Background: Sentence repetition is gaining increasing attention as a source of information about children's sentence-level abilities in clinical assessment, and as a clinical marker of specific language impairment. However, it is widely debated what the task is testing and therefore how informative it is. Aims: (1) To evaluate the effects of…

Background: Research regarding expressive language performance in children born with cleft palate is sparse. The relationship between articulation/phonology and expressive language skills also needs to be further explored. Aims: To investigate verbal competence in narrative retelling in 5-year-old children born with unilateral cleft lip and palate…

Background: The speech and language therapy profession is required to provide services to increasingly multilingual caseloads. Much international research has focused on the challenges of speech and language therapists' (SLTs) practice with multilingual children. Aims: To draw on the experience and knowledge of experts in the field to: (1)…

Background: Swahili is widely spoken in East Africa, but to date there are no culturally and linguistically appropriate materials available for speech-language therapists working in the region. The challenges are further exacerbated by the limited research available on the typical acquisition of Swahili phonology. Aim: To describe the speech…

Background: Metronome-paced speech results in the elimination, or substantial reduction, of stuttering moments. The cause of fluency during this fluency-inducing condition is unknown. Several investigations have reported changes in speech pattern characteristics from a control condition to a metronome-paced speech condition, but failure to control…

Background: The literature on input addressed to children with specific language impairment (SLI) has shown contrasting results on the role that parents assume during conversational interactions. Some studies have shown that parents compensate for the child's linguistic limitations. In contrast, other studies have indicated that mothers are…

Background: The effectiveness of two treatment approaches (phonological therapy and articulation therapy) for treatment of 14 children, aged 4;0-6;7 years, with phonologically based speech-sound disorder (SSD) has been previously analysed with severity outcome measures (percentage of consonants correct score, percentage occurrence of phonological…

Background: There are no published data on typical phonological development for Singaporean children. There is therefore the risk that children's speech in Singapore may be misdiagnosed or that clinicians may set goals erroneously. Aims: This paper reports a preliminary study on the English phonology of typically developing 4;0-4;5-year-old…

Background: Jargon aphasia is one of the most intractable forms of aphasia with limited recommendation on amelioration of associated naming difficulties and neologisms. The few naming therapy studies that exist in jargon aphasia have utilized either semantic or phonological approaches, but the results have been equivocal. Moreover, the effect of…

Background: In Portugal, the routine clinical practice of speech and language therapists (SLTs) in treating children with all types of speech sound disorder (SSD) continues to be articulation therapy (AT). There is limited use of phonological therapy (PT) or phonological awareness training in Portugal. Additionally, at an international level there…

Background: Toddlers who are late talkers demonstrate delays in phonological and lexical skills. However, the influence of phonological factors on lexical acquisition in toddlers who are late talkers has not been examined directly. Aims: To examine the influence of phonotactic probability/neighbourhood density on word learning in toddlers who were…

Background: Children with speech sound disorders (SSD) form a heterogeneous group who differ in terms of the severity of their condition, underlying cause, speech errors, involvement of other aspects of the linguistic system and treatment response. To date there is no universal and agreed-upon classification system. Instead, a number of…

Background: Children who are bilingual and have speech sound disorder are likely to be under-referred, possibly due to confusion about typical speech acquisition in bilingual children. Aims: To investigate what is known about the impact of bilingualism on children's acquisition of speech in English to facilitate the identification and treatment of…

Background & Aims: The present study examined how phonological and lexical knowledge influences memory in children with specific language impairments (SLI). Previous work showed recall advantages for typical adults and children due to word frequency and phonotactic pattern frequency and a recall disadvantage due to phonological similarity among…

Background: In many languages a weakness in non-word repetition serves as a useful clinical marker of specific language impairment (SLI) in children. However, recent work in Italian has shown that the repetition of real words may also have clinical utility. For young typically developing Italian children, real word repetition is more predictive of…