Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research最新文献

Purpose: This study focuses on examining how individual differences, including biological, linguistic, and cognitive traits, and prosodic focus affect the computation biases and reaction time (RT) associated with quantity scalar terms in Mandarin-speaking children aged 3-8 years.

Method: The participants of this study were 27 Mandarin-speaking children aged 3-8 years. They completed a computer-based sentence evaluation task, and their receptive vocabulary, nonverbal IQ, and theory of mind (ToM) skills were assessed. Additionally, parents provided insights into their children's executive functions, including working memory, planning, regulation, and inhibition abilities, through a questionnaire reflecting daily performance.

Results: Mandarin-speaking 3- to 8-year-olds showed pervasive quantifier semantic biases versus bimodally distributed ad hoc semantic/pragmatic biases. Their quantifier pragmatic bias increased with age, working memory, and planning abilities but decreased with first-order ToM. In contrast, their ad hoc pragmatic bias improved with second-order ToM, working memory, planning, and inhibition abilities but decreased with age and receptive vocabulary. Prosodic focus reduced the number of hesitators and minimized the RT differences between hesitators and pragmatic/semantic responders.

Conclusions: Children show a higher overall pragmatic bias in ad hoc compared to quantifier scalar terms, alongside notable individual differences. Quantifier and ad hoc scalar terms appear to have different initial interpretations, with the former leaning toward a semantic interpretation and the latter toward a pragmatic one. Prosodic focus reduced hesitation and encouraged further processing, although it did not significantly alter interpretation biases. Future studies should employ larger sample sizes and implicit measures to further explore these findings.

Purpose: Predictive language comprehension has become a major topic in psycholinguistic research. The study described in this article aims to investigate if German children with developmental language disorder (DLD) use grammatical gender agreement to predict the continuation of noun phrases in the same way as it has been observed for typically developing (TD) children. The study also seeks to differentiate between specific and general deficits in predictive processing by exploring the anticipatory use of semantic information. Additionally, the research examines whether the processing of gender and semantic information varies with the speed of stimulus presentation.

Method: The study included 30 children with DLD (average age = 8.7 years) and 26 TD children (average age = 8.4 years) who participated in a visual-world eye-tracking study. Noun phrases, consisting of an article, an adjective, and a noun, were presented that matched with only one of two target pictures. The phrases contained a gender cue, a semantic cue, a combination of both, or none of these cues. The cues were provided by the article and/or adjective and could be used to identify the target picture before the noun itself was presented.

Results: Both groups, TD children and those with DLD, utilized predictive processing strategies in response to gender agreement and semantic information when decoding noun phrases. However, children with DLD were only able to consider gender cues when noun phrases were presented at a slower speech rate, and even then, their predictive certainty remained below the typical level for their age.

Conclusion: Based on these findings, the article discusses the potential relevance of the prediction framework for explaining comprehension deficits in children with DLD, as well as the clinical implications of the results.

Objective: Laryngeal ultrasonography (LUS) is a noninvasive alternative to nasal endoscopy for diagnosing vocal fold pathologies in the pediatric population. Inducing less discomfort and physiological impact, LUS is more well tolerated by young patients. Despite its advantages, interpreting ultrasound images is highly subjective, potentially undermining diagnostic accuracy. To address the limitation, this research aims to evaluate the effect of training on novice examiners' LUS interpretation proficiency and, secondly, whether examiners' interpretation confidence increases after receiving the training.

Method: Thirty-eight novice examiners were randomly assigned to the experimental and control group where the former received training. A stimulus-response-feedback-stimulus paradigm was employed in the training. Qualitatively, the presence of vocal fold lesions and vocal fold motion impairment was examined. Quantitatively, the left and right vocal fold-arytenoid angles were measured.

Results: Results showed that training significantly improved diagnostic accuracy in qualitative measurements. Quantitatively, statistically significant effects were found posttraining with enhanced intrarater agreement and reduced interrater variability. A substantial increase in interpretation confidence was observed following training.

Conclusions: In conclusion, there is an overall significant training effect on novice examiners' proficiency in LUS image interpretation. For future directions, it is recommended to investigate the training effect on the proficiency from ultrasound image acquisition to interpretation.

Purpose: Exercise-induced adaptations, including neuroplasticity, are well studied for physical exercise that targets skeletal muscles. However, little is known about the neuroplastic potential of targeted speech and swallowing exercises. The current study aimed to gather preliminary data on molecular and functional changes associated with the neuroplastic effects of 4-week expiratory musculature-targeted resistance training in healthy young adults.

