bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Latency of Echoic Verbal Responses by Three-Year-Old Children
Authors: Saxman John H. , Fay Warren H.
Published: July 2014

The echoic responses of 59 three-year-old children were tape recorded during the routine administration of a verbal comprehension test. They were unsolicited echoes of the examiner’s statements rather than requested imitations as in previous latency studies of verbal responses. The response latency distribution was skewed positively with the mean and median latencies occurring at 0.88 and 0.78 sees, respectively. Comparisons between average latency values at three levels of stimulus conceptual complexity did not result in significant differences. Average response latency values were found also not to be different for verbal stimuli intending a motor response or verbal stimuli intending a verbal response. The results tended to support descriptions of echolalia as a relatively simple verbal response though further research is indicated. It was concluded also that the echoic response latency is independent of the linguistic parameters of the eliciting stimulus.
Habituation and Dishabituation of the Averaged Auditory Evoked Response
Authors: Weber Bruce A.
Published: July 2014

Two experiments investigated amplitude reduction in the averaged evoked response (AER) resulting from repeated auditory stimulation. The first experiment examined the effects of stimulus duration on the rate of AER habituation. Three groups of 10 normal-hearing young adults received 16 series of 1000-Hz tone bursts with durations of 50 msec, 500 msec, and 950 msec. A comparison of AER habituation rates revealed that longer stimulus durations resulted in faster rates of habituation. The second experiment was designed to determine if the AER demonstrated dishabituation (recovery of a habituated response when a parameter of the habituating stimulus is changed). Ten additional normal adults received series of 1000-Hz tone bursts. When the stimulus frequency was changed from 1000 Hz to 500 Hz, all subjects meeting the habituation criterion demonstrated recovery of the AER. The results of the two experiments are compatible with an interpretation of AER habituation as a simple form of learning.
Sensorineural Hearing Loss and Upward Spread of Masking
Authors: Martin Ellen S. , Pickett J. M.
Published: July 2014

Pure-tone auditory thresholds were obtained in quiet and in three levels of masking noise for one normal-hearing group and five groups of subjects with different degrees of sensorineural loss. The masker was a low-pass noise, cut off at 250 Hz. It was presented at overall levels of 77, 97, and 107 dB SPL. Pure-tone thresholds were obtained at test frequencies within and above the masking band. A measure of noise rejection slope was used to describe spread of masking. Degree of loss, configuration of loss, and level of masking noise appear to have marked influences on upward spread of masking patterns in sensorineural subjects.
The Oral Assessment of Object Size
Authors: Dellow P. G. , Lund J. P. , Babcock K. , Van Rosendaal G.
Published: July 2014

Perceptive assessments of the size of objects placed in the mouth were made by manually selecting similar objects from a comparator array, both with and without ocular assistance. Ninety-one young adults made 819 assessments of objects varying only in length. When hands and eyes were used to select an object appearing to be analogous to an intraoral object, subjects made positive errors which were significantly greater than those produced from manual comparisons alone. This confirms the common naive comment that objects feel larger in the mouth than when judged by other means. Peculiarities of the trigeminal system and the oral cavity itself, the bilaterality of the oral stimulation and the perceptive processes, plus certain psychophysical concepts appear to be instrumental in this subjective distortion of size. The intraoral areas utilized by the subjects in their assessments were the same as those normally used for the production of certain consonantal sounds. Sensory information from these sites is important for normal speech, and the testing procedure may be helpful in the investigation of certain speech disorders.
Sensitivity of the Tongue to Electrical Stimulation
Authors: Pleasonton Anna K.
Published: July 2014

This paper describes a technique for the evaluation of lingual sensitivity. Surface electrodes were used to administer short electrical pulses to the tip, midline dorsum, and lateral margins of the tongue of five normal adolescents. The tongue tip was more sensitive than the dorsum, in an approximate 2:1 ratio. Differences in sensitivity among the areas of the dorsum are of smaller magnitude and not consistent from one day to the next. Neither the right nor the left side, nor the sides corresponding to the dominant and the nondominant hand showed consistent evidences of greater sensitivity.
Vowel Recognition Threshold as a Function of Temporal Segmentations
Authors: Powell Richard L. , Tosi Oscar
Published: July 2014

