Gradient perception of children’s productions of /s/ and /θ/: A comparative study of rating methods

ABSTRACT

Past studies have shown incontrovertible evidence for the existence of covert contrasts in children’s speech, i.e. differences between target productions that are nonetheless transcribed with the same phonetic symbol. Moreover, there is evidence that these are relevant to forming prognoses and tracking progress in children with speech sound disorder. A challenge remains to determine the most efficient and reliable methods for assessing covert contrasts. This study investigates how readily listeners can identify covert contrasts in children’s speech when using a continuous rating scale in the form of a visual analogue scale (VAS) to denote children’s productions. Individual listeners’ VAS responses were found to correlate statistically significantly with a variety of continuous measures of children’s production accuracy, including judgements of binary accuracy pooled over a large set of listeners. These findings reinforce the growing body of evidence that VAS judgements are potentially useful clinical measures of covert contrast.     

Maternal perception of children’s fear: A fMRI study in mothers of preschool children

ABSTRACT

A secure attachment relationship is facilitated by a mother´s ability to perceive her child´s emotions, especially her child´s fear. Prior studies showed that maternal perception of an own child activated a neural network including amygdala, insula and nucleus accumbens (NAcc). Results for different emotions were inconsistent and there are no reports on children´s fear. The goal of this study was to investigate neural responses of 17 mothers to photos of their own and an unknown preschool child with happy and fearful expressions by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Whole brain analyses showed that a fearful (vs. happy) own child elicited larger activity in the visual cortex. Region of interest (ROI) analyses (amygdala, insula, NAcc) revealed stronger responses to a happy (vs. fearful) unknown child, but equally strong responses to one´s own child´s expressions. Moreover, an own (vs. unknown) fearful child elicited larger activity in the insula and NAcc. This suggests that mothers allocated more visual attention towards their own child´s fear, but showed consistent emotional involvement with their own child across expressions. Mothers might respond with stronger empathy and approach motivation towards an own (vs. unknown) fearful child, in line with a key role of fear in the attachment relationship.     

Finding the experts in the crowd: Validity and reliability of crowdsourced measures of children’s gradient speech contrasts

ABSTRACT

Perceptual ratings aggregated across multiple nonexpert listeners can be used to measure covert contrast in child speech. Online crowdsourcing provides access to a large pool of raters, but for practical purposes, researchers may wish to use smaller samples. The ratings obtained from these smaller samples may not maintain the high levels of validity seen in larger samples. This study aims to measure the validity and reliability of crowdsourced continuous ratings of child speech, obtained through Visual Analog Scaling, and to identify ways to improve these measurements. We first assess overall validity and interrater reliability for measurements obtained from a large set of raters. Second, we investigate two rater-level measures of quality, individual validity and intrarater reliability, and examine the relationship between them. Third, we show that these estimates may be used to establish guidelines for the inclusion of raters, thus impacting the quality of results obtained when smaller samples are used.     

A comparison of sighted and visually impaired children’s text comprehension

AimDo children with visual impairments outperform their sighted cohorts in reading and auditory comprehension tasks?MethodsWe address this question by applying panel regression techniques on a comprehensive sample of 16 children with visual impairments from a Greek special school for students with visual impairments.ResultsBy comparing the reader comprehender profile for both children types, we find that the children with visual impairments perform better than their sighted counterparts. The better performance is supported both unconditionally and conditionally on idiosyncratic characteristics, such as age, text complexity, modality, sex and reading ability.ConclusionDecomposing the reader comprehender profile into a literal, global and local type of questions we find that the results are mainly driven by the superior performance of the children with VI in the literal questions.     

Spanish–English speech perception in children and adults: Developmental trends

This study explored the developmental trends and phonetic category formation in bilingual children and adults. Participants included 30 fluent Spanish–English bilingual children, aged 8–11, and bilingual adults, aged 18–40. All completed gating tasks that incorporated code-mixed Spanish–English stimuli. There were significant differences in performance according to phonotactic construction of the stimuli, with fastest word recognition on words with voiceless initial consonants. Analysis of developmental trends revealed significant differences in children's performance by grade level and fastest recognition on English voiceless initial consonants than Spanish voiceless initial consonants. Differences in voice onset time between English and Spanish may have contributed to quicker recognition of English voiceless consonants than Spanish voiceless consonants. It is also possible that increased exposure to both spoken and written English may account for faster recognition of English voiceless words than Spanish voiceless words. In conclusion, multiple factors may influence perception of a second language.     

