bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Selective Visual Masking in Speechreading
Authors: Preminger Jill E. , Lin Hwei-Bing , Payen Michel , Levitt Harry
Published: July 2014

Using digital video technology, selective aspects of a face can be masked by identifying the pixels that represent it and then, by adjusting the gray levels, effectively eliminate that facial aspect. In groups of young adults with normal vision and hearing, consonant-viseme recognition was measured for closed sets of vowel-consonant-vowel disyllables. In the first experiment viseme recognition was measured while the tongue and teeth were masked and while the entire mouth was masked. The results showed that masking of the tongue and teeth had little effect on viseme recognition, and when the entire mouth was masked, participants continued to identify consonant visemes with 70% or greater accuracy in the /a/ and // vowel contexts. In the second experiment, viseme recognition was measured when the upper part of the face and the mouth were masked and when the lower part of the face and the mouth were masked. The results showed that when the mouth and the upper part of the face were masked, performance was poor, but information was available to identify the consonantviseme /f/. When the mouth and the lower part of the face were masked, viseme recognition was quite poor, but information was available to discriminate the consonant-viseme /p/ from other consonant visemes.
Young Children's Acquisition of the Movement Aspect in American Sign Language
Authors: Bonvillian John D. , Siedlecki Theodore
Published: July 2014

The acquisition of the movement aspect of American Sign Language signs was examined longitudinally in 9 young children of deaf parents. During monthly home visits, the parents demonstrated on videotape how their children formed the different signs in their lexicons. The parents also demonstrated how they formed or modeled these same signs. Overall, the children correctly produced 61.4% of the movements that were present in the adult sign models. Although the production accuracy of the movement aspect of signs did not improve over the course of the study, the number and complexity of movements produced by the children did increase as they got older and their vocabularies grew in size. Of the different sign movements, contacting action was by far the most frequently produced. The children were also relatively successful in their production of closing action and downward movement. The order of acquisition for the remaining ASL movements, however, was quite variable, with the exception that bidirectional movements tended to be produced more accurately than unidirectional movements. The relationship between children's early rhythmical motor behaviors and the development of sign movements is discussed.
Improvements in Speech Perception by Children With Profound Prelingual Hearing Loss
Authors: Meyer Ted A. , Svirsky Mario A. , Kirk Karen I. , Miyamoto Richard T.
Published: July 2014

The present investigation expanded on an earlier study by Miyamoto, Osberger, Todd, Robbins, Karasek, et al. (1994) who compared the speech perception skills of two groups of children with profound prelingual hearing loss. The first group had received the Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant and was tested longitudinally. The second group, who were not implanted and used conventional hearing aids, was tested at a single point in time. In the present study, speech perception scores were examined over time for both groups of children as a function of communication mode of the child. Separate linear regressions of speech perception scores as a function of age were computed to estimate the rate of improvement in speech perception abilities that might be expected due to maturation for the hearing aid users (
n
=58) within each communication mode. The resulting regression lines were used to compare the estimated rate of speech perception growth for each hearing aid group to the observed gains in speech perception made by the children with multichannel cochlear implants. A large number of children using cochlear implants (
n
=74) were tested over a long period of implant use (
m
=3.5 years) that ranged from zero to 8.5 years. In general, speech perception scores for the children using cochlear implants were higher than those predicted for a group of children with 101–110 dB HL of hearing loss using hearing aids, and they approached the scores predicted for a group of children with 90–100 dB HL of hearing loss using hearing aids.
An Electrophysiological Study of Infants' Sensitivity to the Sound Patterns of English Speech
Authors: Shafer Valerie L. , Shucard David W. , Shucard Janet L. , Gerken LouAnn
Published: July 2014

The study explores 10- to 11-month-old infants' sensitivity to the phonological characteristics of their native language. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were obtained for tones that were superimposed on two versions of a story: an Unmodified version containing normal English function morphemes, and a Modified version in which the prosodic and segmental properties of a subset of function morphemes were changed to make them atypical. The 11-month-olds exhibited significantly lower amplitude ERPs to the tones during the Modified story than to the Unmodified story, whereas the 10-month-olds showed no differences. These results suggest that the 11-month-olds discriminated the two versions of the story based on their representations of the phonological properties of English. Further, the tone-probe ERP method can successfully be used to study the development of speech perception in the pre-linguistic infant.
Information Processing by School-Age Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Gillam Ronald B. , Cowan Nelson , Marler Jeffrey A.
Published: July 2014

