bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Stimulability on the Articulation of /s/ Relative to Cluster and Word Frequency of Occurrence
Authors: Moore W. H. , Burke John , Adams Chris
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the effects of stimulability on the articulation of cluster nested /s/ in high- and low-frequency clusters and words. A good stimulability group and a poor stimulability group of /s/-defective seven-year-old children were investigated. Statistical analysis did not reveal significant differences between the articulatory performances of the two groups on words or clusters occurring with high or low frequency. Subjects in the good stimulability group obtained significantly fewer errors on the test stimuli than did subjects in the poor stimulability group. Correlational analyses indicated that stimulability was positively correlated with correct numbers of /s/ productions in both clusters and words occurring with both high and low frequency. Subjects' spontaneous /s/ errors on the Templin-Darley screening test were not found to be correlated with their stimulability scores or their imitative /s/ productions in words and clusters occurring with high or low frequencies.
Psychometric Functions for Loudness Discomfort and Most Comfortable Loudness Levels
Authors: Dirks Donald D. , Kamm Candace
Published: July 2014

Adaptive procedures were used to determine psychometric functions for loudness discomfort level (LDL) and most comfortable loudness (MCL) for pure tones and speech using normal and hearing-impaired listeners. For the LDL, both groups demonstrated steeply rising functions with the 50% point at ∼ 100 dB SPL. The MCL data resulted in two functions, one (Function A) differentiating MCL from less intense stimulus levels and the second (Function B) differentiating between MCL and more intense levels. Function A may be considered a lower bound and Function B an upper bound for MCL. For the normal listeners, the difference between the functions at 50% response ranged from 9.9 to 19.9 dB depending upon the experimental condition. For the hearing-impaired subjects, this range was restricted to ∼ 4.5 dB, primarily as a result of a shift in Function A toward higher sound pressure levels.
Divergent Semantic Behavior in Aphasia
Authors: Chapey Roberta , Rigrodsky Seymour , Morrison Eleanor B.
Published: July 2014

The purpose of the present study was to examine the divergent semantic behaviors of 30 persons with aphasia in comparison to these same behaviors in a group of 30 normal individuals. Specifically, this study examined fluency or the number of ideas produced, flexibility or the variety of ideas produced, and communality within each subject group and between the two groups. Results support the existence of the divergent mental operation and indicate that persons with aphasia are impaired in their ability to generate semantic responses under this operation. Therefore, speech pathologists may wish to include divergent tasks in their evaluation procedures and plan therapy directed toward the retrieval of divergent responses.
Dichotic Ear Preference in Aphasia
Authors: Johnson John P. , Sommers Ronald K. , Weidner William E.
Published: July 2014

A dichotic listening test, composed of 30 CVC-word pairs, was administered to 20 adults with aphasia and 20 normal adults. The subjects with aphasia were selected for inclusion in one of four experimental groups which differed according to initial severity of aphasia and time post onset. All experimental subjects were given a diagnostic language test within the first four weeks following aphasia onset and again at the time of dichotic testing. Difference scores provided a quantitative estimate of language improvement. Data analysis revealed a strong left-ear preference ( −0.363) for the experimental subjects which differed significantly from a right-ear preference ( +0.290) obtained from the normal control subjects. Further, initial severity of aphasia was found to be a significant variable, capable of influencing the magnitude of ear preference. Multiple regression and partial correlational methods revealed significant, positive relationships between the magnitude of ear preference and initial severity of aphasia and between the former and the magnitude of language improvement. Time post aphasia onset was not shown to be a significant variable. The theoretical and potential clinical relevance of the results are discussed.
Effect of Vicarious Punishment on Stuttering Frequency
Authors: Martin Richard , Haroldson Samuel
Published: July 2014

This investigation explored the effect of vicarious response-contingent stimulation on the frequency of stuttering. Twenty adult stutterers spoke for 20 minutes, then observed a speaker on a videotape for 10 minutes, and then spoke for an additional 20 minutes. In one condition the speaker on the videotape was a severe stutterer who experienced a dramatic reduction in stuttering under a contingent time-out procedure. In a second condition, the videotape speaker was a severe stutterer who received no experimental manipulations. In the third condition, the videotape speaker was a normal talker who received no experimental manipulations. All subjects participated in all three conditions. Twenty of the stutterers experienced a significant decrease in stuttering as a result of watching the videotape model who received contingent time-out. The subjects did not exhibit significant changes in stuttering after watching the severe stutterer who received no treatment or the normal talker.
Identification and Description of Homogeneous Subgroups within a Sample of Misarticulating Children
Authors: Arndt William B. , Shelton Ralph L. , Johnson Anita F. , Furr Montie L.
Published: July 2014

