PUBLICATIONS

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/20064

The PUBLICATIONS collection includes a bibliography of published work generated from the Learnability Project, with links to all manuscripts; this bibliography is also available in the BASICS collection. The PUBLICATIONS collection provides access to only those limited publications where permission was granted by the publisher for deposit in an institutional repository pursuant to copyright law.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 32

Age of word acquisition effects in treatment of children with phonological delays
(Cambridge University Press, 2012) Gierut, Judith A.; Morrisette, Michele L.
The effects of the age of acquisition (AoA) of words were examined in the clinical treatment of 10 preschool children with phonological delays. Using a single-subject multiple-baseline experimental design, children were enrolled in one of four conditions that varied the AoA of the treated words (early vs. late acquired) relative to their corresponding word frequency (high vs. low frequency). Phonological generalization to treated and untreated sounds in error served as the dependent variable. Results showed that late acquired words induced greater generalization, with an effect size four times greater than early acquired words, whereas the effects of word frequency were minimized. Results are discussed relative to hypotheses about the role of AoA in language acquisition and the relevance of this variable for phonological learning.
Clinical application of phonological complexity
(California Speech-Language Hearing Association, 2004) Gierut, Judith A.
Commentary: Contributions of evidence-based practices to clinical treatment
(California Speech-Language Hearing Association, 2005) Gierut, Judith A.
Comparability of lexical corpora: Word frequency in phonological generalization
(Informa Healthcare, 2007) Gierut, Judith A.; Dale, Rachel A.
Statistical regularities in language have been examined for new insight to the language acquisition process. This line of study has aided theory advancement, but it also has raised methodological concerns about the applicability of corpora data to child populations. One issue is whether it is appropriate to extend the regularities observed in the speech of adults to developing linguistic systems. The purpose of this paper is to establish the comparability of lexical corpora in accounting for behavioural effects of word frequency on children's phonological generalization. Four word frequency corpora were evaluated in comparison of child/adult and written/spoken sources. These were applied post-hoc to generalization data previously reported for two preschool children. Results showed that the interpretation of phonological generalization was the same within and across children, regardless of the corpus being used. Phonological gains were more evident in low than high frequency words. The findings have implications for the design of probabilistic studies of language acquisition and clinical treatment programmes.
Comparative markedness and induced opacity
(Language Education Institute, 2010) Dinnsen, Daniel A.; Gierut, Judith A.; Farris-Trimble, Ashley W.
Results are reported from a descriptive and experimental study that was intended to evaluate comparative markedness (McCarthy 2002, 2003) as an amendment to optimality theory. Two children (aged 4;3 and 4;11) with strikingly similar, delayed phonologies presented with two independent, interacting error patterns of special interest, i.e., Deaffrication ([tIn] 'chin') and Consonant Harmony ([$\text{g}$ↄ$\text{g}$] 'dog') in a feeding interaction ([kik] 'cheek'). Both children were enrolled in a counterbalanced treatment study employing a multiple base-line single-subject experimental design, which was intended to induce a grandfather effect in one case ([dↄ$\text{g}$] 'dog' and [kik] 'cheek') and a counterfeeding interaction in the other ([$\text{g}$ↄ$\text{g}$] 'dog' and [tik] 'cheek'). The results were largely supportive of comparative markedness, although some anomalies were observed. The clinical implications of these results are also explored.
The coronal fricative problem
(Elsevier, 2013) Dinnsen, Daniel A.; Dow, Michael C.; Gierut, Judith A.; Morrisette, Michele L.; Green, Christopher R.
This paper examines a range of predicted versus attested error patterns involving coronal fricatives (e.g. [s, z, θ, ð]) as targets and repairs in the early sound systems of monolingual English-acquiring children. Typological results are reported from a cross-sectional study of 234 children with phonological delays (ages 3 years; 0 months to 7;9). Our analyses revealed different instantiations of a putative developmental conspiracy within and across children. Supplemental longitudinal evidence is also presented that replicates the cross-sectional results, offering further insight into the life-cycle of the conspiracy. Several of the observed typological anomalies are argued to follow from a modified version of Optimality Theory with Candidate Chains (McCarthy, 2007).
Dense neighborhoods and mechanisms of learning: Evidence from children with phonological delay
(Cambridge University Press, 2015) Gierut, Judith A.; Morrisette, Michele L.
There is a noted advantage of dense neighborhoods in language acquisition, but the learning mechanism that drives the effect is not well understood. Two hypotheses–long-term auditory word priming and phonological working memory–have been advanced in the literature as viable accounts. These were evaluated in two treatment studies enrolling 12 children with phonological delay. Study 1 exposed children to dense neighbors versus nonneighbors before training sound production in evaluation of the priming hypothesis. Study 2 exposed children to the same stimuli after training sound production as a test of the phonological working memory hypothesis. Results showed that neighbors led to greater phonological generalization than nonneighbors, but only when presented prior to training production. There was little generalization and no differential effect of exposure to neighbors or nonneighbors after training production. Priming was thus supported as a possible mechanism of learning behind the dense neighborhood advantage in phonological acquisition.
Density, frequency and the expressive phonology of children with phonological delay
(Cambridge University Press, 2012) Gierut, Judith A.; Morrisette, Michele L.
The effect of word-level variables on expressive phonology has not been widely studied, although the properties of words likely bear on the emergence of sound structure (Stoel-Gammon, 2011). Eight preschoolers, diagnosed with phonological delay, were assigned to treatment to experimentally induce gains in expressive phonology. Erred sounds were taught using stimulus words that varied orthogonally in neighborhood density and word frequency as the independent variables. Generalization was the dependent variable, defined as production accuracy of treated and untreated (erred) sounds. Blocked comparisons showed that dense neighborhoods triggered greater generalization, but frequency did not have a clear differential effect. Orthogonal comparisons revealed graded effects, with frequent words from dense neighborhoods being optimal for generalization. The results contrast with prior literature, which has reported a sparse neighborhood advantage for children with phonological delay. There is a suggestion that children with phonological delay require greater than usual cue redundancy and convergence to prompt expressive phonological learning.
