Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) often present with difficulties in learning new words compared to age-matched children with typical language development. These difficulties may affect the acquisition, storage, or retrieval of new words. Word-learning deficits impact on children’s vocabulary development and impede their language and literacy development. Findings from a wide range of studies investigating word-learning in children with SLI demonstrated that semantic and phonological knowledge are crucial to the word-learning process. However, intervention studies designed to improve the word-learning abilities in children with SLI are sparse. The experiments described in this thesis addressed this need to understand the effects of interventions on word-learning abilities. Further, the thesis describes the first investigation of word-learning abilities of New Zealand school-aged children with SLI. Specifically, the following three broad questions are asked: 1. What are the word-learning skills of New Zealand school-aged children with SLI compared to children with typical language development and which underlying language skills influence word-learning? 2. What are the immediate and longer term effects of phonological awareness and semantic intervention on word-learning and language skills in children with SLI? 3. What are the error patterns of children with SLI compared to children with typical language development when learning to produce new words and do these patterns change following phonological awareness and semantic intervention? The first experiment compared the word-learning abilities of 19 school-aged children with SLI (aged 6;2 to 8;3) to age-matched children with typical language development and revealed that children with SLI presented with significant difficulties to produce and to comprehend new words. After repeated exposure, children with SLI caught up to the performances of children with typical language development in learning to comprehend new words, but not on production of new words. Correlation analyses demonstrated that there were no correlations between the word-learning skills and other language measures for children with SLI, whereas the word-learning abilities of children with typical language development were correlated to their phonological awareness, semantic, and general language skills. In the second experiment, it was investigated whether there were also qualitative differences during word-learning between children with and without SLI additionally to the quantitative differences as revealed in the first experiment. Children’s erroneous responses during the word-learning tasks were categorised into phonological, semantic, substitution or random errors. A comparison of the children’s error patterns revealed that children with SLI presented with a different error pattern and made significantly more random errors than children with typical language development. However, after repeated exposure, children with SLI demonstrated a similar error pattern as children without SLI. Furthermore, it was examined whether a specific combination of phonological and semantic cues facilitated children’s learning of new words or whether there were word-specific features that facilitated children’s word-learning. No facilitative word-specific features could be identified. Analysis revealed that there were no significant effects of cueing on learning new words, but specific patterns could be derived for children with SLI. Children with SLI learned to comprehend more words that were presented with two semantic cues or one phonological and one semantic cue and learned to produce more words that were presented with two phonological cues. In the third experiment, the effectiveness of a combined phonological awareness and semantic intervention to advance children’s word-learning abilities was examined. Nineteen children with SLI (same participants as in experiment 1) participated in this intervention study that implemented an alternating treatment group design with random assignment of the participants. Children in group A received phonological awareness intervention followed by semantic intervention, whereas children in group B received the same interventions in the reverse order. Children’s word-learning abilities were assessed at pre-test, prior to the intervention, at mid-test after intervention phase 1, and at post-test, immediately following the completion of the second intervention phase. Each intervention itself was effective in significantly improving children’s fast mapping skills, however, gains in children’s word-learning abilities were only found for children in group A for production of new words. Extending the findings of the intervention effectiveness of phonological awareness and semantic intervention on word-learning as reported in experiment 3, it was investigated in experiment 4, whether the implemented intervention additionally influenced the error patterns of children with SLI. The erroneous responses of children with SLI on all word-learning probes at pre-, mid-, and post-test were categorised into the same error groups as described in the second experiment (semantic, phonological, substitution, and random errors). The error analyses revealed that children’s error profiles changed during the course of intervention and treatment specific effects on children’s erroneous responses were found. Post-intervention, children who received phonological awareness followed by semantic intervention displayed the same error patterns as children with typical language development, whereas children who received the same interventions in the reverse order maintained the same error pattern as displayed at pre-test. The final experiment examined the longer-term effects of the combined phonological awareness and semantic intervention reported in experiment 3 on the language and literacy development of children with SLI. Eighteen of the 19 children with SLI, who received the intervention reported in experiment 3, were available for re-assessment 6 months after the completion of the intervention. The children (aged 7;1 to 9;2 years) were re-assessed on a range of standardised and experimental measures. Data analysis revealed that 6 months post-intervention, all children were able to maintain their gains in phonological awareness, semantic, and decoding skills as displayed immediately after the intervention. Children’s general language and reading skills significantly improved following the intervention; however, children who received phonological awareness intervention followed by semantic intervention displayed significantly better reading outcomes than the children who received the same interventions in the reverse order. This thesis revealed that a combination of phonological awareness and semantic intervention can enhance the word-learning abilities of children with SLI. The combined intervention approach was also effective in additionally improving children’s general language skills and the reading of single non-words and real words, as well as connected text. The immediate and longer-term intervention effects provide evidence that advancing the semantic and phonological awareness skills is an effective intervention approach to support children with SLI in their word-learning and to furthermore promote their language and literacy development. However, the order of the implemented interventions played a significant role: Children in the current study profited most when they received phonological awareness intervention first, followed by semantic intervention.

