bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of the Effects of Broadband Masking Noise on the Auditory Brainstem Response in Young and Older Adults
Authors: Burkard Robert F. , Sims Donald
Published: April 2006

We examined the effects of ipsilateral-direct, continuous, broadband noise on auditory brainstem response (ABR) wave I and V latencies and amplitudes in young adult versus older adult humans. It was hypothesized that age might influence the effects of masking noise on ABR peak latencies and/or amplitudes, given the frequent complaint of older persons’ ability to process speech in background noise. Young adults had hearing thresholds of 20 dB HL or better for the octave frequencies from 250 to 8000 Hz. A subset of older study participants had thresholds of 20 dB HL or better across frequency, but others had thresholds up to 45 dB HL. All data were collected and analyzed with a Nicolet Bravo. An electrode was placed on the tympanic membrane (as well as on high forehead and contralateral mastoid), and a click level of 115 dB pSPL was used to maximize wave I amplitude. Masker conditions included a no-noise control and noise levels ranging from 20 to 70 dB effective masking, in 10 dB steps. With increasing noise level, both age groups showed minimal changes in wave I latency, but substantial increases in wave V latency and I–V interval. Peak amplitudes decreased with increasing noise level. Mean amplitudes were smaller for the older group, most notably for wave I. Mean peak latencies were greater in the older group, but the I–V interval was similar across age groups, as was the change in peak latencies and I–V interval across noise level. ABR parameters for the older adults with hearing meeting the 20-dB HL criterion at all frequencies (older-better) were compared to those who didn’t meet this criterion (olderworse). Mean wave I latency was greater and wave V latency and I–V interval were smaller for the older-worse group at all noise levels. Mean wave I and V amplitudes were similar for the older-better and older-worse groups. In participants with normal or near-normal hearing, ABR changes with increasing age included small latency increases and a substantial reduction in wave I amplitude. The effects of ipsilateral-direct masking noise on the click-evoked ABR are similar for young and older adults.
Middle Ear Implantable Hearing Devices
Authors: Spindel Jonathan H.
Published: April 2006

For over two decades, corporate and academic researchers have worked to develop practical middle ear implantable hearing devices (MEIHDs). Now that two such devices are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for sale in the United States, and several more are in development, it is time for clinicians to consider these devices as more than a passing idea. With more than 1500 implants in place worldwide, clinical evidence that describes the value of these devices as tools for the rehabilitation of sensorineural hearing loss is plentiful. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of MEIHDs and to provide the clinician with some background of MEIHD technologies to help in the analysis of these devices as they appear on the market.
Ball State University’s AuD Degree
Authors: Hemeyer Thomas F. , Coffin David J. , Updike Claudia D.
Published: April 2006

This article provides an overview of the AuD degree at Ball State University. In 1996, Ball State became the third university to offer the AuD. An accompanying undergraduate major in preaudiology preparation was established at the same time as the AuD, and the nature of the undergraduate program is also summarized.
Older Adult Performance on an Altered Version of the SSI Test
Authors: Aarts Nancy L. , Adams Elizabeth M. , Duncan Kathy R.
Published: April 2006

The Synthetic Sentence Identification (SSI) test has been used extensively in investigations of reduced speech understanding skills in older adults. In this study the SSI test was altered by adding noise to the competing message and by administering practice lists and equivalent test lists, as well as versions of the test that have 4- and 12-s interstimulus intervals (ISIs), along with the standard 8-s ISI. The purpose was to determine the effect of these alterations on performance in a group of older adults with average pure-tone average 2 values less than 33 dB HL. Performance changed as a function of the ISI, with less rollover occurring for the 4-s ISI condition than the other 2 ISIs.
Amplified Earmuffs
Authors: Dolan Thomas G. , O’Loughlin Dennis
Published: April 2006

Purpose:
To determine how amplified earmuffs affect the intelligibility of speech in noise for people with hearing loss, and to determine how various brands of amplified earmuffs compare in terms of speech intelligibility and electroacoustic response.

Method:
The Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) was used to measure the intelligibility of speech for 10 participants with hearing loss when they listened in a background of recorded industrial noise at 85 dBA. Participants listened with 3 different sets of amplified earmuffs (Peltor Tactical 7-S, Elvex COM 55, and Bilsom 707 Impact II), with a set of passive earmuffs (E-A-R Ultra 9000), and with ears unoccluded. Two measurements of sentence threshold were obtained under each of the 5 listening conditions. Gain was measured electroacoustically across a range of input levels and frequencies for each amplified earmuff.

Results:
Electroacoustic measurements indicated that each electronic earmuff amplified at low input levels and attenuated at high input levels. However, gain characteristics varied greatly across devices. HINT sentence thresholds were not significantly different across the 5 listening conditions or across the 2 trials.

