Decelerated Synthesized Speech as a Means of Shaping Speed of Auditory Processing of Children with Delayed Language

Abstract

This study investigated whether the rate at which children with delayed language process auditory stimuli can be increased through a process of shaping with synthesized speech stimuli. Results indicate that stimuli with slowed down critical formant cues were easier for these 24 children with delayed language to discriminate and that training with stimuli of extended duration did generalize to stimuli of normal durations. Implications of these findings and usefulness of this methodology are discussed.

Auditory Processing Disorder and Auditory/Language Interventions: An Evidence-Based Systematic Review

“…In the efficacy study of Alexander and Frost (1982), the authors reported a significant improvement in syllable sequencing at two testing points. However, in both cases, one-tailed tests revealed outcomes only at the .15 level.…”

“…In addition, two efficacy articles met the criteria for Question 5. One of these, Alexander and Frost (1982), was an auditory intervention that involved acoustic modifications of syllable stimuli in a discrimination training task. It was included as a Fast ForWord study because it clearly was inspired by the experimental work and theory that underlies Fast ForWord (e.g., Tallal & Piercy, 1973a, 1973b, 1974, and because it used the Tallal Repetition Test (Tallal & Piercy, 1973b) as its outcome measure of temporal processing.…”

Basic Auditory Processing Skills and Specific Language Impairment: A New Look at an Old Hypothesis

“…The children with SLI did not differ from the control participants when ISIs were longer (>150 ms or >305 ms, depending on the study). Although difficulties in rapid auditory processing have subsequently been reported in some studies of children with SLI (Alexander & Frost, 1982;Frumkin & Rapin, 1980), they have not been found in others (Bishop, Carlyon, Deeks, & Bishop, 1999;Helzer, Champlin, & Gillam, 1996;Norrelgen, Lacerda, & Forssberg, 2002). Some now argue that although children with SLI may show auditory processing deficits, these deficits are not characterized by the rapidity of the stimuli (see Bishop, 2001, andRosen, 2003, for reviews).…”

Auditory-Visual Matching and Language-Based Learning Disorders: Two Studies of Specific Language Impairment and Developmental Dyslexia

“…Although some studies of children with SLI have subsequently reported difficulties in rapid auditory processing (Alexander & Frost, 1982), they have found no such difficulties in others (Bishop, Carlyon, Deeks & Bishop, 1999;Norrelgen, Lacerda & Forssberg, 2002). Some argue that although children with SLI may show auditory processing deficits, the rapidity of the stimuli do not characterized these deficits (see McArthur & Bishop, 2001;Rosen, 2003).…”