bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Preferred Hearing-Aid Frequency Responses in Simulated Listening Environments
Authors: Stelmachowicz Patricia G. , Lewis Dawna E. , Carney Edward
Published: July 2014

This study was designed to determine if an adaptive strategy could be used to select frequency/gain characteristics that would be considered appropriate across a variety of listening environments. In Experiment I, the test-retest reliability of the paired comparison procedure used in Experiment II was assessed in quiet for nine subjects and in speech noise for six subjects. For both conditions, results revealed mean standard deviations of < 3 dB from 200 through 4000 Hz. In Experiment II, four subjects selected frequency/gain characteristics for five different listening environments (quiet, speech noise, quiet conference room, reverberant lecture hall, and reverberant lecture hall in noise). In general, subjects did not tend to select different frequency/gain characteristics across the five simulated environments used in this study. When differences in frequency responses were observed, they tended to be alterations in overall gain rather than changes in relative frequency response. Findings support additional evaluation in more diverse listening environments, possibly with systems that incorporate nonlinear signal processing.
Inferential Statistics and Treatment Efficacy Studies in Communication Disorders
Authors: Attanasio Joseph S.
Published: July 2014

A reconsideration of the dependence on inferential statistical analyses in treatment efficacy studies in communication disorders is suggested. The argument is developed that inferential statistical analyses as part of group research designs do not provide the kinds of data that are useful in determining the efficacy of clinical intervention. Furthermore, misinterpretations of the principles that underlie inferential statistics contribute to the difficulties in building a research base that can be applied to clinical issues. The view is taken that replication studies provide a more fruitful approach to ascertaining the efficacy of clinical intervention.
Emergence of Visual-Graphic Symbol Combinations by Youth With Moderate or Severe Mental Retardation
Authors: Wilkinson Krista M. , Romski Mary Ann , Sevcik Rose A.
Published: July 2014

Research and practice on augmentative communication for persons with moderate or severe mental retardation have primarily targeted the acquisition and use of single symbols. Symbol combinations, however, provide insight into how augmented communicators use individual symbols to build more complex communications. In Study 1, untaught symbol combinations produced during natural communication interactions by 7 subjects with mental retardation were examined for their semantic, ordering, and generalization patterns. The symbol combinations largely resembled those produced by young speaking language learners, suggesting that the augmented communicators were following typical patterns of communication in generating their symbol combinations. In Study 2, we examined the symbol combinations modeled for subjects by their partners. The structure of the modeled combinations did not resemble the children’s productions, indicating that the children could not have relied on simple rote imitation for their combination production. These results suggest that augmented communicators with mental retardation may use their symbols as speaking children use oral words in the development of complex communications.
Dependence of Phonatory Effort on Hydration Level
Authors: Verdolini Katherine , Titze Ingo R. , Fennell Ann
Published: July 2014

In this study, a double-blind placebo-controlled approach was used to assess the relation between hydration level and phonatory effort. Twelve adult, untrained voice users with normal voices participated as subjects. Each subject received a 4-hour hydration treatment, a 4-hour dehydration treatment, and a 4-hour placebo (control) treatment. Following each treatment, phonatory effort was measured with a physiological measure, phonation threshold pressure (PTP), and with a psychological measure, direct magnitude estimation of perceived phonatory effort (DMEPPE). Summarizing the results across these measures, the findings indicated an inverse relation between phonatory effort and hydration level, but primarily for high-pitched phonation tasks. The findings for PTPs replicated those from an earlier study conducted without double-blind experimental manipulations (Verdolini-Marston, Titze, & Druker, 1990). Theoretical discussion focuses on the possible role of vocal fold tissue viscosity for hydration and dehydration effects, although direct measures of tissue viscosity are lacking.
Evaluation of a Reiterant Force-Impulse Task in the Tongue
Authors: Bunton Kate , Weismer Gary
Published: July 2014

In the current study characteristics of a lingual force-impulse task were examined. In the task, neurologically normal adults were required to produce sequences of lingual force impulses that were modeled on sequences of syllables produced as reiterant speech. The goal of data analysis was to (a) compare the timing of the reiterant force sequences to the timing of reiterant speech sequences, (b) compare the force magnitudes to expected force variations associated with linguistic stress in the reiterant speech sequences, and (c) compare the reiterant force magnitudes to maximum lingual forces. Results indicated that reiterant force timing is typically slower than reiterant speech timing, that reiterant force magnitudes do not vary systematically as a function of stress variations in the reiterant speech utterances, and that reiterant force magnitudes are typically only a fraction of maximum lingual forces. Results are discussed in terms of the relationship between orofacial, nonspeech motor performance and speech production performance.
Correlates of Directiveness in the Interactions of Fathers and Mothers of Children With Developmental Delays
Authors: Girolametto Luigi , Tannock Rosemary
Published: July 2014

