Phonological properties of logographic words modulate brain activation in bilinguals: a comparative study of Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji.

The brain networks for the first (L1) and second (L2) languages are dynamically formed in the bilingual brain. This study delves into the neural mechanisms associated with logographic-logographic bilingualism, where both languages employ visually complex and conceptually rich logographic scripts. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, we examined the brain activity of Chinese-Japanese bilinguals and Japanese-Chinese bilinguals as they engaged in rhyming tasks with Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji. Results showed that Japanese-Chinese bilinguals processed both languages using common brain areas, demonstrating an assimilation pattern, whereas Chinese-Japanese bilinguals recruited additional neural regions in the left lateral prefrontal cortex for processing Japanese Kanji, reflecting their accommodation to the higher phonological complexity of L2. In addition, Japanese speakers relied more on the phonological processing route, while Chinese speakers favored visual form analysis for both languages, indicating differing neural strategy preferences between the 2 bilingual groups. Moreover, multivariate pattern analysis demonstrated that, despite the considerable neural overlap, each bilingual group formed distinguishable neural representations for each language. These findings highlight the brain's capacity for neural adaptability and specificity when processing complex logographic languages, enriching our understanding of the neural underpinnings supporting bilingual language processing.

Articulatory and acoustic dynamics of fronted back vowels in American English.

Fronting of the vowels /u, ʊ, o/ is observed throughout most North American English varieties, but has been analyzed mainly in terms of acoustics rather than articulation. Because an increase in F2, the acoustic correlate of vowel fronting, can be the result of any gesture that shortens the front cavity of the vocal tract, acoustic data alone do not reveal the combination of tongue fronting and/or lip unrounding that speakers use to produce fronted vowels. It is furthermore unresolved to what extent the articulation of fronted back vowels varies according to consonantal context and how the tongue and lips contribute to the F2 trajectory throughout the vowel. This paper presents articulatory and acoustic data on fronted back vowels from two varieties of American English: coastal Southern California and South Carolina. Through analysis of dynamic acoustic, ultrasound, and lip video data, it is shown that speakers of both varieties produce fronted /u, ʊ, o/ with rounded lips, and that high F2 observed for these vowels is associated with a front-central tongue position rather than unrounded lips. Examination of time-varying formant trajectories and articulatory configurations shows that the degree of vowel-internal F2 change is predominantly determined by coarticulatory influence of the coda.

Acoustic, phonetic, and phonological features of Drehu vowels.

This study presents an acoustic investigation of the vowel inventory of Drehu (Southern Oceanic Linkage), spoken in New Caledonia. Reportedly, Drehu has a 14 vowel system distinguishing seven vowel qualities and an additional length distinction. Previous phonological descriptions were based on impressionistic accounts showing divergent proposals for two out of seven reported vowel qualities. This study presents the first phonetic investigation of Drehu vowels based on acoustic data from eight speakers. To examine the phonetic correlates of the proposed phonological vowel inventory, multi-point acoustic analyses were used, and vowel inherent spectral change (VISC) was investigated (F1, F2, and F3). Additionally, vowel duration was measured. Contrary to reports from other studies on VISC in monophthongs, we find that monophthongs in Drehu are mostly steady state. We propose a revised vowel inventory and focus on the acoustic description of open-mid /ɛ/ and the central vowel /ə/, whose status was previously unclear. Additionally, we find that vowel quality stands orthogonal to vowel quantity by demonstrating that the phonological vowel length distinction is primarily based on a duration cue rather than formant structure. Finally, we report the acoustic properties of the seven vowel qualities that were identified.

Differences in velopharyngeal pressures during speech sound production in patients with unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) and healthy individuals.

