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Non-word repetition in Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). A number of previous studies have revealed that children with Specific Language Impairment have limitations in Phonological Working Memory as revealed by a task that requires them to repeat non-words of increasing syllable length. However, most published studies have used non-words that are phonotactically English. AIMS: The purpose was to examine the repetition of non-words that are consistent with the phonotactic patterns of Spanish. The study also examined the relationship between non-word repetition performance and other language measures. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Eleven Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment and 11 age-matched children with typical language development aged 8;3-10;11, who were part of a larger study of sentence processing, participated in the study. The primary data were the children's repetition of 20 non-words, four at each syllable length (one, two, three, four and five syllables). The children's productions were transcribed and scored for non-word, segmental and cluster accuracy as well as for error type. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The children with Specific Language Impairment performed more poorly on almost all measures of accuracy, but particularly in their production of three-, four-, and five-syllable non-words. Substitutions were the most frequent error type for both groups. Likelihood ratios indicated that non-word repetition performance is a highly accurate identifier of language status in these preselected groups. The children's non-word repetition was highly correlated with most of the standardized language measures that were administered to the children. CONCLUSIONS: The repetition of non-words consistent with Spanish phonotactics reveals word-length effects and error patterns similar to those found in previous studies. It extends these findings to older school-age Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment. Given the limited choices for instruments that can be used to identify children with Specific Language Impairment, a Spanish Non-word Repetition Task has the potential to be a valuable screening test for clinical and research purposes. ijlcd.
Phonetic complexity and stuttering in Spanish. The current study investigated whether phonetic complexity affected stuttering rate for Spanish speakers. The speakers were assigned to three age groups (6-11, 12-17 and 18-years plus) that were similar to those used in an earlier study on English. The analysis was performed using Jakielski's Index of Phonetic Complexity (IPC) scheme in which each word is given an IPC score based on the number of complex attributes it includes for each of eight factors. Stuttering on function words for Spanish did not correlate with IPC score for any age group. This mirrors the finding for English that stuttering on these words is not affected by phonetic complexity. The IPC scores of content words correlated positively with stuttering rate for 6-11-year-old and adult speakers. Comparison was made between the languages to establish whether or not experience with the factors determines the problem they pose for speakers (revealed by differences in stuttering rate). Evidence was obtained that four factors found to be important determinants of stuttering on content words in English for speakers aged 12 and above, also affected Spanish speakers. This occurred despite large differences in frequency of usage of these factors. It is concluded that phonetic factors affect stuttering rate irrespective of a speaker's experience with that factor. clp.
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