Acquisition of linguistic and cognitive skills by children with cleft palate.

This study compared the early cognitive and linguistic development of young children with cleft palate (N = 28) to that of noncleft children (N = 29). Measures included the Mental scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, the Minnesota Child Development Inventory, Mean Length of Utterance, and words acquired by 24 months. Children with cleft palate, although well within the normal range, performed significantly below the children in the control group on the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, some subscales of the Minnesota Child Development Inventory, and words acquired by 24 months. Differences observed in the cognitive development of children with and without cleft palate were verbal as opposed to nonverbal (i.e., linguistic in nature) and were related to hearing status at 12 months and velopharyngeal adequacy.

Comparison of the hearing histories of children with and without cleft palate.

Aggressive otologic management has been recommended for children with cleft palate because of the almost universal occurrence of otitis media with effusion (OME) in these children and the association of OME with hearing loss and possible language, cognitive, and academic delays. In this study, 28 children with cleft palate and 29 noncleft children were seen at 3-month intervals from 9 to 30 months to compare otologic treatment and management. Hearing and middle ear function were tested at each session; information on ventilation tube placement was obtained from medical records. Ventilation tubes were placed earlier and more often in children with cleft palate, but children with cleft palates failed the hearing screening more often. The correlation between age at first tube placement and frequency of hearing screening failures was significant for the children with cleft palate, indicating that the later tubes were first placed, the poorer the child's hearing.

Bronchial responsiveness, eosinophilia, and short term exposure to air pollution.

The number of capillary blood eosinophils and the prevalence of bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR) were compared between schoolchildren living in a polluted area (Ardal) and unpolluted area (Laerdal). In Ardal there is an aluminium smelter emitting sulphur dioxide and fluoride to the environment. Daily measurements of these pollutants in ambient air were available. The mean number of eosinophils in Ardal was 220 x 10(6)/l compared with 106 x 10(6)/l in Laerdal. The prevalence of BHR was 15.9% in Ardal and 11.8% in Laerdal. The odds ratio of having BHR in relation to these pollutants during the last 24 hours were: 1.12 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01 to 1.24) by increasing sulphur dioxide with 10 micrograms/m3, and 1.31 (95% CI 1.07 to 1.60) when fluoride exposure increased with 1 micrograms/m3. Similarly, these exposures were associated with a decrease in eosinophils of -21 x 10(6)/l (95% CI -36 to -6) and -52 x 10(6)/l (95% CI -98 to -8), respectively, in atopics. It is hypothesised that recent exposure to irritants induces changes in the airways leading to BHR in addition to recruitment of eosinophils to the airways in atopic subjects.

Familial aggregation of phonological disorders: results from a 28-year follow-up.

This investigation is a follow-up to a longitudinal speech and educational outcome study involving approximately 400 normally developing children that was initiated in 1960. From this database, two groups of subjects (now aged 32-34), their spouses, and all of their offspring over the age of 3:0 (years:months) completed a battery of cognitive-linguistic and interview measures. One group (probands) consisted of 24 adults with a documented history of a moderate phonological-language disorder that persisted through at least the end of the first grade. The other group (controls) consisted of 28 adults who were known to have had normal articulation abilities as children. Results of this study demonstrated that, in comparison to the children of controls, the children of the proband subjects performed significantly more poorly on all tests of articulation and expressive language functioning and were significantly more likely to have received articulation treatment. There was, however, no evidence that specific misarticulations or phonological processes traveled within proband families. These results are in agreement with those of most previous family studies that have demonstrated an increased rate of occurrence of speech-language disorders of unknown origin in families including a first-degree relative who is similarly affected.

A 28-year follow-up of adults with a history of moderate phonological disorder: educational and occupational results.

The present investigation is a follow-up to a longitudinal study involving approximately 400 normally developing children begun in 1960. From this large database, two groups of subjects (now aged 32-34) were asked to participate in the present project: (a) a group of 24 adults with a documented history of a moderate phonological/language disorder that persisted through at least the end of first grade (probands), and (b) a group of 28 adults from the same birth cohort and schools who were known to have had at least average articulation skills over the same period (controls). As part of a larger project, these adults were interviewed about their educational and occupational accomplishments and those of their siblings. Results revealed that, in comparison to control subjects, the proband adults reported that they had received lower grades in high school, required more remedial academic services throughout their school careers, and completed fewer years of formal education. Occupationally, although the groups did not differ in employment status, the proband subjects tended to occupy jobs considered semiskilled or unskilled with a much greater frequency than both the control subjects and their gender-matched siblings. When asked to indicate general satisfaction with educational and occupational outcomes, however, subjects in both groups tended to rate themselves as either "very" or "fairly" satisfied.

The velopharyngeally inadequate child: phonologic change with intervention.

Diagnostic therapy is often recommended for children before physical management of the velopharyngeal structures. There is, however, limited information about the effectiveness of such intervention programs. This study describes the changes that occurred in a 3-year-old child's production of speech during a period of diagnostic therapy, and the changes that occurred following the fitting of a prosthesis. The mother served as the primary intervener, guided by a speech-language pathologist. The mother was able to change the child's speech so that more of her productions were at a correct place of articulation. After structural management, nasal and glottalized productions disappeared from the child's speech, but glottal stops did not.

A 28-year follow-up of adults with a history of moderate phonological disorder: linguistic and personality results.

