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Although the acoustic properties of clear speech have been extensively studied, its underlying articulatory details have not been well understood. The purpose of the present study is twofold: To examine the specific articulatory processes of clear speech using ultrasound and to investigate whether and how the type of listener (hard of hearing, normal hearing) and the lexical property of words (frequency) interact in the production of clear speech. To this end, we examined productions of /ɑ/, /æ/ and /u/ from 16 speakers of US English. Overall, our ultrasound results suggested that the tongue’s highest point moved in a direction that exaggerated the three vowels’ phonological features, resulting in an expanded articulatory vowel space for the hard-of-hearing listener and low-frequency words. No interaction was found between the listener and word frequency, suggesting that the effects of word frequency hold constant across the two types of listeners. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A list of doctoral dissertations and Gallaudet University dissertations on deafness is presented including the articles "Improving accuracy in large vocabulary sign search systems," by C. Conly, "Determinants of obesity among deaf and hard of hearing adults," by L. Buchko, and "Literacies in context: Working-class deaf adults," by C. M. Garbett.

THE HIGH QUALITY Communication intervention aims to stimulate interpersonal communication between individuals with congenital deafblindness (CDB) and their social partners. Found effective in multiple-case experiments, the intervention is based on Trevarthen's theory of intersubjective development (Brâten & Trevarthen, 2007), which describes children's innate and developing ability to share subjective states in interpersonal communication and social partners' mediating role in this development. One implication of this theory is that social partners can support the emergence of higher-complexity communication behaviors in individuals who are still developing these behaviors. To test this proposition, communication patterns between individuals with CDB and their parents, teachers, and professional caregivers were analyzed. Analysis of two-event sequences of communicative behaviors showed a highly significant correspondence between the behavior of the social partner and the subsequent behavior of the individual with CDB, confirming that social partners can scaffold higher-complexity communication within interpersonal communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of a conversation on open-ended dialogical approach which preceded the 2014 International Conference on Sign Language, Sustainable Development and Equal Opportunities. Topics covered include the perspectives on sign language in Sub-Saharan Africa, the struggling reading skills of children who are deaf and hard of hearing and the requirements of an inclusive education.

Loudness manipulation is an important clinical tool in reducing functional communication limitations and increasing speaking participation in individuals with dysarthria. Increasing loudness appears to influence all domains of the speech production system (i.e., respiratory, laryngeal, and orofacial), resulting in increased effort and coordination. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence speaking under different levels of background noise has on lip contact pressure, a measure of physiological effort, during bilabial consonant production. Ten young adults ranging in age from 20 to 24 years read 30 sentences under three different levels of multitalker babble background noise (0, 40, & 80 dBHL). An Entran Pressure Transducer was used to acquire lip contact pressure for words containing the bilabial consonants /p/, /b/, and /m/. Intensity of the voice significantly increased across noise conditions; however, static and dynamic measures of articulatory contact pressures (ACP) were not significantly influenced by background noise. Increase in physiological effort as represented by ACP appears not be related to increasing intensity while speaking in background noise. Additional study of the factors influencing different aspects of articulatory contact pressure is recommended for individuals with and without motor speech disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Derived words have constituted an important bridge between aphasiology and psycholinguistics by addressing the extent to which morphology affects representation and processing in the mind/brain. Aims: Our goal was to assess how properties of whole words and their overlapping substrings affect the manner in which English derivationally suffixed words are recognised and produced. Methods & Procedures: We probed the processing of multimorphemic words containing strings of two derivational suffixes by healthy adult participants, employing both a progressive demasking naming task and a typing task. The progressive demasking paradigm that we employed integrates word recognition and production by requiring that a participant recognises a progressively demasked stimulus and then say it as quickly as possible. The typing task allowed us to focus on segment by segment aspects of processing during production by enabling us to construct per-letter typing times for each region of a word. Outcomes & Results: We found converging influences across the tasks that correspond to the properties of roots, stems, suffixes and suffix strings. Conclusions: We interpret these effects to accord with a perspective that emphasises the dynamic nature of the lexical processing system and massive interconnectivity within it. This has implications for unimpaired processing and for the word processing challenges experienced by people with aphasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Aphasia patients can produce some words reliably but have difficulty retrieving other words. In this article we review one of the variables that have been proposed to explain which words remain available. Aims: Age of acquisition (AoA) refers to the age at which people learn a word. We review the evidence indicating that early-learned words remain more accessible than late-learned words in acquired aphasia. We examine the most likely mechanisms. Methods and procedures: We review the various studies that investigated the effect of AoA on word retrieval