A multivariate, hierarchical clustering procedure was used to identify homogeneous subgroups among 98 misarticulating children age eight years through nine years, six months. Clustering was based on 40 tests or measures of language, auditory processing, school achievement, oral structure, oral form recognition, and other phenomena. Clusters were described and then compared for performance on measures of articulation status and articulation improvement with training. Clusters were also derived from subsets of children who misarticulated only one sound, either /s/ or /r/. Also, the subset of children who misarticulated /s/ was compared with children who misarticulated /r/ for performance on the measures classified above. Few of the clusters identified differed in articulation status or improvement with training.
Oral Sensory and Motor Behaviors of Children with /s/ or /r/ Misarticulations
Authors: McNutt James C.
Published: July 2014

Measurements of lingual two-point discrimination, oral form discrimination, and alternate motion rate of the tongue were made in 15 children who had normal articulation, 15 children who misarticulated /s/, and 15 children who misarticulated /r/. The two groups of children with misarticulations were found to differ from each other as well as from normal children on various aspects of oral sensation and motor abilities. These findings are interpreted as evidence for the existence of different bases for the misarticulations of the two disordered groups.
Effects of Auditory Masking on Lip Movements During Speech
Authors: McClean Michael
Published: July 2014

This study describes the effects of unpredictably presented masking noise on selected parameters of lip movement during speech. Four normal subjects produced a simple speech utterance while vertical displacements of the upper and lower lips were transduced and recorded. During selected productions a masking noise was presented dichotically at one of two distinct phases of lip movement. Analysis of the resulting data revealed the following for all subjects: (1) significant changes in the duration, displacement, and velocity of lip movement caused by masking and (2) significant reductions in the velocity of lip movement occurring approximately 50 msec after the onset of the masker. Possible explanations of these and certain speaker-dependent effects are discussed.
Structural Characteristics of Monologues in the Speech of Normal Children: Semantic and Conversational Aspects
Authors: Gallagher Tanya M. , Craig Holly K.
Published: July 2014

Semantic and conversational aspects of monologues in the speech of normal children were investigated. Subjects were nine children, three each at Brown’s language Stages I, II, and III. A two-hour language sample, containing alternations of dialogue with the examiner and monologue produced during independent play, was collected from each child. Results indicate that the semantic and conversational categories that occurred in monologue speech were similar to those that appeared in contextually matched dialogue speech but the proportional frequencies differed. Monologue subsamples were generally short in length and had a sequencing pattern that was highly consistent and semantically organized. Results are discussed in terms of Piagetian cognitive theory and pragmatic language models.
Some Waveform and Spectral Features of Vowel Roughness
Authors: Deal Randolph E. , Emanuel Floyd W.
Published: July 2014

Acoustic wave-period variation (jitter) and acoustic wave-amplitude variation (shimmer) associated with vowel pronations representing a range of vocal roughness were investigated. Twenty normal-speaking adult males phonated each of the vowels /u/, /i/, /Λ/, /a/, and /æ/, first normally and then with simulated abnormal vocal roughness. Twenty hoarse adult males, each presenting a medically diagnosed laryngeal pathology, also produced each of the five test vowels. To provide a measurable presentation of the frequency and amplitude variations of interest, each recorded vowel was band-pass filtered to isolate the fundamental frequency component. Relations of the jitter and shimmer indices (obtained from the filtered vowel waves) to acoustic spectral noise levels and to roughness ratings for the vowel phonations were studied. The findings supported the hypothesis that increases in vowel acoustic wave variability (estimated by period or amplitude variation or both) are associated with increases in vowel spectral noise levels and perceived vowel roughness. The findings also suggested, for most of the vowels studied, that cyclic peak amplitude variation may provide a better index of perceived roughness than cyclic period variation. Vowel spectral noise levels, however, may provide a more clinically useful indicant of vowel roughness than the waveform variability indices derived from the filtering procedure employed in this study.
Central Auditory Function in Stutterers
Authors: Hall James W. , Jerger James
Published: July 2014

Central auditory function was assessed in 10 stutterers and 10 nonstutterers. Performance of the two groups was compared for seven audiometric procedures including acoustic reflex threshold, acoustic reflex amplitude function, performance intensity function for monosyllabic phonetically balanced (PB) words, performance intensity function for Synthetic Sentence Identification, Synthetic Sentence Identification with Ipsilateral Competing Message, Synthetic Sentence Identification with Contralateral Competing Message, and the Staggered Spondaic Word test. Relative to the control group, the performance of the stuttering group was depressed on three procedures—the acoustic reflex amplitude function, Synthetic Identification with Ipsilateral Competing Message, and Staggered Spondaic Word test. As a group, the stutterers presented evidence of a central auditory deficiency. The pattern of test results suggests a disorder at the brainstem level. The subtlety of the deficiency is emphasized.
Inflectional Morphemes in the Manual English of Young Hearing-Impaired Children and Their Mothers
Authors: Crandall Kathleen E.
Published: July 2014

