Objective and Subjective Clustering Methods for Verb Fluency Responses From Individuals With Alzheimer's Dementia and Cognitively Healthy Older Adults.

PURPOSE: The verb fluency task has been researched using a variety of analysis methods and shown its sensitivity to declines in executive functioning and lexical retrieval abilities in various neurogenic populations. Few studies to date, however, have analyzed clusters and switches in the task, and there is a lack of robust analysis methods that preclude subjectivity and potential rater bias. The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability when using subjective clustering methods and to determine the feasibility of using an objective clustering method to determine verb fluency performance in individuals with Alzheimer's dementia (IwDs) and cognitively healthy older adults (CHOAs). METHOD: Responses from a verb fluency task were obtained from IwDs and CHOAs. Group differences were examined using an objective clustering method for multiple variables regarding clustering and switching. We also calculated the intrarater, interrater, and intermethod reliability using intraclass coefficients. RESULTS: Significant group differences were found when utilizing the objective clustering method in all variables except the average cluster size, with IwDs performing poorer than CHOAs. Intrarater reliability was excellent. Interrater reliability between two authors and intermethod reliability between the objective and subjective methods were variable ranging from moderate to good. CONCLUSIONS: The results from using the objective clustering method in this study are consistent with the previous literature, making it a viable option for clustering analyses on the verb fluency task, which naturally minimizes subjectivity and rater bias. Alternatively, employing a thoroughly validated and reliable subjective approach can also mitigate potential rater bias and improve replicability across studies. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24061017.

Neural synchrony reflects closure of jabberwocky noun phrases but not predictable pseudoword sequences.

Successful language comprehension requires the combination of individual words into larger linguistic units. In the present minimal-phrase study, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate whether syntactic combination is indexed by changes in neural synchrony, while testing for both token-based and type-based effects. To do this, we analysed intertrial phase coherence (ITPC) elicited by reading two item (words or pseudowords) phrases that were either unifiable or nonunifiable. Results indicated that type-based unifiable phrases elicited increased ITPC relative to all other conditions in the frequency band corresponding to the rate of phrases (0.5 Hz) but not the rate of words (1 Hz). Conversely, we observed a complementary pattern for the N400, which was more sensitive to token-based effects. These findings provide evidence that the combination of single words into larger syntactic structures may be indexed by the synchronous firing of assemblies of neurons oscillating at the rate of phrases during reading.

Autistic preschoolers' engagement and language use in gross motor versus symbolic play settings.

Background and aims: Although adjustment of the environment is recommended as a support strategy in evidence-based interventions for children with autism, the impact of doing so (and the how and why) is not well understood. One essential environmental factor to consider when providing supports for preschool-aged autistic children is the play setting, specifically, the materials available in the child's play context. The aim of this study was to compare engagement states and number of utterances produced by preschool-aged autistic children within symbolic vs. gross motor play settings. Examining the relationship between gross motor play settings and children's social engagement and spoken language use is particularly important to explore for autistic children given differences in their sensory processing, motor skill development, and choice of and interaction with toys relative to neurotypical peers. Methods: Seventy autistic children aged 25-57 months were videotaped during natural play interactions with a parent. Children's social engagement and number of spoken utterances were examined in five minutes each of play with symbolic toys and play with gross motor toys. Continuous time-tagged video coding of the child-caregiver engagement states was conducted, and the child's frequency of spoken language was identified using language sample analysis. The specific variables examined were; (a) engagement with caregiver, (b) engagement with objects only, (c) unengaged (no evident engagement with objects or people), and (d) total number of spoken utterances. The relationship between play setting (symbolic vs gross motor) and child language and engagement state variables was examined with linear mixed effects modelling. Results: Significant main effects were revealed for the interaction between play setting and autistic children's engagement. Young autistic children were more likely to engage with caregivers in play environments with gross motor toys (moderate effect) and also were more likely to have periods of unengaged time (not overtly directing their attention to objects or people; small effect) in this setting. Further, when in a setting with symbolic toys, autistic children were more likely to spend their time focusing attention solely on objects (large effect). No interaction was found between play setting and total number of utterances spoken by autistic children. Conclusions and implications: This study confirmed the importance of continued research focused on understanding the relationship between children's play settings and their social engagement and language use. Although preliminary, findings support the idea that there is an interaction between preschool-aged autistic children's social engagement and their play settings. Further, our results suggest that there can be value in clinicians differentiating children's play settings (i.e., gross motor vs symbolic) when assessing and supporting social engagement capacities of young autistic children.

Systematic analysis of goal-related movement sequences during maternal behaviour in a female mouse model for Rett syndrome.

