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Background: Aims: To investigate the developmental trajectory of the rate and perceptual assessment of oral diadochokinesis (DDK) in typically developing children compared with adults. Also to examine the characteristics of DDK productions in children with speech sound disorders (SSD) and the relationship between DDK production and percentage of consonants correct (PCC). Methods & Procedures: Participants were 316 typically developing children and 90 children with SSD from 3 to 9 years old, as well as 20 adults with normal speech. The mono‐, bi‐ and trisyllabic nonsense strings containing Korean tense consonants and the vowel [a] were used for DDK tasks. The number of iterations per s was measured as the DDK rate for each stimulus. The perceptual assessment of DDK productions was also performed for regularity, accuracy and rate. Outcomes & Results: The DDK rates increased throughout childhood, but the oldest children, 9‐year‐olds in the current study, did not achieve adult‐like rates for all mono‐ and trisyllabic strings. Children with SSD also did not show significant differences from typically developing children when the DDK productions were analysed using only accurate tokens. The PCC of children with SSD showed higher correlations with regularity, accuracy and rate of perceptual ratings than the timed DDK rate. Conclusions & Implications: This study highlighted the fact that the comprehensive evaluation of DDK productions may provide even more useful information about children's oral motor skills. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: Rates of DDK reflect the motor skills of the articulatory systems independently of phonological skills; therefore, the tasks are widely used in the diagnostic evaluations of speech disorders in both children and adult populations. However, a substantial number of studies have questioned the validity and usefulness of DDK rates for evaluating speech abilities. Also, the literature suggested that the measure of DDK rate alone does not provide a clear and useful indication of children's oral motor skills. DDK tasks should be analysed in terms of accuracy and consistency as well as rate. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge: The literature reporting normative DDK performance has mainly been based on English speakers. As different consonants have different temporal characteristics, the linguistic and segmental features of DDK tasks can impact the DDK rate. This study established a norm for DDK rate for Korean‐speaking children and investigated the developmental trajectory of DDK performance in typically developing children compared with adults. This study suggested that the comprehensive evaluation of DDK productions may provide even more useful information about children's oral motor skills by examining the characteristics of DDK productions in children with SSD. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: This study provided normative data of young Korean‐speaking children aged 3–9 years. Normative data in children under 5 years of age are valuable given that the majority of children referred for speech difficulty assessments are between 3 and 5 years of age, but only a few studies have provided the normative data in young children. This study showed that many children could not complete DDK tasks correctly and provided additional support for the notion that other aspects of DDK performance, including accuracy and regularity, may yield more useful diagnostic indications than timed DDK rates alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The LittlEARS® Early Speech Production Questionnaire (LEESPQ) was developed to provide professionals with valuable information about children's earliest language development and has been successfully validated in several languages. This study aimed to validate the Serbian version of the LEESPQ in typically developing children and compare the results with validation studies in other languages. Methods: The English version of the LEESPQ was back‐translated into Serbian. Parents completed the questionnaire in paper or electronic form either during the visit to the paediatric clinic or through personal contact. A total of 206 completed questionnaires were collected. Standardized expected values were calculated using a second‐order polynomial model for children up to 18 months of age to create a norm curve for the Serbian language. The results were then used to determine confidence intervals, with the lower limit being the critical limit for typical speech‐language development. Finally, the results were compared with German and Canadian English developmental norms. Results: The Serbian LEESPQ version showed high homogeneity (r =.622) and internal consistency (α =.882), indicating that it almost exclusively measures speech production ability. No significant difference in total score was found between male and female infants (U = 4429.500, p =.090), so it can be considered a gender‐independent questionnaire. The results of the comparison between Serbian and German (U = 645.500, p =.673) and Serbian and English norm curves (U = 652.000, p =.725) show that the LEESPQ can be applied to different population groups, regardless of linguistic, cultural or sociological differences. Conclusion: The LEESPQ is a valid, age‐dependent and gender‐independent questionnaire suitable for assessing early speech development in children aged from birth to 18 months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Very young children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often show poorer language development. Whilst there have been attempts to provide early intervention programmes, these sometimes miss the most disadvantaged groups. Aims: This report presents preliminary feasibility and effectiveness data for a novel language intervention designed for parents of toddlers in the United Kingdom. Methods and Procedures: In total, 43 UK families of 2–4‐year‐olds were recruited to the study, half of whom completed an 8‐week course (Tots Talking) focussed on parent interaction, and half of whom acted as wait‐list controls. Results and Outcomes: Results suggest that such programmes are feasible for families with 86% staying in the intervention. In addition, greater changes in underlying communication skills such as joint attention and gesture were evident compared to wait‐list controls. Conclusions and Implications: We conclude that pre‐verbal skills may be more important to measure as initial outcomes