Ronald K. Sommers

DICHOTIC EAR PREFERENCES OF STUTTERING CHILDREN AND ADULTS

39 stutterers and 39 normal speakers indicated their ear preferences for dichotically presented words and digits. A single response mode for both dichotic words and digits was selected to study speech perception. Stutterers showed significantly less of the normal right-ear preference for dichotic words and digits than non-stutterers. The proportion of stutterers who failed to demonstrate a right-ear preference for dichotic words was significantly greater than for non-stutterers. 18% of the stutterers and none of the non-stutterers showed reversed or a left-ear preference for dichotic digits. Although non-stuttering children and adults performed alike on the dichotic tasks, the right-ear dichotic-words scores of stuttering children were significantly smaller than those of adult stutterers. The results are related to an early notion that stuttering may be related to mixed dominance and recent evidence showing that large percentages of older stuttering children show spontaneous remission of stuttering.

Cerebral Speech Dominance in Language-Disordered and Normal Children

Summary Twenty subjects, ages five and six, were selected and administered a number of language and speech tests and two dichotic listening tasks. Ten of the subjects had received intensive language and speech therapy for more than two years, and the other ten were normal in such skills. More words and digits were reported from the left ears of those having the language and speech disorders while greater number of stimuli of both types were reported from the right ears of the normal subjects. Furthermore, the defective subjects demonstrated a clear left ear preference for digits presented dichotically, and the normal subjects were found to show a 100% right ear preference. Ear preference for words was not significantly different for the two groups, in spite of the fact that the magnitude of the difference in numbers of words recognized was significantly greater in the right ears of the normal subjects. The total number of digits recalled, regardless of ear, was greater for the normal subjects; this was not the case for words. Traditional measurements of laterality failed to relate to presumed cerebral dominance for speech based upon dichotic tasks.

Prediction of fine motor skills of children having language and speech disorders.

Relationships between the fine motor skills and linguistic abilities of 37 developmentally delayed children, ages 5 to 9 yr., were studied using a battery of expressive and receptive language tests, a measure of fine motor performance, a dichotic listening test, and individual intelligence tests. While IQs and MAs were not related to fine motor skills, both expressive and receptive language test scores showed moderate to moderately high correlations, the highest single relationship being the Test for the Auditory Comprehension of Language. In concert with CAs, a dichotic right-ear test score, the Auditory Comprehension Test, predicted fine motor-skill indices substantially; R = .80. Strong relationships appear between linguistic and fine motor skills in an age group not previously investigated and at higher levels than reported in studies of infants and very young children. Dichotic results were abnormal in a majority of the children.

Phonology of Down Syndrome Speakers, Ages 13-22

The phonological process and distinctive feature performances of 24 Down syndrome (DS) participants, ages 17-22 were investigated. Only one subject had a history of speech-language intervention. In a second investigation, identical assessment procedures were used with a second sample of 21 Down speakers, ages 13-17, all of whom had histories of speech-language intervention. Comparisons of phonological skills were made across groups to relate performances to age groups, hypotheses that DS speech is delayed or deviant, and methods of assessment (picture-naming imitative naming, or connected samples). Data provide a basis for some conclusions on each issue and reveal characteristics of the speech of older children having DS.

Talkativeness and Children's Linguistic Abilities.

Teachers and teacher assistants independently identified highly talkative and much less talkative pre-school children. All children were normal in intelligence and overall development. Twenty children of each type received a battery of speech and language tests measuring articulation, grammar, receptive syntax, and sentence repetition. The performances of the highly talkative children were significantly superior on all measures. No environmental or familial differences were found between the subjects of the two groups which might have influenced the findings.

A review and critical analysis of treatment research related to articulation and phonological disorders.

This article contains a summary of aspects of research designs and strategies found in 63 published reports in which the effectiveness of treatment of articulation or phonological disorders was evaluated. These research reports were published in four nationally refereed journals that contained most of the literature published in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. A total of 91 items were evaluated in each report by two reviewers working independently, including types of research designs, details about subjects, sampling, and types of independent and dependent variables used by researchers. Comparisons were made within each decade and across both decades to identify strengths and limitations. Some significant differences in research designs and variables under investigation occurred between the decades. A critical analysis was performed, and suggestions for changes are discussed.

Traditional Articulation Measures of Down Syndrome Speakers, Ages 13-22.

Traditional analyses at the level of the phoneme were performed on data gathered on two groups of children having Down syndrome, ages 13-17 and 15-22. Their performances on 26 consonants were compared by type of phonemic errors, errors seen in normal children at comparable mental age levels and relative performances when errors were identified in connected speech, imitative word naming or spontaneous picture naming. Results indicated patterns of delayed and deviant articulatory performances in both groups, particularly in connected speech. The total number of errors in connected speech samples was greater for the older subjects who had received little or no speech-language training than the younger group subjects.

Word skills of children normal and impaired in communication skills and measures of language and speech development

Results from two related investigations are reported, one using 60 normal language learners, ages 3-5 and one using 34 children with communication disorders, ages 5.4-8.5. Tasks involving the sequential recall of words from five categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions) were given to the subjects in each investigation, thus providing an opportunity to compare group performances. A hierarchy of recall strengths of words from different categories and the organizational pattern of scores was determined for each group. Each groups word category scores were used as independent variables in regression analyses to predict scores from a battery of language tests and a test of phonology. The results were anticipated to be capable of contributing to descriptions of childrens mental dictionaries, have implications for word category differences in normal and impaired language learners, and clinical relevance. Comparisons of the word recall accuracy of skills of children from each group revealed that the younger normal Ss had word scores equal to the older language and speech impaired children. However, the hierarchy of word category strengths and the patterns of organization within each groups mental dictionary were essentially the same in both groups. Word category scores predicted language and speech scores in both investigations, but the prediction was stronger in the children having impaired language or speech.

Contributions of subjective-tone to tone-phoneme identification

We measured subjective-tone identification thresholds evoked by acoustically filtered complex tones and compared them to Mandarin-Chinese tone-phoneme identification thresholds previously measured under the same filtering conditions. Tone phonemes were identified at intensities below subjective-tone identification thresholds, suggesting subjective tone is not necessary for tone-phoneme identification. Lower subjective-tone thresholds evoked by resolved harmonics rather than unresolved harmonics were consistent with pattern recognition theories of pitch perception.