized to replace the statistically predominant pattern for stop variants. Cross-linguistic investigation of medial devoicing in languages with [g] and [ɣ] are likely to be informative here. Lastly, adults never fully devoice lenis stops in word-final position, but all five children did: fully a third of all tokens showed final devoicing, with the highest rates in the youngest two children. This high rate of full devoicing only in final position is consistent with

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   141

the literature on other languages; final devoicing in e.g. English is quite common (e.g. Ingram, 1989). The children, however, did not fully neutralize these final devoiced stops with target fortis stops, since they were still short and unaspirated (vs. fortis long and usually aspirated), and the previous vowel was long, as in adult speech. We do not consider this an instance of covert contrast, since the phonetic differences are so large. We do not know how often final devoicing in languages such as English neutralizes contrasts, either; Bernhardt and Stemberger (1998) report a child who fully devoiced final /b, d, g/ (so that adults tended to hear them as [p, t, k] and often failed to understand what the target word was) but nonetheless never aspirated them, while target voiceless stops /p, t, k/ were always aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ], a ‘covert’ contrast in English only because aspiration is variable in the adult language for final /p, t, k/ and rarely transcribed. Again, however, there is a possible Zapotec-internal source: the fricative variant of lenis stops (especially /g/) often devoices in final position. Is it possible that this full devoicing in final lenis fricative variants could over-generalize to the stop variant? Cross-linguistic investigation is likely to be informative here. Lastly, when a lenis stop is produced, our reference adult always produced unvoiced stops in final position, never true voiced stops. Three of the four children did sometimes produce true voiced stops in final position, and one (Floriselda) did so more than half the time. This seems to go against any general motor-based explanation that voicing is simply more difficult in final position. One possible source is over-generalization from medial position, where the same morphemes occur with stops that are most often voiced. Again, this would involve generalization from a morphologically complex form to a morphologically simple form, which most researchers tend to assume will not happen. Otherwise, the source of this final voicing is unclear. Final Note: The Big Picture

Adult Valley Zapotec as spoken in San Lucas Quiaviní shows consistent production of voicing characteristics for fortis stops (as voiceless stops, with aspiration common in final position and uncommon in initial and medial position), but inconsistent production of lenis stops. Lenis stops can be produced as low-amplitude fricatives, but when they are produced as stops, they vary between truly voiced or unvoiced (and never truly voiceless) in all word positions. There is additional statistical conditioning, that medial lenis stops and initial lenis stops following a voiced segment are almost always truly voiced, that initial lenis stops are often voiced (and possibly voiced more than half the time) and that final lenis stops are usually unvoiced. This bears a certain resemblance to English. In English, the high rate of occurrence of unvoiced stops

142  Part 1: Typical Development

in initial position after a pause or voiceless consonant and in final prepausal position has led many researchers to suggest that English really has voiceless unaspirated stops and to transcribe them broadly as [p, t, k] rather than narrowly as [b̥ , d̥ , g̊ ]. In Valley Zapotec the phonetic characteristics are quite similar, but it is not an option to transcribe the lenis stops /b, d, g/ broadly as [p, t, k], because /p, t, k/ are short lag and must be transcribed as [p, t, k]. There is, of course, no particular reason why English /b, d, g/ can’t be transcribed narrowly as [b̥ , d̥ , g̊ ], as well. Perhaps it is long past time to give up the idea that VOT is enough for English stops, and to pay closer attention to the other phonetic characteristics related to voicing, such as duration, burst amplitude and F0. It is also possible that the important characteristics of phonetic and phonological categories are not universal, determined by innate characteristics of human beings. Functional categories might be learned from experience. It may well be that in languages where unvoiced stops vary so frequently with true voiced stops, as in English and Valley Zapotec, that the term ‘voiced’ should be used to describe the unvoiced variants as well as the voiced variants; but that this might not be true of languages with different phonetic characteristics. The boundaries between categories might be expected to vary across languages. As researchers who study acquisition, we need to focus on finer details than in adult-oriented research. Lastly, the acquisition of adult variability has not yet been studied enough. Different theories can generalize and over-generalize in different ways. Some theories, such as connectionism (see Stemberger (2018) for recent discussion) and Optimality Theory (see e.g. Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998), make use of error-driven learning, and characteristics can generalize either because their high frequency makes them easy to output or as a side effect of altering the system to make errors less likely. Other theories, such as Usage-Based Grammar (e.g. Bybee, 2006) and exemplar models (e.g. Pierrehumbert, 2001) generalize information solely as a function of high frequency. It was noted above (and see also Stemberger & Chávez-Peón, 2014) that there are phenomena in acquisition that appear to be over-generalization of a low-frequency variant, which also happens to be easier to produce. While error-driven-learning systems can easily account for such generalization, it is not possible in Usage-Base Grammar or exemplar models. It is time to get serious about accounting for the details in our developmental data, and go from conceptual models that focus on how a model might in theory reach the final adult state, and instead aim for theories that can also account for the intermediate states that a child passes through on the way to adulthood, as well as the different intermediate pathways shown by different children. The present paper is a step in that direction.

Voicing in ‘Voiced’ ‘Stops’ in Valley Zapotec: Adults and Very Young Children   143

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by SSHRC individual research grant #410-2007-2192, and by an earlier UBC Hampton Research Grant. Others who have contributed to this project are co-investigator Felicia Lee and research assistants John Lyon, Diana Gibrael, Lauren Quinn, Masaki Noguchi and Andrea Ordaz-Nemeth. We would like to thank the families in San Lucas Quiaviní who have participated in this study, and our assistants from SLQ: Felipe Lopez, Francisco Lopez, Manuel Núñez, Brígida Núñez and Misael Martínez. Note that the tradition in research on First Nations languages is to acknowledge the contributions of those who participate in a study. We use the first names of the children out of respect, and reflecting the choice of the parents on the consent forms, who did not select the alternative of full anonymity. References Abramson, A.S and Whalen, D.H. (2017) Voice Onset Time (VOT) at 50: Theoretical and practical issues in measuring voicing distinctions. Journal of Phonetics 63, 75–86. Bernhardt, B.M. and Stemberger, J.P. (1998) Handbook of Phonological Development: From the Perspective of Constraint-based Nonlinear Phonology. San Diego: Academic Press (now published in Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.). Boersma, P. and Weenink, D. (2011) Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer [Computer program]. Version 5.2.16. See http://www.praat.org/ (accessed February 2011). Bybee, J. (2006) Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chávez-Peón, M.E. (2010) The Interaction of Metrical Structure, Tone and Phonation Types in Quiaviní Zapotec. PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia. Chomsky, N. and Halle, M. (1968) The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row. Davidson, L. (2016) Variability in the implementation of voicing in American English obstruents. Journal of Phonetics 54, 35–50. Gamkrelidze, T.V. (1978) On the correlation of stops and fricatives in a phonological system. In J.H. Greenberg (ed.) Universals of Human Language. Phonology (Vol. 2, pp. 9–46). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hayes, B. (1999) Phonetically-driven phonology: The role of Optimality Theory and inductive grounding. In M. Darnell, E. Moravscik, M. Noonan, F. Newmeyer and K. Wheatly (eds) Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics, Volume I: General Papers (pp. 243–285). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ingram, D. (1989) First Language Acquisition: Method, Description and Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keating, P.A. (1984) Phonetic and phonological representation of stop consonant voicing. Language 60, 286–319. Laver, J. (1994) Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lisker, L. (1986) ‘Voicing’ in English: A catalogue of acoustic features signaling /b/ versus /p/ in trochees. Language and Speech 29, 3–11. Macken, M.A. and Barton, D. (1980) The acquisition of the voicing contrast in English: A study of voice onset time in word-initial stop consonants. Journal of Child Language 7, 41–74. Mayer, M. (1969) Frog, Where are You? New York: Dial Press. Munson, B., Edwards, J., Schellinger, S., Beckman, M.E. and Meyer, M.K. (2010) Deconstructing phonetic transcription: Covert contrast, perceptual bias, and an extraterrestrial view of Vox Humana. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 24, 245–260.

144  Part 1: Typical Development

Munro, P. and Lopez, F.H. (1999) [with O.V. Méndez Martínez, R. García and M.R. Galant]. Di’csyonaary x:tèeʼn dìi’zh sah Sann Lu’uc (San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec Dictionary / Diccionario Zapoteco de San Lucas Quiaviní). Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Publications. Nitrouer, S. (2001) Challenging the notion of innate phonetic boundaries. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 110, 1598–1605. Ohde, R.N. (1984) Fundamental frequency as an acoustic correlate of stop consonant voicing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 75, 224–230. Pierrehumbert, J. (2001) Exemplar dynamics: Word frequency, lenition, and contrast. In J. Bybee and P. Hopper (eds) Frequency Effects and the Emergence of Lexical Structure (pp. 137–157). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Rose, Y. and MacWhinney, B. (2014) The PhonBank Project: Data and software-assisted methods for the study of phonology and phonological development. In J. Durand, U. Gut and G. Kristoffersen (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Corpus Phonology (pp. 380–401). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Phon (version 1.6.1), downloaded from http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/phon/. Stemberger, J.P. (2018) Interfaces in connectionist phonology. In S.J. Hannahs and A. Bosch (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory (pp. 391–421). London/New York: Routledge. Stemberger, J.P. and Chávez-Peón, M. (2014) Overgeneralization in the processing of complex forms in Valley Zapotec child language. Mental Lexicon 9, 107–130. Stemberger, J.P. and Chávez-Peón, M. (2018) Development of variability of lenis stops in Valley Zapotec. In C. Rojas (ed.) Diferencias individuales en la adquisición del lenguaje. Mexico: IIFL-UNAM. Umeda, N. (1977) Consonant duration in American English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 61, 846–858. Whalen, D.H., Levitt, A.G. and Goldstein, L.M. (2007) VOT in the babbling of French- and English-learning infants. Journal of Phonetics 35, 341–352.

8 The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account Paulina Zydorowicz

Introduction

The present contribution examines the acquisition of clusters at word edges from the point of view of two measures of phonotactic markedness, namely Sonority Sequencing Generalisation (SSG) and the Net Auditory Distance principle (NAD). The former principle entails measurements of distances between consonants expressed by the manner of articulation, which reflects the degree of aperture of the vocal tract. The SSG states that sonority of adjacent segments should decrease from the nucleus outwards, and clusters which obey this pattern are deemed unmarked. NAD formulates universal preferences for optimal clustering, depending on the length of a cluster and its word position. The condition for a preferred word-initial or -final CC cluster states that the distance between the two neighbouring consonants (C1C2) must be greater than (or at least equal to) the distance between the vowel and the neighbouring consonant. In NAD, markedness of consonant clusters is defined on the basis of three criteria of consonant description: manner and place of articulation as well as the distinction between an obstruent and a sonorant in a sequence. According to both principles, SSG and NAD, unmarked clusters are predicted to be acquired before more marked structures. This study aims to verify if phonotactic acquisition proceeds according to the predictions of markedness and if both principles of phonotactic preferability are able to predict cluster behaviour. The assumptions of the two models will be tested empirically in a corpus-based study. It is hoped that the study will enrich the crosslinguistic data pool regarding phonotactic acquisition.

145

146  Part 1: Typical Development

Polish Phonotactic Inventory

Polish is a consonantal language with a rich phonotactic inventory. Polish consonant clusters are notorious for their size and phonological structure. As for size, clusters of 5 elements are attested intramorphemically, e.g. /strfj-/ in Strwiąż ‘a river name’ /strfjɔw̃ʂ/, and intermorphemically 6-member sequences are possible, e.g. medial /-mpstfj-/ in przestęp+stwie ‘crime’-loc. /pʂɛstɛmpstfjɛ/. In sandhi phenomena, the maximum consonantal string may include 11 segments, e.g. przestępstw w Strwiążu ‘crime-gen.pl in Strwiąż’ /pʂɛstɛmpstf f strfjɔw̃ʐu/. Recent studies show that a typical Polish word is likely to contain at least one cluster: specifically, words without clusters constitute between 15% and 18% depending on the resource studied (Zydorowicz et al., 2016; Zydorowicz et al., submitted). As regards quantitative data, the distribution of cluster types of different lengths in three word positions is presented in Table 8.1. The data was extracted from Subtlex-pl (Mandera et al., 2014) and subsequently transcribed for another project (Zydorowicz et al., submitted). As noted above, a considerable portion of the clusters are morphologically driven. Dressler and Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (2006) draw a line between lexical clusters, which are phonologically motivated and morphonotactic clusters, i.e. morphologically motivated. To illustrate with examples from Polish and English, /sk-/ is a lexical cluster in skoczyć ‘to jump’ and a morphonotactic cluster in s+kończyć ‘to finish’perf.; /-nd/ is a lexical cluster in find and a morphonotactic cluster in fine+d. Table 8.2 presents the (mor)phonotactic potential of Polish. Clusters of different lengths occurring in three word positions are illustrated with examples of lexical and morphonotactic realisations. ‘+’ indicates the presence of a morphological boundary whereas ‘-’ denotes no representatives available for a particular subgroup. Table 8.1 and Table 8.2 clearly demonstrate how complex and rich Polish phonotactic inventory is in terms of cluster size as well as phonological composition. The ordering of consonants in a string has traditionally been captured in phonology by the concept of sonority, which is discussed in the following section. Table 8.1  Polish phonotactic inventory (cluster types) Size

Initial

Medial

Final

2

187

423

119

3

151

629

36

4

20

152

7

5

—

18

6

—

1

358

1223

total

1 — 163

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  147

Table 8.2  (Mor)phonotactic potential of Polish in terms of cluster size Length

Status

2

lex

Initial

Medial

Final

/sk-/ skoczyć ‘to jump’

/-br-/ dobry ‘good’

/-kt/ nikt ‘nobody’

/sk-/ s+kończyć ‘to end’-perf.

/-tp-/ od+powiedzieć ‘to reply’

/-ɕʨ/ kraś+ć ‘to steal’

/str-/ strach ‘fear’

/-str-/ siostra ‘sister’

/-rʂtʂ/ barszcz ‘borsch’

/str-/ s+trawić ‘to digest’

/-tkr-/ od+kręcić ‘to unscrew’

/-jɕʨ/ przyjś+ć ‘to come’

/pstr-/ pstry ‘motely’

/-kstr-/ ekstra ‘super’

—

morph

/fstʂ-/ ws+trzymać ‘withhold’

/-pstf-/ głup+stwo ‘silliness’

/-pstf/ głup+stw ‘silliness’-gen.pl

lex

/strfj-/ Strwiąż ‘river name’

—

—

morph

—

/-mpstf-/ przestęp+stwo ‘crime’

/-mpstf/ przestęp+stw ‘crime’-gen.pl

lex

—

—

—

morph

—

/-mpstf-/ przestęp+stwie ‘crime’-loc.sg

—

morph

3

lex

morph

4

5

6

lex

Models of Phonotactic Markedness

Apart from providing descriptive accounts of phonotactic inventories, linguists have also tried to capture the force that sanctions the existence of clusters and determines the order of segments in a cluster. Two proposals have been put forward: the Sonority Sequencing Generalisation and the Net Auditory Distance principle. The Sonority Sequencing Generalisation

The first proposal to account for the organisation of sounds in a sequence exploits the notion of sonority. The first mention of the term dates back to the second half of the 19th century to the work of Whitney (1865), who observed that sounds can be ranked according to the degree of stricture in their production. However, it was Sievers (1901), Jespersen (1904) and Saussure (1916) who applied this ranking to describe syllable structures. Sonority is most frequently referred to as sound loudness (Parker, 2008), and is associated with the aperture of the vocal tract in production and sound’s propensity for voicing (Yavaş,

148  Part 1: Typical Development

2003). Selkirk (1984) proposed the Sonority Sequencing Generalisation, which holds that the sonority of segments should decrease from the vowel outwards. Since then sonority has been believed to play a crucial role in determining the order of segments in clusters in phonologies of the world’s languages (Yavaş, 2003). In the course of time, a variety of sonority scales have been proposed, differing in the degree of detail. For instance, Zec (1995) proposed a three-point sonority scale with vowels being the most sonorous sounds, obstruents being the least sonorous and sonorants placed in between. In contrast, Parker (2008) posits 17 classes of sounds in the hierarchy. low vowels 17 mid peripheral vowels 16 high peripheral vowels 15 mid interior vowels 14 high interior vowels 13 glides 12 rhotic approximants 11 flaps 10 laterals 9 trills 8 nasals 7 voiced fricatives 6 voiced affricates 5 voiced stops 4 voiceless fricatives 3 voiceless affricates 2 voiceless stops 1

Following the assumptions of sonority, the word trunk represents a well-formed syllable with an ascending onset and a descending coda. In contrast, the word strict represents sonority violation at both word edges. In the present contribution, a moderately detailed six-point scale proposed by Foley (1972) will be adopted as it ensures a direct comparison with the second model of phonotactic preference, i.e. the Net Auditory Distance principle (to be discussed in the next subsection), which also posits a six-point scale along the manner continuum (Figure 8.1). Another moot point in shaping a sonority scale is the status of affricates. Due to their complex geometric structure and their inability to form clusters with other consonants in some languages (e.g. English), oral stop – fricative – nasal – liquid – glide – vowel (5) – (4) – (3) – (2) – (1) – (0) Figure 8.1  The sonority scale adopted in the present work (Foley, 1972)

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  149

affricates have often been omitted and excluded from the scales (Yavaş, 2003). Linguists who do acknowledge their presence on a sonority continuum place them between stops and fricatives (Goldsmith, 1990; Katamba, 1989; Lass, 1984; Yavaş, 2003). In the present contribution, affricates form an intermediate class between plosives and fricatives and are assigned 0.5 value. This policy is compatible with the treatment of affricates by NAD (section below on NAD). Steriade (1982) suggests that there may be several sonority scales operating in different languages. Phonological distinctions which translate into sonority differences, e.g. voicing, continuancy, nasality or coronality, do not always ‘play a role in the relative sonority computations required for different languages’ (Steriade, 1982: 97). Since it was proposed at the beginning of the 20th century, sonority has been used to account for the organisation of segments within syllables in languages of the world and its assumptions have been tested in different areas of external evidence, for example, first language acquisition (cf. section below on the role of sonority in cluster production), second language acquisition (Broselow & Finer, 1991; Carlisle, 1991, 1994,), disordered speech (Ball et al., 2016; Béland et al., 1990; Blumstein, 1978; Romani & Calabrese, 1998) and neurolinguistic science (Berent et al., 2014; Ulbrich et al., 2016; Wiese et al., 2017). The role of sonority is visible in the organisation of phonotactic inventories in the languages of the world (Yavaş, 2003), e.g. sonority-abiding ordering of segments /plV/ is favoured over a sonority reversal /lpV/; furthermore, larger sonority distances are preferred over smaller ones, e.g. /prV/ is favoured over /frV/. However, the concept of sonority has not been free from criticism. First of all, it is not capable of accounting for the existence of all clusters. The classical examples include a series of /s/ + stop clusters which are common cross-linguistically despite representing sonority reversals. Conversely, clusters such as /knV/, /tlV/, /rwV/ abide by sonority, however, they are dispreferred cross-linguistically to various degrees: /knV/ is impermissible in contemporary English, but is acceptable in German and Polish, /tlV/ is non-existent in English or German, but still acceptable in Polish, in turn, /rwV/ is disallowed in all of the aforementioned languages. These examples show that there is more to cluster organisation than sonority itself. Further criticism comes from the work of Ohala and Kawasaki-Fukumori (1997) who claim that sonority is an empty contrast, which might as well be called the temperature of a sound, with cold and hot sounds placed at two opposite ends of the continuum. Instead, they propose a principle of syntagmatic contrast or modulation, which is based on several empirical parameters such as amplitude, fundamental frequency, spectrum, source characteristics and duration. The analysis in terms of these criteria helps understand that on the one hand, there is nothing anomalous in /s/ + stop sequences, and, on the other hand, that sonority-abiding

150  Part 1: Typical Development

sequences such as /wu/ and /ji/ are disfavoured cross-linguistically as the contrast between them is insufficient (Ohala, 2010). Similar illustrations are provided by Jones (2016) who states that numerous difficulties accounting for sC clusters present in many European languages or the scarcity of sequences of the type /bw, ji, bm/ cross-linguistically, could be overcome by adapting the approach termed acoustic-auditory recoverability, which is capable of explaining these patterns in terms of the degree of modulation of the acoustic signal and the preservation of acoustic cues to segment identity. Finally, Bernhardt and Stemberger (1998) use sonority as a measure to determine how vowel-like a sound is, but at the same time, the authors bring into question the effect of ‘global’ sonority. They suggest that it may be features themselves that play a greater role in formulating phonotactic constraints. Each feature possesses a high-sonority value characteristic of vowels, e.g. [−consonantal, +sonorant, +continuant, +voice] and a low-sonority feature characteristic of consonants, i.e. [+consonantal, −sonorant, −continuant, –voice]. Yavaş (2003) states that although the definition of sonority as a single property may be elusive, its role in organising segments within syllables should not be ignored. Frisch (2015) studied consonant cluster type frequency in the word-initial and final positions in 47 languages and its relation to sonority. The results revealed a 70% compliance with sonority. Frisch concludes that ‘[l]inguistically significant phonotactic patterns need not be absolute, but can be statistical’ (Frisch, 2015: 9). Parker (2008) searched for physical evidence for sonority by conducting sound measurements in three languages, i.e. English, Spanish, Quechua, and concluded that sound intensity largely corresponds to sonority indices. Parker (2017: 1) overviewed 264 studies testing the role of sonority in experimental works and concluded that although the studies yielded mixed results, in general, they provide ‘moderate support for the linguistic relevance of sonority’. Numerous studies and literature overviews in the edited collection by Ball and Müller (2016) point to mixed results for the role of sonority in behavioural data (e.g. Ball et al. (2016) for disordered speech, Barlow (2016) for acquisition data). Let us now characterise the Polish phonotactic inventory in terms of its adherence to the SSG. The sonority scale defined in Figure 8.1 (with the inclusion of affricates as a category mediating between plosives and fricatives) has been used by Zydorowicz and Orzechowska (2017) and Orzechowska and Zydorowicz (2019) for the description of Polish phonotactics. According to the authors, Polish double clusters at word edges largely obey the SSG, however, plateaus and sonority reversals are attested as well. The data for Polish bear a striking resemblance to Slovenian clusters, reported by Stemberger and Cháves-Peón (2015), where sonority reversals exist but belong to the minority of clusters.

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  151

Table 8.3  Compliance of double clusters at word edges with the SSG Cluster types

Word types

sonority abiding

plateaus and reversals

sonority abiding

plateaus and reversals

lex

79 75%

27 25%

1539 82%

345 18%

morph

7 33%

14 67%

77 30%

176 70%

mixed

6 33%

12 67%

n/a

n/a

lex

39 75%

13 25%

299 83%

60 17%

morph

0 0%

0 0%

209 100%

0 0%

mixed

2 100%

0 0%

n/a

n/a

CC status word-initial context

word-final context

Note: lex = a lexical cluster, morph = a morphologically-driven cluster, mixed = a cluster type which may have a phonological or morphological motivation1.

Table 8.4  Sonority-abiding and -violating clusters: examples Sonority-abiding clusters

Plateaus

Sonority reversals

word-initial context CC

/pl-/ plac ‘square’

/t͡ʂʨ -/ czcić ‘to worship’

/wk-/ łkać ‘to weep’

CCC

/z+mj-/ zmieszać ‘to mix’

/fs+x-/ wschodzić ‘to rise’

/str-/ struś ‘ostrich’

CCCC

/ɡʐmj-/grzmieć ‘to thunder’

—

/pstr-/ pstry ‘motely’

word-final context CC

/-rk/ park ‘park’

/-kt/ nikt ‘nobody’

/-tr/ wiatr ‘wind’

CCC

/-rʂtʂ / barszcz ‘borsch’

—

/-kst/ tekst ‘text’

Table 8.3 provides precise data regarding sonority compliance in cluster types and word types in a dictionary (Polish) and includes information about the morphological status of clusters, and Table 8.4 illustrates sonority patterns with examples2. The Net Auditory Distance principle

The Net Auditory Distance principle (henceforth NAD) stems from the Beats-and-Binding model of phonotactics (Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2002, 2009, 2014), which in, turn is embedded in the framework of Natural Phonology (Donegan & Stampe, 1979; Dressler, 1984, 1985; Stampe, 1969, 1979). The model determines well-formedness conditions holding for double and triple clusters in all word positions. It is based

152  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 8.5  Places and manners of articulation in the Polish inventory (DziubalskaKołaczyk et al., 2012, 2014) Obstruent Stop

Sonorant

Fricative Nasal Affricate

5.0

4.5

Liquid

Glide

Vowel

1.5 1.0

0

Lateral Rhotic 4.0

pb

3.0

2.5

2.0

m

w

w̃

fv td

kɡ

t͡s d͡z

sz

t͡ʂ d͡ʐ

ʂʐ

t͡ɕ d͡ʑ

ɕʑ x

n

l r

ɲ ŋ

1.0

bilabial

1.5

labiodental

2.0

(post-)dental

2.3

alveolar

Labial

Coronal

2.6 alveolar-palatal

j

ȷ̃

3.0

palatal

w

w̃

3.5

velar

Dorsal

4.0

Radical

5.0

Glottal

on the principle of contrast, which is obtained by the inclusion of three parameters: manner of articulation (henceforth MoA), place of articulation (PoA), and a difference in a sonorant and obstruent in a cluster. Table 8.5 presents the Polish inventory manner- and placewise alongside with values assigned to them. The difference between a sonorant and an obstruent in a sequence is expressed by 1 point (0 if there is no difference). For the purpose of this study, well-formedness conditions for twomember initial and final sequences will be presented (cf. Figures 8.2 and 8.3) and illustrated with examples. The condition reads as follows: in word-initial double clusters, the Net Auditory Distance (NAD) between the two consonants should be greater than or equal to the sonority distance between a vowel and a consonant neighbouring on it. The condition for word-final clusters is a mirror image of the condition for the word-initial context, i.e. the contrast between the two consonants must be greater than (or equal to) the contrast between the vowel and C1. C1C2V-

NAD (C1,C2) ≥ NAD (C2,V)

Figure 8.2  The well-formedness condition for word-initial double clusters

-VC1C2

NAD (V, C1) ≤ NAD (C1,C2)

Figure 8.3  The well-formedness condition for word-final double clusters

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  153

The calculations of cluster goodness are illustrated below. CC initial: NAD (C1,C2) ≥ NAD (C2,V) NAD CC = |MOA1 - MOA2| + |POA1 - POA2| + S/O NAD CV = |MOA2 - MOAV| + S/O prV as in praca ‘work’ NAD CC = |5-2|+|1-2.3|+1 = 3+1.3+1 = 5.3 NAD CV = |2-0|+0 = 2+0=2 5.3 > 2; difference 3.3 The preference NAD (C1,C2) ≥ NAD (C2,V) is observed since 5.3 > 2. Vkt as in nikt ‘nobody’ NAD CC = |5-5|+|3.5-2|+0 = 0+1.5+0 = 1.5 NAD CV = |0-5|+1 = 5+1=6 1.5 < 6, difference -4.5 The preference NAD (V, C1) ≤ NAD (C1,C2) is not observed, which results in a negative evaluation of the cluster.

Clusters which fulfil the criteria formulated above are termed preferred whereas clusters which do not comply with the conditions are referred to as dispreferred. In order to perform efficient largescale calculations, the NAD calculator has been devised (DziubalskaKołaczyk, Pietrala, & Aperliński, 2014). The tool operates on five languages: English, Polish, German, Russian and Ukrainian, and is accessible online at http://wa.amu.edu.pl/nadcalc/. The principle has been tested in different areas of external evidence (Marecka & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2014; Zydorowicz & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2017; Zydorowicz et al., 2016; Zydorowicz & Orzechowska, 2017). The evaluation of Polish 2-element clusters at word edges is presented in Table 8.6 (dictionary data from Bartnicka & Sinielnikoff, 1999). The comparison of the two models with respect to dictionary data in Polish revealed that nearly a quarter of word-initial lexical double cluster types (24%) was evaluated differently by the two models (Zydorowicz & Orzechowska, 2017). The difference relies in the fact that clusters which are characterised by a small sonority distance (1 or 0.5) no longer fulfil the conditions specified by NAD. In the word-final position, a fifth of lexical cluster types (20%) was evaluated differently. It must be acknowledged that both principles, sonority and NAD, entail a considerable degree of arbitrariness. Both measures adopt numerical scales where manner features tend to be distributed at the relatively equal distance of 1. The NAD principle incorporates another dimension which may play a role in shaping phonotactic inventories, i.e. the place of articulation (some homorganic sequences are dispreferred in

154  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 8.6  The quality of word-initial and final clusters in Polish (adapted from Zydorowicz & Orzechowska, 2017) Cluster types CC status

Word types

preferred

dispreferred

preferred

dispreferred

lex

54 51%

52 49%

1031 55%

853 45%

morph

4 19%

17 81%

56 22%

197 78%

mixed

5 28%

13 72%

—

—

lex

28 54%

24 46%

151 42%

208 58%

morph

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

209 100%

mixed

0 0%

2 100%

—

—

word-initial context

word-final context

languages, e.g. word-initial /tl dl pw/). It is another empirical (phonetic) question to verify whether the articulatory – auditory differences between the place and manner features on the scales deserve to be evenly distributed. Consequently, the shape of the scales assumed here shall serve as a starting point with the reservation that the number of the criteria that influence cluster formation and their production as well as their weight may be subject to modification. The two measures defined above are known to indicate the degree of cluster markedness. The concept of markedness dates back to the works of Trubetzkoy (1939) and is used to describe linguistic structures by assigning binary values of marked vs unmarked or by placing linguistic structures on a continuum from the most to the least marked. The following diagnostics have been associated with the feature marked: less natural, more complex, less common, less stable, acquired later (cf. Rice (1999) for a summary of marked vs unmarked diagnostics). To sum up, markedness stands in opposition to cluster preference, cluster goodness or cluster naturalness. The following section is devoted to the discussion of how phonotactics evolves in a child. Phonotactic Acquisition From the emergence of clusters to full mastery

The production of clusters begins at the end of the second year of life. In the first stages of phonological development, i.e. in the phase of cooing and babbling, clusters are not attested. Stoel-Gammon (1987) reports that children aged 2;0 are capable of producing some consonantal

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  155

sequences. Lleó and Prinz (1996) state that the correct pronunciation of clusters commences at 1;10 for initial clusters and 1;5 for the wordmedial context. Based on the observations of his son’s first attempts at words with clusters, French (1989) reports on the production of [bʋ] for /br/ at the age of 1;10 and [nj] at 1;11. Gwozdiew (1961) reports that Russian children start to produce clusters at the age 1;8-1;10. Zydorowicz (2010) observed the development of a Polish child between the period 1;7 and 3;2 and noted that the first correct renditions of clusters can be heard at the age of 1;7-1;9; such successful productions occur exclusively in the word-medial position. However, at this young age clusters are far from being stable. The first attempts at clusters often result in outputs which strongly diverge from adult targets. Children apply a range of phonological processes to simplify clusters, examples of which include segment deletion, substitution, assimilation, epenthesis, and coalescence (Babatsouli & Sotiropoulos, 2018; Chervela, 1981; Stampe, 1969; Tobin, 1997; Zydorowicz, 2009). The application of the processes is a strategy of coping with marked structures. The progression in the acquisition of syllable structures was of interest to many linguists. For instance, Levelt et al. (1999/2000) analysed the data from 12 Dutch children and found that syllable development begins with the production of CV only, goes through a phase of CV and CVC, subsequently CV, CVC, V, VC, to all syllable types (also those with clusters). Syllable development reported for German and Swedish children proceeds in the following way: CV > CVC > CVCC > CCVCC (Lleó & Prinz, 1996). The onset of phonotactic development in the second year of life is believed to be linked to the maturation of the motor speech mechanism, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to vocabulary spurt: children develop the ability to analyse receptive vocabulary in terms of phonotactic patterns (Ingram, 1991). At the other end of the spectrum, i.e. at the point of cluster mastery, the following results are reported (Table 8.7): in the acquisition of English phonology, onset clusters /tw/ and /kw/ stabilise first at the age of 3;6 (Smit et al., 1990) or 4;0 (Templin, 1957), depending on the study; the last clusters to be acquired are 3-member sequences /spr, str, skr/, which are reported at the age of 8;0 in Smit et al. (1990) and between the age of 5;0 and 7;0 in Templin’s study (Templin, 1957). The 75% criterion refers to the percentage of typically developing children producing a particular cluster at a given age. It must be born in mind that cluster acquisition and segment acquisition are conflated in this table, therefore the difficulty with a given cluster may stem from the inherent difficulty of a member singleton in a cluster, e.g. /r/. The role of sonority in cluster production

One of the central issues in studying phonotactic acquisition is the role of sonority in target-like production of clusters. The role of

156  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 8.7  Age of acquisition for word-initial consonant clusters (adapted from ­McLeod et al., 2001); 75% criterion Smit et al. (1990) clusters

females

/tw, kw/

3;6

males 3;6

Templin (1957) 4;0

/sp, st, sk/

4;6

5;0-6;0

4;0

/sm, sn/

5;6

5;0-7;0

4;0

/sw/

4;6

6;0

7;0

/sl/

6;0

7;0

7;0

/pl, bl, kl, ɡl, fl/

4;0-4;6

4;0-5;6

4;0-5;0

/pr, br, tr, dr, kr, ɡr, fr/

4;6-6;0

5;0-6;0

4;0-4;6

/θr/

7;0

7;0

7;0

/skw/

4;6

7;0

6;0

/spl/

6;0

7;0

7;0

/spr, str, skr/

8;0

8;0

5;0-7;0

sonority may manifest itself in the order of acquisition (sonorityobeying clusters are expected to emerge before sonority-violating ones), in the general reduction rates (sonority-obeying clusters are expected to obtain lower reduction rates), in segment deletion patterns (reductions towards C1 or C2 should reflect the need to obtain a greater contrast between the C and the neighbouring V, cf. Chin, 1996). Finally, cluster reduction rates are expected to reflect the size of the sonority distance in an implicational fashion, i.e. /sw/ is expected to be produced more accurately than /sl/ or /sn/ as the distance between the two consonants in /sw/ is greater than in the remaining two clusters. In other words, correct production of /sn/ implies the acquisition of /sw/. The assumptions of sonority have been extensively examined by linguists. Ohala (1999) examined consonant deletion patterns in children aged 1;9-3;2 and found that children retain the less sonorous consonant of a CC sequence. For example, in fricative + stop sequences, C1 is produced in 14% of the cases whereas C2 is produced in 34%. A series of studies investigating the acquisition of sC clusters with respect to the SSG were conducted by Yavaş and collaborators. Yavaş and Someillan (2005) analysed the production of /s/ + C clusters in Spanish-English bilinguals, aged 3;3-3;7 and found that 1) the sonority distance between C1 and C2 is proportional to production rates, i.e. the greater the distance is, the more accurately the cluster is produced; 2) an implicational relationship of cluster production may be observed: if a subject does not produce /sw/, other clusters of the sC type are reduced as well; conversely, intact production of /s/ + stop clusters implies accuracy in the rendition of clusters with a higher sonority index; 3) homorganicity may have a positive impact on cluster production,

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  157

e.g. one subject produced homorganic sC clusters correctly while they reduced other clusters; another subject produced the homorganic /s/ + nasal cluster correctly and reduced the non-homorganic one. Finally, as regards a potential split into sonority-abiding and sonority-violating clusters, the data lent no support for such a split. Instead the study showed that /s/ + stop clusters pattern together with /s/ + nasals and stand in opposition to /s/ + approximants. Yavaş and Barlow (2006) examined the role of sonority in the production of sC clusters by bilingual Spanish-English children, aged 2;11-4;5. The major findings indicate that in general, bilingual children favour /s/ + [+continuant] clusters as these targets were achieved more successfully. Moreover, the children achieved higher accuracy on clusters complying with the Sonority Sequencing Generalisation. Homorganicity of the two consonants in a cluster turned out to be an insignificant factor affecting the accuracy of pronunciation. Yavaş and Core (2006) studied the production of sC cluster among English-acquiring monolinguals, aged 2;5-4;2. In this experiment, neither the SSP nor the division into /s/ + [+continuant] or /s/ + [–continuant] proved to affect the production rate. Homorganicity did not turn out to be a significant factor either. Stemberger and Cháves-Peón (2015) investigated the acquisition of wordinitial clusters in Valley Zapotec on the basis of the data from 6 children aged 1;8-2;11. The following reduction patterns were identified: C-liquid clusters were reduced to C2 (unlike in English) and C-glide clusters reduced to C1 (regardless of the manner of articulation of the first segment). Clusters with unusual sonority (plateaus or reversals) display higher reduction rates than rising-sonority clusters and a significantly stronger tendency to reduce to C2. The results showed that sonority plays an important role in cluster production. Fikkert and Freitas (2004) investigated the development of consonant + liquid clusters (henceforth CL) and /s/ + stop clusters (henceforth sC) in 12 Dutch and 7 European Portuguese children. The results showed that the majority of Dutch children acquired CL clusters before sC ones but a small subset of the subjects followed a reversed order. In contrast, the European Portuguese children acquired sC clusters earlier than CL ones although both in Dutch and in European Portuguese, the CL type is more frequent. In both languages plosive + liquid sequences were acquired before fricative + liquid CCs. The discrepancies between the acquisition of clusters in the two languages show that phonotactic development depends on the phonological properties of a given language. Eventually, children arrive at the same surface forms but following different paths. Importantly, frequency turned out to matter to a lesser degree as frequent CL clusters were acquired later than sC ones. The production of /s/ + C clusters has occupied a special place in developmental literature. Many linguists have ascribed sC clusters a special status whereby /s/ is extrasyllabic, i.e. it does not belong to the

158  Part 1: Typical Development

onset of the syllable but is appended to the syllable node as an adjunct (consequently, /s/ + stop clusters are labelled as adjunct clusters while the remaining sequences may be considered as true clusters; Goad, 2011; Yavaş, 2006; Yavaş & Babatsouli, 2016). The child data provide inconclusive evidence as to the order of acquisition of /s/ + stop clusters vs other clusters: Grunwell (1981) reports on the performance of a child who applies reduction exclusively to sC clusters while producing all the remaining clusters; on the other hand, studies by Smit (1993) and Gierut (1999) demonstrate that sC clusters are acquired earlier than other clusters. The developmental data does not provide a definite answer to the question whether sC clusters should be split into /s/ + stop and /s/ + sonorant subgroups. Reduction patterns differ depending on the language under scrutiny (Yavaş, 2006; Yavaş & Babatsouli, 2016). Some studies report that the reduction patterns of /s/ + stop and /s/ + nasal CCs stand in opposition to other clusters. While in general the less sonorous segment in a cluster is retained, in /s/ + stop clusters and /s/ + nasal clusters, it is /s/ that tends to be deleted irrespective of the sonority value of C2, e.g. stop [tap] vs small [mol] rather than [sol] (Smit, 1993). In turn, Italian data indicate that /s/ + stop clusters pattern together with /s/ + sonorant clusters, and thus, should all be assigned the adjunct status in the syllable structure (Davis, 1990). Sonority effects are also found in coda production. The situation of coda clusters is determined by the Syllable Contact Law, which states that the preferred syllable contact is that of a high sonority coda, followed by a low sonority onset. This means that kan.di is favoured over kad.ni as in the former syllable sequence C1, /n/, is a more sonorous segment than C2, /d/ (Yavaş, 2003). In acquisition, it is predicted that, unlike in the onset, a minimal sonority slope should be preserved in a cluster deletion process. This hypothesis was corroborated by Ohala (1999) and Lleó and Prinz (1996): children indeed retain the more sonorous segment in the coda position, which supports the view that a minimal sonority descent in the coda position is a natural tendency. Conversely, Bernhardt and Stemberger (1998) report that the behaviour of codas shows two opposing tendencies, namely, a preference for either high or low sonority segments to be retained. In fact, children often reduce nasal + stop clusters to stops (i.e. the less sonorous segment) and also acquire nasal + stop clusters before clusters with larger sonority distances such as liquid / rhotic + stop. The acquisition of Polish phonotactics

The development of Polish phonotactics has been taken up by several scholars applying various methodologies (Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 1999; Łukaszewicz, 2007; Marecka & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2014; Milewski, 2005; Tamburelli et al., 2015; Yavaş & Marecka, 2014; Zydorowicz, 2009,

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  159

2010). Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (1999) reports that the first cluster observed in the data of her subjects appeared still in the first year of life, at the age of 0;11. The next cluster appeared at the age of 1;8; cluster spurt occurred between 1;10 and 2;1. In the initial phases of acquisition medial clusters prevailed and were reduced less frequently than clusters at word edges. Łukaszewicz (2007) analysed cluster simplification processes and registered deletion, coalescence, metathesis and gemination. Her analysis confirmed the view of sonority-based reduction patterns. In turn, Yavaş and Marecka (2014) investigated the production of sC clusters in typically developing children and children with phonological disorders and found that sonority distance between the members of the cluster did not affect accuracy of productions. Milewski (2005) investigated the phonotactic inventory of Polish pre-schoolers and compared the child data with phonotactic inventories identified on the basis of written resources, i.e. popular scientific clusters (henceforth PST) and artistic prose (henceforth AP) (Dobrogowska, 1984, 1990, 1991, 1992). The results showed that children’s phonotactic inventory contains 894 clusters types (all word positions), and constitutes 52% of clusters found in PST and 65% of clusters registered in AP. The lower frequency of clusters in child speech may be explained by the fact that children tend to use concrete vocabulary with a high frequency and possibly a simpler phonological structure. As regards the distribution of clusters in three word positions, initial, medial and final, the general proportion is very similar in child and written data with medials prevailing, finals being the least numerous group and initials being placed in between. The distribution of clusters of various lengths also reflects that found in written language, however, shorter (CC) clusters are slightly more favoured over longer ones (CCC+). The acquisition of phonotactics has also been used to gain an insight into bilingual acquisition. Tamburelli et al. (2015) tested the production of obstruent + liquid clusters and /s/ + obstruent clusters among in Polish-English bilinguals aged 7;01 – 8;11, and compared their performance to age-matched English monolinguals. The study revealed that bilinguals’ performance on the word-initial /s/ + obstruent subset of clusters exceeded that of monolinguals’, which is interpreted as a facilitating effect of bilingualism on phonological development (cf. Kehoe, 2020, 2018, for data on bilingual phonotactic development with various L1 backgrounds).

This Study

The present section is devoted to the presentation of the empirical study including the hypotheses, data, procedure, and results.

