Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research recent issues

General and Specific Effects of Lexicon in Grammar: Determiner and Object Pronoun Omissions in Child Spanish [Article]

Perez-Leroux, A. T., Castilla-Earls, A. P., Brunner, J. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

This study explores the hypothesis that vocabulary growth can have 2 types of effects in morphosyntactic development. One is a general effect, where vocabulary growth globally determines utterance complexity, defined in terms of sentence length and rates of subordination. There are also specific effects, where vocabulary size has a selective impact on the acquisition of grammatical markers and where lexicon is a prerequisite for typological convergence. The study compares the differential effects of vocabulary in 2 measures of morphosyntactic development: omissions of object clitic pronouns and definite articles.

Method

Correlation analysis and structural equation models were used to analyze the statistical effects of measures of vocabulary and grammatical development in 110 Spanish-speaking monolingual children ages 3–5 years.

Results

The data revealed general effects of vocabulary growth on utterance length and subordination rates and on the use of definite determiners and object pronouns. Specific effects of vocabulary growth were identified for object pronouns but not for determiners.

Conclusions

The study found support for a 2-dimensional model separating lexicon and syntax and for 2 types of relationships. Vocabulary development generally determines sentence complexity and further evidence for specific effects in object pronoun use.

Examining Success of Communication Strategies Used by Formal Caregivers Assisting Individuals With Alzheimer's Disease During an Activity of Daily Living [Article]

Wilson, R., Rochon, E., Mihailidis, A., Leonard, C. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

To examine how formal (i.e., employed) caregivers' use verbal and nonverbal communication strategies while assisting individuals with moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease (AD) during the successful completion of an activity of daily living (ADL). Based on the literature, the authors hypothesized that caregivers' use of 1 proposition, closed-ended questions, and repetition would be of most benefit.

Method

Twelve caregiver–AD dyads participated in this observational study. Each dyad was videorecorded on 6 separate occasions while completing handwashing. Handwashing sessions were transcribed and systematically coded for the use of communication strategies during completion of the ADL.

Results

Caregiver–AD dyads successfully completed 90% of all handwashing sessions, and caregivers employed a variety of communication strategies. Consistent with our hypotheses, during successful task completion, caregivers most frequently provided individuals with AD with 1 direction or idea (i.e., proposition) at a time, closed-ended questions, and paraphrased repetition. Caregivers also frequently used encouraging comments and the resident's name during the task; however, use of these strategies was not correlated to task success rate.

Conclusion

This study adds to the limited body of evidence supporting the use of specific communication strategies by caregivers assisting individuals with moderate to severe AD during successful completion of ADLs.

Animation of Graphic Symbols Representing Verbs and Prepositions: Effects on Transparency, Name Agreement, and Identification [Article]

2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

The effects of animation on transparency, name agreement, and identification of graphic symbols for verbs and prepositions were evaluated in preschoolers of 3 age groups.

Methods

A mixed-group design was used; in each age group, half of the children were randomly allocated to 1 of 2 orders of symbol formats. The 52 children were asked to guess the meaning of symbols and to identify a target symbol among foils given the spoken label.

Results

Animated symbols were more transparent than static symbols, although this was more pronounced for verbs. Animated verbs were named more accurately than static verbs, but there was no difference between animated and static prepositions. Verbs were identified more accurately compared with prepositions, but there was no difference between symbol formats. Older children guessed, named, and identified symbols more effectively than younger children.

Conclusion

Animation enhances transparency and name agreement, especially for verbs, which reduces the instructional burden that comes with nontransparent symbols. Animation does not enhance identification accuracy. Verbs are easier to identify than prepositions. A developmental effect was observed for each measure. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Item-Level Psychometrics and Predictors of Performance for Spanish/English Bilingual Speakers on An Object and Action Naming Battery [Article]

Edmonds, L. A., Donovan, N. J. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

There is a pressing need for psychometrically sound naming materials for Spanish/English bilingual adults. To address this need, in this study the authors examined the psychometric properties of An Object and Action Naming Battery (An O&A Battery; Druks & Masterson, 2000) in bilingual speakers.

Method

Ninety-one Spanish/English bilinguals named O&A Battery items in English and Spanish. Responses underwent a Rasch analysis. Using correlation and regression analyses, the authors evaluated the effect of psycholinguistic (e.g., imageability) and participant (e.g., proficiency ratings) variables on accuracy.

Results

Rasch analysis determined unidimensionality across English and Spanish nouns and verbs and robust item-level psychometric properties, evidence for content validity. Few items did not fit the model, there were no ceiling or floor effects after uninformative and misfit items were removed, and items reflected a range of difficulty. Reliability coefficients were high, and the number of statistically different ability levels provided indices of sensitivity. Regression analyses revealed significant correlations between psycholinguistic variables and accuracy, providing preliminary construct validity. The participant variables that contributed most to accuracy were proficiency ratings and time of language use.

Conclusions

Results suggest adequate content and construct validity of O&A items retained in the analysis for Spanish/English bilingual adults and support future efforts to evaluate naming in older bilinguals and persons with bilingual aphasia.

Cochlear Implant in the Second Year of Life: Lexical and Grammatical Outcomes [Article]

Caselli, M. C., Rinaldi, P., Varuzza, C., Giuliani, A., Burdo, S. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

The authors studied the effect of the cochlear implant (CI) on language comprehension and production in deaf children who had received a CI in the 2nd year of life.

Method

The authors evaluated lexical and morphosyntactic skills in comprehension and production in 17 Italian children who are deaf (M = 54 months of age) with a CI and in 2 control groups of children with normal hearing (NH; 1 matched for chronological age and the other whose chronological age corresponded to the duration of CI activation). The authors also compared children with unilateral CI to children with bilateral CI.

Results

Children with CI appeared to keep pace with NH children matched for time since CI activation in terms of language acquisition, and they were similar to same-age NH children in lexical production. However, children with CI showed difficulties in lexical comprehension when a task required phonological discrimination as well as in grammar comprehension and production. Children with bilateral CI showed better comprehension than did children with unilateral CI; the 2 groups were similar for production.

Conclusions

Activation of CI in the 2nd year of life may provide children who are deaf with a good opportunity to develop language skills, although some limitations in phonological and morphological skills are still present 3 years after auditory reafferentation.

Early Language and Behavioral Regulation Skills as Predictors of Social Outcomes [Article]

Aro, T., Eklund, K., Nurmi, J.-E., Poikkeus, A.-M. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

In the present study, the authors examined the prospective associations among early language skills, behavioral regulation skills, and 2 aspects of school-age social functioning (adaptability and social skills).

Method

The study sample consisted of children with and without a familial risk for dyslexia. The authors analyzed the relations among children's language (at age 2;6 [years;months] and age 5;0), behavioral regulation skills (at age 5;0), and social functioning (at age 8;0) using structural equation modeling. Subgroups of children with respect to language and behavioral regulation skills (at age 5;0) were identified through the use of mixture modeling.

Results

Among at-risk children, behavioral regulation skills mediated the association between early language skills and social outcomes. A subgroup of children with poor regulatory and weak language skills scored lower in adaptability, whereas a subgroup having only poor language skills (with normal behavioral regulation) did not differ from a group with age-appropriate skills.

Conclusions

The present findings indicate that behavioral regulation skills play an important role in predicting social outcomes among children at risk for language difficulties. Furthermore, it is suggested that various aspects of social functioning may be influenced differently by self-regulation skills and that predictive relationships vary with the degree of language development deficits and accompanying risks.

Written Narrative Characteristics in Adults With Language Impairment [Article]

Suddarth, R., Plante, E., Vance, R. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

Adults with language-based disabilities are known to have deficits in oral language; however, less is known about their written language skills. Two studies were designed to characterize the writing of adults with language-based disabilities.

