Speech referral numbers increase

The number of children referred for speech therapy in Jersey rose sharply last year, official figures have shown.

from Topix.net

Early Cochlear implantation removes word-learning skill defects in deaf children

Learning words may be facilitated by early exposure to auditory input, according to research presented by the Indiana University School of Medicine at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in San Diego, Feb. 18-22.

from News-Medical.net

Differences in the neural basis of automatic auditory and visual time perception: ERP evidence from an across-modal delayed response oddball task

In our everyday lives, we need to process auditory and visual temporal information as efficiently as possible. Although automatic auditory time perception has been widely investigated using an index of the mismatch negativity (MMN), the neural basis of automatic visual time perception has been largely ignored. The present study investigated the automatic processing of auditory and visual time perception employing the cross-modal delayed response oddball paradigm. In the experimental condition, the standard stimulus was 200 ms and the deviant stimulus was 120 ms, which were exchanged in the control condition. Reaction time, accuracy, and event-related potential (ERP) data were measured when participants performed the duration discrimination task. The ERP results showed that the MMN, N2b, and P3 were elicited by an auditory deviant stimulus under the attention condition, while only the MMN was elicited under the inattention condition. The MMN was largest over the frontal and central sites, while the difference in MMN amplitude was not significant between under the attention and inattention condition. In contrast, the change related positivity (CRP) and the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) were elicited by the visual deviant stimulus under both the attention and inattention conditions. The CRP was largest over the occipito-temporal sites under the attention condition, and over the fronto-central sites under the inattention condition. The difference in CRP amplitude was significant between the attention and inattention condition. The vMMN was largest over the parieto-occipital sites under the attention condition, and largest over the fronto-central sites under the inattention condition. The difference in vMMN amplitude was significant between the attention and inattention condition. Auditory MMN does not appear to be modulated by attention, whereas the visual CRP and the vMMN are modulated by attention. Therefore, the present study provides electrophysiological evidence for the existence of automatic visual time perception, and supports an “attentional switch” hypothesis for a modality effect on duration judgments, such that auditory temporal information is processed relatively automatically, whereas visual temporal information processing requires controlled attention.

from Brain Research

Relationships among magnitude representation, counting and memory in 4- to 7-year-old children: A developmental study

We conclude that young children are not able to discriminate numerical magnitudes when co-varying physical magnitudes are methodically pitted against number. We propose, along with others, that a rather domain general magnitude representation provides the later basis for a specialized representation of numerical magnitudes. For this representational specialization, the acquisition of the concept of abstract numbers, together with the development of other cognitive abilities, is indispensable.

from Behavioral and Brain Functions

Cerebral activation associated with speech sound discrimination during the diotic listening task: an fMRI study

Comprehending conversation in a crowd requires appropriate orienting and sustainment of auditory attention to and discrimination of the target speaker. While a multitude of cognitive functions such as voice perception and language processing work in concert to subserve this ability, it is still unclear which cognitive components critically determine successful discrimination of speech sounds under constantly changing auditory conditions. To investigate this, we present a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of changes in cerebral activities associated with varying challenge levels of speech discrimination. Subjects participated in a diotic listening paradigm that presented them with two news stories read simultaneously but independently by a target speaker and a distracting speaker of incongruent or congruent sex. We found that the voice of distracter of congruent rather than incongruent sex made the listening more challenging, resulting in enhanced activities mainly in the left temporal and frontal gyri. Further, the activities at the left inferior, left anterior superior and right superior loci in the temporal gyrus were shown to be significantly correlated with accuracy of the discrimination performance. The present results suggest that the subregions of bilateral temporal gyri play a key role in the successful discrimination of speech under constantly changing auditory conditions as encountered in daily life.

from Neuroscience Research

Mothers’ Experience of the Lidcombe Program of Early Stuttering Intervention

The Lidcombe Program is a behavioral treatment for early stuttering which is implemented by parents, typically the mother. Despite this, there is limited detailed knowledge about mothers’ experiences of administering the treatment. This article describes the findings of a qualitative study which explored the experiences of 16 mothers during their implementation of the Lidcombe Program. Information was collected using semi-structured, in-depth, face to face and telephone interviews. Participants were interviewed pre-treatment, and then regularly throughout the 6-month treatment period. Data were collected from nine interviews conducted with each participant. All interviews (n = 140) were audio-recorded and then transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was used to identify major issues and topics which emerged from the data.

