This study explored the language skills of children with cochlear implants (CIs) compared to normal hearing (NH) peers. Standardized speech and language measures, including speech articulation, receptive and expressive vocabulary, syntax and morphology, and metalinguistics, were administered to 39 congenitally deaf children, ages 5 to 14, and a…

A number of authors have presented data on the word length (measured in syllables) in the spontaneous speech of children across the developmental period. These data suggest a developmental trend of increasing length with age. The current study sought to examine this possibility in more detail. Conversational speech data from 320 children with…

The study examined the frequency of occurrence of velar deviations in spontaneous single-word utterances over a six-month period for 40 children (2 to 3-years-old). Results indicated that velars presented difficulty for less than half of the children. Velar difficulty was associated with position in the word and the vowel environment. (Author/DB)

The effects of reduced auditory feedback on spatial and temporal parameters of speech production were investigated using cinefluorographic techniques with three normal hearing women. Results suggested that auditory information plays a role in maintaining dynamic aspects of speech kinematics. Implications for hearing impaired speakers are noted.…

Analysis of the speech intelligibility of 20 hearing impaired college students revealed that sentence intelligibility scores were higher than word intelligibility scores only for the better speakers and that no differences were apparent between sentence and single word intelligibility for the poorer speakers. (Author/CL)

Sixty-five six-year-old deaf children from state supported schools were given an adaptation of the Goldman Fristoe test of articulation to assess their spontaneous speech production. Journal availability: Elsevier North Holland, Inc., 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017. (Author)

Investigates the influence of word abstraction, part of speech, word length, and word frequency on the amount of non-fluencies of stuttering subjects. (RB)

Results of asking 30 nonprofessionals for reasons speakers were judged to be retarded or not indicated that quality of speech (articulation, prosody, etc.) and the structure, content, and coherence of discourse are more important than sentence-level grammatical features in forming impressions of cognitive competence. (Author/DB)

A new graphic way of summarizing information about age in relation to consonant development is proposed. (Author)

A combination of perceptual and electropalatographic (EPG) analysis is used to investigate speech production in three adolescent speakers with a history of cleft palate. All the subjects still sound markedly atypical. Their speech output is analysed in three conditions: diadochokinetic tasks; single word production; connected speech. Comparison of…

Examined were protrusive lingual force and lingual diadochokinetic rates in 45 normal and 45 front-lisping speakers (7-12-years old). Results revealed that normal speaking Ss scored significantly higher on lingual force and diadochokinetic rate measurements, challenging the theory that lisping is purely a functional articulatory disorder. (CL)

The efficacy of speech training using meaningful versus nonmeaningful verbal stimuli with 10 severely and profoundly hearing-impaired elementary children was investigated. Results indicated that both syllable and word training improved imitative production of target phonemes in trained contexts. Word training was significantly more effective for…