The present investigation is a follow-up to a longitudinal speech and academic study involving approximately 400 normally developing children begun in 1960 by Mildred Templin. From this large data base, the present project invited the participation of two groups of subjects (now aged 32 to 34): (a) 24 adults with a documented history of moderately severe phonological disorder that persisted at least through the end of first grade (probands) and (b) 28 adults from the same birth cohort and schools who were known to have had at least average articulation skills over the same period (controls). Results of follow-up testing revealed that the proband adults performed significantly more poorly than the control adults on all of the administered measures of articulation, expressive language, and receptive language. Results obtained from a screening of nonverbal reasoning ability were equivocal. On a questionnaire measure of personality, both groups scored well within the normal range for the dimensions of extroversion and neuroticism when compared to the test's normative sample. These results have been interpreted as suggesting that although many adults with a childhood history of delayed phonological development will continue to experience linguistic outcomes that are less favorable than those of controls, their performance in selected nonlanguage domains (e.g., nonverbal reasoning, personality) will be far more typical of the general population.

Project parent: a preschool speech program implemented through parents.

The effectiveness of parents as teachers of speech production skills was assessed by comparing changes in the phonological skills of their children, made during a period with no intervention, to changes that occurred when parents served as teachers, and by comparing those changes with changes that occurred in a contrast group who received no intervention. Twenty children, 12 in the experimental group and 8 in the contrast group, served as subjects. All children were between 4 and 5 years old at the beginning of the study. Parents were taught, in weekly sessions, to model, reinforce, and in other ways to teach their children. Both teaching goals and teaching materials were provided, and progress was monitored weekly. The speech production skills of children in the experimental group improved significantly when parents did the teaching. This was true for both within-subject and across-subjects comparisons.

Functional analysis of ARGRI and ARGRIII regulatory proteins involved in the regulation of arginine metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

We present here a functional analysis of ARGRI and ARGRIII regulatory proteins which are involved together with ARGRII in specific regulation of arginine anabolic and catabolic pathways. Unlike ARGRII, ARGRI and ARGRIII have no transcriptional activation capacity. The first 60 amino acids of ARGRI (out of 177) are dispensable for its activity. The functional domain of the protein is located in the region of homology with MCM1 and SRF proteins. ARGRIII contains in its C-terminal portion a stretch of 17 aspartate residues which are indispensable for arginine regulation. Gene disruption of the ARGRIII gene impairs the growth of the mutant on rich medium, showing that ARGRIII has a pleiotropic role in the cell.

Early speech production of children with cleft palate.

Word-initial target phonemes and the production of those phonemes were examined in normal children and children with cleft palate during the period when the children were acquiring their first 50 words. As a group, the children with cleft palate tended to target more words with word-initial nasals, approximants, and vowels ([ +sonorant] phonemes) and fewer words with word-initial stops, fricatives, and affricates ([-sonorant] phonemes). Normal children tended to target more words with initial consonants articulated in the center of the oral tract ([+coronal]) and the children with cleft palate targeted more words with initial phonemes articulated at the periphery of the oral tract ([-coronal]). The same patterns also were observed in production, but individual children with cleft palate did not always follow this pattern. Although the accuracy of the productions of individual children appeared to be related to word choice, factors such as hearing sensitivity, structural adequacy, and the timing of surgical repair also might have affected speech production accuracy.

Perception and production of approximant consonants by normal and articulation-delayed preschool children.

Disagreement exists concerning the relationship between the perception of phonetic contrasts and their production by both normal and articulation-delayed children. The perception of three approximant consonant contrasts (/w/-/r/, /w/-/l/, /r/-/l/) was examined in two groups of 3-year-old children: normal children who did and did not articulate /r/ and /l/ correctly and articulation-delayed children who misarticulated /r/ and /l/. Perception was assessed in a two-choice forced-choice identification task in which the subjects heard a word and pushed a button lighting a picture corresponding to the word. In general, normally developing children were highly accurate in their perception of all three contrasts, but there was more variability in /w/-/l/ perceptual performance among the children who neutralized the /w/-/l/ contrast. Articulation-delayed children displayed a wider range of production patterns and were more variable in their perceptual performance than normally developing children. Results suggest than normally developing children learn to perceive approximant contrasts prior to 3 years of age. However, some but not all articulation-delayed 3-year-old children may still make errors in the perception of approximants.

The interruption of young children's responses by older siblings.

A group of language-delayed children, a group of older children with normal language development, and a group of younger children with normal language development served as subjects in this study. Questions were asked after a story was read to a younger child in the presence of an older sibling. The older sibling's interruptions of the question-answer dialogue was scored by frequency, type of interruption, and difficulty level of the questions being interrupted. Older siblings interrupted the question-answer interactions of the language-delayed children with a frequency that was similar to that observed in siblings of younger normal children but the interruptions of the language-delayed children were qualitatively different. Older siblings tended to directly answer questions addressed to language-delayed children rather than to provide prompts or rephrasings of the question as they did for young normal children. Siblings of both the language-delayed and the young normal children interrupted more frequently as the questions increased in difficulty.

Suppression of normal speech disfluencies through response cost.

The speech disfluencies of five normal-speaking college students were modified in a series of 10 to 17 sessions by means of response cost. During Point-loss, each disfluency (repetition or interjection of a sound, syllable, word, etc.) resulted in the loss of a penny, as indicated on a screen in front of the subject. Disfluencies were suppressed and kept at very low levels for four of the subjects during the punishment procedures, and there was general resistance to extinction. Even though points were subtracted only during speech, there was a tendency for disfluencies to decrease, though not as markedly, during reading probes as well.