Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research current issue

Resilience and Stuttering: Factors That Protect People From the Adversity of Chronic Stuttering [Article]

Craig, A., Blumgart, E., Tran, Y. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

Chronic disorder can impose a significant negative mental health burden. This research was conducted to explore factors that may protect people from the adversity of chronic stuttering.

Method

The study employed a population group cohort design. Participants included 200 adults who have stuttered since childhood, and the sample was divided into those who were classified as resilient and nonresilient on the basis of their global psychopathology scores. Protective factor differences between the 2 groups were determined using multivariate analysis of variance and unique contributors to psychopathology were isolated using multiple regression.

Results

Factors that significantly distinguished between groups included superior levels of health status, social support, vitality and social functioning, fewer physical limitations, and a greater sense of self-efficacy. Three unique contributors to adaptive outcomes were found: self-efficacy, social support, and healthy social functioning.

Conclusions

A number of factors were isolated that potentially protect individuals with chronic stuttering from developing psychopathology. The findings provide a better understanding of how people cope with a chronic fluency disorder.

Teledynamic Evaluation of Oropharyngeal Swallowing [Article]

Malandraki, G. A., McCullough, G., He, X., McWeeny, E., Perlman, A. L. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

The objective of the present investigation was to test the feasibility and clinical utility of a real-time Internet-based protocol for remote, telefluoroscopic evaluation of oropharyngeal swallowing.

Method

In this prospective cohort study, the authors evaluated 32 patients with a primary diagnosis of stroke or head/neck cancer. All patients participated in 2 separate fluoroscopic swallowing evaluations—one traditional on site and one telefluoroscopic off site—through the use of a telemedicine system. Agreement between sites was tested for 3 categories of variables: (a) overall severity of swallowing difficulty, (b) presence and extent of laryngeal penetration and aspiration as rated by the 8-point Penetration-Aspiration scale, and (c) treatment recommendations.

Results

Results showed overall good agreement in subjective severity ratings ( = 0.636) and in Penetration-Aspiration scale ratings (mean absolute difference = 1.1 points) between the onsite and offsite clinicians. Agreement in treatment recommendations was moderate to high, ranging from 69.3% to 100%.

Conclusions

The present study supports the feasibility and clinical utility of a telemedicine system for evaluating oropharyngeal swallowing. Given the difficulty and expertise needed to complete such evaluations, this study offers promising clinical avenues for patients in rural, remote, and underserved communities and countries where expert swallowing specialists are not available.

Cross-Language Differences in Informational Masking of Speech by Speech: English Versus Mandarin Chinese [Article]

Wu, X., Yang, Z., Huang, Y., Chen, J., Li, L., Daneman, M., Schneider, B. A. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

The purpose of the study was to determine why perceived spatial separation provides a greater release from informational masking in Chinese than English when target sentences in each of the languages are masked by other talkers speaking the same language.

Method

Monolingual speakers of English and Mandarin Chinese listened to semantically anomalous sentences in their own language when 1 of 3 maskers was present (speech-spectrum noise, a 2-talker speech masker in the same language, and a 2-talker speech masker in the other language).

Results

Both groups benefitted equally from spatial separation when the maskers were speech-spectrum noise or cross-language. Chinese listeners benefitted less from spatial separation than did English listeners when a same-language masker was used. Performance was scored in terms of the number of target words correctly identified; because Chinese target words were composed of 2 "stand-alone" morphemes, the authors also scored Chinese target words as correct when either of the morphemes was correctly identified. When this was done, Chinese and English listeners benefitted equally from spatial separation in all conditions.

Conclusion

These results support a model in which release from informational masking in both monolingual English and Chinese listeners occurs because spatial separation facilitates morpheme access in both languages.

Use of Spectral/Cepstral Analyses for Differentiating Normal From Hypofunctional Voices in Sustained Vowel and Continuous Speech Contexts [Article]

Watts, C. R., Awan, S. N. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

In this study, the authors evaluated the diagnostic value of spectral/cepstral measures to differentiate dysphonic from nondysphonic voices using sustained vowels and continuous speech samples.

Methodology

Thirty-two age- and gender-matched individuals (16 participants with dysphonia and 16 controls) were recorded reading a standard passage (The Rainbow Passage; Fairbanks, 1960) and sustaining the vowel /a/. Recorded voices were analyzed with custom software that calculated 4 spectral/cepstral measures.

