Early phonological analyses of sign languages proposed that a sign consists of feature values for four parameters: handshape, orientation of the hand in space (e.g. palm up, fingers away from the body), place of articulation (or location), and movement (features such as shape, repeated, and alternating). This paper deals with what has traditionally been called handshape (Stokoe 1978). In referi...

The conclusions of Bavelier, Newport, Hall, Supalla, and Boutla (2006, this issue) are undermined by an inappropriate procedure for measuring articulation rate. They measured duration for reading a matrix of 200 letters (D. Bavelier, personal communication, May 17, 2006), which may involve a considerable load on visual attention, translation from print, and articulatory planning. This procedure...

Hume, Elizabeth. 2003. Language Specific Markedness: The Case of Place of Articulation. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology. In this paper I draw on evidence from familiar criteria for diagnosing markedness values to argue that markedness is best determined on a language specific basis. I will further conclude that markedness considerations do not provide compelling evidence for cons...

This study aimed to compare the phonological changes due to the application of a speech therapy approach based on distinctive features, using two types of target sounds (the ones which emphasize the contrast, and others which reinforce the distinctive features) in the treatment of phonological disorder. The sample was constituted by seven children with phonological disorder (four boys and three...

Our programme of research aims to find answers to the following questions. How do children acquire their phonetic and phonological systems? What types of developmental delays and disorders occur? Why do such problems occur? In this paper we add to the growing body of evidence that children can acquire phonological systems before they are able to master the phonetic skills needed to convey the c...

A group of Dutch and Cantonese listeners were compared on a audio-visual speech perception task. Using video techniques, lipmovements of syllables were dubbed on a speech signal such that the heard and seen place of articulation d id not match [4]. The Cantonese participants were more influenced by vision than the Dutch. We suggest that the phonological repertoire has an influence on audio-visu...

BACKGROUND hearing discrimination abilities in children with phonological disorders. AIM to investigate the ability of hearing discrimination in children with Phonological Disorders who received or were receiving phonological treatment; to verify if the altered phonemes were the same as those which were not discriminated in the Picture Test for Hearing Discrimination (adapted for Portuguese l...

Background: hearing discrimination abilities in children with phonological disorders. Aim: to investigate the ability of hearing discrimination in children with Phonological Disorders who received or were receiving phonological treatment; to verify if the altered phonemes were the same as those which were not discriminated in the Picture Test for Hearing Discrimination (adapted for Portuguese l...

Speech disorders in ankyloglossia, especially in the young children, were studied from various clinical points and the treatment method was discussed. The subjects were classified into Group A of over 5 years of age and Group B of less than 5 years of age, and also they were classified into Patterns I to IV, according to the site of articulation of the tongue. Then the subjects were discussed f...