Conclusion:
Results suggest that each type of earmuff can be used to reduce the noise exposure of people with hearing loss without compromising their ability to understand speech.
Postdeployment Hearing Loss in U.S. Army Soldiers Seen at Audiology Clinics From April 1, 2003, Through March 31, 2004
Authors: Helfer Thomas M. , Jordan Nikki N. , Lee Robyn B.
Published: April 2006

Purpose:
U.S. Army soldiers face unique noise exposures in the current deployed setting. The effects of these deployment-related exposures have not previously been documented.

Method:
In an attempt to initiate this process, medical evaluations performed at military audiology clinics from April 2003 through March 2004 were reviewed to compare noise-induced hearing loss injury (NIHLI) outcomes among soldiers whose diagnoses were classified as postdeployment-related versus non-postdeployment-related. Sentinel NIHLI outcomes of interest included acoustic trauma, permanent threshold shift, eardrum perforation, tinnitus, and military-specific H-3 and H-4 hearing loss profiles.

Results:
Significantly higher rates of NIHLI and associated outcomes were observed among soldiers whose diagnoses were postdeployment-related.

Conclusions:
Based on the findings from this evaluation, recommendations are provided for enhancing the force health protection posture for prevention of hearing loss in future deployments.
Enhanced Speechreading in Deaf Adults
Authors: Bernstein Lynne E. , Auer Edward T. , Tucker Paula E.
Published: April 2006

This study investigated effects of short-term training/practice on group and individual differences in deaf and hearing speechreaders. In two experiments, participants speechread sentences with feedback during training and without feedback during testing, alternating 10 times over six sessions spanning up to 5 weeks. Testing used sentence sets balanced for expected mean performance. In each experiment, participants were adults who reported good speechreading and either normal hearing (
n
= 8) or severe to profound hearing impairments (
n
=8). The experiments were replicates, except that in one participants received vibrotactile speech stimuli in addition to visible speech during training, testing whether vibrotactile speech enhances speechreading learning. Results showed that (a) training/practice did not alter the relative performance among individuals or groups; (b) significant learning occurred when training and testing were conducted with speechreading only (although the magnitude of the effect was small); and (c) there was evidence that the vibrotactile training depressed rather than raised speechreading scores over the training period.
Clinicoanatomic Studies in Dysarthria
Authors: Kent Ray D. , Duffy Joseph R. , Slama Angela , Kent Jane F. , Clift Amy
Published: April 2006

More than 30 years ago, Darley, Aronson, and Brown (1969) proposed clinicoanatomic correlations for seven perceptual types of dysarthria. These correlations have not been systematically re-examined even though imaging technologies developed in recent years provide the means to do so. This review considers data from published imaging studies as well as data from selected medical interventions to evaluate the current state of knowledge that relates lesion site to the nature of a speech disturbance. Although the extant data are not sufficient to allow a complete evaluation of the seven types of dysarthria described by Darley et al., relevant information has been reported on lesions of the pyramidal pathway, extrapyramidal pathway, and cerebellum. In general, the results are best explained by an equivalence mode of brain-behavior relationship in which a type of dysarthria is associated with a lesion in one of two or more brain structures. Criteria also are proposed for future studies of clinicoanatomic relationships in neurogenic communication disorders.
Is There a Relationship Between Speech and Nonspeech Auditory Processing in Children With Dyslexia?
Authors: Rosen Stuart , Manganari Eva
Published: April 2006

A group of 8 young teenagers with dyslexia were compared to age-matched control participants on a number of speech and nonspeech auditory tasks. There were no differences between the control participants and the teenagers with dyslexia in forward and simultaneous masking, nor were there any differences in frequency selectivity as indexed by performance with a bandstop noise. Thresholds for backward masking in a broadband noise were elevated for the teenagers with dyslexia as a group. If this deficit in backward masking had an influence on speech perception, we might expect the perception of "ba" versus "da" to be affected, as the crucial second formant transition isfollowedby a vowel. On the other hand, as forward masking is not different in the two groups, we would expect the perception of "ab" versus "ad" to be unaffected, as the contrastive second formant transition isprecededby a vowel. Overall speech identification and discrimination performance for these two contrasts was superior for the control group but did not differ otherwise. Thus, the clear group deficit in backward masking in the group with dyslexia has no simple relationship to the perception of crucial acoustic features in speech. Furthermore, the deficit for nonspeech analogues of the speech contrasts (second formants in isolation) was much less marked than for the speech sounds, with 75% of the listeners with dyslexia performing equivalently to control listeners. The auditory deficit cannot therefore be simply characterized as a difficulty in processing rapid auditory information. Either there is a linguistic/phonological component to the speech perception deficit, or there is an important effect of acoustic complexity.
Age-Related Changes in Motor Control During Articulator Visuomotor Tracking
Authors: Ballard Kirrie J. , Robin Donald A. , Woodworth George , Zimba Lynn D.
Published: April 2006

