bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Acoustic Voice Perturbation Measures Among Three Independent Voice Laboratories
Authors: Karnell Michael P. , Scherer Ronald S. , Fischer Laurie B.
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to compare jitter and shimmer data measured with three different analysis systems, the Visi-Pitch PC system (Pine Brook) and two systems based on minicomputers (Chicago and Denver), as a preliminary step toward establishing recording and analysis standards. The results show that, although similar hardware and software used at independent laboratories can yield similar findings, differences in recording hardware as well as recording and analysis procedures can result in important differences in perturbation findings. Jitter measurements obtained with the Visi-Pitch were not consistently in good agreement with jitter measurements obtained from the minicomputer systems due, in part, to an interaction between the Visi-Pitch internal filter selected during the recording process and the novel method of pitch period determination used in the Visi-Pitch. Magnitude of shimmer measurements differed between the two minicomputer systems, in part because of differences in amplitude resolution of the A/D converters and recording noise. The correlation between the two shimmer data sets was relatively high, however, indicating that relative changes across utterances were comparable in spite of magnitude differences.
Thalamic-Induced Stuttering (Surgical Observations)
Authors: Andy Orlando J. , Bhatnagar Subhash C.
Published: July 2014

Repetitive dysfluencies of speech were elicited by mechanical perturbation of the thalamus in a patient, preparatory to therapeutic lesion placement for chronic pain Perturbation consisted of a 2 mm advancement of a 1 mm diameter electrode in the posteroventromedial thalamus. A thalamogram revealed electropathologic discharges at the site of perturbation. These findings are of special interest anatomically because in other patients, electrical stimulation at the same site was found to alleviate stuttering (Andy, 1987; Andy, 1989; Andy & Jurko, 1985; Bhatnagar & Andy, 1989). It is suggested that dysfluencies in this patient may have resulted from an electrophysiologic disturbance of the mesothalamic component of a speech-regulating corticomesothalamic feedback circuit.
Communication Treatment for Adults With Dementia
Authors: Bourgeois Michelle S.
Published: July 2014

Intervention studies reporting improvements in communication skills in aging adults presumed to have dementia were identified and reviewed. Whereas the speech-language pathology journals have published only articles on the diagnosis and identification of communication deficits in adults with dementia, over 100 articles on treatments effecting changes in communicative deficiencies were found in psychology, social work, nursing, and gerontology journals. Much evidence supports the potential for positive outcomes from communication treatment with this population. Various design and methodological flaws, however, limit the extent to which these interventions should be applied without further research. Issues of ethics and social validity are discussed, and treatment and research needs are outlined.
Communication and Socialization Skills at Ages 2 and 3 in “Late-Talking” Young Children
Authors: Paul Rhea , Looney Shawn Spangle , Dahm Pamela S.
Published: July 2014

Twenty-one apparently normal children between 18 and 34 months of age with slow expressive language acquisition were compared to a group of normally speaking children matched for age, SES, and sex ratio, on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Sparrow, Balla, & Cicchetti, 1984) The late talkers (LTs) scored significantly lower not only in expressive communication, but also in receptive communication and socialization. A follow-up study of the same subjects, seen at age 3, showed nearly half the 3-year-olds with a history of LT remained delayed in expressive communication and socialization, while one third remained behind in receptive language. The data suggest that social skills are particularly vulnerable to disruption in children with late expressive language development, even after communication skills have moved into the normal range. They suggest, further, that receptive deficits do not seem, in themselves, to increase the risk of continued language delay Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Predicting Reading Problems In At-Risk Children
Authors: Menyuk Paula , Chesnick Marie , Liebergott Jacqueline Weis , Korngold Blanche , D'Agostino Ralph , Belanger Albert
Published: July 2014

This study was designed to determine early predictors of reading problems in children at risk for such problems. Three groups of children participated in the study: those with a specific language impairment; those who presumably had a language delay or disorder early in life and had no or a mild disorder at present; and a group of premature children. The data collected were standard speech and language test measures, given as the children entered the study, measures of language metaprocessing abilities on an experimental battery, given 6 months after they entered the study; and standard measures of reading, given when the children were aged 80 to 96 months. Many significant relations were found between measures of oral language ability and meta-processing ability at an earlier age and reading ability in first and second grade. The language processing battery scores accounted for a somewhat greater amount of variance on the reading tests than did the scores on the standard language tests.