Le bégaiement est un trouble complexe, qu'il est encore difficile de définir de manière satisfaisante et complète. Outre les symptômes secondaires, et comportements accompagnateurs, des facteurs langagiers peuvent interférer avec ce trouble. Des difficultés dans les compétence phonologiques pourraient être concomitantes, voire en interaction avec le bégaiement, avec notamment dans la parole adulte, un impact non négligeable de la complexité phonologique. Par ailleurs, des difficultés coarticulatoires seraient au cœur du bégaiement. Mais les résultats des différentes études sont très disparates, tant dans la parole des enfants que dans celle des adultes qui bégaient. Enfin, l'influence du feedback auditif est surprenante puisque toute modification de ce type de feedback a un pouvoir améliorant chez un certain nombre de personnes. Ce constat questionne la définition du bégaiement en tant que trouble de la production et l'oriente plutôt vers un trouble perceptivo-moteur. Cette thèse se propose d'étudier la parole fluente et disfluente de personnes bègues françaises et italiennes. Etant donné que les différences entre personnes qui bégaient et personnes fluentes, apparaissent essentiellement quand le système moteur est soumis à un facteur déstabilisant, nous avons choisi d'étudier l'adaptation du comportement coarticulatoire lorsque la complexité phonologique augmente. Nous avons également voulu analyser l'impact de la modification du feedback auditif sur le comportement coarticulatoire. Enfin, nous avons étudié le rôle de la complexité phonologique sur les disfluences notamment, dans une situation de dialogue autour d'une image. Des adultes et des enfants, italiens, et français, bègues et fluents ont été enregistrés dans 4 situations de parole : lectures, discours spontané, tâche de répétition, et tâche de description d'image. Toutes ces tâches ont été réalisées dans deux conditions perceptives : une condition normale, et une condition avec feedback auditif modifié. En condition perceptive normale, la coarticulation des personnes qui bégaient est plus faible que celle des personnes fluentes. La langue semble jouer également un rôle important puisque les personnes qui bégaient des deux langues ne se comportent pas toujours de la même manière vis-à-vis de leurs homologues fluents. Le comportement coarticulatoire des personnes bègues semble également sensible à l'augmentation de la complexité phonologique. Les résultats sous feedback auditifs modifiés apparaissent contradictoires. Par ailleurs, les disfluences pourraient être influencées par la complexité phonologique, mais cette influence semble dépendre de la sévérité du bégaiement et de l'âge du sujet. Des perspectives cliniques sont évoquées. / Stuttering is a complex (complicated-intricate) disorder, and it is difficult to give a satisfactory and complete definition of it. As well as secondary symptoms and entailed comportments, language factors can interfere in this disorder. Difficulties in phonological competence might be concomitant if not interactive in stuttering, with, mainly in adult language, an inconsiderable impact of the phonological complexity Furthermore, the coarticulatory difficulties might be at the core of stuttering. But the results of different studies diverge on the subject when both children and adults' stuttering are considered. And let us note that the influence of the auditory-feedback is surprising as every change in this feedback seems to have an improving power in an appreciable number of patients. So the definition of stuttering, being a production disorder, can be questioned. Stuttering rather appears as a perceptual motor disorder. The aim of this thesis is to study the fluent and disfluent language in French and Italian stutterers knowing that the differences between stutterers and fluent persons mainly appear when the motor system is conditional to a destabilizing factor. We chose to study how the coarticulatory behavior adapts when the phonological complexity increases. We also tried to analyze how the modification of the auditory-feedback influences the coarticulatory behavior. And we studied the part played by the phonological complexity on disfluencies mainly in a situation of dialogue over a picture. Italian and French adults and children stutterers and their fluent counterparts were registered placed in four different situations of language: reading, spontaneous speech, repetitive task and picture description and in two perceptive conditions: a normal one and one with modified