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Children
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Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders
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Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders

A special issue of Children (ISSN 2227-9067). This special issue belongs to the section "Pediatric Neurology & Neurodevelopmental Disorders".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 August 2022) | Viewed by 37786

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Katrin Neumann

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Director of the Department of Phoniatrics and Pedaudiology, University Hospital Münster, Westphalian Wilhelm University, Kardinal-von Galen-Ring 10, 48149 Münster, Germany
Interests: examination of speech; language, and hearing processes with behavioral and neuroimaging techniques; implementation of newborn hearing screening; hearing screenings for people with intellectual disabilities; language screenings for children, and of neonatal CMV screenings; population medicine in communication disorders; nature and treatment of stuttering; signal analysis in voice physiology and pathology; singer´s voice; diagnostics; treatment and rehabilitation of children with language disorders and of people with hearing loss, the latter focussing on hearing aids and implants; coordination of the German evidence-based guidelines on the treatement of developmental language disorders and delay and on the pathogenesis, assessment, and treatment of speech fluency disorders

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Developmental language disorders are among the most frequently treated disorders of childhood. Neither their categorization into subtypes and their definitions and nomenclatures nor their differentiation from related disorders are trivial, especially in the case of low nonverbal IQ. They may affect one or more of the morphological-syntactic, semantic-lexical, and phonological domains of the language system. Speech sound disorders including Childhood Apraxia of Speech are only partially among them. Receptive developmental language disorders have poorer prognoses than expressive ones, with pure forms of both classes existing less frequently than previously thought. While short-term treatment success for developmental language disorders has been documented, evidence for long-term benefit is meager. Studies tend to be characterized by small sample sizes and poorly comparable manuals. They also vary in settings, frequency, age ranges, and duration. Another disorder that interferes with children's oral communication is motor speech disorders.

This special issue addresses the nature, definition, assessment, and evidence-based treatments of developmental language disorders, speech sound disorders, and motor speech disorders in children, including treatment settings and medium- and long-term therapy effects. Effective interventions also need to be extracted from the current body of studies for developmental language delays, which precede developmental language disorders, balancing parent-centered intervention methods against therapies delivered by speech-language therapists. In addition, the Special Issue aims to contribute to the current nomenclature discussion of speech and language disorders in children.

Prof. Dr. Katrin Neumann
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • children
  • language delay
  • developmental language disorder
  • language impairment
  • speech sound disorder
  • treatment
  • therapy
  • intervention
  • parent
  • evidence

