Tonya R. Bergeson

Development of audiovisual comprehension skills in prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants.

Objective: The present study investigated the development of audiovisual comprehension skills in prelingually deaf children who received cochlear implants. Design: We analyzed results obtained with the Common Phrases (Robbins et al., 1995) test of sentence comprehension from 80 prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants who were enrolled in a longitudinal study, from pre-implantation to 5 years after implantation. Results: The results revealed that prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants performed better under audiovisual (AV) presentation compared with auditory-alone (A-alone) or visual-alone (V-alone) conditions. AV sentence comprehension skills were found to be strongly correlated with several clinical outcome measures of speech perception, speech intelligibility, and language. Finally, pre-implantation V-alone performance on the Common Phrases test was strongly correlated with 3-year postimplantation performance on clinical outcome measures of speech perception, speech intelligibility, and language skills. Conclusions: The results suggest that lipreading skills and AV speech perception reflect a common source of variance associated with the development of phonological processing skills that is shared among a wide range of speech and language outcome measures.

Cochlear Implantation in Deaf Infants

Objectives: With the application of universal newborn hearing screening programs, a large pool of newly identified deaf infants has been identified. The benefits of early intervention with cochlear implants (CI) is being explored. Mounting evidence suggests that age at implantation is a strong predictor of language outcomes. However, new behavioral procedures are needed to measure speech and language skills during infancy. Also, procedures are needed to analyze the speech input to young CI recipients.

Effects of Early Musical Experience on Auditory Sequence Memory

The present study investigated a possible link between musical training and immediate memory span by testing experienced musicians and three groups of musically inexperienced subjects (gymnasts, Psychology 101 students, and video game players) on sequence memory and word familiarity tasks. By including skilled gymnasts who began studying their craft by age six, video game players, and Psychology 101 students as comparison groups, we attempted to control for some of the ways skilled musicians may differ from participants drawn from the general population in terms of gross motor skills and intensive experience in a highly skilled domain from an early age. We found that musicians displayed longer immediate memory spans than the comparison groups on auditory presentation conditions of the sequence reproductive span task. No differences were observed between the four groups on the visual conditions of the sequence memory task. These results provide additional converging support to recent findings showing that early musical experience and activity-dependent learning may selectively affect verbal rehearsal processes and the allocation of attention in sequence memory tasks.

Speech Intelligibility and Prosody Production in Children with Cochlear Implants.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of the current study was to examine the relation between speech intelligibility and prosody production in children who use cochlear implants. METHODS The Beginners Intelligibility Test (BIT) and Prosodic Utterance Production (PUP) task were administered to 15 children who use cochlear implants and 10 children with normal hearing. Adult listeners with normal hearing judged the intelligibility of the words in the BIT sentences, identified the PUP sentences as one of four grammatical or emotional moods (i.e., declarative, interrogative, happy, or sad), and rated the PUP sentences according to how well they thought the child conveyed the designated mood. RESULTS Percent correct scores were higher for intelligibility than for prosody and higher for children with normal hearing than for children with cochlear implants. Declarative sentences were most readily identified and received the highest ratings by adult listeners; interrogative sentences were least readily identified and received the lowest ratings. Correlations between intelligibility and all mood identification and rating scores except declarative were not significant. DISCUSSION The findings suggest that the development of speech intelligibility progresses ahead of prosody in both children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing; however, children with normal hearing still perform better than children with cochlear implants on measures of intelligibility and prosody even after accounting for hearing age. Problems with interrogative intonation may be related to more general restrictions on rising intonation, and the correlation results indicate that intelligibility and sentence intonation may be relatively dissociated at these ages. LEARNING OUTCOMES As a result of this activity, readers will be able to describe (1) methods for measuring speech intelligibility and prosody production in children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing, (2) the differences between children with normal hearing and children with cochlear implants on measures of speech intelligibility and prosody production, and (3) the relations between speech intelligibility and prosody production in children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing.

The ear is connected to the brain: some new directions in the study of children with cochlear implants at Indiana University.

Since the early 1980s, the DeVault Otologic Research Laboratory at the Indiana University School of Medicine has been on the forefront of research on speech and language outcomes in children with cochlear implants. This paper highlights work over the last decade that has moved beyond collecting speech and language outcome measures to focus more on investigating the underlying cognitive, social, and linguistic skills that predict speech and language outcomes. This recent work reflects our growing appreciation that early auditory deprivation can affect more than hearing and speech perception. The new directions include research on attention to speech, word learning, phonological development, social development, and neurocognitive processes. We have also expanded our subject populations to include infants and children with additional disabilities.

Ultrasound-Guided Needle Aspiration: Impact of Immediate Cytologic Review

To compare the diagnostic adequacy of ultrasound‐guided fine‐needle aspiration biopsy (USFNA) of the head and neck with immediate on‐site microscopic evaluation and feedback by a cytopathologist (IMMEDIATE) versus delayed examination without immediate feedback (DELAYED).