The present study provides normative data on changes in visuomotor control of the oral-facial system across the lifespan. Control of the lower lip, jaw, and larynx (i.e., fundamental frequency) was examined using a nonspeech visuomotor tracking (VMT) task, where subjects move the articulator of interest to track a moving target on an oscilloscope screen. This task examines articulator motor control during movements that are similar to speech but that do not impose linguistic units or the demands of coordinating multiple structures. Accuracy and within- and between-subject variability in tracking performance were measured by cross correlation, gain ratio, phase shift, and target-tracker amplitude difference. Cross-correlation analyses indicated that performance of children (aged 8;2 to 17;0 [years;months]) and older adults (aged 45;1 to 84;3) is poorer than that of younger adults (aged 17;1 to 45;0). Accuracy of movement amplitude tended to increase during development and decline with aging, whereas age did not appear to influence accuracy of temporal parameters in lip and jaw tracking. In contrast, age tended to influence individual variability in temporal but not amplitude parameters. Differences were noted between articulators. The data complement previous studies that considered accuracy and variability of articulator movement during speech. The VMT method and the data provided may be applied to assessment of impairments in the motor speech system and to differential diagnosis of motor speech versus linguistically based disorders.
The Modification of Speech Naturalness During Rhythmic Stimulation Treatment of Stuttering
Authors: Ingham Roger J. , Sato Wendy , Finn Patrick , Belknap Heather
Published: April 2006

This study investigated the modification of speech naturalness during stuttering treatment. It systematically replicated an earlier study (Ingham & Onslow, 1985) that demonstrated that unnatural-sounding stutter-free speech could be shaped into more natural-sounding stutter-free speech by using regular feedback of speech-naturalness ratings during speaking tasks. In the present study, the same procedure was used with three persons who stutter—2 adolescent girls and 1 adult man—during rhythmic stimulation conditions. The two adolescent participants spoke only English, but Spanish was the first and English the second language (ESL) of the adult participant. For the 2 adolescents, it was demonstrated that their unnatural-sounding rhythmic speech could be shaped to levels found among normally fluent speakers without losing the fluency-inducing benefits of rhythmic speech. The findings indicate that speech-naturalness feedback may be a powerful procedure for overcoming a problematic aspect of rhythmic speech treatments of stuttering. However, it was not possible to deliver reliable speech-naturalness feedback to the adult ESL speaker, who also displayed a strong dialect. The study highlights the need to find strategies to improve interjudge agreement when using speech-naturalness ratings with speakers who display a strong dialect.
Effects of Divided Attention on the Production of Filled Pauses and Repetitions
Authors: Oomen Claudy C. E. , Postma Albert
Published: April 2006

The purpose of the present study was to examine effects of divided attention on the production of filled pauses and repetitions. Attention was divided by means of a dual-task paradigm. Eighteen nonstuttering adult subjects performed a picture story-telling task, with and without simultaneously performing a tactileform recognition task. Results indicate that the number of filled pauses and repetitions increased in a situation of divided attention. This suggests that the production of filled pauses and repetitions, which are considered to be reactions to problems in speech planning, is governed by processes that operate relatively independently of the available attentional resources. It was speculated that these disfluencies could be automatic reactions to the increased planning difficulties induced by the concurrent task.
Motor Control in Children and Adults During a Non-Speech Oral Task
Authors: Clark Heather M. , Robin Donald A. , McCullagh Gail , Schmidt Richard A.
Published: April 2006

Although decreased accuracy and increased variability of movement is a common developmental finding, the nature of these performance patterns remains poorly understood. The present study examined the accuracy and stability of several aspects of oral motor control. Specifically, we examined the control of absolute timing (temporal parameterization), absolute amplitude (amplitude parameterization), and relative timing and amplitude (generalized motor programs) in children and adults during a lip plus jaw opening and closing task. As was the case with similar reports, we found that children were both less accurate and less stable in their assignment of temporal and amplitude parameters. However, we further found that although children's underlying movement patterns were less accurate than those of adults, children exhibited similar variability in their generalized motor programs. The results are discussed within the framework of a schema model of motor control (Schmidt, 1975) with reference to the strategic allocation of resources during motor learning (e.g., Clark & Robin, 1998).
Distributional Characteristics of VOT in Children's Voiceless Aspirated Stops and Interpretation of Developmental Trends
Authors: Koenig Laura L.
Published: April 2006

Numerous researchers have measured voice onset time (VOT) in children. Authors attempting to trace developmental trends in consonant voicing have frequently framed their hypotheses in terms of how children's VOT means and/or standard deviations compare to adult norms. However, data from previous studies suggest that children's VOTs may not be normally distributed. Specifically, rightward skew is observed in the voiceless aspirated stops, such that mean values exceed the medians. The current work presents detailed distributional analyses of VOTs in /p, t/ from 7 five-year-old children and 14 adults. Distributional non-normality was common in both the adult and child data, as measured by Shapiro and Wilk's
W
statistic. The children showed an insignificant but consistent tendency towards higher values of skew than the adults and greater differences between VOT mean and median values. The results suggest that theories of VOT development should not be based solely on means and standard deviations, but need to address the distributional characteristics of the data more fully.
Sensitive Periods Differentiate Processing of Open- and Closed-Class Words
Authors: Weber-Fox Christine , Neville Helen J.
Published: April 2006

The goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that neural processes for language are heterogeneous in their adaptations to maturation and experience. This study examined whether the neural processes for open-and closed-class words are differentially affected by delays in second-language immersion. In English, open-class words primarily convey referential meaning, whereas closed-class words are primarily related to grammatical information in sentence processing. Previous studies indicate that event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by these word classes display nonidentical distributions and latencies, show different developmental time courses, and are differentially affected by early language experience in Deaf individuals. In this study, ERPs were recorded from 10 monolingual English speakers and 53 Chinese-English bilingual speakers who were grouped according to their age of immersion in English: 1–3, 4–6, 7–10, 11–13, and >15 years of age. Closed-class words elicited an N280 that was largest over left anterior electrode sites for all groups. However, the peak latency was later (>35 ms) in bilingual speakers immersed in English after 7 years of age. In contrast, the latencies and distributions of the N350 elicited by open-class words were similar in all groups. In addition, the N400, elicited by semantic anomalies (open-class words that violated semantic expectation), displayed increased peak latencies for only the later-learning bilingual speakers (>11 years). These results are consistent with the hypothesis that language subprocesses are differentially sensitive to the timing of second-language experience.
Visual Attention in Children With Normal Hearing, Children With Hearing Aids, and Children With Cochlear Implants
Authors: Tharpe Anne Marie , Ashmead Daniel H. , Rothpletz Ann M.
Published: April 2006

Previous studies have reported both positive and negative effects of deafness on visual attention. The purpose of this study was to replicate and expand findings of previous studies by examining visual attention abilities in children with deafness and children with normal hearing. Twenty-eight children, ages 8–14 years, were evaluated. There were two groups of children with prelingual deafness and one group with normal hearing. The children with deafness were divided further into two groups: those with cochlear implants and those with conventional hearing aids. Unlike previous studies, the current study found no substantial differences in performance among these three groups of children on a continuous-performance visual attention task or on a letter cancellation task. Children in all three groups performed very well on the visual attention tasks. Furthermore, there was little association between performance on the visual attention tasks and parent or teacher ratings of behavior and attention. Age and nonverbal intelligence were significantly correlated with performance on visual attention tasks. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed, along with directions for future research.
Young Children With Specific Language Impairment and Their Numerical Cognition
Authors: Arvedson Paula J.
Published: April 2006

This study examined the enumeration and numerical reasoning levels of children with specific language impairment (SLI) compared to those of two groups of typically developing children: children matched for age (AM) and children matched for grammatical ability (GM). The children completed four numerical tasks: reproduction of sets, numerosity of sets, an addition/subtraction condition of the numerosity of sets, and transformation effects (conservation of number). Between-group analyses indicate that the children in the SLI group performed better than the children in the GM group for all set sizes of all tasks with one exception (set size 7 of the add/subtract task) and performed more poorly than the children in the AM group for 7 of the 16 trials. There was a strong correlation of count range with the reproduction of sets task for the children with SLI, but not for the children in the other two groups. The AM group consistently used verbal counting to facilitate numerical problem solving. Conversely prompting the children with SLI to use verbal counting while completing any of the numerical tasks resulted in a 50% decline in accuracy. Children need opportunities to strengthen numerical constructs, such as those enhanced through verbal counting. However, children with SLI also need opportunities to fortify their nonverbal enumeration and numerical reasoning without requiring the use of their deficit area.
Validity and Reliability of the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales Developmental Profile With Very Young Children
Authors: Wetherby Amy M. , Allen Lori , Cleary Julie , Kublin Kary , Goldstein Howard
Published: April 2006

Three studies were conducted to evaluate the validity and reliability of the three measures of the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales Developmental Profile (CSBS DP): (1) a one-page parent-report checklist; (2) a four-page followup caregiver questionnaire (CQ); and (3) a behavior sample (BS), which is a face-to-face evaluation of the child. Participants for these studies were drawn from a pool of 603 children for the checklist and CQ (ages 6–24 months) and 364 children for the BS (ages 12–24 months). Study 1 examined the concurrent relationship of standard scores for the checklist, CQ, and BS. Large correlations were found between the checklist and CQ and moderate to large correlations were found between each of the parent report tools and the BS. Study 2 examined test-retest stability by comparing the raw and standard scores over a 4-month retest interval. The results indicated significantly greater retest raw scores but no significant differences between standard scores from test to retest for the checklist, CQ and BS, providing evidence that the three measures detect growth over short periods but produce relatively stable rankings of children. Study 3 examined the concurrent and predictive relationship of the three CSBS DP measures and children's outcomes on standardized tests of receptive and expressive language at 2 years of age. Moderate to large correlations were found between all of the CSBS DP measures and language outcomes at 2 years of age. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the three composites were a significant predictor of receptive and expressive language outcomes. The findings from these three studies support the use of the CSBS DP as a screening and evaluation tool for identifying children with developmental delays at 12 to 24 months of age.
Nominal Versus Verbal Morpheme Use in Late Talkers at Ages 3 and 4
Authors: Rescorla Leslie , Roberts Julie
Published: April 2006

