Childrens Intonation: A Framework for Practice and Research

Children s Intonation: A Framework for Practice and Research is a practical guide that focuses on the nature, causes and assessment of intonation problems for children and adolescents. Highlighting the importance of intonation for everyday conversational interaction and the implications of this for teaching and therapy contexts, this book addresses the following questions:

How and when do children learn to use intonation for the purposes of interaction? As children get older, does intonation become more important or less important for communication? How might intonation be used to support or compensate for other aspects of language? What are the implications for practitioners, parents and caregivers when interacting with young children?

Clinically oriented, this book explores these questions through case studies that cover a range of developmental communication difficulties including autism spectrum disorders, hearing impairment and specific speech and language difficulties.   It provides readers with a tool for profiling children s intonation skills, a developmental phase model to explain typical and atypical intonation development, a psycholinguistic model of intonation processing, interactional perspectives on intonation use, and consideration of intonation in relation to both written and spoken language.

Foreword vi

Preface viii

Acknowledgements xi

About the companion website xii

1 Intonation 1

2 Turns 17

3 Focus 40

4 Actions 68

5 The Intonation In Interaction Profile (IIP) 92

6 Infancy 113

7 Preschool years 139

8 School years 168

9 Models 199

10 Speech, language and literacy impairments 214

11 Autism spectrum disorders and learning difficulties 249

12 Hearing impairment and cochlear implants 276

References 301

Appendix 1 Transcription conventions and symbols 311

Appendix 2 Background to the recordings of Robin and his mother 314

Appendix 3 The Intonation In Interaction Profile (IIP): Proforma 315

Appendix 4 The Developmental Phase Model 319

Appendix 5 The Intonation Processing Model 324

Appendix 6 The Intonation In Interaction Profile: Mick 325

Appendix 7 The Intonation In Interaction Profile: Jacob 329

Appendix 8 Phonetic transcript: Ricky 333

Index 343

Bill Wells and Joy Stackhouse are both Professors within the Department of Human Communication Sciences at the University of Sheffield, UK