Speech and Hearing Sciences

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Abnormal patterns of tongue-palate contact in the speech of individuals with cleft palate
(Informa Healthcare, 2004-08) Gibbon, Fiona E.; Scottish Office Department of Health; Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland; MacRobert Trust, Scotland
Individuals with cleft palate, even those with adequate velopharyngeal function, are at high risk for disordered lingual articulation. This article attempts to summarize current knowledge of abnormal tongue-palate contact patterns derived from electropalatographic (EPG) data in speakers with cleft palate. These data, which have been reported in 23 articles published over the past 20 years, have added significantly to our knowledge about cleft palate speech. Eight abnormal patterns of tongue-palate contact are described and illustrated with data from children and adults with repaired cleft palate. The paper also discusses some of the problems in interpreting EPG data from speakers with abnormal craniofacial anatomy and emphasizes the importance of quantifying relevant aspects of tongue-palate contact data. Areas of research requiring further investigation are outlined.
Normal adult speakers' tongue palate contact patterns for alveolar oral and nasal stops
(Informa UK Ltd., 2007-01) Gibbon, Fiona E.; Yuen, Ivan; Lee, Alice S.; Adams, Lynn
This study compared tongue palate contact patterns for oral stops (/t/, /d/) with those for the nasal stop /n/ in order to provide normative data for diagnosing and treating individuals with speech disorders. Electropalatographic (EPG) data were recorded from fifteen English speaking adults for word initial /t/, /d/ and /n/ in a high and a low vowel context. EPG frames were classified according to three criteria: (1) anterior constriction; (2) bilateral constriction; and (3) zero posterior central contact. Total amount of contact and variability were also measured. The results showed that almost all (99%) stops met criteria 1 and 3, with fewer articulations (88% of /t/; 83% of /d/ and 55% of /n/) meeting criterion 2. Although all stops had similar spatial patterns, /t/ and /d/ had more contact and were more likely to have bilateral constriction than /n/. There were no differences in variability between /t/, /d/ and /n/, however. The clinical implications of the results for the management of individuals with speech disorders are discussed.
The national CLEFTNET project for individuals with cleft palate
(Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2007-03) Lee, Alice S.; Gibbon, Fiona E.; Crampin, Lisa; Yuen, Ivan; McLennan, Grant
Although previous studies have demonstrated the benefits of using electropalatography (EPG) for treating therapy-resistant articulation errors associated with cleft palate, until recently access to this form of treatment has been limited. For the past 10 years, however, the CLEFTNET Scotland project has provided individuals with cleft palate access to EPG therapy. CLEFTNET represented a novel form of EPG service delivery – it linked the cleft palate centres throughout Scotland to Queen Margaret University College (QMUC) in Edinburgh through an electronic network. EPG data collected in the centres were sent to QMUC, where experts conducted detailed analysis leading to a precise diagnosis of each individual’s specific articulation difficulty and suggested therapy guidelines to the specialist speech-language therapists based on their analysis. This form of service delivery has recently extended to include England, Wales and Northern Ireland to form CLEFTNET UK. This paper describes the CLEFTNET projects, discusses orthodontic issues relevant to EPG therapy for individuals with cleft palate, and presents a case study to illustrate how therapy guidelines for speech-language therapists are derived from data analysis.
Articulatory characteristics of the occlusion phase of /tS/ compared to /t/ in adult speech.
(Taylor and Francis, 2007-03) Liker, Marko; Gibbon, Fiona E.; Wrench, Alan; Horga, Damir
This study used electropalatography (EPG) to investigate articulatory characteristics of /tS/ and /t/ occlusion in order to provide normative data to be used for the diagnosis and treatment of individuals with speech disorders. EPG data from the EUR-ACCOR database were analysed for nonsense VCV sequences containing /tS/ and /t/ in nine vowel contexts for seven English speaking adults. The main results of this study are that all speakers had a significantly more posterior placement for /tS/ compared to /t/ and that placement was stable during the occlusion phase of both /tS/ and /t/. For most speakers, the occlusion phase was longer for /tS/ compared to /t/, the occlusion phase generally involved more EPG contact and was slightly more variable in /tS/ compared to /t/, but these differences were not statistically significant for all speakers. The implications of the results for diagnosing and treating speech disorders are discussed.
