bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Examining the Role of Auditory Sensitivity in the Developmental Weighting Shift
Authors: Nittrouer Susan , Crowther Court S.
Published: July 2014

Studies comparing children’s and adults’ labeling of speech stimuli have repeatedly shown that children’s phonological decisions are more strongly related to portions of the signal that involve rapid spectral change (i.e., formant transitions) and less related to other signal components than are adults’ decisions. Such findings have led to a model termed the Developmental Weighting Shift, which suggests that children initially assign particularly strong weight to formant transitions to help delimit individual words in the continuous speech stream but gradually modify these strategies to be more like those of adults as they learn about word-internal structure. The goal of the current study was to test a reasonable alternative: that these apparent age-related differences in perceptual weighting strategies for speech are instead due to age-related differences in auditory sensitivity. To this end, difference limens (DLs) were obtained from children (ages 5 and 7 years) and adults for three types of acoustic properties: dynamic-spectral, static-spectral, and temporal. Two testable hypotheses were offered: Labeling results could reflect either absolute differences in sensitivity between children and adults or relative differences in sensitivity within each group. Empirical support for either hypothesis would indicate that apparent developmental changes in perceptual weighting strategies are actually due to developmental changes in auditory sensitivity to acoustic properties. Results of this study contradicted predictions of both hypotheses, sustaining the suggestion that children’s perceptual weighting strategies for speech-relevant acoustic properties change as they gain experience with a native language.
SCAN Test-Retest Reliability for First- and Third-Grade Children
Authors: Amos Nathan E. , Humes Larry E.
Published: July 2014

The SCAN is a popular screening test that was developed to provide a rapidly administered, standardized method for determining the potential of central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) in children between the ages of 3 and 11 years. It can be administered in 20 minutes with a portable stereo cassette player and contains three subtests: filtered words (FW), auditory figure ground (AFG), and competing words (CW). Published SCAN test-retest reliability data (Keith, 1986) used a 6-month retest interval and indicated that SCAN scores may be unreliable. No additional reliability data are available, and studies indicate that SCAN has been used by both researchers and clinicians despite reliability concerns. This investigation examined the stability of SCAN outcomes for 25 first-grade and 22 third-grade children (ages 6 to 9 years) using a 6- to 7-week retest interval. Time of day and examiner were held constant, and participants were normal-hearing, were Caucasian, and spoke English as their primary language. ANOVA outcomes indicated that both raw and standard scores improved significantly from Test 1 to Test 2 for two of the three SCAN subtests (FW and CW) and for the composite (COMP) score. Additionally, COMP-percentile-rank and age-equivalent outcomes demonstrated significant improvement from test to retest for both grades. The AFG subtest was the only SCAN measure for which a significant test-retest difference did not emerge. The highest test-retest correlation values (
r
) were moderately strong (0.70≤
r
≤0.78) and occurred for the CW and COMP scores. Implications of correlations and factor analyses are discussed. It is suggested that examiners base recommendations for additional testing, follow up, and remediation on the COMP score only. Further, it appears that second administration of the SCAN can provide a better estimate of an individual child's best performance, but lack of second-score norms confounds simple interpretation of such scores.
Criteria for SLI
Authors: Plante Elena
Published: July 2014

Since it first appeared, the Stark and Tallal (1981) criteria for the selection of children with specific language impairment (SLI) has had a profound influence on research with this population. A review of the recent literature indicates that these criteria continue to be used, in part or in whole, in current research. However, the recent literature also provides illustrations of the use and interpretations of normreferenced tests that can serve to update current best practices in subject selection. The original criteria for IQ and language test scores, along with their more recent adaptations, are reconsidered in light of current information on the use of tests with SLI.
Acoustic Variations in Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia as a Function of Speech Task
Authors: Sapienza Christine M. , Walton Suzanne , Murry Thomas
Published: July 2014

Acoustic phonatory events were identified in 14 women diagnosed with ADSD and compared to those of 14 women age-matched (±2 years) with no evidence of vocal pathology/dysfunction. The three acoustic parameters examined during sustained vowel production and reading included phonatory breaks, aperiodicity, and frequency shifts. Intra- and intermeasurer correlations showed high reliability for the measures. Findings indicated that those with ADSD produced a greater frequency of aberrant acoustic events than the controls during both tasks. For the group with ADSD, the amount and type of each event also varied with utterance type. The sustained vowel sample produced by those with ADSD consisted of a greater percentage of aperiodic segments followed by phonatory breaks and frequency shifts. During reading, frequency shifts were the predominant acoustic event, followed by phonatory breaks and aperiodicity. The advantage of segmenting the acoustic waveform into these measures and the relevancy of examining intertask performances by those with ADSD is discussed.
The Effects of Speaker Accent and Target Predictability on Perception of Mispronunciations
Authors: Schmid Peggy M. , Yeni-Komshian Grace H.
Published: July 2014

