Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research最新文献

Purpose: Standard Arabic has a simple three-vowel system with short and long distinctions, specifically /i iː a aː u uː/, traditionally believed to differ solely in duration. However, studies on regional Arabic dialects using a static approach (e.g., measuring formant values at the vowel's midpoint) have suggested that these vowels differ in both quality and quantity. This study aimed to investigate whether Hijazi Arabic (HA) exhibits a tense/lax distinction and, importantly, whether a dynamic analysis (particularly Vowel Inherent Spectral Change) could better capture this distinction, an area relatively underexplored in Arabic acoustic studies.

Method: Data were collected from 20 native HA speakers, who produced six HA vowels in various consonantal environments. The first two formant values and vowel duration were automatically extracted. Static formant values were measured at the vowel's midpoint, while dynamic spectral changes were measured at three points during the vowel's duration.

Results: The findings revealed a significant distinction between short and long HA vowels, not only in duration but also in their acoustic properties. In the static model, short vowels were more centralized, while long vowels were more peripheral. In the dynamic model, the spectral changes of short vowels differed significantly from those of their long counterparts.

Conclusions: These results underscore the existence of a tense/lax distinction in HA, challenging the traditional view that the distinction is based solely on duration. They also highlight the value of dynamic vowel analysis for a comprehensive understanding of vowel behavior in phonological systems.

Purpose: Poststroke dysphagia is characterized by deficits in lingual function. However, correlations between lingual function and oral and pharyngeal swallowing impairments have not been well defined. The aim of this preliminary study was to explore if tongue pressure generative capacity in patients after ischemic stroke is associated with oropharyngeal swallowing impairments.

Method: A cross-sectional convenience sample of ischemic stroke patients underwent a videofluoroscopic swallowing study (VFSS) and completed measures of lingual function (Saliva Swallow Pressure, maximum isometric pressure [MIP], Maximum Isometric Endurance [ISO-M], and Maximum Isotonic Endurance [ISO-T]) using the Tongueometer and Iowa Oral Performance Instrument (IOPI) lingual manometry instruments. VFSS for each participant were consensus scored by two Modified Barium Swallow Impairment Profile (MBSImP)-certified raters. MBSImP Oral Total and Pharyngeal Total scores were calculated, and Swallow-by-Swallow MBSImP scores were summarized by calculating a percentage of the worst possible score across all bolus presentations for that score. Lingual measurements (swallow pressures, MIP, ISO-M, and ISO-T) were averaged across all participants, and Spearman's correlation coefficients were used to assess relationships between these lingual pressure measures and the MBSImP scores.

Results: The final sample consisted of 39 participants post-ischemic stroke (ranging from 3 months to 27 months). Average MIP was 49.6 kPA (11.25), Saliva Swallow average was 19.0 kPa (11.25), average ISO-M was 11.1 s (12.65), and average ISO-T repetitions was 30 (22.8). There were significant, moderate correlations between ISO-M and Oral Total score (r = -.41, p = .0082); Component 1, Lip Closure (r = -.46, p = .0026); and Component 2, Tongue Control (r = -.48, p = .0016). All other correlations were nonsignificant.

Conclusions: Isometric endurance was correlated with physiologic measures of oral swallow function. Inclusion of endurance testing in poststroke populations may add value in clinical assessment. Future studies should examine the predictive value of lingual functional measures in predicting swallow dysfunction.

Purpose: This study investigated the dimensionality of language in bilingual children using measures of semantics and morphosyntax in English and Spanish.

Method: Participants included 112 Spanish-English bilingual children ages 4-8 years from a wide range of language abilities and dominance profiles. Using measures of semantics and morphosyntax from both norm-referenced assessments and language samples, we evaluated the structure of language in bilingual children. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to estimate dimensionality, comparing seven primary models that represented different theoretical structures of language in bilinguals.

Results: Although none of the models analyzed yielded good fit across all indices evaluated, the best-fitting CFA model was a two-correlated factor model with separate factors for Spanish and English, which included measures from only norm-referenced assessments.

Conclusions: Language in Spanish-English children seems to represent two related but distinct constructs, even in bilinguals from a wide range of language abilities and dominance profiles. Clarifying how language in bilinguals is conceptualized and impacted by the concurrent development of two languages is an area that requires further research. Understanding the dimensionality of language in bilinguals can further assist our knowledge of how language develops in bilingual children.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28687466.

Purpose: This study examines existing automatic screening methods for developmental language disorder (DLD), a neurodevelopmental language deficit without known biomedical etiologies, focusing on languages, data sets, extracted features, performance metrics, and classification methods. Additionally, it summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of current systems and explores future research opportunities and challenges.

