The phonological process and distinctive feature performances of 24 Down syndrome (DS) participants, ages 17-22 were investigated. Only one subject had a history of speech-language intervention. In a second investigation, identical assessment procedures were used with a second sample of 21 Down speakers, ages 13-17, all of whom had histories of speech-language intervention. Comparisons of phonological skills were made across groups to relate performances to age groups, hypotheses that DS speech is delayed or deviant, and methods of assessment (picture-naming imitative naming, or connected samples). Data provide a basis for some conclusions on each issue and reveal characteristics of the speech of older children having DS.

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Articulation therapy was administered to 240 children by 17 speech clinicians working in a suburban school system. Articulation testing was completed both before and after an eight and one-half months' treatment period. Group therapy was found to be as effective as individual therapy, regardless of the severity of speech defectiveness or grade levels of the children.

Researchers describe Mandarin Chinese tone phonemes by their fundamental frequency (Fo) contours. However, tone phonemes are also comprised of higher harmonics that also may cue tone phonemes. We measured identification thresholds of acoustically filtered tone phonemes and found that higher harmonics, including resolved harmonics above the Fo and unresolved harmonics, cued tone phonemes. Resolved harmonics cued tone phonemes at lower intensity levels suggesting they are more practical tone-phoneme cues in everyday speech. The clear implication is that researchers should use the Fo only as a benchmark when describing tone-phoneme contours, recognizing that higher harmonics also cue tone phonemes. These results also help explain why tone-language speakers can identify tone phonemes over a telephone that attenuates selective frequencies, and suggests that hearing-impaired tone-language speakers may still identify tone phonemes when their hearing loss attenuates selective frequencies.

39 stutterers and 39 normal speakers indicated their ear preferences for dichotically presented words and digits. A single response mode for both dichotic words and digits was selected to study speech perception. Stutterers showed significantly less of the normal right-ear preference for dichotic words and digits than non-stutterers. The proportion of stutterers who failed to demonstrate a right-ear preference for dichotic words was significantly greater than for non-stutterers. 18% of the stutterers and none of the non-stutterers showed reversed or a left-ear preference for dichotic digits. Although non-stuttering children and adults performed alike on the dichotic tasks, the right-ear dichotic-words scores of stuttering children were significantly smaller than those of adult stutterers. The results are related to an early notion that stuttering may be related to mixed dominance and recent evidence showing that large percentages of older stuttering children show spontaneous remission of stuttering.