David J. Ertmer

Assessing vocal development in infants and toddlers

The purpose of this study was to examine changes in prelinguistic vocal production during the first 20 months of life. Vocalizations were classified into 23 mutually exclusive and exhaustive types, and grouped into five ascending levels using the Stark Assessment of Early Vocal Development‐Revised (SAEVD‐R). Data from 30 typically developing infants, aged 0–20 months, show that older infants attained higher developmental levels on the SAEVD‐R than younger infants. Infants 0–2, 3–5, and 6–8 months of age primarily produced vocalizations from Levels 1 (Reflexive), 2 (Control of Phonation), and 3 (Expansion). Infants 9–20 months of age also produced vocalizations from Level 4 (Basic Canonical Syllables). Only infants from 16–20 months of age produced Level 5 (Advanced Forms) vocalizations in significant quantities. The outcomes indicate that the SAEVD‐R is a valuable instrument for evaluating prelinguistic vocal development.

Imitative consonant feature production by children with multichannel sensory aids.

Objective: To examine changes over time in consonant feature production by children with profound hearing impairments who used either the Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant or the multichannel vibrotactile aid, Tactaid 7. Design: Imitative consonant productions of children with prelingual deafness were elicited and transcribed at two intervals: 1) before receiving their respective devices (predevice interval), and 2) after an average of 1.5 yr of device use (postdevice interval). The consonant productions were analyzed in terms of the percentage of consonant features (manner, place, and voicing) produced by the child that matched the features of the examiners target. The percentage of features produced correctly was then averaged across repetitions, vowel environments, and participants within each group. Results: At the predevice interval, the cochlear implant and Tactaid 7 participants demonstrated similar imitative consonant production abilities. After an average of 1.5 yr of device use, the cochlear implant participants demonstrated significantly greater gains than did the Tactaid 7 participants for the features of voicing and place of articulation. Although the cochlear implant participants showed a trend towards better production of the consonant manner features, this difference failed to reach significance. Conclusions: The current results suggest that the use of a multichannel sensory aid yields improvements in consonant feature production. Furthermore, use of a cochlear implant appears to promote the production of consonant voicing and place features to a greater degree than does the use of a multichannel tactile aid.

Constructivist Strategies in Phonological Intervention: Facilitating Self-Regulation for Carryover.

This tutorial describes an instructional approach for school-age children who have difficulty achieving phonological carryover. Behavioral, cognitive, and constructivist instructional strategies are examined in regard to their usefulness during the establishment, transfer, and carryover phases of phonological intervention. The advantages of using constructivist strategies to facilitate carryover are presented. A model of self-regulated learning is then applied to constructivist carryover activities (performances) so that children who have difficulty attaining carryover might develop metacognitive abilities similar to those of children who easily achieve carryover. Ideas for implementing a constructivist approach to facilitating self-regulated carryover are presented and examples are provided.

The development of intonation in young children with cochlear implants: A preliminary study of the influence of age at implantation and length of implant experience.

This study describes the development of emerging intonation in six children who had received a cochlear implant (CI) before the age of 3 years. At the time their implant was activated, the children ranged in age from 11–37 months. Spontaneous longitudinal speech samples were recorded from 30‐minute sessions in which the child interacted with his or her mother. Data were collected 2 months before activation of each childs CI and at monthly intervals after activation for 6 months. The findings were compared to the typical pattern of early intonation development in children with normal hearing (NH). The results suggested that young CI recipients progress through stages similar to those observed in children with NH. However, the intonation development of children with a CI reflects a marked interaction between chronological age at implantation and amount of CI experience. That is, after 2 months of CI‐assisted hearing experience, the older children demonstrated a later stage of intonation development than younger children. These preliminary results support the idea that children acquire some foundations or prerequisites of intonation production through maturation, as measured by chronological age, even without robust auditory experience.

Prelinguistic Vocal Development in Young Cochlear Implant Recipients and Typically Developing Infants: Year 1 of Robust Hearing Experience

This investigation examined the time course and sequence of prelinguistic vocal development during the first year of cochlear implant (CI) experience. Thirteen children who were implanted between 8 and 35 months and 11 typically developing (TD) infants participated in this longitudinal study. Adult-child play interactions were video- and audio-recorded at trimonthly intervals for each group, and child utterances were classified into categories representing progressively more mature productions: Precanonical Vocalizations, Basic Canonical Syllables, and Advanced Form vocalizations. Young CI recipients met the 20% criterion for establishment of the Basic Canonical Syllables and Advanced Forms levels with fewer months of robust hearing experience than the TD infants. Most CI recipients followed the sequence of development predicted by the Stark Assessment of Early Vocal Development-Revised. The relatively rapid progress of the CI children suggests that an earlier period of auditory deprivation did not have negative consequences for prelinguistic vocal development. It also supports the notion that young CI recipients comparatively advanced maturity facilitated expeditious auditory-guided speech development.

