More is more in language learning:reconsidering the less-is-more hypothesis

The Less-is-More hypothesis was proposed to explain age-of-acquisition effects in first language (L1) acquisition and second language (L2) attainment. We scrutinize different renditions of the hypothesis by examining how learning outcomes are affected by (1) limited cognitive capacity, (2) reduced interference resulting from less prior knowledge, and (3) simplified language input. While there is little-to-no evidence of benefits of limited cognitive capacity, there is ample support for a More-is-More account linking enhanced capacity with better L1- and L2-learning outcomes, and reduced capacity with childhood language disorders. Instead, reduced prior knowledge (relative to adults) may afford children with greater flexibility in inductive inference; this contradicts the idea that children benefit from a more constrained hypothesis space. Finally, studies of childdirected speech (CDS) confirm benefits from less complex input at early stages, but also emphasize how greater lexical and syntactic complexity of the input confers benefits in L1-attainment

Personalizing the Fitting of Hearing Aids by Learning Contextual Preferences From Internet of Things Data

The lack of individualized fitting of hearing aids results in many patients never getting the intended benefits, in turn causing the devices to be left unused in a drawer. However, living with an untreated hearing loss has been found to be one of the leading lifestyle related causes of dementia and cognitive decline. Taking a radically different approach to personalize the fitting process of hearing aids, by learning contextual preferences from user-generated data, we in this paper outline the results obtained through a 9-month pilot study. Empowering the user to select between several settings using Internet of things (IoT) connected hearing aids allows for modeling individual preferences and thereby identifying distinct coping strategies. These behavioral patterns indicate that users prefer to switch between highly contrasting aspects of omnidirectionality and noise reduction dependent on the context, rather than relying on the medium “one size fits all” program frequently provided by default in hearing health care. We argue that an IoT approach facilitated by the usage of smartphones may constitute a paradigm shift, enabling continuous personalization of settings dependent on the changing context. Furthermore, making the user an active part of the fitting solution based on self-tracking may increase engagement and awareness and thus improve the quality of life for hearing impaired users

What Medical Education Can Do To Ensure Robust Language Development In Deaf Children

The typical medical education curriculum does not address language development for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. However, this issue is medical because of the frequency with which DHH children as a population face health complications due to linguistic deprivation. The critical period for language development is early; if a child does not acquire an intact language before age five, the child is unlikely to ever have native-like use of any language. Such linguistic deprivation carries risks of cognitive delay and psycho-social health difficulties. Spoken language is inaccessible for many DHH children despite assistive-technology developments. But sign languages, because they are visual, are accessible to most DHH children. To ensure language development, DHH children should have exposure to a sign language in their early years, starting at birth. If they also receive successful training in processing and producing a spoken language, they will have the many benefits of bimodal bilingualism. Undergraduate medical education curricula should include information about early language acquisition so that physicians can advise families of deaf newborns and newly deafened young children how to protect their cognitive health. Graduate medical education in primary care, pediatrics, and otolaryngology should include extensive information about amplification/cochlear implants, language modality, and the latest research/practices to promote the development and education of DHH children. Training in how to establish connections with local authorities and services that can support parents and child should be included as well. Further, students need to learn how to work with sign language interpreters in caring for DHH patients. We offer suggestions as to how medical curricula can be appropriately enriched and point to existing programs and initiatives that can serve as resources

Working with a Child who has Angelman Syndrome / The Role of an Early Childhood Special Education Teacher in Kindergarten

Working with a Child who has Angelman Syndrome addresses the etiology and symptomology of Angelman Syndrome. It explores how Angelman Syndrome impacts a young child\u27s development and how professionals can support this child. The Role of an Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) Teacher in Kindergarten covers three topics: the transition from preschool to kindergarten from the kindergarten perspective; special education during kindergarten; and the transition from the special education category Developmental Delay to another special education category prior to a child\u27s seventh birthday

Neuroplasticity of language networks in aphasia: advances, updates, and future challenges

Researchers have sought to understand how language is processed in the brain, how brain damage affects language abilities, and what can be expected during the recovery period since the early 19th century. In this review, we first discuss mechanisms of damage and plasticity in the post-stroke brain, both in the acute and the chronic phase of recovery. We then review factors that are associated with recovery. First, we review organism intrinsic variables such as age, lesion volume and location and structural integrity that influence language recovery. Next, we review organism extrinsic factors such as treatment that influence language recovery. Here, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of language recovery and highlight recent work that emphasizes a network perspective of language recovery. Finally, we propose our interpretation of the principles of neuroplasticity, originally proposed by Kleim and Jones (1) in the context of extant literature in aphasia recovery and rehabilitation. Ultimately, we encourage researchers to propose sophisticated intervention studies that bring us closer to the goal of providing precision treatment for patients with aphasia and a better understanding of the neural mechanisms that underlie successful neuroplasticity.P50 DC012283 - NIDCD NIH HHSPublished versio

The N170 ERP Component Differs in Laterality, Distribution, and Association with Continuous Reading Measures for Deaf and Hearing Readers

The temporo-occipitally distributed N170 ERP component is hypothesized to reflect print-tuning in skilled readers. This study investigated whether skilled deaf and hearing readers (matched on reading ability, but not phonological awareness) exhibit similar N170 patterns, given their distinct experiences learning to read. Thirty-two deaf and 32 hearing adults viewed words and symbol strings in a familiarity judgment task. In the N170 epoch (120–240 ms) hearing readers produced greater negativity for words than symbols at left hemisphere (LH) temporo-parietal and occipital sites, while deaf readers only showed this asymmetry at occipital sites. Linear mixed effects regression was used to examine the influence of continuous measures of reading, spelling, and phonological skills on the N170 (120–240 ms). For deaf readers, better reading ability was associated with a larger N170 over the right hemisphere (RH), but for hearing readers better reading ability was associated with a smaller RH N170. Better spelling ability was related to larger occipital N170s in deaf readers, but this relationship was weak in hearing readers. Better phonological awareness was associated with smaller N170s in the LH for hearing readers, but this association was weaker and in the RH for deaf readers. The results support the phonological mapping hypothesis for a left-lateralized temporo-parietal N170 in hearing readers and indicate that skilled reading is characterized by distinct patterns of neural tuning to print in deaf and hearing adults