Results

Measures of cepstral peak prominence (CPP) and low–high spectral ratio (L/H ratio) were significantly different between groups in both speaking conditions; the standard deviation of the CPP was significantly different between groups in continuous speech only. In differentiating dysphonic individuals with a hypofunctional etiology from nondysphonic individuals, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses demonstrated (a) high sensitivity and high specificity for the CPP in the sustained vowel condition and (b) high sensitivity and moderate specificity for the CPP in the speech condition.

Conclusions

In a sample of dysphonic speakers (hypofunctional etiologies) versus typical speakers, spectral/cepstral measures of CPP and L/H ratio were able to differentiate these groups from one another in both vowel prolongation and continuous speech contexts with high sensitivity and specificity. The results of this study support the growing body of literature documenting the significant value of cepstral and other spectral-based acoustic measures to the clinical evaluation and management processes.

Three-Dimensional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Velopharyngeal Structures [Research Note]

Bae, Y., Kuehn, D. P., Sutton, B. P., Conway, C. A., Perry, J. L. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

To report the feasibility of using a 3-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) protocol for examining velopharyngeal structures. Using collected 3D MRI data, the authors investigated the effect of sex on the midsagittal velopharyngeal structures and the levator veli palatini (levator) muscle configurations.

Method

Ten Caucasian healthy adults (5 women and 5 men) participated. A whole-head 3D MRI scan was obtained while participants were at rest in the supine position. Basic anatomic parameters of the velopharynx including midsagittal velopharyngeal structures and levator muscle configurations were compared between sexes.

Results

Detailed information on the 3D MRI protocol and data analysis method was introduced in the study. On the basis of the data, only the length of the levator muscle showed a statistically significant sex difference: Male participants had significantly longer levator muscles than those of female participants.

Conclusions

The present study successfully demonstrated the use of 3D MRI in quantifying major velopharyngeal structures and provided additional data on the anatomic variations that exist in healthy adult individuals.

The Effects of Race and Maternal Education Level on Children's Retells of the Renfrew Bus Story--North American Edition [Article]

van Kleeck, A., Lange, A., Schwarz, A. L. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

The Renfrew Bus Story—North American Edition (RBS–NA; C. Glasgow & J. Cowley, 1994) is widely used in clinical and research settings to determine children's language abilities, although possible influences of race and maternal education on RBS–NA performance are unknown. The current study compared RBS–NA retells of 4 groups of children: African American (AA) children and European American (EA) children whose mothers had an education level of high school or less (≤ HS) and those whose mothers had an education level higher than high school (> HS).

Method

Statistical tests were used to examine 172 kindergartners' story retells using raw scores for all 4 RBS–NA measures: (a) Information, (b) Sentence Length, (c) Complexity, and (d) Independence.

Results

A 2 x 2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed main effects of maternal education and race for the Information score, with ≤ HS and AA children scoring lower. For measures not meeting ANOVA assumptions, 2 x 2 ANOVAs using ranked data indicated significant main effects of maternal education for Sentence Length, Complexity, and Independence measure, with ≤ HS children scoring lower within the AA group.

Conclusion

There are systematic effects of maternal education and race on children's RBS–NA performance, which is important for both researchers and clinicians to take into account when using this instrument.

Differential Associations Between Sensory Response Patterns and Language, Social, and Communication Measures in Children With Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities [Article]

2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

To examine patterns of sensory responsiveness (i.e., hyperresponsiveness, hyporesponsiveness, and sensory seeking) as factors that may account for variability in social-communicative symptoms of autism and variability in language, social, and communication skill development in children with autism or other developmental disabilities (DDs).

Method

Children with autistic disorder (AD; n = 72, mean age = 52.3 months) and other DDs (n = 44, mean age = 48.1 months) participated in a protocol measuring sensory response patterns; social-communicative symptoms of autism; and language, social, and communication skills.

Results

Hyporesponsiveness was positively associated with social-communicative symptom severity, with no significant group difference in the association. Hyperresponsiveness was not significantly associated with social-communicative symptom severity. A group difference emerged for sensory seeking and social-communicative symptom severity, with a positive association for the AD group only. For the 2 groups of children combined, hyporesponsiveness was negatively associated with language skills and social adaptive skills. Sensory seeking also was negatively associated with language skills. These associations did not differ between the 2 groups.