Rodent dams seek and gather scattered pups back to the nest (pup retrieval), an essential aspect of maternal care. Systematic analysis of the dynamic sequences of goal-related movements that comprise the entire behavioural sequence, which would be ultimately essential for understanding the underlying neurobiology, is not well-characterized. Here, we present such analysis across 3 days in alloparental female mice (Surrogates or Sur) of two genotypes; Mecp2Heterozygotes (Het), a female mouse model for Rett syndrome and their wild type (WT) siblings. We analysed CBA/CaJ and C57BL/6J WT surrogates for within-strain comparisons. Frame-by-frame analysis over different phases was performed manually using DataVyu software. We previously showed that surrogate Het are inefficient at pup retrieval, by end-point analysis such as latency index and errors. Here, the sequence of searching, pup-approach and successful retrieval streamlines over days for WT, while Het exhibits variations in this pattern. Goal-related movements between Het and WT are similar in other phases, suggesting context-driven atypical patterns in Het during the pup retrieval phase. We identified proximal pup approach and pup grooming as atypical tactile interactions between pups and Het. Day-by-day analysis showed dynamic changes in goal-related movements in individual animals across genotypes and strains. Overall, our approach (1) highlights natural variation in individual mice on different days, (2) establishes a "gold-standard" manually curated dataset to help build behavioural repertoires using machine learning approaches, and (3) suggests atypical tactile sensory processing and possible regression in a female mouse model for Rett syndrome.

Effects of language experience on the discrimination of the Portuguese palatal lateral by nonnative listeners.

The purpose of this study was to investigate (1) whether manner or place takes precedence over the other during a phonological category discrimination task and (2) whether this pattern of precedence persists during the early stages of acquisition of the L2. In doing so, we investigated the Portuguese palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ since it differs from English /l/ only by the place of articulation, and from English /j/ only by the manner of articulation. Our results indicate that monolinguals' perception of the non-native sound is dominated by manner while Portuguese learners show a different pattern of results. The results are interpreted as being consistent with evidence suggesting that manner may be neurophysiologically dominant over place of articulation. The study adds further details to the literature on the effects of experience on language acquisition, and has significant clinical implications for bilingualism in general, and foreign accent training, in particular.

Synchrony Detection of Linguistic Stimuli in the Presence of Faces: Neuropsychological Implications for Language Development in ASD.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may be impaired in their ability to detect audiovisual synchrony and their ability may be influenced by the nature of the stimuli. We investigated the possibility that synchrony detection is disrupted by the presence of human faces by testing children with ASD using a preferential looking language-based paradigm. Children with low language abilities were significantly worse at detecting synchrony when the stimuli include an unobscured face than when the face was obscured. Findings suggest that the presence of faces may make multisensory processing more difficult. Implications for interventions are discussed, particularly those targeting attention to faces.

Measuring and supporting language function for children with autism: evidence from a randomized control trial of a social-interaction-based therapy.

In a report of the effectiveness of MEHRIT, a social-interaction-based intervention for autism, Casenhiser et al. (Autism 17(2):220-241, 2013) failed to find a significant advantage for language development in the treatment group using standardized language assessments. We present the results from a re-analysis of their results to illustrate the importance of measuring communicative language acts (formally called "speech acts"). Reanalysis confirmed that children in the MEHRIT group outperformed the community treatment group on measures of MLUm, number of utterances produced, and various speech act categories. The study underscores the importance of functional language measures in guiding and evaluating treatment for children with autism, and suggests that MEHRIT is effective in improving children's use of language during parent-child interactions.

Learning through interaction in children with autism: preliminary data from asocial-communication-based intervention.

The study evaluates a social-communication-based approach to autism intervention aimed at improving the social interaction skills of children with autism spectrum disorder. We report preliminary results from an ongoing randomized controlled trial of 51 children aged 2 years 0 months to 4 years 11 months. Participants were assigned to either a target treatment or community treatment group. Families in the target treatment group were given 2 hours of therapy and coaching each week in an intervention emphasizing social-interaction and the parent-child relationship. Children in the community treatment group received a variety of services averaging 3.9 hours per week. After 12 months, outcomes were measured to determine changes in the groups in social interaction and communication. In addition, a regression analysis was conducted to determine whether changes in social interaction skills were associated with language development. Results suggest that children in the treatment group made significantly greater gains in social interaction skills in comparison to the community treatment group, but no between-group differences were found for standard language assessments. Initiation of joint attention, involvement, and severity of language delay were found to be significantly associated with improvement of language skills in children with autism. Finally caregiver skills targeted by the intervention were found to be significantly associated with changes in children's interaction skills.

Children's resistance to homonymy: an experimental study of pseudohomonyms.

Research in diachronic linguistics has shown that homonyms are often dispreferred in language. This study proposes that this trend is mirrored in the difficulties that children encounter in mapping homonyms. Two experiments are presented in support of this proposition. In Experiment 1, 16 preschool children (mean age = 4;6) are shown to perform quite well on tasks requiring them to assign novel meanings to nonsense words. They perform poorly, however, on tasks requiring them to assign a different, unrelated meaning to a known word. Experiment 2 (N = 18, mean age = 4;5) shows that preschoolers' performance on this task, however, improves when a known word appears in a syntactic frame that is not appropriate for the word (as when a verb appears in a noun syntactic frame), thereby providing a strong indication that a new meaning is appropriate.

The role of prediction in construction-learning.

It is well-established that (non-linguistic) categorization is driven by a functional demand of prediction. We suggest that prediction likewise may well play a role in motivating the learning of semantic generalizations about argument structure constructions. We report corpora statistics that indicate that the argument frame or construction has roughly equivalent cue validity as a predictor of overall sentence meaning as the morphological form of the verb, and has greater category validity. That is, the construction is at least as reliable and more available than the verb. Moreover, given the fact that many verbs have quite low cue validity in isolation, attention to the contribution of the construction is essential.