than language or vocabulary change in this population. What This Paper Adds: What is already known on the subject: Children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are at higher risk of communication difficulties and there is a need for community intervention programmes for very young children. What this study adds: This study suggests that such programmes can be feasible and effective, but that very early/basic communicative skills (such as joint attention) may be boosted first rather than language or vocabulary. What are the clinical implications of this work?: Children's centres and other community services could feasibly run short parent facing courses emphasising contingent communication in low SES families and other diverse groups. These may be more successful run with younger preschoolers. Joint attention may be a better focus of intervention before expecting vocabulary or language change. Community health professionals may find this information useful in referring and supporting families in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Although verbal imitation can provide a valuable window into the developing language abilities of toddlers, some toddlers find verbal imitation challenging and will not comply with tests that involve elicited verbal imitation. The characteristics of stimuli that are offered to toddlers for imitation may influence how easy or hard it is for them to imitate. This study presents a new test of elicited imitation-the Monosyllable Imitation Test for Toddlers (MITT)-comprising stimuli of varying characteristics and test features designed to optimize compliance. Aims To investigate whether the stimulus characteristics of neighbourhood density and consonant complexity have independent and/or convergent influences on imitation accuracy; and to examine non-compliance rates and diagnostic accuracy of the MITT and an existing test, the Test of Early Nonword Repetition (TENR) (Stokes and Klee 2009a). Methods & Procedures Fifty-two toddlers (25-35 months) participated. Twenty-six had typically developing language (TDs) and 26 were defined as late talkers (LTs) based on parent-reported vocabulary. The MITT stimuli were created by manipulating both neighbourhood density (dense or sparse) and consonant complexity (early- or late-developing initial consonant). The MITT was designed to maximize compliance by: (1) using eight monosyllabic stimuli, (2) providing three exposures to stimuli and (3) embedding imitation in a motivating context: a computer animation with reasons for imitation. Outcomes & Results Stimulus characteristics influenced imitation accuracy in TDs and LTs. For TDs, neighbourhood density had an independent influence, whereas for LTs consonant complexity had an independent influence. These characteristics also had convergent influences. For TDs, stimuli were all equally easy to imitate, except those that were both sparse and contained a late-developing consonant which were harder to imitate. For LTs, stimuli that were both dense and contained an early-developing consonant were easier to imitate than any other stimuli. Two LTs and no TDs were non-compliant with the MITT. With the TENR, five LTs and two TDs were non-compliant. The MITT and TENR yielded similar levels of diagnostic sensitivity, but the TENR offered higher specificity rates. Subsets of stimuli from the MITT and the TENR also showed diagnostic promise when explored post-hoc. Conclusions & Implications Stimulus characteristics converge to influence imitation accuracy in both TD and LT toddlers and therefore should be considered when designing stimuli. The MITT resulted in better compliance than the TENR, but the TENR offered higher specificity. Insights about late talking, elicited imitation and speech production capabilities are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Children with severe cerebral palsy (CP) (i.e. 'non-speaking children with severely limited mobility') are restricted in many domains that are important to the acquisition of language. Aims To investigate comprehension of spoken language on sentence type level in non-speaking children with severe CP. Methods & Procedures From an original sample of 87 non-speaking children with severe CP, 68 passed the pre-test (i.e. they matched at least five spoken words to the corresponding objects) of a specifically developed computer-based instrument for low motor language testing (C-BiLLT), admitting them to the actual C-BiLLT computer test. As a result, the present study included 68 children with severe CP (35 boys, 33 girls; mean age 6;11 years, SD 3;0 years; age range 1;9-11;11 years) who were investigated with the C-BiLLT for comprehension of different sentence types: phrases, simple active sentences (with one or two arguments) and compound sentences. The C-BiLLT provides norm data of typically developing (TD) children (1;6-6;6 years). Binomial logistic regression analyses were used to compare the percentage correct of each sentence type in children with severe CP with that in TD children (subdivided into age groups) and to compare percentage correct within the CP subtypes. Outcomes & Results Sentence comprehension in non-speaking children with severe CP followed the developmental trajectory of TD children, but at a much slower rate; nevertheless, they were still developing up to at least age 12 years. Delays in sentence type comprehension increased with sentence complexity and showed a large variability between individual children and between subtypes of CP. Comprehension of simple and syntactically more complex sentences were significantly better in children with dyskinetic CP than in children with spastic CP. Of the children with dyskinetic CP, 10-13% showed comprehension of simple and compound sentences within the percentage correct of TD children, as opposed to none of the children with spastic CP. Conclusion & Implications In non-speaking children with severe CP sentence comprehension is delayed rather than deviant. Results indicate the importance of following comprehension skills across all age groups, even beyond age 12 years. Moreover, the subtype of CP should be considered when establishing an educational programme for sentence comprehension, and augmentative and alternative communication support. In addition, educational programmes for children with severe CP should take into account the linguistic hierarchy of sentence comprehension when focusing on the input and understanding of spoken language comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]