The motor speech disorder of dysarthria is present in a substantial number of children with cerebral palsy (CP), leading to speech intelligibility deficits, which may negatively affect the children’s communication and quality of life. Few studies to date have examined strategies for increasing intelligibility in children with dysarthria, and most have focused on English speakers. Thus, questions regarding the effects of speech cueing strategies in speakers of other languages are under-explored. The purpose of this study was to determine if (Korean translations of) two cues, “speak with your big mouth,” targeting greater articulatory excursion, and “speak with your strong voice,” targeting greater vocal intensity, would elicit changes in speech acoustics and intelligibility in Korean-speaking children with dysarthria secondary to CP. Fifteen Korean-speaking children with dysarthria repeated word- and sentence-level stimuli in habitual, big mouth, and strong voice conditions. Intelligibility was assessed through the ease-of-understanding (EoU) ratings and percentage of words correctly transcribed (PWC) by 90 blinded listeners. Results indicated significantly greater vocal intensity and greater utterance duration in the cued conditions, demonstrating the children’s ability to vary their speech styles in response to the two cues. Furthermore, word-level EoU gains following both cues and sentence-level EoU gains following the strong voice cue suggest potential intelligibility benefits of the cues in this population. Gains in PWC were not statistically significant, and considerable variability in the children’s responses to the cues was noted overall. These findings contribute to the limited knowledge base for speech-language pathologists working with Korean speaking children. The variability in responses points to the importance of assessing each child’s stimulability to cues aimed to enhance intelligibility. Further clinical and theoretical considerations, including cross-linguistic implications, are discussed.

The present study was designed to investigate the perceptual and spectrographic features of vocal effort in the speech of severely to profoundly hearing-impaired children and their normal hearing agemates. Recorded vowel and speech samples were obtained from ten normal hearing children, ten severely to profoundly hearing-impaired children attending Oral/Aural educational programs, and eight severely to profoundly hearing-impaired children attending Total Communication programs. The degree of perceived vocal effort for vowels and speech was evaluated, using a nine point equal-appearing-interval scale. In order to obtain a physical measurement for vocal effort, a digital wave analyzer was used to produce vowel spectra, and the amount of in-harmonic (noise) components in each spectrum was indexed as spectral noise level.

Investigations into the speech of normal children have indicated that disfluencies are common. It is important for the Speech Language Pathologist to have knowledge of normal disfluencies for differential diagnosis, parent counseling, and in order to plan strategies for intervention. The purpose of this study was to compare the frequency of disfluencies in 4 year old and 6 year old normal male children to the frequency of disfluencies when they were 3 years old and 5 years old respectively.

This study was designed to validate a speech screening device entitled the Oregon School Entrance Speech Screening Test. The OSESST was developed to identify quickly those children entering first grade who are in need of speech and language intervention. The present study sought to determine what proportion of children with speech and language disorders was not detected by the screening test and what proportion of children without speech and language disorders failed the OSESSI. In addition, this study undertook to determine whether results of this investigation are consistent with those obtained on the OSESST in areas of articulation, syntax, language reception and expression, voice, and speech fluency. Subjects for this investigation were forty children just entering first grade in Tillamook County. Twenty-one were randomly selected from those who passed the screening test and nineteen from those who failed. This investigator received the forty subjects in random order and without prior knowledge of which children passed or failed the screening test.

Recently, there have appeared in the literature treatment approaches for the disorder of developmental apraxia of speech in children. These treatment approaches make use of the visual modality, and specifically use reading stimulus materials to improve articulation skills. Several authors have endorsed this use of reading materials in the treatment of developmental apraxia of speech in children including: Morley (1965); Rosenthal (1971); Rosenbek and Wertz (1972); and Rosenbek et al. (1974). These treatment approaches have been offered via the literature without the benefit of empirical verification that children with DAS will make fewer articulation errors while reading aloud than they would speaking spontaneously. The primary purpose of this investigation was to provide empirical support for the treatment approaches to DAS in children which make use of reading stimuli to improve the articulation performance of these children. A secondary purpose was to present a possible treatment approach through the increasing of oral reading speed in children with DAS.

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.

The purpose of this study was to determine if the time it takes to complete a phonological test was significantly different than the time it takes to complete a phonetic test. It was hoped this study would identify an instrument that the public school speech-language pathologist could use more effectively and efficiently to analyze phonologically-impaired children.

Many bilingual Spanish-English preschool aged children are impacted by speech sound disorders; and research has shown that bilingual speech sound systems develop differently than monolinguals'. Research has also shown that, for monolingual English and Spanish speakers, parent reports can be a valid tool for identification and single-word assessments can effectively diagnose speech disorder, yet little, if any, normative data or information about the validity of parent reports as an identification tool exists for bilingual Spanish-English speakers. The purpose of the present study was to create bilingual speech normative data for English single-word assessment scores for percent consonants correct (PCC), percent vowels correct (PVC), and the index of phonetic complexity (IPC). It also sought to determine correlations of speech scores and parent reports, which was done as an extension of Stertzbach's 2005 study with monolingual Spanish speakers. Fifty-six bilingual Spanish-English 4-year-olds were administered a single-word assessment in English and normative data was generated from the PCC, PVC, and IPC scores. That normative data was correlated with Likert values from the parent surveys to establish the validity of the report as an identification tool, and finally, the disordered scores (as determined by the normative data) were explored in relation to previous suspicion or diagnosis of disorder. The normative data showed 89% of speech scores falling within the typical range for both PCC and PVC and 93% for IPC. Pearson coefficients were computed by regression analysis and parent reports were deemed a valid tool for identification based on statistically significant correlations (at the .05 level) for 6 of 10 questions. Previous suspicions of disorder, based on parent report or examiner questionnaire, were 87.5% and 91% accurate, respectively, while current diagnosis, based on the presence of an existing Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), was 93% accurate. The results were consistent with previous research showing the prevalence of speech disorder as well as the validity of the parent report.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine if an association exists among the diagnosis of speech-language impairments (SLI) and the diagnoses of learning disabilities (LD) and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in a school-aged population of children referred to a Learning Disorders Clinic (LDC) because of academic underachievement and/or behavior problems. The two research questions asked in this study are: (a) What percentage of students diagnosed with SLI have a concomitant diagnosis of LD and/or ADHD? and (b) Is there an association among the diagnosis of SLI and the diagnoses of LD and/or ADHD? A sample of 94 subjects was obtained from review of 291 LDC records of children ref erred and diagnosed during the years 1989-1992. The subjects were grouped into eight categories by diagnosis, that is, (a) SLI, (b) SLI/LD, (c) SLI/ADHO, (d) SLI/LO/ADHD, (e) no diagnosis of SLI/LO/AOHD, (f) LO, (g) ADHD, and (h) LD/ADHD. The obtained Chi square value was not statistically significant at a .OS alpha level. Thus, the null hypothesis: there will be no association among the diagnosis of SLI and the diagnoses of LO and/or ADHD, could not be rejected. In this sample, however, 85% of the children diagnosed with SLI had a concomitant diagnosis of LD and/or ADHD, and 70% with no SLI diagnosis were diagnosed with LD and/or ADHD. The overlapping nature of the disorders of SLI, LD, and ADHD is noted. The definitions of SLI and LO demonstrate how enmeshed language and learning problems are. One inference from this study is that as children grow older, their language deficits are recognized in the context of a learning disorder.