Late Childhood Stuttering

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: A study was conducted that examined factors that lead children who stutter at around age 8 years to persist in the disorder when they reach age 12 years.

Method: Seventy-six children were verified to be stuttering at initial assessment. When they reached 12 years of age, they were classified as persistent or recovered. A range of measures was taken at the 2 age points, and measures were examined by recovery group.

Results: Although the tendency for more males than females to stutter was confirmed, the reasons for this tendency are not apparent for these speakers. Different patterns in speech were observed: Severity ratings of the recovered speakers dropped by age 12+. The severity ratings for the persistent speakers remained high at 12+, and dysfluency types tended to change from whole words to part words. Persistent and recovered speakers differed on temperamental performance at around age 8 years and performed differently on sensory and motor tasks at age 12+ years.

Conclusions: Stuttering in late childhood affects mainly males. The later a child attends clinic, the longer he or she will stutter. Speech patterns of children who persist diverge from those who recover or who are fluent. As speakers persist, there are temperamental, sensory, and motor changes.

Addressing Feeding Disorders in Children on the Autism Spectrum in School-Based Settings: Physiological and Behavioral Issues

from Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools

Purpose: The purposes of this article are to define the nature of feeding difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), identify important components of the assessment and treatment of feeding disorders specific to this population, and delineate specific therapeutic techniques designed to improve assessment and treatment within the school setting. Method: Literature review and case example are used to define the predominant nature of the feeding difficulties that are experienced by some children on the autism spectrum. Characteristics of this complex disorder that can have an impact on feeding skill and behavior are also identified. These factors are then integrated to create assessment and intervention techniques that can be used in conjunction with traditional feeding approaches to facilitate improvements in eating in this unique population. Implications: The complex nature of ASD and its many influences on feeding skills and behavior create the need for modification to both assessment and treatment approaches. Additional research is needed to create therapeutic protocols that can be used by school-based speech-language pathologists to effectively assess and treat feeding difficulties that are commonly encountered in children with ASD.

Why Do Preschool Language Abilities Correlate With Later Reading? A Twin Study

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Language acquisition is predictive of successful reading development, but the nature of this link is poorly understood.

Method: A sample of 7,179 twin pairs was assessed on parent–report measures of syntax and vocabulary at ages 2, 3, and 4 years and on teacher assessments of reading achievement (RA) at ages 7, 9, and 10 years. These measures were used to construct latent factors of early language ability (LA) and RA in structural equation model-fitting analyses.

Results: The phenotypic correlation between LA and RA (r = .40) was primarily due to shared environmental influences that contribute to familial resemblance. These environmental influences on LA and RA overlapped substantially (rC = .62). Genetic influences made a significant but smaller contribution to the phenotypic correlation between LA and RA, and showed moderate overlap (rA = .36). There was also evidence for a direct causal influence of LA on RA.

Conclusions: The association between early language and later reading is underpinned by common environmental and genetic influences. The effects of some risk factors on RA may be mediated by language. The results provide a foundation for more fine-grained studies that examine links between specific measures of language, reading, genes, and environments.

Vowel Space Characteristics and Vowel Identification Accuracy

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: To examine the relation between vowel production characteristics and intelligibility.

Method: Acoustic characteristics of 10 vowels produced by 45 men and 48 women from the J. M. Hillenbrand, L. A. Getty, M. J. Clark, and K. Wheeler (1995) study were examined and compared with identification accuracy. Global (mean f0, F1, and F2; duration; and amount of formant movement) and fine-grained measures (vowel space area; mean distance among vowels; f0, F1, and F2 ranges; duration ratio between long and short vowels; and formant movement ratio between dynamic and static vowels) were used to predict identification scores. Acoustic measures of the most frequently confused pairs (/æ/–// and //–//) were compared.

Results: Global and fine-grained measures accounted for less than 1/4 of variance in identification scores: Vowel space area alone accounted for 9%–12% of variance. Differences in vowel identification were largely due to poor identification of /æ/, //, //, or //. Well-identified vowels were distinctive in formant frequencies, duration, and amount of formant movement over time.

Conclusions: Distinctiveness among neighboring vowels is more important in determining vowel intelligibility than vowel space area. Acoustic comparison of confused vowels may be more useful in studying intelligibility of normal and disordered speech than in measuring vowel space area.

