PROFOUND AND MULTIPLE LEARNING DISABILITIES AND LANGUAGE: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF MEANINGFUL, INTELLIGIBLE SUB-VOCAL UTTERANCES BY CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS WITH PROFOUND AND MULTIPLE LEARNING DISABILITIES.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the use of sub vocal (SV) meaningful utterances by 20 children and young adults assessed by their teachers as having profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD.) People designated PMLD are believed to be incapable of using language beyond a few words or symbols and to operate developmentally between 0-24 months, prior to the acquisition of language. Nevertheless, digital recordings captured linguistic sub vocal utterances, apparently meaningful and intelligible by 20 research participants. Consequently, the research hypothesis proposed that: Children and young adults designated PMLD can produce meaningful sub vocal utterances intelligible to listeners. The conclusions from the 4 phases of the research were as follows: 1. As proposed by the hypothesis, 20 research participants designated PMLD can produce meaningful sub vocal utterances intelligible to listeners. 2. Acoustic phonetic features integral to normal speech and whisper can be identified in SV utterances including the presence of a ‘speech like’ event. 3. SV utterances by the participants were intelligible to 40 listeners in closed and open conditions. 4. The content of SV utterances encompass developmental and linguistic levels beyond the developmental age of 0-24 months attributed to individuals designated PMLD. 5. The 20 research participants can produce meaningful language as SV utterances including abstract concepts expressed as views, opinions, and ideas
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