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Descriptors:
Grammar; Classification; Acoustics; Phonology; Learning Processes; Performance; Language Patterns; Language Acquisition; Language Research

Abstract:
Some of recently proposed phonotactic learners are tier-based bigram learners that restrict their hypothesis space to patterns between two segments that are adjacent at the tier level. This assumption is understandable considering that typologically frequent nonadjacent sound patterns are predominantly those that hold between two tier-adjacent segments. However, it is not clear whether the assumption is psychologically justified, i.e., whether speakers are indeed exclusively attentive to patterns between two tier-adjacent segments when it comes to learning nonadjacent sound patterns. In general, many recent studies suggest that learnable sound patterns are not limited to typologically observed sound patterns. Specifically, Koo and Callahan (2012) argue that adult speakers in laboratory settings have no trouble learning artificial patterns that cannot be explained by tier-based bigram learners. In this paper, we replicate their results in a more carefully controlled setting and argue that the assumption of tier-based bigram learning must be relaxed in order to properly explain human performance. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Preschool Children; Scaffolding (Teaching Technique); Intervention; Cloze Procedure; Speech Impairments; Language Impairments; Black Dialects; Accuracy; Speech; Outcomes of Treatment; Word Frequency; Phonology

Abstract:
This study investigated the effects of a scaffolded-language intervention using cloze procedures, semantically contingent expansions, contrastive word pairs, and direct models on speech abilities in two preschoolers with speech and language impairment speaking African American English. Effects of the lexical and phonological characteristics (i.e., word frequency, neighborhood density, and phonotactic probability) of contrastive word pairs and direct models on speech production accuracy were examined. Speech outcomes support the application of a scaffolded-language intervention with children with speech and language impairment. Results lend support to the assertion that fundamental intervention principles are applicable regardless of native dialect. Effects of word frequency, neighborhood density, and phonotactic probability clarified their role within the scaffolded-language intervention. (Contains 6 tables and 4 figure.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Evidence; Syntax; Generalization; Language Acquisition; Infants; Sentences; Word Order; Psycholinguistics; Hypothesis Testing; Russian; Phonology; Morphology (Languages); Cues; Language Research

Abstract:
This study tests the hypothesis that distributional information can guide infants in the generalization of word order movement rules at the initial stage of language acquisition. Participants were 11- and 14-month-old infants. Stimuli were sentences in Russian, a language that was unknown to our infants. During training the word order of each sentence was transformed following a consistent pattern (e.g., ABC-BAC). During the test phase infants heard novel sentences that respected the trained rule and ones that violated the trained rule (i.e., a different transformation such as ABC-ACB). Stimuli words had highly variable phonological and morphological shapes. The cue available was the positional information of words and their non-adjacent relations across sentences. We found that 14-month-olds, but not 11-month-olds, showed evidence of abstract rule generalization to novel instances. The implications of this finding to early syntactic acquisition are discussed. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
French; Written Language; Oral Language; Syllables; Phoneme Grapheme Correspondence; Phonology; Orthographic Symbols

Abstract:
Syllabification of spoken words has been largely used to define syllabic properties of written words, such as the number of syllables or syllabic boundaries. By contrast, some authors proposed that the functional structure of written words stems from visuo-orthographic features rather than from the transposition of phonological structure into the written modality. Thus, the first aim of the study was to assess whether the explicit segmentation of written words in French was consistent with syllabification patterns for spoken words previously reported. Second, given that spelling does not map perfectly with phonology, we examined how readers segmented printed words with grapheme/phoneme misalignments. The examination of the whole patterns of written segmentation produced by participants showed that, though written segmentation followed spoken segmentation for words matched for phonological/orthographic forms, discrepancies were found in cases of mismatch, therefore suggesting that readers rely on orthographic cues to parse printed strings of letters. This conclusion was confirmed with an on-line letter detection task. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures and 2 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Suprasegmentals; Serbocroatian; Intonation; Phonology; Phonetics; Context Effect; Syllables; Native Speakers; Females

Abstract:
This paper reports the results of an experiment that elicits contextual effects on Rising and Falling accents in Standard Serbian, with the goal of determining their acoustic correlates and their phonological representation. Materials systematically vary the distance between pitch accents, inducing "tone crowding," in order to identify the phonetic dimensions that consistently distinguish the two pitch accent types, to examine the association between accents and the segmental string, as well as the timing relationship between accent minima and maxima, and to investigate the interaction between lexical accents and boundary tones. On the basis of the phonetic findings, a unified analysis of the phonological distribution and phonetic realization of Falling and Rising accents in Standard Serbian is proposed. It is proposed that both Rising and Falling accents consist of a single lexical High (H). The restricted distribution of the two accents emerges from the interaction of stress and tone: Falling accents are monosyllabic, such that stress and pitch prominence coincide; Rising accents are bisyllabic, such that the stressed syllable precedes the pitch-accented syllable. The phonetic differences between the Falling and Rising accents follow from the place of lexically designated H, the location of stress, and the effects of boundary tones. The larger issue we address concerns the phonological characterization of tone/stress interactions. Given the two general types of interactions, one in which the place of stress is predictable from the place of tone, and the other with the reversed direction of influence, we analyze Standard Serbian as belonging to the former type. While both types can be characterized in systems of tonal phonology, which allow free interaction of tone and stress, the type exemplified by Standard Serbian, with contrastive tonal specifications governing the distribution of stress, cannot be captured in an Autosegmental-Metrical (AM) framework, in which stress serves as anchor for tonal melodies. (Contains 15 tables and 17 figures.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Language Impairments; Dyslexia; Phonology; Language Skills; Models; Children; Comparative Analysis; Comorbidity; Factor Analysis; Profiles

