Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research最新文献

Purpose: To understand factors contributing to therapy success, this study investigated the role of parents' temperament and the fit between parents' temperament and parent-reported child behavior problems in therapy outcomes across two therapy types.

Method: A total of 177 children who stutter and their parents were included in this study. Data from 149 children were present at the follow-up. Children received either Lidcombe Program (LP) or Rotterdam Evaluation Study of Stuttering Therapy randomized trial-Demands and Capacities Model (RESTART-DCM) therapy. Parents' temperaments and children's behaviors were measured at baseline. At 18 months of therapy postonset (T4) and 5 years later (T5), the children's remittance or persistence in stuttering was assessed.

Results: High parental novelty seeking and high harm avoidance were associated with transient stuttering at T4 in the entire sample. Looking across therapies, novelty seeking remained significant in the RESTART-DCM group at T4, whereas in the LP group, significant associations were observed for reward dependence (at T4 and T5) and persistence (at T4). Meanwhile, none of the parent-child fits were associated with therapy outcome.

Conclusions: The results suggest that for preschoolers receiving treatment, parents who tend to seek novelty and exploration, as well as those with greater vigilance toward harm, have a positive impact on therapy success. In contrast, socially dependent parents might have a negative impact on therapy success in children receiving LP treatment, whereas diligent parents could serve as a protective factor in this therapy. These exploratory results should be interpreted with caution, and future research will be crucial to confirm and further interpret these results.

Purpose: Bound morphemes are challenging for children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) to acquire and to use successfully. The challenge arises in part from limited access to spoken word forms as a result of reduced audibility during perception, but successful comprehension requires access to both the morphological forms and the mapping between these forms and their meanings. This study investigated the relationship between perception and comprehension of bound morphemes in order to assess the impact of form-meaning mapping on performance.

Method: Seventy-eight elementary school-age children who are DHH were tested on their perception and comprehension of four bound morphemes: third-person -s, possessive -s, past tense -ed, and plural -s/es. During assessment, these appeared in sentences presented using both auditory-only and auditory-visual modalities. The assessment procedure dissociated (a) perception of form using a sentence repetition task from (b) comprehension of meaning based on responses to a two-choice picture discrimination task.

Results: Analyses both confirmed the reliability of the measures of perception and comprehension and revealed generally higher performance for perception over comprehension. Critically, correlations between perception and comprehension were mostly not significant. Secondary findings included that higher performance for one bound morpheme did not imply higher performance on others and a significant relationship between measures of vocabulary and performance on the bound morpheme tasks.

Conclusions: The findings of the study highlight the importance of distinguishing between perception versus comprehension of morphological forms. Successful comprehension requires form-meaning mapping, whereas successful perception requires only acquisition of form. Both theoretical and practical implications of the mapping component of speech processing are discussed, including the value of providing programs of auditory training that are meaning-oriented in nature.

Purpose: A rich body of evidence has illuminated the importance of caregivers' use of prosody in facilitating young children's language development. Although caregiver-child shared reading has been repeatedly linked to children's language skills, caregiver prosody during shared reading interactions (i.e., oral reading expressiveness) has been largely overlooked in research to date. Here, we investigated whether maternal oral reading expressiveness is associated with language skills among late-talking and typical-talking toddlers.

Method: Forty mother-child dyads, with toddlers classified as either late talkers (n = 18) or typical talkers (n = 22), engaged in a shared reading interaction. Acoustic measures of oral reading expressiveness (mean fundamental frequency [F0], rate) were compared between mothers of late versus typical talkers. Whole-group analyses then examined oral reading expressiveness in relation to toddlers' concurrent receptive and expressive language skills across the continuum.

Results: Between-group comparisons of mothers of late versus typical talkers revealed no group differences in oral reading expressiveness. However, whole-group, continuous analyses of maternal oral reading expressiveness in relation to toddlers' concurrent language skills revealed that maternal oral reading expressiveness, specifically mean F0, significantly contributed to the prediction of toddlers' receptive language skills, accounting for demographic and socioeconomic factors.