in acquired aphasia and in dementia. We link the findings to differences in processing efficiency in healthy individuals and to the mechanisms that have been proposed there to explain the differences. We also have a critical look at the methods used in various studies and investigate which precautions must be taken to advance our knowledge about the AoA effect. Outcomes and results: We argue that the effects of AoA and frequency are a result of the brain acquiring information over time in an incremental manner, improving with practice and possibly showing a decline in plasticity as the brain ages and more information becomes stored. Because AoA is yoked to frequency, an AoA effect is likely to be accompanied by a frequency effect of roughly the same size. In addition, AoA has a unique effect on the ease with which the correct verbal response can be retrieved in a naming task based on semantic input, such as object naming. Conclusions: Words learned early in life are more likely to be retained in acquired aphasia than words learned later in life. The finding that AoA has a unique effect on the ease with which the correct verbal response can be retrieved in object naming may be due to the organisation of the semantic system, such that early acquired meanings are richer, more accessible and more robust against brain damage. Alternatively, it may be due to the way in which semantic information is translated in verbal output. To further our knowledge, researchers are encouraged to use more powerful regression designs with more stimuli, and to include better measures than has been done in the past. We also argue that more information can be gathered by not limiting the research to picture naming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Comprehension of reversible sentences that have derived word order has often been reported as impaired in agrammatic aphasia. Most accounts of this phenomenon refer to the syntactic differences between derived and base word order of the arguments. However, it has been demonstrated that in agrammatic spontaneous speech in standard Indonesian (SI) passives are produced at a rate that is proportional to that of healthy speakers. The main difference between passives in SI and in other languages is the frequency with which passives are used: passives in SI are highly frequent. The high frequency can be explained by the fact that passives are used for politeness reasons, saliency of the passive morphology, earlier acquisition, and formal simplicity of the passive structure. Aims: The purpose of the current study is to investigate comprehension of the passive as a derived structure in SI and the influence of frequency. Methods & Procedures: A sentence-to-picture matching task was developed to test four reversible sentence types (active, passive, subject cleft and object cleft). There are three variables that are of interest, that is, word order, embedding and relative frequency of structures. Eleven agrammatic speakers classified as suffering from Broca’s aphasia were tested. Outcomes & Results: The passive sentences were comprehended equally well as the active sentences. Embedding had limited effects: subject clefts were understood as well as actives and passives. Object clefts, however, were understood poorly and significantly worse than the three other sentence types. Conclusions: The sentence comprehension deficit pattern shown in SI individuals with Broca’s aphasia introduces frequency of a syntactic structure as an additional factor to consider. Whether frequency or pragmatic constraints protects against erosion of the passive in Broca’s aphasia in SI remains an open question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It has long been observed that, when confronted with an implausible sentence likeThe ball kicked the girl, individuals with aphasia rely more on plausibility information from world knowledge (such that a girl is likely to kick a ball, but not vice versa) than control non-impaired populations do. We here offer a novel hypothesis to explain this greater reliance on plausibility information for individuals with aphasia. The hypothesis is couched with the rational inference approach to language processing. A key idea in this approach is that to derive an interpretation for an input string, individuals combine their priors (about messages that are likely to be communicated) with their knowledge about how messages can get corrupted by noise (due to production or perception errors). Aims: We hypothesise that language comprehension in aphasia works in the same way, except with a greater amount of noise, which leads to stronger reliance on syntactic and semantic priors. Methods & Procedures: We evaluated this hypothesis in an act-out task in three groups of participants (8 individuals with aphasia, 7 older controls, 11 younger controls) on two sets of materials: (a) implausible double-object (DO)/prepositional-phrase object (PO) materials, where a single added or deleted word could lead to a plausible meaning; and (b) implausible active-passive materials, where at least two added or deleted words are needed to arrive at a plausible meaning. Outcomes & Results: We observed that, similar to controls, individuals with aphasia rely on plausibility to a greater extent in the DO/PO than in the active/passive alternation. Critically, however, as predicted, individuals with aphasia rely less on the literal syntax overall than either of the control groups, and use their world knowledge prior (plausibility) in both the active/passive and DO/PO alternations, whereas controls rely on plausibility only in the DO/PO alternation. In addition, older persons and persons with aphasia made more errors on the DO structures (which are less frequent than PO structures) independent of plausibility, thus providing evidence for reliance on a syntactic prior, the more frequent structure. Conclusions: These results are as predicted by the rational inference approach to language processing in individuals with aphasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Lexical access problems of inflected verbs are common in aphasia. Previous research addressed these problems either in purely linguistic terms (e.g., verb movement) or in terms of lexical characteristics (e.g., frequency). We propose a new measure of verb complexity, which combines linguistic and lexical characteristics and is