Jennifer Hill

Highlights: This article presents causal effects of the Great Recession on U.S. fertility. Effects are identified using a new cohort discontinuity design. The design identifies effects for single-year cohorts of women, as well as for single-year cohorts of White and Black women. Estimated effects are negative for U.S. women born in the period 1964‒1992. Negative effects are largest for younger cohorts and for Black women.

Introduction: Controversy remains regarding whether nicotine vaping products (NVPs) are associated with cigarette cessation in observational research. Reviews have largely overlooked studies using the same data source. To address this gap, we conducted a narrative review to examine the heterogeneity in the reported association that used data from the same source, which may help to explain inconsistent findings. Methods: We identified empirical studies through PubMed and Google searches that exclusively used the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study data to examine associations between NVP use and smoking cessation among adults. Adapting Arksey and O’Malley’s approach, we extracted and summarized key study characteristics, including inclusion criteria, participant characteristics, study durations, definitions of NPV exposure and smoking outcomes, covariate adjustment, and analytic methods. We also conducted regression and regression tree analyses to examine how these characteristics were related to study findings. Results: We identified 28 articles comprising 38 analyses of NVP use and cigarette cessation. Of these, 24 studies (63.2%) reported a positive association, concluding that NVP use predicted cessation. Substantial heterogeneity existed across study characteristics. Evidence suggests that daily NVP use may promote cessation, whereas studies restricted to participants with an intention to quit were less likely to observe cessation than those including participants regardless of quit intention. Conclusions: Researchers are advised against making broad claims based on any single PATH Study analysis of NVP use and smoking cessation. Rather, multiple studies using the same data source must be carefully examined in order to synthesize evidence and assess consistency of the findings. Implications: Whether NVPs help adult smokers quit remains controversial in observational research, partly due to heterogeneity in study characteristics across studies using the same data source. Our review of observational studies based exclusively on a single data source—an approach often overlooked—suggests that (1) daily NVP use may support smoking cessation, and (2) studies that restricted participants to those with an intention to quit were less likely to observe cessation than studies that included participants regardless of quit intention. These findings underscore the value of multiple analyses using the same data source to synthesize evidence and assess consistency.

Purpose: This study examined the effects of visual biofeedback approaches and nonbiofeedback motor-based treatment on generalization outcomes following speech therapy for children with residual speech sound disorders (RSSDs). Method: A total of 108 children aged 9–15 years with RSSD affecting American English /ɹ/ were randomly assigned to receive 19 motor-based speech treatment sessions, with or without visual biofeedback (divided into ultrasound or visual-acoustic biofeedback). The treatment included practice designed to implement several motor learning principles, with task difficulty systematically adjusted based on the child's performance. Children's /ɹ/ accuracy on untreated words before and after treatment was rated as correct or incorrect by lay listeners who were blinded to participant characteristics, treatment conditions, and time points. Results: The mixed-effects regression model revealed a statistically significant interaction between treatment type and time point. Specifically, both the biofeedback and nonbiofeedback motor-based treatment groups made progress over time, but the amount of generalization to untreated words was significantly greater in the biofeedback condition than in the motor-based treatment. In a subanalysis comparing biofeedback types, greater generalization was observed following ultrasound biofeedback than visual-acoustic biofeedback, although this effect was strongest at one treatment site. Discussion: This randomized controlled trial found that adding biofeedback to motor-based treatment can increase the rate of accurate production of the American English /ɹ/ in untreated words.

Purpose: Residual speech sound disorder (RSSD) is a high-prevalence condition that can limit children's academic and social participation, with negative consequences for overall well-being. Previous studies have described visual biofeedback as a promising option for RSSD, but results have been inconclusive due to study design limitations and small sample sizes. Method: In a preregistered randomized controlled trial, 108 children aged 9–15 years with RSSD affecting American English /ɹ/ were randomly assigned to receive treatment incorporating visual biofeedback (subdivided into ultrasound and visual-acoustic types) or a comparison condition of motor-based treatment consistent with current best practices in speech therapy. An acoustic measure (the distance between the second and third formants, which is smaller in perceptually accurate /ɹ/) was used to quantify progress in the first three sessions of treatment in participants' assigned condition. The focus on the early stages of treatment was grounded in principles of motor learning: As a type of knowledge of performance feedback, biofeedback is expected to have its greatest impact during initial acquisition of a new speech-motor plan. Results: A linear mixed-effects regression model revealed a statistically significant interaction between treatment type and session: While both groups made progress over time, the rate of progress was significantly faster in the biofeedback condition compared to motor-based treatment. No statistically significant difference was observed between the ultrasound and visual-acoustic types of biofeedback. Discussion: This large-scale randomized controlled trial supports previous small-scale research in finding that biofeedback can help children with RSSD acquire American English /ɹ/. A companion study will compare participants' generalization learning after the end of all treatment. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.29971501

Implements a faster and more expressive version of Bayesian Additive Regression Trees that, at a high level, approximates unknown functions as a weighted sum of binary regression tree ensembles. Supports fitting (generalized) linear varying coefficient models that posits a linear relationship between the inverse link and some covariates but allows that relationship to change as a function of other covariates. Additionally supports fitting heteroscedastic BART models, in which both the mean and log-variance are approximated with separate regression tree ensembles. A formula interface allows for different splitting variables to be used in each ensemble. For more details see Deshpande (2025) and Deshpande et al. (2024) .

