Educators need measurement tools to determine phonological awareness in young children. This study investigated the appropriateness of rhyme cloze tasks, referred to as Finish-a-Rhyme-Story items, which were designed to measure preschool and kindergarten children's early rhyme development. The rhyme cloze tasks required children to verbally complete a sentence by filling in a final rhyming word that matched a rhyme pattern highlighted in a short story that was read aloud to them. The task required rhyme awareness as well as comprehension of the language in the story. Twenty-four items were individually administered to preschool (n = 207) and kindergarten (n = 382) children to determine item performance and discriminative power. Rasch analysis indicated that the difficulty level of the items was well matched for the sample indicating that the items were developmentally appropriate for preschool and kindergarten children. Several analyses of variance (ANOVA) compared the performance of preschool and kindergarten children as well as the performance of monolingual English speaking (ENG) children and English Language Learners (ELL) to determine if there were group differences on the rhyme cloze measure. Results also indicated that the items have the ability to discriminate between children with high and low level rhyming ability based on the Rasch model; kindergarten children were more aware of the rhyme component than preschool children and ENG children were more aware than ELL children.

The present study investigated the brain-behavior relationships between cerebellar vermal volume, phonological processing, and verbal working memory in children with Reading Disability (RD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It was hypothesized that there would be differences in inferior posterior vermal volume between those with and without ADHD. Individuals with and without RD were not expected to differ in posterior inferior vermal volume and an interaction in the RD/ADHD group was expected. Children with RD/ADHD were expected to have similar volumes to children who have ADHD. It also was hypothesized that inferior posterior vermal volumes would be correlated with verbal working and phonological short-term memory; anterior vermal volumes were hypothesized to be correlated with elision, and superior posterior vermal volumes were hypothesized to be correlated with rapid object and rapid letter naming. Results indicated that there were no group differences in posterior inferior vermal volume between children with and without RD as well as with and without ADHD. There were also no relationships between phonological processing and verbal working memory. The findings in this study were unexpected and suggest the need for further study between phonological processing, verbal working memory, and vermal volume in children with ADHD and RD.

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Poverty is a social context that has direct impact on students' performance since the conditions associated with poverty (brain development, social interactions, nutrition, and emotional environment) all play a role in developmental outcomes. Head Start is an early intervention program designed to address the unique needs of students from poverty. The Head Start Impact Study (DHHS, ACF, 2012) and other research (Lee, Brooks-Gunn, and Schnur, 1988; Ramey and Ramey, 2004) indicate that the academic achievement of low-income students who participated in Head Start is mixed as they move through elementary school. The purpose of the Head Start program is to prepare students with skills so that they begin kindergarten on an even playing field with their more advantaged peers (DHHS, ACF, 2013). Although students who participate in Head Start begin kindergarten with the appropriate readiness skills, initial gains are not maintained as they move through elementary school (Burkham and Lee, 2002). The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the effects of the Head Start program as its students move through kindergarten and first grade. In the study, I analyzed data to find relationships between student performance on the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) (University of Virginia, 2010) and classroom practices that led to high achievement. Two Title I schools were studied. PALS scores were analyzed using t-tests, ANOVAs and multiple regressions. Reading performance in second grade was measured using scores from the Developmental Reading Assessment (Beave, 2006). Qualitative data were collected through interviews, focus groups, and document reviews. These data were utilized to make connections between the results of PALS and reading scores and the best practices being used in schools that showed strong results for the kindergarten and first grade students in the study. By triangulating data, I uncovered relationships between best practice strategies being used in high performing schools and achievement of former Head Start enrollees. / Ed. D.

