bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Distortion-Product Emissions and Auditory Sensitivity in Human Ears With Normal Hearing and Cochlear Hearing Loss
Authors: Nelson David A. , Kimberley Barry P.
Published: July 2014

Distortion product emissions (DPEs) at 2f
1
– f
2
frequencies were measured in 53 human ears; 21 of them exhibited cochlear hearing loss. DPEs were obtained as a function of stimulus level (DPE growth curves) at seven frequency regions between 707 Hz and 5656 Hz. Several distinctly different shapes or patterns of DPE growth curves were observed. These included single-segment monotonic growth curves with and without saturation at moderate and high stimulus levels, diphasic growth curves with nulls at moderate stimulus levels, and nonmonotonic growth curves with negative slopes at high stimulus levels. Low-level, irregularly shaped segments were more frequent in normal-hearing ears, suggestive of normal low-level active nonlinearities from the outer-hair-cell subsystem. High-level, steeply sloped segments were frequent in hearing-impaired ears, suggestive of residual nonlinearities from a cochlear partition without functional outer hair cells. The stimulus level at which the DPE could just be distinguished from the noise floor, the DPE detection threshold, demonstrated moderate positive correlations (r's from 0.50 to 0.81) with auditory thresholds when all ears, both normal and impaired, were considered together. Those correlations were not strong enough to quantitatively predict auditory thresholds with any great accuracy. However, DPE thresholds were able to predict abnormal auditory sensitivity with some precision. DPE thresholds correctly predicted abnormal auditory sensitivity 79% of the time in the present study, and up to 96% of the time in previous studies. These results suggest that DPE thresholds may prove useful for hearing screening in cases where cooperation from the subject is limited or where corroboration of cochlear hearing loss is required. Different patterns of DPE growth curves suggest underlying micro-mechanical differences between ears, but the differential diagnostic value of those patterns remains to be determined.
Discovery and Expository Methods in Teaching Visual Consonant and Word Identification
Authors: Gesi Antoinette T. , Massaro Dominic W. , Cohen Michael M.
Published: July 2014

An experiment was conducted to examine the processes involved in lipreading as well as to investigate an optimal approach to teaching lipreading skill. We compared discovery and expository methods of learning to lip-read. Twenty-six college students with normal hearing were trained over 3 days to lip-read consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. The training material consisted of a prerecorded videotape of four different talkers. The task was a forced-choice procedure with feedback. Subjects learned with training, but there was no difference between the two learning methods. As a retention measure, subjects returned 4 weeks later and repeated the training. There were significant savings of the original learning. Three weeks after the retention phase, subjects were tested with a 10-item forced-choice monosyllabic word task. Those subjects who had extensive training on CV syllables did no better on identifying the monosyllabic words than did a control group of 9 subjects with no training. Nevertheless, performance for all three groups (discovery, expository, and no training) improved during training in the word identification task.
Communicative Gestures in Children With Delayed Onset of Oral Expressive Vocabulary
Authors: Thal Donna J. , Tobias Stacy
Published: July 2014

Use of communicative gestures in a group of children with delayed onset of expressive oral vocabulary (late talkers) was compared with such use among normal-language-matched controls and age-matched controls. Analyses revealed that late talkers used significantly more communicative gestures and for a greater variety of communicative functions than did language-matched controls. However, a 1-year follow-up revealed that 4 of the late talkers remained delayed (truly delayed late talkers) and 6 caught up (late bloomers). Reanalyses of Year 1 data based on these follow-up outcomes demonstrated that only late bloomers used more communicative gestures than did language-matched controls. Truly delayed late talkers did not differ from language-matched controls either for number of gestures, type of gestures (symbolic vs. nonsymbolic), or number of different functions for which gestures were used. Late bloomers also used more communicative gestures than did age-matched controls, suggesting that they (the late bloomers) were using gestures to compensate for their small oral expressive vocabulary. Results are discussed in the context of early predictors of risk for language impairment and relationships between language and cognition.
Symbolic Play Development in Toddlers With Expressive Specific Language Impairment (SLI-E)
Authors: Rescorla Leslie , Goossens Marijke
Published: July 2014

Twenty toddlers with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E) and 20 toddlers with normal language development were compared in their symbolic play development. The groups did not differ in amount of engagement with the toys or in functional conventional play behaviors. However, the children with SLI-E displayed less decentered play (use of play schemes with a doll or another person), less well-developed sequential play, and fewer occurrences of symbolic play transformations (use of a neutral object or an absent object to carry out pretending). The provision of structure in the form of thematically related toy sets, instructions, and modeling did not reduce the discrepancy between demonstrated play behaviors of toddlers with SLI-E and their normally developing peers. Three possible explanations for this discrepancy are considered: a "stylistic" difference in play, a developmental lag in symbol use, or a deficit in retrieval of stored symbolic representation.
Spoken and Written Language Relationships in Language/Learning-Impaired and Normally Achieving School-Age Children
Authors: Gillam Ronald B. , Johnston Judith R.
Published: July 2014

