<p> Adults with mild to moderate acquired brain injury (ABI) often pursue post-secondary or professional education after their injuries in order to enter or re-enter the job market. An increasing number of these adults report problems with reading-to-learn. The problem is particularly concerning given the growing population of adult survivors of ABI. Combat-related brain trauma and sports concussions are two factors contributing to increases in traumatic brain injuries, while higher incidences of stroke in young adults and better rates of survival after brain tumors are contributing to increases in non-traumatic brain injuries. Despite the rising need, empirical evaluation of reading comprehension interventions for adults with ABI is scarce. This study used a within-subject design to evaluate whether adult college students with ABI with no more than moderate cognitive impairments benefited from using a multi-component reading comprehension strategy package to improve comprehension of expository text. The strategy package was based on empirical support from the cognitive rehabilitation literature that shows individuals with ABI benefit from metacognitive strategy training to improve function in other academic activities. Further empirical support was drawn from the special education literature that demonstrates other populations of struggling readers benefit from reading comprehension strategy use. In this study, participants read chapters from an introductory-level college Anthropology textbook in two different conditions: strategy and no-strategy. The results indicated that providing these readers with reading comprehension strategies was associated with better recall of correct information units in two free recall tasks: one elicited immediately after reading the chapter, and one elicited the following day. The strategy condition was also associated with better efficiency of recall in the delayed task and a more accurate ability to recognize statements from a sentence verification task designed to reflect the local and global coherence of the text. The findings support further research into using reading comprehension strategies as an intervention approach for the adult ABI population. Future research needs include identifying how to match particular reading comprehension strategies to individuals, examining whether reading comprehension performance improves further through the incorporation of systematic training, and evaluating texts from a range of disciplines and genres.</p>

Many current psycholinguistic theories view the mental lexicon as a listing of (only) unpredictable sound-meaning correspondences (primarily words and morphemes). Under this view, regular complex word forms and syntactic structures are built with rules during language production, obviating the need for storage of complex but regular linguistic material. This type of model conflicts with recent experimental evidence that suggests that lexical memory may in fact consist of a more heterogeneous set of linguistic units, including complex word forms and multi-word expressions that in theory could be constructed via rules. Storage of such material seems to be driven largely by frequency. The present research consisted of two experiments designed to investigate whether semantically transparent noun and adjective phrases are stored as single lexical units when they are very frequent. Results from the two tasks (grammaticality judgment and speech production) supported the notion that frequent word combinations can come to be stored holistically in lexical memory. It was argued that usage-based models of lexical memory (vs. dominant generative theories) best account for such data. Data from language acquisition, aphasia, and corpus studies were offered as complementary evidence in support of the more general claim that a large component of linguistic competence is knowledge of lexical co-occurrence patterns. Finally, it was hypothesized that an exemplar-based model of lexical memory best captures the range of available data.

This ethnographic study combines qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine the relationship between culture and language disability. Nine Cree and nine non-Cree couples, all parents of a language-disabled child, were interviewed. The parental responses from the two cultural groups were compared. Comparisons of interest included language socialization patterns, the influence of culture on the concept of language disability and perceptions of speech-language pathology service delivery. Few crosscultural differences in parental responses about caregiver-child interaction and about language disability were identified. It is hypothesized that a process of cultural blending may account for these findings. However, differences relating to the perception of speech-language pathology service delivery were found. While both groups described poor access to services, long waiting periods for intervention and insufficient quantity of service, there were differences in degree reported between the Cree and non-Cree families. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

This study investigated the conditions under which communicative interactions were facilitated in hearing-impaired children and their caregivers as compared to normally hearing children and their caregivers. Participants were six normally hearing children and five hearing-impaired children, and their caregivers. Each interactant's communicative behaviors were coded for the intentions conveyed, discourse turn types, and verbal or nonverbal modalities of expression. Patterns emerged regarding caregiver communicative behaviors that facilitated children's participation in ongoing conversations. Caregiver behaviors most likely to be followed by on-topic responses from normally hearing and hearing-impaired children included caregiver requests, messages expressed through simultaneous verbal and nonverbal means, and turns that extended topics of conversations. Hearing-impaired children tended to produce more partially inadequate on-topic responses to their caregivers' turns than did the normally hearing children. Results are discussed with regard to clinical implications for the improvement or intervention with hearing-impaired children.

Three experiments were conducted with the primary purpose of investigating the ability of right brain-damaged (RBD) individuals to use contextual information--at the level of the single sentence, in terms of the integration of information between clauses, and at the level of a minimal discourse (i.e. two sentences)--in the resolution of ambiguous pronouns. The investigation was extended to a group of left brain-damaged (LBD) and non brain-damaged (NBD) individuals. Four additional studies investigated and found no age effects in the use of contextual information in pronoun resolution. The results of the experiments with brain-damaged subjects were contrary to initial expectations. All three experiments were consistent in demonstrating that the RBD group was influenced by contextual information in a manner similar to that demonstrated by both the LBD and NBD groups. The results are discussed in terms of the distinction between automatic and effortful processing.

