Martine Coene

Assessing prosodic skills in five European languages: Cross-linguistic differences in typical and atypical populations

Following demand for a prosody assessment procedure, the test Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C), has been translated from English into Spanish, French, Flemish and Norwegian. This provides scope to examine receptive and expressive prosodic ability in Romance (Spanish and French) as well as Germanic (English and Flemish) languages, and includes the possibility of assessing these skills with regard to lexical tone (Norwegian). Cross-linguistic similarities and differences relevant to the translation are considered. Preliminary findings concerning 8-year-old neurotypical children speaking the five languages are reported. The appropriateness of investigating contrastive stress in Romance as well as Germanic languages is considered: results are reported for assessing this skill in Spanish and English speakers and suggest that in Spanish it is acquired much later than in English. We also examine the feasibility of assessing and comparing prosodic disorder in the five languages, using assessments of prosody in Spanish and English speakers with Williams syndrome as an example. We conclude that, with caveats, the original design of the UK test may indicate comparable stages of prosodic development in neurotypical children and is appropriate for the evaluation of prosodic skills for adults and children, both neurotypical and with impairment, in all five languages.

Clinical assessment of pitch perception.

Objective: The perception of pitch has recently gained attention. At present, clinical audiologic tests to assess this are hardly available. This article reports on the development of a clinical test using harmonic intonation (HI) and disharmonic intonation (DI). Study Design: Prospective collection of normative data and pilot study in hearing-impaired subjects. Setting: Tertiary referral center. Patients: Normative data were collected from 90 normal-hearing subjects recruited from 3 different language backgrounds. The pilot study was conducted on 18 hearing-impaired individuals who were selected into 3 pathologic groups: high-frequency hearing loss (HF), low-frequency hearing loss (LF), and cochlear implant users (CI). Intervention(s): Normative data collection and exploratory diagnostics by means of the newly constructed HI/DI tests using intonation patterns to find the just noticeable difference (JND) for pitch discrimination in low-frequency harmonic complex sounds presented in a same-different task. Main Outcome Measure(s): JND for pitch discrimination using HI/DI tests in the hearing population and pathologic groups. Results: Normative data are presented in 5 parameter statistics and box-and-whisker plots showing median JNDs of 2 (HI) and 3 Hz (DI). The results on both tests are statistically abnormal in LF and CI subjects, whereas they are not significantly abnormal in the HF group. Conclusion: The HI and DI tests allow the clinical assessment of low-frequency pitch perception. The data obtained in this study define the normal zone for both tests. Preliminary results indicate possible abnormal TFS perception in some hearing-impaired subjects.

Genetic predisposition and sensory experience in language development: Evidence from cochlear-implanted children

Recent neurobiological studies have advanced the hypothesis that language development is not continuously plastic but is governed by biological constraints that may be modified by experience within a particular time window. This hypothesis is tested based on spontaneous speech data from deaf cochlear-implanted (CI) children with access to linguistic stimuli at different developmental times. Language samples of nine children who received a CI between 5 and 19 months are analysed for linguistic measures representing different stages of language development. These include canonical babbling ratios, vocabulary diversity, and functional elements such as determiners. The results show that language development is positively related to the age at which children get first access to linguistic input and that later access to language is associated with a slower-than-normal language-learning rate. As such, the positive effect of early experience on the functional organisation of the brain in language processes is confirmed by behavioural performance.

Finite Verb Morphology in the Spontaneous Speech of Dutch-Speaking Children With Hearing Loss.