Method: Five healthy young adult men aged between 19 and 35 years, M (SD) = 28.8 (2.68) years, underwent 4 weeks of expiratory muscle strength training (EMST). We measured changes in maximum expiratory pressure (MEP), serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) levels at baseline and posttraining conditions. Furthermore, functional and structural magnetic resonance images were obtained to investigate the neuroplastic effects of EMST. We analyzed the effects of training using a linear mixed model for each outcome, with fixed effects for baseline and posttraining.

Results: MEP and serum BDNF levels significantly increased posttraining. However, this effect was not observed for IGF-1. A significant increase in functional activation in eight regions was also observed posttraining. However, we did not observe significant changes in the white matter microstructure.

Conclusions: Preliminary data from our study suggest targeted resistance training of expiratory muscles results in molecular and neuroplastic adaptations similar to exercise that targets skeletal muscles. Additionally, these results suggest that EMST could be a potential intervention to modulate (or prime) neurotrophic signaling pathways linked to functional strength gains and neuroplasticity.

Purpose: Auditory perceptual and cognitive tasks can be useful as a long-term goal in guiding rehabilitation and intervention strategies in audiology clinics that mostly operate at a faster pace and on strict timelines. The rationale of this study was to assess test-retest reliability of an abbreviated test battery and evaluate age-related auditory perceptual and cognitive effects on these measures.

Method: Experiment 1 evaluated the test-retest repeatability of an abbreviated test battery and its use in an adverse listening environment. Ten participants performed two visits, each including four conditions: quiet, background noise, external noise, and background mixed with external noise. In Experiment 2, both auditory perceptual and cognitive assessments were collected from younger adults with normal hearing and older adults with and without hearing loss. The full test battery included measures of frequency selectivity, temporal fine structure and envelope processing, spectrotemporal and spatial processing and cognition, and an external measure of tolerance to background noise.

Results: Results from Experiment 1 showed good test-retest repeatability and nonsignificant effects from background or external noise. In Experiment 2, effects of age and hearing loss were shown across auditory perceptual and cognitive measures, except in measures of temporal envelope perception and tolerance to background noise.

Conclusions: These data support the use of an abbreviated test battery in relatively uncontrolled listening environments such as clinic waiting rooms. With an efficient test battery, perceptual and cognitive deficits can be assessed with minimal resources and little clinician involvement due to the automated nature of the test and the use of consumer-grade technology.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28021070.

Purpose: We investigate the extent to which automated audiovisual metrics extracted during an affect production task show statistically significant differences between a cohort of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing controls.

Method: Forty children with ASD and 21 neurotypical controls interacted with a multimodal conversational platform with a virtual agent, Tina, who guided them through tasks prompting facial and vocal communication of four emotions-happy, angry, sad, and afraid-under conditions of high and low verbal and social cognitive task demands.

Results: Individuals with ASD exhibited greater standard deviation of the fundamental frequency of the voice with the minima and maxima of the pitch contour occurring at an earlier time point as compared to controls. The intensity and voice quality of emotional speech were also different between the two cohorts in certain conditions. Additionally, facial metrics capturing the acceleration of the lower lip, lip width, eye opening, and vertical displacement of the eyebrows were also important markers to distinguish between children with ASD and neurotypical controls. Both facial and speech metrics performed well above chance in group classification accuracy.

Conclusion: Speech acoustic and facial metrics associated with affect production were effective in distinguishing between children with ASD and neurotypical controls.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28027796.

Purpose: This study aimed to assess the magnitude and direction of dual-task interference in a listening effort dual-task paradigm in individuals with severe-to-profound hearing loss before and in the short- and long-term after cochlear implantation.

Design: The study sample consisted of 26 adult candidates for cochlear implantation with severe-to-profound hearing loss. The dual-task paradigm consisted of a primary speech understanding task, conducted in a quiet condition, and a favorable and unfavorable noise condition on the one hand and a secondary visual memory task on the other hand. The dual-task effect for both tasks and the derived patterns of dual-task interference were determined. Participants were evaluated at four test moments: before cochlear implantation and at 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months after implantation.

Results: Across all listening conditions, a shift was observed from patterns of dual-task interference with worse and stable scores for the primary speech understanding task in the dual-task condition compared to the baseline condition before implantation, toward patterns in which stable or better scores were obtained, respectively, for the primary task in the dual-task condition after implantation. This indicates that more attention could be allocated to the primary speech understanding task during the dual-task condition after implantation, implying a decreased listening effort.

