An Exploration of Automated Narrative Analysis Via Machine Learning

The accuracy of four machine learning methods in predicting narrative macrostructure scores was compared to scores obtained by human raters utilizing a criterion-referenced progress monitoring rubric. The machine learning methods that were explored covered methods that utilized hand-engineered features, as well as those that learn directly from the raw text. The predictive models were trained on a corpus of 414 narratives from a normative sample of school-aged children (5;0-9;11) who were given a standardized measure of narrative proficiency. Performance was measured using Quadratic Weighted Kappa, a metric of inter-rater reliability. The results indicated that one model, BERT, not only achieved significantly higher scoring accuracy than the other methods, but was consistent with scores obtained by human raters using a valid and reliable rubric. The findings from this study suggest that a machine learning method, specifically, BERT, shows promise as a way to automate the scoring of narrative macrostructure for potential use in clinical practice

Monitoring Indicators of Scholarly Language (MISL): A Progress-monitoring Instrument for Measuring Narrative Discourse Skills

The purpose of this study was to assess the basic psychometric properties of a progress-monitoring tool designed to measure narrative discourse skills in school-age children with language impairments (LI). A sample of 109 children with LI between the ages of 5 years 7 months and 9 years 9 months completed the Test of Narrative Language (TNL). The stories told in response to the alien picture prompt were transcribed and scored according to the TNL manual criteria and the criteria established for scoring the progress-monitoring tool, Monitoring Indicators of Scholarly Language (MISL). The MISL total score demonstrated acceptable levels of internal consistency reliability, inter-rater reliability, and construct validity for use as a progress-monitoring tool for specific aspects of narrative proficiency. The MISL holds promise as a tool for tracking growth in narrative language proficiency that may be taught as part of an intervention program to support the Common Core Standards related to literacy

Knowledge of UK Dental Professionals in Treating Dentine Hypersensitivity

Aim: The aim of the present 22 item questionnaire-based study was to evaluate the knowledge and understanding of a representative sample of UK based Dental professionals in treating DH. Materials & Methods: A 22-item questionnaire on DH was sent to a representative sample of 2200 Dentists and Dental Hygienists/Therapists (DH/T). The study was submitted to the local Queen Mary University of London Ethics committee (QMREC 03537) and the research did not present any ethical concerns due to its low risk and therefore did not require the scrutiny of the full Research Ethics Committee. The questionnaire consisted of 22 questions, which included both open and closed questions. The addresses were selected from the General Dental Council (GDC) and Dental Hygienist/Therapists Lists and subsequently randomised using a randomised number generator (RNG)(Graph Pad Software Inc. 2002-2005) and the questionnaires were sent out to the selected Dental practices by Royal Mail. The questionnaires were distributed during a six-month period from June 2011. Data were entered using Microsoft Excel, and the results analysed using SPSS 22.0 for Windows (IBM, Portsmouth UK) in presented in the form of frequency distribution tables and figures. Pearson correlations were undertaken to determine whether there were any association between status, impact on the QoL, confidence of recommending at-home treatment to those suffering with DH. Results: 346 Questionnaires were returned (15.7%), of which 142 Questionnaires were from Dentists (12.9%) and 204 Questionnaires were from DH/Ts (18.5%). Both Dentists and DHTs provided similar responses to the questions with no major differences between the two groups. Conclusions: These results were consistent with previous studies and, would appear to suggest that, in terms of the knowledge and understanding of DH, both Dentists and DHTs had a broad understanding however there were still some confusion concerning aspects of the diagnosis and management of the condition and clinicians therefore need to be updated on the current recommendations and guidelines in the management of DH to both inform their patients in terms of awareness and prevention and to confidently diagnose and manage DH successfully

The Index Of Narrative Microstructure: A Clinical Tool For Analyzing School-Age Children's Narrative Performances

