All the manuscripts published by ‘Journal of Communication Disorders and Assistive Technology’ undergo rapid, quality, and quick review processing by eminent editorial and review teams maintaining high standards and ethics of publishing. The scholarly content published online will be freely available to every reader anywhere in the world to read, download, copy, reuse and distribute, provided that the original work is properly cited.

Article (s)

Volume 4, Issue 1 J Commun Disorder Assist Technol, 2023

Early Intervention Case Study: Bone-Anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA) Softband Fitting in Treacher Collins Syndrome

Diane Davis and Yula C. Serpanos

This retrospective case study reports on the successful auditory and language outcomes following bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) Softband fitting in a child with Treacher Collins syndrome (TCS) and moderately severe conductive hearing loss (CHL) resulting from bilateral aural atresia. Information is presented from birth to age 3 years. The timeframe of assessment and remediation services met 1-2-3-month early intervention target guidelines. The child received the medical intervention, a hearing diagnosis, and a remediation plan for BAHA Softband fitting along with family-centered early intervention support services, including speech and language, within 3 weeks following birth. The BAHA Softband was fitted at age 2 months. Developmental milestones for language comprehension were met by age 7 months. The timeline of assessments, interventions, and outcomes, in this case, the study illustrated a collaborative team management approach involving medical practitioners, audiologists, speech-language pathologists, early intervention coordinators, family service providers, educators, and parents, aimed toward the development of appropriate communicative milestones in children with TCS and CHL.

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Eye-gaze Profiles of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders in Relation to Fast-mapping Abilities

Daiquirie L. Crumrine and Trisha L. Self

Children learn new words through a process termed fast-mapping, which involves pairing novel words and objects after minimal exposure. There have been studies conducted to understand the fast-mapping processes in children with typical development (TD); however, this phenomenon has received less attention for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In addition, there was limited information that investigated the eye-gaze patterns and fast-mapping abilities of children with ASD and TD. The purpose of this study was to compare the eye-gaze patterns of children with ASD and TD in relation to fast-mapping. Ten children diagnosed with ASD and twenty children with TD, ages 5-7 participated. Participants were matched on nonverbal intelligence and receptive vocabulary skills. The Tobii 1750 eye-tracking system was used to capture eye-tracking measures. Overall, the results revealed that children with ASD were able to fast-map novel images and text at a similar rate to children with TD, despite having fewer fixations and shorter total fixation duration on novel stimuli.

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The Correlation Between Lifetime Smoking and Ethnicity in People Who Smoke: A Study of Vocal Characteristics

Marewa Glover and Marie-France Duhamel

Smoking is associated with the deterioration of voice health. Detection of deterioration of voice characteristics can be an early indicator of smoking-related laryngeal and lower respiratory diseases. This study aimed to determine if voice characteristics could be used to differentiate demographics and years of smoking among a diverse group of adults who smoke. Audio recordings were collected from fifty-nine adults aged 19-81 who currently smoked tobacco. Audio samples and a range of vocal measurements were analysed by gender, age, ethnicity, and the number of years smoked. Age, a proxy for years smoked, was not a significant factor in determining the vocal parameters used in this study. Gender had some influence on voice quality, specifically in measurements of the fundamental frequency, formant 4, and jitter. There was a correlation between ethnicity and vocal parameters for shimmer. Higher shimmer and noise-to-harmonic ratio values were found in smartphone-recorded audio samples. Ethnicity appeared to be a stronger proxy for years smoked than age. Historically higher tobacco consumption among the Indigenous Māori people of New Zealand could be one explanation for this. Variations caused by the type of recording method may be important for informing the development of remote mHealth electronic diagnostic voice quality apps or devices.

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