Spontaneous sign-language samples were collected in a controlled interactive situation from 20 young hearing-impaired children and their mothers. Inflectional morphemes in the samples were described by cher attributes and classified for syntactic function within utterances. Inflectional morpheme productivity did not increase significantly with age; mean manual English morphemes per utterance did increase with age. The first six inflectional morphemes used by the children studied were the same as those used by normal-hearing children. A good predictor of the child’s use of inflectional morphemes was the mother’s use of these morphemes.
Speech-Discrimination Scores Modeled as a Binomial Variable
Authors: Thornton Aaron R. , Raffin Michael J. M.
Published: July 2014

Many studies have reported variability data for tests of speech discrimination, and the disparate results of these studies have not been given a simple explanation. Arguments over the relative merits of 25- vs 50-word tests have ignored the basic mathematical properties inherent in the use of percentage scores. The present study models performance on clinical tests of speech discrimination as a binomial variable. A binomial model was developed, and some of its characteristics were tested against data from 4120 scores obtained on the CID Auditory Test W-22. A table for determining significant deviations between scores was generated and compared to observed differences in half-list scores for the W-22 tests. Good agreement was found between predicted and observed values. Implications of the binomial characteristics of speech-discrimination scores are discussed.
A Right-Ear Effect for Auditory Feedback Control of Children’s Newly Acquired Phonemes
Authors: Manning Walter H. , Louko Linda J. , DiSalvo Vincent S.
Published: July 2014

To determine the relative importance of binaural, right-ear, and left-ear auditory feedback control on the correct production of newly acquired articulatory patterns in children, 40 children exhibiting misarticulations were tested under four experimental conditions. The children were individually administered a shortened version of the Deep Test of Articulation (McDonald, 1964) under (1) a no-masking condition, followed in a counterbalanced order by readministration of the Deep Test under conditions of (2) binaural masking, (3) monaural right-ear masking, and (4) monaural left-ear masking. Correct articulatory production by the children was significantly reduced under binaural and monaural right-ear masking. There was, however, no significant reduction in the children’s correct production under the condition of monaural left-ear masking. The results extend previous findings of right-ear superiority for children’s auditory processing of externally produced stimuli to the closed-loop auditory feedback control of children’s own speech production.
A Study of the Central Auditory Processes in Stutterers Using the Synthetic Sentence Identification (SSI) Test Battery
Authors: Toscher Mark M. , Rupp Ralph R.
Published: July 2014

The performance of a group of stutterers (
n
= 14) and a group of nonstutterers (
n
= 14) was compared on the Synthetic Sentence Identification Test (Speaks and Jerger, 1965). The test is designed to assess central auditory function. It was hypothesized that because of subtle neurologically based differences in perceptual processing, the performance of the two groups would differ significantly on one or more of the subtests. An analysis of variance revealed that the performance of the stuttering group was significantly poorer (0.01 level of confidence) than that of the nonstutterers on the Ipsilateral Competing Message Subtest. The results of the investigation were compatible with other studies that suggest a neurological dysfunction within the central auditory apparatus as at least one of the underlying causes of disfluency. It was concluded that further investigations of the central auditory processes in stutterers are warranted to make a more definitive statement about the etiology of stuttering.
Toward Objective Analysis for Electroencephalic Audiometry
Authors: Vivion Michael C. , Wolf Kenneth E. , Goldstein Robert , Hirsch Judith E. , McFarland William H.
Published: July 2014

Middle-component AERs (8–90 msec) to tone-pips from 10 normal-hearing adults were subjected to three objective methods of response identification. Threshold was then determined for each subject according to four different rules. The criterion score, which considers conjointly latency and amplitude values across the middle-component peaks, was developed as a single-value measure for response-identification and subsequent threshold-determination procedures. One of the response-identification methods was applied to 10 hearing-impaired subjects; the results of the threshold-determination procedures were encouraging. Further directions toward improving objective response analysis are discussed.
Relationship Between Pictorial Interpretation and Comprehension of Three Spatial Relations in School-Age Children
Authors: Silliman Elaine R.
Published: July 2014

Effects on spatial term comprehension as the result of transformations in the stimulus dimensions of six pictures containing the same three figures were explored using Piaget’s concept of spatial perspective. A Modified Test of Pictorial Space (MTPS), adapted from Hudson’s (1960) studies on non-Western pictorial perception strategies, was administered to 200 children, aged 6 yrs 5 mos to 11 yrs 3 mos. The purpose of the investigation was to gather data on (1) pictorial interpretation as a function of variations in perceptual depth cue complexity and transformations in conceptual perspective and (2) order of acquisition in the comprehension of two sets of spatial terms referring to perceptual object knowledge and more advanced conceptual knowledge of object relations. Significant age and IQ, but not sex, interactions were found for MTPS performance. Data analyses also supported predicted orders of acquisition and indicated that transformation of conceptual perspective better differentiated among the age span than did either perceptual depth cue complexity or comprehension of spatial terms. Findings are discussed in terms of their methodological and substantive implications for constructing and interpreting pictorially-based language comprehension tasks.
Lexical Semantics and Memory for Words in Aphasia
Authors: Zurif Edgar B. , Caramazza Alfonso , Foldi Nancy S. , Gardner Howard
Published: July 2014

