Tamiko Azuma

There is substantial performance variability among listeners who transcribe degraded speech. Error patterns from 88 listeners who transcribed dysarthric speech were examined to identify differential use of syllabic strength cues for lexical segmentation. Transcripts from listeners were divided into four groups (ranging from Better- to Poorer- performing). Phrases classified as Higher- and Lower-intelligibility were analyzed separately for each performance group to assess the independent variable of severity. Results revealed that all four listener groups used syllabic strength cues for lexical segmentation of Higher-intelligibility speech, but only the Poorer listeners persisted with this strategy for the Lower-intelligibility phrases. This finding and additional analyses suggest testable hypotheses to address the role of cue-use and performance patterns.

The number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has risen at an astonishing rate over the past decade. Ten years ago, one in 10,000 children was diagnosed as having an ASD. Today, one in 110 children is diagnosed with an ASD (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). As the number of ASD cases continues to increase, autism research focusing on prevention, treatment, and intervention has become a high priority for the National Institutes of Health and other research organizations. It is imperative that speech-language pathologists read and understand the most current research available on this growing population.