Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS; Lee 1974) is a well established, structured method for analyzing a child's expressive syntax within the context of a conversational speech sample. Automated DSS programs may increase efficiency of DSS analysis; however the program must be accurate in order to yield valid and reliable results. A recent study by Sagae, Lavie, and MacWhinney (2005) proposed a new method for analyzing the accuracy of automated language analysis programs. This method was used in addition to previously established methods to analyze the accuracy of a new automated DSS program, entitled DSSA (Channell, 2006). Previously collected language samples from 118 children between the ages of 3 and 11 years in age were manually and automatedly coded for DSS. The overall accuracy of DSSA was about 86%, while the mean point difference was approximately .7. DSSA generally scored language samples of children achieving lower manual DSS scores or children with language impairment with less accuracy than those of other children. While some precautions may need to be taken, accuracy levels are sufficiently high to allow the fully automated use of DSSA as an alternative to manual DSS scoring.

This study re-examined the language and social skills of four females with language impairment who were initially studied eight years ago (Brinton, Fujiki, Montague, & Hanton, 2000; Fujiki, Brinton, Isaacson, & Summers, 2001). Language measures included the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition (Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003) and a thirty minute language sample. Social measures included the UCLA Loneliness Scale-Version 3 (Russell, 1996), parent, teacher and student forms of the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990), and an interview with each participant's teacher or speech-language pathologist. Results of the current assessment were compared to results from the original assessment. In terms of social ability, the two girls who were classified as having the best social skills initially, Jean and Kristine, still appeared to be the most successful in the current study. Despite their social strengths, Jean's teacher indicated that she was socially immature and had difficulty reading the social cues of teachers and peers. Kristine reported that she prefers isolation. Her teacher reported that Kristine may be at risk for self-harm. Amy was still enrolled in resource and speech-language services. Though she had found acceptance in a cultural peer group, her communication style often appeared rude and disrespectful to adults. Marie was dismissed from speech-language intervention, but was still enrolled in resource and received extra academic support from Sylvan Learning Center to be moderately successful. Socially, she demonstrated a high level of problem behaviors and mood swings. According to the UCLA Loneliness Scale, she experienced the most loneliness and isolation of the four subjects. Similar to what has been observed in group studies of children with language impairment, the results from this study found social deficits in these individuals persisted into young-adulthood.

Infants 6-8 months old are able to identify nearly every speech sound contrast on which they have been tested, regardless of whether that contrast represents an across-category (two different phonemes) phonetic change in their native language or not. A child's ability to identify non-native consonant contrasts greatly diminishes by 11-12 months of age. The present study examined speech sound discrimination in three groups of listeners. Adult second language (L2) listeners of Spanish were compared with native English listeners with no knowledge of Spanish and native Mexican listeners to determine if they would show the ability to discriminate phonetic distinctions that are present in Spanish and not English. Behavioral and Electrophysiological measures were obtained in response to a continuum of bilabial consonant-vowel (CV) stimuli that differed in voice onset time (VOT) from -50 to 30 ms VOT (/ba/ to /pa/). The -50 ms VOT stimulus was paired with each of the others to form stimulus pairs with varying degrees of acoustic difference. Behavioral data showed that L2 listeners of Spanish perceived a transition from /ba/ to /pa/ later than native Spanish listeners but earlier than English only listeners. Electrophysiological data using the mismatch negativity revealed that the both L2 Spanish and native Spanish listeners perceived a distinction between stimuli in the stimulus pairs 20 ms earlier than English only listeners. These results support the theory that underlying neural-sensory representations of speech may be altered by linguistic experiences, and that the loss of non-native speech sound discrimination abilities in infancy and the regaining of these abilities in adulthood is not due merely to attentional bias.

Concerns regarding Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) has led to adaptations of this method of analysis. A recent study by Johnston (2001) introduced an alternative to MLU called MLU2. The current study investigates the split-half reliability of MLU and MLU2 as well as another alternative, Median Length of Utterance (Med-LU). Split-half reliability was found for these methods when segmented into Phonological and Communication Units. Split-half reliability of MLU2 was generally higher than that of MLU, and both were higher than Med-LU. The study suggests that MLU2 may also be a valuable tool for clinicians in analyzing child language.

