pT3 colorectal cancer revisited: a multicentric study on the histological depth of invasion in more than 1000 pT3 carcinomas—proposal for a new pT3a/pT3b subclassification

BACKGROUND: Pathological TNM staging (pTNM) is the strongest prognosticator in colorectal carcinoma (CRC) and the foundation of its post-operative clinical management. Tumours that invade pericolic/perirectal adipose tissue generally fall into the pT3 category without further subdivision. METHODS: The histological depth of invasion into the pericolic/perirectal fat was digitally and conventionally measured in a training cohort of 950 CRCs (Munich). We biostatistically calculated the optimal cut-off to stratify pT3 CRCs into novel pT3a (≤3 mm)/pT3b (>3 mm) subgroups, which were then validated in two independent cohorts (447 CRCs, Bayreuth/542 CRCs, Mainz). RESULTS: Compared to pT3a tumours, pT3b CRCs showed significantly worse disease-specific survival, including in pN0 vs pN+ and colonic vs. rectal cancers (DSS: P < 0.001, respectively, pooled analysis of all cohorts). Furthermore, the pT3a/pT3b subclassification remained an independent predictor of survival in multivariate analyses (e.g. DSS: P < 0.001, hazard ratio: 4.41 for pT3b, pooled analysis of all cohorts). While pT2/pT3a CRCs showed similar survival characteristics, pT3b cancers remained a distinct subgroup with dismal survival. DISCUSSION: The delineation of pT3a/pT3b subcategories of CRC based on the histological depth of adipose tissue invasion adds valuable prognostic information to the current pT3 classification and implementation into current staging practices of CRC should be considered

Speech perception, phonological sensitivity, and articulation in early vocabulary development

Speech perception, articulation, and word learning are three major tiers of language development in young children, integrating perceptual and productive language abilities. Infant speech perception precedes speech production and is the basis for native language learning. By investigating the relationship between the attention to phonological detail in speech and word learning, the degree of phonological detail in the lexical representations can be inferred. This relationship can be described by two models: the vocabulary-driven and phonology-driven model. The vocabulary-driven model proposes that the structure of the lexicon influences attention to phonological detail in speech perception, and this model is consistent with the Lexical Restructuring Model. On the other hand the phonology-driven model proposes that vocabulary increases as a result of increased attention to phonological detail in speech. To infer the phonological specifications of lexical representations of words in 2½- to 3-year-olds, the variables vocabulary, phonological sensitivity, language specific speech perception and articulation accuracy were tested in a longitudinal study with 60 participants. For these variables, new measures were developed, adapted, and tested. It was found that phonological sensitivity at 30 months predicted vocabulary at 33 months, but not the opposite. This supports the prediction of the phonology-driven model. However, in an augmented version of the vocabulary-driven model that included all variables, articulation at 30 months was found to predict phonological sensitivity at 33 months. These results are discussed in the light of the Lexical Restructuring Model, and the interaction of speech perception, articulation skills, and lexical representations, and suggestions for future research are offered. APPENDICES ON CD-ROM CAN BE VIEWED AT UWS LIBRAR

New measures to chart toddlers' speech perception and language development : a test of the lexical restructuring hypothesis

Language acquisition factors at work in toddlers between 2 1/2 and 3 years of age were investigated in the first longitudinal study of this kind. New age-appropriate tasks were devised to measure the development of vocabulary size; articulation accuracy; sensitivity to the phonemic features of, in this case, Australian English; and the degree of specialisation towards the native tongue, as measured by language-specific speech perception; LSSP, with 45 Australian English learning toddlers (18 male, 27 female) at 30, 33, and 36 months of age. Results indicated (i) that nearly all measures improved linearly over age; (ii) that there were significant correlations between articulation ability and vocabulary size; and (iii) that, in confirmation of the lexical restructuring hypothesis, vocabulary size is significantly predicted by the broad range of native language abilities under the rubric of Phoneme Sensitivity, but not by the more specific measure of LSSP

Amount of speech exposure predicts vowel perception in four- to eight-month-olds

During the first year of life, infants shift their focus in speech perception from acoustic to linguistic information. This perceptual reorganization is related to exposure, and a direct relation has previously been demonstrated between amount of daily language exposure and mismatch response (MMR) amplitude to a native consonant contrast at around one year of age. The present study investigates the same relation between amount of speech exposure and MMR amplitude to a native vowel contrast at four to eight months of age. Importantly, the present study uses spectrally rotated speech in an effort to take general neural maturation into account. The amplitude of the part of the MMR that is tied specifically to speech processing correlates with amount of daily speech exposure, as estimated using the LENA system. Keywords: Mismatch negativity, MMN, Mismatch response, MMR, ERP, EEG, Speech perception, Language exposure, Speech exposure, LENA, Infants, Swedis

