Transcranial direct current stimulation over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex increases oxyhemoglobin concentration and cognitive performance dependent on cognitive load.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been explored as a potential method for cognitive enhancement. tDCS may induce a cascade of neurophysiological changes including alterations in cerebral oxygenation. However, the effects of tDCS on the cognitive-cerebral oxygenation interaction remains unclear. Further, oxygenation variability across individuals remains minimally controlled for. The purpose of this sham-controlled study was to test the effects of anodal tDCS over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on the interaction between working memory and cerebral oxygenation while controlling for individual oxygenation variability. Thirty-three adults received resting-state functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) recordings over bilateral prefrontal cortices. Following this, working memory was tested using a Toulouse n-back task concurrently paired with fNIRS, with measurements taken before and after 20 min of anodal or sham tDCS at 1.5 mA. With individual oxygenation controlled for, anodal tDCS was found to increase the oxyhemoglobin concentration over the right DLPFC during the 2-back (q = .015) and 3-back (q = .008) conditions. Additionally, anodal tDCS was found to improve accuracy during the 3-back task by 13.4 % (p = .028) and decrease latency by 250 ms (p = .013). The increase in oxyhemoglobin was strongly correlated with increases in accuracy (p = .041) and decreases in latency during the 3-back span (p = .017). Taken together, anodal tDCS over the right DLPFC was found to regionally increase oxyhemoglobin concentrations and improve working memory performance in higher cognitive load conditions.

It's Mine, . . . It's Mine: Unsolicited Repetitions Are Reduced in Toddlers.

A phenomenon called "repetition reduction" can increase articulation rate in adults by facilitating phonetic and motor processes, which indicates flexibility in the control of articulation rate. Young children, who speak much slower, may not have the same speech motor flexibility resulting in the absence of the repetition reduction effect. In this study, we tested whether spontaneous repetitions of young children are produced with a faster articulation rate than their original utterances. Twelve monolingual English-speaking children were observed at four time points between 2;0 and 3;0 years of age. A significant increase in articulation rate and syllable count was found using multilevel models for all utterances over the 1-year period. At each time point, however, the repeated utterances were produced significantly faster than the original utterances even though the content and syllable count differed minimally. Our findings conform to the pattern of adult studies suggesting that a "naturistic" form of repetition reduction is already present in the speech of children at 2;0 years. Although certain aspects of speech motor control are undergoing rapid development, existing motor capability at 2;0 already supports flexible changes in articulation rate including repetition reduction.

Speech kinematic variability in adults who stutter is influenced by treatment and speaking style.

AIM: We tested whether completion of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) is associated with a reduction in speech kinematic variability relative to pre-treatment when adults who stutter (AWS) use a casual speaking manner or fluency skills. RATIONAL: Kinematic variability is higher in AWS suggesting a sensorimotor vulnerability; however, it is not clear whether high variability is a trait related to the underlying disorder or reflects the mutable state of stuttering. Speech restructuring intervention such as the CSP could support more consistent articulatory control and stable movement patterns. METHODOLOGY: Thirteen AWS were tested before and after completing the CSP while 11 adults who do not stutter (AWNS) completed a single session. Participants were instructed to use a casual manner of speaking in the first post-treatment session. In the second post-treatment condition, the AWS employed their fluency skills at a control speaking rate. An optical tracking system captured lower lip movements while participants spoke two English phrases and a complex nonword. Across-utterance kinematic variability was measured using the spatiotemporal index (STI) and within-utterance variability was measured with recurrence quantification analysis (RQA). RESULTS: There was a positive treatment outcome based on significant reductions in percentage syllables stuttered (%SS) during speaking and reading, decreases in stuttering severity and improved perceptions of stuttering and communication confidence. The STI of the AWS decreased significantly after treatment for both speaking styles. The RQA variables indicated that AWS used a less stereotyped and more flexible manner of speaking in the casual condition after treatment, but speech movement regularity increased when using fluency skills. CONCLUSIONS: The AWS showed a significant decrease in labial kinematic variability alongside a successful treatment outcome involving speech restructuring and cognitive behavioral techniques. These changes in across-utterance and within-utterance kinematic indices demonstrate that effective stuttering treatment can promote speech motor stability along with fluent speech.

Obtaining consensus on core components of stuttering intervention for adults: An e-Delphi Survey with key stakeholders.