Method

In Study 1, 60 adults, 30 with language impairment and 30 with typical language, completed written narratives. Forty-one written language measures were analyzed. In Study 2, the measures that had the most potential for reliably indexing deficits were analyzed in an additional 77 adults.

Results

Three measures that showed significant between-group differences and had robust effect sizes in Study 1, total number of verbs, 1-part verbs, and errors, were applied to the samples in Study 2. A group difference for percentage of errors was replicated in the second sample. A discriminant analysis identified 75% of the adults with language impairment and 30% of the adults with typical language as having an impairment based on the percent of written errors.

Conclusions

The writing task revealed consistent group differences in written errors and is clinically applicable in describing a client's writing. However, the number of written errors was not robust enough to identify whether an adult had a language impairment or not.

Predicting Later Language Outcomes From the Language Use Inventory [Article]

Pesco, D., O'Neill, D. K. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

To examine the predictive validity of the Language Use Inventory (LUI), a parent report of language use by children 18–47 months old (O'Neill, 2009).

Method

348 children whose parents had completed the LUI were reassessed at 5–6 years old with standardized, norm-referenced language measures and parent report of developmental history. The relationship between scores on the LUI and later measures was examined through correlation, binary classification, and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.

Results

For children aged 24–47 months at the time of LUI completion, LUI scores correlated significantly with language measure scores. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) were also calculated for 4 cutoff scores on the LUI, including –1.64 SD, a score that maximized sensitivity to 81% and specificity to 93%. For children aged 18–23 months at the time of LUI completion, specificity and NPV were high, but sensitivity and PPV were lower than desirable.

Conclusions

The results provide initial support for the LUI's predictive validity, particularly for children 24–47 months, and suggest the LUI can serve as an indicator of later language outcomes in referred populations. The results compare favorably to findings for other early child-language measures.

Are Syllabification and Resyllabification Strategies Phonotactically Directed in French Children With Dyslexia? A Preliminary Report [Research Note]

Maionchi-Pino, N., de Cara, B., Ecalle, J., Magnan, A. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

In this study, the authors queried whether French-speaking children with dyslexia were sensitive to consonant sonority and position within syllable boundaries to influence a phonological syllable-based segmentation in silent reading.

Method

Participants included 15 French-speaking children with dyslexia, compared with 30 chronological age–matched and reading level–matched controls. Children were tested with an audiovisual recognition task. A target pseudoword (TOLPUDE) was simultaneously presented visually and auditorily and then was compared with a printed test pseudoword that either was identical or differed after the coda deletion (TOPUDE) or the onset deletion (TOLUDE). The intervocalic consonant sequences had either a sonorant coda–sonorant onset (TOR.LADE), sonorant coda–obstruent onset (TOL.PUDE), obstruent coda–sonorant onset (DOT.LIRE), or obstruent coda–obstruent onset (BIC.TADE) sonority profile.

Results

All children processed identity better than they processed deletion, especially with the optimal sonorant coda–obstruent onset sonority profile. However, children preserved syllabification (coda deletion; TO.PUDE) rather than resyllabification (onset deletion; TO.LUDE) with intervocalic consonant sequence reductions, especially when sonorant codas were deleted but the optimal intersyllable contact was respected.

Conclusions

It was surprising to find that although children with dyslexia generally exhibit phonological and acoustic–phonetic impairments (voicing), they showed sensitivity to the optimal sonority profile and a preference for preserved syllabification. The authors proposed a sonority-modulated explanation to account for phonological syllable-based processing. Educational implications are discussed.

Auditory Long Latency Responses to Tonal and Speech Stimuli [Article]

Swink, S., Stuart, A. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

The effects of type of stimuli (i.e., nonspeech vs. speech), speech (i.e., natural vs. synthetic), gender of speaker and listener, speaker (i.e., self vs. other), and frequency alteration in self-produced speech on the late auditory cortical evoked potential were examined.

Method

Young adult men (n = 15) and women (n = 15), all with normal hearing, participated. P1–N1–P2 components were evoked with the following stimuli: 723-Hz tone bursts; naturally produced male and female /a/ tokens; synthetic male and female /a/ tokens; an /a/ token self-produced by each participant; and the same /a/ token produced by the participant but with a shift in frequency.

Results

In general, P1–N1–P2 component latencies were significantly shorter when evoked with the tonal stimulus versus speech stimuli and natural versus synthetic speech (p < .05). Women had significantly shorter latencies for only the P2 component (p < .05). For the tonal versus speech stimuli, P1 amplitudes were significantly smaller, and N1 and P2 amplitudes were significantly larger (p < .05). There was no significant effect of gender on the P1, N1, or P2 amplitude (p > .05).

Conclusion

These findings are consistent with the notion that spectrotemporal characteristics of nonspeech and speech stimuli affect P1–N1–P2 latency and amplitude components.

Relationship Between Consonant Recognition in Noise and Hearing Threshold [Article]

Yoon, Y.-s., Allen, J. B., Gooler, D. M. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

Although poorer understanding of speech in noise by listeners who are hearing-impaired (HI) is known not to be directly related to audiometric hearing threshold, HT (f), grouping HI listeners with HT (f) is widely practiced. In this article, the relationship between consonant recognition and HT (f) is considered over a range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs).

Method

Confusion matrices (CMs) from 25 HI ears were generated in response to 16 consonant-vowel syllables presented at 6 different SNRs. Individual differences scaling (INDSCAL) was applied to both feature-based matrices and CMs in order to evaluate the relationship between HT (f) and consonant recognition among HI listeners.

Results

The results showed no predictive relationship between the percent error scores (Pe) and HT (f) across SNRs. The multiple regression models showed that the HT (f) accounted for 39% of the total variance of the slopes of the Pe. Feature-based INDSCAL analysis showed consistent grouping of listeners across SNRs, but not in terms of HT (f). Systematic relationship between measures was also not defined by CM-based INDSCAL analysis across SNRs.

Conclusions

HT (f) did not account for the majority of the variance (39%) in consonant recognition in noise when the complete body of the CM was considered.

Consequences of Broad Auditory Filters for Identification of Multichannel-Compressed Vowels [Article]

Souza, P., Wright, R., Bor, S. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

In view of previous findings (Bor, Souza, & Wright, 2008) that some listeners are more susceptible to spectral changes from multichannel compression (MCC) than others, this study addressed the extent to which differences in effects of MCC were related to differences in auditory filter width.

Method

Listeners were recruited in 3 groups: listeners with flat sensorineural loss, listeners with sloping sensorineural loss, and a control group of listeners with normal hearing. Individual auditory filter measurements were obtained at 500 and 2000 Hz. The filter widths were related to identification of vowels processed with 16-channel MCC and with a control (linear) condition.

Results

Listeners with flat loss had broader filters at 500 Hz but not at 2000 Hz compared with listeners with sloping loss. Vowel identification was poorer for MCC compared with linear amplification. Listeners with flat loss made more errors than listeners with sloping loss, and there was a significant relationship between filter width and the effects of MCC.

Conclusions

Broadened auditory filters can reduce the ability to process amplitude-compressed vowel spectra. This suggests that individual frequency selectivity is a factor that influences benefit of MCC when a high number of compression channels are used.

Asynchronous Vowel-Pair Identification Across the Adult Life Span for Monaural and Dichotic Presentations [Article]

Fogerty, D., Kewley-Port, D., Humes, L. E. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

Temporal order abilities decrease with age. Declining temporal processing abilities may influence the identification of rapid vowel sequences. Identification patterns for asynchronous vowel pairs were explored across the life span.