Relationships Between Vocalization Forms and Functions in Infancy: Preliminary Implications for Early Communicative Assessment and Intervention

PURPOSE This preliminary study explored relationships between form and function in prelinguistic vocalizations to increase our understanding of early communicative development and to provide potential clinical implications for early communicative assessment and intervention. METHOD Twenty typically developing infants-5 infants in each of 4 age groups, from 3 to 20 months of age-were included. Vocalizations from these infants had previously been categorized for their form (Nathani, Ertmer, & Stark, 2006) and function (Stark, Bernstein, & Demorest, 1993) characteristics. In the present study, cross-classification tabulations between form and function were conducted to examine relationships between vocalization types and their apparent uses. RESULTS As anticipated, earlier developing forms were mostly associated with earlier developing functions, and later developing forms were mostly associated with later developing functions. However, there were some exceptions such that some forms were associated with a variety of functions, and vice versa. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that some forms are more tightly coupled to function than others in the prelinguistic and early linguistic period. Preliminary implications for developmental theory, future research, and clinical applications are discussed. Larger, longitudinal studies with typical and atypical populations and stricter methodological controls are needed to validate these findings.

Children's Development of Intonation during the First Year of Cochlear Implant Experience

This article describes the longitudinal development of intonation in 18 deaf children who received cochlear implants (CIs) before the age of 3 years and 12 infants with typical development (TD) who served as controls. At the time their implants were activated, the children with CIs ranged in age from 9 to 36 months. Cross-group comparisons were made when the children had equivalent amounts of robust hearing experience but different chronological ages. This article reports the results for the 6-month period ending 9 months after activation of the child’s device for children with CIs, and the 6-month period ending at 12 months of age for TD infants. The findings were compared with a model of early intonation development in children with normal hearing. The results indicated that all groups progressed through one or more of the stages predicted by the normative model. At the end of the study period, however, children who had received a CI later than 24 months reached a more mature stage of intonation development than younger CI recipients. Moreover, the older CI group reached the same stage of development as the TD infants who had 3 additional months of language listening experience. The findings suggest that the developmental advantage which older children had previously demonstrated shortly after activation of their CIs is maintained throughout most or all of the first year of CI use.

Real-Time Spectrographic Displays in Vowel Production Training With Children Who Have Profound Hearing Loss

The effectiveness of vowel production training with real-time spectrographic displays was assessed for two children with profound hearing loss. A multiple-baseline design across behaviors, with rep...

El desarrollo vocal en niños sordos de familias hispanohablantes

El desarrollo vocal es un proceso que precede a la produccion de las primeras palabras; durante este proceso el nino comienza a emitir sonidos cada vez mas parecidos a los del adulto, aumentando poco a poco la complejidad de las silabas, las palabras y la variedad de los sonidos. A pesar del interes clinico de este proceso, hasta la fecha pocos estudios han examinado el desarrollo vocal en bebes de familias hispanohablantes. Este articulo representa un esfuerzo por llenar ese vacio. En el el lector encontrara un analisis de los patrones tipicos de desarrollo vocal en ninos de diferentes contextos linguisticos, con especial atencion al caso de los ninos que aprenden espanol. Tambien se presenta un procedimiento para evaluar el desarrollo vocal mediante muestras espontaneas de produccion y se describe una propuesta de intervencion para ninos con retraso en su desarrollo vocal. Los analisis y propuestas recogidos deben ser de interes para logopedas, audiologos, maestros de sordos y terapeutas del lenguaje infantil en general. Los autores confian que este trabajo sirva de estimulo para abordar nuevas investigaciones sobre el desarrollo vocal de ninos que familias hispanohablantes.

The development of falling intonation in young children with cochlear implants: a 2-year longitudinal study

This article describes the development of intonation in 12 cochlear implant (CI) recipients. In a previously reported study of the first year of CI use, children who were implanted late (after 24 months) acquired intonation more rapidly than the younger participants. The older childrens advantage is plausibly owing to their greater maturity. However, children who were implanted early (before 25 months) did not have an advantage over the still younger control group of infants with normal hearing (NH), suggesting that the advantage requires a critical age of about 30 months. The younger CI-users reached this age in the second year of CI use. The results confirmed our expectation that even the younger CI recipients would acquire intonation more rapidly than infants with NH who had the same amount of robust hearing experience. Clinical implications are discussed in relation to the question of early versus late implantation.