Studies examining visuospatial working memory (WM) in individuals with congenital deafness have yielded inconsistent results, and tactile WM has rarely been examined. The current study examined WM span tasks in the two modalities among 20 individuals with congenital deafness and 20 participants with typical hearing. The congenital deafness group…

Progress in applied neuroscience and neuropsychology in the educational context has revealed efficient methodologies for preventing academic failure and developing the potential of students. The aim of this work is to adopt a neuropsychological perspective to study learning-related differences between students with learning difficulties (LD),…

Transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) increases performance in some perceptual tasks. However, little is known about its effect on creativity. Although dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been postulated as an important cortical area related to creativity, the relative role of left and right DLPFC is still unclear. We aimed to…

Purpose: Semi-occluded vocal tract (SOVT) exercises with tubes or straws have been widely used for a variety of voice disorders. Yet, the effects of longer periods of SOVT exercises (lasting for weeks) on the aging voice are not well understood. This study investigated the effects of a 6-week straw phonation in water (SPW) exercise program.…

Purpose: Given the role of auditory perception in voice production, studies have investigated whether impairments in auditory perception may underlie the noted disruptions in speech in Parkinson's disease (PD). Studies of loudness perception in PD show impairments in the perception of self-generated speech, but not external tones. Studies of pitch…

Cognitive, numeracy, and motivational factors have been implicated in math achievement. However, few studies have investigated these factors simultaneously and in middle childhood, limiting our understanding of the relative contributions of these factors during an important developmental period. The current study investigated how one numeracy,…

Purpose: This study explored the role of auditory feedback in the regulation of oral-nasal balance in speech. Method: Twenty typical female speakers wore a Nasometer 6450 (KayPentax) headset and headphones while continuously repeating a sentence with oral and nasal sounds. Oral-nasal balance was quantified with nasalance scores. The signals from 2…

Purpose: This study aimed to identify predictors of response to treatment for residual speech sound disorder (RSSD) affecting English rhotics. Progress was tracked during an initial phase of traditional motor-based treatment and a longer phase of treatment incorporating ultrasound biofeedback. Based on previous literature, we focused on baseline…

Purpose: Although variability of training materials has the potential to benefit the learning of lexical tones, the benefit is contingent on an individual's pitch aptitude. Previous studies did not segregate immediate learning and consolidation after an overnight interval, and little is known about how pitch aptitude differences affect…

This dissertation presents three studies that examined issues related to the production and the perception of pitch in a tone language. The first study examined linguistic contexts that may modulate consonant-induced pitch perturbations (CF0) in a tone language. Previous studies have produced mixed findings regarding the role of linguistic…

The purpose of this study was to examine gender differences in self-reported symptomatology and working memory (visuospatial and auditory) in college students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Forty-seven college students with ADHD and 44 non-affected control participants completed two self-report questionnaires and six tests…

This dissertation research examines the acquisition of second language vowels. For second language learners, learning a new languages' sound inventory, particularly its vowels, presents a challenge perceptually and in terms of production. Incorrectly perceiving and producing sounds in a second language results in a foreign accent in many adult…

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to establish a baseline of the vowel and consonant identification scores in prelingually and postlingually deaf users of multichannel cochlear implants (CIs) tested with consonant-vowel-consonant and vowel-consonant-vowel nonsense syllables. Method: Six electronic databases were…

Previous research has shown that an increased second language (L2) vocabulary size leads to better attunement to the cues required to distinguish L2 contrastive phones. This has been the central tenet of the vocabulary-tuning model (vocab) on the basis of evidence by Japanese learners of English in Australia. We aim to test the validity of the…

Among the various systems taught in the preclinical phases, the nervous system is more challenging to learn than other systems. In this report, a novel teaching methodology, "real-life scenario (RLS) blended teaching," is described and its effectiveness in facilitating inquisitive learning in undergraduate medical students is evaluated.…