Monthly Archives: May 2011
5 Minute Kids
5 Minute Kids does not relate to technology, really, but is rather an innovative “outside the box” approach to providing articulation therapy in the school setting.
from Speech Techie.com
LifeLinks introduces real time video interpreting services for 180 spoken languages
Building on their success in video relay interpreting, LifeLinks has introduced real time captioning and recording between more than 180 languages including American Sign Language.
from News-Medical.net
When what you see is not what you hear
Different facial movements are better predictors of speech sounds than others. A new study investigates the neural processes that use this predictive signal and what happens to brain rhythms when it goes awry.
from Nature Neuroscience
ERP correlates of intramodal and crossmodal L2 acquisition
Although deaf learners have learned German as an L2 mainly via the visual modality they seem to engage comparable processing mechanisms as hearing L2 learners. Thus, the data underscore the modality transcendence of language.
from BMC Neuroscience
Signs and symptoms of temporomandibular joint disorders related to the degree of mouth opening and hearing loss.
TMD signs and symptoms were more common and severe in females than males. TMD severity is correlated with the degree of mouth opening and the number of aural symptoms. The absence or presence of mild TMD are associated with normal audiograms while moderate and severe TMD are related to hearing loss in median and low tones respectively. Bruxism, joint ankylosis, joint pain and ear itching were more common in TMD than non-TMD patients.
The adaptive pattern of the auditory N1 peak revealed by standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography
The N1 peak in the late auditory evoked potential (LAEP) decreases in amplitude following stimulus repetition, displaying an adaptive pattern. The present study explored the functional neural substrates that may underlie the N1 adaptive pattern using standardized Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (sLORETA). Fourteen young normal hearing (NH) listeners participated in the study. Tone bursts (80 dB SPL) were binaurally presented via insert earphones in trains of ten; the inter-stimulus interval was 0.7 s and the inter-train interval was 15 s. Current source density analysis was performed for the N1 evoked by the 1st, 2nd and 10th stimuli (S1, S2 and S10) at three different timeframes that corresponded to the latency ranges of the N1 waveform subcomponents (70–100, 100–130 and 130–160 ms). The data showed that S1 activated broad regions in different cortical lobes and the activation was much smaller for S2 and S10. Response differences in the LAEP waveform and sLORETA were observed between S1 and S2, but not between the S2 and S10. The sLORETA comparison map between S1 and S2 response showed the activation was located in the parietal lobe for the 70–100 ms timeframe, the frontal and limbic lobes for the 100–130 ms timeframe, and the frontal lobe for the 130–160 ms timeframe. These sLORETA comparison results suggest a parieto-frontal network that might help to sensitize the brain to novel stimuli by filtering out repetitive and irrelevant stimuli. This study demonstrates that sLORETA may be useful for identifying generators of scalp-recorded event related potentials and for examining the physiological features of these generators. This technique could be especially useful for cortical source localization in individuals who cannot be examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging or magnetoencephalography (e.g., cochlear implant users).
from Brain Research
Hearing aids reduce overestimation in pre-fitting self-assessment
The pre-fitting self-assessment of hearing disability involves over estimation which is exacerbated by hearing difficulty. A high pre-fitting VAS value may reflect a large overestimation in hearing ability. This overestimation can be improved by the amplification with hearing aids.
from Auris Nasus Larynx
Hearing loss in bullous myringitis
The results of the present study demonstrate a high incidence of mixed or sensorineural hearing loss in bullous myringitis patients, and emphasize the need for routine early audiometric evaluation and appropriate follow up for individuals diagnosed as having bullous myringitis.
from Auris Nasus Larynx
Reversible cochlear disorders with normal vestibular functions in three cases with Wegener’s granulomatosis
Patients with Wegener’s granulomatosis (WG) often suffer from hearing loss, but its precise mechanisms have not been well understood. We experienced 3 WG cases whose initial symptoms were bilateral progressive mixed (both conductive and sensorineural) hearing loss, followed by systemic symptoms one year later. They were diagnosed as WG based on positive serology of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCAs) and pathologic findings of affected lesions in addition to systemic symptoms. Although they were different in the type of ANCAs and systemic lesions, all showed considerably reversible cochlear disorders with normal vestibular functions. Moreover, their initial otologic manifestations shared same characteristic features, (1) thick ear drums with pulsatile serous intratympanic effusion, (2) poor speech discrimination ability, and (3) steroid-dependent changes of hearing levels (HLs). They exhibited no significant vestibular abnormalities in chair vestibule-ocular reflex (VOR) testing and cold air caloric tests even when they had severe hearing loss. On the basis of these results, we hypothesized that vasculitis of stria vascularis which generates endocochlear potential might cause these reversible cochlear-specific dysfunctions.
from Auris Nasus Larynx
Injection Therapy For Sudden Hearing Loss Disorder May Be Suitable Alternative To Oral Steroids
Treating idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss with injections of steroids directly into the ear appears to result in recovery of hearing that is not less than recovery obtained with the standard therapy of oral corticosteroids and may be a preferable treatment for some patients to avoid the potential adverse effects of oral steroids, according to a study in the May 25 issue of JAMA.