auditory-feedback. When placed in normal perceptive condition, the stutterers' coarticulation is weaker than that of their fluent counterparts. Besides, the language seems to play an important role since Italian and French stutterers have not the same response towards their fluent counterparts. Let us note that this stutterers' coarticulatory comportment is also sensitive to the increase of the phonological complexity. The results we have when the auditory-feedback is altered are contradictory. Disfluency could also be influenced by phonological complexity but this influence seems to be dependent on the acuteness of the stuttering as well as on the stutterer's age. A significant clinical breakthrough is evoked

152f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-05-17T12:39:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Andrea dos Santos.pdf: 3263833 bytes, checksum: b078012ad5051bc3605cc9a19161b7a4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Alda Lima da Silva(sivalda@ufba.br) on 2013-05-27T21:27:25Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Andrea dos Santos.pdf: 3263833 bytes, checksum: b078012ad5051bc3605cc9a19161b7a4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-27T21:27:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Andrea dos Santos.pdf: 3263833 bytes, checksum: b078012ad5051bc3605cc9a19161b7a4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Baseada na Teoria da Fonologia Natural (STAMPE, 1973) e nas propostas de Ingram (1976), Grunwell (1981/1982) e Teixeira (1985/1988b), este estudo tem como objetivo mapear o processo de Simplificação de Ditongos na aquisição do Português Brasileiro, traçando, assim, o seu percurso maturacional. Para isto, observou-se, durante 02 anos, a fala de 02 crianças soteropolitanas, pertencentes à classe sócio-escolar A que é formada por crianças cujos pais possuem (ou pelo menos um deles) o terceiro grau. Essas crianças tinham completado 01 ano de idade na época do início da coleta de dados que foi longitudinal. Após a coleta, os dados foram tratados, tabulados e analisados, obtendo-se como resultados: 1) a elisão parcial foi a estratégia mais recorrente; 2) a idade maturacional das crianças em relação aos ditongos varia de acordo com o tipo de ditongo; 3) os ditongos decrescentes são adquiridos mais cedo que os ditongos crescentes; 4) não há diferença aquisicional entre ditongos orais e nasais. Esses resultados corroboram os achados de Teixeira (1988b/1991), Lamprecht (1990) e Santos (2001) e contribuem para o avanço do Perfil do Desenvolvimento Fonológico em Português (PDFP). / Salvador

abstract: A substantial amount of research demonstrates that preschoolers' phonological awareness skills are a robust predictor of children's later decoding ability. Several investigators examined performance of children with speech sound impairment (SSI), defined as inaccurate production of speech sounds in the absence of any etiology or communication impairment, on phonological awareness tasks. Investigators found that children with SSI scored below their typically developing peers (TD) on phonological awareness tasks. In contrast, others found no differences between groups. It seems likely that differences in findings regarding phonological awareness skills among children with SSI is the fact that there is considerable heterogeneity among children with SSI (i.e., speech errors can either be a phonological or articulation). Phonology is one component of a child's language system and a phonological impairment (SSI-PI) is evident when patterns of deviations of speech sounds are exhibited in a language system. Children with an articulation impairment (SSI-AI) produce speech sound errors that are affected by the movements of the articulators, not sound patterns. The purpose of the study was to examine whether or not children with SSI-PI are at greater risk for acquiring phonological awareness skills than children with SSI-AI. Furthermore, the phonological awareness skills of children with SSI-PI and SSI-AI were compared to those of their typical peers. In addition, the role of executive function as well as the influence of phonological working memory on phonological awareness task performance was examined. Findings indicate that the SSI-PI group performed more poorly on an assessment of phonological awareness skills than the SSI-AI and TD groups. The SSI-PI group performed significantly more poorly on tasks of executive function and phonological working memory than the TD group. The results of this study support the hypothesis that children with SSI-PI may be more vulnerable to difficulties in reading than children with SSI-AI and children with TD. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Speech and Hearing Science 2015