School-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and age-matched controls were tested for immediate recall of digits presented visually, auditorily, or audiovisually. Recall tasks compared speaking and pointing response modalities. Each participant was tested at a level that was consistent with her or his auditory short-term memory span. Traditional effects of primacy, recency, and modality (an auditory recall advantage) were obtained for both groups. The groups performed similarly when audiovisual stimuli were paired with a spoken response, but children with SLI had smaller recency effects together with an unusually poor recall when visually presented items were paired with a pointing response. Such results cannot be explained on the basis of an auditory or speech deficit per se, and suggest that children with SLI have difficulty either retaining or using phonological codes, or both, during tasks that require multiple mental operations. Capacity limitations, involving the rapid decay of phonological representations and/or performance limitations related to the use of less demanding and less effective coding and retrieval strategies, could have contributed to the working memory deficiencies in the children with SLI.
Negotiation skills of Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Brinton Bonnie , Fujiki Martin , McKee Lara
Published: July 2014

This study examined the ability of 6 children with specific language impairment (SLI), ages 8;10 to 12;5 (yr; mon) to participate in a negotiation sequence with 2 same-age peers in triadic interactions. Negotiation sequences were analyzed using a system based on Selman’s interpersonal negotiation strategies (INS) model (Selman, 1981). The negotiation skills of children with SLI were compared to those of 6 children matched for chronological age (CA) and 6 children of similar language (LS) abilities, participating in the same task. Children with SLI did not produce significantly fewer utterances than the partners with whom they interacted. However, they did produce a significantly smaller percentage of the negotiation strategies produced by their triads. They also used developmentally lower level strategies than either of the partners in their triads. Children interacting within the CA and LS triads did not produce similar differences.
Effect of Tape Recording on Perturbation Measures
Authors: Jiang Jack , Lin Emily , Hanson David G.
Published: July 2014

Tape recorders have been shown to affect measures of voice perturbation. Few studies, however, have been conducted to quantitatively justify the use or exclusion of certain types of recorders in voice perturbation studies. This study used sinusoidal and triangular waves and synthesized vowels to compare perturbation measures extracted from directly digitized signals with those recorded and played back through various tape recorders, including 3 models of digital audio tape recorders, 2 models of analog audio cassette tape recorders, and 2 models of video tape recorders. Signal contamination for frequency perturbation values was found to be consistently minimal with digital recorders (percent jitter=0.01%–0.02%), mildly increased with video recorders (0.05%–0.10%), moderately increased with a high-quality analog audio cassette tape recorder (0.15%), and most prominent with a low-quality analog audio cassette tape recorder (0.24%). Recorder effect on amplitude perturbation measures was lowest in digital recorders (percent shimmer = 0.09%–0.20%), mildly to moderately increased in video recorders and a high-quality analog audio cassette tape recorder (0.25%–0.45%), and most prominent in a low-quality analog audio cassette tape recorder (0.98%). The effect of cassette tape material, length of spooled tape, and duration of analysis were also tested and are discussed.
Speech Perception Performance in Experienced Cochlear-Implant Patients Receiving the SPEAK Processing Strategy in the Nucleus Spectra-22 Cochlear Implant
Authors: Parkinson Aaron J. , Parkinson Wendy S. , Tyler Richard S. , Lowder Mary W. , Gantz Bruce J.
Published: July 2014

Sixteen experienced cochlear implant patients with a wide range of speechperception abilities received the SPEAK processing strategy in the Nucleus Spectra-22 cochlear implant. Speech perception was assessed in quiet and in noise with SPEAK and with the patients' previous strategies (for most, Multipeak) at the study onset, as well as after using SPEAK for 6 months. Comparisons were made within and across the two test sessions to elucidate possible learning effects. Patients were also asked to rate the strategies on seven speech recognition and sound quality scales. After 6 months' experience with SPEAK, patients showed significantly improved mean performance on a range of speech recognition measures in quiet and noise. When mean subjective ratings were compared over time there were no significant differences noted between strategies. However, many individuals rated the SPEAK strategy better for two or more of the seven subjective measures. Ratings for "appreciation of music" and "quality of my own voice" in particular were generally higher for SPEAK. Improvements were realized by patients with a wide range of speech perception abilities, including those with little or no open-set speech recognition.
Causative Alternations of Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Loeb Diane Frome , Pye Clifton , Richardson Lori Zobel , Redmond Sean
Published: July 2014

