Perceived communication experiences of children and young people with Down syndrome:The impact of people, places, and AAC methods

People with Down syndrome can experience communication challenges, impacting daily interactions. Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) can be beneficial, including signing and electronic communication aids. Research mostly focuses on intervention studies, limiting insight into real-world AAC experiences. An online survey was developed to investigate perceived challenges and opportunities related to AAC experienced by children and young people with Down syndrome and their families, completed by 264 caregivers. We report on AAC currently used, support received, and contextual influences. The results highlight that despite signing being the most used form of AAC for the group, its use presents barriers in wider social contexts due to required communication partner skill. Electronic AAC, however, appears under-used, and challenges related to support and the physical properties of communication aids are reported. Further research should extend understanding related to AAC use across social contexts and device onboarding to enhance societal participation and independence

<i>Holiday</i> or <i>vacation</i>? The processing of variation in vocabulary across dialects

Published online: 20 Oct 2015Native speakers with different linguistic backgrounds differ in their usage of language, and particularly in their vocabulary. For instance, British natives would use the word "holiday" when American natives would prefer the word "vacation". This study investigates how cross-dialectal lexical variation impacts lexical processing. Electrophysiological responses were recorded, while British natives listened to British or American speech in which lexical frequency dominance across dialects was manipulated (British versus American vocabulary). Words inconsistent with the dialect of the speaker (British words uttered by American speakers and vice versa) elicited larger negative electrophysiological deflections than consistent words, 700 ms after stimulus onset. Thus, processing of British words was easier when listening to British speakers and processing of American words was easier when listening to American speakers. These results show that listeners integrate their knowledge about cross-dialectal lexical variations in vocabulary as speech unfolds, as it was previously shown for social lexical variations.This research was funded by grants from the Spanish Government (PSI2011-23033, PSI2014-54500, and Consolider Ingenio 2010 CSD2007-00048), from the Catalan Government (SGR 2009-1521) and from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework (FP7/2007– 2013 Cooperation grant agreement 613465-AThEME). CM was supported by the Basque Foundation for Science (IKERBASQUE) and the BCBL institution

Concurrent semantic priming and lexical interference for close semantic relations in blocked-cyclic picture naming:Electrophysiological signatures

In the present study, we employed event-related brain potentials to investigate the effects of semantic similarity on different planning stages during language production. We manipulated semantic similarity by controlling feature overlap within taxonomical hierarchies. In a blocked-cyclic naming task, participants named pictures in repeated cycles, blocked in semantically close, distant, or unrelated conditions. Only closely related items, but not distantly related items, induced semantic blocking effects. In the first presentation cycle, naming was facilitated, and amplitude modulations in the N1 component around 140–180 ms post-stimulus onset predicted this behavioral facilitation. In contrast, in later cycles, naming was delayed, and a negative-going posterior amplitude modulation around 250–350 ms post-stimulus onset predicted this interference. These findings indicate easier object recognition or identification underlying initial facilitation and increased difficulties during lexical selection. The N1 modulation was reduced but persisted in later cycles in which interference dominated, and the posterior negativity was also present in cycle 1 in which facilitation dominated, demonstrating concurrent effects of conceptual priming and lexical interference in all naming cycles. Our assumptions about the functional role these two opposing forces play in producing semantic context effects are further supported by the finding that the joint modulation of these two ERPs on naming latency exclusively emerged when naming closely related, but not unrelated items. The current findings demonstrate that close relations, but not distant taxonomic relations, induce stronger semantic blocking effects, and that temporally overlapping electrophysiological signatures reflect a trade-off between facilitatory priming and interfering lexical competition.Peer Reviewe