A lexical decision task and a semantic judgment task were conducted with eight right brain-damaged, six left brain-damaged and eight control subjects to explore the role of the right hemisphere in the processing of words that connote an emotion and of words that denote an emotion. Accuracy and reaction time data were measured in each experiment. Despite differences in the detailed patterns of responses across groups, there was little evidence to suggest that the right hemisphere is involved in the processing of the two kinds of emotional words. Valence (positive vs negative) had no influence on the results. Nor was there a difference between words that connote and words that denote an emotion. The results that were obtained are discussed in relation to hypotheses about the right hemisphere's role in the processing of emotional words.

<p> Stuttering is a disorder that can be defined in terms of speech characteristics, physical concomitants, emotions, perceptions, and quality of life (Bloodstein &amp; Bernstein Ratner, 2008; Tetnowski &amp; Scaler Scott, 2009; Bennett, 2006). The current literature focuses on describing bilingual stuttering in terms of bilingualism being a cause; linguistic characteristics; and manifestations of stuttering across languages. While standardized measures and definitions of these factors will allow for generalization across studies (Roberts, 2011), they will not provide a holistic picture of the bilingual stuttering experience. This study uses analytic tools grounded in the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday &amp; Matthiessen, 2004) to investigate how four bilingual people who stutter construct their stuttering experiences. Specifically, this study examines the linguistic choices participants made while engaged in conversations about their stuttering. Considering the highly individualistic and multidimensional nature of the phenomenon being examined, a case study approach was adopted to account for the diversity of characteristics and individualized experiences described by each of the four participants in this study. It is through the analysis of their talk that this study provides insight on the affective and cognitive aspects of the bilingual stuttering experience, which have clinical implications for the development of appropriate, meaningful and effective fluency intervention for the "whole" bilingual who stutters.</p>

<p> Toastmasters International (TI) is a well-known worldwide association focused on communication skills and leadership development. TI clubs are designed to build confidence in public speaking. Despite the benefits that members gain from joining Toastmasters clubs, the organization is concerned with the factors that affect members' retention in TI. </p><p> This mixed-methods study of TI clubs in Southern California included member surveys completed at club meetings, interviews with club leaders, and the researcher's extensive field notes. A stratified purposeful sampling method was used to ensure that the sample size included each club category and quota of the target population of TI club members and leaders. One hundred twelve members completed the members' survey, representing a 56% response rate of the paid members in the clubs surveyed. Twelve club leaders participated in long semi-structured interviews. </p><p> The findings revealed that members join TI for self-improvement and development in speaking: the purpose of the TI curriculum. The surveys revealed that 45% of the members join TI to improve communication skills and advance their career. Fifty-six percent indicated that constant participation and attendance at TI meetings helped them to overcome their fear of public speaking. Fifty-seven percent of the members stated that they continue their membership with TI to alleviate their fear of public speaking, improve their communication, and participate in speech contests. </p><p> The survey indicated that 64% of the members enjoyed activities that allowed them to speak during the club meetings. Thirty-nine percent of the members surveyed were able to achieve their competent communicator (CC) and competent leader (CL) awards. Another 39% of the members were also in progress of completing these awards. </p><p> The convenience and location of the club was important for members in terms of their attendance. Members attended meetings when there were enough parking spaces, the club was centrally located and accessible to public transportation, and the club was comfortable as well as conducive for club meetings. It is recommended that TI develop facilities requirements to meet the needs of members and encourage them to remain in the club.</p>

<p> Every year, many thousands of people worldwide lose the ability to speak due to receiving a laryngectomy, typically for treatment of cancer. At some point in their recovery, most will use an electrolarynx to recover their ability to speak. Typical electrolarynxes utilize a piston to strike a disc pressed to the patient's neck which delivers a pressure wave into the soft tissue. This pressure wave mechanically couples with the vocal tract and generates the fundamental frequency necessary for creating vowels without which speech is not possible. </p><p> Commonly available electrolarynxes suffer from poor frequency control due to the nonlinear character of their impulse driver. They also create a great deal of "self-noise" which is distracting to listeners and makes using voice communication systems difficult. </p><p> We propose a novel electrolarynx implementation which utilizes two interfering ultrasonic waves to generate a fundamental frequency in the vocal tract required for speech restoration. The device is light weight, compact, inexpensive, and offers excellent control of all aspects of the output waveform. In addition, as the primary waveforms are above human hearing, there is little "self-noise" that can be heard by listeners and most communications devices filter such noise as part of their standard digitization process. </p><p> This device offers the potential to greatly improve the lives of those who have lost their voices and must rely on technology to allow them to communicate in the most efficient manner.</p>

Various accounts have been proposed to explain the deficits found in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Since many of these hypotheses have been evaluated using English speaking subjects, there is an important need for cross-linguistic evidence. In this study, the language of Quebec French speaking language-impaired children was examined in an attempt to provide further information about the nature and characteristics of this impairment. / The research examined the language of ten 7-year-old unilingual French language-impaired children. Their language was compared to language samples elicited from ten 7-year-old and ten 5-year-old normally developing children. Spontaneous language samples were elicited and analyzed in terms of correct use and error type in six linguistic structures: auxiliaries, copulas, verbs, articles, adjectives, and possessive adjectives. The findings were discussed in light of current competing explanatory hypotheses and were found to support hypotheses that suggest that language impairment is at the level of functional categories. Finally, future directions and clinical implications were addressed.