This study examined accuracy on syllable-final (coda) consonants in newly-learned English-like nonwords to determine whether school-aged bilingual children may be more vulnerable to making errors on English-only codas than their monolingual, English-speaking peers, even at a stage in development when phonological accuracy in productions of…

Purpose: Five experiments probed auditory-visual (AV) understanding of sentences by users of cochlear implants (CIs). Method: Sentence material was presented in auditory (A), visual (V), and AV test conditions to listeners with normal hearing and CI users. Results: (a) Most CI users report that most of the time, they have access to both A and V…

Purpose: This randomized controlled trial compared the experimental Rapid Syllable Transition (ReST) treatment to the Nuffield Dyspraxia Programme-Third Edition (NDP3; Williams & Stephens, 2004), used widely in clinical practice in Australia and the United Kingdom. Both programs aim to improve speech motor planning/programming for children…

Purpose: Chronic deep brain stimulation of the nucleus ventralis intermedius is an effective treatment for individuals with medication-resistant essential tremor. However, these individuals report that stimulation has a deleterious effect on their speech. The present study investigates one important factor leading to these effects: the…

This engaging text clearly presents essential concepts that teachers need to guide their students toward clearly intelligible pronunciation and more effective communication skills. Based on a sound theoretical background, the book presents practical, imaginative ways to teach and practice pronunciation that go beyond simple "Repeat after…

Purpose: The gold standard for diagnosing childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is expert judgment of perceptual features. The aim of this study was to identify a set of objective measures that differentiate CAS from other speech disorders. Method: Seventy-two children (4-12 years of age) diagnosed with suspected CAS by community speech-language…

Purpose: Children acquire /-ez/ syllabic plurals (e.g., buses) later than /-s, -z/ segmental plurals (e.g., cats,dogs). In this study, the authors explored whether increased syllable number or segmental factors best explains poorer performance with syllabic plurals. Method: An elicited imitation experiment was conducted with 14 two-year-olds…

This dissertation explores a purportedly unusual word type known as the "sesquisyllable," which has long been considered characteristic of mainland Southeast Asian languages. Sesquisyllables are traditionally defined as "one and a half" syllables, or as one "major" syllable preceded by one "minor" syllable,…

Recent work has shown that children have detailed phonological representations of consonants at both word-initial and word-final edges. Nonetheless, it remains unclear whether onsets and codas are equally represented by young learners since word edges are isomorphic with syllable edges in this work. The current study sought to explore toddler's…

Purpose: To improve our understanding about the underlying factors of aging-related speaking rate decline, the authors sought to determine if lip and jaw speeds are physiologically constrained in older adults. Method: Thirty-six female--10 young adults (ages 22-27 years), 9 middle-aged adults (ages 45-55 years), 10 young-old adults (65-74 years),…

Purpose: This study explored whether breathing behaviors of infants within the 2nd year of life differ between tidal breathing and breathing supporting single unarticulated syllables and canonical/articulated syllables. Method: Vocalizations and breathing kinematics of 9 infants between 53 and 90 weeks of age were recorded. A strict selection…

Purpose: The authors compared articulatory contact pressure (ACP), oral air pressure (Po), and speech acoustics for conversational versus clear speech. They also assessed the relationship of these measures to listener perception. Method: Twelve adults with normal speech produced monosyllables in a phrase using conversational and clear speech.…

This dissertation provides an account of Zulu reduplication within the derivational framework of Distributed Morphology (DM). New Zulu data challenge the idea of reified domains like the D(erivational)-Stem and Macrostem as relevant constituents for reduplication (Downing 1997, Hyman, Inkelas, and Sibanda 2009). Instead, a crucial distinction is…

Background: Rapid syllable repetition tasks are commonly used in the assessment of motor speech disorders. However, little is known about the articulatory kinematics during rapid syllable repetition in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Aims: To investigate and compare lingual kinematics during rapid syllable repetition in dysarthric…

The aim of this study was to determine, using speech error and articulatory analyses, whether the binary distinction between iambs and trochees should be extended to include additional prosodic subcategories. Adults, children who are normally developing, and children with specific language impairment (SLI) participated. Children with SLI were…