Background: During articulation the velopharynx needs to be opened and closed rapidly and a tight closure is needed. Based on the hypothesis that patients with cleft lip and palate (CLP) produce lower pressures in the velopharynx than healthy individuals, this study compared pressure profiles of the velopharyngeal closure during articulation of different sounds between healthy participants and patients with surgically closed unilateral CLP (UCLP) using high resolution manometry (HRM). Materials and methods: Ten healthy adult volunteers (group 1: 20-25.5 years) and ten patients with a non-syndromic surgically reconstructed UCLP (group 2: 19.1-26.9 years) were included in this study. Pressure profiles during the articulation of four sounds (/i:/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /n/) were measured by HRM. Maximum, minimum and average pressures, time intervals as well as detection of a previously described 3-phase-model were compared. Results: Both groups presented with similar pressure curves for each phoneme with regards to the phases described and pressure peaks, but differed in total pressures. An exception was noted for the sound /i:/, where a 3-phase-model could not be seen for most patients with UCLP. Differences in velopharynx pressures of 50% and more were found between the two groups. Maximum and average pressures in the production of the alveolar fricative reached statistical significance. Conclusions: It can be concluded that velopharyngeal pressures of patients with UCLP are not sufficient to eliminate nasal resonance or turbulence during articulation, especially for more complex sounds. These results support a general understanding of hypernasality during speech implying a (relative) velopharyngeal insufficiency.

Perceptual formant discrimination during speech movement planning.

Evoked potential studies have shown that speech planning modulates auditory cortical responses. The phenomenon's functional relevance is unknown. We tested whether, during this time window of cortical auditory modulation, there is an effect on speakers' perceptual sensitivity for vowel formant discrimination. Participants made same/different judgments for pairs of stimuli consisting of a pre-recorded, self-produced vowel and a formant-shifted version of the same production. Stimuli were presented prior to a "go" signal for speaking, prior to passive listening, and during silent reading. The formant discrimination stimulus /uh/ was tested with a congruent productions list (words with /uh/) and an incongruent productions list (words without /uh/). Logistic curves were fitted to participants' responses, and the just-noticeable difference (JND) served as a measure of discrimination sensitivity. We found a statistically significant effect of condition (worst discrimination before speaking) without congruency effect. Post-hoc pairwise comparisons revealed that JND was significantly greater before speaking than during silent reading. Thus, formant discrimination sensitivity was reduced during speech planning regardless of the congruence between discrimination stimulus and predicted acoustic consequences of the planned speech movements. This finding may inform ongoing efforts to determine the functional relevance of the previously reported modulation of auditory processing during speech planning.

Testing an acoustic model of the P-center in English and Japanese.

The notion of the "perceptual center" or the "P-center" has been put forward to account for the repeated finding that acoustic and perceived syllable onsets do not necessarily coincide, at least in the perception of simple monosyllables or disyllables. The magnitude of the discrepancy between acoustics and perception-the location of the P-center in the speech signal- has proven difficult to estimate, though acoustic models of the effect do exist. The present study asks if the P-center effect can be documented in natural connected speech of English and Japanese and examines if an acoustic model that defines the P-center as the moment of the fastest energy change in a syllabic amplitude envelope adequately reflects the P-center in the two languages. A sensorimotor synchronization paradigm was deployed to address the research questions. The results provide evidence for the existence of the P-center effect in speech of both languages while the acoustic P-center model is found to be less applicable to Japanese. Sensorimotor synchronization patterns further suggest that the P-center may reflect perceptual anticipation of a vowel onset.

Iconicity mediates semantic networks of sound symbolisma).

One speech sound can be associated with multiple meanings through iconicity, indexicality, and/or systematicity. It was not until recently that this "pluripotentiality" of sound symbolism attracted serious attention, and it remains uninvestigated how pluripotentiality may arise. In the current study, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and English speakers rated unfamiliar jewel names on three semantic scales: size, brightness, and hardness. The results showed language-specific and cross-linguistically shared pluripotential sound symbolism. Japanese speakers associated voiced stops with large and dark jewels, whereas Mandarin speakers associated [i] with small and bright jewels. Japanese, Mandarin, and English speakers also associated lip rounding with darkness and softness. These sound-symbolic meanings are unlikely to be obtained through metaphorical or metonymical extension, nor are they reported to colexify. Notably, in a purely semantic network without the mediation of lip rounding, softness can instead be associated with brightness, as illustrated by synesthetic metaphors such as yawaraka-na hizashi /jawaɾakanaçizaɕi/ "a gentle (lit. soft) sunshine" in Japanese. These findings suggest that the semantic networks of sound symbolism may not coincide with those of metaphor or metonymy. The current study summarizes the findings in the form of (phono)semantic maps to facilitate cross-linguistic comparisons of pluripotential sound symbolism.