This study makes use of a listening for mispronunciation task to examine how native English listeners perceive sentences produced by non-native speakers. The effects of target predictability and degree of foreign accent were investigated. Native and non-native speakers produced English sentences containing mispronunciation. Mispronunciations (MPs) were constructed by changing the initial phoneme of target words by a single distinctive feature along the dimensions of voicing, place, or manner. Results showed that listeners (a) were more accurate and faster in detecting MPs produced by native than non-native speakers, (b) were more accurate and faster in detecting MPs in predictable than unpredictable sentences, and (3) were more accurate in detecting MPs produced by non-native speakers with milder accents, as compared to heavier accents. These findings suggest that listening to fairly intelligible but accented speech requires increased processing effort—possibly because of subtle differences in intelligibility and increased variability characteristic of non-native speech.
Profile of Auditory Temporal Processing in Older Listeners
Authors: Gordon-Salant Sandra , Fitzgibbons Peter J.
Published: July 2014

This investigation examined age-related performance differences on a range of speech and nonspeech measures involving temporal manipulation of acoustic signals and variation of stimulus complexity. The goal was to identify a subset of temporally mediated measures that effectively distinguishes the performance patterns of younger and older listeners, with and without hearing loss. The nonspeech measures included duration discrimination for simple tones and gaps, duration discrimination for tones and gaps embedded within complex sequences, and discrimination of temporal order. The speech measures were undistorted speech, time-compressed speech, reverberant speech, and combined time-compressed + reverberant speech. All speech measures were presented both in quiet and in noise. Strong age effects were observed for the nonspeech measures, particularly in the more complex stimulus conditions. Additionally, age effects were observed for all time-compressed speech conditions and some reverberant speech conditions, in both quiet and noise. Effects of hearing loss were observed also for the speech measures only. Discriminant function analysis derived a formula, based on a subset of these measures, for classifying individuals according to temporal performance consistent with age and hearing loss categories. The most important measures to accomplish this goal involved conditions featuring temporal manipulations of complex speech and nonspeech signals.
Temporal and Spectral Aspects of Coarticulation in Ataxic Dysarthria
Authors: Hertrich Ingo , Ackermann Hermann
Published: July 2014

In order to analyze the impact of cerebellar disorders on temporal and spectral aspects of coarticulation, 9 individuals with cerebellar dysfunction and 9 controls were asked to produce test sentences comprising a target vowel (V=[ɑ], [i], or [u]) within a schwa-t-V-t-schwa environment. The control speakers were investigated both at their habitual speech tempo and under a slow speaking condition. The squared distances between averaged FFT spectra served as a quantitative estimate of target-induced coarticulation, a method that can be applied to consonants as well as vowels, and which avoids the shortcomings of formant analysis. In order to test the significance of coarticulation effects at the level of individual speakers and to obtain
F
values as a further measure of the strength of coarticulation, multivariate tests of target effects were performed, with the first 6 principal components derived from the spectra of each speaker. First, inconsistent patterns of anticipatory vowel-to-vowel (VV) interactions emerged across individuals, and neither significant group differences nor any effects of speech rate could be detected. The underlying control mechanisms thus seem to be segment-linked subject-specific specifications of the pretarget vowel, uncompromised by cerebellar dysfunction. Second, all participants exhibited highly significant anticipatory [t
h
]-to-vowel (CV) coarticulation. This effect was slightly smaller in the cerebellar group than in the control group, which can be at least partially explained by reduced spectral distances among the 3 target vowels. Speech rate did not influence the CV effects of the control group. As concerns temporal aspects of coarticulation, no significant group differences emerged in terms of length adjustments of the pretarget consonant to the intrinsic duration of the target vowel. Third, ataxic speakers showed a tendency toward enlarged perseverative vowel-to-[t
h
] (VC) and VV effects if their slow speech rate was taken into account. Retentive coarticulation turned out to be similar in slow ataxic speakers and in fast-speaking controls. However, significant attenuation of these effects emerged in the latter group under the condition of decreased speech tempo. In summary, these results corroborate the suggestion of different mechanisms of gestural overlap in the temporal domain: Whereas perseverative coarticulation, presumably, reflects biomechanical or motor constraints, anticipation seems to represent higher level phonetic processing.
Undifferentiated Lingual Gestures in Children With Articulation/Phonological Disorders
Authors: Gibbon Fiona E.
Published: July 2014