Aphasic and non-neurological patients were assessed on a word recognition memory task. On any one trial, some words were instances of the same superordinate category, thus presupposing a common abstract conceptual feature, and some words could be linked thematically in the sense of forming context-dependent relations. Observing the temporal order in which patients pointed to the words they recognized permitted an assessment of the extent to which they clustered their responses either in terms of superordinate categories or along thematic lines. The conceptual structures indicated by these clusters were compared with those observed in a previous task requiring judgments of word relatedness. The data suggest that verbal memory limitations in aphasia are only in part linked to constraints on the conceptual features structuring lexical knowledge; and relatedly they raise the possibility that aphasics may have a disturbance of mnemonic processing quite apart from any disruption to language.
Children’s Judgments of Utterance Appropriateness
Authors: Leonard Laurence B. , Reid Laura
Published: July 2014

Judgments of utterance appropriateness were examined in 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year olds to examine the bases for these judgments in a variety of social contexts. The results indicated that the 4- and 5-year olds based their judgments in part on factors such as the available nonlinguistic evidence supporting the utterance and the types of evaluative terms used in the utterance. The judgments of the 6-year olds more closely resembled those of a group of adults, but their judgments were not yet free of some of the factors operative for the younger children. The findings are discussed in terms of the illocutionary and conversational characteristics of the stimulus utterances.
The Effect of Psychophysical Method on the Loudness of Continuous and Interrupted Pure Tones
Authors: Hampton Dennis , Ventry Ira M.
Published: July 2014

Using the Bekesy tracking method for loudness judgment tasks such as most comfortable loudness (MCL) and recalled loudness (RL) measurements, normal listeners have tracked continuous (C) tones at lesser intensities than interrupted (I) tones. The resulting continuous/interrupted (C/I) separations have ranged up to 22 dB. Explanations of the unexpected C/I separations have not been in agreement. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether psychophysical method has a significant effect on the C/I separation. Subjects were six normal-hearing adults, each of whom participated in three practice and ten test sessions of one hour each. Thirty-six experimental conditions were presented. The test signals were C tones, 200/200 msec I tones and 200/800 msec I tones, all at 1 kHz. The reference intensities were 20, 50 and 80 dB SPL. The four methods were Bekesy tracking method (BTM), method of adjustment (MAdj), method of limits (ML) and method of constant stimuli difference (MCSD). Mean values for Point of Subjective Equality and C/I separation were calculated. C/I separations obtained with the BTM were significantly larger than C/I separations obtained with any other psychophysical method. These results demonstrate that C/I separations obtained during suprathreshold Bekesy tracking tasks by normal hearers are largely caused by the measurement method itself rather than by differences in C and I tone loudness. Time order errors could explain the BTM effect.
Loudness Discomfort Level and Acoustic Reflex Threshold for Speech Stimuli
Authors: Morgan Donald E. , Dirks Donald D. , Bower Deborah , Kamm Candace A.
Published: July 2014

Loudness discomfort level (LDL) and acoustic reflex threshold (ART) measurements were obtained from subjects with normal hearing using several speech stimuli, as well as broad-band and speech-spectrum noise. The purpose of the investigation was to determine the LDL for a variety of representative speech samples, and to determine the relationship between the LDL and ART for selected speech and noise stimuli. For all stimuli, LDL measurements were relatively constant, but ART measurements decreased significantly for wide-band noise stimuli as compared with the speech stimuli. Mean differences between the two measures were consistent, but individual subject data were characterized by wide variability precluding accurate prediction of the LDL from ART measurements.
Confidence Levels for Differences between Speech-Discrimination Scores
Authors: Raffin Michael J.M. , Thornton Aaron R.
Published: July 2014

Tables of confidence levels for determining the probability of differences between speech-discrimination scores are presented. These tables were generated by a computer program developed for that purpose, and they are based on arc-sine transforms applied to a binomial distribution.
"Vocalization" Phonation
Authors: Wingate Marcel E.
Published: July 2014

In the September 1979 issue of this journal, the "Letter to the Editor" page 657 by Marcel E. Wingate contains an error. The title that reads "Vocalization" Phonation, should read "Vocalization" ≠ Phonation.
Dysarthria of Adult Cerebral Palsy
Authors: Platt L. J. , Andrews Gavin , Young Margrette , Quinn Peter T.
Published: July 2014

The speech intelligibility and articulatory impairment of 32 spastic and 18 athetoid males, aged 17–55, were examined. Selection was based on a definite diagnosis of cerebral palsy, and adequate intelligence, hearing, and ability to perform the required tasks. Two estimates of speech intelligibility were obtained from naive listeners: single words correctly recognized and prose intelligibility rating. Diadochokinetic (DDK) syllable rates and percent correct articulation of selected phonemes were employed as indices of articulatory impairment.

