Showing papers in "Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research in 1997"
TL;DR: The prevalence estimates obtained fell within recent estimates for SLI, but demonstrated that this condition is more prevalent among females than has been previously reported.
Abstract: This epidemiologic study estimated the prevalence of specific language impairment (SLI) in monolingual English-speaking kindergarten children. From a stratified cluster sample in rural, urban, and ...
1,932 citations
TL;DR: This work provides a rationale for extensions to an articulation competence metric titled the Percentage of Consonants Correct, which is computed from a 5- to 10-minute conversational speech sample, and 9 of a set of 10 speech metric including the PCC.
Abstract: Research in normal and disordered phonology requires measures of speech production that are biolinguistically appropriate and psychometrically robust. Their conceptual and numeric properties must be well characterized, particularly because speech measures are increasingly appearing in large-scale epidemiologic, genetic, and other descriptive-explanatory database studies. This work provides a rationale for extensions to an articulation competence metric titled the Percentage of Consonants Correct (PCC; Shriberg & Kwiatkowski, 1982; Shriberg, Kwiatkowski, Best, Hengst, & Terselic-Weber, 1986), which is computed from a 5- to 10-minute conversational speech sample. Reliability and standard error of measurement estimates are provided for 9 of a set of 10 speech metrics, including the PCC. Discussion includes rationale for selecting one or more of the 10 metrics for specific clinical and research needs.
601 citations
TL;DR: Findings indicate that learning a second language at an early age is important for the acquisition of efficient high-level processing of it, at least in the presence of noise.
Abstract: To determine how age of acquisition influences perception of second-language speech, the Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN) test was administered to native Mexican-Spanish-speaking listeners who learned fluent English before age 6 (early bilinguals) or after age 14 (late bilinguals) and monolingual American-English speakers (monolinguals). Results show that the levels of noise at which the speech was intelligible were significantly higher and the benefit from context was significantly greater for monolinguals and early bilinguals than for late bilinguals. These findings indicate that learning a second language at an early age is important for the acquisition of efficient high-level processing of it, at least in the presence of noise.
436 citations
TL;DR: A test of the predictions based on the implicit rule deficit account suggested that the children studied here were not experiencing a deficit of this type, and revealed advantages for both the surface and extended optional infinitive hypotheses.
Abstract: Several hypotheses have been offered to explain the grammatical morpheme difficulties observed in the speech of children with specific language impairment. Three of the accounts that could be evaluated in English were the focus of this study: the extended optional infinitive account, the implicit rule deficit account, and the surface account. Preschoolers with specific language impairment, a group of age controls, and a group of younger children matched for mean length of utterance were evaluated in their use of several theory-relevant grammatical morphemes. The findings revealed advantages for both the surface and extended optional infinitive hypotheses. In contrast, a test of the predictions based on the implicit rule deficit account suggested that the children studied here were not experiencing a deficit of this type.
348 citations
TL;DR: This paper reports on the results of a large project involving 7-year-old children attending language units in England, which revealed six robust subgroups of children with language difficulties.
Abstract: This paper reports on the results of a large project involving 7-year-old children attending language units in England. A group of 242 children with specific language impairment (SLI) were assessed on a battery of psychometric tests. In addition, teacher interviews were carried out to ascertain teachers' opinions of the children's difficulties. Cluster analysis revealed six robust subgroups of children with language difficulties. The findings are discussed in the context of other approaches to the classification of language impairment in children with special reference to the work of Rapin and Allen (1987).
329 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the Nucleus-22 SPEAK speech processing strategy as a function of the number of electrodes was evaluated in patients with cochlear implant hearing devices, and it was shown that the output of several adjacent filters were directed to a single electrode, resulting in processors with 1, 2, 4, 7, 10 and 20 electrodes.
