We addressed the question of how babies exposed to two languages simultaneously acquire the meanings of words across their two languages. In particular, we attempted to shed new light on whether babies know that they are acquiring different lexicons right from the start, or whether early bilingual exposure causes them to be semantically

English-speakers' learning of a French vowel contrast (/ə/-/ø/) was examined under six different stimulus conditions in which contrastive and noncontrastive stimulus dimensions were varied orthogonally to each other. The distribution of contrastive cues was varied across training conditions to create single prototype, variable far (from the category boundary), and variable close (to the boundary) conditions, each in a single talker or a multiple talker version. The control condition involved identification of gender appropriate grammatical elements. Pre-and posttraining measures of vowel perception and production were obtained from each participant. When assessing pre-to posttraining changes in the slope of the identification functions, statistically significant training effects were observed in the multiple voice far and multiple voice close conditions.

In this context, in which the children received a brief period of direct therapy and a home program component provided sequentially, the most effective strategy was to teach the parents to use treatment procedures at home that were congruent with the direct therapy component.

In this article, we consider recent advances in theory and practice related to developmental phonological disorders (PDP). We consider the benefits of structured speech input to address PDP and provide a summary of a recent study designed to address phonological disorders in children using input-focused intervention. Results revealed that intervention focusing on input resulted in similar gains when compared to intervention focusing on speech production practice. We then discuss clinical implications.

Purpose The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between types of speech errors produced by children with speech sound disorders (SSD) and children with typical speech and language development (TD) and phonological awareness (PA) skills. Method Participants were 40 children, half with SSD and half with TD, ages 4 and 5 years. They completed standard speech, language, and PA tests as well as produced single words varying in length from 1 to 5 syllables. Production of each consonant was classified as either correct production, omission, substitution, and distortion; errors were also classified as typical or atypical. Results The children with SSD produced similar proportions of each type of speech errors in mono-, di-, and multisyllabic words. In contrast, the children with TD produced much lower, but not significantly different, proportions of omissions, substitutions, distortions, and typical speech errors at each word length. They produced no atypical errors in monosyllabic words and were significantly more likely to produce them in multisyllabic words. Proportions of omissions and atypical speech errors were significantly correlated with PA performance. Variance in PA skills was predicted partly by vocabulary, language skills, and age; omissions accounted for an additional 5% of variance in PA. Other types of speech errors did not account for additional significant variance in PA performance. Conclusions Poorer PA skills were found to be associated with omissions and atypical speech errors. Research is required to investigate the potential of omission and atypical error use in predicting which children are likely to receive diagnoses of SSD and later literacy difficulties.