Speech, language, and hearing function in twins with Alport syndrome: A seven-year retrospective case report

Phonological development in school-aged Kuwaiti Arabic children with Down syndrome: A pilot study

BACKGROUND

Studies on atypical phonological development are very limited for Arabic, and to date no studies on Arabic have investigated the development of phonology in children with conditions such as Down Syndrome. Arabic, like other Semitic languages, is rich in consonants and consonantal variation. However, it differs greatly from region to region, and so reports on individual dialects or regional dialects are necessary. Kuwaiti Arabic, the focus of the present paper, is similar to other dialects in the Gulf region.

AIM

This is a preliminary study to examine the phonological development of school-aged Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children with Down Syndrome in order to start to address the research gap noted above.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Six Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children were recruited for this pilot study from integrated public schools where children with disabilities and typically developing children are enrolled in the State of Kuwait: three male and three female students, age range of 5;10-12;3 years. All participants had the same single word speech test of 100 words. The first author, a native speaker of Kuwaiti Arabic, audio-recorded and phonetically transcribed the sample with the help of two speech-language pathologists from Kuwait. Reliability was confirmed by the first author and another expert rater. Both match and mismatch analyses were performed and compared to existing literature.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Overall consonant accuracy across participants was 50%, with a variety of matches across consonant categories. However, the participants also exhibited a wide range of mismatches across positions in words and phonological features (place, manner, and laryngeal features). Place substitutions were the most frequent. Some sounds exhibited double (place and manner) mismatches. The most common word structure mismatch was consonant cluster reduction (no matches for word-initial clusters). Mismatch patterns resembled both those of normally developing Kuwaiti children and those of English speakers with Down Syndrome in certain ways.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

This pilot study provides preliminary information for clinicians regarding the speech or children with Down Syndrome (DS), not only in Kuwait but also in the Gulf region where there are similarities to Kuwaiti Arabic.

[Childhood hearing screening: achievements, difficulties, and possible ways to improve]

Hearing impairment is the most common sensory impairment that is seen among adults and children. The frequency of congenital hearing loss is well-known due to implementation of newborn hearing screening. Hearing may change throughout a lifetime due to different factors and, therefore, the number of hearing impaired children increases with age. Introduction of universal newborn hearing screening has enabled earlier detection of hearing loss including unilateral and minimal disorders. Nevertheless, despite significant progress made in this field, there is still a group of hearing impairments that stay undiagnosed timely. Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorders, late-onset hearing loss, low-frequency and minimal hearing impairment are sometimes missed in newborn hearing screening or they manifest later. These types of hearing disorders are covered in detail in this review as well as possible ways of increasing the effectiveness of early diagnosis.