Twenty preschool-age children with developmental delays and language impairment participated in this study, which compared fathers’ and mothers’ directiveness and parental stress. Similarities between fathers and mothers were found for turntaking control, response referents, and responses to the child’s participation. However, fathers differed from mothers in two of the dimensions of directiveness examined: fathers used more response control and topic control than mothers. Both parents reported similarly low levels of child-related and parenting stress, but mothers perceived more stress than fathers related to the responsibilities associated with parenting a child with a handicap. Correlations between directiveness, child characteristics, and stress revealed that fathers used greater turntaking control and topic control with children who were developmentally less mature, whereas mothers used greater topic control with children who were less involved in interaction. Both fathers’ and mothers’ use of response control was positively related to stress. Implications for involving fathers in parent-focused intervention include screening father-child interactions before intervention, interpreting parent-child interaction styles in terms of their role in enhancing the child’s social participation, and acknowledging the role of familial factors (such as stress) on interaction styles.
Effect of Video Frame Rate on Subjects’ Ability to Shadow One of Two Competing Verbal Passages
Authors: Vitkovitch Melanie , Barber Paul
Published: July 2014

In a study addressing future use of video-telephone systems, the ability of 52 young adults with normal hearing to shadow verbal passages was assessed when they could both hear and observe the speaker. This performance was compared to performance in an audio-alone condition. The passages were presented against an irrelevant background message. Effects of varying the video frame rate (i.e., the rate at which frames were sampled) were examined, using rates of 8.3, 12.5, 16.7, and 25 Hz. The presence of the visual image of the relevant speaker always improved performance when compared with a baseline audio-alone condition. The motion of the speaker’s face may generally support the focusing of attention on the target message. However, effects of video frame rate were also apparent, suggesting that specific visual cues became available as the temporal resolution improved. When frame rates of 8.3 Hz and the maximum available rate of 25 Hz were compared, shadowing performance was significantly better across the subject group at the higher frame rate. The comparison of frame rates of 12.5 and 25 Hz did not show reliably improved performance across the whole subject group at 25 Hz, although a small number of subjects seemed to benefit. This suggests there may be some differences in the visual cues used by subjects and consequent differences in the way individuals perform under different frame rates. Performance at 16.7 and 25 Hz did not differ, and this is consistent with previous research that tested people with hearing loss. A frame rate of 16.7 Hz may therefore be adequate for the transmission of facial images via a video communication link to a broad range of users; at the lower frame rates, the performance of users is likely to suffer.
Motor Unit Territories in the Human Perioral Musculature
Authors: Goffman Lisa , Smith Anne
Published: July 2014

The perioral region was divided into four quadrants, and electromyograms (EMGs) were recorded from each area. The coherence function (i.e., the squared cross correlation between two signals computed at each frequency in the spectrum) was used to determine aspects of the organization of motor unit territories and to examine potential higher level sources of input in speech and nonspeech tasks. Coherence functions were computed between pairs of EMGs and were examined for significant values in the range of 20–240 Hz. When two pairs of electrodes were intentionally placed to record the activity from a common subset of motor units in a single quadrant of the lower lip, all subjects exhibited significant broad-band coherence in every frequency in all experimental tasks. Thus, the presence of such a pattern of broad-band significant coherence for EMG pairs recorded from different quadrants would indicate that single motor unit territories extended across perioral quadrants. When separate EMG recordings were obtained from the four quadrants of the lips, coherence functions computed between EMG pairs were typically zero across the entire frequency range. These findings suggest that perioral motor unit territories are organized into nonoverlapping quadrants. Further, the present analyses suggest that, unlike bilateral pairs of jaw-closing muscles during chewing, these motor units are not driven by any correlated oscillatory activity in chewing or other oral motor tasks.
Consistency and Reliability of Voice Quality Ratings for Different Types of Speech Fragments
Authors: Krom Guus de
Published: July 2014

This study describes a perception experiment in which listeners were asked to rate voice fragments obtained from a variety of speakers on grade, breathiness, and roughness. Four different types of stimuli were presented to each listener. One type of stimulus was based on connected speech fragments; the other three were based on different segments of a sustained vowel, yielding a 200 msec vowel onset stimulus, a 200 msec post-onset stimulus, and a 1000 msec whole vowel stimulus. Analyses focused on the consistency and reliability of grade, roughness, and breathiness ratings. Results indicated that stimulus type had virtually no effect on either within- or between-listener consistency of the grade, breathiness, or roughness ratings. Rating reliability too was hardly influenced by stimulus type. When determined as a function of the overall degree of deviance of a voice, the reliability of breathiness and roughness ratings was slightly higher for whole vowel and vowel onset stimuli than for connected speech and post-onset stimuli. It is concluded that connected speech stimuli are not necessarily to be preferred over vowel-type stimuli for a perceptual evaluation of grade, roughness, or breathiness. The somewhat higher reliability of ratings on vowel onset and whole vowel stimuli as compared to the post-onset stimuli is taken as an indication that the onset part of a vowel may contain voice quality cues that are less salient in the most stable part of a vowel.
Generalized Effects of Enhanced Milieu Teaching
Authors: Kaiser Ann P. , Hester Peggy P.
Published: July 2014

