bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Use of Repair Strategies by Children With and Without Hearing Impairment
Authors: Most Tova
Published: April 2006

Purpose:
This study examined how students with hearing impairments, having different levels of speech intelligibility, responded to a communication breakdown as compared to students with normal hearing.

Method:
Participants included 16 students with profound hearing impairment who were assessed as having age-appropriate expressive language (8 with good speech intelligibility and 8 with poor speech intelligibility) and 10 students with normal hearing, ages 11–18 years. The students’ task was to describe pictures and to respond to a series of three clarification requests ("Huh?," "What?," and "I didn’t understand") presented by the examiner.

Results:
Repetition was the most frequently used strategy by all groups. However, significant differences emerged in the use of other repair strategies among the three groups. The group’s choice of strategies across the three requests also differed significantly.

Clinical Implications:
Although the groups evidenced similar levels of age-appropriate expressive language, they appeared to differ in its pragmatic use. It was suggested that strategy training programs should consider the speech intelligibility of the speaker and be tailored according to individual needs.
Challenges in Optimizing Oral Communication in Children With Cochlear Implants
Authors: Ertmer David J.
Published: April 2006

As the number of children with cochlear implants increases, more speech and hearing professionals will be called on to take leadership roles in developing specialized intervention and educational programs. Because of their graduate-level training in speech, language, and hearing disorders, speech-language pathologists and audiologists will increasingly find themselves viewed as "local experts" on cochlear implant issues. The articles in this forum support that role by addressing topics that are critical for serving children who have cochlear implants. Although cochlear implant technology clearly has impressive potential for improving the lives of deaf children, the actualization of those improvements requires informed and concerted effort from highly skilled professionals. It is hoped that the information in this clinical forum will enable readers to expand their knowledge base and clinical skills to meet the challenges of serving children who have cochlear implants.
Understanding and Intervening With the Challenging Behavior of Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
Authors: Buschbacher Pamelazita W. , Fox Lise
Published: April 2006

Young children with autism and behavioral challenges are at great risk for lives that are characterized by social isolation and segregated placements. These restrictive placements often occur when the child’s challenging behavior interferes with successful adaptation in educational, therapeutic, and community environments. In this article, positive behavior support is described as a process that may be used to understand and intervene effectively with the challenging behavior of young children with autism. The article describes the history, empirical support, and implementation steps of positive behavior support. A case study is provided to illustrate successful application of the process.
Digital Data Collection and Analysis
Authors: Ingram Kelly , Bunta Ferenc , Ingram David
Published: April 2006

Technology for digital speech recording and speech analysis is now readily available for all clinicians who use a computer. This article discusses some advantages of moving from analog to digital recordings and outlines basic recording procedures. The purpose of this article is to familiarize speech-language pathologists with computerized audio files and the benefits of working with those sound files as opposed to using analog recordings. This article addresses transcription issues and offers practical examples of various functions, such as playback, editing sound files, using waveform displays, and extracting utterances. An appendix is provided that describes step-by-step how digital recording can be done. It also provides some editing examples and a list of useful computer programs for audio editing and speech analyses. In addition, this article includes suggestions for clinical uses in both the assessment and the treatment of various speech and language disorders.
Performance of Elementary-Grade African American Students on the Gray Oral Reading Tests
Authors: Craig Holly K. , Thompson Connie A. , Washington Julie A. , Potter Stephanie L.
Published: April 2006

Purpose:African American students perform disproportionately more poorly on standardized reading assessments than their majority peers. Poor reading performances may be related to test biases inherent in standardized reading instruments. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the appropriateness of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Third Edition (GORT-3; Wiederholt & Bryant, 1992) for assessing the reading abilities of elementary-grade African American students.

Method:Performances of 65 typically developing African American second through fifth graders were examined on the GORT-3.

Results:African American English (AAE) was produced by most students while reading passages from the GORT-3 that were written in Standard American English (SAE). A scoring correction for AAE resulted in a statistical improvement in the performance distributions, but this did not appear to be educationally significant. Measures of total feature production predicted reading accuracy and rate, but not comprehension.