Previous research using electropalatography (EPG) has shown that a distinctive articulatory characteristic of lingual consonants in the speech of school-age children with articulation/phonological disorders (APD) is a high amount of tongue-palate contact. Consonants produced in this way have been referred to as
undifferentiated lingual gestures
. This article reviews the EPG literature on undifferentiated gestures with 4 overarching goals: (a) to provide a precise articulatory description of undifferentiated gestures, (b) to estimate the rate of occurrence of undifferentiated gestures in children with APD, (c) to propose an original interpretation of undifferentiated gestures, and (d) to discuss the significance of the gestures in the light of current theories of APD. Undifferentiated gestures typically occur during productions of lingual consonant targets and are characterized by contact that lacks clear differentiation between the tongue apex, tongue body, and lateral margins of the tongue. The EPG literature reports 17 school-age children with APD, of whom 12 (71%) show evidence of undifferentiated gestures. Standard transcriptions do not reliably detect undifferentiated gestures, which are transcribed as speech
errors
(e.g., phonological substitutions, phonetic distortions) in some contexts, but are transcribed as
correct
productions in other contexts. Undifferentiated gestures are interpreted as reflecting a speech motor constraint involving either delayed or deviant control of functionally independent regions of the tongue. The limitations of the current EPG literature are stated, and the need for research into undifferentiated gestures in preschool children is discussed.
Defining Abstract Entities
Authors: Nippold Marilyn A. , Hegel Susan L. , Sohlberg McKay Moore , Schwarz Ilsa E.
Published: July 2014

Students ages 12, 15, 18, and 23 (
n
=60 per group) wrote definitions for 16 abstract nouns (e.g.,
pride, courage, realization
). Responses were analyzed for the Aristotelian style, a type of definition that mentions both the superordinate category term and one or more characteristics of the word (e.g., "Pride is a sense of delight about a possession or accomplishment"). This response type was of interest because it is a sophisticated and literate defining style that is modeled in classrooms, textbooks, and dictionaries—a style that is informative, concise, and efficient. The results indicated that a number of important changes occur in the ability to provide Aristotelian definitions for abstract nouns during the developmental period from late childhood to early adulthood. Specifically, there was an increasing tendency for students to mention the appropriate category to which a word belongs, core features of the word, and subtle aspects of meaning. The study contributes to the knowledge base concerning the nature of language development in pre-adolescents, adolescents, and young adults.
A Comparison of Language Achievement in Children With Cochlear Implants and Children Using Hearing Aids
Authors: Tomblin J. Bruce , Spencer Linda , Flock Sarah , Tyler Rich , Gantz Bruce
Published: July 2014

English language achievement of 29 prelingually deaf children with 3 or more years of cochlear implant (CI) experience was compared to the achievement levels of prelingually deaf children who did not have such CI experience. Language achievement was measured by the Rhode Island Test of Language Structure (RITLS), a measure of signed and spoken sentence comprehension, and the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn), a measure of expressive (signed and spoken) English grammar. When the CI users were compared with their deaf age mates who contributed to the norms of the RITLS, it was found that CI users achieved significantly better scores. Likewise, we found that CI users performed better than 29 deaf children who used hearing aids (HAs) with respect to English grammar achievement as indexed by the IPSyn. Additionally, we found that chronological age highly correlated with IPSyn levels only among the non-CI users, whereas length of CI experience was significantly correlated with IPSyn scores for CI users. Finally, clear differences between those with and without CI experience were found by 2 years of post-implant experience. These data provide evidence that children who receive CIs benefit in the form of improved English language comprehension and production.
Application of the Correct Information Unit Analysis to the Naturally Occurring Conversation of a Person With Aphasia
Authors: Oelschlaeger Mary L. , Thorne John C.
Published: July 2014

The Correct Information Unit (CIU) analysis for measuring the communicative informativeness and efficiency of connected speech (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993) was applied to the naturally occurring conversation of a person with moderate aphasia. Results indicated that, in this instance, reliable CIU measures could not be obtained. Intrarater reliability for CIU and %CIU was low, reaching only 72%, and interrater reliability was never greater than 63%. However, reliability of word counts was good. Post hoc analysis of rater disagreements in application of the CIU analysis revealed that the majority (72%) resulted from insufficiencies in the scoring rules that were originally designed to measure single speaker connected discourse. Two descriptive categories of disagreements were identified: interpretations of informativeness and absence of rules. The remaining 28% of disagreements were attributable to human error in the application of scoring rules. Comparison of findings with previous research and implications for future research are discussed.
Syllable Onsets
Authors: Gierut Judith A.
Published: July 2014

The Sonority Sequencing Principle is a presumed universal that governs the permissible sequences of consonants within syllables. In two single-subject experiments, we evaluated this principle as applied to the acquisition of onset clusters and adjuncts by children exhibiting functional phonological delays (age in years;months: 3;2 to 7;8). Experiment 1 tested the hypothesis that children abide by the Sonority Sequencing Principle in development, such that the occurrence and use of marked true clusters implies unmarked clusters, but not vice versa. This claim was validated, in part, by the gradient generalization learning patterns of children who were taught marked clusters. Others who were taught unmarked clusters exhibited limited learning characteristic of within-class generalization, with apparent gaps in sonority sequencing. Experiment 2 examined the role of adjunct sequences /sp, st, sk/, whose markedness status is questionable given their violation of the Sonority Sequencing Principle. Results indicated that children learned adjuncts consistent with patterns of within-class generalization, thereby supporting the view that these sequences are unmarked in structure. Experimental findings are integrated in discussion of the representation of onset clusters and their course of emergence in phonological acquisition relative to the Sonority Sequencing Principle.
Limiting Spectral Resolution in Speech for Listeners With Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Authors: Turner Christopher W. , Chi Siu-Ling , Flock Sarah
Published: July 2014