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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23 pages, 884 KiB  
Article
Process-Oriented Profiling of Speech Sound Disorders
by Sanne Diepeveen, Hayo Terband, Leenke van Haaften, Anne Marie van de Zande, Charlotte Megens-Huigh, Bert de Swart and Ben Maassen
Children 2022, 9(10), 1502; https://doi.org/10.3390/children9101502 - 30 Sep 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3236
Abstract
The differentiation between subtypes of speech sound disorder (SSD) and the involvement of possible underlying deficits is part of ongoing research and debate. The present study adopted a data-driven approach and aimed to identify and describe deficits and subgroups within a sample of [...] Read more.
The differentiation between subtypes of speech sound disorder (SSD) and the involvement of possible underlying deficits is part of ongoing research and debate. The present study adopted a data-driven approach and aimed to identify and describe deficits and subgroups within a sample of 150 four to seven-year-old Dutch children with SSD. Data collection comprised a broad test battery including the Computer Articulation Instrument (CAI). Its tasks Picture Naming (PN), NonWord Imitation (NWI), Word and NonWord Repetition (WR; NWR) and Maximum Repetition Rate (MRR) each render a variety of parameters (e.g., percentage of consonants correct) that together provide a profile of strengths and weaknesses of different processes involved in speech production. Principal Component Analysis on the CAI parameters revealed three speech domains: (1) all PN parameters plus three parameters of NWI; (2) the remaining parameters of NWI plus WR and NWR; (3) MRR. A subsequent cluster analysis revealed three subgroups, which differed significantly on intelligibility, receptive vocabulary, and auditory discrimination but not on age, gender and SLPs diagnosis. The clusters could be typified as three specific profiles: (1) phonological deficit; (2) phonological deficit with motoric deficit; (3) severe phonological and motoric deficit. These results indicate that there are different profiles of SSD, which cover a spectrum of degrees of involvement of different underlying problems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders)
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17 pages, 3951 KiB  
Article
Deep-Learning-Based Automated Classification of Chinese Speech Sound Disorders
by Yao-Ming Kuo, Shanq-Jang Ruan, Yu-Chin Chen and Ya-Wen Tu
Children 2022, 9(7), 996; https://doi.org/10.3390/children9070996 - 1 Jul 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2735
Abstract
This article describes a system for analyzing acoustic data to assist in the diagnosis and classification of children’s speech sound disorders (SSDs) using a computer. The analysis concentrated on identifying and categorizing four distinct types of Chinese SSDs. The study collected and generated [...] Read more.
This article describes a system for analyzing acoustic data to assist in the diagnosis and classification of children’s speech sound disorders (SSDs) using a computer. The analysis concentrated on identifying and categorizing four distinct types of Chinese SSDs. The study collected and generated a speech corpus containing 2540 stopping, backing, final consonant deletion process (FCDP), and affrication samples from 90 children aged 3–6 years with normal or pathological articulatory features. Each recording was accompanied by a detailed diagnostic annotation by two speech–language pathologists (SLPs). Classification of the speech samples was accomplished using three well-established neural network models for image classification. The feature maps were created using three sets of MFCC (Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients) parameters extracted from speech sounds and aggregated into a three-dimensional data structure as model input. We employed six techniques for data augmentation to augment the available dataset while avoiding overfitting. The experiments examine the usability of four different categories of Chinese phrases and characters. Experiments with different data subsets demonstrate the system’s ability to accurately detect the analyzed pronunciation disorders. The best multi-class classification using a single Chinese phrase achieves an accuracy of 74.4 percent. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders)
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15 pages, 280 KiB  
Communication
Using Theory to Drive Intervention Efficacy: The Role of Dose Form in Interventions for Children with DLD
by Pauline Frizelle and Cristina McKean
Children 2022, 9(6), 859; https://doi.org/10.3390/children9060859 - 9 Jun 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3685
Abstract
‘Dose form’ is a construct that has evolved over the last number of years and is central to treating childhood language disorders. In this commentary, we present a framework of dose form that includes techniques, procedures, manner of instruction, and intervention context. We [...] Read more.
‘Dose form’ is a construct that has evolved over the last number of years and is central to treating childhood language disorders. In this commentary, we present a framework of dose form that includes techniques, procedures, manner of instruction, and intervention context. We present key findings from a systematic review exploring the impact of intervention dose form on oral language outcomes (specifically morphosyntax and vocabulary learning) in children with DLD. We then discuss the hypothesized theoretical mechanisms of action underpinning these findings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders)
15 pages, 1869 KiB  
Article
Oral and Laryngeal Articulation Control of Voicing in Children with and without Speech Sound Disorders
by Haydée Fiszbein Wertzner, Luciana Pagan Neves and Luis M. T. Jesus
Children 2022, 9(5), 649; https://doi.org/10.3390/children9050649 - 1 May 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2257
Abstract
Voicing contrast is hard to master during speech motor development, and the phonological process of consonant devoicing is very frequent in children with Speech Sound Disorders (SSD). Therefore, the aim of this study was to characterise the oral and laryngeal articulation control strategies [...] Read more.
Voicing contrast is hard to master during speech motor development, and the phonological process of consonant devoicing is very frequent in children with Speech Sound Disorders (SSD). Therefore, the aim of this study was to characterise the oral and laryngeal articulation control strategies used by children with and without SSD as a function of place of articulation. The articulation rate and relative oral airflow amplitude (flow) were used to analyse how children controlled oral articulation; fundamental frequency (fo), open quotient (OQ), and a classification of voicing were used to explore laryngeal behaviour. Data from detailed speech and language assessments, oral airflow and electroglottography signals were collected from 13 children with SSD and 17 children without SSD, aged 5; 0 to 7; 8, using picture naming tasks. Articulation rate and flow in children with and without SSD were not significantly different, but a statistically reliable effect of place on flow was found. Children with and without SSD used different relative fo (which captures changes in fo during the consonant-vowel transition) and OQ values, and place of articulation had an effect on the strength of voicing. All children used very similar oral articulation control of voicing, but children with SSD used less efficient laryngeal articulation strategies (higher subglottal damping and more air from the lungs expelled in each glottal cycle) than children without SSD. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders)
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14 pages, 1148 KiB  
Article
Becoming the Metalinguistic Mind: The Development of Metalinguistic Abilities in Children from 5 to 7
by Sergio Melogno, Maria Antonietta Pinto and Marco Lauriola
Children 2022, 9(4), 550; https://doi.org/10.3390/children9040550 - 13 Apr 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3201
Abstract
The object of this study is the development of metalinguistic abilities in an age range—5 to 7 years—where an important turn takes place in education, namely the transition between kindergarten and primary school. Based on the literature starting from the 70’s of the [...] Read more.
The object of this study is the development of metalinguistic abilities in an age range—5 to 7 years—where an important turn takes place in education, namely the transition between kindergarten and primary school. Based on the literature starting from the 70’s of the last century, embryonic forms of awareness of how language variation can be manipulated to convey variation in meaning are widely attested in preschoolers. These forms, however, denote an intuitive and implicit level of awareness and will attain a “meta-level”, based on more systematic and explicit reflectiveness, later in development in correlation with cognitive, linguistic, and educational factors. To measure the development of these abilities across the above age range, we recruited 160 native Italian-speaking children from 5 to 7, with comparable numerosity at each age, gender balance, average socio-cultural background, and no cognitive nor neuropsychological impairment. We used 6 metalinguistic tasks, the Raven’s CPM, a lexical and grammatical ability tests. The results showed a significant increase in all the measures across the span considered and correlations between all the measures. A factor analysis on the metalinguistic tasks showed that a single factor accounted for a large part of the common variance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders)
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24 pages, 1164 KiB  
Article
The Effectiveness of an Integrated Treatment for Functional Speech Sound Disorders—A Randomized Controlled Trial
by Denise I. Siemons-Lühring, Harald A. Euler, Philipp Mathmann, Boris Suchan and Katrin Neumann
Children 2021, 8(12), 1190; https://doi.org/10.3390/children8121190 - 16 Dec 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 6933
Abstract
Background: The treatment of functional speech sound disorders (SSDs) in children is often lengthy, ill-defined, and without satisfactory evidence of success; effectiveness studies on SSDs are rare. This randomized controlled trial evaluates the effectiveness of the integrated SSD treatment program PhonoSens, which focuses [...] Read more.
Background: The treatment of functional speech sound disorders (SSDs) in children is often lengthy, ill-defined, and without satisfactory evidence of success; effectiveness studies on SSDs are rare. This randomized controlled trial evaluates the effectiveness of the integrated SSD treatment program PhonoSens, which focuses on integrating phonological and phonetic processing according to the Integrated Psycholinguistic Model of Speech Processing (IPMSP). Methods: Thirty-two German-speaking children aged from 3.5 to 5.5 years (median 4.6) with functional SSD were randomly assigned to a treatment or a wait-list control group with 16 children each. All children in the treatment group and, after an average waiting period of 6 months, 12 children in the control group underwent PhonoSens treatment. Results: The treatment group showed more percent correct consonants (PCC) and a greater reduction in phonological processes after 15 therapy sessions than the wait-list control group, both with large effect sizes (Cohen’s d = 0.89 and 1.04). All 28 children treated achieved normal phonological abilities: 21 before entering school and 7 during first grade. The average number of treatment sessions was 28; the average treatment duration was 11.5 months. Conclusion: IPMSP-aligned therapy is effective in the treatment of SSD and is well adaptable for languages other than German. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders)
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Review