Clinical Implications:Findings are discussed in terms of the appropriateness of this instrument for use by speech-language pathologists as they contribute to curricular and classroom placement decisions in schools with large numbers of typically developing African American students.
Print Referencing
Authors: Justice Laura M. , Ezell Helen K.
Published: April 2006

Print referencing is an evidence-based strategy that may be used by speech-language pathologists and other early childhood specialists to enhance the emergent literacy skills of young children. Print referencing is a strategy implemented within the context of adult-child shared storybook reading interactions, and specifically refers to the use of verbal and nonverbal cues to encourage children’s attention to and interactions with print. Print referencing increases the metalinguistic focus of storybook reading interactions. When print referencing is delivered within the children’s zone of proximal development, clinicians can foster children’s movement from dependent to independent mastery of key emergent literacy concepts. This clinical exchange provides suggestions for using print referencing as a clinical tool, including a theoretical overview of this approach and descriptions of clinical targets.
Description of a Program for Social Language Intervention
Authors: Brinton Bonnie , Robinson Lee A. , Fujiki Martin
Published: April 2006

Adolescents with impaired language comprehension and formulation skills often experience difficulty keeping up with the linguistic and social demands of peer interaction. This clinical exchange describes an individualized treatment program designed to increase the conversational skill of an adolescent male with language impairment. Treatment focused on increasing awareness of the listener’s needs and on balancing the exchange of conversational turns. Clinical performance, parent report, and client report were used to assess outcomes.
The Relationship Between Minimum Data Set Ratings and Scores on Measures of Communication and Hearing Among Nursing Home Residents With Dementia
Authors: Hopper Tammy , Bayles Kathryn A. , Harris Frances P. , Holland Audrey
Published: April 2006

The Minimum Data Set (MDS) is a federally mandated assessment tool used to evaluate individuals residing in skilled nursing facilities, a large percentage of whom have dementia. Best described as a rating scale, it comprises items related to 16 domains of functioning, including communication and hearing. Typically, the MDS is completed by a nurse. When a deficit is observed, Resident Assessment Protocols (RAPs) are designed to address the impairment and provide information for appropriate plans of care. The purposes of this study were to: (a) comprehensively assess the communication and hearing function of nursing home residents with dementia, (b) evaluate the relationship between ratings on MDS communication and hearing items and the performance of dementia patients on standardized assessments, and (c) determine the number of residents with MDS-identified deficits who received a referral for further evaluation.

Fifty-seven individuals with a medical diagnosis of dementia participated. All exhibited deficits in communication and hearing function; however, the majority of participants were rated as having normal or adequate communication and hearing on the MDS. Of those participants with MDS-identified impairments in communication and hearing, none was referred for further evaluation. Implications for policy and care for nursing home residents with dementia are discussed.
The Effect of Dialect on Phonological Analysis
Authors: Goldstein Brian A. , Iglesias Aquiles
Published: April 2006

This study examines the effect of dialect on phonological analyses in Spanish-speaking children. Phonological analyses were completed for fifty-four 3- and 4-year-old typically developing Spanish speakers and fifty-four 3-and 4-year-old Spanish speakers with phonological disorders. Analyses were made in reference to both the General Spanish dialect and the Puerto Rican dialect of Spanish to demonstrate the effect of dialect on the results. The results indicated that the number of consonant errors, percentage of consonants correct, number of errors within individual sound classes, and percentage of occurrence for phonological processes all differed based on the accounting of dialect features.
Binding the Abdomen Can Improve Speech in Men With Phrenic Nerve Pacers
Authors: Hoit Jeannette D. , Banzett Robert B. , Brown Robert
Published: April 2006

Two men with high cervical spinal cord injuries and phrenic nerve pacers were studied with and without an elastic binder around the abdomen. Speech improved with the binder, as determined by listener preference ratings provided by 10 judges and by the subjects themselves. Improvement was substantial in one subject and slight in the other. The subject with the greater improvement exhibited higher peak tracheal pressure, higher sound pressure level, and longer utterance duration with the binder in place. Speech improvement was attributed primarily to augmentation of tidal volume associated with the use of the binder. An abdominal binder can be an effective intervention to improve speech in certain individuals with spinal cord injuries and phrenic nerve pacers. Speech may be further improved by using behavioral strategies, such as neck muscle activation, glossopharyngeal breathing, and pharyngeal or buccal speech production.
The Tudor Study
Authors: Ambrose Nicoline Grinager , Yairi Ehud
Published: April 2006

Recent exposure of an experiment (the Tudor Study) conducted in 1939 at the University of Iowa with the aim of studying the effect of verbal labeling on the frequency of disfluency in children who stutter and in normally fluent children has raised strong reactions both from the general public and the scientific community. Allegedly, the investigator and her mentor, a past leader in the field of speech pathology, were successful in their attempts to induce stuttering in normally speaking children; hence, serious accusations of breech of ethics in science have been made. The potential clinical implications of such conclusions for the treatment of early childhood stuttering are far reaching and negate recent developments that employ direct therapies with preschool children who show signs of stuttering. The purpose of this article is to re-examine the data reported in the Tudor Study and its ethical ramifications. We conclude that none of the experimental questions posed by Tudor and Johnson received empirical support. A broad range of relevant ethical issues is discussed.
Speech Recognition Technology Applications in Communication Disorders
Authors: Venkatagiri H. S.
Published: April 2006