Developing assessment tools for bilingual and minority language acquisition
(Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists (IASLT); J&R Press Ltd., 2008) O'Toole, Ciara; Fletcher, Paul
Profiling bilingual and minority language acquisition is becoming increasingly important for the work of speech and language therapists in Ireland. The Official Language Act dictates that all government and public services must be provided in Irish as well as English. Therefore SLTs must now be prepared to assess and treat clients in the Irish language. This paper describes how an assessment of early expressive vocabulary and grammatical development for children aged between 16 and 40 months was adapted to Irish from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (Fenson, Dale, Reznick , Bates , Thal, Pethnick, Tomasello, Mervis and Stiles, 1994). Ongoing work in piloting and measuring the validity and reliability of the parent-report instrument is also outlined. This study has implications for developing assessment tools for working with Irish-speaking and bilingual children.
Chinese communicative development inventories: user's guide and manual
(Peking University Medical Press, 2008) Tardif, Twila; Fletcher, Paul; Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee; Science Foundation Ireland
This Guide for users of the Cantonese and Putonghua (Mandarin) CDIs contains: an account of the standardisation projects undertaken in Hong Kong and Beijing for these parent report instruments; statistical information necessary to interpret the results of applying the CDIs; and, at the end of the book, all the parent report forms, for both languages, for short and long forms of the instruments. (For further statistical information on the long forms, visit wordbank.stanford.edu). The Chinese CDIs are modelled on the original MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories* but with appropriate adaptation for the cultural and linguistic characteristics of Putonghua and Cantonese. In common with the originals, they are designed to cover the age range from 8 – 30 months.
Tongue palate contact patterns of velar stops in normal adult English speakers
(Taylor & Francis, 2008-02) Liker, Marko; Gibbon, Fiona E.
This paper provides a more detailed description of normal tongue palate contact patterns for the occlusion phase of velar stops than currently exists. The study used electropalatography (EPG) to record seven normally speaking adults' contact patterns of voiceless velar stops in nine VkV contexts. A variety of EPG indices measured: per cent complete closures across the palate; place of articulation; articulatory distance between /k/ and /t/; and amount of contact. Complete EPG closure occurred in the majority (81%) of tokens. Some speakers almost always had complete closures regardless of context, whereas other speakers produced them only with high front vowels. As expected, place of articulation and amount of contact were heavily influenced by vowel context. The most fronted and most contact occurred in /i/ contexts and the most retracted and least contact in /a/ contexts. There was considerable interspeaker variability on all measures, particularly in the precise location of velar placement and articulatory distance between alveolar and velar placement. The implications for diagnosing and treating abnormal velar articulations are discussed.
Sealbhú na Gaeilge ag naíonáin: early language acquisition of Irish
(University College Cork, 2009) O'Toole, Ciara; Fletcher, Paul; Health Service Executive, Ireland
Speech and language therapy (SLT) services are coming under increased pressure to provide people living in linguistic minority communities with assessment and intervention in the language of the community in which the client lives. In Ireland, Irish, although a minority language, enjoys a positive attitude and a high status as the first official language of Ireland. However, there is little known about Irish language acquisition in typically developing children, let alone assessment or developmental pathways for speech and language therapists to work with. Furthermore, the study of Irish can make a valuable contribution to cross-linguistic research as it has structures which are very different to English such as a VSO word order, and complex morphophonological inflections in its initial mutations. This study adapted a well-known research tool, the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, to Irish in order to measure vocabulary and grammatical development longitudinally for twenty-one children aged between 16 and 40 months. Results from the parent-checklists were validated against spontaneous language samples and elicitation tasks, and compared to crosslinguistic studies of early language development. The analysis explored theoretical questions such as whether there is a noun advantage in Irish, how grammar is acquired, and the nature of the relationship between the lexicon and grammar. In addition, other theoretical aspects such as the effect of gender, birth order and maternal education on early language milestones were investigated. The findings indicate that Irish-speaking children develop vocabulary at a relatively similar rate to other children but the content of their vocabulary is somewhat different, with a relative advantage in grammatical words once they have 400 words in their vocabulary. On the other hand, many inflectional morphemes are acquired relatively late, and this is largely due to their relative complexity. The outcomes of this study not only give SLTs a descriptive framework of the development of vocabulary and grammar in Irish but also contribute to the body of cross linguistic research.
Electropalatography for articulation disorders associated with cleft palate
(John Wiley & Sons Publishers, 2009-10) Lee, Alice S.; Law, James; Gibbon, Fiona E.
Cleft palate is the most common congenital deformity of the face. It could affect speech acquisition, resulting in articulation errors that could persist into adulthood. Electropalatography (EPG) has been used in speech therapy with individuals who have articulation problems that are unresponsive to "standard treatment" procedures.
