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Papers by Vesna Stojanovik
Enfance Psychologie Pedagogie Neuropsychiatrie Sociologie, Sep 1, 2010
International Journal of Language Communication Disorders, 2002
Approximately 7% of young school-aged children have specific language impairments. Many such chil... more Approximately 7% of young school-aged children have specific language impairments. Many such children are now being educated in mainstream settings. However, there is a dearth of up-to-date and valid research that considers UK (student) teachers' attitudes towards such children. This study aimed to investigate trainee teachers' attitudes towards teaching children with speech and language impairments, to investigate the reported effects of those attitudes on participants' acceptance of teaching such children, and to consider any implications for speech and language therapy (SLT) services and inclusive education. Nineteen trainee teachers (PGCE students) from a university in the North West of England took part in semistructured group interviews. The data were transcribed and analysed qualitatively, and recurrent themes identified. A range of attitudes was expressed, and six major themes were identified from the data. Participants discussed concerns about the resources and knowledge they considered necessary to support fully children with specific language impairments. There was some differentiation of attitudes related to the types of disability that a child may have and the subject being taught. Much of the discussion was about disabilities in general rather than specific to speech and language impairments. Many of the participants reflected on their own previous experiences to inform their opinions. Although many of the participants expressed positive attitudes, some had concerns about workload and at least one was openly hostile to the idea of teaching children with disabilities within mainstream settings. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to previous research, the quantitative data obtained in this project, SLT services and the increases in the inclusion of children with specific language impairments into mainstream educational settings.
... Definite Article Procedure: For the elicitation of the definite article, a method similar to ... more ... Definite Article Procedure: For the elicitation of the definite article, a method similar to that of Jakubowicz, Nash, Rigaut & Gérard (1998) was ... all groups can be attributed to the later acquisition of genitive case compared to accusative case in typical development (Stephany 1997 ...
Expressive and receptive speech prosody in a group of children with Williams syndrome and Down... more Expressive and receptive speech prosody in a group of children with Williams syndrome and Down's syndrome are compared with each other and also with typically developing children using a computerized test battery. It is found that the WS children outperform the DS children on all expressive aspects of prosody, despite having comparable receptive language and non-verbal skills. This suggests that differences in prosodic ability may be linked to genetic disorder.
This paper reports the pitch range and vowel duration data from a group of children with Williams... more This paper reports the pitch range and vowel duration data from a group of children with Williams syndrome (WS) in comparison with a group of typically developing children matched for chronological age (CA) and a group matched for receptive language abilities (LA). It is found that the speech of the WS group has a greater pitch range and that vowels tend to be longer in duration than in the speech of the typically developing children. These findings are in line with the impressionistic results reported by Reilly, Klima and Bellugi [17].
Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 2007
The authors investigated expressive and receptive intonation abilities in children with Williams ... more The authors investigated expressive and receptive intonation abilities in children with Williams syndrome (WS) and the relation of these abilities to other linguistic abilities. Fourteen children with WS, 14 typically developing children matched to the WS group for receptive language (LA), and 15 typically developing children matched to the WS group for chronological age (CA) were compared on a range of receptive and expressive intonation tasks from the Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems-Child version (PEPS-C) battery. The WS group performed similarly to the LA group on all intonation tasks apart from the long-item imitation task, on which the WS group scored significantly lower than the LA group. When compared with the CA group, the WS group was significantly poorer on all aspects of intonation. Whereas there were a number of significant correlations between the intonation and language measures in the control groups, in the WS group, there was only 1 significant correlation bet...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2014
International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2009
ABSTRACT We welcome the lead article (Peppé, 2009) which raises important issues with regard to t... more ABSTRACT We welcome the lead article (Peppé, 2009) which raises important issues with regard to the definition of the term prosody, the characterization of prosodic impairments and issues of prosody intervention. We take this opportunity to focus on the issue of prosodic impairment in two developmental conditions: a population with speech and language impairment including those with SLI, and individuals with Williams syndrome. We review the literature on prosody in these two populations and we discuss the issue of what may be considered a prosodic impairment as opposed to a delay in the acquisition of prosodic abilities in these two conditions.