Speech recognition (SR) is the process whereby a microprocessor-based system, typically a computer with sound processing hardware and speech recognition software, responds in predictable ways to spoken commands and/or converts speech into text. This tutorial describes the types and the general uses of SR and provides an explanation of the technology behind it. The emerging applications of SR technology for dictation, articulation training, language and literacy development, environmental control, and communication augmentation are discussed.
Effects of Presentation Mode and Repeated Familiarization on Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech
Authors: Hustad Katherine C. , Cahill Meghan A.
Published: April 2006

Clinical measures of speech intelligibility are widely used as one means of characterizing the speech of individuals with dysarthria. Many variables associated with both the speaker and the listener contribute to what is actually measured as intelligibility. The present study explored the effects of presentation modality (audiovisual vs. audio-only information) and the effects of speaker-specific familiarization across 4 trials on the intelligibility of speakers with mild and severe dysarthria associated with cerebral palsy. Results revealed that audiovisual information did not enhance intelligibility relative to audio-only information for 4 of the 5 speakers studied. The one speaker whose intelligibility increased when audiovisual information was presented had the most severe dysarthria and concomitant motor impairments. Results for speaker-specific repeated familiarization were relatively homogeneous across speakers, demonstrating significant intelligibility score improvements across 4 trials and, in particular, a significant improvement in intelligibility between the 1st and 4th trials.
Semantic Feature Analysis Treatment for Anomia in Two Fluent Aphasia Syndromes
Authors: Boyle Mary
Published: April 2006

The effect of semantic feature analysis (SFA) treatment on confrontation naming and discourse production was examined in 2 persons, 1 with anomic aphasia and 1 with Wernicke's aphasia. Results indicated that confrontation naming of treated nouns improved and generalized to untreated nouns for both participants, who appeared to have different lexical access impairments. Both participants demonstrated improvement in some aspects of discourse production associated with the confrontation naming SFA treatment. However, there was no change in most manifestations of lexical retrieval difficulty during discourse for either participant. These findings support previous work regarding improved and generalized naming associated with SFA treatment and indicate a need to examine effects of improved confrontation naming on more natural speaking situations.
A Guide to Child Nonverbal IQ Measures
Authors: DeThorne Laura S. , Schaefer Barbara A.
Published: April 2006

This guide provides a basic overview of 16 child nonverbal IQ measures and uses a set of specified criteria to evaluate them in terms of their psychometric properties. In doing so, the goal is neither to validate nor to criticize current uses of IQ but to (a) familiarize clinicians and investigators with the variety of nonverbal IQ measures currently available, (b) highlight some of the important distinctions among them, and (c) provide recommendations for the selection and interpretation of nonverbal IQ measures.
A Clinical Trial of the ReSound IC4 Hearing Device
Authors: Walden Brian E. , Surr Rauna K. , Cord Mary T. , Pavlovic Chaslav V.
Published: April 2006

A manufacturer-sponsored clinical trial was conducted of ReSound Corporation's IC4 hearing device (HD), an in-the-ear application of their two-channel, fast-acting, widedynamic range compression sound processor. This study was a follow-up to an earlier clinical trial of ReSound's behind-the-ear version of the same sound processor, the BT2 Personal Hearing System (Walden, B. E., Surr, R. K., Cord, M. T., & Pavlovic, C. V. (1998). A clinical trial of the ReSound BT2 Personal Hearing System.
American Journal of Audiology, 7
, 85–100). Forty adult males with gradually sloping, moderate sensorineural hearing losses participated. All were experienced hearing aid users who wore linear Class D instruments with input compression limiting at the time of their enrollment in this study. The Connected Speech Test, presented at several presentation levels and under various conditions of signal degradation, and the scales and subscales of the Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit were used to evaluate hearing aid performance and benefit under four relatively independent prototype listening situations (Walden, B. E., Demorest, M. E., & Hepler, E. L. (1984). Self-report approach to assessing benefit derived from amplification.
Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 27
, 49–56). Aided performance with the IC4 HD was compared with (a) unaided performance, (b) performance of persons with normal hearing, and (c) performance with linear amplification. Participants with hearing loss obtained significant benefit from the IC4 HD, although IC4-aided performance remained well below that of unaided performance of persons with normal hearing, especially on laboratory measures of speech recognition. Furthermore, small mean performance advantages were observed for the IC4 HD compared to linear hearing aids, although there was substantial variability across participants. Finally, when given a choice to either purchase the IC4 HD at a discount from the manufacturer or continue using their own government-issued linear hearing aids, the majority of the participants chose to purchase the IC4 HD.
ANSI Update
Authors: Frank Tom
Published: April 2006