Consonant recognition was measured as a function of the degree of spectral resolution of the speech stimulus in normally hearing listeners and listeners with moderate sensorineural hearing loss. Previous work (Turner, Souza, and Forget, 1995) has shown that listeners with sensorineural hearing loss could recognize consonants as well as listeners with normal hearing when speech was processed to have only one channel of spectral resolution. The hypothesis tested in the present experiment was that when speech was limited to a small number of spectral channels, both normally hearing and hearing-impaired listeners would continue to perform similarly. As the stimuli were presented with finer degrees of spectral resolution, and the poorer-than-normal spectral resolving abilities of the hearing-impaired listeners became a limiting factor, one would predict that the performance of the hearing-impaired listeners would then become poorer than the normally hearing listeners. Previous research on the frequency-resolution abilities of listeners with mild-to-moderate hearing loss suggests that these listeners have critical bandwidths three to four times larger than do listeners with normal hearing. In the present experiment, speech stimuli were processed to have 1, 2, 4, or 8 channels of spectral information. Results for the 1-channel speech condition were consistent with the previous study in that both groups of listeners performed similarly. However, the hearing-impaired listeners performed more poorly than the normally hearing listeners for all other conditions, including the 2-channel speech condition. These results would appear to contradict the original hypothesis, in that listeners with moderate sensorineural hearing loss would be expected to have at least 2 channels of frequency resolution. One possibility is that the frequency resolution of hearing-impaired listeners may be much poorer than previously estimated; however, a subsequent filtered speech experiment did not support this explanation. The present results do indicate that although listeners with hearing loss are able to use the temporal-envelope information of a single channel in a normal fashion, when given the opportunity to combine information across more than one channel, they show deficient performance.
Psychophysical Sensitivity and Physiological Response to Amplitude Modulation in Adult Dyslexic Listeners
Authors: Menell Peter , McAnally Ken I. , Stein John F.
Published: July 2014

This study reports two experiments conducted to assess the sensitivity of dyslexic listeners to amplitude modulation (AM) of acoustic stimuli. The smallest detectable depth of AM of white noise was measured as a function of modulation frequency. Dyslexic listeners had significantly higher thresholds of AM depth than did matched control listeners. We also recorded the scalp potential evoked by AM of white noise (the amplitude modulation following response, AMFR). Dyslexic listeners had significantly smaller AMFRs than did matched control listeners. The reduced AMFR is consistent with reduced sensitivity to AM, and there was a strong association between these psychophysical and physiological measures. This deficit in AM sensitivity may result in impaired perception of the AM present in speech.
The Peaked Audiometric Configuration in Meniere's Disease
Authors: Ries Dennis T. , Rickert Michelle , Schlauch Robert S.
Published: July 2014

A retrospective analysis of audiograms was completed for persons from 3 different patient groups. These 3 groups were (1) persons with unilateral Meniere's disease, (2) persons with unilateral acoustic tumor, and (3) persons from the general clinical population of an audiology clinic in a major medical center. As Paparella, McDermott, Luiz, and de Sousa (1982) also report, the most common audiometric configuration in the Meniere's disease group was
peaked
, a condition in which poorer hearing is reported in the low and high frequencies, and an island of better hearing sensitivity occurs at either 1.0 or 2.0 kHz. Some of the peaked audiograms from persons in our Meniere's disease group could be a result of a low-frequency hearing loss caused by Meniere's disease combined with a high-frequency hearing loss due to aging or other environmental factors. However, 27% (13/48) of the peaked audiograms in ears with Meniere's disease were found in persons with no hearing loss in the high frequencies of their nondiseased ear. Thus, the peaked audiometric configuration is associated with Meniere's disease, as suggested by research results from animals with experimentally induced endolymphatic hydrops. Peaked audiometric configurations were also observed in roughly 9% of the general clinical population and in 12.5% of ears of persons with acoustic tumors. A rule—based on the audiometric configurations that maximized identification of patients with Meniere's disease—using the general clinical population as a control did not fare as well when the tumor group was used as a control. This finding provides further evidence that peaked audiograms, although common to Meniere's disease, are not pathognomonic of this disease. Furthermore, these results indicate that the diagnosis of Meniere's disease from audiometric profiles is risky, at best.
Effects of Treatment on Linguistic and Social Skills in Toddlers With Delayed Language Development
Authors: Robertson Shari Brand , Weismer Susan Ellis
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the effects of early language intervention on various linguistic and social skills of late-talking toddlers. The 21 children who participated in the investigation were randomly assigned to an experimental group (
n
=11) or a control (delayed-treatment) group (
n
=10). The experimental group participated in a 12-week clinician-implemented language intervention program. Groups were compared at pretest and posttest on five linguistic variables: Mean Length of Utterance, Total Number of Words, Number of Different Words, Lexical Repertoire, and Percentage of Intelligible Utterances, as well as on Socialization and Parental Stress. Significant group differences were found for each of the variables, indicating facilitative effects of the treatment. Notably, increases were observed in areas that were not specifically targeted by the intervention. Implications of these results are discussed with respect to considerations regarding clinical management decisions for toddlers with delayed language development.
Improvements in Speech Perception With Use of the AVR TranSonic Frequency-Transposing Hearing Aid
Authors: McDermott Hugh J. , Dorkos Voula P. , Dean Michelle R. , Ching Teresa Y. C.
Published: July 2014

