Shelley L. Velleman

The Construction of a First Phonology

Although it is generally accepted that phonological development is grounded in phonetic learning, there is less agreement for the proposition supported here, that the first phonological structuring constitutes a developmental discontinuity. Data from the phonetic and lexical learning of Finnish consonant duration are presented to illustrate the role of (1) child selection of adult words for early context-supported production based on phonetic learning and (2) child adaptation of adult words to an idiosyncratic template for later production as part of an incipient system. We argue that the latter, but not the former, reflects the construction of a first phonology.

Through the magnifying glass: Underlying literacy deficits and remediation potential in Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Interactions among psycholinguistic deficits and literacy difficulties in childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) have been inadequately studied. Comparisons with other disorders (Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and phonological dyslexia) and the possibility of reading remediation in CAS warrant further research. This case study describes the speech, language, cognitive, and literacy deficits and therapy gains in a girl aged 11;6 with severe CAS and borderline IQ. A comprehensive assessment of literacy-related cognitive skills, including phonological memory and working memory capacity, language, speech production and reading skills, was administered. Treatment from 6;0 to 11;6 targeted speech sounds, oral sequencing, phonological awareness (PA), speech-print connections, syllabic structure, and real and non-word decoding. Phonological memory was similar to that of children with SLI, but working memory was significantly worse. Unlike children with phonological dyslexia, our participant demonstrated relative strength in letter-sound correspondence rules. Despite deficits, she made progress in literacy with intensive long-term intervention. Results suggest that the underlying cognitive-linguistic profile of children with CAS may differ from those of children with SLI or dyslexia. Our results also show that long-term intensive intervention promotes acquisition of adequate literacy skills even in a child with a severe motor speech disorder and borderline IQ.

Phonology in infancy and early childhood: implications for theories of language learning

Jakobson (1941/1968) proposed that: (i) infants babble the sounds of all languages; (ii) there is discontinuity between babbling and first words; and (iii) phonemes are acquired in a universal order. Since then, all of these hypotheses have been rejected on empirical grounds and the importance of the prelinguistic foundations of phonology has been recognized. However, questions about the relationship between babble and words, the timing and extent of the impact of the ambient language on early speech perception and production, and individual differences in phonological development continue to energize research. General cognitive as well as purely linguistic foundations for phonological development, not directly addressed by Jakobson, have also been the source of fruitful recent investigations thanks to methodological advances in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. These issues have important implications for phonological theory, which must account for developmental as well as adult data. Claims about innate knowledge versus learning must refer to the processes by which the child develops and manifests a phonological system. Yet certain well-documented phenomena that are highly characteristic of child phonology remain to be integrated into theories of adult phonology. The goal of this chapter is to elucidate the state of the art with respect to issues and questions in child phonology, including recent findings, research methodologies and theoretical models.

Differentiating Speech Sound Disorders from Phonological Dialect Differences: Implications for Assessment and Intervention.

B. Z. Pearson, S. L. Velleman, T. J. Bryant, and T. Charko (2009) demonstrated phonological differences in typically developing children learning African American English as their first dialect vs. General American English only. Extending this research to children with speech sound disorders (SSD) has key implications for intervention. A total of 148 children (4–12 years) with SSD, 72 learning only general American English and 76 learning African American English first, took the Dialect Sensitive Language Test (DSLT; H. Seymour, T. Roeper, & J. G. de Villiers, 2000) phonology subtest. Mismatches to target forms were categorized as phonotactic vs. segmental. The scores of the children with SSD were below Dialect Sensitive Language Test norms; overall dialect differences in mismatch frequency were not identified. However, individual consonants were mastered in different orders by dialect, even among children with SSD. Phonotactic vs. segmental dialect differences were emergent but nonsignificant at age 6 years. Intervention targets should be chosen per dialect-specific segmental orders of acquisition and phonotactic priorities.

