Background: The diadochokinetic (DDK) rate represents an index for assessing motor skills. It is commonly used in routine clinical evaluation of diseases of the central nervous system, disturbances of the peripheral sensory motor formations and immaturity of the speech mechanism. "Oral" DDK rates are a popular guideline for the…

Phonological neutralization from a generative viewpoint is examined, and the process of solving the problems of representing the products of neutralization is described. First, in generative phonological terms, the product must be morphologically irresoluble in order to be considered a true neutralization. This distinguishes neutralization from…

Presented in this manual are 50 practitioner-contributed speech therapy activities for students from preschool through secondary levels, structured according to the following format: grade level, objectives, materials needed, and procedures. Half of the activities give students practice in articulation, while the other half are language activities…

A study examined the role of phonological regression in the language learning patterns of two toddlers. The children's phonological development was measured by inventories of the words produced at the beginning and end of an eight-week period, and distinctions were made between regressions due to cognitive factors and those due to non-cognitive…

Three linguistic studies of Philippine languages are presented. In "Sociolinguistic Survey of Bantoanon" by M. Ruth Gordon and Heather J. Kilgour, sociolinguistic methods were used to study the Bantoanon area of northwest Ramblon province to learn how the Bantoanon people feel about their language and where its linguistic center is.…

A question of both theoretical and practical importance for the study of phonological development is whether there is a difference in the status of productions rendered spontaneously by the child and those repeated by the child after either an adult model or his own production. The relevant theoretical questions are: (1) Are all the child's…

THIS STUDY OF THE ARTICULATORY AND INTELLIGIBILITY LEVEL OF A SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED GROUP OF CHILDREN IN THE HEAD START PROGRAM INVOLVED 150 CHILDREN, 4 1/2 - 6 YEARS OF AGE, WITH EQUAL NUMBERS OF BOYS AND GIRLS. THIS GROUP WAS COMPOSED OF CHILDREN OF FAMILIES WITH SPANISH LANGUAGE BACKGROUND, OF CHILDREN OF NATIVE NEGRO FAMILIES, AND OF CHILDREN…

THIS GUIDE FOR THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM TEACHER DISCUSSES HER ROLE IN A PROGRAM OF SPEECH THERAPY OR SPEECH IMPROVEMENT, WHETHER IN COOPERATION WITH A SPEECH THERAPIST OR ALONE. GOOD SPEECH AND DEFECTIVE SPEECH ARE DEFINED, AND ACTIVITIES TO ENCOURAGE SPEECH IN THE CLASSROOM ARE LISTED. SPECIFIC DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES AND THERAPEUTIC…

This report is one in a regular series on the status and progress of speech research. The 11 manuscript topics are: towards a theoretical reassessment of the role of proprioception in the perception and control of human movement, interarticulator programing in stop production, the beginnings of speech, proofreading errors on the word "the," the…

Presented are 39 lessons and student worksheets designed to help the classroom teacher improve the speech skills of trainable retarded elementary school children. It is explained that the lessons and corresponding activity sheets focus on auditory discrimination, speech sounds and sentence patterns. Lessons are sequenced and usually contain a…

Presented are specific sequential procedures for use by paraprofessionals in correcting children's mild to moderate articulation problems. The sequence consists of eight activities to prepare the child for the program, five steps in the area of ear training, and ten steps to teach speech production. Activities and minimum teaching times are…

This is a report on the deviant phonological system of a 4-year-old child. Although this system is characterized by deletions, assimilations, simplifications, and distortions, there is a regularity in the system which lends itself to systematic phonological analysis. Based on an examination of sample phonological deviations, the following rules…

This document "attempts to provide a representative, undogmatic, and fairly thorough coverage of selected areas of the psycholinguistic literature which are not accurately covered in existing bibliographies." Because the authors feel that psycholinguistics consists of the study of the acquisition, production, and understanding of a natural…

Irregularities in oral fluency, or "disfluencies," are common in the speech habits of both children and adults. Disfluencies can take the form of hesitations, revisions, repetitions, or interjections. Most disfluenceies do not occur at random, but are directly linked to other factors such as verbal planning--the combination of decisions…

The pronunciations of children do not merely represent accidental misses with respect to adult pronunciation. Children employ substitutions and deletions in highly systematic ways; child pronunciations reflect a set of simplification strategies. The major common processes of both normal and abnormal child phonology result in simplification of…