Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Violence Against Deaf Women: Effect Of Partner Hearing Status, Melissa Anderson, Caroline Kobek Pezzarossi

Melissa L. Anderson

Using a sample of Deaf female undergraduate students, the current study sought to investigate the prevalence, correlates, and characteristics of intimate partner violence victimization in hearing-Deaf and Deaf-Deaf relationships. Initial results suggest that similarities in hearing status and communication preference are associated with increased levels of negotiation within these relationships. However, compatibility in these areas did not co-occur with significant decreases in physical, psychological, or sexual partner violence. Recommendations for future research as well as implications for clinical and educational practice are outlined.

Individual Characteristics And Their Effect On Predicting Mu Rhythm Modulation, Adriane Randolph, Melody Jackson, Saurav Karmakar

Adriane B. Randolph

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) offer users with severe motor disabilities a nonmuscular input channel for communication and control but require that users achieve a level of literacy and be able to harness their appropriate electrophysiological responses for effective use of the interface. There is currently no formalized process for determining a user's aptitude for control of various BCIs without testing on an actual system. This study presents how basic information captured about users may be used to predict modulation of mu rhythms, electrical variations in the motor cortex region of the brain that may be used for control of a BCI. …

The Audiology Oath: A Survey Of Opinions And Current Practices., James Steiger

James R. Steiger

We surveyed audiologists and students to elicit opinions and information regarding the Audiology Oath. Fewer than half of respondents were aware of the oath. The oath was shared with all surveyed; over 85% of respondents agreed with the components of the oath and less than 13% offered changes. White coat and graduation ceremonies are considered appropriate for oath recitation. We hope that whenever the Audiology Oath is recited it will strengthen commitment to ethical practice.

Behavior Problems And Social Functioning In Adolescents With Language Impairment, Courtney Karasinski

Courtney Karasinski

Adolescents with language impairment (LI) often are underidentified and may be perceived as lazy or noncompliant, rather than as individuals with LI. In this article, the author discusses two possible reasons for this underdiagnosis of LI in adolescents. First, many adolescents with LI present with comorbid behavior problems, which may be the primary concern of parents and school officials. Second, some adolescents with LI perform within age expectations on basic linguistic skills, but difficulties are apparent in higher-level linguistic tasks, including oral and written narrative comprehension and production. Given that adolescents with LI may present with comorbid behavior and academic …

The Effects Of Word Length, Articulation, Oral-Motor Movement, And Lexicality On Gait: A Pilot Study, K. Davie, Janis Cardy, J. Holmes, M. Gagnon, A. Hyde, M. Jenkins, Andrew Johnson

Andrew M. Johnson

Previous research has suggested that articulatory demands are important predictors of the impact of dual-task interference on spatial-temporal parameters of gait. In this study, we evaluated the effects of word length, oral-motor movement, articulation, and lexicality, within a verbal task, on a continuous gait task. Fifteen healthy young women participated in a study in which two word lengths (monosyllabic and bisyllabic) were crossed with four levels of secondary task complexity (no dual-task, non-speech movement, spoken non-word, and spoken word). Spatial and temporal parameters of gait were measured using a 23' instrumented carpet. Results indicated a significant multivariate main effect for …

The Distinctness Of Speakers' Productions Of Vowel Contrasts Is Related To Their Discrimination Of The Contrasts, Joseph Perkell, Frank Guenther, Harlan Lane, Melanie Matthies, Ellen Stockmann, Mark Tiede, Majid Zandipour

Harlan Lane

This study addresses the hypothesis that the more accurately a speaker discriminates a vowel contrast, the more distinctly the speaker produces that contrast. Measures of speech production and perception were collected from 19 young adult speakers of American English. In the production experiment, speakers repeated the words cod, cud, who'd, and hood in a carrier phrase at normal, clear, and fast rates. Articulatory movements and the associated acoustic signal were recorded, yielding measures of contrast distance between /ɑ/ and /ʌ/ and between /u/ and /ʊ/. In the discrimination experiment, sets of seven natural-sounding stimuli ranging from cod to cud and …

Effects Of Bite Blocks And Hearing Status On Vowel Production, Harlan Lane, Margaret Denny, Frank Guenther, Melanie Matthies, Lucie Ménard, Joseph Perkell, Ellen Stockmann, Mark Tiede, Jennell Vick, Majid Zandipour

Harlan Lane

This study explores the effects of hearing status and bite blocks on vowel production. Normal-hearing controls and postlingually deaf adults read elicitation lists of /hVd/ syllables with and without bite blocks and auditory feedback. Deaf participants' auditory feedback was provided by a cochlear prosthesis and interrupted by switching off their implant microphones. Recording sessions were held before prosthesis was provided and one month and one year after. Long-term absence of auditory feedback was associated with heightened dispersion of vowel tokens, which was inflated further by inserting bite blocks. The restoration of some hearing with prosthesis reduced dispersion. Deaf speakers' vowel …

An Investigation Of The Relation Between Sibilant Production And Somatosensory And Auditory Acuity, Satrajit Ghosh, Melanie Matthies, Edwin Maas, Mark Tiede, Lucie Ménard, Frank Guenther, Harlan Lane, Joseph Perkell

