Efficacy and Collegial Relationships

We all have had and continue to have important people in our lives. These people may help us to grow personally as well as professionally. They may help us solve problems in our daily lives. They may be with us at times of great stress, as well as great joy. Our relationships with these people are crucial to our being able to improve what we do; to resolve daily issues in our lives.

Download PDF

The "State" of Phonetic Transcription in the Field of Communication Sciences and Disorders

Phonetic transcriptions, broad and narrow, are a valuable tool that can be used to inform speech-language pathologists (SLPs) about the status of speech and language skills of clients. “Phonetic transcription requires students to listen to spoken language and categorize individual speech sounds into phonemic categories despite the fact that the articulation and acoustic nature of the individual speech sounds may vary across linguistic contexts”

Download PDF

The Buffalo CAPD Model: The Importance of Phonemes in Evaluation and Remediation

The Buffalo Model of Central Auditory Processing has Decoding of speech as its most basic category. Phonemes are processed in the auditory cortex, which is fundamental to the speech-language functions of the brain. Powerful phonemic test procedures and therapeutic approaches enable the audiologist to diagnose and improve decoding related aspects of speech, reading and other communication and academic difficulties. Decoding is the most common CAP category of the Buffalo Model in the general population. 

Because of multidimensional scoring each of the three basic tests of the Buffalo Model provide information regarding phonemic decoding. The Phonemic Synthesis test provides the most indicators of Decoding. In addition to other Decoding signs; all responses on the battery form a large sample of words and conditions in which errors are analyzed phonemically to compile a Phonemic Error Analysis. This tally is used to direct the Phonemic Training Program (PTP), a powerful procedure for retraining phonemically encoded errors. In addition to the PTP the Phonemic Synthesis Training program is used to remediate phonemic issues.

Effects of Reverberation on Sound Localization for Bilateral Cochlear Implant Users

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of reverberation on the ability of listeners with bilateral cochlear implants (BCIs) to localize speech in anechoic and reverberant environments. Two specific research questions were addressed: how do listeners with BCIs localize sounds in different environments compared to listeners with normal hearing (NH)? And at what reverberation time (RT60) does localization performance begin to decline for both groups of subjects? Six adults with BCIs and ten with NH participated. 

All subjects completed a virtual localization test in simulated anechoic and reverberant environments (0.0, 0.2, 0.6, and 0.9 s RT60) in quiet. A three-word phrase was presented at 70 dBSPL from nine simulated source locations in the frontal-horizontal plane (± 900). Root-mean-square localization error (RMSLE) in degrees was calculated. Results revealed localization accuracy significantly decreased as reverberation time increased for both groups of subjects. Listeners with BCIs had significantly poorer localization accuracy than listeners with NH in all conditions.

Temporal variation in African American English: The Distinctive Use of Vowel Duration

African American English (AAE) is a unique dialect of American English that differs systematically from the variety spoken by the White population. 

Acoustic-phonetic explorations of segmental structure of AAE including vowel and consonant productions are still rare and the current state and developmental direction of AAE in the United States relative to dialects of White American English (WAE) are largely undetermined. Particularly little is known about timing patterns in AAE such as segmental durations, speech rate and rhythm. Objective: The purpose of this study was to better understand temporal variation in AAE by analyzing vowel duration. 

Get PDF Link Here

Tympanometry and TOAEs Results of Kuwaiti School Children with Down syndrome

Conductive hearing loss is one of the most common disabilities in children with Down Syndrome (DS). The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the results from tympanometry and transient otoacoustic emissions (TOAEs) in children with DS in special schools. The research investigates the results of tympanometry and TOAEs testing for a group of 57 children with DS aged 7.1-16.2 years. 

It was found that Type A tympanograms were found in 4 participants, type C1 in 2 participants, type C2 in 15 participants, and type B in 33 participants. TOAE was present in six and absent in 48 participants. A combination of tympanometry and TOAE is a fast,efficient and objective evaluation of middle ear and outer hair cell functionsin children with DS. This test battery successfully examined over 80% of the children with mild to moderate intellectual impairment, who would be difficult to test using behavioral methods.

Subjective and Objective Estimate of Neural Fatigue in an Adult with Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder

Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) is a retrocochlear disorder in which cochlear functioning is normal but the transmission in the auditory neural pathway is affected. The present study reports of neural fatigue seen in subjective and objective tests of adaption in a 19 year old adult with ANSD. He had bilateral mild sensorineural hearing loss with otoacoustic emissions present and absent auditory brainstem response. 

Immittance evaluation showed elevated acoustic reflexes at 500 Hz and 1000 Hz in both ipsilateral and contralateral stimulation. Reflex decay test was administered at 500 Hz and 1000 Hz which showed positive reflex decay with contralateral stimulation. Olsen and Noffsinger tone decay test and supra-threshold adaptation test showed positive tone decay at 500 Hz, 1000 Hz and 2000 Hz in both ears.