New Cures For Tinnitus

Tinnitus is a frustrating and often debilitating condition in which you perceive sounds within your ears. These sounds are only heard by you and can interfere with your hearing, your ability to carry on a conversation and your capability to concentrate at work or school. Fortunately, medical researchers and doctors are looking for new cures for tinnitus and are achieving some successes in developing helpful treatment options.

Hormone Therapy
One of the new cures for tinnitus involves a hormone therapy. Small doses of the hormone misoprostol have been found to reduce the volume of tinnitus. Misoprostol is taken orally as a tablet. Most people take one tablet once per day as directed by their doctor. This medication has minimal side effects and is usually effective at reducing the volume of tinnitus within a few days of starting the treatment. Steroid treatments can also be used for reducing tinnitus. Steroids are hormones that are effective in tiny doses. A steroid drop can be placed into your middle ear to reduce swelling and inflammation that may be causing the tinnitus.

Anti-anxiety and Anti-depressant Medications
There is ongoing research into new cures for tinnitus that are based upon anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications. These medications change the way that your brain responds to certain chemicals, such as dopamine. A low dose of a well-recognized anti-anxiety medication such as Valium or the anti-depressant Elavil can be taken orally, once per day. These medications are thought to relieve tinnitus symptoms by changing how your brain’s neurons absorb and release hormones and other natural substances.

Masking Devices
There is much research into the use of masking devices and tinnitus instruments. Masking devices are used as a way to provide your brain with other auditory stimulation. The white noise delivered by a masking device results in a process called habituation. Your tinnitus frequency becomes a part of the white noise so your brain tunes out the entire sound and the tinnitus does not bother you as much. These instruments can fit into your ear canal like a hearing aid.

Auditory Therapy
You can also listen to matched frequency sounds as a type of tinnitus therapy that is free of side effects. Tinnitus retraining therapy also helps your brain to habituate to the sound and reduce its importance. It works in a similar way as the process that allows your brain to tune out common sounds such as traffic or fans.

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Tone Attrition in Mandarin Speakers of Varying English Proficiency

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of dominance of Mandarin–English bilinguals' languages affects phonetic processing of tone content in their native language, Mandarin.

Method

We tested 72 Mandarin–English bilingual college students with a range of language-dominance profiles in the 2 languages and ages of acquisition of English. Participants viewed 2 photographs at a time while hearing a familiar Mandarin word referring to 1 photograph. The names of the 2 photographs diverged in tone, vowels, or both. Word recognition was evaluated using clicking accuracy, reaction times, and an online recognition measure (gaze) and was compared in the 3 conditions.

Results

Relative proficiency in English was correlated with reduced word recognition success in tone-disambiguated trials, but not in vowel-disambiguated trials, across all 3 dependent measures. This selective attrition for tone content emerged even though all bilinguals had learned Mandarin from birth. Lengthy experience with English thus weakened tone use.

Conclusions

This finding has implications for the question of the extent to which bilinguals' 2 phonetic systems interact. It suggests that bilinguals may not process pitch information language-specifically and that processing strategies from the dominant language may affect phonetic processing in the nondominant language—even when the latter was learned natively.

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Influence of Left–Right Asymmetries on Voice Quality in Simulated Paramedian Vocal Fold Paralysis

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine the vocal fold structural and vibratory symmetries that are important to vocal function and voice quality in a simulated paramedian vocal fold paralysis.

Method

A computational kinematic speech production model was used to simulate an exemplar “voice” on the basis of asymmetric settings of parameters controlling glottal configuration. These parameters were then altered individually to determine their effect on maximum flow declination rate, spectral slope, cepstral peak prominence, harmonics-to-noise ratio, and perceived voice quality.

Results

Asymmetry of each of the 5 vocal fold parameters influenced vocal function and voice quality; measured change was greatest for adduction and bulging. Increasing the symmetry of all parameters improved voice, and the best voice occurred with overcorrection of adduction, followed by bulging, nodal point ratio, starting phase, and amplitude of vibration.

Conclusions

Although vocal process adduction and edge bulging asymmetries are most influential in voice quality for simulated vocal fold motion impairment, amplitude of vibration and starting phase asymmetries are also perceptually important. These findings are consistent with the current surgical approach to vocal fold motion impairment, where goals include medializing the vocal process and straightening concave edges. The results also explain many of the residual postoperative voice limitations.

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A Comparative Study of the Precision of Carstens and Northern Digital Instruments Electromagnetic Articulographs

Purpose

This study compares the precision of the electromagnetic articulographs used in speech research: Northern Digital Instruments' Wave and Carstens' AG200, AG500, and AG501 systems.

Method

The fluctuation of distances between 3 pairs of sensors attached to a manually rotated device that can position them inside the measurement volumes was determined. For each device, 2 precision estimates made on the basis of the 95% quantile range of these distances (QR95) were defined: The local QR95 was computed for bins around specific rotation angles, and the global QR95 was computed for all angles pooled.