formulated in terms of Shannon’s information theory. Aims: We aim to explore the complexity of individual verbs and verb paradigms and its effect on lexical access, both in unimpaired people and people with aphasia (PWA). We apply information theory to investigate the impact of verb complexity on reaction time (RT) for lexical decision. Methods & Procedures: 20 non-fluent aphasic subjects and 11 age-matched and education-matched peers performed an auditory lexical decision task containing 286 real and 286 phonotactically legal non-word past tense forms (regulars and irregulars). RTs and error rates were measured. Two information-theoretic measures were calculated: inflectional entropy (reflecting probabilistic variability of forms within a given verbal family) and information load (I) (reflecting complexity of an individual verb form). The effect for these and other more traditional measures on RT were measured. Outcomes & Results: Linear mixed model analyses to the data for each group with participant and verb as crossed random effects were performed. Results show that for all groups inflectional entropy had a facilitatory effect on RT. There was a group effect for inflectional entropy indicating that for the patients with aphasia the effect of inflectional entropy was less pronounced. At the same time,Idid correlate with latencies for healthy adults but not for individuals with aphasia. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that the decrease in lexical processing capacity characteristic for PWA has a measurable effect that can be calculated using information theoretical means. According to our model, these individuals have particular difficulties with processing lexical items of higher complexity, as measured by individualI, and benefit less from the support normally provided (in comprehension) by other members of the corresponding lexical network. Finally, the proposed information-theoretic complexity measures, which encompass both frequency effects and linguistic parameters, provide a superior measure of lexical access, and have a better explanatory power for the analyses of access problems found in non-fluent aphasia, compared to analyses based on frequency only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Frequency of occurrence is a strong predictor of lexical processing across modalities and experimental paradigms. However, frequency is part of a large set of collinear predictors including not only frequencies collected from different registers, but also a wide range of other lexical properties such as length, neighbourhood density, measures of valence, arousal, and dominance, semantic diversity, dispersion, age of acquisition, and measures grounded in discrimination learning. Aims: The aim of this study is to provide a critical examination of these variables, the sources on which they are based, the way they are calculated and evaluated, and their potential causal relations. Main Contribution: We show that age of acquisition ratings and subtitle frequencies constitute (reconstructed) genres that favour frequent use for very different subsets of words. As a consequence of the very different ways in which collinear variables profile as a function of genre, the fit between these variables and measures of lexical processing depends on both genre and task. A graphical model suggests that neither frequency nor age of acquisition are primary causal factors, but rather semantic and emotion measures as well as measures derived from discriminative learning. Conclusions: The methodological implication of these results is that when evaluating effects of lexical predictors on processing it is advisable to carefully consider what genres were used to obtain these predictors, and to consider the system of predictors and potential conditional independencies using graphical modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Word retrieval in aphasia involves different levels of processing—lemma retrieval, grammatical encoding, lexeme retrieval, and phonological encoding—before articulation can be programmed and executed. Several grammatical, semantic, lexical, and phonological characteristics, such as word class, age of acquisition, imageability, and word frequency influence the degree of success in word retrieval. It is, however, not yet clear how these factors interact. The current study focuses on the retrieval of nouns and verbs in isolation and in sentence context and evaluates the impact of the mentioned factors on the performance of a group of 54 aphasic speakers. Aims: The main aim is to measure the effect of word frequency on the retrieval of nouns and verb by disentangling the influence of word class, age of acquisition, imageability, and lemma and lexeme frequencies on word retrieval in aphasia. Methods & Procedures: Four tests for retrieval of nouns, verbs in isolation, and infinitives and finite verbs were administered to 54 aphasic speakers. The influence of lemma and lexeme frequency, Age of Acquisition on the word retrieval abilities was analysed. Outcomes and Results: Word class, age of acquisition, and imageability play a significant role in the retrieval of nouns and verbs: nouns are easier than verbs; the earlier a word has been learned and the more concrete it is, the easier it is to retrieve. When performance is controlled for these factors, lemma frequency turns out to play a minor role: only in object naming does it affect word retrieval: the higher the lemma frequency of a noun, the easier it is to access. Such an effect does not exist for verbs, neither on an action-naming test, nor when verbs have to be retrieved in sentence context. Lexeme frequency was not found to be a better predictor than lemma frequency in predicting word retrieval in aphasia. Conclusions: Word retrieval in aphasia is influenced by grammatical, semantic, and lexical factors. Word frequency only plays a minor role: it affects the retrieval of nouns, but not of verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction to articles in the issue is presented on topics including a study that explored the value of video-based interventions that contrasts the effectiveness of using video modelling versus video self-modelling, the impact of modifying a communication intervention made for people with aphasia, and an evaluation of the construct validity of the Family Impact of Assistive Technology Scale.