Three ability groups, comparatively high, middle, and low, were found in the population as a result of cluster analysis. Some premature children and some children with early language disorder or mild language disorder at entry into the study, as well as most SLI children, were members of the low language-ability group. These data were then examined to see if membership in the low language-ability group, as measured by either standard speech and language tests or the language meta-processing battery predicted at-risk reading performance on the WRAT. Forty-six children were found to be at risk by this test. Twenty-one of the children were identified by either set of measures, an additional 10 were identified by the language meta-processing measures alone, an additional 3 by the intake measures alone, and 12 of the children were not identified by either set of measures as potential problem readers. The results indicate that early measures of language awareness are good predictors of later reading performance but that different measures of this awareness are good predictors for different children.
Teaching Consonants to Profoundly Hearing-Impaired Speakers Using Palatometry
Authors: Fletcher Samuel G. , Dagenais Paul A. , Critz-Crosby Paula
Published: July 2014

Five profoundly hearing-impaired children were taught the consonants /t,d,k,g,s,z∫/ using palatometry. Changes in linguapalatal contact patterns and listener perceptions showed significant improvement in the place and manner of consonants produced by all subjects. Velar stops were as easily and accurately learned as alveolar stops. Distinctive sibilants were also found by the end of training. Sounds not previously present in a subject’s phonetic repetoire were learned more accurately than those present but inaccurate prior to therapy. Voicing errors persisted. Two of the subjects showed evidence of newly established, unsolicited coarticulated movements. The results indicated that visual articulatory modeling and feedback of linguapalatal contact patterns is an effective means of teaching consonants and improving speech intelligibility.
Teaching Vowels to Profoundly Hearing-Impaired Speakers Using Glossometry
Authors: Fletcher Samuel G. , Dagenais Paul A. , Critz-Crosby Paula
Published: July 2014

Glossometry was used to teach the four point vowels (/i, æu,a/) to 6 profoundly hearing-impaired children. Prior to treatment, all subjects evidenced centralized tongue positions during vowel productions. After 15 to 20 fifty-minute training sessions over 3- to 4-week time periods, all subjects showed greater diversification of tongue postures for the vowels, especially in tongue height. Listener identifications were generally better after therapy. The training results suggested that visually presented models and feedback of tongue positions can facilitate more appropriate tongue postures and improve vowel intelligibility by hearing-impaired speakers.
Effects of Long-Term Tracheostomy on Spectral Characteristics of Vowel Production
Authors: Kamen Ruth Saletsky , Watson Ben C.
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the effects of long-term tracheostomy on the development of speech. Eight children who underwent tracheotomy during the prelingual period were compared to matched controls on selected spectral parameters of the speech acoustic signal and standard measures of oral-motor, phonologic, and articulatory proficiency. Analysis of formant frequency values revealed significant between-group differences. Children with histories of long-term tracheostomy showed reduced acoustic vowel space, as defined by group formant frequency values. This suggests that these children were limited in their ability to produce extreme vocal tract configurations for vowels /a,i,u/ postdecannulation. Oral motor patterns were less mature, and sound substitutions were not only more variable for this group, but also reflected a persistent overlay of maladaptive compensations developed during cannulation.
Assessment of the Dynamics of Vocal Fold Contact From the Electroglottogram
Authors: Orlikoff Robert F.
Published: July 2014

Electroglottographic (EGG) and acoustic records from 10 normal men prolonging the vowel /a/ at 60–68 dB, 70–78 dB, and 80–88 dB SPL were obtained. “Contact quotient” (EGG duty cycle) was shown to vary directly with vocal SPL. The mean contact quotient was 0.57 (
SD
=0.07) and varied on the order of 1% over the course of a given phonation. “Contact index,” a metric of EGG symmetry, also tended to vary with SPL. Consistent with previous qualitative descriptions of EGG morphology in modal register voice, the contact ndex averaged –0.52 (
SD
=0.08), indicating that the EGG “closing phase” represents about 24% of the entire “contact phase” Contact index was more variable than contact quotient on consecutive EGG waves, varying by about 10% during phonation. Subjects were also instructed to produce a slow crescendo. Sound pressure and EGG data indicated that both the slope of Increasing EGG contact and EGG duty cycle were significantly related to the amplitude of the acoustic signal These results suggest that quantitative electroglottography may provide powerful insights nto the control and regulation of normal phonation and into the detection and characterization of pathology.
Family History in Developmental Expressive Language Delay
Authors: Whitehurst Grover J. , Arnold David S. , Smith Meagan , Fischel Janet E. , Lonigan Christopher J. , Valdez-Menchaca Marta C.
Published: July 2014

Familial aggregation of language deficits has been demonstrated in previous studies. However, researchers have typically failed to differentiate subgroups of language-impaired children. The present study used questionnaire data to assess the family history of speech, language, and school problems in a group of young children with developmental expressive language delay (ELD) and in a sample of normally developing children. In contrast to previous studies of language and speech problems, no strong familial component of ELD was found. Further, family history was not predictive of later language development in ELD children. These findings argue against genetic and familial causes of ELD and attest to the importance of differentiating subtypes of early language problems.
Conductive Hearing Loss During Infancy
Authors: Gunnarson Adele D. , Finitzo Terese
Published: July 2014

Long-term effects on auditory electrophysiology from early fluctuating hearing loss were studied in 27 children, aged 5 to 7 years, who had been evaluated originally in infancy. For controls (Group A), infant auditory brain stem responses (ABRs) were normal from birth to age 2 years. A second group (Group B) had intermittent conductive hearing loss. A third group (Group C) had more abnormal ABRs during infancy than Group B and more severe and frequent conductive hearing loss. For this follow-up study, all children had normal peripheral hearing at test. ABRs were obtained to monaural and binaural stimuli. Binaural interaction (BI) in the ABR was assessed in difference traces, derived by subtracting summed binaural from summed monaural waveforms.