Results

For all devices, although the local precision lies around 0.1 cm, the global precision is much more worrisome, ranging from 0.03 cm to 2.18 cm, and displays large variations as a function of the position of the sensors in the measurement volume. No influence of the rotational speed was found. The AG501 produced—by far—the lowest errors, in particular concerning the global precision.

Conclusions

The local precision can be considered suitable for speech articulatory measurements, but the variations of the global precision need to be taken into account by the knowledge of the spatial distribution of errors. A guideline for good practice in EMA recording is proposed for each system.

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Assessing Vowel Centralization in Dysarthria: A Comparison of Methods

Purpose

The strength of the relationship between vowel centralization measures and perceptual ratings of dysarthria severity has varied considerably across reports. This article evaluates methods of acoustic-perceptual analysis to determine whether procedural changes can strengthen the association between these measures.

Method

Sixty-one speakers (17 healthy individuals and 44 speakers with dysarthria) read a standard passage. To obtain acoustic data, 2 points of formant extraction (midpoint and articulatory point) and 2 frequency measures (Hz and Bark) were trialed. Both vowel space area and an adapted formant centralization ratio were calculated using first and second formants of speakers' corner vowels. Twenty-eight listeners rated speech samples using different prompts: one with a focus on intelligibility, the other on speech precision.

Results

Perceptually, listener ratings of speech precision provided the best index of acoustic change. Acoustically, the combined use of an articulatory-based formant extraction point, Bark frequency units, and the formant centralization ratio was most effective in explaining perceptual ratings. This combination of procedures resulted in an increase of 17% to 27% explained variance between measures.

Conclusions

The procedures researchers use to assess articulatory impairment can significantly alter the strength of relationship between acoustic and perceptual measures. Procedures that maximize this relationship are recommended.

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Auditory Stimulus Processing and Task Learning Are Adequate in Dyslexia, but Benefits From Regularities Are Reduced

Purpose

The reading deficit for people with dyslexia is typically associated with linguistic, memory, and perceptual-discrimination difficulties, whose relation to reading impairment is disputed. We proposed that automatic detection and usage of serial sound regularities for individuals with dyslexia is impaired (anchoring deficit hypothesis), leading to the formation of less reliable sound predictions. Agus, Carrión-Castillo, Pressnitzer, and Ramus, (2014) reported seemingly contradictory evidence by showing similar performance by participants with and without dyslexia in a demanding auditory task that contained task-relevant regularities. To carefully assess the sensitivity of participants with dyslexia to regularities of this task, we replicated their study.

Method

Thirty participants with and 24 without dyslexia performed the replicated task. On each trial, a 1-s noise stimulus was presented. Participants had to decide whether the stimulus contained repetitions (was constructed from a 0.5-s noise segment repeated twice) or not. It is implicit in this structure that some of the stimuli with repetitions were themselves repeated across trials. We measured the ability to detect within-noise repetitions and the sensitivity to cross-trial repetitions of the same noise stimuli.

Results

We replicated the finding of similar mean performance. However, individuals with dyslexia were less sensitive to the cross-trial repetition of noise stimuli and tended to be more sensitive to repetitions in novel noise stimuli.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that online auditory processing for individuals with dyslexia is adequate but their implicit retention and usage of sound regularities is indeed impaired.

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Vocal Ergonomics in the Workplace: Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning Method Influences on Vocal Comfort and Function

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning method on voice function following a voicing task using ecologically valid offices, one with radiant HVAC and one with forced air.

Method

A total of 12 consented participants (6 women, 6 men) narrated a video in each of 4 environmental conditions in a within-between repeated-measures design. Acoustic data were collected with an ambulatory phonation monitor and perceived phonatory effort was determined following the voicing task. Data were analyzed using a within-between repeated-measures analysis of variance with significance set at α Results

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Influence of Cognitive Ability on Therapy Outcomes for Anomia in Adults With Chronic Poststroke Aphasia

Purpose

The relationship between cognitive abilities and aphasia rehabilitation outcomes is complex and remains poorly understood. This study investigated the influence of language and cognitive abilities on anomia therapy outcomes in adults with aphasia.

Method

Thirty-four adults with chronic aphasia participated in Aphasia Language Impairment and Functioning Therapy. A language and cognitive assessment battery, including 3 baseline naming probes, was administered prior to therapy. Naming accuracy for 30 treated and 30 untreated items was collected at posttherapy and 1-month follow-up. Multiple regression models were computed to evaluate the relationship between language and cognitive abilities at baseline and anomia therapy outcomes.

Results

Both language and cognitive variables significantly influenced anomia therapy gains. Verbal short-term memory ability significantly predicted naming gains for treated items at posttherapy (β = −.551, p = .002) and for untreated items at posttherapy (β = .456, p = .014) and 1-month follow-up (β = .455, p = .021). Furthermore, lexical-semantic processing significantly predicted naming gains for treated items at posttherapy (β = −.496, p = .004) and 1-month follow-up (β = .545, p = .012).

