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This study compares the effects of temporal incoherence (i.e., event order) and tonal relatedness (event ending) in musical chord sequences on the speed and accuracy of processing in participants with and without aphasia. Over two behavioral priming experiments, participants (aphasia, N=15-20; neurotypical, N=15-20) will complete an intonation discrimination task in which they indicate as quickly as possible whether the target chord is in or out of tune. Performance measures and reaction times (RTs) will be collected to determine whether the preceding context primed participants to expect predictable and/or related target events. To ensure task difficulty remains constant across participants in Experiments 1 and 2, we will conduct a preliminary study that will identify the intonation discrimination threshold (IDT) for each participant using an adaptive staircasing procedure, where the fifth of the chord will be lowered in a range from 1-150 cents. Each participant's IDT will then be used to mistune target chords in the out-of-tune condition in Experiments 1 and 2. Experiment 1 examines the effects of temporal incoherence (low, medium, high) and participant population (neurotypical, aphasia) on the speed and accuracy of processing in a 3x2 mixed design. Nonmodulating tonal chord sequences ending with a root-position tonic chord will either remain unchanged (thereby reflecting low temporal incoherence), or will be scrambled using a probabilistic model to produce increasingly incoherent sequences (i.e., medium or high). Experiment 2 includes an additional within-participants factor of tonal context in which each sequence concludes either with the tonic (related) or subdominant (unrelated) chord in a 3x2x2 mixed design. Sequences from Experiment 1 were recomposed in the key of the dominant in the unrelated condition to ensure that the final target chord is acoustically identical in both conditions, but represents a weaker, less stable chord within the specified tonal context.

The present study explored issues related to adolescents with ADHD and the families in which they belong from a developmental contextual and lifespan perspective. Both deficits- and strengths-based approaches were used to investigate parental perceptions of family stressors and available family resources; and individual family members' (adolescents with ADHD, mothers, fathers, and sibling adolescents) perceptions of positive and negative family characteristics and feelings relative to ADHD. Additionally, the target adolescents’ perspectives on the meaning of ADHD in their lives and personal and family resources and strengths were examined. Forty adolescents diagnosed with some form of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and their household family members (mother, father, and/or adolescent sibling) participated. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to analyze family-level data. Results revealed that the number of family members with ADHD did not significantly affect all family members' reports of general family stressors, strains, and distress; however, it did significantly affect reports from mothers in terms of perceived family resources and opinions specific to ADHD: Mothers (but not fathers) reported significantly more resources when only the target adolescent had ADHD and fewer resources when additional family members had the disorder. Also, mothers reported more non-supportive factors, such as teachers and relatives not understanding ADHD, when more than one member of the family had ADHD. Additionally, fathers reported more supportive factors, such as adolescents being creative, when only one member of the family had ADHD. The adolescents with ADHD perceived their own strengths as getting along well with others, having high energy levels, and/or being involved with music. By using a mixed research design, the present study integrated quantitative and qualitative information to provide a better understanding of the hassles that adolescents with ADHD encounter, as well as the resources and strengths they use to meet their environmental challenges at this particular point along their developmental paths.

The purpose of this study was to describe the distribution of stutterings among speech acts. Ten adult stutterers engaged in conversational tasks designed to naturally encourage production of Representatives, Expressives, Commissives, Directives, and Questions. The total number of speech acts (i.e., utterances) containing stuttered speech was determined, as was the total number of stuttered words within each speech act. A nonparametric statistic was used to test for significance. Results indicated that, as a group, stutterings were distributed equally among speech acts, although the performance of some subjects suggests a clinically relevant speech act-stuttering connection.

The effects of animation on naming and identification of graphic symbols for verbs and prepositions was investigated for 2 graphic symbol sets in typically developing Turkish preschoolers. Method: Using a 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 factorial design, preschoolers across three age groups (3, 4, and 5 years old) were randomly assigned to combinations of symbol set (Autism Language Program [ALP] Animated Graphics or Picture Communication Symbols [PCS]), symbol format (animated or static), and word class (verbs or prepositions). Children were asked to name symbols and to identify a target symbol from an array in response to a verbal label. Results and conclusions within the paper.

