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Purpose: Differences between child-directed speech (CDS) by women and men are generally explained by either biological-evolutionary or gender-social theories. It is difficult to tease these two explanations apart for different-sex-parent families because women are usually also the main caregivers. Thus, this study aims to examine the influence of parental sex on CDS by investigating men and women who are in same-sex-parent families. Method: Twenty same-sex-parent families participated in the study--10 families in which the parents were two men and 10 families in which the parents were two women. The families were matched for toddler age (range: 9-24 months) and sex. CDS was recorded using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) device for 16 hr during a day. Each parent was also audio-recorded during a 30-min play session with his or her child. Results: No difference was found between men and women across all the LENA measures, namely, adult word count, conversational turns count, and child vocalization count. The analysis of speech samples during parent-child play showed no difference between men and women in mean length of utterance and number of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Pragmatic speech acts of initiations, responses to infants' actions, or vocalizations were similar in both sexes. Women used more "teaching" utterances than men, and men who were main caregivers used more "teaching" utterances than men who were secondary caregivers. Across both sexes, secondary caregivers used more "requests for actions" compared to main caregivers. Conclusions: The present findings support a functional-social approach and not a biological approach for explaining the use of CDS by men and women. These findings have clinical implications on the involvement of men in early intervention programs.

Purpose: Processing narrow focus (NF), the stressed word in the sentence, includes both the perceptual ability to identify the stressed word in the sentence and the pragmatic-semantic ability to comprehend the nonexplicit linguistic message. NF and its underlying meaning can be conveyed only via the auditory modality. Therefore, NF can be considered as a measure for assessing the efficacy of the hearing aid (HA) and cochlear implants (CIs) for acquiring nonexplicit language skills. The purpose of this study was to assess identification and comprehension of NF by HA and CI users who are native speakers of Arabic and to associate NF outcomes with speech perception and cognitive and linguistic abilities. Method: A total of 46 adolescents (age range: 11;2-18;8) participated: 18 with moderate-to-severe hearing loss who used HAs, 10 with severe-to-profound hearing loss who used CIs, and 18 with typical hearing (TH). Test materials included the Arabic Narrow Focus Test (ANFT), which includes three subtests assessing identification (ANFT1), comprehension of NF in simple four-word sentences (ANFT2), and longer sentences with a construction list at the clause or noun phrase level (ANFT3). In addition, speech perception, vocabulary, and working memory were assessed. Results: All the participants successfully identified the word carrying NF, with no significant difference between the groups. Comprehension of NF in ANFT2 and ANFT3 was reduced for HA and CI users compared with TH peers, and speech perception, hearing status, and memory for digits predicted the variability in the overall results of ANFT1, ANFT2, and ANFT3, respectively. Conclusions: Arabic speakers who used HAs or CIs were able to identify NF successfully, suggesting that the acoustic cues were perceptually available to them. However, HA and CI users had considerable difficulty in understanding NF. Different factors may contribute to this difficulty, including the memory load during the task as well as pragmatic-linguistic knowledge on the possible meanings of NF.

This study aims to elucidate the factors that affect the robustness of word form representations by exploring the relative influence of lexical stress and segmental identity (consonant vs. vowel) on infant word recognition. Our main question was which changes to the words may go unnoticed and which may lead the words to be unrecognizable. One-hundred 11-month-old Hebrew-learning infants were tested in two experiments using the Central Fixation Procedure. In Experiment 1, 20 infants were presented with iambic Familiar and Unfamiliar words. The infants listened longer to Familiar than to Unfamiliar words, indicating their recognition of frequently heard word forms. In Experiment 2, four groups of 20 infants each were tested in each of four conditions involving altered iambic Familiar words contrasted with iambic Unfamiliar nonwords. In each condition, one segment in the Familiar word was changed-either a consonant or a vowel, in either the first (unstressed) or the second (stressed) syllable. In each condition, recognition of the Familiar words despite the change indicates a less accurate or less well-specified representation. Infants recognized Familiar words despite changes to the weak (first) syllable, regardless of whether the change involved a consonant or a vowel (conditions 2a, 2c). However, a change of either consonant or vowel in the stressed (second) syllable blocked word recognition (conditions 2b, 2d). These findings support the proposal that stress pattern plays a key role in early word representation, regardless of segmental identity.