New word learning in people with aphasia
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2009-10-28) Kelly, Helen; Armstrong, Linda
Background: The theory of speech and language therapy intervention for people with aphasia is still under‐articulated, and some people with aphasia respond better to therapy than others. The reasons for individual variation in response to therapy have not yet been fully established but may partially reflect a person with aphasia's ability to utilise a range of cerebral mechanisms, such as re‐accessing damaged neural pathways and establishing new ones. Most current therapies aim to help the person with aphasia access their previously available language abilities. New learning may offer an alternative therapy approach. However, there is little evidence to date on the effect of aphasia on a person's capability to learn new linguistic information. Aim: To explore the new vocabulary learning potential of people with aphasia. Methods & Procedures: Twelve participants, under the age of 65 years and with a range of aphasia severity and personal backgrounds, were taught 20 novel words over four consecutive days. Their learning of this new vocabulary was measured via a range of single‐word processing tasks based on the cognitive neuropsychological model. Ten participants repeated the tasks a few days later to establish whether the new vocabulary had been retained in long‐term memory. Outcomes & Results: All of the participants demonstrated some ability to learn the new vocabulary (both novel word forms and novel word meanings), with scores ranging from 15% to 99% on the various assessments. At the follow‐up session, the ten participants retained between 49% and 83% of their previous scores. Conclusions: This study has important implications for aphasia rehabilitation as it has shown that people with aphasia have the potential to learn new linguistic material, even in the presence of severe language impairments. This capacity could be exploited in therapy. Previously known words could be taught as new. Pre‐therapy assessment of the person with aphasia's learning capacity and style would promote individually‐tailored learning experiences and so, potentially, more effective therapy and better clinical outcomes.
Adult speakers' tongue-palate contact patterns for bilabial stops within complex clusters
(Taylor and Francis Ltd., 2009-12) Zharkova, Natalia; Schaeffler, Sonja; Gibbon, Fiona E.; London Law; Henry Smith Charity, United Kingdom
Previous studies using Electropalatography (EPG) have shown that individuals with speech disorders sometimes produce articulation errors that affect bilabial targets, but currently there is limited normative data available. In this study, EPG and acoustic data were recorded during complex word final /sps/ clusters spoken by 20 normal adults. A total contact (TC) index measured amount of tongue-palate contact during clusters in words such as 'crisps'. Bilabial closure was inferred from the acoustic signal. The TC profiles indicated that normal adults hold their tongues in a steady /s/-like position throughout the cluster; most speakers (85%, n=17) had no significant difference in TC values during bilabial closure compared to flanking fricatives. The results are interpreted as showing that normal speakers produce double bilabial-alveolar articulations for /p/ in these clusters. Although steady state TC profiles were typical of the group, absolute TC values varied considerably between speakers, with some speakers having up to three times more contact than others. These findings add to the knowledge about normal articulation, and will help to improve diagnosis and treatment of individuals with speech disorders.
Speech and language therapy for aphasia following stroke
(Cochrane Collaboration / John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010) Kelly, Helen; Brady, Marian C.; Enderby, Pam
Our review provides some evidence of the effectiveness of SLT (speech and language therapy) for people with aphasia following stroke in terms of improved functional communication, receptive and expressive language. However, some trials were poorly reported. The potential benefits of intensive SLT over conventional SLT were confounded by a significantly higher dropout from intensive SLT. More participants also withdrew from social support than SLT interventions. There was insufficient evidence to draw any conclusion regarding the effectiveness of any one specific SLT approach over another.
Visual feedback therapy with electropalatography
(Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc., 2010) Gibbon, Fiona E.; Wood, Sara E.; Williams, A. Lynn; McLeod, Sharynne; McCauley, Rebecca J.
Electropalatography (EPG) is an instrumental technique that detects the tongue’s contact against the hard palate during speech and creates a visual display of the resulting patterns. This chapter focuses on EPG as a visual feedback device in therapy for children with speech sound disorders. Tongue-palate contact information is rich in detail and as a result it can be used for diverse research and clinical purposes. Examples of clinically relevant information contained in EPG data are place of articulation, lateral bracing, groove formation, timing of tongue movements and coarticulation. Furthermore, the technique records measurable amounts of contact for sound targets that are frequently produced as errors by children with speech sound disorders (e.g., /δ/, /Ʃ/, /τƩ/). These features make EPG valuable for both diagnosis and therapy. During EPG therapy, children’s abnormal articulation patterns are revealed to them on the computer screen and they can use this dynamic visual feedback display to help them produce normal contact patterns. An attractive property of EPG as a therapy device is that the visual display is relatively intuitive. This means that children can understand the link between the speech sounds they hear and the associated contact patterns displayed on the screen. There is now an extensive literature on the benefits of using EPG in therapy, but the quality of evidence would improve by conducting large clinical trials in the future.
