Browsing by master's degree program "Magistgerprogrammet i logopedi"

Hearing impairment is a risk factor for speech and language development. Previous studies with hearing-impaired children have shown that their vocabulary development is slower than normal, and they have challenges in the use of inflectional forms. The purpose of this master's thesis is to find out if there is a difference in the proficiency of expressive vocabulary or inflections and sentences in Finnish-speaking, bilaterally hearing-impaired children compared to children with normal hearing. In addition, the effect of singing on the observed language skills is examined. The thesis is part of the MULAPAPU research project, which investigates the effects of music on the language development of hearing-impaired children aged 0-7. The study included both hearing-impaired subjects (n=23) and controls with normal hearing (n=25). The subjects were between 1 and 6 years old. Hearing-impaired subjects were bilaterally using a cochlear implant, a hearing aid, or a combination of these. The exclusion criteria for both the group of hearing impaired and controls were any severe diagnosed comorbid disorders. Expressive vocabulary proficiency was assessed with the Leinikki questionnaire completed by parents, and proficiency in the use of inflectional forms and sentences was assessed with the MCDI questionnaire. Singing was surveyed with the MULAPAPU background survey. Differences in expressive vocabulary proficiency were statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U-test, and the connections between parental singing, child’s singing and singing in a group, and expressive vocabulary proficiency were analyzed using correlation analysis. Very few control subjects had answered the MCDI questionnaire's section of inflectional forms and sentences, so the skills of hearing-impaired children were analyzed on an individual level by comparing their scores to the standard values of the questionnaire. No statistically significant difference in expressive vocabulary proficiency was observed between hearing-impaired and normally hearing children. However, the hearing-impaired group had a two-peaked distribution and some subjects had poor expressive vocabulary proficiency. Hearing-impaired children's proficiency in inflections and sentences fell short of the age norms, although proportionate to hearing age, some of the subjects had a good proficiency in inflections and sentences. Only the child singing was statistically significantly correlated to expressive vocabulary proficiency. The amount of singing by parents was also statistically significantly related to the amount of singing by the child. Guiding the close environment and encouraging children to sing can be a good part of rehabilitating the language skills of hearing-impaired children.

Objectives. Hearing impairment (HI) is a risk factor for speech and language development, and it can cause delay in vocabulary development and reduce the ability of word stress perception and production. HIs decrease auditory discrimination. Therefore, perceiving auditory cues of speech is limited. Previous studies suggest that musical hobbies, such as singing, may improve the language development and speech perception of HI-children. Previous studies suggest that group-based music activities may have positive impacts on language development. Age of hearing device implementation is directly linked to language skills of HI-children. Bilateral and early hearing devices improve spoken language skills and vocabulary of bilaterally HI-children. The aim of this thesis was to investigate, whether expressive vocabulary of HI-children improves during a 6,5-month follow-up, whether the amount of singing in groups or syllable and word stress repetition scores correlate to said vocabulary development and lastly, study the relationship of the age at first hearing device implementation to vocabulary development and syllable and word stress repetition scores. This thesis is a part of the MULAPAPU research project. Methods. The participants (N=17) were bilaterally hearing-impaired children aged 2 to 6 years, who used either bilateral cochlear implants (CI), bilateral hearing aids (HA) or unilateral CI and contralateral HA. They were grouped based on answers given by their parents regarding the amount of singing in groups before the follow-up (group 1: more frequent; group 2: less frequent). Their ages at first hearing device implementation were examined. The Finnish Communicative Development Inventory III (FinCDI III), a parent-report form instrument, was used to investigate expressive vocabulary development. A non-word repetition task was used to test the repetition of syllable stress and word stress. The vocabulary development was examined between first (T1) and last (T3) measuring point within 6,5 months, and syllable and word stress repetition and singing groups in T1-measuring point. Results and conclusions. A statistically significant correlation was found between age of first HA implementation and word stress repetition, where the earlier HA was implemented the better word stress repetition was. The participants’ expressive vocabulary did improve between T1 and T3. Age at T1 correlated with vocabulary development significantly. No correlation between singing groups and vocabulary development was found, but group 1 was on average found to be older in age than group 2. On average vocabulary scores of group 1 were higher in both T1 and T3, but improvement in scores was greater in group 2. No other correlations were found between study variables. The results of this thesis reinforce the idea, that early HA implementation improves word stress perception and the expressive vocabulary of CI- and HA-children under 6 years develops quickly. There is a need to study the effects of singing in groups and effects of syllable and word stress repetition to expressive vocabulary development of HI-children in future research.