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based practice involves the synthesis of multiple forms of evidence to inform clinical decision-making and treatment evaluation. Practice- and patient-based evidence are two forms of evidence that are under-represented in the stuttering literature. The collection of such knowledge is essential to support the design and delivery of effective stuttering interventions for adults. AIMS: To build stakeholder consensus on the core components of intervention for adults who stutter, and to establish a guiding framework for the design and development of evidence-based interventions for adults who stutter. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Adults who stutter and speech and language therapists (SLTs) with experience in providing stuttering intervention participated in the three-round e-Delphi Survey focused on: (1) identifying key stuttering intervention components, including principles, practices, and structural and contextual elements; and (2) obtaining group consensus on stuttering intervention components. Statements were categorized using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) model adapted to the study of stuttering. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: A total of 48 individuals agreed to participate: 48/48 (100%) completed the Round 1 questionnaire, 40/48 (83%) responded to Round 2 and 36/40 (90%) participated in Round 3. Following content analysis of Round 1, 101 statements were developed, and consensus was achieved on 89 statements perceived as representing the core components of stuttering intervention for adults. Categorization of these statements reflected the key stuttering intervention components relating to personal reactions to stuttering, limitations in life participation and environmental factors. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Consensus on the core components of stuttering intervention was reached through engagement with key stakeholders. The evidence-based framework presented highlights the range of key intervention components a clinician should consider when designing interventions for adults who stutter. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject Evidence-based practice endorses the synthesis of multiple knowledge forms including research, practice and patient evidence to support clinical decision-making and treatment evaluation. The stuttering literature is characterized by an over-representation of efficacy evidence, with significantly less practice and patient evidence to guide clinical practice. What this paper adds to existing knowledge This study adds valuable practice- and patient-based evidence for effective stuttering intervention components for adults who stutter. These relate to personal reactions to stuttering, limitations in life participation and environmental factors. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? This research presents a stakeholder-informed framework for stuttering intervention to guide SLTs working with adults who stutter in designing evidence-based interventions. The framework supports the adoption of a person-centred approach to intervention to ensure each client's unique needs, preferences, values and desired outcomes are explored and integrated into therapy.

Deficit or Difference? Effects of Altered Auditory Feedback on Speech Fluency and Kinematic Variability in Adults Who Stutter.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to test whether adults who stutter (AWS) display a different range of sensitivity to delayed auditory feedback (DAF). Two experiments were conducted to assess the fluency of AWS under long-latency DAF and to test the effect of short-latency DAF on speech kinematic variability in AWS. Method In Experiment 1, 15 AWS performed a conversational speaking task under nonaltered auditory feedback and 250-ms DAF. The rates of stuttering-like disfluencies, other disfluencies, and speech errors and articulation rate were compared. In Experiment 2, 13 AWS and 15 adults who do not stutter (AWNS) read three utterances under four auditory feedback conditions: nonaltered auditory feedback, amplified auditory feedback, 25-ms DAF, and 50-ms DAF. Across-utterance kinematic variability (spatiotemporal index) and within-utterance variability (percent determinism and stability) were compared between groups. Results In Experiment 1, under 250-ms DAF, the rate of stuttering-like disfluencies and speech errors increased significantly, while articulation rate decreased significantly in AWS. In Experiment 2, AWS exhibited higher kinematic variability than AWNS across the feedback conditions. Under 25-ms DAF, the spatiotemporal index of AWS decreased significantly compared to the other feedback conditions. AWS showed lower overall percent determinism than AWNS, but their percent determinism increased under 50-ms DAF to approximate that of AWNS. Conclusions Auditory feedback manipulations can alter speech fluency and kinematic variability in AWS. Longer latency auditory feedback delays induce speech disruptions, while subtle auditory feedback manipulations potentially benefit speech motor control. Both AWS and AWNS are susceptible to auditory feedback during speech production, but AWS appear to exhibit a distinct continuum of sensitivity.

Influence of bilateral cochlear implants on vocal control.

Receiving a cochlear implant (CI) can improve fundamental frequency (F0) control for deaf individuals, resulting in increased vocal pitch control. However, it is unclear whether using bilateral CIs, which often result in mismatched pitch perception between ears, will counter this benefit. To investigate this, 23 bilateral CI users were asked to produce a sustained vocalization using one CI, the other CI, both CIs, or neither. Additionally, a set of eight normal hearing participants completed the sustained vocalization task as a control group. The results indicated that F0 control is worse with both CIs compared to using the ear that yields the lowest vocal variability. The results also indicated that there was a large range of F0 variability even for the relatively stable portion of the vocalization, spanning from 6 to 46 cents. These results suggest that bilateral CIs can detrimentally affect vocal control.

Masking auditory feedback does not eliminate repetition reduction.

