Ülevaade. Artikkel otsib vastust küsimusele, kas ja mille poolest sarnaneb 5-6-aastaste eakohase arenguga vene-eesti kakskeelsete ja spetsiifilise kõnearengu puudega eesti ükskeelsete laste oskus kasutada käändevorme. Andmestik pärineb 101 lapse katsetulemustest eesti keele ainsuse käändevormide (v.a nominatiiv) ja mitmuse partitiivi moodustamisel. Selgitame, kas kakskeelsete ja kõnepuudega laste areng järgib eakohase arenguga ükskeelsete laste arengut. Vaatleme, milliseid vigu lapsed vormide moodustamisel teevad ning milliseid asendusvorme eeldatud käändevormide asemel kasutavad.Võtmesõnad: lastekeel, keele omandamine, morfoloogia, kakskeelsus, keele ja kõne arengu patoloogia, eesti keel SissejuhatusEesti keele käändeparadigma on morfoloogilise süsteemi mahukas osa. Käände-vormide kasutamise oskus annab väärtuslikku infot nii ükskeelse lapse kõnearengu kui ka kakskeelse lapse eesti keele oskuse taseme kohta. Samas on andmeid eesti keele käändevormide kasutamise kohta koolieelses eas vähe. Lastekeele uurijad on nüüdseks kirjeldanud peamiselt üksikjuhtumite näitel eesti keele grammatiliste vormide kujunemist spontaanses kõnes ükskeelsetel (vt nt Argus 2008, Lipp 1977, Salo 1994 ja sünnist saati kahte keelt omandavatel, nn simultaanselt kakskeelsetel lastel (eesti-inglise kakskeelsus vt Vihman 1982, soome-eesti vt Hassinen 2002. Nimetatud uurimustest ilmnevad mõned ühised tendentsid vormimoodustusoskuste kujunemisel: esimeste muutevormidena eelistatakse lõputa partitiivi ja lühikese illatiivi vormi, sisekohakäänete vorme hakatakse kasutama enne kui väliskoha-käändeid, kohakäändevormidega väljendatakse enne siht-kui lähtekohta, varakult ilmuvad mitmuse nominatiivi ja partitiivi vormid, vormimoodustuse kujunemise

Töö eesmärk on kirjeldada ja võrrelda eakohase ja hilistunud kõnearengu grammatilisi profiile ning leida tunnused, mille alusel on võimalik eristada kõne arengu poolest riskirühma kuuluvaid lapsi. Meetodiks on pöörd- ja käändsõnavormide kasutuse ning lauseloome suunatud esilekutsumine ja järelekordamine. Uurimuse valimi moodustavad 149 3aastast ja 186 4aastast eakohase arenguga last. Kontrollrühmaks on 61 kõne arengu hilistusega samaealist last. Uurimistulemustest selgub, et 3- ja 4aastased lapsed erinevad oma grammatilise profiili poolest oluliselt, kusjuures 4aastased valdavad keelesüsteemi uuritud oskuste ja keelendite piires. Kõne arengu hilistusega laste grammatiline profiil järgib eakohase arenguga laste oma, sarnanedes nooremate laste profiiliga. Tulemused võimaldavad laste kõne arengut hindavatel spetsialistidel eristada 3−4aastaste laste grammatika arengule omaseid tüüpilisi ja ebatüüpilisi tunnuseid ning varakult märgata kõne arengu poolest riskirühma kuuluvaid lapsi. Summary

The authors examined how 12 Estonian-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 60 children with normal speech development (ND) comprehended compound nouns with differing sequence of the components (first task) and how they produced compound nouns to label genuine and accidental categories by using analogy (second task) and sentence transformation (third task). The results demonstrated that children with SLI were capable of producing compound nouns for genuine categories, but avoided production of compounds to label objects in temporary juxtapositions. However, by comparison with the control group, SLI children differed statistically significantly in terms of both the number of correct answers and the pattern of mistakes. In the cases when compound nouns were expected to be produced by transforming sentences, the results of SLI children were considerably lower than those of their peers. The results of this study support the idea that children with SLI experience difficulties related to processing linguistic information.

Normative nasalance scores are essential for the treatment and assessment purposes for clinicians. Till date, no studies have been done on nasalance in Estonia. This research was conducted to develop Estonia-specific optimized speech stimuli for Nasometer II and establish the normative nasalance scores. Ninety-two randomly selected healthy and 14 cleft palate Estonian monolingual children, aged four to seven years, were included as participants. Estonian language-specific test material was developed. The Estonian test material consisted of 24 speech stimuli. Based on the phoneme content, the stimuli were divided into three groups: (1) sentences that included oral and nasal phonemes and targeted the same phoneme distribution as in spontaneous speech, (2) sentences that included only oral phonemes and (3) sentences that were loaded with nasal phonemes. Nasometer II software was used to calculate the nasalance scores for each child and each sentence. Results indicated that there were significant differences in nasalance scores for oronasal and oral stimuli scores, and no significant differences were found in nasal stimuli scores between the study and control group. The threshold for oronasal stimuli was 42.1-18.9, oral stimuli was 27.9-3.9 and nasal stimuli was 69.4-46.2. In conclusion, Estonia-specific optimized speech stimuli were developed and normative nasalance scores were established. These normative scores can be used for the diagnosis and follow-up treatment of patients with resonance disorders, especially for patients with cleft palate.

ObjectivesThe Mississippi Aphasia Screening Test (MAST) is a brief screening tool for assessing the expressive and receptive language abilities of patients with aphasia. The goal of this study was to adapt and validate the MAST into the Estonian language. The discriminant validity and internal consistency of the test were examined, as well as its sensitivity and specificity.MethodsThe MASTest was administered in 50 left hemisphere stroke patients with aphasia (LHA+ group) in the acute phase after the stroke and 126 healthy volunteers in a control group (CG), stratified by age and level of education. Nonparametric tests were used to get normative values, compare the values of the MASTest scores between the LHA+ group and the CG, and to assess the discriminant validity, internal consistency, sensitivity, and specificity of the MASTest.ResultsThe summary scores: total score (MASTest‐T), expressive score (MASTest‐E), and receptive score (MASTest‐R) correlated with age and educational level, and the normative values were adjusted accordingly. The LHA+ group showed more impairment than the CG in all subtests and summary scores. The internal reliability of the MASTest was high for the whole sample and LHA+ group. The sensitivity and specificity of the MASTest using the 5th percentile were 74% and 94%, respectively, but using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, it was 89% and 80%.ConclusionThe MASTest is a valid screening tool for evaluating expressive and receptive language abilities in Estonian patients with aphasia in early stroke. The MASTest is the first validated aphasia screening test for Estonian‐speaking people, who number less than one million worldwide.