Harlan Lane

The relation between auditory acuity, somatosensory acuity and the magnitude of produced sibilant contrast was investigated with data from 18 participants. To measure auditory acuity, stimuli from a synthetic sibilant continuum ([s]-[ʃ]) were used in a four-interval, two-alternative forced choice adaptive-staircase discrimination task. To measure somatosensory acuity, small plastic domes with grooves of different spacing were pressed against each participant's tongue tip and the participant was asked to identify one of four possible orientations of the grooves. Sibilant contrast magnitudes were estimated from productions of the words "said," "shed," "sid," and "shid." Multiple linear regression revealed a significant relation indicating …

Time Course Of Speech Changes In Response To Unanticipated Short-Term Changes In Hearing State, Joseph Perkell, Harlan Lane, Margaret Denny, Melanie Matthies, Mark Tiede, Majid Zandipour, Jennell Vick, Ellen Burton

Harlan Lane

The timing of changes in parameters of speech production was investigated in six cochlear implant users by switching their implant microphones off and on a number of times in a single experimental session. The subjects repeated four short, two-word utterances, /dV₁n#SV₂d/ (S=/s/ or /ʃ/), in quasi-random order. The changes between hearing and nonhearing states were introduced by a voice-activated switch at V1 onset. "Postural" measures were made of vowel sound pressure level (SPL), duration, F0; contrast measures were made of vowel separation (distance between pair members in the formant plane) and sibilant separation (difference in spectral means). Changes in parameter …

Effects Of Masking Noise On Vowel And Sibilant Contrasts In Normal-Hearing Speakers And Postlingually Deafened Cochlear Implant Users, Joseph Perkell, Margaret Denny, Harlan Lane, Frank Guenther, Melanie Matthies, Mark Tiede, Jennell Vick, Majid Zandipour, Ellen Burton

Harlan Lane

The role of auditory feedback in speech production was investigated by examining speakers' phonemic contrasts produced under increases in the noise to signal ratio (N/S). Seven cochlear implant users and seven normal-hearing controls pronounced utterances containing the vowels /i/, /u/, /ε/ and /æ/ and the sibilants /s/ and /ʃ/ while hearing their speech mixed with noise at seven equally spaced levels between their thresholds of detection and discomfort. Speakers' average vowel duration and SPL generally rose with increasing N/S. Average vowel contrast was initially flat or rising; at higher N/S levels, it fell. A contrast increase is interpreted as reflecting …

Note On The Variability Hypothesis In Category Scaling, B. Schneider, H. Lane

Harlan Lane

The "variability hypothesis" attributes the nonlinear relation between category and magnitude scales to the growth of variability along the psychological continuum. The findings of some earlier research seemed to contradict the hypothesis. Now, an alternative interpretation of these findings is presented.

Speech Deterioration In Postlingually Deafened Adults, Harlan Lane, Jane Webster

Harlan Lane

Postlingually deafened adults reading the Rainbow Passage differed from hearing-control subjects in producing greater pitch variability and mean pitch on stressed and unstressed vowels, greater fluctuations in pitch within sentences, less correlation of intrinsic pitch with vowel height and slower temporal parameters. When reading the Phonetic Inventory Sentences, they revealed less differentiation of place of articulation in fricative and plosive consonants. The present findings, taken together with those of longitudinal and implant studies, are applied to constraining models of the role of self hearing in the elaboration of speech.

Changes In Voice-Onset Time In Speakers With Cochlear Implants, Harlan Lane, Jane Wozniak, Joseph Perkell

Harlan Lane

Voice-onset time (VOT) and syllable duration were measured for the English plosives in /Cɑd/ (C=consonant) context spoken by four postlingually deafened recipients of multichannel (Ineraid) cochlear implants. Recordings were made of their speech before, and at intervals following, activation of the speech processors of their implants. Three patients reduced mean syllable duration following activation. Using measures of VOT and syllable duration from speakers with normal hearing [Volaitis and Miller, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 723–735 (1992)] and from the subjects of this study, VOT is shown to vary approximately linearly with syllable duration over the ranges produced here. Therefore, the …

Interactions Of Speaking Condition And Auditory Feedback On Vowel Production In Postlingually Deaf Adults With Cochlear Implants, Lucie Ménard, Marek Polak, Margaret Denny, Ellen Burton, Harlan Lane, Melanie Matthies, Nicole Marrone, Joseph Perkell, Mark Tiede, Jennell Vick

Harlan Lane

This study investigates the effects of speaking condition and auditory feedback on vowel production by postlingually deafened adults. Thirteen cochlear implant users produced repetitions of nine American English vowels prior to implantation, and at one month and one year after implantation. There were three speaking conditions (clear, normal, and fast), and two feedback conditions after implantation (implant processor turned on and off). Ten normal-hearing controls were also recorded once. Vowel contrasts in the formant space (expressed in mels) were larger in the clear than in the fast condition, both for controls and for implant users at all three time samples. …

Grammatical Morphology In School-Age Children With And Without Language Impairment: A Discriminant Function Analysis, Maura Jones Moyle, Courtney Karasinski, Susan Ellis Weismer, Brenda Gorman

Courtney Karasinski

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test Bedore and Leonard’s (1998) proposal that a verb morpheme composite may hold promise as a clinical marker for specific language impairment (SLI) in English speakers and serve as an accurate basis for the classification of children with and without SLI beyond the preschool level.

