Hearing loss is a prevalent problem throughout the world, and the process of getting and fitting hearing aids is becoming more accessible to meet this demand with the emergence of technologies that allows a hearing aid user to self-fit their devices using a smartphone application to meet their individual needs. Our lab has developed two different self-fitting applications that vary in their designs of the graphical user interfaces. The goal of the current study is to conduct systematic evaluations of the applications with older-adult participants. A group of older adults were recruited. Following hearing assessment and cognitive screening, these participants were instructed to complete self-fitting using the two applications, in random order. For each application, the self-fitting procedure involved adjusting the hearing-aid settings interactively while listening to a continuous speech presented together with a background noise through the hearing aid. The procedure was repeated for several background noises, representing different acoustic scenes (outdoor, restaurant, etc.). Following hearing-aid fitting, the participants were surveyed about their perception on the usability of the applications and preferences between the competing user interface designs. Additionally, all participants rated on speech quality through hearing aids with three different settings, including the self-selected settings using the two applications. The quality rating data will be analyzed with the participant’s age, cognitive status, and comfort level with mobile technologies controlled for. We hypothesize that older adults may have preferences for the user interface that is more functional and visually simplistic, and that the user’s preferred hearing-aid settings would change with the acoustic scene. The feedback we receive from this project is a crucial component of the whole application design process, and if our hypotheses are supported, it will reveal potential efficacy and direct future areas of improvement for our final applications.

Around 7% of the population has developmental language disorder (DLD). DLD is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects learning, understanding, and using spoken language. It can be seen in early childhood but often goes undiagnosed into adulthood. Although DLD is diagnosed based on language differences, children with DLD also show motor differences. It is unknown whether adults with DLD still show motor differences as well. Motor control is the process of regulating the systems needed for voluntary movement and is what allows us to complete everyday tasks such as walking, writing, typing and anything else that includes movement. For this project, I have chosen to assess motor performance using a standardized assessment, the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency Second Edition (BOT-2). Subtests will be used to test fine motor skills (e.g., precision, coordination) and gross motor skills (e.g., balance). For each subtest there are several activities to complete. Fine motor and gross motor are being tested as there is evidence that both are affected in children with DLD. In order to determine if the participants are in the DLD group or the TD group, we use an assessment involving following auditory directions and spelling unusual words. We will test 15 participants in each group. Participants will have learned English under the age of 2, be 18-45 years old, and have no history of speech, voice, hearing, or neurological diagnoses. I will analyze the data using unpaired t-tests on motor performance between the groups, as there are currently no norms for motor performance in this age range. I hypothesize that there will be motor control differences between the two groups, especially in areas such as balance, bilateral coordination, and manual dexterity. Learning more about DLD and motor control in adults will help with diagnosing and understanding how the disorder manifests in older populations.

In storytelling, mental state terms (MSTs) are words that attribute thoughts, feelings, emotions, and perspectives when describing the internal state of the characters. Although MSTs have been shown to be indicators of literacy and Theory of Mind development among monolingual children, less is known about how bilingual children who were exposed to two languages simultaneously develop MSTs. In this study, we aim to examine the usage and development of MST among Mandarin-English bilingual children by coding the narrative elicited using two wordless-picture books, Frog Goes to Dinner and Frog Where are You? by Mercer Mayer. The data was collected from sixty students enrolled in 1st grade (N = 20), 3rd grade (N = 21), and 5th & 6th grade (N = 19) in a Mandarin-English Dual Immersion program. The research team coded MSTs into three categories (thoughts, desires, and feelings) and examined lexical diversity by analyzing the different meanings of the word "think" in both languages across all three groups. We expect to see more MST usage in older children and also an association between Mandarin and English MST categories. We may also see more lexical diversity in Mandarin compared to English due to cultural and linguistic differences in narrative production. Understanding the trajectory of MST development can further our understanding of how bilingual children acquire languages and the potential cross-linguistic differences between Mandarin and English. This study may also help practitioners in the field of speech-language pathology understand the importance of comprehensive bilingual assessments which measure skills in both languages.

