Evidence-based decision-making in the treatment of speech, language, and communication disorders in Down syndrome; a scoping review.

This scoping review examined available scientific evidence according to the PRISMA-ScR guideline on the subject of treatment interventions by speech and language therapists of speech, language, and communication needs in people with Down syndrome. A literature search in PubMed, Embase, Cinahl, Cochrane, and Web of Science yielded 41 studies suitable for inclusion. All studies examined the effect of an intervention in speech, language or communicative behaviour, alone or in combination.

The Case for a Quantitative Approach to the Study of Nonnative Accent Features.

Research with nonnative speech spans many different linguistic branches and topics. Most studies include one or a few well-known features of a particular accent. However, due to a lack of empirical studies, little is known about how common these features are among nonnative speakers or how uncommon they are among native speakers.

A perception-induced /t/-to-/k/ sound change: evidence from a cross-linguistic study.

John Ohala claimed that the source of sound change may lie in misperceptions which can be replicated in the laboratory. We tested this claim for a historical change of /t/ to /k/ in the coda in the Southern Min dialect of Chaoshan. We conducted a forced-choice segment identification task with CVC syllables in which the final C varied across the segments [p t k ʔ] in addition to a number of further variables, including the V, which ranged across [i u a].

Assessing speech intelligibility of pathological speech in sentences and word lists: The contribution of phoneme-level measures.

Introduction: Speech intelligibility is an important indicator of the degree of speech impairment in pathological speech. Articulation, as a key feature of dysarthria, has been found to be a stronger contributor to intelligibility of dysarthric speech compared to voice quality, nasality, and prosody. In fact, therapy addressing articulation is often used by speech-language pathologists.

On Serendipitous Campus Meetings: A User Survey.

With campuses opening up and stimulating interactions among different campus users more and more, we aim to identify the characteristics of successful meeting places (locations) on campus. These can help practitioners such as campus managers and directors to further optimize their campus to facilitate unplanned or serendipitous meetings between academic staff and companies. A survey on three Dutch campuses, including questions on both services and locations, was analyzed both spatially and statistically using principal component (PC) and regression analysis.

Increased rate of respiratory symptoms in children with Down syndrome: a 2-year web-based parent-reported prospective study.

To compare the incidence of respiratory symptoms and short-term consequences between children with Down syndrome and children from the general population, we conducted a prospective parent-reported observational study. Children with Down syndrome (≤ 18 years) were included between March 2012 and June 2014. Caregivers received a baseline questionnaire with follow-up 1-2 years after inclusion.

Assessing speech intelligibility of pathological speech: test types, ratings and transcription measures.

Speech intelligibility is an essential though complex construct in speech pathology. In this paper, we investigated the interrater reliability and validity of two types of intelligibility measures: a rating-based measure, through Visual Analogue Scales (VAS), and a transcription-based measure called Accuracy of Words (AcW), through two forms of orthographic transcriptions, one containing only existing words (EWTrans) and one allowing all sorts of words, including both existing words and pseudowords (AWTrans). Both VAS and AcW scores were collected from five expert raters.

Linking Linguistic and Geographic Distance in Four Semantic Domains: Computational Geo-Analyses of Internal and External Factors in a Dialect Continuum.

Dialectometry studies patterns of linguistic variation through correlations between geographic and aggregate measures of linguistic distance. However, aggregating smooths out the role of semantic characteristics, which have been shown to affect the distribution of lexical variants across dialects. Furthermore, although dialectologists have always been well-aware of other variables like population size, isolation and socio-demographic features, these characteristics are generally only included in dialectometric analyses afterwards for further interpretation of the results rather than as explanatory variables.

Respiratory Symptoms in Post-infancy Children. A Dutch Pediatric Cohort Study.

To study the pattern of respiratory symptoms in children in the general population. We followed a cohort of children for up to 2 years through parents completing weekly online questionnaires in the Child-Is-Ill study ("Kind-en-Ziekmeting" in Dutch); the study was running 2012-2015. Inclusion criteria were "an ordinary child" (according to the parents) and <18 years old at inclusion.