Abstract:
An on-going debate surrounds the relationship between specific language impairment and developmental dyslexia, in particular with respect to their phonological abilities. Are these distinct disorders? To what extent do they overlap? Which cognitive and linguistic profiles correspond to specific language impairment, dyslexia and comorbid cases? At least three different models have been proposed: the severity model, the additional deficit model and the component model. We address this issue by comparing children with specific language impairment only, those with dyslexia-only, those with specific language impairment and dyslexia and those with no impairment, using a broad test battery of language skills. We find that specific language impairment and dyslexia do not always co-occur, and that some children with specific language impairment do not have a phonological deficit. Using factor analysis, we find that language abilities across the four groups of children have at least three independent sources of variance: one for non-phonological language skills and two for distinct sets of phonological abilities (which we term phonological skills versus phonological representations). Furthermore, children with specific language impairment and dyslexia show partly distinct profiles of phonological deficit along these two dimensions. We conclude that a multiple-component model of language abilities best explains the relationship between specific language impairment and dyslexia and the different profiles of impairment that are observed. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Reading Difficulties; Cognitive Development; Grade 2; Dyslexia; Prediction; Learning Disabilities; At Risk Persons; Elementary School Students; Reading Skills; Comparative Analysis; Symptoms (Individual Disorders); Genetics; Phonology; Cognitive Ability

Abstract:
This longitudinal study examined early cognitive risk and protective factors for Grade 2 reading disability (RD). We first examined the reading outcome of 198 children in four developmental cognitive subgroups that were identified in our previous analysis: dysfluent trajectory, declining trajectory, unexpected trajectory and typical trajectory. We found that RD was unevenly distributed among the subgroups, although children with RD were found in all subgroups. A majority of the children with RD had familial risk for dyslexia. Second, we examined in what respect children with similar early cognitive development but different RD outcome differ from each other in cognitive skills, task-focused behaviour and print exposure. The comparison of the groups with high cognitive risk but different RD outcome showed significant differences in phonological skills, in the amount of shared reading and in task-focused behaviour. Children who ended up with RD despite low early cognitive risk had poorer cognitive skills, more task avoidance and they were reading less than children without RD and low cognitive risk. In summary, lack of task avoidance seemed to act as a protective factor, which underlines the importance of keeping children interested in school work and reading. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Foreign Countries; Children; Recognition (Psychology); Speech Impairments; Phonology; Acoustics; Nonprint Media; Identification; Accuracy; Child Development; Age Differences; Short Term Memory

Abstract:
Children with phonological impairment (PI) often have difficulties perceiving insufficiencies in their own speech. The use of recordings has been suggested as a way of directing the child's attention toward his/her own speech, despite a lack of evidence that children actually recognize their recorded voice as their own. We present two studies of children's self-voice identification, one exploring developmental aspects, and one exploring potential effects of having a PI. The results indicate that children from 4 to 8 years recognize their recorded voice well (around 80% accuracy), regardless of whether they have a PI or not. A subtle change in this ability from 4 to 8 years is observed that could be linked to a development in short-term memory. Clinically, one can indeed expect an advantage of using recordings in therapy; this could constitute an intermediate step toward the more challenging task of online self-monitoring. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Word Recognition; Pictorial Stimuli; Reaction Time; Longitudinal Studies; Correlation; Behavior Change; Task Analysis; Auditory Stimuli; Phonology

Abstract:
This study examined behavioral changes in 15-day learning of word-picture (WP) and word-sound (WS) associations, using meaningless stimuli. Subjects performed a learning task and two recognition tasks under the WP and WS conditions every day for 15 days. Two main findings emerged from this study. First, behavioral data of recognition accuracy and response time were improved in both conditions of WP and WS by the 15-day learning of associations. Second, the performance in WP was better than that in WS for 15 days, but the correlation between accuracies in WP and WS was significant across subjects. These results suggest that even if meaningless stimuli are employed as an experimental stimulus, the long-term learning of associations between words and perceptual features could be formed in both visual and auditory modalities, between which the performance levels are highly correlated, but the learning effect could be dominant when words are associated with visual features, compared to auditory features. (Contains 5 figures.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Foreign Countries; Language Research; Phonology; Native Speakers; Japanese; English (Second Language); College Students; English; Majors (Students); Word Recognition; Language Processing; Task Analysis; Semantics; Decision Making; Reaction Time; Listening Skills; Cognitive Processes; Listening Comprehension; Language Proficiency

Abstract:
This study investigated the application of the speeded lexical decision task to L2 aural processing efficiency. One-hundred and twenty Japanese university students completed an aural word/nonword task. When the variation of lexical decision time (CV) was correlated with reaction time (RT), the results suggested that the single-word recognition task could be successfully applied to the L2 aural modality. However, when CV and RT were correlated with L2 listening ability, a statistically significant relationship was not found. It was concluded that the single-word word recognition task might not be suited to measuring L2 aural word recognition efficiency. (Contains 1 table.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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