Five adults with sensorineural hearing impairment participated in a trial comparing the performance of the AVR TranSonic frequency-transposing hearing aid with that of their own conventional aids. They used the TranSonic for approximately 12 weeks, during which time systematic changes were made to the transposition parameters. Speech perception was assessed with each setting of those parameters and with the participants’ own hearing aids. Four participants obtained significantly higher scores with the TranSonic than with their own aids on at least one of the tests. However, analysis of the consonant confusions suggested that the improvement resulted mostly from the TranSonic’s low-frequency electro-acoustic characteristics. There was only limited evidence for 2 of the participants that the frequency-lowering function was effective at improving speech perception.
Psychometrically Equivalent Spondaic Words Spoken by a Female Speaker
Authors: Wilson Richard H. , Strouse Anne
Published: July 2014

Several studies demonstrate that thresholds for the individual CID W-1 spondaic words peaked at 0 vu are not equivalent. The purpose of this study was to equate the spondaic word thresholds psychometrically. Two studies were performed on 2 groups of 20 listeners with normal hearing. In Experiment 1, psychometric functions were established for the 36 spondaic words spoken by a male (original recording) and female speaker. Based on the threshold data from Experiment 1, the words spoken by the female speaker were adjusted digitally in level to produce equal thresholds (equal intelligibility). In Experiment 2, psychometric functions then were established for the 36 spondaic words adjusted in level. The mean thresholds for the 2 experiments were the same (0.5 dB HL; ANSI, 1996), but the standard deviations for the word thresholds in Experiment 2 (0.7 dB) were significantly smaller than the standard deviations in Experiment 1 (1.6 dB). Both versions of the spondaic words spoken by the female speaker are included on the
Speech Recognition and Identification Materials
(Disc 2.0) compact disc.
Adults’ Perception and Production of the English Vowel /i/
Authors: Frieda Elaina M. , Walley Amanda C. , Flege James E. , Sloane Michael E.
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the link between the perception and production of the English vowel /i/ by adult native speakers of English. Participants first produced the vowel /i/ using normal (citation) and careful (hyperarticulated) speech, then completed a method of adjustment task in which they selected their ideal exemplar of /i/. In this perceptual task, 24 of 35 participants had a prototype; the remaining 11 did not, but were retained for comparison. In keeping with the hyperspace effect (K. Johnson, E. Flemming, & R. Wright, 1993), all participants selected perceptual stimuli with F1 and F2 values that were more extreme (i.e., higher and further forward in the vowel space) than those of their normal, citation productions. An analysis of front-back and high-low qualities for the perceptual and production data in Euclidian space revealed that hyperarticulated speech was closer to the perceptual data than citation speech was, but only for participants with relatively clear-cut prototypes. The basis for such individual variation in perception-production links is discussed.
Validation Assessment of a French Version of the Tinnitus Reaction Questionnaire
Authors: Meric Corine , Pham Emmanuel , Chéry-Croze Sylviane
Published: July 2014

The present study compares the results obtained on original and French versions of the TRQ (Tinnitus Reaction Questionnaire) initially published by Wilson, Henry, Bowen, and Haralambous (1991) in English to evaluate the psychological distress of tinnitus sufferers. Reliability and validity of the French translation were determined using data from 173 normal hearing or hearing-impaired patients with tinnitus lasting from 1 month to 41 years. They completed the translated questionnaire and a short version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. The results indicated good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha=.94), and the reliability of the French version of the TRQ was demonstrated, except for items 5 and 20. High statistically significant correlations were found between the TRQ and Depression, Psychaesthenia, and Anxiety Mini-Mult subscales. The validation demonstrates only minor effects of language. The French version of the TRQ thus is an equally valid tool as the original English version for evaluating tinnitus distress of a patient.
Frequency and Temporal Resolution in Elderly Listeners With Good and Poor Word Recognition
Authors: Phillips Susan L. , Gordon-Salant Sandra , Fitzgibbons Peter J. , Yeni-Komshian Grace
Published: July 2014