The 50 subjects were, on average, judged to be 50% intelligible on both intelligibility estimates. Group mean DDK rate was 2.9 syllables per second and 78% of phonemes were transcribed as correctly articulated. The mean scores of the spastic subjects were superior to the athetoids on all speech measures, significantly so for single-word intelligibility and DDK rate even when group inequalities for physical disability and I.Q. were adjusted. In this sample, spastics were less physically disabled and had lower I.Q.'s than athetoids.

Specific phonemic features characteristic of the dysarthria in cerebral-palsied subjects were: (1) anterior lingual place inaccuracy; (2) reduced precision of fricative and affricate manners; and (3) inability to achieve the extreme positions in the vowel articulatory space. A comparison of these results with those reported for children with cerebraI palsy suggests that the consonantal place and manner problems are fairly stable features of cerebral palsy dysarthria.
Dysarthria of Adult Cerebral Palsy
Authors: Platt L. J. , Andrews Gavin , Howie Pauline M.
Published: July 2014

The articulation errors of 32 spastic and 18 athetoid males, aged 17–55 years, were analyzed using a confusion matrix paradigm. The subjects had a diagnosis of congenital cerebral palsy, and adequate intelligence, hearing, and ability to perform the speech task. Phonetic transcriptions were made of single-word utterances which contained 49 selected phonemes: 22 word-initial consonants, 18 word-final consonants and nine vowels. Errors of substitution, omission and distortion were categorized on confusion matrices such that patterns could be observed.

It was found that within-manner errors (place or voicing errors or both) exceeded between-manner errors by a substantial amount, more so on final consonants. The predominant within-manner errors occurred on fricative phonemes for both initial and final positions. Affricate within-manner errors, all of devoicing, were also frequent in final position. The predominant between-manner initial position errors involved liquid-to-glide and affricate-to-stop changes, and for final position, affricate-to-fricative. Phoneme omission occurred three times more frequently on final than on initial consonants.

The error data of individual subjects were found to correspond with the identified overall group patterns. Those with markedly reduced speech intelligibility demonstrated the same patterns of error as the overall group. The implications for treatment are discussed.
Voice Initiation and Termination Times in Stuttering and Nonstuttering Children
Authors: Cullinan Walter L. , Springer Mark T.
Published: July 2014

The times needed to initiate and terminate voicing in response to series of short segments of 1000 Hz pure-tone auditory signal were studied for stuttering and nonstuttering children. The effects of random reward and nonreward on the phonatory response times also were studied. The experimental group consisted of 20 children, 11 of whom had other speech and/or language problems in addition to stuttering and nine whose only communication disorder was stuttering. The control group consisted of 20 normal-speaking children balanced with the stuttering group for sex and age. Children with speech and/or language problems in addition to stuttering were found to have significantly slower voice initiation and termination times than the normal-speaking children. The children with stuttering as the only speech and/or language problem generally did not differ significantly from the normal-speaking children in phonation times. The data suggest that whereas older stuttering children have longer phonation times than do nonstuttering children, younger stuttering children do not. Voicing times for responses following nonrewarded responses tended to be shorter than those for responses following rewarded responses for both groups.
Acoustic Reflex Growth in the Aging Adult
Authors: Thompson David J. , Sills John A. , Recke Kay S. , Bui Duc M.
Published: July 2014

Growth in amplitude of the acoustic reflex to filtered noise and tones of 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz was measured with an aural acoustic-admittance meter in 30 persons between the ages of 20 and 79 years. Although thresholds of the acoustic reflex did not vary significantly across the age range of the subject sample, the rate of growth in amplitude decreased linearly with increase in age decade. Given information on the aging of structures in the acoustic reflex pathway, the growth data are interpreted tentatively to mean that the contractual capacity of the stapedius muscle is diminished in older ears.
Articulatory Behavior Pre and Post Full-Mouth Tooth Extraction and Alveoloplasty
Authors: Zimmermann Gerald , Kelso J.A. Scott , Lander Larry
Published: July 2014

High speed cinefluorography was used to track articulatory movements preceding and following full-mouth tooth extraction and alveoloplasty in two subjects. Films also were made of a control subject on two separate days. The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of dramatically altering the structural dimensions of the oral cavity on the kinematic parameters of speech. The results showed that the experimental subjects performed differently pre and postoperatively though the changes were in different directions for the two subjects. Differences in both means and variabilities of kinematic parameters were larger between days for the experimental (operated) subjects than for the control subject. The results for the Control subject also showed significant differences in the mean values of kinematic variables between days though these day-to-day differences could not account for the effects found pre- and postoperatively. The results of the kinematic analysis, particularly the finding that transition time was most stable over the experimental conditions for the operated subjects, are used to speculate about the coordination of normal speech.
A Comparison of Speech Intelligibility between Esophageal and Normal Speakers via Three Modes of Presentation
Authors: Hubbard Dee J. , Kushner Deanie
Published: July 2014

