Toddlers Unable to Tell If They Mispronounce a Word (Thereby Can't Auto-Correct)

Older children and adults constantly monitor what they say and automatically correct or self-adjust when they hear a peach error... oops, sorry I meant to say "speech" error.

Such auditory feedback error correction however is not something we are born with. Rather it seems to be a skill that develops sometime between ages 2 and 4 years according to a new study.

"Researchers had adults, four-year-olds, and two-year-olds say “bed” repeatedly. But scientists filtered the sound so that the subjects heard themselves through headphones pronouncing it as “bad.” Adults spontaneously compensated, and changed so that the word sounded correct to their own ears. They wound up saying “bid.”

Four-year olds also adjusted their speech.

But the two-year olds kept saying “bed” even though they kept hearing “bad.”"

So, how do young children learn to speak correctly if they can't even hear themselves say something incorrectly?

The answer to this question has great import, especially to speech therapists whose job is to "fix" this problem. ENTs are often consulted as well to ensure a child does not have a tongue tie or hearing loss that can also lead to speech difficulties in a young child.

It's possible that young children depend on their parents to correct them when they say something incorrectly.

However, nobody quite knows for sure.

A follow-up study (not sure if will pass muster with an IRB) would be to have 2 sets of 2 year olds... one group where the parent constantly corrects any speech errors the child makes immediately. The other set would have parents NEVER correct a child's speech errors and let the child learn on their own.

Two possible outcomes... By the age of 5 years, there may be no difference in speech skills between the two groups OR there is a big difference and all the parental anxiety over their 3 years old child's inability to say "pizza" may be unnecessary (along with speech therapy sessions)... after all, they will "grow" or "learn" out of it with time.

Reference:
Toddlers Don't Monitor Their Own Speech. Scientific American 12/24/11

Children's Development of Self-Regulation in Speech Production. Current Biology, 10.1016/j.cub.2011.11.052

ASHA Recognizes Dr. Chang for His Educational Videos

ASHA, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, recently recognized the contributions that Dr. Chang has provided in ENT videos he has created for educational purposes.

In their recent newsletter on October 12, 2010, an article written by Judith Maginnis Kuster, MS, CCC-SLP, wrote an article titled "Videos on the Web". On page 24, she wrote:

Check out the videos she is talking about here.

What Makes A Great Surgeon or Doctor?

Or for that matter, a great violinist? As many psychologists suggest (regardless of whether one is talking about sports, music, painting, astronomy, physics, etc), it entails:

1. Focused practice (at least 10,000 hours according to many)
2. Good coaching
3. Great role model to provide motivation

Does this apply to surgeons or doctors? I believe it absolutely does. 

Any person who puts in enough good training hours under the tutelage of a great teacher with a great role model to aspire to can become a more than competent physician. And as any highly trained professional can attest to, it requires continued training and practice to stay on top of one's game. As Vladimir Horowitz, a premiere concert pianist, once said, "If I skip practice for one day, I notice. If I skip practice for two days, my wife notices. If I skip practice for three days, the world notices."

How does this compare to a surgeon's training and professional career? To use myself as an example, while at Duke where I received 5 years of training to become a head and neck surgeon, I averaged about 110 hours of work training per week during my first 2 out of 5 years. In the last 3 years, I probably averaged around 90 hours a week for a grand total of 25,480 hours of training before I graduated and came to Northern Virginia to be in private practice. During that 5 years of training, I performed nearly 3,000 surgical cases under a master surgeon before graduating. Furthermore, I had plenty of role models at Duke for me to try to aspire towards. A "goal" so to speak, of the kind of surgeon I wanted to become.

A similar experience can be found for all physicians and doctors who go through the American medical training system.

Even after training, physician education is not completed... In fact, it never ends. Indeed, physicians are required to continue to receive education from master instructors, journals, or other text every year (Continuing Medical Education or CME) as well as undergo regular testing to ensure their knowledge is current and comprehensive.

(NOTE: Enforced around year 2005, physicians in training are now required to work no more than 80 hours per week. The number of years of training has remained the same. At this time, it is unclear whether this decrease in training hours has significantly impacted physician training in the United States or not.)