Oral vs Intratympanic Corticosteroid Therapy for Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Conclusion Among patients with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss, hearing level 2 months after treatment showed that intratympanic treatment was not inferior to oral prednisone treatment.
Steroids for Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss, or sudden deafness, is the acute onset of hearing loss of at least 30 dB in 3 connected frequencies occurring instantaneously or over a period of up to 3 days. 1 Sudden hearing loss is thought to be relatively rare, 2 occurs mainly in patients between the ages of 30 and 60 years, and can be devastating for the patient. Therefore, sudden hearing loss should be treated as a medical emergency. The natural course is characterized by spontaneous recovery among approximately 50% of patients. 3, 4 Accurate estimates of incidence are difficult to obtain because a significant number of patients who spontaneously recover do not seek medical attention. 5 As the term idiopathic implies, the etiology and pathophysiology of hearing loss are unknown. Possible causes include infections (especially viruses), autoimmune disease, circulatory problems, and neurological disease, including multiple sclerosis. Treatment options include oral steroids, …
Nearly One in Seven Kids Has a Learning Disability
The number of children with developmental disabilities has increased by 17 percent in 12 years, driven largely by big jumps in diagnoses for autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, research shows.
More than 15 percent of school-age kids about 10 million children had a developmental disability in 2006-08, according to a study released Monday in the journal Pediatrics. That’s up from 12.8 percent in 1997-99.
from Sci-Tech Today
Improving vocabulary and pre-literacy skills of at-risk preschoolers through teacher professional development.
In a randomized control study, Head Start teachers were assigned to either an intervention group that received intensive, ongoing professional development (PD) or to a comparison group that received the “business as usual” PD provided by Head Start. The PD intervention provided teachers with conceptual knowledge and instructional strategies that support young children’s development of vocabulary, alphabet knowledge, and phonological sensitivity. Results indicated that, after 1 academic year, teachers in the intervention group created higher quality classroom environments, as measured by the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation (M. W. Smith, D. K. Dickinson, A. Sangeorge, & L. Anastasopoulos, 2002) and Classroom Assessment Scoring System (R. C. Pianta, K. M. La Paro, & B. K. Hamre, 2007), and by videotapes of their classroom book readings. Further, children in the intervention group performed significantly better than comparison-group peers on measures of receptive vocabulary and phonological sensitivity but showed equivalent alphabet learning. Moreover, variation in classroom quality and fidelity to the intervention were linked to child outcomes, illuminating which particular aspects of teachers’ improved practices were linked to children’s gains. Findings provide new details about the mechanisms through which intensive and intentional PD can enhance Head Start teachers’ classroom practices and, by extension, improve Head Start children’s language and preliteracy outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
from the Journal of Educational Psychology
The influence of connectives on young readers’ processing and comprehension of text.
Connectives are cohesive devices that signal the relations between clauses and are critical to the construction of a coherent representation of a text’s meaning. The authors investigated young readers’ knowledge, processing, and comprehension of temporal, causal, and adversative connectives using offline and online tasks. In a cloze task, 10-year-olds were more accurate than 8-year-olds on temporal and adversative connectives, but both age groups differed from adult levels of performance (Experiment 1). When required to rate the “sense” of 2-clause sentences linked by connectives, 10-year-olds and adults were better at discriminating between clauses linked by appropriate and inappropriate connectives than were 8-year-olds. The 10-year-olds differed from adults only on the temporal connectives (Experiment 2). In contrast, online reading time measures indicated that 8-year-olds’ processing of text is influenced by connectives as they read, in much the same way as 10-year-olds’. Both age groups read text more quickly when target 2-clause sentences were linked by an appropriate connective compared with texts in which a connective was neutral (and), inappropriate to the meaning conveyed by the 2 clauses, or not present (Experiments 3 and 4). These findings indicate that although knowledge and comprehension of connectives is still developing in young readers, connectives aid text processing in typically developing readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
from the Journal of Educational Psychology