Dyslexia, 2015
The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the saliency effect for word beginnings r... more The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the saliency effect for word beginnings reported in children with dyslexia (Marshall & Van der Lely, 2009) can be found also in typically developing children. Thirty-four typically developing Italian children aged 8-10 years completed two specifically designed tasks: a production task and a perception task. Both tasks used nonwords containing clusters consisting of plosive plus liquid (e.g. pl). Clusters could be either in a stressed or in an unstressed syllable and could be either in initial position (first syllable) or in medial position (second syllable). In the production task, children were asked to repeat the nonwords. In the perception task, the children were asked to discriminate between two nonwords differing in one phoneme belonging to a cluster by reporting whether two repetitions were the same or different. Results from the production task showed that children are more accurate in repeating stressed than unstressed syllables, but there was no difference with respect to position of the cluster. Results from the perception task showed that children performed more accurately when discriminating word initial contrasts than when discriminating word medial contrasts, especially if the cluster was unstressed. Implications of this finding for clinical assessments are discussed.
The Cambridge Handbook of Communication Disorders, 2013
The aim of this study was to investigate comprehension and production of prosody in a group of ni... more The aim of this study was to investigate comprehension and production of prosody in a group of nine children with Down syndrome (DS) and to compare their performance to two control groups: one matched to the DS group on chronological age (CA group) and the other one matched to the DS group on receptive language and non-verbal abilities (MA group). Prosody was assessed using the computerised battery ''Profiling Elements of Prosody for Speech and Communication'' which assesses both prosody form and prosody function. The results showed that the DS group scored significantly lower than the CA matched group on all aspects of prosody under investigation. The DS group scored significantly lower than the MA group on the production of affect and on the production of pre-final narrow focus, and on all four tasks assessing prosody form. The DS group scored, on the whole, significantly higher on the comprehension prosody tasks than on the production ones. This pattern mirrored the one found in the general DS language profile which is characterised with strengths in language comprehension and weaknesses in language production. Interestingly, the receptive language abilities of the DS group did not seem to be related to their prosodic abilities, suggesting that prosody may be an independent cognitive domain.
... and relative strengths in social cognition, linguistic abilities, face processing and auditor... more ... and relative strengths in social cognition, linguistic abilities, face processing and auditory rote memory (Mervis, Morris, Bert, & Robinson ... language abilities as being innately specified and developing in isolation from general cognitive abilities (Clahsen and Almazan, 1998, Pinker ...
of the 2007, 2008
... Definite Article Procedure: For the elicitation of the definite article, a method similar to ... more ... Definite Article Procedure: For the elicitation of the definite article, a method similar to that of Jakubowicz, Nash, Rigaut & Gérard (1998) was ... all groups can be attributed to the later acquisition of genitive case compared to accusative case in typical development (Stephany 1997 ...
Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and …, 2002
Recent research in the evolution of language has focused on a search for prelinguistic cognitive ... more Recent research in the evolution of language has focused on a search for prelinguistic cognitive abilities which may have been co-opted by the emerging language faculty. One recent suggestion is that subitizing, or the primate and infant human ability to identify and keep track of small sets of participants without counting, may have played a role in the evolution of syntax (Hurford in press, Hauser et al 2000). If this is indeed the case, we may expect to find populations with linked impairments both in the processing of syntactic argument structure and their ability to subitize. This paper reports the results of a pilot study which seeks to test this hypothesis. A small cohort of children diagnosed with Specific Language Impairment and showing syntactic deficits were tested for their ability to subitize. The results for the group as a whole were inconclusive, but one of the subjects showed marked difficulties with both the syntactic and subitizing tasks. We conclude that while further experiments are needed with a larger subject pool, the initial results may support a neural (and therefore evolutionary) link between the processing of argument structure and the ability to subitize.
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2010
This study looks at idiom comprehension by French-speaking people with Williams' syndrome (WS) an... more This study looks at idiom comprehension by French-speaking people with Williams' syndrome (WS) and metapragmatic knowledge is examined. Idiomatic expressions are a nonliteral form of language where there is a considerable difference between what is said (literal interpretation) and what is meant (idiomatic interpretation). WS is characterized by a relatively preserved formal language, social interest and poor conversational skills. Using this framework, the present study aims to explore the comprehension of idiomatic expressions by 20 participants with WS. Participants performed a story completion task (comprehension task), and a task of metapragmatic knowledge to justify their chosen answers. WS performances were compared to typically developing children with the same verbal mental age. The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) People with WS have difficulties to understand idioms; (3) WS group seems to perform partly as typically developing children for the acquisition of metapragmatic knowledge of linguistic convention: there is a progressive increase in metapragmatic knowledge of linguistic convention as age increased. Our results indicate a delay of acquisition in idiom comprehension in Williams' syndrome.