Method

Young, middle-aged, and older listeners completed temporal order tasks for pairs of 70-ms and 40-ms vowel stimuli. For a given vowel duration, naturally spoken vowels were equated for duration, intensity, and fundamental frequency. Listeners completed monaural and dichotic temporal order tasks that involved identifying the vowel pair in the correct order. The stimulus onset asynchrony that yielded 50% accuracy for identifying the vowel pair in the correct order was used to equate performance among listeners. Vowel identification response patterns were determined at this stimulus onset asynchrony threshold.

Results

Vowel identification patterns were largely consistent across age groups. Older listeners were influenced by the order of certain vowel pairs. Not all vowel pairs were identified equally well. Vowel dominance patterns were also observed, with /a/ being identified most accurately for the vowel pairs tested. Formant dynamics explained, in part, identification and confusion patterns.

Conclusion

Vowel identification accuracy patterns were reasonably similar across the life span, regardless of presentation mode, vowel duration, or effect of considerable stimulus exposure. Large effects of vowel order were observed, particularly for older listeners.

Tackling the Combined Effects of Reverberation and Masking Noise Using Ideal Channel Selection [Article]

Hazrati, O., Loizou, P. C. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

In this article, a new signal-processing algorithm is proposed and evaluated for the suppression of the combined effects of reverberation and noise.

Method

The proposed algorithm decomposes, on a short-term basis (every 20 ms), the reverberant stimuli into a number of channels and retains only a subset of the channels satisfying a signal-to-reverberant ratio (SRR) criterion. The construction of this criterion assumes access to a priori knowledge of the target (anechoic) signal, and the aim of this study was to assess the full potential of the proposed channel-selection algorithm, assuming that this criterion could be estimated accurately. Listening tests with normal-hearing listeners were conducted to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm in highly reverberant conditions (T₆₀ = 1.0 s), which included additive noise at 0 and 5 dB signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs).

Results

A substantial gain in intelligibility was obtained in both reverberant and combined reverberant and noise conditions. The mean intelligibility scores improved by 44 and 33 percentage points at 0 and 5 dB SNR reverberation + noise conditions. Feature analysis of the consonant confusion matrices revealed that the transmission of voicing information was most negatively affected, followed by manner and place of articulation.

Conclusions

The proposed algorithm produced substantial gains in intelligibility, and this benefit was attributed to the ability of the proposed SRR criterion to detect accurately voiced or unvoiced boundaries. It was postulated that detection of those boundaries is critical for better perception of voicing information and manner of articulation.

Informational Masking and Spatial Hearing in Listeners With and Without Unilateral Hearing Loss [Article]

Rothpletz, A. M., Wightman, F. L., Kistler, D. J. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

This study assessed selective listening for speech in individuals with and without unilateral hearing loss (UHL) and the potential relationship between spatial release from informational masking and localization ability in listeners with UHL.

Method

Twelve adults with UHL and 12 normal-hearing controls completed a series of monaural and binaural speech tasks that were designed to measure informational masking. They also completed a horizontal localization task.

Results

Monaural performance by participants with UHL was comparable to that of normal-hearing participants. Unlike the normal-hearing participants, the participants with UHL did not exhibit a true spatial release from informational masking. Rather, their performance could be predicted by head shadow effects. Performance among participants with UHL in the localization task was quite variable, with some showing near-normal abilities and others demonstrating no localization ability.

Conclusion

Individuals with UHL did not show deficits in all listening situations but were at a significant disadvantage when listening to speech in environments where normal-hearing listeners benefit from spatial separation between target and masker. This inability to capitalize on spatial cues for selective listening does not appear to be related to localization ability.

Measuring Speech Recognition in Children With Cochlear Implants in a Virtual Classroom [Research Note]

Neuman, A. C., Wroblewski, M., Hajicek, J., Rubinstein, A. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

To determine the feasibility of using a virtual auditory test material to evaluate reverberation and noise effects on speech recognition of pediatric cochlear implant (CI) users and to compare their performance with that of children with normal hearing.

Method

Virtual test materials representing nonreverberant and reverberant environments were used to measure speech recognition of 7 children with CIs in quiet and in noise, and of 18 children with normal hearing in the quiet condition. Performance of CI users in noise (signal-to-noise ratio resulting in 50% performance) was compared to normative data from a previous study (Neuman, Wroblewski, Hajicek, & Rubinstein, 2010). For CI users, stimuli were sent directly to the CI speech processor via auxiliary input, whereas children with normal hearing were tested using insert phones.

Results

The speech recognition of children with CIs decreased significantly in the reverberant condition. There were individual differences in susceptibility to reverberation. Children with CIs also required higher signal-to-noise ratios than children with normal hearing in the reverberant condition.

Conclusion

Direct connect testing with reverberant test materials allows assessment of speech recognition under conditions typical of classrooms and could be useful in identifying children with CIs whose performance decreases significantly in the presence of reverberation and noise.

Genetic and Environmental Effects on Vocal Symptoms and Their Intercorrelations [Article]

Nybacka, I., Simberg, S., Santtila, P., Sala, E., Sandnabba, N. K. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

Recently, Simberg et al. (2009) found genetic effectson a composite variable consisting of 6 vocal symptom items measuring dysphonia. The purpose of the present study was to determine genetic and environmental effects on the individual vocal symptoms in a population-based sample of Finnish twins.

Method

The sample comprised 1,728 twins (125 monozygotic and 108 dizygotic twin pairs) born between 1961 and 1989, who completed a questionnaire concerning 6 vocal symptoms. Values for additive genetic, dominant genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental components were computed separately for all symptoms. Multivariate analyses to determine genetic and environmental associations between the vocal symptoms were also performed.

Results

Variance was explained by significant additive genetic effects (27%) in only one of the vocal symptoms, namely, voice gets low or hoarse, whereas the variance of one of the vocal symptoms, voice gets strained or tires, could be explained by nonshared environmental influence alone. Multivariate analyses showed that the correlations for most of the symptom combinations were significant.

Conclusions

Both genetic and environmental components influence vocal symptoms. Genetic and environmental influences seem to be differently balanced in different vocal symptoms. Genetic effects are moderate, whereas environmental effects seem to be the most important factor contributing to the presence of vocal symptoms.

Infants Exposed to Fluent Natural Speech Succeed at Cross-Gender Word Recognition [Article]

van Heugten, M., Johnson, E. K. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

To examine the possibility that early signal-to-word form mapping capabilities are robust enough to handle substantial indexical variation in the realization of words.

Method

Two groups of 7.5-month-olds were tested with the Headturn Preference Procedure. Half of the infants were exposed to words embedded in passages spoken by their mothers and tested on lists of trained and novel isolated words spoken by their fathers. The other half of the infants were yoked pairs listening to unfamiliar speakers.

Results

In the test phase, infants listened longer to trained than to novel words, indicating that they successfully segmented the words from the passages. This result was not modulated by infants' familiarity with the speaker.

Conclusions

Under more naturalistic listening conditions, 7.5-month-olds exhibit the ability to recognize words in the face of substantial indexical variation regardless of whether speakers are familiar. This suggests that early word representations are, at least to some extent, independent of the speaker's gender and may reflect sophisticated abstraction capabilities on the part of the infants, which would render extreme episodic models of early speech perception untenable. Additional research using similarly ecologically valid testing methods is called for to elucidate the precise nature of early word representations.

Random Versus Blocked Practice in Treatment for Childhood Apraxia of Speech [Article]

Maas, E., Farinella, K. A. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

To compare the relative effects of random vs. blocked practice schedules in treatment for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Although there have been repeated suggestions in the literature to use random practice in CAS treatment, no systematic studies exist that have directly compared random with blocked practice in this population.

