This paper focuses on modeling pronunciation variation in two different ways: data-derived and knowledge-based. The knowledge-based approach consists of using phonological rules to generate variants. The data-derived approach consists of performing phone recognition, followed by smoothing using decision trees (D-trees) to alleviate some of the errors in the phone recognition. Using phonological...

This study examined the effect of word level phonological knowledge on learning to read new words in Down syndrome compared to typical development. Children were taught to read 12 nonwords, 6 of which were pre-trained on their phonology. The 16 individuals with Down syndrome aged 8-17 years were compared first to a group of 30 typically developing children aged 5-7 years matched for word readin...

Infants often hear new words in the context of more than one candidate referent. In cross-situational word learning (XSWL), word-object mappings are determined by tracking co-occurrences of words and candidate referents across multiple learning events. Research demonstrates that infants can learn words in XSWL paradigms, suggesting that it is a viable model of real-world word learning. However,...

In this paper, I argue that phonological performance data provide information about phonological competence. An adequate model of phonological competence must hence be able to account for significant patterns observed in phonological performance data. Based on two word-likeness experiments, I point out some typical properties of phonological performance data, and then show how these properties ...

Reading-related skills of youth with intellectual disability (ID) were compared with those of typically developing (TD) children of similar verbal ability level. The group with ID scored lower than the TD group on word recognition and phonological decoding, but similarly on orthographic processing and rapid automatized naming (RAN). Further, phonological decoding significantly mediated the rela...

Abstract Nonlinear phonological theories have motivated phonological assessment and intervention practices for English for two decades (e.g., Bernhardt & Stoel-Gammon, 1994; Bernhardt & Stemberger, 2000). Such practices focus on all aspects of the phonological system from word structure to segments (phonemes) and features, highlighting and capitalizing on a client’s strengths while addressing h...