bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pre- and Posttreatment Comparison of the Kinematics of the Fluent Speech of Persons Who Stutter
Authors: Story Robin Seider , Alfonso Peter J. , Harris Katherine S.
Published: July 2014

This study reports changes in acoustic, respiratory, laryngeal, and articulatory kinematics of 3 males who stutter, following participation in a version of the Hollins Precision Fluency Shaping Program. Two nonstuttering controls received no treatment. Subjects repeated phrases of the form "He see CVC again" at self-selected slow, normal, and fast speaking rates. For experimental subjects, acoustic duration of the phrases increased significantly in 7 out of 9 comparisons of before- and after-treatment conditions, whereas controls decreased the duration of the phrases in 4 out of 6 comparisons of measurements made over approximately the time interval during which the experimental group received treatment. The experimental group increased inspiratory volume for 7 out of 9 conditions and average expiratory flow significantly for all conditions, whereas the controls decreased both. The experimental group prolonged laryngeal opening in 6 of 7 comparisons, but only 3 of the increases were significant. Lip and jaw movements for consonants were significantly reduced in amplitude for the experimental group for 30 of 36 measures. The direction of change for laryngeal and upper articulator measures was mixed for controls. These results show that behavioral treatment can produce significant changes in the fluent speech of persons who stutter with respect to respiration, laryngeal valving, and articulation. Possible relationships between the observed changes in speech production and the increased fluency of the subjects are discussed.
Toward Tense as a Clinical Marker of Specific Language Impairment in English-Speaking Children
Authors: Rice Mabel L. , Wexler Kenneth
Published: July 2014

A critical clinical issue is the identification of a clinical marker, a linguistic form or principle that can be shown to be characteristic of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). In this paper we evaluate, as candidate clinical markers, a set of morphemes that mark Tense. In English, this includes -
s
third person singular, -
ed
regular past,
BE
, and
DO
. According to the Extended Optional Infinitive Account (EOI) of Rice, Wexler, and Cleave (1995), this set of morphemes is likely to appear optionally in the grammars of children with SLI at a rate lower than the optionality evident in younger controls. Three groups of preschool children participated: 37 children with SLI, and two control groups, one of 40 MLU-equivalent children and another of 45 age-equivalent children. Three kinds of evidence support the conclusion that a set of morphemes that marks Tense can be considered a clinical marker: (a) low levels of accuracy for the target morphemes for the SLI group relative to either of the two control groups; (b) affectedness for the set of morphemes defined by the linguistic function of Tense, but not for morphemes unrelated to Tense; and (c) a bimodal distribution for Tense-marking morphemes relative to age peers, in which the typical children are at essentially adult levels of the grammar, whereas children in the SLI group were at low (i.e., non-adultlike) levels of performance. The clinical symptoms are evident in omissions of surface forms. Errors of subject-verb agreement and syntactic misuses are rare, showing that, as predicted, children in an EOI stage who are likely to mark Tense optionally at the same time know a great deal about the grammatical properties of finiteness and agreement in the adult grammar. The findings are discussed in terms of alternative accounts of the grammatical limitations of children with SLI and implications for clinical identification.
Tutorial
Authors: Shapiro Lewis P.
Published: July 2014

This paper is intended as an introduction to syntax. Borrowing from Chomsky's Government & Binding and Principles & Parameters frameworks (Chomsky, 1986, 1992, 1995), various aspects of syntactic theory are described. These include lexical, functional, and phrasal categories and how they are put together into clauses and sentences, how words are represented in the mental lexicon, how lexical properties project to the syntax, and how noun phrases are assigned structural and semantic information. Additionally, how sentences that are not canonically ordered are derived and represented, how and to what do pronouns refer, and the principles that connect all these theoretical notions to form knowledge of language are described. The paper concludes with a summary of work in normal and disordered language, including treatment of language disorders, that has exploited aspects of the syntactic theory described in this paper.
Effect of Speech Dialect on Speech Naturalness Ratings
Authors: Mackey Linda S. , Finn Patrick , Ingham Roger J.
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the effect of speech dialect on listeners' speech naturalness ratings by systematically replicating Martin, Haroldson, and Triden's (1984) study using three groups of speaker samples. Two groups consisted of speakers with General American dialect—one with persons who stutter and the other with persons who do not stutter. The third group also consisted of speakers who do not stutter but who spoke non-General American dialect. The results showed that speech naturalness ratings distinguished among the three speaker groups. The variables that appeared to influence speech naturalness ratings were type of dialect, speech fluency, and speaking rate, though they differed across speaker groups. The findings also suggested that strength of speech dialect may be a scaleable dimension that judges can rate with acceptable levels of reliability. Dialect may also be an important factor that needs to be incorporated or controlled within systems designed to train speech naturalness ratings. It may also be an important factor in determining the extent to which stuttering treatment produces natural sounding speech.
Language Production Abilities of Children Whose Stuttering Persisted or Recovered
Authors: Watkins Ruth V. , Yairi Ehud
Published: July 2014

