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 purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between emotion understanding and language ability to the sociable behavior in children with language impairment (LI) and their typically developing peers. Twenty-nine children with LI and 29 age- and gender-matched peers with typical language were used in this study. Sociability was rated by his/her classroom teacher using the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (Hart & Robinson, 1996). Language ability was assessed using the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999). To assess emotion understanding, each participant was asked to perform several structural dissemblance tasks. Children with LI received scores significantly lower in language, dissemblance, prosocial behavior, and likeability compared to their typical developing peers. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that language was a significant predictor of sociability. However, further analyses indicated that dissemblance mediated the relationship between language and likeability in girls, but not boys. Results from further analyses for prosocial behavior indicated that dissemblance did not mediate the relationship between language and prosocial behavior. Evidence from this study supports past research indicating children with LI experience emotional and language difficulties, which affect their social competence, particularly in girls.

Past research has indicated that children with language impairment (LI) struggle more than children with typical language in their social interactions (Fujiki, Brinton, & Todd, 1999). The purpose of this study was to determine if the social strategies and goals of children with LI varied from those of children with typically developing language. A social goals questionnaire was used to determine the strategies the children verbally indicated that they would use. The children were then asked why they would use the selected strategy. The responses were then separated into goal categories. A chi-square analysis indicated that children with LI varied significantly from children with typical language in their selection of the strategies of adult-seeking, passive, and hostile-controlling strategies. A descriptive analysis of the social goals showed the goals to be less relationship-oriented and less congruent with the selected strategy than typically developing peers.

Vowel equalization is a technique that can be used by singers to achieve a more balanced vocal tone. The technique balances corresponding front and back vowels, which share approximate tongue heights, and also balances high and low vowels in a more neutral or centralized lingual posture. Formants are resonance peaks that define each specific vowel. This study measured shifts in the first and second formants (F1 and F2) of the vowels /e, i, ɑ, o, u/ following training in vowel equalization. Prior to the training, the vowel formants were measured in amateur 15 college-aged singers. They sang the first two stanzas of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and then sustained each vowel for approximately 2 seconds. Following a 15-minute instruction in the vowel equalization technique, the singers repeated the exercises and the formants were re-measured. Shifts in F1 and F2 represent changes in lingual placement within the oral cavity. Vowel equalization pulls the lingual posture of a particular vowel to a more neutral or central position. While singing, a neutral placement is perceived as a pleasing balance between bright and dark tones. This study showed that following training the singers' formant values changed in a manner reflective of a more central tongue posture. These findings support the suggestion that the vowel equalization technique does indeed alter the articulation of sung vowels, shifting the formants to produce the desired chiaroscuro or balance between bright and dark sounds.

Previous studies examining withdrawal in children with language impairment (LI) have found that these children are more socially withdrawn than their typically developing peers. It seems reasonable to assume that a causal relationship exists between language deficits and withdrawal. However, there is growing evidence that different subtypes of withdrawal have varying social consequences and language may not be closely linked to each subtype. In the present study, subtests from the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL; Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999) were used to evaluate specific language skills and the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS; Hart & Robinson, 1996) was used to evaluate solitary-passive withdrawal behaviors of 34 children with LI and 34 children with typically developing language. These children were matched for age (ranging from 6;11 to 11;0) and gender. No significant difference in solitary-withdrawn behavior was found between groups of children with language impairment and children with typically developing language. There was also no significant relationship between the amount of solitary-passive withdrawal and the CASL subtest scores. The results suggest that low language ability may not be directly related to solitary-passive withdrawal. Rather, the relationship between language ability and solitary-passive withdrawal is complex and is likely influenced by other factors.

Hearing can be evaluated through the presentation of tones or speech. Speech audiometry determines an individual's speech recognition threshold and word recognition score. Traditionally these materials were developed using familiar, frequently used, monosyllabic words. Currently, there are various types of word recognition materials including those which use word lists, short half-lists, and materials which use sentences level stimuli with competing noise. Word recognition materials were first developed in Standard American English; today, materials are now readily available in many other languages. When possible, word recognition materials are developed digitally to standardize their presentation. Currently, no recorded word recognition materials are commercially available for native speakers of Samoan. Bisyllablic words were chosen, rated, recorded, and prepared for subject testing. All subjects were native speakers of Samoan with adequate hearing, meeting required standards for audiological research. Results indicated that no significant differences were found among bisyllabic word lists or half-lists developed in the current study. Subject word recognition performance and psychometric function slopes were comparable to the results of other related studies. All materials were recorded onto CD and made commercially available. It is hoped that this resource will aid trained professionals in the diagnosis and remediation of hearing loss in Samoan-speaking individuals.