The primary and generalized effects of Enhanced Milieu Teaching were examined with six preschool children with significant language delays. In a multiple baseline design across children, trainers implemented the naturalistic language intervention during play-based interaction sessions in the children's preschool classrooms. Children systematically increased their use of targeted language skills during the intervention sessions, and these changes were maintained when the treatment was discontinued. Generalized changes in children's communication resulting from the intervention were examined with untrained teachers, peers, and parents. Some generalization to untrained partners was observed for all children. Correlational analyses indicated that greater numbers of child utterances and greater diversity in vocabulary were associated with increased talking and mands for verbalization presented by partners.
Middle Latency Auditory Responses in Males Who Stutter
Authors: Dietrich Susan , Barry S. Joseph , Parker Donald E.
Published: July 2014

Little research exists that explores subcortical function in people who stutter. One study suggested that auditory middle latency response Wave Pb was prolonged in subjects who stutter as compared to controls. Other studies have suggested that Pb was generated within the thalamic portion of the reticular system. MLRs were recorded from 10 males who stutter and 10 controls using a variety of filter passbands in response to clicks presented binaurally at various rates. The latency of Pb was found to be significantly shorter in the group of subjects who stutter.
Accuracy of Speech Intelligibility Index Predictions for Noise-Masked Young Listeners With Normal Hearing and for Elderly Listeners With Hearing Impairment
Authors: Hargus Sarah E. , Gordon-Salant Sandra
Published: July 2014

This study examined whether the accuracy of Speech Intelligibility Index (SII) predictions is affected by subject age when between-groups auditory sensitivity differences are controlled. SII predictive accuracy was assessed for elderly listeners with hearing impairment (EHI) and for young noise-masked listeners with normal hearing (NMN). SII predictive accuracy was poorer for the EHI subjects than for the NMN subjects across a range of test conditions and stimuli. Speech test redundancy, speech presentation level, signal-to-babble ratio, and babble level also affected SII predictive accuracy. The results suggest that the speech recognition difficulties experienced in noise by elderly listeners do not result solely from reduced auditory sensitivity.
Auditory Evoked Responses to Frequency-Modulated Tones in Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Tomblin J. Bruce , Abbas Paul J. , Records Nancy L. , Brenneman Lynn M.
Published: July 2014

Averaged cortically evoked potentials to frequency-modulated tones (±100 Hz around a center frequency of 1 kHz) were obtained from 12 children with SLI and 12 age-matched children who were normal language learners. It was hypothesized, based on Stefanatos, Green, and Ratcliff (1989), that the children with receptive and expressive specific language impairment (SLI) would show very small or no measurable averaged response amplitudes. Also, it was predicted that children who were normal language learners would show large response amplitudes that were both significantly greater than those obtained during a stimulus control condition and greater than those obtained from the children with SLI. The prediction concerning children with SLI proved incorrect. The responses of the children with SLI were no different from those obtained from the normal language learners, and responses from both groups were significantly greater than those obtained in the control condition. These results indicate that, with respect to neural systems involved with selective response to auditory frequency shifts of approximately 100 Hz and occurring over 250 msec, children with SU are not different from children who are normal language learners.
Phonological Working Memory and Speech Production in Preschool Children
Authors: Adams Anne-Marie , Gathercole Susan E.
Published: July 2014

This study investigates whether phonological working memory is associated with spoken language development in preschool children. Assessments were made of speech corpora taken from 3-year old children grouped in terms of their phonological memory abilities. Both quantitative and qualitative indices of the children’s spontaneous speech output were taken in a structured play session. Significant differences were found, with children of good phonological memory abilities producing language that was more grammatically complex, contained a richer array of words, and included longer utterances than children of poor phonological memory abilities. The possible mechanisms by which phonological working memory skills are linked to the production of speech are considered.
Voice Intelligibility in Patients Who Have Undergone Laryngectomies
Authors: Miralles Jose L. , Cervera Teresa
Published: July 2014

In this paper, we evaluate the speech intelligibility of two groups of Spanish-speaking people who have undergone laryngectomies: a group who used esophageal speech and a group who used tracheoesophageal (TES) prostheses. Audio recordings of 24 Spanish words produced by each talker were presented to a group of normal-hearing naive listeners who phonetically transcribed their responses. Listeners’ responses were registered in confusion matrices. Results indicate that differences between these two groups of patients appear when we consider phoneme types. The difficulty in producing the voicing distinction appeared in both TES and esophageal talkers. This finding is consistent with studies of English-speaking laryngectomized patients. Considering manner of production, fricative consonants had the highest number of confusions with the other phoneme class in the TES group, whereas in the esophageal group nasals resulted the highest number of confusions. However, ANOVA showed that differences between the two groups were not significant.
Part-Word Repetitions by Persons Who Stutter: Fragment Types and Their Articulatory Processes
Authors: Viswanath Nagalapura S. , Neel Amy T.
Published: July 2014