Method: The language transcripts of 50 school-age children with SLI (Mage = 7;9 [years;months]) and 50 age-matched typically developing peers (Mage = 7;9) were analyzed. Following the Bedore and Leonard (1998) procedure, 3 variables were measured: a finite verb morpheme composite, a noun morpheme composite, and mean …

The Contribution Of Processing Impairments To Sli: Insights From Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Janis Cardy, Rosemary Tannock, Andrew Johnson, Carla Johnson

Andrew M. Johnson

Slowed speed of processing and impaired rapid temporal processing (RTP) have been proposed to underlie specific language impairment (SLI), but it is not clear that these dysfunctions are unique to SLI. We considered the contribution of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which frequently co-occurs with language impairments, to performances on processing tasks. School-aged children who had SLI without concurrent ADHD (n=14), ADHD without concurrent SLI (n=14), and typical development (TD, n=28) performed two nonverbal speeded tasks and one auditory RTP task. RTP impairments were found in many children with SLI and ADHD, and some children with TD. Children with ADHD demonstrated slower …

Dual-Task Interference: The Effects Of Verbal Cognitive Tasks On Upright Postural Stability In Parkinson's Disease, J. Holmes, M. Jenkins, Andrew Johnson, S. Adams, S. Spaulding

Andrew M. Johnson

Although dual-task interference has previously been demonstrated to have a significant effect on postural control among individuals with Parkinson's disease, the impact of speech complexity on postural control has not been demonstrated using quantitative biomechanical measures. The postural stability of twelve participants with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and twelve healthy age-matched controls was evaluated under three conditions: (1) without a secondary task, (2) performing a rote repetition task and (3) generating a monologue. Results suggested a significant effect of cognitive load on biomechanical parameters of postural stability. Although both groups increased their postural excursion, individuals with Parkinson's disease demonstrated significantly reduced …

Comprehension Of Inferences In Discourse Processing By Adolescents With And Without Language Impairment, Courtney Karasinski, Susan Ellis Weismer

Courtney Karasinski

Purpose: This study investigated inference construction within spoken narratives in adolescents with varying cognitive and language abilities, using W. Kintsch’s (1988) construction-integration model as a framework. The role of working memory in inference construction was examined along with language and nonverbal cognition.

Method: Participants were 527 eighth-grade students in 4 diagnostic groups: normal language (NL), low cognitive (LC), specific language impairment (SLI), and nonspecific language impariment (NLI). Participants answered premise and inference questions based on adjacent and distant information.

Results: Distant inferences were significantly more difficult than were adjacent inferences. When controlling for premise accuracy, the NL group performed significantly …

Dual Task Performance In A Healthy Young Adult Population: Results From A Symmetric Manipulation Of Task Complexity And Articulation, Albert Armieri, Jeffrey Holmes, Sandi Spaulding, Mary Jenkins, Andrew Johnson

Andrew M. Johnson

The ability to execute and maintain gait while performing simultaneous cognitive, verbal, or motor tasks ('dual-tasking') is beneficial in many ways. It is well-documented, however, that dual-tasking can result in cognitive or motoric interference that results in diminished gait performance, and impaired secondary task performance. When manipulating cognitive load, it is common to have participants respond verbally to stimuli. While this is an ecologically valid way to measure the effects of cognitive load on gait, it ignores the additional demands inherent in the verbal aspect of the task. In the present study, we manipulated complexity and articulation within a single …

From Perception To Execution In Parkinson’S Disease, Andrew Johnson, Quincy Almeida

Andrew M. Johnson

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects one’s ability to control voluntary movements. Typically, PD is considered a disease of motor output, without considering neuropsychological variables that might contribute to the impairment of movement. The goal of this chapter is to investigate issues of motor control, in addition to the observable motor symptoms found in PD from a perceptual and cognitive perspective. To this end, we divide movement into three components: perception, initiation, and execution. Perception is required initially, and throughout movement, and is generally used to define characteristics of a movement goal. Thus, in the earliest …

The Dynamics Of Passavant's Ridge In Subjects With And Without Velopharyngeal Insufficiency--A Multi-View Videofluoroscopic Study, Robert Shprintzen, Glaser E., Mcwilliams B., Skolnick M.

Robert J. Shprintzen

Passavant's ridge was studied in 43 patients via multiview videofluoroscopy incorporating the simultaneous recording of speech. Ratings of the videotapes were made at full speed, in slowmotion, and by stop-framing. The following results were found: (1) Just as there are variable patterns of velopharyngeal closure, there were also variations in the way in which Passavant's ridge is positioned relative to the velum, and in the ridge's subsequent role in velopharyngeal narrowing or closure. (2) The ridge was the primary pharyngeal structure at the level of the velum that closed or locally narrowed the velopharyngeal portal in 37% of patients. (3) …