The purpose of this study was to compare NSST data (Lee, 1969, 1971) with data obtained in Portland, Oregon for children 4.0-4.11 years of age. The questions this study sought to answer were: 1) Is there a significant difference between the expressive and receptive scores obtained by Lee, (1969, 1971) and the scores obtained in Portland, Oregon? 2) What are the means, standard deviations and percentiles of the NSST scores of a select group of four-year-old children in Portland, Oregon?

Hearing aid manufacturers commonly engineer automatic gain control (AGC) circuits which are aimed at reducing'sound tolerance problems and improving speech intelligibility among wearers. The most common type of AGC engineered is one utilizing a fast attack time. The present study was designed to evaluate the effects of both fast and slow attack times on the intelligibility of speech. Twenty-four normal hearing subjects listened to sixty pre-recorded sentences through two types of hearing aid circuits. Thirty sentences were modified by a fast attack AGC circuit, and thirty sentences were modified by a slow attack AGC. The subjects marked one of four multiple~choice answers for each sentence. The mean number of sentences answered incorrectly when heard through fast attack AGC was 8.25. When heard through slow attack AGC, the mean was 6.67. The performance differences which exist between these two modes of signal modification suggest that the fast attack does not improve intelligibility as significantly as slow attack time among normal listeners. Further investigation into the effects of slow attack AGC circuits on the user's ability to understand speech are recommended.

Laryngectomy, as a treatment for malignant laryngeal lesions, requires the patient to seek a substitute method of producing speech. Three types of alaryngeal speech were described: esophageal, Asai, and artificial larynx. One consideration in deciding which mode of speech is best for the patient is how closely each type of alaryngeal speech approximates normal. This investigation was an objective examination of esophageal, Asai, and artificial larynx speech as compared with normal in males and females.

The purpose of this study was to determine the significance of chronological age on the comprehension of spatial adjectives in children. Specifically, the investigation set out to determine the age levels at which children comprehend the polar forms of various spatial adjectives and to determine the difference in age levels of comprehension of unmarked versus marked adjective forms. Seventy children between the ages of two years, +/-2 months and eight years, + 2 months, selected on the basis of chronological age, normal receptive vocabulary recognition and normal hearing, participated as subjects.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of a familial lineage for dyslexia by analyzing certain auditory processing characteristics of dyslexic children and their parents. The Staggered Spondaic Word test was administered to twenty-one dyslexic children, eight to thirteen years of age, their natural parents and normal reading siblings. The experimental test data were tabulated and analyzed according to listening condition for each of the four groups: dyslexic children, normal reading siblings, affected parents and non-affected parents. A statistical analysis of the experimental data revealed significantly poorer Staggered Spondaic Word test performances for dyslexic children and their affected parents, in both the right and left competing listening conditions, when compared to test performances of their normal reading siblings and non-affected parents. These test results appear to support a genetic precursor theory for dyslexia. The experimental findings from the present investigation are discussed in terms of their clinical implications for the identification and management of dyslexic children.

This investigation compared the auditory memory span and sequence of language/learning disabled children with that of normal children to determine if there was a difference between the two groups on short-term auditory memory, ordering of stimulus type difficulty and performance on subtests using various stimulus types. Fifteen LD subjects were matched with fifteen normal subjects for mental age as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The Auditory Memory Test Battery (AMTB) was administered to each subject. The AMTB consists of five tape recorded subtests of recall for sentences, digits, related words, unrelated words, and nonsense words. Each subject responded verbally to the randomly presented subtests. This resulted in ten scores for each subject: a span score and sequence score for each of the five subtests, with a possible twenty-eight points for each subtest for both span and sequence.

The purpose of this study was to compare PPVT scores of Black children and language delayed White children in order to determine whether the patterning of errors can be differentiated between the two groups. The study involved twenty Black children and twenty language delayed White children between the ages of six years, six months, and seven years, six months. The subjects were from families of lower socioeconomic status. The White subjects were given the Utah Test of Language Development to establish degree of language delay. The study was designed to determine whether either the language delayed White subjects or the Black subjects would miss any items on the PPVT significantly more often than the other group. The study sought to determine whether either group consistently made the same incorrect choice on items which they miss more frequently than the other group. Finally, the study was conducted to find whether the mean ceiling item reached by the two groups would be significantly different. The results of the study indicate the patterning of errors cannot be differentiated between the two groups. No significant difference was present between the mean ceiling item reached by the groups, and only two test items were missed significantly more often by the language delayed White subjects than by the Black subjects. It is postulated that factors which might influence PPVT results in the Black population, as well as the White population, are: 1) the mean level of education of the community; 2) the residential stability of the population; and 3) the regional area from which new residents migrate.

The purpose of this study was to determine if a difference exists between mean standard scores of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (PPVT-R) (Dunn and Dunn, 1981) and the Expressive One- Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT) (Gardner, 1979) for children in several diagnostic categories. The subjects used in this study were 45 preschool children ranging in age from 36 to 47 months. These subjects were divided into groups of normal, expressively language-delayed (ELD) and normal children with a history of expressive language delay (HELD).

Language delay and phonological delay have been shown to coexist. Because they so often co-occur, it is possible that they may interact, sharing a relationship during the child's development. A group of children who were "late talkers" as toddlers, achieved normal development in their syntactic ability by the preschool period. Because their language abilities are known to have increased rapidly, data on their phonological development could provide information on the relationship between phonological and syntactic development. The purpose of this study was to compare the percentage of phonological process usage of the eight most commonly used simplification processes in four-year-old expressive language delayed (ELD) children, children with a history of slow expressive language development (HX), and normally developing (ND) children. The questions this study sought to answer were: do ELD children exhibit a higher percentage of phonological process usage than ND children, and are HX children significantly different in their percentage of phonological process usage than ND and/or ELD children.

Children with severe physical disabilities often do not have the capabilities for oral communication. Professionals are frequently faced with selecting vocabulary for children who are unable to use vocal output because of severe motor impairments. A child who is nonambulatory may have additional reasons for communicating and sees the world from a different viewpoint than his ambulatory peers. Selecting appropriate words for an initial lexicon that are useful to nonspeaking disabled children that also meet normal language acquisition standards is a concern. This study specifically addresses this concern by looking at the vocabulary differences of ambulatory and nonambulatory preschool children. The purpose of this research project was to compare expressive vocabulary produced by nonambulatory, speaking children with the expressive vocabulary produced by ambulatory, speaking children. It is suggested that the vocabulary of nonambulatory, speaking children might be more appropriate for selecting a lexicon for AAC systems if indeed, they are different from words produced by ambulatory, speaking children.