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that individuals' cognitive ability, specifically verbal short-term memory, affects anomia treatment success. Further research into the relationship between cognitive ability and anomia therapy outcomes may help to optimize treatment techniques.

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Establishing Language Benchmarks for Children With Typically Developing Language and Children With Language Impairment

Purpose

Practitioners, researchers, and policymakers (i.e., stakeholders) have vested interests in children's language growth yet currently do not have empirically driven methods for measuring such outcomes. The present study established language benchmarks for children with typically developing language (TDL) and children with language impairment (LI) from 3 to 9 years of age.

Method

Effect sizes for grammar, vocabulary, and overall language were calculated for children with TDL (n = 20,018) using raw score means and standard deviations from 8 norm-referenced measures of language. Effect sizes for children with LI were calculated using fall and spring norm-referenced language measures for 497 children with LI receiving business-as-usual therapy in the public schools.

Results

Considerable variability was found in expected change across both samples of children over time, with preschoolers exhibiting larger effect sizes (d = 0.82 and 0.70, respectively) compared with school-age children (d = 0.49 and 0.55, respectively).

Conclusions

This study provides a first step toward establishing empirically based language benchmarks for children. These data offer stakeholders an initial tool for setting goals based on expected growth (practitioners), making informed decisions on language-based curricula (policymakers), and measuring effectiveness of intervention research (researchers).

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A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study on Cortical Hemodynamic Responses to Normal and Whispered Speech in 3- to 7-Year-Old Children

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to assess cortical hemodynamic response patterns in 3- to 7-year-old children listening to two speech modes: normally vocalized and whispered speech. Understanding whispered speech requires processing of the relatively weak, noisy signal, as well as the cognitive ability to understand the speaker's reason for whispering.

Method

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to assess changes in cortical oxygenated hemoglobin from 16 typically developing children.

Results

A profound difference in oxygenated hemoglobin levels between the speech modes was found over left ventral sensorimotor cortex. In particular, over areas that represent speech articulatory body parts and motion, such as the larynx, lips, and jaw, oxygenated hemoglobin was higher for whisper than for normal speech. The weaker stimulus, in terms of sound energy, thus induced the more profound hemodynamic response. This, moreover, occurred over areas involved in speech articulation, even though the children did not overtly articulate speech during measurements.

Conclusion

Because whisper is a special form of communication not often used in daily life, we suggest that the hemodynamic response difference over left ventral sensorimotor cortex resulted from inner (covert) practice or imagination of the different articulatory actions necessary to produce whisper as opposed to normal speech.

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Deficits in Coordinative Bimanual Timing Precision in Children With Specific Language Impairment

Purpose

Our objective was to delineate components of motor performance in specific language impairment (SLI); specifically, whether deficits in timing precision in one effector (unimanual tapping) and in two effectors (bimanual clapping) are observed in young children with SLI.

Method

Twenty-seven 4- to 5-year-old children with SLI and 21 age-matched peers with typical language development participated. All children engaged in a unimanual tapping and a bimanual clapping timing task. Standard measures of language and motor performance were also obtained.

Results

No group differences in timing variability were observed in the unimanual tapping task. However, compared with typically developing peers, children with SLI were more variable in their timing precision in the bimanual clapping task. Nine of the children with SLI performed greater than 1 SD below the mean on a standardized motor assessment. The children with low motor performance showed the same profile as observed across all children with SLI, with unaffected unimanual and impaired bimanual timing precision.

Conclusions

Although unimanual timing is unaffected, children with SLI show a deficit in timing that requires bimanual coordination. We propose that the timing deficits observed in children with SLI are associated with the increased demands inherent in bimanual performance.

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Masthead

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Tone Attrition in Mandarin Speakers of Varying English Proficiency

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of dominance of Mandarin–English bilinguals' languages affects phonetic processing of tone content in their native language, Mandarin.

Method

We tested 72 Mandarin–English bilingual college students with a range of language-dominance profiles in the 2 languages and ages of acquisition of English. Participants viewed 2 photographs at a time while hearing a familiar Mandarin word referring to 1 photograph. The names of the 2 photographs diverged in tone, vowels, or both. Word recognition was evaluated using clicking accuracy, reaction times, and an online recognition measure (gaze) and was compared in the 3 conditions.

Results

Relative proficiency in English was correlated with reduced word recognition success in tone-disambiguated trials, but not in vowel-disambiguated trials, across all 3 dependent measures. This selective attrition for tone content emerged even though all bilinguals had learned Mandarin from birth. Lengthy experience with English thus weakened tone use.

Conclusions

This finding has implications for the question of the extent to which bilinguals' 2 phonetic systems interact. It suggests that bilinguals may not process pitch information language-specifically and that processing strategies from the dominant language may affect phonetic processing in the nondominant language—even when the latter was learned natively.