Students with language/learning impairment (LLI) and three groups of normally achieving children matched for chronological age, spoken language, and reading abilities wrote and told stories that were analyzed according to a three-dimensional language analysis system. Spoken narratives were linguistically superior to written narratives in many respects. The content of written narratives, however, was organized differently than the content of spoken narratives. Spoken narratives contained more local interconnections than global interconnections; the opposite was true for written narratives. LLI and reading-matched children evidenced speaking-writing relationships that differed from those of the age- and language-matched children in the way language form was organized. Further, LLI children produced more grammatically unacceptable complex T-units in their spoken and written stories than students from any of the three matched groups. The discussion focuses on mechanisms underlying the development of speaking-writing differences and ramifications of spoken-language impairment for spoken and written-language relationships.
Symbol Vocabulary and the Focus of Conversations
Authors: Adamson Lauren B. , Romski Mary Ann , Deffebach Kim , Sevcik Rose A.
Published: July 2014

Communication devices designed to augment the language development of individuals with severe cognitive disabilities and little or no functional speech typically contain primarily nouns because they seem easiest to acquire and evaluate. In this study, the effect of a more diverse vocabulary was assessed. Systematic observations of the use of computerized speech-output devices by 12 youth with moderate or severe mental retardation and severe spoken language disability and by their partners were made over a 2-year period. Social-regulative symbols (e.g., "please," "I’m finished") were used as soon as they were introduced, and their availability expanded the focus of conversations both at home and at school. Implications for conceptualizing variation in early language use and for the design of language intervention programs are discussed.
The Effects of Auditory and Visual Interference on Speech and Sign
Authors: Siegel Gerald M. , Clay John L. , Naeve Susan L.
Published: July 2014

Hearing adults produced signed and spoken monologues under conditions of quiet or 80 dB SPL of noise and with their vision unobstructed or obstructed. Their signs were videotaped and a random sample of 24 frames was analyzed in each condition through a computer program that determined the overall distance of the hand from a marker placed on the signer's torso. Vocal intensity was digitized from the tape recordings and analyzed by computer for 1 min of continuous speech in each condition. The visual obstruction had no effect either on the distance of the signs or on the vocal intensity of their speech. The subjects increased vocal intensity by about 55% when the noise was introduced (the usual Lombard effect), but the noise had no effect on the distance of the signs. Sign performance was not influenced by visual feedback, and sign and speech were independent communication systems, even in bilingual speaking and signing subjects.
Then
as an Indicator of Deictic Discontinuity in Adults' Oral Descriptions of a Film
Authors: Duchan Judith Felson , Meth Margaret , Waltzman Dava
Published: July 2014

An analysis of film descriptions of 20 normal-language adults revealed the adults' selective and systematic use of the word
then
.
Then
served to indicate an upcoming shift in discourse deixis. It occurred in clauses that told of a shift to a different discourse frame (conversation vs. story world of the film), to a new scene location, to a different character, and a shift in who was doing the viewing. The regularity in the use of
then
is taken to be evidence that speakers conceptualize their descriptions as being located in a variety of related frames, all having to do with the perspective taken on the current talk. A conceptual model underlying the speakers' use of
then
would need to include distinctions between the conversational and story world, the various scenes in the objective world of the story, and various subjective views that different observers can have when experiencing the described events. The results are taken as support for viewing discourse discontinuity as an important factor in discourse analysis.
Four New Speech and Prosody-Voice Measures for Genetics Research and Other Studies in Developmental Phonological Disorders
Authors: Shriberg Lawrence D.
Published: July 2014

Research in developmental phonological disorders, particularly emerging subgroup studies using behavioral and molecular genetics, requires qualitative and continuous measurement systems that meet a variety of substantive and psychometric assumptions. This paper reviews relevant issues underlying such needs and presents four measurement proposals developed expressly for causal-correlates research. The primary qualitative system is the Speech Disorders Classification System (SDCS), a 10-category nosology for dichoto mous and hierarchical-polychoto mous classification of speech disorders from 2 years of age through adulthood. The three quantitative measures for segmental and suprasegmental analyses are (a) the Articulation Competence Index (ACI), an interval-level severity index that adjusts a subject’s Percentage of Consonants Correct (PCC) score for the relative percentage of distortion errors; (b) Speech Profiles, a series of graphic-numeric displays that profile a subject’s or group’s severity-adjusted consonant and vowel-diphthong mastery and error patterns; and (c) the Prosody-Voice profile, a graphic-numeric display that Profiles a subject’s or group’s status on six suprasegmental domains divided into 31 types of inappropriate prosody-voice codes. All data for the four measures are derived from one sample of conversational speech, which obviates the limitations of citation-form testing; enables speech assessment as a qualitative, semi-continuous, and continuous trait over the life span; and provides a context for univariate and multivariate statistical analyses of phonetic, phonologic, prosodic, and language variables in multiage, multidialectal, and multicultural populations. Rationale, procedures, validity data, and examples of uses for each measure are presented.
Perceptual Evaluation of Voice Quality
Authors: Kreiman Jody , Gerratt Bruce R. , Kempster Gail B. , Erman Andrew , Berke Gerald S.
Published: July 2014