Alternating verbs to indicate or to relinquish cause requires an understanding of semantic and syntactic knowledge. This study evaluated the ability of children with specific language impairment (SLI) to produce the causative alternation in comparison to age peers and to language peers. The children with SLI were proficient in lexically alternating verbs, yet provided fewer passive and periphrastic constructions and more different verbs and adjectival responses. Overgeneralization error data suggest that the semantic systems of some children with SLI were similar to their age comparisons. Individual differences within the SLI group suggested that some children were adept at providing syntactic responses and overgeneralizations, whereas some of the SLI group provided less mature responses of no alternations and no responses. These findings demonstrate a syntactic deficit in the causative alternation for some children with SLI.
Gestures and Words in Early Development of Children With Down Syndrome
Authors: Caselli M. Cristina , Vicari Stefano , Longobardi Emiddia , Lami Laura , Pizzoli Claudia , Stella Giacomo
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the development of language and communication in children with Down syndrome (DS). More specifically, the aim was to examine the relations among verbal comprehension, verbal production, and gesture production in the very early stages of development. Forty children (age range: 10–49 months) with DS and 40 children with normal development (age range: 8–17 months) participated in this study. Children with DS came from two Italian health centers. The communicative and linguistic development of children with DS was measured by administering the Italian version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory. The children with DS were severely delayed when compared with normally developing children in reaching the developmental stages. In such children a dissociation emerged between verbal comprehension and production, in favor of comprehension, whereas a synchronous development was found between vocal lexical comprehension and gestural production. The individual differences previously reported in these children are also evident in all domains examined. There were no significant differences between children with DS and typically developing controls matched for lexical comprehension on verbal production. However the two groups differed significantly in gestural development, suggesting a "gesture advantage" in children with DS compared with controls matched for word comprehension. Some possible reasons for this dissociative profile are discussed.
Participation in Cooperative Learning Activities by Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Brinton Bonnie , Fujiki Martin , Higbee Lisa M.
Published: July 2014

This study examined the involvement of children with specific language impairment (SLI) in a cooperative group task. Subjects consisted of 6 target children with SLI (ages 8;10 to 12;5), 6 target children matched for chronological age (CA), and 6 target children with similar language skills (LS). Each target subject interacted with 2 peers of the same age and gender. This resulted in 54 subjects participating in 18 triadic interactions (each involving 1 target subject and 2 partners). Each triad of children worked together to build a cardboard periscope. Verbal and nonverbal collaborative activity were analyzed during the interactions. All members of the CA and LS triads were highly collaborative and worked and talked together while assembling the periscope. Four of the children with SLI played very minor roles in the cooperative work within their triads. Their verbal contributions were limited, and their nonverbal activity was minimal. When children with SLI did collaborate in building the periscope, they performed less specialized tasks than did their partners.
Parameterization of the Voice Source by Combining Spectral Decay and Amplitude Features of the Glottal Flow
Authors: Alku Paavo , Vilkman Erkki , Laukkanen Anne-Maria
Published: July 2014

A new method is presented for the parameterization of glottal volume velocity waveforms that have been estimated by inverse filtering acoustic speech pressure signals. The new technique, Parameter for Spectral and Amplitude Features of the Glottal Flow (PSA), combines two features of voice production, the AC value and the spectral decay of the glottal flow, both of which contribute to changes in vocal loudness. PSA yields a single parameter that characterizes the glottal flow in different loudness conditions. By analyzing voices of 8 speakers it was shown that the new parameter correlates strongly with the sound pressure level of speech.
Dysarthric Sentence Intelligibility
Authors: Garcia Jane Mertz , Dagenais Paul A.
Published: July 2014

This study examined changes in the sentence intelligibility scores of speakers with dysarthria in association with different signal-independent factors (contextual influences). This investigation focused on the presence or absence of iconic gestures while speaking sentences with low or high semantic predictiveness. The speakers were 4 individuals with dysarthria, who varied from one another in terms of their level of speech intelligibility impairment, gestural abilities, and overall level of motor functioning. Ninety-six inexperienced listeners (24 assigned to each speaker) orthographically transcribed 16 test sentences presented in an audio + video or audio-only format. The sentences had either low or high semantic predictiveness and were spoken by each speaker with and without the corresponding gestures. The effects of signal-independent factors (presence or absence of iconic gestures, low or high semantic predictiveness, and audio + video or audio-only presentation formats) were analyzed for individual speakers. Not all signal-independent information benefited speakers similarly. Results indicated that use of gestures and high semantic predictiveness improved sentence intelligibility for 2 speakers. The other 2 speakers benefited from high predictive messages. The audio + video presentation mode enhanced listener understanding for all speakers, although there were interactions related to specific speaking situations. Overall, the contributions of relevant signal-independent information were greater for the speakers with more severely impaired intelligibility. The results are discussed in terms of understanding the contribution of signal-independent factors to the communicative process.
The Effect of Presentation Rate on Serial Memory in Young Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Fazio Barbara B.
Published: July 2014