160  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 8.8  Participant data Child

Gender

Age range

Bartosz

male

1;07.06-1;11.11

Sessions 1-6

Marta

female

1;07.14-1;08.11

1-6

Kubuś

male

2;01.05-2;05.17

1-7

Wawrzon

male

2;01.24-3;02.00

1-20

Methodology Hypothesis

The hypothesis predicts that unmarked clusters will be retained more successfully in L1 acquisition. The present study addresses the following questions: (1) Does phonotactic acquisition proceed according to the predictions of markedness? (2) Which model of phonotactic preference is more precise at predicting the acquisition patterns? Double clusters at word-edges serve as the testing ground. Data and procedure

The material comes from the CHILDES database (Weist et al., 1984). The subjects were 4 children (2 male and 2 female), aged 1;7-3;2. The participants and data under scrutiny are given in Table 8.8. The children came from middle-class families and were raised in the urban environment of Poznań, Poland. The children’s productions were transcribed using broad phonetic transcription with the help of the open-source Phon software (Rose et al., 2006). All words with consonant sequences at word-edges were extracted from the corpus. Morphologically-driven clusters were excluded from the analysis as phonological predictions are supposed to hold for phonological structures, not necessarily so across two domains (e.g. morphological affixation). This resulted in the ultimate word list of 2089 initial clusters and 534 final ones. It must be stated that this study traces cluster production without considering segmental acquisition in parallel. Results

Tables 8.9 and 8.10 present descriptive statistics regarding the production and modification rates of word-initial and word-final double clusters evaluated by NAD and sonority, respectively. Let us start with several general observations: first of all, one can observe an asymmetry between the left and right hand side of the word in terms of the number of clusters targeted by children (irrespective of their realisation, intact or modified), namely there is a quantitative

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  161

Table 8.9  Descriptive statistics: word-initial and -final clusters evaluated by NAD Initial

Final

intact

modified

total

intact

modified

total

preferred

679 64%

377 36%

1056

70 60%

47 40%

117

dispreferred

328 32%

705 68%

1033

44 11%

373 89%

417

Total

1007 48%

1082 52%

2089

114 21%

420 79%

534

Table 8.10  Descriptive statistics: word-initial and -final clusters evaluated by sonority Initial

Final

intact

modified

total

intact

modified

total

preferred

859 54%

732 46%

1591

108 21%

408 79%

516

dispreferred

148 30%

350 70%

498

6 33%

12 67%

18

Total

1007 48%

1082 52%

2089

114 21%

420 79%

534

advantage of word-initial clusters over word-final ones. This pattern reflects the structure of adult written or spoken corpora (Dobrogowska, 1984, 1990, 1991, 1992; Dunaj, 1985; Zydorowicz et al., 2016; Zydorowicz, 2019) and is compatible with data obtained by Milewski (2005) for kindergarten children. Second, cluster simplification rates in children are very high and amount to 52% word-initially and 79% word-finally. In the tables above, all processes affecting clusters have been subsumed under one umbrella term modifications. Specific processes which have been identified include: • reduction, which is understood as the deletion of one or more segments in a cluster, e.g. kto ‘who’ [ktɔ] → [tɔ]; • substitution where one consonant (or more) in a cluster is substituted with another consonant, schować ‘to hide’ [sxɔvaʨ] → [txɔvaʨ]. • truncation, where the cluster is lost because part of a word / a syllable is deleted, e.g. graniaste ‘angular’ [ɡraɲastɛ] → [natɛ]; • prothesis, which means vowel insertion in front of the cluster który ‘which’ [kturɨ] → [ukturɨ]; • epenthesis, which means splitting the cluster with a vowel, e.g. dwa ‘two’ [dva] → [duva]; • metathesis, which means the consonant reversal, e.g. wsadź ‘put’-imp. [fsaʥ] → [sfaʥ]; • extension, which means consonant insertion, e.g. wiertarka ‘drill’ [vjɛrtarka] → [zvjɛrtarka].

162  Part 1: Typical Development

Table 8.11  Cluster production and the use of modification strategies Intact Reduction Substitution Truncation Prothesis Epenthesis Metathesis Extension Combinations

word-initial clusters 48.2%

29.6%

18.0%

0.7%

0.5%

0.6%

0.1%

0.5%

1.9%

4.5%

0.2%

—

—

—

0.2%

1.9%

word-final clusters 21.3%

71.9%

Babatsouli and Sotiropoulos (2018) have proposed a measure for the quantitative evaluation of the development of clusters in child speech accounting for phonological processes. The precise distribution of processes affecting clusters is provided in Table 8.11. The data for all subjects were summed. Reduction is the most frequent process affecting consonant sequences and is followed by substitution. Other cluster simplification strategies were registered as well, however, their application was sporadic and their frequency did not exceed 1% of all cluster renditions. At times strategies co-occurred, e.g. pracy ‘work’-gen.sg. [praʦɨ] was pronounced as [pɔlaʦɨ], which exemplifies the simultaneous application of substitution and epenthesis. All co-occurring strategies were summed under the term combinations, as the share of particular mash-ups of strategies was rather negligible. It must be noted that the cumulative data does not reveal individual differences between the subjects, who represented different age groups. In fact, Bartosz and Marta, who were younger, obtained higher modification rates (81% and 76% respectively, whereas Kubuś and Wawrzon who were (slightly) older, modified clusters in 61% and 48% of the cases (both word positions cumulatively). Finally, the patterns of CC reduction were examined, i.e. the retention of the first or second element of the cluster. The exhaustive outlook on cluster rendition is shown in Table 8.12. The table includes intact realisation (C1C2), substitutions (sub), other strategies (other; due to their low frequency they are summed), reduction to zero (∅), reduction to C1, reduction to C2, substitution of the consonant retained (S), substitution with the retention of the manner of articulation of C1 (SC1), substitution with the retention of the manner of articulation of C2 (SC2). Table 8.12  The realisations of clusters C1C2

Sub

Other

∅

C1

C2

S

SC1

SC2

82 3.9%

26 1.2%

203 9.7%

178 8.5%

109 5.2%

48 2.3%

61 2.9%

5 0.9%

113 21.2%

181 33.9%

17 3.2%

14 2.6%

59 11.0%

7 1.3%

word-initial clusters 1007 48.2%

375 18.0%

word-final clusters 114 21.3%

24 4.5%

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  163

Table 8.13  Cluster deletion patterns ∅

C1, SC1

C2, SC2

S

Total

rising

22 5.8%

213 55.8%

84 22%

63 16.5%

382

falling

2 1%

32 16.6%

119 61.7%

40 20.7%

193

plateau

2 4%

6 12%

36 72%

6 12%

50

falling

113 29.7%

231 60.6%

24 6.3%

13 3.4%

381

rising

—

6 100%

—

—

6

plateau

—

3 75%

—

1 25%

4

Sonority word-initial clusters

word-final clusters

Of interest are deletions only, thus Table 8.13 provides 4 scenarios of cluster reduction, namely reduction to zero (∅), reduction to C1, reduction to C2 and reduction combined with the substitution of the segment retained (S). However, in the process of data analysis, it turned out that segment substitutions occurring simultaneously with cluster reduction may be of two kinds: (1) the consonant does not share the manner of articulation with the target, e.g. drugą ‘the other one’instr.sg [druɡɔw̃] → [nuɡɔm] (a nasal is not a member of the target cluster /dr-/), in which case the process is treated as a substitution ‘S’; (2) the consonant shares the manner of articulation with the target, but the place of articulation is changed, e.g. przygodę ‘adventure’acc. [pʂɨgɔdɛw̃] → [sɨgɔdɛ] (no full consonant identity, but manner identity is guaranteed), in which case the data was labelled as SC2 (= an approximation towards C2) and counted together with C2. To recapitulate, in this liberal approach, C1 is counted together with SC1, C2 is considered together with SC2, and S comprises all cases where there was no compatibility in terms of the manner of articulation with the target C1 or C2. Word-initial data shows that sonority is an important factor determining segment retention in sonority-obeying clusters. This manifests itself in reduction to C1, which is a less sonorous segment in a string. In sonority reversals C2 is preserved more frequently, which also corroborates the assumptions of sonority, as C2 is less sonorous in a sonority reversal. Interestingly, children also opt for C2 in plateau clusters. The data in the word-final context is rather scarce, but the tendency which can be observed is a preference for C1 retention (this observation is most representative in sonority-abiding / falling clusters, and supports the view that a minimal sonority descent in the coda is expected).

164  Part 1: Typical Development

Statistical analysis

The two models of phonotactic preferability evaluate clusters in a binary fashion as preferred (unmarked) and dispreferred (marked), but they also have a potential to evaluate clusters in a linear fashion making a distinction between, say, /s/ + stop → /sx/ → /sm/ → /sl/ → /sw/ (NAD makes a distinction even within the /s/ + plosive class). Therefore two statistical analyses will be performed, one testing the predictive power of a binary evaluation and the other testing the scalar measures of cluster goodness. The following factors have been included in the statistical analysis: (a) age, operationalised as a binary distinction: younger vs older; (b) word-position: initial vs final; (c) markedness measure: NAD or sonority, expressed in a binary or scalar manner; (d) stress (a cluster in a stressed vs unstressed position); (e) word length (expressed by the number of syllables / beats)3; (f) word frequency (appended from Mandera et al., 2014). A mixed effects logistic regression model was fitted to the dataset with the lme4 package (Bates et al., 2015) in R (R Core Team, 2018) to examine factors affecting cluster rendition (intact or modified) with speaker, word and cluster as random effects and the factors a)-f) as fixed effects. The four statistical models to be presented differ from each other solely by the measure of cluster preference: binary vs scalar, NAD-defined vs sonority-defined. I modelled the probability of cluster modification; consequently, the dependent variable was coded as 1 = modified or 0 = intact. Analysis 1: NAD and sonority as binary measures

Table 8.14 presents the results for NAD, whose effects are visually represented in Figure 8.4. The hypothesis predicting children’s better performance on preferred clusters has been corroborated (p < 0.001). Two other variables reached the significance level, namely cluster position in a word and age. More specifically, word-initial clusters are reduced less frequently than word-final ones. This is compatible with the findings of Demuth and Kehoe (2006), who point to the advantage of word-initial obstruent + liquid clusters over word-final ones, but goes against the study of Kirk and Demuth (2005) who found the advantage of the word-final position on cluster production (though the study was limited to word-initial sC clusters and their word-final mirror images). Unsurprisingly, age is a good predictor of cluster production (even though the time span under scrutiny covers only 19 months), with older children scoring better. Three factors turned out to be insignificant, namely, logarithmic frequency of words, word length

The Acquisition of Polish Phonotactics at Word Edges: A Markedness Account  165

Table 8.14  The effects of binary NAD on cluster rendition: the summary Rendition Predictors (Intercept)

Log-Odds

std. Error

CI

z value

p

0.93

0.58

-0.21 – 2.07

1.60

position (initial)

–0.82

0.37

–1.55 – –0.09

–2.19

0.028

nad_binary (P)

–1.65

0.31

–2.26 – –1.04

–5.32

voiced fricatives > voiceless fricatives > voiced affricates > voiceless affricates >voiced stops > voiceless stops (Clements, 1990; Steriade, 1982). The sonority of segments is a decisive factor for their arrangement within a syllable. Studies have shown that languages prefer less sonorant onsets with a much more sonorant nucleus. The coda decreases in its sonority relative to the nucleus but is still more sonorant than the onset ahead (for example: /kumˈkum/ ‘cattle’). In this manner, a perceptual prominence is created on the border between them (Kenstowicz, 1994). Hence, sonorant codas are the least marked coda type cross-linguistically (Gnanadesikan, 1996; Pater, 1997) and they are acquired before marked (obstruent) codas. Sometimes, inter-vocalic consonants are ambisyllabic. In German, for example, a single inter-vocalic consonant after a short vowel can belong either to the coda or to the following onset, but a single consonant after a long vowel belongs to the following onset. Thus, ambisyllabicity is related to the phonological requirement that all stressed syllables in German are bimoraic (Lleó et al., 2003). Stress

As mentioned previously, children tend to produce a final coda before a medial coda (for example: French: Rose, 2000; English: Goad & Brannen, 2003; Hebrew: Ben-David, 2015). It has been proposed that this is because final consonants are not analyzed as codas, but as onsets of empty syllables, i.e. syllables without nuclei. The opposite was found for the acquisition of the coda in two monolingual Spanish- speaking children (Lleó, 2003) who showed a clear preference for medial codas. Since the vocabulary of young Spanishspeaking children mainly contains disyllables, this finding could not

256  Part 2: Atypical Development

be explained in relation to binarity constraints. In Spanish, which is a weight-insensitive language, the production of a higher prosodic structure licenses the use of lower prosodic constituents. Therefore, codas are licensed by the head syllable of the foot. The majority of the first acquired codas in Spanish are liquids and nasals appearing medially (Lleó, 2003). They also appear as the last segment of function words such as the definite and indefinite article since they are generally linked to the following onset, which licenses their Place feature. As a result of this study, Lleó (2003) emphasized that segmental phenomena are associated with prosodic and rhythmic phenomena, and are also affected by morphology. Stress in Hebrew can be in one of the last three syllables: Final – when the stress in on the final syllable (/kiˈse/ ‘chair’, /mitʁiˈja/ ‘umbrella’), Penultimate – when the stress is the second from the end (one before the final syllable) (/ˈmelex/ ‘king’, /ʁaˈkevet/ ‘train’) or Antepenultimate – when the stress is the third from the end (stress is on two syllables before the final syllable) (/ˈtelefon/ ‘phone’, /ˈotobus/ ‘bus’ (Silber-Varod et al., 2016). Lexical stress in spoken Hebrew is usually either penultimate or final. While final stress is the dominant stress in Hebrew, antepenultimate stress is rare, found mostly in borrowed nouns (Adam & Bat-El, 2009). Coda acquisition in typically developing Hebrew-speaking children

In Hebrew, CV syllables are more frequent than syllables with codas. Specifically, 45% of syllables in Hebrew have a coda and 55% do not (Ben-David & Bat-El, 2016). Since only 1% of the codas are complex, only the simple final coda will be discussed here. Acquisition of the final coda among Hebrew-speaking children with typical phonological development occurs between 2;6-3;0 years, while the medial coda (mid-word) occurs between 3;6-4;0 years (Ben-David, 2015). Typical phonological development in Hebrew includes several stages (Ben-David, 2001) that are outlined below: First stage: codas are omitted in all syllables and only include an onset and a nucleus (i.e. CV, such as [ko] for /kos/ ‘cup’, and [saˈsa] for /safˈsal/ ‘bench’). The only exceptions are words that include VC (i.e. [af] for /af/ ‘nose’) in which case children produce the coda, probably to maintain semantic contrast. Second stage: a final coda is included only in iambic words produced as monosyllables. The stressed final syllable is produced with a coda (i.e. [xot] for /mafte’xot/ ‘keys’). This supports the importance of stress in coda acquisition, as it is acquired in stressed syllables prior to unstressed syllables. The earlier production of codas in iambic words may result from the fact that iambic words are much more frequent than trochaic words in Hebrew.

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  257

Third stage: a final coda is produced in disyllabic and multisyllabic words regardless of the stress location (i.e. the coda is also produced in the unstressed syllable, such as in [ˈozen] /ˈozen/ ‘ear’). Since the final coda is positioned at the same location as that in which the initial acquisition of the units emerged, the length of the word does not affect the acquisition of the full syllable structure in this unit. This syllable is the first to be acquired prosodically and the first to be filled with its syllabic structure. Fourth stage: typically developing children acquire medial codas, albeit in a limited manner. Initially, codas appear only in penultimately stressed words, but in longer words codas are not produced in a nonfinal syllable ([ˈsavta] /ˈsavta/ ‘grandmother’, but [miˈledet] /mikledet/ ‘keyboard’). This process of acquiring medial codas is also reported in other languages, but at a later stage (Kirk & Demuth, 2006). Fifth stage: a medial coda is only produced in disyllabic words [max’vat] ‘pan’. Nevertheless, only the final coda is produced in longer words ([sadaˈlim] for /sandaˈlim/ ‘sandals’). Sixth stage: full and proper productions of codas emerge in all syllables similar to the target word.

These stages in the developmental language trajectory of TD children support the claim that the gradual process of coda acquisition depends on key factors such as its position (final or the medial), its presence or absence in a stressed syllable, the structure of the syllable and the length of the word. This study was designed to examine whether these factors play the same role in atypical populations, such as children with childhood apraxia of speech. Childhood apraxia of speech

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a neurological childhood speech sound disorder in which the precision and consistency of movements underlying speech are impaired in the absence of neuromuscular deficits, resulting in poor speech intelligibility (ASHA, 2007). Currently, a lack of consensus exists regarding the specific phonological and motoric characteristics of this population, making early diagnosis a complex task. The ASHA ad hoc CAS committee (2007: 3) stated that CAS may present as: ‘(a) inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels in repeated productions of syllables or words, (b) lengthened and disrupted co-articulatory transitions between sounds and syllables, and (c) inappropriate prosody, especially in the realization of lexical or phrasal stress’. However, the committee’s report stipulates that these features are not incontrovertibly the necessary and sufficient signs of CAS, indicating some reservations on this issue. In fact, studies

258  Part 2: Atypical Development

in the literature have identified other significant (but not crucial) criteria, as outlined in the following section: Assimilation: Among TD children, assimilation gradually decreases till the age of 3 years (Grunwell, 1981), or until the minimal word stage (e.g. Grunwell, 1982 for English; Berg, 1992 for German). In comparison, assimilation in children with CAS continues until they produce foursyllable words and sometimes later (Bat-El, 2009; Tubul-Lavy, 2005). Examples of this phenomenon can be seen in how they produce the word helicopter as [pepiˈpope] or hen /taʁnegolet/ as [geˈgoge]. Vowel disruptions: TD children acquire five vowels by the age of 2;6 years. (Ben-David, 2015). In comparison, children with CAS may present with many vowel disruptions (in addition to assimilation) (e.g. Fish, 2015). Intra-word and inter-word inconsistency: TD children demonstrate variability in intra- and inter-word consistency as they undergo the processes of development and learning new words (Fikkert, 1994; Murray et al., 2014; Peters & Menn, 1993). Children with CAS present with a different type of inconsistency, such as that they may produce a segment in long words but omit it in shorter words. For example, they omit the segment /m/ in the coda in a one-syllabic word [xu] for /xum/ ‘brown’, yet they produce it in a four syllabic word [mina’saim] for /mixnaˈsaim/ ‘pants’ (Tubul-Lavy, 2012). To distinguish between these two processes, Holm et al. (2007) suggested using the term ‘variability’ when referring to TD children, and ‘inconsistency’ when referring to children with atypical phonological development (including those with CAS). A-synchronization: In TD children, the prosodic word, the syllabic, and the segmental level are all acquired in tandem. Among children with CAS the balance between the acquisition of the prosodic word and the filling of the syllable with onset and coda is disrupted. Namely, when syllables are added to the word, some only include a nucleus (e.g. [ˈoou] for /ˈotobus/ ‘bus’) (Adi-Bensaid & Tubul-Lavy, 2009).

Some of the phonological processes in children with CAS are similar to the processes among TD children. An example is the universal articulatory principles of complexity among Italian-speaking children (acquiring Italian), children with CAS and Italian-speaking adults with acquired speech impairment (Romani et al., 2017). Roamni et al. (2017) analyzed the frequency of the articulatory complexity within a corpus of Italian words, rankings of the age of phoneme acquisition, and the rate of phoneme errors made by these children. The comparison of the error rate between complex and simpler consonants among populations with articulatory impairments, contributes to our understanding of segment complexity. The authors concluded that the higher error rate in complex versus simple consonants represents the underlying principle that drives

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  259

language learning, language loss and the distribution of sounds within and across languages. Given the sparse information concerning phonological processes in CAS, especially among Hebrew-speaking children, this chapter hopes to contribute in this direction through the elucidation of the characteristic manner in which these children acquire codas. Method

The present study is part of a larger study (Tubul-Lavy, 2005) examining phonological acquisition of Hebrew-speaking children with CAS. The same methodological procedures were used, that are described next. Subjects

The participants were 16 children (5 girls and 11 boys) ranging in age from 2;6-5;6 at the time of the first recording session (M = 3;11). All participants were Hebrew speakers diagnosed with CAS by experienced speech therapists. The inclusion criteria were as follows: difficulty in oral praxis (i.e. moving parts of the tongue, lips and cheeks), difficulty in diadochokinesis, inconsistency in production of target word and increasing difficulty in articulation of longer and more complex words ([ten] for /ken/ ‘yes’, [aˈtin] for /saˈkin/ ‘knife’, [kaˈkebek] for /ʁbˈkevet/ ‘train’). In addition, each child presented with at least three phonological processes (e.g. assimilation, deletion and stopping) associated with the simplification of the syllable or the alteration of its segments (for example: [uˈse] for /oˈse] ‘do’, [gaˈgebet] for /maˈgevet/ ‘towel’). Procedure

Each child was recorded during 10 weekly 45-minute sessions individually in a quiet room with a speech and language therapist (the author). The original task included both spontaneous conversation, and naming and imitation of single words. Because of the poor intelligibility of the children’s spontaneous conversation, only naming isolated words were analyzed. The child was asked to name photos that were given to him. The words were taken from a Hebrew articulation test (Ben-David, 2001) and were balanced in terms of segments, their location in the word (initial and medial onset, medial and final coda), the stress pattern (final, penultimate) and the number of syllables in the word (one to four syllables). Out of 113 words of the Hebrew articulation test, 53 words were used in the current research. Words without coda were excluded (most feminine nouns in Hebrew end with affix –a). Twenty-six words were added to balance the characteristics mentioned above, so there was

260  Part 2: Atypical Development

a total of 79 words (Appendix 12.1). The distribution of the segments in the articulation test according to stress and number of syllables is shown in Appendix 12.2. More words were analyzed if the child named the picture differently than the target word (e.g. ‘shirt’ instead of ‘coat’). Two skilled speech and language therapists with over 25 years of clinical practice transcribed the words phonetically and only words that were transcribed identically by both clinicians were included in the data analysis. A total of 1648 productions were analyzed by the 16 CAS participants (i.e. 806 words with a final coda, 335 with a medial coda and 507 with both final and medial codas). Numerical Results

The data on coda acquisition among the Hebrew-speaking children participating in this study were analyzed according to the place of coda within the word (final versus medial), production frequency, markedness, the length of the word (number of syllables) and stress location. Tables 12.1 and 12.2 summarize the number and percentages of final coda productions in children with CAS. Any consonant in the coda (adult like or substitution) was considered as a production. Tables 12.1 and 12.2 do not include antepenultimate trisyllabic words, due to the limited number of such words found among the children’s productions, in keeping with their paucity in the Hebrew language. Table 12.1 presents the number of final codas produced by all the children with CAS and the total number of target words in the test (in parentheses). Tables 12.3 and 12.4 summarize the number and percentages of medial coda productions in children with CAS and the total number of target words in the test (in parentheses). Table 12.1  Final coda productions (tokens) No. of syllables

Final

Penultimate

Monosyllables

1

128 (256)

164 (288)

217 (320)

2

52 (90)

56 (112)

—

3

62 (90)

5 (32)

—

4

15 (32)

66 (96)

—

Table 12.2  Final coda productions (%) No. of syllables

Final

Penultimate

1

Monosyllables 68%

2

57%

50%

3

50%

58%

4

47%

69%

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  261

Table 12.3  Medial coda productions (tokens) No. of syllables

Final

Penultimate

2

8 (64)

8 (48)

3

2 (16)

0 (0)

4

0 (0)

10 (64)

No. of syllables

Final

Penultimate

2

13%

17%

3

10%

4%

4

0%

16%

Table 12.4  Medial coda productions (%)

Table 12.5  Most frequently produced codas (%) Sonorants, /t/

/m, n, l/ + /t/

60%

Sibilants

/s, z, c, ∫/

23%

Continuants

/f, v, x/

13%

Stops

/d, k, g/

4%

Table 12.6  The produced codas according to their segments (%) Segment

Final

Penultimate

Segment

Final

Penultimate

m

68.47

38.84

∫

21.28

33.33

n

59.10

71.25

s

20.58

37.50

l

62.33

58.39

z

26

20.30

t

50.60

49.13

c

33.33

33.33

d

6.47

5.11

v

18.80

16.75

k

4.56

4.11

f

25.90

27.30

g

3.22

3.60

x

23.35

25.79

Table 12.5 presents the percentage of adult-like targeted segments according to their sonority categories. Table 12.6 divides the categories into segments and presents the percentage of each produced coda. Discussion

As stated earlier, the acquisition of coda is influenced by variables such as: (a) word length, (b) word frequency, (c) stress location, (d) sonority and (e) the position of the syllable in the word (final or medial). These factors will be discussed in relation to the results in detail next. Word length: The data shown in Table 12.1 indicate that final coda was produced in approximately 50% of the children’s productions, with only a slightly higher rate produced in monosyllabic words (68%) and

262  Part 2: Atypical Development

four-syllable words (69%) ([xu] for /xum/ ‘brown’, [aˈdo] for /aˈdom/ ‘red’ and [minaˈsaim] /mixnaˈsaim/ ‘pants’). The increase in final coda production in monosyllabic words may be due to the greater ease of maintaining a full syllable structure that includes a coda in shorter words than in longer words (Ladefoged, 1993; Port, 1981). The findings of Kirk and Demuth’s (2006) study also support this claim. They asked 15 twoyear-old children with typical language development to imitate words with different phonological shapes and found that the children produced codas more accurately in monosyllabic words than in longer words. For example, the CVC shape in monosyllabic words was produced with a coda and adult like, while in disyllabic words, such as CV.CVC, the coda was not produced accurately. The researchers suggested that this phenomenon may be due to the fact that monosyllabic words have acoustically longer syllables than polysyllabic words. Moreover, it is easier for young children to articulate short words than long ones and, thus, they are more likely to produce final codas in them. It seems that the longer the word is the more difficulty children experience in maintaining targeted syllable structure. As opposed to what has been demonstrated for Hebrew language acquisition (Ben-David, 2015), TD German children acquire codas very quickly even in their first attempts to produce target words - especially final codas (Grijzenhout & Joppen, 1999). A more recent study revealed that only 1.2% of the 17000 nouns and adjectives listed in a modern Hebrew dictionary were monosyllabic (Cohen-Gross, 2015), compared to 8% in German. It may be postulated that the frequency of this structure plays a role in the relatively early coda acquisition found among German-speaking children. The finding of an increase in final coda production in four-syllable words in this study (Tables 12.1 and 12.2) was surprising; especially given that CAS is described as a speech sound disorder in which precision and consistency of speech-related movements are impaired. However, the probable explanation involves the effect of frequency of exposure on this process, as will be shown next. Frequency: That frequency of exposure facilitates faster acquisition of some structures has been aptly demonstrated in the literature (e.g. Ambridge et al., 2015). Similarly, a study by Lleó et al. (2003) compared coda acquisition in Spanish- and German-speaking children. Despite the greater complexity of codas in German, German-speaking children acquired codas before Spanish-speaking children. This phenomenon was also explained by input frequency, since adult corpora indicate that only 26.5% of Spanish syllables include codas compared to 67% of coda containing syllables in German (Mainhold & Stock, cited in Lleó et al., 2003). The relationship between frequency and acquisition was also supported by the results of studies performed on Japanesespeaking (Ota, 2003) and monolingual Spanish-speaking (Lleó et al., 2003) children in which the authors suggested that the relatively low

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  263

frequency of codas led to a later age of coda acquisition. Similarly, when Borràs-Comes and Prieto (2014) analyzed different phonological shapes in 16 Spanish- and Catalan-dominant bilingual 2-year-olds, they found that Catalan-dominant children produced significantly more stressed word-final codas than Spanish-dominant children. Since this coda type is more frequent in Catalan than in Spanish, the researchers concluded that the cross-linguistic differences in coda production between these languages represent the basis for the frequency distributions of codas in each. Thus, it appears that children are aware of the frequency patterns of prosodic structures within the lexicon of their respective language. Stress: Stress is another variable that affects the production of the coda in TD children. Stressed syllables are considered dominant prosodic units that prevent the omission or reduction of consonants, unlike unstressed syllables in which these processes often occur (Prieto & Bosch-Baliarda, 2006). Support for this assertion was provided by the finding that codas in stressed syllables, which are highly perceptible, were acquired before codas in unstressed syllables (Kirk & Demuth, 2006; Zamuner & Gerken, 1998 for English; Borràs-Comes & Prieto, 2014 for Spanish; Freitas et al., 2001 for European Portuguese; Prieto & Bosch Baliarda, 2006 for Catalan). In Hebrew, the final coda is first acquired in stressed syllables (anywhere in the word) and in word final syllables (Ben-David, 2001; Kaltum-Roizman, 2008). Adam and Bat-El (2009) have provided quantitative data from a study examining the first stages of phonological acquisition of a Hebrew-speaking boy. The sample was taken between 8 and 19 months and the procedures included photo naming and spontaneous speech. Their findings indicate that the child showed a preference for the trochaic foot in both targets and actual productions. The authors argue that this finding was not due to the frequency effect, since iambic patterns are more frequent in Hebrew than trochaic. Rather, they attributed this phenomenon to universal phonological principles, including the trochaic bias. The authors also noted that the dominance of the trochaic foot was only evident during the early stages of acquisition and that, at later stages, it is the frequency effect that dominates with the consequent predominance of the iambic foot. In the present study on children with CAS, no differentiation was found between iambic or trochaic words, indicating that the effect of stress on final coda production is more limited in this population. A similar trend was seen in the production of medial coda. Interestingly, effect of stress on coda acquisition is not the same in TD children, although this may have stemmed from factors relating to the children’s respective ages and level of language development. Sonority: Another factor that plays a role in coda production is the position of coda in the word. Studies on the effect of word position on coda acquisition have revealed cross-linguistic differences. In Dutch

264  Part 2: Atypical Development

(Fikkert, 1994) and French (Rose, 2000), medial codas are acquired prior to codas at the end of the word. By contrast, in Hebrew (BenDavid, 2015) and in Catalan (Prieto & Bosch-Baliarda, 2006), final codas emerge before medial codas. Dinnsen (1996) claimed that the process of coda acquisition begins with nasals in the coda position, then fricatives, and lastly stops. This reflects the prosodic hierarchy, in which there is preference for sonorants in codas (Clements, 1990). Dinnsen’s findings are supported by Ben-David (2001) who examined the typical phonological development of Hebrew-speaking children. The first disyllabic words produced by the children with CAS in this study in medial coda have also shown a preference for sonorants, alongside the universally unmarked /t/ (Tables 12.3 and 12.4). In Hebrew, the common final coda in trochaic words with four syllables is /m/ (for example: /mispaˈʁaim/ ‘scissors’, /mixnaˈsaim/ ‘pants’, /magaˈfaim/ ‘boots’). Given that the prosodic hierarchy indicates a preference for a sonorant consonant in the coda, the higher success rate of correct productions among Hebrew-speaking children with CAS may result from the abundance of Hebrew words with this type of final consonant, despite the many syllables they contain. In contrast to trochaic words, only a small number of iambic words in Hebrew have four syllables. The rarity of this structure limits our ability to clearly identify what the preference is. It should be noted that the number of coda productions in disyllabic and trisyllabic words are less than half the number found in the four-syllable words. It is possible that this may be due to the wide variety of consonants in the final codas, not all of which are sonorants. Nevertheless, the ability to produce half of the codas successfully in disyllabic words appears to be at variance with the ability to produce half of the codas in trisyllabic words, as we would expect a higher success rate in disyllabic words. Another factor that may be influential in the /m/ production in four-syllable codas in various languages may relate to the distribution of segments. In line with Demuth and Kirk’s (2006) findings regarding Dutch children, the profusion of word utterances among Hebrew speakers with this type of coda, particularly in the plural forms of masculine nouns and verbs (e.g. /jelaˈdim/ ‘children’, /klaˈvim/ ‘dogs’, /holˈxim/ ‘walking’) has an effect on its production among children. A similar phenomenon was observed in the acquisition patterns of TD children in Portuguese (Freitas et al., 2001) and Spanish (Lleó, 2003). These studies revealed that fricative codas, especially [s], were produced earlier in the word final position than other segments at this location. The researchers suggested that this may be due to the morphological distribution of the consonant. [s] is used for plural marking in noun phrases and as verb endings in verb phrases. Similar observations were also found for Greek (Babatsouli & Nicoladis, 2019); the authors followed a Greek-English bilingual girl’s development of English

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  265

possessives from age 2;6 to 3;11. Although English was her weaker language in terms of exposure and use, she acquired word-final /n/ and /s/ in Greek by 2;7, comparable to respective monolingual peers. It is claimed that since the child had already acquired Greek possessives, she could acquire English possessives, in spite of the fact that English input frequency was lower than in monolingual English children. Another advantage of the segment /m/ in word final coda position is that it is bilabial and has visual prominence. Multi-sensory cues help children with CAS to learn the sound system. As Fish (2015) explained, visual cues are especially useful for this population since these children find it difficult to plan and program movements of the mouth for correct word production. Thus, observing the movements a competent speaker uses to produce target words helps children with CAS develop correct articulation of the words. This is true for the typically developing child, as well. The movements needed to produce a bilabial consonant are easier to distinguish than for posterior consonants (Jakobson, 1962). (Note that Hebrew does not phonotactically permit other bilabials than /b/ or /p/ as codas.) Although sonority principles were found to factor in the coda acquisition process of Hebrew-speaking children with CAS, this does not hold true for all languages. In a study on Italian-speaking children with apraxia, Romani et al. (2013) compared the markedness, frequency and sonority errors in phoneme production between two groups: one with phonological deficits and a matched group with articulatory deficits. The results indicated that sonority had a significantly greater effect than frequency in the group with articulatory deficits group, as opposed to the group with phonological deficit. The errors did not follow sonority principles, as the subjects with articulatory deficit substituted the segment in the coda leaving no asymmetry between onsets and codas. Thus, it appears that sonority and coda acquisition are related among Hebrew-speaking children with CAS, who produce sonorants more frequently than obstruents. /t/ is an exception: although it is an obstruent, the children produced it as a coda. One possible explanation can be that /t/ is the universally unmarked segment, and thus it is being acquired earlier than other obstruents (Prince & Smolensky, 1993). Another possibility is the frequency in Hebrew of /t/ in words as a feminine suffix, e.g. /hoˈlexet/ ‘she goes’, /holˈxot/ – ‘they (feminine) go’. Kirk and Demuth (2006) performed a longitudinal study to investigate the mechanisms underlying the variability in children’s production of coda consonants in two English-speaking children, following them from the ages of 1–2 years. One child acquired the more marked and more frequent stop codas first, while the other child acquired the less marked and also less frequent nasal and fricative codas first (Kirk & Demuth, 2003). The authors concluded that no clear preference was observed because both markedness and frequency can play a role in

266  Part 2: Atypical Development

directing the sequence of coda acquisition in a specific child. They suggested that variability relates partially to the learning styles of different children; some children may be more frequency-based learners, and others may be more markedness-based learners. The position of the syllable in the word. The comparison between final and medial codas (Tables 12.2 and 12.4) indicates a dramatic difference between final coda productions (about 50%) and medial productions (about 10%) in CAS. In target words with both medial and final codas, the children only produced the medial coda in 6 of the target words, while omitting it in the remaining target words. Similar results were reported in French-speaking TD children who acquired final codas earlier than medial ones (Rose, 2000), and also for Hebrew (Ben-David, 2001, 2015). Speech segment duration: Speech segment duration may also play a role in the acquisition of the final coda before the medial coda. The relative duration of prosodic structures is not distributed equally throughout the speech string; it is localized at the edge points: onset and coda. These points are expressed through lengthening, which influences their ability to be perceived by the child (White, 2014). Longer segment duration also affects the production of words at utterance boundaries, which are perceptually salient due to prosodic modifications such as initial and final lengthening (Seidl & Johnson, 2006). A study examining the learning of an artificial language in Hebrew-speaking adults (Saffran et al., 1996) supports the contention that word-final lengthening is a word-segmentation cue for infants in many languages. Comparing TD children and children with CAS

A careful examination of the stages of coda acquisition in this study reveals that the process is similar between TD children and children with CAS. Their differences lie in that the process is more prolonged and quantitatively different in children with CAS. The medial coda is more marked than the final coda and is acquired later in both TD children and children with CAS). In contrast to the gradual acquisition commonly observed in TD children, children with CAS acquire codas in a more random fashion, once they have acquired word prosody. Accordingly, in typical development we can expect to find codas in disyllabic and trisyllabic words much more frequently than in children with CAS (less than 6% in comparison to TD children). This difference highlights the gap between the increased number of syllables per word and the slower rate of filling syllable structures among children with CAS. We also compared the productions of children with CAS to those of TD children in each of the six characteristic stages of coda acquisition.

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  267

Since not all codas were omitted, we assumed that the children had advanced beyond the first stage of acquisition in which codas are totally omitted. During the second stage, a few words were found with codas, such as [os] /maˈtos/ ‘airplane’, [pon] /ˈtelefon/ ‘telephone’. The children with CAS tend to expand the prosodic structure of the word by adding another syllable without filling it with other segments ([pepiˈpope] /helikopteʁ/ ‘helicopter’, [gaˈgoge] /taʁnegolet/ ‘chicken’). Accordingly, no evidence of codas was found in single or two-syllable productions of multisyllabic target words. Instead, the children with CAS presented with the tendency to add another syllable without a coda, e.g. [te.ˈxo] /mafteˈxot/ ‘keys’. In TD children, we sometimes find disyllabic words that lack a coda, e.g. [aˈpi] /kaˈpit/ ‘spoon’. This process is compatible with typical acquisition and is followed by the addition of the final coda of the targeted word. This does not occur among children with CAS who prefer to only produce the onset of the new syllable. The place of the Coda remains empty, even though the last syllable has a high level of conceptual prominence (Echols & Newport, 1992). In the third stage of coda acquisition, they acquire final codas in disyllabic and multisyllabic words simultaneously regardless of the stress location, e.g. /ˈlexem/ ‘bread’, /kaˈduʁ/ ‘ball’, /masaˈit/ ‘truck’. These children produce the final coda prior to the medial coda, as do TD children, but it takes them longer to do so. TD children produce medial codas in iambic words during the fourth stage of coda acquisition. In contrast, the children with CAS produced medial coda much less frequently. However, they displayed signs of having begun the transition to the fourth stage. For example, the medial coda was produced in words in which the medial and final codas were the same, such as [ˈpilpel] /ˈpilpel/ ‘pepper’ or [paʁˈpaʁ] /paʁˈpaʁ/ ‘butterfly’. Similarly, they produced the medial coda in words such as [pam.ˈpo] /∫amˈpo/ ‘shampo’ or [baʁˈbaz] /baʁˈvaz/ ‘duck’. These words include duplication of the onset, which may have served to facilitate the medial coda production. The children of this study had not reached the fifth and sixth stages, despite the fact that the some of the participants were older than 5 years of age. TD Hebrew-speaking children reach these final stages much earlier: the final coda is acquired between 2;6-3;0, and the medial coda is acquired between 3;6-4;0 (Ben-David, 2015). An ongoing longitudinal study should be planned that will enable a comparison between the final two stages of acquisition characteristic of typical phonological development and that which occurs among children with CAS. A-synchronization is observed in the coda acquisition process of children with CAS with respect to the number of syllables in a word. In TD children, phonological acquisition occurs simultaneously at all three levels, such that once two syllables have been acquired, the syllable structure is expanded in each and the two onsets and the final coda (at

268  Part 2: Atypical Development

least) are produced (Ben-David, 2001). The partial success of children with CAS in producing codas in words of different lengths suggests that their syllable structure development differs from TD children, who only produce words with three or four syllables once they are very successful in producing final codas in disyllabic words. However, children with CAS begin to produce lengthier words (i.e. words with three or four syllables) before they have achieved much success in filling syllables in disyllabic words. This phenomenon was observed in the findings of our study. Namely, children with CAS produced three- and four-syllable target words, even though only slightly more than half of the disyllabic target words (the minimal words) they produced included a final coda. Summary and Conclusions

In Hebrew-speaking children, whether typically developing or with apraxia of speech, word final coda (a) is acquired first in monosyllables, (b) it precedes the acquisition of word medial coda and (c) is overwhelmingly sonorant, with the exception of the universally unmarked /t/. However, children with CAS differ in some respects from TD children in the coda acquisition process: (1) the process proceeds more slowly; (2) they do not display a clear preference for the effect of stress on coda production (i.e. this differs from TD children who first acquire coda in disyllabic words in stressed and final syllables); and (3) children with CAS add syllables without filling the coda, whereas TD children add the final coda before adding a new syllable to the minimal word. Coda acquisition also varies between languages due to differences in their syllable structure, the segments contained within the coda, the frequency of coda production among adult-speakers of the language, the various syllables that are stressed, as well as many other distinctions. Taken together, these factors have a combined effect on children’s speech patterns in atypical populations such as children with CAS as well as in TD children. More research is recommended on larger-sized samples in order to achieve a clearer and more definitive understanding of the impact of the various factors discussed among children – both with and without speech deficits. References Adam, G. and Bat-El, O. (2009) When do universal preferences emerge in language development? The acquisition of Hebrew stress. Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 1 (1), 255–82. Adi-Bensaid, L. and Tubul-Lavy, G. (2009) Consonant-free words: Evidence from Hebrew speaking children with cochlear implants. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 23 (2), 122–132. Ambridge, B., Kidd, E., Rowland, C.F. and Theakston, A.L. (2015) The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 42 (2), 239–273.