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) specifies maximum permissible ambient noise levels (MPANLs) allowed in an audiometric test room to ensure that hearing thresholds obtained down to 0-dB HL will not be elevated due to masking by ambient noise. MPANLs were originally specified in 1960 and have been revised in 1977, 1991, and most recently in 1999. The purpose of this report is to offer an overview by providing a historical perspective of the MPANLs recently specified by ANSI (ANSI S3.1-1999), the rationale for revising the MPANLs, the new computational method used for determining the 1999 MPANLs, the ANSI S3.1-1999 octave and one-third octave band MPANLs, and information concerning compliance with the new MPANLs.
Outcome of Newborn Hearing Screening by ABR Compared With Four Different DPOAE Pass Criteria
Authors: Barker Susan E. , Lesperance Marci M. , Kileny Paul R.
Published: April 2006

The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness and utility of distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) and auditory brain stem response (ABR) testing as screening methodologies suitable for universal application at a large birthing hospital. Five hundred sixty-nine neonates (1184 ears) without risk indicators for hearing loss underwent DPOAE and ABR screening before hospital discharge at birth. All ears (100%) passed the ABR screening. DPOAE results were categorized on the basis of the number of frequencies at which emissions were obtained as well as presence versus absence of a replicated response at each test frequency. Pass and refer rates varied widely, on the basis of whether the presence of DPOAE response at 2000 Hz or replication were required. With the most stringent criteria, only 64.44% of ears passed, whereas with the least stringent criteria 88.94% passed. Given that 100% of ears passed according to the gold standard of the ABR screening, these results indicate false-positive rates ranging from 11% to 35% by DPOAE screening. This discrepancy in pass and refer rates when various criteria are applied indicates the need for standardization and further comparison of appropriate pass criteria for newborn hearing screening programs.
An Electrophysiological Measure of Temporal Resolution in Normal Subjects Using Frequency Modulated Signals
Authors: McCaslin Devin L. , Feth Lawrence L. , Jacobson Gary P. , Mishler Pamela J.
Published: April 2006

This investigation was conducted to determine whether an exogenous event-related potential called the mismatch negativity (MMN) would change systematically in response to frequency-modulated signals with varying temporal properties. Both N1 and P2 waveforms were recorded for 50-ms frequency-modulated signals from normal hearing listeners. The standard stimuli for this investigation were continuous sweep tones with center frequencies of 1000 Hz that traversed a frequency range of 200 Hz in a single step. The rare stimuli were signals that traversed the same frequency range in two, four, six, or eight discrete steps. Results suggest that for the 10 participants, 1) the mean MMN peak-to-peak amplitude and mean area decreased significantly with decreases in step duration, 2) MMN area amplitude was the best indicator of psychophysical performance for the two magnitude measures, and 3) MMN onsets and peak latencies did not show either a significant increase or decrease in latency as step duration decreased.
Hearing Loss- and Hearing Aid-Related Stigma
Authors: Erler Susan F. , Garstecki Dean C.
Published: April 2006

Impaired hearing and the use of hearing aids are often perceived negatively. Many adults deny hearing loss and reject amplification, in part due to such stigma. Women and men differ in how they age and adjust to impaired hearing, yet little is known specifically about women’s perceptions of stigma related to hearing loss and hearing aid use. The purpose of this study was to examine the degree of stigma associated with hearing loss and hearing aid use among women in three age groups (35–45 years, 55–65 years, and 75–85 years). Participants were 191 women with hearing within normal limits based on age-related norms. Using pairs of descriptors (i.e., semantic differentials), participants completed statements related to hearing loss and hearing aid use. Results suggest that negative perceptions associated with hearing loss and hearing aid use are affected by age. Younger women perceive greater stigma than older women. Less stigma is associated with hearing aid use than hearing loss, suggesting a positive effect of hearing loss management. Implications for clinical practice and marketing of hearing instruments are discussed.
A Comparison of Single-Channel Linear Amplification and Two-Channel Wide-Dynamic-Range-Compression Amplification by Means of an Independent-Group Design
Authors: Humes Larry E. , Humes Lauren E. , Wilson Dana L.
Published: April 2006

The present study used an independent-group design to compare the benefits provided by binaural, single-channel, linear, full-shell in-the-ear hearing aids and binaural, 2-channel, wide-dynamic-range-compression in-the-canal hearing aids in groups of older hearing aid wearers. Hearing aid outcome measures were obtained at both 1-month (n= 53) and 6-month (n= 34) postfit intervals with each device. Outcome measures included multiple measures of speech-recognition performance and self-report measures of hearing aid benefit, satisfaction, and usage. Aided sound-quality measurements were also obtained. Although both devices provided significant benefits to the wearers, there were no significant differences in the benefits provided by either device at the 1-month or 6-month postfit intervals.
Most Comfortable and Uncomfortable Loudness Levels
Authors: Punch Jerry , Joseph Antony , Rakerd Brad
Published: April 2006

