Intelligibility Enhancement Assessment and Intervention: a single-case experimental design with two multilingual university students

Multilingual Speech Acquisition by Vietnamese-English-Speaking Children and Adult Family Members

PURPOSE

This article presents a large-scale example of culturally responsive assessment and analysis of multilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children and their family members using the VietSpeech Protocol involving (a) examining all spoken languages, (b) comparing ambient phonology produced by family members, (c) including dialectal variants in the definition of accuracy, and (d) clustering participants with similar language experience.

METHOD

The VietSpeech participants (N = 154) comprised 69 children (2;0-8;10 [years;months]) and 85 adult family members with Vietnamese heritage living in Australia. Speech was sampled using the Vietnamese Speech Assessment (Vietnamese) and the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (English).

RESULTS

Children's Vietnamese consonant accuracy was significantly higher when dialectal variants were accepted (percentage of consonants correct-dialect [PCC-D]: M = 87.76, SD = 8.18), compared to when only Standard Vietnamese was accepted as the correct production (percentage of consonants correct-standard [PCC-S]: M = 70.34, SD = 8.78), Cohen's d = 3.55 (large effect). Vietnamese voiced plosives, nasals, semivowels, vowels, and tones were more often correct than voiceless plosives and fricatives. Children's Standard Australian English consonant accuracy (PCC-S) was 82.51 (SD = 15.57). English plosives, nasals, glides, and vowels were more often correct than fricatives and affricates. Vietnamese word-initial consonants had lower accuracy than word-final consonants, whereas English consonant accuracy was rarely influenced by word position. Consonant accuracy and intelligibility were highest for children with high proficiency in both Vietnamese and English. Children's consonant productions were most similar to their mothers' than other adults or siblings' productions. Adults' Vietnamese consonants, vowels, and tones were more likely to match Vietnamese targets than their children's productions.

CONCLUSIONS

Children's speech acquisition was influenced by cross-linguistic, dialectal, maturational, language experience, and environmental (ambient phonology) factors. Adults' pronunciation was influenced by dialectal and cross-linguistic factors. This study highlights the importance of including all spoken languages, adult family members, dialectal variants, and language proficiency to inform differential diagnosis of speech sound disorders and identify clinical markers in multilingual populations.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23290055.

Maximise your impact: Sustainable Development Goals-Focussed content in communication intervention and teaching

PURPOSE

Communication specialists strive to develop communication skills of students and clients using evidence-based practices. There is limited discussion of the topic content of speech-language pathology interventions and language education strategies that act as the vehicle to deliver intervention/education. In this commentary we demonstrate ways materials based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; United Nations, 2015) can be integrated into daily practices when working with people with communication disability and people acquiring additional languages.

RESULT

Examples are provided as to how any or all SDGs can be used as the content base within speech-language pathology interventions and language education. A number of situations are presented illustrating SDG-focussed content across diverse settings.

CONCLUSION

This commentary paper focusses on how content from all 17 SDGS that can be embedded into speech-language pathology and language education services to enhance the speech, language, and literacy skills and SDG knowledge of both children and adults. In addition, educational and therapy resource developers are called to rise to the challenge of creating materials based on the SDGs.