The process of learning new words is a significant developmental task where children learn through social interactions with others. However, children with neurodevelopmental differences such as autism spectrum disorder are known to have distinct manners of social engagement. The current study examines one potential factor that might relate to how easily autistic children learn new words, and how success in that manner of social interaction predicts future vocabulary development. Participants (N = 29) were drawn from a larger study of 2- to 11-year-olds with autism with a focus on language and development. In that sample, nonverbal IQ scores ranged from 34 to 133 (M = 98.29; SD = 21.48) and receptive vocabulary standard scores ranged from 20 to 138 (M = 91.41; SD = 29.02). In a laboratory task, an examiner presented several novel objects with novel labels (i.e., nonwords) to the child. Dyadic coding of the child's verbal interactions with the examiner during exposure to the nonwords was completed for recordings of those sessions. Coding procedures included marking instances of vocalizations and overlapping speech. Overlapping speech was divided into three categories: overlapping speech during the prompt teaching the nonword- "Look it's a... It's a great...," overlapping speech during the nonword- "heypaum," and overlapping speech at any other point. Overlapping speech is of particular relevance as the instances might indicate uncoordinated turn-taking and moments where the child may be unable to completely process and learn from their social partner's input. In the current sample, 14 of 29 participants had at least one instance of overlapping speech during the nonword. We hypothesize that coordinated turn-taking supports vocabulary development, such that fewer instances of overlapping speech will be associated with learning more nonwords. This research on children's vocabulary development can guide understanding and optimizing of teaching strategies to support language learning.

Music, both vocal and instrumental, captures the attention of children and facilitates language learning. Infants have been shown to prefer infant-directed song over infant-directed speech. Furthermore, education professionals and researchers agree that music supports language acquisition. In early childhood, children are exposed to a great deal of auditory input, including music, in a variety of settings. Much of this exposure occurs in the home, which presents difficulties when attempting to capture data that is truly representative of a child's auditory environment. Thus, the main aim of Tots and Tunes is to quantify and describe the music and speech that infants hear in their home environment during first two years of life. To achieve this, I have randomly extracted 12,000 10-second audio segments from a longitudinal dataset of audio recordings taken of children at ages 6, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months of age by the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system. This system uses a small device worn by a child throughout their day to record their naturalistic linguistic environment. My team is using a novel citizen-science approach to outsource the annotation of the segments by naive listeners via a platform called Zooniverse. For each segment, we ask participants to listen and subsequently identify whether there is speech and/or music present, whether the speech and/or music is directed to the child wearing the LENA device, and if the speech and/or music is in-person, through an electronic device, or both. In the span of a month, 20% of the segments recorded at 6 months of age have been annotated. I anticipate that our findings will inform parents, researchers, and early childhood professionals about the presence of music in the auditory environment of young children, which will inform further work regarding how best to use music to support language acquisition.

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is one of the most common language disorders. It interferes with a person’s ability to learn and understand language. Previous studies have found that children with DLD struggle with motor skills more than their typically developing peers. There is also evidence that implicates the striatum (a subcortical brain structure) as a key difference in DLD; one study in in adolescents with DLD found reduced myelin in the striatum. Our study aims to examine how striatal myelination is associated with motor skill differences in adults with DLD. Participants between 18-45 years old will be tested on fine and gross motor skills using the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency. Subtests of these skills include fine motor precision, fine motor integration, manual dexterity, upper limb coordination, bilateral coordination, and balance. In another session, the participants will undergo one hour of MRI scanning with a variety of functional and structural scans. I will analyze one type of MRI data to evaluate myelin markers in the striatum (MTsat and R1 maps). Individual composite scores for fine and motor skills will be correlated with the amount of myelin in the striatum to see if there is a significant relationship between myelin and motor skills in this population. We hypothesize that individuals with DLD will have lower motor skill scores than the control group, as well as a correlation between lower amounts of striatal myelin and motor skill deficiencies in the participants with DLD. We hope that the findings of this study will allow us to have a better understanding of which brain structures and behaviors are affected in adults with DLD. Research on DLD in adults is yet scarce, which consequently leads to limited resources and treatments for individuals with DLD.

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a hidden neurodevelopmental impairment that impacts an individual’s ability to learn, comprehend, and use language to express their thoughts. While this is a common disorder (about seven times more prevalent than Autism Spectrum Disorder), there is limited research in adults with DLD. The primary goal of this project is to investigate articulatory variability during speech production in adults with DLD. Previous research shows that children with DLD have more articulatory variability during speech production compared to age-matched peers. On the other hand, other studies indicate comparable variability between groups. However, stimuli, kinematic measures, and inclusion criteria vary by study. Here, I will use state-of-the-art vocal tract magnetic resonance imaging (vtMRI) to capture the movements of the entire vocal tract, rather than focusing on just lip movements. Adults with and without DLD will produce sentences in the scanner. Sentences will be linguistically more and less complex. If I find increased articulatory variability in the DLD group during simple and complex sentences, I would interpret that as evidence of a general speech motor control difference. If I find increased articulatory variability only during more complex sentences, I would indicate that increased language load reduces speech motor control in this population. These data can help us build a better model of what might be happening in the brain in adults with DLD, ideally eventually leading to improved diagnoses and treatments for this common disorder.