bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Review of visual speech perception by hearing and hearing‐impaired people: clinical implications
Authors: Woodhouse Lynn , Hickson Louise , Dodd Barbara 
Published: September 2008

Background: Speech perception is often considered specific to the auditory modality, despite convincing evidence that speech processing is bimodal. The theoretical and clinical roles of speech‐reading for speech perception, however, have received little attention in speech–language therapy.Aims: The role of speech‐read information for speech perception is evaluated by considering evidence from hearing infants and adults, people with speech disorders, and those born profoundly hearing impaired.Methods & Procedures: Research studies are evaluated for evidence on lip‐reading for speech perception: the mandatory role of speech‐reading for hearing adults' perception of the McGurk effect and hearing infants' awareness of the congruence between lip movements and speech sounds; brain neuroimaging studies of speech‐read and heard speech perception; the speech‐reading abilities of people with disordered speech; and the phonological coding abilities of people with profound pre‐lingual hearing loss. Theories of multimodal speech perception are explained.Main Contributions: Five pieces of evidence indicate that speech‐reading is an integral part of speech processing. Hearing people's perception of speech is influenced by speech‐read cues, and those speech‐read cues cannot be ignored. Infants are aware that lip movements and speech sounds match from soon after birth and by four months of age have language specific speech‐reading skills. Studies of brain activity show that the brain processes speech‐read and heard speech similarly. Some children and adults with speech disorders are reported to rely less on speech‐read cues than people without speech disorders, and children who are profoundly hearing impaired from birth have concepts of rhyme, match homophones, and can repeat and spell nonsense words.Conclusions & Implications: Speech‐reading, a mandatory part of speech perception, should be appropriately assessed and be considered when developing strategies for speech and language intervention.
The Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter (PATCS) scale: an evaluation of validity, reliability and the negativity of attitudes
Authors: Langevin Marilyn , Kleitman Sabina , Packman Ann , Onslow Mark 
Published: September 2008

Background:Persistent calls for school‐based education about stuttering necessitate a better understanding of peer attitudes toward children who stutter and a means to measure outcomes of such educational interventions. Langevin and Hagler in2004developed the Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter scale (PATCS) to address these needs and gave preliminary evidence of reliability and construct validity.Aims:To examine further the psychometric properties of PATCS and to examine the negativity of attitudes.Methods & Procedures:PATCS was administered to 760 Canadian children in grades 3–6. Measures included reliability, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), a known groups analysis, convergent validity with the Pro‐Victim Scale of Rigby and Slee, and the negativity of attitudes.Outcomes & Results:PATCS appears to tap a second‐order general attitude factor and three first‐order factors representing the constructs of Positive Social Distance (PSD), Social Pressure (SP), and Verbal Interaction (VI). In the known groups analysis, participants who had contact with someone who stutters had higher scores (more positive attitudes) than those who had not, and girls had higher scores than boys. PATCS correlated moderately (0.43,p<0.01) with the Pro‐Victim scale. Finally, one‐fifth (21.7%) of participants had scores that were somewhat to very negative.Conclusions & Implications:Results provide evidence of the validity and reliability of PATCS and confirm the need for school‐based education about stuttering. The PSD and SP factors suggest that education include discussions about (1) similarities and differences among children who do and do not stutter in order to increase acceptance, and (2) making personal choices and handling peer pressure in thinking about children who stutter. The VI factor suggests that open discussion about stuttering may alleviate frustration experienced by listeners and provide the opportunity to give strategies for responding appropriately. Results also suggest that education involve contact with a person who stutters.
Optimizing speech production in the ventilator‐assisted individual following cervical spinal cord injury: a preliminary investigation
Authors: MacBean Naomi , Ward Elizabeth , Murdoch Bruce , Cahill Louise , Solley Maura , Geraghty Timothy , Hukins Craig 
Published: September 2008

Background: Mechanical ventilation is commonly used during the acute management of cervical spinal cord injury, and is required on an ongoing basis in the majority of patients with injuries at or above C3. However, to date there have been limited systematic investigations of the options available to improve speech while ventilator‐assisted post‐cervical spinal cord injury.Aims: To provide preliminary evidence of any benefits gained through the addition of positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP) and/or a tracheostomy speech valve to the condition of leak speech.Methods & Procedures: Speech production in the three conditions was compared in two ventilator‐assisted participants using a series of instrumental and perceptual speech measures.Outcomes & Results: The addition of PEEP or the use of a speech valve resulted in speech that was superior to leak speech for both participants; however, individual variation was present.Conclusions & Implications: Leak speech alone or with the addition of PEEP or a tracheostomy speech valve can facilitate functional communication for the ventilated patient, though PEEP and valve speech were found to be superior in the current study. These findings will be of assistance for clinicians counselling the growing population of patients who may require tracheostomy positive pressure ventilation long‐term regarding communication options.
Cleft Audit Protocol for Speech (CAPS‐A): a comprehensive training package for speech analysis
Authors: Sell D. , John A. , Harding‐Bell A. , Sweeney T. , Hegarty F. , Freeman J. 
Published: September 2008