Children’s perception of their synthetically corrected speech production

We explore children’s perception of their own speech – in its online form, in its recorded form, and in synthetically modified forms. Children with phonological disorder (PD) and children with typical speech and language development (TD) performed tasks of evaluating accuracy of the different types of speech stimuli, either immediately after having produced the utterance or after a delay. In addition, they performed a task designed to assess their ability to detect synthetic modification. Both groups showed high performance in tasks involving evaluation of other children’s speech, whereas in tasks of evaluating one’s own speech, the children with PD were less accurate than their TD peers. The children with PD were less sensitive to misproductions in immediate conjunction with their production of an utterance, and more accurate after a delay. Within-category modification often passed undetected, indicating a satisfactory quality of the generated speech. Potential clinical benefits of using corrective re-synthesis are discussed.     

Differences between the production of [s] and [ʃ] in the speech of adults,typically developing children,and children with speech sound disorders: An ultrasound study

This study describes the criteria that are used in ultrasound to measure the differences between the tongue contours that produce [s] and [?] sounds in the speech of adults, typically developing children (TDC), and children with speech sound disorder (SSD) with the phonological process of palatal fronting. Overlapping images of the tongue contours that resulted from 35 subjects producing the [s] and [?] sounds were analysed to select 11 spokes on the radial grid that were spread over the tongue contour. The difference was calculated between the mean contour of the [s] and [?] sounds for each spoke. A cluster analysis produced groups with some consistency in the pattern of articulation across subjects and differentiated adults and TDC to some extent and children with SSD with a high level of success. Children with SSD were less likely to show differentiation of the tongue contours between the articulation of [s] and [?].     

Direct comparison of oscillatory activity in the motor system of Parkinson’s disease and dystonia: A review of the literature and meta-analysis

ObjectiveTo outline the current knowledge of (sub)cortical oscillations in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and dystonia, and to quantitatively summarize the results of direct comparisons of local oscillatory power between both diseases in the resting state, without medication or stimulation, in both the low-frequency (LF, ±4–12 Hz) and beta (±13 to ∼30 Hz) range.MethodsEight relevant studies were included. Recordings from 127 dystonia-, and 144 PD-patient hemispheres were analyzed. Ratios of LF and beta power between diseases were obtained.ResultsBeta oscillations in dystonia were lower when compared to beta oscillations in PD, ratio = 0.72, Z = 3.56, p = 0.0004, 95% CI [0.60, 0.86]. Subgroup analyses showed significant differences only in the GPi, whilst conflicting evidence was shown in the STN. LF oscillations in PD were lower when compared to LF oscillations in dystonia, ratio = 0.77, Z = 2.45, p = 0.01, 95% CI [0.63, 0.95]. Subgroup analyses showed significant differences in the GPi and the STN, but not in the M1.ConclusionsLF and beta oscillations are present in the resting-state motor network of both PD and dystonia patients. However, the power distribution of those oscillations differs between diseases.SignificanceThis meta-analysis provides high-level evidence which supports the presence of exaggerated oscillations across the parkinsonian/dystonic motor networks.     

Perception of the auditory‐visual illusion in speech perception by children with phonological disorders

An example of the auditory‐visual illusion in speech perception, first described by McGurk and MacDonald, is the perception of [ta] when listeners hear [pa] in synchrony with the lip movements for [ka]. One account of the illusion is that lip‐read and heard speech are combined in an articulatory code since people who mispronounce words respond differently from controls on lip‐reading tasks. A same‐different judgment task assessing perception of the illusion showed no difference in performance between controls and children with speech difficulties. Another experiment compared children with delayed and disordered speech on perception of the illusion. While neither group perceived many illusions, a significant interaction indicated that children with disordered phonology were strongly biased to the auditory component while the delayed group's response was more evenly split between the auditory and visual components of the illusion. These findings suggest that phonological processing, rather than articulation, supports lip‐reading ability.     