Nasal/Oral Vowel Perception in French-Speaking Children With Cochlear Implants and Children With Typical Hearing.

PURPOSE: The present study investigates the perception of vowel nasality in French-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs; CI group) and children with typical hearing (TH; TH group) aged 4-12 years. By investigating the vocalic nasality feature in French, the study aims to document more broadly the effects of the acoustic limitations of CI in processing segments characterized by acoustic cues that require optimal spectral resolution. The impact of various factors related to children's characteristics, such as chronological/auditory age, age of implantation, and exposure to cued speech, has been studied on performance, and the acoustic characteristics of the stimuli in perceptual tasks have also been investigated. METHOD: Identification and discrimination tasks involving French nasal and oral vowels were administered to two groups of children: 13 children with CIs (CI group) and 25 children with TH (TH group) divided into three age groups (4-6 years, 7-9 years, and 10-12 years). French nasal vowels were paired with their oral phonological counterpart (phonological pairing) as well as to the closest oral vowel in terms of phonetic proximity (phonetic pairing). Post hoc acoustic analyses of the stimuli were linked to the performance in perception. RESULTS: The results indicate an effect of the auditory status on the performance in the two tasks, with the CI group performing at a lower level than the TH group. However, the scores of the children in the CI group are well above chance level, exceeding 80%. The most common errors in identification were substitutions between nasal vowels and phonetically close oral vowels as well as confusions between the phoneme /u/ and other oral vowels. Phonetic pairs showed lower discrimination performance in the CI group with great variability in the results. Age effects were observed only in TH children for nasal vowel identification, whereas in children with CIs, a positive impact of cued speech practice and early implantation was found. Differential links between performance and acoustic characteristics were found within our groups, suggesting that in children with CIs, selective use of certain acoustic features, presumed to be better transmitted by the implant, leads to better perceptual performance. CONCLUSIONS: The study's results reveal specific challenges in children with CIs when processing segments characterized by fine spectral resolution cues. However, the CI children in our study appear to effectively compensate for these difficulties by utilizing various acoustic cues assumed to be well transmitted by the implant, such as cues related to the temporal resolution of stimuli. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25328704.

Investigating Perception to Production Transfer in Children With Cochlear Implants: A High Variability Phonetic Training Study.

PURPOSE: This study builds upon an established effective training method to investigate the advantages of high variability phonetic identification training for enhancing lexical tone perception and production in Mandarin-speaking pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients, who typically face ongoing challenges in these areas. METHOD: Thirty-two Mandarin-speaking children with CIs were quasirandomly assigned into the training group (TG) and the control group (CG). The 16 TG participants received five sessions of high variability phonetic training (HVPT) within a period of 3 weeks. The CG participants did not receive the training. Perception and production of Mandarin tones were administered before (pretest) and immediately after (posttest) the completion of HVPT via lexical tone recognition task and picture naming task. Both groups participated in the identical pretest and posttest with the same time frame between the two test sessions. RESULTS: TG showed significant improvement from pretest to posttest in identifying Mandarin tones for both trained and untrained speech stimuli. Moreover, perceptual learning of HVPT significantly facilitated trainees' production of T1 and T2 as rated by a cohort of 10 Mandarin-speaking adults with normal hearing, which was corroborated by acoustic analyses revealing improved fundamental frequency (F0) median for T1 and T2 production and enlarged F0 movement for T2 production. In contrast, TG children's production of T3 and T4 showed nonsignificant changes across two test sessions. Meanwhile, CG did not exhibit significant changes in either perception or production. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest a limited and inconsistent transfer of perceptual learning to lexical tone production in children with CIs, which challenges the notion of a robust transfer and highlights the complexity of the interaction between perceptual training and production outcomes. Further research on individual differences with a longitudinal design is needed to optimize the training protocol or tailor interventions to better meet the diverse needs of learners.