The reliability of listeners’ ratings of voice quality is a central issue in voice research because of the clinical primacy of such ratings and because they are the standard against which other measures are evaluated. However, an extensive literature review indicates that both intrarater and interrater reliability fluctuate greatly from study to study. Further, our own data indicate that ratings of vocal roughness vary widely across individual clinicians, with a single voice often receiving nearly the full range of possible ratings. No model or theoretical framework currently exists to explain these variations, although such a model might guide development of efficient, valid, and standardized clinical protocols for voice evaluation. We propose a theoretical framework that attributes variability in ratings to several sources (including listeners’ backgrounds and biases, the task used to gather ratings, interactions between listeners and tasks, and random error). This framework may guide development of new clinical voice and speech evaluation protocols, ultimately leading to more reliable perceptual ratings and a better understanding of the perceptual qualities of pathological voices.
Respiratory and Laryngeal Function of Women and Men During Vocal Intensity Variation
Authors: Stathopoulos Elaine T. , Sapienza Christine
Published: July 2014

Simultaneous procedures for making aerodynamic and kinematic observations of the laryngeal and chest wall systems were used to investigate variations in vocal intensity in normal women and men. Laryngeal results indicate that significant increases of maximum flow declination rate and laryngeal airway resistance and significant decreases in open quotient occur when higher intensity levels are produced. Respiratory results indicate that tracheal pressure, percent rib cage contribution, lung volume, and rib cage volume initiations are higher, and lung and rib cage volume excursions are larger when higher vocal intensity levels are produced. Laryngeal and respiratory function results indicate that some measures are different for women than for men. Mean data support the notion that increases in tracheal pressure are achieved by inhaling to higher lung and rib cage volumes. Individual subject data provide alternative respiratory and laryngeal patterns for changing the shape of the glottal airflow waveform.
Hearing Loss, Speech, and Hearing Aids
Authors: Tasell Dianne J. Van
Published: July 2014

Modern hearing aids permit adjustment of a number of electroacoustic parameters, among them frequency response, saturation sound pressure level, and various aspects of compression. Relatively little is known, however, about how the electroacoustic characteristics of hearing aids affect the information-bearing properties of speech. Even less is known about how hearing aids might alleviate or exacerbate the effects of impaired hearing. This article reviews current knowledge in three areas: (a) characteristics of mild/moderate hearing loss, (b) informationbearing aspects of speech, and (c) the relation between electroacoustic characteristics of hearing aids and the speech signal. Concluding suggestions are made regarding the implications of the current data for selecting hearing-aid characteristics.
Access Behaviors of Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Craig Holly K. , Washington Julie A.
Published: July 2014

The verbal and nonverbal behaviors used by 5 children with specific language impairment (SLI) to attempt to gain access into established interactions were described and compared with those of chronological-age-mates and language-similar control subjects. Three of the children with SLI were unsuccessful. Two of the children with SLI achieved access but did so without using linguistic forms like those most normal-language children use. All of the children with normal language accessed, and most did so quickly and easily using an orderly and sequential set of indirect behaviors. The findings contribute to social-linguistic characterizations of SLI and clarify specific aspects of access described in the normal-language literature.
Benefit From Visual Cues in Auditory-Visual Speech Recognition by Middle-Aged and Elderly Persons
Authors: Walden Brian E. , Busacco Debra A. , Montgomery Allen A.
Published: July 2014

The benefit derived from visual cues in auditory-visual speech recognition and patterns of auditory and visual consonant confusions were compared for 20 middle-aged and 20 elderly men who were moderately to severely hearing impaired. Consonant-vowel nonsense syllables and CID sentences were presented to the subjects under auditory-only, visual-only, and auditory-visual test conditions. Benefit was defined as the difference between the scores in the auditory-only and auditory-visual conditions. The results revealed that the middle-aged and elderly subjects obtained similar benefit from visual cues in auditory-visual speech recognition. Further, patterns of consonant confusions were similar for the two groups.
Vocal Communication in the First 18 Months of Life
Authors: Stark Rachel E. , Bernstein Lynne E. , Demorest Marilyn E.
Published: July 2014

