Browsing by master's degree program "Master's Programme in Logopedics"

Objectives. This Master’s Thesis is part of the MULAPAPU (Miten MUsiikki-interventio ja LAulu PArantavat kuulovammaisten lasten Puhekieltä) research project and focuses on the first year pilot data. The aim of this Masters Thesis is to find out whether a music intervention of 6 or 10 weeks has an effect on how hearing-impaired children aged 2 to 6 years perform in a nonword repetition test, in repeating the number of syllables and word stresses correct as well as on their performance in the vocabulary use test. In addition, the aim is to examine whether music intervention has similar effects both on the performance in the nonword repetition test and in the vocabulary test and whether there is a correlation between them. Methods. The sample consisted of the results of 9 children using cochlear implant and/or hearing aid in the nonword repetition test and the Bo Ege vocabulary test. Four of the children participated in the music intervention in the autumn 2019 and five in the spring 2020. The effects of the intervention were analyzed by calculating percentages and averages which were presented in figures. The performance of both groups before and after the intervention was analyzed with one-sample t-test. Possible differences between the spring and autumn group on the effectiveness of the intervention were examined with the Mann-Whitney U-test. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to examine whether music intervention has similar effects both on the performance in the nonword repetition test and in the vocabulary use test and whether there is a correlation between them. Results and conclusions. The research results show that the use of vocabulary was improved by the music intervention but no evidence was found that music intervention would improve repeating syllables or word stresses correct. No statistically significant difference was found in the performance of the autumn and spring group. When examining whether the music intervention has similar effects both on the performance in the nonword repetition test and in the vocabulary use test and whether there is a correlation between them, no significant correlation was identified. Due to the small number of the research subjects, further research is needed to draw reliable conclusions.

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.

Objectives. Even though there have been more Finnish publications focusing on children’s narrative abilities, the knowledge around the topic is still minor. Also, the relationship between narrative abilities and other language development and later learning skills have not been studied in Finnish at all, while these skills have been associated to one another in international research. The aim of this study was to examine the narrative ability of a preschool-aged child. In addition to this, the relationship between narrative abilities and vocabulary was examined. Methods. This study used data from the LEINIKKI research project. The participants were 10 (five girls and five boys) healthy monolingual Finnish-speaking children aged between 3 years 7 months and 4 years. Children’s narrative abilities were assessed by the Cat Story. The stories were also analyzed using the story grammar rules by Stein and Glenn (1979). There were also other variables collected from the children’s stories; number of different words (type-variable), total number of words (token-variable) and the ratio between these two, type/token-ratio (TTR). Children’s vocabulary was assessed with vocabulary sections of Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence 3rd edition and LEINIKKI. The data was described and the results illustrated with descriptive statistics and visual descriptors. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to examine the relationships between skills. Results and conclusions. The children named characters from the picture booklet and narrated events in them, but the stories were not accurate in conveying meaning of the content and the plots were not whole. Every child’s story did still have some story grammar elements in it. The productivity of these stories, evaluated by the type- and token-variable values, and the ratio between them (TTR), had medium to large differences between different children. The children’s ability to use story grammar was observed to be positively correlated with the receptive vocabulary and TTR was shown to be negatively correlated with expressive vocabulary. More research is needed around the development of Finnish children’s narrative abilities and the connection between this and other language development and later learning skills. Knowledge of typical development is important, as it is a prerequisite for recognizing anomalous features and treating them.

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.