Aims. Past research has shown that hearing impaired adolescents are at a higher risk of experiencing psychosocial difficulties than their hearing peers. The research into the factors related to the psychosocial well-being of hearing-impaired adolescents has not yet come to an unambiguous conclusion. There are indications that the wellbeing of hard-of-hearing youths would be related to their communicative abilities and the functioning of their hearing among other things. This study examines self-perceived psychosocial difficulties and strengths of adolescents with hearing impairment and factors associated with these difficulties and strengths. These results also are being compared to results of psychosocial well-being obtained from Finnish adolescents. Methods. 12 11-17-year-old youths with hearing impairment filled in the Finnish version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-Fin) and a background questionnaire. Adolescents with other sensory deficits or disabilities were excluded from this study. Statistical analysis was performed to search for associations between psychosocial well-being and its related factors. Results and conclusions. The participants experienced more psychosocial difficulties than their Finnish peers. Emotional symptoms and peer problems were emphasized in the reports of participants. They also experienced more strengths in psychosocial well-being compared to their peers. In this study girls experienced more difficulties than boys. Participants experienced fewer difficulties in psychosocial wellbeing when their communicative abilities were good. These results can be used to improve and develop rehabilitation of hearing-impaired children and youths.

Background and the aims of the study. Previous studies show that adult immigrants face chal-lenges especially in producing diphthongs and differences in Finnish speech sound lengths. However, to date there has been no evaluation method to assess immigrant’s pronunciation in Finnish. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Phonology test is applicable for assessing adult immigrant’s pronunciation of Finnish. This applicability was assessed by examining what the results of the Phonology test revealed about research subject’s pronun-ciation, how these results differed from the ones of a sentence test, which was developed for this study in particular, how well they recognised the words in the Phonology test. In addition, how and for whom the test could be applicable in future were also studied. Research subjects and methods. The study was carried out as a comperative multi-case stu-dy in which the data was examined both quantitatively and qualitatively. The data was obtai-ned as a part of a PhD dissertation at The University of the Arts Helsinki examining the effects of choir singing in adult immigrant’s Finnish language learning. The research data consisted of ten adult immigrant’s recordings and research forms of the Phonology test and sentence test. The data were statistically analysed with SPSS-program using a dependent sample t-test and the Pearson correlation coefficient. Results and conclusions. All research subjects received rather good scores in the Phonology test and there was not any significant deviation. The results of the Phonology test and the sentence test were quite similar in terms of the mean difference in speech sound length. The pronounciation challenges appeared in the Phonology test were also found in the sentence test and vice versa. The subjects were able to produce short speech sounds distincly shorter than long speech sounds in almost every word in the sentence test. Principally, the subjects recognised the words in the Phonology test well. Based on these results, the Phonology test was moderately applicable to assess adult immigrants’ pronunciation of Finnish.