Practicalities of implementing the program are reported, including obstacles mothers faced and solutions to address these. Positive aspects mothers experienced through their involvement are discussed. The mothers perception of the treatment is outlined and descriptions of the emotions mothers reported are also presented. Findings from the study will enable clinicians to better deliver the Lidcombe Program and will enable improved course instruction and clinical education about the procedure.

from Journal of Fluency Disorders

Semantic Event-Related Potential Components Reflect Severity of Comprehension Deficits in Aphasia

Background and objectives. Several cognitive event-related potential (ERP) components such as mismatch negativity, P300, N400, and the late positive component (LPC) have been studied in aphasia. The aim of this study was to determine whether a modified semantic incongruity paradigm can serve as a more graded differentiation of ERP changes in patients with mild versus severe comprehension deficits. Methods. A total of 20 aphasic patients with minor and severe comprehension deficits and 20 young and elder healthy controls were examined while reading 4-word sentences ending in a semantically congruent or noncongruent word. Results. In contrast to young controls and to patients with mild comprehension deficits, aphasic patients with severe comprehension deficits exhibit an early positivity in the time window from 200 to 400 milliseconds and no N400 after the presentation of nonrecurrent semantically incongruent words. Patients with mild comprehension deficits were found to have an N400 with prolonged latency in comparison with the controls. An age effect in the control groups was detected as well. Discussion. Semantic access and integration are performed differently in aphasic subjects with severe comprehension deficits. These differences in lexical—semantic processing must be taken into account in rehabilitation approaches that aim to improve comprehension deficits. Moreover, the findings may contribute to the design of therapy studies by employing a physiological measure that can discriminate among patients at baseline and at the end of an intervention.

from Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair

Can you hear shapes you touch?

Shape is an inherent property of objects existing in both vision and touch but not audition. Can shape then be represented by sound artificially? It has previously been shown that sound can convey visual information by means of image-to-sound coding, but whether sound can code tactile information is not clear. Blindfolded sighted individuals were trained to recognize tactile spatial information using sounds mapped from abstract shapes. After training, subjects were able to match auditory input to tactually discerned shapes and showed generalization to novel auditory–tactile pairings. Furthermore, they showed complete transfer to novel visual shapes, despite the fact that training did not involve any visual exposure. In addition, we found enhanced tactile acuity specific to the training stimuli. The present study demonstrates that as long as tactile space is coded in a systematic way, shape can be conveyed via a medium that is not spatial, suggesting a metamodal representation.

from Experimental Brain Research

Social Competence Intervention for Youth with Asperger Syndrome and High-functioning Autism: An Initial Investigation

Individuals with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) exhibit difficulties in the knowledge or correct performance of social skills. This subgroup’s social difficulties appear to be associated with deficits in three social cognition processes: theory of mind, emotion recognition and executive functioning. The current study outlines the development and initial administration of the group-based Social Competence Intervention (SCI), which targeted these deficits using cognitive behavioral principles. Across 27 students age 11–14 with a HFA/AS diagnosis, results indicated significant improvement on parent reports of social skills and executive functioning. Participants evidenced significant growth on direct assessments measuring facial expression recognition, theory of mind and problem solving. SCI appears promising, however, larger samples and application in naturalistic settings are warranted.

from the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Frontotemporal Dementia and Pharmacologic Interventions

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration is comprised of three syndromes: frontotemporal dementia (FTD), semantic dementia, and progressive nonfluent aphasia, with FTD being the most prevalent. FTD is characterized predominantly by character change and disordered social conduct. A variety of pathologies may underlie these syndromes, yet it is the location of the pathology rather than the type that dictates the clinical features of the disease. Several medications have been investigated to measure efficacy of treatment in FTD, often with mixed results. The authors review these findings and comment on future directions.