Fifty-one normally developing infants aged birth to 18 months, 10 or 11 in each of five age groups, were videorecorded in their homes before and after an expected change in the form of their vocalizations and under a set of conditions that reflected common daily occurrences. The vocalizations produced were coded according to their communicative contexts, defined in nonvocal behavioral terms. Communicative codes were assigned to seven major categories. The distribution of codes across categories was found to be different for different age groups. It varied between the first and second observations; however, the pattern of change differed across age groups. Data from individuals were transformed to proportions, to control for individual differences in productivity. They were then found to reflect differences in level of development of vocal communication. It was concluded that vocal communication follows an orderly developmental sequence in normally developing infants in the first 18 months of life.
Referential Cohesion in the Narratives of Spanish-Speaking Children
Authors: Gutierrez-Clellen Vera F. , Heinrichs-Ramos Lourdes
Published: July 2014

Forty-six Spanish-speaking children, ages 4, 6, and 8 years, were shown a short silent film and asked to tell the investigator what happened in the movie. All narratives were audiotaped and transcribed for analysis. The development of referential cohesion was examined based on the referential devices the children used to indicate characters, props, and places in their narratives and on their overall referential accuracy. The results demonstrated an increase in the use of elliptical reference to refer to places in stories, an increase in appropriate phrases, and a decrease in ambiguities and additions as children got older. Language-specific factors in the use of reference and individual differences in the achievement of referential cohesion are discussed.
The Fluharty Preschool Speech and Language Screening Test
Authors: Sturner Raymond A. , Heller James H. , Funk Sandra G. , Layton Thomas L.
Published: July 2014

Two cohorts of 4- and 5-year-old children (
N
= 700) were screened with the Fluharty Preschool Speech and Language Screening Test. Two stratified samples (
n
= 51 cohort 1;
n
= 147 cohort 2), based on speech-language screening results, were administered criterion tests for articulation (AAPS-R or Templin-Darley) and language (TOLD or TALC-R). Clinical validation indices for combined speech or language outcome in the two cohorts were as follows: sensitivity, .43 and .31 respectively; specificity, .82 and .93; predictive value, .43 and .54; overreferral, 14% and 5%; underreferral, 14% in both cohorts, and percent agreement, 72% and 80%. The measure of sensitivities for language outcomes was lower than the above, whereas sensitivities for articulation was higher. These results suggest that the Fluharty is too insensitive to be relied on for screening programs aimed at identifying preschool children with language disorders, although it appears to have promise for the identification of children with articulation impairments.
Frequency-Importance and Transfer Functions for the Auditec of St. Louis Recordings of the NU-6 Word Test
Authors: Studebaker Gerald A. , Sherbecoe Robert L. , Gilmore Christine
Published: July 2014

Frequency-importance and transfer functions for the Auditec of St. Louis recordings of the NU-6 word test are reported. The functions were derived from the word recognition scores of 24 subjects with normal hearing who were tested under 128 conditions of filtering and talker-spectrum-matched noise. The importance function was broader and had a lower midpoint than the NU-6 importance function reported by Schum, Matthews, and Lee (1991), but still displayed a bimodal shape. The transfer function was steeper than the transfer function reported by Schum et al., but comparable in slope to the transfer function for low-context CNC words reported by Bell, Dirks, and Trine (1992). Results from a limited set of conditions presented in quiet suggest that the use of masking noise was partly responsible for the dissimilar importance and transfer functions obtained by Schum et al. and this study. Differences in the equipment used in each experiment and in the methods used to analyze the data appear to have contributed as well.
Longitudinal Study of Hearing Aid Effectiveness. II
Authors: Bentler Ruth A. , Niebuhr Diane P. , Getta Janet P. , Anderson Charles V.
Published: July 2014