This thesis investigated lexical representations of children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) using a duration-blocked gating task. This thesis tested the hypothesis that children who stutter have underspecified phonological representations for words, are less sensitive to incremental and segmental information for lexical items, and therefore require more acoustic-phonetic information to activate words in their lexicon. Pilot data collected from fourteen children (ages 5;6 to 10;1): 7 CWS and 7 CWNS matched on age were included in this thesis. Results showed that children in both talker groups required relatively equal amounts of acoustic-phonetic information to identify target words. A regression model revealed that age in months predicted performance on the gating task for CWNS, but that age in months did not predict performance on the gating task for CWS suggesting a difference in the developmental maturity of lexical representations in CWS. Possible conclusions from these pilot data are presented along with recommendations for future research. / text

Forced alignment, a speech recognition software performing semi-automatic phonological transcription, constitutes a methodological revolution in the recent history of linguistic research. Its use is progressively becoming the norm in research fields such as sociophonetics, but its general performance and range of applications have been relatively understudied. This thesis investigates the performance and portability of the Forced Alignment and Vowel Extraction program suite (FAVE), an aligner that was trained on, and designed to study, American English. It was decided to test FAVE on four non-American varieties of English (Scottish, Irish, Australian and Indian English) and a control variety (General American). First, the performance of FAVE was compared with human annotators, and then it was tested on three potentially problematic variables: /p, t, k/ realization, rhotic consonants and /l/. Although FAVE was found to perform significantly differently from human annotators on identical datasets, further analysis revealed that the aligner performed quite similarly on the non-standard varieties and the control variety, suggesting that the difference in accuracy does not constitute a major drawback to its extended usage. The study discusses the implications of the findings in relation to doubts expressed about the usage of such technology and argues for a wider implementation of forced alignment tools such as FAVE in sociophonetic research.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:27:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 sabrina.pdf: 822862 bytes, checksum: d20df0a3fa2fe3dd3ba6c2f9dfa8aece (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-08-29 / The general aim of this study was to verify the generalizations obtained by children with phonological deviations, submitted to the treatment proposed in the ABAB withdrawal and multiple probe (TYLER & FIGURSKI, 1994), which takes the relations of distance and markedness among the distinctive features that were identified considering the target segment(s) used in therapy, as well as the segments absent in the child s phonological system, as their parameters of analysis. These two types of relations between features have motivated the application, in this research, of two therapeutic models: (a) the MICT Modelo Implicacional de Complexidade de Traços , proposed by Mota (1996), and (b) the MOTIDT Modelo Terapêutico Implicacional de Distância entre Traços , which is being proposed in this study. Both therapeutic models assume that the treatment, starting with a target segment that presents an internal structure with a complex feature configuration, makes its acquisition possible, and conducts to generalization, making the segments with simpler internal structure and feature configuration emerge. What differs fundamentally in the two therapeutic proposals is the criterion for the choice of the target segment of the therapy and the expectation of generalization. In the subjects treated by MICT, the choice of the target segment(s) is derived from the relations of complexity established by the co-occurrence between the features and the ways the subjects increased complexity during the phonological acquisition with phonological deviations following the existing implicational laws between the marked features, as described in the model. In the MOTIDT, the choice of the target segments is determined based on the distances among the features that integrate their structure and the structure of the missing segment(s) in the child s phonological system. This distance was determined following the feature geometry proposed