Toward extending the educational interpreter performance assessment to cued speech

The Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA) is as an important research tool for examining the quality of interpreters who use American Sign Language or a sign system in classroom settings, but it is not currently applicable to educational interpreters who use Cued Speech (CS). In order to determine the feasibility of extending the EIPA to include CS, a pilot EIPA test was developed and administered to 24 educational CS interpreters. Fifteen of the interpreters' performances were evaluated two to three times in order to assess reliability. Results show that the instrument has good construct validity and test-retest reliability. Although more interrater reliability data are needed, intrarater reliability was quite high (0.9), suggesting that the pilot test can be rated as reliably as signing versions of the EIPA. Notably, only 48% of interpreters who formally participated in pilot testing performed at a level that could be considered minimally acceptable. In light of similar performance levels previously reported for interpreters who sign (e.g., Schick, Williams, & Kupermintz, 2006), these results suggest that interpreting services for deaf and hard-of hearing students, regardless of the communication option used, are often inadequate and could seriously hinder access to the classroom environment.     

Rhyme generation in deaf students: the effect of exposure to cued speech

This study compares the rhyme-generation ability of deaf participants with severe to profound hearing losses from cued speech (CS) and non-cued speech (NCS) backgrounds with a hearing comparison group for consistent orthography-to-phonology (O-P) rhyming elements, or rimes (e.g., -ail in sail is always pronounced the same), and inconsistent orthography-to-phonology (I-O-P) rhyming elements where the orthographic rime (e.g., -ear) has different pronunciations in words such as bear, and rear. Rhyming accuracy was better for O-P target words than for I-O-P target words. The performance of the deaf participants from CS backgrounds, although falling between that of the hearing and the NCS groups, did not differ significantly from that of the hearing group. By contrast, the performance of the NCS group was lower than that of the hearing group. Hearing and CS participants produced more orthographically different responses (e.g., blue-few), whereas participants from the NCS group produced more responses that are orthographically similar (e.g., blue-true), indicating that the hearing and CS groups rely more on phonology and the NCS group more on spelling to generate rhymes. The results support the use of cued speech for developing phonological abilities of deaf students to promote their reading abilities.     

The development of analogical reading in Spanish

The use and development of analogical processes in learning to read in Spanish are presented. In the first experiment, the results show that children of 6 years old show analogical effects in reading pseudowords and that the magnitude of this effect is the same as with 10 years old children. However, it is found that children of 10 years old make many lexicalizations when reading pseudowords (about 50% of the items). In experiment 2 this finding is further analyzed. The results show that 9 years old children make more lexicalizations than adult control subjects do. It is suggested that the development of analogical procedures is a fast process (6 years old children already have done it), but that the precise control of lexical information over perceptual one is a later process.     

德语介词在日常生活中的应用

由于介词在德语中占了相当大的比重,因此本文简单介绍了介词的运用。首先文章阐述了介词共有的特性,其次再针对介词所处的位置进行了讲解,最后分析了介词所支配的名词的格数。     

The role of nonspeech rhythm in Spanish word reading

Recent literacy research shows an increasing interest in the influence of prosody on literacy acquisition. The current study examines the relationship of nonspeech rhythmic skills to children's reading acquisition, and their possible relation to stress assignment in Spanish, a syllable‐timed language. Sixty‐six third graders with no reading difficulties were scored on measures of nonspeech rhythm, word‐level decoding skill, reading fluency and reading with correct assignment of lexical stress. After controlling for verbal intelligence and working memory, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that nonspeech rhythm predicted unique variance in reading fluency and correct stress assignment; it did not predict decoding skills. Given that Spanish is a syllable‐timed as opposed to stress‐timed language like English, the association between nonspeech rhythm, reading fluency and stress assignment found in our study suggests that nonspeech rhythm may be a universal factor in reading acquisition, independent of the type of linguistic rhythm.     

Reading and reading-related skills in children using cochlear implants: prospects for the influence of cued speech

We assessed the reading and reading-related skills (phonemic awareness and phonological short-term memory) of deaf children fitted with cochlear implants (CI), either exposed to cued speech early (before 2 years old) (CS+) or never (CS-). Their performance was compared to that of 2 hearing control groups, 1 matched for reading level (RL), and 1 matched for chronological age (CA). Phonemic awareness and phonological short-term memory were assessed respectively through a phonemic similarity judgment task and through a word span task measuring phonological similarity effects. To assess the use of sublexical and lexical reading procedures, children read pseudowords and irregular words aloud. Results showed that cued speech improved performance on both the phonemic awareness and the reading tasks but not on the phonological short-term memory task. In phonemic awareness and reading, CS+ children obtained accuracy and rapidity scores similar to CA controls, whereas CS- children obtained lower scores than hearing controls. Nevertheless, in phonological short-term memory task, the phonological similarity effect of both CI groups was similar. Overall, these results support the use of cued speech to improve phonemic awareness and reading skills in CI children.     