Repetition reduces word duration. Explanations of this process have appealed to audience design, internal production mechanisms, and combinations thereof (e.g. Kahn & Arnold, 2015). Jacobs, Yiu, Watson, and Dell (2015) proposed the auditory feedback hypothesis, which states that speakers must hear a word, produced either by themselves or another speaker, in order for duration reduction on a subsequent production. We conducted a strong test of the auditory feedback hypothesis in two experiments, in which we used masked auditory feedback and whispering to prevent speakers from hearing themselves fully. Both experiments showed that despite limiting the sources of normal auditory feedback, repetition reduction was observed to equal extents in masked and unmasked conditions, suggesting that repetition reduction may be supported by multiple sources, such as somatosensory feedback and feedforward signals, depending on their availability.

Early Speech Rate Development: A Longitudinal Study.

Purpose Our knowledge of speech rate development remains inadequate because of limited longitudinal data and lack of data from children under age 3;0 (years;months). The purpose of this longitudinal study was to test the pattern of speech rate development between ages 2;0 and 3;0. Method Speech rate was assessed at 4 time points between ages 2;0 and 3;0. The analysis employed multilevel models to characterize the development of speech rate (syllables per second), phonemes per second (PPS), length of active declarative sentences, and mean length of utterance. Results The results indicate a significant linear increase in speech rate, PPS, length of active declarative sentences, and mean length of utterance occurring over the 1-year period. Male and female children differed in speech rate, PPS, and utterance length, suggesting sex is a potential factor in early speech rate development. Conclusions Our findings indicate that the speech motor system develops rapidly during the period when grammar emerges. Speech rate has the potential to be an important metric for understanding typical speech development and speech disorders.

Theta Modulated Neural Phase Coherence Facilitates Speech Fluency in Adults Who Stutter.

Adults who stutter (AWS) display altered patterns of neural phase coherence within the speech motor system preceding disfluencies. These altered patterns may distinguish fluent speech episodes from disfluent ones. Phase coherence is relevant to the study of stuttering because it reflects neural communication within brain networks. In this follow-up study, the oscillatory cortical dynamics preceding fluent speech in AWS and adults who do not stutter (AWNS) were examined during a single-word delayed reading task using electroencephalographic (EEG) techniques. Compared to AWNS, fluent speech preparation in AWS was characterized by a decrease in theta-gamma phase coherence and a corresponding increase in theta-beta coherence level. Higher spectral powers in the beta and gamma bands were also observed preceding fluent utterances by AWS. Overall, there was altered neural communication during speech planning in AWS that provides novel evidence for atypical allocation of feedforward control by AWS even before fluent utterances.

Delayed Phonological Encoding in Stuttering: Evidence from Eye Tracking.

Stuttering is a multifactorial disorder that is characterized by disruptions in the forward flow of speech believed to be caused by differences in the motor and linguistic systems. Several psycholinguistic theories of stuttering suggest that delayed or disrupted phonological encoding contributes to stuttered speech. However, phonological encoding remains difficult to measure without controlling for the involvement of the speech-motor system. Eye-tracking is proposed to be a reliable approach for measuring phonological encoding duration while controlling for the influence of speech production. Eighteen adults who stutter and 18 adults who do not stutter read nonwords under silent and overt conditions. Eye-tracking was used to measure dwell time, number of fixations, and response time. Adults who stutter demonstrated significantly more fixations and longer dwell times during overt reading than adults who do not stutter. In the silent condition, the adults who stutter produced more fixations on the nonwords than adults who do not stutter, but dwell-time differences were not found. Overt production may have resulted in additional requirements at the phonological and phonetic levels of encoding for adults who stutter. Direct measurement of eye-gaze fixation and dwell time suggests that adults who stutter require additional processing that could potentially delay or interfere with phonological-to-motor encoding.

Suppression of vocal responses to auditory perturbation with real-time visual feedback.

Speakers can adjust pitch using auditory feedback through a short-latency corrective response known as the pitch-shift response (PSR). Suppression of the PSR denotes on-line stabilization of pitch. In this paper, the hypothesis that pitch-shift responses can be suppressed with real-time visual feedback of vocal F0 is investigated. Mandarin speakers and naive speakers without tonal language experience were instructed to produce the sustained vowel /a/ and Mandarin tone /ma1/ in an audio-only condition and a separate audio-visual condition. Both Mandarin speakers and naive speakers suppressed pitch-shift responses in the audio-visual condition, regardless of task (/a/ or /ma1/) and stimulus magnitude (25 cents or 200 cents). These findings suggest that multisensory feedback (audio-visual) can improve the stability of voice F0. The benefit of audio-visual integration is independent of language experience.