Prismatic adaptation coupled with cognitive training as novel treatment for developmental dyslexia: a randomized controlled trial.

Despite intense and costly treatments, developmental dyslexia (DD) often persists into adulthood. Several brain skills unrelated to speech sound processing (i.e., phonology), including the spatial distribution of visual attention, are abnormal in DD and may represent possible treatment targets. This study explores the efficacy in DD of rightward prismatic adaptation (rPA), a visuomotor adaptation technique that enables visuo-attentive recalibration through shifts in the visual field induced by prismatic goggles. A digital intervention of rPA plus cognitive training was delivered weekly over 10 weeks to adolescents with DD (aged 13-17) assigned either to treatment (N = 35) or waitlist (N = 35) group. Efficacy was evaluated by repeated measures MANOVA assessing changes in working memory index (WMI), processing speed index (PSI), text reading speed, and words/pseudowords reading accuracy. rPA treatment was significantly more effective than waitlist (p ≤ 0.001; ηp2 = 0.815). WMI, PSI, and reading speed increased in the intervention group only (p ≤ 0.001, ηp2 = 0.67; p ≤ 0.001, ηp2 = 0.58; p ≤ 0.001, ηp2 = 0.29, respectively). Although modest change was detected for words and pseudowords accuracy in the waitlist group only (words: p ≤ 0.001, d = 0.17, pseudowords: p = 0.028; d = 0.27), between-group differences were non-significant. rPA-coupled cognitive training enhances cognitive and reading abilities in adolescents with DD. This innovative approach could have implications for early remedial treatment.

Speech Sound Categories Affect Lexical Competition: Implications for Analytic Auditory Training.

OBJECTIVES: We provide a novel application of psycholinguistic theories and methods to the field of auditory training to provide preliminary data regarding which minimal pair contrasts are more difficult for listeners with typical hearing to distinguish in real-time. DESIGN: Using eye-tracking, participants heard a word and selected the corresponding image from a display of four: the target word, two unrelated words, and a word from one of four contrast categories (i.e., voiced-initial [e.g., peach-beach], voiced-final [e.g., back-bag], manner-initial [e.g., talk-sock], and manner-final [e.g., bat-bass]). RESULTS: Fixations were monitored to measure how strongly words compete for recognition depending on the contrast type (voicing, manner) and location (word-initial or final). Manner contrasts competed more for recognition than did voicing contrasts, and contrasts that occurred in word-final position were harder to distinguish than word-initial position. CONCLUSION: These results are an important initial step toward creating an evidence-based hierarchy for auditory training for individuals who use cochlear implants.

Weighting of cues to categorization of song versus speech in tone-language and non-tone-language speakers.

One of the most important auditory categorization tasks a listener faces is determining a sound's domain, a process which is a prerequisite for successful within-domain categorization tasks such as recognizing different speech sounds or musical tones. Speech and song are universal in human cultures: how do listeners categorize a sequence of words as belonging to one or the other of these domains? There is growing interest in the acoustic cues that distinguish speech and song, but it remains unclear whether there are cross-cultural differences in the evidence upon which listeners rely when making this fundamental perceptual categorization. Here we use the speech-to-song illusion, in which some spoken phrases perceptually transform into song when repeated, to investigate cues to this domain-level categorization in native speakers of tone languages (Mandarin and Cantonese speakers residing in the United Kingdom and China) and in native speakers of a non-tone language (English). We find that native tone-language and non-tone-language listeners largely agree on which spoken phrases sound like song after repetition, and we also find that the strength of this transformation is not significantly different across language backgrounds or countries of residence. Furthermore, we find a striking similarity in the cues upon which listeners rely when perceiving word sequences as singing versus speech, including small pitch intervals, flat within-syllable pitch contours, and steady beats. These findings support the view that there are certain widespread cross-cultural similarities in the mechanisms by which listeners judge if a word sequence is spoken or sung.

The acoustics of Contemporary Standard Bulgarian vowels: A corpus study.

