The purpose of this study was to compare the visual-motor integrative abilities of preschool children with their articulatory and syntactical development. Two questions were posed: Do children having accelerated visual-motor integrative skills perform at a higher level than children having delayed visual-motor integration skills in 1) their articulation proficiency, and 2) their syntactical abilities?

In articulation treatment and diagnosis, it is essential to possess a thorough knowledge of what is “normal” as well as what is “defective” articulation. The /r/ phoneme is one of the most frequently occurring and most commonly defective sounds. There are two different tongue positions for the /r/ phoneme described in the literature (retroflex and central hump), with many assumptions about which tongue position is “normal” or “most common.” None of these assumptions, however, are based on empirical data. The purpose of this study was to provide some normative data regarding which of the two tongue positions is most common in children who have learned to produce the /r/ phoneme normally with no clinical assistance. Six research questions were posed: (1) Do children produce the /r/ phoneme more commonly with retroflex or central hump tongue position? (2) Are there sex-related differences? (3) Are there differences in tongue position when the /r/ is used as a consonant or vowel? (4) Are there differences in tongue position when the vocalic \r\ is stressed or un-stressed? (5) Are there differences in tongue position relating to the position of the /r/ phoneme within a syllable? (6) Does phonetic context affect the tongue position of the /r/ phoneme?

While several authors have indicated specific methods for teaching rhythm, there is no single, comprehensive source available which could serve as a teaching guide in this important area of aural rehabilitation. The current paper represents an initial attempt to fulfill this need. The purpose ot this paper is to provide a survey of the different methods and avenues for teaching the rhythm of language to hearing impaired children.

Primarily this study sought to investigate growth of syntactical skills in language delayed children enrolled in the Monterey Language Program (MLP) (Gray and Ryan, 1973a) in several Portland Public Schools during the 1974-75 school year. The Programmed Conditioning for Language Test (PCLT) (Gray and Ryan, 1973a) and the Northwest Syntax Screening Test (NSST) (Lee, 1970) were administered and pretest scores compared to posttest scores. A comparison group was administered the same test; their growth in syntactical skills as measured by the PCLT and NSST was compared with the growth of the experimental group. A secondary purpose of this investigation was to determine the relationship between short-term auditory memory span and syntactical skills.

This study was designed to determine whether varying criterion for pass/fail on the Mini-Screening Language Test for Adolescents (Mini-STAL) would increase accuracy of predicting outcome of the Screening Test of Adolescent Language (STAL). The Mini-STAL was developed by Prather et al. (1981) to identify rapidly those students between grades six through twelve who are in need of language intervention. Using Prather's established criterion (one or more errors equal failure), the Phoenix school district (Prather, 1981) found too many of their school population (20 percent) were failing the Mini- STAL. Thus, they established an experimental criterion (two or more errors equal failure) to identify those students with language problems. The present study sought to determine what proportion of students with language disorders was not detected by the Mini-STAL and what proportion of students without language disorders failed the Mini-STAL using the two criteria.

Prepositions are not only important in functional syntax; they also relate meanings associated with the concepts of place and time (Washington & Naremore, 1978). Furthermore, prepositions are critical in such everyday activities as producing and comprehending directions, using maps and diagrams, and in the fields of mathematics and music (Cox & Richardson, 1985). Inefficient use or misuse of prepositional spatial terms may hinder a child's progress in many areas. Expressive acquisition of function words, which include prepositions, has been described as significantly delayed in the hearing impaired populations (Cooper & Rosenstein, 1966). The purpose of this study was to conduct a comparative preposition analysis between hearing impaired children using two different modes of communication. The question this researcher sought to answer was: Do 54 severely-to-profoundly hearing impaired children in this study using total communication differ in the expressive acquisition of 17 locative and directional prepositions from 35 hearing impaired children in a previous study (Warlick, 1983) using oral/aural communication?

This study was designed to validate the Preschool Speech and Language Screening Test. The PSLST was designed to quickly identify those preschool children who appear to be in need of speech and/or language evaluation or intervention. Specifically, the present investigation sought to determine the proportion of children with speech and/or language problems not detected by the screening test and the proportion of children without speech and language problems who failed the PSLST.

The auxiliary verb obligatory-do is used in forming questions, negative and emphatic sentences. Currently there is no test or norms established for the acquisition of obligatory-do. The purpose of this study was to establish age trends, via elicited imitation for the acquisition of obligatory-do according to the sentence type in which it expressively occurs i.e., negative sentences, emphatic sentences, interrogative reversals and wh-questions. This study addressed the following question: At what ages do children expressively demonstrate, via elicited imitation, the auxiliary verb obligatory-do in negative sentences, emphatic sentences, interrogative reversals and wh-questions? A secondary question was: In what manner does age and MLU, mean length of utterance, of 25 utterances correlate with the acquisition of obligatory-do?

Screening has been suggested as the most efficient method to find students with potential language problems (Neidecker, 1980). Based on the need for a standardized adolescent language screening tool, Prather, Breecher, Stafford, and Wallace (1980) developed the Screening Test of Adolescent Language (STAL). This is a six to eight minute test with twenty-three items which examine vocabulary, auditory memory span, language processing, and proverb explanation. Following an item analysis of the STAL, Prather, Brenner, and Hughes (1981) derived the Mini-Screening Test of Adolescent Language (M-STAL). This test contains five items from the STAL and requires one minute to administer.

Assessment of speech sound production in young children provides the basis for diagnosis and treatment of speech sound disorders. Standardized single-word articulation tests are typically used for identification of speech sound errors because they can provide an efficient means of obtaining a speech sample for analysis and comparison to same-age peers. A major criticism of single-word articulation tests is that they may not accurately reflect speech sound production abilities in conversation. Comparison of performance in single-word and conversational contexts has produced conflicting results in the available research. The purpose of the present study was to compare speech samples obtained using an extensive single-word naming task with samples of continuous speech elicited by sentence imitation. It was hypothesized that there would be differences in overall speech sound production accuracy as well as differences in types and frequency of errors across the two sampling conditions. The present study is a pilot investigation as part of the development of the Phonological and Bilingual Articulation Assessment, English Version (PABA-E; Gildersleeve-Neumann, unpublished). Twelve preschool children ages 3;11 to 4;7 (years;months) from the Portland Metropolitan area participated in this study. Participants were monolingual native English speakers and exhibited typical speech sound development as measured by the GFTA-2 (Goldman-Fristoe, 2000). Hearing acuity for participants was within acceptable limits, and participants' families reported no significant illnesses or developmental concerns that would impact speech sound production abilities. Mean t-scores for percentage of consonants correct (PCC) in the single-word samples were significantly higher at the .05 level than those for the sentence imitation samples. There was no significant difference between the percentage of vowels produced correctly (PVC) in the two sampling conditions. Similar types of error patterns were found in both the single-word and continuous speech samples, however error frequency was relatively low for the participant population. Only the phonological process of stopping was found to be significantly different across sampling conditions. The mean frequency of occurrence for stopping was found to be significantly higher in continuous speech as compared with the production of single-words.