Enfance Psychologie Pedagogie Neuropsychiatrie Sociologie, Sep 1, 2010
International Journal of Language Communication Disorders, 2002
Approximately 7% of young school-aged children have specific language impairments. Many such chil... more Approximately 7% of young school-aged children have specific language impairments. Many such children are now being educated in mainstream settings. However, there is a dearth of up-to-date and valid research that considers UK (student) teachers' attitudes towards such children. This study aimed to investigate trainee teachers' attitudes towards teaching children with speech and language impairments, to investigate the reported effects of those attitudes on participants' acceptance of teaching such children, and to consider any implications for speech and language therapy (SLT) services and inclusive education. Nineteen trainee teachers (PGCE students) from a university in the North West of England took part in semistructured group interviews. The data were transcribed and analysed qualitatively, and recurrent themes identified. A range of attitudes was expressed, and six major themes were identified from the data. Participants discussed concerns about the resources and knowledge they considered necessary to support fully children with specific language impairments. There was some differentiation of attitudes related to the types of disability that a child may have and the subject being taught. Much of the discussion was about disabilities in general rather than specific to speech and language impairments. Many of the participants reflected on their own previous experiences to inform their opinions. Although many of the participants expressed positive attitudes, some had concerns about workload and at least one was openly hostile to the idea of teaching children with disabilities within mainstream settings. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to previous research, the quantitative data obtained in this project, SLT services and the increases in the inclusion of children with specific language impairments into mainstream educational settings.
... Definite Article Procedure: For the elicitation of the definite article, a method similar to ... more ... Definite Article Procedure: For the elicitation of the definite article, a method similar to that of Jakubowicz, Nash, Rigaut & Gérard (1998) was ... all groups can be attributed to the later acquisition of genitive case compared to accusative case in typical development (Stephany 1997 ...
Expressive and receptive speech prosody in a group of children with Williams syndrome and Down... more Expressive and receptive speech prosody in a group of children with Williams syndrome and Down's syndrome are compared with each other and also with typically developing children using a computerized test battery. It is found that the WS children outperform the DS children on all expressive aspects of prosody, despite having comparable receptive language and non-verbal skills. This suggests that differences in prosodic ability may be linked to genetic disorder.
This paper reports the pitch range and vowel duration data from a group of children with Williams... more This paper reports the pitch range and vowel duration data from a group of children with Williams syndrome (WS) in comparison with a group of typically developing children matched for chronological age (CA) and a group matched for receptive language abilities (LA). It is found that the speech of the WS group has a greater pitch range and that vowels tend to be longer in duration than in the speech of the typically developing children. These findings are in line with the impressionistic results reported by Reilly, Klima and Bellugi [17].
Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 2007
The authors investigated expressive and receptive intonation abilities in children with Williams ... more The authors investigated expressive and receptive intonation abilities in children with Williams syndrome (WS) and the relation of these abilities to other linguistic abilities. Fourteen children with WS, 14 typically developing children matched to the WS group for receptive language (LA), and 15 typically developing children matched to the WS group for chronological age (CA) were compared on a range of receptive and expressive intonation tasks from the Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems-Child version (PEPS-C) battery. The WS group performed similarly to the LA group on all intonation tasks apart from the long-item imitation task, on which the WS group scored significantly lower than the LA group. When compared with the CA group, the WS group was significantly poorer on all aspects of intonation. Whereas there were a number of significant correlations between the intonation and language measures in the control groups, in the WS group, there was only 1 significant correlation bet...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2014
International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2009
ABSTRACT We welcome the lead article (Peppé, 2009) which raises important issues with regard to t... more ABSTRACT We welcome the lead article (Peppé, 2009) which raises important issues with regard to the definition of the term prosody, the characterization of prosodic impairments and issues of prosody intervention. We take this opportunity to focus on the issue of prosodic impairment in two developmental conditions: a population with speech and language impairment including those with SLI, and individuals with Williams syndrome. We review the literature on prosody in these two populations and we discuss the issue of what may be considered a prosodic impairment as opposed to a delay in the acquisition of prosodic abilities in these two conditions.
