Early Speech and Language

Development
Processes, Benchmarks and the
Impact of Disability

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 Outcomes
Participants will:
• review the research base on early speech and
language development
• apply this research to the task of identifying
children who may have a language delay or
disorder
• consider the impact of language differences
• gain resources for learning more about early
speech and language development

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 Early Speech and
Language Development

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Speech, Language,
Communication
(What is the difference?)

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• Communication: the exchange of
information or ideas

• Language: a symbol system with rules that

govern the use of the symbols

• Speech: the production of vocal sound

patterns

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 The Importance of Speech and
Language in Preschool
• Speech/language ability is related to
academic success
• Speech/language delays or disorders may
be the earliest indicator of other problems
• Most young children with disabilities have
a need for intervention in the area of
speech or language
• Preschool offers almost continuous
language learning opportunities
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Of the children served in Preschool
Special Ed in 2000-2001:
• 28% exited to general ed
• 40% were educated primarily in the
regular classroom (<20% out of reg class)
• 7% were educated outside of the regular
class from 21-79% of the time
• 25% were out of the regular class more
than 80% of the time

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 Language Research
• We can describe early language
acquisition in great detail…..
(But we do not know exactly how children
learn language)
• Research can serve as a guide for
evaluating child language and identifying
teaching targets

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 Theories of Language Acquisition
• Behavioral (Skinner, 1957)
• Psycholinguistic (Chomsky, 1965)
• Semantic/Cognitive (Bloom, 1970)
• Sociolinguistic (Bates, 1976)
• Interactionist (Bloom & Lahey, 1978)

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 The Major Systems of Language
• Phonology
• Semantics
• Morphology
• Syntax
• Pragmatics

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 Phonology
The study of the sound system of language
including:

• What the sounds are

• The system of rules for combining and

sequencing the sounds

• Phonology is the study of language form

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 Phoneme
• The smallest unit of sound that signals a
change in meaning

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Early Perception of Speech Sounds
• infants can discriminate between some
speech sounds as early as 1 month
• infants seem to be able to discriminate
between phonetic contrasts from many
languages
• over time, however, they lose the ability to
discriminate between some contrasts that
are not in their language
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Early Production of Speech Sounds
• 0-3 months: reflexive vocalizations
• 3-6 months: cooing and early consonant –
vowel combinations
• 6-10 months: repetitive consonant-vowel
sounds (da-da)
• 9-12 months: conversational babbling
• 12 months: first words

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 Speech
During the infant, toddler and preschool
years, children learning English gradually
learn to produce the consonant and
vowel sounds of English in initial, medial
or final positions in words and according
to the rules of English for combining
sounds
(McCormick, Loeb & Schiefelbusch, 2003; McLean &
Snyder-McLean, 1999)

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 Most 3 year olds can produce:

• p (pat) • m (mama)
• h (hot) • n (nose)
• w (water)

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Most 4 years olds can produce:
• b (baby) • g (go)
• d (dog) • f (fun)
• k (kite) • y (yes)

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 Most 6 year olds can produce:
• t (toy) • r (run)
• n (night) • l (light)
• ng (bring)

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 Later developing sounds
• s (sun) • v (vase)
• sh (shut) • th (think) (voiceless)
• ch (chin) • th (this) (voiced)
• z (zipper) • zh (measure)
• j (jump)

(Adler & King, 1994; Smiley

& Goldstein, 1998)

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 Consonant sounds are described
by :
• Place of articulation: p/b are “bilabials”

• Manner of articulation: p/b are “stops”

• Voiced or voiceless: p is “voiceless”

b is “voiced”
(McLean & Snyder-McLean, 1999)

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Oral Mechanism

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 Common articulation errors
• Substitutions • /th/ for /s/ or
/k/ for /t/
• Omissions • syllable or sound

• Distortions • Lateral /s/

• Additions • Ballalet

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 Semantics
• Study of the meaning system of language

• Language content

Berko-Gleason, 1993

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 Semantics includes:
• Vocabulary development
• Concept development
• Meaning of words used in combination

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“A child’s knowledge of the world
will be demonstrated in word
knowledge”

Crais, 1990

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 Early semantic relations
• Nomination (that • Locative (cup
doggie) table)
• Negation (no juice) • Agent-action
• Recurrence (more (mommy sit)
cookie) • Action-object (hit
• Possession (my ball)
baby) • Agent-object
• Attribution (big ball) (daddy truck)
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 Morphology
• The study of word formation and the rules
governing the use of morphemes