The study examined the serial memory ability of a group of preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) who were compared to age and language control groups. The children were asked to recognize serial patterns under short and long presentation durations. The subjects were presented with images of common objects (that appeared to be easily recoded into a phonological form) and iconic images of scribble drawings and unfamiliar faces (that did not appear to invite recoding). Under long presentation conditions, the performance of children with SLI resembled that of their age-matched peers on all 3 types of tasks. However, under short presentation conditions, children with SLI performed worse than their age-matched peers on all 3 tasks (and similarly to their language-matched peers). The performance of the children with SLI declined dramatically in all conditions when the items were presented for a brief period. If the serial memory deficits of young children with SLI were specific to phonological processing, their performance on recognizing the pattern of common objects should have been impaired, but not their performance with other visual tasks that are less likely to be recoded. Instead, serial memory in children with SLI was affected by presentation duration across tasks. The findings suggest that recognizing serial patterns is dependent, in part, on the speed of processing serial information. The findings are discussed in relation to models of limited capacity processing.
Feature Analysis of Segmental Errors in Children With Phonological Disorders
Authors: Forrest Karen , Morrisette Michele L.
Published: July 2014

There has been a longstanding controversy about the existence, nature, and differentiation of developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), leading to numerous investigations of characteristics that define this articulatory disorder. An analysis of substitutions relative to target sounds led Thoonen, Maassen, Gabreeëls, and Schreuder (1994) to conclude that children with DAS show a pattern of feature retention in their error productions that contrasted with that of children with normal articulation. This pattern, in which place of articulation was retained in the substituted sound less frequently than manner of production or voicing, was considered by Thoonen et al. to be of diagnostic significance. The current research re-examines this claim by comparing the retention patterns obtained by Thoonen et al. for children suspected of having DAS to patterns for children suspected of having a phonological disorder. An examination of substitutions used by 20 children who were diagnosed with and treated for phonological disorders demonstrated the same pattern of feature retention that was described for children with DAS. The results of this study showed that voicing is maintained most frequently; manner of production is the next most retained feature; and place of articulation is the feature that is retained least often when a substitute is used for a sound that isn't produced correctly. In a second analysis, this pattern of feature retention was compared to children's phonological knowledge as indexed by percent correct underlying representation (PCUR). Contrary to the findings of Thoonen et al., however, the present work found an inverse relationship between retention of place and phonological knowledge. Children with greater phonological knowledge retained place less often than children with more limited phonetic inventories. These patterns of feature retention may be representative of specific development sequences that occur during phonological acquisition.
Naming Errors of Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Lahey Margaret , Edwards Jan
Published: July 2014

This paper explores why children with SLI are less accurate than peers in naming pictures. Subjects included 66 children with SLI (aged 4:3 to 9:7) with 2 subgroups, one with expressive-only language deficits (SLI
exp
) and one with receptive and expressive language deficits (SLI
mix
), and 66 children with no language impairment (NLI). Children with SLI made more errors than children with NLI, and proportionally more of their errors were names of objects associated with the pictured object (e.g.,
shoe/ foot
) and names that were phonologically related to the target than were those with NLI. The relative frequency of error types was related to pattern of language deficit; in comparison to their NLI peers, a greater proportion of SLI
exp
errors were phonological errors, and a greater proportion of the SLI
mix
errors were semantic associated, semantic perceptual, and nonsemantic perseverative. The proportion of semantic-associated errors also discriminated a subgroup of the children with SLI
exp
from a matched subgroup of the children with SLI
mix
. Interpretations and potential implications are discussed.
Speech Perception in Perceivers With Hearing Loss
Authors: Massaro Dominic W. , Cohen Michael M.
Published: July 2014

Although we would expect that the role of visible speech in multimodal speech perception would have the greatest relevance to individuals with hearing impairment, relatively few analytic studies have been done with these participants. Their adequate understanding of spoken language usually requires information from several modalities or other sources of information. The framework of the fuzzy logical model of perception (FLMP) is used to assess how individuals with hearing impairment evaluate and integrate multiple sources of information. Given this framework, a distinction can be made between
information
and
information processing
. Within this framework, we can ask what information differences and information-processing differences exist among individuals with normal hearing and those with hearing impairment. Four experimental studies from the literature are analyzed to address these questions. Test items are presented under both unimodal and bimodal conditions. Of central interest is the nature of the bimodal performance as a function of the unimodal performance. The findings show that, although information differences obviously exist across different populations, their information processing involved in pattern recognition appears to be the same and is well described by the FLMP.
Some Issues in the Statistical Analysis of Completely Randomized and Repeated Measures Designs for Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Authors: Max Ludo , Onghena Patrick
Published: July 2014

