Sekilas PRT untuk melatih perkembangan bahasa anak dengan autisme

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih, M.Sc.
Program Studi Inggris, Departemen Linguistik, Universitas Indonesia
Mengenal Pivotal Response Training (PRT) untuk Membantu
Perkembangan Bahasa Anak-Anak dengan Autisme
Pivotal Response Training (PRT) adalah metode yang dikembangkan untuk
membantu perkembangan anak-anak dengan autisme untuk oleh, antara lain, Robert L.
Koegel, Laura Schreibman, Amy Good, Laurie Cerniglia, Clodagh Murphy, dan Lynn
Kern Koegel dari University of California, Amerika Serikat. Salah satu aspek
pertumbuhan dari anak-anak dengan autisme yang sudah dicoba dikembangkan
menggunakan PRT adalah kemampuan berbahasa. Dalam makalah singkat ini, definisi
PRT, cara mempratikkan PRT untuk membantu perkembangan bahasa anak-anak
dengan autisme, dan pengalaman observasi praktik PRT di klinik untuk anak-anak
dengan autisme akan dibicarakan.
Secara umum, PRT adalah pelatihan yang ditujukan untuk melatih perilakuperilaku yang sentral untuk kehidupan anak-anak dengan autisme. Perubahan positif
pada perilaku-perilaku sentral ini akan menyebabkan perubahan besar pada perilakuperilaku yang lain yang akan menghasilkan perbaikan yang mendasar dan yang
tergeneralisasi pada perilaku anak-anak dengan autisme. Perilaku-perilaku sentral ini
adalah sebagai berikut:
1. motivasi,
2. kemampuan merespon banyak rangsangan,
3. manajemen diri,
4. menumbuhkan inisiatif secara mandiri, dan
5. empati.
Tujuan PRT adalah menggerakkan pertumbuhan anak-anak dengan autisme sehingga
mereka dapat berkembang seperti anak-anak kebanyakan dengan mentargetkan
sejumlah perilaku-perilaku secara umum dan menyediakan untuk mereka kesempatan
untuk hidup secara bermakna di lingkungan natural dan inklusif. Untuk mencapai
tujuan ini, hal-hal berikut ini perlu diperhatikan:

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih, M.Sc.
Program Studi Inggris, Departemen Linguistik, Universitas Indonesia
1. Pertanyaan/instruksi/kesempatan untuk merespon harus:
• jelas, tidak tersela, dan cocok dengan tugas (tepat sasaran);
• diatur sedemikian sehingga tugas-tugas yang sudah bisa
dilakukan juga dipraktikkan;
• diperhatikan oleh anak;
• dipilih oleh anak;
• mencakupi banyak komponen.
2. Imbalan harus:
• langsung diberikan setelah perilaku yang diinginkan dilakukan;
• langsung diberikan setelah ada usaha untuk merespon;
• berhubungan dengan perilaku yang diinginkan.
PRT utamanya dilakukan oleh orang tua, biasanya setelah mendapatkan pelatihan dari
terapis yang berkompetensi. Hal ini bertujuan untuk memaksimalkan kesempatan
anak-anak dengan autisme untuk mengembangkan perilaku-perilaku sentral yang
ditargetkan. Kemudian, semua orang yang berhubungan dengan keseharian anak juga
diharapkan dapat mempraktikkan PRT untuk memastikan kesamaan dan kesatuan
tindakan.
Pola interaksi yang terjadi dalam PRT adalah sebagai berikut:
1. Orang tua (atau orang lain) memberi instruksi, pertanyaan, atau
kesempatan lain untuk merespon;
2. Anak merespon;
3. Orang tua (atau orang lain) memberikan imbalan/konsekuensi kepada
anak yang tergantung pada respon anak (misal pada beberapa
kesempatan sebelumnya anak sudah bisa mengatakan ‘ya’ dengan jelas
ketika ditanya ‘apakah kamu ingin main ke luar?’; ketika anak
hanya mengeluarkan suara yang tidak bisa dimengerti sebagai jawaban,
hal ini tidak didukung dengan cara tidak mengizinkan anak ke luar).

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih, M.Sc.
Program Studi Inggris, Departemen Linguistik, Universitas Indonesia
Untuk membantu perkembangan bahasa anak-anak dengan autisme PRT
dipraktikkan di lingkungan-lingkungan yang biasa ditemui oleh anak-anak. Pada
awalnya, PRT biasanya dilakukan oleh terapis yang berkompetensi di klinik; walaupun
demikian, suasana ruangan klinik diatur sedemikian rupa sehingga mirip dengan
suasana yang lazim dialami oleh anak-anak. Hal ini dapat dicapai antara lain dengan
menyediakan mainan-mainan yang disukai oleh anak yang bersangkutan dan
mendekorasi ruangan sesuai dengan selera anak-anak pada umumnya. Setelah beberapa
waktu, PRT dapat dilakukan secara mandiri oleh orang tua dan orang-orang terdekat di
lingkungan-lingkungan dan kegiatan-kegiatan sehari-hari. Sebagai contoh, kegiatan
berjalan-jalan ke taman dapat digunakan untuk mengajar nama-nama warna dan
kegiatan makan bersama dapat digunakan untuk mengajar nama-nama buah. Bahasa
yang menjadi target pada awalnya dimulai dengan kata-kata sederhana dengan sedikit
suku kata yang dibutuhkan oleh anak pada kehidupannya sehari-hari. Hal ini akan lebih
mudah untuk anak dan orang tua/terapis, terutama untuk anak-anak yang belum dapat
berbicara dan masih sulit menjalin kontak mata. Di bawah ini adalah beberapa contoh
kegiatan yang dapat dilakukan:
1. Susan adalah seorang anak dengan autisme. Paul, kakaknya, bertugas
menjaganya sore ini. Susan mendekati pintu keluar ke halaman dan
berulang-ulang membenturkan kepalanya ke pintu karena dia tidak bisa
membuka pintu itu. Paul melihat kesempatan untuk mendorong Susan
meminta apa yang diinginkannya. Dia mendekati Susan, memegang
tangannya, dan berkata, “Dengarkan aku.” Susan memperhatikan Paul
dan Paul bertanya “Apa kamu mau ke luar?” Susan berkata “Ke luar.”
Paul kemudian berkata “Bagus Susan!” dan ikut bersamanya untuk
main di luar.
2. Sarah menyukai bunga dan ayahnya Harsa memutuskan untuk
mengajarkan nama-nama beberapa bunga favoritnya. Harsa akan
menggunakan pengetahuan warna yang sudah dimiliki Sarah untuk
membantunya memotivasi mempelajari nama-nama bunga. Sambil
berjalan di taman, Harsa menunjuk sekuntum mawar dan bertanya
“Apa warnanya?” Sarah berkata “Merah” , dan dia diizinkan untuk