Where does a 'foreign' accent matter? German, Spanish and Singaporean listeners' reactions to Dutch-accented English, and standard British and American English accents.

How well L2 English is understood and how L2 English speakers perceive one another within varying communication contexts has been studied relatively rarely, even though most speakers of English in the world are L2 speakers. In this matched-guise experiment (N = 1699) the effects of L1 and L2 English accents and communication context were tested on speech understandability (intelligibility, comprehensibility, interpretability) and speaker evaluations (status, affect, dynamism). German (N = 617), Spanish (N = 540), and Singaporean listeners (N = 542) were asked to evaluate three accents (Dutch-accented English, standard British English, standard American English) in three communication contexts (Lecture, Audio Tour, Job Pitch).

Perception of English phonetic contrasts by Dutch children: How bilingual are early-English learners?

The aim of this study was to investigate whether early-English education benefits the perception of English phonetic contrasts that are known to be perceptually confusable for Dutch native speakers, comparing Dutch pupils who were enrolled in an early-English programme at school from the age of four with pupils in a mainstream programme with English instruction from the age of 11, and English-Dutch early bilingual children. Children were 4-5-year-olds (start of primary school), 8-9-year-olds, or 11-12-year-olds (end of primary school). Children were tested on four contrasts that varied in difficulty: /b/-/s/ (easy), /k/-/ɡ/ (intermediate), /f/-/θ/ (difficult), /ɛ/-/æ/ (very difficult).

Big data suggest strong constraints of linguistic similarity on adult language learning.

When adults learn new languages, their speech often remains noticeably non-native even after years of exposure. These non-native variants ('accents') can have far-reaching socio-economic consequences for learners. Many factors have been found to contribute to a learners' proficiency in the new language.

The geographical configuration of a language area influences linguistic diversity.

Like the transfer of genetic variation through gene flow, language changes constantly as a result of its use in human interaction. Contact between speakers is most likely to happen when they are close in space, time, and social setting. Here, we investigated the role of geographical configuration in this process by studying linguistic diversity in Japan, which comprises a large connected mainland (less isolation, more potential contact) and smaller island clusters of the Ryukyuan archipelago (more isolation, less potential contact).

Challenges in investigating patients with isolated decreased serum IgM: The SIMcal study.

The clinical consequences of isolated decreased serum immunoglobulin (Ig)M are not sufficiently known. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the clinical policy following such a finding. Only few reported IgM-deficient patients fulfil the European Society for Immunodeficiencies (ESID) diagnostic criteria for selective IgM deficiency (true sIgMdef), or their diagnosis is uncertain due to insufficient laboratory data (possible sIgMdef).

Talker-familiarity benefit in non-native recognition memory and word identification: The role of listening conditions and proficiency.

Native listeners benefit from talker familiarity in recognition memory and word identification, especially in adverse listening conditions. The present study addresses the talker familiarity benefit in non-native listening, and the role of listening conditions and listeners' lexical proficiency in the emergence of this benefit. Dutch non-native listeners of English were trained to identify four English talkers over 4 days.

Language balance and switching ability in children acquiring English as a second language.

This study investigated whether relative lexical proficiency in Dutch and English in child second language (L2) learners is related to executive functioning. Participants were Dutch primary school pupils of three different age groups (4-5, 8-9, and 11-12 years) who either were enrolled in an early-English schooling program or were age-matched controls not on that early-English program. Participants performed tasks that measured switching, inhibition, and working memory.

L2 voice recognition: The role of speaker-, listener-, and stimulus-related factors.

Previous studies examined various factors influencing voice recognition and learning with mixed results. The present study investigates the separate and combined contribution of these various speaker-, stimulus-, and listener-related factors to voice recognition. Dutch listeners, with arguably incomplete phonological and lexical knowledge in the target language, English, learned to recognize the voice of four native English speakers, speaking in English, during four-day training.

The effect of background noise on the word activation process in nonnative spoken-word recognition.

