Purpose: This exploratory study aims to investigate variations in voice production in the presence of background noise (Lombard effect) in individuals with nonphonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction (NPVH) and individuals with typical voices using acoustic, aerodynamic, and vocal fold vibratory measures of phonatory function. Method: Nineteen…

Purpose: Early language and communication interventions for children with language impairments have been shown to be effective in assessments administered immediately after treatment. The purpose of the current systematic review and meta-analysis was to assess the overall durability of those effects over time and whether durability was related to…

Purpose: Reading and speech difficulties are common in childhood, yet it is not fully understood how much of their etiology is shared. This partly derives from methodological issues related to overlooking the potential co-occurrence between the two sets of difficulties. This study investigated the effects of five bioenvironmental predictors in a…

Purpose: This study attempts to gain insights into the role of daily voice use in the etiology and pathophysiology of phonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction (PVH) by applying a logistic regression-based daily phonotrauma index (DPI) to predict group-based improvements in patients with PVH after laryngeal surgery and/or postsurgical voice therapy.…

Purpose: Vocal fold diseases affecting the epithelium have a detrimental impact on vocal function. This review article provides an overview of apoptosis, the most commonly studied type of programmed cell death. Because apoptosis can damage epithelial cells, this article examines the implications of apoptosis on diseases affecting the vocal fold…

Purpose: Relative lengths of the index (2D) and ring (4D) fingers in humans represent a retrospective biomarker of prenatal hormonal exposures. For this reason, the 2D:4D digit ratio can be used to investigate potential hormonal contributions to the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders. This study tested potential group differences in 2D:4D…

Aims: Developmental stuttering is now generally considered to arise from genetic determinants interacting with neurologic function. Changes within speech-motor white matter (WM) connections may also be implicated. These connections can now be studied in great detail by high-angular-resolution diffusion magnetic resonance imaging. Therefore,…

Purpose: An item analysis of Bishop's (1983) Test for Reception of Grammar (TROG) in its French version (F-TROG; Lecocq, 1996) was conducted to determine whether the difficulty of items is similar for participants with or without intellectual disability (ID). Method: In Study 1, responses to the 92 F-TROG items by 55 participants with Down…

Purpose: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a ubiquitous designation that affects the identification, assessment, treatment, and study of pediatric language impairments (LIs). Method: Current literature is reviewed in 4 areas: (a) the capacity of psycholinguistic, neuropsychological, and socioemotional behavioral indices to…

Purpose: This study investigated the etiology of late language emergence (LLE) in 24-month-old twins, considering possible twinning, zygosity, gender, and heritability effects for vocabulary and grammar phenotypes. Method: A population-based sample of 473 twin pairs participated. Multilevel modeling estimated means and variances of vocabulary and…

Purpose: To discuss apraxia of speech (AOS) as it occurs in neurodegenerative disease (progressive AOS [PAOS]) and how its careful study may contribute to general concepts of AOS and help refine its diagnostic criteria. Method: The article summarizes our current understanding of the clinical features and neuroanatomical and pathologic correlates…

Purpose: The authors of this article examined the etiology of developmental language impairment (LI) at 4 and 12 years of age, as well as the relationship between the 2. Method: Phenotypic and quantitative genetic analyses using longitudinal data from the Twins Early Development Study (Oliver & Plomin, 2007) were conducted. A total of 2,923…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to investigate the etiologic basis for the association between deficits in phonological memory (PM) and vocabulary in school-age children. Method: Children with deficits in PM or vocabulary were identified within the International Longitudinal Twin Study (ILTS; Samuelsson et al., 2005). The ILTS includes 1,045…

Purpose: In this study, the authors evaluated the diagnostic value of spectral/cepstral measures to differentiate dysphonic from nondysphonic voices using sustained vowels and continuous speech samples. Methodology: Thirty-two age- and gender-matched individuals (16 participants with dysphonia and 16 controls) were recorded reading a standard…

Purpose: In the 2nd decade of life, language skills expand in both quantitative and qualitative ways. The etiology of these new skills and the relationships among them have been little explored. Method: Taking advantage of widespread access to inexpensive and fast Internet connections in the United Kingdom, we administered four Web-based measures…