Objectives: We examined trends in the socioeconomic distribution of work schedules from 1990s to 2010s and how early adulthood disadvantages are associated work schedules over working age. Methods: In a representative sample of US workers (Midlife in the U.S. Study (MIDUS), N = 3328), we calculated recycled predictions of day, evening, night, and long shift prevalence associated with time period. Logistic regression was used to analyze the association of non–day shifts with age and its variations by early adulthood disadvantage in US baby boomers (National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79 (NLSY79), N = 10,293). Results: In U.S. workers, between 1990s–2010s, evening shifts increased in adults without college education and night shifts increased in the lowest income quartile. Day shifts decreased in both groups. In US baby boomers, the odds of working non-day shifts decreased with age. However, being Black, not attending college, and poverty were associated with higher odds of non–day shiftwork throughout working age. Conclusions: Evening and night shifts may have replaced day shifts in socioeconomically disadvantaged populations between 1990s–2010s. Early adulthood disadvantages may have sustained effects on work schedules.

Most current statistics courses include some instruction relevant to causal inference. Whether this instruction is incorporated as material on randomized experiments or as an interpretation of associations measured by correlation or regression coefficients, the way in which this material is presented may have important implications for understanding causal inference fundamentals. Although the connection between study design and the ability to infer causality is often described well, the link between the language used to describe study results and causal attribution typically is not well defined. The current study investigates this relationship experimentally using a sample of students in a statistics course at a large western university in the United States. It also provides (non-experimental) evidence about the association between statistics instruction and the ability to understand appropriate causal attribution. The results from our experimental vignette study suggest that the wording of study findings impacts causal attribution by the reader, and, perhaps more surprisingly, that this variation in level of causal attribution across different wording conditions seems to pale in comparison to the variation across study contexts. More research, however, is needed to better understand how to tailor statistics instruction to make students sufficiently wary of unwarranted causal interpretation.

In this work, we describe the Curation Tree framework that has matured as part of our game-based research and teaching. We use this framework to manage the top-level experience of our players via a text-based, authorable behavior tree system that is easy to implement, test, and re-use. We present three case studies based on Unity games built within our framework: the first involves virtual reality games involving grasping objects with the hands; the second, Treatment X, uses the framework to implement a causal learning game; and the last involves narrative games based on a large language model. Based on our experiences with this system, we reflect on its limitations and make several recommendations based on its strengths, namely to centralize game logic with behaviors, to centralize user event handling, to prefer simple behaviors over complex ones, to use text-based scripts for authoring with version control, and to separate behaviors from persistent state.

Purpose: This study collected measures of auditory-perceptual and oral somatosensory acuity in typically developing children and adolescents aged 9–15 years. We aimed to establish reference data that can be used as a point of comparison for individuals with residual speech sound disorder (RSSD), especially for RSSD affecting American English rhotics. We examined concurrent validity between tasks and hypothesized that performance on at least some tasks would show a significant association with age, reflecting ongoing refinement of sensory function in later childhood. We also tested for an inverse relationship between performance on auditory and somatosensory tasks, which would support the hypothesis of a trade-off between sensory domains. Method: Ninety-eight children completed three auditory-perceptual tasks (identification and discrimination of stimuli from a “rake”–“wake” continuum and category goodness judgment for naturally produced words containing rhotics) and three oral somatosensory tasks (bite block with auditory masking, oral stereognosis, and articulatory awareness, which involved explicit judgments of relative tongue position for different speech sounds). Pairwise associations were examined between tasks within each domain and between task performance and age. Composite measures of auditory-perceptual and somatosensory functions were used to investigate the possibility of a sensory trade-off. Results: Statistically significant associations were observed between the identification and discrimination tasks and the bite block and articulatory awareness tasks. In addition, significant associations with age were found for the category goodness and bite block tasks. There was no statistically significant evidence of a trade-off between auditory-perceptual and somatosensory domains. Conclusions: This study provided a multidimensional characterization of speech-related sensory function in older children/adolescents. Complete materials to administer all experimental tasks have been shared, along with measures of central tendency and dispersion for scores in two subgroups of age. Ultimately, we hope to apply this information to make customized treatment recommendations for children with RSSD based on sensory profiles.