Aims. This study examines the expressions of 4–5 year old bilingual (Russian-Finnish) children with and without developmental language disorder and the aim is to examine, how the morphosyntactic repertoires of these children differ from each other, what type of morphosyntactic changes are observable in these expressions and is it possible to track traces that illustrate the effect of crosslinguistic transfer of Russian language on the morphosyntax of Finnish language. Examining the language development of bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder is important, because more information about the linguistic features that indicate developmental language disorder is needed. This study is one of the first studies in Finland that examines the morphosyntax in the Finnish-language expressions of bilingual children, whose first language is a minority language. This study is part of the PAULA-project, which examines the effects of a small group intervention targeted to children with refugee and foreign backgrounds. Methods. The material of this study consists of video footage from the PAULA-project’s language assessment situations. The children’s skills were assessed with the Finnish Test of Phonology, the Reynell Developmental Language Scales (test of receptive speech) and The Cat Story 3 picture sequencing narrative task and in three short play situations. The expressions of four typically developing bilingual 4–5-year-old children and three 4-year-olds with developmental language disorder were transcribed from the video footage. The language samples were analyzed with the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn). Verb and noun inflection were also examined with qualitative methods. Results and conclusions. The morphosyntactic repertoires of case markers in the typically developing children’s nominal phrases turned out to be more extensive than the repertoire of the children with developmental language disorder. Use of adverbials in verb phrases indicated that the typically developing children were able to produce more complex phrases than children with developmental language disorder. In this study, the morphosyntactic features that seem to indicate developmental language disorder in the Finnish-language expressions were inappropriate use of case markers or the complete lack of case markers in noun phrases, frequent errors in subject-verb agreement, and ungrammatical word formation. Effects of crosslinguistic transfer were identified in the use of negatition, past tense and code-switching.

Aims. The aim of my study was to find out how much children, ages one to three, use functionally different kinds of pointing gestures, and whether their usage has a connection to children’s productive language development. I also surveyed in what kind of situations children use pointing gestures, and what kind of features are associated with their usage. Earlier studies have shown that the use of pointing gestures is at its largest at the age of 1,5 years, and that both the initiative pointing features and the declarative pointing features have a connection to the language acquisition of a child. The increase in number of pointing gestures precedes the growth of the productive vocabulary. It has been estimated that the combinations of pointing gesture and single word production in children predicts the skill to combine individual words into longer expressions. children begin to use combinations of pointing gestures and words about four months before they begin to combine individual words into longer expressions. It’s been noticed in earlier studies that different type of pointing gestures has different type of features, for example there is usually sound or word production with declarative pointing but imperative pointing often occur without word production. Methods. The source material of this longitudinal study consisted of a video material of five (n=5) children. For every child’s part, a 30-minute long video of a spontaneous playing or eating situation was analyzed at five different age points (1;0, 1;6, 2;0, 2;6 and 3;0). ELAN-software was used to mark the variables that were observed. The results were analyzed by statistical methods. The use of pointing gestures in different kinds of situations and the features associated with them were surveyed by the means of conversational analysis. Results and conclusions. The use of pointing gestures was at its height at the age point of 1;6, after which their use decreased. Initiatives and declarative pointings were the most commonly occurred functions. Answers and imperative pointings performed by pointing gestures appeared remotely in the entire source material, and no change in them was discovered between the age points. The amount of produced words grew bigger than the amount of pointing gestures a little before the children’s second birthday. Initiatives and declarative pointings were used by the children to draw an adult’s attention or to ask for the naming of objects. The children used imperative pointings most commonly when they wanted an object. Responsive pointings were used by the children to answer questions of adults. Initiatives, and declarative and imperative pointings were almost always related to production of language, unlike the responsive pointings. The results support former research data on the use of pointing gestures, and its connection to the development of children’s productive language acquisition. The results also support the importance of initiative and declarative pointing gestures in the development of a child's speech. The analysing of pointing gestures as a part of children’s interaction can aid to acquire a more thorough understanding of the development of a child’s speech and interactional skills during their first years.

