Manchester Metropolitan University

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Manchester Metropolitan University

• Paper presented at the
• 6th European 2006 CPLOL Congress
• 15th to 17th September 2006
• Berlin
• Ann French
• a.french_at_mmu.ac.uk

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MEASURING PHONOLOGICAL SKILLS IN ADOLESCENCE
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Background

• Referrals of junior and secondary age children
  with language and communication impairments
  attending mainstream schools
• Evidence that early language and communication
  problems may not resolve
• Lack of secondary school SLT provision in UK
• Lack of knowledge about the nature and extent of
  difficulties secondary students may encounter
• Lack of suitable assessments

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• By 11 yrs most children appear to have well
  developed
• pronunciation and literacy skills, so is
  phonological
• development complete?
• Recent research suggests during adolescence there
  is
• ongoing development of
• Phonological perception1
• Phonological production2
• Phonological awareness3
• Additionally, word learning and phonological
  memory
• demands continue throughout life.

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Phonological skills required by the secondary
curriculum

• Reading and spelling (moving into orthographic
  stage of literacy)
• Specialist vocabulary (all subjects)
• Learning spoken/written words in new languages
• Literary concepts e.g. alliteration and rhyme
  (English)
• Puns and other jokes (literacy, social
  communication)
• Role of accents in communication (English, social
  communication)
• New writing styles e.g. text messaging (social
  communication)
• Rote learning (many areas of the curriculum)

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Methodology

• A correlational design
• Hypothesis 1
• Performance on phonological tasks will correlate
  with
• Receptive word knowledge4
• Available phonological working memory (PWM) and
  functional working memory (FWM) space5
• Attention control6

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• Hypothesis 2
• Performance on phonological tasks will be
  predicted by
• Early hearing, speech and literacy development7
• Family history of speech/literacy difficulty8
• SES9
• Hypothesis 3
• Performance on phonological tasks will correlate
  with
• Academic ability/achievement scores10

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Method Participants

• Year 7 students, aged 116-120 () randomly
  selected from a mainstream comprehensive school
• Pilot study 11 students (2006)
• Main study 2 cohorts of 45-50 students (Phase I
  2005-6 Phase II 2006-7)

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Method Procedures

• 1. Questionnaires completed by parents/guardians
• Students early hearing, language and literacy
  development
• Family incidence of language and/or literacy
  impairments
• SES indicators (parent employment/education)

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• 2. Assessment tasks
• (i) New tests developed during pilot
• Receptive semantic/phonological word knowledge
• Phonological awareness
• Rhyme judgement A Low FWM load
• Spoonerism production B High FWM load
• Word production
• Real word repetition
• Nonword repetition
• Tongue twisters

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• (ii) Published tests
• PWM (Phonological Loop) and FWM
• Attention control

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• 3. Academic data supplied by school
• End of Year 6 Standard Achievement scores in
  English, Maths and Science
• Early Year 7 Cognitive Abilities scores in
  Verbal, Nonverbal and Numerical Reasoning
• End of Year 7 subject marks for English, Maths,
  Science, and Modern Foreign Languages (MFLs)

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Phase I Results

• Using Spearmans rho as data may not be normally
  distributed
• Reporting only 0.01 level 2-tailed
• Hypothesis 1
• 1. Significant correlations between phonological
  task performance and Receptive Word Knowledge
• Rhyme B
• Spoonerism A B
• 2. Significant correlations between phonological
  task performance and PWM
• Rhyme B
• Spoonerism A B

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• 3. Significant correlations between phonological
  task performance and FWM
• Rhyme B
• Spoonerism A B
• Receptive Word Knowledge
• 4. Significant correlations between phonological
  task performance and attention control
• Spoonerism A B (Selective Attention)
• Spoonerism B (Sustained Attention)
• Spoonerism B and Tongue Twisters (Switched
  Attention)

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• Hypothesis 2
• 1. Significant correlations between phonological
  task performance and early hearing, speech and
  literacy development
• Rhyme B, Nonword Repetition, Spoonerism A B,
  Receptive Word Knowledge (Reading and Spelling)
• Nonword Repetition, Spoonerism B (Talking)
• 2. Significant correlations between phonological
  task performance and family history of
  speech/literacy difficulty
• None
• 3. Significant correlations between phonological
  task performance and SES
• Rhyme A (Parent Education)
• Rhyme B (Parent Employment)

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• Hypothesis 3
• Significant correlations between phonological
  task performance and academic ability/achievement
  scores
• Spoonerism A B (All scores)
• Rhyme B (All scores except Year 7 Maths)
• Nonword Repetition (Year 6 7 English, Verbal
  Reasoning, Year 7 MFLs)
• Tongue Twister (Year 6 7 English, Year 7 MFLs)
• Receptive Word Knowledge (All scores except
  Nonverbal reasoning, Year 7 English Maths)

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Tentative conclusions from Phase I

• Performance on phonological awareness tasks
  (Rhyme B, Spoonerism A B) correlates
  significantly with receptive word knowledge, PWM,
  FWM, attention, a history of reading and spelling
  difficulty, and with academic ability/achievement
  across the curriculum
• ? This may reflect the memory/attention demands
  of these tasks, with improved performance
  supported by greater word knowledge and literacy

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• Performance on production tasks (Nonword
  Repetition, Spoonerism B, Tongue Twisters)
  correlates significantly with a history of
  talking difficulty and with scores in English and
  MFLs
• ? This may reflect motor planning demands

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• Performance on phonological tasks does not
  correlate significantly with a history of ear
  infections/hearing loss, family history of speech
  or literacy difficulty, or SES
• ?By age 11 these factors appear to be less
  significant for phonological ability

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And so

• Phonology is a key element of word learning
• Word learning underpins verbal memory performance
• Verbal memory is crucial to academic learning
• Facilitating phonological learning may increase
  academic achievement for many students
• Some students may benefit from additional
  practice in acquiring spoken forms for new words

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References

• Hazan, V. and Barrett, S. (2002). The development
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• Walsh, B. and Smith,A. (2002). Articulatory
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• Wagner, R.K., Torgensen, J.K. and Rashotte, C.A.
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• Garlock, V.M., Walley, A.C. and Metsala, J.L.
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• Manly, T., Robertson, H., Anderson, V. and
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