A comprehensive examination of the acoustics of Contemporary Standard Bulgarian vowels is lacking to date, and this article aims to fill that gap. Six acoustic variables-the first three formant frequencies, duration, mean f0, and mean intensity-of 11 615 vowel tokens from 140 speakers were analysed using linear mixed models, multivariate analysis of variance, and linear discriminant analysis. The vowel system, which comprises six phonemes in stressed position, [ε a ɔ i ɤ u], was examined from four angles. First, vowels in pretonic syllables were compared to other unstressed vowels, and no spectral or durational differences were found, contrary to an oft-repeated claim that pretonic vowels reduce less. Second, comparisons of stressed and unstressed vowels revealed significant differences in all six variables for the non-high vowels [ε a ɔ]. No spectral or durational differences were found in [i ɤ u], which disproves another received view that high vowels are lowered when unstressed. Third, non-high vowels were compared with their high counterparts; the height contrast was completely neutralized in unstressed [a-ɤ] and [ɔ-u] while [ε-i] remained distinct. Last, the acoustic correlates of vowel contrasts were examined, and it was demonstrated that only F1, F2 frequencies and duration were systematically employed in differentiating vowel phonemes.

Evidence of validity and reliability of the Compressed Speech Test with Figures. / Evidências de validade e fidedignidade do Teste de Fala Comprimida com Figuras.

PURPOSE: To seek evidence of validity and reliability for the Compressed Speech Test with Figures. METHODS: The study was subdivided into three stages: construct validation, criteria and reliability. All participants were aged between 6:00 and 8:11. For the construct, Compressed Speech with Figures and the gold standard Adapted Compressed Speech test were applied to children with typical phonological development. For criterion analysis, Compressed Speech with Figures was applied in two groups, with typical (G1) and atypical (G2) phonological development. Finally, the application protocols underwent analysis by two Speech Therapists, with experience in the area of Central Auditory Processing, seeking to obtain an inter-evaluator reliability analysis. RESULTS: The correlation test indicated an almost perfect construct (correlation 0.843 for the right ear and 0.823 for the left ear). In the criterion analysis, it was noticed that both groups presented satisfactory results (G1 = 99.6 to 100%; G2 = 96 to 96.5%). The reliability analysis demonstrated that the protocol is easy to analyze, as both professionals presented unanimous responses. CONCLUSION: It was possible to obtain evidence of validity and reliability for the Compressed Speech with Figures instrument. The construct analysis showed that the instrument measures the same variable as the gold standard test, with an almost perfect correlation. In the criterion analysis, both groups presented similar performance, demonstrating that the instrument does not seem to differentiate populations with and without mild phonological disorder. The inter-evaluator reliability analysis demonstrated that the protocol is easy to analyze and score.

OBJETIVO: Buscar evidências de validade e fidedignidade para o Teste de Fala Comprimida com Figuras. MÉTODO: O estudo foi subdividido em três etapas: validação de construto, critério e fidedignidade. Todos os participantes tinham idade entre 6:00 e 8:11. Para o construto, aplicou-se o Fala Comprimida com Figuras e o teste padrão ouro Fala Comprimida Adaptado em crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico típico. Para análise de critério, aplicou-se o Fala Comprimida com Figuras em dois grupos, com desenvolvimento fonológico típico (G1) e atípico (G2). Por fim, os protocolos de aplicação passaram pela análise de duas Fonoaudiólogas, com experiência na área do Processamento Auditivo Central, buscando obter uma análise de fidedignidade interavaliadores. RESULTADOS: O teste de correlação indicou um construto quase perfeito (Rho=0,843 para orelha direita e Rho=0,823 para orelha esquerda). Na análise de critério, percebeu-se que ambos os grupos apresentaram resultados satisfatórios (G1 = 99,6 a 100%; G2 = 96 a 96,5%). Já a análise de fidedignidade demonstrou que o protocolo é de fácil análise, pois ambos os profissionais apresentaram respostas unânimes. CONCLUSÃO: Foi possível obter evidências de validade e fidedignidade para o instrumento de Fala Comprimida com Figuras. A análise de construto evidenciou que o instrumento mede a mesma variável que o teste padrão outro, com correlação quase perfeita. Na análise de critério, ambos os grupos apresentaram desempenho semelhante, demonstrando que o instrumento não parece diferenciar populações com e sem transtorno fonológico leve. A análise de fidedignidade interavaliador demonstrou que o protocolo é de fácil análise e pontuação.