Estudos a respeito das dificuldades de aprendizagem tem se tornado o foco de pesquisas nacionais e internacionais. Destacam-se, principalmente, aqueles que priorizam os aspectos da intervenção, pois são notáveis os progressos acadêmicos, emocionais e sociais dos indivíduos com dificuldades de leitura e escrita. Com relação às dificuldades de aprendizagem e as dificuldades escolares, a literatura revela a necessidade da identificação precoce e propõe programas de remediação fonológica que têm como objetivo treinar as habilidades metalinguísticas e o ensino da relação letra-som, necessários para a aprendizagem do sistema de escrita. Alguns autores propõem intervenções por meio de treino computadorizado, outros autores, além do treino, propõem a associação do mesmo a atividades de leitura e escrita. Considerando o exposto, o objetivo deste estudo foi verificar os efeitos de um programa de remediação fonológica, associado a atividades de leitura e escrita, dentro do processo de alfabetização e letramento em alunos com dificuldades de aprendizagem, que frequentam uma sala de recursos multifuncionais. Foram selecionados 10 alunos na faixa etária entre 7 e 11 anos de idade, de ambos os gêneros, com dificuldades de aprendizagem, participantes de uma sala de recursos multifuncionais. Os participantes foram divididos em 2 grupos: Grupo Experimental (6 alunos) e Grupo Comparativo (4 alunos). O GE foi submetido ao programa de remediação fonológica a fim de comparar os resultados da aplicação do programa aos alunos do GC, que inicialmente não receberam a intervenção. Foram realizadas avaliação pré e pós ao programa a fim de verificar o desempenho dos participantes nas habilidades do processamento fonológico, leitura e escrita, memória auditiva e visual. Os atendimentos foram em grupos de 3 alunos, realizados uma vez por semana, com duração de 50 minutos. Os resultados revelaram que o desempenho do grupo submetido ao programa foi superior ao do grupo não submetido. Observou-se que a remediação fonológica, associada a atividades de leitura e escrita, promoveu melhoras nas habilidades de leitura e escrita em alunos com dificuldades de aprendizagem das salas de recursos multifuncionais. / Studies on learning difficulties have become the focus of national and international research. Of particular note are those who prioritize aspects of the intervention, since the academic, emotional and social progress of individuals with reading and writing difficulties is remarkable. With regard to learning difficulties and school difficulties, the literature reveals the need for early identification and proposes phonological remediation programs that aim to train the metalinguistic abilities and the teaching of the letter-sound relationship, necessary for the learning of the writing system. Some authors propose interventions through computerized training, other authors, besides the training, propose the association of the same to activities of reading and writing. Considering the above, the objective of this study was to verify the effects of a phonological remediation program, associated to reading and writing activities, within the process of literacy in students with learning disabilities, attending a multifunctional resource classroom. We selected 10 students aged 7 to 11 years of age, of both genders, with learning difficulties, participants of a multifunctional resource room. Participants were divided into 2 groups: Experimental Group (6 students) and Comparative Group (4 students). The EG was submitted to the phonological remediation program in order to compare the results of the application of the program to CG students, who did not initially receive the intervention. Pre and post evaluation of the program were carried out to verify the performance of participants in the phonological processing, reading and writing skills, auditory and visual memory. The visits were in groups of 3 students, held once a week, lasting 50 minutes. The results showed that the performance of the group submitted to the program was superior to that of the group not submitted. It was observed that phonological remediation, associated with reading and writing activities, promoted improvements in reading and writing skills in students with learning difficulties in multifunctional resource rooms.