One of the core features of developmental stuttering is part-word repetition followed by fluent production (resolution) of the target word. The purpose of the study is to compare the spectro-temporal dimensions of fragments with the spectro-temporal dimensions of the resolution to define fragment types and develop articulatory interpretation of termination-restart cycles. From the acoustic recordings of six adult males who stutter, 142 stuttering events on words beginning with stops were isolated, excerpted, and digitized. The stuttering events occurred during either spontaneous speech or reading. The consecutive articulatory phases of fragments were classified and compared with the corresponding phases in resolutions. We found that (a) there are two basic types of fragments—those with vowels and those without, (b) the type of fragment produced is strongly influenced by the voicing status of the stop, (c) the fragments without vowels tend to have longer stop closure duration than the stops in the resolutions, (d) there are two subtypes in fragments with vowels—those with vowels shorter than and those with vowels longer than the vowels in the resolutions, (e) the shorter vowels differ spectro-temporally from the vowels in resolutions, and (f) the longer vowels differ temporally from the vowels in the resolutions. We discuss the articulatory implications of the acoustic data for each fragment type in the context of speech as an act designed to achieve contextually conditioned acoustic goals.
Orolaryngeal Reflex Responses to Changes in Affective State
Authors: Larson Kristin K. , Sapir Shimon
Published: July 2014

Previous research has shown that the eye-blink startle reflex can be modulated by changes in affective state. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether human perioral and trigemino-laryngeal reflexes are sensitive to affective state changes. Impetus for this study comes from theories suggesting that orolaryngeal reflexes may be modulated by affective states, and as such influence voice and speech production. Subjects were 24 classically trained female sopranos (21–35 years). Each produced a pursing lip posture while sustaining the continuant /
m
/ at 440 Hz and at a comfortable voice intensity level. Simultaneously subjects were shown an aversive, pleasant, or neutral slide (experimental conditions) or no slide (control condition) and received unanticipated, servo-controlled mechanical taps to the midline upper lip. Perioral responses were recorded bilaterally from the orbicularis oris inferior (OOI) muscle using surface electromyography (EMG). Trigemino-laryngeal responses were obtained indirectly by measuring changes in the voltage analog of the voice fundamental frequency (VF
o
). Reflex responses were detected by smoothing and signal-averaging the VF
o
and rectified EMG signals. Response magnitude and latency measures were compared across the affective valence and no-slide conditions. Statistically significant differences were not observed between conditions for the magnitude or temporal measures of either reflex. Significant differences, independent of affective valence, were observed between right and left early excitatory perioral response magnitudes. Differences between the startle and orolaryngeal reflexes, as well as the implications of these findings for speech motor control, are discussed.
Kinematic Analysis of Lower Lip Movements in Ataxic Dysarthria
Authors: Ackermann Hermann , Hertrich Ingo , Scharf Gabriele
Published: July 2014

The present study investigates the influence of cerebellar disorders on articulatory performance. A linear trend between peak velocity and movement amplitude seems to represent a basic organizational principle both of upper limb and speech motor control. This relationship is preserved in arm movements of patients with cerebellar dysfunction. However, these subjects show a decreased slope of the respective regression lines under the instruction to perform movements as fast as possible. In order to find out whether these findings also hold for speech motor control, peak velocity, range, and duration both of the opening and closing gestures during production of /pap/- as well as /pa:p/-sequences—embedded into a carrier phrase each—were measured using an optoelectric system. In addition, vowel length (/a/, /a:/) was determined at the acoustic speech signal: (a) The cerebellar patients showed a prolongation of both vowel targets. Most of them, nevertheless, presented with discernible durational contrasts; (b) The articulatory gestures were characterized by a highly linear relationship between peak velocity and movement range in the cerebellar as well as in the control group; (c) As a rule, the cerebellar subjects had decreased velocity-displacement ratios as compared to the normals; (d) The discrepancy in slope of the computed regression lines between the controls and the patients varied according to the type of movement (opening vs. closing gesture) and—to a lesser degree—linguistic demands (short vs. long vowel). These data indicate an impaired ability of cerebellar patients to increase muscular forces in order to produce adequately scaled articulatory gestures of short duration.
Functional Categories in the Grammars of Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Leonard Laurence B.
Published: July 2014