Orthographic Learning in French-Speaking Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children.

PURPOSE: Children are assumed to acquire orthographic representations during autonomous reading by decoding new written words. The present study investigates how deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children build new orthographic representations compared to typically hearing (TH) children. METHOD: Twenty-nine DHH children, from 7.8 to 13.5 years old, with moderate-to-profound hearing loss, matched for reading level and chronological age to TH controls, were exposed to 10 pseudowords (novel words) in written stories. Then, they performed a spelling task and an orthographic recognition task on these new words. RESULTS: In the spelling task, we found no difference in accuracy, but a difference in errors emerged between the two groups: Phonologically plausible errors were less common in DHH children than in TH children. In the recognition task, DHH children were better than TH children at recognizing target pseudowords. Phonological strategies seemed to be used less by DHH than by TH children who very often chose phonological distractors. CONCLUSIONS: Both groups created sufficiently detailed orthographic representations to complete the tasks, which support the self-teaching hypothesis. DHH children used phonological information in both tasks but could use more orthographic cues than TH children to build up orthographic representations. Using the combination of a spelling task and a recognition task, as well as analyzing the nature of errors, in this study, provides a methodological implication for further understanding of underlying cognitive processes.

Processing of Plural Marking in Nouns by German-Speaking Children With Normal Hearing and Children With Cochlear Implants: An Eye-Tracking Study.

PURPOSE: Our goal is to understand how the different types of plural marking are understood and processed by children with cochlear implants (CIs): (a) how does salience affect the processing of plural marking, (b) how is this processing affected by the incomplete signal provided by the CIs, and (c) is it linked to individual factors such as chronological age, vocabulary development, and phonological working memory? METHOD: Sixteen children with CIs and 30 age-matched children with normal hearing (NH) participated in an eye-tracking study. Their task was to choose the corresponding picture to an auditorily presented singular or plural noun. Accuracy, reaction time, and gaze fixation were measured and analyzed with mixed-effect models. RESULTS: Group differences were found in accuracy but not in reaction time or gaze fixation. Plural processing is qualitatively similar in children with CIs and children with NH, with more difficulties in processing plurals involving stem-vowel changes and less with those involving suffixes. Age effects indicate that processing abilities still evolve between 5 and 11 years, and processing is further linked to lexical development. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that early implantation seems to be beneficial for the acquisition of plural as indicated by very small between-group differences in processing and comprehension. Processing is furthermore affected by the type of material (i.e., phonetic, phonological, or morphological) used to mark plural and less so by their segmental salience. Our study emphasizes the need to take into account the form of the linguistic material in future investigations at higher levels of processing.

Dynamic specification of vowels in Hijazi Arabic.

Research on various languages shows that dynamic approaches to vowel acoustics - in particular Vowel-Inherent Spectral Change (VISC) - can play a vital role in characterising and classifying monophthongal vowels compared with a static model. This study's aim was to investigate whether dynamic cues also allow for better description and classification of the Hijazi Arabic (HA) vowel system, a phonological system based on both temporal and spectral distinctions. Along with static and dynamic F1 and F2 patterns, we evaluated the extent to which vowel duration, F0, and F3 contribute to increased/decreased discriminability among vowels. Data were collected from 20 native HA speakers (10 females and 10 males) producing eight HA monophthongal vowels in a word list with varied consonantal contexts. Results showed that dynamic cues provide further insights regarding HA vowels that are not normally gleaned from static measures alone. Using discriminant analysis, the dynamic cues (particularly the seven-point model) had relatively higher classification rates, and vowel duration was found to play a significant role as an additional cue. Our results are in line with dynamic approaches and highlight the importance of looking beyond static cues and beyond the first two formants for further insights into the description and classification of vowel systems.

Characterizing Speech Errors Across Primary Progressive Apraxia of Speech Subtypes.

