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Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/22
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Item A new EPG protocol for assessing DDK accuracy scores in children : a Down's syndrome study(2007-08) McCann, Joanne; Wrench, Alan A.; This research was supported by a grant form theRecent research has suggested that eliciting diadochokinetic (DDK) rate and accuracy in young children is difficult [1], with analysis being timeconsuming.This paper details a new protocol for assessing DDK in young children or children with intellectual impairment (Down's syndrome) and a method for calculating accuracy scores automatically. Accuracy scores were calculated from auditory and electropalatographic analyses and found to correlate in some instances. The children with Down's syndrome presented with similar DDK rates to typically-developing children but reduced accuracy.Item Variability in fricative production of young people with Down's syndrome : an EPG analysis(2007-08) Timmins, Claire; Hardcastle, William J.; Wood, Sara; McCann, Joanne; Wishart, Jennifer; Acknowledgements: MRC grant no. G0401388Speech production in Down's syndrome is highly variable, with particular problems arising from complex articulations such as fricatives. In this paper, EPG analysis is used to study the variation in the production of the fricatives /s/ and /sh/ in 6 young people with Down's syndrome. The variability of these productions is compared with information from the Robbins and Klee Oral/Speech Motor Control Protocol.Item Prosody and its relationship to language in school-aged children with high-functioning autism(2007-11) McCann, Joanne; Peppé, Sue JE; Gibbon, Fiona; O'Hare, Anne; Rutherford, MarionBackground: Disordered expressive prosody is a widely reported characteristic of individuals with autism. Despite this, it has received little attention in the literature and the few studies that have addressed it have not described its relationship to other aspects of communication. Aims: To determine the nature and relationship of expressive and receptive language, phonology, pragmatics, and non-verbal ability in school-aged children with high-functioning autism and to determine how prosody relates to these abilities and which aspects of prosody are most affected. Methods & Procedures: A total of 31 children with high-functioning autism and 72 typically developing children matched for verbal mental age completed a battery of speech, language, and non-verbal assessments and a procedure for assessing receptive and expressive prosody. Outcomes & Results: Language skills varied, but the majority of children with high-functioning autism had deficits in at least one aspect of language with expressive language most severely impaired. All of the children with high-functioning autism had difficulty with at least one aspect of prosody and prosodic ability correlated highly with expressive and receptive language. The children with high-functioning autism showed significantly poorer prosodic skills than the control group, even after adjusting for verbal mental age. Conclusions: Investigating prosody and its relationship to language in autism is clinically important because expressive prosodic disorders add an additional social and communication barrier for these children and problems are often life-long even when other areas of language improve. Furthermore, a receptive prosodic impairment may have implications not only for understanding the many functions of prosody but also for general language comprehension. 2007 Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.Item Receptive and expressive prosodic ability in children with high-functioning autism(American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2007) Peppé, Sue JE; McCann, Joanne; Gibbon, Fiona; O'Hare, Anne; Rutherford, MarionPurpose: This study aimed to identify the nature and extent of receptive and expressive prosodic deficits in children with high-functioning autism (HFA). Method: Thirty-one children with HFA, 72 typically developing controls matched on verbal mental age, and 33 adults with normal speech completed the prosody assessment procedure, Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems in Children. Results: Children with HFA performed significantly less well than controls on 11 of 12 prosody tasks (p < .005). Receptive prosodic skills showed a strong correlation (p < .01) with verbal mental age in both groups, and to a lesser extent with expressive prosodic skills. Receptive prosodic scores also correlated with expressive prosody scores, particularly in grammatical prosodic functions. Prosodic development in the HFA group appeared to be delayed in many aspects of prosody and deviant in some. Adults showed near-ceiling scores in all tasks. Conclusions: The study demonstrates that receptive and expressive prosodic skills are closely associated in HFA. Receptive prosodic skills would be an appropriate focus for clinical intervention, and further investigation of prosody and the relationship between prosody and social skills is warranted.Item Assessing intonation and prosody in children with atypical language development: the PEPS-C test and the revised version(2003) Pepp, Sue JE; McCann, JoanneA procedure for assessing prosody and intonation in children (PEPS-C: Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems-Children), suitable for use by clinicians with both children and adults, is described. The procedure includes testing of four communication areas in which intonation/prosody has a crucial role: interaction, affect, boundary (chunking) and focus. Each area has parallel tasks for assessing understanding and expression of the functions and ability to discriminate and articulate the prosodic forms involved. The original and revised forms of the test are compared, with some discussion of procedural considerations. Past and present uses