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  269

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2007) Childhood Apraxia of Speech. See https://www.asha.org/policy/TR2007-00278/. Babatsouli, E. and Sotiropoulos, D. (2018) A measure for cluster proximity (MCP) in child speech. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 32 (12), 1071–1089. Babatsouli, E. and Nicoladis, E. (2019) The acquisition of English possessives by a bilingual child: Do input and usage frequency matter? Journal of Child Language 46 (1), 170–183. Bat-El, O. (2009) Harmonic domains and synchronization in typically and atypically developing Hebrew-speaking children. Language Sciences 31 (2–3), 117–135. Ben-David, A. (2001) Language Acquisition and Phonological Theory: Universal and Variable Processes Across Children and Across Languages. Unpublished PhD thesis, Tel-Aviv University [in Hebrew]. Ben-David, A. (2015) Norms in Hebrew phonological acquisition. The Israeli Journal of Language, Speech and Hearing Disorders 34, 1–13 [in Hebrew]. Ben-David, A. and Bat-El, O. (2016) Paths and stages in the acquisition of Hebrew phonological word. In R. Berman (ed.) Acquisition and Development of Hebrew: From Infancy to Adolescence (pp. 39–68). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Berg, T. (1992) Phonological harmony as a processing problem. Journal of Child Language 19, 225–257. Blevins, J. (1995) The syllable in phonological theory. In. J.A. Goldsmith (ed.) The Handbook of Phonological Theory (pp. 206–244). Cambridge: Blackwell. Borràs-Comes, J. and Prieto, P. (2014) The acquisition of coda consonants by Catalan and Spanish children: Effects of prominence and frequency of exposure. Probus 26 (1), 59–82. Clements, G.N. (1990) The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabification. Papers in Laboratory Phonology 1, 283–333. Clements, G.N. and Keyser, S.J. (1983) CV phonology. A generative theory of the syllable. Linguistic Inquiry 9, 1–191. Cohen-Gross, D. (2015) The syllable structure in the Modern Hebrew noun and adjective system. Hebrew Studies 56 (1), 175–190. Demuth, K. (1996) Stages in the development of prosodic words. In Proceedings from the 27th Child Language Research Forum. Stanford University: CSLI. Demuth, K. (2001) Prosodic Constraints on Morphological Development. In J. Weissenborn and B. Höhle (eds) Approaches to Bootstrapping: Phonological, Lexical, Syntactic and Neurophysiological Aspects of Early Language Acquisition (Vol. 2, pp. 3–21. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Demuth, K., Gülzow, I. and Gagarina, N. (2007) The role of frequency in language acquisition. In I. Gülzow and N. Gagarina (eds) Frequency Effects in Language Acquisition. Defining the limits of Frequency as an Explanatory Concept (pp. 383– 388). Berlin/New York: de Gruyter . Dinnsen, D.A. (1996) Context effects in acquisition of fricatives. In B.M. Bernhardt, J. Gilbert and D. Ingram (eds) Proceedings of the UBC International Conference on Phonological Acquisition (pp. 136–148). Somerville: Cascadilla Press. Echols, C.H. and Newport, E.L. (1992) The role of stress and position in determining first words. Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics 2 (3), 189–220. Freitas, M.J., Miguel, M. and Faria, I.H. (2001) Interaction between Prosody and Morphosyntax: Plurals within codas in the acquisition of European Portuguese. In J. Weissenborn and B. Höhle (eds) Approaches to Bootstrapping: Phonological, Lexical, Syntactic and Neurophysiological Aspects of Early Language Acquisition (Vol. 2, pp. 45–57). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Fish, M. (2015) Here’s How to Treat Childhood Apraxia of Speech. San Diego: Plural Publishing. Fikkert, P. (1994) On the Acquisition of Prosodic Structure. Dordrecht: Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics.

270  Part 2: Atypical Development

Goad, H. and Brannen, K. (2003) Phonetic evidence for phonological structure in syllabification. In J. van de Weijer, V.J. van Heuven and H. van der Hulst (eds) The Phonological Spectrum (Vol. 2, pp. 3–30). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gnanadesikan, A. (1996) Markedness and Faithfulness Constraints in Child Phonology. Manuscipt, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Grijzenhout, J. and Joppen, S. (1999) First Steps in the Acquisition of German Phonology: A Case Study. Ms. 0ptimality Archive, ROA430440399. Grunwell, P. (1981) The development of phonology: A descriptive profile. First Language 3, 161–191. Grunwell, P. (1982) Clinical Phonology. London: Croom Helm. Hammond, M. (1999) The Phonology of English: A Prosodic Optimality-theoretic Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press Holm, A., Crosbie, S. and Dodd, B. (2007) Differentiating normal variability from inconsistency in children’s speech: Normative data. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 42 (4), 467–486. Ingram, D. (1976) Phonological Disability in Children. New York: American Elsevier. Ingram, D. (1989) First Language Acquisition: Method, Description and Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jakobson, R. (1962) Selected Writings I: Phonological Studies. The Hague: Mouton. Kaltum-Roizman, K. (2008) The Effect of Position, Word Length and Manner of Articulation on Coda Productions in Hebrew-speaking Children. MA thesis, TelAviv University. [in Hebrew] Kehoe, M.M. and Lleó, C. (2002) Intervocalic consonants in the acquisition of German: onsets, codas or something else? Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 16 (3), 169–182. Kenstowicz, M. (1994) Phonology in Generative Grammar. Cambridge: Blackwell. Kirk, C. and Demuth, K. (2003) Onset/coda asymmetries in the acquisition of clusters. In  Proceedings of the 27th annual Boston University conference on language development (pp. 437–448). Kirk, C. and Demuth, K. (2006) Accounting for variability in 2-year-olds’ production of coda consonants. Language Learning and Development 2, 97–118. Ladefoged, P. (1993) A Course in Phonetics. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace. Laufer, A. (2008) Chapters in Phonetics and Phonetic Transcription. Jerusalem: Magnes. Levelt, C.C., Schiller, N.O. and Levelt, W.J. (2000) The acquisition of syllable types. Language Acquisition 8 (3), 237–264. Lleó, C. (2003) Prosodic licensing of codas in the acquisition of Spanish. Probus 15, 257–281. Lleó, C., Kuchenbrandt, I., Kehoe, M. and Trujillo, C. (2003) Syllable final consonants in Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual acquisition. In N. Muller (ed.) (In vulnerable Domains in Multilingualism (pp. 191–220). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Murray, E., McCabe, P. and Ballard, K.J. (2014) A systematic review of treatment outcomes for children with childhood apraxia of speech. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 23 (3), 486–504. Ota, M. (2003) The Development of Prosodic Structure in Early Words. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pater, J. (1997) Minimal violation and phonological development. Language Acquisition 6, 201–253. Peters, A.M. and Menn, L. (1993) False starts and filler syllables: Ways to learn grammatical morphemes. Language 69, 742–777. Piggott, G.L. (1999) At the right edge of words. The Linguistic Review 16, 143–185. Port, R.F. (1981) Linguistic timing factors in combination. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 69 (1), 262–274. Prieto, P. and Bosch-Baliarda, M. (2006) The development of codas in Catalan. In A. Gavarro and C. Lleó (eds) Catalan Journal of Linguistics 5 (Special issue on L1 Acquisition of Romance), 237–272.

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  271

Prince, A. and Smolensky, P. (1993) Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Manuscript, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and University of Colorado, Boulder. Roark, B. and Demuth, K. (2000) Prosodic constraints and the learner’s environment: A corpus study. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 2, pp. 597–608). Somerville: Cascadilla Press. Romani, C., Galuzzi, C., Guariglia, C. and Goslin, J. (2017) Comparing phoneme frequency, age of acquisition, and loss in aphasia: Implications for phonological universals. Cognitive Neuropsychology 34 (7–8), 449–471. Romani, C., Galluzzi, C., Goslin, J., Bureca, I. and Olson, A. (2013) Sonority, frequency and markedness in errors of aphasic patients. Procedia 94, 55–56. Rose, Y. (2000) Headedness and Prosodic Licensing in the L1 Acquisition of Phonology. Unpublished PhD dissertation, McGill University, Montréal. Saffran, J.R., Newport, E.L. and Aslin, R.N. (1996) Word segmentation: The role of distributional cues. Journal of Memory and Language 35 (4), 606–621. Seidl, A. and Johnson, E.K. (2006) Infant word segmentation revisited: Edge alignment facilitates target extraction. Developmental Science 9 (6), 565–573. Silber-Varod, V., Sagi, H. and Amir, N. (2016) The acoustic correlates of lexical stress in Israeli Hebrew. Journal of Phonetics 56, 1–14. Smolensky, P. (1996) On the comprehension/production dilemma in child language. Linguistic Inquiry 27 (4), 720–731. Steriade, D. (1982) Greek Prosodies and the Nature of Syllabification. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Garland Press. Tubul-Lavy, G. (2005) The Phonology of Hebrew-Speaking Dyspraxic Children. Unpublished PhD. Dissertation, Tel-Aviv University [in Hebrew]. Tubul-Lavy, G. (2012) Intra-word inconsistency in apraxic Hebrew-speaking children. Linguistics and Phonetics 26 (6), 502–517. White, L. (2014) Communicative function and prosodic form in speech timing. Speech Communication 63, 38–54. Zamuner, T.S. and Gerken, L.A. (1998) Young children’s production of coda consonants in different prosodic environments. In E.V. Clark (ed.) The Proceedings of the Twentyninth Annual Child Language Research Forum (pp. 13–25). Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information.

272  Part 2: Atypical Development

Appendix 12.1: The words used in the articulation test in this study Monosyllables (20) /pil/ ‘elephant’ /cav/ ‘turtle’ /sus/ ‘horse’ /kos/ ‘glass’ /xam/ ‘hot’ /mic/ ‘juice’ /jad/ ‘hand’ /ʁo∫/ ‘head’ /dag/ ‘fish’ /kof/ ‘monkey’ /jam/ ‘sea’ /zvuv/ mosquito’ /pax/ ‘trash can’ /pkak/ ‘cork’ /bat/ ‘girl’ /ein/ ‘there is no’ /od/ ‘more’ /’e∫/ ‘fire’ /af/ ‘nose’ /et/ ‘pen’

Disyllables (34)

Trisyllables (17)

Four-syllable words (8)

Final (18) /xa’lav/ ‘milk’ /pati∫/ ‘hammer’ /∫a’on/ ‘watch’ /ka’duʁ/ ‘ball’ /ka’pit/ ‘teaspoon’ /za’nav/ ‘tail’ /la’∫on/ ‘tongue’ /na’xa∫/ ‘snail’ /a’gas/ ‘pear’ /∫lu’lit/ ‘puddle’ /pʁa’xim/ ‘flowers’ /mas’ʁek/ ‘comb’ /∫ul’xan/ ‘table’ /bak’buk/ ‘bottle’ /psan’teʁ/ ‘piano’ /ka’xol/ ‘blue’ /va’ʁod/ ‘pink’ /ca’if/ ‘scarf’

Final (7) /masa’it/ ‘truck’ /avi’ʁon/ ‘airplane’ /e∫ko’lit/ ‘grapefruit’ /mexo’nit/ ‘car’ /kubi’jot/ ‘cubes’ /ipa’ʁon/ ‘pencil’ /sevi’von/ ‘spinning top’

Final (2) /hipopo’tam/ ‘hippopotamus’ /melafe’fon/ ‘cucumber’

Penultimate (16) /beʁez/ ‘tap’ /’∫eme∫/ ‘sun’ /’ʁegel/ ‘foot’ /’gezeʁ/ ‘carrot’ /’pazel/ ‘pazel’ /’lexem/ ‘bread’ /’mastik/ ‘gum’ /’jeled/ ‘boy’ /delet/ ‘door’ /’pilpel/ ‘pepper’ /’kelev/ ‘dog’ /’ozen/ ‘ear’ /’melex/ ‘king’ /’xoʁef/ ‘winter’ /peʁax/ ‘flower’ /’tʁaktoʁ/ ‘tractor’

Penultimate (5) /ca’laxat/ ‘plate’ /ʁa’kevet/ ‘train’ /ma’gevet/ ‘towel’ /ta’puax/ ‘apple’ /ta’baat/ ‘ring’

Penultimate (6) /ava’tiax/ ‘water melon’ /mixna’saim/ ‘pants’ /mi∫ka’faim/ ‘glasses’ /mecil’taim/ ‘cymbals’ /magafaim/ ‘boots’ /heli’kopteʁ/ ‘helicopter’

Ante-penultimate (5) /’ambulans/ ‘ambulance’ /∫okolad/ ‘chocolate’ /’otobus/ ‘bus’ /’telefon/ ‘telephone’ /’hambuʁgeʁ/ ‘hamburger’

Note: The underlined words were added to the words borrowed from Ben-David (2001).

Coda Acquisition in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in Hebrew  273

Appendix 12.2: The target words according to stress, number of syllables and sonority categories Disyllables

Trisyllables

Four-syllable words

Monosyllables

Final

Penult.

Final

Penult.

Final

Penult.

Sonorants+ t

141

168

159

98

91

34

102

Sibilants /s, z, c, ∫/

110

59

39

47

—

12

8

Fricatives /f, v, x/

81

51

66

46

19

20

22

Stops /d, k, g/

69

127

53

12

—

—

14

13 The Acquisition of Phonological Awareness in Children with Mild General Learning Difficulties: Delayed or Disordered Speech Development? ” Csertán Krisztina Zajdó and Eniko

Introduction The role of phonological awareness in literacy development

Acquiring literacy is a human right for all, including atypically developing populations. As stated by the UNESCO (2005: 136), ‘literacy should be understood within a rights-based approach and among principles of inclusion for human development’. Among the competencies that serve as foundations for learning to read and write, the subset of skills constituting phonological awareness is of pivotal importance for success. Phonological awareness is composed of a subset of abilities enabling phonological processing that requires the perception and manipulation of the sound structure of language. Subskills include syllable awareness, rhyme awareness and phonemic awareness. These skills have been shown to be necessary and reliable precursors for acquiring literacy (Brady & Fowler, 1988; Elhassan et al., 2017; Liberman et al., 1989; Lundberg et al., 1980). Limitations in phonological decoding have been shown to constitute a major obstacle in reading acquisition, both in typically developing (TD) children (Melby-Lervåg et al., 2012; Høien-Tengesdal & Tønnessen, 2011) and those with mild general learning difficulties 274

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  275

(MGLD) due to many different types of etiologies, including mild intellectual disability (ID) (Channell et al., 2013; Conners et al., 2006) or mild generalized learning difficulties that may be genetic or due to unfavorable social and environmental factors (e.g. low socioeconomic status; see Skoe et al., 2013; Conant et al., 2017). Importantly, difficulties with phonological processing may lead to unavoidable limitations in life participation (Koritsas & Iacono, 2011). Phonological decoding may support high-functioning reading and writing skills and thus may lead to unlimited life participation both at the workplace and in personal life. Reading and writing skills are important at the workplace for increased productivity (Tu et al., 2016) and personal and group safety (Badr, 2015). Thus, literacy is a major job skill that contributes greatly to life satisfaction and life quality. At both the societal and personal level, limitations in literacy often jeopardize employability (Macey, 2013). As Stromquist (2005: 12) stated, ‘… literacy skills are fundamental to informed decision-making, personal empowerment, active and passive participation in local and global social community’. Thus, it is imperative to find effective ways to facilitate the development of phonological processing skills, including those of phonological awareness, early on. Gains in phonological awareness contribute to further developments of other phonological and language skills. Examples include phoneme deletion skills that may contribute to phoneme awareness skills in general and large segment (syllable and rhyme) awareness skills that contribute to receptive vocabulary skills (Carroll et al., 2003; Snowling & Hulme, 1994). Developing a subskill in phonological awareness, phonemic awareness is crucial since it interacts with and facilitates vocabulary development and word consciousness by aiding the recognition of printed words (Moats & Tolman, 2009), thereby enhancing growth in language and communication skills. Woefully, our understanding of the acquisition of phonological awareness is inadequate to determine the most effective ways of facilitating literacy development in individuals with mild generalized learning difficulties. Phonological awareness in TD and MGLD populations: What do we know?

In typically developing children, the development of phonological skills, including phonological awareness (PA) is increasingly well studied cross-linguistically (for English, see Snowling & Hulme, 1994 and Anthony & Francis, 2005; for German, see Schmitterer & Schroeder, 2019; for Finnish, see Holopainen et al., 2000; for Italian, see Zanobini et al., 2011; for Arabic, see Schiff & Saiegh-Haddad, 2018). Results show that competence level in phonological awareness (the ability to identify and manipulate units such as rhymes, syllables and phonemes

276  Part 2: Atypical Development

of oral language) predicts the development of reading skills (see Adams et al., 1998; Fowler, 1990; Melby-Lervåg et al., 2012; Vellutino et al., 2004; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). Further, phonemic awareness skills (the ability to identify and manipulate individual phonemes) along with letter recognition have been shown to predict reading success (Cardoso-Martens & Pennington, 2004; Parilla et al., 2004) and, unsurprisingly, broader academic success at school (Blomert & Csépe, 2012; Bryant et al., 2014; Vaessen & Blomert, 2010). On the basis of previous results from the literature, Moats and Tolman (2009) summarized the developmental steps that are taken during the acquisition of phonological awareness skills in TD children. An overall developmental trend emerged from the data in which the emergence of word awareness is followed by the recognition of rhymes and alliteration. Subsequently, syllable awareness is acquired. Next, children demonstrate growing skills in the ability to manipulate onsets and rhymes (e.g. generating a word with the same onset or rhyme than the one they were presented with). The final step is the acquisition of phoneme awareness. Paulson (2004) found a highly similar pattern in phonological awareness acquisition when examining 4- to 5-year-olds who never entered kindergarten. However, the acquisition of phonological awareness skills is less well studied in special populations including children with intellectual disabilities (ID) with unspecified etiology and those with general learning difficulties. Just as in typically developing children, phonological awareness is one of the skills that correlates quite strongly to decoding ability in elementary school-aged children with mild intellectual disability (Barker et al., 2013; Wise et al., 2010), older (15 to 23 years old) individuals with mild ID (Soltani & Roslan, 2013) as well as in adults with mild ID (Saunders & DeFulio, 2007). To study the contribution of PA to reading abilities in younger children with ID, Sermier Dessemontet and de Chambrier (2015) examined the role of phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge in 6- to 8-year-olds with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities (with an IQ between 40 and 75). Importantly, the etiology of ID was unspecified. Children spoke either German or French as a first language. Results showed that children’s progress in reading of words and non-words in the children’s first language was prognosticated by the level of phonological awareness and knowledge of letter-sound correspondences independently of language background. To explore characteristics of phonological awareness acquisition in the population, Sermier Dessemontet et al. (2017) studied 7- to 8-year-olds with ID with unspecified etiology (with an IQ between 40 and 75) who spoke German as their first or as a highly developed second language. Children were matched to 4- to 5-year-old TD students on gender, early reading skills and expressive vocabulary. Phonological skills were delayed in

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  277

children with ID as compared to TD children. Importantly, different phonological but non-phonemic and phonemic skills did not show an invariable developmental path in children with ID as it is proposed in the literature for TD children. Rather, the maturation of different phonological awareness skills showed individual variability. For example, rhyme detection and phoneme blending were weaker than in TD students at the first data recording session, but two years later children with ID scored on par with TD students on these skills. In contrast, at the second data recording session students with ID scored lower in first phoneme detection than TD students, whereas two years earlier these two groups showed equal performance. It is however unclear why the authors decided to study together these children with markedly different language background. Taken together, these results call into question the applicability of current models of phonological awareness development that are based on data gathered from TD children to the population of children with ID. Thus, these studies underscore the importance of tracking competence levels in individual phonological awareness skills along with overall progress through time to understand the characteristics of phonological awareness skills in children prior to and during reading acquisition in TD and ID populations. For future studies, it will also be important to test whether children with mild as opposed to moderate ID differ in their learning skills, including the acquisition of phonological awareness. Our knowledge of the acquisition of phonological awareness is also limited in another population that is fairly similar in terms of learning characteristics to children with mild intellectual disability. In addition to the children with mild ID, children with mild generalized learning difficulties (MGLD) also include those who have learning obstacles due to environmental and social disadvantages (for example, children in low socioeconomic status (‘low SES’) families). Currently, countries define the low socioeconomic status category differently in societies across the world. In addition, criteria for this category change through time in societies, even within the same country. Overall, factors associated with income and schooling status are taken into consideration when countries define this category in a particular country at a given point in time. However, the strong relationship between low SES background and decreased educational success is increasingly well documented, both in general (Hochschild, 2003; Sheridan & McLaughlin, 2016), and specifically pertaining to educational achievements that are highly dependent upon linguistic and cognitive skills (Hoff, 2013; Shonkoff & Garner, 2012). Lower educational achievements are already measureable in children attending kindergarten (Purcell-Gates et al., 1995). At the time the data was gathered for this study, it was estimated that approximately 15% of the school-aged population in Hungary

278  Part 2: Atypical Development

belonged to the category of MGLD; in this group, approximately 2.5 to 3% were students with mild ID (Gaál, 2000). These two subgroups of children were included in the group of students with MGLD because they are grouped together in the same classes in segregated schools on the grounds that their learning characteristics are similar. It is, however, also well known that low SES but not ID students are sometimes identified as individuals with mild ID due to test bias and diagnostic bias (Committee to Evaluate the Supplemental Security Income Disability Program for Children with Mental Disorders et al., 2015; Kim & Zabelina, 2015). This issue is also of concern in different ethnic groups (e.g. Roma population in Hungary), although some have called attention to the lack of consensus on the ethnic bias issue in psychological testing (see e.g. Reynolds & Suzuki, 2012). The question is whether a test that is not culturally biased can be created. At the heart of the matter is that tests of intelligence that many linguistic tests are based on are culture-bound. Some researchers suggest that ‘… intelligence is defined as adaptive or beneficial behavior within a particular culture. Therefore, a test free from cultural influence would tend to be free from the influence of intelligence – and to be a poor predictor of intelligence in any culture’ (Reynolds & Suzuki, 2012: 89). Others, however, argue that careful test construction can be scientifically validated in many cultures by including supplemental norms for racial and ethnic minorities to the norms for the primary (e.g. ‘mainstream’) population. It is true that, for example, the Wechsler scales include different norms for different cultural groups (cited in Suzuki et al., 2005). It is imperative to increase our efforts to include an increasing number of minorities as testing sample to provide opportunities for unbiased testing in many cultures (ShuttleworthEdwards, 2016). These efforts are considered ethical requirements (Sunderaraman et al., 2016) and are ongoing worldwide. However, for the majority of intelligence and linguistic tests, group-specific norms are still often unavailable. The debate about whether culture fairness can be achieved when testing is an unsettled one among professionals. The fact remains that in Hungary it is still rare that psychological and linguistic test constructing include norm creation for minorities, even though its importance has been emphasized. In Hungary, the number of children with MGLD has been on the rise for decades, mainly due to increases in the number of socially disadvantaged individuals and children with special needs (Központi Statisztikai Hivatal, 2015). Thus, it is even more important to help these students succeed at school and in society. This study set out to map out developmental trends in learning the subskills of phonological awareness in students with MGLD studying in elementary school in Hungary to generate results that add to our understanding of pre-reading skills in this population.

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  279

Study Objectives

Previous studies have shown that children and adults with more severe (e.g. moderate and severe/profound) levels of general learning difficulties demonstrate low levels of phonological awareness as compared to typically developing children. However, there is a paucity of data on the acquisition of phonological awareness skills in children with MGLD. In addition, detailed studies on the development of each type of phonological awareness skill are needed to elucidate whether the acquisition of these skills a) follow a universal (invariable) pattern of progression, and b) is delayed (show atypical timing patterns only) or disordered (show atypical timing and atypical developmental patterns) in this population. Further, this investigation aims to c) identify subskills of phonological awareness that are comparable between the two groups of children examined to show areas where students with MGLD are comparable to groups of TD students. This study aims to answer these questions by examining elementary school-aged TD students and students with MGLD acquiring Hungarian as their first language. The phonology of Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language, is quite complex. The speech sound inventory of the standard dialect of Hungarian includes 14 vowels (see Figure 13.1). Five of these pairs, /i/ vs./ i:/, /y/ vs. /y:/, /ø/ vs. /ø:/, /u/ vs. /u:/ and /o/ vs. /o:/ are primarily differentiated by phonemic vowel length (short vs. long members of the pair) and only secondarily by formant characteristics. Typically, the phonologically long member of the pair is slightly more peripheral in the acoustic space. The other two pairs, /ɒ/ (which is also described by some as /ɔ/) vs. /a:/ and /ɛ/ vs. /e:/ are phonological pairs

Figure 13.1  The vowel inventory of the standard dialect of Hungarian (Connell & Moxfyre, 2009; Szende, 1994)

280  Part 2: Atypical Development

Table 13.1  Vowel harmony in Hungarian summarized by Rounds (2001: 19) Stem

IPA

Gloss

Description

Plural

IPA

asztal

/ɔstɔl/

table

only back vowels

asztal + o + k

/ɔstɔlok/

gyerek

/ɟɛrɛk/

child

Only neutral (front) vowels, last vowel unrounded

gyerek + e + k

/ɟɛrɛkɛk/

füzet

/fyzɛt/

notebook

only front vowels, last vowel unrounded

füzet + e + k

/fyzɛtɛk/

ismerős

/iʃmɛrø:ʃ/

acquaintance

only front vowels, last vowel unrounded

ismerős + ö + k

/iʃmɛrø:ʃøk/

papír

/pɔpi:r/

paper

back vowel with neutral vowel

papír + o + k

/pɔpi:rok/

that greatly differ both acoustically and in duration, the latter members being longer. An important characteristic of Hungarian phonology is vowel harmony. Rules of vowel harmony are necessary for assigning suffixes. Rounds (2001: 19) summarized vowel harmony in Hungarian as follows (pronunciation data is added by the authors of the current chapter) (see Table 13.1). The basis of vowel harmony rules in Hungarian is the characteristics of vowel categories such as back vowels, unrounded front vowels and rounded front vowels. As shown in Table 13.1, when an affix is available in three forms, such as the plural marker /k/ which may take the forms /-ok/, /-εk/ or /øk/, one needs to select the appropriate version to be used on the basis of vowel harmony rules. When a word stem contains only back vowels (such as /u/ vs. /u:/, /o/ vs. /o:/ and / ɔ/ vs. /a/), the suffix version with a back vowel (- ɔk) needs to be used when generating suffixation. Unrounded front vowels (/i/ vs. /i:/, / ɛ/ and /e:/) are considered neutral (‘transparent’). Unrounded front vowels (/i/ vs./i:/ and / ɛ/ vs. /e:/ in the last position in the word stem with only front vowels make it necessary to select a suffix with an unrounded front vowel (- ɛk), whereas rounded ones (/ø/ vs./ø:/ and /y/ vs. /y:/) in the last position in words with front vowels only necessitate using the suffix with a rounded vowel (-øk). When the stem contains back vowel(s) with a neutral vowel in the last position, a suffix with the back vowel needs to be used. It is to be noted that suffixation for a very limited number of words are exceptional (e.g. híd /hi:d/ ‘bridge’; hídnál /hi:dna:l/ ‘at the bridge’ (not /hi:dne:l/; this suffix has only two forms: (-nál) and (-nél)). Obviously, when the suffix has only two forms, the most appropriate form has to be selected. Some suffixes in Hungarian only have one form. Rules of hiatus in Hungarian phonology dictate that a hiatus needs to be inserted between adjacent vowels. In these cases, a hiatus-filling /j/ sound is inserted if when one of the vowels is an /i/.

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  281

Table 13.2  The consonant inventory of the standard dialect of Hungarian Labial

Labiodental

Alveolar

Nasal

m

ɱ*

n

Stop

p b fv

ts dz

ʧ  ʤ

cҫ  ɟʝ**

s z

ʃ  ʒ

ҫ*  ʝ*

Affricate Fricative

Postalveolar

t d

Trill

r

Approximant

l

Palatal

Velar

ɲ

ŋ*

c  ɟ

k g

x*

Glottal

h  ɦ*

j

*These consonants only function as allophones in specific phonological positions. **It is debated among Hungarian phoneticians whether these two speech sounds should be considered stops /c/ and / ɟ/ or affricates /cҫ/ and /ɟʝ/.

The consonant directory of Hungarian includes 25 consonants (see Table 13.2). Allophones are important in Hungarian. The consonant /j/ is realized as [ç] if it falls between a voiceless obstruent and a word boundary (e.g. lopj [lopç] ‘steal’ (imp.); Siptár & Törkenczy, 2007: 205). The same consonant /j/ becomes [ʝ] between voiced obstruents, such as dobj be [dobʝ bɛ] ‘throw (one/some) in’ (Gósy, 2004: 77). The voiceless glottal /h/ may become [ɦ] between two vowels (e.g. tehát [ˈtɛɦaːt] ‘so’), [ç] after front vowels (e.g. ihlet [ˈiҫlet] ‘inspiration’), and [x] word-finally after back vowels (e.g. doh [dox] ‘musty’ if it isn’t deleted (which it often is, e.g. méh [meː] ‘bee’; Szende, 1994: 93.) However, Gósy (2004) argues that, in some words, /h/ becomes [x] rather than [ç]; examples include the words technika [ˈtɛxnikɔ] ‘technology/technique’ and pech [pɛx] ‘bad luck’. Further, the consonant /h/ becomes [xː] when geminated in some but not all words: dohhal [ˈdoxːɔl] ‘with blight’, peches [ˈpɛxːɛʃ] ‘unlucky’. The phonology of Hungarian consonants is characterized by a high number of regressive assimilation processes. If a word sequence forms an ‘accentual unity’ which means that individuals typically do not stop between the words when speaking, assimilation works through word boundaries (Törkenczy, 2002). From the perspective of assimilation, palatal affricates behave like stops. In terms of voice assimilation, all obstruents change their voicing feature according to the last one in the sequence in consonant clusters that end in an obstruent. Nasal place assimilation is quite common in Hungarian: nasals assimilate to the place of articulation of the subsequent consonant. Sibilant assimilation in Hungarian requires voiceless sibilants to form a voiceless geminate affricate with preceding alveolar and palatal stops /d/, /ɟ/, /t/, and /c/. Phonological rules dictate that two sibilant fricatives form a geminate sibilant fricative via regressive assimilation. If one of the two adjacent sibilants is an affricate, the first one changes its place of articulation e.g. malacság [ˈmɔlɔt͡ʃːaːɡ] ‘ribaldry’, halászcsárda [ˈhɔlaːʃt͡ʃaːrdɔ] ‘Hungarian

282  Part 2: Atypical Development

fish restaurant’. Sibilant affricate-fricative sequences such as /t͡ʃʃ/ are pronounced the same as geminate affricate [t͡ʃː] in typical speech. Sibilant assimilation may be omitted in articulated speech, primarily to avoid homophony: rozsszalma [ˈrosːɔlmɔ] ~ [ˈroʃsɔlmɔ] ‘rye straw’, ≠ rossz szalma [ˈros sɔlmɔ] ‘straw of bad quality’ and rossz alma [ˈrosː ɔlmɔ] ˘ ˘ ‘apple of bad quality’. When combining a ‘palatalizable’ consonant and a following palatal consonant, a palatal geminate is produced. Palatalizable consonants are palatal ones and their non-palatal counterparts: /ɟ/ ~ /d/, /l/ ~ /j/, /n/ ~ /ɲ/, /c/ ~ /t/. Degemination rules require long consonants to become short when preceded or followed by another consonant (Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1984). Intercluster elision in Hungarian means that, in faster speech with less effort on clear articulation, a middle alveolar stop may be omitted in clusters with more than two consonants. In fast speech, the consonant /l/ is typically omitted when positioned between a vowel and an adjacent stop or affricate (known as the rule of /l/ elision). As for rules of stress, the main stress always falls on the first syllable of the word. Syllabification rules that allow for the separation of words into syllables are not that straightforward in Hungarian. The only compulsory substituent of a syllable is the vowel (nucleus). The syllable structure is constructed as C0-3V(:)C0-3. Typically, when syllabifying a word (as it is required in the ‘Syllabification’ task), the following rules need to be kept: (1) Each vowel has to be positioned in a separate syllable. So when syllabifying the word /sir/-/mɔ/ - /it/ ((‘its petals’ + acc.), the child needs to recognize immediately that three syllables need to be formed. (2) CVCV structures are divided into two open syllables as CV-CV (e.g. in the word /ku/ - /cɔ/ (‘dog’), so that the onset of the second syllable is a single consonant. (3) When an intervocalic consonant cluster (e.g. a CVCCV structure) is given, again, the onset of the second syllable is single consonant (e.g. /ha:z/-/bɔ/ (‘into the house’) or /mɔj/-/ mo/-/kɔt/ (‘monkeys’ + acc). (4) When a long consonant is positioned word-medially (such as in the word /mɛs: ɛ/ (‘far’), it is divided into two short consonants to allow for the onset of the second syllable to contain only a single short consonant (/mɛs/-/sɛ/). When a consonant cluster with three constituents is positioned word-medially, the onset of the following syllable can only contain a single consonant, e.g. /kon/-/tsɛnt/-/ra:l/ (‘he focuses’). However, in addition to the rules of phonology, the child also needs to consider morphological rules that override phonological ones. A prefixed verb stem is divided into syllables at the boundary of the prefix and verb stem: /ɛl/-/ɔd/ (‘away gives’ meaning ‘sells’). Further, compound words are divided into syllables at the boundary of the constituent members (e.g. /fog/ - /kre:m/ (‘toothpaste’). For detailed discussions of Hungarian phonology, see Siptár and Törkenczy (2007), Törkenczy (2002) and Zajdó (2007).

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  283

Method Participants

Monolingual Hungarian-speaking male students attending 1st, 4th and 7th grades were examined. Boys were selected since the vast majority of individuals with MGLD who are educated in segregated schools in Hungary are male students. Students with MGLD (n = 77) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 78) were included in the sample. Students with MGLD studied in six segregated schools in six cities across Northwest Hungary. Students with MGLD were recruited from schools where students with special needs, including those with MGLD, were educated in segregated classes in segregated school environments. The students with MGLD were grouped together in a segregated class within the segregated school. Inclusion criteria included (1) being diagnosed by a professional team (a child neurologist, a special educator and a psychologist) as a student with MGLD, (2) being educated at a segregated school, (3) being enrolled in a class for MGLD children, (4) not having any other non-typical diagnosis (e.g. an additional diagnosis such as ADD or ADHD, autism or limitations in hearing or vision). All children included were diagnosed with mild ID. (As noted above, testing is not culturally appropriate for many of these students, thus it cannot be decided whether children experienced testing bias or indeed suffered from ID. However, a team of the abovementioned professionals signed a document in all cases indicating that these children were living with mild ID.). TD children were recruited from two cities in the same region from four mainstream school environments. All had typical intellect, non-special-need status at school and no history of hearing problems. In Hungary, schooling typically starts at the age of six years; however, students with MGLD may start a year later if it is suggested by the professional team and the parent agrees with it. Age characteristics of the sample are summarized in Table 13.3. Statistical analysis was carried out by using the software Dell Statistica (version 13.2, Dell Inc., 2016). All age groups across children with MGLD and TD children, respectively, and Table 13.3  Major age characteristics of the samples examined Students with MGLD

TD students

Age (in months) N

Mean

Min.

Max.

1st grade

27

92.03

81

104

4th grade

25

141.28

121

7th grade

25

173.76

158

All

77

134.56

81

Age (in months)

SD

N

Mean

Min.

Max.

SD

6.09

27

87.59

81

98

4.85

152

8.35

25

124.60

116

132

4.26

205

12.20

26

160.34

152

171

4.48

205

35.28

78

123.71

81

171

30.51

284  Part 2: Atypical Development

MGLD-TD group comparisons at all grade levels differed significantly at the α = 0.05 level. Testing and measures

Testing was carried out within a three-month period between the end of October 2016 and the end of January 2017 (in Hungary, the Autumn semester runs from the beginning of September till the end of January). Students were administered the Hungarian adaptation (Jordanidisz, 2009) of the National Institute of Learning Development test (Barbour et al., 2003). Students were tested individually in a quiet room by an experimenter (the second author). The test included tasks in the following areas: rhyme detection; rhyme production for nursery rhymes and for words; syllable blending of words and non-words, s­ yllable segmentation, rule-based syllabification, syllable deletion, phoneme deletion, phoneme isolation, phoneme blending for words and non-words, phoneme segmentation, phoneme identification (phonologically long sound identification), and phoneme manipulation. All c­hildren finished the testing. Table 13.4 shows the subtests, examples of type of tasks (tasks that are similar to the Hungarian ones are shown in English for illustrative purposes along with the Hungarian tasks), and their evaluation in the order of task administration. Given points ­correspond to the number of opportunities tested (e.g. 5 opportunities for rhyme recognition can be evaluated with 0–5 points, depending on the number of correct answers). When administering the test, children before each type of task were ­provided by two to three practice opportunities, to make sure they understood the task at hand. Results Descriptive statistics

Overall scores on the test differed statistically in the two groups examined (MGLD M = 49.02%, SD = 23.45; SE = 2.67; TD: M = 88.24%, SD = 13.31, SE = 1.50, t(120.05) = -12.78, p < 0.000001). On each individual subtest, children with MGLD achieved lower scores as compared to TD peers. Descriptive results for each subtest, for phonological-but-nonphonemic skills overall, for phonemic skills overall, and for overall achievement on the test are shown in Table 13.5. Results for each individual subtest

The following section shows the results of the students for each subtest.

yes no

/kø:/ (stone) - /lo:/ (horse) /pe:k/ (baker) - /se:k/ (chair) /moʃ/ (washes) - /ke:ʃ/ (knife)

Do the following words rhyme?

(e.g. ‘bait’ and ‘late’ or ‘bunny’ and ‘rice’)

1.a

 

2.a

1.b

yes

/so:/ (word) - /ʃo:/ (salt)

Rhyme recognition

Number

ʃɔk: nɔp re: me:k

/se:k/ (chair) - /pe:k/ (baker) - /ʃɔk:/ (chess) - /le:k/ (leak) /le:p/ (steps) - /nɔp/ (sun) - /ne:p/ (nation) - /ke:p/ (picture) /la:/ - /fa:/ - /ta:/ - /re:/ (non-words) /me:k/ - /ta:k/ - /fra:k/ - /pa:k/ (non-words)

Out of these words, which one does not rhyme?

(e.g., ‘lime’ ‘dime’ floor’ ‘lime’)

 

Finish the sentence: In their own house, they had a small… (mouse)

se:p (nice)

/ma:kot/ or /ra:kot/ (poppy seed or crayfish) siɔ (hi) kɔpa:t (hoe)

/ɔ -fɔlon-lo:g-ɛc-ke:p, (pause) jo:-ne:zni-mert-oj-…/ (a picture is hanging on the wall and it is so good to look at it because it is (nice). /hozd-idɛ-ɔ-ʒa:kot, (pause) bɛlɛtɛsɛm - ɔ -…./ (bring here the sack, I will put … in it) /nɔɟinɔk-vɔn-ke:t-fiɔ (pause) u:c-køsøn:ɛk-hoc-.../ Granny has two sons they greet you with “hi”). /ʃufnibam:a:r-bɛn:-ɔ-lɔpa:t, (pause)ke:rlek-ted:odɔ-ɔ-…/ (the shovel is already in the small storage, please put the … there)

 

5

5

 

5

Points given/ # of tasks

(Continued on next page)

ɲu:l (rabbit)

Mɔgɔʃ-hɛɟɛn-tu:l, (pause) ugra:l-ɛc-kiʃ-………….. (over the high mountains (pause) a …. is bouncing)

 

ʃi:

/to:/(lake) - /ʃo:/ (salt) - /ʃi:/ (ski) - /lo:/ (horse)

Rhyme generation by sentence finishing

no

/po:k/ (spider) - /fa:k/ (trees)

Rhyme categorization

no

Correct answer (IPA)

The task in Hungarian

Child is presented with the following type of question

Table 13.4  Phonological awareness skills measure description

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  285

/lɔk:/ (lacquer) or /mɔk:/ (acorn) etc. /fo:kɔ/ (seal) or /mo:kɔ/ (fun) etc. /folt/ (stain) or (spot) etc. /kɔpu/ /ɔstɔl/ /dompto:l/ /vil:ɔmoʃ/ /viʃɛlkɛt:ɛk/

What rymes with /ʃɔk:/ (chess)? You can also create non-meaningful “words”. What rymes with /ro:kɔ/ (fox)? You can also create non-meaningful “words”. What rymes with /bolt/ (shop)? You can also create non-meaningful “words”. Put these together: /kɔ/ (pause) - /pu/ (means gate) /ɔs/ (pause) - /tɔl/ (means table) /domb/ (pause) /to:l/ (means from the hill) /vil/ (pause) /lɔ/ (pause) /moʃ/ (means tram) /vi/ (pause) - /ʃɛl/ (pause) /kɛd/ (pause) /tɛk/ (means they behaved)

Syllable blending for words

Put these together

/lɔmption/ /birka:dɔk/ /grɔndoltok/

/bir/ (pause) - /ka:/ (pause) /dɔk/ /grɔn/ (pause) - /dol/ (pause) /tok/

Put these together

 

/vɔʧko:/

/vɔʧ/ (pause) - /ko:/ /lɔm/ (pause) - /ti/ (pause) /on/

Syllable blending for non-words

3.b

 

/tofu/

/to/ (pause) - /fu/

 

 

3.a

/va:r/ (castle) or /ʃa:r/ (mud) etc.

What rymes with /ja:r/ (goes)? You can also create non-meaningful “words”.

What rhymes with ‘stone’? (foam)

/bø:/ (loose) or /lø:/ (shoots) etc.

2.b

Correct answer (IPA)

What rymes with /kø:/ (stone)? You can also create non-meaningful “words”.

Rhyme generation for words

Number

The task in Hungarian

Child is presented with the following type of question

Table 13.4  Phonological awareness skills measure description (Continued)

 

5

 

5

5

Points given/ # of tasks

286  Part 2: Atypical Development

/kɛrt/

/ka:rc/ non-word

Say /ka:rcɔ/ (card). Now say it without the /ɔ/

 

5

 

5

 

10

(Continued on next page)

/do:/ non-word

/oʃ/ non-word

Say /moʃ/ (washes). Now say it without the /m/

Say /dio:/ (walnut). Now say it without the /i/

/ɔʧkɔ/ non-word

Say /mɔʧkɔ/ (cat). Now say it without the /m/

Say ‘seal’. Now say it without ‘s’

 

/ve:d/ (protects)

Say /ʃve:d/ (Swedish). Now say it without the /ʃ/

Phoneme deletion

5.b

 

/ytø:/ (means racket)

Say /ygɛtø:/! (trotter) Now say it without /gɛ/.

 

 

/kre:m/

Say /kɛrdbɛn/! (in the garden) Now say it without / bɛn/.

/kon/ - /tsent/ - /ra:l/

/kontsɛntra:l/ (he focuses)

/ɟø:z/

/vi:/ - /zi/ - /lo/ - /vɔ/- /kɔt/

/vi:zilovɔkɔt/ (hippopotami + acc.)

/ra:g/

/sir/ - /mɔ/ - /it/

/sirmɔit/ ( his petals + acc.)

Say /ɟø:stɛʃ/! (winner) Now say it without /tɛʃ/.

/bøg/ -/re:/ -/vɛl/

/bøgre:vɛl/ (with a mug)

Say /vira:g/! (flower) Now say it without /vi/.