This study compared intelligibility scores obtained for sentences read by good-to-superior esophageal speakers with scores obtained for sentences read by normal speakers via three modes of presentation: visual, auditory and auditory-visual combined. Statistical analysis showed significant differences between intelligibility scores for esophageal speakers and for normal speakers in the auditory and in the combined conditions. No significant difference was found between the scores for the two groups in the visual condition. Further analysis showed that the esophageal speakers' intelligibility scores improved significantly from the auditory to the combined auditory-visual condition where they most closely approximated, but never equaled, the highest intelligibility scores for normal speakers. Implications of the findings for rehabilitation of esophageal speakers are discussed.
Regulation of Vocal Intensity in the Presence of Feedback Filtering and Amplification
Authors: Garber Sharon R. , Siegel Gerald M. , Pick Herbert L.
Published: July 2014

Subjects read while their voices were fed back with 0 and 20 dB of amplification. In Experiment I, feedback was returned unfiltered or low-pass filtered with cut-off frequencies of 1000, 500, and 300 Hz. Subjects decreased vocal intensity with amplified feedback when the feedback was unfiltered or low-pass filtered with cut-off frequencies of 1000 or 500 Hz. The amplification effect disappeared when the cut-off frequency was 300 Hz. In Experiment II, feedback was low-pass filtered and amplified in the presence of a steady background noise. The presence of noise potentiated the amplification effect in the unfiltered condition. When filtering was introduced and/or the cut-off frequency was lowered, the amplification effect decreased. In Experiment III, subjects heard their voices unfiltered and high-pass filtered with cut-off frequencies of 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz. The amplification effect was the same across filtering conditions, It is suggested that subjects respond differently to high- and low-pass filtering because air- and bone-conducted feedback interact differentially in these conditions. It is hypothesized that changes may he mediated by self-perception of loudness or intelligibility.
Correlates of Syntactic Abilities in Hearing-Impaired Students
Authors: Clarke B. R. , Rogers W. Todd
Published: July 2014

Total scores on the recently developed Screening Test from the Test of Syntactic Abilities for 382 hearing-impaired subjects between eight and 19 years and in various educational programs were found to be significantly related to hearing threshold level, number of multiple handicaps, age, educational setting, method of communication, and hearing aid usage. Multivariate analysis of variance on the effect of age controlled for hearing toss showed no significant increase in scores after eleven years of age, thus lending support to the thesis that the capacity to acquire language may cease to function at about puberty. The results of stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that, when personal variables were first forced to enter the equation, degree of hearing loss, multiple handicaps, and age accounted for 14%., nine %, and four % of the explained variability, respectively. Over and above these contributions, two manipulable variables—educational setting (a surrogate for integration) and method of communication--added significantly a further 12% and three % to the explained variability in syntactic ability.
Disfluencies in the Speech of Language-Delayed Children
Authors: Merits-Patterson Ruth , Reed Charles G.
Published: July 2014

This study attempted to determine whether language-delayed children receiving language therapy and language-delayed children not receiving language therapy differed from each other and from normal controls in the amount and type of disfluencies in their speech. Comparisons of disfluencies in tape-recorded speech samples of three groups indicated that the one group of language-delayed children who received language therapy had significantly more word and part-word repetitions than the other two groups.
Early Stutterings
Authors: Bloodstein Oliver , Grossman Marcia
Published: July 2014

The speech of five stutterers ranging in age from 3 years, 10 months to 5 years, 7 months was analyzed to determine the types and loci of stutterings. Word repetition was the most frequent feature in three cases and one of the two predominant features in the remaining two cases. Almost without exception, word repetitions occurred at the beginning of syntactic units. A greater proportion of stutterings of all types appeared on the initial words of sentences or clauses than on the other words. In most cases proportionately more function words than content words were stuttered, as were more monosyllabic than polysyllabic words—just the reverse of the usual pattern in older children and adults. The tendency of older stutterers to have more difficulty on initial consonants than initial vowels appeared in only one case. The findings on the properties of stuttered words were interpreted to mean that word-bound factors as such have little influence on the loci of early stutterings. The results as a whole were related to the hypothesis that early stuttering represents mainly a type of difficulty in either the formulation or the execution of syntactic units.
Parents' and Peers' Communication to Toddlers
Authors: Wilkinson Louise Cherry , Hiebert Elfrieda , Rembold Karen
Published: July 2014

