Background: The current literature suggests a link between dummy (or pacifier) use and a number of both positive and detrimental consequences. Positive consequences include soothing effect and protection from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), while negative ones include increased risk of otitis media and dental malformation. However, there is…

If a child asks a friend to play football and the friend replies, 'I have a cough', the requesting child must make a 'relevance inference' to determine the communicative intent. Relevance inferencing is a key component of pragmatics, that is, the ability to integrate social context into language interpretation and use. We tested which cognitive…

This study is concerned with comparing the pronunciation in Southern Welsh, a Celtic language, and Cockney, an English dialect, regarding the place of articulation. The study uses a comparative method to shed light on the similarities and differences between the two accents. The data were collected from YouTube videos of speakers of Southern Welsh…

At the heart of the nineteenth-century educational soundscape lies a paradox. Whilst "modern" classrooms generally strived for orderly silence, the goal of its educational practices was the production of competent "citizens". Middle-class boys in particular were expected to acquire a voice fit for business, the professions, or…

There are some children with speech and/or language difficulties who are significantly more difficult to understand in connected speech than in single words. The study reported here explores the between-word behaviours of three such children, aged 11;8, 12;2 and 12;10. It focuses on whether these patterns could be accounted for by lenition, as…

We examined the contribution of the phonological loop to immediate free recall (IFR) and immediate serial recall (ISR) of lists of between one and 15 words. Following Baddeley (1986, 2000, 2007, 2012), we assumed that visual words could be recoded into the phonological store when presented silently but that recoding would be prevented by…

Purpose: The spatiotemporal index (STI) is one measure of variability. As currently implemented, kinematic data are used, requiring equipment that cannot be used with some patient groups or in scanners. An experiment is reported that addressed whether STI can be extended to an audio measure of sound pressure of the speech envelope over time that…

There is now a renewed emphasis in the UK on short intensive interventions to tackle reading failure. In this paper we report on the effect of a programme based on a view that reading problems are associated with the inability of the learner to deal with speech at the level of individual speech sounds even though they may be fully competent in the…

Explored mechanisms responsible for improvements in short-term memory in early to middle childhood. Recall and speech rate for acoustically similar and dissimilar words and words of differing lengths were assessed in three groups of children of 4 to 10 years. (RH)

It was found that five Ss showed the usual higher rate of stuttering on consonants, while one showed more stuttering on vowels; and that a markedly higher rate was found on initial words of sentences in two Ss, both of whom were also exceptional in several other aspects of stuttering. (Author/DLS)

There was a significant decrease in the difference between observed and expected probabilities over the first 30 words following a stutter. Also, the two adult Ss initially increased their stuttering rate. Findings supported a combination of the anxiety and feedback models of A. W. Still and C. A. Sherrard. (Author/DLS)

Examples are presented of schwa elisions from the sequence /r/-plus-consonant that are typical of contemporary general British pronunciation of English. This occurs often in lexical pronunciations and very often in syllables in proclitic or enclitic prosodic situations. (SW)

This paper is a theoretical and analytical account of a digital video-editing project with student teachers. The work was part of a wider study known as "Creative Teachers for Creative Learners," and investigated how creativity could be integrated within existing structures and courses of initial teacher education. The paper draws on…

Results of three experiments indicate that the developmental increase in memory span cannot be explained by differences in identification time or by the hypothesis that articulation time is the sole or major cause for the increase. It is argued that the development of memory span with age depends on a combination of factors. (BC)

Drawing a distinction between lexical and phonological variation reveals differences in sociolinguistic patterning. A comparison of dialects within the Durham, England speech community is discussed on these levels. Phonetic motivation, speech style, and social and situational factors are shown to interact in complex ways in connected speech…