This study evaluated the language production capabilities of 32 young children whose stuttering followed divergent paths: one group whose stuttering persisted, one group who stuttered relatively briefly and recovered, and one group who stuttered for a longer period prior to recovery. Three indices of language production (mean length of utterance, number of different words, and number of total words) were obtained from spontaneous language samples. Measures of language production were calculated from samples collected at an initial visit near stuttering onset and at a one-year follow-up visit. Results revealed that the majority of the children who stuttered performed within the average range on these measures of language production. One child, a child whose stuttering persisted, consistently performed below the average range on all measures. Comparison of the three groups revealed greater variability, as well as atypical patterns of development, in the language production skills of children whose stuttering persisted. These findings suggest that although language production deficits do not appear to be widespread in children who stutter, examination of individual patterns of performance is central to clarifying the developmental relationship between language proficiency and the production of fluent speech.
Effect of Low-Frequency Gain Reduction on Speech Recognition and Its Relation to Upward Spread of Masking
Authors: Cook Jodi A. , Bacon Sid P. , Sammeth Carol A.
Published: July 2014

Speech recognition was measured in listeners with normal hearing and in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss under conditions that simulated hearing aid processing in a low-pass and speech-shaped background noise. Differing amounts of low-frequency gain reduction were applied during a high-frequency monosyllable test and a sentence level test to simulate the frequency responses of some commercial hearing aids. The results showed an improvement in speech recognition with low-frequency gain reduction in the low-pass noise, but not in the speech-shaped background noise. Masking patterns also were obtained with the two background noises at 70 and 80 dB SPL to compare with the speech results. There was no correlation observed between the masking results and the improvement in speech recognition with low-frequency gain reduction.
Preliminary Voice and Speech Analysis Following Fetal Dopamine Transplants in 5 Individuals With Parkinson Disease
Authors: Baker Kristin K. , Ramig Lorraine Olson , Johnson Antonia B. , Freed Curt R.
Published: July 2014

A surgical procedure involving transplantation of fetal dopamine cells into the striatum of persons with advanced Parkinson disease (PD) has recently been performed in an attempt to alleviate Parkinsonian and drug-dose related symptoms (e.g., the “on-off” phenomena). Improvements in limb motor and neurological function, as well as less severe and shorter on-off episodes have been reported following fetal cell transplant (FCT) surgery. Acoustic, electroglottographic, and perceptual measures were analyzed pre- and post-surgery to determine if phonatory and articulatory function were affected by this relatively new form of treatment. In addition, speech and motor exam measures were compared to determine if similar directional changes across motor systems were apparent. Findings suggest that FCT surgery did not systematically influence voice and speech production. Also, it appears that FCT surgery may differentially affect phonatory, articulatory, and limb motor systems. Findings are discussed relative to these differential effects.
Three Accounts of the Grammatical Morpheme Difficulties of English-Speaking Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Leonard Laurence B. , Eyer Julia A. , Bedore Lisa M. , Grela Bernard G.
Published: July 2014

Several hypotheses have been offered to explain the grammatical morpheme difficulties observed in the speech of children with specific language impairment. Three of the accounts that could be evaluated in English were the focus of this study: the extended optional infinitive account, the implicit rule deficit account, and the surface account. Preschoolers with specific language impairment, a group of age controls, and a group of younger children matched for mean length of utterance were evaluated in their use of several theory-relevant grammatical morphemes. The findings revealed advantages for both the surface and extended optional infinitive hypotheses. In contrast, a test of the predictions based on the implicit rule deficit account suggested that the children studied here were not experiencing a deficit of this type.
Auditory Development in Complex Tasks of Comodulation Masking Release
Authors: Hall Joseph W. , Grose John H. , Dev Madhu B.
Published: July 2014

Experiments on listeners aged 5 years to adult were conducted to investigate the development of comodulation masking release (CMR) under conditions where auditory grouping could be affected either by the coherence of modulation pattern among noise bands, or the temporal asynchrony among bands. The conditions examining CMR when two modulation patterns were present (each carried by a different set of noise bands) indicated a similar effect across all age groups. Here, CMR was substantial when the on-signal band (OSB) and six comodulated flanking bands (FBs) were presented, decreased when two bands having a second pattern of modulation were added, and then recovered partially when a further six bands that had the second modulation pattern were added. In conditions where there was a temporal asynchrony between the OSB and the FBs, the children typically showed smaller CMRs than the adults. In the case where the OSB preceded the FBs, adults typically showed CMR near zero when the temporal fringe was 50 ms or more. Children usually showed negative CMRs for such conditions. In the case where the FBs preceded the OSB, all age groups showed substantial CMRs, but the CMRs of adults were significantly larger than those of the children. The present results indicate that the effect of a second, independent modulation pattern on CMR is similar in children and adult listeners, but that CMR appears to be detrimentally affected more in children than in adults when there is a temporal asynchrony between the on-signal and flanking bands.
Development of a Two-Stage Procedure for the Automatic Recognition of Dysfluencies in the Speech of Children Who Stutter
Authors: Howell Peter , Sackin Stevie , Glenn Kazan
Published: July 2014