Purpose: This research was conducted to develop a clinical tool-the Index of Narrative Microstructure (INMIS)-that would parsimoniously account for important microstructural aspects of narrative production for school-age children. The study provides field test age- and grade-based INMIS values to aid clinicians in making normative judgments about microstructural aspects of pupils' narrative performance. Method: Narrative samples using a single-picture elicitation context were collected from 250 children age 5-12 years and then transcribed and segmented into T-units. A T-unit consists of a single main clause and any dependent constituents. The narrative transcripts were then coded and analyzed to document a comprehensive set of microstructural indices. Results: Factor analysis indicated that narrative microstructure consisted of 2 moderately related factors. The Productivity factor primarily comprised measures of word output, lexical diversity, and T-unit output. The Complexity factor comprised measures of syntactic organization, with mean length of T-units in words and proportion of complex T-units loading most strongly. Principal components analysis was used to provide a linear combination of 8 variables to approximate the 2 factors. Formulas for calculating a student's performance on the 2 factors using 8 narrative measures are provided. Conclusions: This study provided a method for professionals to calculate INMIS scores for narrative Productivity and Complexity for comparison against field test data for age (5- to 12-year-old) or grade (kindergarten to Grade 6) groupings. INMIS scores complement other tools in evaluating a child's narrative performance specifically and language abilities more generally.Communication Sciences and Disorder

Conversational Alignment: A Study of Neural Coherence and Speech Entrainment

Conversational alignment refers to the tendency for communication partners to adjust their verbal and non-verbal behaviors to become more like one another during the course of human interaction. This alignment phenomenon has been observed in neural patterns, specifically in the prefrontal areas of the brain (Holper et al., 2013; Cui et al., 2012; Dommer et al., 2012; Holper et al., 2012; Funane et al., 2011; Jiang et al., 2012); verbal behaviors such acoustic speech features (e.g., Borrie & Liss, 2014; Borrie et al., 2015; Lubold & Pon-Barry, 2014), phonological features (e.g., Babel, 2012; Pardo, 2006), lexical selection (e.g., Brennan & Clark, 1996; Garrod & Anderson, 1989), syntactic structure (e.g., Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland, 2000; Reitter, Moore, & Keller, 2006); and motor behaviors including body posture, facial expressions and breathing rate (e.g., Furuyama, Hayashi, & Mishima, 2005; Louwerse, Dale, Bard, & Jeuniaux, 2012; Richardson, March, & Schmit, 2005; Shockley, Santana, & Fowler, 2003; McFarland, 2001). While conversational alignment in itself, is a largely physical phenomenon, it has been linked to significant functional value, both in the cognitive and social domains. Cognitively, conversational alignment facilitates spoken message comprehension, enabling listeners to share mental models (Garrod & Pickering, 2004) and generate temporal predictions about upcoming aspects of speech. From a social perspective, behavioral alignment has been linked with establishing turn-taking behaviors, and with increased feelings of rapport, empathy, and intimacy between conversational pairs (e.g., Lee et al. 2010; Nind, & Macrae, 2009; Smith, 2008; Bailenson & Yee, 2005; Chartrand & Barg, 1999; Miles, Putman & Street, 1984; Street & Giles, 1982). Benus (2014), for example, observed that individuals who align their speech features are perceived as more socially attractive and likeable, and have interactions that are more successful. These cognitive and social benefits, associated with conversational alignment, have been observed in both linguistic and neural data (e.g., Holper et al., 2012; 2013, Cui et al. 2012; Jiang et al., 2012; Egetemeir et al., 2011; Stephens et al. 2010). The purpose of the current study was to examine conversational alignment as a multi-level communication phenomenon, by examining the relationship between neural and speech behaviors. To assess neural alignment, we used Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), a non-invasive neuroimaging technology that detects cortical increases and decreases in the concentration of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin at multiple measurement sites to determine the rate that oxygen is being released and absorbed (Ferrari & Quaresima, 2012). While still considered a relatively new neural imaging technique, NIRS has been well established as an efficacious and effective data collection approach, particularly appropriate for social interaction research (e.g., Holper et al., 2013; Jiang et al., 2012; Holper et al., 2012; Suda et al., 2010). We utilized hyperscanning, a technique that allows for the quantitation of two simultaneous signals, allowing us to document neural alignment between two individuals (Babiloni & Astolfi, 2012). Recent studies have revealed neural alignment between two persons in cooperative states, including alignment in the right superior frontal cortices and medial prefrontal regions (Cui et al., 2012; Dommer et al., 2012; Funane et al., 2011). This increased prefrontal interbrain alignment has also been observed in other social interactions, including joint attention tasks (Dommer et al., 2012), imitation tasks (Holper et al., 2012), competitive games (Cheng et al., 2015, Duan et al., 2013), teaching-learning interactions (Holper et al., 2013), face- to-face communication (Jiang et al., 2012), mother-child interactions (Hirata et al., 2014), and during cooperative singing tasks (Osaka et al., 2015). Interestingly, Jiang et al. (2012) showed that increased neural alignment only occurred between conversational participants when they were speaking face-to-face, but not when participants had their backs facing one another. The authors speculated that the multi-sensory information, for example motor behaviors such as gestures, was required for neural alignment to occur

