Referential Ambiguity in the Narrative Productions of African American Adults Proposal for CAC 2014

None

Vocal aging and adductor spasmodic dysphonia: Response to botulinum toxin injection

Aging of the larynx is characterized by involutional changes which alter its biomechanical and neural properties and create a biological environment that is different from younger counterparts. Illustrative anatomical examples are presented. This natural, non-disease process appears to set conditions which may influence the effectiveness of botulinum toxin injection and our expectations for its success. Adductor spasmodic dysphonia, a type of laryngeal dystonia, is typically treated using botulinum toxin injections of the vocal folds in order to suppress adductory muscle spasms which are disruptive to production of speech and voice. A few studies have suggested diminished response to treatment in older patients with adductor spasmodic dysphonia. This retrospective study provides a reanalysis of existing pre-to-post treatment data as function of age. Perceptual judgments of speech produced by 42 patients with ADSD were made by two panels of professional listeners with expertise in voice or fluency of speech. Results demonstrate a markedly reduced positive response to botulinum toxin treatment in the older patients. Perceptual findings are further elucidated by means of acoustic spectrography. Literature on vocal aging is reviewed to provide a specific set of biological mechanisms that best account for the observed interaction of botulinum toxin treatment with advancing age

Treatment Can Facilitate Reacquisition of a Morphological Rule

TB

Sentence Comprehension in Context: Influence of Prior Visual Stimulation?

TB

Contextualized Sentence Comprehension in Nonfluent Aphasia: Predictiveness and Severity of Comprehension Impairment

TB

Time Post Onset and Contextualized Sentence Comprehension in Nonfluent Aphasia

TB

Characteristics of Polysyllabic Word Repetitions in Individuals with Fluent and Nonfluent Aphasia

Speech sound errors associated with aphasia have been attributed to disintegration of both phonologic and motoric processes in different subtypes of aphasia (Pierce, 2001). In nonfluent aphasia (NA), which often co-occurs with apraxia of speech (AOS), motor programming and motor planning difficulties are the typically proposed error generating mechanisms. In contrast, phonemic paraphasia observed in fluent aphasia (FA) is typically thought to be related to inability to retrieve and maintain sequences of phonemes for production. Distortion errors, indicative of motor programming deficiency, predominate in AOS; but also have been reported to a lesser extent in FA, in studies involving word or sentence repetition (McNeil, Robin & Schmidt, 2009; Odell, McNeil, Rosenbek & Hunter 1991; Odell, Bonkowski, & Mello,1995). Associated features of dysfluency and dysprosody have also been reported in AOS (Kent & Rosenbek, 1983). In contrast, undistorted phonemic level errors also occur in both FA and NA subtypes (Blumstien, 1973; Pierce, 2001). This study examines the occurrence of phonemic errors as well as phonetic distortion, dysfluency and dysprosody in speech produced by individuals diagnosed with NA with AOS versus FA with phonemic paraphasia, in comparison with the speech of non-aphasic control speakers. This information is important (1) in order to advance our understanding of AOS, which usually occurs, clinically, in the presence of NA; (2) to further elucidate the role of distortion in FA, wherein speech errors are often described clinically as being fluently produced with little effort or distortion (Seddoh, Robin, Hageman, Moon, & Folkins, 1996); and (3) to help toward differentiating phonological/representational impairments from motorically based aspects of apraxic speech, which may not be mutually exclusive (Ziegler, Aichert & Staiger, 2012)

Clinical assessment of motor speech disorders in adults with concussion

This article reviews the occurrence of motor speech disorders of dysarthria and apraxia of speech following closed head injury and other traumatic brain injuries in adults as they apply to sport concussion and related trauma. Athletic sideline and speech-language pathology screenings are considered. Procedures for clinical assessment and diagnosis of motor speech disorder, most particularly dysarthria, are discussed with special reference to closed head injury. Included are the evaluation components of cranial nerve and speech mechanism examination, nonspeech musculature examination, perceptual and instrumental assessment procedures, quasi-standardized testing for dysarthria, and the determination of restrictions of participation in everyday life activities. The resultant output of such an evaluation is described in depth. Future directions for clinical research on motor speech disorders following sports concussion are also briefly considered