Project Aims and Results: Articulation disorders of unknown origin are one of the most common types of communication disorder diagnosed in children. In the last two decades, these disorders have come to be termed "phonological disorders" (PD) and characterized as a deficit in the misarticulating child's phonological knowledge (or as a delay in the development of such knowledge). Experiments in the previous budget period probed phonological knowledge at three levels of representation: (1) the acoustic-perceptual level, (2) the articulatory level, and (3) an intervening level of inverse mapping functions that co-index acoustic patterns with the articulatory configurations that might reproduce them. Three tasks were used to test these different representational levels in 40 preschool children with PD, a group of children with typical development (TD) matched for age, gender, and non-verbal IQ, and two groups of older participants: 7-8 year olds and adults. Results were interpreted as support for three hypotheses. First, normal language development involves a progressive mastery of phonological knowledge at all three levels that continues well beyond the age when the majority of children with TD can reliably produce all of the phonemes of English. Second, while all three representational levels bootstrap off of phonetic skills that begin to develop in pre-lexical vocal play, their continued development in the young child is closely tied to vocabulary growth. This is especially true of mapping skills at level (3). Performance on the task probing this level of representation shows an effect of phonotactic probability that is inversely correlated with expressive vocabulary size, a pattern that we interpret as evidence of the gradual emergence of symbolic categories such as phonemes. Third, performance of children with PD is similar to that of younger children with TD on the two tasks that measure perception and articulation skills, but there is no difference between children with PD and their TD age peers in the effect that suggests the emergence of phonemes. Thus, PD seems to involve a deficit or delay in one or both of the modality-specific representational levels, rather than in the ability to form symbolic phonological categories. If correct, these hypotheses suggest that therapy for PD should focus on improving skills at the two modality-specific representational levels. However, because all participants in these experiments were monolingual speakers of English, we could not rule out an alternative interpretation of the phonotactic effect in terms of phonetic constraints that make some sound sequences inherently more difficult to hear and to say. This is why we are now focusing on the cross-linguistic comparison of phonotactic effects in the paidologos project.
Beckman, M. E., & Edwards, Jan (in review, 2008). Generalizing over lexicons to predict consonant mastery. Submitted to P. Warren & J. Hay, eds., Laboratory Phonology 11 [pdf of review copy of paper]
Arbisi-Kelm, T., & Beckman, M. E. (in press). Prosodic structure and consonant development across languages. Accepted for publication in M. Vigario, S. Frota, M. J. Freitas (eds.) Interactions in phonetics and phonology. [pdf of review copy of paper]
Li, F., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2009). Contrast and covert contrast: The phonetic development of voiceless sibilant fricatives in English and Japanese toddlers. Journal of Phonetics, 37(1): 111-124. [pdf of review copy of paper]
Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2008). Methodological questions in studying phonological acquisition. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 22(12): 939-958. [pdf of proofs]
Kong, E., Beckman, M. E., & Edwards, J. (2007). Fine-grained phonetics and acquisition of Greek voiced stops. Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 6-10 August 2007, Saarbruecken. [pdf of paper]
Li, F., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2007). Spectral measures for sibilant fricatives of English, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 6-10 August 2007, Saarbruecken. [pdf of paper]
Monnin, J., Loevenbruck, H., & Beckman, M. E. (2007). The influence of frequency on word-initial obstruent acquisition in Hexagonal French. Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 6-10 August 2007, Saarbruecken. [review draft of paper]
Arbisi-Kelm, T. (in review).
Intonation structure and disfluency in stuttering.
Paper submitted to Cécile Fougeron & Mariapaola D'Imperio, eds.,
Laboratory Phonology 10.
Also, paper presented at LabPhon10,
29 June - 1 July 2005, Paris.
[prepublication draft of paper]
Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2008). Some cross-linguistic evidence for modulation of implicational universals by language-specific frequency effects in the acquisition of consonant phonemes. Language Learning & Development, 4 (1): 122-156. [review draft of paper]
Beckman, M. E., Munson, B., & Edwards, J. (2007).
Vocabulary growth and developmental expansion of types of
phonological knowledge.
In Jennifer Cole and José I. Hualde, eds., Laboratory Phonology 9,
pp. 241-264, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Also, paper presented at LabPhon9, 24-26 June 2004, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign.
[slides of talk]
[review draft of paper]
Munson, B. (2006). Nonword repetition and levels of abstraction in phonological knowledge. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27(4), 577-581.
