Horn, meagan project proposal

• Syndrome that involves a delay or deficit in the

development of a large range of grammatical skills

(Beckman, Munson, Edwards 2004)

• Not attributed to neurological, sensory or

intelligence disabilities (Leonard 1989)

SynSLI PragSLI LexSLI PhoSLI













• Difficulties with the following processes:

Phoneme deletions

Consonant cluster reduction

Final consonant deletion

Initial consonant deletion

Unstressed syllable reduction

Fronting (velar and palatal)

• More fine grained phonological distinctions are

developed over time.

• Larger vocabulary sizes = More phonological distinctions

Stronger Connections to Long Term Memory

• Under investigated in the literature

• Edwards and Lahey (1998)

• Differences in auditory discrimination

• Forming or holding phonological representations

in working memory

• Motor planning and execution





in working memory






in working memory






in working memory






in working memory


• Their systems are similar to those in younger children

“Children with SLI would be able to form accurate

phonological representations but would have to work

harder to form these representations, resulting in an

overload of their systems.”

(Maillart, Schelstraete and Hupet 2004)

• Their systems are similar to those in younger children

“Children with SLI would be able to form accurate

phonological representations but would have to work

harder to form these representations, resulting in an

overload of their systems.”

(Maillart, Schelstraete and Hupet 2004)

• Participants

• 11 sequential bilingual children with SLI (8:10)

• 11 age-matched bilingual children without SLI (9:1)

• Nonword repetition task (20 words)

• Analyzed:

1.) Number of correct words

2.) Accuracy of the stress pattern

3.) Frequency and types of errors

• Results:

• SLI children had significantly more incorrect

repetitions of non-words.

• Vowels were rarely produced incorrectly by

either group (SLI or TD)

• Error Types:

• SLI children had more consonant

omissions and substitutions than TDC

• Participants

• Spontaneous language producion data

• Results:

• Despite MLU level, children with SLI were more

likely to omit syllables from the target words

• Initial syllables

• French omission results similar to Italian/Spanish

• Not similar to English (higher rates)

Do Spanish-English bilingual children with SLI manage

phonological short-term memory overload better than

Spanish monolingual children with SLI?

• Dependent Variable: Accuracy of Responses

• Independent Variables:

• Bilingual vs. Monolingual

• No Distraction Task vs. Distraction Task

Do Spanish-English bilingual children with SLI manage

phonological short-term memory overload better that

Spanish monolingual children with SLI?

YES.

Bilinguals have been shown to have a better

working memory than monolinguals

• 2 groups of children:

• 20 Spanish-English Bilinguals with PhoSLI

• 20 Spanish Monolinguals with PhoSLI

• Between 4;0 and 8;0 years of chronological age

• Similar Mean Length of Utterance (MLU)

• Ensures that any differences found are purely

phonological in nature.

• Preliminary Tests

• Parent/Teacher questionnaire

• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-R95)

• Hearing Screening at five frequencies

• Nonce Words Repetition Test - Following the phonotactic rules of Spanish

- Varying degrees of syllabic complexity

• Two trials:

1.) 10 bilingual/10 monolingual:

Repetition will be done without distraction.

2.) 10 bilingual/10 monolingual:

A distraction forcing a delay in response time.

• Nonce Words Repetition Test

The child listens to a nonword, temporarily stores

the novel phonological representation, and then is

asked to produce it.

PHONOLOGICAL LOOP

• Stimuli:

• Auditory via headphones and a computer

• All stimuli recorded by the same native Spanish speaker

• 8 phonologically simple nonce Spanish words

• 8 phonologically complex nonce Spanish words

• 5 real Spanish word distractors

• Given in a randomized order

• Order will be counter balanced for each group

Nonce Words Repetition Test

8 Phonologically Simple (Disyllabic CVCV containing

only occlusives)

Cuto Tike

Gope Papu

Pipe Doki

Tota Gitu

8 Phonologically Complex (Mutlisyllabic CV(C)CV(C)(CV)

with fricatives, liquids and nasals)

Fripón Espudoro

Plosa Conscenbrál

Lortón Guirenflónis

Zollér Portagolín

• No distraction trial

• Instructions:

• The children are told that they are going to play a game.

• Meet Plinko, he is a monkey and he is a little silly. He is

trying to learn a large list words and needs your help to

remember them! Some are normal words and some are

pretty strange. As soon as you hear the word, say it back

as exactly as you can! Okay?

• Distraction Trial

• After hearing each nonce word, the child will need to hug a toy monkey before repeating the word.

• Instructions: • The children are told that they are going to play a game.

• Meet Plinko, he is a monkey and he is a little silly. He is trying to learn a large list words and needs your help to remember them! Some are normal words and some are pretty strange. He needs a lot of encouragement. As soon as you hear the word, can you give him a big hug and then say it back as exactly as you can! Okay?

Nonce Words Repetition Test:

1.) Phonological short-term storage

- Auditory sequence is kept as phonological code

2.) Subvocal rehearsal

- Holds onto this code to avoid its decay

Nonce Words Repetition Test:

1.) Phonological short-term storage

- Auditory sequence is kept as phonological code

2.) Subvocal rehearsal

- Holds onto this code to avoid its decay

2 X 2 X 2

Monolingual

Bilingual

Simple Words

Complex Words

Distraction

No Distraction

Do Spanish-English bilingual children with SLI commit

similar phonological errors as Spanish monolingual

children with SLI?

• Dependent Variable: Frequency of Error Types

• Independent Variables:

• Bilingual vs. Monolingual

• No Distraction Task vs. Distraction Task

Documents

Horn, meagan project proposal