Communication Disorders Quarterly

An eye-gaze and production probe examined the ability of 2-year-old children to perceive and produce minimal pairs of novel trisyllabic words with primary stress on the first or second syllables. The syllables contained dissimilar or similar vowel contrasts to determine if segments affected omission. The results supported a prosodic model, with the children's bias toward a strong-weak-weak prosodic structure and omission more frequent for the first syllable of the weak-strong-weak word pairs. Syllable omission was less frequent for strong-weak-weak word pairs that contained dissimilar vowels, suggesting that segments play a role in syllable omission.

This study reports the effectiveness of a three-pronged (segmentation, phonological neighbor cues, and rehearsal) phonologically based strategy designed to reduce the word-finding errors of two third-grade students. A single-subject, multiple-baseline design across participants was employed. The results indicated an improvement in word finding (reduction in naming errors) in single-word contexts that was generalized to sentences and maintained during follow-up maintenance sessions. Furthermore, a self-assessment showed increased confidence in the ability to retrieve treatment words that was not so indicated for nontreatment words. Implications of these findings for both understanding the source of word-finding disruptions and their amelioration are discussed.

This article identifies the potential challenges facing professionals who work or who plan to work with speech—language pathology assistants. Not all speech—language pathologists may agree on these challenges. Recognizing and addressing any challenge that may create a barrier to the effective employment of these assistants is critical in gaining team and administrative support for their successful inclusion in service provision.