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih, M.Sc.
Program Studi Inggris, Departemen Linguistik, Universitas Indonesia
memetiknya. Kemudian, dia menunjuk sekuntum mawar yang lain dan
berkata “Ini bunga apa?”, dan dia mendorong Sarah untuk
mengucapkan “mawar.” Ketika Sarah dapat mengucapkannya, dia
diizinkan untuk memetiknya. Lalu Harsa menunjuk sekuntum melati
dan bertanya “Apa warnanya?” Sarah menjawab “Putih”, dan dia
diizinkan untuk memetiknya. Harsa kemudian bertanya “Ini bunga
apa?” ketika menunjuk melati. Dia mendorong Sarah untuk
mengucapkan “melati.” Ketika dia mengucapkannya, walaupun masih
belum sempurna, dia diizinkan untuk memetiknya.
3. Rina menginginkan Roni untuk membacakan cerita sebelum tidur
untuknya. Roni menunjukkan tiga buku dan berkata kepada Rina
“Cerita yang mana sekarang?” Rina menunjuk buku Sesame Street.
“OK,” kata Roni. “Aku bacakan cerita itu.” Dia menunjukkan bukunya
kepada Rina dan berkata kepadanya “Buka bukunya.” Rina membuka
bukunya. “Lihat” kata Roni. “Ada Big Bird di depan rumah. Apa yang
kamu lihat?” Rina menjawab “Tempat sampah Oscar.” “Katakan ‘aku
lihat Oscar di tempat sampah” kata Roni.. Rina mengulangi “Aku lihat
Oscar di tempat sampah.” “Bagus” kata Roni. Apa warna Big Bird?”
“Kuning!” Rina menjawab dengan mudah.
Pada akhirnya diharapkan anak akan termotivasi untuk mengungkapkan kehendak
mereka, dapat mengelola rangsangan dari lingkungan dan lawan bicara, mengatur
dirinya sendiri untuk dapat berkomunikasi dengan orang-orang lain di lingkungannya,
memulai interaksi dan belajar berempati pada lingkungan dan lawan bicara. Dengan
mengembangkan perilaku-perilaku sentral di lingkungan natural dan inklusif,
diharapkan kemampuan bahasa anak dengan autisme dapat berkembang dan kemajuan
yang didapatkan dapat bertahan lama.
Di sebuah klinik anak-anak di Joensuu, Finlandia (Honkalampi Säätiö) pada
awal 2006 saya berkesempatan mengamati penggunaan PRT untuk membantu
perkembangan bahasa seorang anak perempuan berumur 8 tahun dengan
keterbelakangan mental dan beberapa ciri autisme. Sebut saja namanya Nina. Beberapa

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih, M.Sc.
Program Studi Inggris, Departemen Linguistik, Universitas Indonesia
ciri autisme yang ditunjukkannya adalah melakukan stimulasi diri (self-stimulation)
dan perilaku repetitif. Pada awalnya, dia sibuk dengan dirinya sendiri, belum bisa
melakukan kontak mata, dan belum bisa mengucapkan kata yang bermakna (hanya
babbling). Saya berkesempatan mengamatinya selama tujuh hari (90 menit sehari) dan
perkembangan yang akan saya terangkan di makalah ini adalah perkembangan yang
saya lihat dari hari kedua sampai hari keenam di sebuah ruangan di klinik tersebut
yang dilengkapi dengan mainan-mainan yang disukai oleh anak ini dan membuka
kesempatan untuk penggunaan bahasa sederhana.
Pada hari kedua dia mulai memproduksi babbling yang berintonasi sama
dengan kata-kata yang digunakan sebagai prompts pada hari pertama ('berikan', 'lagi',
dan 'menggambar' dalam bahasa Finlandia). Nina lebih bisa menjalin kontak mata pada
hari kedua ini dan lebih bisa bekerja sama dalam 'percakapan' (menghargai turn
taking). Kondisi ini berlanjut sampai hari keempat ketika para terapis dapat
membedakan bunyi yang berhubungan dengan prompts. Contohnya, untuk 'lisää' (lagi)
dia memproduksi bunyi mirip /l/ dan untuk 'anna' (berikan) dia memproduksi bunyi
seperti /a/. Nina sepertinya sudah dapat menangkap konsep suku kata karena bunyibunyi yang diproduksinya mempunyai jumlah suku kata yang sama dengan prompts
(/a/ diucapkan dua kali untuk 'anna' dengan batas yang jelas di antara keduanya).
Pada hari keempat dan kelima kegiatan menunggu dilakukan oleh para terapis
untuk mendorong Nina merespon baik dalam bentuk vokalisasi, kontak mata, atau
keduanya sekaligus. Ketika Nina mendekati seorang terapis sebagai tanda bahwa Nina
ingin terapis tersebut menyalakan sebuah mainan untuknya, terapis tersebut tidak serta
merta menyalakan mainannya. Pada dua hari ini, kadang Nina dapat memproduksi
respon secara spontan tapi pada waktu yang lain tidak. Walaupun belum konsisten,
kemampuan Nina untuk memproduksi respon spontan menunjukkan bahwa dia sudah
mengerti konsep turn taking dan bahwa dia menyadari dia membutuhkan bahasa untuk
merekayasa lingkungan.
Pada hari keenam terjadi kemajuan yang sangat menggembirakan. Dua dari
terapis yang bertugas memberitahukan bahwa Nina dapat memproduksi vokalisasi

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih, M.Sc.
Program Studi Inggris, Departemen Linguistik, Universitas Indonesia
yang sangat jelas yang mirip dengan kata 'anna.' Kualitas vokalnya sempurna
walaupun belum ada bunyi konsonan yang terdengar. Mengenai kemampuan sosialnya,
Nina lebih terbuka yang terlihat dari kontak matanya yang lebih langsung. Pada sesisesi sebelumnya dia memandang para terapis dari sebelah atas matanya tapi pada hari
keenam ini dia melakukannya secara normal. Kemudian, Nina dengan bebas
menunjukkan minat yang lebih besar kepada mainan-mainan yang disediakan.
Sebagai kesimpulan dari penjelasan singkat yang sudah diberikan, PRT
sebagaimana dijelaskan di atas dan dipraktikkan di Honkalampi Säätiö adalah salah
satu cara yang dapat membantu perkembangan bahasa anak-anak dengan autisme. Di
sisi lain, generalisasi perkembangan yang terjadi lebih mungkin bertahan lama karena
PRT dilakukan di lingkungan natural oleh orang-orang yang dekat dengan anak-anak
dengan autisme. Akhirnya, para orang tua yang berminat untuk mengetahui keterangan
yang lebih lengkap mengenai PRT dan penelitian-penelitian yang sudah dilakukan
untuk membuktikan keberhasilannya dapat membaca buku-buku yang disebutkan
dalam daftar pustaka.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih, M.Sc.
Program Studi Inggris, Departemen Linguistik, Universitas Indonesia
Daftar Pustaka
Koegel, Robert L. & Lynn Kern Koegel. 2006. Pivotal Response Treatments for
Autism: Communication, Social, and Academic Development. Baltimore: Paul
 H. Brookes Publishing Co.
Koegel, Robert L., Laura Schreibman, Amy Good, Laurie Cerniglia, Clodagh Murphy,
& Lynn Kern Koegel. How to Teach Pivotal Behaviors to Children with
Autism: A Training Manual.
Schreibman, Laura E. 2005. The Science and Fiction of Autism. London: Harvard
University Press.

Neuroimaging research in Javanese and Sundanese

A Proposal for a Magnetoencephalography Study on the Production of /p/ and /f/ by Sundanese- and Javanese-speaking English Learners: Proficiency or Categorical Perception Influenced by Native Language?


1. Background

A magnetoencephalography study is proposed with the aim of discovering whether the different pattern of producing the English /p/ and /f/ by English learners from two native language groups in Indonesia is due to English proficiency or attentional factors influenced by the native languages. In second language learning, being able to differentiate the phonemes in a foreign language is quite crucial for the successful mastery of the language by learners. However, what is often observed among adult language learners is they have problems in producing phonemes in the foreign language that do not exist or that are not categorical in their native language (i.e. two or more phonemes that do not differentiate meaning or are not phonemic). Learners may have problems with the place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing. In the Language Centre of the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, students from various language backgrounds come to study English. Some of the learners show a very interesting pattern of production problems. They often interchange the phonemes /p/ and /f/ in their utterances, thus resulting in the interchangeable pronunciation between, for example, fan and pen. On closer look, these students speak the same native language, Sundanese (a language spoken primarily in the western part of Java Island located in the western part of Indonesia).