The acquisition of a second language (L2) may be challenging in adulthood, as the phonological system of the native language (L1) can sometimes limit the perception of phonological contrasts in L2. The present study aimed to (a) examine the influence of an L1 (Hebrew) that lacks a phonemic contrast for vowel length on the ability to discriminate between short and long vowels in L2 (Arabic); and (b) assess the effect of a short training on the participants' discrimination performance. A total of 60 participants, 20 native Arabic speakers and 40 native Hebrew speakers, were tested using the ABX procedure in two sessions that were 10 days apart. A single training session was provided for half of the Hebrew speakers (n = 20) approximately 2-3 days after the first (pretraining) testing session. The results indicated that the trained Hebrew participants' discrimination levels (measured by accuracy and reaction times) were above chance level but were nevertheless lower in comparison to the Arabic speakers. However, a short training session was sufficient to yield a nativelike performance that generalized to untrained nonwords. These findings support the theoretical models that predict a reserved ability to acquire new phonetic/phonological cues in L2 and have important practical implications for the process of learning a new phonological system in adulthood.

Purpose: This study aims to examine the development of auditory selective attention to speech in noise by examining the ability of infants to prefer child-directed speech (CDS) over time-reversed speech (TRS) presented in "on-channel" and "off-channel" noise. Method: A total of 32 infants participated in the study. Sixteen typically developing infants were tested at 7 and 11 months of age using the central fixation procedure with CDS and TRS in two types of noise at +10 dB signal-to-noise ratio. One type of noise was an "on-channel" masker with a spectrum overlapping that of the CDS (energetic masking), and the second was an "off-channel" masker with frequencies that were outside the spectrum of the CDS (distractive masking). An additional group of sixteen 11-month-old infants were tested in quiet and served as controls for the "off-frequency" masker condition. Results: Infants preferred CDS over TRS in both age groups, but this preference was more pronounced with "off-channel" masker regardless of age. Also, older infants demonstrated longer looking time for the target stimuli when presented with an "off-channel" masker compared to the "on-channel" masker. Looking time in quiet was similar to looking time in the "off-channel" condition, and looking time for CDS was longer in quiet compared to the "on-channel" condition. Conclusions: These findings support the notion that (a) infants as young as 7 months of age are already showing preference for speech in noise, regardless of type of masker; (b) by 11 months of age, listening with the "off-channel" condition did not yield different results than in quiet. Thus, by 11 months of age, infants' cognitive--attentional abilities may be more developed.

Purpose: Studies on reading in individuals with severe-to-profound hearing loss (deaf) raise the possibility that, due to deficient phonological coding, deaf individuals may rely more on orthographic-semantic links than on orthographic-phonological links. However, the relative contribution of phonological and semantic information to visual word recognition in deaf individuals was not directly assessed in these studies. The aim of the present study, therefore, was to examine the interplay between orthographic, phonological, and semantic representations during visual word recognition, in deaf versus hearing adults. Method: Deaf and hearing participants were asked to perform a visual lexical decision task in Hebrew. The critical stimuli consisted of three types of Hebrew words, which differ in terms of their relationship between orthography, phonology, and semantics: unambiguous words, homonyms, and homographs. Results: In the hearing group, phonological effects were more pronounced than semantic effects: Homographs (multiple pronunciations) were recognized significantly slower than homonyms or unambiguous words (one pronunciation). However, there was no significant difference between homonyms (multiple meanings) and unambiguous words (one meaning). In contrast, in the deaf group, there was no significant difference among the three word types, indicating that visual word recognition, in these participants, is driven primarily by orthography. Conclusion: While visual word recognition in hearing readers is accomplished mainly via orthographic-phonological connections, deaf readers rely mainly on orthographic-semantic connections.