by Clements & Hume (1995). The sample of this work was composed of six subjects with phonological deviations, which were divided into pairs, following the criterion of the degree of equivalency, considering the severity of the deviation, constituting three pairs of subjects in the research. Initially, the data were collected according to the proposal of Tyler & Figurski (1994), in which two sessions are destined for the application of the Phonological Evaluation of the Child (YAVAS, MATZENAUER-HERNANDORENA & LAMPRECHT, 1991), and a session is reserved for collecting spontaneous speech. After this, the data were transcribed and submitted to a contrasting analysis, based on Autosegmental Phonology (CLEMENTS & HUME, 1995), and an analysis based on the two therapeutic models used in the study: the MICT and the MOTIDT. The analysis of the subjects in this study have shown that the MOTIDT can constitute an alternative therapeutic model for the clinical practice of treating phonological deviation. The generalizations occurred in the phonological systems of the subjects treated by this therapeutic model have reduced the treatment period once the subjects transferred knowledge of the target segments in a faster and more comprehensive form, when compared to the patients treated under the MICT model. It is believed, however, that there are still more points to be explored and proven, with a greater number of subjects. / Este estudo teve por objetivo geral verificar as generalizações obtidas por crianças com desvios fonológicos, submetidas a um tratamento delineado segundo o modelo ABAB Retirada e Provas Múltiplas , de Tyler & Figurski (1994), tomando-se, como parâmetro de análise, as relações de distância e de complexidade entre traços distintivos identificadas entre o(s) segmento(s)-alvo utilizado(s) na terapia e entre o(s) segmento(s) ausente(s) no sistema da criança. Esses dois tipos de relações entre traços levaram ao emprego, nesta pesquisa, de dois modelos terapêuticos: (a) o MICT Modelo Implicacional de Complexidade de Traços , proposto por (MOTA, 1996) e (b) o MOTIDT Modelo Terapêutico Implicacional de Distância entre Traços , que está sendo proposto no presente estudo. Ambos os modelos terapêuticos têm como pressuposto que o tratamento a partir de um segmento-alvo que apresente uma estrutura interna com configuração de traços complexa possibilita a sua aquisição e a generalização, fazendo emergirem segmentos com estrutura interna e configuração de traços considerada menos complexa. O que difere fundamentalmente as duas propostas terapêuticas é o critério para a escolha do segmentoalvo da terapia e a expectativa de generalização. No MICT, a escolha do(s) segmento(s)- alvo(s) deriva das relações de complexidade estabelecidas pelas coocorrências entre os traços. Os caminhos percorridos pelas crianças, para o incremento de complexidade durante a aquisição fonológica com desvio, seguem leis implicacionais existentes entre os traços marcados, como descrito no modelo. No MOTIDT, a escolha do(s) segmento(s)- alvo(s) é determinada com base nas distâncias entre os traços que integram a sua estrutura e a estrutura do(s) segmento(s) ausente(s) no sistema da criança. Essa distância foi determinada a partir da geometria de traços proposta por Clements & Hume (1995). A amostra deste trabalho foi composta por seis sujeitos com desvios fonológicos, os quais foram divididos em pares, seguindo-se o critério de grau de equivalência em se considerando a severidade do desvio, constituindo-se, assim, três pares de sujeitos na investigação. Inicialmente os dados foram coletados, segundo a proposta de Tyler & Figurski (1994), em que duas sessões são destinadas para a aplicação do Instrumento de Avaliação Fonológica da Criança (Yavas, Matzenauer-Hernandorena & Lamprecht, 1991) e uma sessão é reservada para a coleta de fala espontânea. Após, foram transcritos e submetidos a uma análise contrastiva, a uma análise através do modelo teórico da Fonologia Autossegmental (Clements & Hume, 1995) e a uma análise através dos dois modelos terapêuticos utilizados no estudo: o MICT e o MOTIDT. O MOTIDT, pelos dados dos sujeitos aqui estudados, mostrou que também pode ser mais uma opção de modelo terapêutico para a prática clínica dos desvios fonológicos. As generalizações ocorridas nos sistemas fonológicos dos sujeitos tratados por esse modelo terapêutico tornaram a duração do tratamento fonoaudiológico reduzida, uma vez que os sujeitos transferiram a aprendizagem dos segmentos-alvo de forma mais rápida e abrangente, quando comparados aos sujeitos tratados através do MICT. Acredita-se que haja ainda muitos pontos a serem explorados e comprovados ou não, com um número maior de sujeitos.