Controls differed from both groups with early hearing loss for wave III and wave V latencies and interpeak I–III and I–V latencies. There was a significant difference in the presence of BI. Eight of 9 A subjects and 8 of 9 B subjects, but only 4 of 9 C subjects, had demonstrable BI. Findings suggest that early fluctuating hearing loss disrupts later auditory brain stem electrophysiology.
Anticipatory Coarticulation in the Speech of Profoundly Hearing-Impaired and Normally Hearing Children
Authors: Waldstein Robin S. , Baum Shari R.
Published: July 2014

The present study investigated the extent of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of five 7-year-old and four 10-year-old children with profound prelingual hearing impairment as compared to normally hearing age-matched control subjects. Ten tokens each of the CV syllables L[∫i, ∫u, ti, tu, ki, ku] were elicited from each of the children. Both temporal and spectral (centrold and F2 frequency) analyses were conducted to explore the influence of the following vocalic environment on the initial consonants. The data indicated that the hearing-impaired children displayed evidence of coarticulation on most measures, but they did so to a lesser degree when compared to the normally hearing children. The results are discussed in relation to theories of speech production in the hearing impaired, and their implications for the development of coarticulation are considered.
Following the Rules
Authors: Luetke-Stahlman Barbara
Published: July 2014

The majority of hearing-impaired students in the United States are exposed to at least one, if not several, forms of simultaneously signed and spoken English input (e.g., Seeing Essential English, Signing Exact English, Signed/Manual English, or combinations of these systems). It was the purpose of this study to investigate teachers’ and interpreters’ consistency with regard to following the rules of three of these systems. Subjects were asked to interpret a carefully designed set of stimuli; their performance was videotaped for later bimodal transcription and analysis. Careful descriptive analysis of the form and content of the data revealed that some professionals who purported to use a particular system frequently do not follow accurately the rules of that system, but many can encode in sign themeaningof what they are saying. Signing Exact English (SEE-II) users were able to follow the rules of that system at a significantly higher percentage of time than users of either of the other two systems (p<.03 andp<.001). They also were able to encode the meaning in sign of what they were saying an average of 86% of the time—significantly higher than users of Signed/Manual English (p<.02). However, the average percentage of ability to follow the precise rules of a system was below 57% for even the adults who used SEE-II. It is possible that the acquisition of English is confounded for hearing-impaired children when professionals do not consistently sign the system they purport to use.
Social Interactions of Speech, and Language-Impaired Children
Authors: Rice Mabel L. , Sell Marie A. , Hadley Pamela A.
Published: July 2014

Social interactions among preschool children were classified into four groups according to language ability: normally developing English, specific language impairment (SLI), speech impairment (SI), and English as a second language (ESL). The children were observed in naturalistic classroom interactions on three occasions. Conversational turns were coded according to initiations and responses, and addressee. The results reveal differences across the groups of children. Normal language peers initiate interactions with each other and have a higher percentage of longer responses; normal language peers were the preferred addressee in peer initiations. In contrast, children with limited communication skills were more likely than their normal language peers to initiate with adults and to shorten their responses or use nonverbal responses. ESL children were the least likely to initiate interactions and were the most likely to be avoided as the recipient of an initiation. The findings are interpreted as evidence that preschool children are sensitive to relative communication skills and make adjustments in their social interactions accordingly. Multiple contributing factors are implicated, including intelligibility, limited linguistic flexibility, limited discourse skills, and self-consciousness about communicative competence.
Articulatory Function After Resection of the Tongue and Floor of the Mouth
Authors: Imai Satoko , Michi Ken-ichi
Published: July 2014

Linguapalatal contact patterns and the time course of changes in contacts during utterances of /asa, ata, a∫a, aça/ were measured using electropalatography (EPG). The relations between these data and perceptual scores in 17 glossectomized patients after various surgical methods were examined. The linguapalatal contact patterns produced during perceptually less distorted sounds varied with the place and manner of articulation. Patterns having very few contacts or a posterior groove produced more distorted /s/ sounds; however, types of EPG patterns producing less distorted /s/ sounds were relatively frequent. Distortion of the /∫/ and /ç/ sounds was less often produced by variation of the EPG patterns, whereas /t/ sounds were most frequently judged to be highly distorted. Patterns that showed complete constriction along the dental arch or constriction on the anterior portion of the hard palate, as well as rapid release for plosion by the tongue tip, produced less distorted /t/ sounds. The results revealed that glossectomized patients often evidenced defective stop sounds. It was concluded that mobility rather than volume of the residual tongue is required to produce less distorted stops.
Cohesion Repairs in the Narratives of Normal-Language and Language-Disordered School-Age Children
Authors: Purcell Sherry L. , Liles Betty Z.
Published: July 2014