Sundanese is one of the languages spoken in Indonesia. Approximately there are 739 languages spoken in the 13.667 islands of the country. Indonesian people from different ethnic background communicate with one another in the national language, Bahasa Indonesia. For example, in the Java Island and in the small neighboring Madura Island alone there are four native languages spoken, Sundanese, Javanese, Madurese and Betawinese. This condition results in forms of Bahasa Indonesia that are influenced by the native language of the speakers. To illustrate, the Bahasa Indonesia spoken by a Sundanese will differ in terms of at least intonation and word choice compared to that spoken by a native speaker of a Javanese although structurally the two forms are similar. Therefore, what the students bring to the task of learning English is quite heterogeneous as their language system varies depending on their mother tongue and the kind of Bahasa Indonesia they are exposed to. The following map illustrates the language families in Indonesia.


Figure 1. Language families of the languages spoken in Indonesia (taken from http://www.ethnologue.com)


It is interesting because the afore-mentioned phenomenon is rarely observed among learners from other language backgrounds. Therefore, I truly feel the need for a systematic research looking into this phenomenon since what is available so far is anecdotal evidence brought up by teachers at the Language Centre of the University of Indonesia. It is true that in Sundanese, the phoneme /f/ does not exist and that this fact alone may account for the production problems. Yet, the sound system of Sundanese is very similar to that of Javanese (a language spoken primarily in the central and eastern part of Java Island). The script of the two languages and their phonetic transcription are presented in Figure 1 (Wikipedia (http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambar:Hanacaraka-jawa.png) indicates that both Javanese and Sundanese use basically the same script and use the same sound system regarding /p/ and /f/).

Figure 2. Script of Sundanese and Javanese along with their phonetic transcription (taken from Pustaka Wedha Sasangka (Kangjeng Gusti Bendara Raden Adjeng Dhenok Suryaningsih 1967, rewritten in http://www.jawapalace.org/sigidsasongko.html by Sasongko Sigid))
As can be seen from Figure 2, Javanese does not have /f/ either but the Javanese-speaking English learners are seldom observed to interchange /p/ and /f/. Furthermore, it is more interesting if the national language, Bahasa Indonesia, is taken into account. In Bahasa Indonesia, the sounds /p/ and /f/ exist, although again they are not phonemic. /f/ in Bahasa Indonesia is used in words that are taken from foreign languages, most notably Arabic, English, and Dutch. Two examples of such words and their most frequent pronunciations by Sundanese and Javanese are given below.*

a. From Arabic: Yusuf /jusuf/
    By Sundanese  /jusup/
    By Javanese  /jusuf/
b. From English: safe  /seIf/
    By Sundanese  /seIp/  
    By Javanese   /seIf/

For educated native speakers of both languages (those that have gone through high school), they know that the two sounds, if not phonemes, exist in Bahasa Indonesia (and also in English) and have had enough exposure to them. Thus, the different pattern of performance shown by the Sundanese- and Javanese-speaking English learners cannot be attributed to the assumption that it is caused by their unfamiliarity to /f/. Furthermore, it is interesting to investigate systematically whether these problems in the pronunciation of the two phonemes decrease in frequency as the learners get more proficient in English. Before continuing to my MEG research proposal to investigate the auditory and cognitive processes that might underlie this difference with respect to native languages and proficiency, I would like to present a review of the related literature. 

2. Literature

Quite many researchers in early language acquisition have proposed that young infants are able to identify all phonemic contrasts known in world languages (for a review see Jusczyk (1997) chapter 3). This ability then deteriorates so that between 6 and 12 months of age, they begin to be able to recognize only the differences that are phonemic in their native languages. Yet, the nature of the non-native contrasts seem to play a role in the infants' ability to discriminate them. The more distant the non-native phonemes from the

_______

* I thank Diding Fahrudin, S.S., M.A. from the English Department, University of Indonesia, who is a native speaker of Sundanese, for his insightful observation on and information about Sundanese and the pattern of production of /p/ and /f/ by its native speakers in native words and loan words from foreign languages. 
sound system of the native language, the easier the infants discriminate them. Best (1991, in Jusczyk (1997) chapter 4) found out that English-learning infants between the ages of 8 and 12 months could discriminate a place-of-articulation distinction for Ethiopian ejectives but could not discriminate a lateral fricative voicing distinction in Zulu. In Jusczyk (1997 chapter 4), this condition has been attributed to attentional factors rather than deterioration of a sensory substrate given the fact that older children and adults can be trained to discriminate the non-native contrasts quite successfully (for a possible counter-argument see Dehaene-Lambertz (1997)).

Peltola et al. (2005) in a study of 6-year-old Finnish children (9 exposed only to Finnish and 9 other exposed to Finnish and French) found out that early exposure to nonnative language alters preattentive vowel discrimination. Increased MMN (a negativity that is generated by a mismatch between the physical features of the novel stimulus and the neural traces of the repeated sound in sensory memory (Dehaene-Lambertz (1997)) amplitude in the French-immersed group was elicited by a nonnative vowel contrast that is not phonemic in Finnish (i.e. the two vowels are in the same category) but phonemic in French. The increased MMN amplitude produced by the French-immersed group shows that they were more aware of the phonemic contrast of the two vowels as compared to the monolingual Finnish children and that their categorical perception had been modified by the early second language learning. In another study, Carney et al. (1977) studied adults' ability to discriminate bilabial consonants differing in VOT (Voice Onset Time). Crucially, they used procedures that enabled the participants to learn and use relevant cues in the stimuli. The results they obtained are that the three female adult subjects participating in the study could perceive VOT differences within a category and that they could use this information in same-different task, oddity discrimination task, and identification tasks. 

In addition, Peng (1993) observed that degree of proficiency influenced his Taiwanese Amoy-speaking subjects’ precision in producing the Mandarin phonemes /f/ and /x/. In Amoy, there is the phoneme /h/ that is similar to /x/ but /f/ is a “new” phoneme. Peng found out that the more proficient the subjects were in Mandarin, the more native-like their /f/ and /x/. This is done by conducting spectral analyses to check the spectrum of each consonant to show the frequency range and energy of the fricative compared to that produced by native, monolingual Mandarin subjects. This native-like pronunciation was easier to obtain and was more accurate for the new phoneme /f/ than the similar phoneme /x/.

It can be concluded that although very early in life children become less sensitive to contrasts that are not phonemic in their native language, this sensitivity can be trained and may result in good performance in discriminating the non-native contrasts. In the case of foreign language learners, the notion of proficiency plays a very important role in categorical perception. Most important for the research I am proposing here is whether the observed difference in production is due to attentional factors reflected in the processing of the two phonemes (/p/ and /f/), proficiency in English, or perhaps due to both. The following research question is asked.

Will Javanese- and Sundanese-speaking English learners with variable proficiency demonstrate perceptual differences on a MEG task involving /p/ and /f/?

3. Research Design
3.1. Participants

The following table gives the details of the experimental subjects. Nine participants will be in each proficiency level for each of the Javanese and Sundanese groups, thus totaling to 54 people. A control group of 27 participants (9 in elementary group, 9 in intermediate group, and 9 in the advanced group) will also take part in the study. They will be the same in all respects with the experimental group except that they speak a native language that does not have any relationship with Sundanese and Javanese. I chose Bahasa Manado (spoken in the northern part of Sulawesi Island in the eastern part of Indonesia) as the native language of the control group based on the reason just mentioned and because of it has relatively many native speakers (compared to other native languages) that will make it easier to find participants speaking this language.  


English proficiency (based on IELTS speaking score)

Education level
Age
Handedness
Exposure to the native languages

Elementary (4-5)
Intermediate (6-7)
Advanced (8 and higher)

At least have graduated from high school

18-50

right-handed

Sundanese, Javanese or Manadonese as mother tongue and spoken actively until at least 10 years of age.
Table 1. Details of experimental and control subjects.