While participatory research approaches are being developed and applied within speech and language therapy practice it is not clear that all children are afforded the opportunity to participate in such activities. This study aimed to explore the involvement of young children, aged between two and four years, with developmental disabilities in the research process, focusing on early intervention disability services. Eight young children took part in this qualitative research. Clark and Moss’s (2011) framework for listening was used to structure the multi-method data collection process. The design was iterative; the collection of data from each participant was followed by a review of theoretical ideas to support the emerging data. Findings suggest that the use of an asset based approach to participation in research, focusing on participants strengths through a variety of data collection tools, used by a skilled facilitator, supported by parental expertise enabled the children to be part of the data collection process. The research highlights that speech and language therapists can facilitate the inclusion of children with disabilities in research activities about their early intervention service they receive. As members of early intervention teams speech and language therapists need to promote their skills in facilitating the active engagement of children with developmental disabilities in research. Thus making their participation in early intervention research, a reality with potential to promote holistic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across settings, an increasing number of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are evaluating and treating dysphagia in patients of all ages. For many students, though, there are few opportunities in an academic setting to apply the knowledge learned in coursework and to develop the hands-on skills needed to become competent clinicians in dysphagia management. For this reason, our team developed a prototype Dysphagia Research Clinic (DRC) at Teachers College of Columbia University. This article summarizes the steps and processes that were completed to establish a specialized in-house DRC within an academic (non-medical based) setting. We begin with a review of the expertise needed, licensure and safety requirements, equipment, space and staffing needs, as well as legal considerations. Then, data on the educational impact of the program on students are presented. Our aim is to provide guidance for other graduate programs that are interested and invested in establishing a similar initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report highlights some of the major developments in the area of speech anatomy and physiology drawing from the author's own research experience during his years at the University of Iowa and the University of Illinois. He has benefited greatly from mentors including Professors James Curtis, Kenneth Moll, and Hughlett Morris at the University of Iowa and Professor Paul Lauterbur at the University of Illinois. Many colleagues have contributed to the author's work, especially Professors Jerald Moon at the University of Iowa, Bradley Sutton at the University of Illinois, Jamie Perry at East Carolina University, and Youkyung Bae at the Ohio State University. The strength of these researchers and their students bodes well for future advances in knowledge in this important area of speech science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphic symbols are commonly used across countries in order to support individuals with communicative deficiency. The literature review revealed the absence of such a system for Turkish socio-cultural context. In this study, the aim was to develop a symbol system appropriate for the Turkish socio-cultural context. The process began with studies designed to delineate the scope of the proposed system. Firstly, a dictionary was formed, founded on the literature. In the following stage, a visual design form was developed with a view to identifying visual representations of these words. Using this form, 106 participants were asked for their opinion. The data collected were examined, and common traits of the graphic(s) indicated for each word were identified so that alternative graphic(s) could be prepared accordingly. From one to five visual representations were identified for each word and the corresponding graphic symbols were drawn in electronic media. An e-measure was developed in order to find out whether these graphics were sufficient to represent the corresponding objects, concepts, or situations. The scale was sent to participant groups across Turkey to obtain the opinions of individuals from divergent age, culture, and educational backgrounds. A total of 1,099 participants were asked for their opinion. This resulted in a new system consisting of standard graphic symbol(s) for 843 words and seven forms of affix structures appropriate for writing Turkish using graphic symbols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Previous studies have shown significant correlations between the acoustic characteristics of /w/ and speech intelligibility. To understand the articulatory pattern in /w/ production, the current study investigated the movement characteristics of the tongue and lower lip in whip productions in comparison to bib productions. Methods: Data from 19 typical adult male participants were collected using electromagnetic articulography. A number of kinematic measures of tongue body (approximately 25 mm posterior to the tongue apex) and lower lip movements were analyzed. Results: The findings suggested different movement patterns of the tongue body and lower lip in whip and bib productions. The amount of lip movement in the anterior-posterior plane exhibited by each speaker did not vary between whip and bib. However, speakers did exhibit more tongue retraction/advancement, greater overall tongue movement, and faster tongue movement speed in whip than in bib. Conclusion: Tongue movement in the anterior-posterior plane, such as tongue retraction and advancement, was found to be crucial for the production of /w/ in typical male speakers. Thus, the articulatory kinematics of the tongue in the anterior-posterior plane and its coordination with the lips need to be further examined in speakers with dysarthria to understand the underlying kinematic characteristics that influence speech intelligibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Awareness about any condition is considered to be the first step in the prevention of any disorder. Similarly, understanding the level of awareness with respect to literacy is an essential to create awareness as part of primary prevention activities. However, in Indian context, there is dearth of documented evidence on studying the awareness of communication disorders in the general population. Hence, the present study was aimed to understand the level of awareness among the people towards communication disorders and its relation to literacy. Method: In an experimental survey research, 145 