This report is the second of two detailing a longitudinal follow-up of hearing aid users. The experimental group (
N
=65) was followed closely for a 12-month period after obtaining amplification. Factors of degree of hearing loss, configuration of hearing loss, previous experience with hearing aids, daily use time, and circuit type were defined. Subjective tests included the “Understanding Speech” subsection of the Hearing Performance Inventory (HPI) (Giolas, Owens, Lamb, & Schubert, 1979; Lamb, Owens, & Schubert, 1983), an expectations checklist, a qualitative judgment task, and a satisfaction questionnaire that included items of use time, battery life, and main reason for satisfaction rating. Only those items of the HPI describing fairly quiet backgrounds showed significant change (improvement) over the year. The expectation checklist showed a mean reduction in score indicative of performance exceeding expectations. The qualitative judgment task did not significantly differentiate among the circuits used, although the linear circuit was judged as having better sound quality than those circuits considered to be noise-reduction. Correlations with the objective tests reported previously in Part I suggest a weak relationship between speech recognition performance and self-assessment of communication performance. Questions of the validity of subjective measures, the best time frame for obtaining outcome measures, and the usefulness of group data are addressed.
Developmental Patterns of Duration Discrimination
Authors: Elfenbein Jill L. , Small Arnold M. , Davis Julia M.
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the auditory perceptual abilities of children are characterized by an age-related improvement in duration discrimination. Forty children, ages 4 to 10 years, and 10 adults served as subjects. Difference limens were obtained using a 350-msec broadband noise burst as the standard stimulus in a three-interval forcedchoice paradigm. Data were characterized by significant differences between the performances of the 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds and those of the adults. Acquisition of adult-like discrimination performance was demonstrated between the ages of 8 and 10 years.
The Influence of Prosodic and Gestural Cues on Novel Word Acquisition by Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Weismer Susan Ellis , Hesketh Linda J.
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of prosodic and gestural cues on children’s lexical learning. Acquisition of novel words was examined under linguistic input conditions that varied in terms of rate of speech, stress, and use of supplemental visual cues i.e., gestures). Sixteen kindergarten children served as subjects in this study, including 8 children with normal language (NL) and 8 children with specific language impairment (SLI). A repeated-measures design was used such that all subjects in both groups participated in each of the three experimental conditions (the Rate, Stress, and Visual Condition). Results indicated that acquisition of novel words by the groups with NL and SLI was significantly affected by alterations in speaking rate and by the use of gestures accompanying spoken language. There were no statistically significant effects for the stress manipulations, although subjects with SLI tended to correctly produce novel words that had received emphatic stress during training more often than words presented with neutral stress. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the importance of considering how the manner of presentation of the linguistic signal influences the processing and acquisition of language.
Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Lely Heather K. J. van der , Howard David
Published: July 2014

This study is concerned with characteristics of short-term memory (STM) in children with specific language impairment (SLI). The linguistic requirements of the test procedure, the characteristics of the test materials, and the development of linguistic representations were considered. Two experimental tasks were used: a verbal-repetition and a picture-pointing procedure. The tasks used auditory presentation and were designed to explore different underlying processes during immediate recall. The linguistic characteristics of the test materials were designed to explore the influence of semantic, lexical, and phonological factors on STM. Six SLI children (aged 6:1 to 9:6) (years:months) were individually matched on comprehension and expression of language to 17 younger children (age 3:4 to 6:5). Both groups were differentially influenced by the materials as a function of the test procedure. In general, both group and individual analyses found no significant difference between the performance of the SLI children and language-age (LA) controls. The implications of the results in relation to previous findings from investigations of STM and the underlying cause of SLI in children are discussed.
First-Language Acquisition After Childhood Differs From Second-Language Acquisition
Authors: Mayberry Rachel I.
Published: July 2014

This study determined whether the long-range outcome of first-language acquisition, when the learning begins after early childhood, is similar to that of second-language acquisition. Subjects were 36 deaf adults who had contrasting histories of spoken and sign language acquisition. Twenty-seven subjects were born deaf and began to acquire American Sign Language (ASL) as a first language at ages ranging from infancy to late childhood. Nine other subjects were born with normal hearing, which they lost in late childhood; they subsequently acquired ASL as a second language (because they had acquired spoken English as a first language in early childhood). ASL sentence processing was measured by recall of long and complex sentences and short-term memory for signed digits. Subjects who acquired ASL as a second language after childhood outperformed those who acquired it as a first language at exactly the same age. In addition, the performance of the subjects who acquired ASL as a first language declined in association with increasing age of acquisition. Effects were most apparent for sentence processing skills related to lexical identification, grammatical acceptability, and memory for sentence meaning. No effects were found for skills related to fine-motor production and pattern segmentation.
Effect of Adult Continuing Wh-Questions on Conversational Participation in Children With Developmental Disabilities
Authors: Yoder Paul J. , Davies Betty , Bishop Kerri , Munson Leslie
Published: July 2014