Vowels were segmented into 15 different temporal segments taken from the middle of the vowel and ranging from 4 to 60 msecs, then presented to 6 subjects with normal hearing. The mean temporal-segment recognition threshold of 15 msecs with a range from 9.3 msecs for the /u/ to 27.2 milliseconds for the /a/. Misidenti-fication of vowels was most often confused with the vowel sound adjacent to it on the vowel-hump diagram. There was no significant difference between the cardinal and noncardinal vowels.
Upper Cervical Spine Anomalies and Osseous Nasopharyngeal Depth
Authors: Osborne George S. , Pruzansky Samuel , Koepp-Baker Herbert
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effect of anomalies of the upper cervical vertebrae on the antero-posterior diameter of the nasopharyngeal port. The osseous nasopharyngeal depth was determined from lateral roentgencephalograms for 38 congenital palatopharyngeal incompetent (CPI) patients with anomalies of the upper cervical vertebrae, 38 CPI patients without cervical anomalies, and 76 matched control subjects. Comparison of these measures between groups revealed a significantly greater osseous nasopharyngeal depth in those CPI patients with cervical anomalies. No significant difference existed between the CPI patients without cervical anomalies and their matched controls or between the two matched control groups.
Brief-Tone Audiometry in Patients with VIIIth Nerve Tumor
Authors: Sanders Jay W. , Josey Anne Forrest , Kemker Francis J.
Published: July 2014

Brief-tone audiometry, the determination of temporal auditory integration of power, has been proposed as a diagnostic procedure on the assumption that the results identify the ear with cochlear pathology. Previous studies have shown a clear distinction between the normal ear and the ear with cochlear impairment but have not included results for the ear with sensory-neural loss from Vlllth nerve lesion. In this study, temporal integration functions were obtained for 10 normal hearers, 10 patients with cochlear pathology and 3 patients with surgically confirmed Vlllth nerve tumors. The cochlear loss patients were clearly distinguished from the normals by abnormality in integration function. Results for the Vlllth nerve tumor patients fell well within the range of normal on the brief-tone test.
Relationship Between Speech Sound Discrimination Skills and Language Abilities of Kindergarten Children
Authors: Perozzi Joseph A. , Kunze LuVern H.
Published: July 2014

Thirty normal-hearing kindergarten youngsters were administered two speech-sound discrimination (SSD) tests and the revised edition of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA). The primary difference between the two SSD tests was the context of the stimuli. On one test the discriminating sound elements were imbedded in words (Word Test), and on the other test the same sound elements were imbedded in nonsense syllables (Syllable Test).

Pearson-Product correlations between the two SSD tests and each ITPA subtest and the ITPA total score were all positive. One SSD test did not appear to be significantly more or less related to any of the language measures than did the other SSD test. The very high correlation (0.873) between the two SSD tests indicated that the two tests were measuring the same skill. It was suggested that a subject’s performance on any paired-syllable test would predict his performance on a paired-word test that contained the same sound elements. The significant correlations between the SSD tests and two ITPA subtests measuring expressive language skills and the insignificant correlations between the two SSD tests and subtests measuring receptive and associative language skills indicated that the ability to discriminate among speech sounds is more closely related to speaking than to the understanding or association of linguistic expressions. These findings were interpreted as support for the motor theory of speech perception.
Articulation of /s/ as a Function of Cluster and Word Frequency of Occurrence
Authors: Leonard Laurence B. , Ritterman Stuart I.
Published: July 2014

This study examined frequency-of-occurrence effects on the articulatory productions of /s/ in words by 76 normal and 18 /s/-defective second graders. The stimuli, monosyllabic CCVC and CVCC words, consisted of high- and low-frequency words, with each word containing either a high- or low-frequency /s/ cluster. The stimuli were arranged in four permutations of cluster/word frequency combinations and were presented to the subjects in an imitation task. Significant differences were observed between the articulatory performances on high- versus low-frequency clusters, as well as on high- versus low-frequency words.
The Adaptation Effect for Six Types of Speech Disfluency
Authors: Silverman Franklin H. , Williams Dean E.
Published: July 2014

Each of 121 stutterers and 121 nonstutterers read a passage three times consecutively. The following types of speech disfluency were identified from tape recordings of the readings: part-word repetition, word repetition, phrase repetition, interjection of sounds and syllables, revision, and disrhythmic phonation. With the exception of revision and interjection for stutterers, the adaptation effect was observed for each type of disfluency in both groups of subjects. These data are generally consistent with the hypothesis that the adaptation effect, as it has traditionally been studied in oral reading, does not differentiate stutterers from nonstutterers.
The Effects of Signal Rise Time and Duration on the Early Components of the Auditory Evoked Cortical Response
Authors: Skinner Paul H. , Antinoro Frank
Published: July 2014

The effects of signal rise time and duration on the early components of the auditory evoked cortical response were studied in 20 subjects. Tone bursts were presented at 1000 Hz at various rise times and durations. No consistent effects of signal duration on the latency or amplitude of the early response were observed. The effects of signal rise time yielded no consistent change in peak latency but revealed a dramatic effect on peak amplitude. Amplitude decreased markedly with slower rise times. Stimuli presented with slow rise times resulted in instability of the wave form, while click stimuli produced remarkably stable responses from trial to trial.
Echo-Reaction as an Approach to Semantic Resolution
Authors: Fay Warren H. , Butler Bruce V.
Published: July 2014