There is a subgroup of elderly listeners with hearing loss who can be characterized by exceptionally poor speech understanding. This study examined the hypothesis that the poor speech-understanding performance of some elderly listeners is associated with disproportionate deficits in temporal resolution and frequency resolution, especially for complex signals. Temporal resolution, as measured by gap detection, and frequency resolution, as measured by the critical ratio, were examined in older listeners with normal hearing, older listeners with hearing loss and good speech-recognition performance, and older listeners with hearing loss and poor speech-recognition performance. Listener performance was evaluated for simple and complex stimuli and for tasks of added complexity. In addition, syllable recognition was assessed in quiet and noise. The principal findings were that older listeners with hearing loss and poor word-recognition performance did not perform differently from older listeners with hearing loss and good word recognition on the temporal resolution measures nor on the spectral resolution measures for relatively simple stimuli. However, frequency resolution was compromised for listeners with poor word-recognition abilities when targets were presented in the context of complex signals. Group differences observed for syllable recognition in quiet were eliminated in the noise condition. Taken together, the findings support the hypothesis that unusual deficits in word-recognition performance among elderly listeners were associated with poor spectral resolution for complex signals.
The Physiologic Development of Speech Motor Control
Authors: Green Jordan R. , Moore Christopher A. , Higashikawa Masahiko , Steeve Roger W.
Published: July 2014

This investigation was designed to describe the development of lip and jaw coordination during speech and to evaluate the potential influence of speech motor development on phonologic development. Productions of syllables containing bilabial consonants were observed from speakers in four age groups (i.e., 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and young adults). A video-based movement tracking system was used to transduce movement of the upper lip, lower lip, and jaw. The coordinative organization of these articulatory gestures was shown to change dramatically during the first several years of life and to continue to undergo refinement past age 6. The present results are consistent with three primary phases in the development of lip and jaw coordination for speech: integration, differentiation, and refinement. Each of these developmental processes entails the existence of distinct coordinative constraints on early articulatory movement. It is suggested that these constraints will have predictable consequences for the sequence of phonologic development.
Strength, Endurance, and Stability of the Tongue and Hand in Parkinson Disease
Authors: Solomon Nancy Pearl , Robin Donald A. , Luschei Erich S.
Published: July 2014

Weakness and fatigue in the orofacial system often are presumed to contribute to the dysarthria associated with neuromotor disorders, although previous research findings are equivocal. In this study, tongue strength, endurance, and stability during a sustained submaximal effort were assessed in 16 persons with mild to severe Parkinson disease (PD) and a perceptible speech disorder. The same measures were taken from one hand for comparison. Only tongue endurance was found to be significantly lower in these participants than in neurologically normal control participants matched for sex, age, weight, and height. Analyses of data from a larger sample comprising the present and retrospective data revealed lower-than-normal tongue strength and endurance in participants with PD. No significant correlations were found between tongue strength and endurance, interpause speech rate, articulatory precision, and overall speech defectiveness for the present and previously studied participants with PD, bringing into question the influence of modest degrees of tongue weakness and fatigue on perceptible speech deficits.
On the Assessment of Stability and Patterning of Speech Movements
Authors: Smith Anne , Johnson Michael , McGillem Clare , Goffman Lisa
Published: July 2014

Speech requires the control of complex movements of orofacial structures to produce dynamic variations in the vocal tract transfer function. The nature of the underlying motor control processes has traditionally been investigated by employing measures of articulatory movements, including movement amplitude, velocity, and duration, at selected points in time. An alternative approach, first used in the study of limb motion, is to examine the entire movement trajectory over time. A new approach to speech movement trajectory analysis was introduced in earlier work from this laboratory. In this method, trajectories from multiple movement sequences are time- and amplitude-normalized, and the STI (spatiotemporal index) is computed to capture the degree of convergence of a set of trajectories onto a single, underlying movement template. This research note describes the rationale for this analysis and provides a detailed description of the signal processing involved. Alternative interpolation procedures for time-normalization of kinematic data are also considered.
Phonological Awareness and Oral Reading Skill in Children With Down Syndrome
Authors: Cupples Linda , Iacono Teresa
Published: July 2014