Method: We conducted a systematic review, searching PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and PsycINFO for articles published in English before March 2024. We included studies that developed automated screening systems to classify DLD cases among children.

Results: A total of 23 studies were thoroughly reviewed. We found that automatic screening models for DLD focused on five languages, namely, Czech, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, and English, with various data sets employed. Most studies identified and used acoustic, textural, and combination of speech features and nonspeech features for model development. Traditional machine learning, artificial neural networks, convolutional neural networks, long short-term memory, and non-machine-learning classification methods were employed in model training. The need for larger, multilingual data sets and improved system sensitivity is noted. Future research opportunities include exploring the integration of combined features and algorithms; implementing new algorithms; and considering variations in age, gender, severity, and comorbidity differences in DLD.

Conclusion: This systematic review of existing automatic screening methods for DLD highlights significant advancements and suggests potential areas in future research on automatic DLD screening.

Purpose: Many child-, hearing-, and device-related factors contribute to spoken language outcomes in children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). Recently, the family environment has been implicated as another contributing factor in language development. However, most studies on the role of families in language outcomes of children who are DHH are cross-sectional in nature and fail to draw directional conclusions. This study investigated the bidirectional relationship between attributes of the family environment and the spoken language outcomes of DHH children by examining data collected over approximately 1 year.

Method: Caregiver-child dyads composed of 57 typically hearing (TH) children and 53 DHH children and their primary caregiver completed a standardized, self-report family environment assessment, along with three standardized measures of receptive language at two separate home visits, separated by approximately 1 year.

Results: Family environments of DHH and TH children did not differ significantly. In the DHH and TH groups, families that reported placing a greater emphasis on intellectual and cultural pursuits at the initial visit (T1) had children with better language outcomes at the second visit (T2), above and beyond the contribution of T1 language. Additionally, in the DHH group only, families that reported a greater emphasis on achievement and competition at T1 had children with poorer language skills at T2.

Conclusions: Families that emphasize intellectual-cultural environments had DHH and TH children with better language skills 1 year later, whereas those that deemphasized competition and perfection had DHH children with better language skills 1 year later. These findings highlight the importance of family environment and dynamics in contributing to language development in all children, but particularly DHH children, who are at a heightened risk for language delays.

Purpose: Occupational noise poses a persistent hazard to hearing, while lack of awareness and inadequate hearing protection device (HPD) training heighten the risk of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Few studies have investigated the effects of NIHL and HPD use in Saudi Arabia, with only one in Jeddah. Therefore, this study aimed to estimate the prevalence of occupational NIHL and assess workers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) regarding HPDs in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Method: This cross-sectional study included 200 industrial workers aged 18-55 years who were exposed to noise. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including correlations and chi-squared tests. A 32-item questionnaire assessed the KAP regarding occupational NIHL and HPD usage. Hearing screening was conducted using pure-tone audiometry at 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 kHz. Participants who failed screening underwent a comprehensive audiological evaluation.

Results: The analysis revealed that 39.5% of the participants failed hearing screening. Regarding participants' knowledge, 82% believed that noise could affect hearing, 64.5% believed that NIHL could be prevented, and only 35% knew that it was permanent. In terms of HPD usage, 49% always wore them and 34% wore them sometimes. The main reason for not using HPDs was the difficulty communicating with others while wearing them (40%).

Conclusions: Findings revealed that the prevalence of occupational NIHL was higher than the global prevalence. Thus, hearing conservation programs and enhanced awareness of the permanent nature of NIHL can encourage HPD utilization, which is crucial for preventing diminished productivity, income, and overall quality of life.

Purpose: Perceptual outcomes in cochlear implant (CI) listeners are influenced by the quality of the interface between individual CI electrodes and their target auditory neurons (i.e., electrode-neuron interface [ENI]). Poor ENI increases the likelihood of CI channel interaction, which may lead to the smearing of sound frequency information, reduced spectral resolution, and, thus, errors in identifying speech sounds, particularly when there is background noise. This research note aims to present preliminary data on whether psychophysical tuning curves (PTCs), as a measure of channel interaction and an indirect measure of ENI, relate to vowel identification in noise in children and adults with CIs.

Method: PTCs and medial vowel identification in four-talker babble noise were obtained for eight children (12 ears) and eight adults (eight ears) with CIs. PTCs were measured for one electrode in the middle of the array using direct stimulation and a standard two-interval, two-alternative forced choice procedure.