Phonetic and phonological aspects of speech in Alzheimer’s disease

ABSTRACT

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can involve changes in communication and can lead to mutism in severe cases. Oral communication may be impaired by phonetic-motor disorders, such as apraxia of speech (AOS), or by language disorders, such as aphasia. Therefore, the identification of manifestations of AOS and phonemic paraphasias in patients with AD is critical to understanding the communication changes and determining the therapeutic planning.

Aims: To identify the distribution of phonetic–phonological manifestations in older patients with AD and healthy older subjects and assess whether these manifestations indicate the origin of the changes, including a predominantly phonetic-motor origin, a predominantly phonological–linguistic origin, or both.

Methods & Procedures: This cross-sectional study evaluated 90 patients with AD and 30 healthy older volunteers. All of the participants underwent the same repetition task for phonetic and phonological assessments using the current classification of phonetic–phonological manifestations; this classification distinguishes characteristics that are mostly related to AOS from other signs that are mostly related to aphasia. Negative binomial regression analysis was conducted to compare the amount of each manifestation presented by the two groups.

Outcomes & Results: The patients with AD showed significantly more signs of aphasia (self-correction, and vowel and consonant substitutions), AOS (prolonged intervals and extended vowel duration), and AOS or aphasia (distortion, omission, attempts at the syllable level, distorted substitutions, and additions) than the healthy older volunteers.

Conclusions: Older adults with AD presented phonetic and phonological changes of aphasia and AOS and, consequently, limitations in symbolic–linguistic planning and motor planning.     

A transdiagnostic data-driven study of children’s behaviour and the functional connectome

Behavioural difficulties are seen as hallmarks of many neurodevelopmental conditions. Differences in functional brain organisation have been observed in these conditions, but little is known about how they are related to a child’s profile of behavioural difficulties. We investigated whether behavioural difficulties are associated with how the brain is functionally organised in an intentionally heterogeneous and transdiagnostic sample of 957 children aged 5–15. We used consensus community detection to derive data-driven profiles of behavioural difficulties and constructed functional connectomes from a subset of 238 children with resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. We identified three distinct profiles of behaviour that were characterised by principal difficulties with hot executive function, cool executive function, and learning. Global organisation of the functional connectome did not differ between the groups, but multivariate patterns of connectivity at the level of Intrinsic Connectivity Networks (ICNs), nodes, and hubs significantly predicted group membership in held-out data. Fronto-parietal connector hubs were under-connected in all groups relative to a comparison sample and children with hot vs cool executive function difficulties were distinguished by connectivity in ICNs associated with cognitive control, emotion processing, and social cognition. This demonstrates both general and specific neurodevelopmental risk factors in the functional connectome.     

Discourse—sentence interaction in the speech of language-disordered and normal children

The effects of linguistic complexity were examined on children's story discourse. Four groups of 15 subjects each were used: (a) language-disordered; (b) chronologically age matched with normal language abilities; (c) language-age matched; and (d) language-age matched with articulatory errors. The experimental task was sentence production in a story context. Phonological complexity (syllable length of words) was varied. Errors simplified phonological, syntactic and story structures. Older normals exhibited the fewest phonological errors and the greatest mean-length complexity for the sentences produced. The language-disordered children made more phonological errors than the younger normals, although they did not differ from the younger normals in the mean-length sentence complexity. No differences occurred in the number of phonological errors or mean-length sentence complexity between the language-age-matched groups, ones with and without articulatory errors. All four groups exhibited similar story structure. The consistent effects of phonological complexity during story production lends support for a limited processing capacity explanation of children's language disorders.     