In the bouba-kiki (BK) task, participants are presented with two novel shapes, one round and one spiky (e.g., Rogers & Ross, 1975). Their task is to match the two shapes [...], Purpose: The bouba-kiki (BK) effect refers to associations between visual shapes and auditory pseudonames. Thus, when tested, people tend to associate the pseudowords bouba and kiki with round or spiky shapes, respectively. This association requires cross-modal sensory integration. The ability to integrate information from different sensory modalities is crucial for speech development. A clinical population that may be impaired in cross-modal sensory integration is children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). The purpose of this study was to examine the involvement of cross-modal sensory integration in children with (CAS). Method: The BK effect was assessed in participants with CAS (n = 18) and two control groups: One control group was composed of children with developmental language disorder (DLD), also termed specific language impairment (n = 15), and a second group included typically developing (TD) children (n = 22). The children were presented with 14 pairs of novel visual displays and nonwords. All the children were asked to state which shape and nonword correspond to one another. In addition, background cognitive (Leiter-3) and language measures (Hebrew PLS-4) were determined for all children. Results: Children in the CAS group were less successful in associating between visual shapes and corresponding auditory pseudonames (e.g., associating the spoken word "bouba" with a round shape; the spoken word "kiki" with a spiky shape). Thus, children with CAS demonstrated a statistically significant reduced BK effect compared with participants with TD and participants with DLD. No significant difference was found between the TD group and the DLD group. Conclusions: The reduced BK effect in children with CAS supports the notion that cross-modal sensory integration may be altered in these children. Cross-modal sensory integration is the basis for speech production. Thus, difficulties in sensory integration may contribute to speech difficulties in CAS.

The "bouba-kiki effect" refers to the correspondence between arbitrary visual and auditory stimuli. Previous studies have demonstrated that neurodevelopmental conditions and sensory impairment affect subjects' performance on the bouba-kiki task. This study examined the bouba-kiki effect in participants with severe-to-profound hearing loss. Sixteen participants with severe- to-profound hearing loss who were habilitated aurally and used oral language for everyday communication and 16 matched hearing peers were presented with the bouba-kiki task auditorily and orthographically. Verbal intelligence (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale -- Third Edition) was determined for all participants and was similar in both groups. Our results demonstrate a reduced bouba-kiki effect in participants with severe-to-profound hearing loss compared to their hearing peers, though they performed above chance level. Moreover, the age at the first use of a hearing device was associated with participants' performance on the bouba-kiki task in adulthood. Better performance was shown in participants who used a hearing device at infancy before 23 months of age. These results support a relationship between early auditory or linguistic deprivation, and performance on the bouba-kiki task, and are discussed in the light of the role of a sensitive period on the development of the effect. This study is the first to show that prelingual deafness affects cross-modal auditory-visual correspondence resulting in reduced sound symbolism.

Suicide, rooted in antiquity, is now identified as a global dilemma, particularly impacting Indigenous peoples. The backdrop for this non-systematic focused review is the worldwide challenges faced by vulnerable Indigenous peoples with untenable poverty, degraded life-quality conditions, and suicidality, while the focus, as a specific case, is on the complexity of suicidality in Canadian Indigenous high-risk age groups. The aim here is to present overt and covert intersecting factors underlying suicide in Indigenous youths and young adults in the vast Canadian context. Although living in a privileged geopolitical region, their physically remote and economically compromised communities meshed with a haunting history combined with authorities' ingrained attitudes of exclusion and neglect, spawned meager health and education resources, services, and consequent dire results. The article's guiding theoretical frameworks are Transcultural Psychiatry with its emphasis on context that explains health, illness, and recovery in groups and individuals, and the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide to identify individuals' suicidality triggers. The article highlights indigenous social determinants of health, identifies elements underlying the tragic suicidality trend in these groups, and addresses literacy and education as poverty driven issues and suicidality-contributing factors promoting attitudes of hopelessness. The discussion includes joint suicide combatting efforts by Indigenous communities and Canadian authorities, these authors' psychosocial-cognitive literacy acquisition plan to address all age-groups simultaneously, and a take-home message introducing employers' desirable worker competencies for effective future employment, thereby uplifting life-quality and prospects to help thwart the spectre of suicide. The Conclusion introduces current trends in suicidality science, confirming the authors' intervention plan is a good fit in the psychosocial intervention trend. Future directions include advice to examine the effectiveness of the plan in the Indigenous context, and tweak it accordingly. For ease of reader comprehension, the article flow is included at the start of the Introduction section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arabic stress is predictable, varies across words, and does not have a contrastive role, whereas, Hebrew stress although nonpredictable, carries contrastive value. Stress processing was assessed in speakers of the two languages at three processing levels: discrimination, short-term memory, and metalinguistic awareness. In Experiment 1, Arabic speakers with Hebrew as L2 (n = 15) and native Hebrew speakers (n = 15) were tested on discrimination and memory of stress placements. Arabic speakers had fewer correct responses and longer reaction times compared to Hebrew speakers. In Experiment 2, the influence of nonnative language acquisition on metalinguistic awareness of stress was assessed. Arabic speakers (n = 10) were less able to identify stress in their native and nonnative languages compared to Arabic speakers with advanced knowledge of English and Hebrew (n = 10) and Hebrew speakers (n = 10). Our findings support the assumption that variations in stress at the surface level of L1 are insufficient to facilitate awareness and memory for stress placement.