Cortical dynamics of disfluency in adults who stutter.

Stuttering is a disorder of speech production whose origins have been traced to the central nervous system. One of the factors that may underlie stuttering is aberrant neural miscommunication within the speech motor network. It is thus argued that disfluency (any interruption in the forward flow of speech) in adults who stutter (AWS) could be associated with anomalous cortical dynamics. Aberrant brain activity has been demonstrated in AWS in the absence of overt disfluency, but recording neural activity during disfluency is more challenging. The paradigm adopted here took an important step that involved overt reading of long and complex speech tokens under continuous EEG recording. Anomalies in cortical dynamics preceding disfluency were assessed by subtracting out neural activity for fluent utterances from their disfluent counterparts. Differences in EEG spectral power involving alpha, beta, and gamma bands, as well as anomalies in phase-coherence involving the gamma band, were observed prior to the production of the disfluent utterances. These findings provide novel evidence for compromised cortical dynamics that directly precede disfluency in AWS.

Anomaly in neural phase coherence accompanies reduced sensorimotor integration in adults who stutter.

Despite advances in our understanding of the human speech system, the neurophysiological basis of stuttering remains largely unknown. Here, it is hypothesized that the speech of adults who stutter (AWS) is susceptible to disruptions in sensorimotor integration caused by neural miscommunication within the speech motor system. Human speech unfolds over rapid timescales and relies on a distributed system of brain regions working in a parallel and synchronized manner, and a breakdown in neural communication between the putative brain regions could increase susceptibility to dysfluency. Using a speech motor adaptation paradigm under altered auditory feedback with simultaneous recording of EEG, the oscillatory cortical dynamics was investigated in stuttering and fluent adults (FA). Auditory feedback perturbation involved the shifting of the formant frequencies of the target vowel sound. Reduced adaptation in response to the feedback error was observed in AWS and was accompanied by differences in EEG spectral powers and anomalies in phase coherence evolving over the course of speech motor training. It is understood that phase coherence possibly captures neural communication within speech motor networks. Thus, the phase coherence network of the two groups exhibited differences involving the EEG frequency bands. These findings in anomalous neural synchrony provide novel evidence for compromised neuronal communication at short time scales within the speech motor network of AWS.

Audio-vocal responses elicited in adult cochlear implant users.

Auditory deprivation experienced prior to receiving a cochlear implant could compromise neural connections that allow for modulation of vocalization using auditory feedback. In this report, pitch-shift stimuli were presented to adult cochlear implant users to test whether compensatory motor changes in vocal F0 could be elicited. In five of six participants, rapid adjustments in vocal F0 were detected following the stimuli, which resemble the cortically mediated pitch-shift responses observed in typical hearing individuals. These findings suggest that cochlear implants can convey vocal F0 shifts to the auditory pathway that might benefit audio-vocal monitoring.

Relation of motor, linguistic and temperament factors in epidemiologic subtypes of persistent and recovered stuttering: Initial findings.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the presence of any patterns reflecting underlying subtypes of persistence and recovery across epidemiologic, motor, language, and temperament domains in the same group of children beginning to stutter and followed for several years. METHODS: Participants were 58 2-4-year-old CWS and 40 age and gender matched NFC from four different sites in the Midwest. At the end of the multi-year study, stuttering children were classified as Persistent or Recovered. The same protocol obtaining data to measure stuttering, motor, language and temperament characteristics was used at each site. They have not been included in previous reports. RESULTS: The Persistent group performed consistently differently from the Recovered and Control groups. They performed lower on standardized language tests and in phonological accuracy, had greater kinematic variability, and were judged by their parents to be more negative in temperament. CONCLUSIONS: The present study provides data supporting the hypothesis that subtypes of stuttering can be identified along persistency/recovery lines, but results were not definitive. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: Readers will be able to (a) describe the current state of subtypes of stuttering research; (b) summarize possible contributions of epidemiologic, motoric, linguistic and temperament to such subtyping with regard to persistency and recovery.

Investigating Age-related changes in fine motor control across different effectors and the impact of white matter integrity.