Method

Using an alternating treatments single-subject design with multiple baselines across behaviors, the authors compared random and blocked practice in 4 children diagnosed with CAS in terms of retention and transfer. Random and blocked practice were implemented in the context of a version of Dynamic Temporal and Tactile *Cueing treatment (Strand, Stoeckel, & Baas, 2006). Perceptual accuracy of target utterances was scored, and effect sizes were calculated to quantify the magnitude of treatment effects.

Results

Findings were mixed, with 2 children showing a blocked practice advantage, 1 child showing a random practice advantage, and 1 child showing no clear improvement in either condition.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that the random practice advantage observed in the nonspeech motor learning literature may not extend to treatment for CAS. Furthermore, the findings add to the small body of literature indicating that integral stimulation treatment can lead to improvements in speech production for children with CAS.

The Effect of Intertalker Variations on Acoustic-Perceptual Mapping in Cantonese and Mandarin Tone Systems [Article]

Peng, G., Zhang, C., Zheng, H.-Y., Minett, J. W., Wang, W. S.- Y. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

This study investigates the impact of intertalker variations on the process of mapping acoustic variations on tone categories in two different tone languages.

Method

Pitch stimuli manipulated from four voice ranges were presented in isolation through a blocked-talker design. Listeners were instructed to identify the stimuli that they heard as lexical tones in their native language.

Results

Tone identification of Mandarin listeners exhibited relatively stable normalization regardless of the voice, whereas tone identification of Cantonese listeners was unstable and susceptible to the influence of intertalker variations. In the case of Cantonese listeners, intertalker variations had a larger effect on the perception of F0 height dimension than of F0 slope dimension.

Conclusion

The comparison between Cantonese and Mandarin listeners' performances reveals an interaction of intertalker variations and the types of tone contrasts in each language. For Cantonese tones, which depend heavily on F0 height distinctions, intertalker variations result in F0 overlapping and, consequently, ambiguities among them in isolated tone perception. For Mandarin tones, which are distinctive in terms of their F0 contours, the differences in F0 contours alone seem sufficient to elicit reliable tone identification. Intertalker variations therefore have relatively limited effect on Mandarin tone perception.

Lexical and Phonological Effects in Early Word Production [Article]

Sosa, A. V., Stoel-Gammon, C. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

This study examines the influence of word frequency, phonological neighborhood density (PND), age of acquisition (AoA), and phonotactic probability on production variability and accuracy of known words by toddlers with no history of speech, hearing, or language disorders.

Method

Fifteen toddlers between 2;0 (years;months) and 2;5 produced monosyllabic target words varying in word frequency, PND, AoA, and phonotactic probability. Phonetic transcription was used to determine (a) whole-word variability and (b) proportion of whole-word proximity (PWP; Ingram, 2002) of each target word produced.

Results

Results show a significant effect of PND on PWP and variability (words from dense neighborhoods had higher PWP and lower variability than those from sparse neighborhoods), a significant effect of word frequency on variability (high-frequency words were less variable) but not proximity, and a significant effect of AoA on proximity (earlier acquired words had lower PWP) but not variability.

Conclusions

Results provide new information regarding the role that lexical and phonological factors play in the speech of young children; specifically, several factors are identified that influence variability of production. Additionally, by examining lexical and phonological factors simultaneously, the current study isolates differential effects of the individual factors. Implications for our understanding of emerging phonological representations are discussed.

Myosin Heavy Chain Composition of the Human Genioglossus Muscle [Article]

Daugherty, M., Luo, Q., Sokoloff, A. J. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Background

The human tongue muscle genioglossus (GG) is active in speech, swallowing, respiration, and oral transport, behaviors encompassing a wide range of tongue shapes and movement speeds. Studies demonstrate substantial diversity in patterns of human GG motor unit activation, but whether this is accompanied by complex expression of muscle contractile proteins is not known.

Purpose

The authors tested for conventional myosin heavy chain (MHC) MHCI, MHCIIA, MHCIIX, developmental MHCembryonic and MHCneonatal and unconventional MHCαcardiac, MHCextraocular, and MHCslow tonic in antero-superior (GG-A) and posterior (GG-P) adult human GG.

Method

SDS-PAGE, Western blot, and immunohistochemistry were used to describe MHC composition of GG-A and GG-P and the prevalence of muscle fiber MHC phenotypes in GG-A.

Results

By SDS-PAGE, only conventional MHC are present with ranking from most to least prevalent MHCIIA > MHCI > MHCIIX in GG-A and MHCI > MHCIIA > MHCIIX in GG-P. By immunohistochemistry, many muscle fibers contain MHCI, MHCIIA, and MHCIIX, but few contain developmental or unconventional MHC. GG-A is composed of 5 phenotypes (MHCIIA > MHCI-IIX > MHCI > MHCI-IIA > MHCIIX). Phenotypes MHCI, MHCIIA, and MHCI-IIX account for 96% of muscle fibers.

Conclusions

Despite activation of GG during kinematically diverse behaviors and complex patterns of GG motor unit activity, the human GG is composed of conventional MHC isoforms and 3 primary MHC phenotypes.

A Kinematic Description of the Temporal Characteristics of Jaw Motion for Early Chewing: Preliminary Findings [Article]

Wilson, E. M., Green, J. R., Weismer, G. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

The purpose of this investigation was to describe age- and consistency-related changes in the temporal characteristics of chewing in typically developing children between the ages of 4 and 35 months and adults using high-resolution optically based motion capture technology.

Method

Data were collected from 60 participants (48 children, 12 adults) across 5 age ranges (beginners, 7 months, 12 months, 35 months, and adults); each age group included 12 participants. Three different food consistencies were trialed as appropriate. The data were analyzed to assess changes in chewing rate, chewing sequence duration, and estimated number of chewing cycles.

Results

The results revealed both age- and consistency-related changes in chewing rate, sequence duration, and estimated number of chewing cycles, with consistency differences affecting masticatory timing in children as young as 7 months of age. Chewing rate varied as a function of age and consistency, and chewing sequence duration was shorter for adults than for children regardless of consistency type. In addition, the results from the estimated number of chewing cycles measure suggest that chewing effectiveness increased with age; this measure was also dependent on consistency type.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that the different temporal chewing variables follow distinct developmental trajectories and are consistency dependent in children as young as 7 months of age. Clinical implications are detailed.

Developing a Single Comparison Stimulus for Matching Breathy Voice Quality [Research Note]

Patel, S., Shrivastav, R., Eddins, D. A. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

In this experiment, a single comparison stimulus was developed as a reference in a perceptual matching task for the quantification of breathy voice quality. Perceptual judgments of a set of synthetic voice samples were compared to previous data obtained using multiple comparison stimuli "customized" for different voices (Patel, Shrivastav, & Eddins, 2010).

Method

Five male and 5 female samples of the vowel /a/ were selected from the Kay Elemetrics Disordered Voice Database and resynthesized using a Klatt synthesizer. Eleven samples were created for each base voice by manipulating the aspiration noise level. Five samples from each continuum were evaluated in a perceptual matching task in which a single sawtooth and noise comparison stimulus was used to obtain breathiness judgments. Linear regression was used to compare measurements obtained using the new comparison stimulus against the customized comparison stimuli.

Results

Results indicated that the noncustomized sawtooth comparison provides reliability and perceptual distances between stimuli similar to those obtained using customized comparison stimuli.

Conclusion

A single-variable matching task using a single comparison stimulus can be used to obtain perceptual estimates of breathiness across voices and experiments in a laboratory setting. This technique will help develop models of voice-quality perception.