Children with specific language impairment often show a serious limitation in their use of grammatical morphemes such as verb inflections and free-standing closed-class forms. The purpose of this study was to determine whether such difficulty constitutes a problem with entire functional categories. Examination of the spontaneous speech of a group of 10 English-speaking children with specific language impairment revealed clear evidence of each of the functional categories examined: Determiner, Inflection, and Complementizer. However, relative to younger normally developing children with comparable mean utterance lengths, these children showed lower percentages of use of many of the grammatical elements associated with these functional categories. The utility of employing a functional category framework in the study of specific language impairment and the implications of the findings for other accounts of this disorder are discussed.
Contingency and Breakdown: Children With SLI and Their Conversations With Mothers and Fathers
Authors: Conti-Ramsden Gina , Hutcheson Graeme D. , Grove John
Published: July 2014

The present study aimed to investigate the nature and frequency of parental recasts (both mothers and fathers) to children with SLI as compared to normal language learning children of the same language stage including their younger siblings. The comparisons were made within the framework of discourse function to include behaviors related to conversational contingency and conversational breakdown. Results showed that children with SLI at the early stages of development experience a simple recast gap in their linguistic input. Qualitative differences in the context in which recasts occurred were also noted. Furthermore, some differences between mothers and fathers were found. These findings are discussed in light of previous research with particular reference to the Rare Event Theory and the Bridge Hypothesis.
Sense of Effort and the Effects of Fatigue in the Tongue and Hand
Authors: Solomon Nancy Pearl , Robin Donald A. , Mitchinson Sara I. , VanDaele Douglas J. , Luschei Erich S.
Published: July 2014

Fatigue and increased effort are common symptoms for people with movement disorders and dysarthria, but they are rarely quantified. In an attempt to develop a clinically useful and physiologically meaningful measure of fatigue, we used a task that involves sustaining a target effort level without visual feedback while squeezing a bulb connected to a pressure transducer. In the first experiment, 12 healthy young adults performed the constant-effort task with the tongue and the preferred hand at 3 submaximal levels of effort. The resulting pressure declined over time as a negative exponential function with a nonzero asymptote. In the second experiment, 6 subjects performed the constant-effort task before and after acutely fatiguing the tongue and hand. The rate of pressure decline was significantly greater after fatigue. One possible mechanism for the characteristic negative exponential function is that It reflects a constant descending drive from higher centers in the CNS to the appropriate motoneuron pools. Thus, this technique may elucidate the contribution of central fatigue to normal and disordered speech.
Cognitive-Linguistic Demands and Speech Breathing
Authors: Mitchell Heather L. , Hoit Jeannette D. , Watson Peter J.
Published: July 2014

This investigation examined the influence of cognitive-linguistic processing demands on speech breathing. Twenty women were studied during performance of two speaking tasks that were designed to differ in cognitive-linguistic planning requirements. Speech breathing was monitored with respiratory magnetometers from which recordings were made of the anteroposterior diameter changes of the rib cage and abdomen. Results indicated that speech breathing was similar across speaking conditions with respect to nearly all measures of lung volume, rib cage volume, and abdomen volume. Task-related differences were found for certain fluency-related measures. Specifically, the number of syllables produced per breath group was smaller, average speaking rate was slower, and average lung volume expended per syllable was greater under a higher cognitive-linguistic demand condition than under a lower-demand condition. These differences were explained by the fact that silent pauses, particularly those associated with expiration, were more prevalent and longer in duration under the higher-demand condition. It appears that the mechanical behavior of the breathing apparatus during speaking generally is unaffected by variations in cognitive-linguistic demands of the type investigated; however, fluency-related breathing behavior appears to be highly sensitive to such demands.
Fluency Effect of Frequency Alterations of Plus/Minus One-Half and One-Quarter Octave Shifts in Auditory Feedback of People Who Stutter
Authors: Stuart Andrew , Kalinowski Joseph , Armson Joy , Stenstrom Robert , Jones Kathleen
Published: July 2014

The effect of frequency alterations in auditory feedback of people who stutter on stuttering frequency was investigated. Twelve participants who stutter read aloud under nonaltered auditory feedback (NAF) and four conditions of frequency-altered feedback ([FAF], plus/minus one-half and one-quarter octaves) at normal and fast speech rates. Stuttering frequency was significantly higher while reading aloud with NAF relative to the four conditions of FAF (
p
< 0.05). There were no differences among participants’ stuttering frequency between the four FAF conditions (
p
> 0.05). Reductions in stuttering frequency of approximately 50% to 60% were found with FAF relative to NAF. More disfluencies occurred with the fast versus the normal speech rate condition (
p
= .0007) irrespective of auditory feedback condition. These findings suggest that slight alterations in the frequency of auditory feedback of people who stutter are fluency-enhancing.
Consonant-Vowel Interdependencies in Babbling and Early Words: Preliminary Examination of a Locus Equation Approach
Authors: Sussman Harvey M. , Minifie Fred D. , Buder Eugene H. , Stoel-Gammon Carol , Smith Jason
Published: July 2014