Ellis Weismer, S., & Edwards, J. (2006). The role of phonological storage deficits in specific language impairment: A reconsideration. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27(4), 556-562.
Munson, B., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2005). Phonological knowledge in typical and atypical speech sound development. Topics in Language Disorders, 25, 190-206. [preprint of paper]
Munson, B., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2005). Relationships between nonword repetition accuracy and other measures of linguistic development in children with phonological disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 48, 61-78. [preprint]
Edwards, J., Beckman, M. E., & Munson, B. R. (2004). The interaction between vocabulary size and phonotactic probability effects on children's production accuracy and fluency in nonword repetition. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 421-436.
Nicolaidis, K., Edwards, J., Beckman, M., & Tserdanelis, G. (2003). Acquisition of lingual obstruents in Greek. To appear in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference of Greek Linguistics, Rethymno, Crete, September 18-21, 2003. [preprint]
Beckman, M. E. (2003). Input representations (inside the mind and out). In G. Garding & M. Tsujimura (eds.) WCFFL22 Proceedings (pp. 70-94). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [preprint]
Beckman, M. E., Yoneyama, K., & Edwards, J. (2003). Language-specific and language-universal aspects of lingual obstruent productions in Japanese-acquiring children. Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan, 7, 18-28. [preprint]
Edwards, J., Fox, R. A., & Rogers, C. (2002). Final consonant discrimination in children: Effects of phonological disorder, vocabulary size, and articulatory accuracy. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 231-242.
Munson, B. (2001). A method for studying variability in fricatives using dynamic measures of spectral mean. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 110, 1203-1206.
Munson, B. (2001). Phonological pattern frequency and speech production in adults and children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 778-792.
Munson, B. (2001). Relationships between vocabulary size and spoken word recognition in children aged 3 to 7. Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders, 28, 20-29.
Beckman, M.E., & Edwards, J. (2000). The ontogeny of phonological categories and the primacy of lexical learning in linguistic development. Child Development, 71, 240-249.
Edwards, J. (2000). Commentary: Lexical representations in acquisition. Papers in laboratory phonology V (M. Broe & J. Pierrehumbert, eds). Cambridge University Press, 240-249.
Beckman, M. E., & Edwards, J. (2000). Lexical frequency effects on young children's imitative productions. Papers in laboratory phonology V (M. Broe & J. Pierrehumbert, eds). Cambridge University Press, 208-218.
Edwards, J., Fourakis, M., Beckman, M. E., and Fox, R. (1999). Characterizing knowledge deficits in phonological disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 169-186.
Edwards, J., Gibbon, F., & Fourakis, M. (1997). On discrete changes in the acquisition of the alveolar/velar stop consonant contrast. Language and Speech, 40, 203-210.
Recent conference presentations:
Kaiser, E., Munson, B., Li, F., Holliday, J., Beckman, M. E., Edwards, J., & Schellinger, S. (2008). Why do adults vary in how categorically they rate the accuracy of children's speech? Poster presented at the 157th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, 18-22 May 2008. [pdf of poster]
Li, F., Mays, C., Skorniakova, O., Beckman, M. E. (2009). Gendered production of sibilants in the Songyuan dialect of Mandarin Chinese. Poster presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, 8-11 January 2009.
Kong, E-J., Beckman, M. E., Edwards, J. (2009). VOT is necessary but not sufficient for describing the voicing contrast in Japanese. Paper presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, 8-11 January 2009.
Arbisi-Kelm, T., Beckman, M. E., Kong, E-J., Edwards, J. (2009). Production of dorsal place(s) of articulation by child and adult speakers of four languages. Paper presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, 8-11 January 2009.