of the test and future applications are considered.Item Prosody in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Critical Review(Taylor and Francis, 2003) McCann, Joanne; Pepp, Sue JEBackground: Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders present with unusual or odd-sounding prosody. Despite this widely noted observation,prosodic ability in autism spectrum disorders is often perceived as an underresearched area. Aims: This review seeks to establish whether there is a prosodic disorder in autism, what generalizations can be made about its various manifestations and whether these manifestations vary according to the diagnosis. A literature review was carried out to establish what areas of prosody in autism spectrum disorders have been researched to date, what the findings have been and to determine what areas are yet to be researched. Main contribution: It is shown that prosody in autism spectrum disorders is an under-researched area and that where research has been undertaken, findings often conflict. The findings of these conflicting studies are compared and recommendations are made for areas of future research. Conclusions: Research in this area has covered mostly prosodic expression, although some more recent studies cover comprehension, processing and the relationship of receptive prosodic ability to theory of mind. Findings conflict and methodology varies greatly.Item Assessing prosodic and pragmatic ability in children with high-functioning autism(2006) Peppé, Sue JE; McCann, Joanne; Gibbon, Fiona; O'Hare, Anne; Rutherford, MarionChildren with high-functioning autism are widely reported to show deficits in both prosodic and pragmatic ability. New procedures for assessing both of these are now available and have been used in a study of 31 children with high-functioning autism and 72 controls. Some of the findings from a review of the literature on prosodic skills in individuals with autism are presented, and it is shown how these skills are addressed in a new prosodic assessment procedure, PEPS-C. A case study of a child with high-functioning autism shows how his prosodic skills can be evaluated on the prosody assessment procedure, and how his skills compare with those of controls. He is also assessed for pragmatic ability. Results of both assessments are considered together to show how, in the case of this child, specific prosodic skill-levels can affect pragmatic ability.Item The prosody-language relationship in children with high-functioning autism(2006) McCann, Joanne; Peppé, Sue JE; Gibbon, Fiona; O'Hare, Anne; Rutherford, MarionAbstract In Kanner's original description of autism he noted disordered prosody as a common feature. Despite this, the area has received very little attention in the literature and those studies that have addressed prosody in autism have not addressed its relationship to other aspects of communication. This chapter will give an overview of research in this area to date and summarise the findings of a study designed to investigate the prosody and language skills of 31 children with high functioning autism. Two case studies of children with autism will be used to illustrate the relationship between language and prosody and to emphasise the prosodic impairment present in many children with autism.Item Receptive and expressive prosodic ability in children with high-functioning autism.(QMU Speech Science Research Centre, 2006) Peppé, Sue JE; McCann, Joanne; Gibbon, Fiona; O'Hare, Anne; Rutherford, MarionAbstract This study aimed to identify the nature and extent of receptive and expressive prosodic deficits in children with high-functioning autism. In a data-based group study, 31 children with high-functioning autism (HFA, excluding Asperger's syndrome) and 72 typically developing controls matched on verbal mental age completed a prosody assessment procedure (PEPS-C). Children with HFA performed significantly less well than controls on eleven out of twelve prosody tasks (p < .005). Receptive prosodic skills showed strong correlation (p < .01) with verbal mental age in both groups, as did, to a lesser extent, expressive prosodic skills. Receptive prosodic scores also correlated with expressive prosody scores, particularly in grammatical prosodic functions(turnend and prosodic phrasing/ chunking). Prosodic development in the HFA group appeared to be delayed in many aspects of prosody and deviant in some (e.g. accent tended to be placed early in focus tasks and Same items were often perceived as Different in auditory discrimination tasks). The study demonstrates that receptive prosodic deficit, expressive prosodic skills, and language development are closely associated in the condition of autism. Receptive prosodic skills would be an appropriate focus for clinical intervention, and further investigation of atypical expressive prosody and the relationship between prosody and social skills is warranted.Item Assessing prosodic and pragmatic ability in children with high-functioning autism.(2006) Peppé, Sue JE; McCann, Joanne; Gibbon, Fiona; O'Hare, Anne; Rutherford, MarionChildren with high-functioning autism are widely reported to show deficits in both prosodic and pragmatic ability. New procedures for assessing both of these are now available and have been used in a study of 31 children with high-functioning autism and 72 controls. Some of the findings from a review of the literature on prosodic skills in individuals with autism are presented, and it is shown how these skills are addressed in a new prosodic assessment procedure, PEPS-C. A case study of a child with high-functioning autism shows how his prosodic skills can be evaluated on the prosody assessment procedure, and how his skills compare with those of controls. He is also assessed for pragmatic ability. Results of both assessments are considered together to show how, in the case of this child, specific prosodic skill-levels can affect pragmatic ability.