Background:The previous literature has largely focused on speech analysis systems and ignored process issues, such as the nature of adequate speech samples, data acquisition, recording and playback. Although there has been recognition of the need for training on tools used in speech analysis associated with cleft palate, little attention has been paid to this issue.Aims:To design, execute, and evaluate a training programme for speech and language therapists on the systematic and reliable use of the Cleft Audit Protocol for Speech‐Augmented (CAPS‐A), addressing issues of standardized speech samples, data acquisition, recording, playback, and listening guidelines.Methods & Procedures:Thirty‐six specialist speech and language therapists undertook the training programme over four days. This consisted of two days' training on the CAPS‐A tool followed by a third day, making independent ratings and transcriptions on ten new cases which had been previously recorded during routine audit data collection. This task was repeated on day 4, a minimum of one month later. Ratings were made using the CAPS‐A record form with the CAPS‐A definition table. An analysis was made of the speech and language therapists' CAPS‐A ratings at occasion 1 and occasion 2 and the intra‐ and inter‐rater reliability calculated.Outcomes & Results:Trained therapists showed consistency in individual judgements on specific sections of the tool. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated for each section with good agreement on eight of 13 sections. There were only fair levels of agreement on anterior oral cleft speech characteristics, non‐cleft errors/immaturities and voice. This was explained, at least in part, by their low prevalence which affects the calculation of the intraclass correlation coefficient statistic.Conclusions & Implications:Speech and language therapists benefited from training on the CAPS‐A, focusing on specific aspects of speech using definitions of parameters and scalar points, in order to apply the tool systematically and reliably. Ratings are enhanced by ensuring a high degree of attention to the nature of the data, standardizing the speech sample, data acquisition, the listening process together with the use of high‐quality recording and playback equipment. In addition, a method is proposed for maintaining listening skills following training as part of an individual's continuing education.
Pragmatics fragmented: the factor structure of the Dutch Children's Communication Checklist (CCC)
Authors: Geurts Hilde M. , Hartman Catharina , Verté Sylvie , Oosterlaan Jaap , Roeyers Herbert , Sergeant Joseph A. 
Published: September 2008

Background: A number of disorders are associated with pragmatic difficulties. Instruments that can make subdivisions within the larger construct of pragmatics could be important tools for disentangling profiles of pragmatic difficulty in different disorders. The deficits underlying the observed pragmatic difficulties may be different for different disorders.Aims: To study the construct validity of a pragmatic language questionnaire.Method & Procedures: The construct of pragmatics is studied by applying exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis to the parent version of the Dutch Children's Communication Checklist (CCC; Bishop 1998). Parent ratings of 1589 typically developing children and 481 children with a clinical diagnosis were collected. Four different factor models derived from the original CCC scales and five different factor models based on EFA were compared with each other. The models were cross‐validated.Outcomes & Results: The EFA‐derived models were substantively different from the originally proposed CCC factor structure. EFA models gave a slightly better fit than the models based on the original CCC scales, though neither provided a good fit to the parent data. Coherence seemed to be part of language form and not of pragmatics, which is in line with the adaptation of the CCC, the CCC‐2 (Bishop 2003). Most pragmatic items clustered together in one factor and these pragmatic items also clustered with items related to social relationships and specific interests.Conclusions & Implications: The nine scales of the original CCC do not reflect the underlying factor structure. Therefore, scale composition may be improved on and scores on subscale level need to be interpreted cautiously. Therefore, in interpreting the CCC profiles, the overall measure might be more informative than the postulated subscales as more information is needed to determine which constructs the suggested subscales are actually measuring.
Gesture and speech integration: an exploratory study of a man with aphasia
Authors: Cocks Naomi , Sautin Laetitia , Kita Sotaro , Morgan Gary , Zlotowitz Sally 
Published: September 2008