Neurophysiological,linguistic, and cognitive predictors of children’s ability to perceive speech in noise

Hearing in noisy environments is a complicated task that engages attention, memory, linguistic knowledge, and precise auditory-neurophysiological processing of sound. Accumulating evidence in school-aged children and adults suggests these mechanisms vary with the task’s demands. For instance, co-located speech and noise demands a large cognitive load and recruits working memory, while spatially separating speech and noise diminishes this load and draws on alternative skills. Past research has focused on one or two mechanisms underlying speech-in-noise perception in isolation; few studies have considered multiple factors in tandem, or how they interact during critical developmental years. This project sought to test complementary hypotheses involving neurophysiological, cognitive, and linguistic processes supporting speech-in-noise perception in young children under different masking conditions (co-located, spatially separated). Structural equation modeling was used to identify latent constructs and examine their contributions as predictors. Results reveal cognitive and language skills operate as a single factor supporting speech-in-noise perception under different masking conditions. While neural coding of the F0 supports perception in both co-located and spatially separated conditions, neural timing predicts perception of spatially separated listening exclusively. Together, these results suggest co-located and spatially separated speech-in-noise perception draw on similar cognitive/linguistic skills, but distinct neural factors, in early childhood.     

Standardization and cross-cultural comparisons of the Swedish Conners 3® rating scales

Abstract

Purpose: The Conners Rating Scales are widely used in research and clinical practice for measuring attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and associated problem behaviors, but country-specific norms are seldom collected. The current study presents the standardization of the Swedish Conners 3^® Rating Scales. In addition, we compared the Swedish norms to those collected in the U.S. and Germany.

Material and methods: The study included altogether 3496 ratings of children and adolescents aged 6–18 years from population-based samples.

Results: The scores obtained for the Swedish Conners 3^® showed satisfactory to excellent internal consistency for most subscales and excellent test–retest reliability. Across-informant correlations were modest. Cross-country comparisons revealed that aggression symptoms rated by teachers and ADHD symptoms rated by parents differed between Sweden, Germany and the U.S. Executive functioning deficits also varied as a function of rater and country, with German and Swedish teachers reporting increasing behavior problems with age, whereas a decrease was observed in the U.S. For some subscales, the observed cross-cultural differences were large enough for a child to be classified as being within the normal range (t-score <60) in one country and within the clinical range (t-score?>?70) in another country.

Conclusion: The present study shows that the Swedish adaptation of the Conners 3^® provides consistent and reproducible scores. However, across-informant ratings were only modest and significant cross-cultural differences in scoring were observed. This emphasizes the need for multi-informant assessment as well as for national norms for rating instruments commonly used within child and adolescent psychiatry research and clinical settings.     

Mother-child similarity in brain morphology: A comparison of structural characteristics of the brain’s reading network

BackgroundSubstantial evidence acknowledges the complex gene-environment interplay impacting brain development and learning. Intergenerational neuroimaging allows the assessment of familial transfer effects on brain structure, function and behavior by investigating neural similarity in caregiver-child dyads.MethodsNeural similarity in the human reading network was assessed through well-used measures of brain structure (i.e., surface area (SA), gyrification (lG), sulcal morphology, gray matter volume (GMV) and cortical thickness (CT)) in 69 mother-child dyads (children’s age~11 y). Regions of interest for the reading network included left-hemispheric inferior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobe and fusiform gyrus. Mother-child similarity was quantified by correlation coefficients and familial specificity was tested by comparison to random adult-child dyads. Sulcal morphology analyses focused on occipitotemporal sulcus interruptions and similarity was assessed by chi-square goodness of fit.ResultsSignificant structural brain similarity was observed for mother-child dyads in the reading network for lG, SA and GMV (r = 0.349/0.534/0.542, respectively), but not CT. Sulcal morphology associations were non-significant. Structural brain similarity in lG, SA and GMV were specific to mother-child pairs. Furthermore, structural brain similarity for SA and GMV was higher compared to CT.ConclusionIntergenerational neuroimaging techniques promise to enhance our knowledge of familial transfer effects on brain development and disorders.     

Boston children’s hospital and the origin of pediatric neurosurgery

The Department of Neurosurgery at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) has had a rich and sustained tradition of excellence over the years. This review traces the history of neurosurgery at BCH and the seminal role the department has played in advancing the field of pediatric neurosurgery worldwide (Fig. 1).     