Consonant-vowel productions at two distinct stages of language development were studied in a single female child. At 12 months canonical babbling syllables (
N
= 144) identified by a panel of listeners as comprising [bV], [dv], and [gv] tokens were acoustically analyzed by measuring F2 transition onset and F2 midvowel frequencies and plotting their relationship as locus equations for each stop category. A regression analysis performed on these scatterplots revealed differential slopes and y-intercepts as a function of stop place. The same analysis was performed 9 months later on CV utterances (
N
= 243) produced as syllable-initial segments of real words by the same child. Whereas labial and velar locus equation parameters moved toward more adult-like values, alveolar slope and y-intercept moved away from adult values and more in the direction of decreased coarticulation between vowel and consonant. There was greater scatter of data points around the regression line for production of words compared to babbling. These results are compared to locus equations obtained from 3–5-year-olds and adults. Locus equations appear to be useful as an empirical developmental probe to document how CV productions gradually approach adult categorical standards.
Acoustic and Articulatory Measures of Sibilant Production With and Without Auditory Feedback From a Cochlear Implant
Authors: Matthies Melanie L. , Svirsky Mario , Perkell Joseph , Lane Harlan
Published: July 2014

The articulator positions of a subject with a cochlear implant were measured with an electromagnetic midsagittal articulometer (EMMA) system with and without auditory feedback available to the subject via his implant. Acoustic analysis of sibilant productions included specific measures of their spectral properties as well as the F
3
formant amplitude. More general postural characteristics of the utterances, such as speech rate and sound level, were measured as well. Because of the mechanical and aerodynamic interdependence of the articulators, the postural variables must be considered before attributing speech improvement to the selective correction of a phonemic target with the use of auditory feedback. The tongue blade position was related to the shape and central tendency of the /∫/ spectra; however, changes in the spectral contrast between /s/ and /∫/ were not related to changes in the more general postural variables of rate and sound level. These findings suggest that the cochlear implant is providing this subject with important auditory cues that he can use to monitor his speech and maintain the phonemic contrast between /s/ and /∫/.
Longitudinal Phonatory Characteristics After Botulinum Toxin Type A Injection
Authors: Fisher Kimberly V. , Scherer Ronald C. , Guo Chwen G. , Owen Ann S.
Published: July 2014

Following Botulinum Toxin Type A injection, glottal competency of an adductor spasmodic dysphonia patient is thought to vary over a wide range. This study quantifies variability in laryngeal adduction for one such patient over a 10-week period. Analyses of kinematic and aerodynamic measures were used to track the voice weekly. The measures included the electroglottographic waveform width (EGGW50), nondimensional electroglottographic slope quotient (SLQ), glottal flow open quotient (FOQ), dc glottal flow, and nondimensional glottal flow peak quotient (FPQ). The results suggested that change in degree of glottal adduction over time can be observed even when vocal instability is present within each recording session. Perceptual ratings of vocal quality (breathy to pressed) were related to the laryngeal measures. The coefficient of variation for EGGW50 and the percentage of dichrotic phonations reached minima during sessions with predominantly breathy and hypoadducted phonation. The methods used in this study show potential to aid decisions about dose level and sources of perceptual adductor spasmodic dysphonia symptoms for a given patient.
Phonological Characteristics of Children Whose Stuttering Persisted or Recovered
Authors: Paden Elaine Pagel , Yairi Ehud
Published: July 2014

Among children who stutter, more will be identified with articulation/phonological deficiencies than among normally fluent children of the same ages. Most current literature has focused on phonological differences between those children who stutter and those who do not. The present study examines early phonological differences between young children whose stuttering persisted and those who recovered from early stuttering. Thirty-six children, 12 whose stuttering persisted, 12 who recovered early, and 12 who recovered later, had been assessed by means of the Assessment of Phonological Processes—Revised (Hodson, 1986) soon after they were identified as exhibiting stuttering. After many months of longitudinal evaluation of their stuttering that led to their classification into the three groups, the early phonological assessments of these children were re-examined to identify differences. Overall mean percentage of error scores as well as error scores on specific phonological patterns showed that the persistent group differed significantly from normally fluent control subjects matched by age and sex. Scores of the two groups who recovered and their matched controls, however, did not differ significantly. Although poor phonological ability in the early stage of stuttering appears to be a contributing factor to the differentiation of persistence and recovery, the wide individual variations in scores within groups suggest that additional factors are necessary for reliable prediction.
Treatment Efficacy
Authors: Coelho Carl A. , DeRuyter Frank , Stein Margo
Published: July 2014