The Intelligibility in Context Scale: Validity and Reliability of a Subjective Rating Measure [Research Note]

McLeod, S., Harrison, L. J., McCormack, J. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

To describe a new measure of functional intelligibility, the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS), and evaluate its validity, reliability, and sensitivity using 3 clinical measures of severity of speech sound disorder: (a) percentage of phonemes correct (PPC), (b) percentage of consonants correct (PCC), and (c) percentage of vowels correct (PVC).

Method

Speech skills of 120 preschool children (109 with parent-/teacher-identified concern about how they talked and made speech sounds and 11 with no identified concern) were assessed with the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (Dodd, Hua, Crosbie, Holm, & Ozanne, 2002). Parents completed the 7-item ICS, which rates the degree to which children's speech is understood by different communication partners (parents, immediate family, extended family, friends, acquaintances, teachers, and strangers) on a 5-point scale.

Results

Parents' ratings showed that most children were always (5) or usually (4) understood by parents, immediate family, and teachers, but only sometimes (3) by strangers. Factor analysis confirmed the internal consistency of the ICS items; therefore, ratings were averaged to form an overall intelligibility score. The ICS had high internal reliability (α = .93), sensitivity, and construct validity. Criterion validity was established through significant correlations between the ICS and PPC (r = .54), PCC (r = .54), and PVC (r = .36).

Conclusions

The ICS is a promising new measure of functional intelligibility. These data provide initial support for the ICS as an easily administered, valid, and reliable estimate of preschool children's intelligibility when speaking with people of varying levels of familiarity and authority.

Specificity of Training in the Lingual Musculature [Research Note]

Clark, H. M. — 2012-04-03T17:30:02-07:00

Purpose

Training specificity for a number of exercise parameters has been demonstrated for the limb musculature. The current study is a Phase I exploration of training specificity in the lingual musculature.

Method

Twenty-five healthy participants were assigned to 1 of 5 training conditions. Four groups completed 4 weeks of lingual exercise targeting strength, endurance, power, or speed; a control group did not exercise. Performance measures of strength, endurance, power, and speed were obtained before and after training.

Results

Although statistically significant group effects were not detected, specificity was observed with respect to effect size for the performance variables of strength, endurance, and power. Further evidence of specificity was provided by the finding that training isotonic endurance did not increase performance on an isometric endurance task. Speed training did not improve performance on any of the outcome measures, nor did speed increase following training with any of the exercises.

Conclusions

The findings provide initial evidence that training specificity may be observed in the lingual musculature. The reported effect sizes can inform future studies examining the benefit of training muscle functions underlying speech and swallowing.

Semantic Deficits in Spanish-English Bilingual Children With Language Impairment [Article]

Sheng, L., Pena, E. D., Bedore, L. M., Fiestas, C. E. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

To examine the nature and extent of semantic deficits in bilingual children with language impairment (LI).

Method

Thirty-seven Spanish–English bilingual children with LI (ranging from age 7;0 [years;months] to 9;10) and 37 typically developing (TD) age-matched peers generated 3 associations to 12 pairs of translation equivalents in English and Spanish. Responses were coded as paradigmatic (e.g., dinner–lunch, cena–desayuno [dinner–breakfast]), syntagmatic (e.g., delicious–pizza, delicioso–frijoles [delicious–beans]), and errors (e.g., wearing–where, vestirse–mal [to get dressed–bad]). A semantic depth score was derived in each language and conceptually by combining children's performance in both languages.

Results

The LI group achieved significantly lower semantic depth scores than the TD group after controlling for group differences in vocabulary size. Children showed higher conceptual scores than single-language scores. Both groups showed decreases in semantic depth scores across multiple elicitations. Analyses of individual performances indicated that semantic deficits (1 SD below the TD mean semantic depth score) were manifested in 65% of the children with LI and in 14% of the TD children.

Conclusion

School-age bilingual children with and without LI demonstrated spreading activation of semantic networks. Consistent with the literature on monolingual children with LI, sparsely linked semantic networks characterize a considerable proportion of bilingual children with LI.

Phonology and Language Development in Italian Children: An Analysis of Production and Accuracy [Article]

Zanobini, M., Viterbori, P., Saraceno, F. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

The principal aims of this study were to detect phonetic measures (consonant inventory, intelligibility, frequency, and types of phonological errors) associated with lexical and morphosyntactic ability and to analyze the types of phonological processes in children with different language skills.

Method

The sample was composed of 30 children between the ages of 36 and 42 months. Two tests were administered, one investigating phonological ability and one investigating general linguistic ability.

Results

A strong relationship between phonetic measures and language performance was found. The proportion of unintelligible productions and simplified words correlated with all the linguistic measures considered. A comparison of the phonological processes used by children with low, average, and high linguistic performance showed that phonotactic structure errors discriminated better than did system errors between the three groups. In particular, the less competent talkers were more likely to delete weak syllables, omit consonants and vowels, reduce diphthongs, and make consonant harmony errors.

Conclusions

The results emphasize the importance of phonetic measures in explaining differences in language performance and suggest the possibility of identifying children with low linguistic competence on the basis of phonetic measures, such as the level of intelligibility and the type of errors committed.

Effect of Onset and Rhyme Primes in Preschoolers With Typical Development and Specific Language Impairment [Article]

Gray, S., Reiser, M., Brinkley, S. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

In this study, the authors used cued shadowing to examine children's phonological word-form representations by studying the effects of onset and rhyme primes on lexical access.

Method

Twenty-five preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI; hereafter known as the SLI group), 24 age- and gender-matched children (AM group), and 20 vocabulary- and gender-matched children (VM group) participated. Children listened to pairs of words and repeated the second word as quickly as they could. Primes included words with overlapping onsets, words with overlapping rimes, and identical or unrelated words.

Results

As expected, unrelated words inhibited production in the AM and VM groups. Overlapping rimes primed production in the AM group. No inhibitory or priming effects were found for the SLI group.

Conclusion

Phonological priming may be used to study the phonological representations of preschool-age children. Results suggest that none of the groups accessed words incrementally. Priming for overlapping rimes by the AM but not the VM or SLI groups may indicate that the AM group benefited from lexical organization favoring nucleus + rime organization that has not yet developed for the VM or SLI groups. The lack of inhibition in the SLI group suggests that their phonological representations were not detailed enough to prime words in their lexicon or that they did not process the prime or target words.

Sentence Comprehension in Postinstitutionalized School-Age Children [Article]

Desmarais, C., Roeber, B. J., Smith, M. E., Pollak, S. D. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

In this study, the authors investigated sentence comprehension and spatial working memory abilities in a sample of internationally adopted, postinstitutionalized (PI) children. The authors compared the performance of these PI children with that of an age-matched group of children living with their birth families. They hypothesized that PI children would perform below clinical threshold on tasks of sentence comprehension and that poor sentence comprehension would be associated with poor performance in working memory.

Method

Twenty-three PI children and 36 comparison children were administered sentence comprehension and spatial memory tasks from standardized assessments.

Results

Some oral sentence comprehension skills and the spatial working memory skills were weaker in the school-age PI children than in the age-matched comparison children. A mediational analysis demonstrated that poor spatial working memory performance partially explains the sentence comprehension differences between the 2 groups.

Conclusion

These findings provide valuable information to better plan early intervention and special education for PI children.

Dialect Variation and Reading: Is Change in Nonmainstream American English Use Related to Reading Achievement in First and Second Grades? [Article]

Terry, N. P., Connor, C. M., Petscher, Y., Conlin, C. R. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

In this study, we examined (a) whether children who spoke Nonmainstream American English (NMAE) frequently in school at the beginning of 1st grade increased their use of Mainstream American English (MAE) through the end of 2nd grade, and whether increasing MAE use was associated with (b) language and reading skills and school context and (c) greater gains in reading skills.