Dyslexia, 2015
The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the saliency effect for word beginnings r... more The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the saliency effect for word beginnings reported in children with dyslexia (Marshall & Van der Lely, 2009) can be found also in typically developing children. Thirty-four typically developing Italian children aged 8-10 years completed two specifically designed tasks: a production task and a perception task. Both tasks used nonwords containing clusters consisting of plosive plus liquid (e.g. pl). Clusters could be either in a stressed or in an unstressed syllable and could be either in initial position (first syllable) or in medial position (second syllable). In the production task, children were asked to repeat the nonwords. In the perception task, the children were asked to discriminate between two nonwords differing in one phoneme belonging to a cluster by reporting whether two repetitions were the same or different. Results from the production task showed that children are more accurate in repeating stressed than unstressed syllables, but there was no difference with respect to position of the cluster. Results from the perception task showed that children performed more accurately when discriminating word initial contrasts than when discriminating word medial contrasts, especially if the cluster was unstressed. Implications of this finding for clinical assessments are discussed.
The Cambridge Handbook of Communication Disorders, 2013
The aim of this study was to investigate comprehension and production of prosody in a group of ni... more The aim of this study was to investigate comprehension and production of prosody in a group of nine children with Down syndrome (DS) and to compare their performance to two control groups: one matched to the DS group on chronological age (CA group) and the other one matched to the DS group on receptive language and non-verbal abilities (MA group). Prosody was assessed using the computerised battery ''Profiling Elements of Prosody for Speech and Communication'' which assesses both prosody form and prosody function. The results showed that the DS group scored significantly lower than the CA matched group on all aspects of prosody under investigation. The DS group scored significantly lower than the MA group on the production of affect and on the production of pre-final narrow focus, and on all four tasks assessing prosody form. The DS group scored, on the whole, significantly higher on the comprehension prosody tasks than on the production ones. This pattern mirrored the one found in the general DS language profile which is characterised with strengths in language comprehension and weaknesses in language production. Interestingly, the receptive language abilities of the DS group did not seem to be related to their prosodic abilities, suggesting that prosody may be an independent cognitive domain.
... and relative strengths in social cognition, linguistic abilities, face processing and auditor... more ... and relative strengths in social cognition, linguistic abilities, face processing and auditory rote memory (Mervis, Morris, Bert, & Robinson ... language abilities as being innately specified and developing in isolation from general cognitive abilities (Clahsen and Almazan, 1998, Pinker ...
of the 2007, 2008
... Definite Article Procedure: For the elicitation of the definite article, a method similar to ... more ... Definite Article Procedure: For the elicitation of the definite article, a method similar to that of Jakubowicz, Nash, Rigaut & Gérard (1998) was ... all groups can be attributed to the later acquisition of genitive case compared to accusative case in typical development (Stephany 1997 ...
Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and …, 2002
Recent research in the evolution of language has focused on a search for prelinguistic cognitive ... more Recent research in the evolution of language has focused on a search for prelinguistic cognitive abilities which may have been co-opted by the emerging language faculty. One recent suggestion is that subitizing, or the primate and infant human ability to identify and keep track of small sets of participants without counting, may have played a role in the evolution of syntax (Hurford in press, Hauser et al 2000). If this is indeed the case, we may expect to find populations with linked impairments both in the processing of syntactic argument structure and their ability to subitize. This paper reports the results of a pilot study which seeks to test this hypothesis. A small cohort of children diagnosed with Specific Language Impairment and showing syntactic deficits were tested for their ability to subitize. The results for the group as a whole were inconclusive, but one of the subjects showed marked difficulties with both the syntactic and subitizing tasks. We conclude that while further experiments are needed with a larger subject pool, the initial results may support a neural (and therefore evolutionary) link between the processing of argument structure and the ability to subitize.
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2010
This study looks at idiom comprehension by French-speaking people with Williams' syndrome (WS) an... more This study looks at idiom comprehension by French-speaking people with Williams' syndrome (WS) and metapragmatic knowledge is examined. Idiomatic expressions are a nonliteral form of language where there is a considerable difference between what is said (literal interpretation) and what is meant (idiomatic interpretation). WS is characterized by a relatively preserved formal language, social interest and poor conversational skills. Using this framework, the present study aims to explore the comprehension of idiomatic expressions by 20 participants with WS. Participants performed a story completion task (comprehension task), and a task of metapragmatic knowledge to justify their chosen answers. WS performances were compared to typically developing children with the same verbal mental age. The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) People with WS have difficulties to understand idioms; (3) WS group seems to perform partly as typically developing children for the acquisition of metapragmatic knowledge of linguistic convention: there is a progressive increase in metapragmatic knowledge of linguistic convention as age increased. Our results indicate a delay of acquisition in idiom comprehension in Williams' syndrome.