Developmental aspects of several temporal parameters in the speech of 2- to 4-year-old English-speaking children were investigated; adults served as a control group. Children seemed to possess timing control systems which are more sophisticated than has previously been suggested. (Author/SW)

Two severely dysarthric speakers--having articulation problems due to lack of muscle control--(17 and 61-years-old) who had previously spelled entire messages on an alphabet board were taught a communication system in which they pointed to the first letter of each word as they spoke. (Author/IM)

Examination of the speech of 33 monolingual Spanish-speaking children found that syllable type affected the correct pronunciation of novel words. The different syllable types comprising the novel words could be hierarchized. Performance on syllable type appeared to be an interaction between the structure of the syllable and phonological processes…

Babbling samples from 11 normally hearing infants and 14 hearing-impaired (HI) subjects, aged 4-39 months, were analyzed. Differences were observed between consonantal phone inventories of hearing-impaired subjects and hearing infants, between inventories of HI subjects with sensori-neural loss and those with conductive loss, and between younger…

Fifty-four audiologists were asked to predict future speech intelligibility in hearing-impaired children based on four pure-tone audiograms. Predictions varied significantly with degree of loss and status of high-frequency hearing. Audiologists with greater clinical experience had less faith in audiograms as predictors of speech skills than had…

Measurement of voice onset time productions associated with three bilabial, three alveolar, and two velar stops in 3- to 7-year-olds and adults indicated that, by five years of age, children have acquired all voicing contrasts; however, not all sounds are produced in an adult-like manner. (Author/CB)

Research is reported that showed phonetic and phonological training to be given peripheral attention or neglected in second language instruction in one geographic area. It is suggested this neglect stems from (1) low teacher and student expectation of success in attaining a native-like accent, and (2) assumptions that a non-native-like accent will…

Examines genetic influences on language by assessing 158 preschool twins on vocabulary comprehension, semantic knowledge, morphology, syntax, and articulation. Vocabulary comprehension was significantly influenced by heredity, whereas performance skills were influenced by between-family environmental factors. (Author/AS)

The need for testing oral proficiency in the foreign language is discussed and several kinds of testing procedures described. A specific oral language production test is suggested. (RM)

This paper analyzes syllables in Liangshan Yi, a Tibeto-Burman language also known as Nosu and spoken in the Sichuan Province of China, and provides a detailed articulatory description of the range of distinctive syllables in the Xide County vernacular. The paper concludes that the phonemicization upon which the standardized version of orthography…

A study examined patterns in production of Spanish voiced and voiceless stop consonants by native English speakers, focusing on the interaction between two acoustic cues of stops: voice closure interval and voice onset time (VOT). The study investigated whether learners acquire the appropriate phonetic categories with regard to these stops and if…

Reports a study determining whether significant differences in formant frequency are apparent when chronological age is compared with a measure of physiological age for children during the first six years. (TO)

Study was designed to examine social-class differences in speech as produced under three conditions varying from highly structured to a more natural linguistic setting. (Authors)