This program of work is intended to develop automatic recognition procedures to locate and assess stuttered dysfluencies. This and the following article together, develop and test recognizers for repetitions and prolongations. The automatic recognizers classify the speech in two stages: In the first, the speech is segmented, and, in the second, the segments are categorized. The units that are segmented are words. Here assessments by human judges on the speech of 12 children who stutter are described using a corresponding procedure. The accuracy of word boundary placement across judges, categorization of the words as fluent, repetition or prolongation, and duration of the different fluency categories are reported. These measures allow reliable instances of repetitions and prolongations to be selected for training and assessing the recognizers in the subsequent paper.
On the Registration of Time and the Patterning of Speech Movements
Authors: Lucero Jorge C. , Munhall Kevin G. , Gracco Vincent L. , Ramsay James O.
Published: July 2014

In order to study speech coordination we frequently average kinematic and other physiological signals. The averages are assumed to be more representative of the underlying patterns of production than individual records. In this note we outline different approaches to averaging and present a new nonlinear normalization technique that offers better information than ensemble averaging, linear normalization, or feature alignment methods. We suggest that this technique provides a clear estimation of pattern shape while preserving information on the variation over time.
Estimating Phonation Threshold Pressure
Authors: Fisher Kimberly V. , Swank Paul R.
Published: July 2014

Phonation threshold pressure (PTP) is the minimum subglottal pressure required to initiate vocal fold oscillation. Although potentially useful clinically, PTP is difficult to estimate noninvasively because of limitations to vocal motor control near the threshold of soft phonation. Previous investigators observed, for example, that trained subjects were unable to produce flat, consistent oral pressure peaks during /pæ/ syllable strings when they attempted to phonate as softly as possible (Verdolini-Marston, Titze, & Druker, 1990). The present study aimed to determine if nasal airflow or vowel context affected phonation threshold pressure as estimated from oral pressure (Smitheran & Hixon, 1981) in 5 untrained female speakers with normal velopharyngeal and voice function. Nasal airflow during /p/ occlusion was observed for 3 of 5 participants when they attempted to phonate near threshold pressure. When the nose was occluded, nasal airflow was reduced or eliminated during /p/; however, individuals then evidenced compensatory changes in glottal adduction and/or respiratory effort that may be expected to alter PTP estimates. Results demonstrate the importance of monitoring nasal flow (or the flow zero point in undivided masks) when obtaining PTP measurements noninvasively. Results also highlight the need to pursue improved methods for noninvasive estimation of PTP.
A Meta-Analytic Procedure Shows an Age-Related Decline in Picture Naming
Authors: Feyereisen Pierre
Published: July 2014

In the conclusion of their review of the literature, Goulet, Ska, and Kahn (1994) found no clear evidence that picture-naming accuracy declines with advancing age. However, another conclusion can be drawn if one considers the subset of studies in which means and standard deviations of picture-naming accuracy are reported for different age groups: below 50, between 50 and 69, and from 70 years of age upwards. A meta-analysis of these data showed that naming accuracy was similar in the younger and the intermediate groups but that the performance of the older group was significantly different from that of the younger groups. Thus, the problem of inconsistencies in research findings can be resolved when meta-analytic methods are used.
Role of Fundamental Frequency Differences in the Perceptual Separation of Competing Vowel Sounds by Listeners With Normal Hearing and Listeners With Hearing Loss
Authors: Arehart Kathryn Hoberg , King Catherine Arriaga , McLean-Mudgett Kelly S.
Published: July 2014