Evaluation and clinical correlation of practical cut-offs for visual rating scales of atrophy: normal aging versus mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease

Age-related brain atrophy is a common finding, but neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease are associated with accelerated atrophy of the medial temporal lobe. In current practice for brain atrophy evaluation, several rating scales are being used such as the medial temporal atrophy (MTA), global cortical atrophy-frontal subscale (GCA-F) and posterior atrophy (PA) scales. Practical cut-offs to differentiate between normal and advanced brain atrophy are needed, because of their possible usefulness as a biomarker. A retrospective study was performed over a 1-year period resulting in a total of 79 subjects [27 patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), 27 patients with minimal cognitive impairment (MCI) and 25 control subjects]. The MTA, GCA-F and PA scales were applied blinded and independent by two raters. Possible age- and disease-related cut-offs were computed. The MTA scale showed significantly better diagnostic performances and inter-rater agreement than the PA and GCA-F scales. We could not confirm the suggested MTA cut-off for each decade. However, an MTA score of >1 and >1.75 was considered pathological, respectively, in the population under and over 70 years. MTA can be of use in making distinction between age-related atrophy and abnormal increase of atrophy. Systematic assessment of regional brain atrophy through the use of MTA in MRI images could be a useful biomarker in aiding the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.     

A comparison of the relationship between manual dexterity and postural control in young and older individuals with Parkinson’s disease

The motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) cause deterioration in manual dexterity. This deterioration affects independence in activities of daily living negatively. The loss of postural control, which occurs more frequently with disease progression, restricts physical functions and reduces mobility in patients with PD. Impaired postural control may affect distal mobility of an individual. The aim of this study was to investigate postural control and manual dexterity in individuals ≤ 65 and >65 years with PD and analyze the relationship between these variables according to age. Sixty-six individuals with PD participated in the study. The participants were categorized according to age (n = 29 for 65 years of age or younger and n = 37 for older). Manual dexterity (Dominant and Non-dominant hand) was assessed by the Nine Hole Peg Test (NHPT). Postural control was evaluated by the Limit of Stability Test (LoS) using a computerized balance measuring instrument. There was no statistically significant difference between the age groups on the combined dependent variables after controlling for disability, gender, weight, and height; F(7, 54) = 0.804, p = 0.587. Only LoS-Maximum Excursion was higher in the individuals ≤ 65 years (p = 0.035). Significant correlations were found between NHPT-Dominant and LoS-Reaction Time, LoS-Maximum Excursion; NHPT-Non-dominant and LoS-Reaction Time, LoS-Endpoint Excursion, LoS-Maximum Excursion in the older group (p < 0.05). There was no difference manual dexterity and postural control according to age except for LoS-Maximum Excursion. LoS-Maximum Excursion was higher in the young group. The manual dexterity was associated with postural control in individuals over 65 years of age with PD; however, not associated in younger individuals.     

The influence of visual and auditory information on the perception of speech and non‐speech oral movements in patients with left hemisphere lesions

Patients with lesions of the left hemisphere often suffer from oral‐facial apraxia, apraxia of speech, and aphasia. In these patients, visual features often play a critical role in speech and language therapy, when pictured lip shapes or the therapist's visible mouth movements are used to facilitate speech production and articulation. This demands audiovisual processing both in speech and language treatment and in the diagnosis of oral‐facial apraxia. The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in audiovisual perception of speech as compared to non‐speech oral gestures. Bimodal and unimodal speech and non‐speech items were used and additionally discordant stimuli constructed, which were presented for imitation. This study examined a group of healthy volunteers and a group of patients with lesions of the left hemisphere. Patients made substantially more errors than controls, but the factors influencing imitation accuracy were more or less the same in both groups. Error analyses in both groups suggested different types of representations for speech as compared to the non‐speech domain, with speech having a stronger weight on the auditory modality and non‐speech processing on the visual modality. Additionally, this study was able to show that the McGurk effect is not limited to speech.