Children with developmental disabilities often converse less frequently than their developmentally matched peers. This low conversational participation can cause problems for the children’s future language and discourse development. The purpose of this experimental study was to test the hypothesis that adult topic-continuing wh-questions would elicit topic continuations in children with relatively low language ability, but not in children with relatively high language ability. Twenty-three children with developmental delays interacted with an adult who conducted two play sessions. In each session, the adult used a different interaction style. The two styles differed in the adult’s use of topic-continuing wh-questions. Results indicate that adult use of topic-continuing wh-questions supported the use of child continuations in children at all language levels. The type of continuations (single word versus multiword) that were elicited depended on the language level of the children. Clinical implications are discussed.
Psychophysical Analysis of Audiovisual Judgments of Speech Naturalness of Nonstutterers and Stutterers
Authors: Schiavetti Nicholas , Martin Richard R. , Haroldson Samuel K. , Metz Dale Evan
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to determine through psychophysical comparison of scaling data whether speech naturalness judgments of stutterers and nonstutterers from audiovisual recordings form a prothetic or a metathetic continuum. Comparison of direct magnitude estimation and equal-appearing interval scale data indicated that speech naturalness forms a metathetic continuum when observers judge audiovisual recordings, suggesting that either scaling procedure is valid for the quantification of this dimension. Ease of use, an existing body of comparative data from different clinics, and somewhat better reliability favor the interval scaling procedure.
Binaural Cues and Consonant Perception in Reverberation and Noise
Authors: Helfer Karen S.
Published: July 2014

Although a binaural advantage for understanding speech in adverse listening conditions has long been recognized, little is known about how binaural hearing influences consonant error patterns. The goal of the present study was to examine differences in consonant perception when stimuli distorted by noise and/or reverberation were presented using monaural, binaural, and diotic presentation modes. Results showed significant differences in error patterns among the three listening conditions (noise, reverberation, and reverberation + noise). Differences among the three presentation modes (monaural, binaural, and diotic) were subtle, as were interactions among presentation modes and listening conditions.
Speech Enhancement Based on a Sinusoidal Model
Authors: Kates James M.
Published: July 2014

Sinusoidal modeling is a new procedure for representing the speech signal. In this approach, the signal is divided into overlapping segments, the Fourier transform computed for each segment, and a set of desired spectral peaks is identified. The speech is then resynthesized using sinusoids that have the frequency, amplitude, and phase of the selected peaks, with the remaining spectral information being discarded. Using a limited number of sinusoids to reproduce speech in a background of multi-talker speech babble results in a speech signal that has an improved signal-to-noise ratio and enhanced spectral contrast. The more intense spectral components, assumed to be primarily the desired speech, are reproduced, whereas the less intense components, assumed to be primarily background noise, are not. To test the effectiveness of this processing approach as a noise suppression technique, both consonant recognition and perceived speech intelligibility were determined in quiet and in noise for a group of subjects with normal hearing as the number of sinusoids used to represent isolated speech tokens was varied. The results show that reducing the number of sinusoids used to represent the speech causes reduced consonant recognition and perceived intelligibility both in quiet and in noise, and suggests that similar results would be expected for listeners with hearing impairments.
Masking of Speech in Young and Elderly Listeners With Hearing Loss
Authors: Souza Pamela E. , Turner Christopher W.
Published: July 2014

This study examined the contributions of various properties of background noise to the speech recognition difficulties experienced by young and elderly listeners with hearing loss. Three groups of subjects participated: young listeners with normal hearing, young listeners with sensorineural hearing loss, and elderly listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. Sensitivity thresholds up to 4000 Hz of the young and elderly groups of listeners with hearing loss were closely matched, and a high-pass masking noise was added to minimize the contributions of high-frequency (above 4000 Hz) thresholds, which were not closely matched. Speech recognition scores for monosyllables were obtained in the high-pass noise alone and in three noise backgrounds. The latter consisted of high-pass noise plus one of three maskers: speechspectrum noise, speech-spectrum noise temporally modulated by the envelope of multi-talker babble, and multi-talker babble. For all conditions, the groups with hearing impairment consistently scored lower than the group with normal hearing. Although there was a trend toward poorer speech-recognition scores as the masker condition more closely resembled the speech babble, the effect of masker condition was not statistically significant. There was no interaction between group and condition, implying that listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss are affected similarly by the type of background noise when the long-term spectrum of the masker is held constant. A significant effect of age was not observed. In addition, masked thresholds for pure tones in the presence of the speech-spectrum masker were not different for the young and elderly listeners with hearing loss. These results suggest that, for both steady-state and modulated background noises, difficulties in speech recognition for monosyllables are due primarily, and perhaps exclusively, to the presence of sensorineural hearing loss itself, and not to age-specific factors.
Time-Interval Measurement of Stuttering
Authors: Cordes Anne K. , Ingham Roger J.
Published: July 2014