This study compared the ability of listeners with normal hearing and listeners with moderate to moderately-severe sensorineural hearing loss to use fundamental frequency differences (ΔF0) in the identification of monotically presented simultaneous vowels. Two psychophysical procedures, double vowel identification and masked vowel identification, were used to measure identification performance as a function of ΔF0(0 through 8 semitones) between simultaneous vowels. Performance in the double vowel identification task was measured by the percentage of trials in which listeners correctly identified both vowels in a double vowel. The masked vowel identification task yielded thresholds representing signal-to-noise ratios at which listeners could just identify target vowels in the presence of a masking vowel. In the double vowel identification task, both listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss showed significant ΔF0benefit: Between 0 and 2 semitones, listeners with normal hearing showed an 18.5% average increase in performance; listeners with hearing loss showed a 16.5% average increase. In the masked vowel identification task, both groups showed significant ΔF0benefit. However, the mean benefit associated with ΔF0differences in the masked vowel task was more than twice as large in listeners with normal hearing 9.4 dB) when compared to listeners with hearing loss (4.4 dB), suggesting less ΔF0benefit in listeners with hearing loss. In both tasks, overall performance of listeners with hearing loss was significantly worse than performance of listeners with normal hearing. Possible reasons for reduced ΔF0benefit and decreased overall performance in listeners with hearing loss include reduced audibility of vowel sounds and deficits in spectro-temporal processing.
Effect of Relative Amplitude and Formant Transitions on Perception of Place of Articulation by Adult Listeners With Cochlear Implants
Authors: Hedrick Mark S. , Carney Arlene Earley
Published: July 2014

Previous studies have shown that manipulation of a particular frequency region of the consonantal portion of a syllable relative to the amplitude of the same frequency region in an adjacent vowel influences the perception of place of articulation. This manipulation has been called the relative amplitude cue. Earlier studies have examined the effect of relative amplitude and formant transition manipulations upon labeling place of articulation for fricatives and stop consonants in listeners with normal hearing. The current study sought to determine if (a) the relative amplitude cue is used by adult listeners wearing a cochlear implant to label place of articulation, and (b) adult listeners wearing a cochlear implant integrated the relative amplitude and formant transition information differently than listeners with normal hearing. Sixteen listeners participated in the study, 12 with normal hearing and 4 postlingually deafened adults wearing the Nucleus 22 electrode Mini Speech Processor implant with the multipeak processing strategy. The stimuli used were synthetic consonant-vowel (CV) syllables in which relative amplitude and formant transitions were manipulated. The two speech contrasts examined were the voiceless fricative contrast /s/-/∫/and the voiceless stop consonant contrast /p/-/t/. For each contrast, listeners were asked to label the consonant sound in the syllable from the two response alternatives. Results showed that (a) listeners wearing this implant could use relative amplitude to consistently label place of articulation, and (b) listeners with normal hearing integrated the relative amplitude and formant transition information more than listeners wearing a cochlear implant, who weighted the relative amplitude information as much as 13 times that of the transition information.
Spoken Language of Individuals With Mild Fluent Aphasia Under Focused and Divided-Attention Conditions
Authors: Murray Laura L. , Holland Audrey L. , Beeson Pelagie M.
Published: July 2014

The spoken language of individuals with mild aphasia and age-matched control subjects was studied under conditions of isolation, focused attention, and divided attention. A picture-description task was completed alone and in competition with a tone-discrimination task. Regardless of condition, individuals with aphasia performed more poorly on most morphosyntactic, lexical, and pragmatic measures of spoken language than control subjects. Increasing condition complexity resulted in little quantitative or qualitative change in the spoken language of the control group. In contrast, the individuals with aphasia showed dual-task interference; as they shifted from isolation to divided-attention conditions, they produced fewer syntactically complete and complex utterances, fewer words, and poorer word-finding accuracy. In pragmatic terms, their communication was considered less successful and less efficient. These results suggest that decrements of attentional capacity or its allocation may negatively affect the quantity and quality of the spoken language of individuals with mild aphasia.
Subjective Judgments of Clarity and Intelligibility for Filtered Stimuli With Equivalent Speech Intelligibility Index Predictions
Authors: Eisenberg Laurie S. , Dirks Donald D. , Takayanagi Sumiko , Martinez Amy Schaefer
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether subjective judgments of clarity or intelligibility would be rated equally among conditions in which speech was equated for predicted intelligibility (using the Speech Intelligibility Index, SII) but varied in bandwidth. Twenty listeners with normal hearing rated clarity and intelligibility for sentence material (Hearing In Noise Test) in speech-shaped noise at six paired low- and high-pass filtered conditions in which SII was equated for each pair. For three paired conditions, predicted intelligibility increased as SII increased monotonically (0.3, 0.4, 0.5). In the remaining paired conditions, SII continued to increase monotonically (0.6, 0.7, 0.8) but predicted intelligibility was held at a maximal level (≥95%). Predicted intelligibility was estimated from the transfer function relating SII to speech recognition scores determined in preliminary experiments. Differences in ratings between paired low- and high-pass filtered sentences did not reach statistical significance for either clarity or intelligibility, indicating that the spectral differences at equivalent SIIs did not influence the judgments for either of the two dimensions. For conditions in which predicted intelligibility increased, both clarity and intelligibility ratings increased in a similar manner. For conditions in which predicted intelligibility was maximized, intelligibility ratings remained the same statistically across conditions while clarity ratings changed modestly. Although high correlations were observed between clarity and intelligibility ratings, intelligibility ratings were consistently higher than clarity ratings for comparable conditions. The results indicated that listeners with normal hearing produced clarity and intelligibility ratings for the same speech material and experimental conditions that were highly related but differed in magnitude. Caution is required when substituting clarity for intelligibility.
Family Histories of Children With SLI Who Show Extended Optional Infinitives
Authors: Rice Mabel L. , Haney Karla R. , Wexler Kenneth
Published: July 2014