/mɔj/ - /mo/ - /kɔt/

/mɔjmokɔt/) (monkeys + acc.)

Say ‘pantry’. Now say it without ‘ry’

/mɛs/ - /sɛ/

/mɛs:ɛ/ (far)

Say /fok:re:m/ (toothpaste)! Now say it without /fog/ (tooth).

/fog/ - /kre:m/

/fok:re:m/ (toothpaste)

Syllable deletion

/ɛl/ - /ɔd/

/ɛlɔd/ (sells)

 

/ha:z/ - /bɔ/

/ha:zbɔ/ (in(to) the house)

Take the syllables in this word apart

5.a

/ku/ - /cɔ/

/kucɔ/ (dog)

Syllabification of words

 

4

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  287

/ve:k/ /ʃta:p/ /no:dli/ /bil:ɛrgø:/

/v/ /e:/ /k/ /ʃ/ /t/ /a:/ /p/ /n/ /o:/ /d/ /l/ /i/ /b/ /i/ /l/ /l/ /ɛ/ /r/ /g/ /ø:/

These “words” will not have meaning

 

/y:ʃ/

 

/køɲfta:r/ (library)

/y:/ /ʃ/

Phoneme blending for non-words

7.b

/ʃtɔdion/ (stadium)

/k/ /ø/ /ɲ/ /v/ /t/ /a:/ /r/

/ʃ/ /t/ /ɔ/ /d/ /i/ /o/ /n/

 

 

/kɔpu/ (gate)

/d/

What is the middle sound in this word: /idɛ/ (to here)

/k/ /ɔ/ /p/ /u/

/ø:/

What is the middle sound in this word: /fø:z/ (he cooks)

/moʃ/ (washes)

/ʃ/

What is the last sound in this word: /pɔdla:ʃ/ (attic)

/ple:d/ (blanket)

/ɛ/

What is the last sound in this word: /le:pnɛ/ (he would step)

/m/ pause /o/ pause /ʃ/

/v/

What is the last sound in this word: /køɲv/ (book)

/pl/ pause /e:/ pause /d/

/b/

What is the first sound in this word: /boɟo:/ (berry)

Put these sounds together /w/ /i/ /l/ /ou/ (willow)

/p/

What is the first sound in this word: /pintsɛ/ (basement)

Phoneme blending for words

/s/

What is the first sound in this word: /sa:lkɔ/ (splinter)

7.a

/k/

What is the first sound in this word: /kre:m/ (creme)

What is the first/middle/last sound in this word: mud?

6.

 

/a:/

What is the first sound in this word: /a:l:ɔt/ (animal)

Phoneme isolation

Number

 

Correct answer (IPA)

The task in Hungarian

Child is presented with the following type of question

Table 13.4  Phonological awareness skills measure description (Continued)

 

5

 

5

 

10

Points given/ # of tasks

288  Part 2: Atypical Development

 

/ø:/, /u:/

/fɛlʃø:foku:/ (advanced/higher)

/i:/

/ʧi:koʃ/ (stripy)

/t:/, /o:/

/s:/

/bus:ɔl/ (by bus)

/g:/, /ø:/

/ts:/

/vits:/ (joke)

/ʃut:ogo:/ (whisperer)

/p:/

/stop:ol/ (she darns)

/fyg:ø:/ (pendant)

/ø:/

/tsipø:/ (shoe)

From here on, Which sounds are long…?

/u:/

/ʃu:g/ (whispers)

Which sound is long in this word: ‘eagerly’?

7

/fɛʃtme:ɲ/ (painting)

/o:/

6

/spo:rol/ (he saves)

8

7

/tɛʃtve:r/ (sibling)

/o:l/ (pen)

5

/sɛgi:t/ (helps)

/domptetø:/ (hilltop)

5

/kinʧ/ (treasure)

Phonemically long sound identification (phonological length recognition)

3

/mɛʧ:/ (match)

 

4

/be:kɛ/ (peace)

9.

3

/ne:z/ (he watches)

How many sounds are there in this word ‘diligent’?

2

/lo:/ (horse)

Word segmentation into phonemes

 

8.

(Continued on next page)

 

10

 

10

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  289

/ke:z/ (hand) /ʃyni/ (hedgehog) /kɛrɛt/ (frame) /kørøm/ (nail) /za:r/ (closes) /moʃ/ washes /ʃorok/ (lines) /ugɔr/ (fallow)

Say /ke:ʃ/ (knife)! Now replace the /ʃ/ sound with /z/. What did you get? Say /ʃyti/ (cake)! Now replace the /t/ sound with /n/. What did you get? Say /kørɛt/ (garnish)! Now replace the /ø/ sound with /ɛ/. What did you get? Say /ke:rɛm/ (please)! Now replace both the /e:/ and /ɛ/ sounds with /ø/. What did you get? /ra:z/ (shakes) /ʃom/ (dogwood) /koroʃ/ (elderly) /rɔgu/ (ragout)

Here: two replacements !

Say backwards!

100 points 45 points 55 points

Only for phonological but non-phonemic skills:

Only for phonemic skills:

 

10

Points given/ # of tasks

Sum:

 

/va:r/ (castle)

Say /ʃa:r/ (mud)! Now replace the /m/ sound with /v/. What did you get?

Say ‘milk’! Now replace the /m/ sound with /s/. What did you get?

 

/ke:r/ (asks)

10.

Correct answer (IPA)

Say /me:r/ (he measures)! Now replace the /m/ sound with /k/. What did you get?

Phoneme manipulation

Number

The task in Hungarian

Child is presented with the following type of question

Table 13.4  Phonological awareness skills measure description (Continued)

290  Part 2: Atypical Development

1st graders 0 0

Phoneme deletion

Phoneme isolation

35.31 2.44 4.44 18.33

Phonemic skills only (raw scores)

Phonemic skills only (%)

All points / Overall achievement (%)

0

Phoneme manipulation

Phonological but non- phonemic skills (%)

0

Phonemically long sound identification

15.89

0

Word segmentation into phonemes

Phonological but non- phonemic skills only (raw scores)

1.11

Phoneme blending for non-words

1.33

0

Syll. deletion

Phoneme blending for words

6.48

Syllabification

3.44

Syll. blending for non-words

0 4.41

Syll. blending for words

Rhyme generation for words

1.11

Rhyme generation by sentence finishing

0

Mean

0.44

27

N

Rhyme categorization

Rhyme recognition

Skill

Table 13.5  Descriptive statistics

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

3

1

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

2

4

0

0

0

9

5

5

0

3

3

0

Max.

0

0

10.91

6.00

18.00 10.00 26.00

3.64

2.00

35.56 22.22 51.11

16.00 10.00 23.00

0

0

0

1

1

0

0

0

7

3

5

0

1

0

0

Min.

19.46

9.24

2.79

64.70

13.10

0

0

0

0.72

1.15

0

0

0

4.41

1.18

0.56

0

0.95

0.64

0

Var.

Students with MGLD Med.

4.41

3.04

1.67

8.04

3.62

0

0

0

0.85

1.07

0

0

0

2.10

1.09

0.75

0

0.97

0.80

0

SD

N

0.85

0.58

0.32

1.55

0.70

0

0

0

0.16

0.21 27

0

0

0

0.40

0.21

0.14

0

0.19

0.15

0

SE

4

6

6

4

4

9

4

4

9

5

5

2

3

3

3

Med.

2

4

3

2

2

6

1

2

7

3

5

1

1

1

2

7

8

8

5

5

10

5

5

10

5

5

5

4

5

5

Max.

TD students Min.

2.05

1.26

2.64

0.64

0.77

1.72

0.87

0.60

0.60

0.21

0

1.41

0.71

0.87

1.11

Var.

SE

0

1.43 0.28

1.12 0.22

1.63 0.31

0.80 0.15

0.88 0.17

1.31 0.25

0.93 0.18

0.78 0.15

0.78 0.15

0.46 0.09

0

1.19 0.23

0.85 0.16

0.93 0.18

1.05 0.20

SD

(Continued on next page)

70.31 70.00 60.00 81.00 34.98 5.91 1.14

63.94 63.64 40.00 79.09 71.84 8.48 1.63

35.17 35.00 22.00 43.50 21.73 4.66 0.90

78.11 77.78 65.56 93.33 59.05 7.68 1.48

35.15 35.00 29.50 42.00 11.96 3.46 0.67

4.15

5.61

5.89

3.56

4.00

8.52

3.44

3.70

9.30

4.85

5.00

2.48

3.19

3.11

3.52

Mean

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  291

4th graders 4.46 3.92 25.80 57.33 32.26 58.65 58.06

Phoneme manipulation

Phonological but non- phonemic skills only (raw scores)

Phonological but non- phonemic skills (%)

Phonemic skills only (raw scores)

Phonemic skills only (%)

All points / Overall achievement (%)

4.24

Phoneme blending for words

Phonemically long sound identification

7.32

Phoneme isolation

6.80

2.56

Phoneme deletion

Word segmentation into phonemes

3.04

Syll. deletion

2.96

7.52

Syllabification

Phoneme blending for non-words

3.48

Syll. blending for non-words

25

0.24

Rhyme generation for words 5

2.12

Rhyme generation by sentence finishing

Syll. blending for words

1.68

Rhyme categorization

Mean 2.72

N

Rhyme recognition

Skill

Table 13.5  Descriptive statistics (Continued)

0

2

5

0

3

4

0

1

5

0

5

0

1

0

1

7

7

9

5

5

10

5

4

10

5

5

1

4

5

4

Max.

33.23

63.89

12.94

2.74

1.83

1.75

0.96

0.77

3.48

2.09

0.87

2.43

1.59

0

0.19

0.67

1.31

0.96

Var.

5.76

7.99

3.60

1.66

1.35

1.32

0.98

0.88

1.86

1.45

0.93

1.56

1.26

0

0.44

0.82

1.14

0.98

SD

57,50 42,00 69,50

74.26

8.62

N

1.15

1.60

0.72

0.33

0.27

0.26

0.20

0.18 25

0.37

0.29

0.19

0.31

0.25

0

0.09

0.16

0.23

0.20

SE

1.72

62,73 32,73 71,82 109.86 10.48 2.10

34,50 18,00 39,50

57,78 44,44 72,22

26,00 20,00 32,50

4

5

6

3

5

8

3

3

8

4

5

0

2

1

3

Min.

Students with MGLD Med.

10

10

9

5

5

10

5

5

10

5

5

4

5

5

5

Med.

8

9

6

3

5

10

4

4

10

5

5

1

3

3

4

100

55

100

Var.

SD

SE

0

0

0

0

0

1.77 0.35

0.71 0.14

0.53 0.11

1.15 0.23

0.64 0.13

0

0

0.28 0.06

0.37 0.07

0

0

0

0.97 0.19

0.58 0.12

0.57 0.11

0.28 0.06

2.30 0.46 17.49 4.18 0.84

5.29

15.51 3.94 0.79

3.14

0.50

0.29

1.33

0.41

0

0

0.08

0.14

0

0

0

0.94

0.34

0.32

0.08

95.38 96.00 85.00 99.00 12.49 3.53 0.71

95.53 97.27 85.45

52.54 53.50 47.00

95.20 95.56 82.22

45

10

10

10

5

5

10

5

5

10

5

5

5

5

5

5

Max.

TD students Min.

42.84 43.00 37.00

9.60

9.58

8.80

4.64

5

10

4.92

4.84

10

5

5

3.88

4.56

4.64

4.92

Mean

292  Part 2: Atypical Development

7th graders 3.28 7.12 7.04 6.32 32.18 71.51 39.36 71.56 71.54

Word segmentation into phonemes

Phonemically long sound identification

Phoneme manipulation

Phonological but non- phonemic skills only (raw scores)

Phonological but non- phonemic skills (%)

Phonemic skills only (raw scores)

Phonemic skills only (%)

All points / Overall achievement (%)

4.36

Phoneme blending for words

Phoneme blending for non-words

7.36

Phoneme isolation 25

3.88

4.36

Syll. blending for non-words

Phoneme deletion

4.96

Syll. blending for words

3.92

1.34

Rhyme generation for words

8.40

2.80

Rhyme generation by sentence finishing

Syll. deletion

2.80

Syllabification

3.60

Mean

Rhyme categorization

N

Rhyme recognition

Skill

Table 13.5  Descriptive statistics (Continued)

26

2

4

2

2

2

2

0

3

4

3

4

0

1

0

1

41.50

10

9

10

5

5

10

5

5

10

5

5

5

5

5

5

Max.

69.50

70.00

38.50

49

40

22

42.22

87.02

17.62

4.31

1.73

3.61

0.71

1.07

3.99

1.86

0.49

3.58

0.66

0.04

1.99

1.00

2.25

1.92

Var.

6.50

9.33

4.20

2.08

1.31

1.90

0.84

1.04

2.00

1.36

0.70

1.89

0.81

0.20

1.41

1.00

1.50

1.38

SD

87.00

81.52

9.03

N

1.30

1.87

0.84

0.42

0.26

0.38

0.17

0.21 26

0.40

0.27

0.14

0.38

0.16

0.04

0.28

0.20

0.30

0.28

SE

1.81

95.45 139.57 11.81 2.36

52.50

71.11 57.78 92.22

32

6

8

7

3

5

8

4

4

9

5

5

1

3

3

4

Min.

Students with MGLD Med.

100

55

100

45

10

10

10

5

5

10

5

5

10

5

5

5

5

5

5

Med.

97.27

53.50

95.56

43.00

9

9

9

5

5

10

5

5

10

5

5

4

4

4

5

100

100

55

100

45

10

10

10

5

5

10

5

5

10

5

5

5

5

5

5

Max.

TD students Min.

99.31 99.75 97.00

99.44

54.69

99.15

44.62

9.92

9.92

9.85

5

5

10

5

5

10

5

5

4.88

4,81

4.92

5

Mean

0.76

0.80

0.24

1.61

0.33

0.07

0.05

0.14

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0.11

0.16

0.07

0

Var.

0

SE

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0.87 0.17

0.89 0.18

0.49 0.10

1.27 0.25

0.57 0.11

0.27 0.05

0.23 0.05

0.37 0.07

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0.33 0.06

0.40 0.08

0.27 0.05

0

SD

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  293

294  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 13.2  Rhyme recognition scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

Rhyme recognition

As shown in Figure 13.2, first-grade students with MGLD scored zero on recognizing rhymes, whereas their TD peers achieved on average 70.20% (SD = 21.00, SE = 4.00) on this task. When comparing the MGLD and TD groups at each grade level, students with MGLD had lower average scores than their TD peers. The 4th grade MGLD students (M = 2.72, SD = 0.98, SE = 0.20) did not reach the level of first grade TD students (M = 3.52, SD = 1.05, SE = 0.20; Mann-Whitney U = 80.00, Zadj = -4.7092, p < 0.00001). The non-parametric Mann-Whitney test was used in all cases when either the Levene test or the Brown and Forsythe test indicated unequal variances in the groups compared. However, 7th grade students with MGLD (M = 3.60, SD = 1.38, SE = 0.28) showed comparable scores to those of the 1st grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 315.50, Zadj = 0.4072, p > 0.05), indicating a delay of up to 6 grades in the development of rhyme recognition skills in the special needs population. Compared to 4th grade TD children, 7th grade students with MGLD had lower scores (t(25.91) = –4.6747, p < 0.001). Rhyme categorization

When comparing the MGLD and TD groups at each grade level, students with MGLD showed lower average scores than their TD peers

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  295

Figure 13.3 Rhyme categorization scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

in all grades examined (see Figure 13.3). The 4th grade students with MGLD (M = 1.68, SD = 1.14, SE = 0.23) did not reach the level of 1st grade TD students (M = 3.11, SD = 0.93, SE = 0.18; Mann-Whitney U = 109.50, Zadj = –4.277, p < 0.001). However, 7th grade students with MGLD (M = 2.80, SD = 1.50, SE = 0.30) showed comparable achievement to the 1st grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 305.00, Zadj = –0.6047, p > 0.05), indicating a delay of up to 6 grades in the development of rhyme recognition skills in the special need population. Compared to 4th grade TD children, 7th grade students with MGLD achieved lower scores (t(30.75) = –5.7351, p < 0.001). When comparing the MGLD and TD groups at each grade level, students with MGLD showed lower average scores than their TD peers in all grades examined. The 4th grade students with MGLD (M = 1.68, SD = 1.14, SE = 0.23) did not reach the level of 1st grade TD students (M = 3.11, SD = 0.93, SE = 0.18; Mann-Whitney U = 109.50, Zadj = –4.277, p < 0.001). However, 7th grade students with MGLD (M = 2.80, SD = 1.50, SE = 0.30) showed comparable achievement to the 1st grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 305.00, Zadj = –0.6047, p > 0.05), indicating a delay of up to 6 grades in the development of rhyme recognition skills in the special need population. Compared to 4th grade TD children, 7th grade students with MGLD achieved lower scores (t(30.75) = –5.7351, p < 0.001).

296  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 13.4  Rhyme generation by sentence finishing scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

Rhyme generation

(1) Rhyme generation by sentence finishing When comparing the MGLD and TD groups at each grade level, students with MGLD had lower average scores than their TD peers at all grade levels examined (see Figure 13.4). The 4th grade students with MGLD (M = 2.12, SD = 0.82, SE = 0.16) did not reach the level of 1st grade TD students (M = 3.19, SD = 0.85, SE = 0.16; Mann-Whitney U = 130.00, Zadj = –3.909, p < 0.001). However, 7th grader students with MGLD (M = 2.80, SD = 1.00, SE = 0.20) showed comparable achievement to the 1st grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 253.00, Zadj = –1.5873, p > 0.05), indicating a delay of up to 6 grades in the development of rhyme recognition skills in the special need population. Compared to 4th grader TD children, 7th grade students with MGLD showed lower scores (t(38.63) = –7.6020, p < 0.001). (2) Rhyme generation for words As shown in Figure 13.5, students with MGLD scored zero on rhyme generation in first grade, whereas their TD peers achieved 49.60%

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  297

Figure 13.5 Rhyme generation for words scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

(SD = 23.80, SE = 4.44) on average on this task at this age. When comparing the MGLD and TD groups at each grade level, MGLD students showed significantly lower average scores than their TD peers. The 4th grade students with MGLD (M = 0.24, SD = 0.44, SE = 0.09) did not reach the level of 1st grade TD students (M = 2.48, SD = 1.19, SE = 0.23; t(33.33) = –9.1556, p < 0.001). The 7th grade students with MGLD (M = 1.34, SD = 1.41, SE = 0.28) still had significantly lower scores than the 1st grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 174.50, Zadj = –3.036, p < 0.01) indicating a marked inability to catch up to the level of TD first graders. Importantly, the average skill level difference between 1st and 4th grade students with MGLD is approximately 4.8%. The growth between 4th and 7th grade was 26.5% in the special needs population. Syllable blending

(1) Syllable blending for words First grade MGLD students (M = 4.41, SD = 0.75, SE = 0.14) as compared to their TD peers (M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00) showed minimal skills in syllable blending (t(26.00) = -4.1206, p < 0.001; see

298  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 13.6  Syllable blending for words scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

Figure 13.6). However, 4th grade students with MGLD (M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00) achieved comparable scores to their peers (M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00). The same comparability of scores is true in 7th graders, where students with MGLD (M = 4.96, SD = 0.20, SE = 0.04) and TD students (M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00) achieved highly similar levels of competency (t(24.00) = –1.00, p > 0.10). Thus, with respect to the syllable blending skill for words, students with MGLD caught up to their peers by 4th grade demonstrating that, among phonological awareness skills, syllable blending for words is a relative strength for the special need population. (2) Syllable blending for non-words Figure 13.7 shows students’ scores in syllable blending for non-words. At each grade level examined, students with MGLD had significantly lower scores than their TD peers: 1st grade students with MGLD: M = 3.44, SD = 1.09, SE = 0.21; 1st grade TD students: M = 4.85, SD = 7.46, SE = 0.09; t(34.89) = –6.2085, p < 0.000001; 4th grade students with MGLD: M = 3.48, SD = 1.26, SE = 0.25; 4th grade TD students: M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –6.0208, p < 0.00001; 7th grader students with MGLD: M = 4.36, SD = 0.81, SE = 0.16; 7th grade TD students:

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  299

Figure 13.7  Syllable blending for non-words scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –3.9498, p < 0.001). The 4th grade students with MGLD still showed low scores compared to 1st grade TD children (t(29.75) = –5.1327, p < 0.0001. The 7th grade students with MGLD were at lower levels than 1st grade TD children (t(37.18) = –2.6686, p < 0.025). Scores of 7th grade students with MGLD were still below scores of 4th grade TD children, too (t(24.00) = –3.9489, p < 0.001). Interestingly, 4th grade students with MGLD do not achieve higher scores than 1st graders with MGLD, indicating a lack of progress in the skill area examined during this period (Mann-Whitney U = 321.50, Zadj = 0.2952, p > 0.05). However, 7th graders with MGLD achieved higher scores than 4th graders with MGLD (Mann-Whitney U = 181.50, Zadj = 2.6624, p < 0.01), mirroring progress in the skill competency examined during this period. Syllabification

As shown in Figure 13.8, students with MGLD underachieve compared to their TD peers at each grade level examined (1st graders with MGLD: M = 6.48, SD = 2.10, SE = 0.40; 1st grade TD students: M = 9.30, SD = 0.78, SE = 0.15; t(32.95) = –6.5317, p < 0 .001; 4th graders with

300  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 13.8  Syllabification scores (max. 10 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

MGLD: M = 7.52, SD = 1.56, SE = 0.31, 4th grade TD students: M = 10.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –7.9600, p < 0.001; 7th graders with MGLD: M = 8.40, SD = 1.89, SE = 0.38, 7th grade TD students: M = 10.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –4.2261, p < 0.001). The 4th grade MGLD students underachieve as compared to 1st grade TD students (t(34.59) = –5.1421, p < 0.001). The 7th graders with MGLD still had lower scores as compared to 1st grade TD students (t(31.33) = –2.2025, p = 0.0351). When comparing 7th graders with MGLD with 4th grade TD children, their scores are considerably lower, too (t(24.00) = –4.2662, p < 0.001). Deletions

(1) Syllable deletions First grade students with MGLD (M = 0.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00) show no ability to carry out syllable deletion tasks yet, whereas their TD peers achieve on average M = 74.06% (SD = 15.50, SE = 2.80) on this task (see Figure 13.9). 4th grade students with MGLD (M = 3.04,

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  301

Figure 13.9  Syllable deletion scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

SD = 0.93, SE = 0.19) have lower scores as compared to TD peers (M = 4.84, SD = 0.37, SE = 0.07; t(31.50) = –8.9406, p < 0.000001). Seventh grade students with MGLD (M = 3.92, SD = 0.70, SE = 0.14) also underachieve compared to their TD peers (M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –7.6882, p < 0.001). The 4th grade students with MGLD achieve lower scores as compared to 1st grade TD students (M = 3.70, SD = 0.78, SE = 0.15; Mann-Whitney U = 215.50, Zadj = –2.3646, p < 0.025). However, 7th grade students with MGLD show the same skill level in syllable deletion as 1st grade TD students: Mann-Whitney U = 287.00, Zadj = 0.9938, p > 0.05). The 7th grade students with MGLD show weaker skills in syllable deletion than 4th grade TD students (t(36.30) = –5.7802, p < 0.001). Phoneme deletion

Students with MGLD show no skills in phoneme deletion in first grade yet, whereas their TD peers achieve 68.80% (SD = 18.66, SE = 3.60) on average on this task at this age (see Figure 13.10). The scores of students with MGLD are lower than their TD peers at each grade level, including 7th grade (MGLD: M = 3.88, SD = 1.36, SE = 0.27, TD: M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = -4.1061, p < 0.001). The 4th

302  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 13.10  Phoneme deletion scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

graders with MGLD (M = 2.56, SD = 1.45, SE = 0.29) still have lower scores as compared to 1st grade TD students (M = 3.44, SD = 0.93, SE = 0.18; t(40.53) = –2.5980, p < 0.025). However, 7th graders with MGLD overachieve in phoneme deletion skills compared to 1st grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 227.00, Zadj = 2.1185, p = 0.0341). The 7th graders with MGLD still score lower as compared to 4th grade TD students (M = 4.92, SD = 0.28, SE = 0.06; t(25.97) = –3.7366, p < 0.001). Phoneme isolation

Students with MGLD show no skills in phoneme isolation in first grade, whereas their TD peers achieve 85.18% (SD = 13.11, SE = 2.52) on average on this task at this age (see Figure 13.11). Students with MGLD score lower than their TD peers at each grade level, including 4th graders (MGLD M = 7.32, SD = 1.86, SE = 0.37; TD: M = 10.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –7.1866, p < 0.000001) and 7th graders (MGLD: M = 7.36, SD = 2.00, SE = 0.40; TD: M = 10.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –6.6083, p < 0.001). As compared to 1st grade TD students (M = 8.52, SD = 1.31, SE = 0.25), neither the 4th graders with MGLD (Mann-Whitney U = 212.00, Zadj = –2.3292, p < 0.025) nor the 7th graders with MGLD (M = 7.36, SD = 2.00, SE = 0.40; Mann-Whitney

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  303

Figure 13.11  Phoneme isolation scores (max. 10 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

U = 222.50, Zadj = –2.1371, p = 0.0326) reach the level of achievement shown in the youngest TD group of children examined. 7th graders with MGLD also score lower as compared to 4th grade TD children (t(24.00) = –6.6083, p < 0.001). No growth in achievement is detected in students with MGLD in the 7th as compared to those in the 4th grade (MannWhitney U = 301.50, Zadj = –0.2070, p > 0.05). Phoneme blending

(1) Phoneme blending for words As shown in Figure 13.12, compared to TD peers, students with MGLD score lower at all grade levels examined (1st graders: MGLD M = 1.33, SD = 1.07, SE = 0.21, TD: M = 4.00, SD = 0.88, SE = 0.17; MannWhitney U = 30.50, Zadj = –5.8751, p < 0.001; 4th graders: MGLD M = 4.24, SD = 0.88, SE = 0.18; TD: M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –4.3212, p < 0.001). The 7th graders with MGLD also underachieve compared to TD peers (MGLD M = 4.36, SD = 1.04, SE = 0.21, TD: M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –3.0886, p < 0.01). When comparing 4th graders with MGLD to 1st grade TD students, the special

304  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 13.12 Phoneme blending for words scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/-1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

needs children show comparative levels of competency (Mann-Whitney U = 285.50, Zadj = 1.0034, p > 0.05). The 7th grade special needs students, when compared with 1st grade TD students, also show comparable levels of competency (Mann-Whitney U = 241.00, zadj = 1.8947, p > 0.05). However, the scores of 7th graders with MGLD are not comparable to the results of 4th grade TD students (t(24) = –3.0888, p < 0.01). Phoneme blending for non-words

Figure 13.13 show that, compared to TD peers, students with MGLD score lower at all grade levels examined (1st graders: MGLD M = 1.11, SD = 0.85, SE = 0.16, TD: M = 3.56, SD = 0.80, SE = 0.15; MannWhitney U = 11.00, Zadj = –6.2237, p < 0.001; 4th graders: MGLD M = 2.96, SD = 0.98, SE = 0.20; TD: M = 4.64, SD = 0.64, SE = 0.13; MannWhitney U = 50.00, Zadj = –5.3797, p < 0.001; 7th graders: MGLD M = 3.28, SD = 0.84, SE = 0.17; TDs: M = 5.00, SD = 0.00, SE = 0.00; t(24.00) = –10.2063, p < 0.001). The 4th graders with MGLD still score lower as compared to 1st grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 221.50, Zadj = –2.3144, p < 0.025). Compared to 1st grade TD students, 7th graders with MGLD are on par (Mann-Whitney U = 1059.50,

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  305

Figure 13.13 Phoneme blending for non-words scores (max. 5 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

Zadj = 1.5572, p > 0.05). Further, 7th graders with MGLD show weaker competence than 4th grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 70.00, Zadj = –4.9308, p < 0.001). Segmentation into phonemes

As shown in Figure 13.14, students with MGLD show no skills in segmenting words into phonemes in first grade yet, whereas their TD peers achieve on average 63.42% (SD = 34.32, SE = 2.75) on this task. Compared to TD peers, students with MGLD score lower in higher grades, as well (4th graders: MGLD M = 6.80, SD = 1.32, SE = 0.26; TD: M = 8.80, SD = 1.15, SE = 0.23; Mann-Whitney U = 88.50, Zadj = –4.4337, p < 0.00001; 7th graders: MGLD M = 7.12, SD = 1.90, SE = 0.38; TD: M = 9.85, SD = 0.37, SE = 0.07; t(25.73) = 7.0481, p < 0.000001). The 4th graders with MGLD are on par with 1st grade TD students (TD: M = 5.89, SD = 1.63, SE = 0.31; Mann-Whitney U = 238.00, Zadj = 1.8550, p > 0.05). The 7th graders with MGLD achieve better scores than 1st grade TD students (Mann-Whitney U = 211.00, Zadj = 2.3410, p < 0.025). However, 7th graders with MGLD do not reach the achievement level of 4th grade TD children yet (Mann-Whitney U = 145.00, Zadj = –3.3063, p < 0.001).

306  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 13.14  Segmentation into phonemes scores (max. 10 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

Phonemically long sound identification

The subtest for measuring skills in phonemically long sound identification was added to the Hungarian version of the NILD (National Institute for Learning Development) test (Jordanidisz, 2009) because the differentiation of phonemically short and long phonemes is an important feature of the phonology of Hungarian. TD children already differentiate these sounds in their production at the age of 2;0 years in terms of duration (Zajdó & Powell, 2008) and, at the age of 4;0 but not 2;0 years, spectrally, too (Zajdó et al., 2011). However, there is a paucity of data about the acquisition of adult-like perception of phonemic length both in typical and atypical populations. As shown in Figure 13.15, students with MGLD show no skills yet in identifying phonemically long sounds embedded in mono- or multisyllabic words in the first grade, whereas their TD peers achieve on average 56.11% (SD = 11.20, SE = 2.15) in this task. Compared to TD peers, students with MGLD underachieve in higher grades as well (4th graders: MGLD M = 4.46, SD = 1.35, SE = 0.27; TD: M = 9.58, SD = 0.53, SE = 0.11; t(31.29) = –17.5960, p < 0.001; 7th graders: MGLD M = 7.04, SD = 1.31, SE = 0.26; TD: M = 9.92, SD = 0.23, SE = 0.05; t(25.43) = –10.8070, p < 0.001). The 4th graders with MGLD score lower as compared to 1st

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  307

Figure 13.15 Phonemically long sound identification scores (max. 10 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

grade TD students (TD: M = 5.61, SD = 1.12, SE = 0.22; Mann-Whitney U = 180.00, Zadj = –2.8990, p = 0.0374). The 7th graders with MGLD achieve better scores then 1st grade TD students (U = 130.50, Zadj = 3.8076, p < 0.001). However, 7th graders with MGLD do not reach the achievement level of 4th grade TD children (t(31.70) = –8.9523, p < 0.001). Phoneme manipulation

Students’ results in phoneme manipulation are shown in Figure 13.16. Students with MGLD show no skills in phoneme manipulation in first grade, whereas their TD peers achieve on average 41.48% (SD = 14.33, SE = 2.75) in this task. Compared to TD peers, students with MGLD score lower in higher grades as well (4th graders: MGLD M = 3.92, SD = 1.66, SE = 0.33; TD: M = 9.60, SD = 0.71, SE = 0.14; t(32.46) = –15.7697, p < 0.001; 7th graders: MGLD M = 6.32, SD = 2.08, SE = 0.42; TD: M = 9.92, SD = 0.27, SE = 0.05; t(24.79) = –8.6071, p < 0.001). The 4th graders with MGLD are on par with 1st grade TD students (TD: M = 4.15, SD = 1.43, SE = 0.28; Mann-Whitney U = 320.50, Zadj = –0.3082, p > 0.05). The 7th graders with MGLD achieve better scores

308  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 13.16  Phoneme manipulation scores (max. 10 points) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

than 1st grade TD students (U = 132.50, Zadj = 3.7912, p < 0.001). However, 7th graders with MGLD do not reach the achievement level of 4th grade TD children (t(29.49) = –7.4777, p < 0 .001). Order of acquisition in phonological skills

Results show that the development of phonological awareness skills is non-uniform as reflected by the rankings in 1st, 4th and 7th grades in children with MGLD and TD students (see Table 13.6). The 0 achievement ranking means an average achievement level of 0%. Some of the initial relative strengths do remain in some areas of knowledge throughout all years. For example, the highest achievement is syllable blending for words, in both groups. Further, phoneme blending for words and syllabification are typically listed in the first 5 best skills overall. The fact that among PA skills phoneme blending appears relatively early is already well-known for TD children (see Oulette & Haley, 2013). Relative weaknesses also remain. For example, rhyme generation for words and phoneme manipulation are important weaknesses in both groups examined, suggesting task complexity. Some skills, such as phonemically long sound identification, are listed as numbers 11–12 throughout the years with the exception of 1st grade

8.9

0.0 0.0 0.0

Phonemically long sound identification

Phoneme manipulation

22.2

Phoneme blending for non-words

Segmentation into phonemes

26.7

0.0

Phoneme blending for words

0.0

Phoneme isolation

64.8

Syllabification

Phoneme deletion

68.9

Syllable blending for non-words

0.0

88.1

Syllable blending for words

Syllable deletion

0.0

Rhyme generation for words

22.2

Rhyme categorization

Rhyme generation by sentence finishing

0.0

Rhyme recognition

Mean % in 1st grade

0

0

0

5–6

4

0

0

0

3

2

1

0

5–6

7

0

Rank

39.2

44.6

68.0

59.2

84.8

73.2

51.2

60.8

75.2

69.6

100.0

4.8

42.4

33.6

54.4

Mean % in 4th grade

13

11

6

8

2

4

10

7

3

5

1

15

12

14

9

Rank

MGLD

63.2

70.4

71.2

65.6

87.2

73.6

77.6

78.4

84.0

87.2

99.2

26.8

56.0

56.0

72.0

Mean % in 7th grade

12

10

9

11

2–3

7

6

5

4

2–3

1

15

13–14

13–14

8

Rank

41.5

56.1

58.9

71.1

80.0

85.2

68.9

74.1

93.0

97.0

100.0

49.6

63.7

62.2

70.4

Mean % in 1st grade

15

13

12

7

5

4

9

6

3

2

1

14

10

11

8

Rank

96.0

95.8

88.0

92.8

100.0

100.0

98.4

96.8

100.0

100.0

100.0

77.6

91.2

92.8

98.4

Mean % in 4th grade

TD

9

10

14

11–12

1–5

1–5

6–7

8

1–5

1–5

1–5

15

13

11–12

6–7

Rank

99.2

99.2

98.5

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

97.7

96.2

98.5

100.0

Mean % in 7th grade

10–11

10–11

12–13

1–9

1–9

1–9

1–9

1–9

1–9

1–9

1–9

14

15

12–13

1–9

Rank

Table 13.6  Mean percentages and ranks (numbered from highest to lowest) of mean achievement levels in children with MGLD and TD children in 1st, 4th and 7th grades

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  309

310  Part 2: Atypical Development

students with MGLD, reflecting relative difficulty with this task among PA subskills. However, some skills do change ranks quite substantially throughout development. Examples include phoneme blending for non-words, and rhyme generation for sentence finishing, that are characterized by changing rankings in both MGLD and TD groups. Thus, some but not all individual PA subskills seem to pose varying levels of difficulty for children at different ages (in different grades). Achievement levels in phonological but non-phonemic skills only

Students’ scores on the phonological but non-phonemic tasks area shown in Figure 13.17. Tasks included the following tasks: rhyme recognition, rhyme categorization, rhyme generation by sentence finishing, rhyme generation for words, syllable blending for words, syllable blending for non-words, syllabification and syllable deletion. Students with MGLD score lower as compared to their TD peers at all grade levels examined (1st graders: MGLD M = 35.30, SD = 8.04, SE = 1.55; TD: M = 78.11, SD = 7.68, SE = 1.48; Mann-Whitney U = 0.00, Zadj = –6.3095, p < 0.000001; 4th graders: MGLD M = 57.33, SD = 7.99, SE = 1.87; TD: M = 95.20, SD = 3.94, SE = 0.79; t(35.0018) = –21.2486, p < 0.001; 7th graders: MGLD M = 71.51, SD = 9.33, SE = 1.87; TD M = 99.15,

Figure 13.17  Scores gathered on all phonological but non-phonemic tasks (in %) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  311

SD = 1.27, SE = 0.25, t(24.8543) = –14.6813, p < 0.001). Neither 4th graders with MGLD, nor 7th graders with MGLD reach the level of competency shown by 1st grade TD children (4th graders with MGLD vs. 1st grader TD: Mann-Whitney U = 16.00, Zadj = –5.8891, p < 0.000001; 7th graders with MGLD vs. 1st grade TD students: Mann-Whitney U = 195.50, Zadj = –2.6006, p < 0.01). Thus, 7th graders with MGLD still score lower in overall phonological but non-phonemic skill competency compared to 1st grade TD children. Achievement level in phonemic skills only

Figure 13.18 shows students’ overall scores on all phonemic tasks including phoneme deletion, phoneme isolation, phoneme synthesis for words, phoneme synthesis for non-words, phoneme segmentation, phonemically long sound identification and phoneme manipulation. Students with MGLD scored lower as compared to their TD peers at all grade levels examined (1st graders: MGLD M = 4.44, SD = 3.04, SE = 0.58; TD: M = 63.94, SD = 8.48, SE = 1.63; t(32.5791) = –34.3332, p < 0.001; 4th graders: MGLD M = 58.65, SD = 10.48, SE = 2.10; TD: M = 95.53, SD = 4.18, SE = 0.84; t(31.4520) = –16.3375, p < 0.001; 7th graders: MGLD M = 71.56, SD = 11.81, SE = 2.36; TD M = 99.44,

Figure 13.18  Scores gathered on all phonemic tasks (in %) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

312  Part 2: Atypical Development

SD = 0.89, SE = 0.18, t(24.2640) = –11.7661, p < 0.001). Compared to first grade TD students, 4th graders with MGLD achieve on par (MannWhitney U = 245.50, Zadj = –1.6780, p > 0.05). The 7th graders with MGLD deliver better results than 1st grade TD students (U = 189.00, Zadj = 2.7129, p < 0.01) but score lower as compared to 4th grade TD children (t(29.9214) = –9.5608, p < 0.000001). However, 7th graders with MGLD show higher competency than 4th graders with MGLD, indicating progress in skill development in the special need population (Mann-Whitney U = 125.50, Zadj = 3.6249, p < 0.001.) A comparison of phonological but non-phonemic vs. phonemic skills in students with MGLD and TD students

A comparison of achievement scores on phonological but nonphonemic skills (such as rhyme recognition and categorization, rhyme generation by sentence finishing and for words, syllable blending for words and non-words and syllable deletion) vs. phonemic skills (such as phoneme deletion and isolation, phoneme blending for words and nonwords, word segmentation into phonemes, phonemically long sound identification (recognizing long phonemes) and phoneme manipulation) in 1st, 4th and 7th graders with MGLD show that these scores differ in first grade students (t (33.2768) = 18.6503, p < 0.001). However, these skills did not differ at higher grades (4th grade: t(48) = –0.5011, p > 0.05; 7th grade: t(48) = –0.0174, p > 0.05). TD children show a similar trend: in first grade, phonological but non-phonemic skills are better developed compared to phonemic skills (t(52) = 6.4346, p < 0.001), but in higher grades the two types of skill do not differ (4th grade: t(48) = –0.2848, p > 0.05; 7th grade: t(50) = –0.969, p > 0.05). Results on linear correlation between phonological but non-phonemic skills and phonemic skills show varying levels of correlation in each group of children. In first graders with MGLD, a less than weak linear correlation was documented. In 4th graders with MGLD, a moderately strong positive correlation was noted. Data from 7th graders with MGLD showed a weak positive relationship (MGLD Pearson r values: 1st grade: r(25) = 0.294, 4th grade: r(23) = 0.677, 7th grade: r(23) = 0.397). However, in TD students the relationship does not even reach a weak level correlation (traditionally defined as 0.30 < r < 0.50) between the two types of skill at any grade level (1st grade: Pearson r(25) = 0.040; 4th grade: Spearman rank rS(23) = 0.220, 7th grade: Spearman rank rS(24) = 0.288). It is noteworthy that, if we examine all students in the study, the Pearson’s r(153) = 0.9196 indicates a very strong positive relationship between competency levels in phonological-but-nonphonemic and phonemic skills. If we divide the children to MGLD and TD groups, the values are r(75) = 0.8822, and r(76) = 0.8502, respectively, mirroring an overall strong correlation between the two types of skill in the groups of students examined.

