Syftet med följande studie är att utifrån en sociokulturell teori bidra med ny kunskap om hur pedagoger i förskoleklass uppfattar språklek och dess betydelse för läs- och skrivinlärningen samt att identifiera pedagogernas medvetenhet för språklekens betydelse i ett främjande och förebyggande perspektiv inom det specialpedagogiska området. Tidigare forskning bekräftar användandet av språklek och att det med stor fördel kan användas i ett förebyggande syfte för läs- och skrivinlärningen.    Studiens empiriska material är insamlat genom ostrukturerade, semistrukturerade gruppintervjuer med inspiration från fokusgruppmetoden. Som metodisk ansats ses det empiriska materialet utifrån en kvalitativ innehållsanalys för att nå olika perspektiv på innehållet.  Resultatet visar att pedagogerna har en relevant utbildning för sitt kunskapsuppdrag och för språklek. Vidare visar resultatet att pedagogernas uppfattningar förstärker sambandet mellan tidiga insatser där språkleken har en tydlig plats och där språkleken kan ses som ett främjande arbetssätt i förskoleklass.  I diskussionen betonas framförallt de möjligheter som språkleken ger och hur det kan påverka skolor på organisationsnivå där beslut fattas om extra anpassningar och särskilt stöd.

This is a study of Mandarin third tone (T3) sandhi produced by learners learning Mandarin as a second language, third language, or heritage language. I investigate factors affecting learners’ Mandarin T3 sandhi performance measured by two constructs, comprehensibility and accentedness. T3 sandhi in Mandarin is a phonological property that learners of Mandarin need to acquire on top of the four lexical tones (i.e., Tone 1 high level, Tone 2 rising tone, Tone 3 dipping tone, and Tone 4 falling tone). T3 sandhi is a process that which lexical tones alternate categorically, changing from the underlying tone sequence of T3T3 to T2T3. This process is motivated by the underlying trochaic feet of Mandarin (Qu, 2013). 67 Chinese learners passed the screening test (i.e., reading monosyllabic words with satisfactory tone production) to ensure that they could produce basic lexical tones before their tone sandhi production was evaluated. The eligible learners’ reading of the experimental wordlist that consists of 40 disyllabic words (i.e., 20 sandhi words and 20 non-sandhi words) was judged by 20 native speakers of Chinese in terms of comprehensibility and accentedness on a scale of 1 to 9 (e.g., Munro & Derwing, 1995; Saito, Trofimovich & Isaacs, 2017). The primary findings of the study are 1) Comprehensibility and accentedness were confirmed to be two distinct constructs as learners were found to perform significantly differently on these two constructs (both p < .05). 2) Previously learned foot structure, either from first or second language (L1footness or L2footness), were found significantly predict L3 comprehensibility and accentedness. L1footness was correlated with better performance: higher comprehensibility and lower accentedness ratings. The finding of L2footness’ correlation with worse performance in comprehensibility and accentedness was confounding but caused by low exposure to the target language Mandarin. 3) Exposure to the target language, measured by total learning length, the number of Chinese courses taken and total time spent in China, was found significantly influence comprehensibility and accentedness. This shows the importance of teasing apart effects of exposure and language transfer in L3 acquisition studies, which echoes with Puig-Mayenco and Rothman (2020). 4) Heritage learners were not found to have any acquisitional advantages over non-heritage learners as there were no significant differences between heritage versus non-heritage learners. Furthermore, Cantonese learners were found to perform worse than L2 learners on T3 sandhi words (where T3 sandhi rules need to apply) but not on non-sandhi words due to their lack of foot structure in their heritage language Cantonese. This suggests the heterogeneous nature of the Chinese heritage learner population, and Cantonese heritage learners and Mandarin heritage learners should be distinguished at least for prosodic feature acquisition. / Graduate

This study examined the effects of a vocabulary intervention for 3 children with cleft lip and/or palate who showed limited consonant inventories and delayed expressive language. In a multiple baseline design across behaviors, a vocabulary intervention was implemented using a milieu model. The treatment produced an increase in vocabulary production that generalized to a conversational language sample in the clinic and home as reported by parents. Phonological variables, including consonant repertoire and syllable structure, were monitored before and after language treatment for all children. Phonological performance improved and did not need to be addressed as a separate goal in intervention.