The speech which parents and peers direct to toddlers was examined for differences as a function of sex of parent, parent/peer status, sex of child, and age of child. Mothers, fathers, and peers of 18 parent dyads were individually audio- and videotaped in a natural play setting with their children (nine boys and nine girls) when the children were 2 years (parents only) and 2 ½ years (both parents and peers). Ten language measures were coded from the transcribed speech samples: mean length of utterance, type-token ratio, number of utterances, number of turns, rate of questioning, rate of answering, rate of directives, rate of attentionals, rate of polite directives, and rate of repetitions. Analyses of variance on these dependent measures produced significant main effects for parents/peer status for number of utterances, number of turns, mean length of utterance, questions, answers, and polite directives; however, no main effects for sex of child, age of child, and sex of parent were produced.
Stimulus Dominance in Dichotic Listening
Authors: Speaks Charles , Niccum Nancy , Carney Edward , Johnson Cynthia
Published: July 2014

Twenty-four listeners received 20 dichotic-listening runs of natural stop-vowel syllables. Listeners marked two responses for each of 30 pairs of syllables per run, which yielded 480 pairs of responses for each of the 30 pairs of syllables. The principal analysis focused on "stimulus dominance" wherein a significantly higher score occurs for one of the competing syllables in a pair regardless of the ear to which that syllable is presented. With 30 pairs of syllables, there were 15 possible instances of stimulus dominance; 11 were observed. The voicing feature was contrasted for 9 of the 15 pairs. Seven of those pairs resulted in significantly higher scores (dominance) for the voiceless stop than for the voiced, one resulted in a higher score for the voiced member of the pair, and for one pair the scores for the two members were essentially the same. Stimulus dominance cannot, however, be characterized sufficiently as a dominance of voiceless over voiced stops; three of the six pairs in which voicing was shared also produced significant stimulus dominance. Stimulus dominance for a given pair of syllables may interact with, and in some cases override, the ear advantage. Of the 30 pairs of syllables, 11 produced a significant right ear advantage (REA), 9 produced a significant left ear advantage (LEA), and for 10 pairs the ear advantage was not significantly different from zero. For a specific pair of syllables, the direction of ear advantage usually corresponded to the ear that received the dominant syllable.
Speaking Fundamental Frequency Characteristics of Nonsmoking Female Adults
Authors: Stoicheff Margaret L.
Published: July 2014

There were 111 female adult subjects 20–82 years of age who were nonsmokers. Measures of fundamental frequency and standard deviation were obtained. The higher speaking fundamental frequencies in this study relative to previous studies using female adults were attributed to control of the smoking variable. Results indicated relative stability of speaking fundamental frequency from postadolescence through early adulthood. A decrease in speaking fundamental frequency in the 50–59 age group, which was maintained in the two older age groups, was attributed to changes in the vocal fold mass with completion of the menopause. An increase in intrasubject variability of fundamental frequency in postmenopausal adults was interpreted as indicating decreased laryngeal control over fundamental frequency.
Tone-on-Tone Masking in Subjects with Normal Hearing and with Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Authors: Chung David Y.
Published: July 2014

Quiet and masked thresholds were obtained from 5 subjects with normal hearing and 31 subjects with sensorineural hearing loss. Maskers were pure tones varying in frequency and intensity. The hearing-impaired subjects showed an abnormal spread of masking when masking was measured in terms of masked threshold. The abnormal spread of masking seems to be related to both the hearing threshold of the masker and the quiet threshold of the test signal. The notch due to detection of combination tones found on the high-frequency slope of masked audiograms of normal subjects (obscuring the actual extent to which the signal is masked) tends to accentuate the apparent abnormal upward spread of masking in the hearing-impaired subjects. The abnormal spread in the latter case is real, but comparison with the normal case must take the notch into account.
Longitudinal Studies of Disfluencies in Two-Year-Old Children
Authors: Yairi Ehud
Published: July 2014

Spontaneous speech samples of 500 words were recorded three times at 4-month intervals from 33 normally speaking children. A fourth speech sample was recorded from the 13 youngest children in the group after an additional 4-month interval (one year after the beginning of the study). There were indications in the data that the peak number of speech disfluencies occurred at the later part of age 2' or at the beginning of age 3. Results also showed that there was a continuous reduction in disfluencies for the group as a whole. However, the 13 younger 2-year-olds and the 20 older 2-year-olds exhibited dissimilar developmental trends of disfluency. Large individual differences were observed during the period of the study. Many children showed large fluctuations in the number of disfluencies from one testing period to the next. A short episode of stuttering was observed in one subject. Overall, it appeared that the year between age 2 and 3 is an unstable period in speech development as far as disfluency is concerned.
Language Processing and Forms of Immediate Echolalia in Autistic Children
Authors: Paccia Jeanne M, , Curcio Frank
Published: July 2014

Several aspects of echolalic speech produced by five autistic children were investigated. We found that the incidence of echolalia was influenced by the type of question addressed to the child and, to a lesser extent, by the child's comprehension of the specific relationships expressed in the question. Additionally, acoustic analysis showed that a substantial proportion of echoes involved a prosodic modification of the examiner's question. Further analyses indicated that some of these modified echoes represent more than just a primitive conversational strategy. Specifically, they seem to reflect a higher level of processing and serve a semantic function, that of affirming the examiner's question.
Acoustic Properties of Pathologic Reiterative Utterances
Authors: Kent R. D. , Lapointe Leonard L.
Published: July 2014