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  313

Figure 13.19  Scores gathered on all phonological awareness tasks (in %) in students with MGLD (dark) and TD students (light) in 1st, 4th and 7th grades. Boxes show mean +/- 1 SE, bars show mean +/- 1 SD. Outliers and extremes are calculated with a 1.5 coefficient (Dell Inc., 2016)

Overall achievement levels in phonological awareness skills

Figure 13.19 was constructed by taking the scores of phonological but non-phonemic testing in percentages (accounting for a maximum of 100%), adding to it the results of phonemic testing in percentages (with a maximum value of 100%), then dividing the result by two. In other words, the two types of skill were taken into account with equal weight to arrive at the final scores. In 1st grade, the difference between the achievements of the two groups is quite substantial. In 4th grade, children with MGLD demonstrate lower average skill levels in phonological awareness than first grade TD children (Mann-Whitney U = 80.00, Zadj = 4.7092, p < 0.001). However, the average skill level in children with MGLD in 7th grade is comparable to that of TD children in 1st grade (Mann-Whitney U = 309.50, Zadj = –0.5039, p > 0.05). Comparison of levels for selected MGLD and TD groups of students

It is important to examine whether students with MGLD catch up with peers during development. It is also informative to know whether these special needs students catch up to the achievement level of certain TD groups throughout the school years. Table 13.7 shows which group

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

Rhyme recognition

Rhyme categorization

Rhyme generation for sentence finishing

Rhyme generation for words

Syllable synthesis for words

Syllable synthesis for non-words

Syllabification

Syllable deletion

Phoneme deletion

Phoneme isolation

Phoneme synthesis for words

Phoneme synthesis for non-words

Phoneme segmentation

Phonemically long sound identification

Phoneme manipulation

Phonological but non-phonemic skills only

Phonemic skills only

All skills

1st grade MGLD vs. 1st grade TD

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

yes

no

no

no

no

4th grade MGLD vs. 4th grade TD

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

yes

no

no

no

no

7th grade MGLD vs. 7th grade TD

Table 13.7  Comparison of phonological awareness levels in selected MGLD and TD groups

no

yes

no

yes

no

yes

no

yes

no

no

no

no

no

yes

no

no

no

no

4th grade MGLD vs. 1st grade TD

yes

yes (surpasses)

no

yes (surpasses)

yes (surpasses)

yes (surpasses)

yes

yes

no

yes (surpasses)

yes

no

no

yes

no

yes

yes

yes

7th grade MGLD vs. 1st grade TD

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

yes

no

no

no

no

7th grade MGLD vs. 4th grade TD

314  Part 2: Atypical Development

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  315

of students with MGLD caught up to the achievement level of another TD group. Results show that in one skill area, in syllable synthesis for words, students with MGLD have comparable skills to TD peers, with the exception of 1st grade. In another four skill areas, 4th graders with MGLD demonstrate comparable skills to 1st grade TD children. In an additional five skill areas, 7th graders with MGLD were characterized by the same competency as 1st grade TD students. In four skill areas, 7th graders with MGLD surpass the competency level of 1st grade TD students; however, in none of the skills do they reach the skill level of 4th grade TD students. With respect to phonological but non-phonemic skills, the skill levels of students with MGLD are below not only their TD peers but also those younger than themselves. In these areas, students with MGLD do not seem to catch up to TD children at the grade levels examined. However, in phonemic skills, 4th graders with MGLD achieve on par with and 7th graders with MGLD surpass the level of competence shown by 1st grade TD children. It is important to see that 7th graders with MGLD still do not reach the level of skills demonstrated by 4th grade TD students. Discussion

Uncovering developmental trends in phonological awareness acquisition has been a scientific journey that has been in the making since the 1960s. Currently, we have a growing understanding of changes in the acquisition of phonological awareness in typically developing populations. However, our knowledge of the same process and its sub-processes in atypical populations such as students with MGLD is inadequate. This study set out to examine three questions. Uniform developmental trends of PA skills in MGLD students?

As a first focus area of research, this study explored whether children with MGLD develop their subskills in phonological awareness in a uniform fashion. A review of the previous sections shows convincingly that phonological awareness subskills do not develop by following the same timing and order sequences in students with MGLD, just as in TD children. As reviewed in the introduction section of the current chapter, the first process that appears during phonological acquisition development in TD children is the recognition that sentences are made up of words. Next, recognition of rhyming develops, followed by the ability to produce rhymes. Then children come to understand that words are made up of syllables, and subsequently they are able to produce these word elements. The next stage is the recognition of onsets and rimes

316  Part 2: Atypical Development

followed by their production. Next, children come to recognize that words can begin with the same sound and then become capable of producing such words. As a next step, word-final sounds are recognized, followed by the ability to produce words ending with the same sound. The recognition that words also have medial sounds follows, and then children become capable of producing them. The ability to break words down into individual phonemes follows, and children become capable of putting words together from phonemes. The realization that sounds can be deleted from words is the next developmental step, which gives way to the ability to produce new words generated by sound deletion. The ability to blend sounds to make words and the ability to segment words into constituent sounds are the two latest skills to be acquired by TD children. The latter part of this process has been described as a development from shallow to deep phonemic awareness (Hempenstall, 2014). Individual variability does exist and it needs to be taken into account during training (Ehri et al., 2001), but this description captures general trends in development effectively. It has also been shown that TD children at different ages show different levels of competency in PA skills (Paulson, 2004), making it quite challenging to describe an ageindependent developmental pattern in PA acquisition. Results show that the order of competency changes in students with MGLD at the different age groups examined. Many similarities exist between the development of phonological awareness skills in TD students and students with MGLD, as reflected by the results of this study. In first grade, students with MGLD show considerably more advanced skills only in syllable blending for words. This skill is also the strongest one in TD peers who achieve 100% in this task already. All grades considered, syllable blending for non-words and syllabification are the next two relative strengths in MGLD students, and this observation also holds true for the TD population. Phoneme blending for words and non-words are also emerging skills in students with MGLD, which is also true for TD children. The tendency for the students to achieve lower scores with non-words as opposed to words is also a similarity in the two groups. To continue with the similarities, the weakest area of phonological awareness skills in both populations is rhyme generation for words. Areas that are somewhat more developed include phoneme manipulation, rhyme categorization, rhyme generation by sentence finishing, and phoneme blending for non-words. Phonemically long sound identification is not easy for any of the groups examined in first grade, but students gradually acquire this subskill to higher competency as well. The ability to segment words into phonemes and delete phonemes from words is also relatively challenging and develops gradually in both populations. One major difference between the special needs students and their TD peers is that, in first grade TD children are already quite

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  317

accomplished in the subtasks of phonological awareness examined. By contrast, students with MGLD have 8 subskills that are not yet emerging (the average achievement level in these areas is 0%). For first grade TD children, the area of phoneme manipulation is the weakest subskill where they already achieve more than 40% on the tasks examined. In addition, TD children produce 100% scores in five areas in 4th grade and nine areas in 7th grade. By contrast, first graders with MGLD have only three subskills that are at or above the 40% mark. Overall, in many but not all areas of development, students with MGLD start their journey in first grade with non-existent or very few skills, and then continue developing without ever achieving comparable levels of competency to those of TD children. Just as in TD children, the development of the sub-skills of phonological awarenessin students with MGLD is clearly non-uniform. Delayed or disordered development?

As a second focus area of scientific inquiry, this study aimed to explore whether the developmental pattern observed in the phonological awareness skills of students with MGLD students reflect delayed or disordered development. Delayed development means that the timeline of development differs substantially from typical development in the absence of other important differences. Disordered development means that, in addition to an atypical timing pattern in skill maturation, development is also characterized by an atypical order (Fletcher, 1990; Ingram, 1989; Leonard, 1998). It is easy to see that, upon closer examination, we can support both arguments by at least part of our results. The developmental progression of PA skills in students with MGLD is clearly atypical since many skills are non-existent in first graders who just started school. Further, in our data in Table 13.7, we identified skills that first cause great difficulty for students with MGLD, followed by a phase of relatively fast maturation, only to arrive at a later developmental phase with very slow progression (e.g. the one we see between 4th and 7th grades). This is what we see at the segmentation into phonemes task. However, Figures 13.16 and 13.17 show the developmental trends in MGLD vs. TD groups for phonological but non-phonemic skills and phonemic skills, respectively. Phonological but non-phonemic skills do seem to develop somewhat in parallel in the two groups examined. The average difference between the two first grader groups is 42.80%, which decreases to 37.87% by 4th grade and then to 27.63% by 7th grade, mapping out a slow catch up in development, this catch up being probably attributable to the ceiling effect we see in the TD children’s achievement. Similarity is less detectable between the two groups in phonemic skills. Average group achievements at the 1st, 4th and 7th grade levels differ by 59.49%

318  Part 2: Atypical Development

36.87% and 27.88%, respectively, mapping out a progression with slowing maturation. Figure 13.18 shows the development of all PA skills examined. Compared to the rate of maturation between the two lower grades, skill acquisition between 4th and 7th grade seems to be considerably slower. However, the overall developmental progression was quite parallel to the order of development in the TD group. Taken together, our results provide more support for categorizing phonological awareness development in students with MGLD as severely delayed rather than disordered. Areas of comparable skills – is there a catch up?

In comparison to TD peers, the development of many communicative skills in students with MGLD is delayed by 4 to 6 years/grades. Results of the current study show that the acquisition of phonological awareness skills is similar. Data shown in Table 13.5 demonstrate that students with MGLD were severely delayed in their development of pre-reading skills measured here. As shown in Figure 13.19, overall phonological awareness skills were limited in 1st graders with MGLD, with an average score of 19.87%. In 4th grade, this figure was 58%, reflecting relatively fast maturation of skills. However, 7th graders demonstrate an average competence level of only 71.53%, reflecting a rather slow rate of development between the two higher grades. By contrast, TD children at these grades showed 71.02, 95.36 and 99.29% average scores, respectively. Thus, 7th graders with MGLD are on average still more than 25% behind their TD peers. We can conclude that it is unlikely that, during their elementary school years, students with MGLD catch up to the competency level of their TD peers in phonological awareness skills. Learning mechanisms in students with MGLD need to be explored in detail to elucidate how children equipped with these less developed skills learn to read. Overall Summary

Results of the current study show that students with MGLD were severely delayed in comparison to TD children in the acquisition of phonological awareness skills. In addition, the speed of skill development in students with MGLD was non-uniform in individual areas of phonological awareness as compared to the TD group of students. It is also important to emphasize that phonological but non-phonemic skills in 1st, 4th and 7th grade students with MGLD were not on par with 1st grade TD peers. Further, results showed that learning phonemic skills starts from a very basic level for these special needs children at the beginning of schooling; however, by 4th grade,

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  319

their competence in these areas was comparable to the skill level of TD peers. Thus, students with MGLD showed an average rate of 18.7% improvement yearly during this phase of development in phonological awareness skills. Between 4th and 7th grade, the acquisition rate of phonemic skills was rather slow; only a 4.3% improvement rate was detected yearly. These results show that, for students with MGLD, becoming familiar with individual phonics is relatively easier than learning the cognitive and linguistic skills to facilitate sound manipulation. Across all PA subskills examined, 7th graders with MGLD reached the level of competence shown by TD 1st grade students, but they did not surpass that level of skills. In addition, the finding that the scores on phonological-but-nonphonemic as well as phonemic tasks are strongly correlated in students with MGLD underscores the importance of developing the earlier appearing skills to the highest level possible, as soon during development as it is achievable. Since phonological awareness remains one of the strongest predictors for the acquisition of reading, these findings show that students with MGLD have insufficient foundations for learning to read during the elementary school years. Educational planning and instruction need to take into consideration these needs and the slow rate of maturation to facilitate the acquisition of reading in this population. Future studies will have to explore whether and through what steps do older (e.g. secondary school aged) students with MGLD develop further skills in phonological awareness and reading skills. Further research will have to map out developmental progression in phonological awareness and reading in MGLD students during the secondary school years to make way for more cogent reading instruction for this group of students. References Adams, M.J., Foorman, B.R., Lundberg, I. and Beeler, T. (1998) Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes. Anthony, J.L. and Francis, D.J. (2005) Development of phonological awareness. Current Directions in Psychological Science 14 (5), 255–259. Badr, L. (2015) Poor Workforce Literacy Impacts Workplace Safety. Website of the Chisholm Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. See https://www.chisholm.edu.au/industry/ industry-training-insights/literacy-skills-impact-workplace-safety (accessed January 2019). Barbour, K., Keafer, K. and Scott, K. (2003) Sounds of Speech: Phonological Processing Activities. Norfolk, VA: National Institute of Learning Development. Barker, R.M., Sevcik, R.A., Morris, R.D. and Romski, M. (2013) A model of phonological processing, language, and reading for students with mild intellectual disability. American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 118 (5), 365–380. Blomert, L. and Csépe, V. (2012) Psychological foundations of reading acquisition and assessment. In B. Csapó and V. Csépe (eds) Framework for Diagnostic Assessment of Reading (pp. 17–78). Budapest, Hungary: Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó.

320  Part 2: Atypical Development

Brady, S.A. and Fowler, A.E. (1988) Phonological precursors to reading acquisition. In R.L. Masland and M.W. Masland (eds) Preschool Prevention of Reading Failure (pp. 204– 215). Parkton, MD: York Press. Bryant, P., Nunes, T. and Barros, R. (2014) The connection between children’s knowledge and use of grapho-phonic and morphemic units in written text and their learning at school. British Journal of Educational Psychology 84 (2), 211–225. Cardoso-Martens, C. and Pennington, B.F. (2004) The relationship between phoneme awareness and rapid serial naming skills and literacy acquisition: The role of developmental period and reading ability. Scientific Studies of Reading 8 (1), 27–52. Carroll, J.M., Snowling, M., Hulme, C. and Steveson, J. (2003) The development of phonological awareness in preschool children. Developmental Psychology 39 (5), 913–923. Channell, M.M., Loveall, S.J. and Conners, F.A. (2013) Strengths and weaknesses in reading skills of youth with intellectual disabilities. Research in Developmental Disabilities 34 (2), 776–787. Committee to Evaluate the Supplemental Security Income Disability Program for Children with Mental Disorders; Board on the Health of Select Populations; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Institute of Medicine; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2015): Clinical characteristics of intellectual disabilities. In T.F. Boat and J.T. Wu (eds) Mental Disorders and Disabilities among Low-Income Children (pp. 169–178). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/21780 (accessed February 2019). Conant, L.L., Liebenthal, E., Desai, A. and Binder, J.R. (2017) The relationship between maternal education and the neural substrates of phoneme perception in children: Interactions between socioeconomic status and proficiency level. Brain and Language 171, 14–22. Connell, J. and Moxfyre (2009) File: Hungarian vowel chart.svg available at https:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hungarian_vowel_chart.svg under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unportedlicense. Conners, F.A., Rosenquist, C.J., Sligh, A.C., Atwell, J.A. and Kiser, T. (2006) Phonological reading skills acquisition by children with mental retardation. Research in Developmental Disabilities 27 (2), 121–137. Dell, Inc. (2016) Dell Statistica (data analysis software system), Version 13.2. software.dell. com. Ehri, L.C., Nunes, S.R., Willows, D.M., Schuster, B.V., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z. and Shanahan, T. (2001) Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel’s meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly 36, 250–287. Elhassan, Z., Crewther, S.G. and Bavin, E.L. (2017) The contribution of phonological awareness to reading fluency and its individual sub-skills in readers aged 9- to 12-years. Frontiers in Psychology: Educational Psychology Section 8, 533. doi.10.3389/ fpsyg.2017.00533. Fletcher, P. (1990) The breakdown of language: Language pathology and therapy. In L. Collinge (ed.) An Encycopedia of Language (pp. 422–457). London: Routledge. Fowler, A.E. (1990) Factors contributing to performance on phoneme awareness tasks in school- aged children. Haskins Laboratories Status Report on Speech Research SR103/104, 137–152. Gaál, É. (2000) Tanulásban akadályozott gyermekek az óvodában és az iskolában [Children with mild general learning difficulties at kindergarten and school]. In S. Illyés (ed.) Gyógypedagógiai Alapismeretek (pp. 429–459). Budapest: ELTE-BGGYFK. Gósy, M. (2004) Fonetika, a Beszéd Tudománya [Phonetics, the Study of Speech]. Budapest: Osiris Kiadó. Hempenstall, K. (2014) Phonemic awareness: Yea, nay? See https://www.nifdi.org/news/ hempenstall-blog/456-phonemic-awareness-yea-nay (accessed February 2019).

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  321

Hochschild, J.L. (2003) Social class in public schools. Journal of Social Issues 59, 821–840. Hoff, E. (2013) Interpreting the early language trajectories of children from low-SES and language minority homes: Implications for closing achievement gaps. Developmental Psychology 49 (1), 4–14. Holopainen, L., Ahonen, T., Tolvanen, A. and Lyytinen, H. (2000) Two alternative ways to model the relation between reading accuracy and phonological awareness at preschool age. Scientific Studies of Reading 4 (2), 77–100. Høien-Tengesdal, I. and Tønnessen, F.E. (2011) The relationship between phonological skills and word decoding. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52 (1), 93–103. Ingram, D. (1989) First Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jordanidisz, Á. (2009) A fonológiai tudatosság fejlődése az olvasástanulás időszakában [The development of phonological awareness during the period of reading acquisition]. Anyanyelv- pedagógia, 2009/4. http://www.anyp.hu/cikkek Kim, K.H. and Zabelina, D. (2015) Cultural bias in assessment: Can creativity assessment help? International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 6 (2), 129–147. Koritsas, S. and Iacono, T. (2011) Secondary conditions in people with developmental disability. American Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 116 (1), 36–47. Központi Statisztikai Hivatal (2015) 2011 évi népszámlálás: 17. A fogyatékossággal élők helyzete és ellátásuk Magyarországon [Census 2011: Report #17. The Status and Services Available for the Handicapped in Hungary]. Budapest, Hungary: Központi Statisztikai Hivatal. Leonard, L. (ed.) (1998) Children with Specific Language Impairment. Cambridge: MIT Press. Liberman, I.Y., Shankweiler, D. and Liberman, A.M. (1989) The alphabetic principle and learning to read. In D. Shankweiler and I.Y. Liberman (eds) Phonology and Reading Disability: Solving the Reading Puzzle (pp. 1–34) (Research Monograph Series). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lundberg, I., Olofsson, A. and Wall, S. (1980) Reading and spelling skills in the first years predicted from phonemic awareness skills in kindergarten. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 21, 159–173. Macey, E. (2013) Employers’ Views on Youth Literacy and Employability. Report for the National Literacy Trust, London, United Kingdom. See https://files.eric.ed.gov/ fulltext/ED560637.pdf (accessed January 2019). Magyar Tudományos Akadémia (1984) A Magyar Helyesírás Szabályai [Spelling Rules in Hungarian] (11th edn). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Melby-Lervåg, M., Lyster, S.A. and Hulme, C. (2012) Phonological skills and their role in learning to read: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin 138 (2), 322–352. Moats, L. and Tolman, C. (2009) Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): The Speech Sounds of English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Phoneme Awareness (Module 2). Boston, MA: Sopris West. Oulette, G. and Haley, A. (2013) One complicated extended family: The influence of alphabetic knowledge and vocabulary on phonemic awareness. Journal of Research in Reading 36 (1), 29–41. Parilla, R.K., Kirby, J.R. and McQuarrie, L. (2004) Articulation rate, naming speed, verbal short- term memory, and phonological awareness: Longitudinal predictors of early reading development? Scientific Studies of Reading 8, 3–26. Paulson, L.H. (2004) The Development of Phonological Awareness Skills in Preschool Children: From Syllables to Phonemes. Unpublished graduate thesis. Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 9522. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/ etd/9522. Purcell-Gates, V., McIntyre, E., and Freppon, P.A. (1995) Learning written storybook language in school: A comparison of low-SES children in skills-based and whole language classrooms. American Educational Research Journal 32, 659–685.

322  Part 2: Atypical Development

Rounds, C. (2001) Hungarian: An Essential Grammar. New York, NY: Routledge. Reynolds, C.R. and Suzuki, L.A. (2012) Bias in psychological assessment. In I.B. Weiner, J.R. Graham and J.A. Naglieri (eds) Handbook of Psychology (2nd edn, Vol. 10, pp. 82–113). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Saunders, K.J. and DeFulio, A. (2007) Phonological awareness and rapid naming predict word attack and word identification in adults with mild mental retardation. American Journal on Mental Retardation 112 (3), 155–166. Schiff, R. and Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2018) Development and relationships between phonological awareness, morphological awareness and word reading in spoken and standard Arabic. Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences Section, 09 April 2018. See https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00356 (accessed January 2019). Schmitterer, A.M.A. and Schroederer, S. (2019) Effects of reading and spelling predictors before and after school entry: Evidence from a German longitudinal study. Learning and Instruction 59, 46–53. Sermier Dessemontet, R. and de Chambrier, A.-F. (2015) The role of phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge in the reading development of children with intellectual disabilities. Research in Developmental Disabilities 41/42, 1–12. Sermier Dessemontet, R., de Chambrier, A.F., Martinet, C., Moser, U. and Bayer, N. (2017) Exploring phonological awareness skills in children with intellectual disability. American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 122 (6), 476–491. Sheridan, M.A. and McLaughlin, K.A. (2016) Neurological models of the impact of adversity on education. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 10, 108–113. Shonkoff, J.P. and Garner, A.S. (2012) The lifelong effects of childhood adversity and toxic stress. American Academy of Pediatrics 129, e232–e246. Shuttleworth-Edwards, A.B. (2016) Generally representative is representative of none: Commentary on the pitfalls of IQ test standardization in multicultural settings. Clinical Neuropsychology 30 (7), 975–998. Siptár, P. and Törkenczy, M. (2007) The Phonology of Hungarian. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skoe, E., Krizman, J., and Kraus, N. (2013) The impoverished brain: Disparities in maternal education affect the neural response to sound. The Journal of Neuroscience 33 (44), 17221–17231. Snowling, M. and Hulme, C. (1994) The development of phonological skills. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, Series B 346, 21–27. Soltani, A. and Roslan, S. (2013) Contributions of phonological awareness, phonological short-term memory, and rapid automated naming, toward decoding ability in students with mild intellectual disability. Research in Developmental Disabilities 34 (3), 1090– 1099. Stromquist, N.P. (2005) The Political Benefits of Adult Literacy. Background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006 (UNESCO). See http:// citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.560.7430&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed January 2019). Sunderaraman, P., Zahodne, L.B. and Manly, J.J. (2016) A commentary on ‘Generally representative is representative of none: Pitfalls of IQ test standardization in multicultural settings’ by A.B. Shuttleworth-Edwards. Clinical Neuropsychology 30 (7), 999–1005. Suzuki, L.A., Kugler, J.F. and Aguilar, L.J. (2005) Assessment practices in racial-cultural psychology. In R.T. Carter (ed.) Handbook of Racial-Cultural Psychology and Counseling: Training and Practice (pp. 297–315). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Szende, T. (1994) Illustrations of the IPA: Hungarian. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 24 (2), 91–94. Törkenczy, M. (2002) Practical Hungarian Grammar: A Compact Guide to the Basics of Hungarian Grammar. Budapest: Corvina Kiadó.

MGLD: Delayed or Disordered Phonological Development?  323

Tu, T., Colahan, M., Hale, C., D’Souza, J., McCallum, A., Mallows, D., Carpentieri, J.D., and Lister, J. (2016) Impact of Poor Basic Literacy and Numeracy on Employers. BIS Research Paper no. 266. London, UK: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills of the Government of the United Kingdom. UNESCO (2005) Education for all: Literacy for life. EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2006. UNESCO, Paris, France. See https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000141639 (accessed January 2019). Vaessen, A. and Blomert, L. (2010) Long-term cognitive dynamics of fluent reading development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 105 (3), 213–231. Vellutino, F.R., Fletcher, J.M., Snowling, M.J., and Scanlon, D.M. (2004) Specific reading disability (dyslexia): What have we learned in the past four decades? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 45, 2–40. Wise, J.C., Sevcik, R.A., Romski, M. and Morris, R.D. (2010) The relationship between phonological processing skills and word and nonword identification performance in children with mild intellectual disabilities. Research in Developmental Disabilities 31 (6), 1170–1175. Zajdó, K. (2007) Hungarian speech acquisition. In S. McLeod (ed.) International Guide to Speech Acquisition (pp. 412–436). Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning. Zajdó, K. and Powell, S. (2008) The acquisition of phonological vowel length in children acquiring Hungarian. In R. Sock, S. Fuchs and Y. Laprie (eds) Proceedings of the 8th International Seminar on Speech Production 2008 (pp. 173–176). Strasbourg, France: Phonetics Institute of Strasbourg. Zajdó, K., Wempe, T.G., van der Stelt, J. and Pols, L. (2011) The acquisition of Hungarian high front unrounded short vs. long vowels. In W-S. Lee and E. Zee (eds) Proceedings of ICPhS XVII (pp. 2252–2255). Hong Kong, China: Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong. Zanobini, M., Viterbori, P. and Saraceno, F. (2011) Phonology and language development in Italian children: An analysis of production and accuracy. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 55 (1), 16–31. Ziegler, J.C. and Goswami, U. (2005) Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bulletin 131, 3–29.

14 Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills Among HungarianSpeaking 5- to 6-YearOld Kindergarteners with Typical and Atypical Language Development Ágnes Jordanidisz, Katalin Mohai, Orsolya Mihály and Cheryl Winget

Introduction

The acquisition of written language is a crucial stage in children’s language development. Phonological awareness (PA) is an important prerequisite for learning to read and write. Therefore, the assessment of PA skills prior to the onset of written language acquisition contributes to the prevention of literacy problems at school. The present study aims at drawing attention to a possible method for PA screening among kindergarteners. The study starts with the definition of phonological awareness then focuses on the acquisition of PA skills in Hungarian children. The theoretical background continues with a review of the literature on the relationship between PA skills and written language acquisition in typically and atypically developing children. The present study uses the term atypical as an umbrella term: both for children at risk for dyslexia in kindergartens and older children with reading or spelling difficulties/disorders. The theoretical part of the study also introduces dynamic assessment with some international examples and 324

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  325

the only Hungarian research data on assessing PA skills with a dynamic screening method. Following the theory, a pilot study will be presented showing how dynamic screening of PA skills among Hungarian-speaking kindergarteners discloses some characteristics of children at risk for dyslexia. Phonological awareness is awareness of the inner structure of words and the ability to segment words into linguistic units of different size (Csépe, 2006). Also, phonological awareness has been defined using many different tasks on different levels of linguistic complexity (Stahl & Murray, 1994). Some researchers divide the acquisition of phonological awareness into two stages, where the first phase includes the spontaneously developing syllabification and rhyming skills while the second phase includes formation of metalinguistic skills (Graves et al., 1998; Konza, 2011; Lőrik & Jancsó, 2009; Mann & Stoel-Gammon, 1996). Through acquiring PA skills, children become capable of shifting the focus of their attention from the meaning of words to their formal properties. Through developing PA skills, children gradually learn to recognize the inner structure of words and thus become capable of breaking them into units of different sizes (Csépe, 2006; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). The prelinguistic stage is characterized mainly by producing syllable sized units (e.g. proto-syllables). Gradually, children move toward recognizing the inner structure of the syllable consisting of onset and rime (the nucleus and coda). Next, the recognition of individual phonemes gives rise to their manipulation (e.g. deletion of a phoneme from a word, changing a phoneme in a word). Mental manipulations at the phoneme level are fully acquired only during formal instruction of literacy. Different mental operations can be carried out with phonological units. Reading and writing/spelling require reverse operations. During the acquisition of reading a developing reader learns to blend phonemes or more sizeable units, while writing/spelling requires the segmentation of words into their smallest constituents, the phonemes (Konza, 2011). The most complex PA operation is manipulation, in which we may delete, insert, replace units or reverse their order within the words. Cross-linguistic research has shown spoonerism to be the most difficult task of manipulation, in which manipulation expands to a minimum of two words (Ziegler et al., 2010). The success of these manipulations depends on language skills, as well as on working memory and executive functions. Therefore, the ability to manipulate syllables or phonemes appears later than segmentation or blending, at around 5 years of age. The development of phonological awareness shows universal and language specific characteristics. The universal features of PA development are as follows: (1) Larger units such as syllables and rhymes are recognized and manipulated prior to phonemes.

326  Part 2: Atypical Development

(2) In alphabetical languages, phonemic awareness skills become fully acquired during written language acquisition/instruction. (3) Manipulations are the most difficult PA tasks. Language specific features are influenced by morphology (e.g. whether the language to be acquired is an agglutinating, an inflected or an isolating one), by the characteristics of the syllables (the general number and types of the syllables in the words) and by suprasegmental features (intonation and stress). The Hungarian language belongs to the Ugric group of the Uralic language family, along with languages such as Mansi and Khanty (Honti, 2012). The language was influenced by the Onogur and Oghur branches of the Turkic language family during the migration of the Hungarian tribes from Western Siberia to the Carpathian basin between the 5th and the 9th centuries. After arriving at the Carpathian basin in the late 9th century, Hungarian was also influenced by the neighboring Slavic languages. Hungarian is an agglutinating language, using various affixes. Suffixes follow a vowel harmony. As for phonology, Hungarian has 7 vowel pairs and 25 consonant phonemes. All 14 vowels are monophthongs. 10 vowel phonemes constitute phonologically long and short pairs, differing significantly only in duration. Consonant length is also a distinctive feature of the language. Consonants may occur as geminates. The syllable structure of the language is very complex. These language specific features highly influence Hungarian phonological awareness, especially rhyme and syllable awareness. Hungarian is a transparent language: there is only one phoneme out of the 39 which corresponds to two graphemes. However, the orthographic depth of Hungarian is also influenced by consonant assimilations. According to Ziegler et al. (2010), Hungarian has a low entropy value (0.17), which means that the language is fairly consistent. The transparent orthography of Hungarian language promotes rapid development of phonemic awareness after the onset of literacy acquisition (Csépe, 2007; Jordanidisz, 2015). The acquisition of phonological awareness in monolingual ­Hungarian-speaking children

Monolingual Hungarian-speaking infants start their phonological processing development following universal perceptual development (Gósy, 2005). Zajdó and Powel (2008) suggest that Hungarianspeaking children may start the acquisition of the language-specific vowel length as early as 2 years of age, although they become capable of differentiating duration and voice only at 7 years of age (Gósy, 1995/2006). The youngest Hungarian-speaking age group examined on

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  327

Figure 14.1 The acquisition of rhyme, syllable, and phoneme awareness in monolingual Hungarian-speaking children

syllable, rhyme and phoneme awareness is at age 4 (Jordanidisz, 2015). At this age, overall achievement level in all three areas of PA combined is approximately 33%, and the ratio of the three areas is 5:10:1 (rhyme – syllable – phoneme). While awareness of syllables develops gradually, awareness of phonemes starts to be acquired at about the age of 6 years and then progresses quite rapidly as the result of learning to read. Thus, at ages 9 to 10 years, the ratio of the three areas is close to 1:1:1 (Figure 14.1). Research has shed light on the fact that Hungarian children are already capable of segmenting a word into its correct number of syllables at 4 to 5 years of age (Jordanidisz, 2010; Kassai, 1999). Following the spontaneous development of the syllabication stage, children reach the metalinguistic stage of syllable awareness at ages 5–6, when they are able to blend syllables and manipulate with them. This stage develops until the end of primary school years (age 10). The acquisition of rhyme awareness shows language specific characteristics. In children acquiring Hungarian, this subskill of PA develops differently during the early years (between the ages of 4 and 6 years) than in other language communities. Spontaneous acquisition of rhyme awareness has been observed only in the context of rhythmic language structures such as nursery rhymes. The acquisition of the ability to recognize and manipulate rhyming words can be explained by the typical stress pattern of Hungarian speech, where stress is always placed on the first syllable of words. As a consequence, the spontaneous

328  Part 2: Atypical Development

attention of children acquiring Hungarian focuses on the beginning of the words, as suggested by the results of mismatch negativity measures (Surányi et al., 2009). Therefore, producing rhyming words – which necessitates the activation of the mental lexicon on the basis of rimes – requires efficaciously working executive functions to direct the focus of attention to the rime instead of the onset of the word. Thus, the stress patterns of speech may explain why finding rhyming words is so challenging for children acquiring Hungarian. Results show that only school aged children are successful with the tasks of recognizing, manipulating and generating rhyming words (Damó, 1998; Jordanidisz 2015). Due to the transparent orthography of their language, the phonemic awareness of Hungarian children develops rapidly when they start acquiring literacy. Similarly to other languages, phoneme manipulation is the most difficult task in Hungarian. However, children are able to isolate the initial and the final phonemes even before instructional learning. In the Hungarian educational system, children do not start learning letters before the first grade of elementary school. In Hungary, there is one institution for children between ages 3 and 6 years, covering nursery and kindergarten (usually called kindergarten for all three years). Typically, age groups are separated but recently ‘mixed’ age groups have become popular. However, due to regulations set by the Hungarian National Basic Kindergarten Program, neither nurseries nor kindergartens with separated or mixed age groups teach reading explicitly. Thus, it is possible to examine the spontaneous acquisition of phonemic awareness before learning to be literate. Our results show that children become aware of the smallest linguistic unit by natural exposure to language through speech. No significant difference has been shown in syllable or rhyme awareness between the ages of 4 and 9 years when comparing girls and boys (Jordanidisz, 2015). However, the phonemic awareness of 6-year-old kindergarten-aged girls as compared to boys reached significantly higher level of functioning. Phonemic awareness in boys starts to develop as a result of explicit literacy instruction at school. The two genders achieve similar levels of competency only at ages 9 to 10 years. Phonological awareness and written language acquisition in children with typical and atypical language development

Phonological awareness is a key factor in learning to read. Phonological awareness tasks include segmenting words into syllables, identifying or producing rhyming words, recognizing individual sounds in words, and blending or separating words into their individual sounds (Winget, 2013). While learning to read, the phonemic representation of words also develops alongside the already existing syllable

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  329

representation. Goswami (2003) categorized the languages into three groups according to their main syllable patterns: (1) languages with mainly CV syllable patterns, in which the onset-rime syllable structure is equal with the phoneme level (e.g. Italian), (2) transparent languages with more complex syllable structure (e.g. CVC, CCVCC), in which the syllable structure does not always represent phonemes (e.g. Hungarian) and (3) languages with deep orthography and complex syllables (e.g. English). Thus, simple syllable patterns and a shallow orthography foster learning to read. After a debate period on the relationship between phonological awareness and literacy acquisition (Chafouleas et al., 1997; Mann & Stoel-Gammon, 1996), researchers agreed that the development of some PA areas (rhyme and syllable awareness) is necessary for successful learning to read while phonemic awareness develops as a result of reading (Loisou & Stuart, 2003). High correlation was found between the early PA skills in rhyming, onset-rime tasks and syllable tasks and later reading level in English (Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Chard & Dickson, 1999). Similar results were reported in other languages such as Italian (Cossu, 1999), German (Marx et al., 1993), Dutch (DeJong & Van der Leij, 2003) and French (Plaza, 2001). The studies cross-linguistically indicated that the level of phonemic awareness before the onset of learning to read also indicates success in literacy acquisition. The study by Caravolas et al. (2012) examined monolingual English, Spanish, Czech and Slovak first graders. Research examining Hungarian-speaking first graders showed a high correlation between phonological awareness (rhyme, syllable and phoneme awareness tasks) at the beginning of the first grade and the level of oral reading at the end of the school year (Jordanidisz, 2009). Other researchers call our attention to the diversity of the phonological and phonemic structures of different languages which influences PA abilities, resulting in a different relationship between PA and reading in different languages (Cossu et al., 1988). The functioning of phonological awareness in children with atypical written language acquisition has mainly been examined in children with dyslexia. When assessing learning abilities in this population, phonological awareness was found to be the most important limitation, followed by limited skills in establishing grapheme-phoneme correspondence and in rapid picture naming (Mohai, 2014; Torppa et al., 2010; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). Similar findings hold in bilingualism (e.g. Melloni & Vender, forthcoming). Impairment in the phonemic representation of children with dyslexia has been confirmed by mismatch negativity examinations (Csépe et al., 2000; Lyytinen et al., 2005). When Jordanidisz (2015) compared the PA task achievement of Hungarian-speaking children with dyslexia at the age of 9 years to that of their typically developing peers, she found that subskills such as

330  Part 2: Atypical Development

syllable segmentation, real word syllable blending and phoneme isolation functioned similarly. However, they performed significantly weaker in the following subskills: (1) rhyme awareness (categorization and rhyming), (2) three operations of syllable awareness: syllable blending of non-words, rule-based syllabification and syllable deletion and (3) the following operations of phonemic awareness: phoneme blending (especially in non-word tasks), segmentation, phoneme identification of long speech sounds and in all the manipulation tasks. Since phonological awareness development is such a crucial element of literacy skills, the early detection of its problem is essential. Dynamic Assessment

The complex examination of language skills in children requires proper diagnostic tools (Csapó et al., 2012; Mohai, 2009). Dynamic assessment (DA) offers a more holistic picture of the children’s cognitive functioning by showing their response to intervention (Cunningham & Carroll, 2013). Dynamic assessment starts as a static test, but then it is followed by a ‘learning phase’ when children receive support, facilitation or ‘mediation’ in Feuerstein’s terminology (Feuerstein, 1997). Following the intervention phase of assessment, learning is assessed by repeating and evaluating the original task that was administered initially. Response to intervention (RTI) also provides information about the way the child learns most effectively. Vygotsky (1934/1998) called problem-solving following assistance/intervention the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’. Presseien and Kozulin (1994) considered the zone of proximal development to be the distance between the individual’s independent achievement and mediated achievement. Dynamic assessment was first used to examine the cognitive abilities of children. Vygotsky, however, argued that it was insufficient to measure the actual level of cognitive development in children (Vygotsky, 1934/1998). Based on this theory, various dynamic methods were created for assessing cognitive development (Feuerstein, 1997; Mintzker, 1997; Tzuriel, 1997). While dynamic assessment/testing was used in psychology, the term ‘response to intervention’ (RTI) was introduced in education (Hughes & Dexter, 2011). Grigorenko considers dynamic assessment as the two sides of the same coin – same methodology – in which the key feature is ‘blending assessment and intervention in one holistic activity’ (2009: 111). Another important feature of dynamic testing is the reduced level of frustration. When administrating static tests, frustration occurs many times on the sides of both the examiner and the examinee when they feel the need of providing/receiving assistance. A further advantage of dynamic assessment is multi-level scoring which reduces ceiling effects (Cunningham & Carroll, 2011). In multicultural/multilingual

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  331

settings, the dynamic aspect of examining language development helps to understand what lays behind weak language production (Feuerstein, 1996). Feuerstein points out that the effect of cultural and social deprivation on language development should be taken into consideration during assessment. There are two main types of dynamic assessment: qualitative and quantitative assessments. Although the qualitative type is very informative for educators and educational therapists providing information about the cognitive functions and dysfunctions of children, it is very challenging to use this framework for research. On the other hand, quantitative dynamic tests use scoring of the test administered and also provide information on the level of language and cognitive development. Although dynamic assessments in the field of language development are not used widely, research suggests that dynamic phonological awareness assessment predicts later literacy skills better than static tests do (Muter et al., 2004). Bridges and Catts (2010) developed a dynamic screening test for 4- to 6-year-old children to measure phoneme deletion. Cunningham and Carroll (2011) examined phoneme segmentation using dynamic assessment. Research also confirmed that dynamic assessment provides additional information about the PA processing of Hungarianspeaking 9-year-old children with typical and atypical development (Jordanidisz, 2015). On the one hand, the typically developing children responded well to limited intervention, namely to offering repetition, and they were able to correct their errors. On the contrary, children with dyslexia needed intense assistance. For example, if a student was unable to find a rhyming word for the test item, even after repeating the word and the task, the assessor offered a strategy of replacing the onset of the test item by another consonant. The assessor used only two levels of facilitation: the repetition of the task with hints for where to focus attention (such as stressing the target phonological unit for mental operation) or a more substantial support for solving the task (the provision of a cognitive strategy). Some of the children with dyslexia did not succeed in the task even after receiving intense and concrete assistance. Although, their phonological awareness did not reach 100% even after facilitation, the change proved to be significant (Table 14.1). Research Questions

The aim of the present research study was to examine the subskills of phonological awareness in 6-year-old kindergarten children with typical and atypical language development (i.e. at risk for dyslexia) using multilevel quantitative dynamic screening. Since the dynamic test battery was developed for this pilot study, we were also interested in the dynamics of the intervention and the responses to the intervention. According to our

332  Part 2: Atypical Development

Table 14.1  Static and dynamic assessment results of children with typical ­development and dyslexia (Jordanidisz, 2015: 214) Static assessment Typical Mean % Rhyme-categorization*

93

Dynamic assessment

Dyslexic

Typical

SD %

Mean %

SD %

Mean %

9

79

25

96

Dyslexic

SD %

Mean %

SD %

6

81

24

Rhyming 1*

100

—

81

22

100

—

89

14

Rhyming 2*

80

23

45

32

87

19

54

31

Syllabification

96

6,8

91

11

98

6

93

9

Syl. deletion

95

9

86

11

98

6

90

12

P. deletion

96

8

89

17

98

6

95

11

P. blending**

87

12

72

22

92

12

76

21

P. segment.

98

4

91

10

98

4

96

5

P. identific.

96

6

87,5

13

98

4

92

11

P. manipul.

94

9

73

21

97

5

81

19

*Rhyme categorization covers rhyme detection and categorization tasks. Rhyming 1 includes tasks with nursery rhymes and Rhyming 2 means activating a rhyming word in the mental lexicon. **Phoneme blending was carried out on nonsense words (words without meaning).

hypotheses, children with atypical language development (1) perform weaker in PA tasks than typically developing children, (2) the profile of RTI of typically and atypically developing children is different, which means that contrary to the typically developing group, the first steps of the intervention phase are not sufficient for the atypical group, and they need more concrete (visual) assistance to activate their meta-linguistic and cognitive skills to solve the PA tasks. Participants, Material, Method Participants

Twenty-six children between ages 5 and 6;8 (mean age: 72 months) participated in the present study. Fifteen were typically developing and 11 had atypical language development. In Hungarian kindergartens, monolingual Hungarian acquisition is screened by speech therapists when children reach the age of 5 years. A normative screening test, SZÓL-E (Kas et al., 2012) is used to measure receptive and expressive language, and learning readiness to read and write. Children who are considered at risk for dyslexia receive intervention from the local educational professional services, before they start first grade. Children in this study were placed in the typical or atypical group on the basis of the screening results after consultation with the speech therapist. Authors worked together with two mainstream kindergartens where caretakers also signed an informed consent on participating in the

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  333

Figure 14.2  Gender distribution of the research participants

research. The consent was in accordance with EU legislation (Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data). In Hungary, linguistic and educational research does not need other permission or authorization. The limitations of the two small kindergartens resulted in an uneven distribution of boys and girls, especially in the typical group (Figure 14.2). According to the educational system, children were grouped by age, which means that they were not exposed to older peer influence in the previous years within the kindergarten. Hungarian children go to the same educational institution/kindergarten between 3 and 6 years of age. Literacy was not controlled by the study, since the protocol covers only underlying skills but not grapheme-phoneme correspondence or reading. Articulation disorder and speech therapy were not excluding factors in the atypical group, since language problems may be present with or without articulation disorder. All children had typical intellectual abilities and normal hearing on the basis of the reports provided by the speech therapists and the kindergarten teachers. According to Hungarian regulations, kindergarten teachers annually assess the cognitive, motor and socio-emotional development of the children following the guidelines of the Educational Institute. Material

Dynamic phonological awareness screening covered syllable and phonemic deletion. The screening battery was developed using the Hungarian NILD Phonological Awareness Test (Jordanidisz, 2010). The NILD PA Test is an extended adaptation of the American NILD Phonological Awareness Screening Survey (Barbour et al., 2003). One of the syllable deletion tasks required the deletion of the first syllable and the other required the deletion of the second syllable.