Previous family history studies have demonstrated that there are elevated rates of language and language-related impairments in families identified through probands with language impairments. This study examines family histories of children with specific language impairment (SLI) known to have particular grammatical limitations in a core feature of grammatical acquisition, a stage known as Extended Optional Infinitives (EOI). Family affectedness rates are reported for 31 families identified through preschool probands with this clearly defined language impairment and 67 control families, identified through nonaffected preschool children developmentally similar to the probands.

It was found that significantly more speech and language difficulties, as well as language-related difficulties, such as reading, were reported for proband families than control families. The elevated rates were obtained for nuclear family members and extended family members as well. Fathers of probands were more often reported as having difficulties (29% for speech/language impairments) than were mothers of probands (7%), but there was no difference between brothers (26%) and sisters (29%). No differences were evident between proband families based on proband gender. The findings are relevant for theoretical models of sources of unexplained variations in grammatical competence in young children. In addition, the findings contribute new information about expected rates of affectedness, means of identification of affected family members, and comorbidity of symptomatology.
Effects of a Circumferentially Vented Mask on Breathing Patterns of Women as Measured by Respiratory Kinematic Techniques
Authors: Huber Jessica E. , Stathopoulos Elaine T. , Bormann Lori A. , Johnson Kenneth
Published: July 2014

Since pneumotachograph masks are commonly used in studies of speech breathing, the purpose of this study was to measure the differences in respiratory volumetric and frequency measures during speech under two conditions: with and without a circumferentially vented pneumotachograph mask coupled to the face. Thus we sought to identify whether changes in breathing patterns occur with the use of a specific face mask, because these patterns are accepted as representative of normal speech breathing. Subjects were 10 normal-speaking women, each of whom produced a syllable train and a connected speech task, both at comfortable intensity levels. Respiratory measures were made using linearized magnetometers during speech production. The measurements included lung volume, rib cage volume, and abdominal volume at utterance initiation and termination, volume excursions during the utterance, and the number of breath groups during the speech task. There were no significant differences between the mask-on and mask-off conditions in volumetric and frequency measures. A significant task difference for abdominal initiation was found. It was concluded that the use of a circumferentially vented pneumotachograph mask does not alter the reliability of respiratory volume and frequency measures for studies of voice.
Nasal Coarticulation in Normal Speakers
Authors: Zajac David J. , Mayo Robert , Kataoka Ryuta
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to re-examine the influence of gender on nasal coarticulation in normal speakers. Twenty adult speakers (10 men, 10 women) produced the vowel-nasal-vowel (VNV) sequence /ini/ within a carrier phrase using two stress patterns: (1) with equal stress placed on both syllables, and (2) with contrastive stress placed on the second syllable. A partitioned, circumferentially vented pneumotachograph mask and microphone were used to determine nasal airflow, ratios of nasal to oral-plus-nasal airflow, and sound pressure levels (SPLs) at the midpoints of the first and second vowels of the syllables. Volume ratios of nasal to oral-plus-nasal airflow that reflected the entire duration of the vowels were also obtained. Results indicated that all speakers except 1 woman exhibited nasal airflow at the midpoint of the first vowel when /ini/ was produced with equal stress; all speakers exhibited carryover nasal airflow during the second vowel. During contrastive stress, all speakers except 1 woman and 1 additional man exhibited anticipatory nasal airflow; all speakers exhibited carryover nasal airflow. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures with repeated measures indicated significant main effects of syllable stress (
p
< 0.001) relative to nasal airflow and ratios of nasal to oral-plus-nasal airflow. Regardless of the gender of the speakers, syllable stress resulted in reduced anticipatory and carryover nasal airflow during the first and second vowels of /ini/, respectively. The results suggest that (a) both men and women adhere to similar patterns of velar articulation, and (b) velopharyngeal closure during the vowel /i/ may be enhanced during stressed syllables. Implications relative to aspects of speech production and clinical practice are discussed.
Acquisition of Linguistic and Cognitive Skills by Children With Cleft Palate
Authors: Broen Patricia A. , Devers Monica C. , Doyle Shirley S. , Prouty Jo McCauley , Moller Karlind T.
Published: July 2014