Method

A longitudinal design was implemented with 49 children who spoke NMAE moderately to strongly. Spoken production of NMAE forms, word reading, and reading comprehension were measured at the beginning, middle, and end of 1st and 2nd grades. Various oral language skills were also measured at the beginning of 1st grade.

Results

Results indicate that most children increased their MAE production during 1st grade and maintained these levels in 2nd grade. Increasing MAE use was predicted by children's expressive vocabulary and nonword repetition skills at the beginning of 1st grade. Finally, the more children increased their MAE production, the greater were their reading gains from 1st grade through 2nd grade.

Conclusions

The findings extend previous reports of a significant association between NMAE use and specific reading skills among young children and have implications for theory, educational practice, and future research.

How Children With Autism Extend New Words [Article]

McGregor, K. K., Bean, A. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

How do children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) extend a noun to the category of objects it labels? Given their tendency to perceive locally, their extensions might be too narrow. Given their social-communicative deficits and a context in which the knowledge of a social-communicative partner promotes narrow extensions, their extensions might be too broad.

Method

We tested these predictions by comparing 25 high-functioning school-aged children with ASD to 29 age-matched peers with typical development (TD) in a task that required extraction of commonalities of object referents and use of social-communicative context to support the category inference.

Results

The children with ASD readily extended a given noun to multiple exemplars, thereby demonstrating tacit knowledge that words label categories and the ability to override local perceptual biases they might have. However, unlike their peers with TD, those who had concomitant weaknesses in semantic and syntactic language ability formed broad categories when their social partner's behavior suggested narrow categories.

Conclusions

Some, but not all, people with ASD fail to use social context to support inferences about word extension. The direction of any causal relationship between failure to use social contextual cues and language deficits awaits determination.

Sherlock Holmes and the Strange Case of the Missing Attribution: A Historical Note on "The Grandfather Passage" [Letter to the Editor]

Reilly, J., Fisher, J. L. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

In 1963, Charles Van Riper published "My Grandfather," a short reading passage that has evolved into a ubiquitous metric of reading ability and speech intelligibility. In this historical note, we describe several heretofore unacknowledged similarities between "The Grandfather Passage" (Darley, Aronson, & Brown, 1975) and a portion of The Valley of Fear (Conan Doyle, 1915/2006), the final novel of the Sherlock Holmes series. We also describe overlap between "My Grandfather" and "The Grandfather Passage."

Method

We contrasted propositions within The Valley of Fear to "My Grandfather" and "The Grandfather Passage." We also compared the respective text strings using the Turnitin antiplagiarism software application (iParadigms, 2011).

Results

"My Grandfather" and "The Grandfather Passage" are nearly identical passages with 88% string overlap. In addition, both passages show similarities with text from The Valley of Fear.

Conclusions

Darley et al. (1975) did not acknowledge Van Riper (1963) as the original author of "The Grandfather Passage." In addition to this citation oversight, neither Darley et al. nor Van Riper attributed Conan Doyle as original source material. We describe the colorful history of this passage that has seen a remarkable breadth of utility in speech and language sciences.

Selective Auditory Attention in Adults: Effects of Rhythmic Structure of the Competing Language [Article]

Reel, L. A., Hicks, C. B. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

The authors assessed adult selective auditory attention to determine effects of (a) differences between the vocal/speaking characteristics of different mixed-gender pairs of masking talkers and (b) the rhythmic structure of the language of the competing speech.

Method

Reception thresholds for English sentences were measured for 50 monolingual English-speaking adults in conditions with 2-talker (male–female) competing speech spoken in a stress-based (English, German), syllable-based (Spanish, French), or mora-based (Japanese) language. Two different masking signals were created for each language (i.e., 2 different 2-talker pairs). All subjects were tested in 10 competing conditions (2 conditions for each of the 5 languages).

Results

A significant difference was noted between the 2 masking signals within each language. Across languages, significantly greater listening difficulty was observed in conditions where competing speech was spoken in English, German, or Japanese, as compared with Spanish or French.

Conclusions

Results suggest that (a) for a particular language, masking effectiveness can vary between different male–female 2-talker maskers and (b) for stress-based vs. syllable-based languages, competing speech is more difficult to ignore when spoken in a language from the native rhythmic class as compared with a nonnative rhythmic class, regardless of whether the language is familiar or unfamiliar to the listener.

Speech Recognition and Acoustic Features in Combined Electric and Acoustic Stimulation [Article]

Yoon, Y.-s., Li, Y., Fu, Q.-J. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

In this study, the authors aimed to identify speech information processed by a hearing aid (HA) that is additive to information processed by a cochlear implant (CI) as a function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

Method

Speech recognition was measured with CI alone, HA alone, and CI + HA. Ten participants were separated into 2 groups; good (aided pure-tone average [PTA] < 55 dB) and poor (aided PTA ≥ 55 dB) at audiometric frequencies ≤ 1 kHz in HA.

Results

Results showed that the good-aided PTA group derived a clear bimodal benefit (performance difference between CI + HA and CI alone) for vowel and sentence recognition in noise, whereas the poor-aided PTA group received little benefit across speech tests and SNRs. Results also showed that a better aided PTA helped in processing cues embedded in both low and high frequencies; none of these cues was significantly perceived by the poor-aided PTA group.

Conclusions

The aided PTA is an important indicator for bimodal advantage in speech perception. The lack of bimodal benefits in the poor group may be attributed to the nonoptimal HA fitting. Bimodal listening provides a synergistic effect for cues in both low- and high-frequency components in speech.

Bilingual Listeners' Perception of Temporally Manipulated English Passages [Article]

Shi, L.-F., Farooq, N. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

The current study measured, objectively and subjectively, how changes in speech rate affect recognition of English passages in bilingual listeners.

Method

Ten native monolingual, 20 English-dominant bilingual, and 20 non-English-dominant bilingual listeners repeated target words in English passages at five speech rates (unprocessed, two expanded, and two compressed), in quiet and in noise. For noise conditions, performance was measured at a signal-to-noise ratio that was determined through an adaptive procedure to avoid ceiling and floor effects. Listeners also made subjective judgments of speech rate, speech clarity, and performance confidence.

Results

In noise, stepwise improvement was observed as rate slowed down. A similar effect was not found in quiet. This pattern in performance was largely comparable across listener groups but was most robust in English-dominant listeners. Changes in speech rate and presence of noise significantly affected listeners' subjective ratings; however, no intergroup differences were observed for any of the subjective ratings.

Conclusions

Bilingual listeners benefited from slow speech rates, more evidently so in noise than in quiet. Their performance, however, did not reach a monolingual level, even at the most favorable rate. Nonetheless, all listeners reported comparable confidence when processing temporally manipulated English passages.

Perception of Speech Features by French-Speaking Children With Cochlear Implants [Article]

Bouton, S., Serniclaes, W., Bertoncini, J., Cole, P. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

The present study investigates the perception of phonological features in French-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) compared with normal-hearing (NH) children matched for listening age.

Method

Scores for discrimination and identification of minimal pairs for all features defining consonants (e.g., place, voicing, manner, nasality) and vowels (e.g., frontness, nasality, aperture) were measured in each listener.

Results

The results indicated no differences in "categorical perception," specified as a similar difference between discrimination and identification between CI children and controls. However, CI children demonstrated a lower level of "categorical precision," that is, lesser accuracy in both feature identification and discrimination, than NH children, with the magnitude of the deficit depending on the feature.