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) may result in a broad array of cognitive-communicative impairments. Cognitive-communicative impairments are the result of deficits in linguistic and nonlinguistic cognitive functions. The speech-language pathologist functions as a member of the multidisciplinary team of professionals that collaboratively assess and treat individuals with TBI. The role of the speech-language pathologist includes assessment of all aspects of communication, as well as the communicative implications of cognitive deficits, and swallowing; treatment planning and programming, as determined by the individual's stage of recovery; client and family training/counseling; and interdisciplinary consultation. The effectiveness of speech and language intervention for specific cognitive deficits (e.g., attention, memory, executive functions) as well as general issues of social-skills training and early intervention are illustrated by scientific and clinical evidence from group-treatment and single-subject studies as well as case studies.
Perceptual Organization of Sequential Stimuli in Listeners With Cochlear Hearing Loss
Authors: Grose J. H. , Hall J. W.
Published: July 2014

The perceptual organization of sequential stimuli presumably depends in part on the fidelity with which acoustic cues are encoded in the auditory system. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cochlear hearing loss on two measures of sequential processing that rely on spectro-temporal information. The results of a gap detection/discrimination task indicated that listeners with cochlear hearing loss exhibited particular difficulty discriminating gaps between tonal markers that were disparate in frequency. Performance improved when the disparate tones were embedded into a sequence of alternating low- and high-frequency tones that may have facilitated the perceptual parsing of the stimuli into separate auditory streams. However, performance for listeners with cochlear hearing loss was generally poorer than that of normal-hearing listeners and did not appear to be related to threshold in quiet or to frequency selectivity. The results of a melody recognition task that required a target melody to be "heard out" from simultaneous competing melodies also indicated generally poorer performance on the part of the listeners with hearing loss, although the pattern of results across all listeners was highly idiosyncratic. It was concluded that cochlear hearing loss deleteriously affects the processes underlying perceptual organization of sequential stimuli. In particular, perceptual organization in the presence of cochlear hearing loss appears to require a greater frequency separation between presumed auditory streams in comparison to normal-hearing listeners.
Functional-Lesion Investigation of Developmental Stuttering With Positron Emission Tomography
Authors: Ingham Roger J. , Fox Peter T. , Ingham Janis C. , Zamarripa Frank , Martin Charles , Jerabek Paul , Cotton John
Published: July 2014

Positron emission tomographic (PET) H215O measurements of resting-state regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) were obtained in 29 right-handed men, 10 of whom stuttered and 19 of whom did not. PET images were analyzed by sampling 74 regions of interest (ROIs), 37 per hemisphere. ROI placement was guided both physiologically and anatomically. Physiological ROI placement was based on speech motor activations. Anatomical ROIs were positioned by reference to a stereotactic, neurosurgical atlas with positions confirmed and finely adjusted by co-registered magnetic-resonance images (MRIs). For all subjects, PET and MR images were normal to visual inspection. Highly significant (p< 0.0001) between-region and between-hemisphere effects were found for both groups, as have been previously reported for normal subjects, but no significant between-group differences were found for any regional CBF values. Analysis by a laterality index found a weakly significant between-groups effect (p=0.04) that was isolated to five regions, four of which are implicated in speech or hearing. However, these regional laterality effects showed no consistent directionality, nor did these regions have absolute differences in regional blood flow between groups. Present findings do not support recent suggestions that developmental stuttering is associated with abnormalities of brain blood flow at rest. Rather, our findings indicate an essentially normal functional brain terrain with a small number of minor differences in hemispheric symmetry.
Effects of a Metronome on the Filled Pauses of Fluent Speakers
Authors: Christenfeld Nicholas
Published: July 2014

Filled pauses (the "ums" and "uhs" that litter spontaneous speech) seem to be a product of the speaker paying deliberate attention to the normally automatic act of talking. This is the same sort of explanation that has been offered for stuttering. In this paper we explore whether a manipulation that has long been known to decrease stuttering, synchronizing speech to the beats of a metronome, will then also decrease filled pauses. Two experiments indicate that a metronome has a dramatic effect on the production of filled pauses. This effect is not due to any simplification or slowing of the speech and supports the view that a metronome causes speakers to attend more to how they are talking and less to what they are saying. It also lends support to the connection between stutters and filled pauses.
A System for the Diagnosis of Specific Language Impairment in Kindergarten Children
Authors: Tomblin J. Bruce , Records Nancy L. , Zhang Xuyang
Published: July 2014