Results: Adults and children with sharper PTCs performed better on vowel identification in noise (F = 6.63, p = .02), demonstrating an association between less channel interaction and better vowel identification in noise in CI listeners irrespective of age. Although no statistically significant difference was found between children and adults in their PTC sharpness, children performed better than adults on vowel identification in noise (F = 5.38, p = .034).

Conclusions: The findings provide evidence that the sharpness of the PTC on a mid-array electrode is related to vowel identification in noise for CI listeners. Vowel identification in noise and PTC sharpness could be further investigated for use in developing personalized programming strategies that enhance the transmission of spectral cues crucial for recognizing vowel sounds.

Purpose: Stuttering is associated with clinically significant social anxiety, which emerges during early childhood for some, but not all, children who begin to stutter. The purpose of this review article is to develop a model of social anxiety development during early childhood stuttering and to present an empirical method by which it can be tested.

Method: We propose a mediation model of how the exposure variable of stuttering may lead to an outcome of social anxiety. Our model includes confounder and mediator variables. We explain the concepts and procedures of mediation analysis and present a method to test our model.

Results: We present the idea that negative peer responses to stuttering and negative self-perception of children are mediators of social anxiety development. We propose several confounder variables that involve children, their parents, and the home environment. We depict our model with a directed acyclic graph, and we present details of how it can be tested with a longitudinal research design.

Discussion: This is the first attempt to model the development of social anxiety shortly after stuttering onset with an empirically testable method. The intended benefit of this innovation is to direct future clinical directions for the clinical management of stuttering arising shortly after childhood onset.

Purpose: Speech is often masked by background sound that fluctuates over time. Fluctuations in masker intensity can reveal glimpses of speech that support speech intelligibility, but older adults have frequently been shown to benefit less from speech glimpses than younger adults when listening to sentences. Recent work, however, suggests that older adults may leverage speech glimpses as much, or more, when listening to naturalistic stories, potentially because of the availability of semantic context in stories. The current study directly investigated whether semantic context helps older adults benefit from speech glimpses released by a fluctuating (modulated) masker more than younger adults.

Method: In two experiments, we reduced and extended semantic information of sentence stimuli in modulated and unmodulated speech maskers for younger and older adults. Speech intelligibility was assessed.

Results: We found that semantic context improves speech intelligibility in both younger and older adults. Both age groups also exhibit better speech intelligibility for a modulated than an unmodulated (stationary) masker, but the benefit from the speech glimpses was reduced in older compared to younger adults. Semantic context amplified the benefit gained from the speech glimpses, but there was no indication that the amplification by the semantic context led to a greater benefit in older adults. If anything, younger adults benefitted more.

Conclusions: The current results suggest that the deficit in the masking-release benefit in older adults generalizes to situations in which extended speech context is available. That previous research found a greater benefit in older than younger adults during story listening may suggest that other factors, such as thematic knowledge, motivation, or cognition, may amplify the benefit from speech glimpses under naturalistic listening conditions.

Purpose: Atypical temporal processing is thought to be involved in the phonological difficulties that characterize children with developmental dyslexia (DYS). The temporal sampling (TS) theory of dyslexia posits that the processing of low-frequency envelope modulations is impaired, but the processing of binaural temporal fine structure (TFS) is preserved in children with DYS.

Method: Binaural TFS sensitivity was assessed for children with DYS utilizing the methods developed by Flanagan et al. for typically developing (TD) children. New results for 58 children with DYS (ages 7-9.6 years) were compared with those for 30 age-matched controls (chronological age-matched [CA]) reported in Flanagan et al. Threshold frequency, that is, the highest frequency at which an interaural phase difference (IPD) of 30° or 180° could be distinguished from an IPD of 0° was determined using a two-interval forced-choice task in which the frequency was adaptively varied, with stimuli presented via headphones.

Results: For those who were able to perform the task above chance, the median TFS₁₈₀ thresholds were: DYS = 886 Hz; CA = 999Hz. For TFS₃₀ thresholds: DYS = 388 Hz; CA = 442 Hz. A linear mixed-effects model with dependent variable threshold frequency and fixed effects of group (CA and DYS) and phase (180° and 30°) showed no significant difference between groups (p > .05) and no significant interaction between group and phase. Both groups performed more poorly than young typically hearing adults (p < .001) for both phases.

Conclusions: Binaural TFS sensitivity does not differ significantly for children with DYS and TD children. For both groups, the development of binaural TFS sensitivity is protracted. The results are consistent with TS theory.