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Influence of Left–Right Asymmetries on Voice Quality in Simulated Paramedian Vocal Fold Paralysis

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine the vocal fold structural and vibratory symmetries that are important to vocal function and voice quality in a simulated paramedian vocal fold paralysis.

Method

A computational kinematic speech production model was used to simulate an exemplar “voice” on the basis of asymmetric settings of parameters controlling glottal configuration. These parameters were then altered individually to determine their effect on maximum flow declination rate, spectral slope, cepstral peak prominence, harmonics-to-noise ratio, and perceived voice quality.

Results

Asymmetry of each of the 5 vocal fold parameters influenced vocal function and voice quality; measured change was greatest for adduction and bulging. Increasing the symmetry of all parameters improved voice, and the best voice occurred with overcorrection of adduction, followed by bulging, nodal point ratio, starting phase, and amplitude of vibration.

Conclusions

Although vocal process adduction and edge bulging asymmetries are most influential in voice quality for simulated vocal fold motion impairment, amplitude of vibration and starting phase asymmetries are also perceptually important. These findings are consistent with the current surgical approach to vocal fold motion impairment, where goals include medializing the vocal process and straightening concave edges. The results also explain many of the residual postoperative voice limitations.

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A Comparative Study of the Precision of Carstens and Northern Digital Instruments Electromagnetic Articulographs

Purpose

This study compares the precision of the electromagnetic articulographs used in speech research: Northern Digital Instruments' Wave and Carstens' AG200, AG500, and AG501 systems.

Method

The fluctuation of distances between 3 pairs of sensors attached to a manually rotated device that can position them inside the measurement volumes was determined. For each device, 2 precision estimates made on the basis of the 95% quantile range of these distances (QR95) were defined: The local QR95 was computed for bins around specific rotation angles, and the global QR95 was computed for all angles pooled.

Results

For all devices, although the local precision lies around 0.1 cm, the global precision is much more worrisome, ranging from 0.03 cm to 2.18 cm, and displays large variations as a function of the position of the sensors in the measurement volume. No influence of the rotational speed was found. The AG501 produced—by far—the lowest errors, in particular concerning the global precision.

Conclusions

The local precision can be considered suitable for speech articulatory measurements, but the variations of the global precision need to be taken into account by the knowledge of the spatial distribution of errors. A guideline for good practice in EMA recording is proposed for each system.

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Assessing Vowel Centralization in Dysarthria: A Comparison of Methods

Purpose

The strength of the relationship between vowel centralization measures and perceptual ratings of dysarthria severity has varied considerably across reports. This article evaluates methods of acoustic-perceptual analysis to determine whether procedural changes can strengthen the association between these measures.

Method

Sixty-one speakers (17 healthy individuals and 44 speakers with dysarthria) read a standard passage. To obtain acoustic data, 2 points of formant extraction (midpoint and articulatory point) and 2 frequency measures (Hz and Bark) were trialed. Both vowel space area and an adapted formant centralization ratio were calculated using first and second formants of speakers' corner vowels. Twenty-eight listeners rated speech samples using different prompts: one with a focus on intelligibility, the other on speech precision.

Results

Perceptually, listener ratings of speech precision provided the best index of acoustic change. Acoustically, the combined use of an articulatory-based formant extraction point, Bark frequency units, and the formant centralization ratio was most effective in explaining perceptual ratings. This combination of procedures resulted in an increase of 17% to 27% explained variance between measures.

Conclusions

The procedures researchers use to assess articulatory impairment can significantly alter the strength of relationship between acoustic and perceptual measures. Procedures that maximize this relationship are recommended.

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Auditory Stimulus Processing and Task Learning Are Adequate in Dyslexia, but Benefits From Regularities Are Reduced

Purpose

The reading deficit for people with dyslexia is typically associated with linguistic, memory, and perceptual-discrimination difficulties, whose relation to reading impairment is disputed. We proposed that automatic detection and usage of serial sound regularities for individuals with dyslexia is impaired (anchoring deficit hypothesis), leading to the formation of less reliable sound predictions. Agus, Carrión-Castillo, Pressnitzer, and Ramus, (2014) reported seemingly contradictory evidence by showing similar performance by participants with and without dyslexia in a demanding auditory task that contained task-relevant regularities. To carefully assess the sensitivity of participants with dyslexia to regularities of this task, we replicated their study.

Method

Thirty participants with and 24 without dyslexia performed the replicated task. On each trial, a 1-s noise stimulus was presented. Participants had to decide whether the stimulus contained repetitions (was constructed from a 0.5-s noise segment repeated twice) or not. It is implicit in this structure that some of the stimuli with repetitions were themselves repeated across trials. We measured the ability to detect within-noise repetitions and the sensitivity to cross-trial repetitions of the same noise stimuli.