This study examined the brain electrical activity of normal speakers in a non-delayed auditory feedback (DAF) condition and when experiencing DAF to determine the effect DAF would have on the Bereitschaftspotential (BP). The BP reflects the preparatory state of a person prior to motor execution of an act and can be observed 1500 to 500 ms prior to voluntary movement. The participants in the study included 10 adults with normal speech. Each read a series of 30 sentences, both without DAF and with DAF, while the BP was measured. Results indicate that the BP is present across the scalp in both the control condition and the DAF condition; however, the BP is reduced in the DAF condition. The scalp distribution maps indicate an increased negativity in the left frontal lobe in the DAF condition. These findings suggest that while the brain is engaged in processing current information that has already been initiated, the motor system may not be able to be primed for the next sequential motor event. There is still a need for more research to explore the motor control of speech and the ways altered feedback may disrupt the speech motor control.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of talker and listener dialect on the validity and reliability of word recognition scores from two sets of Mandarin speech audiometry materials. Four lists of bisyllabic words in Mainland Mandarin and Taiwan Mandarin dialects were administered to 16 participants of each dialect with normal hearing across two test sessions. The performance on materials presented in the native dialect was compared to performance on non-native dialect assessment to determine validity and reliability of test materials. Statistical analysis indicated significant differences between word recognition scores across test sessions, talker and listener dialect, and among lists. However it is unclear if such differences constitute clinically significant differences.

This study examined the electrophysiological activity of two children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and two aged-matched peers while listening to syntactically correct sentences versus syntactically incorrect sentences. The study specifically analyzed the N400 and P600 components. The N400 component is a negative wave occurring approximately 400 ms post-stimulus and is elicited by semantically incorrect stimuli. The P600 component is a positivity that occurs approximately 600 ms post-stimulus and reflects processing of syntactically incorrect stimuli. The participants in the study included a 7-year-old child and a 9-year-old child with SLI and two age-matched peers with typically developing language. Each participant listened to a series of syntactically correct and incorrect stimuli. The results of this study indicate that children with SLI present with an N400 while listening to both syntactically correct and incorrect stimuli. This suggests that these participants have greater lexical and semantic processing demands while listening to sentence stimuli. The study also suggests that 7-year-olds have greater syntactic processing demands as seen by the presence of the P600 in both the correct and incorrect conditions. This was likely due to the complexity of the sentence stimuli which included irregular past tense and irregular plural forms. Further research is still needed in order to better understand the role of the N400 and P600 in children with SLI, which will provide useful information regarding the neurological basis for language impairments.

Speech recognition threshold (SRT) is an important clinical measure that validates the pure-tone average (PTA), assists in diagnosis and prognosis of hearing and hearing impairment, and helps identify non-organic hearing impairment. Few published, recorded, and standardized materials exist in languages other than English, which results in audiologists testing individuals using materials developed in a non-native language. Research shows that this is problematic, as certain criterion for SRT testing are not met. Thus, performance may reflect test-language deficiency rather than hearing impairment. Currently, there are no known published materials for use in measuring the SRT in individuals whose native language is Tongan. The purpose of this project was to record and develop psychometrically equivalent words in Tongan for measuring the SRT. This study identified 28 trisyllabic words that were relatively homogenous in relation to audibility and psychometric function slope. The intensity of these 28 words was adjusted to equate 50% threshold performance for each word with the mean PTA (5.92 dB HL) for the twenty normally hearing participants. These materials were digitally recorded onto compact disc for distribution and use for SRT testing in Tongan.

Speech audiometry materials are essential for thorough audiological testing. One aspect of speech audiometry is evaluating an individual's speech recognition threshold (SRT). Recorded materials for SRT are available in many languages; however there are no widely published recorded SRT materials available in the Thai language. The goal of this study was to develop relatively psychometrically equivalent SRT materials for evaluating the hearing abilities of native speakers of the Thai language. To accomplish this, 90 commonly used bisyllabic Thai words were digitally recorded by a male and a female talker and evaluated by 20 native Thai listeners. Twenty-eight words with relatively steep and homogeneous psychometric function slopes were selected and adjusted to reduce threshold variability. These 28 selected words were digitally recorded onto compact disc to facilitate SRT testing for native Thai speakers.

Many studies in speech communication have provided valuable findings concerning the kinematic nature of speech articulation. This type of research often involves introducing an oral device to the vocal tract such as lingual pellets, magnets, and different forms of pseudopalates to track the movement and placement of the articulators. This study examined the effect of an electropalatography (EPG) pseudopalate on the production of five voiceless obstruents (/p, t, k, s/ and /sh/). Acoustic recordings from 20 adult speakers with typical speech production were made during three different speaking conditions: prior to pseudopalate placement, immediately after placement, and following 20 minutes of conversation. The obstruent articulations were examined in terms of four spectral moments (spectral mean, spectral variance, spectral skewness, and spectral kurtosis). The spectral analysis indicated that placement of a pseudopalate resulted in a statistically significant disturbance of the speakers' obstruent productions. After 20 minutes of conversation with the pseudopalate in place, results of the spectral analysis indicated that participants' productions trended back toward a typical pattern of articulation; however their adaptation was not complete and it remains unclear if further practice with the pseudopalate would result in typical speech production.