Comparison of performance of concussed and non-concussed individuals on Subtest VIII of the C-RTT

The purpose of this study was to investigate auditory comprehension in concussed and non-concussed individuals using Subtest VIII of the C-RTT. Thirty non-concussed individuals were matched as closely as possible on gender, age, education and history of concussion to a group of concussed individuals. A Mann-Whitney found that the two samples were significant different at p = .020, and a t-test found a significant difference at p = .008 on the Efficiency Score (ES) of Subtest VIII. The non-concussed individuals performed better than the concussed individuals. Efficiency Score may be useful in assessing comprehension in concussed individuals

Correlation between ImPACT reaction time and CRTT efficiency score in concussed athletes

The management of sports related concussion is dependent upon a standardized assessment. Reaction time is the most sensitive measure of a concussion when using the ImPACT battery, which was standardized on concussed athletes. However, an athlete’s auditory comprehension is rarely assessed systematically. Auditory comprehension status is important in properly managing concussed athletes. The Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT) measures efficiency time. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the correlation between the ImPACT reaction time and the CRTT-Subtest VIII efficiency score in 51 concussed athletes. These two measures are statistically significantly correlated. Clinical implications are discussed

Prediction of short- and medium-term efficacy of biosimilar infliximab therapy. Do trough levels/antidrug antibody levels or clinical/biochemical markers play a more important role?

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An investigation of the effect of repeated testing and extra incentive on neurocognitive performance in non-concussed adults

Standardized neurocognitive testing is a commonly used assessment method to diagnose and manage sports-related concussion. This method involves testing athletes at preseason, and re-testing them if a concussion occurs. Athletes usually return to competition once they are symptom-free and their cognitive performance post concussion returns to their preseason cognitive performance. Although this approach in sports-related concussion management seems well-guided and clear-cut, there are a number of factors that can interfere with the accuracy of assessment. This study addressed three such factors: test-retest reliability, the effect of extra incentive on neurocognitive performance, and practice effects. 33 non-concussed UTEP collegiate students were recruited and tested serially on four occasions using the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing battery version 2.0 (ImPACT) with 7–8 days between testing sessions. In this single-group A-A-B-A pretest-posttest design, the dependent measures were the Verbal and Visual Memory, Reaction Time, Visual Processing Speed, and Cognitive Efficiency Index composite scores on the ImPACT battery. Participants received a one-time-only extra monetary incentive on the third test session. Time and the presence or absence of extra monetary incentive were the independent variables. Pearson correlation was applied to measure test-retest reliability for each composite score across the repeated administrations of the ImPACT battery. Repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Trend Analysis were used to measure whether there was a change in performance across test sessions and to examine whether there was a change in the individual composite scores within participants before and after the monetary incentive is offered. Several test-retest reliability coefficients did not meet criteria and varied across time. Results also showed practice effects in verbal memory, visual processing speed, reaction time, and cognitive efficiency index scores. A significant linear trend was also found in visual memory, reaction time, and visual processing speed indicating improvement of performance across test sessions. Extra monetary incentive did not show any significant change when performance was compared to the second and forth test sessions. Although extra monetary incentive did not improve performance on the battery, changes of performance, practice effects, and variable test-retest reliability measures may result from other behavioral factors. Therefore, concussion assessment and management should not rely on a single neurocognitive measure or test. Multiple assessment protocol for sports-related concussion management is needed

Protophones, the precursors to speech, dominate the human infant vocal landscape

Human infant vocalization is viewed as a critical foundation for vocal learning and language. All apes share distress sounds (shrieks and cries) and laughter. Another vocal type, speech-like sounds, common in human infants, is rare but not absent in other apes. These three vocal types form a basis for especially informative cross-species comparisons. To make such comparisons possible we need empirical research documenting the frequency of occurrence of all three. The present work provides a comprehensive portrayal of these three vocal types in the human infant from longitudinal research in various circumstances of recording. Recently, the predominant vocalizations of the human infant have been shown to be speech-like sounds, or \u27protophones\u27, including both canonical and non-canonical babbling. The research shows that protophones outnumber cries by a factor of at least five based on data from random-sampling of all-day recordings across the first year. The present work expands on the prior reports, showing the protophones vastly outnumber both cry and laughter in both all-day and laboratory recordings in various circumstances. The data provide new evidence of the predominance of protophones in the infant vocal landscape and illuminate their role in human vocal learning and the origin of language. This article is part of the theme issue \u27Vocal learning in animals and humans\u27