PURPOSE: Apraxia of speech (AOS) is a motor speech disorder affecting articulatory planning and speech programming. When AOS is the sole manifestation of neurodegeneration, it is termed primary progressive apraxia of speech (PPAOS). Recent work has shown that there are distinct PPAOS subtypes: phonetic, prosodic, and those that do not clearly align with either (mixed). PPAOS subtypes differ with respect to the predominating motor speech difficulties, as well as disease progression and underlying pathology. Because past studies have determined PPAOS subtype based on clinical impression, the goal of the present study was to quantitatively determine the distribution of speech error types across PPAOS subtypes in a word repetition task and to investigate how word complexity affects the type and number of speech errors across PPAOS subtypes. METHOD: Forty-five patients with PPAOS (13 phonetic, 23 prosodic, and nine mixed) and 45 healthy controls produced multiple repetitions of words that varied in phonetic complexity. Sound additions, deletions, and substitutions/distortions (phonetic errors) and within-word segmentations (prosodic errors) were calculated. RESULTS: All three PPAOS groups produced significantly more errors than controls, but the total number of errors was comparable among subtypes. The phonetic group produced more phonetic-type errors compared to the prosodic group but comparable to the mixed group. The prosodic group produced more segmentations compared to the phonetic and mixed PPAOS groups. As word complexity increased, the total number of errors increased for PPAOS patients. The phonetic and prosodic groups were more likely to produce phonetic- and prosodic-type errors, respectively, as word complexity increased. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides novel quantitative data showing that PPAOS subtype can be supported by the type and distribution of speech errors in a word repetition task. This may facilitate earlier, more reliable differential diagnosis and aid in disease prognosis, as PPAOS subtypes have distinct disease trajectories.

Hiatus resolution and linguistic diversity in Australian English.

Vowel hiatus is typically resolved in Australian English through complementary strategies of liaison (j-gliding/w-gliding/linking-r) and glottalisation. Previous work suggests a change in progress towards increased use of glottalisation as an optimal hiatus-breaker, which creates syntagmatic contrast between adjacent vowels, particularly when the right-edge vowel is strong (i.e. at the foot boundary). Liaison continues to be used when right-edge vowels are weak, but glottalisation as a hiatus resolution strategy in general appears to be increasing and may be more common in speakers from non-English speaking backgrounds raising the question of whether exposure to linguistic diversity could be driving the change. We examine hiatus resolution in speakers from neighbourhoods that vary according to levels of language diversity. We elicited gliding and linking-r hiatus contexts to determine how prosodic strength of flanking vowels and speakers' exposure to linguistic diversity affect hiatus resolution. Results confirm that glottalisation occurs most frequently with strong right-edge vowels, and gliding/linking-r are more likely with weak right-edge vowels. However, strategies differ between gliding and linking-r contexts, suggesting differing implementation mechanisms. In addition, speakers from ethnolinguistically diverse areas produce increased glottalisation in all contexts supporting the idea that change to the hiatus resolution system may be driven by language contact.

Phonological decoding and morpho-orthographic decomposition: Complementary routes during learning to read.

We examined the reliance on phonological decoding and morpho-orthographic decomposition strategies in developing and skilled readers of French. A lexical decision experiment was conducted where the critical stimuli were four types of nonwords, all derived from the same base word, such as the French word visage (face) in the following examples: (a) pseudo-homophone (PsH) nonwords (e.g., visaje), (b) orthographic controls for PsH nonwords (e.g., visape), (c) pseudo-morphemic (PsM) nonwords (e.g., visageable), and (d) orthographic controls for PsM nonwords (e.g., visagealle, where alle is not a suffix in French). Responses to PsH and PsM nonwords and their controls were studied in three groups of school children (Grades 1, 2, and 5) and one group of skilled adult readers. PsH interference effects (i.e., more errors to PsH nonwords than to the corresponding controls) decreased during reading acquisition to become nonsignificant in skilled readers. Interestingly, the opposite pattern was seen in PsM interference effects (also measured in terms of accuracy), which were already significant in Grade 1 and increased during reading development to reach their maximum in skilled readers. These results point toward opposing learning trajectories in the use of phonological and morphological information when learning to silently read for meaning.