Conclusions: Initial findings suggest that maternal oral reading expressiveness is associated with children's emerging language skills and warrant further investigation of how this relates to broader aspects of children's home language environments. This work carries implications for oral reading expressiveness as one facet of shared reading with potential to facilitate early language skill development.

Purpose: Despite the considerable scientific interest in researching the reading skills of the deaf population, most of these studies focus on reading comprehension (RC) at the word or sentence level. Such reading activates different underlying language processes than text-level reading, which is more akin to real-life reading literacy. The results of 36 studies on different linguistic skills and their correlation/prediction with text RC of deaf readers are reviewed, taking into account age and two language modalities (spoken language [SpL] and sign language [SL]).

Method: The studies were systematized and analyzed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 (Page et al., 2021).

Results: Most reviewed studies (92%) investigated how lexical and phonological skills in SpL relate to RC in deaf people, although there is a lack of studies (33%) investigating the relationship between morphological and syntactic skills in SpL and text-based RC in deaf people. Although results on phonology are quite conflicting, studies of this review consistently confirm that lexical skills are positively related to text RC. Despite only a few published studies on morphological and syntactic skills and RC in deaf readers, the results show strong evidence of their association. This review also provides evidence of a significant cross-modal correlation between SL skills and RC, by showing that in children and adolescents, better phonological skills and receptive vocabulary are associated to better RC, whereas in adults, only studies examining grammatical skills in SL found a significant association with RC in bimodal bilingual deaf readers.

Conclusions: Lexical knowledge appears to be the primary contributor to text RC in deaf readers, whereas phonological effects remain inconclusive. Although morphological and syntactic competencies' impact warrants further investigation, they demonstrate consistent association with RC. There is also clear evidence of a positive cross-modal relationship between SL skills and RC.

Purpose: This meta-analysis study aimed to determine the optimal level of talker variability in training to maximize second-language speech learning.

Method: We conducted a systematic search for studies comparing different levels of talker variability in nonnative speech training, published through July 2024. Two independent reviewers screened studies for eligibility, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias. A Bayesian network meta-analysis was implemented to estimate relative effect sizes of different talker variability training conditions and rank these conditions by their posterior probabilities using surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) values.

Results: A total of 32 studies involving 998 participants were analyzed to compare six training conditions based on the number of talkers. Using a no-training control condition as the reference and excluding the outlier, the random-effects model showed that training with six talkers was most effective (SUCRA = 94%, standardized mean difference [SMD] = 2.09, 95% CrI [1.30, 2.89]), exhibiting moderate between-study heterogeneity (posterior median SD = 0.60, 95% CrI [0.39, 0.90]). However, when considering both the format of talker presentation and training exposure, the conditions with four talkers presented in blocks across training sessions (SUCRA = 77%, SMD = 1.47, 95% CrI [0.92, 2.10]), two talkers intermixed during sessions (SUCRA = 75%, SMD = 1.65, 95% CrI [0.24, 3.03]), and six talkers intermixed (SUCRA = 72%, SMD = 1.38, 95% CrI [0.97, 1.79]), all showed similarly high effectiveness with only minor differences.

Conclusions: This systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis demonstrate for the first time that optimizing talker variability in nonnative speech training requires a careful balance between the number of talkers and the presentation format. The findings suggest that a moderate level of talker variability is most effective for improving second-language speech training outcomes.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28319345.

Purpose: This study investigated the influence of vowel quality on loudness perception and stress judgment in Mongolian, an agglutinative language with free word stress. We aimed to explore the effects of intrinsic vowel features, presentation order, and intensity conditions on loudness perception and stress assignment.

Method: Eight Mongolian short vowel phonemes (/ɐ/, /ə/, /i/, /ɪ/, /ɔ/, /o/, /ʊ/, and /u/) were recorded by a native Mongolian speaker of the Urad subdialect (the Chahar dialect group) in Inner Mongolia. The short vowels were paired under different intensity conditions. Native Mongolian listeners from Inner Mongolia participated in two loudness perception experiments: Experiment 1 examined the effects of presentation order and different intensity conditions on loudness perception using pairs of vowels. Experiment 2 explored how different vowel pairs influence perceptual outcomes and identified specific thresholds and perceptual boundaries for loudness perception.