This study compared the early cognitive and linguistic development of young children with cleft palate (N= 28) to that of noncleft children (N= 29). Measures included the Mental scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, the Minnesota Child Development Inventory, Mean Length of Utterance, and words acquired by 24 months. Children with cleft palate, although well within the normal range, performed significantly below the children in the control group on the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, some subscales of the Minnesota Child Development Inventory, and words acquired by 24 months. Differences observed in the cognitive development of children with and without cleft palate were verbal as opposed to nonverbal (i.e., linguistic in nature) and were related to hearing status at 12 months and velopharyngeal adequacy.
Effects of Treatment for Sound Errors in Apraxia of Speech and Aphasia
Authors: Wambaugh Julie L. , Kalinyak-Fliszar Michelene M. , West Joan E. , Doyle Patrick J.
Published: July 2014

This investigation was designed to examine the acquisition, generalization, and maintenance effects of a treatment for sound errors in speakers with co-occurring apraxia of speech and aphasia. Three speakers with chronic apraxia of speech and aphasia were studied in the context of a multiple baseline design across speakers and behaviors. Treatment combined the use of minimal contrast pairs with traditional sound production training techniques such as integral stimulation and articulatory placement cueing and was applied sequentially to sounds that were determined to be consistently in error before training. Results revealed increased correct sound productions for all speakers in trained and untrained words. Response generalization effects across sounds and stimulus generalization effects varied, but appeared to be limited for most speakers. Although positive maintenance effects were evidenced, some loss of treatment gains was noted following cessation of treatment.
Language Skills of Children and Adolescents With Down Syndrome
Authors: Chapman Robin S. , Seung Hye-Kyeung , Schwartz Scott E. , Kay-Raining Bird Elizabeth
Published: July 2014

Hypotheses that children and adolescents with Down syndrome show (a) a specific expressive language impairment, (b) a "critical period" for language acquisition, (c) a "simple sentence syntactic ceiling" in production, and (d) deficit in grammatical morphology were investigated cross-sectionally. Conversational and narrative language samples from 47 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (Trisomy 21), aged 5 to 20 years, were compared to those from 47 control children aged 2 to 6 years matched statistically for nonverbal mental age. Children with Down syndrome appear to have a specific language impairment, compared to control children, in number of different words and total words (in the first 50 utterances) and in mean length of utterance (MLU). Total utterance attempts per minute were more frequent in the Down syndrome group. Narrative samples contained more word tokens, more word types, and longer MLU than conversation samples, for both groups. Intelligibility of narratives was significantly poorer for the Down syndrome group than controls. Analyses of narrative language sample by age sub-group showed no evidence of a critical period for language development ending at adolescence, nor of a "syntactic ceiling" at MLUs corresponding to simple sentences for the Down syndrome group. Omissions of word tokens and types were more frequent in the older Down syndrome than the younger control sample, matched on MLU.
Specific Language Impairment and Grammatical Morphology
Authors: Bedore Lisa M. , Leonard Laurence B.
Published: July 2014

Discriminant function analysis was employed to determine if grammatical morpheme production could be used to classify preschool-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typically developing language skills. Three variables were included in the discriminant analysis: a finite verb morpheme composite, a noun morpheme composite, and mean length of utterance in morphemes. The children with SLI and age-matched controls were discriminated with high levels of accuracy, though the three variables did not yield identical classifications. Across two samples of typically developing children and children with SLI, the verb morpheme composite showed sensitivity exceeding 85% and specificity of 100%. In light of these results and growing evidence that problems with finite verb morphology continue into the school years in children with SLI, the verb morpheme composite was considered to hold promise as a clinical marker for SLI.
HINT List Equivalency Using Older Listeners
Authors: Hanks Wendy D. , Johnson Gabrielle D.
Published: July 2014

HINT list equivalency was examined using 24 listeners between 60 and 70 years old who had sensorineural hearing impairment. A Greco-Latin square design was used to ensure that each list was presented an equal number of times per condition. Four conditions were tested: (1) speech in quiet, (2) speech in 65 dBA noise with noise at 0° azimuth, (3) speech in 65 dBA noise with noise at 90° azimuth, and (4) speech in 65 dBA noise with noise at 270° azimuth. Speech materials were always presented at 0° azimuth. Overall mean scores ranged from 29.9 dBA for the quiet condition to 63.4 dBA for the noise at 0° azimuth condition. A significant difference was found between Lists 13 and 16 only. This was attributed to audibility differences among the listeners. Therefore, the 25 HINT lists should be considered equivalent for older populations with similar hearing impairment. The HINT lists can be used for relative measures, such as comparison of aided versus unaided sentence SRTs or comparison of 2 different hearing aids.
Identifiers of Predominantly Spanish-Speaking Children With Language Impairment
Authors: Restrepo María Adelaida
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to identify a set of measures that would discriminate 31 predominantly Spanish-speaking children with normal language (NL children) from 31 children with language impairment (LI children). The LI children were identified as such by experienced, bilingual (Spanish/English), ASHA-certified, speech-language pathologists who were currently seeing the children in their caseloads. Children ranged in age from 5 to 7 years and were matched for age, gender, and school. Additionally, nonverbal cognitive measures assured that they did not differ significantly intellectually. Measures of vocabulary, novel bound-morpheme learning skills, and language form were randomly administered to all children. Further, parents responded to questions about their perceptions of their children's speech and language skills and family history of speech and language problems. A stepwise discriminant analysis indicated that 4 measures discriminated the groups of children with a sensitivity of 91.3% and a specificity of 100% (
p
<.0001): parental report of the child's speech and language skills, number of errors per T-unit, mean length per T-unit, and family history of speech and language problems. A second discriminant analysis indicated that the sensitivity and specificity could be maintained when only the first 2 measures were included. Confirmatory discriminant analyses of the 2- and 4-measure models indicated that the discriminant accuracy was stable on an independent sample.
The Impact of Emphatic Stress on Novel Word Learning by Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Weismer Susan Ellis , Hesketh Linda J.
Published: July 2014