Background: In order to comprehend fully a speaker's intention in everyday communication, information is integrated from multiple sources, including gesture and speech. There are no published studies that have explored the impact of aphasia on iconic co‐speech gesture and speech integration.Aims: To explore the impact of aphasia on co‐speech gesture and speech integration in one participant with aphasia and 20 age‐matched control participants.Methods & Procedures: The participant with aphasia and 20 control participants watched video vignettes of people producing 21 verb phrases in three different conditions, verbal only (V), gesture only (G), and verbal gesture combined (VG). Participants were required to select a corresponding picture from one of four alternatives: integration target, a verbal‐only match, a gesture‐only match, and an unrelated foil. The probability of choosing the integration target in the VG that goes beyond what is expected from the probabilities of choosing the integration target in V and G was referred to as multi‐modal gain (MMG).Outcomes & Results: The participant with aphasia obtained a significantly lower multi‐modal gain score than the control participants (p<0.05). Error analysis indicated that in speech and gesture integration tasks, the participant with aphasia relied on gesture in order to decode the message, whereas the control participants relied on speech in order to decode the message. Further analysis of the speech‐only and gesture‐only tasks indicated that the participant with aphasia had intact gesture comprehension but impaired spoken word comprehension.Conclusions & Implications: The results confirm findings by Records (1994) that reported that impaired verbal comprehension leads to a greater reliance on gesture to decode messages. Moreover, multi‐modal integration of information from speech and iconic gesture can be impaired in aphasia. The findings highlight the need for further exploration of the impact of aphasia on gesture and speech integration.
Untrained listeners' ratings of speech disorders in a group with cleft palate: a comparison with speech and language pathologists‚ ratings
Authors: Brunnegård Karin , Lohmander Anette , van Doorn Jan 
Published: September 2008

Background:Hypernasal resonance, audible nasal air emission and/or nasal turbulence, and articulation errors are typical speech disorders associated with the speech of children with cleft lip and palate. Several studies indicate that hypernasal resonance tends to be perceived negatively by listeners. Most perceptual studies of speech disorders related to cleft palate are carried out with speech and language pathologists as listeners, whereas only a few studies have been conducted to explore how judgements by untrained listeners compare with expert assessments. These types of studies can be used to determine whether children for whom speech and language pathologists recommend intervention have a significant speech deviance that is also detected by untrained listeners.Aims:To compare ratings by untrained listeners with ratings by speech and language pathologists for cleft palate speech.Methods & Procedures:An assessment form for untrained listeners was developed using statements and a five‐point scale. The assessment form was tailored to facilitate comparison with expert judgements. Twenty‐eight untrained listeners assessed the speech of 26 speakers with cleft palate and ten speakers without cleft in a comparison group. This assessment was compared with the joint assessment of two expert speech and language pathologists.Outcomes & Results:Listener groups generally agreed on which speakers were nasal. The untrained listeners detected hyper‐ and hyponasality when it was present in speech and considered moderate to severe hypernasality to be serious enough to call for intervention. The expert listeners assessed audible nasal air emission and/or nasal turbulence to be present in twice as many speakers as the untrained listeners who were much less sensitive to audible nasal air emission and/or nasal turbulence.Conclusions & Implications:The results of untrained listeners' ratings in this study in the main confirm the ratings of speech and language pathologists and show that cleft palate speech disorders may have an impact in the everyday life of the speaker.
Evaluative expression in deaf children's written narratives
Authors: van Beijsterveldt Liesbeth Maria , van Hell Janet G. 
Published: September 2008

Background: Deaf children vary in the use of and proficiency in signed language. The majority of studies on writing skills of children who are deaf did not assess deaf children's proficiency in signed language and/or grouped together deaf children with varying sign language skills.Aims: Adopting a bimodal bilingual perspective, we examined evaluative expression, an important narrative tool in both oral/written languages and signed languages, in narratives written in Dutch by deaf children who are proficient in Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN) and deaf children who are low‐proficient in SLN, and hearing monolingual and bilingual children. We hypothesized that deaf children who are proficient in signed language use their knowledge of evaluative expression in signed language to enrich their narratives in written Dutch, and more so than deaf children who are low‐proficient in signed language and hearing monolingual and bilingual children.Methods & Procedures: We examined the use of eight different evaluative devices in narratives written by deaf proficiently and low‐proficiently signing children, and hearing monolingual and bilingual children. Narratives were also examined for morpho‐syntactic errors and use of complex sentences.Outcomes & Results: The results show that proficiently signing deaf children's narratives contain more evaluative devices that enrich the referential structure of the narrative than narratives of low‐proficiently signing deaf children, and hearing bilingual and monolingual children.Conclusions & Implications: We propose that proficiently signing deaf children use their knowledge of SLN to convey evaluation in their written narratives, and thus have an advantage in enriching their narratives. This study also shows that in order to gain insight into deaf people's writing, it is important to take variations in sign language proficiency into account.
Speech technology‐based assessment of phoneme intelligibility in dysarthria
Authors: Van Nuffelen Gwen , Middag Catherine , De Bodt Marc , Martens Jean‐Pierre 
Published: September 2008