Results

We replicated the finding of similar mean performance. However, individuals with dyslexia were less sensitive to the cross-trial repetition of noise stimuli and tended to be more sensitive to repetitions in novel noise stimuli.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that online auditory processing for individuals with dyslexia is adequate but their implicit retention and usage of sound regularities is indeed impaired.

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Vocal Ergonomics in the Workplace: Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning Method Influences on Vocal Comfort and Function

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning method on voice function following a voicing task using ecologically valid offices, one with radiant HVAC and one with forced air.

Method

A total of 12 consented participants (6 women, 6 men) narrated a video in each of 4 environmental conditions in a within-between repeated-measures design. Acoustic data were collected with an ambulatory phonation monitor and perceived phonatory effort was determined following the voicing task. Data were analyzed using a within-between repeated-measures analysis of variance with significance set at α Results

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Influence of Cognitive Ability on Therapy Outcomes for Anomia in Adults With Chronic Poststroke Aphasia

Purpose

The relationship between cognitive abilities and aphasia rehabilitation outcomes is complex and remains poorly understood. This study investigated the influence of language and cognitive abilities on anomia therapy outcomes in adults with aphasia.

Method

Thirty-four adults with chronic aphasia participated in Aphasia Language Impairment and Functioning Therapy. A language and cognitive assessment battery, including 3 baseline naming probes, was administered prior to therapy. Naming accuracy for 30 treated and 30 untreated items was collected at posttherapy and 1-month follow-up. Multiple regression models were computed to evaluate the relationship between language and cognitive abilities at baseline and anomia therapy outcomes.

Results

Both language and cognitive variables significantly influenced anomia therapy gains. Verbal short-term memory ability significantly predicted naming gains for treated items at posttherapy (β = −.551, p = .002) and for untreated items at posttherapy (β = .456, p = .014) and 1-month follow-up (β = .455, p = .021). Furthermore, lexical-semantic processing significantly predicted naming gains for treated items at posttherapy (β = −.496, p = .004) and 1-month follow-up (β = .545, p = .012).

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that individuals' cognitive ability, specifically verbal short-term memory, affects anomia treatment success. Further research into the relationship between cognitive ability and anomia therapy outcomes may help to optimize treatment techniques.

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Establishing Language Benchmarks for Children With Typically Developing Language and Children With Language Impairment

Purpose

Practitioners, researchers, and policymakers (i.e., stakeholders) have vested interests in children's language growth yet currently do not have empirically driven methods for measuring such outcomes. The present study established language benchmarks for children with typically developing language (TDL) and children with language impairment (LI) from 3 to 9 years of age.

Method

Effect sizes for grammar, vocabulary, and overall language were calculated for children with TDL (n = 20,018) using raw score means and standard deviations from 8 norm-referenced measures of language. Effect sizes for children with LI were calculated using fall and spring norm-referenced language measures for 497 children with LI receiving business-as-usual therapy in the public schools.

Results

Considerable variability was found in expected change across both samples of children over time, with preschoolers exhibiting larger effect sizes (d = 0.82 and 0.70, respectively) compared with school-age children (d = 0.49 and 0.55, respectively).

Conclusions

This study provides a first step toward establishing empirically based language benchmarks for children. These data offer stakeholders an initial tool for setting goals based on expected growth (practitioners), making informed decisions on language-based curricula (policymakers), and measuring effectiveness of intervention research (researchers).

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A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study on Cortical Hemodynamic Responses to Normal and Whispered Speech in 3- to 7-Year-Old Children

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to assess cortical hemodynamic response patterns in 3- to 7-year-old children listening to two speech modes: normally vocalized and whispered speech. Understanding whispered speech requires processing of the relatively weak, noisy signal, as well as the cognitive ability to understand the speaker's reason for whispering.

Method

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to assess changes in cortical oxygenated hemoglobin from 16 typically developing children.

Results

A profound difference in oxygenated hemoglobin levels between the speech modes was found over left ventral sensorimotor cortex. In particular, over areas that represent speech articulatory body parts and motion, such as the larynx, lips, and jaw, oxygenated hemoglobin was higher for whisper than for normal speech. The weaker stimulus, in terms of sound energy, thus induced the more profound hemodynamic response. This, moreover, occurred over areas involved in speech articulation, even though the children did not overtly articulate speech during measurements.

Conclusion

Because whisper is a special form of communication not often used in daily life, we suggest that the hemodynamic response difference over left ventral sensorimotor cortex resulted from inner (covert) practice or imagination of the different articulatory actions necessary to produce whisper as opposed to normal speech.

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Deficits in Coordinative Bimanual Timing Precision in Children With Specific Language Impairment

Purpose

Our objective was to delineate components of motor performance in specific language impairment (SLI); specifically, whether deficits in timing precision in one effector (unimanual tapping) and in two effectors (bimanual clapping) are observed in young children with SLI.

Method

Twenty-seven 4- to 5-year-old children with SLI and 21 age-matched peers with typical language development participated. All children engaged in a unimanual tapping and a bimanual clapping timing task. Standard measures of language and motor performance were also obtained.