Student Learning of Perceptual Skills Related to Differentiating Motor Speech Disorders

Purpose: This study aimed to determine if Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) graduate students’ perceptual skills improved after taking an MSD course by comparing pre- and posttest performance. The potential relationship between posttest perceptual-skills performance and academic performance was also investigated.Method: Before beginning instruction in MSD course content, students in a Master’s program in SLP were given a pretest (The Baseline & Post Learning Assessment of Listening & Diagnostics Skills (BPLALDS; Duffy, n.d.a)). Throughout the semester, students were exposed to didactic learning in the classroom supplemented by audio and video modules. At the end of the course, the BPLALDS was used as a posttest. Variation in perceptual skills development was described and compared to overall course performance. Results: Scores on posttests of perceptual ability were significantly higher than pretest scores. Post-hoc comparisons revealed that students who learned relatively more were those who generalized perceptual knowledge to novel stimuli. Academic grade assignment correlated strongly with but accounted for only some of the variation in perceptual ability. Conclusion: Although some variation in perceptual ability related to differentially diagnosing motor speech disorders can be accounted for by academic attainment, additional factors, such as students’ ability to generalize knowledge from novel to new cases, likely contribute. The authors reflect on the manner in which learning theory can inform these results

Conceptualizing Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy as a Supportive-Educative Nursing System for Patients with Insomnia

Difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep is one of the most common health complaints of the general population. Approximately 35-50% of people experience occasional insomnia symptoms (Walsh et al., 2011) while 12-20% have insomnia disorder (Morin, et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011). An effective treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I; Schutte-Rodin, Broch, Buysse, Dorsey, & Sateia, 2008), a nonpharmacological, evidence-based intervention aimed at changing sleep behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to frame CBT-I as a nursing intervention for insomnia within the context of Orem’s self-care deficit nursing theory (Orem, 2001). Orem’s theory provides a framework from which to view the process of improving patients’ sleep using CBT-I as a supportive-educative nursing system. Through the therapies of CBT-I, patients develop the power components of selfcare agency resulting in behavior change, which is consistent with Orem’s notion of deliberate action and self-care. Because holistic patient care, support, and patient teaching are fundamental aspects of nursing care to which nurses are acculturated, nurses are ideally suited to provide CBT-I

Building an auditory lexicon

The ability to form mental representations of word sounds is central to language comprehension and production, and provides the basis of grammatical development and literacy. However, this process remains poorly understood. The five empirical studies presented in this thesis address open questions related to the formation and use of word sound memories. Chapter four presents a meta-analysis of studies using the auditory lexical decision task to measure the quality of word sound representations in typically developing children and children with DLD (developmental language disorder). This chapter also provides baseline data and recommendations of use to both researchers and clinicians. The study presented in chapter five uses Bayesian multi-level regression to model large-scale parental report data from CDI’s (communicative development inventories). This study provides insight into the role that high phonological neighbourhood density plays in early word production, though not comprehension, relative to factors including word length, frequency, concreteness, and relevance to infants. The study in chapter six uses the same methodology to evaluate individual differences in the importance of neighbourhood density as a predictor of word production, and presents results with implications for the development of clinical interventions. The study in chapter seven presents a quantitative corpus analysis examining spoken word accuracy and variability rates in typically developing children recorded over a three-year period. I report the effects of age, frequency, and neighbourhood density on accuracy and variability rates, and argue against the view that such rates may provide a reliable marker of speech sound disorder. Finally, in chapter eight, I present a neural network simulation of the high neighbourhood density learning advantage reported in studies two, three, and four, and present an account of network performance that can also accommodate contradictory behavioural evidence of low-density word learning advantages. All studies are integrated within an exemplar-based framework of auditory-lexical development emphasising the mechanism of analogous generalisation. In the interests of transparency this thesis is accompanied by an online repository containing pre-registration protocols and the data and code required to reproduce each analysis: osf.io/u3qsc

Are developmental disorders like cases of adult brain damage? Implications from connectionist modelling

It is often assumed that similar domain-specific behavioural impairments found in cases of adult brain damage and developmental disorders correspond to similar underlying causes, and can serve as convergent evidence for the modular structure of the normal adult cognitive system. We argue that this correspondence is contingent on an unsupported assumption that atypical development can produce selective deficits while the rest of the system develops normally (Residual Normality), and that this assumption tends to bias data collection in the field. Based on a review of connectionist models of acquired and developmental disorders in the domains of reading and past tense, as well as on new simulations, we explore the computational viability of Residual Normality and the potential role of development in producing behavioural deficits. Simulations demonstrate that damage to a developmental model can produce very different effects depending on whether it occurs prior to or following the training process. Because developmental disorders typically involve damage prior to learning, we conclude that the developmental process is a key component of the explanation of endstate impairments in such disorders. Further simulations demonstrate that in simple connectionist learning systems, the assumption of Residual Normality is undermined by processes of compensation or alteration elsewhere in the system. We outline the precise computational conditions required for Residual Normality to hold in development, and suggest that in many cases it is an unlikely hypothesis. We conclude that in developmental disorders, inferences from behavioural deficits to underlying structure crucially depend on developmental conditions, and that the process of ontogenetic development cannot be ignored in constructing models of developmental disorders