Contemporary investigators in the areas of speech, language, and hearing rely heavily on inferential statistical procedures to answer both basic and applied research questions. Such statistical procedures typically involve a number of assumptions that need to be fulfilled in order for the procedure to be appropriate for a specific data set. Unfortunately, a review of recent publications in theJournal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Researchindicated that some pivotal issues related to those underlying assumptions, although widely discussed and emphasized in the statistical literature, often appear to be neglected in these fields of research. This tutorial therefore addresses two issues that are particularly important for an appropriate and accurate use of some of the most commonly used statistical procedures. The first issue concerns the importance of addressing the sphericity assumption in studies with a repeated measures design. The second issue concerns the definition of the experimental units in a statistical analysis and applies to both completely randomized and repeated measures designs. Theoretical aspects associated with each issue are discussed, and appropriate strategies for data entry and analysis are presented.
Self-Organizing Map for the Classification of Normal and Disordered Female Voices
Authors: Callan Daniel E. , Kent Ray D. , Roy Nelson , Tasko Stephen M.
Published: July 2014

The goal of this research was to train a self-organizing map (SOM) on various acoustic measures (amplitude perturbation quotient, degree of voice breaks, rahmonic amplitude, soft phonation index, standard deviation of the fundamental frequency, and peak amplitude variation) of the sustained vowel /a/ to enhance visualization of the multidimensional nonlinear regularities inherent in the input data space. The SOM was trained using 30 spasmodic dysphonia exemplars, 30 pretreatment functional dysphonia exemplars, 30 post-treatment functional dysphonia exemplars, and 30 normal voice exemplars. After training, the classification performance of the SOM was evaluated. The results indicated that the SOM had better classification performance than that of a stepwise discriminant analysis over the original data. Analysis of the weight values across the SOM, by means of stepwise discriminant analysis, revealed the relative importance of the acoustic measures in classification of the various groups. The SOM provided both an easy way to visualize multidimensional data, and enhanced statistical predictability at distinguishing between the various groups (over that conducted on the original data set). We regard the results of this study as a promising initial step into the use of SOMs with multiple acoustic measures to assess phonatory function.
Attention to Facial Regions in Segmental and Prosodic Visual Speech Perception Tasks
Authors: Lansing Charissa R. , McConkie George W.
Published: July 2014

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that visual information related to segmental versus prosodic aspects of speech is distributed differently on the face of the talker. In the first experiment, eye gaze was monitored for 12 observers with normal hearing. Participants made decisions about segmental and prosodic categories for utterances presented without sound. The first experiment found that observers spend more time looking at and direct more gazes toward the upper part of the talker's face in making decisions about intonation patterns than about the words being spoken. The second experiment tested the Gaze Direction Assumption underlying Experiment 1—that is, that people direct their gaze to the stimulus region containing information required for their task. In this experiment, 18 observers with normal hearing made decisions about segmental and prosodic categories under conditions in which face motion was restricted to selected areas of the face. The results indicate that information in the upper part of the talker's face is more critical for intonation pattern decisions than for decisions about word segments or primary sentence stress, thus supporting the Gaze Direction Assumption. Visual speech perception proficiency requires learning where to direct visual attention for cues related to different aspects of speech.
Can a Model of Overlapping Gestures Account for Scanning Speech Patterns?
Authors: Tjaden Kris
Published: July 2014

A simple acoustic model of overlapping, sliding gestures was used to evaluate whether coproduction was reduced for neurologic speakers with scanning speech patterns. F2 onset frequency was used as an acoustic measure of coproduction or gesture overlap. The effects of speaking rate (habitual versus fast) and utterance position (initial versus medial) on F2 frequency, and presumably gesture overlap, were examined. Regression analyses also were used to evaluate the extent to which across-repetition temporal variability in F2 trajectories could be explained as variation in coproduction for consonants and vowels. The lower F2 onset frequencies for disordered speakers suggested that gesture overlap was reduced for neurologic individuals with scanning speech. Speaking rate change did not influence F2 onset frequencies, and presumably gesture overlap, for healthy or disordered speakers. F2 onset frequency differences for utterance-initial and -medial repetitions were interpreted to suggest reduced coproduction for the utterance-initial position. The utterance-position effects on F2 onset frequency, however, likely were complicated by position-related differences in articulatory scaling. The results of the regression analysis indicated that gesture sliding accounts, in part, for temporal variability in F2 trajectories. Taken together, the results of this study provide support for the idea that speech production theory for healthy talkers helps to account for disordered speech production.
Speech and Phonological Characteristics of Individual Children With a History of Tracheostomy
Authors: Kertoy Marilyn K. , Guest Christine M. , Quart Ellen , Lieh-Lai Mary
Published: July 2014

