The relation between perceived non-native features in the L1 speech of English migrants to Austria and their phonetic manifestation in L1 productions.

Aims: The purpose of this research was to investigate to what extent the most commonly identified non-native features in the L1 speech of late consecutive bilinguals are reflected in differences in the bilinguals' productions of these features compared with those of monolingual speakers of the L1.

Design: We investigated the L1 accent of English migrants to Austria and monolingual English speakers in the United Kingdom in two inter-related studies.

Data: In Study 1, an accent-perception experiment, native English listeners rated the nativeness of the monolinguals' and bilinguals' L1 English productions of read sentences, using a 6-point scale, and subsequently commented on the accentual features associated with perceived non-nativeness.

The role of an inpatient aphasia-friendly choir for people with post-stroke communication impairment from the perspective of the multidisciplinary team: An exploratory study.

Background: There is a growing body of evidence showing the value of community singing-based rehabilitation on psychosocial well-being and communication for people with post-stroke communication impairment (PSCI). However, there has been little consideration of the potential value an inpatient aphasia-friendly choir may have through the perspective of the stroke multidisciplinary team (MDT).

Aims: To explore the experiences and views of the MDT on the role an established inpatient aphasia-friendly choir, at a stroke rehabilitation centre in South Wales, UK, may play in the rehabilitation of people with PSCI.

Stop Voicing Perception in the Societal and Heritage Language of Spanish-English Bilingual Preschoolers: The Role of Age, Input Quantity and Input Diversity.

This is the first study to examine stop voicing perception in the societal (English) and heritage language (Spanish) of bilingual preschoolers. The study a) compares bilinguals' English perception patterns to those of monolinguals; b) it examines how child-internal (age) and external variables (input quantity and input diversity) predict English and Spanish perceptual performance; and c) it compares bilinguals' perception patterns across languages. Perception was assessed through a forced-choice minimal-pair identification task in which children heard synthesized audio stimuli that varied systematically along a /p-b/ and /t-d/ Voice Onset Time (VOT) continuum and were asked to match them with one of two pictures for each contrast.

Tone perception development in Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the longer-term effects of cochlear implant (CI) use on tone perception by evaluating improvement in Mandarin tone recognition in children with CIs 2 and 3 years post CI activation, and to explore the effects of implant age, chronological age and duration of CI use on the development of tone perception.

Methods: Tone perception was assessed in 29 bilateral profound hearing impaired children (mean chronological age = 4.6 years, SD = 0.

Speech and Language Outcomes in Low-SES Spanish-English Bilingual Preschoolers: The Role of Maternal Education.

This paper presents a longitudinal examination of Spanish and English phonological, lexical, and morpho-syntactic abilities in 20 low-SES bilingual preschoolers with mothers who had either completed primary or secondary education in Spanish in their country of origin, Mexico. We focused on the link between maternal education and the following spontaneous production measures: 1) phonological accuracy as measured by Percent of Consonants Correct-Revised, 2) lexical variety as measured by Number of Different Words, and 3) utterance length as measured by Mean Length of Utterance in words; the relation between maternal education and spontaneous production was examined both a) at preschool entry, when children were on average 3;6 and dominant in Spanish, and b) a year later, after one year of exposure to the majority language (English) and culture. The results showed that although children of more educated mothers performed significantly better on all English measures than children of less educated mothers, maternal education was not related to Spanish outcomes.

Parent-child interaction during storybook reading: wordless narrative books versus books with text.

This study examines the content and function of parent-child talk while engaging in shared storybook reading with two narrative books: a wordless book versus a book with text. Thirty-six parents audio-recorded themselves reading one of the books at home with their 3.5-5.

Speech production in Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants: a systematic review.

Objective: This study aimed to systematically review and critically appraise the literature describing the phonetic characteristics and accuracy of the consonants, vowels and tones produced by Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs).

Design: The protocol in this review was designed in conformity with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. EBSCOhost, PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, ProQuest Central databases were searched for relevant articles which met the inclusion criteria.

Bilingual phonological development across generations: Segmental accuracy and error patterns in second- and third-generation British Bengali children.

Introduction: While developmental norms for speech sound development have been widely reported for monolingual children, and increasingly for bilingual children, little is known about speech sound development across different generations of children growing up in heritage language settings. The purpose of the present study was to gain a better understanding of inter-generational differences in the phonological development of British Bengali children.

Methods: Typically-developing second-generation and third-generation Bengali heritage children living in Wales (n=19), aged between 4 and 5 years, participated in a picture-naming task in Sylheti and English.

The Effects of Home Language and Bilingualism on the Realization of Lexical Stress in Welsh and Welsh English.

This study investigates effects of long-term language contact and individual linguistic experience on the realization of lexical stress correlates in Welsh and Welsh English. To this end, a production study was carried out in which participants were asked to read out Welsh and English disyllabic words with stress on the penultimate syllable, placed within carrier phrases. Recordings were made of the productions of Welsh and English target words, by two groups of Welsh-English bilinguals differing in home language, as well as the productions of English target words by Welsh English monolinguals and speakers of Southern Standard British English (SSBE).

Bilingual Speech Sound Development During the Preschool Years: The Role of Language Proficiency and Cross-Linguistic Relatedness.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate typical Spanish-English speech sound development longitudinally in a group of bilingual preschoolers enrolled in a Head Start Program and to examine the extent to which such development is linked to language proficiency. The study also aimed to identify whether speech development is related cross-linguistically and to improve our understanding of error patterns in this population.

Method: Thirty-five bilingual preschool children produced single-word speech samples in Spanish and English both at the beginning of their first and their second year in a Head Start Program.

Cross-linguistic interaction in trilingual phonological development: the role of the input in the acquisition of the voicing contrast.

This paper examines the production of word-initial stops by two simultaneous trilingual sisters, aged 6;8 and 8;1, who receive regular input in Italian and English from multiple speakers, but in Spanish from only one person. The children's productions in each language were analyzed acoustically and compared to those of their main input providers. The results revealed consistent cross-linguistic differences by both children, including between Italian and Spanish stops, although these have identical properties in the speech of Italian- and Spanish-speaking adults.

Asymmetries in phonological development: the case of word-final cluster acquisition in Welsh-English bilingual children.

This study provides the first systematic account of word-final cluster acquisition in bilingual children. To this end, forty Welsh-English bilingual children differing in language dominance and age (2;6 to 5;0) participated in a picture-naming task in English and Welsh. The results revealed significant age and dominance effects on cluster acquisition, with greater overall accuracy on the English clusters.