Theoretically, caregiver perceptions (beliefs, opinions, and feelings regarding their child's language disorder) matter because a child's interactions are bi-directionally influenced by his environment. Caregiver perceptions may influence the nature of those interactions and by extension, impact children's language development. This study addressed three aims: (a) Too characterize caregivers' perceptions of the child's language disorder with regard to quality of communicative interactions, competence in communicative abilities, and outcomes of communicative improvement; (b) To determine the extent to which caregivers' perceptions align with speech-language pathologist (SLP) report; (c) To determine the extent to which caregiver and child factors predict alignment. Twenty-five caregivers and four SLPs completed this study. Eligible caregivers had 3- to 4-year-old children with language disorders who were currently receiving language treatment. Caregivers and SLPs were recruited from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic and Head Start campuses in Lubbock, Texas. Caregiver and SLP questionnaires were created to gather data for perceptions, caregiver factors (maternal education and self-efficacy), and child factors (gender and language disorder severity). Descriptive analyses were run to answer the first and second study aims, and regression analyses were run to answer the third study aim. Caregivers' perceptions were more positive and more variable than SLPs' perceptions. Caregivers' perceptions of outcomes (potential for their child's improvement) were greater than for quality (importance placed on communication) or competence (language performance), which was consistent with SLPs' perceptions. Caregivers were aligned with SLPs for an average of 24.2 statements of perception (SD = 4.26; range: 15 - 33; 54%). Finally, none of the factors examined in this study were significant predictors of alignment. Given the variability in caregiver perceptions, future research should explore the role of perceptions in children's language intervention across ages and disorders.

Background literature on intervention for apraxia of speech (AOS) fails to show evidence of robust efficacy for any specific approach. There is anecdotal evidence that the use of sentence completion may facilitate production of words in individuals with AOS. The purpose of the current investigation was to determine the effectiveness of a sentence completion task for eliciting the correct and accurate production of words by individuals with AOS. Following standardized testing, ten participants with AOS and ten neurotypical individuals were asked to produce bisyllabic words in two conditions: a repetition condition and a sentence completion condition. Each word produced by participants was given one score to reflect whether the word was correct or not and another score to reflect the accuracy of production. Response times were also measured for each production. Participants with AOS produced significantly more correct target words in the sentence completion condition than the repetition condition. Participants with AOS also produced words with significantly higher articulation accuracy in the sentence completion condition than the repetition condition. Individuals with AOS did not show a significant difference in response times between the two conditions. Interestingly, neurotypical individuals demonstrated significantly shorter response times for the repetition condition. Results from this study demonstrated that sentence completion facilitated production of words for individuals with AOS. Individuals with severe deficits for producing speech were able to more readily produce words during a sentence completion task. Using sentence completion to elicit the production of words may be beneficial as a therapeutic technique. Future research applying sentence completion and theories of motor learning may increase the number of words that individuals with AOS can produce independently.

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For adults with chronic aphasia and alexia, repeated reading improves reading rate, and explicit teaching improves reading accuracy. These two reading treatments have not been combined with adults; however, repeated reading and explicit instruction have been combined in studies with children to increase oral reading fluency (rate and accuracy). This study involved a single subject multiple baseline design across three adult participants with acquired aphasia and alexia. A combined multiple oral reading with explicit teaching treatment was used for the purpose of improving reading fluency. Results revealed increased reading rates across all participants, yet no change in reading accuracy as a result of treatment. Further, improvements were achieved within a small number of treatment sessions in persons who are several years post onset of aphasia and alexia. Clinically, rapid improvements in oral reading rate may be achieved for persons with acquired alexia using multiple oral reading paired with explicit teaching.

This study investigated resource allocation abilities in persons with aphasia (PWA) in the presence and absence of competing stimuli across a series of experimental tasks that involved identifying and selecting single symbols and subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences on a speech generating device (SGD). Participants included 10 individuals with Broca’s aphasia and a group of 10 typical individuals matched on assigned variables. A mixed-group design was used to compare the performance of the two groups on single symbol and SVO sentence accuracy and response latency measures. Data were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that PWA accurately identified significantly (p

The language of persons with dementia has been studied in the past, but rarely in the natural context of conversation. The purpose of this study was to examine lexical diversity and message clarity of language produced by persons with dementia during conversational interactions and the influence of conversational partners, if any, on their language characteristics. Six case studies were used to describe the language of people with dementia. Participants were also divided into two groups based on whether or not their communication partner had been trained. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed. The following lexical diversity variables were measures: noun rate, pronoun rate, adjective rate, and verb rate. Additionally, Brunét's index, Honoré's statistic, and type-token ratio were also calculated to quantify vocabulary richness. The following message clarity variables were measured in percentages: utterances with a verbal maze, unfinished utterances, fully unintelligible utterances, partially unintelligible utterances, utterances with an inappropriate topic shift, and pronouns with a clear referent. Results revealed that persons with dementia produced more pronouns compared to other content words. Some participants produced language that was lexically rich while others did not. Measures of message clarity varied across participants. There were no significant differences between trained and untrained conversation partner groups on any of the measures. Qualitative analyses revealed some communication partner techniques that seemed to enhance language production in persons with dementia. This study identified some lexical diversity and message clarity measure that could be obtained from a brief conversational language sample and used to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of persons with dementia. Additionally, the study provided insight regarding the contribution of conversational partners to the language of persons with dementia.