Abstract: Speech recognition was measured in listeners with the Nucleus-22 SPEAK speech processing strategy as a function of the number of electrodes. Speech stimuli were analyzed into 20 frequency bands and processed according to the usual SPEAK processing strategy. In the normal clinical processor each electrode is assigned to represent the output of one filter. To create reduced-electrode processors the output of several adjacent filters were directed to a single electrode, resulting in processors with 1, 2, 4, 7, 10, and 20 electrodes. The overall spectral bandwidth was preserved, but the number of active electrodes was progressively reduced. After a 2-day period of adjustment to each processor, speech recognition performance was measured on medial consonants, vowels, monosyllabic words, and sentences. Performance with a single electrode processor was poor in all listeners, and average performance increased dramatically on all test materials as the number of electrodes was increased from 1 to 4. No differences in average performance were observed on any test in the 7-, 10-, and 20-electrode conditions. On sentence and consonant tests there was no difference between average performance with the 4-electrode and 20-electrode processors. This pattern of results suggests that cochlear implant listeners are not able to make full use of the spectral information on all 20 electrodes. Further research is necessary to understand the reasons for this limitation and to understand how to increase the amount of spectral information in speech received by implanted listeners.
327 citations
TL;DR: This paper focused on the long-term speech perception performances of 34 prelingually deafened children who received multichannel cochlear implants manufactured by Cochlear Corporation and found that the childre...
Abstract: This study focused on the long-term speech perception performances of 34 prelingually deafened children who received multichannel cochlear implants manufactured by Cochlear Corporation. The childre...
326 citations
TL;DR: Results suggest that processing-dependent measures hold considerable promise for distinguishing between children with language disorders, whose poor language performance reflects fundamental psycholinguistic deficits, and children withlanguage differences attributable to differing experiential backgrounds.
Abstract: One potential solution to the problem of eliminating bias in language assessment is to identify valid measures that are not affected by subjects' prior knowledge or experience. In this study, 156 r...
317 citations
TL;DR: There is a great deal of variability in middle-class families in the amount of input that children receive at various level of abstractions during book sharing, which suggests that more input at lower levels might enhance learning by creating a climate of success in allowing children to display mastered skills.
Abstract: Thirty-five mothers and fathers were videotaped in their homes as they read a familiar and unfamiliar book to their preschoolers aged between 3;6 and 4;1. Parental discussions about the text were coded for four levels of abstraction and correlated with children's gains one year later on a formal test of the same four levels of language abstraction (the Preschool Language Assessment Instrument). Parental input at three of the four levels of abstraction was positively and significantly correlated with their children's gains at the highest level of abstraction. This was also the level at which children's scores were the lowest initially and showed the greatest gains. The results suggest that discussions during book reading with preschoolers may be a positive influence, since it was parents' amount of input at lower as well as higher levels of abstraction that correlated with the children's development of more abstract language. We speculate that more input at lower levels might enhance learning by creating a climate of success in allowing children to display mastered skills, whereas more input at higher levels might enhance learning by challenging children with abstract language skills they are just beginning to acquire. In contrast to previous research, these results suggest that there is a great deal of variability in middle-class families in the amount of input that children receive at various level of abstractions during book sharing.
260 citations
TL;DR: Improvement on the computerized reading treatment tasks generalized to non-computer language performance, improvement resulted from the language content of the software and not stimulation provided by a computer, and the computerizing reading treatment provided to chronic aphasic patients was efficacious.
Abstract: We examined the effects of computer-provided reading activities on language performance in chronic aphasic patients. Fifty-five aphasic adults were assigned randomly to one of three conditions: com...
234 citations
TL;DR: It was found that recovery or persistence is indeed transmitted, and further, that recovery does not appear to be a genetically milder form of stuttering, nor do the two types of stuttered seem to be genetically independent disorders.
Abstract: Although past research has provided evidence of a genetic component to the transmission of susceptibility to stuttering, the relationship between the genetic component to stuttering and persistence...
TL;DR: The present paper reports lifespan reference data for 10 metrics of articulation competence in conversational speech using records from a total of 836 3- to 40(+)-year-old speakers with normal and disordered speech.
Abstract: A companion paper includes rationale for the use of 10 metrics of articulation competence in conversational speech (Shriberg, Austin, Lewis, McSweeny, & Wilson, 1997). The present paper reports lifespan reference data for these measures using records from a total of 836 3– to 40+-year-old speakers with normal and disordered speech. The reference data are subdivided by diagnostic classification based on extensions to an instrument titled the Speech Disorders Classification System (SDCS; Shriberg, 1993). Appendices provide procedural information on the SDCS and statistical rationale for the reference data.
