Suitability of vocabulary assessments : comparing child scores and parent perspectives on communicative inventories for Aboriginal families in Western Sydney

Purpose: Standardised testing tools within an Aboriginal Australian context have been found to produce inaccurate results due to language and cultural differences. The primary aim of the study is to compare Aboriginal children’s scores in urban NSW across two language assessment tools: the Early Language Inventory (ERLI) and the Australian English Communicative Development Inventory, short form (OZI-SF). These tools are vocabulary checklists for children aged approximately 12–30 months. OZI-SF is an Australian tool for mainstream use and ERLI has been developed with and for Aboriginal families, but not in urban contexts, so its suitability there is unknown, given the great cultural and linguistic diversity among Aboriginal people across Australia. The second aim is to identify which tool is more culturally appropriate for urban Aboriginal families through parent perspectives. Method: Overall, 30 parents (of 31 children) participated in the study to complete the ERLI, and 14 parents from this sample completed both the ERLI and OZI-SF and interviews to explore child scores and parent perspectives, in a mixed methods approach. Result: Aboriginal children (N = 14) scored higher on the ERLI than the OZI-SF. Gender and age were significant contributors to the scores as scores were higher for older children and higher for girls than boys. In answer to the second aim, four themes emerged to explain parental perspectives and their preference for the ERLI, which supported connection to culture and language. Conclusion: Findings have implications for paediatric language assessments with urban Aboriginal families in clinical, educational and research settings

Suitability of text-based communications for the delivery of psychological therapeutic services to rural and remote communities : scoping review

Background: People living in rural and remote areas have poorer access to mental health services than those living in cities. They are also less likely to seek help because of self-stigma and entrenched stoic beliefs about help seeking as a sign of weakness. E-mental health services can span great distances to reach those in need and offer a degree of privacy and anonymity exceeding that of traditional face-to-face counseling and open up possibilities for identifying at-risk individuals for targeted intervention. Objective: This scoping review maps the research that has explored text-based e-mental health counseling services and studies that have used language use patterns to predict mental health status. In doing so, one of the aims was to determine whether text-based counseling services have the potential to circumvent the barriers faced by clients in rural and remote communities using technology and whether text-based communications, in particular, can be used to identify individuals at risk of psychological distress or self-harm. Methods: We conducted a comprehensive electronic literature search of PsycINFO, PubMed, ERIC, and Web of Science databases for articles published in English through November 2020. Results: Of the 9134 articles screened, 70 met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. There is preliminary evidence to suggest that text-based, real-time communication with a qualified therapist is an effective form of e-mental health service delivery, particularly for individuals concerned with stigma and confidentiality. There is also converging evidence that text-based communications that have been analyzed using computational linguistic techniques can be used to accurately predict progress during treatment and identify individuals at risk of serious mental health conditions and suicide. Conclusions: This review reveals a clear need for intensified research into the extent to which text-based counseling (and predictive models using modern computational linguistics tools) may help deliver mental health treatments to underserved groups such as regional communities, identify at-risk individuals for targeted intervention, and predict progress during treatment. Such approaches have implications for policy development to improve intervention accessibility in at-risk and underserved populations

Co-design of a neurodevelopment assessment scale : a study protocol

Neurodevelopmental disorders are a heterogeneous group of conditions with overlapping symptomatology and fluctuating developmental trajectories that transcend current diagnostic categorisation. There is a need for validated screening instruments which dimensionally assess symptomatology from a holistic, transdiagnostic perspective. The primary aim is to co-design a Neurodevelopment Assessment Scale (NAS), a user-friendly transdiagnostic assessment inventory that systematically screens for all signs and symptoms commonly encountered in neurodevelopmental disorders. Our first objective is to undertake development of this tool, utilising co-design principles in partnership with stakeholders, including both those with lived experience of neurodevelopmental disorders and service providers. Our second objective is to evaluate the face validity, as well as the perceived utility, user-friendliness, suitability, and acceptability (i.e., ‘social validity’), of the NAS from the perspective of parents/caregivers and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, clinicians, and service providers. Our third objective is to ascertain the psychometric properties of the NAS, including content validity and convergent validity. The NAS will provide an efficient transdiagnostic tool for evaluating all relevant signs, symptoms, and the dimensional constructs that underpin neurodevelopmental presentations. It is anticipated that this will maximise outcomes by enabling the delivery of personalised care tailored to an individual’s unique profile in a holistic and efficient manner

Maternal interactions with a hearing and hearing-imparied twin : similarities and differences in speech input, interaction quality, and word production

This study examined a mother’s speech style and interactive behaviors with her twin sons: 1 with bilateral hearing impairment (HI) and the other with normal hearing (NH). The mother was video-recorded interacting with her twin sons when the boys were 12.5 and 22 months of age. Mean F0, F0 range, duration, and F1/F2 vowel space of the corner vowels /i/, /u/, and /a/ were compared in her infant-directed (ID) and adult-directed (AD) speech. The interactions were also coded for emotional availability, and vocabulary size was collected at 17 and 22 months. Acoustic analyses revealed no difference among mean F0, F0 range, and duration between the twins. In contrast, when the corner vowels were plotted in F1/F2 vowel space, the results showed a diminished vowel space in speech to the HI twin compared to the NH twin. Ratings of emotional availability were lower for the HI than the NH twin, but the HI twin had a larger expressive vocabulary on both occasions, albeit in the lower percentile. The mother appears more focused on maintaining the attention of the HI infant using the typical ID exaggerations to prosody and overlooking linguistic features such as the hyperarticulation of her vowels. The results have implications for early intervention strategies

