A high-amplitude sucking procedure, with synthesized female speech, was used to ascertain the effects of fundamental frequency, amplitude, and duration on discrimination of polysyllabic sequences. Results suggest that the exaggerated suprasegmentals of infant-directed speech may function as a perceptual catalyst, focusing the infant's attention on…

Assesses the extent to which 30 third graders employ phonetically-based spelling strategies in representing synthetic words with high and mid front vowels. Finds spelling of good readers rule-governed and derived from judgement about language while that of poor readers showed less awareness of written language patterns. (LFL)

Forty-five normally developing children, ages five, six, and seven, participated in a metaphonologic study examining the knowledge of auditory/articulatory correspondences. With development, there were significant increases in correct responses on the nonverbal task and in verbal explanation types. No significant relationship between performance…

Six functionally misarticulating preschool children were taught to produce [r] and one other sound absent from their phonetic inventory. For 86 percent of the 28 monitored sounds, generalization was consistent with pretreatment stimulability skills; production of stimulable sounds tended to improve regardless of whether treatment target was a…

The performance of 17 prelingually severely and profoundly hearing-impaired subjects on the Speech Pattern Contrast Test (Version II) was evaluated. Although performance on most of the contrast subtests was significantly correlated with phoneme and word recognition, intercorrelations among most subtests were also significant. (Author/DB)

This study evaluated the voiced/voiceless phonation time for /s/ and /z/ for 11 children (ages 5-10) with vocal pathology and 11 normal speaking children. Results showed no difference in /s/ durations between groups, but /z/ durations and s/z ratios were significantly different. Results are discussed in relation to task construction, instructional…

Examined the effects of rounded and unrounded vowels on the perception of the voiceless fricatives "s" and "sh" by adults and by young children who could and could not produce both sounds. Concluded that productive mastery is not critically responsible for perception of the distinction between the two phonemes or the…

Comparison of 48 cerebral palsied individuals (aged 10-18), either with impaired speech or normal speech, found speech-impaired subjects were able to discriminate phoneme contrasts adequately in a word judgment task but performed less well on a phoneme discrimination "same-different" task possibly resulting from a weak memory for novel…

Phoneme-specific nasal emission was identified in 36 children, age 3-16; 19 children had no orofacial mechanism anomalies, whereas 17 had findings ranging from minor to severe. The 2 groups were more alike than different in speech behaviors. Five patterns of phoneme-specific nasal emission were exhibited by 2 or more children. (Author/JDD)

Measures the degree of interdependence in timing between infants' right and left arm movements and between movements of both arms and the onsets of stressed vowels in tape-recorded infant-appropriate speech. (HOD)

Evaluates use of spelling-sound correspondences to read and spell by third-graders defined as good readers and good spellers, good readers and poor spellers, or poor readers and poor spellers. Indicates that all groups used correspondences but that children in mixed and poor groups used them less systematically and had weaker knowledge of…

This study examined effects of intrasyllabic units on lexical decision performance in 15 normal reading (NR) children and 15 children with reading disabilities (RD) in a transparent orthography (Spanish). Findings suggest that Spanish children with RD do not use correspondences based on higher level units (onsets and rimes) in visual word…

This study investigated the effectiveness of articulation training (daily sessions for 8 weeks) on the production of phonemes by 12 hearing impaired children (ages 5-10). Results suggest that phonemes with an intermediate error rate (trained at a phonological level) are easier to train than phonemes with a high error rate (trained at a phonetic…

This study, with 30 language learning-disabled, reading-disabled, and normal primary school children, found that clause structure complexity, fluency, and grammatical and phonemic accuracy tended to be highest when children were discussing absent referents, providing explanations and stories, and giving unshared information. These effects were…

This study examined effects of familiarity with a speech target on coarticulation magnitude in 30 young children and 10 adults. Children exhibited a greater effect of a following vowel on the preceding fricative than did adults. Nonmeaningful production items exhibited greater effects of the vowel on the preceding fricative than did meaningful…