ABSTRACT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND READING IN BILINGUAL ENGLISH-ARABIC CHILDREN by Lama K. Farran This dissertation examined the relationship between language and reading in bilingual English-Arabic children. The dissertation followed a two chapter Review and Research Format. Chapter One presents a review of research that examined the relationship between oral language and reading development in bilingual English-Arabic children. Chapter Two describes the study that examined this same relationship. Participants were 83 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children who attended a charter school in a large school district in the Southeastern portion of the US. The school taught Arabic as a second language daily in the primary and elementary grades. This cross-sectional quantitative study used norm-referenced assessments and experimental measures. Data were analyzed using simultaneous and hierarchical regression to identify language predictors of reading. Analysis of covariance was used to examine whether the language groups differed in their Arabic reading comprehension scores, while controlling for age. Results indicated that phonological awareness in Arabic was related to phonological awareness in English. However, morphological awareness in Arabic was not related to morphological awareness in English. Results also revealed that phonological awareness predicted word reading, pseudoword decoding, and complex word reading fluency within Arabic and English; morphological awareness predicted complex word reading fluency in Arabic but not in English; and vocabulary predicted reading comprehension within Arabic and English. Further analyses indicated that children with high vocabulary differed from children with low vocabulary in their reading comprehension scores and that this difference was driven by children’s ability to read unvowelized words. Consistent with the extended version of the Triangle Model of Reading (Bishop & Snowling, 2004), the results suggest a division of labor among various language components in the process of word reading and reading comprehension. Implications for research, instruction, and early intervention with bilingual English-Arabic children are discussed.

Σκοπός της παρούσας έρευνας ήταν ο έλεγχος της υπόθεσης, σύμφωνα με την οποία τα παιδιά με μαθησιακές δυσκολίες χρησιμοποιούν λιγότερο τη φωνολογική κωδικοποίηση και την επανάληψη. Στο πλαίσιο που είχαν εργαστεί νωρίτερα οι Steinbrink και Klatte, η έρευνα μελέτησε τις επιδόσεις 14 μαθητών της Β’ δημοτικού με χαμηλές αναγνωστικές και ορθογραφικές ικανότητες και 14 μαθητών ίδιας τάξης με υψηλές αντίστοιχες ικανότητες, σε έργα σειριακής ανάκλησης ερεθισμάτων. Τα ερεθίσματα ποίκιλαν ως προς τη φωνολογική ομοιότητα και το μέγεθος της λέξης. Η παρουσίαση τους έγινε οπτικά και ακουστικά και συνδυάστηκε με οπτική και προφορική ανάκληση, προκειμένου να ελεγχθούν οι στρατηγικές που επιλέγουν τα παιδιά με μαθησιακές δυσκολίες, ανάλογα με τις απαιτήσεις του έργου. Oι επιδόσεις των παιδιών με αναγνωστικές και ορθογραφικές αδυναμίες ήταν χαμηλότερες σε όλες τις συνθήκες, με εξαίρεση τη συνθήκη οπτικής παρουσίασης - οπτικής ανάκλησης. Ωστόσο, οι επιδράσεις της φωνολογικής ομοιότητας και του μεγέθους της λέξης δε διέφεραν ανάμεσα στις ομάδες. Επομένως, όλοι οι συμμετέχοντες έκαναν ίση χρήση της φωνολογικής κωδικοποίησης και της επανάληψης. Ακόμη, στις συνθήκες που ευνοούσαν τη χρήση οπτικών στρατηγικών, όλοι οι συμμετέχοντες προέβησαν σε ένα συνδυασμό φωνολογικών και οπτικών στρατηγικών. Τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας οδηγούν στο συμπέρασμα ότι τα παιδιά με αναγνωστικές και ορθογραφικές αδυναμίες χρησιμοποιούν μεν το φωνολογικό κύκλωμα, αλλά με λιγότερο αποτελεσματικό τρόπο. / Τhe purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that children with learning disabilities make less use of phonological coding and rehearsal. In the framework of Steinbrink and Klatte’s previous research, this study examined the performance of second-grade children with poor versus good reading and spelling abilities in serial recall tasks. The stimuli used, varied in phonological similarity and word length. Their presentation was visual and auditory and it was combined with visual and verbal recall, so that to investigate the strategies that children with learning disabilities use, depending on the task’s demands. The performance of children with reading and spelling difficulties was lower in all conditions, except the condition of visual presentation - visual recall. However, phonological similarity and word length effects did not differ between groups. Consequently, all participants made equal use of phonological coding and rehearsal. Furthermore, in conditions where visual strategies could be used, all participants used a combination of phonological and visual strategies. The results suggest that children with reading and spelling impairments use the phonological loop, but in a less efficient way.