This article critically reviews the influence of such factors as psychophysical testing method, stimulus type, and instructional set on most comfortable loudness (MCL) and uncomfortable loudness (UCL) levels. Generally, research indicates that test methods and instructions strongly affect both MCL and UCL while stimulus conditions affect them less substantially. Overall, the data suggest lower reliability for MCL than for UCL and lower reliability for pure-tone MCLs than for speech MCLs. Lower MCLs are typically obtained when measured by an ascending approach, in contrast to a descending approach. Results suggest that audiological efforts should be directed toward the development of a standardized test procedure that yields adequately reliable and valid MCLs and UCLs for routine clinical use.
A Quantitative Output-Cost Ratio in Voice Production
Authors: Berry David A. , Verdolini Katherine , Montequin Douglas W. , Hess Markus M. , Chan Roger W. , Titze Ingo R.
Published: April 2006

A quantitative output-cost ratio (OCR) is proposed for objective use in voice production and is defined as the ratio of the acoustic output intensity to the collision intensity of the vocal folds. Measurement of the OCR is demonstrated in a laboratory experiment using 5 excised larynges and a transducer designed for use on human subjects. Data were gathered at constant fundamental frequency (150 Hz). Subglottal pressure was varied from 1.0 to 1.6 kPa, and glottal width at the vocal processes was varied from a pressed condition to a 2-mm gap. The OCR was plotted as a function of glottal width. With no vocal tract, the excised larynx experiments yielded a broad maxima in the OCR curves, across all subglottal pressure conditions, at about 0.6 mm. Computer simulations indicate that sharper maxima may occur when the influence of the vocal tract is taken into account. The potential clinical utility of the OCR is discussed for treatment of a wide range of voice disorders, including those involving both hyper- and hypoadduction.
The Young Child's Awareness of Stuttering-Like Disfluency
Authors: Ezrati-Vinacour Ruth , Platzky Rozanne , Yairi Ehud
Published: April 2006

The emergence of awareness of stuttering has been an important factor in theoretical and clinical considerations for early childhood stuttering. The present research program is aimed at studying the development of awareness of stuttering-like disfluency in normally fluent preschool and first-grade children using responses to video speech samples. A total of 79 children in five different age groups were asked to discriminate between the speech (fluent and disfluent) of two puppets, identify with the one who speaks like them, and evaluate the disfluent and fluent speech of the puppets. It was found that from age 3, children show evidence of awareness of the disfluency used in the study, but most children reached full awareness at age 5. Also, negative evaluation of disfluent speech is observed from age 4. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.
Phonological Pattern Frequency and Speech Production in Adults and Children
Authors: Munson Benjamin
Published: April 2006

Recent studies have suggested that both adults and children are sensitive to information about phonological pattern frequency; however, the influence of phonological pattern frequency on speech production has not been studied extensively. The current study examined the effect of phonological pattern frequency on the fluency and flexibility of speech production. Normal- and fastrate nonsense-word repetitions of three groups of participants (preschool children, school-aged children, and adults) were analyzed. Subjective ratings of the wordlikeness of nonsense words, percentage phonemes correctly repeated, mean duration, and durational variability were measured. In the first experiment, ratings of the wordlikeness of nonsense words were found to correlate with the pattern frequency of sequences embedded in them. In the second analysis, it was found that children, but not adults, repeated infrequent sequences of phonemes less accurately than frequent sequences. In the third experiment, infrequent sequences were produced with longer durations than frequent ones, with children demonstrating a larger difference between frequent and infrequent sequences than adults. Phonological pattern frequency also influenced variability in duration: infrequent sequences of sounds were more variable than frequent ones. Thus, there appears to be an influence of phonological pattern frequency on speech, and, for some measures, a larger effect size is noted for children.
Effects of Syllable Affiliation and Consonant Voicing on Temporal Adjustment in a Repetitive Speech-Production Task
Authors: Jong Kenneth J. de
Published: April 2006

This paper presents the results of an acoustic speech-production experiment in which speakers repeated simple syllabic forms varying in consonantal voicing in time to a metronome that controlled repetition rate. Speakers exhibited very different patterns of tempo control for syllables with onsets than for syllables with codas. Syllables with codas exhibited internal temporal consistency, leaving junctures between the repeated syllables to take up most of the tempo variation. Open syllables with onsets, by contrast, often exhibited nearly proportional scaling of all of the acoustic portions of the signal. Results also suggest that phonemic use of vowel duration as a cue to voicing acted to constrain temporal patterns with some speakers. These results are discussed with respect to possible models of local temporal adjustment within a context of global timing constraints.
Speech and Prosody Characteristics of Adolescents and Adults With High-Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome
Authors: Shriberg Lawrence D. , Paul Rhea , McSweeny Jane L. , Klin Ami , Cohen Donald J. , Volkmar Fred R.
Published: April 2006