To determine the relationship of echo-reactions to degree of semantic challenge, instances of spontaneous echo, vocalized and whispered, were tabulated from performances of eight-year-olds on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Two hundred of 364 echoed 2226 of the stimuli on presentation. Analysis revealed that the occurrence of echoing increased as the semantic difficulty increased. The more difficult words were echoed significantly more often than were the less difficult words. Results are considered with respect to overt and covert echo-reactions—their role in the perception of speech and their developmental disposition as private, self-guiding speech.
Newborn Infant Cry and Nonhuman Primate Vocalization
Authors: Lieberman Philip , Harris Katherine S. , Wolff Peter , Russell Lorraine H.
Published: July 2014

Cries were recorded from 20 normal newborn infants from birth to the fourth day of life. Sound spectrograms showed that these cries were similar to the vocalizations of nonhuman primates insofar as the infants seemed to produce sounds by means of a uniform cross-section, schwalike, vocal tract configuration. Under certain conditions the laryngeal excitation was breathy and formant frequencies corresponding to an open boundary condition at the glottis were generated. The infants did not produce the range of sounds typical of adult human speech. This inability appears to reflect, in part, limitations imposed by the neonatal vocal apparatus, which, like the nonhuman primate vocal tract, appears to be inherently incapable of producing the full range of human speech. The initial restrictions on the sound-making repertoire of human infants are also evident in previous perceptually based transcriptions of the utterances of infants as well as in spectrographic and cineradiographic studies.
Phonational Frequency Ranges of Adults
Authors: Hollien Harry , Dew Donald , Philips Patricia
Published: July 2014

This paper reports data on the phonational frequency ranges of 332 male and 202 female adults, ages 18–36. Each subject was required to produce a series of consecutive phonations with the f
0
corresponding to the equal-tempered musical scale from the lowest sustainable phonation in his modal register to the highest in falsetto. The mean phonational frequency range was in excess of three octaves (specifically, 38 ST for males and 37 ST for females), mean values for the lowest and highest frequencies of phonation were 78 and 698 Hz for the males and 139 and 1108 Hz for the females, and there appeared to be no significant trends in phonational frequency ranges that correlated with advancing age in this population.
Some Physiologic Correlates of Vocal-Fry Phonation
Authors: McGlone Robert E. , Shipp Thomas
Published: July 2014

Subglottal air pressure, airflow, and electromyographic activity of four intrinsic larygeal muscles were recorded during sustained phonation in the vocal-fry and low-frequency modal registers. Nine young adult males were subjects. In modal phonation there was greater airflow, greater cricothyroid and interarytenoid muscle activity, and decreased thyroarytenoid activity than in vocal fry. No differences were found between registers for subglottal air pressure or posterior cricoarytenoid muscle activity.
Effects of Distance on the Visual Reception of Speech
Authors: Erber Norman P.
Published: July 2014

Two talkers with normal hearing and speech presented with voice 240 common nouns (80 monosyllables, 80 trochees, 80 spondees) to six profoundly deaf children whose task was to lipread without acoustic cues at distances from 5-100 ft. Under bright, shadow-free illumination, lipreading performance diminished from 75% correct at 5 ft to 11% correct at 100 ft. Scores varied with distance similarly for both talkers. The stress patterns of the stimulus words influenced their intelligibility, with scores decreasing from spondees to trochees to monosyllables. In a supplementary study, one talker presented two tests of phoneme recognition to the same six deaf children whose task was to lipread from 5, 20, or 70 ft. Identification of consonants in VCV context depended on their place of articulation (front superior to back) and on the surrounding vowel (/a–a/ superior to /i–i/ or /u–u/). Vowel-identification scores were less dependent on distance than were consonant-identification scores. In general, tense (stressed) vowels were more easily identified in /b/-V-/b/ context than were lax (unstressed) vowels.
Relationships among Components of the Grammar in Language Disorder
Authors: Menyuk Paula , Looney Patricia L.
Published: July 2014

This study (1) examined the relationship between the accuracy of repetition of syntactic structures and phonological sequences by language-disordered children, and (2) examined the effect of meaning on the phonological sequence repetition accuracy of a group of language-disordered and normal-speaking children. There was a significant correlation between the percentage of errors made by the language-disordered children in syntactic structure repetition and phonological sequence repetition if the sequences were in words, and there was a tendency in this direction if sequences were in nonsense syllables. The meaningfulness of the sequences affected degree of repetition accuracy for the language-disordered children and tended to do the same for normal-speaking children. In addition, the distinctive feature components of the segments in both words and nonsense syllables were better recalled than the segments themselves, and there was great similarity in the rank order of feature recall in each type of sequence. These findings lead to suggestions concerning the structure of the language to be presented to these children in therapeutic situations.
Auditory Comprehension of English by Monolingual and Bilingual Preschool Children
Authors: Carrow Elizabeth
Published: July 2014

