Background: Speech and language are interconnected systems, and language disorder often co-occurs with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and non-CAS speech sound disorders (SSDs). Potential trade-off effects between speech and language in connected speech in children without overt language disorder have been less explored. Method: Story retell…

Purpose: Developmental dyslexia is a specific learning disorder that affects 5-17% children, and persists into adulthood. Speech perception in noise (SPIN) ability in dyslexia has been largely examined in previous studies. However, the available literature remains controversial and it is unclear under which conditions the deficits occur. The…

Purpose: Speech motor skill is refined over the course of practice, which is commonly reflected by increased accuracy and consistency. This research examined the relationship between auditory-perceptual ratings of word accuracy and measures of speech motor timing and variability at pre- and posttreatment in children with childhood apraxia of…

Purpose: Background noise and voice problems among teachers can degrade listening conditions in classrooms. The aim of this literature review is to understand how these acoustic degradations affect spoken language processing in 6- to 18-year-old children. Method: In a narrative report and meta-analysis, we systematically review studies that…

Purpose: This study evaluated whether outcomes from treatment, which includes ultrasound visual feedback (UVF), would be more or less effective when combined with auditory perception training for children with residual /[voiced alveolar approximant]/ errors. Method: Children ages 8-16 years with /[voiced alveolar approximant]/ distortions…

Anticipatory coarticulation is an indispensable feature of speech dynamics contributing to spoken language fluency. Research has shown that children speak with greater degrees of vowel anticipatory coarticulation than adults -- that is, greater vocalic influence on previous segments. The present study examined how developmental differences in…

Categories are fundamental to everyday life and the ability to learn new categories is relevant across the lifespan. Categories are ubiquitous across modalities, supporting complex processes such as object recognition and speech perception. Prior work has proposed that different categories may engage learning systems with unique developmental…

Purpose: ?he lexical stress pattern (trochaic vs. iambic) may affect various aspects of word learning and word production in children with cochlear implants (CIs). This study aimed to investigate lexical stress effects in word learning by Greek-speaking children with CIs. Method: A word learning paradigm, consisting of a word production and a word…

Purpose: As a class, fricatives are more "resistant" to consonant-vowel coarticulation than other English sounds. This study investigates the relative coarticulatory resistance of /[voiceless dental fricative], s, [voiceless palato-alveolar fricative]/ in child and adult speech to better understand the acquisition of individuated speech…

Purpose: A normative study using the Multiple Auditory Processing Assessment--2 (MAPA-2; Schow et al., 2018) was recently completed. With access to these data, the authors extend that work and support a definite construct for auditory processing disorder (APD). The goal here is to examine MAPA-2 reliability and validity (construct, content, and…

Purpose: This study tested the hypothesis that audiovisual training benefits children more than it does adults and that it improves Japanese-speaking children's English /r/-/l/ perception to a native-like level. Method: Ten sessions of audiovisual English /r/-/l/ identification training were conducted for Japanese-speaking adults and children.…

Purpose: This study aimed to identify predictors of response to treatment for residual speech sound disorder (RSSD) affecting English rhotics. Progress was tracked during an initial phase of traditional motor-based treatment and a longer phase of treatment incorporating ultrasound biofeedback. Based on previous literature, we focused on baseline…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether previously reported parental questionnaire-based differences in attentional shifting and inhibitory control (AS and IC; Eggers, De Nil, & Van den Bergh, 2010) would be supported by direct measurement of AS and IC using a computer task. Method: Participants were 16 Finnish children…

Children interact with and learn about all types of sound sources, including dogs, bells, trains, and human beings. Although it is clear that knowledge of semantic categories for everyday sights and sounds develops during childhood, there are very few studies examining how children use this knowledge to make sense of auditory scenes. We used a…

A recent study has shown that congenitally blind adults, who have never had visual experience, are impaired on an auditory spatial bisection task (Gori, Sandini, Martinoli, & Burr, 2014). In this study we investigated how thresholds for auditory spatial bisection and auditory discrimination develop with age in sighted and congenitally blind…