The self-initiated repairs produced by 14 normal-language and 14 language-disordered children during a story retelling task are described. When grammatical repairs and repairs to text meaning were analysed, no group differences were found for either repair type. Both groups initiated significantly more repairs to text meaning. When repairs to text meaning were probed for the cohesive aspects of the repair activity, there were no group differences for the frequency or the types of cohesive repairs that were initiated. However, differences were significant for the success of the cohesive repair attempts and for the location of the repairs. Normal-language and language-disordered children appear to share similar strategies for monitoring narrative discourse, but they differ in their abilities to actualize their monitoring attention.
Analytic Study of the Tadoma Method
Authors: Reed Charlotte M. , Rabinowitz William M. , Durlach Nathaniel I. , Delhorne Lorraine A. , Braida Louis D. , Pemberton Joseph C. , Mulcahey Brian D. , Washington Deborah L.
Published: July 2014

Although results obtained with the Tadoma method of speechreading have set a new standard for tactual speech communication, they are nevertheless inferior to those obtained in the normal auditory domain. Speech reception through Tadoma is comparable to that of normal-hearing subjects listening to speech under adverse conditions corresponding to a speech-to-noise ratio of roughly 0 dB. The goal of the current study was to demonstrate improvements to speech reception through Tadoma through the use of supplementary tactual information, thus leading to a new standard of performance in the tactual domain. Three supplementary tactual displays were investigated: (a) an articulatory-based display of tongue contact with the hard palate; (b) a multichannel display of the short-term speech spectrum; and (c) tactual reception of Cued Speech. The ability of laboratory-trained subjects to discriminate pairs of speech segments that are highly confused through Tadoma was studied for each of these augmental displays. Generally, discrimination tests were conducted for Tadoma alone, the supplementary display alone, and Tadoma combined with the supplementary tactual display. The results indicated that the tongue-palate contact display was an effective supplement to Tadoma for improving discrimination of consonants, but that neither the tongue-palate contact display nor the short-term spectral display was highly effective in improving vowel discriminability. For both vowel and consonant stimulus pairs, discriminability was nearly perfect for the tactual reception of the manual cues associated with Cued Speech. Further experiments on the identification of speech segments were conducted for Tadoma combined with Cued Speech. The observed data for both discrimination and identification experiments are compared with the predictions of models of integration of information from separate sources.
Modifying Electroglottograph-Identified Intervals of Phonation
Authors: Gow Merrilyn L. , Ingham Roger J.
Published: July 2014

Single-subject experiments were conducted with an adolescent and an adult male who stutter to assess the effect on stuttering of changing the frequency of phonation intervals that were within prescribed duration ranges during spontaneous speech. Electroglottograph-identified intervals of phonation were measured using a computer-assisted biofeedback system. Both subjects demonstrated that their stuttering could be controlled by modifying the frequency of phonation intervals within short duration ranges. The experimental effects not only replicated earlier findings but were demonstrated to be independent of changes in speaking rate, or alterations to other intervals of phonation, and produced little disruption to speech naturalness. The theoretic implications of these findings are discussed.
The Effects of Noise Masking and Required Accuracy on Speech Errors, Disfluencies, and Self-Repairs
Authors: Postma Albert , Kolk Herman
Published: July 2014

The covert repair hypothesis views disfluencies as by-products of covert self-repairs applied to internal speech errors. To test this hypothesis we examined effects of noise masking and accuracy emphasis on speech error, disfluency, and self-repair rates. Noise reduced the numbers of disfluencies and self-repairs but did not affect speech error rates significantly. With accuracy emphasis, speech error rates decreased considerably, but disfluency and self-repair rates did not. With respect to these findings, it is argued that subjects monitor errors with less scrutiny under noise and when accuracy of speaking is unimportant. Consequently, covert and overt repair tendencies drop, a fact that is reflected by changes in disfluency and self-repair rates relative to speech error rates. Self-repair occurrence may be additionally reduced under noise because the information available for error detection—that is, the auditory signal—has also decreased. A qualitative analysis of self-repair patterns revealed that phonemic errors were usually repaired immediately after their intrusion.
Spectral Study of Deviant Resonance in the Speech of Women Who Are Deaf
Authors: Subtelny Joanne D. , Whitehead Robert L. , Samar Vincent J.
Published: July 2014