Speech and prosody-voice profiles for 15 male speakers with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) and 15 male speakers with Asperger syndrome (AS) were compared to one another and to profiles for 53 typically developing male speakers in the same 10- to 50-years age range. Compared to the typically developing speakers, significantly more participants in both the HFA and AS groups had residual articulation distortion errors, uncodable utterances due to discourse constraints, and utterances coded as inappropriate in the domains of phrasing, stress, and resonance. Speakers with AS were significantly more voluble than speakers with HFA, but otherwise there were few statistically significant differences between the two groups of speakers with pervasive developmental disorders. Discussion focuses on perceptual-motor and social sources of differences in the prosody-voice findings for individuals with Pervasive Developmental Disorders as compared with findings for typical speakers, including comment on the grammatical, pragmatic, and affective aspects of prosody.
Familial Aggregation in Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Tallal Paula , Hirsch Linda S. , Realpe-Bonilla Teresa , Miller Steve , Brzustowicz Linda M. , Bartlett Christopher , Flax Judy F.
Published: April 2006

A case-control family study design, in which the current language-related abilities of all biological, primary relatives (mother, father, siblings) of probands with specific language impairment (SLI) and matched controls were assessed, was used to investigate familial aggregation for language disorders. Current test data from each family member showed the rate of language impairment for mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers of the SLI probands to be significantly higher than for members of control families. Impairment rates for fathers and mothers were approximately equal, whereas rates for brothers were significantly higher than for sisters. In SLI proband families, Language Impairment (LI) occurred in 13.0% of offspring (excluding proband) with neither parent affected, 40% of offspring with one parent affected, and 71.4% of offspring in families in which both parents were language impaired. Rates of impairment as determined in current testing were compared directly to impairment rates estimated from family-history questionnaires collected from the same families. Group data showed impairment rates estimated from the family-history questionnaires to be similar to the rates based on actual testing. Furthermore, both appeared in line with rates based primarily on questionnaire data as reported previously in the literature. However, case-by-case analyses showed poor intrasubject agreement on classification as language impaired on the basis of current testing as compared to history information.
The Effect of Anchors and Training on the Reliability of Perceptual Voice Evaluation
Authors: Chan Karen M. K. , Yiu Edwin M-L.
Published: April 2006

Perceptual voice evaluation is a common clinical tool for rating the severity of vocal quality impairment. However, the evaluation process involves subjective judgment, and reliability is therefore a major issue that needs to be considered. When listeners are asked to judge the quality of a voice signal, they use their own internal standards as the references. These internal standards can be variable, as different individuals may have acquired different standards in prior situations. In order to improve the reliability of the perceptual voice evaluation process, external anchors and training are provided to counteract the effect of these internal standards. This study investigated to what extent the provision of anchors and a training program would improve the reliability of perceptual voice evaluation by naive listeners. The results show, in general, that anchors and training helped to improve the reliability of perceptual voice evaluation, especially in the rating of male voices. Furthermore, it was found that anchors made up of synthesized signals combined with training were more effective in improving reliability in judging perceptual roughness and breathiness than natural voice anchors.
Lexical Organization and Phonological Change in Treatment
Authors: Morrisette Michele L. , Gierut Judith A.
Published: April 2006

Word frequency and neighborhood density are properties of lexical organization that differentially influence spoken-word recognition. This study examined whether these same properties also affect spoken-word production, particularly as related to children with functional phonological delays. The hypothesis was that differential generalization would be associated with a word's frequency and its neighborhood density when manipulated as input in phonological treatment. Using a multiple baseline across subjects design, 8 children (aged 3;10 to 5;4) were randomly enrolled in 1 of 4 experimental conditions targeting errored sounds in high-frequency, low-frequency, high-density, or low-density words. Dependent measures were generalization of treated sounds and untreated sounds within and across manner classes as measured during and following treatment. Results supported a hierarchy of phonological generalization by experimental condition. The clinical implications lie in planning for generalization through the input presented in treatment. Theoretically, the results demonstrate that lexical organization of words in the mental lexicon interacts with phonological structure in learning.
Acoustic Cues to the Voicing Feature in Tracheoesophageal Speech
Authors: Searl Jeffrey P. , Carpenter Mary A.
Published: April 2006