• Morphology is language form

• Morpheme: the smallest unit of language

which has meaning

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 morphemes
• Baseball = 2

• Hats = 2

• Daddy = 1

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 Mean Length of Utterance
• the average length of oral expressions as
measured by a representative sampling of
oral language
• obtained by counting the number of
morphemes and dividing by the number of
utterances

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 As MLU increases, the
complexity of children’s
utterances also increases in very
consistent ways

MLU is a better predictor of the

complexity of child language than
age

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 Mean Length of Utterance
Age MLU

2 years 1.75
2.5 years 2.25
3 years 2.75
3.5 years 3.5
4 years 4.0
(McCormick & Schiefelbusch, 1990)
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 Find the MLU….
Daddy’s shoes are big
Jessie walked home
The baby sleeps here
Daddy goes to work

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 Brown’s Stages
• Stage 1 MLU 1.75
• Stage 2 MLU 2.25
• Stage 3 MLU 2.75
• Stage 4 MLU 3.5
• Stage 5 MLU 4.0

(Brown, 1973)

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 First Grammatical Morphemes
• ‘-ing’ - present progressive tense
• ‘in’ and ‘on’
• ‘-s’ - plural noun
• past tense irregular verbs
• ‘-s’ - possessive noun
• uncontractible copula
• article ‘a’
• regular past tense verb
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 First Grammatical Morphemes
• regular third person verb
• irregular third person verb
• uncontractible auxiliary verb
• contractible copula
• contractible auxiliary
• pronouns
• comparative/superlative (-er, -est)

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 Syntax
• Syntax includes the rules of word function
(parts of speech) and word order

• Syntax is language form

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 Negative sentences
• “No go night-night”

• “I no go sleep”

• “I will not go to sleep”

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 Questions
• Go play? Or Where baby?

• Where you go?

• Where did you go?

• What, where, who, when, why and how

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 Embedding/Conjoining
• Conjoining: ‘and’, ‘and then’
‘because’, ‘so’, ‘but’

• Embedding: noun clauses

infinitive phrases
participle phrases

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 Pragmatics
• Pragmatics is the study of rules related to
language use in the communicative
context

• Pragmatics is the study of language use

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 Pragmatics includes:
• Communicative intention: reason for
speaking
• Presupposition: information that must be
shared by the speaker and listener so that
the message can be understood
• Organization of discourse

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 Early functions of language
• Requesting information
• Requesting action
• Seeking attention
• Responding to requests
• Stating or commenting
• Protesting
• Greeting

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Discourse Skills by School Age
• Ability to participate in conversations
(introduce a topic, sustain the topic, provide a
clarification and close or switch topics)
• Adjustments of speech for the listener
• Ability to take the perspective of the listener
(deitic terms: here, there, this, that and
pronouns)
• Elimination of redundant language (based on
presuppositions)
McCormick & Schiefelbusch, 1990)
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Language Intervention
Strategies

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 Research on typical
speech/language acquisition
serves as a guide for
identifying goals and
objectives for children with
language delays/disorders

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 Language Intervention Strategies
Based on the study of “parentese” or “child
directed speech” of adults:
• modeling
• repetition
• expansion
• extension
(Nelson, 1989; Chapman, 1981; Tabors,
1997)
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Language Benchmarks

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 Early Word Comprehension
• 8-12 months: comprehends a few words in
context
• 12-18 months: comprehends some words
outside of routines
• 18-24 months: comprehends words for
absent objects and 2 word combinations
• 24- 36 months: comprehends simple
sentences supported by context
(Crais & Roberts, 2004)
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 Early Word Production
• Approx. 12 months: first words
• 13-15 months: ten words
• 18-20 months: 50 words
(by 6 years, it’s 2,600 words!!)
• 18-24 months: begins to produce 2 word
utterances
(Owens, 2001)

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 Early Language Use
• 12-24 months: uses words to get attention,
to get objects or actions, to protest
• 24 months: can initiate and change a
topic of conversation but very dependent
on context
• 3 years: can use language for a variety of
functions
(McCormick & Schiefelbusch, 1990)

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 Preschool Comprehension
• Growth and refinement in comprehension of
vocabulary as well as categorization (semantic
development)
• Growth in comprehension of grammatical
aspects of language (morphology and syntax)
such as word order, prepositions, plurals,
possessives, past and future tense of verbs

(Crais & Roberts, 2004; Miller & Paul, 1995; Paul, 2001)

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 Preschool Production
• Length of utterances increases
• Grammatical elements are added
–ing to verb (“me playing”)
–s for plural and possessive (“two books,”
“Mommy’s hat”)
articles and adjectives (‘this a big car”)
pronouns (her, him, you, me)
past tense (regular and irregular)
(“he ate it,” Sally played outside”)
future tense (“I will go home”)
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• Forming negatives (“I didn’t see it”)
• Forming questions (“Can we go to the
park?”)
• Combining clauses into complex
sentences (“I went to the swing, but he
wasn’t there”)