Lexical and phonological development in children with childhood apraxia of speech – a commentary on Stoel-Gammon's ‘Relationships between lexical and phonological development in young children’*

Although not the focus of her article, phonological development in young children with speech sound disorders of various types is highly germane to Stoel-Gammons discussion (this issue) for at least two primary reasons. Most obvious is that typical processes and milestones of phonological development are the standards and benchmarks against which we measure disorder and delay. Factors that impact children without disorders may suggest underlying causes or co-occurring symptoms of speech sound deficits, prognostic indicators of improvement, appropriate remediation strategies or some combination of these. Equally important is the fact that studying children with disorders can help us to verify and, in some cases, even unpack relationships among factors that are so closely interwoven in children who develop their phonologies at the typically very rapid rate that their individual influences cannot be discerned. Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a particularly interesting case in point because, while it is universally accepted to be a motor speech disorder, symptoms include deficits in speech perception and often in literacy-related skills as well.

Establishing a basic speech repertoire without using NSOME: means, motive, and opportunity.

Children who are performing at a prelinguistic level of vocal communication present unique issues related to successful intervention relative to the general population of children with speech disorders. These children do not consistently use meaning-based vocalizations to communicate with those around them. General goals for this group of children include stimulating more mature vocalization types and connecting these vocalizations to meanings that can be used to communicate consistently with persons in their environment. We propose a means, motive, and opportunity conceptual framework for assessing and intervening with these children. This framework is centered on stimulation of meaningful vocalizations for functional communication. It is based on a broad body of literature describing the nature of early language development. In contrast, nonspeech oral motor exercise (NSOME) protocols require decontextualized practice of repetitive nonspeech movements that are not related to functional communication with respect to means, motive, or opportunity for communicating. Successful intervention with NSOME activities requires adoption of the concept that the child, operating at a prelinguistic communication level, will generalize from repetitive nonspeech movements that are not intended to communicate with anyone to speech-based movements that will be intelligible enough to allow responsiveness to the childs wants and needs from people in the environment. No evidence from the research literature on the course of speech and language acquisition suggests that this conceptualization is valid.

Phonological Processes in Kannada-Speaking Adolescents with Down Syndrome.

Phonological process analysis was carried out using a 40-word imitation task with 30 11;6–14;6 year old Kannada-speaking persons with Down syndrome in comparison with 15 non-verbal mental age matched typically developing children. Percentages of occurrence were significantly higher for the Down syndrome group with certain exceptions. Some phonological processes were observed only in the Down syndrome group. Kannada is a non-Indo European language spoken in the southern Indian state of Karnataka that has not had much research attention, especially with respect to persons with communication disorders. This paper highlights the phonological processes observed in school-aged persons with Down syndrome, some of which are similar to those observed in English and Dutch (cluster reduction, stopping, gliding, consonant harmony) and others that differ owing to differences in Kannadas phonology (e.g. retroflex fronting, degemination). The study gives a cross-linguistic perspective to the study of phonological processes in Down syndrome.

Publications Björn Lindblom

Lindblom, B.; Murray, T.; Spens, K.-E.: Övningsmaterial i akustisk fonetik. PILUS 1 (Institute of Linguistics, Stockholm University, 1969). Jonasson, J.; Lindblom, B.; Serpa-Leitão, A.: Spektrografiska illustrationer av några IPA-tecken. PILUS 5 (Institute of Linguistic, Stockholm University, 1970). Lindblom, B.: Vad är fonetik? (Gleerup, Lund 1972). Lindblom, B.: På väg till laboratoriet (Gleerup, Lund 1974). Lindblom, B.; Lubker, J.; Fritzell, B. (eds): Experimentalfonetiska studier av dysartri. PILUS 27 (Institute of Linguistics, Stockholm University, 1974). Lindblom, B.; Nordström, P.-E. (eds): Fonetik och uttalspedagogik. Papers from a symposium (Institute of Linguistics, Stockholm University, 1975). Lindblom, B.; Lubker, J. (eds): Experiments in speech perception. PERILUS I (Institute of Linguistics, Stockholm University, 1979). Lindblom, B.; Öhman, S. (eds): Frontiers of speech communication research (Academic Press, London 1979). Grillner, S.; Lindblom, B.; Lubker, J.; Person, A. (eds): Speech motor control (Pergamon Press, Oxford 1982). Lindblom, B. (ed): Speech processes in the light of action theory and event perception, theme issue with open peer commentary. J. Phonet. 14: 1–196 (1986). Lindblom, B.; Zetterström, R. (eds): Precursors of early speech (Macmillan Press, Basingstoke 1986).

