Sensitivity to amplitude envelope rise time in infancy and vocabulary development at 3 years: A significant relationship.

Here we report, for the first time, a relationship between sensitivity to amplitude envelope rise time in infants and their later vocabulary development. Recent research in auditory neuroscience has revealed that amplitude envelope rise time plays a mechanistic role in speech encoding. Accordingly, individual differences in infant discrimination of amplitude envelope rise times could be expected to relate to individual differences in language acquisition. A group of 50 infants taking part in a longitudinal study contributed rise time discrimination thresholds when aged 7 and 10 months, and their vocabulary development was measured at 3 years. Experimental measures of phonological sensitivity were also administered at 3 years. Linear mixed effect models taking rise time sensitivity as the dependent variable, and controlling for non-verbal IQ, showed significant predictive effects for vocabulary at 3 years, but not for the phonological sensitivity measures. The significant longitudinal relationship between amplitude envelope rise time discrimination and vocabulary development suggests that early rise time discrimination abilities have an impact on speech processing by infants.Australian Research Counci

Validation of a Dynamic Measure of Current Cognitive Reserve in a Longitudinally Assessed Sample of Healthy Older Adults.

Cognitive reserve (CR) is a theoretical construct describing the underlying cognitive capacity of an individual that confers differential levels of resistance to, and recovery from, brain injuries of various types. To date, estimates of an individual's level of CR have been based on single proxy measures that are retrospective and static in nature. To develop a measure of dynamic change in CR across a lifetime, we previously identified a latent factor, derived from an exploratory factor analysis of a large sample of healthy older adults, as current CR (cCR). In the present study, we examined the longitudinal results of a sample of 272 older adults enrolled in the Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project. Using results from 12-month and 24-month reassessments, we examined the longitudinal validity of the cCR factor using confirmatory factor analyses. The results of these analyses indicate that the cCR factor structure is longitudinally stable. These results, in conjunction with recent results from our group demonstrating dynamic increases in cCR over time in older adults undertaking further education, lend weight to this cCR measure being a valid estimate of dynamic change in CR over time

The effect of maltreatment type on adolescent executive functioning and inner speech

There are indications that different types of maltreatment can lead to different cognitive and behavioural outcomes. This study investigated whether maltreatment type was related to executive functioning (EF) abilities and the use of inner speech. Forty maltreated adolescents and a comparison group of 40 non-maltreated typically developing (TD) adolescents completed a battery of tasks designed to assess both their EF abilities and their vulnerability to disruptions to inner speech. They also completed an IQ test. MANCOVA and ANCOVA analyses were carried out to examine potential effects of maltreatment type (abuse alone; neglect alone; abuse/neglect combined and no maltreatment) on EF and use of inner speech. Maltreatment type was related to EF abilities. In particular, abuse only and abuse/neglect combined had a greater negative impact on EF than neglect only. However, the neglect alone group were more vulnerable to disruptions to inner speech than the other two maltreatment groups, suggesting that they may be more reliant on the use of inner speech. These findings provide new insights into the differential impact of maltreatment type on EF and the use of inner speech in adolescence, and could be used to improve the educational outcomes of these vulnerable young people

Brainstem enlargement in pre-school children with autism : results from an inter-method agreement study of segmentation algorithms

The inter-method agreement between automated algorithms for brainstem segmentation is investigated, focusing on the potential involvement of this structure in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Inconsistencies highlighted in previous studies on brainstem in the population with ASD may in part be a result of poor agreement in the extraction of structural features between different methods. A sample of 76 children with ASD and 76 age-, gender- and intelligence-matched controls was considered. Volumetric analyses were performed using common tools for brain structures segmentation, namely FSL-FIRST, FreeSurfer (FS), and Advanced Normalization Tools (ANTs). For shape analysis SPHARM-MAT was employed. Inter-method agreement was quantified in terms of Pearson correlations between pairs of volumes obtained by the different methods. The degree of overlap between segmented masks was quantified in terms of the Dice index. Both Pearson correlations and Dice indices, showed poor agreement between FSL-FIRST and the other methods (ANTs and FS), which by contrast, yielded Pearson correlations greater than 0.93 and average Dice indices greater than 0.76 when compared with each other. As with volume, shape analyses exhibited discrepancies between segmentation methods, with particular differences noted between FSL-FIRST and the others (ANT and FS), with under- and over-segmentation in specific brainstem regions. These data suggest that research on brain structure alterations should cross-validate findings across multiple methods. We reliably detected an enlargement of brainstem volume in the whole sample and in the male cohort across multiple segmentation methods, a feature particularly driven by the subgroup of children with idiopathic intellectual disability associated with ASD

An evaluation of the effectiveness of PROMPT therapy in improving speech production accuracy in six children with cerebral palsy

This study evaluates perceptual changes in speech production accuracy in six children (3 – 11 years) with moderate-to-severe speech impairment associated with cerebral palsy before, during, and after participation in a motor-speech intervention program (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets). An A1BCA2 single subject research design was implemented. Subsequent to the baseline phase (phase A1), phase B targeted each participant’s first intervention priority on the PROMPT motor-speech hierarchy. Phase C then targeted one level higher. Weekly speech probes were administered, containing trained and untrained words at the two levels of intervention, plus an additional level that served as a control goal. The speech probes were analysed for motor-speech-movement-parameters and perceptual accuracy. Analysis of the speech probe data showed all participants recorded a statistically significant change. Between phases A1 – B and B – C 6/6 and 4/6participants, respectively, recorded a statistically significant increase in performance level on the motor speech movement patterns targeted during the training of that intervention. The preliminary data presented in this study make a contribution to providing evidence that supports the use of a treatment approach aligned with dynamic systems theory to improve the motor-speech movement patterns and speech production accuracy in children with cerebral palsy

Evaluating Sex and Age Differences in ADI-R and ADOS Scores in a Large European Multi-site Sample of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Research on sex-related differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been impeded by small samples. We pooled 28 datasets from 18 sites across nine European countries to examine sex differences in the ASD phenotype on the ADI-R (376 females, 1763 males) and ADOS (233 females, 1187 males). On the ADI-R, early childhood restricted and repetitive behaviours were lower in females than males, alongside comparable levels of social interaction and communication difficulties in females and males. Current ADI-R and ADOS scores showed no sex differences for ASD severity. There were lower socio-communicative symptoms in older compared to younger individuals. This large European ASD sample adds to the literature on sex and age variations of ASD symptomatology

Using video modeling to teach complex social sequences to children with autism

This study comprised of two experiments was designed to teach complex social sequences to children with autism. Experimental control was achieved by collecting data using means of within-system design methodology. Across a number of conditions children were taken to a room to view one of the four short videos of two people engaging in a simple sequence of activities. Then, each child’s behavior was assessed in the same room. Results showed that this video modeling procedure enhanced the social initiation skills of all children. It also facilitated reciprocal play engagement and imitative responding of a sequence of behaviors, in which social initiation was not included. These behavior changes generalized across peers and maintained after a 1- and 2-month follow-up period