In a previous radiographic study of 4 deaf women, some aberrant features in vocal tract configuration were identified for vowels produced with excessive pharyngeal resonance These features included neutralization of tongue position, elevation of the hyoid, and a retraction of the tongue, associated with a deflection of the epiglottis in the lower pharynx The vowels, produced simultaneously with X-ray exposure, were analyzed spectrographically to study acoustic correlates of the vocal tract deformation. Comparisons of the formants for vowels /i/ /u/ and /a/ produced by the deaf women with mean formant values for these vowels produced by normal-hearing women revealed no consistent pattern of second-formant deviation Formant structure evaluated on isovowel lines disclosed consistent neutralization of vowels, with F
2
. values clustering in the 1500–2100 Hz frequency range, which is attributed to the observed restricted horizontal movements of the tongue within the oral and pharyngeal cavities If such restrictions affect the production of all vowels, a lower F
2
might be assumed for the front vowels, which normally have a high F
2
, a higher F
2
frequency would be anticipated for back vowels, which normally have a low F
2
The limited sample studied supports this assumption
Evaluation of the Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) Test for Hearing Aid Comparisons
Authors: McDaniel D. Michael , Cox Robyn M.
Published: July 2014

The SIR test was created for use in hearing aid comparisons. The test protocol obtains listener judgments of the intelligibility of connected speech passages. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the SIR test in differentiating among hearing aids Specific research questions were (a) Is the sensitivity of the SIR test sufficient for differentiating among very similar and slightly dissimilar hearing aids? (b) Does the SIR test result In reliable heanng aid rankings? and (c) What are the effects of using shortened connected speech passages? Ten listeners with hearing impairments rated the intelligibility of both full-length and shortened SIR test passages while wearing each of four individually selected hearing aids representing three different frequency/gain prescriptions. Results suggested that the SIR test is capable of differentiating among slightly dissimilar hearing aids and that hearing aid rankings resulting from speech Intelligibility ratings were reliable. The decision to use full-length or shortened SIR test passages depends on the outcome the user wishes to maximize Under the conditions used n this study, maximum sensitivity was achieved with ratings from five shortened passages, whereas maximum reliability was obtained with three full-length passages.
Vocal Tract Steadiness
Authors: Zwirner Petra , Barnes Gary J.
Published: July 2014

Acoustic analyses of upper airway and phonatory stability were conducted on samples of sustained phonation to evaluate the relation between laryngeal and articulomotor stability for 31 patients with dysarthria and 12 non-dysarthric control subjects. Significantly higher values were found for the variability in fundamental frequency and formant frequency of patients who have Huntington’s disease compared with normal subjects and patients with Parkinson’s disease. No significant correlations were found between formant frequency variability and the variability of the fundamental frequency for any subject group. These findings are discussed as they pertain to the relationship between phonatory and upper airway subsystems and the evaluation of vocal tract motor control impairments in dysarthria.
Locus Equations As an Index of Coarticulation for Place of Articulation Distinctions in Children
Authors: Sussman Harvey M. , Hoemeke Katherine A. , McCaffrey Helen A.
Published: July 2014

Locus equations were investigated as a phonetic index for children’ s production of stop + vowel tokens. Locus equations are straight-line regression fits to data points formed by plotting onsets of F2 transitions along the ordinate and their corresponding midvowel nuclei along the abscissa. Such functions for adult speech have been found to be extremely linear with slope and y-intercept values contrastively distinctive across place of articulation. Sixteen children, aged 3–5 years, produced /bVt/, /dVt/, and /gVt/ tokens embedded in a carder phrase and repeated in randomized order a minimum of three times. Six medial vowel contexts were used [i, I, ae, ٨ , a, u]. Both individual and group mean scatterplots were extremely linear and highly remniscent of adult prototypes. While labial and velar slopes exhibited some degree of overlap, labial versus alveolar and alveolar versus velar slopes were significantly different. All y-intercepts as a function of place of articulation were significantly different. Compared to adult norms, intersubject variability of slope and y-intercept ranges were greater for children. Locus equations can provide a phonetic descriptor for a child’ s attainment of stop place categories seeking to achieve the adult standard of a balance between coarticulatory adjustments and contrastive distinctiveness.
Morpheme Learning of Children With Specific Language Impairment Under Controlled Instructional Conditions
Authors: Connell Phil J. , Stone C. Addison
Published: July 2014

Three groups of children were exposed to instances of a novel morpheme under controlled experimental conditions. The performance of 32 children with specific language impairment (SLI), aged 5:0 to 7:0 years (years:months), was compared to that of 24 normally developing children matched for age and nonverbal ability and 20 younger normally developing children matched for language development and nonverbal ability. The children were taught under two instructional conditions that differed only in whether the child was asked to imitate the new language form after each instance imitation) or just to observe its use (modeling). Consistent with past research (Connell, 1987b), the children with SLI performed significantly better under the imitation condition than under modeling, but the age-matched controls showed no difference in response to instruction. The performance of the language-matched controls was similar to that of the age-matched controls, suggesting that the instruction-specific effect for the children with SLI is not merely a function of general language immaturity. Although the superiority of the imitation condition for the children with SLI was evident for test trials requiring production of the new morpheme (as in past research), no such effect was evident for comprehension trials. This differing effect of output demands suggests that the SLI-specific response to instruction is not a matter of different mastery of the new rule but rather is specific to the need to access the newly induced rule on production trials. The accessing of phonological representations as a possible explanation for the effect is discussed.
The Conditions and Course of Clinically Induced Phonological Change
Authors: Gierut Judith A.
Published: July 2014

