Florian B. Pokorny

Three different profiles: early socio-communicative capacities in typical Rett syndrome, the preserved speech variant and normal development.

Abstract Background and aims: This is the first study aiming to compare pre-diagnostic socio-communicative development of a female with typical Rett syndrome (RTT), a female with the preserved speech variant of RTT (PSV) and a control toddler. Methods: We analysed 1275 min of family videos at the participants’ age between 9 and 24 months and used the Inventory of Potential Communicative Acts (IPCA) to delineate their repertoires of communicative forms and functions. Results: The results revealed different profiles for the three different conditions. The repertoire of communicative gestures and (pre)linguistic vocalizations was most comprehensive in the control toddler, followed by the female with PSV and the female with RTT. Conclusion: These findings contribute to the growing knowledge about early developmental abnormalities in RTT. In order to define distinctive profiles for typical and atypical RTT and evaluate their specificity, a larger body of evidence is needed.

How can clinicians detect and treat autism early? Methodological trends of technology use in research

We reviewed original research papers that used quantifiable technology to detect early autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and identified 376 studies from 34 countries from 1965 to 2013. Publications have increased significantly since 2000, with most coming from the USA. Electroencephalogram, magnetic resonance imaging and eye tracking were the most frequently used technologies.

Detection of negative emotions in speech signals using bags-of-audio-words

Boosted by a wide potential application spectrum, emotional speech recognition, i.e., the automatic computer-aided identification of human emotional states based on speech signals, currently describes a popular field of research. However, a variety of studies especially concentrating on the recognition of negative emotions often neglected the specific requirements of real-world scenarios, for example, robustness, real-time capability, and realistic speech corpora. Motivated by these facts, a robust, low-complex classification system for the detection of negative emotions in speech signals was implemented on the basis of a spontaneous, strongly emotionally colored speech corpus. Therefore, an innovative approach in the field of emotion recognition was applied as the core of the system - the bag-of-words approach that is originally known from text and image document retrieval applications. Thorough performance evaluations were carried out and a promising recognition accuracy of 65.6 % for the 2-class paradigm negative versus non-negative emotional states attests to the potential of bags-of-words in speech emotion recognition in the wild.

A Novel Way to Measure and Predict Development: A Heuristic Approach to Facilitate the Early Detection of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Purpose of ReviewSubstantial research exists focusing on the various aspects and domains of early human development. However, there is a clear blind spot in early postnatal development when dealing with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially those that manifest themselves clinically only in late infancy or even in childhood.Recent FindingsThis early developmental period may represent an important timeframe to study these disorders but has historically received far less research attention. We believe that only a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach will enable us to detect and delineate specific parameters for specific neurodevelopmental disorders at a very early age to improve early detection/diagnosis, enable prospective studies and eventually facilitate randomised trials of early intervention.SummaryIn this article, we propose a dynamic framework for characterising neurofunctional biomarkers associated with specific disorders in the development of infants and children. We have named this automated detection ‘Fingerprint Model’, suggesting one possible approach to accurately and early identify neurodevelopmental disorders.

The Relation between Reading Skills and Eye Movement Patterns in Adolescent Readers : Evidence from a Regular Orthography

Over the past decades, the relation between reading skills and eye movement behavior has been well documented in English-speaking cohorts. As English and German differ substantially with regard to orthographic complexity (i.e. grapheme-phoneme correspondence), we aimed to delineate specific characteristics of how reading speed and reading comprehension interact with eye movements in typically developing German-speaking (Austrian) adolescents. Eye movements of 22 participants (14 females; mean age = 13;6 years;months) were tracked while they were performing three tasks, namely silently reading words, texts, and pseudowords. Their reading skills were determined by means of a standardized German reading speed and reading comprehension assessment (Lesegeschwindigkeits- und -verständnistest für Klassen 6−12). We found that (a) reading skills were associated with various eye movement parameters in each of the three reading tasks; (b) better reading skills were associated with an increased efficiency of eye movements, but were primarily linked to spatial reading parameters, such as the number of fixations per word, the total number of saccades and saccadic amplitudes; (c) reading speed was a more reliable predictor for eye movement parameters than reading comprehension; (d) eye movements were highly correlated across reading tasks, which indicates consistent reading performances. Contrary to findings in English-speaking cohorts, the reading skills neither consistently correlated with temporal eye movement parameters nor with the number or percentage of regressions made while performing any of the three reading tasks. These results indicate that, although reading skills are associated with eye movement patterns irrespective of language, the temporal and spatial characteristics of this association may vary with orthographic consistency.