The phonological awareness development of bilingual children has been discussed from the viewpoint of whether they have an advantage compared to monolingual children. Some previous studies discovered that there were language pairs where bilingual children could have no advantage in it. However, it has not been clarified yet how bilingual children with such a language pair develop phonological awareness. The purpose of this study was to give an example of such a language pair and analyze bilingual children’s phonological awareness development in comparison with that of monolingual children.      This study examined how 3- to 7-year-old Swedish/Danish-Japanese bilingual children developed Japanese phonological awareness in comparison with the corresponding Japanese children. Forty-five children (26 bilingual children and 19 Japanese children) participated in this study. The bilingual children lived in Sweden or Denmark and had Swedish or Danish as their strong language in general but they also spoke Japanese on a daily basis. On the other hand, the Japanese children used exclusively Japanese at home as their sole first language. The children were individually tested on two types of Japanese syllables (fundamental syllables and special syllables). The fundamental syllable section had three types of tasks (segmentation task, abstraction task and identification task) and the special syllable section had one type of task (segmentation task).      The results showed no advantage for the bilingual children in Japanese phonological awareness development in comparison with the Japanese children. While the bilingual children developed Japanese phonological awareness with age and/or letter knowledge in the same way as the Japanese children, their developmental rate was generally slower than that of the Japanese children. Two factors appear to play a part in this finding: first, the fact that Swedish and Danish are phonologically different from Japanese so knowledge of these languages did not help the children to discover Japanese phonological structure. Second, the amount of exposure to Japanese for bilingual children was significantly less even though they spoke and understood the language well. Thus, this study suggests that bilingual children can have difficulty with regard to phonological awareness development in one of their languages when the other language is not conducive to the discovery of this language’s phonological structure and when exposure to this language is limited, even if they speak and understand the language well.

The Qianjiang(潛江) city is located not only on the boundary of the Southwestern mandarin and the Gan dialect, but also on the boundary of three different sub-cluster regions of the Southwestern mandarin. Therefore, it is difficult to classify the Qianjiang dialect into any region. As a result, the phonological features of the Qianjiang dialect have not yet been systematically studied so far. In order to provide a thorough understanding of the Qianjiang dialect, this thesis focuses on investigating phonological characteristics of the Qianjiang dialect and in particular the aspiration of the Middle Chinese (MC) voice obstruent. As many ancient phonological characteristics are still preserved in today’s Qianjiang dialect, the study also helps us better understand the immigration history of Qianjiang as well as its impact on the Qianjiang dialect. First of all, a summary of phonological characteristics of the Qianjiang dialect is carried out. A set of distinctive phonological characteristics are listed and analyzed with respect to both initials and finals of the Qianjiang dialect. For example, the MC zhongchun(重唇) sounds, the Jiantuanyin(尖團音) , the MC value of the jia (假) rhyme group, the guo (果) rhyme group, and the ji (祭) and qi (齊) rhyme which belong to the historical stratum of Middle Chinese are preserved in the Qianjiang dialect. Those phonological characteristics of the Qianjiang dialect belong to the stratum of the historical stratum of the Southwestern Mandarin are also described in this thesis, such as the confusion of the MC initials ni (泥) and lai (來), the MC zhi (知) group, zhuang (莊) group and zhang (章) group in the Qianjiang dialect. The development from [u] to [«u] of the mo (模) Rhyme in the yu (遇) rhyme group, and the entering tone, wu (屋), wo (沃), zhu (燭) rhyme in the tong (通) rhyme group in the Qianjiang dialect. As a unique characteristic of the Qianjiang dialect, the aspiration of the MC voiced obstruent is thoroughly analyzed in historical and geographical contexts. From the analysis, it can be drawn that the Qianjiang dialect has been impacted by immigrants from northwestern areas during Tang dynasty as well as immigrants from Jiangxi(江西) province during the Ming and Qing dynasty. In addition, the theory of hypercorrection has been established to explain aspirated sound of MC Quanqing (全清 voiceless unaspirated stop and affricates) initials in the Qianjiang dialect. From the investigation of the phonological characteristics of the Qianjiang dialect, this thesis considers the Qianjiang dialect as a dialect transition region between two sub-regions of Southwestern Mandarin represented by the Chengyu(成渝) region and the Wutian(武天) region. The Qianjiang dialect itself has inherited phonological features from immigrants of other areas and do stand out as an important language resource to mirror the profound historical shifts in Chinese history.

