Phonological and speech motor abilities in children with childhood apraxia of speech.

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder in which the precision and consistency of speech sounds are impaired due to deficits in motor planning and programming. The literature on CAS suggests that the clinical features of CAS cannot be limited to one level of speech processing and that a more comprehensive understanding of how all levels involved in speech production are part of a complex system is needed. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between phonological and speech motor abilities in children with CAS and to determine the extent to which speech motor performance accounts for phonological processing in children with CAS.

Toward Process-Oriented, Dimensional Approaches for Diagnosis and Treatment of Speech Sound Disorders in Children: Position Statement and Future Perspectives.

Background: Children with speech sound disorders (SSD) form a heterogeneous group, with respect to severity, etiology, proximal causes, speech error characteristics, and response to treatment. Infants develop speech and language in interaction with neurological maturation and general perceptual, motoric, and cognitive skills in a social-emotional context.

Purpose: After a brief introduction into psycholinguistic models of speech production and levels of causation, in this review article, we present an in-depth overview of mechanisms and processes, and the dynamics thereof, which are crucial in typical speech development.

Interventions to Reduce Inappropriate Physical Therapy Consultation in the Inpatient Setting: A Quality Improvement Initiative.

Physical therapy (PT) in inpatient settings is a limited and valuable resource. Inappropriate PT consultation is costly and can lead to delays in care and discharge planning. Baseline data at an academic hospital revealed that approximately one in four PT consults were inappropriate (n = 29,230) across all services, as defined by an activity measure post-acute care "6-Clicks" basic mobility score of >22.

Speech and Music Therapy in the Treatment of Childhood Apraxia of Speech: An Introduction and a Case Study.

Purpose: Speech-Music Therapy for Aphasia (SMTA), a method that combines speech therapy and music therapy, is introduced as a treatment method for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). SMTA will be evaluated in a proof-of-principle study. The first case study is presented herein.

Dynamic assessment of the effectiveness of digital game-based literacy training in beginning readers: a cluster randomised controlled trial.

In this article, we report on a study evaluating the effectiveness of a digital game-based learning (DGBL) tool for beginning readers of Dutch, employing active (math game) and passive (no game) control conditions. This classroom-level randomized controlled trial included 247 first graders from 16 classrooms in the Netherlands and the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. The intervention consisted of 10 to 15 min of daily playing during school time for a period of up to 7 weeks.

Process-Oriented Profiling of Speech Sound Disorders.

The differentiation between subtypes of speech sound disorder (SSD) and the involvement of possible underlying deficits is part of ongoing research and debate. The present study adopted a data-driven approach and aimed to identify and describe deficits and subgroups within a sample of 150 four to seven-year-old Dutch children with SSD. Data collection comprised a broad test battery including the Computer Articulation Instrument (CAI).

Music and musical elements in the treatment of childhood speech sound disorders: A systematic review of the literature.

Purpose: Music-based interventions are used in the treatment of childhood speech sound disorders (SSDs). Hypotheses on working mechanisms are being developed, focussing on shared neural processes. However, evidence of the effect of treatment with musical elements in SSDs in children is lacking.

Early Productive Vocabulary Composition as Precursor of Dyslexia.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to gain more insight into the linguistic characterization of dyslexia by investigating vocabulary acquisition. In a previous study, vocabulary at 17 months of age appeared to be related to familial risk (FR) of dyslexia. The aim of this study was to investigate how the differences in lexical composition further develop up to 3 years (35 months) of age and, more importantly, to what extent these differences can be considered specific precursors of dyslexia later on.

[Innovative geriatric concepts for vascular medicine and vascular surgery].

So far, advances in vascular surgery and geriatrics have developed largely independent of each other, and there are - unlike orthogeriatrics - hardly any overlaps in daily clinical practice. Yet in an interdisciplinary setting, geriatric concepts might be helpful in individualized indication, choice of therapy and prognosis in vascular surgery, especially in terms of old(est)-old patients (85+). Geriatric notions, such as biological age and functionality, are not sufficiently reflected by the vascular status, but have to consider other organ-specific components (e.

Whole-genome sequencing identifies functional noncoding variation in SEMA3C that cosegregates with dyslexia in a multigenerational family.

Dyslexia is a common heritable developmental disorder involving impaired reading abilities. Its genetic underpinnings are thought to be complex and heterogeneous, involving common and rare genetic variation. Multigenerational families segregating apparent monogenic forms of language-related disorders can provide useful entrypoints into biological pathways.

Maximum repetition rate in a large cross-sectional sample of typically developing Dutch-speaking children.

The current study aims to provide normative data for the maximum repetition rate (MRR) development of Dutch-speaking children based on a large cross-sectional study using a standardised protocol. A group of 1014 typically developing children aged 3;0 to 6;11 years performed the MRR task of the Computer Articulation Instrument (CAI). The number of syllables per second was calculated for mono-, bi-, and trisyllabic sequences (MRR-pa, MRR-ta, MRR-ka, MRR-pata, MRR-taka, MRR-pataka).

Speech sound development in typically developing 2-7-year-old Dutch-speaking children: A normative cross-sectional study.

