College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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Author: search.filters.author.Ratner, Nan Bernstein

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    Acoustic-Lexical Characteristics of Child-Directed Speech Between 7 and 24 Months and Their Impact on Toddlers' Phonological Processing
    (Frontiers, 2021-09-24) Cychosz, Margaret; Edwards, Jan R.; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Eaton, Catherine Torrington; Newman, Rochelle S.
    Speech-language input from adult caregivers is a strong predictor of children's developmental outcomes. But the properties of this child-directed speech are not static over the first months or years of a child's life. This study assesses a large cohort of children and caregivers (n = 84) at 7, 10, 18, and 24 months to document (1) how a battery of phonetic, phonological, and lexical characteristics of child-directed speech changes in the first 2 years of life and (2) how input at these different stages predicts toddlers' phonological processing and vocabulary size at 2 years. Results show that most measures of child-directed speech do change as children age, and certain characteristics, like hyperarticulation, actually peak at 24 months. For language outcomes, children's phonological processing benefited from exposure to longer (in phonemes) words, more diverse word types, and enhanced coarticulation in their input. It is proposed that longer words in the input may stimulate children's phonological working memory development, while heightened coarticulation simultaneously introduces important sublexical cues and exposes them to challenging, naturalistic speech, leading to overall stronger phonological processing outcomes.
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    Fluency of School-Aged Children With a History of Specific Expressive Language Impairment: An Exploratory Study
    (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2002-02) Boscolo, Brian; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Rescorla, Leslie
    A large volume of literature now links language demand and fluency behaviors in children. Although it might be reasonable to assume that children with relatively weak language skills might demonstrate higher levels of disfluency, the sparse literature on this topic is characterized by conflicting findings on the relationship between language impairment and disfluency. However, in studies finding elevated disfluency in children with specific language impairment, a higher frequency of disfluencies more characteristic of stuttering has been noted. This study asks whether children with long-standing histories of language delay and impairment are more disfluent, and display different types of disfluencies than their typically developing, age-matched peers. Elicited narratives from 22 pairs of 9-year-old children were analyzed for fluency characteristics. Half of the children had histories of specific expressive language impairment (HSLI-E), whereas the others had typical developmental histories. The children with HSLI-E were significantly more disfluent than their peers and produced more stutter-like disfluencies, although these behaviors were relatively infrequent in both groups. Implications for clinical intervention and future research are discussed.
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    Parental Perceptions of Children’s Communicative Development at Stuttering Onset
    (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2000-10) Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Silverman, Stacy
    There has been clinical speculation that parents of young stuttering children have expectations of their children’s communication abilities that are not well-matched to the children’s actual skills. We appraised the language abilities of 15 children close to the onset of stuttering symptoms and 15 age-, sex-, and SES-matched fluent children using an array of standardized tests and spontaneous language sample measures. Parents concurrently completed two parent-report measures of the children’s communicative development. Results indicated generally depressed performance on all child speech and language measures by the children who stutter. Parent report was closely attuned to child performance for the stuttering children; parents of nonstuttering children were less accurate in their predictions of children’s communicative performance. Implications for clinical advisement to parents of stuttering children are discussed.
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    Parental Language Input to Children at Stuttering Onset
    (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2001-10) Miles, Stephanie; Ratner, Nan Bernstein
    Many programs for the indirect management of stuttering in early childhood counsel adjustment of parental language models, which are presumed to play an exacerbating influence on vulnerable children’s fluency. We examined the relative levels of linguistic demand in maternal language to stuttering and nonstuttering children, adjusted for each child’s current level of linguistic development. No significant or observable differences were detected in the relative level of linguistic demand posed by parents of stuttering children very close to onset of symptoms. Empirical support for current advisement and potential ramifications are discussed.
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    Caregiver–Child Interactions and Their Impact on Children’s Fluency: Implications for Treatment
    (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2004-01) Ratner, Nan Bernstein
    There is a relatively strong focus in the stuttering literature on the desirability of selected alterations in parental speech and language style in the management of early stuttering. In this article, the existing research support for such recommendations is evaluated, together with relevant research from the normal language acquisition literature that bears on the potential consequences of changing parental interaction style. Recommendations with relatively stronger and weaker support are discussed. Ways in which children’s communication styles and fluency may be altered through newer fluency treatment protocols are contrasted with older, more general parent advisements. Finally, directions for future research into the efficacy of recommendations made to the parents of children who stutter (CWS) are offered.
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    Syllable structure development of toddlers with expressive specific language impairment
    (Cambridge University Press, 2000) Pharr, Aimee Baird; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Rescorla, Leslie
    A total of 35 children – 20 with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E) and 15 typically developing (TD) peers – were compared longitudinally from 24 to 36 months with respect to their production of syllable shapes in 10-minute spontaneous speech samples. SLI-E 24-month-olds predominantly produced earlier developing syllable shapes containing vowels, liquids, and glides. TD 24-month-olds and SLI-E 36-month-olds produced approximately the same proportion of syllable types, with the exception of consonant clusters, where TD 24-month-olds produced more than SLI-E 36-month-olds. TD children at 36 months showed the greatest use of syllable shapes containing two different consonants and consonant clusters. Detailed analyses revealed that SLI-E children produced fewer syllable shapes containing final consonants, more than one consonant type, and consonant clusters. Furthermore, the children with SLI-E were found to vocalize less often than their TD peers. The possible relationships between these findings, SLI-E children’s concomitant deficits in morphology and syntax, and the implications for diagnosis and remediation are discussed.