Late talkers with normal receptive language and typically developing peers matched at 24- to 31-month intake on socieoeconomic status and nonverbal cognitive skills were compared at age 3 (N=29, 20) and age 4 (N=37, 16) on grammatical morpheme suppliance during speech samples. Age 4 late talkers differed from age 3 MLU-matched typically developing children on only the contractible copula. At age 4, ‘late bloomers’ did not differ from typically developing children on any morpheme, but late talkers with ‘continuing delay’ differed from comparison children on articles, nominative case pronouns, auxiliarybe, and the contractible copula. Noun phrase morphemes were acquired earlier than verb phrase morphemes by both late talkers and comparison children, a nominal-verbal morpheme “decalage” that was first reported by R. Brown (1973). Results suggested that our late talkers did not have a selective deficit in verb morphology relative to their MLU. Findings are discussed in terms of a spectrum of SLI, with both late talkers and preschoolers with SLI hypothesized to have weaker endowments for language learning than typically developing children, but with late talkers being less impaired and thus closer to normal on this spectrum.
An Examination of Changes in Hearing-Aid Performance and Benefit in the Elderly Over a 3-Year Period of Hearing-Aid Use
Authors: Humes Larry E. , Wilson Dana L.
Published: April 2006

This brief report describes the changes in hearing-aid performance and benefit in 9 elderly hearing-aid wearers over a 3-year period following the hearing-aid fitting. Objective measures of hearing-aid performance included three measures of speech recognition: (a) the Nonsense Syllable Test (NST) presented at 65 dB SPL and a +8 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), (b) the Connected Speech Test (CST) presented at 50 dB SPL in quiet, and (c) the CST presented at 65 dB SPL and a +8 dB SNR. Subjective, self-report measures of hearing-aid benefit included the Hearing Aid Performance Inventory (HAPI; B. E. Walden, M. E. Demorest, & E. L. Helper, 1984) and the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE; I. Ventry & B. Weinstein, 1982). Performance and benefit measures were obtained at postfit intervals of 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years using a standardized measurement protocol. Individual data were evaluated using 95% critical differences established previously for each benefit measure and applied around the scores observed at the 1-month postfit interval. Little evidence was seen for systematic improvement in aided performance or benefit, consistent with that expected from acclimatization, in any participant or for any measure of benefit.
Language and Fluency Characteristics of Preschoolers’ Multiple-Utterance Conversational Turns
Authors: Logan Kenneth J.
Published: April 2006

The present study examined language and fluency characteristics of singleutterance (SU) and multiple-utterance (MU) conversational turns produced by 15 preschoolers who stutter and 15 age- and sex-matched preschoolers who do not stutter. Participants conversed with a parent in a play setting. Each interaction was videotaped and the participants’ resultant utterances were transcribed and analyzed. Results indicated that the children’s utterances from MU-turns typically served assertive functions and were significantly longer and more linguistically complex than their utterances from SU-turns. Neither group showed a significant difference in disfluency rate for length-matched utterances from MU- and SU-turns. Similarly, there were no significant between-group differences in speaking-turn length or frequency of MU-turns. Although present findings do not support the hypothesis that MU-turns directly affect children’s fluency, they do suggest that MUturns are demanding for youngsters because they evoke relatively long and complex utterances. As such, conversational turn length seems to be an important variable for clinicians to consider when assessing and treating children who stutter.
Exchange of Disfluency With Age From Function Words to Content Words in Spanish Speakers Who Stutter
Authors: Au-Yeung James , Gomez Isabel Vallejo , Howell Peter
Published: April 2006

The main purpose of the present study was to examine whether the developmental change in loci of disfluency from mainly function words to mainly content words, observed for English speakers who stutter (P. Howell, J. Au-Yeung, & S. Sackin, 1999), also occurs for comparable Spanish speakers who stutter. The participants were divided into 5 age groups. There were 7 participants in Group 1, from 3 to 5 years old; 11 in Group 2, from 6 to 9 years old; 10 in Group 3, from 10 to 11 years old; 9 in Group 4, from 12 to 16 years old; and 9 in Group 5, from 20 to 68 years old. Across all groups, 36 of the 46 participants were male. The study method involved segmenting speech into phonological words (PWs) that consist of an obligatory content word with optional function words that precede and follow it. The initial function words in the PWs were examined to establish whether they have a higher disfluency rate than the final ones (J. Au-Yeung, P. Howell, & L. Pilgrim, 1998). Disfluency on function words in a PW was higher when the word occurred before a content word rather than after a content word for all age groups. Disfluencies on function and content words were then examined to determine whether they change over age groups in the same way as for English speakers who stutter (Howell et al., 1999). The rate of disfluency on function words was higher than that on content words, particularly in the youngest speakers. Function word disfluency rate dropped off and content word disfluency rate increased across age groups. These patterns are similar to those reported for English. Possible explanations for these similarities across the two languages are discussed.
Atypical Syntactic Processing in Individuals Who Stutter
Authors: Cuadrado Elizabeth M. , Weber-Fox Christine M.
Published: April 2006