Background: Dutch is a West-Germanic language spoken natively by around 24 million speakers. Although studies on typical Dutch speech sound development have been conducted, norms for phonetic and phonological characteristics of typical development in a large sample with a sufficient age range are lacking.

Aim: To give a detailed description of the speech sound development of typically developing Dutch-speaking children from 2 to 7 years.

Clinical Reasoning for Speech Sound Disorders: Diagnosis and Intervention in Speech-Language Pathologists' Daily Practice.

Purpose This study aims to give an insight in clinical reasoning (diagnosis and intervention) of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the Netherlands for children with speech sound disorder (SSD). Method The study featured a mixed-method (qualitative and quantitative) design. Semistructured interviews containing nondirective, open-ended questions were conducted with 33 SLPs, which were analyzed using a constant comparative analysis.

Assessment of Childhood Apraxia of Speech: A Review/Tutorial of Objective Measurement Techniques.

Background With respect to the clinical criteria for diagnosing childhood apraxia of speech (commonly defined as a disorder of speech motor planning and/or programming), research has made important progress in recent years. Three segmental and suprasegmental speech characteristics-error inconsistency, lengthened and disrupted coarticulation, and inappropriate prosody-have gained wide acceptance in the literature for purposes of participant selection. However, little research has sought to empirically test the diagnostic validity of these features.

Profiling Speech Sound Disorders for Clinical Validation of the Computer Articulation Instrument.

Purpose The current article presents data from 2 studies on clinical groups of children referred for speech assessment. The aims of these studies are to validate the Computer Articulation Instrument (CAI) with the known-group validation method and to determine the differential diagnostic power of the resulting speech profiles. Method Study 1 examined known-group validity by comparing the scores of 93 children diagnosed with speech-language difficulties on the picture naming (PN) task of the CAI with intelligibility judgments given by speech-language pathologists.

A Psycholinguistic Framework for Diagnosis and Treatment Planning of Developmental Speech Disorders.

Background: Differential diagnosis and treatment planning of developmental speech disorders (DSD) remains a major challenge in paediatric speech-language pathology. Different classification systems exist, in which subtypes are differentiated based on their theoretical cause and in which the definitions generally refer to speech production processes. Accordingly, various intervention methods have been developed aiming at different parts of the speech production process.

A Standardized Protocol for Maximum Repetition Rate Assessment in Children.

Background/aims: Maximum repetition rate (MRR) is often used in the assessment of speech motor performance in older children and adults. The present study aimed to evaluate a standardized protocol for MRR assessment in young children in Dutch.

Methods: The sample included 1,524 children of 2-7 years old with no hearing difficulties and Dutch spoken in their nursery or primary school and was representative for children in the Netherlands.

The Psychometric Evaluation of a Speech Production Test Battery for Children: The Reliability and Validity of the Computer Articulation Instrument.

Purpose The aims of this study were to assess the reliability and validity of the Computer Articulation Instrument (CAI), a speech production test battery assessing phonological and speech motor skills in 4 tasks: (1) picture naming, (2) nonword imitation, (3) word and nonword repetition, and (4) maximum repetition rate (MRR). Method Normative data were collected in 1,524 typically developing Dutch-speaking children (aged between 2;0 and 7;0 [years;months]). Parameters were extracted on segmental and syllabic accuracy (Tasks 1 and 2), consistency (Task 3), and syllables per second (Task 4).

The interplay of socio-economic status represented by paternal educational level, white matter structure and reading.

A child's school achievement is influenced by environmental factors. The environmental factors, when represented by socio-economic status (SES) of the family, have been demonstrated to be related to the reading skills of a child. The neural correlates of the relation between SES and reading have been less thoroughly investigated.

Cracking the Code: The Impact of Orthographic Transparency and Morphological-Syllabic Complexity on Reading and Developmental Dyslexia.

Reading is an essential skill in modern societies, yet not all learners necessarily become proficient readers. Theoretical concepts (e.g.

N1 lateralization and dyslexia: An event-related potential study in children with a familial risk of dyslexia.

The rapid automatic specialized processing of printed words is signalled by the left-lateralization of the N1 component in the visual event-related potential (ERP). In the present study, we have investigated whether differences in N1 lateralization can be observed between Dutch children with and without (a familial risk of) dyslexia around the age of 12 years using a linguistic judgement task. Forty-five participants were included in the ERP analysis, 18 in the low familial risk group without dyslexia, 15 in the high familial risk group without dyslexia, and 12 in the high familial risk group with dyslexia.

Speech Impairment in Boys With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.

Background: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are a highly prevalent spectrum of patterns of congenital defects resulting from prenatal exposure to alcohol. Approximately 90% of the cases involve speech impairment. Yet, to date, no detailed symptom profiles nor dedicated treatment plans are available for this population.

Predictors for grade 6 reading in children at familial risk of dyslexia.

The present study investigates whether grade 6 reading outcomes, reading fluency, and reading comprehension can be predicted by grade 3 reading fluency, familial risk of dyslexia (FR), and grade 3 reading related skills: rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness (PA), and vocabulary. In a sample of 150 children, of whom 83 had a parent with dyslexia, correlation and regression analyses were performed. FR, measured on a continuous scale, was by itself related to all outcomes.