The auditory comprehension of English by 30 monolingual and 30 bilingual children, ages three years, 10 months, to five years, nine months, from low socioeconomic areas in Houston, Texas, was compared. The monolingual children obtained significantly higher mean scores than the bilingual children. Analysis of errors indicated that the linguistic areas in which the scores of monolingual children were significantly higher than those of bilingual children were nouns, pronouns, plurality of nouns, and noun phrases with two adjective modifiers.
Phonetic Interference and Motor Recall
Authors: Winitz Harris , Bellerose Betty
Published: July 2014

Sources of interference external to the laboratory were tested by instructing children to learn non-English clusters or sequences. Control subjects learned comparable English units and sequences. Of three separate experiments where varied sounds and retention intervals were used, in only one instance did experimental subjects show a decrement in memory. The findings, therefore, do not support the hypothesis—given the conditions of the experiments reported in the paper—that extraexperimental associations cause a decrement in memory. Further, the finding that imitation is highly stable over the intervals tested suggests that “motor memory” does not contribute to articulatory decay.
Comparison of Rubella and Nonrubella Young Deaf Adults: Implications for Learning
Authors: Lehman Jean Utley , Simmons M. Patricia
Published: July 2014

To investigate the effects of rubella on the performance of deaf subjects, a group of 30 rubella young deaf adults was compared to a group of 30 nonrubella young deaf adults on a series of measures that included the performance subtests of the WAIS, the Revised Beta, the Stanford Achievement Test, and the Utley Lipreading Test. For the 25 measures analyzed, the rubella-deaf group performed significantly poorer on the Digit Symbol subtest of both the WAIS and the Revised Beta, all subtests of the Stanford Achievement Test, and both subtests of the Utley Lipreading Test.
Initial Consonant Intelligibility by Hearing-Impaired Children
Authors: Byers Vincent W.
Published: July 2014

The Fairbanks Rhyme Test was presented to 12 hearing-impaired children, ages 10–16, to obtain information on the intelligibility of initial consonants in monosyllabic words. All five forms of the rhyme test were presented randomly at five sensation levels (10, 15, 20, 30, and 40 dB) to generate intelligibility gain functions. The degree of amplification produced differential effects on the intelligibility of the 14 initial phonemes studied. Increases in gain substantially improved the intelligibility of the phonemes /d, b, k, p, t/. The phoneme /g/ showed a substantial intelligibility gain but not in a similar fashion to the rest of the stop phonemes. Although the nasal consonants /m/ and /n/ showed equivalent intelligibility gains to that of the stops, they achieved their maximum intelligibility level within the intensity range studied. The phoneme /l/ showed an intelligibility gain function similar to that of the nasal phonemes. The phonemes /s/ and /r/, while highly intelligible throughout all conditions, showed only slight improvement as a function of intensity. Finally, intensity had no systematic effect on the intelligibility of /f/, /h/, and /w/.
The Influence of the Gamma Motor System on Jaw Movements during Speech: A Theoretical Framework and Some Preliminary Observations
Authors: Abbs James H.
Published: July 2014

A selective anesthesization technique was applied to the mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve in man, and jaw activity was observed during speech under conditions of gamma motor blockade. The basic procedure involves special application of a conventional nerve block whereby it appears possible to selectively block the gamma efferent fibers of a motor nerve while leaving the alpha fibers unaffected. Measurement and analysis of jaw displacement, velocity, and acceleration under both normal and gamma block conditions revealed systematic effects for two experimental subjects. The experimental changes in jaw activity were interpreted to suggest that the spindle afferent facilitation of alpha motoneurons, thougnt to optimize the initiation of movement under normal conditions, was absent or disrupted. Thus, the jaw musculature was unable to produce adequate opening and closing forces with normal temporal control. Furthermore, from these data, under normal conditions, the spindle motor system would appear to operate most clearly under conditions of movement where large values of acceleration, velocity, and displacement were demanded. Finally, these findings were accepted as support for spindle motor system operation in oral-facial movements during the production of speech.
Bacteriology of and Cleaning Methods for Stock Earmolds
Authors: Lankford James E. , Behnke Charles R.
Published: July 2014

Stock earmolds used in hearing-aid evaluations were examined for the presence of certain pathogenic microorganisms. Bacterial samples were taken from four earmolds at ejach of nine different facilities. These earmolds were found to have little or no bacterial contamination, which probably indicates the success of the cleaning methods. Informatipn was also obtained about the method for cleaning earmolds at each facility. Five different cleaning methods were observed and of these, only one seems inappropriate for all types of earmolds. A guide for earmold cleaning is proposed.
Speaking Rate: Effects on Children’s Comprehension of Normal Speech
Authors: Berry Mary D. , Erickson Robert L.
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the comprehension of speech among children in maturational stages of linguistic development when speech was presented at varying rates of utterance by a trained speaker. Five groups, each consisting of a subgroup of 10 kindergarten and a subgroup of 10 second-grade children, were presented with a tape-recorded administration of the receptive section of the Northwestern Syntax Screening Test (NSST). Each group heard the test at one or another of the following rates: 2.6, 3.4, 4.7, 5.3, or 6.3 syllables per second. A mean comprehension score was determined for each group and subgroup, and a treatment-by-levels analysis of variance was completed. Results indicated that comprehension was higher at the two slower rates than at the three faster rates. Rate by grade interaction was nonsignificant and comprehension differences between sexes appeared virtually nonexistent.
Use of the Leiter International Performance Scale with Aphasic Children
Authors: Black F. William
Published: July 2014