Syntactic processing was explored in individuals who stutter (IWS). Grammatic-ality judgments and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were obtained while participants read sentences, half containing verb-agreement violations. Gram-maticality judgments for an offline verb-agreement task did not differ between IWS and normal speakers (NS). However, judgment accuracy of IWS for the online task was lower than that of NS, particularly for verb-agreement violations that occurred in longer and more syntactically complex sentences. Further, while NS exhibited a classic P600 ERP response to verb-agreement violations, the P600s of IWS were reduced in amplitude and distribution. The behavioral and ERP results are consistent with the hypothesis that underlying mechanisms mediating language processing, including those related to postlexical syntactic reanalysis, may operate atypically in IWS even in the absence of speech production demands.
The Influence of Phonemic Awareness Development on Acoustic Cue Weighting Strategies in Children's Speech Perception
Authors: Mayo Catherine , Scobbie James M. , Hewlett Nigel , Waters Daphne
Published: April 2006

In speech perception, children give particular patterns of weight to different acoustic cues (their cue weighting). These patterns appear to change with increased linguistic experience. Previous speech perception research has found a positive correlation between more analytical cue weighting strategies and the ability to consciously think about and manipulate segment-sized units (phonemic awareness). That research did not, however, aim to address whether the relation is in any way causal or, if so, then in which direction possible causality might move. Causality in this relation could move in 1 of 2 ways: Either phonemic awareness development could impact on cue weighting strategies or changes in cue weighting could allow for the later development of phonemic awareness. The aim of this study was to follow the development of these 2 processes longitudinally to determine which of the above 2 possibilities was more likely. Five-year-old children were tested 3 times in 7 months on their cue weighting strategies for a /so/-/∫o/ contrast, in which the 2 cues manipulated were the frequency of fricative spectrum and the frequency of vowel-onset formant transitions. The children were also tested at the same time on their phoneme segmentation and phoneme blending skills. Results showed that phonemic awareness skills tended to improve before cue weighting changed and that early phonemic awareness ability predicted later cue weighting strategies. These results suggest that the development of metaphonemic awareness may play some role in changes in cue weighting.
Phonological Priming in Picture Naming of Young Children Who Stutter
Authors: Melnick Kenneth S. , Conture Edward G. , Ohde Ralph N.
Published: April 2006

The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of phonological priming on the speech reaction time (SRT) of children who do (CWS) and who do not (CWNS) stutter during a picture-naming task. Participants were eighteen 3–5-year-old CWS (M= 50.67 months,SD= 11.83 months), matched in age and gender with 18 CWNS (M= 49.44 months,SD= 10.22 months). The picture-naming task required each child to name, one at a time, computer-presented, white-on-black line drawings of common, age-appropriate objects "as quickly as you can" during 3 different conditions: (a) no prime, (b) related prime, and (c) unrelated prime, with naming latency (alternatively referred to as SRT; in milliseconds) as the main dependent variable. Results indicated that all children exhibited faster or shorter SRTs during the related condition compared to the no prime condition. Similarly, SRT was influenced with advancing age for all children, with 5-year-olds exhibiting faster SRTs than 3-year-olds. Furthermore, CWNS, but not CWS, demonstrated a negative correlation between articulatory mastery and SRT. Findings were taken to suggest that phonological priming is a feasible procedure for studying the speech-language planning and production of 3–5-year-old children and that preschool children who stutter, as a group, may have somewhat less well developed articulatory systems than preschool children who do not stutter.
Variations in Articulatory Movement With Changes in Speech Task
Authors: Tasko Stephen M. , McClean Michael D.
Published: April 2006