Phonetic variation in consonants in infant-directed and adult-directed speech: the case of regressive place assimilation in word-final alveolar stops*

Pronunciation variation is under-studied in infant-directed speech, particularly for consonants. Regressive place assimilation involves a word-final alveolar stop taking the place of articulation of a following word-initial consonant. We investigated pronunciation variation in word-final alveolar stop consonants in storybooks read by forty-eight mothers in adult-directed or infant-directed style to infants aged approximately 0;3, 0;9, 1;1, or 1;8. We focused on phonological environments where regressive place assimilation could occur, i.e., when the stop preceded a word-initial labial or velar consonant. Spectrogram, waveform, and perceptual evidence was used to classify tokens into four pronunciation categories: canonical, assimilated, glottalized, or deleted. Results showed a reliable tendency for canonical variants to occur in infant-directed speech more often than in adult-directed speech. However, the otherwise very similar distributions of variants across addressee and age group suggested that infants largely experience statistical distributions of non-canonical consonantal pronunciation variants that mirror those experienced by adults.

Age-Related Changes in Prosodic Features of Maternal Speech to Prelingually Deaf Infants with Cochlear Implants

This study investigated prosodic and structural characteristics of infant-directed speech to hearing-impaired infants as they gain hearing experience with a cochlear implant over a 12-month period of time. Mothers were recorded during a play interaction with their HI infants (N = 27, mean age 18.4 months) at 3, 6, and 12 months post-implantation. Two separate control groups of mothers with age-matched normal-hearing infants (NH-AM) (N = 21, mean age 18.1 months) and hearing experience-matched normal-hearing infants (NH-EM) (N = 24, mean age 3.1 months) were recorded at three testing sessions. Mothers produced less exaggerated pitch characteristics, a larger number of syllables per utterance, and faster speaking rate when interacting with NH-AM as compared to HI infants. Mothers also produced more syllables and demonstrated a trend suggesting faster speaking rate in speech to NH-EM relative to HI infants. Age-related modifications included decreased pitch standard deviation and increased number of syllables in speech to NH-AM infants and increased number of syllables in speech to HI and NH-EM infants across the 12-month period. These results suggest that mothers are sensitive to the hearing status of their infants and modify characteristics of infant-direct speech over time.

Maternal speech to hearing-impaired infants in the first year of hearing aid or cochlear implant use: a preliminary report

Introduction It is well known that early auditory experience is important for developing speech and spoken language skills (e.g., Bergeson and Pisoni, 2004; YoshinagaItano et al., 1998). The current study focuses on the nature of infants’ and young children’s early auditory experiences in terms of the speaking style they typically hear from their caregivers: infant-directed speech. When interacting with infants, adults typically alter multiple acoustic and linguistic characteristics of their normal adult-directed speech. Mothers’ speech to normal-hearing infants is characterized by higher pitch, shorter utterances, and more repetition as compared to their speech to adults (e.g., Fernald et al., 1989). Infants’ response to infant-directed speech very likely plays a role in encouraging and reinforcing caregivers’ exaggerated speech behaviors. However, infants with profound hearing loss likely do not reinforce these speech features, which, in turn, could potentially affect maternal speech style (Bergeson et al., 2006; Meadow-Orlans et al., 2004). It is therefore necessary to determine whether caregivers decrease their use of infant-directed speech when speaking to infants who have difficulty hearing the auditory information. Previous work in our lab demonstrated that mothers tailor acoustic properties of their speech to the hearing level and linguistic abilities of their hearingimpaired infants with cochlear implants (Bergeson et al., 2006; Kondaurova and Bergeson, in press). Little is known, however, about the effects of infants’ and children’s hearing experience on their mothers’ speech patterns across time. The purpose of the current study was to address how maternal infantdirected speech changes in the first year after infants receive hearing aids or cochlear implants. Method Participants Infants with cochlear implants We recruited 13 normal-hearing mothers of infants and children with profound hearing impairment from the clinical population at Indiana University School of Medicine. All infants and children received a cochlear implant by 24 months of age. Mean age at implant stimulation was 16 months (range= 8–23 months). Average infant age at the first (i.e., preimplantation) recording session was 12.6 months (range= 6–22 months).

Phonetic Modification of Vowel Space in Storybook Speech to Infants up to 2 Years of Age

PURPOSE A large body of literature has indicated vowel space area expansion in infant-directed (ID) speech compared with adult-directed (AD) speech, which may promote language acquisition. The current study tested whether this expansion occurs in storybook speech read to infants at various points during their first 2 years of life. METHOD In 2 studies, mothers read a storybook containing target vowels in ID and AD speech conditions. Study 1 was longitudinal, with 11 mothers recorded when their infants were 3, 6, and 9 months old. Study 2 was cross-sectional, with 48 mothers recorded when their infants were 3, 9, 13, or 20 months old (n=12 per group). The 1st and 2nd formants of vowels /i/, /ɑ/, and /u/ were measured, and vowel space area and dispersion were calculated. RESULTS Across both studies, 1st and/or 2nd formant frequencies shifted systematically for /i/ and /u/ vowels in ID compared with AD speech. No difference in vowel space area or dispersion was found. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that a variety of communication and situational factors may affect phonetic modifications in ID speech, but that vowel space characteristics in speech to infants stay consistent across the first 2 years of life.