As this will most probably be based on voluntary participation, I cannot control for gender composition although I will control for English proficiency, education level, age, handedness, and most importantly exposure to the native languages (i.e. Javanese, Sundanese, and Manadonese). Also, as far as I know, what effects gender brings to results of MEG or neuroimaging studies in general are still unknown.
English proficiency is based on IELTS speaking score since this research is concerned mainly with different English production by the two native language groups. IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is an English language assessment that is owned, developed and delivered through the partnership of the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations in which Speaking is one of the language skills assessed. IELTS speaking score can be used as a preliminary screening criterion (for scoring criteria and band scale see http://www.ielts.org/candidates/results/default.aspx). The subjects in both the experimental and control groups will be recruited right after the administration of the IELTS at the Language Centre of the University of Indonesia.  
As mentioned previously, exposure to Bahasa Indonesia is taken to consideration to control for participants' knowledge of the two phonemes under investigation. Twelve years of formal schooling is adequate to control for this. Next, age is specified at the range between 18 to 45 years old mainly to control for education (people usually finish high school at the age of 18) and possible effects of aging on cognitive processing. Handedness is controlled to facilitate interpretation of the results obtained. Although this study will not use strict language stimuli, there are some researchers (e.g. Shestakova et al. (2002), Phillips et al. (2000)) who hypothesize that abstract phoneme representations are located in the hemisphere dominant for language. As a result, incorporating data from left-handed or ambidextrous participants will be difficult. Lastly, exposure to Sundanese, Javanese or Manadonese is included as one of the screening criteria as enough time needs to be allocated for the general sensitivity (children's sensitivity to all the phonemic contrasts known to languages of the world) to develop into sensitivity only to contrasts in the language the children are learning. Although this reorganization is developed at around 12 months of age, I strongly believe children still need more time to be able to master the production of the phonemes in their native language, especially the difficult ones (the phonemes /r/ and /l/ are usually the most difficult to produce by Indonesian children regardless of the native language they are learning). Hence, I arbitrarily chose 10 years period for active use of the native languages. 

3.2 Materials and Methods

Before administering the MEG procedures, I would like to collect behavioural data from the experimental and control participants regarding the perception and production of /p/ and /f/. This consists of two tasks. In the first task the participants are asked to listen to a short story read by a native speaker of English and are asked to count with the help of a counter how many /p/s and /f/s are spoken in the story. They will also be asked to count the occurrence of two control phonemes /t/ and /s/. These two control phonemes, whose production by Sundanese- and Javanese-speaking English learners has never been observed to be impaired, are chosen to make sure that the participants do not have problems with perceiving manner of articulation, plosive and fricative respectively.  The story will be read four times, once for the identification of each of the phonemes. The order of phonemes asked will be varied among participants to control for training effects. Thus, for example, only two participants from each level of one language group will be asked to identify /p/ as the first phoneme.  In the second task the participants are given 2 minutes to produce words containing /p/, /f/, /t/, and /s/ in whatever position. The second task will take approximately 10 minutes (two minutes times four plus training time) while the first task will last for about 15 minutes. The results obtained here will serve as preliminary baseline regarding the perception and production of the two phonemes under investigation.

Table 2. Illustration of the randomization of the phonemes to be identified in the first part of the behavioral task.


The MEG materials and procedures follow those used by Shestakova et al. (2002). MEG is used because of its relatively superior temporal and spatial sensitivity compared to other imaging techniques. Using MEG, we can detect when the brain’s magnetic event-related responses happen and locate the generators of those responses. The two phonemes under investigation (/p/ and /f/) and the two control phonemes (/t/ and /s/) are presented in a syllable with vowel /a/ (i.e. /pa/, /fa/, /ta/, and /sa/) and are organized in such a way that a new standard category is formed after each deviant (the roving-standard paradigm). The stimuli immediately following the change of a category are regarded as deviants, while the stimuli following 3 repetitions of the same category are regarded as standards.


S  S  S  D  ??????D  ??????D  ??????S  S  D ??????D  ??????S  S  S  D????????S  D  ?
    /fa/         /ta/           /pa/               /sa/        /pa/                 /fa/                  /ta/            /sa/
Figure 3. A 30-second stimulus block. S stands for standard and D for deviant. The two stimuli in a row presented directly after the deviant stimulus will not be included in the standard average (hollow squares)



The syllables will be recorded from a native speaker of English who is different from the one whose voice is used for the behavioral tasks.
 
Following Shestakova et al. (2002), participants sit in a magnetically shielded chamber watching a silent video that they have chosen. They are told to ignore the stimuli which are presented binaurally through plastic tubes with Presentation software. The MEG responses are recorded with a whole-head magnetometer. MMNm (magnetic counterpart of MMN) are obtained by subtracting the response to standard stimuli from that to deviants. Following Hämäläinen et al. (1993) and Huotilainen et al. (1998) (cited in Shestakova et al. (2002)), MMNm sources are estimated to be in 100-250 ms range from stimulus onset. 

3.3. Expectations

Data from each language group (3 subgroups) are going to be analyzed using ANOVA. If difference is detected by ANOVA, I will perform t-test to determine where the significant difference lies. For the two preliminary behavioral tasks, I expect that in the Sundanese group, the more proficient the participants are, the better their performance is. In other words, the ability of the elementary Sundanese subgroup to perceive instances of and produce the experimental phonemes is lower than that of the Sundanese intermediate group which in turn is lower than that of the Sundanese advanced group. This expectation is based on the assumption that training can increase the Sundanese-speaking English learners’ perceptual sensitivity to /p/ and /f/. In second language learning, length of training is shown by levels. Thus, participants in the Elementary sub-group are assumed to have undergone shorter training period compared to the Intermediate sub-group who in turn have been trained in shorter time than the Advanced sub-group. Using ANOVA for the other two language groups (the Javanese and Manado groups), I expect difference of a lesser degree among the proficiency levels or no difference at all. This is expected because the phenomenon of interchanging /p/ and /f/ is generally not observed among Javanese- and Manadonese-speaking English learners.

The same procedure is going to be done for each proficiency level encompassing native languages. I expect significant result of the ANOVA and that t-test done afterwards shows that the performance of the elementary subgroup is significantly less successful than that of the other two groups. This is expected because the low degree of success of the Sundanese-speaking participants in the Elementary sub-group will affect the degree of success of the Elementary group in general. In the Intermediate and Advanced groups, the general success is expected to be higher as the Sundanese-speaking learners only have minor perceptual problems or no longer have the problems as a result of the English training and can produce the phonemes more successfully. 

As for the MEG data, MMNm responses are going to be obtained by subtracting the response to standard stimuli from that to deviants. I expect to find significant differences in the prominence of the MMNm responses to category changes between the Sundanese elementary subgroup and the two other Sundanese subgroups. More specifically, this less strong response will be observed only between /pa/ and /fa/ and not between the experimental phonemes and the control phonemes or between the two control phonemes. This is the case because I assume the elementary Sundanese-speaking learners do not show perceptual differences in processing /p/ and /f/ that leads to their more often interchangeable pronunciation of the two phonemes.


Figure 4. An example of the subtraction of response to standard stimuli from that to deviants (taken from Shestakova et al. (2002) p. 1814)


Following Shestakova et al. (2002), I expect that the sequential equivalent current dipole (ECD) of the MMNm (magnetic counterpart of the MMN) sources explains a lower percentage of magnetic signals over the left temporal cortex of the elementary Sundanese group than it does for the two other Sundanese subgroups. MMNm responses to category change that lead to different percept of /pa/ and /fa/ of approximately the same prominence is expected to be observed in the left temporal cortex of the Javanese and Manadonese participants regardless of proficiency levels since generally they do not show problems in producing these two phonemes. 