from the Journal of Neurospsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences

Stimulating conversation: Enhancement of elicited propositional speech in a patient with chronic non-fluent aphasia following transcranial magnetic stimulation

Although evidence suggests that patients with left hemisphere strokes and non-fluent aphasia who receive 1 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the intact right inferior frontal gyrus experience persistent benefits in naming, it remains unclear whether the effects of rTMS in these patients generalize to other language abilities. We report a subject with chronic non-fluent aphasia who showed stable deficits of elicited propositional speech over the course of 5 years, and received 1200 pulses of 1 Hz rTMS daily for 10 days at a site identified as being optimally responsive to rTMS in this patient. Consistent with prior studies there was improvement in object naming, with a statistically significant improvement in action naming. Improvement was also demonstrated in picture description at 2, 6, and 10 months after rTMS with respect to the number of narrative words and nouns, sentence length, and use of closed class words. Compared to his baseline performance, the patient showed significant improvement on the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) subscale for spontaneous speech. These findings suggest that manipulation of the intact contralesional cortex in patients with non-fluent aphasia may result in language benefits that generalize beyond naming to include other aspects of language production.

from Brain and Language

Language, knowledge and reality: The integrationist on name variation

This paper considers the phenomena of name variation (multiple names for the same referent) and onymic homonymy (multiple referents bearing the same name) both epistemologically and ontologically, and argues that integrationism deals with ‘reality’ in a much more satisfactory way than either realism or social constructionism. The article thus critically examines how historians and sociolinguists, who respectively adopt a surrogational and structuralist model of how names relate to the real world, have coped (or would have to cope) with complex onomastic situations; it proposes an alternative (integrational) analysis of fieldwork conducted in Bellinzona, the capital of southern Switzerland, concerning the names of its three Medieval castles.

from Language & Communication

Exploration of the relationships among medical health history variables and aspiration

Significant relationships exist between aspiration or penetration and the family’s answers about their child’s medical history. Practitioners should consider a swallow assessment whenever a child has a history which includes variables with a strong association with aspiration or penetration.

from the International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology

Mothers’ Experience of the Lidcombe Program of Early Stuttering Intervention

The Lidcombe Program is a behavioral treatment for early stuttering which is implemented by parents, typically the mother. Despite this, there is limited detailed knowledge about mothers’ experiences of administering the treatment. This article describes the findings of a qualitative study which explored the experiences of 16 mothers during their implementation of the Lidcombe Program. Information was collected using semi-structured, in-depth, face to face and telephone interviews. Participants were interviewed pre-treatment, and then regularly throughout the 6-month treatment period. Data were collected from nine interviews conducted with each participant. All interviews (n = 140) were audio-recorded and then transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was used to identify major issues and topics which emerged from the data.

Practicalities of implementing the program are reported, including obstacles mothers faced and solutions to address these. Positive aspects mothers experienced through their involvement are discussed. The mothers perception of the treatment is outlined and descriptions of the emotions mothers reported are also presented. Findings from the study will enable clinicians to better deliver the Lidcombe Program and will enable improved course instruction and clinical education about the procedure.

from Journal of Fluency Disorders

A Corpus-Based Analysis of the Discourse Functions of Ser/Estar + Adjective in Three Levels of Spanish as FL Learners

Research on the acquisition of Spanish’s two copulas, ser and estar, provides an understanding of the interaction among syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology, and vocabulary during development (e.g., Geeslin, 2003a, 2003b; Gunterman, 1992; Ryan & Lafford, 1992). Recent research suggests that linguistic features in the surrounding discourse influence learners’ copula choice. We present a corpus-based analysis of the lexico-grammatical features co-occurring with copula + adjective usage among foreign-language learners of Spanish at three levels of instruction. Findings revealed the following: (a) both ser + adjective and estar + adjective occur at all levels where little linguistic complexity typically occurs; (b) ser + adjective appears in descriptive and evaluative discourse; and (c) estar + adjective is present in narrations, descriptions, and hypothetical discourse.

from Language Learning