The present investigation studied the speech production and phonological skills of 6 children between the ages of 2;8 and 6;8 (years;months) who had undergone tracheostomy before age 8 months. Each child's speech was analyzed for size and composition of phonetic inventory, use of phonological processes, production of vowels, and production of the voicing contrast for stops. Analyses were completed once consistent air support for vocalization was established for each child and 3 months after that date. This study highlights the slow development of sound acquisition, vowel production, and the distinction between voiced and voiceless stops for some, but not all, children with a history of tracheostomy. Each child exhibited his or her own pattern of speech production difficulties on four tasks. Excessive use of inappropriate phonological processes relative to age was the most prevalent speech production problem. Five of 6 subjects exhibited clinically significant use of Stridency Deletion, Liquid Deviation, and/or Cluster Reduction. Adjustments were noted in the speech of all subjects during a 3-month period.
Comparison of Two Methods for Selecting Minimum Stimulation Levels Used in Programming the Nucleus 22 Cochlear Implant
Authors: Skinner Margaret W. , Holden Laura K. , Holden Timothy A. , Demorest Marilyn E.
Published: July 2014

Minimum stimulation levels for active electrodes in a Nucleus 22 cochlear implant were set at
threshold
(clinical default value) and
raised
levels (
M
=+2.04 dB) to determine if raised levels would improve recipients' understanding of soft speech sounds with the SPEAK speech coding strategy. Eight postlinguistically deaf adults participated in a 4-phase A
1
B
1
A
2
B
2
, test design. Speech recognition was evaluated with consonant-vowel nucleus-consonant (CNC) words in quiet and sentences in noise, both presented at 50, 60, and 70 dB SPL during 2 weekly sessions at the end of each phase. Group mean scores were significantly higher with the raised level program for words and phonemes at 50 and 60 dB SPL and for sentences at 50 and 70 dB SPL. All participants chose to use the raised level program in everyday life at the end of the study. The results suggest that clinical use of a raised level program for Nucleus 22 recipients has the potential to make soft sounds louder and, therefore, more salient in everyday life. Further research is needed to determine if this approach is appropriate for other cochlear implant devices.
Normative Disfluency Data for Early Childhood Stuttering
Authors: Ambrose Nicoline Grinager , Yairi Ehud
Published: July 2014

Although the past 50 years of research on early childhood stuttering and normal disfluency have produced vital information on the general features of disfluent speech behavior of young children, an adequate normative reference for early stuttering does not exist. The purpose of this report is to provide such reference and to provide a basis for clinical needs of differential diagnosis of stuttering from normal disfluency. Data are presented from 90 stuttering children ages 2 to 5 within 6 months of stuttering onset and from 54 age-matched normally fluent children. Means for disfluency types are presented. No significant differences were found for gender or for age. Stuttering-like disfluencies (SLD) did differ significantly for the stuttering and fluent groups, but other disfluencies (OD) did not. A weighted SLD is defined to further clarify differences between the groups. The pattern of disfluency types for normally fluent and for mild, moderate, and severe stuttering is presented. Stuttering is shown to be qualitatively as well as quantitatively different from normal disfluency even at the earliest stages of stuttering. Clinical and research implications are discussed.
The Relationship Between Prelinguistic Vocalization and Later Expressive Vocabulary in Young Children With Developmental Delay
Authors: McCathren Rebecca B. , Yoder Paul J. , Warren Steven F.
Published: July 2014

This study tested the relationship between prelinguistic vocalization and expressive vocabulary 1 year later in young children with mild to moderate developmental delays. Three vocalization variables were tested: rate of all vocalization, rate of vocalizations with consonants, and rate of vocalizations used interactively. The 58 toddlers in the study were 17–34 months old, not sensory impaired, and had Bayley Mental Development Indices (Bayley, 1969; Bayley, 1993) from 35–85. In addition, the children had fewer than 3 words in their expressive vocabularies and during classroom observation each showed at least one instance of intentional prelinguistic communication before testing. Selected sections of the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales procedures (CSBS; Wetherby & Prizant, 1993) were administered at the beginning and at the end of the study. The vocal measures were obtained in the initial CSBS session. One measure of expressive vocabulary was obtained in the CSBS session at the end of the study. In addition, expressive vocabulary was measured in a nonstructured play session at the end of the study. We predicted that rate of vocalization, rate of vocalizations with consonants, and rate of vocalizations used interactively would all be positively related to later expressive vocabulary. The results confirmed the predictions.
Do Temporal Processing Deficits Cause Phonological Processing Problems?
Authors: Nittrouer Susan
Published: July 2014

This study tested the hypothesis that temporal processing deficits underlie phonological processing problems. The subjects were children aged 8 to 10 years (
N
=110) who were separated into 2 groups on the basis of whether their reading scores were normal or poor. As predicted by many earlier studies, children with poor reading scores demonstrate poor abilities on tests of phonological awareness, as well as on 2 other language tasks that depend on phonological processing. Two specific tests of the temporal processing hypothesis were conducted. Children in both groups were tested (a) on their abilities to recall sequences of nonspeech tones presented at various rates and (b) on their abilities to make phonetic decisions using brief and transitional properties of the speech signal, especially formant transitions (the purported "trouble spot" in the speech signal for children with phonological processing problems). The children with poor phonological processing abilities showed no special difficulty recalling rapidly presented nonspeech stimuli, and, in their phonetic decisions, they were able to use brief and transitional signal properties, including formant transitions, at least as well as other children. Therefore, no evidence was found to support the hypothesis that temporal processing deficits cause phonological processing problems.
Grammaticality Judgments of an Extended Optional Infinitive Grammar
Authors: Rice Mabel L. , Wexler Kenneth , Redmond Sean M.
Published: July 2014