Phonetic and phonological errors in children with high functioning autism and Asperger syndrome
(Informa Healthcare, 2010-02) Cleland, Joanne; Gibbon, Fiona E.; Peppé, Sue J. E.; O'Hare, Anne; Rutherford, Marion; Chief Scientist Office, Scotland; Economic and Social Research Council, United Kingdom
This study involved a qualitative analysis of speech errors in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Participants were 69 children aged 5-13 years; 30 had high functioning autism and 39 had Asperger syndrome. On a standardized test of articulation, the minority (12%) of participants presented with standard scores below the normal range, indicating a speech delay/disorder. Although all the other children had standard scores within the normal range, a sizeable proportion (33% of those with normal standard scores) presented with a small number of errors. Overall 41% of the group produced at least some speech errors. The speech of children with ASD was characterized by mainly developmental phonological processes (gliding, cluster reduction and final consonant deletion most frequently), but non-developmental error types (such as phoneme specific nasal emission and initial consonant deletion) were found both in children identified as performing below the normal range in the standardized speech test and in those who performed within the normal range. Non-developmental distortions occurred relatively frequently in the children with ASD and previous studies of adolescents and adults with ASDs shows similar errors, suggesting that they do not resolve over time. Whether or not speech disorders are related specifically to ASD, their presence adds an additional communication and social barrier and should be diagnosed and treated as early as possible in individual children.
Producing turbulent speech sounds in the context of cleft palate
(De Gruyter, 2010-04) Gibbon, Fiona E.; Lee, Alice S.; Fuchs, Susanne; Toda, Martine; Zygis, Marzena
Aims and Scope: No sound class requires so much basic knowledge of phonology, acoustics, aerodynamics, and speech production as obstruents (turbulent sounds) do. This book is intended to bridge a gap by introducing the reader to the world of obstruents from a multidisciplinary perspective. It starts with a review of typological processes, continues with various contributions to the phonetics-phonology interface, explains the realization of specific turbulent sounds in endangered languages, and finishes with surveys of obstruents from a sociophonetic, physical and pathological perspective.
Tongue-palate contact during selected vowels in normal speech
(American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association, 2010-07) Gibbon, Fiona E.; Lee, Alice S.; Yuen, Ivan; BBC Children in Need; Henry Smith Charity; London Law
Objective: Previous research using electropalatography has revealed that high vowels are vulnerable to articulation errors in cleft palate speech. The error involves complete tongue-palate contact, which obstructs normal airflow through the mouth and increases nasal airflow. This study used electropalatography to provide a more detailed description of typical tongue-palate contact for high vowels than currently exists. Design: Electropalatography and acoustic data were recorded for multiple repetitions of monophthongs /i/, /u/, and /a/ and diphthongs /ai/, /oi/, and /au/. Participants: Ten typical English-speaking adults. Measures: Two measures were taken from electropalatography data during vowels; one identified electropalatography patterns with complete tongue-palate contact and a second calculated percentage of contact at five time points. Results: None of the vowels had electropalatography patterns with complete tongue-palate contact. The amount of contact varied for the different vowels at the five time points throughout the vowels and also between speakers. When contact occurred, it was located in the posterior, lateral regions of the palate, forming a central groove that was free of contact. Conclusion: Complete tongue-palate contact during vowels is not a feature of typical English speech and can be considered an error pattern. The normative date provided in this study will be useful to speech-language pathologists who use electropalatography in their clinical work. The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the assessment of vowels in cleft palate speech.
Using EPG data to display articulatory separation for phoneme contrasts
(Informa Plc., 2011) Gibbon, Fiona E.; Lee, Alice S.
A recurring difficulty for researchers using electropalatography (EPG) is the wide variation in spatial patterns that occurs between speakers. High inter speaker variability, combined with small numbers of participants, makes it problematic (i) to identify differences in tongue palate contact across groups of speakers and (ii) to define “normal” patterns during visual feedback therapy. This paper shows how graphing EPG data in terms of articulatory separation of phoneme contrasts reduces these two problems to some extent. The graphs emphasise the importance of establishing the presence and extent of separation, as revealed in the EPG data, for phoneme contrasts produced by speakers. Separation graphs for contrasts /i/ - /u/, /s/ - /ʃ/ and /t/ - /k/ are presented using EPG data from adults and children with typical speech and those with speech disorders. When used in conjunction with acoustic and auditory perceptual analyses, it is proposed that representing articulation data in terms of separation will prove useful for a range of clinical and research purposes.