The Effects of Fast ForWord Language on the Phonemic Awareness and Reading Skills of School-Age Children With Language Impairments and Poor Reading Skills

Purpose—To examine the efficacy of Fast For-Word Language (FFW-L) and 2 other interventions for improving the phonemic awareness and reading skills of children with specific language impairment with concurrent poor reading skills. Method—A total of 103 children (age 6;0 to 8;11 [years;months]) with language impairment and poor reading skills participated. The children received either FFW-L computerized intervention, a computer-assisted language intervention (CALI), an individualized language intervention (ILI), or an attention control (AC) computer program. Results—The children in the FFW-L, CALI, and ILI conditions made significantly greater gains in blending sounds in words compared with the AC group at immediate posttest. Long-term gains 6 months after treatment were not significant but yielded a medium effect size for blending sounds in words. None of the interventions led to significant changes in reading skills. Conclusion—The improvement in phonemic awareness, but not reading, in the FFW-L, CALI, and ILI interventions limits their use with children who have language impairment and poor reading skills. Similar results across treatment conditions suggest that acoustically modified speech was not a necessary component for improving phonemic awareness

Cultural adaptation of the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) into Brazilian Portuguese

Purpose: To accomplish the translation and cultural adaptation of the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) into Brazilian Portuguese. Methods: The TNL is a formal instrument which assesses narrative comprehension and oral narration of children between the ages of 5-0 and 11-11 (years-months). The TNL translation and adaptation process had the following steps: (1) translation into the target language; (2) summary of the translated versions; (3) back-translation; (4) checking of the conceptual, semantics and cultural equivalence process and (5) pilot study (56 children within the test age range and from both genders). Results: The adapted version maintained the same structure as the original version: number of tasks (both, three comprehension and oral narration), narrative formats (no picture, sequenced pictures and single picture) and scoring system. There were no adjustments to the pictures. The “McDonald’s Story” was replaced by the “Snack Bar History” to meet the semantic and experiential equivalence of the target population. The other stories had semantic and grammatical adjustments. Statistically significant difference was found when comparing the raw score (comprehension, narration and total) of age groups from the adapted version. Conclusion: Adjustments were required to meet the equivalence between the original and the translated versions. The adapted version showed it has the potential to identify differences in oral narratives of children in the age range provided by the test. Measurement equivalence for validation and test standardization are in progress and will be able to supplement the study outcomes

A Comparison of the Storage-Only Deficit and Joint Mechanism Deficit Hypotheses of the Verbal Working Memory Storage Capacity Limitation of Children with Developmental Language Disorder

Purpose: The storage-only deficit and joint mechanism deficit hypotheses are two possible explanations of the verbal working memory (vWM) storage capacity limitation of school-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD). We assessed the merits of each hypothesis in a large group of children with DLD and a group of same-age typically developing (TD) children. Method: Participants were 117 children with DLD and 117 propensity-matched TD children 7-11 years of age. Children completed tasks indexing vWM capacity, verbal short-term storage, sustained attention, attention switching, and lexical long-term memory (LTM). Results: For the DLD group, all of the mechanisms jointly explained 26.5% of total variance. Storage accounted for the greatest portion (13.7%), followed by controlled attention (primarily sustained attention 6.5%), and then lexical LTM (5.6%). For the TD group, all three mechanisms together explained 43.9% of total variance. Storage accounted for the most variance (19.6%), followed by lexical LTM (16.0%), sustained attention (5.4%), and attention switching (3.0%). There was a significant LTM by Group interaction in which stronger LTM scores were associated with significantly higher vWM capacity scores for the TD group as compared to the DLD group. Conclusions: Results support a joint mechanism deficit account of the vWM capacity limitation of children with DLD. Results provide substantively new insights into the underlying factors of the vWM capacity limitation in DLD