Conclusions

Aberrant sensory processing may play an important role in the pathogenesis of autism and other DDs as well as in the rate of acquisition of language, social, and communication skills.

A MEG Investigation of Single-Word Auditory Comprehension in Aphasia [Article]

Zipse, L., Kearns, K., Nicholas, M., Marantz, A. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

To explore whether individuals with aphasia exhibit differences in the M350, an electrophysiological marker of lexical activation, compared with healthy controls.

Method

Seven people with aphasia, 9 age-matched controls, and 10 younger controls completed an auditory lexical decision task while cortical activity was recorded with magnetoencephalography. There were 2 stimulus conditions of interest: identity primed (i.e., a word preceded by itself) and semantic primed (i.e., a word preceded by a semantically related word). Latency and amplitude of the M350 response as well as reaction time were measured.

Results

Consistent with the age-matched control group, the group with aphasia showed both identity and semantic priming behaviorally. In contrast to the control groups, the group with aphasia did not show either semantic or identity priming of the M350 response. This group also demonstrated longer M350 latencies than either control group. Furthermore, within this group, M350 latency was positively correlated with a measure of semantic impairment.

Conclusions

These findings highlight the usefulness of temporally sensitive measures when studying aphasia and demonstrate that the latency of electrophysiological markers is of interest in this population. In particular, increased M350 latency appears to be indicative of a semantic processing impairment.

Concurrent and Construct Validity of Oral Language Measures With School-Age Children With Specific Language Impairment [Article]

Hoffman, L. M., Loeb, D. F., Brandel, J., Gillam, R. B. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

This study investigated the psychometric properties of 2 oral language measures that are commonly used for diagnostic purposes with school-age children who have language impairments.

Method

Two hundred sixteen children with specific language impairment were assessed with the Test of Language Development—Primary, Third Edition (TOLD–P:3; Newcomer & Hammill, 1997) and the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL; Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999) within a 3-month period. The concurrent and construct validities of these 2 published tests were explored through correlation analysis and principle-component factor analysis.

Results

The TOLD–P:3 Spoken Language Quotient and CASL Core Composite scores were found to have an intertest correlation value of r = .596 within this sample, and a paired samples t test revealed a statistically significant difference between these scores. Principle-component factor analyses revealed a 2-factor structure solution for the TOLD–P:3, whereas data from the CASL supported a single-factor model.

Conclusions

Analyses of assessment measure performance data from a sample of school-age children with specific language impairment revealed concurrent validity values and construct validity patterns that differed from those found in the norming samples as cited in examiner manuals. Implications for practice patterns and future research are discussed.

Content and Form in the Narratives of Children With Specific Language Impairment [Article]

Colozzo, P., Gillam, R. B., Wood, M., Schnell, R. D., Johnston, J. R. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

This project investigated the relationship of content and form in the narratives of school-age children.

Method

Two samples of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their age-matched peers (British Columbia sample, M age = 9;0 [years;months], N = 26; Texas/Kansas sample, M age = 7;6, N = 40) completed the Test of Narrative Language (TNL; Gillam & Pearson, 2004). The relative strength of content elaboration and grammatical accuracy were measured for each child using variables derived from the TNL scoring system (Study 1) and from analysis of the story texts (Study 2).

Results

Both studies indicated that, compared with age peers, the children with SLI were more likely to produce stories of uneven strength—either stories with poor content that were grammatically quite accurate or stories with elaborated content that were less grammatical.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that school-age children with SLI may struggle with the cumulative load of creating a story that is both elaborate and grammatical. They also show that the absence of errors is not necessarily a sign of strength. Finally, they underscore the value of comparing individual differences in multiple linguistic domains, including the elaboration of content, grammatical accuracy, and syntactic complexity.

Literacy Outcomes of Children With Early Childhood Speech Sound Disorders: Impact of Endophenotypes [Article]

2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

To demonstrate that early childhood speech sound disorders (SSD) and later school-age reading, written expression, and spelling skills are influenced by shared endophenotypes that may be in part genetic.