Key aspects of prosody have been studied in adults for a number of years; however, less attention has been paid to the acoustic patterns of prosody in children. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate how a group of 20 pre-adolescent children use prosody to mark contrastive stress compared to a control group of adult speakers. It was of interest to investigate whether the children's use of prosody differed between boys and girls or the part of speech being emphasized. The prosodic patterns of contrastive stress were evaluated in terms of duration, fundamental frequency, and intensity change relative to a baseline production of the same sentence. In addition, a perceptual experiment was conducted to determine if listeners could reliably identify the gender of the child speakers when listening to sentence length utterances. Statistical analysis indicated that there were some differences in the duration and fundamental frequency change as a function of speaker age and the part of speech being emphasized, with relatively minor differences between genders. However it remains unclear if the acoustic differences found in this study were substantial enough to cause a salient perceptual difference. Although previous studies have identified increases in frequency, intensity, and duration as cues of contrastive stress, the present findings revealed patterns that did not consistently conform to these expectations. Limitations in the task design, individual speaker characteristics, and also the type of acoustic measure used may have contributed to these results.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between language skills and prosocial behavior in 37 children with language impairment (LI) and 37 typically developing peers matched for age (ranging from 6;11 to 11;1 years). The influence of gender on this relationship was also considered. Three different subtests of the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999) were used to evaluate language ability in the areas of language comprehension, language production and pragmatic judgment skills. The Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (C. H. Hart & Robinson, 1996) was used to evaluate prosocial behavior. The current study replicated previous research by documenting that children with LI demonstrate significantly poorer prosocial behavior skills than do typically developing peers. Children with LI also performed significantly more poorly on the three language subtests of paragraph comprehension, syntactic construction, and pragmatic judgment skills compared to typical peers. No significant gender differences were noted on any of the comparisons. Multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the relationship between the three language subtests and prosocial behavior in the group with LI compared to the typical group. Results for both groups indicated that paragraph comprehension, syntactic construction, and pragmatic judgment skills were not significant predictors of prosocial behavior when used in combination or independently. Results suggest that language alone cannot predict prosocial behavior in children with LI or typically developing children.

Previous studies have shown the importance of cricothyroid muscle activation in altering fundamental frequency in the human voice. Other studies have investigated the non-linear properties of vocal fold tissue and the impact of this non-linearity on frequency response. Several physical models of the vocal folds have been made for research purposes. However, all have been isotropic in nature with linear stress-strain properties. The purpose of this study was to create a physical model with non-linear stress-strain properties to investigate the frequency response of the model as cricothyroid muscle activation was simulated (in other words, as the vocal folds were stretched in an anterior-posterior dimension). In this study the physical models of the vocal folds were stretched in 1 mm increments and the fundamental frequency (F0) was recorded at each position. Subglottal pressure was also monitored and phonation threshold pressures were recorded for each adjustment in length and vocal fold tension, because this can influence F0. Results were obtained for models with and without non-linear properties for comparison. Tensile tests were also conducted for the linear and non-linear synthetic vocal folds. Results indicate that non-linear models demonstrated a more substantial frequency response than linear vocal fold models and a more predictable F0 increase with respect to increasing vocal fold length. Phonation threshold pressures also increased with increasing vocal fold length for non-linear vocal fold models. This trend was reversed for linear vocal fold models, with phonation threshold pressures decreasing with increasing vocal fold length. These results indicate that the non-linear vocal fold models more accurately represent the human vocal folds than do linear models. This study serves as the foundation for future research to quantify the impact of non-linear tissue properties versus active tensioning (through antagonistic thyroarytenoid muscle activation) on F0 response and phonation threshold pressure.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether 20 listeners could identify the gender of 10 preadolescent children from speech samples. An additional aim was to evaluate whether listeners identified children more accurately when listening to speech samples when more linguistic context was available. The listeners were presented with a total of 190 speech samples in four different categories of linguistic context: segments, words, sentences, and discourse. The listeners were instructed to listen to each speech sample and decide whether the speaker was a male or female. In addition, the listeners were instructed to rate their level of confidence in their decision on a 1-10 scale. Results showed listeners identified the gender of the speakers with a high degree of accuracy, ranging from 86% to 95%. In addition, statistical analysis showed significant differences in the accuracy of listener judgments among the four levels of linguistic context, with segments having the lowest (83%) and discourse the highest accuracy (99%). At the segmental level, the listeners' ability to identify the each speaker's gender from a speech sample was greater for vowels than for fricatives, with both types of phoneme being identified at a rate well above chance. Significant differences in identification were found between the /s/ and /ʃ/ fricatives, but not between the four corner vowels. The perception of gender is likely multifactorial, with listeners possibly using phonetic, prosodic, or stylistic speech cues to determine a speaker's gender.