Conclusions

If sensitive periods of language development extend well beyond the moment of implantation, the consequences of hearing deprivation for the acquisition of categorical perception should be fairly important in comparison to categorical precision because categorical precision develops more slowly than categorical perception in NH children. These results do not support the idea that the sensitive period for development of categorical perception is restricted to the first 1–2 years of life. The sensitive period may be significantly longer. Differences in precision may reflect the acoustic limitations of the cochlear implant, such as coding for temporal fine structure and frequency resolution.

Vocabulary and Working Memory in Children Fit With Hearing Aids [Article]

Stiles, D. J., McGregor, K. K., Bentler, R. A. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

To determine whether children with mild-to-moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss (CHL) present with disturbances in working memory and whether these disturbances relate to the size of their receptive vocabularies.

Method

Children 6 to 9 years of age participated. Aspects of working memory were tapped by articulation rate, forward and backward digit span in the auditory and visual modalities, Corsi span, parent surveys, and a sequential encoding task. Articulation rate, digit spans, and Corsi spans were also administered in low-level broadband noise.

Results

CHL and children with normal hearing (CNH) demonstrated auditory advantage in forward serial recall. CHL demonstrated slower articulation rates than CNH, but similar memory spans. CHL with poor executive function presented with poorer performance on the Corsi span task. The presence of background noise had no effect on performance in either group. CHL presented with significantly smaller receptive vocabularies than their CNH peers. Across groups, receptive vocabulary size was positively correlated with digit span in quiet, Corsi span in noise, and articulation rate.

Conclusions

In the presence of mild-to-moderately severe hearing loss, children demonstrated resilient working memory systems. For all children, working memory and vocabulary were related; that is, children with poorer working memory had smaller vocabulary sizes.

Lack of Generalization of Auditory Learning in Typically Developing Children [Article]

Halliday, L. F., Taylor, J. L., Millward, K. E., Moore, D. R. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

To understand the components of auditory learning in typically developing children by assessing generalization across stimuli, across modalities (i.e., hearing, vision), and to higher level language tasks.

Method

Eighty-six 8- to 10-year-old typically developing children were quasi-randomly assigned to 4 groups. Three of the groups received twelve 30-min training sessions on multiple standards using either an auditory frequency discrimination task (AFD group), auditory phonetic discrimination task (PD group), or visual frequency discrimination task (VFD group) over 4 weeks. The 4th group, which was the no-intervention control (NI) group, did not receive any training. Thresholds on all tasks (AFD, PD, and VFD) were assessed immediately before and after training, along with performance on a battery of language assessments.

Results

Relative to the other groups, both the AFD group and the PD group, but not the VFD group, showed significant learning on the stimuli upon which they were trained. However, in those instances where learning was observed, it did not generalize to the nontrained stimuli or to the language assessments.

Conclusions

Nonspeech (AFD) or speech (PD) discrimination training can lead to auditory learning in typically developing children of this age range. However, this learning does not always generalize across stimuli or tasks, across modalities, or to higher level measures of language ability.

Comparing Identification of Standardized and Regionally Valid Vowels [Article]

Wright, R., Souza, P. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

In perception studies, it is common to use vowel stimuli from standardized recordings or synthetic stimuli created using values from well-known published research. Although the use of standardized stimuli is convenient, unconsidered dialect and regional accent differences may introduce confounding effects. The goal of this study was to examine the effect of regional accent variation on vowel identification.

Method

The authors analyzed formant values of 8 monophthong vowels produced by 12 talkers from the region where the research took place and compared them with standardized vowels. Fifteen listeners with normal hearing identified synthesized vowels presented in varying levels of noise and at varying spectral distances from the local-dialect values.

Results

Acoustically, local vowels differed from standardized vowels, and distance varied across vowels. Perceptually, there was a robust effect of accent similarity such that identification was reduced for vowels at greater distances from local values.

Conclusions

Researchers and clinicians should take care in choosing stimuli for perception experiments. It is recommended that regionally validated vowels be used instead of relying on standardized vowels in vowel perception tasks.

New Measures of Masked Text Recognition in Relation to Speech-in-Noise Perception and Their Associations With Age and Cognitive Abilities [Article]

Besser, J., Zekveld, A. A., Kramer, S. E., Ronnberg, J., Festen, J. M. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

In this research, the authors aimed to increase the analogy between Text Reception Threshold (TRT; Zekveld, George, Kramer, Goverts, & Houtgast, 2007) and Speech Reception Threshold (SRT; Plomp & Mimpen, 1979) and to examine the TRT's value in estimating cognitive abilities that are important for speech comprehension in noise.

Method

The authors administered 5 TRT versions, SRT tests in stationary (SRT_STAT) and modulated (SRT_MOD) noise, and 2 cognitive tests: a reading span (RSpan) test for working memory capacity and a letter–digit substitution test for information-processing speed. Fifty-five adults with normal hearing (18–78 years, M = 44 years) participated. The authors examined mutual associations of the tests and their predictive value for the SRTs with correlation and linear regression analyses.

Results

SRTs and TRTs were well associated, also when controlling for age. Correlations for the SRT_STAT were generally lower than for the SRT_MOD. The cognitive tests were correlated to the SRTs only when age was not controlled for. Age and the TRTs were the only significant predictors of SRT_MOD. SRT_STAT was predicted by level of education and some of the TRT versions.

Conclusions

TRTs and SRTs are robustly associated, nearly independent of age. The association between SRTs and RSpan is largely age dependent. The TRT test and the RSpan test measure different nonauditory components of linguistic processing relevant for speech perception in noise.

Episodic Long-Term Memory of Spoken Discourse Masked by Speech: What Is the Role for Working Memory Capacity? [Article]

Sorqvist, P., Ronnberg, J. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

To investigate whether working memory capacity (WMC) modulates the effects of to-be-ignored speech on the memory of materials conveyed by to-be-attended speech.

Method

Two tasks (reading span, Daneman & Carpenter, 1980; Rönnberg et al., 2008; and size-comparison span, Sörqvist, Ljungberg, & Ljung, 2010) were used to measure individual differences in WMC. Episodic long-term memory of spoken discourse was measured by requesting participants to listen to stories masked either by normal speech or by a rotated version of that speech and to subsequently answer questions on the content of the stories.

Results

Normal speech impaired performance on the episodic long-term memory test, and both WMC tasks were negatively related to this effect, indicating that individuals with high WMC are less susceptible to disruption. Moreover, further analyses revealed that size-comparison span (a task that requires resolution of semantic confusion by inhibition processes) is a stronger predictor of the effect than is reading span.

Conclusions

Cognitive control processes support listening in adverse conditions. In particular, inhibition processes acting to resolve semantic confusion seem to underlie the relationship between WMC and susceptibility to distraction from masking speech.

Contribution of Linguistic Variables to Bilingual Listeners' Perception of Degraded English Sentences [Article]

Shi, L.-F. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

The present study was designed to investigate what linguistic variables best predict bilingual recognition of acoustically degraded sentences and how to identify bilingual individuals who might have more difficulty than their monolingual counterparts on such tasks.

Method

Four hundred English speech-perception-in-noise (SPIN) sentences with high and low context were presented in combinations of noise (signal-to-noise ratio: +6 and 0 dB) and reverberation (reverberation time: 1.2 and 3.6 s) to 10 monolingual and 50 bilingual listeners. A detailed linguistic profile was obtained for bilingual listeners using the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire.

Results

Variables per reading in English (age of fluency, proficiency, and preference) emerged as strong predictors of performance across noise, reverberation, and context effects. Via discriminant analyses, bilingual listeners who rated their accent to be perceptible and reported shorter length of immersion in an English-spoken country or school tended to score significantly lower on the SPIN test than monolingual listeners.

Conclusions

Bilingual listeners' linguistic background plays a major role in their use of context in degraded English sentences. Rather than conventional variables such as age of acquisition, variables pertaining to reading, proficiency, immersion, and accent severity may be obtained for improved prediction of bilingual performance on the task.