Semantic fluency task is often used as part of an assesment to investigate children’s lexical development. Semantic fluency task measures the ability to generate words within a certain category and within a restricted amount of time. In previous studies, children’s semantic fluency skills have increased as the child grows. In addition, word retrieval strategies have been found to enhance word recall in the semantic fluency task with school-aged children and adults. However, there is only little knowledge regarding the use of word retrieval strategies in the semantic fluency task with preschool aged children. So far, in previous studies word retrieval strategies in the task have not been investigated with children under the age of 4. The aim of this study was to examine whether there are differences in 2 to 5 year old children’s performance in the semantic fluency task and whether children’s gender or their parent’s socioeconomic status had an impact on their performance. In addition, the children’s ability of using word retrieval strategies were explored and the relation between the use of word retrieval strategies and the number of correct words were evaluated. The study sample included 79 children. Children completed two semantic fluency tasks guided by their parents in an online questionnaire. During the tasks, the children generated words belonging to the semantic category of animals and clothes within a minute. The performance was evaluated on the basis of the number of correct words, errors and error types. Word retrieval strategies were studied by examining clusters, semantic subcategories and switches between subcategories. The results of this study showed that age had a strong relation to performance on fluency tasks as measured with a number of correct words, clusters, semantic subcategories and switches. The new result was that even 2 year old children could generate correct words for the task and utilize word retrieval strategies in the tasks. The children’s gender or parents’ socioeconomic status had no effect on performance in the semantic fluency tasks. Number of clusters, semantic subcategories and switches had a positive relation to the number of correct words which indicated that successful word retrieval required use of fluency strategies even with preschool aged children. However, due to the lack of previous research data, more research regarding children’s word retrieval strategies is necessary. This study is the first in which the children’s word fluency task was guided by their parents. Clinical practice and further studies could benefit from these results that such a research design would appear to be suitable for assessing children’s semantic fluency.

Children’s language skills can be evaluated by formal testing, parent report or assessing spontaneous speech in recorded language samples. This study focused on measures of lexical diversity determined from children’s spontaneous speech. These measures are one way to assess children’s lexical skills. However, there is only little research on the relation between the most recent lexical diversity measures and validated measures of lexical skills. The first aim of this study was to find out if there is a relation between the lexical diversity assessed from spontaneous speech of preschool children and lexical skills assessed by validated methods. The second aim was to examine if the measures of lexical diversity predict the lexical skills of a child assessed by validated measures and if so, which of the measures is the best predictor of a child’s lexical skills. The data of the study was collected in LEINIKKI research project. The participants (N = 68) were 2;6–4;0-year-old, healthy, Finnish-speaking children. The spontaneous speech of the participants was recorded in free play settings, the speech of the children was transcribed and token, type, type-token ratio (TTR) and moving-average type-token ratio (MATTR) values were determined from the first ten minutes of each language sample. These values were used as measures of the children’s lexical diversity. The following validated methods were used to assess the children’s lexical skills: the lexical skills assessing part of the parent report method LEINIKKI and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence 3rd edition subtests Picture Naming and Receptive Vocabulary. The relation between the lexical diversity measures and the validated measures of lexical skills was examined by Spearman’s correlation. It was also researched if the measures of lexical diversity had the ability to differentiate the children who scored the least in the validated lexical measures. Linear regression models were used in examining whether the measures of lexical diversity predicted the lexical skills assessed by validated methods when the age of the children was considered as a background variable. The token values neither correlated with the children’s lexical skills nor differentiated the least scoring quarter in the validated lexical measures. The type and TTR values correlated significantly (p < 0,05) with two out of three validated measures of lexical skills but were not statistically significant predictors of the children’s lexical skills. The type value did not differentiate the least scoring quarter in the validated lexical measures whereas the TTR value did in two out of three validated lexical measures. The relation of the MATTR value to a child’s lexical skills was the most significant: the MATTR value correlated highly significantly (p < 0,001) with all validated measures of lexical skills, differentiated the least scoring quarter in all three validated lexical measures and was a highly significant (p < 0,001) predictor of lexical skills in all regression models. This study supports the use of the MATTR value instead of the more traditional measures of lexical diversity when assessing the lexical diversity of preschool children. The MATTR value can be used especially in supplementing the view of a child’s lexical skills acquired by other measures. However, more research on the topic is needed.