Tracheoesophageal (TE) speakers often have difficulty producing the voiced/ voiceless distinction. This limitation has been attributed to use of the pharyngoe-sophageal segment as the phonatory source. The nature of this tissue may preclude precise control of voicing onset, a contributing cue to a phoneme's voicing feature, at least in laryngeal speech. The purpose of this study was to determine whether voiced and voiceless consonants produced by TE speakers could be differentiated from those produced by laryngeal speakers using four acoustic measures associated with the voicing characteristic of consonants in laryngeal speech. Sixteen TE and ten laryngeal speakers produced five stop and fricative cognate pairs embedded in a carrier phrase. Three of the four acoustic measures contributed significantly to the discriminant models that differentiated accurately perceived TE and laryngeal samples. The three variables were consonant sound pressure level, consonant duration, and preceding vowel duration. In general, values for each measure were higher/longer for the TE group. The discriminant functions were interpreted as a reflection of TE speaker attempts at overarticulation.
Direct Magnitude Estimates of Speech Intelligibility in Dysarthria
Authors: Weismer Gary , Laures Jacqueline S.
Published: April 2006

Direct magnitude estimation (DME) has been used frequently as a perceptual scaling technique in studies of the speech intelligibility of persons with speech disorders. The technique is typically used with a standard, or reference stimulus, chosen as a good exemplar of "midrange" intelligibility. In several published studies, the standard has been chosen subjectively, usually on the basis of the expertise of the investigators. The current experiment demonstrates that a
fixed
set of sentence-level utterances, obtained from 4 individuals with dysarthria (2 with Parkinson disease, 2 with traumatic brain injury) as well as 3 neurologically normal speakers, is scaled differently depending on the identity of the standard. Four different standards were used in the main experiment, three of which were judged qualitatively in two independent evaluations to be good exemplars of midrange intelligibility. Acoustic analyses did not reveal obvious differences between these four standards but suggested that the standard with the worst-scaled intelligibility had much poorer voice source characteristics compared to the other three standards. Results are discussed in terms of possible standardization of midrange intelligibility exemplars for DME experiments.
Auditory Training Induces Asymmetrical Changes in Cortical Neural Activity
Authors: Tremblay Kelly L. , Kraus Nina
Published: April 2006

Pre-attentive cortical evoked potentials reflect training-induced changes in neural activity associated with speech-sound training. Seven normal-hearing young adults were trained to identify two synthetic speech variants of the syllable /ba/. As subjects learned to correctly identify the two stimuli, changes in P1, N1, and P2 amplitudes were observed. Of particular interest is that P1, N1, and P2 components of the N1-P2 complex responded differently to listening training. That is, significant changes in P1 and N1 amplitude were recorded over the right but not the left hemisphere. In contrast, increases in P2 were observed bilaterally. These results indicate that training-related changes in neural activity are reflected in far-field aggregate neural responses and that distinct patterns of neural change, perhaps reflecting hemispheric specialization, likely represent different aspects of auditory function .
Short-Term Auditory Memory in Children Using Cochlear Implants and Its Relevance to Receptive Language
Authors: Dawson P. W. , Busby P. A. , McKay C. M. , Clark G. M.
Published: April 2006

The aim of this study was to assess auditory sequential, short-termmemory (SSTM) performance in young children using cochlear implants (CI group) and to examine the relationship of this performance to receptive language performance. Twenty-four children, 5 to 11 years old, using the Nucleus 22-electrode cochlear implant, were tested on a number of auditory and visual tasks of SSTM. The auditory memory tasks were designed to minimize the effect of auditory discrimination ability. Stimuli were chosen that children with cochlear implants could accurately identify with a reaction time similar to that of a control group of children with normal hearing (NH group). All children were also assessed on a receptive language test and on a nonverbal intelligence scale.

As expected, children using cochlear implants demonstrated poorer auditory and visual SSTM skills than their hearing peers when the stimuli were verbal or were pictures that could be readily labeled. They did not differ from their peers with normal hearing on tasks where the stimuli were less likely to be verbally encoded. An important finding was that the CI group did not appear to have a sequential memory deficit specific to the auditory modality. The difference scores (auditory minus visual memory performance) for the CI group were not significantly different from those for the NH group. SSTM performance accounted for significant variance in the receptive language performance of the CI group. However, a forward stepwise regression analysis revealed that visual spatial memory (one of the subtests of the nonverbal IQ test) was the main predictor of variance in the language scores of the children using cochlear implants.
Effects of Category and Rhyme Decisions on Sentence Production
Authors: Bosshardt Hans-Georg , Ballmer Waltraud , Nil Luc F. de
Published: April 2006