TL;DR: Strengths include the children's sensitivity to grammatical and phonological characteristics of the lexicon; weaknesses include limited productivity of regular past-tense marking and a greater sensitivity to frequency manipulations as compared to normally developing children.
Abstract: This study examined the productivity and representation of past-tense marking in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 11 6-year-olds with SLI, 11 age-matc...
TL;DR: The hypothesis that language impairment is a consequence of an underlying neurobiological defect in areas of the brain known to subserve language is supported.
Abstract: The planum temporale and pars triangularis have been found to be larger in the left hemisphere than the right in individuals with normal language skills. Brain morphology studies of individuals wit...
TL;DR: In this article, age 3 follow-up data are presented for a sample of 34 toddlers diagnosed between the ages of 24 and 31 months with expressive type specific language impairment (SLI-E).
Abstract: Age 3 follow-up data are presented for a sample of 34 toddlers diagnosed between the ages of 24 and 31 months with expressive type specific language impairment (SLI-E). At age 3, the late talkers s...
TL;DR: The notion that the performance of elderly listeners with hearing loss is influenced by a combination of auditory processing factors, memory demands, and speech contextual information is supported.
Abstract: The influence of selected cognitive factors on age-related changes in speech recognition was examined by measuring the effects of recall task, speech rate, and availability of contextual cues on recognition performance by young and elderly listeners. Stimuli were low and high context sentences from the R-SPIN test presented at normal and slowed speech rates in noise. Response modes were final word recall and sentence recall. The effects of hearing loss and age were examined by comparing performances of young and elderly listeners with normal hearing and young and elderly listeners with hearing loss. Listeners with hearing loss performed more poorly than listeners with normal hearing in nearly every condition. In addition, elderly listeners exhibited poorer performance than younger listeners on the sentence recall task, but not on the word recall task, indicating that added memory demands have a detrimental effect on elderly listeners' performance. Slowing of speech rate did not have a differential effect on performance of young and elderly listeners. All listeners performed well when stimulus contextual cues were available. Taken together, these results support the notion that the performance of elderly listeners with hearing loss is influenced by a combination of auditory processing factors, memory demands, and speech contextual information.
TL;DR: Findings from a local ascertainment study support the clinical functionality of the term suspected DAS and are considered to consider implications for research and clinical practice.
Abstract: Developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) is a putative diagnostic category for children whose speech errors presumedly (a) differ from the errors of children with developmental speech delay (SD) and (b) resemble the errors of adults with acquired apraxia of speech. The studies reported in this series (Shriberg, Aram, & Kwiatkowski, 1997a, 1997b) concern both premises, with primary focus on the first--that children with DAS can be differentiated from children with SD on the basis of one or more reliable differences in their speech error profiles. Immediate goals are to identify a diagnostic marker for DAS and to consider implications for research and clinical practice. A long-term goal is to identify the phenotype marker for DAS, on the assumption that it may be a genetically transmitted disorder. This first paper reviews relevant descriptive and theoretical perspectives. Findings from a local ascertainment study support the clinical functionality of the term suspected DAS.
TL;DR: It was found that children with SLI used verbs less frequently, nouns more frequently, and were more input-dependent than their MLU-matched peers, and the potential implications of these data for theories of SLI language development were discussed, particularly with reference to Marchman and Bates' (1994) "critical mass" hypothesis.
Abstract: The aim of the present study was to use longitudinal data to provide a detailed profile of early word combinations by children with SLI. Three children with SLI were videotaped during mother-child ...
TL;DR: The results suggest that aphasic individuals display impairments of attention and resource allocation and that these impairments negatively interact with their auditory processing abilities.
Abstract: This study examined the effects of lesion location (frontal vs. posterior) and nature of distraction (nonverbal vs. verbal secondary, competing task) on mildly aphasic individuals' performances of listening tasks that required semantic judgments and lexical decisions under isolation, focused attention, and divided attention conditions. Despite comparable accuracy among all groups during isolation conditions, the aphasic groups responded less accurately and more slowly than the normal control group during focused and divided attention conditions. Generally, the two aphasic groups performed similarly, quantitatively and qualitatively. Demographic characteristics such as time post stroke did not correlate with performance decrements. Independent of group, all individuals showed greater disruption of auditory processing skills when the secondary task was verbal rather than nonverbal. Within a limited-capacity model of attention, the results suggest that aphasic individuals display impairments of attention and resource allocation and that these impairments negatively interact with their auditory processing abilities.