The clinical utility of the Arthur Adaptation of the Leiter International Performance Scale (LIPS) was investigated in a sample of 100 children with either developmental or acquired aphasia. Test-retest reliability data and concurrent validity data with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) were obtained. Group and individual performance on the LIPS over a period of six months was highly consistent. The reliability coefficient was 0.916, which compares favorably with the reported reliability of most commonly used intelligence tests. Although a moderately significant correlation was obtained between PPVT and LIPS IQs, group performance on the PPVT was substantially lower than that on the LIPS. The LIPS provided higher IQs in 75 of the 100 subjects, suggesting that the LIPS is a more adequate measure of intellectual potential and the PPVT performance reflects the extent of the language disability. The LIPS appears adequately reliable for use with aphasic children. The utility of concurrent use of the LIPS and PPVT is discussed.
Equivalency of CID and Revised CID Sentence Lists
Authors: Giolas Thomas G. , Duffy Joseph R.
Published: July 2014

The equivalency of speech intelligibility scores obtained with the 10 individual lists within each of the Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) and the Revised CID (R-CID) Sentence Lists was investigated. The effect of the modification procedures used to form the revised lists was analyzed. Sixty normal-hearing subjects were divided into two groups of 30 each, with one group listening to all CID lists and the second group listening to all R-CID lists. Sentence lists were distorted using lowpass frequency distortion at 420 Hz and scored according to the number of key words correctly identified. Employing a ± 10% precision testing criterion, all correlations computed for the lists studied were too low to render the lists equivalent for most purposes. These results relate to the reliability of test scores generated by a specific acoustic event and do not question the appropriateness of sentences as a speech intelligibility message. The mean scores for eight R-CID Sentence Lists were significantly lower than scores obtained for the corresponding CID lists, suggesting that the revised lists are more sensitive to low-pass frequency distortion.
Loudness Growth under Masking: Relation to True Sensorineural Impairment
Authors: Richards Alan M.
Published: July 2014

Alternate binaural loudness balances between masked and unmasked normal ears were performed to examine the growth of loudness as a function of masker level at each of several frequencies (500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz) and to determine whether the recruitmentlike phenomenon in masked ears is comparable in its growth and form to actual recruitment growth in sensorineural impaired ears. The results for 28 subjects indicated that for all frequencies a power function relating the perceived loudness in the masked ear to the unmasked ear could be drawn, and that the slope of this function rose as a function of increased masking. The family of slopes for each frequency was linearly related to the induced threshold shift. The slope of this latter relation proved to be frequency dependent. Comparison between the slope growth in simulated hearing loss and the family of loudness-balance slopes obtained from patients with true unilateral loss of varying degree indicated that the slopes of loudness-balance functions in the latter group also increased linearly with increased loss. In this latter instance, however, the slope growth was not frequency dependent, thus pointing to an essential difference between simulated and actual loudness recruitment growth.
Dialect Proficiency and Auditory Comprehension in Standard and Black Nonstandard English
Authors: Levy Betty B. , Cook Harold
Published: July 2014

A dialect proficiency task and an auditory comprehension task (stories and questions) were administered to 32 black second graders. Half of the subjects received the auditory comprehension task in black nonstandard English; the other half received the task in standard English. Subjects were asked to identify the race of the speakers and how well they liked the stories and speakers. Performance was significantly better on the questions in the standard treatment. Within treatments, there was a positive correlation between dialect proficiency and auditory comprehension. The subjects correctly identified black speakers but tended to misidentify standard speakers. The results are discussed in terms of a “difference” vs a “bicultural” model of dialect proficiency and achievement.
Communication Development in the First Three Years of Life
Authors: Ling Daniel , Ling Agnes H.
Published: July 2014

Checklists were devised to record time-sampled behavior relating to eight modes of mother-to-child and child-to-mother communication. Subjects, chosen from middle-class families, were 48 children, aged one month to three years, and thenmothers. Data showed the relative frequency with which vocal and verbal behavior, eye contact, facial expression, body posture, action, demonstration, and gesture were used in relation to die children’s age, sex, and position in the family. Trends in relation to age were largely predictable, except that mothers of young babies verbalized as frequently as did mothers of older infants. Imitations and expansions were seldom employed even by mothers of children in their third year. Verbalization was mainly related to ongoing events. Mothers made more body contact with young male infants and were most attentive to their first-born children. Time-sampling is suggested as an appropriate method for measuring the frequency with which different modes of communication are employed by hearing-impaired infants and their mothers before and during aural rehabilitation treatment.
Some Motivational Correlates of Lipreading
Authors: Giolas Thomas G. , Butterfield Earl C. , Weaver S. Joseph
Published: July 2014