This investigation examined the influence of emphatic stress on children's novel word learning. Forty school-age children participated in this study, including 20 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 20 children with normal language (NL) development. Results indicated that there were no significant stress effects for comprehension or recognition of novel words (for which all children demonstrated relatively high levels of performance); however, children in both groups exhibited significantly better production of words that had been presented with emphatic stress than with neutral stress. These findings are discussed within a limited capacity framework of language processing.
Probability Estimates and Paths to Consonant Normalization in Children With Speech Delay
Authors: Gruber Frederic A.
Published: July 2014

Probable ages of normalization were calculated for 24 children with speech delay, using Kaplan-Meier analysis and a threshold score of 85% on the Percent of Consonants Correct, Percent of Consonants Correct-Adjusted, and Percent of Consonants Correct-Revised metrics. Simple formulas are provided that permit calculation of the likelihood that individual children with speech delay will normalize by a given age. The sex of a child was found to have no significant influence on age of normalization. Analysis revealed two different paths to normalization. In Path A, errors of deletion, substitution, and omission declined as correct productions increased. In Path B, common clinical distortions increased as deletions and substitutions decreased. The ages of more and less rapid phonological gain correspond to and partially explain the findings of Shriberg, Gruber, and Kwiatkowski (1994), who studied more severely involved children. Children who follow Path B are those who retain residual errors in their speech.
Variability and Sequential Order of Consonant Normalization in Children With Speech Delay
Authors: Gruber Frederic A.
Published: July 2014

A source of discrepancy among attempts to establish a rank order in the development of English consonants has been the inability to cope concurrently with principled generalization and individual variability. This problem may be surmounted by survival analytic techniques. From the conversational speech of 24 children with speech delay (SD) recorded over 2 years, a Kaplan-Meier (KM) survival analysis provided a rank order of acquisition for all probabilities above .75. The rank ordering by chronological age uncovered an alignment by place and manner of articulation comparable to, but not identical with, the predictions of Jakobson (1941, 1968). When the derived normalization probabilities for the speech delayed children were lagged according to the strong delay hypothesis (Shriberg, Gruber, & Kwiatkowski, 1994), they were shown to converge with previous normative studies and the age of speech-sound determinations (Prather, Hedrick, & Kern, 1975; Sander, 1972). The convergence of results is interpreted both as an argument for generalizability and as support for the strong delay hypothesis.
Validity of a Parent Report Measure of Vocabulary and Syntax for Preschool Children With Language Impairment
Authors: Thal Donna J. , O'Hanlon Laureen , Clemmons Mary , Fralin LaShon
Published: July 2014

Previous research has documented the validity of parent report for measuring vocabulary and grammar in typically developing toddlers. In this project, two studies examined the validity of parent report for measuring language in children with specific language delay who are older than the normative group, but who have language levels within the range measured by the instruments. In Study 1, scores on the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences were compared to behavioral measures of production of vocabulary and grammar in 39- to 49-month-old children with language delay. Results indicated moderately high to high concurrent validity correlations in both domains (.67–.86). In Study 2, scores on the MacArthur Communicative Inventory: Words and Gestures were compared to behavioral measures of vocabulary comprehension and production and gesture production in 24- to 32-month-old children with language delay. Results indicated a moderately high concurrent validity correlation for vocabulary production (.66). Parent report of comprehension and gesture scores did not correlate significantly with their behavioral counterparts, but gesture scores were moderately highly correlated with language comprehension (.65).
Predicting Midsagittal Pharynx Shape From Tongue Position During Vowel Production
Authors: Whalen D. H. , Kang A. Min , Magen Harriet S. , Fulbright Robert K. , Gore John C.
Published: July 2014