This two-part study continued the evaluation of minimal pair treatment in phonological change (Gierut, 1989, 1990, 1991a; Gierut & Neumann, 1992). Three linguistic variables relevant to change were experimentally manipulated within an alternating treatments design to determine specifically the interplay of a maximal number of feature distinctions, feature class, and relationship of treated phonemes to a child's grammar in inducing sound change. The conditions of treatment that were shown to facilitate optimal phonological change in previous research were again experimentally replicated. Specifically, minimal pairs comparing two phonemes previously unknown to a child that also differed by maximal and major class features were found to be the preferred context motivating change. Important individual differences emerged and underscored the role of a child's pretreatment grammar in phonological change. These differences contributed to descriptions of possible courses of change followed by children with phonological disorders and bear upon the predictability of change and the effectiveness of treatments that may condition change.
Choosing a Treatment Procedure for Early Stuttering
Authors: Onslow Mark
Published: July 2014

The new responsibility of speech-language pathologists to provide direct, early intervention for stuttering creates a further responsibility for them to choose justifiable treatment procedures for that intervention. This paper has two purposes. The first is to encourage clinicians to evaluate the conceptual and practical aspects of the treatments they use for early stuttering. The second purpose of the paper is to overview available early intervention procedures and consider the advantages, disadvantages, and prominent issues associated with each. The procedures considered are environment manipulation, prolonged speech, and response-contingent stimulation. It is concluded that clinicians have no cause to be satisfied with any currently available early intervention procedure. Further, it is concluded that (a) although anticipatory struggle theories have made a useful contribution to scholarship, their line of theoretical reasoning is questionable for clinical practice; (b) although theoretically sound for the purpose, variants of prolonged speech pose prohibitive conceptual and practical shortcomings if they are used to treat very young stuttering children; (c) despite its disadvantages, response contingent stimulation is the most conceptually and practically justifiable method for early intervention with stuttering.
Disfluencies in the Conversations of Young Children Who Stutter
Authors: Weiss Amy L. , Zebrowski Patricia M.
Published: July 2014

Parents of children who stutter are often advised to reduce the number of questions they ask their children. Implicit in this advice is the assumption that children who stutter will be more disfluent when answering questions. This study assessed parent-child conversational speech for 8 parent-child pairs to determine the relative amounts of disfluency in the child’s responses to questions versus making assertions. Length and complexity of the children’s utterances and the frequency of the parents’ requests by level of demand were also evaluated.

Results suggested that the responses made by the children to their parents’ requests were significantly less likely to contain disfluencies than were their assertions. Also, longer and more complex utterances were more likely to contain disfluencies, regardless of their designation as assertions or responses. Parents were shown to favor request types of lower levels of demand in conversations. Requests posed with greater levels of demand were somewhat more likely to yield disfluent responses than were those at a lower demand level.
Modifications in Sign Under Conditions of Impeded Visibility
Authors: Naeve Susan L. , Siegel Gerald M. , Clay John L.
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the effects of reduced visibility on the distance of signing hands from the bodies of adult signers who are deaf and on their rates of sign production. Subjects were videotaped as they signed with partners in each of three experimental conditions: unimpeded, moderately impeded, and severely impeded visibility. Visual impedance was created by placing screens between signing partners. The distance of a hand from the body, in terms of lateral, vertical, and forward-depth dimensions, was determined from digitized measurements of single video frames randomly selected from those in which the subject was actively signing. Sign rate was calculated as the number of signs produced in a given segment of time. Signs produced in the severely impeded visibility condition were found to be made at a slower rate and with a mean hand position further forward and vertically higher than signs produced in the unimpeded visibility condition.
Sustained Benefits of Hearing Aids
Authors: Mulrow Cynthia D. , Tuley Michael R. , Aguilar Christine
Published: July 2014