My idiolect, a Xin’an idiolect, belongs to the Wuxi dialect, which is the northern Wu dialect. It carries most of the characteristics of the Wuxi dialect, such as the tripartite division of the manner of articulation of initial stop consonants. However, with the special geographic position, on the bounty of Wuxi dialect from the northwest area to southeast area and connected with Suzhou city, my idiolect shows its unique features, such as the condition of the retroflex. This study analyzes the phonological system of the idiolect and discusses the features. Since the dialect of the suburban area of the Wuxi is rare, it was only documented in the local chronicles; therefore the study is a good supplemental material to the Wuxi dialect. Moreover, using the idiolect is like to use the phonological material with the specific area and social identity. It is well known that the variation of the language is related to the area, to the speaker’s social identity and to the situation, therefore the specific idiolect definitely will benefit researchers to analyze the dialect. Furthermore, idiolect is also a good sample to study the language diversity among the different social classes, which need to get more attention from scholars. With the influence of the Mandarin and the surrounding dialects, some phonological features of my idiolect are in the variation, such as the sharp and rounded sounds. In the thesis, the theory of the language contact is applied to explain my idiolect.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study entails an analysis of the inherent grammatical and phonological variation which are characteristic of Cape Afrikaans. On the basis of the inherent variation which is documented in the preliminary part of this study, the relationship between inherent phonological variation and language change is analyzed by means of a deductive validation procedure in the central part of it. In the first ..chapter the epistemological basis of this study is set out, and a review is given of various empirical validation procedures, and criticism of linguistic analysis by means of deductive validation is evaluated. The research methodology, i.e. the field work and quantification techniques for the deductive analysis of Afrikaans· cassette recordings of 139 Cape Afrikaans respondents is documented in chapter two. In the third chapter it is argued that the proposed analysis of inherent linguistic variation and languáge change can best be conducted within the framework of the sociocultural context of pragmatic language use rather than within a theory of linguistic competence The fourth chapter commences with a brief review of the various domains of language change and is followed by evidence from a wide variety of languages which suggests that sociocultural factors play a major role during language change. The chapter is concluded with the proposal that language change can best be studied within the framework of linguistic -variation which William Labov pioneered. The fifth chapter consists of a review of phonological, lexical and syntactic variation inherent in cape Afrikaans. The findings of this study are reported in the sixth and final chapter. The study concludes that inherent linguistic variation forms the basis for the sociocultural stratification of Cape Afrikaans and that tt also serves as the mechanism for linguistic change in this variety of Afrikaans.

Phonological working memory (PWM) is the mind's capacity for maintaining and manipulating representations of the sounds important for speech when they are not actively being perceived. It is believed to be a critical component supporting typical language acquisition and vocabulary development, as well as second-language learning. Despite the success of the theoretical framework traditionally used to conceptualize PWM, consensus on its instantiation in the brain remains elusive. In this thesis, I will describe a series of studies designed to interrogate the functionality of the brain regions supporting PWM. In Chapter 1, we compare activation patterns from a canonical PWM task, nonword repetition, to nonword discrimination, a matched task designed to engage core PWM functions, but for the purpose of comparing stimuli, not repeating them. We replicate the findings that PWM during nonword repetition engages speech cortices and show that these cortical regions are also reliably engaged in nonword discrimination, in individual subjects. In Chapter 2, we directly assess the extent to which conjunctive activation between language and working memory paradigms can be interpreted as shared functionality. We find that despite the ability to localize regions in which the majority of subjects show conjunction of significant activation between tasks, the pattern similarity between tasks within those regions vary. We find no pattern similarity between language and spatial working memory, and marginal similarities between language and verbal working memory. Verbal working memory and spatial working memory conjunctions localize a similar network to the multiple demand network and find highly similar patterns of activation in these regions across working memory tasks. Finally, in Chapter 3, we investigate the functional properties of brain areas supporting PWM by comparing activation between nonword repetition, language, verbal working memory, and spatial working memory tasks. We find that PWM shares support with areas involved in spoken language perception, as well as regions engaged by working memory tasks that lie outside of the core language network. Taken together, these studies give a detailed account of the neural bases of PWM, through the lens of shared functionality between this capacity, language, and other domains of working memory.