This study investigated the relationship between lipreading and three personality variables: (1) locus of control, (2) evaluative style, and (3) incentive orientation. Forty-eight fifth and sixth graders were administered inventory measures of these personality variables and the John Tracy Test of Lipreading. Eight groups were formed, with each group differing on one variable but comparable on the other two variables. Intrinsically oriented children lipread significantly more words correctly than did extrinsically oriented children. Since no extrinsic rewards were offered, it may be assumed that the intrinsically oriented children found some reward in the lipreading task itself, that is, self-satisfaction in learning something new and a sense of achievement when they grasped the meaning of some items. Conversely, without feedback, extrinsically oriented children apparently found little reward in the lipreading task and, therefore, performed less well.
Variables Influencing Performance on Speech-Sound Discrimination Tests
Authors: Schwartz Arthur H. , Goldman Ronald
Published: July 2014

Stimulus items were presented in three different contexts and under two different listening conditions to a total of 72 nursery, kindergarten, and first-grade children divided into equally sized groups on the basis of age. Results indicated that both the context of stimulus item presentation and the presence of background noise affected accuracy of performance. Children in all three groups consistently made more errors in the context using limited grammatical and phonetic cues. Noise disrupted performance in all contexts, but the greatest disruption occurred in the paired-comparison context. It appeared that contexts employing grammatical cues were more resistant to disruption from background noise. The results of this investigation also indicated that the performance of young children may have been affected by factors other than their ability to discriminate speech sounds.
The Duration of [s] in English Words
Authors: Klatt Dennis
Published: July 2014

The duration of the phonetic segment [s] has been measured from recordings made by three talkers of English words embedded in the frame sentence “Say ________instead.” Results indicate that the duration of [s] depends on whether the following vowel nucleus is stressed or not, but the duration is independent of the degree of stress on the vowel. An [s] is longer in prestressed position and shorter before unstressed vowels and in word-final position. The [s] duration does not appear to depend on the position of a syllable in the word. An [s] is shorter in multisyllabic words and in consonant cluster sequences. The locations of syllable boundaries and morpheme boundaries do not influence the duration of an intervocalic [s]. The relatively large durational variability of [s] before an unstressed vowel suggests that unstressed syllables are articulated with less precision than are stressed syllables and supports the notion that lexical stress is a feature the domain of which encompasses both consonants and vowels.
The Effects of White Noise on the Frequency of Stuttering
Authors: Garber Sharon Fineberg , Martin Richard R.
Published: July 2014

Three adult male stutterers spoke spontaneously during a series of base-rate and noise sessions. Base rate was run first for a minimum of 100 minutes and until two criteria of stability were met. Following base rate, all subjects were presented binaurally with a 100 dB SPL white noise for a minimum of 100 minutes. One subject also was tested under 80 dB SPL noise and 60 dB SPL noise. All subjects decreased their stuttering frequencies during the first five-minute period in which the 100-dB noise was presented. Over longer periods of time under 100 dB, one subject increased his frequency of stuttering slightly, and one subject decreased his frequency of stuttering slightly. The third subject’s frequency of stuttering decreased significantly under 100 and 80 dB, but not under 60 dB. It appears that the effects of short- and long-term noise on stuttering are not the same.
Pure-Tone Octave Masking in Listeners with Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Authors: Nelson David A. , Bilger Robert C.
Published: July 2014

Pure-tone octave masking was investigated in 14 listeners with sensorineural hearing loss to examine the hypothesis that the sensorineural ear introduces abnormal harmonic distortion. Thresholds for a test signal at f
2
, masked by a masking signal at f
1
, (where f
2
= 2f
1
) were obtained as a function of the level of the f
1
masker for four different f
1
frequencies (250, 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz) and two different phase relations between the f
1
and f
2
signals (90° and 270°). Analysis of the data in terms of the absolute level of the f
2
test signal at masked threshold vs the absolute level of the f
1
masking signal leads to the conclusion that these pathological ears do not perform differently from normal ears, except along the dimension of hearing loss. That is, their hearing losses do not add significant distortion to the acoustic signal. Analysis of the data in terms of the sensation level of the f
2
test signal at masked threshold leads to the specious conclusion that the sensorineural ear introduces abnormal distortion.
Children’s Discrimination of Rhyme
Authors: Knafle June D.
Published: July 2014

A CVCC rhyming test, which had two slightly different types of auditory differentiation, was given to 273 kindergarten to third-grade children. A related rhyming test was also given to 62 of the kindergarten children. The rhyming category which required differentiation at the ends of words was more difficult than the category which required differentiation within the words. Correct responses increased with successive grade levels, but category differences remained. Sex differences were not significant. The rhyming test which had initial consonant similarities of stimulus and nonrhyming response words was more difficult for the kindergarten children than the rhyming test which did not have such similarities.
Durational Aspects of Vowel Production in the Speech of Deaf Children
Authors: Monsen Randall B.
Published: July 2014