Results: The findings revealed that intensity significantly affected loudness perception, modulated by vowel quality. Presentation order of vowels affected loudness perception, and vowel centralization and lip rounding play crucial roles as well. Central vowels, particularly /ə/, were perceived as more prominent, whereas rounded vowels were more likely to be judged as stressed under equated intensity conditions. The study also identified a perceptual tendency toward final prominence, influenced by sonority and vowel positioning.

Conclusions: This study highlights the intricate relationship among vowel quality, intensity, and stress perception in Mongolian. Different vowels exhibited distinct loudness perceptions at the same intensity level, emphasizing the importance of vowel quality in stress assignment. Vowels with higher sonority indices or those positioned peripherally in the vowel space are more likely to be perceived as prominent. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of the phonological processes and perceptual mechanisms in agglutinative languages and highlight the need for further research across diverse dialects.

Purpose: Despite group-level improvements in active engagement and related outcomes, significant individual variability in response to early intervention exists. The purpose of this preliminary study was to examine the effects of a group-based Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention (NDBI) on active engagement among a heterogeneous sample of young autistic children in a clinical setting.

Method: Sixty-three autistic children aged 24-60 months (M = 44.95, SD = 10.77) participated in an inclusive group-based NDBI over a period of 10 months. Speech-language pathologists used an abbreviated version of the measure of active engagement to rate children's active engagement at three treatment time points.

Results: Linear mixed-effects regression analyses revealed that active engagement significantly increased from Time 1 to Time 2 (after 6 months of the group-based NDBI) and persisted through Time 3 (after 10 months of the group-based NDBI). Symmetrized percent change analyses revealed that 48% of the sample (n = 30) exhibited an increasing trajectory, 29% were stable, and 24% showed a decreasing trajectory. Age and parent-reported social pragmatic concerns at program entry, as well as the length of time participating in the group-based NDBI, were differentially associated with the identified subgroups, signaling baseline child characteristics that may be associated with NDBI response.

Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of careful monitoring of active engagement to guide clinical decision making regarding changing intervention strategies, targets, or the intensity of the NDBI if gains are not observed.

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: Speech understanding in noise can be effortful, especially for people with hearing impairment. To compensate for reduced acuity, hearing-impaired (HI) listeners may be allocating listening effort differently than normal-hearing (NH) peers. We expected that this might influence measures derived from the pupil dilation response. To investigate this in more detail, we assessed the sensitivity of pupil measures to hearing-related changes in effort allocation. We used a machine learning-based classification framework capable of combining and ranking measures to examine hearing-related, stimulus-related (signal-to-noise ratio [SNR]), and task response-related changes in pupil measures.

Method: Pupil data from 32 NH (40-70 years old, M = 51.3 years, six males) and 32 HI (31-76 years old, M = 59 years, 13 males) listeners were recorded during an adaptive speech reception threshold test. Peak pupil dilation (PPD), mean pupil dilation (MPD), principal pupil components (rotated principal components [RPCs]), and baseline pupil size (BPS) were calculated. As a precondition for ranking pupil measures, the ability to classify hearing status (NH/HI), SNR (high/low), and task response (correct/incorrect) above random prediction level was assessed. This precondition was met when classifying hearing status in subsets of data with varying SNR and task response, SNR in the NH group, and task response in the HI group.

Results: A combination of pupil measures was necessary to classify the dependent factors. Hearing status, SNR, and task response were predicted primarily by the established measures-PPD (maximum effort), RPC2 (speech processing), and BPS (task anticipation)-and by the novel measures RPC1 (listening) and RPC3 (response preparation) in tasks involving SNR as an outcome or sometimes difficulty criterion.

Conclusions: A machine learning-based classification framework can assess sensitivity of, and rank the importance of, pupil measures in relation to three effort modulators (factors) during speech perception in noise. This indicates that the effects of these factors on the pupil measures allow for reasonable classification performance. Moreover, the varying contributions of each measure to the classification models suggest they are not equally affected by these factors. Thus, this study enhances our understanding of pupil responses and their sensitivity to relevant factors.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28225199.