Results

No group differences in timing variability were observed in the unimanual tapping task. However, compared with typically developing peers, children with SLI were more variable in their timing precision in the bimanual clapping task. Nine of the children with SLI performed greater than 1 SD below the mean on a standardized motor assessment. The children with low motor performance showed the same profile as observed across all children with SLI, with unaffected unimanual and impaired bimanual timing precision.

Conclusions

Although unimanual timing is unaffected, children with SLI show a deficit in timing that requires bimanual coordination. We propose that the timing deficits observed in children with SLI are associated with the increased demands inherent in bimanual performance.

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Masthead

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Tone Attrition in Mandarin Speakers of Varying English Proficiency

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of dominance of Mandarin–English bilinguals' languages affects phonetic processing of tone content in their native language, Mandarin.

Method

We tested 72 Mandarin–English bilingual college students with a range of language-dominance profiles in the 2 languages and ages of acquisition of English. Participants viewed 2 photographs at a time while hearing a familiar Mandarin word referring to 1 photograph. The names of the 2 photographs diverged in tone, vowels, or both. Word recognition was evaluated using clicking accuracy, reaction times, and an online recognition measure (gaze) and was compared in the 3 conditions.

Results

Relative proficiency in English was correlated with reduced word recognition success in tone-disambiguated trials, but not in vowel-disambiguated trials, across all 3 dependent measures. This selective attrition for tone content emerged even though all bilinguals had learned Mandarin from birth. Lengthy experience with English thus weakened tone use.

Conclusions

This finding has implications for the question of the extent to which bilinguals' 2 phonetic systems interact. It suggests that bilinguals may not process pitch information language-specifically and that processing strategies from the dominant language may affect phonetic processing in the nondominant language—even when the latter was learned natively.

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Influence of Left–Right Asymmetries on Voice Quality in Simulated Paramedian Vocal Fold Paralysis

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine the vocal fold structural and vibratory symmetries that are important to vocal function and voice quality in a simulated paramedian vocal fold paralysis.

Method

A computational kinematic speech production model was used to simulate an exemplar “voice” on the basis of asymmetric settings of parameters controlling glottal configuration. These parameters were then altered individually to determine their effect on maximum flow declination rate, spectral slope, cepstral peak prominence, harmonics-to-noise ratio, and perceived voice quality.

Results

Asymmetry of each of the 5 vocal fold parameters influenced vocal function and voice quality; measured change was greatest for adduction and bulging. Increasing the symmetry of all parameters improved voice, and the best voice occurred with overcorrection of adduction, followed by bulging, nodal point ratio, starting phase, and amplitude of vibration.

Conclusions

Although vocal process adduction and edge bulging asymmetries are most influential in voice quality for simulated vocal fold motion impairment, amplitude of vibration and starting phase asymmetries are also perceptually important. These findings are consistent with the current surgical approach to vocal fold motion impairment, where goals include medializing the vocal process and straightening concave edges. The results also explain many of the residual postoperative voice limitations.

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Current Methods of Evaluating Speech-Language Outcomes for Preschoolers With Communication Disorders: A Scoping Review Using the ICF-CY

Purpose

The purpose of this scoping review was to identify current measures used to evaluate speech-language outcomes for preschoolers with communication disorders within the framework of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health–Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY; World Health Organization, 2007).

Method

The review involved 5 phases outlined by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and further developed by Levac, Colquhoun, and O'Brien (2010): (a) articulating the research question; (b) identifying relevant studies; (c) selecting studies; (d) charting the data; and (e) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results. The ICF-CY was used to frame the measures included.

Results

A total of 214 relevant peer-reviewed publications were included in the review. Most publications used measures to evaluate changes in outcomes for Activities (65%), followed by measures evaluating changes in Body Functions (20%), and finally measures evaluating changes at the level of Participation (15%). There has been a slight increase in the evaluation of Participation-based outcomes in the past 4 years (2012–2015).

Conclusion

The review revealed a dearth of measures in the pediatric speech-language literature that address Participation-based outcomes. The authors strongly advocate for the use of Participation-based outcome measures to detect meaningful change in the lives of children and families.

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A Comparative Study of the Precision of Carstens and Northern Digital Instruments Electromagnetic Articulographs

Purpose

This study compares the precision of the electromagnetic articulographs used in speech research: Northern Digital Instruments' Wave and Carstens' AG200, AG500, and AG501 systems.

Method

The fluctuation of distances between 3 pairs of sensors attached to a manually rotated device that can position them inside the measurement volumes was determined. For each device, 2 precision estimates made on the basis of the 95% quantile range of these distances (QR95) were defined: The local QR95 was computed for bins around specific rotation angles, and the global QR95 was computed for all angles pooled.