The shape of the pharynx has a large effect on the acoustics of vowels, but direct measurement of this part of the vocal tract is difficult. The present study examines the efficacy of inferring midsagittal pharynx shape from the position of the tongue, which is much more amenable to measurement. Midsagittal magnetic resonance (MR) images were obtained for multiple repetitions of 11 static English vowels spoken by two subjects (one male and one female). From these, midsagittal widths were measured at approximately 3-mm intervals along the entire vocal tract. A regression analysis was then used to assess whether the pharyngeal widths could be predicted from the locations and width measurements for four positions on the tongue, namely, those likely to be the locations of a receiver coil for an electromagnetometer system. Predictability was quite high throughout the vocal tract (multiple
r
> 0.9), except for the extreme ends (i.e., larynx and lips) and small decreases for the male subject in the uvula region. The residuals from this analysis showed that the accuracy of predictions was generally quite high, with 89.2% of errors being less than 2 mm. The extremes of the vocal tract, where the resolution of the MRI was poorer, accounted for much of the error. For languages like English, which do not use advanced tongue root (ATR) distinctively, the midsagittal pharynx shape of static vowels can be predicted with high accuracy.
Bound-Morpheme Generalization by Children With SLI
Authors: Kiernan Barbara J. , Snow David P.
Published: July 2014

We investigated whether limited bound-morpheme generalization (BMG) by preschool children with SLI is functionally related to limited learning of training targets (words, affixed forms). Thirty children with SLI and 30 age-/gendermatched controls participated in the study. Production probes revealed a dissociation between learning and generalization performance. In addition, the number of children who achieved criterion-level BMG increased abruptly during an additional instructional experience with new training targets. These findings suggest that positive evidence of a bound morpheme's generalizability to different vocabulary stems benefits BMG. Furthermore, they suggest that limited BMG reflects problems not with the storage or access of specific trained facts but with the extraction and extension of the linguistic pattern (e.g., regularity, "rule") instantiated in the learning targets.
Case Assignment in Agrammatism
Authors: Ruigendijk Esther , Zonneveld Ron van , Bastiaanse Roelien
Published: July 2014

Agrammatic speech is characterized by the omission and substitution of grammatical morphemes. Some recent papers suggest that certain patterns of omission and substitution are ruled by linguistic, that is, syntactic processes (e.g., Hagiwara, 1995; Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997; Bastiaanse & Van Zonneveld, 1998). In the present paper, the omission pattern of case markers in the spontaneous speech of Dutch and German speakers with agrammatic aphasia is analyzed within the framework of Chomsky's (1986)
case theory
, which says that every phonetically realized NP must receive (abstract) case. The inflected verb (I) assigns nominative case to the subject in the sentence, and the verb (V) assigns dative and accusative case to the indirect and direct object, respectively. This, in combination with the knowledge that verbs and verb inflections are notoriously difficult for speakers with agrammatism, served as the basis for this study. We hypothesize that, if no case assigner is produced, the noun will receive nominative case by default or the case marking morpheme (i.e., the determiner) will be omitted. This hypothesis has been tested and was supported by the data.
Voice and Speech Characteristics of Persons With Parkinson’s Disease Pre- and Post-Pallidotomy Surgery
Authors: Schulz Geralyn M. , Peterson Teri , Sapienza Christine M. , Greer Melvin , Friedman William
Published: July 2014

Pallidotomy surgery, lesioning the globus pallidus internal, has been performed to alleviate Parkinsonian symptoms and drug-induced dyskinesias. Improvements in limb motor function have been reported in recent years following pallidotomy surgery. The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine the effect of pallidotomy surgery on select voice and speech characteristics of 6 patients with Parkinson’s disease. Acoustic measures were analyzed pre-pallidotomy surgery and again at 3 months following surgery. Preliminary findings indicated that all participants demonstrated positive changes in at least one acoustic measure; 2 of the participants consistently demonstrated positive changes in phonatory and articulatory measures, whereas 3 participants did not consistently demonstrate positive changes postsurgery. The results are discussed relative to the differential effects observed across participants.
Classification of Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Conti-Ramsden Gina , Botting Nicola
Published: July 2014

This paper reports on the longitudinal results of a large project involving 242 seven-year-old children attending language units in England. Following our work outlining 6 subgroups of children with language impairment (Conti-Ramsden, Crutchley, & Botting, 1997), we examine the stability of the 6 subgroups of children with specific language impairment already identified, using data collected from the same children at age 8 years. The findings suggest there is considerable stability in the patterns of difficulties delineated by the classification system involving 6 subgroups. Poorer stability was evident in the classification of the children across time with 45% of children moving across subgroups. The membership stability of the proposed classification system was very similar to that found when the children were classified into 3 subgroups following another well-known system (Rapin, 1996). The findings are discussed with particular reference to issues surrounding the classification of children with SLI.