Background:Currently, clinicians mainly rely on perceptual judgements to assess intelligibility of dysarthric speech. Although often highly reliable, this procedure is subjective with a lot of intrinsic variables. Therefore, certain benefits can be expected from a speech technology‐based intelligibility assessment. Previous attempts to develop an automated intelligibility assessment mainly relied on automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems that were trained to recognize the speech of persons without known impairments. In this paper automatic speech alignment (ASA) systems are used instead. In addition, previous attempts only made use of phonemic features (PMF). However, since articulation is an important contributing factor to intelligibility of dysarthric speech and since phonological features (PLF) are shared by multiple phonemes, phonological features may be more appropriate to characterize and identify dysarthric phonemes.Aims:To investigate the reliability of objective phoneme intelligibility scores obtained by three types of intelligibility models: models using only phonemic features (yielded by an automated speech aligner) (PMF models), models using only phonological features (PLF models), and models using a combination of phonemic and phonological features (PMF + PLF models).Methods & Procedures:Correlations were calculated between the objective phoneme intelligibility scores of 60 dysarthric speakers and the corresponding perceptual phoneme intelligibility scores obtained by a standardized perceptual phoneme intelligibility assessment.Outcomes & Results:The correlations between the objective and perceptual intelligibility scores range from 0.793 for the PMF models, over 0.828 for PLF models to 0.943 for PMF + PLF models. The features selected to obtain such high correlations can be divided into six main subgroups: (1) vowel‐related phonemic and phonological features, (2) lateral‐related features, (3) silence‐related features, (4) fricative‐related features, (5) velar‐related features and (6) plosive‐related features.Conclusions & Implications:The phoneme intelligibility scores of dysarthric speakers obtained by the three investigated intelligibility model types are reliable. The highest correlation between the perceptual and objective intelligibility scores was found for models combining phonemic and phonological features. The intelligibility scoring system is now ready to be implemented in a clinical tool.
Fabrication and analysis of a micro-machined tri-axis gyroscope
Authors: Tsai Nan-Chyuan , Sue Chung-Yang 
Published: September 2008

This paper presents an innovative micro-gyroscope design. Solely by SOI (silicon on insulator) fabrication technology and wet etching, the proposed micro-gyroscope can be produced in batch and is capable of detecting three-axis angular rates. The induced motions of all individual seismic mass modules are designed to respond in the directions orthogonal to each other in order to decouple the obtained measurements. In our work, three pairs of high-resolution differential capacitors with signal processing circuits are employed to measure the angular velocity components in three axes. On the other hand, the drive electrode comb is used to constantly vibrate the outer-ring in the tangential direction by a sinusoidal voltage. The signal bandwidth is increased by distributed translational proof masses (DTPM), placed 90° apart orderly. Each individual proof mass of DTPM is designed with natural frequency discrepancy and constrained to move in the radial direction so that the superior mode matching can be easily, to some extent, achieved. The suspension flexures are particularly designed to resist planar displacements in the drive mode but increase the stroke of tilting angular displacement in the sense mode. By considering the complicated geometry of the suspension flexures, FEM (finite element method) is employed to examine the potential maximum induced mechanical stress. The dynamic equations of the proposed gyroscope are established so that the embedded gyroscopic effects are explicitly unveiled. More importantly, the efficacy of the drive and sense circuit modules are verified by commercial softwares Hspice and Multisim. By intensive computer simulations and preliminary experimental studies, the resolution, bandwidth and decoupling capability of the tri-axis gyroscope are expected to be fairly enhanced if a certain degree of trade-off is preset.
Corrections were made to figure 5 in this article on 3 October 2008. The corrected electronic version is identical to the print version.
Genome annotation in the presence of insertional RNA editing
Authors: Beargie Christina , Liu Tsunglin , Corriveau Mark , Lee Ha Youn , Gott Jonatha , Bundschuh Ralf 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
Motivation: Insertional RNA editing renders gene prediction very difficult compared to organisms without such RNA editing. A case in point is the mitochondrial genome of Physarum polycephalum in which only about one-third of the number of genes that are to be expected given its length are annotated. Thus, gene prediction methods that explicitly take into account insertional editing are needed for successful annotation of such genomes.
Results: We annotate the mitochondrial genome of P.polycephalum using several different approaches for gene prediction in organisms with insertional RNA editing. We computationally validate our annotations by comparing the results from different methods against each other and as proof of concept experimentally validate two of the newly predicted genes. We more than double the number of annotated putative genes in this organism and find several intriguing candidate genes that are not expected in a mitochondrial genome.
Availability: The C source code of the programs described here are available upon request from the corresponding author.
Contact: bundschuh@mps.ohio-state.edu