Method

Children with SSD and their siblings were assessed at early childhood (ages 4–6 years) and followed at school age (7–12 years). The relationship of shared endophenotypes with early childhood SSD and school-age outcomes and the shared genetic influences on these outcomes were examined.

Results

Structural equation modeling demonstrated that oral motor skills, phonological awareness, phonological memory, vocabulary, and speeded naming have varying influences on reading decoding, spelling, spoken language, and written expression at school age. Genetic linkage studies demonstrated linkage for reading, spelling, and written expression measures to regions on chromosomes 1, 3, 6, and 15 that were previously linked to oral motor skills, articulation, phonological memory, and vocabulary at early childhood testing.

Conclusions

Endophenotypes predict school-age literacy outcomes over and above that predicted by clinical diagnoses of SSD or language impairment. Findings suggest that these shared endophenotypes and common genetic influences affect early childhood SSD and later school-age reading, spelling, spoken language, and written expression skills.

Preliminary Investigation of Visual Attention to Human Figures in Photographs: Potential Considerations for the Design of Aided AAC Visual Scene Displays [Article]

Wilkinson, K. M., Light, J. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

Many individuals with complex communication needs may benefit from visual aided augmentative and alternative communication systems. In visual scene displays (VSDs), language concepts are embedded into a photograph of a naturalistic event. Humans play a central role in communication development and might be important elements in VSDs. However, many VSDs omit human figures. In this study, the authors sought to describe the distribution of visual attention to humans in naturalistic scenes as compared with other elements.

Method

Nineteen college students observed 8 photographs in which a human figure appeared near 1 or more items that might be expected to compete for visual attention (such as a Christmas tree or a table loaded with food). Eye-tracking technology allowed precise recording of participants' gaze. The fixation duration over a 7-s viewing period and latency to view elements in the photograph were measured.

Results

Participants fixated on the human figures more rapidly and for longer than expected based on the size of these figures, regardless of the other elements in the scene.

Conclusions

Human figures attract attention in a photograph even when presented alongside other attractive distracters. Results suggest that humans may be a powerful means to attract visual attention to key elements in VSDs.

The Role of Developmental Levels in Examining the Effect of Subject Types on the Production of Auxiliary Is in Young English-Speaking Children [Research Note]

Guo, L.-Y., Owen Van Horne, A. J., Tomblin, J. B. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

Prior work (Guo, Owen, & Tomblin, 2010) has shown that at the group level, auxiliary is production by young English-speaking children was symmetrical across lexical noun and pronominal subjects. Individual data did not uniformly reflect these patterns. On the basis of the framework of the gradual morphosyntactic learning (GML) hypothesis, the authors tested whether the addition of a theoretically motivated developmental measure, tense productivity (TP), could assist in explaining these individual differences.

Method

Using archival data from 20 children between age 2;8 and 3;4 (years;months), the authors tested the ability of 3 developmental measures (TP; finite verb morphology composite, FVMC; mean length of utterance, MLU) to predict use of auxiliary is with different subject types.

Results

TP, but not MLU or FVMC, significantly improved model fit. Children with low TP scores produced auxiliary is more accurately with pronominal subjects than with lexical subjects. The facilitative effect of pronominal subjects on the production of auxiliary is, however, was not found in children with high TP scores.

Conclusion

The finding that the effect of subject types on the production accuracy of auxiliary is changed with children's TP is consistent with the GML hypothesis.

Auditory Spectral Integration in the Perception of Static Vowels [Article]

Fox, R. A., Jacewicz, E., Chang, C.-Y. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

To evaluate potential contributions of broadband spectral integration in the perception of static vowels. Specifically, can the auditory system infer formant frequency information from changes in the intensity weighting across harmonics when the formant itself is missing? Does this type of integration produce the same results in the lower (first formant [F1]) and higher (second formant [F2]) regions? Does the spacing between the spectral components affect a listener's ability to integrate the acoustic cues?

Method

Twenty young listeners with normal hearing identified synthesized vowel-like stimuli created for adjustments in the F1 region (//–/a/, /i/–//) and in the F2 region (//–/æ/). There were 2 types of stimuli: (a) 2-formant tokens and (b) tokens in which 1 formant was removed and 2 pairs of sine waves were inserted below and above the missing formant; the intensities of these harmonics were modified to cause variations in their spectral center of gravity (COG). The COG effects were tested over a wide range of frequencies.