The existence of a necessary association between phonological awareness (PA) and oral reading development has been questioned using evidence from children with Down syndrome. In this study, 22 children with Down syndrome (between the ages of 6;7 and 10;3) initially completed tests of receptive language, cognitive function, oral reading, and PA. Reading and PA were reassessed approximately 9 months later. Better oral reading was associated with superior phoneme segmentation skills on reassessment. Furthermore, there was some evidence that early segmentation ability predicted later nonword reading, but not the reverse. The results indicate an association between PA and early oral reading ability in children with Down syndrome and are interpreted within a theoretical view of reading development in which PA plays a central role.
Nonword Repetition Performance in School-Age Children With and Without Language Impairment
Authors: Weismer Susan Ellis , Tomblin J. Bruce , Zhang Xuyang , Buckwalter Paula , Chynoweth Jan Gaura , Jones Maura
Published: July 2014

This study examined nonword repetition performance in a population-based sample of school-age children. A total of 581 second graders who were participating in a longitudinal, epidemiologic investigation of specific language impairment (SLI) were administered the Nonword Repetition Task (NRT) developed by Dollaghan & Campbell (1998). Performance was examined according to second-grade diagnostic category, presence/absence of language impairment, and treatment status. Results indicated that children with language impairment, as well as those in intervention, exhibited deficient nonword repetition skills compared to normal language controls. Findings also confirmed that the NRT is a culturally nonbiased measure of language processing. Results from likelihood ratio analyses indicated that NRT performance, though not sufficient on its own, may provide a useful index to
assist
in ruling in or ruling out language disorder.
Effects of Methylphenidate (Ritalin) on Auditory Performance in Children With Attention and Auditory Processing Disorders
Authors: Tillery Kim L. , Katz Jack , Keller Warren D.
Published: July 2014

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study was used to investigate the effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on tests of auditory processing in children diagnosed with both Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD). Thirty-two subjects received three Central Auditory Processing (CAP) tests and the Auditory Continuous Performance Test (ACPT), a measure of attention/impulsivity, at two separate test sessions: once when medicated with Ritalin and once when nonmedicated (placebo). Sixteen subjects were assigned randomly to receive their medication first and 16 to receive the placebo first. A counterbalanced 2x2 mixed factorial analysis of variance was conducted for each of the four dependent variables: Staggered Spondaic Word (SSW), Phonemic Synthesis (PS), Speech-in-Noise (SN), and ACPT measures. Analyses revealed that Ritalin did not have a significant effect on any of the three CAP measures. However, ACPT performance was significantly better (
p
<.000) for the Ritalin versus placebo condition.
The Relation Between Stimulus Context, Speech Audibility, and Perception for Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Children
Authors: Stelmachowicz Patricia G. , Hoover Brenda M. , Lewis Dawna E. , Kortekaas Reinier W. L. , Pittman Andrea L.
Published: July 2014

In this study, the influence of stimulus context and audibility on sentence recognition was assessed in 60 normal-hearing children, 23 hearing-impaired children, and 20 normal-hearing adults. Performance-intensity (PI) functions were obtained for 60 semantically correct and 60 semantically anomalous sentences. For each participant, an audibility index (AI) was calculated at each presentation level, and a logistic function was fitted to rau-transformed percent-correct values to estimate the SPL and AI required to achieve 70% performance. For both types of sentences, there was a systematic age-related shift in the PI functions, suggesting that young children require a higher AI to achieve performance equivalent to that of adults. Improvement in performance with the addition of semantic context was statistically significant only for the normal-hearing 5-year-olds and adults. Data from the hearing-impaired children showed age-related trends that were similar to those of the normal-hearing children, with the majority of individual data falling within the 5th and 95th percentile of normal. The implications of these findings in terms of hearing-aid fitting strategies for young children are discussed.
A Preliminary Study of Factors Influencing Perception of Articulatory Rate in Parkinson Disease
Authors: Tjaden Kris
Published: July 2014

This investigation was a preliminary study of factors influencing perception of articulatory rate in idiopathic Parkinson disease (PD). Nine men with mild to moderate idiopathic PD and 9 healthy men of a similar age read the Farm Passage at habitual, fast, and slow reading rates. Spontaneous speech samples also were obtained. Speech severity for participants with PD was mild to moderate; prominent perceptual characteristics further suggested hypokinetic dysarthria. Nine listeners estimated the articulatory rate of speech runs (i.e., stretch of speech bounded by pauses) extracted from the reading and spontaneous speech samples. Regression analysis was used to explore the relationship between articulatory rate (i.e., syllables produced per second excluding pauses) and perceptual impressions of articulatory rate as well as the relationship between fundamental frequency (F0) range and perceptual estimates of articulatory rate. Regression functions predicting perceptual estimates of articulatory rate from F0 range were not significant for either speaker group. The regression analyses relating articulatory rate and perceptual estimates of articulatory rate, however, revealed a significant, positive relationship between the two measures for both speaker groups. There also was a nonsignificant trend for perception of articulatory rate to grow more rapidly for Parkinsonian speech samples. Although the current findings should be interpreted with caution until they have been validated by additional studies using much larger speaker populations and more extensive speech samples, the results hint at the possibility that perceptual impressions of articulatory rate in PD may overestimate the actual, physical rate. The results also highlight the importance of speech-language pathologists complimenting perceptual judgements of articulatory rate with physical measures.
Acquisition of Irregular Past Tense by Children With Specific Language Impairment
Authors: Rice Mabel L. , Wexler Kenneth , Marquis Janet , Hershberger Scott
Published: July 2014

