In this paper the author attempts to describe the actual linguistic problems of the retardates, compare their language with that of normal children and thereby tries to illustrate that although the language of retardates delay, they acquire language in the same sequence, as compared with the normal children. Three moderately retarded children with…

Purpose: To compare articulation and speech rates of school-aged children who do and do not stutter across sentence priming, structured conversation, and narration tasks and to determine factors that predict children's speech and articulation rates. Method: 34 children who stutter (CWS) and 34 age- and gender-matched children who do not stutter…

Traditional models of adult language processing and production include two levels of representation: lexical and sublexical. The current study examines the influence of the inclusion of a lexical representation (i.e. a visual referent and/or object function) on the stability of articulation as well as on phonetic accuracy and variability in…

A companion paper describes three extensions to a classification system for paediatric speech sound disorders termed the Speech Disorders Classification System (SDCS). The SDCS uses perceptual and acoustic data reduction methods to obtain information on a speaker's speech, prosody, and voice. The present paper provides reliability estimates for…

Purpose: Attaining speech accuracy requires that children perceive and attach meanings to vocal output on the basis of production system capacities. Because auditory perception underlies speech accuracy, profiles for children with hearing loss (HL) differ from those of children with normal hearing (NH). Method: To understand the impact of auditory…

Background: Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal-dominant neurocutaneous disorder with an estimated prevalence of two to three cases per 10 000 population. While the physical characteristics have been well documented, speech disorders have not been fully characterized in NF1 patients. Aims: This study serves as a pilot to identify key…

Background: School-aged children with persisting speech sound disorders (SSDs) may show little improvement in speech accuracy following phonological or articulation therapy. Aims: To determine the effects of establishing consonant production in facilitative vowel contexts for a 7-year-old boy (CD) with persisting post-alveolar fronting. CD had…

The goal of this work is to investigate whether children with speech dysfunctions (SD) show a deficit in planning some Portuguese syllable structures (PSS) in continuous speech production. Knowledge of which aspects of speech production are affected by SD is necessary for efficient improvement in the therapy techniques. The case-study is focused…

Purpose: This study presents an analysis of language skills in individuals with Noonan syndrome (NS), an autosomal dominant genetic disorder. We investigated whether the language impairments affecting some individuals arise from deficits specifically within the linguistic system or whether they are associated with cognitive, perceptual, and motor…

Hemispherectomy (disconnection or removal of an entire cerebral hemisphere) is a rare surgical procedure used for the relief of drug-resistant epilepsy in children. After hemispherectomy, contralateral hemiplegia persists whereas gross expressive and receptive language functions can be remarkably spared. Motor speech deficits have rarely been…

Purpose: To compare the perceived articulation rate of boys with fragile X syndrome (FXS) with that of chronologically age-matched (CA) boys and to determine segmental and/or prosodic factors that account for perceived rate. Method: Ten listeners used direct magnitude estimation procedures to judge the articulation rates of 7 boys with FXS only, 5…

This paper investigates patterns of error production in 10 children who use cochlear implants, focusing specifically on the acquisition of obstruents. Two broad patterns of production errors are investigated, fortition (or strengthening) errors and lenition (or weakening) errors. It is proposed that fortition error patterns tend to be related to…

This article documents the typological occurrence and interactions of two seemingly independent error patterns, namely Velar Fronting and Labial Harmony, in a cross-sectional investigation of the sound systems of 235 children with phonological delays (ages 3;0 to 7;9). The results revealed that the occurrence of Labial Harmony depends on the…

Velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS) is a genetic disorder caused by a microdeletion of chromosome 22q11.2. Although there is some variability, VCFS is associated with a characteristic physical, behavioral, and cognitive phenotype. This review article focuses on aspects of language and literacy development in VCFS, describing what is known and…

Background: Children and young people with Down's syndrome present with deficits in expressive speech and language, accompanied by strengths in vocabulary comprehension compared with non-verbal mental age. Intelligibility is particularly low, but whether speech is delayed or disordered is a controversial topic. Most studies suggest a delay, but no…