However, another possibility may happen. Difference in the behavioral tasks and in the prominence of the MMNm responses may not be observed among the proficiency levels. Instead, the difference may be observed across the language groups. This is to say that, for example, the Sundanese-speaking English learners as a group show the same pattern of MMNm responses. If this difference across the language groups is detected using ANOVA, further t-test may highlight where exactly the significant difference lies (Javanese vs Sundanese, Javanese vs Manadonese, or Sundanese vs Manadonese). Of special interest is if the significant difference is found between the Javanese and Sundanese because this means that the similarity in their sound system does not result in similar performance in perceiving category boundary between /p/ and /f/ or /pa/ and /fa/. If this is the case, then a further research needs to be done to unfold what in the two languages makes this possible. Perhaps the phoneme /p/ is used more frequently in Sundanese leading to its higher saliency in utterances.

4. Conclusion

A magnetoencephalography study is proposed with the aim of discovering whether the different pattern of producing the English /p/ and /f/ by English learners from two native language groups in Indonesia is due to English proficiency or attentional factors influenced by the native languages. If the first hypothesis is correct, the more proficient the participants, the more prominent MMNn responses are expected to be shown. Furthermore, a different pattern of MMNm responses are expected between the two experimental groups with the Javanese showing more similarity to the responses of the control group. If the second hypothesis is correct, differences will be observed across language groups and not across proficiency levels. If the second hypothesis is correct, it will bring some implications to English teaching in Indonesia. One possible implication is extra time and attention may be needed to enhance the perceptual sensitivity of learners from a certain native language background so that they can perceive and categorically differentiate the two experimental phonemes and produce them correctly from the early level of training. For example, this extra time and attention can be realized in classroom activities and use of workbooks for the learners focusing on the phonology of English.



References

Ackermann, H., Lutzenberger, W., & Hertrich, I. (1998). Hemispheric lateralization of the neural
    encoding of temporal speech features: a whole head magnetoencephalography study. Cognitive
    Brain Research 7, 511-518.
Carney, A.E., Widin, G.P., & Viemeister, N.F. (1977). Noncategorical perception of stop consonants
    differing in VOT. Journal of Acoustical Society of America 62, 961-970.
Dehaene-Lambertz, G. (1997). Electrophysiological correlates of categorical phoneme perception in
    adults. NeuroReport 8, 919-924.
Jusczyk, P.W. (1997). The Discovery of Spoken Language. Cambridge M.A.: MIT Press.
Kaukoranta, E., Hari R., & Lounasmaa, O.V. Responses of the human auditory cortex to vowel onset
    after fricative consonants. Experimental Brain Research 69, 19-23.
Peltola, M.S., Kuntola, M., Tamminen, H., Hämäläinen, H., & Aaltonen, O. (2005). Early exposure to
    non-native language alters preattentive vowel discrimination. Neuroscience Letters 388, 121-125.
Peng, S.H. (1993). Cross-language influence of Mandarin /f/ and /x/ and Taiwanese /h/ by native
    speakers of Taiwanese Amoy. Phonetica 50, 245-260.
Phillips, C., Pellathy, T, Marantz, A., Yellin, E., Wexler, K., Poeppel, D., McGinnis, M., & Roberts,
    T. (2000). Auditory cortex accesses phonological categories: an MEG mismatch study. Journal of
    Cognitive Neuroscience 12, 1038-1055.
Shestakova, A., Brattico, E., Huotilainen, M., Galunov, V., Soloviev, A., Sams, M., Ilmoniemi, R.J.,
    & Näätänen, R. (2002). Abstract phoneme representations in the left temporal cortex: magnetic
    mismatch negativity study. NeuroReport 13, 1813-1816.
Werker, J.F. & Lalonde, C.E. (1988). Cross-language speech perception: initial capabilities and
    developmental change. Developmental Psychology 24, 672-683. 
http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.ethnologue.com/

Sekilas disleksia untuk para orang tua di Indonesia

Hubungan antara Kesadaran
Fonologis dengan
Belajar Membaca dan Disleksia
Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih, S.Hum.,M.Sc.

Departemen Linguistik, Fakultas Ilmu
Pengetahuan Budaya
UNIVERSITAS INDONESIA


Apa itu kesadaran fonologis?
Kesadaran anak akan bunyi bahasa
. Kesadaran akan suku kata
. Kesadaran akan fonem
. Kesadaran akan onset dan rima (unit intrasuku kata)

Contoh:

Suku kata Onset dan Rima Fonem
“buku” bu-ku b-uku b-u-k-u
“syok” syok sy-ok s-y-o-k
“pingpong” ping-pong p-ing-p-ong p-i-n-g-p-o-n-g

Kesadaran fonologis berpengaruh
pada kemampuan dekoding

Kemampuan anak untuk mengaplikasikan
prinsip-prinsip korespondensi grafem-fonem
ketika belajar membaca


Bagaimana kesadaran fonologis
berkembang?

. Di bahasa-bahasa Eropa yang sudah banyak
diteliti ® suku kata, rima, fonem
. Di bahasa Indonesia ® suku kata, fonem

Hubungan antara kemampuan
dekoding dan kemahiran membaca

Kesuksesan yang didapat dari proses dekoding akan menghasilkan kemampuan membaca berdasarkan melihat (sight word reading)
® kemampuan yang dimiliki pembaca mahir


Apa hubungan antara kesadaran
fonologis dan disleksia?

. Dekoding adalah sumber masalah yang sering ditemui pada anak-anak dengan disleksia
. Pada bahasa-bahasa dengan sistem ejaan
teratur seperti Bahasa Indonesia ® membaca membutuhkan waktu yang lama

Hubungan antara dekoding dan
prestasi membaca

Di Bahasa Indonesia, kesuksesan membaca
sepertinya dipengaruhi oleh tingkat perkembangan konversi grafem-fonem
. Paling sukses ® grafem tunggal dan kumpulan konsonan tidak masalah, hanya digraf
bermasalah
. Agak sukses ® digraf masih bermasalah,
penyederhanaan kumpulan konsonan
. Paling tidak sukses ® cue reading (substitusi satu kata dengan kata lain yang terlihat
sama)

Aphasia research in Bahasa Indonesia

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
Validating A Test on Temporal and Aspectual Adverbs of Time
Denoting Past Tense to Non-Brain Damaged Speakers of Bahasa
Indonesia

1. INTRODUCTION
This paper reports development of a test on temporal and aspectual adverbs of time denoting past
tense in Bahasa Indonesia. The test is developed to be used with individuals with Broca's aphasia,
who have been shown by crosslinguistic research to be impaired in the production of tense. Of
interest is the fact that in the literature this deficit has been observed only in the languages that
inflect verbs for tense and that in Bahasa Indonesia no such inflection is found. Tense is marked by
either temporal or aspectual adverbs. The developed test reported in this paper can shed light to
what will happen in the agrammatic production of tense in Bahasa Indonesia compared to what has
been reported in the literature with speakers of languages that use inflections to mark tense.
According to Crystal (2003), tense is defined as a category used in the grammatical description of
verbs (along with aspect and mood), referring primarily to the way the grammar marks the time at
which the action denoted by the verb took place. Different languages have different number of
tenses and different ways of denoting the tenses. Most notably in Indo-European languages, tense is
shown by inflection attached to the finite verbs in clauses. This inflection has proven to be of
interest to linguists since crosslinguistic evidence of breakdown in producing and understanding the
tense inflection has helped to understand the processes involved in language production and
comprehension.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
Friedmann and Grodzinsky (1997) reported a Hebrew-speaking patient who could produce
agreement inflection perfectly but was impaired in the production of tense inflection, use of copula,
and embedded structures. This deficit seems to be selectively observed in production as her
grammaticality judgment was significantly better.