The study reported in this article used a binary forced-choice judgment procedure to investigate the effects of sample duration on observers’ judgments of stuttering. Two groups of judges, differing in their previous experience with stuttering, categorized 270 speech intervals as stuttered or nonstuttered; the intervals were drawn from 30 persons who stuttered and ranged from 1 sec to 15 sec in duration. Results showed that judgments were consistently related to interval duration, with shorter intervals significantly more likely than longer intervals to be labeled nonstuttered. Interjudge agreement levels, however, were largely unaffected by the different interval durations for most speakers and for both judge groups, with the exception of the longest and shortest intervals drawn from speakers evidencing the mildest and most severe stuttering. An interval duration in the 3- to 5-sec region appeared to attract the most satisfactory level of agreement. The implications of these findings for interval-based clinical and experimental measurements of stuttering are discussed.
Electropalatographic Data Collected With and Without a Face Mask
Authors: Fontdevila Jordi , Pallarès Maria Dolors , Recasens Daniel
Published: July 2014

This study investigates the extent to which the use of a face mask conveys linguopalatal contact changes during speech production. Electropalatographic data from five Catalan speakers were collected for different consonants, i.e., the alveolar stop In], the alveolopalatal stop [n] and the palatal approximant [j], in the sequences [iCi] and [aCe]. Results for [n] indicate more closure retraction in the mask versus nonmask condition occurring presumably when the mask is pressed forcefully against the face in front of the mouth. The use of the mask for [n] and [j] causes an increase in dorsopalatal contact, which reflects most likely a strategy of articulatory and/or perceptual compensation.
Dialectal Forms During Discourse of Poor, Urban, African American Preschoolers
Authors: Washington Julie A. , Craig Holly K.
Published: July 2014

This study describes nonstandard syntactic and morphological forms used by 45 poor, urban, 4- to 5.5-year-old African American boys and girls. Distributional analyses revealed three subgroups distinguished by the percentage frequencies of occurrence of utterances containing specific forms, and by the predominant types used by each group. Implications for characterizing the linguistic productions of young African American children are discussed.
Influence of Communicative Competence on Peer Preferences in a Preschool Classroom
Authors: Gertner Bethany L. , Rice Mabel L. , Hadley Pamela A.
Published: July 2014

Recent research suggests that children’s linguistic competence may play a central role in establishing social acceptance. That possibility was evaluated by examining children’s peer relationships in a preschool classroom attended by children with varying degrees of communication ability. Three groups of children were compared: children with normally developing language skills (ND), children with speech and/or language impairments (S/LI), and children learning English as a second language (ESL). Two sociometric tasks were used to measure peer popularity: positive nominations and negative nominations. Children in the ND group received more positive nominations than the children in either the ESL or S/LI groups. When the children’s positive and negative nominations were combined to classify them as Liked, Disliked, Low Impact, or Mixed, the ND children predominated in the Liked cell, whereas the other two groups of children fell into the Disliked or Low Impact cells. In addition, the PPVT-R, a receptive measure of single-word vocabulary, was found to be the best predictor of peer popularity. The findings are discussed in terms of a social consequences account of language limitations.
Developmental Phonological Disorders II
Authors: Shriberg Lawrence D. , Kwiatkowski Joan , Gruber Frederic A.
Published: July 2014

A companion paper (Shriberg & Kwiatkowski, 1994) provides a descriptive profile of three samples of children (
n
=178) with developmental phonological disorders. The present paper describes a conceptual framework for short-term and long-term speech-sound normalization research and reports 1-year normalization outcomes for 54 of the children described in the companion paper. Although certain individual speech variables were significantly associated with normalization, there were no speech, prosody-voice, or risk-factor variables that discriminated children who achieved short-term speech-sound normalization in 1 year. Findings are discussed in relation to a two-factor framework to study and predict speech-sound normalization in developmental phonological disorders (Kwiatkowski & Shriberg, 1993; Shriberg, Kwiatkowski, & Gruber, 1992).
Test-Retest Reliability of the Profile of Hearing Aid Performance
Authors: Nelson Charles T. , Palmer Catherine V.
Published: July 2014

This study was designed to replicate the test-retest reliability and critical difference components of the Profile of Hearing Aid Performance (PHAP) as established by Cox and Gilmore (1990). Subjects were 18 experienced hearing aid users ranging in age from 62 to 74 years old. The initial and retest administrations of the PHAP were conducted with no rehabilitative treatment pertaining to hearing loss or amplification provided during the intervening period. The interval between the first and second administrations of the profile was 4–5 months. The mean test-retest difference scores obtained in this investigation were small, not unlike those reported by Cox and Gilmore (1990). Critical difference (CD) values closely approximated those of the previous study except for the Background Noise subscale and the Environment C scale. A pooled estimate of each standard deviation of test-retest differences was computed using data from both investigations. This resulted in critical differences considered to be more precise than the CD values derived from either study alone. Findings strongly support the utility of the PHAP as an effective tool for generating reliable information regarding self-perceived hearing aid performance.
Sequential Recall in Individuals With Down Syndrome
Authors: Bird Elizabeth Kay-Raining , Chapman Robin S.
Published: July 2014