Aim of the study. Multilingualism is globally more common than monolingualism and especially sequential multilingualism is increasing also in Finland. Reading is essential skill in our society, and it is a way to fully participate in information society. According to previous research, learning to read while also acquiring more than one language may differ from monolingual reading acquisition. The purpose of this study is to add knowledge about early reading of sequentially multilingual children and compare it to monolingual peers. This study aims to answer to the question if early reading of multilingual children differs from early reading of monolingual children at the age of 6 to 7. Additionally, the aim is to investigate the relations between early reading and linguistic factors and background factors. Methods. Participants of the study were multilingual pre-schoolers and first graders (n = 38) and monolingual pre-schoolers and first graders (n = 37). Reading tasks were letter-knowledge, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, pseudoword repetition and syllable reading. Linguistic factors were speech comprehension and verbal fluency and background factors time of exposure to Finnish language, parental education, and familial risk for reading difficulty. Mann-Whitney’s U-test was used to statistically analyse group differences. The relations between early reading and linguistic factors and background factors were investigated with Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients. Results and discussion. Multilingual children performed poorer than monolingual children in letter-knowledge and phonological awareness in all the participants and pre-schoolers. In first grade multilingual children performed poorer to monolingual children only in pseudoword repetition. There were statistically significant relations between speech comprehension and letter-knowledge, and speech comprehension and phonological awareness. A relation was found also between verbal fluency and rapid automized naming. The relations were slightly different in monolingual and multilingual children. There were barely any statistically significant relations between early reading and background factors. These results are in line with the view that multilingual early reading is different than monolingual, but multilingual children perform quite well considering their language proficiency in Finnish. The gap in reading skills between monolingual and multilingual children also narrows from pre-school to first grade.

Pikkukeskosilla (syntymä <32 rv ja/tai syntymäpaino <1500 g) on kohonnut riski kielenkehityksen haasteisiin. Heillä on ryhmätasolla havaittu viivästymää ja haasteita sekä ymmärretyssä että ilmaistussa kielessä. Varhaisten sanaston prosessointitaitojen eli kuullun puheen prosessoinnin tehokkuuden yhteyttä sanaston kokoon on tutkittu vasta vähän. Sanaston prosessointitaitojen on pikkukeskosilla havaittu olevan yhteydessä myöhempään sanaston kokoon, mutta taitoja ei ole verrattu samassa ikäpisteessä. Prosessointitaitojen yhteyttä sanaston koostumukseen ei ole tutkittu vielä lainkaan. Tämä pro gradu -työ on osa Turun yliopistollisessa keskussairaalassa toteutuvaa Auditory environment by Parents of Preterm infant; Language development and Eye movements (APPLE) –tutkimusprojektia. Tämän pro gradu –työn tavoitteena oli selvittää, millaista tietoa silmänliikkeisiin pohjaava sanaston prosessoinnin arviointimenetelmä antaa pikkukeskosten ilmaistun sanaston koon ja koostumuksen kehityksestä 18 kuukauden korjatussa iässä. Tutkittavien ryhmä koostui 20:stä pikkukeskosena (<32 rv) syntyneestä lapsesta (11 tyttöä ja 9 poikaa). Tutkimusmenetelminä 18 kuukauden iässä käytettiin silmänliikkeisiin pohjaavaa sanaston prosessoinnin arviointimenetelmää ja Varhaisen kommunikaation ja kielen kehityksen arviointimenetelmän Sanat, taivutukset ja lauseet -versiota. Tarkasteltavia muuttujia olivat sanaston prosessointitaidoista reaktioaika ja katseluaika, sekä sanaston kehityksen osalta ilmaistun sanaston koko, eri sanakategorioihin kuuluvien sanojen määrä ja sanojen osuus sanastossa. Muuttujien välisiä yhteyksiä tarkasteltiin Spearmanin järjestyskorrelaatiokerrointa käyttäen sekä lineaaristen regressiomallien avulla. Tuloksissa havaittiin useita tilastollisesti merkitseviä yhteyksiä pikkukeskosten sanaston prosessointitaitojen ja sanaston koon ja koostumuksen muuttujien välillä. Tehokkaampi sanaston prosessointi oli yhteydessä suurempaan ilmaistun sanaston kokoon (r .51). Sanaston prosessointitaidot olivat yhteydessä myös sanaston koostumukseen (r .51–.65). Tilastollisesti merkitsevistä yhteyksistä muodostetut regressiomallit osoittivat, että katseluajan muuttujat selittivät merkitsevästi ilmaistun sanaston kokoa ja koostumusta (R² .42–.57). Tämän tutkimuksen tulokset antavat uutta tietoa ilmaistun sanaston koon ja erityisesti koostumuksen kehityksen tarkasteluun suhteessa sanaston prosessointitaitoihin.