Autism spectrum is neurodevelopmental characteristic, the central feature of which is an abnormality in interaction of the person with other people and their environment. Mild autism spectrum is not associated with a significant delay in linguistic–cognitive development. Mild autism spectrum is often detected later than a more severe autism spectrum, or it may not be detected at all, which can weaken the well-being of both families and individuals on the autism spectrum. Delaying intervention can weaken intervention results and require more health-care resources than early intervention. In Finland, speech therapists perform a developmental assessment in which the increased probability of autism spectrum disorder is identified. However, there are no official recommendations for detecting mild autism spectrum, so there may be differences in practices. In this study, detection practices for mild autism spectrum in speech therapy are ascertained. The research was carried out as a survey, which was fully answered by 20 and partially (at least six answers) by ten speech therapists. In particular, the survey investigated the structure and resources of the service system, the availability and use of high-quality screening methods and the clinical competence and the experiences of speech therapists. The data were analysed by creating graphs, cross-tabulation and assessing percentages. The answers to the open questions were tabulated and themes were searched for in the answers using colour coding and tabulation. Detection of mild autism spectrum takes place in different medical units. Most typically, children under school age were taken to the speech therapist's assessment with a referral from the counseling center, but often in mild autism spectrum, early detection was not even attempted. Speech therapists make an extensive overall assessment using various of methods. The use of standardized autism spectrum screening methods was quite low. The clinical symptoms were stressed the most in the conclusions of assessment. Differences were observed between both service structures and professionals. Of the individual factors, age, other possible disorders, language and cultural background, and the severity of the autism spectrum affect the detection process. The speech therapists felt that they had received information about the special features of detecting mild autism spectrum to varying degrees. The themes of the speech therapists' experiences were multidisciplinary, practical methods of operation and observations, and diagnostic challenges. Efforts should be made to unify the practices of speech therapists, and the goal should be early detection of mild autism spectrum. More attention should be paid to the mild autism spectrum in girls. However, the extensive assessment of development by speech therapists contributes to the detection of key rehabilitation needs.

Tutkielmassa tarkasteltiin ja vertailtiin tyypillisesti kehittyneiden moni- ja yksikielisten 11-vuotiaiden lasten kuultujen kertomusten ymmärtämiseen tarvittavia taitoja. Kertomuksilla viitataan tässä tutkielmassa suullisesti tuotettuihin lyhyisiin kuvitteellisiin tarinoihin. Monikielisen kehityksen ja siihen liittyvien haasteiden erottaminen kielen kehityksen häiriöistä voi olla haastavaa, sillä usein monikielisten lasten kielen kehitystä arvioidaan yksikielisten lasten mukaan normitettujen arviointityökalujen avulla. Olisi kuitenkin tärkeää kerätä lisää tietoa monikielisten lasten ja nuorten tyypillisestä toisen kielen kehityksestä, jotta voidaan tunnistaa siitä poikkeavat ilmenemismuodot paremmin. Erityisesti monikielisten kouluikäisten lasten ja nuorten kielen kehityksestä on vähän tietoa. Kuultujen kertomusten ymmärtämiseen vaaditaan ymmärtävän kielen ja kielellis-kognitiivisia taitoja sekä se on tärkeä edellytys oppimiselle. Lisäksi tutkielmassa tarkasteltiin sukupuolen ja altistumisiän sekä tutkittavien vanhempien koulutustaustan, työtilanteen ja suomen kielen taitotason vaikutusta kuultujen kertomusten ymmärtämisen taitoihin. Tutkimukseen osallistui 12 monikielistä lasta ja 21 yksikielistä verrokkia. Kuultujen kertomusten ymmärtämisen taitoja mitattiin Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (5. painos) -testin kertomusten ymmärtäminen -osatestin avulla. Tutkittavien taustatietoja kerättiin vanhempien täyttämän taustatietolomakkeen avulla. Tuloksia analysoitiin kuvailevalla tilastoanalyysillä Microsoft Excel ja IBM SPSS Statistics 28 -ohjelmien avulla. Monikieliset tutkittavat suoriutuivat kertomusten ymmärtäminen -osatestissä kokonaispisteissä ja lähes kaikissa osa-alueiden pisteissä tilastollisesti merkitsevästi heikommin kuin yksikieliset tutkittavat. Tutkittavien sukupuolella, altistumisiällä tai heidän vanhempiensa koulutustaustalla tai työtilanteella ei ollut tilastollisesti merkitsevää vaikutusta testissä suoriutumiseen. Tutkimuksessa tehdyt löydökset ovat tärkeitä huomioida monikielisten lasten kielellisiä taitoja arvioitaessa, sillä monikielisten lasten heikommat kielelliset taidot toisessa kielessä yksikielisiin ikäverrokkeihin verrattuna eivät välttämättä johdu heidän kielellisistä haasteistaan vaan ne saattavat liittyä tyypilliseen monikieliseen kehitykseen. Kun tunnetaan monikielisten lasten kertomusten ymmärtämisen taidot ja mahdolliset haasteet yksikielisiin ikäverrokkeihin verrattuna, voidaan tukea heidän kertomusten ymmärtämistään ja oppimistaan esimerkiksi kouluympäristössä.