Two aspects of the duration control of vowel production were examined in deaf and normally hearing subjects: inherent durational differences between two closely related vowels (/i/ and /
i
/) and the modifying influence of the following consonant. Twelve deaf and five normal adolescents pronounced 56 CV(C) words containing a vowel, /i/ or /
i
/, followed by /t, s, n, d, z, ø/. Whereas in normal speech the tense vowel /i/ is only relatively longer than the lax vowel /
i
/, in the speech of the deaf subjects these two vowels occupy much more restricted durational ranges. The modifying influence of a following sound is different in the case of the deaf subjects. Differences between the deaf and normal subjects do not appear to be simply errors of speech production, but reflect instead a different type of linguistic structure. The vowel production characteristics of the deaf subjects account in part for the low intelligibility of consonantal sounds in the speech of the deaf, and imply that standard articulation tests may be an ineffective means of assessing speech production processes of deaf speakers.
Developmental Apraxia of Speech in Children with Defective Articulation
Authors: Yoss Kathe Allan , Darley Frederic L.
Published: July 2014

To identify behaviors which might distinguish developmental apraxia of speech from “functional” articulation disorders, 30 children with moderate to severe defective articulation but with normal intelligence, hearing, and language abilities and with no apparent organic pathologic condition and a group of matched control subjects were given a battery of speech and nonspeech tests. Pediatric neurologic examinations were completed for the subjects with defective articulation. Speech data were analyzed according to type of articulation error and by a method of distinctive-feature categorization. Highly significant differences were found between control and defective articulation subjects. A rationale was established for division of the defective articulation group on the basis of their performance on isolated volitional oral movement tasks. Combinations of variables that emerged as statistically significant differentiating predictors between these two subgroups of subjects with defective articulation were neurologic ratings, two- and three-feature errors, distortions, prolongations and repetitions, additions, one-place errors, and omissions. These behavioral differences support the conclusion that an identifiable developmental apraxia of speech exists in some children with defective articulation.
Dimensions of Individual Difference in the Spoken Syntax of School Children
Authors: Hass Wilbur A. , Wepman Joseph M.
Published: July 2014

Language produced by 180 children (aged five through 13 years) on a story-telling task was analyzed in terms of 57 variables (part-of-speech frequencies and proportions, syntactic elaboration indexes, and constructional variety measures). A factor analysis revealed five dimensions of syntactic usage: general fluency, embeddedness, finite verb structure, noun phrase structure, and qualified speech. The embeddedness dimension was the only one with a sizable relation to age and is interpretable in terms of a developmental progression in the inclusion of transformationally processed content in the sentence. Among the other stylistic dimensions, fluency, and verbal vs nominal emphases in language appear to be in evidence at various age levels and on different types of variables.
Effects of Visual Message-Related Cues, Age, and Hearing Impairment on Speechreading Performance
Authors: Pelson Rodney O. , Prather William F.
Published: July 2014

Three groups of adult subjects, differing primarily in age and auditory status, performed two speechreading tasks. One task consisted of speechreading sentences in which the only cues provided were those from the speaker’s face and lips. In the other task, a related picture was presented just prior to speechreading a given sentence. Results indicated that while message-related pictures markedly enhanced speechreading performance for all groups, the older hearing-impaired subjects improved more than the two groups of normal-hearing subjects, regardless of age. In terms of absolute speechreading performance, however, the younger normal-hearing subjects speechread better than either of the two older groups while the older adults with hearing impairment tended to speechread better than the older subjects with normal hearing.
Effect of Loudspeaker Position on Differences between Earphone and Free-Field Thresholds (MAP and MAF)
Authors: Stream Richard W. , Dirks Donald D.
Published: July 2014

Free-field and earphone measurements were obtained from eight practiced listeners under monaural and binaural conditions to assess the hypothesis that a major source of the disparity between minimum audible pressure (MAP) and minimum audible field (MAF) speech thresholds was the position of the loudspeaker relative to the listener’s head. Free-field measurements were made at seven different loudspeaker positions (0, 30, 60, 90, 270, 300, and 330 degrees). Stimuli were spondaic words and pure tones at five octave intervals from 250 to 4000 Hz. The smallest monaural MAP/MAF difference for spondees occurred at 0° azimuth (2.7 dB) and the largest appeared at the 60° near-ear position (7.1 dB). Similar results emerged for spondaic words under binaural conditions, although the magnitude of the changes due to variations in loudspeaker position was reduced considerably from comparable monaural conditions. These results indicated that the disparities in MAP/MAF differences of previous investigations were due principally to the location of the loudspeaker. The differences between MAP and MAF thresholds were compared to other published results on ear-canal pressure measured in free field and under earphone. Secondary analysis of the data suggests that the MAP/MAF differences observed in this study may be related partially to the differences in calibration techniques used to specify the level of the signal in free field and under earphone.
Pantomime Recognition in Aphasics
Authors: Duffy Robert J. , Duffy Joseph R. , Pearson Karen Leiter
Published: July 2014