Studies of normal and disordered articulatory movement often rely on the use of short, simple speech tasks. However, the severity of speech disorders can be observed to vary markedly with task. Understanding task-related variations in articulatory kinematic behavior may allow for an improved understanding of normal and disordered speech motor behavior in varying communication contexts. This study evaluated how orofacial kinematic behavior varies as a function of speaking task in a group of 15 healthy male speakers. The speech tasks included a nonsense phrase with a high frequency of stop consonants, a sentence, an oral reading passage, and a spontaneous monologue. In addition, rate and intensity conditions were varied for the nonsense phrase and sentence. The articulatory positions of the upper lip, lower lip, tongue blade, and mandible were recorded, and measures reflecting (a) average features of individual movements or strokes (i.e., peak speed, distance, and duration) and (b) overall spatial variability of the articulators for each task were extracted, derived, and analyzed. Results showed a number of task- and condition-related differences in speech kinematic behavior. The most prominent result from the task comparison was that the nonsense speech task exhibited larger, faster, and longer movement strokes than the other speech tasks. For some articulators (lower lip and tongue), there were task-related differences in spatial variability. Changes in loudness and rate revealed variation in kinematic measures that were often complicated by articulator identity and task type. The results suggest that an expanded range of speech tasks and conditions may aid in the study of normal and disordered speech motor behavior.
Use of Electromagnetic Midsagittal Articulography in the Study of Swallowing
Authors: Steele Catriona M. , Lieshout Pascal H. H. M. Van
Published: April 2006

The tongue functions as the primary articulator during the oropharyngeal stages of swallowing. However, detailed descriptions of the kinematics and spatiotemporal variability of tongue behaviors during swallowing are limited to a handful of analyses of data from the X-ray microbeam database. In this article, a new technique, electromagnetic midsagittal articulography (EMMA), is introduced for the high-resolution description of oral articulatory movements during swallowing. Data from 8 healthy, nondysphagic participants are used to illustrate the methods used for data collection and analysis. Movement data were collected for 3 fleshpoint positions on the tongue (blade, body, dorsum) during sequences of repeated discrete water swallows, and were characterized for variables of spatiotemporal variability and 4 discrete kinematic parameters (movement amplitude, peak velocity, duration, and kinematic stiffness). These data show that the movement trajectories measured using EMMA are consistent with descriptions from previous X-ray microbeam studies, indicating that EMMA is a feasible method for the detailed study of tongue movements during swallowing.
Comparison of Conversation, Freeplay, and Story Generation as Methods of Language Sample Elicitation
Authors: Southwood Frenette , Russell Ann F.
Published: April 2006

The spontaneous language sample forms an important part of the language evaluation protocol (M. Dunn, J. Flax, M. Sliwinski, & D. Aram, 1996; J. L. Evans & H. K. Craig, 1992; L. E. Evans & J. Miller, 1999) because of the limitations of standardized language tests and their unavailability in certain languages, such as Afrikaans. This study examined 3 methods of language elicitation, namely conversation (CV), freeplay (FP), and story generation (SG), on the following 5 measures to determine which method is best for clinical practice: number of utterances, variety of syntactic structures, mean length of the utterance (MLU), number of syntactic errors, and proportion of complex syntactic utterances as elicited from ten 5-year-old, Afrikaans-speaking boys. FP elicited significantly more utterances than did SG but elicited a smaller proportion of complex syntactic structures than did CV and SG. Furthermore, SG elicited longer utterances than did CV or FP. It is recommended that SG be used in clinical practice with 5-year-olds if the clinician wishes to observe maximum behavior. Where typical behavior is to be evaluated, the clinician can select a language elicitation method that best suits the client’s personality and communication style, bearing in mind that FP does elicit a larger language sample.
Sentence-Structure Priming in Young Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter
Authors: Anderson Julie D. , Conture Edward G.
Published: April 2006

The purpose of this study was to use an age-appropriate version of the sentence-structure priming paradigm (e.g., K. Bock, 1990; K. Bock, H. Loebell, & R. Morey, 1992) to assess experimentally the syntactic processing abilities of children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS). Participants were 16 CWS and 16 CWNS between the ages of 3;3 (years; months) and 5;5, matched for gender and age (±4 months). All participants had speech, language, and hearing development within normal limits, with the exception of stuttering for CWS. All children participated in a sentence-structure priming task where they were shown and asked to describe, on a computer screen, black-on-white line drawings of children, adults, and animals performing activities that could be appropriately described using simple active affirmative declarative (SAAD) sentences (e.g., "The man is walking the dog"). Speech reaction time (SRT) was measured from the onset of the picture presentation to the onset of the child's verbal response in the absence and presence of priming sentences, counterbalanced for order. Main findings indicated that CWS exhibited slower SRTs in the absence of priming sentences and greater syntactic-priming effects than CWNS. These findings suggest that CWS may have difficulty rapidly, efficiently planning and/or retrieving sentence-structure units, difficulties that may contribute to their inabilities to establish fluent speech-language production.
Preserved Morphological Decomposition in Persons With Alzheimer's Disease
Authors: Kavé Gitit , Levy Yonata
Published: April 2006

Persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) demonstrate a severe lexical impairment that affects conceptual knowledge. Research into aspects of word structure and the structural relationships between words, however, has been scarce in this population. Taking advantage of the rich morphology of Hebrew, the current article examines the status of morphological decomposition in AD. Fourteen persons with AD and 48 control participants completed 2 experiments: The 1st investigated root extraction from pseudoverbs containing existing and nonexisting consonantal roots, and the 2nd looked at sensitivity to morphological priming effects. Results suggest that despite severe semantic-conceptual deficits on naming, fluency, and comprehension tasks, persons with AD engage in adequate morphological decomposition of words, in a similar manner to normal adult speakers of Hebrew.
Three Measures of Language Production for Cantonese-Speaking School-Age Children in a Story-Retelling Task
Authors: Wong Anita M.-Y. , Au Cecilia W.-S. , Stokes Stephanie F.
Published: April 2006

Little is known about language development in school-age children in Asian countries. This research reports on 3 measures of language development in 100 Cantonese-speaking children age 5 to 9 years. Word scores, structure scores, and the mean length of communication units (MLCU) were derived from a story-retelling task. The structure score was significantly different for all, except the 8-and 9-year-old groups. The word score and MLCU were significantly different in groups separated by 2 or more years of age. All 3 measures were strongly and significantly correlated with age. The structure score and word score accounted for 64% and 5% of the variance in age, respectively. The order of development of the 6 grammatical structures (e.g., subordinate clauses) included in this study is also reported.
A Dense Corpus Study of Past Tense and Plural Overregularization in English
Authors: Maslen Robert J. C. , Theakston Anna L. , Lieven Elena V. M. , Tomasello Michael
Published: April 2006

In the "blocking-and-retrieval-failure" account of overregularization (OR; G. F. Marcus, 1995; G. F. Marcus et al., 1992), the claim that a symbolic rule generates regular inflection is founded on pervasively low past tense OR rates and the lack of a substantive difference between past tense and plural OR rates. Evidence of extended periods of OR in the face of substantial correct input (M. Maratsos, 2000) and of an initial period in which nouns are more likely to be overregularized than verbs (V. A. Marchman, K. Plunkett, & J. Goodman, 1997) casts doubt on the blocking account and suggests instead an interplay between type and token frequency effects that is more consistent with usage-based approaches (e.g., J. Bybee, 1995; K. Köpcke, 1998; K. Plunkett & V. Marchman, 1993). However, previous naturalistic studies have been limited by data that account for only 1–2% of child speech. The current study reports analyses of verb and noun ORs in a dense naturalistic corpus (1 child, 2;00.12–3;11.06 [years;months.days]) that captures 8–10% of child speech and input. The data show (a) a marked difference in verb and noun OR rates; (b) evidence of a relationship between relative regular/irregular type frequencies and the onset and rate of past tense and plural ORs; (c) substantial OR periods for some verbs and nouns despite hundreds of correct tokens in child speech and input; and (d) a strong negative correlation between input token frequencies and OR rates for verbs and nouns. The implications of these findings for blocking and other accounts of OR are discussed.
Subtypes of Severe Speech and Language Impairments
Authors: Daal John van , Verhoeven Ludo , Balkom Hans van
Published: April 2006

Most, if not all, of the studies of subtypes of children with language impairments have been conducted with English-speaking children. The possibility and validity of identified subtypes for non-English clinical populations are, as yet, unknown. This study was designed to provide cross-linguistic evidence of language subtypes. A broad battery of tests was administered to measure the phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic, semantic, discourse, and pragmatic abilities of a representative sample of 110 4-year-old Dutch children who had been previously diagnosed as severely speech and language impaired. Principal components analyses revealed 4 subtypes of speech and language impairments, which were labeled
lexical-semantic, speech production, syntactic-sequential
, and
auditory perception
. These results were consistent with recent theoretical claims about the classification of English-speaking children with speech and language impairments.
Questions Without Movement
Authors: Wong Anita M.-Y. , Leonard Laurence B. , Fletcher Paul , Stokes Stephanie F.
Published: April 2006

English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) appear to have special difficulty in the use of
who
-object questions (e.g.,
Who is the girl chasing?
). It has been argued that problems related to grammatical movement may be responsible for this difficulty. However, it is also possible that the lower frequency of
who
-object questions relative to
who
-subject questions also plays a role. In this study, the use of
who
-object and
who
-subject questions by children with SLI who were acquiring Cantonese as their 1st language was examined. In Cantonese, the surface form of
who
-object questions (e.g.,
hung4zai2 sek3 bin1go3?
[Bear kiss who?]) reflects the same subject, verb, object order typically used for declarative sentences, and a movement account provides no basis for expecting special difficulties with such questions. As in English, however, Cantonese
who
-object questions occur less frequently than do
who
-subject questions. A comparison of preschoolers with SLI, typically developing same-age peers, and younger, typically developing peers revealed that the children with SLI were less accurate in using
who
-object questions than either of the other participant groups yet showed no differences from these groups in the use of
who
-subject questions (e.g.,
bin1go3 sek3 zyu1zyu1?
[Who kiss Piglet?]). The implications of these findings for current accounts of SLI are discussed, and the idea that input frequency and animacy may play a larger role than is often assumed is suggested.