This study reports on the outcomes of an investigation designed to evaluate competing accounts of the nature of the grammatical limitations of children with specific language impairment (SLI) with a new comprehension measure involving well-formedness judgments. It is a follow-up to the longitudinal study of Rice, Wexler, and Hershberger (1998), which reported on the production of grammatical morphemes by young children with SLI and 2 control groups of children, one at equivalent levels of mean length of utterance at the outset of the study, the other of equivalent age. In this investigation, we report on grammaticality judgment measures collected from the same 3 groups of children over a period of 2 years for 5 times of measurement. It is the first longitudinal study of grammaticality judgments of children with SLI. The findings show that children's grammatical judgments parallel their productions: Children with SLI can make fine-tuned grammatical judgments to reject morphosyntactic errors they are unlikely to commit, whereas they accept morphosyntactic errors that they are likely to produce. The findings support the extended optional infinitive (EOI) account of morphosyntactic limitation based in underlying grammatical representations and do not support accounts of input processing deficits or production constraints.
Estimation of Alveolar Pressure During Speech Using Direct Measures of Tracheal Pressure
Authors: Finnegan Eileen M. , Luschei Erich S. , Hoffman Henry T.
Published: July 2014

The pressure in the alveoli of the lungs, created by the elastic recoil of the lungs and respiratory muscle activity, is referred to as alveolar pressure (P
a
). The extent to which tracheal pressure (P
t
) approximates P
a
depends on the resistance to airflow offered by structures above and below the point at which tracheal pressure is measured. An understanding of the relationship among P
a
, P
t
, and upper and lower airway resistance, and how these values fluctuate during speech, could aid in interpretation and modeling of speech aerodynamics. The purpose of this study was to (a) obtain values for lower airway resistance (R
law
), (b) use these R
law
values to estimate P
a
during speech, and (c) quantify the degree to which P
t
approximates P
a
during production of voiced and voiceless sounds, in comparison to inhalation. In addition, the results were discussed in terms of the degree to which the respiratory system functions as a pressure source. Tracheal pressure (obtained with tracheal puncture) and airflow were measured during sentence production in 6 subjects. Using a technique introduced in this paper, R
law
was determined from measures of tracheal pressure and flow obtained during a sudden change in upper airway resistance because of release of a voiceless plosive. Mean R
law
values ranged from 0.14 to 0.32 kPa/(l/s). Each subject's mean R
law
was used to derive a time-varying measure of P
a
during speech from continuous measures of tracheal pressure and airflow. P
t
was approximately 95% of P
a
during phonation (i.e., when the vocal folds were adducted), 75% of P
a
during release of the voiceless stop consonant /p/, and 55% of P
a
during inhalation (i.e., when the vocal folds were abducted). Therefore, the degree to which the respiratory system functioned as an ideal pressure source varied during speech. The ability to estimate P
a
provides a measure of the pressure produced by the respiratory system that is not influenced by laryngeal activity.
Children With SLI Use Argument Structure Cues to Learn Verbs
Authors: Oetting Janna B.
Published: July 2014

Across two tasks, children's use of argument structure cues to learn verbs was tested. In Task 1, we examined children's use of cues to
interpret
novel verbs while viewing single action scenes. In Task 2, we examined the role of cues for novel verb
interpretation
and
retention
through a story viewing task. The participants were 20 6-year-olds who were diagnosed as specifically language impaired (SLI) and 40 normally developing children who served as either age-matched or language-matched controls.

Across tasks, the children with SLI demonstrated an ability to use cues to
interpret
verb meaning. For Task 1, scores of the children with SLI were not significantly different from those of either control group; for Task 2, their scores exceeded chance and were not found to be different from those obtained by the language-matched controls. When verb
retention
was examined, scores of the children with SLI were lower than those of both control groups, and they also did not exceed chance even after repeated exposure to the stimuli and additional testing. Patterns within the data ruled out inattention and an inability to follow the narrative as contributing to the children's low scores. Additionally, poor verb retention was not found to be related to a limitation in the perception and encoding of the cue content. Specific deficits with the storage and retrieval of grammatical information within the lexicon, general working memory/capacity limitations, or both are posited as plausible, but unconfirmed, explanations for the verb retention difficulties of the children with SLI.
Effects of Monitoring Condition and Frequency-Altered Feedback on Stuttering Frequency
Authors: Kalinowski Joseph , Stuart Andrew , Wamsley Loma , Rastatter Michael P.
Published: July 2014