Objective: In this study, the acquisition of Dutch finite verb morphology is investigated in children with cochlear implants (CIs) with profound hearing loss and in children with hearing aids (HAs) with moderate to severe hearing loss. Comparing these two groups of children increases our insight into how hearing experience and audibility affect the acquisition of morphosyntax. Design: Spontaneous speech samples were analyzed of 48 children with CIs and 29 children with HAs, ages 4 to 7 years. These language samples were analyzed by means of standardized language analysis involving mean length of utterance, the number of finite verbs produced, and target-like subject–verb agreement. The outcomes were interpreted relative to expectations based on the performance of typically developing peers with normal hearing. Outcomes of all measures were correlated with hearing level in the group of HA users and age at implantation in the group of CI users. Results: For both groups, the number of finite verbs that were produced in 50-utterance sample was on par with mean length of utterance and at the lower bound of the normal distribution. No significant differences were found between children with CIs and HAs on any of the measures under investigation. Yet, both groups produced more subject–verb agreement errors than are to be expected for typically developing hearing peers. No significant correlation was found between the hearing level of the children and the relevant measures of verb morphology, both with respect to the overall number of verbs that were used and the number of errors that children made. Within the group of CI users, the outcomes were significantly correlated with age at implantation. Conclusion: When producing finite verb morphology, profoundly deaf children wearing CIs perform similarly to their peers with moderate-to-severe hearing loss wearing HAs. Hearing loss negatively affects the acquisition of subject–verb agreement regardless of the hearing device (CI or HA) that the child is wearing. The results are of importance for speech-language pathologists who are working with children with a hearing impairment indicating the need to focus on subject–verb agreement in speech-language therapy.

An asymmetry in the acquisition of accusative clitics in child Romanian

In spite of the fact that the distinction between 1st/2nd and 3rd person pronouns has been acknowledged in the literature for a long time (Benveniste 1966; Postal 1966) most studies dealing with accusative clitics chose to focus on what these pronominals had in common – defi ciency and distribution – irrespective of their person value. This focus in the theoretical literature had an immediate resonance in the domain of acquisition. Most studies which analysed the development of accusative clitics on the basis of longitudinal data did not make any (explicit) difference between 1st/2nd vs. 3rd person, while those relying on experimental data looked exclusively at 3rd person accusative clitics.1 Among the few theoretical studies which explicitly address the differences between 1st/2nd vs. 3rd person in the domain of defi cient pronominals is Kayne (2000). The main claim is that in French and Italian 1st/2nd person accusative clitics (mand t-) belong to a natural class which excludes 3rd person accusative clitics (l-) but which includes the refl exive clitic s-. According to Kayne, only 3rd person non-refl exive accusative clitics are determiner-pronouns (D-pronouns). Similarly, Uriagereka (1995) argues that 3rd person clitics alone are of category D, whereas 1st/2nd person clitics are DPs. He also notices that refl exive se might belong to a category different from D (p. 85).

Perception of Pitch Changes in Hearing-Impaired Adults with Aided and Unaided Hearing Loss

Background: Pitch relates to the low frequency temporal content of sound, which mainly depends on phase coding at the level of the auditory nerve. In this study, we aim to assess the detectibility of pitch changes in different populations of hearingimpaired subjects suffering from sensorineural hearing loss in order to identify possible poor temporal coding. Material and Methods: A number of tests – part of the A§E (ASSE or Auditory Speech Sounds Evaluation) psychoacoustic test suite – were used to assess the perception of pitch changes in adults with a hearing loss (a) in the high frequencies with or without classical hearing aids, (b) in the low frequencies, and (c) in a group of cochlear implant users. All test stimuli were controlled for their fundamental frequency (F0), which either remained stable during the stimulus presentation or which, simulating intonation, glided from F0 to F0+∆. Isolated synthetic complexes were used as well as pseudo-words or pseudosentences mimicking linguistically relevant contexts. The subjects were asked to distinguish these sounds in either identification or discrimination tasks. Results: Hearing-impaired subjects, and particularly those with low-frequency hearing loss, performed significantly worse in comparison to hearing adults on all tests. The use of a hearing aid did not yield significant improvements. The cochlear implant users experienced great difficulty in performing the tests. Conclusion: The intonation tests of A§E2009 are a useful diagnostic tool to distinguish hearing-impaired subjects based on their capacity to process low-frequency information. The tests may be of particular use in the evaluation of the impact of auditory rehabilitation, hearing aids, or electro-acoustic stimulation.

Spoken Word Recognition Errors in Speech Audiometry: A Measure of Hearing Performance?