This article seeks to offer a comprehensive perspective on autism in Israel, aligning with global reports. It aims to serve as a foundational resource for policymakers in developing relevant support and point to unmet needs. The data was drawn from publications by Israeli government authorities and academic publications. In 2022, the prevalence of child and adolescent autism in Israel was approximately 1.13%, with a male-to-female ratio of 4:1, and an annual increase of 23%, particularly among young children. In Israel, the diagnosis of autism follows the DSM-5 guidelines and is conducted by a physician and a psychologist specializing in autism. Typically, diagnosis is at age 2. The autism intervention approaches prevalent in Israel are consistent with those that are globally accepted. Children with autism are entitled to special education services adapted to their needs and developmental levels. The legally established package of services for children with autism includes sessions with occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists (SLPs), physical therapists, psychologists, and social workers. Children and adults with autism are eligible for disability allowance along with support regarding residence, educational programs, and employment opportunities. Nonetheless, underdiagnosis and low accessibility to services are common in minority populations and rural areas. Furthermore, in recent years, services for autistic individuals have declined. This decline, particularly considering the ongoing rise in the prevalence of autism, pose significant challenges for Israeli government authorities in ensuring that autistic persons receive appropriate support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The stressed word in a sentence (narrow focus [NF]) conveys information about the intent of the speaker and is therefore important for processing spoken language and in social interactions. The ability of participants with severe-to-profound prelingual hearing loss to comprehend NF has rarely been investigated. The purpose of this study was to assess the recognition and comprehension of NF by young adults with prelingual hearing loss compared with those of participants with normal hearing (NH). Method: The participants included young adults with hearing aids (HA; n = 10), cochlear implants (CI; n = 12), and NH (n = 18). The test material included the Hebrew Narrow Focus Test (Segal, Kaplan, Patael, & Kishon-Rabin, in press), with 3 subtests, which was used to assess the recognition and comprehension of NF in different contexts. Results: The following results were obtained: (a) CI and HA users successfully recognized the stressed word, with the worst performance for CI; (b) HA and CI comprehended NF less well than NH; and (c) the comprehension of NF was associated with verbal working memory and expressive vocabulary in CI users. Conclusions: Most CI and HA users were able to "recognize" the stressed word in a sentence but had considerable difficulty "understanding" it. Different factors may contribute to this difficulty, including the memory load during the task itself and linguistic and pragmatic abilities.

In the present study, we compared the processing of both conventional and novel metaphors by deaf versus hearing young adults. Eighteen deaf participants with severe-to-profound hearing loss and 18 controls matched for age, sex, and years of education were presented with word pairs of 4 types (literal, conventional metaphors, novel metaphors, and unrelated word pairs) and were asked to perform a semantic judgment task. The word pairs were presented randomly, 1 word at a time, in the center of a computer screen. The reaction times and accuracy rates were collected. The groups of deaf and hearing participants both showed lower correct responses and longer reaction times for the novel metaphors than for the conventional metaphors. The percentages of correct scores on the semantic judgment task did not differ between the groups. However, the reaction times were significantly longer for the novel metaphors in the group of deaf individuals than in the group of hearing individuals. Thus, deaf young adults show the same pattern of metaphor processing as hearing peers, that is, novel metaphors are more difficult to process compared with conventional metaphors. However, processing of novel metaphors by deaf participants is achieved with more effort.