The Relationship Between Listener Comprehension and Intelligibility Scores for Speakers With Dysarthria

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: This study examined the relationship between listener comprehension and intelligibility scores for speakers with mild, moderate, severe, and profound dysarthria. Relationships were examined across all speakers and their listeners when severity effects were statistically controlled, within severity groups, and within individual speakers with dysarthria.

Method: Speech samples were collected from 12 speakers with dysarthria secondary to cerebral palsy. For each speaker, 12 different listeners completed 2 tasks (for a total of 144 listeners): One task involved making orthographic transcriptions, and 1 task involved answering comprehension questions. Transcriptions were scored for the number of words transcribed correctly. Responses to comprehension questions were scored on a 3-point scale according to their accuracy.

Results: Across all speakers, the Pearson product–moment correlation between comprehension and intelligibility scores was nonsignificant when the effects of severity were factored out and residual scores were examined. Within severity groups, the same relationship was significant only for the mild group. Within individual speaker groups, the relationship was nonsignificant for all but 2 speakers with dysarthria. Percentage of correct scores for listener comprehension was descriptively higher than percentage of correct intelligibility scores for all groups.

Conclusion: Findings suggest that transcription intelligibility scores do not accurately reflect listener comprehension scores. Measures of both intelligibility and listener comprehension may provide a more complete description of the information-bearing capability of dysarthric speech than either measure alone.

The Influence of Fundamental Frequency and Sound Pressure Level Range on Breathing Patterns in Female Classical Singing

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: This study investigated the influence of fundamental frequency (F0) and sound pressure level (SPL) range on respiratory behavior in classical singing.

Method: Five trained female singers performed an 8-s messa di voce (a crescendo and decrescendo on one F0) across their musical F0 range. Lung volume (LV) change was estimated, and chest-wall kinematic behavior (dimensional change in ribcage [RC] and abdominal [AB] wall) was recorded using triaxial magnetometry.

Results: The direction of F0 influence on LV excursion (LVE) varied among singers, but SPL range appeared to be less important than duration to LVE. LVE was generally evenly divided between crescendo and decrescendo. Kinematic patterns differed markedly among singers, despite task consistency, and RC and AB paradoxing was widespread.

Conclusion: Each singer maintained her characteristic kinematic pattern regardless of F0 or SPL range, although these did influence aspects of RC and AB behavior. Given the essential role of breathing in classical singing, further work is needed to understand how singers develop their highly individual respiratory strategies and the principles by which each singer’s breathing strategy can be optimized.

The Argument-Structure Complexity Effect in Children With Specific Language Impairment: Evidence From the Use of Grammatical Morphemes in French

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: The hypothesis that the linguistic deficit presented by children with specific language impairment (SLI) is caused by limited cognitive resources (e.g., S. Ellis Weismer & L. Hesketh, 1996) was tested against the hypothesis of a limitation in linguistic knowledge (e.g., M. L. Rice, K. Wexler, & P. Cleave, 1995).

Method: The study examined the influence of the argument-structure complexity of a target sentence on the production of grammatical morphemes in French children with SLI compared with younger children matched for grammatical level in production (GL) and children of the same chronological age (CA). A sentence production task was used where the target sentences varied in terms of argument complexity and length.

Results: The results indicated that children with SLI used articles and auxiliaries in obligatory contexts significantly less often than both the GL and CA control groups: More complex argument structures elicited the highest number of grammatical morpheme omissions; this effect was larger in children with SLI than in the GL group and was independent of the length of the sentences, which failed to show any influence on the production of grammatical morphemes.

Conclusion: These results support the hypothesis that grammatical-morpheme deficit in SLI depends at least in part on limited processing capacities.

Speech Disruptions in the Narratives of English-Speaking Children With Specific Language Impairment

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: This study examined the types, frequencies, and distribution of speech disruptions in the spoken narratives of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their age-matched (CA) and language-matched (LA) peers.

Method: Twenty 4th-grade children with SLI, 20 typically developing CA children, and 20 younger typically developing LA children were included in this study. Speech disruptions (i.e., silent pauses and vocal hesitations) occurring in the narratives of these children were analyzed.