Figure 1. A comparison of Friedmann and Grodzinsky's patient's performance on Judgment versus Production (source:
Friedmann and Grodzinsky 1997 p. 408)
To account for this finding, they proposed the Tree-Pruning-Hypothesis (TPH):
a. C, T, or Agr is underspecified in agrammatism.
b. An underspecified node cannot project any higher.
The possible deficits according to the TPH are Complementizer, Tense, and Agreement are
impaired, Complementizer and Tense are impaired, and only Complementizer is impaired.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia

Figure 2. Agrammatic phrase marker. Arch represents site of deficit. (source: Lee 2003 p. 172)
However, some researchers have found patterns of deficits that are not in line with the TPH. Lee
(2003) in her study on Korean agrammatism, found out that the higher node (Mood in matrix
sentences and Complementizer in embedded clauses) is preserved while the lower node (Tense in
matrix sentences and Mood in embedded clauses) is impaired.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia

Figure 3. The syntactic tree for a Korean clause (source: Lee 2003 p. 176)
Along the same lines, Wenzlaff and Clahsen's subjects (2004) were more impaired in the
production* and comprehension of tense inflection compared to the production and comprehension
of agreement inflection. Of special importance is the hierarchy of TP and AgrP mentioned by the
authors. They stated that in German AgrP is above TP and therefore impaired AgrP predicts
impaired TP, which is not supported by their finding. Based on this result, they proposed the Tense-
Underspecification-Hypothesis (TUH). The main point of the TUH is that AgrP and TP do not have
hierarchical positions and both of them are hosted by the T-node. In agrammatism, the T-node is
underspecified for tense features and as a result it predicts that Tense will be more impaired than
Agreement regardless of their hierarchy in the syntactic tree.
* This is mentioned following the term used by the authors although some people would possibly argue that the
production task carried out was not actually asking the subjects to produce the correct tense and agreement inflections
thus the results are not quite valid to state something about production.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
The present author would like to draw attention to the speculation made by Burchert, Swoboda-
Moll, and De Bleser (2005) as to why Tense but not Agreement is underspecified in agrammatism
as this will serve as the basis of the discussion about tense in Bahasa Indonesia in the next section of
this paper. They speculated that "Tense requires the establishment of an anaphoric relationship
between the speech act and an event time in the discourse, unlike agreement marking. Such
discourse related phenomena have been found to be impaired in agrammatic aphasia, as was shown
in the interpretation of non-reflexive pronoun" (p. 192). One of the studies on non-reflexive
pronouns cited is that by Grodzinsky, Wexler, Chien, Marakovitz and Solomon (1993). In this
study, the agrammatic speakers had problems in applying Rule-i (NP A cannot corefer with NP B if
replacing A with C, C A-bound by B yields an indistinguishable interpretation). This rule is applied
in the following examples (Grodzinsky et al. 1993).
a. Is Mama Bear touching herself?
b. Is Mama Bear touching her?
Her in (b) cannot corefer with Mama Bear because this will result in a reading that is
indistinguishable from sentence (a). Grodzinsky et al. (1993) argued that the aphasics' failure to
apply Rule-i for sentences like (b) (i.e. to decide whether her corefers or not with Mama Bear) is
caused by their inability to hold the two representations in their working memory and to compare it
with context to come up with the best reading. This anaphoric relationship between context and
non-reflexive pronouns is the one assumed to be also responsible for the underspecification of
Tense in the TUH.
Before moving on to the report of the preliminary attempt, I would like to state the reasons why two
tasks are used in the preliminary attempt reported in this paper: repetition and reading tasks (see
Method section for more details). The reason why the two tasks are employed is to show whether
Burchert, Swoboda-Moll, and De Bleser’s (2005) speculation mentioned earlier is due to Tense per
se or a result of the task used (discourse/production). Furthermore, reading task makes sure that the

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
participants really process the language and not just parroting back the experimental sentences. Of
course, this design will affect the choice of aphasic participants in the later part of the research. The
aphasic patients need to have relatively minor problems regarding reading and repeating.
Below I sketch the structure of Bahasa Indonesia that is tested and state the research questions in
light of the previous discussion based on the literature.
2. THE REALIZATIONS OF PAST TENSE IN BAHASA INDONESIA
Bahasa Indonesia is the national language of Indonesia, spoken by approximately 200 million
people. Only about one-third of the number (700 thousand) acquire it as a mother tongue as the
majority of the Indonesian population still speak one or more of the languages of their respective
ethnic group. Even among those who acquire it as a mother tongue, dialectal differences can be
observed that mainly show the influence of the ethnic languages of parents or other adults
interacting closely with the children A possible condition is that children of Javanese parents born
and raised in Jakarta, the capital, more often than not acquire Bahasa Indonesia as their mother
tongue although the vocabulary and structure often reflect the native language(s) of their parents or
other care givers and in turn their language will be different from that of children whose parents are
Sundanese or from the eastern or more western parts of the country.
Bahasa Indonesia is an SVO language. The verbs in Bahasa Indonesia take the same form for all
numbers and persons. This also applies for tense. Tense is not denoted by inflection attached to the
verbs but by temporal and aspectual adverbs of time. Aspectual adverbs of time (sudah and telah)
always come before the main verbs while the temporal adverbs can come at the end of sentences
(default position), before the subject, and after the subject. The following sentences are examples of
past tense sentences taken from the developed test.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
a. Dia pergi ke rumah sakit kemarin .
(S/he went to the hospital yesterday.)
b. Kemarin Ani menyelesaikan pekerjaan rumahnya.
(Yesterday Ani finished her homework.)
c. Mereka kemarin lusa membuat sebuah rencana besar.
(They two days ago made a big plan.)
d. Mereka sudah memasak makanan untuk sarapan.
(They have cooked the food for breakfast.)
e. Saya telah meminta izin dari kantor.
(I have asked permission from the office.)
However, some verbs in Bahasa Indonesia are inflected to show transitivity. In the folowing
examples, sentence (f) is an example of an intransitive sentence using the verb jatuh (fall) while
sentence (g) is its transitive counterpart.
f. Gelas itu jatuh.
(The glass falls/is falling.)
g. Tiwi menjatuhkan gelas itu.
(Tiwi drops the glass.)

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
Going back to past tense in Bahasa Indonesia, the following trees are proposed for sentences (a) to
(e). S

NP VP

Pron VP NP AdvP

Saya Adv V N Adv N
telah meminta izin dari kantor
Figure 4. The syntactic tree for a past tense sentence with aspectual adverb telah
 S
NP VP

 Pron VP

Dia

 AdvP AdvP
V AdvP NP Adv
pergi Adv N Adj kemarin
ke rumah sakit
Figure 5. The syntactic tree for a past tense sentence with temporal adverb kemarin in its default position
As can be observed from figures 4 and 5, verbs do not need to collect or to be checked for tense in
Bahasa Indonesia. In light of the previous discussion about agrammatic production in the languages
that inflect verbs for tense, it is interesting to ask what will happen in Bahasa Indonesia. The first
possibility is that there can be a dissociation in the production of the two kinds of adverbs. The
aspectual adverbs telah and sudah are not anchored at a certain time. What they show is that the
actions happened at an unspecified time in the past. On the other hand, the temporal adverbs (e.g.
kemarin, kemarin lusa) explicitly give the time of happening. Also, syntactically sudah and telah