334  Part 2: Atypical Development

An example for the syllable deletion task: Say ‘fogkrém’ ‘toothpaste’. Now say it again without ‘fog’ ‘tooth’

Among the phoneme deletion tasks, one required the deletion of the initial phoneme, two tasks tested the deletion of the final phoneme and on task manipulated on the middle phoneme. An example for the phoneme deletion task: Say ‘mos’ ‘wash’. Say it again without ‘sh’.

The syllable and phoneme deletion tasks were chosen for the dynamic screening method because of its linguistic and cognitive characteristics. Linguistically, it was important to see if children were able to recognize the smallest unit, the phoneme, in a word. The first two test items operate at syllable level that is a stable phonological level at the age under investigation. This way, we intended to collect information about transferring the cognitive task to a new level, the phonemic that is still in development. After age 5, the executive functions start developing rapidly and the formation of inner speech is also in progress (Best et al., 2009). Phonological characteristics of the words during screening

Altogether six words were included in the dynamic screening out of the 10 items of the deletion subtest of NILD Phonological Awareness Test. Children manipulated syllables in the first two cases and deleted given phonemes from the last four items. The syllable and phoneme patterns of the words are the following: (1) CVC.CCVC in fog.krém ‘toothpaste’: the first syllable had to be deleted. It was a compound word (only closed compounds exist in Hungarian) with a voiced and voiceless consonant pair at the border of the two syllables (words). This phonological environment makes the task more difficult. In Hungarian, the first consonant assimilates to the second one in such cases making the recognition of the words difficult in the compound: (2) CVC.CVC in győz.tes ‘winner’: the second syllable had to be deleted. The first syllable is the root, a verb, while the second syllable is constructed from a past tense mark and an adjectival suffix. (3) CCVC in svéd ‘Swedish’: the first part of the onset, a fricative, had to be deleted. The remaining CVC part constitutes a real word. (4) CVC in mos ‘wash’: the final consonant, the coda, had to be deleted. The remaining part, CV, has no meaning. (5) CVC.CV in macs.ka ‘cat’: the final vowel sound had to be deleted. The preceding consonant is a plosive, making the deletion more difficult. The remaining part, CVC.C, has no meaning.

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  335

(6) CVV in fi.ú ‘boy’: the middle vowel sound had to be deleted. The remaining part, CV, constitutes a real word. The consonant is a fricative. Method Procedure and scoring of the static test

The first step of the six-step dynamic assessment was the administered static NILD Phonological Awareness Test. A demonstration of the task was performed before the test. Children repeated the whole word, and instruction was given after their repetition. The instruction was: Say it again without … [the syllable or the sound was given which they had to delete]. When children’s performance is assessed in the traditional static way, children receive 1 or 0 points based on their answer. Intervention procedure and scoring in dynamic screening

There was a scoring system in six steps from 5-0. If the child did not need any assistance, he/she received 5 points. The higher the point was, the closer the task was to his/her zone of current development. Four gradually more intense actions of intervention were given in case of need, with one point reduction in each case. If the child could not solve the task after the fourth action then he/she received 0 points. The syllable deletion tasks needed different assistance than the phoneme deletion tasks. Intervention 1 for syllable deletion: The word was repeated and broken into syllables. By following this protocol, the attention of the child was stimulated to notice the division of the syllables. The task was then repeated. Intervention 2 for syllable deletion: The child was asked to repeat the word in syllables, with clapping. Which is the first syllable? Which is the second syllable? This task tapped into a higher level of cognitive operation, namely the analysis of the sequence of syllables. The task was then repeated. Intervention 3 for syllable deletion: The child was asked to first whisper the syllable which had to be deleted in the original task. This supported their developing inner speech. Then the child was asked to solve the task with deletion, in which he/she could not whisper it but was forced to use silent, inner speech. Intervention 4 for syllable deletion: Syllables were demonstrated by using visual aid, namely, small rods. The syllables were pronounced while pointing on the rods. Then the rod that represented the syllable to be deleted was covered. This task introduced another modality and embedded it in activity, reducing the workload of executive functions.

336  Part 2: Atypical Development

Intervention 1 for phoneme deletion: The word was repeated emphasizing the first consonant in slower articulation tempo. The task was then repeated. Intervention 2 for phoneme deletion: The child was asked to pronounce the first/final/middle sound of the word separately (according to the task) emphasizing that it is the sound to delete. Intervention 3 for phoneme deletion: The phoneme and the rest of the word were demonstrated by using visual aid, namely, a small cube for the phoneme and a rod for the rest of the word. Three cubes were used in the case of the final task. Then the child was asked to say the phoneme and the rest of the word using the given blocks. Intervention 4 for phoneme deletion: The procedure was demonstrated on the visual aid, covering the cube which represented the phoneme to be deleted. The task was then repeated. Method of analysis

Initially we conducted an intra-group analysis using the results of the Dynamic Phonological Awareness Screening of the typical and atypical language groups. First, we examined the difference between the syllable and phoneme deletion ability of each group. Next, we compared the results of the static and dynamic testing of each group. For this analysis, we used SPSS 23 Paired Samples Test (Kirkpatrick & Feeney, 2015). Then, the results of the two different testing methods were compared by the groups separately (results of the static and the dynamic screening). Again, we used SPSS 23 Paired Samples Test. Finally, we examined the response to intervention (RTI) of the typical and the atypical groups. Besides the statistical data, we were also interested in the patterns of responses of the two groups. In this case, we used a different statistical test – RStudio Pearson Chi-square Test (Fisher, 1922). The Fisher Exact Test was incorporated into the design due to the small sample. Results and Discussion The results of syllable and phoneme deletion in the typical and the atypical group

Table 14.2 describes the statistical data for syllable and phoneme deletion with respect to both the typical and the atypical groups. In the syllable deletion task, the standard deviation (SD) was high. The task included only two items which may explain the result in the case of the typical group. The standard deviation becomes lower as the results are approaching ceiling or the floor effects. We found an example of the

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  337

Table 14.2  Descriptive statistical data for syllable and phoneme deletion: static and dynamic test results of the typical development (TD) and atypical development (AD) groups  

TD Mean

N

Syllable static

0.5333

15

0.39940

0.10313

0.1818

11

0.33710

0.10164

Phoneme static

0.2833

15

0.22887

0.05909

0.1591

11

0.30151

0.09091

Syllable dynamic

0.8400

15

0.17647

0.04557

0.4273

11

0.39772

0.11992

Phoneme dynamic

0.5267

15

0.24775

0.06397

0.2173

11

0.32830

0.09899

 

Pair 1

Pair 2

AD

Std. Ddviation

Std. error mean

Mean

N

Std. deviation

Std. error mean

ceiling effect in syllable deletion tasks after the first intervention, while the results reflected floor effect in the case of the static phoneme deletion tasks. Statistically, there is no significant difference between the syllable and phoneme levels of the typically developing children. In the case of the dynamic screening, there is a significant difference between the two linguistic levels: t (14) = 3.761, p = 0.002. As for the atypical group, their mean performance was much lower than indicated by the reference data of the previous study, especially in syllable deletion (18% in the syllable tasks and 16% in phoneme tasks). Standard deviation is higher at all levels and ways of testing than that of the typical group, even when results are near the floor effect. However, significant difference between the syllable and phoneme deletion tasks can be seen with dynamic assessment: t (10) = 2.557, p = 0.027. It may be due to their response to intervention which was very positive on the syllable tasks but very weak on phoneme tasks. Comparison of static and dynamic testing

In the statistical analysis, we compared three pairs: (1) all static results to all dynamic results, (2) syllable static results to syllable dynamic results and (3) phoneme static results to phoneme dynamic results. We found significant difference in all the three cases, both with the results of the typically developing group and the atypical group, although the significance is weaker in the latter group. Table 14.3 shows the Paired Sample Test results. Table 14.3  The statistical differences between static and dynamic test results All items

Syllable items

Phoneme items

t(14)

p=

t(14)

p=

t(14)

p=

TD

–8.931

0.000

–4.041

0.001

–5.802

0.000

AD

–3.476

0.006

–3.250

0.009

–2.268

0.047

338  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 14.3  Syllable and phoneme deletion task achievements (in %) of the typically and the atypically developing groups

Comparison of the results of the groups with typical and atypical language development

We executed a general comparison of the achievements of the two groups. Significant difference was found between the typical and atypical development groups in all examined areas when testing was administered using the dynamic method (syllable deletion: t= 3.2173, df = 12.904, p = 0.0068, phoneme deletion: t = 2.6252, df = 17.87, p = 0.0173, all test items: t = 3.3004, df = 13.941, p = 0.0053). Even after the Bonferroni correction, significant difference could be seen. The first phase of the testing, the static procedure, was significantly different between the two groups only in the case of syllable deletion. However, this significance was weaker than the ones found in the cases of the dynamic method (syllable deletion: t = 2.4277, df = 23.442, p = 0.0233) (Figure 14.3). Response to Intervention

Response to intervention was also investigated in the two groups. Difference in RTI was found both in the syllable and phoneme deletion tasks when comparing the two groups. As explained previously, the initial level (static measurement) of undertaking the syllable deletion task was significantly different between the two groups. It meant that only 18% of the atypical development group could manipulate syllables without any assistance, contrary to 53% of the typical development group. However, they responded very well to intervention at the syllable level as progress between the first and facilitated results was 138.8%. But even with such a significant progress (t (10) = –3.250, p = 0.009), the difference between the two groups remained significant.

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  339

Figure 14.4  The progress of achievement as a result of response to intervention in syllable and phoneme deletion tasks

As for the response to intervention (RTI) of the typical group, their static test result (their current developmental level) was already high. Therefore, their progress was naturally smaller, 58.5%, although it was also significant (t (14) = –4.041, p = 0.001). Looking at the level of phoneme deletion, there is no significant difference at the starting point between the two groups (clinical group: 16% and typical group: 28%). It is also important to note that the initial difference between the syllable and phoneme tasks is minimal in the case of the clinical group (18% for syllables and 16% for phonemes), while the pattern is different in the typical group (53%/28%). Although the difference is larger, it is not significant t (14) = 1.811, p = 0.092). Manipulating the phonemic level is a new task even for the typical development group, and they also needed some assistance and more practice to solve the task. Analyzing the response to intervention, the typical development group responded to intervention with greater progress (89.3%), while the atypical group produced only 37.5% growth. Although the difference between the static and dynamic test results were significant in both groups, significance was realized to varying degrees (the typical group: t (14) = –5.802 p = 0.000, the atypical group: t (10) = –2.268, p = 0.047), (Figure 14.4). Table 14.4, a 2 × 2 contingency table, summarizes the number of children who needed facilitation in syllable and phoneme deletion tasks from the two groups. Although the numbers are the same at both linguistic levels of the deletion task (4 in each task from the typical, Table 14.4  The number of children who needed intervention to solve deletion tasks with syllable del. Assistance needed

with phoneme del.

atypical

typical

atypical

yes

8

4

8

typical 4

no

3

11

3

11

340  Part 2: Atypical Development

and 8 in each task from the clinical group), it is important to note that they are not the same children. It shows that those who needed minimal assistance at the syllable level used the facilitation in order to solve at least one phoneme task, while there were some in each group who did not receive any intervention at syllable level and struggled with solving the cognitive task at phoneme level. We further analyzed the responses to intervention with Pearson’s Chi-Square Test using Fisher Exact and Odds Ratio to find out the effect of receiving intervention in the syllable task on the result of the phoneme task. Cramer’s V was used for the power calculation of Chi-Square Test for the 2 × 2 contingency table. The critical value for Chi-square was 3.841 (df = 1). The Fisher exact was not significant in the case of the typical group, contrary to the clinical group where the significance value was p = 0.006. The effect size was χ2 = 5.841, p = 0.02 (OR: 6.702). Results indicate that there is a probability that those who need intervention in the syllable deletion tasks also need intervention in the phoneme tasks. In a second design, we compared the two groups to see if the probability of solving a single task differs significantly. The statistical result was slightly below the critical value (χ2 = 3.7733, OR: 4.666). This may be due to the small sample of the pilot study. Therefore, we compared the profile of the two groups with qualitative methods. We examined the number of positive responses of each individual to intervention. There were 24 opportunities to receive intervention (4 opportunities with each of the 6 test items). The typical development group benefited from the assistance more than the atypical development group. In 16 cases out of 24 opportunities, no-one from the atypical development group responded to intervention, while there were only 7 instances when no one from the typical group responded to an intervention. The typical development group needed very little assistance at syllable level. Although 7% of the group could not solve the first problem even after the 4th intervention, they used the facilitation to solve the second syllable item of the test and everybody succeeded in it after the 2nd intervention. As for the phoneme deletion tasks, only 13% of the group could not solve the problem even after the 4th intervention with the first three items, and 40% with the fourth item. The atypical development group had a different profile. 55% of the group solved neither the syllable tasks nor the first phoneme problem even after the 4th intervention. Further, this percentage increased to 73% in the case of the second and 82% in the cases of the third and the fourth phoneme deletion tasks (Figure 14.5). It is important to note that the atypical development group did not benefit from the visual facilitation to the same extent as the typical development group did.

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  341

Figure 14.5 The results (in %) of the typical and atypical groups by test items (T: typical, A: atypical group). 5 points: 0 intervention, 4 points: good answer after the 1st intervention, 3 points: good answer after the 2nd intervention, 2 points: good answer after the 3rd intervention, 1 point: good answer after the 4th intervention, 0 point: no good answer

Conclusion

Results confirmed our first hypothesis that children with atypical language development perform weaker in PA tasks than their typically developing peers. While both syllable and phoneme deletion static task results of typically developing children correspond with previous research results (Jordanidisz, 2015), the test performance of children with atypical language development is below average. Since kindergarten age is a very sensitive period for language and cognitive development, the results of the present study fit in the sequence of progress (Table 14.5). Our second hypothesis was also confirmed; dynamic screening disclosed differences which were hidden in static scoring. Only dynamic scoring showed significant difference between the typical and the atypical groups in phoneme deletion tasks. Further, according to the static scoring results, the syllable and phonemic awareness of the atypical Table 14.5  Results of syllable and phoneme deletion tasks of typically developing Hungarian-speaking children in the research of Jordanidisz (2015) and the present research 65-month old children (Jordanidisz, 2015)

72-month old children (this study)

78-month old children (Jordanidisz, 2015)

Syllable deletion

40%

53% (A: 18%)

70%

Phoneme deletion

20%

28% (A:16%)

40%

Note: the performance of the atypical development group is shown in brackets.

342  Part 2: Atypical Development

development group is similar, at least in the deletion tasks. This means that the zone of current development in cases of syllable and phoneme deletion is similar. The dynamic method disclosed that when working in the zone of proximal development, syllable awareness is stronger. The cognitive requirement of inhibiting speech and directing attention to the given item may make the task difficult for the atypical development group at the syllable level. The different profile of RTI of the two groups reflected in other items as well. All children from the typical development group were able to solve the second syllable item after the second intervention, while more than half of the atypical development group could not provide the correct answer at all. This also indicates that the intervention sessions were efficacious, gradually decreasing the distance between the task and the zone of current development of the children. There was one phase of intervention both at the syllable and at the phoneme level (the 3rd intervention) when the atypical development group did not respond at all. This was when they whispered the syllable to be deleted and during the first demonstration using a visual aid at the phoneme tasks (Table 14.6). The typically developing group responded to intervention at the phoneme level better than the clinical group, which suggests that not only their language development is stronger, but also that their executive functions work better. Further, this result also shows that deleting the initial or the final phoneme is a solvable problem in the final year of the kindergarten even before children start learning to read. The results of the present study also suggest that children with atypical language development need individualized literacy instructions at school. The amount of literacy instruction that children generally receive may not be sufficient for them. Concerning the present screening tool, both the static and dynamic methods showed that the items were gradually becoming more difficult. The significant difference between the static and the dynamic testing proved that the floor effect of the phonemic deletion tasks can be reduced. Table 14.6  Static responses and responses to intervention of the typical and atypical development groups (%) Static responses T

Intervention 1

Intervention 2

Intervention 3

Intervention 4

A

T

A

T

A

T

A

T

A

Item 1

60

9

20

27

13

9

0

0

0

0

Item 2

53

27

40

18

7

0

0

0

0

0

Item 3

47

18

13

18

0

0

7

0

20

9

Item 4

40

18

13

0

13

0

13

0

7

9

Item 5

40

18

13

0

13

0

20

0

0

0

Item 6

0

0

27

9

7

0

0

0

27

9

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  343

Despite the small sample, the present pilot study has pointed out many advantages of dynamic testing. According to the assessors, another positive characteristic of DA is that the stress level was low during the entire assessment. Both typically and atypically developing children seemed to feel comfortable knowing that they could have support to solve the problems. The only negative aspect of the dynamic testing may be the extended time needed for examination. However, using the most informative items and the most effective interventions for screening, we may stay within an optimal time frame. As a conclusion, further research is needed with a larger sample along with a longitudinal study to see if dynamic screening of phonological awareness using syllable and phoneme deletion tasks is able to predict possible reading and spelling difficulties/disorders. As for the present pilot study, it provides much important information to guide future research and practitioners in the field of educational and language therapy. Results may contribute to developing more appropriate prereading instructions and to define the proper pace and steps in language therapy administered to develop phonological awareness skills. Acknowledgements

Preliminary results of this study were presented at the International Child Phonology Conference 2018 that took place on 18–20 June 2018, in Chania, Crete, Greece. Authors are indebted to Zoltán Jakab for his assistance in statistical analysis. References Barbour, K., Keafer, K. and Scott, K. (2003) Sounds of Speech. Phonological Processing Activities. Norfolk: NILD. Best, J.R., Miller, P.H. and Jones, L.L. (2009) Executive functions after sge 5: Changes and correlates. Developmental Review 29 (3), 180–200. Bradley, L. and Bryant, P.E. (1983) Categorizing sounds and learning to read: A causal connection. Nature 301, 419–421. Bridges, M.S. and Catts, H. (2010) Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness (DSPA). East Moline: LinguiSystems, Inc. Caravolas, M., Lervåg, A., Mousikou, P., Efrim, C., Litavsky, M., Onochie-Quintanilla, E., Salas, N., Schöffelová, M., Defior, S., Mikulajová, M., Seidlová-Málková G. and Hulme, C. (2012) Common patterns of prediction of literacy development in different alphabetic orthographies. Psychological Science 23 (6), 678–686. Chard, D.J. and Dickson, S.V. (1999) Phonological awareness instructional and assessment guidelines. Intervention in School and Clinic 34 (5) 261–270. Chafouleas, S.M., Lewandowski L.J., Smith C.R. and Blachman, B.A. (1997) Phonological awareness skills in children: Examining performance across tasks and ages. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment 15 (4) 334–347. Cossu, G. (1999) The acquisition of Italian orthography. In M. Harris and G. Hatano (eds) Learning to Read and Write. A Cross-linguistic Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

344  Part 2: Atypical Development

Cossu, G., Shankweiler, D., Liberman, I.Y., Katz, L. and Tola, G. (1988) Awareness of phonological segments and reading ability in Italian children. Applied Psycholinguistics 9 (1), 1–16. Cunningham, A.J. and Carroll, J.M. (2011) Age and schooling effects on early literacy and phoneme awareness. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 109, 248–255. Cunningham, A.J. and Carroll, J.M. (2013) Early predictors of phonological and morphological awareness and the link with reading: Evidence from children with different patterns of early deficit. Applied Linguistics 36, 1–23. Csapó, B., Józsa K., Steklács J., Hódi, Á. and Csíkos Cs. (2012) A diagnosztikus olvasás mérések részletes tartalmi kereteinek kidolgozása: elméleti alapok és gyakorlati kérdések. In C. Benő and C. Valéria (eds) Tartalmi Keretek az Olvasás Diagnosztikus Értékeléséhez (pp. 189–218). Budapest: Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó. Csépe V. (2006) Az Olvasó Agy. Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó. Csépe V. (2007) A beszédészlelés kritikus kérdései és a beszédészlelés fejlődése neuronézetből. In M. Gósy (ed.) Beszédészlelési és Beszédmegértési Zavarok az AnyanyelvElsajátításban (pp. 20–44). Budapest: Nikol Kkt. Csépe V., Szűcs D. and Osmanné Sági J. (2000) A fejlődési diszlexiára (FDL) jellemző beszédhang-feldolgozási zavarok. Eltérési Negativitás (EN) korrelátumai. Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle LV/4, 475–500. Damó E. (1998) A fonológiai Tudatosság szerepe az olvasástanulásban. Beszédgyógyítás 3, 54–64. De Jong, P.F. and Van der Leij, A. (2003) Developmental changes in the manifestation of phonological deficit in dyslexic children learning to read a regular orthography. Journal of Educational Psychology 95 (1), 22–40. Feuerstein, R. (1996) Foreword to mediated learning in and out of the classroom. In M. Skuy (ed.) Mediated Learning In and Out of the Classroom (pp. vii–viii). Arlington Heights: IRI/SkyLight Training and Publishing, Inc. Feuerstein, R. (1997) The coherence of the theory of modifiability. In A. Kozulin (ed.) The Ontogeny of Cognitive Modifiability. Applied Aspects of Mediated Learning Experience and Instrumental Enrichment (pp. 29–36). Jerusalem: ICELP. Fisher, R.A. (1922) On the interpretation of χ2 from contingency tables, and the calculation of P. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 85 (1), 87–94.  Goswami, U. (2003) Phonology, learning to read and dyslexia: A crosslinguistic analysis. In V. Csépe (ed.) Dyslexia: Different Brain, Different Behaviour (pp. 1–40). Dordrecht: Kluver Academic Publisher. Gósy, M. (1995/2006) GMP–Diagnosztika. A beszédészlelés és a beszédmegértés folyamatának vizsgálata. Budapest: Nikol Kkt. Gósy, M. (2005) Pszicholingvisztika. Budapest: Osiris Kiadó. Graves, M.F., Juel, C. and Graves, B.B. (1998) Teaching Reading in the 21st Century. Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon. Grigorenko, E.L. (2009) Dynamic assessment and response to intervention: Two sides of one coin. Journal of Learning Disabilitites 42 (2), 111–132. Honti L. (2012) Anyanyelvünk Atyafiságáról és a Nyelvrokonság Ismérveiről. Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó. Hughes, C.A. and Dexter, D.D. (2011) Response to intervention: A research-based summary. Theory Into Practice 50 (1), 4–11. Jordanidisz, Á. (2009) A fonológiai tudatosság fejlődése az olvasástanulás időszakában. Anyanyelv-Pedagógia 2009. 4. szám Online at http://www.anyp.hu/cikkek Jordanidisz, Á. (2010) A gyermekek fonológiai tudatosságának fejlődése 4–6 éves korban. IV. Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Doktorandusz Konferencia online kötete. http://www. nytud.hu/alknyelvdok10/proceedings.pdf Jordanidisz, Á. (2015) Magyar Anyanyelvű Gyermekek Fonológiai Tudatosságának Fejlődése 4 és 10 éves kor Között (The development of Hungarian children’s

Static Versus Dynamic Screening of Phonological Awareness Skills  345

phonological awareness between the ages 4–10 years), Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Kas, B., Lőrik, J., M. Bogáth R., Sz. Vékony A. and Sz. Mályi N. (2012) SZÓL-E? Szűrőeljárás az óvodai logopédiai ellátásban. Budapest: Logotech. Kassai, I. (1999) Szótaghatárok és fonológiai jólformáltság nagycsoportos óvodások ntuitive szótagolásában. In I. Kassai (ed.) Szótagfogalom – Szótagrelizációk (pp. 63–83). Budapest: MTA nyelvtudományi Intézete. Kirkpatrick, L.A. and Feeney, B.C. (2015) A Simple Guide to IBM SPSS Statistics for Version 23.0. Boston: Cengage Learning. Konza, D. (2011) Phonological awareness. Research into practice: Understanding the Reading Process. 1 / 1.2 (pp. 1–6). Government of South Australia. See https:// www.ecu.edu.au/_data/assets/pdf_file/0009/663696/SA-DECS_-Understanding-theReading-Process.pdf. Loizou, M. and Stuart, M. (2003) Phonological awareness in monolingual and bilingual English and Greek five–year–olds. Journal of Research in Reading 26 (1), 3–18. Lőrik, J. and K. Jancsó, I. (2009) A fonológiai tudatosság fejlesztése és hatása az írott nyelv elsajátítására. In K. Marton (ed.) Neurokognitív Fejlődési Zavarok Vizsgálata és Terápiája. Példák a Bizonyítékon Alapuló Gyakorlatra (pp. 11–4). Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó. Lyytinen, H., Erskine, J., Tolvanen, A., Torppa, M., Poikkeus, A. M. and Lyytinen, P. (2005) Trajectories of reading development: A follow-up from birth to school age of children with and without risk for dyslexia. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 52 (3), 514–546. Mann, V.A. and Stoel-Gamman, C. (1996) Phonological development. In P. Fletcher and B. MacWhinney (eds) The Handbook of Child Language (pp. 335–359). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Marx, H., Jansen, H., Mannhaupt, G. and Skowronek, H. (1993) Prediction of difficulties in reading and spelling on the basis of the Bielefeld Screening. In H. Grimm and H. Skowronek (eds) Language Acquisition Problems and Reading Disorders: Aspects of Diagnosis and Intervention (pp. 219–242). Berlin/New York: de Gruyler. Melloni, C. and Vender, M. (2020) Phonological processing and nonword repetition: A critical tool for the identification of dyslexia in bilingualism. In E. Babatsouli and M.J. Ball (eds) An Anthology of Bilingual Child Phonology (pp. 309–333). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Mintzker, Y. (1997) Dynamic assessment of young children with developmental disorders as a basis for MLE-directed parental training. In A. Kozulin (ed.) The Ontogeny of Cognitive Modifiability. Applied Aspects of Mediated Learning Experience and Instrumental Enrichment (pp. 151–156). Jerusalem: ICELP. Mohai, K. (2009) A diagnosztika szerepe a sikeres fejlesztésben. Gyógypedagógiai Szemle 37 (5), 331–342. Mohai, K. (2014) A fejlődési diszlexia neuropszichológiai háttértényezői a NEPSY-I eljárás tükrében. Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle 69 (1), 65–89. Muter, V., Hulme, C., Snowling, M.J. and Stevenson, J. (2004) Phonemes, rimes, vocabulary, and grammatical skills as foundations of early reading development: Evidence from a longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology 40 (5), 665–681. Plaza, M. (2001) The interaction between phonological processing, syntactic awareness and reading: A longitudinal study from Kindergarten to Grade 1. First Language 21 (3), 3–24. Presseien, B. and Kozulin, A. (1994) Mediated learning: The contributions of Vygotszky and Feuerstein in theory and practice. In M. Ben-Hur (ed.) On Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment (pp. 51–81). Arlington Heights: IRI/SkyLight Training and Publishing Inc. Stahl, S.A. and Murray, B.A. (1994) Defining phonological awareness and its relationship to early reading. Journal of Educational Psychology 86 (2), 221–234. Surányi, Z., Csépe V., Richardson U., Thomson J.M., Honbolygó F. and Goswami U. (2009) Sensitivity to rhythmic parameters in dyslexic children: A comparison of Hungarian and English. Reading and Writing 22 (1), 41–56.

346  Part 2: Atypical Development

Torppa, M., Lyytinen, P., Erskine, J., Eklund, K. and Lyytinen, H. (2010) Language development, literacy skills, and predictive connenctions to reading in Finnish children with and without familiar risk for dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities 43 (4), 308–321. Tzuriel, D. (1997) The relation between parent-child MLE interactions and children’s coogntive modifiabilty. In A. Kozulin (ed.) The Ontogeny of Cognitive Modifiability. Applied Aspects of Mediated Learning Experience and Instrumental Enrichment (pp. 157–180) Jerusalem: ICELP. Vygotsky, L.S. (1932–34/1998) The problem of age. In R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton (eds) The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky (Vol. 5, 187–205). New York: Plentum Press. Winget, C. (2013) A Causal-Comparitive Study of the Phonological Processing of Romanian and American Third-Grade Students. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Regent University, Virginia. Zajdó, K. and Powell, S. (2008) The acquisition of phonological vowel length in children acquiring Hungarian. In R. Sock, S. Fuchs and Y. Laprie (eds) Proceedings of the 8th International Seminar on Speech Production (173–176). Strasbourg: Phonetics Institute of Strasbourg. Ziegler, J.C. and Goswami, U. (2005) Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bulletin 131, 3–29. Ziegler, J.C., Bertrand, D., Tóth, D., Csépe, V., Alexandra, R., Faisca, L., Saine, N., Lyytinen, H., Vaessen, A. and Blomert, L. (2010) Orthographic depth and its impact on universal predictors of reading: A cross-language investigation. Psychological Science 21 (4), 551–559.

15 Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children With and Without Speech Sound Disorder Aline Mara de Oliveira, Gabriely Vitória Veschi, Luiza Polli, Cássio Eduardo Esperandino and Larissa Cristina Berti

Introduction

This chapter addresses the differential diagnosis of children with speech sound disorders (SSDs), comparing the speech production of children with phonological impairment and with suspected childhood apraxia of speech. The chapter will discuss some speech production measures used during the diagnosis of both groups and will compare the results with previous research. SSDs are deficits in the production of individual speech sounds or sequences of speech sounds caused by inadequate planning, control or coordination of structures of the oral mechanism. SSD is an umbrella term related to any combination of difficulties with perception, motor production and/or the phonological representation of speech segments (including phonotactic rules that govern syllable shape, structure, stress as well as prosody) that impact speech intelligibility (DSM-5; ASHA, 2007, 2017; Shriberg et al., 2003). Speech sound disorders also include articulation disorder, disfluency and voice disorders. SSDs are a general term that comprises articulation and/or phonological impairment (PI). These disorders may be motor-based (e.g. childhood apraxia of speech, CAS), syndrome-based (e.g. Down syndrome) and sensory-based (e.g. hearing impairment). Traditionally, PI is defined as an alteration found in the phonological system of an individual at preschool age which is of unknown origin, and it can be 347

348  Part 2: Atypical Development

characterized by substitutions, omissions and/or distortions of the phonological system of speech (Ingram, 1976). PI is characterized by impairments in the phonological representation of speech sounds in the absence of other cognitive, sensory, motor, structural or affective issues (Ingram, 1976). Among SSDs, CAS is a neurological speech sound disorder in which the precision and consistency of movements underlying speech are impaired in the absence of neuromuscular deficits. CAS may occur as a result of known neurological impairment, in association with complex neurobehavioral disorders or as an idiopathic neurogenic speech sound disorder. The core impairment in planning and/or programming spatiotemporal parameters of movement sequences results in errors in speech sound production and prosody (ASHA, 2007; Shriberg et al., 2012). According to the ASHA Ad Hoc Committee on apraxia of speech in children (ASHA, 2007), three segmental and suprasegmental features that are consistent with a disorder in the planning and programming of movements for speech were elected by some consensus among investigators in CAS: ‘inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels in repeated productions of syllables or words’, ‘lengthened and disrupted coarticulatory transitions between sounds and syllables’ and ‘inappropriate prosody, especially in the realization of lexical or phrasal stress’. In addition to the above mentioned characteristics, other clinical markers that have been reported in children diagnosed with CAS and representing difficulties with movement gestures of planning and programming for speech include: articulatory groping, i.e. articulatory searching prior to phonating; consonant distortions; difficulty with smooth, accurate movement transitions from one sound to the next; increasing difficulty with longer or more complex syllable and word shapes; schwa additions/insertions, i.e. insertion of schwa between consonants or at the end of words; slower than typical rate of speech; syllable segregation, i.e. pauses between sounds, syllables or words that affect smooth transitions; voicing errors, i.e. voiceless sounds produced as their voiced cognates; and vowel errors, i.e. vowel distortions or substitutions (ASHA, 2007; Iuzzini-Seigel & Murray, 2017). It should be noted that neurological examinations/evaluation (Liégeois & Morgan, 2012), such as traditional magnetic resonance, do not detect neurological changes/injuries, leading researchers and clinicians to rely primarily on the clinical manifestations of children to perform the differential diagnosis between CAS and PI (Fish, 2011). There are not systematic and definitive lists of speech manifestations that differentiate children with CAS from those with other speech sound disorders. Some characteristics observed in children with CAS may also

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  349

Table 15.1  Speech manifestations that differentiate children with PI and CAS (Fish, 2011) Clinical characteristics

Phonological impairment

Child apraxia of speech

Consonant, vowel and phonotactic inventory constraints

Simplifications in the form of systemic or substitution processes

Simplifications when increased segmental complexity

Vowel errors

Vowel errors are less common

Vowel errors are more common

Consistent errors

Generally consistent errors that form patterns

Token-to-token variability

Increased errors with utterance length and/or complexity

Errors are generally consistent as length of words/phrases

More errors with longer and/or more complex utterances

Prosodic disorders

Rate, rhythm and stress of speech disrupted

Typically no disruption of rate, rhythm or stress

Inflection range for speaking

Good control of pitch and loudness

Inflection range for speaking limited

be observed in children with other speech sound disorders (Grigos et al., 2015), such as in children with PI. For example, speech deficits may be present in both the group of children with CAS and that of children with PI in terms of consonant distortions, reduced errors of consonant omissions and substitutions (Shriberg et al., 1997), vowel errors, altered prosody, increased errors with utterance length and/or complexity (Bowen, 2015). The characteristic manifestations in children with PI and CAS are shown in Table 15.1 (Fish, 2011). Diagnosing CAS may be considered a difficult task because children with this disorder are commonly confused with children who have severe PI. Both groups showed slow development of speech skills, reduced phonetic and phonemic inventories, multiple errors in sounds, decreased percentage correct consonants and speech unintelligibility (Fish, 2011) which contributed to diagnostic error (Aziz et al., 2010; Lewis et al., 2004; Nijland & Maassen, 2003). On Brazilian Portuguese and its phonological development

Latin, which is the official language of the ancient Roman Empire, gave rise to several European languages, called Romance languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Castilian, French, Italian, Romanian, Galician and Catalan. The Portuguese originated in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and, with the Christian Reconquest, it expanded to the Galiza and part of Portugal (Brocardo & Lopes, 2016). Around 1500, Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese and Portuguese became the main language in Brazil, the first language of most of the population until now. When comparing Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP) and European Portuguese (henceforth EP), it is possible to differentiate some aspects in the process of child’s acquisition. In BP, a spontaneous study suggested

350  Part 2: Atypical Development

an iambic bias, while an experimental study showed a trochaic bias (Baia, 2008). Brazilian and Portuguese children use the same strategy (reduplication) during phonological development. In both, BP and EP, the production of reduplicated words with final prominence is associated with processing of the iambic pattern. The main difference between BP and EP is that the Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children seem to use templates to a much lesser extent and for a smaller period of time (Baia & Correia, 2017). Crosslinguistic studies on SSDs with a focus on CAS and PI

Few studies have compared speech production between children with CAS and children with other speech sound disorders. Moss and Grigos (2012) investigated the coordination between lips and jaw during speech production in three groups of North American children: children with CAS, with a SSD (with articulation, phonological impairment or both) and with typical development. Through the facial motion capture system, the researchers tracked upper lip, lower lip and jaw movement during a naming task in which stimuli varied by word length (‘pop’, ‘puppe’ and ‘puppypop’). The results showed that the greater the length of the word, the children with CAS would have more difficulty than other groups of children in achieving good performance on spatialtemporal coupling and movement stability. A study involving Egyptian Arabic children with PI and with CAS investigated differences in oral performances of speech and non-speech tasks that can be used for a differential diagnostic process. Regarding the non-speech tasks, only differences between CAS and PI in two sequential motor performances were identified. In the speech tasks, the accuracy of consonant, vowel, syllable number, shape and sequence of segments were significantly lower for the group with CAS than for the group with PI. The inconsistent and prosodic features also differed significantly in children with CAS and PI studies in European Portuguese (Aziz et al., 2010). In a Korean study, Kima et al. (2015) studied the underlying difficulties of CAS by comparing with children with articulatory and phonological disorders (APD) and TD children. The researchers compared the reaction time (RT) and the percentage of correct responses in immediate/delayed word/nonword repetition tasks among the three groups. The results showed that the speech-motor ability of the CAS group was lower than the other groups and suggested that groups of CAS, APD and TD can be distinguished from each other through word and non-word immediate reaction time and the percentage of correct responses from a word task. Murray et al. (2015) investigated 72 Australian children diagnosed with suspected CAS (clinically evaluated by speech therapists) aiming

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  351

at making the differential diagnosis of suspected CAS in children more objective. Brazilian children (with typical development, with PI and with CAS) were compared and analyzed regarding their performance on the variables overall articulatory accuracy and consistency of the speech, by means of the Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skill – Brazilian Portuguese version (DEMSS-BR) (Keske-Soares et al., 2018). The authors identified that in tasks involving polysyllabic words most of children with CAS had difficulties in speech accuracy. Additionally, the children with CAS presented many speech inconsistencies in stimulus repetitions. The authors concluded that articulatory accuracy and consistency are important diagnostic markers in the differential diagnosis between PI and CAS. In BP, there are few instruments used to contribute to the differential diagnosis between children with CAS and PI. Recently, the DEMSS was translated and adapted to BP and its focus is to evaluate the motor skills of young children’s speech or severe SSDs. Thus, as in other languages, it is necessary to propose a set of assessment tools and measures to evaluate speech production and to verify which ones are effective in differentiating children with CAS from those with PI. Differential diagnosis between phonological impairment (PI) and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS)

There is a lack of consensus among researchers and speech-language therapists about the clinical characteristics used to differentiate CAS from severe PI. Research in recent literature investigates and compares different types of speech production measures in order to contribute to a more effective and less confusing diagnosis. Several researchers have investigated clinical markers to contribute a more efficient differential diagnosis between CAS and PI (Davis et al., 1998). Measures used in differential diagnosis

Previous studies involving objective measures aimed to compare the inconsistency of speech in preschool-aged children with CAS and PI. The results showed that this measure is effective to differentiate diagnosis comparing children with PI with those with CAS, since the inconsistency was greater for the second group (Iuzzini-Seigel, 2012; Iuzzini-Seigel & Murray, 2017). Shriberg et al. (2003) analyzed the acoustic correlation of stress (prosodic features) in North American children’s speech as an indication of CAS and speech delay (SD). The results suggested that the children with CAS differed from those with SD. The children’s speech sample with CAS contained: inconsistent realization of stress patterns, inconsistent realization of temporal constraints on both speech and

352  Part 2: Atypical Development

pause events and inconsistent oral–nasal gestures underlying the perception of nasopharyngeal resonance. In an attempt to contribute to the differential diagnosis between CAS and other speech sound disorders, Murray et al. (2015) investigated 24 different objective measures in 72 North American children previously diagnosed with CAS performed by experts in speech language pathology. The authors applied the measures to differentiate CAS from other speech disorders. They suggested that the diadochokinesis and polysyllabic production test may be sufficient to reliably identify CAS and other speech disorders (Ko et al., 2011). The characteristic manifestations in children with CAS are shown in Table 15.2 based on Murray et al. (2015). As shown above, some speech production measures may contribute to the differential diagnosis between the CAS and PI. However, there is a gap about the effectiveness of speech production measures and their Table 15.2  Characteristic manifestations in children with CAS (Murray et al., 2015) Percentage inconsistency (across three repetitions of 25 words) Percentage of lexical stress matches (relative to gloss) Distortion occurrences (out of a possible 328 phones) Syllable segregation occurrences (out of a possible 114 opportunities) Intrusive schwa occurrences (out of a possible 15 clusters) Occurrence of voicing errors (out of a possible 90 opportunities) Percentage phonemes correct (PPC) Percentage consonants correct–revised (PCC-R) Percentage vowels correct (PVC) on polysyllable test Magnitude of change score: NPC on 12 monosyllables/NPC on 12 polysyllables Articulation rate (syllables per minute) Presence of false articulatory starts and restarts and/or inaudible within-speech groping and/or audible within-speech groping and/or hesitations Presence of nonspeech groping in lip and tongue oral function tasks /pɐ/ rate over 3s on two trials /tɐ/ rate over 3s on two trials /kɐ/ rate over 3s on two trials /patakɐ/ rate over 3s on two trials /pætikeɪk/ rate over 3s on two trials Accuracy on /patakǝ/ Diadochokinesis task on two trials Oral structure score Oral function score Maximum Phonation Time Receptive Language Score Expressive Language Score

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  353

contributions to the differential diagnosis between CAS and PI regarding studies conducted in Brazil. Moreover, more research is needed to verify if there would be different findings in the case of BP-speaking children. This Study

The hypotheses of this study were that speech production measures will show differences in speech production among a group of children with typical language development, a group with phonological disorder and a group with suspected childhood apraxia of speech, and especially so between the last two groups. The aim of the study was to compare the speech production of children with PI and that of children with suspected CAS contributing to differential diagnosis between both groups of children. In order to compare the speech production of children with PI and with suspicion of CAS, several assessment tools or measures were translated and adapted to Brazilian Portuguese (see Appendices 14.2 to 14.4), as follows: the revised measure of percentage consonants correct (PCC-R) (Shriberg et al., 1997); child phonological assessment for BP-speaking children (Yavaş et al., 2002); percentage consonants correct (PCC) by multisyllabic word repetition task (MWR) (Preston & Edwards, 2007); per cent correct on lexical stress also from multisyllabic word repetition task (MWR) (Preston & Edwards, 2007); emphatic stress task (EST) (Shriberg et al., 2010); inconsistency task (IT) (Marquardt et al., 2004; Preston & Koenig, 2011); maximum performance tasks (MPT) (Thoonen et al., 1999). Specifically, it is expected that the per cent consonants correct (PCC-R) will be similar when comparing children with CAS and children with PI, because both groups of children tend to produce segmental errors such as distortions and substitutions. On the other hand, the per cent consonants correct from multisyllabic word repetition task (MWR) will be lower when comparing the CAS group with the PI group. This case may cause a negative impact on speech intelligibility (voicing errors, syllable omissions, sound substitutions) due to the lengthened and disrupted coarticulatory transition between phonemes or syllables. The per cent correct of lexical stress calculated by the multisyllabic word repetition task is lower in children with CAS when compared to results from children with PI, because the CAS group produces inappropriate stress at the lexical or sentence levels. Regarding the emphatic stress score, children with PI had a higher score than children with CAS. Thus, this first group (children with PI) did not show prosodic difficulty as expected. Inconsistency in repeated productions of the same word in CAS is expected to be higher in children with PI due to a lower-order motor programming/planning deficit. Speech inconsistency is not expected

354  Part 2: Atypical Development

for the group with PI, that is, different errors for the same target is only expected for CAS. However, phoneme error variability is a clinical manifestation expected for the children with PI. Furthermore, the maximum performance for children with PI is expected to be higher than in that of children with CAS, because the speech motor capacities are intact in the first group. Method