Conclusions: A decreased listening effort was found after cochlear implantation. This study provides additional insights into the evolution of dual-task interference after cochlear implantation. It highlights the importance of interpreting both the primary and secondary tasks using a dual-task paradigm in the assessment of listening effort.

Purpose: Recent advances in artificial intelligence provide opportunities to capture and represent complex features of human language in a more automated manner, offering potential means of improving the efficiency of language assessment. This review article presents computerized approaches for the analysis of narrative language and identification of language disorders in children.

Method: We first describe the current barriers to clinicians' use of language sample analysis, narrative language sampling approaches, and the data processing stages that precede analysis. We then present recent studies demonstrating the automated extraction of linguistic features and identification of developmental language disorder using natural language processing and machine learning. We explain how these tools operate and emphasize how the decisions made in construction impact their performance in important ways, especially in the analysis of child language samples. We conclude with a discussion of major challenges in the field with respect to bias, access, and generalizability across settings and applications.

Conclusion: Given the progress that has occurred over the last decade, computer-automated approaches offer a promising opportunity to improve the efficiency and accessibility of language sample analysis and expedite the diagnosis and treatment of language disorders in children.

Purpose: The Daily Phonotrauma Index (DPI) can quantify pathophysiological mechanisms associated with daily voice use in individuals with phonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction (PVH). Since DPI was developed based on weeklong ambulatory voice monitoring, this study investigated if DPI can achieve comparable performance using (a) short laboratory speech tasks and (b) fewer than 7 days of ambulatory data.

Method: An ambulatory voice monitoring system recorded the vocal function/behavior of 134 females with PVH and vocally healthy matched controls in two different conditions. In the laboratory, the participants read the first paragraph of the Rainbow Passage and produced spontaneous speech (in-lab data). They were then monitored for 7 days (in-field data). Separate DPI models were trained from the in-lab and in-field data using the standard deviation of the difference between the magnitude of the first two harmonics (H1-H2) and the skewness of neck-surface acceleration magnitude. First, 10-fold cross-validation evaluated the classification performance of the in-lab and in-field DPIs. Second, the effect of the number of ambulatory monitoring days on the accuracy of in-field DPI classification was quantified.

Results: The average in-lab DPI accuracy computed from the Rainbow Passage and spontaneous speech were 57.9% and 48.9%, respectively, which are close to chance performance. The average classification accuracy of the in-field DPI was significantly higher with a very large effect size (73.4%, Cohen's d = 1.8). Next, the average in-field DPI accuracy increased from 66.5% for 1 day to 75.0% for 7 days, with the gain of including an additional day on accuracy dropping below 1 percentage point after 4 days.

Conclusions: The DPI requires ambulatory monitoring data as its discriminative power diminished significantly once computed from short in-lab recordings. Additionally, ambulatory monitoring should sample multiple days to achieve robust performance. The result of this research note can be used to make an informed decision about the trade-off between classification accuracy and cost of data collection.

Purpose: This study investigates how Mandarin-English bilingual students in Canada produce Mandarin tones and how this is influenced by factors such as tone complexity, cross-linguistic influences, and speech input.

Method: Participants were 82 students enrolled in a Chinese bilingual program in Western Canada. Students were recruited from Grades 1, 3, and 5 and divided into two groups based on their home language backgrounds: The heritage language group had early and strong input in Mandarin, and the second language (L2) group received mostly English input at home. Single-word tone productions were audio-recorded and transcribed by Mandarin-native listeners for match (accuracy) and pattern analyses. Acoustic measurements were extracted to provide phonetic details.

Results: First, Tone3 (dipping tone) was challenging across groups due to its complexity. Second, L2 students' productions were more influenced by English as a nontonal language and showed signs of categorical confusion. Third, increased tone match rates were related to both home input and school input, but bilingual students did not reach more than 90% of match rates in Grade 5. Instead, L2 students produced phonetic features less accurately in higher grades. This was attributed to reduced pronunciation instruction and limited home input.

Conclusions: Bilingual students' speech development in a minority language indicates unique influences of home and school input but also the universal influences of tone complexity. This study provides evidence for bilingual speech theories in the suprasegmental domain and has implications for the pedagogy of a minority language in the context of bilingual education.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28098206.