Is Tongue Strength an Important Influence on Rate of Articulation in Diadochokinetic and Reading Tasks? [Article]

Neel, A. T., Palmer, P. M. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between tongue strength and rate of articulation in 2 speech tasks, diadochokinetic rates and reading aloud, in healthy men and women between 20 and 78 years of age.

Method

Diadochokinetic rates were measured for the syllables /p/, /t/, /k/, and /ptk/, and articulation rates were calculated for a reading of the Rainbow Passage for 57 adult volunteers. The Iowa Oral Performance Instrument (LLC Northwest) was used to obtain maximum tongue pressure, tongue pressure exerted during production of /t/, and tongue endurance. Correlation analyses were performed to determine the relation among articulation rate and tongue pressure and endurance measures.

Results

Maximum tongue pressure, the pressure used to produce /t/, the proportion of maximum pressure used to produce /t/, and tongue endurance were poor predictors of diadochokinetic rates and articulation rate in reading for healthy speakers.

Discussion

Focus must remain on factors beyond strength, such as movement precision and coordination, to improve researchers' understanding of normal and disordered speech production in adults.

Effects of the Menstrual Cycle and Oral Contraception on Singers' Pitch Control [Article]

La, F. M. B., Sundberg, J., Howard, D. M., Sa-Couto, P., Freitas, A. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

Difficulties with intonation and vibrato control during the menstrual cycle have been reported by singers; however, this phenomenon has not yet been systematically investigated.

Method

A double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial assessing effects of the menstrual cycle and use of a combined oral contraceptive pill (OCP) on pitch control in singing is presented. Audio-electrolaryngograph recordings were made and blood samples were taken from 9 singers in each of the 3 phases of the menstrual cycle both under the placebo and the OCP conditions for a total of 6 months. Participants sang an exercise consisting of an ascending octave followed by a descending major triad, starting on pitches F4 and B4. Pitch control was assessed in terms of the octave's deviations from pure intonation and of the vibrato rate and extent.

Results

Significant differences were found between the 3 phases of the cycle regarding octave size only for pitch F5 during OCP use. Significant vibrato rate differences between placebo and OCP conditions were found only for pitch F5.

Conclusion

OCP use may have an effect on pitch control in singers. Possible explanations point to a complex interaction between hormonal milieu and pitch control, enhancing the need for longitudinal studies.

The Influence of Stimulus Taste and Chemesthesis on Tongue Movement Timing in Swallowing [Article]

Steele, C. M., van Lieshout, P. H. H. M., Pelletier, C. A. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

To explore the influence of taste and trigeminal irritation (chemesthesis) on durational aspects of tongue movement in liquid swallowing, controlling for the influence of perceived taste intensity.

Method

Electromagnetic midsagittal articulography was used to trace tongue movements during discrete liquid swallowing with 5 liquids: water, 3 moderate concentration tastants without odor (sweet, sour, sweet-sour), and a high concentration of citric acid (sour taste plus chemesthesis). Participants were 33 healthy adults in 2 gender-balanced, age-stratified groups (under/over 50). Perceived taste intensity was measured using the Generalized Labeled Magnitude Scale (Bartoshuk, 2000; Bartoshuk et al., 2004). Tongue movement sequencing and durations of the composite tongue movement envelope and component events (rise phase, location of first movement peak, release phase) were calculated.

Results

No obligate sequence of tongue segment movement was observed. Overall durations and the timing of the first movement peak were significantly longer with water than with the moderate concentration of sweet-sour liquid. Perceived taste intensity did not modulate stimulus effects in a significant way. The expected pattern of shorter movement durations with the high concentration of citric acid was not seen.

Conclusions

A chemesthetic-taste stimulus of high citric acid did not influence the durations of tongue movements compared with those seen during the swallowing of moderate concentration tastants and water.

Reduced Speech Perceptual Acuity for Stop Consonants in Individuals Who Stutter [Article]

2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

In individuals who stutter (IWS), speech fluency can be enhanced by altered auditory feedback, although it has adverse effects in control speakers. This indicates abnormalities in the auditory feedback loop in stuttering. Current motor control theories on stuttering propose an impaired processing of internal forward models that might be related to a blurred auditory-to-motor translation. Although speech sound perception is an essential skill to form internal models, perceptual acuity has not been studied in IWS so far. The authors tested the stability of phoneme percepts by analyzing participants' ability to identify voiced and voiceless stop consonants.

Method

Two syllable continua were generated by systematic modification of the voice onset time. The authors determined speech perceptual acuity by means of discriminatory power in 25 IWS and 24 matched control participants by determining the phoneme boundaries and by quantifying the interval of voice onset times for which phonemes were perceived ambiguously.

Results

In IWS, discriminatory performance was weaker and less stable over time when compared with control participants. In addition, phoneme boundaries were located at longer voice onset times in IWS.

Conclusion

Persistent developmental stuttering is associated with less reliable phonological percepts, supporting current theories regarding the sensory–motor interaction in human speech.

Perceptual Learning of Dysarthric Speech: A Review of Experimental Studies [Review]

Borrie, S. A., McAuliffe, M. J., Liss, J. M. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

This review article provides a theoretical overview of the characteristics of perceptual learning, reviews perceptual learning studies that pertain to dysarthric populations, and identifies directions for future research that consider the application of perceptual learning to the management of dysarthria.

Method

A critical review of the literature was conducted that summarized and synthesized previously published research in the area of perceptual learning with atypical speech. Literature related to perceptual learning of neurologically degraded speech was emphasized with the aim of identifying key directions for future research with this population.

Conclusions

Familiarization with unfamiliar or ambiguous speech signals can facilitate perceptual learning of that same speech signal. There is a small but growing body of evidence that perceptual learning also occurs for listeners familiarized with dysarthric speech. Perceptual learning of the dysarthric signal is both theoretically and clinically significant. In order to establish the efficacy of exploiting perceptual learning paradigms for rehabilitative gain in dysarthria management, research is required to build on existing empirical evidence and develop a theoretical framework for learning to better recognize neurologically degraded speech.

Comments on Recent Developments in Stuttering Treatment Maintenance Research Using the Camperdown Program [Letter to the Editor]

Ingham, R. J. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

To review the contribution of recent studies on the Camperdown Program (O'Brian, Onslow, Cream, & Packman, 2003) for treating stuttering in adolescents and adults toward the problem of maintenance of treatment benefits.

Method

The procedures employed in those studies are reviewed with respect to the use of performance-contingent maintenance schedules, including their recent use in conjunction with social anxiety modification.

Conclusion

The design of the recent studies of the Camperdown Program confounds the effects of maintenance strategies and treatment outcome evaluation, thereby obscuring their contribution toward resolving the problem of maintenance.

Measuring Outcomes Following the Camperdown Program for Stuttering: A Response to Dr. Ingham [Letter to the Editor]

O'Brian, S., Packman, A., Onslow, M., Menzies, R. — 2012-02-21T10:27:06-08:00

Purpose

To respond to Dr. Ingham's letter to the editor, "Comments on Recent Developments in Stuttering Treatment Maintenance Research Using the Camperdown Program," which appears in this issue of the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

Method

When a treatment program has a performance-contingent maintenance schedule, as the Camperdown Program has, participants vary greatly in the time taken to complete this schedule—up to 2 years or more, in some cases. We reject Dr. Ingham's position that outcomes be measured a year after individual participants conclude their maintenance for the very reasons he has argued many times in the literature.

Conclusion

We will continue to measure the outcomes of our clinical trials after a clinically meaningful period and at the same time for all participants.

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