Training production of lexical stress in typically developing children using orthographically biased stimuli and principles of motor learning

Purpose: Impaired lexical stress production characterizes multiple pediatric speech disorders. Effective remediation strategies are not available, and little is known about the normal process of learning to assign and produce lexical stress. This study examined whether typically developing (TD) children can be trained to produce lexical stress on bisyllabic pseudowords that are orthographically biased to a strong- weak or weak-strong pattern (e.g., MAMbey or beDOON), in combination with the principles of motor learning (PML). Method: Fourteen TD children ages 5;0 (years;months) to 13;0 were randomly assigned to a training or control group using concealed allocation within blocks. A pre- to posttraining group design was used to examine the acquisition, retention, and generalization of lexical stress production. Results: The training group learned to produce appropriate lexical stress for the pseudowords with strong maintenance and generalization to related untrained stimuli. Accuracy of stress production did not change in the control group. Conclusion: TD children can learn to produce lexical stress patterns for orthographically biased pseudowords via explicit training methods. Findings have relevance for the study of languages other than English and for a range of prosodic disorders.