(Brown, 1973; Miller, 1981; Owens, 2001;

McCormick, Loeb & Schiefelbusch, 2003)

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 Preschool Language Use
• Growth in the ability to maintain a topic of
conversation across a number of turns
without contextual support
• Growth in the ability to initiate a
conversation and also to end a
conversation
• Growth in the ability to use language for a
variety of purposes
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Speech/Language
Disability

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What can cause speech problems?
• Chronic ear infections or hearing loss
• Auditory discrimination difficulties
• Oral mechanism problems
• Motor planning problems
• Learned patterns of mis-articulation
• What else?

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The Ear

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Oral Mechanism

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 Intelligibility
There is a good deal of variation in how well
children produce speech sounds and also
in how well they put vowels and
consonants together in streams of speech
One way to think about it, is to consider how
intelligible a child’s speech is to someone
who does not know the child well

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 Deciding whether or not to refer…
• Does the child have difficulty
understanding or being understood?

• Is this a source of frustration for the child?

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 Gathering information for the
referral….
• How much of the child’s speech is
intelligible ?

• Are there specific sounds/words that the

child does not produce correctly? If yes,
what are they?

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• Does the child drool or have problems eating?
• Is the quality of the child’s voice unusual?
(nasal, breathy, hoarse, high-pitched, too
loud/soft?)
• Is the child’s pattern of breathing unusual?
(shallow or frequent breathing, audible
breathing?)
• Is the child frequently dysfluent, even when not
excited or upset?

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 What can cause a language
problem?
• Hearing loss
• Chronic ear infection
• Fear or anxiety
• Lack of language experience
• Speech disorder
• Disability

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 Deciding whether or not to refer…
• Does the child have difficulty
understanding language?

• Does the child have difficulty expressing

himself ?

• Does the difficulty cause frustration or

impact the child’s learning and
development?
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 Gathering information for the
referral….
• What is the basis for the concern?
Language production
Language comprehension
Language use
• Write down observations of the child’s
language and behavior that exemplify
concerns

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Language Differences

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 Dialect Difference
A dialect is a rule-governed
variation of a standard language

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 English Dialects
• Northern, Midland, Southern

• African American English/Black English

• Cajun

• Others…

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• Dialect is child’s first language

• Distinguish between dialect and potential

speech or language disability

• Repetition, modeling, expansion,

extension

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 English Learner

A child whose first language is other

than English or who is in the process of
developing two or more languages

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 Bilingualism
• Simultaneous bilingualism: exposure to and
opportunities to use both languages are
essentially equal
• Successive bilingualism: the second language
is learned after the first language is established
• Receptive bilingualism: a great deal more is
understood in the second language than can be
expressed in words
(CDE, 2005)

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 Stages of Second Language
Acquisition
• Use of Home Language
• Observational/Listening Period
• Telegraphic and Formulaic Speech
• Fluid Language Use

• (CDE, 2005)

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 Use of Home Language
• Children continue to use the home
language to communicate even though no
one else is speaking that language

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 Observational/Listening Period
• Children do not speak, but instead listen to
the new language. They may use
gestures, facial expressions or sounds to
communicate

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 Telegraphic/Formulaic Period
• Telegraphic speech: use of one or two
word utterances without function words
and grammatical markers (“Bobby shoe”)
• Formulaic speech: use of phrases in the
new language as a formula but without
really understanding the linguistic
components (“I wanna ____” or
“I like _____”)
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 Fluid Language Use
• Children now begin to understand and use
the rules of English so that they can build
new sentences. Mistakes will be made,
but the child is now able to get beyond
repetitive phrases.

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 Deciding whether or not to refer…
Remember that it is not uncommon for
children who are acquiring a second
language to appear at some point as if
they have limited proficiency in both
languages….

(CDE, 2005)

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Deciding whether or not to refer….
….. limited English proficiency alone is not
sufficient reason for referring a child for
assessment for special education
services.
At the same time, if a child needs services,
earlier is better….

(McLean, 2002)
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 Gathering information
• Consider the child’s language history

• Consider the child’s current language

environments

• Gather information from the family about

the child’s typical language at home

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• Consider the child’s functioning in other developmental
domains in situations where language comprehension
is not required

• Consider information about the child’s hearing and

vision

• Consider whether or not the child has had sufficient

time to become accustomed to the new social and
language environment

(McLean, 2002)

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Questions???

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Thank You!

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