Registers in Infant Phonation

The primary vocal registers of modal, falsetto, and fry have been studied in adults but not per se in infancy. The vocal ligament is thought to play a critical role in the modal-falsetto contrast but is still developing during infancy (Tateya and Tateya, 2015). 41 Cover tissues are also implicated in the modal-fry contrast, but the low fundamental frequency (f o )cutoff of 70 Hz, shared between genders, suggests a psychoacoustic basis for the contrast. Buder, Chorna, Oller, and Robinson (2008) 6 used the labels of “loft,” “modal,” and “pulse” for distinct vibratory regimes that appear to be identifiable based on spectrographic inspection of harmonic structure and auditory judgments in infants, but this work did not supply acoustic measurements to verify which of these nominally labeled regimes resembled adult registers. In this report, we identify clear transitions between registers within infant vocalizations and measure these registers and their transitions for f o and relative harmonic amplitudes (H1-H2). By selectively sampling first-year vocalizations, this manuscript quantifies acoustic patterns that correspond to vocal fold vibration types not previously cataloged in infancy. Results support a developmental basis for vocal registers, revealing that a well-developed ligament is not needed for loft-modal quality shifts as seen in harmonic amplitude measures. Results also reveal that a distinctively pulsatile register can occur in infants at a much higher f o than expected on psychoacoustic grounds. Overall results are consistent with cover tissues in infancy that are, for vibratory purposes, highly compliant and readily detached

Preterm and full term infant vocalization and the origin of language

How did vocal language originate? Before trying to determine how referential vocabulary or syntax may have arisen, it is critical to explain how ancient hominins began to produce vocalization flexibly, without binding to emotions or functions. A crucial factor in the vocal communicative split of hominins from the ape background may thus have been copious, functionally flexible vocalization, starting in infancy and continuing throughout life, long before there were more advanced linguistic features such as referential vocabulary. 2–3 month-old modern human infants produce “protophones”, including at least three types of functionally flexible non-cry precursors to speech rarely reported in other ape infants. But how early in life do protophones actually appear? We report that the most common protophone types emerge abundantly as early as vocalization can be observed in infancy, in preterm infants still in neonatal intensive care. Contrary to the expectation that cries are the predominant vocalizations of infancy, our all-day recordings showed that protophones occurred far more frequently than cries in both preterm and full-term infants. Protophones were not limited to interactive circumstances, but also occurred at high rates when infants were alone, indicating an endogenous inclination to vocalize exploratorily, perhaps the most fundamental capacity underlying vocal language

The origin of language and relative roles of voice and gesture in early communication development

Both vocalization and gesture are universal modes of communication and fundamental features of language development. The gestural origins theory proposes that language evolved out of early gestural use. However, evidence reported here suggests vocalization is much more prominent in early human communication than gesture is. To our knowledge no prior research has investigated the rates of emergence of both gesture and vocalization across the first year in human infants. We evaluated the rates of gestures and speech-like vocalizations (protophones) in 10 infants at 4, 7, and 11 months of age using parent-infant laboratory recordings. We found that infant protophones outnumbered gestures substantially at all three ages, ranging from \u3e35 times more protophones than gestures at 3 months, to \u3e2.5 times more protophones than gestures at 11 months. The results suggest vocalization, not gesture, is the predominant mode of communication in human infants in the first year

Early Vocal Development in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex

Background: Our goal was to assess for the first time early vocalizations as precursors to speech in audio-video recordings of infants with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Methods: We randomly selected 40 infants with TSC from the TSC Autism Center of Excellence Research Network data set. Using human observers, we analyzed 74 audio-video recordings within a flexible software-based coding environment. During the recordings, infants were engaged in developmental testing. We determined syllables per minute (volubility), the number of consonant-vowel combinations, such as ‘ba’ (canonical babbling), and the canonical babbling ratio (canonical syllables/total syllables) and compared the data with 2 groups of typically developing (TD) infants. One comparison group\u27s data had come from a laboratory setting, while the other\u27s had come from all-day Language Environment Analysis recordings at home. Results: Compared with TD infants in laboratory and all-day Language Environment Analysis recordings, entry into the canonical babbling stage was delayed in the majority of infants with TSC, and the canonical babbling ratio was low (TD mean = 0.346, SE = 0.19; TSC mean = 0.117, SE = 0.023). Volubility level in infants with TSC was less than half that of TD infants (TD mean = 9.82, SE = 5.78; TSC mean = 3.99, SE = 2.16). Conclusions: Entry into the canonical stage and other precursors of speech development were delayed in infants with TSC and may signal poor language and developmental outcomes. Future studies are planned to assess prediction of language and developmental outcomes using these measures in a larger sample and in more precisely comparable recording circumstances

Infant boys are more vocal than infant girls

Although it is generally assumed females have a language advantage over males, Oller et al., studying all-day recordings of 100 infants, found that boys in the first year of life produced more speech-like vocalizations than girls and that the effect size was more than four times larger than the commonly reported female language advantage