Background: There is minimal research on the contribution of visual information on speech intelligibility for individuals with a laryngectomy (IWL). Aims: The purpose of this project was to determine the effects of mode of presentation (audio-only, audio-visual) on alaryngeal speech intelligibility. Method: Twenty-three naive listeners were…

Slowed speed of processing and impaired rapid temporal processing (RTP) have been proposed to underlie specific language impairment (SLI), but it is not clear that these dysfunctions are unique to SLI. We considered the contribution of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which frequently co-occurs with language impairments, to…

Previous research has not explored the Five Factor Model of personality among adults who stutter. Therefore, the present study investigated the five personality domains of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, as measured by the NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), in a sample of 93 adults seeking speech…

This study examined the ability of 20 preschool children with functional phonological delays and 34 age- and vocabulary-matched typical children to learn words differing in phonotactic probability (i.e., the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence) and neighborhood density (i.e., the number of words that differ from a target by one phoneme).…

This paper addresses effects of age and sex on certain acoustic properties of speech, given conflicting findings on such effects reported in prior research. The speech of 27 younger adults (15 women, 12 men; mean age 25.5 years) and 59 older adults (32 women, 27 men; mean age 75.2 years) was evaluated for identification of differences for sex and…

Awareness has been an important factor in theories of onset and development of stuttering. So far it has been suggested that even young children might be aware of their speech difficulty. The purpose of the present study was to investigate (a) the number of stuttering children aware of their speech difficulty, (b) the description of reported…

Psychogenic dysphonia refers to the loss of voice, in the absence of apparent structural or neurological pathology. It is a disorder seen more often in women and is usually associated with significant life events and emotional difficulties that may lead to conflict over speaking. Therapeutic interventions in voice disorders recommend the adoption…

Purpose: This study was designed to test the word learning abilities of adults with typical language abilities, those with a history of disorders of spoken or written language (hDSWL), and hDSWL plus attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (+ADHD). Methods: Sixty-eight adults were required to associate a novel object with a novel label, and then…

Two experiments investigated the ability of adults with a history of language-based learning disability (hLLD) and their normal language (NL) peers to learn prosodic patterns of a novel language. Participants were exposed to stimuli from an artificial language and tested on items that required generalization of the stress patterns and the…

The purpose of the study was to investigate speed of processing in college students with a history of problems with language. Affected individuals (n = 16) were identified through a self-reported history of language and/or reading difficulties, and compared to a group of 16 unaffected individuals. Measures of language ability and a battery of…

The study of communication and its disorders often involves coding several behaviors and examining the proportions with which individual behaviors are produced within data sets. Problems are encountered when studying multiple behaviors between data sets, because of the interdependence of the proportions: as one coded behavior increases, at least…

The ability to vary language style or register is important for successfully navigating social situations. For example, we speak differently to our boss than we do to our children. This project examined whether high-functioning speakers with ASD were able to vary the language used for requests along continua of "politeness/bossiness", whether any…

Children who use augmentative and alternative communication have been found to experience significant difficulties in the production of fictional and personal narratives. The important role of personal narratives in establishing personal and social identity has received substantial attention in developmental psychology but little attention in the…

This study investigated noun-verb retrieval patterns of 30 adults with chronic undifferentiated schizophrenia and 67 typical adults, to determine if schizophrenia affected nouns (associated with temporal lobe function) differently from verbs (associated with frontal lobe function). Stimuli were homophonic homographic homonyms, balanced according…

Parents of 210 preschool children (age 2-5.7) and their clinicians were asked to describe their expectations for therapy and the changes they observed following treatment. Based on content analysis of the parents' and clinicians' responses, it was apparent that the comments aligned with the World Health Organization's (WHO) International…