This article investigates 2 questions: (1) does the presence of background noise lead to a differential increase in the number of simultaneously activated candidate words in native and nonnative listening? And (2) do individual differences in listeners' cognitive and linguistic abilities explain the differential effect of background noise on (non-)native speech recognition? English and Dutch students participated in an English word recognition experiment, in which either a word's onset or offset was masked by noise. The native listeners outperformed the nonnative listeners in all listening conditions. Importantly, however, the effect of noise on the multiple activation process was found to be remarkably similar in native and nonnative listening.

The paired t test and beyond: Recommendations for testing the central tendencies of two paired samples in research on speech, language and hearing pathology.

Purpose: In this tutorial we review current practice in the analysis of data obtained in designs involving two dependent samples and evaluate two conventional statistics: the t test for paired samples and its non-parametric alternative, the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test (WSR). It is a sequel to our tutorial on the analysis of designs with two independent samples on the basis of non-count data (Rietveld & van Hout, 2015). The frequency with which these statistics are used is assessed on the basis of publications on disordered communication in Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Journal of Communication Disorders and Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research for the time interval 2006-2015.

The Challenge of Immunoglobulin-G Subclass Deficiency and Specific Polysaccharide Antibody Deficiency--a Dutch Pediatric Cohort Study.

Purpose: Immunoglobulin(Ig)G-subclass deficiency and specific polysaccharide antibody deficiency (SPAD) are among the most frequent causes of recurrent respiratory infections in children. Little is known about their prevalence, clinical presentation and prognosis. No study has been published in a Western-European nor in a mainly non-tertiary cohort until now.

The Gender Gap in Second Language Acquisition: Gender Differences in the Acquisition of Dutch among Immigrants from 88 Countries with 49 Mother Tongues.

Gender differences were analyzed across countries of origin and continents, and across mother tongues and language families, using a large-scale database, containing information on 27,119 adult learners of Dutch as a second language. Female learners consistently outperformed male learners in speaking and writing proficiency in Dutch as a second language. This gender gap remained remarkably robust and constant when other learner characteristics were taken into account, such as education, age of arrival, length of residence and hours studying Dutch.

The t test and beyond: Recommendations for testing the central tendencies of two independent samples in research on speech, language and hearing pathology.

Purpose: In this Tutorial we compare current practice of the analysis of data obtained in designs involving two independent samples with new developments in statistics and evidence on the behavior of conventional statistics. We included t tests, non-parametric alternatives, such as the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, and recently developed approaches, known as bootstrapping and randomization tests. The relative use of the different statistics is illustrated on the basis of counts carried out in three journals on disordered communication in the time interval 2005-2013: Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Journal of Communication Disorders and Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research.

Epidemiology of respiratory symptoms in children with Down syndrome: a nationwide prospective web-based parent-reported study.

Background: Children with Down syndrome suffer from recurrent respiratory tract and ear-nose-throat complaints that influence daily life. Little is known about the frequency of these complaints, as well as their relation to co-morbidity and ageing.

Methods/design: A prospective web-based parent-reported observational study was designed for parents having a child with Down syndrome (age 0 to 18 years).

Pediatric acute Q fever mimics other common childhood illnesses.

Knowledge of Q fever has increased over the last decades, but research has mainly focused on adults. Data in children are scarce, and current knowledge is mostly based on case reports. The aim of this study was to determine predictors for acute Q fever in children in the general population.

Production of tense morphology by Afrikaans-speaking children with and without specific language impairment.

Purpose: To establish whether the predictions of the extended optional infinitive (EOI) hypothesis (Rice, Wexler, & Cleave, 1995) hold for the language of Afrikaans-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) and whether tense marking is a possible clinical marker of SLI in Afrikaans.

Method: Production of tense morphology was examined in 3 groups of Afrikaans-speaking children-15 with SLI who were 6 years old, 15 typically developing (TD) 4-year-olds matched on mean length of utterance, and 15 TD 6-year-olds-using both elicited and spontaneously produced verb forms.

Results: On the sentence completion task, children with SLI fared on par with 4-year-olds and worse than age-matched peers.