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to examine whether there is a listening preference for child-directed speech (CDS) over backward speech in moderate-preterm infants (MPIs). Method: Eighteen MPIs of gestational age of 32.0 weeks (range: 32-34.06 weeks), chronological age of 8.09 months, and maturation age of 6.48 months served as the experimental group. The two control groups consisted of a total of 36 infants--20 full-term infants matched for chronological age and 16 full-term infants matched for maturation age. The infants were tested using the central fixation procedure and were presented with 16 trials of CDS and backward speech. A follow-up was conducted 5 years after the initial experiment using a developmental and a five-item parent questionnaire. Results: MPIs did not demonstrate a preference for CDS over backward speech, whereas both control groups demonstrated a listening preference for CDS over backward speech. MPIs showed a delayed use of first words and word combinations and lower scores on the five-item questionnaire compared to term infants. Twelve MPIs (67%) did not demonstrate a preference for CDS over backward speech. Four of them (33%) were later diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders. Conclusions: The lack of preference for CDS over backward speech in the MPIs group suggests delayed developmental pattern of speech processing compared to full-term peers. Delays in neurological maturation as well as listening experience in an unregulated environment outside the uterus during a sensitive period of brain development may affect the recognition of phonological and prosodic patterns that support listening preference for speech over backward speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The ability of infants to develop recognition of a common stress pattern that is language specific has been tested mainly in trochaic languages with a strong-weak (SW) stress pattern. The goals of the present study were: (a) to test Hebrew-learning infants on their stress pattern preference in the Hebrew language, for which the weak-strong (WS) stress pattern is the common one, and (b) to test whether the infants would generalize any preference for the common stress pattern in Hebrew to English words, which belong to a different rhythmic class. Method: Fifty-six 9-month-old Hebrew-learning infants were tested on their preference for SW and WS stress patterns using Hebrew and English bisyllabic words with the Head-Turn Preference Procedure. Results: The infants showed preference for WS Hebrew words but not for SW English words. Conclusion: Hebrew-learning infants recognize the common stress pattern in their native language, supporting language-specific distributional learning by infants. This recognition, however, is not generalized to a foreign language with different prosodic characteristics.

Purpose: To clarify the relationship between psychoacoustic capabilities and speech perception in adolescents with severe-to-profound hearing loss (SPHL). Method: Twenty-four adolescents with SPHL and young adults with normal hearing were assessed with psychoacoustic and speech perception tests. The psychoacoustic tests included gap detection (GD), difference limen for frequency, and psychoacoustic-tuning curves. To assess the perception of words that differ in spectral and temporal cues, the speech tests included the Hebrew Early Speech Perception test and the Hebrew Speech Pattern Contrast test (L. Kishon-Rabin et al., 2002). All tests were conducted for the listeners with normal hearing at low and high presentation levels and for the participants with SPHL at 20 dB SL. Results: Only GD thresholds were comparable across the 2 groups at similar presentation levels. Psychoacoustic performance was poorer in the group with SPHL, but only selected tests were correlated with speech perception. Poor GD was associated with pattern perception, 1-syllable word identification, and final voicing subtests. Conclusions: Speech perception performance in adolescents with SPHL could not be predicted solely on the basis of spectral and temporal capabilities of the auditory system. However, when the GD threshold was greater than 40 ms, speech perception skills were predictable by psychoacoustic abilities. (Contains 6 figures, 4 tables and 1 footnote.)

The study examines prosodic characteristics of Hebrew speech directed to children between 0 ; 9-3 ; 0 years, based on longitudinal samples of 228,946 tokens (8,075 types). The distribution of prosodic patterns--the number of syllables and stress patterns--is analyzed across three lexical categories, distinguishing not only between open- and closed-class items, but also between these two categories and a third, innovative, class, referred to as between-class items. Results indicate that Hebrew CDS consists mainly of mono- and bisyllabic words, with differences between lexical categories; and that the most common stress pattern is word-final, with parallel distributions found for all categories. Additional analyses showed that verbs take word-final stress, but nouns are both trochaic and iambic. Finally, a developmental analysis indicates a significant increase in the number of iambic words in CDS. These findings have clear implications regarding the use of prosody for word segmentation and assignment of lexical class in infancy.