Fifteen Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children (5 with phonological impairment, 5 with suspicion of childhood apraxia of speech and 5 with typical development - TD) from 5 to 6 years and 9 months, of both genders, were tested using the speech production measures. The evaluation tasks were administered and scored by a certified speechlanguage pathologist. The distribution of children with PI and CAS is demonstrated in Table 15.3. For all three groups of children, the exclusion criteria were: absence of intellectual and neurological disorders, absence of anatomicalmorphological alterations that impair the speech production process (such as cleft lip and palate) and absence of otologic/auditory impairments. Children with TD and with suspected CAS were subjected to speech and language evaluation: audiological assessment, orofacial motricity and language skills assessment (comprehensive and receptive language). Table 15.3  Distribution of participants in terms of clinical identification, gender and chronological age Children

Gender

Clinical identification

Chronological age

Child 1

Male

Phonological impairment

6 years 4 months

Child 2

Male

Phonological impairment

5 years 11 months

Child 3

Male

Phonological impairment

6 years

Child 4

Male

Phonological impairment

5 years 2 months

Child 5

Male

Phonological impairment

6 years 3 months

Child 6

Male

Childhood apraxia of speech

6 years 6 months

Child 7

Male

Childhood apraxia of speech

7 years 5 months

Child 8

Male

Childhood apraxia of speech

5 years 11 months

Child 9

Male

Childhood apraxia of speech

5 years

Child 10

Female

Childhood apraxia of speech

7 years 7 months

Child 11

Female

Typical development

5 years 2 months

Child 12

Male

Typical development

5 years 2 months

Child 13

Female

Typical development

6 years 5 months

Child 14

Male

Typical development

6 years 2 months

Child 15

Male

Typical development

6 years 4 months

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  355

The speech production measures used to contribute to the differential diagnosis between phonological impairment and childhood apraxia of speech were: (a) percentage consonants correct revised (PCC-R) (Shriberg et al., 1997) using child phonological assessment for BP-speaking children (Yavaş et al., 2002); (b) percentage consonants correct (PCC) in the multisyllabic word repetition task (MWR) (Preston & Edwards, 2007); (c) per cent correct on lexical stress also from the multisyllabic word repetition task (MWR) (Preston & Edwards, 2007); (d) emphatic stress task (EST) (Shriberg et al., 2010); (e) the inconsistency task (IT) (Marquardt et al., 2004; Preston & Koenig, 2011); (f) the maximum performance tasks (MPT) (Thoonen et al., 1999). The MWR, IT and EST were adapted to Brazilian Portuguese based on linguistic criteria. Speech samples were collected using the child phonological assessment (CPA) for BP-speaking children Yavaş et al., 2002), which requires spontaneous naming of 125 words through five thematic sets of pictures (vehicles, living room, kitchen, bathroom and zoo). The audio recorded speech sample for each child was transcribed phonetically (IPA) based on consensus by three evaluators, and phonological processes were classified by the researcher as described in the literature (e.g. Yavaş et al., 2002). A summary of the phonological processes found, also occurring in the typical development of Brazilian Portuguese children (Lousada et al., 2012; Yavaş et al., 2002) is shown in Table 15.4. Regarding severity, the children’s speech production was computed based on the percentage consonants correct-revised (PCC-R) with the purpose of evaluating consonant accuracy. The multisyllabic word production task requires the planning and execution of complex articulatory sequences, that is, it evaluates the accuracy of segments and suprasegmental aspects of the production of multisyllabic words (Preston & Edwards, 2007). A multisyllabic word infers the children’s syllabic awareness through syllable combinations, since the syllable is composed of phonemic units. Table 15.4  Speech manifestations that differentiate children with PI and CAS Phonological process

Target

Produced

Gloss

Fronting

/kɐˈfɛ/

[tɐˈfɛ]

‘coffee’

Stopping

/ˈfakɐ/

[ˈpakɐ]

‘knife’

Depalatalization

/ˈʃavɨ/

[ˈsavɨ]

‘key’

Palatalization

/sɐˈpatu/

[ʃɐˈpatu]

‘shoe’

Devoicing of fricatives

/ˈkazɐ/

[ˈkasɐ]

‘house’

Final consonant deletion

/koˈmeɾ/

[koˈme]

‘to eat’

Cluster reduction

/ˈtɾes/

[ˈtes]

‘three’

Gliding of liquid

/ˈbɔlɐ/

[ˈbɔwɐ]

‘ball’

Weak syllable deletion

/ˈbɔlɐ/

[ˈbɔ]

‘ball’

356  Part 2: Atypical Development

First, children repeated the multisyllabic words and the speech language pathologist recorded their speech on a portable recorder TSI (Model: MMF-303). The speech language pathologist transcribed the child’s response, then it was necessary to count the number of correct consonants and to calculate the percentage of correct consonants. The multisyllabic word repetition task previously described was also used to evaluate lexical stress. The speech language pathologist examined the children’s speech production using words from three to six syllables (e.g. aquarela [aˈkaɾɛlɐ] ‘aquarela’, estetoscópio [estetosˈkɔpiu] ‘stethoscope’, restaurant [hestauˈɾãtʃɪ] ‘restaurant’) by perceptual-auditory analysis. A score of 0 was assigned if the accent was inappropriate (accentual displacement, accent in excess or pauses within the word) and 1 if the accent was appropriate. Then, the amount was counted and converted into percentage. The emphatic stress score aims to investigate if the child detects prosodic changes at the sentence level. Three simple sentences in Brazilian Portuguese period were used with different intonation approaches to the components of the sentence: subject, verb or complement. The children should perceive the stress of the sentence and they should be capable to repeat keeping the same accent of the stimulus. The participants needed to repeat the same stimulus produced by the evaluator (e.g. John LOVES to play ball). The children’s responses were recorded on a TSI portable recorder (Model: MMF-303). Then, the speech language pathologist analyzed the children’s speech using a headset and restarting the recorded audio as many times as necessary until its analysis was complete. The speech productions were scored as follows, according to Shriberg et al. (2010). A 0 represented a poor prosody, very poor distinction between stressed/unstressed words; 1 represented discreet (mild or moderate) prosody alterations (not a good imitation of the sentence) and, finally, 2 represented a good imitation of the prosody of the sentence, clear distinction of the stressed word. Thus, the maximum score was 24. The inconsistency task consisted of an evaluation of planning or programming that results in inconsistent phonetic productions (Preston & Koenig, 2011; Preston et al., 2008). In this task, the children needed to produce phonetically challenging words (for example, rectangular, computer, bike) and with variety of lexical stress patterns. The words were illustrated in pictures and the speech language pathologist requested that the child named the word eight consecutive times. Subsequently, the evaluator counted the total number of different realizations produced by the children, that is, a score of five in the word brigadeiro [bɾigaˈdeɾu] ‘brigadier’ indicated five different productions for that word: [tɾidaˈdeɾu], [dzidaˈdeɾu], [bigaˈdeɾu], [bɾigaˈdeɾu], [tɾibaˈdeɾu]. The score considered for this test was 0 for completely consistent productions while a score of 8 represented maximally

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  357

inconsistent productions. Then, the total of inconsistent productions was divided by the total productions performed by child (total of 64). Maximum performance tasks were employed to quantify the speech motor capacities of children with CAS (e.g. Thoonen et al., 1999). This task consisted of evaluating the maximum duration of /a/ (in e.g. /mama/), /f, /s/, /z/, the maximum repetition rate for single syllables /pa/, /ta/ and /ka/, and, finally, diadochokinesia in the sequence of the syllables mentioned which form /pataka/ (Rvachew et al., 2005). Motor speech evaluation aimed to investigate the motor functioning of speech and revealed opposing muscular actions in the fast, alternating and repeated movement of the articulatory organs, in order to evaluate the maturation and integration neuromotor of the children (Dodd & McIntosh, 2008; Wertzner et al., 2008). Diadochokinesia was calculated and assigned the following evaluation: a score of zero was assigned if the children produced a correct trisyllabic sequence with at least 4.4 syllables per second (without two additional attempts). The score was 1 for a sequence between 3.4 and 4.4 syllables per second (no need to use 2 additional attempts). A score of 2 was assigned if the children were not able to produce a correct sequence or perform at a rate less than 3.4 syllables per second. The performance in these tasks resulted in two different scores: apraxia. The score of 0 corresponds to ‘non-apraxic’ or ‘non-dysarthric’; 1 represents ‘undefined’ for each category and a score of 2 represents ‘apraxia’ (Thoonen et al., 1999). A descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was performed on variance (one-way ANOVA) (Bonferroni post-hoc) using STATISTICA 7.0 (StatSoft, 2019). Results and Discussion

Regarding the speech production measures evaluated (see Appendix 15.1 for individual children’s scores on each assessment), results from the following showed significant differences among children with typical development, those with phonological impairment and those with suspected childhood apraxia of speech: percentage consonants correct revised (Shriberg et al., 1997) based on BP-speaking children’s phonological assessment (p > 0.005); PCC-R from the multisyllabic word repetition task (p > 0.000), per cent correct of lexical stress (p > 0.000) from the multisyllabic word repetition task (p > 0.000), the maximum performance tasks (p > 0.000) and the inconsistency task (p > 0.000). However, the emphatic stress task did not present significant differences between the groups of children with typical development and with phonological impairment (p = 0.019). A summary of the results regarding speech production measures is shown in Table 15.5.

358  Part 2: Atypical Development

Table 15.5  Result of speech production measures from typical development, phonological impairment and childhood apraxia of speech Typical development

Phonological impairment

Childhood Apraxia of Speech

p

Assessment/tasks

Measures

Children phonological assessment

Per cent consonants correct (PCC) (%)

100.0 (0)

58.9 (14,4)

62.0 (8,4)

0.005

Multisyllabic word repetition task

Per cent consonants correct (PCC) (%)

80.8 (0.32)

64,8 (4.64)

46,8 (13.76)

0.000

Per cent Correct on Lexical Stress (PCL) (%)

16 (1.6)

7 (2.4)

2.6 (2.72)

0.000

Emphatic stress task (ES) (max = 24)

17.4 (0.7)

15.2 (2.2)

8 (6.8)

0.019

Inconsistency task (IT) (max = 64)

1.94 (0.2)

0.125 (0)

0 (0)

0.000

Maximum performance tasks (MPT)

3.93 (0.5)

6.74 (2.0)

2.18 (0.4)

0,000

The results of speech production measures will be presented subsequently. Per cent consonant correct

Results for the PCC-R are shown in Figure 15.1. The results on consonant accuracy revealed that PCC (phonological assessment) significantly differed for the group of children with typical development (p < 0.00). The post hoc test demonstrated statistical difference between the children with phonological impairment and those with typical development (p < 0.00), and between children with childhood apraxia of speech and those with typical development (p < 0.00); however, there was no statistical significance between the results of children with childhood apraxia of speech and those with phonological impairment (p = 1.00). It was expected that the per cent consonants correct calculated from the phonological assessment in the CAS group would be similar to that of children with PI. This hypothesis was corroborated. Children with childhood apraxia of speech and with phonological impairment are characterized by high rates of consonant errors, while severity is classified as moderate, ranging from 50 to 65% (Shriberg & Kwiatkowski, 1982). Although PCC is a clinical indicator for children with CAS (Davis et al., 1998; Shriberg et al., 1997), both children with PI and CAS were characterized by high rates of consonant omission and substitution errors, revealing that PCC is not an efficient measure for differential diagnosis. Both groups of children showed high PCC values,

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  359

Figure 15.1  PCC in the CPA task for all three groups of children

that indicates a clinical overlap of CAS and PI, confirming previous studies (Shriberg et al., 1997; Aziz et al., 2010). Per cent consonant correct – multisyllabic word

Summaries of the results for the per cent consonants correct in the multisyllabic word repetition task are shown in Figure 15.2. Results of consonant accuracy revealed that PCC in the multisyllabic word repetition task showed significant difference (p < 0.00) between all three groups of children. The post hoc test indicated difference between children with phonological disorder and childhood apraxia of speech (p < 0.00). The post hoc had no statistical significance between childhood apraxia of speech and typical development (p < 0.05) and between children with phonological impairment and with typical development (p = 0.10). The hypothesis that the PCC from the multisyllabic word repetition task in CAS group is lower if compared to children with PI was confirmed. The results show differences between the group of children with phonological impairment and with suspicion of childhood apraxia of speech because they had motor programming/planning difficulties which complicate the production of articulatory complex words and/or in connected speech (ASHA, 2007; Austin & Shriberg, 1996).

360  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 15.2 PCC in the multisyllabic word repetition task for all three groups of children with typical development, with phonological disorder and with childhood apraxia of speech

Throughout the motor development process the children acquire control of the articulators independently (lips and different portions of the tongue) and learn to produce more specialized configurations such as articulatory sequences and accuracy in the production of sound sequences (Davis & MacNeilage, 2000). Moss and Grigos (2012) investigated the coordination between the lips and jaw during speech production of the three groups of children: children with CAS; children with a speech sound disorder involving articulation, phonological errors or both and typically developing children. The authors concluded that words with increased length would be more difficult for children with CAS than for other children due to the lack of spatiotemporal coupling and stability movement. Per cent correct lexical stress

Summaries of the results for the per cent correct on lexical stress (multisyllabic word repetition task) are shown in Figure 15.3. Results on lexical stress are shown to have a significant difference between the all three groups of children analyzed (p < 0.01). Post hoc test with Bonferroni tests demonstrated that the per cent correct on lexical stress for children with typical development was greater than for

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  361

Figure 15.3  Percent correct on lexical stress for all three groups of children

the children with childhood apraxia of speech (p < 0.00) and between children with phonological impairment and with typical development (p < 0.00); however, it did not show statistical significance and between children with childhood apraxia of speech and with phonological impairment (p = 0.08). The hypothesis that the per cent correct on lexical stress calculated from multisyllabic word repetition task is lower in CAS when compared with PI was not corroborated. The literature does not show consensus about the influence of lexical (word) stress to differentiate between children with CAS and other SSD. While Velleman and Shriberg (1999) did not identify differences between children with CAS and with speech delay, confirming the data of the present study, suggests that stress assessment at the sentence level may be more informative than at the lexical level. Shriberg et al. (2003) did an extended review that described findings on the lexical stress marker for CAS. Although the results indicated that the lexical stress ratio differentiated children with CAS and speech delay on production of trochaic (strong-weak), iambic (weak-strong), and spondee (strong-strong) stress patterns, a group of children with CAS showed increased stress, while others had decreased stress. Other studies (Skinder et al., 2000; Skinder et al., 1999) reported differences regarding stress between children with CAS and those with speech delay, particularly regarding lexical stress.

362  Part 2: Atypical Development

Figure 15.4  Emphatic stress scores for all three groups of children

Emphatic stress

Summaries of the results on the emphatic stress score are illustrated in Figure 15.4. The emphatic stress score demonstrated that there is a significant difference between all three groups of children (p = 0.01). The post hoc test with Bonferroni showed statistical significance between children with apraxia of speech and those with phonological disorder (p < 0.01), but there was no significant difference between children with phonological disorder and with typical development (p < 0.83), and between children with phonological disorder and with childhood apraxia of speech (p < 0.15). The hypothesis that the emphatic stress score is higher in children with PI when compared to children with CAS was confirmed. Regarding prosodic aspects at the sentence level assessed by the emphatic stress score, there was statistical difference between children with phonological impairment and those with childhood apraxia of speech, confirming clinical description regarding the evidence of inappropriate prosody (ASHA, 2007; Murray et al., 2015). A study involving 14 children with suspicion of CAS and another group of 73 children with speech delay of unknown origin (Shriberg et al., 1997) showed that the use of inappropriate stress was the single

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  363

linguistic domain that differentiated CAS from other SSDs. The authors concluded that the stress deficit is associated with difficulties at the level of phonological representation rather than prearticulatory sequencing. Inconsistency task

Summaries of the results for the inconsistency task are demonstrated in Figure 15.5. Results on the inconsistency task are shown to have a significant difference between the groups of children analyzed (p < 0.00). The post hoc test showed statistical significance between childhood apraxia of speech and typical development (p < 0.00), and between childhood apraxia of speech and phonological impairment (p < 0.00); however, there was not statistical significance between children with phonological impairment and typical development (p < 0.49). The inconsistency in repeated productions of the same word in childhood apraxia of speech is higher when compared to that of children with PI due to a lower-order motor programming/planning deficit. For the group with PI, speech inconsistency (different errors for the same target) was not expected, but rather phoneme error variability. Lexical inconsistency of speech is considered one criterion in the differential diagnosis between CAS and other SSDs (ASHA, 2007; Iuzzini-Seigel, 2012). Inconsistency in the repetition of syllables or words is present in childhood apraxia of speech as shown in previous studies

Figure 15.5  Inconsistency task for all three groups of children

364  Part 2: Atypical Development

(ASHA, 2007; Holm et al., 2007; Iuzzini, 2012; Iuzzini & Forrest, 2010; Murray et al., 2015). The children with CAS had difficulty planning the articulatory sequences needed to produce words correctly (Iuzzini-Seigel & Murray, 2017). Maximum performance tasks

Summaries of the results for the maximum performance tasks are illustrated in Figure 15.6. Results on maximum performance tasks demonstrated a significant difference between children (p < 0.00). The post hoc test has shown statistical significance between children with childhood apraxia of speech and with phonological impairment (p < 0.00). The test did not show statistical significance between children with phonological impairment and with typical development (p = 0.05) and between children with phonological impairment and with childhood apraxia of speech (p = 0.33). The hypothesis that the maximum performance for PI is higher than for CAS because of speech motor capacities was confirmed. Results on performance tasks demonstrated a statistical difference between children with phonological impairment and childhood apraxia

Figure 15.6  Results on the maximum performance tasks for all three groups of children

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  365

of speech, corroborating the data in the literature (Rvachew et al., 2006). Maximum performance tasks provide information about the motor speech skills underlying CAS (e.g. articulatory coordination, breathing control, speech rate, fluency, articulatory accuracy and temporal variability). Specifically, the maximum repetition rate can be used to differentiate groups of children with CAS, developmental phonological disorder or normally developing speech (Rvachew et al., 2005; Murray et al., 2015). As in a previous study (Thoonen et al., 1999), children with CAS present more errors in trisyllabic repetitive (/pataka/) performances when compared to children with phonological impairment. In addition, Murray et al. (2015) also confirmed that maximum performance tasks are valid and effective measures for differential diagnosis of CAS and other disorders. Conclusion

Due overlap of clinical manifestations, differentiating between childhood apraxia of speech and phonological impairment is complicated. Many researchers are investigating effective speech production measures on the differential diagnosis of CAS and other speech sound ­disorders. Regarding the speech production measures applied in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children with phonological impairment and with suspicion of childhood apraxia of speech in order to promote the differential diagnosis between the two groups, the per cent consonants correct was calculated within the multisyllabic word repetition task, the maximum performance task, the emphatic stress task, and the inconsistency task, and they showed to be sensitive to differentiate the groups of children with CAS and PI. Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP: process 2016/19888-0). Preliminary results of this study were presented at the International Child Phonology Conference 2018 that took place on 18-20 June 2018 in Chania, Crete, Greece. References American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) (2007) Childhood apraxia of speech [Technical Report]. See www.asha.org/policy. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) (2017) Childhood apraxia of speech (Practice Portal). See http://www.asha.org/Practice-Portal/Clinical-Topics/ Childhood-Apraxia-of-Speech/. Austin, D. and Shriberg, L.D. (1996) Lifespan reference data for ten measures of articulation competence using the Speech Disorders Classification System (SDCS) (Tech. Rep. No. 3). Phonology Project, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

366  Part 2: Atypical Development

Aziz, A.A., Shohdi, S., Osman, D.M. and Habib, E.I. (2010) Childhood apraxia of speech and multiple phonological disorders in Cairo-Egyptian Arabic speaking children: language, speech, and oro-motor differences. International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 74, 5784–85. Baia, M.F.A. (2008) O formato prosódico inicial do português brasileiro: uma questão metodológica? Revista Virtual de Estudos da Linguagem 6, 1–27. Baia, M.F.A. and Correia, S. (2017) Self-organisation in phonological development: templates in Brazilian and European Portuguese. In E. Babatsouli (ed.) Proceedings of the International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2017 (pp. 45–51) Chania, Greece. ISBN: 978-618-82351-1-3 1. Bowen, C. (2015) Children’s Speech Sound Disorders (2nd edn). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Brocardo, M.T. and Lopes, C.R.S. (2016) History and current setting. In L. Wetzels, S. Menuzzi and J. Costa (eds) Handbook of Portuguese Linguistics (pp. 1–14). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell Davis, B.L., Jakielski, K.J. and Marquardt, T.P. (1998) Developmental apraxia of speech: determiners of differential diagnosis. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 12, 25–45. Dodd, B. and McIntosh, B. (2008) The input processing, cognitive linguistic and oro-motor skills of children with speech difficulty. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 10, 169–78. Fish, M (2011) Here’s How to Treat Childhood Apraxia of Speech. San Diego: Plural Publishing. Grigos, M.I., Moss, A. and Lu, Y. (2015) Oral articulatory control in childhood apraxia of speech. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 58, 1103–1118. Holm, A., Crosbie, S. and Dodd, B. (2007) Differentiating normal variability from inconsistency in children speech: Normative data. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 42, 467–86. Ingram, D. (1976) Phonological Disability in Children. London: Edward Arnold. Iuzzini-Seigel, J. (2012) Inconsistency of Speech in Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Phonological Disorders, and Typical Speech, Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Iuzzini-Seigel, J. and Forrest, K. (2010) Evaluation of a combined treatment approach for Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 24, 335–345. Iuzzini-Seigel, J. and Murray, E. (2017) Speech assessment in children with childhood apraxia of speech. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups 22 (2), 47–60. Keske-Soares, M., Uberti, L.B., Gubiani, M.B., Gubiani, M.B., Ceron, M.I. and Pagliarin, K.C. (2018) Desempenho de crianças com distúrbios dos sons da fala no instrumento. Avaliação dinâmica das habilidades motoras da fala. CoDAS 30 (2), 1–7. Kima, H.J., Choib, S.Y. and Ha, J.W. (2015) Speech-motor program/programming in children with childhood apraxia of speech, children with articulatory and phonological disorders and typically developing children. Communication Science Disorders 20 (1), 60–71. Ko, M.J., Kang, M.J., Ko, K.J., Ki, Y.O., Chang, H.J. and Kwon, J.Y. (2011) Clinical usefulness of Schedule for Oral-Motor Assessment (SOMA) in children with dysphagia. Annals of Rehabilitation Medicine 35 (4), 477–84. Lewis, B.A., Freebairn, L.A., Hansen, A.J., Iyengar, S.K. and Taylor, H.G. (2004) School-age follow-up children with childhood apraxia of speech. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 35, 122–140. Liégeois, F.J. and Morgan, A.T. (2012) Neural bases of childhood speech disorders: lateralization and plasticity for speech functions during development. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 36, 439–458. Lousada, M., Mendes, A.P., Valente, A.R. and Hall, A. (2012) Standardization of a phonetic-phonological test for European Portuguese children. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica 64, 151–156. MacNeilage, P.F. and Davis, B.L. (2000) On the origin of internal structure of word forms. Science 288 (5465), 527–531.

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  367

Marquardt, T.P., Jacks, A. and Davis, B.L. (2004) Token-to-token variability in developmental apraxia of speech: Three longitudinal case studies. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 18, 127–144. Moss, A. and Grigos, M. (2012) Interarticulatory coordination of the lips and jaw in childhood apraxia of speech. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology 20, 127–132. Murray, E., McCabe, P., Heard, R. and Ballard, K.J. (2015) Differential diagnosis of children with suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 58, 43–60. Nijland, L. and Maassen B. (2003) Evidence of motor programming deficits in children diagnosed with DAS. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 46, 437–450. Preston, J.L. and Edwards, M.L. (2007) Phonological processing skills of adolescents with residual speech sound errors. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools 38, 297–308. Preston, J.L. and Koenig, L.L. (2011) Phonetic variability in residual speech sound disorders: Exploration of subtypes. Topics in Language Disorders 31, 168–184. Rvachew, S., Ohberg, A and Savage, R. (2006) Young children’s responses to maximum performance tasks: Preliminary data and recommendations. Journal of SpeechLanguage Pathology and Audiology 30, 6–13. Shriberg, L.D. and Kwiatkowski, J. (1982) Phonological disorders III: A procedure for assessing severity of involvement. Journal Speech and Hearing Disorders 47, 256–270. Shriberg, L.D., Aram, D.M. and Kwiatkowski, J. (1997) Developmental apraxia of speech: II. Toward a diagnostic marker. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 40, 286–312. Shriberg, L., Austin, D., Lewis, B., McSweeney, J. and Wilson, D. (1997) The percentage of consonants correct (PCC) metric: Extensions and reliability data. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 3, 708–722. Shriberg, L.D., Campbell, T.F., Karlsson, H.B., Brown, R.L., McSweeny, J.L., and Nadler, C.J. (2003) A diagnostic marker for childhood apraxia of speech: the lexical stress ratio. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 17, 549–574. Shriberg, L.D., Fourakis, M., Hall, S.D, Karlsson, H.B., Lohmeier, H.L., McSweeny, J.L., Potter, N.L., Scheer-Cohen, A.R., Strand, E.A., Tilkens, C.M., Wilson, D.L. (2010) Extensions to the Speech Disorders Classification System (SDCS). Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 24, 795–824. Shriberg, L.D., Lohmeier, H.L., Strand, E.A. and Jakielski, K.J. (2012) Encoding, memory, and transcoding deficits in Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 26, 445–82. Skinder, A., Strand, E.A. and Mignerey, M. (1999) Perceptual and acoustic analysis of lexical and sentential stress in children with developmental apraxia of speech. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology 7, 133–144. Skinder, A., Connaghan, K., Strand, E. and Betz, S. (2000) Acoustic correlates of perceived lexical stress errors in children with developmental apraxia of speech. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology 4, 279–284. StatSoft (2019) STATISTICA 7.0 [software program]. Retrieved from http://www.statsoft. com/Products/STATISTICA-Features. Thoonen, G., Maassen, B., Gabreëls, F. and Schreuder, R. (1999) Validity of maximum performance tasks to diagnose motor speech disorders in children. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 13, 1–23. Velleman, S.L. and Shriberg, L.D. (1999) Metrical analysis of the speech of children with suspected developmental apraxia of speech. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 42, 1444–60. Wertzner, H.F., Alves, R.R. and Ramos, A.C.O. (2008) Análise do desenvolvimento das habilidades diadococinéticas em crianças normais e com transtorno fonológico. Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia 3, 136–42. Yavaş, M., Hernandorena, C.L.M. and Lamprecht, R.R. (2002) Avaliação Fonológica da Criança: Reeducação e Terapia. Porto Alegre: ArtMed.

368  Part 2: Atypical Development

Appendix 15.1: Children’s scores on the tests PCC(%)PCC(%) PC(%) Maximum Clinical Phonological Multisyllabic Lexical Emphatic Inconsistency performance Children identification assessment word stress stress task tasks (sec.) Child 1

PI

66.96

68

8

16

0.125

5.3

Child 2

PI

77.55

70

11

18

0.25

4.3

Child 3

PI

56.36

55

4

17

0.125

Child 4

PI

25.43

63

8

14

0.125

Child 5

PI

68.42

68

4

11

0.125

5.5

Child 6

CAS

48

25

0

4

2.25

1.2

Child 7

CAS

74

61

5

20

2

2.3

Child 8

CAS

55

44

1

2

2

2.6

Child 9

CAS

64

37

0

1

1.85

2.3

Child 10

CAS

69.16

67

7

13

1.62

2.5

Child 11

TD

100

81

14

18

0

4.6

Child 12

TD

100

80

15

23

0

4.3

Child 13

TD

100

81

19

17

0

3

Child 14

TD

100

81

17

16

0

3.5

Child 15

TD

100

81

15

21

0

4.25

7.6 11

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  369

Appendix 15.2: Multisyllabic Word Productions

You are going to be hearing some words. These are real words, but they are long, and some may not be familiar to you. Listen carefully and repeat the word that you hear. Each one will start with a number, then the word will be said. Please just repeat the word as clearly as you can. For example, if you hear ‘number one, table’ then you will say ‘table’. Do you understand? You will hear each one only once, so listen carefully. Scoring: Transcribe response. Then, mark Consonants Correct (/ɝ,ɚ/ count as consonants) and Vowels Correct. Lexical stress: Mark 1 if lexical stress is appropriate (correct number of syllables, appropriate weak/strong syllables). Smooth/Connected: Mark 1 if all syllables are smooth and connected and 0 if syllable segregation is observed. Word (in BP)

Target transcription

Translation

dinossauro

/ʤinoˈsauɾo/

‘dinosaur’

/4

/4

hipopótamo

/ipoˈpɔtamo/

‘hippopotamus’

/4

/5

macarronada /makahoˈnada/ ‘pasta’

/5

/5

casamento

/kazaˈmẽto/

‘marriage’

/4

/4

alfabeto

/awfaˈbɛto/

‘alphabet’

/4

/5

refrigerante

/hefɾiʒeˈɾãt∫e/

‘soda’

/6

/5

resfriado

/hesfɾiˈado/

‘cold’

/5

/4

prateleira

/pɾat∫i’ˈeiɾa/

‘shelf’

/5

/5

queimadura

/keimaˈduɾa/

‘burn’

/4

/5

lanchonete

/lãʃoˈnɛt∫e/

‘snack bar’

/4

/4

polêmica

/poˈlemika/

‘controversy’

/4

/4

intensidade

/ˈĩtẽsidaʤe/

‘intensity’

/4

/5

classificação

/klasifikaˈsãw/

‘ranking’

/6

/4

inteligência

/ĩteliˈʒẽsia/

‘intelligence’

/4

/6

aquarela

/aqʷaˈɾɛla/

‘watercolor’

/3

/4

restaurante

/hestauˈɾãt∫e/

‘restaurant’

/5

/5

admiração

/aʤimiɾaˈsãw/

‘admiration’

/4

/5

intensidade

/ˈĩtẽsidaʤe/

‘intensity’

/5

/4

advogado

/aʤivoˈgado/

‘lawyer’

/4

/4

serpentina

/seɹˈpẽt∫ina/

‘serpentine’

/5

/4

/90

/

TOTAL

Client’s #Consonants #Vowels Lexical Smooth/ response correct correct stress connected

/20

/20

370  Part 2: Atypical Development

Appendix 15.3: Emphatic Stress Task

Name:_________________ Date:_______ Evaluator: _______________ Instruction: You will hear some sentences and you should repeat exactly as you heard them Sentences

Transcript

Gloss

HOJE está chovendo muito.

/ˈoʒI esˈtɐ ∫oˈvẽdʊ ˈmuitʊ/

‘It’s raining a lot TODAY’

João ADORA jogar bola.

/ʒoˈãw adɔˈɾɐ ʒoˈgaɹ ˈbɔlɐ/

‘João LOVES to play ball’

Hoje está CHOVENDO muito.

/ˈoʒI esˈtɐ ∫oˈvẽdʊ ˈmuitʊ/

‘Today is RAINING a lot’

João adora jogar BOLA.

/ʒoˈãw adɔˈɾɐ ʒoˈgaɹ ˈbɔlɐ/

‘João loves to play BALL’

Hoje amanheceu chovendo MUITO.

/ˈoʒI amaˈɳeseu ∫oˈvẽdʊ ˈmuitʊ/

‘Today it was raining A LOT

JOÃO adora jogar bola

/ʒoˈãw adɔˈɾɐ ʒoˈgaɹ ˈbɔlɐ/

‘JOÃO loves to play ball’

Bia COMEU duas bananas.

/ˈbiɐ kˈomeuˈduas banaˈnɐs/

‘Bia ATE two bananas’

Bia comeu duas BANANAS.

/ˈbiɐ kˈomeuˈduas bana’nɐs/ ‘Bia ate two BANANAS’

João adora JOGAR bola.

/ʒoˈãw adɔˈɾɐ ʒoˈgaɹ ˈbɔlɐ/

‘Joao loves to PLAY ball’

Bia comeu DUAS bananas.

/ˈbiɐ kˈomeuˈduas banaˈnɐs/

‘Bia ate TWO bananas’

Hoje ESTÁ chovendo muito. /ˈoʒI esˈtɐ ∫oˈvẽdʊ ‘muitʊ/ BIA comeu duas bananas.

‘IT´S raining a lot today’

/ˈbiɐ kˈomeuˈduas bana’nɐs/ ‘BIA ate two bananas’

Scores: 0 = Poor prosody, very weak distinction between unstressed/ accented or stressed words. 1 = Subtle change (mild or moderate) in prosody; Perhaps some differentiation between accented and unstressed words, however, not present a good imitation of the sentence. 2 = Adequate imitation of the prosody in the sentence, showing a clear distinction of the accented words. Maximum score = 24.

Score

Speech Production Measures in Brazilian Portuguese Children  371

Appendix 15.4

Name:_________________ Date:_______ Evaluator: _______________ INCONSISTENCY TASK

Participants will repeat phonetically challenging words that elicit a variety of lexical accent patterns (e.g. rectangle, computer, refrigerator, bike, match, yogurt, television, brigadier). Eight consecutive images will be copied onto a page and the participant will be instructed: Name each image as fast as possible. Word (in BP)

Transcript

Translation to English

retângulo

/heˈtãgulʊ/

‘rectangle’

computador

/ˈkõputadoɹ/

‘computer’

refrigerador

/ hefɾiʒeɾaˈdoɹ/

‘refrigerator’

bicicleta

/bisiˈklɛtɐ/

‘bike’

fósforo

/ˈfɔsfʊɾʊ/

‘phosphorus’

yogurte

/ioˈguɹt∫I/

‘yogurt’

televisão

/televiˈzãw/

‘television’

brigadeiro

/bɾigaˈdeɾʊ/

‘brigadier’

16 Elements in Phonological Intervention: A Comparison of Three Approaches Using the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy Elise Baker, Rebecca J. McCauley, A. Lynn Williams and Sharynne McLeod

Introduction

In seminal work on child phonology in the 1970s, David Ingram documented how phonological impairment in children manifests as a series of pattern-based errors (otherwise known as phonological rules or phonological processes). Although similar types of error patterns are observed across children (e.g. fricatives being replaced by plosives), not all children present with the same constellation of patterns. Rather, children are observed to have pattern-based errors impacting phonemes (including one or more classes of phonemes), phonotactics (e.g. syllable and word shapes) and/or prosodic characteristics (e.g. lexical stress) (e.g. Ingram, 1974a, 1974b, 1976; Ingram et al., 1980). In addition, Ingram identified that these patterns occur across languages (Ingram, 2004, 2008, 2012). Published case studies of children with phonological impairment provide helpful illustrations of the diversity of difficulties that children can have when learning the phonological system of their ambient language. Ingram and Terselic (1983) provided a detailed case study of E (4;1 years). E had a phonological impairment characterized by difficulty learning the phonemes and the distribution of those phonemes in his ambient language, General American English. For example, E collapsed word-final voiceless sibilants to a non-English phone, the ingressive 375

376  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

voiceless alveolar fricative [s↓]. Williams (2000b) reported on a similar case of a young girl, Michelle (3;5 years) who collapsed six word-final phonemes /f, s, z, ʃ, ʧ, ʤ/ to the non-American English voiceless velar fricative phone [x]. Lee (2018: 6) reported on a child (Child B) who had a ‘1:22 phoneme collapse of non-labial obstruents and clusters to [d]’. Such phonemic difficulties can occur despite children being able to match word length (e.g. pronouncing hippopotamus /hɪpəpɑtəməs/ as [ɪpəbɑtəmət], realizing all 5 syllables) (McLeod & Baker, 2017). In contrast to these cases of children having difficulty learning the phonemic system, Velleman (2002) described the case of a boy, Val (3;4 years), who had a severe phonological impairment involving phonemes, syllables shapes and word length. Val’s phonetic inventory was limited to [b, d, m, n, j]. He often omitted final consonants, and rarely produced consonant clusters and words longer than one-syllable. Sometimes children’s difficulties can be more specific and complex, which is only revealed through comprehensive phonological analysis of interactions between children’s abilities to use the phones within their repertoire in varied sequences in syllables and words. For example, Bernhardt and Stemberger (2000) described a toddler, Roland (2;1 years) who was initially identified as being late to talk. Close investigation of his phonological system revealed that although he had a range of phones from different manner classes in his system (e.g. /p, b, t, k, ɡ, f, s, l/ and some knowledge of consonant clusters), Roland had a difficulty learning particular cross-vowel consonant sequences. For instance, although he produced labial-labial consonant sequences (e.g. [bɪb]), coronalcoronal sequences (e.g. [nʌt]) and labial-coronal sequences (e.g. [piːs]), he did not use coronal-labial sequences (e.g. [næp]). Roland’s difficulty with sequences and Val’s difficulty with word length, differs from the previously described cases where the locus of the difficulty was in learning the contrastive system of phonemes in the language and further illustrates the variety seen in children’s phonological impairments. To further complicate the diversity of difficulties that children exhibit when learning phonology, difficulties can extend to more than one language and phonological system (e.g. Holm & Dodd, 1999) and they can interact with other areas of language particularly morphosyntax (Howland et al., 2019; Tyler et al., 2002). They can also interact with other abilities involved in the processing and production of speech, such as speech perception (e.g. Hearnshaw et al., 2018), and motor planning/ programming (e.g. Gildersleeve-Neumann & Goldstein, 2015), as well as with limitations resulting from defects in oral-facial structure (e.g. Scherer et al., 2012). Finally, Ingram et al. (2017) proposed that speech sound disorders (SSD) be viewed as a spectrum that accounts for the interaction of articulation and phonology. Because of these differences in the presentation of phonological impairment, designing an effective intervention plan involves tailoring

Elements in Phonological Intervention  377

intervention to each child’s specific needs and characteristics (i.e. speech, language and other comorbid diagnoses and symptoms). As children with phonological impairment respond to intervention over time and their phonological systems change, their intervention needs can also change. For instance, Miccio and Elbert (1996) described Stacy (3;4 years) who initially presented with a small phonetic inventory and limited speech sound stimulability. Stacy’s stimulability improved in response to 12 sessions of stimulability therapy. Despite the improvement, Stacy’s speech was still not commensurate with her peers. She needed another intervention approach targeting new goals. If speech language pathologists (SLPs) are to manage the diversity of difficulties that children can have when learning the phonological system of their ambient language, they need to have knowledge of a range of intervention approaches designed to address the diversity of clinical presentations. Knowledge of this diversity necessitates a rich understanding of the elements comprising interventions and the similarities and differences across interventions. In addition, specification of the elements of intervention is integral to both the replication of intervention research (Hoffman et al., 2014), and to the implementation of an intervention by practicing SLPs so that it matches the developers’ original intentions and the supporting empirical evidence (e.g. Ludemann et al., 2017; Michie et al., 2009; Turkstra et al., 2016; Van Stan et al., 2015). The Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (see Figure 16.1) was created by Baker et al. (2018) after conducting a qualitative investigation into the range and type of elements that comprise phonological intervention. Baker et al. identified 72 elements (i.e. building blocks of intervention) through content analysis of meaning statements from published literature on 15 intervention approaches documented in Williams et al. (2010). As depicted in Figure 16.1, the taxonomy comprises 72 elements nested within 4 domains (Goal, Teaching Moment, Context and Procedural Issues), 9 categories and 15 subcategories.1 The Goal domain includes four categories: area of focus, characteristics of a goal/target, linguistic context of the stimulus and goal progression strategy. The domain of the Teaching Moment comprises three categories: antecedent event, response and consequent event. They each contain up to three subcategories. Within the domain of Context, there are five categories: agent, venue, session format, resources and activities, with two subcategories within activities. The final domain of Procedural Issues comprises three categories: intensity, training and evaluation. Baker et al. used the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy to describe 15 intervention approaches, not only in terms of the taxonomy itself, but by calculating three variables based on their taxonomic features. Thus, each intervention was described in terms of its element

378  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

Figure 16.1 Phonological Intervention Taxonomy. (The black and white figure presented in this chapter appears courtesy of the authors. Copyright © 2017 by Elise Baker, A. Lynn Williams, Sharynne McLeod, and Rebecca J. McCauley)

concentration (i.e. number of required and optional elements), flexibility (i.e. percentage of optional elements within an approach) and distinctiveness (i.e. proportion of the number of included uncommon elements and omitted common elements to the number of all included elements). These variables were intended to provide additional ways to understand relationships among interventions. Although this

Elements in Phonological Intervention  379

investigation provided an overview of similarities and differences among the approaches according to their elements, it did not consider the type of interventions most suited to children with specific phonological difficulties nor how those approaches might be used at different points in time for an individual child. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, to describe all 15 approaches to phonological intervention with regard to the type of children and/or phonological impairment for which each is most suited. Second, to consider the approaches that might be suited to individual children over time. Third, to compare and contrast not only the individual elements of three intervention approaches suited to three different clinical presentations of phonological impairment, but also to compare them based on their element concentration, flexibility and distinctiveness. In doing so, we illustrate the value of SLPs having the knowledge of and skills to faithfully implement a diverse range of phonological intervention approaches to optimize outcomes for all children with phonological impairment. Matching intervention approaches to diagnosis and disorder description

To determine the type of phonological intervention suited to specific phonological difficulties and/or children, we selected 15 of the phonological interventions documented in Williams et al. (2010). These were the same 15 interventions used by Baker et al. (2018) to create the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy. The interventions were selected because they each had peer-reviewed empirical support and were relevant to addressing phonological impairment in children. In determining the type of phonological difficulties and/or children suited to each approach we reviewed the chapter sections of Williams et al. (2010) titled Target Populations, Key Components and Case Study in addition to a peerreviewed published article by a key developer of each approach reporting outcomes of intervention research. Table 16.1 provides a summary of the suggested minimum age and type of phonological difficulties reported to be suited to each of the 15 phonological interventions. To guide SLPs’ clinical decision making regarding intervention options, Figure 16.2 provides a flow chart of some of the possible options that could be considered in light of a child’s initial clinical presentation. The first step would be to establish that a child’s SSD is phonological in nature; that is, it is characterized by pattern-based errors impacting phonemes, phonotactics and/or prosodic characteristics. The next step would be to consider if the child has concomitant difficulties such as morphology, speech perception or phonological awareness. It would also be valuable to determine if a child has difficulties with motor planning/programming and/or execution concurrent with phonological

Age range 3;0 years + 3;0 years + 2 ½ years +

2;0 years +

1;0 year +

3;0 years +

2;0 years + 3;0 years + 3;0 years +

Approach1

Complexity (Complexity Approaches to Intervention; Baker & Williams, 2010; Gierut, 1999)

Core Vocabulary (Core Vocabulary Intervention; Crosbie et al., 2005; Dodd et al., 2010)

Cycles (The Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach; Hodson, 1983; Prézas & Hodson, 2010)

Dynamic Systems (Dynamic Systems and Whole Language Intervention; Hoffman & Norris, 2010; Hoffman et al., 1990)

EMT/PE (Enhanced Milieu Teaching with Phonological Emphasis for Children with Cleft Lip and Palate; Scherer, 1999; Scherer & Kaiser, 2010)

Metaphonology (Metaphonological Intervention; Phonological Awareness Therapy; Hesketh, 2010; Hesketh et al., 2000)

Minimal Pairs (Minimal Pair Intervention; Baker, 2010; Weiner, 1981)

Morphosyntax (Morphosyntax Intervention; Tyler & Haskill, 2010; Tyler et al., 2003)

Multiple Oppositions (Multiple Oppositions Intervention; Williams, 2000a; 2010)

Moderate or severe

Mild, moderate or severe

Mild or moderate

Mild, moderate or severe

Mild, moderate or severe

Mild, moderate or severe

Severe

Inconsistent phonological (speech) disorder

Moderate or severe

Severity of impairment

Phoneme collapse in word-initial or word-final position

Morphosyntax (primarily finite morphemes) and pattern-based errors

Pattern-based errors, primarily phonemic contrasts

Pattern-based errors primarily impacting phonemes in addition to phonological awareness, and letter knowledge

Phonological system (particularly consonant phonemes) plus vocabulary in children with cleft lip and palate

‘A broad range of language structures from the phonological through the narrative’ (Hoffman & Norris, 2010: 335)

Pattern-based errors impacting one or more aspects of the phonological system (e.g. phonemes, word and syllable shapes, lexical stress)

Lexical consistency

Singleton phonemes and consonant clusters

Area(s) of focus

Table 16.1  Summary of interventions suitable for children with phonological impairment according to age, severity of impairment and area/s of focus

380  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

Mild, moderate, severe Severe with very small phonetic inventories

3;0 years +

‘any age and any population’ (Stackhouse & Pascoe, 2010: 220). 4;0 years + 2;0 ‒ 4;11 years

PACT (Parents and Children Together (PACT) Intervention; Bowen, 2015; Bowen & Cupples, 1999)

Psycholinguistics (Psycholinguistic Intervention; Pascoe et al., 2005; Stackhouse & Pascoe, 2010)

Speech Perception (Speech Perception Intervention; Rvachew & Brosseau-Lapré, 2010; Rvachew et al., 2004)

Stimulability (Stimulability Intervention; Miccio & Elbert, 1996; Miccio & Williams, 2010)

Stimulability of consonant phones

Speech perception, specifically acoustic-phonetic representations of phonemes a child misarticulates

Input and output difficulties in the speech processing system (written and spoken)

Pattern-based errors impacting one or more aspects of the phonological system (e.g. phonemes, word and syllable shapes, lexical stress) in addition to speech perception, intelligibility and phonological awareness

Speech intelligibility

One or more aspects of the phonological hierarchy (e.g. phrase, word, syllable shape and stress, onset, rime, segments [phones], features, interactions between levels within the hierarchy)

2

1

References include relevant book chapter from Williams et al. (2010) and a peer reviewed published article by noted developer of the approach. Camarata (2010) noted that naturalistic speech intelligibility training is suitable for ‘toddlers and preschoolers with severe SSD resulting in low intelligibility and children with DS (Down syndrome) who often have low intelligibility’ (2010: 383).