Changes in fine motor control that eventually compromise dexterity accompany advanced age; however there is evidence that age-related decline in motor control may not be uniform across effectors. Particularly, the role of central mechanisms in effector-specific decline has not been examined but is relevant for placing age-related motor declines into the growing literature of age-related changes in brain function. We examined sub-maximal force control across three different effectors (fingers, lips, and tongue) in 18 young and 14 older adults. In parallel with the force variability measures we examined changes in white matter structural integrity in effector-specific pathways in the brain with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Motor pathways for each effector were identified by using an fMRI localizer task followed by tractography to identify the fiber tracts propagating to the midbrain. Increases in force control variability were found with age in all three effectors but the effectors showed different degrees of age-related variability. Motor control changes were accompanied by a decline in white matter structural integrity with age shown by measures of fractional anisotropy and radial diffusivity. The DTI metrics appear to mediate some of the age-related declines in motor control. Our findings indicate that the structural integrity of descending motor systems may play a significant role in age-related increases in motor performance variability, but that differential age-related declines in oral and manual effectors are not likely due to structural integrity of descending motor pathways in the brain.

A direct comparison of short-term audiomotor and visuomotor memory.

Audiomotor and visuomotor short-term memory are required for an important variety of skilled movements but have not been compared in a direct manner previously. Audiomotor memory capacity might be greater to accommodate auditory goals that are less directly related to movement outcome than for visually guided tasks. Subjects produced continuous isometric force with the right index finger under auditory and visual feedback. During the first 10 s of each trial, subjects received continuous auditory or visual feedback. For the following 15 s, feedback was removed but the force had to be maintained accurately. An internal effort condition was included to test memory capacity in the same manner but without external feedback. Similar decay times of ~5-6 s were found for vision and audition but the decay time for internal effort was ~4 s. External feedback thus provides an advantage in maintaining a force level after feedback removal, but may not exclude some contribution from a sense of effort. Short-term memory capacity appears longer than certain previous reports but there may not be strong distinctions in capacity across different sensory modalities, at least for isometric force.

Aging effects on sensorimotor integration: a comparison of effector systems and feedback modalities.

Research on motor aging has focused on visuomotor effects in limb musculature, with few comparisons across effectors or feedback modalities. The authors examined steady fine force control in oral and manual effectors under visual and auditory feedback in 13 young (19-23 years old) and 13 older (60-77 years old) participants, hypothesizing that force variability would increase with aging (a) more in the finger than the lip and (b) for both feedback modalities. The magnitude of variability increased with age for both visuomotor and audiomotor tasks but age-related differences were greater in the lip than the finger. These results point to increased variability as a potential early marker of changing motor function (prior to loss of strength) that extends beyond the visuomotor system.

Individual variability in delayed auditory feedback effects on speech fluency and rate in normally fluent adults.

PURPOSE: Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) is known to induce stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) and cause speech rate reductions in normally fluent adults, but the reason for speech disruptions is not fully known, and individual variation has not been well characterized. Studying individual variation in susceptibility to DAF may identify factors that predispose an individual to be more or less dependent on auditory feedback. METHOD: Participants were 62 normally fluent adults. Each participant performed a spontaneous speech task in 250-ms DAF and amplified nondelayed auditory feedback (NAF) conditions. SLDs, other disfluencies (ODs), speech errors (SEs), and articulation rate (AR) were measured under each condition. RESULTS: In the DAF condition, SLDs and SEs significantly increased, and AR decreased. Sex had a limited effect in that men exhibited higher rates of ODs and faster AR than women. More important, parametric cluster analysis identified that 2- and 3-subgroup solutions reveal important variation that differentiates tendencies toward disfluency changes and rate reduction under DAF, which are theoretically and empirically preferred to a single-group solution. CONCLUSION: Individual variability in response to DAF may be accounted for by subgroups of individuals. This suggests that certain normally fluent individuals could be more dependent on intact feedback to maintain fluency.

Relationship between kinematics, F2 slope and speech intelligibility in dysarthria due to cerebral palsy.

A multimodal approach combining acoustics, intelligibility ratings, articulography and surface electromyography was used to examine the characteristics of dysarthria due to cerebral palsy (CP). CV syllables were studied by obtaining the slope of F2 transition during the diphthong, tongue-jaw kinematics during the release of the onset consonant, and the related submental muscle activities and relating these measures to speech intelligibility. The results show that larger reductions of F2 slope are correlated with lower intelligibility in CP-related dysarthria. Among the three speakers with CP, the speaker with the lowest F2 slope and intelligibility showed smallest tongue release movement and largest jaw opening movement. The other two speakers with CP were comparable in the amplitude and velocity of tongue movements, but one speaker had abnormally prolonged jaw movement. The tongue-jaw coordination pattern found in the speakers with CP could be either compensatory or subject to an incompletely developed oromotor control system.