Uhm... What’s going on? An EEG study on perception of filled pauses in spontaneous Swedish speech

Filled pauses have been shown to play a significant role in comprehension and long-term storage of speech. Behavioral and neurophysiological studies suggest that filled pauses can help mitigate semantic and/or syntactic incongruity in spoken language. The purpose of the present study was to explore how filled pauses affect the processing of spontaneous speech in the listener. Brain activation of eight subjects was measured by electroencephalography (EEG), while they listened to recordings of Wizard-of-Oz travel booking dialogues. The results show a P300 component in the Primary Motor Cortex, but not in the Broca or Wernicke areas. A possible interpretation could be that the listener is preparing to engage in speech. However, a larger sample is currently being collected

Lexical specification of prosodic information in Swedish: Evidence from mismatch negativity

Like many of the other Germanic languages, the Swedish stress system has mostly been given a phonological analysis. Recently, however, the central role of morphology has started to be recognized. Similar to the lexical specification of tonal accent, the Swedish stress system is claimed to be morphologically determined and morphemes are thus categorized as prosodically specified and prosodically unspecified. Prosodically specified morphemes bear stress information as part of their lexical representations and are classified as tonic (i.e., lexically stressed), pretonic and posttonic, whereas prosodically unspecified morphemes receive stress through a phonological rule, which is right-edge oriented, but sensitive to prosodic specification at that edge. The presence of prosodic specification is inferred from vowel quality and vowel quantity; if stress moves away, vowel quality and quantity change radically in phonologically stressed morphemes whereas traces of stress remain in lexically stressed morphemes. The present study is the first to investigate if stress is a lexical property of Swedish morphemes by comparing the mismatch negativity (MMN) responses to vowel quality and quantity changes in phonologically stressed and lexically stressed words. In a passive oddball paradigm, 15 native speakers of Swedish were presented with standards and deviants, which differed from the standards in formant frequency and duration. Given that vowel quality and quantity changes are associated with morphological derivations only in phonologically stressed words, the MMN responses are expected to be larger in phonologically stressed words than in lexically stressed words that lack such an association. The results indicated that the processing differences between phonologically and lexically stressed words were reflected in the amplitude and topography of the MMN responses. Confirming the expectation, the MMN amplitude was larger for the phonologically stressed word than for the lexically stressed word and showed a more widespread topographic distribution. The brain did not only detect vowel quality and quantity changes but also used them to activate memory traces associated with derivations. The present study therefore implies that morphology is directly involved in the Swedish stress system and that changes in phonological shape due to stress shift cue the upcoming stress and the potential addition of a morpheme

Singing as an advancing factor of emotional development of children in average pre-school age.

Filled pauses have been shown to play a significant role in comprehension and long-term storage of speech. Behavioral and neurophysiological studies suggest that filled pauses can help mitigate semantic and/or syntactic incongruity in spoken language. The purpose of the present study was to explore how filled pauses affect the processing of spontaneous speech in the listener. Brain activation of eight subjects was measured by electroencephalography (EEG), while they listened to recordings of Wizard-of-Oz travel booking dialogues. The results show a P300 component in the Primary Motor Cortex, but not in the Broca or Wernicke areas. A possible interpretation could be that the listener is preparing to engage in speech. However, a larger sample is currently being collected

Uhm... What’s going on? An EEG study on perception of filled pauses in spontaneous Swedish speech

Filled pauses have been shown to play a significant role in comprehension and long-term storage of speech. Behavioral and neurophysiological studies suggest that filled pauses can help mitigate semantic and/or syntactic incongruity in spoken language. The purpose of the present study was to explore how filled pauses affect the processing of spontaneous speech in the listener. Brain activation of eight subjects was measured by electroencephalography (EEG), while they listened to recordings of Wizard-of-Oz travel booking dialogues. The results show a P300 component in the Primary Motor Cortex, but not in the Broca or Wernicke areas. A possible interpretation could be that the listener is preparing to engage in speech. However, a larger sample is currently being collected

OZI : Australian English communicative development inventory

For more than 20 years, the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) and its adaptations for languages other than English have been used as reliable measures of infants’ and toddlers’ early receptive and productive vocabulary size. This article introduces the OZI, the Australian English adaptation of the MacArthur–Bates CDI, now normed for 12- to 30-month-old children. The findings of two studies are presented: (1) a comparison study that demonstrated that toddlers (N = 64) acquiring Australian English (24- and 30-month-olds) obtain higher productive vocabulary scores on the OZI than the MacArthur–Bates CDI; and (2) an OZI norming study that included 12- to 30-month-old Australian infants and toddlers (N = 1496). These studies provide (i) evidence for the greater applicability of the OZI for infants and toddlers learning Australian English and (ii) productive vocabulary acquisition norms for Australian English for ages 12–30 months, a research and diagnostic tool highly anticipated by researchers and clinicians around Australia