Acoustic analyses of the reiterative utterances of one subject demonstrate a high degree of similarity among the members of a repetition train. The acoustic data did not confirm for this patient the published description of palilalia as a reiteration of utterances in a context of increasing rate and decreasing loudness. In fact, the final utterance in a repetition train often had either a longer duration, greater intensity, or more pronounced fundamental frequency change (or any combination of these) than its predecessors. It is suggested that there may be more than one type of pathological reiterative utterance.
A Technique for Identifying the Subgroup Membership of Certain Misarticulating Children
Authors: Johnson Anita F. , Shelton Ralph L. , Arndt William B.
Published: July 2014

Cluster analysis was used to identify two homogenous clusters of 8–9½-year-old children who misarticulated /s/, /r/, or both. The analysis was based on the children's scores on 40 measures of language, reading, auditory processing, and other variables. Discriminant function analysis was then used to identify a subset of five measures and a means of computing classification scores. These measures and the classification scores can be used to identify the cluster membership of new subjects. The use of classification scores for identifying cluster membership was cross-validated against cluster analysis of a second group of children. The two clusters are described in terms of their performance on language and reading measures.
Stuttering
Authors: Andrews Gavin , Howie Pauline M. , Dozsa Melinda , Guitar Barry E.
Published: July 2014

Speech samples were collected from three adult male stutterers under six baseline conditions and 15 conditions believed to increase fluency. After moments of stuttering and filled pauses had been deleted from the samples, a speech pause analysis technique developed by Goldman-Eisler was used to measure the following speech pattern characteristics: mean phonation duration (i.e., the duration between pauses), pause proportion, articulation rate. fluent speech rate, mean sentence length, and percentage of syllables stuttered. Greater than 50% reduction in stuttering occurred in all but three conditions (Speak and Write, Relaxed, Alone with cards). Greater than 90% reduction occurred under Prolonged/DAF speech. Singing, Chorus reading. Shadowing, Slowing, Syllable-timed speech, and Response contingent stimulation. The data were examined for evidence of speech pattern characteristic changes which were associated with reduced stuttering. Lengthened mean phonation duration occurred consistently under four conditions: Chorus reading, Shadowing, Singing, and Prolonged/DAF. Slowed speech (lower overall rate, lower articulation rate, or increased pause proportion) occurred consistently in seven conditions: Prolonnged/DAF, Slowing, Syllable-timed speech, Arm swing, Speak and write, Relaxed, and Singing. Only in Prolonged/DAF speech did lengthened phonation duration occur in conjunction with slowed speech. The results of this exploratory study suggest that stuttering may be reduced under different conditions by means of different strategies. Lengthethened phonation and slowing were the predominant strategies used in those conditions investigated in this study. The results are consistent with those of effective treatment techniques. Theoretical accounts of the association between change in fluency and change in speech pattern characteristics are discussed.
Lingual Mechanoreceptive Information II
Authors: Bowman James P.
Published: July 2014

The extent to which the known trigeminothalamic projections are related to afferents from specific peripheral branches of the trigeminal nerve is not clearly revealed by degeneration studies involving lesions of the various trigeminal nuclei. This study examines the ascending projections related to the lingual branch of the trigeminal nerve using the evoked-potential technique in pentobarbital anesthetized rhesus monkeys. The distribution of potentials within the medulla, pons, and midbrain was determined by recording with macroelectrodes following single-pulse stimulation of the lingual nerve. Results show that two pathways from the main sensory nucleus convey lingual nerve information to the thalamic ventral posteromedial nucleus: an ipsilateral projection which in position corresponds to the dorsal trigeminal tract, and a larger contralateral projection which in position corresponds to the crossed ventral trigeminal tract, or trigeminal lemniscus. Additionally, the spinal trigeminal nucleus contributes fibers of lingual nerve origin to the contralateral medial lemniscus. The role of low-threshold mechanoreceptive information in lingual sensorimotor activity is discussed in relation to current concepts of somatosensory system function.
Spectrographic Study of Vowels in Stutterers' Fluent Speech
Authors: Klich Richard J. , May Gaylene M.
Published: July 2014

Measurements were made of the formant frequencies and formant transitions associated with the vowels/i/,/æ/ and /u/ produced by seven moderate-to-severe stutterers when they read fluently in a control (normal) condition and under four experimental conditions: masking noise, delayed auditory feedback, rhythmic pacing, and whispering. The first and second formantfrequencies in an isolated/hVd/context were more centralized than those reported for nonstutterers. The formant frequencies were centralized even more in reading, but varied little across conditions despite changes in fluency, speaking rates, and vowel duration. Duration and rate of formant transitions also were essentially the same across conditions. These findings and those reported in other studies indicate that stutterers' vowel production is more restricted, spatially and temporally, than nonstutterers'.