Descriptive linguistic methods for children's speech
(MIT Press, 2004) Gierut, Judith A.
Effect size for single-subject design in phonological treatment
(2015-07-20) Gierut, Judith A.; Morrisette, Michele L.; Dickinson, Stephanie
Purpose: To document, validate, and corroborate effect size (ES) for single-subject design in treatment of children with functional phonological disorders; to evaluate potential child-specific contributing variables relative to ES; and to establish benchmarks for interpretation of ES for the population. Method: Data were extracted from the Developmental Phonologies Archive for 135 preschool children with phonological disorders who previously participated in single-subject experimental treatment studies. Standard Mean DifferenceAll with Correction for Continuity was computed to gauge the magnitude of generalization gain that accrued longitudinally from treatment for each child, with the data aggregated for purposes of statistical analyses. Results: ES ranged from 0.09 to 27.83 for the study population. ES was positively correlated with conventional measures of phonological learning and visual inspection of learning data based on procedures standard to single-subject design. ES was linked to children’s performance on diagnostic assessments of phonology, but not other demographic characteristics or related linguistic skills and nonlinguistic skills. Benchmarks for interpretation of ES were estimated as 1.4, 3.6, and 10.1 for small, medium, and large learning effects, respectively. Conclusion: Findings have utility for single-subject research and translation of research to evidence-based practice for children with phonological disorders.
Effect size in clinical phonology
(Informa Healthcare, 2011) Gierut, Judith A.; Morrisette, Michele L.
The purpose of this article is to motivate the use of effect size (ES) for single-subject research in clinical phonology, with an eye towards meta-analyses of treatment effects for children with phonological disorders. Standard mean difference (SMD) is introduced and illustrated as one ES well suited to the multiple baseline (MBL) design and evaluation of generalization learning, both of which are key to experimental studies in clinical phonology.
Evidence-based practice: A matrix for predicting phonological generalization
(Informa Healthcare, 2010) Gierut, Judith A.; Hulse, Lauren E.
This paper describes a matrix for clinical use in the selection of phonological treatment targets to induce generalization, and in the identification of probe sounds to monitor during the course of intervention. The matrix appeals to a set of factors that have been shown to promote phonological generalization in the research literature, including the nature of error patterns, implicational universals, developmental norms, and stimulability. A case study of a child with a phonological disorder is presented to illustrate how the matrix may be utilized in evidence-based practice. The matrix serves as a demonstration of how the translation of research to practice may be accomplished.
Featural categories in English phonemic acquisition
(Cascadilla Press, 1996) Gierut, Judith A.
Geometric accounts of consonant-vowel interactions in developing systems
(Taylor & Francis Health Sciences, 1993) Gierut, Judith A.; Cho, Mi-Hui; Dinnsen, Daniel A.
Phenomena associated with consonant-vowel interactions are examined relative to three general models of feature geometry which differ in the planar relationship of consonants and vowels. The data come from reports of developing phonological systems, both normal and disordered. Geometric analyses reveal that consonants and vowels are fully integrated in the earliest stages of development such that the place specification of consonants is primarily derived from the vowel. However, change through development requires modifications either in the principles of place association, the degree of feature specification, or the planar representation of consonants and vowels.
Homonymy in phonological change
(Taylor & Francis Health Sciences, 1991) Gierut, Judith A.
This study examines the role of homonymy as a motivator of phonological change in treatment. The relative effectiveness of two treatment structures in improving the production of treated and untreated error sounds was evaluated. One treatment structure emphasized homonymous forms by comparing 1:1 a desired ambient target with its corresponding replacement error from the child's grammar, consistent with conventional minimal pair treatment (Weiner, 1981). The other treatment did not focus on homonymy, nor did it make explicit reference to a child's grammar. In line with treatment of the empty or unknown set (Gierut, 1989), two errored sounds were simply compared with each other. Differential learning was observed among the treatments such that the non-homonymous structure resulted in greater accuracies of treated sounds and in more new untreated sounds being added to the phonological system. The findings have potential implications for the status of homonymy in phonological change and in the structure of phonological treatment.
How to meet the neighbors: Modality effects on phonological generalization
(Taylor & Francis, 2014) Gierut, Judith A.; Morrisette, Michele L.
Long-term auditory priming of words from dense neighborhoods has been posited as a learning mechanism that affects change in the phonological structure of children’s lexical representations. An apparent confound associated with the modality of priming responsible for structural change has been introduced in the literature, which challenges this proposal. Thus, our purpose was to evaluate prime modality in treatment of children with phonological delay. Nine children were assigned to auditory-visual, auditory or visual priming of words from dense neighborhoods prior to treatment of production as the independent variable. The dependent variable was phonological generalization. Results showed that auditory priming (with or without visual input) promoted greater generalization on an order of magnitude of 3:1. Findings support the theoretical significance of auditory priming for phonological learning and demonstrate the applied utility of priming in clinical treatment.
Learnability Project Publications / Bibliography
(2017-01-09) Gierut, Judith A.
Learning and the representation of complex onsets
(Cascadilla Press, 1999) Gierut, Judith A.; Champion, Annette H.
Lexical influences on interword variation
(Cascadilla Press, 2002) Storkel, Holly L.; Gierut, Judith A.
Lexical properties in implementation of sound change
(Cascadilla Press, 1998) Gierut, Judith A.; Morrisette, Michele L.

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Browsing PUBLICATIONS by Author "Gierut, Judith A."