Munson, B., Kaiser, E., & Urberg Carlson, K. (2008). Assessment of phonetic skills in children 3: Fidelity of responses under different levels of task delay. Paper presented at the 2008 ASHA Convention, Chicago, 20-22 November 2008. [pdf of poster]
Urberg Carlson, K., Kaiser, E., & Munson, B. (2008). (Assessment of phonetics skills in children 2:) Testing gradient measures of children's productions. Paper presented at the 2008 ASHA Convention, Chicago, 20-22 November 2008. [pdf of poster]
Schellinger, S., Edwards, J., Munson, B., & Beckman, M. E. (2008). Assessment of phonetic skills in children 1: Transcription categories and listener expectations. Paper presented at the 2008 ASHA Convention, Chicago, 20-22 November 2008. [pdf of poster]
Syrika, A., Edwards, J., Li, F., & Beckman, M. E. (2008). Covert contrast in the acquisition of stop-/s/ sequences in Greek. Paper presented at the 2008 ASHA Convention, Chicago, 20-22 November 2008. [pdf of poster]
Arbisi-Kelm, T., Beckman, M. E., Kong, E., & Edwards, J. (2008). Psychoacoustic measures of stop production in Cantonese, Greek, English, Japanese, and Korean. Paper presented at the 156th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Miami, 10-14 November 2008. [pdf of poster]
Chung, H., Edwards, J., & Weismer, G. (2008). Cross-linguistic acquisition of vowels: English, Korean, Greek, and Cantonese. Paper presented at the 156th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Miami, 10-14 November 2008. [This paper was also selected for publication in a lay language version as "A vowel by the same name is not necessarily the same: Kids mimic adults vowels" on the ASA World Wide Press Room.]
Mays, C. (2008). An acoustic study of affricates in the Songyuan dialect of Mandarin Chinese. Poster presented at the 22nd Annual CIC SROP Research Conference, Michigan State University, 24-26 July 2008. [pdf of poster]
Li, F., Kong, J., Beckman, M., & Edwards, J. (2008). Adult acoustics and developmental patterns for gender-marked phonetic variants in Mandarin fricatives and Japanese stops. Poster presented at LabPhon11, 30 June - 2 July 2008, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. [pdf of poster]
Schellinger, S. K., Edwards, J., Munson, B., & Beckman, M. E. The role of listener expectations on judgments of children's /s/ productions. Poster presented at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, 5-7 June 2008, University of Wisconsin -- Madison. [pdf of poster]
Arbisi-Kelm, T., & Beckman, M. E. (2008). Cross-linguistic prosodic differences and their effects on the interpretation of error patterns in child speech. Paper presented at the Child Phonology Conference, 2-3 June 2008, Purdue University. [pdf of poster]
Chung, H., Edwards, J., & Weismer, G. (2008). Cross-linguistic acquisition of vowels: English, Korean, Greek, and Cantonese. Poster presented at the Child Phonology Conference, 2-3 June 2008, Purdue University. [pdf of poster]
Syrika, A., Edwards, J., Li, F., & Beckman, M. E. Covert contrast in the acquisition of stop-/s/ sequences in Greek. Poster presented at the Child Phonology Conference, 2-3 June 2008, Purdue University. [pdf of poster]
Schellinger, S. K., Edwards, J., Munson, B., & Beckman, M. E. Does "close" count in transcription as well as in horseshoes? Poster presented at the Child Phonology Conference, 2-3 June 2008, Purdue University. [pdf of poster]
Munson, B., Li, F. (presenting author), Yoneyama, K., Hall, K. C., Beckman, M. E., Edwards, J., & Sunawatari, Y. (2008). Sibilant fricatives in English and Japanese: Different in production or perception? Paper presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. [pdf of slides]
Beckman, M. (2008). Preliminaries to child speech analysis. Plenary paper presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. [pdf of slides]
Nicolaidis, K., Syrika, A., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2007). Obstruent production by Greek-speaking children with atypical phonological development. Paper presented at the 14th International Conference of the Greek Applied Linguistics Association: Advances in Research on Language Acquisition and Teaching. Thessaloniki, Greece, 14-16 December 2007. [pdf of slides]
Syrika, A., Nicolaidis, K., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2007). Acquisition of consonant clusters by Greek-speaking children: The case of initial /s/-stop and stop-/s/ sequences. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Greek Lingusitics, University of Ioannina, August 29 - September 2, 2007. [pdf of slides]
Arbisi-Kelm, T., Beckman, M. E., Edwards, J., & Kong, E. (2007). Acquisition of stop burst cues in English, Greek, and Japanese. Poster presented at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, Madison, WI, June 7-9, 2007. [pdf of poster]
Syrika, A., Edwards, J., Nicolaidis, K., & Beckman, M. E. (2007). Acquisition of consonant clusters by Greek-speaking children: Word-initial /s/-stop and stop-/s/ sequences. Poster presented at the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, Madison, WI, June 7-9, 2007. [pdf of poster]
Kong, E., & Beckman, M. E. (2007). The fine-grained phonetics and acquisition of voiced stops in Greek. Paper presented in the 4th Annual OSU Martin Luther King Day Symposium on Linguistics, 15 January 2007. [pdf of slides]
Arbisi-Kelm, T., Edwards, J., Beckman, M., & Kong, E. (2007). Acquisition patterns and acoustic cues of voiceless plosives in Greek. Paper presented in the 4th Annual OSU Martin Luther King Day Symposium on Linguistics, 15 January 2007. [pdf of slides]
Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2006). Cross-linguistic investigation of phonological acquisition: Language-specific and language universal influences. Poster presented at the 2006 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Nov. 16-18, Miami, FL. [pdf of poster]
Li, F., & Edwards, J. (2006). Contrast and covert contrast in the acquisition of /s/ and /S/ in English and Japanese. Poster presented at LabPhon10, 29 June - 1 July, 2006, Paris. [abstract and draft of poster]
Kong, E., & Beckman, M. E. (2006). Fine-grained phonetics and developmental universals for glottal features. Poster presented at LabPhon10, 29 June - 1 July, 2006, Paris. [abstract and draft of poster]
Mills, M., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2005). Child-directed speech in African American Vernacular English. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Speech Language and Hearing Association, 17-20 November 2005, San Diego. [pdf handout]
Slocum, L., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2005). Cross-linguistic acquisition of voiceless lingual fricatives. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Speech Language and Hearing Association, 17-20 November 2005, San Diego. [pdf handout]
Tserdanelis, G., Beckman, M. E., Kong, E., Li, F., & Syrika, A. (2005). Comparing Greek, English and Japanese velar and palatal(iz)ed stops. Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, 8-10 September 2005, York, UK. [slides of talk]
Li, Fangfang (2008). The phonetic development of voiceless sibilant fricatives in English, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University.
Schellinger, Sarah K. (2008). The role of intermediate productions and listener expectations on the perception of children's speech. Master's thesis. Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Wisconsin -- Madison. [pdf file]
Wong, Wai-Yi Peggy (2006). Syllable fusion in Hong Kong Cantonese connected speech. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University.
Tserdanelis, Giorgos (2004). The role of segmental sandhi in the parsing of speech: evidence from Greek. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University.
Mills, M. T. (2004). Phonological features of African American Vernacular English in child-directed versus adult-directed speech. Master's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University. [pdf file]
Vodopivec, S. (2004). The influence of phonotactic probability on consonant acquisition. B.A. honor's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University. [pdf file]
Hoover, S. (2004). The influence of vowel context on consonant acquisition. B.A. honor's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
White, S. D. (2001). Covert contrast, merger and substitution in children's productions of /k/ and /t/. Master's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Isermann, B. C. (2001). Variability and consistency of articulation in children with phonological disorders. Master's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Munson, B. (2000). Phonological pattern frequency and speech production in children and adults. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Peterman, J. C. (2000). Acoustic and articulatory evaluation of two children with phonological disorders. B.A. honor's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Draper, L. (2000). Nonword repetition and vocabulary size in typically developing children. Master's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Bonnot, C. M. (1999). Performance of typically developing children and children with phonological disorders on a nonword repetition task. Master's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Arnett, S. E. (1999). The role of second formant transitions in initial burst consonant recognition. Master's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Koch, C. D. (1999). A comparison of two procedures for phonological assessment. B.A. honor's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Frank, S. A. (1998). The acquisition of the voicing contrast in word-initial alveolar and velar stop consonants: A longitudinal case study of one phonologically disordered child. Master's thesis. Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Ohio State University.
Cross-language transcription categories: We are using Praat to manage the speech data that we are recording and the phonetic transcriptions and other analyses that we are making of the speech. We are developing a set of conventions for transcribing the children's utterances using a common set of categories of errored productions that can be applied uniformly across the languages that we are comparing. These categories are annotated using ASCII symbols based roughly on the IPA to ASCII conventions in WorldBet developed by Jim Hieronymus, along with prefixed tags for distinguishing perceived substitutions of one phoneme by another from errors that take the production outside of the phonetic space for the language. As we develop these categories, we will choose exemplars of prototypical utterances for each phoneme category in each language as well as the most common types of production error. We will make a web-based course for training new transcribers using this cache of exemplars, which we will make available to other researchers on phonological acquisition through this project site.