This study was designed to evaluate long-term benefits of hearing aids in elderly individuals with hearing loss. A primary care cohort of 192 elderly, hearing-impaired veterans (mean age 72 ± 6, 97% White, 94% retired) were assessed at baseline and at 4, 8, and 12 months after hearing aid fitting. Drop-out rates at 4, 8, and 12 months were 5%, 13%, and 16%, respectively. Outcome assessments included several quality-of-life scales: Hearing Handicap Inventory in the Elderly (HHIE), Quantified Denver Scale of Communication Function (QDS), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ). All quality-of-life areas improved significantly from baseline to 4-month post-hearing aid fittings (
p
< 0.05). Social and emotional (HHIE), communication (QDS), and depression (GDS) benefits were sustained at 8 and 12 months, whereas cognitive changes (SPMSQ) reverted to baseline at 12 months. We conclude that hearing aids provide sustained benefits for at least a year in these elderly individuals with hearing impairment.
Multiple Frequency Tympanometry
Authors: Shanks Janet E. , Wilson Richard H. , Cambron Nancy K.
Published: July 2014

Three methods for compensating multiple frequency acoustic admittance measurements for ear canal volume were studied in 26 men with normal middle ear transmission systems. Peak compensated static acoustic admittance (|y|) and phase angle (ø) were calculated from sweep frequency tympanograms (226–1243 Hz in 113 Hz increments). Of the procedures used to compensate for volume in rectangular form, the ear canal pressure used to estimate volume had the largest effect on the estimate of middle ear resonance. Median resonance was 800 Hz for admittance measurements compensated at 200 daPa versus 1100 Hz for measurements compensated at –350 daPa. The remaining two methods, compensation of susceptance only versus both susceptance and conductance and compensation using the minimum volume versus separate volumes at each frequency, did not affect estimates of middle ear resonance. Estimates of middle ear resonance from compensated phase angle measurements also were compared with estimates of resonance from admittance and phase difference curves. although resonance could not be estimated from the phase difference curve, resonance estimated from the admittance difference curve agreed with the estimate from compensated phase angle.
Speech Intelligibility of Children With Cochlear Implants, Tactile Aids, or Hearing Aids
Authors: Osberger Mary Joe , Maso Monica , Sam Leslie K.
Published: July 2014

Speech intelligibility was measured in 31 children who used the 3M/House single-channel implant (
n
=12), the Nucleus 22-Channel Cochlear Implant System (
n
=15), or the Tactaid II + two-channel vibrotactile aid (
n
=4). The subjects were divided into subgroups based on age at onset of deafness (early or late). The speech intelligibility of the experimental subjects was compared to that of children who were profoundly hearing impaired who used conventional hearing aids (
n
=12) or no sensory aid (
n
=2). The subjects with early onset of deafness who received their single- or multichannel cochlear implant before age 10 demonstrated the highest speech intelligibility, whereas subjects who did not receive their device until after age 10 had the poorest speech intelligibility. There was no obvious difference in the speech intelligibility scores of these subjects as a function of type of device (implant or tactile aid). On the average, the postimplant or tactile aid speech intelligibility of the subjects with early onset of deafness was similar to that of hearing aid users with hearing levels between 100 and 110 dB HL and limited hearing in the high frequencies. The speech intelligibility of subjects with late onset of deafness showed marked deterioration after the onset of deafness with relatively large improvements by most subjects after they received a single- or multichannel implant. The one subject with late onset of deafness who used a tactile aid showed no improvement in speech intelligibility.
Facilitating Prelinguistic Communication Skills in Young Children With Developmental Delay
Authors: Warren Steven F. , Yoder Paul J. , Gazdag Gail E. , Kim Kyoungran , Jones Hazel A.
Published: July 2014

Very little research has focused on the development and evaluation of intervention strategies designed to facilitate the acquisition of prelinguistic communication skills. We conducted two experiments to determine the effects of a milieu teaching approach on the acquisition and generalization of specific prelinguistic communication skills. In the first experiment, we utilized this intervention approach within a multiple baseline design to teach prelinguistic requesting, commenting, and vocal imitation to a single subject with Down syndrome and language delay. The results indicated that the intervention approach was effective at facilitating the child’s use of these skills within the treatment setting. Therefore, in the second experiment we conducted a more comprehensive analysis of this approach with 4 subjects with mental retardation. Three of these subjects were taught to request, and 1 subject was taught both to request and to comment. The effects were experimentally evaluated with multiple baseline across subjects design. The results indicated that the intervention was effective in eliciting the intervention targets within the training setting for all 4 subjects. All 4 subjects showed evidence of generalization across stimulus materials, setting, teachers, and interaction style. There was also evidence of reciprocal effects on how classroom teachers in the generalization setting interacted with the subjects as a result of changes in the child’s communication behavior.
Differences Between Stutterers' and Nonstutterers' Short-Term Recall and Recognition Performance
Authors: Bosshardt Hans-Georg
Published: July 2014