Age-specific preferences for infant-directed affective intent

This study examined the developmental course of infants' attentional preferences for 3 types of infant-directed affective intent, which have been shown to be commonly used at particular ages in the first year of life. Specifically, Kitamura and Burnham (2003) found mothers' tone of voice in infant-directed speech is most comforting between birth and 3 months, most approving at 6 months, and most directive at 9 months. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess whether there is a relation between the type of affective intent used by mothers at each age point, and infants' affective intent preferences. Each infant group, 3-, 6-, and 9-month-olds, was played the 3 types of affective intent alternating across a single test session. When analyzed across age, the interactions revealed the predicted developmental trajectory; that is, infant preferences transformed between 3 and 6 months from comforting to approving, and between 6 and 9 months, from approving to directive. However, when analyzed separately by age, it was shown that 3-month-olds preferred comforting to other types; 6-month-olds preferred approving to directive, but listened equally to approving and comforting; and 9-month-olds showed no preference for any type of affective intent. Because it was possible that 9-month-olds were more focused on phonetic and phonotactic information, a new group of 9-month-olds was tested with intonation-only versions of the 3 affective intent types. Under these conditions, they were found to prefer directive to comforting, but not directive to approving types. The results of this study have implications for what infants pay attention to in their social and linguistic environment over the course of the first year

Developmental trends in infant preferences for affective intent in mothers' speech

According to Kitamura & Burnham (2003), affective intent is modified in infant-directed (ID) speech such that mothers accentuate different emotional messages at different ages – ‘comforting’ at 3 months, ‘approving’ at 6 months, and ‘directive’ at 9 months. This study examined preferences for the three ID emotion types by infants aged 3, 6 and 9 months. After adults had rated utterances according to affective category, infants were tested with the 12 best exemplars using an auditory preference procedure. Results revealed that 3-month-olds preferred ‘comforting’ utterances; 6-month-olds preferred ‘approving’ to ‘directive’ ID utterances, and listened equally to ‘approving’ and ‘comforting’ utterances; and 9-month-olds showed no preference for any ID emotion type. Because it was possible that 9-month-olds were attending to segmental information, they were tested using low-pass filtered stimuli, and were found to prefer ‘directive’ to ‘comforting’ ID utterances, and listen equally to ‘directive’ and ‘approving’ utterances. It is concluded that during the first year, mothers’ speech not only relies on contingent responsiveness but is also affected by their infant’s age and state of development

Mommy, speak clearly : induced hearing loss shapes vowel hyperarticulation

Talkers hyperarticulate vowels when communicating with listeners that require increased speech intelligibility. Vowel hyperarticulation is said to be motivated by knowledge of the listener's linguistic needs because it typically occurs in speech to infants, foreigners and hearing-impaired listeners, but not to non-verbal pets. However, the degree to which vowel hyperarticulation is determined by feedback from the listener is surprisingly less well understood. This study examines whether mothers' speech input is driven by knowledge of the infant's linguistic competence, or by the infant's feedback cues. Specifically, we manipulated (i) mothers' knowledge of whether they believed their infants could hear them or not, and (ii) the audibility of the speech signal available to the infant (full or partial audibility, or inaudible). Remarkably, vowel hyperarticulation was completely unaffected by mothers' knowledge; instead, there was a reduction in the degree of hyperarticulation such that vowels were hyperarticulated to the greatest extent in the full audibility condition, there was reduced hyperarticulation in the partially audible condition, and no hyperarticulation in the inaudible condition. Thus, while it might be considered adaptive to hyperarticulate speech to the hearing-impaired adult or infant, when these two factors (infant and hearing difficulty) are coupled, vowel hyperarticulation is sacrificed. Our results imply that infant feedback drives talker behavior and raise implications for intervention strategies used with carers of hearing-impaired infants

Expression of affect in infant-directed speech to hearing and hearing impaired infants

Infant-directed speech (IDS) modifications are adversely affected by infant hearing loss. This study uses a 2- dimensional model to rate the quality of emotion and arousal in mother’s IDS to infants with normal hearing, simulated moderate hearing loss and simulated profound hearing loss. Results from a ratings study show that maternal IDS was rated more positive and arousing to infants with simulated profound hearing loss compared to normal hearing. These findings indicate that despite a reduction in vowel hyperarticulation to infants with simulated hearing loss, IDS exhibits increased positive affect as infant hearing loss is induced

"Your baby can't hear you" : how mothers talk to infants with simulated hearing loss

In this study mothers were told "your baby can't hear you," and their interactions recorded in either (i) a hearing condition in which infants could hear their mothers or (ii) a hearing loss condition in which infants could not hear their mothers. It was found that pitch levels of speech were similar in both conditions, but that there was vowel hyperarticulation in the hearing, but not the hearing loss condition, suggesting that mothers use of linguistic devices depends on their infants responsiveness

Exploring quantitative differences in mothers' and fathers' infant-directed speech to Australian 6-month-olds

Children vary greatly in the rate at which they acquire language in the first years of life. A growing body of research indicates that the quantity of parental speech input significantly influences individual differences in child language development. This study uses the Language Environment Analysis System (LENA) to explore the relationship between the quantity of mothers and fathers speech input and infant language development in a group of Australian infants. Results from 10-14 hour recordings of 11 6-month-old infants reveal that turn-taking quantity is positively related to the quantity of child vocalisations