Isha Wosti

Studies of human language processing employ metrics like cloze probability and surprisal as proxies of a word's contextual probability. There already exist corpora of cloze probability-normed sentences for many languages of Germanic and Romance families, but relatively few resources are available in other language families, and none whatsoever in the Nepali language. Here we report a dataset of cloze-normed Nepali sentences together with the information-theoretic measure of surprisal. We also calculate the contextual constraint of the sentences using metrics of type-token ratio and proportion of idiosyncratic responses. We establish the relationships between a word's contextual probability and the contextual constraint of the sentence generating those words. With this, the present study aims to create a corpus of cloze-normed Nepali sentences, providing resources for diverse research (e.g., predictive language processing) in this understudied language.

Introduction: Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) involves deficits in the processing of auditory information within the central nervous system. Children with CAPD remain undiagnosed in Nepal due to a lack of assessment tools. Developing a screening tool for CAPD in the Nepali language is needed to identify at-risk children. Material and methods: Fisher’s Auditory Problems Checklist (FAPC) and the Children’s Auditory Performance Checklist (CHAPS) were translated into Nepali using the translation/back-translation method. The questionnaires were administered to 100 students in the Kathmandu valley using cluster sampling. Internal consistency and test–retest reliability analysis were undertaken, and validity was measured in terms of face validity. Results: Cronbach’s alpha was 0.761 for FAPC and 0.949 for CHAPS. All questions received a rating of > 4 from 5 audiologists, confirming their adequacy in terms of content, clarity, and intended purpose. Pearson’s r-value of 0.998 for CHAPS and 0.775 for FAPC was obtained in test–retest reliability analysis. Conclusions: The Nepali versions of Fisher’s checklist and CHAPS demonstrated good internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and face validity, supporting their use as preliminary CAPD screening tools.

Introduction and aim. Progressive dysarthria and dysphagia pose substantial diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. This case report aims to describe the assessment and intensive structured management of a patient with chronic, functionally limiting dysarthria and dysphagia. Description of the case. The patient was a 38-year-old male with neuroacanthocytosis syndrome. Dysarthria diagnosis was established through auditory-perceptual profiling and acoustic analysis, confirming a mixed hyperkinetic-hypokinetic pattern. Clinical bedside evaluation of swallowing was done, which revealed severe oral dysphagia. Speech therapy was conducted using the hierarchy of motor speech treatment, targeting various motor speech bases. Additionally, severe oral phase dysphagia was managed using rehabilitative, compensatory, and modified diet approaches. Results. Improvements were noted across all motor speech bases, supported by subjective reports and objective data. The patient's self-reported measures, as well as the improvement in voice quality (AVQI score decreased from 4 to 2.95), improved intelligibility (from 30 to 75%), and decreased speech rate (4.36 to 2.53 syllables/second) showed substantial improvement in dysarthria. Similarly, safe swallowing was achieved at IDDSI Levels 4–6 with compensatory strategies. Conclusion. This case illustrates that even rare and chronic forms of dysarthria can respond positively to structured, intensive speech-language therapy, underscoring the importance of individualized, comprehensive intervention approaches.