Speech and Hearing Sciences – Book Chapters

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Argument structure and specific language impairment: retrospect and prospect
(University of Groningen, 2014) de Jong, Jan; Fletcher, Paul
This article reflects a collaboration between the Universities of Groningen and Reading of which Frans Zwarts was the promoter. One of the outcomes was a close attention to the learning of various aspects of argument structure by children with specific language impairment (SLI) in Dutch and English. At that time and since, the focus on deficits in grammatical morphology in these children has left verb complementation as something of a syntactic Cinderella. Here we review the findings from our studies in the 1990s. We confirm that children with SLI in both languages have problems with verb specificity, with argument structure alternations and with resultative verb predicates. The very limited number of subsequent studies on verb syntax appear to support our findings. We conclude that this is an area which will repay further scrutiny – it is high time argument structure received an invitation to the ball.
Learning styles and academic outcomes: a longitudinal study on the impact of a problem-based learning curriculum
(Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2011-11-11) O'Toole, Ciara; Bridges, Susan; McGrath, Colman; Whitehill, Tara L.
Learning styles are the preferred ways individuals have for processing knowledge. Problem-based learning (PBL) might be perceived to suit the ‘active’ learner because of the brainstorming and group work involved. However, PBL is also intended for those who prefer to learn by researching the literature, those who seek to explore complex questions, and those who like to problem-solve and apply knowledge to practice. This study profiled the learning styles of 30 speech and language therapy students in an undergraduate PBL curriculum using the Learning Styles Questionnaire (Honey & Mumford, The learning styles Helper’s guide. Maidenhead: Peter Honey Publications Ltd., 2000) and measured their styles repeatedly over a three-year period. The results indicated that students entered the course with a range of learning styles, although in general were not characterized as active learners. Following three years of PBL-based education, the students became significantly more active, although as a group remained largely reflective. Learning styles had both negative and positive associations with academic outcomes in a variety of courses over the three years. The implications for PBL and education are discussed.
A preliminary study of prosody skills in children with spina bifida
(Novus Forlag, 2016-11) Lee, Alice S.; Hayes, Orla; Ní Mhurchú, Damhnait; Gibbon, Fiona E.
In this Festschrift for Professor Hanne Gram Simonsen, colleagues and former students from home and abroad have contributed 18 newly written articles that together reflect the diversity of the jubilee's research interests in phonetics, phonology, morphology, typical and atypical language development in children, language and aging, language difficulties by aphasia and dementia, language mapping, multilingualism and sign language.
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.
Therapy for abnormal vowels in children with speech disorders
(Psychology Press, 2013) Gibbon, Fiona E.; Ball, Martin J.; Gibbon, Fiona E.
Using parent report to assess bilingual vocabulary acquisition: a model from Irish
(Multilingual Matters, 2013) O'Toole, Ciara; Mueller Gathercole, Virginia C.
This chapter describes the adaptation of a parent report instrument on early language development to a bilingual context. Beginning with general issues of adapting tests to any language, particular attention is placed on the issue of using parents as evaluators of child language acquisition of a minority language in a bilingual context. In Ireland, Irish is the first official language and is spoken by about 65,000 people on a daily basis. However all Irish speakers are bilingual, and children are exposed to the dominant English language at an early age. Using an adaptation of a parent report instrument, 21 typically developing children between 16 and 40 months were assessed repeatedly over two years to monitor their language development. The form allowed parents to document their children’s vocabulary development in both languages. Results showed that when knowledge of both languages was accounted for, the children acquired vocabulary at rates similar to those of monolingual speakers and used translational equivalents relatively early in language development. The study also showed that parents of bilingual children could accurately identify and differentiate language development in both of the child’s languages. Recommendations for adapting and using parent report instruments in bilingual language acquisition contexts are outlined.
Using parent report to assess early lexical production in children exposed to more than one language
(Multilingual Matters, 2015-04-28) Gatt, Daniela; O'Toole, Ciara; Haman, Ewa; Armon-Lotem, Sharon; de Jong, Jan; Meir, Natalia; European Commission
Limited expressive vocabulary skills in young children are considered to be the first warning signs of a potential Specific Language Impairment (SLI) (Ellis & Thal, 2008). In bilingual language learning environments, the expressive vocabulary size in each of the child’s developing languages is usually smaller compared to the number of words produced by monolingual peers (e.g. De Houwer, 2009). Nonetheless, evidence shows children’s total productive lexicon size across both languages to be comparable to monolingual peers’ vocabularies (e.g. Pearson et al., 1993; Pearson & Fernandez, 1994). Since there is limited knowledge as to which level of bilingual vocabulary size should be considered as a risk factor for SLI, the effects of bilingualism and language-learning difficulties on early lexical production are often confounded. The compilation of profiles for early vocabulary production in children exposed to more than one language, and their comparison across language pairs, should enable more accurate identification of vocabulary delays that signal a risk for SLI in bilingual populations. These considerations prompted the design of a methodology for assessing early expressive vocabulary in children exposed to more than one language, which is described in the present chapter. The implementation of this methodological framework is then outlined by presenting the design of a study that measured the productive lexicons of children aged 24-36 months who were exposed to different language pairs, namely Maltese and English, Irish and English, Polish and English, French and Portuguese, Turkish and German as well as English and Hebrew. These studies were designed and coordinated in COST Action IS0804 Working Group 3 (WG3) and will be described in detail in a series of subsequent publications. Expressive vocabulary size was measured through parental report, by employing the vocabulary checklist of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences (CDI: WS) (Fenson et al., 1993, 2007) and its adaptations to the participants’ languages. Here we describe the novelty of the study’s methodological design, which lies in its attempt to harmonize the use of vocabulary checklist adaptations, together with parental questionnaires addressing language exposure and developmental history, across participant groups characterized by different language exposure variables. This chapter outlines the various methodological considerations that paved the way for meaningful cross-linguistic comparison of the participants’ expressive lexicon sizes. In so doing, it hopes to provide a template for and encourage further research directed at establishing a threshold for SLI risk in children exposed to more than one language.
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.
Vowel imaging
(Psychology Press, 2013) Lee, Alice S.; Zharkova, Natalia; Gibbon, Fiona E.; Ball, Martin J.; Gibbon, Fiona E.

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