The aim of the present experiment was to investigate differences between persons who stutter and persons who do not stutter during the production of sentences in a single task versus two dual-task conditions. Participants were required to form a sentence containing 2 unrelated nouns. In dual-task conditions, rhyme and category decisions were used as secondary tasks. The results for 14 adults who stutter and 16 adults who do not stutter are reported. Dependent variables were the number of correct rhyme and category decisions, decision latencies, length, number of propositions, sentence latency, speech rate of sentences, disfluencies, and stuttering rates. The results indicated that both groups reduced the average number of correct rhyme and category decisions when this task was performed concurrently with sentence generation and production. Similarly, the 2 groups of participants did not differ with respect to the correctness and latency of their decisions. Under single-task conditions the sentences of both groups had a comparable number of propositions. But under dual- as compared with singletask conditions persons who stutter significantly reduced the number of propositions whereas persons who do not stutter did not show a significant dual- versus single-task contrast. Experimental conditions did not significantly influence stuttering rates. These results suggest that persons who stutter require more processing capacity for sentence generation and articulation than persons who do not stutter and that both groups keep stuttering rates at a constant level by adjusting the number of propositional units of their linguistic productions. The results support the view that the organization of the speech-production system of persons who stutter makes it more vulnerable to interference from concurrent attention-demanding semantic tasks.
Changes in Speech Production in a Child With a Cochlear Implant
Authors: Goffman Lisa , Ertmer David J. , Erdle Christa
Published: April 2006

A method is presented for examining change in motor patterns used to produce linguistic contrasts. In this case study, the method is applied to a child receiving new auditory input following cochlear implantation. This child experienced hearing loss at age 3 years and received a multichannel cochlear implant at age 7 years. Data collection points occurred both pre- and postimplant and included acoustic and kinematic analyses. Overall, this child's speech output was transcribed as accurate across the pre- and postimplant periods. Postimplant, with the onset of new auditory experience, acoustic durations showed a predictable maturational change, usually decreasing in duration. Conversely, the spatiotemporal stability of speech movements initially became more variable postimplantation. The auditory perturbations experienced by this child during development led to changes in the physiological underpinnings of speech production, even when speech output was perceived as accurate.
Category-Generation Performance of Bilingual Children
Authors: Peña Elizabeth D. , Bedore Lisa M. , Zlatic-Giunta Rebecca
Published: April 2006

Research suggests that young children use a script-based slot-filler strategy to develop categories. Children are reported to develop a taxonomic strategy by about age 8. The purpose of this study was to examine how bilingual (Spanish-English) children used taxonomic versus slot-filler strategies in a category-generation task presented in each language. Results indicated that although younger bilingual children (
M
age=5;1) generated approximately equal numbers of items in both conditions, older bilingual children (
M
age=6;5) were beginning to demonstrate a taxonomic bias. Furthermore, although bilingual children tended to generate similar numbers of items in each language under the different conditions, comparisons between the two languages indicated that a large proportion (68.40%) of items was unique to either language.
Presbyacusis and the Auditory Brainstem Response
Authors: Boettcher Flint A.
Published: April 2006

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL or presbyacusis) is an increasingly common form of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) as a result of changing demographics, and the auditory brainstem response (ABR) is a common experimental and clinical tool in audiology and neurology. Some of the changes that occur in the aging auditory system may significantly influence the interpretation of the ABR in comparison to the ABRs of younger adults. The approach of this review will be to integrate physiological and histopathological data from human and animal studies to provide a better understanding of the array of age-related changes in the ABR and to determine how age-related changes in the auditory system may influence how the ABR should be interpreted in presbyacusis. Data will be described in terms of thresholds, latencies, and amplitudes, as well as more complex auditory functions such as masking and temporal processing. Included in the review of data will be an attempt to differentiate between age-related effects that may strictly be due to threshold elevation from those that may be due to the aging process.
Mental Imagery and Idiom Comprehension
Authors: Nippold Marilyn A. , Duthie Jill K.
Published: April 2006

Previous research has shown that transparent idioms (e.g.,
paddle your own canoe
) are generally easier for children to interpret than opaque idioms (e.g.,
paint the town red
), results that support the metasemantic hypothesis of figurative understanding (M. A. Nippold, 1998). This is the view that beyond exposure to idioms and attention to the linguistic context, the learner analyzes the expressions internally to infer meaning, a process that is easier to execute when the literal and nonliteral meanings overlap. The present study was designed to investigate mental imagery in relation to the discrepancy in difficulty between transparent and opaque expressions. Twenty familiar idioms, half transparent and half opaque, were presented to 40 school-age children (mean age = 12;3 [years;months]) and 40 adults (mean age = 27;0) who were asked to describe in writing their own mental images for each expression. The participants were also given a written multiple-choice task to measure their comprehension of the idioms. The results indicated that mental imagery for idioms undergoes a developmental process and is associated with comprehension. Although school-age children were able to report relevant mental images for idioms, their images were less sophisticated than those of adults and were more likely to be concrete and to reflect only a partial understanding of the expressions. In contrast, the images reported by adults were more likely to be figurative. The findings suggest that the mental images people report for idioms may serve as a barometer of their depth of understanding of the expressions.