volunteers in the age range of 19 to 67 years were considered. A Questionnaire was developed as part of the study which consisted of six close ended 'YES-NO' type questions. The questionnaire was administered by the investigator to all the participants. Results: Results on frequency distribution revealed that the 79.18% 114 of 145) of people rated as 'YES' and 19.55% (31 of 145) said as 'NO'. Further, quantitative (analysis was done through crosstabs analysis to study the effect of literacy on level of awareness on communication disorders. With respect to literacy towards awareness, 80.13% of the literate group answered 'YES', and 19.88% rated as 'NO'. Similarly, 70.23% illiterates rated as 'YES' and 29.76% rated as 'NO'. Results of the chi-squire test revealed that there was no significant association (p>0.05) seen between literates and illiterates for all the questions except for awareness on 'effect of music on hearing' (literates showed awareness of the problem than illiterates). Conclusion: To conclude, the present study emphasized on high awareness of communication disorders in the general public of Hospet Taluk of Bellary district. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in lockdown which resulted in migration from conventional face-to-face teaching and learning, to online teaching and learning. However, literature on the student experiences with online teahcing and learning, particularly in the health science professions is sparse. Objective: This study aimed to explore the students' experiences of online teaching and learning, including online simulated case-based learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This was a descriptive crosssectional survey amongst Speech and Hearing Therapy students at South African university. An online questionnaire was completed by students using google forms. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic data analysis. Results: Thirty-nine (25/38) students aged 21--24-years-old (84% female) participated in this study, yielding a 66% response rate. Most participants stayed at home during lockdown, and reported that their learning environment was not conducive to studying; mainly due to poor connectivity issues, electricity load-shedding, lack of support or understanding from family members and having to perform house-chores while they were supposed to be attending class. Additionally, despite being provided with data packages from the university to access online teaching platform Blackboard, and simulated clinical training on the Simucase platform, most students indicated that the data was not enough to cover their learning needs, and had to spend, on average, 20 USD per week to augment the data provided by the university. With regards to Simucase interaction, most (60%) students indicated that the platform provided them with an interactive platform through which they could apply their clinical skills as well as refine their clinical reasoning abilities. Of those who did not use it (16%), most student cited network connectivity as the main barrier to utilizing the platform. Conclusions: These findings show that while online teaching may improve access to higher education during pandemics, issues such as access to affordable and reliable internet access, and familial support negatively impacted learning for the students. Systematic solutions such as provision of adequate data and internet access could improve the student's experiences of online teaching. Nevertheless, in cases where face-to-face clinical training is not possible, simulated learning may offer a solution for continued clinical training of future health professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Speech and other oral functions such as swallowing have been compared and contrasted with oral behaviors variously labeled quasispeech, paraspeech, speechlike, and nonspeech, all of which overlap to some degree in neural control, muscles deployed, and movements performed. Efforts to understand the relationships among these behaviors are hindered by the lack of explicit and widely accepted definitions. This review article offers definitions and taxonomies for nonspeech oral movements and for diverse speaking tasks, both overt and covert. Method: Review of the literature included searches of Medline, Google Scholar, HighWire Press, and various online sources. Search terms pertained to speech, quasispeech, paraspeech, speechlike, and nonspeech oral movements. Searches also were carried out for associated terms in oral biology, craniofacial physiology, and motor control. Results and Conclusions: Nonspeech movements have a broad spectrum of clinical applications, including developmental speech and language disorders, motor speech disorders, feeding and swallowing difficulties, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, trismus, and tardive stereotypies. The role and benefit of nonspeech oral movements are controversial in many oral motor disorders. It is argued that the clinical value of these movements can be elucidated through careful definitions and task descriptions such as those proposed in this review article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this epilogue is to synthesize the main points of the articles in this issue on statistical learning for clinicians. These points can be used to guide practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study evaluated the effectiveness of Apple (Cupertino, CA) iPad® (second generation) to deliver telepractice speech and/or language services. Five children and their parents/guardians, as well as four adult participants, received services for communication disorders in a university clinic setting over two academic semesters. The children met some of their speech goals and all of their language goals. All adult clients met some of their communication goals. Personal opinions about telepractice did not change statistically before and after therapy. The major problem identified during the study was skipping and/or freezing of images on the iPads during interactions with FaceTime® (Apple). Further studies are needed to investigate the feasibility of using Apple iPads in telepractice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion on interactional management of communicative impairment by focusing on practices, in which people with an impairment are supported by those without to collaborate in an activity. Thus, a conversation and embodied interaction analysis is conducted of a routine in which a physiotherapist assists a client living with acquired brain injury to perform an activity the client cannot perform for herself: turning from lying face-down to facing the ceiling. The analysis highlights the situated multimodal and embodied practices of scaffolding whereby both parties coconstruct the client as both a competent, collaborative participant and an active agent. This paper aims to enrich the discussion on how people with communicative impairment can become active participants in a given situation by emphasising the necessity of: (1) a dynamic