Mild, moderate, severe

Mild, moderate, severe

Severe

Toddlers2 +

NISI (Naturalistic Intervention for Speech Intelligibility; Camarata, 2010; Yoder et al., 2005)

Mild, moderate or severe

2;0 years +

Nonlinear (Nonlinear Phonological Intervention; Bernhardt, 1992; Bernhardt et al., 2010)

Elements in Phonological Intervention  381

382  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

Figure 16.2 Flowchart exemplifying clinical decisions for SLPs to consider when selecting possible intervention(s) suitable for children with phonological impairment. (Note: The range of intervention options in this figure is not exhaustive. For further information about intervention options, readers are directed to Williams et al., 2010)

difficulties. This would have important implications for tailoring a phonological intervention to meet a child’s needs, such as using a range of cues in a teaching moment. For example, cues or other strategies for tailoring include scaffolded auditory models from simultaneous to

Elements in Phonological Intervention  383

delayed imitation (Strand et al., 2006) and using visual-phonetic, verbalphonetic, tactile-phonetic and/or motokinesthetic cues (McLeod & Baker, 2017). For a young child with a very small phonetic inventory and few stimulable consonants, stimulability therapy could be suitable (Miccio & Elbert, 1986). If a child’s difficulty is mild or moderate and limited to common pattern-based errors that results in a loss of phonemic contrast, such as velar fronting (e.g. key /ki/ → [ti]), then contrastive interventions such as minimal pairs (Baker, 2010) or PACT therapy (Bowen, 2010, 2015) could be suitable for addressing the child’s phonological impairment. If a child has a moderate or severe phonological impairment characterized primarily by phoneme collapse(s), then multiple oppositions could be a suitable option. Complexity-based approaches such as maximal oppositions, treatment of the empty set or intervention targeting complex onsets could also be considered for children who primarily have difficulty with learning the phonemic system of their ambient language (e.g. Topbaş & Ünal, 2010). If a child has a severe phonological impairment involving phonemes, phonotactics and/or prosody then a broader phonological intervention such as Cycles (Prézas & Hodson, 2010) or constraint-based nonlinear phonology (Bernhardt et al., 2010) may be suitable. (Note. The range of intervention options in Figure 16.2 is not exhaustive. The flow chart is meant to illustrate a range of issues that an SLP might consider when selecting intervention/s suitable for individual children with SSD, and highlight how SLPs have choices given that no single approach suits all severities and presentations of SSD in children). For further information about the diversity of intervention options, refer to Williams et al. (2010). Approaches suited to individual children at one point in time and over time

Children presenting with a severe phonological impairment may need more than one approach to intervention as their speech transforms from being unintelligible to intelligible. If we take the case of Stacy reported by Miccio and Elbert (1996), she was an ideal candidate for the stimulability approach to intervention because the goal of that intervention was to increase the number of phonemes the child could produce reliably. However, once her speech sound stimulability improved, her needs changed. Alternative goals needed to be identified and a suitable intervention approach selected. If Stacy continued to present with a relatively small, yet stimulable, phonetic inventory and large collapses of contrasts in word-initial and/or word-final position, despite a relatively good word length repertoire, a suitable intervention option could be multiple oppositions (Williams, 2010). Assuming multiple oppositions was effective for Stacy and her large collapses of contrasts

384  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

were reduced, she may reach a point where she has a small 1:2 collapse. At this point, multiple oppositions would no longer be suitable. Rather, a contrastive intervention that uses minimal pair words would be appropriate, such as meaningful minimal pairs therapy (Baker, 2010) or PACT (Bowen, 2015). If a 5-year-old child presented with large collapses of phonemic contrasts, in addition to a specific difficulty realizing weak syllables in onset position in polysyllabic words (e.g. banana /bənænə/ → [nænə]), the clinician would need to decide how both issues could be targeted – concurrently using a horizontal goal attack strategy, cyclically or via a sequential goal attack strategy. Decisions would also need to be made about suitable intervention approaches for the identified difficulties. For instance, multiple oppositions could be used to address the collapses of contrasts. Phonotactic therapy involving ‘the use of phrases in which a stressed syllable immediately precedes the syllable that is likely to be omitted (e.g. big giraffe)’ (Velleman, 2002: 52) could be helpful for addressing the difficulty with pre-tonic deletion of weak syllables. Intervention elements within three phonological intervention ­approaches: minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy

The possibility that different children may need different phonological intervention approaches, or the same child may need more than one approach over time, points to the importance of SLPs having a rich understanding of the elements that comprise each approach, and what makes approaches different from one another. In the final section of this chapter we consider the elements within three different phonological intervention approaches: minimal pair (Baker, 2010), multiple oppositions (Williams, 2010) and stimulability therapy (Miccio & Williams, 2010). We focus on three rather than all 15 approaches, to illustrate and familiarize readers with a process for comparing interventions according to their elements. To facilitate the comparison process we selected approaches reported to be suited to children with primarily segmental (rather than word length or lexical stress) difficulties but varied severities of impairment (e.g. severe versus mild or moderate) and ages (e.g. younger child versus preschooler/school-aged child). We specifically selected the minimal pairs approach, since it is described as suitable for children with mild or moderate phonological impairment and is one of the most frequently used approaches by SLPs (e.g. Sugden et al., 2018). For instance, minimal pairs therapy was reported to be usually used by 83% of 288 practicing SLPs in Australia (Sugden et al., 2018) and 77.3% of 166 practicing SLPs in the UK (Hegarty et al., 2018). Multiple oppositions was selected because it has been shown to be effective for preschool and school-age children who initially present with a severe phonological

Elements in Phonological Intervention  385

impairment characterized by collapses of phonemic contrast despite having developed relatively good word length and lexical stress (Allen, 2013). Multiple oppositions was reported to be used by 49.3% of practicing SLPs in Australia (Sugden et al., 2018) and 23.9% in the UK (Hegarty et al., 2018). Stimulability therapy was selected because it is one of the few options in Table 16.1 suitable for young children with limited phonetic inventories as well as limited speech sound stimulability (Miccio & Elbert, 1996; Miccio & Williams, 2010). The elements of each of these three intervention approaches are presented in accordance with the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018). Using the 72 elements in the taxonomy, each element was coded for each intervention approach as either required, optional or absent. To be coded as ‘required’ elements needed to be explicitly mentioned by the relevant chapter in Williams et al. (2010) as needed as part of the intervention. To be coded as ‘optional’, elements were described as a possible option or choice for inclusion as part of an intervention in the relevant chapter in Williams et al. To be coded as ‘absent’ the element needed to be not mentioned or explicitly stated as not included in the intervention in the relevant chapter in Williams et al. What follows is an overview of the elements for each of the four domains in the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy. Comparing minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy across Domain 1: Goal elements

Table 16.2 provides an overview of goal-related elements identified as required, optional or absent for minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy, based on Baker et al. (2018). Across the three approaches, a number of similarities and differences are apparent. For example, all three approaches focus on sound segments (phones or phonemes), with minimal pairs and multiple oppositions focusing on patterns, features or classes of phonemes. The possibility of addressing pattern-based errors means that minimal pairs and multiple oppositions are also coded as optionally targeting phonotactics (usually phonemes in word-initial or word-final position or consonant clusters). A focus for these two approaches on phonemes also means that the effectiveness of communication is coded as a focus of intervention. With regard to goal or target characteristics, a requirement of stimulability therapy is that all phones are targeted irrespective of their stimulability or early/ late developing status (Miccio & Williams, 2010). By contrast, minimal pairs and multiple oppositions are coded as optional for a range of goal characteristics, given that the type of goal selection may be stimulable or non-stimulable, early or later developing, always or sometimes incorrect. Across all three approaches, the element lexical inconsistency is absent. Isolated speech sounds are a required linguistic context of target stimulus

386  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

Table 16.2  Goal elements required, optional and absent elements in three interventions (minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy) based on the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018) Category

Elements1

Focus

1. sound segment production 2. phonological processes/rules/ patterns/features/classes 3. phonotactics (e.g. stress, word shape) 4. intelligibility/communicative effectiveness 5. input processing/speech perception 6. phonological awareness and literacy 7. other linguistic abilities (e.g. morphosyntax)

Characteristics of goal/target

8. stimulable sounds 9. non-stimulable sounds 10.  early developing sounds 11.  later developing sounds 12.  sounds always incorrect 13.  sounds sometimes correct 14.  lexical inconsistency 15. broader factors beyond sound segment

Linguistic context of stimulus

16. isolated speech sounds/ articulatory movements 17. nonwords 18.  real words 19. sentences 20. conversation 21.  contrastive words 22. written letters, words or sentences

Goal progression strategy

23. vertical 24. horizontal 25. cyclical

Minimal pairs

Multiple oppositions

Stimulability therapy

Elements are numbered in keeping with the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018). Required = dark grey shaded box, optional = light grey shaded box; absent = no shading. 1

for stimulability therapy, whereas they are an option for minimal pairs and multiple oppositions. All three approaches are coded as requiring the use of real words, with multiple oppositions being the only approach coded as including nonwords as an option. Contrastive word pairs are coded as required for minimal pairs and multiple oppositions. Comparing minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy across Domain 2: Teaching Moment elements

Table 16.3 provides an overview of the Teaching Moment elements coded as required, optional or absent for minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy. Like the Goal Domain, similarities and differences are apparent between the approaches. For

Elements in Phonological Intervention  387

Table 16.3  Teaching Moment elements required, optional and absent elements three interventions (minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy) based on the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018) Category

 Subcategory

Antecedent event (clinician)

content of model or instruction

modality of model or instruction

Elements1

response level response requirement

35.  imitation 36.  spontaneous 37. verbal: phonetic production (speech sound/s) 38. verbal: phonological production (words +) 39. phonological awareness/literacy related 40. non-speech: pre-articulatory/ mouth movement 41.  auditory/listening 42.  gestural

Consequent event (clinician)

evaluative feedback

43. knowledge of results (e.g. judgment of correct/incorrect) 44. knowledge of performance (e.g. shaping) 45. request for the child’s self-judgment/selfmonitoring 46.  recast/expansion

responsive feedback

Multiple oppositions

Stimulability therapy

26.  articulatory-phonetic 27.  phonological 28.  metaphor 29. phonological awareness/literacy 30.  semantic/morphologic/ syntactic 31.  spoken 32.  visual 33.  tactile/kinesthetic 34.  gestural

Response (child)

reflective feedback

Minimal pairs

Elements are numbered in keeping with the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018). Required = dark grey shaded box, optional = light grey shaded box; absent = no shading. 1

instance, although all three approaches include articulatory-phonetic and phonological spoken and visual models in the antecedent event, only stimulability therapy also requires the use of metaphor and gestural models. By contrast, during a child’s response, minimal pairs and multiple oppositions require the child to listen to and provide a verbal response (imitated and spontaneous) in the form of the production of words as part of their approaches. To reduce the pressure on young children with limited stimulability to speak, such response elements are optional for the stimulability approach. The only required

388  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

response requirement is a gesture. Both minimal pairs and multiple oppositions required the provision of evaluative and reflective feedback. These two forms of feedback are optional for stimulability therapy because responses from children are not an inherent requirement of the therapy. Both multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy require the inclusion of responsive feedback in the form of recasts/expansions. For multiple oppositions this occurs within the naturalistic play activities required at the end of session in phase 2 of the intervention approach (see Williams (2010) for further details about the phases and steps of the intervention). For stimulability therapy, this occurs during structured play activities. Comparing minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy across Domain 3: Context of Intervention elements

Table 16.4 provides an overview of the domain Context of Intervention for minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy. Across all three interventions, the required context involves an SLP, in the clinic using paper-based resources in structured activities. Other elements regarding the Context vary between the approaches. For instance, the requirement that stimulability therapy should be fun for young children is explicit: ‘encourage vocal practice through fun, play-based turn-taking and requesting activities’ (Miccio & Williams, 2010: 191). Comparing minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability across Domain 4: Procedural elements

Table 16.5 provides an overview of the Procedural Issues involved in the implementation of minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy. Across all interventions, while explicit prerequisite knowledge or specific training (beyond SLP qualification) is not required for SLPs and personnel supervised by qualified SLPs, the approaches vary with regard to intervention intensity (session frequency, duration and dose per session), and evaluation of intervention (criterion-based progression, prescribed data collection). For instance, no specific or optional total intervention duration is required for minimal pairs, but an optional range of total intervention duration is recommended for multiple oppositions, and a total intervention duration of 12 to 24 sessions, with the intervention lasting ‘no longer than 12 weeks’ is required for stimulability therapy (Miccio & Williams, 2010: 189). Unlike minimal pairs which specifies an optional session frequency and duration and procedure for data collection, both multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy specify a required session frequency and

Elements in Phonological Intervention  389

Table 16.4  Context of intervention elements required, optional and absent elements in three interventions (minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy) based on the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018) Category

Subcategory

Element1

Intervention agent

47. speech-language pathologist (SLP) 48.  parent 49.  teacher 50.  other children 51.  other agents

Venue

52.  clinic 53.  home 54.  school

Session format

55.  individual

Resources

57. paper-based (e.g. books, cards) 58.  objects

Minimal pairs

Multiple oppositions

Stimulability therapy

56.  group

59.  scripts 60.  computer/ technology Activities

type social/ emotional valence

61.  naturalistic activities 62.  structured activities 63.  challenging 64.  fun

Elements are numbered in keeping with the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018). Required = dark grey shaded box, optional = light grey shaded box; absent = no shading. 1

Table 16.5  Procedural Issues elements required, optional and absent elements in three interventions (minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability therapy) based on the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018) Category

Element1

Intensity

65.  session frequency 66.  session duration 67.  dose per session 68.  total intervention duration

Training

69. SLP prerequisite knowledge/ specific training requirements 70. non-SLP personnel prerequisite knowledge/specific training requirements

Evaluation

71.  criterion-based progression 72.  prescribed data collection

Minimal pairs

Multiple oppositions

Stimulability therapy

Elements are numbered in keeping with the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018). Required = dark grey shaded box, optional = light grey shaded box; absent = no shading. 1

390  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

Table 16.6  Comparison of minimal pairs, multiple oppositions and stimulability in terms of concentration, flexibility and distinctiveness Approach

Concentration

Flexibility

Distinctiveness

Minimal Pairs

48

54%

2/48 (4%)

Multiple Oppositions

51

49%

1/51 (2%)

Stimulability

47

38%

3/47 (6%)

Element concentration (i.e. number of required and optional elements), flexibility (i.e. percentage of optional elements within an approach) and distinctiveness (i.e. proportion of the number of included uncommon elements and omitted common elements to the number of all included elements). Each of these three metrics was calculated from each intervention’s description using the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (Baker et al., 2018)

duration in addition to a prescribed procedure for data collection to monitor and evaluate a child’s response to intervention. Up to this point, the three interventions – minimal pairs, maximal oppositions and stimulability therapy – have been compared in terms of their element specifications within different domains in the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy. As shown in Table 16.6, these interventions can also be compared using the metrics element concentration (i.e. number of required and optional elements), flexibility (i.e. percentage of optional elements within an approach) and distinctiveness (i.e. proportion of the number of included uncommon elements and omitted common elements to the number of all included elements) (Baker et al., 2018). In terms of concentration, multiple oppositions has the most elements (51) and stimulability and minimal pairs have fewer elements (47 and 48, respectively). Minimal pairs has the greatest flexibility (54%) with multiple oppositions (49%) and stimulability (38%) having fewer elements that are optional. Finally, stimulability is the most distinctive (6%) followed by minimal pairs (4%) and multiple oppositions (2%). Discussion

Children with phonological impairment are heterogenous. Not only do they each have their own unique case history, family, interests and co-occurring challenges, they may have very specific difficulties in learning the phonological system of their ambient language(s). This necessitates a diversity of approaches for helping children become intelligible. As documented in this chapter, a range of approaches exist for treating phonological impairment. Although most approaches are suitable for children of preschool age and older, only some are suitable for younger children. Some approaches focus on helping children learn a contrastive system of phonemes; other approaches address broad aspects of the phonological system including syllable shapes, word length, lexical stress and interactions between phonemic and

Elements in Phonological Intervention  391

phonotactic knowledge. Children presenting with a severe phonological impairment may need more than one type of evidence-based intervention over the course of their intervention journey as their phonological system changes and improves and as the functional demands of their environment change. For SLPs to be competent and confident in their management of the diversity of children with phonological impairment, they need to know a range of approaches and the elements comprising those approaches. The Phonological Intervention Taxonomy was developed to make those elements explicit. In the remainder of the discussion, we will consider possible applications and further research on the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy to address the need for a close fit between a child’s emerging phonological system and overall characteristics, a clinician’s capabilities to enact an intervention with fidelity and the elements comprising an intervention. Figure 16.3 attempts to capture this idea graphically. Besides helping clinicians match participant goals with interventions addressing those goals, the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy was devised with the hope that the explicit identification of constituent elements could help promote clarity in clinicians’ understanding of each intervention. Recent evidence (Dudding & Pfeiffer, 2018) suggests that novice SLPs, especially, can benefit from more explicit guidance in clinical reasoning and decision making, such as the use of a common terminology, as well as a shared view of how intervention structures can be conceptualized. Improved understanding is particularly desirable as a basis for improved fidelity. As readers undoubtedly appreciate, behavioral interventions used to address difficulties in phonology involve a complex set of decisions about contexts, materials and interactions between the clinician and child, regardless of which intervention strategy is selected. Thus, the achievement of reasonable levels of fidelity cannot be assumed just because a clinician has heard about or even assiduously read about an intervention. Despite the difficulties involved in achieving implementation fidelity, improving it is an important goal given evidence that higher fidelity results in better outcomes (Durlak & DuPre, 2008). Yet another possible value of the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy and its explicit identification of intervention elements is that it may help beginning clinicians and their clinical educators evaluate the fit between the beginner’s current knowledge and level of competence with their likely ability to effectively implement individual interventions. For example, suppose that a pair of interventions address the same goal, but one necessitates implementation of many elements (i.e. high element concentration); the other, fewer elements. As an early step in learning, a beginning clinician might be encouraged to pursue the less concentrated (hypothetically, simpler) of the two interventions. This recommendation is based on the idea that the second intervention

392  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

Figure 16.3  Intervention, client, and clinician characteristics to consider underscored by empirical evidence, when deciding on interventions best suited to a child with phonological impairment. (Note. Decision A does not consider characteristics and evidence about an intervention approach; decision B does not consider a clinician’s knowledge, level of competence and/or prior experience to faithfully implement an intervention; decision C does not adequately consider the child’s phonological system and/or overall characteristics)

is simpler, because there are fewer elements to ‘get right’. Of course, this suggestion represents a hypothesis about how to judge difficulty of an intervention’s implementation that might be tested, revised or supplanted by other ways of thinking about that undertaking. For instance, an intervention could be more challenging to implement because it contains one or more elements that demand more from a clinician, whether it be online demands in a teaching moment or time needed to acquire the knowledge and/or skill to implement an element relative to another element (e.g. providing tactile-kinesthetic cues could be judged more demanding than providing an auditory model). Further exploration of these constructs is needed and will likely reveal that

Elements in Phonological Intervention  393

ease of learning and fidelity of implementation involves an interaction among flexibility, concentration and distinctiveness. As depicted in Figure 16.3, failure to consider a beginning clinician’s capabilities and competence could jeopardize successful implementation and thus intervention outcomes. Moving beyond decisions individual clinicians may make about the demands posed by learning a specific new intervention, examination of the structure of phonological interventions through methods using a taxonomy, such as Phonological Intervention Taxonomy may help clinical educators more rationally construct intervention curricula underscored by evidence-based coaching processes (e.g. Hsieh et al., 2009). Presumably, a rational curriculum would provide a scaffold for beginning clinicians to accumulate knowledge and skills allowing for effective use of many interventions to meet the needs of a wide variety of clients. Such a curriculum might have beginning clinicians start with a smaller number of interventions, possibly chosen for their wider utility, greater evidence base and/or reduced difficulty, then advance to focus on a wider number of interventions. This wider range of interventions could be selected to respond more fully to the range of diagnoses and individual needs presented by future clients, while also helping learners expand their ability to incorporate particular intervention elements. A ‘rationalized’ curriculum of this sort might represent a valuable alternative to the ‘sampling menu’ or ‘chef’s favorites’ approaches encouraged, when there is no widespread discussion of didactic strategies in SLP training, beyond the implicit injunction of evidencebased practice to prefer interventions with larger bases of external evidence. Research on this topic could benefit the state of pedagogy in SSD, and help mitigate the possibility of selecting interventions that do not best match a child’s needs (decision C as in Figure 16.3). In addition to research involving application of the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy, research on the taxonomy itself is warranted. As its name clearly indicates, the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy addresses only a subset of all interventions designed for SSD. Nonetheless, many children who may benefit from these interventions may also benefit from those identified as intended for motor speech disorders or motor speech difficulties (McLeod & Baker, 2017). Therefore, a next step in its validation and possible improvement could involve efforts to widen its applicability to a wider range of interventions for speech interventions. Specifically, one could begin by examining the extent to which the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy actually captures elements of interventions such as those used for motor speech disorders and to what extent additional elements might be required. Alternatively, a taxonomy for these interventions might be developed independently, perhaps using the methods from Baker et al. (2018), but without any assumptions regarding the elements to be identified. Either

394  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

strategy would help validate the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy, point to how it could be improved or both. Although certain client characteristics (e.g. age, stimulability) seem directly related to the feasibility and utility of specific interventions, the need to tailor interventions based on client needs and characteristics also suggests the value of identifying diagnostic subgroups of ­children likely to benefit from a specific intervention choice. Such work has already begun, implicitly, although not explicitly, in the context of ­intervention taxonomies. For example, Yoder et al. (2016) tested the hypothesis that different subgroups of children with Down s­yndrome would differentially respond to adult recasts (an element in the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy). In their work, a recast is defined as ‘an adult utterance that immediately follows a child’s “platform” utterances, gives a neutral or positive evaluation of the meaning of the child’s utterances and is an exact or reduced imitation of the word(s) the child attempted to say but uses adult pronunciation’ (Yoder et al., 2016: 447). These researchers found that children with Down syndrome who demonstrated relatively higher verbal imitation skills prior to intervention showed greater benefits from recasts compared to an intervention designed to address the loss of phonemic contrast. Research ­highlighting shared elements across several interventions might facilitate research of this kind, contributing to the field’s knowledge of what works best for whom. Additional intervention research that focuses on the effects of individual intervention elements may also help researchers arrive at an understanding of the mechanisms that underlie effective intervention. The concept of ‘active ingredients’ has directly driven the development of some intervention taxonomies in speech-language pathology and related disciplines, for example the Rehabilitation Treatment Taxonomy (Turkstra et al., 2016). However, our assumption during the development of the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy was that although certainly intervention developers may have hypotheses about which elements of their intervention are key in producing positive outcomes, research is needed to substantiate such claims. The Phonological Intervention Taxonomy appears to offer one strategy for examining active ingredients (active elements in our terminology) both within individual interventions and across several interventions that share elements. In summary, in this chapter, we have outlined the value of a carefully developed system for describing interventions, such as the Phonological Intervention Taxonomy, which builds on the rich history of Ingram’s work in child phonology. We did this primarily by illustrating how explicit, detailed descriptions of intervention structure can facilitate comparisons that can help the clinician make clearer decisions about what intervention may meet a child’s needs. In addition, we have presented thoughts about how such a taxonomy might be applied with

Elements in Phonological Intervention  395

the goals of increasing accuracy in the use of interventions, the clinician’s understanding of their own readiness to learn and use an intervention, and the field’s development of more rationally based curricula for beginning clinicians. Finally, we suggest research efforts that may lead to a better understanding of how interventions work and for whom they might work best. Note (1) Throughout this chapter, domains are indicated by initial capital letter and bold font; categories are indicated by bold lower-case font; sub-categories, by bold lower-case italic font; and elements, by italic lowercase font.

References *=Chapters and peer reviewed published articles reporting phonological intervention approaches that were included in Table 16.1. Allen, M.M. (2013) Intervention efficacy and intensity for children with speech sound disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 56, 865–877. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2012/11-0076). *Baker, E. (2010) Minimal pair intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 41–72). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. *Baker, E. and Williams, A.L. (2010) Complexity approaches to intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 95–116). Baltimore Paul H. Brookes. Baker, E., Williams, A.L., McLeod, S. and McCauley, R. (2018) Elements of phonological interventions for children with speech sound disorders: The development of a taxonomy. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 27 (3), 906–935. doi:10.1044/2018_ AJSLP-17-0127. *Bernhardt, B. (1992) The application of nonlinear phonological theory to intervention with one phonologically disordered child. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 6, 283– 316. doi:10.3109/02699209208985537. Bernhardt, B.H. and Stemberger, J.P. (2000) Workbook in Nonlinear Phonology for Clinical Application. Austin: Pro-Ed. *Bernhardt, B.M., Bopp, K.D., Daudlin, B., Edwards, S.M. and Wastie, S.E. (2010) Nonlinear phonological intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 315–332). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. *Bowen, C. (2010) Parents and Children Together (PACT) intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 407–426). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Bowen, C. (2015) Children’s Speech Sound Disorders (2nd edn). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. *Bowen, C. and Cupples, L. (1999) Parents and children together (PACT): A collaborative approach to phonological therapy. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 34 (1), 35–56. doi:10.1080/136828299247603. *Camarata, S. (2010) Naturalistic intervention for speech intelligibility and speech accuracy. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 381–406). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. *Crosbie, S., Holm, A. and Dodd, B. (2005) Intervention for children with severe speech disorder: A comparison of two approaches. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 40, 467–491. doi:10.1080/13682820500126049.

396  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

*Dodd, B., Holm, A., Crosbie, S. and McIntosh, B. (2010) Core vocabulary intervention. In A. L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 117–136). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Dudding, C.C. and Pfeiffer, D.L. (2018) Clinical decision-making in speech-language pathology graduate students: Quantitative findings. Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders 2 (1), Article 2. Available at: https://ir.library. illinoisstate.edu/tlcsd/vol2/iss1/2. Durlak, J.A. and DuPre, E.P. (2008) Implementation matters: A review of research on the influence of implementation on program outcomes and the factors affecting implementation.  American Journal of Community Psychology 41 (3–4), 327–350. doi:10.1007/s10464-008-9165-0. *Gierut, J.A. (1999) Syllable onsets: Clusters and adjuncts in acquisition. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 42, 708–726. doi:10.1044/jslhr.4203.708. Gildersleeve-Neumann, C. and Goldstein, B.A. (2015) Cross-linguistic generalization in the treatment of two sequential Spanish-English bilingual children with speech sound disorders. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 17 (1), 26–40. doi:10. 3109/17549507.2014.898093. Hearnshaw, S., Baker, E. and Munro, N. (2018) The speech perception skills of children with and without speech sound disorder. Journal of Communication Disorders 71, 61–71. doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2017.12.004. Hegarty, N., Titterington, J., McLeod, S. and Taggart, L. (2018) Intervention for children with phonological impairment: Knowledge, practices and intervention intensity in the UK. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 53 (5), 995– 1006. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.12416. *Hesketh, A. (2010) Metaphonological intervention: Phonological awareness. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 247–274). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. *Hesketh, A., Adams, C., Nightingale, C. and Hall, R. (2000) Phonological awareness therapy and articulatory training approaches for children with phonological disorders: a comparative outcome study. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 35 (3), 337–354. doi:10.1177/026565900001600304. *Hodson, B.W. (1983) A facilitative approach for remediation of a child’s profoundly unintelligible phonological system. Topics in Language Disorders 3 (2), 25–34. *Hoffman, P.R. and Norris, J.A. (2010) Dynamic systems and whole language intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 333–354). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. *Hoffman, P.R., Norris, J.A. and Monjure, J. (1990) Comparison of process targeting and whole language treatments for phonologically delayed preschool children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 21 (2), 102–109. doi:10.1044/01611461.2102.102. Hoffmann, T.C., Glasziou, P.P., Boutron, I., Milne, R., Perera, R., Moher, D., ... Michie, S. (2014) Better reporting of interventions: Template for intervention description and replication (TIDieR) checklist and guide. BMJ 348, g1687. doi:10.1136/bmj.g1687. Holm, A. and Dodd, B. (1999) An intervention case study of a bilingual child with a phonological disorder. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 15, 139-158. doi:10.1177/026565909901500203. Howland, C., Baker, E., Munro, N. and McLeod, S. (2019) Realisation of grammatical morphemes by children with phonological impairment. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 33 (1–2), 20–41. doi:10.1080/02699206.2018.1518487. Hsieh, W.Y., Hemmeter, M.L., McCollum, J.A. and Ostrosky, M.M. (2009) Using coaching to increase preschool teachers’ use of emergent literacy teaching strategies. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 24 (3), 229–247. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2009.03.007. Ingram, D. (1974a) Phonological rules in young children. Journal of Child Language 1, 49–64. doi:10.1017/S0305000900000076.

Elements in Phonological Intervention  397

Ingram, D. (1974b) Fronting rule in young children. Journal of Child Language 1, 233–241. doi:10.1017/S0305000900000672. Ingram, D. (1976) Phonological Disability in Children. New York: American Elsevier Publishing. Ingram, D. (2004) The representation of voice and contrasts in children’s early phonological systems. Folia Linguistica 38 (1–2), 145–155. doi:10.1515/flin.2004.38.1-2.145. Ingram, D. (2008) Cross-linguistic phonological acquisition. In M.J. Ball, M.R. Perkins, N. Müller and S. Howard (eds) The Handbook of Clinical Linguistics (pp. 626–640). Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Ingram, D. (2012) Cross-linguistic and multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. In S. McLeod and B.A. Goldstein (eds) Multilingual Aspects of Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 3–12). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Ingram, D. and Terselic, B. (1983) Final ingression: A case of deviant child phonology. Topics in Language Disorders 3 (2), 45–50. doi:10.1097/00011363-198303000-00008. Ingram, D., Christensen, L., Veach and Webster, B. (1980) The acquisition of word-initial fricatives and affricates in English by children between 2 and 6 years. In G.H. YeniKomshian, J.F. Kavanagh and C.A. Ferguson (eds) Child Phonology. Vol 1: Production (pp. 169–192). New York: Academic Press. Ingram, D., Williams, A.L. and Scherer, N. (2017) Are speech sound disorders phonological or articulatory? A spectrum approach. In E. Babatsouli and D. Ingram (eds) Phonology in Protolanguage and Interlanguage (pp. 27–48). Sheffield: Equinox. Lee, S.A. (2018) The treatment efficacy of multiple opposition phonological approach via telepractice for two children with severe phonological disorders in rural areas of West Texas in the USA. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 34 (1) 1–16. doi: 10.1177/0265659018755527. Ludemann, A., Power, E. and Hoffmann, T.C. (2017) Investigating the adequacy of intervention descriptions in recent speech-language pathology literature: Is evidence from randomized trials useable? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 26 (2), 443–455. doi:10.1044/2016_AJSLP-16-0035. McLeod, S. and Baker, E. (2017) Children’s Speech: An Evidence-Based Approach to Assessment and Intervention. Boston: Pearson. *Miccio, A.W. and Elbert, M. (1996) Enhancing stimulability: A treatment program. Journal of Communication Disorders 29, 335–351. doi:10.1016/0021-9924(96) 00016-0. *Miccio, A.W. and Williams, A.L. (2010) Stimulability intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 179–202). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Michie, S., Fixen, D., Grimshaw, J.M. and Eccles, M.P. (2009) Specifying and reporting complex behaviour change interventions: The need for a scientific method. Implementation Science 4, 4–40. doi:10.1186/1748-5908-6-10. *Pascoe, M., Stackhouse, J. and Wells, B. (2005) Phonological therapy within a psycholinguistic framework: Promoting change in a child with persisting speech difficulties. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 40 (2), 189–220. doi:10.1080/13682820412331290979. *Prézas, R.F. and Hodson, B.W. (2010) The cycles phonological remediation approach. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 137–158). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. *Rvachew, S. and Brosseau-Lapré, F. (2010) Speech perception intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 295–314). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. *Rvachew, S., Nowak, M. and Cloutier, G.A. (2004) Effect of phonemic perception training on the speech production and phonological awareness skills of children with expressive phonological delay. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 13 (3), 250–263. doi:10.1044/1058-0360(2004/026).

398  Part 3: Assessment and Intervention

*Scherer, N.J. (1999) The speech and language status of toddlers with cleft lip and/or palate following early vocabulary intervention. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 8 (1), 81–93. doi:10.1044/1058-0360.0801.81. *Scherer, N.J. and Kaiser, A.P. (2010) Enhanced milieu teaching with phonological emphasis for children with cleft lip and palate. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 427–450). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Scherer, N.J., Williams, L., Stoel-Gammon, C. and Kaiser, A. (2012) Assessment of single-word production for children under three years of age: Comparison of children with and without cleft palate. International Journal of Otolaryngology 8. doi:10.1155/2012/724214. *Stackhouse, J. and Pascoe, M. (2010) Psycholinguistic intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 219–246). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Strand, E.A., Stoeckel, R. and Baas, B. (2006) Treatment of severe childhood apraxia of speech: A treatment efficacy study. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology 14 (4), 297–307. Sugden, E., Baker, E., Munro, N., Williams, A.L. and Trivette, C.M. (2018) Service delivery and intervention intensity for phonology-based speech sound disorders. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 53 (4), 718–734. doi:10.1111/14606984.12399. Topbaş, S. and Ünal, O. (2010) An alternating treatment comparison of minimal and maximal opposition sound selection in Turkish phonological disorders. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 24 (8), 646–668. doi:10.3109/02699206.2010.486464. Turkstra, L.S., Norman, R., Whyte, J., Dijkers, M.P. and Hart, T. (2016) Knowing what we’re doing: Why specification of treatment methods is critical for evidence-based practice in speech-language pathology. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 25 (2), 164–171. doi:10.1044/2015_AJSLP-15-0060. *Tyler, A.A. and Haskill, A.M. (2010) Morphosyntax intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 355–377). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Tyler, A.A., Lewis, K.E., Haskill, A. and Tolbert, L.C. (2002) Efficacy and cross-domain effects of a morpho-syntax and a phonology intervention. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 33, 52–66. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2002/005). *Tyler, A.A., Lewis, K.E., Haskill, A. and Tolbert, L.C. (2003) Outcomes of different speech and language goal attack strategies. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 46, 1077–1094. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2003/085). Van Stan, J.H., Roy, N., Awan, S., Stemple, J. and Hillman, R.E. (2015) A taxonomy of voice therapy. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 24 (2), 101–125. doi:10.1044/2015_AJSLP-14-0030. Velleman, S. (2002) Phonotactic therapy. Seminars in Speech and Language 23 (1), 43–55. doi:10.1055/s-2002-23510. *Weiner, F.F. (1981) Treatment of phonological disability using the method of meaningful minimal contrast: Two case studies. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 46, 97– 103. doi:10.1044/jshd.4601.97. *Williams, A.L. (2000a) Multiple oppositions: Case studies of variables in phonological intervention. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 9, 289–299. doi:10.1044/1058-0360.0904.289. Williams, A.L. (2000b) Multiple oppositions: Theoretical foundations for an alternative contrastive intervention approach. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 9, 282–288. doi:10.1044/1058-0360.0904.282. *Williams, A.L. (2010) Multiple oppositions intervention. In A.L. Williams, S. McLeod and R.J. McCauley (eds) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children (pp. 73–93). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

Elements in Phonological Intervention  399

Williams, A.L., McLeod, S. and McCauley, R.J. (eds) (2010) Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing. *Yoder, P., Camarata, S. and Gardner, E. (2005) Treatment effects on speech intelligibility and length of utterance in children with specific language and intelligibility impairments. Journal of Early Intervention 28 (1), 34–49. doi:10.1177/105381510502800105. Yoder, P.J., Camarata, S. and Woynaroski, T. (2016) Treating speech comprehensibility in students with Down syndrome. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research  59 (3), 446–459. doi:10.1044/2015_JSLHR-S-15-0148.

17 Assessment of Early Phonological Development in Brazilian Portuguese Nancy J. Scherer, Renata Yamashita, AnaPaula Fukushiro, Marcia Keske-Soares, Debora Natalia de Oliveira, David Ingram, A. Lynn Williams and Inge Trindade

Introduction

Cleft palate and craniofacial conditions associated with genetic syndromes are among the most frequently occurring birth defects, occurring in approximately one in 600 births worldwide (Nagem Filho et al., 1968; Loffredo et al., 2001). Due to the presence of the structural anomaly at birth the children are at risk for speech and language delays that could impact later academic and social development (Graciano et al., 2007). Following palate repair, children typically receive assessments of their speech and language development to identify those needing early intervention. However, there is a critical need for assessments that can be used with very young children. Our current understanding of how early speech development impacts expressive vocabulary development suggests that the number and diversity of consonants in a child’s early sound inventory provides a platform for early vocabulary development (McCune & Vihman, 2001; Vihman & Greenlee, 1987). Vocabulary development is rapid in the first three years of life. On average, monolingual English children progress from 50 words at 18 months of age to 150-300 words at two years of age, and 900-1000 words by three years of age (Ingram, 1989). Stoel-Gammon and Williams (2013) report that by 24 months of age typically developing children have acquired voiced and voiceless stops, nasals, glides, 1-2 fricatives and a liquid. They use CV, CVC, CVCV, CVCVC syllable structures and some consonant clusters. 400

Assessment of Early Phonological Development in Brazilian Portuguese  401

Additionally, overall Percent Consonant Correct (PCC) (Shriberg et al., 1997) is 70% and common phonological errors include stopping of fricatives/affricates, gliding of liquids, velars and palatals produced as alveolars, final consonants deleted and clusters reduced to a single consonant. By thirty-six months of age children produce exemplars of all sound classes, use 1-3 syllable words and some initial and final clusters. Overall PCC is 87% and phonological error patterns have decreased to include only some stopping, gliding and cluster reduction examples (Stoel-Gammon & Williams, 2013). Vocabulary development bootstraps phonological development by providing opportunities for the child to practice production of sounds in words during communicative interaction (Stoel-Gammon, 1998). Adult feedback within the context of daily communication provides information regarding language and phonological accuracy at a time that it most meaningful to the child (Roberts & Kaiser, 2011). The intertwined nature of early phonological and vocabulary development is problematic for children with cleft palate with or without clef lip (CP+/-CL) who have anatomical restriction that limit sound production particularly prior to palate repair. Early assessment of phonological development then becomes important to inform early intervention. The Profiles of Early Expressive Phonological Skills (PEEPS; Williams & Stoel-Gammon, forthcoming; Stoel-Gammon & Williams, 2013) was developed as a lexically and phonologically age-appropriate measure to assess phonological features of English-speaking children between 18 and 36 months of age. PEEPS is comprised of two word lists: Basic (n = 40 words) and Expanded (n = 20 words). Lexically, the Basic list is designed for children who have productive vocabularies under 250 words with >50% of the words having an age-of-acquisition of 50% are acquired at