Basic Auditory Processing Skills and Specific Language Impairment

Basic Auditory Processing Skills and Specific Language Impairment: A New Look at an Old Hypothesis

Kathleen Corriveau
Elizabeth Pasquini
Usha Goswami
Centre for Neuroscience in Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England

Contact author: Usha Goswami, Centre for Neuroscience, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, United Kingdom. E-mail: ucg10@cam.ac.uk .

 

 

Purpose: To explore the sensitivity of children with specific language impairment (SLI) to amplitude-modulated and durational cues that are important for perceiving suprasegmental speech rhythm and stress patterns.

 

Method: Sixty-three children between 7 and 11 years of age were tested, 21 of whom had a diagnosis of SLI, 21 of whom were matched for chronological age to the SLI sample, and 21 of whom were matched for language age to the SLI sample. All children received a battery of nonspeech auditory processing tasks along with standardized measures of phonology and language.

 

Results: As many as 70%–80% of children diagnosed with SLI were found to perform below the 5th percentile of age-matched controls in auditory processing tasks measuring sensitivity to amplitude envelope rise time and sound duration. Furthermore, individual differences in sensitivity to these cues predicted unique variance in language and literacy attainment, even when age, nonverbal IQ, and task-related (attentional) factors were controlled.

 

Conclusion: Many children with SLI have auditory processing difficulties, but for most children, these are not specific to brief, rapidly successive acoustic cues. Instead, sensitivity to durational and amplitude envelope cues appear to predict language and literacy outcomes more strongly. This finding now requires replication and exploration in languages other than English.

 

 

KEY WORDS: phonology, auditory processing, speech and language

Correlates of Phonological Awareness in Preschoolers With Speech

Correlates of Phonological Awareness in Preschoolers With Speech Sound Disorders

Susan Rvachew
Meghann Grawburg
McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Contact author: Susan Rvachew, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University, 1266 Pine Avenue West, Montréal, Québec H3G 1A8, Canada. Email: susan.rvachew@mcgill.ca

 

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among variables that may contribute to poor phonological awareness (PA) skills in preschool-aged children with speech sound disorders (SSD).

 

METHOD: Ninety-five 4- and 5-year-old children with SSD were assessed during the spring of their prekindergarten year. Linear structural equation modeling was used to compare the fit of 2 models of the possible relationships among PA, speech perception, articulation, receptive vocabulary, and emergent literacy skills.

 

RESULTS: Half the children had significant difficulty with speech perception and PA despite demonstrating receptive language skills within or above the average range. The model that showed the best fit to the data indicated that speech perception is a pivotal variable that has a direct effect on PA and an indirect effect that is mediated by vocabulary skills. Articulation accuracy did not have a direct impact on PA. Emergent literacy skills were predicted by PA abilities.

 

CONCLUSIONS: Children with SSD are at greatest risk of delayed PA skills if they have poor speech perception abilities and/or relatively poor receptive vocabulary skills. Children with SSD should receive assessments of their speech perception, receptive vocabulary, PA, and emergent literacy skills.

 

 

KEY WORDS: phonological disorders, phonological awareness, speech perception

Physiological Indices of Bilingualism: Oral–Motor Coordination an

Physiological Indices of Bilingualism: Oral–Motor Coordination and Speech Rate in Bengali–English Speakers

Rahul Chakraborty
Lisa Goffman
Anne Smith
Purdue University

Contact author: Rahul Chakraborty, who is now at the Department of Communication Disorders, Texas State University–San Marcos, 601 University Drive, Room 169, San Marcos, TX 78666. E-mail: rc39@txstate.edu .

 

Purpose: To examine how age of immersion and proficiency in a 2nd language influence speech movement variability and speaking rate in both a 1st language and a 2nd language.

 

Method: A group of 21 Bengali–English bilingual speakers participated. Lip and jaw movements were recorded. For all 21 speakers, lip movement variability was assessed based on productions of Bengali (L1; 1st language) and English (L2; 2nd language) sentences. For analyses related to the influence of L2 proficiency on speech production processes, participants were sorted into low- (n = 7) and high-proficiency (n = 7) groups. Lip movement variability and speech rate were evaluated for both of these groups across L1 and L2 sentences.

 

Results: Surprisingly, adult bilingual speakers produced equally consistent speech movement patterns in their production of L1 and L2. When groups were sorted according to proficiency, highly proficient speakers were marginally more variable in their L1. In addition, there were some phoneme-specific effects, most markedly that segments not shared by both languages were treated differently in production. Consistent with previous studies, movement durations were longer for less proficient speakers in both L1 and L2.

 

Interpretation: In contrast to those of child learners, the speech motor systems of adult L2 speakers show a high degree of consistency. Such lack of variability presumably contributes to protracted difficulties with acquiring nativelike pronunciation in L2. The proficiency results suggest bidirectional interactions across L1 and L2, which is consistent with hypotheses regarding interference and the sharing of phonological space. A slower speech rate in less proficient speakers implies that there are increased task demands on speech production processes.

 

KEY WORDS: bilingual, speech motor control, variability, Bengali