Katie Christenson
@ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Learn how to create your web of support.
Lukas Suveg, Au.D., Ph.D.
62 Goodnight Hall @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Spatial separation of target and competing speech can improve the accuracy by which listeners, including those with bilateral cochlear implants (CIs), understand target speech. Even if measurement of this benefit were included in clinical evaluations, behavioral metrics like percent improvement on speech identification tasks are not designed to provide insight into the momentary accumulation of perceptual salience of auditory stimuli that informs the ultimate determination of the speech target. In two related studies, participants with typical hearing or bilateral CIs identified a speech target presented with a speech masker while their eye-gaze to objects in a “visual world” containing depictions of both acoustic stimuli was recorded. These studies were designed primarily to investigate the effects of target-masker spatial configuration and spatial congruence between the acoustic and visual stimuli on certainty in target identity. Eye gaze behaviors unfolding over the time course of target determination were measured along with time to decision and percent correct, to test the hypotheses that spatial separation of a target and masker, as well as audio-visual spatial congruence, would increase the certainty by which targets are identified.
Tim Murphy, Ph.D.
Waisman Center @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
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When speakers detect an unexpected change in the acoustics of their vocal output, they adapt their productions to oppose these changes. Researchers investigate this sensorimotor adaptation using altered auditory feedback, a technique that alters speech in near-real time to measure how the speakers adjust to auditory errors. Because adaptation is implicit and unconscious, targeting sensorimotor adaptation through altered auditory feedback has the potential to complement traditional speech therapies that rely heavily on conscious, effortful practice. Our lab is investigating whether altered auditory feedback can increase vowel distinctiveness in speech, with the long term goal of using this technique to improve speech intelligibility in individuals with hypokinetic dysarthria. We have found that sensorimotor adaptation can be used to increase speakers’ average vowel spacing, which in turn correlates with changes in speech intelligibility. I will share findings from our study examining whether this adaptation is retained across multiple days and how repeated sessions modulate adaptation over time. Participants visited our lab twice weekly for four weeks, completing eight total sessions of reading monosyllabic words and sentences. Half of these participants received altered auditory feedback across all sessions, while the remaining half did not. Our preliminary results indicate that robust adaptation occurs within individual sessions, but that the magnitude of adaptation attenuates across consecutive sessions. Importantly, adaptation does not appear to be retained across sessions. I will conclude by contextualizing these findings within the broader speech and motor learning literature to interpret their implications for designing effective, long-term auditory feedback therapies.
Misha Finney, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
@ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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All Welcome - Bring your questions!
Rosa Laufer-Sosa, PhD
Waisman Center @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
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Much is known about what visual cortical neurons respond to, but far less is known about what their activity causally contributes to perception. I will describe recent experiments using behavioral optogenetics in macaque area V4 to address this question. Monkeys reliably detect focal optogenetic perturbations of V4, and their ability to do so depends on the visual image being viewed at the time of stimulation. Unlike in inferotemporal cortex, however, weakening concurrent visual input does not impair detection and can enhance it, suggesting that V4 stimulation adds a visual event to ongoing perception. Intriguingly, nearby V4 sites produce distinct, feature-dependent perceptual effects. I will discuss how these findings motivate a new approach combining functional imaging with behavioral optogenetics to ask whether the known functional organization of visual cortex predicts the perceptual consequences of causally perturbing it.
Katie Christenson
@ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Research, Jobs, Volunteer work, and More
Katie Eulau, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
62 Goodnight Hall @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Duet 2.0 is a remote, caregiver-mediated, early language intervention serving English- and Spanish-speaking families experiencing economic adversity in the Philadelphia area evaluated via randomized controlled trial. We hypothesized that (1) child language outcomes, (2) social contingency, (3) caregiver developmental knowledge, and (4) caregiver feelings of self-efficacy at three-month follow-up and six-month follow-up would benefit from Duet 2.0. Participants were caregivers and their children who entered the study at 12-30 months of age. The analytic sample included baseline data from 39 dyads; a total of 26 dyads completed at least one follow-up data collection. Duet 2.0 was positively associated with only the transcribed child expressive vocabulary measure (medium effect at 3mo), but not the standardized expressive vocabulary inventory. Social contingency (large effect at 3mo), caregiver developmental knowledge (large effect at 3mo, small at 6mo), and caregiver self-efficacy (in play contexts: small effect at 6mo; in teaching contexts: medium effect at 3mo, large at 6mo) were positively associated with the intervention. This exploratory sample with low-resourced families demonstrates the potential of this intervention to impact families’ lives and may suggest the value of lighter touch interventions, which can be scaled more easily to improve access for more families.
Sigan Hartley, Ph.D.
Waisman Center @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Brain and Bagels Seminar Series
People with Down syndrome are genetically at-risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Establishing the average age-based timeline of Alzheimer’s disease in people with Down syndrome could help clinicians, interventionists, and families to understand disease time course and inform the design of clinical trials of potential therapies. Data will be presented from recent analyses aimed at establishing the age-based average timeline of Alzheimer’s disease plasma (NfL, GFAP ptau217) and imaging (Hippocampal volume, PET-tau, PET-amyloid) biomarkers in relation to multiple domains of cognition in people with Down syndrome.
Misha Finney, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
@ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Funding & Recognition of Excellence
Andrea L. Ruppar, Ph.D.
62 Goodnight Hall @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Students with complex communication needs are among the most segregated learners in U.S. schools, often placed in separate settings on the premise that they are not ready for academic content. However, observational research shows that segregated classrooms offer few communication partners, little academic instruction with lots of down time, and low expectations, while general education classrooms provide the peer interaction, academic language, and literacy opportunities that give students reasons to communicate. Guided by the least dangerous assumption, I argue that the general curriculum should be the primary context for communication instruction and describe three key features of positive school experiences and outcomes for students with complex communication needs: collaborative service delivery, curriculum-based goals and vocabulary, and preparing everyone in a school to be a confident communication partner.