A valid and reliable diagnostic standard for language impairment is required for the conduct of epidemiologic research on specific language disorder. A rationale is provided for such a diagnostic system labeled the EpiSLI system. This system employed five composite scores representing norm-referenced performance in three domains of language (vocabulary, grammar, and narration) and two modalities (comprehension and production). Children who have two or more composite scores below –1.25 standard deviations were considered as children with language disorder. The performance of the EpiSLI diagnostic system was examined on a sample of 1,502 kindergarten children and it was shown that this diagnostic system yielded results that were consistent with clinician rating and previous research results.
Selected Temporal, Grammatical, and Phonological Characteristics of Conversational Utterances Produced by Children Who Stutter
Authors: Logan Kenneth J. , Conture Edward G.
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to assess clause, syllable, and response latency characteristics of conversational utterances produced by children who stutter. Subjects were 14 boys who stutter (
M
age = 52.07 months;
SD
= 9.02 months) and 14 boys who do not stutter (
M
age = 51.93 months;
SD
= 8.55 months). Selected aspects of speech fluency, clause and syllable structure, and response latency were analyzed in utterances collected from each subject as he spoke with his mother during a 30-minute conversation. Results indicated that stuttered utterances of children who stutter contained significantly more clausal constituents than their length-matched fluent utterances. There was, however, no significant difference in syllable structure of the length-matched utterances, and neither stuttering frequency nor duration was significantly associated with syllable structure measures. Further, there was no significant difference in response latency of non-length-matched stuttered and fluent utterances. Findings are taken to suggest that changes in the number of clausal constituents that must be constructed, stored, or coordinated within an utterance may influence the likelihood of speech errors and, hence, speech disfluencies within that utterance.
Past-Tense Marking by Children With and Without Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Oetting Janna B. , Horohov Janice E.
Published: July 2014

This study examined the productivity and representation of past-tense marking in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 11 6-year-olds with SLI, 11 age-matched controls, and 11 MLU-matched controls. Regular and irregular verbs were used to examine the productivity of regular marking. Past-tense representation was examined by asking children to inflect homophonous pairs of denominal and irregular root verbs. All three groups demonstrated productive marking of past tense, although as expected the accuracy of the impaired group was less than that of either control group. Patterns of past-tense marking as a function of a word's phonological composition and inflectional frequency were the same for the SLI- and MLU-matched groups, and all children presented a past-tense system that was sensitive to grammatical structure. The findings replicate previous research of the SLI morphological system and provide additional specification of these children's morphological strengths and weaknesses. Strengths include the children's sensitivity to grammatical and phonological characteristics of the lexicon; weaknesses include limited productivity of regular past-tense marking and a greater sensitivity to frequency manipulations as compared to normally developing children. Results are discussed in terms of the nature of the SLI profile. They also are used to evaluate the theoretical model on which the study was based.
Another Look at Nonverbal Rule Induction in Children With SLI
Authors: Kiernan Barbara , Snow David , Swisher Linda , Vance Rebecca
Published: July 2014

This study focuses on the ability of preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) to extract target regularities from recurring nonverbal stimuli. As a step beyond previous methodologies, we also assessed their ability to shift and extract other regularities after feedback indicated that their choices were no longer correct. This step was motivated by Connell and Stone's (1994) hypothesis that difficulties manifested by children with SLI in extracting nonverbal "rules" from multiple problem sets may reflect difficulties in "flexible reconceptualization," that is, in the ability to flexibly shift across regularities. Thirty 4- and 5-year-olds with SLI and 30 age-matched children developing language normally participated in a discrimination learning-shift paradigm. Findings indicated that both language groups were successful in extracting regularities and making shifts. In fact, language groups did not differ in number of regularities extracted, number of shifts completed, or trials to criterion. As a consequence, findings failed to provide evidence that children with SLI are limited in either the ability to extract nonverbal regularities or to flexibly reconceptualize them. From a larger theoretical perspective, the findings fail to support theories positing that generalized "rule-induction" deficits underlie the verbal and nonverbal impairments of SLI.
Stuttering and Communicative Suitability of Speech
Authors: Franken Marie-Christine , Bezooijen Renée van , Boves Louis
Published: July 2014

The purpose of the present study was to develop and evaluate an instrument for assessing the communicative suitability of speech (i.e., the speaking situation-dependent adequacy of speech as judged by listeners). Listeners judged the suitability of speech of people who stutter (
N
= 10) at three stages of treatment (before, immediately after, and 6 months after) and that of people who do not stutter ((
N
= 10, the latter serving as a reference). The listeners rated the suitability of the speech, using a 10-point scale, for 10 speaking situations that supposedly make different demands, with listeners consisting of three groups: unsophisticated listeners ((
N
= 17), clinicians specializing in the treatment of stuttering ((
N
= 17), and stuttering listeners ((
N
=17). Results indicate that the rating instrument can be scored reliably. Analysis of variance for the ratings of the reference speakers showed that the factor "situation" had a significant effect on the suitability ratings, with more demanding situations receiving lower suitability scores than the less demanding ones. Also, the speech of the people who stutter was judged significantly less suitable than the speech of the reference speakers. Furthermore, unsophisticated listeners were considerably less tolerant in their judgments than clinicians and stuttering listeners. Findings suggest that communicative suitability is a promising criterion to further investigate, especially as it may apply to the objective evaluation of treatment outcome for stuttering.