A pantomime recognition test was developed to study the extent of impairment of pantomime recognition and the relationship between pantomime recognition and verbal deficits in aphasics. This test requires no verbal instructions to the subject and only a simple pointing response. A description and rationale for the test are presented. This new test and three tests of verbal abilities (Verbal Recognition Test, Naming Test, and the Porch Index of Communicative Ability) were administered to four groups of subjects: aphasics, right-hemisphere damaged, subcortically damaged, and normals. Results indicate (1) greater impairment of pantomime recognition ability in aphasics than the other groups of subjects and (2) high correlations between impairment of pantomime recognition and impairment of verbal abilities in aphasics. Our findings are consistent with previous clinical reports and experimental data showing that aphasics commonly demonstrate impairment in gesture and pantomime. We conclude that aphasia is best understood as a general impairment of symbolic communication that includes nonverbal as well as verbal deficits.
Intraoral Air Pressure as a Feedback Cue in Consonant Production
Authors: Prosek Robert A. , House Arthur S.
Published: July 2014

The effects of oral-sensory deprivation on the production of consonants was studied using narrow phonetic transcriptions and measurements of intraoral air pressure and duration. The speech materials were 20 bisyllabic words produced both in isolation and in sentences, and sentences that included words with 34 stop variants. These utterances were produced by four normal talkers and by the same talkers when deprived of oral sensation. The state of oral-sensory deprivation was induced by a series of mandibular, infraorbital, and palatal injections of 2% xylocaine. The talkers also scaled levels of effort used to produce the syllables /pa/ and /ba/, both with and without the anesthetic. In general, after the administration of the anesthetic, the characteristic tongue carriage of the talkers was shifted posteriorly, the rate of speech was slower, and there were minor imprecisions in articulation consisting primarily of alterations in lip and tongue activity. In addition, consonants were produced with slightly greater intraoral air pressures and longer durations. The talkers had no difficulty in scaling levels of effort in either the normal or the anesthetic conditions, and maintained a linear relationship between effort and intraoral air pressure in both conditions. The results suggest that the talkers used more effort in producing speech in the anesthetic condition and are untenable with the idea that intraoral air pressure constitutes an important feedback parameter in controlling articulation. The speech produced by the talkers while anesthetized (that is, while without sensation in the mouth) was reasonably precise and must be postulated to have been under the control of a pressure-sensing system other than a closed feedback loop.
Speech Fluency Fluctuations during the Menstrual Cycle
Authors: Silverman Ellen-Marie , Zimmer Catherine H.
Published: July 2014

This study sought to determine whether changes in disfluency characteristics accompany biological and emotional changes during the menstrual cycle. Four extemporaneous speech samples were collected from each of 12 women, one at ovulation (when the average woman experiences her greatest feelings of self-esteem and self-confidence) and one at premenstruation (when she experiences a significant increase in anxiety level) for two consecutive cycles. The mean total frequency of the women’s speech disfluencies produced at premenstruation was significantly greater than the mean total of their speech disfluencies produced at ovulation. The disfluency type that accounted for much of the difference in total frequency of disfluency between the two cycle points was revision-incomplete phrase. The tendency for these nonstutterers to produce more speech disfluencies at premenstruation than at ovulation is similar to a tendency we have observed in stutterers.
Auditory and Audiovisual Feature Transmission in Hearing-Impaired Adults
Authors: Walden Brian E. , Prosek Robert A. , Worthington Don W.
Published: July 2014

Auditory and audiovisual consonant recognition were studied in 98 hearing-impaired adults, who demonstrated a wide range of consonant-recognition abilities. Information transfer analysis was used to describe the performance of the subjects on the auditory and audiovisual tasks in terms of a set of articulatory features. Visual cues substantially enhanced the transmission of duration, place-of-articulation, frication, and nasality features, but had considerably less effect on transmission of the liquid-glide and voicing features. The improvement in transmission resulting from visual cues was relatively constant across a wide range of auditory performance levels.
Perceptual Strategies Employed by Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Children in the Comprehension of Sentences Containing Relative Clauses
Authors: Davis Julia , Blasdell Richard
Published: July 2014

Comprehension of spoken sentences containing embedded-relative clauses and consisting of N
1
V
1
N
2
V
2
N
3
combinations was assessed by means of a point-to-the-picture task administered to young normal-hearing and hearing-impaired children. Four perceptual strategies were available. Hearing-impaired children performed in a manner that was different quantitatively and qualitatively from normal-hearing children. Results suggest that various sources of ambiguity affect the strategies used by the hearing-impaired children and cause them to be less stable than those employed by normal-hearing children.