Figure 2.

Nested acoustic hierarchies contributing to phonological and syntactic development. (a) Schematic depiction of the phonological linguistic hierarchy, conceptualized by linguists as a nested structure. The ability to reflect on sound structures at any level of the hierarchy is impaired in children with DD. (b) Illustration of the syntactic and prosodic structure of a line from the children's story ‘Room on the Broom’ (adapted from Richards & Goswami [27]). Abbreviations: d, determiner; h:n, noun, head of noun phrase; v, verb; m:int, modifier:intensifier; m:adj, modifier:adjective; h:pron, pronoun, head of noun phrase; h:prep, preposition, head of prepositional phrase; c, conjunction; q, qualifier; Cl, clause; S, subject; O, object; A, adverb; NP, noun phrase; VP, verb phrase; PP, prepositional phrase.