A longitudinal investigation of the role of quantity and quality of child-directed speech in vocabulary development

Quantity and quality of caregiver input was examined longitudinally in a sample of 50 parent–child dyads to determine which aspects of input contribute most to children’s vocabulary skill across early development. Measures of input gleaned from parent–child interactions at child ages 18, 30, and 42 months were examined in relation to children’s vocabulary skill on a standardized measure 1 year later (e.g., 30, 42, and 54 months). Results show that controlling for socioeconomic status, input quantity, and children’s previous vocabulary skill; using a diverse and sophisticated vocabulary with toddlers; and using decontextualized language (e.g., narrative) with preschoolers explains additional variation in later vocabulary ability. The differential effects of various aspects of the communicative environment at several points in early vocabulary development are discussed.     

The role of the family in vocational development

The impact of the family on the vocational development of youth is critically and systematically examined in this paper. First, the relevant empirical and theoretical literature is identified together with the limitations of that literature, particularly with its failure to consider, a) the ecological influences on career development, b) female career development, and c) the developmental aspects of career choice, entry and maintenance. Second, the paper examines the following family variables in career development; socio-economic status, family process variables, socialization and sex differences, family interactions and family structure. Finally, some implications for guidance and counselling following an individual/environmental perspective are identified.Paper presented at the Eleventh International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling, University of Aarhus, Denmark, 5–9 August, 1984.     

Reading prosody development in Spanish children

Reading prosody is considered one of the essential markers of reading fluency, alongside accuracy and speed. The aim of our study was to investigate how development of reading prosody in Spanish children varies with sentence type and length. We compared primary school children from the third and fifth grades with an adult sample. Participants were recorded reading aloud a narrative text including short and long declarative, exclamatory and interrogative sentences. Recordings were analysed using Praat software to measure several prosodic features (i.e., pauses, duration, pitch and intensity). We found that third-grade children had not yet developed an adult-like prosody: they made more pauses, had a flatter melodic contour and had difficulty anticipating sentence structure. Fifth-graders displayed some features of adult prosody. Both length and type of sentence influenced the expressiveness of reading in the three groups. We conclude that reading expressiveness is closely related to reading experience and develops in a similar way to decoding and reading speed.     

表示时间意义的前置词辨析

本文详细辨析了俄语中表示时间意义的前置词，指出每个前置词的意义以及意义相近的前置词在实际使用中的区别，并强调只有准确使用这些前置词才能达到语言交际的目的。     

Understanding the role of private speech in children's emotion regulation

Self-regulation includes both cognitive and affective components, but few researchers have investigated how these components interact to better explain self-regulation. The purpose of this study was to investigate how children's private speech, which is typically related to cognitive ability, was utilized during an emotion-eliciting task. By examining the social and private speech that occurred as children coped with a frustration task, a better understanding of how children regulate their emotional displays can be achieved. Children's speech, emotional expressions (sadness and anger), and emotion regulation strategies (distraction and self-comforting) were coded during a frustration task completed by preschool-aged children (N = 116). Children's social speech to mothers and private speech were transcribed. Children's private speech was categorized according to five mutually exclusive categories: vocalizations, inaudible muttering, task-irrelevant, negatively valenced task-relevant, or facilitative task-relevant. Sadness was associated with more social speech and negatively valenced task-relevant private speech, whereas anger was associated with less distraction and facilitative task-relevant private speech and more vocalizations and negatively valenced task-relevant private speech. Additionally, private speech predicted unique variance beyond that explained by the emotion regulation strategies and moderated the relations of emotion regulation strategies to both anger and sadness. These empirical findings support theoretical propositions that language is a factor in children's emotion regulation. The implications of these findings include support for the encouragement of private speech in the classroom because of its relation to emotional, in addition to cognitive, regulatory functions.     

The initial development of spelling in Spanish: From global to analytical

During a school year, samples of words written by three groups of children of successive ages were collected. Two groups of children were in first and second year of Kindergarten (4 and 5 years of age), when alphabetic rules were not taught in a systematic way. The third group was in first year of Primary School (6 years of age), and was being taught to read and spell in a systematic way. After classifying the words written by the children, seven categories of spelling were obtained, which may represent different stages in their learning process. Their analysis showed that they are related to different types of knowledge and processes, mainly phonological ones. The results show that the development of spelling in Spanish does not qualitatively differ from that of children who learn to spell in opaque writing systems. The differences mainly involve the time it takes to learn, and the rate of acquisition.     

The English role in world development

As one of the most widely used languages in the world,English has been playing an important role in promoting the international trade and the global economic development.In addition,English also has a strong influence on the development of the global culture.Therefore,we should attach great importance to English.     

外来移民与美国经济的发展

美国是一个移民国家 ,外来移民对于美国经济的发展起了十分特殊的作用。华工、华侨和华裔美国人对美国经济的发展和繁荣也做出了杰出的贡献