During the past decade Finland has become an increasingly multilingual country, and the need for understanding bilingual development of children has grown. The purpose of this study is to analyze conversational self-repair used by sequential bilinguals. Examining children´s self-repairs provide information of their ability to monitor conversation and the development of their language skills. The aim is to investigate how 4-to-5-year-old children who adopt Finnish as their second language use self-repair to solve problems in speaking and to create mutual understanding. The repairs that are self-initiated or other-initiated by the adults are taken into account. The focus is to investigate how the self-repair is initiated, in which part of the repair sequence the correction takes place, and what is repaired. The data of this study is taken from the PAULA research project, which aims to investigate the impact of small group activities on supporting the language learning of children who acquire Finnish as their second language. The data was recollected in 2018 in a city that is located in southern Finland. The subjects of study (N=7) were between 4;11 and 5;7 years old. They were normally developed sequential bilinguals who participated in the small group sessions that took place in their daycares. The material (1h 49 min) consisted of video recordings of two different types of tasks, a fishing game and grocery store play. The video data was transcribed and analyzed by the means of conversational analysis. The results show that children who adopt Finnish as their second language initiate repairs in many lexical (e.g. repetitions, adding and changing words) and non-lexical ways (e.g. cut-off or non-verbally). Other-initiated repair sequences was pointed out by questions (e.g. what, which, or why), giving semantic or phonological cues and making direct corrections. The results shows that the self-repair was preferred. Most of the children´s self-repairs took place in the same turn with the problem and in the third position. However, some of the repair sequencies formed much more complex patterns. The self-repair was used to correct vocabulary, semantics, and the situation. In addition, nonverbal means became central both in marking the need for repair and using it as a repair. Nonverbal repairs were used for example to replace missing vocabulary, to create common understanding of the situation, or to guide the interpretation of the words and meanings. The results encourage to monitor children’s ability to repair their speech in verbal or nonverbal manner to support the speech and language skills that they are acquiring.

Aim. Rehabilitation of oral comprehension is important but challenging; there are few effective methods for rehabilitating oral comprehension. Virtual reality may provide effective rehabilitation methods, but research data on the use of virtual reality in speech therapy rehabilitation is scarce and the data have focused on adult aphasia patients and children with autism spectrum. These studies have provided promising evidence for the use of virtual reality in speech therapy, but there is a need for more research on virtual reality so it can be used effectively in speech therapy rehabilitation. The aim of this pilot study is to find out how the developed virtual reality exercise is suitable for oral comprehension rehabilitation and what kind of user experiences typically developed children aged 4–10 have from exercise. Methods. Eight typically developed children aged 4 to 10 years were selected for this pilot study. The material consisted of linguistic-cognitive assessments, the exercise with head mounted display and the data of the exercise, interviews with children and video recordings. The data of the exercise (total result, duration of the exercise, interruptions during the exercise and the angle of the gaze) were analyzed statistically and the interview data both statistically and qualitatively. Results and conclusions. The results show that the exercise performed in virtual reality provides reliable objective information about the relationship between gaze behavior and speech comprehension, and the variables, overall result, duration, interruptions, and angle selected for the study indicate performance in the exercise. The exercise developed based on these results is fit for purpose. The subjects found the exercise and virtual reality training interesting, but the motivation of the exercise still needs to be developed. The results cannot be generalized due to the small sample size, but due to the lack of relevant research data, they provide valuable information on the use of virtual reality in children’s speech therapy rehabilitation and support the view that virtual reality can provide effective rehabilitation methods for speech comprehension in the future.