This work examined speech and language skills of a cohort of children with unilateral and bilateral mild/moderate hearing loss at time of discharge from preschool therapy services as they were transitioning to the school system. The study consisted of a retrospective chart review of children born between 2003 and 2011 and identified with a…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how well a cumulative risk approach, based on empirically supported predictive factors, predicts whether a young child who stutters is likely to develop persistent developmental stuttering. In a cumulative risk approach, the number of predictive factors indicating a child is at risk to develop…

Purpose: We evaluated whether naive listeners' ratings of the gender typicality of the speech of children assigned male at birth (AMAB) and children assigned female at birth (AFAB) were different at two time points: one at which children were 2.5-3.5 years old and one when they were 4.5-5.5 years old. We also examined whether measures of speech,…

As children are receiving cochlear implants at younger ages, benchmarks in speech, language, and auditory development can assist auditory-verbal therapists in setting expectation levels. Therapists can then counsel parents who often inquire how their children are progressing compared to peers with the same amount of listening experience. This…

Purpose: Item response theory (IRT) is a psychometric approach to measurement that uses latent trait abilities (e.g., speech sound production skills) to model performance on individual items that vary by difficulty and discrimination. An IRT analysis was applied to preschoolers' productions of the words on the Goldman-Fristoe Test of…

Purpose: Production accuracy of s-related morphemes was examined in 3-year-olds with mild-to-severe hearing loss, focusing on perceptibility, articulation, and input frequency. Method: Morphemes with /s/, /z/, and /?z/ as allomorphs (plural, possessive, third-person singular -s, and auxiliary and copula "is") were analyzed from language…

Purpose: This study investigates the heritability of language, speech, and nonverbal cognitive development of twins at 4 and 6 years of age. Possible confounding effects of twinning and zygosity, evident at 2 years, were investigated among other possible predictors of outcomes. Method: The population-based twin sample included 627 twin pairs and 1…

Speech and language ability is not a unitary concept; rather, it is made up of multiple abilities such as grammar, articulation and vocabulary. Young children from socio-economically deprived areas are more likely to experience language difficulties than those living in more affluent areas. However, less is known about individual differences in…

Purpose: In this article, the authors report reliability and validity evidence for the Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skill (DEMSS), a new test that uses dynamic assessment to aid in the differential diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Method: Participants were 81 children between 36 and 79 months of age who were referred to the…

This study examined articulatory error patterns and phonological process use in 25 preschool children with hearing loss enrolled in three Canadian auditory-verbal intervention programs, and compared their performance to a control group of 35 children with typical hearing based on the GFTA-2 and the KLPA-2. Significant differences were found in the…

This study examined the speech perception, speech, and language developmental progress of 25 children with hearing loss (mean Pure-Tone Average [PTA] 79.37 dB HL) in an auditory verbal therapy program. Children were tested initially and then 21 months later on a battery of assessments. The speech and language results over time were compared with…

This study, part of a 4-year longitudinal project, examined the possible relationship between persistent otitis media (middle ear disease) in early childhood and speech and language functioning. Subjects were 38 black preschool children between 3 and 7 years of age who, although normal in intellectual and verbal functioning, were identified as at…