In this paper we add to what is known about the tense-marking limitations of children with specific language impairment (SLI) by exploring the acquisition of regular and irregular past tense, encompassing the age range of 2;6 to 8;9 (years;months) and comparing the performance of 21 children with SLI to that of 23 control children of the same age and 20 younger control children of equivalent mean length of utterance (MLU) at the outset. The analysis differentiated between the morphophonological component of past tense marking and the morphosyntactic component (finiteness). In the morphosyntactic component, the performance of the SLI group trails that of the two control groups over 3.5 years, whereas in the morphophonological component, the SLI group's performance is equivalent to that of the younger controls. Models of growth curves for regular past tense and irregular finiteness marking show the same pattern, with linear and quadratic components and the child's MLU at the outset as the only predictor. For morphophonological growth the picture changes, with an interaction of linear trend and MLU and the child's receptive vocabulary emerging as a predictor. The findings support a morphosyntactic model, such as the extended optional infinitive (EOI) model, with regard to the limitations in finiteness marking and for affected children.
Spoken Language Production in Huntington's and Parkinson's Diseases
Authors: Murray Laura L.
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the presence and nature of spoken language deficits in Huntington's (HD) and Parkinson's (PD) diseases. Specifically, the study examined whether (a) the spoken language abilities of patients with HD or PD differ from those of age-matched control participants with no brain damage, (b) HD and PD are associated with similar spoken language profiles, and (c) the spoken language abilities of patients with HD or PD are related to the severity of their motor speech deficits, cognitive impairments, or both. All participants completed picture description tasks and a battery of cognitive and motor speech tests. Syntactic, quantitative, and informativeness measures of spoken language were analyzed. In terms of syntax, patients with HD produced shorter utterances, a smaller proportion of grammatical utterances, a larger proportion of simple sentences, and fewer embeddings per utterance than their non-brain-damaged peers. The HD group also produced utterances that were shorter and syntactically simpler than those of the PD group, despite similar performances on the cognitive and motor speech tests. The only syntactic difference between the PD group and their control group was that patients with PD produced a smaller proportion of grammatical sentences. Although the patient and control participants tended to produce similar amounts of verbal output, less of what the patients said was considered informative. Correlations between language measures and test battery results suggested that the spoken language abilities of patients with HD or PD are related to a variety of neuropsychological and motor speech changes. The implications of these findings for the clinical management of HD and PD are discussed.
Disfluency and Time Perception
Authors: Barasch Charles T. , Guitar Barry , McCauley Rebecca J. , Absher Richard G.
Published: July 2014

Stuttering is manifested as a disruption in speech timing, but it may stem from a more basic temporal disorder (R. D. Kent, 1984). We compared the ability of stuttering and nonstuttering adults to estimate protensity and to distinguish the relative lengths of short tones. We also examined whether there is a correlation between a person's degree of disfluency and the ability to measure protensity or judge the relative lengths of short tones. Twenty stuttering and 20 nonstuttering adults were given the Duration Pattern Sequence Test. They were also asked to estimate the lengths of 8 tones and silent intervals. A negative correlation was found between degree of disfluency and ability to determine the relative lengths of short tones. A positive correlation was found between degree of disfluency and length of protensity estimates.
Motor Strategy in Rapid Sequential Swallowing
Authors: Chi-Fishman Gloria , Sonies Barbara C.
Published: July 2014

This study examined the physiological properties and movement strategies of normal, rapid sequential swallowing during simultaneous videofluoroscopy (VFS) and submental surface electromyography (EMG). Ten subjects performed discrete (5 and 15 cc) and sequential (150 cc in tilted and upright head postures) swallowing tasks. Analyses included VFS event timing, movement/bolus passage characteristics, EMG amplitude waveforms, and peak and offset EMG amplitudes. Results revealed that sequential swallows were significantly shorter than discrete swallows in several VFS event durations, but significantly longer in pharyngeal transit and stage transition times. The hyolaryngeal system exhibited a cyclical "rise and partial fall" movement pattern during sequential swallows on VFS, corresponding to a repetitive "activation and partial deactivation" characteristic on EMG. Greater peak EMG amplitude for sequential than discrete swallows was found in 6/10 subjects. Pharyngeal bolus merging, preparatory laryngeal gestures, and penetration without aspiration were also observed in some subjects on VFS. Intersubject differences were significant in timing measures and EMG amplitude. Our findings of individual variability and subject-specific strategies for task accommodation support the notion of built-in plasticity in the deglutitive motor complex.