This report provides a detailed analysis of incorrect responses from an open-set spoken word-repetition task which is part of a Dutch speech audiometric test battery. Single-consonant confusions were analyzed from 230 normal hearing participants in terms of the probability of choice of a particular response on the basis of acoustic-phonetic, lexical, and frequency variables. The results indicate that consonant confusions are better predicted by lexical knowledge than by acoustic properties of the stimulus word. A detailed analysis of the transmission of phonetic features indicates that “voicing” is best preserved whereas “manner of articulation” yields most perception errors. As consonant confusion matrices are often used to determine the degree and type of a patients hearing impairment, to predict a patients gain in hearing performance with hearing devices and to optimize the device settings in view of maximum output, the observed findings are highly relevant for the audiological practice. Based on our findings, speech audiometric outcomes provide a combined auditory-linguistic profile of the patient. The use of confusion matrices might therefore not be the method best suited to measure hearing performance. Ideally, they should be complemented by other listening task types that are known to have less linguistic bias, such as phonemic discrimination.

The Relation Between Early Implantation and the Acquisition of Grammar

Cochlear implantation gives many profoundly deaf children access to auditory input and enables them to develop spoken language. Cochlear implanted (CI) children develop language faster than when they had been fitted with hearing aids alone (HA) (Svirsky et al., 2000). Previous research by our team shows that children implanted before 15 months show even faster-than-normal language learning rates. This has led us to hypothesize that, by the age of 3, early implanted children will have closed the initial gap with their typically developing (TD) peers (Coene et al., in press). From this age onwards, more complex morphosyntactic development begins. The acquisition of grammatical elements is particularly dependent on sufficient auditory access, as these elements are acoustically non-salient. Possible deficits in the perception of grammatical elements may explain why profoundly deaf children with hearing aids are often severely delayed in the acquisition of inflection morphemes (Brown, 1984; Norbury et al., 2001). When comparing the HA children with the CI children, the latter group uses more inflectional endings in their conversational speech. Moreover, benefits are observed for children with longer implant experience (Spencer et al., 1998). The objective of the present study is to investigate the verbal morphosyntactic development of CI children compared to their TD and HA peers. Possible long-term beneficial effects of early implantation will be given close attention.

Acoustic environments that support equally accessible oral higher education as a human right

Abstract Purpose: People have the right to freedom of opinion and expression, as defined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Higher education plays a major role in helping students to develop and express their own opinions and, therefore, should be equally accessible to all. This article focuses on how students judge the accessibility to oral instruction in higher education listening contexts. Method: We collected data from 191 students in higher education by means of a questionnaire, addressing understanding speech in different types of classrooms and various educational settings. Result: In lecture halls, understanding speech was judged to be significantly worse than in smaller classrooms. Two important negative factors were identified: background noise in classrooms and lecture halls and the non-use of a microphone. Conclusions: In lecture halls students achieve good or excellent speech perception only when lecturers are using a microphone. Nevertheless, this is not a standard practice. To achieve genuine inclusion in tertiary education programs, it is essential to remove acoustic barriers to understanding speech as much as possible. This study is a first step to identify communication facilitators to oral higher education instruction, for students with hearing loss or communication impairment.

Morphosyntactic correctness of written language production in adults with moderate to severe congenital hearing loss

OBJECTIVE To examine whether moderate to severe congenital hearing loss (MSCHL) leads to persistent morphosyntactic problems in the written language production of adults, as it does in their spoken language production. DESIGN Samples of written language in Dutch were analysed for morphosyntactic correctness and syntactic complexity. STUDY SAMPLE 20 adults with MSCHL and 10 adults with normal hearing (NH). RESULTS Adults with MSCHL did not differ from adults with NH in the morphosyntactic correctness and syntactic complexity of their written utterances. Within the MSCHL group, the number of morphosyntactic errors in writing was related to the degree of hearing loss in childhood. CONCLUSIONS At the group level, MSCHL does not affect the morphosyntactic correctness of language produced in the written modality, in contrast to earlier observed effects on spoken language production. However, at the individual level, our data suggest that adults who acquired their language with more severe auditory limitations are more at risk of persistent problems with morphosyntax in written language production than adults with a lower degree of hearing loss in childhood.