Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research最新文献

Purpose: This study aims to examine the associations of phonological, lexical, and grammatical skills within and between languages in Mandarin-English bilingual preschoolers.

Method: Sixty-three Singaporean Mandarin-English bilingual children aged 3-5 years were assessed for articulation, receptive vocabulary, and receptive grammar using standardized instruments in English and compatible tools in Mandarin. Regression analyses were performed on each language outcome, with other language variables as predictors, controlling for age, nonverbal working memory, and home language environment.

Results: Phonological and grammatical skills in one language predicted corresponding skills in the other. Phonemes shared across languages showed higher accuracy rates compared to unshared phonemes, while accuracy varied across grammatical structures. Vocabulary did not correlate between languages. It was influenced by household language distribution, with Mandarin vocabulary also correlating with nonverbal working memory. Mandarin grammar positively correlated with the number of native Mandarin speakers at home. Within each language, phonological skills were predicted by vocabulary, while vocabulary and grammar were reciprocally predictive. Cross-language, cross-domain relationships were weak.

Conclusions: This study shows domain-specific cross-language associations and language-specific cross-domain associations in Mandarin-English bilingual children, indicating both interdependent and autonomous development. Our findings call for approaches that value the child's full linguistic repertoire and utilize interconnectedness between languages and language domains to enhance bi/multilingual competence. They also highlight the importance of assessing each of the child's languages and considering individual bilingual profiles in research on bilingual language development.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28200128.

Purpose: Interprofessional practice requires regular communication between professionals from different disciplines using shared terminology. Within schools, many professionals are tasked with supporting children with language disorders, namely, developmental language disorder (DLD) and/or dyslexia. Limited information exists as to (a) how school-based professionals' definitions of DLD and dyslexia align with research definitions, (b) how different school-based professionals define language disorders, (c) how school-based professionals' definitions of DLD and dyslexia align across professional groups, and (d) how one's definition of a language disorder correlates with other measures of knowledge.

Method: In this mixed-methods study, we analyzed 304 definitions of language disorders from school-based professionals using a summative content analysis process. We explored the relationship between definitions and knowledge of disorder characteristics and best practices.

Results: Data reflected limited alignment between professional and research definitions of DLD and dyslexia. Common misconceptions related to each disorder were prevalent among school-based professionals' definitions. There were differences between the extent to which professional groups' definitions aligned with research definitions of DLD and dyslexia.

Conclusion: Results highlight the need for shared terminology between professional groups and researchers to improve collaborative practices and to narrow the research-to-practice gap.

Purpose: Neurotypical individuals show a robust "global precedence effect (GPE)" when processing hierarchically structured visual information. However, the auditory domain remains understudied. The current research serves to fill the knowledge gap on auditory global-local processing across the broader autism phenotype under the tonal language background.

Method: This study examined auditory global-local processing styles in 37 Mandarin-speaking young adults (age: M = 20.35, SD = 2.32; 19 males) with varying autistic traits. The participants were required to judge global and local pitch structures in nine-tone melodies with both congruent and incongruent conditions under both directed attention and divided attention modes.

Results: We found that GPE persisted independent of the attention modes during hierarchical processing. Autistic traits were among the potential contributors that reshaped GPE in auditory global-local processing under a tonal language background.

Conclusions: Our study provides an initial investigation into auditory global-local processing among Mandarin-speaking individuals across a range of autistic traits, revealing the presence of the GPE effect during hierarchical pitch structure processing. The advantage of global processing versus local processing expanded with increasing autistic traits, providing further support for the notion that auditory global processing may remain intact in autism and the broader phenotype. We highlight that GPE is a process of coarse-to-fine integration of sensory perception and cognitive feedback iteration, which both top-down and bottom-up processes wield influence on. These findings have implications for the study of atypical auditory processing in autism and may help to refine the early diagnosis and auditory-based intervention for autism.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28114118.

Purpose: This scoping review aims to characterize the body of literature addressing literacy interventions involving young children (ages 2-8 years) who use or would benefit from aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).

Method: A systematic search was conducted in six databases. The search yielded 33 intervention studies. Participant characteristics (i.e., age, gender, communication profile) were charted along with intervention characteristics (i.e., focus, outcome variables, settings, interventionists, aided AAC materials).

Results: Findings provide insight into intervention and sampling trends. Specifically, studies predominantly investigated shared reading interventions to support expressive communication with children who were already symbolic communicators. There was a noticeable lack of studies involving children with multiple disabilities including intellectual disabilities.