The Different Faces of Reading Disabilities: Evidence from Case Studies

The Spirit of the Chinese People was written in 1915, from historical view, China was undergoing great social changes in all aspects at that time. The book written by Ku Hung-Ming is considered to be the first work in modern China to introduce Chinese people to the westerners. He shows deep love, passion and pride of Chinese culture in this book, intending to change the prejudice towards Chinese people of the westerners. Cultural confidence of Ku Hung-Ming can also be sensed greatly in his great work, which is of great value nowadays. This paper mainly demonstrates cultural confidence of Chinese people conveyed in this book by Ku Hung-Ming, some personal reflections are also discussed in this paper to show the author’s understanding of Chinese cultural confidence.Anne of Green Gables, one of Canada’s best known children’s books, has gained popularity all over the world. Anne has become a household name in the children world. The paper analyses the image of Anne in Chinese readers’ eyes: a romantic, imaginative, loyal, self-spirited and loveable girl. The author of this paper also reviews a brief history of Canadian literature’s acceptance in China, and offers some constructive suggestions for the effective popularization of Canadian literature in China. Key words: Anne; Canadian literature; popularization; children’s literaturePresently, most students of normal universities know nothing about music knowledge such as music score at all, and have no musical knowledge and culture. This is a common problem existing in many Chinese normal universities. Surveys, however, show the students are fond of and thirst for learning music knowledge. Thus, universities and related institutions have been laying stress on how to cultivate and improve the music knowledge and culture of students of normal universities. In view of this, this paper aims to research the problems in music curriculum design of normal universities, and put forward corresponding countermeasures, with a hope to give assistance to related universities in music teaching. The theory knowledge of music and vocality accomplishments is one of the basic knowledge and accomplishments that modern talents should have. Besides music majors, education majors also should be offered music education, so as to make up the deficiency of musical knowledge and culture of Chinese musical talents, and comprehensively improve students’ musical skills (Kong & Jin, 2014). There are many problems in music education curriculum design of normal universities. About this, this paper aims to analyze the problems, and put forward suggestions on related curriculum design.Frye’s theory of archetypal meaning includes the apocalyptic and the demonic imagery. The apocalyptic and demonic imagery will be applied to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which is stuffed with symbols. Through the demonic imagery, the theme of the novel, people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery and barbarism is clearly revealed. The apocalyptic imagery gives us some hope, though.This essay is devoted to a review of Fotos and Ellis’ (1991) article about using task-based approach in teaching grammar. The choice of the article is based on the fact that it provides a good start for a discussion of the implementation of task-based approach to grammar teaching. First, a summary of the main points in the article is presented. The second part provides a discussion focusing on how the issue of teaching grammar communicatively has been tackled by other researchers. The last part is an attempt to draw some implications of task-based approach in teaching grammar for the Moroccan context.Based on the cultivating mode of special talents and cultivating target of professional talents in the higher vocational colleges, through imitating major cluster construction idea, so as to promote the efficient launch of thematic practical teaching, this paper will conduct relatively deep analysis and discussion on how to improve the practical teaching effectiveness of ideological and political course in the higher vocational colleges.As more and more Chinese farmers are moving to bigger cities, the education problems of migrant students become more and more severe in China. Based on the analysis on the current situation of compulsory education of migrant students in X City, and comparing with the successful solutions of migrant education problems in the United States, this paper offers some possible suggestions to schools in X City on solving the compulsory education problems of migrant students.This paper attempts to offer teachers effective and convenient models in explaining several basic concepts in translation theories to students in translation classes. Four models borrowed from the discipline of cognition are prototype, cognition domain, salience and the three-dimensional cognition mode. The concepts explained in this paper included translation variation, extra-linguistic knowledge for translation, translation criteria and un-translatability, all of which are among the primary concerns for students in translation classes. Key Words: translation concepts; translation theories; cognitive modelsOn the eve of the thirtieth Teachers’ Day, President Xi Jinping visited the Beijing Normal University, and gave an important speech on the forum of the teachers and students from Beijing Normal University: Be a Good Teacher Who Satisfies the Party and the People. The speech highlights the importance of education and teachers, which are of great significance to strengthen the construction of teachers’ contingent. With College counselors being an important part of teachers’ contingent, this paper analyzes the significance of college counselors practicing the Good Teacher With Four Haves Standard from this angle, and further puts forward some countermeasures on this basis, namely, a good college counselor should have clear ideal and conviction, have noble moral sentiment, have profound and relevant knowledge, and