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17 pages, 343 KiB  
Review
The Genetic and Molecular Basis of Developmental Language Disorder: A Review
by Hayley S. Mountford, Ruth Braden, Dianne F. Newbury and Angela T. Morgan
Children 2022, 9(5), 586; https://doi.org/10.3390/children9050586 - 20 Apr 2022
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 10885
Abstract
Language disorders are highly heritable and are influenced by complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors. Despite more than twenty years of research, we still lack critical understanding of the biological underpinnings of language. This review provides an overview of the genetic landscape [...] Read more.
Language disorders are highly heritable and are influenced by complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors. Despite more than twenty years of research, we still lack critical understanding of the biological underpinnings of language. This review provides an overview of the genetic landscape of developmental language disorders (DLD), with an emphasis on the importance of defining the specific features (the phenotype) of DLD to inform gene discovery. We review the specific phenotype of DLD in the genetic literature, and the influence of historic variation in diagnostic inclusion criteria on researchers’ ability to compare and replicate genotype–phenotype studies. This review provides an overview of the recently identified gene pathways in populations with DLD and explores current state-of-the-art approaches to genetic analysis based on the hypothesised architecture of DLD. We will show how recent global efforts to unify diagnostic criteria have vastly increased sample size and allow for large multi-cohort metanalyses, leading the identification of a growing number of contributory loci. We emphasise the important role of estimating the genetic architecture of DLD to decipher underlying genetic associations. Finally, we explore the potential for epigenetics and environmental interactions to further unravel the biological basis of language disorders. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Research on Developmental Speech and Language Delays and Disorders)
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