Conclusions: The review highlights the necessity for more inclusive research that represents the diverse communication and disability profiles of young children who use or would benefit from aided AAC. Future studies should aim to include participants with varying abilities and access methods. Additionally, the emphasis on emergent literacy, particularly shared reading, should be expanded to include comprehensive emergent literacy skills such as generative writing, phonological awareness, and language comprehension. This broader focus will better support the literacy development of young children who use or would benefit from aided AAC.

Purpose: Most auditory-perceptual voice research utilizes the judgments of trained listeners rather than everyday listeners with no previous training in speech pathology. Online crowdsourcing of behavioral data from untrained participants is rapidly increasing in popularity but has yet to be a common procedure for auditory-perceptual studies of the voice. The objective of this pilot study was to assess the functionality of this model for judgments of voice by using an online experiment platform to replicate a lab-based, voice-specific age estimation study.

Method: Fifty crowdsourced untrained listeners estimated the age of a single talker based on audio samples taken from 20 speeches over a 48-year span. The primary outcome was overall age estimation accuracy.

Results: The crowdsourced age estimations closely matched those of a previous highly controlled in-person laboratory study using the same auditory samples. Listeners generally overestimated the talker's age when the talker was younger and underestimated his age when he was older. The age at which the estimated age equaled the talker's chronological age was 54 years.

Conclusions: Online crowdsourcing may be a feasible modality for auditory-perceptual voice ratings with the potential to add low-cost, high-number options to validate and enhance clinical and laboratory-based studies by (a) including a wider diversity of participants and (b) providing the means for rapidly recruiting more participants. Further research investigating crowdsourced ratings of the complex parameters of voice quality using more listeners is needed to continue supporting this methodology as a tool for perceptual voice research.

Purpose: The present study assessed the test-retest reliability of the American Sign Language (ASL) version of the Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT-ASL) and compared the differences and similarities between ASL and English reading by Deaf and hearing users of ASL.

Method: Creation of the CRTT-ASL involved filming, editing, and validating CRTT instructions, sentence commands, and scoring. Deaf proficient (DP), hearing nonproficient (HNP), and hearing proficient sign language users completed the CRTT-ASL and the English self-paced, word-by-word reading CRTT (CRTT-Reading-Word Fade [CRTT-R-wf]). Both tests were administered twice, 7-14 days apart, to assess test-retest reliability.

Results: Preliminary findings suggested that the CRTT-ASL was acceptably reliable for the DP group across CRTT metrics. All groups showed adequate test-retest reliability for the CRTT-R-wf. The DP group scored comparably across the two language conditions, and on average, the DP group produced significantly lower scores than the two hearing groups on the CRTT-R-wf. The hearing groups did not differ significantly from each other on the CRTT-R-wf.

Conclusions: The CRTT-ASL may be reliable for assessing Deaf ASL users, the target population for its use. These findings serve as preliminary support for clinical and research use of the novel CRTT-ASL to assess language processing in Deaf individuals who use ASL. The CRTT-ASL may be sensitive to lexical processing inefficiencies in the Deaf signing population.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28216259.

Purpose: This study investigated the ecological validity of conventional voice assessments by comparing the self-perceived voice quality and acoustic characteristics of voice production during these assessments to those in a simulated environment with varying distracting conditions and noise levels.

Method: Forty-two university professors (26 women) participated in the study, where they were asked to produce loud connected speech by reading a 100-word text under four different conditions: a conventional assessment and three virtual classroom simulations created with 360° videos, each with different noise levels, played through a virtual reality headset and headphones. The first video depicted students paying attention in class (40 dB classroom noise); the second showed some students talking, generating moderate conversational noise (60 dB); and the third depicted students talking loudly and not paying attention (70 dB). The entire experiment was conducted in a sound-treated room, and the voice of each participant was recorded for acoustic analysis. In each condition, self-perception of voice quality (vocal effort and vocal ease), SPL, fundamental frequency, long-term average spectrum (L1-L0 ratio, alpha ratio, and the 1/5-5/8 ratio), and smooth cepstral peak prominence were measured.

Results: Visual distraction and noise level significantly impacted both subjective and acoustic measures of voice production, as shown by numerous statistically significant differences across almost all conditions and variables examined. Specifically, all measures increased with higher levels of distraction and noise, except for the 1/5-5/8 ratio, which showed a decreasing trend.

Conclusion: These findings indicate that visual distraction and noise level significantly influence self-perceived and acoustic vocal characteristics and suggest that conventional assessments, typically conducted in silence and without visual distractors, may not accurately represent real-world performance, thus limiting their ecological validity.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to measure the effects of frequency spacing (i.e., F2 minus F1) on spectral integration for vowel perception in simulated bilateral electric-acoustic stimulation (BiEAS), electric-acoustic stimulation (EAS), and bimodal hearing.