have a loving and benevolent heart, in order to provide a certain reference for the troop construction of college counselors.This paper clarified the concepts of cognitive load and combined EFL listening decoding as well as the relationship between them, and examined the change of learners’ cognitive load and its impact on their EFL listening decoding which were caused by input of pure audio information and that of combined audio information with mixtures such as pictures and images. Based on this, the author proposed some effective strategies to improve learners’ EFL listening decoding, including strengthening the training of learners’ English thinking, increasing their cognitive level, enriching the design of EFL listening teaching, creating multiple schemas and maintaining the reasonable cognitive load according to individual learners’ cognitive styles.Making a general survey of Jane·Eyre status changing process from its publication to the end of the last century, it is certain that the novel is a dynamic classic after its publication because of its own and outside factors. However, between the late 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th , the society and commentors transferred their focus from Charlotte and his works, causing Jane·Eyre to be stative classic. Since the middle period of the last century the dynamic classic position of Jane·Eyre was again raised.Most of the governments in the world provide the private colleges with necessary financial support. This is evident especially in U.S., Japan and South Korea where the private higher education is very advanced. The private colleges in these countries have undergone different development paths. As their school funds come from different sources, the public financial support they gain exhibits different characteristics. The governments of these three countries attach great important to the development of private colleges, and issued a complete set of regulations to stipulate that the private colleges qualify for the same financial support as the public colleges. Various measures that were taken by the governments to raise funds contribute to sustainable development of the private colleges.В данной работе предлагается методическая организация иероглифического минимума для обучения студентов языкового вуза письму на китайском языке, построенная с учетом принципов гнездовой и концентрической организации материала; выделяются три методически значимых типа иероглифов.There are three aspects to strengthen honest governance education to Chinese policemen which include fully utilizing policemen to construct socialist harmonious society, strengthening ideology and politics education to policemen to develop their autonomy, establishing complete the system to punish and prevent corruption in policemen to further construct system.This study investigated the strategies monolingual Saudi Arabian adults (MSAAs), Saudi EFL adult learners (SEFLALs), and native speakers of English (ENSs) used when complaining. Another related aim was investigating whether SEFLALs displayed pragmatic transfer when using complaint strategies. A total of 183 written responses were collected from MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs via a three-item discourse completion task (DCT) were analyzed. Findings revealed the strategies used by the study participants when performing the speech act of complaints. First, hints, request and annoyance were the most frequently used strategies by MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs. Second, there were no statistically significant differences among MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs in using the strategy of direct accusation which consistent with the concept of positive pragmatic transfer. Third, hints, behavioral blame, request and indirect accusation were cases of weak negative pragmatic transfer as employed the SEFLALs in the current study. Fourth, modified blame was consistent with concept of strong negative pragmatic transfer. Finally, the last two strategies; annoyance and threat were consistent with no transfer, that is, SEFLAL employed these two strategies as ENSs.Lord Jim is an attempt by Joseph Conrad to contemplate on the failure of the dreams of a man whose romantic beliefs in classical heroism and manner of conduct finally brings about his bafflement. In fact, this writer is trying to mirror that one’s lack of knowledge in case of the “how to be of life”, or his inability to vision the modern world practically from an authentic viewpoint holds him from being conscious enough about his real existence, resulting in a tragedy: a death associated with ambiguity, absent-mindedness and fury. To be more specific, the present study intends to investigate Jim’s Romance, his character – as well as that of the other important characters – and the strategies or techniques applied by Conrad, to reflect the failures of such a romantic viewpoint. Key words: Lord Jim; Joseph Conrad; Romance; Heroism; TragedyBased on the development history of Chinese revolution, the recording in the form of painting can help to restore the scene by combining the related historic theme, thus enhance the authenticity of creation of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history and objectively help to raise collectors’ collection hobby and interest. This paper discusses the creation and collection of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history so as to realize comprehensive understanding of the creation and collection of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history and thus promote the development of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history.The work of building Party schools for vocational college students is faced with new challenges in the new situation. This paper analyzes the main problems in of the process of building Party schools for vocational college students, and suggests building a mechanism for building Party schools for vocational college students based on the process of cultivating activists.