Results

For all devices, although the local precision lies around 0.1 cm, the global precision is much more worrisome, ranging from 0.03 cm to 2.18 cm, and displays large variations as a function of the position of the sensors in the measurement volume. No influence of the rotational speed was found. The AG501 produced—by far—the lowest errors, in particular concerning the global precision.

Conclusions

The local precision can be considered suitable for speech articulatory measurements, but the variations of the global precision need to be taken into account by the knowledge of the spatial distribution of errors. A guideline for good practice in EMA recording is proposed for each system.

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Growth of Expressive Syntax in Children With Fragile X Syndrome

Purpose

This research explored syntactic growth in children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) over a 5-year period, and variability in growth in relation to autism symptoms, nonverbal cognition, maternal responsivity, and gender.

Method

Language samples at 4 time points from 39 children with FXS, 31 boys and 8 girls, were analyzed using the Index of Productive Syntax (Scarborough, 1990) and mean length of utterance (Brown, 1973). The degree of autism symptoms was evaluated using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (Schopler, Reichler, & Renner, 1988) at the first time point. Maternal responsivity estimates were averaged across time points.

Results

Children with FXS showed significant syntactic growth over time and a significant plateau (quadratic trend) in the later observations. Children who exhibited more autism symptoms at Time 1 had significantly lower syntactic abilities over time than children who exhibited fewer autism symptoms. Nonverbal cognition significantly predicted mean length of utterance scores but not Index of Productive Syntax scores. Maternal responsivity was not a significant predictor of syntactic outcomes. Girls with FXS generally demonstrated better expressive syntax than boys with FXS with notable individual differences.

Conclusion

Despite significant growth over time, expressive syntax is a vulnerable domain for children with FXS, especially for those with severe autism symptoms. Clinical implications arising from the current findings are discussed.

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Assessing Vowel Centralization in Dysarthria: A Comparison of Methods

Purpose

The strength of the relationship between vowel centralization measures and perceptual ratings of dysarthria severity has varied considerably across reports. This article evaluates methods of acoustic-perceptual analysis to determine whether procedural changes can strengthen the association between these measures.

Method

Sixty-one speakers (17 healthy individuals and 44 speakers with dysarthria) read a standard passage. To obtain acoustic data, 2 points of formant extraction (midpoint and articulatory point) and 2 frequency measures (Hz and Bark) were trialed. Both vowel space area and an adapted formant centralization ratio were calculated using first and second formants of speakers' corner vowels. Twenty-eight listeners rated speech samples using different prompts: one with a focus on intelligibility, the other on speech precision.

Results

Perceptually, listener ratings of speech precision provided the best index of acoustic change. Acoustically, the combined use of an articulatory-based formant extraction point, Bark frequency units, and the formant centralization ratio was most effective in explaining perceptual ratings. This combination of procedures resulted in an increase of 17% to 27% explained variance between measures.

Conclusions

The procedures researchers use to assess articulatory impairment can significantly alter the strength of relationship between acoustic and perceptual measures. Procedures that maximize this relationship are recommended.

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Auditory Stimulus Processing and Task Learning Are Adequate in Dyslexia, but Benefits From Regularities Are Reduced

Purpose

The reading deficit for people with dyslexia is typically associated with linguistic, memory, and perceptual-discrimination difficulties, whose relation to reading impairment is disputed. We proposed that automatic detection and usage of serial sound regularities for individuals with dyslexia is impaired (anchoring deficit hypothesis), leading to the formation of less reliable sound predictions. Agus, Carrión-Castillo, Pressnitzer, and Ramus, (2014) reported seemingly contradictory evidence by showing similar performance by participants with and without dyslexia in a demanding auditory task that contained task-relevant regularities. To carefully assess the sensitivity of participants with dyslexia to regularities of this task, we replicated their study.

Method

Thirty participants with and 24 without dyslexia performed the replicated task. On each trial, a 1-s noise stimulus was presented. Participants had to decide whether the stimulus contained repetitions (was constructed from a 0.5-s noise segment repeated twice) or not. It is implicit in this structure that some of the stimuli with repetitions were themselves repeated across trials. We measured the ability to detect within-noise repetitions and the sensitivity to cross-trial repetitions of the same noise stimuli.

Results

We replicated the finding of similar mean performance. However, individuals with dyslexia were less sensitive to the cross-trial repetition of noise stimuli and tended to be more sensitive to repetitions in novel noise stimuli.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that online auditory processing for individuals with dyslexia is adequate but their implicit retention and usage of sound regularities is indeed impaired.

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Vocal Ergonomics in the Workplace: Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning Method Influences on Vocal Comfort and Function

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning method on voice function following a voicing task using ecologically valid offices, one with radiant HVAC and one with forced air.