Method: Twenty listeners with typical hearing participated in synthetic vowel recognition. Four vowels were used with varying frequency spacings (/ͻ/: 270 Hz, /ʊ/: 653 Hz, /æ/: 1040 Hz, and /I/: 1607 Hz). F1 was acoustically simulated with a band-pass filtering, while F2 was electrically simulated using an eight-channel sine wave vocoder with matched input and output frequency range. Vowel recognition was measured in five listening conditions: BiEAS (F1 and F2 in both ears), EAS (F1 and F2 in the left ear), bimodal (F1 and F2 in opposite ears), cochlear implant alone (F2 alone in the left ear), and hearing aid alone (F1 alone in the left ear).

Results: In EAS, spectral integration was significantly better at a 270-Hz spacing, while in bimodal hearing, spectral integration was significantly poorer at a 1607-Hz frequency compared to other frequency spacings. BiEAS conditions offered the best spectral integration, regardless of frequency spacing. Vowel confusion remained consistent and below chance level across the first three listening conditions. Bimodal interference occurred for the /I/ vowel when the cochlear implant ear perceives the dominant cue and the hearing aid ear perceives the nondominant cue. The F2 place cue is transmitted significantly better than the F1 height cue in BiEAS, EAS, and bimodal conditions.

Conclusions: EAS and bimodal hearing integrates narrower frequency ranges better than wider spacings. EAS hearing provided greater outcomes over bimodal hearing, suggesting that within-ear (EAS) integration is more effective than across-ear (bimodal) integration. Bimodal interference may be a factor for variability in bimodal performance. Cautious interpretation and further research with real EAS and bimodal users are suggested to validate and extend these findings.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28127249.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if the Vocabulary Acquisition and Usage for Late Talkers (VAULT) intervention could be efficaciously applied to a new treatment target: words a child neither understood nor said. We also assessed whether the type of context variability used to encourage semantic learning (i.e., action or object) would affect learning outcomes.

Method: Nineteen primarily English-speaking late-talking toddlers received 8 weeks of VAULT intervention. They were quasirandomly assigned to a condition that highlighted either object or action variability. Individual effect sizes were calculated for target (treated) and control (not treated) words for each child. These were combined to assess group-level comparisons of treatment efficacy and treatment conditions. Generalization of the word-learning ability was assessed by comparing rates of learning on a vocabulary checklist prior to and during intervention. Bayesian statistics (e.g., t tests, analysis of variance) were used for the analyses.

Results: There was strong evidence for a treatment effect showing that children produced more target than control words and moderate evidence that they understood more target than control words. There was strong evidence for generalization. Children learned an average of 6.8 words per week during treatment. There was anecdotal evidence for no difference between treatment conditions.

Conclusions: VAULT, with a focus on context variability, can be used efficaciously to teach children to say words they do not understand at the start of treatment. The effects were most pronounced in the generalization data. Additionally, children were able to learn later-acquired words.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28200074.

Purpose: This study explores the effects of water intake and a hyaluronic acid (HA)-containing lozenge on acoustic measurements and vocal oscillation patterns investigated after a vocal loading test (VLT).

Method: Ten healthy subjects (five females, five males) read out loud a standardized text for 10 min at a target level of 80 dB(A), measured 30 cm from the mouth, under three conditions but each after fasting for 2 hr: (a) drinking 0.7 l of water, (b) sucking an HA-containing lozenge, and (c) neither of both before the VLT. The dysphonia severity index (DSI) was assessed before and after the reading task. Additionally, high-speed videolaryngoscopy (HSV), electroglottography, and an audio signal during sustained phonation on the vowel /i/ before and after the VLT were analyzed. The glottal area waveform was derived from the HSV footage.

Results: DSI values decreased for the H₂O and HA group, but reached statistical significance only for the H₂O condition, while remaining stable for the control condition. These DSI decreases were driven by increases in minimum sound pressure level intensity (I_min)-again with statistical significance solely for the water intake intervention. Statistically nonsignificant changes were observed regarding periodicity and perturbation parameters across all conditions. No phase differences or aperiodicities were apparent in the phonovibrograms.

Conclusions: Hydration and an HA lozenge did not significantly alter vocal fold biomechanics after a VLT. However, the decrease in DSI values with increased I_min suggests a reduced vocal capacity for the H₂O condition.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28271285.