Dates: 3-4 April 2014

Location: UCL, London, UK

Meeting website:  https://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/research/speech/lscd-2014

Contact email:  lscd-2014@langsci.ucl.ac.uk

Submission deadline: 6 January 2014

Workshop description:

Much emphasis in research on speech and communication development has been on the rapid developments that occur in the first five years of life. However, less attention has been given to later stages of development. When, in fact, is development truly complete? Research has shown that even when a child is judged to be consistently producing all speech sounds, production is not adult-like, with more dispersed and variable phoneme categories and motor gestures. Similarly, in speech perception, phoneme categories are less clearly defined until early teens and children are more affected by noise and reverberation. Cognitive, attentional and memory factors may also influence children's ability to use speech effectively; communicative and conversational strategies (such as repair and turn-taking) continue to develop in adolescence. The age at which a given linguistic unit or communicative competence has been acquired and what constitutes the criterion for successful acquisition is therefore a far from trivial question.  This will be a particular focus of the workshop, along with the interplay between speech development and cognitive, perceptual and motor systems.

The workshop will provide an opportunity for interactions between researchers from areas of developmental research that rarely meet, even though they are linked:  speech and communication is often investigated either from a purely phonetic/phonological perspective, or focused on interactional/pragmatic principles.  The manner in which the two interact through development is little explored.  These questions are relevant for clinical and educational practice, and also inform theories of language processing and levels of representations.

Invited speakers include:

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (UCL) tbc

Melissa Redford (University of Oregon)

Stuart Rosen (UCL)

Jack Sidnell (University of Toronto)

Bill Wells (University of Sheffield)

Natalia Zharkova (Queen Margaret University)

Call for papers:

We invite submissions, for oral and poster presentations, that deal with the following topics focusing on populations aged 5 years to early adulthood:

-          Later developments in speech perception in typically-developing children

-          Later developments in speech production in typically-developing children

-          Development in discourse: structure, repair strategies, dysfluencies

-          Speech and communication development in bilinguals and second-language learners

-          Development in auditory, cognitive, attentional skills and impact on speech and communication development

-          Development of sociolinguistic variations

-          Perception and production in adverse listening conditions

-          Research on speech and communication development in atypical populations that informs on typical development

Abstracts (in English) should be submitted by 6 January, 2014, via Easychair (submission site open from 15 November). Submitted abstracts should not include authors and affiliations and must not be longer than two pages of A4-format. References and figures can be on an additional page. Abstracts should be single-spaced and in Calibri 11pt font. Abstracts will be evaluated anonymously by two reviewers. Authors will be requested to submit a final version of the extended abstract after acceptance.

Important dates:

First call for papers                                                                       1 October 2013

Abstract submission opens                                                        15 November 2013

Submission deadline of abstracts                                              6 January 2014

Notification of acceptance                                                             31 January 2014

Workshop                                                                                         3-4 April 2014

Local Organising committee:

Sonia Granlund

Lorna Halliday

Valerie Hazan (Chair)

Merle Mahon

Caroline Newton

Michèle Pettinato

Outi Tuomainen

The workshop is organised under the aegis of the ESRC project on Speaker-controlled Variability in Children's Speech in Interaction based at UCL.