Browsing by Person "Martinez-Castilla, P."

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Assessing prosodic skills in five European languages: Cross-linguistic differences in typical and atypical populations
(2010) Peppé, Sue JE; Martinez-Castilla, P.; Coene, Martine; Hesling, Isabelle; Moen, Inger; Gibbon, Fiona
Following demand for a prosody assessment procedure, the test Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C), has been translated from English into Spanish, French, Flemish and Norwegian. This provides scope to examine receptive and expressive prosodic ability in Romance (Spanish and French) as well as Germanic (English and Flemish) languages, and includes the possibility of assessing these skills with regard to lexical tone (Norwegian). Cross-linguistic similarities and differences relevant to the translation are considered. Preliminary findings concerning 8-year-old neurotypical children speaking the five languages are reported. The appropriateness of investigating contrastive stress in Romance as well as Germanic languages is considered: results are reported for assessing this skill in Spanish and English speakers and suggest that in Spanish it is acquired much later than in English. We also examine the feasibility of assessing and comparing prosodic disorder in the five languages, using assessments of prosody in Spanish and English speakers with Williams syndrome as an example. We conclude that, with caveats, the original design of the UK test may indicate comparable stages of prosodic development in neurotypical children and is appropriate for the evaluation of prosodic skills for adults and children, both neurotypical and with impairment, in all five languages. 2009 The Speech Pathology Association of Australia Limited.
Assessing the user of prosodic accent in Spanish and English clinical populations.
(Euphonia Ediciones, 2009) Peppé, Sue J. E.; Martinez-Castilla, P.; Marrero, V.; Pineda, I.
Cross-linguistic expression of contrastive accent: clinical assessment in Spanish and English.
(2010) Martinez-Castilla, P.; Peppé, Sue JE
Well-documented Romance-Germanic differences in the use of accent in speech to convey information-structure and focus cause problems for the assessment of prosodic skills in populations with clinical disorders. The strategies for assessing the ability to use lexical and contrastive accent in English and Spanish are reviewed, and studies in the expression of contrastive accent in Spanish- and English-speaking typically-developing children are described. These studies used similar tasks requiring pre-final contrastive accent. Results were, however, strikingly different (English > Spanish). Using the same tasks, studies of English-speaking individuals with autism and Williams syndrome showed marked difficulty with the expression of contrastive stress, but the use of such tasks with Spanish speakers may merely reflect cross-linguistic differences. This study presents the methodology and results of these tasks, and suggests alternative methods of assessing the ability to discern and use contrastive accents in Spanish.
Developing a test of prosodic ability for speakers of Iberian Spanish
(Elsevier, 2008-11) Martinez-Castilla, P.; Peppé, Sue JE
In the absence of a Spanish prosody assessment procedure, an English one (Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems-Children: PEPS-C) has been adapted for use with Iberian Spanish speakers. The paper describes the scope, principles and methods of the test and the modifications other than lexical translation that were required to produce a Spanish procedure. Findings from the first studies of data collected using the Spanish test are briefly considered: these suggest crosslinguistic parallels and English/Spanish differences in adult prosodic ability. Lengthier consideration is given to prosodic data from Spanish children and the use of prefinal contrastive accent in the two languages. We conclude that the test is a feasible and valid instrument for assessing Spanish prosodic ability and indicate possible directions for further research. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Expressive prosody in children with autism spectrum conditions
(2011-01) Peppé, Sue JE; Cleland, Joanne; Gibbon, Fiona; O'Hare, Anne; Martinez-Castilla, P.
The expressive prosodic abilities of two groups of school-age children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC), Asperger's syndrome (AS) and high-functioning autism (HFA), were compared with those of typically-developing controls. The HFA group showed impairment relative to age-matched controls on all the prosody tasks assessed (affect, sentence-type, contrastive stress, phrasing and imitation) while the AS showed impairment only on phrasing and imitation. Compared with lexically-matched controls, impairment on several tasks (affect, contrastive stress and imitation) was found in the HFA group but little in the AS group (phrasing and imitation). Comparisons between the ASC groups showed significant differences on prosody skills. Impairment in prosodic skills may therefore be a reliable indicator of autism spectrum subgroups, at least as far as communicative functioning is concerned. There were also significant differences between ASC groups and lexically-matched typically-developing children on expressive language skills, but the incomplete correlation of the prosody results with scores on language tasks suggests that the prosodic differences between the two groups may not all be attributable to the level of language skills. Suggested further research is to investigate the relationship of prosody and language skills in this population more closely, and to develop a prosody test as part of the diagnostic criteria of ASC.
Intonation features of the expression of emotions in Spanish: preliminary study for a prosody assessment procedure
(Informa Healthcare, 2008-04) Martinez-Castilla, P.; Peppé, Sue JE
This study aimed to find out what intonation features reliably represent the emotions of liking as opposed to disliking in the Spanish language, with a view to designing a prosody assessment procedure for use with children with speech and language disorders. 18 intonationally different prosodic realisations (tokens) of one word (lim_n) were recorded by one native Spanish speaker. The tokens were deemed representative of two categories of emotion: liking or disliking of the taste lemon. 30 native Spanish speakers assigned them to the two categories and rated their expressiveness on a six-point scale. For all tokens except two, agreement between judges as to category was highly significant, some tokens attracting 100% agreement. The intonation contours most related to expressiveness levels were: for liking, an inverted U form contour with exaggerated pitch peak within the tonic syllable; and for disliking, a flat melodic contour with a slight fall.