Barbara W. Hodson

Intelligibility/Severity Measurements of Prekindergarten Children’s Speech

Intelligibility/severity measurements were obtained for 48 prekindergarten children with varying levels of phonological proficiency/ deficiency. The measure used as the “standard” was percentage of words understood (i.e., orthographically transcribed correctly) in continuous speech in a known context by unfamiliar trained listeners. The children were divided into four groups based on the percentage of words understood from their continuous speech samples. The ranges of intelligibility for each group were: (a) 91–100% for children with “adult-like” speech; (b) 83–90% for children in the “mild” category; (c) 68–81% for children with moderate intelligibility/speech involvement; and (d) 16–63% for the 12 children in the “severe” (i.e., least intelligible) category. When the percentages of the children in the severe group were excluded, the range of the top three groups combined was 68–100% and the mean was 85%. For a child 4 years of age or older, any percentage of words understood in connected speech that fa...

Variables that influence decoding and spelling in beginning readers

Performances on tasks of phonemic manipulation, working memory, rapid naming, multisyllable word naming, receptive vocabulary and nonverbal intelligence were compared with decoding and spelling scores for 75 begin-ning readers. Multiple regression analysis revealed that phonemic manipula-tion accounted for the greatest amount of variance for both decoding and spelling. Working memory and receptive vocabulary added additional unique variance for decoding. Multisyllable word naming and rapid naming contri-buted significantly to spelling. The major implication of the results is that phonemic manipulation should be included in an assessment battery for beginning readers.

Identifying phonological patterns and projecting remediation cycles: Expediting intelligibility gains of a 7 year old Australian child

The primary purpose of this case study was to analyse phonological deviations of a 7 year old with highly unintelligible speech in order to (a) identify deficient phonological patterns, (b) determine the severity of his phonological impairment, (c) identify optimal target patterns for treatment, and (d) obtain baseline data to be used for comparison following treatment. The method involved analysing transcriptions of 50 phonological assessment words for occurrences of (a) syllable/word structure omissions, (b) consonant category deficiencies, and (c) substitutions and other strategies. The total occurrences of major phonological deviations placed this clients performance in the profound range of phonological impairment. Primary target patterns for the first cycle of intervention include: (a) final consonants, (b) /s/ clusters, (c) velars, and (d) liquids. Potential optimal phoneme targets to enhance the phonological patterns were projected for cycle one (approximately 16 contact hours). In addition, potential secondary target patterns for later cycles were discussed.

The Acquisition of 10 Spanish Morphemes by Spanish Speaking Children

Spontaneous language samples were obtained from 15 Mexican-American monolingual Spanish-speaking children between the ages of 2:0 and 4:8. The samples were analyzed for acquisition of 10 morphemes....

The Role of Phonological Representation in Decoding Skills of Young Readers.

Phonological awareness reflects the strength of a childs ability to represent linguistic information cognitively at the phonological level. Although the role of phonological awareness in early reading decoding has been well documented, its relationship to other factors affecting reading decoding has yet to be fully examined. In this study, the relative strength of phonological representation was assessed through real word production, nonword repetition and phonological manipulation. The contribution of phonological representation to reading decoding was compared to the contribution of working memory, nonverbal intelligence and receptive vocabulary. Multiple regression analysis indicated that a complex phonological manipulation task, pig Latin, explained far more of the variance in reading decoding than any of the other predictor variables. Working memory, measured through a concurrent processing task, was not a significant predictor.

Phonological Systems of Speech-Disordered Clients with Positive/Negative Histories of Otitis Media

Spontaneous object-naming utterances of two groups of articulation-disordered clients, who were considered to be normal in all areas except speech, were analyzed for phonological error patterns. Subjects with histories of recurrent otitis media during their first 24 months evidenced stridency deletion (in consonant singletons and in consonant clusters) significantly more than did the subjects who had negative otitis media histories. The most prevalent error pattern for both groups pertained to deviations involving /r,/ target phonemes. Limitations of retrospective studies and implications for future research are discussed.

Remediating Unintelligible Utterances of a Child With a Mild Hearing Loss

An individualized phonological cycles remediation plan was designed and implemented for a highly unintelligible 4-year-old child with an unusual hearing loss. At the age of 6:3 (yrs:mos), the clien...

Phonological Assessment and Analysis of Bilingual Preschoolers' Spanish and English Word Productions

PURPOSE The major purpose of this study was to examine Spanish and English phonological productions (patterns/deviations) of typically developing bilingual preschool children. Phonological scores were compared in order to determine if significant differences exist between (a) boys and girls, (b) 4- and 5-year-olds, and/or (c) their productions of Spanish and English words. METHOD Fifty-six bilingual 4- and 5-year-old children (27 boys and 29 girls) who attended Head Start programs named stimulus items for Spanish and English phonological assessment instruments that were similar in procedures and analyses. RESULTS Multivariate analyses indicated no significant differences for phonological scores between boys and girls or between the 2 languages. Differences between the 4- and 5-year-olds, however, were significant, with the 5-year-olds performing better than the 4-year-olds. Liquid deviations and omissions of consonants in clusters/sequences were the most frequently occurring phonological deviations. CONCLUSIONS Phonological score differences between typically developing bilingual Spanish-English-speaking preschool boys and girls from similar backgrounds are not likely to be significant. Better phonological scores, however, can be expected for 5-year-olds than for 4-year-olds. Moreover, phonological deviation percentage scores of typically developing bilingual children for comparable Spanish and English assessment instruments are likely to be similar.

A Preliminary Hierarchical Model for Phonological Remediation

This article describes a preliminary model of phonological intervention for use with children described as essentially unintelligible. The model facilitates a progression of articulatory skill deve...