The purpose of the study was to examine stuttering frequency during speaking conditions that are believed to mitigate stuttering frequency both with normal nonaltered auditory feedback (NAF) and a known fluency-enhancing feedback. Specifically, stuttering frequency was examined as a function of three monitoring conditions under NAF and frequency-altered feedback (FAF): no monitoring (i.e., speaking alone, in the absence of audio and visual recording), audiovisual monitoring (i.e., speaking alone with audiovisual recording), and audiovisual monitoring with observers (i.e., speaking with audiovisual recording in the presence of two observers). Seven adults and one adolescent who stutter served as participants. Stuttering frequency was differentially affected across monitoring conditions under each auditory feedback condition (
p
= .027). Post hoc analyses revealed no significant difference in stuttering frequency between the two conditions in the absence of the observers (i.e., no monitoring vs. audiovisual monitoring) under NAF (
p
= .45). There was, however, a significant difference in stuttering frequency for the no-monitoring and audiovisual-monitoring conditions relative to the audiovisual-monitoring-with-observers condition (
p
= .0002). There was no statistically significant difference in stuttering frequency across monitoring conditions under FAF (
p
> .05). The findings are consistent with the notion that during NAF stuttering frequency varies as a function of hierarchical socioenvironmental conditions in which inanimate monitoring conditions constitute one entity. Such a relationship does not exist during FAF.

KEY WORDS: stuttering, cognitive input, environmental stress, stuttering treatment
Verb Agreement Morphology in Hebrew-Speaking Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Dromi Esther , Leonard Laurence B. , Adam Galit , Zadunaisky-Ehrlich Sara
Published: July 2014

Earlier reports of verb morphology use by Hebrew-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) have suggested that these children mark agreement with the subject as accurately as younger control children matched according to mean length of utterance (MLU). This issue was examined in greater detail in the present study by including a wider range of agreement inflections from the present and past tense paradigms and employing verbs of different patterns (
binyanim
). It was hypothesized that children with SLI would be more limited than would MLU controls in their use of agreement inflections within past tense because the past tense agreement paradigm of Hebrew requires the simultaneous manipulation of three features—person, number, and gender. Differences between the groups were not expected for the use of agreement inflections within present tense, because only two features—number and gender—must be manipulated in the present tense paradigm. A group of preschool-age children with SLI was found to have more difficulty than did MLU controls in the use of most past tense agreement inflections. Within present tense, the two groups differed in their use of agreement inflections in only one pattern. For both groups, most errant productions differed from the target form by only one feature, usually person or tense. We found no feature that was consistently problematic for the children. The findings are discussed within a limited processing capacity framework.
Short-Latency Changes in Voice F
0
and Neck Surface EMG Induced by Mechanical Perturbations of the Larynx During Sustained Vowel Phonation
Authors: Sapir Shimon , Baker Kristin K. , Larson Charles R. , Ramig Lorraine Olson
Published: July 2014

Nineteen healthy young adult males with normal voice and speech attempted to sustain the vowel /u/ at a constant pitch (target: 180 Hz) and a constant and comfortable loudness level while receiving a sudden mechanical perturbation to the larynx (thyroid prominence) via a servo-controlled probe. The probe moved toward or away from the larynx in a ramp-and-hold fashion (3.3-mm displacement, 0.7 N force, 20-ms rise time, 250-ms duration) as the subjects attempted to maintain a constant probe-larynx pressure. Eighty stimuli were applied in each direction, one stimulus per phonation. Pairs of surface electromyography (EMG) electrodes were attached to the skin of the anterior neck over laryngeal, infralaryngeal, and supralaryngeal areas. The rectified EMG signals, the voltage analog of the voice fundamental frequency (VAF
0
), and the voltage analog of the probe displacement were digitized and signal-averaged relative to the onset of the stimulus. Sudden perturbation of the larynx induced an instantaneous decrease or increase in VAF
0
, depending on the direction of the probe's movement, and a short-latency increase in the EMG (30–35 ms) and VAF
0
(55–65 ms). We argue that the instantaneous VAF
0
change was related to a mechanical effect, and the short-latency VAF
0
and EMG changes to reflexogenic effects—the latter most likely associated with both intrinsic and extrinsic laryngeal sensorimotor mechanisms. Further physiological studies are needed to elucidate the sources of the VAF
0
and EMG responses. Once elucidated, the present method may provide a powerful noninvasive tool for studying laryngeal neurophysiology. The theoretical and clinical implications of the present findings are addressed.

KEY WORDS: voice, physiology, reflexes, speech, noninvasive