In spoken word recognition, high-frequency words with few neighbors and less frequently occurring minimal pair neighbors (lexically easy words) are recognized more accurately than low-frequency words with many and more frequently occurring neighbors (lexically hard words). Bradlow and Pisoni (1999) found a larger easy hard word effect for non-native than native speakers of English. The present study extends this work by specifically comparing word recognition by non-native listeners with either earlier or later ages of immersion in an English-speaking environment to that of native English speakers. Listeners heard six lists of 24 words, each composed of 12 lexically easy and 12 lexically hard words in an open-set word identification task. Word lists were presented in quiet and in moderate noise. A substantially larger easy-hard word effect was obtained only for the later learners, but a measure of oral vocabulary size was significantly correlated with performance for the non-native listener groups only. Thus, the increased easy-hard word effect for non-native listeners appears to be explained as an effect of phonetic proficiency and/or vocabulary size on the structure of the lexical neighborhoods.

There has been a lack of comprehensive analyses of the articulation and phonological skills of preschool cleft palate children. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis, following a model suggested by Ingram (1981), was completed on three preschool children with cleft palates. The analysis was completed on a videotaped conversational play sample. Each sample was transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), compensatory substitution symbols, and diacritics. The samples were analyzed for a phonetic inventory of the sounds in the initial, medial, and final positions of words; for homonyms; for substitutions, distortions, and omissions; and for phonological processes. Each of the four analyses was summarized on a summary sheet. The results of the study indicated that each of the four analyses provides information that would enhance intervention planning. The results demonstrated that the subjects appeared to benefit more from some of the analyses than others. Each subject scored differently on the whole analysis. This was not predictable from the former testing results available for the subjects. Therefore, it seems essential that a comprehensive speech analysis be provided for preschool children who have cleft palates and are at risk of articulation and phonological delay.

No description available.

Children with ADHD have well documented deficiencies in phonological (word-based) short term memory (PHSTM) and covert rehearsal mechanisms; however, it is unknown whether these deficits are secondary to differences in time decay (i.e., the loss of information in the STM store due to an increase in time) or susceptibility to rehearsal interference (i.e., any distractor stimuli that prevents or hinders the maintenance of relevant information in the limited capacity STM store). In this study, ADHD and Typically Developing (TD) boys were instructed to recall word lists consisting of 2, 4, and 6 words (24 consecutive trials of each word list administered in counterbalanced order) following three distinct delay intervals (3-s 12-s, and 21-s) with and without a superimposed articulatory suppression condition (repeating the irrelevant syllable ‘la' throughout each of the 3 delay conditions) which served as interference to the rehearsal mechanism. Results revealed that both groups performed better under the simple recall relative to the articulatory suppression condition, and recalled fewer words across the three time delay intervals. A significant three-way interaction emerged among diagnosis (ADHD vs TD), delay interval (3-s, 12-s, 21-s), and task condition (simple recall vs articulatory suppression), and indicated that children with ADHD are more susceptible to articulatory suppression effects over time relative to TD children. Collectively, the obtained findings corroborate previous reports that children with ADHD have poorer phonological STM and indicate that these deficits may occur due to a greater susceptibility to rehearsal interference during phonological short term memory rehearsal.

The Heyang dialect has many distinct phonological features, which make it quite different from its adjacent dialects. The phonological features of the Heyang dialect are systematically studied, and the historical strata are revealed. Diverse historical strata exist in the current system of the Heyang dialect. In the Heyang dialect, there are phonological features which belong to the stratum of the Northwestern dialect during the Tang and Song dynasties. These features include: the Middle Chinese voiced obstruents are all aspitrated; the -ŋ ending is lost in the colloquial readings of Dang (宕) and Geng (梗) rhyme groups; the division III hekou syllables in Zhi (止) and Yu (遇) rhyme groups merge; and the division III and IV hekou finals of Xie (蟹) rhyme group are xiyin. The initials yi (疑) and wei (微) in the Heyang dialect are pronounced the same as they are in the Zhongyuan yinyun. The kaikou contrasted with the hekou finals in Guo (果) rhyme group when they combined with velar and glottal initials, the division I contrasted with division II finals of Xiao (效) rhyme group in the Heyang dialect. Those phonological phenomena belong to the historical stratum of the Zhongyuan yinyun. The Heyang dialect was further compared with the Meixian dialect, a representive of the Hakka dialect group. The two dialects share so many phonological characteristics. The relation between the two dialects is even closer than that between the Heyang dialect and Mandarin, in some essential aspects, which strongly suggests that the Heyang dialect may be rooted from the Zhongyuan dialects during the Tang and Song dynasty.