Background: Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to recognize, comprehend, and consider oneself's and others' mental states and perspectives to predict and explain behaviors and motivations. It is widely accepted that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience difficulties with ToM. However, there are also findings suggesting that ToM abilities might also be compromised in children with Developmental Language Disorders (DLD). Purpose: To assess ToM abilities in three groups of children: 1. ASD with no language difficulties; 2. DLD, known for their language disorder; and 3. TD with no language issues. Materials and Methods: A total of 41 preschool children aged 5-to-6 were examined and assigned to one of the three groups based on previous clinical reports and a standardized Hebrew language assessment tool. Nonverbal IQ was established with a standardized test to verify within average range placement (> 75 IQ). ToM skills were examined with a Hebrew version of the ToM Task Battery and parent's questionnaire (ToMI). Results: Children with ASD had significantly lower ToM scores compared to the children with DLD, and TD. The ToM scores of the children with DLD were similar to the scores of the TD children. According to the parents' questionnaires, both the ASD children and the DLD children had less developed ToM skills compared to their TD peers. Conclusion: The present findings suggest that children with ASD have a fundamental difficulty in ToM that is independent of their language abilities. Children with DLD show difficulties in everyday social interactions that involve ToM. It is possible that both ASD and language disorders influence ToM development, suggesting that different developmental routes affect the acquisition of ToM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) entails varied developmental pathways along the entire lifespan, demanding early and ongoing diverse and responsive interventions to children's needs. This study examined in situ education and development attained by children and youth with ASD in a school with a therapeutic and educational curriculum. Objectives: (1) Construct individual communication profiles in educational and developmental aspects. (2) Examine for associations between variables. (3) Demonstrate the clinical and educational utility of including cognitive-linguistic integrative variables. (4) Showcase how the profiles guide interventions tailored to students' individual needs. Methods: Functional communication profiles (FCPs) of 21 students, aged 5.0–16.8 years, mostly from bilingual middle-high socioeconomic status families, were constructed with input from their educational and therapeutic staff. Students' performance was examined with an array of instruments and tasks, including person and clock drawings, false belief, and bouba-kiki metaphor screens. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed to uncover associations, weaknesses, and strengths. Results: The profiles revealed associations between cognitive, linguistic, social, and educational abilities, indicating that some abilities from different domains tend to co-occur. Conclusions: Including cognitive linguistic integrative variables was a novelty that revealed additional aspects of the children's abilities. Staff feedback confirmed the utility of FCPs in providing "a roadmap" to needed individual and common curriculum adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of phonological processing in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as it pertains to their nonverbal cognitive and linguistic abilities. Methods: Twenty-one participants between the ages of 9 and 21 years were administered a nonverbal cognitive assessment (Raven test), a language measure that requires receptive and expressive knowledge of semantics, syntax and morphology, as well as the integration across these language domains (CELF-4), and a measure of phonological processing (CTOPP). Results: Results show that performance on nonword repetition (NWR) that reflects an aspect of phonological memory was significantly low, whereas performance on phoneme reversal, phoneme elision, blending words and memory for digits was within the normal range. Hierarchical regressions with age, nonverbal intelligence (Raven test) and receptive language (CELF) as predictors showed that for NWR and phoneme elision the receptive part of the CELF was the main significant -predictor, after controlling for age. For phoneme reversal and memory for digits, however, the Raven score was the significant predictor, suggesting that cognitive nonverbal ability is the main factor explaining variability in these tasks. Conclusions: A deficit in phonological memory characterizes individuals in the autistic population. This deficit may influence language acquisition in this population consistent with other populations of children with language impairments. Other tasks of phonological awareness, however, might be preserved especially when they do not involve memory for long phonological sequences and when the cognitive abilities are within the norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]