Results

Obtained patterns were consistent with calculated changes to the spectral COG, in both the F1 and F2 regions. The spacing of the sine waves did not affect listeners' responses.

Conclusion

The auditory system may perform broadband integration as a type of auditory wideband spectral analysis.

Investigating Speech Perception in Children With Dyslexia: Is There Evidence of a Consistent Deficit in Individuals? [Article]

Messaoud-Galusi, S., Hazan, V., Rosen, S. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

The claim that speech perception abilities are impaired in dyslexia was investigated in a group of 62 children with dyslexia and 51 average readers matched in age.

Method

To test whether there was robust evidence of speech perception deficits in children with dyslexia, speech perception in noise and quiet was measured using 8 different tasks involving the identification and discrimination of a complex and highly natural synthetic "bee"–"pea" contrast (copy synthesized from natural models) and the perception of naturally produced words.

Results

Children with dyslexia, on average, performed more poorly than did average readers in the synthetic syllables identification task in quiet and in across-category discrimination (but not when tested using an adaptive procedure). They did not differ from average readers on 2 tasks of word recognition in noise or identification of synthetic syllables in noise. For all tasks, a majority of individual children with dyslexia performed within norms. Finally, speech perception generally did not correlate with pseudoword reading or phonological processing—the core skills related to dyslexia.

Conclusions

On the tasks and speech stimuli that the authors used, most children with dyslexia did not appear to show a consistent deficit in speech perception.

On the Use of the Distortion-Sensitivity Approach in Examining the Role of Linguistic Abilities in Speech Understanding in Noise [Research Note]

Goverts, S. T., Huysmans, E., Kramer, S. E., de Groot, A. M. B., Houtgast, T. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

Researchers have used the distortion-sensitivity approach in the psychoacoustical domain to investigate the role of auditory processing abilities in speech perception in noise (van Schijndel, Houtgast, & Festen, 2001; Goverts & Houtgast, 2010). In this study, the authors examined the potential applicability of the distortion-sensitivity approach for investigating the role of linguistic abilities in speech understanding in noise.

Method

The authors applied the distortion-sensitivity approach by measuring the processing of visually presented masked text in a condition with manipulated syntactic, lexical, and semantic cues and while using the Text Reception Threshold (George et al., 2007; Kramer, Zekveld, & Houtgast, 2009; Zekveld, George, Kramer, Goverts, & Houtgast, 2007) method. Two groups that differed in linguistic abilities were studied: 13 native and 10 non-native speakers of Dutch, all typically hearing university students.

Results

As expected, the non-native subjects showed substantially reduced performance. The results of the distortion-sensitivity approach yielded differentiated results on the use of specific linguistic cues in the 2 groups.

Conclusion

The results show the potential value of the distortion-sensitivity approach in studying the role of linguistic abilities in speech understanding in noise of individuals with hearing impairment.

Biotechnology in the Treatment of Sensorineural Hearing Loss: Foundations and Future of Hair Cell Regeneration [Tutorial]

Parker, M. A. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00

Purpose

To provide an overview of the methodologies involved in the field of hair cell regeneration. First, the author provides a tutorial on the biotechnological foundations of this field to assist the reader in the comprehension and interpretation of the research involved in hair cell regeneration. Next, the author presents a review of stem cell and gene therapy and provides a critical appraisal of their application to hair cell regeneration. The methodologies used in these approaches are highlighted.

Method

The author conducted a narrative review of the fields of cellular, molecular, and developmental biology, tissue engineering, and stem cell and gene therapy using the PubMed database.

Results

The use of biotechnological approaches to the treatment of hearing loss—approaches such as stem cell and gene therapy—has led to new methods of regenerating cochlear hair cells in mammals.

Conclusions

Incredible strides have been made in assembling important pieces of the puzzle that comprise hair cell regeneration. However, mammalian hair cell regeneration using stem cell and gene therapy are years—if not decades—away from being clinically feasible. If the goals of the biological approaches are met, these therapies may represent future treatments for hearing loss.

Erratum [correction]

Moss, S. E. — 2011-12-16T09:11:37-08:00