Biomedical subjects

A J Caruso

Publications and source records attributed to A J Caruso.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

Adaptation of stuttering frequency during repeated readings: associated changes in acoustic parameters of perceptually fluent speech.

This study is part of a series investigating the hypothesis that stuttering adaptation is a result of motor learning. Previous investigations indicate that nonspeech motor learning typically is associated with an increase in speed of performance. Previous investigations of stuttering, on the other hand, indicate that improvements in fluency during most fluency-enhancing conditions or after stuttering treatment tend to be associated with decreased speech rate, increased duration of specific acoustic segments, and decreased vowel duration variability. The present acoustic findings, obtained from 8 individuals who stutter, reveal that speech adjustments occurring during adaptation differ from those reported for other fluency-enhancing conditions or stuttering treatment. Instead, the observed changes are consistent with those occurring during skill improvements for nonspeech motor tasks and, thus, with a motor learning hypothesis of stuttering adaptation. During the last of 6 repeated readings, a statistically significant increase in articulation rate was observed, together with a decrease in word duration, vowel duration, and consonant-vowel (CV) transition extent. Other adjustments showing relatively consistent trends across individual subjects included decreased CV transition rate and duration, and increased variability of both CV transition extent and vowel duration.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Acoustic measures of temporal intervals across speaking rates: variability of syllable- and phrase-level relative timing.

It has been suggested previously that at least some levels of the temporal organization for speech production are characterized by proportional timing. The proportional timing model maintains that the duration of temporal intervals within a sequence would remain proportionally invariant across changes in overall duration of the sequence. In order to test this hypothesis for the acoustic level of speech production, 18 women produced three trials of the utterance "Buy Bobby a poppy" at each of three speaking rates (i.e., slow, normal, fast). Acoustically derived temporal intervals were paired to form ratios reflecting either syllable-level or phrase-level relative timing. Findings indicated that ratios of temporal intervals at both the syllable-level and phrase-level did not remain invariant across speaking rates. Rather, statistically significant changes in the relative duration of both types of intervals were observed as a function of overall rate of production. For most of the obtained ratios, the direction of these changes was highly consistent across individual subjects.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

Age-related effects on speech fluency.

This article provides a brief review of age-related changes in speech production before discussing fluency changes that have been found in aging, nonstuttering speakers. Most studies agree that old and young adults evidence similar frequencies of disfluency. The disfluencies of a 105-year-old woman were compared to the means of several geriatric groups whose average ages were more than 20 years younger. Overall frequencies and types were similar. Thus, aging speakers' fluency does not appear to be more susceptible to breakdowns than that of younger speakers, although there is some evidence that elderly speakers become much more disfluent than younger speakers under stressful conditions.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

Effects of aging on neuromotor processes of swallowing.

Isolated swallowing difficulties are present in a substantial percentage of elderly adults. Most have no known medical basis, although some may be caused by underlying, but undetected, medical conditions. Others may result from conditions that indirectly affect swallowing. After an overview of the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of swallowing, this article reviews findings on changes in swallowing that accompany aging. Some of the differences reported have failed to be replicated consistently, and other changes are subtle, their significance unknown. Most studies, however, have found decreased sensitivity in both the oral and pharyngeal cavities. It is concluded that additional objective clinical measures are needed to isolate changes in swallowing due to age from those resulting from other causes. Clearly, further research is needed.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

Parents as partners in the treatment of childhood stuttering.

Speech-language pathologists involved in treating childhood stuttering have increasingly emphasized the need for parental involvement in intervention. In this article, we review prevailing theoretical models of stuttering and illustrate various ways in which these models can be used to guide practitioners in determining how best to include parents in intervention. We argue that successful parental involvement depends upon the ability of parents and clinicians to reach consensus on issues such as the parents' role in the onset and development of stuttering, the rationale for including parents in fluency intervention, and the importance early intervention. The article concludes with a discussion of specific ways that parents can assist in intervention through modeling, managing conversational pace and complexity, and, in some cases, directly instructing their children.

