Linguistic and non-linguistic prosodic skills in Spanish children with developmental dyslexia

Perception of Prosody in Hearing-Impaired Individuals and Users of Hearing Assistive Devices: An Overview of Recent Advances

PURPOSE

Prosody perception is an essential component of speech communication and social interaction through which both linguistic and emotional information are conveyed. Considering the importance of the auditory system in processing prosody-related acoustic features, the aim of this review article is to review the effects of hearing impairment on prosody perception in children and adults. It also assesses the performance of hearing assistive devices in restoring prosodic perception.

METHOD

Following a comprehensive online database search, two lines of inquiry were targeted. The first summarizes recent attempts toward determining the effects of hearing loss and interacting factors such as age and cognitive resources on prosody perception. The second analyzes studies reporting beneficial or detrimental impacts of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and bimodal stimulation on prosodic abilities in people with hearing loss.

RESULTS

The reviewed studies indicate that hearing-impaired individuals vary widely in perceiving affective and linguistic prosody, depending on factors such as hearing loss severity, chronological age, and cognitive status. In addition, most of the emerging information points to limitations of hearing assistive devices in processing and transmitting the acoustic features of prosody.

CONCLUSIONS

The existing literature is incomplete in several respects, including the lack of a consensus on how and to what extent hearing prostheses affect prosody perception, especially the linguistic function of prosody, and a gap in assessing prosody under challenging listening situations such as noise. This review article proposes directions that future research could follow to provide a better understanding of prosody processing in those with hearing impairment, which may help health care professionals and designers of assistive technology to develop innovative diagnostic and rehabilitation tools.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21809772.

El papel de las habilidades prosódicas en el trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje. Un estudio de caso

Diversos estudios señalan que la prosodia, o el subsistema de la fonología que abarca las características rítmicas y melódicas del lenguaje, es un aspecto clave para el procesamiento del lenguaje. De ahí que los últimos estudios se centren en los déficits en éste ámbito en los niños con trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje (TDL). No obstante, los hallazgos de investigación reportados son contradictorios, y en el caso del español los estudios son muy escasos. El objetivo de este estudio de caso es analizar el perfil de habilidades prosódicas, receptivas y expresivas, a través de una batería completa de prosodia y de una tarea de conciencia del acento léxico de un alumno con TDL. Este alumno tiene 8 años de edad y pertenece a un nivel socio-económico medio. Su rendimiento se comparó con el de un participante control de la misma edad cronológica y nivel socioeconómico, pero sin dificultades. Además, se evaluaron las habilidades de inteligencia verbal y no verbal, diversas habilidades lingüísticas, así como las habilidades lectoras. Los resultados muestran que el participante con TDL presenta dificultades en algunas habilidades prosódicas (Final de turno receptivo, Foco expresivo y en las tareas de Forma a nivel de palabra y de sintagma). Se discuten las implicaciones de los resultados obtenidos de esta investigación cualitativa sobre la importancia de considerar las habilidades prosódicas en la evaluación del TDL. Futuros estudios con una muestra mayor son necesarios para corroborar estos hallazgos y seguir analizando el papel de la prosodia en el TDL en español.

Tapping to a beat in synchrony predicts brain print sensitivity in pre-readers

This longitudinal study was aimed at testing the relation between rhythm sensitivity and behavioural and neural orthographic sensitivity in pre-reading stages. Basque-speaking children performed several behavioural and EEG tasks at two time points prior to formal reading acquisition (T1: 4 years old; T2: 5 years old). Neural sensitivity to print was measured via a novel child friendly N170-elicitation paradigm. Our results highlight a transversal and longitudinal relation between rhythm sensitivity and letter name knowledge in pre-reading children. Moreover, they show that children's rhythm sensitivity predicts a significant part of the variance of their N170 response one year later, highlighting the potential of rhythm tasks to predict future orthographic sensitivity in pre-reading stages. Interestingly, the relation between rhythmic skills and print sensitivity was not mediated by the children's phonological short-term memory. Our results provide novel evidence on the importance of rhythm sensitivity for the development of early orthographic sensitivity.