Longer rehearsal times presumably reduce the efficiency of rehearsal and, hence, of short-term recall. The present experiment examined the question as to whether the slower subvocalization rate of people who stutter is correlated with inferior short-term serial recall and recognition performance. Rate of overt articulation was taken as a measure of rehearsal time. Lists of four nonlexical CVC syllables were presented for short-term serial recall and for short-term recognition. Nineteen adults who stutter and 30 nonstutterers participated in the experiment. In the serial reproduction task the subjects who stuttered reproduced significantly fewer items correctly than did nonstutterers. Recognition performance was measured by nonparametric measures of sensitivity and bias as defined in signal detection theory. The stuttering subjects had a significantly lower sensitivity resulting primarily from a higher false alarm rate. Rate of overt articulation was significantly related to one measure of short-term recall but not to the sensitivity of recognition. These results were interpreted as suggesting that people who stutter have slower phonological encoding and rehearsal times, that they make less use of nonphonological forms of coding than do nonstutterers, and that within their phonological system, activation more easily spills over to similar items.
A Maximum-Force-Dependent Protocol for Assessing Labial Force Control
Authors: Amerman James D.
Published: July 2014

A protocol based on target levels, referenced to maximum voluntary closing force (MVCF), was used to assess static force control in the perioral musculature. Twenty normal-speaking subjects were instructed to produce rapid and accurate isometric force trajectories to end-point target levels and maintain force on-target for 5 sec while viewing a computer monitor. Each lip was assessed on a number of quantitative force control measures at 10, 20, 50, and 75% of MVCF. The 10% and 20% target levels were included so that static force control could be evaluated within the presumed physiological operating range for normal speech. Results of the target-level scaling procedure revealed that the upper lip was more stable in controlling force at all four targets. The use of MVCF-based target scaling is discussed in relation to absolute nonscaled force analysis methods applied to the perioral motor system.
Time-Interval Measurement of Stuttering
Authors: Ingham Roger J. , Cordes Anne K. , Gow Merrilyn L.
Published: July 2014

This paper reports the results of two experiments that investigated interval-by-interval inter and intrajudge agreement for stuttered and nonstuttered speech intervals (4.0 sec). The first experiment demonstrated that interval-by-interval interjudge agreement could be significantly improved, and to satisfactory levels, by training judges to discriminate between experimenter-agreed intervals of stuttered and nonstuttered speech. The findings also showed that, independent of training, judges with relatively high intrajudge agreement also showed relatively higher interjudge agreement. The second experiment showed that interval-by-interval interjudge agreement was not significantly different if judges rated 4-sec speech intervals from different samples under three conditions: in random order, separated by 5-sec recording intervals; in correct order, also separated by 5-sec recording intervals; or after brief judgment signals that occurred every 4 sec during continuous samples. The implications of these findings for stuttering measurement are discussed.
Relationships Between Acoustically Determined Knowledge of Stop Place and Voicing Contrasts and Phonological Treatment Progress
Authors: Tyler Ann A. , Figurski G. Randall , Langsdale Teru
Published: July 2014

The speech of 7 children with phonological disorders (4 who failed to produce an initial voicing contrast for stops and 3 who failed to produce the alveolar-velar stop contrast) was analyzed for imperceptible acoustic distinctions for seemingly homophonous word pairs. Subjects were audio/video recorded before and during treatment as they produced minimal pairs containing their error and correct sounds. Acoustic measures were VOT and CV locus equations. The presence of acoustic distinctions was taken as evidence for productive knowledge of the sound contrasts. Treatment was applied experimentally and progress was related to pretreatment productive knowledge inferred from acoustic distinctions. A shorter treatment period was observed for subjects attributed to have productive knowledge of the contrast being trained, as compared with those who had no knowledge. One of the 4 subjects with initial voicing errors produced an acoustic distinction between voiced and voiceless stops and required the shortest treatment period to establish the voicing contrast. Two of 3 subjects with velar fronting displayed coarticulatory characteristics of velars and required fewer treatment sessions in comparison with the subject with no such characteristics. Results are discussed in reference to other linguistic and nonlinguistic variables from which to predict treatment outcomes.
Effects of Word Predictability, Child Development, and Aging on Time-Gated Speech Recognition Performance
Authors: Craig Chie H. , Kim Byoung W. , Rhyner Paula M. Pecyna , Chirillo Tricia K. Bowen
Published: July 2014

This study examined the interaction of acoustic-phonetic information with higher-level linguistic contextual information during the real-time speech perception process in child, young adult, and older adult listeners. Five age groups were studied: (a) young children ranging in age from 5 to 7 years, (b) older children aged 8 to 10 years, (c) young adults aged 18 to 23 years, (d) older adults aged 60 to 69 years, and (e) older adults aged 70 to 83 years. All subjects were presented with time-gated monosyllabic target words presented in sentence contexts containing contrasting levels of word predictability. Findings indicated that target word predictability influenced the timing and nature of the real-time recognition process including the listeners’ use of initial word sounds. Predictability-high (PH) words were recognized earlier and with greater confidence than predictability-low (PL) words. PH recognition performance was more influenced by child development and aging than PL recognition performance. Older adult listeners required more PH-gated word stimuli to produce accurate responses than younger adults. Older children showed more effective use of PH contexts than younger children.