and complex understanding of the participation framework, and (2) including the embodied aspects of interaction in the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Case-study methodology studying change is often used in the field of speech-language pathology, but it can be criticized for not being statistically robust. Yet with the heterogeneous nature of many communication disorders, case studies allow clinicians and researchers to closely observe and report on change. Such information is valuable and can further inform large-scale experimental designs. In this research note, a statistical analysis for case-study data is outlined that employs a modification to the Reliable Change Index (Jacobson & Truax, 1991). The relationship between reliable change and clinical significance is discussed. Example data are used to guide the reader through the use and application of this analysis. Method: A method of analysis is detailed that is suitable for assessing change in measures with binary categorical outcomes. The analysis is illustrated using data from one individual, measured before and after treatment for stuttering. Conclusions: The application of this approach to assess change in categorical, binary data has potential application in speech-language pathology. It enables clinicians and researchers to analyze results from case studies for their statistical and clinical significance. This new method addresses a gap in the research design literature, that is, the lack of analysis methods for noncontinuous data (such as counts, rates, proportions of events) that may be used in case-study designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Healthcare providers increasingly expect that allied health staff will not only translate research evidence into their clinical practice, but also generate research. Little is known about how well prepared clinicians are to meet these expectations. Research suggests that allied health professionals, including speech-language pathologists, have moderate levels of interest in research, but only little-to-moderate experience participating in research activities. The present study aimed to explore the experiences and attitudes of speech-language pathologists in regards to undertaking research in their clinical settings. Method: Focus groups were conducted with 21 practising speech-language pathologists (13 research engaged, eight not research engaged). The focus groups were transcribed and the data analysed qualitatively using content analysis. Result: Two overarching themes mediated research engagement. Engagement in research was shaped by whether participants overcame any 'fear' of research and the unique characteristics of their clinical context. Contextualizing and further shaping participants' experiences of these themes were personal factors, such as initiative and proactivity. Conclusion: The success of increasing the research engagement of the speech-language pathology workforce may be contingent on providing clinicians with more exposure to research opportunities and mentors as well as ensuring organizational structures are in place to encourage, support and facilitate research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors assessed the quality of single-case design (SCD) studies that assess the impact of interventions on outcomes for individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH). More specifically, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) standards for SCD research were used to assess design quality and the strength of evidence of peer-reviewed studies available in the peer-reviewed, published literature. The analysis yielded four studies that met the WWC standards for design quality, of which two demonstrated moderate to strong evidence for efficacy of the studied intervention. Results of this review are discussed in light of the benefits and the challenges to applying the WWC design standards to research with DHH individuals and other diverse, low-incidence populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the rate of school-aged Chinese–English language learners at risk for reading difficulties in either Chinese or English only, or both, among second and fifth graders in Hong Kong. In addition, we examined the metalinguistic skills that distinguished those who were poor in reading Chinese from those who were poor in reading English. The prevalence of poor English readers among children identified to be poor in Chinese word recognition across the five participating schools was approximately 42% at Grade 2 and 57% at Grade 5. Across grades, children who were poor readers of both languages tended to have difficulties in phonological and morphological awareness. Poor readers of English only were found to manifest significantly poorer phonological awareness, compared to those who were poor readers of Chinese only; their average tone awareness score was also lower relative to normally developing controls. Apart from indicating possible dissociations between Chinese first language (L1) word reading and English second language (L2) word reading, these findings suggested that the degree to which different metalinguistic skills are important for reading in different writing systems may depend on the linguistic features of the particular writing system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A relationship between motor and mathematical skills has been shown by previous research. However, the question of whether subtypes can be differentiated within developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and/or mathematical learning disability (MLD) remains unresolved. In a sample of children with and without DCD and/or MLD, a data-driven model-based clustering was used to identify subgroups of individuals with relatively homogeneous profiles on measures associated with motor and mathematical skills. One subgroup of children with motor problems was found based on motor variables. Based on mathematical variables, two clinical clusters were found: a subtype with number fact retrieval problems and a subtype with procedural calculation problems. Clustering with motor and mathematical skills revealed two clinical clusters: a cluster with number fact retrieval as well as procedural calculation problems and below average motor and visual-motor integration skills. A second cluster of children had only procedural calculation and visual-motor problems. Our results raise questions about the usefulness of placing children who have below average mathematical skills into a single diagnostic category. Furthermore, we inform ongoing debates about the overlap between DCD and MLD, as below average motor skills were found in both MLD subgroups, although a different motor profile is linked to a different mathematical profile. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Spelling errors are usually studied in dictations, but teachers report that children with school difficulties often make spelling mistakes when they copy a text too. The present study examines the performance on a text copying task and a text dictation task of two groups of children known for their difficulties in spelling, that is, 22 with symptoms of ADHD and 13 with dyslexia, comparing them with matched controls to see whether children with spelling difficulties make more copying task errors than do controls, whether they make fewer mistakes when copying than when writing under dictation, and whether the pattern of errors remains the same or differs in copy and dictation tasks. Our results show that although children with spelling difficulties made fewer errors in the copying task than under dictation, they still made phonological errors and mistakes relating to accents and duplicates. The pattern of errors differed slightly between the children with dyslexia and those with ADHD, presumably as a consequence of their different underlying weaknesses—related mainly to phonology and orthographic representation in the case of dyslexia and to attentional control in the case of ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective. This paper explores the impact and mechanisms for successful implementation of a speech language pathology assistant (SLPA) role into a rehabilitation setting using a traineeship approach. Methods. Multiple data sources were used, including interviews with key stakeholders, documentary evidence and a workload audit. Results. The SLPA role increased clinical service capacity by 28 h per week across the service and required a total of 3 h per week of supervision input (the equivalent of 38 min per speech and language pathologist (SLP)). The SLPA used non-clinical time for training and administration. Mechanisms that facilitated the implementation of the SLPA role were: support for existing staff; formal knowledge and skills in training; consultation and engagement; access to a competency framework; close working with the registered training organisation; clearly defined role and delegation boundaries; clear supervision structures; confidence in own role; supportive organisational culture; vision for expansion of the role; engaging the SLPs in training and development; and a targeted recruitment approach. Conclusion. The development and implementation of a new trainee SLPA role using a traineeship approach required a large amount of supervision and training input from the SLPs. However, it was perceived that these efforts were offset by the increased service capacity provided by the introduction of a trainee role and the high levels of satisfaction with the new role. What is known about this topic? Efficient delegation to assistants requires supervising staff to have a clear understanding of the roles and experience of assistants. There has been little evaluation of assistant training models to date. What does this paper add? The net benefit of an allied health assistant in speech pathology far outweighs the input required to provide training and supervision. The paper identifies a range of mechanisms to facilitate the implementation and efficient use of the assistant role. What are the implications for practitioners? The implementation of assistant roles requires support for both the assistant and the supervising staff member. Engaging the supervising staff in training the assistant enhances role understanding and effective delegation to the assistant staff member. Although the role development requires a great deal of local investment, there is potential for more efficient implementation of new roles through sharing of resources, such as competencies, assessments and training tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit alterations in sensory processing, including changes in the integration of information across the different sensory modalities. In the current study, we used the sound-induced flash illusion to assess multisensory integration in children with ASD and typically-developing (TD) controls. Thirty-one children with ASD and 31 age and IQ matched TD children (average age = 12 years) were presented with simple visual (i.e., flash) and auditory (i.e., beep) stimuli of varying number. In illusory conditions, a single flash was presented with 2-4 beeps. In TD children, these conditions generally result in the perception of multiple flashes, implying a perceptual fusion across vision and audition. In the present study, children with ASD were significantly less likely to perceive the illusion relative to TD controls, suggesting that multisensory integration and cross-modal binding may be weaker in some children with ASD. These results are discussed in the context of previous findings for multisensory integration in ASD and future directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new language measure, the Observation of Spontaneous Expressive Language (OSEL), is intended to document spontaneous use of syntax, pragmatics, and semantics in 2-12-year-old children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other communication disorders with expressive language levels comparable to typical 2-5 year olds. Because the purpose of the OSEL is to provide developmental norms for use of language, the first step involves assessment of the scale's feasibility, validity, and reliability using a sample of 180 2-5 year-old typically developing children. Pilot data from the OSEL shows strong internal consistency, high reliabilities and validity. Once replicated with a large population-based sample and in special populations, the scale should be helpful in designing appropriate interventions for children with ASD and other communication disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Despite the long history of language sampling use in the study of child language development and disorders, there are no set guidelines specifying the reporting of language sampling procedures. The authors propose reporting standards for use by investigators who employ language samples in their research. Method: The authors conducted a literature search of child-focused studies published in journals of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association between January 2000 and December 2011 that included language sampling procedures to help characterize child participants or to derive measures to serve as dependent variables. Following this search, they reviewed each study and documented the language sampling procedures reported. Results: The authors’ synthesis revealed that approximately 25% of all child-focused studies use language samples to help characterize participants and/or derive dependent variables. They found remarkable inconsistencies in the reporting of language sampling procedures. Conclusion: To maximize the conclusions drawn from research using language samples, the authors strongly encourage investigators of child language to consistently report language sampling procedures using the proposed reporting checklist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary objective: This study's objective was to examine the current assessment practices of SLPs working with adults with acquired cognitive communication