Category: Writing

For each of the 10 skills listed under the section “Phonemic
Awareness,” identify two different examples for each skill.
Explain why skills numbered 8, 9,
and 10 are more complex. Think about what a child must do to complete the task.
Does memory play more of a role for these skills?

The vowel quadrilateral is a rough sketch of the inside of
the oral cavity. As can be noted, the right axis is at a 90-degree angle,
whereas the left axis is at a much wider angle. Think about this in
relationship to the mouth and tongue. What implications do these differences
have in relationship to vowel production and the movement capabilities of the
front versus the back of the tongue? If you work with a child who has vowel
difficulties, how could you use this information clinically?

A first-grader, Jessica, is very quiet both in the classroom
and in speech-language therapy. Her teacher thinks she is extremely shy. She
will often shake her head, which is interpreted as “she doesn’t know the
answer.” She is learning English as a second language; her first language is
Spanish. You hypothesize that she might be going through a silent period. What
could you do to help the teacher understand this developmental process? What
could you do as a clinician in speechlanguage therapy to aid in this
transition, remembering that Jessica is trying to understand English as best as
she can?

You are trying to note salience and avoidance factors in the
speech of a 2;6-year-old child. Would it be better to use spontaneous speech or
an articulation test? Or would both be necessary to determine these factors?
Why?
Why are salience and avoidance
factors important to consider when assessing a young child? Can you think of
some ways to get information on salience and avoidance from the child’s
caregivers to supplement your assessment?

Consider the vowel and consonant data that were just
presented and make a list of the consonants, vowels, and syllable structures
you might see in the beginning words of children.
Based on your list, formulate 15
words that contain these vowels, consonants, and syllable shapes (and would be
age appropriate) that you could use when working with a child who is just
beginning to say first words.

Based on the information from the prelinguistic stages, what
stage should a child be in before you can hope to verbally stimulate him or her
and possibly expect imitative behavior?
You are working in a birth to
three-year program and have a child who you think is beginning to attempt to
imitate simple babbling behavior. Based on the information on the most frequent
babbled sounds, what type of syllables, vowels, and consonants might you want
to attempt to use as stimulation?

Will parents who provide early and frequent stimulation to
their young children produce earlier talkers? List two reasons why this is not
possible.
One of the reasons it is often
difficult to understand a toddler is because of his or her voice quality.
Explain why the voice quality of children around age one sounds differently.
Refer back to point 4, for example, in the previous list.

If you examine the four typical properties of syllables from
Archangeli and Langendoen (1997) and think about the speech patterns noted in
children with speech sound disorders, do they seem more to violate or adhere to
these properties? Think about the high use of final consonant deletion or
consonant cluster reduction.

According to nonlinear analysis, two basic operations may
occur: spreading (also known as linking) and deletion (also known as
delinking). Are the following transcriptions examples of spreading or
delinking? Explain why for each: [lɛlo
ʊ
] for “yellow,” [kʌ]
for “cup,” [fɪndɚ] for “finger.”