Method

A total of 12 consented participants (6 women, 6 men) narrated a video in each of 4 environmental conditions in a within-between repeated-measures design. Acoustic data were collected with an ambulatory phonation monitor and perceived phonatory effort was determined following the voicing task. Data were analyzed using a within-between repeated-measures analysis of variance with significance set at α Results

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Influence of Cognitive Ability on Therapy Outcomes for Anomia in Adults With Chronic Poststroke Aphasia

Purpose

The relationship between cognitive abilities and aphasia rehabilitation outcomes is complex and remains poorly understood. This study investigated the influence of language and cognitive abilities on anomia therapy outcomes in adults with aphasia.

Method

Thirty-four adults with chronic aphasia participated in Aphasia Language Impairment and Functioning Therapy. A language and cognitive assessment battery, including 3 baseline naming probes, was administered prior to therapy. Naming accuracy for 30 treated and 30 untreated items was collected at posttherapy and 1-month follow-up. Multiple regression models were computed to evaluate the relationship between language and cognitive abilities at baseline and anomia therapy outcomes.

Results

Both language and cognitive variables significantly influenced anomia therapy gains. Verbal short-term memory ability significantly predicted naming gains for treated items at posttherapy (β = −.551, p = .002) and for untreated items at posttherapy (β = .456, p = .014) and 1-month follow-up (β = .455, p = .021). Furthermore, lexical-semantic processing significantly predicted naming gains for treated items at posttherapy (β = −.496, p = .004) and 1-month follow-up (β = .545, p = .012).

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that individuals' cognitive ability, specifically verbal short-term memory, affects anomia treatment success. Further research into the relationship between cognitive ability and anomia therapy outcomes may help to optimize treatment techniques.

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Establishing Language Benchmarks for Children With Typically Developing Language and Children With Language Impairment

Purpose

Practitioners, researchers, and policymakers (i.e., stakeholders) have vested interests in children's language growth yet currently do not have empirically driven methods for measuring such outcomes. The present study established language benchmarks for children with typically developing language (TDL) and children with language impairment (LI) from 3 to 9 years of age.

Method

Effect sizes for grammar, vocabulary, and overall language were calculated for children with TDL (n = 20,018) using raw score means and standard deviations from 8 norm-referenced measures of language. Effect sizes for children with LI were calculated using fall and spring norm-referenced language measures for 497 children with LI receiving business-as-usual therapy in the public schools.

Results

Considerable variability was found in expected change across both samples of children over time, with preschoolers exhibiting larger effect sizes (d = 0.82 and 0.70, respectively) compared with school-age children (d = 0.49 and 0.55, respectively).

Conclusions

This study provides a first step toward establishing empirically based language benchmarks for children. These data offer stakeholders an initial tool for setting goals based on expected growth (practitioners), making informed decisions on language-based curricula (policymakers), and measuring effectiveness of intervention research (researchers).

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A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study on Cortical Hemodynamic Responses to Normal and Whispered Speech in 3- to 7-Year-Old Children

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to assess cortical hemodynamic response patterns in 3- to 7-year-old children listening to two speech modes: normally vocalized and whispered speech. Understanding whispered speech requires processing of the relatively weak, noisy signal, as well as the cognitive ability to understand the speaker's reason for whispering.

Method

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to assess changes in cortical oxygenated hemoglobin from 16 typically developing children.

Results

A profound difference in oxygenated hemoglobin levels between the speech modes was found over left ventral sensorimotor cortex. In particular, over areas that represent speech articulatory body parts and motion, such as the larynx, lips, and jaw, oxygenated hemoglobin was higher for whisper than for normal speech. The weaker stimulus, in terms of sound energy, thus induced the more profound hemodynamic response. This, moreover, occurred over areas involved in speech articulation, even though the children did not overtly articulate speech during measurements.

Conclusion

Because whisper is a special form of communication not often used in daily life, we suggest that the hemodynamic response difference over left ventral sensorimotor cortex resulted from inner (covert) practice or imagination of the different articulatory actions necessary to produce whisper as opposed to normal speech.

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Deficits in Coordinative Bimanual Timing Precision in Children With Specific Language Impairment

Purpose

Our objective was to delineate components of motor performance in specific language impairment (SLI); specifically, whether deficits in timing precision in one effector (unimanual tapping) and in two effectors (bimanual clapping) are observed in young children with SLI.

Method

Twenty-seven 4- to 5-year-old children with SLI and 21 age-matched peers with typical language development participated. All children engaged in a unimanual tapping and a bimanual clapping timing task. Standard measures of language and motor performance were also obtained.

Results

No group differences in timing variability were observed in the unimanual tapping task. However, compared with typically developing peers, children with SLI were more variable in their timing precision in the bimanual clapping task. Nine of the children with SLI performed greater than 1 SD below the mean on a standardized motor assessment. The children with low motor performance showed the same profile as observed across all children with SLI, with unaffected unimanual and impaired bimanual timing precision.

Conclusions

Although unimanual timing is unaffected, children with SLI show a deficit in timing that requires bimanual coordination. We propose that the timing deficits observed in children with SLI are associated with the increased demands inherent in bimanual performance.

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Masthead

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