Background Early literacy skills have a crucial influence on the reading abilities and overall academic success of a child during the school years. The development of phonological awareness skills starts in the pre-school years. While phonological awareness predicts later reading success, working memory is also vital in higher cognitive skills such as reading. Phoneme-grapheme association supports and improves the lexical representation of words in the memory. The phoneme-grapheme association rules in transparent orthographies are in general more predictable and more words can be accurately read at an early stage. Therefore, reading accuracy and fluency seem to develop more straightforwardly since the phoneme-grapheme association is less complicated. As yet, the researcher has come across no studies which explored the role of phonological awareness and working memory in Afrikaans with its transparent orthography. Purpose To explore and describe the role of working memory in the acquisition of phonological awareness skills and ultimately reading in Afrikaans, a language with a transparent orthography. Method A cross-sectional descriptive design with correlational components was used to obtain data from the participants, aged 7 years to 8 years 11 months. Thirty-five participants from five private schools with Afrikaans as language of learning and teaching (LoLT) were assessed. Results The participants employed phonetic decoding more than eidetic decoding. The word reading skills of the participants developed rapidly and exceeded regular expectations. An overall high reading rate was displayed by the participants, likely due to the transparent orthography of Afrikaans. A higher score for the reading comprehension test was obtained by participants who read the comprehension test fluently. Text reading fluency made a more significant contribution to the performance of the participants on the reading comprehension test than word reading fluency. The number memory reversed subtest was more challenging than number memory forward. Shorter words were recalled more easily than longer words. It was less challenging for the participants to recall an eight- to ten-word sentence than to recall a list of words. Visual spatial memory had no significant relationship to the decoding or reading comprehension skills of the participants. The rhyming production subtest was more challenging than the rhyming discrimination subtest. The impact of syllable awareness skills on the word decoding skills of the participants was not significant. The segmenting and blending scores exceeded the expected performance of the participants. The correlation coefficient between reading comprehension and WM was not statistically significant. The relationship between WM and reading skills seems to be the same in both opaque and transparent orthographies. The correlations of PA and PhA skills with the word reading skills of the participants were moderate in strength. A fairly strong correlation between reading comprehension and PA as well as PhA skills was, however, observed. Conclusion The fairly strong statistically significant correlation between word reading skills and WM supports reading development in the early phases. The reasoning behind this deduction is that children who cannot hold and manipulate information in memory will find phoneme-grapheme association difficult. Keywords: Afrikaans, phonological awareness, reading, transparent orthographies, working memory. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / MA (Speech-Language Pathology) / Unrestricted

The purpose of this study was to identify relationships that exist between reading ability in 3rd grade and phonological awareness in kindergarten. A second purpose was to identify specific prereading skills that best predict later reading success. This study used a quantitative research design to answer the research questions posed. The population for this research was 244 fourth grade students enrolled in 3 primary schools in a school system in Southwest Virginia. The data used for this research study were obtained from each student's score on the kindergarten Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening and the 3rd grade Virginia Standards of Learning examination in reading. Four predictor variables (rhyme awareness, letter recognition, sound-letter relationships, and concept of word) were evaluated to determine their level of predictability for later reading success. Independent samples t-tests were conducted to determine whether a significant difference in the mean score of the PALS and SOL examination in reading existed between male and female students. Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to determine whether a statistically significant relationship existed between the PALS and the SOL examination in reading. Subsequent Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to determine if a significant relationship existed between the PALS and the SOL examination in reading for female and male students. Female students were found to have a higher mean score than male students on the kindergarten PALS. Female and male students tended to score about same on the 3rd grade SOL examination in reading. PALS score and SOL score were found to be significantly related suggesting that students with high phonological awareness scores in kindergarten tended to also have high scores on the 3rd grade Virginia SOL examination in reading. A Pearson correlation coefficient also indicated that female students with high kindergarten phonological awareness scores tended to have high scores on the 3rd grade Virginia SOL examination in reading. Rhyme awareness was identified as the best early predictor of later reading ability.