Manchester Metropolitan University

1. Manchester Metropolitan University Seminar presented to the Professional Practice and Research Development Centre 5th December 2006 Ann French a.french@mmu.ac.uk

2. SPEECH SKILLS IN YOUNG ADOLESCENTS: ARE THEY STILL DEVELOPING, AND HOW DO THEY AFFECT ACADEMIC PROGRESS?

3. 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

4. Speech skills Phonological knowledge/skills: • How speech sounds (phones) are used to create contrasting meanings e.g. ‘cat’ v. ‘hat’ v ‘mat’ • Used in understanding speech, speaking, reading and spelling • Reliant on phonological memory: the ability to retain the spoken form of a stimulus

5. By 11 yrs most children appear to have well developed pronunciation and literacy skills, so is phonological development complete? Recent research suggests that during adolescence there is ongoing development of: Phonological perception (Wagner, Torgensen and Rashotte, 1999) Phonological production (Walsh and Smith, 2002) Phonological awareness (Hazan and Barrett, 2002) and that Auditory cortex maturation continues into adolescence (McArthur and Bishop (2004) Additionally, word learning and phonological memory demands continue throughout life.

6. Phonological skills required by the secondary curriculum • Reading and spelling (moving into the orthographic stage of literacy e.g. using analogy: light/fight/might) • Learning new English words (all subjects; social communication) • Learning spoken/written words in new languages • Literary concepts e.g. alliteration and rhyme (English) • Puns and other jokes (literacy, social communication) • Place of regional accents in communication (English, social communication) • New writing styles e.g. text messaging: <B4> = ‘before’ (social communication) • Rote learning (many areas of the curriculum)

7. Baddeley’s model of Working Memory (WM) (2003) “Working memory is a temporary storage system that underpins our capacity for thinking…” (p.203)

8. The Phonological Loop (PL)(Baddeley 2003, based on Vallar & Papagno 2002) Visual Input Auditory Input Phonological Analysis Visual Analysis and ST Store Phonological ST Store Orthographical to Phonological Encoding Rehearsal Process Phonological Output Buffer Spoken Output

9. Speech Perception:VentralandDorsal (PL)Routes

10. Functional Working Memory Montgomery (2003) distinguishes • Phonological Working Memory (PWM): c.f. Baddeley’s PL • Functional Working Memory (FWM): c.f. Baddeley’s Episodic Buffer

11. FWM/EB • Temporarily combines information from 2+ sources • Facilitates complex processing/problem solving e.g. comprehension of spoken/written text, reasoning…. • A limited capacity system: storage and computational demands compete: • content familiarity ↑ storage demand ↓ computational capacity ↑ • content familiarity ↓ storage demand ↑ computational capacity ↓

12. Transfer from WM to LTM • PWM ⇨ LTM: rehearsal e.g. times tables • FWM ⇨ LTM: uses a complex of phonological, semantic and grammatical skills; heavily dependent on knowledge already stored • Both processes controlled by Central Executive: • Selects what to attend to • Sustains attention to chosen stimulus • Switches between stimuli when necessary

13. Development of WM Gathercole et al, (2004a): • All components (PL, VSSP, CE) are in place by 6 yrs. • All increase linearly from 5-14 yrs. • With increasing age there is a closer correlation between PL and CE scores than between VSSP and CE scores

14. PL Nonword repetition (assessing PL function) correlates with: • Digit span (Gathercole et al 1999) • Vocabulary size (Adams and • Expressive grammar Gathercole • Utterance length 1995) • Language comprehension (Sahlen et al 1999) • SAT scores at ages 7 and 14 (Gathercole et al, 2004b)

15. PL capacity • Often measured as digit span • Miller (1956) suggested capacity of 7 items +/- 2 for adult humans BUT PL span is not fixed: • Chunking changes the upper limit • Span is affected by: • Rate of stimulus presentation • Stimuli used (e.g. word length, word familiarity, inter-stimulus similarity) • Opportunity for rehearsal

16. Methodology A correlational design Hypothesis 1 Performance on phonological tasks will correlate with: • Receptive word knowledge (Garlock et al, 2001) • Available phonological working memory (PWM) and functional working memory (FWM) space (Gathercole et al 2004a) • Attention control (Manly et al, 1999)

17. Hypothesis 2 Performance on phonological tasks will be predicted by • Early hearing, speech and literacy development (Nittrouer and Burton, 2005) • Family history of speech/literacy difficulty (Snowling, Bishop and Stothard, 2000) • SES (Locke and Ginsborg, 2003) Hypothesis 3 Performance on phonological tasks will correlate with academic ability/achievement scores (Gathercole et al, 2004b)

18. Method: Participants • Year 7 students, aged 11;6-12;0 (+) 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)

19. Method: Procedures 1. Questionnaires completed by parents/guardians: • Student’s early hearing, language and literacy development • Family incidence of language and/or literacy impairments • SES indicators (parent employment/education)

20. 2. Assessment tasks: (i) New tests developed during pilot Receptive semantic/phonological word knowledge* Phonological awareness: Rhyme judgement* Spoonerism production* {A = Low FWM load {B = High FWM load Word production: Real word repetition* Nonword repetition* Tongue twisters * Controlled for word length and AoA

21. (ii) Published tests • WMTB-C (Pickering and Gathercole 2001): • Digit Recall (PWM) • Backwards Digits (FWM) • TEA-CH (Manly et al, 1999): • Skysearch: Selective attention: searching and focusing on specific information, ignoring distractors • Score: Sustained attention: focussing on repetitive tasks • Opposite Worlds: Attentional switching between two or more tasks

22. 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)

23. Phase I Results Using Spearman’s 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

24. 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 (with Selective Attention) • Spoonerism B (with Sustained Attention) • Spoonerism B and Tongue Twisters (with Switched Attention)

25. 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 (with Reading and Spelling) Nonword Repetition, Spoonerism B (with 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 (with Parent Education) Rhyme B (with Parent Employment)

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

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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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