Results: Children with SLI exhibited speech disruption rates that were higher than those of their age-matched peers but not higher than those of their language-matched peers. The difference in disruption rates between the SLI and CA groups was restricted to silent pauses of 500–1000 ms. Moreover, children with SLI produced more speech disruptions than their peers before phrases but not before sentences, clauses, or words.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that there is a relationship between language ability and speech disruptions. Higher disruption rates at phrase boundaries in children with SLI than in their age-matched peers reflect lexical and syntactic deficits in children with SLI.

Short-Term Word-Learning Rate in Children With Normal Hearing and Children With Hearing Loss in Limited and Extended High-Frequency Bandwidths

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: This study examined children’s word learning in limited and extended high-frequency bandwidth conditions. These conditions represent typical listening environments for children with hearing loss (HL) and children with normal hearing (NH), respectively.

Method: Thirty-six children with NH and 14 children with moderate-to-severe HL served as participants. All of the children were between 8 and 10 years of age and were assigned to either the limited or the extended bandwidth conditions. Five nonsense words were paired with 5 novel pictures. Word learning was assessed in a single session, multitrial, learning paradigm lasting approximately 15 min. Learning rate was defined as the number of exposures necessary to achieve 70% correct performance.

Results: Analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect for bandwidth but not for group. A Bandwidth x Group interaction was also not observed. In this short-term learning paradigm, the children in both groups required 3 times as many exposures to learn each new word in the limited bandwidth condition compared with the extended bandwidth condition.

Conclusion: These results suggest that children with HL may benefit from extended high-frequency amplification when learning new words and for other long-term auditory processes.

Is Parent–Child Interaction Therapy Effective in Reducing Stuttering?

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: To investigate the efficacy of parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT) with young children who stutter.

Method: This is a longitudinal, multiple single-subject study. The participants were 6 children aged 3;3–4;10 [years;months] who had been stuttering for longer than 12 months. Therapy consisted of 6 sessions of clinic-based therapy and 6 weeks of home consolidation. Speech samples were videorecorded during free play with parents at home and analyzed to obtain stuttering data for each child before therapy, during therapy, and up to 12 months posttherapy.

Results: Stuttering frequency data obtained during therapy and posttherapy were compared with the frequency and variability of stuttering in the baseline phase. Four of the 6 children significantly reduced stuttering with both parents by the end of the therapy phase.

Conclusions: PCIT can reduce stuttering in preschool children with 6 sessions of clinic-based therapy and 6 weeks of parent-led, home-based therapy. The study highlights the individual response to therapy. Suggestions for future research directions are made.

Factors Affecting the Benefits of High-Frequency Amplification

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: This study was designed to determine the extent to which high-frequency amplification helped or hindered speech recognition as a function of hearing loss, gain-frequency response, and background noise.

Method: Speech recognition was measured monaurally under headphones for nonsense syllables low-pass filtered in one-third-octave steps between 2.2 and 5.6 kHz. Adults with normal hearing and with high-frequency thresholds ranging from 40 to 80 dB HL listened to speech in quiet processed with an identical “nonindividualized” gain-frequency response. Hearing-impaired participants also listened to speech in quiet and noise processed with gain-frequency responses individually prescribed according to the National Acoustic Laboratories–Revised (NAL-R) formula.

Results: Mean speech recognition generally increased significantly with additional high-frequency speech bands. The one exception was that hearing-impaired participants’ recognition of speech processed by the nonindividualized response did not improve significantly with the addition of the highest frequency band. Significantly larger increases in scores with increasing bandwidth were observed for speech in noise than quiet.

Conclusions: Given that decreases in scores with additional high-frequency speech bands for individual participants were relatively small and few and did not increase with quiet thresholds, no evidence of a degree of hearing loss was found above which it was counterproductive to provide amplification.

Estimating When and How Words Are Acquired: A Natural Experiment on the Development of the Mental Lexicon

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Sensitivity of subjective estimates of age of acquisition (AOA) and acquisition channel (AC; printed, spoken, signed) to differences in word exposure within and between populations that differ dramatically in perceptual experience was examined.

Methods: Fifty participants with early-onset deafness and 50 participants with normal hearing rated 175 words in terms of subjective AOA and AC. Additional data were collected using a standardized test of reading and vocabulary.