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
have their fixed position in sentences (i.e. before the finite verbs) while the temporal adverbs can
occupy one of three possible positions (see example sentences (a) to (c)). The interplay of the
physical and syntactic properties of the two kinds of adverbs may lead to dissociation in their
production by Broca's aphasics. One kind of adverb may be produced quite successfully while the
production of the other one may be significantly impaired. The temporal adverbs may be easier for
the aphasic patients to produce because they are anchored at specific points in time and hence do not
engage memory very much. However, their three possible positions in sentences may pose
problems. On the other hand, the aspectual adverbs do not specify points in time but their positions
are more fixed in sentences. This combination may also lead to the aphasic patients’ success in
producing the aspectual adverbs as compared to that of the temporal adverbs.
The second possibility is the total failure to produce the adverbs. The reasoning follows Burchert,
Swoboda-Moll, and De Bleser's (2005) speculation on why Tense but not Agreement is
underspecified in agrammatism. This underspecification of Tense-features is because there is a
difference in the semantic interpretability between Tense and Agreement. Tense is underspecified
because it is semantically interpretable and taxes the working memory of the aphasic patients
(Burchert, Swoboda-Moll, De Bleser (2005). If Bahasa Indonesia-speaking Broca's aphasics have
problems in holding in memory the past tense sentences read to them and to differentiate the now
and here of the test administration and the there and then mentioned in the sentences, they may
abandon the adverbs altogether and produce present tense sentences in an attempt to repeat the
sentences (for details of the test, see the Method section). One piece of evidence that can support
this possibility is Friedmann’s (2000) finding that her Hebrew-speaking participants substituted one
tense with another in a repetition task. Nevertheless, something different might happen in the
reading task as memory is not so much demanded here compared to the condition in the repetition
task. Perhaps dissociation or failure is observed to a lesser degree in the reading task.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
In summary, the validated test reported in this paper is developed to assess the production of
temporal and aspectual adverbs of time in the speech of Bahasa Indonesia-speaking agrammatics. It
aims at answering three questions:
1. Is the success in reading and repeating adverbs marking past tense in Bahasa Indonesia by
aphasic patients influenced by different working memory engagement poses by the repetition and
reading tasks?
2. If yes, which kind of adverb is more difficult to produce in each of the task?
3. What factors may cause this observed pattern of difficulty?
3. METHOD
3.1. Subjects
Ten non-brain damaged Bahasa Indonesia native speakers without hearing defect and history of
dyslexia volunteered in the validation of the test. Seven of them are males. As true native speakers
of standard Bahasa Indonesia are very hard to be found based on the explanation in section 2, the
experimenter/author tried to make sure that the volunteers were exposed to a form of Bahasa
Indonesia when they were young children if not from birth by asking them beforehand. They are
master students studying in The Netherlands (9 in Groningen and 1 in The Hague) with age range
between 25 to 40 (mean age 33).

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
3.2. Materials
The subjects were presented 30 sentences of standard Bahasa Indonesia in the past tense. The
sentences were presented orally one by one in the repetition task and were shown one by one on a
piece of hard paper in the reading task. Fifteen of those are sentences with aspectual adverbs and the
rest are sentences with temporal adverbs (see table 1 for some examples and Appendix 2 for a
complete list). Seven of the sentences with aspectual adverbs have sudah as the adverb marking past
tense and the rest have telah. The sentences with temporal adverbs are divided further based on the
position of the adverbs in the sentences: five with the adverbs at the beginning of the sentences, five
with the adverbs located after the subjects, and the other five with the adverbs at the end of the
sentences (default position). The sentences were randomized so that a sentence with a temporal
adverb does not come after another sentence that also has a temporal adverb.
There are two tasks: a repetition task and a reading task. The same set of sentences is used in the
two tasks to ensure comparison in the subjects's performance. After finishing the two tasks, the
participants were asked to volunteer their opinion on the grammaticality of the sentences.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia

Sentences with aspectual adverbs Sentences with temporal adverbs
Saya sudah bertemu dia di rumah.
(I have met him/her at home.)
Tadi pagi Ari menyetujui usul saya.
(This morning Ari agreed to my suggestion.)
Dewi telah mengirim surat kepada ibunya.
(Dewi has sent the letter to her mother.)
Saya tadi pagi meminta izin dari kantor.
(I this morning asked permission from the
office.)
Adam telah membaca sebuah novel terkenal.
(Adam has read a famous novel.)
Saya bertemu dia di rumah tadi pagi.
(I met him/her at home this morning.)
Table 1. Examples of experimental sentences used in the repetition and reading tasks
3.3 Procedure
In the repetition task, after practice with the example sentences, the experimenter read out the
experimental sentences one by one and each of the subjects was asked to repeat the sentences. On
request, the experimenter read out the sentences for a second time and the subjects were given one
chance to repeat each of the sentences. In the reading task administered a few hours after the
repetition task, the same sentences were used. To minimize distraction, each of the sentences is
written on a piece of hard paper and, after practice with example sentences, the subjects were asked
to read the sentences aloud one by one.
3.4. Scoring
A simple correct/incorrect system was used based on whether the subjects produced the adverbs in
the correct position as mentioned in the experimental sentences. The errors were then analysed

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
qualitatively. The correct number of sentences with aspectual adverbs produced was compared with
the correct number of sentences with temporal adverbs produced. Then for the sentences with the
temporal adverbs, errors were checked whether they occured more in the sentences with the adverbs
at the beginning of the sentences, in the sentences in which the adverbs come after the subjects, or
in the sentences with the adverbs at the end of the sentences. Furthermore, errors were classified as
omission, inflection, semantic paraphrasia, or other.
4. RESULTS
The subjects performed perfectly (100%) in the reading task while in the repetition task, the mean
percentage of correctly repeated sentences is 96.3%. However, this ceiling performance may have
been due to their literacy level and education as the participants are all graduate students. Overall,
there were 11 mistakes, the majority of which (8) involved adding the aspectual adverb sudah or
telah to a sentence that already contains a temporal adverb resulting in sentences like "*Mereka
kemarin lusa telah membuat sebuah rencana besar." The other three mistakes involved substitution
(substituting telah with sudah), addition (adding sudah to a sentence that already contains telah) and
word order (Kami kemarin instead of Kemarin kami). The addition of telah or sudah to sentences
that already contain temporal adverbs seemed to be a result of interference of the previous
sentences. The eight mistakes involved five different sentences and each of those sentences are
preceeded by a sentence with telah or sudah. Furthermore, six of the eight additions of telah or
sudah happened to sentences that have the pattern Subject + Temporal Adverb + Verb. The other
two happened to sentences with the patterns Temporal Adverb + Subject + Verb and Subject +
Verb + Temporal Adverb respectively.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
However, the explanation that the ungrammatical addition of telah or sudah happened only because
of interference is not adequate since this phenomenon does not affect the three patterns to the same
degree. The sentences whose pattern is Subject + Temporal Adverb + Verb seem to be more
vulnerable to the ungrammatical addition of sudah or telah since 3 out of 5 sentences with this
pattern preceeded by telah or sudah are affected, compared to 1 out of 2 with the pattern Temporal
Adverb + Subject + Verb and 1 out of 3 with the pattern Subject + Verb + Temporal Adverb.
This vulnerability of the pattern Subject + Temporal Adverb + Verb is also coupled by the fact
that 30% (3 out of 10) of the participants judged this pattern as the strangest or least common and
hence the most difficult to produce. Each of the other two patterns (Temporal Adverb + Subject +
Verb and Subject + Verb + Temporal Adverb) is judged as the strangest or least common only
by 10% of the subjects. This judgment and the error patterns mentioned previously seem to explain
the vulnerability of this pattern to the ungrammatical addition of telah or sudah.
Pattern No. of sentences
preceeded by a sentence
with telah or sudah
No. of sentences
ungrammatically added
with telah or sudah
Percentage of subjects
judging the pattern as the
strangest
Subject + Temporal
Adverb + Verb 5 3 30%
Temporal Adverb +
Subject + Verb 2 1 10%
Subject + Verb +
Temporal Adverb 3 1 10%
Table 2. Summary of errors in the repetition task and subjects' judgment on patterns of sentences with temporal adverbs


Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
The aforementioned errors did not happen in the reading task as all of the subjects performed
perfectly. This is perhaps due to the fact that the subjects did not have to memorize the words as
they did in the repetition task. Some of the subjects said that in terms of difficulty, the reading task
was easier because they could have their own pace and did not have to memorize the sentences.
However, this condition did not alter their judgment on the sentences as they still rated the patterns,
especially those with the temporal adverbs, the same way as they did after they completed the
repetition task.
In order to use this test with agrammatic speakers, some sentences need to be changed as suggested
by the subjects. Eight sentences containing the word itu (a demonstrative pronoun that acts like the
in English) are changed due to a lack of context that does not support the definiteness of the nouns.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia

Original sentences Revised sentences
Kami telah menjual mobil sedan itu.
(We have sold the sedan.)
Kami telah menjual sebuah mobil sedan.
(We have sold a sedan.)
Kami membicarakan masalah itu minggu lalu.
(We talked about the problem last week.)
Kami membicarakan masalah ibu minggu lalu.
(We talked about mother's problem last week.)
Kami kemarin menjual mobil sedan itu.
(We yesterday sold the sedan.)
Kami kemarin menjual sebuah mobil sedan.
(We yesterday sold a sedan.)
Ari sudah menyetujui usul saya itu.
(Ari has agreed to my suggestion.)
Ari sudah menyetujui usul saya.
(Ari has agreed to my suggestion.)
Kami sudah membicarakan masalah itu.
(We have talked about the problem.)
Kami sudah membicarakan masalah ibu.
(We have talked about mother's problem.)
Tadi pagi Ari menyetujui usul saya itu.
(This morning Ari agreed to my suggestion.)
Tadi pagi Ari menyetujui usul saya.
(This morning Ari agreed to my suggestion.)
Tim itu telah memenangkan partai final.
(The team has won the final match.)
Persija Jakarta telah memenangkan partai final.
(Persija Jakarta has won the final match.)
Tim itu bulan lalu memenangkan partai final.
(The team last month won the final match.)
Persija Jakarta bulan lalu memenangkan partai
final.
(Persija Jakarta last month won the final match.)
Table 3. Revised sentences based on the feedback from the subjects
In addition, a sentence will be changed due to something some of the subjects called "illogical." The
sentence is "Mereka memasak makanan untuk sarapan bulan lalu (They cooked the food for
breakfast last month)." The original intention was the temporal adverb bulan lalu (last month) is to
modify the verb memasak (cook). However, putting bulan lalu right after sarapan (breakfast) made

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
it sound that bulan lalu modifies sarapan which they said strange because breakfast is served in the
morning. However, changing bulan lalu with another temporal adverb still risks the chance of
reading the temporal adverb is an adjective that modifies sarapan although it is actually meant to
modify the verb memasak. Therefore, it was decided to change the part of the sentence before the
temporal adverb and leave the temporal adverb as it is. The new sentence is "Rini melahirkan anak
pertamanya bulan lalu (Rini gave birth to her first child last month)." Another change also involves
a kind of ambiguity. The sentence in question is "Ayah membeli rumah baru kemarin lusa" (Father
bought a new house two days ago.) One of the subjects said that the reading can depend on how we
cluster baru (new). One possibility is baru clusters with rumah thus forming a noun phrase (new
house). The other possibility is baru clusters with kemarin lusa thus forming an adverb phrase (just
two days ago). As a result, it was decided to change the adjective baru with besar (big) that is only
possible to be clustered with rumah thus forming a noun phrase (big house) as was originally meant.
Another issue that surfaced in the discussion with the subjects was the issue of register. Since the
sentences in the test are all in standard Bahasa Indonesia, some of them said that they are not very
suitable for the repetition task. The reason was because standard Bahasa Indonesia is usually found
in written and not spoken language. In response to this comment, I would like to state that using
standard Bahasa Indonesia in the test is a kind of compromise because there is no way I could know
in advance what dialect of Bahasa Indonesia my subjects would speak. If I were to take into account
the dialect(s) each of my subjects speaks, then I would have to construct a different test for each of
them. Apart from the fact that I do not know very much about the structural characteristics of all the
dialects spoken in the country, these different tests will be difficult and time consuming to validate.
This, I believe, is work for the future. For now, I deal with the problem by changing the instruction
read before the two tasks of the test. The instruction becomes:

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
1. In the repetition task " Saya akan membacakan sebuah kalimat dalam Bahasa Indonesia resmi.
Mohon kalimat tersebut diulang." (I will read you a sentence in standard Bahasa Indonesia. Please
repeat the sentence.)
2. In the reading task "Saya akan menunjukkan sebuah kalimat dalam Bahasa Indonesia resmi.
Mohon kalimat tersebut dibaca keras." (I will show you a sentence in standard Bahasa Indonesia.
Please read the sentence aloud.)
In summary, three findings resulted from the validation activity and some changes have been made
to accommodate the subjects' comments. The first finding is that the aspectual adverbs sudah and
telah are not difficult to read and repeat as no deletion to these adverbs was observed. This is in line
with the finding of Druks and Carroll (2005) that the more successful –ing form production of their
subject as compared to his production of tensed verbs was because –ing shows aspect and not tense.
The second finding is among the three positions of temporal adverbs, the position after the subject is
the most vulnerable to ungrammatical addition of sudah or telah. Remembering that the temporal
adverbs denote tense “purely” compared to the aspectual adverbs, this finding is in line with what
has been observed with languages that inflect verbs for tense. The third finding is that the reading
task was easier for the participants than the repetition task as shown by their higher percentage of
correct response in the former task. In total, eight sentences were changed to accommodate the
subjects' comments. The instruction was also revised to ensure the match between it and the test
material. The revised instruction and sentences can be found in Appendix 1 and the sentences with
their English translation in Appendix 2.
The result of the preliminary attempt to develop the test on temporal and aspectual adverbs of time
denoting past tense in Bahasa Indonesia reported in this paper seems to show that tense in this
language is also vulnerable in the reading and repetition of aphasic patients. The observed pattern
that more mistakes were produced in sentences with the temporal adverbs indicates that aspect

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia
denoting past time is less vulnerable. Therefore, it appears that it is not tense per se that is
vulnerable in Bahasa Indonesia but it depends on how it is realized in sentences. As agreement is
not marked in Bahasa Indonesia, this result does not support either of the hypotheses mentioned
previously (the Tree-Pruning-Hypothesis or the Tense Underspecification Hypothesis). In addition,
this result can predict the aphasic performance. If the non-brain damaged speakers with properly
working working-memory and language system give evidence that the temporal adverbs are more
difficult in the two tasks, then the aphasic patients with limitations in working memory and
language system can be expected to have more problems with the temporal compared to the
aspectual adverbs.
5. CONCLUSION
It has been shown by several studies that agrammatic patients are impaired in the production of
inflectional morphemes denoting tense. Some hypotheses have been put forward to account for the
findings. The test reported in this paper is developed to find out what will happen in Bahasa
Indonesia regarding past tense. In this language past tense is marked by temporal and aspectual
adverbs of time, unlike the languages that show tense by inflections attached to verbs so far reported
in the literature. Some improvements have been made to the test material as a result of the opinions
volunteered by the subjects. The validated test is thus ready to be used with agrammatic patients in
order to answer the three research questions posed.

Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia

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Harwintha Y. Anjarningsih 1572512 EMCL 2005-2006 Crosslinguistic Study to Aphasia