Does She Speak RTT? Towards an Earlier Identification of Rett Syndrome Through Intelligent Pre-Linguistic Vocalisation Analysis.

For many years, an apparently normal early development has been regarded as a main characteristic of Rett syndrome (RTT), a severe progressive neurodevelopmental disorder almost exclusively affecting girls/females. The speech-language domain represents a key domain for the clinical diagnosis of RTT, which usually happens around three years of age. Recent studies have built upon the assumption that this domain is already affected in the prodromal period. Aiming to find RTTspecific speech-language atypicalities on signal level as early acoustic markers, we analysed more than 16 hours of home video recordings of 4 girls later diagnosed with RTT and 4 typically developing girls aged 6 to 12 months. We segmented a total of 4 678 pre-linguistic vocalisations. A comprehensive set of acoustic features was extracted from the vocalisations as basis for the classification paradigm RTT versus typical development. A promising mean unweighted recognition accuracy of 76.5% was achieved using linear kernel support vector machines and 4fold leave-one-speaker-pair-out cross-validation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach to automatically identify infants later diagnosed with RTT based on acoustic characteristics of pre-linguistic vocalisations. Our findings may build the basis for facilitating earlier identification and thus an avenue for an earlier entry into intervention.

Manual versus Automated: The Challenging Routine of Infant Vocalisation Segmentation in Home Videos to Study Neuro(mal)development.

Copyright

Eye Movements during Silent and Oral Reading in a Regular Orthography: Basic Characteristics and Correlations with Childhood Cognitive Abilities and Adolescent Reading Skills

The present study aimed to define differences between silent and oral reading with respect to spatial and temporal eye movement parameters. Eye movements of 22 German-speaking adolescents (14 females; mean age = 13;6 years;months) were recorded while reading an age-appropriate text silently and orally. Preschool cognitive abilities were assessed at the participants’ age of 5;7 (years;months) using the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children. The participants’ reading speed and reading comprehension at the age of 13;6 (years;months) were determined using a standardized inventory to evaluate silent reading skills in German readers (Lesegeschwindigkeits- und -verständnistest für Klassen 6–12). The results show that (i) reading mode significantly influenced both spatial and temporal characteristics of eye movement patterns; (ii) articulation decreased the consistency of intraindividual reading performances with regard to a significant number of eye movement parameters; (iii) reading skills predicted the majority of eye movement parameters during silent reading, but influenced only a restricted number of eye movement parameters when reading orally; (iv) differences with respect to a subset of eye movement parameters increased with reading skills; (v) an overall preschool cognitive performance score predicted reading skills at the age of 13;6 (years;months), but not eye movement patterns during either silent or oral reading. However, we found a few significant correlations between preschool performances on subscales of sequential and simultaneous processing and eye movement parameters for both reading modes. Overall, the findings suggest that eye movement patterns depend on the reading mode. Preschool cognitive abilities were more closely related to eye movement patterns of oral than silent reading, while reading skills predicted eye movement patterns during silent reading, but less so during oral reading.

On the lighter side: Medicine or etiquette? Rethinking a lecturer’s teaching assignment

ABSTRACT Purpose: To investigate the extent to which medical students demonstrate politeness. With respect to patient–physician interactions, politeness appears to be a factor in therapeutic success, perhaps because it might induce greater patient compliance. Method: We assessed 354 third–semester medical students on one type of politeness, that is the percentage of students who greeted the teacher upon entering the lecture room. Results: Overall, 47% of the students initiated a greeting and this percentage did not change when the lecturers wore white coats. Females were less likely to initiate a greeting (35%) than males (55%). Conclusion: The results lead us to question whether university lecturers should strictly stick to their content of the curriculum or should they also teach their students about etiquette related to good clinician–patient relationships?