Research to date has provided limited evidence related to how selective auditory attention is affected by: 1) differences between the vocal and/or speaking characteristics of different masking talkers and 2) rhythmic properties of the language of the competing (or masking) speech signal. The current study addressed these gaps in existing research by measuring sentence reception thresholds (sSRTs) for 50 monolingual English-speaking adults in conditions where the competing speech was spoken in a language with a stress-based rhythm (i.e., English or German), a syllable-based rhythm (i.e., Spanish or French), or a mora-based rhythm (i.e., Japanese) (Abercrombie, 1967; Pike, 1945; both as cited in Nazzi, Jusczyk, & Johnson, 2000). In all conditions, the target speech signal consisted of meaningful English sentences spoken by a male talker; whereas, the competing speech signal consisted of continuous speech from 1 male and 1 female native speaker of the language assigned to that condition. For each language, 2 different 2-talker masking signals were created (i.e., labeled Masker A and Masker B), with a different male-female pair of native speakers used for each signal. An average sSRT was obtained in 10 types of competing speech conditions, including 1 Masker A condition and 1 Masker B condition for each of the 5 languages. Analysis of results revealed that for each language, there was a significant difference between subjects’ performance in the Masker A and Masker B conditions. These findings suggest that the vocal/speaking characteristics of different mixed-gender 2-talker maskers (i.e., 1 male and 1 female masking talker) can provide different degrees of masking effectiveness, regardless of whether the masking talkers are speaking the listeners’ native language or an unfamiliar language. A significant effect of the language of the competing speech was also seen, with significantly greater listening difficulty associated with conditions where the competing speech was spoken in English, German, or Japanese, as compared to Spanish or French. This pattern of results leads to 2 primary conclusions: 1) the underlying rhythmic structure of the language of the competing speech has a greater impact on masking effectiveness than the meaning of the competing speech, and 2) competing speech spoken in a language from the listener’s native rhythmic category (i.e., stress-based) is more difficult to ignore than competing speech spoken in a language from a non-native rhythmic category (i.e., syllable-based), at least for some languages. Together, these results extend the findings of previous studies by providing evidence that exposure to the rhythm of the native language affects not only how a listener processes speech in quiet (e.g., Cutler, Mehler, Norris, & Segui, 1983; Sebastián-Gallés, Dupoux, Costa, & Mehler, 2000), but also how he/she processes a target speech signal in the presence of speech from 2 masking talkers.

One relatively new area of treatment efficacy research centers around computerized treatment for aphasia. This one-group single-treatment counterbalanced study determined the efficacy of commercially-available treatment software for anomia in persons with chronic aphasia. Eight Parrot Software programs were addressed in an intensive 32-hour treatment program lasting 4 weeks. The effect of this treatment on confrontational naming ability and oral discourse, as well satisfaction with the treatment program, was measured. The six participants (divided into two subgroups of three) were administered 4 weeks of treatment and 4 weeks of no treatment, with the order of phases counterbalanced across subgroups. Three assessment sessions (AS) measured responses to two confrontational naming tasks, two picture description tasks, and one narrative retell task. The Program Evaluation Inventory – Short Form (PEI-SF) was administered in AS3 to measure treatment acceptability. Results indicated a significant change in confrontation naming ability. No change was noted in measures of oral discourse. Results of the PEI-SF indicated that participants felt the treatment employed acceptable procedures and goals and that the participants felt overall satisfaction with the intervention program. Clinical implications of the study are discussed and program modifications are suggested.

The results of this study indicated that participants accurately and reliably differentiated normal from abnormal speech samples. Thus, all groups proficiently identified disordered cases while limiting the number of misdiagnoses; however, some degree of task difficulty was noted and clinical biases were evident. For this research question, group trends indicated that the most experienced group of participants adopted a more lenient diagnostic criterion as compared to the intermediate and novice groups.