Results: Participants with early-onset deafness rated words as learned later (M = 10 years) than did participants with normal hearing (M = 8.5 years), F(1, 99) = 28.59, p < .01. Group-averaged item ratings of AOA were highly correlated across the groups (r = .971) and with normative order of acquisition (deaf: r = .950, hearing: r = .946). The groups differed in their ratings of AC (hearing: printed = 30%, spoken = 70%, signed = 0%; deaf: printed = 45%, spoken = 38%, signed = 17%).

Conclusions: Subjective AOA and AC measures are sensitive to between- and within-group differences in word experience. The results demonstrate that these subjective measures can be applied as proxies for direct measures of lexical development in studies of lexical knowledge in adults with prelingual onset deafness.

Efficacy of the Discreteness of Voicing Category (DOVC) Measure for Characterizing Voicing Errors in Children With Cochlear Implants: A Report

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: This investigation explored the utility of an acoustic measure, called the discreteness of voicing category (DOVC), in identifying voicing errors in stop consonants produced by children with cochlear implants. Another objective was to examine the perceptual relevance of the DOVC measure and 2 commonly used voice onset time (VOT)-based measures, namely, mean VOT and VOT (e.g., VOT // – VOT //).

Method: Phonetic transcription and acoustic analyses were carried out on syllable–initial // and // produced by 10 children with cochlear implants. The DOVC was calculated as the difference between the shortest VOT value of a voiceless stop and the longest VOT value of a voiced stop across several productions of each.

Results: Phonetic transcription revealed that 4 of the 10 talkers demonstrated atypical voicing distinctions. Acoustic analyses indicated that the DOVC measure identified these same 4 talkers as producing atypical values, whereas mean VOT and VOT identified a different set of talkers as demonstrating values outside the normal ranges.

Conclusion: Preliminary findings suggest that the DOVC measure corresponded with perceptual data better than the other acoustic measures examined in the present study. Data indicate that the DOVC measure may provide perceptually relevant information concerning the production of voicing distinctions.

Effects of Long-Term Training on Aided Speech-Recognition Performance in Noise in Older Adults

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: This study examined how repeated presentations of words in noise affected understanding of both trained and untrained words in noise (in isolation and in sentences).

Method: Eight older listeners with hearing impairment completed a word-based auditory training protocol lasting approximately 12 weeks. Training materials were presented in a closed-set condition with both orthographic and auditory feedback on a trial-to-trial basis. Performance on both trained and untrained lexically easy and hard words, as well as generalization to sentences, was measured. Listeners then returned for an additional 14 weeks to monitor retention of the trained materials.

Results: Training listeners on 1 set of words improved both their open- and closed-set recognition of the trained materials but did not improve performance on another set of untrained words. When training switched to the other set, performance for the new set of words improved significantly, whereas significant improvements on the previously trained words were maintained. Training generalized to unfamiliar talkers but did not generalize to untrained words or untrained keywords within running speech. Listeners were able to maintain improved performance over an extended period.

Conclusion: Older listeners were able to improve their word-recognition performance in noise on a set of 150 words with training.

Comodulation Masking Release (CMR) in Children and the Influence of Reading Status

from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Research suggests that children with reading disabilities (RD) have difficulty processing temporal and spectral components of sounds. Comodulation masking release (CMR) measures a listener’s ability to use temporal and spectral information in noise to identify a signal. The purpose of this study was to determine whether children with RD had difficulty identifying a signal in CMR stimuli. Child and adult performance was compared to assess the development of CMR.

Method: Eighty-one 7- to 10-year-old children (30 with and 51 without RD) and 20 adults without RD listened to CMR stimuli through headphones. The difference between reference and modulated masker thresholds provided a measure of CMR.

Results: Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that reading status did not predict thresholds or CMR. An analysis of variance revealed significantly less CMR for children than for adults.

Conclusions: This research does not support the hypothesis that children with RD have difficulty processing temporal and spectral auditory information as measured by the CMR paradigm. In contrast with some previous research (K. Veloso, J. Hall, & J. Grose, 1990), this study suggests that CMR is continuing to develop beyond 10 years of age. Future research using a CMR paradigm with older children (10–16 years of age) would further illuminate the developmental picture of CMR.