Child↗

PubMed1994

Adults who stutter: responses to cognitive stress.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of speed and cognitive stress on the articulatory coordination abilities of adults who stutter. Cardiovascular (heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure), behavioral (dysfluencies, errors, speech rate, and response latency), and acoustic (word duration, vowel duration, consonant-vowel transition duration/extent, and formant center frequency) measures for nine stutterers and nine nonstutterers were collected during performance of the Stroop Color Word task, a well-established and highly stressful cognitive task. Significant differences were found between the two groups for heart rate, word duration, vowel duration, speech rate, and response latency. In addition, stutterers produced more dysfluencies under speed plus cognitive stress versus speed stress or a self-paced reading task. These findings demonstrate that the presence of cognitive stress resulted in greater temporal disruptions and more dysfluencies for stutterers than for nonstutterers. However, similar spatial impairments were not evident. The potential contributions of the Stroop paradigm to stuttering research as well as the need for further research on autonomic correlates of stuttering are also discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1990

Patients' fear of contracting the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome from physicians.

This study investigates patients' concern about the human immunodeficiency virus transmission from their physician during the course of routine medical care. We examined patients' fear of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), knowledge of human immunodeficiency virus transmission, level of comfort with medical procedures performed by a physician suspected of having AIDS, perceived risk of AIDS transmission in physician-patient interactions, and the desire to be informed of the human immunodeficiency virus status of physicians. Three hundred fifty patients attending a university-based outpatient center in a large midwestern city were surveyed. Findings show that, as fear of AIDS increases, so does reported level of discomfort with procedures conducted by a physician suspected of having AIDS. Fear of AIDS was inversely correlated with knowledge. Patient concerns regarding susceptibility to the human immunodeficiency virus infection in routine care call attention to the need for education about transmission of AIDS in the health care context.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

PubMed1989

Objective measures of swallowing in patients with primary Sjogren's syndrome.

Primary Sjogren's syndrome (SS) is an autoimmune disorder primarily affecting salivary and lacrimal glands. Durational measures of the oral phase of swallowing were obtained on 34 patients with primary SS and 34 age-matched controls from analyses of ultrasound scans. Two conditions were examined: a basal (BA) swallow (only endogeneous secretions present in the subjects' mouths) and a 10 ml water bolus (WB) swallow. The patients with SS produced swallowing durations significantly longer (p less than 0.05) than those of the controls for each of the two conditions. Moreover, unlike normals, over 40% of the patients with SS produced WB swallows that were longer than their BA swallows. For further analyses, patients with SS were classified into two groups based on the difference in duration between their BA and WB swallows. These two groups differed from each other on clinical evaluations of oral motor function and presenting complaints. No significant differences were found between these two groups for salivary function or immunologic profile. These findings support the hypothesis that dysphagia can result from conditions leading to salivary gland dysfunction and document the need for the assessment of swallowing function in patients with Sjogren's syndrome.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

New technique for acquiring three-dimensional orofacial nonspeech movements.

A new video-based motion analysis system is described that permits acquisition of kinematic patterns from multiple structures (upper lip, lower lip, and jaw), movement patterns to be captured in three dimensions, and acquisition of non-speech orofacial movement patterns without restricting natural head motion. The importance of acquiring three-dimensional lip and jaw movements during nonspeech (e.g., oral opening-closing and chewing motions) movements is emphasized.

Humans↗

PubMed1988

Kinematic analysis of multiple movement coordination during speech in stutterers.

This study addresses the long-standing claim that stuttering reflects an impairment in the neuromotor coordination of multiple speech movements. Upper lip (UL), lower lip (LL), and jaw (J) kinematics for nonstuttered speech behaviours in stutterers and normal speakers were examined using quantitative indices of normal multiple movement coordination reported in recent studies of gait, reaching, grasping, and speech. While two measures of coordination--dynamic movement composition and intermovement motor equivalence--did not distinguish between stutterers and normals, stutterers manifested striking differences from normal on a third measure, the sequencing of UL, LL, and J movement onsets and velocity peaks. These findings suggest that, contrary to previous hypotheses, stutterers do not manifest general problems of coordination of speech movement. Instead, stuttering appears to be associated with a specific impairment in multiple movement coordination associated with sequencing of those movements.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

Temporal acoustic measures of dysarthria associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The purpose of this study was to investigate stop-gap duration, voice onset time (VOT), and vowel duration in intelligible speakers with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Broadband sound spectrograms were used to measure 8 normal and 8 ALS speakers' intelligible speech productions of monosyllabic words containing word-initial stop-plosive consonants (/p, t, k, b, d, g/). Significant differences were found between the two groups for both vowel duration and stop-gap duration; moreover, correlational analysis indicated that the ALS speakers, as a group, exhibited a direct relationship between stop-gap and vowel durations associated with productions of /t/ and /k/. No significant differences were found between the two talker groups for VOT. Results will be related to the neuroanatomical and physiological mechanisms involved in dysarthric (ALS) speech.

Aged↗