Aim of the study. The aim of this thesis was to examine the self-repairs and their development in 4–5 years old children, who were learning finnish as their second language. It was also meant to find out, if the development of self-repairs was somehow different due to a linguistic small group intervention and along that, possibly enchanced language learning. Earlier research about the multilingual children's self-repair's development has been quite few, but the theme is interesting because of the known connections of self-repairs and the abilities of linguistic processing, for example (Zuniga & Simard, 2019). The previous studies have shown that the self-repairs of speech are usually targeted at such things that the child is lingually aquiring at that agepoint (Laakso, 2006). It is also known that higher levels of lingual knowledge are connected to more complex self-repairs (Dumont, 2010). Methods. There were 20 multilingual 4–5-year-old children, from the PAULA-project of the universities of Helsinki and Turku, who were chosen to the sample of this thesis. Half of them took part in a linguistic small group intervention during the one-year follow-up. This thesis' qualitative material included videotapes from the playsessions of child and research assistant. The videotapes were annotated using ELAN-software and every self-repair of the children was classified by the maker of self-repair initiation, the type of self-repair initiator and it's position and the self-repair's target. Statistics were made based on the classified self-repairs, and a quantitative analysis was carried out by observing statistical characteristics and using a repeated measures ANOVA. Results and conclusions. Results of the repeated measures ANOVA were not statistically significant, but some medium to strong effect sizes were noticed. At the level of the whole group (N = 20) there was a decrease in the number of self-repairs that begun without any clear initiator, which might denote that the abilities of using different initiators of self-repair are evolved in multilingual children at the age of four to five years. Also, the amounts of syntactic and morphological repairs were increased, which may in turn indicate that the syntactic and morphological parts of language become the core of linguistic development of multilingual children at that age. About the effects of the intervention was, for their part, noted that the usage of self-repair's initiator combinations and phonological repairs was increased in the intervention group. When assessing the reliability of the results, it should be rememberd that the statistical significance was not reached and that the sample was small.

Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract Objectives. In conversation analysis, repair denotes the conversational devices that speakers use to manage the problems of hearing, speaking, and understanding that arise in everyday conversation. By initiating repair, a speaker communicates to the conversational partner that something in the previous turn is problematic to its receiver. This master’s thesis examines the use of other-initiation of repair by six-year-old multilingual children. The objective is to investigate how children who are learning Finnish as a second language initiate repair in conversation with a native Finnish adult and how their repair initiations resolve in the course of the conversation. Methods. The data was comprised of a total of 15 hours and 13 minutes of video recordings from language evaluation situations of ten children, aged between 6 years 5 months and 6 years 11 eleven months. The data was gathered in Turku for a research project, PAULA, which is a longitudinal study focused on the language development of immigrant children in Finland. The material was analysed sequentially according to the principles of conversation analytic research tradition. Results. The most used types of repair initiations (RIs) made by the participating six-year-old multilinguals were open class RIs (N=14) and candidate understandings (N=12). The data included 16 cases of restricted RIs, of which 8 were full question sentences. Children commonly used gestures, expressions and eye contact as well as the pausing of current activity while producing RIs. There was significant variation in the amount and type of RIs produced by the participants. The participants produced between 0 and 8 RIs during the language evaluation sessions, which lasted 90 minutes each on average. The prevalence of open class RIs and candidate understandings was congruent with earlier studies of children’s repair initiation in Finnish conversation. However, in contrast to some earlier studies, the participants rarely used repeat as an RI, and formulated many full question sentence RIs. 70% of the children’s RIs occurred in contexts where they were expected to react to a question or instruction expressed in the adult’s preceding turn. The conversational context of the research data (a language evaluation situation) significantly restricted the resolving of RIs, as the principles of reliable language skills testing meant the adult conversational partner often could not repeat or reformulate the problem turn.