New MA Recruits Join the School – See the Photos!

Last Thursday (8/25/2016), SLHS welcomed the new Master’s students at the annual pizza party! Our new recruits for the MA education program in speech-language pathology are excited to join the school!  They were able to mingle with the second year MA students, doctoral students, and faculty, and learn more about life in SLHS.

Welcome to the new recruits!

[See image gallery at slhs.sdsu.edu]

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Dyslexia Limits the Ability to Categorize Talker Dialect

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the underlying phonological impairment in dyslexia is associated with a deficit in categorizing regional dialects.

Method

Twenty adults with dyslexia, 20 school-age children with dyslexia, and 40 corresponding control listeners with average reading ability listened to sentences produced by multiple talkers (both sexes) representing two dialects: Midland dialect in Ohio (same as listeners' dialect) and Southern dialect in Western North Carolina. Participants' responses were analyzed using signal detection theory.

Results

Listeners with dyslexia were less sensitive to talker dialect than listeners with average reading ability. Children were less sensitive to dialect than adults. Under stimulus uncertainty, listeners with average reading ability were biased toward Ohio dialect, whereas listeners with dyslexia were unbiased in their responses. Talker sex interacted with sensitivity and bias differently for listeners with dyslexia than for listeners with average reading ability. The correlations between dialect sensitivity and phonological memory scores were strongest for adults with dyslexia.

Conclusions

The results imply that the phonological deficit in dyslexia arises from impaired access to intact phonological representations rather than from poorly specified representations. It can be presumed that the impeded access to implicit long-term memory representations for indexical (dialect) information is due to less efficient operations in working memory, including deficiencies in utilizing talker normalization processes.

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Screening for Language Delay: Growth Trajectories of Language Ability in Low- and High-Performing Children

Purpose

This study investigated the stability and growth of preschool language skills and explores latent class analysis as an approach for identifying children at risk of language impairment.

Method

The authors present data from a large-scale 2-year longitudinal study, in which 600 children were assessed with a language-screening tool (LANGUAGE4) at age 4 years. A subsample (n = 206) was assessed on measures of sentence repetition, vocabulary, and grammatical knowledge at ages 4, 5, and 6 years.

Results

A global latent language factor showed a high degree of longitudinal stability in children between the ages of 4 to 6 years. A low-performing group showing a language deficit compared to their age peers at age 4 was identified on the basis of the LANGUAGE4. The growth-rates during this 2-year time period were parallel for the low-performing and 3 higher performing groups of children.

Conclusions

There is strong stability in children's language skills between the ages of 4 and 6 years. The results demonstrate that a simple language screening measure can successfully identify a low-performing group of children who show persistent language weaknesses between the ages of 4 and 6 years.

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Different cognitive functions discriminate gait performance in younger and older women: A pilot study

Publication date: October 2016
Source:Gait & Posture, Volume 50
Author(s): Joaquin U. Gonzales, C. Roger James, Hyung Suk Yang, Daniel Jensen, Lee Atkins, Brennan J. Thompson, Kareem Al-Khalil, Michael O’Boyle
AimCognitive dysfunction is associated with slower gait speed in older women, but whether cognitive function affects gait performance earlier in life has yet to be investigated. Thus, the objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that cognitive function will discriminate gait performance in healthy younger women.MethodsFast-pace and dual-task gait speed were measured in 30 young to middle-aged (30–45y) and 26 older (61–80y) women without mild cognitive impairment. Visuoperceptual ability, working memory, executive function, and learning ability were assessed using neuropsychological tests. Within each age group, women were divided by the median into lower and higher cognitive function groups to compare gait performance.ResultsYounger women with higher visuoperceptual ability had faster fast-pace (2.25±0.30 vs. 1.98±0.18m/s, p≤0.01) and dual-task gait speed (2.02±0.27 vs. 1.69±0.25m/s, p≤0.01) than women with lower visuoperceptual ability. The difference in dual-task gait speed remained significant (p=0.02) after adjusting for age, years of education, and other covariates. Dividing younger women based on other cognitive domains showed no difference in gait performance. In contrast, working memory and executive function discriminated dual-task gait speed (p<0.05) in older women after adjusting for age and education.ConclusionTo our knowledge, this is the first study to show that poorer cognitive function even at a relatively young age can negatively impact mobility. Different cognitive functions discriminated gait performance based on age, highlighting a possible influence of aging in the relationship between cognitive function and mobility in women.



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Recovery of endocochlear potential after severe damage to lateral wall fibrocytes following acute cochlear energy failure.

Recovery of endocochlear potential after severe damage to lateral wall fibrocytes following acute cochlear energy failure.

Neuroreport. 2016 Aug 26;

Authors: Kitao K, Mizutari K, Nakagawa S, Matsunaga T, Fukuda S, Fujii M

Abstract
Reduction of endocochlear potential (EP) is one of the main causes of sensorineural hearing loss. In this study, we investigated changes in the EP using a mouse model of acute cochlear energy failure, which comprised severe cochlear lateral wall damage induced by the local administration of 3-nitropropionic acid to the inner ear. We also analyzed the correlation between EP changes and histological findings in the cochlear lateral wall. We detected the recovery of the EP and hearing function at lower frequencies after severe damage of the cochlear lateral wall fibrocytes at the corresponding region. Remodeling of the cochlear lateral wall was associated with EP recovery, including the re-expression of ion transporters or gap junctions (i.e. Na/K/ATPase-β1 and connexin 26). These results indicate a mechanism for late-phase hearing recovery after severe deafness, which is frequently observed in clinical settings.

PMID: 27571432 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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