This study investigated whether memory for item order is selectively impaired in a group of individuals with Down syndrome. The ability to recall correctly ordered information was examined using two auditory tasks—narrative recall (Time 1) and digit span (Time 2)—and a nonverbal, visual task (Time 2) on which mental age (MA) matching was partially determined. Although subjects with Down syndrome recalled significantly less information than MA-matched controls on both auditory tasks, replicating previous findings of auditory memory span deficits, no differences in the
ordering
of recalled information were found. Nor did the groups differ in the relative frequency of ordering errors in the visual task. Neither a pervasive deficit in sequential processing nor a specific difficulty in recalling the order of information is supported. Altemative accounts are discussed.
Comparison of Conversational-Recasting and Imitative Procedures for Training Grammatical Structures in Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Camarata Stephen M. , Nelson Keith E. , Camarata Mary N.
Published: July 2014

The recent literature on language intervention has become increasingly focused upon developing treatments that more closely parallel normal language acquisition. However, there have been relatively few reports that directly compare imitative procedures to conversational-interactive interventions. The purpose of the present study was to compare the relative effectiveness of imitative intervention and conversational recast language intervention applied to a wide range of grammatical morpheme and complex sentence targets in 21 children with specific language impairment. The results indicated that although both kinds of treatments were effective in triggering acquisition of most targets, consistently fewer presentations to first spontaneous use were required in the conversational procedure. In addition, the transition from elicited production to generalized spontaneous production was more rapid under conversationinteractive treatment. Finally, although imitation treatment was more effective in generating elicited production, a significantly greater number of
spontaneous productions
occurred under the conversational training procedures. The theoretical and applied ramifications of these findings are discussed.
Feature Analysis of Singleton Consonant Errors in Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia (DVD)
Authors: Thoonen G. , Maassen B. , Gabreëls F. , Schreuder R.
Published: July 2014

The aim of this study is to quantify diagnostic characteristics related to consonant production of developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD). For this, a paradigmatic and syntagmatic feature-value analysis of the consonant substitution and omission errors in DVD speech was conducted. Following a three-step procedure, eleven clear cases were selected from a group of 24 children with DVD. The consonants produced in a word and nonsense-word imitation task were phonetically transcribed and transferred to confusion matrices, which allows for a feature and feature-value analysis. The analysis revealed that children with DVD (a) show low percentages of retention for place and manner of articulation and voicing, due to high substitution and omission rates; (b) show a particularly low percentage of retention of place of articulation in words, which, together with error rate, is strongly related to severity of involvement; (c) are inconsistent in their feature realization and feature preference; and (d) show a high syntagmatic error rate. These results form a
quantification
of diagnostic characteristics. Unexpectedly, however, very few
qualitative
differences in error pattern were found between children with DVD and a group of 11 age-matched children with normal speech. Thus, although the children with DVD produced higher substitution and omission rates than children with normal speech, the speech profiles of both subject groups are similar. This result stresses the importance of interpreting profiles, not isolated symptoms. The hypothesis to consider DVD as a deficit in the phonological encoding process is discussed.
Effect of Utterance Length and Meaningfulness on the Speech Initiation Times of Children Who Stutter and Children Who Do Not Stutter
Authors: Maske-Cash Wendy S. , Curlee Richard F.
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of utterance length and meaningfulness on the speech initiation times of children who stutter and children who do not stutter. Subjects were 36 elementary school students (half of whom stutter, matched by age, grade, and gender). Each child repeated short meaningful, long meaningful, and long nonce utterances in response to a visual cue. Nonstuttering, stuttering-only, and stuttering-plus (children with concomitant speech and/or language problems) children responded differently to utterance length and meaningfulness. This suggests that the three groups may process speech motor events for verbal responses differently.
Perceptual Rating Instrument for Speech Evaluation of Stuttering Treatment
Authors: Franken Marie-Christine , Boves Louis , Peters Herman F. M. , Webster Ronald L.
Published: July 2014

A rating instrument is described that can be used to assess the results of stuttering treatments. The instrument is designed for use with naive listeners. It yields a comprehensive and detailed description of the speech quality in terms of articulation, phonation, pitch, and loudness; in addition, it includes a naturalness scale. Analysis of ratings obtained with the instrument show that naturalness is a multidimensional characteristic. Moreover, the speech characteristics that determine the naturalness ratings appear to be different pretreatment, posttreatment, and at follow-up treatment.

The psychometric characteristics of the instrument are analyzed in detail. It is concluded that mixing of samples of stutterers and nonstutterers in one rating experiment may artificially inflate the reliability of the ratings. Also, ratings on equal-appearing interval scales cannot be interpreted in an absolute sense. Solutions for this methodological problem are suggested.