Familiarity of speaker accent on Irish children’s performance on a sentence comprehension task
(Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists (IASLT); J&R Press Ltd., 2011) O'Connor, Claire; Gibbon, Fiona E.
Objectives: This study sought to determine whether children’s performance on a sentence comprehension task is affected when sentences are spoken in an unfamiliar native accent. Method: Fifty typically developing school-aged children living in Southern Ireland (Cork) participated; 25 in a younger group (mean 7;08 years) and 25 in an older group (mean 9;09 years). The children completed a computer-based comprehension task during which 20 sentences were spoken in a Cork accent (familiar) and 20 were in a Tyrone accent (unfamiliar). The sentences were matched for syllable length and syntactic complexity. Main results: The younger children made significantly more errors when sentences were spoken in an unfamiliar accent. The older children made a similar number of incorrect responses to both familiar and unfamiliar accents. Conclusion: Younger children’s performance on comprehension tasks may be reduced when sentences are spoken in an unfamiliar accent. Possible explanations and the clinical implications are discussed.
Benchmarking typically developing children’s prosodic performance on the Irish version of the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C)
(Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists (IASLT); J&R Press Ltd., 2011) Foley, Michelle; Gibbon, Fiona E.; Peppé, Susan
Objective: To identify the normal prosodic performance for typically developing children aged 5-11 years on the Irish version of the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech Communication (PEPS-C) assessment and identify significant age related changes between different age groups. Method: Thirty typically developing children between the ages of 5;9 and 11;1 years completed the PEPS-C assessment which involved both receptive and expressive tasks. Results: Significant differences were found between the youngest group’s prosodic performance and the two older groups. The 5/6 year old age group performed less well than the 10/11 year age group (p<0.05). The 10/11 year age group performed above chance level on all prosodic tasks. Conclusion: While 5/6 year old children have acquired some functional prosodic skills, there are further developments between the ages of 5;9 and 9;5, with some aspects of prosody continuing to develop up to 11 years.
Investigating relative clauses in children with specific language impairment
(University College Cork, 2011) Frizelle, Pauline; Fletcher, Paul; Health Research Board
Background: It is well documented that children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) experience significant grammatical deficits. While much of the focus in the past has been on their morphosyntactic difficulties, less is known about their acquisition of complex syntactic structures such as relative clauses. The role of memory in language performance has also become increasingly prominent in the literature. Aims: This study aims to investigate the control of an important complex syntactic structure, the relative clause, by school age children with SLI in Ireland, using a newly devised sentence recall task. It also aims to explore the role of verbal and short-termworking memory in the performance of children with SLI on the sentence recall task, using a standardized battery of tests based on Baddeley’s model of working memory. Methods and Procedures: Thirty two children with SLI, thirty two age matched typically developing children (AM-TD) between the ages of 6 and 7,11 years and twenty younger typically developing (YTD) children between 4,7 and 5 years, completed the task. The sentence recall (SR) task included 52 complex sentences and 17 fillers. It included relative clauses that are used in natural discourse and that reflect a developmental hierarchy. The relative clauses were also controlled for length and varied in syntactic complexity, representing the full range of syntactic roles. There were seven different relative clause types attached to either the predicate nominal of a copular clause (Pn), or to the direct object of a transitive clause (Do). Responses were recorded, transcribed and entered into a database for analysis. TheWorkingMemory Test Battery for children (WMTB-C—Pickering & Gathercole, 2001) was administered in order to explore the role of short-term memory and working memory on the children’s performance on the SR task. Outcomes and Results: The children with SLI showed significantly greater difficulty than the AM-TD group and the YTD group. With the exception of the genitive subject clauses, the children with SLI scored significantly higher on all sentences containing a Pn main clause than those containing a transitive main clause. Analysis of error types revealed the frequent production of a different type of relative clause than that presented in the task—with a strong word order preference in the NVN direction indicated for the children with SLI. The SR performance for the children with SLI was most highly correlated with expressive language skills and digit recall. Conclusions and Implications: Children with SLI have significantly greater difficulty with relative clauses than YTD children who are on average two years younger—relative clauses are a delay within a delay. Unlike the YTD children they show a tendency to simplify relative clauses in the noun verb noun (NVN) direction. They show a developmental hierarchy in their production of relative clause constructions and are highly influenced by the frequency distribution of the relative clauses in the ambient language.

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