TL;DR: The results suggest that speaking clearly and providing visual speech information provide complementary (rather than redundant) information.
Abstract: Research has shown that speaking in a deliberately clear manner can improve the accuracy of auditory speech recognition. Allowing listeners access to visual speech cues also enhances speech understanding. Whether the nature of information provided by speaking clearly and by using visual speech cues is redundant has not been determined. This study examined how speaking mode (clear vs. conversational) and presentation mode (auditory vs. auditory-visual) influenced the perception of words within nonsense sentences. In Experiment 1, 30 young listeners with normal hearing responded to videotaped stimuli presented audiovisually in the presence of background noise at one of three signal-to-noise ratios. In Experiment 2, 9 participants returned for an additional assessment using auditory-only presentation. Results of these experiments showed significant effects of speaking mode (clear speech was easier to understand than was conversational speech) and presentation mode (auditory-visual presentation led to better performance than did auditory-only presentation). The benefit of clear speech was greater for words occurring in the middle of sentences than for words at either the beginning or end of sentences for both auditory-only and auditory-visual presentation, whereas the greatest benefit from supplying visual cues was for words at the end of sentences spoken both clearly and conversationally. The total benefit from speaking clearly and supplying visual cues was equal to the sum of each of these effects. Overall, the results suggest that speaking clearly and providing visual speech information provide complementary (rather than redundant) information.
TL;DR: Shriberg et al. as mentioned in this paper compared speech and prosody-voice profiles of a group of 14 children with suspected DAS to profiles of 73 children with speech delay (SD).
Abstract: This second paper in a series on developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) (Shriberg, Aram, & Kwiatkowski, 1997a) reports findings from two studies. Study I compares speech and prosody-voice profiles of a group of 14 children with suspected DAS to profiles of 73 children with speech delay (SD). Results suggest that the only linguistic domain that differentiates some children with suspected DAS from those with SD is inappropriate stress. Study II cross-validates these findings, using retrospective data from a sample of 20 children with suspected DAS evaluated in a university phonology clinic over a 10-year period. Discussion considers methodological and conceptual issues in the measurement of linguistic stress. Theoretical issues and implications for research and clinical practice are deferred for synthesis of the present findings with those from a multi-site cross-validation project (Shriberg, Aram, & Kwiatkowski, 1997b).
TL;DR: A peer intervention approach that taught typically developing children to be more aware of communicative attempts to classmates with disabilities, to use a small set of facilitative strategies, and to distribute strategy use across the school day has promise for improving the communicative interaction and social integration of children with disabilities attending inclusive preschools.
Abstract: We examined the effects of a peer-mediated intervention package that taught typically developing children to be more aware of communicative attempts of classmates with disabilities, to use a small ...
TL;DR: The study did not suggest that either neuromuscular hypotheses or sociolinguistic hypotheses alone can account for the control of individuals' speaking rates due to the unusual ability demonstrated by a few subjects in the SLOW group, to speak at very fast maximum rates.
Abstract: Neuromuscular and sociolinguistic hypotheses were proposed to explore and account for the nature of individuals’ idiosyncratic speech rates. One hundred subjects (50 males and 50 females) read the ...
TL;DR: The accessing children with SLI talked significantly less, were addressed significantly more, and collaborated less than either of the partners within their triads, while few significant differences were observed between LS or CA children and their partners.
Abstract: This study investigated the ability of 6 children with specific language impairment (SLI), ages 8;10 to 12;5 (years; months), to enter and participate in an ongoing dyadic interaction. Performance was compared to that of 6 chronological agematched (CA) peers and 6 language-similar (LS) peers. All children in the LS and CA groups successfully accessed the interaction, and most did so quickly. Two children from the SLI group did not access, and the 4 remaining subjects required varying amounts of time to access. Following successful access, the triadic interactions of subjects were examined. The accessing children with SLI talked significantly less, were addressed significantly less, and collaborated less than either of the partners within their triads. Few significant differences were observed between LS or CA children and their partners.