impairments following a TBI. Methods and procedures: Two hundred and sixty-five SLPs from the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand responded to the online survey stating the areas of communication frequently assessed and the assessment tools they use. Main outcomes and results: SLPs reported that they routinely assessed functional communication (78.8%), whereas domains such as discourse were routinely assessed by less than half of the group (44.3%). Clinicians used aphasia and cognitive communication/high level language tools and tools assessing functional performance, discourse, pragmatic skills or informal assessments were used by less than 10% of the group. The country and setting of service delivery influenced choice of assessment tools used in clinical practice. Conclusions: These findings have implications for training of SLPs in a more diverse range of assessment tools for this clinical group. The findings raise questions regarding the statistical validity and reliability of assessments currently used in clinical practice. It highlights the need for further research into how SLPs can be supported in translating current evidence about the use of assessment tools into clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: to characterize the relevant findings of the clinical history of adults who clutter. Methods: participants were 8 adults who clutter (AWC), with ages between 8 and 39 years old, which 7 were men. The inclusion criteria were: complaint of fast speech rate, with damages in the communication; presence of excessive other disfluencies; score above 120 in the Predictive Cluttering Inventory. Data were gathered by clinical and familial history, assessment of fluency and Predictive Cluttering Inventory. Results: the familial history was positive for fluency disorders for all subjects, whereas 3 for cluttering and 5 for stuttering. According to the complaint, 100% reported fast speech rate and 50% reported impairments in speech intelligibility. All the AWC showed awareness of the speech difficulty and presented some strategy of self-monitoring. Information about language - cognition showed that the majority of the adults reported word-finding problems, excessive revisions, interjections/fillers and hesitations in the speech. Conclusion: the main findings of the clinical history from AWC were: positive familial history for fluency disorders; the beginning of the manifestations was in the childhood without apparent cause; complaints of fast speech rate and impairments in speech intelligibility; improvement of the clinical status during the years, which may be associated with an awareness of the speech difficulty and ability of self-monitoring; inappropriate articulation, prosody and writing; word-finding problems; respiratory-speech-articulatory in coordination, and presence of anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:Aphasia treatment research lacks a uniform approach to outcome measurement. A wide range of outcome instruments are used across trials and there is a lack of research evidence exploring the outcomes most important to stakeholders. This lack of standardisation produces research outcomes that are difficult to compare and combine, limiting the potential to strengthen treatment evidence through meta-analysis and data pooling. The current heterogeneity in aphasia treatment research outcome measurement may be addressed through the development of a core outcome set (COS)—an agreed standardised set of outcomes for use in treatment trials. Aims:This article aims to provide a rationale and agenda for the development of a COS for aphasia treatment research. Main Contribution:A review of the literature reveals heterogeneity in the way outcome measurement is performed in aphasia treatment research. COSs have been developed in a wide range of health fields to introduce standardisation to research outcome measurement. Potential benefits of COSs include easier comparison and combination of research outcomes, improved quality of systematic reviews and greater transparency in research reporting. The use of broad stakeholder consultation also supports the development of research outcomes that are meaningful. It is proposed that a COS for aphasia treatment research could be developed in three stages. First, consensus-based techniques would be used to reach international agreement on the outcomes that are most important to stakeholders. Second, a systematic review and meta-analysis of outcome instruments would provide synthesised evidence to support the choice of tools to most effectively capture the effects of aphasia treatments. Third, final agreement on a COS would be sought through an international consensus conference. Conclusions:There is an identified need for standardisation in the way outcomes are selected and measured in aphasia treatment research. COS development may provide an effective, consensus-based solution to this need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the authors' comments on outcome measures in aphasia rehabilitation research. It discusses the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists that support researcher S. J. Wallace and colleagues' call for the design and conduct of consensus development activities to seek standardisation of core outcome measures for aphasia research. It is commented that this activity needs to occur in parallel with the establishment of a common data set for aphasia research.

The article presents the authors' comments on establishing a core outcome set (COS) for aphasia treatment research. The authors discusses some key issues that should be considered if such an undertaking is to be successful. It is opined that the primary obstacle to achieving consensus about what constructs should be included in a COS is the broad scope of aphasia rehabilitation.

The article presents the authors' comments on establishing a core outcome set (COS) for aphasia treatment research. The authors discuss some myths around COS development. It is stated that a COS does not constrain the outcomes which may be measured in a study. According to the authors, this is a myth that the complexity of aphasia rehabilitation cannot be captured in a COS.

Canonical babbling is a critical milestone for speech development and is usually well in place by 10 months. The possibility that infants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show late onset of canonical babbling has so far eluded evaluation. Rate of vocalization or 'volubility' has also been suggested as possibly aberrant in infants with ASD. We conducted a retrospective video study examining vocalizations of 37 infants at 9-12 and 15-18 months. Twenty-three of the 37 infants were later diagnosed with ASD and indeed produced low rates of canonical babbling and low volubility by comparison with the 14 typically developing infants. The study thus supports suggestions that very early vocal patterns may prove to be a useful component of early screening and diagnosis of ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]