TL;DR: It was concluded that speech-language pathologists can perform independent and comfortable transnasal endoscopy without administration of any substance to the nasal mucosa, however, flexible fiberopticendoscopy should be performed by experienced clinicians with care taken to examine visually the patency of both nares for ease and comfort of scope insertion.
Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to compare patient comfort levels following administration of a topical anesthetic, vasoconstrictor, placebo, or nothing to the nasal mucosa prior to flexible f...
TL;DR: The aerodynamic and acoustic results show that men and 14-year-old boys function differently than women and all other groups of children, and that the laryngeal and respiratory behavior of children is not easily predicted from an adult model.
Abstract: The development of the speech production system was investigated using a cross-sectional design that included children aged 4-14 years and adults. Given that the size and internal structure of the laryngeal and respiratory systems differ between children and adults, it was predicted that children would show functional distinctions from adults during speech. Aerodynamic, acoustic, and respiratory kinematic techniques were used to assess laryngeal and respiratory function while participants varied their sound pressure level. In general, the aerodynamic and acoustic results show that men and 14-year-old boys function differently than women and all other groups of children. For the respiratory function data, children's values are similar to adults' by the time they are 12-14 years of age. These changes correspond closely to developmental laryngeal and respiratory anatomic data. All participants used a combination of laryngeal and respiratory mechanisms to increase sound pressure level, but the combination of mechanisms differed across age groups. These data emphasize that the laryngeal and respiratory behavior of children is not easily predicted from an adult model.
TL;DR: The findings of this study suggest that accounts of SLI are incomplete unless they assign a major role to the relative case of identifying and interpreting the relevant data in the ambient language.
Abstract: In earlier work, Italian-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) have been shown to exhibit a profile of grammatical morpheme difficulties that is quite different from the profile...
TL;DR: The present study cross-validates the prior stress findings, using conversational speech samples from 19 children with suspected DAS provided by five DAS researchers at geographically diverse diagnostic facilities in North America.
Abstract: Two prior studies in this series (Shriberg, Aram, & Kwiatkowski, 1997a, 1997b) address the premise that children with developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) can be differentiated from children with speech delay (SD) on the basis of one or more reliable differences in their speech. The first study compared segmental and prosody-voice profiles of a group of 14 children with suspected DAS to profiles of 73 children with SD. Results suggest that the only linguistic domain that differentiates some children with suspected DAS from those with SD is inappropriate stress. The second study cross-validated these findings, using retrospective data from a sample of 20 children with suspected DAS evaluated in a university phonology clinic over a 10-year period. The present study is of particular interest because it cross-validates the prior stress findings, using conversational speech samples from 19 children with suspected DAS provided by five DAS researchers at geographically diverse diagnostic facilities in North America. Summed across the three studies, 52% of 48 eligible samples from 53 children with suspected DAS had inappropriate stress, compared to 10% of 71 eligible samples from 73 age-matched children with speech delay of unknown origin. Discussion first focuses on the implications of stress findings for theories of the origin and nature of DAS. Perspectives in psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and developmental biolinguistics lead to five working hypotheses pending validation in ongoing studies: (a) inappropriate stress is a diagnostic marker for at least one subtype of DAS, (b) the psycholinguistic loci of inappropriate stress in this subtype of DAS are in phonological representational processes, (c) the proximal origin of this subtype of DAS is a neurogenically specific deficit, (d) the distal origin of this form of DAS is an inherited genetic polymorphism, and (e) significant differences between acquired apraxia of speech in adults and findings for this subtype of DAS call into question the inference that it is an apractic, motor speech disorder. Concluding discussion considers implications of these findings for research in DAS and for clinical practice.
TL;DR: Results suggested that, for deaf individuals with excellent skills in sign language, the functional impairment caused by prelingual deafness may be restricted to the processing of phonological information.
Abstract: Two groups of prelingually deaf children and a hearing control group participated in an experiment examining the effect of communication mode on the development of phonemic awareness. Sixteen of th...
TL;DR: The toddlers who received intervention made treatment gains in two areas of phonological ability, including a greater variety of complex syllable shapes and expanded their speech sound inventories to include more consonant sounds in both initial and final position.
Abstract: The purpose of this investigation is to determine whether a focused stimulation intervention focusing on lexical training has indirect, secondary effects on children's phonological abilities. Twent...